The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [51]
Hester finished her toast and drank the last of her tea. At least she knew a little more about Rhys. It did not explain what had happened to him, but it offered a few possibilities.
Nothing she had learned prepared her for what happened that afternoon when Sylvestra came into the bedroom for the third time that day. Rhys had had a very light luncheon and then fallen asleep. He was in some physical pain. Lying in more or less one position was making him very stiff and his bruises were healing only slowly. It was impossible to know what injuries were causing pain, swelling or even bleeding within him. He was very uncomfortable, and after Hester had given him a sedative herbal drink with something to ease him at least a little, he fell into a light sleep.
He woke when Sylvestra came in.
She went over and sat in the chair next to him.
“How are you, my dear?” she said softly. “Are you rested?”
He stared at her. Hester was standing at the end of the bed and saw the pain and the darkness in his eyes.
Sylvestra put out her hand and stroked him gently on the bare arm above his splints and plasters.
“Every day will be a little better, Rhys,” she said just above a whisper, her voice dry with emotion. “It will pass, and you will heal.”
He looked at her steadily, then slowly his lips curled back from his teeth in a cold glare of utter contempt.
Sylvestra looked as if she had been struck. Her hand remained on his arm, but as if frozen. She was too stunned to move.
“Rhys …?”
A savage hatred filled his face, as if, had he the strength, he would have lashed out at her physically, wounding, gouging, delighting in pain.
“Rhys …” She opened her mouth to continue, but she had no words. She withdrew her hand as if it had been injured, holding it protectively.
His face softened; the violence crumpled out of it, leaving him limp and bruised.
She reached out to him again, instant to forgive.
He looked at her, measuring her feelings, waiting; then he lifted his other hand and hit her, jarring the splints. It must have been agony to his broken bones and he went gray with the shock of it, but he did not move his eyes from hers.
Her eyes filled with tears and she stood up, now truly physically hurt, although it was nothing compared with the pain of confusion and rejection and helplessness within. She walked slowly to the door and out of the room.
Rhys’s lips curled in a slow, vicious, satisfied smile, and he swung his face back to look at Hester.
Hester was cold inside, as if she had swallowed ice.
“That was horrible,” she said clearly. “You have belittled yourself.”
He stared at her, confusion filling his face, and surprise. Whatever he had expected of her it was not that.
She was too repelled and too aware of Sylvestra’s grief to guard her words. She felt a kind of horror she had never known before, a mixture of pity and fear and a sense of something so dark she could not even stumble towards it in imagination.
“That was a cruel and pointless thing to do,” she went on. “I’m disgusted with you!”
Anger blazed in his eyes, and the smile came back to his mouth, still twisted, as if in self-mockery.
She turned away.
She heard him bang his hand on the sheet. It must have hurt; it would jar the broken bones even further. It was his only way of attracting attention, unless he knocked the bell off, and when he did that others might hear, especially Sylvestra if she had not yet gone downstairs.
She turned back.
He was trying desperately to speak. His head jerked, his lips moved and his throat convulsed as he fought to make a sound. Nothing came, only a gasping for breath as he choked and gagged and then choked again.
She went to him and put her arm around him, lifting him a little so he could breathe more easily.
“Stop it!” she ordered. “Stop it! That won’t help you to speak. Just breathe slowly. In … out. In … out. That’s better. Again. Slowly.” She sat holding him up until his breathing