Read Online The Gilded Cage by Lucinda Gray - Free Book Online Page A

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    Breathing in through my mouth, I peel the sheet away.
    His body inspires no horror in me, just a great, bottomless pity. I’ve seen death many times before. I even found a body in the river once in Virginia, in high summer. The man was a drifter we never identified, bloated beyond all recognition.
    I make myself look at my brother, clenching my chattering teeth. His skin looks gray in the moonlight, his features unrecognizable. I can hardly bear to see his elegant, able hands, now swollen and still. Only his hair is the same, fluffy and fine. I touch it tenderly, pushing it back from his brow—and see a livid gash, running from his temple and up along his hairline.
    The wound is long and deep. When I was small, the youngest girl on the Andersen farm was found among the blackberry bushes on her father’s land, nearly dead after being mauled by a bear. She survived, but her hair never grew straight along the left side of her scalp, and her forehead was permanently scarred.
    George’s wound looks something like hers—something like the track of an animal’s claw. I lean in closer, holding my breath. The Beast of Walthingham preys on the wicked, they say.…
    Suddenly, the room dances with light. I throw the sheet back over George’s face and spin around, breathing fast. John stands in the doorway, holding a lantern high. His arm is trembling, making the lamplight skitter crazily across the walls. I snatch my blanket from the floor and fold it around my shivering body.
    His mouth is a heavy line, the sockets of his eyes hollowed and strange. For a moment I’m frightened, but then he lowers the lamp, and the shadows retreat. He’s clad only in breeches and a loose nightshirt, his hair tousled with sleep.
    â€œLady Katherine. I worried when I heard someone walking about.” He looks no less troubled now, running his eyes over me in the dim light. “You should go to bed, my lady,” he says finally. “The west wing is far from secure.”
    He falls silent as I step closer. “John,” I say. “Please. Please tell me what you know about the Beast of Walthingham.” My voice crackles over the words, and his face goes gentle.
    â€œMy lady,” he says, “I know nothing, because there’s nothing to know. The Beast is a fairy tale.”
    â€œBut there’s something in that forest, isn’t there? Something the servants are frightened of.”
    â€œThe tales of scullery maids don’t hold much water, miss.”
    And yet he’s hiding something, I’m sure of it.
    â€œBut if there’s something to it, anything, you must tell me. This is my home. And I saw something yesterday evening, at the edge of the woods. A man, perhaps…”
    John shrugs. “Big estates like this, they attract poachers. Locals looking for food. There’s no point trying to drive them off; the forest’s too big.”
    â€œThen a poacher may have done this to my brother.”
    â€œI did not mean to say … I did not try to imply that your brother was killed. It was, as your cousin said, a terrible accident.”
    â€œI don’t believe it.” As I say the words, I know they’re true. The pain behind my eyes spreads.
    John dips his head low and looks into my eyes. “Don’t open your heart to pain that has no place there. Your brother’s loss alone will hurt enough. There’s nobody to blame, nobody to hate.”
    â€œYou’re wrong,” I say hotly. “The pain will ease some, if there’s somebody to blame. Somebody to punish.”
    His eyes are startled at this, and he reaches out a careful hand, places it lightly on my shoulder. I grow still beneath the touch.
    â€œThere will always be poachers on these large estates, but few of them are murderers, too.” He drops his hand back to his side. “Poachers will exist for as long as the poor need to eat and maintain their desire to