Dark Masquerade by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

you?”
    Something in his voice brought back the creeping horror of the spiders spreading out over the sheet of her bed, and she did not answer. She went ahead of him through the front door, which he held open for her.
    The butler stationed in the wide central hall jumped to open the library door, his black house slippers making no sound on the marble tiles. They passed through the door and it was closed behind them. Bernard drew forward a chair for her, and then seated himself behind the desk.
    As he sorted the papers on his desk and took a bundle of documents tied with blue ribbon from a drawer, Elizabeth watched him covertly. After the excitement of the night before, she had forgotten Grand’mere’s hint that Bernard had something he wished to discuss with her. She had no idea what it could be and she could feel her nerves tightening. What could the business of Felix’s estate have to do with her? Her father had never confided the business details of their property to her mother or to Ellen or herself, and she had had no reason to suppose that things would be different in her pose as Felix’s widow. The legalities were the province of men. She knew absolutely nothing of Felix’s affairs. She was on shaky ground. The only thing that gave her the confidence to sit quietly and wait for Bernard to begin was the reflection that Ellen was unlikely to have known anything of them either.
    His papers in order, Bernard leaned back in his chair, one hand rubbing at his chin.
    “It’s odd,” he said pensively. “You are not at all as I pictured you.”
    Apprehension ran along her nerves, and then subsided.
    “No?”
    “From Felix’s letters I pictured a sweet, fragile creature. One now bowed down with grief, of course.”
    Letters? Elizabeth hardly noticed the soft sarcasm. She swallowed hard and hoped that he would attribute her sudden lack of color to pain.
    “Not everyone puts their grief on display, Mr. Delacroix.”
    “No.” He glanced down as he uttered the emotionless monosyllable, and then looked up again. “You have not, I think, always been well?”
    Careful. A warning whispered in her mind, but she did not heed it.
    “I was fully strong enough to bear Felix’s son and to care for him.”
    “And yet he has a wet nurse?”
    Color rushed in a warm wave to her forehead. This was not a subject a lady discussed with a man. Her hands were in her lap and she kept her eyes on them, hoping he would see his error. But the silence grew long and he did not speak.
    At last she said with difficulty, “Perhaps I have not been as strong as I might. Our circumstances the last few months—there was so little. We were very grateful for the draft you sent as well as your kind invitation to Oak Shade.”
    “Thank my grandmother. Both issued from her. You say we, I believe your sister was living with you.”
    “Yes. She—she is dead.” The lies came harder than she had imagined, and yet it was no lie. Her sister, Ellen, was dead.
    “So I understand. It must have been most distressing. A virulent fever, I think it was?”
    “Yes.” That was what she had written to Grand’mere when she had sent the letter saying they were ready to travel. There had been no difficulty about the handwriting. Because Ellen had been so weak, the one other letter they had exchanged had been penned by Elizabeth. A fever had seemed a reasonable ailment with which to account for her own death. There were so many fevers, most of them deadly.
    He was silent. Raising her head, Elizabeth looked toward the window where dust motes drifting to the floor turned lazily in the sunshine. A bird called, the repeated two note shout of a cardinal, in the top of one of the oak trees. She could sense Bernard’s scrutiny as he leaned forward and picked up a miniature sword letter opener. The action restored a portion of her composure. He was not as controlled as he would like to appear.
    “Ellen Marie—” His voice was soft, but something in his tone made