Cursed Once More: The Sequel to With This Curse

by Amanda DeWees

  Cursed Once More

  Copyright © 2015 Amanda DeWees

  Synopsis: In this sequel to With This Curse, a message from Clara’s dying grandmother summons her and Atticus to the decaying family seat in Yorkshire, where they encounter secrets from the past and unexpected danger.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cornwall, September 1873

  In eight months of marriage, I had not yet grown accustomed to the pleasure of being awakened each morning by my husband. Sometimes he woke me tenderly, sometimes passionately, and sometimes in a manner that made me dissolve into laughter even before my eyes were properly open. On this day he woke me with a kiss—or perhaps I should say an abundance of kisses.

  “It is morning, my love.” His voice in my ear was low and intimate, and his rough cheek grazed my face.

  “So it is,” I said, opening my eyes. “My favorite time of the day.”

  He smiled at me, his arresting pale blue eyes dwelling on mine. Icy blue, they are—the only cold thing about Atticus. His chestnut hair was rumpled above his broad, high brow, and the beginning of ginger beard darkened his jaw, emphasizing the wide, expressive mouth. He was a remarkably handsome man, my husband, with his strong noble profile and lean body, and often I was amazed anew at my great good fortune in being married to such a man—for his character was every bit as fine as his exterior.

  “My favorite time of the day is the end of it,” he said, his husky voice warm with suppressed laughter. “When we retire. Ought I to be troubled that it isn’t your favorite as well?”

  “I am quite partial to that time too,” I admitted. “As I believe you can attest.”

  “Yes, I have observed a degree of enthusiasm on your part.” His expression was so knowing that I felt my cheeks warm and had to drop my eyes. Even after being wedded more than half a year, my husband could still make me blush—and took great pleasure in doing so. Some day, I was resolved, I would return the favor.

  “Morning is when I know that it hasn’t all been a dream,” I explained, returning to the point.

  “That what hasn’t?” He wound a lock of my curly hair around his forefinger in a favorite habit of his.

  Happiness was still so new to me that it was not easy to put into words. “This,” I said, gesturing at the opulence of my bedroom, with the lacquered Japanese furnishings and the rich, heavy draperies that wrapped us in quiet and kept out the worst of the cold. “You,” I said, gazing once more at my husband, Atticus Blackwood, Baron Telford, the finest man I had ever known. “Us,” I concluded.

  My eloquence was rewarded with a lingering kiss. “Believe me, my love,” he said at length, “waking to you every morning is sweeter than any dream.” Then he must have seen something change in my eyes, for he said more soberly, “But I know your dreams are not always so sweet. Perhaps you favor morning because that’s when you know that any unpleasant visions that visited you in your sleep were no more than phantoms.” When I did not answer, he asked softly, “Did you have the nightmare again?”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” I said, but he could tell I was lying, for he took me in his arms and held me tightly. I rested my head against his chest, feeling the reassuring thud of his heart.

  “I wish I could chase it away for you,” he whispered against my hair.

  “You do. When I wake and I’m with you, I know all is well.” It was just that my sleeping self did not seem to be as certain on this point.

  Ever since the dreadful night seven months ago when Atticus’s life was threatened by his murderous twin brother, Richard—thought to have died years before in the Crimean War—I had dreamed that I was once again traversing the underground passage that linked Gravesend Hall to the cove where they had confronted one another. That night, in search of Atticus, I had traveled that path without light and without knowledge of what lay before me, with no certainty that I would even be able to find my way out of the labyrinth. At the end of that passage I had found Richard attempting to force Atticus to give up his life as Baron Telford… or simply his life. The struggle left Richard dead by his own pistol. But events could so easily have gone the other way that I still shuddered at the thought of how close I had come to losing my husband.

  In my nightmares all the terror of that night came back to me, magnified in the way of dreams, so that in my sleep I was once more taking that strange sightless journey, fearing for my husband’s life and even his sanity as I groped through what felt like endless miles of narrow stone corridors. When I relived that night in my sleep, it felt as if all the weight of Gravesend itself were pressing down upon me, threatening to smother me in the darkness, to bury me alive. I would awake taking great gulps of the blessed air, feeling the comforting warm strength of my husband’s body next to mine, and I would hold tightly to him as my breathing gradually slowed and fell into rhythm with his. Sometimes my panic woke him, and he would talk soothingly to me until I slept again—or find a way to make the wakefulness sweeter than sleep.

  The dream did not come often, though, and for that I was thankful. It seemed now to be the only imperfection in our life together. Atticus and I were absorbed in pursuing his plan to establish charitable institutions for fallen women and their children. The second of the Blackwood Homes was already under construction, and just days earlier we had hit upon a scheme that delighted us: we would turn Gravesend Hall itself into a school. The manor was far too big a house for us, but it would be ideal to house children and offer them rooms for study and play. We had decided to relocate to the lodge, which by normal standards was still capacious and luxurious.

  Considering the simplicity we would gain, I would not be sorry to reduce the number of servants in our household. Those staying on at the new school would find their work less exacting than maintaining an aristocratic showplace. I considered that all of us would benefit from the change. The knowledge that before the winter was out Atticus and I would be settled in our cozier new home filled me with anticipation.

  In the meantime, however, the grand routine of our Gravesend days continued, and with the coming of autumn came a return to the lighting of the fires in our rooms every morning before we rose. Like many luxuries, it came with a disadvantage—in this case, a loss of privacy. I seized upon the change of subject.

  “Letty will be in soon to light the fire,” I reminded Atticus. “If you don’t wish to be seen, you had better go.”

  “I doubt she’ll be shocked by my presence,” he murmured, drawing me closer. “Considering that the only mornings I’m not in your bed are the ones when you are in mine…”

  I had to concede the truth of this. “But she’s so young,” I said. “Seeing her master in a state of undress is certain to embarrass her.”

  “Then we ought to move to my bed.”

  “But that means that one of the manservants may catch a glimpse of me before I am dressed, and I should not like that, and I should think you would not like that.”

  “True enough.” He placed a kiss on the end of my nose. “How is it that I never realized how complicated the running of my own household was until I married you?”

  “I sometimes wonder the same thing. To think that you never noticed that the servants were turning their faces to the wall in your presence before I put a stop to it!”

  Despite my teasing tone, he looked abashed. “I did notice from time to time, and I thought it odd… but I supposed it was their preference.” My face must have conveyed my skepticism, for he hastened to defend himself. “How was I to know otherwise? I never had anything to do with the managing of the staff. I supposed that there must be some kind of tradition… perhaps having to do with not being distracted fr
om their work by the sight of dashing auburn-haired gentlemen…”

  He began to laugh before he could finish the thought, and I shook my head at him tolerantly. “You certainly can be a disruptive influence,” I said. “Which brings me back to the subject of Letty.”

  “Very well, then, if you’re afraid my presence here will distress the tender innocent…”

  “Thank you, Atticus.”

  “…I’ll hide under the bedclothes.”

  I swatted him lightly on the shoulder. “That is not what I meant.”

  “If I am to be chased from my wife’s bed merely to protect the modesty of the servants, there is something very wrong with our household’s priorities.” His voice was half grumble, half caress. “Perhaps we should do away altogether with having a servant light the fire before we rise.”

  “That means the room will be frigid,” I pointed out.

  “We are quite warm where we are, are we not?” A roguish quirk of his eyebrows. “If you are cold, perhaps I need to hold you closer.”

  There was much to be said for this line of reasoning, but I strove to keep my mind on practicalities. “A charming thought, husband—but we shall wish to leave the bed at some point.”

  “Shall we?” He brushed his lips along the line of my jaw, and my eyes closed involuntarily at the sweetness of his touch. “Truly?”

  “Well… we shall need to, whether we truly wish to or not.” Even to my own ears my voice lacked conviction.

  Sensing that I was weakening, he pursued his argument in ways that quite distracted me from thoughts of anything that lay beyond our bed. The discussion was so absorbing, and Atticus so persuasive, that I quite lost sight of my original point. Before I knew it the sound of light footsteps was approaching, and Atticus had barely concealed himself under the bedclothes when the door opened to admit Letty.

  “Good morning, your ladyship,” she said, her eyes widening as she spied the great lump in the bedclothes that was my husband. I could feel my cheeks burning again with blushes, especially when Atticus, unseen though he was, found ways to make his presence felt. I smothered an exclamation when I felt the touch of his lips in an unexpected place.

  “Good morning, Letty,” I said with determined nonchalance. “Is everything well with you this morning?”

  “Quite well, madam. Did you—er—sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you. You may draw the curtains.”

  In the bright light that poured into the room I could see her more clearly as she went briskly about her routine, resolutely averting her eyes from the bed.

  I sometimes wondered what the servants said of my marriage. Having once been a chambermaid at Gravesend, I had a good idea of how interested those below stairs would be in the lives of those they served. And my marriage to Atticus Blackwood, now Baron Telford, had come about under such strange circumstances that they would have been cause for comment in most any quarter, whether below stairs or above.

  In my girlhood my widowed mother had been Gravesend’s housekeeper. I had been sent away in shame after it was discovered that I had been meeting in secret with Richard, at that time a paragon in my eyes, and my first love. During the long years after first his apparent death and then my mother’s actual passing, I had earned my living as a seamstress, eventually attaining a post with actress Sybil Ingram. After years of this life, Atticus had succeeded in tracing me despite my assumed name and offered me a marriage of convenience, promising me my freedom upon the death of his invalid father.

  Grudgingly and only because my employment with Sybil Ingram was at an end had I accepted this arrangement, never imagining that it would become a union of love. Over the years I had spent alone, as I had grieved for Richard and resented the circumstances that had forced us apart, my heart had hardened into a small shriveled thing no bigger than a walnut. It had been a strange, slow, even painful process for this withered organ to swell, to expand, to beat again with love. Atticus had won me over with his kindness, his tenderness, and his devotion—for, just as I had held Richard in my heart ever since leaving Gravesend, so Atticus had held me in his. He had loved me… and I grew to love him so much that I hardly recognized myself as the wary, resentful woman I had once been.

  A fire was now going on the hearth, and Letty stood awaiting further orders. “Shall I tell Henriette that you are ready to dress, your ladyship?” she asked.

  An urgent tumult of the bedclothes suggested that Atticus was shaking his head emphatically.

  “No, thank you, Letty,” I said. “I’ll ring when I need her.”

  “Very good, madam.” She bobbed a curtsey and departed, to our mutual relief.

  As soon as the door had shut behind her, my husband’s head popped out from beneath the counterpane, as if he were some exotic (and extraordinarily handsome) tortoise.

  “I still say we can do without Letty in the mornings,” he pronounced. “Once we move into the lodge, let us rearrange the servants’ duties. I can light our fire of a morning.”

  An impish riposte suggested itself to me at this moment, but I quelled it. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “I shall consider it my duty as a husband to provide warmth for my bride,” he said. “With utmost courage I shall brave the chill air, undaunted, springing forth to face the task—”

  He flung back the bedclothes, preparing to suit action to words, but I caught his arm to detain him.

  “That would be delightful,” I said, “but there’s no need just yet. What were you saying before we were interrupted? Something about our not wanting to leave our comfortable bed?”

  Instantly he turned back to me and took me in his arms. “Why, yes,” he said softly. “I do believe I had more to say on that subject.”

  The intensity of his brilliant blue gaze made me momentarily shy, and I dropped my eyes. The livid scars on his bad leg, conspicuous in the morning light, caught my attention. I had wept the first time I had seen those scars and the misshapen ankle of his club foot. Not because it diminished him in any way—the opposite, indeed, for he had overcome this disadvantage through strength of character, and without letting himself become bitter or hard. No, I had wept because the sight brought rushing to my mind all the pain he had endured for so many years: both the physical agony of the brace and surgeries to correct the condition, and the torment of spirit that he endured from his brother and parents, who felt that his condition made him inferior to Richard.

  With time, though, I had gained the ability to look upon his club foot with something closer to equanimity. Atticus, seeing my distress, had gently pointed out that he might not be the same man had he not endured these things—the man whom I had come to love so dearly. And the thought of his not being this person was too horrible to be borne.

  Now, to banish the idea, I turned my face up to his and kissed him. This was not a moment for sadness. This moment was about me and my husband and our future together—a future that, I suspected, would soon contain the most wonderful promise that a wife could present to her husband.

  But that, too, was a thought for later. For now, the two of us were our own complete universe.

  When we finally did dress and descend for breakfast, the morning was well advanced. Mrs. Threll, the housekeeper, was accustomed by now to our tendency to rise late, and she made certain that we did not have to wait long for our meal. As Atticus settled in with his correspondence—of which, thanks to the Blackwood Homes and forthcoming school, there was now a great deal—I poured our tea and hugged to myself the knowledge that I might soon be sharing with him.

  I was not yet certain of it, however, so before I spoke to Atticus I planned to seek the counsel of my niece. This might seem like a turnabout, as Genevieve—known in the family as Vivi—was only half my age and had been married for an even shorter time. But Vivi had the advantage of me in one important respect: she was already expecting her first child. That afternoon she and her husband, George, would join Atticus and me for tea, and I knew that I would be able to draw her apart fr
om the men at some point for a private conversation.

  So absorbed was I in this happy train of thought that I did not at once notice the letter lying next to my place at the table. The handwriting was unknown to me, and I did not often receive letters except from the ladies of our social set. Such letters were not frequent, as Atticus and I had become less popular after the scandal of his father’s murder and Richard’s death had become known. Neither of us found this a cause for mourning, since our true friends had stood by us, but it made the appearance of this letter all the more curious.

  The seal was the single initial B. I slid a knife under the envelope flap and removed the letter, which was written in a masculine scrawl on paper rather thinner than what I was accustomed to from those in my husband’s circle.

  My dear niece, it began.

  Shocked, I glanced to the end to seek the signature. Horace Burleigh, Esq., Thurnley Hall.

  I must have made some sound, for Atticus looked up from his work. “Is something wrong, my love?”

  “I—no. No, not at all. Don’t let me disturb your reading.”

  When he returned to his documents, I took up the letter again. My mother’s name before her marriage had been Burleigh, that much I knew. But never had I dreamed I would hear from any of that branch of the family again. Had she not been turned out of her home, disowned by her family, because of her marriage to my father? Indeed, she had grown bitter with resentment against her kinfolk for refusing to help us when my father’s death had left us alone and unprovided for. Had they taken us in, my mother would not have worked herself to a thread for all those years and might not then have succumbed to the illness that had killed her.

  My thoughts were a tumult of anger and grief as I began to read the letter.

  My dear niece,

  How overjoyed I was to learn of your existence! During a recent visit to London I caught sight of you and your illustrious husband, and I noticed at once your remarkable resemblance to my late, beloved sister, Miriam. When I made inquiries, I learned of your identity. Imagine my delight to discover that my sister had been blessed with a daughter. And not just any daughter, but a baroness! You have made me very proud by doing so well for yourself. I understand that the properties linked to the Telford estate are extensive and endow the title with a rich income, and you must be enjoying your new wealth and status among your new peers after the years of obscurity and privation. It is to your credit that you were able to weigh the advantages of a match with the present baron against his deformity.