Li kissed me on the cheek and left me to go with Leo into the village. When the bath was ready, Fleur also left me so that I could bathe alone. The water was refreshing. When I finished, I stood to dry off and took my robe from a nearby chair and wrapped it around myself. I brushed my hair at the vanity and looked down at the leaf covered silver bracelet that belonged to my mother, sitting in the open wooden box. I closed the lid after I picked up the shiny piece. I slipped it onto my wrist. Fleur came back to help me dress.
Bernadine came in looking for Fleur, as though she was worried when she could not find her right away. Then she went on to tell me that I wasted the morning and that everyone else had their breakfast and left the house, already.
“Yer eyes look swollen, shall I ask that woman to bring yeh one of ‘er remedies?” Bernadine asked after I was done dressing, half joking because she thought that Avani’s ‘
potions
’ were silly.
“No, thank you. I will still have breakfast, Fleur. Would you please see that Avani does not take it all away before I’ve had a chance to fix a plate for myself?” I asked.
“Of course.” She left me with Bernadine who seemed excessively concerned with my health, that morning.
“Are yeh sure? That doctor brung yeh that draught, maybe yeh should stay in bed, today?” she asked.
“I am fine, thank you,” I said and went downstairs leaving her in the room to make the bed.
Fleur was gone when I went to the conservatory, but Avani was there waiting for me. She asked how I slept and if my bath was satisfactory. I said it was. There was some sliced mango and some thin pancakes that Avani called “
Dosas
”, with a spicy sauce and potatoes.
I sat down at the table with my few slices of mango and Avani poured me a cup of tea. I asked her to sit with me a while, and she took a chair across from me. She was an old woman, and I could not imagine how she had the energy to stand all day long while running that house. She told me about how the meals differed in India compared with how we did things in our household, and when she told me that the people ate sitting in the floor I laughed.
“Not off of the floor, you understand? There are still plates and the people sit on many decorated pillows,” she told me and I nodded.
“You have had a bad night?” she asked suddenly.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“I see.” She was silent for a moment before she continued, as if she was thinking out her words.
“You still have these... disturbances in your sleep?”
“Sometimes, yes,” I said honestly, but mostly because I was curious of what she had to say.
“These visions... they are of your mother?” she asked.
“Sometimes, but those are not usually the ones that disrupt my sleep,” I said this looking into her face, trying to discern what she was thinking.
“It is the death that you find disturbing, Madame... not your mother’s presence. You find comfort in your visions of your mother, do you not?” she asked and I nodded. She truly had an uncanny ability, but it still made me nervous.
“Her love for you was so deep that she is protecting you, even in death. You should not find it so unsettling... There is another woman who seems to have a warning for you... She has not been with you for so long as your mother has, though she is a much older spirit.” The tiny hairs raised on my neck and arms, and I thought of Celia’s mother, who also sensed that my own mother was with me.
“You should not let their warnings frighten you. These visions you have while asleep are meant to be council to you.” Avani placed her hands on the table.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said as Bernadine came into the room and we went silent. Avani and Bernadine exchanged an odd sort of look, it was only for a second, but I saw it before it disappeared. I was shaken so I stood up.
“You will still join me for tea, this afternoon?” Bernadine asked anxiously as I exited the room.
“Oh yes, of course...” I said and went to the library so that I could be alone to sort everything out.
* * *
After lunch, Avani told me that she would be out for a while with her daughter. She asked if I would be alright on my own, but I told her that I would have Bernadine and Fleur, should I need anything. I spent the afternoon reading in the drawing room, trying to keep my mind off of everything that was going on inside me and with Julian. It was all that I could do to keep from going completely mad. I was glad to have the house to myself.
When it was time for tea, I closed the book and brought it with me up the stairs to my room, where Bernadine would be waiting. The door was open a crack, and I assumed she deliberately left it this way for me. As I pushed it open, I saw Bernadine was seated at a small table and that the room was rather dark because the curtains were closed, so the only light was what shone through the ceiling glass. The table was set in the darker side of the room, which I found strange. I stepped into the room, but Bernadine did not greet me or get up. As I walked closer to her, I said her name and asked why the curtains were drawn, and then I saw that her eyes were opened wide.
She was not blinking.
There was a sharp pain on the back of my head and I fell forward. It went pitch dark.
There was a face looming above me. First it was Celia’s mother, saying my name over and over. Her face twisted and became the face of Eckhardt, and he was shaking me hard. When I opened my eyes, it was Fleur who was shaking me. I found myself sitting in the chair where Bernadine had sat, and my hands were tied behind the back. I looked wearily around the room, the pain in my head was sharp, and I felt dizzy. I could barely see around me, but over my right shoulder, just behind the bed, there was a lifeless hand lying open. I followed the arm to where it sprung from behind the bed.
It was Bernadine.
“Fleur, what have you done?” I said, finally meeting her eyes.
“Only what I had to,” she said. Her voice was strange and she seemed to be smiling, though it was shadowed enough that it was hard to tell.
It was then that I saw there were two books spread open on the table that was now between us. Fleur sat down opposite of me and gestured to them. I specifically left them at Hilbourne because they caused me such pain, but she stole them and brought them with her.
“These books are the reason you sit where you do.” I did not understand, I looked at her, puzzled. She slammed her fist down onto the Eckhardt family tree and I jumped.
“Your blood! The Eckhardt blood, it is why you are here!” She leaned across the table, shouting. I screamed, so she stood and slapped me with the back of her hand, and a warm liquid dripped from my nose and over my lips and chin.
“There is no one to hear you. I timed this all perfectly. It has taken me so long to get here! I made sure that there would be no one to save you from your fate. Too many times I have missed my opportunities...” There was a grim smile on her lips that made me quake.
“Did you not notice that there were other names in the book of Eckhardt bastards? Were you so absorbed in your own past that you did not see?” she spoke angrily.
“Are you implying that
you
are an Eckhardt?” I asked, and she began to laugh hysterically.
“Of course I am! You always suspected... it's why you questioned my Aunt about my father.” She laughed again before continuing.
“I led you down the wrong path for a while and let you think that I was a Rhineholt bastard. I read that journal before you even knew of its existence, tore out the pages that told the truth... That was wicked of me...” She had that strange smile, again.
“I even thought about following through with it and milking you for part of your inheritance. You are so soft, you would have given it to me... but I did not want you to
give
me anything. It is what I wanted to
take
from you.”
“Then, Bernadine?” She interrupted me.
“She is still my Aunt.” She pushed the book with the illegitimate children of the Eckhardts toward me, and I read the names above and below mine.
“Mahon Eckhardt?” I asked.
“It means
‘strong as a bear,’
and so does Bernadine. It is what her mother, my grandmother changed it to when she moved to a brothel in London. She was paid off by the Eckhardts to leave town when she was known to be pregnant with my Aunt. Then there is the question of my mother, of course, Camilla... or Carmel... She was fathered by the same Eckhardt, who could not seem to get enough of my grandmother.” She giggled wildly again.
“Mother took after her own mum and became a whore. When she was older, she discovered who her family was and in an attempt to blackmail them for more money, she seduced her half-brother. He could not have known her identity.” Her face fell, she looked angry, and her eyes darkened.
“My father offered to marry her, before she told him who she was. She was pregnant and even Bernadine did not know who the father was... until Camilla came clean to him after their vows were said.” She laughed again and stopped suddenly.
“He left her in the town, with Creeda. My mother was not strong, and she died giving birth to me, it was her punishment for the incestuous relationship that I was conceived of. She did write to Bernadine telling her the truth of what she had done. I was to be called Edwin if a boy, but since I was a girl, Creeda called me Edwina, for my mother... her pet name for me was Fleur. I took Bernadine’s last name from her marriage when she took me in. It was short lived, her husband was dead within a year, so she had only me.”
I shook and my breathing was hard as I quietly tried at the knots that bound me to the chair, but they were too tight. I could not free my hands, so I tried to keep her talking.
“How is it that you discovered the identity of your father? Was it Bernadine?”
“Of course not! The old goat knew the truth, but she told me that my father was a good man, and she went so far as to buy me presents and tell me that they were from him. I found the letter my mother sent her, she kept it with some other small items in a secret box beneath her bed. She did not think that I could read. It is best that you keep to yourself the things that might help you. I learned that trick from her. I only saw her once with the box, as a child, and went into her room to find out what treasures were inside. We were still at Rhineholt, then. You were away at the convent.” She was leaning across the table again, her face unnervingly close to mine, so that I could feel the warmth of her breath reach my face. I was not sure what she planned to do to me, but it was obvious that Bernadine was dead, and I was not sure why. There was more to both of them than I knew.
“You have killed your Aunt?” She seemed to sadden and looked away from me.
“I did not mean to... I set the tea out like she asked me to... but I poisoned the cup on your side using the same I’d been giving you in small doses of your draught. I thought that if it was drawn out, if you appeared to take some foreign disease, it would seem a natural death. That would’ve worked if you hadn’t wandered off and thrown up the final dose. I thought it had done the trick, but you managed to get it all out of your system when I locked you out on deck. Knowing that my previous dose was too small, I placed all I had left of the clear liquid in the bottom of your cup. I hoped that it would go unnoticed in the dark when the tea was poured in. I was right, it did go unnoticed, but she sat on the wrong side and decided to have a cup while she waited for you. It is your fault she is dead.” She jumped from her seat, slamming her palms onto the table and looking hard into my face.
“She was giving up. She wanted to warn you of all the things I’ve been planning.
You
are the reason that everything has been horrible for me. My whole life has been filled with seeing
you...
born of another Eckhardt, and treated like royalty. Fine gowns and expensive jewels... It is not fair!” She slammed a fist down on the table, again. I jumped at the sound.
“It is the same reason Bernadine killed your mother.” She smiled as she said this.
I tried to speak calmly, even though I was stricken by what she said. I did not want her to suspect that I was trying to make time for someone to make it home. Julian said not to expect him until late, and Leo and Li would most definitely not be back until after dark. I was not sure how long Avani would be with her daughter.
“How is that possible? My Uncle told Celia that she jumped from a cliff... He saw her...”
“Well, she did not exactly kill her, but it was the plan all along. She told me how she did it because she felt guilty all her life. Your mother, she was a bastard. Parading around as a noble! My stupid Aunt, she never got it quite right. She was dosing your mother with opium for months. It was supposed to make her appear mad, and it worked a little. Bernadine was adding it to a vial of medicine she would take to help her relax. Your mother had some just before she departed for Hilbourne the day of her death. The plan was that a few weeks before that night, she was going to be pushed from a window so it looked as though she went mad and killed herself, but the stupid old woman couldn’t do it. It was sheer luck that your father was killed by a highwayman and your mother wandered off a cliff.” Then she laughed again. This was a different laugh. Cruel. She took joy in the pain I felt at the loss of my parents.
I gathered myself and calmly spoke.
“Is that how you got the idea to put the opium in my milk that night?” I asked.
“That was not my idea... it was Bernadine’s. Even though she felt so guilty about your mother’s death, she loved me so. To tell you truly, she loved me so much that she would do anything for me... even try to help me kill you. She assured me that she could do it right this time. I was a fool to believe that she could. I planted the milk, and she stood behind a curtain waiting for Lady Hilbourne to fall asleep and for the opium to kick in. You got up on your own. All she had to do was keep hidden and whisper your name, then push you from the window, but Lady Hilbourne woke up and grabbed your nightgown to pull you back in.” She pouted.