Chapter 11
G ripping a brass candleholder by its finger ring and thumb hold, Pandora made her way slowly along the upstairs hallway. Black shadows appeared to slide across the floor, and she ignored the illusion of movement, grimly determined to keep her balance.
One flickering candle flame was all that stood between her and disaster.
The lights had been extinguished, including the hanging lamp in the central hall.
Aside from the occasional flash of distant lightning, the only source of illumination was a faint glow coming from the threshold of the family room.
As Gabriel had predicted, a storm had rolled in from the ocean.
Its first rise was rough and furious, as it wrestled with trees and flung stray twigs and branches in every direction.
The house, built low and sturdy to accommodate coastal weather, endured the gale stoically, shrugging off sheets of rain from its oak-timbered roof.
Still, the sound of thunder made Pandora shiver.
She was dressed in a muslin nightgown and a plain flannel wrap, its sides folded around the front and tied with a plaited belt. Although she’d wanted to wear a day dress, there had been no way to avoid the nightly ritual of bathing and taking her hair down without making Ida suspicious.
Her feet were tucked into the Berlin wool slippers Cassandra had made, which, owing to an accidental misreading of the pattern, had resulted in two different sizes.
The slipper for the right foot was perfect, but the left one was loose and floppy.
Cassandra had been so apologetic that Pandora had made a special point of wearing them, insisting they were the most comfortable slippers ever made.
She stayed close to the wall, occasionally reaching out to graze it with her fingertips.
The darker her surroundings, the worse her equilibrium, the signals in her head refusing to match up with what her body told her.
At certain moments, the floor, walls, and ceiling might all abruptly switch places for no reason, leaving her flailing.
She had always relied on Cassandra to help her if they had to go somewhere at night, but she couldn’t very well ask her twin to escort her to an illicit meeting with a man.
Breathing with effort, Pandora stared fixedly at the hushed amber glow down the hallway.
The carpeting stretched like a black ocean between her and the family parlor.
Holding the wavering lit candle far out in front of her, she took one step after another, straining to see through the shadows.
A window had been left open somewhere. Moist, rain-scented air kept whisking against her face and across her bare ankles, as if the house were breathing around her.
A midnight rendezvous was supposed to be romantic and daring, something done by girls who were not wallflowers. But this was an exercise in misery. She was exhausted and worried, fighting to keep her balance in the darkness. All she wanted was to be safe in bed.
As she stepped forward, the loose slipper on her left foot flopped just enough to make her trip and stumble, nearly falling to her knees. Somehow she managed to catch her balance, but the candleholder flew out of her hand. The wick was instantly extinguished as it hit the floor.
Gasping, disoriented, Pandora stood engulfed in darkness. She didn’t dare move, only kept her arms suspended in midair, fingers spread like cat’s whiskers. Shadow-currents flowed around her, gently pushing her off balance, and she stiffened against their intangible momentum.
“Oh, damn,” she whispered. Icy sweat broke out on her forehead as she worked to think past the first rush of panic.
The wall was on her left side. She had to reach it.
She needed stability. But the first cautious step made the floor drop from beneath her feet, and the world lurched in a diagonal tilt.
She staggered and landed on the floor with a heavy thud.
.. or was it the wall? Was she leaning upright or lying down?
Leaning, she decided. She was missing her left slipper, and her bare toes were flat against a hard surface.
Yes, that was the floor. Pressing her damp cheek to the wall, she willed her surroundings to sort themselves out, while a high-pitched tone rang in her left ear.
There were too many heartbeats in her chest. She couldn’t breathe around them. Her pained intakes of air sounded like sobs. A large, dark form approached so swiftly that she shrank against the wall.
“Pandora.” A pair of hard arms closed around her.
She quivered as she heard Gabriel’s low voice, and felt herself wrapped in the reassurance of his body.
“What happened? My God, you’re shaking. Are you afraid of the dark?
The storm?” He kissed her damp forehead and pressed soothing murmurs into her hair.
“Easy. Softly, now. You’re safe in my arms. Nothing’s going to harm you, my sweet girl.
” He had discarded his black formal coat, and the turndown collar of his shirt had been unfastened.
She could smell the spice of shaving soap on his skin, the acrid tang of starched linen and the hint of cigar smoke absorbed by his silk waistcoat.
The fragrance was masculine and comforting, making her shiver in relief.
“I . . . I dropped my candle,” she wheezed.
“Don’t worry about that.” One of his hands curved around the back of her neck, fondling gently. “Everything’s all right now.”
Her heart began to measure out beats more evenly, no longer casting them out in careless handfuls. The waking-nightmare feeling began to dissipate. But as her alarm faded, a hideous tide of embarrassment overwhelmed her. Only she could have botched a midnight rendezvous so terribly.
“Feeling better?” he asked, one of his hands sliding down to enfold hers in a reassuring grasp. “Come with me to the family parlor.”
Pandora wanted to die. She didn’t move, only let out a defeated breath. “I can’t,” she blurted out.
“What is it?” came the gentle question.
“I can’t move at all. I lose my balance in the dark.”
His lips went to her forehead again, and he kept them there for a long moment. “Put your arms around my neck,” he eventually said. After she obeyed, he lifted her easily, clasping her high against his chest.
Pandora kept her eyes closed as he carried her along the hallway. He was strong and superbly coordinated, sure-footed as a cat, and she felt a pang of envy. She couldn’t remember what it was like to move so confidently through the night, fearing nothing.
The family parlor was lit only by a fire in the hearth.
Gabriel went to a low, deeply upholstered empire sofa with a curved back and arms, and settled with her in his lap.
Her pride objected feebly to the way he was holding her, as if she were a frightened child.
But his hard chest was comforting, and his hands slowly chased the nervous tremors that ran through her limbs, and it was the nicest, warmest feeling she’d ever known.
She needed this. Just for a few minutes.
Reaching over to a mahogany sofa table, Gabriel picked up an engraved dram glass half-filled with inky liquid. Without a word, he pressed the glass to her lips as if she couldn’t be trusted to hold it on her own without spilling it.
Pandora sipped cautiously. The drink was delicious, with rich flavors of toffee and plum leaving mellow heat on her tongue. She took another, deeper taste, her hands creeping up to take the glass from him. “What is this?”
“Port. Have the rest.” He curled his arm loosely around her bent knees.
Pandora drank it slowly, relaxing as the port sent warmth all the way down to her toes.
The storm whistled impatiently, rattling the windows, calling back and forth with the sea as it leapt in roaring liquid hills.
But she was warm and dry, resting in Gabriel’s arms while the snapping light of the hearth played over them.
He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat for a soft folded handkerchief, and blotted the last traces of perspiration from her face and throat.
After setting the cloth aside, he stroked back a lock of dark hair and tucked it carefully behind her left ear.
“I’ve noticed you don’t hear as well on this side,” he said quietly. “Is that part of the problem?”
Pandora blinked in amazement. In a mere handful of days, he had detected something that even her family, the people who actually lived with her, hadn’t perceived. They had all learned to accept, as a matter of course, that she was careless and inattentive.
She nodded. “I hear only about half as well in this ear as I do in the other. At night... in the dark... everything goes topsy-turvy, and I can’t tell what’s up or down. If I turn too quickly, I drop to the floor. I can’t control it; it’s like being pushed by invisible hands.”
Gabriel cradled her cheek in his palm, regarding her with a steady tenderness that sent her pulse into confusion. “That’s why you don’t dance.”
“I can manage a few of the dances at a slow pace. But waltzing is impossible. All that whirling and pivoting.” Self-consciously she looked away and drained the last few drops of port.
He took the empty glass from her and set it aside. “You should have told me. I would never have asked you to meet me at night if I’d known.”
“It wasn’t far. I thought a candle would be enough.” Pandora fidgeted with the belt of her flannel robe. “I didn’t count on tripping over my own slippers.” She extended her bare left foot from beneath her nightgown and frowned at it. “I’ve lost one of them.”
“I’ll find it later.” Taking one of her hands in his, Gabriel lifted it to his lips. He wove a pattern of gentle kisses over her cold fingers. “Pandora... what happened to your ear?”
Her soul revolted at the prospect of discussing it.
Turning her hand over, Gabriel kissed her palm and shaped her fingers against his cheek.
His shaven skin was smooth in one direction and softly abrasive in the other, like a cat’s tongue.
The firelight had turned him golden everywhere except for those eyes, the clear blue of an arctic star.
He waited, damnably patient, while Pandora summoned the nerve to reply.
“I... can’t talk about it if I’m touching you.” Drawing her hand from his cheek, she crawled out of his lap. There was a persistent high-pitched ringing in her ear. Covering it lightly with her palm, she tapped her fingers on the back of her skull a few times. To her relief, the trick worked.
“Tinnitus,” Gabriel said, watching closely. “One of our older family solicitors has it. Does it trouble you often?”
“Only now and then, when I’m distressed.”
“There’s no need to be distressed now.”
Pandora cast him a brief, distracted smile, and knotted her fingers into a tight ball.
“I brought this on myself. Do you remember when I told you that I eavesdrop? I don’t do it as much as I used to, actually.
But when I was little, it was the only way to find out anything that was happening in our household.
Cassandra and I took all our meals in the nursery and played by ourselves.
Sometimes weeks would go by before we saw anyone other than Helen and the servants.
Mama would leave for London, or Father would go on a hunting trip, or Theo would be off to boarding school, without even saying goodbye.
When my parents were at home, the only way to attract their notice was to misbehave.
I was the worst, of course. I dragged Cassandra into my plots and schemes, but everyone knew she was the nice twin.
Poor Helen spent most of her time reading books in the corner and trying to be invisible.
I preferred causing trouble to being ignored. ”
Gabriel picked up the length of her braid and played with it as he listened .
“I was twelve when it happened,” she continued.
“Or maybe eleven. My parents were arguing in the master bedroom with the door closed. Whenever they fought, it was dreadful. They would scream and smash things. Naturally, I poked my nose where it didn’t belong, and went to eavesdrop.
They were fighting about a man my mother was.
.. involved with. My father was shouting.
Every word sounded like a piece of something broken.
Cassandra started trying to pull me away from the door.
Then it swung open and my father stood there, in a rage.
He must have seen movement in the crack at the bottom of the casing.
He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears.
All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear.
My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down.
Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did. ”
Pandora paused, unwilling to relate any of the distasteful details of her ear suppurating and draining. She glanced cautiously at Gabriel, whose face was averted. He was no longer playing with her braid. His hand had clenched around it until the muscles of his forearms and wrist stood out.
“Even after I recovered from the fever,” Pandora said, “the hearing didn’t come back all the way. But the worst part was that I kept losing my balance, especially at night. It made me afraid of the dark. Ever since then—” She stopped as Gabriel lifted his head.
His face was hard and murderous, the hellfrost in his eyes frightening her more than her father’s fury ever had .
“That bloody son of a bitch,” he said softly. “If he were still alive, I’d beat him with a thresher’s flail.”
Pandora reached out with a fluttering motion, patting the air near him. “No,” she said breathlessly, “no, I wouldn’t want that. I hated him for a long time, but now I feel sorry for him.”
Gabriel caught her hand in midair, swift but gentle, as if it were a bird he wanted to hold without injuring. His eyes had dilated until she could see reflections of herself in the dark centers. “Why?” he whispered after a long moment.
“Because hurting me was the only way to hide his own pain.”