by JayneFresina
"Me?" That steak and kidney pudding was becoming nothing more than a mouth-watering memory.
"Yes, of course, you." Holding her hand very carefully, as if it might shatter, he led her across to a card table around which several people sat. There was one empty seat— a frail-looking gilded chair— and this is where he took her.
Apparently nobody cared that she'd been in the midst of her own dinner. Now she must provide them with entertainment, it seemed. Reaching across the table, a smiling lady with ample curves and beringed fingers quickly grasped Ever's hand, turning it over to inspect her palm.
She could hear the others moving around to listen. Mr. Hart remained by the fire, observing her from distant shadows. Again.
Ever thought of how he had gripped her hand earlier and run one rough finger-pad over the lines of her palm, when discussing the "wonderful, complex machine" that is the human body.
"All those parts, big and small, working to keep you breathin', movin', laughin' and cryin' ... O' course, not everybody uses all their parts. Some go to waste, which is a rotten shame."
She rather got the sense that he had read her hand, just from that brief contact. Now, although mildly curious to hear what the official palmist had to say, he was not a man who waited for the opinions of others before he made up his own mind. He had already sized her up.
Although what he truly thought of her, he kept locked away in his mind.
Gabriel Hart said he wanted a wife, but that was just another of his hasty ideas and a wife would not be so easily set aside when she no longer entertained him. Marriage clearly meant something quite different to that man than it did to Ever. He would never take it seriously. He thought he needed a "respectable" wife to complete his intended transformation into a gentleman; it was all about the appearance. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, he would go on with his life as he'd always led it, surrounded by these lively folk. And beautiful women. That much was plain to see.
"You have been here before, Miss Greene," said the lady across the table.
"Yes. I came to Cromer with my parents when I was a child."
"After that too. As a grown woman."
"No. Only that once. Until now, of course."
The palmist continued as if Ever had not spoken. "And you will come here again one day. This place will always lure you back."
"Will it?" she asked politely. In truth she hadn't given much thought yet to what might happen to her after this. The walls of Mr. Hart's house, she realized, had begun to close around her, shutting out the world beyond.
"You have a special talent, Miss Greene," said the palmist softly, smiling. "But you do not like to use it. To you it feels wrong. An unfair advantage."
She stayed quiet.
The woman's fingernails tickled across her palm as she studied its secrets closer. "Your life line is broken many times, Miss Greene. Here, you see? Life for you is not continuous. It has been many times interrupted. There was sickness in childhood, was there not?"
Ever sat very still. "Yes. Somewhat. Surely, few people survive childhood without some illness? The infant mortality rate—"
"But you are brave and physically strong. This sickness was not of your body. It affected others, more than it affected you."
"I suppose so."
"You have great determination and you are on a quest, Miss Greene."
Mr. Hart now approached the table, his attention caught. He moved into her peripheral vision, guests stepping aside for him. "A quest?" he demanded, sounding amused.
Ever shook her head. Although tempted to reclaim her hand, she dare not do so without seeming a poor sport and looking as if she had something to hide.
"A quest... to vanquish a demon," the palmist added thoughtfully.
Suddenly she was cold again. So cold that frost strands webbed around her heart and threatened to stop it completely. "Goodness. To vanquish a demon? That would be quite an undertaking for an ordinary woman like me. I'm just a governess."
"You just told me yourself that you're descended from a long line of strong Viking warrior wenches, Miss Greene. And now I learn that you have a mysterious hidden talent too." A large, heavy hand landed on her shoulder and that, for just a moment, did stop her heart. "I hope you does not think to vanquish me," he added, his voice low, sinking into her body like hot mulled wine, dripping through her veins and working its way straight to her head.
Before she could remind him again that she was not his opponent, Signora Brunetti interrupted.
"Miss Greene will be a formidable adversary. I felt it in her immediately when I saw her, as did you." She looked up at him smugly. "Is that why you hired her, Gabe? Are you bored with this retirement? Just as I warned you! Once a fighter, always a fighter, eh? You should accept Max Connolly's offer to relieve the tedium. You know it will do you the world of good."
Rather than respond to his "cousin", he turned and walked away. From the rigid angle of his shoulders, Ever could tell he was annoyed, but she didn't know why. His mind, as before, revealed nothing. It was filled with darkness. Hot, angry darkness. And frustration. Terrible frustration.
She looked at his "cousin" and felt the woman's bitterness, tinged with want and envy.
How dare he turn his back upon me? I was once the light he sought.
Ever retrieved her hand from the palm-reader and stood. "I should go back to my dinner, Mr. Hart, if you have no further questions for me."
He glanced back at her and muttered casually, as he did before, "Go on then. Get out."
Signora Brunetti accompanied her to the door with an arm around her waist, as if they were intimate old confidants sharing a secret. "Congratulations, Miss Greene," she whispered. "You will be his new plaything. I see already his desire for you. I knew it would not be long before he needed a lover in this self-imposed exile beside the dreary English sea. He has been without for too long."
Ever replied firmly, "Mr. Hart advertised for a governess, and that is what I came here to be, madam."
"That is how he lured you to him and soon you will not be able to leave."
"I can assure you I will do as I please."
The other woman smiled emptily. "That is what we all think, but we do as he pleases. We come and go as he dictates."
"I don't understand. You are a free woman, surely. Not his prisoner."
"Gabriel is a wayfaring gypsy, like the rest of us. He collected his friends around him, chose each one of us because we amused him. Now he thinks he wants something more, yet another playfellow, and so he reaches beyond us, seeking the new and unusual. But soon you will be just another of his tribe, another in his collection. So, as one woman to another, whatever you must give him, I warn you not to give your heart. It will only be shattered like glass. As other hearts have been before yours. As others will be in the future."
Although unsettled by the other woman's words, Ever spoke calmly. "Thank you for the warning, signora, but I have no intention of becoming anybody's plaything. The education of Mr. Hart is my only concern here. It is the only reason I came. I have no other purpose here but to help Mr. Hart attain his goals."
The signora smiled slowly and raised a hand to Ever's cheek. "Ah, sweet girl. I cannot blame him for fishing you out of the sea. To live his youth again through you, Miss Greene. The youth he never had. The goodness he never knew. But please, take care, eh?" A sudden sadness passed over the lady's face. "It is not too late for you to go back. But the selfishness of man is such that he will entice you to stay, make up any lie to keep you. Until he is bored and goes wandering again for other company. By then you will be trapped here and it will be too late to go back."
"Trapped here?"
"A figure of the speech, Miss Greene. Once you are in his world you may not want to leave it, but once you have given him your heart and he has wasted it, what shall you do? Follow him about, hoping his affections will return to you? The life you had before will seem very dull without him, and so you stay. Waiting. It is a form of entrapment, is it not
?"
Unsure how to respond, Ever gave a quick nod, left the drawing room and stood a moment in the cool hall, waiting for her pulse to settle. Behind her the chattering voices continued, some high, others low. And now music. Somebody had wound up the phonograph.
Alas, she knew that tune. Had heard a few notes of it whistled, over and over, down a dark tunnel. Now she heard words being sung to the tune, which had been scratched onto a rotating cylinder, traced by a stylus and amplified by a horn.
He floats through the air with the greatest of ease,
The daring young man on the flying trapeze.
Chills scraped over her body like ten icy, jagged fingernails.
The song slithered into her brain and echoed. Don't listen. Shut it out.
He'd play with a miss like a cat with a mouse,
His eyes would undress every maid in the house.
Perhaps he is better described as a louse,
But still people came just the same.
Ever moved across the hall to get away from the song. She stopped directly below that massive chandelier. Was the light swaying? Or was she?
A mere breath later, it fell.
A gust of air hit her hard and she felt her body bend double, the breath knocked out of her lungs. The loud crack and clatter of broken glass surrounded her, hurt her ears. Tiny shards nipped her skin as they bounced up from the hall tiles.
I warn you not to give your heart. It will only be shattered like glass.
All around her the air glittered and spun. She was trapped there, like a figure in a snow globe, rapidly shaken about in the hands of a child. Cold, icy hands.
Wrong Way No Exit.
Random sparks spat through her brain.
And they went to sea in a sieve they did, in a sieve they went to sea.
Get out while you still can.
Death, Love and Dreams.
My deepest condolences.
Their heads are green and their hands are blue. and they went to sea in a sieve.
And every one cried, “You’ll be drowned!”
Seahorses mate for life, you know.
Her breath came in tight, shallow puffs. Somebody gripped her hand and held it. Cold water surrounded her. She knew it would fill her lungs and cut off her air completely. But it was slow in coming. The sparks kept firing, not yet dampened.
To teach the man in the moon.
Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars.
You'll need something to keep you warm out there.
Yes, that was her mother's voice, stern and practical. I didn't come all this way to get my shoes marked to pieces.
My dear, this is the seaside. One may take one's shoes off at the seaside.
But she terrifies me.
Let me see what spring is like, on Jupiter and Mars.
Far and few, far and few are the lands where the Jumblies live.
But at last the scattered remnants of thought stopped spilling and bouncing around her. There was silence. She caught her breath. Her brain was still, resting, dark. Had the water put all the sparks out at last?
No.
Her mind sputtered to life again.
To vanquish a demon? That would be quite an undertaking for an ordinary woman like me. I'm just a governess.
But she wasn't, was she? She could pretend all she liked, but the fact was that she'd never been normal. She had never held a post before. Never worked as a governess for anybody. Gabriel Hart hired her out of the blue.
Or out of the dark.
She looked around at all the broken glass and for one heart-thundering moment she couldn't think what she was doing there. How she had even got there.
Blood, warm and thick, ran down her arm.
She closed her eyes rather than look at it.
Why had she imagined she could do this?
Pumpymuckles is coming to get me.
Get out. Get out while you still can.
"Be gone," she murmured. "I am not afraid of the dark, or of you!" And when she lifted her eyelids again the broken glass was gone. The chandelier still hung above her, the prisms trembling slightly in a draft, but all intact.
He will entice you to stay, make up any lie to keep you...by then you will be trapped here. It's not too late for you to go back.
Ever took a deep breath, turned sharply on her heel and walked to the front door. Keep her trapped there, would he? She'd see about that! Whoever these strange folk were, they would not hold her prisoner.
Disobeying Mrs. Palgrave's orders about using the servants' entrance, she reached for the handle. Through the narrow glass panel she could see nothing but black night. Not even the glow of a street lamp or the moon. Nothing. How cold she was! Frozen. Her skin crackled as she moved her fingers.
It would be even colder outside, as she'd warned the desperate fly earlier that day.
God Blessss, God Blesssss, it buzzed in her ear again.
She had to open the door and reassure herself that she could leave if she wanted to. If she really had to go. She was not like that fly, trapped here.
As she drew back the heavy bolt, the thunder in her heart grew louder, came closer, trembling through her body. The air around her was electrified.
And then a large hand, familiar to her already, suddenly came over her shoulder and pressed flat to the door, holding it shut with little effort.
"Where the devil do you think you're going, Miss Greene?"
Chapter Eight
Once again Gabriel Hart startled her, appearing where he could not have been. Not without some mysterious ability to move silently around his house and walk through the walls.
"In this weather, with no coat and hat?" he snapped.
The angry heat of his presence quickly thawed the chill in her bones, melting the ice. And he didn't back away when she turned to face him. He kept his arm over her shoulder, his hand against the door, as if he thought she might try to push him aside and make a sudden dash for freedom.
"I required some fresh air," she muttered.
"Air?" he scoffed. "Ain't there enough of it in here? I can breathe. Why can't you?"
Why was he so angry? Was she not supposed to leave the house? Confused, she said, "I want to go back."
"Go back where and to what? Miss Greene, you are acting in a peculiar bloody manner."
She said firmly, "I want to see outside." What if there was nothing on the other side of that door? Something odd was going on and not just in her mind this time, she was sure of it.
"Outside? Why would you need to go outside? This house has every damnable modern comfort inside. I ought to know, since I pay for it. Besides, it's freezing out there, woman."
"Nevertheless, I want to— Mr. Hart, I'm not a prisoner here, am I?"
His brow wrinkled, and he drew back as if she'd offended him.
"I want to go out for a walk, Mr. Hart. Is that allowed or must I wait for my afternoon off?"
There was a long pause. Or it felt lengthy. She could hear her own breath, count the beats of her heart. Seven...eight...nine...ten...
"Odd time to go out walking," he growled, eyes fiercely narrowed.
"I like to walk at night. The dark," she paused, caught her breath, "does not frighten me."
"But I can't have you catching pneumonia, can I? I'd never hear the bleedin' last of it from Palgrave." His curious gaze roamed her face, taking no prisoners again. "I thought you were going back to your dinner?"
"Yes. Yes, I was." She slipped away from the door, but he caught her wrist and held it.
"What did my cousin Lucretzia say to you?"
She thought about lying, but decided against it. With those eyes, and with his fingers around her pulse, he would probably detect a fib in any case. "Your cousin warned me against losing my heart. I assured her it's not in any danger."
He scowled for a moment, but then the storm cloud broke apart and he roared with laughter.
"Something amuses you about that, Mr. Hart?"
"Is th
at why you were leaving me? Goin' to be all prim and prudish about what people think? Want to run away back home already?"
"I wasn't leaving you. I was going out to breathe some air." And to see if I could. To make sure the world I know is still out there, because something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
He squinted at her, his thumb pressed to her pulse. And then he said, "Fetch your coat and hat then. I'll come with you if you want this wretched air so badly."
"You? Come...come with me? Outside?"
"Why not?" He scowled. "Who else would you want to go with?"
Wary, she looked at him. "Then I can go outside, if I want?"
"As long as you're with me you are safe. Can't have you wanderin' off alone at night though, can I?"
She glanced over at the drawing room door. "What about your guests?"
"They don't even know I've gone."
"I doubt that very much." She'd seen how they all revolved around him, like moons around a planet. Had they all lost their hearts to him, the way Signora Brunetti described, and become trapped in an orbit around his gravitational pull, unable to leave? Was that what the lady meant?
"They've got their music to keep them happy," he said.
That awful music. "But they don't have you."
He squinted. "Then you ought to be feelin' special, Greene."
"Should I indeed?"
"'Cos you 'ave me, don't you? You've got my full attention. Had it since I watched the back of you gliding across my hall to go prying in my study."
When she cast him a dubious look, he chuckled.
"I came out here after you, like a lost puppy," he added, releasing his grip on her wrist. "And you're right— my guests know I've gone. I left them all laughin' at me, thinking I must be in love with you already. You know they'll tease me when I go back in there, so I might as well make it worth my while."
"Worth your while?"
"If they want to think I make love to my pretty new acquisition, it would be a pity to disappoint 'em all."
"I'm your governess, Mr. Hart. Not your acquisition, not pretty, and most definitely not here for your entertainment."
