Seacliff (14 page)

She sensed a subtle change in his tone she could not quite identify. She set the thought aside when he dismissed the women with a wave of his hand and assisted her to the couch.

“Are you well, Caitlin?” he asked, his eyes sympathetic. “You have been weeping.”

“It’s so big,” she whispered, looking around the room. “It’s all so big.”

“That is my worry, my dear, not yours. It is, after all, what a husband is for.”

A log split, and a rainbow of sparks showered toward the chimney. She felt tears again, and Oliver quickly placed a cloth into her palm, sitting back until the weeping had passed.

“He was a fine man,” he said. “I was proud to know him.” It was the grief, she told herself, and the sudden sense of being overwhelmed by all that was now hers. But she couldn’t help feeling his words were somehow perfunctory, almost parroted. But before she could dwell on it, and before in the same moment she could query him about the guests, he suggested she visit the staff in their rooms.

“They would appreciate your presence for a minute or two,” he said. “And in point of fact, I’ve already told them you’d be there.”

“Oliver!”

“Duty, my dear,” he said with a brief smile. “You must get used to it.” He stood and took her hands to assist her to her feet. “I have directed Mrs. Courder the elder to serve us in here when you return. I shall be waiting.”

Her lips parted to protest his organizing her return, but she saw the wisdom of his actions and decided not to press the issue. With a grateful nod, she moved around the hearth, slid open a pair of paneled doors, and walked down a narrow corridor dimly lit by tapers in silver sconces. Ahead was a similar doorway, leading into a slightly smaller sitting room overlooking the rear yard and the bay. With a glance to her right she turned in the opposite direction and made her way along the carpeted hallway, passing the library and the family dining room before reaching the end. Here, set deep into the wall, was the entrance to the south tower and the ground-floor warren of staff quarters.

She waited for a long moment, gathering strength. Without exception they had been deeply devoted to her father—many of them shielded by him since birth—and though she knew they loved her as well, it was a matter of grave conjecture how they were responding to Oliver.

Finally she lifted the latch and stepped through into a brightly lit corridor filled with aromas and odors—not of polish and age-old tapestries—but of sweat, honest toil, homespun fabrics, and unperfumed tallow. Above her, on the second floor at the back was her own spacious apartment from which, as a child, she’d made many a clandestine excursion to mingle with Gwen, Davy, and the others.

This, however, was different.

Now she was Seacliff’s mistress, and she felt curiously alien as she made her way to the common room ahead. There were voices, none speaking in English and none raised louder than a reverent whisper. But as soon as she stepped in there was silence.

She smiled broadly, and the silence was broken.

The room was twenty feet long, the furniture designed for temporary respite only—hard chairs, a battered couch, several open closets containing stoneware and glasses. A half-dozen narrow doorways led to the staff kitchen, bedrooms for the single servants, two-room suites for married couples without an outside cottage. And all the servants seemed to have assembled here for the moment. They babbled at her respectfully until Elaine Courder bulled her way through and took her traditional position.

“Mistress,” she said in English, “we all be so pleased you come home.”

“I wish the circumstances had been better,” she said, wondering at the choice of language.

“He was a fine man,” a deep voice boomed from the back of the group.

She nodded agreement. “Indeed, Orin Daniels, and this house will never be shed of him.” Then Alice Courder burst into tears and was led away to a chair. When the others seemed upset, Caitlin shook her head and spoke deliberately in Welsh: “There’s no shame in it. Let her be. And Mrs. Courder, I don’t know what my husband has ordered for dinner, but I trust it’s suitably substantial.” She rubbed a hand over her stomach. “The English are preoccupied with starving the barbarians.”

A heartbeat passed before the men chuckled their approval and the women hid their laughter behind cupped hands. Then she passed among them, speaking softly, accepting their condolences, feeling the love washing over her gently. Within ten minutes, however, she was at the side door and out, having decided there was one more visit she had to make before dining. She said nothing, but Orin Daniels was suddenly at her side, and they crossed together to the cottages backed against the south wall of the main structure.

Orin, unlike his younger brother, was short, sturdily built and bearded. He was the estate’s farrier, and his brawny arms and thick waist attested to the vigor he threw into his work. His face was round, perpetually sullen, and his left eyebrow was a fire-scorched scar that paled when he lost his temper.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Not good, mistress,” he said bluntly. In Welsh. “He coughs blood these days, and he sleeps poorly.”

She sighed and followed him into the first home to one of two rooms curtained off at the back on either side of the hearth. She headed directly to the left-hand cubicle and pulled aside the worn woolen hanging. A man lay on a cot beneath a slotted window, covered to his pointed chin by a sheepskin stained with food and spilled drink. His hair was streaked an unpleasant gray, his dark eyes lusterless as they glanced from the windowpane to her face. His mouth was small, the smile he gave her weak.

“Mistress,” he croaked, and broke into harsh coughing.

She knelt by the bedside and stroked his hand. “You’re a trial to me, Les Daniels,” she scolded softly. “A genuine trial.” She glanced over her shoulder, and Orin shook his head.

“Mistress.”

A groping for her hand, and she let the old man take it. “I be so powerfully glad you think to come to me ’ouse.”

“I missed you, silly.”

“No. No, you didn’t, really.”

“Father!”

“It’s all right, Orin. He’s been at me all my life, and I’d be afraid for him if he changed now.” She grinned at the old man, then, and leaned over to kiss his sunken cheek. “If you need anything, you’ll send a son?”

“Nothin’ can ’elp me now, mistress.”

“Bosh,” she said as cheerfully as she could while rising. “You just eat Mrs. Courder’s food, and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Daniels could only hack loudly into a dark-stained cloth, as she left the cottage quickly, Orin beside her with a lantern in his hand.

“Not the winter, mistress,” he said.

“I know. And that man taught me more about horses than anyone. And the stories at night, all those terrible things about creatures that creep into your bed and feed on your blood. She shivered in remembered delight. “A good man he is.”

“A fool,” Orin grumbled. “Ain’t never wanted t’ see no doctor.

Says he can manage his own dyin’, thankee very much.” They walked in silence to the tower entrance, but when he made to open the door for her she laid a hand on his arm. He hesitated and frowned, suddenly ill at ease.

“Orin, why… why were they all speaking English in there when I went in?”

Daniels looked to his boots and sniffed, then at the hand that wiped at his shirt.

“Orin,” she warned.

He sniffed and wiped a hand over his mouth, muttering at the same time.

“What?”

“Orders,” he said then. “I said, it was orders.”

She stepped away a pace and stared at him perplexed. “Orders?

What orders? Not to speak the language?”

“In the house, mistress,” he said, his gravelly voice unnaturally quiet. “We’re not to say anything in the house unless it’s in the English tongue.”

“I’ll be damned. Who told you a fool thing like that? Bradford? My God, I’ll have the man’s own tongue for this. Who does he think he—”

“No, mistress,” Orin said. “’Twas Sir Oliver what told us. His man brung us a letter what the vicar had to read to us.” Caitlin put a hand to her forehead, to her neck, bunched it into a fist that finally dropped to her side. “I don’t believe it, Orin. This is impossible.

What man? Tell me what man brought this letter.”

“Don’t know, mistress. I never saw him. Mrs. Courder gets it and since Gwen be with you, she takes it down to the vicar who reads it to her. She told us.”

“I’ll be…” She started for the door, the chilly sea wind now cooling a simmering rage. But as her hand took the latch she realized there was something Orin hadn’t told her. She turned; his face was averted from the lantern’s weak glow, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of the accusation written on her face. “Orin?”

“Mistress, it be late.”

“Orin!”

The big man pulled in upon himself like a child expecting a stiff blow.

Caitlin, however, was in no mood to draw him out by inches.

Her scowl deepened, and she took a short step toward him. She stopped short when he recognized the faint twinges of fear that belied his size. “Tell me,” she urged.

“You’re not to… Mrs. Courder, she tells us—”

Her foot stamped on the ground so suddenly that he jumped. “Orin Daniels, you stop this ridiculous nonsense instantly and talk to me, do you hear? Straight out now, Orin. What else did the letter say?”

He inhaled deeply. The feeling that he would turn and run was suddenly so strong that she almost reached for his arm.

“We’re to speak the tongue, mistress.” He swallowed, and looked fearfully at the tower wall. “And if we don’t, we’re to get the sack.”

Stunned, Caitlin could neither move nor look away. Her glare was so intense that Orin finally lowered his eyes, muttering to himself as if he were casting a spell to ward off her rage. The lantern wavered in his grip, and the light flickering over the ground finally galvanized her. With a grunt of utter disgust, she whirled around and yanked open the heavy oak door. She opened it so quickly and powerfully that it flew out of her hand and slammed against the outer wall. Those still milling around in the servants’ common room jumped to their feet and gaped as she charged through without seeing them. She barged through the next door with the palm of her hand and fairly raced down the corridor. She paid no heed to the voices raised in astonishment behind her; all she could think of was the talk, the very long and informative talk she was going to have with her husband about the conduct of Seacliff’s affairs.

“Fool!” she whispered as she stormed toward the south tower’s entrance. “The blithering, bloody fool!”

It was one thing—and in a sense perfectly understandable— to take over command of the staff without so much as pretending to consult with her; it was, however, very much another to command that same staff to speak a language not even its own. Why, she wasn’t even sure everyone knew English, except perhaps to hear and understand it. Old Les, the perfect example, would rather die on the spot than let a single word coined in London pass his withered lips.

“Fool. Idiot!”

She exploded into the main house, pausing only long enough to slam the door behind her with a rattle that brought a humorless grin to her lips. Then, with her hands in white-knuckled fists at her sides, she headed directly for the drawing room, talking fiercely to herself and punctuating her monologue with sharp tosses of her head. Her breath came in short, heated bursts, and her stomach, feeling light, threatened to make her queasy. She slowed, then, and finally came to a halt at the doors of the main room, her lips drawn between her teeth, her chin raised defiantly.

Driving back an impulse to kick the door aside, she closed her eyes tightly and winced at the spinning lights that whirled behind her lids.

This will not do, she thought, licking her lips and swallowing hard several times. You can’t go in screaming at him, or he’ll not listen to a single word. He’ll march off and leave you there looking like a simpleton. Besides, you’re a lady, remember? You must act the part, be his wife, and for God’s sake stay reasonable.

But how could she possibly be anything approaching reasonable in the face of what she’d just learned? And what manner of unholy demon was it that drove the man to issue such a self-defeating, highhanded, impossible command? It was as though he thought her no more important than the scullery maids, with no more brains and no more wit than a patch of rotting moss on a dull rock. It was absolutely unthinkable that he could—

Her temper began flashing again, clouding her ability to think. She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut and struggled to restore a fragile calm. Her chest swelled as she inhaled deeply, quickly, hoping to cool the dangerous fires of her indignant rage before they consumed her.

Damn the man for his incredible impertinence!

She swayed, and reached out a hand for the wall. The coolness of the panel reached her almost instantly and triggered another spell of breathlessness. She swallowed the sour gorge that had risen in her throat. Her free hand pressed against her stomach. One heel tapped unevenly on the floor.

All right, she thought when control seemed hers once again; all right, I’m fine.

Her hand dropped slowly from the wall, covered the other, and she was amazed at how cold her skin felt. She felt as if she’d been hollowed out and filled with fire, yet there was a dampness to her flesh that made her think of autumn fog. With a start, then, she buried her fingers in her skirt and opened her eyes, relieved that she could see without the dim red veil spread over her vision of a few moments before.

Oh, Oliver; and this time the name was thought not in rage but in helpless melancholy. Oh, Oliver, why did you have to do something like this now? She looked to the ceiling, to the floor, to the doors. Her father was dead. Was Oliver so blind that he couldn’t see how in her state she could be easily perturbed?

She held her hands in front of her and willed them to cease their violent trembling. Several minutes later they did, at least enough for her to take hold of the knob without rattling it. But she didn’t wrench it open. The moment her fingers touched the cool brass she realized that throughout the process of calming herself she had been unconsciously listening to a dialogue inside the dining room. She moved closer to the door. Who… ? With a glance in both directions to make sure she was alone, she leaned her head closer.