With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (4 page)

What other choice did I have, though? My thoughts flailed wildly. Miss Ingram was not unkind but completely engrossed in her good fortune. Even if I could rely on her to give me a reference, she was too absorbed in her own plans to be expected to seek out any of her acquaintance who might have the need—and means—for a personal modiste. Moreover, she would make every effort to prevent me from working for any of her professional rivals; just because she was leaving the theater did not mean that she would want any other prominent actresses to benefit from her departure. After ten years with Sybil Ingram, I knew that she would want her legacy to remain undimmed by comparisons to any other actress—even in as small a detail as their costumes.

My own circle of acquaintance was small and confined to the theater, so I could not rely on recommendations from them. As I mechanically helped Miss Ingram into her costume for the first act, I cudgeled my brains for another solution.

Finally, when the curtain had risen and all was quiet backstage, with only the occasional sound of the audience’s laughter or applause to disturb the silence, I took pencil and paper and began to compose an advertisement.

Skilled seamstress and dressmaker of more than 15 years’ experience seeks employment…

I worked over the details and wording of the advertisement for half an hour before I was satisfied. Tomorrow I would send it to several newspapers. Surely I would be able to find something suitable by this means.

Nevertheless, the necessity of seeking work from strangers depressed my spirits. I could faintly hear outbursts of laughter from the audience from where I sat in the dressing room, but that served only to make me feel more isolated as I awaited Miss Ingram’s first change of costume. There was no mending to do at the moment, no new garment to be sewn, and although I could have turned my hand to tidying the little room, I chose instead to indulge myself for a few minutes in memory.

Richard had been so easy to fall in love with. The golden son, cherished by his parents, doted upon by the servants. He excelled at everything he touched, it seemed, and perhaps that is what made him so reckless and daring: his mount was the wildest of stallions, his friends—so we heard—the most profligate and scandalous of men. Other stories circulated among the servants as well, of gambling losses, of duels, of debauches with fallen women and despoiled virgins, but these were easy for me to dismiss. Richard was not truly like that, I knew, and such gossip would have arisen about any young gentleman as handsome and dashing as he. I knew he was no rake. I knew it because he loved me.

This was still so miraculous to me that all these years later my breath still caught when I considered it. Desired by everyone, admired by everyone, this young man with the world at his feet had singled me out among all women.

We were discreet, of course—no other choice lay before us. At first it was merely glances held too long or given too frequently. Occasionally he would tease me by jerking the strings of my apron in passing, or winking at me when no others were around. Then it was murmured words and shared laughter. By the time of my seventeenth birthday we were meeting in secret. Nothing more untoward than kisses passed between us, although sometimes this was due to my strenuously resisting his attempts at further liberties.

“Anyone would think you a highborn lady, you’re so careful of your virtue,” he said once as I fended off his busy hands, even as a smile tempered the words.

“I am half a gentlewoman,” I reminded him a bit stiffly. It was never pleasant to be reminded of the gulf between us. “My mother—”

“Yes, I know the story. Your worthy mother was gently born, and her efforts to foster the lady in you have been most effective.” He grinned, and the sight almost made my heart stop its beating. “A pity, really. Such a fine tigress to be trained in timidity.” With a fingertip he traced the line of my throat, and then downward over the bodice of my dress to my bosom, and I pushed his hand away.

“If you won’t behave, I shall have to go.”

He gave me a wounded look. It was those eyes that always came near to undoing me. His strong jaw, fine straight nose, and high, wide brow were formed with a strength that was almost overwhelming, like engravings of classical heroes. Indeed, strength was what I associated most with Richard—with both his body and his will. But his eyes, extraordinarily light blue, were unexpectedly candid and revealing. The rest of his form boasted of splendid vigor and energy, the pinnacle of man’s fleshly self; his eyes, though, afforded a glimpse of his higher being. A man with eyes like those could not be a cad, no matter what gossip whispered, and I knew that as surely as I knew my own name.

“I’ll behave, as you call it,” he said, that rich voice like a caress. “But Clara, don’t be angry. I can’t help myself when I’m with you.”

It was impossible to be angry with him, and I said so. For as exasperating as it sometimes was to be on constant guard against his hands creeping under my skirt or into my bodice, it was also, I must admit, flattering—and exciting. And in my heart I knew that these advances were more in show than in earnest, a game that we both enjoyed but whose unspoken rules he would not break.

There was one day in particular that proved the depth of Richard’s feelings for me, and how much he valued what we shared. The memory of that idyllic afternoon had sustained me through all the years since. It was so perfect and so precious that I avoided recalling it too frequently, lest I wear its beauty thin like the fragile fabric of a gown worn too many times. Only when I was in the lowest spirits did I permit myself to recall the entire episode, as one would perform a ritual—and indeed, very nearly holy was the memory enshrined in my mind.

It was a Thursday afternoon in early summer, my precious half day free from my duties, and he and I had arranged to meet at the folly, as we often did when the weather was fair. From there we might wander through the woods, taking a nearly overgrown path where no one but us ever walked, or go to the old grotto, another architectural folly of the first baron’s, where we would be assured of privacy. The ruin, with its two partial walls forming a right angle where they met at the tower, was on a rise that offered a fine view of the grounds and the back of Gravesend, so that we could see whether anyone was approaching. I had once tried to climb to the top of the tower, but Richard had hauled me down bodily, protesting that the old stairs were unsafe… or perhaps he merely wanted an excuse to pick me up and carry me, making me squeal in delighted indignation.

He had little love for the mock ruin, though; it was I who found it so fascinating and romantic. So I was surprised that day, when I arrived breathless from hurrying to find him lounging against the inner wall chewing idly on a blade of grass, that he was content to remain.

“I brought us a picnic,” he said, gesturing to a bundle near him.

“Truly? You don’t mind staying here?” I dropped down onto the grass beside him.

He smiled, looking as lazily contented as a cat lying in his pool of sunlight. Richard was usually happier in motion than at rest, but perhaps the beauty of the day had cast its spell on him. The sunshine filled up the little space inside the walls of the folly as wine filled a goblet, and it seemed to make everything more vivid than ever before. The grass was a tender new green, with violets springing up everywhere in little darts of purple and white. Auburn glints shone in Richard’s hair, and when a cardinal alighted briefly on one of the arched openings in the wall it was as if scarlet had been invented just for that moment. But the most breathtaking color was the crystalline blue of his eyes.

“I know how you love it here,” he said, reaching for the bundle and removing a bottle of wine and a meat pie, which he must have wheedled from Cook—or stolen when her back was turned. “It’s picturesque, I must admit, even if its history isn’t as eventful as it’s said to be.” He attempted to spread the cloth out on the ground even as the breeze tried to toss it back into his face, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of this most splendid of men confounded by domestic arrangements. I took over the laying of the cloth, and he seemed content to watch me do so.

As much in love as I was, I nonetheless had the appetite of a normal girl of seventeen, and he and I made quick work of our improvised meal. When nothing remained but crumbs, the joyous glow of the sunlight persuaded me to push back my bonnet, letting it hang by the ribbons tied around my neck. I plunged my fingers through my hair to free it from its pins and let it blow loose in the breeze.

“I feel so free,” I said. “I love being here with you.”

He reached out to twine one of my wild locks around his fingers. “And I with you, pet.”

“What did you mean before, though, about the folly’s history? Don’t tell me the first Lady Telford did not truly fling herself from the tower.”

That won a laugh from him. “Are you so bloodthirsty that the idea disappoints you?”

I could feel myself blushing. “It is a terribly sad story, but you must admit there is a kind of—of splendor to it. That she and the first baron loved each other so dearly.”

“It’s too fantastical a story to be true,” he said idly. He seemed more interested in playing with my hair than in the conversation, but this was what I was accustomed to in him. “When are property disputes ever so romantic? No, I don’t think there was any suicide or any curse, either. I suspect the Blackwoods made themselves heartily disliked—as well as wealthy—simply by being the most successful smugglers in the region, not because of a curse.”

“They were smugglers?”

“Indeed they were, and ruthless about it. They disliked competition and did their best to stamp it out.”

“But how did they get away with it?”

The lucid clarity of his eyes kindled with his smile. My heart never failed to respond to that expression with a little leap in my breast. “Everyone smuggled in those days, pet,” he said, his voice warm and caressing. “The Blackwoods were neither the first nor the last—they were just the most unpleasant. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they themselves invented the story of the curse to keep people from nosing around the grounds and discovering where they stored the contraband goods.”

This was a new view of my employers’ forebears, and I was not at all certain that I liked it. “That is so… sordid,” I said.

“You prefer the romantic version, as tragic as it is?”

“It’s far sadder to keep living all the years and decades after losing your love,” I said positively. “A love that passionate is worth any sacrifice for. You always used to say the same.”

“Did I? Well, a man may change his mind, after all.”

“He may indeed,” I said, and there was a wistful note in my voice. Never had Richard behaved in so polite and gentlemanly a manner before, and I was, womanlike, contrary enough to be disappointed. He had not kissed me even once. I could not help but wonder, despite the thoughtfulness he had shown in bringing about this picnic, if perhaps his interest in me was ebbing.

My voice must have revealed my thoughts, for he put a hand under my chin and tipped it up so that I looked into eyes. That clear blue gaze had never seemed to read me so well, or with such understanding. “There’s one thing you may rest assured I’ll not change my mind about,” he said softly. “I’ll always love you, Clara.”

For a moment I could not find my voice. I could only stare into his eyes, into that depth of understanding and tenderness so vast that it nearly swallowed up all thought. “You’ve never said that before,” I finally managed to say.

The fingers beneath my chin moved to my cheek. “I know, and I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You should scold me for that. But not… just… yet.”

Even as my lips parted to upbraid him, he was kissing me. But this too was new. Instead of the fierce, swift kisses that seemed to insist on ever more intimacy, this was slow, tantalizingly so, as if he relished every moment and every shade of sensation that passed between us. Coaxing, almost teasing, but as leisured as if we had our whole lives to do nothing but this.

The effect was captivating. Under the magic of his touch I too found the pleasure in slow, drawn-out kisses that savored the warmth of his breath and the dizzying sweetness of his lips on mine. I could not catch my breath, but that seemed unimportant; my limbs seemed to dissolve so that I could no longer sit upright and sank backward onto the springy turf, and he followed after.

A tiny part of my brain whispered of the danger of this reclining position. Richard would seize upon this as an invitation; it was a move in our eternal game that put me at too great a disadvantage. But to lie on the sun-warmed grass with the man I loved drinking deep from my lips was a heady bliss I had never known before. He had unfolded his heart to me; perhaps this new stage of our game would take us to a place more beautiful and precious than the endless advance and rebuff that had constituted it up to now.

I opened my eyes when his touch left my lips and found him gazing down at me with an expression almost serious. The sun behind his head made a nimbus like auburn flame. Then I felt his fingertips at my throat, unfastening the top button of my bodice. His eyes were looking a question at me, and I knew, without a word being spoken, that he would stop the moment I asked him to.

A finger slipped between the parted edges of my bodice, and my breath caught at the touch of his fingertip on the sensitive skin there. His eyes, though, were still fixed on mine, still silently questioning if he might proceed.

It was the first time I had permitted such a liberty, but somehow I felt that I could completely trust him. With a sigh I closed my eyes. I would stop him soon. Just a minute more and I would stop him.

I felt another button gently released, and the touch of his hand, still light and gentle, proceeded down past the base of my throat. Another button. Still another. Where the edges of my bodice parted I felt the touch of the breeze along my skin, and the warmth of his fingertips. Then, making my breath catch in my throat, the warmth of his lips. A soft, lingering kiss, followed by more and more, proceeding unhurried along the sliver of skin he had bared. My heart was beating so quickly that I felt sure he must feel it as he kissed his way ever closer to it.

And then I felt a touch lighter still, a coolness that was neither hand nor lips, and opened my eyes in confusion.

He had plucked a violet from a clump nearby, and it was the flower’s stem I felt as he slipped it beneath the top edge of my chemise to lie between my breasts. “To remember me by,” he said, with the roguish smile that was so familiar, and to my astonishment he then began fastening my buttons up again, from where the violet lay hidden all the way back up to my throat.