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Alice gritted her teeth as she scrubbed the soot from her nail beds. The black plaguing the crevices of her delicate fingers and hands reminded her so forcibly of her place in this great house that she ground the bristles of her scrubbing brush against her skin. Water sloshed out of the white porcelain basin, bleeding down the wooden table and splattering on the worn floorboards of her sparse servant’s room.
In the weak afternoon light, it was difficult to see if she was clean enough with her own shadow in the way. The murky water swirled and she blinked when she saw tendrils of red snaking in between the black whirls of ash. She withdrew her hand and stared at the blood seeping from her torn cuticles. She sucked on her forefinger, grimacing at the tangy sweetness of the blood. The water needed changed, her fingers stung, and now she was going to be late as well as dirty.
Crossing her attic room, she hauled the washbasin with her and dumped its contents out of the window. She stuck her head out to watch the black water crash onto the cobblestones of the inner courtyard below. A footman jumped out of the way just in time and Alice barely got herself back through her window before he shouted up at her. Smith was one more person she did not need as an enemy in this house.
With the basin back on the wash table, she refilled the bowl for the last time and forced herself to take more care while she smoothed her hands over her arms, pushing her sleeves up to the elbow. Her uniform needed changed. She needed her spare shoes that she only wore on Sunday. Without Mary, the other lady’s maid who shared this room with her, it would be difficult to dress properly. The butler, Mr. Osborne did not allow servants to have mirrors in their rooms. It fed vanity.
Taking the pins out of her dark hair, she allowed her thick tresses to cascade down her back as she worked open the buttons at her pale throat. Shedding the dress, she laid it carefully over the bed and looked down at it. How she wished to burn it. Her fingers caressed the sturdy, rough fabric until she bunched it in her fist, momentarily considering hurling it to the floor before she took a deep breath and folded it neatly and quickly. The faster it was out of sight, the faster she could get out of this cramped room.
A single shabby dresser dominated the wall opposite the bed. Alice had but to lean across the six inches of distance to open the door, place her servant’s dress in the bottom and take out her spare. One other dress hung lank and muted, like the broken wing of an uninspiring sparrow. She imagined that’s how she looked in it on Sundays at church. She touched the limp puce sleeve. How was she ever to find a husband if she did not have a dress that could do her justice?
Her mother’s warning rang in her ears as she donned the crisp, clean servant’s dress. It was the same as the one she’d just tucked away; plain like her hair as she pulled it back away from her face in a severe bun, high up on her head. No ornamentation or braid, nothing to suggest she was anything more than a shadow moving through Crestridge Park, cleaning the cavernous rooms belonging to someone else. A job she would hold until death, she thought bitterly. With her headstone placed in the church graveyard, her spirit would remain here and she’d haunt these halls and rooms, unable to leave this house sitting on this forsaken moor.
As soon as she finished the buttons at her throat, she slipped on her Sunday shoes and smiled briefly at them. They were as plain as everything else she owned, but they were polished and appeared new. She took care to walk quietly and softly whenever she wore them so that the heel would not show how old they really were.
She slipped out of her room and closed the door behind her, walking down the attic corridor, she barely made a sound. The echo was nothing but the tap, tap, tapping that could sometimes be heard at night when ghosts or Mrs. Hamills, the House Keeper, roamed the halls. She wondered if she would stay here long enough to be House Keeper and if she would be the one scraping through the halls one day, carrying the flickering candle, with her shadow slithering behind her, just visible under the door gap. Seeing that every night made her believe in the devil. That was how he came into people’s rooms and their into souls. He was nothing but a shadow, silent and quiet, bringing evil and sorrow.
She reached to open the door that would take her into the main portion of the house but leaped back when it groaned opened of its own accord. Her back met wall and she stared at a shadowed, misshapen form, until Mrs. Hamills came into sharp relief. The House Keeper’s beady eyes narrowed and her thin lips pressed into a spiritless line.
“Miss Moorland, if you please.” Mrs Hamills’ voice brought to mind tree limbs scratching against glass window panes. “Mr. Osborne will be waiting three minutes over your due arrival, even if you now make haste.” When Alice did not move fast enough, Mrs. Hamills clapped her hands so near her nose that she could not help blinking. “Haste,” Mrs. Hamills repeated, her words coming out in snake hisses. “Indolent girl.”
Alice could not swallow the lump that formed in her throat but she did not dare to cry in front of this wrinkled, witch of a woman. She wanted to flee into the adjacent hallway, into the light of the main house, away from this frigid, shadowed attic. Her courage failed her and she dipped into a short curtsey, walking only as fast as decorum would allow. Mrs. Hamills did not follow her. The door clicked shut and Mrs. Hamills’ footsteps retreated as she took a different set of stairs down to pounce on her next victim.
Crestridge Park was as vast and lonely as the moor it sat on. Its interior was a testament to the wealth of the unbroken Balthazar bloodline, who loved nothing so much as to spend their money on this manor. The house boasted no less than five wings and splayed itself out beneath the unending night sky as a star, mirroring the spinning constellations above. The house was peculiar with its sharp angles and layout, prompting the surrounding village inhabitants to assume that it was built by devil worshipers. These rumors persisted, even over the generous donations to the surrounding churches, over the centuries, though were quiet enough for the time being.
Her steps were loud to her own ears, even muffled by the plush carpet adorning the stately wooden floors. Mr. Osborne had asked that she meet him in the gallery where Lord Balthazar displayed his paintings. She hated going in there and shivered once she opened the doors. No chilling breeze hit her in the face to match the shivers she felt snake up her spine. Instead, she was met with stale air and dust particles sweeping around in swirling clouds that made her sneeze twice.
From up on the ladder, one of the male servants glared down at her. She avoided looked at him, turning her nose up instead. This would fix the rumor that had been circulating about her for some time, that she thought herself ‘too good’ for servant’s work. They disliked her aspirations for leaving and finding something better and when word had gotten around that she’d applied as a governess, that had earned her no friends. The other servants didn’t believe her capable of such a position or deserving. She was one of them. She needed to accept her place; a thing she would never do. Alice reflected, as she walked the length of the gallery, that maybe they were right. Maybe she was better than they were and they were too closed minded to see it.
Mr. Osborne stood at the very end of the gallery. This room connected two passages and was the only way to get to the west portion of the house. Several of the staff were standing on ladders, dusting the upper most frames of the portraits that glared down at her as she passed beneath them. She didn’t like to look up at the portraits. They were all, without exception, haunting. Each portrait featured a woman with dark hair, draped in red silks, or vermillion crushed velvet, or even a few had the model stretched naked across a bed, body on full display. Lord Balthazar’s talent was unrivaled and he could work such detail and emotion into a painting that it was truly terrifying. It was as if he’d used each brush stroke to pour the darkness of his soul into the rendering of the models. Some of them were lifeless and broken, lying on paving stones. Others were gorgeous and alluring, looking over their bare shoulder, drawing the viewer into their sensual world with just that glance.
She approached Mr. Osborne, who looked at his pocketwatch. “I am loathe to even assign you this task, Miss Moorland, as you do not deem my time as important as your own,” Mr. Osborne turned his hound dog stare at her. He was a grotesque man in possession of thick jowls and a protruding lower lip. His paunchy skin was sallow and reminded her of a candle, the way his neck fat melted over his starched white collar.
“My apologies, Mr. Osborne. It will not happen again.” It was hard to keep her attention on his eyes. Their red rims were the same color as freshly butchered meat and the tobacco had turned the whites of his bloodshot eyes the color of stale yellow tea.
“Come with me and I shall explain your task.” Mr. Osborne turned and she noted his shoes were as pristine as her own. For such a disgusting man, his clothing was immaculate. Her eyes remained on his hands, hands that trembled as he walked with her to the end of the gallery. His fingernails looked like they were pressed into the dough of his fingers and disgusted her so much that she had to look elsewhere.
There, beside the door, her eyes met a pair of nearly identical, warm brown eyes, looking flat and dead inside the painting. She stopped, drawn to the perfect oval face of the late Lady Balthazar. The woman hadn’t been a great beauty, but she was striking nonetheless. Her rosebud mouth was a little too small inside her pale face, like a droplet of blood on a white napkin. The lady’s lashes were too heavy but the brightness of her eyes made one forget.
Alice touched her own lips, thinking that she did not look dissimilar from this woman. Mr. Osborne turned to see what she was looking at, only to stop and stare as well. He assessed the painting and then her. “I never noticed how much you resemble Lady Balthazar. A younger Lady Balthazar,” he corrected and her eyes darted to him. She did not like the way he said it and she looked at his hands again. The thought of him touching her with them made her shudder.
“A draft,” she said softly when he lifted unruly eyebrows at her. Together they left the gallery and she made sure to be a step or two behind him, though he kept stopping and attempting to get her to walk ahead. His frigid demeanor toward her disappeared and in its place was a keen interest in the color of her hair and the daintiness of her hands.
“Very like a lady,” he said.
Alice clasped her hands together in front of her and walked as fast as she thought he would allow. Though Crestridge Park was massive, they were never truly alone in its halls. At least one servant was in every hallway they passed through which kept Mr. Osborne’s hands at his sides but she wondered if he would attempt to visit her room. Sometimes the maids whispered stories to each other, claiming that they feared they would be ‘next’ for a ‘midnight visit’. Mary had always said these ghost stories were nonsense but Alice wondered if the girls weren’t speaking of ghosts at all.
Her apprehension grew when he directed her down a corridor she knew not to enter. Slowing her pace, she stopped altogether when Mr. Osborne entered the cerulean hallway with mahogany paneling. This was Lady Balthazar’s hallway. A place she’d seen and never, ever set foot in. Even the frames of the paintings on the walls held a layer of dust. Mr. Osborne turned, waving her impatiently forward.
“There’s no ghosts down here, Miss Moorland. Come, come.”
“I do not fear apparitions, sir,” Alice replied and did not move. “If I may, why am I being taken to her ladyship’s wing? We have been expressly forbidden by his lordship.”
Mr. Obsorne did not take kindly to being reminded of this by a housemaid. “It is he who set the task while he is out,” the butler glared with such power that Alice found herself drawn forward and unable to stop herself from moving into the reach of his meaty hand. She arched her back away from him as he set his palm to her spine. The heat of his hand burned into the fabric of her dress and she wished that they were not alone.
Whispers curled through the hallway and she half turned, desperately searching for the source, for her savior, but there was no one. Mr. Osborne did not appear to notice either the sound or the draft of cold air. He was speaking to her and she realized he was outlining her task. Or, at least pretending to do so as they neared Lady Balthazar’s room.
The task, it turned out, was simple: she was to lay Lady Balthazar’s things to rest. His Lordship wanted them packed into trunks that would then be burned. Alice, despite her growing dread of Mr. Osborne, turned to him in alarm. “Burned?” she repeated. “Why burned? Why was it necessary for me to re-dress and change my shoes if its all to be burned?”
“His Lordship calls it ‘sacred ground,’” Mr. Osborne quoted. “He instructed that whomever I assigned this task must arrive in their best, because its what her ladyship would have required.” For the first time since the gallery, Mr. Osborne looked at her again with vague distaste, which gave her profound relief. “Her Ladyship would not have approved of you under normal circumstances.”
“And now?” she asked, looking at her hands and the torn bits of skin from where she’d obsessed over them too much.
“You meet requirements,” he replied and pointed to the trunks that lay open and waiting. “All of her things. Jewels, gowns, bed linens. Everything in these trunks. Do not linger.”
Alice waited until Mr. Osborne disappeared and listened in the doorway as his heavy steps thundered down the hall. Silence rang in her ears and she was conscious of the sound the fabric of her dress made when she moved to take in her surroundings. This room was a tomb. Or perhaps it was waiting for its mistress to return. The entire thing was preserved so well, that she was half concerned Lady Balthazar would return and demand to know what she was doing in here. She didn’t want to explain that she was told to gather the woman’s things so that they could be destroyed.
When Lady Balthazar flung herself from the very window that Alice now stared at, Lord Balthazar had ordered that her room be closed up and left alone. No one was to alter it in any way. At first, the staff understood. Their master needed to grieve. As time went by, and slowly the entire wing fell into disuse. No other room was off limits, but the master did not come here and aside from the very occasional cleaning, even Mrs. Hamills didn’t send maids down here anymore.
Alice stepped tentatively further into the room, rubbing her arms to stave off the shudder. Without the fire light in the grate, this room held a terrible chill. It was beautiful, though, she thought, as she looked around.
The walls of the hallway were blue but in here, they were the color of a crimson sunrise, garish in its brilliance of color. Even the wood panels beneath were made of bloodwood, so red that she almost felt hot, despite the chill. The four poster bed was outfitted with scarlet curtains and she wondered how she was to get those down on her own.
Running her hand over the smooth coverlet on the bed, she risked a moment of rest, and let herself sink down onto the plush mattress. For a horrifying moment, she thought that someone might come and see. She held her breath, her heartbeat in her ears, but there were no footsteps. 5There was no sound at all, not even the whispering wind in the hallway.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out again and laid back on the bed, looking up into the red canopy. How lovely it would have been to sleep here. She had not liked the room at first but she liked it now. Now the play of vermillion and scarlet and crimson made her feel as though she was tucked back safely into the womb. The gravelike silence was comforting in a way. Several moments slipped by her but she forced herself up and set about the task she’d been given.
At first, it was not terrible. She started at the vanity, gently placing Lady Balthazar’s creams and face powders in the bottom of the trunk, careful not to spill the contents of the ornate containers. Her silver handled brush went in next but it wasn’t until she reached the mahogany jewelry box that she began to feel a little mournful of the waste. The first several pairs of earrings she laid in the bottom of the trunk. Looking at each set of pearls, sapphires, of amethyst stones, all inlaid in the silver Lady Balthazar loved so much gave a bitter set to her mouth. The master had to grieve, but to set these beautifully crafted pieces into the fire? It was a sin. If ever she’d seen a sin, this was surely one that would be added to his already long list.
At the glittering pair of silver teardrop earrings, inset with rubies, she stopped. They were as delicate as if Lady Balthazar cried them herself, made of the thinnest, almost transparent metal. The filigree on the teardrops was of an oriental design and the shape of the rubies hanging at the rounded bottoms of the silver tears made her wonder if blood had not been spilled in order to craft these stunning works of art. What a shame, nay, again, a sin, to throw these into a bonfire on the moor, just so that Lord Balthazar could be rid of the last vestiges of the angel who had worn these so elegantly.
Casting a furtive glance at the doorway, she hesitated. To put these on was crossing a line. She would be dismissed if she was caught, but these too were beautiful. The temptation was too much. It was sacrilege to place them in the chest to be consumed. Lord Balthazar would never miss them. Not if she kept the jewelry box closed. Taking in a deep breath, she glanced at herself in the mirror and dared to try them on. They slid into her supple, pierced earlobes, hanging like delicate chandeliers. The rubies were clear enough to catch the last of the light, splashing tears of crimson across the mirror, vanity’s surface, and her own face in her reflection.
“How magnificent,” she breathed to herself as she looked at them in the mirror. The earrings were decadent but they were too otherworldly against her severe bun and austere servant’s dress. Sifting through the trunk again, she pulled out the jewelry box and picked out the necklace that matched the earrings and placed it around her throat. She watched her fingers in the mirror as she caressed the surface of the ruby necklace. The silver gleamed, even as clouds closed over the moor outside and rain fell against the windowpane. Her full lips parted and she wondered how Lord Balthazar could part with something so elegant. Why not gift these to his next wife? Lord Balthazar was not an old man. He was still in his prime and had no children to bear his name. Surely he needed an heir?
Her gaze drifted up and she found herself staring into her own brown eyes, thinking of Lady Balthazar’s painting. She did look more like the painting, now that she had her ladyship’s jewels. Heat spread through her cheeks as she thought of the dead woman, staring into this very mirror, wearing these very jewels, making love to her husband on the bed behind her. How could she have ended such a heavenly existence? Was living with the devil so terrible that she had to fling herself into the air? To fall broken and mangled on the ground outside like a discarded doll? She’d left these jewels to be claimed, in doing so. The guilt receded back into the tidepools of her morality and she was better able to enjoy her appearance.
Alice placed the rest of the jewels into the trunk but did not remove what she had on. A new, risky idea curled inside her breast and she went to the wardrobe. Opening the doors, she didn’t find a lonely, homely dress. She found sumptuous gowns of rich fabric and vibrant color. Her fingertips trailed along the skirt of a pale, champagne ball gown. Such a thing would have cost her a lifetime to earn.
The one beside it caught her eye and she removed it from the wardrobe, holding it up to herself. A lovely, fiery red gown, with voluminous skirts and achingly gorgeous stitching. She brushed her fingers across the hem of the garment and let herself imagine what it would be like to wear such a thing. It was not crafted for a common lady’s maid, but how delicious the fabric felt in her hands. Almost before she knew what she was doing, as though she was possessed by someone other than herself, she shed her servant’s dress like it was snakeskin and donned the lavish gown.
It fit as though it was tailor made for her body and not that of a corpse rotting below the frozen ground. She turned to look at herself in the mirror and smiled slowly, observing the way the dress hugged the curves of her breasts and hips, giving her a sumptuous appearance, even to her own eyes. Alice was nearly gone. In her place was a beautiful, elegant young woman whose slender shoulders caught the last of the sun’s dying rays, turning milky skin bronze. Her hair was the last piece that needed to be fixed to erase her dismal servant self completely. She unpinned the dark mane of hair, letting it fall in thick, gorgeous waves, framing the oval of her face and giving her the most startling glory that she rarely saw.
The servant girl stared in wide eyed shock, realizing that she didn’t resemble Lady Balthazar’s painting. She was identical. A long lost twin to the mysterious woman who’d lain in this room, made love in this room, and died from this room. Was she related? A discarded sister? Thrown away and somehow led by spirits back to this house?
So engrossed in her own appearance was she that she did not hear the footsteps in the hall. Nor did she immediately notice the broad frame filling the doorway. She pulled back from the mirror, somehow having the silver handle of the brush in her hand and she looked down at it, not even remembering searching through the trunk to take it out.
She felt dizzy and light headed. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, her eyes met piercing blue ones over her shoulder. A scream nearly left her throat as she turned to face the terrible, handsome personage of Lord Balthazar. Her hands flew to his chest to push him away. He was far too close and she couldn’t help noting that his dark hair held droplets of water, like he’d been walking outside in the misting rain that had started not too long ago.
His large hands were fine and strong, like those of a potter and for some reason, she felt that if they closed around her throat, she would shatter into a thousand pieces. Her eyes darted over the sharp angles of his face and settled on his curving lips, afraid of the words that his cavernous voice would hurl at her.
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Alice gritted her teeth as she scrubbed the soot from her nail beds. The black plaguing the crevices of her delicate fingers and hands reminded her so forcibly of her place in this great house that she ground the bristles of her scrubbing brush against her skin. Water sloshed out of the white porcelain basin, bleeding down the wooden table and splattering on the worn floorboards of her sparse servant’s room.
In the weak afternoon light, it was difficult to see if she was clean enough with her own shadow in the way. The murky water swirled and she blinked when she saw tendrils of red snaking in between the black whirls of ash. She withdrew her hand and stared at the blood seeping from her torn cuticles. She sucked on her forefinger, grimacing at the tangy sweetness of the blood. The water needed changed, her fingers stung, and now she was going to be late as well as dirty.
Crossing her attic room, she hauled the washbasin with her and dumped its contents out of the window. She stuck her head out to watch the black water crash onto the cobblestones of the inner courtyard below. A footman jumped out of the way just in time and Alice barely got herself back through her window before he shouted up at her. Smith was one more person she did not need as an enemy in this house.
With the basin back on the wash table, she refilled the bowl for the last time and forced herself to take more care while she smoothed her hands over her arms, pushing her sleeves up to the elbow. Her uniform needed changed. She needed her spare shoes that she only wore on Sunday. Without Mary, the other lady’s maid who shared this room with her, it would be difficult to dress properly. The butler, Mr. Osborne did not allow servants to have mirrors in their rooms. It fed vanity.
Taking the pins out of her dark hair, she allowed her thick tresses to cascade down her back as she worked open the buttons at her pale throat. Shedding the dress, she laid it carefully over the bed and looked down at it. How she wished to burn it. Her fingers caressed the sturdy, rough fabric until she bunched it in her fist, momentarily considering hurling it to the floor before she took a deep breath and folded it neatly and quickly. The faster it was out of sight, the faster she could get out of this cramped room.
A single shabby dresser dominated the wall opposite the bed. Alice had but to lean across the six inches of distance to open the door, place her servant’s dress in the bottom and take out her spare. One other dress hung lank and muted, like the broken wing of an uninspiring sparrow. She imagined that’s how she looked in it on Sundays at church. She touched the limp puce sleeve. How was she ever to find a husband if she did not have a dress that could do her justice?
Her mother’s warning rang in her ears as she donned the crisp, clean servant’s dress. It was the same as the one she’d just tucked away; plain like her hair as she pulled it back away from her face in a severe bun, high up on her head. No ornamentation or braid, nothing to suggest she was anything more than a shadow moving through Crestridge Park, cleaning the cavernous rooms belonging to someone else. A job she would hold until death, she thought bitterly. With her headstone placed in the church graveyard, her spirit would remain here and she’d haunt these halls and rooms, unable to leave this house sitting on this forsaken moor.
As soon as she finished the buttons at her throat, she slipped on her Sunday shoes and smiled briefly at them. They were as plain as everything else she owned, but they were polished and appeared new. She took care to walk quietly and softly whenever she wore them so that the heel would not show how old they really were.
She slipped out of her room and closed the door behind her, walking down the attic corridor, she barely made a sound. The echo was nothing but the tap, tap, tapping that could sometimes be heard at night when ghosts or Mrs. Hamills, the House Keeper, roamed the halls. She wondered if she would stay here long enough to be House Keeper and if she would be the one scraping through the halls one day, carrying the flickering candle, with her shadow slithering behind her, just visible under the door gap. Seeing that every night made her believe in the devil. That was how he came into people’s rooms and their into souls. He was nothing but a shadow, silent and quiet, bringing evil and sorrow.
She reached to open the door that would take her into the main portion of the house but leaped back when it groaned opened of its own accord. Her back met wall and she stared at a shadowed, misshapen form, until Mrs. Hamills came into sharp relief. The House Keeper’s beady eyes narrowed and her thin lips pressed into a spiritless line.
“Miss Moorland, if you please.” Mrs Hamills’ voice brought to mind tree limbs scratching against glass window panes. “Mr. Osborne will be waiting three minutes over your due arrival, even if you now make haste.” When Alice did not move fast enough, Mrs. Hamills clapped her hands so near her nose that she could not help blinking. “Haste,” Mrs. Hamills repeated, her words coming out in snake hisses. “Indolent girl.”
Alice could not swallow the lump that formed in her throat but she did not dare to cry in front of this wrinkled, witch of a woman. She wanted to flee into the adjacent hallway, into the light of the main house, away from this frigid, shadowed attic. Her courage failed her and she dipped into a short curtsey, walking only as fast as decorum would allow. Mrs. Hamills did not follow her. The door clicked shut and Mrs. Hamills’ footsteps retreated as she took a different set of stairs down to pounce on her next victim.
Crestridge Park was as vast and lonely as the moor it sat on. Its interior was a testament to the wealth of the unbroken Balthazar bloodline, who loved nothing so much as to spend their money on this manor. The house boasted no less than five wings and splayed itself out beneath the unending night sky as a star, mirroring the spinning constellations above. The house was peculiar with its sharp angles and layout, prompting the surrounding village inhabitants to assume that it was built by devil worshipers. These rumors persisted, even over the generous donations to the surrounding churches, over the centuries, though were quiet enough for the time being.
Her steps were loud to her own ears, even muffled by the plush carpet adorning the stately wooden floors. Mr. Osborne had asked that she meet him in the gallery where Lord Balthazar displayed his paintings. She hated going in there and shivered once she opened the doors. No chilling breeze hit her in the face to match the shivers she felt snake up her spine. Instead, she was met with stale air and dust particles sweeping around in swirling clouds that made her sneeze twice.
From up on the ladder, one of the male servants glared down at her. She avoided looked at him, turning her nose up instead. This would fix the rumor that had been circulating about her for some time, that she thought herself ‘too good’ for servant’s work. They disliked her aspirations for leaving and finding something better and when word had gotten around that she’d applied as a governess, that had earned her no friends. The other servants didn’t believe her capable of such a position or deserving. She was one of them. She needed to accept her place; a thing she would never do. Alice reflected, as she walked the length of the gallery, that maybe they were right. Maybe she was better than they were and they were too closed minded to see it.
Mr. Osborne stood at the very end of the gallery. This room connected two passages and was the only way to get to the west portion of the house. Several of the staff were standing on ladders, dusting the upper most frames of the portraits that glared down at her as she passed beneath them. She didn’t like to look up at the portraits. They were all, without exception, haunting. Each portrait featured a woman with dark hair, draped in red silks, or vermillion crushed velvet, or even a few had the model stretched naked across a bed, body on full display. Lord Balthazar’s talent was unrivaled and he could work such detail and emotion into a painting that it was truly terrifying. It was as if he’d used each brush stroke to pour the darkness of his soul into the rendering of the models. Some of them were lifeless and broken, lying on paving stones. Others were gorgeous and alluring, looking over their bare shoulder, drawing the viewer into their sensual world with just that glance.
She approached Mr. Osborne, who looked at his pocketwatch. “I am loathe to even assign you this task, Miss Moorland, as you do not deem my time as important as your own,” Mr. Osborne turned his hound dog stare at her. He was a grotesque man in possession of thick jowls and a protruding lower lip. His paunchy skin was sallow and reminded her of a candle, the way his neck fat melted over his starched white collar.
“My apologies, Mr. Osborne. It will not happen again.” It was hard to keep her attention on his eyes. Their red rims were the same color as freshly butchered meat and the tobacco had turned the whites of his bloodshot eyes the color of stale yellow tea.
“Come with me and I shall explain your task.” Mr. Osborne turned and she noted his shoes were as pristine as her own. For such a disgusting man, his clothing was immaculate. Her eyes remained on his hands, hands that trembled as he walked with her to the end of the gallery. His fingernails looked like they were pressed into the dough of his fingers and disgusted her so much that she had to look elsewhere.
There, beside the door, her eyes met a pair of nearly identical, warm brown eyes, looking flat and dead inside the painting. She stopped, drawn to the perfect oval face of the late Lady Balthazar. The woman hadn’t been a great beauty, but she was striking nonetheless. Her rosebud mouth was a little too small inside her pale face, like a droplet of blood on a white napkin. The lady’s lashes were too heavy but the brightness of her eyes made one forget.
Alice touched her own lips, thinking that she did not look dissimilar from this woman. Mr. Osborne turned to see what she was looking at, only to stop and stare as well. He assessed the painting and then her. “I never noticed how much you resemble Lady Balthazar. A younger Lady Balthazar,” he corrected and her eyes darted to him. She did not like the way he said it and she looked at his hands again. The thought of him touching her with them made her shudder.
“A draft,” she said softly when he lifted unruly eyebrows at her. Together they left the gallery and she made sure to be a step or two behind him, though he kept stopping and attempting to get her to walk ahead. His frigid demeanor toward her disappeared and in its place was a keen interest in the color of her hair and the daintiness of her hands.
“Very like a lady,” he said.
Alice clasped her hands together in front of her and walked as fast as she thought he would allow. Though Crestridge Park was massive, they were never truly alone in its halls. At least one servant was in every hallway they passed through which kept Mr. Osborne’s hands at his sides but she wondered if he would attempt to visit her room. Sometimes the maids whispered stories to each other, claiming that they feared they would be ‘next’ for a ‘midnight visit’. Mary had always said these ghost stories were nonsense but Alice wondered if the girls weren’t speaking of ghosts at all.
Her apprehension grew when he directed her down a corridor she knew not to enter. Slowing her pace, she stopped altogether when Mr. Osborne entered the cerulean hallway with mahogany paneling. This was Lady Balthazar’s hallway. A place she’d seen and never, ever set foot in. Even the frames of the paintings on the walls held a layer of dust. Mr. Osborne turned, waving her impatiently forward.
“There’s no ghosts down here, Miss Moorland. Come, come.”
“I do not fear apparitions, sir,” Alice replied and did not move. “If I may, why am I being taken to her ladyship’s wing? We have been expressly forbidden by his lordship.”
Mr. Obsorne did not take kindly to being reminded of this by a housemaid. “It is he who set the task while he is out,” the butler glared with such power that Alice found herself drawn forward and unable to stop herself from moving into the reach of his meaty hand. She arched her back away from him as he set his palm to her spine. The heat of his hand burned into the fabric of her dress and she wished that they were not alone.
Whispers curled through the hallway and she half turned, desperately searching for the source, for her savior, but there was no one. Mr. Osborne did not appear to notice either the sound or the draft of cold air. He was speaking to her and she realized he was outlining her task. Or, at least pretending to do so as they neared Lady Balthazar’s room.
The task, it turned out, was simple: she was to lay Lady Balthazar’s things to rest. His Lordship wanted them packed into trunks that would then be burned. Alice, despite her growing dread of Mr. Osborne, turned to him in alarm. “Burned?” she repeated. “Why burned? Why was it necessary for me to re-dress and change my shoes if its all to be burned?”
“His Lordship calls it ‘sacred ground,’” Mr. Osborne quoted. “He instructed that whomever I assigned this task must arrive in their best, because its what her ladyship would have required.” For the first time since the gallery, Mr. Osborne looked at her again with vague distaste, which gave her profound relief. “Her Ladyship would not have approved of you under normal circumstances.”
“And now?” she asked, looking at her hands and the torn bits of skin from where she’d obsessed over them too much.
“You meet requirements,” he replied and pointed to the trunks that lay open and waiting. “All of her things. Jewels, gowns, bed linens. Everything in these trunks. Do not linger.”
Alice waited until Mr. Osborne disappeared and listened in the doorway as his heavy steps thundered down the hall. Silence rang in her ears and she was conscious of the sound the fabric of her dress made when she moved to take in her surroundings. This room was a tomb. Or perhaps it was waiting for its mistress to return. The entire thing was preserved so well, that she was half concerned Lady Balthazar would return and demand to know what she was doing in here. She didn’t want to explain that she was told to gather the woman’s things so that they could be destroyed.
When Lady Balthazar flung herself from the very window that Alice now stared at, Lord Balthazar had ordered that her room be closed up and left alone. No one was to alter it in any way. At first, the staff understood. Their master needed to grieve. As time went by, and slowly the entire wing fell into disuse. No other room was off limits, but the master did not come here and aside from the very occasional cleaning, even Mrs. Hamills didn’t send maids down here anymore.
Alice stepped tentatively further into the room, rubbing her arms to stave off the shudder. Without the fire light in the grate, this room held a terrible chill. It was beautiful, though, she thought, as she looked around.
The walls of the hallway were blue but in here, they were the color of a crimson sunrise, garish in its brilliance of color. Even the wood panels beneath were made of bloodwood, so red that she almost felt hot, despite the chill. The four poster bed was outfitted with scarlet curtains and she wondered how she was to get those down on her own.
Running her hand over the smooth coverlet on the bed, she risked a moment of rest, and let herself sink down onto the plush mattress. For a horrifying moment, she thought that someone might come and see. She held her breath, her heartbeat in her ears, but there were no footsteps. 5There was no sound at all, not even the whispering wind in the hallway.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out again and laid back on the bed, looking up into the red canopy. How lovely it would have been to sleep here. She had not liked the room at first but she liked it now. Now the play of vermillion and scarlet and crimson made her feel as though she was tucked back safely into the womb. The gravelike silence was comforting in a way. Several moments slipped by her but she forced herself up and set about the task she’d been given.
At first, it was not terrible. She started at the vanity, gently placing Lady Balthazar’s creams and face powders in the bottom of the trunk, careful not to spill the contents of the ornate containers. Her silver handled brush went in next but it wasn’t until she reached the mahogany jewelry box that she began to feel a little mournful of the waste. The first several pairs of earrings she laid in the bottom of the trunk. Looking at each set of pearls, sapphires, of amethyst stones, all inlaid in the silver Lady Balthazar loved so much gave a bitter set to her mouth. The master had to grieve, but to set these beautifully crafted pieces into the fire? It was a sin. If ever she’d seen a sin, this was surely one that would be added to his already long list.
At the glittering pair of silver teardrop earrings, inset with rubies, she stopped. They were as delicate as if Lady Balthazar cried them herself, made of the thinnest, almost transparent metal. The filigree on the teardrops was of an oriental design and the shape of the rubies hanging at the rounded bottoms of the silver tears made her wonder if blood had not been spilled in order to craft these stunning works of art. What a shame, nay, again, a sin, to throw these into a bonfire on the moor, just so that Lord Balthazar could be rid of the last vestiges of the angel who had worn these so elegantly.
Casting a furtive glance at the doorway, she hesitated. To put these on was crossing a line. She would be dismissed if she was caught, but these too were beautiful. The temptation was too much. It was sacrilege to place them in the chest to be consumed. Lord Balthazar would never miss them. Not if she kept the jewelry box closed. Taking in a deep breath, she glanced at herself in the mirror and dared to try them on. They slid into her supple, pierced earlobes, hanging like delicate chandeliers. The rubies were clear enough to catch the last of the light, splashing tears of crimson across the mirror, vanity’s surface, and her own face in her reflection.
“How magnificent,” she breathed to herself as she looked at them in the mirror. The earrings were decadent but they were too otherworldly against her severe bun and austere servant’s dress. Sifting through the trunk again, she pulled out the jewelry box and picked out the necklace that matched the earrings and placed it around her throat. She watched her fingers in the mirror as she caressed the surface of the ruby necklace. The silver gleamed, even as clouds closed over the moor outside and rain fell against the windowpane. Her full lips parted and she wondered how Lord Balthazar could part with something so elegant. Why not gift these to his next wife? Lord Balthazar was not an old man. He was still in his prime and had no children to bear his name. Surely he needed an heir?
Her gaze drifted up and she found herself staring into her own brown eyes, thinking of Lady Balthazar’s painting. She did look more like the painting, now that she had her ladyship’s jewels. Heat spread through her cheeks as she thought of the dead woman, staring into this very mirror, wearing these very jewels, making love to her husband on the bed behind her. How could she have ended such a heavenly existence? Was living with the devil so terrible that she had to fling herself into the air? To fall broken and mangled on the ground outside like a discarded doll? She’d left these jewels to be claimed, in doing so. The guilt receded back into the tidepools of her morality and she was better able to enjoy her appearance.
Alice placed the rest of the jewels into the trunk but did not remove what she had on. A new, risky idea curled inside her breast and she went to the wardrobe. Opening the doors, she didn’t find a lonely, homely dress. She found sumptuous gowns of rich fabric and vibrant color. Her fingertips trailed along the skirt of a pale, champagne ball gown. Such a thing would have cost her a lifetime to earn.
The one beside it caught her eye and she removed it from the wardrobe, holding it up to herself. A lovely, fiery red gown, with voluminous skirts and achingly gorgeous stitching. She brushed her fingers across the hem of the garment and let herself imagine what it would be like to wear such a thing. It was not crafted for a common lady’s maid, but how delicious the fabric felt in her hands. Almost before she knew what she was doing, as though she was possessed by someone other than herself, she shed her servant’s dress like it was snakeskin and donned the lavish gown.
It fit as though it was tailor made for her body and not that of a corpse rotting below the frozen ground. She turned to look at herself in the mirror and smiled slowly, observing the way the dress hugged the curves of her breasts and hips, giving her a sumptuous appearance, even to her own eyes. Alice was nearly gone. In her place was a beautiful, elegant young woman whose slender shoulders caught the last of the sun’s dying rays, turning milky skin bronze. Her hair was the last piece that needed to be fixed to erase her dismal servant self completely. She unpinned the dark mane of hair, letting it fall in thick, gorgeous waves, framing the oval of her face and giving her the most startling glory that she rarely saw.
The servant girl stared in wide eyed shock, realizing that she didn’t resemble Lady Balthazar’s painting. She was identical. A long lost twin to the mysterious woman who’d lain in this room, made love in this room, and died from this room. Was she related? A discarded sister? Thrown away and somehow led by spirits back to this house?
So engrossed in her own appearance was she that she did not hear the footsteps in the hall. Nor did she immediately notice the broad frame filling the doorway. She pulled back from the mirror, somehow having the silver handle of the brush in her hand and she looked down at it, not even remembering searching through the trunk to take it out.
She felt dizzy and light headed. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, her eyes met piercing blue ones over her shoulder. A scream nearly left her throat as she turned to face the terrible, handsome personage of Lord Balthazar. Her hands flew to his chest to push him away. He was far too close and she couldn’t help noting that his dark hair held droplets of water, like he’d been walking outside in the misting rain that had started not too long ago.
His large hands were fine and strong, like those of a potter and for some reason, she felt that if they closed around her throat, she would shatter into a thousand pieces. Her eyes darted over the sharp angles of his face and settled on his curving lips, afraid of the words that his cavernous voice would hurl at her.
Alice gritted her teeth as she scrubbed the soot from her nail beds. The black plaguing the crevices of her delicate fingers and hands reminded her so forcibly of her place in this great house that she ground the bristles of her scrubbing brush against her skin. Water sloshed out of the white porcelain basin, bleeding down the wooden table and splattering on the worn floorboards of her sparse servant’s room.
In the weak afternoon light, it was difficult to see if she was clean enough with her own shadow in the way. The murky water swirled and she blinked when she saw tendrils of red snaking in between the black whirls of ash. She withdrew her hand and stared at the blood seeping from her torn cuticles. She sucked on her forefinger, grimacing at the tangy sweetness of the blood. The water needed changed, her fingers stung, and now she was going to be late as well as dirty.
Crossing her attic room, she hauled the washbasin with her and dumped its contents out of the window. She stuck her head out to watch the black water crash onto the cobblestones of the inner courtyard below. A footman jumped out of the way just in time and Alice barely got herself back through her window before he shouted up at her. Smith was one more person she did not need as an enemy in this house.
With the basin back on the wash table, she refilled the bowl for the last time and forced herself to take more care while she smoothed her hands over her arms, pushing her sleeves up to the elbow. Her uniform needed changed. She needed her spare shoes that she only wore on Sunday. Without Mary, the other lady’s maid who shared this room with her, it would be difficult to dress properly. The butler, Mr. Osborne did not allow servants to have mirrors in their rooms. It fed vanity.
Taking the pins out of her dark hair, she allowed her thick tresses to cascade down her back as she worked open the buttons at her pale throat. Shedding the dress, she laid it carefully over the bed and looked down at it. How she wished to burn it. Her fingers caressed the sturdy, rough fabric until she bunched it in her fist, momentarily considering hurling it to the floor before she took a deep breath and folded it neatly and quickly. The faster it was out of sight, the faster she could get out of this cramped room.
A single shabby dresser dominated the wall opposite the bed. Alice had but to lean across the six inches of distance to open the door, place her servant’s dress in the bottom and take out her spare. One other dress hung lank and muted, like the broken wing of an uninspiring sparrow. She imagined that’s how she looked in it on Sundays at church. She touched the limp puce sleeve. How was she ever to find a husband if she did not have a dress that could do her justice?
Her mother’s warning rang in her ears as she donned the crisp, clean servant’s dress. It was the same as the one she’d just tucked away; plain like her hair as she pulled it back away from her face in a severe bun, high up on her head. No ornamentation or braid, nothing to suggest she was anything more than a shadow moving through Crestridge Park, cleaning the cavernous rooms belonging to someone else. A job she would hold until death, she thought bitterly. With her headstone placed in the church graveyard, her spirit would remain here and she’d haunt these halls and rooms, unable to leave this house sitting on this forsaken moor.
As soon as she finished the buttons at her throat, she slipped on her Sunday shoes and smiled briefly at them. They were as plain as everything else she owned, but they were polished and appeared new. She took care to walk quietly and softly whenever she wore them so that the heel would not show how old they really were.
She slipped out of her room and closed the door behind her, walking down the attic corridor, she barely made a sound. The echo was nothing but the tap, tap, tapping that could sometimes be heard at night when ghosts or Mrs. Hamills, the House Keeper, roamed the halls. She wondered if she would stay here long enough to be House Keeper and if she would be the one scraping through the halls one day, carrying the flickering candle, with her shadow slithering behind her, just visible under the door gap. Seeing that every night made her believe in the devil. That was how he came into people’s rooms and their into souls. He was nothing but a shadow, silent and quiet, bringing evil and sorrow.
She reached to open the door that would take her into the main portion of the house but leaped back when it groaned opened of its own accord. Her back met wall and she stared at a shadowed, misshapen form, until Mrs. Hamills came into sharp relief. The House Keeper’s beady eyes narrowed and her thin lips pressed into a spiritless line.
“Miss Moorland, if you please.” Mrs Hamills’ voice brought to mind tree limbs scratching against glass window panes. “Mr. Osborne will be waiting three minutes over your due arrival, even if you now make haste.” When Alice did not move fast enough, Mrs. Hamills clapped her hands so near her nose that she could not help blinking. “Haste,” Mrs. Hamills repeated, her words coming out in snake hisses. “Indolent girl.”
Alice could not swallow the lump that formed in her throat but she did not dare to cry in front of this wrinkled, witch of a woman. She wanted to flee into the adjacent hallway, into the light of the main house, away from this frigid, shadowed attic. Her courage failed her and she dipped into a short curtsey, walking only as fast as decorum would allow. Mrs. Hamills did not follow her. The door clicked shut and Mrs. Hamills’ footsteps retreated as she took a different set of stairs down to pounce on her next victim.
Crestridge Park was as vast and lonely as the moor it sat on. Its interior was a testament to the wealth of the unbroken Balthazar bloodline, who loved nothing so much as to spend their money on this manor. The house boasted no less than five wings and splayed itself out beneath the unending night sky as a star, mirroring the spinning constellations above. The house was peculiar with its sharp angles and layout, prompting the surrounding village inhabitants to assume that it was built by devil worshipers. These rumors persisted, even over the generous donations to the surrounding churches, over the centuries, though were quiet enough for the time being.
Her steps were loud to her own ears, even muffled by the plush carpet adorning the stately wooden floors. Mr. Osborne had asked that she meet him in the gallery where Lord Balthazar displayed his paintings. She hated going in there and shivered once she opened the doors. No chilling breeze hit her in the face to match the shivers she felt snake up her spine. Instead, she was met with stale air and dust particles sweeping around in swirling clouds that made her sneeze twice.
From up on the ladder, one of the male servants glared down at her. She avoided looked at him, turning her nose up instead. This would fix the rumor that had been circulating about her for some time, that she thought herself ‘too good’ for servant’s work. They disliked her aspirations for leaving and finding something better and when word had gotten around that she’d applied as a governess, that had earned her no friends. The other servants didn’t believe her capable of such a position or deserving. She was one of them. She needed to accept her place; a thing she would never do. Alice reflected, as she walked the length of the gallery, that maybe they were right. Maybe she was better than they were and they were too closed minded to see it.
Mr. Osborne stood at the very end of the gallery. This room connected two passages and was the only way to get to the west portion of the house. Several of the staff were standing on ladders, dusting the upper most frames of the portraits that glared down at her as she passed beneath them. She didn’t like to look up at the portraits. They were all, without exception, haunting. Each portrait featured a woman with dark hair, draped in red silks, or vermillion crushed velvet, or even a few had the model stretched naked across a bed, body on full display. Lord Balthazar’s talent was unrivaled and he could work such detail and emotion into a painting that it was truly terrifying. It was as if he’d used each brush stroke to pour the darkness of his soul into the rendering of the models. Some of them were lifeless and broken, lying on paving stones. Others were gorgeous and alluring, looking over their bare shoulder, drawing the viewer into their sensual world with just that glance.
She approached Mr. Osborne, who looked at his pocketwatch. “I am loathe to even assign you this task, Miss Moorland, as you do not deem my time as important as your own,” Mr. Osborne turned his hound dog stare at her. He was a grotesque man in possession of thick jowls and a protruding lower lip. His paunchy skin was sallow and reminded her of a candle, the way his neck fat melted over his starched white collar.
“My apologies, Mr. Osborne. It will not happen again.” It was hard to keep her attention on his eyes. Their red rims were the same color as freshly butchered meat and the tobacco had turned the whites of his bloodshot eyes the color of stale yellow tea.
“Come with me and I shall explain your task.” Mr. Osborne turned and she noted his shoes were as pristine as her own. For such a disgusting man, his clothing was immaculate. Her eyes remained on his hands, hands that trembled as he walked with her to the end of the gallery. His fingernails looked like they were pressed into the dough of his fingers and disgusted her so much that she had to look elsewhere.
There, beside the door, her eyes met a pair of nearly identical, warm brown eyes, looking flat and dead inside the painting. She stopped, drawn to the perfect oval face of the late Lady Balthazar. The woman hadn’t been a great beauty, but she was striking nonetheless. Her rosebud mouth was a little too small inside her pale face, like a droplet of blood on a white napkin. The lady’s lashes were too heavy but the brightness of her eyes made one forget.
Alice touched her own lips, thinking that she did not look dissimilar from this woman. Mr. Osborne turned to see what she was looking at, only to stop and stare as well. He assessed the painting and then her. “I never noticed how much you resemble Lady Balthazar. A younger Lady Balthazar,” he corrected and her eyes darted to him. She did not like the way he said it and she looked at his hands again. The thought of him touching her with them made her shudder.
“A draft,” she said softly when he lifted unruly eyebrows at her. Together they left the gallery and she made sure to be a step or two behind him, though he kept stopping and attempting to get her to walk ahead. His frigid demeanor toward her disappeared and in its place was a keen interest in the color of her hair and the daintiness of her hands.
“Very like a lady,” he said.
Alice clasped her hands together in front of her and walked as fast as she thought he would allow. Though Crestridge Park was massive, they were never truly alone in its halls. At least one servant was in every hallway they passed through which kept Mr. Osborne’s hands at his sides but she wondered if he would attempt to visit her room. Sometimes the maids whispered stories to each other, claiming that they feared they would be ‘next’ for a ‘midnight visit’. Mary had always said these ghost stories were nonsense but Alice wondered if the girls weren’t speaking of ghosts at all.
Her apprehension grew when he directed her down a corridor she knew not to enter. Slowing her pace, she stopped altogether when Mr. Osborne entered the cerulean hallway with mahogany paneling. This was Lady Balthazar’s hallway. A place she’d seen and never, ever set foot in. Even the frames of the paintings on the walls held a layer of dust. Mr. Osborne turned, waving her impatiently forward.
“There’s no ghosts down here, Miss Moorland. Come, come.”
“I do not fear apparitions, sir,” Alice replied and did not move. “If I may, why am I being taken to her ladyship’s wing? We have been expressly forbidden by his lordship.”
Mr. Obsorne did not take kindly to being reminded of this by a housemaid. “It is he who set the task while he is out,” the butler glared with such power that Alice found herself drawn forward and unable to stop herself from moving into the reach of his meaty hand. She arched her back away from him as he set his palm to her spine. The heat of his hand burned into the fabric of her dress and she wished that they were not alone.
Whispers curled through the hallway and she half turned, desperately searching for the source, for her savior, but there was no one. Mr. Osborne did not appear to notice either the sound or the draft of cold air. He was speaking to her and she realized he was outlining her task. Or, at least pretending to do so as they neared Lady Balthazar’s room.
The task, it turned out, was simple: she was to lay Lady Balthazar’s things to rest. His Lordship wanted them packed into trunks that would then be burned. Alice, despite her growing dread of Mr. Osborne, turned to him in alarm. “Burned?” she repeated. “Why burned? Why was it necessary for me to re-dress and change my shoes if its all to be burned?”
“His Lordship calls it ‘sacred ground,’” Mr. Osborne quoted. “He instructed that whomever I assigned this task must arrive in their best, because its what her ladyship would have required.” For the first time since the gallery, Mr. Osborne looked at her again with vague distaste, which gave her profound relief. “Her Ladyship would not have approved of you under normal circumstances.”
“And now?” she asked, looking at her hands and the torn bits of skin from where she’d obsessed over them too much.
“You meet requirements,” he replied and pointed to the trunks that lay open and waiting. “All of her things. Jewels, gowns, bed linens. Everything in these trunks. Do not linger.”
Alice waited until Mr. Osborne disappeared and listened in the doorway as his heavy steps thundered down the hall. Silence rang in her ears and she was conscious of the sound the fabric of her dress made when she moved to take in her surroundings. This room was a tomb. Or perhaps it was waiting for its mistress to return. The entire thing was preserved so well, that she was half concerned Lady Balthazar would return and demand to know what she was doing in here. She didn’t want to explain that she was told to gather the woman’s things so that they could be destroyed.
When Lady Balthazar flung herself from the very window that Alice now stared at, Lord Balthazar had ordered that her room be closed up and left alone. No one was to alter it in any way. At first, the staff understood. Their master needed to grieve. As time went by, and slowly the entire wing fell into disuse. No other room was off limits, but the master did not come here and aside from the very occasional cleaning, even Mrs. Hamills didn’t send maids down here anymore.
Alice stepped tentatively further into the room, rubbing her arms to stave off the shudder. Without the fire light in the grate, this room held a terrible chill. It was beautiful, though, she thought, as she looked around.
The walls of the hallway were blue but in here, they were the color of a crimson sunrise, garish in its brilliance of color. Even the wood panels beneath were made of bloodwood, so red that she almost felt hot, despite the chill. The four poster bed was outfitted with scarlet curtains and she wondered how she was to get those down on her own.
Running her hand over the smooth coverlet on the bed, she risked a moment of rest, and let herself sink down onto the plush mattress. For a horrifying moment, she thought that someone might come and see. She held her breath, her heartbeat in her ears, but there were no footsteps. 5There was no sound at all, not even the whispering wind in the hallway.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out again and laid back on the bed, looking up into the red canopy. How lovely it would have been to sleep here. She had not liked the room at first but she liked it now. Now the play of vermillion and scarlet and crimson made her feel as though she was tucked back safely into the womb. The gravelike silence was comforting in a way. Several moments slipped by her but she forced herself up and set about the task she’d been given.
At first, it was not terrible. She started at the vanity, gently placing Lady Balthazar’s creams and face powders in the bottom of the trunk, careful not to spill the contents of the ornate containers. Her silver handled brush went in next but it wasn’t until she reached the mahogany jewelry box that she began to feel a little mournful of the waste. The first several pairs of earrings she laid in the bottom of the trunk. Looking at each set of pearls, sapphires, of amethyst stones, all inlaid in the silver Lady Balthazar loved so much gave a bitter set to her mouth. The master had to grieve, but to set these beautifully crafted pieces into the fire? It was a sin. If ever she’d seen a sin, this was surely one that would be added to his already long list.
At the glittering pair of silver teardrop earrings, inset with rubies, she stopped. They were as delicate as if Lady Balthazar cried them herself, made of the thinnest, almost transparent metal. The filigree on the teardrops was of an oriental design and the shape of the rubies hanging at the rounded bottoms of the silver tears made her wonder if blood had not been spilled in order to craft these stunning works of art. What a shame, nay, again, a sin, to throw these into a bonfire on the moor, just so that Lord Balthazar could be rid of the last vestiges of the angel who had worn these so elegantly.
Casting a furtive glance at the doorway, she hesitated. To put these on was crossing a line. She would be dismissed if she was caught, but these too were beautiful. The temptation was too much. It was sacrilege to place them in the chest to be consumed. Lord Balthazar would never miss them. Not if she kept the jewelry box closed. Taking in a deep breath, she glanced at herself in the mirror and dared to try them on. They slid into her supple, pierced earlobes, hanging like delicate chandeliers. The rubies were clear enough to catch the last of the light, splashing tears of crimson across the mirror, vanity’s surface, and her own face in her reflection.
“How magnificent,” she breathed to herself as she looked at them in the mirror. The earrings were decadent but they were too otherworldly against her severe bun and austere servant’s dress. Sifting through the trunk again, she pulled out the jewelry box and picked out the necklace that matched the earrings and placed it around her throat. She watched her fingers in the mirror as she caressed the surface of the ruby necklace. The silver gleamed, even as clouds closed over the moor outside and rain fell against the windowpane. Her full lips parted and she wondered how Lord Balthazar could part with something so elegant. Why not gift these to his next wife? Lord Balthazar was not an old man. He was still in his prime and had no children to bear his name. Surely he needed an heir?
Her gaze drifted up and she found herself staring into her own brown eyes, thinking of Lady Balthazar’s painting. She did look more like the painting, now that she had her ladyship’s jewels. Heat spread through her cheeks as she thought of the dead woman, staring into this very mirror, wearing these very jewels, making love to her husband on the bed behind her. How could she have ended such a heavenly existence? Was living with the devil so terrible that she had to fling herself into the air? To fall broken and mangled on the ground outside like a discarded doll? She’d left these jewels to be claimed, in doing so. The guilt receded back into the tidepools of her morality and she was better able to enjoy her appearance.
Alice placed the rest of the jewels into the trunk but did not remove what she had on. A new, risky idea curled inside her breast and she went to the wardrobe. Opening the doors, she didn’t find a lonely, homely dress. She found sumptuous gowns of rich fabric and vibrant color. Her fingertips trailed along the skirt of a pale, champagne ball gown. Such a thing would have cost her a lifetime to earn.
The one beside it caught her eye and she removed it from the wardrobe, holding it up to herself. A lovely, fiery red gown, with voluminous skirts and achingly gorgeous stitching. She brushed her fingers across the hem of the garment and let herself imagine what it would be like to wear such a thing. It was not crafted for a common lady’s maid, but how delicious the fabric felt in her hands. Almost before she knew what she was doing, as though she was possessed by someone other than herself, she shed her servant’s dress like it was snakeskin and donned the lavish gown.
It fit as though it was tailor made for her body and not that of a corpse rotting below the frozen ground. She turned to look at herself in the mirror and smiled slowly, observing the way the dress hugged the curves of her breasts and hips, giving her a sumptuous appearance, even to her own eyes. Alice was nearly gone. In her place was a beautiful, elegant young woman whose slender shoulders caught the last of the sun’s dying rays, turning milky skin bronze. Her hair was the last piece that needed to be fixed to erase her dismal servant self completely. She unpinned the dark mane of hair, letting it fall in thick, gorgeous waves, framing the oval of her face and giving her the most startling glory that she rarely saw.
The servant girl stared in wide eyed shock, realizing that she didn’t resemble Lady Balthazar’s painting. She was identical. A long lost twin to the mysterious woman who’d lain in this room, made love in this room, and died from this room. Was she related? A discarded sister? Thrown away and somehow led by spirits back to this house?
So engrossed in her own appearance was she that she did not hear the footsteps in the hall. Nor did she immediately notice the broad frame filling the doorway. She pulled back from the mirror, somehow having the silver handle of the brush in her hand and she looked down at it, not even remembering searching through the trunk to take it out.
She felt dizzy and light headed. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, her eyes met piercing blue ones over her shoulder. A scream nearly left her throat as she turned to face the terrible, handsome personage of Lord Balthazar. Her hands flew to his chest to push him away. He was far too close and she couldn’t help noting that his dark hair held droplets of water, like he’d been walking outside in the misting rain that had started not too long ago.
His large hands were fine and strong, like those of a potter and for some reason, she felt that if they closed around her throat, she would shatter into a thousand pieces. Her eyes darted over the sharp angles of his face and settled on his curving lips, afraid of the words that his cavernous voice would hurl at her.
What was this? Who was this in his wife’s room, wearing his wife’s things? Lord Balthazar had given Osborne the order to have someone clear out this room, but this was not what he had in mind. He had not expected someone, let alone a woman far below her station, to desecrate the belongings of his late wife. This was sacred ground. This entire room, this entire hall, it was sacred. Not to be trifled with in any manner. When he had given the order, there had been a single, silent expectation of whoever took on the task. Do what you were told and nothing more.
Anger flared up his spine. It was enough to make him fidget in the doorway before his near-silent footsteps brought him to this worthless servant’s back. He had every intention of showing her the violence, the destruction, he felt in that moment. But his eyes drifted from slender shoulders up to the mirror she stood before.
His gaze, as sharp as the most brisk winter night, watched her face in the mirror. Her ordinary but strikingly beautiful face. A face he had been so long drawn to and utterly destroyed by. That face, those hands that had once turned his head and caught his eye in a way that nothing had ever before. The way the world spun about her without her truly ever realizing it.
Balthazar's gaze lingered on her face, a face so clearly surprised by his own presence in the mirror. What had staggered her so fully, he wondered? What had brought such alarm to her eyes? To the near vulgar set of her mouth that had his tongue dipping out against his bottom lip. The pale ghost of a heady cognac bit the tip of his tongue, giving the lord pause. Was she afraid she would be caught once more?
Drawn to the utter devastation of the red gown that hid the curves of a body Balthazar knew better than his own. She was hiding something. That must be it. With his rough, paint splattered fingers brushing the delicate arch of her lower back, Balthazar slowly spun Alice to face him fully, taking in the column of such a delicate and slight throat. It was the look in her eye, the devastating shock, as if she had been found out in all of her treachery. Once more, her gaze conveyed her blatant guilt at having taken another into her bed. At being caught doing so. That gaze, that delicate, fragile expression had been the very same that clearly debated her options before admitting to such dalliances with another man.
The gargoyle claws of fury trailed up his spine and a single hand reached out press sharply against a trachea that surely did not deserve to draw a single breath. Balthazar was able to ignore the smudges of color on his own fingers, a garish sight against such a beautiful swath of skin. His fingers lodged themselves up under Alice's jaw, the hard pad of his palm relieving her of breath in a single, jarring motion. A motion that successfully earned him the startled, aching breath that he had been so longing to hear from parted lips. Lips that she had painted in that scarlett blood-like color she had come to love so much.
Alice’s hands flew up to claw at the one on her throat, another strangled cry leaving her as he fully cut off her supply of air. Struggling against his hold, she gasped uselessly, her dark eyes searching the lord’s face for any sign of lucidity that she could use to her advantage. If he remembered himself, maybe the both of them could let this entire situation go. Yet, her struggles yielded her nothing. His grip on her was like a vice and she started to feel the dizzying effects of the man holding her by her throat, intent to cut off the one thing she needed at that moment to survive.
“Wait,” Alice croaked out with what little breathe was in her lungs, “Wait, please. Your lordship--” Tears pricked her eyes and she silently cursed herself for having had such strong feelings of vanity. Her own greed had consumed her. To be clothed the way the beautiful Lady Balthazar had been? Curiosity had simply taken her.
Balthazar let a hint of a smile grace his lips, his expression one of heated violence. The sharpness of his jaw and the hard set of his vibrant eyes. Like a cerulean ocean that was sure to drown the woman in his arms. Strong arms, stringy with muscle that wrapped her up tight into one sharp embrace. It didn't matter that his clothes were damp from the foggy, misting rain outside the manor, Balthazar could feel her warmth more intensely than he could have felt anything else in that moment. His steps were measured, pressing Alice back one, two, three paces until her back pressed to the wall. Then his grip loosened enough to allow her breath once more.
"Alice, my love," he whispered under his breath, making a grave attempt to keep biting fury from his words. The look in Alice's eyes was not so familiar. Not as he had hoped it would be. His Alice used to watch him with something between quiet revere and veiled desire. Once, he had basked in such divine passion where the taste of her mouth was akin to nothing else he had ever tasted. This Alice was not his Alice, and it took the slow trailing of his gaze up to the mirror beside her head to realize that he had forgotten himself. Forgotten her. His Alice. Lady Balthazar.
The room reflected back at him was neat, tidy, and more than a little dusty. This was a transgression that Alice never would have allowed. Thusly, his gaze flicked from the furniture to his own face; dark and troubled with streaks of red on his neck he knew to be the same vermillion paint he had been using only minutes before. His eyes of winter were only made more prominent with the dark bags under his eyes. With shoulders as broad as an ox's, it was a curiosity that a man such as himself could have taken so to the quiet, stimulating pastime. For a lord, his clothing was unkempt and streaked with what could have been days-old paint. He had given little thought to his appearance when he had come to say goodbye to his wife’s things in a more official manner.
The tenseness of her body reminded him that his anger was misplaced. This was not his Alice, though she very well could have been. The hold on her throat loosened and then he was pulling his hands off of her, staring down into her face and observing her eyes once more. “You are not my Alice,” Lord Balthazar whispered, his tone forlorn and haunting. All of his rage toward his late wife and her unfaithful tendencies had disappeared. Now he felt like a man marred by betrayal and wounded such that this young servant woman looked so much like his own wife. Identical, even.
“No,” Alice’s wavering voice was like an unwanted balm upon his eviscerated heart, “No, I am not your Alice, your Lordship.” Her chocolate gaze darted about, looking for any means of escape. She had an awareness that she should not be there, and she was right. Her betrayal should have earned her the customary removal from Crestridge Park. Lord Balthazar could not believe that this woman was not his Alice. He could not. He would not. Her guilt and fear about what she had done was so clearly written across every inch of her body. The way she tensed and coiled beneath his hold, as if she would so easily be able to run from him.
Not again. She would not leave him again. She would see that soon enough.
To the singular part of him that still held some level of lucidity in the situation, perhaps he should have been wounded and angry about the little servant wearing his wife’s clothing and jewelry. He couldn’t once again muster such cold rage. Not when all he saw was his beloved standing before him, in a position so familiar. Her head tilted up toward him in a way that might give one the impression of a broken neck. A broken neck and lifeless eyes.
She was lying again. Lying to his face, playing on his emotions and his devotion to her. This was Alice. At the very least, this woman had been chosen by his Alice. Chosen to be the individual that his wife’s spirit possessed just to get back at him. For his anger, for his frustration, for the pain that she had caused him. If she was here, if his wife was truly, really entrenched in the tissues and the soul of this woman who looked the spitting image of his own Alice, then it must have been true.
A luke warm calm washed over him. Warmer than the raindrops starting to splatter in random patterns outside the house, but colder than the mist that he had just trudged through on his way from his workhouse and the estate’s massive manor. The calm was what Balthazar embraced, his feet not moving nor shuffling from before the young servant. Once more, vivid eyes were trailing her form in a way that would have been unbecoming of the time were they in public. But Alice had never been shy about her desires, as blasphemous as they tended to be. Nor had Balthazar.
Yes. He was sure of it as Alice’s expression turned to one of confusion. Torn between propriety and her silent fear of what Lord Balthazar could do to her, she simply observed him in silence, her chest heaving in a way that easily gave him the wrong impression. Drawn to the markedly heated breaths of his beloved, he reached out once more, embodying the calm desire that had settled his wild, vicious anger only moments before.
Torn between stepping away and stepping closer, Lord Balthazar brushed his fingers through his own russet hair and chose to step minutely closer to Alice. With fingers marred by the starkness of paint, he brushed them into her delicate chestnut waves, his own anxieties in the moment forgotten. “I think you’re lying to me,” Lord Balthazar whispered, fingernails trailing slowly against her scalp like the bristles of the silver handled brush she had used to turn her locks silky and neat. Blue eyes trailing along the curve of her ear, his fingers followed suit. They brushed the shell of her ear with a touch that was almost too tender for a man of his stature, wandering down to the beautiful earrings that Alice had once favored so.
It pleased him to the very ends of the earth to see her wearing them again. To see her in this gown of crimson that he had so lovingly curated for her years before. He wanted to take his time, brushing his fingers from her ear to the sensitive spot between her ear and jaw, then further along her jaw until he was gazing down at her lips. With Balthazar’s mouth watering, he tried to remember the last time he had tasted her so fully. The very last time he had tasted her love on his tongue and inhaled the floral mixture of lavender and ambergris that wafted off of her skin. In this moment,Balthazar realized how much he had missed his wife.
The vibrant beauty of her. The shrewd and strict nature, marred only by the wit and vulgarity of her tongue and the words that dripped off it like saccharine. The paintings of his workshop did little to sate his desire for her after having found her lost to him, hurt and wounded after she had taken her own life out of sheer embarrassment and humiliation a few years ago. The haunting, provocative oil on canvas that Lord Balthazar had created since her death had all been the same. That passionate, erotic glint in her eye and the delicate swath of skin as she splayed out across their shared sheets of crimson and ebony silk. Alice had lain for him once, and he could momentarily remember what it had been like to settle between creamy thighs and bring them to a cusp never before met, which streaks of paint on her skin and nails raking along his back.
Breathing out slowly, deeply, Balthazar focused once more on Alice. His beloved. His wife. Standing once more before him as if she were not a ghost. And she wasn’t. He could feel her. He could smell her perfume. Now that she was here, close and once more at his mercy and under his passionate, consuming gaze, he wanted nothing more than to feel her again. He had prayed to God once to allow him the chance to apologize for the anger that had driven her to such a staggering, heartbreaking end. The end that had left him a hollow shell of a man. The end that had left him painting her form across their bed, alive, dead, and anywhere in between just to sate that need to remember, to feel, to taste, and to touch.
Alice was here. Her skin was fire under his touch even though she was still stiff, gazing up into his face with that look bordering reservation and fear. Yes, he had been angry when he had caught her with another man, but he had never meant for his words to hurt her so deeply that she decided not living was better than letting him make it all up to her. To make things right. To be better than he had been to her. Lord Balthazar had been her faithful servant, willing to go to dizzying lengths to keep her fulfilled and happy even though the walls of this manor had never been.
Alice was here.
Lord Balthazar could not cease letting that fact rattle about his mind like the cantering hooves of a wayward horse.
Closing what little distance was left between them, both of his hands lifted to her face, cupping her chin and angling her head toward his. Once more, her breathing was ragged, the words lost on her tongue as they had before. They both knew who she was. The spirit of his wife would not take advantage of him now. Not when they were both aware of the need they had for one another. The need they had always had to be close. “I am so sorry, my love,” he whispered only for her, searching her eyes for some sort of acceptance of such an apology. “For the words I spoke. I did not mean for them to be so harsh as to…” his thick russet brows knit together in dangerously serene concentration.
Leaning down, his lips brushed her in a loving, passionate display of the devotion he still felt toward her. The taste of her lips was just as he remembered, even as his tongue dipped into her mouth. He would not take her sheer surprise for what it was, thinking it to be that yielding want that Lord Balthazar had been seeking toward the end of Alice’s life. Forcing her harder against the wall, both of his hands drifted from her jaw and into those long, mahogany locks the same color as the wood that lined their home.
He pulled back in a crescendo of breath, his brows still knit but the words on his tongue vehement and visceral. “I have missed you, my love. I have pined for you each moment since you left my world, our home. I have missed you,” he said raggedly, kissing her again despite the stiffness of her stature. With his hands sliding out of her hair and down the elegant, elongated length of her back, Balthazar ignored how tense she was to his touch. This was so normal. Her moods had always been wayward with him. Wanting him one moment but cold the next. This was no different. “I yearn for you, Alice. I ache for you as I never have before,” he whispered in earnest, wanting her to believe him. Needing her to believe him.
Lord Balthazar didn’t hear the soft sounds of protest that left Alice’s mouth. He didn’t want to hear them, truthfully. Even the feeling of her hands on his chest, her fingers splaying against his clothing in desperate earnest. In want of freedom from his embrace. With her dark eyes wide, horrified, he was taken back to that frightful night where a scene much like this played out between the two of them. He loathed her crocodile tears. He loathed the way that she gripped at his shirt, trying to shake him off of her. But most of all, he loathed the way that her gaze pleaded with him. He ignored the vehement protests despite how loud they were becoming.
He quickly became irritated by her mood. Why was it that she was always so stubborn with him when he tried to apologize? When he tried to make things better and right for them. Pulling back, he rested his forehead against hers, “I swear to you, Alice. I swear the world to you… I will be better than I was then. I will make things better for us this time. I will be the man you so wanted me to be before. Please, give me this chance,” Balthazar pleaded with her, his hands moving from her waist, up her back, and then back to her face.
“Your lordship,” Alice protested suddenly, pushing hard against his chest in an effort to put distance between the two of them. They had been connected too long and she had left her self get lost in the foreign eroticism of his kiss. His tongue on hers and their shared breath. She had not put distance where distance was due and she could not accept such things from his lips. They were surely not hers to accept. She did not belong in this room. Not anymore. “I must go,” she pushed against his chest, her fingers splayed on his shirt in a way that pressed the double breasted coat aside, much to her dismay.
“Go?” Lord Balthazar asked in a biting tone, pushing back against her and forcing her sharply back to the wall so that she had no means of escape. The delicate, ornate mirror beside her head launched itself off its hook, committing suicide on the dark floor at their feet. Except instead of blood and gore, the shattered silver shards painted a different picture of violence. “Where do you expect to go?” he asked as his temper snapped.
She struggled against him again, letting loose a keening scream that she knew no one in this home would hear. Even if they had, she was sure none of them cared enough to come to her rescue. Lord Balthazar’s hand pressed sharply against her mouth to muffle the sounds from her lips, his gaze blazing with a fire and fury that he had not shown her in the first moments of his temper flaring. That felt like lifetimes ago.
“Where do you intend to go, Alice? Back to him? Back to his bed? Into his arms? Forsaking your marriage vows in the sight of God? Where do you expect to go?” the fury boiled under his skin, making him overwhelmingly hot in the large room. Even the shuddering breeze of the gathering storm outside the window was not enough to cool him. Rain fell in sheets, the din of such an onslaught a dull roar that muted every other sound around it.
Lord Balthazar could taste the rage on his tongue. A bitter taste that he was tired of. Why did Alice have to be like this? Why did his Alice have to betray their love with such violence and stark indifference for the life that they had shared? His Alice. This Alice. She expected to leave him again? To forsake all of the love and commitment and devotion that he had shown her for the few years that they had been married? This would not do. Not at all. Letting out a sharp hiss, as if the room had suddenly filled with vipers, his other hand gripped her hair. With his fingers twisting into her stunning locks, he twisted her around so that her back was pressed to his chest and moved them both of them sideways toward the window. The hand against her mouth moved back to the lacing and boning of the beautiful gown, fingers like talons beginning to pull the laces from their eyelets. “Where do you intend to go?” he repeated into her ear, his lips pressing against the delicate cartilage.
His teeth grazed her ear, nibbling on it the way he remembered she liked. “You aren’t going anywhere,” he hissed lower then, letting his gaze, once vibrant and alight with happiness at her apparent return, drift to the world outside. A thought struck him then. This would make the choice for the both of them. His hand stilling on the back of the red gown, he shoved them both forward once more, nearer to the window. Keeping her pressed hard against his chest, he willed the arousal of the moment to cease. He was desperate before her, but not desperate enough to lower himself if she still intended on being a worthless whore.
Alice struggled with the reality of her situation. She struggled with the fear that gripped her heart and the heartbreak at what this man was doing to her. Being kissed by a man she didn’t know, let alone one that was so far above her own station. It was damning, if only because she had once dreamed of a life like this. Now that such things were being forced upon her, now that there were foreign hands on her body and teeth at her ear, Alice was struggling to find herself. Part of her wanted to be who Lord Balthazar assumed, simply because of the freedom it could find her. The other part of her struggled to swallow the bile and hard lump that had settled in her throat.
She dug her heels into the wood, forcing herself back against him so that maybe she could stop him from moving them across the floor. She had once admired the large windows of the room, and to be dragged there against her will, Alice felt the true weight of what Lord Balthazar intended. Her fear had settled on a level of terror before, but the absolute decimation of her boundaries and the loss of her own autonomy found her breathing turning sharper and sharper with each gasp.
“No, no, no, no, no. My lord, please,” the strangled sob left her throat right as Lord Balthazar forced them to take pause before the window.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
With Lord Balthazar’s free hand, he jerked the two panels of windows open, pressing against her back, unable to hide his want of her. Her front pressed to the windowsill, her entire body wriggling and squirming against his hold as fear truly started to take over. She was dizzy and listless, struggling in vain against his vice grip. Lord Balthazar was only more infuriated by such a silent admission of absolute guilt. If she were to go back to that other man, then his whore of a wife would pay for such decisions.
He hated her. He hated her and loved her and needed her with that same, all-consuming fire that had him nearly in Death’s own embrace.
With his grip still firmly in her hair, he shoved her head down so that she bent over the edge of the window. He followed suit, not even considering the torrent of water raining from the sky in his absolute fury.
Pressing his lips against her temple, Lord Balthazar let out a venomous snarl. Lightning flashed, and Alice tensed sharply, her gaze settled on the ground and how high up such a fall would be. In the split second that the light filled the sky, she thought she saw the image of a broken body below. A body dressed in nothing but a night shift, with dark curls cascading out around her. The very same look of fear that was etched onto her own features were etched onto the broken body of the woman, wet and discarded under the window of her own stunningly lavish room.
Then the light was gone, and so was the apparition. All that was left was the muddied ground below a window that looked out to the moorland surrounding the estate. The single, lone willow tree visible from the very center of this window was a haunting reminder of who had once lived in this room. She had. Alice had. Why was this so difficult for her to accept?
This was danger incarnate. The man who held her hostage had every intention of murdering her. Just as he must have done to his wife. That was the only explanation for the ghostly apparition. Alice had to tell herself that she could play along, play into his wants. Maybe then she could find herself freed of these clothes and free of Lord Balthazar’s grasp. Maybe she could take her freedom where there was none to be had.
That notion of freedom was seeming more and more fleeting by the second and Alice slammed her hands down on the window sill in an effort to keep Lord Balthazar from pushing her fully out of the window and to the same, brutal end that Lady Balthazar met. She realized then that the Lady Balthazar had not committed suicide at all.
What would all of the servants say when it was all over? Would she be just another troubled woman to have struggled within the grip of a reclusive, vile lord?
Lord Balthazar jerked her head back, earning a sharp cry of fear and surprise, before biting the shell of her ear this time before he spoke. “My dear, lovely Alice,” he said in the sweetest voice he could muster. He didn’t want to play this rough with her, but he would not let her go back to that man.
“Stay here with me, or jump,” his whisper was nearly lost to the low rumble of thunder.
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What was this? Who was this in his wife’s room, wearing his wife’s things? Lord Balthazar had given Osborne the order to have someone clear out this room, but this was not what he had in mind. He had not expected someone, let alone a woman far below her station, to desecrate the belongings of his late wife. This was sacred ground. This entire room, this entire hall, it was sacred. Not to be trifled with in any manner. When he had given the order, there had been a single, silent expectation of whoever took on the task. Do what you were told and nothing more.
Anger flared up his spine. It was enough to make him fidget in the doorway before his near-silent footsteps brought him to this worthless servant’s back. He had every intention of showing her the violence, the destruction, he felt in that moment. But his eyes drifted from slender shoulders up to the mirror she stood before.
His gaze, as sharp as the most brisk winter night, watched her face in the mirror. Her ordinary but strikingly beautiful face. A face he had been so long drawn to and utterly destroyed by. That face, those hands that had once turned his head and caught his eye in a way that nothing had ever before. The way the world spun about her without her truly ever realizing it.
Balthazar's gaze lingered on her face, a face so clearly surprised by his own presence in the mirror. What had staggered her so fully, he wondered? What had brought such alarm to her eyes? To the near vulgar set of her mouth that had his tongue dipping out against his bottom lip. The pale ghost of a heady cognac bit the tip of his tongue, giving the lord pause. Was she afraid she would be caught once more?
Drawn to the utter devastation of the red gown that hid the curves of a body Balthazar knew better than his own. She was hiding something. That must be it. With his rough, paint splattered fingers brushing the delicate arch of her lower back, Balthazar slowly spun Alice to face him fully, taking in the column of such a delicate and slight throat. It was the look in her eye, the devastating shock, as if she had been found out in all of her treachery. Once more, her gaze conveyed her blatant guilt at having taken another into her bed. At being caught doing so. That gaze, that delicate, fragile expression had been the very same that clearly debated her options before admitting to such dalliances with another man.
The gargoyle claws of fury trailed up his spine and a single hand reached out press sharply against a trachea that surely did not deserve to draw a single breath. Balthazar was able to ignore the smudges of color on his own fingers, a garish sight against such a beautiful swath of skin. His fingers lodged themselves up under Alice's jaw, the hard pad of his palm relieving her of breath in a single, jarring motion. A motion that successfully earned him the startled, aching breath that he had been so longing to hear from parted lips. Lips that she had painted in that scarlett blood-like color she had come to love so much.
Alice’s hands flew up to claw at the one on her throat, another strangled cry leaving her as he fully cut off her supply of air. Struggling against his hold, she gasped uselessly, her dark eyes searching the lord’s face for any sign of lucidity that she could use to her advantage. If he remembered himself, maybe the both of them could let this entire situation go. Yet, her struggles yielded her nothing. His grip on her was like a vice and she started to feel the dizzying effects of the man holding her by her throat, intent to cut off the one thing she needed at that moment to survive.
“Wait,” Alice croaked out with what little breathe was in her lungs, “Wait, please. Your lordship--” Tears pricked her eyes and she silently cursed herself for having had such strong feelings of vanity. Her own greed had consumed her. To be clothed the way the beautiful Lady Balthazar had been? Curiosity had simply taken her.
Balthazar let a hint of a smile grace his lips, his expression one of heated violence. The sharpness of his jaw and the hard set of his vibrant eyes. Like a cerulean ocean that was sure to drown the woman in his arms. Strong arms, stringy with muscle that wrapped her up tight into one sharp embrace. It didn't matter that his clothes were damp from the foggy, misting rain outside the manor, Balthazar could feel her warmth more intensely than he could have felt anything else in that moment. His steps were measured, pressing Alice back one, two, three paces until her back pressed to the wall. Then his grip loosened enough to allow her breath once more.
"Alice, my love," he whispered under his breath, making a grave attempt to keep biting fury from his words. The look in Alice's eyes was not so familiar. Not as he had hoped it would be. His Alice used to watch him with something between quiet revere and veiled desire. Once, he had basked in such divine passion where the taste of her mouth was akin to nothing else he had ever tasted. This Alice was not his Alice, and it took the slow trailing of his gaze up to the mirror beside her head to realize that he had forgotten himself. Forgotten her. His Alice. Lady Balthazar.
The room reflected back at him was neat, tidy, and more than a little dusty. This was a transgression that Alice never would have allowed. Thusly, his gaze flicked from the furniture to his own face; dark and troubled with streaks of red on his neck he knew to be the same vermillion paint he had been using only minutes before. His eyes of winter were only made more prominent with the dark bags under his eyes. With shoulders as broad as an ox's, it was a curiosity that a man such as himself could have taken so to the quiet, stimulating pastime. For a lord, his clothing was unkempt and streaked with what could have been days-old paint. He had given little thought to his appearance when he had come to say goodbye to his wife’s things in a more official manner.
The tenseness of her body reminded him that his anger was misplaced. This was not his Alice, though she very well could have been. The hold on her throat loosened and then he was pulling his hands off of her, staring down into her face and observing her eyes once more. “You are not my Alice,” Lord Balthazar whispered, his tone forlorn and haunting. All of his rage toward his late wife and her unfaithful tendencies had disappeared. Now he felt like a man marred by betrayal and wounded such that this young servant woman looked so much like his own wife. Identical, even.
“No,” Alice’s wavering voice was like an unwanted balm upon his eviscerated heart, “No, I am not your Alice, your Lordship.” Her chocolate gaze darted about, looking for any means of escape. She had an awareness that she should not be there, and she was right. Her betrayal should have earned her the customary removal from Crestridge Park. Lord Balthazar could not believe that this woman was not his Alice. He could not. He would not. Her guilt and fear about what she had done was so clearly written across every inch of her body. The way she tensed and coiled beneath his hold, as if she would so easily be able to run from him.
Not again. She would not leave him again. She would see that soon enough.
To the singular part of him that still held some level of lucidity in the situation, perhaps he should have been wounded and angry about the little servant wearing his wife’s clothing and jewelry. He couldn’t once again muster such cold rage. Not when all he saw was his beloved standing before him, in a position so familiar. Her head tilted up toward him in a way that might give one the impression of a broken neck. A broken neck and lifeless eyes.
She was lying again. Lying to his face, playing on his emotions and his devotion to her. This was Alice. At the very least, this woman had been chosen by his Alice. Chosen to be the individual that his wife’s spirit possessed just to get back at him. For his anger, for his frustration, for the pain that she had caused him. If she was here, if his wife was truly, really entrenched in the tissues and the soul of this woman who looked the spitting image of his own Alice, then it must have been true.
A luke warm calm washed over him. Warmer than the raindrops starting to splatter in random patterns outside the house, but colder than the mist that he had just trudged through on his way from his workhouse and the estate’s massive manor. The calm was what Balthazar embraced, his feet not moving nor shuffling from before the young servant. Once more, vivid eyes were trailing her form in a way that would have been unbecoming of the time were they in public. But Alice had never been shy about her desires, as blasphemous as they tended to be. Nor had Balthazar.
Yes. He was sure of it as Alice’s expression turned to one of confusion. Torn between propriety and her silent fear of what Lord Balthazar could do to her, she simply observed him in silence, her chest heaving in a way that easily gave him the wrong impression. Drawn to the markedly heated breaths of his beloved, he reached out once more, embodying the calm desire that had settled his wild, vicious anger only moments before.
Torn between stepping away and stepping closer, Lord Balthazar brushed his fingers through his own russet hair and chose to step minutely closer to Alice. With fingers marred by the starkness of paint, he brushed them into her delicate chestnut waves, his own anxieties in the moment forgotten. “I think you’re lying to me,” Lord Balthazar whispered, fingernails trailing slowly against her scalp like the bristles of the silver handled brush she had used to turn her locks silky and neat. Blue eyes trailing along the curve of her ear, his fingers followed suit. They brushed the shell of her ear with a touch that was almost too tender for a man of his stature, wandering down to the beautiful earrings that Alice had once favored so.
It pleased him to the very ends of the earth to see her wearing them again. To see her in this gown of crimson that he had so lovingly curated for her years before. He wanted to take his time, brushing his fingers from her ear to the sensitive spot between her ear and jaw, then further along her jaw until he was gazing down at her lips. With Balthazar’s mouth watering, he tried to remember the last time he had tasted her so fully. The very last time he had tasted her love on his tongue and inhaled the floral mixture of lavender and ambergris that wafted off of her skin. In this moment,Balthazar realized how much he had missed his wife.
The vibrant beauty of her. The shrewd and strict nature, marred only by the wit and vulgarity of her tongue and the words that dripped off it like saccharine. The paintings of his workshop did little to sate his desire for her after having found her lost to him, hurt and wounded after she had taken her own life out of sheer embarrassment and humiliation a few years ago. The haunting, provocative oil on canvas that Lord Balthazar had created since her death had all been the same. That passionate, erotic glint in her eye and the delicate swath of skin as she splayed out across their shared sheets of crimson and ebony silk. Alice had lain for him once, and he could momentarily remember what it had been like to settle between creamy thighs and bring them to a cusp never before met, which streaks of paint on her skin and nails raking along his back.
Breathing out slowly, deeply, Balthazar focused once more on Alice. His beloved. His wife. Standing once more before him as if she were not a ghost. And she wasn’t. He could feel her. He could smell her perfume. Now that she was here, close and once more at his mercy and under his passionate, consuming gaze, he wanted nothing more than to feel her again. He had prayed to God once to allow him the chance to apologize for the anger that had driven her to such a staggering, heartbreaking end. The end that had left him a hollow shell of a man. The end that had left him painting her form across their bed, alive, dead, and anywhere in between just to sate that need to remember, to feel, to taste, and to touch.
Alice was here. Her skin was fire under his touch even though she was still stiff, gazing up into his face with that look bordering reservation and fear. Yes, he had been angry when he had caught her with another man, but he had never meant for his words to hurt her so deeply that she decided not living was better than letting him make it all up to her. To make things right. To be better than he had been to her. Lord Balthazar had been her faithful servant, willing to go to dizzying lengths to keep her fulfilled and happy even though the walls of this manor had never been.
Alice was here.
Lord Balthazar could not cease letting that fact rattle about his mind like the cantering hooves of a wayward horse.
Closing what little distance was left between them, both of his hands lifted to her face, cupping her chin and angling her head toward his. Once more, her breathing was ragged, the words lost on her tongue as they had before. They both knew who she was. The spirit of his wife would not take advantage of him now. Not when they were both aware of the need they had for one another. The need they had always had to be close. “I am so sorry, my love,” he whispered only for her, searching her eyes for some sort of acceptance of such an apology. “For the words I spoke. I did not mean for them to be so harsh as to…” his thick russet brows knit together in dangerously serene concentration.
Leaning down, his lips brushed her in a loving, passionate display of the devotion he still felt toward her. The taste of her lips was just as he remembered, even as his tongue dipped into her mouth. He would not take her sheer surprise for what it was, thinking it to be that yielding want that Lord Balthazar had been seeking toward the end of Alice’s life. Forcing her harder against the wall, both of his hands drifted from her jaw and into those long, mahogany locks the same color as the wood that lined their home.
He pulled back in a crescendo of breath, his brows still knit but the words on his tongue vehement and visceral. “I have missed you, my love. I have pined for you each moment since you left my world, our home. I have missed you,” he said raggedly, kissing her again despite the stiffness of her stature. With his hands sliding out of her hair and down the elegant, elongated length of her back, Balthazar ignored how tense she was to his touch. This was so normal. Her moods had always been wayward with him. Wanting him one moment but cold the next. This was no different. “I yearn for you, Alice. I ache for you as I never have before,” he whispered in earnest, wanting her to believe him. Needing her to believe him.
Lord Balthazar didn’t hear the soft sounds of protest that left Alice’s mouth. He didn’t want to hear them, truthfully. Even the feeling of her hands on his chest, her fingers splaying against his clothing in desperate earnest. In want of freedom from his embrace. With her dark eyes wide, horrified, he was taken back to that frightful night where a scene much like this played out between the two of them. He loathed her crocodile tears. He loathed the way that she gripped at his shirt, trying to shake him off of her. But most of all, he loathed the way that her gaze pleaded with him. He ignored the vehement protests despite how loud they were becoming.
He quickly became irritated by her mood. Why was it that she was always so stubborn with him when he tried to apologize? When he tried to make things better and right for them. Pulling back, he rested his forehead against hers, “I swear to you, Alice. I swear the world to you… I will be better than I was then. I will make things better for us this time. I will be the man you so wanted me to be before. Please, give me this chance,” Balthazar pleaded with her, his hands moving from her waist, up her back, and then back to her face.
“Your lordship,” Alice protested suddenly, pushing hard against his chest in an effort to put distance between the two of them. They had been connected too long and she had left her self get lost in the foreign eroticism of his kiss. His tongue on hers and their shared breath. She had not put distance where distance was due and she could not accept such things from his lips. They were surely not hers to accept. She did not belong in this room. Not anymore. “I must go,” she pushed against his chest, her fingers splayed on his shirt in a way that pressed the double breasted coat aside, much to her dismay.
“Go?” Lord Balthazar asked in a biting tone, pushing back against her and forcing her sharply back to the wall so that she had no means of escape. The delicate, ornate mirror beside her head launched itself off its hook, committing suicide on the dark floor at their feet. Except instead of blood and gore, the shattered silver shards painted a different picture of violence. “Where do you expect to go?” he asked as his temper snapped.
She struggled against him again, letting loose a keening scream that she knew no one in this home would hear. Even if they had, she was sure none of them cared enough to come to her rescue. Lord Balthazar’s hand pressed sharply against her mouth to muffle the sounds from her lips, his gaze blazing with a fire and fury that he had not shown her in the first moments of his temper flaring. That felt like lifetimes ago.
“Where do you intend to go, Alice? Back to him? Back to his bed? Into his arms? Forsaking your marriage vows in the sight of God? Where do you expect to go?” the fury boiled under his skin, making him overwhelmingly hot in the large room. Even the shuddering breeze of the gathering storm outside the window was not enough to cool him. Rain fell in sheets, the din of such an onslaught a dull roar that muted every other sound around it.
Lord Balthazar could taste the rage on his tongue. A bitter taste that he was tired of. Why did Alice have to be like this? Why did his Alice have to betray their love with such violence and stark indifference for the life that they had shared? His Alice. This Alice. She expected to leave him again? To forsake all of the love and commitment and devotion that he had shown her for the few years that they had been married? This would not do. Not at all. Letting out a sharp hiss, as if the room had suddenly filled with vipers, his other hand gripped her hair. With his fingers twisting into her stunning locks, he twisted her around so that her back was pressed to his chest and moved them both of them sideways toward the window. The hand against her mouth moved back to the lacing and boning of the beautiful gown, fingers like talons beginning to pull the laces from their eyelets. “Where do you intend to go?” he repeated into her ear, his lips pressing against the delicate cartilage.
His teeth grazed her ear, nibbling on it the way he remembered she liked. “You aren’t going anywhere,” he hissed lower then, letting his gaze, once vibrant and alight with happiness at her apparent return, drift to the world outside. A thought struck him then. This would make the choice for the both of them. His hand stilling on the back of the red gown, he shoved them both forward once more, nearer to the window. Keeping her pressed hard against his chest, he willed the arousal of the moment to cease. He was desperate before her, but not desperate enough to lower himself if she still intended on being a worthless whore.
Alice struggled with the reality of her situation. She struggled with the fear that gripped her heart and the heartbreak at what this man was doing to her. Being kissed by a man she didn’t know, let alone one that was so far above her own station. It was damning, if only because she had once dreamed of a life like this. Now that such things were being forced upon her, now that there were foreign hands on her body and teeth at her ear, Alice was struggling to find herself. Part of her wanted to be who Lord Balthazar assumed, simply because of the freedom it could find her. The other part of her struggled to swallow the bile and hard lump that had settled in her throat.
She dug her heels into the wood, forcing herself back against him so that maybe she could stop him from moving them across the floor. She had once admired the large windows of the room, and to be dragged there against her will, Alice felt the true weight of what Lord Balthazar intended. Her fear had settled on a level of terror before, but the absolute decimation of her boundaries and the loss of her own autonomy found her breathing turning sharper and sharper with each gasp.
“No, no, no, no, no. My lord, please,” the strangled sob left her throat right as Lord Balthazar forced them to take pause before the window.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
With Lord Balthazar’s free hand, he jerked the two panels of windows open, pressing against her back, unable to hide his want of her. Her front pressed to the windowsill, her entire body wriggling and squirming against his hold as fear truly started to take over. She was dizzy and listless, struggling in vain against his vice grip. Lord Balthazar was only more infuriated by such a silent admission of absolute guilt. If she were to go back to that other man, then his whore of a wife would pay for such decisions.
He hated her. He hated her and loved her and needed her with that same, all-consuming fire that had him nearly in Death’s own embrace.
With his grip still firmly in her hair, he shoved her head down so that she bent over the edge of the window. He followed suit, not even considering the torrent of water raining from the sky in his absolute fury.
Pressing his lips against her temple, Lord Balthazar let out a venomous snarl. Lightning flashed, and Alice tensed sharply, her gaze settled on the ground and how high up such a fall would be. In the split second that the light filled the sky, she thought she saw the image of a broken body below. A body dressed in nothing but a night shift, with dark curls cascading out around her. The very same look of fear that was etched onto her own features were etched onto the broken body of the woman, wet and discarded under the window of her own stunningly lavish room.
Then the light was gone, and so was the apparition. All that was left was the muddied ground below a window that looked out to the moorland surrounding the estate. The single, lone willow tree visible from the very center of this window was a haunting reminder of who had once lived in this room. She had. Alice had. Why was this so difficult for her to accept?
This was danger incarnate. The man who held her hostage had every intention of murdering her. Just as he must have done to his wife. That was the only explanation for the ghostly apparition. Alice had to tell herself that she could play along, play into his wants. Maybe then she could find herself freed of these clothes and free of Lord Balthazar’s grasp. Maybe she could take her freedom where there was none to be had.
That notion of freedom was seeming more and more fleeting by the second and Alice slammed her hands down on the window sill in an effort to keep Lord Balthazar from pushing her fully out of the window and to the same, brutal end that Lady Balthazar met. She realized then that the Lady Balthazar had not committed suicide at all.
What would all of the servants say when it was all over? Would she be just another troubled woman to have struggled within the grip of a reclusive, vile lord?
Lord Balthazar jerked her head back, earning a sharp cry of fear and surprise, before biting the shell of her ear this time before he spoke. “My dear, lovely Alice,” he said in the sweetest voice he could muster. He didn’t want to play this rough with her, but he would not let her go back to that man.
“Stay here with me, or jump,” his whisper was nearly lost to the low rumble of thunder.
What was this? Who was this in his wife’s room, wearing his wife’s things? Lord Balthazar had given Osborne the order to have someone clear out this room, but this was not what he had in mind. He had not expected someone, let alone a woman far below her station, to desecrate the belongings of his late wife. This was sacred ground. This entire room, this entire hall, it was sacred. Not to be trifled with in any manner. When he had given the order, there had been a single, silent expectation of whoever took on the task. Do what you were told and nothing more.
Anger flared up his spine. It was enough to make him fidget in the doorway before his near-silent footsteps brought him to this worthless servant’s back. He had every intention of showing her the violence, the destruction, he felt in that moment. But his eyes drifted from slender shoulders up to the mirror she stood before.
His gaze, as sharp as the most brisk winter night, watched her face in the mirror. Her ordinary but strikingly beautiful face. A face he had been so long drawn to and utterly destroyed by. That face, those hands that had once turned his head and caught his eye in a way that nothing had ever before. The way the world spun about her without her truly ever realizing it.
Balthazar's gaze lingered on her face, a face so clearly surprised by his own presence in the mirror. What had staggered her so fully, he wondered? What had brought such alarm to her eyes? To the near vulgar set of her mouth that had his tongue dipping out against his bottom lip. The pale ghost of a heady cognac bit the tip of his tongue, giving the lord pause. Was she afraid she would be caught once more?
Drawn to the utter devastation of the red gown that hid the curves of a body Balthazar knew better than his own. She was hiding something. That must be it. With his rough, paint splattered fingers brushing the delicate arch of her lower back, Balthazar slowly spun Alice to face him fully, taking in the column of such a delicate and slight throat. It was the look in her eye, the devastating shock, as if she had been found out in all of her treachery. Once more, her gaze conveyed her blatant guilt at having taken another into her bed. At being caught doing so. That gaze, that delicate, fragile expression had been the very same that clearly debated her options before admitting to such dalliances with another man.
The gargoyle claws of fury trailed up his spine and a single hand reached out press sharply against a trachea that surely did not deserve to draw a single breath. Balthazar was able to ignore the smudges of color on his own fingers, a garish sight against such a beautiful swath of skin. His fingers lodged themselves up under Alice's jaw, the hard pad of his palm relieving her of breath in a single, jarring motion. A motion that successfully earned him the startled, aching breath that he had been so longing to hear from parted lips. Lips that she had painted in that scarlett blood-like color she had come to love so much.
Alice’s hands flew up to claw at the one on her throat, another strangled cry leaving her as he fully cut off her supply of air. Struggling against his hold, she gasped uselessly, her dark eyes searching the lord’s face for any sign of lucidity that she could use to her advantage. If he remembered himself, maybe the both of them could let this entire situation go. Yet, her struggles yielded her nothing. His grip on her was like a vice and she started to feel the dizzying effects of the man holding her by her throat, intent to cut off the one thing she needed at that moment to survive.
“Wait,” Alice croaked out with what little breathe was in her lungs, “Wait, please. Your lordship--” Tears pricked her eyes and she silently cursed herself for having had such strong feelings of vanity. Her own greed had consumed her. To be clothed the way the beautiful Lady Balthazar had been? Curiosity had simply taken her.
Balthazar let a hint of a smile grace his lips, his expression one of heated violence. The sharpness of his jaw and the hard set of his vibrant eyes. Like a cerulean ocean that was sure to drown the woman in his arms. Strong arms, stringy with muscle that wrapped her up tight into one sharp embrace. It didn't matter that his clothes were damp from the foggy, misting rain outside the manor, Balthazar could feel her warmth more intensely than he could have felt anything else in that moment. His steps were measured, pressing Alice back one, two, three paces until her back pressed to the wall. Then his grip loosened enough to allow her breath once more.
"Alice, my love," he whispered under his breath, making a grave attempt to keep biting fury from his words. The look in Alice's eyes was not so familiar. Not as he had hoped it would be. His Alice used to watch him with something between quiet revere and veiled desire. Once, he had basked in such divine passion where the taste of her mouth was akin to nothing else he had ever tasted. This Alice was not his Alice, and it took the slow trailing of his gaze up to the mirror beside her head to realize that he had forgotten himself. Forgotten her. His Alice. Lady Balthazar.
The room reflected back at him was neat, tidy, and more than a little dusty. This was a transgression that Alice never would have allowed. Thusly, his gaze flicked from the furniture to his own face; dark and troubled with streaks of red on his neck he knew to be the same vermillion paint he had been using only minutes before. His eyes of winter were only made more prominent with the dark bags under his eyes. With shoulders as broad as an ox's, it was a curiosity that a man such as himself could have taken so to the quiet, stimulating pastime. For a lord, his clothing was unkempt and streaked with what could have been days-old paint. He had given little thought to his appearance when he had come to say goodbye to his wife’s things in a more official manner.
The tenseness of her body reminded him that his anger was misplaced. This was not his Alice, though she very well could have been. The hold on her throat loosened and then he was pulling his hands off of her, staring down into her face and observing her eyes once more. “You are not my Alice,” Lord Balthazar whispered, his tone forlorn and haunting. All of his rage toward his late wife and her unfaithful tendencies had disappeared. Now he felt like a man marred by betrayal and wounded such that this young servant woman looked so much like his own wife. Identical, even.
“No,” Alice’s wavering voice was like an unwanted balm upon his eviscerated heart, “No, I am not your Alice, your Lordship.” Her chocolate gaze darted about, looking for any means of escape. She had an awareness that she should not be there, and she was right. Her betrayal should have earned her the customary removal from Crestridge Park. Lord Balthazar could not believe that this woman was not his Alice. He could not. He would not. Her guilt and fear about what she had done was so clearly written across every inch of her body. The way she tensed and coiled beneath his hold, as if she would so easily be able to run from him.
Not again. She would not leave him again. She would see that soon enough.
To the singular part of him that still held some level of lucidity in the situation, perhaps he should have been wounded and angry about the little servant wearing his wife’s clothing and jewelry. He couldn’t once again muster such cold rage. Not when all he saw was his beloved standing before him, in a position so familiar. Her head tilted up toward him in a way that might give one the impression of a broken neck. A broken neck and lifeless eyes.
She was lying again. Lying to his face, playing on his emotions and his devotion to her. This was Alice. At the very least, this woman had been chosen by his Alice. Chosen to be the individual that his wife’s spirit possessed just to get back at him. For his anger, for his frustration, for the pain that she had caused him. If she was here, if his wife was truly, really entrenched in the tissues and the soul of this woman who looked the spitting image of his own Alice, then it must have been true.
A luke warm calm washed over him. Warmer than the raindrops starting to splatter in random patterns outside the house, but colder than the mist that he had just trudged through on his way from his workhouse and the estate’s massive manor. The calm was what Balthazar embraced, his feet not moving nor shuffling from before the young servant. Once more, vivid eyes were trailing her form in a way that would have been unbecoming of the time were they in public. But Alice had never been shy about her desires, as blasphemous as they tended to be. Nor had Balthazar.
Yes. He was sure of it as Alice’s expression turned to one of confusion. Torn between propriety and her silent fear of what Lord Balthazar could do to her, she simply observed him in silence, her chest heaving in a way that easily gave him the wrong impression. Drawn to the markedly heated breaths of his beloved, he reached out once more, embodying the calm desire that had settled his wild, vicious anger only moments before.
Torn between stepping away and stepping closer, Lord Balthazar brushed his fingers through his own russet hair and chose to step minutely closer to Alice. With fingers marred by the starkness of paint, he brushed them into her delicate chestnut waves, his own anxieties in the moment forgotten. “I think you’re lying to me,” Lord Balthazar whispered, fingernails trailing slowly against her scalp like the bristles of the silver handled brush she had used to turn her locks silky and neat. Blue eyes trailing along the curve of her ear, his fingers followed suit. They brushed the shell of her ear with a touch that was almost too tender for a man of his stature, wandering down to the beautiful earrings that Alice had once favored so.
It pleased him to the very ends of the earth to see her wearing them again. To see her in this gown of crimson that he had so lovingly curated for her years before. He wanted to take his time, brushing his fingers from her ear to the sensitive spot between her ear and jaw, then further along her jaw until he was gazing down at her lips. With Balthazar’s mouth watering, he tried to remember the last time he had tasted her so fully. The very last time he had tasted her love on his tongue and inhaled the floral mixture of lavender and ambergris that wafted off of her skin. In this moment,Balthazar realized how much he had missed his wife.
The vibrant beauty of her. The shrewd and strict nature, marred only by the wit and vulgarity of her tongue and the words that dripped off it like saccharine. The paintings of his workshop did little to sate his desire for her after having found her lost to him, hurt and wounded after she had taken her own life out of sheer embarrassment and humiliation a few years ago. The haunting, provocative oil on canvas that Lord Balthazar had created since her death had all been the same. That passionate, erotic glint in her eye and the delicate swath of skin as she splayed out across their shared sheets of crimson and ebony silk. Alice had lain for him once, and he could momentarily remember what it had been like to settle between creamy thighs and bring them to a cusp never before met, which streaks of paint on her skin and nails raking along his back.
Breathing out slowly, deeply, Balthazar focused once more on Alice. His beloved. His wife. Standing once more before him as if she were not a ghost. And she wasn’t. He could feel her. He could smell her perfume. Now that she was here, close and once more at his mercy and under his passionate, consuming gaze, he wanted nothing more than to feel her again. He had prayed to God once to allow him the chance to apologize for the anger that had driven her to such a staggering, heartbreaking end. The end that had left him a hollow shell of a man. The end that had left him painting her form across their bed, alive, dead, and anywhere in between just to sate that need to remember, to feel, to taste, and to touch.
Alice was here. Her skin was fire under his touch even though she was still stiff, gazing up into his face with that look bordering reservation and fear. Yes, he had been angry when he had caught her with another man, but he had never meant for his words to hurt her so deeply that she decided not living was better than letting him make it all up to her. To make things right. To be better than he had been to her. Lord Balthazar had been her faithful servant, willing to go to dizzying lengths to keep her fulfilled and happy even though the walls of this manor had never been.
Alice was here.
Lord Balthazar could not cease letting that fact rattle about his mind like the cantering hooves of a wayward horse.
Closing what little distance was left between them, both of his hands lifted to her face, cupping her chin and angling her head toward his. Once more, her breathing was ragged, the words lost on her tongue as they had before. They both knew who she was. The spirit of his wife would not take advantage of him now. Not when they were both aware of the need they had for one another. The need they had always had to be close. “I am so sorry, my love,” he whispered only for her, searching her eyes for some sort of acceptance of such an apology. “For the words I spoke. I did not mean for them to be so harsh as to…” his thick russet brows knit together in dangerously serene concentration.
Leaning down, his lips brushed her in a loving, passionate display of the devotion he still felt toward her. The taste of her lips was just as he remembered, even as his tongue dipped into her mouth. He would not take her sheer surprise for what it was, thinking it to be that yielding want that Lord Balthazar had been seeking toward the end of Alice’s life. Forcing her harder against the wall, both of his hands drifted from her jaw and into those long, mahogany locks the same color as the wood that lined their home.
He pulled back in a crescendo of breath, his brows still knit but the words on his tongue vehement and visceral. “I have missed you, my love. I have pined for you each moment since you left my world, our home. I have missed you,” he said raggedly, kissing her again despite the stiffness of her stature. With his hands sliding out of her hair and down the elegant, elongated length of her back, Balthazar ignored how tense she was to his touch. This was so normal. Her moods had always been wayward with him. Wanting him one moment but cold the next. This was no different. “I yearn for you, Alice. I ache for you as I never have before,” he whispered in earnest, wanting her to believe him. Needing her to believe him.
Lord Balthazar didn’t hear the soft sounds of protest that left Alice’s mouth. He didn’t want to hear them, truthfully. Even the feeling of her hands on his chest, her fingers splaying against his clothing in desperate earnest. In want of freedom from his embrace. With her dark eyes wide, horrified, he was taken back to that frightful night where a scene much like this played out between the two of them. He loathed her crocodile tears. He loathed the way that she gripped at his shirt, trying to shake him off of her. But most of all, he loathed the way that her gaze pleaded with him. He ignored the vehement protests despite how loud they were becoming.
He quickly became irritated by her mood. Why was it that she was always so stubborn with him when he tried to apologize? When he tried to make things better and right for them. Pulling back, he rested his forehead against hers, “I swear to you, Alice. I swear the world to you… I will be better than I was then. I will make things better for us this time. I will be the man you so wanted me to be before. Please, give me this chance,” Balthazar pleaded with her, his hands moving from her waist, up her back, and then back to her face.
“Your lordship,” Alice protested suddenly, pushing hard against his chest in an effort to put distance between the two of them. They had been connected too long and she had left her self get lost in the foreign eroticism of his kiss. His tongue on hers and their shared breath. She had not put distance where distance was due and she could not accept such things from his lips. They were surely not hers to accept. She did not belong in this room. Not anymore. “I must go,” she pushed against his chest, her fingers splayed on his shirt in a way that pressed the double breasted coat aside, much to her dismay.
“Go?” Lord Balthazar asked in a biting tone, pushing back against her and forcing her sharply back to the wall so that she had no means of escape. The delicate, ornate mirror beside her head launched itself off its hook, committing suicide on the dark floor at their feet. Except instead of blood and gore, the shattered silver shards painted a different picture of violence. “Where do you expect to go?” he asked as his temper snapped.
She struggled against him again, letting loose a keening scream that she knew no one in this home would hear. Even if they had, she was sure none of them cared enough to come to her rescue. Lord Balthazar’s hand pressed sharply against her mouth to muffle the sounds from her lips, his gaze blazing with a fire and fury that he had not shown her in the first moments of his temper flaring. That felt like lifetimes ago.
“Where do you intend to go, Alice? Back to him? Back to his bed? Into his arms? Forsaking your marriage vows in the sight of God? Where do you expect to go?” the fury boiled under his skin, making him overwhelmingly hot in the large room. Even the shuddering breeze of the gathering storm outside the window was not enough to cool him. Rain fell in sheets, the din of such an onslaught a dull roar that muted every other sound around it.
Lord Balthazar could taste the rage on his tongue. A bitter taste that he was tired of. Why did Alice have to be like this? Why did his Alice have to betray their love with such violence and stark indifference for the life that they had shared? His Alice. This Alice. She expected to leave him again? To forsake all of the love and commitment and devotion that he had shown her for the few years that they had been married? This would not do. Not at all. Letting out a sharp hiss, as if the room had suddenly filled with vipers, his other hand gripped her hair. With his fingers twisting into her stunning locks, he twisted her around so that her back was pressed to his chest and moved them both of them sideways toward the window. The hand against her mouth moved back to the lacing and boning of the beautiful gown, fingers like talons beginning to pull the laces from their eyelets. “Where do you intend to go?” he repeated into her ear, his lips pressing against the delicate cartilage.
His teeth grazed her ear, nibbling on it the way he remembered she liked. “You aren’t going anywhere,” he hissed lower then, letting his gaze, once vibrant and alight with happiness at her apparent return, drift to the world outside. A thought struck him then. This would make the choice for the both of them. His hand stilling on the back of the red gown, he shoved them both forward once more, nearer to the window. Keeping her pressed hard against his chest, he willed the arousal of the moment to cease. He was desperate before her, but not desperate enough to lower himself if she still intended on being a worthless whore.
Alice struggled with the reality of her situation. She struggled with the fear that gripped her heart and the heartbreak at what this man was doing to her. Being kissed by a man she didn’t know, let alone one that was so far above her own station. It was damning, if only because she had once dreamed of a life like this. Now that such things were being forced upon her, now that there were foreign hands on her body and teeth at her ear, Alice was struggling to find herself. Part of her wanted to be who Lord Balthazar assumed, simply because of the freedom it could find her. The other part of her struggled to swallow the bile and hard lump that had settled in her throat.
She dug her heels into the wood, forcing herself back against him so that maybe she could stop him from moving them across the floor. She had once admired the large windows of the room, and to be dragged there against her will, Alice felt the true weight of what Lord Balthazar intended. Her fear had settled on a level of terror before, but the absolute decimation of her boundaries and the loss of her own autonomy found her breathing turning sharper and sharper with each gasp.
“No, no, no, no, no. My lord, please,” the strangled sob left her throat right as Lord Balthazar forced them to take pause before the window.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
With Lord Balthazar’s free hand, he jerked the two panels of windows open, pressing against her back, unable to hide his want of her. Her front pressed to the windowsill, her entire body wriggling and squirming against his hold as fear truly started to take over. She was dizzy and listless, struggling in vain against his vice grip. Lord Balthazar was only more infuriated by such a silent admission of absolute guilt. If she were to go back to that other man, then his whore of a wife would pay for such decisions.
He hated her. He hated her and loved her and needed her with that same, all-consuming fire that had him nearly in Death’s own embrace.
With his grip still firmly in her hair, he shoved her head down so that she bent over the edge of the window. He followed suit, not even considering the torrent of water raining from the sky in his absolute fury.
Pressing his lips against her temple, Lord Balthazar let out a venomous snarl. Lightning flashed, and Alice tensed sharply, her gaze settled on the ground and how high up such a fall would be. In the split second that the light filled the sky, she thought she saw the image of a broken body below. A body dressed in nothing but a night shift, with dark curls cascading out around her. The very same look of fear that was etched onto her own features were etched onto the broken body of the woman, wet and discarded under the window of her own stunningly lavish room.
Then the light was gone, and so was the apparition. All that was left was the muddied ground below a window that looked out to the moorland surrounding the estate. The single, lone willow tree visible from the very center of this window was a haunting reminder of who had once lived in this room. She had. Alice had. Why was this so difficult for her to accept?
This was danger incarnate. The man who held her hostage had every intention of murdering her. Just as he must have done to his wife. That was the only explanation for the ghostly apparition. Alice had to tell herself that she could play along, play into his wants. Maybe then she could find herself freed of these clothes and free of Lord Balthazar’s grasp. Maybe she could take her freedom where there was none to be had.
That notion of freedom was seeming more and more fleeting by the second and Alice slammed her hands down on the window sill in an effort to keep Lord Balthazar from pushing her fully out of the window and to the same, brutal end that Lady Balthazar met. She realized then that the Lady Balthazar had not committed suicide at all.
What would all of the servants say when it was all over? Would she be just another troubled woman to have struggled within the grip of a reclusive, vile lord?
Lord Balthazar jerked her head back, earning a sharp cry of fear and surprise, before biting the shell of her ear this time before he spoke. “My dear, lovely Alice,” he said in the sweetest voice he could muster. He didn’t want to play this rough with her, but he would not let her go back to that man.
“Stay here with me, or jump,” his whisper was nearly lost to the low rumble of thunder.
