Bewitching Page 9

  "Please, Your Grace, call me Neil. I'm sure we will be fast friends."

  "Thank you, my lord. Neil it will be, but you must call me Joy."

  "Surely a name selected by the gods, and very appropriate." He kissed her hand and smiled.

  Meanwhile, the earl was weaving over the book. "Hold the bloody thing still, Seymour."

  The three turned and looked at the earl. She hadn't thought it was possible, but he was even drunker now than he had been earlier. Neil grabbed his friend's shoulder and steadied him, being careful not to apply pressure to the slung arm. The earl rested the sling on the register lectern and scratched a drunken scrawl across half the page, sideways.

  He straightened his back, teetered a bit, then gave her a lascivious leer while rocking slightly. "I'm Richard, and I would like to kiss more than your hand."

  Alec's arm tensed and she glanced down at his hand. It was in a white fist. She looked up. His face had not changed, did not look the least concerned. His fist told her that his face lied.

  A second later Richard's eyes rolled back and he slumped against a column. The only thing holding him upright was the viscount.

  "Best get him to a room before he passes out. Not up to snuff, passing out in a church." He tugged on the earl's good arm.

  "Need a drink." Richard rummaged through his coat with his good hand. "Where's m' brandy?"

  "Gone." Neil helped him walk the few steps to the side door.

  "Wait." Richard dug his heels into the carpet. "Belmore can't abandon us here." He pulled his arm out of Neil's grip and turned back, giving them an insolent grin. "What would people think?"

  "He's made arrangements to rent Hobson's horses," Neil told him. "We'll ride back to London in the morning." He turned to Joy. "Have a pleasant wedding trip, Your Grace. This is destiny, you know. The fates chose you, and now everything is right." He looked at the duke. "Even if Belmore here refuses to believe it."

  "I need a bloody drink!"

  "Stifle it, Downe. You are in a church for God's sake."

  "I don't believe in God. The only good thing he ever created was brandy!" He jerked his arm away from the viscount.

  Neil grabbed him again and helped him walk out of the church.

  "Is he always like that?" Joy asked.

  Alec looked at her, then glanced back at the door. "Of late. He didn't used to be. People change." He grasped her arm. "The carriage is waiting."

  "Wait, please. Where is Beezle?" Joy looked around, frantic.

  "Henson has him."

  "Your footman?"

  "Our footman."

  They walked through the doors and directly to the carriage where Henson immediately opened the door and pulled down the carriage steps. Beezle clung to his back and was happily chewing away on the footman's queue.

  "Your Grace," he said, bowing as if it was perfectly normal for him to have an ermine weasel clinging to him like a leech.

  Joy plucked Beezle off his back. "Thank you, Henson, for taking care of him."

  "Certainly, Your Grace."

  Joy glanced at the footman. His hair hung loose outside the ribbon that had previously tied back his queue. She looked at her familiar. He was sleeping in her arms, innocently sleeping. Joy dismissed it, knowing how fascinated her familiar was with hair, and let the servant help her inside. Her husband barked a few orders while she settled Beezle and herself onto the seat. The duke joined them, and a few minutes later they were off.

  ***

  Four long and relatively silent hours later the carriage slowed and turned, then ambled through a guarded gate and down a long drive flanked by majestic old elms and pollard trees. Joy watched with silent curiosity as they passed massive tree after massive tree.

  She had studied her husband for the last silent hour, not daring to again ask if they were almost there— he had seemed irritated after the sixth time—and wondering how close they actually were to Belmore Park. To her delight he had volunteered the information as they passed through the last quaint little village. Belmore Park was right outside this village, he'd said.

  She had pressed her nose to the cold window to watch the timbered houses and rustic high-roofed thatched cottages pass by. She'd caught a glimpse of a wee burn edged with hazel trees. They'd trotted past a tall white kirk high on a hill with a spreading hawthorn tree perched nearby. Black smoke had billowed into the winter sky from an open smithy where a cumbersome ancient wagon stood in disrepair behind an old and weather-stained wall. Village dogs had barked a loud, continuous harangue when they passed the village green where a group of curious children stopped playing to point and gaze in awe at the carriage.

  It had been nearly an hour since they left the village children to resume their game of blind man's bluff in the common, and every minute since had seemed an eternity, especially since she was so terribly eager to see her new home.

  Still staring out the window, she spotted what appeared to be glassy water past the tall border of pollard trees. She moved her head, eager to get a better look, but the carriage passed a low wall, then turned through a smaller set of iron gates decorated with the ducal crest. A heartbeat later a huge home loomed before her gawking eyes.

  They halted in front of a tall columned portico with cream-colored limestone steps and thick carved stone balustrades fanning outward from the steps like welcoming arms. There was a quick fluttering flash of someone in the beveled-glass sidelights that framed the enormous polished walnut doors. They opened, and a rush of green and gold liveried footmen came down the steps.

  Met with all the pomp and circumstance awarded to a conquering monarch, she thought, watching as the footmen lined up like guardsmen on either side of the steps. Joy expected them to break out the trumpets at any second. Instead, the carriage door opened and her husband, the laird of the manor, descended, then turned to help her down. She placed her hand in his and paused. Just the touch of his hand could turn her heart over.

  "This is our home, Belmore Park." There was pride in his voice, the first emotion she sensed that he did not try to hide.

  She looked up and her mouth fell open. Completely awestruck she craned her head back to take in all of the palatial glory of her new home.

  It was three stories tall and completely made of pale stone with what appeared to be near a hundred huge pillastered leaded-glass windows. Duart Castle also had glass, but nothing like this, and the castle windows were small, little more than old arrow slits in the tower rooms where she had lived. The glass, as rustic and old as the castle itself, was thick and wavy and filmed with the salt of the sea. But here there was so much leaded crystalline glass that at first glance the windows looked like diamonds set in pale stone. She wondered how this house would look in spring with the sun shining on all that glass. It would be almost like a magic spell—a thousand stars sparkling in the light of day.

  "This is … magical." Her eager eyes scanned the facade and the four three-story angular bays that stood out, giving an impression of depth.

  "It was built by Sir John Thynne, after the original house burned down. See the balustrade along the roof?"

  Joy followed his hand to the roofline of the house where an ornamental railing bordered the flat roof.

  "And those domed buildings and chimneys?"

  Her eyes were drawn to the pepperpot domes, heraldic beasts, and exotic chimneys and strapwork that created the whimsical image of an ironwork ball dancing across the skyline. She counted fourteen elaborately designed chimneys with ornamental turrets with finial beasts prancing atop them. Fourteen of them visible from the front alone!

  "The buildings with those domed roofs are small banqueting rooms that can be used for dinner parties."

  "Dinner parties? On the roof?"

  "The view is quite pleasing."

  Dumbfounded, she just stared at him. After a second she looked back up at the roof. Quite pleasing? She would have wagered she could see clear to Scotland from that roof.

  He led her up the steps, past the stiff footmen who lined it, and into the entry. Her stomach knotted at the sight that greeted her. Her astonished gaze followed the chessboard-marble floor to the staircase, then up and up to a gallery with an intricately worked brass banister. Decorative plastered columns rose . . . and rose and rose . . . upward to a painted ceiling surrounded by more plasterwork and tall glass windows.

  "It's painted."

  "Hmm?"

  "The dome in the ceiling. It looks like an oil painting."

  The duke followed her look. "Oh, that? It's a fresco. Louis Laguerre did them. They are scenes from the life of Julius Caesar."

  "Oh, that?" he had said. As in, "Oh, that old thing?"

  "The staff is waiting."

  She turned and looked behind her toward the center of the great hall, where a large number of servants—close to a hundred of them, she surmised—waited to pay homage to the laird, her new husband. Panicked, she looked at him. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was leading her over to meet a hundred people.

  She, who couldn't even remember an incantation, was expected to remember their names? Such folly she had gotten herself into this time—and without even using her magic. She whispered, "Oh, my goodness."

  He paused and looked at her, his expression puzzled. "Is something wrong?"

  "How will I remember their names?"

  "Their names?" He gave the eternal line a cursory glance. "They are servants. They are employed by me.

  You needn't know their names."

  "Of course I do."

  "Why?"

  "They are people."

  "Of course they're people, but they're servants first and foremost."

  "Oh, I see," she said, even though she didn't see at all. It seemed heartless to think of them as servants instead
of people. She changed tack, hoping he'd see her point. "Were they born into their positions here?"

  "As a matter of fact, some of them were. It is an honor to be employed by the Duke of Belmore. They are paid well and have the prestige of saying they work at Belmore."

  "What am I supposed to say if I need to speak to one of them? Hallo, you? Servant?" Then she couldn't help muttering, "Slave?"

  "Do not be ridiculous," he snapped. "Just ask their names and tell them what to do."

  She took a deep breath and bit her lip. Now she'd gone and angered him. She sighed and followed her stiff-backed husband to the head of the line. While still out of hearing distance, she grabbed his arm."Alec?"

  "What?"

  "Is part of my duty as a duchess . . . is it, I mean, do I have to run this whole house?"

  "There is a housekeeper, Mrs. Watley. She and Townsend, the butler, run the household."

  Joy's sigh of relief was so loud it could have echoed in the frescoed scenes of Julius Caesar.

  "Come along, you shall meet Watley and Townsend first. They are at their places of honor at the front of the line."

  Her relief was short-lived. There was a rigid protocol attached to this meeting, and Joy was certain it was a ritual performed generation after generation.

  "May I present my wife, Her Grace the Duchess of Belmore. This is Mrs. Watley." Mrs. Watley looked as if she needed some prunes. Her shoulders went military straight. Her lips grew thinner, a feat Joy would have wagered was impossible, and she looked down at the new duchess—she was at least six feet tall—as if she found her severely lacking.

  "And Townsend."

  The butler resembled a peer—an earl or a marquess, perhaps. He had distinguished- looking white hair and patrician features and wore dark clothing and a white shirt as crisp as if he had dressed with the help of an expert valet. He nodded once, his brown eyes meeting hers only briefly before he turned his stare back to somewhere over her right shoulder.

  Slowly they made their way along the lines, with either the butler or the housekeeper introducing each servant to Belmore's new duchess. Joy tried to find some distinguishing feature in each one to help her remember who the servant was. The only one she knew she would remember was a short, dark-haired young girl whose name was Polly and who had the most delightful and friendly smile of anyone. She and the cook were the only ones who had ventured anything resembling a smile.

  "Mrs. Watley will take you to your rooms, where you can rest until dinner." With his order given, Alec turned and started to walk away.

  "Alec?"

  He stopped and turned.

  "Where are you going?"

  From his face one would have thought she had asked for his blood, every last drop. After a thoughtful moment he deigned to explain. "I need to meet with my steward. I've been in London for two months, and my business here has been too long neglected."

  "Oh." Feeling unsure of herself and out of place, she watched her new husband turn and leave, abandoning her into the clutches of dour Mrs. Watley.

  "If Your Grace will follow me, I will show you to your rooms." The woman's order was given with the same curt expectation of obedience used by Alec, a tone that indicated one should not dare to do anything but comply.

  With one wee shrug she followed the woman up the stairs, watching the way Mrs. Watley's torso stayed as straight as a caber. She was dressed in crisp black bombazine, tightly belted, with a smidgen of a white lace handkerchief peeking out from the side of the wide black belt. A housekeeper's badge—silver rings of keys at her waist—jangled and jingled with each precise step in the hallowed stairwells of Joy's opulent new home.

  Reminded of sleigh bells and chimes and fairy tunes, Joy picked up her skirts and her step and bobbed her head in time to those musical keys, mentally humming a merry ballad while her eager eyes absorbed every luxurious detail surrounding her. On the left an arched coffer served as a special place for an ancient Oriental vase. On the right stood a green and gold porcelain urn as big as Lady Eugenia was small.

  They crossed a seemingly endless gallery filled with priceless oil portraits of what must have been every Castlemaine born to this earth. Three more turns, two more corridors, and five or so twists, and they finally reached a long double-width hallway with several lavishly gilded doors. Continuing down the hall she looked up at the high molded-plaster ceiling half expecting to see another fresco.

  There was none. The design in the plasterwork, however, did match that of the carpet, exactly. Every so often she caught a glimpse of the ducal crest worked into the pattern—a Belmore ceiling and a Belmore carpet.

  Mrs. Watley stopped abruptly, her bombazine skirts rustling like leaves in the summer wind. She unhooked one of the five large key rings, found the right key with little thought, and unlocked the door.

  "Your rooms, Your Grace."

  Joy stepped inside a massive room lined with carved and inlaid paneling edged in gold leaf. Trying not to gape, she untied her bonnet and let it dangle from her fingers. It was all she could do not to ask Mrs. Watley to pinch her awake. This couldn't be real.

  A beautiful rosewood desk with a matching chair stood behind the wing chairs by the fireplace. Decorated with Roman gods carved into rose marble, the fireplace took up half a wall. Everything in the room was rose and gold, even the bed, with its tall canopy draped in matching rose and gold silk brocade and tied back with heavy silken tassels. Her warm gaze followed the lines of the high bed, upward, past its canopy to the ceiling.

  It was painted.

  "This is the dressing room." Mrs. Watley pressed a panel in the wall, and the door swung open to reveal a room filled with beveled mirrors. "Beyond that is the bath."

  Joy tossed her hat onto a small tapestry chair and followed her, removing her gloves as she walked across the marble floor of the dressing room and peeked around a mirrored corner. Her gloves fell to the floor unnoticed. The entire room was made of a soft rose-colored marble—the floors, the walls, the sinks, and the tub, which was sunken like a Roman pool into the floor, and one mirrored wall was framed by rose silk draperies with hand-painted gold roses.

  Mrs. Watley's heels clicked across the marble floor and, with a gesture akin to holding a dead rat, opened another door. Her thin face was as hard as that marble. "This is the water closet. It's a Bramah." The door whipped shut before Joy could get even one wee glimpse of the room.

  She marched back into the bedchamber. Joy assumed she was to follow. The housekeeper turned and looked down at her. "I'll send someone up with your things, Your Grace, and a maid will be here shortly to help you bathe." She flicked a watch pin up from her chest. "Dinner is served at nine, always. You have several hours until then. Your Grace might wish to rest."

  Joy blinked once in surprise, then realized she was twenty-one, a duchess who was being Your Graced to death, and she had just been told to take a nap.

  "Does Your Grace need anything else?"

  Joy shook her head.

  "Very well." The housekeeper opened the door and paused. "His Grace likes dinner on time. Precisely at nine o'clock. A Belmore tradition." And with that command— or warning, Joy wasn't sure which—she closed the door.

  Joy exhaled and spun around and around in the center of the room, her eager eyes taking in every impressive detail. Dizzy with excitement, she collapsed on the bed in a puff of plump down and smoothed her hands over the lovely brocade coverlet, feeling every silken stitch. Very carefully she sat up on the edge of the bed, letting her feet dangle near the velvet footstool, and then she bounced a couple of times to test the bed's deep softness.

  "Oh, my goodness," she whispered, followed by a giggle.

  She ran one hand over the gilded headboard and touched its rose velvet padding, and her other hand sank into a down pillow so soft and plump that it was like touching a cloud.

  A knock sounded, and she shot off the bed as if stuck with a brooch, brushing her skirts down before she stood stiffly, small shoulders back, chin raised and slightly cocked—it was her duchess pose—and said in a deep voice, "Come in." Unfortunately her voice cracked, completely ruining her attempt to sound regal.