* * *
“How dare you, you little harlot?”
Eleanor Savage can be just like her name implies. Harsh and unyielding. She stares at me now in the privacy of her study, and she’s furious.
“My son told me of your indiscretion,” she spits. “And while he is not concerned, the same does not apply to me.”
She doesn’t mention the reason why Richard is not concerned, because she never will. It is something that is not spoken of, not acknowledged.
I lift my chin. “We weren’t yet married when this occurred,” I tell her. “I committed no indiscretion.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “You’ve been engaged to my son for a year. You are an adulteress. I thought, at the least, your word could be trusted.”
She has a point, but the outlying facts tip the scales. “Your son doesn’t truly want me,” I tell her delicately. “And you know why.”
Eleanor shifts her gaze, staring out the large windows.
“That matters not,” she sniffs. “You gave your word. You are his wife. That means something, Olivia.”
“I will not disgrace the Savage name,” I finally answer. “You have my word.”
“And your word has proven to be unwavering until now,” Eleanor snaps. I almost flinch.
“This does have its uses though,” Eleanor finally admits, without lowering her nose. “Richard needs an heir. Until Laura marries, this child is the only one.”
I can tell that she doesn’t know about Laura’s plans yet, and Lord help me, I won’t be the one to tell her. Laura must escape this hell.
“You will keep this child on the estate until we ascertain what it will look like,” Eleanor demands. “We will not give anyone the chance to speak ill of us. You will raise him to be a Savage, and you will respect our traditions and beliefs.”
“Yes, Mrs. Savage,” I agree. Because what choice do I have? “I want him to have his father’s name, though.”
“Out of the question,” Eleanor retorts immediately. “The child will be a Savage. You are fortunate that I’m not throwing you out without a cent, and that I won’t hold your mother responsible for your sins.”
My reaction is immediately. “Please don’t blame my mother. Please. She needs you.”
Eleanor sits back in her seat, comfortable and content that she knows my Achilles heel.
“She does, doesn’t she?” Eleanor practically purrs now. “You shall have to be a good compliant Savage wife, won’t you?”
“Yes,” I whisper, fear for my mother’s well-being flooding through me. “Yes.”
“I thought so,” Eleanor says. “Your child will be a Savage. There will be no doubt, no question.”
Perhaps on paper. Perhaps on his birth certificate.
But in my heart, he’ll be a DuBray. He’s Phillip’s. And I’ll make sure that when he’s born, he knows it. I never want him to think that he comes from a monster like Richard.
Chapter Six
Days pass, then weeks, then months.
They blend into each other, every second into the next, and so on and so forth.
Richard is cold and unyielding. He spends hours away from Whitley, and when he comes home from wherever it is that he’s been, he showers and comes straight to bed. We share a bed, of course, but we don’t touch. He sleeps on one side, I sleep on the other, and we’re strangers.
That’s fine with me.
The halls are cold and echoing, and the servants glance at me. I see the knowingness in their eyes as my belly swells. They’ve known Richard since he was small. They know what he is, they know his preferences, and they know for certain that he doesn’t prefer me. They know that my child isn’t his.
I can’t help it when my cheeks flare scarlet when they stare.
I try to hold myself up like the Savage that I am supposed to be, but it’s more difficult than I ever thought. To act with such entitlement, with such arrogance. It’s not me, and it never will be. Lord help me, I don’t want it to be my son, either.
Mr. Savage hasn’t come home, and I don’t know where he is. I want to ask, but one doesn’t ask questions here. If Eleanor wishes you to know something, she will tell you. If not, then you’ll never know.
Everything is strange and foreign to me, and I hate it.
I hate it.
My child kicks against my hand, and in spite of myself, I smile. He is the one bright spot in my day, and he’s very active in my belly. He gives me constant reminders of his presence and I take great comfort in that.
No matter what happens here, my baby is alive and well.
They can’t take that from me.
I walk along in the rose gardens, and I inhale their sweet scent. They smell pure and innocent and heavenly, and the scent transports me from here, from this toxic, evil place, to a better place. A place where Phillip might be.
I allow my mind to drift and create and dream, and that is where I find Phillip.
He lounges against my bedroom window, and he waits for me.
His eyes twinkle and dance, black black blacker than night, and I reach for him. He pulls me close, and my belly comes between us and he laughs.
“Our child grows,” he whispers into my hair, and kisses my face. “That is good, Livvie.”
I laugh because it’s true. My body is nurturing our baby, giving it life, carrying it safely concealed. It’s a miracle, and that makes me a bringer of miracles.
Phillip nods as though he can read my thoughts.
“It is a miracle,” he says. “You are my miracle, my heart.”
“Stay with me,” I urge him. “Don’t go. I miss you.”
And I do. I miss everything about him. His scent, his smile, his fingers, his arms. Those things are all mine, and I want them always.
His smile is sad now. “I wish I could stay, my rabbit. But I cannot. We have this moment.”
He kisses my neck, then my breasts, then takes my body with his own. It’s fiery and hot and possessive, and then he’s gone.
And instead of daydreaming in the rose garden, I wake up in bed. I have no idea how I got here, with the sheets clenched around my fists.
“Why are you up?” Richard snaps from the other side of the bed. “Stop moaning.”
I was moaning?
My dream was so real. I thought I’d been daydreaming.
But when I pull my hand to my mouth, I catch a whiff of Phillip, and I’m gob-smacked. My imagination is strong. That much is certain. Nonetheless, I go to sleep with my fingers tucked under my nose, so that I can breathe in the smell of my Love.
* * *
Night after night, I dream of Phillip.
As my belly grows, my dreams get stronger, and longer. They last all through the night, and because of that, I never want to get out of bed. I want to stay in my sheets, because that is where Phillip is.
“Get up, you lazy wench,” Richard finally tells me one morning. “Everyone is talking.”
“I’m pregnant,” I tell him. “I have an excuse. I don’t feel well.”
“I don’t care how you feel,” he says coldly. “You should’ve thought of that before you opened your legs.”
I look away and grit my teeth because I have no defense. He leaves and for a brief second, I wonder where he goes every day, does he spy on Laura? Does his visit brothels to contain his lust? I don’t want him to think that I care, so I don’t ask. He wouldn’t tell me anyway.
I lie back down, my cheek pressed into my pillow. My mother is due to visit with me today, and sure enough, before I get settled, she breezes into my rooms, a basket of things in her hand.
“How are you today, my love?” she asks, and I watch her assess me, her eyes taking in my state. “How do you feel?”
“I feel like a prisoner,” I tell her honestly. “I hate it here.”
“Are you still dreaming of him?”
I’d told her of my dreams last week, and she’d been so very interested. I nod.
“Yes. Every night.”
“
And this brings you comfort?”
My mother waits.
I nod. “Yes.”
“Does he speak to you in these dreams?”
“He says many things,” I tell her honestly. “So many things.”
She hands me a cup of hot tea, and strokes my brow. “Then take comfort in that, my love. We all must do what it takes to endure.”
She holds me tight and pats my back, and I fall asleep in her arms, listening to her hum. Before long, I’m dreaming and her voice is Phillip and he’s humming to me, a wordless, tuneless song.
“You’re back,” he says happily, and when he stands up, he doesn’t look well.
“Are you quite alright?” I ask quickly, because he looks pale and alone. He smiles, a sad small smile, and nods.
“It’s nothing to fret over, my heart.”
My heart. How I love it when he calls me that.
“Come to me now. Let me hold you. Let me make you mine again.”
God, I want that. I live for that. I tell him so and he smiles against my forehead, and he does take me, again and again, and it feels so real.
“What would you do for me?” he finally asks when we lie spent together, our sweaty arms and legs entangled, his fingers trailing over my belly and my swollen breasts.
“Anything.”
My answer is immediate and honest. He’s my one bright spot, my one good thing.
“Anything?”
Phillip is pensive now, speculative, and his dark eyes have gotten stormy. I reach out and smooth an errant strand of hair from his face and I nod, assuring him.
“You’re my life, Phillip. Our child is my life. I would do anything for either of you.”
He smiles, and his teeth are pearls. “Good. I was hoping you would say so.”
“Why do you ask?” I inquire, and my voice is polite and so British. We’re polite to a fault, I think.
“Because there are things in life that we can’t understand,” he says vaguely, and his answer isn’t really an answer. “I could try but you’d never believe me. I just wanted to hear you say it, to say how much you love me, how much you’d do for me. What you’d give me…if I needed it.”
“I’d give you anything.” My answer is resolute, and I mean it.
He sees that and he smiles.
“I know you would. Thank you, Livvie. Thank you.”
Chapter Seven
Day turns into night for me, and night into day.
I never know what time it is, and I never leave my rooms. The servants bring me meals, and my only visitor is my mother. She visits me every afternoon for tea. She worries about me, she frets, but she’s also a calm presence that I need. I need to draw from her peace.
“Don’t worry, Olivia,” she tells me. “Everything will be fine, everything will be as it should be. I promise. I will make sure of it.”
I don’t know what she means, but by this time, I don’t particularly care. I’m always lingering on the edge of reality nowadays, half in a dream-world, have in the present. It’s confusing, and becomes more so by the day.
“How far along am I?” I ask her, because time has bled together.
“You only have a few weeks left, my love. You can do this.”
I wrap my belly tightly in my arms, shielding him from the world. Of course I can. That was never a question.
My child grows and thrives, and his kicks and turns get stronger and stronger, even while I seem to get weaker and weaker. My arms get pale and thin, and my mother urges me to walk in the gardens like I once used to.
“No,” I answer firmly, and I crawl back into my bed. My bed is my refuge, my solace. I won’t leave Phillip and he is here.
“You’re wasting away,” my mother points out, and I can feel my ribs against my arms when I answer.
“Nothing matters. Not anymore.”
My mother looks so sad and she whispers. “I’m so sorry, my love,” she says to me as she sits on the edge of my bed. “You did this for me, and I didn’t want this. I never wanted this.”
I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what she wants or doesn’t want. She will be taken care of, and my baby will be born, and I’ll sleep my life away dreaming of Phillip. That’s what I want.
It is that night that I first see them.
They have black eyes, and sharp teeth. They are shadows that move and meld into the walls, they blend with the night and howl at the moon. I shirk away, I move toward Richard, because even he is safer than whatever the shadows are.
He stirs in his sleep, but doesn’t wake, and I clutch the bedding to my chin, tucking my feet up beneath me.
But that doesn’t stop the shadows from moving, from approaching me, from sitting at my bed, panting in the night.
I hear long toenails clicking on the floor, click, click, clicking, and footsteps and growls. The growling comes from everywhere, and nowhere. It’s the night, it’s the air. It’s all around me, and the hairs raise on my arms and on the back of my neck. Something is here. I just don’t know what it is.
“Richard,” I shake him, and he wakes impatiently.
“What?”
“Do you see that?”
I motion toward the blackness, and there is nothing there now, nothing but blank wall space and the night.
He glares at me as he lies back down.
“Go back to sleep.”
I can’t.
I want to, because that is where Phillip waits, but now there is something here, something ominous. I feel it. I feel it.
I squeeze my eyes closed, immersing myself in darkness, and try to will the evil beings to leave. I count to ten and when I open them, the beings are gone, but there is blood.
Blood
Blood
Blood.
Streaming down the walls, flooding the floor, drifting beside the bed. Aghast, I drop my hand in it, and bring it to my mouth. I taste it, and it is sweet, and I can tell that it is mine. I can smell myself in it and the omen is clear.
I will die.
I just don’t know when,
Or how.
The blood swirls around me, and I close my eyes, and when I open them in the morning, the blood is gone, but it is still in my mind, and I still know what it means.
I call my mother after Richard leaves for the day and she comes immediately.
She looks into my eyes, and feels my fingers and wrists, and tests my pulse.
When she pulls away, she won’t look at me, and her eyes are so so sad.
“Was the blood black or red?”
“Crimson,” I tell her.
“Was it sweet or sour?”
“Sweet.”
“You’re sure it was your own?” But my mother’s voice lacks hope. She knows what I will say.
“Yes.”
She sighs, and it’s a forlorn sound and it echoes through the rooms.
“My girl, my girl. What have you done? You are a daughter of Salome. It was never supposed to be you.”
I wince at the name, the name I’ve heard from the time I was born. Salome, the mysterious ancient woman of whom I’m supposed to be a descendant. My mother wears that fact like a badge of honor, but to me, it’s nothing. Salome was a woman, and that is that. But my mother takes the stories seriously.
“It never had to be you,” she repeats. “If only you had listened to me. He wasn’t good for you. He has caused this.”
By he, I know she means Phillip, and her words anger me.
“He was the only good thing in my life,” I tell her, and I see red with my rage. “He never asked me for anything. He loved me for me, he didn’t love me for what I could provide him with, or for what I could do for him.”
My mother actually flinches at my words, because she sees the barb for what it is. She knows that I was born for a purpose, and while she has loved me my whole life, that doesn’t change the purpose.
“I love you, girl,” she croaks. “Nothing can change that.”
“I will die,” I tell her firmly and li
mply and matter-of-factly. “That changes everything.”
My mother can’t argue because she knows that much is true.
Chapter Eight
The stories
The stories
The stories.
The rich stories that I’ve been told since I was small swirl in my head and I see the vibrant words and rich tapestries come together in front of me.
Salome.
The step-daughter of the ancient and great King Herod.
She danced for him one fateful night, a dance so full of seduction that he’d told her that any wish she had was hers, that he’d give her anything. She’d demanded the head of John the Baptist, and Herod had delivered it on a silver platter.
She was a seductress, she was wily, she was brilliant.
Her blood is my blood.
She dabbled in black magic and necromancy, and she became powerful and great. She had a line of great descendants, and I am one of them. Her blood would always avenge her, she said. I am her blood.
I am her blood.
Am I crazy?
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and ponder the stories and feel my child under my hand, moving moving moving, and I don’t know if I’m crazy.
Was the story of Salome real? Or have I imagined her?
Is my pregnancy causing me to be sick?
Am I hallucinating?
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know.
All I know is that every night, I see the blood. It fills my room like a great great ocean, and last night, a woman pulled herself from it. She was covered in it and wearing a silver ring.
“This is yours,” she uttered in a hoarse hoarse voice, and I’ve seen the ring before, but I can’t think of where.
I don’t take it, because I feel the energy coming from it. I feel it from here, from my bed. I close my eyes and Phillip is there, and the room is not bloody, and I am drenched in sweat.
“My heart,” he croons and he holds me, and Richard doesn’t even wake up. “My heart. It is almost time. Come to me.”
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