He made himself walk further into the room, telling himself that he could not hear the crackle of the fire, the screams, the child’s wailing cries. He could not smell the smoke, the burning brandy… But they were there, in his head, the memories mixed with the sounds and stench of the battlefield, the screams of the dying, and afterwards, those hideous pyres…
Then he was through into the bedchamber. It was still furnished, for the door had been closed that night and the smoke and flame had not penetrated here. It smelt of dust and old polish and faintly, unmistakably, there was the scent of jasmine in the air.
There were sounds here, too. A woman crying. Screaming. Sobs and reproaches. Pain and grief. To pull himself back into the present left him sick, but he made himself walk around the room checking coldly, methodically, for damage, signs of damp, of mice or mould. These chambers were spaces, that was all. They had no memory, no life of their own. The phantom sounds and smells were all in his head and he could overcome them, drive them out with the laughter of a son who was healthy and happy, the scent of a woman who found joy in his lovemaking, the smiles of a baby who reached out when she saw him. He had experienced no nightmares since he had returned to Abbeywell—he was healing, even if his lacerated shoulder never would.
He walked back, locked the door behind him, returned to his room. Yes, he could sleep now.
Chapter Thirteen
Kate woke, blinking at the darkness. Something had roused her. A shout? All was quiet, but instinct made her get up and tiptoe to the dressing room door, which stood ajar. Anna was fast asleep and there was no sound from Jeannie, who slept in a small room just along the corridor.
It must have been an owl, or a vixen’s strange cry. Then she heard it again, distinctly now, unmistakably a human voice.
‘Charlie!’ It was Grant and she ran to the connecting door, threw it open expecting to find some emergency—a sick child, sleepwalking, an accident—her mind ran through the possibilities. But the room was dark and still, except for the sound of muttering and movement from the bed.
‘Grant?’ There was no reply. A cold finger of unease moved down her spine. Kate backed away into her own chamber, found by touch the candle and tinderbox by the bed and, hands shaking, struck a light. ‘Grant?’ This time she could see him naked on the bed, the sheets a tangle around his legs, trapping him. He seemed to be trying to drag himself towards the edge of the bed.
‘Charlie. I’m coming. Charlie…’ He was deep in the throes of a nightmare.
Kate bent over him, put her arms around his shoulders and tried to make him lie down, but he was too strong for her. ‘We have Charlie. He is safe, quite safe,’ she murmured, then repeated it loudly, but it did nothing to calm him.
Then something in the tension of Grant’s body changed. ‘Dream,’ he muttered. ‘No.’
He knew he was in a nightmare, Kate realised, and he was fighting against it, forcing it back with the strength of his mind as much as his body. She held on tightly, pulling the rigid body against hers, stroking down his back. When she touched the scarred shoulder she felt him flinch as though the wounds were raw.
With a heave Grant threw off her restraining hands, fell back against the pillows. ‘Couldn’t help her,’ he muttered. ‘Charlie…’
‘He is here. You saved him. Charlie is safe.’
‘I know,’ he answered her rationally, irritably, even though he was asleep. ‘Damned dreams…’ And then he was still, relaxed, deeply asleep.
Shaken, Kate backed away from the bed, the candle flame wavering. She put up a hand to shield it and realised it was her own panting breath that made it move. Grant had been dreaming about the fire that killed his wife, she was certain. Dr Meldreth had said something about Grant being injured during the fire, but the only scars she could see on his body were the slashes on his shoulder and they were not burns. How could a fire cause those? But a weapon could, a broken bottle could.
None of it made sense. Kate stood watching her sleeping husband, then, once she was certain he was deeply unconscious, she pulled the covers up over him. Should she stay? No, she decided, staring down at his profile, stark against the white of the pillows. He had dragged himself out of that nightmare by sheer willpower, as far as she could tell. He would hate to know she had been watching his struggles against it.
But what had triggered it? she wondered as she turned away. She had seen no sign of bad dreams when they had slept together. The candlelight caught a glint of something metallic on the little table by the door and, curious, she went to see what it was. A key. A door key very much in the style of those for all of the bedchambers on this floor. It was in her hand before she realised that she had moved to pick it up. It was not the key to this room, that was protruding from the lock right in front of her, Charlie’s room was never locked, in case of accidents. Hers, too, was unlocked.
Madeleine’s suite. It had to be. Kate hesitated for perhaps ten seconds. Grant did not want her, or anyone, in those rooms. But whatever had happened there had scarred him, mentally and perhaps physically. It was giving him nightmares and the experience had been so bad he could not tolerate any mention of it. How could she help him if she did not understand?
The door opened with a faint creak like the protest of her conscience, but Kate kept going. This was the lesser of two evils and Grant need never know she had been in the rooms, she told herself.
The forbidden door opened easily and she stepped on to bare boards. The air was cold and dry and, stripped of its furniture, the room seemed enormous and overscale, like something from a fairy tale. Bluebeard’s chamber. The light of the single candle that she held created deep pools of shadow in the corners, the edges swaying as her hand trembled. Something dark spilled like a puddle in front of the hearth and for a moment Kate thought it was a body fallen there, draped in a black velvet cloak.
‘Nonsense,’ she muttered and shook off the superstitious dread. ‘Too many Gothic novels, you will be seeing ghosts next.’ Even so, it took resolution to walk towards the pool of blackness. She stopped, her toes at the edge, and saw that the boards at her feet were charred by the heat of an intense fire. Instinctively she stepped back, repelled by the thought of her bare skin touching the blackness. There was another patch of darkness by the door and she made herself walk to that. There was no charring here, the boards were intact, although scrubbed until the grain showed. She had the cold certainty that this was blood, but there was no way of telling in the dim light.
The bedchamber door was closed. It yielded to her cautious push and Kate stepped into Madeleine Rivers’s most intimate world. The room was feminine, exquisite in every detail, decorated in shades of blue with touches of silver, tarnished now, but still catching the light from the candle flame.
The dressing table held its array of bottles and jars, a silver-backed hairbrush and hand mirror. There was just the lightest film of dust, so whatever Grimswad
e said, one of the servants was coming in to keep the rooms clean. Then Kate saw a single line, fresh-traced through the dust. She held the candle flame close. It looked like the mark of a fingertip that had come close to one perfume flask. Essence de Jasmine.
There was a large mirror on a stand and Kate looked up to see herself reflected in it—pale-faced, pretty enough, dressed for warmth and comfort in a sensible nightgown, bare feet showing beneath the hem. The woman whose room this was would have scorned to look like this, she sensed. She glanced at the dressing room door, but did not try to open it. The thought of prying into the other woman’s clothes was abhorrent.
Slowly, forcing herself not to run, Kate closed the door, crossed the sitting room and let herself out into the familiar world again. She turned the key in the lock and tiptoed back to Grant’s bedchamber, laid the key down where she had found it and retreated to her own room.
What had that taught her? Nothing, she concluded as she climbed into bed and pulled the covers up tight to her chin, although the room was not cold. There were marks of a fire, possibly of blood. But she had known that already. She had intruded into Grant’s private nightmare, against his wishes, and she had discovered nothing that might help.
Let that be a lesson to you, she would have said to Charlie if she had caught him prying. Now she had a guilty conscience, a definite case of the shivers and another secret to keep from Grant.