Mesmerized (11 page)

“I am sorry,” he repeated finally, and turned to fetch their horses.

He packed the picnic hamper on his horse, then gave Olivia a leg up onto hers, both of them doing their best to pretend that the necessary contact between them did not exist. They rode back to the house feeling rather awkward, their infrequent words being directions as to where to turn or stilted attempts at
polite chitchat, such as a query on Olivia’s part about a certain tree or Stephen pointing out a low stone wall that was reputed to have been standing since before the Conquest.

Once they were back at the house, Olivia thanked him politely and went straightaway upstairs to her room. It was already midafternoon by the time they returned, so she decided not to try to do anything else, but to simply take a bath and get ready for the evening meal. Since she washed her hair, as well, she spent the next little while running through the tangles with a comb, then brushing out the long mane in front of the low fire.

When her hair was almost dry, she rose and went to the bed and lay down on her side. She was a trifle tired, and her head was still reeling with thoughts of that afternoon. She smiled a little secretly to herself as she had done frequently since their picnic. She relived Stephen’s kiss inside her head. She wondered if he had really been sorry that he had done it. More than that, she wondered if it might ever happen again.

As she watched the flames flicker up from the logs of the fireplace, the light seemed to dim, and the room before her subtly changed.

A thick rug lay on the floor, but smaller and reddish in color, and it lay only in front of the fireplace, atop the bed of dried reeds that covered the floor. The fireplace, too, was different, made of large blocks of stone, the opening larger, the fire higher and smokier.
Gone was the chair beside the fire where Olivia had sat to dry her hair, and gone, too, the low decorative mahogany table that lay before it. There now, just to the side of the rug, stood only a heavy wooden stool.

A woman sat on the rug, her legs curled under her, running a brush through her long blond hair. Firelight flickered on her hair, turning the pale strands copper and gold. Olivia knew that she should be frightened to see a stranger sitting here in her room, but she was not. All she could feel was a sudden stunned amazement…and curiosity.

She stared at the woman, who seemed sublimely unaware of her presence. Her face turned to the side, the woman stroked her hair in rhythmic movements as she hummed a tune beneath her breath. She was a pretty woman, with a squarish face, her cheekbones high and wide, and there was a faint indentation at the bottom of her chin, right in the middle, that gave her a piquant look. It was too dark to see the exact color of her eyes, though they seemed light. Her feet were shod in leather slippers, and on her body she wore a long, slender blue tunic that fell straight from her shoulders to her feet, skimming her hips. Beneath it she wore another, lighter dress of a beige color that showed in the neckline and along the deep-cut armholes of the side. Long sleeves fell to points on the backs of her hands, and at the top, the sleeves were tied to the armholes of the underdress. A belt of gold links encircled her body, just above her hips, fastening in the middle in front and falling down in
a straight line to her thighs. Where it fastened, there were three links set with colored stones.

A man came into Olivia’s vision, crossing the room to the woman. She turned her head at his approach, and a radiant smile broke across her face. She glanced behind him, then, the smile giving way to an anxious frown.

“Do not worry, my love,” he said. “None saw me enter your quarters. Your name will not be sullied.”

He wore a gray tunic over an undershirt of blue, and below that, leggings of the same color. Around his hips ran a wide leather belt, and hanging from the left side of it was a sword in a scabbard. His hair was longish and cut shaggily, a darker blond than the woman’s, almost brown, and there was a little bit of a curl to it.

Standing behind the woman, he unbuckled his belt and laid the sword aside. Then he knelt and curled his arms around her, laying his head against hers. He kissed the top of her head, and she let out a little sigh and snuggled into him.

“’Tis a sin, I know,” she said in a soft voice. “But I cannot help myself. Each day is black unless I see you. I cannot bear to be apart from you.”

“’Tis the same with me.” His voice was a low rumble, and he nuzzled her neck. “I love you.”

“And I love you. I cannot even confess my sins, for I cannot say that I repent.”

They kissed, clinging to each other. His hand
smoothed down her back and over her hips, and he pulled her closer to him. She turned, her arms going around his neck, pressing her body into his. With one arm around her, he eased her back to the floor.

O
livia jerked awake, her eyes flying open. For a moment she stared blindly in front of her. Then, slowly, she sat up, gazing around her at the room.
A dream. She had been asleep and dreaming.

She rubbed her hands over her face. She felt fuzzy and odd.
What a peculiar dream!
It had seemed so real, as if she had been watching a play, or real people. It had been, she thought, exceedingly odd for a dream. Usually she knew the people in her dreams—even if they did not look like themselves, she was aware of who they were. And she was usually the main participant in her dreams. She was late or running from some horror or doing some task, but it was always herself. But in this dream she had seen an unknown room and people who were strangers to her. She herself had not been in the dream except as an unseen watcher.

The man and woman had been dressed like people from the Middle Ages. She paused, thinking about the
woman’s dress. The early Middle Ages, she thought, around the time of King Henry II, for the woman’s dress made her think of Eleanor of Aquitaine. And though they had spoken English, their accents had been odd, the words stilted, and she had had trouble understanding what they said. She had once or twice dreamed about a different time or place, but on those occasions she had been reading about that time or place, or studying it in school, or Theo had written her about it. But she had read nothing about the time of Henry II in the recent past.

Unbidden, the thought of an old Norman keep came into her mind—the castle she had thought she glimpsed as the carriage approached Blackhope. A shiver ran through her.

She stood up, rubbing her arms to warm herself.
What was the matter with her?
She could not remember ever having seen something that didn’t exist, even for an instant. That, she told herself, was even odder than the dream. If she told anyone about it, they would think her as peculiar as her grandmother.

There was a knock on the door, and Joan entered to help her dress for the evening. Olivia forced a smile onto her lips and determinedly put both the imagined castle and the dream out of her mind.

That night at supper, much to Olivia’s surprise, Lady Pamela spoke to her. “I hear that you rode out with Stephen this afternoon, Lady Olivia. I hope you enjoyed your tour of our place.”

Olivia noted that the woman made it sound as if the estate still somehow belonged to her. She smiled politely and said, “Yes, very much. Lord St. Leger told me a bit about his life in the United States, as well, which was quite interesting.”

“Really?” Pamela arched one thin elegant brow as she looked at Stephen. “I am surprised you have never told us about it, Stephen.”

“I doubted you would find it interesting, my lady,” he replied in a cool, formal voice.

Pamela smiled at him. “I imagine you would be surprised what interests me. You must try me someday.”

Stephen said nothing, merely picked up his wineglass and took a sip. Pamela turned her attention back to Olivia. “We are very glad that you came to visit, my lady. We have heard so much about your family.”

There was a faint thread of amusement running through her voice that made it quite clear what she had heard about the Morelands.

“Indeed?” Olivia said mildly.

“Oh, yes,” Pamela continued, a cold light in her blue eyes. “The duchess is quite famous in society.”

“My mother is well-known for her many good causes, if that is what you mean,” Olivia said pleasantly, gazing back at Pamela with equally hard eyes.

“She is very…forward thinking, is she not?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Pamela…” Lady St. Leger said, casting an anxious glance at Olivia.

“What do you mean?” Belinda asked curiously.

Lady St. Leger looked as if she had swallowed a bug. Pamela’s smile was like cut glass.

“She means,” said Olivia coolly, “that my mother believes in such things as education for poor children and better treatment of workers in factories and women having the right to vote.”

“Really?” Belinda’s eyes widened. “But isn’t that a good thing? That poor children get educated and that people are treated well?”

“Yes, of course.” Olivia smiled and nodded. “My mother has a great deal of compassion, a trait that, I am afraid, is all too often missing in some women of the nobility.” She turned her eyes significantly back to Pamela.

Stephen let out a short bark of laughter. “Pamela, if you persist in trying to engage Lady Olivia in a battle of wits, you are bound to lose, you know.”

Fire flared in Pamela’s eyes, though she quickly hid it by lowering her eyes. “Why, Stephen, I am hurt that you should think I meant anything bad,” she said, and when she raised her cornflower-blue eyes again, they were swimming in tears. “I was merely interested in Lady Olivia’s family.”

“Of course,” Olivia said briskly. “I am quite proud of my mother, so I never mind talking about her.”

A small silence fell on the table after that. Olivia glanced at Lady St. Leger, who still looked a trifle uncomfortable. In an effort to assure Stephen’s
mother that she had not been offended by Pamela’s remarks, Olivia said, “You have a lovely home, Lady St. Leger.”

The older woman brightened and smiled at her gratefully. “Thank you, my lady. I am glad you think so. The house has been here for many, many years, of course, but I did do some redecorating. There were some places that were a trifle chilly—both literally and figuratively.”

“I fear that is often so with stone houses,” Olivia commiserated.

“Is a sad house.” Madame Valenskaya spoke up suddenly, and everyone’s eyes turned toward her. “Full of lost souls. I know. I hear dem crying out to me. Soon as I arrifed, I knew.”

It was the first time Madame Valenskaya had spoken that evening, having been applying herself with some diligence to her food. But now she looked around the table at the rest of them, nodding her head for emphasis.

Olivia glanced at the others. Stephen’s face was carefully blank; he was not going to get pulled into the same sort of mistake he had made the night before. Pamela looked cynical and faintly amused. Belinda was leaning forward, her eyes wide, clearly enjoying the drama of the moment. Lady St. Leger, however, was clasping her hands together at her breast, her expression worried, obviously hanging on to Madame Valenskaya’s every word.

“I don’t know,” Olivia said calmly, keeping her
face innocent. “It does not seem a sinister house to me at all. I find it quite spacious and lovely.”

“Oh, Madame always knows,” Mr. Babington said earnestly, putting down his fork and leaning forward to look at Olivia. “She is very attuned to the spirit world. Whenever we enter a house, she knows if there are lost souls within it. There have been one or two she could not even bear to enter.”

“Yes. Terrible places,” the medium agreed in her guttural voice. “Here is not bad. But I hear lost souls wailing.” She gave a dramatic shiver, adding, “Even de name oozes evil—Blackhope Hall.”

“It has been named that forever,” Pamela commented. “It comes from some ancient time. I am sure it meant something innocuous at the time.”

“I know about the name!” Belinda said, her eyes lighting. “My tutor told me last year. He had me research the history of the house as an exercise, you see. A long time ago, long before the St. Legers even owned it, the house was owned by some nobleman who shut himself up in his castle and spent all his time brooding over his dead wife. The book I read said that is how the house got its name.”

“You see?” Madame Valenskaya exclaimed, eager to prove her point. “Another lost soul. There are many.”

Olivia noticed that, in her excitement, the medium’s accent slipped a bit, her
s’
s losing their sibilance and her
th’
s clearly pronounced. Madame Val
enskaya seemed to realize it, as well, for she added, “Is not good place. De spirits wail with pain.”

“Madame, please tell us that you will conduct another séance tonight,” Lady St. Leger urged, her brow drawn into a frown. “You could help those spirits, perhaps.”

“No. Not tonight. Is too soon.” Madame Valenskaya put a hand to her forehead dramatically. “I cannot try again. Is too painful.”

“Mama suffers terribly sometimes,” Irina put in quietly. “Especially when the spirits are restless and tormented.”

Watching the pain on Lady St. Leger’s face, Olivia had to press her lips together firmly to keep from saying anything. One glance at Lord St. Leger told her that he was having difficulty being quiet, also.

“Perhaps tomorrow night,” Olivia said pacifically, hoping to forestall any words from Stephen, as well as ease his mother’s distress.

“Yes, tomorrow night,” Lady St. Leger said, her words a plea.

Madame Valenskaya nodded, her face that of a martyr. “I try.”

“Thank you. You are so good.”

After watching the medium’s manipulation of Lady St. Leger, Olivia found she had little appetite left. She was glad when the last course was brought in a moment later and they were able to finish the meal.

Little happened the next day. There were country things to do, such as croquet on the front lawn or
games in the drawing room, or piano playing and singing in the music room, and Olivia participated, but with a sense of passing time until the main event of the day, the next séance, could take place. Stephen spent most of the day in his office, working on estate matters, so Olivia saw him only at luncheon. She could not help but wonder if he was perhaps avoiding her because of the kiss between them the afternoon before. He had apologized, which was the gentlemanly thing to do. But now she began to wonder if perhaps he had meant his regrets, if he wished that it had not happened. Feeling a trifle blue, she picked out a book from the library late in the afternoon and went upstairs. After taking off her dress, she slipped on her dressing gown over her undergarments and settled down in a comfortable chair to read until time for supper.

The afternoon sun was slipping below the horizon and dusk was falling outside when Joan came into the room, carrying Olivia’s freshly pressed evening gown. It was one of Kyria’s dresses that Joan had resewn for Olivia, a peacock-blue satin pulled tight across the front and gathered in a bustle at the back, with a spill of lace adorning the skirt from the bottom of the bustle down to the floor.

Olivia went to look at the dress as Joan spread it out on the bed. She could not help but feel a prickle of excitement at the thought of wearing it in front of Stephen. Would his eyes light with pleasure as she
had seen men’s eyes do when Kyria entered a room? She could not quite imagine it; she was not the sort of woman who lit a fire in men. Still, she could not forget that kiss.

Joan picked up Olivia’s brush and comb, and Olivia sat down in front of the vanity mirror. Joan pulled the pins from Olivia’s hair and set about brushing it out in preparation for the more intricate style into which she intended to arrange it this evening. Suddenly a loud bang sounded from outside the windows, and Joan jumped, inadvertently hitting Olivia’s head with the brush.

“I’m so sorry, my lady,” she began, but Olivia was already on her feet and crossing to the window, curious about the sound. The maid followed on her heels. When she reached the window and looked down into the garden Olivia came to a dead stop and stared at the tableau below. Joan, coming up beside her, sucked in her breath in a loud gasp.

Olivia leaned forward, closer to the glass of the window. In the garden, a figure walked along a path in the closing twilight. There was still enough light to see that the person pacing slowly wore not any common sort of attire but a long black, hooded robe of the sort worn by monks. His hands were crossed at his waist, the long sleeves covering them, and the cowl of his robe stood out from his face, concealing it.

As Olivia watched, her skin prickling, the figure reached the end of the path, where it went down a
series of steps to the lower garden. He turned and looked straight up at the windows of the house. Reaching up with one white hand, he pushed back the hood a little to reveal the stark white bony face of a skull.

Joan made a sharp noise, clapping her hand over her mouth, and from down the hall there was a woman’s shriek. Olivia whirled and ran across the room, stopping to tell Joan, “Call Tom Quick!” before she bolted through the door. She ran down the hall to the stairs, heedless of the fact that she was wearing only a dressing gown and soft slippers and her hair was flowing loose down her back. All down the hall, other doors were opening and people emerging, exclaiming.

Stephen was out of his door and to the head of the stairs a step ahead of Olivia, and they pounded down the stairs together. Aware that he was more knowledgeable about the house and gardens, she followed his lead, bunching up the long skirts of her dressing gown to give her legs better room to run.

He tore through the downstairs hall and out the rear door to the garden, Olivia on his heels. Taking the steps down to the garden two at a time, he headed toward the path the cowled figure had walked. Olivia hastened after him along the flagstones, wincing when she stepped on the edge of a slab of rock in her thin house slippers. But she did not stop, only hurried doggedly after him as he reached the path leading down to the lower garden, where the “monk” had paced.