Haunting Violet
Page 82

“Uncle Reginald.” It wasn’t my voice coming out of my mouth. My throat hurt.
“No.” He went the color of curdled milk.
I smiled. Or rather, Rowena used my face to smile. I fought the catharsis, feeling trapped and frightened. She was in my head, my bones, my blood.
“This is where you killed me.” She said it almost sweetly. “Do you remember?”
“Not possible.” He rubbed his eyes.
She turned my head and my hair, still drifting and matted with blood on one side. “You strangled me and watched me sink below the water.” Bruises turned purple on my wrists. I felt them on my throat. I wished she’d been this vocal a little earlier. “All because you wanted Whitestone.”
“I deserve Whitestone.” His teeth clattered together. Frost bloomed like creeping ivy over the grass, the flowers; even the crickets were now suddenly silent.
I was cast adrift in my own body. This was taking too long. I had nothing to steady me, to keep me tethered. Don’t let go, Rowena said sharply in her own voice, in the floating darkness inside my head. I got to my feet. A confession here in the middle of a field wouldn’t do any of us any good. I stumbled. Rowena would have drifted gracefully, but my movements felt clunky and jerky, as if we were fighting for the strings of a marionette.
She floated out of my body and back in, enticing Wentworth to follow. I tried not to throw up on my own feet. I forced myself to move, used the trees to pull myself toward the Rosefield gardens. The cold wind was nearly unbearable.
“You’re not real, not real,” Wentworth mumbled even as he followed after me.
I ran faster.
The weeds gave way to manicured lawns and I nearly wept with relief. Not far now. I could smell the roses, see the glow of lamplight spilling out onto the terrace. The music was soft, happy.
Wentworth crashed through the hedges, swearing. I ran past a murmuring couple, startling them out of an embrace. The doors were open, letting in fresh air to cool the dancers.
I fell into the ballroom. The guests froze, turning to stare. I knew I must look a fright, wet as a drowned rat and covered in mud, in my underwear. I was shaking from the effects of the storm and the laudanum and Rowena’s possession. The strains of a pretty waltz faltered, then stopped. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them again, Colin was propping me up.
“What the devil?” he asked, looking terrified. I blinked at the shiny buttons on his coat. He’d stolen a footman’s uniform to get around the party and watch Peter who, as it turned out, didn’t need watching.
“Wentworth?” Lord Jasper came forward as the other man burst through the doors only seconds after me. The light hit the silver swan of Lord Jasper’s cane. Wentworth looked as wild as I felt, all white eyes and tangled hair. He gave an odd, strangled laugh.
“Murderer,” I croaked loudly in that odd voice not my own. Everyone glanced at Wentworth, who straightened, anger giving him a bolstering jolt of courage. He hardly seemed to notice where we were, or else he was past caring.
“Had no choice, did I? Wanted to blackmail us. Your fault.” He sneered down at me. “Planning to elope with my tailor’s son, of all people. Absurd! Think Reece Travis would have loved you after he’d gotten hold of your inheritance?”
“I loved him.” I was shivering violently, barely able to stand up. Colin steadied me. “And you murdered me for it.”
“I couldn’t let you squander the last of the family money like my worthless brother,” he raged. “No one else gives a damn about this family, not him, not you. I took care of you and how were you going to repay me? By taking the last of the Wentworth land and giving it to a poor tailor. What would have become of me?” When Tabitha wanted her debut, he felt the same fears. If she married, he’d be destitute. But he knew two twin girls dying accidentally might raise questions, so he refused to take her to London and secretly fed her laudanum to keep her pliable.
“I wouldn’t have made you leave Whitestone.”
He shook his head, stared harder at me. “This can’t be real,” he slurred, as if his lips were numb. “This is a dream, just a dream.” He whirled, shouted at the orchestra. “Play, damn you! This is a ball, isn’t it?”
The hushed silence was pockmarked with gasps and frantic mutterings. No one moved. Rowena was staying too long, nestling into my bones. I was beginning to wonder where she ended and I began. Her memories and my memories intertwined too closely together.
“She’s cold.” Colin rubbed my hands between his. “Look at her eyes.”
Jasper cursed. I gathered by that, my eyes looked odd. “Spirit,” he said, leaning close to me. “Leave this girl.”
I shook my head, or Rowena did, I couldn’t be sure.
“Leave her! I command it!”
Rowena ignored them. Someone shrieked.
“That’s not her face!” I heard that same person slide tonelessly to the ground.
Colin took salt out of his pocket and forced it under my tongue. “Leave her be!”
Rowena recoiled from the taste of the salt.
“More,” I murmured.
Colin emptied his pocket. I swallowed thickly, mouth puckering. Rowena screamed. It was working but she was fighting it, desperate, wailing in my head. I shuddered, trying to escape the sound.
“Not until he confesses properly. They need to hear him say it.” Half the words were in my voice, half in Rowena’s. I could feel the pond water closing over my head and I struggled violently, gasping for air. No, Rowena’s head. I was in the ballroom. The ballroom. I hadn’t drowned. I clung to the scent of beeswax candles and oil lamps and the potted orange trees.