Free Dark Masquerade by Jennifer Blake Page B

like with her hair up, that metamorphosis that changed a girl into a young lady. Because her mind was full of speculation she was more than cordial to her.
    “You must be sure to come and see Joseph when you are well again.”
    “I would like that, if Grand’mere and Denise will let me,” Theresa said, looking down at her fingers, which she had twisted together.
    Replying to that oddly submissive tone of voice more than to the girl’s words, Elizabeth said, “It is my baby, and I will certainly let you see him.”
    Theresa smiled up at her, a flashing radiance that was quickly gone.
    A beetle, shiny and black, was crawling along the planking before them. Even as Elizabeth noticed it, Darcourt reached casually out with his booted foot and crushed it.
    “Don’t! Oh, don’t!” Theresa cried out, clapping her hands to her ears. “Don’t kill it! That sound, I can’t stand that sound!”
    Surprise mixed with remorse covered Darcourt’s face, but he bent down and picked up the dead beetle, throwing it over the gallery railing. Then he put his arm around his sister.
    “Hush, now. I just wasn’t thinking. Hush.” When she began to breathe normally he laughed. “Good Lord, Theresa, a man never knows what is going to set you off next. Be quiet now, that’s a good girl. It’s not as if you had never seen a dead bug before, not with poison in every corner to kill the creeping things.”
    “You don’t understand,” Theresa cried, hiding her face in Darcourt’s shoulder. “You won’t understand.”
    Over her bowed head, Darcourt looked at Elizabeth and lifted one hand in a helpless gesture. Elizabeth understood his predicament but felt too much of an outsider to interfere. She was afraid Theresa would reject any comfort she might offer. Darcourt continued to speak softly to his sister. Out of consideration for their privacy, Elizabeth looked away out over the railing. She sought Bernard and Celestine and saw them moving among the trees, the lavender of Celestine’s dress a spot of flashing color in the shade. They had reached a wide curve in the gravel and shell drive and had turned back toward the house.
    “They are coming back,” she said, hardly realizing she had spoken aloud.
    “Who?” With a quick swing of mood, Theresa raised her head to follow Elizabeth’s gaze, her intense distress forgotten as if it had never been.
    “Celestine and your brother,” Elizabeth replied, glancing curiously at the girl.
    A frown came between Theresa’s eyes, and then her face cleared. “Oh, you mean Bernard. He isn’t my brother. Only Darcourt.”
    “He isn’t?”
    Theresa shook her head, watching the couple, oblivious of Elizabeth’s puzzlement.
    “She means that Bernard is related to us only by marriage,” Darcourt explained for his sister. “Theresa and I are not Delacroix. Our mother married into this family after our father died. Bernard and Felix were half-grown then, children of the first wife, Amelia. They were about thirteen and fifteen at the time. I think their father, old man Gaspard Delacroix, intended to give his sons the softening influence of a mother. A pity.”
    Elizabeth failed to see what had amused him in that last cryptic utterance, but at least he seemed inclined to talk about the family. That was more than anyone else was willing to do.
    “I think Grand’mere mentioned that her son had married twice, but she didn’t say how long ago it was. Do you mean that you have been living together all this time, something like fifteen years or more, and you still don’t feel like brothers and sisters?”
    “It takes more than time.”
    “Your step-father, Gaspard, is dead?”
    He nodded. “Has been for nearly three years. He broke his neck in a fall from the framework of this house while it was being built.”
    For no reason that she could see, a shiver ran over her and the roots of her hair prickled. She looked at Darcourt and found him watching her, and she wondered if he had expected her