by Gloria Cook
Tabbie swallowed with difficulty. ‘Then he appeared. The devil, or as good as. You knew him, Sarah.’
Fear took its debilitating hold on Sarah. The vision concerned her, and this time Tabbie was going to reveal the exact details. Without a shadow of doubt, she knew her beleaguered life was about to be plunged again into adversity. ‘W-who was it?’
‘I’m afraid it was your husband, my dear. Titus Kivell. He’s coming back and he’s coming after you, Sarah. He means you grievous harm again.’
Sarah’s stomach turned to water and for a moment the room spun crazily. She snatched her breath to keep a grip. Her mixed feelings for Titus whirled in an agonizing circle of love, hurt, repulsion and fear. She’d give anything to see him again, even for a second, but also she wanted to throw off the smallest memory of him forever.
‘Tabbie, that can’t be,’ she got out through numb lips. ‘Titus is dead. I watched him die of heart failure with my own eyes, me and many others, both Kivells and people from the village.’
‘He’s dead to this world, I grant you, Sarah. But you forget he was buried at Burnt Oak and that means in unhallowed ground. Now he’s back from hell and set on revenge. Worse still, he’s not the Titus we knew at his end. The devil’s taken him back to his prime. He’s young and strong again. He stared at me with burning hatred and I felt as if he had scorched my very soul. He stared right into me and I was able to read his thoughts, and then he tossed that fearsome dark head of his away from me as if I was some loathsome worm. There’s great peril ahead of you, my dear, you and others in Meryen, including Titus’s mother. Everybody hated Titus, but he hated everyone with more than hate itself. He’s back for revenge on those who watched him die. I know the squire wasn’t there but I sense danger for him too.’
Sarah was taken back to the worst day of her life, that fateful day at Burnt Oak, in the community of the Kivells, where Titus had died. Estranged from Titus then, following his violence over his fury that she was not pregnant, as she’d believed on their marriage, she had returned to ask him to take her back, to give her the chance to love and serve him. She had evoked his further rage; she was barren, the result suffered by a few ill-fated women when exposed for years to certain minerals in mine ore, but Titus, already father of a large brood, had wanted more children. A celebration had been underway in Tempest Kivell’s house of the betrothal of Titus’s only legitimate son, Sol, and Sarah’s childhood friend, Amy Lewarne. Jealous of his son’s joy, bitter that Tempest had always favoured Sol over him, and that she had never loved him because he was the result of rape, Titus had been brooding and getting drunk. After beating Sarah he had sworn he’d kill her and then violate her younger sister, Tamsyn, who was but a child. Tempest’s timely intervention had saved Sarah’s life, but Titus had grabbed her gun and pushed through the party and attempted to shoot Sol. Believing his mother, who also had ‘the sight’, had cursed him, he had dropped the gun and fallen down, stricken. He’d begged for help but no one had gone to him, not even Sarah after his threats against Tamsyn. If Titus really could somehow hurt anyone from beyond the grave, there was no doubt great tribulation was ahead. At least he couldn’t touch Sol and Amy. They had left Meryen with their young children, and Amy’s family, to explore the world.
Although it was ridiculous to be thinking this way, Sarah clutched at one hope. ‘If Titus’s spirit really does roam and is intent on evil, can’t Tempest keep him in line? He greatly feared her powers. The last place I want to go is to Burnt Oak, but I should go there, Tabbie, and tell Tempest what you’ve seen.’
‘No!’ As if the energy of her past years had returned, Tabbie leaned forward and bracketed Sarah’s face with her knuckly hands. ‘Tempest will not be able to prevail against him. No one can. I think it’s very likely she’s had the same vision anyway. Sarah, you are in mortal danger, you must believe me. You must never drop your guard. You have an enemy who abounds with cunning and burns to make you pay the cruellest cost. I will give you a talisman and you must never go forth without it about your neck, but you will need every ounce of your strength, every scrap of common sense and exhortations to the Almighty to withstand the terrible force that is about to come upon you.’
On her straw mattress that night, in a partitioned corner of the shack’s single room, Sarah touched the topaz and silver pendant resting on her chest. It was one of the fascinating treasures Tabbie had procured, most probably from a shipwreck. Could this splendid piece ward off the evil Tabbie swore was relentlessly heading her way? If Titus was about to haunt her, and others, why wait until four years had slipped by? If she had ventured outside today would she have encountered his spirit? Could his spirit not appear to her within these walls? A stab of fear was eased away by the reassurance that nothing bad could happen in here. Tabbie had no doubt placed a blessing or a spell on the threshold.
Sleep evaded her. Her mind drifted and laboured. One moment she thought the premonition too fanciful – after all, Titus couldn’t really come back from the dead. The next she was beset by anguish and dread, and fear for the others under threat. People might despise her and look down on her, but she wished no one any harm, certainly not her former mother-in-law, Tempest Kivell, who had always been good to her. And still she wrestled with her confused feelings for Titus and how she would actually feel if she ever really did see him again.
Two
Upstairs in the drawing room of Poltraze, Tara Nankervis glanced at the two men in her life and stifled a weary sigh. Both were distracted, neither wanting to be here with her. Joshua, her husband, the squire of Meryen, who rarely joined her at all, was no doubt fretting about either his withered plants or his lover, the thoroughly obnoxious and somewhat frightening Laketon Kivell. Five years ago, he had installed the former master carpenter, also a connoisseur of botany, as his head gardener, but their feelings had died for each other, and Tara was aware of the constant friction that now existed between them. Joshua’s crippling blow had seen the end of his normally placid temperament. He met everything with extreme irritation and bawled at the servants unfairly. He was barely civil to Tara. He was only taking tea with her and his brother Michael to retain the illusion to the servants that he had a traditional marriage.
The widowed Michael was Tara’s lover and the father of her four-year-old daughter, Rosa Grace. Most likely his thoughts were centred on his burning interest: after painstakingly sifting through old papers and documents to outline the Nankervis history, he was recording it in volumes, monastery style. He spent hours buried in the library here rather than at home in Wellspring House, the former dower house, in the grounds, and nowadays less time with Tara. She knew he wasn’t bored with her but he had outgrown their affair. She had a suspicion he was turning elsewhere for lovemaking, for he sought her bed less and less. She had long grown bored with the arrangement but had kept it on, for Michael’s arms were the only ones to hold her. She hated it when the three of them were together; until Joshua’s calamity, with the unspoken agreement that none mentioned the others’ infidelity, they had existed amiably enough.
Tara had served afternoon tea and the servants had cleared the room, warily skirting around their master, who had complained the marble cake was stale and the servants clumsy. Now what? Embroidery or lacework or a book? There was nothing else to do. The men were not intent on conversation and the harsh weather and gathering darkness meant a stroll outside was inadvisable. Joshua did not like her viewing his withered trophies, anyway. And the dark heaps of destroyed foliage outside were like mocking tombs. She longed to go far away and to be in some distracting company.
Restless throughout the tea drinking, Joshua rose sharply with a brusque sigh. Verging on forty years – sixteen more than Tara – he looked older than he should: the consequence of his woes and the overuse of brandy and wine. In his youth he had been called a carousing stag; now he could be termed a spent old dog. Grey was stippled through his dark hair and heavy lines pleated his eyes and mouth. He had often been clad in serviceabl
e attire and gardening boots but since the blight he invariably presented himself as a none-too-well-turned-out gentleman.
‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He addressed Tara only. His educated voice, once kindly and slightly drawling, was frosted with the dissatisfactions of his life.
Michael merely nodded. The brothers had never been close and didn’t bother to communicate now. He got up in his careless manner, a polite smile on his long, studious face. ‘I too will take my leave, Tara. Thank you for the tea.’ In crisp steps he reached the door before Joshua did.
‘Can you not stay?’ Tara aimed the question at Michael. ‘Rosa Grace will be brought down shortly.’
‘Huh!’ Joshua strode past Michael and left the room. He tolerated the little girl’s presence in his home but the only input he’d had in her life was to insist she be given a floral name, as society might expect of him as her supposed father. Her tinkling voice, pattering feet and fair looks, so like her mother’s, seemed to increasingly irritate him.
Tara was offended by what she saw as an insult to her daughter but she was glad Joshua had gone.
I can hardly stay now,’ Michael said, and she could see his relief. ‘It wouldn’t look right if the uncle stayed and not the father.’
Tara was dismayed at his protest. Michael cared for Rosa Grace, as he did his two older daughters, but he merely saw her as a pretty young being to be allotted only momentary indulgence.
‘You are Rosa Grace’s father. It seems I have to keep reminding you of that.’ Tara’s dark blue eyes glinted with accusation.
‘I’ll never forget it is so,’ he replied, not without impatience. Tara was of a pleasing gentle disposition, intelligent and still quite fascinating, and with a flawless, pale-skinned, fair beauty that made her wholly desirable, but she was in danger of turning into a nag. He kept up with Rosa Grace’s progress and enjoyed a few moments with her now and then, making an effort when his three girls joined together for special occasions like birthday parties, but children, and people in general, held little appeal for him. It would be different if Rosa Grace had been a boy, his son set to inherit the squire-ship; it would amuse and motivate him about Poltraze’s future rather than its past.
Anyway, he liked to come and go as he pleased, preferring long hours in his own company. Today, he was eager to reach a new interest. A few weeks ago while out riding through the woods he had emerged by the gatehouse. The gatekeeper’s wife had been outside and he had halted to pass a word with her for she was a comely, curvaceous woman with a certain gleam in her eye. She had offered him a drink of porter and he had quickly found she was well versed in the art of lovemaking. The follow-up encounters had been equally as exciting. Her passion was of a distinctly improper sort; she did and said things Tara had no knowledge of and wouldn’t dream of doing if she did, and he couldn’t stay away from her for long. The fact that the gatekeeper didn’t mind that he was conducting an affair of his own with a parlourmaid meant Michael didn’t have to skulk about and it made it all fantastically wicked.
Watching Tara’s finely shaped face fall, he gave way to guilt. He had a fond devotion for her. She treated him with care and respect, unlike his bitch of a late wife, who had berated him for not being ambitious and for choosing to shun a high social life. Tara did not deserve her empty marriage and her stifled life. ‘A few minutes, then,’ he offered. He closed the door, unaware that a footman was obscured behind a giant-sized fern on a side table in the corridor.
When Michael had gone and Rosa Grace had been taken back up to the nursery, loneliness fell on Tara like a shroud. The bleakness of her life seemed to grow with every passing day. Michael would not return and join her tonight. They had grown apart in much the same way as many married couples seemed to do, but she would never regret their affair. If not for him she wouldn’t have her wonderful child – Joshua had never consummated their marriage. Rosa Grace was all she had. She had lost her close friend Amy Kivell to adventure. She missed Amy so much and envied her, travelling the colonies, sharing the long-held dream of her husband, Sol, while she didn’t really have a husband at all. She would never know the love of a soulmate as Amy did.
How was she to abide this lonely evening, when she would have to dine alone yet again? It wasn’t worth the effort to change her dress but she would have to go through with the social nicety. She didn’t want to upset the servants’ routine and cause more unease in the house. Michael grumbled about the miserable atmosphere. He swore the house exuded feelings of its own, and that in the last few days it had taken to brooding again. Poltraze was not a glorious piece of architecture. Pre-Tudor in origin, graceless extensions had been tacked on during each change of style. Before Tara became its mistress it had been gloomy, and like many old structures it was said to be greatly haunted. Tara didn’t doubt there were ghosts. She had seen and heard many inexplicable things herself. Now gloom lurked again from its many rooms to the picture gallery and the Long Corridor: everywhere. The five years of Tara’s marriage, the young Queen Victoria’s reign, had seen modernizations: tiled floors and walls of bathrooms, and trompe-l’oeil effects that simulated more expensive materials to give false grandiosity to glass, walls and fireplaces. The new comfort and brightness had been fleeting. Tara found her home a cold, lacklustre prison.
She went to her bedroom to idle the time away until her maid came to her. The lanterns and the fire kindled under the plaster mantelpiece cast a rosy glow and appealing shadows but did nothing to dispel her melancholy. She stared at the bed that Joshua had forsaken and felt cheated and angry. She had been a mere pawn in their marriage, arranged by his controlling, amoral father, Darius, and his second wife, her Aunt Estelle, for the fortune settled on her. Darius Nankervis had not known the truth of Joshua’s sexuality. He would have destroyed him if he had. Soon after Tara’s wedding, Darius and Estelle had suffered a horrific death in the west wing, burning in their bed. Joshua now occupied the rebuilt suite, his lover using it arrogantly, at will. Now Michael, to whom she had turned after she witnessed an encounter between Joshua and Laketon Kivell and learned the truth of Joshua’s reluctance to be intimate with her, had forsaken her. Tara made few snap decisions but she made one now. Her affair with Michael was over. He could go his own way. If only she could do the same.
What was stopping her from getting away from Poltraze and starting a new life with Rosa Grace? She paced back and forth on the Persian carpet. There was no one here she would miss. She felt hollowed out and it was time she did something about it. She had always been loyal to duty but she was beyond that now. Joshua was unlikely to insist she stay, in fact he’d probably welcome her permanent absence and not really care what people thought. He didn’t seem to care about anything any more. He had once been proud to show off his gardens to the gentry, but since exalting Laketon Kivell as his aide he had jealously kept them to himself, or had that been the controlling Kivell’s decision? The gardens were a wasteland and the house was increasingly suffocating and morbid. It was not a place to bring up her daughter. Joshua had always been generous to her. If she could persuade him to settle an allowance on her, enough to live in a suitable house in a pleasant spot, with a maid, cook-general, gardener and nursemaid, she and Rosa Grace would do very well. It wasn’t easy to gain an audience with Joshua. She would write him a letter and get her maid to pass it to his valet. A new life for her and Rosa Grace raised her hopes and put a lift in her step. If Michael objected, too bad, he had taken too little interest in Rosa Grace for his opinion to be considered.
She went to the window and pulled aside the drapes and lace, aiming to capture a hint of freedom. Lights from the downstairs rooms and the lanterns outside the front door lit up a section of the lawn below. Halfway down the sweeping green began an avenue of towering conifers, casting shadows, which unlike those in the room threw foreboding murkiness. A small movement among them made her gasp. Somehow she knew it wasn’t one of the dogs or a groundsman, or anyone else who had the right to be there. She pressed her face to t
he cold glass to make sure she wasn’t imagining a presence.
She gripped the curtains. There was a figure, definitely someone there, a man. She let the curtains fall so she was only looking out through a wedge. Well set and tall, the trespasser was still. Apparently, he was just watching the house. Sense told her to ring and order the intruder to be dealt with, yet she peered and tried to make out more about him. He stepped away from the bushes and her heart leapt in worry he might see her, but she held her course now she could see him better. He wore a gentleman’s clothes. Perhaps he was an acquaintance of Joshua’s? Joshua had not long left the house and she’d assumed he’d gone straight to Laketon Kivell, but this man could be waiting for him. He might be a new lover. No, that couldn’t be so. Joshua quarrelled with Laketon Kivell but he was nervous, even afraid of him. She had overheard him grovelling for understanding and forgiveness on more than one occasion. He wouldn’t foolishly take another lover.
Tara tightened her brow. The stranger seemed familiar somehow. Then she knew why. He was a Kivell! Easy to tell for they all shared the same strapping dark looks. This man was not one she thought she had seen before. Even Laketon Kivell, who dressed rather like a fop and behaved above his station, did not own such fine attire or show such a definite touch of authority. The man came forward again, as if flaunting his trespass. He lifted his chin and Tara knew he was staring straight up at her. She shot back, a hand to her mouth. She had seen his face quite clearly and he was very much like the rogue Titus Kivell. Memory of that evil individual brought her to abhorrence. The stranger must be a Kivell relative from somewhere but why was he lurking about Poltraze? If he had wanted to see Laketon he would have gone to his cottage in the grounds.
