The Cruel Dark

by Bea Northwick

No, you’re one of a kind, Millie, my girl, and I hope you find peace and happiness in your future.

At only twenty-six years old I felt I was approaching sixty but had no energy to mind it.

Uneasy, I turned to the driver to comment on the bizarre shape racing through the woods, when a woman ran into the road directly ahead of us, dressed in white, her translucent hair whipping in the wind, obscuring her features. She raised an arm to shield herself from the impact, clutching a bouquet of pale flowers in her fist. We hit her with a bone-jarring thud, her body disappearing beneath the hood.

I was being dismissed without him ever laying eyes on me. Indignation was a hot iron in my sternum.

We departed the light and warmth of the room with its cold master, and as the housekeeper pulled the door closed behind us, I sensed that I was poorly prepared for Willowfield.

“And do I dare mention you are alone in the dark with a man you don’t know?” A low blow. “Or perhaps you are alone in the dark with a woman you don’t know,” I countered, painfully aware of how nonsensical I’d just sounded. “How perplexing,” he mused. “I wonder who is right.”

“If I catch you wandering again,” he said, his voice taking on the low quality of a warning, “I may think you mean to tempt me.”

“Mmm, but I’m sure you do realize we are here, alone together in the dark of night,” he replied, still advancing. “I feel like this has happened before.” “Professor…” I tried to sound level-headed, chastising, but it was barely possible with his tall, broad body moving forward the way it was, prowling. “Once again, you are in nothing but a threadbare nightdress.”

“Sometimes, at night, I will let fantasy get the best of me. Especially in the winters, when everything here is bleak, and there are only my thoughts and the cruel dark.”

The title of the book!!!!!!

“You shine a light in this dark house, Miss Foxboro. I pray you let nothing extinguish it.”

I did the worst thing and looked up at him. He regarded me with an expression I didn’t have to guess, an open want so clear even I couldn’t mistake it. I immediately bowed my head again, but in a motion I found dizzying, he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted my face forcefully back to his, pressing his mouth over mine in a hungry, fervent kiss.

“I’m a fool,” he muttered, gently pulling the strap of my gown back to rights, stepping back, and running a hand over his face in an aggressive attempt to clear his mind. “I’m taking advantage of you. You’ve had

pt 1

fright, you’re not thinking straight. Neither am I, and for you to regret…” I was desperate for him to touch me again, angry at myself for letting something so clearly unreal damage the moment. “Don’t you think I’m capable of knowing my own desire?”

pt 2

“You shouldn’t be here in this house, Miss Foxboro,” she said after a long silence, jolting me. “It’s a tomb fit only for ghosts and bad memories. Girls like you don’t belong in Willowfield and never have.”

his chest against my back, his voice a warning in my ear. “Don’t attempt to start a war with me. You won’t win.”

“Millie, you’re raising your voice.” His tone was an omen I didn’t heed. “Let them hear!” I yelled, flinging my hand to indicate their general direction, sealing my fate.

The shadows did something to Professor Hughes, something unholy.

“But you’re smart, disarmingly romantic. Everything about you vexes and beguiles me. I think you’re bedeviled by your temper and your secrets and all the passions you’re terrified of. Furthermore, your face gives away everything, and I know you’re lying, Millie, when you say you believe any word Margaret has said against me. As for my suggestions, they were all promises that I fully plan to fulfill. I am a gentleman, Millie, but not always, and I certainly don’t intend to be one right now.”

“All this time you accused me of being a beast, while you were a little devil,”

Look at how beautiful you are.

“He’s doomed,” I lamented playfully. “All men in love are.” His lids lowered as, at last, his gaze dipped to find mine, too full of meaning. I hastily retreated.

“Do you still think I’m a beast?” he asked against my lips. “You are,” I responded playfully. “But I don’t mind anymore.” “Good, because it was very hard pretending not to be.”

“I have never in my life”—I slammed the book onto the shelf in emphasis—“allowed someone to have this sort of torrid power over me, but you…” I faced him again, wishing he was close enough to slap. “You make me feel like I’m burning,” I grated, “like I’m going to die from it. All the while you’re only baiting me along so I’ll dance to your tune and amuse you. I hate it, and I won’t fall for it anymore!”

“Are you telling me,” he said, pinning me in place with the intensity of his glare, “my only two options are to never touch you again or to fuck you senseless right here, in the middle of the day, with the Good Lord’s bright light shining on us?” I balked. “That’s not at all what I—” “It’s an easy choice.”

AHHHHHHHH

“Are you satisfied now, Miss Foxboro?” he muttered when we’d both gathered our wits. “Never,” I said, and it was true. I would never have enough of Callum Hughes.

“God, you’re bleeding.” “I’m not surprised.” “I’m so sorry—” I started. “No,” he interrupted, unyieldingly stern. “Don’t ever apologize for your passions. I would happily bleed again if it brought you pleasure.”

“Millie, we can’t exclude people from life because of their struggles.”

“I’m extremely angry with you, Callum,” I croaked, new tears welling up. “How dare you keep that from me? I was so afraid. I…” With utmost gentleness, he gathered my body to his, shushing me. “May we have a lifetime for me to beg your forgiveness.”

I’m happy I hurt her. When I asked my father later why he hadn’t stopped me, his only answer had been a hug. It was the last one he ever gave me.

“To protect you from your mother. But he didn’t know you very well, Millicent Foxboro. You would have had the courage to leave just as you’d planned. His ignorance of his own daughter’s strength drove him to make his final mistakes. None of that is your fault.”

“You must stop always thinking the worst of me.” He lifted my chin, his eyes wandering over my face as though memorizing every line, every hollow and dimple. “And yourself. You’re a force of nature, and despite your trials, you’ve survived with a spirit worthy of its own folklore. Up to now you’ve made your way through hell all alone, but you’re not on your own anymore, Millie. Never again.”

Clutching my robe around me, I ran after the ghost of Mrs. Hughes.

My heart seized, full of love, sorrow, and fear, because I had seen the things walking the halls of Willowfield and didn’t believe his wife had been mad.

“I’m my best self with you, Millie,” he said when the kiss was done. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable with improper behavior such as traveling together as mere lovers.” With an enchanting sleight of hand, he produced a ring, holding it between thumb and forefinger. Its center glinted green, emeralds sparkling in a setting of gold-work vines, interwoven to form an unbreakable knot.

“Marry me, Millicent Foxboro,” Callum said, his eyes shining. “Marry,” I repeated dumbly. “Will you?” I threw my arms around his shoulders, nearly knocking him off-balance, and he returned the embrace, spinning me, my feet leaving the earth. I was flying through a haze of joy that flowered as beautifully as the world around us. A perfect mirror of the life Spring was bringing to Willowfield, Callum had brought life to me. “Yes!” I cried. “Yes, I will.”

“My clothes, the gifts from the professor, they came from here?” There were two spots of red on Felicity’s pale cheeks. Shame. “Yes. The perfumes and lotions too, the brush and the mirror, we brought them from Mrs. Hughes’s things, all except the dinner dress. That was the only thing truly made for you.”

At the topmost portion was a row of cushions to display rings, and here there was only one, a wedding ring whose band boasted shining bright emeralds. Next to this, an indentation in the soft stuffing where another ring had long been stored. A ring that now encircled a finger on my left hand. Tears at last spilled over, falling to the velvet and turning it black. Everything I’d been given, all the parts I’d played as a research assistant, a guest to his dinner party, a planner of his accounts, a partner in his bed had all been to mimic Mrs. Hughes. When Callum looked at me, I was not the woman he wanted to see. Mrs. Hughes’s ghost wasn’t trying to harm me, she’d been warning me of Callum’s intentions.

“I tried so hard to make you leave,” she murmured, voice still thick with misery, and my arms stiffened around her. “I was trying to save your life.” I pulled away, hands gripping her diminutive shoulders, searching her face. “I thought he was going to let you go, but he won’t. He never will.” “What are you talking about?” “It wasn’t Callum,” she whispered, the whites of her eyes shining in the dark, imploring me to understand.

It had never been the tea. It had never been Callum.

“You’re a lunatic.” My fingers finally closed around a stone about the size of my palm, not heavy but sizable enough to be a last resort. “Oh no, not me. I’m just a simple Machiavellian man. I get what I want at whatever cost, and I want Willowfield.” He cast a look around and chuckled. “Now, I don’t really believe in luck, but I’d say this is pretty damn lucky, because I get another shot at this, in the exact place you should’ve died two years ago when I pushed you into that ravine.” My lungs ceased to work, pinpricks traveling up my spine. “So, you see, it’s you who’s crazy, I’m afraid. Mad Millie Foxboro.” He approached until he was standing close enough to look down on me with all his psychotic glee present on his face. “Mad Millie Hughes.”

“I’m Millicent Hughes.” I whispered. “I’m your wife.” Though his voice was weak, fading, he responded. “Yes, my love,” he said. “You are.”

Now, Callum was back at Willowfield with strict instructions to rest, but we hadn’t. Making love with his arm in a sling had proven an interesting task, but we made do, and I slowly began to find my way back to him. Despite our physical reconnection, we hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words, at my own requirement. As much as I longed to be near him, I wasn’t the same woman he’d come to love, and I was afraid of what it would mean to tell him that truth.

“I adored that timid woman Ms. Reeves brought here. She was bright and fanciful, scared of her own shadow. It inspired the knight in me. With her, I believed I’d reached the pinnacle of love, that my heart couldn’t hold more.” Hearing him talk of the past me was difficult. “Then,” he said, “I met you again, and found I was mistaken.”

“I may be the luckiest woman alive,” I said. “And why’s that?” “Because I got to fall in love with you twice.”