Seacliff (37 page)

And she felt somehow cheated.

After all she had been through, after the lives that had been lost over the past year, the room should have looked as if it had suffered a cataclysm.

They stood on the hearth, and as if at an unseen signal Bradford entered from the side corridor, Mary shuffling in at his heels. Flint nodded graciously to them and slipped an arm around Caitlin’s waist. When he began speaking, she was startled and almost demanded he wait for the others; but then she remembered that all the “others”— the staff—were gone.

“For the next three days,” Flint told Bradford, “you will need some assistance from Mr. Birwyn’s men to help you around the place. I will see to it they follow whatever instructions you choose to give them. If there is any trouble, any grumbling, you will come to me at once, and I shall determine the punishment. Mary,” he said to the young wench gaping at him, “I will fetch some of the ladies from the village to lend you a hand cleaning the rooms. All of them must be absolutely perfect, from the floors to the walls. See to it, please, that you also prepare a list of foodstuffs for the banquet following the ceremony. None of it must come from outside the valley. This will be a windfall for our people in more ways than one.” Then he turned on Bradford. “Send Davy down for the vicar straightaway. Lady Morgan and I will want to see him as soon as possible.”

Mary curtsied clumsily and hurried from the room at Flint’s offhanded dismissal. Caitlin was astonished, however, to see Bradford hesitate before leaving. Such reluctance wasn’t like him at all, and she could not help thinking that perhaps his lifelong allegiance to the major had not been completely transferred to the major’s former steward. If that was true, however, it was such a small thing it was not worth considering. Certainly it was no cause for hope.

As soon as they were alone again, Flint took his arm away from her waist and stared at the ashes piled against the firewall. “Bradford is getting old,” he said.

Caitlin held her breath, praying the man hadn’t managed to read her mind—though there was no small satisfaction in knowing she’d been right about Bradford’s wavering loyalty.

“He tells me… he has been telling me for days that I should choose another time for the wedding. He claims that by sniffing the air like some misbegotten hound he can tell when it will rain, even if there are no clouds in the sky. And he fears our first day as man and wife will be spoiled by the weather.” He looked back at her. “Do you think that foolish or wise?”

“If you are really asking for my opinion, Mr. Flint, then no, I don’t think it foolish in the least. There is, in fact, a certain smell to the air before a storm arrives. I believe there’s rain in a fine mist that we neither see nor feel, but which can be smelled just the same.”

“You think so?”

She smiled tightly. “I know so.”

He considered, and dismissed her words. “It makes no difference, for all of that, my lady. Rain or shine or Bradford’s infernal mothering, we will proceed just the same.”

“As you will, Mr. Flint.”

“Indeed,” he said. “As I will.”

He strode swiftly across the room, and Caitlin waited until he’d reached the doorway before calling his name. He turned, just as Nate Birwyn appeared at his side.

“Mr. Flint,” she said loudly, hoping volume would hide the trembling of her voice, “if I’m to be married in three days’ time there are things I must do.”

“Then do them, my lady.”

Hold, she told her temper; hold.

“I should very much like to visit my father’s grave. And my late husband’s.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, but he granted the request with an offhanded wave.

“And I should like to pay a call on Master Randall.”

“Oh?” Flint exchanged glances with Birwyn.

“It is customary,” she said, “for the wife to present the husband with a gift, is it not?”

Flint’s grin was feral. “I should think Seacliff would be gift enough, Caitlin.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed, biting down a sudden wave of revulsion, “but would you deny me the opportunity to add something to the occasion?”

Birwyn’s expression was doubtful, but she was positive Flint would not be able to resist the lure, especially since he believed he had already hooked the catch.

“Very well,” he said. And then, with a low bow, “If you’ll excuse me..

Caitlin waited until the two men had left, then sank onto the couch and covered her face with her hands. They were clammy, and they twitched as her tension was slowly released. She wanted desperately to scream, or to grab hold of the heaviest object she could lift and heave it through the window, but at the moment the most important thing was to maintain her control. If she slipped now, in front of Flint or anyone else, it would be all over.

Ten minutes passed before she felt steady enough to rise. Then she made her way directly to her rooms where she sat at her desk and wrote hastily in the light of a wavering candle. When she was finished she tore the page from her journal and, lifting a candle, walked to the fireplace where she knelt on the hearth and placed the journal sheet on the ashes. Holding the flame to the bottom edge she watched her last words begin to curl and turn brown. Then she blew out the glowing wick and lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling while the tiny blue flame flickered, blazed, and died, having devoured her words:

It is done, and now that it is done there is no turning away. I am alone and friendless, which is of my own doing. I dare not involve others until I know what I’m doing will succeed. It is better this way. There is much pain, and there is much darkness around me, but with God’s help I shall be able to find the light that will free me and the balm to ease the pain.

If I do not, if failure is cast into my path, then Gwen, dear Gwen, will have her wish.

If I fail, I will be dead.

And if I fail, Griffin will never hear from my lips how much I have truly loved him, and love him now.

A little late in the coming, perhaps, but late in coming rather than never understanding at all is a far better course.

Would that I had the prophetic powers to lead me. Father, I do not want to die.

She sighed loudly, and by slow degrees. Writing the words had been a way to make a compact with herself. Once before she had attempted to throw off her shackles; now she would try again. And this time there would be nothing to thwart her. One way or another it would end.

And the end would begin tomorrow.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered, both a vow and a shudder of fear. “Tomorrow.”

28

T
he grass in the cemetery had been recently scythed, and a few of the graves had been freshened with flowers. The old birch overhanging the mausoleum had weathered still another winter, its foliage thick and cool and sheltering the gamboling of several frisky squirrels. Caitlin stood beneath the branches for several minutes, listening to their play and smiling thoughtfully. Occasionally she would be showered with broken twigs and torn leaves or the shells of acorns. When her hand rose to brush at her hair and shoulders, her movement was languid, almost as though she was reluctant, or was listening instead to the muted voices of the boys’ choir practicing in the nearby church. They would be singing for her the day after tomorrow, and the dulcet tones of the hymn carried more than a little melancholy and regret.

She sighed, and picked her way through the maze of knobby roots poking through the ground until she reached the bronze door of the crypt. A glance over her shoulder revealed Birwyn standing patiently at the gates. She pushed the door open, stepped in, and closed herself off from the village, and from the world.

The total darkness did not disturb her. Within moments she had struck a flint, set it to a wick, and held the candle by its holder at eye level. There was her father, the plaque tarnished already, and below him, closest to the floor, was Sir Oliver. Not exactly, she thought with mordant humor, the position he would have chosen for himself.

Carefully, so as not to agitate the flame, she placed the holder on the floor and sat beside it, adjusting her skirts about her ankles and pulling off her white gloves. It was her guess that she remain undisturbed for at least fifteen minutes. Then Birwyn would grow anxious and summon the courage he needed to come through the gates and see if she hadn’t discovered some way to flee. During that time Caitlin would be trying to call forth her own courage, for her next stop was Martin Randall’s shop, assuming he would greet her at all.

The air grew close.

She felt no fear about sitting among the dead; at present they provided her with more company than did most of the living. Ironic, she thought. Although she had spent most of her life in pursuit of amusement and recreation, she was now drawing comfort from those who would never dance or laugh again.

“Father,” she whispered then, “do you remember the time Oliver first came to you to ask for my hand? I could see, later, how you had struggled with your pride as you gave it, and how annoyed you were with me for fussing so about it. But neither of us was to blame for what happened later. We couldn’t know.
I
couldn’t have known. If I hadn’t been so addlepated, perhaps I might have seen. But I was, and I didn’t. And I hope you will forgive me now, for what I’m about to do.”

Stiffly she rose to her feet, wincing at the pain in her knees as she reached down for the candle and extinguished the flame. She fumbled for a moment before finding the door and, pulling it open, blinking at the bright sunlight. She stepped over the threshold just as Birwyn put his hand on the gate latch. She nodded to him, he nodded back, and she turned away, staring into the misty darkness of the crypt until she could feel her guard’s eyes boring into the back of her neck.

Inhaling deeply, her lips forming a grim line, she rejoined him, allowing him to open the gate and hold her elbow as she climbed into the cart and took her seat. Davy had volunteered to drive her, but she had refused to let him, steeling herself against the hurt in his eyes. She needed the one-eyed man now to remind herself not to commit a folly. Davy would give her false courage; Birwyn extra caution.

Around the commons they rode, the mid-afternoon sun slightly paled by a dim haze that had taken hold of the valley just after dawn. The bay, too, she noted, was restless; the swells were erratic, some large and some regular-sized, and the color was changing in spite of the sky’s constant blue. They seemed to grow darker, then, angry, and once in a while a stiff gust broke whitecaps into spray. The tension she’d felt since awakening seemed to have been transmitted to the air, which was unmoving, stifling, like the air in a room that had been sealed shut for centuries.

There were a few people in their gardens, a few more standing in the Stag’s Head yard, and all of them turned their heads boldly when she left the cart and walked through the gap in Randall’s wall. On a post near the door hung a sign:
M. Randall, Esq. Fine Work in Gold and Tin.
There was an oversized window to her right, and it displayed kettles and pots, utensils and sconces, all of which circled a large oval plate of elaborately hammered gold. The gold plate had been there as long as she could remember; her father had once tried to purchase it, but the goldsmith had refused, saying he had worked for three years to get the floral and stag designs right, and once accomplished he was unable to part with the plate at any price.

It was a wonder, she thought, that Flint hadn’t found a way to take it for himself.

The shop door was ajar. There was no sound within.

She checked first to see if Birwyn was still on the wagon perch before pushing open the door and stepping into a dimly lit room. A low display case stood on her right just in front of the window, a table and two high-backed chairs sat on her left for waiting customers, and directly ahead was a long table covered with a white linen cloth on which had been arranged more than a dozen candelabra of varying sizes and shapes.

As she stepped toward them, aware of how very warm it was inside despite the cooling thatched roof, a door in the back wall opened and Martin Randall stepped inside. He was clearly not expecting her. He pulled the door to, turned, and his square jaw nearly dropped to his chest. His flustered reaction lasted only a second; then he was around the table in a hurry, wiping his large scarred hands on his apron.

“Lady Morgan,” he said in bewildered greeting. She smiled at him and held out her hand.

Randall hesitated, casting a surreptitious glance sideways toward the large window to make sure they were unobserved. Then he took her hand, but released it suddenly, as if she were on fire. Though she was hurt, Caitlin could not blame him. She was lucky, considering his reputation for daring, that he didn’t throw her out on her ear.

“I expect you’ve come about the wedding and such?” he said, measuring the words carefully in English.

“I certainly have,” she said, quite deliberately in Welsh and delighting at the amazement that broke across his face. He had expected her to converse in English. Hadn’t she gone English as everyone was saying? “And other things.”

“Other things?”

She passed around him and made an elaborate show of examining the candelabra. “I am told, Master Randall, that you are quite knowledgeable about things other than your craft.”

“M’lady?” he said, puzzled.

“I have heard, for example,” she said casually, “that you have a great skill at wrestling, that there is no one in or out of the valley who dares challenge you.”

“I have never been thrown, m’lady,” he said, a faint note of pride entering his voice and blending with his bewilderment. “But I—”

She turned on him, still smiling. “Master Randall,” she scolded playfully, “from what I hear, that isn’t strictly true.”

He drew himself up, his forearms visible beneath his rolled-up sleeves, the muscles bulging under a thick matting of black hair. “You have heard wrong, m’lady, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.”

“Well, now.” She eased around him again, deliberately allowing her skirts to brush against his trouser leg, stopping when she reached the display case and, when he did not follow, motioning him behind it. He hesitated, and she pointed while she stared out the window at Birwyn, who was eyeing the cottage under his broad-brimmed dark hat.