“Not...quite,” I said. There was still the matter of Thomas.
“...And I just stayed ever so still and didn’t make a sound to warn him. I knew they’d kill me if they found me,” I concluded, feeling very small.
“Hmmm,” said the Duke. “You feel you were a coward? Personally, I’ve always thought rash, mindless courage ought to count as a form of suicide. Suicide is one of the worst sins of all, Serapia, so you were right to avoid it. Please tell me that that is now all?”
I breathed entirely freely at last. He did not seem angry, and I had finished. “Yes, that’s all,” I said quietly, feeling drained. Well, it wasn’t quite, but words about Siridean still stuck in my throat. Anyway, often as I might have wished that I’d been able to do something to help my ill-fated protector, I’d never blamed myself for his death. It wasn’t something I’d done and therefore had no place in my confession.
“Good,” my father said with obvious relief. “I’m not going to reproach you for any of what you’ve just told me, but your circumstances are very different now, you understand? No lying and stealing. Least, not unless it’s terribly, terribly important,” he added as a rather pragmatic afterthought. “Now, I’ve got something for you.”
He opened a desk drawer and handed me a large bunch of keys. “These are for you to keep.”
I gasped. The house keys! The housekeeper would have the second set, the everyday set, which she wore at her belt, but it was for the mistress of the house to keep the master set safe. I accepted them eagerly. They were heavy and there were a lot of them. My cheeks burned with delight, and I held the keys tightly with both hands. I was mistress of the house. Despite what I’d just told him... “Thank you,” I said, trying not to let my voice wobble. “I’ll take good care of them.”
“I’m sure you will,” he said, sitting back down behind the desk. Raven had woken from a post-dinner nap and climbed out at my collar, going to inspect the keys. Raven turned them around on their ring, one after another and I counted them. What a lot of locks. Certainly my father was a very rich man. But what else was he? I wondered abruptly.
“Surely,” I said, “you should tell me your bad things, since I’ve told you all mine?”
My father gave a faint snort as if trying to pass it off as a joke, but he didn’t look up to meet my eyes. “Really, child, I’ve accumulated nigh on three decades more misdemeanors than yourself, it would take far too long.” He picked up a large ledger and opened it. He regarded it for some moments before abruptly turning it the right way up.
I was not to be put off that easily. “Then you could just tell me the very worst thing you’ve done. Then we’d be even.”
A pained laugh escaped from the Duke. “Suffice to say, child, that I am not a good man, and leave it at that.”
I eyed him for a moment. “You’re not a bad man,” I said, and it was more statement than question. I was sure that he was not.
He looked up at me, his eyes a tiny bit too bright. “I hope,” he said quietly, “that I am not quite a bad man, but I am very much not a good one.
“Enough,” he added more firmly. “Go to bed.”
I felt indignant at that, for he had not seemed inclined to order me around like a child, but just then there was something in his eyes that made me, at any rate, leave him to himself in his study.
~+~
CHAPTER 11
ELFINDALE
My father’s reticence on the subject of his own misdeeds niggled at my mind for the entire of the following day. Well, I didn’t remember while I was out riding with him in the morning, being too happy to be astride a horse. By the end of the ride, I was trying to ignore my aching thighs.
Afterwards, I gave the ancient pony a carrot I’d tucked up my sleeve and concentrated on not hobbling as we walked back to the house for breakfast. The Duke watched me out of the corner of his eye with a faint smile that suggested he saw right through my pretence. But he didn’t say anything. I was coming to the conclusion that it would be very easy to love this father of mine!
The Duke went into London after breakfast, to make some calls. I spent some time wandering around the house, although nowhere that would require too strenuous a use of my legs. I’d already explored the enormous library and now I found myself in the picture gallery. This was a long, narrow room with windows all along the outer wall. On the inner wall hung the family portraits. I walked along, staring up at my ancestors with interest. I even found a painting of the old fashioned (and much smaller) manor house which, judging by the landscape behind it, my Grandfather had replaced.
Eventually I came to an older portrait of my father as a young man, with an equally young Warrior looking over his shoulder. The horse had clearly not finished filling out yet, and both sets of eyes were bright and almost excessively lively. Were my young eyes supposed to look that bright? I knew that they didn’t. They were dark and wary and showed little of my feelings.
There was also another individual portrait of my mother. I spent longest of all looking at this. It was perhaps not that surprising I’d found it so hard to remember my mother’s face. Most of my glances at my mother had been stolen, swift glances when she was not looking at me. It gave me a pain inside remembering how it had always been.
When I was very young, I would be playing in the room where my mother sat and I would look up to surprise my mother watching my play with a loving smile. Only, the moment I raised my face and met my mother’s eyes, the expression slid from Lady Ravena’s face and she would look away quickly, sometimes leave the room entirely. It happened over and over again. Before long, I learned never to look at my mother directly, to keep my head down when speaking to her, and to only ever look upon my mother’s face when there was no risk of my mother glancing around and looking on mine.
~+~
After luncheon my father spent most of the afternoon closeted in his study with the steward of his northern estates, those of which he was Duke. The steward had arrived that morning and by questioning Anna, I learned that he made the long journey once every six months when the Duke was in England and that many messengers went to and fro the rest of the time.
“So what are you actually Duke of?” I asked my father at dinner, after some gentle hinting about how much I’d like to hear his own confession, even in part.
Alban cocked an eyebrow at me, perhaps relieved by the subject change. “Ah, so you know that Duke of Albany is just some courtier’s idea of a highly amusing joke? First inflicted on my father, actually, who bore it with a good grace. When I became Duke, I renamed this house. My father called it Ravena House, but it was one of the few things about which we never agreed. Seeing my name carved in stone every time I came through the gates always depressed me. So I renamed it Albany House, whereby you could say I have the last laugh with regard to the nickname!”
I laughed at that. I had not yet been through the gates while awake, and I had not known what the house was called.
My father seemed to realize that he had not yet actually answered my question. “Well, I’m the Duke of Elfindale,” he said, in a tone of some amusement. “Which does not sound anywhere near so grand, does it?”
“How’s that spelt?” I asked curiously.
“Why, as in The Elfin and dale, the geographical feature. One word. It’s the name of my estate in the north, of course.”
“Hmm,” I said, eyes narrowed in thought, “so...are things like the Elfin real too? I mean, if dragonets are real?”
My father smiled a decidedly inscrutable smile. “Yes, child, the Elfin are as real as Raven, an ancient race, and generally one very uninterested in humankind.”
“But where do they live? That is, there are forts on some farmers’ land, those mysterious mounds that they leave strictly alone, but those are so small. They’re not small creatures like faeries, are they? So where do the majority of them live?”
Alban smiled at me. “You are astute. Indeed, I believe the forts found on more isolated farms are no more tha
n cottages or manor houses are for us, isolated dwellings only. Most of the Elfin are believed to live in much larger forts, far away from humans.”
“Like towns!” I said. He nodded. “But where?”
“Why, in the wild places.”
I mulled this information over for a while. The older I got, the more a certain suspicion had been forming in my mind. I had not paid Siridean’s pointed ears much attention at the time, but his truly bizarre eyes had ensured that I had not forgotten either.
When the Duke began to direct an inquiring look at me, I pushed the thoughts away and shifted my attention rather strategically back to the previous subject. “Why won’t you tell me?” I demanded. “It can’t be that bad. The stuff I told you was awful.”
He glanced at me sharply. Raven retreated from his wineglass and started robbing mine instead. “No, it was not awful. It was awful that it happened to you, but you bore yourself throughout it in a way that was far from awful. The devil is certainly in no danger of finding himself with you on his hands!”
His dismissal of my own bad deeds stung. They had hurt enough when I was forced into them. “I still can’t see why you won’t say,” I snapped. “I told you all of mine, and you won’t even tell me your one worst. It’s not fair!”
He jerked to his feet, his hand smashing down on the wineglass and sending it flying in broken fragments into the nearest wall. “Since when is anything in this life fair?”
The door slammed behind him with a crash that shook the crockery on the table.
~+~
CHAPTER 12
THE MIRROR
I sat for a moment in a frozen stillness, shocked by my father’s sudden fury. Eventually I started to get indignant, but I pushed it down again. A crimson splatter marred the tablecloth, mingled with fragments of broken glass and a wider, pinker wine stain. It had been quite clear last night that this whole subject touched some very tender nerve in my sole surviving parent, so why had I pursued it so relentlessly? Simple curiosity, of course.
Or would that be selfish curiosity? Now that I thought about it, there was nothing unfair about my father’s refusal to answer. I had chosen of my own free will to make my ‘confession’ to him, but nothing had been mentioned about a reciprocation. I was beginning to feel rather ashamed of myself.
I had no appetite to finish the meal, so I went in search of clean linen strips, a bowl of water and some ointment. Then I made my way to the study door and tapped gingerly. There was no answer, although I could sense quite clearly that my father was inside. I knocked again, harder, then opened the door anyway. Looking around it, I saw the Duke standing by the hearth, one hand on the mantelpiece as he stared down into the flames. He raised his head to look at me but didn’t say anything, leaving it to me to speak. Did he think I would continue to pester him?
“I brought these for your hand.” I held up the linen strips.
My father still did not reply, just watched me as I came in, shut the door, and went over to him. As I got closer I saw that his hand was leaving a little pool of scarlet on the stone of the mantelpiece. Blood dripped slowly into the flames below. I firmly took the hand from its high roost, set down the bowl on a nearby table and poured water into it. I wiped the blood from his hand as well as I could and led him over to the lamp so I could check for glass. I drew out one slender shard as carefully as possible, and when he still made no sound, I said abruptly, “I’m sorry I was so stupid. I think I must just be a little girl after all.”
I positioned his hand back over the bowl and tipped a measure of brandy over it.
He drew in his breath sharply, almost pulling his hand away. “Is that brandy?” he queried incredulously, sniffing.
I nodded firmly. “Drunkards’ wounds never fester, you know,” I told him. “The ones who get the drink all over themselves. Everyone else’s festers, but not theirs.”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully and didn’t tell me that I was a silly girl who had just wasted some very expensive liquor.
I dried the cuts with a piece of clean cloth, then bound his hand firmly with the linen strips and tied it off neatly. “Are you still angry with me?” I asked carefully, as I returned his hand to him.
He let out a long breath in something close to a sigh. “No. Of course not.”
He set his hands gently on my shoulders to look down at me. After a moment his hand moved to lift my chin, and he smiled. “Your cheeks are filling out already. You look more and more like me. In fact,” he said after studying my face for another moment, “you look just like me. She can’t have liked that,” he added softly to himself.
My heart seemed to freeze. “What?” I whispered.
He glanced at me quickly. “Nothing, child. Nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing, and I knew it. I twisted away and ran.
“Serapia, I didn’t mean anything,” he called, coming after me. “You’re very beautiful. I’m sure your mother thought so. I’m sure she loved you very much.”
I stopped in the drawing room, in front of the fine wall mirror. I looked into its silvery depths and my father appeared behind me. It was true, I realized. Even gaunt as my face still was, I did look so like my father. A little feminized and a lot younger, but...
And that was it. That was why my mother could not look at me. Why, when she left him? How could it hurt that much?
My breaths came jerkily, quivering. “Why could she not look at me?” I whispered. “I was there for nine years, why could she see anything but me? God gave me this face, so it must be the right one! Why could she not see that?”
Tears were squeezing down my cheeks. A pair of strong arms encircled me and I buried my face against my father’s chest and wept, while he stroked my hair and back and told me he was sorry.
When I finally felt better, and my eyes were dry, I found that he had sat down in his armchair and I was curled on his lap, face still pressed against him. I uncurled slowly and raised my chin to meet his eyes.
“Better?” he asked. I nodded. He hesitated, then said, “I think I have been alone too long. Things slip out. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” I said rather harshly. “It was true. You didn’t know that when you said it, though, so it’s not your fault. She hated my face.”
“No, child, she hated my face,” said the Duke softly. “You, she loved.”
I contented myself with a snort.
“Shall I see if Anna has some cake for us?” he asked after a moment.
I nodded, still feeling shaky and rather delicate inside. He rang the bell and spoke to the maid, and smiled at me again. I rested my head on his shoulder, absently fingering the back of his neck. Such bumpy vertebrae weren’t as unusual as my mother’s behavior had always led me to believe, for his were just like my own.
~+~
CHAPTER 13
CONFESSION
When we arrived at church the following morning, the priest was waiting patiently beside the confessional, dozing on the bench that ran around most of the wall. I’d been pleased to hear that the Duke always confessed on Sundays before Mass, since it was high time I went.
“Father Francis,” said Alban, “I’d like to introduce my daughter, Serapia.”
The priest showed no surprise; apparently rumor, on its swift wings, had already reached him. He smiled and greeted me graciously. Though stooped with age, he was taller and less gaunt than Father Mahoney, but his kind smile and aura of holiness reminded me of him rather a lot.
“Shall I go first, child?” the Duke asked me.
I understood the meaning behind his question and nodded unhesitatingly. My father could explain the peculiar circumstances of my appearance and so save me trouble and awkwardness. Alban followed the priest into the confessional, and I crossed the nave’s open expanse of flagstones, worn smooth by the standing feet of—centuries?—of prayerful (or restive!) Mass-goers but just now empty of people, and went into a side chapel to pray. I soon found myself distracted by the lovely, unfamiliar old church, and
thoughts about my new life, and even the attention of that wonderful presence at the back of my neck could not entirely keep my attention from wandering.
When I went in, I suggested that I should give the priest the same confession I had given my father. “Though I’ve been absolved of it all,” I hastened to add. “But I thought it might be useful for you.”
“I have to admit, it would make it easier to look after your soul,” the old man agreed.
So I went through it again. It was much easier this time round, to a priest, not my father. Then I made my latest confession. I hadn’t got to confession very often as an urchin, so there was a backlog of little things, but it didn’t take too long.
All the same, when I came out, I found the church almost full for Mass, and I joined my father immediately in his place near the front. I just had time to say my penance before Mass began, but I would have to do my thanksgiving later.
When the Mass ended, I followed my father to the rear doors, distributing coins carefully but liberally to the crowd of hopeful poor at the back. It felt rather surreal to be doing the bestowing, when so recently I would have been amongst the ragged press myself.
The better off of the parish stood around outside the porch, exchanging a word or two before going home for their Sunday dinner. I allowed the Duke to steer me to and fro with a hand on my shoulder, introducing me to those he received. It did not entirely seem to have any relation to their wealth or social standing, I noticed with pleasure, as he shepherded me from an Earl to a country gentlemen who really had ‘farmer’ written all over him.
Eventually I became aware of eyes on me and looked about for the watcher. He was a plain sort of man, but he was staring at me as I stood beside my father. I didn’t remember seeing him in church. When I met his gaze and refused to look away he turned to speak to someone, but I felt sure they were talking about me.
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