The Wyndham Legacy (32 page)

“It's difficult, Marcus. I trust you, I surely do. You're my husband, but I've always been so private and surely things that are only female should be kept private.”

“No, that's silly. Obviously you don't trust me enough. I know what I'm talking about. Now, you've got some color in your cheeks, no doubt from the pleasure I just gave you.” He paused, tossed the towels and other clothes on the floor, then turned back to her, suddenly serious, his expression very intent.

He looked down at his hands as he said, “Actually, Duchess, as my wife, you should tell me everything you feel, everything you think. You don't have to keep anything from me, be it physical or something you've done. Not any more. Not ever again. You can even continue to yell at me, to hit me, whenever I unwittingly chance to say something you dislike.”

To his horrified surprise, she began to cry. She didn't make a sound, just let the tears gather, pool in her eyes, and slip down her cheeks.

“Ah, sweetheart, don't cry, please don't.”

She turned her face away from him. He saw her hands had fisted on the covers at her chest. He reached out his hand to touch her, then drew it back.

“You know,” he said finally, his voice deep and calm,
“I've been a great fool, perhaps so great a fool that even you won't be able to forgive me this time. And I know you've forgiven me more times than I can begin to count since we were both children.”

He had her attention, he saw it in the lines of her body, tensing now, alert, waiting, but she didn't turn back to face him, just waited, and he knew she was afraid, and he understood that well enough.

“In Paris I was ready to strangle you I was so furious at you for taking matters into your own hands, for taking away my choices, and here I was the brave man, the man who was enjoying his rage, his bitterness, wallowing in self-pity. There's just something about being a man and having a woman take away control, it makes all of us a bit crazed, unreasonable, perhaps even irrational, though a man hesitates to believe such a thing about himself.

“You've always known, Duchess, that I'm quick to anger and say things that curdle even my own blood when I remember them later. I know I've said things to you that have hurt you unbearably. I've spoken like a fool and then proceeded to believe what I'd said to you.

“I wounded you deliberately because you were your father's daughter and God knows I still detest that old bastard for what he did, not only to me but to you as well. And so I punished you because he was dead and beyond anything I could do to him.

“Try to forgive me just once more . . . well, it's bound to be dozens more times in our future together if you'll have compassion for your fool of a husband. Have babies with me. Let's fill Chase Park's nursery with babes, and you remember how large that nursery is. Our children, just yours and mine, and your father be damned for his own bitterness, for his own despair, for he has nothing to do with us now, nothing to do with our children, with our future.”

She turned slowly to face him. She raised her hand to lightly touch her fingertips to his cheek. “Do you really
want to have an heir? A boy child who will be the future earl of Chase, a boy child who will carry my blood and your blood and thus my father's blood?”

“Yes. And he must have brothers and sisters.”

“But why, Marcus? Is it because you feel pity for me since I lost my babe? You feel somehow guilty?”

“Yes, but that's not the reason.”

“What is the reason?”

“I love you more than I ever imagined a man could love a woman. I want no more distrust between us, no more wariness because you'll never know what I'll do next. In the future when I berate you or send curses flying about your head, feel free to cosh me with a fireplace poker. On the other hand, if you pull one of your boots off to hurl at me, I'll be laughing so hard just perhaps you'll forget you want to kill me and laugh with me. I love you. Now, does that satisfy you? Do you believe me? Will you forgive me?”

For a moment, she was the old Duchess, silent, aloof, looking at him intently, assessing him, apart from him, and he hated it. He realized how much he wanted her to scream at him if she wanted to, that or kiss him and tell him he was wonderful, but at least now, at this moment, she was utterly silent, just like she used to be.

“I'll even let that damned young George Raven bring our children into the world, though I distrust him and his motives when he's with you. Now, stop being the old Duchess. Hit me. Yell at me.”

“All right.” She raised her hand, palm flat.

He eyed her, took her hand in his and drew it back down. He leaned down and kissed her very lightly on her mouth. “All right what?” he asked, his breath warm on her mouth.

“I'll hit you next Wednesday, yell at you on Friday, but right now, Marcus, tell me again.”

“I love you and I still distrust George Raven. We will have to find him a wife. It will divert his lust from you.”

She laughed and he felt intense heady warmth spread like brandy to his belly, or was it his heart?

“And I you, Marcus. I've probably loved you since I was too young to even know what it was. I deceived you into marriage not just because I knew I had to put things right after what my father had done, but because I wanted you for myself. You were so angry, I didn't think you'd ever change. I had to do something, Marcus, so that the Colonial Wyndhams didn't get what was rightfully yours.”

“Rightfully ours. Rightfully our son's and his son's son and on it goes far into the future.”

“Yes. Oh yes. Please understand. I couldn't let you not have what was yours.”

“And when you came to me on our wedding night? Was it just to keep me from going off like a maniac and annulling our marriage out of misguided spite?”

“Yes, but perhaps not all. I didn't know what happened between men and women so I had no idea how wonderful it could be with you. It was probably more that than any other motive, but it's true. I was so dreadfully afraid you'd do something stupid that I came to you.”

“And now why would you come to me and seduce me?”

“To drive you mad with lust, even madder with lust than George Raven, poor man. There is still a lot that I have to learn, Marcus.”

“When you're healed, when you're laughing and dancing about again, I'll be the most attentive teacher in all of Yorkshire, hell, in all of England.”

She smiled at him, a smile free of pain, a smile free of heartbreak, a smile filled with delight.

“Do you remember, I told you before that I want you to tell me everything now, all right?” He gave her a sideways look. “Really, Duchess, no matter what it is, you can tell me. There should be no secrets between us, not ever, as of this moment, all right?”

She cocked her head at him. She didn't say anything, just stroked her fingers over his face again, and he wondered if
she would ever tell him about her songs and her outrageous pseudonym. R.L. Coots—wherever did she get that absurd name?

Ah, but Mr. R.L. Coots wasn't important, just she was, and Mr. Coots would come out sometime in the future, Marcus didn't care when. But he would have liked to tell her how very proud he was of her. He quickly dismissed it as he kissed her not just once, but again and again, showing her how much he loved her, trying to give more of himself to her, and she smiled with relish when he whispered what he was going to do to her when she was well again.

I
T WAS THE
Duchess who next saw her mother-in-law lying flat on her back on the floor in the middle of the Green Cube Room, just staring upward. She didn't say anything for a long time, just watched her look upward as if entranced with the ceiling. Then she too looked upward. The Green Cube Room was the only room in the entire house with a painted ceiling, actually groupings of paintings, all done it seemed by the same artist, all the scenes stretched out between the thick painted ceiling beams. She'd looked at these paintings since she was nine years old, particularly the Medieval ones. She'd thought them interesting, but she'd paid them little attention for they were just there, just a part of the house, a part of this odd chamber.

Patricia Wyndham was staring up at a small grouping or series of paintings, most of them scenes from village life in Medieval times. The paints had faded over the centuries but they were still vibrant enough to admire and study. She was even staring up at the Duchess's favorite series of Medieval scenes, the first one depicting a beautiful young maiden surrounded by her servants, all gowned in flowing white, a white wimple, high and conical with a pointed top balanced on her head, her pale angel's hair cascading down her back. She was seated atop what appeared to be a stone fence, leaning forward slightly, listening to a young gallant who sat at her feet playing a lute. The Duchess had always fancied she could almost hear the sounds coming from that lute, so spellbound did the maiden appear. She looked at the next scene, this one similar, but the young gallant
was standing in this one and reaching upward to pluck something that seemed to be hidden in the thick branches of an oak tree. What was he reaching for?

She looked down and saw that her mother-in-law was still in rapt contemplation of the ceiling and continued her own perusal. In the third scene, a servant was handing the maiden a cup of water and the Duchess saw now that the maiden hadn't been seated on a stone fence, no, it was the ledge of the top of a well. The young man had pulled a lute from the branches of the oak tree. A lute in an oak tree?

Suddenly she froze. Her heart began to pound. Oh no, was it possible? She shook her head, then stared upward again. In the next scene, the young man was holding both lutes, one in each hand, and he was still smiling at the maiden, as if he were offering her one of the lutes, his attention still firmly fixed on her. In the next scene, he was still holding the lutes, but now he was looking over his shoulder. Someone was evidently there and the young man looked frightened. He'd taken the slender necks of both lutes and pressed the instruments together, back-to-back, holding them in one hand. A lute was perfectly flat on one side and bulged out on the other. Why, then, didn't he press the two flat sides together? Why the pregnant sides? It was awkward and difficult to hold them that way.

“Hello, my dear. I trust you're feeling up to snuff now? Of a certainty you are, else my sweet son wouldn't have allowed you to wander about alone. I'm looking at the ceiling. When I first visited Chase Park so many years ago, I was drawn to this room because of the paintings. So many of them, beginning with scenes from the Conqueror's time and moving up into the early years of the sixteenth century. In truth it was those last scenes that particularly fascinated me, for in some of them are my brave Mary, Queen of Scots, so stouthearted, so noble in the face of so much betrayal. You see there are no paintings of her beyond a child, so the artist must have stopped around 1550. But then I realized, just three days ago, that there was more to
the paintings than just the artist's renderings of historical times. Have you seen it yet, Duchess? Ah, yes, I see that you do. Amazing, isn't it?”

The Duchess jumped, then looked down at her mother-in-law, who was still flat on her back. “It's easier to see everything from here. Come down, Duchess, and I'll show you.”

The Duchess stretched out on her back next to her mother-in-law. “Now, my dear, tell me what you see.”

“The maiden is sitting on the rim of the well and the oak tree is overhead. Just like the clues. Now, what about the Janus-faced nines and the monster?”

“The nine business has bothered me no end. It was just yesterday that I realized the truth of the matter. Look at the lutes, Duchess.”

“Yes, the lutes. I was just wondering why he was holding them back-to-back, surely difficult since they're so fat.”

“Think about music, my dear, think about what you would have if the young man were holding them facing each other.”

“Oh goodness, it's not about nines, it's about music! Those are the nines, the Janus-faced nines.”

“I believe so. I've played the pianoforte all my life and I swear to you this is the first time I am truly thankful that my mama forced me to read more music than to dance in the moonlight, which I was finally able to do with Marcus's father, that wonderful man. Do you know music, Duchess?”

“Yes,” she said, so excited she could barely speak, “holding the lutes that way doesn't refer to nines, but to bass clefs, back-to-back bass clefs. Oh goodness, they look like nines. I've looked at these paintings since I was a child, yet I've never really looked, if you know what I mean. Even after knowing the clues, it simply never occurred to me that these paintings—oh goodness.”

“Yes, indeed. The paintings are so familiar to everyone, but they were painted for a reason, at least these Medieval
scenes were. Now, look at the next scene. The young man is looking at someone, someone who frightens him—”

“The monster.”

“Yes, the monster,” Patricia Wyndham said with a good deal of satisfaction. “The young man is now pointing to the lute. At what, I wonder?”

“The bass clef, that's what he's trying to tell us. See, he's pointing into the lower tree branches, then at the second lute. Ah, ma'am, we've been so very blind. The clues were here all the time, here for centuries, yet no one has ever thought, ever dreamed, except you, ma'am. I believe you're quite the smartest person I know.”

“Thank you, dear child, but we don't have that wretched treasure yet.”

“May I inquire what you, Duchess, and you, Mrs. Wyndham, are doing on your backs on the newly swept Aubusson carpet?”

“Yes, Spears, you certainly may. Come here and lie beside me and look up. You, my dear man, are in for a revelation. You asked me if I knew anything and yes, I most definitely know something now, as does the Duchess.”

Some ten minutes later Badger looked into The Green Cube Room, looking for Mr. Spears. He blinked. Mr. Spears, the Duchess, and Mrs. Wyndham were stretched out on their backs, all staring up at the ceiling. Esmee, the earl's cat, was sprawled atop Spears's chest, quite at her ease.

“What in the name of the devil and all his minions is going on here?”

“Mr. Badger, just excellent. Mrs. Wyndham doesn't know everything, but she's very close. Come here and lie beside me, and we'll tell you.”

When Marcus strolled by a few moments later, looking for his wife, he heard Spears saying, “But who is the monster?”

He looked into the Green Cube Room and stared. The Duchess said without moving, “Marcus, do come here.
We've nearly got the Wyndham treasure solved. Come and lie here beside me.”

He obliged her and stared up at the paintings. “Good God. I've looked at all those scenes over the years, admired them and the brilliance of the paint, the skill of the artist or artists, but I never really
looked
at them, never even thought to—”

“I know,” the Duchess said. “Me neither. Even if we'd known about the Wyndham treasure, I doubt we'd have connected it up with these paintings. But your mama did. That's why she was lying here three days ago. She realized there just might be a connection between the treasure clues and these paintings. Do you know how old this room is, Marcus?”

“We're in the oldest part of the house. I believe the Green Cube Room was one of just a handful left standing after the fire early in the last century.”

“Actually, my dear son, I just read all the journals left by Arthur Wyndham, who was then the third Viscount Barresford. The most god-awful boring accounts of his life you can imagine, but he was informative in the third diary. The fire was in 1723 and most of the Elizabethan manor was destroyed, all except for the Green Cube Room and the library, where you found the tome. They were literally the only rooms in this entire wing that held together. Arthur Wyndham said that distinctly. He wrote in his diary: ‘I have only the Green Cube Room and my library left and even they are so blackened with smoke I wonder if they will ever be as they were again. Although they have never been to my liking, they did survive and thus I'll return them to what they were.'

“Arthur Wyndham also wrote that his father and his grandfather had both admired the paintings on the ceilings and so he had them restored. Thank God he was a sensitive man, else all would have been lost.”

Marcus said thoughtfully, “Why is it called the Green Cube Room? I remember wondering as a child and even
asking, but no one knew, not even my uncle.”

“I asked too,” the Duchess said, coming up onto her elbow, felt the pulling in her side and quickly lay back down again. “No one knew. Sampson suggested it might refer to the old panes of glass in the windows. He believed it likely the windows were mullioned and perhaps set with green squares of glass.”

“Yes, green glass, that would be it.” This was from Maggie, who was sitting with her hands wrapped around her knees behind Spears. “There's something else. The room itself—don't you see? It's perfectly square.”

“Ah,” said Badger. “When the sun shines through the green glass into a perfectly square room then—”

“Yes, you'd have an illusion of a green cube, Mr. Badger,” Spears said. “Colored glass was quite popular years ago.”

“That could be it,” Patricia Wyndham said. “All old houses have rooms named the oddest things, like the Presence Chamber at Hardwick Hall, a grand room that's so cold you shiver the whole time you're in it.”

“Yes,” Badger said. “That's from a ghost, no doubt.”

“Then there's the Dial Room at Old Place Lindfield—I haven't the foggiest notion where they got that name—then there's the Punch Room at Cotehele House, where, I suppose, gentlemen imbibed liberally.”

“Yes,” Marcus said. “I think Maggie's right. She's solved the key to the name of this room.”

“Ah, look, Mr. Spears,” Badger said, pointing straight upward, “I see the well clearly now, and if I'm not mistaken there's your bucket, Duchess, wood and bound in leather. But where's that damnable monster?”

“Offstage, to the left, or nowhere at all,” Marcus said. “I've studied the rest of the scenes and there's no horn-headed beast, no vile green gargoyle, nothing at all.”

“Oh there's a monster, all right,” the Duchess said. “He's there, even though we can't see him. I can feel him, can't you? Just look at the young man's face in that final scene.
He knows something awful is about to happen. It has to be the monster.”

“So,” Patricia Wyndham said, “in the first scene, our maiden is sitting on the edge of the well. The young man is playing his lute for her. He fetches another lute from the oak branches overhead. He then presses the lutes together and we've got our Janus-faced nines or Janus-faced bass clefs, and as the Duchess says, the monster's there, just not seen by us. That takes care of all the clues.”

“Does it cover everything in your dream, Duchess?” Marcus lightly stroked his fingertips over her arm.

“I believe so,” she said, giving him a smile that made her mother-in-law momentarily forget the clues and the treasure and stare at them with delight and relief.

“That treacherous monk in my dream, or whatever it was, even hinted that the Janus-faced nines weren't necessarily nines.”

“So much roundabout flummery,” Patricia Wyndham said. “Why didn't they just give the treasure over to Lockridge Wyndham? So much nonsense and convolution and confusion. No wonder none of the succeeding generations of Wyndhams found a thing, and even forgot about it.”

“I daresay, madam,” Spears said, “that the monks weren't alone in determining the disposal of the treasure. The Wyndham ancestor was certainly involved in hiding it, in providing clues to its whereabouts. Obviously he couldn't show himself with sudden boundless wealth or the king and Cromwell would have heard of it. Given the uncertainty of the times, they would have most certainly removed the treasure, and quite probably his head along with it.”

“I'll wager,” Badger said, “that old Lockridge Wyndham died before he could tell his children where the treasure was. Surely they must have known about it. It just got lost in succeeding generations.”

“And the monks wrote two separate books about it,” Marcus said. “One of them doubtless given to Lockridge
Wyndham and the other given to whom? We'll never know. At least it did end up with Burgess.”

“Others read it probably but didn't realize what it was meant to say,” Maggie said. “Now, this is all well and good and a bloody wonderful history lesson, Mr. Spears, but where's the Wyndham treasure?”