Night of the Candles (20 page)

“And so, disillusionment?”

“Yes, and unhappiness, shouting, and tears.” A piece of fringe from the pillow came away in his hands, and he, seeing the damage he had done, tossed the pillow from him. “The same old story.”

“So you think they were not suited?”

“There can be no doubt. What Jason needed was a helpmeet. What he got was a doll, an exquisite, impractical, and oh, so fragile doll.”

Fragile. Yes, Amelia had always given that impression, but she had never been weak, except, perhaps, in body.

“They quarreled?”

“Tempestuously,” he answered with a wry smile, “but then made up in the same way, at least at first, until Jason grew tired of scenes. Then he went his way, and she more or less went hers. Until she became ill. But then, let me tell you, no man could have been more attentive than Jason.”

“Would you say then that they were still … in love?” Why had she asked that question, she wondered as the warmth of embarrassment seeped into her cheeks. What possible difference could it make? And yet, it seemed important that she hear the answer.

“With Amelia it was hard to say. Jason, her dark prince, had rescued her like a maiden from a tower. She never spoke of it, though we talked often, especially in those last days. She died in the middle of the summer, the busiest time of the year on a plantation. She said something once about Jason, however. Something that stuck with me because … I suppose because the meaning seemed especially clear to me at that moment. She said that what Jason showed toward her was the other side of the coin of love. It was compassion and the guilt that stems from the fact that it is a lesser emotion.”

She glanced at Theo from beneath her lashes, seeing his strong farmer’s hands and his broad, pugnacious face beneath the shock of blond hair. She had never expected him to be so eloquent. Was it possible then that it was a subject that touched him deeply?

“You … seem to have been fond of Amelia,” she said tentatively.

He looked up. “Is that so odd? Jason was out about the fields. He is not a man who can delegate authority easily, and I hadn’t much to do other than running errands to town. We were thrown together, and Amelia was … lovable.”

Amanda looked at him measuringly with little taste for the implication of his confession. A man in love with another’s wife? The man’s sister in love with the husband. There was reason for murder in that three times over.

“I’m not sure I understand,” she told him. “Marta seemed to think they were so very happy.”

“Oh, Marta.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, you know, an unattractive, middle-aged spinster living a rather dull life at the beck and call of others. She is apt to romanticize her patients. You have to allow for that with Marta, take what she says with a grain of salt.”

“Are you saying that Marta is a liar?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t be so blunt as that. But we all have a tendency to make ourselves more interesting or knowledgeable in other people’s eyes.”

She smiled and conceded, “You have a point.” But the implication of falsehood lingered.

At the dinner table Amanda was quiet, staring at the centerpiece, a cornucopia of porcelain from which spilled autumn nuts and fruits, pecans, and chinquapins, pears, pomegranates, and persimmons. Cornucopia, in legend the horn of river god, Achelous, torn from his head by Hercules, a mighty feat. But was it any mightier than the one she had set herself, that of discovering the truth about the death of Amelia?

She thought of what Theo had said, of the unreliability of Marta. Well, surely that was no surprise? She knew of her weakness for drink, a thing that made her every action suspect.

Playing with her food and her wineglass, she considered what Marta had told her of the bottles that had appeared in her room. Was that strictly the truth? Might it not have been an excuse hastily concocted when Amanda had seen the half-empty bottle sitting on her washstand, made plausible because she insisted that it had happened before? Even so, it did not prove that everything Marta had said was a lie. If she had discovered Marta’s weakness, who else might not have done so?

No, what Theo had said changed nothing.

She returned to her room after supper escorted with all tender solicitousness by Nathaniel. When she had shut the door upon him, she walked to the window and stood staring out into the darkness.

After a time there came from below the faint sound of Jason’s guitar. There was a haunting regret in the sound that brought her near to tears as she leaned her head again against the window frame.

As on the night before, Marta did not attend her. She had been downstairs for supper. Perhaps, emboldened by her victory over Sophia, she had decided to stay a while longer in the smoke-laden atmosphere of the parlor, where she was the only woman. Or it was possible that something or someone else had prevented her from coming, as last night? There was no real need for her, of course. Before coming to Monteigne Amanda had never had a personal attendant. But as she climbed into bed she felt deserted somehow, as if an important source of strength and support had been withdrawn.

She fell asleep suddenly, heavily, with a feeling almost like distress in her mind.

She opened her eyes with a smile of triumph. It was becoming harder each time, almost as though “she” had a suspicion of what was taking place and was fighting her. It could not be helped. Pray that her weakness lasted a little longer.

Darkness. Night. That was why it was easier. The body has less resistance during the dark hours, during sleep or the shock of injury. Convenient.

She stood up. She wanted to move swiftly but she was wary, now, of imposing her own sense of well-being on this body so recklessly. It was hard to resist. An urgency gripped her. She must succeed this time.

Still she could not change her character, she found, as she surveyed her attire with a grimace. Vanity, she supposed, but she could not masquerade in such a dowdy costume.

A change was quickly made; the cream gown with green ribbons was near to hand with her own dressing gown of cream lace. The hair, for once, was passable.

She found herself moving on tiptoe as she neared Jason’s door, and she caught back a tiny laugh of amusement mingled with joy. She sobered, taking a deep breath, and touched the handle. It was locked. She twisted the knob back and forth unavailingly. Locked, on Jason’s side, and there was no key here in Amanda’s side of the door. Strange. She glanced toward the empty bed with its covers thrown back, her eyes narrowing. Strange, but it did not deter her.

With a sure stride that sent the dressing gown billowing about her feet, she crossed to the other door, pulled it open and stepped outside, closing it carefully behind her. She looked up and down the open space, but it was empty, echoing with darkness and silence.

She moved a few short paces to the left, to Jason’s outside door, lifted her hand, and knocked.

The door opened at once. Fully dressed as if he had never gone to bed, Jason stood framed in the light from a lamp burning behind him, staring at her. His hair was tousled, his eyes red-rimmed, and a grim smile curved his mouth.

“Facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum”

“If that is Latin, Jason, you know…”

“Don’t you recognize it? I was sure you would … Their faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike, but such as those of sisters ought to be. Ovid was speaking of sea nymphs with green hair but for me the allusion has a different ring.”

“To sirens, I suppose. If I were Amanda…”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Nothing, Jason. Don’t be like this. There is something I must tell you.”

“Haven’t you done enough?” he asked with a bitter weariness.

“Jason!” Her voice was stern with the importance of her mission. “Jason? Do you know me?”

“Tomorrow … in the light of day … I will deny the idea, but now with the fumes of the liquor I have drunk dancing behind my eyes, I cannot see the gray of yours … Amanda.”

“I am Amelia.”

His eyes widened a fraction, but he did not answer.

“I am Amelia,” she insisted. And then when he still did not speak, she moved closer. Slipping her arms around his neck, raising her lips to his, she whispered, “I am Amelia, your wife.”

Her lips beneath his were warm with the memory of shared passion. But his were cold, unmoved and unmoving. He reached up to catch her wrists and drag them down.

“Stop this! Now.”

She drew back, stunned by the revulsion in his voice. “I only wanted…”

“It doesn’t matter. Go back to your room and bed. No matter who you say you are, there is nothing you could say that can change what has been or what will be.”

“But I must tell you. It’s about that night … the night…”

“You needn’t pain yourself with the words. I know what happened that night.”

“You … you know?”

His grip tightened on her arms that he held against his chest. “Yes, I know. If you will remember, I was there.” His eyes grew dark. “I poured out the medicine and put it in your hand.”

“Jason…” The word was a whisper. “Not you…”

“I and none other.”

A look of horror flickered across her face. “You are wrong,” she cried, reaching out to catch his arms, giving him a shake in her distress. “There has been a terrible mistake, more terrible than I dreamed. I have come to explain because I cannot bear to see anyone innocent of real harm imprisoned, perhaps hanged, for my sake. I came to you, Jason, because only you can make the authorities listen to reason. You must help me do this or I cannot rest. Promise me you will…”

“What is this?” Sophia demanded.

So intent were they upon themselves they failed to hear her approach. They swung to face her while Jason’s arm encircled the woman beside him in a protective gesture. Sophia strode within a few feet of them, her eyes going suspiciously from one to the other.

“Well?” she exclaimed impatiently.

“Amanda wished to speak to me,” Jason told her evenly.

“Oh, yes,” Sophia sneered. “I saw that at once. If that is your idea of a quiet conversation…”

“I would like to know,” the girl at his side said in a faintly haughty tone, “what gives you the right to ask?”

“What gives me …? Why, you fraud! Pretending to be so ill. As if you didn’t know!”

“I haven’t the least idea what you mean.” Her manner was distant, aloof.

“Now that I can’t believe. I made sure you saw how things stood between Jason and me.”

“You … made sure?” She looked at Jason, as if for help.

“You made sure?” he repeated in a hard voice, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

“Well, she saw, that is … she was in the hall when I … Oh, Jason! She had to know how things were meant to be between us!”

The girl smiled gently. “It’s always a mistake to involve a man in your plotting. They hate it, you know.”

Rage at her own mistake and jealous resentment surged to Sophia’s brain. As quick as a striking snake, she reached out and slapped that smiling white face.

With a gasp of shock Amanda raised her hand to her burning face. She stared with wide incredulous eyes at Sophia, then she looked up at the, man who stood with his arm about her in a protective embrace. A throbbing pain began to grow within her head, bringing tears to her eyes.

No one spoke. Jason stared at her, a frown drawing his brows together.

Sophia stood, appalled at what she had done.

Suddenly the strangeness of the scene and the blankness of her mind swept in upon Amanda. A cry of fright catching in her throat, she twisted out of Jason’s grasp and ran, straight back to the haven of her room.

The night was not done. Perhaps an endless hour of time had ticked past when the crisp night stillness was disturbed by the distant thunder of hoofbeats. Horses, hard-ridden, at least a dozen or more, Amanda thought. The sound drew nearer, growing in volume and with a sense of hard purpose.

Below in the fence-enclosed yard, Cerberus began to give voice. The rumbling roar of hooves braked, slowing to a clatter.

Amanda levered herself into a sitting position, listening to the milling clops of horses’ hooves, recognizing with a thrill of dread the moment when the sound ended before the front gate of Monteigne. An instant later, a shot exploded, whining away in the cold, frosty air.

Cerberus went mad, his barking and growling taking on eager viciousness. Somewhere a woman screamed. Running footsteps were heard out in the hallway.

Amanda waited no longer. She slid from the bed with one arm already in the dressing gown lying across the foot — Amelia’s dressing gown. The thought made her pause, then she gave an angry shrug. If she made herself free with it while she was sleepwalking, why not while awake?

The double doors out onto the upper gallery stood open to the moonlight night. Framed in their opening was Nathaniel. He wore an ankle-length dressing gown of turkey red satin with black velvet lapels over his nightshirt. His feet were bare beneath the hem, and his hair was covered by a nightcap dangling a red silk tassel.

Amanda stared at the man she was going to marry in a kind of suspended fascination, aware of an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Only the sound of a second rifle shot brought her to her senses. It was followed by a shouted challenge, a harsh demand for the owner of Monteigne.

At the other end of the hall, Sophia stood in the door of her bedchamber talking in a low voice to Theo. From her room Marta could be heard panting and moaning. After a moment she appeared in the hallway with a dress dragged on, unbuttoned, over her gown.

Only Jason was not present. Hard on the discovery, he appeared, mounting the stairs from below with quick, light steps, a rifle balanced in his hand. His hair was tousled from sleep, and he had pulled on his trousers, leaving his shoulders and chest bare.

A reassuring smile curved his lips as he caught sight of Amanda. “Stay back out of sight,” he cautioned and, then moved past her to step boldly out onto the gallery.

Shouts rising to a full-throated roar greeted his appearance. As if drawn by invisible bonds, Amanda crept closer to the open door, close enough to see and to hear.