Chapter Four #2
Each step up the narrow staircase echoed faintly in the quiet house. At the top, she paused, peering down the hall toward Lucien’s closed door. The warmth of irritation still lingered, coiled in her chest, and she let out a slow breath before entering her room.
Inside, she crossed over to the window and pressed her hands against the cool glass, tracing the dark shapes of the swamp outside.
For a moment, she simply stood there, letting the day’s strange, sharp edges soften just slightly.
The stillness of the house wrapped around her, broken only by the faint creak of the floorboards as Eloise made her way upstairs.
With a sigh, Abigail pulled the curtains closed and turned from the window.
One by one, she tugged the pins from her hair and let it fall over one shoulder.
Eloise had lent her an ivory-handled brush, and she pulled it through her waves with steady strokes before gathering it into a loose braid.
Once in her nightgown, she slipped beneath the linen sheet.
She lay in bed for what seemed like hours, staring at the dark ceiling, cut through by a single thin beam of moonlight from the curtained window.
Her mind raced, the events of the last month playing in her head on an endless loop.
Samantha shaking her awake. The shocking words that hadn’t made sense.
Glass breaking in their parlor as the pirates rushed in.
Hiding beneath a blanket in a servant’s cart and praying no one followed them.
A sudden clatter from below jerked her from her tortured thoughts. She froze, heart tightening, straining to catch the sound through the thick wooden floorboards. A muffled curse came next. Mr. Moreau. With a swallow, she climbed out of bed and cracked her door open.
“No.” His irate voice drifted up the stairs. “I will not.”
Abigail’s fingers tightened on the door frame. Her pulse hammered as she tried to gauge how long she had been lying awake. Eloise hadn’t returned downstairs, had she? And if it wasn’t Eloise… who was he arguing with? She shouldn’t meddle. With a shaky breath, she started to close the door.
A loud thud made her pause. She held her breath, straining to hear more, Silence followed, heavy and unsettling.
Her imagination ran wild—had he been hurt?
Nerves on edge, she eased herself toward the staircase, each careful step amplified in the hushed house.
She crept halfway down the stairs, going still when a shadow spilled from the doorway of Mr. Moreau’s study.
“Go away.” His words came out strained.
Had someone come this late at night?
“I said leave me alone!” This time he shouted, making her flinch in the shadows.
He stormed from the room, weaving down the hall. Abigail pressed against the wainscotting behind her, holding her breath as he stumbled into the wall beneath her, both hands over his ears. He muttered something under his breath before striding to the front door and flinging it wide.
Heart racing, she fled back upstairs and hurried to her window, where she peered from between the curtains.
Moonlight bathed the yard in a silver haze, illuminating the twisted limbs of moss-covered cypress.
Mr. Moreau’s form moved across the clearing, cutting through the pale light in a dark shadow.
He stopped at the edge of the forest, spinning back toward the house, his gaze sweeping up toward her window.
With a gasp, she pivoted away from the curtains, her pulse thumping against her temple in a wild tempo.
She counted to ten. Fifty. One hundred. With the slowest of movements, she leaned over until the forest line became visible. Mr. Moreau was gone, swallowed by the gloom of the cypress trees.
Go to bed.
It would be the reasonable thing to do. And she was a very reasonable girl. Or at least she liked to think. She squinted, trying to make sense of the dark swamp beyond the yard.
At the very least, she should close the front door. Lest the house become filled with mosquitoes. With a reassuring nod, she crept back out into the hallway and down the stairs. At the door, she cast one more glance into the empty darkness.
The hairs on the nape of her neck lifted as she thought of his arguing. What if someone was in the house? She strained her ears for any hint of movement, but only silence answered. With a breath, she closed the door, wincing when it let out a loud creak.
The lamplight from the study threw a thin golden strip across the hallway floor.
She edged closer, each tread of her slipper muffled against the boards, until she could peer around the door frame.
The study lay draped in quietness, shadows pooling in the corners.
Nothing was amiss except for a glass tumbler lying on its side in a puddle on his desk.
The linens Eloise had brought in earlier were still on the side table and she took one, carefully wiping the spilled brandy with trembling fingers.
When she straightened, her gaze caught on the portrait above the mantel.
In the dim light, Isabelle’s dark eyes seemed to follow her movements, and for a heartbeat Abigail was certain the corners of that perfect mouth had shifted—just slightly—into something like a warning.
With a shiver, she dropped the linen and fled from the room.