The Room Beyond by Stephanie Elmas Read Free Book Online Page B

and fro against the walls of a
deep well lined with black velvet. Down. Down. And then an enormous jolt. She
snapped her eyes back open and gripped the edge of the bench to steady herself.
The scene in the park came back to her in a mass of colour and jagged edges. Had
she been asleep?
    Her throat tightened up. Already she could sense the whispers,
seeping from between the fingers of raised gloves: Did you see Lucinda Eden
in the park? Fast asleep on a bench and lolling about like a drunk! She’s let
herself go since Alfonso left her for that dancer you know. Have
you seen the lines on her face?
    Someone somewhere was laughing. Look at that jilted woman, it
seemed to cry out. She peered through the haze but found no one she even
vaguely recognized. Her throat loosened a little and as soon as she felt the
rhythm of her breathing coming back, she raised herself on unsteady legs.
    It was slow going back on the pathway. People were bumping into each
other and a myriad of strange faces swarmed at her like flies. A few months ago
she would have adored it here; hanging onto Alfonso’s arm, laughing in the
sunshine.
    ‘I’m going to get married Daddy. To Alfonso Eden.’
    It felt like only yesterday. Father down at the stables, his face
still pinched and sallow after mother’s death.
    ‘If you do Lucinda, it will be the worst mistake of your life.’
    ‘But I love him!’
    ‘No you don’t. You love the idea of him, you love his degenerate
ways, you love being able to think of yourself as a rebel by marrying him.’
    ‘How dare you insult me like that!’
    He’d turned his back to her; impenetrable, a fortress of resistance.
    ‘First your brother leaves us for Africa, then your mother... Am I
to be the only Hartreve left? The only one to cherish all that we have here?’
    ‘No, of course not. And Alfonso is a huge admirer of yours; he
simply adores the prospect of entering the family.’
    ‘I’m sure he does.’
    She’d placed her hands on his shoulders, pressed her cheek against
his back.
    ‘He’s a good man Daddy.’
    ‘And do the whores who dance on his stage for him agree?’
    The path had got too frantic, she stopped for breath by the
sparkling pond. What was that across the water? Something bright and blue and
familiar.
    How right her father had been all those years ago. But to keep
sending that damned servant of his, week after miserable week to spy on her, as
if her pitiful circumstances were too repugnant for him to face her by himself...
    She touched her face. Her anger had caught at her skin. And there
was that thing across the water again. What was it over there? A silvery blue
pattern, like dolphins swimming upwards, emerging and then disappearing within
the crowd.
    ‘My Venetian Duchess!’, ‘My alabaster bride!’
    Silly things for a man to have called his wife, and yet there was a
hollow place now inside her where the luxurious touch of Alfonso’s flattery had
once been.
    A group of young men rowed towards her on the water; trim and
handsome with limbs much too long for the small vessel they’d hired. They
splashed water in each other’s’ faces, laughing at the hilarity of their
cramped postures.
    She eased an inch or two forwards but the boat sailed past and they
jeered and whooped and fought over the oars without a second glance at her.
    Tears flooded her eyes. Her lips twitched with the urge to cry. And
through her blurred vision she could see that blue thing again. It was quite
close by the water’s edge now, directly across from her. She brushed the tears
away. Alfonso.
    She must have gasped rather loudly because several passers-by paused
to offer her their puzzled glances. And of course, he was wearing the blue and
silver waistcoat she’d given him last year for their anniversary.
    Something made her want to grin suddenly. He really was the most
outrageous looking man, getting fatter by the day it seemed and hardly a hair
left on his head. But he had such a comical, amiable face, like