HASALYNX PRESS
Read Romance Ebooks Legally — Anytime, Online, With a Monthly Subscription

Chapter 1. The Dying Man's Confession at Wildbad

The private carriage lurched through the final switchback of the mountain road, its iron-shod wheels grinding against loose stone, and Allan Armadale lay propped against the velvet cushions with the taste of laudanum thick on his tongue and the creeping numbness that had claimed his legs now pressing cold against his spine like a hand of ice. He had lost all feeling below his waist three days ago, and the paralysis was climbing steadily, a slow tide that would soon reach his chest and then his throat and then, finally, his heart. He knew he was dying; he had known it from the moment the German doctor had examined him in that cramped, camphor-scented room and had exchanged that look with his wife, that look that told him everything he needed to know. A week, the doctor had said. Perhaps less. Not enough time to undo the damage he had done, not enough time to make amends for the sins that weighed upon his soul like a millstone. But enough time, perhaps, to write a letter.

The room at the Baths of Wildbad was small and oppressive, its walls papered in a faded floral pattern that seemed to sweat in the damp German spring, and the single window looked out onto a grey, rain-soaked courtyard where the cobblestones gleamed like wet bone. The bed was narrow and hard, its sheets rough and smelling of carbolic soap, and the air was thick with the mingled scents of camphor, beeswax, and the cloying sweetness of the laudanum that sat in its little brown bottle on the bedside table. His wife stood by the window, her back to him, her black velvet dress absorbing the grey light like a pool of ink, and the old nurse sat in the corner, her hands folded in her lap, her face a mask of patient vigilance. His child lay in a basket at the foot of the bed, a tiny, sleeping thing with a shock of fair hair and a face that held no trace of the man who had fathered him. Allan looked at his son, and he felt a grief so sharp it cut through the fog of opium and pain like a blade.

"Bring me paper and ink," he said, his voice a croak, barely more than a whisper. "And find me someone who can write English. I have a letter to dictate."

The doctor hesitated, his round spectacles glinting in the dim light, and then he nodded and left the room. A few moments later, he returned with a man Allan had seen in the common room—a tall, raw-boned Scotsman with iron-grey hair cropped brutally short and cold, pale grey eyes that seemed to hold no warmth whatsoever. His name was Neal, the doctor said. He was a traveller, a man of business, and he had offered to help. Neal took the chair by the bed without a word, produced a fountain pen and a small bottle of ink from his coat pocket, and looked at Allan with those cold, flat eyes.

"I will write what you say," he said, his voice without inflection. "Nothing more."

Allan nodded. He looked at his wife, who had turned from the window and was watching him with those dark, luminous eyes that had once enslaved him. "Leave us," he said. "I want to speak to my son alone."

She did not argue. She gathered her skirts and left the room, the nurse following close behind, and the door closed with a soft click. Allan turned his head toward the basket where his child lay sleeping, and he began to speak.

"To my son, Allan Armadale," he said, his voice low and cracked, "I am writing this on the seventh day of May, 1832, in the town of Wildbad, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. I am dying, and I leave you this letter so that you will know the truth of what I have done, and so that you will be warned against the dangers that will come for you when you are old enough to understand."

Neal's pen scratched across the page, capturing the words in a cold, precise hand, and Allan continued, his voice growing stronger as the confession poured out of him. He told of his true name, Fergus Ingleby, and the love that had undone him; he told of the man who had stolen that love, the man whose name he now bore; and he told of the night he had boarded the French timber ship La Grace de Dieu and bolted the cabin door, listening to his rival drown in the rising water. The words came in a flood, unstoppable, and Neal's pen kept pace, recording every terrible detail.

"Now I am dying," Allan said at last, his voice trembling, "and I leave you this warning, my son. You must never trust the widow—she is the woman who destroyed me, and she will destroy you if you let her. You must never trust the maid who served her—she is a creature of evil, a weapon to be used against you. And above all, you must never, ever meet the man who bears the same name as you. If you do, your doom is certain. Avoid him at all costs. Never let him near you, never speak to him, never acknowledge his existence. This is your father's dying wish, and you must honor it."

He fell silent, his chest heaving, his breath coming in shallow gasps, and Neal folded the letter with a precise, economical motion and tucked it into his coat pocket. "I will post it tonight," he said, and then he rose and left the room without another word.

Allan lay still, the darkness gathering at the edges of his vision, and he turned his head toward the basket where his son lay sleeping. He wanted to say something, to speak a blessing over the child, but the words would not come. His hand trembled violently toward the boy's head, a desperate, futile gesture, and then the darkness closed over him, and he was gone.