The Deception (12 page)

“You misunderstand me. Your uncle and your cousin Marissa, both hated the sea. Marissa would never walk down here, said the salt air was too cold, and gave her gooseflesh. The noise from the waves made her head ache. As for the nasty salt spray, it made her hair stiffen into tight little screws.”

“Actually, your grace, my uncle was afraid of the sea, for he nearly drowned when he was a boy. Perhaps he passed his fear on to Marissa. I wonder, though. Why did she consent to live here? It’s not as if you don’t have other houses.”

It was impertinent, she knew, but it had come out of her mouth. She waited. He didn’t change expression, just shaded his eyes with his hands to look at Edmund rocking himself in his small sloop.

“My father and mother believed it was romantic here at Chesleigh, just perfect for two young people newly wed. They returned to London, leaving us here.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. “This romance my father spoke of, I never imagined such a lunatic thing possible. Two people cooing at each other, whispering nonsense, looking into each other’s eyes, spending hour upon hour in bed.” He laughed again, and this time it was even deeper, uglier. “Well, the last certainly, but that has nothing to do with the finer emotions. After marriage to your cousin, I can still not imagine such a thing. The only time your cousin ever whispered to me was when she told
me she never wanted me to touch her again.” He sighed, slicing his fingers through his thick hair. “Forgive me. Leave be, Evangeline. Marissa was very young. She shouldn’t have died. She would have loved her son. She would be living in London.” “I was told only that she died in an accident.” “Yes,” he said. “Ah, you really want to know, don’t you? Very well. Marissa was terrified she would die in childbirth. She didn’t, but her terror only grew. When she became pregnant again, she went to this woman in Portsmouth to rid herself of the child. Her life bled away. She was dead before she was even back to the castle. A damnable waste. I didn’t know until I found and read her journal after her death that she was so very afraid. I wouldn’t have ever touched her again, had I but known.” “I’m sorry,” Evangeline said. “Yes, I know.” He strode away from her to the dock, where Edmund was preparing to unloop the sloop’s rope from the ring on the dock.

He called out, “Edmund, if you fall into the water and I have to come in after you, I’ll turn you over to Bunyon. He’ll pin your ears back, my boy, if my Hessians get soaked with salt water.”

Edmund couldn’t get the rope unlooped. He tried three times. Then he shot it.

Evangeline waited until father and son were talking together before she turned her attention back to the beach. But she pictured her cousin’s face as she remembered her from all those years before. Poor Marissa. Poor girl. The duke was right. It was tragic.

She looked back toward the path, so wide and easy, trod upon by hundreds of boots and horse hooves over the years, over the centuries. Even Edmund’s Shetland pony hadn’t hesitated to go down the path. The three
horses stood in the sand, nickering to each other, eyeing the stream of gulls that dipped and wheeled over their heads, just out of reach. She scanned the cliff face for a sign of the cave Houchard had told her about. Nothing. She thought she saw a shadowy indentation and walked toward it. No, it was just a sharp bend in the rocks. Where was the bloody cave?

She slewed about at a shout of laughter. The duke held Edmund high above his head, threatening, she imagined, to toss him into the water. Then he lowered Edmund and tucked him under one arm, like a small, wriggling package.

“I think he’s half fish,” the duke said as he set Edmund back on his feet.

“You mean, Papa, like Eve’s half foreign?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right.” His eyes roamed over her, pausing at her breasts. He opened his mouth, then shut it. He said finally to his son, “Have patience, Edmund. We’ll leave your cousin in a ditch somewhere and come back for a swim. If, of course, it stays hot a while longer. Do you think Eve would like to join us?”

“My gun would float,” Edmund said.

“True.”

“But we don’t wear any clothes,” Edmund said. “Girls always wear clothes.”

“He is very young,” the duke said to her.

Houchard had described him very well, but this man, he was so very alive, so outrageous, so utterly wicked. Such a short time she’d been here at Chesleigh, with him, and she felt that wickedness twining around her, burrowing deep inside her, and she liked it very much. She said, “I am very likely a stronger swimmer than your papa, Edmund. Perhaps if it continues this warm, why then, you and I will swim
together and we’ll leave your papa in a ditch. But you know, even though it’s so very warm today, it’s still February, the dead of winter. The water must be frigid.” “What’s frigid?”

“It means,” the duke said, “that a girl’s parts would become too chilled to react. She wouldn’t drown, she’d just freeze. She wouldn’t be any fun at all.”

She said, “I haven’t the faintest notion what you just said, but it was probably perfectly wicked.”

“Here you are, an old married woman, and you don’t know anything about freezing up.” “I’m not old.”

“You’re older than I am,” Edmund said. “And Papa says I’m quite the young gentleman now.”

She looked from father to son. It was time to give up. She threw up her hands, laughed, and said, “I retire from the field, defeated.”

“Good,” said the duke. “It isn’t healthy for a lady to ever win a battle. Remember that, Edmund. Although it’s true that sometimes a gentleman must pretend that a lady wins. Remember that as well.” “I will, Papa, but I don’t know what it means.” “You’ll learn soon enough. I doubt the lessons involving the ladies ever stop until you croak it.” “You are a cynic, your grace.” “I have become a realist, Madame.” They said nothing more. Evangeline was vastly relieved when the horses climbed back up the cliff path with no hesitation.

D
orrie, a slight, gentle-looking girl of eighteen, Evangeline’s new maid, said as she fingered a pale yellow silk dress, “I remember this gown. Her grace wore it on Christmas morning. Goodness, it must have been five years ago, when I was just a young girl, newly here in service. She gave me my Christmas present herself—a sewing box. Mrs. Raleigh told her that I wanted to become a seamstress. So very lovely she was. Such a pity that she was taken so soon.” “You sewed for her?”

“Not then. She told me to do mending for the servants. I promise I’ll be careful, Madame. I’ve learned a lot in the past five years. I’ll make it more fashionable if you wish. You are tall. The ruffles wouldn’t look well. You need simplicity in the styling.”

“I agree with you, Dorrie. Remove all ruffles and anything else that moves you to remove it. As you can see, her grace and I were of a very different size. I am the maypole of the family.” Or, as the duke had said, she was a big girl. And he’d held her waist between his two big hands.

Dorrie examined the seams, the hem, then said briskly, “When I’m finished, all the gowns will look
as if they were made especially for you, Madame. And they won’t look old-fashioned. His grace’s mother sends me magazines with all the latest fashions. I read them constantly. You will look a dream, Madame.”

Evangeline left her, wondering if Houchard, who seemed to know everything about the duke’s family, had known that the duke would insist that she take his dead wife’s gowns. Houchard probably assumed that the duke would more or less use the gowns as payment after he allowed her to seduce him.

She knew that Edmund was taking his nap. The duke was with his steward in the estate room. The castle was quiet, at least as quiet as it ever was with nearly fifty souls moving about in it. She went to the North Tower. It was late in the afternoon. She saw only a lone footman in this part of the castle. She smelled the tower room before she was even close to it. It was a sweet yet tart odor, like rosemary mixed with cinnamon. She intended to find out what Mrs. Needle had meant when she’d told her she had heat in her eyes.

The odor grew stronger as she climbed the winding wooden steps. She rapped lightly on the old oak door and heard Mrs. Needle’s lilting singsong voice telling her to come in.

The old woman was standing in the middle of a circular room with windows cut deep on all sides, at least ten of them, thick wooden beams between them. It was an incredible room, divided into sections by thick silk screens. Tables curved against the walls, obviously built especially for this climber, especially for Mrs. Needle. On the tables were dozens of labeled jars in neat rows, three jars deep. There was a fire in the fireplace, a hob with a pot seated on it, sending out the cinnamon smell along with comforting warmth.
Even on a warm day like today, the fire felt good in this open room.

“Och, ye’ve come sooner than even I guessed ye would. Sit over here, little lassie, and I’ll give ye a nice cup of herbal tea.”

Evangeline nodded, and followed the slight old woman into the sitting area that faced the immense fireplace. A sleeping area was set in an alcove. The rest of the huge space was devoted to Mrs. Needle’s herbal laboratory. While she prepared the tea, Evangeline walked to one of the tables and examined the labeled jars. DRIED ROSEMARY, she read. CRUSHED GINGER BERRY. ROSE PETALS. IRINGO ROOT. JAMARIC SEEDS. And so many others, names she’d never heard of. There were several small braziers, small pots set atop them. From one came the strong odor of roses. She breathed in deeply.

“This is a wonderful room, Mrs. Needle,” she said, coming back into the sitting area.

“Aye,” Mrs. Needle said as she pointed an arthritic finger toward a worn crimson brocade settee. Evangeline sat down. “His grace’s father, Duke William, had it arranged just for me. He was a good lad, the former duke, strong and pure, loved his boy more than anything.”

“I have heard that. His grace—the boy—appears to have cared mightily for his father as well.”

“Aye, that’s true enough. His grace was such a wild lad, always into some sort of trouble, hurling himself into adventures to make a parent shriek, but not Duke William. He just laughed and told his boy not to kill anyone, not to impregnate any girls, and not to cause pain. He would have given his life for his son. It was a sad day when Duke William died. His grace changed on that day. For the longest time he seemed sober as
a monk; his eyes became cold and hard, all the laughter sucked out of him. Even now he doesn’t try anymore to turn his mother’s hair white. He’s become staid.” Mrs. Needle smiled, showing only two remaining teeth, both of them very white. “Aye, her grace still has hair as dark as a sinner’s dreams, just a few threads of gray.”

“I understand his grace married my cousin because his father wanted him to settle down.”

“Mayhap there was something to that. I think Duke William was very fond of young Marissa. He wanted her for a daughter and knew if he didn’t push his grace to the altar, some other gentleman would snap her up. And, as I said, his grace would have done anything for his father, anything at all, including marrying a girl he didn’t love. Don’t mistake me, lassie, the duke wanted her, and marriage was the only way he would ever have her in his bed.”

Evangeline was appalled. She sat forward, shaking her head. “Oh, no. The duke married my cousin because he loved her. I was told that by the people I loved and trusted.”

“Och, love, what a fanciful thought that is for a lad so young as his grace was when he met Marissa. He wanted her, little lassie, he wanted her in his bed and he didn’t want to let her out of his bed, and all knew it. He made no bones about it. He was young and wild and randier than a goat. Lust is the guiding principle, the only motive for a young man, nothing more, ever. His grace was no different. He saw her and he wanted her. His father was pleased. His son’s lust played into his plans perfectly.”

She poured Evangeline’s green herbal tea, which looked nauseating, into a lovely Wedgwood cup, then sat down opposite her. Evangeline took a very small
sip. It was surprisingly delicious, like tart apples mixed with something sweet. Mrs. Needle drank her own tea, slurping it between her teeth, and continued. “It all seemed to go so well until young Marissa discovered she was pregnant. Then she changed. She was afraid she’d die birthing Edmund, but she didn’t. But she remained changed.”

“Marissa’s mother died in childbirth. She was doubtless terrified of dying in the same way.”

“I thought that was true until I spoke to her. She trusted me, you see, to save her. She spent time here, questioning me endlessly. Her labor wasn’t arduous. I gave her laudanum to lessen the pain. Lord Edmund was born in just over six hours. She was just fine two days later. I even gave her herbs to dry her milk since she didn’t want to nurse Edmund.” “Marissa was fortunate you were here.” “Aye, that fool of a doctor that his grace brought from London, he didn’t want to give her anything. He believed that women should suffer, it was their lot, God’s will. Bosh, I said, and gave her laudanum when he stepped out of the bedchamber. She was bleeding too much after the birth, and the fellow simply shook his head and said he hoped it stopped, for he had not an idea of what to do. I took care of her. She healed quickly, as I said, after just two days. But it still didn’t seem to matter.

“I don’t wish to speak more of Marissa. Forgive me for being blunt, but at my age every moment is a gift granted by God. I don’t like to waste a single one of them. I know that ye don’t want to be here. Ye’re fighting yerself every minute about it. I wonder why. Perhaps ye’d tell me why ye came, came against yer will.”

Evangeline froze. “You’re a witch,” she said.

“Och, mayhap it is so, but there’s this feeling I get from ye. Ye’re afraid. But the strangest thing—ye belong here. That’s odd, now, isn’t it?”

“You know why I’m here, Mrs. Needle. My husband died and left me with no money. I’m dependent on his grace’s good will. I will be Lord Edmund’s nanny. There’s nothing at all odd about it. I’m most certainly not afraid of anything, at least anything that has to do with Chesleigh.”

“Ye’re a terrible liar, little lassie. Just terrible. Her grace spoke to me of ye several times. It was fond of ye she was. She wished she could see ye, see how ye were growing up, but her father and the former duke weren’t speaking to each other, and thus yer father had to side with hers. Wicked it was.”