Page 101 of John Eyre

He reluctantly obliged her. “What is it?”

“It’s the journal I kept during my imprisonment.”

John stilled. “Your what?”

“In the months after my marriage, my husband made me his prisoner. He rid me of all of my servants. Soon, all of his were gone as well. It was only the two of us alone inside his fortress on the cliffs overlooking the Black Sea—he in his madness, and I in my captivity.” She pressed his fingers closed over the book. “It’s all there, John—to a point. The unvarnished truth. Will you read it?”

“Bertha…” He shook his head. “It won’t change anything.”

“Please. If you ever loved me—”

“I still love you.”

Her face spasmed with emotion. She visibly brought herself under control. “Then read it,” she said. “And when you’ve done, come and find me.”

The branch of candles in John’s bedroom guttered as he read the final lines of Bertha’s journal for a second, and then a third time.

There was a door in the floor. A simple square with a bolt set into it.

The description conjured an image in his mind. A long-ago charcoal sketch that had made little sense to him. A sketch that had upset Bertha so much that she’d thrown it into the fire.

Unfastening the latch, I lifted open the door.

There, the journal entry ended with a blotch of smeared black ink. As if Bertha had been interrupted before she could finish. The truth to a point, she’d said. It wasn’t enough truth for John’s taste. He was beginning to suspect what had happened next, but he needed to know for certain.

Taking hold of the branch of candles, he exited his bedchamber and made his way to the drawing room. It was ablaze with light—a multitude of candles and lanterns holding back the encroaching darkness of evening.

Bertha was seated on the settee. She’d changed back into her widow’s black. Her countenance was solemn, her eyes faraway as she gazed into the embers of a dying fire.

It reminded him of the first evening she’d called him to join her there. The way she’d looked—so queenly and remote. So utterly invulnerable.

“Was it the boys?” he asked.

Her gaze lifted to his. “You’ve finished reading?”

“I have.” He placed the branch of candles on a table by the door before coming to sit down across from her. “Was it?”

“Yes.” Her bosom rose and fell on a deep breath. “When I opened the door in the floor, I found them there, half-drained of blood. Village orphans, I assume. Romani children, not from Senniskali, but from somewhere else. They were weak and frightened. Scared to muteness. I still don’t know how long they’d been down there.”

“You’d heard a child’s cry some days before.”

She gave a terse nod. “I suspect it was one of them, but it may have been a different child. One I was unable to save.”

“Earlier, in the hall, the boys seemed to recognize Mrs. Wren.”

“I daresay they did. She was gone from the fortress during the time I found them, but I assume they knew who she was, just as the rest of those in the region did. She was recognizable, if not by her face then by the ruby ring on her finger.” Bertha’s thumb stroked the base of her own third finger, absent any wedding band. “She isn’t his sister, you know. He’s far too old to have a sibling still living. I’d be amazed if the two of them were related at all.”

“Then who—”

“She’s his creature. His procurer. He requires a loyal servant to do his bidding by day. Someone to assure his safety while he sleeps, especially when he’s traveling as he was when I met him in Egypt.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?”

“How can I? You ended the journal so abruptly.”

“Yes, well…there wasn’t a great deal of time to write after that. I had much to do in order to save us all, and not many hours of daylight in which to do it.”