Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy

CHAPTER 9

Eliza woke to a darkened room, her head throbbing so painfully it sickened her stomach. She pulled the chamber pot from beneath her bed and retched into it, then gagged again at the smell. Her eyes were swollen shut from crying, the flood of memories too raw and real to shove back into the locked box she’d constructed of her past.

Her guilt was a prison that would always follow her.

She pressed her thumb against her forehead to quell the sparking pain behind her brow and stumbled to the washbasin, wetting a cloth for her face. The cool water streamed down her heated cheeks and dripped from her chin onto her nightgown.

Eliza parted the drapes and peered out, looking toward the shadowy hulk of Havenwood Manor. A single light shone from one of the upstairs windows and slowly moved back and forth before blinking out. She imagined Malcolm inside, settling beneath his covers. Perhaps he was imagining her doing the same. But sleep would be as elusive as a feu follet tonight.

Her own house was quiet, save for a familiar soft snapping coming from belowstairs. Eliza lit a hurricane lamp with trembling hands and went down, her knees weak.

Warm candlelight glowed from the dining room, silhouetting Lydia’s pert profile. “I thought you were still sleeping.” She was laying out a spread from Mimi Lisette’s old tarot deck, the cards well worn around the edges but still vibrant. “Lord Havenwood helped me carry you up the stairs. Do you remember what happened today?”

“I remember,” Eliza said, sitting at the table and leaning her head on her hands. “I remember everything I’ve tried so hard not to.” The feel of Albert’s limp body in her arms as she dragged him from the water, her new dress clinging to her legs. Her mother’s soul-piercing wail. His tiny coffin and the noxious scent of white lilies that to this day turned her stomach. Yes. She remembered all of it.

“I wondered how long you’d push it back.” Lydia gave a sad smile. “It wasn’t your fault, Liza. But I can tell you that until we’re both streaked with gray and it won’t matter one bit until you forgive yourself.”

Eliza squeezed her eyes shut as a jolt of pain jumped across her eyebrows and tightened her scalp. “Is the boy going to be all right?”

“Clarence says he’ll make a full recovery.”

The room was suddenly so cold. Eliza gathered her dressing gown around her shoulders. “How is your reading?” she asked, motioning to Lydia’s cards.

“This is the third spread. Same results.”

“Good news, I hope?”

Lydia shrugged. “I suppose it depends on how you view it, doesn’t it?”

Eliza glanced over the cross made of cards. Death. The Three of Swords, the Empress, and the Queen of Cups.

“Do mine, will you?”

Lydia paused, her hand hovering over the cards. “You should wait—it’s been a day.”

“Yes, but I need a distraction. You know I don’t take it as seriously as you.”

“You should take it seriously, but all right.” Lydia sighed and swept her spread back into the deck, then shuffled the cards deftly, her delicate fingers fanning them out in an arc before Eliza. “Think on what you want most before you draw.”

Eliza quickly chose three cards.

Lydia raised a dark eyebrow in question. “Would you like me to read for the past, present, future?”

“Yes.”

Lydia flipped over the first card, representing the past. Death’s skeletal face stared up at them. “The same card was in your spread,” Eliza said.

“In the same position.”

“It makes sense, then, doesn’t it?”

Lydia nodded. “Change. The end of the old ways and the start of the new. You’re excited about the future, aren’t you, Liza?” She turned the next card and smiled. It was the Fool, with his tiny dog yapping at his heels as he danced. “Le Fou. You always seem to draw this card.”

“It’s true. It’s a happy card, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you know it’s also a warning. As carefree as a fool may think he is, he doesn’t always see the edge of the cliff until it’s too late.” Lydia passed her hand over the Fool’s dancing feet, her fingers light as a feather. “I don’t know that I trust Malcolm. He acted a bit strange today after your spell. He was polite, but he seemed less concerned than I thought he should be. He was in a blind hurry to leave after we’d gotten you home.”

“How funny. He’s English, after all. I don’t think they’re as doting as our southern men. A bit of a chill in their marrow.”

Lydia shook her head. “It’s just that . . . after all that talk of money today, it was a bit disconcerting to see him stiffen up.”

A knock came at the door. Eliza looked at Lydia in surprise, then to the clock. It was well past eight. “It’s a bit late for callers.”

“Perhaps it’s Clarence. He did say he’d check in after he got the Cook boy settled in at home.” Lydia straightened her skirts and eyed herself in the glass over the fireplace. Once she turned the corner, Eliza lifted the edge of the last card in the tarot spread. She had only to glimpse the flames and falling bodies to know which card it was. The Tower. A portent of catastrophe. A chill passed over her arms, and she hurriedly swept the card back into the middle of the deck, replacing it with another.

“Eliza!” Lydia called. “You’ve a guest.”

She stood, steadying herself against the high back of the chair before walking out to the foyer. Malcolm stood next to Lydia, his eyes lighting up as he saw her. In his hands, a bouquet of fragrant lavender bloomed. Eliza’s heart jumped with sudden happiness. She went to him, clutching her dressing gown over the thin cambric of her shift. On impulse, she rose up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Lord Havenwood. Thank you for seeing us home and helping Lydia care for me.”

“I’d hardly have been a gentleman if I hadn’t. I’m so sorry I had to leave in such a rush. I’m chuffed to see you on your feet.” He removed his hat, his dark curls fanning around his collar. “And please, darling. I’d prefer it if you’d start calling me Malcolm.”

“I’ll put these in some water,” Lydia said as she took the flowers from Malcolm. “Y’all go visit in the parlor.”

Eliza led Malcolm into the sitting room, where red, fractured light shone through the perforated globe of the paraffin lamp they kept lit in the evenings. He sat on the velvet settee by the window, and Eliza sank down next to him. “I’m sorry I became faint today,” she said. “Things were going so well . . .” A sob choked the rest of her words. “The truth is, I’m a bit of a mess.”

“Please don’t apologize, darling.” His manner was so tender, Eliza was suddenly flooded with an urge to be embraced by him. As if he sensed her longing to be held, Malcolm’s arm went around her shoulders and drew her closer. He took her bare hand and pressed a kiss to the nest of old scars on her wrist. At the touch of his lips there, she flinched. “Your sister told me about your little brother. You left that part out, I’m afraid, when last we spoke.”

Eliza worried at the fringe on her sleeve, pulling it over her wrist. “I don’t talk about it. It’s my biggest shame, the reason I could no longer abide New Orleans—well, one of the reasons. Here, I could pretend it never happened. I could start fresh.” She gave a rueful smile. “But I’ll never be able to outrun my guilt, no matter how far I go. I blamed myself for his death. I still do.”

“And I blamed myself for what happened to my own family.” Malcolm squeezed her hand. “If I had been awake, I might have saved my brother. If I’d been home more, instead of at sea chasing my ambition, I would have been a better son to my mother. I could have protected her. And then, to be implicated as her murderer . . .” He blinked and shook his head. “Well. It seems we’re broken in many of the same ways, doesn’t it?”

Eliza melted into his embrace, lacing her fingers through his. She’d never felt so understood. So safe. “My mother never recovered after Albert died,” she murmured. “He was her shining light. After I was born, she lost one baby after another. Some were born blue and fully formed, others died in her womb within weeks of her confinement. The doctors could never say why. After each loss, her grief turned darker.” Eliza studied the flaming wick of the oil lamp, the crackle of the burning paraffin filling the heavy silence between her words. “I began to dread Maman’s fits of melancholy. She often neglected me and turned to her cups for solace. Mimi Lisette, Lydia’s grandmother and our housekeeper, was truly the one who raised me.

“My father seemed to weather things better, but I didn’t know that he slaked his own sorrows with other women, including Mimi’s daughter—which is how Lydia came to be. My parents raised her as their ward and my companion, but Papa never claimed her as his daughter, even though she was. I think Maman might have known about his affairs, but she hid them from me, although they argued like mad for years. Lydia and I were at the middle of it all. And then, whether out of guilt or genuine feeling, I cannot say—Papa began wooing Maman like he did when she was young. She was soon with child again. Nine months later, Albert was born, fat and healthy. Our house grew happy again. There were parties and picnics, and for a brief time, I felt the fullness of my mother’s love. Until . . .” Eliza’s face crumpled.

“How old were you? When the accident happened?”

“Twelve. Maman had gone to the market with Mimi Lisette. I was put in charge of Lydia and Albert. He had just turned three. It was a lovely September day, and I wanted to go down the hill to our pond to daydream and read my new novel. Lydia was napping, but I brought Albert with me. I should have been watching him more closely. One moment, he was pawing through the cattails looking for frogs, the next he was gone. I didn’t even hear a splash. I looked up from my book, and he was just . . . gone.” Her voice broke and she took a long, shaky breath. “I dove in and found him, but it was too late.”

Malcolm lifted her chin. “It wasn’t your fault, Eliza. You were only a child. Isn’t that what you said to little Mary Cook today? Why shouldn’t you say that to yourself?”

“Because I took my mother’s happiness. Her only son. She never said it aloud, but she blamed me, all the same. How can I ever forgive myself, Malcolm?” She began to sob afresh, her grief tearing from her throat like a bird with razor wings.

Malcolm pulled her close, letting her tears soak the fine silk of his cravat. When she had finally quieted some minutes later, he stroked her hair from her forehead and then kissed her there. “I have an idea.”

She wiped her face with her sleeve and looked up at him, the angular planes of his face softened by the lamplight. “What?”

“You could do with some cheering.”

Eliza laughed. “I suppose I could.”

“Would you like to go out? I’ve heard Sarah Bernhardt is appearing tonight at the new theatre in Southampton.”

“But won’t we be late? And I look a fright!”

“Nonsense. At any rate, it’s a tragic piece. Everyone will think your tears are due to Miss Bernhardt’s superb acting. Go put on a pretty frock and I’ll meet you outside.”