by Deana James
Vivian shook her head as she lifted the hand mirror behind.her to view the result. She looked at Emma Felders in the mirror. The two women stared at each other, the older one daring the younger one to complain.
Considering that she had tried the housekeeper enough, Vivian nodded briefly. Calmly, as a queen proceeding to chambers of state, she rose and crossed to the door where she paused, waiting for Mrs. Felders to open it.
For the first time Vivian walked through the earl's house with her head erect. No longer was she clothed in nun's garb, her vision bound by the blinding wings of her veil. For the first time she looked around her with an interested and observing eye.
The hall ended on a long landing that joined the two wings of the house above a double staircase. Her new room was in the wing occupied by the viscount rather than the wing where the countess had died. At the bottom of the staircase were the parlor and dining room and presumably the earl's study.
She looked about her critically. The red Turkish carpet was practically threadbare. Dust grayed the carvings of the banisters. Spiders had long ago draped their webs between the scounces-so long ago that the webs were gray and fuzzy with dust. She frowned at the housekeeper's stiff back. Threadbare carpet was a thing no servant could help, but dust and neglect were undoubtedly her responsibility.
With Mrs. Felders leading the way, they descended the wide staircase and crossed the scarred parquet floor in the lower hall. Soil had worked into the indentations and scratches left by hundreds of boot heels. Vivian shook her head at the sight of such inexcusable neglect. In front of the dark double doors of the study, the housekeeper stopped and rapped with her knuckles on a richly carved panel.
By the light seeping through dingy panes on each side of the massive front door, Vivian could study with some distaste the evidence that neglect was not relegated to the floor. The walls were smoke-stained and dull. The windows were filthy. A large painting in a tarnished gilt frame hung beside the study door. The colors had darkened with age and dirt until the subject was uncertain. Gazing up at it, Vivian noted spider-webs spun from the edges of the frame to the walls behind.
The countess's illness had been of long duration. Given the precarious state of the earl's health, he probably noticed nothing beyond his own creature comforts. Somehow that thought was reassuring. It embodied him with a weakness where he had hitherto seemed invincible. Vivian shuddered, dreading the confrontation.
Mrs. Felders knocked again more loudly to be rewarded by a peremptory summons to enter. She turned the handles back on the doors, swung them inward, and stepped aside.
Vivian quelled an overwhelming desire to run. Her legs were unsteady under her as she crossed the threshold.
"Ah, the bride. Good morning, my dear. Blue velvet," he remarked, surveying her clothing. "An excellent choice."
As Mrs. Felders closed the doors behind her, Vivian hesitated, unwilling to approach him.
"Come closer, my dear." He sat behind a huge block of furniture. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, she realized he sat behind a desk where papers were stacked in several neat stacks. At the same time she wondered how any room so dark could be called a library.
Heavy draperies covered the windows from ceiling to floor. Shelves filled with leather-bound books lined the walls from the windows to the hall doors through which she had entered. The only light in the room came from a standing candelabra behind and to the side of his desk. The candles gilded the long white hair spread over his shoulders but kept his face in shadow. The Earl of Larnaervon sat in a cell. But it was a cell of his own choice, she reminded herself.
"Don't be shy, my dear-Vivian?" His voice lifted her name at the end as if requesting permission to use it. She stiffened at the courtesy in the light of his treatment of her body.
He detected the movement and shrugged, twisting his crippled shoulders slightly. A pool of silence filled between them. Then he pushed several pages of foolscap toward her with his knobby fingers. "I promised you your chance to write your protest. Have at it now."
Taking a leather chair beside the desk, Vivian stared at the blank sheets. She had forgotten her demands of the night before. Her thoughts whirled. Even if she had had the power of speech, she doubted at that moment she could have formed coherent statements.
"Pen and ink, my dear." He pushed the stand toward the edge of the desk.
Fingers cold, she dipped the pen and scratched a couple of words on the paper. "Stone Glenn."
He rose with the aid of his cane and limped round the desk. "Your home. It will be restored to you, my dear." He placed one hand on her shoulder. It hooked over her, the fingers hard and knobby. It might have been a skeleton hand for all the warmth that penetrated layers of material, and the tremors in the arm rattled the old bones against her.
"Sebastian."
The fingers squeezed. "Ah, thirsting for revenge, are you?" He chuckled. "I like your spirit, Vivian. Leave your erstwhile guardian to Piers and me. We’ll see that every shilling, every tuppence is accounted for."
She looked up into the earl's withered face. His eyes blazed with the heat that his fingers lacked. His scrutiny made her more uncomfortable than his touch. She barely managed to control a shudder as she dropped her eyes to the paper again.
"Lawyers."
"Shylocks, everyone of them. Aiding him to swindle you." Muttering something unintelligible, he released her shoulder and leaned across his desk. He staggered slightly, unsteady on his stiff legs, and cursed as his hip bumped against the edge.
For a minute or two one hand, heavily spotted on the back, paddled in the papers. Finally, he found the one he sought, extracted it, and passed it to her. "I didn’t go to bed last night," he continued, clearing his throat noisily. "Now that you are safe." He smiled at her and dipped his head. His white hair swung forward. "I was consumed with the desire to set this business to rights."
She glanced at the candelabra, noting that the yellow tallow had indeed overrun the drip pans.
"Too damnably much work to do," he continued, "and too little time left." He shifted so that his bony shanks rested on the edge of the desk. His shoulders hunched over the cane braced between his legs. He stared at her while she tried to make sense of the paper. At last she looked up into his face. His white hair and unshaven white stubble on his blasted cheeks gave him an appearance like nothing human. The sunken eyes glittering so close above her made her ill. Their whites were bloodshot and yellow as tallow.
In the back of Vivian's mind a memory stirred, a book she had read, or a fact she had heard. Disease of the liver, she recalled. Jaundice.
He stared back at her. Like antagonists they sized each other up searching for weaknesses. "Piers should be up and at work. But he drinks. He needs—” The man glanced at the paper, back at her, then focused his eyes on the candle's heart. He muttered again, then expelled his breath in a shuddery wheeze. "He needs the weakness beaten out of him," he told her confidentially.
Vivian curled her nails around the arms of her chair. This man talked of his son as if he despised him.
Lord Larnaervon shook himself as if he had said too much, coughed harshly, and tapped the paper she held. "Your guardian was robbing you blind, Vivian Marleigh, with the consent and aid of those high-priced London solicitors. My dear, don't think that I have kidnapped you. You should be falling on your knees in gratitude before me for taking you into my care."
She wrote again on the foolscap. "Home, please."
He shook his head. "After all the trouble and expense I've taken to rescue you. My girl, you can't take care of yourself in this cruel world. You may be intelligent. I think you are. I think that you may be more than even I am aware of. But the odds are too great against you. That's the thing you have to face."
"Hire honest men," she wrote.
He read the words and shook his head. "These are unfortunate times. And your wealth would tempt anyone but a saint. You can't fight greed. It corrupts. And you are a very wealthy young woman. Re
ad that account."
As he bade her, she tilted the paper into the candlelight. It was a report of rents collected from Marleigh Court tenants. The rents were dated months in advance and paid into the account of her guardian. Furthermore, they were exorbitantly high.
When she had finished, he handed her another. It was a statement of monies paid by the London firm of Barnstaple and Rowling to Sebastian Dawlish for expenses incurred as executor of the Marleigh estate. She gasped at the figures.
Larnaervon snorted. "That's a niggardly statement. Some are twice and three times that."
Unbelieving, Vivian reached for papers on the desk but was stopped by his hand grasping her wrist. When she glared at him, he grinned.
"Think of this, my dear. Piers and I will have our own interests at heart when we take care of your property. After all it becomes ours. We won't be trying to rob you blind or shut you up for a Bedlamite. It's to our best interests to keep you happy and healthy." He gradually released his grip on her wrist. His long fingers still encircled her skin without touching it. She might have been a small bird that he was testing to see if she were tame.
For her own part she did not move, fearful that if she did, she would be ensnared again.
He heaved a deep sigh. "From now on well manage the revenue from Stone Glenn as if it were our very own. Because it is. And all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the life it provides." His face assumed a crafty look. "And in due time you 11 have a son or two to look after. That should please you. Good women are pleased to be mothers."
She could not help herself. She jerked her wrist out of his hand. A babe was one thing, but the process by which it was gotten, to lie with his drunken son, was quite another.
Biting her lower lip to control a rising tide of angry resentment, she stabbed the pen into the inkwell and began to write.
He leaned over toward her but could not read the hastily scribbled words until she stabbed a point at the end, reversed it, and thrust it beneath his nose.
He read her words, grinned sardonically, then read them aloud. '"Let me return to Stone Glenn, or I will turn you over to the authorities.' And what authorities might that be, my dear? Can you name me one? A sheriff, perhaps. Or a justice perhaps? Perhaps you'll go to London again and demand an audience with the old mad king?" His expression turned menacing. He pushed the pad toward her. "Write the name of the one you'll turn me over to."
She ducked her head. He had called her bluff. She knew no one. No one at all. And she could not ask anyone.
He pushed the top of his cane up under her chin and forced her face up. "You 11 do as I tell you. And as Piers tells you. You don't have a choice. So the faster you learn that the better."
"Is that how you persuaded Mother to come to you, Larne? No wonder your relationship was so loving!"
Neither member of the tableau moved. Vivian found she could not turn her head. The thick gold knob at the top of the cane pressed tightly into the hollow beneath her chin. Larne, determined to wring submission from her, held her in painful durance.
"If you keep that up, she'll be dead before she can marry me."
With a malicious grin and a twist of his wrist, Larne pulled the cane away. Vivian slumped back in the chair. "Her, dead. Never. Can you imagine another woman up on her feet after being driven at breakneck pace across the south of England? She's something, isn't she? A fine strong mother for my heir-through you, of course, Piers."
"How thoughtful you are, Larne. Planning lives when your own is a pathetic ruin."
The earl hefted his cane. "You dare to say such a thing to me."
Vivian looked from one man to the other. Their voices rose. The older man's withered cheek was suffused with red. The younger stood with clenched fists at the ready.
"The days when you could swing that cane and make me cringe are gone. Do it now and see what happens." Piers's jaw was set, his chin tucked into his chest. He looked at his father from beneath dark brows.
"You—” The earl raised the cane above his head.
Piers's fists came up. His left one rose to shoulder height. "Try it."
Vivian sprang from her chair and backed up against the bookshelves. Her movement distracted them both.
The earl followed her flight. Then he visibly relaxed. Again his shoulders twisted in the strange motion that passed for a shrug. "Not worth the trouble. She’ll have me a real heir soon enough."
Piers let his fists drop to his sides. He, too, glanced at Vivian, a mirthless grin curving his mouth upward. "Don't be too sure. A few words don't make a marriage."
Larne's lips pulled back in a snarl. He shot a look of obdurate hatred at his son, then turned slowly to limp around the desk. Suddenly, a cackling laugh burst from between his withered lips. Like a snake he struck.
Vivian saw the movement as a blur. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Piers barely got his forearm up to partially deflect the blow before it connected with a solid thud on his shoulder. Another inch to the right and it would have grazed his temple. Two inches and it would have rendered him unconscious.
Piers dropped back a step and caught the cane even as it rose to strike again. He jerked at it and twisted, but the taloned hand would not release the weapon.
"Damn you!" he panted, the pain streaking down his arm and across his chest.
"Damn you!" the earl shouted. "You'll not laugh at me. I'm still master here in this house." The old man's other arm flailed about. The inkstand went flying. Books and papers followed it.
The chair where Vivian had sat went over with a crash as Piers closed with his father, one fist locked round the cane, the other grasping his father's neck piece and ramming it up into the wattled throat.
Vivian darted to the bellcord hanging over the desk. As she yanked it, she heard the drumming. Someone was banging on the study door with imperious fists.
"Milord! Milord."
Neither man paid the slightest attention.
Piers bore his father back over the desk, his face suffused with blood, his eyes wild. "Give over, old man. Otherwise, I’ll hurt you."
"You'll-not—” Larne was panting now, his white hair whipping out around his impassioned face. He still struggled to wrest the cane from his son. His feet had been lifted off the floor and now kicked impotently in the air.
"Milord! Larne!" Mrs. Felders called. The knocking became a steady pounding.
Vivian dashed around the struggling men and flung open the door. Watkins, Mrs. Felders, and Millard, the butler, burst into the room.
"Help him!" Mrs. Felders screamed. "Help the master." The two men sprang forward to part the combatants. Watkins grabbed the viscount by the arm and dragged him back as Millard flung himself between the two. "Milord," he cried to the earl. "You mustn't."
As if the wind had gone out of his sails, the earl dropped back onto the desk. His empurpled face contrasted shockingly with his stark white hair. The veins throbbed in his temples with every beat of his heart. "Dared-me—”
"You'll do yourself an injury, Larne."Emma Felders hurried to his side and slid her arms around his twisted shoulders. "Please, milord. You must calm yourself."
"He—”
"Don't think about it." Over her shoulder she ordered Millard to pour some brandy.
While the butler obeyed, Watkins made a show of straightening the viscount's clothing, patting him with hands that fumbled what they sought to set to rights. "Are you injured, milord?" he muttered through his teeth.
"Not to speak of." Piers massaged his shoulder. He grinned reassuringly at his valet. "He's slowing down."
Vivian, hovering at the door, stared in consternation. What kind of man could sustain such a terrible blow and come away grinning? No one had ever lifted a hand to her. When she had entered into this house with Sister Grace such a short time ago, she had stepped into a different world. Here even natural death was unnatural and hate-filled, and fathers and sons regarded each other as adversaries. They even played violent games with each other. She could not
doubt, the entire incident had been a game, a terrible contest with one taking great satisfaction in scoring off the other.
Larne downed the brandy that Millard had thrust into his hand and endured Mrs. Felders soothing with good grace. He held out the tumbler for more brandy and drank it, too. His eyes never left Piers and Vivian, who stood poised on the threshold.
Millard moved between them, very much on his dignity. "Milords. The priest has arrived."
Larne gave a short bark of laughter. He pushed himself off the desk and shook off Mrs. Felders's hands. The gold-headed cane slid down in his hand and became once more a walking aid. "Then by all means let the wedding commence. I long to see these two happy people united in wedlock."
Chapter 8
Sebastian Dawlish arrived just at sunset. With him were the solicitor Rowling, the Justice of Assizes Thomas Penstaff, Captain Rory McPherson of the local garrison with four of his men, and Mrs. Frances Eads.
Sebastian stomped into the hall, his face frostbitten, his eyes searching feverishly. "We've come for my ward. Vivian Marleigh. Where is she?"
"Sir," Millard stood firm in front of him as he strode toward the staircase.
"Out of my way."