The Countess

by Catherine Coulter

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it. The main reason I’m telling you now is that his letter has been stolen from my letter box.” I pulled the gold chain with the gold key attached to it from my bodice. “I kept the box locked. I have worn the key. Now that everyone is gone, there are no more distractions. I wanted to reread the letter. It is gone. Someone stole it. I searched all over my bedchamber, which turned up a pair of stockings that George had pulled out of a drawer, but nothing else.”

  He cursed, very fluently, and for a good length of time.

  “When you keep me in ignorance, you unman me,” he said, looking at me like he wanted to strangle me, and I immediately started shaking my head.

  “No, if that is what you feel, then I am sorry. I believed my father’s letter to be ridiculous. No, not really, since all these things have happened to me. No, what’s important now is that I leave. I don’t want to stay here and let someone kill me or make me pay for all of it. I will return to Grandfather’s house in London.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I believe you must leave. And while you are gone, I will get to the bottom of all this.”

  “How?”

  “It’s time I did a bit of searching about,” he said. “No, it won’t work. For example, just what would you tell Uncle Lawrence? There is no good reason. You cannot leave, dammit.”

  “I have no choice.”

  “All right. Just what reason will you give him? Give everyone?”

  “Oh, God, I don’t know. Let me think. There must be some good reason that calls me back. I know—Peter. He’s now the Duke of Broughton. I will tell everyone that he has written me and asks me to come assist him in redecorating the London house. What do you think?”

  “It sounds ridiculous.”

  “Just because you didn’t think of it—”

  “No, Andy. Think. Next week is Christmas. Families stay together for Christmas. You are newly married to my uncle. No one would ever accept that you would leave him during the Christmas holidays. Moreover, as the new countess, you will attend services in the village, lend your presence to many parties given by the local gentry. There are gifts to be bought and wrapped and given out. You will be expected to have a Christmas ball for the servants and to present them money. No, it has to be something else. Damnation, I can’t think of a blessed thing at the moment, but I will.” He rubbed his chin, turned, and left me standing there. I saw Boynton lolling next to one of the ancient sessile oak trees.

  I went to visit Judith and Miss Gillbank, and learned to say good day in Turkish. I spent an hour with Miss Crislock, who couldn’t stop talking about all the guests. I swear that each and every one of them had flaws that she had to detail at great length.

  Finally, I picked up George and carried him outside. I waited patiently for him to sniff at a good dozen trees, bushes, hedges, plants, before giving his custom to a lone skinny maple tree. I hoped the tree survived. It was getting colder.

  Someone broke into the letter box and stole the letter. I tried to remember who all knew that I had received it. Brantley had brought it in. That meant any and everybody in the house could have known. Shadows were lengthening over the horizon. It was colder now than it had been just five minutes before.

  I hurried to the stables to visit Small Bess, George at my side. He tried to bite her hock. The other horses looked at George and raised a ruckus. I picked him up, apologized to the animals, then walked slowly back to the house. It was then that I happened to look up at the north tower, where Caroline had hurled herself off that small balcony to the flagstone below. In that instant, I saw a light move in the narrow-slitted windows. Then nothing. My eyes were deceiving me. No, wait, there it was again, a brief light, like a single candle, with someone holding it.

  But why would anyone be in the north tower? That made no sense at all.

  Then I realized that I very much wanted to know why someone was walking about up there. I dashed back into the house, George barking madly, tucked under my right arm. I ran past Brantley, who said nothing, just stared at me as I ran up the stairs, holding my skirts up to my knees. I shut George into my bedchamber, lit a candle, then headed for the north tower.

  I felt the blood pounding through my body. I passed servants and footmen and nodded pleasantly to them, not pausing to speak at all. I was filled with a heady combination of utter fear and excitement. I had my derringer. I wanted very much to see the person who was doing this to me.

  It took me nearly fifteen minutes to make my way to the north tower. Only when I pulled open the very old door at the base of the winding tower stairs, did I pause. I pulled my derringer out of my pocket, lifted my candle high, and walked up the uneven wooden steps.

  No one was in the circular room at the top of the stairs. The air was still and icy cold. There was no candle in evidence. Someone had brought the candle and then taken it away.

  There was still only the bed and the chest at the end of it. I carefully set the candle down on the floor, my derringer beside it. I opened the lid to that ancient wooden chest. On the very top lay a gold brocade gown of the last century. It was yards and yards of very heavy material, so much of it. I couldn’t imagine being able to stand upright it weighed so much. I lifted the gown out and carefully laid it on the wooden floor.

  Beneath it was a very old-fashioned nightgown of fine lawn sewn with the most beautiful lace I’d ever seen. The lace was yellowed with age.

  There were riding boots and slippers with the soles nearly worn through.

  And on the very bottom of that wooden chest was a long tangled mass of white hair.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I jerked back. I stared at that horrible mess of tangled gray hair. I didn’t shriek, but I wanted to. My heart nearly leapt into my throat. I recognized that hair. The old woman had worn that hideous wig when she had come to my bedchamber with John’s knife. I didn’t want to, but I reached out my hand and touched the hair. It was coarse and thick. It was ancient, that wig. I shuddered as I lifted it out of the chest.

  Beneath it was the ugly white shapeless robe the old woman had worn. When I lifted it out, I did cry out. A mask fell from between the folds of that ancient robe, a hideous mask with holes for the eyes, and aged, crinkled skin. I had wondered, but now I knew. Someone had worn this disguise to terrify me.

  That person had certainly succeeded.

  So, this was where the monster had hidden his props. In the room where Caroline had come, then walked out on the stone balcony, climbed over the railing, and thrown herself to her death.

  Everyone had access to the tower room. It wasn’t locked. Anyone could have stashed the disguise in the bottom of this chest.

  I lifted everything except the disguise back into the chest and closed the lid. I carefully laid the old woman’s clothes, the wig, and the mask over my arm, and walked downstairs.

  John wasn’t in his bedchamber. I went in and walked immediately over to where he kept his knife collection in the corner of the room.

  The knife was gone.

  No, I thought, no. John had nothing to do with any of this. He couldn’t, just couldn’t. Why? I asked myself. No one had a reason to harm me. The fact that John didn’t have a reason, either, didn’t mean he was innocent of this. But I simply wouldn’t accept that damning thought into my brain. I couldn’t, I didn’t want to discuss with myself why I felt so strongly. No, John had simply put the wretched knife elsewhere, to keep it from being taken again.

  I carefully laid that dreadful wig, the old wrinkled robe, and the mask on the counterpane. I turned to leave when he walked in. His head was down, and he was rubbing the back of his neck. I must have made a noise because his head jerked up. He stared at me, just stood there and stared at me. He cleared his throat. “May I ask what you’re doing in my bedchamber?”

  I saw the heat in his eyes from twenty paces. I took a quick step back. My legs hit the side of the bed, and I sat down. I jumped up immediately.

  I splayed my hands in
front of me and felt like a fool. “I knocked, but you weren’t here. The knife is gone again, John.”

  “Boynton has it.”

  “I found these things in that chest in the north tower room. I brought them here to show you.”

  “Why did you go up there?” he asked as he walked toward me and the bed.

  “I was walking back from the stables, and I saw a candlelight coming from that room. Someone was up there, walking about.”

  He said nothing more, just stared down at the items I’d laid out on his bed.

  He picked up the mask and pulled it tight over his fist. “Jesus, it’s terrifying. I’m surprised you didn’t fall over with heart failure.”

  “I am, too.”

  “Anyone could have hidden these things in that chest.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to return them to the chest. I don’t want the person who is behind this reign of terror to know that you found them.”

  I didn’t want to go back there. I told him how they were layered with the other clothes. Then I went back to my bedchamber. Belinda was there laying out a gown, a rich dark blue velvet, for the evening. So normal. Everything seemed so completely normal. Even to the velvet matching ribbons she planned to thread through my hair.

  I took a very long bath, singing to George as I rubbed the soapy sponge over myself. He was playing with Belinda by the fireplace, tugging on a belt she was holding, shaking his head wildly about, growling all the while. He’d managed to make Belinda a devoted slave within twenty-four hours of his arrival in The Blue Room.

  And that evening, over the course of vermicelli soup and fried eels and savory rissoles, Lawrence said, “My dear, I must leave for London early tomorrow morning. There is business I must see to. I promise I will be back before Christmas. Is there anything you would like me to purchase for you?”

  “How can you possibly be back in time for Christmas?” John said. His spoon was halted in midair, and he had become very quiet. “Christmas is only eight days from tomorrow.”

  “My business won’t require all that much time,” Lawrence said. “I trust all of you will rub along well together in my absence.”

  I said not a thing. What I was thinking was that while he was gone, I would search his study and his bedchamber. I looked down the length of the table at him, and smiled. “There is nothing I need you to bring to me, thank you. Do you like the soup, sir?”

  “Indeed, it is delicious.”

  And that was that.

  That evening Lawrence asked if I would enjoy playing a game of chess with him. We had never played before. I was pleased he assumed that I knew how to play. I did indeed. My grandfather called me a killer. I beat him nearly half our games by the age of fifteen.

  Lawrence must have seen my eyes glitter, because he laughed. “So you are good at it, are you?”

  I lowered my eyes modestly. “I know all the moves.”

  He lightly touched his fingertips to my cheek. I didn’t move. We settled down in front of the fireplace, the chessboard on a marquetry table between us. He offered me white. I insisted that I put a black and a white piece behind my back and that he pick the hand he wanted. He got the black pieces anyway.

  I always played the Ruy Lopez as white. I knew the first dozen best moves better than any other opening and could counter most defenses played against me. I moved my pawn to king four. Lawrence answered with the standard move, his own pawn to king four, and I was pleased. I quickly played my knight to king bishop three, and he answered with knight to queen bishop three. And so it continued, classic plays and classic responses, and that gave me the edge.

  He was a good player. He knew what he was doing. He played some moves I hadn’t seen before, which set me to thinking hard. This was our first game. Regardless of the outcome, I wanted to prove to him that I was a good player. I wasn’t about to be swept under the carpet. On the eighteenth move, he tried to fork my queen and my rook with his king’s knight, but I caught the trap easily, and pulled him short before he could ever make the move. Ten moves later I knew I would checkmate him soon, six moves, perhaps, no more. And as I looked over the small table at him in the soft firelight, concentrating, his chin on his hand, I wondered yet again if he was the one who was terrorizing me. And always I came back to the conclusion that he had no reason. No reason at all. It was driving me mad.

  And then it was done, coming to pass just as I had seen that it would. I had won. I sat back, steepled my fingers, and said, “My grandfather was one of the best chess players in all of England. He taught me. He was a very stern taskmaster.”

  “I see,” he said, nothing more.

  When he left me at the door of The Blue Room, he said, “You are accomplished for one so young. I am proud of you for that, and perhaps that is a pity.” Then he patted my cheek, as was his habit, and left me. I stood there wondering what he had meant.

  He was gone near dawn the following day. At seven o’clock in the morning, I was still wondering what he had meant with those strange words when I let myself into his study. I had been in this room before, but just to look at it for a moment, nothing more. It was dark, that was my first impression. It was dark and very somber. I didn’t like it. It was also frigidly cold. This was where he worked with Swanson, his estate manager, a man I had only met twice now.

  I pushed back the draperies. The morning was a leaden gray, snow was threatening. But there was enough light for me to search. I went through every drawer in the massive mahogany desk. Tradesmen’s bills, letters from his man of business in London, the man I assumed he was going to see. Why wouldn’t a man of business come to the patron and not the other way around? I didn’t know the answer to that, since I knew next to nothing about anything to do with business dealings.

  I kept looking. So many papers, so many neat piles, but nothing to give a hint of anything at all nefarious or secret or in any way suggestive of wrongdoing. It was frustrating. I heard someone clear their throat.

  I jerked around to see Brantley standing in the doorway.

  “Oh, it’s you, Brantley.” Never, never, back down in front of a servant or try to explain yourself, Grandfather told me upon several occasions. If you do, you’ll be buried. I gave Brantley a sunny smile. “What do you want?”

  “Does your ladyship require a fire built?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I haven’t found what I’m looking for, and I don’t think that they’re here. Perhaps my papers are back in my bedchamber.”

  I gave him a fat smile and waltzed out of that dark, depressing room.

  I walked directly upstairs, turned right, and walked to the very end of that long corridor. Thank God, Lawrence had taken his miserable valet Flynt with him. I didn’t relish running into him while I was searching through Lawrence’s dressing table drawers.

  I had never before been in my husband’s suite of rooms. The door wasn’t locked. I looked down the corridor. No one was about. I opened the door and quickly stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind me. It was also frigidly cold in the bedchamber. I could easily see my breath. Well, why should the servants bother with a fire when no one was here? I shivered, slapped my arms, and forced myself to get to work.

  It was a huge room, long and narrow, and it was beautifully furnished with exquisite chairs and tables and a magnificent bed with golden draperies looped at the four corner posters, all the opulent gold and white of Louis XV. I was seeing another side of my husband, the man whose belongings I was searching to see if he was the monster who wanted to kill me.

  There was irony in this, I thought, but I couldn’t think about that now. I went through every drawer in that huge room. I found nothing at all. I went into his dressing room, another chamber beautifully furnished, soft carpets on the floor. There were several dressers, all of them gilded and exquisitely fashioned. I found nail files, handkerchiefs, drawer after drawer of cravats beautifully pressed. There were brushes, combs, shaving things. I opened every drawer. I found nothing at all. />
  I walked back into the large bedchamber. I stood then in the middle of the room, shivering. I don’t know why I happened to be looking at the armoire—I had searched it thoroughly—but I did, and there was this slight seam in the beautiful ivory Chinese wallpaper just beside it. If your eye didn’t land directly on it, you wouldn’t see it.

  Once I did look directly at it, I realized quickly enough that it was a narrow door, built into the wall. There was only a small curved spring just behind the armoire. I could reach it. I fiddled with it until it snapped down suddenly. The door opened smoothly inward.

  I stepped into a very small room that had only one narrow window. There was no fireplace. It was perfectly square, so small, so very small. It looked like a monk’s cell, stark, nearly empty, the desk very old and simple, not a single ornamental swag or carving on it. The chair behind it was stiff and looked very uncomfortable. There was nothing else in the room. Even the wooden floor was bare. My shoes click-clicked as I walked toward that desk. I realized that at this point I was invading his privacy past the point of no return. I also realized that I had no choice.

  This was indeed a private place, a place where I should not be. I wondered what Lawrence was like when he was in this room. Surely he would resemble more the fanatic grand inquisitor Torquemada of Spain rather than a peer of our modern Regency. I walked to the desk and sat down in the stiff hard chair. There were three small drawers in the desk, and I hesitated only a moment, knowing well that this was the ultimate invasion. I opened the top drawer. It slid out easily. It was filled with neat stacks of letters, each stack tied separately. All the letters seemed to be personal correspondence, many of them yellowing with age. I picked up each stack and thumbed quickly through the letters. There were letters from Lady Pontefract, Lord Holliston, Lady Smithson-Blake—all people whose names I had heard, but had never known. They were names my grandfather would mention, prominent figures of my grandfather’s time—and of my husband’s.

  It was at that moment, sitting in that austere, narrow room, holding letters of love, of intrigue, of politics, that I finally saw clearly, deeply inside myself. Those fading, yellowing letters were symbols of the mistake I had made. I had married a man who belonged to the century before—to the French Revolution, to the rise of Napoleon, to the great naval victories of Lord Nelson. I adored that world, for it held limitless fascination, but it was not real; it was not a part of my world.