From the corner of my eye I caught the glimmer of a shadow moving among the trees to the right of us. Excited, I called Geoff’s attention to it a split second before a stag—a majestic, powerful stag with branching antlers—broke clear of its cover and went bounding across the field in front of us. When it had disappeared into another cluster of trees I turned to Geoff, my eyes still shining, and found him watching me with a quizzical expression.
“Who’s Richard?” he asked me calmly.
“What?”
“You called me Richard just now.”
My smile was not quite natural. “Did I? I can’t imagine why. Sorry.”
“Old flame, is he?” He clung to it, persistent.
“Something like that.” I nodded, trying to turn it into a joke. “Why, are you jealous?”
Instead of smiling back, as I had expected, he kept his eyes hard on my face for a long moment before answering.
“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. After another moment the smile came, the one I had been waiting to see. “Come on,” he invited, turning his horse towards the tall chimneys of Crofton Hall, “I’ll race you back to the stables.”
The heavens took pity on me, and by some miracle I managed to remain upright for the thundering gallop back. In the stableyard I dismounted with dignity, my knees still shaking at the thought of how nearly I had escaped sailing over the mare’s head into the manure pile when we’d finally stopped running.
“Stiff?” Geoff eyed me assessingly as the groom led our horses away.
“A little.” Which was an understatement. I was hobbling like a bandy-legged cowboy, and I knew it. “It has been a while since I’ve ridden.”
He smiled knowingly. “You did fine. Better than fine, actually.” He took hold of my elbow and steered me towards the house. “Come on, let’s see what we can find in Freda’s kitchen.”
What we found, quite unexpectedly, was Iain, rocking back on a kitchen chair with his boots propped against the table rail underneath, smoking a cigarette in an attitude of wholly masculine satisfaction.
“What was that?” Geoff asked, pointing at the suspiciously empty plate on the table in front of his friend.
Iain grinned. “Steak and kidney pudding,” he said, “with homemade chips, a salad, and blackberry crumble.”
“You bastard,” Geoff said with a slow smile. “How do you do it?”
Iain tilted his jaw indignantly. “I’ve been working hard all day, my lad, not cantering about the countryside like the bleeding gentry. How was your ride, by the way?”
“I stayed on top of the horse,” I answered. “It was a success.”
We didn’t see much of Iain these days, it seemed. Now that the truly warm weather had arrived, he was too busy working his farm and the orchard to make it into Exbury on a regular basis. I found I missed him, and his undemanding presence.
“How are the sheep?” I asked him, in my turn.
“Stupid as ever. I thought I’d take a break from them today and get some work done on the rose garden, here.”
Geoff sent him a fatherly look. “We have a gardener to do all the slogging, Iain. You don’t need to worry about it, you’ll only wear yourself out.”
“When your gardener learns to do the job properly, I’ll stop worrying,” Iain promised dryly. “Besides, I thought I’d try something a little different this year. I’ll be wanting your opinion on it, if you can spare the time.”
“When?”
Iain shrugged his broad shoulders. “How about now? It shouldn’t take long.”
Geoff consulted his wristwatch, looked at me, and waited for my nod before answering. “OK,” he said. “If you think you can still move after that meal you’ve eaten. Where is Freda, by the way?”
“She went to dust the library.” Iain took his feet off the table rail and brought his chair forward with a crash. “That was about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Right.” Geoff turned to me. “I don’t suppose you could track her down for me?”
I looked at him dubiously. “What, in the public side of the house, d’you mean?”
“Sure. You’ll have no trouble,” he assured me. “We don’t take many tours through this late in the afternoon. You know which door to use? Good. See if you can’t persuade Freda to whip us up some reasonable facsimile of Iain’s feast, here.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.
He sent me a wink and a winning smile before following Iain out the back door. The low hum of conversation and laughter rattled the windowpanes as the two men passed by on their way to the rose garden.
When they had gone, I went back down the dim, uneven passageway and pushed open the heavy door at the end, the door that divided Geoff’s private domain from the public portion of the manor house. Passing through another door, I found myself standing in the Great Hall, staring up at the colossal fireplace and the carved and painted coat of arms that crowned it. The hooded hawks upon the bloodred shield looked fiercer than I remembered them, their golden talons grasping at air. Indestructible. That was the translation Geoff had given of the family’s Latin motto. I looked at those talons again and shivered.
The great house was quiet, as Geoff had said it would be. No footsteps but my own echoed through the cavernous room as I moved from shadowed dimness into sunlight beneath the tall east-facing windows. I didn’t really expect to find Mrs. Hutherson still in the library, but there was no harm in looking there first. And if I happened to waste a few minutes looking at the books, well, that could hardly be helped, could it? Especially since there were no tour guides or other visitors to spoil my enjoyment of the lovely room.
I had forgotten, of course, about the portrait. His portrait. From the moment I entered the studious silence of the library, I felt Richard de Mornay’s eyes upon me, as surely as if the painted image had been a living man. I stared hard at a shelf of books, even read the titles of some of the more beautiful volumes, but always my gaze kept returning to the black and towering figure, watching me steadily from his corner of the room.
Finally I gave up altogether and walked over to stand before the portrait, aware that the cleverly painted eyes had followed my approach. Clasping my hands behind my back, I tilted my head upward to get a better look, marveling at the skill of an artist who could so perfectly capture the arrogant set of a jaw, the placement of hand on hip, the barely discernible half smile that lingered knowingly on those lips…
What had become of this man, I wondered, that future generations had forgotten his name? “We’ve dubbed him ‘The Playboy,’” Geoff had said to me when I’d first commented on the portrait. An inglorious legacy, certainly, for any man. I had looked for Richard de Mornay’s name in the weighty registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths that the vicar of St. John’s Church kept locked in the vestry. The vicar himself had helped me, peering with failing eyes at the neatly handwritten entries, row upon row. “My eyesight’s not what it used to be,” the kindly old man had apologized. “I used to do this sort of thing by the hour, you know, searching out names for Americans tracing their ancestry. No,” he had said finally, “there doesn’t appear to be a Richard. Of course,” he had added, by way of consolation, “we don’t have all the registers. Some were lost, you understand, during the Interregnum, when Cromwell was in power. It was not a pleasant time for the Church, I’m afraid.” He’d smiled gently. “The Roundheads often destroyed records, and all things sacred to our Church, and even when they did keep up the registers the entries were sadly incomplete. This register here, you see, ends in the year 1626, and the next does not begin until 1653, nearly thirty years later. But you may perhaps find a later reference…”
I ought to have known, really, that it would be a wasted effort. Geoff’s father, with his love of family history, would already have searched those parish registers for William de Mornay’s o
ffspring and found nothing.
The death of Mariana Farr, on 3 October 1728, had been duly recorded in a flowing, unemotional hand. But Richard’s fate remained a mystery.
I stared up at the portrait, now, with an absent frown. Lifting one hand, I let my fingers trail across the flowing sweep of painted cloak that fell in artful folds from the lifeless Richard’s shoulders. It was a mistake. Even as my fingertips left the canvas, the walls began to waver, the colors of the painting running as if the artist’s hand had brushed carelessly across it, smearing the outline of that handsome, taunting face. Taking a hasty step backwards, I squeezed my eyes shut.
I can’t, I pleaded silently, urgently. Don’t you see that I can’t? There isn’t time…
As if in answer to my thoughts the dizziness subsided and the shifting, vibrating walls righted themselves, appearing placidly innocent when I dared to open my eyes. My breath was coming in short, nervous gasps that hurt my lungs. Quickly I turned my back to the portrait and stumbled out of the room, steadying myself against the comforting solidity of the massive doorjamb. A peal of girlish laughter drifted into the dim corridor through the partly open front door, and I turned my steps towards it, like a prisoner seeking fresh air and the warmth of sunlight.
I didn’t reach the door. I had only gone a few paces before the sensation was upon me once again with a violent, almost punishing force that brought beads of icy sweat to my forehead and made my fingers clutch at the paneled walls in an effort to stay upright. I tried to fight it back, but failed. This time the high-pitched ringing rose deafeningly in my ears, and I spiraled downwards into darkness. It seemed an eternity before the storm passed, leaving me standing alone in the silent hallway, my hands shaking in anticipation.
A footfall sounded in the main passage behind me, and I spun round, my skirts sweeping the polished floor. Richard de Mornay halted his approach when he was still several feet away, and I waited for his reaction.
It was shockingly bold behavior, for me to come calling on him like this, and I wasn’t sure why I had done it. Perhaps it was because my uncle and aunt had gone down to Salisbury, and I had grown wild in my unaccustomed freedom. Or perhaps it was because of what Richard himself had said to me that day at the market, about my not seeming a coward. I had read the laughing challenge in his eyes that day, and I saw it again now as he took a step forward into the light, gallantly bowing his head.
“Welcome to Crofton Hall,” said Richard de Mornay.
Chapter 23
He advanced on me with a gracious smile. “So you are not a coward, after all,” he said, and I fancied his tone was faintly pleased. “You would face the devil on his own footing.”
He looked less like the devil this day. In place of his usual black clothing he wore a fine hanging coat of pale dove-gray, and his plain cravat spilled over a yellow silk waistcoat that was tied to his body with a wide sash. I was pleased to see that he did not follow the foppish fashion of London gentlemen. His gray breeches were not loose and beribboned; they fit smoothly over his muscled thighs and disappeared into the high practical boots of a countryman. No high-heeled shoes with buckles and bows for the lord of Exbury manor.
I smoothed my hands over my own plain skirt and faced him bravely. “I am but accepting the invitation of a gentleman, my lord,” I corrected him smoothly, “to have the loan of some of his books.”
“’Tis well for you I am a gentleman.” His eyes laughed back at me. “For you do take a risk in coming thus unchaperoned. No doubt my servants are at this moment fainting from the impropriety of it.”
I smiled, recalling the expression on the face of the man who had opened the door to me, and his stammering discomposure as he’d left me to find his master. A sudden thought struck me, and I glanced up, sobering.
“They will not tell?” I said quickly. “That is, my uncle…”
“…shall never hear of your adventure,” Richard de Mornay finished the sentence for me. “My servants may be Puritan in their morals, but they are a loyal lot. Your uncle is not at home, I take it.”
I shook my head. “He has gone down to Salisbury, with Aunt Caroline.”
“Has he, now?” I thought his eyes hardened for a moment, but it was a fleeting impression and soon forgotten. “Well, then you need not hurry your visit,” he decided. “Would you like to see the library first, or view the house as a whole?”
That was a simple question to resolve. “The library, please.”
“As you wish.” He inclined his head, not surprised. “Follow me, if you will.”
He led me along the dark passage and out into a cloistered walk that gave onto a tranquil courtyard, cool and green and peaceful. No flowers bloomed here save a handful of tender blossoms that trailed lovingly across a flat square of white stone set into the turf.
“My mother’s grave,” Richard said, when I asked him what it was. “Being Catholic, she was refused burial in the churchyard.”
I frowned thoughtfully. “Is that why you do not attend the services yourself?”
“I had rather pay the fines and pray according to my conscience,” he replied. “I could not hold with any church that would so judge a pious woman.”
He pushed open a heavy, creaking door and led me into another passage, where the air was heavy with the glorious scent of leather. I had often dreamed of rooms filled with nothing but books, but I had never actually seen one, and so the first sight of Richard de Mornay’s library left me momentarily speechless.
“These are all yours?” I asked in wonder, my eyes raking row upon row of the handsomely bound volumes, and he laughed at the unbridled envy on my face.
“Ay. One day I will build a larger room for them, but for now this must suffice. You may borrow whatever you like.”
It would have taken me a month to read all the titles. I stepped forward and quickly selected a small, fat book from one of the lower shelves. “May I borrow this one?” I asked him.
“Shakespeare?” he named my choice, raising one eyebrow curiously. “Take it, if you will. That is the Second Folio, and contains a curious verse by Milton, the old sinner, in the form of an epitaph.”
I brushed my fingers across the book’s cover lightly, reverently. “My father spoke highly of Milton’s poetry,” I said, “though he did not applaud his politics.”
“He is an odious man,” Richard agreed, “but a brave poet. He has just finished an epic on the fall of man, I am told, but cannot find the wherewithal to see it printed.”
Since the Restoration the once fiery Milton had fallen from favor, and the man who had penned such venomous defenses of the killing of kings now lived in blind and bitter solitude. I, for one, did not mourn his downfall. Fanaticism such as his had always frightened me.
My selection made, we left the library and skirted the courtyard once more, entering the main part of the house through a different door this time. I followed my host down a long gallery, where the dark portraits stared down at me from their vantage points on the paneled walls. All the eyes held disapproval. All the eyes, that is, but the pair belonging to a defiant young man in the last portrait but one.
“Your portrait, my lord?” I stopped to have a look. “It is an admirable likeness.”
“’Twas done by Lely,” he told me, giving his image an assessing glance, “soon after I returned from France. A minor vanity, on my part.”
“And this?” I moved on to the next portrait, and frowned a little into the face of a smug, self-satisfied boy with curling blond hair and idle eyes.
Richard looked. “My nephew, Arthur,” he identified the boy. “He has the look of my brother, but not, I fear, the character.”
I would have lingered in the gallery, but he pressed me onwards, through yet another doorway into a great soaring room with glittering glass windows and a ceiling that seemed as high as the arches of a cathedral.
“Oh,” I breathed, my eyes drifting upward. Here was a room, I marveled, fit for the use of princes. The walls were hung with cut velvet and tapestries woven in scarlet and blue, showing dark-eyed satyrs and pale-white nymphs, Vulcan and Venus and a host of ancient heroes. All round the room hung silver sconces set with candles, ready to illuminate the great hall with a hundred points of light and banish darkness forever. There would be light from the fireplace as well, I thought, that huge stone fireplace that could shelter burning logs the length and breadth of a man…
“It is a handsome room,” Richard said, beside me. “I regret the furnishings are so poor, but much of the furniture was sold off during my father’s imprisonment.”
There was, in truth, but a handful of chairs and small tables, clustered near the cold fireplace, but it scarcely seemed to matter. I took a step forward, stretching my neck to look up at the heraldic carvings above the mantel.
“The arms of my family,” he supplied. “The hawks wear hoods to remind us not to trust our eyes in battle, but to follow our sovereign blindly. We lead with our hearts,” he explained, “and not our heads. And much it has cost us.”
“But you cannot be destroyed,” I pointed out. “So says your motto. At least that lends some comfort.”
“You read Latin?” His tone was incredulous, and I lowered my eyes, embarrassed.
“My father taught me,” I said, in a small, defensive voice. “He said that if a queen could read Latin, then so should I.”
“He must have been a remarkable man, your father. Did he die recently?”
I shook my head. “Nine years ago. He fell into a fever, and did not recover. I was eleven years old.”
“Did you keep none of his books for yourself?”
“They were burnt,” I said flatly. “Everything in our house was burnt, upon my mother’s death, for fear of the plague.”
He stared down at me. “Your mother died of the plague?”
I nodded, unable to speak, and he shook his head sympathetically. “It is a dreadful thing,” he said. “I have heard that some five hundred people have died of it in London this past week alone, and it is far from over.”
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