Page 39 of Once Upon a Midnight Dreary
“Don’t be.I’m sure it puts you in a difficult situation having her wanting to marry you off.”
He sounded as though he understood her plight and empathized with it.
“Yes, it does.”
His dark eyes remained on hers, studying her intently.“Do you not wish to marry?”
It was an unexpected question.He sounded wholly curious and interested in her answer.Though why, she did not know.As she considered her answer, she fiddled with the crumpled paper in her hand.Did she wish to marry?It seemed like an unobtainable goal.Something she had never really considered.After the tragic death of her parents, her life came to a halt.
“I think…” she started, choosing her words carefully.“I think perhaps someday.If—” She stopped herself from sayingif the suitor is the right man.
Her gaze met his.Was he the right suitor?She wasn’t sure.But she relished how he caught her in the doorway and held her in his arms.She recalled, with a sudden, sharp memory, there was something otherworldly in his scent, like frost caught in sunlight.Crisp, fleeting, and gone before she could name it.It gave her comfort, soothed her, made her want to keep him close.
And yet, she needed to keep him at a distance.
“If?”he repeated, his voice low.
She smiled then, pushing away the thoughts.“It’s nothing.I’m just being silly.”
“I doubt that.”He pushed off the doorway then.“I have work to do in the greenhouse this afternoon.”
It was an announcement he intended to be outside most of the day.She nodded as he walked away.
As Gabriel disappeared down the hall, her gaze drifted upward toward the west wing.Perhaps it was time to stop being afraid of shadows and walk straight into them.
Chapter 16
WhensheknewGabrielwas outside the manor and deep into the garden at the greenhouse, Victoria left the parlor and headed up the stairs.Her nerves jangled with every step as she ascended, her hand on the banister and her eyes lifted toward the west wing.
She did not know what she would find.
She turned right and paused at the entrance of the long hallway that led through the west wing of the sprawling manor house.Her eyes landed on the closed door of the child’s room.
A shudder went through her.
She would not open that door today.
As she headed down the shadowy corridor, fog lifted from the creaking floorboards, swirling around her ankles as though it were the most natural thing.Her heart rose to her throat, but she was determined to keep her wits about her.
A sudden cold settled in the air.Her breath turned to smoke.She halted, just past the girl’s bedroom.Her hand clenched into fists as her heart picked up speed.
“I know you’re here,” she whispered, her breath crystalizing in the air.Then, almost as an after thought, she added, “Lenore.”
It was hard to describe, but there seemed to be a…presence surrounding her then.The shadows deepened in the corridor.Fog lifted in spiraling tendrils from the floor.The only sound was the creak of the old floorboard under her step, and then—too softly for certainty—the breath of someone who wasn’t there.
“Whatever’s happened to you—whatever the reason—I want to know.I want to help.”
A low laugh.Almost as though it were a cackle.
Dear sweet child.You cannot help me.
The voice was quiet, mellifluous.Victoria was certain she had heard it before.It stirred something buried—half-memory, half-nightmare—from long ago, when she was small and the manor whispered lullabies to no one.
She forged on, her steps solid and sure across the wooden floor.She paused at the middle room, her hand on the cold knob.She inhaled a deep breath, expelled it, then wrenched the knob and eased the door inward.
It creaked, the old hinges groaning with the effort.The door opened to a darkened room.The interior hosted nothing more than shapes of furniture.She wished she’d thought to bring a candle with her to light her way.But to retreat now would be to surrender—to fear, to shadows, to the house itself.
Victoria stepped into the threshold of the room, her eyes glancing around it as she tried to make out the shapes.A window on the far wall covered in thick drapes that were shut against the light.A four-poster bed on one wall, stripped bare.A wardrobe across from it, the doors shut tight.As her heart continued to throb, she moved deeper into the room and stepped to the wardrobe.She pulled open the door.
