Echoes in Stone (8 page)

“Luther! Please, Luther! Help me!” But Jessa’s trusted manservant didn’t answer.

Instead, demons came to torment her, their faces monstrous. Sometimes they floated above her, disembodied in the gloom. Sometimes they were at the foot of the bed, or more terrifying, beside it. Their hands were the worst. Every time one of them pointed at her, reached for her, there was searing, relentless pain. It tore through her belly, burned past her lungs, forcing a river of bile from her mouth.

Voices came to her out of the darkness, but sounded like so much gabbling. They made no sense. She gave up trying to understand them. She only wanted to escape the pain.

“Mrs. Penrose! Be quick with that basin. I think she’s about to be sick again!” The deep voice rumbled somewhere close to her.

Then later, “Damn it Jessa, stop fighting me. Let me help. Mrs. Penrose, bring me a ribbon or some such.” One of the fiends murmured far away in the darkness. “Anything. I don’t give a damn about the color. She has her hair wrapped around her throat like a noose.” The rope about her neck loosened, but was followed by a dreadful pitching as some great beast tossed her on her side and tore at her head with sharpened nails. She sought escape, sliding into welcome forgetfulness, away from the relentless pain.

The voices wouldn’t let her rest. “Your lordship, Cook sent up some of this ginger tea. Try to get a bit in her. ‘Twill ease the nausea and help her poor throat.”

The voice lied. The liquid tasted delicious on her parched tongue, but only set off another round of the gut-wrenching pain. After that, she fought with whatever meager strength she could muster every time they held a cup to her lips. The demons were trying to poison her; she wouldn’t let them.

“Jessa, damn it, don’t you dare die. We haven’t finished our conversation!” Not even the flames or the darkness or the demons could fool her on this point. She knew that voice. Captain Dashiell Tremayne, shouting orders at her as if she were one of his lowborn seamen. To the devil with the man if he thought he could order her not to die! Death sounded like a welcome option.

Unless, of course, she’d already died and this was hell.

JESSA OPENED HER eyes to a room lit only by the fire in the grate, burned low. It was either very late, or very early. The demons must have grown bored with torturing her. She tried to get a better view of her prison, but the slightest tilt of her head set off an explosion of fireworks behind her eyes. It increased the steady throb of pain in every part of her body to a brutal, bone-jarring ache. She closed her eyes, breathing, waiting for the pain to settle back to a more tolerable level.

The voices had receded, leaving only the occasional pop of an ember or hiss of wood. But something had awakened her, drawn her to this room from the safe sea of darkness on which she’d been floating. Her eyes slit open again.

A ghostly figure, no more than a lighter shade of darkness, stood at the foot of her bed. A woman. She glided closer to the side of the bed, staring at Jessa the whole while from hollowed sockets where eyes should be.

“So, you’re not dead yet.” The sibilant voice crawled over her skin. “As usual, I suppose it’s up to me to fix things. That dratted Lily never could be trusted to get anything right. Too busy spreading those plump white thighs of hers for any creature with a dick between his legs to ever listen to what she was told.” The figure moved closer, then leaned over, peering at Jessa.

Dear God, protect me
! Jessa would have screamed, and never stopped screaming, if she’d been able to draw breath past her raw throat. “No,” she finally managed to croak. “No!” She tried to hold up a hand to ward off this latest demon, but had no strength left. She could only stare; she didn’t have the power to stop the tears running, wet and hot, down her cheeks.

The woman beside the bed was Lily.

No. Lily was dead.

There had been a carriage accident. A fire. Something else—just beyond her memory. A letter?

Whatever it was, Lily was dead. This figure looming over her couldn’t be her sister. Same height. Same build. No more than that.

Lily would never have worn that shapeless dress, that revolting shade of swamp-water brown. Her titian hair would never be so dull, so lifeless. She’d wear it in bouncing ringlets, not scraped off her forehead, bundled into a straggling bun. Lily wouldn’t be caught dead looking this way.

Jessa almost giggled. What a macabre thought. Incipient hysteria. It had to be.

The woman glowered at her, the mouth, lips drawn into a thin line, emphasizing the deep brackets around the corners. Lily never frowned. She said it caused wrinkles. The deep furrows on her forehead, the twin vertical lines between her brows—no, this was not her sister.

Yet, something about her reminded Jessa of Lily. It was impossible to tell the eye color of the implacable woman standing by her bedside. This might be the way Lily would look, if Lily were an older—and very angry—woman. Jessa couldn’t reconcile this woman with the fey, temperamental sister she’d known.

“So.” The figure spoke again. “You kissed him, didn’t you. The taste of the devil’s tongue was poison. First, he puts his tongue in your mouth, then he pricks you between your legs with his tail. It’s only right, you paying the price for your easy ways now. I had hoped you might be cut from a different cloth than Lily. That you might be the one to save the child. But I see now you are not. You’re the same kind of slut as she, easy prey to devils like him.”

Jessa could only stare at the woman, appalled at her words. Who was this harridan? In spite of her forbidding appearance, she couldn’t shake her impression this was Lily.

But Lily was dead.

The woman folded her hands in front of her, sighed, and settled back on her heels. “The child, of course, is drawn to Lily, as children are ever drawn to shiny, dangerous objects. But she must be protected. Her care can no more be entrusted to a slut like you than it could be entrusted to that tramp. Or that Lucifer, who calls himself her father.” The woman grew more agitated with every word; she clasped her hands, rocking side to side.

“God smote that foul despoiler on his face, so all the world would see the mark of his true master. But you, adulterous witch, have ignored the sign, and reveled in the pleasures of the flesh with him. It’s no mystery to me your name,
Jessamine
, is so like the name Jezebel. You are a deceiver, just like Lily. You smile. Flirt. Lead men into corruption. The poison coursing through your frail woman’s flesh is no more than you deserve.” Her voice rose with her fury, flecks of spittle landing on the coverlet.

Jessa could do nothing but lie in her nest of blankets, listening to the ravings of this madwoman who resembled Lily. She found her voice at last, though it was weak. It tore at her throat to speak. “Who are you? Is that you, Lily?”

The creature stiffened, as if offended by Jessa’s questions. “I am Susanna, the one falsely accused. The only one worthy to pass judgment on you. It is given to me to protect the child. Lily couldn’t protect her. Now you have failed as well. You’re a harlot, just like your strumpet of a sister. He’ll whisper in your ear, spear his serpent’s tongue in your mouth. You’ll spread your thighs for him, just as Lily always did. I saw.”

The woman drew a deep breath. She put her palms together, pulled them to her chest, lowering her head as if praying. “Fire is the only thing that will purify your blackened soul. You know that, don’t you, Lily?” Her eyes, shadowed, were closed. Her lips moved again but no sound came forth.

Jessa lay still, afraid to move, and too weak to do so in any case. Her blood felt like shards of ice in her veins. Once again, some mad creature had mistaken her for her sister.

The woman’s eyes snapped open, glaring at her with renewed intensity. “I’m sorry, Lily,” she said. “I cannot offer you the salvation of fire this time. The depths of hellfire where you dwell have inured you to its affect.”

A soft knock.

The woman—Susanna—snapped her head, staring at the bedroom door.

Jessa tried to cry out, to beg for help, but the weakness of her voice betrayed her.

The figure reached for one of the pillows surrounding Jessa, snatched it up, then pressed it hard against Jessa’s face.

Jessa struggled against the cloth closing off her nose and mouth. Her lungs ached, screaming for air. Her feeble efforts made no impact. Susanna said she’d been poisoned. By Dash? Whatever it was—simple illness or demon’s poison—had taken its toll. Her arms fell to her side.

Bright flashes of light sparked behind her eyelids. Jessa clung to those lights, knowing if they ceased, the darkness would be eternal. Just as the lights began to wink out, the pillow was snatched away from her face.

“Oh my God! What are you doing?” A deep, male voice hissed out of the darkness. Jessa struggled to draw breath past her battered throat, into her burning lungs. Her ears rang with a high-pitched hum that muffled the voice, distorting it.

Light spilled from the hallway through the open door. A tall man, silhouetted against the light, snatched Susanna’s arms, wrestling with her in the shadows. The madwoman fought like a wildcat, writhing, kicking, fingers curled into talons to claw the man’s face or gouge his eyes. She hissed and spit, though they fought in near silence.

His greater height and length of arm allowed him to thwart most of her efforts, until she landed a solid kick in his groin. He grunted as his breath left him, falling back against the doorframe. Susanna turned, giving Jessa one last wild-eyed look.

“Protect the child,” she said. The voice was different. No longer the harsh voice of an old woman, but higher. Lighter. Almost childlike. “They’re in league against her. Don’t let the monster have her. He’ll corrupt her, just as he corrupted Lily.”

The woman turned, then charged past the man in the doorway, disappearing into the hall. The man, still no more than a dark shape against the light, struggled upright, glanced in Jessa’s direction, then stepped into the hall. The extinguishing of the light accompanied the soft snick of the door closing.

Jessa struggled to pull herself upright, to reach for the lamp on the bedside table, to call out. At the end of her reserves, she surrendered to the encroaching dark of unconsciousness.

“WHO IS LUTHER?” Jessa found an odd comfort in the rumbling voice. “Jessa, can you hear me? Who is Luther?”

“Here now, Captain.” That voice was higher, familiar. Where had she heard it before? “She’s not quite awake yet, and probably feeling as if the devil were banging a kettle drum in her brain pan. Leave off your questions now. Let her come about on her own.”

Mrs. Penrose, berating the captain as if he were a little boy. Just as she had last night. Or the night before? Jessa tried to smile at the image of the fearsome Captain Dashiell Tremayne as a tousle-haired little boy, but her lips were dry, and cracked at her efforts.

“Water.” The demand came out a harsh croak. Why couldn’t she get her eyes open? She sensed light somehow dancing on her lids, but didn’t have the power to lift them.

A heavy weight settled on the edge of the bed, causing it to tilt and roll. Her stomach protested the motion. She found she was able, through effort of will, to force back the bile rising in her parched, raw throat. A strong arm moved under her shoulders, lifted her. She knew this feeling, this sound. What was it? She struggled to remember. Not kettledrums. The sound of a heart thudding inside a granite wall. Impossible.

“Take a sip, Jessa.” Dash, his grumbling voice. The mint-scented breath, warm against her ear. The vibrations of that voice against the cheek that lay against the solid wall at her side bemused her.

She turned her head, pressing her ear flat against it. Yes, there was that sound. That beat, slow and steady. She did smile this time, her eyes still closed.

“Say something again,” she managed to croak, astonished the raspy sound was coming from her own throat.

The pace of the beat in her ear sped up. The voice vibrated again, almost tickling her.

“I said, sip this, Jessa. It will make you feel better.” Something was pressed against her mouth; something warm and sweet met her parched lips, then dribbled past them, to ease the dryness in her mouth. Tea. Honey. Other flavors she couldn’t place. It tasted like ambrosia. She let the sweet liquid run down her throat.