Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) (20 page)

The thought of Donovan brought a hot flush to her face. How
was she to face him after last night’s nasty exchange? In the light of day she
realized she insulted him by comparing him to the smugglers. Well, he’d been
boorish and demanding, so he deserved it.

Tabby appeared with her breakfast. “You need to drink plenty
of water, my lady.” She remarked, noting the color in Elizabeth’s cheeks.
“You’ll become ill in the heat if you don’t.”

After breakfast, Tabby gave her a tour of the house. They
inspected the first floor rooms and discussed which ones should be cleaned and
aired first based on their practical use. The second floor was composed of
bedrooms for family and guests. There were six bedchambers aside from the
adjoining suites for the master and mistress, making a total of eight. One was
occupied by her husband’s uncle. Another was set aside for Donovan’s mother,
leaving four empty guest bedrooms. Elizabeth made a mental note to assign one
for Michael’s use.

The third floor made up the servant’s quarters, the nursery and
a suite for the governess.

Elizabeth felt an invisible hand tug her toward a room at
the end of the hall.

Tabby thinned her lips into a disapproving line when
Elizabeth asked for the key to the room. “I don’t think this is a room you’re
supposed to see, mum.”

“I am the mistress of this house.” Elizabeth reminded her
archly.

“Suit yourself.” The older woman muttered. Elizabeth didn’t
miss the amusement twisting the woman’s thin lips as she unlocked the door.
“This was Gareth’s mother’s room.”

Elizabeth stepped inside. Faded coral pink silk curtains
hung from windows that were not shuttered as the rest of the household had
been. The curtains were parted, revealing bars on the outside; a curious
arrangement as the room was three stories from the ground. A matching rose
bedspread covered the four poster bed. There was a small white marble
fireplace, a blue chaise lounge beside it and dried flowers in a vase on the
mantle, skeletal remains of ancient blooms that would dissolve to dust if
touched by a human hand.

It was a luxurious suite, not a plain room intended for a
servant. It was also a gilded cage.

A wicker cradle stood in one corner. Elizabeth walked to it
and peeked inside. A silver rattle lay in the dusty lace coverlet. She stepped
away from the cradle and considered the barred windows. An oppressive
hopelessness whirled about her, the desire to be free to walk outside, to feel
the sunlight on her skin and the wind in her hair. Free of bondage to a man she
did not love.

“Run away, hide! He’ll keep you locked in here forever,
awaiting his pleasure.”

Elizabeth stood very still, listening to that frightened
whisper. It was the same voice that warned her yesterday in the count’s room.
Vowing to return alone so she might discern why the poor woman’s spirit
remained trapped in this house, even in death, Elizabeth turned to the older
woman. “How did Gareth’s mother die?”

“I wasn’t here at the time. They say it was complications of
childbirth, the fever. Gareth was two months old. The O’Donovan cleaned up the
body himself and forbade any to come up here after she died. He loved her. He
told me that, many times.”

“She was his prisoner.” Elizabeth countered with disbelief.
“That isn’t love, Tabby.”

“She was a Darkie.” The housekeeper said, as if that made
all the difference. “I don’t know what they teach delicate girls like you in
England about these things, but here a black man cuts the master’s cane in the
fields and the Negro girls, the pretty ones, end up in his bed.”

Elizabeth flushed scarlet, appalled by the woman’s coarse
remark. No housekeeper in England would dare speak to her mistress in an
abrasive manner, not if she wished to retain her position. Alas, since arriving
here she was constantly being reminded that she was no longer in that polite,
civilized country, despite her husband’s assertion that these islands were
ruled by King George.

“In England, in polite society, slavery is considered a barbaric
and outdated institution that needs to be abolished. It allows evil men to prey
upon the less fortunate.” She replied in a condescending tone, wearied by the
housekeeper’s insulting mien.

The housekeeper’s lips tightened into a thin, puckered line.
“Richard O’Donovan was a good man. He bought Marissa from a brothel in
Martinique and brought her here to be his mistress. She was better off here,
the darling of one man instead of a whore to all.” Tabby’s features softened.
“He could be so charming, a girl could hardly resist him.”

“Being locked in here would make it rather difficult.”
Elizabeth countered.

“He had no choice, she’d run off otherwise.” Tabby defended
the man. “Marissa was a fool. Richard was everything a girl could wish for in a
protector; rich, handsome and uncommonly tender. Oh, he liked his games of
dominance and submission. If she’d have just played along, why, he’d have given
her the world.” Tabby looked like a lovesick girl ready to swoon as she gazed
longingly at the bed.

Elizabeth scoffed aloud, mortified by Tabby’s eagerness to
defend the man’s perfidy against a member of their sex. Marissa was a fool for
not wanting to be someone’s private whore? For wanting to be free? She marched
out of the disturbing room, past the impertinent housekeeper, too flustered to
reprimand the cheeky woman as she ought. She returned to first floor via the
servant’s stairs, with Tabby trailing behind her.

As she marched down the long hall of the east wing, toward
the center of the house, Elizabeth paused, realizing there was a room she had
not been shown earlier, by design.

“That’s his lordship’s laboratory.” Tabby informed her
dismissively.

“I wish to see it.” Elizabeth insisted.

“His lordship doesn’t allow anyone in there, Madame.” When
Elizabeth held her impervious gaze, Tabby added, “I suppose you’re the
exception. But mark, me, you must never to go into the surgery, Madame.”

“Why?” The housekeeper’s forbidding tone made Elizabeth ask.

 “Sometimes there’s a corpse there, awaiting dissection.”

Elizabeth gasped and then recovered her shock. The woman was
obviously making sport of her. “I’m sure my husband does nothing of the sort.”

“Well, I’m not making it up.” Tabby insisted, challenging
Elizabeth to say otherwise with her insolent gaze. “After a hanging in the port
city, if no one claims the body, the count has a standing arrangement with the
hangman to send it here. I know, as I’m the one who pays the delivery men. I’m
only warning you so you don’t go in there and give yourself a fright, mum.”

*******

Elizabeth sat in a chair in housekeeper’s parlor just off
the kitchens after nearly swooning at the news that her spouse hacked up
corpses as a hobby. She sipped a glass of lime water.

The count was an anatomist, Tabby had been quick to explain
as she escorted her wilting mistress down the hall with a steadying arm about
Elizabeth’s waist. As a scientist, he studied the organs of the human body to
order to understand disease and to thus preserve life.

The distinction did little to improve Elizabeth’s opinion of
the man at present.

She patted her neck with a handkerchief for the third time
in mere minutes. Noting her discomfort, Tabby refilled her glass and glowered
at her until she sipped it. Pearl appeared briefly and handed her a folded
note. Elizabeth opened it. It was not an apology but rather a command for her
to come to the laboratory at four o’clock today. She stared at the signature, a
large letter D, and feared her world was shifting too quickly beneath her feet.

After luncheon the applicants began to arrive. Elizabeth
made her selections for maids and footmen quickly, based on her impression of
each candidate. She spent more time interviewing those applying to be her
personal maid and settled upon a Spanish woman named Miss Chloe Ramirez whose
father had been the steward here years ago. Those laughing brown eyes and her
warm smile promised Elizabeth she would be great fun, while the other women
vying for the position seemed to have taken vinegar in their tea instead of
sugar.

The housekeeper gestured to Elizabeth for a private word.
“You must not hire her. She passes herself off as Spanish with her light skin
but she’s a quadroon, she has darkie blood.”

Elizabeth knew what it was like to be the subject of open
disdain. Her stepfather frequently disparaged her for her Irish heritage,
calling it a taint in the blood as if she were diseased and inferior to those
of pure English descent. “Her parentage is not my concern.”

“Madame, her grandmother was a voodoo priestess.” Tabby
argued. “Old Suki used to shake a dried chicken’s foot at your husband’s
grandfather, cursing her master. Choose one of the others. They’re good English
girls. Please, for your children, mum. The girl might poison them, or you.”

“Well, then, we should get on famously.” Elizabeth had had
enough of the housekeeper’s opinions. “My grandmother was a witch.”

It was the housekeeper’s turn to appear scandalized.

Elizabeth left Tabby to deal with her new staff. She
meandered down the long corridor to the west wing of the manor house to explore
her new home unhindered by the older woman’s dour presence.

“Madame Beaumont?”

Elizabeth turned to find a tall fellow with a dark
complexion deliberately tracking her. She looked about the empty corridor with
unease, wondering if he had followed her from the servant’s hall without her
being aware of it. “I’m sorry. The interviews are over, sir.”

Too late, she noted his gentlemanly attire. “Mr. O’Donovan—I
beg your pardon!” She said, fearing she’d offended her husband’s uncle by mistaking
him for a hireling. “I meant no offense.”

He held up a gloved hand. “It is you who must forgive me. My
nephew cautioned me that you are reticent where men are concerned. I should
have waited for a proper introduction.”

 “My lord exaggerates the issue, sir.” How dare Donovan
imply she was a shrinking mouse afraid of her own shadow!

Like Donovan, his uncle had a high brow, chiseled
cheekbones, an elegant nose and a firm jaw. Mr. O’Donovan’s eyes were slate
gray, not pale blue. His dark complexion was tempered by a subtle golden hue
that complimented the aura of warmth surrounding him.

“Nevertheless, I am a stranger to you, my lady.” He said in
a pleasing baritone and made an elegant leg before her. As he did so, thick
serpentine twists of hair moved about his shoulders as if they were alive.
“Gareth O’Donovan at your service, Lady Elizabeth.”

“Please call me Elizabeth.” She smiled warmly at the man.
She didn’t know what to expect regarding her husband’s uncle after being
presented with this sorry, neglected estate and even sorrier excuse for a
housekeeper. She didn’t expect to find such a charming, engaging gentleman.

“Elizabeth it shall be. I was just about to take a ride
about the island. Care to join me?”

The offer was a burst of sunshine in an otherwise dismal
day. “I don’t ride. My lord has promised to tutor me. Perhaps at a later date,
sir?”

“I look forward to it.” Gareth O’Donovan bowed and took his
leave.

She wandered along the west wing, determined to find a room
to establish as her own. She passed over the opened pristine ‘pink’ room with
its fussy ivory satin furnishings, dainty rose tea setting and fragile glass
figurines. Elizabeth assumed it was a room the count’s mother favored and was
loathe to take it over and cause resentment from her new mother-in-law. She
moved past room after gloomy, shuttered room along the corridor, finding none
to fit her taste.

The room she finally settled upon was the library. The rows
of books and oak paneling reminded Elizabeth of her grandfather’s study at his
estate in Devonshire, in her beloved England. She’d spent many a happy hour
there as a girl during the summer months, when her mother took Elizabeth and
Michael to the country and left Fletcher in London to pursue his vices. That
had been years ago, before Mama and Grandfather Wentworth had quarreled.

She would add a serene landscape to replace the portrait of
that nasty old bloke with bushy eyebrows glaring down at her. A vase of fresh
flowers from the gardens would do nicely on the mantel . . . and then she
remembered the sad state of the gardens.

Elizabeth sank into a chair with a compelling urge to cry. Crying
won’t mend a leaky roof, her grandmother would be quick to say. She took a
deep, steadying breath and gathered her resolve. Nor would crying make this
mess she’d been presented with into a proper home. Hard work was the answer,
not useless tears.

With that thought she returned to the task of designing her
private retreat. The blue floral chaise in a room down the hall could be moved
here and situated next to the fireplace. Add a few novels, and this could
become a cozy sanctuary.

Tabby intruded to remind Elizabeth that she had an
appointment with her “lord and master” and she was keeping him waiting. Elizabeth
rolled her eyes at the woman’s odd phrasing. Tabby seemed to relish the idea of
female subordination to a male master a little too much for her liking. Elizabeth
had planned to ignore Donovan’s summons and claim forgetfulness. He deserved as
much after his callow behavior last night.

Elizabeth followed the housekeeper to the east wing. Tabby
stopped at a door, indicating that Elizabeth should venture into the laboratory
alone. She sucked in her breath, feeling like an errant child being summoned to
Papa’s study for a taste of his leather belt.

As she contemplated fleeing to her room, the housekeeper
gave her a verbal prod. “He’s waiting, Madame, and his mood isn’t improving
with the passage of time.”

Chapter
Eighteen