Page 2 of The Witching Hour
“Pretty as she ever was.” Silas’s rough fingers brushed her forehead. “Prettiest face in Devon.”
Hers was a pleasant enough face, yes, but it hadn’t done her much good, in the end. Beauty was no guarantee of happiness, for all that it was common for people to think it was.
“It’s not right, one so young, giving up like that. I don’t like it, Silas. I don’t like it at all.” Ada let out a long sigh, so familiar Sylvie could imagine her shaking her grizzled head, just as she had so many times before.
Silas grunted. “You’ve an idea to put it to rights, I reckon?”
He was whispering this time, the question only for Ada’s ears. Sylvie heard it, though. No one ever bothered to lower their voice around the dead, corpses being, on the whole, unlikely to eavesdrop.
Or so people assumed.
But how did Silas imagine Ada would put this right? There weren’t many things in life one could rely upon, but surely the permanence of death was one of them?
Then again, she didn’tfeeldead. To be fair, she didn’t feel alive, either, but rather as if she were drifting in some ethereal place between the two. It was strange, this suspension, but not unpleasant. Ada and Silas were still with her, after all.
As if she’d read her mind, Ada’s warm fingers closed around Sylvie’s cold ones, squeezed. “There’s only one way to set the thing to rights, but there’s only one man who can do it, and it’ll have to happen soon. Lord Trevelyan’s on his way?”
“Aye. The lord doesn’t have any love for Berry Pomeroy yet, but ’e’s only lived here four years, and it’s a place as takes some getting used to. He’s stayed away, but he’ll come now, for ’er sake.”
Yes, one would think a husband would take the time to appear at his dead wife’s bedside, wouldn’t one? But one might turn out to be wrong, just as one had been wrong about nearly everything else regarding her marriage.
So very wrong.
But then, she’d been so young when they’d met, only just turned eighteen, and barely nineteen when they’d married and she’d become the Countess of Trevelyan. It was a foolish age, nineteen—an age at which every story was a romance, and every ending a happy one.
But there weren’t many fairy tales where the heroine found herself on her death bed at the age of twenty-three, with her prince nowhere to be found.
Not very gallant of him, was it?
It would have been a great deal easier if James truly were the sort of heartless, selfish man he seemed to be—the sort of man who’d abandon his youthful bride without a backward glance. If he had been, then she could die in peace, and be done with him, without all the fuss and bother of a shattered heart.
But the truth was, James’s flaws weren’t the result of coldness. For all his fumbles and errors and husbandly shortcomings, he’d never been a monster. Careless of her feelings, yes, and consumed with his own ambitions, and, well…it must be said that James could occasionally be a bit insensitive.
Yes, it was fair to say he was insensitive at times.
She’d had the best of him, once—had experienced his tenderness, reveled in the sweetness of his kisses, his voice breathing her name in the night, his arms wrapped around her, holding her against his heart, whispering to her that he’d never let her go, that he’d keep her safe in his arms forever.
Forever, alas, had turned out to be a great deal shorter than she’d imagined.
She was quite as madly in love with him as she’d ever been, as she was the sort of lady who could only love once. Such ladies weren’t meant to simply give up on the man she loved. She was meant to fight for him, claw and bite and scrabble in the dirt for him until she once again held his heart in her hand.
But after four long, lonely years, she’d finally realized there was no sense in fighting anymore. She was weary of fighting, so weary exhaustion was gnawing on her bones. Whoever would have imagined she could be so weary, at the age of twenty-three?
“Sit with the lass, Silas, while I ready his lordship’s bedchamber.”
“Aye.”
The scrape of a chair against the wooden floor was loud in the quiet bedchamber, the soft thud of Ada’s footsteps as she crossed the room to the door that connected the two bedchambers echoing in the timber-framed ceiling above.
Silas seemed certain James would come to her, but it wasn’t as if there was anyone who’d hold him to account, should he choose not to appear.
Not any mortal power, certainly.
As to whatever mysterious, otherworldly elements might be lingering about the castle, well…they might not bequiteas willing to overlook his neglect of his young wife as his fashionable friends in London were.
If her wayward spouse should choose not to appear, however, well…she’d chosen to marry James, had put her faith in him, and so she had only herself to blame if he disappointed her, didn’t she?
There was nothing for it now but to wait and see.
