Peg jerked back from Marie Louise’s attack. By the time I came up beside her, she was shaking violently.
“Peg?”
She would not look at me, her lower lip trembling. Instead, she turned and left the room so fast her hair whipped across her face.
Marie Louise returned my glare with a smirk, her gaze running over my every day, working attire, which was a simple black, worsted dress with a red underskirt. The countess was immense, dressed in a sweeping, blue satin dress in the most current, high-waist style. The family pearls circled her neck. Her low-cut, rounded bodice was edged by a thick curve of French lace. Ringlets accented her face, her hair pulled back into a fashionable chignon at the back of her head.
“Did you get lost, Captain Comrie?” she asked in a snide undertone.
Beside me, Duncan stiffened. “Not at all, Countess.”
“Humph.” She waved an imperious arm, dismissing him.
“What is this about?” I asked, civilly enough.
“My dear Lady Elena. Unprepared, as usual.” She plucked at my dress. “Prince Rupert is due momentarily. Since you are leaving anyway, I have assigned him your rooms.”
Her abrasive words infuriated me, which probably showed in my face.
“My quarters? I’ve lived in those rooms my entire life,” I said, shocked by this affront.
“Lancashire has barely been relieved from Roundhead control. Surely you would not deny housing to the prince who accomplished it?” she asked, sarcasm dripping off each word.
I ignored her rudeness and tried another, more reasonable approach.
“Why not give the prince the guest quarters in the private tower? They’re roomier and much nicer.”
“Where the prince sleeps is none of your business, other than to vacate your rooms.” Marie Louise pursed her mouth and threw back her head, stretching her multiple chins. “You will certainly not be presented to him dressed as you are. Mrs. Lowry will help you pack. We leave tomorrow for the comfort and safety of Nether Castle on the isle.”
The Isle of Man, she meant, in the Irish Sea, another of the many properties my uncle held in the name of the King.
“Finally, we can get away.” She glared down her nose at me in blatant resentment. “I’m worn out with the sheer size of this place. It harbors ghosts.”
At this mention, I merely smiled, having had my own experiences with one ghost in particular.
“And it stinks of age.” She stepped closer to me and gave me a sly look. “I know you have been plotting against me with the servants.”
“I have done no such thing.”
“You have.” Her mouth drew down into the folds of her face in utmost contempt. “You constantly give them orders counter to my own. I’ve heard you. You think I don’t know your foul, little tricks?”
The woman must have lost her mind. The only orders I gave my servants were the same orders I’d always given them, to keep up the everyday cleaning, security, and the careful distribution of food and supplies required by the sprawling house. If my orders interfered with Marie Louise’s instructions, then it was for her good as well as everyone else’s.
Now, if the countess were going to complain about my presence in sorties out of the castle with the guard or about my involvement in the care and exercise of the horses, she might have some reason to complain. If she had learned of my connection to Amilie, the resident ghost and my childhood refuge, or exposed the abomination in my dreams, she would have had more than sufficient reason for outrage. But these were not her charges. No, she accused me of intrigue, of all things.
So much for a reasonable approach. I licked my lips in frustration and looked to Duncan, who remained at my side, hands behind his back. With a lift of my chin, I tightened my mouth and gave the obese countess a self-confident stare.
“I am not leaving, and Peg is staying with me. I know you hate it here. You’ve told me often enough, but Tor House is my home.” The very stone and mortar around us was my strength. I would not leave it, should not have to leave it. “Besides,” I added, playing the one card I believed Marie Louise could not afford to ignore, “we should consult Uncle Charles about such matters.”
“You imbecilic child,” she screeched, resentment blazing in her little eyes. “I said we are leaving, and you are coming with us. This rebellion of yours will not continue.”
And so much for what I thought drove my aunt. I straightened my shoulders and puffed out my chest.
“I am capable of mounting a defense here at Tor House, as you well know. Tor House was my father’s holding, passed to him by his father, the old earl. No one has the right to make me leave.”
“Oh, you know better, but you don’t know everything, Elena.” She raised overgrown eyebrows. “Prince Rupert must be greeted and entertained. His troops require sustenance and quarters. I have offered Tor House for him to use at his discretion.”
“You have no right to do that.” This extravagant decision was typical of the countess’ unthinking charge through life. I could not help but doubt her judgment, for my name and my life hung in the balance. The bitter truth was that duty to my home and my heritage had required me to question and ultimately re-direct most of her blaring misdirection throughout the siege. During that long crisis, she had hung on my every word, though prior to that time she had resented my intrusion, always, but generally accepted and acted on my suggestions. What had changed?
“Humph. I have dismissed your maidservant. To insure that we see no more rebellion out of you . . .” She tapped her lips with a pudgy finger, watching me with calculating eyes, seeming to consider what wonderful, reprehensible thing she could do to me. “You will be confined to the old tower at the back of the house until we leave.”
“Confined?” I asked in disbelief.
“Be thankful I don’t send you to the dungeons.”
The blood drained out of my face at this heinous threat, but Marie Louise’s comment about dismissing my attendant ran through my mind, as did my memory of Peg’s agonized expression moments earlier.
“My father brought Peg Carey to Tor House. She is no servant and not yours to command. If I must be confined, I want her with me.”
“I don’t have time to dicker with you, girl. My lord the earl and Prince Rupert are due at any moment.” She pushed down her satin skirts, smoothing them away from the new jeweled stomacher that stood out even with her bosom due to her sizeable abdomen. Her mouth tightened in its folds. “You have done nothing but interfere, causing me endless suffering.”
“Aunt, have you forgotten? Throughout the siege you begged for my help. You were extremely appreciative.” In fact, I had been forced to push her into every vital decision she made. I didn’t understand her new attitude.
“Don’t contradict me,” she screeched, hardly the petulant thankfulness I had become accustomed to. “Prince Rupert is my cousin. He has come to my aid. I am the heroine here.”
Duncan’s foot scraped across the stone floor. I glanced up at him. A barely perceptible frown clouded his face.
Marie Louise turned and looked down the long room. “Wallace, escort Lady Elena to the old tower.”
“Yes, my lady,” came Captain Wallace’s fine baritone from the dark beside the hearth.
I had not realized he was there. Captain Wallace was the captain of the house guard and a dear friend. I had never seen his face so gray. He stood at rigid attention, his eyes locked on Marie Louise’s hostile features. I understood then why Marie Louise had sent Duncan after me.
“Captain Comrie, you will accompany them to be sure she is properly confined. Allow no conversation,” she dictated, ramming home the insult to a man she had no reason to doubt.
Duncan took Captain Wallace’s measure in a sweeping look, then caught my gaze, though he did not move.
“Yes, Countess,” he said with a little bow.
But Marie Louise had seen his soft, questioning look at me. A flush crawled up my face, the man’s mere gaze raising the tempo of my
heart. My lack of control around him was embarrassing and a serious disadvantage.
Anger flared in Marie Louise’s face. She opened her mouth to speak but was distracted by a great hubbub that arose from beyond the gallery screens. She moved to the screened wall and we followed.
I slipped in beside the countess, the close proximity of her noxious musk tickling my nose, and did the only thing left for me to do.
“I claim the right to appeal to Uncle Charles when he arrives,” I yelled at her over the din.
She put a baleful eye on me, her mouth turned down in repulsion. A cold hand curled hard around my wrist.
“If you keep baiting me,” she said in a harsh undertone, “I shall send you on to the isle alone and let Gorgon deal with you.”
Her words stunned me. I stole a quick glance over my shoulder at Duncan. He must not know about Gorgon. Not yet. Maybe never. I kept my mouth firmly shut.
The countess opened her mouth to speak. My heart sank.
Cheers flooded up from below, creating echoes that bounced off the high walls, magnified the furor, and prevented the words I feared. Through the screens, the pungent smell of rain blew over me. Marie Louise released my wrist. I moved closer and looked down. The excitement below was palpable. The massive doors opened, and in the early morning light an exceptionally tall cavalier, who wore black under black armor plates, strode into the great hall in a flurry of rain-driven dust. It had to be Prince Rupert, for members of his lifeguard were around him, red satin sashes in abundance; where Duncan belonged, I realized. A huge, white dog walked at the prince’s side, tongue lolling.
Suddenly, among the simple grays and browns lining the prince’s path, my eye picked out auburn hair against a vibrant green dress. My God, is that Peg? I looked frantically around, remembering Peg’s quick exit earlier. What is she doing? Beside me, Marie Louise had seen her too, for her face reddened, her eyes protruded, and she began to bluster.
Down in the great hall the line of servants, Peg among them with her shining eyes, stepped up to watch the prince pass. But the lean prince stopped. Their dark eyes met. The intensity of their interest in one another drew them closer. Entranced, the severe prince removed his red-plumed hat and bent forward. He took her hands. They spoke to the exclusion of everyone around them. Peg ducked her head in embarrassment. The dog nuzzled their joined hands, then sat back on his haunches, panting. The noise around them lessened. A sudden press of cavaliers and house servants craned to see what was happening. Moments passed, and they finally stepped apart. The prince moved loftily away, his loyal dog beside him.
“Prince Rupert is my cousin,” Marie Louise finally managed to scream. “And she dares precede me. Wallace, come with me. We have to get that stupid girl away from the prince.”
With a swirl of skirts, she flounced to the gallery doors, wrenched them open with exaggerated fervor, and proceeded out onto the big landing above the great hall. Lanky Wallace caught up with her, and they descended the great stair in a rush. Halfway down, she thrust Wallace onward. She turned back, pointing up at Captain Comrie, who had stationed himself at my back at the top of the stairs.
“Get her to the tower and keep her there.”
She trundled on down and around the great stairway. With deep curtsies and fawning adoration, she approached the victorious prince. Her face beamed red, and she puffed up with pride as her loud protestations of gushing gratitude floated upward.
Suitably pleased with his reception, the prince moved past her, leaving her wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Peg had disappeared. Nor could I find Wallace in the crowd.
Behind all this commotion, as the dog frolicked and the prince continued into the great hall, my uncle, the Earl of Devlin, came fuming through the doorway, muddied from his ride and clearly irritated, if not insulted. The void in my stomach shrank to a painful pinpoint, for embodied in that distant, angry man was my best hope for fairness and restitution. Countess Marie Louise sank into a deep curtsey before her approaching lord and husband. But he remained in one of his high fits, apparently humiliated by a prince who happened to be the King’s nephew and thus commanded precedence. After a lengthy moment of ignoring his blathering, agonized wife, Lord Devlin brought her to her feet with a vicious jerk.
Behind me, Duncan cleared his throat. His gauntlet hand encircled my upper arm, and he led me back into the bowels of the great house. I went without complaint. Though Duncan was Marie Louise’s creature, his company was far preferable to my aunt’s or even my uncle’s in his current state. Yet the earl’s presence infused me with purpose and further increased my mounting apprehension. At whatever cost, I must remain at Tor House.
At the top of the south stair, we met Captain Wallace who had Peg in hand, and together the four of us went on. Two officers and two captives in their own home. Had Marie Louise forgotten Peg’s disposition? It didn’t matter. Peg was with me. They would not take her again.
Chapter Two
We came to a stout wooden door set deep in the wall. Duncan released my arm, lifted the bolt, and opened the heavy door. Peg and Captain Wallace caught up with us, Duncan stood aside, and we entered under his stern eye. The smell of old leather and mold assaulted me.
“The level below this opens on the staging area between the postern gate and the stables,” Captain Wallace instructed Peg and me with an extended forefinger. He stood in the thin shaft of light that fell from the single slit window.
“Enough.” Duncan pushed Wallace away. “No further conversation between you and the ladies,” he demanded, hand on his holstered pistol.
“I respect the intent of the countess’ order—” In grave concern, Captain Wallace slowly shook his head. “—but you do not know this little tower, nor do the ladies. Dangers lurk here. You have my word, Captain Comrie, we speak no conspiracy.”
Duncan inspected the chilly dark hanging around us, his face closed up in uneasy displeasure. He lowered his hand. “Go on then, but quickly.”
Wallace turned to me with a forced smile. “This level of the tower has long been used for storage by the stables.”
“It smells like it,” Peg piped up behind me.
“The entry on the back hall here—” He gestured at the light beyond the open doorway. “—is heavily traveled. You will be safest on the level above this, though gunners will pass through to the roof should we come under attack again.”
I placed a warm hand on my exposed neck and looked around at shadowed piles of saddle blankets and old tack thrown indiscriminately around the tiny room. I took a hesitant backward step, and my heel slipped.
Duncan caught and righted me. We looked down at a dim, half-empty feed bag, its contents spilled in moldy clumps across the floor.
In a sudden panic, I pulled at Captain Wallace’s sleeve, as I had done since I was a child and could reach it.
“Don’t leave us here.”
“On the upper level there is a bed frame and a drafty hearth,” he responded, patting my hand.
“Captain,” Duncan said to Wallace. “You will locate Sergeant Burke of his Highness’ Lifeguard. He should be with the prince. Tell him I need him and four men immediately. Direct them here.”
“Yes, Captain,” came Wallace’s crisp response.
Captain Wallace departed, and Duncan moved into position within the open doorway. Moments later, a familiar set of clicking footsteps stopped at the door before him. A hubbub ensued.
“Who do you think you are?” came Mrs. Lowry’s raised voice from beyond Duncan, whose mere size in the doorway blocked her entry. “Don’t you think it bad enough with our mistress in this awful tower without you tryin’ to deny her the barest necessities?”
A moment later, our red-cheeked Mrs. Lowry sauntered around Duncan carrying a huge pile of linens, a sack of faggots hanging off her arm. With careful footsteps and my hand on the rough wall to guide me, I led her up the steps to the upper room Wallace had designated. Peg followed. We topped the stair, and Peg slid the faggot sack off Mrs. Lowry’s arm.
“Thank ye, dear.”
Mrs. Lowry wound her way carefully across the floor and dropped the linens on the slats of the bed frame, which stood in the slim shaft of light from the window. Hands on ample hips, she looked critically around the tower room. “And you accustomed to your own four-poster bed. This is disgraceful. Aren’t those your father’s hangings?”
“Holy Mother, they are!” I cried. Rolled up in a huge ball at the far end of the bed were indeed my father’s beautiful tapestries, hangings I had last seen in his rooms in the private tower, years ago.
“Tis a true shame to see them here, but they will brighten the room up a bit, no?”
I stood in shock while Peg helped Mrs. Lowry hang the tapestries up around the small circular room that had surely been used as a place of repose for weary gunners relieved off the roof above, the tapestries their cover against the cold. But the walls didn’t even take a quarter of the lustrous hangings and so they hung a second layer in an offset pattern, leaving the tight little window open for what air and light we could get.
Mrs. Lowry frowned and shook her head disparagingly. “I will have two mattresses brought up. Your personal belongings I will see to directly. If ye need anything else, Lady Elena, send for me. I won’t fail ye, and that young man downstairs won’t keep me out, as ye have seen.” And she was off, strands of her perfectly-placed, straw-colored hair loose and flying.
Peg made herself a perch atop the remaining tapestries spread across the bed slats. Her high cheekbones, those bones I so admired, were bright with color. She pulled out the tortoise-shell hairbrush she carried with her constantly, drew her long hair around, and began to brush at the ends. I carefully joined her atop the bed. She stopped her stroking, grasped my hand, and gave it a little pat. A sure sign of her continued support, no matter my disgrace.
My father had discovered Peg, the long-lost daughter of a runaway cousin, on one of his many trips to Ireland and brought her back to Tor House as a companion for me. His words came back to me, “You are the same age and both Rolands, after all.” I heard this again and again when anyone questioned this odd addition to his daughter’s establishment. For Peg had been brought up in an Irish backwater where they still spoke the English of the prior century, and no amount of coaching had been able to remove it entirely from her speech.
Exile’s Bane Page 2
