Lady Silence (25 page)

Katy sidled past the pianoforte that was now
taking up most of the corridor and examined the drawing room. She
looked back at the instrument, frowned. What an odd shape—the
keyboard set at an angle to the long case holding the strings . . .
and, yes, one side of the beautiful rosewood case, was completely
flat . . .

Of course! That side of the string case was
meant to sit flush against the wall. How exceedingly clever. “Let
us clear the wall next to the corridor,” Katy said. “If we set it
against the outer wall, I fear it might disturb the residents next
door.”

In a trice three pairs of willing hands
had cleared a space, while the four carters stood morosely by,
giving no sign that sight of a lady moving furniture shoulder to
shoulder with her servants was aught but a daily occurrence. Then
Katy, eyes shining, directed the carters to the precise spot where
the pianoforte should be placed.
Oh, it
was so beautiful!

“
Quickly, Clover, run to the Upper
Rooms and ask who tunes their pianofortes. I want to sit down and
play this very minute, but I know moving loosens the strings.
Clover!” Katy called as her old friend rushed from the room. “I did
not truly mean for you to run. With the streets as icy as they are,
you will surely break your neck. Walk carefully, if you please.
Somehow I shall manage to contain myself.” Clover, with the flash
of a grin and a wave of her hand, resumed her errand.

Gingerly Katy touched one key. The tone was
mellow and surprisingly strong for an instrument half the size of
the one at Farr Park. She struck a chord. And made a face. Behind
her, Jesse Wiggs chuckled. “Sounds like you was right, miss. Off
with you now. I’ll rearrange this jumble until all looks right and
tight again.”

He was smiling. Another forgiveness? Katy
wondered. Did she deserve it? Her deception had been very long and
very thorough. And she had experienced little guilt until it was
far too late. “Thank you, Jesse,” she murmured, and hurried back
down the hall to tell the countess her grand news. But of course it
could not be news—the dowager must have ordered it as a surprise. A
startling, wonderful surprise . . .

Katy burst into the back parlor, profuse
thanks spilling so eagerly from her tongue that she was close to
stammering. Alas, Lady Serena Moretaine did not appear best
pleased, an anxious frown soon replacing her initial smile of
pleasure. “My lady?” Katy said. “Is there something wrong? Did you
not order the piano? Is it a mistake?”

“
No, not a mistake, child, but I did
not order it.”

“
Oh.” Katy thought for a moment. “Do
you suppose the owner ordered it some time ago and it is just being
delivered?”

“
I think not.”

“
My lady?”

“
Sit down, Katy.”

Katy, now thoroughly alarmed by the severity
of the countess’s expression, sat. Her fingers sought each other,
clasping tightly together in her lap. Whatever the dowager was
about to say, she was not going to like it.

“
Katy, you
are
aware that there is still a strong
possibility my son may become the next Earl of Moretaine?” Katy,
falling back on old habits, nodded. “Even as Mr. Damon Farr, it is
important that he marry well. I cannot have him so infatuated with
you that he does not look at suitable young ladies.”

“
O-oh!” Katy drew a long shuddering
breath. Her fingernails bit into her palms. “You think Da—Colonel
Farr—ordered the piano . . . and that he . . . no, no, that cannot
be true. He may like to hear me play, but he is still angry with
me, I assure you. He
glares
.
He ignores me. No more than a grunt do I get for all my fetching,
carrying, and writing out fair copy. Truly, you are
mistaken.”

No, she wasn’t.
For her heart was singing at the thought that Damon had
presented her with this magnificent gift. For surely he had. And
she recalled all those times when she was certain his eyes were
following her about the bookroom, even if she never caught more
than a glower from beneath his dark brows.

“
No, Katy, I do not believe I am
mistaken,” the dowager returned gently. “It is the primary reason I
agreed to remove to Bath. No matter what I think of your conduct, I
have known and cared for you too long to thrust you out into the
streets, but I have determined you must give serious consideration
to finding a husband here in Bath. At worst, another position . . .
I fear my son will never marry as long as you are under our
roof.”

Lady Moretaine paused, pursed her lips, then
plunged on. “And, truth be told, as much as I love Damon and know
him to be a gentleman, I fear for your safety as well, child. I
see—there is no disguising it—I see passion fly between you. When
you are in a room together, even at the dinner table, I feel a
tension like some great storm disturbing the air. You must leave
us, Katy. By marriage or a new position . . . but you will not
return to Farr Park.”

Katy, unwilling to reveal the stark horror
that must be reflected in her eyes, bowed her head over her clasped
hands. She could not move, could not think.

“
And you will not marry Elijah Palmer,”
the dowager continued inexorably, “even though the match is
suitable. If Damon does not become earl, I cannot have you forever
beneath his nose.”

Was it possible, Katy wondered, that only
moments earlier she had been as happy as she had ever been in her
life? This was her comeuppance, of course. The end result of her
own actions. For all that the Hardcastles were the root of her own
personal evil, it was the twelve-year-old Lucinda Challenor who had
disguised herself as a mute and wormed her way into the affections
of the residents of Farr Park. It was she who had never uttered a
word, no matter how severe the provocation. It was she who had made
a fantasy hero of Damon Farr. It was she who had not hesitated to
lean toward him or over him while they worked, displaying her
nicely rounded bosom. She who hiked her skirts a mite too high when
climbing the bookroom ladder.

“
I am not speaking of your immediate
departure,” said the countess, softening her tone. “We are fixed in
Bath for some time, certainly through Drucilla’s confinement in
May. What happens after that, of course, will depend on who is the
next Earl of Moretaine.”

Katy scarcely heard her.
Marriage, a new position
. . . but
she had a third choice. She had a grandmother, an uncle . .
.
if
she could convince them
she was Lucinda Challenor and not that—that
imposter
who was undoubtedly making sheeps’ eyes
at Damon this very moment.

Mr. Trembley. Yes, she must write to Mr.
Trembley. Katy shot to her feet. “If you will excuse me, my
lady?”

The dowager’s ravaged face held Katy poised
in mid-flight, as it clearly revealed the anguish the countess’s
words had caused her. “I am sorry, so sorry, child,” she cried. “I
fear the ways of the world are not at all fair.” A tear spilled
over and fell onto Sir Walter Scott’s poetry, which she had
continued to read after Katy dashed off to investigate the noise in
the hallway.

Katy’s chin went up. Her green eyes sparkled,
as suspiciously moist as the countess’s own. “I will survive, my
lady. I always have.” With rigid dignity she left the parlor. Her
feet made no noise as she climbed the well-carpeted stairs to her
room.

~ * ~

“
Colonel, how delightful!” cooed Lady
Oxley, as if surprised to find him in the countess’s drawing room,
even though the regularity of her appearances hard on Damon’s every
arrival at Castle Moretaine seemed to indicate she employed a
lookout on the road from the south. At the very least, Damon
grumbled to himself, the baroness must have a spy in the Moretaine
household.

And if he had ever been tempted to admire
Miss Hardcastle’s slim and stately beauty, he had only to look at
her mother to see what Eleanore would one day become. Lady Oxley,
molded by long years of complaints, of looking down her nose at
lesser mortals, and shamelessly toad-eating her betters, had become
the pattern-card for a hatchet-faced shrew. As tall as her
daughter, the baroness was two or three stone heavier. Her
suspiciously bright chestnut hair showed not a hint of gray, and
her gown of burgundy puce seemed singularly inappropriate for a
call at a house of mourning. To top this distasteful image, Lady
Oxley’s voice seemed even more loud and shrill each time they
met.

The colonel executed a bow as stiff as his
smile before turning to the two young ladies. “Miss Hardcastle,
Miss Challenor.” Each girl, seated side by side on a scroll-armed
gold-and cream-striped settee, extended her gloved hand, Eleanore
with cool aplomb, Lucinda with that slightly wicked smile in the
back of her eyes that always intrigued him. The mysterious Miss
Challenor, miraculously recovered into the bosom of her family.
Damon had niggling suspicions about where the young lady had been
and what she had been doing all the years she supposedly was
missing. Her façade, perfectly turned out in a carriage dress of a
blue only slightly darker than her eyes, said one thing; the tilt
of her shoulders, the liveliness of her eyes, something else
entirely.

Yet her resemblance to Katy Snow was truly
remarkable. Not in bone structure . . . never that. Now that he
knew Lucinda better, he recognized they could not pass for sisters.
But in build, hair color, eye color . . . a near perfect match. But
of the two, Katy’s features were the finer. The height of her
forehead, the small but clearly aristocratic nose, the edge to her
cheekbones, the well-drawn lips. And when mischief shone from
Katy’s eyes, innocence surrounded it like a halo. Miss Challenor’s
eyes, when not lowered to disguise her true nature, brimmed with
worldly knowledge tinged with cynicism. Colonel Damon Farr had seen
too many barques of frailty not to recognize one when put before
him. And if Miss Challenor had just turned nineteen, he should be
able to disregard his years as a soldier and claim to be not more
than two and twenty again.

There was a puzzle here. For all that he told
himself it was none of his business, Damon could not stop worrying
the problem. Like a terrier with a rat, he could not let go.
Somehow Katy was concerned in this. Ignore it, he could not.

“
Your dear mama is removed to Bath, I
hear,” Lady Oxley boomed. After the colonel had agreed and
expressed his hope that the change would help the dowager recover
from her melancholy, the baroness plunged on to her true goal. “And
will you be joining her there, colonel?”

“
I am much occupied at Farr Park, my
lady, but I shall, of course, make frequent visits to Brock Street
to see how the ladies go on.”

“
The ladies?”

“
My mother and her companion, Miss
Snow.”

Lucinda Challenor’s trilling laugh rang over
the tea cups. “Ah, yes, the little mute peahen hiding in a dark
corner. Surely she cannot be of much use to your mama—”

“
Indeed,” Miss Hardcastle echoed, “the
poor child seemed dreadfully out of place, as if frightened into
immobility by exposure to her betters.”

“
Companions are such a sorry lot,” Lady
Oxley declared. “Scarce worth the cost of feeding.”

“
Miss Snow has been with my mother for
years,” Damon responded stiffly, startled by the strength of his
urge to defend his erstwhile secretary. “I believe the countess is
quite pleased with her.”

“
Miss Snow,” Drucilla stated, replacing
her delicate Worcester tea cup in its saucer with a decided clink
of fine porcelain, “is a little minx who changes her appearance to
suit her circumstances. She is a nothing, a nobody my mama-in-law
has been foolish enough to take to her bosom. There was an incident
the last time she was at Moretaine—and you needn’t look so
surprised I should hear of it, brother. Mute she may be, but the
girl is no better than she should be. Why dear Serena should
persist in giving her house-room, I cannot imagine.”

Lady Oxley suddenly looked thoughtful.
“I believe Oxley may have mentioned her. You call her a girl. Is
she a
young
woman then? I
confess I did not notice her at all.”

Damon, assuming his most inexpressive
face, allowed the conversation to surge, unheeded, around
him.
Katy’s fear of the Hardcastles. Lord
Oxley staring at Katy at the reception after Ashby’s funeral. The
striking resemblance to Lucinda Challenor.

Or Lucinda’s striking resemblance to Katy .
. .

It was quite possible the answer to the
mystery of Katy Snow lay right here in this room. Yet he was too
much the soldier not to sense danger. That day at the tea party—and
again after Ashby’s funeral—Katy had not simply feared recognition.
She had been terrified of the Hardcastles themselves. Of Baron and
Baroness Oxley, whose noble rank should have placed them above
suspicion.

Was this, then, the home Katy had fled?

Nonsense!
If
Wellington had been so fanciful, they’d all still be camped outside
Lisbon. Or driven into the sea, as they’d been at Corunna. With
Napoleon preening at the head of troops marching past Piccadilly
Circus to Carlton House.

Yet, despite everything, he could not betray
Katy by mentioning her mysterious origins. Not his Katy. He had
already considered stopping again in Bath on his way back to Farr
Park, just to make certain the ladies were comfortable. Had the
pianoforte arrived? Mehitabel and the groom?