“Now, now, enough of that,” said the maid gruffly. “Her Grace said no such thing. She’s been away from Rothfield Park for nearly two years now. You were too young to hear such things.”
“I know what I heard,” Margaret said defiantly. “She lied. I saw a letter father burned in the fireplace. I couldn’t read it all, but it was from her—”
“Now, Lady Margaret—”
“It said that she did not want to see either of us again. And that if father wanted a male heir he would have to have it himself.”
Imogen saw the girl shiver before lifting her chin with a regal air. Her little eyes watched the maid carefully for a reaction. The woman merely shrugged and said nothing. Imogen wanted to hug the child and reassure her, and she wanted to slug the maid for her indifferent treatment of the girl’s feelings. It was obvious that Margaret was lonely for her parents and needed comforting. She could well understand. Although her own mother did not leave the family, she did constantly remind her oldest daughter how much she was to blame for her all her life’s unhappiness.
“Why doesn’t father have a male heir on his own?” asked Margaret. “I should like a brother.”
“Lady Margaret, you know well enough that women carry the babes. I will hear no more of your nonsense, lest I have to inform your father of it.” The maid needlessly slapped the coverlet free of wrinkles as she made her way around the bed.
Imogen ground her teeth in frustration, wanting to scream until she was heard. Her fists balled at her sides as she tried to stand in the maid’s way, determined the woman should see her. The woman reached through her, picking up a glove from the floor.
Suddenly a foreboding chill worked up the back of Imogen’s spine. The maid passed through her again, the air stirring over her flesh, but the maid’s passing was not what caused her chill. At first it was a slight tingle, but quickly it grew to slam into her like a stout winter breeze from behind.
Imogen glanced at the maid, hearing her exclamation next to her. The maid’s eyes were rounded in horror. Margaret paled, backing up into a corner of her room with shaking steps. Imogen shivered, terrified by their pallid expressions.
“By All the Blessed Saints!” the maid uttered. She tore out of the room as fast as her feet would carry her without a backwards glance.
“Mary? Don’t leave me!” Margaret screamed, her small hand reaching out to the servant. Her cry went unanswered. Her eyes rounded so wide that they flooded her face with frightened tears.
Mist began to curl over the floor from behind Imogen, binding her feet to the floor like shackles. Shaking violently, she turned to look over her shoulder. Margaret’s crying echoed loudly. Her gaze found first the fire, growing frisky in the fireplace, but she could not feel the fire’s heat. It was as cold as death in the sunny bedroom. A dog began to bark violently, a loud ugly sound that reverberated darkly in the chamber. Imogen heard a snarl, extinguishing Margaret’s frightened whimpers.
Behind Imogen a knight stood. He was a tall figure, swathed in lethal armor. The metal plates fitted to his skin, the links marred and caked with blood. In his hand rested a sword, standing proud and tall as it pointed maliciously into the air. The weapon gleamed brightly. The blue steel of the blade was clean and bright as it reflected the firelight.
Atop his head rested a helmet, gruesome spikes jutting out from the cheek plates. A narrow slit showed only the black gaze of his deadly eyes as they searched over the chamber to finally land on the quivering child. Margaret sniffed, frozen in her fear.
Imogen was propelled to action. Even though Margaret couldn’t see her, she rushed to the girl. She tried to shield Margaret’s body with her own. The figure loomed forward, his breath coming like the snarl of his dog. The knight said nothing as he once more looked around the room in confusion. His dark, soulless eyes searched, only to rest finally on the now frantically screaming girl.
An enraged growl escaped the knight’s lips, its sound as endless as a bottomless well. His black companion’s fangs dripped with spit and blood, the mist coming out of the dog’s mouth with each breath to fill the room with an evil cloud.
Margaret’s little voice began to plead, her howls dying into a fearful sniffle. She tried to bury her body into the comfortless press of the wall.
Imogen could feel the child shaking, and knew she felt desperately afraid and alone. Just like the child and maid, the knight didn’t see her. His eyes skimmed past her. It did not lessen her fear. She wrapped her arm around Margaret willing the girl to feel her. As the last of the monster’s growl subsided into the harsh silence of their breathing, the knight lifted his hand to the fire. He grabbed the flame from the distance, controlling it with his will, pulling it out like a serpent from hell.
“Come get me, father, come get me,” Margaret repeated in a desperate whisper, over and over. Her hands clutched frantically at the wall, her little bleeding fingers digging holes into the plaster, crumbling it to the floor. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. Come get me.”
With a swing of his arm, the knight threw the flame onto Margaret. Imogen saw it coming toward them. Her scream joined the girl’s as the intense heat flooded their skin. She tightly closed her eyes to it, hearing the roar around them, drowning the sound of Margaret’s screams from their ears. Melted flesh dripped over Imogen’s hands in rivers of blood. She kept herself closed to it.
When the roaring stopped, the child’s crying remained. Imogen felt Margaret stir in her arms. The texture rubbing against her flesh was not that of a smooth child. Skeletal hands of rotting tissue pulled frantically at the front of her gown. As she slowly peered down, lidless eyes stared back at her. Imogen gagged, smelling the reek of burnt flesh. Smoke curled from the variegated texture of Margaret’s face and neck, whispering out of the two flat holes of her missing nose. Imogen’s first impulse was disgust. She wanted to push the child away and run.
The child wailed, pitiful and scared. Imogen pulled her closer, trembling as she forced herself to stroke the chunks of melted curls barely covering a bleeding skull. The soot from Margaret’s skin blackened Imogen’s gown. Her blood spilled forth onto Imogen’s fingers.
“It’s all right,” whispered Imogen in a feeble attempt to calm her. She tried not to breathe. In truth, she didn’t know if it was all right. She didn’t know when the knight would come back for the girl. For come the knight would. Imogen had seen him swoop the child atop his steed. She closed her eyes to the charred body in her arms as she gently rocked the girl. “It’s all right. He’s gone. I won’t let him hurt you anymore. I will protect you. Just stay with me. Don’t leave. I’ll keep you safe.”
The child’s hand lifted, covered by the sleeve of the scorched yellow dress dark with ash. The red and black mass of her scarred face began to fill, her lips growing around her teeth. Margaret sniffed, pulling away. Imogen opened her eyes as the tears subsided. In a flash the blood disappeared, the soot melted from her gown to the burnt floor.
“This is the part where Father comes,” whispered the girl. “I can’t be here. He’ll be mad that his house is burnt.”
“No,” Imogen whispered. “No one is coming. Stay here with me. I will protect you.”
“I don’t want to see him. He didn’t come for me. He never comes for me. Always the demon comes, but never my father. When mother left he promised to take care of me. He lied.” The child said in resentment. She tore free of Imogen’s arms, standing and backing away. With an urgent gasp, she whispered, “I must go. He’s coming.”
“What do you mean? Go where?” asked Imogen. Glancing around the room, she saw that it was scorched. The breeze blew in from outside. The fire was gone from the fireplace, leaving a crumbling hollow shell in its wake. Imogen’s arms fell helplessly to her lap. Margaret disappeared into the wind. Her body blurred as her spirit vanished.
Glancing at her hands, Imogen took a deep breath. Her whole body trembled. She didn’t understand, but she was unable to deny what she had seen and felt.
Beside her was the corpse of the child. She could see the yellow of her gown peeking from beneath the ashes, her charred face but a skull with sunken features. Her small hands wrapped around the bony impression of her arms and legs, as she slept eternally curled into a fetal ball. She was no bigger than the size of the small trunk.
Imogen’s breath rushed with fear. The acrid smell of burning flesh imbedded in her clothes, her skin. She tried not to breathe it. Tears moistened her eyes, but she couldn’t cry. She was too scared to make a sound. The ash did not stir as she slowly climbed to her feet. Her legs swayed unsteadily. She looked around. She didn’t know what she was to do. She didn’t know how to escape the nightmare she had been brought into, and she didn’t know what it was she was supposed to see.
Imogen blindly eyed at the remains of furniture. The fire the knight had started had spread through other areas of the house. Numbly, her eyes traveled over the bed. She could see the sooted faces of Margaret’s dolls staring back at her from the rubble, mimicking the death of the child’s corpse.
“Margaret!” came a wild call from the charred door hanging limply on the frame. The cry was desperate, the voice too familiar to Imogen.
Imogen gasped. Her eyes stared at the door in disbelief. Her heart refused to beat, her lungs stilled. And then he was there. It was Dougal, not as she knew him, but as a nobleman from the past. His clothes were fine and rich, from the silk stockings hugging his calves to the long coat with braided trim. Imogen realized the fashion was at least fifty years old if not more. His face was strained with disbelief as he stumbled into the blistered ashes of his daughter’s bedroom.
Imogen’s tears spilled down her cheeks. She remained silent, wondering if at last Dougal would see her. He looked past her. Imogen quickly moved to stand before him, to block his view of the girl. With a swipe of her eyes, she held her hands to stop him from seeing. Bracing herself, she stepped forward to push him back. His body passed through hers. For a moment, she felt him inside of her, felt his pain, close to her as he passed over her heart.
“No, no,” he said, pulling the powdered wig from his head. It dropped from his hands to land in the soot, sprinkling the white flecks like falling snow. The pain in his voice was overwhelmed with grief.
“Dougal,” Imogen whispered in mounting despair through her pouring of tears. She shook her head in denial, backing away from him. He did not see her—couldn’t hear her. More insistently, she said, “Dougal? What is happening? Why are you here?”
She watched him fall to his knees, his smell wafting her in the face as he went to gather his daughter’s withered body to his chest. Rocking the ashen remains of the dead girl, he began to cry. It was a pitiful sound that tore at her with the reality of it. She could feel his agony, mixing inside of her with her confusion.
She backed away. It couldn’t be. She would not allow it. But the evidence could not be denied. Dougal was Margaret’s father. Dougal was the Marquis of Rothfield. Dougal was dead. He was a ghost. She was in love with a ghost.
“No,” Imogen insisted, shaking her head in agony. Her lungs could not take air as she tried to heave a tattered breath. “Please God. No. Not him. Not him. Why have you shown me this? Why have you shown me! Make it go away. Oh, Dougal, no. No!”
Dougal did not hear her. Her stomach lurched. Covering her mouth with her hands to keep from retching, she turned to run down the hall. The burnt passageways of the past faded almost instantly into the present. Imogen crashed blindly into walls as she made her way. She didn’t care what happened to her. She wanted to faint. She wanted to die. Dougal was a ghost. He was dead. And she was surrounded only by the sharp betrayal of her love.
* * * *
A day passed under the breaking of Imogen’s heart. The sorrow of her realization was more than she could bear. But bear it she must and so she did with a non-existent smile and eyes that were too bright from her tears. She cried until her body could weep no more, until her eyes grew swollen and red.
At first she hid in her chamber, waiting for the sun to claim the land beyond her window. Its golden rays rose to force back the mists that brought nothing but pain to Rothfield Park.
When the sun delivered its relative safety, Imogen crawled from the corner of her bed. She dressed. Her mechanical actions were more a habit than self-will. Like a corpse walking lifelessly to his grave, she went through the halls. She saw nothing and no one as she found sanctuary in the library to wait for Dougal.
It was worse than if Dougal had unexpectedly died after they came together, for then she would’ve had a chance to recover her heart, and would have known his intentions toward her were honorable. But, he was dead and he had come to her under false pretenses. As a ghost, he did not have to pay the consequences of their actions. She most assuredly did.
And he had, quite possibly, used her. Only too well did she remember his desperation the night she met with Margaret in the garden. Margaret had said she didn’t want to see him and he had appeared desperate to know of her. Could it be that he searched for the child? Could it be he believed she could find the girl for him?
“Then why didn’t he just ask me?” she muttered bitterly, slapping her hands against the arm of her father’s chair. “Why go through the farce of deceiving me?”
She nervously waited out the day in the library. She had no more tears to cry. Imogen forced herself to face him. She wasn’t scared at the prospect of seeing him, just hurt that what she felt could never be. No wonder he was unable to return her sentiments of love. And the knowledge that he had never tried to trick her into loving him redeemed some of his honor.
The day turned to evening. Dougal stayed away. Imogen remained patiently in the library, not once leaving. She would watch for him out the window, never seeing him in the garden. She wondered if he would ever come again. Weakly, she fell back into her father’s chair.
“He should have told me,” stated Imogen with a biting glare directed at her pale hand.
“What?”
Imogen looked up with a gasp. The hatred melted from her icy features. Her heart broke as she saw Dougal’s handsome face. Pensively, he studied her as if waiting to see if she would fight with him. He was even farther from her now than when she believed him to be a poor tutor.
He doesn’t realize I know, thought Imogen in surprise. Swallowing, she turned her eyes away from him and said nothing. She couldn’t speak. Part of her screamed that she was crazy, that she had hallucinated, and when she glanced back up she could see that he was real.
“I wanted to say I was sorry,” he said at last. The disarming dimple on the side of his cheek deepened as he shot her an apologetic smile. “I never meant to hurt you. I was confused. There is a lot that needs to be said between us.”
Not that it matters now, she thought dejectedly to herself, surrounded by her broken dreams of him. She said nothing and carefully turned her eyes away from him lest she begin to cry anew.
“Imogen, please, this isn’t easy for me.” He strode into the room to stand before her. He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Imogen stared at his boots.
Quietly, she whispered, “Why? What are you hiding?”
“I…” he began before turning his head to the side, glancing away from her in frustration. He let loose a long, tired sigh.
Imogen looked up, studying his face with her reddened gaze. His eyes shone with the same steady kindness she had fallen in love with. Dougal leaned over, his arm reaching out as if he would touch her. The fingers trembled and pulled back. She could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, feel the stirs of his breath on her cheek as he desperately waited for her to speak. The fine texture of his skin, the birthmark beneath his eyes, the crease of worry between his brows—it was all there, very real.
For a crazed moment, Imogen wondered if she had dreamt it all, but as she looked at him, she knew it was true. He was dead. Silently, she forced herself to stand. Tears came to her eyes. Dougal tried to smile. His arms widened a
s if he would take her into them.
Imogen opened her mouth, letting loose a piercing scream that echoed shrilly through the library. Dougal jumped back in surprise. His body jerked. His skin faded. His mouth opened with a gurgle, blood pouring over his chin and neck. A long wound formed beneath his jaw, revealing the old slitting of his throat.
Imogen jolted back in terror. She stumbled away from him to the window, desperate to put distance between them. Dougal’s flesh faded to blue, his clothes turning to the white linen of styles past. Crimson stained the white to red as his life’s blood spilled onto his chest. Weakly, his hand lifted to stop her from leaving him. Falling to his knees, he grabbed his gurgling throat. He couldn’t speak.
Imogen watched, horrified. She wanted to go to him, but knew there was nothing she could do to help him. Her heart pounded from her chest to her throat. She had her proof. It brought her no comfort. Her eyes pooled with moisture. Unable to bear seeing him thus, she turned her back on him. Her hands fell against the windowpane. She began to weep.
“Imogen,” she heard at length. Sniffing she lifted her head, but did not move to look at him. Dougal came up behind her, his body returned to normal. She could see the impression of him reflected between her hands on the glass. Her thumb moved to stroke over his reflected cheek. He did not touch her. Whispering mournfully, he asked, “Why did you do that?”
“I had to know,” she said under her breath. Wiping her face on her sleeve, she turned. Gently, she lifted her hand to touch him. Her fingers fell through him like air. Her face contorted with pain as she spat, “Who are you? What do you want from me? Why are you here?”
“Imogen, wait. I wanted to tell you.” He reached to stop her from leaving. She slipped through his grasp. He couldn’t touch her, couldn’t hold her.
“Then why didn’t you? You lied to me. Everything you said was a lie. You’re not my tutor. You’re some dead Marquis haunting me!” Imogen dashed the tears from her face. It did no good. They were replaced by more. “Are you trying to make me crazy? Was it all a lie?”
Mists of Midnight Page 14
