With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (7 page)

“Appointments? You assumed I would agree to your proposal, then?”

The broad shoulders moved in a shrug. “I hoped, merely. And I believe in planning ahead. I have started a list of clothes you’ll need—naturally you will see things I’ve omitted and can fill them in. Visiting dresses, dinner gowns… you’ll need a great many, I think.”

Suddenly all my doubts and fears were replaced by a glorious vision. No more eternal black bombazine in dour unfashionable styles. I saw myself in bronze shot silk with the skirt trimmed in pleated purple ribbon and drawn back over an underskirt of cream moiré. A reception gown of forest-green satin, trained in back, with a deep square neckline and lace festoons at the elbow sleeves like Marie Antoinette. A claret-red velvet evening dress like the one I had made up for Sibyl Ingram for one of her roles—knowing at the time that it would have suited me far better, with my olive complexion and dark hair. Elegantly fashioned high-heeled slippers and cunning boots instead of my clumsy, much-scuffed shoes… fine silk and cotton lawn chemises and petticoats instead of coarse homespun…

I realized I had been staring into space for some minutes, and when I came to myself and found Atticus watching me I felt a blush rising to my cheeks. “I beg your pardon,” I said in mortification. “You must think me just as shallow as your society misses for losing my head so at the prospect of pretty clothes. I confess I have the weakness of my sex for adorning myself, and I have been unable to indulge that vice until now.”

His chuckle was reassuring. “I think no less of you for having an eye for beauty. And every jewel deserves a fine setting. I believe the modistes will be able to guide you toward what is most suited to your new standing, but don’t let them bully you. A touch of originality will not come amiss. The future Lady Telford need not follow fashion blindly; she may set it.”

Lady Telford.
How astonishing to realize that this would be my role. Not that I would inhabit it longer than was strictly necessary before going into retirement in comfortable independence. But I wondered how my mother would have felt had she known what position I was being singled out for, and I swallowed hard. She might have been pleased by this windfall, and it struck me as terribly unjust that she would never know of it.

My mother… an unresolved anxiety darted back into my head, routing sorrow. “What if your father recognizes me? And the servants? There must still be some remaining from my time there, and I’ll have been fixed in their memory because of the circumstances of my departure, I’ve no doubt.”

“The solution is simple: you must purchase a wardrobe so fine as to dazzle them into gazing only at the clothes and not on your face. The tactical deployment of taffeta, aided by the strategic implementation of satin and ribbons.”

“You are teasing me.”

“A husband’s privilege, surely. But I mean no offense by it.” His merry expression grew thoughtful. “To be honest, I suspect that my father would have difficulty dredging up the memory of any servant’s face save his valet’s, and then only after strenuous thought. He shall have no reason to associate my new bride with anyone on his staff, especially when she is turned out like a woman of wealth and birth. I’m entirely serious about your providing yourself with all the appropriate adornments. I have a substantial line of credit, and I wish for you to avail yourself of it without hesitation.”

“You are too kind,” I said awkwardly. I was not sufficiently accustomed to kindness to know how to accept it gracefully. “Oh, but there is one person who won’t be swayed by fine feathers. I shall need a maid—and if anyone is situated to know all of a lady’s secrets, it is her personal maid. How are we to prevent her from giving it out below stairs that her mistress’s marriage is no more than show?”

This was clearly a new idea, and he frowned over it. “I’ll give the matter some thought. Have you no acquaintance we could hire, someone whose loyalty will be with you rather than the household?”

I sifted through my small catalogue of acquaintance who might be suited to such a role. Perhaps one of the lesser handmaidens in the theater, or my landlady’s younger niece, might do—but could I rely on either’s silence and loyalty? I was not much given to close friendships, after having been so roundly snubbed by my own set at Gravesend and having held back from what seemed to me the dangerously unrestrained camaraderie of the theater, so the question was a perplexing one. As I considered it, Atlas’s voice broke in on my thoughts.

“I must be off, I fear; now that you have so amiably consented to be mine, there is much I must attend to. A license, for a start.”

“Of course,” I said, hiding the frisson of doubt I felt at that reference to the scope of the new life upon which I was embarking. I rose to my feet, and he followed—again with the aid of his ebony walking stick, which I gathered was his constant companion. I led the way to the vestibule, where he retrieved his hat and gloves, whistling, and again I felt a strange irritation at his obviously buoyant mood, because I did not understand it.

“You are doing me a great kindness,” I began, returning to the question he had not answered.

“And am overjoyed to do so.”

Clearly—but why?
“And you are doing your father an even greater kindness. I cannot imagine that you would go to such extreme means—shackling yourself to an inappropriate wife, lavishing money on her—without there being any benefit to yourself.”

He looked at me quizzically. “Do I seem that selfish, Clara, or are you attributing to me qualities of other gentlemen you have known?”

“I am merely trying to understand your motives. Marriage is a tremendous step unless you’re gaining something by it.”

“Do not expect to fathom all of my mysteries at once, my dear Clara.” Then he seemed to think better of his levity. “Since it troubles you, yes, I do act partly out of my own interests. It will give me peace of mind to know that I can make my father’s last days better. I’d like to know that I did all that was in my power to ease his going and give him the assurance that he need not consume himself with anxiety over what will happen to the estate after his death.”

I felt rebuked; but still, there was something else he was not saying. “And nothing else?” I asked, not trying to hide my skepticism.

“I have my reasons,” he said only, before bringing my hand to his lips for a brief kiss. Something about his expression then, as he bent over my hand but kept his eyes on me, was so enigmatic that I felt a chill of sudden doubt whether our life together was truly going to be as idyllic as he portrayed it. There was much that Atticus was not telling me, and I wondered uneasily what might lie ahead.

I confess that the first dressmaking establishment to which I directed the carriage was Mrs. Hill’s. It gave me a mean-spirited satisfaction to inform her of my engagement—and consequent need for fine new clothes—and send her scurrying about in an effort to satisfy my whims.

“I have such a passion for bottle-green peau de soie,” I confided, glimpsing a bolt of this fabric at the very bottom of a stack, and watching in satisfaction as she struggled to unearth it. “It would go so nicely with that figured velvet… earmarked for Lady Carstone, you say? Such a pity. I suppose I must go to another establishment for something similar… oh, it’s truly no trouble for me to have it? How charming. See that you don’t try to fob me off with some cheap velveteen in its place, mind! Now, on this bonnet, can you take all the trimmings off and change them?”

I ordered her about until I wearied of the game and departed for the next modiste on my list, where I would order the bulk of my new wardrobe. My conscience could not reproach me very severely, though, since I had ordered a gown from Mrs. Hill, and one that I was paying her all the more generously for due to the haste with which my order would be filled. I would be recompensing the woman quite well for my small revenge—or, rather, my husband would be.

My husband.
This, like the title to which I would eventually succeed, had such a strange sound in my mind that I stopped to examine it further, in as gingerly a fashion as one might approach a spider whose bite might or might not prove poisonous.

Not for many years had I considered that I might marry. As a lovestruck girl I had spun farfetched dreams around Richard, but at this remove it was difficult to believe that I had ever been so naive as to think they might come true. After the cruel blow of losing him twice, I had felt for a long time that I would never consider marriage. And if once in a while in later years my certainty relaxed into curiosity, I was always driven back into the resolution of solitude by what I observed—and experienced—in the company of the theater and its followers. Actors, I determined, were an unreliable lot, charming and full of blandishments but slipping easily out of any suggestion of marriage. And my standards were all the higher after having known a true gentleman. Held up against my memories of Richard, even the kindest and most sincere of the men in the troupe might have come up wanting.

And Atlas? Was he kind and sincere? I had seen enough to realize that the man with whom I was linking my life bore little resemblance to the boy I remembered. I should have felt little surprise there; with Richard the shining sun in my eyes, his less fortunate brother was always eclipsed. It spoke well of Atlas that he cared so much that his father’s last days be comfortable, but the mysterious other motive to which he had referred so obliquely would trouble me until I knew what it was.

No one else, I observed, harbored any such doubts. My landlady was delighted with my luck, especially (she did not quite say) considering my advanced age. She suggested that her youngest niece, a girl of fourteen, accompany me as my maid, but I had noted the girl’s shy, uncertain demeanor and knew she would be too easily influenced by her superiors into giving up my secrets. I needed an experienced, unshakeable veteran of below-stairs politics, not a well-meaning innocent. I thanked my landlady but assured her that I could not yet part her sister from her youngest chick.

My thoughts then turned to Martha. It grieved me to see her in such a life as she was now living, but I knew that her pride would not permit her to accept employment with me even if she had been suited to such a position. When I asked Sybil Ingram if she could recommend anyone, her response astonished me.

“My dear, as happy as I am that you are marrying, I cannot in good conscience send anyone to that house.”

“Whyever not?” I exclaimed, and then light dawned. “The curse.”

“Indeed yes. I’d be far happier were you and Mr. Blackwood to settle elsewhere.” She gave a little shudder that might not have been affected; like many in her profession, I knew, she was distinctly superstitious. “I’m astonished that you aren’t doing your utmost to persuade him to make some other home. The baron has plenty of money, I’ve heard; if he doesn’t already own properties elsewhere, it would be of little difficulty to him to have a new home built for his only son and daughter-in-law.”

“Setting aside the trouble and expense,” I said, “my betrothed does not wish to be separated from his father during what will surely be his final illness. In any case, he does not fear the curse, and I have nothing to fear from it.”

Putting her head on one side, she narrowed her eyes in a long, searching look at me. “No, it is something else you fear, is it not?”

“I never said that.” To avoid that close scrutiny I turned away and resumed packing up my sewing things. Atlas—Atticus—was having my few belongings sent ahead to Gravesend, my sewing machine among them, and I was clearing out the little sewing room in the theater. Sybil Ingram settled on the sewing chair, arranging her skirts so that they would fall becomingly, and watched me.

“You do not have to say it. Your shoulders are drawn almost up to your ears, and you won’t meet my eyes. It isn’t fear of the marriage bed, surely, with so handsome and amiable a gentleman as Mr. Blackwood. And he is hardly the sort to beat you, I should think. What is it you’re afraid of?”

The bluntness was, in a way, a relief. I stopped plucking at a mess of spools that had become entangled and turned to face her. “I used to be a servant at Gravesend,” I said frankly. “My betrothed knows this, but no one else must. It seems I’m not truly leaving the theater after all, Miss Ingram, for I must become an actress.”

That brought a smile that softened the shrewd gaze. “Determination is half of it, and you seem to be well equipped with that. But you must work without a script, and that can be nerve wracking. I shall give you a piece of advice: make your lies as brief as they can reasonably be. If you must concoct a story, make it a simple one; it is when you go into too-elaborate detail that a story becomes implausible.” She rose to depart and twitched her canary-yellow overskirt into place over the cerise skirt. “I shall miss you, Clara. Write to me if you wish.” She embraced me lightly, and added with her lips close to my ear: “No matter how foolish you may think me for saying so, do try to influence your husband to leave Gravesend. Take the old baron with you if need be, but don’t stay a moment more than you must.” Drawing back, she looked into my face and gave a troubled shake of her head. “Obstinate girl. Trust an experienced trouper, my dear, and believe me when I tell you that my intuition is not wrong on this. Gravesend will place you in danger.”

Atticus and I were married on a bleak morning in late January. When he came to fetch me, he gave my ensemble a look of approbation. “I see I was right to trust your eye for fashion,” he said, after greeting me with a kiss on the hand that I did not even feel, so distracted was I.

“You approve, then?” I asked. I was far more nervous than I had expected to be. In his morning suit and high silk hat my soon-to-be husband looked both familiar and alarmingly alien. His likeness to Richard was a constant distraction rather than a reassurance; each time I saw him my heart would lift for one delighted instant before being cast down again as memory took hold. I was full of dread that I would say “I take thee, Richard” instead of “I take thee, Atticus.” Or even “Atlas.” I was still finding it difficult to stop thinking of him by that old nickname.

Unaware of my turmoil, or else tactful enough to ignore it, he said, “The dress is lovely, but it merely underscores what I already knew, which is that my bride is a most handsome woman.”

I did not know what to say to that. “I hope dove gray is appropriate,” I finally replied. “It may be a trifle young, and goodness knows with this weather we hardly need
more
gray. I look like a cloudbank settling over the Thames.”

“Clara,” he said gently, and waited until I stopped fussing with my gloves and gave him my attention. He was watching me gravely. His voice was very quiet when he said, “If you wish to change your mind, now is the time to say so.”

Yes, I’ve changed my mind.
Part of me wanted to say this—wanted it desperately. But what would happen then? I had seen what life in the factory—and out of it—had done to Martha. I could never become like her and the others like her, women who had grown old in that life, turning to laudanum or gin to make their existence bearable, sometimes to the extent that their habit had to be funded by gentleman “admirers.” Anything rather than that.

Yet when I met that icily pale blue gaze, with its mysteriously pensive quality, I was not certain I could take this course either. At Gravesend I would have no allies save this man, and I did not even know to what extent I could trust him. I would be cut off from the world, surrounded by strangers, and living in the constant fear that someone would reveal my true identity.

Mother would not have run,
I thought suddenly. She had taken that position at Gravesend to support us, believing all the while in the curse. Trying to keep me on my guard against it. Had she lived in dread? Or had she, having lost my father, felt that the curse had nothing more to use against her—except me?

“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said through dry lips.

His taut, listening posture relaxed, and he smiled. The same mobile, expressive lips, but so different a smile from Richard’s: understanding and kind instead of knowing and devilish. A pale shadow of the man I had lost, but he was doing me a good turn—an extraordinarily good turn—and I owed him a debt of gratitude for that.

All the more chafing that I hated to be in anyone’s debt.

The ceremony itself proceeded with a kind of hazy unreality, as if I were watching it through a fogged-over windowpane. The vows I spoke sounded muffled in my own ears, and with my thoughts full of Miss Ingram’s portents, I half expected Atticus to say “With this curse I thee wed.” Even the ring my new husband placed on my finger—an heirloom of rose gold set with opals—did not make the event any more real to me.

This would not do. Once we were settled in the railway carriage and hurtling away from London, I asked, “What is our story?”

Atticus, fortunately, did not need me to explain the question. That was pleasant to see: he was more intelligent than I had expected, given my impressions of him from our younger days.

“I think it would be convenient for us to have met through a mutual acquaintance of your late husband’s,” he suggested. “An American businessman, let’s say, interested in expanding his reach to our shores.” He seemed thoroughly at ease now with the wedding behind us, his arms crossed over his chest, the ankle of his good leg propped on the opposite knee. I, in contrast, was sitting primly straight in the seat across from him, not yet accustomed to the rattling, shaking rhythm of our passage; it had been months since I had last been on a train.

“And you met him how?”

“Through a… charitable institution that I’m developing. A genuine one,” he added, seeing the question in my eyes. “That work will occasionally take me away from Gravesend, I should mention.”

“Oh?” Uncertain though I was at how enjoyable married life would be with my new husband, the prospect of being left alone at Gravesend was perhaps even less appealing. “Will you be gone for long periods?”

“Not at first, no. And I won’t be traveling to France as often as I used to, certainly. Now that you and I are married, my ward can come to live with us.”

“Your ward,” I repeated blankly. This was the first time he had mentioned such a person.

In his enthusiasm he seemed handsomer somehow, younger; closer to my memory of Richard. “Her name is Genevieve Rowe. She’s of English parentage but has lived in France since before she learned to speak, and she’s far more French than English now. Sometimes I almost forget that she isn’t French by birth.”

I myself had perhaps a dozen words of French, no more. “How old is she?” I asked, picturing a child of nine or ten years. If she was no older than that, we might get on well enough.

“A month or so shy of eighteen,” he said cheerfully. “I want her to debut this Season, so it will be important for her to become acclimated to England before then. You’ll adore her, Clara. And she can learn so much from you.”

“From me? If you mean to restrict her education to sewing and housekeeping, perhaps.” The words emerged tartly; I’d spoken the truth when I had told Atlas that I disliked surprises. The domestic arrangement I had begun to come to grips with in my mind was now being unsettled by a stranger—an unknown quantity. How would she affect the fragile accord that Atlas and I were building?