The Dragon's Bride

by Jo Beverley

  Now, however, she did.

  The dragon’s huge phallus spewed over the captive bride, some liquid filling her screaming mouth, more pouring off her outstretched, piteous hands.

  After a horrified moment, she turned away. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  She still heard the music of the water, but now the image made it foul.

  He was right. The garden was the healing heart of Crag Wyvern, but by creating the dragon’s bride fountain, the mad earl had introduced a blight.

  “I don’t know how it’s constructed,” she said, “but I’ll find out what needs to be done to remove it. Tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said in very different voice.

  She looked and saw a different man, less dark, less hard, closer surely to the Con she remembered.

  “Sorry?” she asked, wondering if he was going to apologize for some of the darts he’d thrown at her tonight.

  “You aren’t my housekeeper at the moment, are you? I shouldn’t be giving you orders.”

  She suppressed a sigh. “It doesn’t matter, my lord. It should be done.”

  Her brother and de Vere were close, but Con moved away from the fountain. “There are benches beneath the lime tree, I think. We’ll sit there.”

  David flashed her a look that suggested that he thought this earl was as mad as the rest of them, but Susan understood. Having been alerted to the abhorrence of that fountain, she didn’t want to sit near it either.

  There were two benches, and she ended up sitting beside David, while Con and de Vere sat on the other. She rather thought David had engaged in some clever maneuvering to achieve that, and she wondered what he was seeing here. As she warmed her cognac, the finest that the Freetrade had to offer, she wished this were a more wholesome evening.

  The idea of sitting in a tranquil evening garden with Con and friends was something she had never dreamed of, and even in this flawed state it was sweet enough for tears.

  “Miss Kerslake,” de Vere said, “do you know what was here before this garden?”

  She took a small sip of her brandy. “I’m not sure, sir. The original plans for Crag Wyvern show a garden here, but I’ve heard that before Mrs. Lane took care of it, it was in sorry shape. At one point it was all grassed to make a tennis court.”

  De Vere looked around. “And the windows survived?”

  “I don’t think so. Originally the lower windows were stained glass. There’s a painting in one of the corridors.”

  De Vere shook his head. “Mad. And through the ages, too.”

  “No one’s denying it, Race,” Con said.

  “If I were you, I’d disown the lot of them.”

  Con took a mouthful of the brandy. “Ah, but that’s the burden of the aristocracy. We can’t disown our ancestors and keep the spoils.” He turned to Susan. “Are there records of the first earl, Miss Kerslake? I would be interested to know more about the story of the dragon.”

  “I don’t know, my lord. There’s a room in the cellars full of boxes of ledgers and documents.”

  De Vere gave a faint moan, and surprisingly, Con laughed in seemingly true humor. “You are not getting a sniff of them until you’ve dealt with current matters. And in fact, I have engaged the curate to deal with the books. He might be willing to include archives.”

  “Unfair. Unfair.”

  “We’ll probably not be here long enough to make any order of them anyway.”

  “I could stay,” de Vere said, and flickered a smiling look at Susan.

  That was unwise. She felt Con’s cold disapproval like a lance. It seared through his words as he said, “You are my secretary, Race. Where I go, you go.”

  “Sounds more like a damn wife to me.”

  “For that, you lack certain essential qualifications.”

  De Vere didn’t seem daunted by the sharp edge in his employer’s voice. In fact he smiled in a deliberately winsome way. “Miss Kerslake said I was angelic.”

  Con looked across the gathering shadows at Susan. “Don’t forget, Miss Kerslake, Lucifer is an angel, too.”

  They were both speaking laconically, lounging at either end of the bench, but Susan wanted to scream at them to stop it, to stop sliding knife-edged comments through the conversation.

  She drained her glass of brandy and stood. “I believe it is time I retired, my lord, gentlemen.”

  David stood too. “And I must return to the manor. Thank you, my lord, for an excellent dinner.”

  They went through the courtesies, but all the time Susan felt weighed down by Con’s attention, quivering with the fear that he would command her to stay. There surely was nothing to fear, but here in the darkening garden at the heart of Crag Wyvern, she was afraid.

  He didn’t stop her, and she walked away with David, making herself not rush. They reentered the house through the dining room, and Susan was pleased to see that the servants had quietly cleared the table while they were outside. They had even restored the table to the usual seating for eight, which better suited the proportions of the room.

  As they entered the corridor, David said, “De Vere is a damn strange secretary.”

  “I think he’s more of a friend.”

  “A damn strange friend, too. Are you all right up here with them?”

  She knew that if he suspected any awkwardness he would want her to leave immediately. She could deal with awkwardness, and it would become nothing more than that.

  “Of course I’m all right.” But she added, “The earl is troubled. I think it’s something from the war, which is not surprising. Perhaps de Vere suffers in the same way but handles it by creating mischief. It’s not likely to affect me, however.”

  “If you’re sure. But if you ask me, the mad blood runs in both sides of the family.”

  “That could be true. . . .” Yet she’d seen no sign of imbalance in Con all those years ago. He’d been the sanest, most even-tempered person she’d ever known.

  They parted with a kiss in the great hall, and Susan went to the kitchen area to compliment the staff. She was still there when the bell rang. She told Diddy to go and see what the earl wanted. “Probably more brandy,” Susan muttered, but she’d be happy enough if he drank himself into a stupor.

  Diddy came back. “He wants to speak to you, Mrs. Kerslake. He’s in the dining room.”

  Susan was strongly tempted not to go, but how would that look before the servants? The rest of the servants. And it wasn’t as if this were a medieval castle and the earl had droit du seigneur or anything so absurd. Nor was she an unprotected waif. If she couldn’t defend herself, she had a family of men ready to do so, or to avenge any wrong.

  He must know that.

  If he was sane.

  If he wasn’t dangerously drunk.

  She hesitated, wondering if there was time to change into the defense of her housekeeper’s clothes, but there wasn’t.

  She left the kitchen, but as she did so she said, “If I scream, come and rescue me.”

  She made it light, but she knew the women would do it. They’d lived with one mad Earl of Wyvern already.

  She entered the garden a different way. With darkness almost complete the lamps created pools of light and shadowed corners. In the heart of the shadows the fountain still played.

  The bride still drowned.

  She detoured to the concealed wheel valve, and switched the water off.

  Splash diminished into trickles, and then to peaceful silence. Susan walked through it toward the shining rectangle of the dining room doors, where Con stood waiting. Alone.

  She hesitated out in the dark, but she would not be afraid. To be truly afraid of Con would be the final denial of all that had once existed between them.

  She stepped into the room. “My lord? You needed something?”

  He was blank, impossible to read. She wished the wide table stood between them, but he had waited for her near the doors. She wished she’d come in from the corridor.

  She edged a little farther in
to the room to put more distance between them, trying not to make it look like a retreat. She was stopped by the table. To work her way around it would be ridiculous.

  “In Spain, I almost raped a woman,” he said.

  She looked at him, seeking the meaning beneath the words and finding it. “That’s why the fountain offends you?”

  “That’s probably why I am more sensitive to it than you. I regret implying that you are uncaring.”

  A flutter of something started within. Not hope, no. That would be foolish. But . . . pleasure. Pleasure that he could say that to her. That he wanted to and felt free to.

  “Not uncaring, no. But I am callused,” she said. “Crag Wyvern does that. The constant abrasion of the wicked and the bizarre makes us insensitive after a while.”

  “Like war. The constant abrasion of violence, suffering, and death. I tried once to peel away the calluses. It was a mistake.”

  She wasn’t sure what had caused this moment of openness, but it was a treasure to savor. She leaned back slightly against the table between two chairs. “Why was it a mistake?”

  As if mirroring her, he leaned back too, against the doorjamb. “Because I had to go back to war. Waterloo. Good calluses take time to build. Or restore.”

  Clearly he needed to talk and he’d chosen her to talk to. Privately, she gave thanks, but she simply said, “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “We won. We lost. I mean, we lost too many good men. Ten thousand of them. I suppose it was worth it, but sometimes it’s hard to see why. If they’d dealt with Napoleon properly the first time . . .”

  He shrugged again.

  “You must have lost many friends there.” She hesitated, wondering whether mentioning his closest friends, something shared in the past, would be a mistake. But she did it. “The other two Georges? The Rogues?”

  He did look startled—perhaps it was a flinch—but he answered. “One of the Rogues. Lord Darius Debenham.”

  She ached for him, but treasured the moment. “One of the Duke of Yeovil’s sons. I heard of his loss. I’m sorry.”

  He said nothing more, and she sensed that this connection, whatever it had been, was fading. She’d recapture it if she could, but had no idea how. They stood in silence for a moment or two, and then he said, “What happened eleven years ago, Susan?”

  The suddenness of it stole words. Eventually she said, “You know what happened, Con.”

  Did he think she would deny it? Try to claim it had been some huge mistake?

  “I suppose I do. You made your ambitions clear enough. Did you try to marry Fred?”

  She was poised on a razor edge. Did she admit that she’d never felt the same way toward any other man, that she’d bitterly regretted what she had done? Did she protect her pride with lies?

  She could summon the courage to go only halfway. “Aunt Miriam had hopes. I suppose we all tried a bit, but my heart wasn’t in it.”

  Do you hear what I’m saying Con? Do you care?

  His eyes were steady, his face without any readable expression. “And your heart was in it with me?”

  In the face of that daunting blankness, she could not make the ultimate surrender.

  And of course he didn’t care.

  He had Lady Anne.

  “Why do you ask, Con? It was a long time ago, and you are to marry soon.”

  His long lashes blinked over silvery eyes. “Ah, yes. Lady Anne. She has nothing to do with the past.”

  “She makes the past irrelevant.”

  He pushed off from the doorjamb and moved a step closer. “The past is never irrelevant, even if we wish it were. I wonder why you haven’t married. If you are telling the truth and don’t want the Crag anymore.”

  Through a tightening throat she said, “I am telling the truth.”

  The atmosphere had changed. He was still unreadable, but danger swirled with the candle smoke in the air. She’d told David she was in no danger here, and she’d thought it was true. Perhaps there were things men could sense that women couldn’t.

  “So,” he asked, “why haven’t you married?”

  He was demanding surrender and offering her nothing in exchange. “The bastard child of a tavernkeeper does not receive many worthy offers.”

  “You said Mel Clyst provided you with a dowry.”

  “I have no intention of being married for my money.”

  “Just as I have no intention of being married for my earldom. But you do have money?”

  She hesitated. Mel had bought property for her, but she’d poured all her recent income from it into supporting the Horde. She didn’t want to tell Con that, however, and she would be repaid.

  “Yes,” she said. “I have money.”

  “Then why are you playing housekeeper?”

  She realized too late that he’d come closer and closer until she was trapped against the table between two solid oak chairs with no way to escape short of pushing him out of the way.

  Would he move if she pushed?

  She didn’t think so.

  Heart pounding, she stood up straight. “I’m not playing. I work for my wages.”

  He put a hand on the back of each imprisoning chair, caging her. She gripped the table behind for strength. She didn’t fear that he would hurt her. She feared that he would kiss her, and by kissing her, conquer her entirely. . . .

  “What happened eleven years ago?” he asked again, his eyes dark now, the gray only a rim around his pupils. At least one of the candles behind her must be guttering, because it played erratic light over his somber face, creating saints and devils in turn.

  “What do you mean? What do you want to know?”

  He leaned a little closer. “When we kissed that day in Irish Cove, was it as much a miracle to you as it was to me? Or was it simply an opportunity?”

  She couldn’t deny him this. “It was a miracle,” she whispered.

  “Ah.” He lowered his lips and she didn’t try to escape, but it wasn’t the fierce, experienced kiss she’d expected. It was the same tentative tasting she remembered. As hesitant. As wary.

  As miraculous.

  She sank her hips back against the table for support, clutching it for dear life as his lips pressed innocently against hers.

  He licked her cheek and her eyes flew open.

  She realized that tears were leaking. He straightened, and so did she. She brushed away the other betraying tears with her hands.

  “Memories?” he asked. “Or regrets? Whichever, Susan, it’s a damned shame you did what you did in Irish Cove.”

  He turned and walked out of the room, out into the silent garden. After a moment, Susan found the strength in her legs to leave by the corridor door and make it to the sanctuary of her rooms.

  Tears welled up.

  She never cried!

  But the tears broke free and she collapsed into a chair to weep for what she had done to a fifteen-year-old boy in love, and for the living pain it had created. She wept for the man he had become and the loss of the man he could have been.

  But she also wept for the loss of the man he was, a loss stated by those flat words. It’s a damned shame you did what you did.

  Because it said clearly: Abandon hope. The damage done is irreparable.

  Con paused by the evil fountain, glad at least that the water was turned off, though it left the enclosed garden eerily quiet. The faint light of the two distant lamps still glimmered on the splayed legs and arms of the woman pinned by pitiless claws. Her dark mouth looked like a scream.

  If he thought it possible, he’d tear it apart now with his bare hands. It would be gone tommorow. If Susan didn’t see to it, he would. He couldn’t believe that he’d tolerated it even for a day.

  His mind had been fogged by Susan, but perhaps he was numb. Numbness was welcome sometimes, but mostly it was dangerous. He didn’t feel numb right now.

  He walked on, aching with the need to kiss Susan as he’d wanted to kiss her. That was the road to agonizing folly, however.
That private discussion had been insane, but he’d wanted her to know. He’d not wanted her to think—

  God, stop it. Put this place in order, then leave. Return once a year for an inspection. Next time bring armor. Bring Lady Anne, a wife.

  He tried to summon a clear image of Anne, and could only assemble facts—slender, blond, a slight limp. That didn’t do her justice, but it was all his struggling mind could come up with.

  That was all right. They hadn’t met that many times as yet, so it wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t summon a clear picture.

  He knew she would make a perfect, tranquil wife.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Susan arose the next morning and set to work on her escape. She’d dreamed of being back in Irish Cove, of not saying those dreadful words, but a dragon had surged up out of the water. Con had tried to fight it, but been seared by flaming breath.

  She’d lain awake after that, going over and over everything Con had said, seeking hope.

  That was enough to tell her that she had to escape.

  Over her breakfast, brought by Ellen, she drew up a list of three local women who could be housekeeper at Crag Wyvern. They weren’t really of the caliber to run an earl’s household, but this was not a normal earl’s household, and Con did not intend to live here. If he managed to lease it, the new residents would hire their own principal staff.

  She wrote letters to them, asking if they were interested in the position. At some point she’d have to ask Con if he wanted to interview them, or to leave it to her judgment. For the moment, however, she intended to avoid him.

  Then, armored in her housekeeper’s clothes, she emerged to send off her letters and to organize the day. She unlocked the store-cupboards to distribute necessary supplies, noting everything in the record books. She noted what supplies were running low and sent off orders to local merchants. She allocated tasks for the day as fairly as possible, then went to supervise the breakfast preparations.

  Con’s Spanish valet was in the kitchen, and he inquired about laundry facilities. She explained that washing was sent down to some women in Church Wyvern.