Strands of Bronze and Gold (34 page)

As I tried to make myself listen to Bernard’s beautiful voice reading
Bleak House
, Victoire and Tatiana, Tara and Adele draped themselves over the furniture in limp, liquid, despairing motions.

The ice dripped away as the weather warmed the next day. Groundsmen dragged felled trees and limbs to bonfires throughout the property. A low pall of smoke hung about Wyndriven Abbey, making my eyes water and my nose run.

No news had come about Talitha, except that Charles was indeed also missing. The longer without a report, the better.

I took Lily out in an attempt to escape the haze with a trot on the hillside. Garvey saddled her and insisted, as usual, on accompanying me. Gone were the obsequious, admiring looks he had bestowed upon me early on. Also gone was the smoldering hatred, to be replaced by the impression of a barely hidden smirk, a secret glee. I ended my ride abruptly.

Sitting on a stone bench in the garden, I now ripped at my fingernails with my teeth. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps I wouldn’t hate
every
moment of the rest of my life.

My absent glance moved across the lawns and caught at the ruins shrouded with dry, withered vines—the folly. The copy of an
ancient Indian temple. It couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old, yet it appeared a thousand. Suddenly, inexplicably, I was curious. I looked furtively at the house. No one was in sight. How would it hurt if I peeked inside? Slowly I rose and moved toward the building, with its tumbled granite blocks scattered about. From the roof, a stone monkey, furred with mold, grinned down.

I ran my fingers over the indentations in the rock. Moss had collected in the carvings to outline the designs in bright emerald. It was striking and exotic. Bernard indeed had the talent to create objects of beauty. I pulled back the dying wisteria that curtained the concealed door I had discovered on my former exploration, dug my ragged fingernails into the crack, and pulled.

To my surprise, it opened readily, as if on a spring. A puff of cold, fetid air hit my face. The place smelled of rancid dampness and mildew, the floor slimy with mud and lingering ice. I drew back, then steeled myself and moved onward, into the yawning mouth. Scabby, grayish lichen encrusted the walls. A sluggish bubbling sounded from partially frozen water in a fountain up ahead. My eyes were not accustomed to the dim light, filtered from the pierced designs in the stone fretwork and further darkened by tangled creepers.

I walked boldly deeper inside. The ceiling was arched, painted in blurred designs. They might have depicted a slender version of the plump, romping gods and cherubs in the Heaven room.

There appearred to be statuary in dusky corners. Slowly my eyes grew more accustomed to the shadows, and one of the sculptures came into focus. I gasped.

From behind me, Bernard’s voice said softly, “I knew that with
your, ah,
feminine curiosity
you would find your way here eventually. To my Temple of Love. I have been anticipating it. Garvey has watched to alert me of it.”

I drew back and nearly tripped. “I—I—you said once you would show me this place.”

“Yes, I did, didn’t I? Well, now is the time.”

He moved closer. His face was flushed and his eyes unnaturally bright. Was he drunken?

“It’s so damp, though,” I said, edging away, “we’d better wait.”

“I think not. No more waiting.”

I tried to bolt around him to the door.

He reached out to snatch my wrist and jerked me toward him so hard my arm nearly pulled out of the socket. “No,
ma petite
. I do not feel like chasing you just yet. Are you game for a little fun?”

I swayed on my feet and would have fallen, but he wrapped one arm around me in a semblance of affection, tight as an iron band. With the other, he grabbed my chin so he might physically turn my head toward what he wanted me to see. I yelped in pain as his fingers dug deeply into my flesh.

“Please,” I whimpered, “please, I don’t want to.”

He gave a short, savage laugh. “I realize that. But no, I cannot oblige you in this. You came in of your own volition, and now you are going to see everything. Besides, it is time you learned something of the pleasures ahead. You are a naïve little goose, you know. At first it was refreshing, but after a time it wearies.”

I would have closed my eyes but didn’t dare.

The statues and murals were all of couples—some human, some inhuman, misshapen and warped, with too many limbs or heads.
They writhed, twisted, grotesque, naked except for filmy bits of veiling, with outflung contorted limbs, in a mockery of embracing or in flagrant torture. The painted eyes and the blank, blind stone eyes of the statues leered or ogled or rolled back in terror. The lips appeared to be smiling, but on closer look grimaced or stretched distorted in fear or pain.

“It’s—disgusting. This—this isn’t love.” I was shaking, with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Bernard regarded me, partly curious, partly amused, partly angry. “And what do you think love is? All exchanged locks of hair”—here I shuddered—“and poems written to your complexion?
Chérie
, I have been long-suffering, but it’s time you learned of passion.”

He jerked me toward a pile of mildew-splotched crimson velvet cushions surrounding the fountain and pushed me down. He grasped my arms hard and put his full weight on top of me. “Now I want kisses. Not your missish pecks—long, deep, luscious kisses.”

I bit him. He gave me a stinging slap, so that my nose bled.

Then he put his mouth on mine, hard and devouring. I retched from the stench of his stinking breath. He pressed against my chest so that I had no air. His hands scuttled over my body like crabs. I shoved against him, but I was as helpless as a gnat. I kicked, but his legs held mine pinned.

This is happening. This is really happening
.

A shout sounded from outside.

“It’s Ling,” Bernard said, raising his head. With a sort of numb, detached composure, I watched, riveted, as the demon seeped out of his expression to be replaced by concern. “Something must be badly wrong for him to call like that.” Slowly he released me and stood.
The muscle twitched beside his eye. “Wipe your face and straighten your clothing. We do not want the servants talking.” He disappeared up the passageway.

I tried unsuccessfully to clean the blood from my nose. My teeth began to chatter. Once I was sure Bernard was well away, exhausted and dreary, with bruised lips and face and arms, I dragged myself back to the house and up to my bedroom.

The mermaids on the mantel, the pearl-studded ottoman, the bed—all were unfamiliar. Where was I? What was I doing? Everything must be a dream, a ghastly dream. I buried my face in my hands for several minutes before I could ring the bell for Odette.

“Please bring me water for a bath,” I said. My lips felt swollen.

She cast a sharp look at my dishevelment, but she hurried to do what I asked.

When the hot water steamed in the tub, I told her, “I’ll put myself to bed after I bathe, so don’t bother to come back tonight.”

She curtsied, then hesitated, one hand on the doorknob. “He took Daphne there, you know.”

“What are you talking about?” I was too exhausted even to look at her.

“Daphne—that one who arranges flowers. Monsieur took her to the folly place. Garvey told me. He thinks I do not understand well, so he tells me things. Monsieur, he was furious over something—Garvey did not say what—oh, a few years back, before he married Adele. So Monsieur took Daphne—her fifty years old, lame, never had a man—he took her there. He beat her and did—other things. Then he gave her to Willie and ordered them to jump the broom. I tell you this now because I am leaving tomorrow, so it
does not matter anymore. I tell you this so that man—that monster—will not do to you what he has done to others. You must also leave.”

I clutched at the bedpost and closed my eyes. Odette waited a moment, but when I didn’t speak, the door clicked shut behind her. I managed to turn the key in the lock and climb into the bath. After scrubbing, scrubbing my skin, I leaned back and immersed even my face in the warm water until I had to rise up, sputtering.

The depravity of someone who would do such a thing to Daphne was nearly unfathomable, but I was learning. The person who could create that perverted folly and take decent women there wasn’t a lover or a man. Odette was right. He was a monster. How odd that Odette should have known this even before I did.

And I would not marry a monster. Not for my family. Not for anything. My sense of survival was too great. Bernard’s brides had stayed and were all dead now—yes, I was sure now that even Victoire was dead. And even in death it seemed they were not set free.

In the tale of “Beauty and the Beast,” the heroine had freely gone to the Beast, believing he would eat her. No sane person would do that. She and her family should have at least tried to flee—as I would flee to my siblings. Somehow I would reach them. We would run to the ends of the earth if necessary.

A knock sounded at the locked door.

“I’m bathing,” I called in a hoarse voice.

“I need to see you right away,” Bernard said. “I am about to leave for a few days.”

I climbed from the tub, dried off, and slipped into my dressing gown, all the while preparing myself to face him, nerve by nerve.
Lucky Beauty! Her beast was a man in beast’s trappings. Scarier by far was a beast in the trappings of a man.

He looked even more handsome than usual standing there, a little uncertain, the lock of bluish black hair falling across his forehead. He hadn’t bothered to “straighten” himself.

“I must go immediately to Memphis,” he said. “The trouble at the docks has escalated, and I have other business there as well. Business that concerns you. I cannot bear to leave you unhappy with me, so I shall tell you that I plan to visit my lawyer and rewrite my will, leaving everything to you. You shall be an heiress. How is that? Does it please you? Am I fully back in your good graces?”

“Of course,” I said in a bright, false voice.

“And I shall give you my keys again. You see—I still trust you.” He started to hand me the iron ring but paused before releasing it. “With the same stipulations.”

“Thank you. And goodbye.” I had forgotten how heavy the ring was.

He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and left.

Once the door was relocked, I leaned against it. Slowly the realization of my luck seeped through. These keys and Bernard’s absence offered my chance to escape.

One by one I fingered the keys as I made my plans. There must be money in Bernard’s office, his bedchamber, somewhere. Could I ride Lily, or would Garvey wake and stop me? Some chances must be risked; it would take too long to walk into town. Once on Lily, I would ride and ride and ride. I would not flee to Gideon. That would be the first place Bernard would look. For Gideon’s own protection, I realized painfully that I could never see him again.

In a large reticule I packed a change of undergarments and a toothbrush and hairbrush. I shook my head slightly at the sight of all the opulent gowns in the wardrobe, remembering with dull surprise that once these had thrilled me. I pulled out a simple traveling dress. Nothing that had mattered before mattered now.

In the middle of the night, long after the servants slept, I made my way with one small candle and keys in hand, through the shadowy, echoing corridors to Bernard’s bedchamber. I peered nervously about, expecting to see the Sisters, but in this adventure I was alone. I unlocked his door.

Even when Ducky had given me my tour of the abbey, I had only peeked in this room from the doorway, as it had seemed indelicate to enter. I had had an impression of massive, carved, claw-foot furniture, heavy brown velvet hangings, and a general air of masculinity.

There was his washstand with toothbrush and tooth powder, the book
Hide and Seek
by Wilkie Collins lying open on the night table, his familiar paisley dressing gown spread at the foot of the bed, awaiting his return. The scent of his cologne lingered. All too personal.

A faceted amethyst glass jar lay beside the lamp. It was small, no more than three inches across, lidded, and darkly opaque. Because Bernard’s room was so free of decorative flotsam and jetsam, this container seemed out of place on his bedside table. It must have a use. It might contain coins. I lifted the lid.

In the dim light I couldn’t tell what the pale objects inside were—perhaps beads. They lay on a bed of short locks of hair that had been bound with thread. I poured the things, clicking softly
together, out into my hand to inspect closer, and gave a strangled shriek, dropping them. They were teeth—yellowed ivory, scrubbed clean, and pulled out by the roots. Six of them.

Teeth? Could they be Bernard’s? No. There were too many. Then—whose? And slowly into my sluggish brain seeped the truth. I made myself think the unthinkable. I fell backward and grasped at things—the counterpane, the bedpost. Finally I leaned against the bed, my heart thudding.

He had killed his wives. The teeth, and the hair, of course, belonged to them. They were Bernard’s keepsakes of his ghastly deeds, kept there by his bed so he could inspect them often and gloat. Hints of this had nagged at me through the months, but I had squelched them before ever they came to surface. How could any normal mind comprehend such evil? He was someone I had lived closely with, someone I had genuinely liked for many weeks.