Midnight Eyes (17 page)

It was as simple as it was deadly. She saw what he did but couldn’t stop it. She had been waiting for it, knowing even while she was enjoying it that hope was only an illusion.

And that was why Roger would always win, Imogen thought bitterly. He always seemed to know his enemies better than they knew themselves. He exploited their every weakness and no matter how clever they were, there was nothing they could do to save themselves.

Her hands clenched impotently by her sides and the metal of the ring seemed to burn its way into the flesh of her palm, branding her with memories.

She carefully loosened her grip and let the finger of her other hand run over the cut stones. She could almost see it in her mind’s eye, see the deep red of rubies and the green fire of the emeralds. She could feel the engraved words on the inside, and knew with her heart the words that were burned there: Love without measure.

Despite the bitter-cold pain that had lodged itself inside her, she smiled sadly. Love without measure, her family motto. A bittersweet feeling of painful joy filled her. It was strange to finally be reunited with this small part of her past. There was an undeniable joy in a memory being returned to her from so long ago, but at the same time she knew that it wasn’t for old time’s sake that Roger had given her the ring.

It was a message.

Roger knew that she would identify it instantly even though she couldn’t see it. He knew exactly what memories it brought with it. Memories of youth, happiness and love. She gave a brittle laugh that ended in a sob. That was what the ring had always meant to her. Love without measure.

As a child she had often begged her mother to be allowed to hold it and then, when that small liberty had been allowed, she would beg to be allowed to actually wear it.

Her mother would sit with her as she played with the sunlight in the stones, holding it first this way, then that, entranced by the colors and determined to wear the small fires on her own finger but, despite Imogen’s pleadings, her mother had remained firm.

“It’s too large for you to wear yet, Genny dear”—her mother would smile as she gave her a hug as a consolation—“but when your hands are as large as mine, then, I promise you, you will wear it.”

“But Mama,” she always protested, “my hands are ever so big. They must be your size by now.” She would hold up her small dirty hand as proof of its enormity. Her mother would place her own elegant hand against it and murmur, “Soon enough, Genny. Soon enough. Until then, I will wear it to keep it safe for you.”

And she had. Her mother had been wearing it that day when she and father had ridden out for the last time.

It had taken all of Imogen’s persuasion to convince them to go. It had been months since Imogen’s accident and her parents hadn’t left her side for a moment, frightened to leave her alone in the dark. It had taken her hours to persuade them that she would be okay, that she was getting used to the world without colors, that she really would be fine for just one afternoon by herself.

Eventually they had agreed, but her mother still hadn’t been able to stop herself from fussing around Imogen, issuing an endless stream of last-minute instructions to anyone who would listen.

In the end Imogen had clumsily reached out her hands to grab for her mother’s fluttering ones. She had felt the cold presence of the ring and been reassured even as she had said forcefully, “Mama, I’ll be fine. There are plenty of people here to look after me. You and Papa just go and enjoy yourselves for an afternoon.”

It had been a lie. She hadn’t been fine, had hated being alone, but Imogen had felt a small easing in her guilt as she had listened to the two horses galloping out of the courtyard and receding into the distance.

It had taken two days for their bodies to be found. They had been thrown into a ditch beside the stream, seemingly the victims of bandits as their bodies had been stripped of everything of value.

The ring had been stolen along with everything else, but that had hardly seemed to matter.

As Imogen had sat in vigil in the small chapel between her parents, she had been so numb with her grief that she had been able to do no more than sit there holding their hands in the darkness. She hadn’t cried. She had wept so much and so bitterly after the accident had robbed her of sight that there seemed to be no tears left for the beloved parents that she had blithely sent to their deaths.

But the numbness hadn’t lasted forever. The pain had then become almost beyond enduring.

In her dark agony she might have found some comfort in the ring and the love it represented, but it had seemed to be lost to her forever.

Her hand clenched tightly around the ring again. It should be lost forever. Roger shouldn’t have had it all these years. He hadn’t even been there when their parents had died. When Imogen had been found unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, it hadn’t taken her parents long to put together what had happened. Their father had been so furious, he had flogged Roger to within an inch of his life, then banished him forever from the family estates. Roger had slunk off to London willingly enough.

He was able to return only after the death of their parents, when he was master of all.

He shouldn’t have even known that the ring was missing. The cold reality of the ring in her hand killed the smallest part of her, that part that had been foolish enough to have hope.

There was no hope for her now, not when her parent’s murderer had now set his sights on her. Giving her the ring, Roger had known that he was giving her evidence of his darkest deed, but he had also been declaring that she would never be able to use it against him. He would make sure of that.

Imogen clamped down on her sudden need to expel the bile from her stomach. Her fingers loosened around the ring till it rested gently in her shaking hands as she fought the desire to hurl it as far away from her as she could.

Instead, she lifted it to her chest protectively.

She would keep it, just as Roger had known she would. The game had changed, had become deadly, and that was what Roger wanted her to remember every time she felt the ring. He wanted her to know that she was in mortal danger, and there was not a thing she could do to save herself.

A cold sweat beaded on her back and slid down her spine. She clenched her teeth to break off the scream that rose in her throat. It would do no good, she realized bleakly.

She heard Robert’s strangely hesitant “Imogen?” behind her and her spine straightened instantly, as if pulled up by an invisible string.

She quickly slipped the ring onto her finger, not once questioning her instinct to hide it from Robert. She barely noticed that it fitted perfectly as she stuffed the parchment into her girdle and ran a trembling hand over her cheeks. She dreaded the thought of finding them wet with memories. She would hate to give that weapon to yet another enemy.

She need not have worried. They were as dry as her heart was cold.

“Imogen?” Robert repeated softly. “Is all well?”

She could hear his annoyance, but he quickly got himself back under control. What a clever man, she thought wildly, able to stop being the king’s butcher at will.

She turned to him and her smile was as bright as it was brittle. “Yes, why wouldn’t all be well? Did you really think that the poor little messenger might harm my person?”

“What exactly did your brother want?” he asked calmly enough.

He wanted to tell me he now had a partner, Imogen thought cynically. She shrugged her shoulders with a careful negligence. “Not much, really. I’m surprised he wasted the good parchment on such frivolities.” She couldn’t seem to find control and her voice rose shrilly. That wouldn’t do, she thought with numb panic. She couldn’t let him know just how much she was hurting and she tried to draw herself back under control, but she wasn’t as good at it as Robert was. “He just wrote to ensure my well-being. And yours, of course. That is all. I didn’t bother with the expense of more parchment for a reply.”

She heard the rustle of his feet through the rushes as he began to pace the length of the room, perhaps trying to expend some of that ever-present restless energy she had come to know so well.

For a moment she envied him that energy, envied him the release that mindless movement would give. She seemed frozen to the spot. In the absence of that release, the pain grew until it was almost too great for a mere mortal to support. She was being suffocated by her absolute stillness.

“Damn him,” Robert swore suddenly, causing Imogen to flinch when he reached out and grabbed her shoulders in an almost-painful grip. “He is nothing to us, has no power over us, do you understand me? Believe me when I tell you that you have nothing to fear.”

Imogen found herself cringing away from the contact.

Roger had won. He had tainted it all, tainted her life with Robert. She couldn’t stop her shiver of revulsion at the corruption that she could feel growing deep inside of her and yet some part of her mourned as Robert dropped his hands quickly to his side, stung by her blatant rejection.

A silence stretched between them and it grew into a chasm, a chasm Imogen knew she could now never bridge, even if she had wanted to.

“Obviously there was more to this message than you have said.” Robert’s kept his voice carefully neutral. “I think I might just go and have the message read to me.”

Imogen shook her head jerkily. “I wouldn’t bother. There is nothing in it to cause any excitement.” She felt no triumph in the knowledge that she wasn’t lying. The poison wasn’t to be found in the words but in the bitter memories they evoked.

Robert’s silence spoke eloquently of his skepticism, but Imogen didn’t have the strength left to try and convince him otherwise. Let him read it, she thought listlessly. It would change nothing. The life that had filled her for months disappeared all at once and without it she barely had the strength to hold up her strangely hollow body.

“Do what you will. I think I will retire for the night,” she murmured in a faraway, world-weary voice.

“I’ll join you when I’ve got everything sorted down here. I’ll just go and get Mary to take you up.”

She waved him away. The thought of being close to anyone just now, even the loyal Mary, made her skin creep. “I can manage the stairs by myself.” She walked slowly to the door, trailing a hand along the wall.

“It doesn’t matter, you know” Robert’s voice sounded strangely hoarse.

“What doesn’t?” she asked lifelessly.

“Whatever he’s said and done; it doesn’t matter. He has no power over you or I. Not here, not anymore.”

She nodded her head obediently, but her heart knew that he was lying. Roger held her still, held her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He would continue to hold her, no matter where she went, no matter how far, he would hold her until the day he killed her.

Robert lied.

The next morning she woke to the feeling of bile rising from her stomach. She only just made it to the chamberpot in time and seemed to spend a lifetime emptying the entire contents of her stomach and much more besides.

She slumped down onto the floor beside it and rolled herself into a ball, waiting for the nausea to end, waiting for the room to stop spinning. She rocked herself slowly, trying to absorb the silence and emptiness of the bedchamber into the chaos of her mind.

Robert was already gone and if she hadn’t lain awake all night in their bed listening to the regular sound of his breathing, she might never have known that he had been there at all. He had risen silently long before dawn and dressed without a sound. She had listened to the sudden stillness that had filled the chamber moments before she had heard the door quietly close behind him.

Only then had she dared to allow herself sleep.

To have woken up with this all-consuming sickness was a perfect end to a perfect night filled with Roger and the cold fear he had mercilessly brought back into her life, she thought listlessly. There was no longer any room left in her heart for anything else, no room in her mind for thoughts that weren’t tainted by that fear.

She even feared to sleep. A part of her longed for the oblivion that it promised but, as she knew all too well, the second she sought its refuge, the nightmares would take control.

More than anything, it horrified her to think of what she might do in their power. In that place of perfect weakness she might try to climb into Robert’s arms in search of his strength. She longed for the strength to be found in his embrace.

It was a strength she could no longer afford to count on.

The uncertainty Roger had fed her with such relish was spawning its dark fruit, she realized, with a nearly hysterical giggle that ended in a final dry retch into the chamberpot.

She closed her eyes for a moment, moving seamlessly from black to black, but even in that darkness, the dawn had to be faced. It took a great act of will to drag herself from off the floor and away from the stench of the chamberpot.

She had no idea how to live in this strange new day. It was entirely alien. Gone was the light and energy that had been slowly penetrating her darkness. She barely had the will to move one foot after the other, but somehow she managed. She moved quietly through the day, and the only satisfaction to be found in it was that she survived.

She even managed to survive the cold formality that had descended between Robert and herself.

She knew that the walls between them were of her own construction, but she lacked the strength to even attempt to tear them down. Not that Robert seemed prepared to scale them either. He retreated behind them, silently waiting like a predator in the shadows.

The evening meal had been a torture of courtesy and politeness. Gone was all laughter and tenderness. In their place stood a cold nothing, and it was a coldness that was infesting the whole Keep, subduing all of the occupants. They all watched their lord and lady warily, puzzled by the sudden rift that had sprung up between the couple overnight. They all went about their duties as if there had been a death.

In a way, there had been. Imogen felt as if she was dying, disappearing a little more with each passing day.