Blind Man's Bluff (Ace Of Spades Book 1), page 9
“I hope I have not proven to be the brute or monster that you had feared to protect your sisters from?” He tried to keep his voice gentle, he didn’t wish for her to know how deeply her confession had struck him.
“No,” she said with a smile, “You have been a dream.” She raised her head to offer up a kiss, not certain where to find his lips and he answered her call properly with a kiss.
“You cannot remove your memories of that lad from your life, nor would I ask such a brutish thing of you, but I hope you will be willing to let us create our own memoirs from here on. And perhaps we may one day find a kind of love for each other.
It was an offering she had not anticipated from him and happily kissed him again over his waiting lips and then again and again, until he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him and returning her kisses with the same endearment and love.
Chapter Seven
A New Day With New Possibilities
The smell of fresh coffee and toast filled Gwen with the welcoming warmth of a new day. Floating in her soft bedding she stretched her arms over her head, giving a satisfied moan and groan to the pleasant ache that she had grown so familiar with. They had made love through the night and like so many other nights he abandoned her sometime during the night while she slept, leaving her to awaken alone and with her blindfold on the bedside table. After three weeks of marriage this had begun to be routine for her.
“Good morning, Madame.” Gale walked into the room, carrying a tray in her hands. She smiled and hummed a sweet melody that was familiar to her, something she had heard playing at the local saloon.
“Good morning Gale, I am pleased to see you in such good spirits this morning.” She pushed herself up in the bed, pulled on her bed jacket, which was hanging on the headboard of the bed where he had left it the night before. The bed jacket closed in front, tying it with a thin ribbon concealing her nudity from the maid, preserving some modesty.
Gale placed the breakfast tray on the small table beside the window as had become the custom, while Gwen reached for her robe and pulled it on so that she could walked to the table and stake her claim on the velvet covered seat and lifted her cup up to her lips. The fragrant steam soothed her mind and she sighed before closing her eyes and taking her first sip of the day. For the first few days she had enjoyed the chocolate in the morning, but found that while the rich drink was delicious, she missed the coffee that she used to make in the morning for her father. Perhaps it was just a small reminder of other things she missed.
The thick curtains still blocked out the sunlight and she was tempted to take a peek out at the new day, but as she’d learned her first morning in the house, it was better to wait for Gale to draw the curtain once Caspian had left for the day rather than risk seeing him. So, she sat there, waiting, like a good wife, thinking about her day ahead and what she had planned, but then it occurred to her, she had no plans, no daily activity to define her days, just as it had always been since she’d married. It was as if she had entered into a lifelong holiday and the realization was disturbing. She was only a girl when her mother died, but the responsibility had fallen onto her shoulders to be the responsible stable woman in her sisters lives and later in her fathers. At 16 all her hopes of marrying had been taken away from her and instead her focus and energy was directed on her sisters, and later her father’s business. Now, she was left in a position where she was no longer a contributor, but solely a taker and that didn’t settle well with her.
For the past three weeks she had spent her days reading her husband’s collection of Scientific journals and delved into the extensive library in the house, but she was growing weary of this mundane existence and needed to add some kind of purpose to her days other than planning a household menu for meals that she ate alone and making love to her husband at night. In their time together she had been open and free to discuss anything with him and there had been no restrictions to her daily activity as long as she stayed within the parameters of her oath to Caspian and that oath was wearing on her. If he could offer up a reason for asking such a thing of her, but instead she was kept in the dark just as her blindfold did.
Imagination served as a cruel bedfellow under these conditions offering her up serval scenarios as to what his reasoning was and she was constantly left with the thought that his work in the oil fields had left him disfigured in some way. When she touched him his face was smooth, and when she kissed him, his skin was soft under her lips, but there had to have been something that she was not able to notice.
A disturbance outside caught Gwen’s attention and when she took a risk, she lifted the corner of one curtain to see out, she watched the man dressed in black with a hat on his head riding away. It took little effort to figure out who it was that was riding away and shortly after Gale knocked on the door and came in to draw the curtains. The time had come for her to wander freely about the house giving Gwen a chance to explore for something that might inspire her, but she had already taken note of the contents in the library and she had already read the collection of science journals in the study… she needed something new.
Lingering outside the study she heard a noise down the hall and watched Hamish leave the office with a tray in one hand, holding an empty plate and a cup. Judging by the evidence, her husband had been hard at work that morning before he left. Hamish closed the door behind him but juggling with the tray in one hand he was not able to dig out the key to the door from his vest pocket and so abandoned the venture in lieu of carrying the tray to dispose of in the kitchen.
It was odd to be sneaking about a house that she was meant to be the lady of, managing every aspect from staff to social events, but this home was unlike any other and it ran by rules like Gwen had never known. Before Hamish returned, she slipped into the office and closed the door behind her, not certain what she would say if anyone caught her in there or in truth why she wanted to be there in the first place. The office was similar to her fathers, a long desk in one corner with shelves filled with books from floor to ceiling and a tilted drafting desk on the other side of the room. Curious as to what she would find, she looked over the contents of the tiled desk and found construction plans and drawings, similar to what had been created when her father rebuilt the mill, but a map with three red circles drawn close together proved to her that this was not her father’s mill, it was indeed plans for a mill, but none that she knew. The circles on the map left her in a quandary as well, one identified her father’s mill, that she knew well, and another looked to be the general area of Duncan Saddle’s logging camp, but she wasn’t certain, and the third left her completely in the dark, in the middle of the forest as far as she knew. In truth, she was confident with her identification of the other two circles.
The drawing and plans were clear to her and offered up a plan for a hydra powered saw, similar to what her father used, but this system was a bit more normal. One detail caught her attention, the size of the band for the saw was similar to what they had used at her father’s mill, but it had failed and broken injuring two men. She had proposed a change in equipment before the small accident, but her father refused to listen, she thought that perhaps her husband would not be as pig headed and if he didn’t know who made the modification, then there was a chance he wouldn’t notice it at all. She took a pen from the desk, dipped it in the ink well and then neatly made the modification on the plans adding a one to where the number had been cut short. One fix brought on three more as she read through the plans and took notice of other errors. It was possible that she was overly confident as to what her husband would see as an opportunity to correct mistakes waiting to happen.
When Gwen felt that she had finished her job she was still pondering over whether or not she should leave a note or some indication that she had seen the plans drawn up but thought better of it. While she did not know what the third circle indicated or what mill these plans were for, she had her obvious suspicions and chose instead to leave her modifications in place and take the map with her to discuss things with him later. Folding that paper up she had a change of mind and went to take the plans with her as well, but then there was a commotion outside in the hall and what sounded like the front door. Gwen leaned her head against the door and soon heard footsteps coming her way. She looked around the room, frantic for what to do and then she saw it, a closet beside a bookcase. Opening the door, she was dismayed to find very little room available for her, but she managed to contort herself inside around the objects and boxes inside, closing the door just seconds before the office door opened. The voices were muffled, but one she recognized as her husband and the other was familiar, but not one she could put her finger on. They spoke for a short time, but the thickness of the closet door muffled their voices to a point where she could not make out any word spoken, though she assumed that it was to do with the plans on the tilted drafting desk. When at last the door to the office opened and closed again Gwen was able to breathe a sigh a relief and waited for a moment to ensure that they were not coming back.
One door at a time she stepped out of the closet, unfolding herself from the cramped pose she had taken inside. There was some indication that her husband and his guest had been at work on the drafting desk, the plans were moved from where she had last seen them and the one she had modified with her notes was gone. Terror clenched at her heart when she realized she had not only given a possible competitor a leg up on her father, but that she might have revealed to Caspian that she had been spying in his office. Standing by the door leading to the hallway she waited until she could hear the front door close and then removed herself quickly from the room and fled the hallway through the back staircase beside the kitchen where she could hide away in her room lest anyone should see her suspiciously lingering outside her husband’s office door.
But rounding the banister of the stairs a shadow caught her eye, it moved quickly out of view and she wondered if it had simply been a trick her eyes were playing on her, or something that she should best fear.
“Madame,” Gale entered the study interrupting Gwen’s solitude, “The master, he just gave Joseph his horse and will be inside shortly.”
There was no need for the maid to say anything else, Gwen knew what it was that Gale had come to tell her and she obediently pulled the blindfold out of the small purse hanging at her waist and waited patiently for him to enter. It was an odd time of day for him to return home, though the same could be said for when he’d made that impromptu visit to his office a few hours earlier. If she were to judge by his city routine, she still had another two hours before he was to drive home and change clothes for his nightly visit to the gambling hall. She didn’t know what he was about every day while the sun was up, but the map that she had tucked inside the bodice of her dress gave her some indication and she was preparing herself to ask him a direct question for a change.
“Afternoon dear wife,” he announced his presence in the room and walked up behind her, kissing her cheek before taking a seat himself. “How have you been today? Keeping yourself busy?”
“A bit.” She wasn’t prepared for this, no amount of rehearsing her words in her head had made her ready to face him head on and blindfolded with no indication of how he would take her questions.
“Anything new come across your plate today?” he asked, hinting at something, but so vague that she could not be certain if he were referring to the plans and she decided to play dumb about for the time being.
“I fear that if you were hoping for a change in the menu, you will be disappointed.” Had this been a normal life she would have diverted her attention to a book or some other activity, but that kind of normalcy had been denied to her since she’d said, “I do”. For one side of the chair she leaned, fighting against the growing frustration in her, but she was caged, trapped in the confines of this blindfold. How could she begin to protest the evil she suspected of him while she was bound in a constant submissive state.
“I sense tension?” He was proving to be as observant as always.
“Perhaps discomfort and frustration,” she muttered under her breath.
“Please elaborate,” he encouraged her, “A marriage is nothing if we cannot be honest with each other. Tell me, are you unsatisfied wife?”
“How can a caged bird sing with her beak muzzled?” there was silence, “Why am I not permitted a sense of normalcy, I cannot very well offer you an honest argument to anything when I am not even permitted to see you.”
“That I cannot allow. Not until I am certain I can trust you.”
“Trust? That is an interesting choice of words. You blind me as a test of my loyalty to you, and yet you fail to offer up any compromise on the subject when I have a protest of my own.”
There was a silence that translated to her how something she had said had struck a chord. When at last he spoke, she could hear pain in his voice.
“You have a protest to present? Are you unhappy with me?” The question was spoken with deep sincerity in the tone, though she couldn’t be certain without seeing that sincerity in his eyes. “There are couples where one is completely blind and they share a trust, as deep, if not more, of a connection and love than any other. Why cannot that be the same here?”
“Because you blinded me on our wedding day!” She dropped her fist down on the arm of the chair with all her might, demanding that her argument be heard and recognized. “How can you expect so much of me at once and demand not a single argument in my defense.” He tried to give her the same excuse of trust, but she had had her fill of that fairytale. “Trust! And what amount of trust can be said when my husband is at the center of a conspiracy!” She pulled out the map and whipped it in the air like a flag of attack.
“Enough!” His response had a commanding venom that she was not accustomed to and struck her like a hand across the face.
There was a shift in the room, movement that she had come to sense and blindly searched out for it, instinctively turning her head despite her inability to see. Two hands held the side of her head, turning her to face forward, and despite the secure hold he had on her, it didn’t hurt or give her a moment to fear of harm. He was assertive, but under control.
“Do not turn your head,” he ordered, the cold tone in his voice was as sharp as a blade, but to her surprise he followed his instruction with pulling the bow on the back of her head loose, letting the blindfold fall into her lap and he stroked the side of her face with the back of his hand. “Now, open your eyes and tell me what it is that has you so upset? … or should we discuss what you were doing in my office today, despite Hamish keeping the door locked?”
All the air in her lungs was sucked out and Gwen found herself incapable of speaking. The shadow she had seen earlier that day was just as she had feared, he had seen her leaving his office and sneaking upstairs like a thief in the night. She cautiously blinked her eyes open, not certain what to expect and waited out in silence until she herd his footsteps retreat behind her but stopping short before reaching the door followed by a scraping sound over the hardwood floor that she could only assume was him dragging a chair into place behind her.
“I was only exploring. Looking around this house for some kind of amusement or distraction.” She realized how juvenile she sounded, but it was the truth. “You have locked me away here for three weeks, my only escape is a lonely horseback ride, provided I return before you do for fear that I may not have this blasted blindfold in place. I very well cannot ride with this over my eyes.” He waved the item in question in the air, letting the ends fall behind her shoulder to ensure that he understood it was directed at him. “I am locked away here alone, no friends, or my sisters to keep me company, we are completely disconnected from the town and I am drowning in this banishment.”
“I am sorry that you feel so alone, but for this you saw it necessary to spy on me?”
“No,” she snapped quickly to her own defense, “I was only looking out of innocent curiosity. I have already read through your collection of journals in here and most of your library is frivolous stories that do not interest me.”
“Frivolous?” that had caught his interest.
“Not all women swoon at a romance. I enjoy some, but in general I prefer something with more substance.” She felt as though she weren’t just defending herself but taking a stand for her sex.
“I am sorry to hear that, most of those books are there for my own enjoyment, including many of those love stories, I only added to the collection recently for your own pleasure. Had I known that I had married such a practical woman I wouldn’t have taken the time.” He sounded hurt, but she couldn’t understand why. “Do not ladies enjoying falling back on the grass off a moor with a book in hand and losing themselves in a story of knights and maidens and of the pains and struggles of love?”
“Yes, but when I was a girl, women grow up and take on more practical interests.” In a moment of frustration, she reached to the side and pushed the stack of scientific journals off of the table beside her. “I hope I possess more depth in my character than how you generalize me!”
In her outrage, she did not hear him approach and was startled once again when he placed a hand over her face, guiding her to close her eyes and instructing her to keep them closed for a moment. She didn’t know what he was doing, until he told her to open them again and found the journals cleaned up from the floor and once again stacked on the table beside her, but with a large, folded piece of paper sitting on top.
“I am well aware that you are more than some frivolous story as you call them, but I see no problem in occasionally enjoying one for simple entertainment.” He was silent for a moment and she picked up the paper, but knew what it was before she even finished unfolding it, her own handwriting was difficult to not see. He had found her notes after all. “Not only did you spy on me and steal that map from my office, but you saw fit to change those plans. Why? Was your intention to sabotage me? Is this part of your father’s plot?”
