Page 87 of Immortal Rose

Chapter Eighteen

When I woke hours later in the darkness, the heat had broken and so, too, had my megrim.

I opened my eyes to a spill of moonlight, momentarily disoriented to find myself on my back, gazing up at the canopy of the bed. My head felt like cork as I forced myself to sit up, swallowing to ease my dry mouth and throat. When had I moved from the chaise to the bed—when had I loosened my corset and dress?

A lone glass of water had been left on the bedside table. I drank it greedily in the darkness, silently thanking whatever angel had left it for me. Felicity, maybe, looking in on me. My quizzing glass had been left just beside it, and I used it to read the small clock on the mantel. Nearly eleven.

Damn it all—I’d lost a day of work when we had none to spare. The King had already passed into the gauntlet of the poison’s second week, and even with the King’s Blend to mollify the worst of its effects, his body would only continue to weaken as his lungs slowly drowned in his rotting blood.

There was no point in going back to sleep now; I was wide-awake, and the Treasury was waiting for me in the study. Hopefully Cartwell had remembered to bring the supplies into the small still room off the kitchen.

My stomach growled.

And if I happened upon a bit of cheese and bread as I passed through the kitchen, marvelous.

Finding the slippers Felicity had left near the bed, I righted my dress and corset. My scalp, sore from sleeping on hairpins, ached as I hastily brushed out my hair and braided it over my shoulder.

I relit the candle at the bedside and ventured out into the dark house.

The third-floor hallway was wreathed in shadows and infinitely more mysterious. Ensconced in my candle’s comforting glow, I felt like a ghost myself, observing a world through a glimmering veil. The staircase whimpered as I made my way down it carefully, not quite trusting my vision to gauge the distance of each step.

Unable to resist, I made a hasty visit to the unexplored second floor of Foxcourt House only to be wildly disappointed by the discovery of well-dressed guest rooms, each with an impressive loyalty to a different shade of sunrise.

How curious that unlike Briarwood Palace, the paintings that adorned the walls of the house weren’t portraits of distinguished ancestors but, instead, landscapes of far-off places in the world. Continents that had existed only in my imagination and in the black-and-white texts of books. Ancient oceans and devouring storms. Cities so unlike the one I had grown up in.

How very, very big the world was, and how very small my life had been in it.

Several of the art pieces were paired with ceremonial weapons, baskets, masks, pottery, and more, which I suspected had been gifts from visiting dignitaries or had been collected by the last Earl of Foxcourt in his role as a diplomat.

Again, I found myself lingering on the landing, gazing up at the man’s portrait. The black tulle shroud turned his expression sphinxlike. He had a genteel face and eyes that were surprisingly kind. A glittering, laughing sort of blue. The artist had depicted him in front of a window overlooking a garden, rather than in uniform or in the hallowed halls of Parliament. A thin white flower was pinned to his lapel.

“—come now, you must cease this ridiculous behavior at once.”

Foxcourt. An echo of my earlier remorse stirred.

“It’s nearly midnight, how long will you persist in this?”

A warm shiver passed up my arms. His voice was low and soothing, cajoling even.

Leaning over the banister, I looked either way down the hall. The half that comprised the study, morning room, and dining room was dark, but a suggestion of light had slipped down the short hallway that led into the kitchen.

I strained my ears for the response from whomever he was meeting with, but none came.

I bent, removing my slippers so they wouldn’t scuff against the floor and give me away. Careful to skip the bottom step—the only one that shrieked with any weight put on it—I crept forward over the cold tile.

The door into the kitchen was open a sliver, just wide enough to make out Foxcourt’s dark shape. He had dropped into a crouch, addressing someone I couldn’t see past the broad width of his shoulders.

“Fine. ‘Marius and Cassia,’ then?”

And I stood there, dazed, as the earl, with no other warning or preamble, launched into the preeminent tragic fairy ballad in a warm, smooth baritone:

Come, children, and listen fair,

for spring blooms ever near,

and with it, an old curse awakens

of star-crossed lovers long forsaken.