A hug? The last time I’d hugged Lady Catherine was the day she and Papa wed. She wasn’t a particularly affectionate person, even with her own daughters.
Just as I started to stand up, I was hit with a dizzy spell that sent me right back down into the armchair. The teacup slipped from my fingers and shattered to pieces on the floor as my suddenly numb fingers couldn’t grasp the smooth surface any longer.
“Are you feeling all right, ma choupette? You seem awfully pale.”
I mumbled something unintelligible. My tongue was heavy and sluggish in my mouth. I couldn’t get it to work right. A chill wracked my body, like someone had dumped a bucket of icy water over my head. Something was wrong, but I didn’t have the strength to ask for help.
The form of Lady Catherine looked like a splotch of blood staining the walls. I tried to stand up, to make her understand that I was sick, but my legs gave out beneath me, heavy and numb, just like my fingers. I tumbled to the floor, unable to feel the impact of the wood on my body.
Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. The floor was soothingly warm and eased some of the chill in my limbs. I wanted to lie there forever and let the warmth seep into me.
Faintly, as if from a great distance, I heard a voice calling my name. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. My eyelids were heavy and starting to close without my permission. What was the point in fighting them? A little sleep might make me feel better. I let them close and sank into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“They’re not just on her neck anymore. They’re spreading. Look at her arms! Look at her arms!”
The words were muffled, as if Elodie had her face pressed into a pillow, but I could still hear the fear in her voice. Was she talking about me or to me? That was ridiculous. I needed to reassure Elodie, but when I tried to move, strong hands pressed me back down into the bed. How did I end up in bed? I was in the sitting room, talking with . . . with . . . someone who’s face was cast in shadow. Why couldn’t I remember who it was?
“Don’t move, Cendrillon. Everything’s going to be just fine. The doctor will be back shortly. Everything is going to be just fine.”
That was Auguste. I’d know his voice anywhere, so deep and kind. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be back at the palace, where I left him.
I shivered violently, my whole body shaking as a wave of cold passed through me. The blankets I could feel wrapped around my legs and waist were doing nothing to warm me. I needed to pull them up. That would help. But when I reached for them, those same hands grabbed mine and forced them back down by my sides. I groaned in frustration.
“Please, Cendrillon, don’t try to move. It will only make things worse. I need you to stay still for me. Can you do that, mon amour? Just stay still?”
It was a silly request, but Auguste sounded so upset that I reluctantly relaxed into the mattress. If he didn’t want me to move, I would look at him instead. But when I tried to lift my head from the pillow, a sharp, throbbing pain in my chest and stomach made me stop right away. It felt like there was a chain wrapped around my chest, digging into my flesh and making it difficult to breathe. Was I tied down? Why would he do such a thing? I intended to ask him, but the pain discouraged me from speaking. Surely I could open my eyes at least?
Though there seemed to be weights on my eyelids, holding them closed, I managed to force them open only to be met by a fuzzy, indistinct world. Maybe I really did need a doctor. Something was very wrong.
Blinking a few times helped clear my vision. Slowly, my bedchamber came into focus. But that wasn’t right. This wasn’t my attic. This was my old bedchamber, the one Lady Catherine made me give to Severine. I would recognize that beautiful velvet-topped window seat anywhere. Two people were in the room with me. Auguste was on my left, leaning over me, and Elodie was on my right, sitting on the bed, holding my hand. Funny. I couldn’t feel her hand in mine.
Perhaps the chilly air in my chambers was to blame. It would be nice to have a fire on. Why hadn’t anyone lit a fire? But when I let my gaze drift across the room, I saw a large orange flame flickering merrily in the fireplace. How strange that I could feel none of its warmth.
Elodie was staring intently at me, her cheeks streaked with tears. Oh no. She wasn’t still upset with me, was she? I couldn’t stand another argument, especially not when I felt so poorly.
“Her eyes are open,” Elodie cried. “How are you feeling, Cendrillon? Does anything hurt?”
Ice was creeping through my veins, originating in my stomach and traveling up my body, through my shoulders, and down my arms, freezing the blood solid. How did one articulate such a concept? I’m not sure that I could have, even if I had been of sound mind and body.
“Gentle, Elodie. Gentle. Keep your voice down, and don’t ask her too many questions,” Auguste said as he brushed a damp cloth across my forehead.
I didn’t appreciate it when people talked about me like I wasn’t there, but the cloth was blisteringly hot against my icy skin. It felt so amazing that I was thoroughly distracted. Until Elodie’s next words, that is.
“When is the doctor going to get here?” she asked in a whisper that wasn’t quiet enough to evade my ears. “Look. They’re getting worse.”
I followed Elodie’s pointed gaze, desperate to know what was going on. The light was dim, emanating only from the fireplace and a few candles scattered about the room, but it was just bright enough to illuminate the skin of my arm. If I’d had the strength, I would have started crying at the sight.
My right arm was covered in purple-blue spots the size of a livre. They looked like bruises, dark and vivid against the ghastly pallor of my unblemished skin. Each spot’s center was marked with an angry red welt the color of blood. I couldn’t take my eyes off one spot in particular, the one with the deepest of reds at its center. It made my stomach roil, but there was something about that color that was significant, if only I could remember.
“The doctor thinks it’s the pox; he’s coming back with leeches,” said Elodie anxiously.
My mind was swimming in a fog. But it wasn’t the pox. I knew it wasn’t. Instead, I focused on the red.
A red dress. Roses. Sugar with a bitter edge on my tongue. And I remembered seeing something—in my mother’s mirror, my last heirloom. Lady Catherine had moved it from the attic and placed it in the sitting room. I remember seeing Lady Catherine holding a glass vial above my teacup in my mother’s mirror. I had been too distressed by what happened at court to register what I’d seen, until now. The thread of lucidity in my mind snapped taut where only moments before it had been slack. I remembered what happened to me. I needed to tell Elodie and Auguste.
The thread was beginning to fray. I didn’t have much time. “Lady . . . Lady . . .”