Dark Surrender (18 page)

Violet placed her palm against the closed curtains. “Honey, that’s not what I meant. I just—”

“Well, I meant ‘go away’ and I’ll say it again. Good-
bye
.”

With a soft sigh, Violet lowered her hand back to her side. There was nothing she wanted more than to whisk the curtains aside and envelop Lillian in the biggest hug of her life. But Violet was no stranger to the sensation of helplessness and despair. Sometimes, particularly when one was a child, having one’s every stated wish thwarted by an adult only made one feel smaller and more insignificant. No matter how well meaning, Violet had no desire to add to Lillian’s frustration.

“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “Sleep well, and I will be back in the morning after breakfast.”

“I’ll be here,” came Lillian’s small, resentful voice. “Whether I like it or not.”

Violet’s heart broke for her. “Tomorrow will be a much better day. I promise.”

She would make sure of it.

#

Alistair awoke before dawn.

Possibly because he’d fallen asleep at his desk and the bent frames of his pince-nez had dug craters into his face. Again. He tossed the spectacles aside and scrubbed his face with his hands, wincing as his fingers stretched the worn grooves left by the pince-nez. Hopefully the marks would fade before he was required to address any members of his staff.

He laid a ribbon along the spine of the open tome and squinted at the clock. Hours yet before the kitchen would be ready for breakfast. Plenty of time for more research, if he could but stay awake. He pushed himself to his feet. Perhaps there was a less sleep-inducing volume on acute hypersensitivity research in the library.

He moved quickly through the familiar tunnels, deep within the bowels of the catacombs He neared Miss Smythe’s art room only to be struck spellbound at a flickering mirage in the shadows just ahead.

Grass
.

The walls of the crumbling passageway were lined with thick, knee-high grass so green and so life-like that the guttering of a distant candle lent the illusion of a slight breeze. He could almost smell the heather and wildflowers sprinkled among the lush greenery.

As he stepped closer, he lifted his own taper to better light the way. Rectangular shadows danced behind the patches of grass and flowers. He was looking at paintings. Brushstrokes on canvas. But even the awareness that what he was seeing was several pounds worth of oils in the hands of a skilled artist did not subtract from the unreality of finding himself in a springtime meadow instead of a warren of ancient crypts.

Miss Smythe emerged from the open doorway. She froze at the sight of him. Her slender arms were wrapped about three more paintings, the tallest of which rose past the bridge of her nose, leaving only her eyes visible above the canvases. She did not move.

“You did this.” He stared at her in wonder.

She hesitated before blurting nervously, “For Lily.”

He blinked in surprise. “Lillian asked you to paint these?”

“She doesn’t have the words to ask. She doesn’t know ‘daisy’ or ‘greenfinch’ or ‘rainbow.’ And she feels that loss deeply.” Miss Smythe’s eyes smiled sadly. “When I was her age, I would have given anything to have a little beauty in my life. Years later, when I saw my first painting, I was not only stunned, I was
inspired
. Art . . . transformed my world. I’m hoping it can bring life to Lily’s.”

He wished it would not have been unpardonably rude to ask why she had been so in want of beauty. He could not imagine her as lonely or lifeless. She had won over the entire household in short order, transforming Waldegrave Abbey from a place of shadows into a place of smiles. They were all indebted to her. He stepped forward and took the canvases from her arms. “Lillian has no idea you’ve done this for her?”

She shook her head self-consciously. “Not yet. I wanted to surprise her. I want her to wake up in the middle of a garden, surrounded by birds and flowers and the morning sun. I thought she might like it.”

“She’ll adore it.” He lifted his candle to illuminate the passageway. “Who wouldn’t wish to awaken to all this beauty?”

“I just want her to be happy. To escape.” She flicked an unreadable gaze at the art lining the walls. “This morning, I realized Waldegrave Abbey really is a sanctuary. For me, I mean.” Her dark gaze returned to his. “I just want her to feel the same way.”

“That is my dearest wish as well. How can I help?”

Her answering smile warmed his soul. “Bring your muscles. Just take care not to wake her—I’d like it to be a surprise.”

“Lillian will be thrilled.” He started after her as she bent to unlock the sanctuary door, and found himself admiring more than just the paintings.

Miss Smythe was a lovely person, inside and out. Dangerously lovely. He could not risk opening his heart to her. He had yet to be in a position to have earned his own daughter’s love, much less be worthy of another woman’s.

Good Lord, how was he even
thinking
these thoughts? He would not allow this . . . this absurd infatuation with his daughter’s governess to distract him from his goals.

Managing the upcoming thinkers’ retreat, for one. Wherein he would hopefully make real progress toward curing Lillian once and for all. Until then, Miss Smythe was absolutely correct: Lillian was badly in want of cheering. In fact, he could not have dreamed of a better plan himself. The paintings were transcendent. As they placed the vivid canvases edge to edge about the room, he could not help but marvel at the
trompe l’oeil
of a seamless horizon unfolding around them.

It was as if she had captured a life-size landscape and then cut it up into smaller pieces to carry from one room to another. And yet, despite its verisimilitude to the Shropshire Hills, he swore he could discern bits of Miss Smythe herself in the way the breeze danced among the flowers or the engaging mischief of playful kittens alongside a river. He was astonished to realize that she had poured bits of herself into each brushstroke.

This was not the gift of mere paintings. This was a gift of herself.

No wonder she had looked so disarmingly anxious. She could have no doubt that the paintings themselves were good, but she was hardly concerned about a reaction to her mechanics. Seeing Lillian’s delight in the paintings would be the same as seeing Lillian delight in Miss Smythe herself.

He felt the beginnings of a smile. Miss Smythe needn’t worry in the least. And how blessed was he, to be here to bear witness to the first exclamations of joy when his daughter awoke? If anything, he would have to control stirrings of jealousy when Miss Smythe’s oil paints managed to accomplish what innumerable gifts over nine joyless Christmases had not. And to think, from this day forward—

“Papa?”

Miss Smythe jumped, startled. “Lily! You’re awake!”

He spun toward his daughter’s voice, his insides already warming happily in anticipation of finally having contributed, however circumstantially, to her pleasure.

“Good morning, daughter.”

“What are you doing?”

Lillian’s head was just visible between the parted curtains of her bed, her overlarge eyes dark and glittering from her pale face.

He stepped forward. “Sweetling. We—”

“What are you doing?”

“Tiger Lily, look around you,” came Miss Smythe’s warm honey voice. “Do you know what this is? It’s the outside world.”

Too late, Alistair realized his daughter’s eyes were wild with suppressed fury, not excitement.

Lillian clawed the curtains away from her face to better peer about the room. “Why is it here?”

He gentled his voice. “So that you could experience—”

“They’re not real! Take them
away,
” Lillian commanded, her tone flat.

Miss Smythe paused. Hurt and confusion lined her brow. “Oh, Lily, I had so hoped you would like—”

“Remove them at once! All of them!”

Miss Smythe’s gaze dropped. Her features slipped into blank expressionlessness, as if the true Miss Smythe was hidden behind an emotionless papier-mâché mask. “I meant only to please you.”

“Well, you have
not.
” Lillian’s voice rose in pitch and volume with each carefully enunciated word. Eyes blazing, she scrambled from her bed to glare about the room. “Why should I pretend to be like you when I can only ever be me? Why should I wish to gaze upon copies of what I will never see? I hate them. They’re awful and they’re fake. I won’t have it.”

“Lillian
.” Alistair stepped between them, although whether he was sheltering his daughter from Miss Smythe or Miss Smythe from his daughter, he couldn’t say.

“Get rid of them! I hate it all!” Lillian darted past her desk and kicked over the painting with the kittens, then the one with blue jays, then the one with hyacinth. “I hate both of you for trying to make me want make-believe instead of a real life!”

Black rain splattered across lily pads, slanting over hummingbirds and snow-white swans, sprinkling across the canvas with the rainbow as well as the one with the storm clouds before Alistair’s addled brain comprehended that the insidious black raindrops were not figments of his imagination but rather the spray of India ink from the full bottle Lillian had snatched from atop her desk.

He raced to grab her, to stop her. But even as he lifted his twisting, writhing daughter away from the paintings, she flung the contents of the inkbottle over his shoulders in poisonous arcs, destroying another row of beautiful landscapes in the process. He fumbled behind him to grab the inkwell from Lillian’s hands. Blindly, she threw the bottle over his shoulder, narrowly missing the top of Miss Smythe’s head. The inkwell shattered against the brittle boards covering the sanctuary windows, raining ceramic shards and black mist over the last of the paintings.

Miss Smythe remained where she stood. Had been as deathly still as a piece of petrified wood from the moment Lillian had erupted from her bed. And now, as he was wrestling Lillian onto her chair, Miss Smythe remained as stoic and unmoving as a corpse. As if she, too, was merely brushstrokes upon a canvas, and not a woman whose selfless gift of the heart had just been destroyed.

He pinned his squirming daughter to the chair. He understood her pain, but he would not allow her to wreak any more destruction. Lillian had already damaged far more than could be repaired.

“Apologize
,” he demanded.

Lillian jerked her head away.

“There is no need for apology,” Miss Smythe interrupted. “Lillian seeks the real world and all I can provide is an imitation.” Her voice was no longer warm molasses, but thin and brittle as if iron will alone was keeping it from cracking. “I am a poor substitute for what she really wants.”

Alarmed, Lillian’s arms went slack beneath his grip. Her head lifted degree by slow degree, as if the realization that she had hurt more than just the paintings was only now dawning. At last, her gaze sought out her governess.

Making neither comment nor eye contact, Miss Smythe picked up ruined canvas after ruined canvas. The one with the kittens smudged to nothingness as it banged quietly against her hip, leaving bits of ink and specks of color along the creases of her skirt.

Alistair’s heart clenched. A still-wet canvas could only mean Miss Smythe had been up through the night, carefully painting each stroke of the kitten’s fur for his daughter. And now their paws and playful faces were little more than muddy splotches. Miss Smythe stared at the oily mess without blinking, as if she and the ruined canvas were alone in the room.

Lillian’s shoulders trembled beneath Alistair’s fingers. He glanced down at her lest she be poised to strike again, but this time, Lillian’s dark eyes were full of shock at her own handiwork.

“M-Miss Smythe . . . ”

“Lessons are canceled for today, Lillian.” Miss Smythe’s voice was as devoid of life as the systematic way her tireless arms piled the carefully planned canvases atop one another. “It seems we could both use a holiday.”

Wispy strands of black hair stuck to Lillian’s wet cheeks as she desperately shook her head.

But Miss Smythe was not watching for a reaction. Her empty eyes remained unfocused on the paintings before her, as if she were hoping to rid the room of evidence before the moment engraved itself upon her memory forever. Methodically, she staked one atop the other. Each step, each faint clatter of painting upon painting seemed to echo in the cavernous chamber until at last, the stack reached her shoulders. She gathered up as many canvases as would fit in her arms and, without taking her leave, removed both them and herself from the room. The mechanical lock clicked home behind her.

“I didn’t mean it,” Lillian shouted at the closed door. “I don’t hate you!”

A long moment passed. The door remained closed. Miss Smythe did not return.

Lillian twisted to pin her anguished gaze up at him.

“I don’t hate her.” Silent tears slid down her pale cheeks. “I didn’t mean it. I
swear
.”

Alistair knelt before his daughter and looked her in the eyes. “She just wanted to do something nice.”

“I know,” Lillian whispered.

“You hurt her very much,” he said gravely.

“I
know
.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Lillian’s hands curled into tiny fists. “She’s trying to fix things that can’t be fixed. I can’t be fixed!”

“I
will
cure you,” he said fiercely. “I will cure you or die trying.”

“I don’t want to try. I want to be normal.” Her eyes filled. “I
hate
being broken.”

Alistair pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight.

He hated her being broken, too. He was tired of his entire family being broken, of his whole
life
being broken. But how could he possibly fix any of it, when the only remedy was a cure for Lillian?

His daughter clung to him for a long moment before she pushed away in sudden panic. “Will Miss Smythe come back?”

“Not today, I think. She’s right—you both need a day of rest.” He ran the back of his knuckles down his daughter’s damp cheek.