Dark Surrender (4 page)

He studied her so intently that she shifted uncomfortably against the hardwood pew.

“Come,” he said, shocking her speechless when he offered his elbow as smartly as if he were a London lordling accompanying his ladylove to dinner. “It is late. And just moments ago, I was informed that my daughter is still very much awake. As I shall have to put Lillian abed anew, you may as well meet her and decide your future for yourself.”

Lillian. The name on the grave. Violet’s heart pounded double-time.

There was no daughter. He had lied.

And yet, her best hope for food and shelter was to play along. To bide her time until escape was possible. Even as she slipped unsteady fingers between the heat of his body and the taut muscle beneath his shirtsleeve, she couldn’t help but suspect this new risk was far more dangerous than any she’d managed to live through yet.

CHAPTER THREE

Violet allowed Mr. Waldegrave to help her rise from the edge of the pew. His manservant hovered just behind, holding aloft a freshly lit taper. Her limbs trembled as much from anxiety as hunger-induced frailty.

In the corridor, Mr. Waldegrave kept her fingers tucked against the crook of his elbow. Although she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him—and in her current condition, she doubted she could throw so much as a breadcrumb—it was disconcerting to realize that this was the first time a gentleman had ever held out his arm for her. She despised her weakness at even noticing the solid warmth of his bicep beneath her fingertips. It was no doubt the novelty, and not the man himself, she found so intriguing. She hoped he realized any reliance on his aid was due to her swollen ankle, and not to any girlish fancy.

But what fancy did
he
suffer? The warmth in his eyes when he spoke of his daughter had not been feigned. And yet, the name he had given matched that of the grave behind the abbey. Either her would-be employer had named his daughter after a dead woman, or the girl she was about to meet was someone other than Lillian Waldegrave. A doppelganger meant to replace the dead Lillian Waldegrave?

No. Certainly she was overreacting from fatigue. If there was a daughter, then there was nothing to fear. Perhaps.

Mr. Waldegrave was no Prince Charming. He was tall and broad and his chiseled-marble features undeniably handsome, but he was far too cold and emotionless to be a desirable companion in any sense of the word. Although his flesh burned hot beneath his sleeve, his passions—if he had any—clearly did not. She doubted he’d spoken fifty words to her during the short interview, and none at all during this walk. Perhaps he was still overcome with grief over the loss of the two Waldegrave women buried behind the abbey. And the living “creature”?

More like as not, any rich child’s sole affliction was simply a lifetime of being spoiled by self-important parents whose concerns ran more to matters of high society than to childrearing. Violet was ashamed to admit that there had been innumerable moments in her childhood when she’d wished herself the most lonely and unloved of all the future debutantes rather than continue to suffer the unwanted attentions paid to a young girl with no place to call home.

“Why the frown?” Mr. Waldegrave’s voice was detached, but his gaze sharp. “Do you already regret agreeing to help my daughter? What have you heard?”

Trepidation began to prick along her neck once more. What did he fear she knew? She’d barely arrived at the abbey alive. She had heard nothing, save the ravings of an old woman. But what she’d seen was a grave bearing the same name as his alleged daughter.

No matter the circumstance, she was stuck here until she could conceive a better plan. She drew back her shoulders. If his concerns gave her bargaining power . . .

“Two pounds per week, you said?”

“I did indeed.” His gaze did not waver from her face. “I am a man of my word.”

Doubtful. She’d only ever met one who was, and now he was dead. She lifted a bland smile in Mr. Waldegrave’s direction. “Then I should like to be paid in advance. Two pounds, at the start of each week.”

She held her breath. The demand was a calculated risk. Payment in advance was unheard of. But any man who hired a crumpled scrap of a girl, one who tumbled across the moor like the broken seeds of a dandelion, was either lying about his intentions . . . or in no position to negotiate.

His shuttered expression indicated neither surprise nor suspicion. Just the same pale handsomeness and unreadable gaze. “Are you a woman of your word?”

She inclined her head. “I am.”

“As a woman of your word, do you agree to stay for not less than one full month?” His cold eyes flickered with what might have been actual emotion. “Come what may?”

She choked back a laugh—or perhaps a sob—at the question. Pay, and a full month of shelter? She had nowhere else to go. No one would look for her here, and he was offering coin for her services, whatever they might be. Without an income and a hiding place, she was a dead woman. She had no choice.

So she lifted her chin and said, “I do.”

She expected a shrug and a disdainful, “Then you’ll take your pay at the end of the month like the rest of the servants.” When he slipped her hand from his elbow, she broke out in an icy sweat, terrified that her cocky risk had provoked him to rescind his offer completely.

However, he simply paused to unlock one of the many mahogany doors along the dark hallway. He motioned for the manservant behind them to lift the sole candle, casting its meager light into the shadows. This door led not into a prayer room, but to what appeared to be an endless, windowless passageway carved into the earth itself.

Poised on the threshold, he replaced the slender key into his pocket then removed what could only be a money purse.

Violet couldn’t stop her jaw from slackening in shock. He would pay her
now
, before she’d worked a single minute, before his daughter had so much as laid eyes on her new governess? Now she
knew
he was mad.

“Hold out your hand,” he directed calmly.

Following his instructions, her trembling fingers uncurled between them. He placed two impossibly shiny coins in the center of her palm. Her breath caught. Had she ever even
held
two sovereigns at one time?

“If you accept my money, then you accept the terms of the contract. No less than one calendar month as my daughter’s full-time governess.” Mr. Waldegrave’s voice was as dark and smooth as the silver-tongued procurers lurking in the Whitechapel alleys. “Come what may.”

The slyness in his tone gave her pause, but her fingers were already closing tight about the strangely heavy coins and shoving them into her own pocket for safekeeping. After a few months of teaching an heiress to paint, not only would the hunt for Mr. Percy Livingstone’s killer have (hopefully) lost some of its ardor, she would be able to afford a competent barrister. She would be free.

She tucked the coins deeper into her pocket. “So shall it be.”

“Come.” Taking the candle from his manservant, Mr. Waldegrave stepped into the murky passageway.

The manservant made no move to follow, so Violet assumed the command had been directed at her. She took a step forward but paused at the threshold as she realized the floor sloped steeply downward, with no indication of a plateau. A musty odor seeped from earthen walls. Dust. Mold. And something darker. “Where are we going?”

“To my daughter.”

Against her better judgment, she crossed into the passageway. As soon as she did so, the hallway door closed behind her and the lock engaged. “Mr. Waldegrave, wait! The door . . .”

“Do not be alarmed.” He strode into the blackness, candle aloft. “All the doors in Waldegrave Abbey have been fitted with a mechanism to lock automatically, and Roper’s presence is required elsewhere. For now, you are safe enough with me. You may eventually be provided with a key of your own.”

Alarmed? Safe? Violet could not abide being locked in small dark spaces. She hurried to catch up to him, ignoring the twinge of pain when she put weight on her ankle.

“Where exactly is your daughter?”

He motioned to the shadows ahead. “The sanctuary.”

“Which is in the
cellar
?” she blurted doubtfully.

“The sanctuary is in one of the outbuildings.” He lifted the candle a little higher, but cupped the flame with the other hand as if to protect the light from a ghostly breeze. “These catacombs run beneath the earth and connect all seven structures to one another.”

She stopped walking, her swollen foot arrested in mid-air. “Catacombs, as in, ancient tunnels? Or catacombs, as in, ancient tunnels lined with”—she almost choked on the word—“corpses?”

“The latter. This was a working abbey for centuries. Every tunnel has history embedded in its walls. The monks’ graves are recessed, and quite old. The chances of stumbling over anything unpleasant are slim. The stale air, however, I can do nothing about.”

He did not so much as slow his pace. As he was the sole possessor of both key and candle, she was forced to hobble forward on trembling limbs. She took care to focus on the flickering light ahead, rather than the crumbling walls it illuminated.

Had she thought this man merely eccentric? He was off his dot completely.

She cleared her throat. “Might I ask a question?”

“Miss Smythe,” he said firmly, without slowing or even glancing in her direction. “Let us dispense with the formality of inquiring whether or not you may inquire something. I see no need to waste valuable time granting petitions to ask questions.” When he finally glanced down at her, his eyes glittered in the candlelight. “Though we may be master and servant, if you have something to say, please say it.”

Her chin rose. How positively generous of him. He was her master now, and she did know her place. The worst part was that he wasn’t being uppity, but rather quite progressive. Most gentry would have sacked her for any one of the impertinences she’d displayed thus far. Mr. Waldegrave was perhaps too distracted—or, rather, too focused on someone other than his newest servant—to bother reprimanding her atypical behavior.

Even at her most unconventional, however, she would never choose to stroll through corpse-lined walls.

“In that case,” she said with as much composure as she could manage, “why not take the shortest path
above
ground?”

At this, he did stop. He turned, lowered the candle, and looked her dead in the eyes for a long moment before answering. “My daughter and I suffer an incurable sensitivity to the sun. Our bedchambers are in the sanctuary outbuilding, which is double-boarded and accessible only via underground passageways because natural light burns our skin on contact. Significant exposure would cause death.” He spun away from her without waiting for a reply and strode further into the gloom. “I, for one, prefer the catacombs.”

She stared after him, openmouthed. Surely he exaggerated! “Many individuals experience sensitivity to the sun and go about safely with the aid of a decent parasol. Have you considered—”

“Miss Smythe, I
have
considered. What you fail to comprehend is that I do not refer to a ruddy complexion from having played one too many rounds of cricket. I am talking about blisters on every inch of exposed skin starting from the very first second of sunlight.” His voice cracked. “Burning flesh . . . and screams of agony.”

Violet was uncertain whether she was meant to hear that last, but if his claim of acute sun sensitivity was even halfway true, she didn’t doubt the accompanying screams of agony. In fact, were she forced to witness such a horror, like as not she’d do a fair bit of screaming herself.

“Forgive me. I have never heard of such an affliction. Medical advances—”

“—have proven themselves to be of no practical use,” he interrupted coldly. “Science and medicine alike have failed us consistently since the moment of Lillian’s birth. To wit, I dare not admit publicly that my offspring suffers such a disease, or I’m like to find her forcibly taken from me and subjected to any number of gross experiments in the name of ‘scientific research.’”

He pronounced this last as if it were the most vulgar of profanities. Violet’s skin pricked in a cold sweat. Fodder for future nightmares. Her mind was more than creative enough to imagine the atrocities men of “science” might perform on a young girl.

His voice grew deadly calm. “I will not allow such barbarity, so I have kept her existence a secret from the entire world, including all but my most trusted servants.” The shadows about him shuddered. “You, as her first governess, will be expected to do the same.”

She glanced at him askance. “First governess in . . . a while?”

“Ever.” His voice hardened to stone. “If hiring you turns out to be a mistake, it is not one I shall repeat. Take heed, Miss Smythe. If you
ever
breathe a word of her existence, you will not like the consequences.”

Her head swam at both the threat and his anguish. Year after year of living under lock and key. Of darkness. Catacombs. And hoping for the impossible. She could at least relate to the latter.

She slid her gaze toward the ancient graves buried within the interminable tunnel. This abbey was no place for a child. Shivering, she turned back to her new employer. She couldn’t squelch the fanciful thought that the coins in her pocket were like those from the folk tale—guaranteed to always return to their owner.

She took a shallow breath and tried to think logically.

“Your daughter may be a well-kept secret, but your own existence must be widely known. Why do you not fear for your own safety?”

“My daughter is a child and an innocent. She is but nine years old. I, on the other hand, am the last male heir to a forgotten abbey. When Lillian was born, only a handful of individuals called Shrewsbury home. Those who recall the Waldegraves think me a harmless recluse, if they think of me at all. Those who have darkened my doorstep number even fewer, and have done so at my express request.”

“That may be,” she said hesitantly, “but is it not impossible to control servants’ wagging tongues?”