Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  Wives, the talk usually continued, were to be taken quickly, without fuss and candlelight, in hushed darkness, a husband fast, done, and gone, all modesty preserved. Whereas a mistress, she was fashioned to enjoy a man, to enjoy his slavering all over her.

  He’d always believed the men idiots.

  Tonight, he’d proven it. He imagined that Ryder Sherbrooke would agree with him wholeheartedly.

  He wondered what it would be like to have Rosalind take him into her mouth. He nearly shuddered himself off the bed.

  He fell asleep with her scent in his nostrils, the taste of her on his mouth.

  He didn’t love her, couldn’t love her, for a man couldn’t love a debt. Could he?

  33

  Nicholas handed her the ancient leather book. “Here is my grandfather’s copy of the Rules of the Pale. As you can see from the meager number of pages, it appears only to be an extract.”

  “Perhaps this is something of an introduction that will have explanations.” But her voice didn’t hold out much hope.

  Rosalind sat in his grandfather’s chair by the fireplace. The seat was warm even through her petticoats and her gown, and that made her wonder, but since there came no moans or groans when she’d sat down, she would deal with the possibility of sitting on a spirit. Hopefully the old earl was prowling elsewhere this morning, perhaps still hovering about in his former gloomy bedchamber, or standing on the other side of the room, watching her in his chair.

  She let the skinny volume fall open at random. It was in the same code, she recognized it, and she could read it as easily as the other. She read:

  The wizards and witches who reside on Mount Olyvan are an unscrupulous lot, endlessly contentious and vain. They hurl spells and curses at each other, so vicious the heavens hiss.

  I realized at last that they could not leave Mount Olyvan, perhaps they could not even step off of Blood Rock, this cold and grim fortress that seems older than the Pale itself. Not one of the residents seemed to know where the fortress name came from, or the fortress itself, for that matter. I asked Belenus and he said vaguely, “Ah, we are from before time decided to travel forward.” What a typical wizard answer, I thought, and wanted to kick him.

  Another time I asked Belenus how old he was and he ran large fingers through his thick red beard, showed me his white teeth, and said finally, “Years are a meaningless measure created by men who have to count them to ensure they get their fair share, which men never do because to kill each other fulfills them more than continued life.” On this, I fancied he had a point.

  I asked Latobius, the Celtic god of mountains and sky, if he was really a god, if he was immortal, and he raised his hand and a flame speared out from the tip of his finger and exploded an exquisite glass sculpture across the vast chamber. From King Agamemnon’s palace in Mycenae, someone had told me. I remember the shards flew outward, cascades of vibrant color.

  And I thought, You are a wizard, not a god, and I pointed my finger and hurled a spear of flame at a sconce on the stone wall. To tell the truth, it relieved me to see it burst apart. We both stood there watching the heavy shards hit the marble floor and scatter. He said nothing. It was difficult, but I didn’t either.

  And Epona? My son’s mother? I never saw her again after the sixth night I spent in her white bed.

  What are these beings?

  I knew there were servants, but they were only flashes of shadow and light, as if they moved about in a slightly different time and place, out of phase, like a moon hovering just outside your vision. They certainly kept the fortress clean, its inhabitants well garbed, but they were separate from the witches and wizards, separate from me as well. Did they take their direction from something outside the fortress? Perhaps they were guards, or bodyguards. There were cooks too because the meals were splendid.

  “Where are the servants?” I once asked Epona. She wore only white, her gowns always spotless. Her bedchamber was also completely white, it seemed to me the air was white around her. “We call them only when we need them,” she told me, but that didn’t sound right at all. “So they are not really here then? Where do they go? Where do they come from?” But she only shook her head, smoothing one white hand through my hair, and began kissing down my belly. And I wondered, before my brain became nothing more than empty space between my ears, Do you have any idea who or what these creatures are who serve you?

  Rosalind raised her face. “Nicholas, this book isn’t an extract from the other, it’s completely different.”

  His heart was beating hard, strong strokes. “Yes, so it seems. Keep reading, Rosalind, there aren’t many more pages.”

  There came a night when Blood Rock heaved and groaned and spewed rock and dirt high into the sky. Flames speared into the moonless black sky, the three bloodred moons inexplicably gone from the heavens. I heard screaming and shrieks, like demons from the deepest pits of Hell. The wizards and witches? Or the other creatures I didn’t know about? Rocks tumbled down the steep sides of Mount Olyvan. I could not hear them crash at the bottom, and I feared for a moment that there was no longer a bottom, no longer a valley below. I ran to the ramparts and prepared to face my death. But I didn’t die, Blood Rock did not tumble down Mount Olyvan. As suddenly as the cataclysm had begun, it ended. It was still, utterly still, as if the air itself were afraid to stir.

  I didn’t want to remain here and so I sent a silent plea to Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond who’d carried me to Blood Rock, and soon he came, swooping down gracefully onto the ramparts. No wizards or witches came to bid me farewell, indeed I hadn’t seen a single one after the upheaval that had shaken the bowels of the fortress. My bowels as well. Had they all died?

  Taranis lifted his mighty body gracefully from the ground and winged away from Mount Olyvan. When I looked back, everything seemed as it had been. I wondered yet again at all their Celtic god and goddess names, for none of them ever seemed to worship anything at all—and at Taranis the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, who was named after the Celtic god of thunder, the god who demanded human sacrifices. Had Taranis caused the mayhem on Mount Olyvan? He was immortal, he’d told me, unlike those bedeviling wizards and malignant witches in Blood Rock. I asked him if the wizards and witches had survived. Taranis told me the creatures of Blood Rock were cowering within their individual enchantments, a cowardly lot. I wanted to ask him about my son, if he had indeed been born of Epona’s body, if indeed he had ever existed, but Taranis chose that moment to dive straight toward the earth and I lost what few wits were in my head, and my bowels were again in question.

  She looked up again. “Sarimund is occasionally amusing in this account. It’s completely different from the other. I wonder what really happened? Or if any of it happened at all.”

  “Perhaps the Blood Rock wizards and witches unleashed all their powers.”

  “Unleashed their powers on what? The fortress? The mountain itself? On each other?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wonder if Sarimund ever found out what happened. Perhaps there is a third thin volume somewhere. Oh, dear, do you think his son survived? Epona’s son? Was he even born yet? This is very frustrating, Nicholas.”

  “Read the final pages, Rosalind.”

  She tried to turn the page, but it was stuck. It wouldn’t part. She looked at her husband, saw he was frowning at that page. “Drat, Nicholas, I cannot turn the page. It seems stuck together with the last page. Remember with the other Rules of the Pale, I simply couldn’t read the code on the final pages. With this little one, the bloody pages refuse to come free. I really would like to hurl this across the library.”

  Was that a rustling sound she suddenly heard?

  There was a knock on the library door.

  Nicholas looked ready to curse. Rosalind quickly got to her feet. “Let’s see what’s happening now.”

  It was Peter Pritchard, his young face haggard, his pale eyes ringed with shadows, his dark hair standing on end. His clothes, however, looked fres
hly pressed and his boots were polished. Behind him stood six women and four men in the vast entrance hall, all waiting, Peter told them, to be convinced by Nicholas to come to work at Wyverly, which was surely an opportunity only a dolt would deny—just imagine, a lifetime of tales to whisper about in front of winter fires.

  “Give us a moment, Peter,” Nicholas told him and shut the library door in his face. He’d forgotten. He didn’t want to deal with convincing a bunch of villagers to work at Wyverly, and Rosalind saw it. She also saw his mouth, ah, his mouth, when he’d kissed her, when he’d caressed her with his mouth. She shivered, remembering how when she’d awakened, he was gone, and she wanted to howl. As she stretched sore muscles she hadn’t been aware of even having, she thought about burrowing against him in her sleep, and waking to kiss him, letting him—well, she’d kissed him at the breakfast table, in a small, really quite lovely room with huge windows that gave onto the front drive, kissed him until Marigold had staggered into the room balancing heavy silver-domed trays on her arms. She’d stopped in her tracks and stared and stared, then grinned from ear to ear.

  And after breakfast, when Rosalind had thought perhaps Nicholas would carry her up to his boyhood bedchamber, he hadn’t. He’d brought her to the library and handed her the thin leather book. She knew this was vital, she knew it, but still—

  She smiled at him now, tossed him the thin volume. “Why don’t you slip out into the gardens, Nicholas, and think about this. See if you can free those final pages. Did you notice there are no more rules? Yes, you go to the gardens. Since I am the Wyverly mistress, it is only right that I deal with hiring our staff.” She patted his arm. “I am very good at convincing people to do what I want.”

  He looked down at the book, opened his mouth, but she lightly placed her fingertips against his lips.

  “The book has been here for a very long time. It isn’t going to fly out the window. Try to get the last page unstuck, though I don’t hold much hope. Now, let me see what I can do. We need to get Wyverly back to its former glory. Ah, there was former glory, wasn’t there?”

  “There was until my father became ill, actually faced his own mortality and realized the house and lands would come to me. He moved his family to London and left everything here to rot. Not all that long ago, thank God. I was very lucky Peter Pritchard was available.”

  “I’m sorry, Nicholas. What a wretched old wart your father was. I wish he were here so I could punch him in the nose.”

  He laughed, bent down and gave her a hard, violent kiss, and took himself out of the glass doors into a small overgrown garden. He heard animals scurrying about in the underbrush. He called out over his shoulder, “We need gardeners.”

  She opened the library door and ushered Peter in. “Peter,” she said, turning to face him, “I think I should like to speak to all of them at once. I trust you have ensured that none are ripe to steal the silver?”

  “The old earl told my father, who told me, that Nicholas once stole three silver spoons forged during the time of Queen Bess so he could sell them in Grantham and buy himself a pony. The old earl, my father told me, thought it was very well done of him. The pony was treated like a prince here at Wyverly Chase. Indeed, he still resides in the stables, content to be brushed and fed carrots.” Peter paused, slapped himself, and said, “I’m sorry but that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. As best I can ascertain, we have no thieves in this bunch.”

  “All right, Peter, bring in our people.”

  “They’re not ours yet, my lady, and I doubt—”

  She merely shook her head at him. When they were all lined up in front of her, many looking frankly alarmed to be in the old earl’s library, the rumored seat of all ghostly occurrences, several of the men trying to sneer away their fear, Rosalind smiled at each of them in turn, and said, “I am Lady Mountjoy. My husband and I are newly arrived at Wyverly Chase.” She leaned closer. “Let me tell you all truthfully—I played chess with the old earl’s ghost last evening, and do you know what? I beat him every time. He grumbled and threw several chess pieces across the library, but all in all, he took it well.”

  There were several gasps, a couple of indrawn male breaths.

  “The old earl is in transit, I suppose you could say. He is neither here nor there, but currently more here than there, if you know what I mean. He is not dangerous, not at all alarming, indeed, I find that he is a good listener and I enjoy singing duets with him.

  “Do any of you sing?”

  34

  Dead silence. An older woman’s hand slowly crept up. “I do, my lady. The vicar told me I have the sweetest voice in his whole flock.”

  “Then doubtless you will have to carry the duet with the old earl, as his voice isn’t all that true. Do you think you would enjoy that, Mrs.—”

  “Mrs. McGiver, my lady. Mr. Pritchard spoke to me about the housekeeper position.”

  “The old earl knows some clever songs, Mrs. McGiver.”

  “’E’s not the old earl, ’e’s a ghost,” one of the men said, “a bloody ghost wot doesn’t belong aboveground! Singing duets, it isn’t right. All this talk about playing chess with a ghost—there’s evil and bad business, that’s what everyone says. No good will come to anyone who stays ’ere.”

  Rosalind nodded at the older gentleman with a rooster tail of white hair. “I understand your concerns, Mr.—”

  “Macklin, my lady, Horace Macklin. I was the ’ead gardener ’ere before the old earl came back to ’aunt.”

  “The gardens are in dire need of your help, Mr. Macklin. Now, listen to me. I have discussed this with the old earl and he assures me he is not evil, he is, indeed, of a happy frame of mind. The reason he is happy is that he is very glad his grandson is here and wed.

  “He told me about many of you, how kind you were, how pleasant and witty, how very good you all were. He also said he hoped you would come back and scrub things up so Wyverly Chase can be brought back to its former glory.”

  Still uncertain looks, at least two appalled faces.

  Rosalind leaned a bit closer to the group and lowered her voice. “I can tell you this: He will add interest to your lives, he will make you smile after you become used to hearing his booming voice. When he breaks into song, I daresay you will soon find yourselves singing along with him. Who among you can be so timid, so fearful, as to turn down this very rare opportunity? Isn’t this an adventure, something to tell your grandchildren? Your friends? I daresay they will all be hanging off your words, buying you glasses of ale to hear you talk.”

  Ah, most of the faces weren’t quite so stony now.

  She continued, “All great houses have their ghosts. Without ghosts, great houses simply don’t come up to the mark. Now, the old earl’s ghost isn’t ancient and thus he hasn’t yet decided whether or not he wishes to settle here. As I said, he is still afloat, but eager to greet all of you. Will he remain? I don’t know. We will see.”

  She stepped back and let them huddle. Voices were muted but they were talking, and that was good. Eyes darted around the library, but the old earl remained quiet, if he was even here.

  Finally, the woman with the sweet voice, Mrs. McGiver, took a step forward and said, “All but Robert will come, my lady. Robert is afraid, a sorry thing for a man to be—”

  “ ’Ere now! I ain’t afeared!”

  Mrs. McGiver sneered at him. “Then sign on, my lad. You won’t even have a chance to hear the old earl sing, or sing with him for that matter, since you’ll be yanking up weeds in the gardens. You too afraid to do that?”

  More grumbling, then Robert nodded. “All right, I’ll stay on the grounds, but niver will I come into this den of iniquity. A ghost in the library—it fair to beetles the brow.”

  Thankfully, the old earl’s den of iniquity remained quiet, the air unruffled and warm.

  Rosalind heard Peter Pritchard tell the group as he ushered them out of the library, “If you would all begin today, his lordship and ladyship would be very pl
eased. Do you know that I myself have sung a duet with the old earl? His is not a very good voice, I must say, but he does try. I’m thinking there must be heavenly points for singing rather than simply speaking. What do you think, Mrs. McGiver?”

  “He never had a good voice, at least I wouldn’t imagine he did. I never heard him sing, truth be told.”

  Robert said, “Well, now, the old earl’s dead, ain’t ’e? Who could sing good with grave dirt in ’is mouth?”

  Mumbled agreement. Thank the good Lord no one mentioned there hadn’t been a body in the old earl’s casket.

  Rosalind was grinning when she joined Nicholas in the small overgrown garden with hummingbirds dipping into the rich tangled rose blooms. The air was soft, the sun shining down hot from a clear sky.

  “I like my new home, Nicholas. We now have ten additional servants. All will be well. Our new housekeeper is Mrs. McGiver, and I have to hand the prize to her. She’s got a backbone, in addition to a lovely voice.”

  “However you and Mrs. McGiver managed it, I am impressed.” He kissed her. The hummingbirds were blurs in the air, swooping closer when he took her to the ground behind a thick-pedestaled sundial. She asked him between kisses if the earl ever visited this small garden.

  Nicholas, no fool, said, “No, never. He hated flowers, hated the bright sun. Do you know, I hated leaving you this morning, I ground my teeth, kicked the chair on my way out the door. Do you know you clutched me to you when I tried to leave? Ah, be quiet now.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  “You had to be sore,” he said between kisses. “I didn’t want to hurt you. You’re better now, aren’t you, Rosalind?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said into his mouth even as she pulled his ears, “I am perfect.”