Miramont's Ghost by Elizabeth Hall

Author:Elizabeth Hall [Hall, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2015-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

Daylight faded from the sky. Dusk settled on the countryside. The keening of the wind seeped through the edges of the windows; branches bent and swayed, scratching at the sides of the château. Adrienne had been gone for hours. She had left without a sweater, without a cloak, without any kind of protection from the cold. Genevieve paced by the window. She stopped, looked out, bit her nail.

Marie sat, even now, at her desk. As if her work were too important to leave, under any circumstance. “Quit pacing, Genevieve,” she ordered. “It won’t help.”

Lucie stood at the other window, staring into the woods where Adrienne had fled. She turned suddenly, and moved toward the hallway. “I’m going to go look for her,” she announced, heedless of either of the women. She strode from the room, her fury clicking through her heels and onto the floor. She grabbed her own cloak and Adrienne’s from the front hall.

Lucie flew down the path toward the lake, anger and worry boiling inside her, making her walk harder and faster than she ever had. She found Adrienne at the cemetery. The girl was crumpled in front of the comte’s headstone, her face streaked with dirt and tears. Adrienne shivered, her teeth rattling. Lucie stooped and wrapped the cloak around her. She leaned close to Adrienne, pulled the girl into her arms.

“I’ve tried so hard. All these years, I’ve tried so hard to do the right thing. To be quiet. To hold my tongue. I did what Grand-père asked. I kept quiet.” She looked up at Lucie, her eyes filled with fear. Adrienne wiped her hand under her nose. “I tried so hard.”

She stopped for a moment, raised her tear-stained face to Lucie. “He’s already gone. That letter was dated over a week ago.” Adrienne stared at her grand-père’s stone. “I hate her. I wish she was dead.”

“How do you know? How do you know it was Marie? Could it have been a normal transfer?” Lucie did not speak the thought that Marie had planted in both of their minds, that Gerard himself might have requested the transfer.

Adrienne turned away. The wind gusted, whistling through the stones, singing with the spirits. It lifted Adrienne’s skirt, set it back down. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know anything, except that she hates me and always has.”

Lucie squeezed the girl’s shoulders. “Did he say he was breaking the engagement?”

Adrienne wiped tears away, and shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Nothing about not wanting to marry me. Only that he had been transferred and had not been able to speak to my father.”

“There, you see? Marie was just being mean. This will all work out—it just may take longer than we thought it would.”

Both women watched as the last rays of sunlight turned the gravestones pink. Lucie said a silent prayer, asking the comte to help this girl, to protect her.

“Maybe. Maybe.” She turned to her governess, her eyes filled to overflowing.

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