The Victorian Gothic Collection: Volumes 1-3

by Bowlin, Chasity

  He grinned. It was an expression that transformed his features. There was no denying that he was a handsome man, but there was something about him that tended toward the dark and brooding. But that smile gave him the look of a fallen angel, she thought, as beautiful as the morning star himself. It left her unsettled, nervous in his presence for an entirely different reason than she had been before.

  “Will you join me, Miss—Adelaide?” He asked, gesturing to the second chair that had been placed at the small table. “I realize that it is highly irregular for me to be in your chamber unchaperoned, but this is something of an irregular household. And since we are to be married as soon as possible, there’s hardly any harm in it.”

  Again, it was sound reasoning. Adelaide moved forward and settled herself at the small table. Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall when she’d last eaten. Breakfast, she thought, though it had been nothing more than a slice of bread with jam and a bit of coffee. She hadn’t wanted more. Now it made sense why she’d fainted in the foyer of this great house.

  “Did you not eat on the train?” he asked, almost as if he’d plucked the very thoughts from her mind.

  “No. There was no dining car after departing Birmingham and I just didn’t think of it earlier,” she admitted.

  He frowned at that, his dark brows drawing together in concern. “You must eat. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. Such things can leave one prone to more serious illness or complications. It is important now, more than ever, to be certain that you are taking proper care of yourself.”

  “I will not be a burden to you. I suppose it was simply a case of rattled nerves at the thought of traveling such a distance alone,” she admitted.

  “I should have sent someone to accompany you, or better yet, I should have come myself. That would have been the proper thing to do!”

  “I am more than capable of retaining a traveling companion on my own. I did not… Because frankly the idea of being forced to make idle conversation and chit chat with someone for the twelve hour journey was far more than I could stand,” she admitted. “I should tell you now that since the… since the accident, I find that my patience is not what it should be. I will strive to not allow that to get the better of me here.”

  He started to reply, but just then, the wind kicked up outside. It howled through the house, rattling shutters and causing the fire in the hearth to flicker and dance wildly. The sound it made was unlike anything she’d ever heard. It wailed like a woman in pain, the keening cry echoing along the heavy stone walls in a manner that raised gooseflesh on her skin and made the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end. “What on earth is that?”

  “This is an old house, Miss Hampton Parke, full of passages and tunnels… the wind travels through them, around long sealed doors and windows. It creates a racket that, I grant you, can be unnerving at first. Like many things about life at Cysgod Lys, you will become accustomed to it… I must go and look in on my mother. She is not well,” he offered vaguely. “The wind upsets her greatly and very little will calm her when that occurs. Please, eat and once you’ve had a good night’s sleep, we can discuss all the pertinent arrangements in the morning.”

  He rose and walked toward the door, pausing before he made his exit. “If you have need of anything through the night, please do not hesitate to ring for one of the servants. I bid you goodnight.”

  Adelaide watched him leave. He’d been deliberately vague about his mother’s condition and his explanation of the noises that had thundered through the house had been far too pat. Was he lying? And if so, what on earth for?

  Lifting the lid from the soup tureen, she ladled a small amount of it into her bowl. It was fragrant and tasted well enough, but she had no appetite, even without having eaten for the entirety of the day. Still, she forced herself to take as many spoonfuls as she could stomach. All the while, she waited with bated breath for that horrible shrieking sound to come again and terrify her out of her wits.

  * * *

  Eldren made his way down the hall to his mother’s chamber. The screaming had ceased, but inside, he could hear the broken sobs that always followed one of her spells. No doubt when he opened the door, there would be broken glass and rent fabric throughout. It amazed him that a woman so small, so delicate and frail in appearance, could fly into such a rage that she could shred the strongest of fabrics with her bare hands. She’d smashed furniture before when he couldn’t even fathom how she’d lifted it.

  Opening the door, he stepped into the small sitting room that adjoined her bedchamber. It was left unlocked, as was the outer door to her dressing chamber. But the door to her actual bedchamber was locked at present. Given the vagary of her moods, that could shift and change. Sometimes she had the run of her suite. At others, she was confined only to that one room. The risk was too great otherwise. On nights such as this one, and it was always worse when it stormed, she lost all reason and could do great harm to herself or others.

  Crossing the room to the small chest that rested atop a table, he withdrew the black leather case that contained the syringe and the medication that had been prescribed by her latest physician. Drawing up the amber liquid from the vial, he then moved towards her chamber door, careful to make no noise as he unlocked it. It would not be the first time she had rushed the door as he entered. She’d made it as far as the stone fence that separated the house from the moor the last time. It could not be permitted to happen again.

  Entering the chamber, he found her kneeling on the floor. Two large footmen held her arms as they attempted to place the restraint jacket on her. Her head was thrown back, every muscle and cord in it standing out in stark relief as she strained against them. Her eyes were wild, and the sobbing had given way to grunts and growls, the sounds more animalistic than human.

  “Mrs. Alberson,” he said to her nurse, “Take this and I will help them.”

  “It’ll only make her worse, my lord,” the nurse replied, but dutifully she came forward and accepted the syringe from him.

  “She can get no worse. It might upset her to see my face, but it’s of no matter now. She’s already overcome,” Eldren replied.

  Moving towards her, he took the jacket from the footman and began working it over her arms as the footmen held her. It all went well until he had to move in front of her and she saw his face. The screaming began again, louder and more terrifying than before. As he struggled with the various buckles and straps, she hissed at him, she spat in his face, and she even attempted to bite him. When she’d shouted until her voice was no more, giving way only to the hoarsest of croaks, she uttered the words that always broke his heart. “You killed him! You took him from me,” she accused. “It should be you, Amner, rotting in that grave! It should be you and not my precious son!”

  He didn’t correct her when she called him by his father’s name. Nor did he deny the truth of it. Her son had been killed, and he had done it. He’d killed his own brother, his twin no less, because his brother had been consumed by the same madness that now afflicted their mother. In that madness, she’d forgotten Eldren entirely. She only acknowledged four of the five children she had birthed. His twin, elder by ten minutes and gone from their mortal plane for nigh on a decade, Warren, and the two sisters, Fanny and Leola, who had died as children, likely from their eldest brother’s cruelty. She acted as though he had never existed. Alden had been the most vicious, brutal boy to have ever lived and yet their mother had loved him above all else.

  Once the restraint was in place, he helped them lift her, still kicking and struggling onto the bed, where yet more restraints were placed at her ankles and the jacket itself was fastened to brackets bolted to the floor beside the bed. The injection was administered via one of the veins that protruded from her neck, engorged from her exertions and the unnatural tension of her muscles.

  “The devil will take you,” she said. “The devil will take you for all that you have made me suffer.”

  Eldren didn’t answer. She might be
a lunatic, but even in the midst of her insanity, she often spoke the truth.

  Rising, he turned back to Mrs. Alberson, “If she awakens again and is agitated, you may give her more but not before three in the morning, I would think. If you cannot administer it, have me awakened and I will do so.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Mrs. Alberson said. As he passed her, she spoke again, “I hope your betrothed has improved, my lord. I heard she was given a terrible fright as she traveled here.”

  “She was, Mrs. Alberson. But I daresay she will rally. It appears that Miss Hampton Parke is indeed made from sturdy stock, as Frances put it.” He turned his head, his gaze resting once more on his mother’s now drugged and pliant form. He hated her. He hated himself. Everything about their lives was a misery and he was bringing an innocent girl into their midsts. “Thank you for caring for her.”

  Eldren left the room and didn’t look back. There were no tears to shed, no mournful prayers for his mother that he had not already uttered. But dealing with her in such a state had left him far too agitated to sleep. So, he did what he always did and made for the cellars and the heavy bag that hung there and allowed him to pound his frustrations into something that would never be hurt by them, that would never prompt even more guilt to burden his already overwhelmed shoulders.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was sometime in the wee hours when Adelaide awoke again. She wasn’t entirely certain what had dragged her from her restless slumber. As she had once more been dreaming of those final fateful hours aboard the Mohegan, it was a relief in some ways to have been pulled from it.

  But there in the darkness, in an unfamiliar and decidedly odd house, Adelaide didn’t feel relief. She felt something else entirely. There was an oppressiveness in the room, a feeling of something she hesitated to label impending doom. Yet that was precisely what she felt. Watched. Observed. Threatened. It was like what she’d felt on the moor, she thought, but so much stronger. The intensity of it was overwhelming.

  She had almost succeeded in convincing herself it was nothing more than her own overactive imagination. Until her eyes were drawn to the far corner of the room. The shadows there were impossibly thick, so black her gaze could not penetrate them. It seemed unnatural somehow. The dim glow of the hearth and the faint light filtering between the curtains was enough that the rest of the room was covered in shades of gray and a soft orange glow near the fireplace. Yet that corner was blacker than pitch. Staring at it with dawning terror, Adelaide felt her heart thundering in her chest.

  Reaching for the wrapper draped across the foot of her bed, she drew it to her and clutched it to her chest. Easing from the far side of the bed, keeping it between herself and that growing, spreading darkness, she made for the door. But as she neared it, she dared to look behind her. The darkness was gone. That corner was no longer black. Within it, she could see the large ornamental vase and the outline of a framed painting on the wall.

  Puzzled, wondering if she’d dreamt it or if she was in fact losing her senses, Adelaide stood there, frozen to the spot. Until she felt something twining about her ankle. Thinking it was the ties of the wrapper dangling free, she looked down and a scream burned in her throat, the muscles to frozen too with fear to let it emerge. The darkness was pouring in beneath the crack under the door, twining around her feet and ankles. Sucking her down as surely as the black waters of the Atlantic had tried to do.

  Stumbling back, she reached the safety of the bed and clambered up onto it. Her gaze never left the door and the writhing black shadows that seemed to be pouring beneath it. Like a nest of snakes, it moved like liquid, like something living.

  It wasn’t the same as the feeling on the moor, after all. It was worse. So much worse. This, alone in that chamber with only a thin nightrail to shield her, felt much more sinister.

  With her back pressed to the massive, carved headboard, she watched it like a hawk and prayed for the dawn.

  * * *

  In the morning, Adelaide was seated in a chair before the hearth. Hollow eyed and exhausted, she found herself questioning everything from her decision to travel to a remote and desolate location in Wales to whether or not her own senses could be trusted.

  The events of the night before, the dark mass that had seemed to grow and undulate in the shadows of the room seemed distant but no less terrifying. But the dawn had brought doubt. Doubt of her senses, of her sanity, of her current grasp on reality. Had it been nothing more than a dream, a waking nightmare where she hadn’t managed to fully rouse her terrorized mind? With the morning sun streaming in, there were questions now about whether or not things had occurred as she recalled them or if those horrible moments of terror in the darkness had been a result of her many recent traumas and exhaustion. Heaven knew her life had been turned upside down and that alone would be enough to perhaps loosen her hold on reality to some degree. She’d been beyond physically exhausted by the rigors of her journey, and she’d not been at her best even before it had begun.

  A soft knock on the door drew her from her musings and she called out softly for them to enter. The same maid who’d attended her the night before entered bearing a tray of tea or coffee. She wasn’t certain which. It was placed on the table before her and then the girl began tidying up.

  “His lordship sent footmen to get your bags from Mr. Waddington’s cart last night and a cart has been sent to fetch the rest of them this morning from the station, miss,” the maid explained as she bustled about the room, straightening the bed clothes.

  “That was very kind of him,” Adelaide said.

  “His lordship has always been very kind, miss,” the maid offered reassuringly, a nervous smile pasted on her lips. “When you’re ready, I’ll help you dress so you may go down for breakfast. Or if you prefer to remain here, some can be brought up to you.”

  No, she did not care to stay there. She wanted to be free of that room, at least for a few hours. It was a vain hope that she might be able to entirely forget the events of the night before but at least getting out of it for a bit might help her to feel somewhat more secure.

  “I daresay it was a good thing his lordship sent for your things. Mr. Waddington isn’t to be trusted,” the maid said. The words were uttered softly and beneath her breath, almost as if she spoke more to herself than to Adelaide.

  Her ears perked at that and Adelaide demanded, “He would steal my clothes? Mr. Waddington? What on earth for?”

  The maid blanched, clearly taken aback at having been heard. “I don’t mean to imply that Mr. Waddington is a thief! Oh, no, miss! Not that at all. It’s only that, he can be a bit petty if he takes it into his head that he’s been wronged. And since the earl gave him such a dressing down this morning, he’d likely be in a mood to do something to get even like,” the girl explained. “A favorite dress would fall from a trunk and get trampled in the mud, or your trunks would be scratched, locks or straps broken—that sort of thing. Childish really, more than truly harmful.”

  “Why on earth does Mr.—does the earl keep him on then?” Addy asked as the maid dressed her hair, piling the dark mass atop her head in a loose chignon before tugging several strands loose and leaving them to curl becomingly over Adelaide’s shoulder.

  The girl’s face became a mask at that moment. Open and friendly faded away to be replaced by an expression that was hard and secretive. “I cannot say why the earl does anything, miss. It is not my place to do so… just as it was not my place to gossip about Mr. Waddington. I apologize for making free with my tongue and saying what I ought not have. I can have one of the other girls attend you from now on, if you prefer, miss.”

  “Oh, no, Dyllis… I’m not angry at you or displeased with you in anyway. I certainly didn’t mean to give that impression! I’d much rather have you continue on with me. You’ve rather done wonders with my hair,” Adelaide replied. While it was true, that the girl had managed to arrange the thick mass into a pleasing style, she also understood that a bit of flattery might go a long way.
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br />   The maid blushed a bit, but a proud smile curved the girl’s lips. “Thank you, miss. It is very kind of you to say so. If you don’t require anything else of me now, I’ll be heading back downstairs to help out in the kitchens.”

  “I don’t need anything else for now, Dyllis. Thank you… What are the meals here? Do you have luncheon or tea? Is supper an elaborate affair? I’m afraid I’m a bit out of my depth.”

  “His lordship does like to have luncheon served, though most folks here about don’t do that. He says he got into the habit in America and quite likes it. It is usually served around one o’clock. Supper is formal and served in the dining room promptly at seven. Tromley, that’s the butler, miss, he will sound the dressing gong at a bit after six and then I’ll come to assist you.”

  When the maid had curtsied yet again and left, Adelaide rose from her dressing table and gave herself a cursory inspection in the full length cheval mirror. There was nothing to be done for the unrelieved black she wore or the dark circles beneath her eyes. If they remained in the country and she did not travel with Eldren after they married, she would likely not stay in mourning for the full year because it simply horrified her to look at if everyday and be reminded of why she wore it. By the same token, the gowns she’d bought in Paris would hardly be appropriate for country life. They had been intended for glittering social affairs in New York, after all. She’d need to see about obtaining some simple walking dresses and less ornate evening wear that would be suitable for their current situation.

  Her face was more pale than usual and with deep shadows beneath her eyes, there was no hope of impressing her future husband with her charms. It had been a restless night, and yet looking at herself, Adelaide recognized that it was more than just lack of sleep or the after effects of the terrible fright she’d endured.