Page 4 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
She gave a tiny shrug, the hopelessness of her situation weighing heavy upon her. “What does it matter?”
“It matters a great deal to me.” Jonathan turned to peek inside the contents of her soup bowl. He pulled a face. “I know the food here is not the most palatable, but you must keep up your strength.”
When she made no response, he clasped one of her hands between his own. “Please, Phaedra. For me.”
She returned his squeeze, favored him with a wan smile. “Very well, Jonathan. For you, I will try not to lose heart. I believe you are the only living soul who cares in the least what has become of me.”
Instantly, she regretted her words when he dropped to one knee beside her, the severe angles of his face softened by theglow of his eyes. He pressed a kiss into her palm. His voice thickened as he said, “You know I would do anything to bring you happiness.”
Phaedra squirmed; even under these dire circumstances, she was discomfited by Jonathan’s expressions of devotion. She carefully disengaged her hand. “Just get me away from this place. That is all that you can do for me.”
He bowed his head, concealing whatever hurt her blunt statement may have given him. Phaedra tried to take the sting from her words by stroking aside the strands of graying hair that drooped over his brow. He rose awkwardly to his feet.
“I know what you must be suffering,” he said, “but when you are free, I shall make you forget all this ever happened. If you could but keep your courage awhile longer.”
Jonathan gave a nervous cough. “One thought did occur to me. I wondered if the father of your child might be a man of enough influence to help you. I do not wish to pry but, if you would trust me enough to tell me the name.”
Phaedra broke into a mirthless peal of laughter. “You think I should appeal to the father of my child?”
“Please, Phaedra. I am sorry. I did not mean to make you overwrought. Please don’t laugh like that. It frightens me.”
“That is only because you do not know. Maybe I should tell you his name. Then you could share my amusement.”
Jonathan drew back with a flurried gesture. “No, don’t. I regret that I asked. The name is of no consequence. He?—”
“His name is Armande, the most noble Marquis de Varnais.” She watched as the color drained from Jonathan’s face; but she felt relief that someone else should at last share the burden of her dreadful secret.
“Varnais,” Jonathan said hoarsely. “I feared it but I never thought it possible. He seems so dispassionate, so cold.”
“Aye, as cold as a drift of snow.” But even as she spoke, Phaedra envisioned a pair of icy blue eyes, burning with the blazing intensity of the blue core in the midst of flames. She saw sternly set lips that could be tender; his hard-muscled limbs that, when devoid of their cool satin, were bronzed like a sun god’s, his passion just as warm.
“And you!” Jonathan’s tone was vaguely accusing. “I always believed you hated him.”
Phaedra shook her head to dispel the sensation of Armande’s presence that was all too real, all too vivid in the midst of this hell where she now resided.
“I wish that I did hate him. It would make everything so much easier.” She had always thought hate such a fiery emotion until she met Armande. Now she knew that it was a chilling, numbing thing. She felt so cold, so empty.
Jonathan clumsily patted her shoulder, mumbling some words of comfort, adjuring her to rest and to eat. All would turn out for the best. Then he was gone, leaving her with the feeling she had lost her last contact with the world of sanity.
Phaedra reached listlessly for the bowl of unappetizing stew. One thought alone sustained her: the child inside her. She would let nothing else matter. Damn Armande and his quest for vengeance. Let him destroy himself in his vast wasteland of hate. Such an emotion would never touch her life or her babe’s. It had been love that had driven her into Armande’s embrace, love that would sustain her and the child. She would love enough for both of them.
Holding fast to that thought, she raised the spoon to her lips, averting her eyes from the grayish lumps of meat. She managed to swallow a few quick bites before she gagged. Belda’s cooking was worse than ever. For the sake of her child, Phaedra choked down half the contents of the bowl before setting the spoon aside. One more mouthful, and she feared she would be sick.
Burrowing deep into the thin cot, she pulled the ragged blanket tightly over her arms, seeking whatever warmth and rest she could find. She had scarce closed her eyes when the first pain struck.
Her mouth flew open in a startled gasp at the intensity of it. She had no time to recover before the next one struck and the next, like waves of a storm-tossed winter sea washing over her, shards of ice in the water piercing her. She flung her arms over her stomach as if she could somehow protect herself from this unseen assailant.
The pain intensified, waves no longer, but a steady agony, a knife twisting and turning inside her. Her body jerked in a series of bone-wrenching spasms as she tumbled off the cot, clawing at the floor, her hand clattering against the food tray, sending clumps of stew flying against the walls. Even through the mists of her pain, the terrifying thought penetrated her consciousness. Poison! She had been poisoned! Then she was lost in the sound of her own screams.
An eternity passed before distant figures bent over her, shrouded by her pain-filled gaze … Belda, a leering goblin amidst this nightmare of agony, the ghost-white face of the doctor, hands wrenching her from the floor. No, dear God, no. Don’t touch me!
Ahead of her loomed the blessed darkness, if she could only reach it. But her limbs shook so. The darkness came and receded before the glaring white light of pain. How cold she was! But at least the cold dulled the merciless ache inside of her. She was freezing to death, and she did not care. It was such a relief to be done with the pain.
Eventually even the cold ceased to bother her. She felt her eyelids growing heavy as the frigid walls of her cell faded. For the first time in weeks, she felt warm. It was no longer autumn, but the last days of spring. Phaedra’s eyes fluttered closed, allowingherself to be enveloped by the heat, the glowing lights of the ballroom. It was spring again, and she was seeing Armande de LeCroix for the first time ...
Two
The heat of Lady Porterfield’s ballroom assaulted Phaedra’s senses in one great wave. Through the slits of her velvet mask, she stared up at her ladyship’s famed chandelier, tier upon tier of crystalline ice set ablaze by no fewer than five hundred candles. For a moment, her eyes were so bedazzled that the ballroom became a blur of color, an array of silk-clad forms that flashed with diamonds and other gemstones.
