Moonless (5 page)

13

John

Alexia rounded a corner into the parlor and halted.

A familiar bear-of-a-man stood in possession of Sarah’s hand, speaking tenderly into her blushing ear. She’d seen him before, but she couldn’t recall where. His short black hair curled neatly, his face a rectangle with a Roman nose, a stylish beard, and a modest earring that glimmered over broad shoulders. He looked thirty, perhaps? And handsome. Rugged, but handsome.

Alexia blinked. Could Sarah have so serious a suitor this soon after her husband’s death? They hadn’t even commenced the funeral!

“Sarah?”

She glanced at her niece, startled. “Oh, Lexy!” Her flush deepened as she pulled free, backing away from him a step. “May I introduce Mister John Radcliffe.”

Alexia curtsied. He bowed.

“So this is the infamous Alexia?” His voice boomed deeply—appropriately so for a creature of his magnitude, although he only glanced briefly her direction.

“Beg your pardon?” she asked.

“It would please you to know Sarah never stops raving about you.”

“John!”

His half grin was an open one. Alexia could see why Sarah was so taken with him. “Never?”

He cleared his throat and bowed to Sarah. “I have to be on my way, but it is a pleasure, as always, to see you.” His dark gaze turned to meet
Alexia’s. “And to meet you.” But it didn’t linger long. Instead he kissed the back of Sarah’s hand and exited the quiet room.

“John?” Alexia questioned.

Sarah shrugged. Alexia laughed, and Sarah broke. “All right, I fancy him.”

Alexia giggled and tucked an arm through her aunt’s.

“He is a doctor . . .” Sarah’s shoulders lifted. “But he gives far more service than he ever receives pay, and he does it for the love of humanity. He has money.”

“He is unmarried?”

“Thankfully so.” Her aunt’s smile widened.

“Where ever did you meet him?”

“He relocated to Liverpool last year and attended to Henry when he grew ill. As our new family physician, he stops to inquire on my health every so often.”

“Only on your health?”

Sarah turned to leave. “I expect we shall have more guests by this evening, Henry’s family. You may wish to keep your distance from them.”

Alexia grinned and followed her aunt, shaking her head. Given the appropriate month of mourning, Sarah would have a new beau—perhaps even a husband for the New Year.

Alexia realized why she knew John’s face that afternoon as she gazed out at the sea. Another dream . . .  

***

The dead earl’s family arrived, so many of them and still there was space to spare. They were proud and condescending. Alexia stayed far away.

The funeral finally commenced. They listened to a sermon by a hellfire-and-damnation preacher followed by the most ridiculous oratory of superfluous praise. The only part Alexia enjoyed in the least was the boys’ choir. When at last the three hours came to a close, they were prodded up the aisle under the full observance of attendees to gaze upon the withered creature and offer their final farewell. He repulsed Alexia—the embodiment of Sarah’s torture for five long years. She wondered how her aunt could feel anything but disdain, yet tears filled Sarah’s eyes.

After the funeral dinner, they sat on the edge of a bed, Sarah and Alexia, shoes scattered across the floor, room an inordinate mess from their over-priced costumes.

“How many people know the manner of his death?” Alexia questioned.

“Mostly the help. They are forbidden to speak on the subject.”

“Why?”

Sarah shrugged. “Some stories are best left untold.”

Alexia shuddered at
the remembrance of her own strange tale—Bellezza’s haunting scream, the baron’s lifeless body, those irresistible eyes . . .

“It must have been awful.” Her aunt’s words drew her out of the past. “Whatever happened to Baron Galedrew.”

Alexia’s eyes snapped to her aunt. She’d written Sarah and hinted she knew about the baron’s disappearance, although she did not elaborate for fear Father would destroy the letter.

Sarah flopped back onto the bed, hands braced behind her head. “People seem convinced he simply vanished.” Suspicion oozed through her words.

Alexia swallowed. “No.”

“Then what happened?”

Alexia wanted to tell her—wanted it badly, but the words froze in her throat.
A man with blue eyes murdered him—one I keep dreaming about who is too fantastic to be real.
Sarah grew up in the same household founded on the principles of science, not superstition. Perhaps the same reason kept her from telling Alexia her own dark secrets.

Alexia hugged herself. “I found him dead with a ladle through his chest.” She let out a shaky breath, recalling those glassy eyes. “Others saw him too, but the next day it was as though it had never happened. Only I recall the incident.”

Sarah blinked. “That is as strange as a man dying on a gatepost.”

She nodded.

They let the discomfort sink into silence.

***

Nighttime. Her empty room waited in Father’s estate, shadows fluttering through the drapes, balcony exit open. No one occupied the space, but it felt like . . . She turned to the mirror.

The stranger
. He gazed into the darkness, a profile of perfection . . .

14

Unexpected Guests

Salty air grazed his nose as Kiren circled the fountain in the garden, listening for the whisper of feet.

There. Softly, growing louder. He halted and slid into the shadows.

The lady of the house stepped into a circle of moonlight, head down as she wandered forward, her eyes heavy from the lack of sleep, her mouth weighted by sorrow. A white dressing gown hugged snuggly about her form, setting off her loose raven locks. She sat on the fountain’s lip, gazing into the water. Her fingers skimmed the surface and she leaned in, studying her countenance.

He stepped up behind her, soundlessly. “Hello, Sarah.”

Her eyes shot wide in the water’s reflective ripples. She twisted, jaw slack.

He nodded in greeting. “The funeral was beautiful.”

She scoffed, shuddered, and wrapped her arms about herself. “Have you come for me? To punish me?”

“No.”

Her eyes squeezed closed, head bowing.

He sat next to her and slipped his hand around hers. “I understand you did what had to be done, and you were well within your rights. But now is a dangerous time for you.”

She shivered at his touch and lifted her eyes. They glistened beneath her lashes, the shadows of a summer canopy where dangerous things happened. He could become trapped there if not cautious, locked in the memory of another mesmerizing stare.

One long lost to him.

A spark of hope shot through her shaded jungle. With a quick intake of breath, her lips parted.

She wanted him to offer again.                           

He groaned inwardly. It was not too late to change her path, but her disappearance would raise so many questions—having been such a prominent member of society.

Her mouth closed, shame crinkling her brow. She had made her decision. Pulling her hand free, she focused on the still dark water.

He cupped her cheek. “It would be best if you leave this place. Find happiness where and how you can.” He rose. “And take care of Alexia.”

She blinked up at him. “She knows nothing of us.”

“Nothing,” he said.

“But—”

“It must remain that way,” he stated firmly.

Sarah frowned.

He wished he could explain, but the less she knew, the better. “Believe me when I say this is for the best.”

Sarah finally nodded. “I believe you.”

15

Reflections

Father insisted Sarah return home with them. Travel after that, in the bitter cold of winter, was beyond consideration for gently raised young women, and the muddy roads of spring proved no better. It was times like these Alexia wished she’d been born a man. If not for the dream predicting
his
appearance, she’d have found a way to Wilhamshire.

She enjoyed Sarah’s continued but guarded company and initiated several conversations about their uncanny changes. Sarah held her tongue. Alexia fumed over her near-sister’s silence, but could not ignore the warning in Sarah’s eyes. Her aunt was protecting her somehow.

June arrived: her birthday.

Terrible eyes, red in the
twilight. Empty things . . .  

The grime-covered young woman lay on a dusty night road, fingers latched at her bodice as though she’d been struggling to break its hold—to breathe. Raven locks curled about a tortured pale face, her eyes wide and begging, reflecting the image of a man: angelic, radiant, blue eyed.

She was beautiful.

She was also dead.

Alexia shoved out of her covers, gasping in the darkness. She could no longer deny that these were more than mere dreams. Maybe some were, but the number that had come true . . . And unlike those which started when turned sixteen, this one came every year—every birthday as far back as she could recall.

She pulled her fingers through ebony curls, trying
not
to compare the dead girl’s countenance to her own, but the truth would not be silenced. She’d seen herself dead, and
he
would be the cause.

Unless she was wrong. Unless the dream lied.

She washed the moisture from her brow. Today she would endure yet another kind of dread: a birthday party. Would she be too exhausted to fend off Father’s invited “
prospectives
”—many of whom had already arrived? At least Sarah would help.

She sighed. The companionship of her sister-aunt made Mother’s increased distance bearable. If not for Sarah, she might have felt completely alone.

Alexia slipped through the balcony exit to overlook the western woods, Father’s hunting grounds. Praying her hellish delusion would never become more, she turned to the stars. They twinkled indifferently. She wished for the long-lost anonymity of her ghastly seclusion, to fade into the background that had always been her habitation, to no longer be the girl everyone watched.

Her eyes returned to the forest floor.

Movement.

Her throat constricted. She leapt into the room and fastened the balcony catch, peering through.

Why should she be alarmed by deer? How silly! Truly she was beside herself with wonder. But another dread welled up from within, one she could not silence, one involving hungry crimson pupils.

She pulled the shade.

16

Preservation

Kiren released the under-timbers of her balcony and dropped ten feet to the ground. Jogging away from the building, he glanced back as her curtains closed.

Good
.

Freeing the pendant around his neck, he stepped into the trees and whistled. The youth stepped out of the shadows, his skin deathly white.

Kiren frowned. “Stay close.”

17

Admirers

Hours ticked away before Alexia finally drifted off again, but come noon, Father expected her outside for a private meal at his tea-table.

She sat miserably.

“Why is it every year . . . ?” He studied her face. “Do you do that intentionally?”

“Do what?”

“Not sleep?”

“Father . . .” She rubbed her eyes.

So he’d noticed. The only reason he commented, however, was because he anticipated presenting her this evening at her best.

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “I expect you will make up for it.”

She bit her lip. What if she didn’t want to make up for it? She had embraced this bewildering exterior during the holidays and welcomed Father’s suggested suitors. None of them favored
her
. Most had preferred she keep her mouth shut and talked over her or simply stood there in awkward silence, staring.

“You know I worry about you, Alexia.”
 

Yes, she knew it. He feared he’d raised a child too intelligent to settle on some dim-witted and wealthy noble.

“When Sarah was your age—”

“You had her promised to a fifty-one year old man.” She crossed her arms, scowling.

“That is right.” He blinked back at her and cleared this throat.

She didn’t do him the justice of disbanding her anger. This was the one day she might actually get away with being willful.

He shifted in his seat. “Someone approached me near your last birthday with a proposal of marriage.”

Alexia blinked. “For me? Was he mistaken?”

“He is a wealthy countryman from the North, older, intellectual, a good match.”

“How much older?” Smoothing the folds of her napkin, she held her breath.

He shrugged. “Enough. I was sorely tempted to accept his offer, and I would have if . . .”

She shuddered. If she hadn’t changed.

His head shook. “You have your pick of suitors, but I do expect you to make a choice before your next birthday.”

Her jaw tumbled.

He grinned, bumping her chin up with a knuckle. “Some young man will be very lucky to acquire you.”

She moaned.

“Do not start,” he purred. “You shall be happy—or I’ll not let you go.” His boyish dimple had surfaced. He meant it.

“I know.” She smiled back.

“One year, or I will accept that generous proposal on your behalf.”

“But—”

“One year.”

The meal ended.

She wandered into the gardens, anxious to be anywhere but the estate—where confrontation and disquiet waited at every turn. Tonight she would confront the barrage of hopefuls. For now, she wanted to explore the tree line, quell her fantastic imagination, and leave last night behind.

Her heart picked up a beat.

Willows crowded together, thin on the outskirts and opening into an ominous darkness. Foliage from last season crunched under her soles, alarming a nearby bird who took flight. The creature’s twittering escape should have filled her with a sense of normality, but it only deepened her foreboding.

What did she expect to find after all? Proof of passage? A clear-cut path? Evidence she hadn’t gone out of her mind?

She stopped.

A trunk scarred by four burn marks.

The mutilation singed the bark horizontally as if something, a paw perhaps, had been drawn over it.

Alexia neared and touched the wood. Someone might have stood here, braced against this very spot. The spacing between the scars was ideal for a grown man’s hand. Ash came away on her fingers.

She crouched down. Depressions marred the foliage, prints. She followed the trail with her eyes into the woods.

Glancing bac
k at the house, she noticed the canopy framed her balcony from this vantage. Whoever had been here had been watching her.

Her breath caught. Could it have been
him
?

She traced the spoiled trunk. Each impression sent tremors down her spine as thoroughly as their first encounter. The remembrance of his luminous face and piercing eyes sent her heart thumping. She should fear him. She knew it too well, but the tangible ache to see his face once more raked over her, making it hard to breathe.

She took a single step deeper into the woods before recalling her wits.

No.

A party. Heedless gentleman. These were the only horrors she would embrace tonight.

***

This marked Alexia’s first social engagement—barring the funeral—since Baron Galedrew’s demise. Her palms sweated and her corset squeezed too tightly.

Several “friends” filled the ensemble, from neighboring nobles to distant relations—a full roster of potentials
.
Every way she turned, a new face waited. The world crushed down on her.

After an hour, Alexia escaped for some air. The night breeze slowed her racing heart as she leaned against the veranda rail and breathed.

“Did you almost hurl your broach at Simeon Johnson’s head?”

She twirled as Rupert sidled up to her, gazing out at the empty drive. She grinned. “How did you guess?”

“Your fingers were twitching.”

She laughed. “They still are.”

“You know my head is not as solid as Simeon’s, right?”

She shoved him playfully and settled back on the rail. Chatter from inside carried through the windows, sending a shiver of dread down her spine. She could not fathom how Father conceived this was a good idea.

Rupert sighed. “I turned eighteen November last.”

“Sorry I could not come see you. Father . . .”

“Not to worry. I understand.” His half-grin struck her as all too serious.

She straightened up. “So what now?”

He gazed off into the night, shoulders tensing as he clung to the banister. “Father says I should go into the king’s service—like he did at my age.”

“Oh, Ru, I can hardly imagine
you
shooting things.”

He laughed. “I know.” The humor disappeared. “But it happens.”

She swallowed back a lump. “There is always more school, the university—?”

He shook his head. “I do not have a mind for books, not like you.” His eyes turned on hers.

She had no idea he admired the trait. Personally, she thought it alienated the majority of people. She shrugged.

“What if—” He slid a little closer and licked his lips. “I mean—I would not because it is insensible—but what if I decided to marry?”

She caught the railing. “Marry? At eighteen? You do not think that a bit young?”

He placed a hand on his hip. “It is respectable to be promised at our age.”

She couldn’t argue that, but she had to bring him back to reality. “Look at my parents. Look at yours. Are they happy? Did marriage bring them anything but trouble?”

“But it is different when you’re in love.”

She blinked. “Are you?” An envious hollowness gaped in her chest. Ru had fallen in love? Had he grown up without her? “That is wonderful. Who is she? Do I know her?”

His hazel eyes burned into hers. Her heart dropped to her knees.

He looked away. “I, I hoped . . .” He glanced at her and then squeezed his eyes shut. “Would you marry me, Alexia?”

Her heart dropped further—through the floor if that were possible. His shoulders squeezed inward, teeth clenched like he expected to be struck.

She turned away and paced several feet, searching for the right words. Could their childish banter have translated so poorly to him? Had he always felt this way or had her recent transformation changed his opinion of her? Why did she have to complicate his life? Ru deserved to fall in love, to marry some sweet girl and live happily upon his family inheritance.

She tried to dismiss the awkward moment by laughing, but it sounded weak. He joined her.

She hugged herself. “That would be silly now.”

His eyes turned away. “Right. Silly.”

“Ru, I do not think I will ever
want
to . . .” She reached toward him, caught herself, and pulled her hand back. “I—I am far too young to think about . . .”

He nodded, lips tight to preserve the forced smile.

Why did he have to fall into the same trap everyone else had? He knew her. He understood this new exterior and the girl beneath didn’t match. At the same time, that’s what made him one of the better candidates. Their families were equal for wealth, their fathers best friends, and he knew her.

“It was a dimwitted thing to—” He shook it off. “Would you care to go back inside?”

She huffed. “Must I?”

“No.” He leaned in timidly. “I do not mind keeping you to myself.”

That decided it.

Apparently he had informed his sister of his intentions, for Abby hovered at the door, waiting their return. The glitter of her eyes dimmed at Alexia’s frown. She took Alexia’s arm and stole her away from Ru, dragging her back into the night. “No?”

She gave her friend a pained smile. “He told you?”

“I am sorry, Alexia. He is stuck on this.”

She shook her head. “Silly boys.”

“Silly,” Abby agreed, her mouth pleated with disappointment.

They paced together out into the darkness of the yard.

Her friend shook her head. “He was going to love you. Everyone does.”

“What?”

Abby’s
mouth twitched stubbornly. “You have not noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

Her friend pulled away and progressed another few feet.

“Abby, rumors do not penetrate through Father.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “Anyone who is anyone is anxious to meet you, and all the men have their minds made up. Rupert was trying to beat them.”

Meet
her
?

“I told him not to do it,” she apologized. “I said you did not hold him in your affections, not in that regard.” And she paced on.

Alexia stood in the wake of the news, utterly befuddled. “Th-that is absurd!”

“Am I wrong then?” Abby whirled around. “He is yours for the taking. He or any other available man.” She jabbed a thumb back at the house and spat, “There is a whole ballroom of them waiting in there. You have your pick!”

Alexia staggered back a step at her friend’s venom.

Abby stamped her foot. “What is wrong with you, Alexia? Why can you not take up a decent prospect like any normal girl? None of the rest of us can even get a second glance with you parading about!”

She turned away to hide the hurt. It was not fair! Abby didn’t deserve to be shunned any more than Rupert warranted rejection. Her friends shouldn’t be affected by the alteration!

But she feared they’d be the greatest affected.

“What happened to you anyway?” Abby asked. “Did your Father hire a witch doctor to change your appearance over night?”

“
What? Do not be absurd.” Alexia looked to the stars, wishing her birthday had never come, wishing instead for the prolonged dread of her imminent nightmare, wishing she could somehow fit into this altering reality. Her gaze dropped to her balcony, where she had stood last night making a very similar wish.

The door slanted inward.

“You know, it is not often you meet someone as good as Ru.” Abby propped her fists on her hips. “He at least cares about people. It is not as though—”

Alexia stepped toward the house.

“. . . but that is what they always say about vanity . . .”

The shades blew gently through the frame. Was someone there?

“Are you listening to me, Alexia?” Abby seized her arm. “You look pale.”

“Oh?” She recovered. “It is . . . there is not . . . I—I have to go now.” Abby’s brows squeezed, but Alexia pulled free and started toward the house. “Tell Rupert I am sorry!”

She used the servant’s entry and hurried up the back stairs to the second floor. The hall loomed darkly, deserted of people.

The pane could have come loose on its own, or she might not have clasped it firmly last night. One of the servants could have bumped the latch.

But she knew none of these were the case—knew it as deeply as she felt compelled to reach for the bronze handle.

Her fingers froze.

Could this be the fulfillment of another anticipated dream?
His
appearance?

She leaned closer to the wood and listened, but no sound filtered through. She took a deep breath and turned the knob.

The door fell inward, revealing a sliver of blackness. She swallowed, closed her eyes, then held them wide open and stepped into the confinement.