The Loves of Leopold Singer (5 page)

“My darling,” the countess said. “Gohrum is one of the richest estates in England. The shares in the East India Company alone—well, one can’t imagine.” Lady Devilliers waited for sympathy from her audience. Receiving none, she continued. “And we really must stop referring to the Duke of Gohrum as Millie.”

Delia stamped her foot. “I daresay a husband grateful for his wife’s good connections would be far easier to manage than one secure in his own greatness.”

Aunt Philly laughed at that. “Lady Devilliers, don’t you think a woman is as likely to be miserable with one kind of husband as another?”

“What care I for her misery? We’re all miserable.” Lady Devilliers wouldn’t give in. “The Duchess of Devonshire’s first party of the season is next month, but I suppose Millie won’t attend that, either.” She looked very sad, but then brightened. “Georgiana is going to have tableaux!”

“Lady Delia.” Carey took pity on D. “I believe this is the dance you promised me?”

“Oh, yes, it is.”

“Ladies.” With a bow, he led Delia to the floor. “I don’t think your mother will relent,” he said as the music began.

“Perhaps I’d better find a husband after all,” Delia said. “But not the Duke of Gohrum.”

Carey stopped talking—or listening, for that matter. He went through the steps and smiled at all the right people at all the right times, but his imagination had taken flight. Images of Laurelwood crept into his fancy and whispered their wonders to his heart.

“Pitman, you’re a saint.”

The maid helped Elizabeth out of her dress. She ripped off her shift and submerged her naked body in the hot water up to her throat and ears. She wanted to wash away every trace of that man.

Every night he came to her room. He didn’t speak. He bent her forward over her bed and lifted her skirts over her back and rutted from behind like an old bull. He seemed to take no pleasure in the act. He stayed long enough to fill her with seed, slapped her lightly—affectionately—on the bottom, and went away.

It had rained since she came to Laurelwood, and she felt like a prisoner in the huge, dark old house. Each night he tapped lightly on her door, entered her room, and placed his candle on the table. She’d lie face down over the side of the bed and he’d lift her skirts or robe and plow into her, finishing after four or five thrusts. She didn’t mind. It was better than kissing that mouth.

After two and a half months her nausea began to hang on even when Carleson was out of her presence, and the doctor was summoned. After an examination that was worse than her husband’s attentions, the doctor assured Carleson the deed had been accomplished.

When the doctor left them, the squire patted Elizabeth’s hand tenderly. “My dear, I want you to know you’ve made me very happy. Do not take umbrage when I fail to visit you at night these next months until after your confinement. It doesn’t mean I feel any less for you, but we must not endanger our son.”

It was sweet, actually. And the first time he’d said
our
son instead of
my
son.

The next the morning the sun came out. After breakfast, she slipped away from Pitman and left the house to explore the grounds on her own. If she didn’t have some solitude soon she was going to go mad. She fairly raced out into the morning sunshine.

It must have been the same glory Persephone felt on her return from Hades to the world of the living. The blue sky was dotted with puffy white clouds, and the sun was warm on her face. There were signs of spring everywhere, wildflowers and a distant sound of bleating lambs. To be out in the world filled her with euphoria.

She walked to the far side of the little lake. Wild grass still wet with morning dew drenched her hem, but no matter. It was all so beautiful. Passing a cluster of birch trees, a faint sound of footsteps stopped her. She heard it again, hard to place and amplified by echoing off the lake surface.

She crept to a weeping willow whose branches formed a curtain to the ground just at water’s edge. Parting them, she spied a white heron not ten yards away, perfectly still, its feet in the water, surveying the lake with a stern look. The bird lifted a long skinny leg and stepped deeper into the water without sound, then extended its neck a supernatural length over the surface.

She heard nothing; the lake surface didn’t even break, but suddenly the heron’s head stretched toward the sky, and the bulge of a squirming fish slipped down its long skinny neck. The bird tilted its head and focused its black eyes straight at Elizabeth. Its gaze burned into her, and she caught her breath at the feeling of communion with the wild creature.

From behind her, the snort of a horse broke the spell. At the sound, the heron stretched his wide white wings and lifted off the ground. Majestic. Overflowing with wonder, Elizabeth watched the bird soar above the water and disappear into the glare of the sun. “Oh!” she cried out to no one¸ perhaps to heaven.

“Mrs. Carleson, I presume?”

Elizabeth whirled around toward the voice. A man on a blue roan gelding tipped his hat to her. She nearly gasped. He was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen, male or female, never mind the ginger hair. His manicured good looks were in perfect counterpoint to the natural beauty of the bird his horse had frightened away. Every exquisite article he wore coordinated to every other, from the tailored riding coat and breeches to the polished black boots and fawn kidskin gloves.

How soft his hands must be, protected by those gloves. Fleetingly, she imagined his touch compared to Mr. Carleson’s rough-skinned groping.

“You have me at a disadvantage, sir.” He really was quite good-looking. So young and vital.

“An oversight, I’m sure,” he said. “Though I can understand the squire wanting to keep you to himself. We’re neighbors, Mrs. Carleson. The Branch borders Laurelwood.”

“You’re Sir Carey.” Elizabeth felt doubly guilty. This was the man Squire Carleson detested. “Ward of Baroness Branch.”

“I see my reputation precedes me.” Sir Carey shifted his weight and smoothed his jacket where it draped his thigh. He hugged the horse, displaying his well-muscled legs to advantage.

He was as vain as the squire had described. He’d certainly chosen the false-blue mount to emphasize his strawberry blond hair. “I have heard your name mentioned.”

“In a flattering context, I hope.”

“Not really.” What impudence!

He laughed and leaned forward on the pommel, examining her. He rested his gaze on her cropped hair and raised an eyebrow in admiration—not in a flirtatious way, but with true regard. As if he understood. Again emotions stirred which made Elizabeth feel disloyal to her husband.

“We haven’t been properly introduced, sir,” she said. “I must bid you good day, no disrespect intended.”

“None inferred,” Sir Carey said good-naturedly. “Forgive my bad manners. I was charmed by your beauty.”

“Ha!” The involuntary laugh perfectly expressed her opinion of such insincere flattery. Elizabeth was full aware that beauty was not among her virtues.

She walked quickly past the horse retreated through the veil of weeping willow. He didn’t follow, but she broke into a run. It was completely understandable the squire detested that dandy. What a pretty, self-confident ass!

Damn, she shouldn’t run in her delicate condition. She slowed down and breathed deeply to calm herself. The warmth of the sun on her face anchored her to her surroundings. Looking around at the grounds of Laurelwood, her heart swelled. She realized the squire had given her everything she’d ever wanted, sheep, dogs, corn—and something she had never thought to desire: flowers.

Snowdrops and violets and primroses bloomed everywhere. Daffodils pushed up in random clusters along the path to the great house ready to bloom in another week or so. There were dogwood trees and woody lilacs with hard-fisted buds promising a more gorgeous spring to come. Someone in some long-past Utopian Laurelwood had planted jasmine, abundant roses, and wisteria. She entered the great house determined to be grateful to Squire Carleson.

By July when she was delivered of a daughter, hundreds of rose bushes were in bloom.

“My dear, don’t worry about it being a girl.” The squire held the swaddled babe in one arm and patted Elizabeth’s hand. “She will keep you company when I am gone.”

A month later he was back at her, working for his boy.
 

1797, Carinthia

While Mutti was occupied with dressing, Marta Schonreden headed downstairs. At the front door she said to the housekeeper, “Tell Mutti I’ve gone to the bookseller.” If her mother was going to visit Mrs. Haas, Marta didn’t want to join her. Oktav Haas was home from university, and Mutti undoubtedly had a scheme to throw Marta at him somehow.

She passed the bookshop and all the shops. All she really wanted was to get out of the house and walk until she reached the edge of the village and her favorite structure in the world. The cathedral. How could God not see that?

Its twin domed towers dominated the valley. From Marta’s bedroom window they looked like two fat fingers stretching toward heaven. Standing so close, the towers and walls were hunkered into the earth like ancient guardians of the unguessable mysteries within.

Reverend Haas said the Catholic Church was the whore of Babylon, its statues of saints and paintings of the Queen of Heaven graven images. Marta thought sometimes she must be very bad. In her heart, she believed it would be a fine and consoling thing to pray to Saint Henna or the mother of Jesus.
  

The tower bells’
bong, bong
began to toll, and Marta turned homeward. She jumped. Oktav was standing in the middle of the road, smiling. Had he been watching her this whole time?

“Such a pretty young lady out alone,” he said. “Your mother should be admonished.”

Oktav wasn’t tall but his muscular thickness was imposing. She walked by him and pretended not to see the arm he offered. As she passed a row of overgrown shrubs heavy with white blossoms, he pulled her into the fragrant cover.

“You are so beautiful.” His mumble was serious and hot. “Your lips beg for kisses.”

It would be awful if someone saw them, but his melodrama made her laugh. He planted a wet kiss on her neck that sent an electrical thrill of fear and pleasure through her. She gasped and broke free. This wasn’t funny.

The cathedral door was carved with pictures of Sampson and the lion. It seemed to offer sanctuary, but Marta couldn’t think of going in there. She ran toward the village, away from Oktav’s nonchalant laugh and taunting words. “I will see you soon, my love.”

She stopped to rest at the place where Lutherans met on Sundays, a small building of good plain Protestant design. No carvings, no decorations. The doors did not even open onto the street, which always made her feel a bit ashamed even if she did know the law: Protestant churches were tolerated, but they were not allowed spires or doors facing the street. She could still feel Oktav’s kiss. What if his father was right and she was as bad as Eve or Gomer?
 

“God’s grace, Marta, are you well?”

She had walked right by her best friend. “Gabby, I’m sorry. Where are you going?”

“Mother and I are calling at your house. What’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing, but if I had known you were coming, I wouldn’t have gone out.”

“Mother sent me home to fetch a piece of lace to show your mother, but I think they just wanted to get me out of there.”

“They want to talk about you and Wolfram,” Marta said. The memory of Oktav faded with the sunshine and talk of lace. “I’ll walk with you.”

Gabby swooned in a mock fever. “Gabby and Wolfie—doesn’t it sound grand?”

Marta rolled her eyes. Now there was a mystery. How could any girl could love her older brother? He was thick and slow, ignorant of the world, smug in his certainty of inheritance. Yet Gabby clearly longed for him. Marta was full of longing too, but not for Oktav Haas.

She didn’t know what she longed for. She visited the cathedral not to be near God, but to be where beauty wasn’t suspect. She had become extraordinarily lovely in the past year, and it was hard to bear the stares of men and her mother’s new anger. She’d heard there were marvelous things in the cathedral, beautiful things that God loved. If only she could see them, she knew she’d feel better. But she could never go inside a cathedral.

They turned the corner to a crowd of jabbering children which circled two little boys in combat.

“And what goes on here then?” Leopold Singer was eighteen and robust, charms enough for young boys. But before the eight-year-olds saw him, the sound of his voice made them unclench and drop their hands. “Willie. Otto. What can be so bad you would try to kill your friend over it?”