After a while she got up and examined the tray. There was half a loaf of bread and a mug of milk-cold, punitive fare, but it was better than nothing. She ate a little dry bread and finished the milk, then crept fully clothed under the covers. Undressing seemed dangerous for some reason, as if in her nightgown she'd be even more vulnerable.
Hugo would come to find her. He wouldn't abandon her to Jasper. He didn't love her, but he wouldn't desert her. Pride, if nothing else, would bring him. And he'd walk into Jasper's trap. Hugo didn't love her and so her own future was immaterial now. But she loved him and could not bear his death.
Seven miles away, in Denholm Manor, Hugo sat with Samuel over the fire in the kitchen, explaining his plan and Samuel's role in it. But every now and again his voice faded and a haunted expression flashed across his eyes. Several times he got up and strode to the door, opened it, and stared out into the darkness, listening.
"What is it?"
"I don't know, Samuel. I just feel Chloe. I can feel her fear," he said. "But I can't do anything about it at the moment… I miss that damned dog," he added, slamming the door. "In fact, the whole godforsaken menagerie."
"I know what you mean," Samuel said. "It's kind of quiet wi'out 'em." He stood up. "Can you sleep?"
"No." Hugo shook his head. "I'm going to play. It won't disturb you?"
"Never 'as done before," Samuel said, going to the door. "I'm fer me bed, then." Only once had it disturbed him, he remembered as he climbed the stairs. During that dreadful time when Hugo had wrestled with his demons and his addiction and those terrifying discordant notes had filled the long night hours. He lay in bed, listening intently to the sounds of the piano-die sounds that would give him an insight into Hugo's state of mind.
Hugo played the lullaby he'd once played for Chloe, on the night of the stable fire. He played it as if she could hear it and be soothed and comforted by it. Did she know how close he was? He tried with his music to tell her, as if the sounds would cany on the crisp, clear night air the seven miles across the valley. Was she sleeping? He prayed she was.
… The innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisber in life's feast.
He remembered how she'd completed his quote that day when she'd only just come into his life-a life ruled by the painted devils. Tomorrow night he would lay them finally to rest.
He played on throughout the night.
Chapter 26
Chloe awoke stiff and cold despite her clothes. There was no fire in the attic room and sleet had begun to fall, coating the grimy window and filling the cheerless room with a cold gray light.
She got up and went to wash her face. The water in the ewer was frozen solid. The remains of the loaf on the tray were dry and stale. Hungry and thirsty, with no way of alleviating either condition, she returned to bed, huddling beneath the covers in an effort to keep warm.
It was many hours later before she heard footsteps on the stairs and the key turned in the lock. Jasper and Crispin came in. Neither of them spoke to her as they approached the bed and stood looking down at her white face on the pillow, all that was visible of her body. She stared up at them, reading cold indifference in Jasper's face, hungry anticipation in Crispin's, and for the life of her she couldn't decide which was the most frightening.
"Sit up and drink this," Jasper finally said, holding out the cup he held.
"What is it'" She made no move to obey.
"That is not something you need to know. Sit up."
"I'm hungry and cold," she said.
"Soon you won't be," he returned. "Sit up. I won't tell you again."
Slowly, she struggled up on the pillows and took the cup. Its contents were thick and syrupy, giving off a strange and repulsive odor. "I don't want it," she said, turning her head away, holding the cup out to him.
Jasper said nothing. He took the cup and handed it to Crispin. Then he sat on the bed and caught Chloe's head in the crook of his arm, forcing it back. She was tightly wrapped in the bedcovers and couldn't free her limbs as she struggled violently. He held her head in a vise and took the cup from Crispin.
"Open her mouth."
Crispin's fingers brutally pulled her mouth open and the evil-smelling liquid slid down her throat. With her head tipped back as it was, she had no choice but to swallow. Crispin clamped her jaws shut and she thought she was going to suffocate. And then they released her.
"You are a little fool," Jasper said. "You have nothing to gain by resistance."
They went out and left her alone again. She fell back on the pillows, numbed with shock, tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks. A foul taste was in her mouth, like bitter aloes, and she was abruptly reminded of the potion Hugo had given her. That hadn't tasted as bad, but the herbal quality had been the same.
What was this one supposed to do? It wasn't poison. They wouldn't poison her when they had such plans for her. She lay in terror, waiting for something to happen. When it did, it took her by surprise. Her body began to feel warm and relaxed, her head slightly muzzy, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation at all. She was no longer hungry or even particularly thirsty and soon drifted into a light-headed doze filled with a sequence of soft-edged dreams.
She lost all sense of time and, when her door opened again, looked with fuzzy lack of curiosity at her visitors. Louise's anxious face hung over her like a moon in a mist, and Chloe smiled reassuringly, or thought she did.
"Come along, dear, it's time to dress," Louise said. Her voice sounded a little peculiar, but Chloe let the speculation slip from her. She tried to sit up and the maid who had accompanied Louise moved to help her.
Her head swam and the room tilted violently. A wave of nausea washed over her and she fell back again. "No, I'll stay here," she said faintly.
"You can't, dear." Louise sounded almost desperate. "Once you sit up, it'll be better." She tugged at Chloe's arm, and because she sounded so unhappy, Chloe made one more effort. This time the room stopped spinning once she opened her eyes wide.
She submitted to being undressed and her body-washed in warm water from a steaming copper jug. They brushed and rebraided her hair, fastening the braids in a coronet around her head. She tried to help her attendants, but her limbs were too heavy to lift and her mind kept slipping sideways so she forgot what it was she'd intended to do. But nothing seemed to matter. The room wasn't even cold anymore.
They dressed her in a white silk shift that covered her body from neck to ankles, white silk stockings gartered above the knees, white satin pumps. Vaguely she was aware that some article of underwear was missing, but the recognition simply flitted through her untroubled brain. Finally, Louise slipped over her head a white silk gown with long sleeves and a high, ruffled collar and the maid pinned a diaphanous veil onto the golden crown of her hair.
"How lovely you are," Louise said, her voice thick with tears as she gazed at the vision… the sacrifice she had prepared for her son. She tried to tell herself that Crispin would make a good husband, that Chloe was making a perfectly good match, one that many girls would give their eyeteeth for. Maybe she wasn't too eager, but what young girl was? It wasn't a love match, but such connections were rare these days and they were young; they could grow together.
All brides suffered from wedding nerves. She tried to pretend she didn't know why Chloe's eyes were blank, her movements sluggish. It was just wedding nerves.
"Come downstairs, dear."
Chloe allowed herself to be led out of her prison and down the stairs into the hall. She felt as if she were moving through some kind of filmy curtain, her feet making tentative contact with the ground as if it were made of sponge. There were people in the hall, their faces moving in and out of her field of vision.