Suzanne Robinson (11 page)

Luke had promised the earl he would make himself agreeable to Lady Cecilia and accept her decision. He
knew many ways to make himself agreeable to a woman. He could use none of them on Lady Cecilia.

This was another reason Luke needed Miss Dane. She was a true aristocrat. Without thinking, she knew how to command servants, how to wear luxurious clothing as though it was ordinary, how to behave among the toffs. She had a fine spirit and delicate sensibility that he’d come to admire. He respected her all the more for her ability to set aside her lady’s decorum when she was required to survive in the stews of London.

“Choke me dead,” Luke murmured to himself. “I’ll never forget how she downed old Jowett with a brick.”

He was addressing the letter to Ross Scarlett when Mrs. Snow appeared in the open doorway. Luke swore under his breath, for he’d been thinking so hard he hadn’t heard her heels tapping on the polished floorboards. The housekeeper loomed before him, a black, disapproving raven.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Lucas, but Miss Dane does not answer when the maid knocks at her door, and dinner is ready.”

He remembered Miss Dane’s tone and manner and tried to adopt them. “I will attend to it, Mrs. Snow.” He cracked a cheeky grin, forfeiting his lordly demeanor. “Cheer up, old soul. Featherstone will be back tomorrow, and then we won’t have to deal with each other direct.”

All he got was a stiff nod. Swiveling as if on rollers, Mrs. Snow retreated. He could hear her keys jingling on the chain she wore at her waist as she marched
through the Mural Room and disappeared. Leaving his letters to be collected for the post, Luke set off for Miss Dane’s room. Mrs. Snow had put her in the wing opposite the one containing his own suite. He was certain that was the thing to do, since proper ladies and gentlemen seemed to fear being left alone together in close proximity.

Luke made his way across the palace, through the Old Hall and into the western wing. There he came to the central bastion of a hollowed half-tower into which had been set a gracefully turned staircase with a delicate banister and rails in black and gold. The landing and hall began the rooms designed in the style of Robert Adam, with ceilings and plasterwork of white picked out in gold.

When he’d first acquired Beaufort, such grand surroundings had intimidated him. Then he learned what he should have guessed all along. A man could accustom himself to anything, even grandeur. Now there were times when he hardly noticed the marble pilasters, the paintings by van Eyck, Reynolds, and Holbein, the Mortlake tapestries, or the pier glass mirrors.

Once upstairs Luke proceeded to the rooms known as Princess Caroline’s Suite. He didn’t know why they were named after a princess. Almost every room in the castle had a name, and there were about two hundred rooms in use. He was still discovering others that hadn’t even been drawn into the plans he’d received when he bought the place. His estate manager said no one knew exactly how many rooms there were.

At Miss Dane’s door, he knocked softly, then louder when he received no answer. He waited a minute, then opened the door quickly when it occurred to him that Miss Dane might have scarpered. Rushing across the Princess’s Sitting Room, Luke charged into the bedroom, but his steps slowed as he neared the Hepplewhite four-poster bed. Upon it lay Miss Dane, her hair loose and tumbling over her shoulders, her small stocking-clad feet peeping from beneath the skirt of her heavy traveling dress. In one hand she still held the comb she’d been using, but she was in a deep sleep.

Luke noted the blue tinge to her eyelids, the slight pallor of her cheeks. Her lashes were dark gold, as were her eyebrows. Her hair color reminded him of the gold embossing on a rapier in the Old Hall. She sighed, drawing his attention to her face and the deep rose color of her lips. Then she whimpered in her sleep, as if pursued by monsters. She stirred and began to breathe rapidly.

Reaching out, Luke put his hand over hers and squeezed, thinking to give reassurance and restore her to peace. At first she appeared not to notice his touch, but then her hand moved, taking his with it. She tucked them both under her chin against her neck and cheek, forcing Luke to climb onto the bed. He sat there feeling the baby-bird softness of her flesh.

“This wasn’t well thought out,” he whispered to himself.

His arm was lying between her breasts. In such a position Nightshade would have done more than sit there like a flustered cleric. Luke sat on the bed and
wavered between barbarity and civilization, between Nightshade and Sir Lucas. Clamping his teeth together, he forced Nightshade back into the shadows of his soul. With his free hand he extracted the comb from her grasp and slipped it into his coat pocket. Then he eased his hand from hers and slowly removed himself and his desires from the bed.

He took a moment to straighten his clothing, not daring to look at her. His glance fell on a boulle
bureau mazarin
which served as a dressing table. On it lay Miss Dane’s drawstring bag, the one that matched her traveling dress. It had an odd shape for a bag. It had a corner. Luke went to the dressing table, picked it up, and withdrew what he first thought was a gold box. Turning to catch the light from a lamp, Luke realized that it wasn’t a box but a book with a gilded cover.

The front was decorated with an embossed border studded with emeralds, rubies, pearls, and amethysts. In the center was a figure of Christ set in an oval formed by more stones. Luke opened the two jeweled clasps that held the book closed and found thick ivory pages laden with a neat, handwritten script and illustrated in brilliant colors.

The initial letters of the first word on each page had been elaborately decorated. Although the book was in Latin, Luke recognized the letter O, which had been outlined in thick gold bands enclosing blue roundels. Within the O sat two regal figures, a man and a woman, who wore long robes and crowns.

Shutting the book, Luke looked from it to Miss Dane. All the while that she’d been in hiding, she’d had this book with her. If she’d sold it, she could have
escaped and lived anywhere she wished. The thing must be dear to her. It was obvious she wouldn’t go anywhere without it. Luke smiled.

“Sorry, Miss Prim, but this is for your benefit,” he whispered.

He waited a moment to assure himself that Miss Dane was still sleeping, then left on tiptoe. Hurrying back across the Old Hall, Luke stopped beside a suit of jousting armor and drummed his fingers on the book. Miss Dane would suspect him of taking it. She would demand that he return it, and when he refused, she would search for it herself. He needed a good hiding place. There should be plenty in a castle this large, but Miss Dane was right clever. He must then be even more clever at choosing its place of concealment.

Pacing back and forth over the red-and-white floor of Venetian marble, Luke surveyed the castle in his mind. He couldn’t put the book in his rooms or his office. Not the library. She would look there on the principle that he might hide it among the thousands of volumes already there. Knowing Miss Dane, she would search every room in the residential quarters.

What about the towers? He could find a place in the Water Gate Tower, the Clock Tower, or the Armory, where the Treasury was located. There were the dungeons of the Prison Tower or the Plantagenet Tower. No, he had already mentioned dungeons to her. She would remember. What about the Garden Tower? No, too pleasant a place to explore. What he needed was an unpleasant but simple place to hide the book.

“I know!”

Luke shut his mouth and glanced around to see if anyone had heard. He was still alone. It was getting late. Meager light from two lamps caused the suits of armor to cast grotesque shadows. Taking one of the lamps with him, Luke hurried out of the Old Hall and down the steps to the inner bailey. Crossing the lawn at an angle, he reached the Plantagenet Tower and entered through an arched door.

He ascended the dark spiral stair and didn’t stop until he’d reached the third floor of the great drum tower. There he found a small landing leading to a single narrow door. Shoving it open, Luke entered a room in a smaller tower that protruded from the Plantagenet. This was the latrine tower. A shaft extended from the top of the Plantagenet Tower down to the moat.

No longer in use, the shaft had been filled in with rubble. The small closet in which he stood contained a bench set over the shaft and fitted with a wooden seat. Lifting the seat, Luke wrapped the book in his silk handkerchief and set it on top of the rubble. He would return with a suitable container for the book later.

Luke stepped out of the latrine, shut the door, and held the lamp high as he descended the spiral stairs again. Soon he was seated at the table in the small dining room eating fresh roast beef while Mrs. Snow lurked in the background. She alternated between scolding the footman who served him and curling her lip in disapproval of Luke’s manners. Luke vowed to himself that he’d begin lessons in etiquette as soon as Miss Dane woke tomorrow. Meanwhile he dismissed
Mrs. Snow. After dinner he would go to Vyne Cottage and visit Ma and Pa.

Luke smiled at the thought of his parents. Much older than his real parents, at least that was what Luke guessed, they’d taken him in when he was barely four. He didn’t remember his real mother well, and his real father not at all. What he did remember was a dark, frigid room with a bed and a dresser with a broken leg. The only other clear memories he had were of men knocking at the door, his mother answering, and then setting him outside the door to shiver on the dark landing while she entertained.

Glancing down at a forkful of roast beef, Luke put it in his mouth and concentrated on chewing. He seldom thought of his real mother. Thinking of the Hawthornes, Tusser and Louisa, was far more pleasant. They’d been poor, like everyone he knew, but that hadn’t stopped them from taking him in after his mother had died leaving him to fend for himself on the streets. They couldn’t do much more than write their names; they had no fine manners or knowledge of the world outside London, but they had saved his life and brought love into it. He’d brought them with him when he left the stews, and later to Castle Beaufort. But neither Tusser nor Louisa felt comfortable in such imposing surroundings. Both hated Mrs. Snow, which Luke felt was a testament to their natural good taste.

“She looks like she thinks I’m going to snaffle the silver plate,” Tusser complained.

Louisa just gave the stained glass in the Gothic
chapel a dismayed look and said, “Oh, Luke, bless your bright eyes, we don’t belong here.”

He wanted them to be happy, so he refurbished a country manor house on the Beaufort lands for them. Persuading them to tolerate a maid-of-all-work had been the most he could do in providing servants. He was worried about them, however. They were getting on in years and really needed assistance. His latest scheme to get his parents to accept servants was to convince Louisa to take in a young woman from St. Giles who needed employment. If his mother believed she was giving refuge to another stray who needed her, she might let the girl stay.

Luke finished his dinner and prepared to ride to Vyne Cottage. He thought Miss Dane would sleep through the night and possibly the next morning, which suited him. He wanted her in good health so she could teach him manners and that air of unconscious authority that so intimidated Mrs. Snow. Perhaps by the time his agents in London discovered her secret, he would be as mannered and elegant as the finest nobleman at court.

“Curses on your head and black death on your heart, Mrs. Snow.”

Much later that same night Mortimer Fleet skulked down a quiet street near Park Lane in London and crept down the steps to the kitchen entrance of a town house. The first time he’d come, he’d tried the front door and been ranted at by a footman. Now he
knocked softly at the back entry and was admitted by a disapproving butler, who led him through the rear of the house, up several flights of servants’ stairs, and finally into a room guarded by carved doors.

His employer—The Gentleman, as Mortimer called him—had been most particular that he not appear before this hour, when even the most elegant of balls would be over and his fine friends asleep. Mortimer had been in this room several times since The Gentleman had hired him to do for Pauline Cross. Funny that she’d been the one to introduce them several years ago.

Mortimer smirked at the thought. The butler shut the doors in a snit, and Fleet sauntered into the room. It was of massive proportions compared to the cramped spaces he was used to in the East End. And it was painted all over. The Gentlemen had referred to the painter as if Mortimer should have recognized the name, but he’d forgotten it. Too amazed at the subject of the painting.

“Rape of the Sabrines,” his employer had called it. Fleet had lived among the lowest all his life, but he’d never imagined that fine gentlemen lived in the midst of paintings of naked women being carried off to their doom. For a while he indulged himself by ogling the breasts of one distraught female. Then he wandered over to finger a carved box that held cigars.

The finger was clean, but the nail was crooked. His skin was cracked and dry from exposure to the elements. His neck and face were laced with fine crevices caused by the lack of oils in his skin.