Loving Lily (Fair Cyprians of London 6)

In the morning, Robert’s letter wouldn’t seem so ominous. She’d show it to Hamish. He loved her. He’d know what to do.

She closed her eyes. She’d rise in a minute. Usually, her eyelids would feel heavy and her body lethargic. Tonight, though, the sleeping draught was having the opposite effect. Strange colours in the form of shooting stars were exploding in the back of her head, and she was pulsing with nervous energy.

“Let me ’elp yer up, ma’am.” Lily felt Grace’s gentle hands exerting pressure on her upper arms.

“In a moment, Grace,” she murmured. She felt captive, unable to stir.

A kaleidoscope of colour was metamorphosing into strange, contorted objects.

She blinked open her eyes. And then found she couldn’t stop blinking.

It was as if the whole world was blinking with her.

Gasping, she gripped the arms of the chair as she stared at the blue wallpaper.

What were the flowers doing? Were they looking at her? She closed her eyes again, but the colour pulsing at the back of her head made her open them again. The flowers were beckoning to her. Not only did they appear more vibrant, but the very walls appeared as if they were breathing.

In and out, their pursed mouths pulsed air, like trumpet players at first before the breaths became words. Taunting, threatening, unkind.

Lily screamed, curling into her seat as she put her hands over her eyes, squeezing them tight.

This couldn’t be happening to her. Not again.

Vaguely aware of another presence in the room, she reached out her hand and grasped at it, crying out, “Look at the walls! Do you see what they’re doing!”

“Wot ’tis it, ma’am? Please, ma’am, are yer ’oright?” The faint frightened voice of her maid was swept away by the ominous tones of the flowers themselves, booming at her in unison, “Evil woman! God will punish you! Bigamist! You deserve to die for your sins! Hamish will be ruined because of you!”

Lily shook her head vigorously, and opened her eyes to try and clear her vision. But the flowers all had faces that glared at her with spite and malevolence, their words searing her brain.

“The flowers! Tell them to stop! Tell them to leave me alone!” she cried, feeling the wetness on her cheeks as she thrashed in her chair until someone tried to restrain her.

“Liar! You’re a liar!” shouted the flowers. “If you love Hamish, you must give him up!”

Swaying on their long stems, they threatened to burst from the walls and devour her.

Lily thrust out of her chair, disregarding the pain when she crashed to the floor, banging her knees on the bare floorboards.

Scrambling to her feet, she dashed to the far wall where she cowered, covering her eyes.

“I’m not evil! Don’t hurt me!” she pleaded. “It was never my intention to hurt anyone. Not Robert. Not Hamish. No, not Hamish!”

“Ma’am! Ma’am! Wot are yer sayin’? Ma’am! Yer need ’elp! Listen ter me, ma’am!”

But Lily was beyond listening to anyone. With a cry of despair, she picked up the cut-glass decanter from the sideboard and hurled it at the grinning, malevolent faces of the flowers on the wallpaper, then stared hopefully at the stain and the shards of glass.

Weeping uncontrollably when that didn’t stop the flowers’ cruel taunts at all.

Chapter 27

“Your father is here to see you, sir.” Miniver put his head around the door, just before the old man pushed through.

How was it that Hamish hadn’t even heard his laboured tread upon the stairs?

He supposed, quite simply, that love had a habit of obliterating everything else in one’s world.

“How are you, Father?”

“Not well, and even more unwell after the rumours I’ve been hearing of your conduct.”