Page 61 of The Lady’s Guide to Deception and Desire
“Stupid girl. As if I would sully her resting place! See with your own eyes who lies here. A woman above all others.” His grip drew her closer.
To Rosamund’s horror, she was looking into the face of a corpse. Blonde hair framed a face ghastly grey, the eyes closed and sunken.
Nestled in the hollow between the woman’s collarbones was a large stone attached to a golden chain.
“My ruby!” Rosamund couldn’t reach her pocket to check, but there was no question that the gem was hers.
Directly below, she recognized one of her handkerchiefs, embroidered with a rosebud, and…was that a lock of her own hair?
“The connection is important, you understand.” His Grace’s voice was rapturous. “The others, though young and in possession of their maidenhood, were too base to serve our purpose.”
Leaning over the sarcophagus, he stroked a wisp of hair from the corpse’s brow. “Violetta deserves better. She’s only waiting for the right time; for the right replacement.”
Rosamund found herself spellbound by the sight before her. The duke, in his grief, had become insane.
From beside the body, Lord Studborne retrieved a parcel of cloth and unfolded it. Within was something Rosamund had never seen before: a wooden dagger embedded with razor points.
“Just as in the engravings.” The duke turned the weapon and the light flashed upon the metal blades. “Vasco recorded everything well, during his time in Mexico. The consort of the Mayan Jaguar God used a knife just the same, to render sacrifice. It was often drawn across the tongue, you see.”
He passed the weapon in the air across his own mouth, as if in demonstration.
“No! Please!” Rosamund tried again to pull away but her struggle only brought a tighter grip upon her arm.
“Hold still. I’ve no intention of maiming you. I need only a little blood.”
He reached behind her and Rosamund gasped to feel the sting of the blade slice her fingertip. His own finger he pressed to the wound then approached the corpse, smearing the crimson upon shrivelled lips.
He lowered his own to kiss them, rising afterward with a contented smile. “Now, she will know the vial, and it will be but a small leap for her, to cross the divide.”
Almost tenderly, he led Rosamund to a pillar and made her sit. “Not long to wait.”
She couldn’t tell if he spoke to her or to the thing which had once been his wife.
From his pocket he took a length of twine and looped it between the bonds already restraining Rosamund’s hands, securing her there.
“Don’t leave me in the dark.” Rosamund pleaded.
The duke extinguishing every candle but one, then gestured to an old chamber pot, close enough to squat upon if she could bear to do so.
He took up the lantern and left.
Rosamund had never felt more alone, nor more helpless.
She couldn’t reason with a man who’d lost his sense of what was real. Nor could she attempt to overpower the duke when he wielded such a weapon.
There was only one person who might yet come to help her; who might realize she’d gone and think to look for her here.
“Benedict.” She spoke his name into the chill of the vault, as if saying it aloud might carry her entreaty to wherever he was.
It was him she wanted, and not just to save her from his uncle’s madness. Long and lean and handsome, kindly and generous, and infuriatingly erudite, telling her all the things she didn’t need to know, and never the one thing she wanted to hear.
She’d made a hash of things.
Though she hadn’t intended to hurt him, of course she had—and she’d never apologised; not properly.
Now, it was too late.
His uncle would spin some tale about her having left of her own accord, and Benedict would always think badly of her.
