She lay motionless, heart beating into the darkness. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, and she recognized the pattern of movement. She let out her pent-up breath, her pulse slowing. She shushed Broc and carefully lifted Nicholas’s arm from her waist. He muttered something incoherent, then rolled over and continued sleeping soundly.
She scooted off the bed and quietly lit a candle. When she turned to the fireplace, it was exactly what she thought: the maid endlessly cleaning the fireplace and drinking the wine. Rose’s spell had worked.
Gillian moved closer to the specter, holding the candle high to see her face. It was Aileen. The suicide. She looked just as she had the last time Gillian had seen her, pale blond hair pulled back tight, wearing a dun brown gown. She bent over the fireplace, sweeping ashes with an invisible brush into an invisible ash pan, her hand passing though the glowing embers. Then she stopped, glanced surreptitiously around the room, picked up the goblet beside the chair, and drained it.
Gillian followed her to the basin, where she washed the goblet. Aileen was oblivious to her, doomed to repeat the same actions over and over and over again.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Gillian whispered.
But the ghost did not answer.
Nicholas did, however. “Gillian?” His voice was muzzy with sleep.
“I’m just adding wood to the fire.” She hurried back to the fireplace and tossed on a log.
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one. Broc. His nose is cold.”
Hearing his master’s voice, Broc bounded onto the bed. He stood over Nicholas, snuffling at his face.
“Bloody dog.” Nicholas pushed halfheartedly at the determined dog.
When Gillian returned to bed, Broc had taken her place, lying with his back against Nicholas, who had fallen back to sleep with his arm draped over the dog.
Gillian smiled and crawled beneath the covers on the opposite side of her vast bed, curling up against Nicholas’s back. But sleep did not come to her. Much had changed now that the curse was broken, and she couldn’t help wondering, as she pressed against the warmth of her husband’s skin, if she’d been better off cursed.
16
The next morning when Gillian woke, Nicholas was gone. So was the phantom Aileen. On the table, Gillian’s ring rested atop a folded napkin with her breakfast. She slipped it on, and it fit perfectly.
She had much to tell Rose. After eating and dressing, she went to her sister’s chamber but found it empty. Sir Evan passed as Gillian emerged from her sister’s chamber.
“Have you seen my sister?”
“Aye. She was going to the cripple’s chambers. I think something’s wrong with him.”
Gillian hurried to Stephen’s chamber. Her knock met with silence, so she knocked harder. “Stephen? Rose?”
She heard a muffled noise inside and pressed her ear to the door. Someone was moaning within.
She pushed the door open. The dim room stank of sickness. It had only one window, and though it wasopen, it was but a narrow arrow slit and let in little light. She could barely make out the form huddled in the bed, moaning miserably.
She hurried to the bed. “Stephen? What ails you?”
He curled on his side, eyes closed tight, body shaking. Gillian pushed sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. His skin was clammy. “Stephen, tell me what’s wrong?”
“Rose,” he gasped, not even opening his eyes.
Panic thrummed through her. Where was Rose? “No, it’s Gillian. Has she been here?”
His mouth grew pinched, and he doubled over. “Oh God.”
She searched frantically around the room until she located the chamber pot, already half full of vomit, and brought it to him.
He was violently ill. Gillian held him up while he vomited, terrified. The only people she’d ever seen so ill had all died. He collapsed against her, his breath heaving in his chest. Gillian set the chamber pot aside. Tremors shook his body. His face was a ghastly color, like sour custard, the night’s growth of blond whiskers vivid against his pale skin.
She placed a hand on his forehead, then his cheeks. He was not feverish. She heard rapid footsteps approaching the open door and looked up quickly.
