by Darcy Burke
“I see the roses have lost their bloom,” Mr. Waldegrave said softly. “Would you like me to bring you some new ones?”
“No,” Lillian whispered. And then slowly lifted her gaze toward Violet.
Violet’s fingers clenched at the abject misery reflected in Lillian’s blank gray eyes. Her actions were vicious, angry, vengeful, but she was not fighting her father after all. She was fighting despair.
This little girl was lashing out only because she didn’t know what else to do. Violet’s throat tightened. She knew despair intimately... and hated seeing it in the face of a child. She was at Lillian’s side within seconds.
“Leave us for a moment,” she murmured to her new employer. “Please.”
His incredulous gaze snapped toward her. His strong hands (one of which now bore ruddy teeth marks) fell from his daughter’s thin shoulders. “I hardly think that’s wise. For years, no one but me has been able to touch her.”
How many had even tried? Violet was not afraid of being pushed or bitten. She’d survived far worse over the years. She was more afraid of not giving the right first impression—that of ally, not enemy. But how could she convince Lillian that she was on her side?
Gently, carefully, Violet pulled the child’s wooden body into her arms. As anticipated, Lillian immediately began to buck and fight. Violet simply hugged her tighter, ignoring the elbow jabbing into her belly and the tears in her eyes from her chin being half-shattered by a blow from the back of Lillian’s head.
“Get. Off. Me.” Lillian kicked backward at Violet’s shins. “Go away. I hate you, too!”
“You’re entitled to,” Violet said calmly. “But I don’t hate you. As it happens, you remind me of someone I used to know. Someone I liked very much.”
Many, many someones. Her fellow exhausted children from the workhouse. The skinny mongrels fighting for the same scraps of food in the rubbish behind abandoned food stands. The empty eyes of the world-weary orphans who’d given themselves up for dead before they were rescued by the Livingstone School for Girls. Every single one of them had fought or growled or bit or said “Go away” when what they all really meant was “Come back” and “Stay here” and “I don’t want to be invisible anymore.”
Violet pressed a kiss to the back of Lillian’s matted head. Low, so only Lillian could hear, Violet whispered the words she’d longed for throughout her entire childhood. Words that never came. “You’re safe. Shh, now. You can’t scare me away. I’m here to help. I came for you.”
The fight fell out of Lillian’s limbs. Silent tears rolled down her face.
Alarmed, Mr. Waldegrave rushed forward.
“Miss Smythe, that’s quite enough. I won’t have you upsetting my child.” Holding his arms open for his daughter, he closed the distance between them. “I’m afraid I will have to ask you to leave Waldegrave Abbey and seek employment elsewh—”
Lillian kicked him in the shins.
Mr. Waldegrave froze, his pale lips still parted but his words forgotten. A spark of something that might’ve been hurt or might’ve simply been confusion flickered briefly in his eyes. He held out his hands to his daughter, palms up, in supplication. “Lillian?”
Violet released the little girl. Rather than scramble away or resume her attack against her father or new governess, Lillian wiped her face on the sleeve of her expensive gown and straightened her spine.
“Go away,” she commanded, arms crossed and voice trembling.
“She will, sweetling. I just told her to—”
Lillian leaned against Violet’s torso. “Not her. You.”
This time, the pain etched across his granite face was unmistakable.
Violet longed to say something to ease his hurt, to tell him what Lillian really wanted was for him to stay, that she lashed out at him only because she was hurting and wanted someone to acknowledge her pain. But to do any of that right here, right now, would undermine the fragile bond she’d established with her new charge. And Violet knew girls like Lillian, knew herself well enough to recognize that without trust, there would be nothing. As much as Lillian needed her father, what she truly yearned for was to be listened to. Acknowledged. Treated as someone capable of knowing her own mind.
What Violet did say was, “When I accepted this position, Mr. Waldegrave, we agreed upon one month’s contract. Miss Lillian has asked for a moment’s privacy so that we might get to know one another. Please feel free to attend to other duties for a moment. We will be fine.”
Lillian turned and stared up at Violet, pale eyes wide with shock at having been not only taken seriously, but sided with.
Mr. Waldegrave’s open arms fell limply to his sides. “Are those your wishes, daughter?”
Lillian hesitated, then lifted her chin high. “Yes, Papa.”
“Very well.” His dark gaze colder than ever, he turned and quit the chamber without another word.
The door locked tight behind him.
***
After leaving the new governess inside the sanctuary with his only child, Alistair was sorely tempted to drop to the dirt floor, sag against the crumbling stones, and bury his face in his hands.
He allowed himself no such weakness, of course. There was no time to waste sitting about feeling hopeless when he was the only person he could count on to work toward improving their lot. There must be a cure. Somewhere. Somehow. And he would find it.
Lillian could not continue this way. Could. Not. The necessary protective measures were killing her as surely as her disease. He would trade his life to improve hers, if only it were an option. He loved her above all else.
And she hated him.
Most days, he hated himself, too. Except for those brief moments when he foolishly thought he was making progress. During those fancies, he was delirious with relief and joy ... For a time. The truth always caught up with him. Failure always caught up with him. God help him, he could not continue this way. But he must. For Lillian.
When he reached the far side of the catacomb, he unlocked the thick door and let himself into an empty hallway. Faint light sputtered from the candle in his fist. He’d forgotten to retrieve a new taper, and now he held but a nub. Not that it mattered. He knew Waldegrave Abbey as well as those who’d built the complex centuries ago. He’d been born here ... and spent years in its darkness.
He made his way to his office before the candle flame finally died. He tossed the tiny wick into the rubbish and stared gloomily at the pince-nez resting atop a pile of unsent correspondence. It was late. He would post missives in the morning. He needed something else, something mindless, something to keep his mind off of—
Lillian. The roses beside her bed had been slumped crisscross over the lip of the crystal vase, their wilted petals crumbling atop her small escritoire, as they did every week. He retrieved a worn pair of shears from atop his desk and quit the office. He would cut more. Again.
As the automatic locking mechanism clicked back into place, Alistair’s manservant materialized in the shadowed passageway. Roper said nothing—gloriously, he rarely spoke unless he had some important intelligence to convey—but today there was a different quality to his silent presence. As if there were something he wished he could say, and yet, could not.
“Out with it, Roper.”
A hint of pink flushed the man’s swarthy face, discernible only because the gnarled scars across his left cheek stood starkly pale in comparison. “It’s ... the new governess, master.”
The new governess. Yes. Alistair turned his gaze to the gardening shears in his hands in order to prevent his manservant from reading uncomfortable truths in his eyes. Like how much it hurt to have Lillian prefer the company of a total stranger to that of her own father. Or how guilty he felt to dare hope he finally had someone to share the load.
When he’d seen the young woman lying upon his doorstep, he had believed the wayward “Violet Smythe” a disoriented guttersnipe. Nonetheless, he’d ordered her a bath, ordered her tattered garments washed, and i
ntended to order her back out to the streets after offering her cheese and biscuits and perhaps a farthing or two, which would as likely be spent on cheap gin as anything.
But the creature he’d been presented with in the prayer room had been anything but a guttersnipe.
He’d just finished innumerable unanswered pleas to God, and turned to behold a grown woman, in her mid-twenties. The gown she wore was shabby from overuse, but fell perfectly against her too-slender frame. Her skin was an unfashionable bronze, but flawless and smooth across high cheekbones and scandalously bare arms. Her eyes were a blue so deep one almost believed them purple—no doubt why she’d given herself the false name of “Violet”—and framed by eyelashes as thick and rich as her unbound hair. The auburn tresses had been damp and lifeless at first, but during the course of the conversation, they’d dried into big, looping curls about her face and shoulders. The ringlets tumbled halfway to her hips. She looked a perfect angel.
Miss Smythe, he had realized in shock, was stunningly beautiful. With a few more pounds on her frame and a decent gown to accentuate the results, she’d be breathtaking. She was the last thing he needed.
“What about the new governess?” he demanded gruffly.
Roper hesitated. “What do we know about her?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Alistair returned. “And by the grace of God, that’s precisely how much she knows about us. That is the only way this arrangement could even work.”
“But two pounds per week, Master. It’s ...”
Ah. The money. Truth be told, any young lady who landed upon a doorstep in as ragged condition as had Miss Smythe, must be in far greater need of those two coins than Alistair. However, he could well understand Roper’s concerns. Regardless of Alistair’s flush pockets, two pounds per week was an outlandish sum to promise a strange woman of unknown origin.
“I will hardly miss it. And Lillian’s education is worth any price.” Nonetheless, Alistair recognized this hope as the fanciful dream that it was. In nine years, his daughter had never permitted him to teach her so much as basic sums. “If Miss Smythe manages to achieve any improvement with Lillian, she will walk out of Waldegrave Abbey having earned every penny.”
Roper nodded slowly. He might or might not agree with his master’s decision, but he understood the logic and the emotion behind it, and would suffer his role as silent watcher without complaint. “Where is the young lady now?”
Alistair motioned in the direction of the shadowed passageway. “With Lillian.”
His manservant choked, his face purple beneath his scars. “Alone?”
“Lillian invited her to stay,” Alistair said simply. Although nothing was simple. Within seconds of her arrival, the fair stranger had already wrought her first miracle. He just wished Miss Smythe’s magic hadn’t made him feel so ... trivial.
Roper appeared to be suffering apoplexy on the spot. “Miss Lillian ... invited ...?”
Alistair fit his fingers into the handle of the shears and stretched open the blades. The shears were old, but still strong and serviceable. He sharpened them after every moonlit trip to the garden—which is where he would be now, were it not for his anxious manservant. He closed the blades with a snap.
“I’m going to take some air. Stay by the bells, should Lillian ring.”
Without waiting for a response, Alistair sidestepped his manservant. Bracing himself against the onslaught of a chill Shrewsbury breeze, he stepped out into the twilight.
He yearned to tilt his face up at the stars, to greet his old friends Hercules and Draco, but did not indulge the desire. Not if he couldn’t share the night sky with his daughter. Oh, how he wished to. But the last time, she had run off and nearly died from the breaking dawn. He would not take that risk again. Even though it was past twilight, he himself wouldn’t even be out-of-doors, were it not for the goal of bringing some small piece of the outside world to his daughter. Fresh roses, every week.
He pocketed the garden shears and approached with caution. As always, an explosion of flowers bloomed about Marjorie as if her mere touch could cause the tiniest seed to blossom. Inhaling their scent, he turned his back to the light of the moon.
His shadow fell upon the closer of two gravestones. His gaze locked on the stark letters etched therein. He would never forget the first of March, 1826. The morning of his daughter’s birth. And the morning of his wife’s death, as well as the death of life as Alistair knew it. Forever.
He had to rely on his memory in order to gaze upon his wife’s angelic face, for she lay in a casket six feet below the scented petals. And because he could not provide Lillian with her mother, he offered what little he could: stories. The more imperfect their lives became, the more perfect Marjorie shone in his memory and in his tales. And why not? He had thus far been unable to give Lillian anything else that she wanted. The least he could give her was a goddess for a mother. An angel who had returned to the heavens.
As the years went by, the sharpness of his grief had dulled. What his daughter really needed was a mother in flesh and blood. Someone just as good-hearted, just as pure of body and soul, just as perfect as the one she’d lost. He would not offer her anything less. He only wished he could give her so much more. First, however, he would have to cure her disease.
Only then could Lillian find joy at last. And only then would he deserve his own peace. To be worthy of his daughter’s love. To forgive himself.
CHAPTER FOUR
Long after the door locked shut behind her retreating father, Lillian remained a silent doll, devoid of all animation. Violet hugged the little girl’s unresponsive body to her chest. Both of them facing the closed door, Violet rested her cheek against the dark tangle of Lillian’s hair.
Violet wished she could think of something comforting to say. She ached to assure the child that everything was all right, or at the very least soon would be. But clearly that was not the case, and Violet refused to lie to children. They endured enough.
A drop of wetness streaked down one of Lillian’s pale cheeks.
“Oh, honey.” Violet sank to the floor and pulled Lillian into her lap. “I know, love. I know.”
“You don’t know. You can’t know. And for that, I hate you, too. I hate everyone. I hate everything.” Lillian wept brokenly. “I just want to see the sun.”
Violet’s chest constricted in empathy. “I don’t blame you in the least. But your father says—”
“The sun’s rays will kill me. I know. It’s true.” Lillian stopped crying, and her voice dropped almost too low to overhear. “But it would be worth it.”
At those anguished words, Violet’s eyes threatened tears of their own. She fought the sting, careful not to blink. She had to be strong for the child’s sake. Violet rested Lillian’s head against her shoulder and began to rock gently to and fro.
How often had Violet felt so desperate that death seemed the only way to escape bitter reality? Every single moment of her cursed childhood. Lillian had not suffered the physical torments that Violet had endured, but the stark emotional despair was exactly the same. After all, once everything of value was taken away, feelings were all that remained. And the one person impossible to hide from was oneself.
Lillian sniffled. The flow of her tears seemed to have abated, but she made no attempt to quit the warmth of Violet’s embrace.
Violet could understand the need for comfort, as well. She herself had given up on hoping for a savior long before she’d reached adolescence. Rescue was not forthcoming.
What she’d longed for, time and again, was someone who understood. Who wanted nothing from her. Who liked her for who she was. Better yet, despite who she was. But all she’d had was misery.
Looking into Lillian’s soul-deadened eyes brought back agonizing memories Violet had tried to bury long ago. As a child, she’d been unable to save anyone, least of all herself. As an adult, she’d done the best she could at the Livingstone School for Girls.
Here, at Waldegrave Abbey, she was bei
ng given another chance. She would not fail.
Mr. Waldegrave believed his daughter in want of a cure. But what Lillian needed more than anything was a confidante. A friend. This, Violet could do. She wasted no breath asking unanswerable questions or offering unwanted advice. She just held Lillian quietly in her arms. Instinctively, she felt nonjudgmental silence spoke more to the child than any words could have done.
As she gently rocked the little girl, Violet lifted her gaze to examine the bedchamber that had become a prison. They sat in the very center of a wide space. Soaring arches converged across the vaulted ceiling. Violet presumed that all four walls had originally boasted the same stained glass as the rest of the abbey. As in the other chambers, the windows were boarded over on the inside. Despite the profusion of candelabra, the covered windows and surrounding catacombs had converted the once-beautiful sanctuary into something dark and ugly.
No paintings or looking-glasses adorned the walls. Not even golden crosses or other religious gewgaws. A smattering of dolls and other toys, a few seemingly unread books, and an incongruous four-poster bed with the darkest, thickest tester Violet had ever clapped eyes upon. No light would get through those curtains, with or without the double-boarded windows.
In lieu of a dressing-room, one corner of the sanctuary held a pair of armoires and what might have been an intricate Chinese folding screen, had the panels not been covered with the same thick fabric as the tester draping Lillian’s bed. A round table flanked by two hardback chairs stood to one side.
The only other item of note was a child-sized desk, upon which stood a narrow crystal vase choked with three dead roses. The chair cushion was upholstered in a sunny yellow—or at least it might be so, were there enough light in the room to see properly—and the curtains about the bed and the windows were a deep indigo.
