Cursed Once More: The Sequel to With This Curse Read online

  Doubtless you are curious about the family you were never permitted to know, and you are surely as eager as I to re-forge the sacred bonds of kinship. You must have sorely felt the lack of family when you married and upon the tragic death of your father-in-law. Grieve no more, my dear, for now you have a paternal figure to help you through the strange new world in which you find yourself.

  I entreat you and the baron to do me the honor of paying a visit to Thurnley Hall at your earliest convenience so that we may begin to make up for lost time.

  Your devoted uncle,

  Horace Burleigh, Esq.

  Thurnley Hall

  I dropped the letter as if it were a slug. How transparent the man was. He had been content to ignore my mother’s very existence until her child was of some use to him. Now that I was married to a man of wealth and stature, my mother’s brother was eager to batten upon us like a parasite.

  “My dear?” Once again my husband’s attention was on me, and his brilliant eyes were full of concern. “Are you certain nothing is distressing you?”

  I realized that I was breathing quickly with anger and the hand holding the letter was clenching it too tightly. Forcing myself to relax my grip, I took a breath and smiled. “Nothing of consequence,” I said. I would not expose my husband to the letter’s ugly assumptions about our marriage. Indeed, I was of a mind to throw the thing into the fire, but instead I slipped it into the pocket of my pearl-gray morning dress. I did not want to draw further interest from Atticus, and it would do no harm to keep it for the time being. “What does the day have in store for you, my dear?”

  “The dismantling of the folly is scheduled to begin tomorrow,” he said. “I thought we might pay it a final visit before lunch, if you like. Make a sentimental journey, as Mr. Sterne would say.”

  The folly, a mock Gothic ruin consisting of a partial tower and two fragmentary walls, was an extravagant feature of the estate that dated from the previous century. The butler, Birch, had pointed out that it might be a hazard to young boys, who would be tempted (or dared) to climb to the top of the tower, where they might easily fall. The entire structure was unsafe, he said, due to the years of exposure to the elements, and Atticus and I agreed that it would be safer to have it torn down before Gravesend welcomed its first students.

  I would not be sorry to see the folly go. It held a bittersweet place in my girlhood memories, having been one of the places that Richard and I would rendezvous during our secret romance. Indeed, a particularly sweet memory of an idyll there had sustained me over the long, desolate years after I had been ejected from Gravesend and lost Richard forever. In my memory of that perfect, golden afternoon with him, he had been the ideal sweetheart, showing a tenderness and consideration for me that I had not previously seen in him.

  This was for the very good reason that Richard was not the man who met with me that day. He, in fact, had been trysting with another young woman, and in order to protect me from learning that sordid fact, Atticus had taken his brother’s place in his rendezvous with me.

  The discovery, which followed not long after our marriage, had devastated me at first. Atticus had deceived me, I felt; he had stolen from me my most beautiful memory of Richard, had thrown into doubt the love that I had cherished, miser-like, for all the years of my solitude. In that first flush of anger and pain I had refused to listen when he told me that the tenderness he had shown me had not been assumed. He had loved me—secretly—all the time that I had eyes only for Richard.

  “You find it too painful a prospect?” Atticus queried now, when I did not answer. “The last thing I wish is to cause you distress.”

  I smiled ruefully. “It is painful only because it reminds me of my own foolishness. No, I would like to see it once more, in your company.” I wanted to put completely behind me the girl I had been, with her blind stubbornness and youthful willfulness. The girl who had cherished an infatuation with a scoundrel.

  For that matter, I wanted to put the ugly letter out of my thoughts. And it was easy enough to forget in the company of my husband. After its initial chill the day had become unseasonably warm, so much so that we dawdled on our way, walking hand in hand through the gardens and up the hill. The rise was gentle enough that Atticus hardly relied at all on his walking stick, a fine ebony one with an ivory handle carved in the shape of an eagle’s head. When we crested the rise we stopped to survey the scene, as a breeze stirred the string tied between stakes to mark the area off limits. Time had brought a more authentic air of age to the crumbling tower and the two partial walls that extended from it. Stones loosened by age and weather had broken away and lay in the grass. It was a wise decision to dismantle it… and a kind one. I knew, though my husband had never said so, that he felt the presence of the mock ruin cast a shadow over my life at Gravesend.

  That kind of consideration was so integral to his character that, for the thousandth time, I reproached myself for having been so blind to his nature when I was a girl. “This place is well named,” I said. “That is exactly what it was—folly—for me to cherish the memory of being here with Richard for so many years.”

  I leaned against Atticus, and he wrapped his arms around me. I felt secure, resting against his support and his love. It was a feeling no one had ever given me but him.

  His voice, like his embrace, was peaceful and reassuring. “Even though you didn’t know it at the time, it was the memory of me that you held in your heart.”

  “True enough,” I allowed. “I wish I had known then that it was you and not Richard who was here with me that day.”

  That won a hearty laugh. “You would have slapped my face and never let me near you again—and never in a thousand years would you have agreed to marry me, no matter what the circumstances.”

  The truth of this embarrassed me. “I didn’t really know you,” I said in my own defense. “My only impressions were the picture Richard painted of you, and he was… not kind.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. And my impressions of you were slightly askew, for that matter.”

  “That’s right—after I let you unbutton my bodice that day, no wonder you thought I had borne him a child. I must have seemed quite a strumpet.”

  Again his voice, warm and husky, put my mind at ease. “Never did I think that of you. I admit that I assumed you were… well…”

  “You assumed I was his mistress. Well, I can hardly blame you. And yet you are the only one I ever permitted that liberty.”

  “I am?”

  I laughed at the surprise in his voice. “I might not have known it was you that day, but I knew somehow that I could trust the man I was with. That I could lower my guard and you would not take advantage of me. I never felt that with him.” The memory made me shake my head. “It seems to me that I was a very foolhardy girl, and not a particularly virtuous one. I am astonished that you could love me.”

  “How could I not?” he returned. “You had such courage and ardor, such vibrancy. Everything was always more vivid in your presence, more brilliant and concentrated, sharpened to facets like a diamond.”

  Moved, I turned within the circle of his arms to look up into his face as he continued. “It didn’t matter to the way I felt about you whether you were Richard’s mistress,” he said simply. “It did not diminish you or make me honor you any the less.”

  I put my hand to his cheek as if to reassure myself that he was real. “No other man would have felt so,” I said. “Indeed, I would have thought less of myself.” The respect my husband held for me sometimes astonished me—always humbled me. At the time when he proposed to me he had believed Genevieve to be my daughter by Richard, yet, rather than consigning both of us to an ignominious existence, he had worked to reunite us (as he thought) by marrying me and bringing Vivi to Gravesend. “You are the only person I have ever met who truly believes that a woman does not surrender all right to human dignity if she gives her heart and body outside of wedlock,” I marveled.

  Under my gaze he smiled, and
the crinkles at the outer corners of his eyes appeared, as they did when he was amused. “You make me sound quite the paragon. But I confess I did envy Richard what I thought he had enjoyed. Both your devotion and your favors.”

  His chestnut hair stirred in the breeze, for he wore no hat; he looked younger, more boyish when he was bareheaded. “I’m glad there was nothing of that sort between Richard and me,” I told him. “Nothing that could cast a shadow between you and me. I’m glad you were the first man I lay with—the first and only.”

  He drew me close and kissed me softly, and the kiss seemed to be one with the rustling of the wind in the trees and the warmth of the sunlight on our faces, elemental and pure and deep as the earth itself.

  We stood thus for a long time. Presently he said, “Despite everything, it makes me a little sad to say goodbye to the first place where I kissed you.”

  I could not bear for him to be sad, even a little. “But there are so many places, now, where you have kissed me,” I said lightly. “Such as here”—I put a finger to my cheek—“and here”—to my lips—“and here…”

  I was rewarded when he laughed, and any trace of sorrow in his eyes vanished. “Perhaps we need to say goodbye to this place properly,” he said, and now there was mischief in his voice. “A kind of reverse christening.” I frowned, uncomprehending, and he asked, “What would happen if I laid you down in the grass and kissed you right now?”

  I could not help laughing at the idea. “I’m no longer a girl of seventeen, Atticus.”

  “My point exactly. Now you need have no fear of losing your virtue—or your position.”

  “Just what are you suggesting?”

  He bent his head to whisper in my ear. “I thought we might finish what we began that day.”

  I could feel my cheeks growing warm: once again my husband had made me blush. “But it isn’t proper,” I objected, uncertain whether he was in earnest. Was this a jest? He did enjoy baiting me.

  My protest was not very forceful, and he dismissed it easily. “We two are the only souls here, so we decide what is proper,” he said, his voice silky and intimate. “And I think there is nothing more proper in a husband than to show his wife how much he adores her.”

  But in such a fashion! “Here in the out of doors there is no privacy.” It astonished me that I needed to point this out. “Anyone might come upon us.”

  “Not now that the place is cordoned off and Birch has ordered all the servants to keep away until its destruction.” There was devilry in his expression, but also the steadfast love that assured me that I was always safe in his hands… and in his arms.

  I wrestled with indecision. True, the idea was shocking—or should have been. But it was surprisingly difficult to summon up indignation. What he had said was true, after all, about a husband demonstrating his love for his wife. And a wife could not be reproached for returning connubial affection, surely, even in a setting that was… unconventional.

  “It is a delightfully warm day,” he said coaxingly, perhaps sensing that I was weakening.

  That was true. The thought of the balmy air on my skin… of loving my husband here in the soft grass, under the sky, as if we were back in Eden…

  I made up my mind. “If I get grass stains on my gown, Henriette will have an apoplexy,” I warned him.

  “Meaning—?”

  I tried to look demure. “Meaning I had best take it off,” I said.

  With a low laugh of triumph, Atticus picked me up by the waist to lift me over the flimsy barricade before stepping over it himself. He took me by the hand and led me into the lee of the tower, and when he drew to a stop and took me in his arms I saw devotion and desire mingled in his brilliant blue eyes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Because the day was so unseasonably warm, as Atticus had so persuasively pointed out, I directed Mrs. Threll to have afternoon tea laid for us in the grounds. When Vivi arrived with her husband she looked as bright and flowerlike as the hardy blossoms that still remained in the garden.

  Her Titian hair, blue eyes, and high, wide brow proclaimed her a Blackwood, although her precise lineage was not widely advertised, for she was the illegitimate daughter of Richard by way of a village matron, now deceased. She had grown up in France, and many of her habits had a foreign flavor, as when she kissed me on both cheeks in greeting. Her formerly slender figure was noticeably changed now that the baby was well along.

  “Aunt Clara,” she exclaimed, with a smile that showed her dimples. “How lovely you look in that frock. I hope my uncle has told you so.”

  “Now, Vivi,” replied said uncle with an indulgent smile, “I’m sure you have your hands full managing your own husband without trying to monitor me as well.”

  “In any case, I have no complaints,” I said, slipping my arm through my husband’s.

  “That must be an attractive feature in a wife,” George Bertram said with a grin, winning the pretense of a glare from Vivi. Bertram, a cheerful, honest-faced man in his late twenties, was my husband’s agent and an invaluable help in the creation of the Blackwood Homes. He and my niece had courted quickly, for it was clear almost from the day they met that they were suited to each other. Both were enthusiastic and open-hearted yet practical. Bertram’s advantage in age and experience provided a gentle check on Vivi’s enthusiasms when they threatened to carry her away, while she brought delight and excitement into a life that otherwise would have been in danger of being consumed by work.

  Indeed, the two men were soon absorbed in a discussion of business, but this suited me for the moment as it made it easy to draw my niece aside. When I whispered my suspicions to her, she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a squeal of excitement.

  “But Aunt Clara, how perfectly merveilleuse!” she exclaimed, but softly enough that our husbands would not overhear. “When shall you tell my uncle?”

  “I’m not certain. I hate to distract him when he is so busy.”

  At that, my niece planted her hands on her hips and gave me a look that took me back to the days of being a chambermaid and being scolded by my mother for some serious breach of my duties. “How can you hesitate? He shall be overjoyed!”

  I was nearly certain that she was right, but I craved the comfort of reassurance. “There are risks when a woman as old as I has her first child. I don’t want him to fret over me. At least, not until I’m completely certain…”

  Vivi shook her head decisively, setting her pearl earrings swaying. “From what you have told me, it sounds most certain. And husbands fret in any case. George may look placid now, but you should see how he hovers about me with shawls when the evening draws in and insists that I put up my feet when I sit down for more than one minute by the clock! Do not deny my uncle the pleasure of worrying over you.” Then, catching me off guard, she flew at me and hugged me around the waist. “How delighted I am,” she whispered, “that my child shall have a cousin! And what perfect parents you and Uncle Atticus will be.”

  Touched, I returned her embrace. “That is very dear of you to say, Vivi.” Over the top of her head I gazed at my husband where he stood deep in conversation with Bertram, and I could not help but smile at the sight of his animated expression, knowing that my news would evoke even more excitement. “Atticus will certainly be a splendid father.” The miserable example of his own would tell him exactly what not to do as a parent, and I could imagine how overjoyed Atticus would be to give his child all the affection and attention that he had not known himself.

  Unless, perhaps, the arrival of a child at this particular time, when he was so busy with his charitable enterprises, proved to be problematic. “Vivi, how did you break the news to George? Was it difficult?”

  “Difficult?” She waved that away with an expansive gesture. “He was so eager to hear such news that he practically said the words before I could. You will tell my uncle soon, then?”

  “The evening after tomorrow, perhaps,” I said. “It’s his birthday. He did not want any notice taken of it, but
I’ve planned a rather nice supper for the two of us.” We would have complete privacy and freedom from distractions. Delight bubbled up in me at the prospect. What joy would kindle his eyes at the revelation of what lay ahead. At that moment it suddenly seemed an eternity to wait before disclosing the thrilling news.

  “Tell me, Aunt Clara,” Vivi was saying, and I brought my thoughts back from where they had wandered. “Do you wish for a boy or a girl?”

  “I had not even thought that far ahead,” I confessed. “I am still so delighted to be able to have a child at all that I cannot imagine being disappointed with either. And you? What is your wish?”

  She shrugged in that expressive way that only a French upbringing could endow. “I would be happy with either as well, but I suspect George would like a little girl. Still, with twins running in my family as they do, perhaps we shall have one of each!”

  Her peal of laughter caught the attention of her husband, who turned a beaming visage to us. “Come, ladies, join us. We’ve had enough of our masculine solitude and are in need of feminine company.”

  We obeyed without hesitation. As my husband put his arm around my waist and smiled down at me, I felt a wave of happiness wash over me, as warm as the sun and as invigorating as iced wine. How perfect was the future that lay before us. A busy, useful life it would be, providing for the needs of women cast off by society and for their children, and raising our own child. When Atticus broke the news about our plan to transform the manor house into a school, though, George sounded a surprising note.