C Harris: When maidens mourn

Camlet Moat, Trent Place, England

Sunday, 2 August 1812

Tessa Sawyer hummed a nervous tune beneath her breath as she pushed through the tangled brush and bracken edging the black waters of the ancient moat. She was very young, just sixteen at her next birthday. And though she tried to tell herself she was brave, she knew she wasn't. She could feel her heart pounding in her narrow chest, and her hands tingled as if she'd been sitting on them. When she'd left the village, the night sky above had been clear and bright with stars. But here, deep in the wood, all was darkness and shadow. From the murky, stagnant water beside her rose an eerie mist, thick and clammy.

It should have wafted cool against her cheek. Instead, she felt as if the heavy dampness were stealing her breath, suffocating her with an unnatural heat and a sick dread of the forbidden. She paused to swipe a shaky hand across her sweaty face and heard a rustling in the distance, the soft plop of something hitting the water.

Choking back a whimper, she spun about, ready to run. But this was Lammas, a time sacred to the ancient goddess. They said that at midnight on this night, if a maiden dipped a cloth into the holy well that lay on the northern edge of the isle of Camlet Moat and then tied her offering to a branch of the rag tree that overhung the well, her prayer would be answered. Not only that, but maybe, just maybe, the White Lady herself would appear, to bless the maid and offer her the wisdom and guidance that a motherless girl such as Tessa yearned for with all her being.

No one knew exactly who the White Lady was. Father Clark insisted that if the lady existed at all which he doubted she could only be the Virgin Mary. But local legend said the White Lady was one of the grail maidens of old, a chaste virgin who'd guarded the sacred well since before the time of Arthur and Guinevere and the Knights of the Round Table. And then there were those who whispered that the lady was actually Guinevere, ever young, ever beautiful, ever glorious.

Forcing herself to go on, Tessa clenched her fist around the strip of white cloth she was bringing as an offering. She could see the prow of the small dinghy kept at the moat by Sir Stanley Winthrop, on whose land she trespassed. Its timbers old and cracked, its aged paint worn and faded, it rocked lightly at the water's edge as if touched by an unseen current.

It was not empty.

Tessa drew up short. A lady lay crumpled against the stern, her hair a dark cascade of curls around a pale, motionless face. She was young yet and slim, her gown an elegant flowing confection of gossamer muslin sashed with peach satin. She had her head tipped back, her neck arched; her eyes were open but sightless, her skin waxen.

And from a jagged rent high across her pale breast showed a dried rivulet of darkness where her life's blood had long since drained away.

London

Monday, 3 August

Driven from his sleep by troublesome dreams, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, leaned into his outstretched arms, fingers curling around the sill of his wife's open bedroom window. He'd learned long before of the dangers that lurk in those quicksilver moments that come between darkness and the dawn. When the world hovers between night and day, a man could get lost in his own tortured memories of the past if he wasn't careful.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath into his lungs. But the dawn was unusually warm, the air too parched and dusty to bring any real relief. He was aware of a sheen of sweat coating his naked skin; a humming like bees working a hive droned behind his temples. The urge to wrap his hand around a cool glass of brandy was strong.

He resisted it.

Behind him, the woman who just four days before had become his Viscountess stirred in her bed. Their marriage was so recent and the reasons behind it so complicated that he sometimes found himself still thinking of her not as Hero Devlin but as Miss Jarvis, formidable daughter of Charles, Lord Jarvis, the brilliant but ruthless cousin of the King who served as the acknowledged power behind the fragile regency of the Prince of Wales. Once, Jarvis had sworn to destroy Sebastian, however long it might take. Sebastian knew that his marriage to Jarvis's daughter had not changed that.

Looking over his shoulder, he watched now as Hero came slowly awake. She lay motionless for a moment. Then her eyelids fluttered open and she shifted her head against the pillow to stare at him from across a darkened room hung with blue silk and gilded mirrors and scented with lavender.

`Did I wake you?' he asked. `I am sorry.'

`Don't be ridiculous.'

Sebastian huffed a soft laugh. There was nothing either indulgent or coquettish about Hero.

She slipped from the bed, bringing with her the fine linen sheet to wrap around her nakedness as she crossed to him. In the darkness of the night, she could come to him without inhibition, a willing and passionate lover. But during the day...

During the day they remained in many ways essentially strangers to each other, two people who inhabited the same house yet were self-conscious and awkward when they chanced upon each other in the hall or met over breakfast. Only at night could they seem to put aside the wary distrust that had characterized their relationship from the beginning. Only in darkness could they forget the deep, dangerous antagonism that lay between his house and hers and come together as man and woman.

He was aware of the gray light of dawn stealing into the room. She hugged the sheet tighter around her.

`You never sleep,' she said.

`I do. Sometimes.'

She tipped her head to one side, her normally tidy brown hair tangled by last night's lovemaking. `Have you always had such troublesome dreams, or only since marrying the daughter of your worst enemy?'

Smiling faintly, he reached out to draw her to him.

She came stiffly, her forearms resting on his naked chest, creating some distance between them. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as Sebastian himself, with her powerful father's aquiline countenance and Lord Jarvis's famous, disconcerting intelligence.

He said, `I m told it's not uncommon for men to dream of war after they've returned home.'

Her shrewd gray eyes narrowed with thoughts he could only guess at. `That's what you dream of? The war?'

He hesitated. `Mainly.'

That night, he had indeed been driven from his bed by the echoing whomph of cannonballs, by the squeals of injured horses and the despairing groans of dying men. Yet there were times when his dreams were troubled not by the haunting things he'd seen or the even more haunting things he'd done, but by a certain blue-eyed, dusky-haired actress named Kat Boleyn. It was an unintentional but nonetheless real betrayal of the woman he had taken to wife, and it troubled him. Yet the only certain way for a man to control his dreams was to avoid sleep.

The daylight in the room strengthened.

Hero said, `It's difficult for anyone to sleep in this heat'.

He reached up to smooth the tangled hair away from her damp forehead. `Why not come with me to Hampshire? It would do us both good to get away from the noise and dirt of London for a few weeks.' He'd been intending to pay a visit to his estate all summer, but the events of the past few months had made leaving London impossible. Now it was a responsibility that could be delayed no longer.

He watched her hesitate and knew exactly what she was thinking: that alone together in the country they would be thrown constantly into each other's company. It was, after all, the reason newlywed couples traditionally went away on a honeymoon so that they might get to know each other better. But there was little that could be termed traditional about their days-old marriage.