Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy

by Donna Lea Simpson

  Twenty-one

  It was the last day of travel; they would be at Ivy Lodge that evening and Anne had intended to have a conversation with Tony about marriage once there. She had to make up her mind, for she could not keep him dangling.

  But Anne was unsettled and anxious. She had awoken that morning at the inn, after a night of dreams of lovemaking, to the sound of shouts in the stable below her window. When she looked out she was at first worried to see Darkefell in pitched battle with the burly driver he had hired in Canterbury to drive the maids and luggage in the hired carriage. Once outside, she had caught on to the fact that the man must have been trying to help Hiram Grover escape, but still, Darkefell was beating him ruthlessly, smashing him again and again in a fog of fury, it seemed. It had taken her shouting his name five times or more to get his attention and then he had blazed with rage at her interference. It was more than what he said, it was how he looked, his face twisted in a snarl, his dark eyes black with anger, blood streaming down his face. His shirt had been virtually torn off and his muscles were etched in sharp relief, blood bedaubing the shreds of his white shirt.

  It was deeply unsettling. Darkefell was brutally strong, a fighter, and that side of him frightened her. Which was the real Tony, the tender lover, or the bruiser who was beating a man almost to death?

  She tried to get her mind off the morning’s episode and back to what she could perhaps do something about, the problem of Lady Darkefell. The carriage rattled and bounced over the road, setting her teeth on edge, her shoulders and bottom aching from the long journey. It was the third day of travel and the dowager marchioness had not spoken to Anne in all that time except when strictly necessary. From feeling like an intruder Anne had advanced to being sorry for the lady, then to disgruntled pondering of why the marchioness was being so unpleasant. Now, near the end of their journey and after the morning she had experienced, she was boiling with anger.

  Which would not be contained much longer.

  They would be at Darkefell’s estate before sundown, in just an hour or two; Anne would not arrive there without having it out with the marchioness. Every polite sally had been met with silence or single-word answers, so it was time to become more firm in her approach. After all, Anne reflected, the woman could not get away from her if she chose to have the necessary conversation.

  Lady Darkefell was trying to rest, supposedly—though she did not have her head back or her eyes closed—so the curtains were drawn and the interior of the carriage was dim. Anne regarded her potential mother-in-law, examining her haughty expression, her hooded gaze, her tightened mouth. And yet Lady Darkefell was an attractive lady for her age when she occasionally let her anger abate, or when she regarded Julius. Then a beatific expression of joy made her appear almost young.

  “Lady Darkefell, you have made it abundantly clear that you despise me,” Anne said, deciding not to delay another moment. “I have tried time and again to be pleasant. I have made concessions. I have been conciliatory, but to no avail. If I am merely tormenting you without hope of making you my friend then I will leave off, but I think it only fair that you tell me in what way I have displeased you.”

  The woman stiffened in disapproval and lowered her head so that her eyes were completely concealed by her bonnet, but her mouth was tight with displeasure. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you believe I dislike you, though, I wonder that you forced this three-day torment upon us.”

  “Let us be honest, at least, my lady,” Anne said, her stomach churning. She ruffled Irusan’s mane of thick fur. “Two facts I know: you dislike me, and your son has asked me to marry him. I must think them related.”

  An audible hiss of fury emitted from the lady. “So he did propose?”

  “I thought you knew. He did and I said no.”

  A sigh of relief.

  “The first time,” Anne continued. “But the second time—”

  “Enough! I have an aching head,” the marchioness said, leaning back against the cushion. “I wish to rest.”

  “You will hear me out, my lady,” Anne said, setting Irusan aside on the seat.

  “You cannot make me listen!”

  Anne narrowed her eyes and stared at the woman. “Unless you choose to fling yourself from the moving carriage or puncture your ears with a hat pin to deafen yourself, you cannot help it,” she said, her tone hard. “I give up trying to imagine why you don’t like me. We may not see eye to eye on everything. I may not be your ideal of a wife for your son. Perhaps you would wish for someone prettier, or softer, or more amenable to suggestions. But he has chosen me, and if I decide to marry him I will, with or without your blessing. And I think you understand your son enough to know he will disregard any attempt on your part to blacken my character in his view.”

  The woman was silent for a long time after that, her eyes closed and her head still back. Anne decided she must have gone to sleep and gave up thinking she’d get any kind of reply. She had said what she had to, though, and if nothing more was said, at least she had been clear.

  “I love all my sons dearly,” the marchioness finally said. “I cannot … I will not explain to you how I have suffered over the years, because you wouldn’t understand.” She opened her eyes and sat up, impatiently untying the strings of her bonnet and casting it aside.

  Irusan leaped down from the seat and batted at the ribbons. Anne grabbed him. “No! Leave the lady’s bonnet alone.”

  Lady Darkefell’s stern expression softened and Anne caught a glimpse of a woman who must have been charming in her youth.

  “Let him play, poor puss. He must be bored with so many days of travel and with Julius’s wolf dog plaguing him at every stop. It has been trying for the poor creature.” She sighed and dangled the ribbon for Irusan, who batted at it. “I suppose I really don’t understand myself yet,” she continued. “I suffer such periods of blackness as make me wish I could fling myself from Staungill Force like that poor unfortunate, Fanny Allengate. But I would never stain our ancient name in such a manner.”

  Anne took in a long shivering breath. “My lady,” she said, “I had no idea.”

  “How could you? I am careful to hide it when I can, choosing to appear a churl. I take to my bed with the ‘headache’ when I can no longer conceal my anguish.”

  Another long silence ensued. Anne decided not to break the relative quietude—they were on a smoother patch of road—with chatter or attempts to lighten the mood. The dimness of the carriage was a blessing, because it created a quiet world in which the lady perhaps felt safe to express such dire thoughts and feelings.

  “My husband did not understand,” she finally continued. She bent down and petted Irusan once, then straightened again. “He was one of those bustling, busy, energetic men, much like Julius.”

  Anne hesitated, but then said softly, “I suffered gravely at one point in my life, when … when my brother was taken away to live elsewhere. I have found that it makes it all so much harder when others say you should just stop feeling as you do.”

  “Exactly,” the woman cried, starting forward, staring at Anne. “Exactly! My husband would say, ‘Come, Sophie, stop being so gloomy!’ and he would expect me to snap out of my awful wretchedness just like that!” she said, snapping her fingers, the sound a sharp crack against the monotone rumble of the carriage.

  Anne pondered the conversation, but gave up trying to figure out why the marchioness was speaking of such private matters to her, of all people. She would just let it be, choosing not to interject often.

  In a reflective, sad tone, the lady said, “I did things, in those gloomy moments, things of which I am not proud. I made choices I still don’t understand. If I hadn’t had Nan Patterson to fall back on and to care for the boys, I would have gone mad, I think.”

  “Nan Patterson … I’ve met her.” Anne recalled meeting Darkefell’s old nanny, now pensioned and living in a snug cottage on the estate. The woman had said that Lady Sophie had suffered as no o
ne knew. And she had also said Lady Darkefell had a good heart at the bottom of it all.

  “She saved me so many times, days when I could not get out of bed, times when I thought the world was a dark hole waiting to swallow me alive.”

  Anne pondered the marchioness’s revelations. What choices had she made of which she was not proud? What had she done that she now suffered for?

  “We’re almost to Darkefell,” the marchioness said, pulling aside the curtain and peering out. “I know this land so well. I’ve lived here thirty years, more than half my life. I hated it at first, so dark, so gloomy. I am from Bath and loved the gaiety, the endless parade of life. When I was young, I had some bouts of darkness, but there were always things to do, people to see. Life. It pulled me out of the gloomy fits.”

  “And now?”

  “The gloomy times come less frequently now. I have found ways to work myself out of my melancholy, having found some measure of peace in my garden. As long as I can create, as long as I can imagine new worlds through the plants and flowers, I shall keep my sanity.”

  “Madam, if there is any way I can help alleviate your gloom, you need but ask,” Anne said, with deep feeling. “Otherwise, I promise I will not pester you, nor will I make demands upon you. And as long as I am around, I will do my utmost to lighten your burdens.” She was startled by a gleam of tears in the marchioness’s eyes.

  “I confess that though it is not the only one, that has been one concern in considering Tony’s marriage,” she said. She stared across at Anne. “It meant one more person to be pleasant to, one more person to get to know with all the agonizing chitchat and pretense of happiness. I wish you could impart some of your philosophy to Lydia, who tries my patience endlessly with her childish need for attention and her high drama.”

  “She’s young, my lady. Perhaps if you cast your mind back to your arrival at Darkefell, you may understand her emotions, even if she expresses it differently than you or I would.”

  The marchioness smiled slightly, but it was an expression that seemed to hold infinite sorrow. “You speak as if you are ancient. You’re little better than a child yourself.”

  Anne let that go. There was no need to talk about Jamey’s banishment, and how it forced her to mature early. She had witnessed the disintegration of her parents’ marriage, for it existed in name only now. Many things, including virtually running Harecross Hall for two years, had forced her to mature young. “One thing I don’t understand, my lady. Why do you not like Mr. Boatin?”

  The woman stiffened. “That is none of your business.”

  “That’s true, but I ask anyway. Mr. Boatin is a true friend and a good man. He is someone upon whom you could rely, for he seems to have a boundless energy to do good. And he does not judge you, even though you have treated him badly.” Anne decided that frankness was the only way to deal with Lady Darkefell. She held her breath, waiting to see if she was proved right.

  The woman firmed her lips and stared out the window, the vista one of rolling hills dotted with clusters of sheep and clumps of slim, leafy trees. The wide green expanses were broken by long lines of dry stone walls. There was a lengthy silence, but the marchioness did finally speak.

  “When Tony and Julius came back from that ill-considered venture to the islands, with Mr. Boatin in tow, I heard the story, the tale of the slaves being thrown overboard. I … I can’t explain what happened next. That damnable black hole to which I am prey swallowed me. I could hear the cries of his people, I felt the misery, the cold black water swallowing me up. Oh!” She cried out and put one trembling hand to her lips. “I went to a terrible place in that moment, and it took me five months before I could crawl out. I missed summer that year. Just … missed it, as if it was never there.”

  Anne’s breath caught in her chest. “And now whenever you see Mr. Boatin …?”

  “I remember that. I feel it all over, and I teeter on the edge, feeling hands stretch out, those poor, dying slaves, reaching up to pull me down to the depths of the ocean. It is irrational, yes? I fight it, but it gets the better of me. It terrifies me. I can’t explain that to Mr. Boatin. He would never understand!” She broke down into tears. “Why should he, when I don’t myself?” she sobbed. “He is the one who suffered, and I am the one who shunts him away!”

  Wholly unprepared, Anne acted instinctively and moved swiftly to take the seat next to the marchioness, then put her arms around her. It was nothing she’d ever done with anyone older than her. Lydia had needed that support, but she had never expected a woman like Lady Sophie would require it.

  But after just a few moments the marchioness pulled away from Anne and dabbed at her eyes with a wispy handkerchief. She calmed and took in a long, shuddering breath. “Those poor people,” she whispered, staring out the window, “jerked away from the only life they had ever known, with no choice, no say, doomed.”

  “Like yourself, when you were wed to the marquess?”

  She paused. “Yeees,” she said slowly, drawing the word out, her brow furrowed. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “You empathize deeply, but the pain of it scares you. You fear the black hole again, and so avoid Mr. Boatin as too sharp a reminder?” Anne felt as though she was creeping into the other woman’s mind. She pushed away that thought. One’s mind was the last refuge, the one place no one could assault you, the only safe place, sometimes. “I’m sorry, madam. I didn’t mean to be impertinent.”

  There was another long silence.

  “We’re almost home!” the marchioness said at length. She took in a long breath, then turned to Anne and took her hand. Her gaze was calm and direct, with a faint hint of kindness in her icy eyes. “I cannot say I will ever be the sort of mother-in-law you would wish, that you deserve. But I understand now, at least, why Tony wants to marry you. I won’t stand in your way.” She squeezed her hand and released it. Irusan leaped up to the seat beside her and settled half on her lap; she gazed down at him in amazement, then let her hand rest on his mane. After a moment, she began to pet him, and he purred.

  Anne smiled, but it was a bemused expression. She had Lady Darkefell’s blessing just when she might never see the woman again. After that morning Anne did not feel she knew Tony at all, and how could she marry a stranger?

  ***

  Darkefell had hired a new driver after his fight with the one he had hired in Canterbury, and had paid this fellow extra to drive quickly. He and Julius had ridden with the luggage carriage, which carried not only Grover but also Mary MacDougall, Therese, and the ladies’ trunks; he had ridden ahead only a half hour before they got to Darkefell Castle so he could arrange a place at the castle to put Hiram Grover, and to ensure that there would be a room for Anne and her maid at Ivy Lodge. John followed him around the dower house, trying to talk about all the work he had done while his brother was gone, while Lydia, giddy with happiness that Anne was coming to stay, talked ceaselessly, restlessly asking for Mrs. Hailey, claiming she would have a conference with cook, because only she knew what Anne liked to eat, and other nonsense to which Darkefell didn’t listen.

  The carriage had arrived shortly after him, the trunks were distributed, the maids were in their mistress’s chamber, and Grover was tucked away in the cellar of Darkefell Castle with an extra guard. Darkefell, furious after the morning’s contretemps, had been tempted to put the murderer in the “murder hole,” that thirty-foot dungeon in the castle proper, but had resisted the urge. The very next morning he was going to deliver Grover to the cells at the guildhall and force Pomfroy, his magistrate, to swear not to release him.

  That all done, Darkefell paced restlessly in front of Ivy Lodge, staying outside to avoid John and Lydia. It was late afternoon and he was weary, almost sick after a day of reflection over his and Anne’s tense standoff. At the several breaks they took for meals on the road that day she had not spoken to him, nor had she even met his gaze. And yet he didn’t feel he had done a thing wrong. What would become of them? He had felt like she was ready to
accept his proposal, but now they seemed just as far apart as before.

  Three days alone with his mother could not have helped, nor had his own foul temper. What would become of them?

  As the late day sun slanted to hit the large windows along the front of Ivy Lodge, his mother’s dower house, the carriage finally rounded the bend and rattled toward the gate. Waiting, watching, he remembered how he had met Anne that first night in the hall of Ivy Lodge, the blood of poor Cecilia Wainwright staining her gloves and cloak after she had tripped over the poor maid’s body in the park. His initial impression had been of a plain spinsterish woman, but that impression softened with the undeniable strength of her soul, her fine defiance, and those incredible gray eyes, steely and steady at times, soft and misty at others. They looked at him squarely, with no wavering. He had succumbed to her charms, deeply in love more rapidly than he would ever have thought possible. He couldn’t imagine living his life without her, but he couldn’t change who he was.

  He strode down the path to the stone wall and waited at the gate, pacing, anxious. How did one come to adore so completely a woman who made one wretchedly aware of how lacking one was in charm? He had been praised and petted his whole life by women, he supposed, and had got to think of himself as a fine fellow. Undeniably intelligent, quick-witted and good-looking, he had come to Anne sure she would welcome his suit. Anne punctured that inflated sense of worth and forced him to come back to her with his soul bared. He should not love a woman who left him feeling raw and unsure of himself, but he did. He could trust her to be honest, and that was worth a great deal more than he had realized before meeting her.

  Love without honesty must be a hollow thing, worth little and easily shaken. Had he battered her love when he shouted at her to obey him that morning? And could he live with a woman who had no compunction with defying him so openly, in front of others? What kind of man would others think him?