Louise’s strong white fingers fidgeted with the tailored velvet bow at the throat of her watered-silk dress, woven in a handsome but untraditional plaid of pale blues, pinks, and ivories. I had not had time to change out of my workaday green tweed skirt, so perhaps it was the contrast between my homely garb and her elegant costume that accounted for my sudden, resentful awareness of her affinity for fabrics that rustled when she moved. No wonder it was so difficult to escape her presence.
“Really, Thorn. One green potted plant is very like another. The only thing worth looking at in the conservatory is the view. Did you know that C.Q. did that glorious painting of it in his New York studio? He never would tell anyone where he made the sketches.”
Thorn turned to Cora. “That platform on the cliff edge that Harry flies his hawks from—didn’t he build that for C.Q.?”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, recalling the rickety structure. “You mean he actually sat out there, suspended above that sheer drop, and calmly sketched?”
“But he didn’t own the property then,” Louise said. “Do you suppose he spirited up the materials to build his little aerie without the owner being any the wiser?” She laughed. “Isn’t that just like C.Q.! I would like to see it,” she added in a tone of grudging admiration. “What do you suppose he paid for this property? A good deal more than he realized on the Catskill lodge, I have no doubt.” Her eyes narrowed. “Imagine him coveting it all those years and then building this gilded cage for a bird who, I was told, flew off to New York every chance she got.”
“Shopping trips, perhaps?” Philo’s bland expression didn’t fool me for a minute, but Louise rose to the bait.
“A woman doesn’t become known as Turkish Delight because of her talent for shopping!” The look of contemptuous outrage she leveled upon him spilled over to include Thorn. “Perhaps your cousin can enlighten us on that score. Tell us, Thorn dear, did you ever sample her sweet wares? You know what they say about forbidden fruits!” she added in a grotesque attempt at playfulness.
“I never make the same mistake twice, Lulu.” His voice was level and calm, but the look he loosed upon her was as deadly as a poisoned arrow. “Including the soiling of an unloving family’s linen.”
She blinked and dropped her eyes to stare at her suddenly clenched fingers. After long moment of silence, she forced a bright smile and finished her response—by now a thumping non sequitur—to Thorn’s earlier suggestions about how to pass the time. “As for the library, it holds little charm for me. I daresay I have read all the books in it twice over.”
Thorn looked up quizzically from the leg of lamb he was carving, but apparently decided, despite the unlikelihood of her claim, to refrain from voicing his skepticism. “Lance and Miss Mackenzie appear to have passed the morning profitably. Maybe they can suggest a suitable diversion. Sketching, perhaps?”
Thorn’s sardonic tone was not lost upon his aunt. Her upper lip lifted to display a ferocious gleam of teeth. I was uncomfortably reminded of the hunting carpet Lance had mentioned, and when Mary Rose set before me a gold-rimmed plate supplied with a slice of meat oozing pink juices, I felt a lessening of my appetite.
“Lance was sketching; I’m not sure exactly what Miss Mackenzie was up to, but whatever it is seems rather elaborate for a straightforward appraisal and cataloguing service.’’
I was aware of all eyes fastening expectantly upon me.
“The fee was fixed in advance, Mrs. Ramsay. My appraisal and catalog will be more accurately detailed than my competitors could have supplied, if only by virtue of the carpets having been originally purchased from my uncle, who was famous for the completeness of his records. The rugs on the top floor were particular favorites of his, and Lance was kind enough to indulge my whim for a pictorial record of them.”
“Are they so valuable then?”
“Monetarily? At present, no, although I hope someday the historical importance of their designs will be better appreciated by Western art scholars. The catalog of the general collection, which Philo is planning to publish with artistic assistance from Miss Banks, will appeal to a much wider audience.”
A predatory gleam appeared in Louise Ramsay’s dark blue eyes.
“I would imagine,” she began, “that any profit accruing, or that might accrue, to such an enterprise rightly belongs to the owner of the property, isn’t that so, Thornton?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Unless, of course, one agrees to assign the rights to such profits to others.”
Louise dismissed Thorn’s amendment with a scornful laugh.
“Mrs. Ramsay, please!” I cried, belatedly aware that in my haste to divert Louise’s attention from me I had inadvertently provided her with another target. Even though it was a classic case of the biter being bit, I could take no pleasure in it.
She raised an imperious hand. “There is no more to be said on the matter, Miss Mackenzie, although I must congratulate you and dear Philo for making as much hay as you could while the sun still shone. I assume your scheme also included having first choice of the Hawkscliffe carpets when they are offered for sale?”
Her dark eyes, fixed upon mine, were bright with malice, but why? Of what dreadful sin was I guilty? Did she, like Cora, associate me with Roxelana by virtue of a shared birthplace?
The Greek-marble perfection of Louise Ramsay’s strong features seemed more gray than white in the cold, unflattering light that filtered dimly down from the high arched windows, and for the first time I noticed little pouches clinging beneath her eyes like pale leeches, blighting the high arch of her cheekbones and the illusion of youth a kinder light allowed her to maintain. Of course That was what this was all about It was about youth—mine—and her increasingly bitter loss of it. It was about a mother and a son on the brink of manhood, and—I looked across at Thorn’s frowning face—about a woman and her younger lover. He had been her lover, I was sure of it now, but he never would be again. I could almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
“It would be a shame to disperse the Hawkscliffe collection, but should it ever be sold,” I said, refusing to acknowledge openly that the decision might be hers, “I would welcome competitive bidding.”
“Would you indeed? Your intimate knowledge of them would of course give you the advantage, wouldn’t it? What clever young woman you are! So clever, in fact, it has crossed my mind more than once during the hours you have danced attendance on my son to wonder if you are what you claim to be.”
I longed to slap the insinuating smile from her face. “I suspect my father’s family was unable to come to terms with the thought of a half-Armenian granddaughter in a clan tartan.”
My wry tone was rewarded with a smile from Thorn; it gave me the lift I needed to keep my voice strong and steady. Those cursed, uncaring Mackenzies! I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing their colors.
“I suppose they must have been notified of my parents’ deaths, but even if they had attempted to claim me they would have been no match for an uncle familiar with the ways of Ottoman officialdom.”
My matter-of-factness failed to dilute Louise’s supply of vitriol. “An interesting story, my dear, one I suppose that grows more convincing with each telling.”
“As well it might,” Thorn interjected mildly, “for it also happens to be true.”
Now it was Thorn Ramsay’s turn to claim our undivided attention. For my part, I was too astonished to speak.
“Lord knows how many pockets Vartan Avakian was required to line with baksheesh to get his niece out of Turkey, but once here her future in this country was assured.”
Louise raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Come now. Thorn, what chance would an immigrant rug dealer have had against Scottish aristocrats if they chose to contest his claim?”
Thorn hooted. “Do you really imagine a Tammany Hall judge would hand over the niece and ward of a respected and prosperous citizen? Louise, you can’t be that naïve!”
“What a gallant champion you are. Thorn. I’m sure Miss Mackenzi
e will think of an appropriate way to reward you for it.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mother!”
Lance’s mortified appeal was acknowledged only by a spit of “Hush!” by his mother. “Kindly remember I am looking after your interests,” she added in a harsh whisper.
A stain of deep red mottled Lance’s cheeks as he bent his head in silence over his plate. Although disappointed, I understood. He was still a boy in his mother’s eyes, and still a minor, dependent on her, in the eyes of the law.
“I suggest you find someone else to savage, Lulu.” Thorn’s green eyes glittered dangerously, as hard as emeralds. He loosened his cravat and deliberately exposed his neck to her. “Well? What are you waiting for? Isn’t my blood tempting enough for you? Surely I need not supply you with a motive.”
Louise drew in her breath. She stood up and threw down her napkin. “What I need is a change of scene. Even the fog is preferable to the continued company of this sorry crew! Lance”
Lance hesitated, then shook his head. His eyes remained downcast.
“Very well, then. I can do without a sulky boy.” Her eyes distributed scorn impartially upon us as she plucked a fringed cloud of rosebud-pink mohair from the back of her chair. “Tomorrow cannot come too soon for me.” With a sweeping gesture she flung the luxurious shawl around her shoulders and swished in silken grandeur from the room.
Conversation during the remainder of the meal was confined to subdued monosyllables. By the time dessert was served, Agnes’s flaky lemon custard tarts could have been made of sand and paste for all the pleasure they gave us.
Lance was the first to excuse himself, and when I asked if he would be joining me later to do the final sketch, he shook his head regretfully.
“I think not, Kate. I’m sorry, truly I am, but Mother seems so dead set against it.”
I allowed him to escape putting his humiliation into any further words. “No need to fret, Lance. I can do the last rug myself, if only to justify the art lessons my uncle paid for.”
Lance gave me a wan, grateful smile before trudging from the room. The rest of the company soon followed suit.
I sighed. I knew my sketch, even though perhaps more accurate, would lack Lance’s verve and style.
“Not much backbone, has he?” a voice breathed behind me. It was Cora.
“He’s only eighteen, and a rather sheltered eighteen at that. I’m sure he’ll learn to assert himself when the time comes.”
“I’m not sure we can spare him the time to learn,” she commented bitterly. As I nodded and turned away toward the stairs, she plucked at my sleeve. “I have completed only six watercolors. I did the best carpets first, as you suggested, but they are not as I hoped.” She held up her arthritic hands and regarded them with sad disbelief. “They took such a time to do,” she murmured, then added distractedly, as if to herself, “she can’t be allowed to rob us of work already accomplished, can she?”
The little woman drifted away before I could answer, and the appearance of Thorn Ramsay drove all else from my mind.
“You had me investigated,” I accused in a furious whisper. “How dare you!”
“What an odd way to thank me for verifying your story. I’ll think twice before volunteering as your knight errant in the future; I’m not sure I care for your habit of placing burrs under my saddle.”
“How dare you,” I repeated.
“I had no choice,” he repeated flatly. “As I have already told you, I have been beset by claimants to the estate; most were preposterous, but a few, the clever ones, could not be dismissed entirely out of hand, and you could easily have been one of those. Your intelligence has never been in question.”
“I never made any claims.”
“Which is precisely why, in view of your unorthodox arrival here, my suspicions were aroused. Suspicions, I might add, that were lulled when I went to New York last week. I assigned the investigation of your adoption papers to one of my clerks, who reported they were quite in order, and I visited your shop myself. Quite an impressive establishment…your employees speak very well of you, Miss Avakian.”
I flared at the rebuke I sensed. “I find it easier to use my uncle’s name professionally. It spares me the tedious explanations required of me on more than one occasion here.”
He sighed. “I do wish you would not be so quick to infer criticism where none is intended, Kate. Your decision to use your uncle’s name, considering the well-established nature of his business, was the only sensible course under the circumstances.”
“Do enlighten me, Mr. Ramsay: to what circumstances do you refer?”
He grinned disarmingly despite my arch tone. “Merely that I imagine the carpet trade is as traditional as its customers are conservative, and unready for a radical locution like Avakian and Daughter, much less Avakian and Mackenzie. Neither has quite the right authentic ring to it, eh?”
I ducked my head to hide my smile, then decided it would be churlish not to at least admit the correctness of his reasoning. “My thinking exactly.”
“Well! This must be my red-letter day. I had all but given up our agreeing on anything.”
“Except, I trust, that my reason for being at Hawkscliffe is the same as I told you the day I arrived: to appraise and catalog the Hawkscliffe carpet collection—no more, no less.”
Thorn Ramsay’s eyes darkened as he drew his black brows together in frowning consideration. “Let us say I have no reason at the moment to doubt it.”
Hardly a ringing declaration of faith. Caught by his compelling scrutiny, I wondered how I could find so attractive a man who doubted my integrity. Perhaps it was the novelty of it. There was nothing very exciting about being thought a sweet young miss, whereas an adventures….
I turned away from him abruptly, wordlessly, and mounted the stairs, determined this time to pass unseeingly by the portrait on the landing. But at the last moment, just before I slid safely by, something tugged my eyes to the right and there she was, her full lips curved in that perpetual knowing smile. Again I could almost hear her husky laughter echoing mockingly along the corridors and issuing seductively from behind closed doors. I recalled my conversation about Roxelana held here on the stair landing with Louise. We had been discussing her age and mine, and I was suddenly struck anew by the realization I was almost the age Roxelana had been when Charles Quintus painted her. Yet as I stared into those varnished eyes, which hinted of depths of experience I could not even imagine, I knew that if I lived to be one hundred, I would never be as old as C.Q. Ramsay’s last mistress was in the full bloom of her youth.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I closed the door behind me when I entered the top floor storeroom so I could finish my work among the rugs undisturbed. I completed the last sketch in short order, and although it lacked the dash of Lance’s gifted hand, it was workmanlike and accurate, which sufficed for the purpose. Slowed by my yawns, the recording of the knot count took longer. Before long the temptation to rest my eyes for just a moment became too much to resist.
I awoke with a crick in my neck, the coarse weave of a bird-patterned Ushak pebbling my cheek and a dull ache in my head. I retrieved the journal that had slipped from my hand and shook my skirt into some sort of order before slipping out into the hall. The house was very still. The doors to Lance’s and Louise’s rooms were closed, as they had been when I came up, but I could not tell if the rooms were occupied. As I felt too dull either for repartee with Lance or for sparring with Louise, I made my way downstairs as quietly as I could.
Pausing briefly to deposit my notes and sketches in my room, I was heartened to see through the window a brightening heralding an end to the imprisoning mist. I snatched up a wrap and hurried downstairs in the hopes that a walk through the grounds might refresh me.
As I approached the massively arched front door beyond whose porte cochere stretched a formal allee I had not yet explored, the great clock in the court hall struck three. As the deep bonging notes reverberated through the long
corridor, the vibrating echoes set in play among the crystal prisms dangling from the chandeliers fell upon my ears like distant mocking laughter.
I whirled. My hands flew up to ward off the sense of a haunting presence, insubstantial yet chilling, that once again proved to have no reality except in my overwrought imagination. I exhaled slowly, and as I looked about me, my senses sharply attuned for any irregularity, all I heard was the loud, monotonous, strangely reassuring ticking of the clock.
The ragged shreds of fog that still clung to Hawkscliffe’s walls and spires like the drowning hands of ghosts emphasized rather than softened the sad neglect I had noted upon my arrival.
I turned my back on the looming mansion and walked down the avenue lined with pin oaks, whose downswept lower branches extended as gracefully as the legs of a Degas ballerina. Lost in thought, I strolled slowly between the curtsying limbs until the sound of approaching voices attracted my attention.
Pausing near a sheltering oak, I spied Cora and Harry Braunfels advancing toward me uphill from the right, deep in conversation. Cora, burdened with a spade and a basket, was wearing stout boots and a coarse enveloping garment of uncertain design, somewhere between an apron and a coat, which made her look more like a dusty-feathered crow than a neat little sparrow. Armed with a pruning hook, she pointed away from me toward a clump of shrubbery in the mid-distance, talking all the while, gradually widening the scope of her gesture in my direction. As she did so, one of the pair of leashed dogs held by Harry raised its head alertly, but before it could become sure enough of my hidden presence to utter a warning growl, I had scurried from trunk to trunk to a rustic gazebo perched atop a knoll marking the end of the avenue.
As I entered the rough structure, no doubt a pleasant enough retreat on a hot summer day, but gloomy now in mid-November, I started at the sight of a lone hunched figure seated on a low built-in bench that encompassed the cobwebbed interior.
“Philo!” I exclaimed as my eyes adjusted to the duskiness of the light in which his fair hair seemed more silver than blond. “I’m sorry to intrude. I had no idea that you— that anyone was here. I came out for a solitary stroll, but Cora and Harry were in the offing, and I had no wish—” I broke off. Although I knew Philo had no great liking for Harry, I sensed a tie between him and Cora that made me sure that if Philo inherited Hawkscliffe, she would remain as housekeeper.
The Lost Heiress of Hawkscliffe Page 14