The Dauntless Girl by Whitney Blake

Author:Whitney Blake [Blake, Whitney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

He wouldn’t admit it for all the world because Ariadne would be too excited and Samuel too nervous, but he felt different. Francis gripped the pen, wishing he believed something was not about to happen. He knew it would be difficult to convey, but every nerve stung almost as though he’d been out in the wind and cold for too long. He couldn’t quite hear them, either, rather like his head was underwater.

And he did not wish to worry his wife or his friend, neither of whom would allow him to suffer, although he wasn’t precisely in pain. Ariadne would not stand for it even if she was initially intrigued: she’d seen what damage his own mind could do to his state.

Some of it was due to a specter, he now knew, but not all of it was. His dark moods, his lack of sleep, his self-imposed seclusion. They were not preternatural at their core and had everything to do with him.

This, though, this hazy winter feeling in his limbs and face, it was decidedly foreign, invasive. It felt neither familiar nor his. He didn’t know which would be worse: speaking up now and calling the entire arrangement off while they had but one candle burning in the morning room – or keeping silent and discovering a spirit was indeed about to influence his hand.

He couldn’t see a thing, for they had wound a scarf about his eyes. He knew where he could write. He also knew Samuel was on his left, Ariadne on his right. Every time he tried to breathe, he drew in air smelling of pitch. He coughed. Ariadne claimed it was necessary because the herbs cleared the mind, and all he found was they might clear his lungs instead.

But even the coughing felt more distant than it should have, similar to how his ears were only permitting muffled sounds.

A ring.

He tilted his head toward a man’s husky voice near his right side. It wasn’t muffled.

The ring. Is it gone?

Not Samuel.

My ring. Where is it?

No, not Samuel at all. The accent was different, local.

Not my ring. I’ve mine. His ring. He has it. He should have mine, too.

Francis was compelled to stand but found he couldn’t, so he waited for the man to speak again. Could they all hear him? Surely, they could.

That damned pond.

The one they’d stood near, earlier?

That fucking pond.

A hand, warm, on his shoulder, and another hand loosening the scarf shielding his eyes. “Francis?” Ariadne kissed his forehead. He opened his eyes to her bemused expression. “It worked. Probably.”

When he looked around and saw Samuel, his back was turned to them. He was lighting more candles. Slowly, the morning room held more illumination, much like Francis’s body began to feel more his own. He noted he’d dropped the pen – how could he not have noticed that? – and had been rather messy with the inkwell, but such a thing couldn’t be helped while one was both blindfolded and playing conduit to a hellish force.

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