duchess looked shockingly changed. Her face was sunken, so that the fine bones stood out, and nearly as white as her nightdress. Her blue eyes were wild and vacant. Her beautiful hair escaped a thick braid in untidy tendrils.
“Your Grace,” said Flora. “Adele. It’s all right. You’re home in your own bed. You’re ill. You must rest.”
“Harpies!” came the reply. “Swooping and screeching and ripping at me with your black talons. It hurts!” She drew up her knees and hunched as if to curl into a ball. The movement set off a cough that racked the older woman’s too-slender frame.
Verity met Flora’s eyes across the bed. Tears welled in them.
“It’s all right,” Flora said again. “I know it hurts. You’re ill. Lie back now.”
Between coughs, the duchess began to moan.
“See if you can give her some barley water,” Flora murmured.
Verity let go of the duchess’s arm and picked up a glass from the side table. But their patient turned her head away when Verity tried to put it to her lips. She began to cry, and Verity couldn’t help weeping along with her.
“It’s all right,” said Flora, choking back her own tears. She repeated that over and over, and after what seemed like an eternity, the duchess subsided. She fell back on the pillows as if exhausted, but then began picking at the bedclothes. “This is my opal brooch,” she said, holding up an imaginary object. “Arthur gave it to me when we were young, but he’s abandoned me now in this vile prison. He vowed for better or worse, you know, but he’s gone away.”
“He was just here,” Flora replied. “He wants to stay with you always, but he has to sleep a bit. He’ll be back soon.”
The duchess’s hand dropped. Her eyes closed. She looked desolate, and it tore at Verity’s heart.
“She’ll be quiet for a while now,” Flora whispered. “These…episodes wear her out.”
“To see her this way.” Verity blinked back her tears. Flora nodded.
The duke appeared in the doorway. He was still dressed in the clothes from dinner, and it was obvious he hadn’t slept. He looked wretched. “I felt she needed me,” he said. He came in, sat beside the bed, and took his wife’s hand. She showed no reaction. The fear in his face was so stark that Verity took a step backward.
“It’s very kind of you to play for her,” the duke said without looking around. “For us all.”
“I’m happy to, sir.”
“You have all you need?”
“Yes.”
Verity didn’t think he heard her. He held the duchess’s hand as if it was his whole world, and he could think of nothing else. Verity backed away. Flora moved with her into the corridor. “She’s always calmer when he’s there,” she said. “Even when she appears insensible.”
“He loves her so,” Verity murmured.
Flora nodded. “I wanted that kind of love. I was so happy when I found it. I didn’t quite realize the danger of that kind of pain.”
The nurse returned carrying a pot of broth on a tray. With a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, Verity went back to the pianoforte.
Seventeen
Randolph tossed and muttered in his bed, fighting a nightmare that seemed to have gone on forever. His mother lay dying, and he was desperate to reach her. In a corridor whose walls moved in and out like an infernal bellows, he ran toward her room—on and on and on. But he couldn’t get there. Each time he seemed close, the floor steepened, and he stumbled and clawed and slipped backward. Over and over, he found himself back where he’d started. He was helpless, and time was running out. Unless he could defeat these hellish obstacles, she was doomed.
And then, suddenly, he was at her doorway. She was right inside, wondering that he hadn’t come to see her. He could hear her asking why he’d abandoned her, and it drove him nearly mad. But the opening was blocked by a great shadowy figure, arms held out to catch him. Randolph pushed and punched and shouted. After what seemed an eternity, he knocked the creature aside and fell into the chamber.
To find that she was gone. Mama lay perfectly still, hands crossed on her chest, her face waxen and empty. It was too late. He hadn’t been able to do anything; he hadn’t been there for the end. Randolph collapsed to his knees by her bed. And then he was looking at Rosalie’s face as he’d seen her in her coffin, a doll with all her