by Tessa Candle
Rutherford sighed. With Screwe still skulking about, he did not want to leave Tilly even for a moment, especially now that she was with child. “I must find out where she has gone. I swore to my uncle that I would look out for her.”
“I am not sure what you did, my friend, but if you want to apologize, you are going to have to work for it.”
“Or perhaps,” Rutherford’s face looked hopeful, “I might rely upon you to do the work. You could look for her. After all, you like a mystery.”
“You know what else I like?” Frobisher crossed his arms and gave Rutherford a calculating look. “That seventeen hand black mare in the stables.”
“Lucifer? You could never manage her!”
Just then an awful racket came from the servant’s area at the back of the manor.
“What could that be?” Frobisher asked.
But Rutherford did not stay to hear him. He rushed to Tilly’s side to stop her from going to look into it.
“Let me look, darling.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
“Well, it has not taken you long to become a controlling husband.” She was giving him a look that showed she had no intention of staying in the parlour like a good little wife.
“I cannot help being protective under the circumstances. Do not look at me so. Is it not reasonable for a man to wish to protect his wife, when she has so recently been shot at?” And with a look to her midsection he silently communicated, and when she is in a delicate state.
Tilly rolled her eyes. Then gunfire sounded through the walls.
Rutherford quickly scanned the room. Everyone had frozen, but no one was hit. A movement caught his eye. His little sister, Susan, was just reentering the room through the main door. She looked puzzled as he took her arm and hurried her over to Tilly’s side. “You two stay here.”
The other guests were beginning to look about curiously and speculate amongst themselves, as Rutherford headed back for the door. Tilly grabbed his arm. “Do not think you are going to investigate alone.”
“It is not safe.”
Tilly scoffed and settled the question by tucking her arm under his. He supposed it might be better to keep her close to him, after all. And there were armed men just outside who would go with them. He relaxed. It was probably nothing.
He addressed the guests with his practised sang froid. “Shall we go see what all the racket is about?”
A quick exploration led them to the hall just outside the butler’s office. Sandes stood looking down in bewilderment at a gentleman lying on the floor with a chamber pot on his head.
The area was strewn with dried peas, and a single cord of embroidery thread wound its way down the hall and disappeared into the scullery. One of the servants retrieved a pistol from near the man’s hand.
Rutherford ordered another servant to go clean up the pots that had fallen in the scullery, which had caused most of the racket. He was about to bellow for Smythe, whom he knew to be the author of this interruption, but spotted him skulking about behind the guests, looking as guilty as sin.
Rutherford was opening his mouth to order the scheming prankster to go help tidy the scullery, but just at that moment, the servant who was assisting the man on the floor removed the chamber pot from his head to reveal the face Lord Screwe. He was just regaining consciousness and was covered in the typical contents of that ignoble vessel.
There was a gasp of surprise, followed by snickering from all the guests, as the lord tried to wipe the filth off of his face.
Rutherford, though equally amused to see the bounder so perfectly rewarded for trying to sneak in through the servants’ entrance, curtailed his laughter and fixed Screwe with a look of calm superiority. “My lawyer informs me that you have been served with my formal refusal of your company at any of my residences. So I can only interpret your attempt at unlawfully entering Blackwood Manor as an act of criminal trespass.”
Screwe managed a sneer of contempt, despite the fact that he reeked of faeces. “You call me the trespasser! You have trespassed in my home. First your trollop steals from me, and now you are taking the whole house!” His words were slurred, and he wobbled as he gesticulated.
So the foreclosure had gone through. Good. But it was not a scene with which he wished to mar his wedding day. He looked at Tilly. She was holding a scented handkerchief to her nose and shaking with laughter.
They exchanged a look of merriment. She was not even a little shocked at being called a trollop, only amused. That was his Tilly. She was not one for letting a ruined formal occasion get in the way of a good laugh. How he loved her.
Rutherford turned back to Screwe. “You are not welcome here, Screwe, as you well know. But I must thank you, for you could not have made the duchess and me a better wedding gift than by presenting yourself on the floor before us, penniless, debased, and covered in shit. However, we shall not remain, as I cannot stand the smell of you, literally or metaphorically.”
“You will regret making an enemy of me, Duke.” The man spat.
Rutherford ignored him and ordered the men at arms to take Screwe outside, throw a few buckets of soapy water over him and store him in a shed until the authorities from London arrived.
When Screwe had been removed, Rutherford summoned Smythe back from the stairway that the guilty servant had sneaked off to. He hated to threaten the man, but no matter how well this prank had turned out, Rutherford could not permit such conduct to persist.
He fixed Smythe in his sternest gaze. “You will go clean up that filth outside Sandes’ office. And when you are finished, if Sandes is satisfied with your work, you may still have a place as my valet.”
Smythe grew pale and blinked with disbelief. This lasted only a moment, then he bowed and went to work.
Rutherford placed his arm around Tilly and kissed the top of her head, then turned to the guests. “Now that the light entertainment is concluded, let us return to our champagne and biscuits.”
As they made their way to a cheering fire, Rutherford whispered in Tilly’s ear. “I am sorry for that spectacle. But now you know why I am so protective. I will never let anyone harm a hair on your precious head.”
She gave him a little smirk, the one he had first fallen in love with, that looked like the devil had just set his hook at the corner of her mouth and given it a tug. “As if you need an excuse for being protective, my love. It goes along with being a hero, I suppose. You simply cannot help yourself. However, I am very glad our baby will have such a wonderful father.”
Her eyes were full of love and a flash of heat. He was only prevented from carrying her upstairs by the inducement of the good company and laughter of the friends that gathered around them to share their joy. He would attend to his duchess later.
Afterword
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Accursed Abbey Chapter 1
Elizabeth Whitely stood shivering with her little dog, Silverloo. The alpine wind chilled her back as she waited, tired and anxious, for coachmen to change the horses and resume the journey to Friuli.
Mrs. Holden approached her, handing her a clay mug of some herbal infusion, sweetened with honey. “Here, this will warm you and settle your stomach. Many people feel unwell at these altitudes.”
Elizabeth smiled as she accepted the cup from the kindly middle-aged woman. She was the most recent in a series of married ladi
es and widows that had met Elizabeth upon her long journey from England, and had compassionately offered her their protection.
But this was Mrs. Holden’s last stop. As Elizabeth stared down the mountainside at the orange-bricked villages that sprouted up here and there like little mushrooms along the spindly road, Elizabeth wished her journey, too, ended here. She longed for a proper bed and a life without wheels beneath her.
But Elizabeth would travel on alone, further and further from the only home she had known, toward the place that was to be her new home, at what seemed like the edge of the world.
“That is my husband, now.” Mrs. Holden waved at a gentleman in a beaver hat, then turned back to Elizabeth. “I wish you were not travelling on alone.” The woman's face looked genuinely worried, which only agitated Elizabeth's own fears.
She embraced Mrs. Holden. “Thank you for your kindness.”
When the lady tore herself away, Elizabeth felt utterly alone, and the light-headedness that afflicted her made her wish to curl up in a ball and sleep.
But instead, she finished her herbal tea, wrapped her shawl more tightly about her, and took Silverloo for a walk around the posting house. There was a little time until the coach departed.
As the little dog relieved himself on some scrubby bushes behind the stables, she listened idly to the many different languages spoken by the people passing around her. There were languages she recognized, and then there were others that were a mystery. They sounded like German, Italian or French, but were not.
It was disorienting, at once exotic and unnerving, to be in such a mixed cauldron of words. Back home in England, she had never heard so much as a smattering of French. But here, for all she knew, revolutions might be being plotted, or incantations recited, and she would be none the wiser.
The coach was brought around, and as she walked toward it, she was struck still by a sight of beauty. A young maiden stood ready to enter the same carriage. She was perhaps sixteen—or at any reckoning, she was certainly no older than Elizabeth’s nineteen years, and neatly, but modestly dressed in a dove grey travelling habit.
Her straw bonnet was tied with a length of dull ribbon, and no jewellery or lace ornamented her. But the face that peeked out from underneath that bonnet was ornament enough.
The girl had features and skin that angels might envy, as though her face were delicately carved from unblemished ivory and framed in perfect golden curls. The pale, icy blue of her eyes gave her an otherworldly look, which was startling next to the air of innocence that pervaded her entire person.
Silverloo gambolled over to the girl, looked up at her with his best rakish smile, then rolled over to present his belly. This had the desired effect, and the girl grinned and scratched him.
Elizabeth laughed as she approached. “You must forgive my little dog. He has rather fast manners.”
The girl smiled and said, slowly and with a strong accent, “He is a treasure. What is his name?”
Elizabeth spoke a little German, and the girl spoke a little more English, and so they got on and introduced themselves. Her name was Lenore Berger, and she, too, was destined, for Friuli.
By the time they rolled away, Silverloo had laid himself out to span both their laps, exposing his belly, and the two young ladies had settled into a proper chat.
Suddenly Elizabeth drew in a rapid breath, as she felt the carriage lurch into a very steep descent.
“What is wrong?” asked Lenore, resting a hand gently on Elizabeth’s arm.
“I,” she gasped as though the wind had been knocked out of her, “only just got accustomed to going upward, altitude sickness and all. And now it feels like we are headed down a cliff.” This was so much worse.
Lenore stroked her arm sympathetically. Elizabeth gripped the wall of the coach with her other hand and prayed, closing her eyes to the sight of the looming emptiness that gaped between the carriage and the rugged peaks in the distance.
“You will get used to it.” Lenore’s voice was calm.
“Does it not bother you at all?”
“I was raised in the mountains, so I had not given it a thought until now, but I can see how it might be a little frightening.”
A little frightening. Elizabeth’s right hand ached from grasping whatever purchase her fingers could find. She made the mistake of opening her eyes again. The road was so terrifyingly narrow that it disappeared from view. Straining to see further out the window only persuaded her that they were already suspended in the air, ready to plummet at any moment and dash against the rocky depths below.
Lenore smiled reassuringly and tucked Silverloo under Elizabeth’s left arm. “Close your eyes. I will tell you when we are at a better place.”
Elizabeth peeked once, and to her horror, was given a full view down the slope of how tiny and narrow the road became, before it apparently ended in a cliff, requiring of her the very great leap of faith that there was a corner affording a continuation.
Just then a sudden gust of wind made the coach waver sideways. She squeezed her eyes shut again, waiting to feel the sudden drop that would precede her death.
It did not come. A plaintive whine brought her around, and she realized that she was clasping her little dog a bit too tightly to her chest. She relaxed her grip and petted him. “Sorry, Silverloo,” she whispered.
“Just keep your eyes closed.” Lenore spoke soothingly. “Perhaps we should continue talking.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth kept her eyes shut, but forced herself to make conversation. “Are you going to see family in Friuli?”
“No.” Lenore’s voice was sad. “I have no family. I am an orphan.”
Sympathetic pain shot through Elizabeth's heart. “I am also an orphan. I lost my parents this month past.” She could not cry about it any more, but there was still such an ache.
A day did not go by that she did not have a sudden realization that they were gone. The shock of the loss seemed to be ever recurring, and left her feeling as breathless and without anchor as when the carriage had threatened to plunge over the alpine cliff.
Elizabeth’s emotions must have registered on her face, for Lenore patted her hand where it rested on Silver. “You have Silverloo.” She smiled.
The sweet, kind simplicity of the gesture charmed Elizabeth and she was comforted.
“I go to my ward...” The girl faltered. “No. My guardian. It was planned long ago in my parents' will. I should stay in a convent school until I reached my sixteenth year, and then I should go to live with my guardian. That is why I have been taught English, for he is an Englishman.”
“And I am to go and live with my aunt and uncle, whom I have never met, though they were apparently present at my christening.” Elizabeth had recovered from the grave fear that she had felt when she first embarked upon the journey, but as she drew closer to its completion, she could feel a dread of the arrangement’s finality settling into her bones.
“They own a vineyard somewhere outside of a town called Melonia,” Elizabeth added. “I know not when I shall see England again.”
Lenore nodded. “My guardian is also somewhere near there, in the countryside. I do not know him at all. I am a little frightened to meet him.”
So Lenore, too, had been oddly consigned to the care of a distant stranger. But, unlike Elizabeth, she had no other family. It still puzzled Elizabeth that her own father should have made this estranged aunt and uncle the trustees of her person and her modest inheritance.
Why had he not made her over to her godparents, or to one of her other relatives who lived in the neighbourhood, instead of these two people, strangers to her, who lived in such a faraway place as a tiny outpost of Venetia?
She supposed her father's illness must have already been affecting his judgement when he drafted his will.
Elizabeth sensed her own troubled mood might be alarming Lenore, so she smiled. “We shall not be afraid. We shall look out for each other.”
It was a fast friendship, but seemed natural, fo
r their similar situations gave them a common bond. Elizabeth relaxed more as they talked.
Then Lenore finally said, “You can look now.”
Elizabeth hesitated, but opened her eyes. She drew in a breath at the beauty of the mountain peaks floating about in pools of blue sky, clad in the holy raiment of white gossamer mists here, or in the ominous black robes of thunder clouds, there.
“It is so beautiful and so terrifying.” Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. “I have never seen anything like it.” Such convulsive geography could never exist anywhere in quiet, civilized England.
“I adore the mountains. Since I was a child, I have always roamed in the forests, collecting flowers for bouquets, or to press as specimens in my scrapbook.”
“I love walks in nature, too, but I prefer hunting for mushrooms or fishing.” It was not something Elizabeth would disclose in polite society back home, for it made her look a bit more sport-loving than society generally approved of among young ladies.
Lenore pulled a little lace cap she was working on from her reticule. “The sisters taught me all kinds of needle work. I like that too.”
Elizabeth marvelled at the intricate craftsmanship. “I could never do anything so fine. It is beautiful.”
“Our needles are guided by God,” said the girl with a sweet plainness that Elizabeth had never encountered.
Where Elizabeth came from, pious proclamations were always for the sake of display, as was needlework. Making lace was not a suitable passtime for English young ladies, but Elizabeth's mother had tried to cultivate her daughter's ability with fancy embroidery.
And now that excellent woman was gone. Elizabeth thought, with a twist of her heart, that she should have applied herself more earnestly to her needlework, if only to please her mother. She fought to push down the surge of anguish and remembered loss that such thoughts brought back.
Seeing the troubled look on Elizabeth's face, Lenore led the conversation in another direction. They spoke of their favourite places in the meadows and forests they had known as children. And soon they shared the playful dreams of those happier days.
