“A hoarded trump to cast upon thy queen of hearts,” she ground out through snarling lips. “What foolishness do poets thus impart!” She made another circuit of the room again as she fretted. “I placed too much store in the simperings of love-lost swains. Now I am forced to see reality for the cold and bitter vetch it is.” Her face became a harsh mask of hatred. “That little trollop has played her helpless scene so well she’s beguiled my Ashton into believing that she is his wife! If only I could design a scheme that brilliantly so he would see me as his one and only love.”
She paused and glared into the hissing fire that licked lazily at the remains of the oaken logs. The dwindling flames seemed to portray her hopes, once bright and burning strong, now failing and unnourished.
“Damn!” She resumed her agitated pacing. “That tart will have it all her way…unless…unless I can make them see the fallacy of her claim. How could the little snippet befuddle Ashton’s senses so quickly and so cleverly? Did she know Lierin and plan this from the moment of her death?”
Chewing her lip, she stared thoughtfully at the door of her room. It was just down the hall from the guest room where the other woman rested.
“Perhaps if I confronted her outright…” Her dark eyes harbored a gleam as the idea took deeper root. “It certainly can do no harm. I have nothing to lose, and it may be my only chance.”
Marelda eased the door open and listened for a moment. The house was quiet except for the distant sounds coming from the kitchen. She slipped from her room and hurried down the hall toward the far door. It stood slightly ajar, and when she pushed it open, Luella May rose from a chair near the window.
“What are you doing here?” Marelda demanded.
The girl was confused by the woman’s angry tone, and blinked several times before she found her voice. “Ah…Massa Ashton told me jes’ ’fore he left to come stay wid Miz Lierin whilst he was gone…jes’ in case she got scared or somepin.”
“I’ll watch for a while.” Marelda jerked her head sharply toward the door. “Go get something to drink. I’ll ring the bell if I need you.” The young servant nodded warily and crossed the room as the woman further bade her, “And close the door behind you.”
Marelda made herself comfortable in a chair across from the one Luella May had vacated and, propping her chin upon her knuckles, considered her adversary. Snidely she wondered if the other wove her schemes in her sleep, for the girl looked quite innocent amid the lace-edged pillows and satin quilt. A distant thought pushed to the fore of Marelda’s mind, and before she brushed it off as entirely insane she savored the idea of taking one of those fine pillows and smothering the life from the little fraud. No one would know, and even if it was really Lierin slumbering there, Marelda enjoyed the idea of being free of her forevermore.
“Forevermore…” she breathed in delicious revelry.
The soft chimes of the mantel clock intruded into Lierin’s dreams and reminded her that she had not yet found her niche in life. She raised a hand to her aching head and gingerly explored the sore and swollen lump on her brow, wondering if another cooling compress would ease the pain. The pitcher had been left on the bedside table, and struggling up against the pillows, she reached for the cloth that lay beside it.
“Well, it’s about time you roused.” Marelda’s voice cut through the silence, startling a gasp from the other. “It’s obvious you’re not used to any kind of regulated life.”
Lierin raised up on an elbow, but had to close her eyes as the room lurched, and a crushing pressure came against her temples. After a moment the throbbing diminished slightly, and she cautiously lifted her eyelids to look at the woman. “You have me at a loss, madam.”
Marelda sneered derisively. “I doubt that.”
Lierin was bemused by the other’s sarcasm. She had no recollection of ever having known her and certainly could not remember a cause for her animosity. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Who are you, and what do you want of me?”
“I am Marelda Rousse, and I want you to tell everyone who you are and why you really came here.”
Lierin pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead as she attempted to absorb the other’s words. “Madam, I fear I don’t know what my name should be, and even if it meant my life, I could not tell you why I’m here.”
Marelda laughed coldly and when she spoke, her tone was honed to a knife-edge sharpness. “My dear…whatever your name is…your little act has already convinced an anguished man that you are his wife…when in actuality Lierin Wingate has been dead and gone these past three years.”
“My act?” The emerald eyes opened wide in confused wonder, then slowly closed as Lierin sank back into the pillows. “Oh, madam,” she sighed, “were this an act, I pray it be the last and the play be done. Then I would be free of this mummery. I am so addled by my plight, sleep is my sole escape.”
“And of course no one in the family would dream of interrupting your slumber to ask any pertinent questions,” Marelda replied with rancor.
The green eyes opened again, this time a darker hue beneath a sharper frown, and fixed the other with a questioning stare. “Do you honestly think I purchased these bruises, and then, as they said, foolishly charged my mount into a running team?”
“I’ve known many,” Marelda snapped, “who would do as much for what you stand to gain.” She contemplated her long, carefully tended nails. “Though you whine of your injured wits, they seem sharp enough when your lies are confronted.”
Lierin rolled her head listlessly on the pillows, and her frown deepened as she sought to find the key to this illusive puzzle. “I don’t know why you come upon me with so much hatred. Though I cannot swear to it, I would say I never saw you before this moment, and I certainly mean you no ill.”
Marelda could no longer bear the sight of the other’s bruised but classic beauty, and rose to stare out the windows. “No ill, you say?” Her voice bore an unmistakable sneer. “If you are indeed the one you say…”
Lierin was growing tired and protested weakly. “’Twas not I, but the Ashton man who put the name to me. I cannot say for sure if it’s that or anoth-”
Marelda turned angrily, slashing her hands sideways with a gesture that cut off Lierin’s words. “If you are in truth his wife…then you have already stabbed me once, twice, thrice. It was I, his intended bride, who was betrayed those years ago when he journeyed south to New Orleans and found one he fancied so much that he wed her and left me weeping on my lonely pillow. Then he returned the widower, and months passed before my hopes could rise again.” Marelda paced back and forth beyond the foot of the bed. “He was so bereaved and anguished that he could see nothing outside his memories. Though I sought to comfort him and was ever at his side, he saw me not. I was less to him than the simplest kitchen charmaid. Finally he began to be a man again, and once more my hopes took flight. Last night we gathered to welcome his return, and I yearned for his sturdy arms to hold me in fondest welcome. He came…with you where I should have been. So in your innocence…if you are truly Lierin and I say not…I have still been wronged.”