After the Kiss (33 page)

“ ’Twas the face of a monster!” a third whispered.

“Fiddlesticks!” she had told them all. “It is only Marcus Wharton, whom you’ve known all your lives, come back from Waterloo with a cut on his face from a saber.”

“Ain’t you afraid of him, Your Grace?” one of the maids asked.

“Would I marry a man I feared?”

It had obviously been the wrong response because, in the end, she had needed to threaten the servants to make them go.

Eliza could not blame Marcus for being leery of showing his face to the servants or the twins. But she had to figure out some way of making him show it to her. Maybe once she saw his face for herself, she would know what she was dealing with. Only then would she know whether he was right to hide himself from the world.

Whatever he was, however he looked, he had become
her husband last night. Whatever the horror of his visage, she could vouch for the fact there was nothing about his body she found repellent. He was all sinew and bone. His chest was broad and powerful, covered with a soft, ticklish mat of hair. His thighs and buttocks were corded muscle, taut and firm. Surrounded by his strong arms, she had felt safe and secure in the dark.

As for the bruise on her throat …

Eliza could remember Marcus sucking gently on her throat beneath her ear, sending frissons of feeling skittering throughout her body. When he increased the sucking pressure and actually bit at her skin, her insides had drawn up tight. She could remember moaning and writhing. But there had been no pain. Only breathtaking, unbelievable bliss.

Despite the bruise, the Beast had done her no harm.

Eliza went in search of the twins, to remedy what harm she could from the morning, but they were nowhere to be found. She wondered if they had disappeared into the secret passageway, where she could not—would not—follow.

She had almost given up hope of finding them—until they wanted to be found—when she discovered them playing in the stable with Frances and another litter of kittens. By then, Eliza was well aware of the damage she had wrought by pushing too hard to reunite Marcus and his children.

The duke had issued orders countermanding hers. No servant was to cross the threshold of the east wing on pain of
death
, without a written order from him.
Her plan to move herself and the children into the east wing had been irrevocably canceled.

The Beast’s solitude was once again assured.

Worse than having the servants look askance at her for marrying a lunatic—or being one herself—was the damage she had done to the twins’ budding trust in her. She had promised them they would get their uncle back. She had failed dismally to deliver.

Eliza knew she was in trouble when she saw the twins had changed into
matching
bows.

“Hello,” she said as she squatted down in the same inelegant pose Reggie and Becky had adopted next to the mother cat and her kittens. She pointed and said, “That one looks just like Blackie.”

“Midnight is not ready to leave Frances,” Becky said.

“You cannot have him,” Reggie said.

“I see.” Their previous offer of a kitten was rescinded. Along with their trust and their friendship.

“You lied,” Reggie accused.

“Uncle Marcus never wanted to see us!” Becky said.

Eliza searched for words to help them understand. “Your uncle wants to see you. But he is also afraid to see you. Or rather, afraid for you to see him.”

“But why?” Reggie demanded, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Because of the ugly scar on his face,” Eliza said bluntly.

“It is not as bad as it was at first,” Becky said.

“It is horrible!” Reggie countered. “His eye is all bunched up on one side, and his cheek has an awful
crooked line in it. But I would not mind looking at it, if only he would not send us away.”

“It does make one wince,” Becky agreed.

“You sound as though you know exactly what your uncle’s face looks like behind that black hood,” Eliza said. “How is that possible?”

“We saw him through—”

Reggie elbowed Becky hard enough to cut her off. “We just do.”

“But if you’ve seen his face, and you believe you can bear to look at it—however horrible—why is your uncle so intent on hiding it from you?” Eliza asked, nonplussed.

“Uncle Marcus doesn’t know we’ve seen him,” Becky said. “Because we spied on him from behind the wall.”

“Behind what wall?”

Reggie poked Becky again.

“Stop it!” Becky said. “We already told her about spying on Uncle Marcus from the secret passage.” Becky turned to Eliza and said, “We heard Griggs tell Uncle Marcus he should look for himself and see it isn’t so bad, but Uncle Marcus won’t.”

“Are you suggesting your uncle has no idea what he looks like?”

“There is not a single looking glass in the east wing,” Reggie said.

Eliza stared at her in disbelief. “Surely you jest!”

Both girls shook their heads.

“How can he shave without—” She cut herself off. She had known from the feel of Marcus’s beard and the length of his hair when they had consummated
their marriage, that he must not have shaved or cut his hair in a very long time.

“Now she’ll tell Uncle Marcus about us spying and get us into trouble,” Reggie said sullenly.

“Eliza would never tell about the secret passageway if we asked her not to,” Becky said to Reggie. She turned and, looking earnestly up at Eliza, said, “You wouldn’t, would you, Eliza?”

“No, I would not. Not if you show me where it is.”

“I am not sure we should,” Becky said, a frown etching lines in her young brow. “Father absolutely forbid us to go in there the time we got lost. Now that he may be coming home soon, I do not think—”

“Your father—the duke—is alive?” Eliza exclaimed.

“The Duke of Braddock said at the wedding that there is a new laird at Blackthorne Hall, and that it may be Father,” Becky explained.

“Does your uncle know about this?” Eliza asked.

“Griggs was supposed to tell him,” Reggie said.

Eliza jumped up from the straw. “I want to see the secret passageway, but I think first I should make sure your uncle knows about this. Can I meet you in your room right after tea?”

Eliza waited to see whether they were willing to give her a second chance.

“I suppose so,” Reggie said. “If you absolutely promise not to tell Uncle Marcus about the secret passageway.”

“I promise,” Eliza said, crossing her heart.

Eliza left the children and raced inside the Abbey, directly toward the east wing. She had just crossed the
threshold when Griggs appeared and stood in her way.

“Is there somethin’ I can do for you, Your Grace.”

“I need to speak with my husband.”

“I’ll be glad to take a message to him.”

Eliza started to brush past the sergeant, but he stepped in her way.

“He won’t see you. Not in the daytime. I can take a message to him, but I can’t let you in. Not until dark.”

Eliza stared, disbelieving, into the soldier’s flinty eyes. This was not the same man who had willingly abetted her invasion of the duke’s domain. Obviously, the law had been laid down to him, as well. Eliza had no doubt Griggs would lay hands—his hand—on her to keep her out.

“Never mind, Griggs. What I have to say to His Grace”—and it was a good deal more than the information that his brother might be alive—“I will say to his face tonight.”

Eliza spent the afternoon seething. She was careful not to reveal her anger when she met the twins in their bedroom.

“This is the panel that lets you into the secret passageway,” Reggie said, pressing on part of the wall near the fireplace. The panel swung open. Eliza realized the mock facade around the fireplace in the girls’ room perfectly concealed the entrance to the passageway.

When Eliza stuck her upper body inside the pitch black vault, Reggie gave her a shove and slammed the door behind her.

“It’s really dark in there, isn’t it,” Reggie said with a laugh.

“Let her out!” Becky cried. “There are
spiders
in there!”

The feeling of being crushed from all sides paralyzed Eliza. Her legs felt strapped to the floor. Her hands felt bound to her sides. Only her eyes moved, searching for something to see, searching for a way out. Black nothingness surrounded her as though she were buried alive.

Eliza could not breathe. She was afraid to draw breath, for fear of what she would smell. She knew it would be something awful. Something that would make her sick.

The panel suddenly opened and bright sunlight streamed in around her. She drew a deep, gasping lungful of air.

“Eliza,” Becky said, grabbing her hand. She tugged, but Eliza’s feet were still rooted to the floor.

“Are you all right? Your hand is so cold! You look so pale!” Becky turned and glowered at Reggie. “That was not funny, Reggie. Sometime I’m going to shut you in there without a light and see how you like it!”

Eliza felt dizzy. She lifted her feet, which felt like heavy irons, and backed slowly out of the passageway. When she pushed the panel shut, a draft of air squeezed out. She held her breath as long as she could, but at last was forced to inhale. The stale, moldy-smelling odor was not familiar. It was not the one she had feared. That was another smell entirely, stronger, more distasteful, more … She did not quite know what.

“I only meant to tease you a little,” Reggie said.

“I am afraid of the dark,” Eliza confessed.

Reggie flushed, and Becky glared at her again.

“We never go in there without a lantern,” Becky said.

“You will never go in there again!” Eliza said, fear making her voice sharp. She was imagining the terror of being lost inside those cold, black walls.

“We don’t have to do what you say,” Reggie retorted.

Eliza said nothing for a moment, merely met Reggie’s gaze and held it, forcing her to acknowledge for the first time the significant change in their relationship. As Reggie’s aunt, and as the new Duchess of Blackthorne, Reggie most certainly did have to obey her. Nevertheless, she explained the reason for her dictum.

“I don’t want you in those passageways because it’s dangerous! You could get lost and die in there.”

Reggie scoffed. “We know where we’re going. We haven’t gotten lost in a long time.”

“What if your lantern were accidentally extinguished? How would you find your way back?”

“I’d go to one of the grates in the wall,” Becky said, “and shout for help.”

“What grates?” Eliza asked.

“The passageway leads to grates in the walls of various rooms, where you can see and hear whoever’s on the other side,” Becky said.

“Show me one.”

Becky and Reggie ran downstairs to their father’s library with Eliza on their heels. They pointed to a simple, decorative iron grate set along the floor at the base of a wall full of bookshelves.

“See?” Reggie said. “There’s one.”

Eliza examined the grate standing up, but saw nothing that indicated anything was on the other side. “Are you certain? I don’t see anything.”

“You have to get closer,” Becky said.

Eliza dropped to her hands and knees. Within an inch of the grate she felt a draft and inhaled the same stale, moldy odor she had smelled through the panel upstairs.

“Where does this passageway go?” she asked.

“They are all connected,” Reggie said. “Like a honeycomb inside the Abbey. Upstairs and down, from one wing to the other.”

Eliza thought of the ghosts haunting the Abbey. Not ghosts at all, she realized, but real human voices—the sound perhaps distorted by distance—carried through these passageways from one room to the next. “These passageways must have been used once upon a time to eavesdrop,” she mused aloud.

Reggie and Becky settled on the floor beside Eliza. “Father said the monks who built the Abbey must not have trusted each other very much.”

Eliza smiled ruefully. “I never thought of that.”

Fenwick appeared at the door to the library and cleared his throat.

Eliza jumped up and hurriedly began brushing the dust off her dress and the twins’ shifts, as they rose beside her. She would have to get the maids to do a better job in here. “Yes, Fenwick? What is it?”

Fenwick pretended not to notice anything amiss. “Yer aunt has arrived, Yer Grace. I’ve arranged for her things to be taken upstairs to the room next to yers. She’s waitin’ on ye in the drawing room.”

“Would you like to meet my aunt?” she asked the twins.

“We saw her at the wedding,” Reggie said unenthusiastically.

“Please come,” Eliza urged. “I think you will get along famously with each other.” She took the twins’ hands and led them out the door. “Aunt Lavinia cannot see,” she began.

“At all?” Reggie asked, dumbfounded.

Eliza shook her head. “The one thing you must always remember when you are with Aunt Lavinia is …”

The rest of the afternoon with her aunt and the twins was one of the most pleasant Eliza had ever spent. The twins loved trying to trick Aunt Lavinia in a game of hide-and-seek. She amazed them—and sometimes Eliza—with her ability to find them without ever leaving her chair.

Eliza enjoyed the day as best she could, knowing that when darkness fell, she would have to confront the Beast.

He had said she was not his whore. That it was a game she played. But he had commanded Griggs to turn her away, confirming she had no purpose except as his consort at night.

After supper, after the children had been tucked into bed, and she had assured herself that her aunt was comfortable, Eliza went to her bedroom and changed into a concealing nightgown. She was unwilling to take the chance that her husband would ask her to disrobe for him again. She crept down the stairs, with a candle to keep the dark at bay, and made her way to the east wing.

Griggs led her to the Beast’s bedroom, held open the door for her to enter, and said, “His Grace will join you shortly.”

The first thing Eliza looked for when she entered the bedroom was an iron grate, similar to the one in the library. She found two, not more than a foot wide, running floor to ceiling on either side of the thronelike chair. If only she had the courage to go into the passageway, she might catch the Beast unaware and see his face for herself.