A Summer Seduction (Legend of St. Dwynwen)
Page 22
“Oh, my.” Damaris’s stomach felt suddenly cold as she gazed at the display. “How very… regal.”
Alec chuckled. “It used to be even more so. Grandmother still had the footmen in livery before I countermanded that. Parsons—he’s the fellow in front—finds me a poor sort of employer, I fear; he preferred my grandmother’s sense of what is due the lord of Rawdon.”
Alec stepped out, turning back to hand Damaris down from the carriage. She could feel the weight of a host of curious eyes turned on her. She was, she thought, beginning to understand much better the hint of arrogance that clung to Alec like a perfume.
“My lord.” The butler stepped forward, bowing. “Allow me to welcome you home, sir. I fear you will find us sadly disorganized. Had we but known you were coming…”
“Yes, Parsons, I apologize for not letting you know,” Alec told him, acknowledging the faint note of reprimand in the butler’s statement. “In truth, I did not know myself until a few days ago, and it hardly seemed worth the bother, since I would have arrived with the notice, if not before.”
“Your room, of course, sir, is always ready for you.” Parsons glanced discreetly toward Damaris before adding, “Which other room should we prepare?”
“The blue chamber should do for Mrs. Howard,” Alec told him.
They started down the line, the butler giving the plump woman at the head of the line the honor of introducing her by name, Mrs. Cuthbert, which Damaris took to mean she was the housekeeper, second in importance in the household only to Parsons himself. After that followed an array of servants who, Damaris was amazed to notice, were each greeted by name by Alec, often with a comment or question thrown in. They had reached the last maid and were approaching the broad stone steps when a charcoal gray and white animal came running around the corner of the house toward them.
Damaris pulled up, barely stifling a shriek as he charged, long hair flying, ears flapping, lips pulled back to expose long, curved teeth obviously meant for tearing apart his prey. But Alec laughed and spread his arms, bracing himself as the huge dog reared up to set his front paws on Alec’s shoulders. His head reached Alec’s chin; he would have been taller than a man of more ordinary height. His tail wagged furiously and he whined with delight as he wriggled and tried to lick Alec’s face.
“Shadow! Down!” Alec laughed, shoving the dog back down to all fours. “Mrs. Howard will think you are tragically ill-behaved. Damaris, I would like to you to meet Shadow.”
“Your wolf?” Damaris asked drily.
“My wolfhound,” Alec corrected, scratching a spot behind the dog’s ears that seemed to send him into ecstasy. “He is descended from a line of wolfhounds given to my great-grandfather by Lord Kerry. Aptly named, since he is, sad to say, a mere shadow of those warlike animals.”
Shadow, in his delight at being reunited with Alec, began to jump and whirl and fling himself at Alec’s feet, where he promptly rolled over and waited expectantly for his stomach to be rubbed. Alec complied, but after a few minutes, he gave the dog a final pat, and they set forth again for the front door. Shadow fell in happily beside them, darting forward now and then to whip around and look at Alec, tail wagging, as if waiting to see what wonderful thing Alec would do next.
They stepped into a cavernous entryway. A long gallery ran off to one side, hung with gloomy-looking portraits, and two other corridors stretched away in other directions. A collection of swords hung in a circular design on one stone wall beside a suit of armor. On the wall opposite the front door hung a huge, ancient-looking tapestry filled with medieval figures doing something, though Damaris could not immediately discern what that activity was.
“Alec! Dear boy!” A short, plump woman hurried down the wide central staircase of the house, beaming and holding out her hands to Alec. “What a wonderful surprise!”
“Aunt Willa.” Alec grinned and swept her a bow before he kissed her on the cheek.
“I could scarcely believe my ears when the maid told me you had arrived. You only just left, didn’t you?” She gazed up at him through round spectacles, her gray eyes puzzled. “One does so lose track of time.”
“Yes, I know, but you needn’t worry,” Alec assured her. “You are right. I have been gone only a few weeks. I had to return, you see; I fear I missed you terribly.”
His aunt giggled and gave his arm a playful push. “Such nonsense as you do say!” She glanced curiously toward Damaris.
“Aunt, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Howard. Damaris, this is my aunt, Mrs. Hawthorne.”
Aunt Willa took Damaris’s hand in hers, smiling sweetly up into her face. “Oh, my, what a lovely girl you are. I should very much like to paint you.”
“Oh.” Damaris blinked. “Of course.”
“Aunt Willa is an accomplished artist,” Alec told Damaris, with a proud smile for his aunt.
“Silly child, I am nothing but a putterer, I’m afraid. But I do love it. Not watercolor, I think; that’s much too pale for you. No, that coloring is meant for oils.”
“Careful,” Alec warned. “She will have you posing for hours if you let her.”
They continued bantering as they strolled to the drawing room, where the butler himself soon carried in a tray of reviving tea for the travelers, along with an assortment of scones, cream cakes, and other delicacies. The interval apparently allowed the servants time to whip Damaris’s room into proper readiness, and after teatime, Alec’s aunt led Damaris up the stairs and along the hallway to her room.
“Here you are, dear,” the woman said, smiling at Damaris in her sweet, vague way, and patted her on the arm. “Mrs. Cuthbert will send one of the maids to help you. I am sure you should like a bit of time alone to freshen up.”
Willa left, closing the heavy door behind her, and Damaris turned to face the room. There was a marble-manteled fire-place on one end, with a comfortable-looking chair set cozily before it. Two long windows overlooked the side gardens, and centered on the wall between them was a large bed with a tester covered in blue damask above it. Blue draperies at the window and corners of the bed obviously gave the room its name. The room was so large that it also held a dresser, vanity table and chair, and massive armoire, without seeming in the least crowded. A high ceiling added to the general sense of enormous space.
Damaris went to the window and looked out. Her room lay in the wing facing the gardens that spilled down the hill-side, and her view was open all the way to the sheen of the river curving in the distance. She shivered, feeling suddenly quite lonely.
She had known that everything would be different when she and Alec reached the safety of his home, but she had not expected this degree of grandeur and formality. She thought of the long stretch of corridor separating her bedchamber from the one Aunt Willa had pointed out as the earl’s. She thought, too, of his aunt and the myriad servants that would be around them. The cozy intimacy of their days pretending to be husband and wife were clearly at an end.
The castle had also brought home to her just how far apart she and Alec were in their backgrounds and manner of living and, well, almost every other way she could think of. This was his life, not only great wealth but also great position. He had been raised as the heir to an old, powerful family, the sort of people who likely regarded the royal family as mere German upstarts. This was Alec’s life, and clearly there was no room in it for the bastard daughter of Lord Sedbury and his actress mistress.
Tears prickled at Damaris’s eyes, and she hastily wiped them away as the door opened to admit a neatly dressed upstairs maid, loaded down with an armful of dresses. “His lordship sent me to bring you these, mum. ’Tis some of Lady Genevieve’s frocks that might suit you.”
Damaris was reluctant to borrow Alec’s sister’s clothes without her even knowing, but she knew Alec was right. She had nothing to wear besides what she had on and the simple dress Alec had gotten for her in Gravesend. Neither was anything she could appear in at a formal dinner in this house. She would have to wear borrowed clothe
s while she was at Castle Cleyre. So, with a little sigh, she helped the maid to sort through the gowns, picking out those that best suited her coloring. Though Genevieve was a little taller and slimmer than she, the clothes would fit well enough with some hemming, though her breasts might strain at the bodice a bit more than was entirely modest. That aspect of the gowns, she thought wryly, would probably suit Alec quite well.
She accepted the maid’s suggestion that she lie down and rest after her journey. It was wonderful, she thought as she popped between the covers, to have a whole bed to stretch out in. But the truth was, she would have given all this up gladly to have spent another night squeezed into the captain’s bunk with Alec.
Several hours later, Damaris made her way downstairs, clad in a light lavender gown that suited her best among the icy colors of Genevieve’s wardrobe. The maid, Gilly, had helped her dress, then had pinned her hair up into an appropriately formal style of knots and curls. Damaris made a few wrong turns before she found the dining room, where Alec and his aunt waited for her in formal splendor.
The long room was centered by an almost equally lengthy mahogany table. A chandelier of glittering prisms hung in the center of the room, supplemented by candelabras on the table and the sideboard. Marching down the center of the table, between the two sets of candelabras, were a large silver epergne filled with fruit and two smaller ones. Vases of roses adorned the sideboard, casting their perfume upon the air.
Alec, Damaris, and his aunt took their places at one end of the vast table, and no less than four footmen stood at the ready to serve them under the watchful eye of Parsons. Damaris glanced at Alec, elegant in his snow-white shirt and black jacket. He looked so formal and distant that she hardly knew what to say to him. He asked if she found her room adequate, and she complimented its space and comfort. Aunt Willa commented on the weather and later asked Damaris where her home was.
The conversation limped along in the same manner throughout the long meal. Damaris wondered if it always took so long to eat here or if this was a special effort of the kitchen in honor of the earl’s return. When it was finally over, she and Aunt Willa left Alec to his Port and retreated to the music room, where Damaris occupied herself by playing the piano and Aunt Willa soon drifted off to sleep. She awakened with a start when Alec came in, though, and they continued their polite conversation until Damaris could not stand it anymore and excused herself to retire to her room.
Gilly helped her undress and get into one of Genevieve’s nightgowns of finest lawn. Damaris sent the girl on her way and sat down to brush out her hair. It was a relief to do so after the string of nights with only a cheap comb with which to try to manage her hair, so she brushed it until it floated around her shoulders like a jet-black cloud. Smoothing her hands down its length, she contemplated plaiting her hair to keep it from tangling as she slept. It was what she often did at home, but Alec liked it loose and free.
She thought of his fingers drifting through her hair and the way he’d wrap it like a silk cord around his wrist. Had their nights of pleasure ended, she wondered, gone with their journey? Here, with all the servants and his aunt nearby, he might not risk coming to her room. She had just taken off her dressing gown and was about to blow out the candle before climbing into bed when the softest of taps sounded at her door.
Her heart began to pound as she went to open it, telling herself that perhaps she had only imagined the faint sound. She found Alec leaning against the doorjamb. The hallway was dark behind him, lit by only a single sconce halfway down the hall. He smiled at her, and she stepped back quickly to let him in.
“God, it’s been forever,” he said, grasping her shoulders and pulling her to him to kiss her. “I thought supper would never end.”
Damaris giggled. “I didn’t know if you would come to me tonight.”
“Always.” He wrapped his arms around her and rocked a little from side to side. “I thought about telling Parsons to put you in the chamber next to mine, the one for the earl’s lady, or even the one above mine, where one of the former earls’ mistresses was wont to stay and which has a clever staircase leading to it from my chamber.”
“Alec!” She looked up at him in amazement. “There is a secret stairway in your room?”
He nodded and grinned boyishly. “I’ll show you one night, if you’d like.”
“I would indeed. That is just like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s stories.”
“Mm.” He bent and kissed her ear, tracing the shell-like whorl with his tongue. “Except with a happier result.”
Damaris giggled again, his tongue sending shivers through her. Suddenly her stay at Castle Cleyre seemed much brighter.
“But it would have been obvious to everyone that we were lovers if I had put you in one of those rooms, so I could not. Though, Lord knows, the servants no doubt guessed it anyway, the way I could not keep my eyes off you all evening.” He kissed his way down her neck. “I am looking forward tonight to a full, soft bed in which to love you.”
Alec bent and swept her up in his arms to carry her to bed. Damaris laid her head against his shoulder and smiled dreamily. It appeared her happiness had not ended after all.
Nineteen
Her time at Castle Cleyre turned out to be nothing like Damaris had feared. She soon learned that the servants’ devotion to the Earl of Rawdon meant that they turned a blind eye to any hints that the relationship between Alec and Damaris was not platonic. Aunt Willa seemed not even to notice if now and then Alec took Damaris’s hand and kissed it or sometimes swept her up in a hug. And no one said a word about the fact that they were together nearly all the time.
Their days were spent rambling about the estate—walking through the gardens or exploring the labyrinth of rooms and corridors that lay in and around and beneath the castle complex or riding out to a secluded meadow to share a picnic beneath the trees. And if their journeys together often wound up in an embrace or a kiss, there was no one to disapprove.
The nights they spent in Damaris’s bedchamber, locked in passion or murmuring in the dark, dozing in the warm glow of their satisfaction. The only thing that spoiled Damaris’s complete happiness was that each night before dawn, Alec slipped out of her bed and down the hall to his own room. She understood—and was even grateful—that he sought to keep her reputation untarnished. But still, she could not help but think of the days during their journey when she would awaken each morning with Alec’s warm body next to hers.
Sometimes her mind drifted to the men who had tried to capture her and she wondered anew who lay behind the attempt. They should, she knew, do something about finding those men. But, in the face of her happiness, it was easy to let such thoughts slide by. The Bow Street Runner Alec had hired back in London would be bound to find something soon, just as Alec had told her, and then it would be time enough to take some action. Right now it was far too sweet to spend her days with Alec.
After supper, they usually visited with Aunt Willa in the music room or engaged in a spirited round of three-handed whist. And when his aunt retired, Alec and Damaris often lingered on the terrace, gazing at the moon and murmuring softly to each other.
One evening as they stood there, their fingers entwined, Alec gave her hand a squeeze and said, “Come. I want to show you something.”
Intrigued, Damaris followed him inside. He picked up a candlestick and climbed the wide central stairs to the next floor. There, taking her hand again, he pulled her up the next flight to the floor above.
“Where are we? Is this the servants’ floor?”
He shook his head. “They’re in the wing down there.” He pointed toward the end of the dark hall, where another corridor shot off at a right angle. “This contains the nursery. Down there is where Genevieve and I lived with our governess.”
He did not go in that direction, however, but stopped in front of the nearest door and opened it. The room was obviously unused, its furniture draped with dust covers that cast eerie shadows in the dim candlelight.
“No, all the mad Staffords are on the loose, I assure you.” He led her to the fireplace, where he pushed at one of the carved panels on the mantel.
To her astonishment, it slid aside, revealing a lever, which Alec pulled, and a portion of the wall next to the fireplace swung open. Damaris gasped. “The secret staircase!”
Deviltry lit his eyes. “Yes. Care to explore?”
“As long as you promise we will not get locked away in the walls and wither to skeletons.”
“I think it’s safe to say we won’t. I’ve used it a few times when I wanted to leave the house without my grandmother knowing. Follow me.” Holding up the candle, he started down the steep, narrow stairs. They curved down in a circular way, ending at a small doorway. Alec turned the handle and pushed open the door, and they stepped into a large, elegant bedroom.
“This is your room?” Damaris glanced around. It had to be.
The fact that Alec had always come to her room at night made being in his bedchamber seem somehow more illicit. It was a grand setting, as befitted the lord of the castle, furnished with dark massive pieces and heavy burgundy draperies. In front of the fireplace stood a high wingback chair with an ottoman and, facing it, a sturdy old rocker. A small table piled with books lay between them. The bed itself was equally impressive, high and wide, with tall columns at each corner and a wooden tester across the top, matching burgundy velvet drapes tied back with gold cords at the posts.
“I wanted you in my room,” Alec told her, setting the candlestick aside and sliding his arms around her from behind. His voice was thick with desire. “In my bed.”