Dark Masquerade

by Jennifer Blake

  They went down together. Elizabeth felt the back of her head come in contact with a ridge of facial bone, and at the same time the constriction around her neck loosened. She rolled away, dragging air into her lungs in a sharp, audible gasp. Scrambling to her feet she started to run, her skirt was caught and she plunged back to the ground. Desperately she rolled away from the grasping hands. She felt her sleeve rip and the cool air touch the bare skin of her arm. Then as her elbow came down on a fallen tree branch a shaft of pure rage struck through her terror.

  She grasped the branch with both hands, rose to her knees and struck out, swinging it wildly. As she felt it thud against yielding flesh a cry of satisfaction sprang to her lips, and then she was up and running, her skirts clutched in both hands.

  She dodged among the trees, ducking under the limbs, avoiding collision with them more by instinct than by sight. When she felt gravel under her feet she checked, but she knew that with her confining petticoats and skirt she would be a much easier quarry on the open drive than among the trees where she could hide. She was still too far from the house for a scream to be heard. Behind her she could hear the floundering sound of pursuit. Clenching her teeth together she crossed the road and ran into the trees. It was very hard to do this, with the drive beckoning toward the safety of the house, but she promised herself that she would double back toward it as soon as she safely could.

  She ran, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and her pursuer. She felt the pins leaving her hair and the heavy coil sliding down, spreading out over her shoulders. Her heart pounded in her chest with a harsh ache. Her breathing became labored, a stitch developed in her side and more than once she stumbled as the long dead grass threatened to trip her heavy feet.

  At last she slowed and then stopped, reaching out to an oak for support, and then turned to lean with her back against it. Her ribs strained against her tight lacing for air, and she tried to quiet her harsh breathing to listen.

  She could hear nothing. Had he given up, or was he standing quietly, listening for her, waiting to creep up on her again?

  She shivered a little at the thought, pressing closer against the rough bark of the tree. Silence descended, an unnatural silence without the sound of insects or night birds. Her breathing slowed, her heartbeat steadied, but panic still hovered at the back of her mind. Her hands trembled and she had to clamp her jaws together to keep her teeth from chattering.

  Drifting on the night air came a sweet, haunting fragrance. She turned her head to locate the direction from which it came, a mundane action to take her mind from her terror. At that moment something cracked with a sharp report behind her. She pushed away from the tree, running before she was three steps from it. A half dozen steps more and she had plunged into the thorny depths of that tantalizing fragrance, which had been coming from a thicket of mock orange.

  She cried out, a short scream of pain quickly stifled, and then went still, She was caught like a rabbit in a snare, impaled on the long, sharp, green thorns of the mock orange trees.

  It was difficult to move without noise, impossible to move without hurting herself further, but she tried. The effort started blood trickling from the scratches and small wounds on her bare arms and in her side, and it made her aware of the sickening numbness, as if she had been poisoned, where the thorns had entered the skin. A wave of dizziness rose to her head and she shuddered, and then she went on trembling uncontrollably. She could not stop the shudders that shook her, and she was unable to move when she heard the crashing of footsteps coming toward her.

  “Ellen!”

  She jumped then gasped with pain as the name rang through the night.

  “Ellen?”

  Bernard. Should she answer? If he was the one who had tried to kill her would he call her like that, encouraging the lamb to the slaughter? She stood still. When had accepted, even subconsciously, that he could be her assailant?

  Abruptly she called out. “Here.” Then she called again, louder this time. If it had been Bernard it would not matter—but she did not, could not, finish the thought.

  He was with her in a moment. Ruthlessly he pushed down the small orange trees and pulled her toward him. Then he let them snap back into place behind her. She stumbled, swaying against him.

  “You are trembling,” he said, holding her arms. “What in God’s name were you doing?”

  She tried to tell him but her voice shook so that she was not sure that he understood. Without commenting he stripped off his coat, wrapped it around her shoulders, and picked her up in his arms. Almost immediately they were surrounded by a search party made up of the butler, Samson, carrying a lantern, and two or three of the other men-servants. At the sight of them, something flickered in her brain, but she was too distraught to catch the implication.

  As he strode toward the house along the wagon track with the others following behind, she could feel the beat of his heart beneath his tucked shirt front. The smell of smoke from his pipe clung to the coat around her, and she was grateful that it had retained some of the warmth of his body heat. But there was little comfort in his arms. Their grip about her was hard with what seemed to be suppressed anger. Tears rose in a hard knot in her tight throat but she could not afford the comfort of release. Somehow she felt it was not yet safe.

  Her trembling had begun to subside and a measure of composure had returned by the time they reached the lamplight pouring through the front door.

  “You found her!” Grand’mere cried, coming toward them across the brightly lighted hall. “I would never have forgiven myself for leaving her if—”

  “Then why did you?” Bernard interrupted her with a strange quietness.

  “Why? She refused to come in the landau. Ask her yourself.”

  “I shall,” he answered grimly over his shoulder as he mounted the stairs.

  “I can walk,” Elizabeth said, but her protest lacked conviction. It was just as well, since he ignored it.

  Callie held open the door of Elizabeth’s room for them to pass.

  “Brandy—no, madeira,” Bernard said to her.

  She nodded and hurried away.

  He put Elizabeth on the bed, not ungently.

  Grand’mere followed him into the room, breathing a little quickly from mounting the stairs at such a fast pace. “You are very mysterious, Bernard. Is such solicitous care necessary?”

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “I hope you mean to explain yourself,” the old lady said, a dangerous edge to her voice, “for I warn you, I am tiring of these short answers.”

  Bernard turned to her and with an almost brutal economy of words told her what had happened. Elizabeth, listening carefully, could not think that he had left out any detail of what she had told him so hysterically. Perhaps he knew what had happened because he was there, her mind whispered, but she pushed the thought away.

  “It is insane!” Grand’mere exclaimed. “Impossible, It could not have happened.”

  “It did happen. Here, on these grounds. Under our very noses.” A harsh anger grated in his voice, and Elizabeth had the irrational feeling that it was directed at her.

  “Please,” she murmured, but no one heard her. Opening her eyes, she watched as Bernard stared down at his grandmother.

  The old lady twisted her hands together silently for a moment, and then she said in a small voice, “The overseer?”

  Bernard said nothing. A shade of contempt crossed his face, though whether it was for the man or for the idea of his being the attacker could not be said. He turned suddenly and left the room.

  When Callie returned, the two women helped her out of Bernard’s coat. They exclaimed in horror at the patches of blood darkening her dress where the thorns had pierced the skin. But they averted their eyes from the torn sleeve, not in modesty but in an effort to gloss over that moment of terror.

  Her injuries had been bathed and dressed, she had been helped into her nightgown and she had eaten the supper brought to her on a t
ray when Grand’mere came to her with a small dose of laudanum and persuaded her to take it. So beneficial for repairing the nerves, she said. She often took a little as insurance against a sleepless night, the bane of old age. The draught, administered in a little wine, was bitter, and Elizabeth made a face as she handed the glass back.

  “I know,” Grand’mere sympathized. “Bernard wants to ask you a few questions now, if you feel quite up to it. I don’t at all approve—oh, not that he should visit you in your bedchamber, it was quite the thing in Paris in my youth for a lady to entertain her gentlemen friends while dressing—it should be quite unexceptional now in my presence—but I cannot think you should be plagued with questions.”

  “I don’t mind,” Elizabeth said, and was surprised at how weak her voice was. “I am not an invalid,” she said a little louder.

  “No, no,” Grand’mere murmured and went away.

  Elizabeth’s eyes closed. When she opened them again, Bernard was standing beside the bed.

  “I said,” he repeated himself, “is there anything you can remember about the man who attacked you that would identify him?”

  She frowned. “No. It was dark and there was no time. He was behind me.”

  “He?”

  “The man. There were no skirts when I stepped back against him. It must have been a man.”

  “Could it have been a woman without skirts or petticoats?”

  “I—I suppose. But she would have had to be very strong.” Her eyes would not stay open in the bright light of the lamp left on the bedside table.

  “Yet you got away from a strangle hold.”

  She smiled. “I am strong too.”

  “Are you?” There was a mocking humor in his voice that made Elizabeth wonder if she was not bordering on tipsy from the wine and then the laudanum. It was several moments before she realized that he had gone.

  He seemed some distance away when he spoke again and she knew instinctively he was not speaking to her. “Where is Darcourt?” he asked from somewhere near the connecting door.

  “The same place as always,” Grand’mere answered with asperity. “A cock fight, a gambling hall, a bull baiting. I haven’t seen him since I sent him after you. Typical, I suppose. He must have known you would not come and did not care to face me with it. He was never one for unpleasantness.”

  “And Theresa?” he questioned, ignoring the implication behind her words. “Can you trust that woman to be truthful with you? Can you swear that she has not been out of Denise’s sight all evening?”

  Instead of answering the question, Grand’mere asked in disbelief, “My dear boy, are you holding me responsible for this?”

  The sound of the door opening came before Bernard spoke again. “Who else?”

  Their footsteps receded and the door closed, cutting off the sound of their voices. Slowly Elizabeth opened her eyes. Grand’mere? It had been she who had arranged for her to walk home alone. The old lady was frail, but what was to keep her from hiring someone to rid herself of her unwanted guest so that she and her grandson could have full control of Joseph and his estate? Theresa, Alma, Grand’mere, Bernard. Who was responsible for that cloth that had tightened around her neck?

  Something important tugged at her mind, something in the room. She let her gaze wander over the walls to the lamp left burning beside the bed, to the mosquito netting looped in the top of the canopy over the tall four posters around her. Then she saw it.

  Bernard’s coat lay across the chair sitting against the wall. Bernard’s coat that he had wrapped about her, his coat stained with her blood—and with mud.

  She stared at the coat, remembering that terrible struggle on the wet ground, remembering that Bernard had found her in the mock orange thicket with a search party on his heels. What else could he have done but play the gallant rescuer?

  At last her vision began to blur. She felt herself sinking into the mists of sleep. Panic seized her and she tried to raise herself to escape the enveloping blackness. She was afraid with the primitive fear she had known under the oaks in the dark. How did she know it was only laudanum Grand’mere had persuaded her to drink? How could she be sure it was not some kind of poison? Whom could she trust?

  No one, she answered herself.

  Dark waves of blackness closed over her head.

  8

  Breakfast was brought to Elizabeth in bed the next morning, a simple French breakfast of coffee, hot crusty croissants, butter, and, as a concession to country life, dewberry jam. She was still eating when Celestine knocked and entered.

  Celestine was beautiful and incredibly fragile-looking in a lavender dress with huge drooping puffs of lace for sleeves and a pansy purple velvet ribbon at her tiny waist. The effect was marred, however, by the straight line of her small mouth and the frown between her eyes. She asked Elizabeth how she was feeling and then she hardly listened to her reply.

  Celestine had made it obvious that she felt superior in station, that she regarded Elizabeth as a poor relation with a questionable right to the hospitality she was receiving. Still, Elizabeth was surprised at the vehemence in her voice as she spoke.

  “Well! Breakfast in bed. Receiving a surfeit of attention after your accident, are you not?”

  “Everyone has been very kind, yes,” Elizabeth said cautiously. It was not difficult to see that Celestine had something pressing on her mind.

  “Kind? You must be delirious with joy at their kindness. You have tried in every possible way since you have been here to make yourself the center of attention, an object of concern. You think you can use their concern to insinuate yourself into their regard. You are, no doubt, good at that. You managed to attract Felix with your wiles.”

  “What?” Elizabeth could not believe what she was hearing. She had no idea that Celestine felt so strongly about her.

  “Oh, yes. You are intelligent, I’m willing to grant you that. You know quite well that your suffering air and pathetic dignity will go down well with Grand’mere and Felix’s brother—especially his brother. What did you use to capture Felix’s attention? A tale of woe? He was always a fool for the downtrodden, a victim of knight errantry. No doubt you allowed him to think he was rescuing a maiden in distress.”

  “I am beginning to find this conversation distasteful,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  “Are you? That doesn’t cause me great distress. There is much about you I have found distasteful from the moment you arrived. I have loathed having to stay under the same roof with you, having to look at you and know you are the cause of the greatest humiliation I have ever known. I have hated smiling and being pleasant to you. I find you extremely distasteful with your coy smiles at Bernard. You would smile less, I think, if you realized what he thinks of a brazen creature like you, the kind of female who would entice away a man betrothed to another. To us the betrothal is very nearly as sacred as the marriage, and to break it is unheard of, immoral.”

  “You feel, in fact, like a deserted wife?” Elizabeth asked, a curious note in her voice.

  But the sound of her voice seemed to enrage Celestine further. “Now you cast about you for a substitute for Felix, and you think to have Bernard! You will not have him. He is a man of honor, of integrity. He will marry no one but me who has been dishonored by his family.”

  Elizabeth nearly laughed. If Celestine only knew how little use she, Elizabeth, had for Bernard as a husband, or any man for that matter. It was impossible for her to marry Bernard. Her chastity was an insurmountable barrier to a union with a man who thought she was a widow and the mother of a child. She knew she could never marry Bernard, but she was curious about him and his relationship with Celestine.

  “Bernard will marry you—and you will accept him—simply because you were jilted by Felix?”

  An alarming tide of color swept into Celestine’s face. “You are unbearably insolent! How dare you say that to me? Bernard will marry me because he cares for me and because he wishes it. You have no conception of our code or our culture.
This marriage will take place in spite of you and your machinations. You will do well to heed what I say. In fact it would be best for you if you went away. Everyone would be much happier.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Elizabeth said. She was gaining a certain amount of satisfaction out of the fact that she was able to remain cool in the face of Celestine’s insults.

  “And why not?”

  “I could not possibly leave without Joseph, and Bernard has refused to let him go.”

  Celestine stared at her. “Yes, of course. He would do that.” A thoughtful look crossed her face.

  A knock came at the door, and hard on the sound Callie walked into the room, a scowl between her eyes. She left the door open behind her.

  “Is you through with your breakfast, honey? If you is I think maybe you ought to rest awhile.” Callie glanced at Celestine suggestively.

  Celestine stared, opened her mouth as if to vent her anger on the Negro woman, and then spun around and went out the door, closing it behind her with a bang.

  Elizabeth was preoccupied as Callie fussed around the bed, removing the tray, straightening the cover and fluffing the pillows. She had the feeling that there was something unfinished between the two of them. Something important.

  Callie stopped what she was doing and stood holding a dressing gown in her work-worn hands. Elizabeth turned to her inquiringly.

  “That lady don’t seem to like you much.”

  “No, I don’t think she does.”

  “And she’s not the only one neither. We done had too many accidents, too many crazy things going on. Don’t you think it’s time we was getting out of here?”

  “We can’t, Callie.”

  “Why not, Mis’ E—Ellen. This place ain’t safe. We gonna be murdered in our beds. I ain’t slept with two eyes shut since we been here.”

  “I know,” Elizabeth answered, plucking at a loose thread in the quilt over her knees. “But Bernard is Joseph’s guardian. He told me that if I go I can’t take Joseph with me.”

  “Can he do that?” Callie demanded.