Shivers Box Set: Darkening Around Me\Legacy of Darkness\The Devil's Eye\Black Rose (22 page)

“You mean he raped you?” My voice was cold and hard. It was a word I had never said aloud. Rape was still a taboo subject, one which no lady would ever admit to knowing anything about. But I was so angry that I was not prepared to disguise what had happened to Betty by wrapping it in a euphemism. Betty’s curls tickled my chin as she nodded her head.

“Miss, I didn’t encourage him, like he said afterward! I swear. I tried to stop him, honest I did, but he was too strong, and he hurt me.” The sobs came then, flowing fast and freely, and I rocked her in my arms as I would a child. My anger was ice cold but no less dangerous for its lack of heat. “He said it wouldn’t happen again after that first time. I didn’t know what to do. I needed my job and so I stayed. But he came upon me in the corridor and dragged me into one of the spare bedchambers and…” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought he was going to kill me. When he’d gone, I went to my own room, packed up my things and left.”

“Betty.”

She dried her eyes on a handkerchief and looked up at me with those trusting blue eyes.

“You could be carrying his child.”

She shook her head vehemently, curls flying. “No, miss. I was worried about that, but it’s one thing I’ve been spared. Thank the Lord.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Even so, just because he is an earl, it does not mean he can’t be brought to justice.”

“But, Miss Lucy! It weren’t His Lordship what did them things to me!” And I did not know, in that instant of realisation, whether to be relieved or very afraid. “Good Lord, no, miss!
He
was always such a nice, polite young man. No, it was Mr Uther.” The tears spilled over again and, through them, she added, “And when he was doing those things to me…when he was—” she gagged on the word “—raping me, as you just said, he kept calling me ‘Lucia.’”

My mind went blank then.

It was almost an hour later when I left. Betty made me promise I would not go to the authorities and I reluctantly agreed. I had to admit to myself that, in a case where it would be her word against Uther’s, it was difficult to imagine that she would be the one believed. And, even in the unlikely event that he was brought to trial, Betty’s name, and that of her family, would be dragged through the mud. No right-thinking man would take to wife a woman who had lost her virginity, even by force, if the fact became public knowledge. No, much as it pained me, Betty’s chosen course of action—pretending that it did not happen—was the wisest one.

Mrs Doughty relented slightly towards me as I took my leave of her. “If you want my advice, miss, you’ll do what our Betty done and get out of that nasty place. Bunch o’ heathens. Didn’t ought to be allowed in this day and age.” And that, I decided, as I made my way back across the bridge to the carriage, was a very sound piece of advice. My untethered spirits of a few hours before were shrouded now in darkness and self-loathing.

* * *

On alighting from the carriage, I paused in the courtyard, looking up at the imposing facade that would never be familiar to me, trying to decide what to do. I was aware of Pascoe regarding me with interested bemusement as I gave a decisive little nod. I headed for the Muniment Room, pausing to remove my hat and coat and hand them to a footman. The Muniment Room was a fascinating archive of the family history. It was also Uther’s particular domain. With walls lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves and neatly labelled drawers, it smelled of old books, beeswax and memories. The door was ajar and, as I approached it, I paused, my resolution faltering slightly.

Before I could enter, Demelza’s taunting voice reached me, and I shrank back into the corridor’s shadows. “Have you tupped her yet?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Uther’s response was terse. “You know as well as I do that we dare not risk a child before we are sure of her, but I have been keeping her happy, yes. She is smitten, and surprisingly passionate. She’ll do anything I ask, just as we planned, although she is proving unexpectedly stubborn in the matter of the wedding.”

“And when the time comes, will she, with her boyish body and milky-white skin, please you, as I do?”

“There is no one like you.” His voice was low, hoarse, and I heard her laugh in response. “There never will be anyone to make me feel as you do, and well do you know it.”

“Show me,” she ordered, and unable to help myself, I tiptoed to the open doorway. She was seated on the desk, her skirts about her waist while he stood, fully clothed, between her bare legs. As I watched, she tightened her ankles around his buttocks to draw him closer. Her gown had been pulled down so that her breasts were bare and he reached out a hand. Slowly, deliberately he took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard. She groaned, the expression on her face somewhere between pain and ecstasy. As she began to unbutton his breeches, I turned and fled.

I ran and ran until I feared my lungs would burst. I paused at the top of the cliff, so close to the edge that I felt the tiny stones beneath my feet give way and slither down into the abyss. Panting, I stood there for long, aching minutes, allowing the wind to tug my hair free of its pins and the salt breeze to cleanse my face. The hollow cry of the gulls told the story of rusty chains twisting tight around my heart. My stomach gave up the fight and emptied its contents onto the grass. I retched until I could no longer stand. And then I sat on that high clifftop until weeping clouds swallowed the last beams of sunlight and gentle rain caressed my skin.

I looked back at Tenebris, its soaring ramparts rising up from the cliff’s own face. Proud. Gaunt. Doomed. The thought of going back there cloaked my soul in fear. But within that cursed place there was one fresh green shoot of truth, one bright ray of hope, for the Jago future, but also for me: if I was to salvage anything of my pride, ever to value myself once more, I could not—would not—abandon Tynan now.

* * *

“Why, child, you look positively frozen!” Demelza was writing a letter, her chair and a small table drawn close to the fire in the great hall. I was struck again by her remarkable beauty. She rose as I came in through the door and reached out a hand to me in greeting.

I shrank away. “I am quite drenched,” I explained at the look of enquiry on her face. I would never again see her without imagining the twisted, tortured expression she wore as she welcomed her own brother into her body.

“Don’t tell me you went to Wadebridge without so much as a hat!” She regarded me with mild amusement.

“No, but I returned earlier than I expected,” I said, and a slightly guarded look shadowed the amber depths of her eyes. “I went straight out again for a walk along the cliff path.”

“Then get yourself away to your room and have them bring you water for a bath! We cannot have you catching a chill.” She waved me away and returned to her letter. Her unruffled manner indicated to me, as nothing else could, that the depravity I had witnessed was routine. I wondered how often Uther had stoked his lust with me only to slake it on her, or on poor, terrified Betty. The thought made my stomach rise rebelliously once more, but I quashed the feeling.

* * *

“Tynan, what was the name of your nurse?” I asked. He must have heard the urgency in my tone for he frowned slightly.

“Maggie,” he said warily. “Why on earth do you ask?”

“Is she still alive?” We were seated on our bench in the rose garden, and a soft breeze filled the whole world with the radiant fragrance of the delicate blooms.

He looked startled. “I hope so! She was not so very old, you know,
hweg
. But her eyesight began to fail and she was obliged, eventually, to leave.”

“What was her other name?” I asked. The blooms had wept pink-and-white tears onto the lawn. I picked some of the petals up from the grass and crushed them between my fingers. Tynan caught up my hand and lifted it to his face to inhale the freshly crushed scent. I hoped he would not ask why I wanted to know about his nurse. Truth be told, I was not really sure myself. It was a half-formed, almost nonsensical whimsy that had taken hold of me. I would be embarrassed to say the words aloud.

“Scadden,” he said. “Maggie was my mother’s maid when she first came to Tenebris, and she was fiercely loyal to her.” His eyes bored into my face. I sensed he wanted to know more. I was pleased he trusted me enough not to ask. “I wish I could see her again, but it would break her poor heart to know…” He turned his face away briefly, but not before I saw the sadness in his eyes.

We sat in companionable silence until a shadow fell over us. Looking up, I recoiled to feel the dark gold weight of Uther’s gaze upon me.

“Do you care to escort me on my ride, Lucy?” His words were clipped and he pointedly ignored Tynan’s presence. I knew how in tune he was with my thoughts, and I tried to hide the disgust I felt when I looked at him now.

I rose from my seat. “Thank you, but I cannot,” I said. His eyes glinted with annoyance, which I chose to overlook. “Mrs Huddlestone has promised to teach me to make a suet pudding this morning and I must not keep her waiting.” It was not entirely true. Although Mrs Huddlestone had indeed once scathingly suggested that I might benefit from learning how to make the stodgy dessert, no time or day for such a lesson had ever been specified.

The little cook regarded me in some surprise when I entered the cool kitchen with its fresh-baked bread scent and jars of enticing preserves. Unlike Mrs Lethbridge and Miss Clatterthorpe, she did not regard my every movement with hawklike disapproval. Nor did she seem to be waiting for me to commit an indiscretion. Mrs Huddlestone was an incorrigible gossip and it was on this trait of hers on that I was pinning my hopes as I took a seat at her long, scrubbed table. Before I could attempt to glean any information from her, I was, of course, obliged to consume several potato cakes, topped with bacon and washed down with a tankard of home-pressed apple juice.

“Maggie Scadden?” Mrs Huddlestone asked in some surprise. “Why ever do you ask about
her
?”

“Oh, just that His Lordship mentioned her and I know someone in London who is looking for a good nurse,” I replied airily, hoping that my prepared story did not sound rehearsed. “And I wondered, since she appears to come so highly recommended, if she might still be available.”

“Blind as a bat, she is now. Terrible sad it was.” She shook her head, her little mouth pursing even further. “Even Lady Demelza with all her potions couldn’t do ’owt to help her.” She sighed.

“How dreadful!” I sympathised. “Did she move away from the area? I notice she does not come to visit.”

“No, indeed. She lives in Padstow, but last I heard was she doesn’t get out much these days. Now, roll up your sleeves, miss, and do put on this pinny over your pretty dress, and I’ll show you how to bake a scone that’ll melt even the hardest heart.” I sighed. This, I supposed, was a fitting punishment for my artifice.

“Mrs Scadden?” I asked, but her sightless blue eyes confirmed her identity before she spoke.

“Who wants to know?” she asked a trifle belligerently.

“My name is Lucy Alleyne,” I explained, standing on the doorstep, holding my cloak tight about me as the wind tried to whip it away. “I am staying at the castle, at Tenebris. I’m a friend of Lord Athal.” I had told Demelza that I was going for a ride. I suspected that she had plans for the day that involved Uther. I did not want to dwell on the details. It was a long ride, but I was used to that, and the terrain was considerably better than the harsh Indian landscape.

Mrs Scadden said nothing for a very long time, and I wondered if I was about to be sent packing. Then, without a word, she held the door wide and stood aside so that I could enter. “I live with my sister,” she said, “but she is a seamstress and is upstairs in her workroom. So I can’t offer you any refreshment.”

I assured her that I did not require anything, and she led me into a small, comfortable parlour. I took the seat she indicated and audibly swallowed the nervous lump in my throat. “I wanted to ask you a strange question. I hope you will excuse me and not consider me quite deranged for asking it.” She remained silent. It was not an encouraging sign. “I have been told that Tynan was a sickly child, who was lucky to survive his childhood.” Mrs Scadden nodded once in confirmation. “Did it ever occur to you that…” I bit my lip. Was I really going to say the words aloud?

“That someone might be trying to kill him?” she finished for me, her voice calm.

“Yes,” I whispered, closing my eyes as the truth, no longer a suspicion, intruded on my reason.

“Every day,” Mrs Scadden said, still in that cool manner. “I wasn’t just his nurse, miss. It was my job to protect him. Her Ladyship begged me. She said she had a premonition that something would happen, and that she would not be there to see him grow up. She charged me to look after her boy and keep him safe. Oh, they were clever. It was all very subtle. He’d fall ill, recover, but be left a little weaker. It happened time after time. But I nursed him through each time. Between illnesses, I’d spend my time making sure no other accidents befell him…a loose coping stone, a walk too close to the cliff’s edge, a horse that became spooked when he was out riding. You would not believe the seeming bad luck my poor boy had. When my eyesight began to fail, I knew I needed help.”

“How
did
Tynan survive?” I asked at last. “You say they were subtle, that they attempted to make it appear an illness or an accident, but why did they need to be careful? It seems out of character for Uther—his style is more direct. Tynan was all that stood between Uther and everything he had ever wanted. Faced with such determined evil, how did a little boy grow to manhood? It was surely against all the odds.”

“My lady—his mother—she was known to write letters. They were like a diary, documenting her life.”

I nodded and then realised that she could not see the movement. “I have read them. Tynan showed me.”

“You have not seen all of them,” she said with confidence. “The ones she wrote during the week before she died were never found.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The day before she died, I went with my lady to visit a lawyer in Wadebridge. Mr Warleggan, it was. He was a friend of her papa, a good, honest man.” Her voice was sad and tired. “When she died, when she was murdered, Lady Demelza went through her things. She seemed angry about the missing letters and questioned me. I let her and Mr Uther—” his name was spoken with such venom that I briefly closed my eyes “—think that my lady had taken her last letters to Mr Warleggan. It was my insurance policy, the weapon I used to make them keep me there, taking care of my young lordship. They didn’t dare try to get rid of me. It didn’t stop them trying to harm him, but it meant they couldn’t do it openly. They knew that if anything suspicious should happen to Tynan, or to me for that matter, well, I let them think that Mr Warleggan would open the letters and pass them on to the magistrate. I know for a fact that Mr Uther went to see Mr Warleggan—he promised him a lot of money to part with those letters. But Mr Warleggan was an honourable man. He told him he did not know what he was talking about.”

“But that’s criminal!” I exclaimed angrily. I bit my lip at my own foolish naivety. Was I really so surprised that Uther was capable of such villainy?

“That’s not all,” she added grimly. “After that, Mr Warleggan’s offices were broken into twice and then burned to the ground!”

“So the letters didn’t survive?” I asked, disappointment frosting my words.

Although I knew she couldn’t see me, her eyes roamed searchingly over my face. She seemed to reach a decision and a long sigh of relief escaped her. “Mr Warleggan never had the letters,” she admitted. “I told them they were with him, and he didn’t deny it when Mr Uther went calling. But in truth the letters were never placed with the lawyer. They were removed from my lady’s collection just before Lady Demelza came snooping.” She smiled slightly. “I know because I took them.”

“Do you have them still?” I asked, my heart giving a series of heavy thumps.

“Yes.”

“What do the letters say, Mrs Scadden?” I probed gently.

“There is one letter she wrote that, should it be made public, well, it would have blackened Mr Uther Jago’s name beyond repair. And the Jago name is all that matters to him. You’d best read it for yourself, miss.” She rose and, moving expertly around her own familiar room, made her way over to a tall bureau. It had a roll-top, which she slid down, her fingers running across the edge and into the neat cavity beyond. She lifted out a carved rosewood box and brought it over to me. I held it while she solemnly removed a large oval locket from about her neck. “Key’s inside,” she said, holding the ornament out to me. I took the locket and, with trembling fingers, clicked it open. A small, ornate key tumbled out onto my cupped palm.

The words, in Eleanor’s now familiar sloping script, jumped out at me.

It was all so horribly familiar.
I
could have been the author of the words that jumped out from Eleanor’s page at me.

I caught my breath with an audible hiss at that sentence. Maggie turned her head toward me in consternation and, mechanically, I patted her hand to reassure her.

I folded the letter with shaking hands.

“I didn’t like him.” Maggie’s voice was distant, almost dreamy. “But from the first instant she saw him, my lady was smitten. She was visiting family close to Port Isaac and she met him when she was out walking one day. It was in the place they call Lucia’s Glade. She was so pretty. Fair and dainty, like a little flower. Mr Uther pursued her relentlessly and, although I could see what was happening, I was powerless to stop it. She was in his spell. It lasted all summer. He would crook his finger and she would go running to him. At the end of the summer, His Lordship—Lord Ruan—came home. He was so different to his brother! And he, too, fell in love with her. I told her she should forget them both—only trouble could lie ahead. But they were married and he, Mr Uther, well, he went away before the wedding. But when he returned, it was obvious he had just been biding his time.”

Briefly, I told Maggie what I had learned from Gem, and my words penetrated her placidity at last. Sad tears tracked her narrow cheeks, and I went to her. Kneeling beside her chair, I clasped her hands and she returned my touch gratefully.

“I didn’t know, but I should have suspected…my poor lady, and Lord Ruan…to be so maligned…” Her lips tightened. “But
he
has had a punishment of sorts. He wanted to kill my boy so that he could have the title, but I saw to it that Tynan grew to manhood. And now, time has run out for our fine Mr Uther. Even if they succeeded in killing Tynan now, he has no son to carry on the line.”

“Did you ever suspect, when he was a child, that Tynan might have inherited his father’s madness?” I asked.

“No,” she said firmly, “and nor was Lord Ruan mad! There were never any signs, and Her Ladyship would have told me if he was. That was the story they—Mr Uther and Lady Demelza—put about
after
he died. He was a kind, sweet man and his son is the living spit of him. No, if anyone in that family is mad, miss, it is not my dear Tynan!” I wished I could be reassured at her words, but I had seen the evidence of Tynan’s malaise with my own eyes. I decided there was no gain to be had from telling her that.

“Why
did
Eleanor go to see Mr Warleggan?” I asked.

“She wanted his advice. He, Mr Uther, was trying to blackmail her and she asked Mr Warleggan what she should do about it. He told her to get away from him, go back home to Kent, put as much distance as she could between them.”

When I took my leave, Maggie came to the door with me. The wind was so strong I could lean on it. My horse and I would be sadly buffeted on our return journey. “Take care of my Tynan, miss,” she said, grasping my hand tightly. “I can tell you love him as I do.”

But I didn’t love Tynan as a nurse loves a child in her care. Nor were my feelings for him akin to the violent physical pull I had once felt toward Uther. Real love was in the little details. It was the way Tynan’s eyes crinkled with mischief when he teased me, the way he threw back his head to laugh. The way he could make me smile when I thought I never would again. He was the sonnet my heart wanted to write, and the portrait my soul desired to paint.

I wondered how long I had known the truth.

He was waiting for me when I returned. I tried not to show any change in my attitude as he handed me down from the carriage. I failed miserably.

“What is it,
hweg?
” Tynan asked, scanning my face closely. “You look like you’ve lost a shilling and found a farthing.” Doing my best to ignore my doomed love, I pinned a bright smile to my lips and returned a light answer.

* * *

Breakfast had become our time, mine and Tynan’s, and we used it well. Sometimes that meant we did not speak at all. At other times it meant we both talked too much, our words tumbling out eagerly so that we interrupted each other, laughed, apologised and did it all over again.

As the full moon approached, there was a sadness to our early morning encounters. It was a reminder that, for Tynan, life would never be completely well. Thinking of him—my friend, my love—did something strange to me. This man who was, at times, still half boy hurt my heart a little. My sadness at his plight was a rusty saw tearing at my soul. Then he smiled and made it sing.

On this particular morning, Tynan looked pale and drawn. He ate nothing, but a tall pewter goblet sat at his right hand and he took an occasional sip from it, grimacing as he did.

“What on earth is that you are drinking?” I asked. “If it tastes as vile as it appears, why do you not throw it away and have a cup of coffee instead?”

He laughed. “Demelza, as you know, fancies herself as something of a herbalist. She makes this obnoxious concoction for me each month as the moon waxes. It is intended to soothe my disordered spirits.” He took another sip and shuddered.

A series of images, dreamlike but crystal in their clarity, came into my mind. I saw us dancing together at the ball, laughing as our exertions made us breathless. I watched as, in my mind’s eye, Tynan took the tall glass from Demelza’s outstretched hand and dashed off its entire contents. I recalled the blazing victory in Uther’s eyes as he carried Tynan’s limp body through the hushed ballroom. The puzzled note in Tynan’s voice. “But the moon is not close to full…” echoed though this quick series of memories. I saw pale, trumpet-shaped flowers that only bloomed in the glow of the moon, pollinated by the creatures of the night. I remembered stories of madness and lost memories and eyes that burned in agony when the sunlight touched them.

I jumped up from the table and snatched the goblet away from Tynan just as he was about to take another sip. “Do not drink it!” My voice was low, breathy and urgent.

He regarded me with mild astonishment. “I say,
hweg
, it’s not as bad as all that! Although, I have several times pointed out to Demelza that it does not one jot of good. Her response is that I would be considerably worse without it.” He stared at me. “Why, Lucy! What is it? You are shaking.”

“Do this one thing for me, Tynan.” I begged.

“One thing? I would do anything for you! Surely you know that?” It was not the right time for the sort of declaration his words heralded.

“Do not drink another drop of Demelza’s potion! Or anything else she gives you, for that matter.”