His eyes narrowed. ‘You seem so removed from it all.’
I shrugged, remembering the sense of helplessness and frustration that I had felt all my life. ‘There was never anything I could do. It was simply the way it was.’ I swallowed nervously. My hands were so tightly clasped in my lap that the knuckles showed white. ‘There is something you could do to help, though.’ I looked up and met his mesmerizing eyes.
He picked up his glass and sipped the chilled amontillado from El Puerto de Santa Maria that Mr. Fellowes had brought up from the cobwebbed cellars. ‘What?’
I held his gaze. ‘I have a brother, a twin brother. I love him dearly. My father has sold eight of his children. He is the last. Please, could you please save him?’ I stared at him with pleading eyes.
He became very still and looked at me over the rim of his glass. He did not say anything and his eyes were like the eyes of a wolf. Impossible to decipher anything. The seconds passed.
And I felt myself shrivel. I understood that I had asked too early. I should have waited. I was just a pleasant diversion. I was not meant to bring my problems to his table. I felt hot tears prick at the backs of my eyes. I hung my head in defeat and a strange thing happened. Ceba rose to his feet and leaving his master came and put his chin on my lap. The kindness that that fierce, aloof dog showed me was my undoing.
I covered my face with both my hands and sobbed.
Ceba began to paw at me with his great feet. He made small whining noises. I felt Mr. Fellowes come and stand next to me as if in support. When I had managed to compose myself, he held out a handkerchief for me. I took it and blew my nose. I was not defeated. I would find a way. I put my hand on Ceba’s head and he looked at me with those timeless eyes of his. I thanked Mr. Fellowes. From the corner of my eye I could see that Guy had not moved at all. Mr. Fellowes removed the bowls and went out. I stared at the white linen placemat.
‘I’m sorry. I know you have suffered,’ Guy said suddenly, and his voice was strained and husky. And then he stood and left the dining room without having the main course that Mrs. Littlebell had slaved over: short-rib bourguignon. Ceba looked at me with mournful eyes one last time and followed his master out.
That night he did not send for me.
*****
I fell asleep and dreamed that I was young again and all of us were one big family living in the log house with the blue painted roof. My mother was still alive and Nikolai and I were snuggled up together in bed, sandwiched between our sisters, all our bodies warm and soft, while the winter night howled outside. We slept the sleep of the innocent, unaware of what awaited us in the future.
Chapter 16
When I woke up in the morning the sky was gray and it was raining. At breakfast Mr. Fellowes looked up from his toast and smiled his first real smile at me. It warmed his cold, long face up no end.
‘Come and sit beside me,’ he said, his pale face full of kindness. I shrugged at Misty, who raised her eyebrows in an enquiring and surprised way, and went to sit with Mr. Fellowes.
‘What will you do today, lass?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I guess I will explore. There is so much of the castle I haven’t seen yet.’
‘That’s a good idea. You can start with the Countess Dufferin’s room. I’ve heard that you are curious about her.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘She is the one who is supposed to be haunting this castle. Her room is very interesting. It has been preserved almost as she left it.’
‘I’d love that,’ I said. ‘Do you know much about her, Mr. Fellowes?’
‘Only what legend has, in that she took her own life and left instructions for her headstone and for her heart to be removed from her body and buried with the little girl, but her husband refused her request. He died soon after her. On his deathbed he was seen talking to thin air, saying, “I will do it. I promise I will do it. Please don’t be angry with me.”’
After breakfast Mr. Fellowes took me to her room. He opened the door, switched on the lights for me and left. I closed the door and I felt her. Though hundreds of years had passed I felt her gentle touch. It was in the Chinoserie walls, with their depiction of a riverside scene and peacocks. Mr. Fellowes was right: it was hardly touched. I went and sat on her bed and shivered. The room was not heated and it was cold. The small hairs on the back of my neck stood. Suddenly I had the uncanny feeling that I was not alone. Someone or something was watching, but I was not afraid, because the spirit meant me no harm. In a funny sort of way I felt as if I belonged to the spirit.
As if in a daze I went to her beautiful writing desk. I opened a little drawer and as if my hand had been guided I turned my palm upwards and slid my fingers along the polished wood until they felt a little catch. I pressed it and the entire panel slid back to reveal two drawers.
A flash of excitement raced through me.
Many years ago, even hundreds of years, someone had hidden important things in those drawers. I carefully pinched the small knob and pulled one of the drawers open. There was a diary tied in a blue ribbon, a beautifully enameled green and blue box, and a faded, curling photograph of a young girl standing in a studio. She had fair hair and plump cheeks. Her eyes were bright and full of intelligence. She smiled carefully at the camera.
I put the photograph down and ran my fingers along the smooth, cool surface of the box. I took it out and carefully opened it and gasped. On a bed of velvet lay a five strand pearl choker with a cameo pendant. It was very old and very beautiful. I went to the mirror and held it around my neck. The owner was long dead. And I had found it. The clasp was diamond encrusted and still worked. I fixed it around my neck and held up my hair. I thought it suited me very well and I was truly pleased with it.
Touching it I went back to the diary. It was leather bound and well used. The edges were brown. I touched the old metal. It was only five inches by four—small—and yet I knew it held heartfelt secrets.
Was it right to read them?
And yet, she was long gone. I thought of her bent over her diary in the light of a single candle. She wouldn’t care. Still I hesitated. It was locked, but the key was stuck to the back. Just a quick look. I pulled the key from its slot and opened the diary. A waft of lavender. Amazing. The scent had survived more than a hundred years. I thought of her pressing the flowers between the pages.
Beautiful handwriting declared the diary as belonging to Isabella Thorn Dufferin. I gasped. Oh my God, I was holding her diary. I touched the yellowing page and carefully held it between my fingers. I told myself I was not going to read the whole thing, I was only going to glimpse the past. Just quickly.
I turned the page.
It was like finding a secret garden. Captivating. Full of watercolor illustrations of flowers and leaves, a charming pig in coat and tails, and a man. A tall, broad-shouldered man with a stern face. Underneath the illustration she had written ‘The Count of Dufferin’.
I told myself that I would just open it to the first page and read the start of the handwritten account of her life. Holding my breath I turned the page. The writing was small, and she had tried to cram as much as possible into the page. Around the words she had filled the spaces with delightful drawings and sketches.
I have come early to bed with a headache, but I can hardly sleep for excitement. There is no one else I can speak to but you, dear book of my wickedest hour—I smoked a cigar.
And just like that I was effortlessly transported into Isabella Thorn’s lost world. I forgot the uncomfortable feeling of prying into the secret repository of another’s thoughts. I took the diary to the window seat and curling up on the cushions began to read.
It was utterly engrossing. It started with the musings of an unusually spirited young girl. At this point there were sweet accounts of chance meetings during walks in parks with Mama and rebellion.
I long for things I ought not to prize… I often dine in haste and am too rebellious and unfeminine…
Following this was the willful intention to marry the woma
nizing Count Dufferin. Papa gave in and she won the day. There was a long account of her church wedding to the Count and the frank and sensual record of her marriage bed. I read it curiously and without blushing. She had worn the pearls for him.
My husband and I blush now to think of it, but he did not allow me to wear my undergarments when he took me.
‘Leave only the pearls,’ he instructed.
I had to take everything off, petticoats and corset, as he watched with the eyes of a hungry beast. When I tried to cover myself, he knocked my hands away with two precise practiced movements, using the tip of his cane.
He enjoyed my shame until I thought I would die with it. Then he hooked my neck with his cane and pulled me toward him. When he entered me it was hard, hot thrusts, and an animal-like growl of possessing and possession.
It was painful, but I would not have wanted different. It calmed my excitable nature. When it was finished, he made me do the unthinkable. Mama would have been so shocked but I did it and I enjoyed it. I wanted to please him. And please him I did.
For he rose again and had me again. Harder and even more painful.
‘You are number two hundred and thirty,’ he said.
I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
And he slapped me.
And while I was still in shock he used his fingers and played with me until I felt quite as if I might be ill. When I cried he told me to ride it. And the strangest thing happened to me, dear book. I blush to remember it, but it was a little as if I died and went to heaven. The pleasure was quite intolerable. Afterwards he kissed me. Now I understood. Now I understood.
It was as if I had written those words. I was not reading the diary of another but reading my own words. But the Count’s passion didn’t survive long. Soon there were no more illustrations of pigs or flowers. Only her deep dismay at her husband’s infidelities. Hour after hour she gazed into the abyss of her love. I am more lonely than ever, and more friendless than ever. My misery is a woman’s misery, she wrote. She quoted a line from William Allingham’s sad poem, ‘A Wife’. The wife sits over her diary and…
A tear—one tear—fell hot on the cover.
She became pregnant. Her pregnancy was poignant with her love for her unborn child and her woe at her husband’s cold and uncaring treatment of her. After the birth of a girl the diary was suddenly lifted with drawings of posies and sunflowers. She knitted socks and a little coat. She dressed the child in them and took her into the garden. It was gentle exercise in daylight and pure air, surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. She sat under the beech tree reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but by now the Count had completely disentangled himself from her.
April 7th, Unusually miserable day.
She bore his rejection passively and made no stand against his mean and cruel ways. He flaunted his affairs openly. His mistresses made veiled comments at parties, and she retired to her lonely bed too much roused to sleep. She had been left with a dowry, which her husband had almost immediately appropriated.
Finally, she knew.
He had married her for money. She made new sketches of him. Unlike the earlier ones he seemed more narrow-faced and haughty.
Then her child died—she didn’t say why or how—and her entries were filled with her unspeakable loss and grief. It was harrowing and disturbing to witness the way the diary had changed from breathless anticipation to this bleak bitterness. Face in both hands she knelt on the carpet and wept because, she wrote, My heart is broken and can never be repaired.
She was locked up in her room for being quite deranged, but her diary did not reveal her as the least bit mad. She was just too, too sad. The richly decorated diary became sparse.
Her collapse into despair was total.
My life is gone. The loss and pain are indescribable. Indescribable. And insufferable.
Her last line was disturbing.
I had a glass of sherry, which has given me a confused, smothering headache. I weary of myself and yet I cannot die. Prayer and silence shall alone be mine. My hand is as cold as marble.
And after that there were no more entries even though there were more pages.
Chapter 17
That night I lay in scented bathwater thinking of Isabella Thorn Dufferin. The water felt slippery with all the oils and powders I had poured into it. I thought of the Count, the way he had used his cane to remove her hands from her most intimate parts. Then I thought of Guy.
I got out of the bath and dressed in my green robe. And then I had a thought. I went to the box and took the pearl necklace out. I put it around my neck. I pulled my hair into a knot at the back of my head. Let it be the necklace that draws him. Let me see if I can hook Guy Hawke the way Isabella Thorn had hooked the Count. I looked foreign. My neck looked too long and delicate. The pearls had their own luster. I knew I looked different. I looked as if I belonged to a different time.
Misty came into my room.
‘Wow,’ she exclaimed. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘I found it,’ I told her.
‘Where?’
‘The dresser in the Countess’s room has a secret drawer.’
‘I see.’ She paused. ‘It’s beautiful, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
I touched the necklace protectively. ‘Why not?’
‘What if he doesn’t like it? My instructions are to take you naked.’
‘I am naked. This is just a piece of jewelry.’
‘All right. I suppose it doesn’t matter.’
I smiled at her. ‘I’ll take the blame.’
‘Damn right you will,’ but she smiled to take the sting out of the words.
On the way to the room Misty looked at me sideways. ‘Does this mean you are falling for him?’
I stood in shock. ‘Why ever would you say that?’
‘Why would you adorn yourself if not to attract someone you are attracted to?’
We reached the room silently. Misty blindfolded me and left. I heard the door shut and I took off my dressing gown and sat on the bed. Being blindfolded is a strange thing. It gives you a wolf’s sense. What I would not have normally heard felt heavy in my ears. The sound of the fire roaring and the wind howling outside. Ren had said that there might be another storm tonight.
Even though the room was lovely and warm I shivered slightly.
Then, in the corridor, I heard the sound of his footsteps. It was strange how acute my hearing had become. Nervously, I waited for the steps to pause outside, for the door to open, and for him to stand inside the room. As always he closed the door and leaned against it, watching me. It seemed to me that he leaned against the door watching me longer than usual.
He strode toward me and I felt not lust or admiration, but anger coming off in waves from his body. His fingers brushed my throat roughly and the necklace chain was ripped from me. In a daze I heard the pearls land on the floor and roll away in every which direction.
He leaned close to my ear. His voice was harsh. ‘Don’t adorn yourself for me,’ he said, and slowly swiped a pearl along my bottom lip.
‘Why?’ I whispered, hurt and confused. The pearl slipped and made a tapping sound on my teeth.
‘Because,’ he said very softly, ‘you are already too unendurably beautiful.’
My heart tripped in my chest.
‘And I don’t want you to play any little games with me either.’ His voice was laced with sensual menace.
I frowned. ‘I wasn’t playing games.’
He caught my earlobe in his teeth. ‘No?’
So quickly had his scent become familiar. ‘No.’
‘And another thing. Don’t put your hair up again while you are with me. I don’t like it.’
I drew a sharp breath. He yanked the pin holding my hair in its knot. It fell heavily onto my shoulders.
I licked my lips. It was insane how seductive was the call of desire, how much I wanted him to touch me, kiss me, fuck me.
He rubbed hi
s palms lightly on my nipples. ‘So sweet and so innocent. Little Lena: never been with anyone.’
Zara flashed into my mind. And the things she did to me.
His hand stilled. There was something dark and predatory about his stillness, like an animal that crouches before it lunges. ‘You have been with someone?’ His voice was silky, but oh! So alert.
My lower lip trembled. ‘The woman… The woman who kept me in the cage. She did things to me and I to her.’
He expelled his breath in a furious hiss. His fingers pinched my nipples.
I bit my lip. ‘I had to. To survive.’
His hands relaxed suddenly. ‘Of course,’ he said softly, and ran his palm lightly on the tips of my breasts again. The touch was so delicate that I shuddered. Gooseflesh scattered on my skin. But some violence lurked behind the gentle caress.
‘Have you never done something shameful to survive?’ I asked defiantly.
‘Yes.’ His voice was unemotional and cold.
I was shocked. I had not really expected him to answer me. ‘What?’ I whispered.
‘I bought you.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked gazing into the darkness of the blindfold. There was nothing there but darkness and the unknown. I could feel him frowning, thinking… Furious.
‘The woman who kept you in the cage… Did she hurt you?’
I thought of Zara. Of the sickening smell of her, of the skin that was like that of rotting apple or the things she had made me do for a tomato. I thought of how she had degraded me and humiliated me, taken my clothes, turned me into an animal. At that moment I rose above my own pain and realized that it was a terrible way to go through life. I knew I didn’t hate her. She was profoundly sad and lonely. I pitied her. I thought of her in her farmhouse and I wondered who would be in the cage now.
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