With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (13 page)

It isn’t such a great thing to ask,
I told myself, and managed to smile assent. How long had it been since I had been kissed? There had been a time or two since Richard… some of the men in the theatrical troupe had possessed more audacity than discretion, and during opening-night festivities occasional liberties were taken. But the real, true lovers’ kisses had all been Richard… and it was of him I thought when Atticus drew me to him and bent his head to kiss my lips.

I started at the intimacy of that touch, but in the next moment I was back again on that last afternoon with Richard in the folly, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin and the different, more tantalizing warmth of Richard’s lips on mine. Grassy ground was beneath my back, or else I might have fallen ceaselessly, so gloriously adrift my body felt. I felt his hands alight on my shoulders, so gently that they might have been birds, and to assure myself of his nearness I rested my hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat there, vital and alive.

Alive.

My eyes opened of their own accord, and the kiss was over. I found myself staring into ice-blue eyes that I knew as well as my own, yet for a moment I was not certain to whom they belonged.
Richard…

I blinked as if it would clear my head, and Atticus must have seen that I needed to compose myself. “I hope that sufficed, Father,” he said with a heartiness that I knew was false.

“Very pretty,” was the reply, and Lord Telford’s voice could not be read. “Go on with you, now. Don’t keep your guests waiting.”

“Always happy to see you as well, Father.” Atticus squeezed the frail shoulder in parting, and then we had made our escape.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said presently, after we had walked some distance in silence. “Father gets these strange whims, and the doctors say it’s dangerous to thwart him. I wouldn’t have subjected you to that otherwise, knowing your feelings.”

“You needn’t apologize,” I said, in a voice so composed that I scarcely believed it my own. “It wasn’t of your doing, and anyway…”

“Yes?” Interest seemed to sharpen his voice, and I tried to shrug the subject away.

“It’s nothing. I was reminded of a time in my girlhood, that’s all.”
And for just one lovely moment, I was with Richard again.

Dinner, I think I may say without exaggeration, was a success.

The guests seemed so delighted to be there that my inevitable social gaffes were brushed off as of no consequence. I did forget the name of one gentleman, but he laughed it off without seeming to take offense. Atticus was an affable host, quick to turn the conversation to topics that allowed our guests to speak a great deal of themselves, and as a consequence they seemed to find my husband the most clever of conversationalists. I tried to follow his lead and found that drawing out our guests was interesting for its own sake. The more I listened and observed, the more I realized that Atticus was well liked among his peers, and they kindly extended that feeling to me.

I remembered of old the place settings—hadn’t I polished those very oyster forks and asparagus knives myself all those years ago?—so I was confident at least that I would not commit the gaucherie of using the wrong implement for a particular course. As a girl I had secretly watched the family and guests on grand occasions such as these, and it was a novelty to be seated at the table, to be offered each exquisitely presented course from the gloved hands of a footman, to be gazing at my tablemates across a beautiful vista of cut crystal goblets and elaborate flower arrangements, whose perfume mingled with the savory scent of each course and the cologne water worn by those around me to create a unique and festive fragrance.

Only one discordant note did I observe during dinner. While amiable old Lord Cavendish was regaling us all with the story of how his best saddle ended up at the bottom of the trout pond, I noticed Birch, the butler, gliding silently up to my husband’s chair at the foot of the table. He stooped to speak into Atticus’s ear, even holding up one gloved hand to prevent being overheard.

Atticus’s face grew still, and then into a frown, as he listened. He looked not disappointed or distressed, but startled. But as I watched, his brows lowered, and his lips compressed just slightly. Whatever Birch was telling him was making him angrier than I had yet seen him.

When Birch had said his tale, Atticus spoke to him in a low voice, but from my place at the head of the table I could not make out the words. Then he noticed me watching him and flashed me a quick smile meant to be reassuring. I raised my eyebrows in a question, but he shook his head as if to say,
It is of no consequence.
So, like the good wife I was trying to imitate, I turned my attention back to my guests.

Conversation was livelier after dinner when I had led the female portion of the party into the parlor so that the men might enjoy their brandy and cigars. Freed of the constraints of mixed company, the women regaled each other with tastier morsels of conversation than had been possible at table.

“I hear that Lord Finney’s mistress has a fine new carriage,” one matron disclosed. “Specially painted to match her favorite dog’s coat, if you please!”

“I hope her dog isn’t a Dalmatian,” murmured a stout widow, and received a titter of appreciation. “It seems to me, though, that we may not wish to disillusion our dear hostess when she is so newly married.”

“Mrs. Blackwood will learn all too quickly what common clay men are formed from,” said the first matron.

“Indeed, I know they are not angels,” I said. “But no more am I.” They seemed to expect me to continue, so I improvised, “I like to think that my husband and I are very well situated for a happy marriage, both of us being past our first youth and, I hope, possessed of a bit more wisdom than most newly wedded couples.”

“A very sensible attitude,” the widow said approvingly. “I’m certain you’ll be equally sensible about the new addition to your household.”

It took me a moment to recollect. “Oh, my husband’s ward? I know very little about her, I’m afraid.”

A speaking look passed between some of my guests, and the elegant wife of a marquess said, “I’m not surprised to hear that. Sometimes men have a difficult time explaining the presence of their… wards.”

The pause was evidently intended to be fraught with meaning, but that meaning was lost on me. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean,” I said. “Is there something about”—I flailed for a moment before the name came to me—“about Miss Rowe that Atticus isn’t telling me?”

“Oh, dear, what a ghastly blunder I’ve made. I should never have said a thing.” She didn’t look at all perturbed, however, and continued to move her fan lazily in the air near her face.

“What Lady Renfrew is reluctant to tell you,” interposed the widow, Lady Stanley, “is that sometimes gentlemen hide their natural children in plain sight, calling them wards. It is not uncommon.”

For a moment I must have looked completely foolish, gaping at her. All other conversation in the room had ceased, and I was painfully aware that every single woman in the room was watching me intently, waiting for my reaction.

“My husband,” I said carefully, “is a man of principle.”

“None of us has suggested otherwise,” said Lady Stanley. “In its way, it
is
principled for a gentleman to take responsibility for the fruits of his wild oats.” She stopped and frowned. “I daresay that’s a mixed metaphor, but you take my meaning.”

My husband was being accused of siring an illegitimate child, and she was trifling over grammar? Before I could take her up, the young Mrs. Morse interposed. “Helene, I’d scarcely call it honorable of a man to force his lawful wife to accept his by-blow into the household and countenance her presence! No wife deserves such humiliation.”

I set my teacup aside. It was past time to put a stop to this. “Ladies, as much as I appreciate your concern, I’m certain that my husband would never introduce anyone into our home under false pretenses. He and I have no secrets from each other.” It sounded well, but the truth of this pretty sentiment I could not pause to scrutinize. “Whatever Miss Rowe’s origin, my husband would never bring her to Gravesend if he did not think it best for all of us.”

There was a strained silence. Then, fortunately for my rapidly crumbling composure, at that moment the door was opened and the gentlemen swarmed in. A cheerful hubbub filled the room, and the awkward, silent watchfulness was swept away in inconsequential chatter.

Atticus detached himself from the throng and joined me. “You look a trifle strained,” he said in a low voice. “Is everything well?”

“Well enough. There is a great deal of curiosity about your ward.”

No start of guilt greeted these words. Rather, the beginning of a smile tugged at his lips. “I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “A beautiful young woman of mysterious origins and no visible attachments is a bit of a curiosity in any setting, but especially when she carries the taint of that most disreputable race—the French.” He widened his eyes in mock horror, and I could not help laughing. The ladies’ insinuations had almost made me doubt Atticus, but speaking to him made those doubts dissolve like sugar in hot tea.

“Perhaps that is the source of their fascination,” I said. “I’ve no doubt that if she arrives with a trunk full of the newest dresses, they shall find it remarkably easy to overcome their suspicions and visit us at every opportunity… in company with their modistes.”

That was the last wrinkle in the evening. By the time the guests had at last dispersed to their rooms, except for a small party of gentlemen who had sequestered themselves in the billiard room with a decanter of the best brandy, the tiny spots of awkwardness seemed to have been subsumed into “a marvelously successful dinner,” as Atticus said when we stood at my door.

“I am glad you’re pleased.” I was almost dropping with weariness, so high a degree of concentration the evening had demanded, but I found enough energy to smile at him. Then I remembered that strange interruption in dinner. “What was that business with Birch? Was something amiss?”

He hesitated a moment. “Nothing that need concern you. Birch took care of him—of it, I should say.”

I folded my arms and gave him a narrow look. “Your concerns are my concerns, Atticus. Is there anything wrong?”

“Oh, it was just that fellow again, Collier. He somehow got himself hired on as extra staff for tonight and used that as a means of getting inside the house.” Seeing my expression, he added quickly, “I’m sure his intentions weren’t violent. But he had found his way to the upper floors before he was discovered and seized.”

“What did he want?”

He shrugged, but the gesture was not as offhand as he had intended it; there was a remnant of tension in his posture. “I suspect he got wind of the news that Genevieve will be arriving soon. He’s determined to insert himself into her life again.”

“Again?” I repeated, at a loss.

“I must not have mentioned it. Collier and his wife fostered Genevieve until I took her into my care.”

It perplexed me that he had omitted to mention something so significant until now. “So why does he resort to such subterfuge, when for all he knows she may be delighted to see him?”

Again the hesitation. “I’m afraid he has a kind of monomania where Genevieve is concerned. He has found the means to send letters to her at her school, and he’s managed to frighten her. I don’t think she’s eager to be reunited with him.”

“Then what does he believe such a reunion will achieve?”

He rubbed his hand along his jaw, and I realized that he must be as weary as I—wearier, for I saw that he was putting his weight on his cane—and my conscience smote me. “Never mind,” I said before he could speak. “This can wait. As long as the house is secure from Collier from now on…?” At his nod of confirmation, I said firmly, “We can discuss the matter tomorrow and decide then whether we need to take any more stringent measures to protect our guests from further incursions from the man.”

He smiled down at me, and the candlelight from the wall bracket found endearing little crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Spoken like a born Blackwood,” he said. “Clara, I hope you don’t mind if I say that I’m proud of you. You were splendid tonight—you’ve been splendid from the moment you arrived here. You’ve dealt gracefully with my father’s caprices and malice, you’ve taken upon yourself the running of an entire household, you’ve triumphantly hosted your first massive social event, and you’ve kept your temper with me, despite all my shortcomings. I admire you for it, and I thank you.”

Flustered, I groped for words. “As to the dinner, you’re too generous—the gown and jewels did my work for me. You dressed me like an empress; all I had to do was avoid scratching myself or picking up my plate to lick it clean, and I’d have looked the part.”

“Looked the part, perhaps,” he said gently. “But not inhabited the person of my wife.”

My wife.
By now I was accustomed to his calling me that… or at least I had thought I was. Somehow, said just now, while I stood with Atticus in this still silent hallway with the rest of the household fast asleep or many rooms distant, the intimacy of it made my breath catch. My mind flew back to his father’s sitting room a few hours ago, where we had embraced at Lord Telford’s command. It seemed to me that although the gesture was born of duress, it had nonetheless brought us closer together. And the thought came to me that if Atticus had been a different sort of man, at this moment he would have kissed me again.

But I had asked him not to touch me, so touch me he did not. Instead, driven by a sudden urge I did not stop to question, I took a step toward him and brushed my lips against his cheek, feeling the faint rasp of the whiskers there and inhaling the scent of sandalwood and cedar that clung to his skin. “It was my privilege,” I said.

When I closed the door behind myself, he was still standing in the hall. Perhaps he wanted to see me safely inside, an impulse possibly born from Collier’s invasion; or perhaps I had startled him so severely that he had momentarily lost the power of movement.

I had startled myself nearly as much. I was not prone to these displays of affection, certainly not with Atticus. It was the impulse born of a triumphant evening, I decided, as I removed the pearl and ruby collar from my throat and laid it on the black-lacquered dressing table; it was Atticus’s generous words to me that had brought a little burst of gratitude and even camaraderie.

More than that, perhaps, was the deeply embarrassing revelation that our enforced intimacy earlier in the evening had brought me. I had discovered that I liked kissing Atticus. My stupid senses had not been able to tell the difference between him and Richard, so my treacherous body had responded to Atticus as to the man I had loved. The man I still loved. And Atticus was not unattractive. He was warm, honorable, humorous… even lovable in his own way, if I were forced to examine him in those terms. It was no wonder that after all the emotion of the evening I had been moved to be demonstrative with him.

But as I unbuttoned my velvet bodice and stepped out of my high-heeled shoes, smothering a sigh of ecstasy as my toes were freed, a sobering reflection came to me. I
thought
Atticus was honorable, that he was honest with me. What if the ladies’ insinuations had truth to them, though? Was Genevieve Rowe actually his illegitimate daughter?

It’s no business of yours,
I told myself. I was not going to be part of the Gravesend household for very long. Whatever Genevieve’s real relationship to Atticus, it could scarcely have an impact on me once I had settled in my new home, far away from England. I tried to envision the cozy little house I would have in Boston, or New York, or Philadelphia; I had not made up my mind on the precise location. But it would be Gravesend’s opposite: no army of servants working to keep it running; no Sphinx-eyed Mrs. Threll to observe every detail of my behavior; no mischievous invalid to fashion humiliations for me; and most of all, no more being a wife.