Page 11 of Devil at the Gates
Harriet blinked, awestruck as the moonbeam seemed to gather within itself like shimmering stardust as it became something she recognized. A willowy female form.
“Harriet…” The syllables of her name were dragged out in a fervent murmur as the figure raised a hand and pointed to the man asleep in the chair. Her face was so melancholy, so full of sorrow, that Harriet’s throat closed up and she choked down a sob.
“Wait,” she whispered, but the phantom was already drifting away, melting into a tapestry of a pair of stags in the woods.
Blinking again, Harriet noticed the crackling fire was back to normal and the rain was plinking against the windows. She sank back against the pillows of the bed. Her mind, so clear just moments ago, was now fighting sleep again. As she closed her eyes and burrowed deep into the blankets and inhaled the dark, masculine scent of the sheets, she swore she heard one last distant call.
“Harriet…”
Redmond jerked awake in his chair at the sound of a soft cry. He leaned forward and saw that Harriet was twisted in his bed, her face lit by the dusky light of the fire. Tears coated her cheeks, making her skin shine.
“Miss Russell.” He had assumed she was awake, but she did not respond to him. He rose from his chair and tossed another log onto the fire before he came over to the bed. She was tangled up in the bedclothes, her body’s position clearly uncomfortable.
“Wait… Don’t go…” Harriet’s murmur was so full of loss and pain, he wondered who she was dreaming about.
He wiped the tears from her face with a handkerchief, stunned by his desire to be gentle with the stranger who had trespassed in his domain. Ever since Millicent and Thomas had died, he had demanded solitude, a quiet house to himself so he could bury himself in regret and guilt. It was no less than he deserved.
Suddenly the hairs on his neck rose, and he felt the faintest caress of something over his skin, like cool fingertips. He sensed it, sensed the presence that often came to haunt him just after midnight. His grandmother would have called it the hour of the wolf, where the sleepless were haunted by their deepest fears, when ghosts and demons were at their most powerful. He looked around as he always did but saw nothing.
“She doesn’t belong here, not with me.” He spoke softly to the room, not sure why he needed to speak at all, or what otherworldly thing might be lingering in the shadows.
Harriet grasped his hand, which had brushed against her cheek.
“Please don’t leave,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. “Please… I’m so cold.”
Redmond gasped as he tripped and fell onto the bed. He would have sworn it felt as if someone had just pushed him. But it was madness to think such a thing, wasn’t it?
Harriet burrowed closer to him, and before Redmond could extricate himself, he found himself holding Harriet. He could have done anything he liked to her, she was that helpless, still under the hypnotic sway of the laudanum. But he was not a monster, not the monster he pretended to be, at any rate. Whatever cruelty she had endured elsewhere, he would not perpetuate any on her here.
He pulled the coverlet up again around their bodies, not caring that he was still fully clothed. He had slept many a night in worse conditions in the last seven years, and perhaps it would help assure her that he had not taken advantage of her vulnerable state if she should regain her senses too soon. He closed his eyes, wondering how Edward Russell’s daughter had ended up here in his arms.
Redmond had been one of Russell’s students more than a decade ago, just after he left Cambridge. He had felt a bond to the fencing master, like he would have to an older brother. The man had been honorable, amusing, and openhearted. To hear of his death tonight had shocked Redmond, but he had been so angry at having a young woman here disturbing him that he hadn’t processed the fact that Edward Russell was dead.
And now here he was, holding the man’s daughter, a daughter who was lonely and tempting. She was also the same tender age as his late wife. Pain seized his heart, and he squeezed his eyes even tighter, hoping he would sleep soon because he was not going to cry about the past.
Not again.
George Halifax smiled smugly as he left the bedside of his wife, who now lay cold and lifeless. He’d slept late after dinner, and by the time he’d returned to Emmeline’s bed, she’d finally drawn her last breath. It’d taken her long enough to die. Now he was clear to get what he wanted, what he had craved for so many years. He walked down to the room his men had taken Harriet into, and his grin widened at the sight of the locked door. She was inside, waiting for him, waiting to ease his needs. If she resisted, as he expected her to, he would call for his men to assist him in subduing her. She’d always been such a willful creature, no doubt because she had wasted her time learning the art of fencing when she should have been practicing needlepoint or some other frivolous activity. But it had made for a fiery creature he would delight in bedding and breaking until he molded her into what he desired.
He pulled the heavy brass key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. He opened the door, his heart pounding with excitement, anticipating the chase. He waited for his caged pet to fly at him in a rage, but there was no movement in the dark room.
“Harriet?” he murmured. “Your dear mother has passed, and your father has come to comfort you.”
More silence. He stepped into the room and retrieved a lamp, lighting it with a pair of strikers he found on the side table. He waved the lamp around the room, casting its light over every corner as a black rage built up inside him. The room was empty. The window was open, with a trail of bedsheets knotted together dropping down to the gardens one floor below. His pretty little bird had flown away. When he caught up with her, she would regret ever escaping him.
5
When Harriet woke, warm sunlight illuminated the lavish bedchamber she was in. She blinked in confusion, expecting to see watery pale sunlight fogging up the glass windows of a room in Thursley Manor, yet she found herself in the same room she’d dreamt about.
Not a dream…
She shifted in the bed and groaned as every muscle protested. She winced and put a hand to her head as memories from the night before trickled back.
She had fled Thursley while her mother lay dying. The coach had overturned during a terrible storm. She had fought the Devil of Dover with a fencing foil…and won? Yes, but then the memories grew fuzzier, like thick wool blanketing a window she desperately wished to see through. She remembered dinner, and her shoulder in pain, and then… She gasped.
Lord Frostmore had drugged her, and now she was in a bedroom. She lifted the blankets and found she was wearing a nightgown of fine quality. She had never touched something like this before, let alone worn one. With trembling hands, she pulled her gown up but saw no bruises, no blood on her thighs. Had he not taken his pleasure, then, while she lay helpless?
The bedchamber door opened, and a lovely young woman with dark hair and light-brown eyes entered. She was humming to herself but paused when she saw that Harriet was awake. She glanced down at the tray she was holding and lifted it up slightly as she looked at Harriet.
