Read Online Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel by Katharine Ashe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Katharine Ashe
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Unless it was some sort of hypnosis. She had heard of stranger things. Evelina had written to her recently that their mother tried to take her to a
séance
in London, presumably to ring a peal over their father’s ghostly head. But a person must agree to be hypnotized for that, or some such thing, she thought.
Perhaps if she simply went through this day calmly, it would all end and tomorrow she would be on her way. She could not return to the taproom, though. Not now that she had kissed him. Not even under hypnosis or in a dream was she prepared to see him again after that.
That
.
His lips—soft and firm at once. His scent—warm and real and intoxicating, his scent that all those years ago had made her positively silly every time he had come close to her. If she had managed to convince him to spirit her away from Dashbourne, she might have already been enjoying that intoxication for six years. Instead, beneath his disapproving regard in the doorway of the inn that day, her resolve had crumbled and she let him take her home.
It was for the best, of course. If she had convinced him, she would not now have Harry, and that was not imaginable.
“Of course, Harry’s mother is now a madwoman,” she mumbled to the Aphrodite statue.
It did not reply. But something … something was different about the statue’s face today.
The eyes.
Slowly Calista approached it, studying the beautiful face and sinuous body that had been carved from a single block of flawless alabaster. Up close, nothing was out of the ordinary. The limbs and gown still seemed to undulate with sensual delight even as the stone remained perfectly immobile, and the eyes were still as empty as Calista’s stomach.
“You are not glowing. You are not smiling. You are not glittering and I do not smell cakes.”
Hauling it up from the dressing table, she threw it into the box, packed the stuffing around it, clamped the lid down, and pushed it all the way under the bed with a loud scraping of the crate against the floor. This time if someone moved it while she was asleep at night, she would hear it.
Pulling an old magazine out of her traveling bag, she sat down for a long day of hiding from everyone until this strange hypnosis had passed.
Two hours later, as Old Mary was tolling the ten o’clock hour, a knock came at the door. The dressmaker stood in the opening, her compact frame draped in the same gorgeous walking gown and pelisse that she had worn to call upon Calista here yesterday.
“Good day, my lady. I am Mrs. Cooke,” she said in the smooth, cultured tones of a lady of birth. She was no more than four or five years Calista’s senior, with large hazel eyes and dark hair pulled back in a chignon. “Mrs. Whittle sent Molly to me with the request that I call upon you immediately this morning.” She folded her hands before her and perused Calista’s stained frock. “What a shame,” she said. “That is a very serviceable fabric, but it will have to be dyed entirely brown now if you wish to use it again. In the meantime, I will be happy to loan you a gown today.”
They were
the exact words
Mrs. Cooke had said to her yesterday.
Untying her tongue, Calista admitted her. She would play this mystical game, go along with the hypnosis or dream or whatever it was, and do everything she had done yesterday. And tomorrow when she woke up, she would set her mind again to devising a plan for wresting both her and Harry from her husband’s home.
For there was only one explanation to this repeated day: the misery of life with her husband had addled her brain so dreadfully that she was going insane. The sooner she permanently freed herself and Harry from that life, the better.
~o0o~
Old Mary’s dawn alert tore through the little bedchamber and Calista’s head, waking her to the gray of early morning.
Blinking her eyes open wide, she counted the tolls. The seventh faded into silence. No eighth ring came. Mrs. Whittle had certainly gotten that little
séance
in London, presumably to ring a peal over their father’s ghostly head. But a person must agree to be hypnotized for that, or some such thing, she thought.
Perhaps if she simply went through this day calmly, it would all end and tomorrow she would be on her way. She could not return to the taproom, though. Not now that she had kissed him. Not even under hypnosis or in a dream was she prepared to see him again after that.
That
.
His lips—soft and firm at once. His scent—warm and real and intoxicating, his scent that all those years ago had made her positively silly every time he had come close to her. If she had managed to convince him to spirit her away from Dashbourne, she might have already been enjoying that intoxication for six years. Instead, beneath his disapproving regard in the doorway of the inn that day, her resolve had crumbled and she let him take her home.
It was for the best, of course. If she had convinced him, she would not now have Harry, and that was not imaginable.
“Of course, Harry’s mother is now a madwoman,” she mumbled to the Aphrodite statue.
It did not reply. But something … something was different about the statue’s face today.
The eyes.
Slowly Calista approached it, studying the beautiful face and sinuous body that had been carved from a single block of flawless alabaster. Up close, nothing was out of the ordinary. The limbs and gown still seemed to undulate with sensual delight even as the stone remained perfectly immobile, and the eyes were still as empty as Calista’s stomach.
“You are not glowing. You are not smiling. You are not glittering and I do not smell cakes.”
Hauling it up from the dressing table, she threw it into the box, packed the stuffing around it, clamped the lid down, and pushed it all the way under the bed with a loud scraping of the crate against the floor. This time if someone moved it while she was asleep at night, she would hear it.
Pulling an old magazine out of her traveling bag, she sat down for a long day of hiding from everyone until this strange hypnosis had passed.
Two hours later, as Old Mary was tolling the ten o’clock hour, a knock came at the door. The dressmaker stood in the opening, her compact frame draped in the same gorgeous walking gown and pelisse that she had worn to call upon Calista here yesterday.
“Good day, my lady. I am Mrs. Cooke,” she said in the smooth, cultured tones of a lady of birth. She was no more than four or five years Calista’s senior, with large hazel eyes and dark hair pulled back in a chignon. “Mrs. Whittle sent Molly to me with the request that I call upon you immediately this morning.” She folded her hands before her and perused Calista’s stained frock. “What a shame,” she said. “That is a very serviceable fabric, but it will have to be dyed entirely brown now if you wish to use it again. In the meantime, I will be happy to loan you a gown today.”
They were
the exact words
Mrs. Cooke had said to her yesterday.
Untying her tongue, Calista admitted her. She would play this mystical game, go along with the hypnosis or dream or whatever it was, and do everything she had done yesterday. And tomorrow when she woke up, she would set her mind again to devising a plan for wresting both her and Harry from her husband’s home.
For there was only one explanation to this repeated day: the misery of life with her husband had addled her brain so dreadfully that she was going insane. The sooner she permanently freed herself and Harry from that life, the better.
~o0o~
Old Mary’s dawn alert tore through the little bedchamber and Calista’s head, waking her to the gray of early morning.
Blinking her eyes open wide, she counted the tolls. The seventh faded into silence. No eighth ring came. Mrs. Whittle had certainly gotten that little
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