With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense

by DeWees, Amanda

  “What secret?” I demanded. “Atticus, what is it that you think I’ve been concealing?”

  Such compassion in his eyes. “Why,” he said softly, “that Genevieve is your daughter.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “My daughter?” My voice was an incredulous squeak.

  He bowed his head. “Don’t think for a moment that I am sitting in judgment on you, Clara. I know how much you loved Richard—it shone in your face like something holy whenever you looked at him. You were young, passionate… without a father to guide you…” A wry smile flicked over his face and was gone in an instant. “And Richard could have charmed the virgin goddess Diana herself into his arms. It would have been impossible for any young woman in your position to have withstood him. I don’t condemn you, Clara.”

  I had been silent during this generous speech only because I was too stupefied to speak. Now anger was overcoming shock, and I found that I had no lack of things to say. I rose abruptly to my feet, and the motion stopped the words on his lips.

  “Are you saying,” I demanded, “that you think I was your brother’s doxy?”

  He was on his feet again, but my words made him recoil. “I would never use that word, Clara.”

  “But you thought it of me just the same. I cannot believe your presumption. Just because I was a servant, without the moral compass of highborn, enlightened people like yourself, you concluded that I was a loose woman? That I had no sense of propriety, of how to conduct myself? That I—” I whirled away from him, unable to look at him any longer, and hugged my arms tightly around myself so that I would not reach out for the closest objects at hand and hurl them at the wall—or his head. “Do I look that debauched, or that foolish? It seems that according to you I must be one or the other.”

  “Clara, I… I don’t know what to say. Am I to believe that you aren’t…?”

  “I am neither Genevieve’s mother nor anyone’s mother. I never lay with your brother or with any man. But I can’t expect you to believe me, no, not a harlot from below stairs. You can’t trust me to give you anything but falsehoods.” No wonder he had reacted so strongly to Lord Veridian’s remarks about impure women—he had assumed that I was among them.

  His hands clasped me firmly by the shoulders. I gave in grudgingly to the pressure, and he turned me around so that we stood facing each other. I must have looked ferocious indeed, and I certainly felt so. I could feel the heat of humiliation in my face, and my heart was flailing in my chest.

  “Clara, I am truly sorry to have insulted you,” he exclaimed, his eyes anxious as they sought mine. “I beg your pardon, sincerely.”

  His voice had never been more gentle and warm, but my pride was still smarting. “You might have asked me,” I snapped. “Rather than assuming that I’d fallen into Richard’s bed—even had he tried to lure me there, which he did not. He never—”

  My words came to an abrupt halt as I remembered the many times Richard’s wayward hands had tested my resolve; remembered the persuasive words he had murmured to me so often, telling me of the sweetness of love’s pleasures stolen furtively; and I fell silent. What I had thought was a game might have been quite in earnest, and Richard had not been entirely above reproach. But he, too, had been young—nearly as young as I—and if in his love for me he had sometimes trespassed against respectability and convention, I could scarcely condemn him for it.

  My silence must have been revealing, for Atticus heaved a great sigh and drew me, astonishingly, into an embrace. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice muffled by my hair as he held me against him. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have assumed it was you. For me to have blurted it out unthinkingly… I can only imagine how grievous a shock it must be to find out this way.”

  My arms struggled up between us so that I could push myself away from his chest. “What are you saying? That Richard was unfaithful to me? That’s a lie as vile as any of Lord Veridian’s preposterous claims.”

  “Clara, it pains me to say it as much as it must pain you to hear it, but Genevieve is Richard’s daughter, though you aren’t her mother.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Inarguable.” How could a man’s voice be so tender yet so relentless? “You’ve only to look at her, Clara! Her hair is a few shades lighter than Richard’s, her eyes a bit darker, but she’s his blood.”

  “It’s absurd even to suggest such a thing!” Even her age gave the lie—Richard had been in love with me, had spent with me those last months before he was to leave for the Continent. I was his sweetheart. “This is the cause of your devotion to her, then?” I demanded. “You truly thought she was your niece?”

  “I think it still,” he said gravely. “Please try to look past your wounded pride and see it, my dear. I suppose Richard must have been trifling with Mrs. Collier. If that is so and she was actually Genevieve’s mother, it’s no wonder Collier thought the girl was his! I went to their cottage on a hint from one of Richard’s letters, and when I found out when the child had been born I… well, I remembered how much time he was spending with you all those months before, and how suddenly you’d been sent away. I’d heard the rumor that you carried his child.” He reached for my hand, and even though I snatched it away, his voice remained as tender as before. “I loved her for your sake, Clara. I knew that someday you’d want to be with her again, even though circumstances had forced you to give her up. From what Richard said in his letter I thought he must have told you to place her with the Colliers. They seemed happy enough for me to take her into my care and give her all the advantages they couldn’t offer… and you know the rest.”

  I knew that I had never before heard of anything so monstrously presumptuous. “No wonder Mr. Collier is so angry at the Blackwoods,” I exclaimed. “You took his child away, claiming she was another man’s, and sent her to another country, where he would never even be able to see her. The poor man must have been half mad with grief.” It would explain his resentment of me: if his child was to be brought into the grandeur of the Blackwoods’ orbit, he would have wanted her decently wedded and accorded the full status of her position. A wife, not a ward.

  “Collier is not her father,” he said, with a firmness that made my hands clench into fists. “His wits may be too turned for him to see it, but Genevieve is a Blackwood.”

  “As for his wits,” I said shortly, “madman or grieving father, he seems to have no difficulty in finding a way into Gravesend when it suits him. He left this note for me on my bureau the night that he made his way into the house. Evidently Birch and the others did not discover him until he had been inside for some while. I’ve no idea if he may turn violent if he is continually thwarted in his wish to see Genevieve, but it would probably be wise to set extra watch on the house.”

  I had kept the note with me ever since the night it had appeared, and now I thrust the torn fragment of paper at him so that he could read the words scrawled in the unsteady handwriting. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer that you take your nasty assumptions out of my sitting room.”

  He didn’t respond at once, so absorbed was he in staring at the note. “Collier left this? You’re certain?”

  “I believe one can fairly rule out Mrs. Threll,” I said sarcastically. “I found it after I retired that night. It rather unnerved me to know that he had been among my things.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes narrowing. “Among your things, you say. Where exactly?”

  “In the jewel case. I found it when I went to put the ruby collar away.” As I spoke, it occurred to me for the first time that this was a curious place for Collier to have left the note; why not place it in plain sight, where I would see it at once? What meaning could the jewel case have had for him? Then I shook the questions off. A man as troubled as Collier probably did not even understand his own actions.

  Atticus was staring at the note again now, and I thought I saw his jaw tighten as if in anger. “You needn’t worry about being disturbed like this again,” he said grimly. �
��I’ll see to it that this isn’t repeated.”

  “I’m sure you will. Now, if you would be so good as to remove yourself from my room?”

  He seemed on the point of protesting, but a glance at me, standing stiffly by the open door awaiting his departure, seemed to change his mind. Thrusting the note into a pocket, he strode to me, looked searchingly into my eyes for a moment, then bowed and departed.

  I shut the door firmly behind him, turned the key, and snatched up a cheap china vase painted with roses. My hand fairly twitched with the urge to hurl it against the wall. Such a satisfying crash it would make.

  But it would make extra work for the maid whose duty it was to keep my sitting room tidy. After a moment’s fevered thought, I fetched a paisley shawl from my bedroom wardrobe, spread it on the floor beneath the wall, and flung the vase with all my might.

  The crash was, indeed, satisfying. Triumphant, I gathered up the shawl with its litter of china fragments, opened the window, and flung the pieces out into the darkness. Then, a fraction calmer, I retired to my bedroom.

  It could scarcely have been a quarter of an hour later, if that long, when I heard running footsteps approach my door. There was a fusillade of knocking. My first thought was Atticus, but what would bring him on the run like this to rap so furiously on my door? Then a voice called, “Madame! Aunt Clara!” and I realized my mistake.

  “Genevieve?” I opened the door a crack and found her standing, flushed and breathing hard, at the threshold. “What’s wrong?”

  “You must come,” she blurted. “Uncle Atticus and his father—a terrible argument. I am frightened.”

  Fortunately I had progressed no further in undressing for bed than taking my hair down; I had been too occupied in continuing my discussion with Atticus in my head, adding many brilliant points and incisive observations that would have reduced him to humble capitulation. Genevieve grabbed my hand and led me at a half-run down the hall, around the corner, and through the gallery that separated my rooms from Lord Telford’s.

  She told me in an urgent half whisper that she had gone to Lord Telford’s rooms to leave a note and a posy of flowers, since he had shown no signs of forgiving her impertinence. It was when she came to deliver these that she heard the two men in argument. “They are so furious with each other,” she whispered. “I heard Lord Telford saying dreadful things. That you were not worthy to bear the Blackwood name—I am sorry, Aunt Clara—and that I was a disgrace to his house. Uncle Atticus, he spoke more quietly, but so calmly—so calmly that I knew he was quite, quite angry—and he asked, ‘By what right do you have anonymous notes placed in my wife’s chamber? It was a cowardly thing to do. If you had a grievance to air with her and me, you should have spoken out to our faces!’ I give you what they call the gist, you understand—”

  “I understand. What else? Tell me quickly.”

  “At that, Lord Telford begins to laugh, a dreadful laugh, and he says that he will do just that, he will tell everyone to their faces that you are—that you—I did not recognize the word he used.”

  I suspected from the deepening flush in her cheeks that she had understood only too well what Lord Telford had called me, but I did not press her.

  “And Lord Telford, he then said that he would have you thrown out of the house to return to your proper place, and he said that I should be sent with you, as a brand of shame. I did not quite understand that.”

  Thank heaven, it appeared that Atticus had not shared his theory about Genevieve’s parentage with the girl herself. I could not imagine how hurtful it would have been for her to have expected me to give her a mother’s welcome, only to find none awaiting her. At least she had been spared that crushing disappointment.

  Now that we were nearing Lord Telford’s chambers I tugged at her hand to slow her steps. Cautiously and quietly, we approached the door.

  It might have been wide open for all the good it did in preventing the argument inside from reaching our ears. Lord Telford’s reedy voice was raised in anger. “I had my suspicions about that woman from the first. All these years you’ve shown no inclination toward marriage, neglected your responsibility to sire an heir, and then suddenly you marry this wealthy, mysterious widow you produced from thin air? A preposterous story. It was the night that you gave her the ruby collar that I found out—that is, I finally recognized her. A servant! You put a servant in the highest place at Gravesend under me, a strumpet no better than she should be, who departed here in disgrace—”

  “I must ask you not to speak so of Clara.” Atticus’s voice, in contrast with his father’s shrill ranting, was coldly controlled, but just the sound of that even, clipped sentence gave me the image of him: standing firm, indomitable, unmoved, his eyes glacial with anger and stubbornness, as the storm of his father’s rantings broke over him. “My wife has been forced to earn her living, yes, but that is scarcely a sin. The charges you make against her virtue are entirely unfounded. And even if they had any basis in fact, Clara’s life before our marriage is no one’s affair but hers and mine.”

  A strange wheezing exclamation came. I realized it was Lord Telford laughing. “Pretty words don’t expunge dirty deeds,” he sneered. “Her filth will corrupt the Blackwood name, along with that illegitimate brat. Do you mean to set the child up as a courtesan? She has the brazenness for it, as well as the extravagant wardrobe—paid for with Blackwood money, I’ve no doubt.”

  “This has gone quite far enough.” Atticus raised his voice to cut across his father’s tirade. “I came only to tell you that you’re not to do anything further to hurt or frighten Clara. No more sending your valet to plant nasty little notes in her room. No spreading stories about her past to prevent her being received. If you cannot treat her with the respect she deserves—”

  “Then what?” was the triumphant rejoinder. “What is in your power to do to me, my boy? You cannot prevent me from talking.”

  Nor from writing, evidently. So it was my father-in-law who had written the note, and the shaky lettering that I had attributed to a working man with little practice in writing was due to age and illness having made the old man’s hand unsteady. Had his words just now not been bad enough, the idea of his taking the time to deliberately write the note, and then having it delivered to my room to be planted there, made my stomach turn.

  Atticus was still trying to minimize the damage his father could do. “You’re ill,” he said. “Too ill to receive visitors. With no one to tell them to, your ugly sentiments can go no further.”

  “You cannot imprison me, Atticus. Brutus will carry me wherever company is assembled. I’ll spread word far and wide—”

  “What could it possibly gain you? Why do you take such satisfaction in—”

  The words ended in a crash that made me jump, and Genevieve darted me a frantic look. What had happened? “Atticus?” I cried, without thinking, and started back as the door was flung open.

  A wild-eyed Atticus stared back at me. “He’s collapsed,” he said hoarsely. “We need the doctor.”

  “I’ll find Mrs. Threll,” said Genevieve instantly, and darted off before I could speak, let alone move.

  “Where is Brutus?” I asked.

  “I’ve rung for him. Can you help me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  The crashing sound, I saw as soon as I stepped into the sitting room, had been Lord Telford’s chair. It lay on its side, and the bent, thin shape had fallen with it. The old man’s eyes were closed and his jaw was slack, and he appeared to be unconscious; but he was twitching slightly, which I seized on gratefully as a sign of life.

  “He’s had a seizure,” said Atticus. His face was white and strained, his voice urgent, but his hands were gentle as he slid them under his father’s shoulders. “If you can move the chair when I lift him, I’ll get him disentangled. I’d like to move him to his bed.”

  “Of course.”

  Once the old man was free of the chair, it was the work of moments for Atticus to carry him to the other
room. Indeed, the baron looked so slight that I suspected I could have supported his weight. He wore a dressing gown over nightclothes, and his slippers had fallen off his feet. I fetched them and, when Atticus did not stop me, placed them on the fragile-looking, veined feet. He had not regained consciousness. How weak he looked in this state. If I had not known better, I would never have imagined so frail a form able to carry on so fierce and venomous an argument. Standing over the bed, Atticus looked so strong, so healthy.

  “Was his first seizure like this?” I asked. I spoke nearly in a whisper. I wasn’t sure whether I was afraid of waking him or whether some superstitious impulse made me afraid of being irreverent. A more cynical inner voice suggested that we could not be certain he was not mimicking unconsciousness and listening to all we said.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t with him when it happened.” He dragged his fingers through his hair in a despairing gesture. He was still fully dressed in his evening clothes and had evidently gone straight to his father’s rooms to upbraid him after I sent him away. “How much did you hear?” he asked.

  “Enough to know that your father is the one who wrote the note.” He must have directed the valet to place it in the jewel case as an indication that the jewels were not by rights mine to wear.

  His eyes shut briefly as if his strength was unequal to this latest revelation. “I’m so sorry, Clara. I never dreamed that by bringing you here I’d be subjecting you to his revolting assumptions.”

  No, I thought, only your own. The old man had only said aloud what Atticus had thought of me. “I wouldn’t have heard if Genevieve had not happened by and been frightened. She went to fetch me… although I’m not certain what she thought I could do.”

  “She heard as well?” he exclaimed. “Good lord, the poor child.”

  “I don’t think she believed what she heard. As far as she is concerned, they must have seemed like the insane ravings of an ill old man who has lost his wits.” The words were harsh, but I was in no frame of mind to be generous.