Midnight Eyes. Sarah Brophy
“Oh, Brother dear, what is it you do now?” she whispered.
Imogen spent the night before her wedding in vigil. After Mary had prepared her for bed, Imogen sat in front of the fire and waited.
She waited for the terrors.
They were almost like old friends, the terrors. They had always been her companion, even when she’d had sight. She had always been afraid of the dark.
Nothing her parents had done could convince her that the dark held nothing that the light didn’t. Each night she would curl herself into a tight ball and wait for the sleep of exhaustion to finally claim her.
Then came the day when a darkness descended that would never end. The terrors had stalked her day and night. At first she had been beyond coping, but time had taught her to keep them at bay, she had learned to shut her mind away from its own phantasms.
Still the fears grew, joined by dark memories of pain and the causing of that pain.
So now she waited alone in her room, waited for the memories to come. She curled up on the rug, feeling the fire on her face, smelling the smoke but remembering a place a lifetime away.
Once more she was sixteen. A beloved child of loving parents. It seemed to be always summer, there seemed to be only laughter. Even fear was not so cold and destructive. Fear was a thing only of the night. She had been too young to see the dark hate in Roger’s face, too young to comprehend his twisted soul. She had danced around her dark sibling and had never noticed the threat: never saw the silent predator waiting in her summer youth.
She hadn’t seen him that day as she had raced up the tower steps. They had been at their estate in Cornwall for weeks and she had barely noticed his brooding presence at all. It was too lovely a time to think about Roger’s bad moods and strange, hard, staring eyes.
She had raced up those steps only to get a better view of the eagles.
He had caught her in the tower room. Trapped her. Suffocated her.
She had at first been too stunned to fight, but soon she had used her claws, used her teeth, to try and get him off her.
He had stepped away enough to allow her air, and she had clung desperately to the cold stone wall. The smell of his blood hung heavily in the air between them as it streaked down his cold, dark face.
“This is not the end, Sister dear,” he had hissed. “This will never end.”
She hadn’t seen the blow before it landed, but she had felt the sickening crunch of her jawbone, felt the rush of air as the stone steps seemed to rise up to meet her, felt the first impact.
Mercifully after that she had felt nothing.
She had awoken to darkness and a fear that echoed with those prophetic words.
It would never be over.
Even now, safely hundreds of miles from him, his dark soul still stalked her. Every visit he came and renewed his vow. He had never yet tried to hurt her like he had in the tower. He was patient. He would wait till she came to him on her knees.
But it would never be over while they both lived.
Sometimes she wished that it would all end. Sometimes just the thought of another day in darkness made her retch into the chamberpot, but tonight her stomach felt strangely calm.
She waited for a dawn that she would never see and tried not to think about the darkness. She found herself not thinking of ends. Instead her mind strayed to the warmth of Robert’s arms around her.
It was the first night since the age of sixteen she didn’t scream.
“Imogen Colebrook!” Mary exclaimed in horror. “Don’t tell me you slept there all night?”
“No, I didn’t sleep at all,” Imogen murmured as she slowly straightened her cold, stiffened body.
“I can tell that by the violet under your eyes.” Mary leaned over, took her face and held it up to the light of her candle, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Not that it makes much difference. You’re still an unearthly beauty, maybe just a might more fragile.”
Imogen smiled slightly. “Don’t sound so disgruntled. You make a compliment sound like an insult.”
“Well, I certainly meant no insult. You don’t insult a bride.”
“Why ever not?” Imogen asked in puzzlement.
“Because it brings bad luck,” she said authoritatively, and then ruined the effect by adding, “though God knows, most things seem to. To my way of thinking, what we be needing are things that bring good luck.”
“Maybe if you’re nice to me, you might get a little bit of good luck.”
Mary raised a brow but helped Imogen to a chair and began getting things ready for Imogen’s bath.
“Did the priest arrive?” Imogen asked nonchalantly but couldn’t stop herself from stiffening.
Mary didn’t answer for a second as she scrabbled to find the hairbrush.
“Oh, yes, almost instantly,” she said finally. “Sir Robert can be a might forceful when he puts his mind to it. He had that lazy beggar Alice cleaning out the place, and setting up an altar table near the main room, and I don’t know what else.”
Imogen froze for a second.
“He plans us to be married downstairs?”
“So it seems.” Mary’s voice was curiously neutral.
“I can’t go down there, Mary.” Imogen’s voice rose in panic. “I’ve never seen down there. I can’t go down there.”
She swung in her seat and made a grab for Mary’s hands. “You’ll have to tell him. Tell him. You must. We can be married here. It makes no real difference. Not to him.”
“I don’t think he’s the sort of man you go telling things to. He’s the sort that seems to do most of the telling himself.”
“Please,” whispered Imogen.
Mary sighed, disengaging her hand. “I’ll give it a try once I’ve got you dressed.” She went to the chest at the end of the bed and began foraging for clothes. “But I don’t be liking my chances of achieving the impossible,” she muttered darkly.
“No. I’m not getting married in some damn bedchamber.”
Robert’s voice sounded calm enough, but Mary could clearly see the fury in his eyes. Still, she tried again.
“I’ve told you that Lady Imogen never leaves her room, and she doesn’t understand why where you get married makes that much difference.”
Robert stared into the black embers of the fireplace. He had spent his night sitting there near the hearth in his room, watching the fire slowly die. It had seemed like too important a night to just lose it to sleep. He had waited, and before the dawn had risen he carefully got dressed in the clothes he had bought especially for a ceremony that he had never thought to go through.
As he had belted his simple black-and-silver-trimmed tunic, he had felt a peace descending. There was a rightness to this day that had been missing from every other, but that rightness also dictated he take Lady Imogen for his wife in front of her people. Their people, now.
He turned to look at Mary.
“The marriage will take place in the hall in one hour,” he said softly. “I will come and collect her just before.”
Mary stared for a second, then bowed her head and left. She knew when a fight was lost. The time left would be better spent preparing Imogen.
Today, it would seem, had been set aside for the conquering of fear.
Robert stood and walked over to the small table. He picked up