The Bad Baron's Daughter (15 page)

Ivo Guy answered Laurel’s objections with a certain oily persistence. It was clear that he meant to have the chit with no further delay.

“Very well then, Guy,” said Laurel, leaning back in her chair and gesturing his dismissal, “you may wait outside. We shall see to Katie’s packing and then send her out to you.”

Ivo Guy thankfully made his escape. Katie and Laurel could hear the overburdened legs of his tightly fitting suit whistling against each other down the corridor.

“I don’t have anything to pack,” said Katie, feeling that it ought to be mentioned.

Laurel tugged the braided gold call bell.

“No matter. Antoinette will pack the clothes you’ve been wearing. I’ve an old valise you can use. We can hardly send you out in the world naked, even though you arrived here that way,” said Laurel sourly.

“I wasn’t naked. I had on my nightclothes,” corrected Katie. “Please, I cannot take your beautiful dresses. If perhaps one of the servants has an old…”

“Really, Katie,” interrupted Laurel, “you’re too gauche for words. Every one of my staff has seen you in those dresses. Do you think that I’d wear them secondhand, like an old peddler’s wife? Besides, they’ve been altered for you, since you insist on remaining so odiously slim, through no fault of mine; God knows I’ve fed you well enough!” continued Laurel, in a tone that suggested Katie had retained her graceful curves for the express purpose of vexing her hostess. “You may as well take the dresses. They won’t do me any good, though I do regret that heavenly riding habit. But nothing,” she added with a shudder, “could induce me to wear it since you’ve worn it to Hyde Park. Lord, if anyone should notice!”

“But, Miss Steele, your clothes must have cost hundreds of pounds.”

Laurel drew herself into a haughty composure. “There is nothing more detestably vulgar than a discussion of the monetary value of one’s wardrobe. But if it gives you any comfort, then you may as well know that Linden will very likely pay me for them.”

Why the knowledge that Linden would pay for her clothing could be of any comfort was more than Katie could see and she pointed this out to Laurel. “Besides, isn’t it so that no lady with even a thimbleful of self-respect could allow a gentleman to purchase her anything as intimate as clothing?”

“Well, Linden pays for mine, and I,” said Laurel baldly, “have plenty of self-respect.”

There was no answer for this that would not have been appallingly uncivil, so there was no more for Katie to do but express her gratitude to her benefactress. “You’ve been very good to me and you can’t have liked it much,” she said, “because really, there wasn’t the least reason for you to let me stay here.”

“Well, if you think there wasn’t the least reason, then you haven’t yet learned the futility of placing your will in opposition to Lesley’s, because he’s never hesitated to tread over anyone’s wishes,” said Laurel tartly. Then she remembered the lovely diamond set now snugly reposed in her velvet-lined jewel case upstairs. “Besides, there are other… oh, never mind. I hope you know what you’re doing. That cousin of yours is a muckworm—I know his type. It’s fawning and humbug and ‘dear little Katie’ but no one could maintain that posture for long. I’ll wager his real nature is quite the opposite. And this mother of his, what kind of mother would have produced such a locust?”

Since much the same thought had already occurred to Katie, there was not much of a reply to make, except that when she found out, she would write to Laurel and tell her. And with that, Laurel had to be satisfied.

The battered traveling coach thundered west, carrying Katie past the stately homes of Mayfair, past a corner of Hyde Park, then through the cozy suburbs. The carriage had been rented, that much was obvious from the small brass plaque on the door informing the rider that he was privileged to enjoy a sound equipage from the livery of Bentworth and Bentworth. That these worthies had never traveled in their own carriage was evident; otherwise, they would not have categorized its ride as a privilege. The thing rolled like a rock. There was nothing served, either, by trying to lean back against the seats to relax; the musty sawdust cushions had all the comforts of a Calvinist church pew. At one particularly hard lurch, one of the bolsters rolled to the floor and Katie could see, on the now uncovered wooden side of the carriage, where some previous disgruntled traveler had scrawled an obscenity with the tip of a penknife. Farms rolled by Katie’s window in a glumping shaken procession, then a dainty whitewashed hamlet with windowboxes bright with calliopsis and baskets o’ gold. From time to time Katie caught a glimpse of her cousin as he rode beside the coach on his goose-rumped mare, his heavy features settled in a sullen frown.

The afternoon’s pleasant sunlight had faded into a damp dusk and a frisky draft swirled around the carriage floor, nipping casually at Katie’s ankles. She fastened her sable-collared cloak more tightly against the chill.

After perhaps another mile, they turned onto a rutty dirt road and Katie was attacked by a cloud of dust. The dull orange of the setting sun flickered intermittently in and out through the trunks of the tangled copse through which they passed. The unhappy combination of the coach’s jostling and an acute melancholia that Katie couldn’t seem to shake off had produced an uneasy throb in her interior that she recognized as nausea. It was with gratitude that she felt the carriage take a last turn and stop its swaying. Katie roused to see a barren yard, and a long low flintstone hunting lodge with a red-tiled roof, surrounded by a border of halfhearted violets. A dead elm loomed over the house from the rear, framing the scene with twisted, shadow-casting limbs.

There was a decrepit hitching rack near the lodge’s door where a pinch-kneed piebald gelding stood cropping dispassionately at a tuft of dry hay. Guy secured his mare beside the gelding and Katie heard the jiggling of coin as Guy paid the coachman. The door opened and Guy handed Katie down. An owl hooted in the copse while the turning of the carriage wheels faded in the distance.

A leonine door knocker garnished the lodge’s front door, but rust had transformed its snarl into a rather disappointing grimace. Guy smacked the knocker impatiently, muttering to himself. The door opened and a dark frame appeared silently, silhouetted against the flickering candlelight from a wax-fouled candelabrum projecting from the inside wall.

“Ah, good evening, Chilworthy,” said Ivo Guy in a satisfied tone. “We have a female guest, as we anticipated.”

Chilworthy made no audible reply, but stepped inside to let them enter the lodge. Crossed on the wall was a dark pair of double-headed axes which apparently belonged to the days of thumbscrews and racks. The dead yellow light from the candelabrum streaked across Chilworthy’s face. Katie stopped in her tracks and brought a hand inadvertently to her mouth, staring at the visage that resembled all too closely the villains that haunted some of the more improbable romances she had read. Chilworthy’s head was flat as a tabletop, adorned by spikes of gray hair, and his forehead might have been modeled after a paving brick. His almost lipless mouth was a blank rictus in the wavering light and his eyes were dark craters under his beetle brows. Most harrowing of all was the livid scar which coursed across his neck from one ear to the other.

Guy smiled at Katie’s fear. “Don’t let Chilworthy startle you, my dear,” he said blandly. “He is quite competent in spite of his odd appearance. Chilworthy, take Miss Kendricks’s valise to the room we’ve prepared for her. Katie, you may follow Chilworthy. I’m sure you would like to freshen for dinner; I will do the same and you may join me in the dining room at your leisure. How pleasant it is to have you with me,” he finished. “I believe we have a promising future reunited as one family.”

Katie could not agree. Nor were her spirits improved by a trek down the long hall in Chilworthy’s wake. The occasional candle burning on the wall cast an orange square of light into the stale rooms they passed, and Katie caught ghostly glimpses of bulky furniture slumbering under Holland covers.

When they had reached the end of the hall, Chilworthy set down her valise and fumbled for a few seconds with a large key dangling from a ring at his belt. The key scraped inside the lock with a rusted, hollow whine, and Chilworthy pushed open the narrow door to reveal a small stuffy bedroom. The fidgeting candle flame trembled over the looming shapes of a heavy cabinet, washstand, and bed—nothing more. The scene was strongly reminiscent of several passages from an ancient tome Katie had examined once in a bookstore, “An Educative Research Upon Atmospheres Amenable to Ghastly Occurrences or Scenes Where Murders Have Been Committed.” Katie looked up at Chilworthy and made a poor attempt at a smile.

“Thank you,” she said, trying fervently and without much success to put all the “Educative Research” firmly from her mind. “I can find my own way back to the dining parlor when I’m ready.”

Chilworthy clicked his heels together and bowed from the waist. “Very good, Miss.” His voice was hoarse and papery. Perhaps resulting from the throat injury? Chilworthy lit a chimneyed candle on the washstand corner and left the room.

Alone, Katie walked slowly across the carpetless room to the window and gazed out. The moon had half risen now, bestowing its stark blue-white smile on the rustling landscape. Timid moonbeams hovered doubtfully among a gossamer mist that had begun to seep upward from the spongy floor of the surrounding woods. From one corner of the desolate yard came the low, slinking form of a hunting fox. “Watch out, little birds,” whispered Katie.

The sour stink of dust and disuse permeated the bedroom, so Katie tried to pull open the window. It stuck. She tried again, this time putting the full strength of her arms into it. Nothing. She brought the candle closer and examined the peeling whitewash of the sill and found that the window had been nailed shut, and recently, too, for the metal heads of the nails gleamed brightly under the supple flame. Then, for no particular reason, Katie recalled where she had heard Chilworthy’s deep, grating whisper.

She whirled around and raced down the dim hallway until she came before an open doorway that blazed with light from a triple set of many-cupped candelabra. Ivo Guy looked up from behind a newspaper as Katie came into the room.

“This isn’t your country home, is it?” she asked breathlessly. “And your mother isn’t here.”

Guy set down the paper and rose to his feet. “Well, no, my dear,” said Guy, slyly apologetic. “You see, it couldn’t be because I don’t have a country house and my mother’s been dead these twenty years. You recognized Chilworthy’s voice, didn’t you? I thought you might. No matter. Of course, at the time I was rather perturbed with him for whispering your name through Linden’s door. True, it might have panicked you into doing something foolish, but as it didn’t work, its only observable effect was to put Linden on his guard—which didn’t make our task any easier, I promise. Still, all’s right that ends right.”

The nausea that had begun to attack Katie in the rocking carriage now took a firmer grip. “Are you really my cousin?” she asked tightly.

“Oh, yes, that much is certainly true. Of course, your ‘dear’ Mama never wasted ten minutes of her giddy time on my family. We were always the ‘improvident’ Guys, the ‘spend-thrift’ Guys, the ‘not quite clever enough’ Guys. And your mother’s family—filthy, reeking rich. How I had to beg your grandfather for a job! And how he made me slave for him, the old bastard, made me gallop under his goad, made me work a dozen times over for every wretched penny of my beggarly salary. And then when the old devil finally slipped his wind, do you know what he left me? Do you?” he demanded sharply. “He left me his sprung pocket watch…” Guy’s voice dulled, “… and second in line to his estate.”

Katie gazed in disbelief at Guy’s florid, popeyed features. Oh, my, she thought, when’s the next stage back to London? Aloud she said, “Why did you bring me here?”

Guy’s eyes narrowed into a hot sneer. “Why, my dear, because I’m going to marry you.”

“M-marry me?” said Katie, totally blank.

“Yes, indeed,” chuckled Guy, rubbing his palms together. “Dear little cousin, it is my honor to make up for the long years of my family’s neglect of you by offering you the protection of my name.”

“No, no,” said Katie, more quickly than the rules of social usage would have allowed. “Thank you. But no. Really!”

Guy took a few steps forward, reached out one obese arm and clasped Katie to his food-specked shirt. “You are shy, my Venus. It is not surprising. But you see, I am not unskilled in the manly arts.” Forcing up Katie’s chin with a stained, pudgy finger, he pressed his greasy bulbous lips on hers.

Katie’s queasy stomach contracted into a tough, throbbing knot. When at last her lips were freed, she gasped, “Sir, I warn you that if you repeat your action, I will probably retch.” She was hastily released.

Guy turned his back and walked to the other side of an inlaid Sycamore writing table. When he turned back toward Katie, his eyes had shrunk to cruel, raging slits.

“So… that is how you wish to play, eh, my ignorant little chippy?” he whispered, his throat rattling with suppressed rage. “You are young. I was willing to make concessions for that, I was willing to be gentle with you. But, believe me, little cousin, the game can be played much more roughly.” Guy opened a narrow drawer in the writing table and withdrew a short-barreled pistol. He cocked it and pointed the muzzle at Katie’s chest.

“Sit.”

Katie lowered herself slowly into a carved mahogany armchair, regarding Guy with a wary, unwavering stare. “I think,” she suggested, in a measured tone, “that I might play the game better if I knew what the rules are.”

“Ah, the rules! The rules, Katie, were set up by your so-loved maternal grandfather. I’ve already told you that I am second in line to inherit his estate. Perhaps you can guess now who stands first in line?”

“N-not I?”

“Oh, yes, you! For years the old man claimed nary a penny of his would go toward feeding any misbegotten Kendricks brats, but then, almost upon his deathbed, he changed his will to give everything to you. Unless,” he paused, waving the pistol slightly, “you should die without issue. The old vandal claimed he had a visitation from his dead daughter begging him to provide for her poor, orphaned Katie.” Guy laughed unpleasantly. “What he had was too many visitations with a wine bottle, the damned old sot.”