Chapter 28

CHAPTER28

“Should we tell her?” a nervous voice whispered.

“Best not to upset her. It might make her sicker,” said another.

“If it was you, would you want to know?” asked a third, as Joanna tried to pull herself from the mire of sickly slumber that had held her in its grip for what felt like an eternity.

Over the course of her sickness, she had stirred here and there, waking only for food and water—as much of it as she could keep in her stomach, at least—before collapsing back into terrible nightmares, feverish dreams, and aches that made her muscles burn and her skin blaze. As such, she was never certain of what was real and what was not. Several times, she thought she had seen Edwin at her bedside, heard him talking to her softly, heard him saying sweet things, but then she would properly awake to find Mrs. Hislop there instead.

This sickness is playing tricks with me, she knew, groaning.

“Is she awake?” the first voice murmured.

“Her eyes are fluttering. Goodness, she doesn’t look well, does she?”

“There’s been too much loss in this manor. Maybe, we should keep it to ourselves. She doesn’t have to know, does she? I don’t think I want to tell her anymore.”

Joanna recognized the voices, but she could not put names to their faces or faces to their names; her mind swam, twisting and strangling reality until nothing made sense. Nor did she understand what they were talking about. All she knew was that their words sent a shiver through her, hotter than her fever and colder than her sickly chills.

“Maybe, he’s making arrangements in case Her Grace doesn’t survive,” one of the voices said sadly, as a cooling hand touched Joanna’s brow.

“Don’t touch her!” another voice yelped. “It’s likely catching!”

There were three of them, Joanna surmised. And the only group she knew of who were constantly in a threesome were her dear friends and maids: Harriet, Cathy, and Mara. Indeed, as she considered it, their faces came into view in her mind, their voices matching.

“I might wish I could strangle him, right now, but I don’t think he’d be so callous,” Harriet said firmly. “Oh, our poor duchess. I never thought… The way they were together, you wouldn’t know that he… It’ll break her heart.”

Joanna tried her best to decipher what they were saying, and to whom they were referring, but her feverish mind was too foggy, too overwrought, too plagued by nightmares already to make head nor tail of the maids’ chatter. There was every chance they were not even there, and she was imagining it.

“Are you certain you saw what you saw?” Cathy whispered.

“Plain as day,” Mara replied. “And Harriet saw ‘em, too.”

“I confess I did,” Harriet admitted. “Had his arm around her, coming back to the manor from the river. They were smiling and laughing like he wasn’t married at all.”

Mara sighed. “And I saw him kissing her neck in the stables. Then, stealing into the library together. His Grace must be a fool. Firstly, for thinking he could get away with it. Secondly, for thinking that no one is watching his every move.”

“I just… don’t understand,” Cathy murmured angrily. “But even I can’t deny that they’ve been spending too much time together these past few days. Everywhere I go, I can hear her wretched laughter. And when I go to take a peek of what’s afoot, he’s always there with her. What is he thinking?”

Even in her sickly stupor, Joanna began to comprehend what was being discussed, and who the conversation related to. It sounded like Edwin had betrayed her, though she could not be certain of who the other party was. Perhaps, a former lover had come to the manor while Joanna was sick… or had been invited.

But he said he had no lovers, her mind urged, as that icy-hot shudder pummeled through her for a second time, stronger than before, chilling her to the bone. And though he has never said that he loves me, he has inferred it.

She wanted to cry, but she could not open her eyes or stir her consciousness enough to sit bolt upright, grab the maids, and demand that they told her everything they had seen and heard. And as her mind drifted back to the glorious, thrilling, unforgettable day that she had spent in bed with her husband, learning everything there was to know about lovemaking, the memories darkened and twisted. The memories hurt.

But what if I am mistaken in what I am hearing? she asked herself. What if this is merely another nightmare? To discover that, she needed to wake up and seize control of her faculties, but the more she tried to strain for awareness and awakening, the more her body dragged her down into the depths of her fever. Maybe, it did not want her to know. Maybe, it was attempting to protect her from a truth she had never anticipated. Or had anticipated, but had never believed that Edwin was capable of.

Wake up! she screamed into the abyss of her mind, but her body was not listening. Her eyes remained closed, her limbs like lead, her breath shallow and uneasy, as she sank deeper into the mattress, letting oblivion carry her away. Perhaps, that was for the best.

* * *

At an unknown hour, for all the hours and days had blended into one another, Joanna awoke suddenly, her eyes flying open as she gasped for breath. Sweat drenched her, soaking through her nightdress and into the bedlinens beneath, but she was awake and alert and though she still felt as if she were being boiled alive and her head was pounding, she was no longer lost in the void of her fever.

“Is anyone there?” she croaked, startled by the sound of her own voice; she had not used it in an age.

Silence and the hoot of an owl echoed back. And in the distance, she thought she heard Pegasus whinny, as if he knew his mistress had broken her fever at last.

Shakily, Joanna pushed back the damp bedlinens and crawled to the end of the bed. Fighting for every rough breath, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and took a moment to gather herself as a swell of dizziness threatened to crash over her.

She reached for the glass of water on the bedside table and drank it down in tiny, cautious sips. Pouring a fresh glass from the ceramic pitcher, she clutched the drink as she slipped off the bed and padded toward the door. Reaching it, the carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed out a single stroke, while moonlight spilled in through a gap in the drapes: One o’clock in the morning.

Joanna doubted that anyone would be awake, but her growling stomach demanded sustenance, and she was capable of cutting some bread and breaking off some cheese if there was no one else to assist her. The trouble was, she did not know if she had the strength to make it all the way to the kitchens.

Gripping the glass and taking encouraging sips, she managed to reach the landing and the top of the staircase leading down. Holding onto the banister, a cold sweat prickling down the back of her neck, she took hesitant steps, progressing slowly, until her bare feet touched the warped, warm floorboards of the entrance hall.

This is nothing, she told herself, sweating profusely. I can manage anything. If I can plant a garden and melt the frozen heart of a cold duke, I can make it to the kitchens.

The thought reminded her of the strange conversation she thought she had overheard between the maids. Her heart twinged, her breath catching as the shock of the memory almost knocked her to the floor.

“I imagined it,” she said sternly. “Edwin would never do such a thing. He is not my father.”

Confident in her assertion, letting her conviction soothe her, she pressed on down the hallway that led to the library. Edwin often stayed awake until a late hour, reading one of his beloved books, and she hoped she might find him there. Perhaps, she might even convince him to make her something to eat, if he saw her in her disheveled, weak condition. If nothing else, the chaise-longue in front of the fireplace would make a fine place to rest before she proceeded on to the kitchens by herself.

He is awake! Her heart soared as she came to the doorway of the library, which yawned open in a welcome to weary travelers. She knew he was within, for the candles were still flickering in the sconces, and she could hear the crackle of the fireplace. He would not have gone to bed without extinguishing both, for though the manor might have been crumbling, he did not wish to hasten its demise anymore.

Deciding to surprise him, Joanna tiptoed through the open door and, using the towering bookshelves to hide her, she made her approach to her beloved down the right-hand avenue.

But as she drew nearer, a sound made her pause. A sound that should not have been there. A woman’s voice.

“Read that part to me again,” it urged.

Edwin mumbled something that Joanna could not hear, but it must have been pleasing to the other lady, for she exploded into giddy laughter that wrung Joanna’s heart dry. And what was worse, the lady’s voice was not unfamiliar; she was not a stranger, but someone that Joanna had begun to think of as a dear friend.

Jane… Joanna braced her hand against the nearest bookshelf, her head swimming. She remembered the first night Jane had arrived, and the panic with which Edwin had rushed from the library to greet the newcomers, informing Joanna to stay where she was. At that moment, Joanna had suspected it might be a lover or a secret wife, but those notions had quickly been dispelled when she had encountered Peggy. But what if Joanna had not been mistaken, what if she had simply not seen what was obvious?

Rallying her courage as Jane’s laughter continued to rattle up Joanna’s spine, she crept along the front of one of the bookshelves, until she came to the end where it met the central avenue of the library.

There, with her heart cracking and her faith collapsing, she dared to peer around the end of the bookshelf… just in time to see Jane clambering onto Edwin’s lap; her hands grasping his face, leaning in to kiss him. Through eyes that blurred with sudden tears, Joanna noted that the man she loved did not push Jane away.

With all the strength she had left, her legs wobbling, her heart breaking, her breath ragged, Joanna ducked back behind the bookshelf and hurried from the library, as softly as her shaky footsteps would allow. After all, Edwin did not know she was awake. No one did. And if she had the choice, it would remain that way, until she was as far from Bruxton Hall as Pegasus could carry her.

“I fell for it,” she whimpered, willing herself up the stairs to her bedchamber. “I am just like my mother.”