Once Upon a Tower

by Eloisa James

  “A shock? They won’t believe it. They act as if that man is God himself, come down to walk among mortal men.”

  Edie managed a laugh, as if it wasn’t something she’d thought of herself.

  Whether or not he was shocked (Edie couldn’t tell), Bardolph pressed into service a large number of men, who began carrying furnishings back and forth down the hill, while an army of maids with mops and buckets attacked the dust and cobwebs.

  That afternoon, after the plates were cleared from luncheon, Layla announced that she simply had to lie down for a bit; Susannah had woken her the moment the sun peeped over the horizon, and she was desperate for a nap. Asked if she wanted to return to the nursery or stay with Edie, Susannah pointed at Edie.

  So Edie took Susannah back upstairs, to her bedchamber. She sat down and pulled her cello forward. After a while, Susannah sidled over. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m cleaning the strings of my cello.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to remove the resin that collected on them.”

  Susannah sniffed. “It smells nasty.”

  “I’m using distilled spirits.” Edie didn’t elaborate; she was determined not to make embarrassing overtures to the little girl. The doll hadn’t worked. She had tried smiling at her, and complimenting her hair. She’d gone to her knees and tried to play with toys. Nothing had worked. She was done.

  Susannah watched her for a while, as Edie swept a soft cloth up and down the strings. Then the child started to ask more questions, and before she knew it, Edie was plucking a string and telling Susannah the pitch, and then letting her pluck it. She could still remember her father patiently doing the same with her.

  A few minutes later, she looked down and discovered that Susannah was leaning against her knee. “Can you play me something?” the little girl asked.

  “What would you like?”

  “Three Blind Mice.”

  They worked out how to pluck the strings correctly for the nursery rhyme. “That’s my favorite,” Susannah announced.

  “Why?”

  “Because the farmer chops off their heads,” she said. “And then they’re dead, see? All dead.”

  Edie thought for a moment about whether she should express concern to Layla, but decided it was probably just the way things were. Your mother dies; you think about death. Your marriage dies; you think about . . . She quickly made herself think about something else.

  After an early supper, Bardolph escorted her down the hill, Layla and Susannah trailing behind.

  “You’ve done a wonderful job, Bardolph!” Edie exclaimed, as she emerged from the stairwell into the tower’s first habitable room. The previously empty chamber had been transformed into a cozy dining room, including a small sideboard with a stack of ducal china. On the next level was a sitting room, with a pretty Aubusson rug on the floor, and chairs upholstered in brocaded silk. “This is so much nicer than my bedchamber in the castle!”

  “These are the late duchess’s things,” Bardolph said, thawing a bit at the unaccustomed praise. “They have been in the attic since her untimely departure.”

  Edie cast him a sideways glance. Could it be that Bardolph did not approve of the bedroom furnishings in the castle?

  Her new bedroom, another flight up, was as charming as her sitting room. A large bed took up most of the room, but there was enough space on the side for a comfortable armchair, as well as a straight-backed chair, and her cello—which was there, in its stand, waiting for her. “Oh, Bardolph,” she said, with sincere gratitude. “Thank you so much.”

  “I know better than to ask whether you’d like company for luncheon tomorrow,” Layla said. “Her Grace will undoubtedly practice all day, Bardolph; you can send a footman out with a light luncheon. I shall join her for supper at night after Susannah is in bed.”

  A little pang hit Edie’s heart, but it was better not to spend any time with Susannah. What was the point?

  “Although we shall pay you a visit every morning,” Layla continued. “And you will simply have to put your cello aside to greet us.”

  Edie’s heart lightened. She would get used to living alone, but for the moment, it was reassuring to think that Layla would visit.

  “Will you be afraid, alone here at night?” Layla was standing at the door, holding Susannah’s hand, about to descend the steps.

  “I will not be afraid. I shall be perfectly happy here.” That was a lie, but what was another lie, given all the lies she’d already told?

  “There may be vagrants about,” Bardolph said. “I would feel much better if you would allow me to station a footman near the entry door, Your Grace.”

  “Absolutely not,” Edie said firmly. “Now, shoo, all of you. Bardolph, if you could ask Mary to attend me, I am longing for my bed.”

  “We could stay with you,” came a little voice. It was Susannah. “We could all fit in that big bed.” She nodded toward it.

  Edie felt the first real smile she’d had all day cross her face. She went over to the door and knelt down in front of Susannah, and it was an utterly natural gesture. “I so much appreciate that you offered.”

  Susannah backed up, just a single step. Clearly, she was still afraid that Edie would try to keep her from Layla, so Edie stood up and put a finger on her nose. “If you visit me tomorrow, we’ll work out another nursery rhyme.” She smiled at Layla. “I hate to say this, knowing your poor opinion of musicians. But the moppet has a lovely soprano voice.”

  Susannah, who had no idea what that meant, beamed up at Layla. “I got it,” she said.

  Layla scooped her up and put her on her hip. “You need to go to sleep.” She blew a kiss to Edie. “Good night, darling. Oh, listen to that! It’s started to rain again.”

  “Footmen are waiting below with umbrellas,” Bardolph said. “It could be that the ground will become soggy,” he said to Edie, “but you have no reason to worry. This tower has stood since 1248, and although the river floods, it has never in its long history threatened the tower. No matter what, the tower will stand; His Grace had the foundations reinforced and the stonework newly pointed.”

  Gowan was nothing if not thorough. Edie insisted on accompanying them all the way down to the ground floor, where she gave Layla and Susannah quick hugs before climbing back up to her new bedchamber. There were lamps everywhere, and a fire burning in the fireplace. But for the occasional crackling log, the tower was utterly silent.

  “This is just right,” Edie said aloud, reassuring herself. Beginning tomorrow morning, she would pick up her cello and return to the practice regimen that had once, in less complicated times, made her so happy.

  For the moment, though, she threw open the window that faced the castle. There it sat, up on the hill, looking even more fairy-tale-like now that twilight was settling over it like a gentle blanket. Lights shone from many windows, a sign of the hundred souls within. She could see Mary trotting down the path, coming to prepare for bed.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like the servants, or appreciate what they did for her. But this tiny room was peaceful, and so quiet she could hear every note of birdsong coming from the orchard below.

  Yet all she could think about was Gowan. She had no doubt that he would be livid when he found that she had countermanded his order as regards the tower.

  She would be clear, direct, and mature.

  She would be calm, sympathetic, and yet resolute.

  Hours later, lying in bed, she was still thinking about it. By now, Gowan would have bent his problem-solving abilities to the task. His wife was a problem. That problem was exacerbated by his failure in bed—not that she saw it that way, but he did, and she had a shrewd notion that failure was not acceptable to Gowan. He would tie her to the bed if he had to. He would solve the problem.

  The outcome wasn’t hard to imagine. She would lie there tense, while he went on and on. She would have no way to stop him, unless she got drunk and then she would just embarrass herself by doing . . . whatever
it was that put revulsion in his eyes. After he kissed her, the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was his face, utterly transformed by disgust.

  Never. She shuddered at the thought. In fact, there was a great deal about bedding that made her shudder. All that sweat, for one thing. The way fluids leaked out of her for hours. The whole event.

  She would have to make it clear that he had no right to try to mend her chips and cracks. Her problems were her own. She wasn’t naïve enough to think they could be solved: there were some things that couldn’t be solved. Their marriage was a case in point.

  After she told him she was leaving, Gowan would undoubtedly shout at her for a time, but the bailiffs and the solicitors and all those servants would be waiting for him. Eventually, he would turn back to the castle, and someday he would marry a sturdy Scotswoman who would bear him ten red-haired children.

  The thought made her feel sick, but that was to be expected. One couldn’t get over a marriage, even such a short one, in a matter of a day or so. Gowan was so . . . full. So intense, so intelligent, so driven.

  There was a magnetism about her husband that came from the way he faced everything head-on, sorting through a problem in a minute, searching for the answer, solving it. Gowan would apply all that energy to her, when he returned. In fact, she shouldn’t permit him in the tower or he would put in motion a plan to ensure his wife’s happiness in the marital bed. She shivered at the thought.

  They could discuss whatever he wished through the window.

  He was the most masculine man she had ever met, and she had inadvertently injured his masculinity. He would stop at nothing to succeed, to make sure his possession stayed where she belonged, thus proving himself a success between the sheets.

  He could prove himself with some other woman. She went downstairs, took the key that Bardolph had given her, and stuck it into the keyhole from the inside. It took the strength of both of her hands to turn the key, but she managed it.

  And then she went back upstairs, proud of her resolution. She wasn’t proud of dissolving into tears . . . but that was only to be expected when one’s heart felt torn in two. Finally she slept until morning, worn ragged by crying. Woken very early by the sound of birds in the trees, she hopped out of bed, went to the window, and pushed it wide open to greet the day.

  Layla and Susannah were coming down from the castle, hand in hand, and Layla was already dressed, even though it couldn’t be long past six in the morning. She was wearing a gown that Edie had seen before: sprigged cotton, with a seductive, low bodice. But now there was a fichu tucked in that bodice, concealing Layla’s considerable assets.

  She propped her chin on her hand and waited for them.

  “You look better!” Layla called up to her. Her voice carried easily across the still morning air.

  “I am fine.” It wasn’t true. Some part of her was still so raw and hurting that she could hardly bear it. But she was learning how to shut that voice into a dark box and lock it away.

  Susannah was hopping from foot to foot. “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  “Nothing much.”

  “You look like the princess in a fairy tale,” Layla said.

  Edie couldn’t quite manage a smile.

  “Like Punzel,” Susannah put in.

  “Who?”

  “Punzel!”

  “Oh, she means Rapunzel,” Layla exclaimed. “It’s your hair.”

  Mary had braided her hair for bed, as she always had before Edie married and discovered that having a husband meant you had to let your hair tangle all night long. Another thing to be pleased about with regard to the demise of her marriage, she thought, adding it to a short list.

  Edie picked up her fat braid and dropped it over the sill. It reached only a short way below.

  “A prince can’t climb that,” Susannah said scornfully. “The lady in my book has hair so long that it trails right onto the ground.”

  “Would you like to come in the door instead of climbing my inadequate braid?”

  “Mary will be coming with a footman or two to bring us breakfast,” Layla said. Edie padded down the stairs, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door to them.

  Gowan never came that day, which was a relief, of course. Nor the following day, nor the day after.

  If Edie had learned how to lock away her grief during the day, she wasn’t so successful at night. The chasm in her heart seemed to open the moment she put her cello down. But the steely discipline of her childhood had snapped into place. If her father were to drop everything and head to Scotland—as she was quite certain he would do when he received her letter—he should be with them in another week or ten days.

  She merely had to survive until then.

  Thirty-six

  It took two days for Gowan to find a decent man to appoint as justice of the peace. Everything in him longed to return to Edie. But he had come to the conclusion that he couldn’t, not quite yet.

  He had come to her frozen, like snow, but he was learning to be the man she deserved. He was making time for her, for their marriage. In addition to the justice, he’d appointed a new bailiff to replace the one he’d dismissed. This one was young—just his own age, in fact. He would make mistakes, but he would learn from them.

  There was only one more thing that Gowan had to master.

  That night he bathed grimly, handling his body with the same exacting distaste that he had felt since leaving the castle. He called for a carriage, and a short time later he was ensconced in the warm darkness of the Devil’s Punchbowl.

  No one in the pub had any idea who he was. He’d left his fine clothes at the castle; he was wearing sturdy Scottish woolens that beat back the rain and sleet, but rarely graced the shoulders of a London gentleman. And he’d come without servants, sending his driver to the stables to keep himself and his horses warm.

  “What’ll you have, then?” the bartender asked, giving him an indifferent look.

  “Whisky,” Gowan said, remembering the way Edie’s hair took on the burnished color of liquor in the candlelight. He pushed the memory away. This smoky place had nothing to do with Edie. He felt as if he were on one side of an enormous loch, and she was tucked away on the other.

  After a second glass of whisky, he had started to feel warmer. It’s easier to bear loneliness when your vision is blurred.

  “I know who you are,” the cottager next to him said suddenly. “Yer the duke!”

  He grunted.

  “The image of yer father.”

  Gowan turned away. There were barmaids, of course. Pretty ones, too. Bonny girls with red cheeks and sweet giggles. Their bosoms glistened like butter in the lamplight.

  He smiled, sharklike, at the prettiest one of all. She was perhaps twenty, with no wedding ring. Not that he cared if she was married. It occurred to him that he was punishing himself, and he pushed it aside.

  He was done with blundering. He wouldn’t return to his wife until he knew his way around a woman’s body as surely as he did the loch.

  The barmaid came to him as easily as a caught fish, threading her way through the crowd until she was standing between his sprawled legs, smelling like spilled beer and warm woman. Her smile had a cheerful lust to it.

  She ran her hand up his thigh. He’d always told himself that no woman would be able to resist his rank, and therefore he couldn’t take advantage of an offer. He realized now that his thinking had been flawed. This woman knew nothing of his rank. What she wanted was the thick muscles she was caressing. She smiled more deeply. “My name’s Elsa,” she said, her fingers slipping inward.

  “Gowan.” He leaned back against the bar, and let her do as she wished.

  “You’re the brooding type, aren’t you,” she breathed. “I like that. Big and brooding.”

  Her fingers slid toward his groin and his hand shot out instinctively, stopping her caress.

  “It is a bit public here,” she said, her smile widening. The smile had nothing to do with his
rank, he noted dispassionately.

  “Would you like to come upstairs for a bit of sport?” she said, leaning in and nipping his ear. Her large breasts brushed his chest. “I can take a wee bit of time to meself.” She turned her head to kiss him and he jerked back.

  “No kisses.”

  “Perhaps I can change your mind,” Elsa said with a giggle.

  He stood up and took her hand.

  “Like father, like son,” the man next to him muttered, just as the barmaid pulled Gowan away from the stool. Gowan gave him a look. The man snorted. “Aye, and he had a cracked look about his eyes, just like you.”

  He hunched back over his glass, and Gowan followed the barmaid’s round arse through the crowd.

  Thirty-seven

  Edie was slowly coming to accept that Gowan might not come home for weeks. He didn’t want to see her. She represented a failure so absolute that he couldn’t bear to return. He understood that she would never be what he wanted in the bed. Or he had decided that he could never trust her to tell the truth.

  Tears made her throat scratchy, she discovered. They took away her appetite. It was easier to just push it all out of her mind and play the cello for hours. She kept playing even when her bow arm was tired, not wanting silence because her thoughts were loud enough.

  Her father would come in a week or so. Meanwhile, the servants moved back and forth from the castle and the tower like toiling ants. She grew unexpectedly fond of Bardolph. He never showed by the slightest gesture that he disapproved of her move, though—as Layla said—perhaps that was because he disapproved of everything.

  He stationed a footman at the base of the tower during the day so that she could easily send a note to Layla or summon Mary. And he visited twice a day. One morning he told her that there had been a quarrel over the footmen’s two-hour rotations at the tower.

  “Why on earth?” she asked.

  Bardolph’s mouth pursed. “The Scottish are not philistines, Your Grace. They wish to hear you play.”