The Lost Duchess of Greyden Castle

by Nina Coombs Pykare

  "Vanessa, stop now. This is unseemly."

  "Unseemly?” My voice was rising higher and higher, but I was powerless to stop it. “Isn't it unseemly to leave your wife alone on her wedding night?"

  To my chagrin, tears came into my eyes, but I ignored them and ranted on. “No one in this miserable household treats me decently.” Even in my anger I knew better than to mention Roland. “I can cope with them if I have your love. But without—"

  The tears would no longer be denied, and great sobs tore through me. To make matters worse, the cold had traveled up my legs to chill my whole body, and my teeth began a wild chattering.

  Suddenly Richard swung me up in his arms. “Don't be foolish,” he said, carrying me back through the connecting door. “Of course I care for you. I should not have married you otherwise."

  "Then why—"

  "It's Rosamund.” He put me in the great bed and covered me carefully before he sat down beside me.

  "Rosamund?"

  "Yes. The moon is full, and when that happens, it affects her mind. She wanders about the castle. Once she even went outside."

  I shuddered, thinking of that break in the wall that looked down on the rocks. “But you have servants."

  He shook his head. “They make her nervous, and she gets even wilder.” He kissed my forehead. “I beg your pardon, Vanessa. I should have told you before, but I didn't realize...."

  The things I had said returned to my mind, and I blushed almost scarlet. “Oh, dear,” I mumbled. “Now you will think I am like Caroline.” I sighed. “And you will be disappointed, for I know nothing."

  Richard chuckled. “Nessie, you darling. I should never have imagined otherwise. Go to sleep now. I promise you, we shall soon be man and wife in every way."

  With that I had to be content.

  Chapter Eight

  I'm not sure what awoke me, but I had been deep in a lovely dream where Richard shared my love and all was golden and beautiful.

  From this joy I struggled slowly upward toward consciousness. As my wits returned, I grew aware that something was amiss. My room reeked of cloying sweetness. My heart threatened to stop in my breast. It was Caroline's scent! Caroline's scent was hanging heavy in my room.

  While I was yet trying to come to terms with this, distantly, but clear and distinct, came the mewling cry of an infant. A cold sweat bathed my body. Three nights running, Creighton had said, and the hearer could expect a visit from Death. I lay there, not knowing whether to open my eyes or to keep them tightly closed.

  I decided to keep them closed, to pretend sleep. I was being silly, I told myself. That was something else I had heard, not the haunting babe.

  Under the covers my body shivered and shook. My heart raced in panic. Even if I had mistaken the sound I had not mistaken the scent that hung in my room. The air was thick with it. So thick I wanted to cough.

  But if I made a sound—if I moved—whoever had left the scent might still be there, waiting for my reaction.

  I told myself that it could not be Caroline who had brought her scent into my room while I slept. Caroline was dead and buried, and I did not believe in ghosts.

  Papa had always laughed at tales of the supernatural. How I wished I had him there with me. He would soon have had me laughing at such silliness. And Papa would not lie there, his eyes squeezed shut, while someone tried to scare him out of his wits.

  Taking courage, I opened my eyes. Moonlight was coming in through the windows. I half expected to see some lurking figure in the shadows, but the moonlight was bright, there were no shadows. And the room was, except for me, quite empty.

  I lay there, shivering under the covers Richard had heaped on me. I did not—would not—believe in ghosts. So the next question was, which of Richard's distressing relations had done this thing? And why?

  Of course, given their dispositions, asking why was perhaps unnecessary. I ran over the possibilities in my mind. The dowager could have done it, though I thought her inclination would be to more direct methods. She did not strike me as the kind who would resort to skullduggery.

  Rosamund might have done it. In her deranged condition, she might have any number of strange reasons for wishing to frighten me. But earlier in the evening she had not even known who I was. And besides, Richard was with her.

  Or Penrose might have been the one. Doubtless that nasty boy would find the thought of terrifying a woman great fun.

  It did not occur to me that Richard or his twin would wish to drive me from this place. Richard had said he loved me, and Roland had been very kind.

  Of the three I suspected, I decided that Penrose was the most likely candidate.

  My heart had slowed its pounding. Now that I had eliminated the supernatural, I felt more at ease, though I did not know how I could prove that Penrose was the culprit. He was such a thoroughly disagreeable young man that it seemed entirely possible he would resort to such nastiness.

  I decided to try to sleep again. I would need all my strength in the morning. It took a great deal of energy to keep my temper under control when dealing with these people.

  I closed my eyes. Where was my husband now? Sitting at his sister's bedside, calming her disordered mind? I tried to imagine Richard's beloved face. In my mind I reconstructed it, feature by feature. For long minutes I debated the exact shade of his dark eyes, the proper color to designate his darker hair.

  Finally, I relaxed and drifted once more into sleep. Then it came again. There was no mistaking it—that was the cry of a baby! My heart pounded so that I found it difficult to think clearly. My limbs quivered with terror, and all my new-found confidence disappeared in one swift instant.

  The haunting babe was the harbinger of Death. Creighton had said so, and she had said that Caroline heard it before—

  Panic seized me, and I leaped from the bed and raced to the connecting door. I did not stop to think whether Richard might have returned. I moved without thinking at all.

  The moment I jerked open the door, I knew his room was empty. Still, there was a feel of his presence there, a comfort. I closed the connecting door behind me. I would stay in Richard's room until his return.

  On my previous visit, I had not noticed anything but Richard, everything else in the room had been unimportant. Now, trying to distract my mind, I wandered curiously around.

  This room, too, had large windows. The moon illuminated a big curtained bed, a writing desk and chair, and a carved wardrobe. The room was furnished sparingly. 1 saw nothing of Caroline in it at all, and this gave me a surge of pleasure.

  Perhaps Richard had kept this room for his exclusive use. Caroline would have preferred that he sleep somewhere else. She had always liked her privacy.

  I went to gaze out the window. The moonlight made strange shadows in the darkness outside. Figures seemed to lurk where no figures were. My imagination had become so inflamed that it was creating impossible things of the most frightening kind.

  I moved away from the window, toward Richard's wardrobe, where 1 stopped and sniffed. I thought I could detect Caroline's scent. Had that person brought some in here? I moved on and no longer smelled it. Imagination again.

  I scolded myself. I was held to be the sanest and most sensible young woman in all of Wiltshire—Papa had said so repeatedly—but I certainly was not behaving very sensibly now. There I was, reduced to looking for ghosts and sniffing for their perfume like a dog after the fox.

  I sniffed again, but I smelled nothing. To the best of my knowledge, a wraith did not wear scent. I was feeling so much better that I actually smiled at the thought.

  My mind was in a better condition, but my feet were nearly frozen, my teeth beginning to chatter again. I thought about returning to my room, but I felt better in Richard's room, stronger. He, too, had a bed—a big, heavily curtained affair. The covers had already been turned down.

  I stood there looking at it. This was Richard's bed, and I was Richard's wife. I had every right to be in it, so I told myself as I climb
ed in and began rubbing my poor chilled feet. If only Richard would return and take me in his arms. Then I would feel safe.

  I had been badly frightened, but if the person behind this deed thought to scare me away from Greyden Castle, he would be much disappointed. I was not a person given to quitting. When I put my hand to the plow, I stayed till the furrow was done.

  I had married Richard to be wife to him and mother to Sarah, and I intended to let no one and no thing interfere with the performance of those duties.

  I settled myself among my husband's pillows and prepared to wait. I wished, momentarily, that I had put on my prettier nightdress, the one I had made for my wedding night, but I was grateful for the warmth of the heavy flannel. Though a fire burned on the hearth, it was small, and its heat did not carry far.

  This infernal castle, I thought with some petulance, was like to freeze my very bones. Why couldn't something be done to make the place warmer?

  I snuggled down, prepared to let sleep overtake me. I had always been a light sleeper, and I felt I would awaken on Richard's return. I shoved the pillows about, preparing a warm nest for myself.

  My feet were still cold, and I turned sideways so I could pull them up under my gown. I took a deep breath to relax myself—and stiffened instead. There it was again—Caroline's scent. Not so strong, this time, but definitely Caroline's scent.

  I lay there, my body aquiver, while the most impossible thoughts chased themselves through my mind.

  Perhaps Caroline's ghost had come back to claim the husband who had once been hers. On the face of it, this was not even sensible. Even if ghosts did exist, Caroline had not loved Richard. Though it pained me to admit it, I was well aware that Caroline had loved no one but herself.

  Then, there was also the memory, vivid as though it had happened yesterday, of Caroline striking me across the face and commanding me never to touch her things.

  Of course I did not believe in ghosts. Could the tension I had been under have affected my mind? Could I be imagining that I smelled Caroline's scent?

  This did not seem like a reasonable conclusion either. I was not a vaporish miss given to purple imaginings, but a grown woman of stable character, as anyone in Wiltshire would have been willing to attest.

  But, if neither of these suppositions was true, then the scent must have a physical origin. Determined to think this thing through, I curled up again. In doing so, I slipped my hand under the pillow to cradle my head as I always did.

  My fingers touched something different—something soft and lacy under Richard's pillow.

  I sat up, my skin gone suddenly cold. The moonlight was still strong in the room. I pulled the pillows aside and uttered a cry of pain.

  There lay a lace-edged handkerchief. The familiar scent rose to my nostrils, and I knew before I picked it up. It bore a monogrammed C. My husband slept with his dead wife's handkerchief beneath his pillow.

  Tears rose to my eyes, but I held them back. Carefully I replaced everything just as I had found it and returned to my own bed.

  Once there, I twisted and turned, my mind an agony of thought. I knew Richard had loved Caroline—with a passion he had never felt for me—but to find such evidence that his love lived on, when she had been long dead, was like a dagger in my wounded heart.

  I was not amazed that Richard still loved her, even after all she had done, for I already knew that love was a most mysterious occurrence and one over which we mortals have very little control.

  What was I to do? Should I tell Richard I knew his secret, that our marriage was a farce and I meant to return to Papa and see it ended? In my pain I considered this for some minutes, soon realizing there were several reasons why it was unfeasible.

  First, however Richard felt about it, our marriage was very real to me. I knew that Richard was the only man I could ever truly love. Second, if I left, that would mean Caroline had won. Even in death she would cheat me of the one man I could love.

  There in the great bed I lay frowning. Caroline had always gotten everything she wanted. From the newest fashion to becoming a duchess, Mama had seen that she succeeded. But Mama was gone, too, and unless the two of them were conspiring to haunt me, she could no longer help Caroline.

  Caroline was dead and I was alive. This, of course, could be considered an unfair advantage; but I had not caused Caroline's death, nor had I been the one to propose that Richard and I marry.

  With these thoughts in mind, I calmed myself and dried my tears. I would not run away like a faint-hearted coward. I would stay and make Richard love me. Even then I was aware that love cannot be so conveniently forced, but I meant to be the best wife in all of Cornwall.

  Perhaps—someday—he would find to his surprise that the image of Caroline that he carried in his heart had been replaced by one of me. Admittedly, it was a foolish dream, and much more fitting for a green girl than the mature woman I liked to think I was. But I did love my husband, very deeply and far too much for my own good.

  Therefore I determined, drying my eyes on my pillow, that I would not let Richard know that I had been in his room. I would certainly not let on that I had found the love token he kept under his pillow. Not a word about any of this would pass my lips. Perhaps someday, Richard would see fit to tell me, but until then, the secret would be mine. Finally, I slept.

  I woke late the next morning. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows—a beautiful sight.

  I leaped from the bed and hurried to the connecting door. Richard's bed was empty, but it showed signs of having been occupied. He had come in sometime during the night without my hearing him.

  I turned back into my room and began to wash and dress. The water in the pitcher was cold, but I did not wish to take the time to order hot. I wanted to get dressed and find Richard.

  I hurried into my clothes, choosing a gown of azure that I hoped gave me a bright look, and a paisley shawl to go round my shoulders.

  I opened the door to the hall—and screamed. In my haste, I had almost stepped on the bloody—and quite dead—bird that lay there. Its mouth was grotesquely open, and projecting from it was a piece of paper that read, “Go home."

  No ghost had left such a gory calling card. This looked a great deal like the work of Penrose. It was just the sort of thing that would appeal to his sense of the grisly.

  I considered what to do next. I definitely did not intend to remove the bird myself. With a shudder, I stepped over it and continued on my way to the dining room. Someone was going to pay for this outrage.

  Seeing the dining room was empty, I almost stamped my foot; but I recollected my new status, and instead I filled my plate and sat down to eat. My stomach felt definitely queasy, but I forced myself to chew and swallow, I was determined to behave as normally as possible.

  As I ate, I mused on the night's events. I should have taken up the bird, kept it to show Richard. After all, I had no proof of Caroline's scent or the cries of the haunting babe, but the bird was tangible evidence. Foolishly I had let it lie there where the perpetrator could go back and remove it. Well, I would return after I had eaten and take up the evidence to show my husband.

  Just as I finished emptying my plate, the dowager entered. “Good morning,” I said, putting on a cheerful smile.

  "There is nothing good about it,” she said grimly. “My son made a mistake in marrying you, and you will rue the day you set your cap for him."

  This outrageous accusation brought out the worst in me. “I did not set my cap for him! Our marriage was Richard's idea."

  She snorted. “Indeed!” Then she fixed me with a glaring eye. “You're cut from the same cloth as that sister of yours."

  "I'm—"

  "There's no point in denying it.” She pointed a bony finger at me. “But you'd better not behave as she did, or you may come to a similar end."

  "I—” I stared at her. How could she say such terrible things to me? “You are very wrong!” I cried. “I would never behave as Caroline did."

  "She'
s right, Mama.” Roland came in, gave us each a smile, and stepped to the sideboard to fill a plate. “Vanessa is a very different sort."

  It was the most amazing thing. Right before my eyes the dowager changed. The harsh-featured harridan was transformed into a doting mama. “Now, Roland,” she said, with more sweetness than I had ever heard in her voice, “you know you are far too tenderhearted."

  He gave her a sheepish smile. “Perhaps so, Mama. But, nevertheless, you have misjudged Vanessa. You really ought to be kinder to her."

  "But she is his wife."

  "Mama, you know Richard cannot help being the duke. It was not his fault that he was born first.” He put an arm around her shoulders, “Just be happy, Mama. Richard works hard taking care of us, and I am free to do other things."

  For a moment I was curious. What “other things” was Roland speaking of?

  Then the dowager turned to me. “Perhaps I have misjudged you,” she said slowly, the skin around her eyes crinkling into a frown. “But you married the wrong son. Roland would make a far better husband."

  The memory of a fiery kiss pushed its way into my mind, and with it came the momentary consideration that perhaps the dowager was right! I could not imagine that Roland would let his bride languish for two nights. My lips seemed to feel again the intensity of that brief kiss. Roland's nature must be more combustible than Richard's. What would it be like to wait for Roland to come through the connecting door?

  The thought heated my cheeks. Dear God, I could not begin acting like Caroline! I loved my husband, and he said he loved me. Any speculations on the activities of other men must remain purely that—speculation.

  I knew that it was useless to argue with the dowager. She had long ago settled that Roland was to be the darling of her heart. Nothing I could say or do would change that. And indeed, Roland seemed to deserve every accolade his mother gave him. He was kind and considerate, tender and generous. A woman could not ask for a better son. Or husband. The disloyal thought was difficult to silence, but I worked very hard at doing so. My heart belonged to Richard, I reminded myself. It had been his since I was a girl.