The Dark One by Ronda Thompson Page B

She walked to her mirror, applied powder to help cover the small bruise on her cheek, grabbed her sewing basket, and went up to the third floor.
    The duchess dozed in a chair by the window. The remnants of her morning tea sat on a small table to her left. Mary, the housekeeper, was busy cleaning the dreary room.
    â€œIs she any better today?” Rosalind asked the housekeeper.
    The woman shook her head. “I haven’t managed to get a peep out of her for two days now. Her mind has gone somewhere else. She’s so terribly tired it’s almost more than I can manage to get her up and at least to a chair so the bedsores don’t come.”
    Rosalind knelt before her stepmother and took the woman’s cold hand in hers. “Good afternoon, Your Grace. I’m sorry I haven’t visited more often of late. I promise to be better about it.” She turned to Mary. “I will stay with my stepmother for a while. I’m sure you have other duties to attend.”
    â€œBless you, but I do,” the housekeeper admitted. “Runs a tight ship, Master Franklin does. Hardly enough of us in the house to keep up with what needs to be done.”
    The dwindling servants were obviously a result of Franklin’s now limited funds, along with the dwindling furnishings downstairs. Rosalind was certain her stepbrother had sold off anything in the house of value to feed his gambling addictions and pay his pitiful staff.
    After Mary left the room, Rosalind tried to think of something cheerful to chatter on about in her stepmother’s company. She didn’t expect the lady to converse with her. The duchess’s eyes always had a glazed look, as if she no longer lived in this world but had escaped to another. Rosalind wished at the moment that she could do the same. She tried to hold her emotions at bay, but her still stinging shoulders and the prospect of continuing to live in a house where abuse had become a fast companion got the better of her. She bent her head and allowed herself the weakness of weeping. A moment later, her stepmother’s hand touched her hair.
    The woman’s gentle touch, in a world that had become violent, only brought more tears. Rosalind continued to weep as the lady, her eyes still glazed and staring straight ahead, continued to gently stroke her hair.
    They stayed that way for a time; then the lady’s hand fell limply by her side and Rosalind realized the woman had fallen asleep. Rosalind rose, took a comforter from the bed, and covered the duchess. She worked on herneedlepoint until Mary returned to take up her vigilance with the poor woman.
    In the evening, Mary sent Rosalind up a warm bath and she allowed the scented water to soothe her outward aches. Nothing could soothe her inward turmoil. She needed a savior.
    A vision of Armond Wulf’s handsome face surfaced. Maybe because he had the look of an angel with his golden mane of hair. But no, she shook her head to dislodge the thought. He was no angel. But was he a murderer? Was he insane?
    Rosalind slipped into bed with those questions tumbling through her mind. Sleep had almost claimed her when she felt a presence inside of her room. Her first thought was that Lydia had been right about Franklin’s unnatural affections toward her and he had managed to make it past the lock on her door. She sat, her gaze scanning the shadow-filled room. A darker shadow stood next to the balcony doors.
    â€œFranklin?” she whispered, fear tripping her heart.
    He stepped into a moonlit swath left by her open balcony doors and she saw that the man was not her stepbrother. Perhaps Rosalind should have been more frightened by his identity, but she was oddly relieved.
    â€œWhat are you doing here, and how did you get in?”
    Armond Wulf, dressed in a white lawn shirt open at the neck, and snug black trousers, took a step closer. “You shouldn’t sleep with your doors open,” he said. “And the trellis