Seacliff (3 page)

Caitlin had raged and wept, had finally fled the house and ridden into the mountains to the glen where she and Griffin often met… to talk, to dream, to laugh at their elders as children will do when they love those elders. And he had come to her, having heard from Gwen the story of the fight. He had taken Caitlin in his strong arms and comforted her, stroking her until she could no longer stand the anguish of their parting. She had taken his hands and placed them firmly on her breasts, wound her fingers through his hair and pulled his lips down to hers. The warmth of the sun and the salt of her tears, the caress of the cool breeze on her flesh as he disrobed her slowly, like a man at devout worship, came back to her. He said nothing, but spoke with his fingers and the fire-touch of his mouth. And then, with the grass soft beneath her and the sun filtered by the trees, she had—

“Cat? Cat, this is where we turn off.”

Caitlin blinked away the images swirling around her, put a hand to her cheek and felt the flush of her memory. She nodded, not daring to speak. Without warning Gwen, she leaned hard over her mount’s neck, nudging its flank with her crop, and whispered into its silky ear. In no time, the chestnut exploded into a gallop down a narrow lane lined with towering oaks. The foliage blurred past, the wind wove through her hair, and before long she was laughing again and listening to Gwen’s shouts as she raced after her.

And Griffin, she thought then, could go straight to hell. He could have had her if he’d truly wanted her. But he hadn’t even put up a fight. It was his loss. And it served him damned right! She really didn’t care anyway. She’d been a lot younger then, and hadn’t known her own mind.

F
ive minutes later, just as the trees fell away to expose Morgan’s estate, she slowed her mount to a halt.

The house at the end of the circular drive was not overly large and, because it stood in the middle of sprawling lawns bordered by forest-land rich and verdant, it appeared much smaller. Morgan Hall was a large-beamed Tudor structure built during the reign of Elizabeth, comfortable enough, without ostentation, and near enough to its neighbors, despite the woods, so as not to seem unpleasantly isolated. Oliver’s grandfather had purchased it after his tour in the army, and it was maintained by his father, who’d been shrewd enough to invest much of his officer’s pay in the mercantile business. A forest of chimneys populated the angular roof; diamond-shaped panes of leaded glass reflected the last rays of the sun. The exterior glowed because it had been freshly whitewashed, and the flowers and tall shrubs that grew around the house seemed to be waiting especially for her coming.

On the steps leading up to the front door stood a white-haired, slouch-shouldered man whose face was heavily lined and whose red and black livery seemed too large. He held Caitlin’s reins wordlessly as she dismounted, and led the horses away to the small cluster of stables near the line of trees on the left. Gwen looked after him with a faint moue of distaste.

“Nasty old brute, isn’t he?” she said, following Caitlin inside.

“Oh, Bradford’s all right. You just don’t give him a chance.”

Gwen’s expression was doubtful. “Has he ever smiled at you? Does he ever bid you good morning?”

Caitlin shook her head. “But he’s a quiet man; that’s all. He’s been with Oliver’s family for years.” She paused. “But I do wish he didn’t look as if he were eating lemons all the time.”

Gwen giggled, and covered her mouth quickly.

The foyer was wide and unadorned, flowing to a sitting room on the left dominated by a ceiling-high fireplace. On the right was an ornate dining room. When neither Mrs. Thorn, the cook, nor Mary, the sullen maid, came out to greet them, Caitlin shrugged off her cloak and handed it to Gwen.

“Oliver will be home soon, I imagine,” she said, heading for the fan-shaped staircase that swept to a landing beneath a round, stained-glass window. “I’d better clean up. He hates me smelling like a horse. Tell Mary I’ll need plenty of hot water, will you?” Then she stopped and hurried back, planted a solid kiss on Gwen’s cheek, and thanked her breathlessly. “You do help me manage, you know. You really do.”

And before Gwen could respond, Caitlin was running up the steps, hurrying down the corridor to the sanctuary of her large sunny apartment overlooking the front of the house. It had a massive pair of wardrobes in scrolled walnut, a gold canopy bed raised on a dais covered with wine velvet, a canted-beamed ceiling, a crescent vanity and several mirrors, some armchairs, a chaise lounge, and a fireplace much smaller than those on the ground floor. A fire was already crackling against the onset of a cool evening. She stood on the hearth and stripped off her gloves, shrugged off her jacket and sank wearily to her knees.

Her room wasn’t Oliver’s, and a brief wave of resentment clouded her eyes and tightened her jaw. It was all very well that she had married Oliver to provide a steady hand for Seacliff after her father’s passing; and it was all very well that Oliver had been a military hero during the last battles of the French and Indian Wars; and it was even understandable that they should spend almost half of each year in Eton because England was, after all, Oliver’s country. But at quiet moments like this, and after encounters with people too much like Lady Coming, she longed to gaze out the window and see the tides thundering in at the base of Seacliff’s bluffs, the misty rolling hills in the distance, and the broad valley where she’d been born.

Perhaps, as her father had suggested from his sickbed, much of her problem was in her attitude, and her unrestrained tongue. Certainly the latter had caused her no end of embarrassment because, unlike the English, she did not deliver her opinions obliquely, but stated them boldly. And she stated her opinions far too often, to too many of the wrong people. Thinking before speaking was, she conceded, not exactly her strongest virtue.

As for her attitude, marriage with Oliver was not even close to what she’d dreamed marriage should be. Gwen claimed the man had no sense of romance. That much was surely true, though in his fashion he
did
care for her somewhat. Nevertheless, his excuses for not coming to her bed, and his response whenever she suggested she was more than a bauble to be displayed, puzzled her. There was also the curious fact of the marriage itself—a union between a young Welsh woman and a strict, though not always uncharming, army major. All of this made her determined not to let her spirit break. She would endure for her father’s sake, if for no other reason.

A hesitant knock on the door disturbed her ruminations, and Mary—thin, fox-faced, and sullen—entered with two steaming pails of water, which she emptied into a curved metal tub set against the far wall. That done, she left and returned with two more, then went out and closed the door silently behind her. Not a word was exchanged.

As soon as Caitlin understood the servant girl would not return, she disrobed quickly and tested the water with her foot. She winced and hugged herself against the room’s slight chill and sprinkled lavender scent over the surface of the water. A moment later she stepped into the tub, sighing as she eased herself down into its narrow confines. She pulled her knees up to her chest and grasped them loosely.

She closed her eyes and reveled in the bath-warmed room. She had a fleeting image of Griffin, then of her sickly father, before she slipped into a doze, interrupted only when Gwen knocked impatiently on the door and let herself in. Without speaking, she bustled across the room, lit all the candles in their bronze and ebony sconces, then snatched up the cotton cloths Mary had piled by the tub and gestured sharply.

“He’s back,” she said, “and he’s in a proper foul mood.”

“Oh, Lord,” Caitlin sighed. She rose and allowed Gwen to dry her. Then, as she climbed into her petticoats, and let Gwen slip over her upraised arms a simple dark blue shirt and matching multi-pleated skirt, she shook her head slowly. “All this stuff,” she said sourly, smoothing the bodice and adjusting the high neck. “I think I’d rather be naked.”

Gwen laughed, and followed her to a tall, silver-framed mirror to one side of the vanity. She picked up a pearl-handled brush and stood behind her, frowning. “You didn’t pin it up again, Cat,” she scolded lightly, pushing at the wet-dark ends of black hair. “When are you going to learn?”

“I didn’t think of it,” she said. “Besides, it’s not as if I’m going to see the queen, is it? Not that I’d care.”

Gwen laughed as she wielded the brush deftly. “Ah, Cat, you do reassure me, you really do.” And in answer to Caitlin’s questioning reflection: “I sometimes fear you’ve gone English on me, you know. The way you talk sometimes, and the way you go around to all these places…”

“Gwen,” she said solemnly, “there is nothing wrong with enjoying myself while I’m here. It’s a lovely country, and you know that well. And there are some here who don’t mind who we are and where we’re from. But don’t you forget, ever, that I do know who I am.”

Gwen nodded. “Yes, and that’s what gets you into so much trouble.”

“Well, can I help it if I say the wrong thing now and again?”

Gwen rapped her skull lightly with the brush. “You must learn to think before you speak, Cat. There’s just so much these people will take from us before—”

Suddenly, heavy boots pounded swiftly along the corridor and, with scarcely a pause, a fist slammed against the door. “Caitlin, goddammit, what have you done to me now!”

2

C
aitlin looked to the ceiling in a silent prayer, then waved Gwen into the comer near the door. Drawing in a deep breath, she bid her husband enter just as she folded her hands primly at her waist.

“Caitlin!”

Oliver Morgan was not much taller than she, but his iron-rod military bearing gave the illusion of height. His shoulders were square, his chest broad, and the only evidence of his high style of living was a slight paunch. But he was also much older than his twenty-year-old wife, and his own fifty years were beginning to manifest themselves in the lines inching across his face. The corners of his red-rimmed eyes were webbed from perpetually squinting, the flesh around his jawline sagged somewhat, and his thin lips were gaining a tight look about them. Because he refused to powder his own hair, his head was shaven and the flesh taut, somewhat gleaming, and darkly veined. Over his shirt and knee breeches he wore an ankle-length, velvet-lapeled dressing gown that billowed as he strode angrily into the room. He glared, and Caitlin backed away, gesturing to a tall chair by the hearth. He took it without speaking and dropped into it as if carrying a weight, then stared at the low fire with a slow shake of his head.

“You really are trying to ruin me, aren’t you?” he said. His voice still sounded like a command even when kept low.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” she said in a whisper, at the same time flicking a hand behind her back to get Gwen outside. “I would do nothing deliberately to disgrace you. You know that.”

He looked up, the flames’ shadows darting oddly across his eyes. “I wonder, Caitlin. I really do wonder. My God, what were you thinking of?”

She spread her hands helplessly before her. “Oliver, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you really?”

“Really, I don’t.” She moved closer, smiling. “But if you’ll tell me what you heard, I’ll tell you what actually happened.” He did not return the smile.

“You were in Egham today. As I understand it, on the road back to Eton you met Lady Coming.”

Her eyes closed briefly, and a hand fluttered weakly to her throat. She
knew
she’d done something wrong; my God, when would she learn just to smile and nod!

“Caitlin, Lady Coming was born in Edinburgh. The baron’s family comes from Stirling. Have you ever heard of these places, my dear? Could you find them on a map?”

“Oh, Oliver.” She felt herself blushing. “Oliver, I’d forgotten.”

He nodded. “Of course you had. Just as you forgot last week that the king’s family is from Hanover and you made some stupid remark about fat German women. And the week before you refused to walk in the garden with Lord Cornwallis.”

“But he kept putting his hands on me,” she protested.

“He’s a general, you dolt! He can put his bloody hands where he bloody well wants to!”

She opened her mouth to retort, took in a slow, deep breath and turned away. The wrong was hers, and the only way to forestall a worsening of his temper was to be meek and quiet.

Though it wasn’t, she thought, as if she had deliberately lied. The Scots she’d seen at court were indeed sour-faced, and the king was no more English than she was. If she were a man, of course, things would be different; but let a woman speak her mind—

“Caitlin, are you listening to me?”

She turned back and smiled sweetly. “I’m sorry, Oliver, no. I was trying to think of a way to make it up to you.”

He clapped his fists to his forehead and fell back in the chair. “God save me,” he muttered to the fire. Then his hands dropped into his lap, and his gaze lifted. “It’s that Thomas woman,” he said finally. “I knew we should have left her behind. My dear, she’s not good for you. Not here in England.”

Her jaw dropped in shock. “Not good for me? Oliver, how can you say that? We grew up together. She’s practically my sister.”

“Exactly my point,” he said, rising. “She’s not your sister; she’s your personal maid. You have a position, Caitlin—”

“Oh, bother the position!”

“Caitlin!” He took a menacing step toward her, then abruptly softened. “My dear, you will please instruct her to mind her manners, and to remember where she is and to whose household she belongs.” He waited, then brushed at his lapels. “I must go out after dinner this evening. I expect you’ll be retired before I return.”

She said nothing. He was always going out after dinner these days, though she knew it was necessary. Part of his agreement with her father was that he would make arrangements in England for the sale of the goods the estate produced. To this end he was constantly being invited to gentlemen’s parties where brandy was plentiful, pipes blued the air and prices advantageous to them all were discussed. And he was good at it. All of the men seemed very impressed by his bearing, his tales, and his wounds—and the fact that he’d taken a Welsh wife appeared not to have hurt his dealings in the slightest.