The Ground She Walks Upon

by Meagan Mckinney

  “Lord Trevallyan awaits, miss. I shall escort you to the drawing room. My name is Greeves.” Without further notice, he lifted his fine nose in the air, spun on his heels, and walked away.

  “But, if I may, I’m Lord Chesham’s guest. Is he here as well?” She watched Greeves’s departing back and wondered if he was deaf, too. He exited at the far end of the chilly stone hall, and she realized she didn’t dare stay behind. If she was forced to go looking for the party on her own, she’d no doubt become lost in the castle’s endless number of rooms, as she had so long ago in her unfortunate search for Trevallyan’s bedchamber.

  “How far is the drawing room?” she asked, nearly jogging to keep up with the tall man’s strides. They traversed several dark and chilly passages in their quest for the “festivities”—if such could be had in such a gloomy environment—while Ravenna clasped her shawl to her bosom, suddenly glad for the somber, yet warm, wool dress.

  “Not far now, miss.”

  At that, Greeves stopped by a pair of polished mahogany doors executed in the neoclassic Adam style, a decor toward which she had little goodwill since it reminded her of England.

  “Here, miss.” Greeves discreetly opened one door. The drawing room beyond looked more dark and uninviting than the medieval stone passageway. The hearth was ablaze, and two candles were lit on the mantel, but they were all ineffective in lighting the enormous cavern of the room.

  Ravenna stared at the butler, unsure of what to do next. Greeves motioned her inside with his one good hand. Mutely, she strolled into the room, forcing herself to display self-confidence she most assuredly did not feel, but her upright posture crumpled the moment the butler closed the door behind her and left her alone in the semi-dark.

  “Hullo? Is there anyone in here?” she whispered to the dark corners. Scarlet drapery loomed like monsters beneath gold cornices. Two gilt gryphon firedogs gleamed in the sputtering firelight, their evil shadows stalking the door from which she entered.

  She shivered and hugged herself. The evening was certainly not turning out as she had planned.

  A settee covered in pale gold damask stood near to the fire. She took a seat, but was too nervous to wait complacently until someone came for her. There was a jib door to the left of the mantel, and she wondered if maybe she could find a servant who might help her locate Lord Chesham.

  She stood and procured one of the gold candlesticks to light her way. Walking deep into the shadows toward the dark rectangle of a door, she wondered how foolish she would look if she, a guest, did come upon a servant. Willing to take the chance, she felt along the edge of the door for a catch, then realized the door was like those in England. Giving it one good push, it popped open, revealing, to her disappointment, no servant’s room, but a musty old stone staircase.

  She lifted the gold candlestick and assessed the discouraging amounts of cobwebs. It was a servant’s stair, barely lit with gaslights, most likely leading to the kitchen from the keep. She heard a noise, a rather faraway giggle coming from the bottom of the shaft, and she debated whether to call down.

  “Looking for my bedchamber?”

  She nearly dropped the lit candle. Turning, she looked up the steps and found Trevallyan in the dimness, his face nose to nose with hers as she stood on the step.

  “’Tis right upstairs. How canny you are, Ravenna, to remember.”

  “I—I most certainly was not looking for it,” she stuttered with all the indignation she could muster.

  He took the trembling candlestick from her hand and pondered it. “Why is it I always seem to find you skulking around my castle with my possessions in your hands?” He held the candlestick up to her, his eyes a crystalline sea-blue in the flames. “I see your judgment has grown better. This candlestick is solid gold. Much more valuable than my hair.”

  “I was not stealing it, I assure you,” she answered, her anger taking away her fear. “Your butler left me all alone back there in the drawing room and I thought to find a servant who could direct me to my host, Lord Chesham.”

  “I am your host.”

  She leaned slightly back, uncomfortable with Trevallyan’s proximity. “Lord Chesham invited me. Not you.”

  “But I … let you come.” The ghost of a cynical smile touched his lips.

  She fought the urge to scratch it off. “Then your generosity is only outdone by your arrogance.” Ire prickled like heat on her cheeks. “If I may ask, where is Lord Chesham and your other friends?”

  “The count and de la Connive are no friends of mine. I tolerate them only because Chesham brings them along and I find it hard to contain my cousin.” He looked at her a moment. His words seemed to have grave, personal meaning. “You see, I let him run a little wild here because I have very little family left.”

  She held his gaze, unable to shake the notion that somehow he was referring to her. Slowly reason returned. “I—I really don’t understand why I was brought to this dark, abandoned room if no one is here.”

  His smile grew a little more wicked. “It seems Greeves has played a prank on us. He knows well enough that in small groups, we gather in the parlor.”

  “That is not the parlor?” She looked behind her to the exquisite room in shadows.

  “That is the drawing room.”

  “Oh. Of course.” She said nothing else, not wanting to look foolish.

  “My butler is prone to shenanigans.”

  “But why would he do such a thing? You could fire him, and the poor man can ill afford to be out a job with his…” She frowned. “His affliction.”

  “He knows I would never fire him.” Trevallyan looked at her, his gaze warming in the flickering shadows. “My father brought him to the castle in 1803 when he was still a young man. During Robert Emmet’s United Irish rising in Dublin some hard men tried to pull Father from his carriage. Greeves, a bystander, tried to save him. He was shot in the attempt. He lost his arm only because he had helped my father. How do you fire a man like that?”

  “I suppose you don’t,” she whispered, mesmerized by the lord’s stare. “Instead you live forever at his mercy.”

  “Exactly. But we’re all at someone’s mercy—or something’s—aren’t we?”

  She looked into his eyes. Strangely enough, she found no mockery there—only pain—and it bothered her. The pain seemed to carry an accusation.

  “I really must find Lord Chesham,” she said, her voice low and husky in the intimacy of the darkness.

  He nodded, and she felt a rush of relief. It wasn’t quite the thing to be a lone woman, standing in an abandoned staircase with the master. She suddenly recalled Sadie, the kitchen girl at the school. Sadie had had one too many visits alone with the stable boy. When she’d been caught, the girl had been summarily dismissed, and later, Ravenna had seen her on the streets, miserable and poor, carrying a newborn babe. The girls had been forbidden to even acknowledge her, but Ravenna’s heart had gone out to the poor creature. When she had returned to school, she had scraped together every coin she could find, tied it in a handkerchief, and given it to the cook for Sadie. Days later, Ravenna had gotten a message dictated by the ill-fated scullery thanking her for the coins. Mrs. Leighton, the headmistress, had found it in the wastebin and had become so incensed that Ravenna had had contact with “the harlot” that she had been jailed in her room for three days without visitors or food.

  Now it seemed like a bad dream, but when it had happened, it had been all too real. And the man ultimately responsible for her being there at the school to see such sad tales stood next to her, looking at her for all the world as if she were a stranger to him, not his most bitter enemy.

  “I really must find Lord Chesham,” she said, her cool words chasing away the intimacy brought on by the shadows and close quarters. “Please. I must ask you to show me to him, or show me the door. I didn’t come here to see your empty drawing room.”

  His eyes noticed her sudden chill, but his expression remained implacable. “Of course. Let me take you
to Chesham. He’s waiting, no doubt, with bated breath.” Abruptly, he grasped her hand and pulled her off the staircase. He shut the jib door with his foot and led her to the mantel, where he replaced the gold candlestick.

  She was so stunned to find his hand wrapped around her own that for several unnerving seconds, she couldn’t speak or withdraw it. He glanced down at her in the light from the hearth, and she was further shocked to realize that the cold, black-hearted villain of her youth had a most warm, dazzling smile when he wanted to show it.

  “You’re not what I expected, Ravenna,” he said softly, looking right into her eyes. “I have to admit, you’ve become quite different than I imagined.”

  “What did you imagine?” she nearly gasped, she was so unbalanced by his strange talk.

  “I suppose I imagined you’d be more dismissable. More common. Like your mother.”

  “You—you knew my mother?” she stuttered, his insults as yet unable to penetrate her shock.

  He shook his head. “Not really. I just have an idea how she was and I pictured you that way as well, especially when I found you in the field today, so messy and wild. But now I wonder if you’re anything like Brilliana. Perhaps the English school did a good job after all. In many ways, one would find you almost demure. If I didn’t know the circumstances of your birth, I’d think you were a lady.”

  Her earlier numbing shock dissipated like a wisp of smoke. She was left instead with hurt and indignation. She stared at him, hatred burning anew in her breast. Against her better judgment, she let her venom rule her tongue. “You think me not quite a lady, Lord Trevallyan? Then I say you’re a fool who cannot see the difference. The girls at the Weymouth-Hampstead School—the gaol to which you sentenced me—were of fine and noble birth, but their souls were shallow and their hearts were cold. If you cannot see such things for what they are, then I pity you.”

  She tugged her hand to rip it away from his, but he didn’t surrender it. Infuriated, she lowered her gaze. She wanted to wound him further by leveling a contemptuous stare at their entwined hands, their unholy union, but to her dismay, she found his serpent ring winking up at her in the firelight, right against her own ring. It was indeed as she had thought: They were identical. The Trevallyan adder.

  A moment of stunned silence passed. Their joined hands seemed to draw Trevallyan’s attention as well and with a disturbed expression on his face, he, too, gazed down at their matching rings.

  By the repressed anger flashing in his eyes, she fully expected him to accuse her at last of stealing the ring from the Trevallyans. She hoped with all her heart that she could summon Father Nolan to verify her story that it came from him, but, strangely, Trevallyan said nothing. The sight of the duplicate rings seemed to upset him. It was he who pulled his hand from hers. He who retreated in anger.

  “Lord Chesham awaits,” he said matter-of-factly, though his expression said something altogether different. “At the end of the passage turn left, then right. The parlor doors are open. You cannot miss it.”

  “You’re not coming?” she asked, taken aback at how quickly he had twisted the situation. She was the one who had readied herself to pull away, yet he had rejected her. She stared at him, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask about the rings, but by his stiff demeanor, she knew he would answer no questions.

  “I’ll be there in a minute. There is some business I want to attend to with Greeves.”

  She suddenly wondered if the butler was indeed beyond firing. One thing was certain, the noble Greeves was not above a good dressing down by the master, and she’d bet by the look in Trevallyan’s eyes that he was about to get one.

  “To the left and then right?” She watched him as if he were a little mad.

  “Yes. That’s right. Go now, before…” His words dwindled. He looked at her for a long, intense moment, then he said, “Just go.”

  She clutched her black shawl to her chest. The room had suddenly grown frigid. It was a pleasure to leave it.

  Chapter 10

  “RAVENNA! THERE you are! We were just about to give up on you and kill ourselves over our disappointment.”

  Lord Chesham walked from the brightly lit parlor into the gloom of the passage. Ravenna stood in the shadows, unsure how to greet him.

  Chesham looked handsome in evening dress—he wore a white barrel-knot tie and a dark blue frock coat that was the perfect backdrop for his blond Adonis features—yet even his warm smile and proffered arm couldn’t erase the picture of Trevallyan from her mind, of him staring at their rings. The intensity of it seemed to stay with her like a clinging, invisible cobweb, disorienting her even now.

  “Look what I’ve found wandering in the passage,” Chesham announced, not waiting for her to properly greet him. He escorted her into a parlor that seemed to her to be decorated in Ireland’s forty shades of green. The windows were hung with lush pea-colored drapery, and the floor was almost completely covered by an emerald-colored turkey-work rug. Horsehair-upholstered chairs and velvet settees were made for sitting and appeared well-worn. In short, the parlor was a far cry from the calculated coldness of the drawing room. It was a little mismatched and worn, and she felt better being in it.

  Count Fabuloso and Monsieur Guy de la Connive stood near the pianoforte, each with a glass of cognac in manicured hands. They bowed to her and quickly assumed their most flattering poses. The count was a giant in a pale blue cut-in dress coat that fit to his every bunched muscle. Guy was in dove-gray, calculated to match his eyes.

  “Let me pour you a refreshment, Ravenna. Now where is Greeves?” Chesham commented, for Greeves was not in the room.

  He deposited her on a plump velvet couch and stepped to the mixing table. She watched as he poured her a much-too-healthy sherry.

  “Here you are, my dear.” Chesham smiled and handed it to her. “And I want to say that is a lovely gown you are wearing.…” His gaze dropped so quickly to her bosom she almost thought she imagined it.

  “Thank you,” she said, a little out of breath, unsure if “thank you” was really the proper response to that stare.

  She took a sip of the sherry and found Guy sitting on the couch next to her, his gaze filled with practiced poetry.

  “Ah, the fair Ravenna … as glowing in candlelight as in the morning’s first dew.” He took her hand and kissed it. His mouth was hot and moist in her palm, and the sensation was not unpleasant, but when he struck a pose as if waiting for her to sigh, she forced herself to stifle a giggle.

  “Butler take long, long time to bring girl.” The count broke in, vying for her attention.

  “He’s a cunning little fox, that Greeves is. Knows just how to fix things.”

  Until he spoke, Ravenna hadn’t even realized Lord Reginald was in the room. He winked at her from in a faded, centuries-old needlework chair.

  “What do you mean by ‘fix things’?” she asked, uncomfortable in the crush of men. “He escorted me to the wrong room and, if anything, made a muddle of things.”

  Ramsay’s face held a secret smile. “Lord Trevallyan … where is he? Our host is certainly amiss in his duties tonight. ’Tis a crime he should be absent from such beauty.”

  Against her will, Ravenna blushed. She wasn’t used to such bald compliments, nor did she consider herself a beauty. Kathleen Quinn was a beauty. The girl was fair as an angel, refined as a queen. In contrast, Ravenna was doomed to be Kathleen’s antithesis. She was as dark in appearance as she was in temperament, and no matter how the Weymouth-Hampstead School had tried, her manner was still untamed. Brilliana’s blood had proved stronger than the whip.

  “The host is absent no longer,” Trevallyan remarked from the door.

  Ravenna turned. She didn’t want to stare, but it seemed as if she were powerless not to. When Niall Trevallyan stepped into a room, he conquered it, overwhelmed it, made it submit; indeed, his sharp, condescending gaze could force a king to feel inadequate. She didn’t want to stare at him, but she damned herself and submitted to t
he urge anyway. And then swallowed the humiliation when he did not return her gaze, nor acknowledge her.

  “We were just speaking of beauty, Trevallyan,” Lord Reginald prompted, ever the irreverent, “so give us your views on it. Ravenna already knows mine.”

  Trevallyan walked to the crystal decanters and poured himself a cognac. He glanced at the count and Guy, then seemed to ponder something for a moment. “Of beauty, only one burning question comes to mind: Does the count believe he is more beautiful than Monsieur Connive, or vice versa?”

  Ravenna nearly choked on her sherry.

  Guy appeared annoyed and the count confused, as if someone had just bashed him over the head.

  “You’re in a fine temper tonight, cousin,” Chesham remarked, irritation etched on his face.

  “In a temper? On the contrary. I’m feeling as benevolent as ever.” Trevallyan turned to look at his guests, but he seemed to make a point of not gazing at her, wounding her further. She knew he didn’t think her good enough to dine at the castle, and it seemed his solution was to treat her as if she were invisible.

  “Does that benevolence extend to dinner? I’m famished,” said Father Nolan who appeared at the door escorted by Greeves.

  Ravenna shot the father a dazzling smile. Suddenly she felt she was in much better company. Father Nolan had never made her feel less than good enough. She was heartened when the priest clasped her hand in greeting.

  “Yes, let’s have dinner.” Trevallyan’s gaze swept the room, still pointedly missing her. “Are we ready?”

  “And who shall have the honor of escorting Ravenna to the table? Or do we joust for her?” Lord Reginald taunted.