Page 57 of Reflections of Silence

“Damn servants can’t even be threatened,” I snapped, letting him down.

Charleton straightened his jacket and returned to his duties of fluffing my cravat, albeit across the room from where he started. “It’s a time of stress, sir. We all feel it.”

Her most of all.

I didn’t need to delve into his mind to hear the thought that rolls around my room.

“Thank you, Charleton. For all you do for us both. Is she…struggling?” I hesitate, needing to ask more, but unsure how much to give away of what I fear for Gella.

Charleton worked in silence, flicking invisible pieces of lint from my collar. “She manages, my lord. As any wife in her situation does.”

“That’s not an answer.”There are no others like hers.

Our surface conversation floundered as he looked up and held my gaze in full for acknowledging the impossibility of the situation.

“Gisella lacks…love. She has no family to rely and calls servants her friends.” He held up a hand. “I know our household is unique. Your situation dictates it so. But she is not from your world, and is still new to it. Who does she turn to without you? A stone man while you converse in hear head, and take her sleeping hours?”

“I love her when I am able,” I growled.

Charleton dropped his hands as I stalked away. “Physical contact is no substitute for a full heart, my lord.” His sadness draped me, but by the time I turned back, an apology ready on my lips, he has turned away, collecting my nightclothes form the floor.

I strode along the hall, ready to find Gella and undo all the fine work Charleton just fixed.

“You’re worried she won’t come.” Dolion watched the young catfish circle the base of his fountain.

Gella had Charleton catch from the wriggling, precocious creatures at the jetty while I waited for the sun to see and see if my butler and valet still had all his limbs. The man survived, just, avoiding death and the snapping jaws of the reptilian brethren within the tepid bayou waters and filled the water feature with plenty of the juvenile fish that don’t seem to last particularly well. I frown as I count the population a third time, certain he brought back more than the current complement.

“Of course I am. She’s far from stupid.” I ground my teeth. Gella wanted to tempt Amy into the open, but I knew better than to bring the demoness to my home. Sorceress. Whatever the witch wanted to be called. “She’ll see straight through the ruse the moment she arrives, if she hasn’t already. It’s not like she doesn’t believe that my wife has connected all the hints she’s laid out.”

“Truth be told, I’ll be glad when this is over.” Dolion sighed, staring across the yard to where Minette helped Gella play quoits in the darkness, their path lit by a circle of lanterns.

The affair looked less like a morning game held after dinner than a séance, but my wife insisted on sleeping and waking the same hours as I did.

“Is my bellyaching so great?” I looked at him sharply. “When are you going to confess to diddling my maid?”

Dolion’s stone façade creased. “Do you have to be so…colonial?”

“We live in the new world,” I reminded him, though my heart panged. The thought of returning to France occurred to me,taking Gella back but…I wasn’t welcome there any more than I was here, in this country with its new superstitions and old gods.

“We do,” he sighed. “I miss haunting the buildings, Sebastian. Staring down at ancient, cobbled streets, the partygoers trampling filth beneath their heeled shoes. Glorious carriages and pretty women squealing at my hideousness.”

I snorted. “You should be a poet, not a gargoyle.”

He barely looked my way, his gaze intent on Minette who takes her turn and misses their goal by a mile. “Is there a reason I cannot be both?”

Breath escaped me. “Be what you like, my friend. We have all the time in the world.”

His answer was less than an enigmatic smile as he stretched forward, breaking through his stone-skin, and scooped one of the young catfish from the waters around him. A swallow, and the creature was gone.

“Delicious. Please have your man deliver more.” He leapt off his pedestal, his clawed feet becoming more human, but not fully, as he strode toward the women who greeted him as an old friend while he played court games with them in an untried land at midnight.

My fingers itched at my side as I slowly joined them, Gella’s mind brushing mine.

You’re grumpy tonight, my lord.

I snarled softly inside her mind.Since when do we use titles,my wife?

Since you looked at me like I was the last thing on your mind.

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