The Wyndham Legacy (33 page)

“There must be a small hidden space,” Marcus said. “That small space, my friends, must somehow be attached to this room. Of course, we haven't a single clue what the treasure actually is.”

“Or the treasure could be above the room,” Badger said. He pointed upward. “The clue was to reach overhead for the nines, which the young man did. Then there's the well, and that's where the monster is, and perhaps the treasure.”

“But a well goes down, not up,” Patricia Wyndham said.

“Then,” the Duchess said, rising to her feet, unconsciously holding her side, “the hidden room or space is directly below the oak tree and the well, under the floor.”

“Not quite,” Patricia Wyndham said. “To be precise, and I believe that precision is quite the key here, we must look right beneath those Janus-faced nines.”

“Good God,” Marcus said. “Sampson, fetch Horatio.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Sampson, do hurry,” Maggie said. “I'm so keen to find the bloody treasure.”

 

The Aubusson carpet was rolled neatly against the far side of the room. All the furniture was moved away from a large area right below the Medieval paintings. Horatio, a carpenter with magic in his hands, was on his knees, his ear close to the wooden floor, lightly tapping his hammer. Suddenly, he raised his head and grinned, showing a wide space between his two front teeth. “M'lord, there's no support beam running all along here. I think I've found the empty space.” He carefully began prying up the thick wooden strips of oak. Maggie was fidgeting, wanting him to hurry, cursing him and his persnickety ways. Who cared
about the damned floor, who cared if it got scratched, wasn't it covered with that huge old carpet anyway? But Spears shushed her, saying, “Perhaps you could accelerate your hammer's momentum just a bit more, Horatio. It isn't a sacred burial mound you're digging up, after all.”

It broke the tension, but just for a moment.

“Now, now, I've got to go easy. I don't want to splinter this old wood. Ah, yes, there it comes up, all clean and tidy.”

“Quickly,” Patricia Wyndham said. “Bring candles, Sampson!”

The space was made large enough for a man to ease down through the opening, which Marcus did, since he was the earl, though there was much grumbling, particularly from the women. “It's filthy and black down here, Mother, you'd hate it. There are more spiders than you can imagine. And you, Maggie, you would have ripped your gown for certain and gotten nasty spiderwebs in your hair. As for you, Duchess, you just keep your mouth shut. You're not well enough yet to fight with all the myriad gloom and bugs down here. Maggie, hand me down a branch of candles. I can't see a bloody thing with just one.”

Then there was silence.

“Do you see anything, Marcus?” He looked up briefly to see his wife's face peering down into the dark space.

“Son, speak up, or do you want your old mother to expire from unrequited silence?”

The space was long and narrow, but very confined, not more than four feet high. He had to bend over almost double. The space seemed to stretch on endlessly, perhaps the entire length of the Green Cube Room. He held up the candles and clearly saw the floor beams. There didn't seem to be anything else, just blackness, choking dust, spiders, and enough cobwebs to smother a battalion. He continued searching, hunched over like an old man. Then the space ended after about twenty feet, obviously at the end of the Green Cube Room above. There was something leaning
against a wall. The something wasn't a treasure chest. He drew closer, holding the branch of candles out in front of him. He drew to a startled stop before it. He called out even as he choked on the airless dust, “Oh my God, what the hell is this? A skeleton, yes, so it appears, but how's that possible?”

Marcus held the candle closer and drew a deep breath. It wasn't a skeleton, but rather a dummy, a figure probably stuffed with moldy old straw, a man to be hung in effigy, for there was a rope around his neck and the rope was drawn up tight and nailed over the dummy's head to the beam above it. The figure was dressed in fancy clothes from Elizabethan times. Marcus lightly touched the lace on a sleeve and it fell into dust. He held the branch of candles closer. The cloth face had been carefully painted: there was greed and avarice and cruelty on that stingy, heavy face, and dissipation and utter arrogance in those glass eyes staring sightlessly up at him.

He realized with a jolt that it was the king himself, Henry VIIIth, his face very much like the portrait painted of him by Holbein, only a bit younger. Marcus thought idly that it had taken a lot of straw stuffed in the frame to fill up the king's stout body. But why here? Hidden away?

He heard voices above him, all of them demanding, yelling, calling out, even the Duchess's voice, and she sounded very testy. He grinned, saying, “The skeleton is really a man probably stuffed with straw, Henry the Eighth to be exact, all ready to hang in effigy with a rope around its neck. Just a moment, there's more. Hold on.”

It was at that moment he realized the fat figure, all outfitted in purple velvet and ermine and a ruff that was wider than a wagon wheel around the fat neck, was too fat. It wasn't stuffed with straw. No, it was stuffed with something else. He gently reached inside an opening above the ruff at the neck and pulled out a long string of the most exquisite pearls he'd ever seen. He pressed his hands against the rotting material and felt the shape of more jewels, coins, even
several outlines of rosaries, a scepter. His fingers made out the curve of a gold-coin plate and a chalice. There was also the heavy outline of a book, probably the Bible, its cover no doubt embedded with jewels. There were most likely other precious Church relics as well stuffed in that body. It wasn't moldy straw, it was the treasure from St. Swale's Abbey and it had been here stuffed in that fat figure of King Henry VIIIth for well over three hundred years.

“I think, Spears,” he called up, “that you need to send down some sort of long flat stretcher with ropes attached so we can pull it up. It's very heavy, so make the ropes and board stout. Our dummy here is stuffed with treasure, a veritable king's ransom in treasure.”

“D
O YOU HAVE
any idea how deliciously decadent you look?”

She just grinned up at him, the luminous loop of pearls around her neck, dipping down past her navel to rest on her white belly. She wasn't wearing anything else, her husband having insisted that with the pearls lying on her flesh—ah, nothing more was necessary. She was, he told her now, to consider it his birthday present to her, perhaps for the next three years, so grand were the pearls.

“Yes, I know you think me wonderful, and I am. I found out from Aunt Gweneth that your birthday's in September, just around the corner.”

“And I found out from Fanny that your birthday is in early October. Just perhaps I'll manage to find a fitting bit of jewelry for you to wear. Ah, about dear Fanny, I believe she's making you something very special for your birthday, Marcus.”

“She'll get over this infatuation with me, or perhaps she'll go to her grave an old doddering woman still carrying a worn-out torch for me.”

“She'll get over it,” the Duchess said. “Just two more years and both the Twins go to London. She'll see you then as a drooling old man and dismiss you out of hand. Now, about my birthday. Three years, you say?”

“Yes, a good three years.” He picked up the pearls over her stomach, looked at them closely and said, “They're more luminous now, just for these few minutes on that white belly of yours.” He then bent down, and began kissing
her stomach. She tugged at his hair and he raised his head, grinning at her. She said, “Very well, Marcus, I'll dress myself in the pearls again on the fourteenth. I will consider this my first birthday installment. And what shall I have you pose in, Marcus? I know, I want you to wear that incredible ring with the huge ruby.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“When did you say your birthday was, Duchess?”

“I believe it begins in just about ten minutes. Actually, you've already begun it on my stomach.”

He laughed, leaned down and kissed her, and began playing with the rope of pearls. “Damn,” he said, between kisses, “we will wait until you are perfectly well again. You're still sore and I hate it, but there it is.”

“I'm not at all sore. It's been well over three weeks. I'm perfectly well now, even my side.”

He frowned at that, lightly tracing his fingertip over the still pink scar on her flank. He could still see the marks from the thread and remembered all too clearly how George Raven had stuck the needle in her white flesh then pulled it through, again and again. He gulped. The Duchess said, “Stop it, Marcus. It's over. I'm well. We both survived. Your hard head and your hand healed, albeit more quickly than I thought fair.”

He shook his head. “You're right. It's in the past, thank God. You may be certain that I will take excellent care of you from now on. As to anything else, sweetheart, we'll wait until you're beyond perfectly well. No, don't argue with me, Duchess, though I want you to, just about more than anything, even more than Badger's splendid Carbonnade of Beef or his very splendid
medaillons de veau poches à la sauce au Porto.
”

“However do you know that French name with the poached veal?”

“My dear wife, Badger and I did the menus together during your illness.”

She gave him a disbelieving look, but could only giggle.

He said, “By all the gods, to hear you laugh again. Do you know I want you to want me so much in return that you'll burst into tears, swear you'll poison me unless I take you right this moment?” When she started to speak, her eyes sparkling, he put his fingers over her mouth and sighed a martyr's sigh. “No, don't do it.” He quickly rose from the bed again and put a good ten feet between them. “No, I'll just gaze upon you wearing those pearls, and sweat. Perhaps kiss your belly some more, but it hurts, Duchess.”

“I hate to see a man sweat, Marcus. Hurting is quite another matter.”

“Be quiet, Duchess. No, don't move, just lie there like a courtesan in a sultan's bordello, but I will migrate my mind to other things. I've a strong mind, I can do it. I've been thinking that the two chalices, that Bible, and the other Church pieces—including that relic which is some saint's finger bone, I suppose—should go to Rome. As for the rest of it, it stays here.”

“Yes,” she said. “I was thinking the same thing. I like what you gave to Maggie too.”

“I wonder if she's lying quite without a stitch on in her room at this moment, wearing only that emerald necklace.”

“No, she's sitting in front of her mirror brushing her glorious red hair, admiring the emeralds with her coloring. Your mother told me she was wearing her diamond tiara tonight to the dinner table. Ah, and the Twins are in alt over those bracelets you gave them.”

“As for Spears and Badger, I told them they could both retire with the coins that were their share, but they were both quite put out with my suggestion. Spears looked down his nose at me, quite like your father would do to both Mark and Charlie when he'd caught them in a bit of mischief, and told me that he feared for my well-being were he not to be here to see to things.

“As for Badger, I fear for our dinner, given his black looks at my well-meant suggestion. He gave me this pursed look, his mouth all puckered like this, and said that such a worthless suggestion wouldn't go unpunished in Heaven. When I asked him what that meant, he said he would think about it.”

“That's quite interesting to be sure; however, enough. Husband, I would like you to put on that ruby ring.”

He shook as he looked quickly at her. “I've been amusing you,” he said slowly, so hungry for her that he shook even more, “and all you've done is think lascivious thoughts about my tender self. Just look at you, all draped with those pearls around your breasts, and now you're lying on your side, and let me tell you, Duchess, that pose is more than wanton, thank the good Lord.”

She took his hand and laid it over her breast and said very softly, “Marcus.”

He gaped and swallowed with some difficulty and gaped some more. He stared at his hand, hard and large and brown against her smooth white flesh.

“Listen to me and cease trying to amuse me. I'm very well now. George said so just this afternoon.”

“I wouldn't let him really examine you. He doesn't know, how could he? He's not a woman.”

“Neither do you know and neither are you a woman. However, I'm a woman and I do know. You'll be gentle; even when you're not gentle, it's gentle enough for me, because all I can think about is what you're doing to me and how it makes me feel, and that's all that matters. Please, Marcus, put on that ring.”

He muttered, gave her dark looks, and put on the ring. But she kept after him until he was quite as unclothed as she was, that large ruby sparkling in the late-afternoon sunlight pouring through the window. After that, he played with her pearls, each one of them, and the white flesh beneath each one, and when he came into her he was gentle, perhaps more than he'd ever been, and the sweetness of it filled
her until it changed, becoming more, as it always did, until she couldn't bear it, and then she was in a frenzied place, filled with light and excitement that was unbearable yet she didn't want it to end. He was with her and she knew as she kissed his throat, his shoulder, her hands caressing his back, that he always would be with her.

 

When the Duchess entered the library the following Friday morning, looking for Marcus, she paused on the threshold, listening to him sing. His voice was a mellow base, not as beautiful as Spears's, but very nice nonetheless. He was singing the bawdy sailors' song.

He turned as he finished the last line, and grinned at her. “Isn't that a wonderful ditty?”

“It's certainly graphic. The tune is nice, don't you think?”

“Actually,” he said looking down at his thumbnail, and worrying at it a bit, “I don't much like the tune at all. I was just thinking that I could have done much better. I have a talent, you know, for music, for tunes specifically, especially tunes for bawdy words and verses. I wish I knew the man who writes these songs. We could form a partnership. It's a pity. These wonderful words and rhymes, and they must be sung with these miserable tunes.”

“Miserable! That's ridiculous, they're superb, well, not all of them, but most are quite acceptable, even occasionally exceptional. As for the “Sailor's Shore Song,” I've heard that it's already sung everywhere, that it's popular, nearly beyond popular, and it won't be forgotten. It will live forever in the King's Navy. There, so much for your criticisms, Marcus. Miserable indeed.”

“It's not bad, as I said, but I doubt it will be remembered beyond next month, beyond October at the very latest, surely not after my birthday. Why I've very nearly forgotten it already, particularly the tune.”

She picked up a thick tome of
Tom Jones
that was laid atop a marquetry table, and hurled it at him. He caught it handily, remarking, “Goodness, I hadn't realized that
Tom
Jones
was so heavy. Such a light tale for so many pages. Just like those silly ditties, so very light they are, meaningless really, just brief stupid diversions. And without sharp and bright tunes to make them memorable. Such a pity I don't know the fellow who writes them. Poor thing, trying to survive without the valuable assistance of such a talent as mine.”

She turned red, looked about for another thick book, didn't see one, and began running at him, hopping actually, because she was trying to pull off her left slipper.

She forgot the ribbons. When she looked down and tried to pull the bow free, she succeeded only in knotting the ribbon all the more. She cursed and he laughed. She shrieked at him even as she sat on the floor and began furiously pulling at the bloody knot, “You wretched sod! Those ditties are wonderful! How many do you know, anyway?”

He looked down at her there on the floor—utterly enraged, not at all the old Duchess, but his precious new Duchess, and she would surely kill him if she ever got that slipper unknotted—and he looked back to his thumbnail, saying in a drawling voice and enraging her all the more, “Oh, I suspect I know all of them, more's the pity, since they aren't really all that well done, just sort of well done, barely on the edge of being well done. Yes, I do know all of them.”

“That's impossible, you sod. I know Spears is always singing them, but certainly you can't know more than just a few, not more than five at the very most.”

The thumbnail received more concentrated study. He said, “I've been thinking I should go to Hookhams and see if they can't give me this Coots fellow's direction. Being a man, he's probably reasonable and would look at my offer of partnership as a gift from God. What do you think, Duchess? Ah, that knot is stubborn, isn't it? Do you want me to help you? No? I see, you're going to try the other one. It's about time. Anger is just fine, but the outlet for it is more important. Without the outlet, what is anger anyway?”

She'd switched to the right foot and the bow melted apart in her fingers. She jerked off the slipper, leapt to her feet, and ran right at him.

He was laughing when she began hitting his chest with the slipper, then he gathered her against him, pinning her arms at her sides. He nuzzled the side of her neck, whispering in her ear, “Do you think I should write to this fellow Coots? Inform him that I'll make him a success? Surely he's barely surviving now. What do you think, Duchess?”

“Damn you, what if Coots isn't a man at all? I don't suppose you ever considered that, did you? Not everything that's creative or original, or, or, clever and imaginative is done by men, you witless sod.”

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, but was careful not to let her free. “But of course it is, sweetheart. Face it, you're a woman, an above-average woman, a beautiful gracious woman whom I love, but still, just a woman and surely you must recognize that this Coots is a man with a man's talents, woeful though they be with regard to the tunes themselves. But only a man could produce songs that actually were worth something.”

She growled, red-faced, utterly furious at him, and he began to laugh. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. Suddenly she became utterly still.

“You know.”

“Know what?” He laughed harder.

“You know all about Coots.”

“Of course I do, goose.” He stopped laughing, hugged her so tightly against him that her ribs creaked. “Lord, I'm very, very proud of you.”

“I could have hurt you throwing
Tom Jones
at you.”

“Yes, you could have knocked my head off, but you didn't.”

“I wish you'd stop laughing at me, Marcus.”

“I did, just a moment ago. But you deserved it. You should have told me about R. L. Coots and the wonderful success you've gained. You should have told me when I
first visited you at Pipwell Cottage and accused you of being kept by a man. Your pride, madam, makes me want to strangle you, that is, if I didn't have the same pride myself. Tell me, is there another song in the works?”