Page 1 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
One
The iron bars across the window cast their shadows upon Lady Phaedra Grantham’s face as she paced the confines of her cell. She raked her fingers through tangled masses of red-gold hair, her dark-fringed green eyes darting from the grate in the heavy oak door to the window far above her head.
The distance between the dingy plaster walls seemed to grow smaller each day, and the room closed in on her like the jaws of a trap. She knew it was all a trick of her imagination, the result of staring too long at the black beetles as they scuttled through the cracks to freedom-a freedom she might never know again.
Phaedra shivered, rubbing her arms. It was so cold in this place. She pulled the ragged remains of a blanket over her lawn nightshirt as her bare feet trod ceaselessly back and forth on the wooden floor. The thin cloth afforded small protection against the wind that blew through the broken glass beyond the bars.
Had the gnarled branches of the trees shed the last of their brittle leaves? She had no way of knowing. She had lost track of the days. All she could see of the world beyond was a patch of October sky, a pale wintry blue-the same color as his eyes. The man she had known as Armande de LeCroix, the Marquis de Varnais.
The thought of him made her breath come quicker, and she clenched her fists. Something stirred inside of her, like tiny wings fluttering deep within her womb.
Phaedra stopped and leaned against the thick door. Cradling her hands across the slight swell of her abdomen, she forced herself to relax. She must not upset herself again. She must remain calm-if not for her own sake, then for the sake of the child.
This resolution was forgotten when she heard the scratching sound on the other side of the door. A blood-soaked arm shot through the small opening of the grate. Phaedra bit back her scream as she shrank away from the sticky red fingers pawing at the air.
A shrill laugh trickled along her spine like the icy blade of a knife. “Have you forgotten me so soon, my dear?” a voice crooned. “I came to tell you I’ve escaped.”
Phaedra lowered her trembling hands from her mouth. Through the grate, violet eyes gleamed at her. She saw a thicket of blond tresses framing a young girl’s face that once perhaps had been beautiful, but now was gaunt, ravaged by such horrors as Phaedra refused to contemplate. She whispered, “Marie? Is that you? Dear God! What have you done to your wrists?”
The woman giggled behind her hand like a child hiding a secret. “I told you these Russians could not hold an Austrian princess captive. My bones are too delicate for their clumsy shackles. I wriggled free. And when I tell my brother?—”
The violet eyes clouded. “My brother,” she repeated as if searching for some elusive remembrance. An expression of haunting sadness crossed her features, only to be quickly replaced with her familiar, childlike smile.
“Yes, I’ve told my brother, the Emperor Franz Joseph, all about you?—”
She broke off as Phaedra heard a rough voice shout, “There she is. Seize her.”
With another hysterical laugh, the woman disappeared from view, followed by the sound of running feet. As Phaedra buried her face in her hands she heard a heavy thud, and then a series of shrieks.
What were they doing to the poor creature? Since the first day of her imprisonment, Phaedra had refused to look through the grate into the main gallery beyond. She knew too well what horrifying scenes waited on the other side of that door.
But as the woman’s screams were choked off, Phaedra could bear ignorance no longer. She had to know what was happening. She flung herself at the grillwork, clutching the rusted iron.
The woman Phaedra knew only as Marie Antoinette jerked spasmodically on the straw-covered floor as a burly guard lashed her hands behind her.
“Stop it,” Phaedra cried. “Leave her alone, you fool! Can you not see she needs a doctor?”
“Shut your mouth. Or you’ll need one yourself!” The guard grabbed Marie by the ankles and hauled her away: heedless of the blond head banging against the floor. “Scrawny little bitch. I told them we needed smaller manacles.”
“The poor thing is mad, damn you!” Phaedra’s fist smashed against the grate, scraping the skin from her knuckles while tears of anger burned her eyes. “Have you no pity?”
“Have you no pity? No pity! No pity!” Her words were taken up by other voices, until they echoed around the hall, swelling into an indistinguishable howl. Against her will, she stared at the occupants of the large chamber. What Phaedra saw was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno-twisted limbs writhing against their chains, mouths issuing forth sounds unheard of outside the regions of hell. Scores of vacant eyes stared at her, emptyreflections of the beings whose souls had been stolen from them ages ago.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here. The poet’s verse pounded through her brain. How had Dante, writing centuries ago, imagined a place like St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital in London? The poet had been expressing his visions of hell. Hell ... Bedlam. They were one and the same. How long before Phaedra’s captors reduced her to the same broken state as those poor wretches on the other side of the door? How long before she became as mad as her captors claimed?
“Someone will help me,” she whispered, dashing aside her tears. Jonathan? No, he was her longtime friend, but he was too weak, incapable. But if Jonathan could find her cousin. Only Gilly was bold enough to find some way to save her. Where was he?
He should have returned to London by now unless his Irish temper had gotten the better of him, and he had challenged the man known as Armande de LeCroix. She shuddered as the image of that aquiline face forced its way into her memory. The sable-brown hair that flowed back from his brow, the eyes that could be so cold with hate, they burned. Skilled with a sword, the blade became an extension of Armande’s own lithe and ruthless strength.
Surely Gilly would not be so foolish as to provoke Armande. No, Gilly was too clever for that, Phaedra reassured herself. As she started to withdraw farther into her cell, a flash of movement in the gallery caught her eye. Peering through the grate, she saw figures grotesquely out of place in the ragged company of lunatics. The pink satin of the fop’s knee breeches and waistcoat stood out as brightly as the purple silks of his lady friend. As they progressed lazily through the hall, Phaedra sensed that they were headed toward the door to her cell.
“Dear God, not again,” she murmured. Retreating to her cot, she sat down, gripping the edge of the mattress, hoping she might be spared the humiliation just this once. But her prayers went unanswered. The key chinked in the lock and she heard the false syrupy tones that her gaoler, Belda, adopted for visitors.
“And in here, m’lord, m’lady, is the treat I promised your worships. One of the finest spectacles Bedlam has to offer. “
Belda’s bewhiskered face appeared in the doorway, sneering at Phaedra as she entered, balancing a tray of food against her drooping bosom—one of the few features of Belda’s bulky person that indicated her sex.
“Come in, come in,” she called over her shoulder to the visitors as she set the tray down on the stool. “There’s naught to fear.”
