Page 9 of Once Bitten, Twice Mine

Though Caroline wasn’t sure what to make of that.

CHAPTER 3

Caroline stood outside the guest room, holding her breath as she listened for a sound inside. Her hand was poised over the dark wood door, ready to knock again if her first attempt wasn’t heard. Silence was the only response.

Caroline rapped on the door again, this time much harder. Valeria needed her rest, but she also didn’t want her to be suffering and unable to ask for assistance.

“Lady Valeria,” she said, clearing her throat. Chances were she was still asleep, but it felt rude not to announce her presence. “It’s Miss Blythe. I wanted to see if you needed anything.”

Silence.

Caroline’s hand hovered just above the brass doorknob. The door wasn’t locked, so she figured that was as good an invitation as any.

The guest rooms in this wing of the house were decorated in a familiar deep green her mother said reminded her of home. The red flowers on the trellis wallpaper provided a small pop of color while the drapes and bedspread were in a matching deep green silk brocade with gold trim. The rug decorated with twisting ivy designs spanned the entire room, with a bulky four-poster mahogany bed in the middle.

Lady Valeria was nestled beneath the covers in the exact middle of the bed, swallowed by the pillows and thick comforter. Her bronze skin had a sickly pallor. Her dark hair was in the same complicated updo she had last night, which looked so at odds with her otherwise fragile state.

“Lady Valeria,” she said as she crept to the side of her bed. “How are you feeling?”

Her stupid question hung in the air as Valeria clearly didn’t have the faculties to respond. She was so still it was unnerving. Caroline hadn’t watched many people sleep, but she didn’t think she had ever seen anyone quite that still. Her head was faced perfectly towards the ceiling, her arms were beneath the covers, but from her posture Caroline could tell they were directly beside her body, which was in a straight line. She could even see her feet were perfectly flexed beneath the covers. Strange.

Caroline froze as she realized what could cause someone to be so still. Her fingers shook as she reached out to tap her shoulder. Valeria’s eyes didn’t so much as flutter; her thick, dark lashes were still against her cheek.

The gas lamp on the bedside table had been left on low, both to conserve fuel and to cause the least disturbance possible. Perhaps it was the low light that made it difficult for her to tell if her chest moved with her breath.

Slowly, she turned the knob on the lamp, but it buzzed and popped instead of growing the flame. Fantastic. This was precisely why she preferred candles, but her parents had insisted on upgrading all of the lighting in their home a few years before.

Walking over to the windows, she hesitated with the green silk curtain in her hand. Miss Elizabeth said Lady Valeria was sensitive to sunlight, but it was practically sunset. The ballroom last night had been brighter than the midday sun, and she had been fine. It wouldn’t be a worry if she only opened the drapes for a few moments to make sure Valeria was still alive.

“What are you doing?”

Caroline jumped, turning to see Valeria sitting up in the bed. “I was only trying to get some more light in the room so I could check on you.”

“Did Lizzie not tell you of my sun sickness?” She asked, frowning. In the low light, she looked worse than she did the previous evening. Her cheeks were hollow, as if she had lost at least ten pounds overnight. Her skin also looked thinner, almost like paper.

“She mentioned it, but I figured the light was so low that you would be fine.”

“Well, I wouldn’t. Any amount of sunlight could cause me to become violently ill. Even more sick than I am now. I would likely die.”

She flinched, embarrassed and ashamed that she had been about to put her guest in mortal danger to make sure she was still breathing. All she needed was to kill Lady Valeria on the very first day after promising Edgar that she was perfectly capable of caring for his client’s relatio\

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“My apologies, Lady Valeria. I was only concerned because you hadn’t stirred all day.”

Long shadows hung over the room, but even in the low light she could see the moment Valeria’s anger broke and a pleased smile crossed over her face. “You’ve been worrying about me, cara?”

“Of course,” she said, frowning. She didn’t see why that mattered.

“Then I will forgive you, as long as you promise not to open the drapes. The sun makes me so weak I’ll sleep through the entire day, but I’ll wake up at sunset every evening.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

Silence stretched between them. Though the light was low, it seemed as if Valeria studied her without any trouble before she finally answered. “I need to eat.”

“Of course.” Caroline frowned; she wasn’t completely inept. At the very least, she was aware of normal human functions. “I was more wondering if you needed a doctor. You seem to be quite ill.”

“No doctor, just food.”