Night of the Candles by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

coming into the room with a breakfast tray containing coffee and hot rolls, brought Amanda’s eyes open.
    “Much better,” she said, smiling up at the round concerned face of the nurse.
    “That is good. The head, it still aches?”
    “A little, but not as badly as it did last night. Marta…”
    “Yes, fraeulein?”
    “Last night … it’s nothing but confusion in my head. Was Mr. Monteigne here in this room?”
    “Indeed yes,” Marta answered as she placed the tray on the table and helped Amanda to sit up against a pile of pillows. “But ‘twas nothing to disturb yourself about. He was concerned only with your welfare. He gave you medicine to stop the pain. It was most extraordinary, fraeulein, you cannot know what it meant.”
    “Oh?” Amanda accepted the tray across her lap.
    “Ach, your cousin, his wife, lay there in that bed crying with the terrible pain in her head. It was like the return of a bad dream to see you so.”
    “I can imagine. I’m sorry, terribly sorry.”
    “There is another thing. The medicine in the green bottle. It was this, the laudanum, the elixir of opium, that my liebchen, your cousin, used to take her life.”
    Shaking her head, Marta sat down in the chair and folded her hands.
    Amanda was silent. It was no wonder Jason had looked so grim. Still, what could she have done? She could not help the accident that had placed her in this invidious position.
    “Now, fraeulein, you must not blame yourself. It may be that you would not have needed the laudanum, your condition might not have been called to the master’s attention at all, if it had not been for that woman and the madman from the stranger’s bedroom.”
    “Oh, yes … Sophia … and the one they call Crazy Carl. I remember now.” She did remember, but it seemed fantastic, the shabbily dressed man kneeling beside her bed pressing his lips to her hand.
    “Why was he here … that is, I know he thought I was Amelia, but why would he care so for her? What did she have to do with him?”
    “That poor lady. She could never resist a stray. Carl now, no one knows his last name. He just came walking along the road one day. Near as anyone can tell he had been wandering, living hand to mouth, since the war. It seems sometimes, from what he says, that he was in a large battle with much … much artillery … is that the word? He was struck perhaps, or maybe it was only the noise, who can say? Madame Amelia took him in. She fed him, gave him clothes. He had been sleeping in the ditches, but she let him have the stranger’s bedroom.”
    “Stranger’s bedroom?”
    “You don’t know the custom? We are not so far from the river here at Monteigne. There is much traffic, of people going to the West, looking for something new, different, they know not what. A small bedroom is kept ready for the travelers caught nearby when night falls. Families, those who are kin or friends of kin, the traveling preacher, the circuit riders … all are welcome. It was so before the war when hospitality was a part of the life. It is so now.”
    “I had forgotten how soft-hearted Amelia was. But yes, she could never stand to see anything hurt or killed. She was fearless when it came to righting what she felt was an injustice.”
    “Ach, ja, that is my liebchen. No animal could be mistreated in her presence. Let me tell you. It was only last spring, just after I came to be with her. We were driving in town when she saw three or four boys with a half-grown puppy. They were tormenting the poor thing, dipping it into the water of the river, letting it near drown, laughing at its feeble struggles. She marched up to them and took it away. Perhaps you saw it in the yard? She named it Cerberus because it so nearly crossed the river … what was the name, I cannot think…”
    “Styx.”
    “That is it! The dog stayed with her always until he grew too big to be in the house. He had no love for anyone but her. She had his whole heart. When she died he