Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(18)

All she needed was to last six months. Six months, and yet she couldn’t last even a day without bringing Death into Thorn Grove.





EIGHT





FORTUNATELY, SIGNA FARROW KILLED NO ONE THAT NIGHT.

After hours of people floating in and out of Blythe’s room, things were beginning to settle. Signa watched through the crack in her bedroom door, surprised to find that her room was just down the hall from Blythe’s—either the spirits or her own paranoia must have been toying with her earlier to make her lose her way.

Now when Signa peered into the hall, only a handful of silhouettes lingered in the candlelight outside Blythe’s door. She squinted to see if Death was among them, relieved to find him absent. There was, however, someone else there that Signa was increasingly curious to meet—Elijah Hawthorne. His back was turned to Signa, but she could see more of him than she’d been able to earlier. He was exceedingly tall and alarmingly thin, with blond hair brighter than anyone’s. Brighter than even starlight, perhaps.

Signa drew a long step past her doorway to get a better look, and the moment her foot pressed down upon the floorboards, they creaked so loudly that Elijah and the servants fell silent and turned to find the source of the sound. Signa couldn’t move. Could hardly even breathe as their eyes snapped to her. All it took was four long steps from Elijah, and she could finally see his face clearly.

It was a stern face. A tired one that was without so much as a hint of the exuberance she’d witnessed earlier. It was hard to believe this was even the same man.

“Who is this?” His voice was hard as he spoke to the servants, just a hint of a slur lingering at its edges. Then he turned to Signa. “Who are you?”

It was Marjorie who responded, emerging from behind Mr. Hawthorne and taking a firm hold of his shoulder. “This is Signa Farrow, your new ward.” There was something familiar in the way Marjorie touched him. Something comfortable. Something, Signa noticed, that was entirely out of place between a governess and her employer.

“My ward?” Elijah braced his swaying body against a wall while Marjorie heaved a sigh. The look she cast Signa was purely apologetic.

“Yes, sir. Your ward. She arrived just this morning, with the letter you wrote her?”

“Ah, that ward.” Pulling free from the wall, Elijah closed the rest of the space between himself and Signa, who stood as tall as she could, chest so tight she thought she might burst.

“Hello, sir.” Her voice was meeker than she meant it to be, weaker than even etiquette demanded. So she tried a little louder. “I appreciate your hospitality.”

Elijah grimaced and squinted his eyes shut, pressing a palm to his temple. “Quiet, girl. Are you trying to wake the dead?”

She stuttered, hardly having a response for such a ridiculous question. “O-on the contrary, sir, I quite prefer them asleep.”

Elijah drew yet another step closer so that he could peer down at Signa. The moment he did, he fell back with a hiss of breath. “My God. Your eyes.”

Signa flinched and pressed a hand to her cheek, just below the golden eye. It was a typical enough reaction—she was used to the surprise. But Elijah didn’t seem surprised; he seemed almost afraid.

“I can cover them if they bother you, sir,” she said, readying to turn and search for a cloth of some sort. Anything to wrap around her eyes. But before she could retreat into her room to find one, Elijah seized hold of her wrist.

“Are you here to show me my sins, child? Are you my past, here to haunt me? A ghost, to remind me of what I’ve done?” His words were breathless. At once, Signa remembered the portrait in the hall and understood that the woman featured on it was Lillian. But what about the spirit that had been calling her to that room? The one who had followed her. Had that been Lillian, too?

Behind Elijah, Marjorie’s shoulders sank. “Let the girl go, Elijah. She’s no ghost. She merely shares your wife’s blood.”

His face turned colder then, each line sharp as glass. Slowly, he released his grip on her. He took another moment to assess Signa, taking in her hair—so much darker than Lillian’s golden curls—and her skin, so much sallower. “Forgive me,” he said, though his tone far from begged forgiveness. “It’s possible I’ve had too much to drink. For a moment, I thought perhaps you were someone I once knew. But if it’s true you’re my ward, then I suppose it’s my duty to chastise you for being up at such an unreasonable hour.”

The lump in her throat was impossible to swallow. Somehow, Signa spoke around it. “I had some difficulty sleeping. I wanted to make sure Blythe was…” Healthy? Alive? “Safe, for the night.”

Elijah’s mouth tightened. “You’ve met my daughter?” This seemed to surprise Marjorie as well. The woman’s eyes creased at the corners.

“Only briefly, sir. I heard coughing, and I went in to check on her.”

“So it was you that got her help, then.”

Though it was perhaps not the most honest thing to do, Signa nodded, leaving out the part that Blythe’s coughing attack was because of her.

“Then be sure to do it again, should you hear anything.” Elijah would no longer look at her. “Now get to bed, child. We’re approaching an hour made only for ghosts.”

Signa shivered. “Yes, sir.”