The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla A Pink Carnation Novel (32 page)

She had felt sorry for him; that was all. His family was so awful to him and his cousin was in his bed and he had looked so broken up about Hal, and, really, wasn’t it enough to melt the hardest of hearts? And she was nothing if not compassionate.

Compassion—that was all it was. Why, she was practically a Good Samaritan! It had nothing at all to do with the way his hair tumbled down across his brow or the triangle of his chest exposed by his open dressing gown or—

Lady Florence poked her narrow head out of her basket, fixing Sally with one beady eye.

“Don’t you start,” warned Sally.

A rapping on the paneling behind her back made her jump.

“Sally?” It was Lucien’s voice, distorted by the wooden barrier between them. It sounded oddly hollow and echo-y.

Sally whirled around, making frantic attempts to tidy her hair. “Yes?”

Naturally, she would be dignified and distant. . . . Well, maybe not too dignified and distant. Just dignified and distant enough. She caught sight of herself in the mirror across the room. Was her hair really that much of a mess? No time to brush it now.

“It’s Lucien,” said Lucien, from the other side of the door.

“I know that.” Sally snatched open the secret door.

Lucien stood on the other side, looking unfairly rakish with his dressing gown open over his loose linen shirt, his dark curls tousled. She knew what those curls felt like now beneath her fingers, the weight and texture of them, the short hairs at the back of his neck, the prickle of his chin against her palm.

“What?” Sally snapped. “What is it?”

She wasn’t meant to be thinking of the feel of his skin or the way his fingers felt as they brushed her cheek, so carefully, so delicately. And she would tell him so if he asked. This was a false betrothal—that was all it was.
Good Samaritan
, she reminded herself.
Compassion
. Her halo was so shiny she could practically see her face in it.

“You forgot this.” Lucien was holding something out to her, something mahogany, chased in silver. Sally stared at it, trying to make her scrambled brain do its work.

“A pistol,” she said blankly. “You brought me a pistol?”

A faint smile crossed Lucien’s lips. “I know they aren’t much use against ghosts and ghouls,” he said, and something about the way he said it made Sally cross her arms more firmly across her chest, because otherwise she might be tempted to fling her arms around him. “But just in case.”

“Thank you,” said Sally. She made no move to take the pistol. “But I have Lady Florence with me.”

“The famed stoat defense?” Lucien set the pistol down on a low table, a good yard away from Sally. He made no move to come any closer. “I’ll leave this with you all the same.”

“Thank you,” said Sally politely. And then, since something more seemed to be required: “Good night.”

It seemed like an absurd conversation to be having with someone against whom she had been pressed intimately only five minutes before. Not that she was sure what sort of conversation one was meant to be having with someone against whom one had been pressed intimately.

“Good night,” said the duke, just as correctly, and with a little bow for good measure. The formality of the gesture contrasted oddly with his dressing gown and the open neck of the shirt beneath. And then, without further ado, he pressed the mechanism that opened the door in the paneling.

He was, Sally realized incredulously, leaving. Just like that.

Lucien paused, one hand on the open panel. “Sally?”

“Yes?” Sally tried not to sound too eager.

Lucien nodded in the direction of the other entrance. “Lock your door. Both of them.”

And with that, the panel clicked shut behind him.

“I was planning to,” she protested, but Lucien wasn’t there to hear. She was left talking to the empty air and one unappreciative stoat.

Sally hugged the velvet folds of her dressing gown to her. That was it? That was all? No undying avowals of love? No attempted ravishment? She had a dozen cutting set-downs all prepared. She bit her lip, as her conscience uttered derisive noises that sounded a good deal like Miss Gwen. She would have used them, she told herself. Eventually.

But, no. Lucien, Sally realized with a growing sense of indignation, had evidently meant what he said.

It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.

Of course, it wouldn’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened even once, but for the fact that she was so warmhearted and compassionate and charitable and all that sort of thing.

Sally locked the door and put a chair beneath it for good measure. Not that she thought she would need it, but just because.

Did he think she wanted him to kiss her again? Had she somehow given that impression? If so, she thought indignantly, kicking the hem of her robe out of the way, she would soon put the matter straight. It wasn’t as though she had invited his attentions. Her eyelashes hadn’t been fluttering, not in the least.

It was very hard for one’s eyelashes to flutter when one’s eyes were closed.

That wasn’t the point. The point was . . . What was the point? Oh, right. She remembered now. It wasn’t as though she was the one who had initiated the embrace. She had been innocently minding her own business, tendering the benefit of her good advice, when, suddenly, out of the middle of nowhere, he had just
swooped
. She certainly hadn’t asked him to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her dizzy.

Yes, yes, she knew she shouldn’t have been in Lucien’s room in her dressing gown, but, really, it wasn’t as though she had intended to be in Lucien’s room in her dressing gown. Much like everything else, it had just happened. Her dressing gown covered quite as much of her as any of her morning gowns or walking dresses and certainly more of her than most of her evening gowns.

Really, it was all quite respectable, or as respectable as it could be under the circumstances. It wasn’t as though she had known that that stair led to his room. If she had—

Sally paused at this point in her musings, then shook her head. No. However much curiosity might have tempted her, she most certainly wouldn’t have visited Lucien’s room in the dead of night. At least, not while he was there. Even she knew that such behavior was beyond the pale.

But once there . . . Well, it really wouldn’t have been polite just to barge out again, would it? It wasn’t as though she had flung herself into his arms and begged to be ravished.

If she went downstairs and told him that, would it be construed as an invitation to ravish her again?

Sally squelched that thought before it could proceed further. She wasn’t supposed to want to be ravished. She made a wrathful face at her own reflection in the windowpane. Maybe Lucien really was a vampire. That would explain how he’d sucked the sense out of her and turned her into one of those hideous simpering creatures who clogged the mirrors in the ladies’ retiring room, sighing over this viscount and that baronet and who had attempted to kiss whom.

Sally drew herself up proudly. It wasn’t as though no one had ever attempted to take liberties before; she wasn’t such an antidote as that. She had learned how to deal patiently, scornfully, or crushingly with would-be Lotharios, depending on the extent of their daring and the degree of their offense.

But none of them had ever made her cheeks grow hot and her hands grow cold and her breath catch in her chest and—and—

“Don’t say it!” she snapped at Lady Florence, who, being a stoat, hadn’t said anything at all.

As soon as it was decently light, a sleepy and cranky Sally stalked down the corridors of Hullingden in search of Miss Gwen. Miss Gwen had got them into this—Sally conveniently papered over her own part prior to Miss Gwen’s involvement—and it was up to her to find the murderer so that Lucien’s name could be cleared and they could all go home.

The end.

Sally spent a moment basking in the image of Lucien, reinstated to all the honors of which he hadn’t yet been stripped, going down on one knee and vowing that he owed it all to her, while she very graciously acknowledged his acknowledgments and then freed him from their betrothal.

This highly satisfying image was, unfortunately, superseded by that of Lucien in his dressing gown, looking down at her with regret in his dark eyes, saying, “We mustn’t be too convincing.”

Sally tackled her task with renewed purpose. Charity and compassion went only so far.

She couldn’t have the duke thinking she wanted to stay longer at Hullingden.

Even if she did.

It took her several false starts, one wrong turn down a service stair, and the help of a friendly under-housemaid (who, it turned out, also had an excellent recipe for freckle cream), but Sally eventually found her way to Miss Gwen’s room, only an hour after she had left her own.

Really, guests should be given maps, she thought grumpily. She added that to her list of grievances as she knocked peremptorily at the door of Miss Gwen’s room.

Miss Gwen’s familiar dulcet tones issued forth from behind the closed door. “Go away.”

Sally went in anyway.

The door to the dressing room clicked shut as Miss Gwen’s maid whisked out of the way, carrying a pile of garments over one arm, her cap pulled down low over her brow.

“Did you know that Fanny Logan was Hal Caldicott’s mistress?” Sally said without preamble.

“Now I do.” Miss Gwen’s room, unlike Sally’s, was in the new wing. Instead of dark paneling, everything was light and airy, from the white woodwork to the cheerful birds and flowers embroidered on the counterpane. Miss Gwen was comfortably ensconced in a bed that looked as though it had been purchased within the past century, propped against a number of pillows, a tray on her lap. Her pince-nez were perched upon her nose and there was a pile of papers on the bed beside her.

Sally felt a surge of relief. Miss Gwen was on the case. They would find the real murderer, clear Lucien’s name, improve the castle kitchens, and then retire to London in a blaze of glory.

Then everything could go back to just the way it was.

Somehow, that wasn’t quite as satisfying a prospect as it ought to have been.

“What did you find? Correspondence? A journal?” Sally plunked herself down on the bed, making the chocolate cup rock on its saucer. She snatched eagerly at the nearest page. “
Sir Magnifico bent his knee. ‘It would be selfish in me to keep you by my side when such evil stalks the land.’ With one noble tear
— You’re working on your book?”

Miss Gwen snatched the page away. “Manuscripts don’t just write themselves.”

Sally wiggled off the bed, waving her arms for emphasis. “Yes, and murders don’t just solve themselves either! There are
lives
at stake.”

Not to mention her pride, which was currently sporting a duke-shaped dent.

“You have lives to save; I have a deadline.” Miss Gwen permitted herself a small smirk. “Many people are waiting for the sequel to
The Convent of Orsino
.”

Sally’s nails dug into her palms. “Is this the sequel in which a duke is unfairly charged with murder because someone spread ridiculous rumors about vampires?”

“Who would want to read that?” Miss Gwen regarded her manuscript pages fondly. “Plumeria must leave her child with Sir Magnifico and go to battle the dread Goblin King, who has risen from the dead to menace the kingdom.”

This was beginning to sound far less fictional. Miss Gwen had left her own infant daughter, Plumeria, at home with her husband, Colonel Reid. Colonel Reid, who had five previous offspring from various relationships, was something of an expert when it came to infant wrangling.

Sally didn’t bother to keep the edge out of her voice. “Is there also an old castle in the countryside all covered in vines?”

“Guarded by ten fearsome ghouls in two straight lines.” Assuming a soulful expression, Miss Gwen intoned, “In two straight lines they shook their spears, bared their teeth and pulled their ears.”

They didn’t sound particularly fearsome to Sally. “Is there also an intrepid golden-haired heroine?”

Miss Gwen looked at Sally over her spectacles. “No,” she said succinctly.

Well, then. Sally paced restlessly alongside the bed. “Fiction is all very well and good, but we have a real murderer stalking the night. Are we going to wait until he kills again?”

“Certainly not. Corpses are so untidy.” Miss Gwen squinted at her manuscript, crossed something out, thought better of it, and crossed out the cross-out. “There’s no need for these histrionics. I have it all in hand.”

All she appeared to have in hand was her manuscript. “Not to sound critical, but . . .”

“That’s the problem with your generation. None of you have a particle of patience.” With a martyred air, Miss Gwen set her manuscript aside. “I made good use of my time last night. While
you
were gadding about.”

Gadding
. That was one way to put it.

Sally tried not to squirm under the scrutiny of those beady black eyes. Miss Gwen couldn’t possibly know. . . . No. Not even Miss Gwen was that omniscient.

Sally hoped.

She took refuge in a barrage of questions. “Did you contact the Pink Carnation? Is the Carnation on the case?”

Or on the premises. Sally had her suspicions about her new maid.