Once Upon a Tower

by Eloisa James

  Later, Layla told her that there was often a group under the tower window, a group that grew every day.

  So Edie had her first audience. They never made a sound, so she ignored them, working over and over on a few measures until she was satisfied with it before she allowed herself to play an entire piece.

  One day she heard Layla calling breathlessly, and threw open the window. Her stepmother was running down the hill, hand on her side, waving a letter.

  “What is it?” Edie called down.

  “Your father,” Layla panted. “He’s coming!”

  “Yes, I asked him to come.” Even as she said it, Edie’s heart plunged to the bottom of her feet. He would take her away, of course. That’s what she wanted.

  “No—no, he doesn’t seem to know of your letter!” Layla cried, flattening the page out. “He must have already left by the time yours arrived. He says he’s coming because he wants—he misses me!” Her face was shining. “He’s only three or four days away.”

  “How wonderful! He’ll be so happy to meet Susannah.”

  “Yes,” Layla breathed. Then she glanced down at herself with horror. “I’ve grown even plumper!”

  Edie laughed. “You look wonderful.” Layla looked like a rosy, curvy young matron who loved her daughter and her husband, and had no worries about mistresses named Winifred.

  Layla was reading the letter again. “He’s coming to take me home,” she said, brushing away a tear. “He says he didn’t realize until I was gone how much he loved me.” Edie pulled her head inside the window and ran down the stairs.

  “Oh, Lord,” Layla cried as Edie opened the tower door, “what if he changes his mind?”

  “He won’t,” Edie said. “Father adores you, Layla. It may have taken him a while to realize it, but he does.”

  “We can all go home together,” Layla said. “It’s like a dream.” She crushed the letter to her bosom. “I read the letter ten times before I came to find you, because I couldn’t believe it. But I know his writing. He meant it.”

  “He did,” Edie said, nodding.

  “He says there is no Winifred and there never has been one. It felt so terrible to be the only one who cared,” Layla said, sniffing. “There’s nothing worse than being in a marriage when the other person despises you, rather than loves you.”

  Edie’s heart gave a terrific thump—and then started again.

  “Oh, darling, I didn’t mean you,” Layla cried. “You’re so brave about everything!” They had spent many hours in the last days dissecting Gowan. Layla hated him. Edie felt more desperately in love with him than she had imagined possible. She spent her nights alternately crying and waking up in a sensual daze, reliving the night when she had played the cello for him and he . . .

  He had kissed her in that intimate fashion. She could have kissed him in the same way. In her dreams, her fingers skimmed every inch of his body.

  Her eyes had been closed a great deal of the time when they were bed together, but she’d seen enough. The memory of the way he looked in Nerot’s Hotel when he climbed from the bed and turned away from her kept coming back to her. The twist of his body, with its pure strength and beauty . . .

  Inevitably, she would remember the way his dark eyes looked at her, as if she was everything he wanted in the world. And then she would dissolve into tears.

  Just then Bardolph rounded the path and came to join them. “As I’m sure Lady Gilchrist has told you,” Edie informed the butler, “my father will be here in a few days. I expect he’s traveling with his valet.”

  Bardolph bowed. “I shall prepare a room for Lord Gilchrist.”

  “We will remain only a couple of days. When he is rested, we will all leave. We shall require two other carriages, one for my cello and another for our maids and Susannah’s nursemaid.”

  It was the first time she’d seen a true reaction on the factor’s face. His eyes went blank and his entire face slackened. “What?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Are you quite all right, Bardolph?”

  He bowed, recovering himself.

  “I think we’ll need three more carriages, not two more,” Layla put in. “I have a good deal of luggage, and Susannah has a great many toys that she will not want to leave behind.”

  Edie smiled at that.

  “The village,” her stepmother said guiltily. “It is such a nice place to visit of an afternoon. And once I determined that Susannah needed new dresses, it began to be as easy to pay a visit there as to summon the seamstress to us.”

  “Three carriages, if you can spare them,” Edie said, turning to Bardolph. “We will, of course, send them back directly once we reach London.”

  Bardolph had turned an odd color, like a weathered piece of parchment. “Are you quite certain you’re all right?” she repeated.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, with that withering tone she hadn’t heard recently.

  She nodded and he left, walking quickly back up the path.

  “Just when I think that man is turning human, he shows a reptilian side,” Layla commented. “I have to say, though, I’ve never seen anyone work so hard. He’s up at dawn and never sleeps.”

  It started raining again, only pattering down. Edie drew Layla inside and they began to climb the stairs. “Who would have thought that Scotland was so damp? I thought that England was famous for rain, but I’ve never seen so much water in my life.”

  “It’s very snug in your tower,” Layla said. “You should see how chilly the nursery becomes on occasion. I have moved the majority of Susannah’s toys into another room while . . .” And she talked on while Edie tried to imagine herself climbing into a carriage. Leaving the tower, Bardolph, the servants who populated the castle. And Gowan.

  The fact that he hadn’t cared to return or even to send a message made it easier. If her problem-solving husband had wanted to solve their marriage . . .

  He would have returned. Layla had turned completely against Gowan; she kept saying that a different man would come along. But every time Edie tried to imagine such a thing, she saw Gowan’s eyes and the way he used to look at her.

  The truth was heavy in her soul: she would not love any man other than Gowan. So, for her, it would have to be music.

  Thirty-eight

  It was time to go home. The loch was whipped by rain, its edges beaten into froth by a brutal wind. All this water would be flowing to the Lowlands, Gowan thought absently. It didn’t matter. His evacuation plans for the villages bordering the Glaschorrie were in place, and Bardolph would see to it they were carried out, if need be. He would leave the next morning.

  The door opened, and Gowan’s head jerked up. The daily report had arrived. This week Bardolph hadn’t written a word about Edie or Susannah, or even Lady Gilchrist, although he reluctantly found himself thinking of her as Layla again. It was hard to loathe Layla, even knowing that she thought him less than a man. He kept hearing Edie’s sob, “She’s like a mother to me.” Would he condemn her for telling her mother?

  At the time, that word had whipped his rage higher. But it was unreasonable to loathe mothers, and he knew it. Stupid, really.

  After reading Bardolph’s report, Gowan summoned the groom who brought it from Craigievar. The man reported that everyone in the castle talked about nothing but the duchess’s music.

  Gowan frowned, confused. “Do they hear it from the corridor?”

  The groom had spent only an hour or so in the castle before turning back. But his understanding was that Her Grace put on a recital every afternoon, somewhere other than the castle. Down by the river, he thought. Anyone who was free went along to listen.

  Edie was holding recitals for his servants. The idea that his own footmen were seeing her with her legs spread on either side of her cello, ogling her as she closed her eyes and swayed with the music . . . It opened up a gaping pain in his chest.

  The feeling wasn’t a new one. One night, when he’d been a boy of around six or seven, his father had caught his arm,
gripping it so tightly that Gowan began to cry, even though he knew better than to show even the slightest weakness in front of his father. Sure enough, the sight had infuriated the duke. He had gripped him harder, twisting the skin so that Gowan cried out . . . and then his dog, his brave, loyal Molly, had barked and leapt in the air and bitten the duke’s cheek. It was just a scratch, but it didn’t heal properly, and His Grace carried the scar to the day he died.

  Gowan never forgot the moment when his father took Molly by her hind legs and threw her far into the raging river. He saw her head for a moment, and then she was gone.

  He had walked the river for hours the next day. Bardolph was a young footman at that time, assigned to keep an eye on the heir. They walked and walked; Bardolph never suggested they turn back, and he never said a word about the fact that Gowan stumbled along crying.

  They never found her. She could have been swept out to sea, all the way. She could have washed up somewhere . . .

  He didn’t believe that, though. He was no good at believing in fairy tales, even at that age. He’d seen her head go down, and he hadn’t seen it come back up.

  The memory brought the pain back as if it had happened yesterday, though surely it was sacrilege to compare one’s wife to a dog. Molly had been a gallant, foolish creature. She’d loved him and been loyal to him. She had no resemblance to his will-o’-the-wisp wife, who wasn’t his and would never be his.

  And yet he was like a man possessed. It didn’t matter what Edie had done or not done. He loved her. It was as if part of him, some vital part, was cut off merely because he couldn’t walk into a room and see her.

  The butler opened the door again just as he turned away from the rain-streaked window. “Your Grace, there is an urgent missive from Mr. Bardolph.”

  An electric shock went from the roots of Gowan’s hair to his ankles. Nothing was ever urgent except death.

  Death was always urgent.

  He ripped the letter open so fast that a corner of paper tore off and spun to the ground. He read it. Read it again, read it a third time. Bardolph must be mistaken. Edie couldn’t leave him. What was she thinking? She couldn’t leave him. They were married.

  He had considered leaving her, to be sure. But the idea had evaporated twenty minutes from the castle. Even the very first night, lying in an inn on his way to the Highlands, it had taken all his considerable willpower not to return to the castle and beg her to let him back into her bed.

  His attention spun back to the paper in his hand. Layla, Susannah, and Edie were all leaving. His family. No. He threw the letter down and strode from the room.

  “Of course, Your Grace,” his butler said a moment later, bowing. “The coaches will be ready early in the morning.”

  Gowan looked out the window. It was still early afternoon, but the sky was an ugly gray. “I’m leaving now.”

  The butler blinked. “I could have a carriage ready in two hours . . . an hour . . . without your valet?” The last part squeaked out, but Gowan was already striding down the corridor.

  He had horses stabled all along the road. If he rode steadily, trading horses, he could be at Craigievar in thirty hours, give or take.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was warmly dressed and watching with irritation as his stable master checked the saddle. “He don’t like rain,” the man advised. “He might spook, so watch your seat, if you don’t mind my saying so, Your Grace.”

  He did mind. He never fell from a horse. Ever.

  There’s always a first time for everything.

  After three days, Edie finally gave in and asked Bardolph if he had informed the duke of their departure. Bardolph managed to convey with a bow that he disapproved of Gowan’s continued absence, which was consoling, in an odd way.

  By the following morning, the ground had become spongy all the way down the hill to the tower, and the river had broadened and quickened. It was no longer a fat, lazy snake: now it rushed—with purpose. Its murmur had turned to a loud conversation, and her cello wound through the music of it as if the river played counterpoint.

  Lord Gilchrist’s carriage drew up at the castle around noon. Edie saw it from the tower, but she decided that Layla and her father needed privacy. They would come to her when they were ready. She added a little prayer that her father would love Susannah as much as she and Layla did.

  A couple of hours later she heard laughter and looked out her window. They were walking down the path, all three of them. And Susannah was holding the earl’s hand, bobbing beside him like a very small cork.

  In the end, she had no need to inquire about happiness. Layla’s face was shining—and so was Lord Gilchrist’s.

  “He is sorry,” Layla whispered, while Edie’s father was showing Susannah the strings to pluck out a children’s song, Frère Jacques, and teaching the little girl to sing it. “I said I was sorry, and that I hadn’t meant to flirt with other men. And that he was the only man I’d ever loved, and ever would love. And he . . .”

  Edie stopped her with a kiss. “That’s between the two of you, darling.”

  Layla pulled her into her arms. “You are my best and wisest friend.”

  They went back to the castle after a bit, all four of them. On the way up the path, Susannah pulled Layla ahead, and Edie’s father said, very quietly, “I’m so sorry, my dear. I made a terrible choice when I accepted Kinross’s offer.”

  Edie’s eyes filled with tears. “No, you didn’t. I love him.”

  He shook his head. “You are coming home, and I shall have this marriage dissolved if I have to speak to the king himself. I shall speak to the king himself. And I fancy that he will respect my wishes.”

  “You must rest after the journey,” Edie said, not managing to squash the errant hope that Gowan might still come, that she might see him once more.

  “I can rest in the carriage,” her father replied. “It’s time to go home, Edie.”

  And though it made her heartsick, she nodded. It was foolish to be shut up in a tower, barricaded against the husband who didn’t bother to knock on the door.

  After an early supper, she returned to the tower and locked the door against a man who never came, pulling herself up the stairs with a sense of leaden exhaustion. Layla and her father were blindingly happy. Clearly, they had talked—really talked. What’s more, Edie had the distinct feeling that Susannah would bind them together like glue. Layla’s restlessness was gone, and her eyes were luminescent with happiness.

  The rain beat against her windows like an unanswered voice, so finally she opened them to the cool air and crawled into her bed. It was only eight o’clock, but she fell asleep listening to the call of the river as it rushed to the sea.

  Thirty-nine

  Gowan rode into the stables around nine in the evening and dismounted, throwing the reins to a sleepy stable boy. He entered the castle through the kitchens so he wouldn’t be seen by any footmen, who would certainly inform Bardolph.

  The great oven fires were banked for the night, and no one stirred except the kitchen cat, whose slitted eyes gleamed yellow from the hearth. Gowan grabbed a lamp and lit it, then went up the servants’ stairs and along the corridor. Not to his bedchamber: to hers.

  He pushed open the door to find the room perfectly dark. The curtains were drawn, and the fireplace cold. The entire room was cold, far too cold. And it was empty. It even smelled empty, as if no one had inhabited it for a long time. He put the lamp on the mantel, noting indifferently that his hand was shaking. A sickening fear bloomed in his gut. He stood for one terrible moment as he realized what he was seeing.

  She was gone. The bed was stripped and the room was empty.

  There was only one object left in the chamber: the book of poetry. His soul roared with pain and his stomach churned as if he might vomit. He walked over, picked up that damned volume, and slipped it into his pocket.

  Still, he had calculated the days since Bardolph’s dispatch arrived in the Highlands. He should have been able to catch her before s
he left for England. But she hadn’t left this room mere hours ago. There was dust on the hearth. She’d been gone for days.

  He strode from the room, his face rigidly set. When he reached the ground floor, two footmen sprang from their chairs, alarm written on their faces.

  “When did the duchess leave?” he demanded, his voice growling out of him in its new, angry cadence.

  One gaped; the other said, “Leave, Your Grace, leave?”

  They were idiots.

  “When did she leave for England?” His voice rose to a bellow. “When did my wife leave me?”

  Edie dreamed that the tumbling roar of the Glaschorrie River summoned her. The impossibility of it woke her: the river couldn’t be calling her by name. But even awake, she heard her name again. She went to the window and leaned out. Night had fallen, and although it was spitting a bit, the rain had let up considerably. Gowan stood below her, surrounded by darkness.

  She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  “The door is locked!” he shouted up at her. “Can you come down and let me in?”

  Edie pulled herself together. She had prepared herself for this moment; she knew what to say. “I will not talk to you in the middle of the night, Gowan,” she called down. “Go to bed and we can talk in the morning, before I leave.”

  “Edie. You cannot— You cannot mean to leave me.” He didn’t shout the sentence, but she heard every word clearly. So it was going to be like that. He didn’t care to speak to her until he thought his possession was slipping from his grip. Bardolph’s message must have convinced him to come.

  “Good night, Gowan.”

  “You were planning to return to England without even speaking to me?” The disbelief in his voice would have made her laugh, if she didn’t feel like crying.

  “We could have spoken any time in the past two weeks, had you chosen to return.”

  “I was coming back; you knew that. I thought . . . I thought we might talk, Edie. Really talk.”