Annabel: A Victorian Erotic Romance: Book 2: Darkness and Light

His fingers traced the ribbons at the neckline of my peignoir. The chamber lay wrapped in deep velvet darkness, broken only by the flicker of a few candles. Their light cast restless shadows across the walls and gilded the hard planes of my husband’s body.

“Annabel…” His voice, low and rough with that beloved huskiness, brushed over me like a touch.

He took his time. Knot by knot, he loosened the silk until the fabric slid from my shoulders and pooled silently at my feet. Cool air kissed my skin. I remained in nothing but the thinnest batiste chemise.

He sank to his knees before me. His hands settled on my thighs, heat bleeding through the fine cloth. Slowly, inch by inch, he began to lift the hem. A tremor ran through me. My body answered him whether I willed it or not, alive to his silent command.

The chemise followed the peignoir. I stood completely bare before him. He did not touch me—only looked. That gaze burned hotter than any flame.

He rose, lifted me in his arms, and laid me down on the cool, crisp sheets. The sudden shock of cold against my fevered skin arched my back. His name slipped from my lips on a breathless sigh.

“Edmund…”

He leaned over me, blotting out the candlelight. His eyes held a promise he had never broken. His warmth surrounded me, coiling tight and low in my belly. I reached for him, ready to dissolve into him completely. His mouth hovered just above mine, his breath warm against my lips—

Then the warmth began to fade. His solid hands turned to mist. He dissolved into smoke no matter how desperately I clutched at him—with fingers, with breath, with sheer will. He slipped away, as he always did.

Through my grasp. Through the dream.

My eyes flew open.

Gray dawn light flooded the room, merciless and flat. The air hung cold and still. I stretched out a hand and met only emptiness.

It had been nothing but a dream.

The other side of the bed was ice-cold, as it had been for many long months.

My husband—my Edmund—was dead. And I remained, still breathing. Still remembering.

Morning light seeped through the heavy curtains, illuminating lazy dust motes in the motionless air. This bedchamber, once our private world, had become a mausoleum. His riding gloves still lay on the small table by the door, exactly where he used to toss them after a ride, carrying the scent of wind and horse. Eliza never moved them. I would not allow it.

I forced myself to rise. My movements were slow and mechanical. I pulled on a morning gown without glancing at the mirror—I had no wish to confront the pale, hollow-eyed woman who lived there now. Instead, my gaze fell on the dressing table, where a stack of unopened envelopes gathered dust among the creams and scent bottles. Invitations to balls, dinners, soirées. In the early months I had opened them with shaking hands, each polite line a cruel mockery of my grief. Now I left them untouched. Let the dust claim them.

Descending the stairs whose treads still remembered the confident fall of his boots, I heard a bright, ringing laugh pierce the suffocating quiet of the house—like a silver bell in a tomb.

In the small drawing room, on the Persian carpet, sat my Izzadora. She was five now, the exact image of her father: the same unruly dark curls, the same grave gray eyes. She played with wooden blocks under Eliza’s watchful eye.

“Mama!” She dropped the blocks and ran to me on unsteady legs.

I caught her up, burying my face in her hair that smelled of milk and sunlight. That small, warm body and its unquestioning love were the only thing tethering me to the edge of the abyss.

“Mama, how come you’re always so sad?” she asked, studying me with solemn eyes.

The question I had dreaded.

“I’m only tired, my treasure,” I said, stroking her head. “Come, let me read to you.”

She nestled closer, content for the moment, though a flicker of childish worry crossed her face. I kissed her crown and carried her toward the library, feeling something tight and painful squeeze inside my chest. For her. I had to live for her. But how?

Every few weeks our solitude was broken by Dr. Winthrop. He had been more than the family physician; he had been Edmund’s friend and had delivered Izzadora. He was the only person I still permitted inside these walls.

Today he found me in the library, seated in Edmund’s chair, staring out at the park. Once we had walked those paths together while he told me the history of every tree planted by his ancestors. Now the grounds looked like nothing more than a vast graveyard of withered roses.

“Lady Halebury,” he said, his tone gentle yet edged with steel. “You’ve touched no dinner again. Eliza is worried.”

“I had no appetite.”

He came to stand beside me at the window, smelling of carbolic and quiet concern. “Annabel—” For the first time in a long while he used my Christian name. “This cannot continue. You are fading away.”

“I am perfectly well.”

“You are lying. To me, to yourself, and worst of all, to your daughter. She sees you every day. She is growing up with a mother who is slowly dying before her eyes.”

I turned sharply. “Do not speak to me of my daughter.”

“Who will, if not I? Edmund would not have wanted this.”

At the sound of his name my breath caught.

“Edmund told me once that the most beautiful thing in his life was hearing you laugh,” the doctor continued. “He said your laughter was music. When was the last time you laughed, Annabel?”

I had no answer. I could not remember.

He sighed, the sound of a man who had done all he could and met only stone. “Think of Izzadora. She deserves to see her mother alive.”

He left. I remained in Edmund’s chair, surrounded by his memories, the question burning in my mind: when had I last laughed? Would I ever laugh again?

To occupy my hands, I rose and moved to the bookshelves. My fingers trailed over spines coated in a fine layer of dust—the dust of forgetting. I stopped at the poetry section. My eye caught a slender volume bound in dark morocco: the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He used to read them aloud to me on long winter evenings.

I took the book down. When I opened it, a folded sheet of paper slipped from behind the flyleaf and drifted to the carpet like a fallen leaf.

My heart stuttered. I knew that hand—confident, with a slight rightward slant. Edmund’s.

With trembling fingers I picked it up and sank back into his chair. The world narrowed to the small rectangle of paper. I unfolded it anyway.

My dearest Annabel,

I write from London, where parliamentary business is as tedious as ever and the city feels gray and empty without your laughter. Every time I leave Halebury I leave more than my heart behind—I leave all the color in the world. These three days stretch like three years.

They speak here of politics and intrigue and the future of the Empire. I think only of the future of our small world. I picture you by the fire, flame-light playing in your hair. I think of our little Izzadora. Tell that small whirlwind her father misses her fiercely, and to save one of her thunderous stories for me. I would listen forever just to watch her eyes—your eyes—shine.

It will soon be over. I count the hours until the carriage rolls through our gates and I can hold you again. Wait for me. I shall be home soon.

Ever yours,Edmund

“I shall be home soon.” Those simple, loving words had once been a promise. Now they sounded like a sentence.

I pressed the letter to my lips, trying to catch any lingering trace of him. The dam I had built so carefully over two long years shattered.

A raw, animal sound tore from my chest. I doubled over in his chair, wracked by sobs that clawed me apart from the inside. These were not quiet tears of mourning. This was the howl of a soul being torn in two. The pain seared through me, leaving nothing but black ash.

He would never come home. Never hold me. Never kiss Izzadora. The warm, laughing man whose voice still lived on the page had become a handful of dust beneath a marble slab.

I do not know how long I sat there. When the tears finally subsided, twilight had thickened in the room. Izzadora had probably eaten and gone to bed. Eliza likely waited outside the door, afraid to intrude.

I looked at the letter in my hands, then at the stack of invitations on the dressing table, at the dust on the books, at Edmund’s gloves by the door.

I cannot live like this any longer.

The thought arrived not as revelation but as a cold, quiet blow. Not death. Something else. If I did nothing—right now—I would truly die. Not in body, but in what little remained of me.

I rose on unsteady legs. Crossing to the dressing table, I picked up the top invitation. “Lady Halebury, Lady Montgomery requests the pleasure…”

For two years I had not opened them. For two years I had buried myself alive.

I crushed the thick paper in my fist, then slowly uncurled my fingers and laid it back down. Not today. But I had looked. I had at least allowed myself to think that one day, perhaps…

My gaze fell on Edmund’s letter, still clutched in my other hand.

I shall be home soon.

And I had remained. Alone in this vast, empty house. With his handwriting on the page. With a promise that would now haunt my dreams instead of him.

Yet tonight, for the first time in two years, another question stirred inside me: what happens when I grow tired of being only his widow? What happens when I want to be simply Annabel again—not Lady Halebury, not the grieving monument the world expects, but just… me?

I did not know the answer. But the question itself was already a step.

I placed the letter on the dressing table beside the crumpled invitation. Past and possible future, lying side by side. I stared at them, and somewhere deep beneath the ash and pain, something faint and fragile stirred.