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Authors: Valentina Cano

The Rose Master (21 page)

BOOK: The Rose Master
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Lord Grey grasped one end and together we smothered Mr. Keery’s body, throwing him to the floor as his screams dug into our heads.

“We need to turn him!” I screamed at Lord Grey, who nodded and did as I said.

All sound except for our shifting clothes stopped. When I could see no smoke or fire trailing out of the curtain, I relaxed my grip.

“Is he alive, sir?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He pulled back a corner of fabric, revealing peels of black skin and bubbling flesh that gurgled with every breath. Oh, thank God, he was breathing.

I had seen my share of burns working in a fully-functioning, hectic kitchen, but nothing could have prepared me for the pulsing boil Mr. Keery had become.

“Sir, we need to get him to a doctor.”

Lord Grey looked at me, a flash of fear smothered by reason. “Of course.”

Ms. Simple stepped toward us. “We need to get out of here. We need to leave. I won’t stay another moment in this cursed place.” Her voice shook with fear and anger. “Dora, come on. I’ve had enough. We’re leaving.”

“But you won’t be allowed! The wraith will stop you.”

Lord Grey shook his head. “Didn’t you hear it? It gave its permission. It wants the two of us alone with it, Anne, but you must attempt to leave with them.” He sighed. “Please, take Peter with you and find him a doctor. I can’t do it myself.”

His voice was soft, without inflection.

“Fine, but we’re going, now.” Ms. Simple pulled on Dora to get her to stop crying. “Anne, come on.”

I knew I should go. I could picture my father’s horrified expression just for entertaining the notion of staying unsupervised with the Lord of the house. And leaving was the only logical thing to do when your life has been threatened for days without pause, but as Lord Grey’s eyes searched mine, I saw that stain of fear. He couldn’t leave. He was sick and needed help, and like it or not, I was the only one who could provide it.

“No, I’ll stay,” I said, pushing my father’s shocked voice backward for the first time in my life.

The young man in front of me flinched.

“That’s precisely what the wraith wants, to have you here in its domain where it can harm you.”

“Nevertheless, I will stay.”

Ms. Simple gasped. “No, Anne, come with us! You’ll die here!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I can help end all of this, forever.”

Ms. Simple wrapped her arms around me, her hands clasping me tightly. With grim amusement, I realized it was the second time in a few months I’d had to separate myself from someone who cared about me. I prayed it’d be the last.

As she left the kitchen with Dora, I stood.

“I’ll see to the horses.”

nineteen

Between all of us, we managed to get Mr. Keery’s collapsing body into the coach. I arranged pillows and blankets all around him. The poor man could only moan, an animal sound that was weak, but that at least announced he still clutched to life.

Dora had stopped whimpering, but she seemed hollow, her thoughts roaming somewhere else while her body got her bags stowed in the carriage. She would be traveling inside, next to Mr. Keery. Lord Grey was as silent as the rest of us. He was unreadable, nothing swept through his eyes, at least, nothing I could recognize.

“Ms. Simple, can you manage?” he finally asked as he placed a large purse in her trembling hands.

She nodded once and tucked the purse into her traveling cloak.

“As soon as you reach the nearby manor, have one of their men drive you to London. I hate to send you out alone.”

“We can manage.” Without another word, Ms. Simple seated herself in the driver’s seat and jerked the bleary-eyed horses into movement.

“Goodbye, Ms. Simple, Dora,” I said.

Lord Grey waited to see them cross the border and ride away from the manor. He sighed with relief as they disappeared, swallowed by the trees.
 He looked at me, then walked toward the house shrouded in darkness, his steps deflating the soft snow.

I had to be out of my mind. I’d been concerned about entering the master’s rooms without a chaperone and now, here I was, volunteering to stay all alone with him, for who knew how long. I doubted the two frightened women would return anytime soon.

All the continuous activity had swept the past hour from my head, but it all began to return to the forefront. What would happen to Mr. Keery? Would he live?

Sleep was not an option at the moment, and Lord Grey seemed to realize it, since he was already in the kitchen, attempting to clean up the remnants of the night’s horror. I brought out rags and the vinegar, ready to scrub the smell of smoke from the floor.

“Is the nearest manor close, sir?”

“No.” His hands shook as he picked up large pieces of glass from a smashed lamp. “We are so far away from everything. You should have left, Anne,” he whispered. “This is not going to get any better.”

I stepped closer to him, feeling that peculiar warmth of his energy pulling on mine. “We’ll be all right, sir. You’ll see.”

He turned and smiled sadly. Feeling a strange flutter in my stomach, I cleared my throat and got back to work.

Neither of us felt much like training; we were too tired, still too stunned to concentrate. After a pathetic effort on my part to repeat the exercise from the previous day, Lord Grey released me.

“There’s no point in attempting anything today. Even I feel depleted of all magical energy. I can’t expect you to be more focused.”

He nodded my release and retreated to the dining room with a book. As for me, I knew just what I needed to do to take my mind off of everything: I’d scrub the house clean, once and for all.

When every muscle ached, and my mind was buoyed by a cloud of dust, I stopped and walked to the dining room, now as spotless as it had ever been. I’d had to ask Lord Grey for help with the mirror, since it did not feel any friendlier toward me, but at least, it was now resplendent on the wall. Lord Grey had sneezed with the dust until I thought he’d faint, but it had brightened the mood a bit, the noise making us feel less lonely in the large manor. We were both beginning to feel more like ourselves.

We ate together in the dining room and spoke only a few words as we battled with the sleep that was catching up with us.

“I think I need to retire, Anne. I’m about to collapse as I sit.”

“Of course, sir.”

He was already up and walking out of the room. I sighed and picked up our plates. I debated whether to leave the dishes for the morning, but my years of training would not be silenced. I couldn’t leave a dish unwashed.

But by the time I finished, a few minutes later, fright was competing with exhaustion. As I walked toward my room, I began to feel the cold again, resonating at its highest pitch, a crystal-shattering tone that seemed to crush me with its weight. I covered my face with my hands. I didn’t know what to do as I stood there in the dark hallway, my eyes sewn together against whatever horror lay unseen beyond them.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

Refusing to open my eyes, I turned and walked back toward the dining room. I would rather sleep in there, under the gaze of the mirror, even if I had to sleep in a chair, than lay down in the pit that was my room.

As I was about to enter, I heard footsteps on the staircase, real enough to know it was not a spectral being, but Lord Grey.

“I just realized I’d left you to be murdered in your bed, so I figured I’d come down and see if you still breathed.” The master’s voice echoed against the stones.

I grimaced. “As you can see, sir, I’m still living. But, yes, I was also a tad concerned as to where I would be safest.”

“And where has your brain guided you, Anne?”

I pointed to the door on my left.

“I was planning on sleeping in there.”

“What, in a chair?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your brain is not to be trusted, then. Utter nonsense.”

I leashed my irritation and answered with as much patience as I could muster. It had been a long day and his changes in mood were wearing me out. “Where do you suggest I sleep, sir?”

“Follow me.”

I traipsed after him (yet again), as he climbed the stairs, his hands never touching the banister, while mine squeezed it until my joints ached.

He led me toward his chambers and made a right turn, bringing us to a room that shared a wall with his own.

“This was my mother’s personal study. It hasn’t been aired in a while, but it has a somewhat comfortable settee.”

He opened the door, revealing a room a bit larger than mine, with a delicate desk, chair and bookcase standing against the walls like wooden guards. The wallpaper was of the lightest blue, more like the color found in a nursery room, than in a Lady’s.

“It used to be my room, as an infant,” Lord Gray said, as if he’d read my thoughts. I had the briefest flash of a dark-haired boy staring up at those blue walls, dreaming of the ocean or of an endless sky. I shook my head.

“It’s charming,” I said.

“If anything disturbs you, I will be able to hear and come to your assistance in a matter of seconds. I will place a protective chant over the door, which won’t help all that much, but which will, at least, give me some time. Bolt the door behind me, of course.”

“There’s nothing else I can do to protect myself?” I asked.

He shrugged and curled a lip. “Have prayers ever done anything for you?”

I shook my head.

“Then, that’s all I can tell you.”

He turned around and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“Remember,” he said, from the other side of the door, “if anything tries to slaughter you, scream.”

A high chant trembled against the wood, a caressing of consonants in Lord Grey’s sharp voice. A shiver shook me as I listened, and my eyes closed. The chant was long and knotted, and I began to feel its cadence seeping into my very bones, the words brushing me, until silence released me. I heard Lord Grey’s door closing behind him.

With a sigh I crossed to the lumpy settee and sat down, prepared for anything.

Twenty

BOOK: The Rose Master
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ads

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