“He’s off somewhere, doubtless by himself. The boy is driving me quite distracted. He is silent. He is withdrawn. I wish he would do something.”
Actually, Trevor knew the source of his younger brother’s discontent. He’d finally spilled the beans to his older brother. It seems he’d fallen in love only three days before they’d sailed to England. He missed Miss Mullens and blamed his family for forcing him to leave her.
“I will speak to him, Mother.”
“Good. Now, tell me again everything Mr. Burgess told you. Then I will formulate a plan. I will get the treasure away from here, you’ll see, and none of them will be the wiser. Oh why, Trevor, did you tell the two of them about the treasure? You’re an unnatural son. But I will win, you will see, my son who is too old, surely, I will win.”
The Duchess sat by her window, staring down on the drive. There was nothing to see, for the storm had blackened the summer sky and bloated black clouds hung low overhead. It still drizzled. She thought it a beautiful sight. She shivered with the beauty of it. She looked up when the adjoining door opened and Marcus strode into her room, all healthy and big and looking like a lord, which, of course, he was. She’d wondered where he’d been, if he had a splitting headache, if he’d been on his face, moaning with the pain she’d brought down on his head. Goodness, that made her smile, and she did now, watching him come forward, wondering what he would do. Would he scream at her? No, Marcus didn’t scream, he bellowed, he roared.
She couldn’t wait. Never again would she let him reduce her to a silent mass of nothing at all. Perhaps he’d brought a pistol with him and he would shoot her. She waited now to see what he would do, excited, her eyes narrowed, her pulse quickening. She would fetch a gun. She still wanted to shoot him, in his right arm.
It was as if he knew what she was thinking. “No,” he said easily, “my head only hurts in a dull sort of way, lucky for you, madam. I woke up and lay there on the tack-room floor for a few moments, just thinking about what you’d done. Now, it is time for dinner. You look quite adequate. The gown is still too revealing, but it is better than the other one.”
“Thank you,” she said, and looked away from him, back out onto the drive. “I don’t suppose you puked up your guts. I hoped you’d have a headache and a goodly dose of nausea from that blow I struck you. Did I manage to slash through your clothing to your flesh, Marcus? Did I mark you? A nice angry welt perhaps? I wanted to mark you, very badly.”
He thought of the two welts she’d struck him with that riding crop and said, “You’re wearing no jewelry. There is the Wyndham collection, you know. I have no idea of the individual pieces in it, but it’s bound to be something spectacular. I will have them fetched from the safe in the estate room. You may select what you wish.”
“Thank you, Marcus. Not even a single red slash mark on your strong man’s flesh? I’m disappointed. I must become stronger. I do want to mark you. I want to mark you forever and whenever you see that mark, you’ll know I was the one who did it and perhaps you’ll even remember the pain of it.” She rose and shook out her skirts.
“I don’t want your bloody jewelry.” Evidently he wasn’t going to speak of what had happened in the tack room. He walked to her now, stopping within inches from her face. He cupped her chin in his palm and forced her to look up at him. “The Wyndham jewelry is also yours. If you don’t want your jewelry, I really don’t care.” He looked down at her silently now, brooding, then said, “I will never think of the tack room in quite the same way again. I will picture you lying on your back, your hands caressing me, drawing me closer, your legs parted for me. I will see your head thrown back, arched up, moaning and crying out.”
She merely smiled, cocking her head to one side, a coquettish cocking, she hoped as she said, “It is probably in my blood, my harlot’s blood. Perhaps it would be the same with any man. Perhaps I did you a great disservice by forcing you to marry me. Who knows? Perhaps if another man touches me, I will immediately toss up my skirts and moan for him as well. I am sorry that is all you remember from that encounter. I would prefer that you remember pain, Marcus, a lot of pain. A bit of humiliation as well. Bested by a woman. I do hope it grates and rubs.”
“Don’t try to bait me, Duchess. Now, I haven’t forgotten what happened after you turned into a wild woman for me. You took offense at nothing at all, struck me with that riding crop, then knocked me out with that damned bridle. Yes, I felt pain from your unprovoked attack. I simply haven’t yet decided what you deserve in return.”
“Doubtless I will be the first to know, once you’ve made up your mind.” She smiled at him again, a full, wide, white-toothed smile. “I will do it again when you behave like a damnable bastard. Don’t think I won’t. No more will I be a placid cow. You try to hurt me in return and I swear to you, Marcus, that I will make you very, very sorry. Believe me.”
He whistled. “So, the serene, silent princess is no more. What has been spawned in her place?”
“Most certainly you will see, being who and what you are.”
He stared at her, and she would have sworn that there was a flame of interest, no, more than interest, it was puzzlement and it was fascination. The damned man, what did he want from her? He said now, obviously dismissing her and what she might be, “What did you do with the sketches of the drawings in the monk’s book?”
So be it. She’d meant it. No more would she simply take the verbal pain he piled on her head. No more. She actually felt quite good at this moment. She fetched them from the marquetry table drawer and gave them to him, smiling all the while. He smoothed them out and stared silently down at them. “This scene in the village square. If I’m not mistaken, it’s Kirby Malham. See the stone cottages in the background and that little hump-backed bridge across the water? That could be the River Aire.”
“What is its importance? Why is the priest blessing the people?”
“I don’t know. I am certain that this sketch is of Saint Swale’s Abbey, no doubt about that. And Mr. Burgess—our interesting relative—also thinks so. I believe I’ll explore the ruins tomorrow. I haven’t been near them in years. Like you and the Twins, Charlie, Mark, and I would sport in those small monks’ cells, contriving all sorts of vile tortures.”
“I believe Trevor plans to visit them tomorrow, when it stops raining. Both he and James.”
“Damned bounder. He knew, damn him, he knew that I wanted you right at that moment, and if it hadn’t been raining buckets, he would have gone about his treasure hunting without me.”
“He knows that if there is a treasure, it will belong to you, Marcus.”
“He is, I am forced to admit, a gentleman, mayhap even honorable, in the way of the stiff-necked Colonists. But his name still irritates.”
Marcus laid down the sketches, turned, and took her in his arms. He leaned down and kissed her, his fingers tightening on her chin to hold her still. She didn’t move, not because she was silent and serene and calm, but because she wanted to see what he would do. He misunderstood her, not a surprise for he was a man and used to seeing her only one way for a good ten years. He raised his head and laughed. “All calm again, silent as that candle, though you’re showing no flame and I did just kiss you. Tell me, Duchess, was your virago’s temper an act? I’m tempted to insult you into another rage just to see what you will do. Right now you play the frigid virgin, or is it the disdainful queen? But if I had but a few more minutes with you—” He sighed and stepped back. “There’s no time for me to do a proper job with you now. Ah, there’s that smile of yours, that damnable mocking smile. But know it, Duchess, if I had the time and if, naturally, I was in the proper mood, I would have you yelling and bucking within minutes. However, it’s time to face our Colonial relatives again. You said that Badger was preparing mutton?”
“Yes, with apricots. And you hold a quite high opinion of your seductive skills, Marcus. Don’t forget—” She actually laughed, a low very seductive laugh. “I am my mother’s daughter. You’re
just one man, perhaps not all that skilled with women, I am too inexperienced to judge properly. It’s true that my body seems to respond perhaps too much to you, but there it is. There’s a world full of men, charming men, handsome men, skilled men, who just might find me utterly delightful. Perhaps one of them will give me a child. Who knows? Oh, yes, Badger didn’t have time to hash the mutton. No, he didn’t.”
He laughed, dismissing all her fine talk—the bloody fool—took her hand, and laid it in the crook of his arm. He patted her hand. Let him think she would fold, like a sheet in the hands of the upstairs maid.
She knew she’d hurt him, at least a bit. Wasn’t he planning retaliation? Surely he wouldn’t ignore what she’d done. He’d try something, indeed a man like Marcus wouldn’t allow another person, particularly a feeble woman, a token wife who’d saved his damned hide and had thus, obviously earned his contempt and his indifference, to get away with what she’d done to him. She’d struck him repeatedly with the riding crop then hit the side of his head with a bridle. What was wrong with him? Ah, she knew Marcus better than he knew her, at least as of today, she knew him better. She was ready, just let him try his worst.
“I think Mr. Badger is wonderful.”
“He’s a servant, Ursula. Pray mind your tongue and remember who you are.”
“I’m an American, Mama.”
“You are the granddaughter of an earl. Mind your tongue.”
Trevor said easily, “I would say that Ursula has got it right, Mother. All of us are Americans. I fought the British, despite my antecedents. Besides, that isn’t the point here. Badger is a man with more talents than most I’ve ever known.”
Marcus said to Ursula, “What do you think of Spears?”
“Mr. Spears is ever so kind and patient. He has a beautiful singing voice. Today I heard him singing a song about Lord Castlereagh and the upcoming Congress in Vienna. It was very funny even though I didn’t understand all of it.”
“I believe I heard the Duchess humming it as well,” Trevor said. “Do you remember the words, Duchess?”
She gently lay her teacup back on the exquisite Meissen saucer and recited:
“Vienna’s the place to make your mark.
Bring enough groats so they’ll roll over and bark.
Tallyrand will cede France for a bagatelle;
Castlereagh has most of Portugal to sell.
Don’t forget to lie through your teeth.
Dance on your tongue, not on your feet.
It’s time to steal; it’s time to play;
By all that’s holy, it’s the diplomat’s day.”
“How the devil do you know that ditty?”
She slowly turned her head toward her husband. “Why shouldn’t I know it, Marcus? I am a sentient human being, truly, despite what you or others may think. Don’t you think it clever? I myself believe the writer of these ditties to be beyond clever. There’s real talent in them.”
“There have been many of them and it seems that Spears knows all of them. But you are a woman, Duchess. How do you know it, and by heart?”
“Ursula just told us that Spears was singing it. I do listen occasionally. I have an excellent memory. Most ladies do, Marcus.”
She was lying and he simply didn’t know why. She was mocking him, another unexpected result of the attack in the tack room. She’d changed, but perhaps not. Damnation, but she fascinated him. He frowned at her even as he accepted a cup of tea from his worshipful cousin, Fanny, who fluttered her long eyelashes at him, eyelashes that would slay many a young gentleman when she had her Season in London in three years. Was it three years? He must remember to ask the Duchess. His wife.
“It’s clever but you don’t sing it well,” Aunt Wilhelmina said. “Ursula here has a lovely voice. I trained her myself.”
“Oh, Mother! The Duchess is perfect. Did you hear her recite the ditty? She’s wonderful.”
“Not all the time,” Marcus said. “No, there are many sides to her, and after this afternoon, I have discovered that not all of them are what a man would expect.”
She had no intention of staying in her bedchamber that night to see if he would come to her. He was a man who was used to being in control. Truth be told, she was afraid that if he touched her she would melt all over him. She couldn’t allow that. She moved to the small bedchamber at the end of the east corridor known as the Gold Leaf Room and burrowed beneath covers that were old and musty and smelled of years of disuse. She couldn’t sleep, but not because of the strangeness of the bed. When her thoughts weren’t of Marcus and what the devil she was going to do, they were of the Wyndham treasure—what it was and where it was. A treasure from the time of Henry VIII. That there had been such a treasure she now accepted completely.
She sighed, threw back her covers. In a few minutes, she was walking quietly into the vast Wyndham library, her single candle casting little useful light throughout that room with its high bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling. Where to begin?
She lit a branch of candles then began at the left-hand side of the door with the books at the very bottom.
A clock in the corridor outside the library chimed four strokes when she at last looked up. She had no idea it was so late. She held the huge volume in her arms, still not believing her luck. She felt elation at her discovery. When she’d come to the library, she’d really not believed she’d find anything. Ah, but she had. Carefully, she eased it down on the massive mahogany desk and gently separated the pages.
It was the same tome that Mr. Burgess had, all in Latin script and with those strange drawings.
She’d found it quite by accident just moments before when she’d dropped an incredibly old book whose pages weren’t cut, but had still been dusted once a month by the industrious house staff, but never read. And behind that old book had been this tome, layers of dust on it, obviously not seen or read for as many years as it was old.
Who had hidden the book and why? She felt her heart begin to pound as she turned those final pages. The drawings were just a bit different, but to be expected since each tome had been done one at a time. St. Swale’s Abbey still appeared unutterably depressing, drawn in such stark black, and the scene in that village square was as strange as the other. Slowly, she turned the page. There were final pages here, not ripped out as they’d been in Mr. Burgess’s copy.
It was in Latin, naturally, and there were two more pages.
She leaned down, bringing the branch of candles close to study the words. She could make out some of them. There was the name Cromwell, ah yes, the vice-regent for Henry VIII, and something about men he’d sent, arrogant young men who owed their souls to their master, Cromwell. She skimmed her finger down the page, stopping when she recognized the word for tree and cistern. Defeated with the remaining text, she turned the final page and to her surprise, there was one more drawing. It showed an incredibly old oak tree, gnarled and bent, towering over an ancient stone well. There was an old leather-bound bucket attached to a chain from the crossbar above. There were piles of rocks in the background, not set at random, but rather planned. But what did they represent? The oak tree dominated and it was on a small rise. The sky was blackly ominous, seeming to bear down on the scene, the stroke of the quill strong, the stark black lines still as black as sin.
Then, quite suddenly, she heard something, naught but a small sound, perhaps just the wind whispering, but not here, not in this immense, closed library, but there it was again, that small sound, as if someone were breathing softly, but it was still in the back of her mind, not alerting her really until it was too late. She was turning when she glimpsed a shadow and felt a rush of panic just at the moment the pain against her temple sent her into blackness.
19
SHE OPENED HER eyes to see Marcus’s face very close to hers. He looked worried, definitely worried. About her? No, Marcus didn’t care enough about her to worry. She blinked and yet again she saw the lines of his face deepened, his blue eyes darkened even more. Why
would Marcus be upset? It made no sense. Besides, he was blurry, so she had to be wrong. Without warning, a shaft of pain nearly sent her back into the darkness. She moaned with the shock of it.
“Marcus,” she said. She raised her hand, but felt him gently draw it back down. “Shush,” he said. “Just hold still. I know it hurts. You’ve a huge lump behind your left ear. Hold still, all right?”
She wanted to speak, but knew if she did, the pain would redouble in its force. She nodded and closed her eyes against it.
She felt his fingers on her face gently pushing the hair from her forehead, smoothing it behind her ears. Then she felt a cool, wet cloth cover her forehead. “Spears said that soft muslin soaked in rosewater would help reduce the pain. Badger says that you can’t have laudanum yet, not until we’re certain you didn’t scramble your brains with that blow you took.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm then, and without thought, she turned her face ever so slightly to press against his warm flesh. “That’s right, try to relax. When you’re better you can tell us what happened. James found you unconscious on the library floor, the candles guttering on the desk above you. It was the candlelight that brought him into the library. He thought you were dead.
“I must say, Duchess, you gave me the fright of my life, not to speak of what poor James felt. He was stammering with fright, white-faced as any famous castle specter. Don’t do that again. You must have fallen and hit your head on the edge of the desk. It was after four in the morning when James found you. What were you doing there? No, keep quiet, I forgot. Just be still. We’ll sort all this out later. Keep your eyes open for me. That’s right. And relax. Badger says we’re to keep you awake. That’s why I’m carrying on like a crazed magpie.
“Now, tell me how many fingers I’m holding up.”
She saw the fingers, blurred, but she saw them. She wet her lips and whispered, “Three.”