The Victorian Gothic Collection: Volumes 1-3 Read online

  There were dozens of what ifs in their relationship. If things were different, if the weight of his family’s dark legacy was not pressing down on him, he would give her the world—and a house full of children to ease the loneliness he sensed in her.

  As he walked, he found himself inexplicably diverging from the main road and onto the smaller path that led to the beach. The sound of the crashing waves mimicked his own dark mood and cursed thoughts. But as he emerged onto the beach, his gaze was drawn to the lone figure standing at the water’s edge. The gray of her skirts clutched in her hand and the black velvet of her perfectly tailored coat mirrored the darkening sky and frothing water.

  “Adelaide?”

  She said nothing. Her eyes were focused straight ahead, fixed on the water. It was the pallor of her skin, that and the complete stillness of her, more than anything else that alerted him to just how wrong things were. Crossing the expanse of sand, he reached her and took her hands. “Adelaide?” he repeated. At last, she looked up at him.

  “I just started walking… I didn’t realize this was where I would end up.”

  Her explanation was stammered. Her lips were beginning to turn blue from the cold and her skin was like ice. “You’ve been out here far too long. Let’s go back to the house.”

  “No,” she said. “Not yet. I’ve been standing here for the longest time, trying to muster up my courage to just walk to the water’s edge. Now, that I’ve done it, I’m not quite ready to give it up yet.”

  He looked down at her bare feet in the water. It was freezing. Her stockings and boots lay discarded in the sand a few feet away.

  “It’s too soon, Adelaide. It’s only been six weeks since the Mohegan sank. You do not have to do this today,” he said.

  “I didn’t intend to,” she admitted. “But I had another one of those horribly veiled conversations with Frances and I just needed to get away. I found myself here.”

  “And you decided to face your fears entirely on your own. I would have come with you, Adelaide. You do not have to do these things alone,” he said softly. Damn Frances and her constant needling. He felt as haunted by her as he did by any spirits at Cysgod Lys.

  She looked up at him, wide-eyed and quite adamant. “But I do… Eldren, I can’t be afraid. Not of this and not of whatever it is that is lurking in the halls of that house! If I don’t start facing my fears now, they will consume me!”

  There was an accusation there. He felt it and heard it, but it wasn’t an unfounded one. “As mine have consumed me?”

  “I’ve no wish to fight with you… what happened this morning—I think you’re wrong, Eldren. I think your fears are crippling us both in that regard. But we had an agreement and I will abide by it. I won’t ask again,” she offered in a soft, thin voice.

  It was clear that the heavy wound to her pride was still stinging. But it was the wound he might have inflicted upon her heart that worried him more.

  “I wish I could give you what you wanted,” he admitted.

  “I hope that one day we will be able to put enough of this behind us that we can both have what we want,” she replied. “But that will only come if we begin facing our fears. One at a time. And that begins now.”

  “My fear is that you will catch your death of cold. The water is freezing. Come away now,” he urged.

  She did then, reluctantly allowing him to lead her from the water’s edge back up onto the beach. He paused long enough to grab her discarded stockings and boots. They stopped again at a large outcropping of rock where she sat and he helped her to don the garments and footwear once more.

  “I shouldn’t have left as I did this morning,” he said. “But I was afraid to stay.”

  “Why would you be afraid?” she asked.

  “Because what you wanted from me this morning, Adelaide, is not something that I am incapable of giving you. But it’s something that would be terribly imprudent of us. And while my intentions and my desires are at cross purposes, I am doing all that I can to maintain my honor and not foist the curses of this family onto an innocent child.”

  “There is no guarantee that a child would result from such a union,” Adelaide insisted.

  “No, but it is a risk too great to take.”

  “There are ways to mitigate such a risk,” Adelaide said. “I’ve been reading about them in the books and pamphlets that Lottie sent me.”

  “That woman will be the death of me,” he said, looping the last of the buttons on her right boot.

  “There are devices that can be worn,” Adelaide continued. “Of course, you would have to obtain them.”

  French letters. His lusty but still virginal wife was discussing condoms with him. Freely. If ever he had questioned whether or not American women and Welsh or English women were intrinsically different, that conversation would be the only answer he needed. Bold. Brazen. Willing to take risks for what she wanted, Adelaide was remarkable.

  “I would. It would only solve part of the problem, Adelaide… Such a device would allow me to make love to you, but it would prevent conception. I’ve seen the longing in your eyes when Frances talks about her child. I know that is what you want,” he said.

  “I want many things,” she admitted. “I want to have a husband and know him in all the ways that a wife should. And yes, I do want children. And perhaps one day, when this has all been settled, we can. But I see no reason why we should have to limit one in order to limit the other… not when there are such clever inventions out there that would permit it to be otherwise.”

  If she was willing to entertain such a thing, he would not be foolish enough to deny her. Whatever stance the church took on such things, he could not help but feel taking any precautions necessary to avoid bringing a child into the dark and dangerous world they currently inhabited was the right thing to do. “It will take some time. Such things are not readily available in a town such as Machynlleth.”

  “London?”

  “Not so far as that,” he said. “Chester, perhaps, though I would need to make discreet inquiries.”

  “Then you should do so,” she said. “As soon as possible.”

  Eldren didn’t vocalize his response. He couldn’t. Instead he simply nodded.

  They returned to the house in silence that was not quite companionable, but that was not nearly so charged as the atmosphere between them had been that morning. Tromley was waiting in the foyer holding a salver with a folded slip of paper on it.

  “A telegram has arrived for you, my lord.”

  Eldren read the simple missive and then turned to Adelaide. “It appears we are to have company. Lord Mortimer will arrive by week’s end with his mystic in tow.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  That night, Adelaide lay in her bed alone. Eldren was not far away. He was in the connecting sitting room reading correspondence and avoiding her. They had crafted a tenuous peace on the beach that afternoon, but things were not where they had been the day before and not where she wanted them to be, certainly.

  Knowing that it would be hours yet before he came to bed, Adelaide turned the lamp down and settled back against the pillows. She was all but willing herself to sleep, to feign indifference to his attempts to sustain the current distance between them. Regardless, it stung. While she understood his reasons for it, ultimately his refusal of her was a rejection. Perhaps there was just enough doubt and shattered confidence inside her thanks to Muriel’s harping that the sting of it was greater that it might otherwise have been.

  Despite her turmoil, Adelaide managed to fall into a fitful slumber. Restless and dreamless, she tossed and turned in the bed until she felt a familiar weight behind her. The mattress dipped and the covers slid back as Eldren eased into the bed. She didn’t smile in welcome, nor did she turn to hm as she might have on any other night. Instead, she kept her back to him and feigned elusive sleep. Even when she felt his hand gliding over the curve of her hip and along her thigh, she made no outward response. Still, her body thrilled to it. Blood rus
hed in her veins, sending heat spiraling through her.

  The touch was intended to entice, and it did. She longed for his touch, to be close to him. It wasn’t simply the pleasure he could bring her, but also that sense, for those few moments, that she wasn’t alone in the world. When they were straining together in the darkness, both of them seeking pleasure in the other, for those moments, Adelaide felt almost whole.

  As his fingertips glided over her flesh, her pulse quickened, her breathing altered and she pressed back against him. Their disagreements and tension forgotten in the moment, she wanted only to feel his skin on hers, the heat and rush of it all consuming her.

  Adelaide started to turn toward him, but the hands that pressed against her became less than gentle. They dug painfully into her flesh. An awareness settled over her then of all the things she had missed in her half slumbered state. She couldn’t feel the heat from his body, that comforting warmth that always settled over her when he was near. The fingers that gripped her were bony and cold, tipped with sharp, dagger like claws that threatened to pierce her skin.

  “Adelaide.”

  Her heart thundered in her chest. That single word, whispered in a low tone, had not been uttered by her husband. It was not Eldren who had climbed into the bed with her, who had touched her so intimately, who had tempted and seduced her, even momentarily. Revulsion washed through her.

  She didn’t scream. Instead, she simply jumped from the bed, propelling herself as far from it as possible. The scrape of those hideously sharp claws over her skin left stinging marks in their wake, but it was worth whatever flesh she might have lost in the process to put distance between herself and It. She managed to move with sufficient enough force that she sent the table and chairs that rested before the hearth careening wildly as she turned back to the bed. Her back was pressed to the stones as she fumbled for the poker. The weapon would offer some sense of security even if it was false.

  But as she faced the bed, there was nothing. No form. No visual disturbance. The bedding was rumpled from her own restlessness, but there was no evidence of anything else there. It was as if the entire terrible event had occurred only inside her own mind. And perhaps it had. Perhaps that was the worst part of it all. She shuddered in disgust, feeling violated and somehow tainted by what had occurred.

  The door from the sitting room opened and Eldren appeared. His hair was tousled but he was still fully dressed and had clearly not intended to join her in bed. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  She didn’t want to tell him. In part because she was mortified by what had occurred and by her own initial response to it and in part because she knew what he would do. He would remain at her side to soothe her fears, to protect her, to provide some buffer between her and the darkness that was so determined to destroy them. She didn’t want him to stay to protect her. If he stayed, she wanted it to be because he wanted to be with her. “I had a nightmare,” she lied. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “You didn’t,” he said, offering his own lie. “I was about to come to bed anyway.”

  “Of course,” she said, but made no move to return to the bed. Instead, she turned to face the low blaze in the hearth. The idea of climbing back into that bed, after what had just occurred, was more than she could face at the moment.

  “Are you certain everything is all right?” he asked again.

  Adelaide could hear him moving around behind her, removing his clothes and preparing for bed. “Would our relationship have ever progressed as far as it has if we hadn’t been perpetually thrown together by this awful thing?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She turned to him then. “I asked you to stay with me because I was afraid and you did. You stayed with me night after night in this forced intimacy that I now realize led to even greater intimacies. If I wasn’t so afraid, if you hadn’t felt obligated to protect me—.”

  “We would be where we are anyway… maybe not now, not yet. But it would have happened regardless, Adelaide. I was losing the will to resist you almost from the moment you stepped foot in this house. All of my good and honorable intentions would not have withstood the temptation that is you. Not for long, at any rate. Come to bed.”

  Adelaide hugged her arms about herself, more for comfort than to ward off any chill. Then he stepped towards her, his chest bare and his trousers hugging his lean waist and long legs. He halted when he was directly in front of her, only scant inches separating them.

  “Tell me what happened,” he urged.

  “I can’t,” Adelaide whispered brokenly. She reached for him, pressing her face against his chest and clinging to him. “But I’m very glad that you’re here. Whatever your reasons for being in this room with me, I’m glad you’re here now.”

  * * *

  Eldren held her, feeling the tremors that wracked her. Whatever had occurred, it had shaken her in a way that nothing else had, not since that awful night in Chester. But unlike then, she didn’t have the trust in him to share it. That her lack of trust and faith in him was a direct result of his own behavior toward her stung more than he wanted to admit.

  “Let’s sleep in another chamber tonight… one that doesn’t have so many terrible feelings associated with it.”

  “None are cleaned and ready,” she protested.

  “A little dust is the least of our worries in this house,” he offered with a smile.

  A nervous laugh escaped her then. “I suppose that’s very true.”

  Leading her down the hall, he opened chamber doors until he found the one least filled with dust. It was an older room, not redecorated for years, and most of the furniture draped in holland cloths. Lighting the lamp on the table, he tugged the dust covers back from the bed and dropped them in the corner of the room. “This should do.”

  “It should,” she agreed. “Thank you for this.”

  “For being willing to sleep in the dust?”

  “For understanding. For knowing that I needed to be somewhere—anywhere—else tonight. And I realize it’s only the illusion of safety, that there is no place in this or even beyond it now that this thing cannot reach us, but it does help.”

  Eldren closed the distance between them, pulled her against him and just held her. “There is nothing I would not do for you and nothing I would not give you if it were in my power to do so.”

  “I know that,” she whispered. “But for now, let’s just focus on what we can have, what we do have. And the rest will work itself out.”

  He took her hand and drew her toward the bed. As they lay there in the darkness, he held her in his arms. It wasn’t about passion or pleasure. It was about comfort, about connection, about the things he felt that he was not truly free to express to her. Not yet. He didn’t want to tell her how much he’d grown to love her, how she had invaded his very soul, because until they could find some semblance of control over what was occurring within the walls of Cysgod Lys, he wasn’t free to love her as she deserved. And she’d already been hurt by half measures too much already.

  * * *

  Frances slipped through the darkened halls of Cysgod Lys. Servants cowered in their beds at night. Eldren and Adelaide would be somewhere mooning over one another. Her own husband was too drunk to notice her presence or absence. The end result was that she was free. Only in the darkest hours of the night did she dare to roam the halls, touching the stone and wood and feeling the power of it all seep into her through the tips of her fingers.

  “I know you hear me,” she said, her voice coming out in a hum.

  I do. What do you want of me?

  “To free you,” Frances said. “To give you all that you want.”

  And what do you want in return?

  Frances opened the door to the cellars and slipped down the still damaged stairs. Her feet moved unerringly, never once stumbling over or striking the loose stones that still littered the area from Eldren’s minor explosion. “I want what I have always wanted. To share in your power and your glo
ry…We are the same, you and I. Are we not?”

  No. You are what I once was.

  Frances smiled as she reached the center of the dark cellar. The heavy grate there was locked, thick chains holding it in place. Dropping to her knees next to it, she lifted her arms skyward. “And I am what you long to be again… Flesh.”

  I have no need of flesh! I have power you cannot even dream of!

  The voice inside Frances’ head was no longer a whisper. It was a shout. It roared like an angry, bitter wind inside her skull.

  “You have power, but you cannot feel. You know hunger that cannot be slaked. Thirst that cannot be quenched. Need that can never be fulfilled. I offer you the chance to be reborn, to share your powers with me and take the flesh that I offer you!”

  You would grant me your body?

  Frances smiled. “No. Not my body, but the child that grows within it. It is the perfect way for you to be reborn… and for your power to course through my body.”

  And when I am birthed, it will remain with you. Will it not?

  “A portion of it,” Frances bargained. “Only a portion of it. It is a fair price to pay, is it not? I will nourish and protect you. I will give you life once more. And in turn, you will give me the power I crave. Together we will take back Cysgod Lys from the Llewellyns’ and you may rule here forever!”

  There is no forever if I am flesh. If I am flesh, I will wither and die. Again.

  “Unless we take the bodies of others. We could be eternal… mother and child, over and over again. Isn’t that what you envisioned all those centuries ago?”

  You think yourself clever, Frances.

  She was clever, but she knew better than to say so. Their deal was not sealed just yet. “Not so clever as you. Not so strong as you. But necessary to you, just the same.”

  For now. For now.

  The power was gone in an instant. The ancient force of it receding into a place where Frances could not call it forth. But she’d tempted it, and she knew that. It had been her plan all along after all. Rising to her feet, she pressed one hand to the small mound of her belly. The child that grew there was nothing to her beyond a bargaining tool. If it served its purpose, then she would love it. She would cherish and protect it. But for the moment, it was just an alien thing growing inside her that might some day be useful.