Page 22 of Blood and Roses

My Jane,

I don't know why I write you this letter. There is no way for you to read it now, so far away from me. Never again will I hear your laughter or see the light in your eyes. I failed you. I failed to protect you from this life, from who I am. Itried to warn you away, but you wouldn't listen, my beautiful, stubborn girl.

I know he ordered your death. When I confronted him, he denied it. He gave me a lecture, though I was mad and foaming with grief and rage. He will have no distractions. He will have no competition. He will let me have nothing of my own. I have to get away from this place where I see the ghost of you walking beside me. I have seen so many horrible things, done such horrible things, but nothing will haunt me the way your pale body in the lake will haunt me. Blood Lake has had its fill. If the ghosts of that lake could rise, they would swallow us all.

You once told me that a man has a hole within himself; that if it is not filled with love, he will fill it with violence. I have lost you, my beautiful Jane. The love has gone from me, so I will glut myself on violence and rage until all that is broken and frail inside of me is burnt away. I cannot bear the suffering of the humanity in me, so I give in to the beast. Napoleon has escaped from Elba. I know the monsters he rallies to his side. I will go to the battlefields of Europe, and I will kill them all. I may hate my father, but he still holds Albion safe against the ravages of the French. He will release me for this. If he doesn't, he knows my rage will turn against him.

I loved you, Jane. I loved you.

"You look like hell,"Belinda said as Rosa shuffled, tired and puffy-eyed into the kitchen the next morning.

"I'm fine. I just didn't sleep much last night," she mumbled. Rosa had been awake since she had finished reading the letter.

Balthasar Senior must have covered up the murder of the woman he loved to protect his family.Goddamn Vanes. In 1815,who would have questioned them? Jane's death was reported as a misadventure. She had gone swimming, been tangled up in weeds, and had drowned. The obituary had minimal details, and Rosa had fought with Gwaed Lyn's terrible internet connection in the early hours of the morning, searching through digital archives until she had found the same obituary on Jane. Nothing was mentioned of an investigation, the Vanes, or the fate of Jane's family.

"Well, Rosa, I'm happy you're up. Eli has decided to let us know that he's holding a soiree tonight, so I'm going to keep you down here with me today," Vera said as she came out of the walk-in pantries with her hands full. "We are going to have at least twenty to cook for."

Cecily came in a short time after and scrutinized Rosa's eyes and hastily pulled back her hair. "Were you drinking again last night?"

"No. It's lack of sleep. Really, I wasn't feeling well," Rosa fumbled for excuses. It wasn't a lie. After reading such private thoughts and intimacies between two people, only to have one of them murdered on a whim? It had devastated her.

The letters also highlighted cruelly and severely what Rosa had lacked in every relationship she had ever had. She did not think that the fairy tale version of love existed, but clearly, it had. For them, it had been deep, true, and all-consuming. It had been real. No wonder he had lost his mind and went to try to kill himself in the war. Rosa had tried to find his obituary, but there had been no mention of his death in the war with Napoleon or even fifty years after it. He had vanished into nothing. Just another body on a battlefield.

"Rosa, are you sure you are all right?" Vera sat her down and put a cup of tea in her hands.

"I'll be fine. I need to wake up a bit, but I will get it together. I'm a little off with the faeries is all." Rosa smiled encouragingly.Don't think of the faeries, Rosa prompted herself as the queen's laughter rolled through her troubled mind.

"Stay down here and help Vera out," Cecily said, patting her arm uneasily, unsure of how to comfort her. "I'll get Julie to assist me with the rooms today."

Rosa spentthe day trying not to hurt herself or get in everyone else's way. She sliced her fingers twice while chopping vegetables; her soufflés would not rise, and her pies would've been burned if Vera hadn't saved them in the nick of time. She cleaned the kitchen because Vera wouldn't trust her with the cooking after that. She couldn't ruin anything important if she held a scrubbing brush and not a spoon.

The cuts in her hands stung as she scrubbed the flecked marble benches with lemon juice and bicarbonate soda. She tried to help organize the serving dishes and ended up dropping a crystal urn, smashing it to a thousand pieces on the tiles.

Rosa couldn't remember a day this bad in the kitchens since her first days at culinary school when she dropped a plate of soup on an instructor. That was the day the other students started calling her Nigella, the name annoying her until it became an everyday endearment.

That evening, Rosa watched from the kitchen windows as expensive cars parked and elegantly dressed men and women were escorted into the house.

"Okay, Rosamund, I need you to go find Cecily and let her know everything is ready when she is," Vera instructed, "and then go home and go to bed. You have been hopeless today. I know something is bothering you, so work it out. Tomorrow is a new day."

The party was being held in the large dining rooms on the south side of the third floor. Music was vibrating through the walls, accompanied by laughter and the clinking of glasses. The guests had already gone in, so Rosa took the opportunity to signal to Art, one of the waiters, to get his attention. He held up one finger in her direction as Lily and Pearl came to take drinks off his tray.

They looked like stunning birds of prey. Lily was dressed in a deep red silk that set off her dark coloring, and Pearl was in gray and silver. With uncanny bad luck, they looked up and saw her in her disheveled and exhausted state. Pearl said something to Lily, and they laughed before turning back to their guests.

Art hurried over. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Tell Cecily that downstairs is ready when Eli is. There were no extra girls, so I had to come find her."

"Okay, I will let her know. Get out of here, Rosa. You look dead on your feet." He smiled encouragingly before disappearing back into the rooms.

Rosa hurried down the corridors and was about to step into the passages when she changed her mind and headed for the empty rooms in the northern wing. The noise of the party was a distant murmur, and Rosa let her first quiet of the day envelope her.

She sat on a bench chair at the end of the four-poster bed and stared at the painting of Balthasar Senior. She'd read the final letter to Jane over and over again. That their relationship ended with a death and not a wedding was too heartbreaking. Rosa buried her head in her hands.

"Rough day?" a voice asked.

"You could say that," she replied with a flinch.

Rosa looked sideways through her fingers at Balthasar standing in the doorway, dressed in a well-cut suit and dark blue shirt. He sat down on the chair next to her, and she caught thescent of his aftershave. He smelled as good as he looked, which did not help her in the slightest. For some reason, she wanted to hug him and have him tell her she was going to be all right.You really are starting to lose it, Rosamund.