The Countess (22 page)

“The very worst. The wife didn't die. One of the laird's men dug her out and nursed her back to health. I suspect they were lovers all along and that was the reason the laird had bricked her up, but there is no one to say one way or another. Anyway, the laird's man and the laird's supposedly dead wife made plans.

“The wife haunted the laird. I don't know the tricks they pulled on him, but they scared the fellow so badly that he ended up hurling himself from a cliff into Loch Ness, and many claimed to have seen the Loch Ness monster gobble him up.”

Judith gasped. Miss Gillbank squeezed her shoulder, then clapped. “A splendid end to the wretched man,” she said.

Miss Crislock said after a thoughtful moment, “That is the sort of tale that should curb wickedness. It fair makes the hair stand on end, Hobson. What do you think, Lawrence?”

My husband rose and crossed his arms over his chest. “My dear Miss Crislock, any wife who is unfaithful to her husband deserves to be bricked up.”

“Ah,” said Lord Waverleigh, “I don't know that unfaithfulness was the case at all. Perhaps the laird was just a bully and abused her and perhaps tired of her. Perhaps he didn't like the way she managed
his household, and thus he decided to do away with her, or he found another lady he preferred to her. Regardless, it wasn't well-done of him. Don't you believe he got his just desserts?”

Lawrence just smiled. “Now that you explain away any unfaithfulness on the lady's part, I suppose I must agree that a fall into the Loch Ness monster's maw was exactly what the laird deserved. Now, Andy, your cheeks look rosy. You're feeling just the thing now?”

“Certainly. I cannot wait for all our guests to arrive. The ball is very kind of you, Lawrence. I will meet all our neighbors.” I smiled at him, and felt the very real tug of affection that was inside me.

I turned. “Now, George, you have given Judith enough attention. It is time to come for a nice walk with me. Judith, I still haven't paid off my wager to you. Why don't you come with us, and we can wager again. Perhaps this time I will beat you, and we will be even.”

George, the traitor, selected the far yew bush that Judith had pointed to. I groaned, and went back to the house to fetch the shillings I now owed my stepdaughter, that laughing girl who now twitted me mercilessly. Lawrence was standing right there in the entrance hall, two shillings in his hand. He laughed as he handed them to his daughter.

And that night, when I pulled my derringer out of the deep pocket in my beautiful lavender gown to shove it beneath my pillow, I saw John's Moorish ceremonial knife, with its lovely red tassel. Its bur-nished gold edge gleamed in the dull light. It was quite beautiful. It could slice into a heart so easily.

I nearly lost my dinner at that moment the shock
was so great. I leapt back, slapped my hands over my mouth so I wouldn't shriek. George wuffed and jumped up onto the bed, his head cocked to one side. I just stood there, staring down at the dreadful thing.

Then I forced myself to pick it up. I didn't wait.

Both George and I walked down the long corridor to John's room.

H
e opened the door, wearing a dressing gown. He held a book in one hand. George went berserk. He picked up George, said nothing at all, and stepped back for me to come into his bedchamber.

I knew it wasn't proper, but that didn't matter.

“What the hell has happened to you? You're pale as death.”

I said nothing, merely held out the knife.

He sucked in his breath as he took the thing. He turned away from me and walked to the far corner of his room, where he kept his knife collection. I saw that his feet were bare. He had big feet, like the rest of him. Good feet, I supposed, steady, solid feet, I continued to suppose, my brain happy to focus on him for the moment, away from the deadening fear.

He returned, George still tucked under his right arm. “It wasn't there, naturally. Where was it?”

“Beneath my pillow. I was putting my derringer away. I lifted the pillow, and there it was.”

He pointed to the big winged chair set in front of the blazing fire. “Sit,” he said, and carried George
over to his desk, where a bottle of brandy sat. He poured me a good amount in a lovely crystal snifter.

“Drink it.”

I drank. The savage warmth of that brandy hit my stomach like a stone, then exploded. I gasped and coughed. “Goodness,” I said.

“Excellent, you've got your color back.” He walked to the fireplace and leaned his shoulders against the mantel. He was still rubbing George's ears. That idiot animal was trying to lick his hand as he rubbed.

“The someone who placed that circle of barbed wire beneath Small Bess's saddle wasn't pleased that there was no hysterical result, or no injury. And so it continues. It is like upping the ante in a card game.”

“Yes. The someone is succeeding. I am scared silly. I nearly collapsed on the floor, I was so afraid when I saw the thing.”

“Well, you didn't. You got yourself together and you immediately came to me to see if it was indeed the same knife. It is, of course.”

That wasn't entirely the reason I had come immediately to him, but I didn't say so. “Do you believe this someone could honestly think I would believe you the guilty party?”

“Good question. The fact is that someone came in here and removed the knife. Then the someone had to wait until your bedchamber was empty, then go in, with no one seeing him or her, and place the knife under your pillow.”

“Yes,” I said, and slowly rose. “I shouldn't be here. I must go back to The Blue Room.”

He walked me back. I said at the door, “I have
knocked against all the walls. I didn't find any sort of opening that gave onto a passageway.”

“I didn't know you had done that. It was a good idea. Keep your derringer close, Andy.”

He handed me George, who whined at his hero's rejection, patted my cheek, and strode back down the long corridor to his bedchamber, his dark blue velvet dressing gown flapping around his ankles. Strong, solid feet, I thought, staring after him.

Yet another night that I lay in my bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, with George snuggled next to me, wide-eyed, waiting for the sun to rise.

 

By noon the following day, thirty guests had flowed into the house bringing servants, laughter and holly and presents, and more trunks than I could count. Carriages swamped the stable yard.

“How will Rucker manage?” I asked Lawrence as we finished greeting Lord and Lady Maugham, longtime friends of the Lyndhurst family.

“I believe everyone coming to stay is here now. Rucker will manage. We have enough room for all the horses. How is Small Bess doing?”

“You don't miss a single thing, do you?” I smiled up at him, and for the first time I was wondering if he was the someone who wanted me dead or scared to my toes or perhaps even both. No, I thought, it made no sense at all.

But then again, nothing did.

“Yes, I was out seeing to her this morning. Her hock is much better, thank God. If we'd had to put her down, I would have been—”

He lightly touched his fingers to my cheek. “I
know, my dear. It would have hurt you dreadfully. Small Bess will be just fine. I also checked on her.”

And again, as I looked up at him I had to wonder: did you stick that horrid barbed circle of wire beneath her saddle? And I wondered if he had noticed the horrible deep cuts on her back. Evidently he hadn't. I supposed that Rucker had kept the blanket over the soft white cloths on Small Bess's back. And Lawrence hadn't noticed anything amiss, thank God. But then again, perhaps he already knew everything about all of it.

Miss Crislock came to my room when Belinda was helping me change gowns. I needed at least three gowns a day, and it required a great deal of time to get oneself looking just so with each change of garb. “It is the strangest thing,” Miss Crislock said after flitting about The Blue Room, looking through my armoire, and straightening bottles on my dressing table.

“What is, Milly?”

“Oh. I saw Amelia coming out of John's bedchamber yesterday. Isn't that odd?”

I felt my heart plummet to my knees. Amelia? No, I thought, no.

“Perhaps she needed to borrow something,” I said. “For Thomas.”

“Well, evidently she did. When I saw her a few minutes later come out of his bedchamber, she was carrying something wrapped in a cloth.”

I couldn't deal with this, I just couldn't. I kissed Milly's soft cheek, and together we went back downstairs.

The house was decorated with masses of holly from our home wood and the bags of it brought by
our guests. There was a huge Yule log burning in the cavernous fireplace in the Old Hall.

Gifts were beginning to pile up on every available surface. Just after lunch, a messenger from York arrived with a huge box for me. I nearly skipped up to the nursery, I was so pleased that it had finally come, and just in time, too. I had been preparing myself for the disappointment.

“Andy, goodness,” said Miss Gillbank, smiling at me, “you're visiting during an Italian lesson.” She turned to Judith. “Well, my very bright girl, what do you have to say?”

“Come sta? Favorisca sedersi.”
And she swept her hand toward a chair.

“Sto molto bene, e Lei?”

“Oh, goodness, Andy, I'm doing very well, too. Now, sit down. What is in that huge box? Is it my Christmas present?”

“Sorry, Judith, but you will have to wait. You see, I made this wager with Miss Gillbank. I lost, just as I am always losing to you. However, Miss Gillbank is a much more seasoned gambler than you are, and she insisted that the wager be something extraordinary.”

“Miss Gillbank, I didn't know you ever gambled. Is it true? What did you wager on?”

“Do you remember, dear Miss Gillbank?”

She stared from me to that box and then back to my face. “Funny thing, that wager of ours has completely slipped my mind.”

“Ah. Well, Judith, Miss Gillbank and I made this wager just after all of us had met in the garden. You had already dined once with the adults, and she wagered that you would be allowed to dine with us yet
again, very soon. I didn't believe it, after all, who would want to dine with a girl who is so very beautiful and sweet to George? And so I wagered nearly all I had that you would never again be allowed at the dinner table. And I lost.

“Just after all our guests leave, you, Miss Lyndhurst, are cordially invited to dine with all the adults, for a full week. Your father insisted.” That was a lie, of course, but who cared? “So, Miss Gillbank, here is your prize for your brilliant wager.”

And giving her no chance at all, I swept over to Judith's writing table, moved aside some books, and set down the huge box. I opened it, then stood back. “It is just as you ordered it, Miss Gillbank. I trust you won't be disappointed.”

Miss Gillbank was beyond mystified. She lifted the lovely silver paper and just stood there, staring, not saying a single word.

“What is it, Miss Gillbank?”

I said, “It is her gown to wear to the ball tomorrow night, Judith. What do you think?”

With Judith shrieking for her to hold up the gown, Miss Gillbank, still wordless, lifted out the beautiful gown I had ordered for her. I'd filched one of her gowns so Belinda could measure it. It was glorious, a golden velvet ball gown with an inch-wide band of golden satin beneath the breasts, the neck was very, very low indeed, and the sleeves were long and fitted. There were no bows or flounces or rows of lace. It was simple and elegant, its lines classical. She would look magnificent.

She held the gown in front of her. Judith touched the soft velvet and shouted, “Oh, goodness, you
must try it on for us to see. Now, please, Miss Gillbank.”

And Miss Gillbank, that very steady and composed governess, carefully laid the gown back into the box and burst into tears.

“Oh, dear,” Judith said to me. “Do you think she doesn't like it? Didn't you get exact instructions for what she wanted, Andy? Perhaps you misunderstood what color she wanted? Perhaps the neckline is too low? It rather looks like it would come only to her waist.”

Miss Gillbank laughed through her tears. She refused to try on the gown for us, mumbling something about she wanted to look just perfect before she put it on, which would be tomorrow evening.

I was whistling when I left the nursery. I had forgotten for a good fifteen minutes that someone wasn't happy with me being here at Devbridge Manor. What had Amelia carried out of John's bedchamber yesterday? Surely not the knife, surely.

I looked up to see a man duck around the corridor ahead of me. “Wait!” I shouted. “Who are you? Wait!”

But of course the man was gone when I rounded the corner. “Well, damn,” I said. My fingers were closed around my derringer. I was ready. I hadn't frozen.

That evening, garbed in yet another beautiful gown, I stood by my husband as thirty-six guests sat down at the dining table. I had overheard Brantley instructing Jasper and the rest of the footmen to fetch every table leaf from the storage room behind the pantry.

The table looked magnificent. The crystal shone, the silver and the dishes were perfectly arranged.
Brantley had hired on an additional ten footmen so that they were each responsible for only three guests each.

The menu, something everyone had advised me on, would have delighted even that fatuous gourmand, the Prince Regent. There were sixteen different dishes, I'd counted them as they were brought so elegantly and formally into the dining room.

I looked down the table at Miss Gillbank, simply beautiful in one of my gowns, lengthened for her, a soft Nile green silk with an overskirt of darker green silk. Belinda had dressed her hair. I had placed her next to the son of a local baronet I'd heard her mention once. She was laughing. I looked at Amelia and Thomas, seated next to each other, in the middle of the immensely long table. They were speaking softly to each other. About what? Then they turned, as if they'd planned it beforehand, to speak to their neighbors.

My dear Miss Crislock was seated at Lawrence's left hand. She was smiling at something he said.

Everyone seemed in good spirits. I couldn't begin to count how many bottles of wine were poured down guests' throats during that two-hour dinner.

I looked down at John, even though I didn't want to, even though I knew it would just make me hurt and question myself and call myself a hundred times a fool. He was seated next to one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life. Her name was Lady Elizabeth Palmer. She was a very rich widow and couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. I suppose that Lawrence was trying to marry off his heir and thus had invited her. To be honest, he had excellent taste. I didn't like her, but then again,
she hadn't been particularly pleasant to me when she had arrived with friends. She had looked through me, and that made me want to slap her, on both cheeks. But she was flawless, damn her. She had lots of thick blond hair all plaited up on top of her head, with at least a dozen tendrils falling haphazardly over those white shoulders of hers and surely too much white bosom on display. My grandfather would have looked at that face and bosom and not said a single word. He once told me he preferred to admire perfection in silence. And he would have remained silent for a very long time, curse him.