Deathmark, p.8
Deathmark, page 8
“Or do you leave me with your sister,” Nell said. “I’d rather you didn’t, but I’d sooner that than go to Kinstol. There are too many clerics there for my peace of mind.”
For a long moment, Rowe did not speak. His thoughts manifested in a question she did not anticipate. “The mark. Can I see it?”
Misgivings snaked through her, but she suppressed them. He’d already had one look, albeit brief. It couldn’t hurt for him to see it again.
Wordlessly she pulled her collar to one side and turned so that the sunlight from the window fell upon the deathly spot. It had already spread, and its center had gone completely silver. The eight little spikes, still purple, had thickened and now curled out like tendrils. Three of them had spurs that branched away. Even though it was still small enough to conceal beneath her thumb, at this rate, it would peek out from the edge of her collar within the week.
Rowe stepped near. He studied the mark for longer than seemed necessary, his expression as set as if he were cut from marble. Nell trained her gaze on the opposite wall and tried to ignore her rising blush. She’d had her body examined by Dr. Preston and others before, and in a much more involved manner than this simple stare, but her heart had never raced like this.
She’d never had an actual mark for anyone to study.
Tension stretched taut between them until he gently pulled her collar back in place. “I’ll speak with Sally and Tom about you staying here, then go to the capital on my own. Maybe I can borrow one of their horses and save myself the fare and another several hours on the stage.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” said Nell, forcing calm into her fluttering pulse.
He turned to the window. “It’s logical. Since we’re already here, we might as well take advantage. You’ll be safe. If I don’t have to rely on the stage, I can go one day and be back the next. If you have any objections—”
“I don’t.” She stood with her back to him and her arms folded protectively across her middle.
At five o’clock, a servant summoned them to dinner. Rowe told him to convey their apologies, and that a small meal in the room would suffice. The servant seemed hesitant, but he bowed and left again.
“What is Sally thinking?” Rowe asked when the door shut. “We’re neither of us fit to sit down to a formal dinner. We only have one change of clothes between us.”
Nell had retreated to the window. “I’m sure she wants to see more of you. You’re welcome to go down without me.”
He scoffed.
“Do people normally post servants outside their guests’ rooms?” she asked. Below, Archer sat barely in view. From the boredom on his face, she surmised that he had been loitering there for some time.
Rowe joined her observation. “Looks like climbing down the bedsheets isn’t an option anymore.”
“I’m pretty sure you could take him in a fight. Or we could try to fall on him.”
“If you fell on him, he’d be perfectly fine.”
Nell ignored the remark. “I always wanted to try climbing out a window with ropes made from sheets. The window in the attic at the inn was just big enough for me to fit through, but it was four stories up and I never dared steal the other girls’ sheets to try it. But we needn’t try it here,” she added in alarm. Rowe had already crossed to the bed and was pulling back the blankets.
“You don’t want to?” he asked innocently.
She opened her mouth for a panicked protest but abruptly recognized the teasing glint in his eyes. A blush stole up her neck as she schooled her emotions behind a more tempered façade. “Not unless we absolutely must. Your sister sounded serious when she said she’d hunt you down.”
He grinned and dropped onto the mattress. “Sally always was a nosy beast. It’s hard to think of her married, and with a baby.”
She could have asked a hundred questions, but they all would have involved his past, so she only hummed and said nothing. Having no siblings, she didn’t know what it would be like to reunite with one after a long separation. She suspected Rowe was glad to see his sister and her husband again, but his mysterious past kept him from openly rejoicing.
The tranquil mood broke when a sharp knock rattled the door. Rowe stood as it flew open and Lady Sarah spilled into the room.
“What do you mean, you’re not coming to dinner? How can you not come?”
He admirably contained his annoyance. “Sal, we’re a couple of vagabonds. We can’t dress for dinner, and we aren’t about to crash into your dining room as we are.”
She scowled. “You can wear something of Tom’s, and… and Nell can wear something of mine.”
A bolt of terror thrummed through Nell—would Lady Sarah insist upon a servant helping her into a loaned dress?—but Rowe interjected.
“We’ll join you for breakfast. I’m not dressing up in Tom’s finery just to indulge your whims.”
“Will you still be here at breakfast?” his sister asked.
He smiled grimly. “You have my word.”
Lady Sarah’s lips thinned. “Fine. I’ll have Hill bring your dinner up. But Jackie, don’t disappear again.”
“Tell Tom I’d like a word with him later,” said Rowe.
“Later, when?”
“Tonight. You can come too, if you’d like.”
She slid an inquisitive glance to Nell, who said with utmost tact, “I’ll probably be asleep.”
After his sister left, Rowe said, “You’re very quick about things.”
She shrugged. “I don’t want to be in the way. You’d better not tell them about my situation, though.” Even as the words left her tongue, she realized they were unnecessary. Rowe’s mouth flattened. He wouldn’t divulge any such secrets.
They ate a quiet meal together. Shortly afterward, he disappeared downstairs. In the falling darkness, Nell washed her hands and face and studied her reflection in the long mirror that stood in one corner of the cavernous room. She was wan and thin already. The deathmark would ravage her even more in the coming months. She would grow gaunt. Her cheek bones would sink in, her skin would turn paper-thin, and her hair would lose its luster. She fingered a lock, thankful that Mrs. Baker had never gotten around to cutting it again. If she lived six months, it might actually reach her shoulders for the first time since childhood.
If she lived six months.
Most people didn’t live three. She turned from the mirror in a fit of melancholy. She had no time for complaints. If she was to die early, she needed to squeeze out every last drop of life she possibly could before then.
As fatigue pulled at her bones, she considered the one massive bed in the room.
Rowe could have it. He was the one traveling tomorrow. With him away at his private chat right now, she could preempt any attempts at chivalry and take the floor.
So, she pulled an extra blanket from the end of the bed. With this and one of the pillows, she curled up in a corner and fell asleep almost the moment she lay down.
She dreamt in colors of the ocean—blue, green, gray, and silvery white.
CHAPTER 8
Lady Sarah Plays Dress-up
Habit woke Nell at dawn. She blinked at an immaculately papered wall and the oil paintings that hung upon it. Sunlight streamed in from the window behind her. She was warm and ridiculously comfortable. The bed must have been stuffed with goose down to be this soft.
Her mind latched onto those two words: the bed.
Like a shot, she sat up. Quickly she looked around the room, only to discover—to her mortification—Rowe hunched beneath the covers on the opposite side of the mattress. It was all very innocent: two people could have fit between them. They hadn’t even shared a blanket. That didn’t stop embarrassment from flooding through her.
She replaced it with annoyance.
“Rowe,” she said, and she reached across to poke his shoulder. He stirred and opened one blue eye to peer up at her. “I went to sleep on the floor. Why am I up here?”
“Because I put you there,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
“You should. You lectured me again.”
“Did I?”
He breathed a heavy breath and stretched beneath the blankets. “I can’t let a woman sleep on the floor and take the bed for myself. You argued why I wasn’t allowed to sleep on the floor either, and when you finally threatened to get up and kick me if I tried, I gave in. So if you’re embarrassed now, it’s your own fault.”
“Oh,” said Nell. She vaguely remembered a conversation along those lines. “I guess that’s all right, then.” With a sigh, she snuggled back into the downy warmth of the covers. If she’d already spent the whole night here, another hour couldn’t hurt.
Rowe watched her with a mixture of confusion and fatigue on his face, but rather than comment, he drifted back to sleep as well.
Not half an hour later, that shooting pain plunged into her shoulder. She hissed and sat up, then wrenched aside her collar to look at her deathmark. Another spur had appeared on one of the original tendrils. It lengthened and darkened under her eyes.
“I think it’s doing that every time it splits,” she said vaguely. She could feel Rowe’s gaze upon her, could feel the worry that emanated from him.
“Doing what?” he asked in a tight voice.
She cast an apologetic glance over her shoulder. “Every so often it feels like someone’s stabbing me with an ice pick. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be less reactive.”
“Are you going to be all right while I’m gone?”
“I’ll be fine. It’s only for a couple of seconds at a time. Otherwise, it only aches.”
He didn’t respond, and Nell refused to peek over her shoulder at him. A moment later, he hefted himself from the bed and crossed to the wash basin in the corner.
“Do you think I could have a real bath this morning, or would that be too much of a liberty?” she asked.
“As long as the servants don’t help you, it’s fine. There’s a bathroom down the hall. I’ll get someone to draw you one.”
“Thank you,” said Nell. “You won’t leave before I finish, will you?”
He grimaced. “I won’t be leaving before half the morning’s gone. Tom insists he’s going with me, probably thinks I’ll disappear again, as though I’d abandon you here with him and Sal.”
“Yes, there’s no telling what I might say to them.”
A lopsided smile crossed his face. “You’re not the one I’m worried about. You seem to know when to hold your tongue.”
That rakish, devil-may-care expression stirred a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. She tried to scatter them, but managed only a faint, “Oh,” in response.
Rowe, oblivious of her inner turmoil, continued. “Tom’s notorious for sleeping in—or rather, he was five years ago. It may be some time before I can finally get him up and out the door. You’ll be on your own with Sal.” He watched her reflection in the mirror, a guarded look on his face.
She rolled her eyes, which seemed to calm his fears.
Half an hour later, Nell sank into the hot bathwater with a blissful sigh. The servants who had drawn it had willingly left her alone. No doubt they pegged her as a vagabond unworthy of their attention.
Which she was.
The ache at her shoulder ebbed in the warm water. She lathered the bar of soap and scrubbed her skin and her hair with vigor. Baths had been a luxury for servants back at the inn. She was determined to enjoy this one, well aware that it might be her last.
After she rinsed the soap from her hair, she sat back to soak. From what Rowe had said, Lord and Lady Fairfield were both late sleepers, so she had no reason to hurry.
But a commanding knock on the door shattered her serenity, and the ensuing entrance of Lady Sarah herself banished its return.
Nell yelped and sank beneath the rim of the tub, so that only her eyes and the top of her head could be seen.
“I’ve brought you a change of clothes,” Lady Sarah said, as if it were ordinary to barge in on another woman bathing. “I thought you wouldn’t like to put dirty clothes back on when you’re clean. These might be a little loose. You’re smaller than I am, I think.”
“Thank you,” Nell managed, her voice stiff. The bathtub was elevated from the rest of the bathroom by a couple of steps and its waters murky with soap, but she wished Lady Sarah would leave as abruptly as she had come.
Much to her chagrin, the noblewoman placed the stack of clothing on top of a hamper and plopped onto a chair meant for an assisting servant. “The dress I brought has a rather simple pattern. I thought you might not be comfortable in something more elaborate.”
“Thank you,” said Nell as her nerves escalated.
“And I don’t mean to be too overbearing, but I do hope you’ll let my woman have a go at your hair. The way it’s cut now makes you look like you’re indentured.”
“I was indentured.”
Lady Sarah momentarily froze. “O-oh. I see. Well, that would explain it, wouldn’t it?” That her brother had married someone who had once been indentured threatened to overpower her. In mental self-preservation, she plowed ahead with her conversation. “Jane really is a marvel at hairdressing. You’ll let her play with yours, won’t you?”
“Yes, fine,” said Nell. Anything to get rid of her.
“Lovely. I’ll take you to her as soon as you’re dressed.”
Terror and helplessness shot through her. She clamped down these emotions and mustered every last ounce of civility within her. “Lady Sarah, I’m not accustomed to bathing or dressing in front of other people.”
For a brief instant, Sarah did not catch the hint. Then, her eyes widened and she stood up. “Oh. How awkward of me. I’ll wait outside.”
She made a hasty exit. When the door shut behind her, Nell leapt from the water and wedged the servant’s chair beneath the knob. She toweled off her skin and quickly dressed in the supplied clothing, which included everything she might need, and more.
Lady Sarah’s idea of simple did not correspond with Nell’s. True, the dress lacked any overabundance of frills and lace, but its stiff material was certainly costly, and the style elaborate in its finishing details. The gray hue suited Nell. Her own dress, in dire need of washing, she left folded on the chair.
As soon as she opened the bathroom door, Lady Sarah snatched her arm and dragged her out.
“This way. Jane is in my boudoir, waiting especially for you.”
Nell submitted without complaint. Lady Sarah did this for her own sake, a noblewoman dealing with hurt pride over family connections with a mere commoner. While Nell would not indulge her every whim, some clothes and a hairdresser were nothing to fret about.
Jane, an austere, square-jowled woman, took one look and harrumphed her disapproval. “Someone’s butchered you right up. When was the last time your hair was cut?”
“Five or six months ago.”
She harrumphed again. “I’ll do what I can.” To Nell’s horror, she extracted a thin pair of scissors from her apron and snipped them menacingly.
“Jane is a wonder with hair,” said Lady Sarah, her expression dreamy.
Nell sat where she was told and shut her eyes. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be able to grow her hair long anyway.
Still, every time the scissors clicked together, she forced herself not to cringe. Jane combed and cut and re-combed and re-cut every strand on Nell’s head. Finally she stepped back and surveyed her work with a grunt.
“You really are a genius,” Lady Sarah said. “Bangs are all the rage in town right now.”
Nell, half afraid to look, lifted her gaze at last to the mirror on the wall. The reflection that stared back seemed more refined than the Nell she knew. Her hair was still short, but it framed her face nicely now. A fringe lay at a slant across her forehead. Somehow, her eyes were more prominent. She lifted one hand to touch a lock that wanted to curl outward.
“You have good texture,” said Jane gruffly, as though it hurt her to admit. “You can comb it dry after washing and not have to worry about crimping papers or hot irons.”
“Do you like it?” Lady Sarah asked.
“I do,” said Nell, surprised at the truth of those words. “It’s never looked like this before.”
Jane puffed with pride.
An angry knock rattled the door. Before Sarah could even rise from her chair, a strange man barged in. He was handsome and clean-shaven, but a black scowl marred his pleasant features.
“Sally, what on earth—” He froze when he caught sight of Nell, and his scowl deepened.
She scowled back. She knew the voice, but that didn’t stop her from blurting, “Who are you?”
Rowe narrowed his eyes. “Madam, your servant,” he said sarcastically.
Lady Sarah clapped her hands in glee. “Oh, Jackie, you look just like your old self. You never should have grown that awful beard.”
“I liked his awful beard,” said Nell, fighting indefensible annoyance. Rowe without a beard was unthinkable. His beard was half his mystery, for there was no telling what was hidden beneath it. Now she knew.
“I had to shave it off,” Rowe said. “I can’t go into town looking like a wild man come down from the mountains. Don’t worry—it’ll grow back.”
Nell slouched in her chair and grumbled, “It won’t be the same.”
“Do you mean to say,” said a new voice from the doorway, and Lord Fairfield appeared with an astonished gaze, “that your wife actually likes you with scruff? Sarah won’t let me come within three feet of her if I haven’t shaved.”
Nell and Rowe exchanged a glance.
“I didn’t come here to talk about shaving,” said Rowe. “I’m here to reclaim my wife from the nefarious clutches of my sister. Sally, Nell is not your personal plaything.”
“She didn’t mind,” Lady Sarah said.
