The Loves of Leopold Singer (11 page)

Something had happened. Margaret’s screams metamorphosed into wails of unbearable heartbreak.
No. No
.

Susan’s bedroom door opened. The midwife came in, worn out, but she eased Susan into the bed. Lying down was worse. Susan tried to stand again, but the midwife would have none of it.

“How is my sister?” But she knew the answer.

Hours later, when the house was silent with exhaustion and sorrow, Susan woke to the sweet song of a nightjar outside her window. She picked up her baby and studied his features in the moonlight. He had the deep brown eyes of his father and no hair at all on his head. She gasped as her heart swelled. What wonder was this? That such a small helpless person could give her back her heart and all her belief in life? Love like this made up for everything.

Once she had run to the woods to join the fairies. She’d believed her mother had foolishly left the enchanted world, given up everything good, to love her father. But there were no fairies. It was John Gray who had made a bad marriage and called it enchantment. He died and left his children to the care of a woman with no connections, no talents, and no ambition. Susan was no better than her mother or her father. She’d brought this beautiful miracle into a world that would call him bastard and see no beauty, no miracle.

She wouldn’t let his life be ruined before it even began.

She slipped down the hall and into Meg’s room. The midwife slept next to the bed, but poor Meg was awake, staring into the night. Her baby lay cold in his crib. Susan laid her own child on Meg’s bed and began to exchange the infants’ clothes.

“His name is Perseus,” she said. She offered Persey to Meg, who mechanically opened her night dress to feed him.

Susan turned and froze under the midwife’s stare. After an eternity, the midwife nodded her approval and closed her eyes again.

Susan returned to her room with aching breasts and the wrench of longing for the one who’d lived inside her these many months. Snow falling on the other side of the window made no noise. She laid her dead nephew in her son’s place.

1802, London
 

The carriage sent by the Duke of Gohrum waited for Marta and Leopold at the London docks as they disembarked the ship. A footman handed Leopold a note then set about the luggage. Leopold frowned at the note’s handwriting and slipped it into a pocket then handed Marta into the carriage.

“Let’s have the top down,” he said. “My wife has never seen London.”

Marta gaped at the cathedral they passed on the way to Gohrum House. “This is a Protestant church?” The magnificent St. Paul’s didn’t just open onto the street—rather, a plaza—or boast spires. It also had two baroque towers and a great dome. And yet it must belong to the Church of England; of course it was Protestant. They’d definitely left the Holy Roman Empire.

“I fear I’ll embarrass you among your friends,” she said. Leopold was acquainted with barons and dukes. He was richer than she’d supposed. In truth, she’d never really thought about it before their marriage, but discovering the extent of his wealth had been intimidating. Why did he choose her? He could have married a duke’s daughter—a princess!

 
“They’re not my friends.” Leopold kissed her forehead. “We might have gone straight to Massachusetts with the Zehetners, but I thought you’d like to see London.”

Marta was glad to escape Napoleon’s cannons, but she dreaded the coming encounters with Lady This and His Grace That. Her mother’s voice goaded her:
Who do you think you are? You’ll never be more than a draper’s daughter
. Marta was twenty years old, a married woman, and her dead mother could still make her feel like a worthless girl.

Leopold said, “You conquered Vienna. London will be easy.”

But Vienna hadn’t been easy, and there she could follow her aunt’s lead.

Leopold read the note and passed it to her dismissively. “It seems Lady Delia has snagged herself a peer.”

My Dear L,

How delightful to welcome you and your bride to the home of my husband, the Duke of Gohrum, during your stay in London. D.

“You know this lady’s handwriting so well?”

“I know that ‘D’. I met Lady Delia—her grace, now—when I was in London last. From the time she was informed of my father’s fortune, I found myself invited to every dinner she attended. I politely misunderstood her overtures, but on my last night in town when I was desperate to get away, she came to my rooms and suggested we marry.”

Marta didn’t want to hear about Lady Delia’s desire for Leopold. Of course he’d been with women before he married her. He was a man, after all. Besides, he played upon her body as if it was an instrument with which he was well-practiced. Still, she didn’t like knowing where he had gotten that practice, no matter how fine a musician it had made of him. She had long believed he’d had a lover in London. It must have been this duchess.

“I told her then my heart was already spoken for,” he said. “So she married the duke. Perhaps her new status has made her generous.”

“Or she wants to show you what you could have had.”

He kissed her hand and held it to his cheek. “My love, there is no comparison.”

At Gohrum House they were put in separate rooms. While a maid aired her clothes and arranged her things, Marta sank into the bedroom window seat and looked out on the garden. An earlier rain had left it sparkling with reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows. She stretched and groaned and wished she could sleep for a week.

“What is your name?” she asked the maid.

“Gray, my lady,” the maid said. “I wasn’t sure you would speak English.”

“My husband and I have spoken only English to each other since we decided to emigrate to Massachusetts. Still, I can hear it better than I can speak it.”

“I ordered a bath when I saw you had arrived.”
        

“
Ausgezeichnet
.” Marta let out a sigh of relief, and they both laughed.

The maid led Marta to the adjoining room where a tub of perfumed hot water sat on a patterned Turkey carpet. “I am not noble, Miss Gray,” Marta said. “’Mrs. Singer’ will do.”

“Yes, madam. And just ‘Gray’ will do for me.”

Marta eased into the water. She murmured a sensual purr as the warm liquid rolled over her breasts and soothed her shoulders. As her eyes started to close, the door flew open and a grand personage nearly knocked over the curtsying Gray. The grand person’s laugh made a brittle, crystalline sound as Marta tried to sit up without exposing herself.

“Sink back down, madam,” the grand person said. “Don’t let me take you from your bath. Does Gray meet your approval? This is her first time as a lady’s maid. We’re giving her a go.”

Delia fixed on the beautiful, simple creature Leopold Singer had chosen and glanced sideways at his slut. Though Gray had been away an unacceptable time with her dying mother, the duke had accepted her back into the household. It had proved better than turning her out. There was no end of ways to make her suffer.

Gohrum’s only requirement of Delia had been that she produce an heir. She had submitted to his pathetic groping, and before the year passed the marquess had been born. She turned the boy over to a wet nurse and placed a pretty, motherless girl as a maid-of-all-work in the duke’s suite. Now she was free to do as she pleased and be called “your grace” in the bargain.

Today, it pleased her to make Susan Gray attend to her lover’s sweet bride.

The insult of being given an inexperienced maid passed Mrs. Singer by. “Gray must have natural abilities,” she said. “I have been well cared for from the moment—”

“Pardon my loathsome manners, bursting in on you.” God, she was going to be a bore. “I simply could not wait another minute to meet the girl who captivated Leopold’s heart.”

“Your grace is very kind.”

“No one has ever accused me of that. Well, stand up, m’dear. Let me see your figure. Stand, stand!”

A fragrant breeze raised chill bumps on Mrs. Singer’s skin. The embarrassed naïve creature kept her eyes on the vines that clung to the open window, loaded with red and white roses.

Neither Delia nor Gray could help but stare at Mrs. Singer’s body, every curve graceful, lovely round hips, a hard, flat stomach, and full firm breasts. “That is sufficient. You can lower yourself again,” Delia said. “There is a late supper at Devonshire House tonight. You and Leopold are to attend. It’s fancy dress. I’ll send up something for you to wear.”

“Your grace is too kind.”
 

“That word again. You mustn’t think so, m’dear.” Delia turned to Susan. “You’re still here?”

-oOo-

Hot with impotent fury, Susan carried Mrs. Singer’s traveling clothes down to the laundry. This is how it was. This is how it would be. That beautiful, doll-like creature in the perfumed bath was Mrs. Singer. She had the right to call Leopold “my husband.” And though Susan might read a hundred philosophical tomes and understand every one, she would always be merely Gray. The scullery would be better than this mental cruelty.

She’d been back at Gohrum house for a week. The duke was not yet arrived from Millam Hall, and the duchess singled her out daily for some fresh humiliation. Now Leopold had come back, and she was to be lady’s maid to his wife. She felt like a fox surrounded by dogs; nothing good could happen here.

And yet, she couldn’t return to her brother and live in the room he offered. It would be too painful, for one thing, to watch her darling boy call another woman mama. More than that, she was determined to do all she could to give Persey the life she and her brother had lost. She had to be in the world to find her opportunity, not hidden away in a room, a nurse to her own child with no money, no power, no dignity.

Gohrum House wasn’t the place for her, but at the moment it was the best on offer. She could earn a little money to set aside for Persey’s education and in the meantime look for something better.

Ah, but none of what she told herself now was the truth. Of course she should never have accepted the demotion to lady’s maid. Of course she should walk right over to The Lost Bee, take the next coach back to Carleson Peak, and go to her brother. Of course she stayed, for the perverse reason that she had to see
him
. She had to know what kind of woman he had chosen. She stayed to hear his voice just one more time.

-oOo-

At last alone, Marta relaxed in the warm bath. The duchess was elegant, but Marta didn’t understand what Leopold saw in her. But then, that woman had been able to give her husband a child. Marta had seen the baby with his nurse. She thought of her last day in the village. Going home from seeing Gabby, she’d noticed the cathedral towers stark against the sky, and on impulse she had told the driver to take her there.

To that day, she had never gone inside, and as they were leaving the village forever it appeared she never would. She wasn’t sorry to leave Austria. The peace was fragile, dependent on Napoleon’s will. She wanted to give Leopold children, and she had come to believe she would never have them with war on her doorstep.

Every month she had watched for signs of pregnancy, but there was no good news. As she assured Gabrielle, Leopold was attentive and passionate. Indeed, she was happier than a woman was supposed to be in that way. But still no baby.

The carriage had stopped on the road near the massive building that had become dear to her, a touchstone. Like friends who sensed her need, the bells had rung, sending brassy vibrations through the air to wash over her. She had stepped out of the carriage.
Mutti is dead; she cannot touch me
.
Her heart had almost pounded out of her breast as she glanced about then slipped through the door.

Inside she had been bombarded by the lush sensuality of carved wood, lighted candles, and gold statues. The walls were covered with paintings of sacred scenes. A very pregnant young peasant girl passed her, followed by an older well-dressed woman who knelt, crossed herself, and moved to a pew. A scattering of people knelt in the pews, moved their lips, and worked strings of beads with their fingers.

Where was the priest? Reverend Haas would not like so many people muttering in his church, and this not even a Sunday. There were marvelous high ceilings compared with the undecorated, whitewashed little hall Haas presided over so importantly. Even the quiet had a thickness to it, pushing ordinary thoughts into a back corner of her mind. It was so grand. Maybe God was big enough to help her after all.

The pregnant girl lit a candle and entered a door tucked away near a wall. Marta moved closer, hoping to get a look inside the magical closet. While she waited, something else caught her eye, a bronze statue of a woman with a young man draped over her lap and an angel standing at her shoulder. It was Mary, holding her dead son.

Marta felt the Madonna’s agony, her longing and sorrow. The angel looked on the mother in her grief, its arms outstretched. Mary cradled the dead carcass of the incarnate god, oblivious to the god’s messenger. “Madonna,” Marta whispered like an incantation the only prayer in her head, “Give me children, or I will die.”