Page 68 of John Eyre

Removing one of the hairpins from my coil of plaits, I bent it and poked it into the bottom part of the keyhole. As I rattled it about, a growing fear rose within me. What if Edward was to wake and catch me at my illicit task? But there seemed little chance of that. In all the months of our marriage, I’d never once seen my husband in the daylight. He was a sound sleeper—the soundest I’d ever encountered—and not likely to be disturbed by any amount of noise.

I continued my efforts, aided by the fact that, though strong enough, the lock was as old as everything else in the fortress. There didn’t appear to be anything overly complicated about its interior mechanism. Surely nothing like the newer sets of locks and bolts that guarded Edward’s vault.

After a time, in some frustration, I withdrew a second hairpin and inserted that into the lock as well. It took a great deal of trial and error. Rather too much. My patience had nearly run out when, at last, I heard the telltale click.

I can’t describe the relief I felt. Wiping the perspiration from my brow, I stood and tested the doorknob. It turned in my hand. A little push, and the door creaked open. Holding my breath, I walked through it.

My husband’s bedchamber was not unknown to me. Some nights, when first I arrived at Nosht-Vŭlk, the connecting door between our rooms had stood open. Then, I had curiously glanced inside, as any new bride might. Because of this, I recognized its grand furnishings: the twin wardrobes, marble-topped washstand, and stately four-poster bed with its heavy velvet curtains, drawn shut to block out the light.

My plan was simple. Moving as silently as a ghost, I would search his room for the keys. Where might he have put them? On the tall chest in the corner? In the pocket of his coat hung over the chair by his bed? I looked in the obvious places, but found no trace of them. I was about to commence searching the wardrobes when an unsettling thought occurred to me. What if the keys remained with him while he slept?

Steeling my courage, I approached the closed curtains of his bed. My heart beat so that I could scarcely hear myself think. I was deathly afraid he’d wake up and find me looming over him. However, when I finally worked up the nerve to draw back the bed curtain, I found—to my bewilderment—that Edward was not there at all.

How was this possible? He’d retired to his room at dawn, just as he always did. I’d heard the door in the hall open and shut. Had heard the lock turning. And yet…his bed was empty. Not only empty. It hadn’t appeared to have been slept in at all. Not yesterday, nor the day before. Not in an age. The ancient coverlet and bolster were moth-eaten and covered with a layer of dust.

I backed away from the bed, truly afraid. If my husband hadn’t been sleeping here all these months, where had he been sleeping?

More to the point, where on earth was he now?

Thornfield Hall

Yorkshire, England

March 1844

At Mr. Fairfax’s pronouncement, Mrs. Rochester lost a good deal of her color. John had never seen her look so pale. So shaken. Not even on the night he’d rescued her from her smoke-filled bedroom.

“Tell Mrs. Wren I shall be with her directly,” she said to Mr. Fairfax.

“Very good, madam.”

She remained where she was until the butler departed, and then, gripping the banister with one white-knuckled hand, she sagged against the wall.

For an instant, John feared she would swoon. He reached instinctively to steady her, only to draw back at the last moment, mindful of his place. “Are you ill, ma’am?”

She looked up at him with wide, unseeing eyes.

A surge of protectiveness took him unaware. Damn and blast it anyway. What care had he for propriety when she was in such a state? “Here, lean against my shoulder. Let me help you.” Putting his arm at her waist, he guided her to a silk-upholstered bench in the hall.

She sank down upon it, and taking his hand, drew him down beside her. He might have maintained a respectful distance from her, even then, but she didn’t relinquish his hand. She clasped it tightly in hers, keeping him close. “Would that we were far away from here,” she said. “Away from violence and danger. Removed from any recollections of the past.”

“What is it?” he asked. “Tell me so I can help you.”

“I fear I am beyond help.”

“No one is beyond help.”

“I am. And you’d realize it if you knew the half of what my life has been. What I’ve done. You’d run far and fast to escape me.”

“Never,” he vowed.

“You would.”

“I’m not so fainthearted as that.” He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. It was a reckless impulse. A rank presumption. But he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. Not when she so desperately needed his reassurance. “There’s nothing you could do that would drive me away.”

She huffed an unsteady breath. It sounded vaguely like a sob. “I do believe you mean that.”

“Of course I mean it. I told you that I would stand beside you. Don’t you remember?”