Unveiled (Turner, #1)

“What was that you said? I couldn’t make it out.” Her voice was low and fierce in her ears.

Her father’s hand came to a standstill. But if he had ever had the capacity to hear the dangerous note that touched Margaret’s voice, he’d lost it with age and illness. Or maybe he’d always had that irritable lift to his chin, and she’d not noticed.

“I said you were worthless, girl.”

He was ill. He was old. She turned away from him, her hands shaking on the laudanum bottle with the sheer effort of restraint. She was not going to abandon him. Damn him, she would not do to him what he’d done to her. If she did, she’d be almost as worthless as he called her. She set the cloth down on the table.

“Can’t even hold your own against an old man, confined to bed.” His voice came from behind her, taunting. “What must I do to get a response from you? Or are you so tainted with your mother’s weak blood that you can do nothing about an insult except lie down and die in response?”

At those words, her control broke. A fist seemed to clench around her heart, so tight it felt like to burst with rage.

Margaret whirled around. She was across the room in half a pace. “Don’t you dare.” Her voice was a low tremble; her chest was about to explode. “Don’t you dare talk about my mother in that manner. You killed her, you and your foolish unconcern. Don’t you dare tell me it’s an insult that I have her blood in my veins. I’ll not have it.” She clenched her trembling hands on the edge of his coverlet, twisting it, while some violent part of her wished she could shake him instead.

“Ha.” He smiled at her—not a friendly expression, but an almost ferocious grin. But his smile lasted too long—stretching from fierce triumphant growl into something harder, more painful. His lips drew back in a thin, painful rictus. And then, he let himself fall to the bed, simply crumpling into a heap before her eyes. “Fetch horde benedictive,” he snapped.

“Pardon?” In her rage, she must have misheard him.

He was looking up at her, his eyes as fierce as ever, piercing into her. “Cord defiant misled to pivot the gunnery. Fidelity lost fortune under witness putter delight wiggle detritus with the obsequious toll for who bunting pole over the witches to view like sea.”

“What does that mean? Is this some new and unfortunate way to mock me?” How many had there been over the last weeks? How much resistance and malingering had she suffered? “It won’t work.”

He continued to gaze at her, trembling. He almost looked helpless. “Homonym! Homonym!”

Helpless? He was terror-stricken. And with the chill of that knowledge penetrating Margaret’s fury, she could see now what she’d missed earlier. He hadn’t let himself fall; he’d fallen, his muscles useless. His limbs trembled now, little vibrations passing through his hands. He wasn’t speaking nonsense to mock her. This was not mere recalcitrance on his part. Something was wrong. Something was dreadfully wrong. He kept talking, a string of gibberish issuing from his mouth, nonsense words strung together as if by a madman.

It had been only a few seconds since he had begun to babble, but she felt as if she had been staring at him for an eternity. She broke her gaze away and ran for the door. When she wrenched it open, the footmen bracketing each side turned to her. They must have seen the dismay that lit her eyes, because their shoulders tensed.

“Josephs. Fetch a physician. Fetch a physician instantly.”

The man on the left started down the hall without waiting for further instruction. Thirty minutes to go to the village on horseback. Thirty to return. And in the interim, she was going to have to keep him alive. How was she to do that, when she didn’t even know what was transpiring? Worse yet: was this her fault? She’d finally lost her temper and turned on him.

A clap of thunder sounded overhead, breaking through the oppressive heat, and Margaret shivered.

Behind her, her father’s voice continued. “Liquor to the fires offput less…”

“Tollin,” she commanded, “come with me.” The other footman followed.

Her father was shouting now, words thrown into a maelstrom of syllables, devoid of sense. He lay in bed, looking upwards, and Margaret felt cold steal over her hands.

“Should we dose him with laudanum?” the footman asked.

“I don’t know.” It would keep him quiet, but laudanum was tricky—too much at the wrong time, and he might lose hold of his grasp on life instead.

And what if this was the beginning of the end? What if, after all this time, the words he spouted were an apology, and she just couldn’t understand it? Could she simply cut them off? What if he still loved her and would not be able to say it at the end because she’d drugged him?