“No,” he whispered, shaking his head.
Not a sound penetrated the darkness. He opened his eyes to study the eerie scene. Heavy drapes covered the windows, not a ray of light breaking through them. Four walls of pale-blue curtains enclosed the bed.
Layton inched closer, his heart never slowing.
“No,” he whispered again, stinging pain grasping his throat as he fought back the urge to fill the room with his own sobs. “Too late. Too late.”
A single candle burned low on a small table at the head of the heavily curtained bed, casting a shivering glow. Layton stood frozen beside it, not wanting to pull the curtains back but knowing he must.
His fingers grasped the front curtain—it crumpled soundlessly—then clenched it in a desperate fist. Still he stood, unable to move, unable to pull it back. He’d come so far. Yet there he was, one movement from retribution.
He took two slow, deep breaths. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing now, as if the very life had been sucked from the room.
Layton clenched the heavy fabric tighter. In one swift motion, he flung the curtain back.
“No!”
Layton sat upright in his bed, sweat dripping from his forehead like rain. His pulse raced. His lungs struggled to gasp for air. His eyes fought to adjust to the darkness of the room.
That dream.
He mopped his face with the bedsheet as drops of sweat stung his eyes. How many years had he been haunted by the same dream? He could not recall the last time he’d slept an entire night without it.
Layton dropped his head into his hands and tried to force the lingering images from his mind. He felt closer to seventy-seven than twenty-seven, and yet, a lifetime stretched out in front of him, decades of dreams he couldn’t escape, living with heavy regrets and guilt he had no right to wish himself free of.
Chapter Three
She’d received an odd welcome, to say the least. After the young maid, whose name she’d discovered was Maggie, fled the doorway, Mrs. Sanders, the housekeeper, showed Marion inside, muttering all the while about servants putting on airs. Every member of the small staff watched her with more than a hint of wariness. Several of the faces she’d briefly encountered regarded her in much the same way one would a cut of fish that had turned.
Curious, to be sure.
Not a single smile could be seen on any of their faces. The entire house felt somber. Marion half expected to find the windows and doors draped in black. Mrs. Sanders spoke little beyond a few grumbled words indicating the room that was to be Marion’s.
Mrs. Sanders turned at the door and looked Marion over. She squinted through her assessment, something Marion would not have guessed she’d been physically capable of doing, considering she wore her silver hair in a bun so tight the corners of her eyes pulled from the strain.
“The last one left in something of a hurry,” Mrs. Sanders said. The last governess, Marion guessed. “You’ll have time in the morning to straighten. Duties will be cut back in honor of the holiday.”
“Yes, Mrs. Sanders.”
The house was indeed silent as Marion plaited her overly red hair and twisted it into a bun at the nape of her neck. Papa’s pocket watch read five thirty. The household staff, she had been told, broke their fasts between half past five and six o’clock every morning.
“Five thirty,” she had repeated upon being told of the ridiculously early breakfast hour.
Looking back, Marion smiled at her perfectly subservient tone. She’d practiced, after all. Keeping the enthusiasm and cheerfulness from her voice was difficult but not entirely impossible. Perhaps she would make a decent governess.
But then, she had yet to try her hand at teaching children. Suppose she discovered herself completely inept. Marion smiled, imagining herself tied to a tree somewhere on the grounds while a bevy of wild-eyed children wreaked havoc on the peaceful Farland Meadows. What a mess that would be!
Marion choked down a laugh as a knock echoed from the door of her room.
“Come in,” she called out, a hint of amusement still obvious in her tone.
Maggie stepped inside, a tray in one hand, a candle in the other. “Yer breakfast, Mary.” She brought the tray to the table where Marion sat.
“My breakfast? But why—”
“Mrs. Sanders says how yeh’re to take yer meals here.” Maggie set the tray down. She kept her eyes diverted. “An’ how I’m supposed to leave the tray by the servants’ door in the schoolroom. But this bein’ Christmas Day, I thought yeh’d like it brought to yeh.”
“I would much prefer to eat below stairs.” With people.
Maggie looked a little uncomfortable, still unable, or unwilling, to meet Marion’s eyes. “But ’tis a real treat up here. Havin’ it brought to yeh an’ all.”