Seducing the Beast (18 page)

It was elegant and tranquil. Nothing could have surprised her more. From the rumors she’d heard and the grim visions her own imagination conjured, she’d anticipated a cold, forbidding fortress with a drawbridge and a viciously spiked portcullis. She’d expected, even, perhaps,
wanted
to find a moat filled with green, stagnant water, a slimy dungeon with blood-stained walls. She’d fully expected severed heads spiked upon his walls, their ghoulish expressions striking terror in the hearts of those who entered.

Instead Gregory drew his cart up before a wide sweep of steps that managed to inspire awe without a solitary bloody skull in sight or one distant scream of horror heard.

He gave Maddie his hand to help her down and shouted, “Jennet, Jennet! Come out here.”

A young girl skipped down the steps, bobbed a shy curtsey and addressed Maddie as, “my lady.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said, wondering what excuse they’d heard for her presence there. “And you too.” she turned to Gregory. “Stop calling me,
my lady
. I’m no different to any of you. I don’t expect to be treated as if I am.”

This declaration startled them both and the girl, her pretty face quizzical, looked to Gregory for explanation. “Aye,” he murmured, “he did say she runs on with open mouth, but we weren’t to mind her any.”

Even as she protested, they hurried her up the steps and into the ogre’s lair. Bustled along countless corridors, she was escorted to a bedchamber hidden away in a far wing of the house, where mullioned windows looked out onto spacious lawns of serene beauty. In the distance, over beech and oak-lined hills, she saw a sliver of molten silver--the sea. When Gregory asked whether she liked the view, she replied angrily that she did, how could she not, for pity’s sake?

Under the window, there was a writing cabinet. Gregory explained the earl thought she might wish to write to her family and let them know she was safe. Immediately she was suspicious. Yes, he wanted her to write to her family, so he’d know who they were and where to find them. No doubt the moment she gave a letter to his servant, it would go directly to him.

“Does the earl know I’m here already?”

Gregory’s ruddy, toil-worn face gathered in yet more folds. “Of course he knows.”

Yes, she thought darkly, the Beast would know. He knows everything. Poor Griff.

“Oh, aye,” Gregory exclaimed, reaching into a little leather pouch hanging from his belt, “I almost forgot. I’m to give you this.” He held it out to her-- a little cockleshell, white as a snowdrop, so tiny and perfectly formed. “Went down to the bay this morn, early, before the tide turned. Said he wanted to think. Came back with this, for you…thought you might like it for your collection, he said.”

She took it from his hand. It was warm from the sun’s rays beating down on the leather purse, but she preferred to imagine it was the heat from Griff’s palm. He had thought of her then, before he left the cottage, and not merely to write instructions. Tears rose suddenly, unbidden, unexpected. The earl would punish him, because he’d failed in his mission. Yet it was her fault. Now she must stay and defend her actions, and Griff’s, to that odious wretch. Perhaps she might win his mercy, if not for herself, for Griff.

“It was my fault,” she would say, “I tricked him into thinking I was Lady Shelton. It wasn’t his fault. He’s not to blame. I’m a wicked, lusty sinner.”

And she loved him.

It struck her in the face like wet linen on a windy washday.

She dropped suddenly to the edge of the bed, her knees giving out.

“Are you all right, my lady?” Head to one side, Gregory peered at her, his silver, caterpillar brows twitching.

Clutching the bedpost, she groaned, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

He patted her shoulder. “There, there, my good lady. Easy now.” Much to her amusement, he petted her as if she was a horse in need of calming.

Suddenly, fiercely aware that she’d not eaten breakfast, Maddie was a little disappointed in herself for having no inclination to pine and waste away. Surely love should cause its victim to reject sustenance until the object of her affections came to rescue her. Therefore, she ought to be weeping and frail, not thinking of food. Disregarding how things should be, however, her uncouth stomach rumbled away, demanding it be fed at once, quickly spoiling any attempt at ladylike pining.

She sat up, recovering her wits.

Ready to face her comeuppance, reconciled to the earl’s wrath, it was for Griff she feared most. Living on the whim and mercy of his lord and master, he could not marry, even if he wanted to, without the earl’s consent. As her father always said, noblemen used folk in the same way they used their horses. Griff’s life and his fealty belonged to his master.

She’d assured him, many times, that she wanted nothing more than those days of adventure, no rules, no expectations attached. How could she now ask for more? It wouldn’t be fair.

She hadn’t expected this love to come.

Her heart leapt, tripped and leapt again, dipping and diving, like a kite she had when she was ten.Unfortunately that kite had crashed through the pig-sty roof and splintered into pieces. Bits of it were even eaten by the pigs before she could rescue them. She hoped her heart would not meet the same fate.

Later, when Gregory sent the little maid Jennet to collect her breakfast tray, Madolyn asked if she might be allowed out for some air. With no Gregory at her side, the girl didn’t know what to do and, clutching the rattling tray, backed up to the door.

“I must be permitted to answer the call of nature, Jennet.”

“There’s a chamber pot, madam, under the bed.”

“But there’s a crack in it.” And, indeed, there was. She’d caused it by slamming the pot against the bed post.

“I’m not supposed to let you out until the earl--”

“Where is he then? He drags me here, much to my inconvenience, and now I must wait?”

She had no answer, but her lips trembled.

Madolyn took the unsteady tray from the girl’s hands and set it on the bed. “Can we not be friends? It seems I have no other here and I’ve been very badly treated. I can’t tell you the half of it, Jennet. You’d be horrified to learn what’s been done to me.”

The little maid’s brown, cow-like eyes grew big in her small face.

“I’m surprised you--a woman too--would take their side against me,” she continued. “You would leave me to be imprisoned when I committed no crime? I might go mad if I cannot stretch my legs further than the width of this room. I might resort to desperate measures.” She went to the window and pushed it open. “I may as well end it all, here and now,” she said gravely, hitching up her skirt to climb out.

“No, no, madam, you must not.”

“Let me go, Jennet. I shall jump to my death. I’m not afraid. It will only take a moment and I daresay it won’t hurt much, although,” she peered down over the ledge, “if I should not die directly and only crack my head…or break off a limb--”

“No, no, I’ll fetch Gregory.”

“By the time he comes, I’ll be gone. Farewell, cruel, cruel, unjust life.” She climbed up, with one knee on the ledge. “I’m sorry, Jennet, if I should leave too much blood upon the stones.”

“Oh, do come back in, madam!”

As she leaned out, pretending to consider the fall, she saw a man on a horse, galloping across the lawn toward the house. She wondered who he thought he was to boldly trample the earl’s pristine lawn, rather than bother with the gravel path. Was he perhaps one of those daring assassins come to murder the Beast? Jennet still tugged on her skirt, begging her not to jump, but she was too interested in the rider, who now passed under the arches along the west side of the house. Sighting a glimmer of chestnut hair, her heart leapt.

“Griff!”

Horse and rider disappeared from view.

She slid back into the chamber, celebrating because he still had his wonderfully strong limbs attached. Grasping the little maid’s hand, she pulled her close and hugged her.

“My lady?”

“Jennet, I am in love.”

The maid’s eyes popped.

“I am in love with Griff, the earl’s loyal servant.”

“Griff?”

She paced in a circle. “I must get out of this room and find him.”

The maid looked skeptical. On her hands and knees, she searched for the pot under the bed. Drawing it out, she lifted it to the light and discovered it was indeed cracked.

Finally agreeing to show Madolyn the privy, Jennet pulled her along the corridor by one sleeve, little face set stubbornly on the way ahead, in case her troublesome charge might try distracting her from it. Apparently she’d been warned of the danger. “The earl won’t be pleased to find you out of your chamber when he left orders to keep you in it, until he was ready to see you.”

“What does he think I am, that he can keep me locked up in a cage?”

“Why, his mistress, madam.” Jennet flushed scarlet. “That’s what you are, his mistress.”

Madolyn tripped over her own feet, stumbling to a halt in the corridor. “
Mistress
?” She recoiled. “The earl’s
mistress
?”

“’Tis what we were told, madam.”

“Told? By whom?”

“By Gregory, madam,” Jennet replied, “Do come quick, before you’re discovered out of the room.”

Madolyn pulled away from her, marching in the other direction. The maid’s mousy steps scuttled after her, trying to get her back in her room. Instead she shouted for Gregory, pacing along the maze of corridors, looking to draw blood. He appeared at last, stepping around a corner in their path.

“Please calm yourself, my lady,” he pleaded. “The earl merely asked you be kept out of harm’s way.”

“Out of harm’s way, indeed!” she cried. “Why have you told Jennet I’m the earl’s mistress?”

Owlish eyes observed her placidly. “Is it not so?”

A dreadful thought came to her: would it be possible for a man like the Beast to keep a woman against her will, as long as it took his fancy?

“My lady, he will treat you with exceptional care. You will want for nothing.” Gregory ventured. “It is a post, I think, no woman would dare refuse.”

She was appalled, sickened by the thought of it. Once she’d planned to seduce the man, but that was before she knew he was married, and before she met Griff.

“If I’m locked in that room all day, how pleasant do you think I’ll be to your precious master when he deigns to see me? And how pleasant will your life be as a consequence?” She resorted to these threats, realizing she might be in a position of some power. “If I’m not kept content, I daresay he won’t like what I have to say to his ugly face when I do encounter it. Nor will he like what I have to say about the way I was treated!”

Gregory’s eyes widened. She was sorry to threaten him in this dire manner, but desperate means were required.

His lips moved, as if in a silent prayer.

“What are you doing, Gregory?” she demanded, impatient.

“Comparing the danger, my lady. Which of you might cause me the most damage in my old age.”

Maddie was amused, despite her situation.

Finally he said, “I concede, my lady, that the measure of locking your chamber door was, perhaps, extreme.” He allowed she might walk within the house, as long as she kept Jennet by her side. Dragging a kerchief from his sleeve, he dabbed his brow, where the furrows glistened with perspiration.

“You may have the run of the south tower, my lady,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose any harm can come to you there.”

Any harm
? What was there elsewhere in the house? Other women locked up and held hostage? Headless corpses?

If there was danger in that house, as she suspected, Maddie decided she had better sleep with a knife under her pillow from now on.

* * * *

The house was built around a courtyard cornered by four crenellated towers, with a fifth--set with an enormous clock face--rising up from the inner courtyard. Her chamber was in the south tower, which felt sun for a good part of the day. The rooms were designed with both a subtle eye for elegant detail and a practical eye for comfort. She admired several luxurious tapestries, dramatic scenes of battle and war horses mostly, befitting the master of the house. But she also found a few pastoral scenes, depictions of lush harvests, feasting and revelry by a stream.

Bored with the south tower, she went in search of other chambers to explore. Rather than go back to her room, as Jennet wanly suggested, she turned her steps to the north tower, which was used mostly for storage, the rooms full of old coffers and broken furniture. The servants had accommodation here too and although she expected to hear more than one poor soul weeping pitifully about their treatment at the hands of such a master, they seemed remarkably cheerful. There was still no sign of Griff.

Finding her again in one of the corridors, Gregory reminded her of the boundaries she’d been set.

“Have I gone so far?” she asked politely. “It seems but a few steps.”

“My lady, you do remember the instructions you were given?”

“Yes.”

He regarded her ruefully. “Did you read them, my lady?”

“Indeed I did and thought they must be meant for some naughty child, not for a grown woman, so I did not regard them.”

Fatigued, he bowed his head. Rather than quarrel, he said he would let the earl deal with her later. His report on her behavior, she suspected, would be far from glowing.

Gabriel’s rooms were in the west tower, where she found a cypress coffer with his name scratched into it, full of boyhood toys: leather balls, wooden skittles, hornbooks and the like. There were other books and items of clothing belonging to a grown man mixed in with these remnants of childhood. It was as if Gabriel never moved, or was allowed to grow, much beyond boyhood. There was a large empty nursery and adjoining chambers with narrow beds, presumably for nursemaids. Children from noble families, so she’d heard, were never raised by their parents. There was no decoration here. The walls were bare and iron bars on the windows--evidently a safety precaution for young children--only served to make the rooms more grim and prison-like. Her natural high spirits in danger of being drained, she hurried out, Jennet trailing fretfully in her wake.