Lady in Red (2 page)

“Now, miss, as you can see—” The maid smoothed her reddened hands down her crisp white apron and kept several paces from Mary. “I’ve got me a bit of work to do. So you sit your bones there.” She pointed to a hard bench far from the fire. “And I’ll send up word.” The maid eyed her warily, clearly unsure what to make of Mary. “What name shall I give ’er?”

“No name.” Mary’s fingers twitched at the end of her ratty quilt, water dribbling along her skin. No one could know her name. She didn’t even like to recall it herself. “Convey merely . . . that it is Esme’s daughter.”

The girl stared blankly, thankfully not recognizing the given name. “A-are you in trouble, miss? Madame Yvonne won’t want trouble.”

Though it took far more of her reserves than she could spare, Mary called to mind the attitude she had taken with all her father’s servants, a kind, firm authority. “What is your name?”

“Nell.”

Mary nodded once. “She will wish to see me, Nell. Now go find a footman and have him tell your mistress.”

Assured at Mary’s tone, Nell turned on her heel and headed up the narrow stair.

Slowly, her body as frail as an old woman’s, Mary lowered herself into a chair across from the worktable. It was hard and straight backed with no armrests. She would have liked to sit closer to the fire and the cat but was simply too exhausted to move again. Her clothes and thin quilt, pilfered from a farmer’s drying line, were soaked. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt warm.

Nor could she stop shivering.

For the first time in what felt like days, Mary allowed herself to sigh and close her aching eyes. That serving girl had looked at her as if she were a spirit escaped out of damnation. A far cry from how servants used to look at her, with smiles and the desire to please.

She probably did look a hideous fright. More than a fright. She most likely looked like a hag—no mean feat for an eighteen-year-old daughter of a duke.

She drifted momentarily before something jerked her out of repose.

In the distance, the clattering of steps, muffled voices, and the bustle of quick movements down the stairs drifted into the peaceful kitchen.

Mary’s eyes flew open and she jumped quickly to her blistered feet, ready to flee in case it was a group of footmen set on kicking her out. Surely her mother’s friend wouldn’t . . . But she’d learned there was no one she could truly trust. Even her own once beloved father had turned against her.

“Mary!” a voice cried from the servants’ hall. A deep, rich voice meant for the pleasure of a man. A tone so ingrained that such a temptation would always be in it. “Mary?” it called again, full of disbelief and shock.

A shuddering breath left Mary’s chest.
Hope.
For a brief moment, she let herself hope. Her fingers trembled as she wound them in the torn quilt tucked about her frame. “Yvonne?”

Yvonne swept into the room, her dark violet skirts so wide she could barely pass through the doorway. She glittered like the dew under the sun. A thousand rainbows clung to her wrist and throat and her fiery tresses were laced with diamonds and amethysts.

Mary had never seen anything so beautiful. Not even when she had watched the ladies of the court from the balcony of her own home. Those memories paled against this glorious moment. Yvonne was a living, sparkling angel come to sweep her to safety.

Yvonne stopped suddenly, her full skirts swishing about her legs. Her lime green eyes widened as her face tensed with horror. “My
god.
”

Her delicate hand flew to her rouged lips. Blinking fiercely, tears sprung to her eyes. For several moments she only stared, as if paralyzed, until at last she said in a hushed voice, “You look so much like Esme.”

When she was small, everyone had delighted in telling her how she was a miniature reproduction of her mother, but she’d assumed that the resemblance would diminish as she grew older. To hear such a thing today, when she felt but a mere shadow of herself, was a rare boon. “Do I?”

Her own throat closed as unbidden thoughts of her otherworldly mother flowed into her heart, warming her as no fire could. “Do I really look so much like her?”

Nodding, Yvonne hurried forward. Even though she was wearing a gown no doubt worth more than most men could make in several lifetimes, she swallowed Mary up in a soft embrace of roses and sweet-smelling powder.

Mary stiffened under the touch and kept her hands down at her sides, her fingers clutching at her muddied rags. How she wished she could reach out and embrace Yvonne . . . or cry with fury or relief. But no tears remained.

Those tears had been cried out in her dark, freezing room in the asylum where her father, the world, and God had abandoned her. There was nothing left to her now. No emotion except the will to survive. She continued to stand woodenly in the embrace, half afraid that if she moved she would awaken and find herself sleeping in a ditch somewhere between Yorkshire and London. Or, worse, on her filthy, bug-ridden pallet under the watchful eye of the keepers.

There was also the possibility she might start screaming. She hadn’t been touched by anyone but . . .
them
in three years.

“Charles!” Yvonne moved slowly away, her soft hands gesturing with the same fluid animation as her features. “Carry Mary up to my apartments. Use the back stairs and ensure that no one sees you.”

The footman lowered his gaze. Consternation creased his young brow while he studied his white-gloved hands. “I—”

“Now.”
Yvonne’s face remained beautiful and cool, like a painted Madonna dressed in gilded robes as she gave her orders. “And tell the cook to send up broth and wine. A good bottle of wine to fortify her.” She stepped back, giving the servant room. “Don’t tarry, Charles. Go on.”

Charles gave a curt nod, then stepped forward. His footman’s livery moved gracefully over his young, muscled body as he lifted his arms to carry her.

Even with his kind face, neatly combed blond hair, and gentle movements, her heart skipped a beat at the thought of his hands anywhere near her. An animal cry escaped her lips before she could stop herself. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.

Charles froze, his ruddy cheeks tightening as if she’d slapped him. “I’m sorry, miss. It’s only what Madame—”

“No, Charles.” Yvonne’s own face suddenly strained with concern and a slow understanding. “I’m certain Mary is desirous to walk of her own accord. Is that not so, Mary?”

Mary noticed the coaxing note in Yvonne’s beautiful voice. It held that same tone the keepers had used on new patients. Only the keepers.
The keepers . . .
Mary blinked fiercely, refusing to think about those brutes of men and how simple coaxing had turned to brutal confrontations.

“Mary?” Yvonne said so lightly it might have been a whisper. “What do you wish?”

Mary nodded absently, trying to focus on Yvonne so she could leave the asylum behind her. “Yes. Myself. I’ll take myself.”

“Of course, my dear. And I shall go with you.” Yvonne stepped forward, her gown shimmering the deep glow of amethyst in the firelight. Carefully, she extended a white-gloved hand adorned with jewels. “Come.”

Mary stared at it for a moment. She’d trusted only one other person in the last years. Another girl in the asylum, Eva. Though she wished she could reach out and take Yvonne’s sweetly offered hand, she knew it was best not to attempt it. She shook her head gently. “I cannot.”

Yvonne lowered her arm and a sad smile flickered at her lips. “Of course. I shall lead and you shall follow.”

Mary nodded, the only action she seemed capable of without shattering to pieces.

“Oh, and, Charles—Send up hot water for a bath.” Yvonne’s eyes trailed over Mary, a pained expression darkening her eyes. “I think we will need quite a lot of it.”

Yvonne edged carefully around her, chose a lit candle in a brass holder from the side table, and then took to the back stairs, her steps brisk and firm. Mary followed her, taking each pace with as much care as she would over burning coals.

She had to stare down, careful not to step on the folds of Yvonne’s stunning swaying skirts. They climbed the steep, narrow stairs in absolute silence. The silence grew heavier with each step and Mary’s heart beat harder against her ribs. Unspoken secrets hung around her like murderous ghosts, each one threatening to steal her life or mind away if she betrayed them.

When they reached the landing, Yvonne whisked down the cream and gold hallway. Everything was gold. Swirls of it climbed the walls and snaked across the ceilings. And mirrors.

So many mirrors. Mirrors upon mirrors lined the walls like empty and ever-changing family portraits.

The faint light of the candle illuminated Yvonne’s beautiful figure, and, ever so slightly, Mary spotted her own small shadow following like some twisted creature.

Mary stopped. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she slowly turned her eyes to the mirrors to her left and met a pinched face with hollow, darkened eyes. A strangled gasp escaped from her lips.

Yvonne whipped around. The candlelight now shone fully on Mary’s face.

“No no no no,” Mary babbled. She looked . . . exactly like her mother. Exactly as she had been at the end. Gaunt, beaten, bruised. A face without any vibrancy, only horrid shadows and emptiness. Slowly Mary lifted her hand to her face. She traced the bones, staring wide-eyed at her ghostly reflection. It was all there. The dark hair, only far too short. The extremely high cheekbones from some French vicomtesse in her distant past. And the eyes. Almond shaped and bizarrely violet. Kashmiri eyes. A gift from her maternal great-great-grandmother, a shocking woman, she’d heard.

She’d never thought it possible. She’d been determined that she would be stronger than her mother, but her father had truly won. Two women beaten, one in the grave, one dead in so many ways yet still traversing the world.

“Mary?” Urgency tightened that beautiful voice. “When was the last time you saw a mirror?”

Mary blinked and lowered her hand from the horror before her. “I—”

Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall the large London town house on Wallace Square. That house had had hundreds of mirrors. Even more mirrors than those around her now. Mirrors her mother had danced and preened before while her husband had lounged against a silk chaise, smoking his cigar, drinking his French brandy, enjoying his pretty toy of a wife.

Yvonne glanced from Mary’s face to the reflection. “It has been some time, I should think.”

Mary held her own wounded gaze in the mirror. “It has.”

“Come.” Yvonne held the candle back toward the empty hall, the glow flickering in the mirrors. “We must speak and not in the hall.”

Mary glanced about and sucked in a harsh breath. If she listened carefully, she could just hear the voices of men and women drifting from the bedrooms and up from the salons below. Although she had never been to Eden’s Palace, she did know it was frequented by the wealthiest men in London.

Men who might know her father.

Yvonne bustled down the hall without another backward glance. Mary scurried after her, her own tired legs protesting every movement. At last, they reached a tall set of double doors, carved with a beautiful pastoral scene in which naked men and women lay entwined in the fields.

Yvonne pushed the doors open and rushed in, quickly lighting the many candelabras placed strategically about the large blue and gold chamber.

Mary turned and closed the tall doors herself, the panels almost too heavy for her to shut. She hesitated on the edge of the room, feeling utterly out of place in this lush chamber.

“Sit there before the fire,” Yvonne insisted, pointing to a pair of delicately embroidered slipper chairs before the hearth.

She had no wish to catch her own reflection again in one of the many mirrors about the room, so she glanced down as she hurriedly crossed to one of the chairs Yvonne had indicated.

The heat penetrated her body with a delicious caress and she was tempted to relax just a little. It had been almost three years since she had sat before a fire so large, or with such exquisitely carved pale stone about it. Three long years since she’d felt any measure of safety or peace.

Several moments of prolonged, tense silence—which neither she nor Yvonne attempted to break—passed before Charles entered with a large tray. Three other footmen followed behind him, one balancing a hip bath and the other two carrying large buckets of water.

Mary recoiled on the chair. Every muscle in her body locked with stillness, as if she could render herself invisible.

With silence and ease, the servants moved about in a ritualized dance. Charles placed the tray on a gold-rimmed marble table near the empty chair across from her.

While the footmen worked, Yvonne poured out two large glasses of red wine, the liquid sloshing loudly in the glasses.

As soon as the servants had silently disappeared, Yvonne handed one of the crystal goblets to Mary.

Gracefully, she lowered herself into the chair opposite Mary, her amethyst skirts settling about her as if she wasn’t wearing hoops beneath the silk at all.

Mary clutched the glass in her hands, waiting for the interrogation to begin. Dreading it.

“Drink,” Yvonne ordered.

Dutifully, Mary lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. The heady wine was almost too much flavor for her deadened palate. It burst across her taste buds, filling her mouth with an earthy delight.

“Your father said you had passed away.” Yvonne toyed with her own glass. “Did you open your tomb and come forth to haunt us?”

The wine sputtered out of her mouth. Mary gasped and coughed as it stung her nose.

“Don’t waste it, Mary dear. You need every drop.”

Mary didn’t bother to pat at the wine on her frayed clothes. Instead, she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, drawing red liquid from her lips. Red, the color of watery blood, now trickled down her hand. Only it wasn’t blood. Indeed, it was not.

She kept her eyes wide, determined not to think about blood, or the way it slid along stone floors.

“You are surprised to hear of your death?”

Mary laughed, a short, horrid little bark of sound. “It is news to me, I must confess. Unless, of course, I cannot recall my own funeral and Christ has ordained another Lazarus.”