Clockwork Countess (5 page)

As the snow floated down outside, blanketing the estate in a veil of silence, the persistent ticking of the clock built
into
the carved
mahogany
book
shelves stretched his nerves
to
the
breaking point. 

Before he knew it, he had the
heavy crystal
decanter of brandy gripped in his hand and hurled it with all his might at the clock.  With an explosion of glass, the clock face shattered and jagged
fragments rained down onto the Turkish
carpet, but the unstoppable mechanism carried on, filling the yawning silence of the room with its
tick, tick, tick….

CHAPTER FIVE

The next few months passed like a strange dr
eam.  Rowan kept to her chamber
or took long restless walks in the frozen winter parkland, prowling the
snowy woods until he
r lips were
blue.  Hoping to tire herself out, to work out this gnawing mixture of frustration and desire that never left her.

             
Roderick stayed true to his word and avoided her company as if she w
ere something vile
,
spending all of his time at
tending to the needs of his tenan
ts and the estate. 

The heat bet
ween them was still there
.  She cou
ld feel its intensity on the rare
nights he joined her a
nd countess at the formal dining
table, or
when she
passed him in the gloomy halls, but the kinship, that feeling of having somehow found another living soul who understood her, who was simply her friend––that had vanished. 

Was it because of
his guarded manner
or her own rigid b
e
aring whenever their paths
cross
ed
?  Whatever the cause, she was more lonely than she could ever remember being in her life. 
It only made matters worse that the more she observed Roderick, discreetly from a distance, the more she grew to admire his compassion for the poor and sick of the village, his warmth and
surprising
playfulness
with the pack of hounds who
followed
at his hee
ls
wherever
he went.  She marked how he tirelessly
attended
to the needs of his estate while his brother presumably drank and whored his way through every gaming hell in London.  The more she studied Roderick, the more she craved his company, but it was the one luxu
ry denied her at Heartwycke
.
And the time
,
marked by the maddening incessant ticking of the clocks
,
seemed to crawl by.

             
One
evening
,
as
twilight fell over Hear
twycke Park, Rowan went to
the
countess’s
boudoir before dressing
for dinner to discuss the new batch
of gowns which
the seamstress had just delivered
.  Though she had agreed to leave her
mourning clothes behind, the fri
v
ol
ous
brightly
colored
frocks
felt
disrespectful
to Rowan so soon after her father’s death.  She knocked lightly on the
countess’s
door and was bec
k
oned in. 

             
S
he found the countess at her toilet, her lady’s maid
fastening
a steel
corset
around her
mistress
’s
tiny waist. 

Rowan could not help staring in fascination at t
he strange steel undergarment
,
until she
felt the countess's eyes on
her.

“Forgive me,”
said
Rowan
coloring
.
“It’
s just that I have never seen a corset made of steel.”

             
The
countess gave her a disdainful smile
.  “I do not doubt it.”

             
Rowan felt all her unsophist
icated youth
as
the color crept deeper across her breasts.

             
The countess’s
gray
eyes glittered l
ike diamonds in her lovely face as
she waved a small white hand motioning for Rowan to step closer.  “Come child, would you like to touch it?”

             
The morbid fascination Rowan felt propelled her forward and she stretched out her fingertip
s to run along the steel corset
circling the countess
's
waist.  It felt startlingly cold, and smooth…
.

             
“Rowan!”
The sound of Roderick's
voice startled her and she turned to see him standing in the doorway looking thunderous.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

             
“I was only…” Damn him, she had been doing nothing wrong!  And yet somehow she felt as if she had been caught in some forbidden act. 

             
B
ut he turned his furious gaze
o
n his mother now,
barely suppressed rage
wa
s written into every li
n
e
of his tense body.  “You, Madame, seem to have forgotten yourself entirely.
”

             
The cou
ntess shrugged her elegant
shoulders and smiled with detached amusement, but then
as mother and son stared at each other
,
her expression changed and she gave Roderick a piercing look.  “I forget nothing.” 

             
All the color drained from Roderick’s face.  Grasping Rowan by the elbow, he pulled her fr
om the room.  She trotted along
side to keep up with his wide strides as he led her along the flagstone corridors.

             
But when they were sufficiently far away
from the countess’s chamber, she
wrenched her arm away and turned to him. “Wher
e do you think you’re taking me?” s
he demanded.

             
He looked
d
own at her
,
all the barriers of carefully concealed
emotion
were gone
.  H
is face was dark with a mixture of anger and passion and was it
…
fear?  

“You must avoid my mother as much as y
ou can.  I’m
send
ing
you off to London as soon as possible,” he looked away and muttered under his breath, “I was a fool to think you could stay here.”

             
“What is it that I cannot know?
"
she
asked
.  “There’s some mystery here, I can feel it in
my blood!  Wh
y does the countess wear a steel corset and why does it upset you so much for me to know about
it
?
”

He stood resolute with his lips pressed
tightly
closed, but she followed his quick glance down the dark hall to the locked door that led up to the
forbidden tower
.

Rowan narrowed her eyes.  “And w
hy
can
I
never
go into the tower?
What is i
t you have shut up in there?”  H
er lips
began to
tremble
as an overwhelming sadness took
hold of her.  “What is
it
that keeps you so distant and cold towards me?”

             
He rubbed his hands across his eyes as if trying to wipe away all the thoughts, all the problems.  When he looked up there was compassion in his dark eyes and he took her hands gently in his.  She felt anew the seeping warmth and comfort of his hands gripping hers, just as she had the first time they met at the train depot. 

“Please do not
ask me these questions,” he begged.  “I swear to you I
have only your best interest at heart
.  You are so young and vibrant, so bright and very beaut
iful, you deserve to have your S
eason and find a husband to take care of you.”

             
She shook her head.
  “What if I do not
want some society puffin for a husband?  I never expected to be a part of that w
orld.  N
ever even wanted to be…
If only I had not promised my father to become a lady of the
ton
,
like my mother
,
I would
not
have come here!”

             
He squeezed her hands almost painfully. “Rowan, if you will not do what I ask for me, then do it to honor the promise to your father.  Please, stay away from the countess and let me bring you to London as soon as possible.”

             
She gazed up at him in frustration.  She didn’t want to leave him.  She could feel tha
t in every fiber of her being.  S
he didn’t know or care why. 
From the first moment
he had spoken to her at the train depot she wanted to simply be with him.
But she had promised her father, so
looking down Rowan
nodded her acquiescence. 

             
Roderick, led her to her rooms
,
and depositing her safely there
,
left without another word. 

*
             
*
             
*

The glow of Rowan’s candle cast leaping shadows across
the ancient winding staircase as she tiptoed along the worn stones
steps
.  It had not been difficult to
convince
Claire to “borrow” the key to
the
tower
room
from the
sleeping
butler’s keychain
,
and with that and one dim taper clutched in h
er ha
n
d
,
Rowan had crept th
r
ough the sleeping manor house toward the
twisting stairway and the
secret room.

             
Following the steep steps upwards, h
er heart raced as she brushed
clinging
cobwebs from her path.  She
had almost reached the top now and every nerve was strung as tightly as the springs on the
monstrous
ebony
clock
ticking away the hours
in the great hall far below
. 

             
When she reached the sturdy
tower
door,
Rowan paused
,
gathering her courage.

She could still turn back.

But then she would never know the secret of Heartwycke Park, the strange force that kept Roderick away, when she knew in her blood he wanted her just as passionately as she now had to admit she wanted him.  Somehow, his intention to send her to London had brought that one great fact to
the
for
e
front and she could not deny the truth of her own feelings any longer. 

Tak
in
g
a deep breath, she whispered, “Mary and Michael grant me your strength and protection
!”

Turnin
g the
key in
the
lock
, Rowan
pushed open the battered
medieval
door and
stepped into the forbidden chamber.