Lakota Princess (30 page)

Estrela wished she could give it to her.

And as Estrela glanced at the Prince, she wondered if real-life fairy tales could come true.

It did no good to speculate, however, and shrugging her shoulders, she returned her gaze to her window and to the most spectacular scene that lay just outside.

She didn’t know Black Bear watched her. She didn’t know and didn’t see his glance at her soften, and certainly when she looked back to him, she didn’t see that his gaze had shone, if only for a moment, with deep emotion.

Now, as she glanced over to him, he only stared back at her and Estrela, frustrated, uncomfortable, looked away.

The castle rose high in a valley of manicured gardens and lawns, grassy bills and slopes, the Colchester party having come upon it as they drove along the narrow, winding lane. Estrela caught a glimpse of it now as their carriage lingered between the trees; she looked and she looked.

The sun had burned off the early-morning fog and the house sat, stately, shiny, its many chimneyed roof a design in Elizabethan architecture. Hidden behind the hedgerows bordering the road, its brick structure boasted so many different shades of brick; soft yellows, rich reds, muted browns and grays, that Estrela lost count of them all. It looked to her like a fairytale castle, a home built for princes, for princesses, and for dreams-come-true.

She couldn’t help herself.

She stared and stared.

And as she looked, a memory jogged.

Estrela blinked.

She remembered something. Sadness. Leaving home. She’d seen this glimpse of this building before, but at night, late at night, and attached to the memory was a feeling of loss.

Estrela blinked again. She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t really prepared herself to experience any memory boosts.

It came as a shock.

“What is it?” Black Bear spoke to her.

“’Tis nothing.”

He didn’t say a thing. He just stared at her, his glance stating more clearly than words that he did not believe her.

At length, he gazed out the window, but, the view of the castle was gone, their carriage had moved forward.

Black Bear continued to gaze outside until Estrela, at last, could take his silence no more.

“I remembered something,” she said.

He returned his gaze to her, but he said nothing, encouraging her with his silence to speak.

“I remembered the night we left here, the Earl and I. ’Tis all.”

Black Bear nodded and, gazing away, he said, “This is good, that you remember. Perhaps being in the house will enable you to recall more.”

“If the present Earl will allow us to stay here the next few nights.”

Black Bear acknowledged what she said by a quick tilt of his head, and choosing to remain silent, he stared back out the window.

The men alighted from the carriage first, Black Bear striding away to face any hidden danger, as was Indian custom, Prince Frederick staying behind to assist the women, as was the continental fashion.

The estate’s housekeeper, frowning, put up a long debate with the Duke of Colchester as their party stood outside, but at last, staring at each one of them in turn, she swung the huge, wooden door open to admit their company. The ancient door squeaked and groaned as it opened to them and Estrela, looking around, tried to find something familiar
about the home.

There was nothing.

They entered into a hall, and the same woman who had recently frowned at them became suddenly polite once they entered the house. The old housekeeper stared at Estrela, seeming to study her, before she gestured for their party to follow her down a long hallway, her steps and theirs echoing over the stone passage.

The housekeeper admitted them to a huge, darkened drawing room, the place where it was custom to await the lord of the house, in this case, the new Earl of Langsford.

The fire from the central wall was the only lighting in the room and in the late hour of the afternoon, it threw eerie-looking shadows against the wood-paneled walls.

Estrela shivered as she studied the paintings hung on the room’s walls, paintings of long-dead men and of tragedy, of wars and murders. A deep-red, silk curtain fell down over, and completely covered, one huge painting, and Estrela wondered what sort of image the curtain hid.

A memory stirred, was almost there within her consciousness, then gone.

She stared at the picture again.
Odd to have the painting hidden. Why?

Estrela had no answers. She looked up then, where she glanced at several different coats of arms that lined the ceiling. She didn’t recognize any of them, nor did the sculptured wood that lay over each entryway into the room arouse any memories.

She kept glancing around. A bouquet of flowers drooped over their silver casing as the bunch sat on the central table, while a dark brown, Chinese rug lay in part over the floor, the entire effect adding to the dreary atmosphere that hung over the room as though it were a dark, smoke-filled fog.

Truly, it was an odd place.

The new Earl was quick to join them, however, and he begged them to sit, to relax, to enjoy their tea while his household servants and maids attended to their rooms and to their dinner.

He was a small man, this new Earl. A plump man, yet he was friendly and graciously entertaining and for this Estrela was grateful.

And as the company of three Indians, one Prince and one Duke sat, stretching out before the great fire and relating the adventures of their trip, the two ladies, each with their maids, sat quietly, the Duchess of Colchester asleep in her chair while Estrela looked everywhere, her gaze catching again and again on the picture hidden behind a red, silk curtain.

Chapter Nineteen

It was only a matter of moments before the servants returned to the drawing room, there collecting individual guests from the arriving party and escorting each to his or her respective room.

The upstairs maid ushered Estrela to her chambers, announcing the usual dinner hour and the “rules of the house” at the same time. “Doors must be locked after midnight,” she said, and “no reading in bed.” The last an odd rule, Estrela thought as the maid departed.

Once inside the bedroom, though, Estrela glanced around her chambers. The walls were a dark, paneled oak, the floors a hardwood maple. A worn, faded rug lay over one end of the room and chairs were strewn through the chambers as though placed there in haphazard haste.

The sturdy, four-posted oak bed took up one entire side of the room and from its posts hung beige curtains, decorated with green and red flowers.

Again, as in the drawing room, dreary paintings hung over the walls and Estrela wondered at the history of the old Earl’s lineage.

“Do ye wish t’ rest before dinner, M’lady? Shall I postpone unpacking until t’en?”

Estrela looked over to Anna, whose room lay just beyond her own. “A nap sounds wonderful, Anna,” Estrela said. “Thank you for suggesting it. Perhaps you could rest, too?”

“Per’aps.”

Estrela smiled and Anna, after seeing to the bed and pulling back the coverlet and linen sheets, retired from the room.

Estrela lay down on the bed, pulled up the covers and, sighing, closed her eyes.

“She cannot stay here,” a tired, old voice said. “It is not safe for her.”

“But Your Majesty, where shall I take her?”

“France? Germany? Belgium? No not Belgium. You must take her someplace where no one will find her. Someone knows of her descent, someone whose hatred for her grows ever stronger.”

“It cannot be, Your Majesty.”

The older gentleman sighed. “I am afraid it is so. Now, go, while it is still safe. Go before they know how you run and where. It is the only way.”

Estrela awoke with a start. Afraid, her heart pounding loudly in her chest, she scanned the now-darkened room.

Who had spoken?

Was someone else in her room or were the very walls talking?

For comfort, she lit the wax candle next to her bed, the flickering light adding a hushed element to the already eerie atmosphere of the room. She glanced about the room once again.

The windows, directly in front of her were closed, the drapes covering them standing still, with no breeze to disturb them. On each wall hung paintings, the pictures carefully mounted in richly carved frames, their presence adding a certain depth to the room. And it was at those paintings that Estrela now stared, examining each one as best she could in the dim candlelight. Mostly the paintings were of men, dark men staring out from the canvas, though now and again, she caught a depiction of a war scene or that of an execution; no ladies, no children, no paintings of quiet, idyllic scenes, no family portraits. And despite herself, she shivered in the chill of the evening air.

Were these rooms haunted?

She had never envisioned that she would have such a reaction at just visiting a place, yet she could not deny that she felt afraid. And the strange thing was that she felt she should remember more about this house where she had spent several years of her life. She hadn’t been that young when they had left here, five years of age, perhaps six.

But she didn’t. She remembered very little.

“It is not haunted.”

Estrela jumped.

And before she could assimilate the fact that it was Black Bear’s voice she heard, he stepped out from a darkened shadow in the room.

“What?” she asked, her voice breathless. “Black Bear, what do you mean it’s not haunted? This room or the house?”

“Both,” he said, stepping more fully into the room and advancing toward her where she lay in the bed. “It was what you were wondering.”

She gulped before replying. “Yes, but are you sure?” It was odd. She didn’t question his presence in her room; she didn’t ponder how he knew her thoughts. Such things had become natural to her, to him, to them both. “Why do I feel so odd here?” she asked after a moment.

He shrugged. “I do not know. I can only tell you that the gloom you feel, that I feel, too, is recent. The past does not haunt this place, only the present.”

She glanced at him quickly. “What do you mean?”

Again, he shrugged. “I have been asking questions. I have learned just now that many of the old servants in this place have met with death—and recently.”

Estrela drew back, her eyes widening.

“It was perhaps not wise that we have come here. But since we stay only the night or two, it may not be too bad. I have seen one thing here, though, that concerns me.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“A raven.”

“A raven? Why should this trouble you?”

He hesitated. “Because I have dreamed of a raven and of other things and I do not understand these visions.”

“Oh.” It was all she could think to say. She knew he would not share his vision with her. And it was not because she was female. No Indian ever spoke of his dreams to another person other than the medicine man. “Then do we leave here tomorrow?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I decided to come to this house, hoping that you might remember something. Because this house is so close to the Duke’s, it was not a hard journey to make. But I did not know at that time of the danger that presently lurks in this place. Had I known, I would not have brought you here. However, now that you are here and you are recalling things, we may stay longer, if I can assure myself of your safety.”

“Why is it so important that I remember?”

Black Bear smiled. “Because, Waste Ho, someone tries to kill you. No one knows who it is, not even you, and if we are to protect you, we must discover why someone would consider you dangerous. Then we can discover who it is.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Waste Ho,” he said, “you hold the key. Your memories may be your protection. Besides.” He smiled. “Would you want to keep this mystery unsolved and then despair that someone was trying to kill our children?”

She gaped at him. “
Our
children?”

“Is not a womanly virtue for you to bear children?”

“But, Black Bear, I am—”

“Shh… You belong to me, no one else. It has always been so.”

“No, I—”

“Enough!” He gazed at her where she lay in her bed. And with only her thin chemise for covering, Estrela shivered in the cool air.

The movement seemed to be his undoing. He bound across the few necessary steps that would take him to her side, and once there, he knelt quickly before her, his dark eyes staring straight into hers.

He smiled. “But I am silly to talk of these things now when you are still angry with me,” he said, bringing a hand up to trail his fingers over her cheek to her neck.

“Yes, you are,” she said to this handsome lover, throwing her head back to allow him more access to the sensitive spots that he was missing. “I am terribly angry with you.”

“It is too bad,” he said, tracing his touch over her throat, her shoulders, her arms, passing his hand farther down over her breast. “If you were not so angry, I could make love to you.”

“Yes,” she murmured again, straightening her shoulders, and pushing out her chest.

“If only I had been more thoughtful,” he said, his voice, his baritone caressing her as his lips followed the path of his hands, his fingers. “If only I had seen to your needs more that day, I would not now have to beg for your favor.”

She shivered. “Yes,” she whispered, “it’s true.”

“But,” he spoke softly, his warm breath a delicious sensation as he gently suckled her breast through her chemise. “But I acted such a clod, and now I have nothing but your wrath to attend to.”

“Yes,” she muttered, barely able to speak.

“Take it off.”

She didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. Her whole body felt warm and a particular part of her anatomy on fire.

Without pause, she shrugged out of her chemise, the caress of his fingers over her naked skin feeling so good, so right, it was her undoing. “Why have you waited so long to make peace with me?” she asked at last. “Couldn’t you have done this a few weeks earlier?”