The Lost Heiress of Hawkscliffe

by Joyce C. Ware

  As the slender man left the room with the decanter clutched in his hand, his movements were jerky and unnatural. I was concerned enough to give Thornton Ramsay a meaningful look, but he dismissed my worries.

  “There’s not enough brandy in it to do Philo more harm than a morning-after headache, and he’s not the type to rummage in the pantry for more. I just hope he recovers in time for Louise’s arrival,” he added with a frown. “We’ll all be needing as clear a head as possible for that.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I had brought so few belongings with me, the transferring of them to my new quarters should have taken only a few minutes, but there was a spot on my serge traveling suit, my shoes had need of a polish, and my best white shirtwaist was badly soiled. I would have to consult Mary Rose about the proper washing and ironing of it in the morning.

  Still I lingered. I smoothed a ragged fingernail, then polished the silver back of my mother’s hand mirror until my reflection in it almost matched that on the front, and in both my frown of indecision was plain to see. “You’ve dillydallied long enough,” I told myself sternly. So saying, I ventured forth into the dark corridor and took the few steps that would bring me to the entrance to Roxelana’s suite.

  Placing my lamp beside me on the carpet, I grasped the curved brass handles firmly, and when the doors swung softly open, a whoosh of warm air enveloped me in cedarwood and roses. Expecting dank mustiness, I was so surprised by the heady aliveness of the dream-remembered scent, I felt faint with apprehension. What else might have survived my nighttime fantasies? Not knowing which way to turn, I anxiously inclined first one way, then the other, as my ears hearkened to creakings and rustlings in the shadows.

  I took a long step back, snatched up the lamp, and advanced defiantly into the darkness with it raised up high, daring I-knew-not-what to reveal itself. As the shadows scuttled back behind drapes and bed curtains, carved wardrobes and gilt-mirrored dressing table, I felt more relieved than foolish to find that the source of the creaking was a parquet floor, the rustling no more than a silk bed curtain stirred by a draught of air I had myself created, and the hiss the homely sound of steam from a radiator turned on, no doubt, by Mary Rose. No snakes lay coiled to strike; no dark-haired woman lay sighing in a seven-year sleep upon the counterpane. There was no living, breathing presence here save mine.

  I lit a lamp of baroque design on an inlaid table placed within reach of a graceful, peach satin-upholstered chaise. The warm glow of light through the opalescent shade revealed a riot of cabbage roses painted in a rich array of pinks and golds and apricots. Recovered from my initial shock, I found myself enjoying this luxurious room’s assault upon my senses, and I hastened to establish my claim upon it.

  The dressing table boasted a set of gold-rimmed silver implements and an array of crystal perfume bottles whose amber-shaded contents tempted me to sniff one of the long, tapered stoppers, but the scent had long since withered away to a bitter residue. No roses here. Then I spied a covered porcelain bowl on a small Boulle cabinet, and a similar one, initially overlooked, behind the rose-shaded lamp. I lifted their pierced covers, revealing the heaped potpourri which awaited only warmth to release anew its scented message. That is why I had dreamed of it, I realized. The sudden change in the weather that night from icy blasts to an unseasonable and humid warmth had sent musky roses wafting under doors to search out my impressionable nose.

  Set at ease by this practical explanation for my mysteriously perfumed dream, I found myself humming as I settled in. I replaced the gold-trimmed dresser set with my mother’s, which though far less valuable was to my mind of handsomer design, and placed my toilet bag in a well-appointed bathroom almost as large as the room I had just vacated. An amenity rarely found in rural areas, this one not only boasted a small wood-fired boiler for heating water, but was entirely sheathed in marble. I was willing to wager that no seraglio boasted a finer one. Why, the sunken tub was wide and deep enough to sport about in! Quite big enough for two, really. A moment later, as the implications of my conclusion overcame me, I could feel heat suffuse my cheeks as an irrepressible vision of myself engaged in such sport with Thorn Ramsay rose to taunt me.

  Unnerved by the path my imaginings were taking—a pathway to damnation, my father would have proclaimed —I hastened to hang away my two day dresses, the russet velvet Thornton Ramsay had admired, my green tweed skirt, lawn shirtwaists, and trusty serge suit. Nothing could be less stimulating to the senses than navy serge, I assured myself wryly.

  I opened the rosewood doors of one of the wardrobes and was immediately reminded of Cora’s dismissive description of Roxelana’s taste. All glitter and gauze, she had said. But what astonishing glitter, and how sumptuous was this gauze. Far from sharing Cora’s contempt, I was transported back to my Turkish childhood, when older cousins and serving girls breathlessly rivaled each other’s tales of the rumored splendors of the sultan’s harem.

  Here before me were wonders none of those girls had even begun to imagine. Gossamer silk chalvar in limpid shades of amethyst, jade, sapphire, and crimson swayed on padded hangers together with brassieres netted of finespun strands of silver and gold, lined with satin. Silk-embroidered vests, cropped short to fit snugly under full breasts, hung above a row of exquisitely tooled slippers of the softest leather, and on the backs of the doors elaborately wrought hooks held barbaric gold-tasseled belts set with rough-cut gemstones and chiffon veils as delicate as a baby’s breath and winking with tiny starlike jewels. How could I possibly hang my drab workaday garments in amongst such luxury?

  I sighed as I shut away the dazzling array and turned to the other wardrobe, which held clothes designed for everyday use, albeit of the finest materials and workmanship. As I pushed Roxelana’s fineries aside to make room for my own few things, I wondered that there was enough money left to maintain the estate at all. Charles Quintus’s last mistress appeared to have worn most of his fortune on her pampered back.

  What could have persuaded Roxelana to abandon all this? An even more interesting question was how she had persuaded Charles Quintus Ramsay to provide it in the first place. From what I had learned so far, he was an unusually lusty, self-centered man, more interested in sexual conquest than domestic bliss with anyone woman.

  I recalled the boldly sensual face in the portrait on the stair landing. I pictured that firmly fleshed body swaying in silken garments, those huge dark eyes offering sidelong invitation above one of those jeweled veils. These were the arts of the harem, the practiced craft of a favored concubine, frequently highborn, whose status—and sometimes her very life—depended on her mastery of it.

  Could Roxelana’s tale be true? Was she the threatened princess she claimed, or the wily whore Cora detested, Thornton wished dead, and Philo hoped to replace as C.Q.’s heir? I found it hard to condemn her as wholeheartedly as the Ramsays did. In fact, a little bit of me hoped Roxelana would sweep in at the last minute to claim Hawkscliffe and return it to its former and thoroughly vulgar glory.

  Perhaps it was this defiant sentiment that prompted me, as I searched for space in the dressing table for my undergarments, to open a pretty little carved box whose contents I would not ordinarily have investigated. Inside, in a soft nest of finely spun wool, was a beautifully crafted pair of zil, the little brass finger cymbals Turkish dancers use to accompany their sinuous movements. On impulse I slipped them on, and their clear, pure, ringing tone whisked me back many years and across many miles.

  The memory thus evoked was of excited girls, all of them older than my then eight-year-old self, who whispered and giggled together in a room upstairs in my parents’ house on the Bosphorus, sent there, no doubt, to keep us out from underfoot. It must have been a wedding, for I recall smirking speculation about the marriage bed, a concept that meant nothing to me at the time.

  Halide, the servant girl who was sent up with refreshments, had demonstrated her skill with the cheap, bazaar-grade zil she had secreted in her apron pocket, but it was a tall
dark girl I had met for the first time that day and never saw again who precipitated the crisis.

  The room was very hot, and this girl, this near-woman, appropriated the cymbals and then, after stripping until she was all but naked, proceeded to dance. I can see her still, swaying, her eyes half closed, head thrown back, body undulating like a snake, shocking the other girls, including me—especially me—into wide-eyed, mesmerized silence. The only sounds were the rhythmic bell-like ching of the cymbals and the whispery glide of the dancer’s feet on the carpet. Then my father burst in upon us.

  It never occurred to me to wonder what had alerted him;

  I merely assumed he was as omnipotent as the stern God he worshiped. What truly astonished me, what I had forgotten until this moment, was the culprit’s flashing-eyed, voluble defiance, followed by her abrupt disappearance from the room, the house, and our lives.

  I still find it hard to believe that a little bit of ringing brass could evoke a memory so vividly, but as if to discover how much more could be conjured forth, I struck the little cymbals again and again, taster and more surely until my hips and belly began to respond to the rhythm my fingers coaxed from the zil as if animated by the erotic spirit of that daring, long-forgotten girl.

  The room grew oppressively hot as I danced on, and with no real consciousness of what I was doing, I shed my restrictive garments one by one and flung them into the cavernous wardrobe. My prim high-buttoned shirtwaist was followed by my brown flannel skirt, neat kid boots, cotton stockings, and even the pins that tamed my hair. How lovely to feel its saffron waves slide free around my shoulders! The pleasure was intensified by the cool lushness of the glorious silk Hereke carpet slithering beneath my bare toes.

  All at once I caught sight of myself in the long oval of a pier mirror set at the toot of the wide curtained bed. By chance, it was angled so as to reflect peekaboo glimpses of my barefoot dancing image, clothed only in a simple, ribbon-trimmed white lawn chemise and a petticoat enlivened by a single deep flounce.

  As my reflection swayed in and out of sight, I flattered myself that my figure was still trim enough to forgo the support of a corset, and as I turned to eye myself in profile I decided that my waist, though perhaps not small enough to be spanned by two hands, would meet all but the most exacting standards. Amused by my mirrored expression of satisfied vanity, I threw back my head and laughed, enjoying the shimmer of my hair, more red than gold in the rosy lamplight. Then, urging my cymbal-bedecked fingers to an even faster pace, I abandoned what was left of my usual reserve.

  I did not hear Thorn Ramsay enter the room, nor did I know how long he had been standing there watching me, when I caught sight of his image, wavering ghostlike behind mine in the mirror. His face was taut with an emotion I could not identify, yet which made my breath catch in my throat and caused me to raise my hand in a fluttering, uncertain gesture, as if to free the imprisoned inhalation. As he advanced slowly toward me, I was aware only of the sounds of our breathing and his intense, falcon-eyed gaze fixed upon my astonished reflection.

  I whirled to confront him, and it was then that I saw the small whip in his hands, not the black intricately braided one of my dreams, but similar enough to make me suddenly, dizzily aware of my dishabille.

  “I heard the cymbals,” he said. “I couldn’t...I thought.…” He shook his dark, shaggy head as if in denial of unimaginable suspicions. He smiled at me crookedly and gestured with the whip. “It was as if she had crept back from some shrouded netherworld to plague us all.”

  I had no need to ask to whom he referred. Charles Quintus’s last mistress might yet have the last laugh. I stared at the little whip as he absently tap, tap, tapped it into his palm.

  He followed my mesmerized gaze, then impudently flipped the fine leather tip under my nose. I thought his slow smile wolfish, one a sultan might bestow on a concubine he was preparing to enjoy.

  “It’s merely a precaution,” he said as he carelessly twirled and separated the locks of my loosened hair with the supple wand. “When I visit Harry after dark,” he added, raising his eyebrows. “For the dogs, Kate. Surely you did not...could not think.…” He tossed the offending object behind him, out of my sight.

  Betrayed by the foolish fears he had sensed, I turned my head away, embarrassed, but he reached out one finger to notch beneath my quivering chin. “Oh, my poor, dear Kate...my sweet little Kate. I would never hurt you....”

  Gently he nudged up my drooping head, and as his searching green eyes captured mine, his hands drifted down to rest upon my naked shoulders. The sensation of scorching heat as his flesh met mine scattered my thoughts into the rose-scented air. I swayed unresistingly into his demanding arms, nuzzled against his broad chest, delighting in the male smell of him, of leather and wood smoke and cigars. I raised my mouth toward his as eagerly as a dungeoned prisoner seeking light and air. The echo of my father’s dire exhortations were drowned out by the hot blood singing in my veins.

  “You smell always of violets,” he murmured. “Of sweet violets and springtime.” His mouth trailed fire along my cheek, plucked teasingly and deliciously at my lips, and rested on my swelling pulse. I cupped his head in my palm to press it closer, the spring of his dark hair alive against my fingers. His warm breath wafted to my nostrils, bringing with it another scent, one that revived my passion-lulled alarms. It was the scent of whiskey. He reeked of it.

  I pulled out of his resisting arms and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Had a tipple or two with Harry, did you? Did he suggest you try to snare the little mouse who had eluded him? Who thinks she’s better than she is? Or perhaps I’m just another distraction to see you through the long night before Louise Ramsay arrives to upset everybody’s apple cart. For shame!”

  We stood staring at each other for a long moment in stunned silence. For my part, no sooner had I spoken than I regretted the self-righteous words whose contemptuous tone echoed unpleasantly even in my own ears. But, as I very soon learned, the harm was already done.

  “I am not everybody, Kate Mackenzie,” Thorn thundered. “I am my own man—not Harry’s, not Louise’s, and certainly not yours!”

  He reached for his whip and smacked it into his palm. This time I was quite sure he wished it were stinging me.

  “I should know by now that for all your lively wit and intelligence, the promise in those dark Eastern eyes of yours wages a losing battle with your pinched Scottish soul. Why, even Mary Rose dares risk more than you! So, now that you have put me in my place, I will leave you to yours.”

  He nodded stiffly, turned on his booted heel with military precision, and strode to the door. He opened it, then turned back to fix me with a dreadful grin, entirely lacking in mirth, that made me shiver as if possessed by a sudden chill.

  “Perhaps Roxelana’s bed will warm your pious heart, eh?” His sneering emphasis made it very clear there would be no more warmth for me from Thornton Ramsay, not tonight; perhaps not ever.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next morning, just before lunch, Louise Ramsay arrived at Hawkscliffe.

  Her conveyance, a rickety estate trap driven by Harry Braunfels, hardly did her justice. It was as if Queen Victoria had been supplied with a stool instead of a throne at her coronation. But her measured descent from the simple carriage was impressive, and as we watched from the terrace she approached us with the majesty and churning power of a Mississippi riverboat. Harry and a slim youth trailing in her wake.

  Sensing an audience, she slowed her pace to a regal glide that displayed her elegant traveling costume of black soutache-trimmed plum velveteen to best advantage. The haughty tilt of its modish draped bustle echoed the elevation of her long, straight aristocratic nose, and a smart little plumed bonnet perched atop abundant hair the color of polished mahogany.

  Although I judged her age to be on the far side of forty-five, there was not the least shimmer of silver in her auburn coiffure, but whether this was due to an inherited family trait or the artful use of henna i
t was impossible to say. Her face, slightly doubled chin and all, might have been carved in marble by an ancient Roman hand, and her ample, snugly bodiced embonpoint made my youthful slimness, of which I had been so recently proud, seem woefully inadequate.

  Still shaken by my disastrous encounter with Thorn Ramsay the previous evening, I sidled over to close ranks with Philo and Cora, the one looking hollow-eyed and stricken, the other wearing an expression worthy of the grim reaper. It was Thorn who descended to initiate the welcoming courtesies, but Louise soon made it clear she was having none of it.

  “A room on the top floor? I never heard of such a thing. It will be much too hot way up there under the roof, and think of the rats scurrying through the attic over my head. It won’t do. It won’t do at all.”

  Philo winced at the sound of her rich contralto boom of disapproval. Poor Philo. I could not help but sympathize with the price his indulgence in an after-dinner brandy was exacting.

  Thorn pointed out that it was, after all, late November, and unlikely to be too hot anywhere in the house. Then, before a contrary objection could be lodged, he hurried on to state that Cora did not tolerate rats at Hawkscliffe.

  Louise turned to Cora, whom she had so far ignored. Flashing a set of teeth that looked strong enough to crack walnuts, she bent upon the little woman an unloving smile. “No rats in your attic, Cora? In view of your legendary devotion to duty, I find that hardly surprising, although I could swear we had at least one in residence in the New York house during your tenure there.”

  To Cora’s credit she chose not to rise to the bait.

  “Welcome to Hawkscliffe, Mrs. Ramsay,” she began untruthfully. “I regret we are unable to provide you with one of the second-floor suites, but Thornton has a longstanding claim upon the one C.Q. occupied, and this young lady is occupying the other. She is here at Philo’s invitation,” she added in a meaningful tone.