The Countess

by Catherine Coulter

  At that moment, the game of chess symbolized my own victory or defeat in this house.

  He saw the difference in me immediately, of course. Soon his own concentration equaled mine. If he wondered what I was thinking now, if he wondered at all at my new absorption in the game, I didn’t know. And he didn’t say anything.

  Brantley entered with the tea tray, and seeing us totally engrossed in the game, departed as silently as he had entered, pausing only long enough to add three more logs to the fire.

  After about ten more moves, I managed to gain the advantage. I mounted a very strong king side attack that I knew would crush him. I moved my knight to the crucial king bishop five square. There was no challenge from him. Within a few moves my queen and her bishop were bearing down upon his king. A final move by my knight, and I had him boxed in.

  A queer smile played over my lips as I looked up at him, straight into his eyes, and said ever so softly, “Checkmate, sir.”

  I felt I could conquer the world in that moment. I felt strong and whole and indomitable. My eyes glittered. I knew I was smirking.

  After a few moments of silence, Lawrence gently lifted his conquered king, held it aloft for a moment in long, slender fingers, then gently laid the piece on its side. He sat back in his chair, his fingers lightly touching his pursed lips.

  The firelight danced about us, casting fanciful shadows and shifts of light over his face. Finally he said in a slow, thoughtful voice, “A well-played game, my dear. Victory tastes sweet, does it not?”

  I turned my head slightly, so that my face was in the shadows. I felt tense, afraid, and excited. “Of a certainty it does, my lord. Could victory ever taste otherwise?”

  The oddest smile flitted across his face as he said, “No, there is nothing like it—to see, to feel, to deal the final blow to one’s enemy. But do you not agree that the most important of victories, the sweetest by far, is the final and ultimate victory, the total devastation of the adversary?”

  What was he talking about? What did he mean? I could not ask. I could not risk exposing what I knew. Ah, but I had just beat him.

  I had beat him, I had beat him.

  I was brilliant, I was strong, and so I said in a clear, overloud voice. “Yes, and that is exactly what I just did to you, sir. However, tomorrow is another day, perhaps even another game of chess, and then it begins all over again. In chess there is no ultimate victory. It is a good thing, but perhaps it is also a very disappointing thing.”

  Lawrence began to gather the chess pieces into the center of the table. He righted his fallen king and placed it in front of the white pieces, on the square directly opposite my black queen. He looked up into my face, his eyes narrowed and grim, the blue so dark as to be nearly black. I forced myself to look back at him steadily. It was he who looked away first, into the fire, and then down at his shapely white hands. I sat perfectly still, and waited. I had no choice at all. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost pensive. “You played with intelligence, finesse, and yes, courage, Andrea. Most unusual characteristics for a woman. As to your intemperance just now, perhaps in the glow of your small victory, I should let you revel in it, even if it will only last for a very short time.”

  He was a different man now. Perhaps he was finally the man he truly was. “I was not aware, my lord, that men were the sole proprietors of intelligence and courage.”

  He kept playing with his damned white king, turning it between his long fingers. I wanted to throw the board at him. Then he sighed. “Ah, my dear, there you are wrong, and I think that you must perforce bow to my superior years of experience in the matter.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  He stiffened. He was focused directly on me now. His eyes were cold, hard, utterly without feeling or compassion. His voice was as cold as his eyes now, and cutting, like a rapier through the silent air, “Oh, yes, your sex is weak, vain, and totally lacking in moral character. You are no different.”

  Still I could not see through this morass of anger in him, but I did realize that it had to do with a woman. I stood and leaned over the table toward him, my palms flat on the chessboard. My own voice matched his now, and I felt the harshness of my voice to my very soul. “Those are words of a bitter man, my lord, words that lack both measure and a balanced judgment. No, my lord, even your immense number of years, all your endless supply of experiences, none of it can justify such an unbalanced, even an unstable opinion.”

  He jerked forward in one swift movement, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward him across the table, so that my face was very close to his. I heard chess pieces roll on the wooden floor. “Brave words, my girl, but words without substance, without meaning. Ah, yes, you silly creature, you can taste fleeting victory at a game of chess, for you were well taught. But in life, Andrea, in life you have been but an insignificant pawn in a game of my own making. And now I have what I want, my girl. I no longer need you. I no longer need to pander to your foolish whims and laugh at your outlandish attempts at humor.”

  “I do not understand you. What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

  His grip tightened. Pain shot up my arm, but I made no sound.

  “You are mad.”

  “Mad, am I? We shall see.”

  I looked into his eyes then. I saw no madness there. He looked as cold as my grandfather’s flesh had felt when I had given him a final good-bye. He looked deadly and calmly furious. I wondered if he was going to kill me, right here, right now.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Abruptly he released my wrist, and in one swift motion, closed his long fingers around my throat. I instinctively grabbed at his hands to free myself, but his hold tightened inexorably. “You shall see, my dear, that you are quite helpless. And never forget, will you, that you belong to me. You are my new, my very pretty young wife. And what does that mean? It means you are naught but my chattel—to do with as I choose.”

  His fingers tightened. I was scratching at his hands, pulling at his hands with all my strength. I was becoming light-headed. Was he going to kill me, right here in his library? Would he simply shove my body beneath his desk?

  Suddenly, he jerked his hands away from my neck. He quickly moved around to my side of the small table, and in the next instant, while I was still trying to suck in air, he pulled me against him. I felt his hot breath upon my face. “My beautiful young wife,” he said, and kissed me so hard, so roughly, that I tasted blood in my mouth. I felt more rage than fear, at least for the moment, and I kicked him in the shin even as I struggled. He wrapped his arms more tightly around me, pinning my own arms to my sides, and continued to grind his mouth against mine. I felt his teeth, felt his hot breath in my mouth. Then my mouth was open, and I felt his tongue against my teeth, and I tasted that hot breath of his and nearly gagged. I knew he must have tasted my blood.

  Abruptly he flung me back, away from him. I would have gone sprawling to the floor had my chair not been directly behind me. He knocked away the chess table with his fist. Chess pieces went flying. One pawn rolled into the fireplace. He stood over me with his legs spread and his hands on his hips.

  “Can you breathe again?”

  “Yes, no thanks to you. Don’t touch me again. You swore you would not, ever.”

  “I can do exactly what I wish to do with you, my dear wife. Anything at all.”

  And I said, unwisely, “You are really quite mad, are you not? You are also repellent, my lord. If you touch me again, I will probably vomit on you.”

  I thought that he would strike me, his rage so great his face turned scarlet. But he kept his control. He just stood there, staring down at me for the longest time. Then he said in a soft meditative voice, “Of course you have no notion of how to kiss a man. You are completely innocent and have a young girl’s natural apprehension. But I liked the taste of you. It was the taste of fear, I know that, but perhaps within moments it would have changed, and you would have opened your mouth to me, and welcomed me.”

 
; “No.”

  “How strange that I have never before noticed that you are really a remarkably lovely girl. I noticed, but not in the way a man usually notices a woman. But now I do.” And he reached out his hand toward me.

  “No,” I whispered, and pressed myself as far back into the chair cushions as I could. “No.”

  He stood straight now, his arms crossed over his chest. He was directly in front of me. I didn’t know how I could get around him. I couldn’t very well knock him over, he was twice my size. He said, “I have decided to take you, Andrea, as a man takes a woman. You are a virgin. I have not enjoyed a virgin in a great number of years. It will be exciting. I won’t mind you fighting me, but not all that much. Just a bit to give excitement to the taming. Since you are my wife, you must obey me. Ah, to have your virgin’s blood on me, to feel my seed deep inside you. I will enjoy that. I will be the only man ever to have you.”

  “No.” I felt nausea stirring deep in my belly. But why? I was afraid and very angry, but this debilitating nausea? It didn’t make sense. Then I heard myself say in a pathetic, shaking voice I knew had to be mine, “You cannot mean that. You promised. You signed your promise in the marriage contract. You are my husband in name only. You won’t touch me. You won’t, or I will kill you.” I felt the acrid taste of hysteria in my mouth, in my throat, and I hated it.

  “You kill me? Now, that is one of the most amusing things you have said to me since I met you.” He shrugged. “As to the marriage contract—what nonsense, all those silly promises to you. What can that possibly have to do with my wishes now? It is just a worthless piece of paper, designed merely to calm your anxieties, so that, my dear, you would consent to this marriage. And of course you did consent. You were quite willing to have a supposedly harmless older man take care of you after your grandfather died.

  “Just look at you, white, trembling, your eyes so afraid they’re showing black in the candlelight. Listen to me, Andrea. All women are whores at heart. You cannot be that unlike the rest of your sex. You just need a bit of practice, some experience, which I will give you, to learn about your true nature.”

  “No, not all women are whores, that is ridiculous. My mother wasn’t a whore. No, it was my father.” The instant the words were out of my mouth, I no longer saw Lawrence’s face staring down at me, so close really, but I no longer saw him. He simply faded into nothingness.

  I was shaking my head, violently, and the words just erupted from my mouth. “No, I don’t want to go back there.” But I didn’t have any choice. I was warding all the blackness away with my hands, but it didn’t stop the images that were now alive in my mind, a child’s mind. It was like yesterday, so very close to me, beside me, at last finally inside me, and I couldn’t escape it. I had tried to forget, but of course I hadn’t. I was there once again, and it was perfectly clear. I saw myself as a child of eight, curled up on a window seat behind heavy curtains in my father’s study. I was dozing over the book I had pulled down from one of the shelves. I was awakened suddenly by low hearty laughter followed by some very odd sounds. I looked out around the curtains. There stood my father and a parlor maid, and they were tightly pressed against each other. They were kissing each other frantically, wildly, he pulling at the cap that sat atop her hair, his fingers streaking through the thick curls, and he was moaning and so was she, and arching up against him, strange keening sounds coming from her throat.

  I didn’t know what to do, and so I stayed quiet and just stared at them. He lifted her and tossed her down to the soft Turkey carpet, lowering himself over her. I saw him pulling at her gown, tossing her petticoats up until they frothed around her face. Her hands were on his shoulders, kneading him and pulling at his clothes. She was moaning as his hands slid up under her petticoats. Her legs came apart, her knees spread wide, and I watched my father pull back. He pulled apart the buttons of his britches and pulled out this immense hard shaft of flesh that was attached to him. And then he shoved it between her legs. I saw her legs go up and clasp him around his hips. They were kissing and rocking back and forth and crying and moaning, like animals, like animals, and they didn’t stop, stop, stop.

  My mother’s pale face appeared before my eyes. She was strangely silent, dark shadows scored the delicate flesh beneath her eyes. She was staring at my father, and I heard her scream at him of his lechery, his unfaithfulness, and it shamed her to her soul. I felt her hatred of him and of Molly, the maid who had let him throw her skirts around her face and stick himself inside her. And she was screaming of other women and what he had done, and her humiliation and pain. But he didn’t care. He just looked at her, then turned and walked away.

  Suddenly, my mother’s face faded away, and I saw Molly’s face, heard her dreadful screams. I knew then that I was in the servants’ quarters on the third floor, and it was hot up there, the heat of mid-summer rising to blanket these attic rooms. She was screaming, and she simply didn’t stop. Scream upon scream, and then, suddenly, she was silent. I heard people talking. She screamed again, but not as loud this time, and I knew she was exhausted. I saw her gross belly, naked now, saw her back arch up and her face distort with agony. They pulled a small, limp, bloody object from between her legs. Then there was blood, fountains of gushing, spurting blood, covering Molly’s legs, flowing onto the bed, dripping onto the wooden floor. My fingers were sticky red, the blood all over me, covering my clothing. Now they were screaming, rushing frantically, stuffing sheets between Molly’s legs.

  But Molly wasn’t screaming anymore. Her head lolled to the side. Her eyes were wide and blue, and there was no life at all in them now.

  The blood, so much blood, and it was dripping silently to the floor, a red pool that was now turning black. There was my mother, my beautiful mother, just standing there, her hands at her sides. She was so stiff, so cold to the touch, so white.

  And I heard her whisper, “He killed her. He killed Molly as well. How many other women has he killed with his lust? He is an animal. I had hoped he would die, but he didn’t. He won’t ever die, ever.”

  Lawrence jerked me upright and shook me, nearly shouting in my face, “For God’s sake, get a grip on yourself. You’re damned hysterical. Snap out of it.”

  I opened my eyes, and I was back here, alone with this man in the library, and he was shaking me. I looked up into my husband’s face. I felt battered, ripped apart inside, and terribly, terribly alone. But he was here, and he was going to hurt me, perhaps kill me, as my father had killed Molly.

  His eyes were intent as he looked down at me. I was trembling, I knew that, but I couldn’t stop it. “How I wish I had never seen any of it, never known any of it,” I said. He let me go. I stepped away from him. I rubbed the palm of my hand across my forehead. Was I trying to rub away those dreadful memories? Memories that I hadn’t seen or felt so clearly in more years than I could count.

  The silence was deep, endless, but it did not really matter, for I was trying to vanquish my own personal nightmare, and the coldness of the silence, the menace of it, didn’t really touch me.

  I heard his voice over the snapping and soft explosions of the burning logs in the fireplace. “Perhaps now I understand why you married me, Andrea. You thought I would take your grandfather’s place, did you not? That I would protect you and keep you safe from your own fears, those horrible nightmares and visions from the past that still come to you as they did just now? No, there is no place for a lusty young husband in your plans, is there?”

  I saw John laughing, stroking his large hand over Small Bess’s mane. John, holding George, again laughing at something I had said, and I had loved his laugh, felt it to my very soul. John, angry now, that surge of violence stark in his dark eyes, angry because I was his uncle’s wife and couldn’t ever be his. A knife turned in my heart.

  Slowly, I shook my head.

  “Would you like to tell me what your father did? What you saw him do? What you heard about him?”

  “My father,” I said slowly. “My father.
What do you know of him? What has he to do with this madness?”

  “It is really of no importance, not now. You will learn that I know more of your past than you realize.”

  He leaned down over me, his face close to mine. He must have seen the soul-shattering fear in me, because he straightened and laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh; it made my heart shrink. “Ah, don’t worry that I will rape you. I haven’t the time, truth be told. I would like to take your virginity, but it isn’t meant to be. It is a pity.”

  “Why did you marry me?”

  He pulled his chair close to mine and sat down, his arms folded across his chest. I had no clue what he was thinking, what he was planning, but I knew it wasn’t good. I needed him to talk. I needed time. John would come, surely. No, he was with Lady Elizabeth. He had left me. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, for men were never honest with women, but I was still devastated that he was gone. Knowing what he knew of my danger, he had still left.

  “You really were quite stupid in your search of my rooms.”

  Searching his room? Well, damn. How could he have known? Still, down deep, I wasn’t surprised that he knew. I watched as he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a letter, its edges crumpled. He held it up for me to see. “What happened? You read all my letters, and this particular one really annoyed you, and so you nearly destroyed it? You were not very accomplished in your searching methods. You couldn’t even manage to smooth out the envelope well enough for me not to notice. Also, I smelled your scent, light and soft and really quite distinctive. I breathed in, and I knew you had come into my very private room.”

  I gave him a shrug. “That envelope you’re waving at me—it looks like a very old letter, my lord, a letter that one would have written a very long time ago, perhaps a time when even you were young.”

  I thought he would strike me, but he didn’t. “Your endless impertinence—you are arrogant, my girl, but in the end, you proved yourself quite an unworthy opponent—stupid really. Do you want me to hit you? No, probably not.” He began folding and refolding that old letter between his long fingers.