“Do you find your home much changed, Mr. Talbot?”
Without looking at his father, Lawrence said, “Blackmoor does seem rather the same as I left it.”
“How?” Sir John’s question was almost a grunt.
Lawrence affected a casual expression as he said, “The villagers have some wild ideas.”
“Yes,” said Sir John, “we’re a provincial lot, I must confess. Ignorant. Superstitious. To a worldly man such as yourself we’re savages at the end of the Earth—”
Gwen cut him off. “I didn’t intend to start a squabble—”
“No, no,” persisted Sir John, overriding her protest. “I’ve seen savages at the ends of the Earth. All I am saying is that you dismiss the natural man at your peril.”
The defensiveness in his father’s voice amused Lawrence. He took a sip of wine and settled back against his chair. “I find your insecurity strange.”
Sir John raised an eyebrow, equally amused. “Oh? And how comfortable are you in your skin, may I ask?”
“You can get used to anything,” said Lawrence.
There was a sharp clack as Gwen set her silverware down with too much force and started to rise. Lawrence half rose, the gesture almost a bow.
“Please,” he said. “Stay a moment.”
She sat very tall, eyes cool and challenging. Sir John’s eyes held equal challenge, but his eyes were almost palpably hot.
Lawrence knew that the moment was his to lose or repair. He nodded to Gwen and to his father, placing a hand over his heart in a gesture he contrived to look honest rather than affected.
“I want to apologize to both of you,” he said, his voice quiet and guileless. “For not attending you in a more timely and . . . appropriate fashion.” Both sets of eyes continued to watch. Neither said a word, so Lawrence continued. “It’s a regret I’ll carry with me the rest of my life.”
The line was dramatic, and Lawrence had constructed it with the intent to manipulate the moment, but as he stared into the smoky depths of Gwen Conliffe’s blue eyes, he realized that he meant it.
Sir John sat back and refilled his wineglass, his gaze probing, calculating. Gwen studied Lawrence as well, and he could feel the strength of her insight and intellect, and he saw the moment when she made her decision. She gave him a single, brief nod, but as she did so her eyes softened. Just a bit.
CHAPTER TEN
The rest of the dinner was extremely polite and no one wandered within biting distance of controversy or challenge. After Singh had cleared the plates, Gwen excused herself and retired.
That left the two Talbot men alone. Lawrence expected his father to return to their argument, but instead Sir John suggested they retire to the Great Hall for drinks. Lawrence was happy to agree.
In the Hall, Sir John poured scotch into a pair of cut-glass tumblers. The animal heads on the walls watched him with glassy indifference. He carried the glasses over to a pair of overstuffed chairs positioned before a roaring fire. Lawrence stood by one of the chairs, firelight flickering on his face, his dark eyes reflecting the blaze. He accepted the glass with a nod and sipped the rich single malt. They did not toast one another or even touch glasses. That would have been an absurd gesture on both their parts.
Sir John settled into one of the chairs and looked over the rim of his glass at a display of Masai spears that he had acquired before Lawrence had been born. His eyes were distant, as if he wandered through fields of memory.
Sipping his scotch, Lawrence wandered the room, pausing now and then to examine the hunting weapons—and the stuffed and mounted proof of their effectiveness—that made up the room’s motif. Then he spotted a newspaper that lay folded on the settee. He picked it up and opened it. The theater review page of The London Times. The headline read:
VICTORIA PLAYERS’ HAMLET
A TRIUMPH FOR AMERICAN TRAGEDIAN TALBOT
“I’ve never understood it,” said his father, and Lawrence turned to see that his father was standing by his elbow. He hadn’t heard him come up behind him. “Acting. Playing at being other men . . . but, I understand that you’re celebrated for it. Famous for it. Perhaps someday I’ll see for myself what all the fuss is about.”
Lawrence tossed the newspaper onto the desk.
Sir John threw back the rest of his scotch and as he poured a fresh drink he glanced up to see Lawrence looking at the beautiful portrait of Solana Talbot that hung above the fireplace. Sir John took a strong pull on his new drink.
“She was so beautiful,” Lawrence murmured.
“She cared very much for the two of you.”
Lawrence turned to his father, the sneer threatening to curl his lip again. “Why did she take her own life?”
Sir John was a long time in answering. “I don’t know,” he said softly.
But Lawrence was on the attack now, his earlier rage stoking the fires in his heart. “Was it something you did to her?”
His father turned from the portrait and looked at Lawrence with such honest hurt in his eyes that Lawrence faltered. “What do you think of me, Lawrence? What bizarre and wonderful stories have you concocted for yourself?”
“You’re not answering the question,” Lawrence snapped.
“Your mother was a regal creature.” Sir John set the drink aside and came over to stand before his son. His eyes searched Lawrence’s face for several painful seconds before he spoke. “I loved her dearly, and she never once gave me cause to raise my voice to her, let alone raise my hand. I miss her terribly, every single moment of every single day.”
Lawrence opened his mouth to speak, but Sir John shook his head. His eyes were wet with unshed tears.
“I had never met a woman like her before. This world is seldom fortunate to be granted many of her kind. If we accept evolution as a truth, then she is of the kind we should be breeding so that we move farther and farther from the savagery of our ancestors . . . and the savagery of our own present kind. It may be that we’re not ready for such a step forward, and it may be that we don’t yet deserve it. So, perhaps women such as your mother are not meant for the troubled, corrupt and terrible world as it is. Your mother was not, and it kills me to say so. The world oppressed her, tore at her. Life presented too many horrors for her. She was brave, and she was strong, but in the end, after all of her struggles she . . . lost.” Sir John’s eyes burned with his loss and heartache. He swallowed and blinked slowly as if remembering where he was and to whom he spoke. In a softer voice he said, “Does that answer your question?”
“I . . . I don’t know what to . . .” Lawrence felt his heart shift in his chest. No matter how many times he had rehearsed this conversation in his head he had never predicted these lines. Not their honesty, not their content. They sank through his flesh and into his heart. He looked deep into his father’s eyes, looking for the lie, looking for the monster he had imagined him to be . . . but all he saw was a great and terrible pain that had never healed. Now he understood. The decay of the estate, the abandonment of care in the grounds, the distance from humanity. It was not a monster remaining aloof from the humanity to which it did not belong. It was hurt, it was retreat. It was an unconquerable grief.
He closed his mouth and eyes and took in a steadying breath through his nose. When he opened his eyes, he said, “Yes.”
Sir John took a long moment before giving an accepting nod.
“I saw Ben today,” Lawrence said, changing tack. “What could have done such a thing?”
“I have no idea,” said Sir John, turning to face the fire. He rolled his glass back and forth between his palms. “I’ve seen the work of a Kodiak bear. A Bengal tiger. Nature at its most vicious. But . . . I’ve never seen the like of this.”
“Could it have been a man?”
Sir John’s eyes flicked toward Lawrence. “A man? You mean a raving lunatic at loose on the moor?” He shook his head. “Since this happened I’ve been over every inch of the region; I would have run him down with dogs. But you never know. On t
he other hand, the wounds are so terrible that . . . I think only a human being would seem capable of such wanton malevolence. Animals kill for food or to protect their own. They aren’t cruel, and the damage that was done to Ben and to those other men . . . it was very cruel. As if the suffering of the victims was as much the intention as the need to feed.”
“The locals blame the Gypsies,” said Lawrence.
“They blame everything on the Gypsies. If a calf is born dead or a rooster crows at the wrong time of morning, they’ll blame it on the Gypsies. They’re guilty of half as much as they’re blamed for and twice what you think them capable of.”
Lawrence reached into his pocket and produced the medallion. He held it up by its silver chain so that the medal turned slowly, catching bits of hot firelight.
“This was among Ben’s things.”
Sir John looked at his son for a long moment before taking the medallion. He studied it closely as he sipped his drink.
“Hm. Saint Columbanus. An Irish saint. A favorite with Tinkers and Gypsies.”
“So . . . Ben had dealings with them?”
“Yes. The local gentry pays a fee, and the Gypsies keep their criminal activities to a minimum. It’s extortion, certainly, but it’s often done. Here and elsewhere, probably every where. We pay a tithe and it guarantees that their stay is mutually tolerable. They move on once they’ve sold the local boys all the wine and dark-haired ladies they can stand.”
Sir John handed the medallion back and turned away from his son’s assessing eyes. He paused once to glance again at the portrait of the beautiful woman they had both loved—and still loved—and then walked out through the big glass doors that led to the patio.
Lawrence watched his father go. And he was aware that he was, in clear point of fact, seeing his father. Not the villain of all his fears. Not the culprit of his dark imaginings. But his father. A lonely man torn with grief, both old and new.
Grief that Lawrence shared, and knowing that the grief truly was shared opened doors in his soul that Lawrence had long since believed sealed shut forever.
He wiped tears from his own eyes and followed his father outside.
THE PATIO WAS broad and fashioned of decorative stonework from the last century. The trees beyond the patio were featureless with evening shadows, though their upper branches were painted with silver from the gibbous moon. Sir John was bent to the eyepiece of a magnificent old telescope that was a masterwork of the lensman’s art. Sir John adjusted the delicate brass knobs with practiced skill.
“ ‘That orbed maiden with white fire laden; Whom mortals call the Moon . . .’ ” he quoted softly.
Lawrence cleared his throat. “Still the natural philosopher, I see.” He came close and followed the line of the telescope up into the darkness. “I always loved looking at the night sky with you.”
Sir John’s hand faltered for a moment then resumed adjusting a dial. “Yes. I recall that you did.”
Somewhere away in the darkened woods an owl lifted an inquiring hoot.
“Father . . . ,” Lawrence began softly, “do you ever think how it could have been different—”
“Never.” Sir John cut him off as if he’d been dreading that question all night. He cleared his throat. “There’s no point going down that road.” After a moment, Sir John spoke again, his voice little more than a whisper. “I only wish that I could have taken care of you properly,” said Sir John. “That I had not sent you away to that asylum as I did.”
Lawrence looked away. This was almost too much to bear. Behind him he heard his father fiddling with the telescope, clearly using it to hide his own discomfort.
The old man cleared his throat again, and when he spoke his voice was casual, offhand. “She exerts enormous power.”
“The moon?” Lawrence asked, recovering.
Sir John raised his head and glanced at Lawrence, but from that angle his face was all in shadows. “That is who we’re talking about.”
“You always refer to it in the feminine.”
“I do indeed,” Sir John said as he bent back to the eyepiece. “Her power is subtle. Smoothly employed, like a woman’s. And absolute. The Goddess of the Hunt, as the old legends say.”
He straightened and gestured to the telescope. Lawrence nodded and bent to look, and the magic of the telescope brought the face of the moon to within arm’s reach. Lawrence could see it with perfect clarity. Cold, powerful, luminous . . . and utterly desolate.
And hostile.
Lawrence raised his head from the telescope, feeling a wave of coldness pass through him as if he’d been standing knee deep in the airless, cheerless dust of that ancient rock.
His father bent to look again, and Lawrence thought he caught the flicker of a smile. They stood there, Lawrence and Sir John, both looking at the moon in their own way.
“Lawrence,” Sir John said, his eye still pressed to the viewer. “I am glad you’re home.”
Lawrence did not know how to respond to that. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this moment, so he said nothing for fear of saying the wrong thing. He sipped his scotch and watched his father watching the great and icy Goddess of the Hunt.
For the first time in his adult life, however, Lawrence Talbot felt like he was home.
Above him, bright in the infinite darkness, the moon watched him and laughed. All Lawrence heard was the whisper of the night wind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lawrence said good night to his father and retired. He climbed the stairs, hands buried in his pockets, his chin sunk thoughtfully onto his chest. Singh had seen to opening and airing his old room and Lawrence’s feet took him there more through reawakened habit than conscious thought; however, as he reached for his doorknob he heard a woman’s voice across the hall and turned to see that Ben’s door was ajar and light spilled out from within.
He paused in the middle of the hallway and then took a tentative step toward his brother’s old room. From the other side of the decorative door Lawrence could hear the muted sounds of women’s voices.
Now, or not at all, he told himself, and gently rapped on the wood.
A moment later the door opened an inch and the stern eye of a dour maid peered out at him.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Lawrence was much taller than the maid and could easily see over her head into a sliver of the room, and that was enough to catch sight of the big stand-up dressing mirror that stood in the far corner. Gwen Conliffe was reflected in the mirror. She was turned away from the door and only half-turned toward the mirror so that she did not see him watching her. Lawrence’s breath caught in his throat. Gwen wore a sheer petticoat and was absently drawing her arms through the sleeves of a gossamer dressing gown, and for a moment Lawrence could see her creamy skin, naked from the waist up. Her body was lean and finely made, with full breasts tipped with delicate pink nipples. She had no scar, no flaw, and Lawrence marveled at the purity of her beauty, especially seeing it this way—unintentional, without artifice, almost goddesslike in line and form. Lawrence saw this in a flash and immediately lowered his eyes to the maid’s as if he had in no way intruded into the privacy of that chamber.
“I was hoping to have a word with Miss Conliffe. I’m Lawrence Talbot.”
The maid gave him a frank, appraising stare and Lawrence almost blushed. Thank God the hallway was badly lighted.
“Just a moment, sir,” she said with a tight mouth.
She closed the door a bit harder than was absolutely necessary.
Lawrence stared at the wood panel and sighed. “You sir,” he said to his shadow, “are an incredible oaf.”
DOWNSTAIRS, SIR JOHN Talbot was lost in thought as he played piano. His fingers caressed the keys, coaxing from them wistful music of an older time. Not specific pieces, but drifting overlaps of movements and airs from a dozen composers, interlaced with his own moody improvisations.
The house around him was huge, its bones made of timbers from trees that had been half
as old as the empire. Many of the stones that anchored the corners of the hall had been taken from Roman fortifications and bridges. The décor reflected the ancient beliefs of a hundred cultures. Everything about Talbot Hall spoke of age, and the drafts that wandered the halls whispered secrets long forgotten.
Sir John liked the sense of age that the house represented; he valued its permanence, treasured its strength. In many ways it matched his own life: something that had become wiser and stronger from age rather than weaker. Though there were cobwebs in the high corners and finches in the attic, the essential house was strong. As strong as ever. Just as Sir John was strong. As strong as he had ever been, age notwithstanding.
He teased music from the keys. Samson sat beside him, his liquid brown eyes fixed on his master’s pale hands, his great ears alert to every sound in the house. When Lawrence had stopped outside of Gwen’s room, Samson had heard the shift of weight on the floorboards; when Lawrence had hastened to his own room and closed the door, Samson had noted each covert footfall. The dog was attuned to Talbot Hall. When he heard Gwen’s softer footfalls cross the hallway, Samson chuffed quietly.
Sir John, never missing a note, flicked a glance at the dog and then looked at the ceiling with a knowing smile.
As he played his smile never once faltered.
LAWRENCE SLOUCHED DOWN the hall and threw himself into a chair that was one of a matched pair in a conversational nook. Years ago that nook had been the chart room of The Captain as Lord Nelson planned the destruction of the French fleet at Trafalgar. Lawrence was always Nelson, Ben was always one of his fighting captains. At other times the nook was a straw hut where Robinson Crusoe—Lawrence—and Friday—Ben—planned how best to deal with pirates. As he waited for Gwen, Lawrence bent and looked at the underside of the armrest and sure enough the initials were still there. BT and LT, carved with fingernails and long since varnished over. It made him smile.
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