by Beverley, Jo
“Where does that go?”
“To Dragon’s Cove, the fishing village. The houses are tucked up the cleft in the cliffs, where there’s shelter in a storm.”
“Not stuck on top of a cliff,” she pointed out.
“Not stuck on top of a cliff,” he agreed.
“Was your house really built that way as a lookout for dragons?”
“So the stories say.”
“Dragons are mythological beasts. They don’t exist.”
“So the stories say.”
Grimly Lucy set off to complete the climb. Once up, she might never go down again except to leave.
When they arrived at the grassy top she paused again to let her heart rate settle. Here were new challenges to face, and one was simply space. She was surrounded by a grassy headland cropped by sheep, with Crag Wyvern looming over her and the sea filling the rest of the view. The endless sea, growling down beneath the all-too-close cliff edge.
She turned her back on it, but that only presented his monstrous home.
From a distance it had seemed ominous. From so close it overwhelmed, grim from foundations to battlements and without a trace of welcome.
As in the illustration, there were no windows, only arrow slits. But in the picture, she hadn’t noticed the fanged gargoyles jutting out from the two corners she could see. More clustered around the huge arched entrance, which was sealed by massive wooden doors that were barred and studded with iron. The spiked bottom of a portcullis hung over them, looking ready to crash down and impale an invader.
It was exactly as illustrated, but no etching could convey the dreadfulness of it. It seemed invincible, but England was littered with ruined castles, smashed by cannonballs in ancient battles. Where did one find a cannon when one wanted one?
“Well?” he asked.
“It’s horrible,” she said as prosaically as she could. “But it could be torn down.”
“A historical monument?” he asked.
“It’s a folly.”
“A folly is a useless whimsy. The Crag’s been lived in since the day it was built.”
“Then it’s foolish, and not old enough to need preservation.”
“Not even when it’s unique?”
“I could build a Chinese pagoda on the opposite headland, which would be unique enough. Would that make it valuable?”
“It would probably be a profitable venture. It would draw multitudes of tourists by land and sea.”
Surely a touch of humor had lightened his eyes.
Was he truly fond of this monstrosity? Or was he committed to it by some sort of reverence for heritage? Very well.
“There could be gardens around it,” she said. “To soften the appearance.”
“Not worth the trouble, given the harsh winds we get at times. And who’s to care?”
“Anyone who comes here.”
“Visitors come to shiver at its bleak awfulness. Come on.”
As she walked with him toward the doors she remembered something. “There’s a garden inside,” she said.
He paused. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen pictures. Aunt Mary has a set. They were all the rage last year when your claim to the earldom was a cause célèbre.”
A twitch of his features was probably annoyance, but that was better than the dragon’s mask.
“In a normal world,” she remarked as they walked toward the imposing doors, “the approach to an earl’s door would be a drive, not a footpath.”
“No one would bring a carriage up here, and I’m glad you understand that this is not a normal world.”
“That’s hard to escape when those doors must take ten men to open.”
“Or one earl,” he said, turning an iron ring in a normal-sized door set in the larger ones and opening it. “Enter if you dare,” he said, gesturing.
It was said lightly, but perhaps even a dragon can joke.
The interior appeared oddly dark, and she didn’t want to be trapped in darkness with him alone. “Servants?” she asked. There had to be servants.
“They have better things to do than open doors for me.”
That was such a David comment that Lucy found the courage to walk into the dragon’s lair.
She realized immediately that the lack of light was because she faced a carved wooden panel no more than eight feet from the door—which clicked shut behind her, trapping her in a gloomy space.
She turned to face him.
He had servants, but would they come if she screamed?
Then she saw that he liked her fear. He hoped, perhaps planned, to frighten her away!
Perhaps if she were sane, he would succeed, but not because of his house. Rather because of him. No wonder Outram and Stevenhope had slunk away. With some manly instinct they’d recognized the dragon in him.
People knew she was here, she reminded herself.
But they were all his people.
Except Nicholas Delaney.
What really did she know of him or his Company of Rogues? Perhaps he regularly brought maidens to the dragon’s lair.
Stop that! It’s what he wants, and for simple pride’s sake he must not win that battle.
Chapter 28
When she was sure she could speak normally, she said, “I’ve been in castles, and doors like that open into a passageway high enough for mounted men and wide enough for carts. Here inside, the ceiling reaches only halfway up the doors. I see that the mounted men and carts are unlikely to climb the hill, but then, why the doors?”
“Insanity,” he said. “Or simple folly, if you prefer. The rest matches the entrance. Let’s progress to the great hall.”
He opened a door in the wooden screen and she walked into the medieval hall she remembered from the prints. At least there was light here from a wall of small-paned windows and doors set with glass, like tall French windows. Beyond, she saw blessed greenery. The inner garden.
That let her study the room calmly. In a real castle in olden times the lord’s household would gather in such a place for feasts and festivities. This one was cleverly made with dark rafters, plain stone walls, and heavy dark oak furniture, but it felt as if no one had ever feasted in the cold space. Anyone could see that most of the heat from that huge stone fireplace would go up the chimney. Even in summer she felt chilled.
“You spend pleasant evenings here?” she asked.
“I have other haunts.”
The ceiling here was high and the top third of the walls was encrusted with steel weaponry of all kinds.
“Pistols?” she asked, considering a starburst of them. “A little anachronistic?”
“No one has ever claimed this place is sane. You note the dragon’s hide?”
Something large, leathery, and probably moldy covered the wall above the fireplace.
“It should be scientifically studied,” she said.
“You would destroy mysteries?”
She faced him. “Yes.”
“What of this suit of armor?” he said, walking toward the one standing in a corner. “It is real.”
“Armor is real, war is real.”
“The skeleton is real,” he said, opening the visor to reveal a grinning skull.
Lucy started, but did her best to show only mild concern. “Then shouldn’t it be decently interred?”
“Not at all. It’s the third earl, and his final resting place was specifically requested in his will.”
“There must be a law against that.”
“What of all the skeletons used by doctors in their studies? Not to mention the corpses used by anatomists. Have you visited a hospital to watch a dissection?”
“No.”
“It not being a matter suitable for trade. Come into the garden of delights.”
Lucy went through the doors braced for more peculiarities. She found none, but no delights, either. She’d visited lovely walled gardens, but here the walls were too close and too high. Even now, on a June afternoon, very little s
un penetrated.
It was laid out neatly enough in beds intersected by crisscrossing paths, and someone had made the effort to find plants that could tolerate the lack of light. Some even bore flowers. Overall, however, it felt dark and sorrowful. The two trees seemed stunted.
There were windows in all the walls, but they looked into this unhappy place.
“This house needs to be turned inside out,” she said. “Or right-side in.”
“You have a magic wand?” he asked drily.
Money, she thought, but doubted even all her father’s wealth could achieve that.
A fountain stood in the center of the network of paths. Aunt Mary had removed that picture from the collection because it showed a dragon behaving improperly with a lady. Lucy walked toward it because she knew she shouldn’t. Even before arriving she knew it was different. No figures here, but two birds stretching upward, their long necks entwined.
“I heard it was scandalous,” she said.
“Disappointed?”
“I’m not sure. Why the swans?”
“Herons,” he corrected. “Why not?”
“Why anything? Does the fountain work?”
“Yes, but first water needs to be pumped up from the stream in the village to a cistern on the top floor.”
“Not very practical.”
He merely raised one brow. “Have you seen enough, Miss Potter, or do you wish to inspect everything?”
He spoke in a tone designed to force an unwanted guest into saying “Of course not. Really, I must go. . . .”
“How kind,” Lucy said. “Let us proceed, my lord.”
Their eyes clashed, but she held steady until he turned away.
He walked to another set of glass-paned doors and, shaking inside, Lucy followed. She would not quail before him. That would be to lose all.
He didn’t want her here, which could destroy her, except that she felt the connection still alive between them. He was rejecting her despite his feelings, not for lack of them. She must discover the problem and defeat it.
“There are a number of these doors,” she said. “Do all the ground floor rooms have them?”
“Nearly all.”
“That’s a pleasant aspect to the design.”
“Simply practical. Otherwise people would have to use the corridors that run behind the rooms. They exist, on every floor.”
As if to prove his point a serving maid came out of one set of doors and walked across the garden. It seemed in keeping with the place that she was almost skeletally thin.
Then she saw Lucy and let out a squawk as if she’d seen a ghost. She hastily dipped a curtsy. “Zur, ma’am,” then hurried on as if pursued.
“Are visitors so alarming?” Lucy asked.
“If any come, the servants usually know.”
“And they’re rare.”
“Are you surprised? The dining room,” he said as they entered a room similar to the great hall, though smaller and simpler. In fact, it felt monastic. The walls were whitewashed and the long oaken table was simply made. A dark sideboard was heavily carved. Three candelabra and some platters were made of pewter or some other dark, steely metal, rather than silver or gold. The only richness came from the red velvet on the seats and arms of eight carved wooden chairs.
“You eat here in solitary splendor?”
“There’s a smaller dining room, but I mostly eat in my private rooms.”
A slight emphasis told her she’d not see them.
“This may be more to your taste,” he said, opening a side door and leading the way into a room that made Lucy feel as if she’d been transported to another place entirely.
Suddenly they were in a space that could be in any fine house. The walls had white-framed panels enclosing yellow Chinese wallpaper and the ceiling was elaborately plastered. Pleasant paintings hung here and there, and a marble fireplace of moderate size might actually warm the space. The chandelier might be large enough to illuminate the room.
The furniture was modern and included a normal array of chairs, sofas, and little tables. Two large mirrors reflected what light there was, but that was little. She realized there was only one small window. The room had clearly been created by taking the corner space from the great hall.
“Why?” she asked. “Visitors being rare.”
“Insanity. This was devised by the Mad Earl, perhaps simply to startle the unwary. When he had guests he would sometimes start the evening here. Well lit and with a fire burning, it can seem normal.”
“Were you a guest here on a normal evening?”
“I was the estate manager, remember. But my sister worked here for a while, so I explored.”
“Lady Amleigh? Employed?”
“The bastard child of a wanton and a tavern keeper.”
“So the earl could be benevolent,” she said, probing the layers she sensed beneath his reminder.
“Only when it suited some insane purpose.”
He led the way across the fine carpet to a paneled door. When he opened it, she saw a circular staircase going up.
“There’s one in every corner. Do you mind them? Some people find circular stairs uncomfortable.”
Lucy remembered seeing wide stone stairs rising from the great hall, but she had no intention of backing down from the challenge. He and his house were on trial here, but she suspected that she was, too. If she married the dragon Earl of Wyvern, she couldn’t be the sort to tremble at a circular staircase.
She started up the narrow stairs. The steps were uneven and worn in the middle as if from centuries of feet. Illusion, she dismissed, but then remembered that though Crag Wyvern wasn’t medieval, it was nearly two hundred years old.
At first the staircase wasn’t too bad, but when she turned beyond the opening below and couldn’t see the escape above, panic tried to stir. It wasn’t pitch-dark, but it was gloomy, and the dragon was close behind. She could imagine that she felt his breath, but she also began to remember another stairwell and a very different kind of heat. So tempting to pause, to turn—but anything that happened here in this twisted space would be vile.
Just keep climbing, Lucy.
A step at a time.
It has to come to an end.
Despite reason, she began to doubt it. When she saw the opening, she sucked in a breath as if she’d escaped some monstrous gullet.
When she emerged, however, she wasn’t in a much better place.
She stood at the juncture of two long stone corridors. These must be the corridors that ran behind the rooms, between them and the outer walls. She could see doors in the one on her left, and light shot in through arrow slits on her right, but both were deserted and swords and axes hung at regular intervals along the outer walls.
She managed a light tone. “I hope these corridors are lit at night or someone might accidentally decapitate themself.”
“But if a dragon attacks, you’d be prepared.”
She met his eyes, but he was as blank as slate. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Be careful, Lucy.”
It was the first time he’d used her name, and it was a warning.
The enclosed space pressed in on her, but her foolish body responded to him, despite any danger. Insanity on both sides.
He turned on his heel and set off along the corridor to their right. It looked to go the full length of one side with no doors. She saw him brush aside a cobweb and was glad he was going first.
But then her brain cleared. Cobwebs meant this corridor wasn’t much used. Was this truly how people got around the house, or was he playing dark games to frighten her away?
He’d find out that wouldn’t work with her.
He stopped midway in a patch of light and she saw a small circular, unglazed window in the outer wall. It framed an image of the outside world that seemed almost miraculous from within this place.
The grass was vibrantly green, a sheep snow-white, the sky impossibly blue, and glimpsed in spire and roofs, the haven o
f Church Wyvern was snuggled down below, full of normal people.
Then she laughed to herself at that thought.
Was anyone normal here?
Even David?
He stood close behind her, still stirring both desire and fear.
This fear was different to the thrill of danger that had fired her in the Duchess of St. Raven’s garden—oh, that haven of normality! Even when he’d seized her there, she’d not been afraid. Here she feared the unknown.
She made herself face him. “Why did you leave London?”
She hoped to put him off balance, to startle some admission, but he said, “To get away from you.”
She couldn’t doubt such a blunt truth.
“Because of what happened at the theater?”
“In part. I’ve said all along that I won’t marry you, but I won’t ruin you, either. Yet here you are.”
“I’m not trying to ruin you into marrying me!”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Then why come?”
“To find out if I could marry you.”
“Pointless, when I’m not going to offer you the opportunity. When I’ve satisfied your curiosity, I’ll take you down to the manor, to my aunt. Tomorrow I’ll see you suitably escorted on your way back to London.”
Lucy found she had no recourse against such steady authority. Despite everything her heart and senses told her, he’d spoken the truth. He’d left London to escape her; he would not marry her; and he wanted her gone.
With that realization, this whole venture seemed shameful. Why had the Delaneys aided her? She remembered that she’d considered doing exactly what he’d accused her of—seducing him into commitment. Perhaps her mother had done that, but her father could never have been so calm and absolute in his rejection.
With what dignity she could gather, she said, “Very well.” But then she saw a problem. “I didn’t provide for that. I don’t have enough money with me. How stupid!”
“I believe the earldom’s coffers can stretch to a loan, and I know you’re able to pay me back.”
A touch of David in that threatened tears.
“Damnation, Lucy. You knew this couldn’t be.”
“This?”