Page 23 of When Bones Whisper
“What is the time?”
“A little past three.” A hint of a smile lifted his lips. “I shall leave you to read. I have somewhere I must be, but a maid will arrive shortly with food for you.”
He sped out of the library in a blur, and once he was gone, she focused on the pain in her body, and the agony spreading over her hip. Slowly, she lifted her chemise and angled her torso.
A brownish-black mark was raised on her skin, with some kind of indentation in the center, with spreading redness around it. She’d assumed the small lump she’d found after the burial was just a bug bite, but it was growing larger. Perhaps it was infected. By the time she was done assessing the mark, she was surprised to find she was no longer alone. A woman with ash-blonde hair wearing a black wool dress and lace-trimmed apron, stood in the doorway holding a tray.
Charlotte let go of the fabric of her nightdress, allowing it to fall back down her body.
“My apologies,” the young woman squeaked out in a thick, Irish accent, freezing in place with the tray. “I can come back later.”
Charlotte’s lips fell open. What did she think she was doing? “Oh, no need. I was just checking a…nothing.”
“Do you require any assistance?” she asked and walked into the library, placing the tray on the table in front of the crackling fire.
“No, really, I am well.”
The maid’s eyes swept to her throat, before looking back at the tray. “I brought you some cucumber sandwiches, a bowl ofstew, cheese slices, and biscuits. I wasn’t sure what you would like.”
“This is perfect. Thank you.” Her stomach gurgled in response to the array of freshly made items and the glass of milk next to them. “I’m Charlotte. What is your name?”
The woman smiled, her round, pink cheeks balling. “Hartley, Miss. If you need anything, I am here night and day.”
“Oh, you live here,” she said.
“Yes.” She turned back. “I’ve been here for three years. I’m hoping my time will come soon.”
Her brows knitted. “Your time?”
“We all work here hoping Lord Sallow will make us like him. He chooses one of us every year.”
“LordSallow?”
“His family has one of the oldest baronies. He served at Henry the Eighth's court, you know. He could have been promoted higher, but he’s a recluse. He can’t be too involved with society since he must disappear every decade.”
“Because he doesn’t age,” Charlotte realized.
Hartley nodded. “Please excuse me, miss. I must attend to Lord Sallow’s dinnerguests.”
“By guests you mean…” she said, trailing off.
“Everyone must eat. Even vampires,” Hartley stated, but didn’t seem anywhere near as horrified as she should. “Good evening.”
She watched the maid leave and suddenly her appetite was gone. Guests, Hartley had said. Plural. He’d murdered more thanone person that night. How much could he drink? He’d already taken enough of her blood.
She had planned on trying to find him after eating, to discover how much he had seen while inside her head, but the last thing she wanted was to see the creature covered in someone else’s blood. She’d seen enough of that when her father had come for her, his shirt and trousers saturated in scarlet, the stench of copper clinging to him. He hadn’t used the knife he’d killed the staff with on his family. No, his bare hands were the weapon of choice for the ones he loved the most.
Everyone knew that choking the life out of a person was far more intimate, almost as much as drinking their blood.
With a long sigh, she spent the rest of the night eating the food Hartley had brought and reading through Nathaniel’s favorite books, wondering if there was anything in them that could help her understand him better, so she might survive him. Instead, she found herself enraptured by every page, her breath hitching as she became wrapped up in confessions of love and longing seeping through the pages, and forgot all about the haunting earlier, and the vampire that had bitten her.
Before she knew it, the sun had come up and peeked through a small gap in the thick drapes, and she was yawning. She tucked the book under her arm and stood. Her heart stammered when she reached the door, a strange tugging sensation pulling against the organ. When she left the library and headed back to her bedroom, she swore she spotted someone watching her from theshadows of the hallway, but when she looked back, there was nothing there, but dust motes caught in lamplight.
Chapter Seven
A putrid, thick stench clawed down her throat when Charlotte sucked in a deep breath.
Peeling back her eyelids, she dug her nails into the wood bottom of the coffin, her forearm brushing up against the soft fabric of the white dress Alice was buried in.
