“Frighten ya, my lady?” Agnes repeated.
“Yes… Frighten me and I refuse to be frightened. I have friends, now.”
Friends.
The word had come unbidden into her thoughts and her heart felt lighter for it. The image of Viscount Lakehurst surfaced with his large, comforting size. He would protect her, she was certain.
“Fetch me my aubergine day dress, please. I’d like a tray in my room, and tell Dulcie I’d like Alex and her to be ready to go on an outing in an hour—No, two hours. I’d like you to accompany us as well. Can you do that?” she asked decisively.
“Yes, m’lady,” Agnes said, dipping a curtsy.
Cassandra sat down at her vanity. She wouldnotbe frightened, she reiterated. She would discover what was going on. She smoothed out the wrinkles she’d made in the letter as Agnes scurried about the room getting her clothes and putting the room to rights, and read the note again.
“Why now?”Cassandra asked herself as Agnes left the room. “Eighteen months of silence.Why now?”She repeated to herself.
She raised her head, her gaze unfocused, her mind confused.
Slowly she perceived she was looking in the mirror and for the first time since that awful night, she saw herself. Really saw herself.
There were hollows in her cheeks she hadn’t remembered and circles beneath her eyes. Her gaze continued down her face to her slim neck with a hollow at the base that extended into hollows above her collarbones. She’d lost weight. She’d known that, could tell by the fit of her clothing; however, she hadn’t realized how much she’d lost.
She moved her hand from the scar to skim the hollows on her shoulders until resting at the base of her neck. Her pale skin looked almost translucent. She moved her hand up over her cheek and across her lips. Her eyes had a haunted look.
“What have I been doing?”she asked her mirrored image, her voice a whisper in her thoughts.
“Nothing”echoed down corridors of her mind. Then the word “existing’”came forward.“Merely existing”.She inhaled deeply.
“This will not do,” she said aloud. She placed her palms down on the vanity table and pushed herself up. In the mirror she saw her body was too thin. It was no wonder the Tidemarks continued to think her ill. While she might have cast aside the emotional fog from Richard’s death, she hadn’t woken to life yet. She turned to look out the window at the perennially gray London sky. London had been a dismal place all year. Colder and rainier than normal. She’d allowed the weather to echo her feelings. Her son deserved better.
She didn’t know how she felt about being separated from Alex for a few weeks as he went to Versely Park and she to Baydon. She might have protested if Vanessa hadn’t protested first, but she did, and that was enough to keep her quiet. She wouldn’t want to agree with Vanessa on anything regarding Alex. And he’d spent too much time in the nursery since they’d come to London. A daily hour walk in the park was not enough exercise for a young child.
What did the Tidemarks know of children? Nothing. But she did. And she should have known better. She’d been living too long in her nightmares.
“Enough,”she said to her image.
* * *
“Lakehurst! Lakehurst! Wake up!”
His sister thrust his bed curtains open.
Lakehurst groaned and rolled over. “Go away.”
“You need to wake up.”
“No, I don’t. What time is it, anyway?”
“Just past seven.”
“I definitely don’t,” he said, pulling the covers over his head.
The covers jerked down. “Yes, you do.”
Lakehurst made a grab for his covers.
“It is about Lady Darkford,” Gwinnie said.
“What?” he said. He halted his angry cover recovery and opened his eyes to look at his sister. She was still in her nightclothes, a dark green wool shawl thrown around her shoulders. He struggled to sit up. He saw Gwinnie’s maid, Rose, standing by his open bedroom door, worrying her hands together. That was unusual for Gwinnie’s maid. He ran a hand down his face, his mind still in a fog. He’d been up until early in the morning writing.—Or trying to. Lady Darkford had been much in his thoughts.
