Seduction (41 page)

find Amelia's seducer.

Then she touched her still-flat belly and shuddered. There was no way she could

carry out her detecting project now. She could never bring herself to put

Julian's life in jeopardy because of her own desire for vengeance. He was the

father of her child and she was irrevocably in love with him. Even if that had

not been the case, she would have had no right to let another take risks for the

sake of her own personal honor.

A part of her wondered at the ease with which she had abandoned her quest. She

had been distraught and furious at the time but she was not nearly so angry now.

Indeed, she suspected she was experiencing a small, niggling sense of relief.

There was no doubt but that other matters were taking precedence in her life

again and deep inside she longed to be able to give them her full attention.

I am carrying Julian's child.

It was still difficult to believe but each day the notion became more and more

real. Julian wanted this baby, she reminded herself, on a wave of hope. Perhaps

it would help strengthen the bond she sometimes allowed herself to believe was

growing between them.

Sophy moved around the room, still unusually restless. She eyed the bed once

more, telling herself she ought to climb into it and get some sleep and then she

thought of the room down the hall, the one she planned to move into as soon as

possible.

On impulse Sophy picked up a candle, opened her door and went down the dark hall

to the bedchamber that had once belonged to Elizabeth. She had been inside once

or twice and did not find it pleasant. It was decorated with a bold sensuality

that, to Sophy's taste, was unseemly.

The underlying theme of the room had obviously been heavily influenced by a

taste for chinoiserie but it had gone far beyond the normal standards of the

style into a realm of dark, lush, overwhelming eroticism. When Sophy had first

glanced into the bedchamber she had thought it a room ruled by the night. There

was a strange, unwholesome quality about the place. She and Mrs. Ashkettle had

not tarried long after getting the door open.

Holding the candle in one hand, Sophy opened the door now and found that, even

though she was prepared for it, the chamber affected her again in the same way

it had earlier. Heavy velvet drapes kept out all light, even that of the moon.

The designs on the black-and-green lacquer furniture were probably supposed to

represent exotic, iridescent dragons but the creatures looked very much like

writhing snakes to Sophy. The bed was a thickly draped monstrosity with huge

clawed feet and a smothering layer of pillows. Dark wallpaper covered the walls.

It was a room that a man such as Lord Byron with his penchant for sensual

melodrama might have found exciting, Sophy reflected, but one in which Julian

must have felt uneasy and unwelcome.

A dragon seemed to snarl in the candlelight as Sophy moved past a tall lacquer

chest of drawers. Lurid, evil-looking flowers patterned a nearby table.

Sophy shuddered with distaste and tried to imagine the room as it would be when

she was finished with it. The first thing she would do was replace the furniture

and the drapes. There were several pieces in storage that would go nicely in

here.

Yes, Julian must have disliked this room intensely, Sophy thought. It was

definitely not done in his style at all. She had learned he favored clean,

elegant, classic lines.

But, then, this had not been his room, she reminded herself. It had been

Elizabeth's temple of passion, the place where she had spun her silken webs and

lured men into them.

Compelled by a deep, morbid curiosity, Sophy wandered about the chamber, opening

drawers and wardrobe doors. There were no personal effects left. Apparently

Julian had ordered the room emptied of Elizabeth's belongings before he had

locked it for the last time.

It was not until she casually opened the last of a series of tiny drawers in a

lacquer chest that Sophy found the small, bound volume. She stared uneasily at

it for a long moment before she opened the cover and saw that it was Elizabeth's

journal.

Sophy could not stop herself. Setting the candle on the table, she picked up the

small book and began to read.

Two hours later she knew why Elizabeth had been near the pond on the night of

her death.

"She came to you that night, did she not, Bess?" Sophy, seated on the small

bench outside the old woman's thatched cottage, did not look up as she sorted

through both fresh and dried herbs.

Bess heaved a deep sigh, her eyes mere slits in her wrinkled face. "So ye know,

do ye? Aye, lass. She came to me, poor woman. She was beside herself that night,

she was. How did ye discover that she was here?"

"I found her journal last night in her room."

"Bah. The little fool." Bess shook her head in disgust. "This business o' the

ladies o' the quality scribblin' everythin' down in their little journals is

dangerous. I hope ye don't go in for it."

"No." Sophy smiled. "I do not keep a diary. I sometimes make notes about my

reading, but nothing more. It is all I can do to keep up with my

correspondence."

"For years I've always said no good'll ever come of teachin' so many people

readin' and writin'," Bess stated. "The real important knowledge don't come out

of books. Comes from payin' attention to what's around and about us and what's

in here." She tapped her ample bosom in the region of her heart.

"That may be true but unfortunately not all of us have your instincts for that

kind of knowledge, Bess. And many of us lack your memory. For us, being able to

read and write is the only solution."

"Tweren't no good solution for the first Countess, was it? She put her secrets

down in her little book and now ye know them."

"Maybe Elizabeth wrote down her secrets because she hoped that someday someone

would find them and read them," Sophy said thoughtfully. "Maybe she took a sort

of pride in her wickedness."

Bess shook her head. "More'n likely the poor woman could nay help herself. Maybe

the writin' was her way o' leeching some of the poison out of her blood from

time to time.'

"Lord knows there was a poison of some kind in her veins." Sophy remembered the

entries, some jubilant, some obscene, some vindictive, and some tragic that

recorded Elizabeth's affairs. "We'll never know for certain." Sophy was silent

for a moment as she sealed herbs in a series of small pouches. The late

afternoon sunlight felt good on her shoulders and the smells of the woods around

Bess's cottage were very sweet and soothing after the air of London.

"So now ye know," Bess said, breaking the silence after a moment.

"That she came to see you because she wanted you to rid her of the babe she was

carrying? Yes, I know. But the journal ends with that entry. The pages are all

blank after that point. What happened that night, Bess?"

Bess closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. "What happened was that

I killed her, God save me."

Sophy nearly dropped a handful of dried melilot flowers. She stared at Bess in

shock. "Nonsense. I do not believe that. What are you saying?"

Bess did not open her eyes. "I did not give her what she wanted that night. I

lied and told her I did not have the herbs that would rid her o' the babe. But

the truth was, I was afraid to give her the kind of help she demanded. I

couldn't trust her."

Sophy nodded in sudden understanding. "Your instincts were wise, Bess. She would

have had a hold over you, if you had done what she asked. She was the kind of

person who might have used the information to threaten you later. You would have

been at her mercy. She would have come to you again and again, not only to rid

her of future unwanted babes but to supply her with the special herbs she used

to stimulate her senses."

"Ye know about her usin' the herbs for that reason?"

"She frequently wrote in her journal after having eaten opium. The entries are a

wild jumble of meaningless words and flights of fancy. Perhaps it was her misuse

of the poppy that made her act so strangely."

"No," Bess said quietly. "Twas not the work of the poppy. The poor soul had a

sickness of the mind and spirit that could not be cured. I expect she used the

syrup of the poppy and other herbs to give herself some relief from the endless

torment. I tried to tell her once that the poppy was very useful for physical

pain but not for the kind of pain she suffered, the kind that comes from the

spirit. But she wouldn't listen."

"Why do you say you killed her, Bess?"

"I told ye I sent her away that night without givin' her what she wanted. She

went straight to the pond and drowned herself, poor creature."

Sophy considered that. "I doubt it," she finally said. "She had a sickness of

the spirit, I'll grant you that, but she had been in her particular condition on

at least one previous occasion and she knew how to obtain the remedy she sought.

After you turned her down, she would have simply gone to another who would have

helped her, even if she'd been forced to return to London."

Bess squinted at her. "She got rid of another babe?"

"Yes." Sophy touched her own stomach in an unconscious gesture of

protectiveness. "She was breeding when she returned from her honeymoon with the

Earl. She found someone in London who made her bleed until she lost the babe."

"I'll wager 'twas not Ravenwood's babe she was tryin' to shed the night she

drowned," Bess said with a frown.

"No. It was one of her lovers." But Elizabeth had not named him, Sophy recalled.

She shivered a little as she finished tying up the last of her selections. "It

grows late, Bess, and if I am not deceived, a bit cool. I had best be on my way

back to the Abbey."

"Ye have all the herbs and flowers yell be needin' for a while?"

Sophy stuffed the small packets into the pockets of her riding habit. "Yes, I

think so. Next spring I believe I will put in an herb garden of my own at the

Abbey. You must give me some advice when that time comes, Bess."

Bess did not move from her bench but her aged eyes were keen. "Aye, I'll help ye

if I'm still around. If not ye already know more'n enough to plant yer own

garden. But somethin' tells me ye'll be busy with more that gardenin' come next

spring."

"I should have known you would guess."

"That ye're breedin? Tis obvious enough for them that has eyes to see. Ravenwood

sent ye back to the country for the sake of the babe, didn't he?"

"Partly." Sophy smiled wryly. "But mostly, I fear, he has banished me to the

country because I've been a great nuisance to him in town."

Bess frowned anxiously. "What's this? Ye have been a good wife to him, haven't

ye, gal?"

"Certainly. I am the best of wives. Ravenwood is enormously fortunate to have me

but I am not always sure he realizes the extent of his good luck." Sophy picked

up her horse's reins.

"Bah. Ye be teasin' me again. Go on with ye now, afore the air gives ye a chill.

Be sure to eat hearty. Yell be needin' yer strength."

"Do not concern yourself, Bess," Sophy said as she swung up into the saddle. "My

appetite is as large and as unladylike as it ever was."

She adjusted the folds of her skirt, making certain the small packets of herbs

were safely stowed and then she gave her mare the signal to move off.

Behind her Bess sat on the bench, watching horse and rider until both

disappeared into the trees.

The mare needed little guidance to find the shortcut back to the main house.

Sophy let the animal pick her way through the woods while her own thoughts

strayed once more to the reading she had done during the night.

The tale of her predecessor's downward spiral into something very close to

madness had not been particularly edifying but it had certainly made compelling

reading.

Sophy glanced up and saw the fateful pond as it came into sight through a stand

of trees. On a whim, she halted the mare. The animal snuffled and began

searching about for something to nibble while Sophy sat still and studied the

scene.

As she had told Bess, she did not believe Elizabeth had taken her own life and

the journal had revealed the rather interesting fact that the first Countess of

Ravenwood knew how to swim. Of course, if a woman fell into a deep body of water

wearing a heavy riding habit or similar attire, she might very well drown

regardless of her skill in water. The enormous weight of so much water-logged

fabric would be hard to handle. It could easily drag a victim under the surface.

"What am I doing pondering Elizabeth's death?" Sophy asked the mare. "It's not

as if I am bored or without enough to do already at the Abbey. This is

foolishness, as Julian would no doubt be the first to tell me, were he here."

The horse ignored her in favor of munching a mouthful of tall grasses. Sophy

hesitated a moment longer and then slipped down out of the saddle. Reins in

hand, she went to stand at the edge of the pond. There was a mystery here and

she had an intuitive feeling now that it was not unrelated to the mystery of her