The discovery of Isabella Laurent's portrait and the hidden locket burned in Sandra's mind like a fever itself. The image of Paul's lost joy haunted her steps through Blackwood's oppressive corridors. Mrs. Thorne's icy silence after the library incident felt heavier, more charged with unspoken threats. The housekeeper's watchful presence became a constant shadow, a reminder of the peril lurking beneath the surface of enforced domesticity.
Three days after finding the portrait, the fragile tension shattered. Paul didn't appear for their morning session in the study. His absence was unusual, unnerving. Sandra paced her room, the silence broken only by Pip's soft chirps. Midday came, then afternoon. No summons. No explanation. A creeping sense of dread coiled in her stomach.
The first sign was the hushed urgency echoing from the servants' wing – muffled footsteps moving faster than the customary funereal pace, the clatter of a basin, a low, worried murmur. Sandra ventured into the corridor. A young maid, Elsie, whom Sandra had seen tending fires, scurried past, her face pale, eyes wide with fear. She carried a stack of fresh linen towels and a steaming bowl that smelled sharply of vinegar and herbs.
"Elsie?" Sandra called softly, stepping into the maid's path. "What's happening?"
Elsie jumped, nearly dropping the bowl. "Oh, Miss! It's… it's the Master." Her voice trembled. "He's… he's taken poorly. Terrible poorly."
"Poorly? How?" Sandra's heart lurched. The wound on his shoulder? Had it festered despite her care?
"Fever, Miss," Elsie whispered, glancing nervously down the hall towards Paul's wing. "Burning up, they say. Raving. Mrs. Thorne's with him, and the doctor's just left. Said it's… serious." She shifted the heavy bowl. "I need to get these cooling cloths to them."
"Let me help," Sandra said immediately, reaching for the towels. The dread solidified into cold fear. *Serious.*
Elsie hesitated, fear warring with the ingrained hierarchy. "Mrs. Thorne said… she said only essential staff. That you weren't to be disturbed."
"Sandra," a voice like cracked ice cut through the corridor. Mrs. Thorne stood at the junction leading to Paul's rooms, blocking the way. Her face was a mask of stern composure, but Sandra saw the tightness around her eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on her upper lip. "Elsie, bring those here. Now. Miss Middleton, return to your room. The Master is unwell and requires rest. Your presence is neither required nor beneficial."
"He's my husband," Sandra stated, holding her ground. The words felt strange, powerful. "What's wrong? Is it the wound?"
Mrs. Thorne's flinty gaze didn't waver. "The wound is inflamed. A severe fever has taken hold. The doctor has administered remedies. He needs quiet and competent care. Which you are not equipped to provide." Her dismissal was absolute, a wall built of protocol and cold authority. "Elsie!"
The maid flinched and scurried past Sandra towards the housekeeper, casting an apologetic glance back.
Sandra watched Elsie disappear into Paul's wing with Mrs. Thorne. The corridor felt colder, emptier. The housekeeper's words echoed: *competent care*. Competent like bleeding him? Applying poultices while sepsis raged? The memory of Paul's vulnerability by the roses, his whispered confessions of failure, surged within her. He was alone in there, burning, surrounded by servants bound by Mrs. Thorne's rules and his own forbidding reputation.
"No," Sandra whispered to the empty corridor. Then louder, a declaration to the oppressive stones: "No."
She didn't return to her room. She waited. Hours crawled by. The distant sounds from Paul's wing were sporadic – a low moan that wasn't quite human, the splash of water, Mrs. Thorne's sharp, clipped orders. As dusk painted the high windows in shades of violet, Mrs. Thorne emerged, looking drawn and weary. She carried an empty basin, her posture rigid.
"He's resting," she stated, seeing Sandra lingering nearby. Her voice was hoarse. "The fever persists. You will *not* disturb him." It wasn't a request; it was a command etched in stone.
"He needs more than cooling cloths," Sandra argued, her voice low but intense. "He needs constant care. Let me help."
"Help?" Mrs. Thorne's laugh was a dry rasp. "What do you know of nursing a fever like this? Your… interference… could worsen it. Return to your room." She turned to leave.
"Mrs. Thorne!" Sandra's voice cracked with a mix of fear and furious determination. "He is *dying* in there! You heard the doctor! And you're barring his *wife*? Is that Barton protocol? Or is it yours?" She took a step forward, forcing the housekeeper to meet her eyes. "What are you afraid I'll see? What are you afraid he'll *say*?"
The housekeeper's composure cracked. A flicker of genuine fear, deeper than disapproval, flashed in her eyes. "You foolish girl," she hissed, stepping closer, her voice venomous. "You have no idea what you're meddling in. His ravings… they are the fever talking. Nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. If you value your place here, your *safety*, you will stay away!"
The explicit threat, linked directly to Paul's delirious state, was the final spur. Sandra pushed past her, ignoring the housekeeper's gasp of outrage. She strode down the corridor towards Paul's closed door, her heart hammering against her ribs. Elsie stood guard outside, wringing her hands.
"Miss, please, Mrs. Thorne said—"
"I know what she said," Sandra interrupted, her voice surprisingly steady. She grasped the heavy door handle. "Open it, Elsie."
Torn between terror of Mrs. Thorne and the fierce resolve in Sandra's eyes, Elsie hesitated only a second before nodding mutely and opening the door.
The air inside hit Sandra like a physical blow – thick, hot, and reeking of sickness, sweat, vinegar, and the cloying sweetness of a medicinal poultice. The room was dim, lit only by a single oil lamp. Paul lay in the massive bed, dwarfed by its size. He was a figure of torment. His face was flushed a deep, mottled crimson, slick with sweat. His dark hair was plastered to his scalp. His eyes were closed, but beneath the lids, they moved rapidly. He thrashed weakly, the sheets tangled around his waist, his bare chest heaving with ragged, shallow breaths. A thick bandage covered his left shoulder blade, stained yellowish-red. He looked terrifyingly fragile, stripped of all power and control.
Mrs. Thorne appeared at Sandra's elbow, fury radiating from her. "Get out! Now!"
Ignoring her, Sandra moved to the bedside. The heat radiating from Paul's body was intense. She dipped a cloth into the basin of tepid water Elsie had brought in earlier and wrung it out. With a gentleness that belied her racing heart, she pressed the cool cloth to Paul's burning forehead.
He flinched violently, a low, guttural moan tearing from his throat. His eyes flew open, but they were unfocused, glassy, seeing horrors beyond the room. "No…" he rasped, his voice thick and slurred. "Don't… not her… leave her alone…"
"Shhh," Sandra murmured, smoothing the cloth over his brow, down his fevered cheeks. "It's Sandra. I'm here. You're safe." She dipped the cloth again, cooling his neck, the hollow of his throat. His skin was terrifyingly hot. "Just rest."
He tried to push her hand away, his movements weak and uncoordinated. "Isabella…" The name was a raw gasp, ripped from the depths of his delirium. "Isabella… forgive me… please…" His voice broke on a sob, a sound of pure, unadulterated anguish. He twisted his head on the pillow, his face contorted with guilt. "I couldn't… Father… he wouldn't…" A violent tremor shook him. "Stop! Please… make him stop! Stop him!"
*Isabella… forgive me… Father… stop him!* The fevered words, fragmented but agonizingly clear, slammed into Sandra. They weren't the ravings of a monster justifying violence; they were the desperate pleas of a man crushed by guilt and paternal tyranny. *Isabella.* Pleading for forgiveness. *Father.* The source of the command, the force he couldn't stop. Reginald Barton. The architect of the disappearances. Paul's failure wasn't in harming the women; it was in failing to protect them from his father.
Sandra pressed the cool cloth to his chest, her own eyes stinging. "It's alright, Paul," she whispered, her voice thick. "Just rest. I'm here." She kept up the rhythmic cooling, her touch steady, a lifeline in his storm of fever and memory.
He moaned again, sinking back into restless semi-consciousness, muttering fragmented names: "Eleanor… knew too much… Clara… threatened… had to… silence…" The pieces of the horrifying pattern Mrs. Thorne feared he'd reveal clicked into place with dreadful finality. Clara Finch, discovering Reginald's ruthless business takedowns, threatening exposure. Silenced. Just like Crawford. Just like the others.
Sandra tended him through the long, suffocating night. She changed the cooling cloths tirelessly, wiped the sweat from his body, trickled water between his parched lips when he was lucid enough to swallow. Mrs. Thorne appeared intermittently, her expression grim, watching Sandra with a mixture of resentment and something else – a grudging, fearful acknowledgment. She brought fresh water and clean linen but offered no help, her presence a silent reminder of the danger Sandra courted.
Slowly, as the first grey light of dawn filtered through a crack in the heavy curtains, the raging inferno within Paul began to recede. The violent thrashing ceased. The terrifying flush faded from his skin, leaving him pale and gaunt, but the unnatural heat lessened. His breathing deepened, losing its ragged edge. He sank into a profound, exhausted sleep, no longer tormented by visible demons.
Sandra sagged into the chair beside the bed, her body aching with fatigue, her mind reeling. The cool cloth lay forgotten in her lap. She watched the steady rise and fall of Paul's chest, the lines of suffering softened by unconsciousness. The brute, the enigma, the keeper of the cage, lay utterly vulnerable, stripped bare by illness and delirium. But she had seen the truth beneath the fever: a man shattered by his father's cruelty, bearing the crushing weight of guilt for horrors he couldn't prevent. His whispered pleas weren't admissions of monstrous acts, but cries of powerlessness against the real monster – Reginald Barton.
She reached out, her fingers gently brushing a damp strand of hair from his forehead. The touch was tender, filled with a sorrowful understanding that eclipsed fear. The fever had broken. The immediate crisis was over. But the revelations it had unleashed marked a turning point. Sandra knew now. The true darkness of Blackwood emanated not from the man in the bed, but from the legacy that bound him, a legacy enforced by vanishing acts and paternal tyranny. Paul Barton wasn't the beast; he was its most tragic prisoner. And Sandra, holding vigil by his sickbed, knew her fight was no longer just for survival, but against the shadow that held them both captive. The battle lines had shifted, and the enemy had a name: Reginald Barton.