Ariadne's Diadem (28 page)

Shortly afterward, Joseph, cautious to the last, eventually felt he could do no more for Penelope. As wood, she was perfect again, but whether she would be equally as perfect when she was flesh and blood remained to be seen. “We’d best take her up to a bed first, so she’ll be comfortable when she awakens,” he said, nodding to Gervase to help him carry the nymph.

Mrs. Jenkins hurried ahead of them with a lighted candle, and Penelope was carefully laid in the bed Gervase would have slept in that first night, had he stayed. Then everyone gathered around, even Jack, as Sylvanus said the words that would turn the carved lamp holder into a young woman again. Anne watched in fascination, Mrs. Jenkins made an uneasy little noise as the gleam of polished wood became the soft bloom of living flesh, and Jack whined and put his head curiously to one side, but Gervase lowered his eyes, for he knew only too well what was happening.

Penelope lay there with her silvery hair spilling over the pillow. Gone were the bruises and the wound in her side, and she seemed as perfect as before, except that she did not breathe or open her eyes. Everyone gazed in horrified anticipation, for she seemed quite dead, but then she inhaled deeply, although her eyes remained closed. Sylvanus choked back a sob and drew her hand to his adoring lips.

Joseph put a reassuring hand on the faun’s shoulder. “Now we just have to wait, but I think she’ll be fine,” he said.

Mrs. Jenkins eyed the gardener with admiration. “Joseph Greenwood, you’re a marvel, and no mistake. I shall never again grumble about you, your mangy mongrel, or your horrible potions.”

He smiled. “I never thought I’d live to hear you say that, Gwen Jenkins.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Sylvanus preferred to remain at Penelope’s bedside, so the others respected his wishes. Mrs. Jenkins and Joseph returned to the kitchens, but although Anne expected Charles to accompany her there too, instead he went to Mr. Willowby’s study and closed the door behind him. Anne could only guess that even after such a night, he remained Mr. Critchley’s dutiful junior partner and was diligently attending to the examination of her father’s ledgers. She found it hard to be in such close proximity to him and yet not be trusted with the truth about his strange dealings with Sylvanus. Tonight they’d all gone through a great deal, and not until Penelope recovered would it be over. No, it would not be over even then, because there would still be so much left unresolved with Charles Danby—if resolved it would ever be.

Too upset to contemplate joining the servants in the kitchens, Anne tiptoed past the study door to the deserted, unlit drawing room. Dawn was not far away now, and the air was fresh as she opened the window to gaze out. The maze was dark and shadowy, and the white of the rotunda stood out with a clarity that was both solid and ghostly. A thin overnight mist had risen from the Wye and hung in delicate veils across the park. The scent of spring flowers was sweet and poignant, and the first bird had begun to sing, a blackbird, she thought, listening to the crisp, intricate notes. Tears stung her eyes, because she felt emotionally and physically drained. She hardly knew how to cope with it all, beset as she was by such a momentous sequence of events, but it was her poor battered heart that suffered most.

She glanced up at the navy blue sky. The stars were still bright, but the birth of the new day shone palely to the east. Soon the light would soften the shadows of the maze, and the topmost branches would be touched with green. Another day, but the same heartaches.

“Anne?”

She turned with a startled gasp as Gervase spoke suddenly from the doorway behind her. “How did you know I was here?” she asked, pressing defensively back against the windowsill.

“I didn’t. I came here to get something, but I’m glad to find you, because I need to speak to you.” He came closer, and she saw that he had a sheet of folded paper in his hand. “Why are you on your own in the dark like this?” he asked softly.

“I needed time to think.”

“What about?” He glanced uneasily out the window. The indigo sky had begun to soften to a paler shade of kingfisher, and the first sun rays now lanced thinly up to weaken the glow of the stars. He knew he had little time left before he had to become marble again.

She avoided looking at him. “Oh, not all that much, I suppose,” she replied untruthfully.

“Tell me, Anne,” he pressed, hoping to prompt her into the confession that would release him.

‘Tell you? You decline to explain anything, yet expect
me
to divulge everything!” Her pain was evident in the bitter words.

“When we were by the rapids, I thought you understood that I would tell you when I could.”

“Maybe I did, but understanding is not easy when you calmly remove yourself to my father’s study in order to continue going through his accounts as if nothing untoward has occurred!”

“Is
that
what you think I’ve been doing?” He was startled that his actions could have been thus interpreted, for the damned ledgers were the last thing on his mind!

“In the absence of any other explanation, what else am I to believe?”

He gazed at her. “Oh, Anne...”

“Please don’t look at me like that.” She was glad that the dimness of the light hid the tears that had sprung to her eyes.

His heart twisted with love for her. “When I am eventually able to tell you my reasons, I know you will understand, but in the meantime please take me on trust, for I vow I will not let you down.”

“How can I take you on trust when you show no trust in me?”

“I would trust you with my life; indeed, my life is already in your keeping,” he said quietly.

Such an odd choice of words made her look intently at him. “What do you mean?”

He felt helpless. The eastern sky was turning to aquamarine, and the maze beckoned. In a few moments he had to return to the rotunda. “Just say what is in your heart,” he whispered, his fingers tightening over the paper he held.

The air seemed to become even more still around her. All other considerations suddenly departed, and she knew what she had to tell him. “I love you, Charles—that is what is in my heart,” she said softly.

Gervase closed his eyes, for his relief was so intense that he felt weak. Just as another day of marble imprisonment seemed inevitable, she’d given him his freedom! “Oh, my darling, darling Anne, if you only knew how precious those words are to me,” he breathed, opening his eyes again to look out at the ever lightening sky. Never had a dawn been more blessed than this one.

His emotion affected her, and she went to him. “Charles?”

He caught her close, finding her mouth in a kiss that made their hearts beat in complete unison. His fingers twined in the warm hair at the nape of her neck, and his lips moved richly and yearningly against hers. She was love itself to him, the embodiment of every sweet feeling, and the justification for his very existence. Without her now, he might as well be marble anyway.

Joy sang through Anne as she returned the kiss, for she could not help but know that no matter how much about himself he held back, his overwhelming love for her was now laid bare. His lips were sensuously arousing, his fingers moved caressingly in her hair, and for a long, exquisite moment his body seemed one with hers, but then he drew back. He was overcome, and for a few seconds could not speak, but then he smiled into her eyes. “I’m myself again at last, my dearest, sweetest, most beloved Anne. As in all the finest fairy tales, the princess has said the three enchanted words that release the prince from bewitchment!”

“Bewitchment?”

“Yes, for now I can tell you who I really am. To begin with, I have never met Mr. Charles Danby, although I’m sure he is a very pleasant fellow.” He stepped suddenly to the mantelpiece, selected a letter from the bundle behind the candlestick, and gave it to her, together with the folded sheet of paper he’d held when he entered the room. “Look at them both, Anne. What do you see?”

There was a brief message on the sheet of paper.

“Do you recognize my writing, Anne? And having recognized it, do you forgive my past letters? I vow I would not, could not, write them now.”

Her lips parted with realization, for the hand was unmistakably the same as that of the letter.

“This is why I was in the study, searching for pen, paper, and ink, and thinking about what words to compose. I wanted to prove my identity, and how better than by my writing, which is surely ingrained upon your memory, albeit in a disagreeable way.”

“Gervase Mowbray? You’re
Gervase Mowbray?”
Shaken, she raised huge eyes to his face.

“He of the disagreeable manners and character? Yes, Anne, I am.”

Mortification swept over her as she remembered what she’d said the second time he’d called.
I confess the advent of Hugh Mowbray gives me cause for some relief, for I cannot pretend to grieve over the passing of his late cousin, whose disagreeable manners and character were only too evident in his letters.
She drew herself up then, for matching handwriting or not, she was again being asked to believe the impossible, and this time it was almost too much to endure. “But you can’t be Gervase Mowbray, he’s dead!”

“No, Anne, I’m very much alive, and I’m deeply ashamed of my past behavior. All things considered, I probably fully deserved my marble punishment.”

She knew he was who he said he was, and her hand trembled as she put the letter and piece of paper down on the heavy table that had once graced the dining room, but which now served to hold the revolving bookstand that held her father’s favorite volumes. Then she kept her back turned toward him as she tried to compose herself. “Why did you masquerade as Charles Danby? Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the outset? You have not denied that you and the statue are one and same, which alone is hard enough to comprehend, but then there are also Sylvanus and Penelope! I know it is all true, and yet I also know that it is impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible, Anne. I know that now, if I didn’t know it before.” He went behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, and rested his cheek against her hair. Her perfume was all around him, heady and beguiling, like warm summer flowers.

Her fingers crept to rest over his, and she closed her eyes. ‘Tell me everything,” she whispered.

He related the whole story, and she listened with total credulity. She did not doubt that Ariadne’s wedding crown was more than just a cluster of stars in the night sky, that Bacchus still mourned his lost love, or that fauns abounded in the hill above Naples, for it was all so patently true, but it failed to occur to her that the diadem in question was at this very moment lying on the table in the hall here at Llandower. She did not realize that the birthday present Hugh pressed upon her was the very thing poor Sylvanus needed so that he too could meet Bacchus’s strict terms; indeed, she had forgotten all about the gift.

When Gervase had finished, she told him her own tale, of her reluctant resolve to bow to his father’s pressure, her resignation when Hugh apparently succeeded to the title, and about her own father’s letter from Ireland. She also told him what had happened on the evening of her birthday, although even then the gift slipped her mind.

On learning of Hugh’s arrival after she’d sent word not to come, Gervase smiled. “He received your note, make no mistake of that, but you’d hoist him with his own petard, because contrary to his claims, he
was
still bound by my father’s will. I know my cousin, and can put his reasoning together with what I believe to be a high degree of accuracy. He always intended to dispose of you in order to get everything without the inconvenience of a wife he didn’t want, but your formal notification to Critchley would mean he could never meet the terms of the will, so you had to be eliminated
before
any letter could be sent to London. Hugh therefore pretended ignorance of the note and arrived anyway in order to despatch you as promptly as possible.” He hesitated, for the delicate matter of Kitty’s involvement had to be mentioned at some point. “Anne, there’s something I’ve so far neglected to mention in all this. Hugh wasn’t staying alone at the White Boar, nor was he using his real name. He was posing as a Mr. Oadby and claimed that his, er, companion, was his sister. He has no sister, and from what I know, I believe this lady to be Kitty Longton, an actress at Drury Lane who coincidentally hails from Oadby in Leicestershire. Hugh was long obsessed with her, for she is very beautiful and can be fascinating when she chooses, but she would have nothing to do with him when he wasn’t heir to a tide or a fortune. Once he stood in line to inherit
my
birthright, I have no doubt that Kitty would be most, er, obliging.”

Anne turned to face him. “Is she the lady with whom your name was once linked?” she asked quietly. Gervase was taken aback. “You know of that?”

“Even country newspapers stoop to printing gossip.”

“Does it make a difference in your regard for me?”

“That you have had at least one mistress in the past? I would be very foolish to imagine you have been celibate, or that Kitty Longton was an isolated case.” She smiled.

It was her first smile since learning his true identity, and it lightened his heart. “She wasn’t, and one day I will tell you my whole sordid history, but I doubt you wish to hear it right now.” His thoughts suddenly turned to the matter of Hugh’s demise. “We
should
inform the authorities about what happened tonight, but I don’t wish to.”

She was startled. “But we have to tell them!”

“Do we? The moment Hugh’s death becomes known, it’s going to be discovered that he came to dance attendance upon you, that he stayed at an inn under a false name, and that he was in the company of an actress who once happened to be my mistress too. None of these titillating revelations can be avoided, but if you add the further shocking fact that he met with his death while attempting to murder you, the scandal becomes a resounding
cause celèbre.”

She glanced away, for she had not yet considered such consequences.