Wild Wind Westward Page 16

  “I believe this is a good sign,” Gustav whispered, as they followed several servants and a baggage-bearing footman up the grand staircase. Gustav seemed only mildly surprised, and Kristin was quite relieved, when they were shown to separate bedrooms, at opposite ends of the third story. And, once inside her room, Kristin was delighted.

  The room was fully twice as large as the house in which she had grown up in Lesja, with her brothers and sisters scrapping and fighting for space. The bed was wide as a cornfield, canopied in yellow silk, with tassels hanging down; a fireplace stretched across one wall. Deep, lush couches waited beneath windows that looked out upon the blue-green glitter of Daredale in summer, a luxuriant piece of paradise, an island, a safe haven of soft mossy murmurs, verdurous gloom, and easy sunlight drowsy on peaceful leaves. Enchanted, she drank in the beauty for a while, then moved to find what the closets contained, what further wonders lay behind the three evenly spaced doors on the wall opposite the fireplace.

  She tried the first one, but it did not open.

  Nor did the second.

  Well, doubtless, the closets contained wonderful gowns, the finest in satin, silk, and fur. Why should they not be locked?

  But she tried the third door anyway, turned the knob easily, swung the door open.

  Half-smiling, arms crossed, leaning indolently against a row of plush dark capes that hung from hooks in the closet like the drooping wings of dead bats, the man met Kristin’s eyes. It was not as if he had been waiting there; it was as if he had suddenly appeared there. She was too startled even to cry out, although, an instant later, she raced for the bedroom door.

  It, too, was locked.

  When she turned to face him again, she found that he had not moved, but the smile had been replaced by a bright bold grin.

  “Kristin,” he said, still not moving, “how do you do? I am Anthony Soames. Welcome to my house.”

  He came out of the closet, closed the door behind him. No taller than Kristin herself, he was markedly slender, but with square shoulders of respectable width. He wore black riding boots, tan breeches, and a red hunting coat. “So it is true,” he said quietly, in a voice deeper than one might have expected from a man so slight, a voice oddly soft as well, “so it is true, you are as lovely as I had been told to expect.”

  “What?” she asked, as he came toward her. “By whom?”

  “Why,” he replied, smiling that suggestive smile again, “by your husband, of course.”

  Mention of Gustav nerved her to regain self-control, a self-control somewhat shattered by Soames’s bizarre entrance. Now she thought she knew what Gustav had been hinting about all this time: Soames was going to use her for delight. Giving that delight was her part in gaining the loan for the Rolfsons.

  “Your husband and I, naturally, have been corresponding for some time,” Soames was saying, as his eyes moved up and down her body. She was grateful for the neck-to-ankle travelling cloak, but, at the same time, conscious of how her body pressed against its fabric. “And, naturally, too, reports of your beauty reached me from Cowes and Southend-on-Sea, and—”

  “Unlock this door,” she told him.

  “What?” he asked, quite surprised. He was unused to being told to do anything.

  “I said, unlock this door and let me out of here. What on earth is in your mind, anyway?”

  Like a spoiled child, he flared and whined: “Do you know what you’re saying, and to whom you’re saying it?”

  “Yes. Somebody named Anthony Soames, from whom my husband wishes to borrow a great deal of money.”

  Soames came closer. He was directly in front of her now. She could feel his breath, and even the heat of his body. But she could not read his expression. His moods shifted quickly. He was no longer angry, but what he was she could not gauge. His lean body was probably quite strong, she thought, but if he tried any kind of assault upon her, she was perfectly capable of putting up a struggle.

  He seemed to guess her thoughts. “So you think I want you,” he said, laughing easily.

  Unsure how to reply—to say yes would be presumptuous, to say no would be, faintly, debasing—she shifted her ground: “What does one expect from a man who links in closets?”

  Again, his anger flared. “I’ll not loan your precious husband a ha’penny!”

  “Then don’t.”

  Soames could not believe what she had said. “You don’t care?”

  “I have lived through many things without money. And I can live without yours.”

  Now he was truly studying her, face to face for the first time in his wealthy, luxurious life with a spirit whose independence and fire he could not fathom.

  “I think you are lying,” he said, at length, still watching her. “I have had many wives and mistresses in this room. It is my test, so to speak, my litmus cloth of the human animal. The husband or lover, driven almost to idiocy by my delays and ruses, is resting blissfully in his room at the far end of the corridor. His mistress or wife, greed riddled as he, finds me in this room. I make my promise, and then I receive whatever I demand.”

  Kristin was appalled at his arrogance. “There is nothing you can promise me, nothing that I want from you.”

  The dim smile reappeared. “Divest yourself of that cloak,” he said, “go to bed. I shall join you and you will pleasure me in every way, hands and mouth, body and lips, and your husband will receive his loan.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You had better, or I will mark your face exactly as your husband’s is marked.”

  Kristin felt fear for a second. Lord Soames did not seem the kind of man who made idle threats. But anger overrode fear. “If you try that,” she said, “we shall see what part of you is scarred as well.”

  Once more he was amused. “Hah!” he cried. “A Nordic spitfire. By the by, how did your husband receive such a terrible cut?”

  “Another man gave it to him. In a fight”

  Soames considered this. “Was the fight over you?”

  Kristin admitted that it had been.

  “So, this Rolfson is more a man than I had expected. And he won you, too, did he?”

  “So it appears,” Kristin said.

  Suddenly, unnervingly, young Lord Soames began to laugh. At first it was a deep, clackety rattle, down in his throat but it rose in volume until he was fairly gasping with glee.

  “You are…you are wondering at my mirth?” he managed, collecting himself after a time.

  “Such curiosity does not seem unreasonable.”

  “No, no, I suppose it does not. Who was the other man?”

  “What?”

  “The man who marked your husband’s face.”

  “A mountaineer, whose land was taken from him.”

  “By whom?”

  Kristin looked him in the eye and did not lie.

  “Rolfson, eh? Did you love this other man?”

  “I did. I do.”

  Soames seemed to think about it. “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. In America, I hope.”

  “Ahhh! In America. Your husband wants loans so that he can build a business in America, and you know your lover is there—or think he may be there—and yet you would not go to bed with me, even if my money bought you passage, so to speak?”

  “That is correct,” she told him. “There are some things I will not do.”

  He reached for her, grabbed her upper arm. His grip was surprisingly strong, brutal, and she cried out.

  “I could force you to do my will,” he said. “I could have my servants hold you down. I am perfectly capable of having you degraded and debased and whipped until you should come crawling across the floor.”

  “That may be true, but, free and of my own will, you shall not have me, no.”

  Soames released her arm, and a playful light danced behind his eyes. “So,” he said, almost to himself, “you have been tested. Now it is your husband’s turn. We shall see, we shall see.”

  Kristin and Gustav di
ned that night at Daredale, dined alone on succulent fish chowder, asparagus, roast pork with barley, candied potatoes, and Stilton cheese. Lord Soames did not appear.

  “What happened? What happened?” Gustav demanded. “I became restless, and walked about upstairs. I saw a man leaving your chamber.”

  “That was he. Soames.”

  Gustav was fairly beside himself with excitement. “What did he say? What did he want?”

  “He said very little. Something about testing me. He wanted to take me to bed.”

  Gustav was not especially startled. “Thank God. You did as he expected, I hope?”

  “No, I refused him.”

  “What? Refused him? Oh, good Christ! I hinted to you that he was said to have strange ways. What are you? A peasant ninny? A mountaineer’s fool daughter?”

  “Neither,” she replied, fighting to maintain her customary neutrality in his presence. “But do not worry, husband. All is not lost”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No, he said he had tested me, and that now he will test you.”

  Gustav sagged with relief. “Oh, thank God.” He sighed. “You can be sure I won’t fail him as you did.”

  Gustav’s spirits, raised briefly upon learning that he would be given some chance to prove himself, soon fell again. Three days passed, four, five. He and Kristin rode, played tennis and croquet, read, walked, dined. But it was as if they were phantom guests in a mystery house, long since abandoned by its master. Soames was nowhere to be seen. Finally, after they’d been a week at Daredale, nine men, officers at Soames’s London bank, came down from the city to hear Gustav’s formal presentation. Kristin was invited to the meeting, at the specific request of Lord Soames, who was, again, absent. She saw the way the bankers looked at her; she felt their eyes even when she was looking elsewhere, lost in thought or when she followed Gustav’s speech.

  And he spoke well. Whatever his personal qualms and uncertainties, he knew the worth of Rolfson collateral, the vast mineral deposits along the Rauma valley, beneath the Lesja mountains. He had the reports of surveyors, he had titles, deeds, timetables, plan after plan. The bankers were clearly impressed, and so was Kristin, who drank in every bit of information.

  “And, in America,” droned a stodgy, goutish old factotum in a pearl waistcoat “what is your proposed area of investment?”

  Gustav unrolled a huge map, and spread it out upon the table. He bade the bankers leave their chairs for a look.

  “Oil,” he said, pointing to a map of Pennsylvania, in the United States. “I am going to invest in oil, recently discovered right here!” He pointed to a little town called Titusville, close to Lake Erie. “I intend to get there first, fastest strongest. In years to come oil will run the world’s machines, and new machines of which, right now, we cannot even dream.”

  A few of the older bankers snickered, but not many of them.

  “It’s a great risk,” one commented.

  “Dare,” said Gustav, not without wit.

  The bankers smiled. They knew their master was not without a hunger for the speculative edge. Indeed, he thrived on risk, especially if the collateral covered any possible losses. And Gustav had collateral.

  “How much do you think you would need?” the old factotum asked.

  “Five million pounds sterling,” snapped Gustav.

  The bankers let out a collective gasp, followed by an awed hush. Five million pounds exceeded the combined annual budget of the British army and navy.

  At length the bankers rose and departed Daredale for their return trip to London.

  “Lord Soames will give you his answer in due course,” they told Gustav.

  That night Gustav acted like a triumphant king, like a wild, victorious knight. He took Kristin Once, then took her again. Not long before dawn she awakened to find him enjoying her once more, but lay still beneath his furious, closed-eyed, intensely private assault. He dreamed of gold and glory, she of Viking axes, age and love and time. When he had done with her, she was hungry for nothing but more sleep.

  London thrilled Kristin to the soles of her feet, the marrow of her bones. Surpassing even the excitement of her ride from Dover aboard the new “iron horse” was the panorama of London itself, sprawling along the Thames, populated by every manner and type of human being conceived in the mind of God or man. And then there were the buildings, the churches—Westminster, Whitehall, St. Paul’s, Buckingham Palace—of which she vaguely recalled seeing pictures in her little mountain school.

  “Is it not grand?” she asked Gustav, as Soames’s carriage brought them to his sedate, expensive city home in St. John’s Wood.

  “What? Ah, yes, yes it is,” Gustav agreed distractedly.

  He was worried about the “test” Lord Soames had mentioned to Kristin; he did not intend to fail.

  Neither Gustav nor Kristin was surprised, however, to learn that Soames was not in residence. They had become inured to his enigmatic appearances and departures. The house, small but more opulent than Daredale, was fully staffed, that their every whim might be met, and several attractive young men, friends of the lord, were stopping there as well. The young men, one French, one Greek, one English, were bright and witty, and were charmed by Kristin’s beauty. Dinner conversations were quick and amusing, which fact irritated the stolid Gustav, but he found no true reason for complaint, as the young men treated Kristin with utmost respect, even deference. Obviously Lord Soames had informed them she was not to be bothered.

  During the days, Gustav brooded and worked, while one or two of the men ordered up the carriage and took Kristin lunching or shopping in London. The French youth, Pierre LaValle, took her one afternoon to a stage play, a musical called Her Majesty’s Holiday, and afterward to tea. They were drinking tea, and chatting about the play, which had been occasionally hilarious and sometimes faintly risqué, when LaValle let fall that Lord Soames would be at the house upon their return. He seemed excited by the prospect.

  “I owe him everything,” he told her. “He is a strange man, often petulant, but if he loves you, he will do everything for you.”

  Kristin was a little startled at the passion with which he spoke. Did Pierre mean Soames had fallen in love with her?

  As if guessing her thoughts, or perhaps reading her expression, Pierre laughed soothingly. “No, no,” he said, “I did not mean that. He loves me. He also loves Vitas and Rob”—these were the Greek and English lads—“but he loves me best. You understand?” he asked, with an air at once defiant and pensive.

  Yes, Kristin understood. She had heard of such things.

  “Did your husband truly receive that terrible scar from a man you love?” Pierre demanded suddenly.

  Kristin had the strange feeling that Soames might have put Pierre up to asking this question, as if he might be trying to catch her in a lie or a contradiction.

  “Yes,” she said, “it is true.”

  Pierre seemed impressed by the fact, or possibly by the violence implicit in the scar, but the afternoon was ebbing.

  “We must return now to the house,” he said. “The lord has entertainment planned for tonight.”

  When they reached St. John’s Wood, Kristin entered the house and went up to her room to bathe and dress for dinner. As at Daredale she and Gustav had been quartered separately, so she was surprised to see him in her own room, slouched in an easy chair. He leaped to his feet as soon as she entered, and waved a piece of paper in her face. He was furious. She had never seen him so angry, and anger was an emotion with which he was not unfamiliar.

  “I demand an explanation!” he raged. “Close the door. Let us have it out.”

  “Have what out, husband?” she asked, sweetly. She thought, somehow, he might be angry because she had spent so much time with Pierre.

  But it was not that. She took the paper from him, and read. The actual words were bland, obviously meant to be, but between the lines was much.

  July 26, 1861

  New York

  M
y Dear Kristin,

  It is not my wish to intrude upon your life, should this not be your desire, but to let you know that I am well and safe. The life is hard, but not without prospect, and you might well think to see these shores one day, should the chance come to you. The Norwegian consulate is most cooperative to visitors, in every respect. I think often of home, and the beauty of Sonnendahl Fjord.

  Most sincerely,

  E. Gunnarson

  By the time she finished reading, Kristin’s heart was pounding with hope and joy. Eric had told her that he still loved her, wished she were with him. He had told her that he wanted her in America, and where in New York to get in touch with him: the consulate. And he had mentioned Sonnendahl Fjord, where they had consumed each other, and the image of one another, in a mystical ceremony, the magic of which would endure forever. Kristin decided to take the offensive.

  “What is this?” she demanded of him. “Opening my private correspondence?”

  “It arrived in the pouch of business mail,” he explained. Then, realizing he had sounded slightly defensive, changed tack.

  “Private correspondence!” he raged. “With a murdering pauper. It is the duty of a husband to make certain his wife does not court foolishness!”

  “How responsible and considerate of you.”

  “You will not return his message!”

  There was no point in discussing it. “As you wish, my husband,” she agreed softly.

  He ripped the note to shreds. “The gall of the man. The boldness. He has sought aid, or some such, at our own consulate in New York. Why did not our diplomatic personnel note his name? They ought to have. He is a criminal in Norway. A criminal, a murderer!”