It struck her that the Duke of Ravensworth was attractive because he had a nice face, whereas the man she had met attracted her because of his words.
I think I’d rather have the masked man’s company.
* * *
Evelyn reached for the carafe of port one more time and topped up her glass. The room was full of candles this evening, for Evelyn couldn’t bear the darkness. It made her ill at ease, so she had set about many candles in order to brighten the space. It made pouring the port a little easier too, for her hand slipped more than once as she’d already had a little too much.
“Perhaps that is a good thing,” she whispered to herself. “Maybe when Mr. Windham comes, he will not like me like this and change his mind.” She lifted the glass to her lips, indulging in the sweet red wine as she considered all that was to happen that night.
They were waiting below for Mr. Windham to arrive for that dinner he had promised, yet she was hiding in her chamber, having no wish to see him at all.
I will not marry him. I cannot do it.
In her drunken state, these words came startlingly into focus. If his big news was indeed a wish to marry her, she feared she might throw her glass at him.
Would I really marry a man that would be so unfaithful just to escape this house?
She was not sure. Stretching out on the bed, her hand collided with her diary that she had left open on the covers beside her. She reached for the book and dragged it forward, the better to look at the drawing she had made on the page.
She was good at art, one of the few talents she had that clearly her cousins Katherine and Bridget were envious of. She’d drawn the masked man very well indeed, and even remembered the details of his dark blue waistcoat in the picture, as well as the embroidery on his mask.
“I should not think about him. It was nothing.” She tapped the picture, knowing it was foolish to obsess about that one kiss so much. Not only was it scandalous but fleeting. For all she knew, if he was a rake like the Duke of Ravensworth, then he had probably forgotten about that kiss already.
Drawing the book into her lap as she sipped her port, the image of the masked man drew another thought to her mind.
Perhaps it is not so bad to seek out another to marry.
Yet her cousins’ words returned to her. How a wallflower couldn’t ensnare a man. If she couldn’t even hold the interest of a ‘dull’ man like Mr. Windham, what other chances did she have of finding another man to marry her?
“I need help. That is all.” There was a strange sense of purpose in her tone as she stood off the bed and placed the glass down on the table beside her, swaying a little with the power of the liquor taking over her. Resting the book on the table, she closed it up, blocking out the face of the masked man.
Another man entered her mind. It was the Duke of Ravensworth and how she had quite literally bumped into him that day in Hyde Park. He knew how to charm, and he also knew what men liked in women.
“I need a teacher.” She tapped the diary in thought. It was a wild idea, mad, spirit-induced, perhaps even the stupidest idea she had ever had. “Desperate times and desperate measures. Isn’t that what my father used to say?”
She crossed the chamber toward Kitty’s side of the room and reached for a small table where Kitty kept so many scandal sheets. On the top one, she found a scandal sheet that mentioned the Duke of Ravensworth’s name. She scoured the article, looking for any hint as to where he might live.
“If he could teach me how to be more desirable, maybe then I could marry a man I wished to.” She tapped the words as she found his rough address on the page. It was a castle in Sussex. “I wouldn’t have to marry Mr. Windham after all.” She smiled and picked up the scandal sheet, her wild plan falling into place.
CHAPTERFIVE
“No, no. You are wrong. You must be wrong.”
“I wish I was wrong.” The doctor stepped forward, reaching out to Rafe, trying to calm him down. “I am so sorry for your loss. Yet there is nothing I can do for her now. God has taken her as one of his children. She is in a better place.”
“No. No!” Rafe practically bellowed the last word. He backed out of the house as quickly as he could, bursting through the door of the castle.
He couldn’t bear it. This was just not possible. Juliet couldn’t be dead. She was too young to die, far too young to be taken to heaven. She had been so full of life just days ago, how could she now be lying so still on a bed? It didn’t make sense.
It maddened him even more to hear the doctor talking of God. How could it be God’s will to cut off a life so young? It was cruel, pure cruelty!
“No!” Rafe shouted again as he left the keep of the castle. His boots dropped into the snow. Once more, he was back in his usual dream. He was ensnared by the ice, and it was impossible to escape. Everywhere he looked, fresh snow fell, but in a blizzard. The great storm battered him with wind and ice. He raised his hands over his face, trying to shield himself from the sharp and bitter pain of that cold, though it did little use. “Juliet!”
He shouted into the blizzard as if it would somehow bring her back to him. He backed up further, but now, his boots slipped deeper and deeper into the snow. It no longer reached his knees, but his thighs. He struggled to take another step back, and now it came up to his hips.
With his hands madly outstretched, his bare fingers clawed at the ice, trying to pull himself free, but he could not. That cold feeling stretched deep into his gut as he sank into the snow, as if it was a marsh sent to consume him. He wondered briefly if he’d suffocate in the snow first, or if it would be the cold that would get him.
He was subsumed. Deep within the white ice, it was a white monster that had eaten him. He could no longer scream or shout, he could only wave one lonely hand above the ice, then that too slipped down into the snow, and he was lost for good.
