Accursed Abbey: A Steamy Regency Gothic Romance (Nobles & Necromancy Book 1)

by Tessa Candle

  Her jaw hung open and then snapped shut. Her every instinct was to run, but she was cornered. Silverloo leaned forward and bared his teeth, but his growl was hardly audible over the din of her aunt and uncle as the little party entered the kitchen.

  “Elizabeth, we have a guest!” Her aunt's face was as animated as Elizabeth had ever seen it, except when the woman spoke of her grapes.

  As her uncle introduced them, Elizabeth's mind was in such a flurry, she missed the name. In fact she felt utterly befuddled, as though she had drunk too much wine.

  She could feel his gaze floating about her and settling down upon her, like an Egyptian cotton sheet gradually drifting over and subsiding into every feature, obstructing her nose and mouth so that her breath was belaboured.

  This strange fugue finally passed, and Elizabeth realized her aunt and uncle were staring at her. What was his name? Lord Orefados. Why did it seem familiar?

  “My lord,” she cleared her throat, “I am most honoured to make your acquaintance.” Did he recognize her?

  His face formed into a stained-toothed smile that, though insinuating, failed to convey warmth. “The honour is mine, Miss Whitely. Your aunt and uncle speak very well of you, though they did not warn me of your great beauty.”

  Elizabeth shuddered and could only reply with a slight bow of the head. The man was dressed very oddly in a long, saffron-coloured robe, tied with a red sash at the waist. He held an ornate cane—no it was too long to be a cane, a staff.

  It was fashioned of she knew not what and inlaid with gold, silver and copper. It bore clusters of precious stones that looked less ornamental and more like weeping sores of garnet and citrine, or festering boils of peridot and brown sapphire.

  She had never seen a man so decked out, and the overall effect was quite repulsive.

  She knew she was not in her best looks, herself, which had bothered her earlier when Lord Canterbourne had come. But now she wished very much to look plain, hideous even, only to stave off the attention of this man. At least he was not yelling at her.

  “Have you got a chill, my dear? You must be careful of your health.” This singular expression of concern might have been the strangest thing she had ever heard from her uncle's mouth, only because it was so completely out of character.

  Elizabeth was left scrambling to construct some suitable reply.

  But Mrs. Whitely made her efforts moot by asserting, “Nonsense! Our niece is not of a sickly constitution. A little chill would be nothing at all to her. She stands up very well under the drafts coming off of the mountain.”

  Elizabeth observed that this comment was more addressed to Lord Orefados than to Mr. Whitely. But she did not wish to affirm that she felt quite well, for she desired not to be the focus of any more of the lord's attention.

  She decided to change the subject. “You must be hungry. Mrs. Grissoni has made up dinner plates for you both. Shall I fetch them?”

  “Aye, I confess I am famished,” said her uncle without much conviction. Then he turned to Lord Orefados and added, “Only see what a sweet, obliging child she is, my lord.”

  “Oh indeed,” said her aunt, “I should love some dinner. I see there are four chairs here. We shall all have a cosy time of it. And your lordship may finally sample some of our vintage.” Her aunt bore such a toad-eating expression that Elizabeth blushed for her.

  To spare herself from bearing further witness to this spectacle, Elizabeth set about fetching dinner and laying out the things on the table. It was not until she laid the plates of fish before her aunt and uncle that she realized how it must look to the man who had earlier accused her of poaching.

  Her hand trembled a little as she poured some of her guardians’ horrid wine for each of them. With no further excuse for staying away from the company, she seated herself at the table.

  Lord Orefados stared at his wine, but it felt for all the world as though he fixed his gazed pointedly at Elizabeth as he sipped it and said, “This will make a most appropriate pairing for poached trout.”

  She inhaled her wine accidentally and coughed and sputtered.

  Her uncle seemed very pleased and quite oblivious to his niece’s discomposure. He spoke over her coughing. “I am so glad to hear you say it, my lord. This trout is fried, however, so let us hope it also pairs just as well with that.”

  When Elizabeth recovered herself, she noticed, not without some petty personal satisfaction, that Lord Orefados was staring into his glass with a look that perched on the border between disgust and disbelief.

  And yet his face was so odd. She could not be at all certain of what she saw in his features, let alone in his facial expressions. His skin was at once tanned, vital and smooth, but also weathered and aged. His eyes were dark and deep set, but they might equally be called brooding and conspiratorial, or thoughtful and magnetic. She could not reconcile these contradictory impressions.

  And as to his physical stature, though it left the general impression of being quite massive, she could not say whether it was principally a mass of great muscles that rippled in a sort of writhing motion on his arms and shoulders, or a mass of great fat, like the huge paunch that she occasionally caught sight of.

  His hair was jet black with silver strands running though it like little streams filled with the flashing scales of trout.

  She shook her head, where had that idea come from? She realized she had been staring, and felt his gaze upon her. It raked over her like the claws of a wild beast. He met her look and the hypnotic black pools of his eyes seemed to pull her in until she felt she was drowning.

  She lost her breath and had to sit a few moments focusing on taking in air.

  Silverloo, who sat at her ankle, whined softly at her. She could not quite sort out what was wrong, or why she felt so out of her senses. She wanted to place her head between her knees, but could hardly do so at the table.

  “Our own vintage is, of course, nothing next your lordship's wine.” Her aunt continued to be ingratiating, apparently oblivious to Elizabeth's strange state. “That is legendary. I have never had better.”

  “Nor I,” agreed her uncle.

  Lord Orefados inclined his head. “You are too kind. However I believe Miss Whitely has not yet partaken of the juice of my vines.”

  Elizabeth shuddered. She did not want to partake of anything this man had to offer, but felt compelled to reply politely, if without conviction. “No, my lord. I have not had that pleasure.”

  This was apparently all the invitation he required. He lifted his long brown fingers and snapped them. Though she knew not how the servant could possibly have heard this signal, a colourfully attired footman entered the kitchen.

  “My lord?”

  “Fetch us two bottles of the collio rosso from the carriage. He considered the rude clay mugs they drank out of for a moment, then added, “And bring some of the Arabian crystal.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  Elizabeth hardly had time to contemplate what sort of man carried wine and stemware around in his carriage, before the servant returned and a full glass was placed before her.

  Elizabeth had to admit it was a thing of beauty. The colour was profound and enticing with the deep sanguine richness of a pigeon’s blood ruby. Little sparks of alternating colours seemed to animate it, so that despite a gem-like clarity, it also gave the impression of having textured intrusions within its depths.

  Even as the glass sat before her on the table, she could smell its fruity wiles. Her mouth watered with the promise of sweet plums and cherries, awash with amber notes and caramel and, at the pinnacle, just a tiny hint of nuttiness, as if it were a dessert garnished with a single toasted almond.

  Even if she could resist the temptation of such a delicacy as this ambrosial fragrance promised, she could hardly refuse to drink it now. It would be an unexplainable rudeness.

  “This goblet,” Orefados held his glass up to the light of the candle, “is crafted of glass from the sands around an ancient desert fort
ress in the wilds of Araby. It bears within it a certain mineral that imparts this unique amber colouration. It is all of a piece. The vitality of colour is sealed within the glass, the glass within the colour.”

  “Truly amazing, my lord. I propose a toast!” A mad light was in her uncle’s eye as he stared at the beautiful liquid jewel that glistened and swirled in the glass he extended. “To the best of meetings, the best of vessels, and the best of wines.”

  They all raised their glasses, and Lord Orefados fixed his gaze upon Elizabeth over the rim of his goblet, as she lifted her glass to her lips like an automaton and let the liquid swirl into her mouth.

  Chapter 19

  When Giuseppe had fetched another pitcher of wine and made the symbolic gesture of topping up Canterbourne’s almost full cup, he settled himself into his little wooden chair with a sad sigh. “Ah, milord, what a tale to tell. And it is not truly my story, but the story of my friend, Martinus, a fellow servant of my order.”

  “How did he come to be entangled with Lord Orefados?” Canterbourne now burned with curiosity.

  “It all started with an obsession common to many of us—monks, I mean.”

  “What obsession would that be?”

  “Books, milord—or in many cases scrolls. From days of old it has been a tradition of many monasteries to collect and preserve what old writings we can find. A tradition of the church, I might say, for the collection in Rome is vast. But my order, in particular, is diligent in ferreting out obscure texts and copying them. Some of us travel very far for this purpose.”

  “Do your vows not situate you in some particular monastery?” He had always thought of monks as clusters of hermits, living in the same dwelling and toiling at their simple labours or their more devotional work, fixed in one place for the rest of their days.

  It struck him as a fairly gloomy existence, until he considered that he had been quite happy living on the same estate in the countryside, surrounded by a small acquaintance for almost all of his life and, outside of attending school, rarely leaving.

  “No, we do not take the vow of permanence. In fact, I learned to speak English as well as I do while copying tomes in your home country. There are several fine libraries there.”

  Giuseppe chuckled. “Though I admit that the vows of my order are unusual, this obsession with the written word is common among all monks. I can tell you that there are monasteries I have visited, the librarians of which watched me almost unceasingly as I copied books from a hoard that they guarded as jealously as if it were their own secret treasure. One may give up owning anything, without giving up possessiveness, it would seem.”

  “But do you still inscribe books by hand? Cannot copies be made with the printing press, now?”

  “Certainly, of some things, though you must make a written copy to take to the type-setter,” he grinned, “for it would be worth your life to try to take an original out of any monastery’s library.”

  Canterbourne returned the man's smile. What a funny character he gave to monks and librarians.

  “But there are, in fact, some diagrams and illustrations that cannot be properly conveyed in print,” Giuseppe continued. “And some languages for which no type cases exist. Some are barely comprehended. Copying them is like copying millions of little pictures, for the copyist knows nothing of the letters or ideas that are contained therein.”

  “That must be arduous work.” The monk's comment about the millions of little pictures put Canterbourne to mind of the eerily inscribed walls of Orefados' abode. And he detected, in the awe-filled regard that Giuseppe had for these texts, that the monk might believe that such incomprehensible symbols had magical significance.

  Giuseppe tilted his head. “I may be only thinking of my own experiences, but I believe that for those of us who do such labour, it is a kind of meditation.”

  Canterbourne's lips twitched at the image. He could not help it. He had an irrepressible need to comfort himself by mocking the unknown. “Does this meditation give you mystical powers like the swamis of India?”

  “I have never attained such powers.” The man's brow lifted to rebuke Canterbourne for being a foolish school lad, speaking glibly about things of which he could not possibly comprehend the gravity.

  Canterbourne tried to remove the smile on his lips, but had a hard time of it, which made him look even more like the bacon-wit of the class. “I beg your pardon. Please continue.”

  “This digression has brought us back around to the point, which is that Martinus, who travelled through the lands of the Ottomans to copy documents, ended up wandering for a year in the desert with successive groups of Bedouins and became increasingly persuaded that such powers are attainable. As he heard their stories and partook of their ways, a local legend seized upon him. It was said that certain parchments were hidden somewhere in the vast sandy wastelands, which is no doubt true enough. But the fable that they could confer unimaginable abilities upon the reader took root in Martinus’ mind.”

  “If you will pardon my saying it, that does not sound terribly Christian.”

  “And if you will pardon my contradicting you, it is almost quintessentially Christian. But you are thinking of it like an Englishman, milord, as you cannot help.” His smile was mocking. “Whatever spiritual interpretation we might give poor Martinus' fixation, he went in pursuit of these legendary parchments.”

  “Did he find them?”

  “I do not know. But I do know that it was during this endeavour that he made the acquaintance of Lord Orefados. I believe this meeting sealed his fate.”

  The holy man made it sound so ominous. Surely he was exaggerating things. “But whatever could be so dire as that? Did Orefados do something to him?”

  Giuseppe shook his head. Grief was written momentarily across the monk’s face before he collected himself. “I do not know what happened, precisely. Martinus wrote to me of Orefados, with whom he was terribly impressed it seemed, but also...” He trailed off and drank his wine.

  “Also what?” Canterbourne was irritated by what seemed like an intentional dropping off mid story, merely to excite suspense.

  The man continued. “He also seemed afraid of Orefados. Or at least disturbed by him. And yet he could not leave him, for Orefados tantalized him with something.”

  Canterbourne could sympathize entirely, for he was, himself, being tantalized. It felt like the monk was doling out his story in teaspoons. Was it reluctance to reveal the truth, or a desire to draw Canterbourne in?

  He could not be sure, but he indulged Giuseppe by asking the question the monk begged for. “What do you suppose Orefados could have used to bait Martinus?”

  “I assume it was with these legendary pages. Perhaps he claimed to know of their location or their contents. He may even have claimed to have them. I cannot know. But Martinus followed Orefados here and there. He became a man obsessed.”

  “He did not give you any hint of what so fixated him?”

  “No. He wrote from Alexandria to tell me that he was on the brink of a major discovery, of what I know not. He only said that he would travel to Melonia, where Orefados had a property. I know not if he travelled with Orefados, or merely followed in his mad state. But I felt something was amiss when I heard no more from Martinus. So I travelled here to find him.”

  He drained his cup and refilled it again, offering none to Canterbourne, whose wine went mostly untouched.

  “Well, did you find him?”

  “No. I did not. And Orefados denied any knowledge of Martinus' plan to travel to him. He expressed regret that he could not be of service, but there is something very wrong with the man. It is more than mere eccentricity. He almost hums with animation like a swarm of bees, as though he were propelled by a mania of constant calculation and scheming.”

  “I—” Canterbourne's mouth grew dry at the memory of Orefados. He sipped his wine to stall for time. “I believe I know what you mean.”

  “And it was more than just an impression. When I appr
oached him, he denied knowing of Martinus' whereabouts, but offered to show me a copy of the legendary scrolls that Martinus had so madly hunted for. He said he had them in his possession.” Giuseppe sighed and scratched his tonsured head. “I was tempted, you know.”

  Canterbourne nodded. “But you declined?”

  “I did. But he made many attempts to get me to look at them. His manner was...” Giuseppe trailed off, then searched Canterbourne's face for understanding.

  Giuseppe apparently found the affirmation that he needed, for he nodded solemnly. “I do not think it will surprise you if I say that he had the demeanour of the great deceiver, of someone who was trying to lead me into a trap.”

  Canterbourne's stomach clenched. That was of a piece with his own experience of the strange lord. Orefados had appeared determined to wheedle Canterbourne into looking inside his nasty little box. “Yes. I too had that unpleasant impression.”

  Canterbourne, by now, had even stronger misgivings about leaving Elizabeth to live in this strange place, particularly in such close proximity to Lord Orefados.

  Giuseppe’s head nodded. He seemed finally to be giving in to the soporific deluge of wine he had consumed.

  Canterbourne stood up to leave the monk to his slumber.

  But then Giuseppe came around and his eyes sprung open with a sudden wild look of concern. “This girl that you brought to the abbess, where did you find her?”

  “On the road between Abbazia Pallida and the next neighbour.”

  The cleric drew a hand over his face. “Ah! I am such a slow-witted man. But of course, I had heard Orefados had collected a young maid—rumoured to be his ward—at the local posting house. I had not made the connection until now.”

  “But that must be Miss Berger.” A chill came over Canterbourne.

  Giuseppe's bloodshot eyes lit up with a deadly seriousness as he nodded slowly. “I believe we now know which devil has persecuted her.”