Strands of Bronze and Gold (36 page)

The series of events that had led me to this fate played out through my head, culminating with Bernard’s bestowal of the keys. He knew my curiosity. In some skewed way he probably enjoyed taunting and testing me with them. Twice he had done it, but the first time I hadn’t fallen into the trap. Now I had failed the test; now I would share the same doom as his other disobedient brides.

Garvey, of course, had been instructed to watch me. He would be well rewarded when his master returned. He knew what lay here. Had he even joined in the sport? No, Bernard wouldn’t have shared that pleasure with his henchman, but Garvey would have helped dispose of the bodies.

An explanation for my absence would be given to the servants. There would be an emergency return to Boston, with my reported illness and death following. That part would be easy. Especially with Talitha and Odette gone, most wouldn’t care enough to think twice. If any of them suspected villainy, they would be too afraid of Bernard to raise concerns. Ling had helped me a few times, but he was too weary and too old and too alone to blatantly thwart his master. Ducky—she was not stupid so much as blind to anything she didn’t want to see.
Poor little Miss Sophia
, she would cluck,
to die so young, and the master so devoted to her
. My relatives might be told I succumbed to the typhus, which was common here. They would grieve and might raise questions, but they would have no means to pursue answers. He was going to get away with it.

Death itself didn’t frighten me. I was secure in my faith of a better place hereafter. There were the beautiful lines in Corinthians, beginning with the hope of the resurrection: “For we know that if
our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

I hadn’t realized I had begun weeping. Tears streamed down. Because of the loss of my earthly future. The loss of marriage and babies and becoming finally old and wise and gray-haired. Because I was frightened of
how
I would end here. Of the thirst and the fear and the pain. Of the slicing and stabbing.

No! I wanted to live.

I began to pray then. A litany of pleading for help, for strength, for intelligence and a clear mind. I pled for the souls of the dead. Even in that terrible place, the peace of God enveloped me.

Heavy silence settled down like ancient dust. I slept.

The noise of thunder and pouring rain awoke me, building up to a crescendo of jarring rumbles and booms.

I was still here, with lips cracked from thirst. In the chapel. Waiting for Bernard and for death. I would have begun screaming again if my swollen throat had cooperated, even though screaming was pointless.

Another sound began to rise. This resonating from inside the chapel. A low murmuring swelled and surrounded me. My Sisters. They were not leaving me to face Bernard alone. I listened so hard, trying to catch intelligible words, that my ears hurt.

Finally, both hands clutched over my head to stop the pain, I stumbled to the place where water streamed from the hole in the roof. I opened my mouth for the raindrops that poured down. I stood there a long time, and gradually the moaning died away.

Until it dried, my clothing would hold moisture I could suck on or wring out to drink. But after that, in case the rain ceased soon and in case Bernard didn’t return today, I must have stored water. What could I use to catch it? There was my reticule, which was still just inside the door. Unfortunately it was made of cloth, which wouldn’t hold liquid. It contained only the underclothing, the tied-up handkerchief, the hairbrush, the toothbrush, and the jewelry. There was not a vessel or any hollowed cylinder in the place except—

Oh, I could not do it
.

Lord Byron had drunk from a skull. Bernard must not find me faint from thirst.

Then, thankfully, I thought of the shoes. Distasteful, but not so horrifying as a chalice of bone. I wouldn’t drink from them unless in dire need. I was hungry and weakened now, as I’d eaten nothing since the day before yesterday, but not desperately so. It was water I needed.

I collected shoes from the skeletons and set them to catch rainwater.

As I unlaced Tara’s kid boots, I brushed against an odd bulge below her belt. She had been carrying something when she died. I lightly touched the tarlatan of her dress, brittle from dried body fluids, then ripped it open. Tara carried a pocket beneath her gown, a pouch with drawstring looped about her waist. It was of leather, brightly painted.

The contents spilled onto the floor.

A flask of smelling salts, a few coins, and a penknife.

A knife. I could almost hear Tara say,
Take it and use it well, for I could not
. Feisty Tara would not have gone down without a fight. Unfortunately Bernard must have taken her by surprise before she could reach for her weapon. Much better than pointed glass.

Once more I seated myself against the wall and, twisting the hair bracelet about my wrist, made my plan.

With my reticule and the opened knife in my lap, I waited.

It must have been late afternoon, but dusky from the cloud cover, when a key rasped in the lock. My heart shot up to my mouth. The weapons had slipped from my hands, but now I grasped them. When he first entered, he wouldn’t be able to see well in the dimness. There would be a moment.

But it was not Bernard’s voice that spoke. “Sophia,” the voice hissed. “I stole the keys from Garvey. Hurry, you must go quickly! Now. He is back.”

Odette. She stood in the doorway.

I rose slowly, my cramped limbs rebelling. “You?” I said. My brain was too sluggish from hunger and shock to fathom this turn of events.

“I am the cousin of Adele Lalonde. Always when we were children, I took care of her. She married that man and I could no longer take care of her, but I could come here after she died to learn the truth and then to seek retribution. She is in here, no? I must see her. You—”

Her body gave an odd twitch and her face crumpled, the bright eyes suddenly flat. She fell to the ground, and the man I was
betrothed to marry wrenched his sword stick from her back. He kicked her body out of the way.

“She was clever,” he said, entering. “I never would have guessed. I had thought Adele had no close relatives. Families are inconvenient.” He bent over to wipe the bright blood from his long, thin blade on Odette’s dress. Fastidious.

Now!
Now was my chance. While he looked down.

Hit him! Hit him! Run! Run!

Instead, a faint whimper escaped my lips.

He faced me, the light from the doorway making his hair and beard gleam so he appeared to have a bluish halo about his head. His eyes held me frozen.

He shut the door behind him with a click.

“
Mon ange
, I was anxious for you.” His tone was light, conversational. “I had expected a warm welcome after my absence. But no, you were not in the house awaiting me. You were here awaiting me. And with what strange company.”

His tone drew me back to pleasant evenings with a congenial companion. As I listened to his deep, melted-chocolate voice, if I didn’t remember where we stood, I could almost forget who he really was.

But I did not forget. My coldness was replaced by a dull rage as life returned to my limbs. I stood wary, ready to leap out of the way if he lunged toward me.

It was hard to see his expression, although I thought he smiled. He didn’t move my way; instead, he walked up toward the altar, his boots crunching the debris on the floor. He surveyed what lay there.

“I watched the faces of these whores as I thrust my knife in, and it was beautiful to see the light leave their eyes as the life oozed from their bodies.”

“Please, Bernard,” I whispered. “Please.”

“Yes,” he said, stepping back toward the door. “That is what they all said. Poor Sophia with the lovely hair. I used to look at you as you sat there, so small, so easily broken. I could take your arm or your neck and—snap!—break you with one hand. But I never would, I thought. Not my Sophia. Alas, though, first the letters from that boy and then the preacher and always so curious. Why couldn’t you leave things alone?” The last word was accentuated by the sword stick crashing down on a pew.

“Bernard,” I said quietly, calmly, “you don’t need to hurt me. I’ll never tell anyone what’s here. We’ll leave this place tonight. We’ll be married. We’ll never stop traveling and we’ll never come here again. You can forget all about it.”

He stared at the floor as if he were actually considering. He looked up. “No, it’s gone too far for that.” He motioned with his hand. “Come here. I don’t want to chase you down. I will do it quickly. You shall not suffer much.”

I stirred myself. I moved toward where he stood waiting, step by step, as if pulled by an invisible thread. As he expected me to do.

Closer, closer
.

My reticule, weighty with the ruby jewelry, slammed into his face. While he reeled, I thrust the knife at him. I meant to stab, but flesh was tougher than I thought and the blade didn’t plunge in; instead, I slashed down his shoulder and arm, and dropped the knife.

For one moment he stared at me in shock. Then, as blood spurted out, he clapped his hand over his wound and laughed. He leaped toward me, but he lost his footing on a bone and slipped. I dashed past him to the door and jiggled at the latch for what seemed ages.

Please make it open. Please make it open
.

It opened. I was outside. The cold pouring rain shocked me into speed, and I raced toward the woods. I heard Bernard shouting and expected any moment to be surrounded by groundsmen. No one came.

My boots pounded, pounded, pounded as they hit the ground. Once, just before reaching the forest, I glanced back. He followed, his hand clutching his arm, dark with blood.

I launched into the trees. Their branches wept down.

Which way? Which way?

I leaped from stone to stone across the brook. Evil couldn’t cross running water.

Dripping, hanging vines clung wetly, and I slipped on slimy leaves. My sleeve caught on a branch, and my heart seemed to stop because I thought it was Bernard snatching. When I saw what it was, I ripped it away. Twigs plucked at my hair. On and on I ran. He crashed behind me. After making my way deep within the woods, I zigged and zagged. I must not lead him to Anarchy. Once I tripped over a bulging root and fell with a thud. As I lay still in the mud before pulling myself up, my breath loud in my ears, Bernard called from not far.

“Sophia, come here now,” he coaxed. “I will not hurt you. It is as you said—we will be married. We will travel wherever you want to go.”

Choking back a sob, I picked myself up and ran. I paused for a moment as I broke into a clearing, thickly matted with weeds and briers, the rain striking my face. Where was I? My sixth sense about direction had deserted me when I needed it most. Had I come this way before? Was I dashing in circles?

Hide and wait for morning
. Quietly, quietly I could secrete myself in the undergrowth like a small hunted animal. The rain had brought an early twilight. He would not find me.

I lay down and started to wriggle beneath a dense clump of witch hazel.

There I was, flat on my stomach, when Bernard entered the clearing.

He gave a pleased little laugh while I writhed to right myself and tensed to fight for my life. He stepped calmly toward me through the briers. The chase was over. He took one step … then another.

A loud clang and a crunch sounded. Bernard screamed.

I scuttled backward on my rear end, gaping.

The glitter in his eye was quenched, replaced by pain and bewilderment. He gasped and shuddered, twitched and trembled.

He had stepped into one of his own man traps.

Shock riveted me to the spot.

He groaned and cursed, wrenching his leg upward while the blood spurted.

At last he stopped struggling and sank to the ground, his leg bent at a strange angle where it was clamped by the long teeth of the trap.

Gradually he focused on me. “Is that you, Sophia?” he said so softly it was almost a breath.

“Yes,” I whispered. He could not hurt me now. He was stricken
down like the oak tree. Blood oozed from his mangled limb and from his arm and mingled with the rain to pool beneath him. Randomly I wondered if I had hit an artery with the knife. It was a great deal of blood.

I stood.

His face twisted. “It’s so dark, I can’t see you. Come near so I can see you. You must help me.”

How like him. How like him even now to continue talking, to continue to try to ensnare me with his words. “I don’t dare,” I said.

“Do you think I would grab you and crush your white neck? While I am thus? No, I won’t harm you if you’ll get a branch and wedge the trap open. You can go free to your family.”

“I’ll send someone for you.”

He sucked in sharply and shouted, “That would take too long! And they wouldn’t help; they’d bring a noose. Do I mean nothing to you? Would you leave me here to bleed to death?” He moaned from the pain. And now quieter, almost a whisper, “You are not like that. You are compassionate. Always you would wonder if you needed to let me die. You don’t want to live with that on your conscience.” He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Every part of him shuddered and then lay perfectly still.

Bernard was dead. There was no movement, no breathing. I exhaled and moved slightly closer to peer into his eyes.

Dead.

I shook out my skirts and—in a flash—he
lunged
impossibly far to grab my ankle. The distorted look on his face is one I will never, never forget. The tighter I pulled away, the tighter he held, his fingernails digging into my flesh like the teeth of the trap dug into his.
I screamed and struggled. I sobbed for Anne and for Gideon and for Anarchy and for my brothers.

“I said come,” he said, guttural and distorted. He began to reel me in, hand over hand, as he struggled to a sitting position.

I kicked at him with my free leg. He snatched it as well. I clutched at the trunk of the witch hazel bush, holding on for all I was worth.