2025-02-26 20:28:49
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Chapter 795
Serena pressed her hand flat on the cloth. It kept shaking.The glass tipped. Red wine ran across the white linen, between the candles, straight toward the lace of her wedding dress."Serena?" Gideon was half out of his chair, his napkin crushed in one fist. "Sweetheart?""I'm fine, Father," she said quietly.She wasn't. This was how the dark had started, two winters ago. First the hands. Then the eyes. Then the voice.Not again, she thought. Not in front of all of them."Oh dear," Patricia said from the family table, sweet as syrup. "Is she ill? She's gone so pale." She turned in her chair. "Doctor Reeve, shouldn't she have her drops?"Every head turned to the doctors' table. Dr. Osmond Reeve had a forkful of salmon halfway to his mouth."I, no," he stammered. "No. No more drops. Not tonight, Miss Patricia.""But she's shaking," Patricia said, loud enough for the back benches. "Look at her, poor thing. After everything she's been through.""Perhaps the excitement," Reeve said weakly.
Chapter 794
Serena could hear her own heart.On her left, the lake. A husband who would never be cruel, because he would never care enough to be.On her right, the joke. The man who had crawled round a ballroom on his knees for a fisherman, and then put a tray down on a paper and said no.An old poet came into her head. Her mother's favourite, the one with the long beard on the cover.I exist as I am, that is enough."I choose the prince," Serena said.---For one second, nothing. Then the great hall exploded."What did she say?" a woman shrieked, jumping up."The prince? The idiot?" a man cried, stunned."She can't mean it!"Lady Honoria was on her feet, pink to the ears, pearls swinging."She misspoke!" Honoria cried, outraged. "Imelda, the girl misspoke! She's been in the dark two years, she's confused. She means Julian. She means the lake!""I don't mean the lake," Serena said clearly."Darling, you don't know what you're saying!""I know exactly what I'm saying, Lady Honoria," Serena said ca
Chapter 793
On the night before the wedding, Serena was still holding her mother's page.She sat on the narrow bed with the paper against her face. Old rose. Ink. Under it, faint as a breath, cedar.Two soft knocks, then a third, a little late. She knew that knock."Serena?" Gideon said quietly, through the door. "It's your father.""I know, Father," she said gently. "Come in."He didn't come in. He never did."They won't let me walk you up tomorrow," he said, miserable. "Your grandmother says it would look as if the house chose for you. On this coast the bride walks alone. She goes to fetch the man she wants.""Then I'll fetch him," Serena said calmly."I came up these stairs twice," he whispered. "In two years. Twice. I stood outside this door and I couldn't open it."Her throat went tight."I'm not brave, sweetheart," Gideon said, very low. "You know I'm not.""You read me a line once," she said softly. "From the green book. The old teacher from the east. Do you remember it?"A long silence on
Chapter 792
“Grandmother,” Patricia cut in hastily. “You know I already have a boyfriend. He’s a count, he’s exceedingly wealthy, and he told me he’s serious about us. We’re going to be engaged soon!”“I’ve been hearing that excuse for a year,” the matriarch replied coldly. “It is the only reason you remain in line for the succession right behind Serena. You had better bring him before me soon, or I will marry you off to that idiot prince instead.”“Of course, Grandmother. But surely you haven't forgotten my younger cousin? Shouldn't she take her turn first?”…Lady Honoria Pryce arrived the next afternoon in a green motorcar the size of a boat, a big pink woman in three strings of pearls, bringing her son.She talked about him the way a farmer talks about a horse at market."Look at him, Imelda," she boomed happily. "Go on, look. Good teeth. Good height. A sound temper, never raises his voice, never has. Rides, shoots, dances, reads a little, not too much." She slapped her son on the back. "And
Chapter 791
Serena Tiffany held up her hands in the morning light and looked at her fingers."Ten," she said. Her voice was low and rough, like a door that hadn't been opened for a long time. "I have ten. I'd forgotten."Then she looked past her hands, at the window. Morning light lay on the bare floorboards in a long gold square, with the shadow of the bars across it. She looked at it the way other people look at the sea.Her mother used to read her an old poet at bedtime.Had I not seen the Sun / I could have borne the shade / But Light a newer Wilderness / My Wilderness has made.At nine, Serena had thought it was a sad poem. Now she understood that it was a warning.I've seen it now, she thought. Nobody puts me back in the dark. Not ever again.Around the narrow bed in the tower, much too thin, long dark hair loose on the pillow, she looked up at them.The family stood in a half-circle and didn't breathe: the Baroness with her cane, Pauline, Cordelia with her hand over her mouth, Patricia whi
Chapter 790
By seven in the morning, every door in the east wing of the Tiffany house was locked, and nobody would tell the idiot why."What was the scream?" Alexander asked the cook innocently, at the kitchen door."What scream?" the cook snapped."At sunrise," he said patiently. "From the tower.""There wasn't any scream, Your Highness," she said, nervous. She didn't look at him. "You must have dreamed it.""Everybody dreamed it, then," Alexander said mildly. "The dogs dreamed it too. They were barking for an hour.""Breakfast's in the servants' hall," the cook said sharply, and shut the door in his face.Upstairs, behind the locked doors, he could hear the house running about in a panic: the doctor's car on the gravel at half past seven, Pauline's voice, sharp and low, and once, very clearly, Patricia's."That's impossible!" she shrieked.Felicia found him in the yard, in the grey morning light, feeding the hounds."Something's happened up there," she whispered. "The maids are crying. Madam Pa
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