Chapter Fourteen

So that night King Heartless and Prue went to the castle gardens. Prue nervously took a spindle and some wool and showed the king how to spin.

“You aren’t very good at this,” the king said as his yarn broke.

“Well, neither are you!” Prue retorted before thinking.

After that the king hardly spoke save to swear horribly and in the morning Prue was very happy to still be alive.…

—From King Heartless

The Duke of Montgomery slept as he did everything else: easily, elegantly, and gracefully.

More beautifully than any other person living.

Bridget gazed down thoughtfully on the sleeping man the next morning. He lay sprawled upon the freshly laundered sheets, one arm arced over his head, his golden curls tumbled upon the pillows, his straight nose profiled against the sheets. His lips were a little parted, but he did not snore—no, not he. His stubble was gilt and merely highlighted the perfect angles of his jaw. The bedcovers were pushed to his thighs, his other hand resting on a taut belly. His chest was smoothly muscled and unblemished, the few golden hairs between his pectorals highlighting his masculinity. One leg was bent and his cock, thick and long this morning, lay along the crease of his thigh. The foreskin—his precious foreskin, she remembered with some amusement—was stretched a bit taut, revealing the very tip of his head, gleaming and pink.

He was perfect. Her lover.

Bridget pursed her lips, giving that lovely penis one last lingering glance before turning to the door and leaving the room quietly.

It seemed very strange that this man should be her lover, for however short a time it might be. Even if he were not a duke, even if, in some other world, he were a footman or a butler—a man of her own rank and station in life—it would be a strange fit. He was a beautiful, otherworldly creature, and she?

She was just ordinary. From her horse’s-mane hair to her sturdy, practical feet, she’d never turned men’s heads. Oh, she wasn’t ill-favored—her features were regular enough—but she knew, too, that she wasn’t the sort of woman whom men flirted with. Whom men stared at. She’d had a few admirers in the past, but they hadn’t been a multitude.

She was unremarkable.

The Duke of Montgomery was anything but.

Perhaps, then, that was what drew him to her—her very normality. Val was just quixotic enough to become fascinated—for a short time—by the prosaic.

That was quite a depressing thought, but Bridget faced it practically. She knew that whatever else happened they were not meant to be together for any length of time. It was too ludicrous a concept—like a racehorse yoked to a plow horse.

And what drew her to him? Oh, she could try to fool herself. Pretend that she sought out the duke only in order to try to help him recognize right from wrong, try to mend his wicked, wicked ways.

But that was a child’s game—because while she did want to help him find the better part of himself, that wasn’t the real reason she stayed.

The truth was much simpler. For the first time in her life she was doing something strictly for herself: she was letting go of propriety, reason, logic, even morality, she supposed.

She was making love to Val. Selfishly. Because she wanted to. Because he was everything she’d been denied in life—everything she’d denied herself: laughter and wit and books and adventure. Lust and sensuality. Silks and hot baths. Warm dogs and warmer bed linen.

He was sin itself and if she was a sinner for a little while, she’d pay the price and gladly.

And if that price was a child?

Oh, that wouldn’t be so very bad, either.

She was a bastard herself. If she had a child by him, she’d keep her babe and no matter how hard it might be to make her way in the future at least she’d never be alone again.

Bridget made the kitchen door and checked as always that her apparel was in order—minus her mobcap. By this time no doubt the entire staff must suspect that she was sleeping with the duke, but she wasn’t going to flaunt the fact, and she certainly wasn’t going to let any rumors affect her authority in any way.

She opened the doors and sailed into the kitchens. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” grunted Mrs. Smithers as she kneaded dough of some kind.

While she hadn’t the same rapport with the Ainsdale cook that she had with Mrs. Bram, nevertheless Mrs. Smithers was far more accommodating, in her own taciturn way, than she had been when Bridget first arrived.

Which she proved immediately by jerking her chin at one of the scullery maids. “Quit yer dozin’, Ann, and get a cup of tea for Mrs. Crumb.”

Bridget accepted her teacup gratefully, smiling her thanks to the little maid as she took a seat at the kitchen table across from Mr. Dwight.

“Good morning, Mrs. Crumb,” the butler said cheerfully. Bridget had noticed he was rather alarmingly awake in the mornings. “Will you be seeing to the upper floors today?”

“I think so, yes, Mr. Dwight,” she replied, tucking into the porridge set before her. She had to admit that Mrs. Smithers made a fine, hearty porridge. “I understand many of the rooms haven’t been opened in years?”

He shook his head, pursing his lips. “My aunt said they were shut up before Her Grace took ill.”

Bridget nodded. It was a money-saving measure she approved of—why heat and maintain rooms not in use?—but there were bound to be vermin and other unpleasant surprises in such places if they weren’t at least checked once in a while.

The kitchen door opened and Mehmed bounded in with Pip at his heels. The little dog made a beeline to Bridget, setting his paws upon her knees for a good-morning pat.

She took the last bite of her porridge. “I’ll be just a moment,” she told Mr. Dwight, and then went into the inner courtyard with the boy and the dog.

Pip immediately trotted over to water the ancient oak.

“It is very cold here,” Mehmed said mournfully, both arms wrapped around his shoulders. “I think I shall freeze in the winter. The duke says the sky will turn to ice and bits of it will fall in tiny pieces of white.”

“The duke likes to be dramatic,” Bridget murmured as she watched Pip race about the inner courtyard.

She glanced up at the widow’s tower standing sentinel over the castle, and remembered Val telling her what he’d watched from that tower. This place had witnessed debauchery, vice, and cruelty beyond her imagining and yet they had left no mark upon the old gray stones. The castle stood immune and impartial.

Were she the housekeeper of this place, she’d plant a vegetable garden here, right by the kitchen door. Herbs and lettuces, peas, carrots, and radishes, all bounded neatly by tiny box hedges. And farther on she would hire gardeners to lay down straight, level paths of gravel, train pears and apples and plums against the inner walls, and plant roses and irises for the lady of the house to admire as she walked her paths.

That’s what she would do if she were the housekeeper of Ainsdale Castle.

“Mrs. Crumb!”

Bridget started from her reverie at Mehmed’s happy shout and turned to the boy.

He was standing with Pip. “Mrs. Crumb, I forgot to tell you. Yesterday I teach Pip to sit.”

Bridget raised her eyebrows, because the little terrier wasn’t in fact sitting. “Yes?”

“Watch!”

The boy turned toward the dog and thrust his hands straight in the air above his head. “Pip!”

The dog barked and went into a play bow.

“Pip! SIT!” Mehmed shouted, bringing his hands down commandingly before him.

Immediately the terrier leaped up, barking madly, ran around the boy three times…

And sat in front of him.

“Oh.” Bridget pressed her hand to her mouth because she did not want to laugh at the boy. “How very extraordinary.”

Mehmed beamed. “I think this is much better sit than you try, yes?”

“Oh, yes indeed,” Bridget agreed.

“Pip very good at sit now,” Mehmed said, looking at the dog, who had almost immediately risen from his sit to wander about again.

“Yes, well, I’m afraid I shall have to start my work now,” Bridget said. “Will you attend the duke?”

Mehmed looked a little glum. “He not wake up for long time still. He say only pli-bee-un wake up before noon.” He looked at her and shook his head. “I not know what pli-bee-un is.”

“Us,” Bridget growled. “And he would say that.”

“Dukes can sleep all day. We can’t.” He darted her a rather sly glance. “But he very sad when you not there yesterday.”

She did not reply to that, but her heart skipped a beat, silly thing.

“Would you like to help me air and clean closed-up rooms?” she enquired as she walked toward the kitchen door.

“Ye-es?” Mehmed replied doubtfully.

“Or,” she added, “you and Pip could see if there’s any work to do in the stables.”

“Yes, very well!” he said, immediately brightening and starting for a different door to the castle, one that was much closer to the back and the stables. “Come, Pip, come!”

The dog raced after him.

“Don’t let him be trampled by horses!” Bridget called after the boy.

He waved cheerfully and disappeared into the door with the dog.

Bridget sighed and turned to the kitchen door. She had her troops to gather.

The morning was spent in opening and cleaning three rooms in the upper west wing, at the opposite end of the castle from Val’s bedroom. It was quite filthy work and Bridget mourned her mobcap, which had been missing since Val had torn it from her head yesterday.

She suspected that he’d burned it.

At the moment she was supervising the clearing of the third room, which evidently had been used as a catchall, as it was full of tables and other unused furniture. Two footmen carefully moved a heavy mahogany sideboard from the wall, revealing something cloth-draped leaning against the paneling.

Bridget gingerly pulled off the cloth, mindful of the layer of dust on it.

Then she froze, staring.

It was a life-size portrait of a boy. A beautiful, golden boy, not more than seven or eight years old, but already wearing a sky-blue suit, white lace falling at his throat and wrists, diamond buckles on his shoes. He was formally posed, a foot outthrust, the opposite hand on his waist, a pink velvet cape with ermine trim draped over one shoulder and arm. The other hand held a small, jeweled dagger, offered to the viewer.

The boy stood in a stateroom of some sort. Draperies and formal furniture on either side of him. Bridget had seen portraits of aristocratic children in other homes. Unlike those children, this boy had no pets, no toys, and no trappings of childhood about him.

He stood alone in a world of adults.

And his azure eyes were unbearably sad.

“She hated me even then.”

Bridget turned to find Val eyeing the sad little boy dispassionately. “I would’ve thought she’d have that burned years ago. I remember sitting for the painter. I couldn’t stand still, but my father wanted the portrait. She told me if I didn’t stand still she’d chop off my ears.” He smiled at Bridget as if sharing a joke. “I was too young to realize she’d never do it. Father would’ve killed her had she marred his heir in any way. So I stood still. I think it took him three weeks to paint it.”

Bridget wanted to weep. Could he not even say the word mother?

She glanced behind him and was relieved to see that the other servants had left the room. “Why did she hate you so much?”

“I’m my father’s son.” He shrugged. “I look exactly like him and she rather hated him as well. I suppose that was enough.”

She stared. “But you aren’t your father.”

“Aren’t I?” he murmured, his eyes weary. “He did make me in his image, after all.”

She caught his hand impulsively. “Just because you look the same doesn’t mean you’re the same man as your father. You’re not. You’re not.”

He cocked his head at her, his eyebrows drawn together as if he were considering her words doubtfully.

If the old duchess had been alive, Bridget would’ve given her a piece of her mind.

She cleared her throat. “Shall I have it hung again, perhaps in the dining room?”

“What?” He glanced at the painting. “Oh, if you want. It certainly cost Father enough and the painter is supposed to be good.” He looked around the room. “I wonder why she put it here, though. She was such a vindictive old thing. Hated my father. Hated this castle. Hated me.” He kicked a small stack of packing crates. They fell over and something smashed. “You should’ve heard her yelling after me when I left. I was the very Devil, the spitting image of Father. Just like him in every—”

He was interrupted by a thin but very clear cat’s meow.

Val froze, his eyes rolling to her.

Bridget frowned, looking around. Where—?

The meow came again.

“Can you hear that?” Val hissed.

She waved at him to be quiet. The room held two tables—heavy medieval things and quite worm-eaten—the fallen crates, what looked like more paintings under cloths—

Another meow.

She moved toward the only remaining large piece of furniture, a sort of cupboard, as tall as a man and intricately spindled and carved. Two doors stood at the front and she tried them, but they were locked.

“Here.” Val shouldered her aside and brought out his curved dagger.

“Don’t—!” she started.

But he’d already shoved the blade between the doors and levered them open by breaking the lock from the wood.

“Oh,” she said with deep disapproval, “you needn’t have done that.”

“No, but I thought you wanted to look inside,” he said. “And I’ve seldom seen such an ugly cupboard. I think it’s one my mother had in her rooms. Do you want to look in it or not?”

“I do,” she said, but when she opened the doors all she found was an empty mouse nest and a lot of dust.

The meow came again, quite close.

She leaned her head inside the cupboard. She would’ve sworn the cat—or kitten, for it sounded quite small—was right in front of her, but there was nothing there.

She straightened and glanced at Val.

His azure eyes were alight with amusement. “Phantom cats and ghostly kittens.”

She frowned at him. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Boring.” He kissed her on the nose and, while she was still blinking in surprise, leaned down and did something to the back of the cupboard.

Suddenly one of the boards came away in his hands.

She leaned down again to look.

Staring back at them was a ginger cat, her green eyes wide, and at her teats were a row of wriggling kittens in a rainbow of colors. She was curled in the small space of what was evidently a false back to the cupboard.

“But how did she get in?” Bridget breathed, enchanted. The kittens were at that wee fluffy stage and absolutely adorable.

“Magic,” Val said promptly, and then, more prosaically, “or the back of the cupboard’s rotted away.”

Bridget laughed. “What shall we name them?”

But that made him stiffen and pull away. “Nothing. They’re not ours, are they?”

“No,” she said slowly, watching him. She remembered what his father had done to him, the long litany of pet cats—cats he’d named—and her heart nearly broke. “But…”

“Then leave them be,” he said, crossing the room and toeing the fallen packing crates again. “No cause to be imposing names on cats, is there? Seems rather rude if you ask me. No one asks the cats if they like being named.”

She glanced at the mother cat, who was purring, her eyes half-closed, and then back at him. She should leave it be, she knew, but… “You liked cats as a boy, didn’t you?”

He whirled on her, looking outraged. “Who told you that?”

“You did,” she said gently. “When you were delirious from the poison, remember?”

“No.” He shook his head decisively. “I’ve found that it’s much easier if one forgets certain things, so I’ve made a habit of it. Sometimes when I’m introduced to a man I forget his name immediately, just to stay in practice. It’s wonderfully useful, forgetfulness.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. How much had he forgotten over his lifetime? How much had he been made to endure?

“Well.” She inhaled. “You did tell me. You said you had four cats, Pretty, Marmalade, Opal, and—”

“Tiger,” he said, stalking toward her, “Tiger whom I strung up and murdered so Father wouldn’t. Are you absolutely certain you want to go down this path, Séraphine, mine?”

“My name is Bridget,” she said, holding her ground bravely.

“Oh, no,” he replied, catching her upper arms, holding her tight, almost hurting her. “Right now you are burning Séraphine, sitting in judgment, and I am the unholy Duke of Montgomery and if you want to know, if you really, truly want to know with all your pure saint’s soul, there were many more than Pretty, Marmalade, Opal, and Tiger. Dozens of cats. He made sure there were cats. Who do you think kept me supplied in cats as a boy? Father did. He’d bring me a pretty fluffy kitten and place it on my pillow at night so that I’d wake with it curled against my face, trusting and purring and soft, so soft, just for me. Innocent and lovely. I’d name it—I named all of them. And he’d wait until I loved that cat, until it was my best friend, my only friend, and then he’d wring its neck in front of my eyes.” He leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closed and still—still!—incredibly dry. “Until I was old enough and strong enough and smart enough and I knew I knew I knew that you have to kill the thing you love, Séraphine, or they’ll use it against you. They’ll wring its neck before your eyes and you’ll hurt. Your insides will bleed screams and despair and you’ll want death, you’ll love death.”

He stopped, panting, openmouthed and still, and said very quietly and precisely, “So you see. It’s better. Much better. Not to love at all.”

Slowly, carefully, she inched her hand up his heaving chest, up his neck and to his dry, dry face. “I do see, yes. I see.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, softly, on the lips. A gentle brush, a sweet reminder that she stood here and his father did not.

She cupped his face in her hands and leaned back to look up at him.

His azure eyes were drowsy and a little calmer.

He inhaled.

And then his gaze went past her to the open cupboard and he started laughing. Deep, racking guffaws that made her stare in horror.

He held his belly and pointed.

She turned and looked, expecting something awful.

All she saw was that the cat had left her kittens. They either slept or stood on trembling legs, exploring their small box at the back of the cupboard.

“What?”

“Look,” he rasped. “Oh, look. That bitch.” He went off again, laughing and staggering about the room as if possessed.

She bent to look again.

There was something white under the kittens.

She reached and took out an oblong ivory box, intricately carved all over. It looked very old and very dear and she tutted under her breath at the thought that it had been used as a cat’s bed.

“Is this what you mean?” she asked the maddened man.

She tried to open it, but the lid appeared stuck.

“No, no,” said Val, suddenly beside her. “You know nothing of Montgomerys and their intrigues.”

He took the box from her hands, turned it upside down, and pressed his thumbnail to a carving on the bottom. A sliver popped out of the side of the box and he slid it sideways, and then opened the lid.

Bridget peered over his shoulder.

Inside was a sealed letter.

“She never smiled,” he said, staring at the letter, “not even on the day I left. She sat in her bed, Cal by her side, and I watched her place this letter in this box. She swore she would keep it and would have it published if I ever returned to England before she died. But I never truly believed her. What a fool I, it seems. Her venom was true. One can’t fault her for that. Eleven years later and it poisons me still, though she rots in the ground. Brava, madam, brava!”

He contemplated the letter for a second longer.

Then he looked up at her and handed her the open casket. “Here, take it. This is my heart, blackened, my soul, unshriven. Do this in remembrance of me.”

She stared at the ivory box. “I can’t take that!”

He cocked his head. “Why not?”

“Because…” Because she didn’t want to have the means to betray him. She looked at him. “What is in the letter?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You just said that your mother cursed you from the grave with it,” she retorted, exasperated.

“And she most likely did,” he said. “But I don’t know. The letter is sealed. I haven’t read it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “But if she wrote what you think she wrote…?”

He smiled. “Then the contents will hang me.”

She stopped breathing. He’d said, “will.” Not “might.” So certain. So sure. Very few crimes resulted in the death penalty for a duke.

And he wanted her to take the evidence of his crime.

She wanted to tell him to destroy it instead. It was on the very tip of her tongue.

But Bridget was a morally upright person at heart. If he’d done something so truly terrible…

“Ah, there’s the inquisitor,” he whispered.

And placed the awful casket in her hands.