“Hullo, what have we here?”
She nearly leapt from the tub and plastered herself on the coffered ceiling. A man had entered the antechamber. She didn’t dare turn to see him, but she knew he stood directly behind her and she recognized his voice instantly. It was Trevallyan’s cousin, Lord Chesham.
“My fine cousin coaxes me to return to London, and yet here I find his reasons for staying behind … a young lass in the master’s chambers … and who are you that Trevallyan has found you worthy of sharing his bed?” Chesham took two steps farther into the room. Ravenna crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head as far from him as she could. She wanted to cry out for him to be gone and spare her further shame and embarrassment, but her voice would not cooperate. Mortification choked her.
He chuckled and took another step. The sound left her uneasy. It made clear there were other issues suddenly at play besides her lack of modesty.
“Let me see your face, lass, and I’ll bring you a pretty trifle from London. Would you like that? A pretty trifle for a pretty face. Come. Turn around and look at me.”
A terrified sob caught in her throat. If she looked at him, he would never leave her alone. The situation damned her. He’d already jumped to all sorts of incorrect conclusions; if he discovered her true identity, he might be so jealous over what he believed to be the master’s conquest over her that he could be capable of any kind of retaliation. Trevallyan should have never been so outrageously courteous as to allow her the use of his room. Chesham would now think she was the lord’s mistress. And no matter how she might word her denials, she knew from Chesham’s predatory tone he would never let her out of the bedroom before all his questions were answered.
“Come, tell me your name.…”
He stood almost behind her. She shivered and wished she could curl into a ball and drown herself in the rose-scented bathwater. Anger fired within her, but she shunted it aside. The heart-pounding fear of his discovering her identity took all her attention. If she could not make him go away before she was forced to turn around, he might take advantage of her and no one would see fit to punish him. She was a naked, unmarried woman in the master’s chambers. There would be no one to stand up in her defense.
“Please—” She shuddered as he placed his hand on her back.
“Turn around—”
“What the bloody hell are you doing in here?” another male voice boomed from the doorway. Ravenna grew weak with relief. It was Trevallyan’s voice.
“I came here looking for you but found … this.” Chesham paused. He removed his hand from her back, and she could hear him step away. She heard him whisper, “Who is she, Niall? She’s got to be a servant from the looks of her dirty hair. Since when have you taken a liking for servants?”
“Get out, Chesham.” Trevallyan’s tone brooked little discussion. Every word was tight with barely leashed anger.
Footsteps went to the door, but before Chesham left, she heard him say, “When you’re through with her, tell her she might perhaps find a place in my bed. I’ve never been privileged enough to have a go at your leavings.”
“Get out!” Trevallyan growled. The doors were promptly shut behind him and she heard the fading sound of boots tap on the winding stone staircase.
Ravenna didn’t move in the tub. She sat in it, frozen, holding her arms over her breasts in a pitiable attempt at modesty. She didn’t know what she had expected in Chesham, but his crudeness had shocked her. Trevallyan had told her she would be nothing but a toy to him, and though Chesham hadn’t known whom he was toying with, Ravenna saw miles into his character from this brief episode.
Her cheeks hot with anger, humiliation, and the struggle to keep herself from crying, she finally turned her head to look at Trevallyan. He stood grimly by the closed door, his arms folded across his chest, his gaze pinned on her own.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He smirked as if in apology. “Love and Chesham. It’s not a pretty sight. I hope you finally see his offers for what they are.”
“No one took his offers seriously but you, my lord.”
She stared at him. He nodded as if absorbing this little bit of information. He seemed to be doing his damnedest not to look at her, but every few seconds she could see his eyes flicker downward toward the tub where her figure dissolved in blurry pink tones beneath the water. Her back was to him and her arms were crushed over her breasts, but even so, she had scant coverage. No matter how she tried to cover herself, her breasts spilled out the side, offering him a healthy look at her nudity. And by the light in his eyes, she could see he held a most manly appreciation for it.
To her relief, they heard the sound of a door opening in the dressing room. A servant bustled around, and though they couldn’t see who it was, Ravenna thought that perhaps Katey had returned through the servants’ stair.
Ravenna looked at Trevallyan expectantly; he gazed back, seemingly reluctant to go.
Katey began to hum loudly in the dressing room, banging drawers and opening wardrobes. Without another word, Trevallyan placed a book on the nearby table. He gave Ravenna such a strange, piercing look it seemed to stop her heart. Katey entered the bedroom with an armful of soaps and linen towels, and when Ravenna turned back to look at him again, he was gone.
“Here we are! A fresh bar of soap for your hair, and Himself’s finest pig-bristle brush to brush it dry by the fire.” Katey puttered to the tub, handing her soaps and rosewater. The servant was clearly oblivious to the master’s quick exit and to the tensions that seemed to still linger in the room.
Ravenna lowered her arms and allowed Katey to assist with washing her hair. The servant poured warm water over her head and began to scrub with a pink cake of soap. The ministrations were just what Ravenna needed. She felt tense and soiled. A good hard scrubbing seemed to wash away both sensations.
When Ravenna was finally clean, Katey wrapped her in another of Trevallyan’s dressing gowns and placed her by the restoked hearth. Then the servant ran the pig-bristle brush through her clean hair until each black strand was shiny and dry.
The bath and her “visitors” had so exhausted Ravenna, she actually looked forward to returning to Trevallyan’s soft bed. She truly wished to go home, but the fight had been more than she could stand.
“There you are, miss,” Katey said, standing back and looking at her work. “You look right as rain, but perhaps a little weary around the eyes. Let’s get you back into bed. Here, we’ll fetch you a good book to read.” The servant walked with Ravenna to the bed and helped her up the little stool that assisted her onto the high mattress. “What will you read, miss?”
Ravenna looked across the bedroom into the antechamber. She remembered Trevallyan had placed a book on a table. “That one, over there.” Ravenna pointed to it. “Will you read me the title?”
Katey walked to the book and picked it up. “I can’t read rightly in English, miss. If it were Gaelic or the Church’s tongue, Latin, perhaps … but there was only the hedge school for me and then only for a few years.” Katey brought her the book. She plumped the pillows, then retreated from the chamber with the tea tray.
Ravenna fingered the embossed leather. She was speechless with surprise when she read the title: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
She flipped through a couple of chapters, such as “The State of Degradation to Which Woman Is Reduced,” and “Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity,” the subject about which she was most impassioned. The book was an original printing of the 1792 edition. She closed it and studied it in her hands, still unable to believe that Trevallyan even possessed a copy, much less that he had brought it to her.
The book flipped open on her lap. She could see a scrawl inside the front cover. Amazed, she read
To Ravenna,
“It would be well if they were only agreeable or rational companions.”
Niall, eighth earl of Trevallyan
on WOMEN
(in the words of M
ary Wollstonecraft)
A sleepy smile crossed her face. As infuriating as the man was, she found herself looking forward to thanking him. Trevallyan had too many facets to his character to hate all of them at once. And there was no denying that he had wit. The exact kind of blackguard’s wit that appealed to her own.
She closed the book and fell into a dream-filled sleep, already planning her repartee for when she would see him next.
Ravenna was reluctant to admit to the disappointment she felt when she didn’t see Trevallyan all the next morning. Noon came and went and led into a sleepy afternoon. By evening, her supper having been served by Katey in the antechamber, she sat in the lonely chair next to the hearth. All day Trevallyan had yet to show and now into the night. She had yet to thank him for the book. Ravenna fell asleep, her thoughts captivated by him.
Convinced that he would arrive in the morning, she asked Katey to dress her hair into something other than the wild tangle that fell freely down her back. Katey obliged, almost forced into sorcery in order to tame the coal-colored tresses into a respectable chignon. The maidservant even went so far as to pin small shamrocks to her handiwork, but as the hours ticked by, the effort was for naught. Trevallyan did not show.
Two days passed. The second evening, Katey arrived with Ravenna’s clothing from the cottage, and Ravenna was told that she would finally be allowed to leave in the morning. Ravenna should have been ecstatic, but she was oddly disconsolate. He’d made no attempt to visit her, and now she even doubted that he would see her off in the morning. She didn’t know why his disappearance bothered her. She didn’t expect to be in his thoughts; in truth, she didn’t expect him to act as anything other than the rude beast he was, but somehow, every time she looked down at her book, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what had kept him away.
“You didn’t eat a morsel of your supper. Is your head still a-hurtin’?” Katey asked softly as she looked down at Ravenna’s untouched tray.
Ravenna gazed at the kindly woman. Suddenly she realized how indebted she was to her. Katey had tended to her with all the care of a mother. Ravenna knew she wouldn’t be feeling as well as she did were it not for Katey’s constant attention.
“I’m not very hungry this evening.” Ravenna pressed the servant’s hand in a show of affection, “I’ve never quite thanked you for all the time you’ve given to me. It’s just occurred to me that I may never see you again unless I pass you on the road going to market. I hope that you will always remember how grateful I am for your care.”
“Why, ’twas nothing, miss. I’m always glad to help Lord Trevallyan where I can.” Katey smiled and patted the hand atop her own. “Ever since me poor Eddie died of the drink, and he took in meself and the babe, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the master. When Himself told me about you lying up here, all hurt and dirty and wet, with no one to ease the sufferings of your poor head, I was quite glad to be able to lend a hand. Especially knowing who you are, miss, and all the need for secrecy.”
“Secrecy?” Ravenna asked, rather surprised.
“Why yes. Of course. ’Tis why you haven’t seen nary a servant but me. Himself wouldn’t allow it. Even tonight when he was taking his whiskey in the library, he was still concerned that no one know you spent all these days under his care.”
“Well … who am I, then, that Lord Trevallyan has taken such great care with my reputation?” Ravenna stared at the servant, waiting for an answer. She was disappointed to see Katey begin a retreat.
“’Tis up to the master to decide that, miss,” the maid said, a little nervously.
Confusion crossed Ravenna’s face.
Katey seemed to take pity on her. Pensively, she wiped the table with her apron and explained, “The lord is a lonely man, miss. You must understand that. He’s not in the habit of bringing home waifs in need of care. In truth, Himself doesn’t bring too many people to the castle at all. Oh, you may hear about the routs and such, but those are all Lord Chesham’s doing. Usually the master takes his drinks as he may, and then he retires to his chamber to sit in the chair opposite yours, and he reads all through the night. An educated man, Himself is. I’ve heard he’s read all the books in the castle and then some. He lives in his library.”
“Is that where he’s been…” sleeping she almost blurted out, but the question was even too improper for her, “… where’s he’s been all this time?” she corrected.
“Himself’s got County Lir to look after and look after it he does. Not much time for visiting, that one. ’Tis partly why he is lonely.” Katey sauntered toward the servants’ door in the dressing room. In a pleasant voice, she said, “Just you rest now, miss. I’ll bring you a toddy from the kitchen before bedtime.”
“Thank you, Katey,” Ravenna said, her thoughts very far away.
Katey tried to hide her enigmatic smile. “My pleasure, miss. You know, old Peter Maguire was quite a gossip. God bless you, miss. And God bless our Ireland.” With that, Katey disappeared into the dressing room and the servants’ passage beyond.
Boggled, Ravenna stared at the dressing room. She rose from her chair to call Katey back and have her answer all the questions firing in her mind, but when she reached the dressing room, the servant was gone, escaped into the medieval labyrinth of the keep.
She knew a better source for answers anyway. Trevallyan. As Katey had implied, he was even now in his library sipping a whiskey. It was only proper for her to thank him, and she didn’t know if she would see him in the morning to be able to do so.
She ran to the shaving mirror over the bureau. Her hair was presentable, if not exquisite; her cheeks were pale, in fact she still looked a bit ghosty with her large eyes and dark hair, nonetheless, she pinched some color into her face, straightened her bodice, and left for the Trevallyan library.
To find one room in the midst of two hundred was a daunting task. It took more than a quarter of an hour for Ravenna to even make her way to the newer portion of the castle, but once there, she found it was not difficult to detect which room was the library. There was only one light burning beneath the elaborately carved and gilded doors in the new wing. Unless Greeves was up late polishing the silver, the occupant of the room had to be the master.
She placed her hand on the gilt doorknob and experienced a sudden attack of nerves. He might not be pleased to see her. In fact, he might be quite displeased to find her intruding upon his private life. She pressed her ear to the mahogany door. No voices. Whoever burned the candles was alone.
Slowly she opened the door.
She remembered the library well from their last conversation in it. Trevallyan sat in a chair facing the hearth beneath a portrait of a woman to whom he bore a distinct resemblence. The woman had to be his mother. The Celt.
“My lord,” she said in a low tone.
Slowly he turned his head. If he was surprised or pleased by her appearance, he didn’t show it. Instead, his features hardened into an implacable, unreadable expression.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
Her nerves caught on fire. “I—I came to tell you farewell. I’ll be leaving at first light.” She met his gaze but didn’t enter the room. There was no point in running into the dragon’s lair.
“You don’t look well enough to be leaving.” He rose from his chair and walked over to her. Taking her arm, he led her to the chair opposite his. It was a large, old fashioned wing chair from the previous century, and it enveloped her within its needlework.
“I—I really didn’t mean to bother you here in your library,” she said, becoming a bit unglued by his intense gaze.
“Then why did you?”
The question seemed unanswerable. Even she wasn’t sure why she had sought him out. She wouldn’t have minded a pleasant chat before retiring, but one didn’t have pleasant chats with Lord Trevallyan.
She clasped and unclasped her sweaty hands. “I told you. I came here to say good-bye—”
“No.”
His answer
left her with little leverage. Slowly, she added, “… and to thank you for the book.”
“I see.”
He stared at her from his chair, so far away, more than an arm’s length away, but still close. Close enough so that she could see the color of his eyes. Green stones awash in deep water.
She met those eyes with all the bravado she could muster, but they were terrible, disapproving eyes. He had always disapproved of her, and with every attempt to win his regard, she had seen the disapproval grow deeper, had felt it sting more. It had intensified with every encounter, until now, when she was as polished and educated as she would ever be in her life, the disapproval cut a path through her self-worth like a scythe through O’Shea’s rye.
“What’s wrong with me that you look at me the way you do?” The whisper may have left her mouth, but it came from her aching heart.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re beautiful. So beautiful that…” His gaze flickered down her face and figure. She wore the old scratchy blue dress she had worn to Peter Maguire’s funeral. It was not a dress to win beaux, but he seemed to hardly notice what she was clothed in. He looked too deeply to notice the superficial. “… so beautiful I’d like to…” His gaze locked with hers. The message in his eyes scared her. And the excitement she felt from it, even more so.
“Shall you be my lover, Ravenna?” he said with words what had already been spoken.
She took several deep breaths and stared at him. Everything should have been so simple now. It was the point where a maiden should renounce the cad and stomp from the room in righteous indignation. Kathleen Quinn, no doubt, would have leapt from her chair, cracked Trevallyan across his face, and sent her brother to the castle at dawn to cut him down.
But she had no such option. Try as they might at the Weymouth-Hampstead School, they could not turn water into wine. She understood all too well from years of grinding repetition that she was poor, orphaned, Irish. Her education had not elevated her. It had only tortured her further by creating dissatisfaction with her lot in life. With no family or friends to protect her, she could no more take Trevallyan to task for his offer than she could keep Malachi from the hangman should they catch him.
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