Page 3 of The English Wife

They had battled their way through the length of the gardens. Ahead lay only the river and the folly, bare, ruined choirs where monks had never sung, the false remains of an imagined abbey in a staunchly Protestant preserve.

But then in Illyria, nothing was as it was, was it?

“Anne?” Janie blinked snow out of her eyes. The light was dimmer here, the arches of the abbey that never was had been left in deliberate darkness save for two torches that sputtered in the wet. Where was her cousin? She could hear only her own voice, raised to shrillness against the deafening hush of the snow-shrouded garden. “Anne? I’m going back.”

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” The words would have sounded like a chant, like the echo of a long-ago refrain, were it not for the edge of panic to them.

“Anne?” Janie’s voice was sharp. She squinted into the glare of the lanterns, searching for the rope that might be stretched out to trip her, the snickering town beau waiting to jump out and scare her.

Anne’s voice rose from the darkness, down by the folly. “Bay! Can you hear me? Bay…”

Janie could feel panic rising, quickening her step as she half ran, half slid the final few yards to the folly, her hands like ice in her gloves, light flaring at the corners of her eyes, the strange gray half dark of a snowy night pressing all around her.

Anne was kneeling on the floor, her skirts spread all around her, cloth of gold turned to rust. The air was heavy with the scent of sulfur from the torches and something else, an acrid tang that caught at the back of Janie’s throat like smoke.

“What is it?” Janie’s voice echoed in the stony room.

Anne rocked back on her heels, pressing a hand against her mouth. “It’s Bay. Oh, God. Bay. Bay.”

“What do you—” A hand was extended as if in supplication, rings glittering on the fingers. Stage rings, designed for the occasion. Janie had seen those rings, had commented on them at dinner. It was Bay’s hand, Bay’s legs in elaborate knee breeches.

Bay. On the ground.

Janie dropped to her knees beside her brother, feeling the cold of the stones seeping through the thick material of skirt and petticoats.

In the uneven flare of the torchlight, she could just make out the bright flare of his blond hair, the pale shape of his face. Was it just a trick of the light, or were his lips tinged with blue? The ruins were open to the elements, a mere sham of a building. The wind blew cold off the river, scattering snow like diamonds.

The spectacle. Something about a spectacle. Janie’s mind stuttered and started again. Bandages. Medical assistance. It was no wonder if Bay had slipped and fallen on the icy stones. Janie reached for Bay’s hand, so cold, even through the material of her gloves. She squeezed his fingers and felt him stir, ever so slightly.

“Anne.” When her cousin didn’t answer, Janie tried again, louder. “Anne. You go for help; I’ll stay with Bay. We need to get him warm.”

She had no shawl to lay over him, but her brocade overskirt detached from the underskirt. If she could only remember where her maid had set the stitches.

“I think—” Anne rocked back on her heels, and kept rocking, rocking back and forth. She laughed, a wild sound, somewhere between a laugh and a hiccup. “I think it’s too late for that. Oh, Bay. Bay, Bay, Bay. Can you hear me? I’m so sorry, Bay. Bay…”

“Anne! Pull yourself—” The words died on Janie’s lips as her eyes moved from her brother’s face to his chest, to the jeweled hilt of a dagger protruding from his doublet.

Her brother exhaled, a labored, rasping sound. With effort, his eyes flickered open, focusing, not on Janie, but on something beyond.

His lips moved, shaping a word, a name.

“Bay!” Janie was squeezing his hand, squeezing as if the pressure of her touch could bring him back, hold him where he was. “Bay…”

This wasn’t happening. It was a game, a trick, part of the illusion. Any moment now, he would pluck the dagger from his doublet and leap to his feet with easy grace. Just a trick, a scratch, nothing more.

Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.…

Next to her, Anne was laughing, a high-pitched laugh that went on and on, keening and keening in the darkness.

“Bay?” Her brother’s head slumped back, his eyes closed, snow dusting the closed lids. Frantically, futilely, Janie brushed at the falling flakes. “Bay, this isn’t funny.”

Tricks were Anne’s province, not Bay’s. The smell of blood stung Janie’s nostrils, blood, seeping into the velvet of Bay’s doublet, trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

And in the river below, the long, dark tresses of a woman shimmered gently below the ice.

ONE

New York, 1899