He found a ruddy-cheeked maid and pressed the note into her hand. “You will give this to the countess at once.”
“Aye, my lord.” The girl regarded his cloak. “I know it’s not my place to be warning you, my lord. But have a care. There are brigands about.”
“It would be a relief to match swords with a brigand,” Valcour muttered. At least then he would have a chance to best his enemy with the clean, fierce clash of steel.
It would be far more difficult to defeat the foe he was confronting tonight.
For no matter what Dominic found when he pried open the lid of the coffin, his actions would quite possibly be testimony that Alexander d’Autrecourt had triumphed over him at last.
*
Lucy wandered the deserted corridors like a restless spirit, her nightshift flowing in ghostly ripples to skim the bare arches of her feet. The branch of candles in her hand nipped at the shadows, backing them into the corners as she passed.
Midnight had fled, chasing the last of Valcour’s servants to their own feather ticks. But the elegant bed designated as Lucy’s own might as well have been made of thorns for all the rest she had found upon it.
She had been so tired. Yet every time she’d closed her eyes, images had risen to haunt her. Valcour’s face, tormented, enraged. The duchess’s eyes, filled with hatred. Lions with bronze teeth bared. And a crude angel hidden beneath the rose vines Lucy’s grieving mother had planted so long before.
She had battled the anguish those images stirred up inside her, had chafed at the curt, dismissive note Valcour had sent to her earlier that evening, commanding her to remain in the rooms “assigned” to her.
God knew, she should have been relieved that he was leaving her alone for the time being. The last thing she wanted to face right then was spending a wedding night in the arms of her husband. Or was she fooling herself?
Lucy couldn’t stifle the tiny thrill of anticipation. Valcour was all but a stranger to her, and yet he was also the most fascinating, enigmatic man she had ever met. A man who had kissed her until her bones turned molten, her breasts had ached, heavy, needing. A man whose dark eyes simmered with passions, the hottest of sensual fires trapped behind a sheet of ice.
He was her husband. Their joining was inevitable, necessary to get the heir he needed. Yet she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that the idea of sharing Valcour’s bed lured her thoughts, time and again, like a moth to flames.
Beneath Valcour’s skilled hands there would be no room for doubts or fears. He would drive away everything, Lucy sensed, immersing himself in the woman he was pleasuring with the same primal intensity that radiated from every muscle in his hard-sculpted body.
This was insane, Lucy thought, dragging her thoughts away from images of Valcour’s sun-bronzed body against white sheets, his sinewy hands skating over her pale skin. She didn’t really want him… need him that way. She was just naturally curious. And she had always been desperately impatient when it came to surprises, peeking beneath wrappings, searching through clothes presses and under beds for gifts at Christmastime.
It was no wonder that she viewed the consummation of this marriage the same way. Her mother had always insisted that the consummation of a relationship with someone she truly loved was the most beautiful experience a woman could have. That it was nothing to be ashamed of or to fear. That it was to be savored, delighted in.
Yet Lucy did not love Valcour. And the earl had made it quite clear that she was an unavoidable annoyance, upsetting his well-ordered existence. It was best if she remembered that.
Lucy grimaced. Why was she even thinking of such things at all? Only because she felt out of balance after the confrontation at the scene of her childhood nightmare. It had left her raw and vulnerable and aching. Desperately in need of something to divert her thoughts. But there were far safer distractions than thinking of the marriage bed. A bracing argument would be delightful, or a biting exchange of wits to remind her that she had left helpless Jenny behind on the windswept hill and had found brash Lucy once again.
When she could endure tossing and turning no longer, Lucy had climbed from bed and gone to the exquisite desk in the corner of the chamber, where she found the writing supplies she needed. There she had tried a dozen times to compose the letter she knew she must send to Virginia.
Dearest Mama and Papa, I am a countess now…
But no matter how she tried to phrase the news of her marriage, no matter how she attempted to hide her misery, every stroke of the pen reminded her of the hard truth that Blackheath Hall would never be her home again. She would never slip into her blue drawing room in the middle of the night to play a song she had dreamed of upon her beloved pianoforte. She would never climb out her bedchamber window and perch in the crook of her oak tree’s branches to watch the sun come up.
Mama, I miss you so much. Papa, I’m sorry… so sorry I’ve made such a mess of things….
No, she couldn’t burden them with the truth of her situation. The tale of Pendragon and his lady was still one of the most renowned romances in all Virginia. How could two people who had risked everything for love understand what Lucy had done?
They had never wanted anything but her happiness. Had never attempted to mold her into anything except what she was. They had delighted in the fact that she was as unique as the exotic bird one of Ian’s captains had once brought Lucy as a pet.
But in time the bird’s bright plumage had grown drab, its eyes resigned, as if it were pining for its tropical home. Lucy had planned to send it back by the next ship, but the bird died before the ship could sail. She was certain it had died of a broken heart, missing everything it had ever known.
Now Lucy understood the bird’s sorrow more vividly than ever before.
When Lucy had spoiled her fifth attempt at a letter by wetting it with hot tears, she flung down the quill and took up the candlestick, wanting only to escape the pages that were a silent reminder of the family she had lost.
The stones beneath her feet were cold, the drafts from the castle ruffling the delicate fabric of her nightshift. But she was glad of the physical sensations that drew her mind away from the painful squeezing of loss about her heart.
This was her home now. This crumbling English castle with its suits of standing armor, sentinels of another age.
She pushed open a heavy carved door, and light spilled from her candles into a long, narrow gallery leading to another part of the castle. Her footsteps echoed in the tunnel-like room. Small puffs of dust stirred by her passing tickled the insides of her nostrils. She sneezed but walked on, examining portraits of St. Cyrs from the time of gallant knights on.
Warriors in chain mail were hung lackadaisically on ill-aligned pegs. Ladies in elegant farthingales and stiff ruffs were leaned against the wall, moisture from the floor creeping up their painted skirts. Bold cavaliers, their ebony eyes laughing at the world, stood upside down, as if balanced on their dashing plumes. Some industrious mouse had gnawed at a corner of one of the frames.
The painted images stared out from their gilt-edged prisons as if disgruntled that they had been shoved into this ignominious corner of the castle they had once ruled. And they had been shoved aside, Lucy realized, swept from view, as if the current earl had wanted to wipe the evidence of his ancestry from his sight.
It made no sense. A man as arrogant and proud as the earl, abandoning this record of his family’s legacy of power to the mice and spiders. One would think Valcour would have such portraits hung in the most conspicuous places, with plaques beneath them citing every glorious achievement the family had made.
Sir Melchizedec St. Cyr cut down three hundred infidels in the name of Christian charity.
Lucy made her way to the end of the gallery, where a Holland cover draped some objects, hiding them from view. Curious, she lifted the edge of pale cloth and held the candle flame closer to the portrait she revealed.
It was far more recent than the rest. A gentle, dreamy-eyed
girl sat beside a man who had Valcour’s dark eyes and rugged features. Valcour’s intensity was in the man’s face as well, but it was edged with a certain wildness, recklessness. Beside them stood a boy of about seven, his eyes bright as new buttons above a gap-toothed grin, his hand on the back of a fawn-colored mastiff.
Lucy stared at the painting for a moment, stunned, her gaze scanning down to where the artist had inscribed the identities of the people in the painting. Lord Lionel St. Cyr, the fifth earl of Valcour; Lady Catherine, his wife; and Master Dominic St. Cyr, seven years old.
Lucy crouched down, her fingers numb as she pressed them against the cheek of that delightfully mischievous little boy. A child that seemed worlds different from the man he had become.
There was no haughty superiority in young Dominic’s face, no hard disdain nor tyrannical temper. There was an openness about him, a certainty that life was an adventure to be savored.
Only the woman in the portrait seemed out of place among generations of fiery-eyed St. Cyrs. Dominic’s mother peered out at the world a little fearfully, as if expecting the dreams in her eyes to be stripped away.
Why was Lucy suddenly certain that they had been?
She stood up, brushing sticky cobwebs from her fingers, and went to the door that led onward through the castle. She grasped the heavy iron ring bolted to the door and pulled, but the wood had warped, and it stuck.
She braced herself, grasping the ring with both hands, then tugged. Hinges screeched in protest, the wood panel resisting, but at last the door swung slowly open.
Lucy hesitated, holding the candle closer to the soft darkness beyond.
The castle is in ill repair, Valcour had written. You will remain in the suite of rooms assigned to you. Was there some crumbling pit she would fall into? Some teetering balcony up these stairs that would send her plunging to her death? Or were there other reasons the powerful earl of Valcour had not wanted her to roam through his castle?
Did he keep the moldering bones of some ancient prisoner dangling in medieval torture devices? Or did some other darker secret lurk behind a forbidden door?
He had ordered her to stay in her room like an unruly child. And nothing had ever infuriated Lucy more than orders flung at her with no explanation.
She squared her shoulders. From the moment she met the earl of Valcour, he’d been bullying her, ordering her to be his second in the duel, practically dragging her into the Wilkeses’ garden by the hair, and, last of all, demanding that she marry him. And not just demanding. He had been far viler than that. He had blackmailed her into becoming his wife, using the most loathsome weapon at his disposal—his own brother’s vulnerability.
Valcour would have to cherish that triumph for a very long time. It was the last time the infernal earl would best the Raider’s daughter.
Dominic St. Cyr was entirely too used to getting his own way. If he thought his new bride was going to leap whenever he snapped his fingers, he was going to have an unpleasant surprise!
No, Lucy thought, taking another step into the stairwell. Better to start this strange marriage the way she meant to continue it.
She peered upward, her gaze tracing the ascending spiral of stone steps that led to one of the mighty castle towers she had seen when she arrived at Harlestone.
Candlestick held before her, Lucy made her way up the stairway. Arrow slits from ages gone by let tiny slivers of moonlight filter in. She flattened her other hand against the rough stone wall to help guide her as she wound her way higher and higher.
Damp patches chilled her fingertips, cobwebs snagged at her fingers, and Lucy remembered countless tales of ghosts and ghoulish horrors she had woven for playmates in Virginia.
She half expected to find a madwoman shackled to the walls, or a witch’s lair with vacant-eyed skulls and poisons brewing. At the very least a phantom in spectral armor.
Even her wildest imaginings couldn’t prepare her for what awaited her at the top of the stairs.
Lucy stepped through a stone archway into a circular room far too enchanting to house a ghost.
The oppressive layer of dust and decay that had shrouded the other places she had explored was gone, this room pristine and bright, as if its owner had slipped out the door moments before.
Tapestries depicting maidens and unicorns covered the walls. The narrow castle windows had been widened, letting blocks of night peek into the room. A work basket sat beside an elegant chair, and a piece of linen stitched in tiny primroses trailed out from the container, a bright needle thrust through the unfinished embroidery. Exquisite leaden soldiers were set up in mock battle array behind a fortress constructed of books, the miniature army seeming to await the commands of its child general.
Was this beautiful chamber the secret that Dominic St. Cyr had not wanted to share with anyone? Even his new bride? Why?
Lucy touched the embroidery, as delicate and lovely as any she had ever seen. What woman had made these tiny stitches? Surely not some servant. Was it possible that it was someone Valcour had wanted to hide? Or to protect?
Lucy felt her considerable fancy take flight.
Could the embroidery belong to one of Valcour’s ladyloves? Some poor village girl who had been seduced by the mesmerizing lord, then left to bear the child who had played with the toy soldiers? A woman and child who had to be hidden because of the earl’s monstrous pride?
She shook herself fiercely. She was being absurd. Ridiculous. Valcour was so stiff-necked and arrogant that he would never house his bride beneath the same roof as his mistress. Still, it was as if Lucy could sense some unseen presence in this room, hear laughter that had long since faded.
She turned to look at the other side of the room, and she reeled back, thunderstruck, as she stared at an instrument enthroned upon a dais on the far side of the room.
She crossed to where it stood, a pianoforte polished to the brilliance of a treasured jewel. The instrument was so cunningly fashioned that Lucy could scarce believe its beauty. Silhouettes of ladies and gentlemen dancing the minuet were inlaid into the wood, while angels cavorted above them.
Her fingers stroked the keys experimentally once, twice. Almost miraculously, the notes rang true, crystalline, flawlessly in tune.
Who could have tracked through the dusty, neglected gallery? Waded through the dirt and the spiders and the gloom to keep this instrument in perfect repair? Almost as if the room were a shrine.
The top of the instrument was littered with parchment, disturbingly like the one that had arrived in the box in Virginia what seemed a lifetime ago.
Lucy reached out, taking up the ink-smudged page nearest her. Music. Notes splashed across the page, as if the melody were racing out of the composer’s head faster than he could get it down on paper. Measures were scrawled out then reshaped into even more lovely phrases.
Lucy’s fingers trembled. Her father had been Dominic St. Cyr’s music teacher. Surely these must be his compositions. A shiver scuttled beneath the thin cloth of her nightshift. It was as if her father were everywhere, some omniscient presence, waiting for her, always taunting her, then darting back into the shadows just when she reached out to touch him.
Still, Lucy sat in the chair before the pianoforte and set her candlestick on its glossy surface, angling the light so that it spilled over the music rack.
She took up the composition and set it where she could see it. Her eyes skimmed over the blotted music, her hands coaxing it from the exquisite instrument.
As a child she had always insisted that pianofortes had a soul that had to be taught to sing by someone who loved them. If that were true, this piano had been taught to sing by an angel. There was a richness in the tones that flowed through Lucy like sugared cream, thick and sweet. There was an ethereal mistiness about the sounds like the whispering of moonbeams. There was a joy and a sorrow that made Lucy’s fingers tremble, her throat close.
It was every bit as beautiful as her “Night Song.” Maybe more so. It was as simple and
lovely as a perfect meadow flower, sprung up between the paving stones of a crowded street. It was as haunting as the reflection of a fairy nymph in a silver stream.
It wooed her, beckoned her, seduced her, deeper and deeper into the mists of music, until suddenly, in mid-measure, it stopped so abruptly Lucy felt as if the floor had suddenly dropped out from under her and she had slammed to the stones three floors down.
“There must be more,” Lucy said, desperately rummaging through the mass of pages on the pianoforte. “How could he have stopped when it was so beautiful? If I were penning something so perfect, I wouldn’t have left the pianoforte if the whole castle were in flames.”
But there was nothing. Only snippets of other melodies. A rollicking country dance that made Lucy want to tap her bare toes. A minuet that made her want to laugh, a subtle mockery in the music’s stately strains.
There was another piece inscribed To the most wonderful mama in the world, with my deepest, most sincere love. Lucy swallowed hard. Had Alexander d’Autrecourt written this for his mother, a gift to attempt to mend the rift caused by his marriage to Emily? When had Alexander entered this room? Played at this pianoforte?
Lucy chewed at her fingernail, trying to piece the puzzle together. She had been born a year after her parents’ marriage. Alexander d’Autrecourt had died when she was three years old. Surely his father, the duke, would never have allowed his son to stoop to giving music lessons. Alexander d’Autrecourt must have haunted this tower room sometime during the four years he was an outcast. Years he had spent trying to bludgeon music into the skulls of blockhead students like Dominic St. Cyr, in order to put bread on the table in the tiny apartment in London.
Her lips trembled, and she hoped that her father had found some little happiness here.
Lucy scanned the lines of script, so different from the elegant penmanship on the letters she had received. Obviously, Alexander had been in a rush, intending to copy the piece of music over. But there had never been time. Why? Had he been struck down by fever before he could return to the piece? Had he somehow offended the proud St. Cyrs, so they had driven him from his position here, not even giving him time to collect his precious compositions?
Lords of the Isles Page 169