It was not Atticus, though, who stood behind the divan and drew the hairbrush through my curls with such a soothing motion. A foreboding prickle tightened my scalp as I turned to see who was behind me.
It was Victor Lynch.
The sight of him was like a torrent of cold water dashed over me. “What are you doing in my room?” I exclaimed, drawing away. He had observed me in this most vulnerable of states, had intruded upon my private grief, and the knowledge stung like salt in a raw wound. “Why did you not knock?”
His smile was as gentle as it always had been. He had changed his clothes for evening dress, and his hair was dry, with the ends just curling, telling me that many hours must have passed since he had burst into the study, soaked to the skin. “You were so distressed that I thought it would calm you if I brushed your hair,” he said softly, and his dark eyes were tender. “I know you enjoy it.”
“I enjoy it when my husband brushes my hair,” I said, and then my indignation began to change to something more like apprehension. “How did you know that?” I asked.
He said, “I used to watch the two of you together.”
For a moment I was too shocked to respond. The hand holding the hairbrush extended toward me again, and I drew back sharply. “You spied on us?” I demanded. Had he found a way to watch us in our private room? The thought that he might have been watching us during any of our intimate, private moments made my stomach squirm.
“You and the baron were in such perfect accord with each other. That is rare, do you know? It was quite poignant seeing you together when you thought no one was near. The thousand little tendernesses that passed between you that no one else saw… I relished those.”
“It was very wrong of you,” I said, but I was too shaken to give my words the severity I intended. “You should not have invaded our privacy.”
“Don’t be angry with me.” His voice was almost dreamy, and he gazed into the distance as if contemplating who knew what vision of me and my husband. He placed the hairbrush back on my dressing table. “It was the only way I could taste such a joyous existence, since I was barred from any such domestic union myself… or so I thought at the time.”
Unnerved, I retorted, “I don’t care to hear your reasons, Mr. Lynch. Now please leave my room, or I shall be forced to summon my uncle.”
His eyes returned to me, and they were no longer vague but all too intent. “Now, Clara, there’s no need for such formality between us,” he said. “We are cousins, after all.”
“Cousins?” I echoed. So my earlier conjecture had been correct. My uncle, while obeying the letter of his parents’ ban on marriage, had taken a mistress—and he had had the gall to condemn fallen women for bringing their ruin on themselves! To judge by the fraught interactions between him and the younger man, the fictional arrangement had not worked out well.
“Well may you be shocked,” he said, misinterpreting my reaction. “So was I when our grandmother told me ten days ago. That dreadful old virago actually summoned me so that she might taunt me with the knowledge, saying that she and my guardian—my father, I should say—were so ashamed of me that they could not admit I was their kin. She told me that as a bastard I was worthless, that I had brought nothing but disaster to the family.”
I felt a pang of sympathy for Victor in spite of everything. How could he know how to act properly when he had been treated as an inconvenience or a pariah by everyone in his life?
“It was cruel of her to tax you with something over which you had no control,” I said warmly.
His gaze had seemed to turn inward, and I was not certain he had even heard me. He said softly, “A deformed monstrosity, she called me. She even told me that it would have been better for me to have been drowned at birth.” When I stared at him in horror, he put an unsteady hand to his eyes as if to shield them from my gaze. “I could not bear to listen to her spew her venom any longer,” he said in a low voice. “The anger was like a scalding tide rushing through my veins. I wrapped my hands around her throat and… finally she was silent.”
Now I was silent too—stricken dumb with shock.
After a moment he gathered himself. Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hand from his eyes and gave me a twisted smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. “I had never killed before,” he told me almost casually. “Not a human being, that is. It… soothed me.”
My head whirled with the import of his words. So this was why my uncle had been acting in such a peculiar way: he must have known of his son’s deed and tried to shield him and hide his guilt. What I had interpreted as guilt at his own act was actually revulsion at a murder that he had not himself committed but certainly bore some responsibility for. This, too, was why he believed in the curse: he knew his son to be a murderer.
In desperation I wondered if anyone was in earshot. The house seemed terribly still. The bell pull, which would summon one of the servants, was across the room from me. If I ran for it, would he be able to stop me from reaching it? But even if I succeeded in ringing, that left heaven knew how long until anyone answered its summons. Time that Victor might employ in making me regret calling for help.
Unaware of my fevered thoughts, he continued. “I realized that all the years that I had resented being treated as a monster I should have embraced that destiny,” he said. Now a new confidence infused him; he stood tall, and his voice took on strength and clarity. “Instead of studying folklore and fiction for ways to expunge or vanquish that corrupted side of myself, I should have been celebrating it and learning how to benefit from my power. Now I finally have. Now”—he took a deep breath that expanded his chest—“I am fully myself. The monstrous Victor… the monster victorious.”
I tried to swallow my panic. He might still listen to reason. “Would you not rather be man than monster?” I ventured. “To feel the kinship with humankind that you would experience by—by doing good?”
The smile that had always seemed so gentle had taken on a chillingly detached air. “There is no kinship,” he said. “From my earliest days I can remember only horror and revulsion. First at my deformity, then because word spread that I was the bastard son of unknown parents. Everywhere I heard the refrain: I was despicable, hideous, an abomination. Is it any wonder that I came to embody the words that were hurled at me? I took pleasure in avenging myself upon the schoolfellows who had been so quick to revile me, in devising for them the most finely tuned torments. Then it was the masters who began calling me monstrous.” He spread his hands, gracefully indicating himself. “What point was there in continuing to resist my destiny?” he asked with an almost lighthearted air. “Words cannot express the exhilaration of accepting what I am, Clara.”
My mouth had gone dry, and I had to make more than one attempt to ask my next question. Finally I managed to form the words, though they were little more than a whisper. “Did Atticus learn what you did to my grandmother? Was that what he was going to investigate on the night he vanished?” If Mr. Lynch had had something to do with his disappearance…
But he shook his head with a gentle regret. “I ought to have thought of that, but I didn’t. Indeed, I had hoped to learn more from him about his mysterious supernatural qualities. I don’t adhere to the narrow superstitions of peasants like Grigore, but I am convinced that the baron had some secret knowledge and arcane power, and I would dearly love to have learned it.” He sighed. “Was he a vampire? I shall never have the chance to find out.”
“I wish to God he were a vampire,” I cried in despair, “so that he could come back to me.” And deal with you, I finished silently.
Seating himself beside me on the divan, he patted my hand indulgently before I could snatch it away. “I know you must miss him,” he said, his low, pleasant voice sounding genuinely regretful, “but his death, though unfortunate, is most convenient for me—or shall I say us?”
Dread flooded my heart in a cold rush. “How do you mean?” I whispered.
The soft brown eyes gazed into mine with
an expression that was somehow almost tender. “I wish to make you my wife, Clara,” he said.
My lips parted, but I could not form words, and he continued, “I admire you more than any woman I have ever met, and I can think of no one better suited to be my consort—or, what is most important, to continue our family line.”
“What?” I gasped.
His eyes shone with excitement. “Imagine what a prodigy of strength and cunning our son will be, with the Burleigh bloodline doubled in him! He shall be our magnificent legacy, turning others to his own ends, becoming a scourge upon this miserable planet. Perhaps he may even come to rule England, or the empire itself. He shall be the epitome of ruthlessness, the apex of viciousness.” He smiled. “The perfect monster.”
My voice shook when I said, “I am not going to bear your son, Mr. Lynch.”
“Come, Clara, there’s no need for such hauteur between us,” he said, with a kind of gentle reproach. “As much as I admire your dignity and reserve, you may admit the truth to me. I know you are fond of me.” He leaned forward, as if, to my horror, he were about to kiss me. A wordless sound of protest struggled up from my throat, but all he did was lift a tendril of hair from my cheek and tuck it behind my ear, letting his fingertips linger on my hair. “Don’t be afraid,” he said with a chuckle. “I won’t force myself upon you. I know that when you have had a few more days to reconcile yourself to the baron’s death you will find that your heart has opened to me and that you will be ready to marry me.”
“A few days?” The words burst from me. How could this man—this murderer—sit calmly beside me and act as though this were sane? “I can’t possibly consider remarriage,” I told him with as much force as I could muster. “No matter how much time passes, it is out of the question.”
“And I would think less of you were you to say anything else when your loss is so fresh,” he replied promptly.
“But I am too old to bear children,” I said desperately, hoping with all my heart that he would believe me. “I’m at least ten years older than you. You must look to some other woman to wed.”
He tsked at me. “You are in the prime of womanhood, Clara. I have complete confidence that our marriage will be fruitful.” Then his eyes took on a roguish twinkle far more horrible than anger would have been. “Mind you, it would be unwise to dilly-dally. I can’t promise as leisurely a courtship as a lady of your station might generally expect.”
I did not think I could speak without being overcome with nausea, so I was silent as he rose as if to depart at long last. The room had darkened over the course of his stay, so that the fire was now the only source of light in the room. It threw his shadow onto the wall behind him, and in the way of shadows it changed and distorted his silhouette, exaggerating the slight unevenness of his shoulders and the curve of his upper back so that the minor imperfections of his body turned grotesque.
I had not thought him monstrous before. But now, having seen what distortions of his soul lay beneath his handsome face and courteous manner, I would never be able to think of him as a normal man again.
I had believed he was finally on the point of departure, but he remained standing over me where I sat on the divan. “As your suitor, I shall naturally take a close interest in everything that concerns your welfare,” he said, “and I must insist that you take more nourishment, however much grief may have temporarily diminished your appetite. You mustn’t compromise your health.”
When I did not respond, he said softly, “I shall be a good husband to you, Clara. As I said before, I observed you and the baron closely, so I know all the little ways he showed his affection for you. Be assured that I am a quick study.”
Before I realized what he intended, he had drawn my hair away from my neck and bent to put his lips to my throat where he had bared it. In just this way had Atticus kissed my neck that night we frightened Ann. A shudder of revulsion passed through me at the intimacy of the touch, but he seemed not to notice… or care. “I shall bid you good night,” he said with what sounded like real affection. “We’ll talk again tomorrow evening.”
He moved unhurriedly to the doorway, and as soon as the latch clicked behind him I leapt from the divan intending to lock the door. The key was no longer in the lock, though. There was nothing for it but to push the bureau in front of the door. Panic gave me strength, however, and in moments it was done.
Hastily I gathered my few most necessary belongings, including all the money that Atticus and I had brought with us. I bundled everything into a shawl and knotted it. Best to be as unencumbered as possible, for if I had to walk all the way to the village, I did not want to be weighed down.
Then, as quietly as I could, I pushed the bureau away from the door. The process was still far noisier than I would have liked, though, so I waited a minute by the door, listening hard to the silence for any sign of life, before turning the knob.
The door did not budge.
First carefully, then desperately, I pulled at the door, hoping it was merely stuck. It was all too clear what had happened, though. Why had I not anticipated that he would lock me in?
Still, it would not detain me for long. I rang for one of the servants and paced back and forth before the door until I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. My freedom was at hand.
The footsteps came to a halt at the door, and there was a gentle knock. “My lady?” came the voice of Mrs. Furness. “Did you ring?”
“Yes! Mr. Lynch has locked me in. Please open the door at once.”
There was a pause, during which I heard nothing. No jingling of keys came to my ears, nor did the sound of a key in the lock.
“Mr. Lynch locked you in?” she repeated then.
In my frustration I felt I could have beaten the door down with my fists. “That is what I said. Don’t you have the key?” A dismaying thought came to me. “Did he take yours from you?”
“No, my lady. He didn’t take my key.”
“Then let me out, for heaven’s sake! I need to get help.” I grabbed the doorknob and rattled it as if that would hasten the woman.
The housekeeper’s voice, when she spoke next, remained as courteous as ever. “I’m sorry, my lady,” she said calmly. “If Mr. Lynch wishes you to stay, then stay you shall.”
“What?” I cried, disbelieving. When she made no answer, I hammered at the door. “Mrs. Furness!” I almost shouted. “Let me out this instant!”
But there was no answer. When I stopped pounding at the door I could hear her footsteps receding down the hall, growing quieter and quieter until they faded entirely. I was a prisoner.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I snatched a hairpin from the dish on my dressing table and knelt before the door to see if I could pick the lock. After twenty minutes I was in tears of frustration. Either the lock could not be picked, or I needed better tools. Scissors, a buttonhook, and a needle from my sewing kit also proved to be no use at all.
The windows were my next thought. They swung outward readily enough when I unfastened the catch, but when I scanned the sooty gray exterior of the house and felt the stone with my hands I found that I would not be able to get any purchase on the smooth surface, and there was no convenient trellis or gutter spout.
Just as climbing down was out of the question, so was leaping to freedom. The ground lay dauntingly far beneath, and it fell away so steeply that I might easily break a limb, and that would trap me just as surely as being locked inside the house. Worse, if I jumped I might injure the baby.
My eyes raked the view for a source of assistance, but no one was in sight in the deepening twilight. Moonlight glinted on the river, but all of the men who had thronged its banks earlier had clearly returned to their homes now that the need for them was past… now that we knew Atticus was dead.
Sudden grief swelled in me with a force that felt as if it would shatter my body. Fiercely I pushed it down. Later, when I was safely away from this wretched place, I could mourn my husband with all the reverent love he deser
ved. But now, as sickeningly unjust as it was, I knew I must focus my entire mind on escaping.
Leaning out the window, I shouted for help until my voice grew hoarse. But nothing happened. No voice called out in reply, and no one approached, either outside the house or within. Probably the only people in earshot were the household, and Mrs. Furness or my uncle—or both—had most likely told them to disregard my pleas.
What else remained? As I scanned the room in search of something I could turn to my use, I recalled Victor’s revolting claim to have watched Atticus and me. When I went back over his exact words, I realized that he had not said that he had access to a peephole; he might simply have meant that he took advantage of all the ordinary opportunities of watching us. It was just possible that Ann had spoken about having seen Atticus bite my throat, as she thought, and Victor might have heard of this instead of witnessing it firsthand.
But it was also entirely possible that he had some secret means of watching us in the Cradle Room, and that meant that there might be another means of entering the room—and leaving it. The house was reputed to have a priest’s hole, I recalled, although none had come to light during all our searching of the past few days, and if such a hiding place lay adjacent to this chamber, it might very likely have another exit. A secret passage, in fact. In other circumstances I would have smiled at the thought, for it reminded me of home.
For the next few hours I examined the dark oaken paneling of the walls, forcing myself to carefully trace every carved square with my fingertips in search of a crack that might reveal a hidden opening. As unlikely as it might have been, that wisp of hope was enough to prevent me from dissolving into complete despair. I found nothing to encourage me, but I resolved to go over the paneling again the next day with the assistance of daylight.
Ann did not come to undress me for bed, nor would I have felt safe undressing any longer in this room, where I might be under observation. The only place where I felt I had any certainty of privacy was in the great four-poster bed with the curtains drawn all around me. When at last I crawled beneath the coverlet and huddled there waiting for the merciful oblivion of sleep, I realized that the distraction of Victor’s machinations and my own search for a means of escape had prevented the worst of my grief from making itself felt. I had not yet determined whether that was something to be thankful for when I fell asleep.
Cursed Once More: The Sequel to With This Curse Page 21