The Bride of Time (9 page)

Having left the entire east wing in sixes and sevens in search of the child with no results, Giles doubled back and met Foster at the landing.

“No sign of him, sir,” the valet reported.

Giles nodded. “I’ve searched every chamber in the east wing on this floor as best I could with one smoking candle branch in the dead of night. The clever little bugger is down there somewhere. He couldn’t have gotten past you.”

“Would you want me to have a look, sir?” the valet said. “He might have relaxed his guard a bit now that you’ve abandoned the search, and I have a lighter step.”

“No need,” Giles said, jiggling his chatelaine. “I’ve locked every room. He isn’t going anywhere.” He started
to climb the stairs. “I can play his game as well as he can, especially since he’s made me what he is. Stay here until I come back down,” he charged.

“Yes, sir. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to check on Miss LaPrelle and lock Master Monty’s chamber door.”

“What good will locking the boy’s door do if he’s not in his chamber?”

“If he does manage to escape what ever rooms he’s hiding in, he won’t get into his own until I have him first. Look sharp. He will be feeling the pull of the moon.”

“How do you know that, sir?”

“Because
I
am!” Giles growled, thumping his chest with his fist.

It was true. The minute the moon rose, he’d felt the pull: gnawing, bestial cravings. It was as if his heart was beating to a different rhythm, as though a feral beast was living in his body. This he could control while the moon was waxing full, but when it rose again, that beast would take over doing what savagery he shuddered to wonder. So would it be with Master Monty. He had to be found before the moon rose full again.

Giles listened outside Tessa’s door for a long moment. The shuffling within suggested that she was pacing. He hesitated, then rapped lightly on the azure-paned door adorned with plasterwork. The sound of her light footfalls pattering toward the door gave him a rush of relief.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It is I, Giles Longworth,” he replied. “No! Do not unlock the door,” he cautioned at the rasp of the key in the lock. He waited while it scraped shut again. “I am come only to see that you are all right.”

“I am,” she said. “Have you found him?”

Giles hesitated. Tell her no, and she’d likely insist upon joining the search. Tell her yes, and if the boy did
get loose and attempt to accost her again, he would never forgive himself were she to come to harm.

“Damn!” he muttered under his breath. “Yes…and no,” he said, wincing at the half-truth. “We know where he is and he is confined there for the time being. Foster and I will ferret him out in the morning. You are quite safe so long as you remain in your locked apartments.”

“Aren’t you being a bit excessive, Mr. Longworth?” Tessa queried.

Even with the door between, her sweet voice had aroused him. All he could think of was how beautiful she was, with her satiny chestnut hair falling to her buttocks and her exquisite body barely concealed beneath the transparent nightrail. These urges, too, were part of the madness; he was certain of it. She was safe enough now, but what of tomorrow night, when the moon made a monster of him again?

“Miss LaPrelle,” he said. “Needs must that you leave things of which you know nothing to those who do. Trust me to know what is ‘excessive’ where Master Monty is concerned, and please respect my wishes. They are imposed only to be certain you suffer no more unpleasantness.”

“Don’t you think it time you enlighten me, sir?”

“Yes,” he quickly said, “and I will do so after you break your fast in the morning as we arranged. I shall await you in my study then. Meanwhile, I must insist that you remain in your apartments with the doors locked until Dorcas brings the water for your toilette.”

“But—”

“Good night, Miss LaPrelle.”

Uncomfortable wearing the traitorous Elena Longworth’s castoff gowns, Tessa begged a plain black bombazine frock from the maids. The style was different from the frock she’d arrived in, reminding her of some
of the portraits she’d seen at Poole House, but the drab, somber fabric hadn’t changed in over a hundred years. Feeling much more comfortable attired thus, Tessa kept her appointment with Giles Longworth after breakfast in his book-lined study, which smelled of lemon polish and the musty odor peculiar to old book bindings.

He wore a haggard look, as if he hadn’t slept. His hair was mussed, though attractively. The ghost of dark stubble darkened his face, and he was wearing the same shirt and buckskins he’d worn when she’d last seen him the night before. He vaulted to his feet from his chair behind the desk when she entered. For a moment, he stared.

“What the devil are you doing in one of the maid’s costumes?” he demanded, his anger evident. How those black stares spoiled his handsome face. “Didn’t I provide you with appropriate attire?”

“You did, sir,” Tessa returned. “I do not feel comfortable in them. I am not accustomed to dressing in such finery.”

“Well, I will not have you going about dressed like a scullion. It will not do.”

“I do not intend to do so on a regular basis,” Tessa said calmly to his bluster. “As soon as it can be arranged, I mean to go into Truro to select my own costumes.”

Longworth heaved an exasperated sigh and motioned her to take a seat in the wing chair at the edge of the carpet. “Sit you down,” he said. “I owe you an explanation. I will do my best to provide it, or at least as much as I know of it, though you aren’t likely to believe. Please sit. I shan’t begin until you do.”

Tessa sank into the chair. She almost laughed. After the bizarre way she’d gotten to Longhollow Abbey, she was almost ready to believe anything. She felt a moment of fiendish pleasure wondering if she should give him a dose of his own medicine and see if he’d believe
her
secret.
She sincerely doubted it, since she scarcely believed it herself.

“Is the boy found?” she asked instead.

“If you mean, is he safe and sound in his chamber, the answer is no, he is not. If you mean, do we know where he is, yes, we do, and he will be seen to, you have my word.”

“That makes no sense,” Tessa snapped. “ None of this makes any sense.”

“I am hoping to remedy that, if you will let me.”

“I am waiting,” Tessa said. Her frosty tone was her only defense. If she let herself, it would be easy to become captivated by the dashing man behind the desk.

“Master Monty is not a blood relation to me, and he is not a normal child. My sister married Montclair Albert Montague II, a captain in Wellington’s army, who came into this family with baggage, so to speak, in the person of Master Monty. The child’s mother was a wild Gypsy girl. They were married by Gypsy rite, and no other. After the child was born, the girl abandoned Montague and the child. She later died of typhus. Several years passed before my sister Ursula met Montague, and they married.”

“And your sister raised the child as her own?”

He nodded. “Yes, until she…died,” he said. “When Montague was called to active duty, Ursula and the boy came here, where we could look after her during her confinement while her husband was marching to the colors. She was pregnant, you see, with Montague’s child. She died before it was born.”

“How awful!”

“Yes, it was.”

“How…did she die?”

“She fell from the balustrade on the terrace outside her bedchamber, the turret chamber next to Master Monty’s on the third floor. The authorities deemed it a
suicide, but I know it wasn’t. She was full of hope for the future and joy over the expected birth, especially since Montague’s death in battle. The night before she died, we talked at length about the coming birth, and about Master Monty. She was afraid of him.”

“If not suicide…what, then? Surely you don’t suspect foul play?”

“I do, Miss LaPrelle. I believe Master Monty to be responsible for Ursula’s death.”

“But that’s preposterous! He’s only a child! Why would he? How could he have?”

“Master Monty was jealous of the child Ursula was carrying. He became harder and harder to control. They fought constantly. Monty was always at Ursula, and the night before she died, the child bit her just as he bit me and nearly bit you.”

“What has that to do with anything?” Tessa asked.

“I don’t
know
that it does, but I know the boy’s bite to be…infectious. I do not know another way to put it. That is why I was so concerned that you might have been bitten. It seems to worsen when the moon is full, and it’s close to that now—tonight, to be exact.”

“But how could the child have become infected?”

“Master Monty’s mother was a full-blooded Gypsy. All sorts of strange occurrences are attributed to the Roma hereabouts. Tales have spread about shape-shifters and the undead. There have been cries of
revenant
, of the dead rising from their graves. Crooked headstones are all it takes to unleash all manner of superstitious twaddle. Cornish folk are a superstitious lot to begin with. It doesn’t take much to give such suspicions substance with words.”

“Surely you do not believe in such ridiculous superstitions?” Tessa asked, incredulous.

“No, but evidently Master Monty does. The mind is a very complex and enigmatic part of the human anatomy,
Miss LaPrelle; it can make the impossible possible for those who believe. And we all know how the full moon affects those shut up in mad houses.”

“How long has this been going on?” Tessa murmured.

“Since Ursula died last spring.”

“There is more that you aren’t telling,” Tessa knew.

“There is,” Giles agreed, “but nothing you’re ready to hear or I’m ready to put forth without proof. Suffice it to say that danger exists, and until we know exactly what we’re facing, we must err on the side of caution.”

“And…if your suspicions are correct, what do you plan to do with the child? You can hardly keep him here if he’s a danger to all in residence.”

“There are institutions, Miss LaPrelle, but it’s much too early to speculate on that.”

“You would shut him up in an asylum—a nine-year-old child?” Tessa was shocked.

“Certainly not!” Giles defended. “There are private sanatoriums for individuals suffering from such delusional ailments. He will be well cared for if such is necessary, and cured if it is possible. But for now, needs must that I ask you to be careful in this house no matter how preposterous you find the situation. I will, of course, keep you apprised. In the meanwhile, your duties as Master Monty’s governess will be curtailed.” He hesitated, clearing his voice. “If you would like to fill your idle hours and increase your income while this is sorted out, you could…assist me in my studio…”

Tessa vaulted to her feet. “I told you
no
, Mr. Longworth,” she said icily. “I will not pose for that scandalous painting!”

Giles got to his feet and threw his hands up in a gesture to stay her. “Please hear me out,” he said. “I do not expect you to disrobe and pose in the nude, Miss LaPrelle,” he explained. “You’ve made your views on that quite plain. And it isn’t a ‘scandalous painting.’ It is
a work of art. Celebrated artists through the ages have painted nudes, or at the very least sketched them. It is essential in order to get the anatomy correct. All right, I know I am no Michelangelo, but unless I am allowed to pursue my craft in the manner of the masters, my talent, such as it is, will never be recognized.”

Tessa was thinking the Masters never drove naked lightskirts from their doors drunk in the dead of night, at least none she’d ever heard of, though there was no denying artists were a scandalous lot. “I take a different view,” she said instead.

“And I need someone to hold the hourglass,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “I can hardly paint what isn’t there, now can I?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she sallied. “It seems you’ve done a fine job of it already.”

“You saw that, then,” he replied, answering his own question.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t want me to see it, Mr. Longworth. Do not insult my intelligence.”

“Of course I wanted you to see it,” he snapped. “How else were you to know I meant you no harm? I worked on your hair, and your face, though I don’t have the latter quite right; that’s why I’ve suggested that you model for me. You are perfect for The Bride.”

“Where did you get that ridiculous title?” Tessa hedged.

“I can neither take the credit nor the blame for that,” Giles said through a chuckle. “You will have to admonish Prinny, I’m afraid. For all that he is de cadent and powerful, the Prince Regent is a very lonely man. He masks his loneliness with flamboyance, but deep down he longs for a love he cannot know. Marriage for love, marriage for necessity, marriage for the Crown—one the people would accept—the Devil take the desires of his heart. ‘Somewhere in time there is a bride for me,’
he once said to me, ‘a bride for good and all,’ and the title was born.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Tessa said. “The man has everything he could ever hope to want.”

“Ahhh, yes, everything but what he
really
wants,” Giles corrected. “It was to be his fantasy, a woman waiting somewhere in time just for him—George, the man, not George the would-be king, under the dictates of the Crown and everything it brought to bear upon him—hence the symbolism of the hourglass. She couldn’t have the face of anyone he knew, neither wife nor any of his mistresses, of course, that would cause all manner of
on-dits
to circulate ’round Town. It was dangerous enough doing the likeness for his watchcase.”

“Who posed for that?” Tessa asked.

“The woman herself, under the most secretive circumstances, and it was a miniature, easily concealed in an object he alone has custody of, an object no other was privileged to touch. A canvas of the dimensions of my current project would cause a scandal. So! His secret love had to be an image created from his imagination. He designed her—someone he could gaze upon and fantasize about in lonely moments—the composite of wife, mistresses, and lovers—the best of all worlds—rolled into one; his dream bride. It is my job to paint her, and I added Longhollow Abbey in the background to further deter suspicion. He didn’t even dare commission such a painting officially, else it get out, though we have a verbal agreement—if the bride is right, of course. You
are
The Bride of Time, Prinny’s fantasy in the flesh.”