“Mama, I must know!”
“But there is nothing to be done about it now, Verena,” pleaded her mother. “He will come here, and we must face him. Icanface him, Verena. I am stronger now.”
Verena was still regarding her brother’s tense face. “Adam, what did he say?”
Her brother drew a heavy breath and sighed it out. “He has sworn that he will come here and fetch Mama away. I came as fast as I could — to warn you both.”
“To warn us both,” repeated Verena.
She closed her eyes for an anguished moment. It had come. The moment she had been dreading for months and months. It did not seem as if she could take it in. All she could think was, why now? Why at this particular instant, when she was so full of that other matter she had no strength left to deal with this one?
She became aware of the quiet surrounding her, and opened her eyes to find Adam’s face — pale in the candlelight, the look ofanxiety so pronounced that she wondered at the power she must wield. He was afraid of her, of her anger, of what she might say to him.
Her glance went to her mother’s face. Heavens, here was that look she dreaded most. One of supplication — of fear and pleading. A look that had so often met Nathaniel’s hideous anger. Yet it was directed at herself!
Verena’s heart contracted. Had she become so hard? Had she, in her anxiety to protect — whom, dear heaven? These most beloved creatures or herself? — assumed as forbidding an aspect as the hated spectre who threatened them all? Into what species of monster had she herself been turned? Oh, she could see it. They were almost as much afraid of what she might say as she was afraid of what Nathaniel might do. They loved her, both of them, yet they knew — expected almost — that she could, or would, hurt them.
Unbidden, the image of Denzell’s stricken face came into her mind. Stricken! Atherwords. Oh, heavens, did he then indeed love her? And she — brutally unkind — had flung his declaration back in his face. Without so much as a word of compliment, honour or thanks. And all, all of it, out of her own sick terrors.
What had Nathaniel done to her? She was pitiless.
Overwhelmingly, the cumulative effects of the night struck at her. She must get away. She could not talk to them now. She must be alone.
She tried to smile and put out a wavering hand. “We shall — we shall deal with it when the time comes. Pray forgive me. I am tired … I must go to bed.”
Turning, she walked out of the room. She did not see Betsey’s concerned features watch her pass by. She did not see anything at all, except the blurry outline of the wall and her own bedchamber door. She managed to open this and to stagger within, the cloak dropping from about her to the floor. But it wasby feel alone that she found her bed and sank down upon it, her shoulders sagging, the blinding tears wetting her cheeks as she choked on the sobbing breaths rising up through her tightened throat, and tried with useless fingers to pluck off the mittens from her hands.
She did not notice Betsey enter the room. But when the maid sat down beside her and those firm hands — hands that had so often cradled the forlorn little girl she once had been — took hold of her, removed the mittens, and then drew her against the comforting breast, she yielded instantly.
“There, my dove,” crooned the maid, rocking her. “There, my little one.”
Verena clutched her, the painful sobs rasping in her throat as she tried to speak. “Oh — Betsey. What has he — made of me?”
Betsey stroked her hair, held her tight, and patted her. Yet her voice was puzzled. “Who, my dove? What is it you mean?”
“Nathaniel,” came the choked reply. “I ammarble, Betsey — and that is his work.”
The latch clicked behind Denzell’s back as he slipped the front door to in the silent house. It was early yet, but the household must already be asleep, except perhaps for the servants waiting to put Osmond and Unice to bed when they returned. For himself, he was glad to think he had given his valet leave for the evening. He did not wish to go to bed just yet. What he wished for was a bottle of his host’s brandy.
A candle in a silver holder awaited him on a side table by the parlour door. He took it up and crossed into the little breakfast parlour, where he knew Osmond kept a decanter handy on the dresser for just such an occasion.
The hand with which he poured himself a glass was not quite steady, and he swore as a little of the golden liquid ran down the outside of the glass. He wiped the glass with his pockethandkerchief, and was about to replace the stopper on the decanter when he paused.
He might as well go to the devil, might he not? Laying down the stopper, he seized the decanter, dragged a chair out from the table and, stripping off his russet coat and flinging it aside, slumped into the chair. Then he sat, a silhouette against the candle on the dresser, the glass cradled in his hands, the decanter before him.
But he did not drink. Resting an elbow on the table, he dropped his forehead into one hand, half covering his eyes, and stayed so, helpless against the images that crowded one another through his mind: images to haunt his heart and stretch ahead of him into a future promising nothing but defeat.
“Denzell?”
He jumped, dropping his hand. His hostess stood in the doorway, clad in a pretty pink dressing-robe, and holding up a candle. Denzell rose at once. “I thought you were still at the dance.”
She came further into the room. “I returned early to feed my little Julia. Is not Osmond with you?”
Denzell shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. I have not seen him since —” He stopped, recalling just when he had last seen his friend, at the moment when he had pirated Verena away from him.
Unice came closer, holding the candle up. There was concern in her features. “Denzell, you look dreadful. What in the world is the matter?”
A great sigh escaped him, and he sank back down into the chair, looking away from her. But it did not occur to him to prevaricate. He was glad rather to have someone to whom to unburden his soul.
