Writ in blood : a novel of Saint-Germain

by Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn, 1942-

  “It isn’t Penelope,” said Rowena through clenched teeth. Now that the fine tide of temper was ebbing, she felt chilly and slightly sick.

  “Rowena!” Clarice shut the novel with a snap and rounded on her daughter. As she caught sight of her, she nearly held her breath. “Gracious. Rowena . . . what is the matter?” She came toward her oldest daughter, feeling very much at a loss. “What did he do? Did he try to—”

  “He proposed. As I would think you and the entire household knew.” She began to cry, not from weakness, but as a last expression of her rage.

  “Well, yes,” said Clarice, wondering why Rowena was so distraught. “But we have been expecting him to propose for Methuselah s years,” she said, trying to cajole her daughter out of her perplexing bout of tears. She came closer to Rowena, not quite willing to touch her while she was in such a state.

  “I wont ” Rowena insisted through her weeping. “I will not marry anyone, least of all Oliver Rupert Dominic Bowen!”

  Clarice shook her head. “I knew it. I knew it. You’re fascinated by that foreigner, Count Saint-Germain, and you mustn’t allow yourself to be taken in. When I read the letter he sent you, I knew how it would be, with his polish and courtesy. All that flattery about your art. . . Let me tell you, my love, men of his sort never marry, and you may stake your fortune on it, he would not offer for you, unless he is not as wealthy as I have heard, and then he would seek you for your grandfather’s money.” She felt tears well in her eyes in sympathy with Rowena’s distress.

  “Mother, don’t be ridiculous,” said Rowena, at last bringing her crying under some control. “I’ve said I will not marry anyone, and I meant it. I will not change my mind, no matter who proposes.” She looked about for a handkerchief and felt relieved when her mother handed her “Thank you,” she muttered as she mopped her eyes with it.

  one.

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  “You don’t mean that, Rowena. You know you don’t.” She put her arm around Rowena’s shoulder. “You’re a handsome young woman with a generotis inheritance coming to you—”

  “So it will not be necessary for me to marry.” She sniffed forcefully, gave a last, purposeful swipe to her eyes before giving her mother back her handkerchief. “I have never said I would marry.”

  “But surely you ... you will want children of your own,” said Clarice, being drawn back into an argument they had begun more than fifteen years ago. She released her hold on Rowena so that she could face her directly.

  “My work will be my children. Mother,” said Rowena, sounding fatigued. “I will not let my work be stifled by the impositions of society. What is the use of my fortune if it will not buy me liberty to do as I wish?” She stared at Clarice. “I know you don’t understand. I’ve stopped expecting you to. But I wish you could believe I know my own mind.” She sighed heavily once.

  Clarice worried the handkerchief, unwilling to look at Rowena. “You will regret your decision. When you are older, you will look back and . . . People say the most. . . awful things about spinsters. My love, you have no idea how cruel people can be.” Her cheeks were wet again, rivulets of powder marking the wrinkles she had wanted to disguise. “It’s all very well to say it will not matter, but it will, it will.”

  “Then I will have to hope my family will not spurn me,” Rowena said with a lightness at variance with the somber expression in her golden eyes.

  “Oh, Rowena,” exclaimed Clarice, sobbing in earnest. “You make everything so difficult.”

  “I did not,” Rowena countered sharply. “Rupert proposed, and he knew I would not accept him. I have told him time and time again that I would refuse him, and he was not honorable enough to respect my wishes. So he chooses this underhanded way to gain his ends. He was a poltroon to try to use Father so disgracefully.”

  “Your father!” Clarice gave a little shriek. “What will he say when he hears about this? I don’t know how I shall face him.”

  A formality came over Rowena, a sense that she was among kindly strangers. She turned away. “Tell him to talk to me—before I leave; I will explain it to him myself,” she told Clarice dully, and withdrew before her mother’s distress could wear away at her determination more ruinously than Rupert’s courtship ever could.

  Text of a dispatch from Julian Sinclair-Howard in London to Franchot Ragoczy in Berlin.

  London April 6,1910

  Franchot Ragoczy, Count Saint-Germain 45, Glanzend Strasse Berlin, Germany

  My dear Count;

  1 have the duty to inform you that it will please King Edward to receive you at Windsor on the fifteenth of this month. 1 realize that the time is short, but you are no doubt aware that His Majesty is not in the best of health and so has to ration his time. If it should be impossible for you to arrive here in time for the audience, then I cannot tell you when it may be rescheduled, for it is not possible to anticipate what activities the King will have to curtail while he is on the mend.

  This may prove some inconvenience to you, for which I, of course, apologize, although there is nothing more I can do to assist you in your mission on King Edwards nephews, the Czars, behalf. No doubt you will want to arrange transportation at once; when you have done so, I would appreciate being informed of your travel plans in order to confirm your audience with King Edward. If you cannot reach London a day before the scheduled interview, I would be grateful of notification to that effect so that other petitioners may avail themselves of the time currently assigned to you.

  In the hope that I will see you in London directly, I remain

  Most sincerely yours, Julian Sinclair-Howard

  9

  Harris wisely refrained from saying anything as he drove Ragoczy and his manservant from the train station to the house; the afternoon traffic was sufficiently heavy to give him ample reason to watch the street. He could sense his employers urgent determination, and realized he would not welcome any distraction from his thoughts. Only when they

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  neared his leased house did Harris remark, “The weathers been mild.” “April in England,” Ragoczy mused, thinking of Brownings poem. “In this northern light, spring is very pretty.” He glanced out the window of the Silver Ghost at the clinging mist which washed out the city with a milky opalescence.

  As he turned into the alley leading to the rear of the house, Harris said, “Is there anything more you will be needing of me tonight, sir?” “No, Harris, I do not think so,” Ragoczy answered, sounding a trifle distracted—between the sun and the Channel crossing, he was aware that the native earth in his shoes was seriously depleted and would have to be replaced before tomorrow. No matter how diluted the sunlight, it was beginning to prove enervating for him. He made himself concentrate on the duties before him. “But if you will be good enough to wait while I review what mail I have received?”

  “Right you are,” said Harris, pulling the Silver Ghost up at the rear entrance to the house. “The housekeepers waiting in the study, she said to tell you.”

  “Very good; and Harris,” Ragoczy said as he prepared to get out of the motor car, “I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

  In spite of his determination not to be impressed by the short, deep-chested foreigner, Harris could not quite keep from a glow of pride. “Why, thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll help Roger bring your bags in, if you like. That trunk looks pretty heavy.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” said Ragoczy as he stepped onto the stone walkway. “Roger will certainly be glad of your help.”

  “That I will,” Roger agreed as Ragoczy started toward the side entrance to the house.

  Loretta Nowell was in the study, as Harris said she would be; she was neatly dressed in a severely cut suit of dark grey which nearly matched her hair. She stood as Ragoczy came into the room and bobbed a slight curtsy. “It is good to see you back again, Count.”

  “How kind of you, and how inaccurate,” said Ragoczy without sarcasm. �
�I truly did expect to be gone longer than I was, but press of circumstances have called me back.” He looked around the study with apparent mild interest; in actuality his perusal was acute and he quickly satisfied himself that there had been no significant disturbance in the chamber. “I imagine there has been little change since I left.” He removed his coat and laid it over the back of the largest armchair in the study. “I have not been gone very long, have I.”

  “There are a few letters for you, and a note from that Mister Sinclair-Howard. I set that one aside, as you instructed me to do.” She indicated

  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  where the letters lay in the eighteenth-century formal secretaire. “The others are piled in order of dates received. All accounts, of course, have been settled but for the new billings which arrived this last week.” She did her best not to be nervous, reminding herself inwardly that Ragoczy had never given her any reason to fear him.

  Ragoczy had already opened the front of the secretaire and was flipping through the envelopes awaiting his attention. The letter from Sinclair-Howard demanded his most urgent attention. “I will want Harris, after all,” he said thoughtfully as he read through the politely self-serving instructions for Ragoczy s scheduled audience with the King.

  “Shall I fetch him, Count?” asked Missus Nowell. She found herself confused by her elegant, aloof employer; she attributed this to his being from the Carpathians, for she could not help but think that the people were all very strange there.

  “Yes, if you would,” Ragoczy said, drawing a cream laid sheet with his eclipse sigil embossed at the top from its small drawer. “I will want this taken to Saint Dunstan-the-West Close at once.” He was writing as Missus Nowell left the study.

  By the time she returned with Harris, there were two envelopes, neatly sealed and addressed in Ragoczy s small, precise hand ready to be delivered. Ragoczy held them out to Harris. “There you are. One for Sinclair-Howard, confirming my audience day after tomorrow at Windsor. The other—and I hope it will not inconvenience you—is to go to Miss Pearce-Manning. You know where she lives in London. There is no reason to wait for an answer for either. When you have returned the Silver Ghost, you may consider the evening your own.” He included a half crown with the envelopes.

  As curious as she was, Missus Nowell knew she ought not to linger, listening to her employers business. Anything she wished to know she could pry out of Harris over their tea the next morning.

  “Very generous of you, Count, I’m sure. By the by, the trunks are in your apartment upstairs, sir, stowed just as Roger instructed,” said Harris as he took the envelopes and the coin. “Now, you may rely on me: I’ll get these in the hands you want them quicker than you can say knife.” He all but backed out of the study, leaving Ragoczy to examine the rest of his mail.

  It was not quite an hour later that Roger found his master, still in the study, engrossed in the last three editions of the Times. “Is everything all right, my master?”

  Ragoczy sat back and sighed; the paper was held negligently, halfopen in his hands. “I am not sure, which troubles me.”

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  “Is it the King?” asked Roger, knowing how great Ragoczys concern for Edward was. “Is he . . . worse?”

  “I believe so, reading between the lines,” Ragoczy said, frowning. “I suppose I should ask Sunbury; he will know more.”

  “Too ill to act on the Czar’s proposal?” Roger pursued, his faded-blue eyes showing increasing distress.

  Ragoczy nodded once. “And probably too ill to persuade anyone to go along with the agreement if he was able to make it. I suppose I will have to speak to his heir—the one who looks so much like his cousin Nicholas, the Prince of Wales.” He managed a sadly ironic smile. “I would feel more sanguine if I could be certain their resemblance was more than an accident of family and face.” He looked down at the front page one last time. “I will have to make the appropriate arrangements, very discreetly. It will not be easy. Perhaps Sunbury can assist me there. It would not be wise to make it appear that I anticipate the worst.” He recalled Edwards high color and strident breathing from their last meeting and knew he did not expect the King to live much longer. “I have no wish to offend Edward or those closest to him.”

  “I will make inquiries, if it would be helpful,” Roger offered.

  “It certainly would be; you know to whom to talk, and how,” said Ragoczy. “Thank you, old friend.” He set the newspaper aside. “You will be pleased to know that I have answered Rowena Pearce-Manning’s invitation to see her latest work.”

  “You will call upon her,” Roger said, between an inquiry and an order.

  “If she is willing to see me, yes. I gather from her letter there has been some difficulty; she indicates she has left Longacres completely, against her family’s wishes.” He lifted the letter in question from the small portfolio where he had put it with the others he had reviewed. “It was bound to happen eventually, given her ambitions.”

  “And her mothers,” Roger added. “They say in the servants’ dining room that Lady Pearce-Manning opens all her daughter’s correspondence; they thought it was because Rowena is—by their lights—a little wild.”

  “She told me about the letters,” Ragoczy confirmed. “And I would say that Rowena Saxon is the least wild young woman they’ll ever meet. She is the diametric opposite of wild, to my thinking: she is dedicated.”

  “Her painting,” said Roger knowingly. “The servants at Longacres are certain all artists are wild.”

  “And possibly mad,” Ragoczy added. “It is unfortunate that her fam-

  ily shares the opinion of their servants on that matter.” He put the letter aside.

  “You will need sustenance soon,” Roger reminded him after a brief silence. He took Ragoczys coat from the back of the chair and folded it over his arm.

  “Yes; and I know it should be more than the ephemeral gratification obtained through dreams. I’ve had more than enough of that of late.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am sorry I do not have the luxury of time to develop the kind of affections that would make a knowing acceptance of my needs and my nature possible; with what I am engaged upon, I would welcome it sincerely. Amalija is a long way from here, and much as she might be willing to travel, I doubt she has any desire to chase all over the capitals of Europe and Britain.”

  “Might not Miss Pearce-Manning—” Roger began.

  “Have some interest in my nature? Why would that be? Because she admires Dracula ? That is a fable, something to feed the imagination.” His voice dropped although it remained musical; his dark eyes were enigmatic. “Can you imagine what she would do if she were to confront this real vampire?” He put his small beautiful hand to his chest in a self-mocking gesture of protest.

  “No, I cannot, my master. And neither can you,” said Roger more sharply than before. “She may be an artist, but that does not mean she must be credulous. Or capricious, as you’ve said.”

  Ragoczy got to his feet and busied himself closing the secretaire after placing the portfolio inside. “It may all be moot in any case. I have only sent her a note. She may decide not to see me at all.”

  “It is possible, of course,” Roger said, unwilling to believe it. He went to the door and let himself out, leaving Ragoczy alone with his thoughts.

  The next morning a messenger arrived at eight with a note from Rowena Saxon (as she signed herself) inviting Ragoczy to take tea with her any afternoon for the next week. She would expect him at her studio on whatever day it was convenient. Ragoczy was thinking over when he would call on her when a confirming note arrived from Julian Sinclair-Howard, indicating that the audience for the next afternoon was confirmed, and requiring Ragoczy to present himself at Windsor promptly at three in the afternoon, where he would be allowed to see King Edward in an unofficial capacity for no more than thirty minutes, on order of the Kings physicians.

  Ragoczy spent the day in his laboratory ami
d his equipment including the beehive-shaped athanor, to emerge an hour after nightfall with a stoppered bottle of opaque white glass. This he put into a velvet-lined

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  box and set out for his visit to Windsor the following day. “Edward may not be willing to take the tincture,” he remarked to Roger when the two met in the door to the withdrawing room, “but I felt I would be remiss not to offer it. He is in need of something to regularize his heartbeat, of that I am certain.”

  Roger nodded once, then said, “I talked to Asquiths man today, as you wanted me to do. It would be possible to arrange for a private meeting with Edward s heir.” He paused and went on apologetically, “It may require meeting on a boat.”

  “By all the forgotten gods!” Ragoczy swore softly. “Why are these leaders forever holding meetings on water?” Even with his protective native earth in the soles of his shoes, being on or over water made him queasy.

  “There is safety on water, as you yourself have demonstrated in the past. It is not easy to ambush someone on water.” Roger chuckled. “England is not Crete, my master.”

  “No; nor is this the sixth century.” He recalled himself. “Well, see what can be arranged, and I will send a note to the Prince of Wales when it is appropriate.”

  “Very good,” said Roger, and went off to his own quarters. A short while later he heard the Collard & Collard square grand piano in the withdrawing room; Ragoczy was playing Haydn, Rameau, Paganinni transcriptions, and some of his own work. The music lasted for well over an hour, giving Roger a sense of hope for the first time in two months that Ragoczy no longer wanted to be isolated.

  At Windsor the following afternoon, Ragoczy was informed that Edward was unable to see anyone and that the audience would be set for a time when the King was more himself. Ragoczy bowed his acceptance of this, all the while aware that Edward’s condition must be deteriorating rapidly. He considered briefly consigning the white-glass bottle to Sinclair-Howard, then decided against it, for if the King was truly dying, as he now reckoned he was, providing medication might be seen as hurrying, not delaying, his demise.