Tapestry
BOOK 1 - CHAPTER 1
"Please, Miss Laura, do not do this thing. Nothing good will come of it; I feel
it in my bones."
The warning seemed to hang in the air, a wisp of words tinted by pleading tones.
Laura shook her head, as if dismissing the memory of her nurse's parting
entreaty. Jane could not possibly understand.
There was no other choice.
Laura slapped old Gretchen on the rump, knowing that the pony would soon amble
home in search of oats and a rest. She savored the respite herself for a moment
before crossing the bridge that spanned the Wye. Although the house was splendid
seen from all sides, the most beautiful view of Heddon Hall was from the river.
She had deliberately taken the pony cart the long way around, perhaps for the
view, perhaps for additional time to consider the ramifications of her plan.
It must work.
An ancient square dove house sat near the road, its narrow ledges filled with
cooing birds—the first sign of welcome from Heddon Hall. Waving gaily to them,
she topped the rise of the bridge, glancing down into the clear, sparkling
waters of the Wye.
On the other side of the humped bridge the massive towers of the Hall were
visible above the treetops, harmonizing so well with the countryside that it was
possible to believe the imposing house was as old as the knurled oaks and
rolling hills that encircled it. There had always been a Heddon Hall. The
bricks, mellowed over the centuries to a silvery gray, merged with the
seasons—warm and welcoming in summer, taking on a greenish tint in winter, as
though covered with moss, thereby adding a touch of color to the bare white
landscape. In spring, as now, the stonework seemed imbued with gentle shadows, a
muted backdrop for the verdant fields and glorious flowers surrounding Heddon
Hall.
A steep grass-carpeted incline rose to a great oaken doorway that opened to the
first court. The door was never locked, and she pushed it open with no feelings
of trespass. She had spent almost as many hours here as in her own home,
Blakemore.
She strolled through the garden, savoring the fact that although she had not
visited Heddon Hall in four long years, there were few changes. The garden was
as immutable as time itself. Topiary animals—boars and peacocks and a
unicorn—acted as sentinels in the corners; the yew hedges were the same height,
their perfume filling the air. The roses massed along the inner wall dropped
their petals in pink profusion. There were only pink roses at Heddon, never red
or white.
As she reached the wicketed gate that marked the second courtyard, or Winter
Garden, she looked above her head for the statues. They were still there: three
grotesquely carved gargoyles perched on a ledge circling the tallest tower.
She smiled as she opened the last barrier to the inner courtyard. By force of habit she strode through the archway, but stopped herself from entering the house by way of the steep granite steps. Turning left, instead, she crossed the grass path to the kitchen gardens. A hastily muttered prayer was the only prelude to her quick knock on the kitchen door.
####
He watched her stroll through the Winter Garden with the insouciance of a lady
of the manor and not a peasant girl seeking work. He stood at the arched windows
of the Eagle Tower and continued to observe her as she looked left and right,
studying his world as if she had a perfect right to stroll upon the carefully
manicured grass and through the famous gardens of Heddon Hall.
In amazement, he watched as she discarded the ugly straw bonnet and loosened
that silly-looking cap. Her hair gleamed in the sun, a beacon of red tinged with
gold. Her dress was too short, showing her ankles when she walked, but she
seemed oblivious to her swirling skirts with the same unconscious grace that she
swung the cloth bag in one hand.
When she stopped and smiled up at the wall of gargoyles he abruptly stepped back
so that she would not catch a glimpse of him. He rarely wore his mask when he
was alone, knew full well a fleeting glance at his face would be enough to make
her abandon her carefree air and run screaming from the courtyard.
He was, strangely enough, loath to frighten her.
Finally when she entered the second courtyard and disappeared from sight, he
reluctantly returned to his desk.
He massaged his left hand absently, the constant cramp from injured muscles and
torn tendons almost second nature now, like the shadow pain felt from an
amputated limb. It was only one of many reminders of his mortality. The other
lay inches from his good hand.
It was a Birchett breech-loading flintlock pistol, one of a pair. The barrel of
this constant friend was eight inches long, and etched into the butt of the grip
was a silver medallion embossed with the Cardiff heraldic emblem.
One day, perhaps, the loneliness would become too much of a burden to bear. One
day, perhaps, the horror of his solitary existence would be too much to endure.
He had learned, in this past year, that he was capable of many things. Capable,
for one, of the staunchest courage when viewing himself in the mirror. His left
eye was gone, a shattered bit of white scar tissue that left him gasping in
breathless horror when he had first viewed himself. That was not the worst of
it, however. If it had been, he could have donned an eye patch and pretended
piracy. But a genial freebooter would never be his masquerade. No, Fate had
grimly rewarded his survival with a mocking foretaste of his future—generously
presented to him every day in the sight of his burned flesh—knitted and knotted
into a lumpy and twisted caricature of his face and chest.
The hideous face, nearly blinded eyes, and the claw that had become his left
hand doomed him to remain just outside of humanity, a tortured, twisted hunk of
flesh that frightened the man he had been.
And terrified anyone else.
His mask was a charity to them all.
His servants, however fearful, were careful to hide their aversion to him. As
long as he paid their inflated salaries, he was entitled to their lowered eyes
and carefully deflected faces.
His stepmother was the only one who did not mask her antipathy to him; not once
did she deign to conceal her repugnance whenever she looked upon his
leather-clad face or mask her thinly disguised shudders when their paths could
not help but cross.
Despite Elaine's contention that he was trying to beggar her, he had sent her on
her way with enough money to maintain a luxurious lifestyle in London. She had
not bothered to act the hypocrite, departing his home enraged at his insistence
that she not only manage to live on the amount he'd advanced but that she remain
in London rather than intrude upon his privacy at Heddon Hall.
It was a cloistered existence, this, a monastic life that pulled at him with
razor-sharp talons, as if his flesh were half-healed.
He was proficient in coping with his half-blindness, groping infirmity, and
daily pain, stifling his anguish beneath a thin-lipped silence. Yet, he did not
know how much longer he would be capable of living alone, of listening to the
echo of solitude, the awful emptiness of his own existence.
It had only been a year since the cannon's explosion, yet he was near to
screaming with it.
Dying might be preferable to this.
It would not be self-pity that thrust him toward self-destruction. He had long
since challenged that god of ego and won. He did not anguish over his
circumstances, nor bemoan his fate. He was cursed with too much self-knowledge;
a brightly polished internal mirror by which he resolutely examined himself. He
was sometimes autocratic, but command had come easily to him, both at sea and in
his new guise as earl. He was self-sufficient, a trait distilled from leadership
and a solitary childhood; his older brother separated by more than years, his
father disinterested in the fate of a younger son, his mother dead two years
after his birth. He was stubborn, but his pride and his occasional dogmatism
were the only things to hold on to in a world suddenly skewed and unfamiliar.
It was his stubbornness that demanded that he alter, in small, decisive steps,
his helplessness. He refused to believe that he could not make his undamaged eye
focus on the words swimming on the document before him. He had gradually, over
the last year, begun to see with that eye, despite the warnings from the Navy
surgeons and the caution of his own physician. It had begun as a sense of color
and light. Then the blurry outlines had become clear, and he had regained his
vision of far objects.
As his sight slowly cleared, he set himself another task: that of reading again.
He detested having to depend upon his secretary for assistance in the most basic
of chores. It chafed at him, this sense of reliance. He hated wondering if the
letter was written exactly as his secretary read it, or if the expense was as
high as had been represented to him, or the report of crop damage as onerous as
Hartley reported. He loathed being forced into a child's role. Ironically, his
self-imposed mission of trying to read once again began with a child's hornbook,
the engraved drawings becoming discernible only with patience and the presence
of bright light.
Now, sunlight streamed through the arched windows and a branched candlestick
stood beside him with other candles resting near his arm. Yet, despite the
sunlight and the artificial light, he was no closer to being able to
differentiate the written word than he had been yesterday or the day before.
He threw down the quill with an oath and glanced at the gun on the table before
him. No, it would not be self-pity that coaxed him to destruction; it would be
an act of sheer, puling desperation that finally impelled him to squeeze the
trigger.
He could bequeath his title to a distant cousin and seek anonymity someplace
where the demands of his rank would not be so onerous. Yet, the same reason he
was reluctant to do so was the same reason the gun lay unused on the table.
Hope: somewhere it still existed. Battered, as bruised as his ego, but sewn
together with pieces of his past and distant, fleeting glimpses of a brighter
future.
It was unique, this feeling of being part of mankind, yet so supremely set
apart. Dear God, all that he wanted was to be treated as a man. Not as a
monster. A man who dreamed, who still lusted, who even now ached for those
things he had taken for granted before—friendship, the ability to laugh, the
tenderness of gifted love, the hope of tomorrow, the softness of female flesh
pressed against his in ravenous need, the sounds of pleasure, music shared,
bawdy jokes, wine sipped and savored in company before a fire, a future bright
and promising.
He was as unlikely to be granted those favors as he was the ability to read
again.
His sigh was heavy and leaden in the silent room. He bent to his task,
determined, stubborn, grim. He spent the next hour ignoring the faint sounds
from the courtyard, the bustle of maids, the gurgling of the reservoir mounted
on the roof behind the Eagle Tower.
He could not, however, ignore the female screams that tore through the kitchen
garden.
####
The first part of her plan had gone quite well, Laura thought, until an
unexpected complication. She'd had no trouble obtaining a position, quite
frankly lying about her references, giving Blakemore as her last employer. When
asked her name she calmly stated that it was Jane Palling, with mental apologies
to her nurse.
Yes, the first part of her plan had gone well, until she had learned that the
new earl had strange notions about cleanliness. She was escorted, none too
gently, to the kitchen garden by the heavyset butler, Simons, and divested of
her meager cloth sack, her cloak, and her straw hat.
She had stood calmly, if not a little confused, until Simons had motioned to two
of the footmen. If she had known the fate in store for her, she most certainly
would not have remained meekly in place. Nor would she have screamed each and
every oath she had surreptitiously learned from the stable-boys at Blakemore if
they had just warned her that she was to be doused from head to toe with gallons
of vinegar!
She sputtered, coughed, and could hardly breathe for the stench.
"M'lord will not tolerate fleas or lice," Simons starchily intoned as he
motioned to the footmen again.
"No more!" She slicked back her wet hair from her forehead with one trembling
hand, glared at Simons and his willing henchmen, and wondered if they weren't
deriving too much pleasure from their task.
She was drenched. Her gray dress was almost black and clung to every curve. Her
muslin tucker lay on the muddy ground beneath her feet, and her hair had come
loose from the careful bun at her neck. Even the cheap hose and leather shoes
she had purchased from one of her maids were sodden. Her eyes stung, and she
tasted the briny vinegar on her lips.
She also smelled. No self-respecting louse or flea would dare invade her person.
"Enough!" she yelled after the second dose, but her command did not seem to
dissuade them. She clenched her teeth and squinched her eyes shut in preparation
for the next drenching.
It did not come.
Instead, an eerie silence drifted over the three. She slitted open one eye,
glancing at the suddenly subdued Simons. Neither of the footmen raised their
eyes from the muddy ground.
She blinked furiously and looked up.
Behind Simons was a tall, broad-shouldered figure.
He stood, legs braced apart, one hand behind his back, surveying the scene like
an iron statue. His leather mask hid his expression and his face from her view.
Only a slit appeared where his nose would be and another for his mouth. One eye
was completely shielded by the black leather; the other seemed disembodied, as
though it were floating apart from his face, watching her with an expression she
could not read.
Alex.