by Jo Beverley
“As bad as that?”
“I understate the case, but at least her appearance is amendable and by God’s grace she speaks well and has respectable manners.”
“When not offended,” Ashart pointed out. “Pointing a pistol at a guest is not comme il faut.”
“If you can’t woo,” Genova said, “then persuade. You have much to offer.”
“And a gift for it,” Ashart said. “If challenged, you could persuade the king to dance a jig down Pall Mall, but you can’t coax a clergyman’s impoverished daughter to the altar?”
“I prefer honest dealings.”
“And you a courtier.”
“I prefer honest dealings in my personal life, and marriage is personal no matter how practical the cause.”
“Then you’ve a lost cause.”
“I reject defeat. I didn’t explain the situation or show her the documents. When I do she’ll see the sense of it.”
Genova rolled her eyes. “Lord save me from illogical men! The documents explain your needs. They don’t touch hers.”
“I’ll lay out the advantages to her, but I hope her grandmother will already have done so.”
“Grannie Mallow?” Ashart said with twitching lips. “She’s probably toiling over her cauldron, perfecting a spell to turn you into a toad.”
* * *
Claris spent a restless night, her problems building to horrors, as such things do. Morning light brought some sanity, and she persuaded herself that he wouldn’t try to take her to court over the pistol. He wanted to marry her, not throw her in jail, but how could she convince him she’d never marry him, no matter how he pestered her?
When she found herself taking down one of her better skirts and bodices, she put both back on their hooks and dressed in the black again. It suited her mood and she didn’t want Pestilential Perriam to think she sought to please.
She went into the garden to let out the chickens, aware that the weather was in tune with her mind. The sky was overcast and threatened rain. Perhaps the fine gentleman wouldn’t want to get his London clothes wet. She collected the eggs and returned to help with breakfast. The boys staggered in with fresh water from the village well. Soon they’d eaten and were setting off for the two-mile walk to Hutton Vill and their lessons.
“Study well!” Claris called after them.
Father had insisted on educating them to save money, but he’d not had the patience for it. Despite her efforts to help, they were sadly behind for their age, especially in Latin and Greek. Reverend Johnson was striving to get them ready to go to Dr. Porter’s School in Winchester.
She wished she could afford to send them to Winchester College, which had an excellent reputation, but the fees were too high. Peter was clever and might obtain free admission as a poor scholar, but Tom was slower, and she knew they’d not separate.
When educated, what profession could they aim for? Reverend Johnson had suggested the navy, which they could enter soon, with no money needed. She couldn’t bear the thought. She returned to the kitchen to make bread. Kneading dough was exceptionally soothing.
Pestilential Perriam did not come.
She knew it was too early, but even so she pounded at him through the dough for drawing out the torture, her temper rising.
Ellie was preparing damsons for jam, and Athena was going between her herb garden and her stillroom. He was keeping them all waiting.
She set the bread to rise and looked for another job. Athena came in from the garden with a basketful of seed heads.
“I want a pistol,” Claris said. “Loaded and ready.”
Athena considered her and then nodded. “Very well.” She went upstairs.
“You sure, dearie?” Ellie asked. “You don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”
“I’ll regret it if I let that man force me to the altar. Regret it all my days.”
“I’m sure you know best.”
Claris wasn’t, but she wouldn’t be forced. She would not!
Athena returned. “It’s not cocked. To do that, you pull back this hammer on top all the way.” She did so. It made two clicks. “Half cock then full cock. Now, if I were to squeeze back the trigger with my finger, the gun would fire. Be careful. This trigger is eased to suit my old fingers. To uncock it I pull back again and carefully ease the flint down. Take it outside and practice the action. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill.”
As if alarmed, Yatta ran upstairs.
Claris took the pistol outside. It seemed heavier than yesterday, but then, this was Athena’s, not Ellie’s. She just managed to pull back the hammer with her thumb.
Click. Click.
She couldn’t squeeze the trigger without firing it. She pointed it at the cherry tree and imagined doing it.
Yes, she could.
If threatened, she could.
She very carefully eased the hammer back down.
Click. Click.
Her hands were shaking, but she was ready. If he attempted abduction, she could hold him off. She returned to the kitchen and put the pistol on a shelf; then she looked around for something to do. . . .
There was a rap at the door.
Ellie moved to clean her hands, but Claris said, “I’ll go.”
She had to rub her hands on her skirt as she crossed the front room, for her palms were damp. She opened the door, and there he was, sword at his side. It was common enough for gentlemen to be armed when traveling, but she felt it as a threat. A pistol, however, must beat a sword any day.
He bowed. “Good day to you, Miss Mallow.”
“I told you not to return.”
“Alas, my business is imperative.”
His manner was amiable, but that threatened as much as a snarl. See how confident I am? A well-off and highly born male. What resistance can you offer, you little female mouse?
Claris suppressed a growl. He’d soon see. Today she had Athena, and the pistol, loaded and ready.
“Come through to the kitchen. My grandmother is keen to meet you.”
“The keenness is on both sides. Your paternal grandmother, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have grandparents on your mother’s side?”
Claris wanted to snap that it was none of his business, but pettiness would be weak, not strong. “No, alas. They both died before I was born.” She entered the kitchen relieved to find Athena there. For once she would use the term Athena hated.
“Grandmother, Mr. Perriam has returned.”
Athena eyed him without a trace of fear. “A son of the Earl of Hernescroft, I understand.”
Perriam bowed. “Correct, ma’am.”
“Full of his own importance, as I remember, and he was a young man then.”
Claris wanted to applaud. Athena was skillfully establishing her credentials as an equal.
“We must speak here, sir,” Athena said, taking command, “for we have only the two rooms and I’ve commandeered the front one for my potions.”
All was going well, but with new eyes she saw how simple the kitchen was. Though it contained some elegant bits and pieces from the rectory, it was their only living space and was both cramped and disorderly. That wasn’t helped by Ellie at one end of the plain table, squeezing cooked damson pulp to remove the stones.
“Shall I go?” Ellie asked.
“Of course not,” Athena said, sitting at the other end, the head. “Ellie’s been with me since before my marriage, Perriam, and knows all I know of my family’s affairs. Claris.”
Claris obeyed her grandmother’s gesture and sat on her right. That put her close to the pistol. Perriam took the seat on Athena’s left. Had Athena’s directions been deliberate? In the Bible, the sheep were to be on God’s right hand and the sinful goats on his left. Claris had always felt that was unfair to goats, but the placement was appropriate for a relentless invader.
Athena turned to him. “Explain yourself, young man. Your intent to marry Claris is extraordinar
y and unreasonable, but at first glance you appear to be a rational man.”
Perriam’s eyes narrowed at this attack, but his smile remained. “I was too abrupt yesterday and apologize for it, though in my defense, Miss Mallow did ask me to be brief.”
“Because I was busy,” Claris protested. “I’d no notion of such insanity.”
“I grant you insanity in many aspects of this affair, but permit me to explain. The telling of this story could waste a day, but I’ll do my best to make it brief. As I told you, generations ago the Perriam properties were divided between two sisters, there being no sons to inherit. The older daughter was to pass on the title, so her share of the property would be attached to the title, with its own rules. The property taken by the younger daughter would pass on by will. In order to avoid it being lost to the Perriams forever, it was legally settled that if her line failed to produce a male heir, it would pass back to the senior line. Dry stuff, but essential background.”
Athena said, “I believe our poor female minds can absorb the facts, wet or dry.”
Ellie chuckled.
Perriam’s brows twitched, but if anything he was amused, which wasn’t a good sign. A powerful opponent wasn’t amusing.
“Giles Perriam died recently, leaving no surviving son, despite taking three wives and siring four sons. All died young. I hesitate to mention the next detail because it’s foolish, but it’s the pin that holds these tattered shreds together. He believed the deaths came about through a curse, a curse laid on him by your aunt, Miss Mallow.”
“By Aunt Clarrie?” Claris asked, staring at him.
“Whom he ruined and abandoned. Do you know that tale?”
“I do, and it’s a wicked one. Giles Perriam married Aunt Clarrie but later denied it, despite her being with child. She committed suicide and Mother hated him for it, with reason. I know nothing of a curse, however, and don’t believe in such things.”
“Giles Perriam did suffer misfortune,” Perriam pointed out.
“I hope that was this Clarrie’s doing,” Athena said. “Such wretches should suffer, and I applaud her!”
“As do I,” Claris said.
Perriam looked at her. “Even though she might have caused the deaths of four innocent babes and three equally innocent wives?”
Ah, that changed everything.
A portrait of Aunt Clarrie had hung in the rectory. She’d looked so sweet, so gentle.
“The blame rests on the originator,” Athena stated. “On Giles Perriam. If there is divine justice, he now burns in hell.”
“It does seem likely. However, he’s left some poison to trouble the living. The matter of our marriage—”
“There is no such matter!” Claris stated.
“Which can be laid at your mother’s door.”
“Mother? What has she to do with this?”
“When Giles’s second wife died, your mother made occasion to visit him to remind him of the curse and to make a demand—that he pledge to marry you when you were of age and thus appease your aunt Clarrie’s shade. That, she claimed, would lift the curse from him and his heirs.”
Claris laughed in disbelief. “Even she wouldn’t do that. Marry me to a wicked debaucher? An old wicked debaucher?”
“A young wicked debaucher would be tolerable?”
“Such as you?” Claris leaned forward to glare at him. “No husband will ever be tolerable, sir, so you might as well leave now.”
“I am not a wicked debaucher,” he said, lips tight. Good, that had struck home. “Do you truly disbelieve the story?”
Claris wanted to deny every word, but she couldn’t. “Mother was obsessed by Perriam wickedness,” she admitted, “and perhaps out of her wits over it. She might have gone to such an extreme. But nothing came of her plan.”
“When did your mother die?”
She didn’t want to answer questions, but it was hardly a secret.
“Eleven years ago, not long after the birth of my brothers.”
“So when she made that visit you were too young to marry and Giles was a widower desperate for another chance to get a son. There was never any hope that he would agree. It would have been about then that he married his third wife.”
“With the same lack of success?” Athena said.
“Two stillbirths, which drove the poor lady mad. She lingered until a year ago, preventing any further efforts, thank God.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t rush to the altar as soon as she was buried.”
“By then his own health was failing, and willing brides were thin on the ground.”
“And you offer me this treat?” Claris demanded.
His eyes turned cold. “I am not him, and with the curse overwhelmed by our marriage, you’ll have nothing to fear.”
“Women die in childbirth without curses.”
“You’ll have nothing exceptional to fear.”
Claris smiled. “But in spinsterhood I have nothing to fear at all. Are you finished?”
He held her gaze, but she would not be quelled, despite the fear beating within her.
He looked away—to take a paper from his pocket.
“Perhaps the words will move you.” He unfolded the sheet and placed it before her. It was many years old and worn along the folds as if often handled. The ink had faded.
“Your aunt Clarrie’s curse.”
“Read it aloud,” Athena commanded. She could no longer read without spectacles, but didn’t like it known.
Claris picked up the paper, disturbed by the very feel of it. The handwriting reminded her of her mother’s, but it was smaller and with loops. The look of it didn’t match the harsh words.
“‘You have betrayed me, Giles Perriam,’” she read. “‘You have made me a whore and my unborn child a bastard and your money cannot wash that clean. You’ll hear no more from me, but now and with my last breath I wish on you the sufferings that your black heart deserves. May you suffer as I must suffer. May any wife you take die young as I must die, and any children die young as mine must die. May you yourself die young and suffering. May your guilt oppress you every day until Satan comes to carry you to burn in hell, and may this curse pass to your heirs as long as time may be.’”
Shaken by the force of the words, Claris put the paper down and pushed it away.
“Nonsense,” Athena said.
“The logical mind scoffs,” Perriam agreed, “but travelers bring tales that challenge logic, and Giles suffered all she condemned him to except oppressive guilt.” He looked at Claris. “Did your aunt know anything of curses?”
“I can’t imagine how, but she died before I was born. All I know of her is my mother’s loving praise and a portrait. She looked sweet and gentle in that.”
“May I see it?”
“I no longer have it,” Claris said, and didn’t explain. “She would never have attempted a curse, however, so your purpose is hollow.”
“Not according to your mother.”
“She wasn’t rational on the subject. This curse is nonsense and you have no reason to attempt to marry me and can leave now.”
He picked up the paper, folded it, and put it away. He didn’t rise. “I’m driven by nothing so macabre, Miss Mallow. I need to secure Perriam Manor to my family, and Giles Perriam made our marriage a condition of the inheritance. If you and I don’t wed within a month of his death, the property goes elsewhere.”
“Then it must go elsewhere, sir, for I will not marry you.”
He spread his hands, unimpressed. “An impasse.”
Claris rose. “For you, perhaps, but not for me. Please leave.”
He remained seated. “No pistol this time?”
“It is prepared, in case.”
A twinkle lit his eyes. “How delightful! Please be seated, Miss Mallow, so I may tempt you with the many benefits of our marriage.”
Claris almost did so. Instead she caught herself, folded her arms, and glared. Why would he not see that she was resolute?
&n
bsp; He turned to Athena. “You’re a woman of the world, ma’am. You must see how the marriage would improve your granddaughter’s life.”
“Must I?” Athena said. “I found marriage so intolerable that I fled it.”
“Did you? Such a fascinating family.” He turned his smile on Claris. “I can’t claim great wealth, Miss Mallow, but I can provide a very comfortable life for my wife. What’s more, and you seem to have failed to grasp this, I’m at your mercy. You may demand what you will.”
“Except, it seems, that you leave and never bother me again.”
“Except that,” he agreed. “But you may continue to live here if you wish, or I can offer Perriam Manor as an alternative residence. It’s of modest size, but in good repair and well furnished, though in an old style. I’m sure it’s cozy in winter and pleasant in summer. It’s surrounded by parkland and gardens that I would judge adequate but ripe for improvement, if gardening is your true delight.”
Claris kept a stony face. “Alas, with you present, sir, all would be spoiled.”
“Then you’ll be delighted to know that I would rarely be there. I’m much engaged in Town matters and can only enjoy rural delights now and then.”
“Even one day a year would be too much.” His amiable confidence was stirring her temper and for once she welcomed it. “Why am I debating this with you?” She loosened her arms to point at the door. “Begone!”
“Consider,” he said, completely unmoved. “You would be the mistress of a comfortable domain, and enjoy its income. Did I not mention that?”
“Will you not leave!”
“The income of the manor would be yours to do with as you wish,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You would need for nothing.”
“Except my independence! I would have a husband, a lord and master.”
“Alas, true, but I assure you that I am far too busy to abuse my powers.”
“Busy? What if you have an idle moment, sir? Leave!”
“I must remain until you change your mind.”
Breathing hard, Claris saw that he meant it. He was disregarding every word she spoke. “You . . . you . . .” She grabbed the pistol and pointed it.
“Claris . . . ,” Athena said.
“Leave,” she growled, “or I will shoot you.”