The door to Roderick’s old room opened easily.
“These doors are meant to stay locked,” she said, frowning, watching Daniel light a lantern that sat on the floor and swing it up. She followed him through the room to the stairs that led to the roof. And ultimately, onto the roof itself.
“What?” she said at once. “What am I here to see?”
“Look.” He led her around the parapet.
Lightening flashed across the night sky, bringing a crack of thunder much closer now. A drop of rain touched her face and grew quickly to a patter by the time Daniel stopped at the side overlooking the loch.
“Did you see Roderick?” she demanded impatiently.
“Actually, yes, I did. This, apparently, is where Robert Usher died.”
“I know. Daniel, where is he? Is he coming around the loch?”
Daniel laughed. “God, no.”
Another crash of thunder drowned out his next words. Then he laughed. “You really do see the best in everyone, don’t you, sweet sister? Even him. Even me. Roderick Usher isn’t going anywhere. He’s gibbering and screaming in his own family crypt, where no one will ever think to look for him—his fear of the place, of being buried alive, being so well known to everyone.”
Madeleine clutched the wall for support. For a moment, she didn’t believe her own ears. She didn’t want to.
“Don’t joke about such awful things!” she cried and flinched at another bark of thunder that arrived almost simultaneously with a fork of lightning across the sky. “Why would you say that to me?”
“Oh, family honesty and all that. Not that the old saying about blood being thicker than water means a damned thing… Usher isn’t a poor man. I thought I could control his fortune through you. I’m sure I could have milked you a bit, but Usher is savvier than I gave him credit for. He knew damned well what I was up to. He gave me an allowance, no more and no less.
“And then it came to me that you and I don’t have the same blood. Oh yes, we share parents, God rest their souls, but if I am cut, you don’t bleed.” He smiled. “And vice versa. Of course, Usher nearly ruined my plans by running off, but fortunately, he came back and it’s now even easier. I think he dragged you up here, killed you as he killed his brother, and then vanished into the night.”
The shock of what he was saying must have been too unreal to sink in. Somehow, she could thrust it to the back of her mind, some instinct she hadn’t known she possessed fighting for survival. One more minute, two more minutes, as many as she could achieve.
“You want people to believe he did all this without anyone in the house noticing?” she said with doubt.
“Oh, he has ways of getting around the house so that no one sees him. I know, because he’s almost taken me by surprise several times.”
She frowned. “Was that you? Did you entice me up to the roof with all those weird noises?”
“I wanted to see how far you would go. And, I admit, to begin to upset your smug balance. You were very sensitive to atmospheres as a child—or so Mama always said. I confess I played on that.” He took a step nearer, so that she stood between him and the gap in the crenelated wall. He held a pistol pointing at her now, too. Oddly, it made no real difference to her fear. She would either die this night or she would not. He had only one shot after all.
“And Roderick,” she said, keeping him talking while she tried to measure her chances of fleeing safely around to the door to the stairs. “Did you frighten him, too?”
“Not so easy. Even with his wounds to head and heart, he remains too much a soldier. I fed him his own laudanum, and considerably more beside. He’d already been addicted when he was given it for his wounds, so it was much easier to set him off again. I dropped it in his wine when I could, in his brandy, his coffee, tea, wherever. Always in larger doses. He must have got more from somewhere. He’s a wreck.”
“And you shut him in the crypt?” The utter, deliberate cruelty of that took her breath away. This was her brother? Dear God, they had grown in different paths indeed…
“I always meant to. While he wasn’t thinking straight. When I overheard the farmer telling you and Graham he’d seen him outside the village, I wasn’t sure whether to entice him with more opium or with you. But, good as gold, he followed the open crypt door. I only had to make one threat to you, without you even being there, and he came charging to your rescue.”
Daniel laughed. “It was beautiful in its way. But I’m bored now and want this over with. Be a good girl and jump down into the loch. You have a chance of survival that way.”
She didn’t. They both knew the water wasn’t deep enough. Another fork of lightning flashed across her vision, across a shadow. Hope of help? Or imagination?
“No,” she said loudly over the crashing thunder. The rain was pelting down now. “I won’t make it easy for you!”
He stepped back and took aim. “Then I’ll just shoot you. Goodbye, Mad—”
She began to bolt, her last, faint hope of survival now, but his finger was already squeezing the trigger. Something crashed into her, knocking her to the ground as the shot rang out.
Lightning flashed across the sky. She gazed up into her husband’s beloved face. For an instant, the world stood still. An instant of pure happiness before they both died.
And then, with the thunder came another shot, and someone else hit the floor beside her. Daniel. His eyes wide open, surprised and quite dead.
“Sorry, sir,” came Graham’s calm voice. “Think I killed him.”
It took a while to stop shaking, to be dry, and to understand. To soothe the servants, the older Ushers, and Sonya. There would be scandal, of course, but enough witnesses ensured the truth would be told. A truth it would take Madeleine a long time to deal with.
But at last they were alone, in his bedchamber. Rain still battered against the glass roof, though at least the thunder and lightning seemed to have moved away to the south.
“How did you get out of the crypt?” she asked.
“A passage had always been built into it to avoid accidents. All the burial chambers are joined to it. It leads to the church. Only the family know of it. I doubt even the minister does, and your brother certainly didn’t. That’s why I let him lock me in. I knew I could get out.”
“It must have been so hard for you,” she whispered.
“I had a few difficult moments,” he confessed. He held her gaze. “But I thought of you, and they passed.”
She swallowed. “Then you love me still?”
He started toward her, then stopped. “Of course, I do. More than my life, or anyone else’s. And yet I hurt you. I know I did. My mind was…clouded, confused by the drug. I knew something was wrong, that I had an enemy. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t you, but my head…” He thumped his forehead. “Can you forgive me?” he asked abruptly.
“Oh, of course I do!” She closed the space between them and took his hand. “Look.” She led him over to the easels by the window, and one after the other, she pulled off the covers.
“Jesus.” He stared at them, dragging his hand through his hair, then down over his jaw. “I was trying to paint you, and it kept going wrong, so I started another, and then went back to the first… Sometimes, I saw them like that and thought it was the dreams. Sometimes I saw them without the…blemishes, but they were there all the time.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “I think it’s because I was so afraid for you. I was afraid my enemy would hurt you, that the house would.”
His lips twisted. “The funny thing is, I think now the house was warning me. Pay attention, imbecile, you’re being poisoned and doing nothing about it.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said in wonder. “Just tonight. I suppose it’s fanciful.”
“I suppose it is. The house is only stone. It’s the people within who create the mood.” He turned the paintings’ faces to the window and covered them all, before placing his hands on her shoulders. “Could you live here now? Would you like to, or shall
we go somewhere else entirely?”
She thought about it. “I don’t want to leave her. It’s our home. And Roderick…” She took one of his hands and placed it on her abdomen. “Your house is far from dead. Our child should be born here.”
Expressions flitted across his face so fast she couldn’t read them all. There was shame as he remembered what he’d said to her, and wonder and fear and love.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he whispered.
“You are Roderick Usher. I think we must deserve each other.” She lifted her face to his, and he kissed her sweetly. Strength and happiness flowed into her, healing and powerful. From this moment, she knew their future and their children’s would rise.
About Mary Lancaster
Mary Lancaster lives in Scotland with her husband, three mostly grown-up kids and a small, crazy dog.
Her first literary love was historical fiction, a genre which she relishes mixing up with romance and adventure in her own writing. Her most recent books are light, fun Regency romances written for Dragonblade Publishing: The Imperial Season series set at the Congress of Vienna; and the popularBlackhaven Brides series, which is set in a fashionable English spa town frequented by the great and the bad of Regency society.
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