Chapter 14
Ceridwen paced alone within her room. The winter candles lit in front of the windows illuminated the space in bright light and cast flickers and shadows against the glass and ceiling. Their wax cooled in puddles on the floor. Some of the wicks already burned low.
Was it illness?Could that be why he saw no one and did not want her to leave? A surge of anxiety spiked within her. None of the manor staff appeared ill, but neither had Drystan until today, at least other than the unkempt appearance he’d maintained until now. Would it be a contagious ailment? Something she might have unknowingly caught?
A shudder racked her body. It made sense. He wouldn’t want her to leave if she could infect the rest of the city. But he should have told her. Ceridwen’s nails dug little crescents into her palms. To keep something like that a secret… Her dinner threatened to come back up, and she had to sit down.
Goddess, protect us all.
A soft knock on the door pulled Ceridwen from her spiraling thoughts. At this late hour, she should have been asleep already, yet the horrible thoughts had not let her heart slow its rhythm enough to relax.
“It’s Drystan.”
Breath caught in her throat. Part of her yearned to run to the door and see to his health, but the other half wanted to shove the dresser in front of it. He kept something from her, some secret, and possibly worse, he might have given her whatever horrible illness plagued him. She bit her lip. Either way, she couldn’t answer the door in her thin nightdress.
“One moment,” she stuttered. Too late to pretend to be asleep.
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
His words seeped through the door and followed her through the room as she lurched to the dressing screen and grabbed the heavy robe lain across its top.
“I’m not used to having visitors. Having others close to my affairs makes me…uncomfortable,” he continued.
Obviously.It was ridiculous for him not to let her come and go when she lived so close, yet if it were illness, that made a certain sad sense. Deceiving her about it, though, was another matter. Yet the sincerity ringing in his apology drew her back to the door.
She closed her hand over the metal handle and froze. “Your illness… Can I catch it?”
One heartbeat was too long to wait for his reply.
“No.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes. It’s not something that… It cannot be transferred to someone else.”
Despite the constant thud of fear within her, Ceridwen believed his words. She twisted the key in the lock on her side of the door and pulled it open.
Drystan squinted as light spilled from the room into the dark hallway. Not even the sconces were lit. Someone forgot to light the candles on the night they were most important. His stiff jacket was absent. Only a thin white shirt clung to his frame, tucked into dark breeches the color of his boots.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Her cheeks heated at the question. Father would never approve of a man alone in her room. Not to mention his attire, or lack of, inspired thoughts she hastily shoved away. But the pitiful way he’d looked hunched over the dinner table had a way of pushing out common reason.
“You may.” She nodded and stepped back.
He entered and closed the door behind him as she retreated into the center of the room.
What are you doing, Ceridwen?she chided herself. Letting a man into your room at night of all times.
“Are you better now?” she asked, forcing a smile and trying to push away her embarrassment at the situation.
“I am.” He loomed like an imposing figure in the center of the room. “I’m sorry to have frightened you.”
Ceridwen shook her head. “It was worry more than fright.” She paced near the candles, unable to sit still as he finally moved to take a seat by the crackling fireplace.
“Will you sit with me?” He gestured to the chair opposite his.
She sighed. He was her employer after all. She needed the money he offered, even if his refusal to let her visit family suddenly made no sense at all if his disease could not be spread. It wouldn’t do to ignore him. “Does it happen often? The pain, or whatever it was?”
Bracing his forearms on his knees, he leaned forward on the seat as if the weight of the world pressed upon his back. “Much more than I’d like, but you help me.”
She froze at his words and rocked back on her heels within her slippers. “How do I help you?”
“Your music. It calms me, lessens the episodes that overtake me, though tonight it almost broke through anyway.”
Almost? Her brows scrunched together. That was just a near miss? How much worse could it get?
“You haven’t played tonight.” He straightened in the chair. “I hoped you might.”
The revelation had her standing a little straighter near the seat he offered. “How do you know that?”
His gaze darted to the fire. A burning log collapsed in the middle, sending a tumble of smoldering coals rolling toward the edge as the two end pieces fell in either direction. His attention drifted to Ceridwen as he said, “No one heard your music in the halls.”
She pursed her lips. No one had been around when she returned to her room, and if they aided him with his illness, as Jackoby had gone to do, they would not have heard her music anyway. Something was missing again, but she let it drop—for now.
“If I’m to play, I’d like to do it under the stars, on the balcony.” Far too many days had passed since she’d played under the sky for her mother, and while she hoped she heard, and she occasionally felt the tickle of someone watching, even when she played alone in her room, she longed to resume her nightly ritual.
Drystan sat up straighter, his brows rising with him. “It’s cold out tonight.”
“I know.” It had snowed more that evening, and much of it likely clung to the balcony. But her desire to play outside outweighed her need for comfort. “It’s important to me. Please.”
“I do owe you quite a bit. But would you tell me why?”
The mere thought of sharing more about her mother brought the prick of tears to the corner of her eyes, but she hastily blinked them away. “I play for my mother, so that her spirit can still hear my songs from the halls of the Goddess. It sounds silly,” she continued, rambling away in nervousness. “But sometimes I can almost feel her watching, and it gives me peace to know she listens, even if she’s no longer on this plane with us.”
When silence hung again, her gaze trailed up from the ground, climbing Drystan’s body until it landed on his somber face.
“You miss her.”
“Very much.”
He nodded and looked toward the balcony. “Then I’ll leave the balcony door unlocked and you can play for me here when the weather allows,” he said. “But please, stay inside at night unless I’m with you.”
Because of the monster.He didn’t need to say it for her to understand the concern. Even the manor wasn’t safe at night. She’d heard the beast’s cries shortly after coming to the manor, so close that she’d expected to see it on the other side of the windows. A shiver, one not born of cold, racked her body.
“Thank you, I will be careful.”
He rose and stretched his arms above his head. “First, we’ll have to move some of these candles.”
Joy bubbled up within her. “Oh, I’ll—” She made to kneel, but he grabbed her wrist.
“Let me.”
His gloved thumb rubbed over her skin, sending a shiver down her spine. He held her gaze, far closer than she realized. A gentle smile spread across his face. “You cannot play with burned hands.”