The Countess Confessions (6 page)

D
amien would have burst into laughter at the challenging look in the young gypsy’s eyes if he did not understand the remorseless instincts of the seven men—three former army officers, a farmer, two noblemen, and a journalist with a brilliant mind and a black heart—assembled in the tower chamber. Each man either held a grudge against the Crown or had deluded himself into believing that anarchy and upheaval served some greater good. Personally Damien thought all but three of them to be irrevocably deranged. Damien did not for a moment believe that their grievances justified the killing of innocents in the street.

He pushed open the trapdoor with one arm and waved his other arm over his head in a prearranged signal to indicate that the arsenal aimed at his forehead should not be put to use. “It is Sir Angus,” one of the conspirators muttered, “and high time, too. Where the devil have you been?”

All but one of the various firearms disappeared inside greatcoats and evening jackets. The pen in the journalist’s hand remained poised above the table. Damien climbed into the tower with a sheepish grin, allowing the trapdoor to thud with a clatter that made several men seated around the oaken table cringe at his apparent disregard for secrecy. He could almost hear the women underneath the room cursing at the thunderous noise.

Still, to have exhibited tender manners at this point would have only awakened suspicion. The clatter, he suspected, would give the gypsy woman and her companion a chance to breathe and stretch their muscles.

These men did not even trust their own mothers. As a relative newcomer to their conspiracy, “Sir Angus” must measure his every step.

“My apologies, gentlemen. The damned thing slipped.”

“Where the hell have you been?” demanded the farmer, in his white hat and high-topped boots.

Damien stroked his mustache. His lips itched under the annoying accessory. He wondered if he’d rubbed any of that caustic potion on his mouth without thinking.

“Waylaid by a maid?” guessed the impoverished and clearly inebriated Lord Brewster of Shropshire.

Damien pulled a chair from the table to the corner, where a glimmer of crimson satin peeked out from beneath a moth-eaten blanket. A letter. A gypsy who made reference to
Macbeth
and wrote letters? His instincts argued again that she was more than she appeared to be.

“Your silence condemns you,” Lord Ardbury said with disdain. “Could you not control yourself when everything we have planned is at stake?”

“There’s more to it than that,” Damien said, his demeanor deliberately unapologetic. “One of us should take measure of our surroundings in the event of discovery.”

The former army major at the table grunted. “It was a sacrifice, I assume, to sleep with a woman on our behalf? I hope you didn’t strain your back too much for all the actual riding you’ll need to do soon.”

“Did I admit that I slept with anyone?”

“Sit down, Sir Angus,” the journalist said, glancing up from the map he had drawn of contingent forces across England where a slew of riots were to occur.

Anarchists.

Damien had intended to return to London to reunite with his family; instead, the moment he set foot on British soil he had been asked by a high-ranking family member in the Home Office to become involved in a countrywide conspiracy.

“I prefer to stand with my eye to the window,” he said. “I remind you that we are purportedly enjoying a country house party. A guest could wander this way at any time.”

Lord Ardbury nodded in reluctant agreement. “Lord Fletcher was to make sure that did not happen. Where is the man, anyway? Did he indicate to you at the party that he might wish to become one of us?”

“He gave me the impression that he has no idea of our true intentions,” Damien said. “And, in my opinion, he is not reliable enough to even consider.”

“What do you mean?”

“From what I learned tonight, he isn’t the one who held a grudge against the government. It was his first wife, and she wanted revenge for her son’s death. He built this tower to ease her grief. I don’t believe he has the spine to help us.”

E
mily nudged Iris from her reverie, whispering. “It’s been four minutes, and I heard two taps. Are you ready?”

Iris gave a firm nod, and they turned together to descend to the door, Emily praying it wouldn’t creak and betray their presence.

“It’s stuck,” Iris whispered, pushing her shoulder against the iron-barred oak. She shook her head, frantic, as Emily lowered her basket to join in the effort.

It had to open. For several moments Emily struggled against the panic she had promised to fight, terrified of the airless confinement, of being caught by the radicals in the tower. God help the devil who had braved their revenge to warn her. He had entrusted an unknown woman with knowledge that would endanger many lives if she did not keep his secret. And she had trusted him, neither one of them having much choice in the matter.

The heavy door opened with a force that knocked it against the stone wall. The echo resonated in the stairwell. Emily heard the clatter of heavy boots above the trapdoor. There was no time to think. She picked up her basket, took Iris’s hand, and plunged into the evening dark.

•   •   •

The seven conspirators at the table froze in the aftermath of the reverberation. Damien had returned to his chair. Attuned to the slightest noise from below, he doubted he would have reached the trapdoor again before the others and made no effort to try. With everyone diverted, he reached into the corner, felt for the hidden letter, and tucked it inside his shirt. Then he withdrew his pistol from his waistcoat and aimed it at the bolt that lifted open the trap.

“Stay here,” he ordered the other men in the room. “I will take care of this. I have already been seen about the estate. I won’t raise the suspicions that the rest of you will.”

Lord Ardbury had removed his own gun from beneath his greatcoat. He glanced at the farmer who had reached the trap before Damien took a step. “Go down as fast as you can, Weltry. Do not let whoever that was escape.”

“What if it was Lord Fletcher?” Major Buckland asked, his pigeon-chested figure stretching over the table.

“Then he was spying on us and has written his own death warrant.”

The journalist rose from the table and pushed aside the chair that Damien had drawn to the window. “I think I see two people running for the woods.”

“Find them,” Ardbury said, his voice fading as Damien drew the trap bolt and descended into the stairwell. “Give chase, or all we have planned is lost.”

•   •   •

Emily practically threw herself at the slight figure hurrying along the secluded walkway to the house. “Lucy! Lucy, help us. Hide us. Something horrible has happened.”

Lucy took one look at them and reached out a hand to calm a case of what Emily realized must appear to be unwarranted hysterics. “What is it? You couldn’t find your clothes? It is nothing. I have more ball gowns than I could ever wear. It is your father we—”

“There are men in the tower.” Emily paused to draw a breath. “Diana’s fears about your father were justified.”

“Who are we running from?” Lucy asked in confusion, letting Emily sweep her toward the verge of the encroaching woods. “If—” She fell silent, as if entranced, and stared over her shoulder. “That must be one of them now. He looks very intimidating, I must say, and I believe he saw us—” She broke off to catch her breath. “Wasn’t he the man talking earlier to Michael? Emily, hide with Iris in the trees. Let me run back to the house.”

“We stumbled upon traitors who think that two gypsy women overheard their plot. They’re going to hunt us down. We need a distraction. Can you do something to divert their attention without endangering yourself? And don’t repeat what I told you to anyone but Diana.”

“But your father—”

“Assuming I am still alive in the morning, I’ll try to explain what happened.”

B
y the time the two women had vanished into the stygian grove that bordered the manor, Damien spotted several couples strolling along the path, presumably in search of a private spot for a tryst. All, he assumed, had been cautioned by Lord Fletcher against attempting to use the tower for romantic purposes.

He noticed a tall man striding toward him, clearly unmindful of the guests he brushed to the side of the walk. It was Michael, and his grim expression did not bode well for a furtive encounter.

“What happened to my sister and Iris?” he asked without preamble.

Damien did not stop or give any indication that he recognized Michael. He had seen Ardbury standing in the tower window. It would be difficult for Damien to explain how he had become well enough acquainted with a Rom to pause for a chat during a crisis.

“In the woods,” he said without breaking his stride. “We are being watched. Your sister’s life is in jeopardy. Find her before someone else does. We should not be seen together.”

•   •   •

Michael disappeared with a swiftness that Damien admired. He heard Weltry clumping up in the path in his heavy boots, eager to be the one to find the gypsies detested by farmers for unlawful poaching. He glanced once at Damien before slowing to approach the path to the woods.

“What is it?” Damien shouted, appearing to join the pursuit. “Did you see anyone?”

The farmer looked back at him in suspicion. “You did not? There were two women, as far as I could tell.”

“I doubt that a pair of females at a party are a threat to our cause.”

“Everyone is a threat. A careless word could brand us all as traitors.”

“True,” Damien said, his muscles tensing beneath the weight of his disguise. The jacket felt as if it had been filled with stones. The longer he delayed Weltry, the better chance that Michael’s sister and her companion could escape. Were they well acquainted with the woods? It seemed likely that young women who tricked others for a living would know where to hide in the event of trouble.

“I’m going after them,” Weltry said.

“Don’t be a fool. In those old breeches and boots you look neither like a guest nor a servant. I say we return to the tower and organize a discreet search. You must remember that there is a party in progress and we can’t afford to attract attention.”

The farmer turned with a final look into the trees. Damien did not deceive himself into thinking that the two women would be safe from discovery because of his decree. But he had bought a little time for them to escape.

“Sir! Sir!” a male voice shouted in his direction.

The figure hurtling toward Damien wore the frocked coat of a footman.

“Have you seen them?”

“What is the matter?” Damien asked.

“Lady Fletcher and her daughter have just discovered that the house has been robbed by gypsies. Several valuable pieces of jewelry are missing from their rooms, including the sapphire necklace that belonged to Lady Fletcher’s mother. Have you noticed any vagabonds, sir?”

Damien frowned. “I visited the fortune-telling tent earlier. I would start by searching there before running willy-nilly in the night.”

“The tent is gone, sir.”

“Gone?” He suppressed a grin of admiration for what was no doubt Michael’s handiwork.

“Vanished as if it never were. There’s not a trace that it ever existed.”

If Michael could make an entire tent disappear, he could certainly find a way to hide his sister.

The footman muttered an apology for his abruptness before he excused himself. Damien was no longer paying attention. A rectangular white-edged object with an intriguing design had caught his notice. He placed his boot over the card and waited for Farmer Weltry to look away before picking it up and slipping inside his thickly padded shirt.

Urania had left another calling card—
Mariage
. He shook his head and turned to walk back to the tower to report to Lord Ardbury. She wasn’t going to survive long enough to predict anyone’s wedding if she left a trail like this to follow.

•   •   •

Emily and Iris knew every bridle path and secret route through the woods, having traversed them with Michael for years. However, neither Emily nor her maid wished to escape without Michael’s company as protection. The dense thicket would serve as a hiding place for only so long.

“I want to go home,” Iris whispered. “I hate the dark. I hate the rustling I just heard behind me. And right now I even hate—”

“Iris, please. We have to wait for Michael.”

“All night?”

“He will not be all night. You know we can depend on Michael.”

“And the Scotsman? He acted as if he knew you, miss. Is he a man to be trusted? How could you have met him and I not hear of it?”

Emily wavered. “I hope we never see him again. From what I can gather, his only valid credentials are that he and Michael are known to each other from their military days.”

“Mr. Rowland is a good judge of character,” Iris said after a moment.

Emily heaved a sigh. “Yes. But I’m not. I made a mortifying misjudgment tonight, and it has brought me nothing but disaster.”

Iris stared at her in sympathy. “It didn’t go well with Mr. Jackson?”

“He’s in love with the new schoolmistress.”

“Her with the face that could curdle mother’s milk?” Iris said in shock.

Emily laughed reluctantly. “I think he might want a woman to take care of him.”

“Well, that would not be you, miss,” Iris said pragmatically. “You can’t even take care of yourself.”

W
hen Damien returned to the tower, he answered Ardbury’s interrogation as dispassionately as he could. “I took refuge in her tent to avoid a guest at the party I did not wish to meet. The fortune-teller had black curly hair held back in a blue headband. Her skin was the color of light tea. She had a basket at her side. And there was some nostrum on the table that she knocked over.”

“She robbed the house?” the journalist asked for the third time.

Damien shrugged. “So I was told. For all I know she may have robbed the guests who came to her tent to have their fortunes told.” He slipped his hand inside his vest. “My watch is still here. She is obviously not a professional.”

“You should have done us a favor and taken her to the brook to make sure she would never remember your face again,” Lord Ardbury said.

“The authorities aren’t going to care about anything except that she robbed the wealthy citizens of the parish,” Damien replied. “It would astonish me if she heard anything incriminating or that she possessed the wherewithal to turn evidence against us.”

He threw Damien a thunderous look. “She overheard enough to have us all dancing in air.”

“One of us needs to go after her,” the major, seated at the table, said. “Angus, you had the closest look. Search for her as you would one of your lost sheep.”

“The rest of us will be on the lookout in the other directions of the compass, in the village outskirts, and away from the party,” Ardbury said. “It can’t be that hard to find two gypsy maidens.”

The journalist laid down his pen. “I have made a sketch based on Angus’s description. Perhaps, Lord Ardbury, you can ask another guest for more details.”

“We have this.” Lord Ardbury reached beneath his chair and lifted the card that had apparently blown across the floor when the trapdoor opened. “What does it signify?” he asked, flicking it in the air.

Damien’s expression did not change as he caught the card in his left hand. “It is written in French and English. Four Hearts. I’ve seen a few suits like this in my travels. I believe it was part of an old court game played in France. The original cards came from Egypt, as I recall.”

“How did it get in here? If the gypsies had only theft in mind, what lured them to the tower?”

Damien shrugged. “Perhaps they hoped to hide themselves or their loot. As to this card, it is used for divination and in private parlors. Some members of the royal family are said to request a secret reading before they make any important decisions.”

“Divination.” Ardbury drew on his cigar. “One of us needs to divine whether the fortune-teller was invited here tonight or invited herself. If Fletcher paid her to entertain, she should not be difficult to trace.”

“I am not returning to the party,” Damien said, resisting the impulse to make sure the clothing was still covered. He had the signed letter and another card in his possession. That was enough.

The farmer surged to his feet, moving to the window at some noise outside before Damien could intercept him. “Shit and damn,” he said. “It’s only another couple from the party. Sooner or later a pair of lovers are bound to wander up here for privacy.”

Ardbury studied him through a bank of smoke. “Lord Brewster, Major, I will give Fletcher your regrets. The rest of you know what has to be done. Mr. Dinsmore, you will notify our contacts and send out our messengers. Now find those women before Viscount Deptford’s assassination, Angus.”

•   •   •

In one moment Michael appeared on his gelding and ordered Iris to mount behind him. In the next Sir Angus trotted his horse to the thicket from which Emily had emerged. He spoke to her in a tone that forbade resistance.

“Give me your hand.”

She looked up, dumbfounded, into his bearded face. Her brother and Iris had vanished without a word into the woods. Why had Michael abandoned her to this man of dubious credentials?

And why was he staring down at her again as if he realized something was off? Had he noticed the bare patch on the scalp of her wig? No—he shook his head in obvious exasperation at her refusal to obey. “It is an inconvenient time for an explanation.” He swung around in the saddle, offering her his hand with impatience. “You can either trust me or meet the men in the tower.”

She wavered another moment before she lifted her hand to his. There was no other choice. “Where are we going?”

“To your encampment. It must be hidden somewhere in these woods.”

“My what?”

“Your encampment. Your camp. Isn’t that what your people call the place where they park their wagons while plying their trades? Or would you rather admit the truth now and tell me who you really are?” he inquired, his voice soft and yet underlaid with iron. “I can find out myself. But as a courtesy I’d prefer you spare me the time and be honest.”

“I can’t,” she said in hesitation. “I’d get into so much trouble.”

“You’re in trouble now, my darling.”

“Are you going to take advantage of my innocence on the back of a horse?”

He laughed. “It hadn’t entered my mind—the part about the back of a horse.”

“Oh. And the other part?”

His deep laughter was an alluring sound in the dark. “It entered my mind, yes.”

“I wanted to dance tonight,” she said ruefully. “I wanted to drink champagne and twirl around in—” She broke off. Camden was banished from her dreams.

“In . . . ?” he prompted.

“The arms of a handsome gentleman who did not see me as an undesirable.”

“You enjoyed my kiss. Don’t deny it. You don’t need to admit it, either. I’m not trying to put you in an embarrassing position. I enjoyed it, too.”

He was so full of himself that she couldn’t help laughing. “I am accustomed to embarrassment.”

“But not kissing?”

“And I’ve never been in the position of having to flee for my life.”

He breathed a sigh into her hair. She was terrified he would notice it was a wig. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.

“For what?”

“Not for the kiss. I’d have asked for more at another time. I’m sorry that you’re no longer safe because of our association.”

“I thought England was at peace with her enemies.”

“But not within her own lands.”

“Will you send me a wool shawl when you go home?” she asked quietly. “Something to remember you by?”

He frowned. “Why on— Oh, of course. A brightly patterned paisley?”

“Oh no. That would look awful with my hair.”

He was silent. She knew he was thinking about what she had said. “You aren’t a gypsy, are you?” he said at length.

“All gypsies don’t have to act and look a certain way.”

He nodded, considering her confession. “You wanted romance and—let me guess—it had not come into your life, so you thought to give it a push.”

“More or less,” Emily said, lapsing into silence.

“Which path should I take here?” he asked, his rough voice giving her a jolt. “Gather up your thoughts, girl. My associates have already put together a description of you. Believe me, you have no desire to meet one of them in these dark woods. Nor do I.”

“I had no desire for any of this.”

“Young fortune-tellers who prey on the romantic delusions of others take their chances, don’t they?”

“Go to the left, you odious wool vendor. Follow the moonlight and guide the horse with care. And I’ve taken all the chances tonight that I had on my list for eternity.” She glanced back at him, wondering whether it was her imagination or whether his left shoulder seemed narrower than the other. “Riding to who knows where with you was
not
one of them.”

“A decent fortune-teller would have seen this coming.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t need to look at the cards to know I would have been better off had we not met.”

“You feel quite sorry for yourself, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“Why?” His voice was museful.

“Because instead of dancing in a red ball gown with the gentleman of my dreams, I’m slung over the horse of a dangerous stranger who just witnessed, if not accelerated, my complete social decline. It would be easier for me to climb the back of the tower than out of the mess I’ve made.”

His hand brushed the cusp of her cleavage. An accident, she was sure, but it put her on the defense. “You aren’t dropping any more of those accursed cards, are you?” he asked dourly.

“What if I am?”

“Do you not understand me? Your life is as nothing to those men.”

The horse walked slowly past a landmark that Emily recognized as a deserted vixen’s den. The Scotsman hooked his arm around her ribs, an awkward captivity that challenged her concentration. She gripped the basket to her lap.

“I see a barricade of blasted tree stumps ahead,” he said, slowing his mount.

“Veer around the blackest end of the last trunk. I wish I had gone with my brother. I resent him for rescuing Iris and not me as well.”

“You’ll be safe soon,” he said distractedly.

But was she safe now, with him?

“Oh no!” She wriggled from his loose grasp to the ground, aware he had drawn a gun. “I’ve lost another card.”

“For God’s sake.” He dropped to his feet beside her. “You do realize you’ve left a trail for the entire village to trace?”

“I’ve got it now. Do you have to raise your voice?”

“I am not raising my voice.”

She hooked the basket over her arm, reached up to grasp the pommel, and lifted her foot to the stirrup. He gave her an undignified boost in the behind, which she refused to acknowledge. He mounted from the other side, wasting no further time arguing with her. Uncomfortable and cold, she kept one eye on the basket and the other on the path for guideposts.

Her half boot slid off her heel and sat dangling on her toe until it fell in the dirt. “Sir Angus,” she whispered in hesitation, afraid of his anger.

He dismounted, sighing, and wedged the boot tightly back on her foot. He vaulted up behind her before she could explain that the boot could fall off again. She had borrowed the pair from Lucy, and she might be wiser removing them for the duration of the ride. But Sir Angus didn’t appear in the mood to make any concessions for fashion, so she refrained from comment. Until the other boot came off.

“Heaven help me,” he muttered. “What is this preoccupation you have for shedding various belongings at the most dangerous moment of your life? A ball gown, a deck of cards. Anything else?”

She wanted to answer,
Yes. This hideous wig. It’s going to droop to the side of my head at any moment.
But again she managed to hold her tongue, slipping the boots back on in reflective silence.

He grunted as he settled back in the saddle. “Under normal circumstances I would encourage you to disrobe to your heart’s content.”

“Would you?” she said, not at all surprised.

He laughed. “Shameful, isn’t it? I’m not impartial to a beautiful woman, dishonest though she might be.”

A beautiful woman.
Was that what he said? Ordinary Emily Rowland, a beauty?
Lies must come as second nature to a spy,
she thought.

Besides, she was the one who should feel ashamed instead of oddly flattered. But, then, neither of them had started out on the right foot. Or feet. One of her boots had fallen off again, and she knew he’d noticed. She shivered under her shawl as he jumped from the horse, this time removing both her shoes and handing them to her before he remounted. “I am sorry,” she said. “I suppose you could accuse me of ruining your plans, too. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t set out to deceive you.”

He blew out a breath. “What did your scheme involve, anyway? It had to be more than romance. Plain jewelry theft? A few coins from a gullible guest? You didn’t try to rob me. Are there others in your group? I cannot believe that Michael would be a party to such a low-class crime. What did you hope to gain tonight?”

She decided to ignore his questions. His mind was sharp enough that eventually he would find the answers he sought without her help. “Stop a moment, Sir Angus,” she said, gesturing to a pattern on the path of twigs around the crop of toadstools. “Do you see that signpost?”

“What signpost?”

“Are you telling me that with your highly trained senses you cannot see what is arranged around those toadstools?”

“The toadstools? Oh yes. It’s obvious. How could I have missed them? Surely they were there last night when I pranced naked through these woods, playing my reeds.”

“Are you finished, Sir Angus?”

He took some time to answer. “I was going on like an ass, wasn’t I? It is a habit I’ll have to break if I’m to travel through England.”

Emily didn’t care if he traveled to Prussia and back in a bad temper. She wanted to go home. “As I was about to say, just beyond the toadstools is a passageway concealed between those juniper and aspen. It’s an escape route the gypsies use when they’re blamed for a sickness in the parish.”

“Show me.” He sounded serious, if not contrite.

“It’s right in front of you,” she said, pointing to a stand of silver-gray branches. “We’ll have to walk your horse the rest of the way.”

“Is it the fastest route?” he asked hesitantly.

“It’s the safest that I know. We don’t want to ride across an open ridge with only furze as cover. In the moonlight we’d be too easy to spot.”

He hesitated, then slid to the ground, holding out his arms to catch her. She fell into his arms and against his chest, which felt strangely uneven. What was
he
hiding under his coat? He pulled away. It was clear he was anxious to be rid of her, and she had no particular desire to become further involved in his life. “We have to arrive home before my father,” she said. “Once I’m back I assure you that you will be absolved of all responsibility for me.”

“I hope you are right.” He frowned. “Where did you put the stolen jewels?”

“The jewels— Oh. Iris has them.”

“So you are the decoy, and a good one at that,” he said, with a dark smile. “I might have been one of your victims.”