Seacliff (24 page)

“If I stay one more hour there,” she’d said, pointing dramatically at the bed, “I’ll become part of it, don’t you see?

I’m not going to walk automatically, husband. I have to practice at it, keep at it, feed myself like a suckling pig and get my powers back.”

“Your powers of speech haven’t suffered for it,” he muttered. “You should be grateful for the weeks of silence.”

She smiled, allowing Gwen to help her to a chair into which she sank with a loud, grinning sigh. A spate of giggling followed, for no reason at all, and she sobered when Gwen left to fetch her dinner tray. “Oliver?”

He scowled and rose, stood with his back to the room, facing the balcony, though the French doors were closed. “You ask me every day, my dear, and every day I tell you the same bloody thing: The fruit was tainted, and the nostrums you were given did not contribute to your illness. They flushed the foul bile from your blood, but it took time. Time, Caitlin. It would have been the same for anyone.”

“But I don’t understand—”

He turned on his heels, a military about-face. “Neither do I, but it was done. I can only assume Mrs. Courder allowed the fruit to remain too long in her larder. She has been spoken to, I can assure you.”

She shook her head to indicate that she still didn’t understand but she refrained from saying more. And when it was clear that she was drained of protests, Oliver bade her a good evening and left. She stared at the hearth and wondered. Despite all the resolutions to remodel her life, she knew that Oliver was the one element she could not change. Once she’d gotten on her feet again, his concern had become perfunctory, and nothing anyone could tell her would convince her that he cared about her. It would be difficult, this new thing she was trying; by the same token, she had never gone quite so far as to convince herself it would be easy, either.

When Gwen returned with beef broth and vegetables, and a small goblet of wine, Caitlin asked her to stay awhile, and Gwen readily agreed, dropping to her knees to light the fire. She smiled mischievously as she dragged Oliver’s chair closer to the hearth. A silence comfortable and gentle filled the room, and it was broken only after Caitlin had sponged the last of the gravy from her plate with fresh bread and had licked her fingers to capture every last drop. Releasing a sated sigh, she lowered the tray to the floor, her silk robe rustling as she pulled her legs under her and turned to face Gwen.

“Now,” she said with a decisive nod, “you’ll not put it off any longer, my dear.”

“Oh, Caitlin…”

“For heaven’s sake,” she said, with a hint of exasperation, “where is it written that I must be shielded from the world for the rest of my life? Each time I ask you a question, if it’s good news you bubble it all over me, and if it’s bad, you pull a dreadfully sour face and tell me I must rest. Well!” She thumped her hands in her lap. “Well, I’m fed, and I’m rested, and I’m not feeling the least bit tired. So tell me, Gwen. Tell me about Davy, and what you’ve heard of Griff.”

“Must I?”

“If you don’t, I’ll see to it you give Bradford his monthly bath for the next twenty years.”

Gwen’s feigned horror set them both laughing for nearly ten minutes, but when it was over Caitlin reminded her she’d not forgotten her question.

“Well… Davy is fine now, mistress. He sometimes feels the rain a bit, the weather, but he’s good as new otherwise. Fact is, he’d be right pleased if you’d see him for a minute or two. When you’re up to visitors, that is. He’ll want to thank you for what you did.”

Caitlin experienced a moment’s embarrassment as she waved the thanks away. Davy had once again crossed words with Oliver, and her husband had decided it was more than high time he be made an example before the rest of the staff. Oliver had claimed the servants were growing rebellious, and this was the best way he could think of to bring them back in line. A few ill-chosen words, and a young man nearly lost his life.

“And Griff?” she said, wanting to change the subject so her temper would not rise. “Word?”

Gwen had told her of her trips to Falconrest to bring Griffin news of her illness, and she’d told her, too, of the mysterious attack on him toward the end of the month. Griffin would say little about it save that he gave as much as he got, but she’d seen the bruises and the gashes, the pained way he hobbled about the room while he asked about Cat, and she knew there was more in the telling than she’d been able to grasp.

“But this past fortnight I’ve heard nothing, mistress. I’ve not been able to go over, but I seen Master Randall who does work for him now and again, and he tells me the place is dark at night, and Jones isn’t seen around neither.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “he’s taken time off for one of his adventures.”

“La,” Gwen said, lifting her gaze to the ceiling. “He’s adventures aplenty around here without going off and looking for them, if you ask me.”

Another silence, this one weighted and hanging heavily between them.

Finally, Cat yawned in spite of herself, stretched and suggested she take to bed early. “I’ll want to be out tomorrow,” she said shyly, waiting for the storm of protests to begin. “I think it’s time I stop playing hermit and let people know I’m still alive.”

But there were no objections from Gwen, and that surprised her. She lowered her bare feet to the floor and leaned forward, staring at Gwen to try to read her face.

“What is it?”

“Tomorrow there’s a hearing,” Gwen told her. “It… it will be the second one since you took ill.”

“What?” She jumped to her feet, shaking her head at the dizziness that had her grabbing for the back of the chair. “What? You mean to tell me, Gwen Thomas, that Sir Oliver has already presided over one hearing without me?”

“You… you were ill, Cat,” Gwen pointed out, cringing into the chair away from Caitlin’s outburst. “You were dying!”

“I was nothing of the sort,” she cried. “And he should have waited. He should have waited!”

The hearing was an institution created by her great-grandfather to oversee legal disputes among the villagers. At least once during each two-month period the people of the valley would gather at Seacliff to present grievances against neighbors, ask permission to marry or to sell parcels of land; new families were introduced, births celebrated, levies collected, and fines assessed; and those who had committed crimes not covered by the master’s domain were remaindered in a specially built cottage near the stables until the circuit judge arrived.

Under Caitlin’s harsh questioning, Gwen revealed that Oliver had managed everything rather brusquely, with the estate’s steward, James Flint, carrying out his orders with his band of retired soldiers. Oliver had also given a short speech on the need for soldiers in the king’s army, since war had broken out in the American colonies; and if there was war in America, there was sure to be some fighting against the French who were Britain’s age-old enemy and who would eventually side with the colonies. No one had come forward, but Oliver had continued to send messages into the village, and he was confident that sooner or later he would have a small troop ready for the king.

“He never said a word,” Caitlin muttered, stumbling away from the fireplace to her bed. “He never said a word about a hearing. And he knows—he
knows,
Gwen!-—that I must be there for his authority to be legal.” She slumped to the mattress, feeling suddenly bone-weary. “What else?” she said, more to herself than to Gwen, who had followed her and was turning back the quilt. “What else has he taken from me while I’ve been in this damned place?”

Gwen’s brow furrowed in concern. “You’d best not think about it now, Cat, really. You’re not as strong as you think.”

“My God!” she said. “That’s all Oliver ever says. Take it easy, Caitlin; relax, Caitlin; marshal your strength, my dear, so we can have you well again.” She raised a fist to the ceiling and brandished it fiercely. “Well, damn his eyes, I
am
… I am…”

Her eyes widened in mute panic as chills washed over her, and she drew up her legs, her teeth chattering, to keep warm.

“My… God,” she whispered, and looked to Gwen, pleading. “My…Gwen, please! No, it can’t be. It can’t be, not again.”

Gwen hustled her under the covers and pulled them up to her chin. “It’s not,” she said softly. “You’re worked into a tizzy, and now you’re paying the price. You rest, mistress. You just rest, and tomorrow you’ll be right as rain again.”

“Yes,” Caitlin said. “Yes, yes I will.”

She fell back to the pillows and clenched her teeth to keep them still. Gwen fetched the tray from the floor and tucked it under her arm. She glanced around the room, and she moved to each of the candles in their sconces and pinched them out until only the firelight was left. As a shadow, then, Gwen drifted out of Caitlin’s vision, humming a lullaby and smiling, blowing her a kiss and closing the door softly behind her.

A hearing, she thought, alone in the half-light. He’s taken over everything now, everything I own.

And though a cautionary voice told her it was only until she was well and mobile again, she could not help the tears she shed through the night.

19

S
he heard voices through the deep black fog that engulfed her; she wanted to speak, to scream, but she felt as though a gag had been stuffed into her mouth, and her eyelids seemed glued to the rise of her cheekbones—blinding her, though she knew her vision was still perfect. It was frustrating, it was horrifying, and the worst of it was that no one paid attention to her moaning.

“
… too much at once. I told you that, Major. Another reversal like this could very well prove fatal. You’ll have to heed my prescriptions, and do that very carefully.”

“I understand that, Doctor.”

“I certainly hope you do.”

“Well, you’re certainly being forward for someone so deeply in my debt. Remember, sir, I have an estate to run—one of considerable size, lest your feeble brain fail to comprehend that fact. I cannot be in a hundred places at once.”

“Nevertheless, you should have been more cautious. Now we’ll have to do it right. Therefore, please see to it that Lady Morgan rests. Rests, Sir Oliver! There is no other cure for it in my experience.”

“Can I take it you mean a great deal of rest, Doctor?”

“You may be sure of that, sir. You may be absolutely sure of that indeed.”

“Then—”

“Then you will continue as you have done. And you’d best instruct whoever nurses this woman that on no account must she be permitted to leave her bed until—
until,
sir—I have given my permission.”

“You have my word, Doctor.”

“See to it you keep it. You don’t want another body on your hands.”

“C
at? Cat, can you hear me? Oh, God, Cat, please nod your head or something and let me know you can hear me. He’ll be coming soon, and I must be quick. The cobbler, Tommy Williams, was brought before the hearing last week, and they said he’s been hoarding gold under his hearth instead of paying his debts. He said nay, but Flint claims to have seen it. Sir Oliver took less than a minute to tell the cobbler he must repay his obligations within a fortnight or forfeit his home. He said nay again, but no one was listening. They dared not speak up for him, Cat. None of them dared speak up for him. It was terrible, but it isn’t the end of it.

“Oh, God, can you hear me, Cat?

“Last night, it was gone midnight and Quinn Broary was out back of her place with Randall. You don’t ask, and I won’t tell. But they heard strange sounds from the Williams cottage that’s right down the lane a bit, off the main road. They didn’t do nothing about it, but they remembered it this morning, and they asked around the Stag’s Head and places to see what’s known. But there was nothing to be heard. Then Randall took himself to the cottage and the next thing you know the vicar was right by him, yelling and swearing and getting on his horse and riding right here to Mr. Flint.

“’Twas his duty, the reverend says. I suppose it was, but he didn’t have to ride like the Brits were on his heels.

“The thing is, Cat, that Williams is gone! Wife, children, everyone gone from the whole place! Broary must’ve heard them packing it all together, I imagine. But it’s odd they didn’t hear the wagon moving out, isn’t it? I mean, I would think you’d hear something of a loaded wagon on that miserable excuse for a road, wouldn’t you?

“It’s not good, Cat. It’s not good at all.

“They’ve declared Williams an outlaw, and they’ve put gold on his head.”

“W
hat
are
you talking about, Bradford? This is Gwen Thomas here, not one of your whimpering underlings, like Mary.”

“I will ignore that, woman.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Hold your tongue! Now, you will see to it she is bathed every other day, turned every four hours, and—”

“You bitten sod! Who the hell are you to tell me how to take care of my mistress, eh? You pomp around this house like it was your own, and do you once come up here to see how she’s doing? Oh, no! Not the great and mighty Emmanuel Bradford, not you. You—”

“That is enough, woman.”

“I am indeed woman enough for you, you old fart. More than enough. Now get the hell out of here before I take your hide to the fire!”

“The master will hear about this, I can assure you.”

“The great and bloody master hears the damned crickets pissing, he does.”

“You’re in trouble, woman!”

“Fie, I’ve been in worse trouble from worse men than you.”

S
he heard the voices and the comings and goings, but she could not feel heartened by her improving condition. While she did not seem to be suffering the same sort of fever as before, she was still enveloped in an invisible shroud of cotton, blinding her, gagging her, making her finally pray for the nightmares because at least they gave her movement.

“G
ood Lord, Mary, what d’you call this slop here?”

“Be broth, Thomas, be broth.”

“Oh, my, aren’t we feeling our oats today. I’m Thomas to you now? Like hell I am! You mind your place, girl, or I’ll give you the kind of scars Davy has on his back.”