“He hasn’t touched you, has he?”
The question—both the noise of and the subject matter—startled Beryl. “Milady?”
“My husband. Lord Hargrave,” Lady Caris clarified in her soft, vulnerable tone. “Has he touched you in any way?”
Beryl stared at the woman, her heart pounding,her mouth dumb.
Lady Hargrave tucked her chin, and her deep brown gaze bore into Beryl’s. “Be not afraid to tell me, child. You would not be punished.”
“Nay, milady,” Beryl answered, dismayed at her raspy whisper. “He has not. I swear it.”
And that too was, thankfully, true.
Caris held her gaze an instant longer before turning back to the black window that showed only the woman’s specterly reflection. “Good,” she said. “Sometimes he…takes liberties beyond what he is entitled to. I don’t like it when he touches my girls. I wonder sometimes…”
Beryl forced herself to swallow past her constricted throat.
“You will tell me, won’t you?” Lady Hargrave said abruptly, her gaze still fixed upon the nothing through the window. “If he is…untoward?”
“Of course, milady,” Beryl said. “If you wish it.”
“I do wish it,” Caris Hargrave murmured to her reflection. “I wishit very much.”
The woman was quiet for a long time, and so Beryl thought that her mistress had reverted to the silence that had marked these nightly rituals for the six months of Beryl’s employment at Darlyrede House. Six months of watching, waiting; of rebuffing the offers of friendship from the other maids, rejecting the advances of the male servants of the estate. She was known as the cold French girl now. Airs, they said.
Perhaps thatwas also true.
But then Caris Hargrave whispered again, and this time Beryl didactually jump.
“She’s dead, isn’t she? Fifteen years with no word, no sign. She must be dead. Out there, somewhere.”
Beryl swallowed forcibly. “We must havefaith, milady.”
“‘Faith’?” The noblewoman repeated the word as if it was a foreign term she couldn’t comprehend. “When I think of where she could have gone, who she could have encountered…” She paused, and Beryl could see the shining, silver trails of the tears on Lady Hargrave’s face reflected in thewindow glass.
“It haunts me. Every moment of every day. Even into my dreams. I pray that she is dead. That she stumbled into a ravine and broke her neck at once. The alternative is unthinkable.”
“Your devotion is admirable,” Beryl dared offer, her heart pounding. It was a risky game she played, but the lady had never spoken so freely.
“She was mine,” Caris murmured. “After Cordelia…it was another chance, I suppose. To protecther properly.”
“I will continue to pray for you, milady,” Beryl murmured. “And for the soul of Lady Cordelia and Lady Euphemia’s safe return.”
“You are a blessing from God, Beryl,” Caris Hargrave spoke to her reflection. “Such kindness you’ve shown me.” She stilled, and her head turned so that Beryl could see her profile, but the woman kept her gaze cast toward the floor. “Would you…might I impose a favor on you? It’s foolish and improper of me to ask. I know I am often confused, but I’ll not punish you ifyou refuse me.”
“Anything, milady,”Beryl replied.
Lady Hargrave turned her face more fully to Beryl. “Would you lie with me upon her bed for a while? Keep me company? Euphemia and I would oft share stories before retiring and…” The woman’s thin shoulders jerked. “It is fifteen years. Tonight.”
Beryl felt her own eyes ache with unshed tears. “Of course, milady. Here, come.” She helped Caris Hargrave from the window seat, and the woman seemed to lean all her slight weight upon Beryl’s arm as they reached the side of the bed. Caris climbed upon the pristine, white surface of the fresh coverlet, rested her fragile-looking skull upon her open palm while Beryl rushed to the other side and gained the mattress, facingLady Hargrave.
She wore an exhausted, saintlike smile as she reached out a skeletal but somehow graceful hand to tuck a strand of Beryl’s hair behind her ear.
“When Lady Paget told me of your…uncomfortable circumstance that forced you to the abbey, I wondered: Did you have no parents to return to, my dear?”
Beryl shook her head, mesmerized by the sight of the woman’s face before her, the heartbreak so clear as to be exquisitely outlined on her face.
“They are dead,milady.” True.
