Page 4 of The Witching Hour
But he’d always thought…he’d always believed he’d find his way back to her, and now…now, somehow, she was on the verge of slipping through his fingers.
“In here, my lord.”
Sylvie’s bedchamber was dim and silent, musty with stale air and the stench of sickness, the only light the glimmer of a candle on the bedside table, flickering over the threads of golden hair spread out across the pillow.
Ada was sitting beside the bed, Sylvie’s slack fingers in her hand.
And Sylvie…dear God, Sylvie, her cheeks as white as the sheet nestled under her neck, her eyes closed, only the shallowest breaths stirring her chest, yet still so beautiful even now, so beautiful his breath caught just as it always did when he saw her again after an absence, a quick gasp of surprise that such a lovely lady could be his.
He drew closer, his heart in this throat and a choked whisper on his lips. “Ada, she’s not…she can’t be…she looks as if she’s asleep. How can she still look like my Sylvie, if she’s on the verge of death? There must be something you can do for her!”
But Ada only shook her head, much as Silas had. “She’s made up her mind, my lord. There’s naught the living can do for those what’s made up their mind to go.”
James crossed the bedchamber and seized Sylvie’s hand. “She’s twenty-three, Ada! How can she have made up her mind to die, at twenty-three?”
Ada didn’t answer, but rose from her chair with an air of finality. “I’ve made up the bedchamber next door for you, my lord.”
James gathered Sylvie’s hand in his and brought it to his mouth, her skin cool under the brush of his lips. “No. I won’t leave her alone, in case she…she…I’m not leaving her. Ada, you’ve been by her bed for days. Go and get some rest. You too, Silas. I won’t leave her.”
Ada and Silas glanced at each other, and Silas cleared his throat. “There’s naught for you to do here, my lord. Yer better off getting some sleep, before you fall ill, as well.”
James’s shoulders sagged, as if the weight of a great hand had clamped down on the back of his neck, and his breath shuddered out of his lungs. What did he imagine he could do for Sylvie now? It was too late.Hewas too late.
There was no sense in fighting it. He was weary of fighting, so weary exhaustion was gnawing on his bones. Whoever would have imagined he could be so weary, at the age of twenty-eight?
“Alright.” He looked up and met the caretaker’s dark, watchful eyes. “Take me to my bedchamber, Silas.”
CHAPTER2
James came awake with a gasp, jerking upright in his empty bed, his skin clammy and his heart thrashing against his ribs. Something had woken him. A noise? Yes, there’d been a noise. He lay still, listening, but whatever it was it was gone now, the silence as thick as the dark shadows lingering in every corner of the bedchamber.
He fell back against the pillows, his eyes wide open, his fingers curled around the edges of the coverlet. It wasn’t the first time he’d been startled from a sound sleep in this bedchamber, but this hadn’t been one of the old castle’s usual creaks and moans.
It had been quiet, soothing, the ripple of it washing over him like cool water on a hot summer’s day. It was a sound that made no sense in a grim castle in the darkest depths of the night.
A dream, then. Just a dream. The sooner he went to sleep, the sooner he could forget it.
But just as his eyelids were fluttering shut, he heard it again, faint but unmistakable. He was awake and upright in an instant, fumbling for his pocket watch on the side table. He flicked it open with his thumb, blinked the sleep from his eyes, and squinted down at the ivory face.
It was fifteen minutes shy of midnight, the start of the Witching Hour.
Nearly midnight, and someone was…playing the pianoforte?
He stilled, listening, the melody so familiar the notes sprang to life inside his head before the player’s fingers had a chance to strike the keys.
He’d heard it many times before.
It was Schubert’sTrout Quintet, one of Sylvie’s favorite pieces, and the first piece he’d ever heard her play. He stared into the darkness, the music winding through his head as the memory unfolded inside him.
A friend of his from Oxford had brought him home to Berry Pomeroy for the holidays one year, and they’d attended a Christmas party in the neighborhood. After they’d dined, the three young ladies who were guests that evening had performed for the company.
But for him, there’d been only one young lady who mattered. He had eyes only for Sylvie, so lovely in her pale blue gown, a matching blue ribbon tied around her delicate neck, the chandelier above the pianoforte shining down on her golden head.
The first moment he’d laid eyes on her, the faces and voices around him had faded into an indistinct blur, leaving only her, her slender body swaying with the movement of her hands across the keys, the notes cascading like glittering drops of water from her fingertips.
All of his attention had been for her, and her alone.
He’d fallen madly in love with her that same night, and not being a man who hesitated when he found what he wanted, he’d begged his friend for an introduction, and then appeared on Sylvie’s doorstep during calling hours the next day, his hat in his hands, and his heart on fire for her.
