With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (18 page)

A strange wheezing exclamation came. I realized it was Lord Telford laughing. “Pretty words don’t expunge dirty deeds,” he sneered. “Her filth will corrupt the Blackwood name, along with that illegitimate brat. Do you mean to set the child up as a courtesan? She has the brazenness for it, as well as the extravagant wardrobe—paid for with Blackwood money, I’ve no doubt.”

“This has gone quite far enough.” Atticus raised his voice to cut across his father’s tirade. “I came only to tell you that you’re not to do anything further to hurt or frighten Clara. No more sending your valet to plant nasty little notes in her room. No spreading stories about her past to prevent her being received. If you cannot treat her with the respect she deserves—”

“Then what?” was the triumphant rejoinder. “What is in your power to do to me, my boy? You cannot prevent me from talking.”

Nor from writing, evidently. So it was my father-in-law who had written the note, and the shaky lettering that I had attributed to a working man with little practice in writing was due to age and illness having made the old man’s hand unsteady. Had his words just now not been bad enough, the idea of his taking the time to deliberately write the note, and then having it delivered to my room to be planted there, made my stomach turn.

Atticus was still trying to minimize the damage his father could do. “You’re ill,” he said. “Too ill to receive visitors. With no one to tell them to, your ugly sentiments can go no further.”

“You cannot imprison me, Atticus. Brutus will carry me wherever company is assembled. I’ll spread word far and wide—”

“What could it possibly gain you? Why do you take such satisfaction in—”

The words ended in a crash that made me jump, and Genevieve darted me a frantic look. What had happened? “Atticus?” I cried, without thinking, and started back as the door was flung open.

A wild-eyed Atticus stared back at me. “He’s collapsed,” he said hoarsely. “We need the doctor.”

“I’ll find Mrs. Threll,” said Genevieve instantly, and darted off before I could speak, let alone move.

“Where is Brutus?” I asked.

“I’ve rung for him. Can you help me?”

“I’ll try.”

The crashing sound, I saw as soon as I stepped into the sitting room, had been Lord Telford’s chair. It lay on its side, and the bent, thin shape had fallen with it. The old man’s eyes were closed and his jaw was slack, and he appeared to be unconscious; but he was twitching slightly, which I seized on gratefully as a sign of life.

“He’s had a seizure,” said Atticus. His face was white and strained, his voice urgent, but his hands were gentle as he slid them under his father’s shoulders. “If you can move the chair when I lift him, I’ll get him disentangled. I’d like to move him to his bed.”

“Of course.”

Once the old man was free of the chair, it was the work of moments for Atticus to carry him to the other room. Indeed, the baron looked so slight that I suspected I could have supported his weight. He wore a dressing gown over nightclothes, and his slippers had fallen off his feet. I fetched them and, when Atticus did not stop me, placed them on the fragile-looking, veined feet. He had not regained consciousness. How weak he looked in this state. If I had not known better, I would never have imagined so frail a form able to carry on so fierce and venomous an argument. Standing over the bed, Atticus looked so strong, so healthy.

“Was his first seizure like this?” I asked. I spoke nearly in a whisper. I wasn’t sure whether I was afraid of waking him or whether some superstitious impulse made me afraid of being irreverent. A more cynical inner voice suggested that we could not be certain he was not mimicking unconsciousness and listening to all we said.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t with him when it happened.” He dragged his fingers through his hair in a despairing gesture. He was still fully dressed in his evening clothes and had evidently gone straight to his father’s rooms to upbraid him after I sent him away. “How much did you hear?” he asked.

“Enough to know that your father is the one who wrote the note.” He must have directed the valet to place it in the jewel case as an indication that the jewels were not by rights mine to wear.

His eyes shut briefly as if his strength was unequal to this latest revelation. “I’m so sorry, Clara. I never dreamed that by bringing you here I’d be subjecting you to his revolting assumptions.”

No,
I thought,
only your own.
The old man had only said aloud what Atticus had thought of me. “I wouldn’t have heard if Genevieve had not happened by and been frightened. She went to fetch me… although I’m not certain what she thought I could do.”

“She heard as well?” he exclaimed. “Good lord, the poor child.”

“I don’t think she believed what she heard. As far as she is concerned, they must have seemed like the insane ravings of an ill old man who has lost his wits.” The words were harsh, but I was in no frame of mind to be generous.

Anything Atticus might have said to that was forestalled when Brutus entered the room. The valet was younger than Atticus or I, with close-cropped hair that gave him a disreputable look and the sturdy musculature of a bull. Presumably he had been selected for his ability to easily carry his master when necessary, but now that Lord Telford was more wasted, the valet’s strength was not as vital. Since the baron did not seem the type to patiently endure discomfort of any kind, he must have been pleased with Brutus enough to keep him in that office. Evidently the man was loyal enough—and discreet enough—to perform such unconventional duties as secreting hateful anonymous letters in the rooms of those his master disliked.

The valet entered discreetly enough, as one responding to a ring, but as soon as he glimpsed the tableau by the bedside, he crossed the room in two strides, staring. “Is he—”

“Alive, but unconscious. He has had a seizure. A doctor has been sent for.”

The valet stepped over to the washstand, poured water into the bowl, and moistened a towel with it. He wrung it out carefully and returned with it to the bedside, where he placed it almost tenderly on the old man’s forehead. I thought I saw the crepey eyelids flicker, and his head moved.

“Ma’am, if I may speak plainly—” the valet began.

I realized that if he needed to loosen or change Lord Telford’s clothes I would be an unwelcome presence, as indeed perhaps I already was, depending on how much Brutus shared his master’s view of me. “I’ll leave you now,” I said. “Atticus, let me know if I can help in any way.”

“You might look after Genevieve,” he said.

“I had already planned to do so. Good night, and I hope the doctor has good news.”

If he had intended to say more or detain me, I did not give him the chance but walked quickly from the room. Genevieve was just nearing as I emerged.

“One of the footmen has gone to fetch the doctor,” she said breathlessly. “Is Lord Telford—?”

“Still unconscious, but resting, and we mustn’t get in the way. I’m sure they will send for us if we are needed.” I tried to reassure her with a smile. “It’s time you were in bed and getting some rest. We don’t know what may happen tomorrow.”

A little crease appeared between her brows, but she nodded dutifully and let me walk her to her room and see her inside.

My own steps slowed as I returned to my rooms. Until now the realization had escaped me that if this latest attack proved fatal, I would soon be free of my arrangement with Atticus. I would be able to leave this house where I was seen as an inferior and a strumpet, and could begin anew on my own terms, in a new home… in a new identity. I did not even have to be Clara anymore unless I chose to. At that moment, I felt that it would be a great relief to be someone else… someone whose past was untroubled by scandal or grief or loss.

When I reached my door, a movement caught my eye where the shadows clustered most thickly at the end of the hallway. I froze with one hand in the act of taking hold of the doorknob, but the movement was not repeated. Out of the corner of my eye I had thought I saw a form that put me in mind of Richard, but as soon as I turned my head the impression was gone. The hallway was empty save for myself.

It could not have been Atticus, for he was standing vigil at his father’s bedside until the arrival of the doctor; he was not here, waiting for me, eager to explain or soothe or cajole. I must have imagined him simply because my emotions were in such upheaval that he was foremost in my thoughts. Unless my heart had conjured up Richard himself… the Richard I remembered, not the tarnished figure evoked by Lord Veridian and Atticus.

Suddenly I remembered my first night at Gravesend, when I had thought I heard my own name whispered, and realized I had never completed my inspection of the hallway for hidden rooms or passageways. But in that moment I was grateful for the omission. I would far rather imagine that the disturbance had been caused by a servant on his way to a tryst in a secret chamber than that there was no such chamber where a person could hide.

With new resolve I turned the doorknob and stepped into my room. It was not truly a shelter from all the ills that took place at Gravesend, but at that moment it felt like one.

After that strange moment in the dark hallway, it was perhaps not surprising that I dreamed of Richard and of our last meeting, when, warmed by sunlight and kisses, I lay dreamily enfolded in the assurance of his love. Even the scent of the violet he had placed in my bosom returned to me, sweetly lingering over the dream. When I opened my eyes in the morning I saw why: on my pillow, next to my head, a single violet lay.

I sat bolt upright, my eyes darting to the doors as if I would find the deliverer of the flower just exiting, but all was still. In any case, who would have thought to place it here? No one but Richard and I knew the meaning that a single violet held for us.

A cold shiver raced up my backbone to tighten my scalp, and I extended one finger to touch the flower. It seemed real enough.

My mind returned to that uncanny instant last night when I thought I had glimpsed Richard. Perhaps, I thought, staring at the tiny flower, which was still as plump and fresh as if it had just been plucked from a dewy plot, perhaps I had been letting Atticus take on too much importance in my mind. I had not been loyal to Richard. If my own mind had been responsible for what I thought I had seen, then my conscience had clearly been upbraiding me. Richard had been and always would be the most important man in my life.

Or perhaps there was a sweeter explanation. If the things I had heard and seen were signs that the house was haunted after all, perhaps Richard’s soul had found a way to lift the curtain between our worlds and leave me a token of his undying love. At that still, quiet hour of early morning, after a disturbed night and dreams of love, it did not seem so farfetched an explanation.

Whether Richard had been a spirit or a memory, the violet was real. When Henriette arrived to dress and coif me, I tried to ask her if she knew where it had come from.
“Cette fleur… d’ou?”
was the best I could do, and Henriette replied with a stream of French I did not understand. Finally she gave a shrug and spread her hands, but I was not certain whether she was saying she did not know where the flower had come from or simply did not understand what I was trying to ask her.

I laid the violet on my bureau, and after Henriette had departed, I unbuttoned my bodice far enough to slip the flower beneath my chemise and between my breasts. As a reminder.

The news that morning was sobering, but not dire: Lord Telford had been weakened by this latest seizure and was keeping to his bed on the doctor’s advice, but he was conscious and able to converse for short periods, and he seemed to have all his faculties. The guests expressed their concern and asked if they should leave, but Atticus assured them that they were welcome and that the ball planned for the evening would proceed as planned. Then he disappeared once more to his father’s chambers. His haggard face and the bruised color under his eyes suggested that he had not slept, and if I had not been so angry with him I would have felt the stirrings of sympathy. His limp was troubling him, another sign that he was exhausting himself.

But that is no concern of yours,
I told myself. My concern, and it was one that occupied the greater part of my concentration, was to keep my guests contented and entertained. It was a dismal, dripping day, a poor prospect for out-of-doors excursions, and I was grateful to Genevieve when she showed a natural flair for leading some of the more restless guests into playing tableaus while the more placid ones were content with piquet. The day was much shortened, fortunately, since everyone needed to array themselves for the ball, and many of the ladies withdrew even earlier to have a brief nap to refresh them for the late night.

I was too restless to do the same. When I sent for news of my father-in-law’s condition, the word came that there was little change; I thought of offering to stand vigil by his bedside long enough for Atticus to have a little sleep, but hardened my heart and reasoned that Dr. Brandt would send him away if he thought my husband’s own health needed attending to. The doctor, whom I had seen in passing, was a crisp-voiced, level-eyed man of middle age who was not given to softening harsh truths, and I knew that he would have no hesitation in ordering Atticus away if he deemed it necessary.

For the ball I was wearing the skirt of my claret-red reception gown with its evening bodice. This bodice was so brief it might have been made with the scraps of fabric left over from fashioning the other: it exposed nearly all of my arms and a great deal of my bosom, but although daring it was the very apex of fashion, and the mirror’s reflection told me that all of that bare skin made an effective background for the ruby-and-pearl collar.

The revealing cut did give me a qualm.
If he did not already think you a harlot, he would now,
came the unwelcome thought. But I stared my reflection down as Henriette fussed with my hair. This was how proper ladies dressed, ladies of Atticus’s class. As a servant I had never worn any dress half as revealing. The key was not to act self-conscious but to parade my bare shoulders and half-bare bosom as if they were no less magnificent than the Blackwood jewels. He would have no reason to be ashamed of me tonight…

…unless Lord Telford made his knowledge about me public.

I shifted uneasily on the slipper chair as Henriette pinned red roses from the glasshouse into my hair. He was in no condition to do that, surely. And if he was, could I truly be harmed by it? Humiliating his son might give the old man a mean satisfaction, but I would not be touched by it; indeed, I would simply be released all the more quickly from my term as Atticus’s bride, no doubt dispatched with great haste, the better to permit everyone to forget about the entire shameful incident.

The shame would touch Lord Telford too, though. Or would it? Did he feel himself close enough to death that he didn’t care if scandal encompassed him as well as the son he despised?

Altogether this train of thought was making me feel entirely too much sympathy for Atticus. As I buttoned my gloves and Henriette fastened my bracelets for me, I reminded myself how furious I was with him for making such coarse assumptions about my character and Richard’s. It astonished me that he had been able to hide them during all our time together. Never once had he betrayed that he thought me a fallen woman. He had treated me with respect, even affection.
So that he might claim the prize Richard had lost,
I reminded myself, but that Atticus had even considered me a prize was a marvel.

Shrugging off the thoughts, I gave my reflection a final scrutiny in the looking glass, and Henriette, likewise surveying me, gave a nod of approval.
“Trés belle,”
she said.

“It is a beautiful gown,” I agreed. And the elaborate hairstyle with its crowning flowers and long, seductive curls was a marvel. No, I would not embarrass the Blackwoods tonight. I pressed her hand and said a clumsy but sincere
“merci”
before I rustled my sumptuous way out of the room and down the stairs to the banquet hall.

Under Mrs. Threll’s supervision, the staff had done a magnificent job of decorating it. It was clear that so much work had been necessary that I was glad I had told her to hire on temporary help from the village, even though that had been the means of introducing the unhappy Collier into our midst before. Swags of fabric in gold and black, the Blackwood colors, draped the stone walls, and garlands of hothouse roses in white and red shed their lush sweetness on the air. On the sideboards, which were covered in white linen cloths and lighted with shining silver candelabra, reposed serving dishes filled with all manner of delicacies. The pleasant beeswax-and-turpentine scent of the highly polished floor met my nostrils, and for a moment I felt the tug of aching muscles between my shoulder blades at the memory of polishing it years before. I would ask Atticus to provide all the servants with a bonus for their efforts, I decided, as well as a holiday in which to recover from their exertions. Tonight Gravesend did not feel hostile to me. On this, the night when I might be exposed as unworthy to be its mistress, it chose to reveal its festive and welcoming side.

Genevieve soon popped up at my side, brimming over with excitement. Her ball gown of pale green mull with gold ribbon stripes had one of the new Worth fan trains and a bodice slightly less revealing than mine; but then, at my age, I had a bit more bust to fill it out—one of the few advantages my age held over hers.

“Gravesend is so beautiful,” she sighed, looking about her at the festive scene. “It is more than that, though. It is… what is the word the English like for their homes? It is
stately.
Like you, dear Aunt Clara.”

“Genevieve, you needn’t butter me up,” I said, wondering if she was familiar with the idiom. “I suppose Atticus told you to heap me with compliments.”

“Indeed, no; why should he do that? He told me that he knew I should love you as if you were my own mother.”

My lips tightened. The poor girl’s own mother, I had learned through carefully indirect questioning of Mrs. Threll, had been dead some seven years, without having been reunited with Genevieve. I wondered if it had been wrenching for her to part with her child—or was it a relief, knowing she never need fear her husband’s recognizing something suspicious about the girl’s looks or manner? Perhaps she had even been grateful that her child would live a life of comparative luxury, far beyond what her real parents could provide.

But that did not make it right for Atticus to have thrust Genevieve and me together on the assumption that we would adore each other. Even though he had thought he was doing us both a kindness, it had been rash. Extraordinarily generous to have turned his own life over to the building of a family of three relative strangers, yes—but decidedly rash.

Remembering last night’s disastrous reckoning, I wondered if he was regretting that decision now. Genevieve, for her part, seemed to have largely recovered. “You have not asked me about what Lord Telford said of me,” I said in a low voice. “About my having been a servant.”

She cocked her head with a perplexed air. “I did not think it mattered,” she said simply.

Atticus joined us then, his evening clothes flawless but his face pale. Though his expression was bleak, his eyes seemed to widen with appreciation at the sight of me. “By heaven, Clara, you take my breath away,” he said in a voice that made the words a vow. He did not even seem to notice that Genevieve was present.

My only reply was to incline my head, and when he offered his arm I rested my fingertips on his sleeve in the smallest amount of contact consistent with the appearance of normality. We entered the banquet hall in silence and walked the length of it toward the dais—a distance that was longer that night than it had ever been before, lined as it was with so many watching eyes. After the drama we had provided on the previous night, our guests might well be anticipating entertainment far beyond the music and dancing.

Finally I broke the silence. “You’ve not slept, have you?” I asked. It sounded more accusatory than I had intended.

“I don’t recall,” he said. “Clara, I must tell you again how very sorry—”

“Your father, is he much the same?”

“Much the same, yes. He took a little broth. But—”

“I’m glad to hear it.” I was neither glad nor sorry, but I took a mean pleasure in preventing him from speaking, knowing that he would not risk drawing attention by pressing the point. I had won the last word, for now that we had reached the dais at the far end of the room, it was time for him to address the guests and officially begin the evening.

If I had not been so angry at him, if the sight of him had not made me seethe with indignation, I would have thought him at his best then. Bone weary he most certainly was, worried and sick at heart, but he stood tall and strong, even appearing at his ease, though his knuckles were white on the hand that grasped his walking stick and my eyes detected a slight tremor in his bad leg. His smile was genuine as he surveyed the guests in all their finery. Their numbers were swelled by neighbors not staying at the house, so this was the first time that I had laid eyes on many of the company, and they me. Nearby was Genevieve, most gorgeously arrayed of them all, who stood beaming in the center of a crowd of admiring young men.

“Friends,” he said, and I had forgotten the full effect of that warm, slightly husky voice until I heard it raised and amplified by the vaulted ceiling of the banquet hall, “I am delighted to welcome you to Gravesend to celebrate my marriage.”

How little there is to celebrate,
I thought, but I did my best to summon a smile the equal of his own.

“Thank you for coming to meet my beautiful wife, Clara, and the other wonderful addition to the Blackwood family—my ward, Genevieve.” She curtseyed gracefully, and I wondered if I ought to have done the same. But it was too late now. There was polite applause—or perhaps more than polite where directed toward Genevieve, who seemed to have the capacity to make people fall in love with her almost on sight. Atticus continued, “Traditionally, I would ask you to join me in a toast to these two ladies. But, as you know, my father’s health has suffered a setback, so I would ask that you raise your glasses to him and drink a health to Lord Telford.”

“To Lord Telford,” echoed the company, and the sound echoed until it was as loud as thunder. Then the musicians struck up Sir Roger de Coverley, and I wondered with a sudden dart of anxiety how on earth Atticus expected to lead the dance, as exhausted as he was.