Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
I crawled into bed.
I’d never taken a sleeping pill. I didn’t know how long it would take to work.
I pulled the covers up high.
And within minutes, I was out like a light.
We were on the moors, walking and holding hands.
“It was a perfect moment, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Perfect,” Ian agreed.
The wind swept my hair into my face.
I shook my head to shake it away.
“Why don’t you give me heather?” I asked.
“Because you’re carnations.”
“Not roses?”
“Roses are for countesses. You’re nothing but easy pussy.”
I turned to him, pulling my hand away.
He lunged at me like he wanted to harm me.
I started running.
I made it to the stairs at the front of Duncroft in a blink.
It was now dark.
I had to get there.
I had to stop it.
Or she’d be broken.
I leaped up the steps two at a time.
I made it to the foyer, but the chandelier and sconces were all lit and all that light bouncing off the white, it was so bright, it was blinding.
I skidded to a halt.
That was when I heard the scream.
I looked up.
The dress was orange.
So orange.
She was falling so fast, the silk was beating against the air, slapping against her body.
She hit with a thud, the same thud I’d heard my first night there, and a nauseating crunch.
I screamed.
Her head was turned my way, eyes open and lifeless. Then the blood came out of those eyes, her mouth, her ears, creeping across the white marble, mingling with her platinum hair, the orange silk of her dress. All that orange and red, stark against the white.
The diamonds wrapped around her forehead and her wrist twinkled expensively in the lights.
Her arm was twisted wrong, as were both of her legs.
Even so, she lifted her head.
I started backing away.
One side was caved in, the blood dripping in thick globs from the wound.
Her jaw came unhinged as her mouth moved.
“Broken.”
I turned and ran into Ian.
He was now in old-fashioned eveningwear, staring down at Dorothy.
“No more carnations for her,” he said.
A tap on my shoulder and I looked that way.
Marble-white Persephone had left her post.
“Will you come with me?” she asked. “It’s time to go to the fields.”
I shook my head, heart in my throat, fear coating my skin, and raced by Ian and into the night, onto the lawn, through the trees, to the moors, going in the direction I saw Daniel take. Running. Running.
I saw them, all three of them, pushing and fighting among the nighttime shadows of heather. Virginia in a pale dress that shone in the moonlight.
It was blue.
“You pushed her!” she screamed.
“No, you pushed her!” David shouted back.
They both turned on a shadowed man, just a body wearing evening clothes, no face.
William.
“No, you pushed her!” They yelled at him.
Virginia then looked to me, and her screech felt like it shattered my eardrums, “BROKEN!”
I whirled in fear and found myself in a big space made from stone. There were large fireplaces. Coarse furniture. Hanging tapestries.
My eyes went direct to her.
She smiled at me.
Rose.
“They’ll burn me alive for this,” she said gleefully. Then, like she was of my time and not wearing a gown and kirtle, her hair hidden behind a structured hood and veil, she cried, “Worth it!”
She cackled.
Wet splashed on me.
I spun and more hit me.
Blood.
Everyone in the room was vomiting blood.
I tried to back away and slipped on it.
Fell.
It was all over the stone. I couldn’t get my hands under me. I kept falling into the blood.
I felt a presence loom over me.
I looked up.
It was Rose.
She was burning.
“Broken,” she said, smiling as her skin blistered, blackened, fell away. She reached toward me. “Be broken with me.”
I shot up in bed, then shot out of it.
Bare feet hitting the floor, I ran to the door, threw it open, dashed out, down the hall, around the landing, to Ian’s room.
I pounded, loudly, frantically, then pulled the door open.
The light switched on just as I ran into his sitting room.
I stumbled clumsily to a halt and looked left.
He’d thrown off the covers and was angling out of bed but stopped when he caught sight of me, his expression freezing.
“Daphne?”
“Do you put bouquets of flowers on guests’ beds?”
“What?”
“Do you put bouquets of flowers on guests’ beds!” I screamed.
He moved quickly to me—pajama bottoms, drawstring, navy…bare chest, wide, great chest hair, all over, even on his flat, boxed belly.
I backed away.
He stopped.
“Come here, love,” he coaxed gently, holding a hand to me.
“Do you? Answer me,” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” he said, dropping his hand.
“How did Rose die?”
“Rose?”
“The one who poisoned her fiancé, her family.”
“That was Margery.”
Margery.
Yes.
That was her name.
“Who’s Rose?” I asked.
“You need to calm down.”
“What’s happening?”
I reeled toward the door. It was Lady Jane in a beautiful cashmere dressing gown, looking like a deity.
I’d never seen her face so expressive. She was watching me, her beauty etched in worry.
“Do you put bouquets on beds?”