Lady Rosabella's Ruse

Chapter Seven




The clock had struck one in the morning before Rosa dared make her way out of the house and into a storm that seemed to have no interest in abating. The edges of her cloak whipped out of her fingers and flew apart. Driving rain soaked the front of her gown. She put down her lantern and retied the strings tighter. She glanced back. No sign of anyone following.

This really was her last chance. She wished she’d thought of the cellars and the attic yesterday. Going out tonight was a huge risk after telling Stanford she was done searching. All evening she’d been picturing her and her sisters out on the street, or, worse yet, in a debtors’ prison. If she didn’t find the will tonight, she’d have to make a new plan. Not even her dream of working in the theatre would help her. She needed money now, right away.

And she’d spent the afternoon playing cricket. Flirting with Stanford. Offering advice to a woman who had never lacked for a penny in her life. Could things get any more ridiculous?

Thank goodness Stanford believed her when she said she wasn’t going to look any more. Well, there was no reason why he would not. She had meant it last night. He certainly wouldn’t be looking for her to go out on a night like tonight.

She plunged into the forest. The wind dropped dramatically, though it howled in the canopy overhead. She picked up her skirts in one hand and, holding the lantern high, ran along the path, avoiding the mud as best she could.

The river sounded much louder than usual. She paused at the centre of the bridge, looking at the dark swirling water in the circle of light from her lantern. It looked angry.

She hurried on, flinching at each clap of thunder, blinking against the flashes of lightning. No light shone from Inchbold’s cottage. Nor did she expect it, but it would have been nice to see his cheerful face. She soon had the back door open and stepped inside. The wind rattled the windows and shrieked down the chimney. She shivered. An empty house in a storm was a lonely place indeed.

Cellars first, or attic? The thought of the cellars made her shiver again. Then that was where she must start or she might avoid them altogether, although she really didn’t think her father would have kept important papers down there. She really had her hopes pinned on the attic.

She took a deep breath. Cellars first.

A low arched door led to the cellars from the kitchen. She’d never been down the stairs, but she’d known of their existence.

She lifted the latch and opened the door and gasped at the smell of mould and damp. A set of stone steps twisted downwards into darkness. Holding her lantern high with one hand and the wooden balustrade with the other, she marched boldly down the steps.

A narrow passageway led past a series of archways, some of them with doors that were open, some with no doors at all. The cellars were ancient and the ceilings low. As she peered into all the empty spaces a feeling of hopelessness filled her chest. A fool’s errand. She had to stop hoping, it was just too painful each time her hopes were dashed.

Footsteps. Loud. On the steps. She whirled around, her lantern casting dizzying shadows. Another lantern twinkled at the far end near the stairs. Her stomach did a belly flop. ‘Who is it?’

‘Find anything?’ a cool mocking voice asked.

‘Stanford,’ she gasped over the sound of her pounding heart. ‘You scared me. What are you doing here?’

‘Thought you’d give me the slip, did you?’ He had to bend his neck to prevent hitting his head on the arching ceiling.

She bit her lip. ‘Yes.’

His laugh echoed off the walls. ‘Well, I have bad news for you.’

‘You found me.’

‘That’s not the worst of it. The bridge is out.’

She stared at him, then, as he lowered his lantern, she saw that he was soaked to the waist and dripping water in a puddle all round him.

‘Oh, no. You fell in the river. You could have drowned.’

‘Wouldn’t that have solved your problems?’

‘Hardly. What sort of person would wish another drowned? Why did you follow me? I told you I was done here.’

He stared at her silently for a moment. ‘And like a fool I believed you.’

He sounded a little bitter. She recalled his opinion of women as liars with an odd sinking feeling that she’d proved him right in her case, too. ‘Oh.’

‘It’s a good thing I saw you from the library window, or you might have found yourself in the river on the way home.’

He was right, dash it. ‘Then I must be glad you are here.’ She did feel glad. Far happier than she had a moment ago. Because even though she’d found nothing in the cellar, the feeling of despair had receded, as if the light of his lantern had driven it back.

‘Did you find anything?’

‘There is nothing down here but some empty barrels, dust and a heap of coal.

He walked past her down the passageway, peering in the empty cellars much as she had. ‘Not much of a cellar.’

‘I think they were built for the original house. It burned down in the seventeenth century.’

He turned and came back to her. ‘You know a lot about this house.’ He sounded suspicious again.

She shrugged. ‘I told you. I lived here. You learn things about a house when you live in it.’

‘I suppose you do. Are you done down here?’

She sighed. ‘Yes. I can’t imagine anyone keeping anything of value down here. It is too damp.’

‘And cold,’ he said with a shiver.

‘Perhaps we should light a fire and get you dry?’

His eyes widened. ‘Why, Mrs Travenor, are you asking me to remove my clothes?’

Heat enveloped her. ‘Of c-course n-not,’ she stuttered.

‘Then you are thinking of parking me beside a nice warm fire while you go off and search on your own. I don’t think so.’

Horrid suspicious man. Dash it, let him think what he liked. ‘Suit yourself. But if you come down with the ague, don’t complain to me.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Shall we?’

He escorted her back up the steps into the kitchen.

‘The servants’ stairs to the attic is this way,’ she said.

‘After you,’ he said.

The sound of squelching followed her up the stairs.

‘Perhaps if you took off your boots,’ she suggested, imagining how uncomfortable he must feel.

‘I’ll keep them on,’ he said.

Stubborn idiot.

‘Did you say something?’ he asked.

Oh, Lord, had she spoken aloud? ‘No. Not a word.’ She continued the climb, past the first, second and third floors. The stairs came to an end on the fourth floor. She opened the small door at the top. ‘These are the servants’ quarters,’ she said. ‘At least, those of the lower servants—the housekeeper and butler have rooms on the ground floor since there is no room for them in the cellar.’

‘You think this picture is in the servants’ rooms?’

‘No. There is storage at the end.’ She walked quickly past the cramped chambers where the female servants would have slept in twos and threes. ‘Through here.’ Another small door barred their way.

She tried the handle. ‘It’s locked.’

‘Because the owner doesn’t want anyone going in there,’ he said drily.

‘Or because he doesn’t want the female servants sneaking through here to visit the men,’ she said equally drily.

‘Good Lord, is that how to keep them apart?’

He was laughing at her. This really wasn’t an appropriate topic of conversation, was it? ‘I need to get in here.’

‘Do you want me to break down the door?’

‘Do you think you could?’

‘No. It is solid oak.’

She gazed at the heavy wooden door. ‘Then why offer? Perhaps we should try from the other side.’

‘There might be a key in the kitchen.’

So there might. They trailed back down the stairs. A quick search through the drawers in the dresser beside the hearth revealed a bunch of keys.

‘The housekeeper must have left them here.’

‘How very obliging,’ Stanford drawled.

‘Are you insinuating I knew of their existence?’

‘You do have a key to the back door.’

‘Yes, I do. The groundskeeper gave it to me. He said nothing about this set of keys.’

‘Oh, yes, your accomplice.’

‘Accomplice? Oh, that is really too much. You still think I am here to steal.’

‘My dear Mrs Travenor. I don’t think, I know. You already told me you are.’

‘I only want what belongs to me. Nothing else.’ She glared at him and saw that he still didn’t believe her. ‘Oh, never mind. Come on, let us see if one of these keys work, but quite honestly you would be better off making a fire and getting yourself dry.’

She stomped out of the kitchen and back upstairs. He followed in silence.

Blast him, she hoped he froze to death. It would serve him right.

After a few tries, she found the key that fitted the lock and the door swung back. The room was stuffed full of tables and chairs and carpets.

Over against the wall where the roof came down almost to the floor, almost buried by a huge rug and behind an assortment of pictures, she spotted her father’s desk. The one that had once been in the study. ‘There,’ she said. ‘The desk.’

‘Wouldn’t the miniature more likely be with the pictures?’ he asked.

‘It’s small. He would have put it somewhere safe.’

‘And I suppose you want me to move everything so you can rifle through the drawers.’

‘It would give you a purpose for being here.’

He laughed and set his lantern down. The first thing he grabbed was the rug. A cloud of dust rose. They both started coughing.

Stanford flung it to one side. More dust flew. He picked up a portrait, the frame gilded and heavily carved. ‘It weighs as much as a pony,’ he grunted, setting it up against the rug.

Rosa moved some of the smaller pictures and set them on one side and moved a lamp out of the way.

The desk was clear, but the drawers were obstructed.

‘We’ll have to pull it out.’

Stanford heaved the heavy oak piece as if it weighed nothing, though he did make a grunt in his throat.

‘That’s far enough,’ she said. Quickly, she opened the lid. It had assorted drawers and little pigeon-holes, but as she felt around with her fingers she discovered nothing like the catch in the escritoire. No secret compartments.

She pulled out the drawers each side of the knee hole. The desk was completely empty.

She felt around again, hoping against hope she had missed something. Not a knot or indentation did she feel.

Her stomach slid sideways. Her knees felt weak.

It wasn’t here. A lump formed in her throat. Hot moisture stung the backs of her eyes. Grandfather was right. Father hadn’t cared.

All hope fled.

She’d have to write to Grandfather again. On behalf of the girls. She didn’t care about herself.

She glanced up to find Stanford watching her intently.

‘It’s not here,’ she said, trying to sound casual, and failing miserably as her voice broke.

‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded sorry. And uncomfortable.

She turned to put back the drawers and surreptitiously wiped her eyes. He didn’t need to know how hard this blow had hit. ‘I suppose we should put this back where we found it.’

‘I doubt anyone will care. Is there anywhere else you want to look? There’s a chest over in that corner. I could dig it out.’

Surprised, she darted a glance at his face. For once he looked genuinely concerned. Almost as if he believed her.

She looked at the chest, brown leather and bound in brass. It wasn’t something she recognised. ‘I suppose we could look inside.’

Once more he cleared a path through the items piled up in the room. Dust flew up in clouds while the rain drummed on the roof, inches above their heads.

Thankfully the chest wasn’t locked and she easily lifted the lid.

‘Oh,’ she said, realising instantly what she was seeing. The tools of her mother’s trade. Wigs and feathers and face paint. Even a costume or two.

Stanford leaned over her shoulder. ‘Any luck?’

It was possible her father had hidden the will in here. Of all the places her grandfather was likely to look, this would be the last. Anything to do with her mother’s lowly profession made him shudder with revulsion.

Carefully she lifted out a pair of old-fashioned green leather shoes with paste buckles, faded ribbons and paper stuffed in the toes.

‘I say,’ Stanford said, leaning over her. ‘Look at this.’ He pulled out a mask. The kind revellers wore in Venice, turquoise, with fancy embroidery, a pointed beak and feathers. A peacock’s face.

‘It is beautiful.’ She set the shoes aside.

He dropped the mask on top of them. ‘Hah, what about this one?’ He placed the scary devil mask against his face, his eyes gleaming through the eyeholes. ‘Am I a handsome fellow?’

‘Much better looking than usual.’

‘Oh, a wisty caster,’ he said with a wink.

She lifted out a diaphanous piece of fabric covered in spangles. At first she thought it must be a shawl, then when she looked closer, she realized it was a gown. Something her mother had worn on stage.

‘Very nice,’ Stanford said, his eyes dancing. ‘Would you care to try it on?’

Mortified, she folded it carefully and added it to the pile beside the chest. She lifted out the rest of the costumes without investigating what they were until the bottom of the chest sat bare before them. ‘It’s not here,’ she said.

‘I see that.’ He glanced around. ‘There doesn’t seem to anything else that might contain a hiding place.

Rosa couldn’t take her gaze from Mama’s trunk. She hadn’t even known it existed. She would love to have been able to keep it. To look through it properly. Reluctantly she put everything back and closed the lid. No doubt Grandfather would throw it away if he saw it and its contents. She had the feeling that once that happened it would be as if Mama never existed.

Sadness squeezed her heart. And not just because Father had forgotten her and her sisters. It seemed he’d also forgotten their mother. The woman for whom he’d been prepared to give up everything. Perhaps in the end he’d decided he’d made a mistake.

With a sigh she rose to her feet and let her gaze sweep the cramped space. ‘I don’t think there is anywhere else to look.’

Saying the words brought her situation home with the force of a gale. Her hopes were built on a foundation of sand and everything was about to tumble down around her ears.

Now what should she do? Write to Grandfather again? Beg him to look after the girls, even if he wouldn’t lift a finger for her? It wasn’t their fault she’d borrowed the money. If he wouldn’t help, they would have to fend for themselves.

She was the one who had incurred the debt. She was the one who would have to go to prison.

Even if she landed a role as an opera singer in London, it might be weeks before she earned enough to pay off the debt unless the moneylender would accept something on account. It was a hopeful thought.

‘Mrs Travenor?’

She glanced up. ‘I’m sorry. Did you say something?’

‘I was wondering if you would like me to unroll the carpets?’

He looked sorry, caring, as if he’d like to help. There was nothing he could do.

She shook her head with a brief smile. ‘The carpets would have been taken up long after we left.’ She squared her shoulders as she thought of the task in front of her. ‘It isn’t here. I’ll leave the back-door key with these others in the kitchen. I won’t need it again.’

Stanford must have seen her distress, much as she tried to hide it, because he gave her an encouraging smile. ‘We could try the other rooms again. I don’t think we’ll be leaving here tonight.’

She stared at him aghast. ‘Not leave?’

‘I told you, the bridge is down.’

She had to leave. Grandfather would arrive in the morning. She could not be found here with Stanford. ‘We will go around by the lane.’

‘We could try,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s a three-mile walk and, if you hadn’t noticed, it’s raining cats and dogs. Who is to say that the lane isn’t flooded? There are three bridges between here and The Grange according to the map I saw.’

‘Three miles? How can it be? It takes fifteen minutes to walk here through the woods.’

His lips thinned as if she’d called him a liar. ‘I assure you it is. The lane goes around the woods to the village, just as the lane to The Grange goes around the fields in the other direction to the village. There is no lane between the two houses apart from the path through the woods and, as I mentioned, the bridge is down.’

‘Well, there is no need to be unpleasant about it.’

He took a step towards her, as if he’d like to shake her, but he’d forgotten the low ceiling. He banged his head. ‘Blast.’

The shock on his face made her giggle. The small laugh released some of the pressure on her chest. Got her mind working again, instead of going around and around in the same old circle.

He gave her a sour look, rubbing his forehead, then he grinned. ‘Trust me, it is a three-mile walk.’

She sighed. ‘Oh, I believe you.’ Well, of course she did. If anything could go wrong, it did. ‘Then we had best get started.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not in the dark in a raging storm.’ As if to confirm his words, a thunderclap reverberated through the house, making her jump. It grumbled into silence, leaving the sound of rain beating against the roof. ‘We will light a fire, get dry and set off at first light.’

Spend the night? ‘What will people say?’

His jaw dropped. ‘What people?’

She twisted her hands together. ‘The owner is due here tomorrow. That is why I came again tonight. What if he finds us here in the morning?’

He glanced down at the hem of her gown, mired in mud and the dust from the floors. ‘We will leave at first light. Long before anyone is on the road.’

‘If you are too fine to get a little damp, I will go by myself.’

At that moment her lantern winked out, leaving only his alight.

‘Good luck in the dark,’ he said. ‘Unless you know the whereabouts of a supply of oil.’

Negotiating a country lane would be hard enough with a lantern when there wasn’t a storm. To do so on a night like tonight would be foolish.

‘Very well, but we will have to leave the moment it is light.’

‘The instant, I promise. Let’s get downstairs to the kitchen before my light goes out. I noticed a stack of wood on the hearth in the kitchen. We can light the fire.’

‘So now you want to light a fire.’ She huffed out a breath.

He looked down at her and there was a strange expression on his face. He hesitated, then smiled his devil-may-care smile. ‘After you.’

She hurried down the stairs to the kitchen. In short order they had kindling on the fire and a merry blaze. But there weren’t many logs and they would soon burn through them.

‘I’ll fetch some of that coal up from the cellar while you get out of those wet clothes,’ she said.

He nodded. He looked a bit demonic in the light from the fire, all axe-hard angles and shadowed hollows. Not scary, though. Just terribly wicked. Her stomach gave a funny little lurch.

‘Now there is a suggestion I never thought I would hear pass your lips.’

Uncomprehending, she blinked. Then his words made sense and heat flooded her face. ‘Wretch. This is no time for jokes.’

‘Well, I just thought I’d mention that once my clothes are off, I will be naked.’

Oh, right. ‘Wait a moment.’

She went into the drawing room and pulled the covers off a couple of chairs. She brought them back to the kitchen. ‘They might be a bit dusty, but you can use one as a towel and the other one as a robe.’ She grabbed the coal scuttle beside the hearth, and the lantern. ‘I’ll get the coal before we lose the last of our light.’ She ran down the stairs, trying not to imagine him removing his garments.

She shovelled coal into the bucket. He’d looked fine in his shirtsleeves this afternoon. Naked, he’d probably look like one of the many statues littering The Grange. ‘Really, Rosabella,’ she muttered, ‘have you no shame? Just because you pretend to be a widow, doesn’t mean you should think like one.’ She picked up the heavy scuttle and staggered back to the stairs.

A white apparition stood at the top. She gave a little squeak.

‘Give me the coal,’ the apparition said, running down to help.

When he entered the light cast by her lantern, he looked more like a mummy than a Greek god.

With a nervous giggle she handed him the bucket and went ahead up the stairs. ‘Thank you,’ she said when they reached the top. ‘That bucket was heavy.’

It didn’t look heavy in his hands; his naked arms were beautifully formed. So were his shoulders. She couldn’t take her eyes off their sculpted curves and the way they flexed as he set the bucket down on the hearth. Her fingers longed to touch the swell of flesh on his upper arm, to see if it was hard or soft. His forearms were huge and dusted with dark hair. By comparison her arms looked like twigs. He was…delicious.

Embarrassed, she turned away. ‘I should hang up my cloak to dry,’ she said, then pressed her lips together at the hoarse sound of her voice as if sand lined her throat. She swallowed hard.

‘Take off your shoes and stockings, too,’ he said. ‘Your feet must be as damp as mine.’

Her head jerked around.

He wasn’t looking at her, he was busy placing lumps of coal on the fire with tongs. There was nothing salacious in his voice, just plain practicality, but her heart was pounding like the hooves of a runaway horse.

When she didn’t answer, he turned his head to look at her. Firelight danced in his eyes and lit his full sensual mouth. Lips that had enslaved her body to his will.

He stood up, hands on hips. The fire outlined his shape. She could…oh, saints above, she could see the outline of his legs where he stood with them wide apart. She forced her gaze to move to his face, not to take stock of the way the sheet clung to his hips, or the bulge between his thighs. But even lifting her gaze wasn’t safe when she encountered his broad chest, or the wide shoulders emerging from the white fabric.

He glared at her. ‘Do you think I would take advantage of you?’

Her stomach did a little dance of hopeful glee. She took a quick breath to still it. ‘I— No, of course not.’

She grabbed her cloak from the chair where she had flung it when she came in and shook out its folds. ‘If we move the chair closer, we can use it as a drying horse.’

‘Good idea,’ he replied, though there was a bit of mockery in his voice. ‘It will make a good place to dry your stockings.’

He was right. Her feet were wet. In her anxiety to search, she really hadn’t noticed the physical discomfort, but now there was no hope to buoy her spirits, the damp was creeping into her bones. It was also creeping cold and chill into her heart, but there was nothing she could do about that. Nothing at all.

She went behind the chair and removed her footwear and then her stockings while he continued building the fire. She hung the stockings over the chair back and put her shoes on the hearth. He glanced around and nodded. ‘I’ll get another chair for my things.’ He dragged two more chairs forwards, making a semicircle around the hearth, and draped his clothes over them. ‘Hmm. Something is missing. Sit down beside the fire. I’ll be back in a moment.’ He picked up the lantern and disappeared.

Already the fire had a nice red glow in the middle. Its warmth permeated through her skirts. The scent of burning wood and coal filled the room. Cosy. Intimate. Comforting.

How could she be comforted with a man wearing nothing but a sheet? A man she found far too attractive for her own good. A man renowned for his powers of seduction.

Despite his assertions, given her weakness where he was concerned, she’d be a fool not to think him dangerous.

Forewarned was forearmed. Wasn’t it?