A Love So Dark (The Dark Regency Series Book 4) by Chasity Bowlin Page A

at the sudden loss.
    “No. You did everything right… but I meant what I said, Olympia. This will not be rushed, and if I were to allow this to continue right now, I would not be able to help myself.”
    She wanted to ask him to stay, to ask him to continue, to tell him that she wanted him to join her in her bed, but her earlier boldness had fled. He settled her back on the floor and turned away. Before she could even speak to call him back, he was gone. She stood alone in the library, listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps as they echoed the hammering of her own heart.

Eleven
    G riffin had left Olympia in the library more than an hour ago, retreating to his work room in the conservatory to produce more of the elixir he'd developed for Cassandra. He'd made some slight changes to the formula, small adjustments to the amount of lavender and verbena, while adding chamomile for its soothing effect. He struggled to put his bride from his mind as he bypassed the door to his own chamber and strode toward the end of the corridor. When it forked, he turned to his left and toward the locked door that held all of Darkwood Hall’s secrets at bay. There were only two keys to the door. He held one and Mrs. Webster held the other.
    Slipping it from the pocket of his waistcoat, he fitted it into the lock and turned it slowly. The sound of metal grating against metal was impossibly loud in the darkened hall, but there was no one about to hear it. The servants were abed, as was Olympia.
    The door swung inward and he stepped inside, closing it quickly behind him and relocking it. There was a small table just inside the door that bore a candle and tinderbox. Lighting the candle quickly, he moved on, traversing the corridor with an ease that came only from frequency. Near the end was another flight of stairs. He took them up and into the small turret room.
    It held nothing but a simple mattress in the middle of the room. The windows were covered with bars. A girl sat on the floor before them, looking up at the moon that shone through as she wailed softly.
    “Cassandra,” he said softly. “It’s me. Griffin. Can you hear me?”
    There was no response. He’d been speaking to her thus, every night, for more than a decade. She had yet to respond intelligibly. There were some nights, such as the present, where she simply ignored him altogether. No, he thought. Not ignored. That implied she was choosing not to speak to him. In her present state, she had not awareness that he was even present. She was locked so deeply in her own mind that nothing outside of her own insanity even existed.
    But there were other nights, nights where she was vicious and cruel. Nights that, if she could have reached him, she would have torn his throat out with her bare hands.
    As he often did, Griffin sat on the floor. She moved then, rocking slightly. And the leather straps at her ankles and wrists, fastened with metal rings that would attach to chains to bind her when she was too violent to be free, clinked loudly in the nearly silent room. They were a necessary evil at times. Without them, she would have killed Mrs. Webster, or him, or herself. For the time being, she was free to roam the confines of her room if she chose, but only to a point. She was restrained with a heavily padded belt looped with a chain that allowed for a safe zone so to speak, where they could enter the room and be out of her reach, where they could safely observe her.
    “You were very sad last night,” he remarked. “I could hear you crying. So could Olympia.”
    She cocked her head then, intrigued by the sound of a new word. Her lips moved, almost as if she were trying to repeat the string of syllables. But she had not spoken in years.
    “I’ve married her,” he said. “She’s lovely. I wish you could know her… and that she could know you. One day, Cassie, you will be well. Whatever has happened to destroy your mind will be reversed and you will be free of all