Love's Tangle (9 page)

Then a voice, slicing through the air. “And what
precisely
do you think you’re doing?”

Gabriel stood in the doorway, his riding dress muddied and torn, his whip still in his hand. She whirled around, her back shielding the nakedness of the open drawer and her hand closing over the locket.

“Mrs. Lucas asked me to deliver a message,” she improvised.

“And since when has my housekeeper found it necessary to employ a dairymaid as messenger?”

She was struck dumb. “You are silent. Now why is that?” All trace of geniality had vanished and she felt her soul wither. “But let us presume for one moment that Mrs. Lucas has been so unseemly as to send you here—where is the message?”

Her mind was ragged. Bewildered by what she had found, she needed time to think. In desperation she cast around for a new pretext but before she could find the words, he had raised his hand to silence her.

“Spare me the lies, Nell! I have continued to trust you despite your questionable conduct but I can see that I have been mistaken. Today I find you in my private room, your hands in my desk, a blatant trespasser once more.”

His chill glance swept her figure and unnervingly came to rest on the tell-tale closed hand. “And a thief, it seems.”

He was standing so close that she could see every fleeting emotion and his expression did not bode well. He wrenched her hand open and the locket fell to the ground. When he bent to pick up the miniature, she thought his brow furrowed as he scooped it from the floor.

“I trust you have a valid reason for stealing my jewelry.” His voice was the thinnest and sharpest of steel. “You had better explain yourself—and start now!”

Elinor felt anger flicker within her and slowly gather pace. She had been right to think there was a mystery attached to Allingham—the matching lockets proved that. The truth, whatever it was, must have meaning for her but it had been deliberately hidden. She drew herself up to her full height and when she spoke her voice was as cold as his. “It is you, Your Grace, who needs to explain. How has this miniature come into your possession?”

“What the devil! Why should it not be in my possession? You found it in
my
study, in
my
desk, and it is an image of
my
uncle.”

“Your uncle?” she faltered, her certainty deserting her. The miniature bore so little resemblance to the forbidding portrait in the Great Hall that she had felt not a flicker of recognition.

“What has that to say to anything?”

“I don’t know, I don’t understand.”

“You are not alone, Nell Milford. What I do understand is that you are unruly, disobedient and guilty of the most brazen transgression. If you stay in my employ, which I doubt, you will be punished severely. Now leave.”

“I cannot, Your Grace. Not until I know. You have been withholding a secret that matters dearly to me. Why have you not been honest?”

“What the deuce are you talking about?” The arctic glare had been replaced by an irritated frown.

“I cannot believe you had no knowledge of this locket and no understanding of its meaning. In your own words—tell me the truth and spare me the lies!”

“Is this to be a Banbury story? Speak plainly and be warned that those who set out to gull me have a habit of coming off very much the worst.” The glare was back but Elinor knew no fear.

“I am convinced the half locket in your hand holds the clue to my mother’s past and perhaps to my own identity.”

“What nonsense is this? What connection can there be between an image of my uncle and a dairymaid?”

“I am no dairymaid.”

“You’re certainly no dairymaid that I’ve ever come across.”

His natural good humor was beginning to undermine his wrath. Then he remembered her crime. “If you think to bamboozle me with this silly tale straight out of a romance—oh, but you don’t read them do you? If you think to hoodwink me, you will not succeed. I have never seen this miniature before and even if I had, what has it to do with you?”

In answer she drew one half of a silver locket and chain from the depths of her pocket and placed it on the desk. “I think it has much to do with me. See, Your Grace, I have the matching portrait.”

He gazed at the beautiful young woman depicted. The miniature was intricately wrought and faithful in every detail. It was an answering image of the locket Elinor had taken from the desk. He looked up. The cloud of dark hair and the misty green eyes of the painting were right there before him.

“Who is this and why do you have it?” She knew he must already have the answer.

“It is a picture of my mother and is the sole remembrance I have of her.” And suddenly the fortune teller’s words came flooding back. This was the woman she had been describing, the woman from over the sea, the woman Elinor was to save. Her own mother!

“Your mother? What has she to do with this?”

“She was a painter and specialized in miniatures. I believe she painted this image of herself and the one of your uncle.”

“Then your mother was commissioned by my Uncle Charles? Is that what you’re saying?”

She smiled at his simplicity. “Not exactly. The two halves of the locket belong together—see here.” And she slotted the small hinges one into the other without hindrance. “The strands of each chain fit together too.”

He was frowning hard and she continued. “These are matching portraits. I think they must have been painted by one lover for another.”

“That is ridiculous. What you’re suggesting is insane. My uncle’s wife was a Louisa Lovejoy and she stills lives—more’s the pity.”

So there was no death or divorce, Elinor thought, remembering the fiercely scratched out name in the family bible. But a repudiation, a banishment? “I wasn’t talking about marriage,” she managed with difficulty.

“An affair?” He was nothing if not candid. “Uncle Charles was whiter than white, but even if he
had
enjoyed a youthful dalliance with a stray artist, what has it to do with you?”

His description of her mother hurt but she was too flustered to respond. The duke had hit on the very question she was struggling to answer.

“There was a scandal, I believe,” she said falteringly. “A scandal that involved my mother. My father, too, perhaps.”

“You divine all this from a broken locket?”

Elinor refused to be deflected. “On her deathbed my mother urged me to come here. Why would she do so, if she had no connection to this place?”

“You were to come
here
?”

“To Allingham,” she said firmly. “And seek out one who would help me, one who was rich and powerful. That could only be your uncle.”

He stared blankly at her and she pushed her advantage. “He is the one my mother spoke of. He has to be. Eighteen years ago he was the only young man living here—the family Bible makes that clear.”

“So that was the reason you were poking and prying in the library,” he said bullishly. “And I was almost taken in by Cicero!”

“I had to know why my mother was so desperate for me to come to Allingham. I owed it to her.”

“All you know,” he said flatly, “is that at some time in the past your mother painted my uncle.”

“You have forgotten the nature of the portraits. They are painted in matching style and form two halves of a complete locket. It is the kind of object lovers exchange with each other. The locket has not been broken but deliberately sundered, so that each lover might keep their sweetheart’s image close to them.”

A look of derision crossed his face. “Most affecting but highly unlikely. It is pure speculation, in fact wild speculation. Tell me this, if there had been such a love affair, where does your father fit in?”

“I have no idea,” she said miserably. “I cannot even tell you his name.”

The duke gaped. “You do not know your father’s name?”

“My mother would never speak of him. She was adamant I need never know. All I learned was that she arrived in Bath alone and that I was born months later.”

He was shaking his head in disbelief but Elinor would not let the moment slip. “Please help me, Your Grace, help me uncover the past.”

“I cannot imagine why you think to do so here.”

“Somewhere in this great sprawl of a mansion, there must be papers—your uncle’s personal papers—and they might shed light on what happened all those years ago. They might even tell me if I have a father living.”

She could see her words had hit home. After some minutes he said slowly, “I accept this is a matter of great import to you and because of that, I am willing to forget your trespass. But what you ask is impossible.”

“Why impossible? Is it that you do not believe my mother and your uncle were lovers?”

“It matters not what I believe. There may even be some truth in what you say, for as a child I seem to recall some kind of scandal being whispered about. But I never knew the details and we are unlikely to discover them at this remove.”

“It is surely worth trying. For all my nineteen years I have been left ignorant of my true history.”

A tear was slowly making its way down one pale cheek and despite his disbelief, Gabriel could not remain indifferent.

“Do you not think,” he said gently, “that if there were such secrets as you suggest, they would have been well and truly swept beneath the carpet. There will be nothing to find.”

“I must try.”

“And if there is nothing?”

“Then I must accept I will never know the truth.”

He began to pace up and down the study floor as though continual movement would clear the mists clouding his mind.

A disapproving tut made him stop and glare at her. “What?”

“Your feet. You are making the carpet filthy and it will take the housemaid hours to clean it.”

“Forgive me. For the moment I had forgot you are one of my servants,” he said acidly.

“Why are you home at this time?”

He looked at her in astonishment. A moment ago she had been threatened with instant dismissal, yet here she was daring to challenge him. Anger battled with laughter and laughter won. “Nell Milford, you are incorrigible.”

“And…”

“And my horse is lame. I should not have taken her out. I thought there was a problem yesterday but I ignored it in my arrogant, aristocratic way. I was forced to turn back at the second field. Unluckily for you.”

“Luckily for me. You are going to help, aren’t you?”

He looked at the lovely young face so close to his and capitulated. “Where are we supposed to start this ridiculous search of yours?”

“Your Uncle Charles must have kept records that were personal to him.”

“He might have done, I have no idea.”

“His death was sudden, I believe,” she said thoughtfully, “so he would not have had the chance to destroy sensitive papers.”

“If there were any such, Joffey would have seen to them after my uncle’s funeral. I found nothing in this room.”

“The bailiff would not have destroyed them, not without permission.” Her voice had become certain. “So where could he have stored them?”

“The cellars most like. There’s a large storeroom next to the winery and Charles had his own key to it. God knows what’s in there, apart from the rats, that is.”

He saw her shudder. “Not so brave now? Want to give up the whole foolish project?”

“No.” Her voice was unwavering. “I haven’t traveled this far to be deterred by a few rats.”

“Not even an army of them? Big, fat, sleek rats running and diving and nipping where they like.”

She was laughing now but her face was alight with excitement. “Not even an army of them.”

“If you’re that committed, we had better do it. But I don’t want anyone else to know. I have no intention of creating a fuss for no reason and I certainly don’t wish to be caught in the cellar with my dairymaid! If this is all a hum—and I’m sure it is—the fewer people that know about it the better. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” she agreed meekly.

“My guests leave in the morning. I was to travel with them but I shall invent some excuse. Once the household is abed tomorrow night, we will make a search. Wrap up warmly, the cellars are cold even in June.”

“There will be just the two of us?”

“Who else were you thinking of inviting to this charade?” She had no answer and he repeated with some enjoyment, “Just the two of us.”

“And is it really necessary that we search at night?”

“Why, whatever is the matter, Mistress Nell? You can brave the rats, but not me?”

Her chin jutted determinedly. “I will be there!”

Chapter Six

This night of all nights, Tilly took an age to fall asleep. Normally once her head hit the pillow she could be relied upon to snore the next seven hours away but tonight, for some inexplicable reason, groans rather than snores filled the room and her constant tossing and turning was sending her covers flying to the floor. Nerves taut, Elinor lay still and silent on the adjoining bed, listening to the kitchen maid’s disturbed threshing; listening, listening for the elusive noise which would signal Tilly at last slept.

It was gone midnight before she could creep quietly from the room. She was fully dressed beneath her nightgown and, slipping the garment over her head, she grabbed her unlit candle and inched her way round the door. Once outside, she paused for a second but Tilly’s regular heavy breathing was the only sound she could hear. She fled down the servants’ staircase, wondering if her journey was in vain, for Gabriel had expected her hours ago. The servants rarely stayed up beyond eleven o’clock and by now he might well have given her up. It was annoying that he would think her too scared to face either him or the rats but it was also a grievous setback to her quest. The clairvoyant’s words had given her new impetus; she owed it to her mother as much as to herself to uncover whatever secret history lay within the bones of Allingham.

When she reached the cellar, she felt a huge relief at finding him still there. In the flickering candlelight she could see he was frowning deeply and when he spoke, his voice was edged with impatience.

“Where have you been? You’ve kept me waiting for well over an hour.”

“I am sorry to have delayed you,” she said with the slightest hint of tartness, “but I could do no other. Tilly has only just gone to sleep.”