“No,” she replied softly, rising and crossing to the window, “I haven’t fallen for Garth, though, I still think he has our best interest at heart.”
Both fell silent, one staring out of the window, the other watching the door, waiting. But time passed, and no word came from Garth. And no summons came for dinner. Hunger gnawed at them for they had eaten very little all day.
As the two ventured down stairs and crossed the great hall, they wondered at the quiet. Charles was nowhere about, and it seemed that the two men were gone as well. Echoes of their steps sounded as they entered the kitchen. Molly was nowhere to be seen either. The fire in the hearth was a welcomed change from the dim, cold hall. Platters of food, prepared earlier, were gathered under a cloth in the middle of the table. May-Jewel watched Katherine satisfy her hunger with cold haggis, but she herself would eat only a biscuit and some cheese.
“I shall never get used to the food here,” May-Jewel declared. “Imagine eating innards boiled in an animal’s stomach!”
“Oh, really? Your head-cheese, which consists of the head and feet of pigs, is just as hard for me to think of as pleasing to the palate.”
“Now here’s something I can eat.” May-Jewel replied, uncovering a meat pie.
As they ate, the silence penetrated Katherine’s thoughts. “I wonder where Molly is, and why she’s not here cooking.”
“Well, she needn’t cook for me now,” May-Jewel remarked. “I’m no longer hungry.”
As they lingered in the kitchen, the shadows became more pronounced with the setting sun. Katherine added another log to the fire before they left. As they moved down the dim corridor toward the great hall, the hushed air suddenly groaned with the opening of a door somewhere. The rhythm of the manor changed, and the great hall seemed to shudder as if laboring to breathe.
“Did you hear that?” Katherine whispered, the hair rising on her neck and arms.
They froze, listening to footfalls shuffling erratically across the expanse of the darkened hall. Another door opened and closed suddenly. As the heiresses stepped from the archway into the hall, they came to an abrupt halt. A second set of footsteps sounded across the vast antechamber. Moonlight shone in through the upper windows. They stood near its light, straining to see who was moving about.
“In the drawing room,” Katherine whispered as she pointed.
May-Jewel nodded, and the women moved stealthily along the wall. Alerted by another sound in the hall, they quickly slipped behind the partially opened drawing room door. A candle’s pale light bobbed across the hall, moving toward them. As the apparition passed the doorway, its light crept along the floor within inches of Katherine’s feet. Trembling, she grabbed her sister’s hand as she stood behind her. They both held their breath as the night stalker moved past. All was then as before, dim and silent.
“I think they went upstairs,” Katherine whispered. “I’m sure that it wasn’t Selina.”
“Oh, why?”
“The shadow was too tall, and she wouldn’t be so careless as to carry a light with her, nor would she so boldly use the front staircase. Whoever it was come from the direction of the dining room.”
Peeking around the door and making sure no one was about, they tiptoed from the drawing room to the opened dining room door. The dying fire in the hearth cast ominous shadows throughout the room. Fear impaled them just inside the door as their eyes beheld a form seated in the chair at the head of the table.
“Alexander!” May-Jewel’s whisper thundered through the silence as she started forward.
But the form remained still as the women inched closer, and no reply was given. As they moved closer, the sisters could see that it wasn’t Alex who was sitting there.
Then Katherine moved beside the chair.
“Charles!” she scolded. “You scared us witless!”
But when he didn’t answer, May-Jewel took a taper and lit it from the fire in the fireplace. Then she used it to light the candelabrum on the table. Its light spread in a circle over the table and engulfed Charles, who was slumped forward. As the light reached him, May-Jewel grabbed her sister’s arm in mute horror.
Katherine, poised at the outer edge of the light’s glow, reached forward and pulled his slumping form back against the chair. The inhuman sound that erupted from May-Jewel’s throat shattered the manacled silence, and she folded to the floor in a faint.
Katherine stared at the ghastly sight before her. Blood oozed from the servant’s opened eyes, trickled over his puckered cheeks, and seeped into the dry cracks of his mouth. His entire face, especially his mouth, was blistered as if put into a fire. As she stared in horror at him, Katherine tried desperately to extricate her hand from his stiff shoulder, but she was so frightened that her fingers were locked upon the corpse. Suddenly an arm shot out of the darkness to pry her hand loose. With that, she lost consciousness.
Chapter Thirteen
As May-Jewel’s scream shattered the stillness, Garth’s steps rang through the shadowy expanse of the great hall and were joined by the heavy thuds of Brice’s boots as he ran in from the front door. Both men rushed into the dining room. At the same time Alex, his hair mussed and his clothes rumpled, rushed in as well.
The men saw first the slumped body of Charles and then the women on the floor. Garth and Alex revived the sisters and assisted them into the sitting room.
Returning to the dining room, Garth leaned close to Charles’ face and examined the bloated flesh and coagulated black blood that sealed the corner of his lips.
Alex looked at the corpse and shuddered. “What the hell happened to him?”
“I dunna know,” Brice offered. “I were
