The Lost Heiress of Hawkscliffe Page 4

  “Do you?” He shrugged. “Perhaps if you knew more of its history—“

  Whatever he meant to say was interrupted by a hurried click of heels. “Oh! Are you all that’s left, then?”

  It was Mary Rose, entering with a platter of roast lamb surrounded by succulent, crisp brown potatoes and buttered carrot spears. She eyed the two of us, seated diagonally across the wide table, with consternation. After serving us in silence, she was clearly unable to determine how to place the platter within reach of us both, a puzzle Thornton Ramsay readily solved by moving his place setting to one end and mine directly to his right.

  “There you are, Mary Rose. Accomplished faster than you can say prestidigitation!”

  Unused to being teased by a man she considered her better, she colored prettily. “Aren’t Miss Cora and Mr. Philo expected back then, sir? Cook will be that upset, she will.”

  “Tell Agnes I said to let them fend for themselves.”

  Mary Rose was obviously horrified at the thought of the gentry lining a finger to help themselves. At times like these I had considerable sympathy for the bomb-throwing anarchists bent on sweeping away monied privilege; on the other hand, I reminded myself, only the privileged buy Oriental rugs.

  “You were about to tell me something about Hawkscliffe’s history,” I said as Thornton Ramsay filled my glass with wine.

  He took a sip, then nodded approvingly. “Good wine, this. C.Q. had better taste in wine than he did in interior decoration—or women.” He rubbed his clean-shaven jut of chin reflectively. “How much did your uncle tell you—about Hawkscliffe, I mean?”

  “Almost nothing. A glimpse of its towers pointed out from a steamer one day; an occasional mention of rugs he had sold Charles Quintus. Odd, now that I think of it. They must have had a close association—I know they had a shared passion.”‘

  Thornton looked at me sharply. “Concerning rugs, you mean.”

  “Of course,” I agreed. What else could I have meant?

  “Let me see,” he murmured absently, almost to himself, “where to begin unwinding this tangled tale?” He raised his eyes to mine again. “You are aware of C.Q.’s extraordinary artistic success?”

  I nodded. “I know something of it. Having seen his paintings, I know the why of it, of course.”

  “Yes. An amazing talent accompanied by an equally amazing skill at peddling it.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he waved my words impatiently away. “I assure you, Miss Mackenzie, that for every hour my uncle spent invoking the divine spirit of nature with his brush, he spent at least another on schemes to win both critical and public esteem.

  “At the crest of the God-in-nature wave in the mid-fifties, the exhibitions at the National Academy were highlights of the social season. Why, at the openings the painted sunsets and storms were hard put to hold their own amidst the crowd of crinolines and silk hats! I’m told that when C.Q. exhibited his latest masterpiece in his own studio, he would hang it against black crepe curtains, then light it brilliantly with dusters of gas jets concealed behind silver reflectors. To the awed spectators it must have seemed as if they were looking at the magnificent scene through a window. In short, Uncle Charles was a high-class snake-oil salesman.”

  “Except that his paintings were genuine, Mr. Ramsay,” I admonished.

  “Genuine, yes, but their size and prices inflated along with his ego until only museums, which were then springing up in every town that aspired to being cosmopolitan, had space enough to display them. But since all of them vied for a Charles Quintus Ramsay to give their fledgling collections the required cachet, C.Q.’s demands were met unquestioningly by a seemingly endless supply of patrons with bottomless pockets.”

  I shook my head. “It all sounds larger than life.”

  Thornton Ramsay raised his dark eyebrows. “But that’s exactly how it was, and the cock o’ the heap was Charles Quintus himself. He had fame, money, women—oh yes, Miss Mackenzie,” he added, obviously amused by the involuntary tightening of my expression, “many a starched petticoat wilted in his—how did you put it?— larger-than-life presence.”

  Suddenly his countenance darkened. “And many a young girl was ruined. A monstrous man, really. I never did understand how Roxelana curbed his appetites. Louise never managed it.” He gave a bark of mirthless laughter.

  Philo had mentioned someone named Louise...yes, Aunt Louise. “Charles Quintus’s wife? Is she still alive?”

  Again that mirthless laugh. “Very much so.” He paused and looked beyond me into the dark shadows. “A dazzling woman in her prime. Classic features, and a full figure whose promise—” He stopped abruptly, literally biting off his words. His mouth twisted bitterly.

  Discomfited, I dropped my eyes to my plate. During the silence that ensued, I toyed with the remaining carrot spears. When he resumed his narrative, it was in the same impersonal, ironic tone with which he had begun it.

  “You see, C.Q. married Louise because she was a bona fide member of New York society, the coveted world his comfortable but bourgeois background denied him. She married him because she thought him artistic. It never occurred to Louise that the true artist is more apt to be egotistic and boorish than chivalrous and romantic. Poor Lulu,” he added in a derisive drawl. “C.Q. would have strayed even if she had been Helen of Troy.”

  I wondered at his lack of charity. “I assume she divorced him, then?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “I guess you could say that.”

  At that moment, Mary Rose’s entrance with a raisin-and-citron-studded rice pudding effectively ended further discussion of a subject he was obviously unwilling to have me pursue. We ate the creamy custard in silence, lost in our separate lines of thought

  My curiosity was piqued. Although Thornton Ramsay made no secret of his dislike for both his uncle’s former wife and his last mistress, he was obviously unwilling to share with me the reasons for it. I glanced up at him through my lashes. Perhaps it I caught him unawares....

  My eyes met the compelling green magic of his steadfast gaze. As if he had been reading my thoughts, instead of the other way around, he began to laugh; but his cousin’s unexpected return made it unlikely I would ever learn why.

  “Do you suppose there is enough of Agnes’s pudding for me?” Philo asked.

  “I’m sure there is enough of everything, Mr. Ramsay,” I volunteered.

  “No, no,” he said, frowning and waving his hand. “Thank you for the thought, Miss Mackenzie, but I really haven’t the stomach for it.” He turned to the sideboard for a Canton bowl and plate.

  “There you are, Philo!” Thornton spooned a generous dollop into the proffered bowl. “Something as soothing to your palate as I’m sure your words were for Cora. You were right, of course, but one of these days she and Harry really will go too far. They’re simply taking advantage of the fact that I have neither the time nor financial resources it would take to find suitable replacements.”

  Philo looked at his dark cousin in disbelief. “How can you say that, Thorn? Cora has spent her entire adult life with the Ramsays, first in New York and then here at Hawkscliffe. This is the only home she has, and except for her nephew, the only family.”

  “The same could be said of Harry, Philo, yet I don’t hear any stirring words from you in his defense. No one asked Cora to become C.Q.’s slavey, stretching his canvases, cleaning his brushes, meekly accepting his poor opinion of her own talent.”

  Thornton Ramsay turned to me. His uncharacteristically earnest expression made me uneasy. “You see, Miss Mackenzie, Cora is an artist, too. Her forte was botanical watercolors, and she was very good indeed.” Be turned back to his unhappy cousin. “Has that portfolio she gave C.Q. ever turned up in the library? It was just like him to ‘misplace’ it. But, as I was saying, hers was an entirely different talent from C.Q.’s, and of course he sneered at it—told her it was suitable for painting posies on teacups—and before long she didn’t think much of it either.” His sardonic smile
confirmed the mockery I had suspected earlier. “The master had spoken, don’t you know. I doubt if Cora has drawn a line in years, eh, Philo?”

  “Everything is a joke to you, isn’t it, Thorn? Cora, Hawkscliffe, me—even that poor girl who enjoyed a brief, shining hour as the apple of your eye before you made it clear you preferred a worm—or should I say snake?—to her sweet young innocence. Or perhaps you think every woman is an odalisque at heart? That Miss Meriwether merely got what she would have sooner or later deserved.’’

  The merry light in Thornton’s green eyes vanished. “What occurred between Eloise Meriwether and me is no concern of yours!”

  I was unsettled by his failure to refute Philo’s provocative questions. Apparently Philo interpreted this as agreement. Realizing he had wrested the upper hand from his cousin, he pressed his advantage. The very model of gentlemanly assurance and rectitude, he raised his blond eyebrows. “Come now. Thorn, I was there. I saw you and Roxelana twined around each other—”

  “She was dancing, not I! It lasted such a short time.” Despite his dark scowl he seemed almost to be pleading.

  “It lasted long enough for Eloise, and for everyone else who saw you that night, including Uncle Charles. That woman of his mesmerized you, Thorn. It’s a wonder he ever made you executor of his estate.”

  “And as such, I have a monumentally time-consuming task you are not making any easier. By God, if there were any way—”

  “Any way you could prevent me from inheriting Hawkscliffe?”

  “You have no reason to think that, Philo!”

  “No? You and your pinch-penny ways will leave me nothing to inherit. Why do you suppose I didn’t ask your permission to have the Hawkscliffe rug collection catalogued? I knew they were the finest things in the house. I didn’t want to run the risk of you selling them to some itinerant Armenian—sorry, Miss Mackenzie!—for a few dollars to pay the butcher and fill the coal bin.”

  “C.Q.’s will tied my hands, you know that!”

  The two men fell silent, the only sound their heavy breathing. I pushed back my chair to escape.

  “Please, Miss Mackenzie, stay,” Philo said, moving his untouched bowl of pudding to one side. “My appetite has quite deserted me. If you decide you do not wish to remain at Hawkscliffe I will of course understand. If you do, I will meet you in the library tomorrow after breakfast.” He bowed stiffly and departed.

  Unsure of what to do, I looked up at Thornton Ramsay, who had also risen to his feet. He looked down at me with eyes still glittering with the emotion stirred by the clash I had just witnessed. Pacing restlessly, he grabbed the poker and jabbed at the slumbering embers in the grate behind me. The taut vitality of his movements both frightened and exhilarated me, and although he failed to arouse more than a dull red glow in the burned-out logs, I felt scorched as if by leaping flames. When he sat down again I felt a twinge of regret. The tiger was back in his cage.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thornton reached for the decanter.

  “Welcome to Hawkscliffe,” he said with a twisted smile devoid of amusement. “Here, have some more wine.”

  A few sips steadied my nerves, and I found myself reconsidering my impulse to flee. The Hawkscliffe rug catalog would establish me in a highly competitive trade in my own right; it would be foolish to abandon it. Henceforth I would pretend I was watching a play whose conflicts I could walk away from any time I chose, despite Cora Banks’s attempt to assign me an unfair and unwanted role in this unfolding drama. I cleared my throat.

  “I have decided to stay on after all, Mr. Ramsay. Your cousin has accepted my professional qualifications; the least I can do is respect his trust in me. But it would be more pleasant if I could initiate a truce between Miss Banks and me for the remainder of my stay. Perhaps if I had a clearer understanding of her position here I would be better able to avoid displeasing her.”

  My companion’s mood brightened as I made my earnest little speech. At its conclusion, he threw back his head and laughed.

  “Good girl! As you know, I do not think Philo’s decision to have the rug collection catalogued was his to make, but now that you’re here.... Well, I’ll admit I hoped the starch in your pretty spine would stiffen up again.”

  Although I wasn’t sure I cared for his familiarity, Thornton Ramsay’s approval pleased me more than I cared to allow.

  He leaned toward me, slowly turning his wineglass in his long fingers. “So, now that you’ve chosen to cast your lot with us here, there is all the more reason for you to know what you’re getting into. The truth is, I doubt if it ever occurred to Cora that C.Q. had little use for a handmaiden distracted by her own talent. By the time C.Q. departed with your uncle for Constantinople, no fabled sovereign could have wished for a more loyal retainer than Cora.”

  “His wife had left by then?”

  “Oh, yes. Cora had become quite adept at fending off Louise’s intrusions into C.Q.’s studio, and when Lulu departed with the housekeeper in tow, Cora promptly extended her domain to the entire house.”

  I suspected not many people addressed as ‘Lulu’ the aristocratic woman he had described earlier, yet Thornton, who could have been hardly more than a boy at the time, had twice referred to her thus. But, deciding it would be imprudent to pry, I prodded instead.

  “I guess, then, that despite C.Q.’s notorious philandering, his return home accompanied by Roxelana came as a bit of a surprise?”

  Thornton laughed. “Surprise? Oh, yes.” His eyes crinkled appealingly at the comers, softening the somber effect of the deeper grooves that bracketed his wide mouth. “Roxelana rocked the boat to a fare-thee-well. She was no giddy girl or common adventuress to be discouraged by Cora’s snapping at her heels. You see, the Hudson River School’s tide in the art world had turned, and I suspect C.Q. welcomed the distraction provided by building a palace for his lady love with the fortune his talents had earned him. During that period she never left his side. She was like a vine around an aging pillar, clinging yet sustaining its eroding host.”

  He paused for a long, brooding moment. Perhaps it was the wine, but I found myself fascinated by every nuance of his expression, every inclination of his dark head and the play of his strong hands as they curved gently around the stem of his glass or cut the air to emphasize his words.

  “Most of the excesses you have observed here at Hawkscliffe are Roxelana’s,” he continued, encompassing the room with a scimitar sweep of his long fingers. “I imagine she expected C.Q. to marry her, but he made it very clear one marriage had been more than enough for him. Besides, he was the type of man for whom a wife isn’t nearly as exciting as a mistress. So she made sure, somehow, she would be his last mistress, and in the end she mastered him.” Thornton Ramsay’s lip curled. “C.Q. had ridden roughshod over everyone his entire adult life, so it seems only fitting he end his days with the imprint of her dainty hooves on his back.”

  “I’m surprised Roxelana didn’t get rid of Cora.”

  “Oh, she tried, but Cora knew C.Q.’s needs and habits too well. So Roxelana shrewdly decided that if she couldn’t replace Cora she could at least displace her, by physically removing her to the cottage, a remnant of the former estate, where she now lives. She was still the housekeeper, mind you, but from dinner until dawn Roxelana had C.Q. and the house to herself.”

  He burst out laughing. “Cora vented her rage on the shrubbery. I remember seeing her scurrying about, grubbing out overgrown forsythia and rhododendron plantings with her bare hands. Time and events have tamed her frustration, Miss Mackenzie; it readily comes to heel now except when she is reminded of Roxelana by anything she associates, rightly or wrongly, with her: your uncle, for example, and the dogs. You attracted the lightning merely by association. But part of it is due to her worry about her prospects. If only C.Q. had had time to change his will....”

  The wine made me bold. “I know it is none of my business, but hasn’t his estate taken an unusually long time to settle? It must be at least seve
n years since your uncle died. I recall how very depressed Uncle Vartan became when he read the obituary, and it was only about a week later that he announced his intention to adopt me—as a safeguard, he said.” I paused, wondering for the first time why he had thought a safeguard necessary. At the time, I was too thrilled to give it much thought.

  Thornton Ramsay stared at me. The intensity of his green eyes as he gazed deep into mine shallowed my breathing. My hair seemed suddenly too thick and warm to bear, and as I reached up to sweep the weight of it from my neck I could feel the thudding swell of the pulse in my throat under my trembling fingers.

  “You really don’t know, do you?” His expression conveyed, oddly, relief as well as surprise. “Seven years ago, C.Q. learned Roxelana had a lover. It was the one transgression he would not, could not, countenance.

  “According to Cora, Uncle Charles and Roxelana had a flaming row. Roxelana then fled Hawkscliffe—to join her lover presumably—and a week later C.Q died before he had a chance to change the will that left everything to her. This estate, his paintings, his New York property—everything.

  “Roxelana hasn’t been seen or heard of since, and in ten days she will have been missing exactly seven years. That’s why Philo and I are here; that’s why I thought you were here. In ten blissfully short days, in the courthouse in Hendryk, Roxelana will be declared legally dead, and the disposition of the estate finally determined.’’ He raised his eyes to heaven and lifted his glass in a mockery of gratitude. “Hallelujah!”

  “What a heartless thing to say.”

  “You never knew her, Miss Mackenzie,” he returned, frowning darkly.

  “She was a human being, that’s all I need to know.” I could feel the blood drain from my cheeks. I pushed my chair back angrily, but before I could rise, Thornton’s strong brown hand reached across to grasp my wrist. His fingers tightened on it like bands of iron.

  “Hear me out, Katherine Mackenzie. That greedy parasite has cost me seven years of my life! Seven years of trying to maintain this absurd folly; seven years of fending off preposterous claimants—why, I’ve been petitioned by enough so-called long-lost relatives to populate a small Turkish village! Heartless, am I? I’m sick to death of Hawkscliffe, of Cora’s pinched face, of Philo’s suffering in not-quite-silence, and of Harry’s swaggering bluster. If that blasted woman dares to turn up at the hearing to claim her inheritance after seven long years of silence, I swear I’ll strangle her with my bare hands.”