Eve Silver (7 page)

No, more than that. He had
known
she was there, sensed her presence with some unholy perception. The certainty of it terrified her.

Nonsense!
It was impossible for him to see her in the dark and from that distance. And even more impossible for him to have some strange cognition of her presence....

Still, her heart beat so hard and fast that she thought it would burst from her chest to lie pulsing and bloody on the floor.

Because she was afraid he would see her.

Afraid he will see you?
Her thoughts taunted her.
Is that not what you truly wish? For him to see you, to
know
you, to draw you close in his embrace?

Darcie closed her teeth around the bent knuckle of her index finger. Surely it was only because of his kindness that she harbored such inappropriate imaginings. But, no, the truth of it could not be denied. She was drawn to more than that. To the physicality of him. It was a carnal attraction, and she would do well to bury it deep, to deny the urge that had kindled in her breast.

Yet she could not stop herself from leaning forward, from searching for Dr. Cole in the moon-drenched night. With a gasp, she realized that he had not moved, but stood still as marble, staring up at the study window. Then before her mystified gaze, he seemed to draw back without actually moving, blending with the shadows of the night, until he was gone. Vanished in the darkness.

Pausing only to snatch her snuffed candle from the floor, Darcie fled the room, forgetting to rip the page from the sketchbook, forgetting the task that had drawn her to the doctor's study in the first place. She ran all the way to her attic room, not stopping until she huddled beneath her covers and drew them up over her head, blocking out the night.

Chapter Four

“Darcie, wake up! Oh, do wake up!”

Groggily, Darcie opened her eyes to find Mary leaning close, shaking her shoulder roughly.

“Come on, now. Hurry!” Mary shoved a pile of clothing at her and yanked the covers from the bed. “Dress quickly. Poole's in a terrible state, just terrible. We've all been called from our beds. ‘At once,’ he said. We're to assemble at once.”

Darcie rolled to her side then pushed herself to a sitting position. The room was dim, a single taper sending flickering shadows cavorting across the wall. It was yet night, she realized as the last tendrils of Morpheus's embrace bid her adieu.

“What time is it?” she asked, sleep making her voice rough.

“Long before dawn,” Mary muttered, rolling her eyes. She took a brush to Darcie's hair, dragging it through the long tresses with hasty, ungentle strokes.

Darcie closed her hand around Mary's and pried the brush from her grasp. She splashed cold water on her face and dressed quickly.

Mary grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the stairs. “Come on, then. Hurry!”

They scurried down, descending to the entry hall where the other servants waited in uncomfortable silence, their clothing hastily donned and slightly askew, attesting to a hurried arrival. Mary slid into place in the line, and Darcie followed.

She could hear the murmur of masculine voices drifting through the open door of the front parlor. Dr. Cole stepped from the room into the hallway. His glance scraped over the row of servants. In his right hand, Dr. Cole held the book, the one she had drawn in. Darcie dropped her gaze to the floor, her mouth growing dry, panic clawing at her.

Peeking through her lashes, Darcie watched as Poole slid smoothly behind Dr. Cole, a wary expression creasing his features. Her focus switched to the doctor. He looked pensive, remote.

“Something strange has come to my attention,” Dr. Cole began, the palm of his left hand skimming lightly over the cover the book he held in his right. “When last I looked at this book of sketches, there was but one drawing on page sixty-three. Tonight, I found not one, but two drawings.”

His announcement was met by stilted silence.

“Has anyone here any knowledge of how a second sketch might have miraculously appeared on the page?” he asked.

Darcie pressed her lips together, trying to still her burgeoning panic as she stared at the tiled floor. The first fingers of dawn trickled through the small window at the front of the hallway and crawled slowly toward her. Tension hung thick and heavy in the air, stifling in its intensity. No sound issued from the other servants, no clearing of throats, no shuffling of feet. So great was the absence of audible interruption that Darcie imagined she could hear the sound of the light creeping across the tiles.

“Come now. The one did not multiply on its own.” Dr. Cole's voice was smooth and low. There was no censure in his tone, no threat. In fact, Darcie thought she heard a hint of rigidly contained excitement.

None of the other servants stirred.

Shifting her gaze, Darcie looked at Dr. Cole, and found him regarding her with a calm, questioning expression. Earlier that night, as she watched him from the study window, she could have sworn that he was swallowed by the shadows, as if woven of darkness. Now the gentle glow of dawn touched him, bathing him in a shimmering halo of gold and light.

He wore the same clothes Darcie had seen him in the previous evening. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes and his hair was rumpled and mussed as though he had drawn his fingers through it repeatedly during the endless night. From the look of him, she doubted he had slept at all. The thought gave her a strange pang of sadness, though why she should mourn his lost rest when her entire life balanced in his hands she could not say.

Acutely aware that her transgression was the source of everyone's trepidation and concern, the reason they had all been dragged from their beds, she knew that there were no choices available to her. The others could not be made to suffer for her lapse.

She took hold of her courage and took a single step forward, out of her place in line. She raised her chin, glancing first at Poole whose features were arranged in an expressionless mask, and then quickly to the side, at Mary, who gave her one single pitying look before returning her attention to the marble-tiled floor. Then she forced herself to meet the silvery gaze of Damien Cole.

 She silently reassured herself that he was good, he was kind. He had offered her a chance. Then she recalled the dead man in the carriage. The bubble of hope that had bolstered her spirits burst. Of course he was a good, kind man. A good, kind man who drove about town in the wee hours before dawn with only a corpse for company. He had never explained the corpse's presence, and she, frightened of losing her one shining chance, had never dared to ask, thrusting aside all qualms and questions. Perhaps she had not wanted to know the answers.

He was a man who hired on a destitute girl whom he'd nearly run down in the street.

A man who kept sketches of mutilated human limbs; a man who met unsavory characters in the dead of night.

But there was no real question as to Dr. Cole’s character, no argument as to his probity.
He
was not on trial. She was. Regardless of any explanation she might offer, there was no excusing her actions. She had trespassed where she had no right to, stupidly, thoughtlessly... reflexively. And now her reprieve was surely over. Dr. Cole would cast her back out on the street. If he did not use her as a subject for his anatomical study, instead.

“I did the sketch, sir.” Darcie spoke clearly, though her voice trembled, echoing in the silence.

There was a chorus of sound, a collective intake of breath, the involuntary response of the other servants to her startling statement. Darcie stared straight ahead, at the faint smudge on the far wall, concentrating on that faded mark. She willed her trembling legs not to collapse out from under her. Though she could feel Dr. Cole's eyes upon her, she could not bring herself to meet his gaze, watching him instead from the corner of her eye.

“Ah.” After a breath of silence he said, “Come with me.” He turned and began to walk toward the stairs.

Darcie blinked, stunned by the speed, the ruthless celerity of the sentence meted out to her. Just that,
come with me,
and her life here was over.

Poole stepped forward, looking down at her as though she were a particularly repugnant species of insect, one he'd like to crush under the heel of his boot.

“Go on with you,” he said.

She glanced at the line of servants. Cook, who'd been kind to her—slipping her an extra biscuit or cake, muttering about girls who could blow away in a breeze. John, the coachman, who said little, but whose eyes spoke more clearly than any long-winded speech. Mary, her roommate, her friend.

Dr. Cole started up the stairs. Darcie followed, tears blurring her vision, but she hesitated at the bottom step. She expected to be tossed on the street without ceremony or fanfare, not escorted up the main staircase. Perhaps he meant for her to leave of her own accord. She looked about uncertainly.

Dr. Cole stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

“Well, come along,” he said.

“Please, sir,” Darcie began softly, drawing on a reserve of bravery that she had not known she possessed. She only knew with a dogged certainty that she could not leave without her drawings. “I have only one thing that I brought with me to this house. My leather folio of drawings. May I get it?”

Dr. Cole frowned, then turned and descended the steps until he stood on level ground with her. Her belly writhing like a pit of serpents, Darcie lifted her eyes up to meet his.

He didn't appear angry, only puzzled. “You wish to retrieve your folio of drawings? To what purpose?”

“To take with me when I go.”

“Where are you going?” There was genuine confusion in his tone, along with a subtle thread of impatience.

Darcie watched him warily. Was he truly insane?

“Where should I go but out on the street?” she replied, forcing herself to maintain eye contact, rather than obey the urge to drop her head and peek at him through sidelong glances as was her wont.

“What do you need from the street?” His annoyance was more apparent now. He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “It can wait. I have need of you now. Come along.”

He began to ascend the stairs once more, then stopped abruptly. Turning, he said, “Poole, I trust I can leave it to you to find a replacement maid-of-all-work. There must be dozens of girls eager to earn an honest wage.” He slanted an enigmatic glance at the butler. “We seem to lose our maids at an alarming rate. Try to find one that will last more than a few weeks.”

“I shall see to it immediately, sir.”

Darcie glanced at the other servants. None met her gaze, but she could feel their compassion rolling from them in waves. Suddenly, Mary looked at her and sent her a wavering smile meant to reassure.

Please don't let me cry,
Darcie thought.
I'll have an eternity for tears later.

“I can hardly keep you on as a maid-of-all-work.” Dr. Cole’s pronouncement made Darcie cringe inwardly, her heart heavy as she waited for him to cast her out. “It would be a terrible waste of your talent,” he continued. “Talent which I have need of, given that my own skill as an artist is abysmal.”

She heard the unified gasps of the other servants even as the meaning of Dr. Cole's statement sank into her benumbed mind. As she turned her head, her glance collided with the butler's. His face was impassive, but high color marked his cheeks.

As Darcie whirled back towards the doctor, her arm knocked a vase of fresh flowers set on the table by the stairs. Horrified, she found herself caught in the endless mortification of the moment. Just a second too slow, her hands grasped empty air as the porcelain vase crashed to the floor, splintering into a multitude of razor-sharp fragments.

Her stomach pitched and dropped, horror freezing in her chest. She heard Dr. Cole take a step forward and her head snapped up, one arm rising reflexively to shield her face, half expecting him to land a backhanded blow. Experience had taught her that even a man who seemed kind could be driven to fits of temper. But there was no blow. The doctor stood over her, his expression calm and mildly expectant.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, crouching beside the ruined porcelain, grasping the pieces frantically, with only a fraction of the attention the task required.

“Leave it,” he commanded, even as a sharp sliver sliced into the fleshy mound at the base of her thumb.

Blood welled from the wound, dripping into the puddle of water that pooled on the marble tile. She stared in horrified fascination, mesmerized by the eddy of dark red that crept in an ever widening pattern, becoming paler and paler as it mixed with the water covering the floor.

Soundlessly, he came to her, circled her wrist and drew her damaged hand upward. She offered no resistance as he pressed a white handkerchief against the wound. Blood welled from the cut, staining the pristine fabric with a dark blotch. Unbidden, Mary's words about the bloody handkerchief she had found in his study and the macabre suspicions she harbored seeped into Darcie's thoughts.

She pushed the memory aside. Her situation was tenuous enough without adding Mary's suppositions and fears to her load.

“Here. Press firmly against the cut.” Pulling her gently to her feet, Dr. Cole drew Darcie's free hand from her side and positioned her fingers so she could do as he instructed. With one hand cupping her elbow, he guided her toward the stairs. Stunned, unable to assimilate the events of the morning, she allowed him to lead her, a sleepwalker directed by his touch.

On an afterthought, Dr. Cole paused, speaking over his shoulder without turning. “Poole, see to the mess,” he said brusquely. “And see that we are not disturbed.”

o0o

Darcie was alone in Dr. Cole’s study, edgy and uncertain, her thoughts in turmoil. He had excused himself to fetch bandages from his surgery on the main floor of the house, leaving Darcie to her own devices. Sinking into a leather chair in front of the doctor’s desk, she found her eyes drawn to the gilt-framed miniature that sat in a place of honor. She wondered again who the woman was—obviously someone greatly beloved by Damien Cole. At the thought, a strange spasm in the region of her heart pricked her and brought the unwelcome sting of tears to her eyes. She pressed her fingers against the cloth she held to her wound, blinking against the tears that clung to her lashes. Clearly she was overwrought. What other explanation could there be for her reaction to the sight of the portrait?