“Well, then fill it,” Val snapped, and went to sulk in the bed over the perfidy of women and one woman in particular.
Chapter Thirteen
Well, Prue gave her father a worried look, but the magician merely said, “In order to find your heart, you must complete three trials, the first of which is to spin a wagonload of wool into yarn by the light of the moon.”
King Heartless stared at the magician. “Spinning is women’s work.”
“Yes.” The magician beamed. “My daughter, Prue, can help you.”…
—From King Heartless
Washing tons of linens was a backbreaking chore, but an oddly satisfying one, Bridget thought. She’d found the washhouse—an ancient low room beside the kitchens. Three great kettles were boiling merrily away and three of the dozen or so washerwomen she’d hired yesterday were stirring the pots slowly with long wooden paddles. At one end of a long table, several women were laboriously wringing the wet linens, while at the other end, two women were ironing the laundry that had already dried to just damp.
They’d been working since six this morning.
Bridget raised the edge of her apron to blot the sweat on her brow and upper lip.
“Naturally I find you surrounded by warm clouds and billowing white cloths,” Val drawled in her ear, making her jump.
She whirled to find him standing right behind her. He wore slate blue today, the color nearly severe on him, his curling golden hair clubbed neatly back, his azure eyes watching her alertly for any weakness.
Oh, God, he’d had his mouth on her most intimate parts last night. What had possessed her to let him do that? It was as if she’d been in some sort of sensual dream. The hot bath, his words, his hands, his lips…
He smiled and she knew, she absolutely knew that he knew what she was thinking about.
She turned and nearly ran from the washhouse.
The courtyard of the castle was bright this morning, but sadly neglected, she noticed absently as she hurried along the path to the kitchens.
“I rather thought to have a stroll as well,” he said from beside her. He wasn’t even out of breath, the knave.
He reached over and plucked off her mobcap.
She stopped and glared at him, her hands flying to her hair. The white streak was there for anyone to see. He must’ve noticed it last night, but he hadn’t mentioned it. Perhaps he didn’t realize the significance.
Her mother’s hair was completely white, after all.
For some reason he grinned, flashing perfect teeth. He tossed the mobcap over his shoulder and she started for it, but he grabbed her arm. “No. You’ve cost me a wife. They told me this morning that Miss Royle was not to be found. The least you could do is forfeit that bloody cap.”
She swallowed, staring at him. She was glad, of course, that Miss Royle had escaped, but she wondered what he really wanted of her.
It was morning now. The fairy dust of the night had blown away. She was a housekeeper and he a duke. He couldn’t possibly…
“Stop thinking,” he said, and started walking, compelling her to do so as well. “It’s dreadfully tedious. Do you know that this morning Mehmed suggested I amputate my foreskin?”
“I… what?” She would’ve stopped and stared at him again, but they’d reached a door to the inside and he was pulling her along.
“Amputate my foreskin,” he repeated loudly just as they passed a carpenter working on the stairs. Val, naturally, didn’t seem to notice the man, but Bridget felt herself flush and the carpenter dropped his hammer. “You do know what a foreskin is?” he asked kindly as they mounted the stairs. “It’s the—”
“I know what a foreskin is,” she hissed. “Why are you so loud?”
“I’m a duke?” He shrugged. “Why should I lower my voice? It’s a lovely voice, resonant and mellow. I should think everyone would like to hear it.”
“Oh, for—”
“But since we’re making general complaints,” he continued over her mutter, “why weren’t you a virgin?”
“I never said I was a virgin,” she retorted primly as they gained the upper floor. She was rather surprised when instead of turning toward his bedroom they went left along a corridor.
“There was a clear implication.”
“Only by you.” She sighed, feeling a bit grubby next to his usual elegance, but oddly exhilarated that he’d sought her out. That he cared enough to come and… bicker with her? “Why does it matter anyway?”
“Well, it really doesn’t,” he admitted, “at least not to me. Although when one goes into the act with expectations of one thing and instead finds quite another… well, it doesn’t seem exactly correct, does it?”
“You could have stopped if it upset you so much,” she said sweetly.
“Could I have, though?” he replied, sounding not a little troubled. “The problem is, I really don’t think so. And that, dear, dear Brid-get, is not only unprecedented but also alarming.”
He was silent a moment as they turned down another passage, which gave her time to think about his words and wonder if they were a compliment. As with practically everything that fell from his lips, it was nearly impossible to tell.
“And,” he said suddenly as if there’d been no momentary lapse. “How did you lose your virginity anyway?”
She glanced at him sideways under her eyelashes. “I thought you said it didn’t matter to you.”
“It doesn’t,” he said vehemently. “I put to you, what is a maidenhead, after all, but a tiny bit of flesh so insubstantial that a hard ride—no pun intended—can destroy it? Now a foreskin, that’s a sturdy bit of flesh, much more significant, and, really, quite important to my own life, I feel. No, your virginity, or lack thereof, doesn’t affect me. But how you lost it might be of grave interest, for there are many ways to lose a hymen, some quite unpleasant.” He looked at her and smiled that sweet little boy’s smile. “Do I need to kill anyone?”
And she knew he would.
That realization really ought to appall her—that this insane man would, on her word alone, somehow find a stranger and kill him.
Just for her.
She took a deep breath, remembering the spotty-faced young butcher’s apprentice from so very long ago now. “No, you don’t have to kill anyone.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “Who?”
“What?”
“Who was it?” he asked as they reached a door at the juncture of two corridors. He opened it and gestured her in.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said absently. The door led to a winding staircase that went up. They must be at one of the castle towers. She glanced over her shoulder to find him right behind her, his head cocked and his eyes on… her ankles?
His gaze met hers. “Of course it’s none of my business, but that’s not the point. I want to know.”
She faced forward again and began the ascent. “How would you like it if I asked about all of your lovers, Your Grace?”
“Oho, we’re ‘Your Grace’-ing now, are we? As it happens, I wouldn’t mind at all reciting my paramours. No, the problem comes when we get to the sheer size of the list. I started at twelve, you see.”
She stopped and turned on the wedge-shaped stair.
He was looking up at her, both hands casually braced on the tower walls. The circular stairwell had deep slit windows set into the stone and a beam of sunlight was striking his head, haloing his golden hair.
He looked absolutely angelic.
“Twelve?” she demanded, appalled.
He winked. “An upper housemaid, all of nineteen, if I recollect correctly, and an enterprising sort. I believe she was after a Montgomery bastard. She gave the most magnificent tongue-lashing to my infant loins. Which reminds me, how do you stand on the matter of—?”
But she’d already turned and was hurrying up the stairwell. Twelve. How could parents let a child be ravished so? Even if he’d apparently enjoyed it. That was far too young an age to lose on
e’s innocence.
Bridget felt tears prick at her eyes as she emerged into the tower room itself.
Had Val ever been allowed to be innocent?
She went to a window to stare out, sightlessly.
He came up behind her. “I used to watch them from this tower.”
She swiped at her eyes with her sleeve, trying to steady her breath. “Who?”
“My father.” She felt more than saw his shrug. “And others. They called themselves the Lords of Chaos. A secret society. They still exist, d’you believe it? I didn’t know until recently. Anyway, my father was their leader. Their Dionysus. They’d hold their revels here once a year.”
She looked over her shoulder and saw that the smile was gone from his face. “What did they do?”
Another shrug. “Drink. Dance. Rape.” He sighed like a forlorn little boy. “The usual.”
She swallowed, keeping very, very still lest she disturb his words.
He inhaled. “I was supposed to be the next Dionysus—it’s hereditary, the title shared between the Montgomerys and another family in turn. So you could say it was part of my inheritance: the title, the lands, and the mastery of a mad band of idiots, dancing and fucking in the moonlight. I was readied on the appropriate night, tattooed with Dionysus’s dolphin, all prepared to go through with it. But then, you see, Father brought down Eve…” He looked at her finally and his azure eyes held no light in them. “She grew up here, Father’s bastard by my nursemaid, and five years my junior. I’d hide her from the revels because… well. It was best to do so. But that night I was supposed to be initiated and I’d left it to her mother, and…” He shook his head, glancing away, his nostrils flared. “Stupid. So stupid.”
She laid her hand on his sleeve and he stared at it, talking. “I looked up from the banquet table and there she was in a lady’s dress, far too fine for her, and I knew, I knew, I knew what was to happen, but I was seated next to Father and when he released the foxhounds I couldn’t—”
He was gasping as if he were drowning, his hands clenched into fists, and Bridget did the only thing she could.
She took him into her arms, holding him steady, holding him tight.
He was shaking against her as if he’d been poisoned again and she let herself slide to the floor, taking him with her so they ended in a pile on the cold stones.
He didn’t seem to mind, though. Or even notice.
Dear God, setting foxhounds on a child, his own child…
“She was…,” he choked into her hair. “When I finally got there. A grown man. With his fingers in her. Hurting her. There was blood. And her face. Her little face…”
He shuddered once more and suddenly stilled.
Bridget had to remind herself that she knew Eve Dinwoody. That the woman was whole and well and about to be married. That she was happy, whatever had happened to her in the past.
They sat for at least five minutes on that hard, cold floor and she began to think that he’d gone to sleep.
And then Val sat up.
He smiled at her and there was no trace of tears on his face or in his clear, bright eyes. “Well. I beat that man to a bloody pulp you can be sure. And got Eve out of England and away from Father, of course. First time I’d traveled to the Continent—and I found my schoolroom French quite inadequate.” He glanced around the room. “I’ve always wondered if this might once have been a lady’s solarium.”
She stared at him. Had… had the emotional storm been entirely fabricated? But the shaking, the anguish in his voice…
He’d risen and was holding out his hand to her now.
“Val,” she said as he helped her up. “How old were you?”
“Hm?” He was poking at a crumbling bit of masonry. “What?”
“When you were initiated into… into the Lords of Chaos,” she asked. “How old were you?”
“Oh, I was never initiated,” he said. “Ran away with Eve instead, which ruined the whole thing. By the time I returned Father was in a snit and not talking to me. Just as well, really. The initiation is meant to bind one to the Lords, so they usually make it particularly nasty. I think Father meant for me to rape Eve and then kill her.”
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. How could it? She’d never conceived of such evil.
“Oh, and I was seventeen.” He smiled at her, all azure eyes, dimples, and golden hair. “Hardly learned to shave, really.”
She couldn’t stop them this time. The tears overflowed her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. Seventeen. And what had happened in the years between? What had those wolves, his parents, done to him?
His eyes widened almost comically. “What is it? Why are you crying? Was it something I said? I lied: I started shaving at fifteen, but there really wasn’t much point. Took me forever to grow in a decent beard. Séraphine. Bridget. Please don’t cry.”
But she couldn’t stop. She simply couldn’t.
They’d broken him, those wolves. They’d taken a beautiful, bright boy, and broken him with their depraved cruelty until he didn’t even know how to respond to his own sorrow.
Worse, they’d tried to turn him into one of them.
He wrapped his arms around her and he held her as she’d held him and as he did so, she looked through watery eyes at the tower. He was right: it did look like a lady’s solarium. Dainty Gothic arches marched all the way around the walls, with narrow windows inset between. Most held diamond-paned glass, but two panels were stained glass. The first depicted a knight, helm under his arm, golden head bowed. Opposite him was a black-haired lady, weeping. Perhaps the lady wept for the same reason Bridget did.
Because he couldn’t.
VAL WAS NOT used to waiting on a lover.
On anyone, really, but on a lover in particular. Oh, there had been the odd lady playing catch me if you can, but once caught, once bedded, most had been quite biddable.
It’d been he who had wandered away. He who had kept others waiting.
To be at leisure all day, impatient and longing, turning at every feminine heel click, at the close of a door… it was very odd.
And all for such a reason!
Madness.
He said as much to her when at last she deigned to join him that night.
“I don’t see why you’re in such a bother,” Bridget replied, eyes closed, head resting on the high back of his bathtub. “I am your housekeeper. What else would I be doing but keeping your house?”
He regarded her with disfavor. Well, not her body—that he regarded with fine favor indeed—but her, well, the rest. Something wasn’t right when the housekeeper lectured the duke on her proper position.
“Yes, but can’t you find someone else to do all”—he waved his hand vaguely—“that?”
“No,” she said, sounding distressingly un-distressed about his distress. “We have nearly all the washing done and most of the lower floors aired. The carpenter finished on the banister and I’ve had the stoneworkers in to look at the masonry around some of the windows. All in all it’s been a lovely day. So much done.”
“But not with me.” He crossed his legs and his arms in his now-customary chair.
The remains of their supper lay beside the bathtub. He’d had visions of feeding her from his own hand before she’d said very practically that he’d make a mess of beef pie dripping with gravy and it’d be much better if she just ate it herself.
“I don’t see why you’re so intent on cleaning the castle in any case,” he said a bit sulkily. “It’s not as if I’ll be spending long here.”
“It’s my work,” she said, her voice even, “and I like my work. It’s quite satisfying.”
Well, that was patently sheer nonsense. He threw up his hands even though her eyes remained shut and thus were deprived of his gesture. Perhaps she was attempting to drive him mad with delayed lust.
If so, her plot was working.
“How long has it been since someone has lived here anyway?” she murmured drowsily.
&nbs
p; He narrowed his eyes. If she fell asleep from all her ridiculous work, he might have to commit an act of somnophilia. “My mother died two years ago.”
“And you never bothered coming back?”
He was silent.
She opened her eyes, looking at him. Lately he’d noticed that her glances had a sort of… searching quality to them, but what she was looking for, he hadn’t quite determined.
“Why?” she asked softly.
He shook his head.
“When were you last here?”
He glanced up at the ceiling and was surprised. Some enterprising maid had dusted and polished it during the day, no doubt under Bridget’s direction. The wood had taken on a mellow, almost honey gleam in the firelight. It looked… warm. He cocked his head, staring. Odd. He’d never thought Father’s chambers warm.
“Val?” she murmured.
“Hm?” His gaze drifted down to her breasts, floating, plump and savory, on the water. Her nipples were soft and rosy. He wanted to lick them.
“Val?”
He blinked and met her eyes, fiery dark. Ainsdale Castle. That’s what they were discussing. Right. “Oh. Well, I left England shortly after Father died. That was in ’30, so nearly twelve years ago.”
“You haven’t been home since you were…”
“Nineteen.” He nodded.
“I see.” Her eyes burned intently.
What did she see? Madness, murder, mayhem, and misery? Or merely a chest hollowed out, desolate of humanity and kindness?
Did it matter to him?
“And your mother?” she asked, the quiet pop of the fire the only sound in the room. “Did you come back for her funeral?”
“No,” he said. “Neither final illness nor funeral. She would have wished it so. My mother hated me.”
“I…” She blinked. At his words? At the steam from the bath? Because she was sleepy? He couldn’t tell and didn’t know. It was like trying to understand the song of the birds—completely incomprehensible and completely frustrating. “I’m sorry?”