The Countess (21 page)

“Very well,” he said, and I heard the amusement in his voice as I floated into the ether once again. It was warm there, the voices all vague and blurred, the pain tamped down.

I don't know who carried me to my bedchamber, but it was Belinda's face I saw before I fell into a very nice deep sleep with the help of some laudanum from Mrs. Redbreast, that wonderful woman.

When I woke up, it was late afternoon. I lay there, waiting for my body to hurt or not to hurt. To my relief, all I felt was a nagging headache. I slowly got out of my bed. Belinda had undressed me and put me in a nightgown.

I heard a squawk. There was Belinda, seated in a chair near the bed, ready to leap up.

“No, no, my lady, don't move. Your parts, they're not ready to move yet, surely.”

“My parts are just fine,” I said, and set my feet on the floor. I rose slowly. I was stiff, felt bruised and achy, but otherwise I was all right. “It wasn't a deep rabbit hole,” I said, thought of John, and smiled. Despite everything, I smiled.

She was at my side in the next instant. I held up my hand to ward her off. “No, Belinda, I am just fine. I think I should like a very hot bath. It will soak
out all my aches and pains.” And it would also get rid of her, I thought, then felt guilty. She was worried about me. But I didn't want anyone around me. I watched her walk from the room, looking back at me several times, frowning.

I was afraid. My derringer. I panicked, then reached under my pillow. It was there. Who had put it there? John, I hoped. If it had been Belinda, she would have said something, probably to Lawrence. No, it had to be John. Had he allowed Belinda or anyone else to see it, or had he managed to come into my bedchamber and pull it from under my riding skirt? The thought of him doing that was enough to send me back onto my bed. I sat there holding my derringer, just looking across the room at the windows with the bar holes in the casements. The bars for Caroline because she had been mad.

I don't think I did anything but breathe until Belinda returned with enough buckets of hot water to drown me.

An hour later, with her following on my heels, clucking over me, wringing her hands, I left The Blue Room, dressed in a sturdy old gray gown that was faded from so many washings and some walking boots. I'd worn both a lot at Deerfield Hall, trudging on the moors. I pulled on an equally old velvet cloak and gloves. The derringer wasn't strapped back against my thigh this time. It was right in my cloak pocket. I could pull it out and fire it in but a moment of time. I could protect myself, and I most assuredly would. My head ached, but I was more angry than hurt now.

Brantley was by the front door. He saw me and became as still as the plaster statue of the naked
Greek god that stood in a recessed corner just outside the drawing room.

“I am going for a walk,” I said, and my voice was as cold as the air seeping in beneath the great front doors. “I will be fine, Brantley. You are not to worry about me. It was just a rabbit hole, a very big one, but I am not a milksop. I will be just fine. I am just going down by the stream. I like it there.” And I waited for him to open the door for me. I wondered if he would immediately find Lawrence and tell him that his idiot wife had gone for a stroll around the grounds.

As I walked across the wide front lawn, I wondered about my decision to remain here, and my future with this house.

It didn't look promising. I shuddered, but not from the cold, although the air was chilly, very still, the late afternoon sky a lead gray. I hadn't particularly noticed before, but the trees now had nothing but naked branches, no more bursts of colorful autumn leaves at all now. Winter had finally come to Yorkshire. I began to shake off the final effects of the laudanum, and my bone-deep fear was ridding me very quickly of my lethargy.

I walked toward the stream, some distance away from the manor, my head down, thinking, thinking. I had told Brantley where I was going. No one would try anything, it would be too risky. Besides, I couldn't think clearly if someone was hanging around me, clucking and carrying on, and driving me mad. And that brought up the best question. Who could I possibly trust?

John, I thought. I had to trust him. There was simply no choice.

I kept thinking, sorting through things, trying to pick things apart, but there was just nothing. Simply nothing.

Except Caroline wanting perhaps to talk to me, however a spirit managed to do that.

And the malignancy in the Black Chamber that was still here, still alive, waiting, waiting. For what?

I reached the stream bank. I pulled my cloak very tightly around me and sat down beneath one of the huge willow trees. I stared out over the narrow ribbon of gray water. The surface was very still, like a smooth gray slate. I didn't know where the ducks were.

I realized now that I had forgotten all about George. He had not been in The Blue Room. I hoped Miss Crislock or Judith had him well in hand. If something were to happen to George, I didn't know what I would do. If I'd had the energy, I would have gone back and fetched him, but I didn't. I felt the willow bark dig into my back.

I was becoming hysterical. Nothing would happen to George. But I knew if it did, I would tear down Devbridge Manor with my bare hands.

I don't know how long I sat there before I heard him say from behind me, “Belinda stopped me in the corridor and wailed about you tottering out of bed, nearly drowning yourself in your bath, and actually leaving. I asked Brantley if he had seen you, and he told me you looked nearly dead and had planned to come down here.” He paused a moment, then shrugged. “I came after you.” He shrugged again, but I knew him. He was just revving himself up to blast me. It wasn't long in coming. He actually pointed his gloved finger at me and shook it.

“I did not even come close to drowning in my bath.”

“Damn you, Andy, you promised me that you would never be alone. What the hell is wrong with you? Did the blow to your head render you an idiot? No, probably not. You come by that quite naturally, don't you? Answer me, damn you.”

H
e was right, I suppose, if one chose to look at things in just that particular sort of very harsh light. I just shook my head, saying nothing, and that certainly enraged him even more.

He walked quickly over to me and positioned himself right in front of me, legs spread, hands on his hips. He didn't block the sun, since there wasn't any, but he did fill up too much space. He's too big, I thought, staring up at him, much too big and too strong. But I knew he wasn't dangerous to me, even though it was obvious that he would very much like to throw me into the stream.

And I smiled up at this man, who had once made me feel drilled into the ground with fear. “I have my derringer.” I lifted my hand out of my cloak pocket and pointed the small gun at him. “I'm perfectly safe.”

He cursed. It was colorful. I'd never heard such a fluid and creative description of both people and animals put together. Grandfather would have been impressed. He probably would have slapped John on
the back—and maybe even timed him to see how long he could go without repeating any curses.

“Goodness, can you do that again?”

“Yes, but first I'm going to strangle you. Don't try to weasel out of this, Andy. No trying to distract me. You do it very well, but not this time, not now. What the hell are you doing out here alone? Dammit, you don't even have that famous watchdog George with you.”

“He would protect me with his life if he had the sense to realize that my life was in danger. Oh, dear, I hope no one is out searching for me. Tell me you didn't announce my temporary defection and raise an alarm?”

“No, no, I told Brantley not to worry. I told him I would keep an eye on you. I believe Uncle Lawrence, Miss Gillbank, your stepdaughter, and Miss Crislock are being entertained by Lord Waverleigh or ‘Hobson dear,' as Lady Waverleigh calls him. She adds even more alarming details while he relates ghostly manifestations he has experienced. As for Thomas, he is lying down upstairs, Amelia lightly stroking her fingers over his brow. At least that's what he told me they were going to do. I don't think I believe him. Amelia's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were very bright. I do believe they were—no, forget I said that. Are you not cold?”

I shook my head, then said, “Did you unstrap the derringer from my leg?”

“Yes, certainly, when I carried you upstairs. I didn't want anyone to know about it. I had a moment when Belinda was pulling back your bedcovers, moaning and clucking over you, dashing about your
room for whatever reasons I don't know. I put it back under your pillow.”

“Yes, I found it. Thank you. That doesn't sound at all like Belinda. She is a very independent girl, she told me when I first arrived. She has her own ideas about things. She is strong.”

“All that's possible, but she acted like a mother chicken whose chick came too close to the kitchen ax. She calmed after we got the laudanum down your gullet. Why did you come out here alone?”

I wished he would just let it go, but knew well enough that he wouldn't. I said, “You are just like my grandfather. He never let anything go until he was satisfied. He would just continue to push and prod until I spilled my innards to him. If it turned out then to be something he really didn't want to know about, he would just stare at me, shake his head, and go for the brandy bottle.

“Oh, all right. Perhaps the fall did scramble my brains. I just wanted to come here and think, to try to figure out who is doing this and why.”

“And what have you decided? Have you managed to deduce our villain and his motive, since you have had all this time alone with no interruptions until I had the gall to come along?”

“Your sarcasm is too blunt. You have no subtlety.” I sighed again. “I'm sorry, you're right to want to yell your splendid curses in my face.” I gently shoved my derringer back into my cloak pocket. I gave him a crooked smile. “But you know, John, with this, I can even protect you.”

I thought he would explode, but he managed to hold himself in check. My grandfather usually hadn't had that great an amount of self-control.

I said, “Thank you for not shouting at me anymore. My head still aches and throbs a bit. Now, I haven't decided anything, truth be told. I cannot seem to find anything to latch onto so that I could think of something to decide.”

“It bothers me that I understand exactly what you said.”

I smiled, impossible not to.

He walked away from me, down to the edge of the stream. He bent down and picked up a pebble. He sent it skipping over the water. Four skips. It wasn't bad.

I called out, “My record is six skips.”

He tried with three more pebbles, but he only got five skips on one of them As he walked back to me, he tossed a pebble from one hand to the other. “You could be lying, of course. Six jumps? You will have to prove that.”

“Certainly,” I said.

He didn't sit. He just stood over me and stared down at me, tossing that damned pebble. He was quiet for a very long time. Finally, he said, and it seemed to me that he still didn't want to talk, that his words were being dragged out of him against his will, “You want to know the truth of things? That first evening when you walked into the drawing room, my uncle at your side, his wedding ring on your finger, I just stared at you, refusing to believe that it was you. How could it be? I had left you, a very young woman, back in London. What the hell would you be doing with my uncle? Then George heard me and tore across the drawing room to jump on me. No, I didn't want to believe it was you, but since it was, then I didn't want to believe that you
had actually married my damned uncle. I still wake up sometimes during the night, and I will think for a couple of seconds that it isn't true, that you did not marry him, that you are still in London, waiting for me to come back. But of course you're here, and you're his damned wife.

“I was shot once, in those dry scrubby hills just outside of Lisbon during a fight with a band of guerrillas. I will tell you that the pain I felt seeing you here as my uncle's wife, was greater than the pain from that bullet in my leg.

“I knew I couldn't remain here and keep my hands off you. Oh, yes, I know you're terrified of me, of any man, I suspect, and perhaps you'll tell me one day why this is so. But it didn't matter. I wanted to touch you, kiss you, teach you that you didn't have to be afraid of me, ever. I would never hurt you, you see, and whatever happened to you in the past, I would make you forget it. But, of course, I couldn't do that. You are my uncle's wife.

“I knew I had to leave. I simply couldn't remain here and be near you, but not have you. I would know, day after day, that you were my uncle's wife, not mine. But then the old woman attacked you with one of my knives, taken right out of my own damned collection. Everything changed. I couldn't leave, not with you in danger.”

He was big and dark, and he looked more dangerous in this moment than a raging dark storm gathering speed as it roiled over the horizon. He never looked away from me. What I hated most was the pain I felt in him.

“God, how I wish you'd never come here.”

I wasn't afraid, not at all. I was something else,
something I now realized that I had felt with him that very first time I had seen him with George and he'd laughed and teased me, but then I'd been me and whipped it all up and made it a part of the deadening fear. But fear had nothing to do with it, and I knew it. I just didn't know if I could accept it, if I could even bring myself to come to understand it.

“You wanted me?” And I knew exactly what that meant, I felt it deep inside me, and I savored it and held it close and waited for him to answer.

“You sound incredulous. Are you so very blind to what you are? Oh, yes, from the moment you came after George that first time I saw you in Hyde Park, I wanted you. The look on your face, the outrage, the utter betrayal, that George wanted me more than he wanted you. I knew in that instant that you were the only woman for me. I hadn't laughed in a long time, too long a time, but the look on your face, it pulled laughter out of me until I was shaking with it. I wanted more. I wanted you. But then, of course, you would have nothing to do with me. It was the first time in my life that I have ever gone out of my way to attract a woman. But I couldn't have attracted you if my life had depended on it. By God, you wouldn't even tell me your name. It was an immense failure. I hated it, but there was nothing I could do about it except retreat. I came back to Devbridge Manor, planning to return to London after you were out of mourning.”

He laughed, an ugly mocking laugh, a laugh that was aimed at himself. “That was a rather remarkably disastrous decision on my part, wasn't it?”

I rose to stand in front of him. I felt as though I was standing in a deep hole, black earth all around
me, the gray heavy sky so far above me, and the hole was sinking and I was sinking deeper and deeper with it. I felt tears sting my eyes, felt them begin to slide slowly down my cheeks.

I watched him take off his glove. I watched his hand. He touched his fingers to my face, wiping away the tears.

“There has been so little between us,” he said, and now he cupped my cheek with his palm, “and there can never be anything more. I probably shouldn't have told you any of this. To be honest, it just fell out of my mouth without my permission, obviously without any sensible thought on my part. But none of it matters now, Andy. I can't leave until I find out what's going on here. I can't allow you to be hurt. I would rather cut my heart out than have you hurt. When you fell from Small Bess, I nearly expired with the fear of it. Do you understand, even a little bit?”

His palm was very warm. The ache inside me was very deep. “Yes,” I said. “I understand.” For the first time in my life, I raised my hand and lightly touched my fingers to a man's face, and it wasn't my grandfather. He was so very warm, so very vibrant, passion and life pulsing through him. I wanted to cry because I was a fool, because I had made a huge blunder, destroyed my own life, but it wouldn't matter. What was done would remain done. Nothing could be changed.

I dropped my hand.

“What do you think we should do?”

He looked away from me. He was tense. I confess I felt much the same. “The ball is the day after tomorrow. Guests will begin arriving tomorrow morning. There is no way to cancel it now. Uncle Lawrence
wondered about that when you were in your room resting, but he knew that guests were already on their way, some of them coming even from London. No, the ball will go on, and there will be guests remaining here for up to four days before they leave for other Christmas parties. What to do? Well, we will have to be on our guard. Please, you mustn't simply decide again that you want to think alone. I won't let you off so easily if you try it again.”

“Just what will you do?”

He smiled before he lightly closed his hands around my neck. He dipped his face down and touched his mouth to mine. I didn't move. I didn't do anything, just stood there, waiting for my brain to explode in fear, but when it exploded, it wasn't fear at all, it was quite something else. I didn't know what to do. Well, yes, I did. I wanted to throw my arms around him and hold on forever. But I didn't, of course.

Loyalty, I thought, I had promised my loyalty. Slowly, so much pain flowing through me I knew that he must see it, recognize it, I stepped back.

“We will get through this,” he said. “Come along, now, we'll go back to the Manor.”

I fell into step beside him. “I should enjoy hearing some of Lord Waverleigh's ghost stories.”

“Yes, just as long as they don't involve any of the restless spirits here at Devbridge Manor.”

I didn't agree. I wanted to know everything about anyone who had died here.

Everyone was in the drawing room. George was sitting beside Judith, his head on his paws, as calm as could be. Everyone was still listening to Lord Waverleigh. He looked up at us a moment, and waved
us forward. “You are looking well again, my lady,” Lord Waverleigh said. “Come and listen to this strange tale of the laird near Fort Williams who buried his wife alive behind his bedchamber wall.”

Judith shuddered. I admit that I couldn't see any reason not to shudder with that introduction. But I smiled and let John lead me to a chair. “Please, sir, tell us now if the dreadful laird came to a bad end.”