Chapter 44
After a leisurely breakfast the following day, the guests returned to their rooms to change their clothing for an al fresco luncheon on the lawn. Damien insisted that Emily looked fine as she was; he was certainly not going to bother changing to impress a group of people he was unlikely to meet again. Still, he agreed to indulge Emily, and waited at the bottom of the stairs for her to enact a ritual that he told her in no uncertain terms was unnecessary. But he supposed he had a little time on his hands now. His job was almost done.
As she hurried up the stairs, her skirt in hand, she was overtaken by a housemaid so engrossed in running an errand that she bumped Emily into the railing. “Sorry, my lady,” she said without a glance in Emily’s direction.
Emily was about to gently reprimand the maid when a familiar face at the top of the stairs drew her attention.
“Oh!” she said warmly to Iris. “What perfect timing,” she whispered as the maid scurried away. “Will you arrange my hair for the luncheon?”
Iris appeared to be in anything but an accommodating mood. She glared at the careless housemaid, who had disappeared into another guest’s room without knocking. “Did you see that? Did you see the sly look on her face? Did she not give you a sense of something evil?”
Emily frowned. “Was that the maid you were talking about last night?”
“The one and only. Something’s not right about her. I told you, didn’t I? I told Winthrop. But does anyone ever listen?”
“I think I might have seen her before,” Emily said, resting against the staircase railing. “Her voice sounded familiar. Still, for the life of me I can’t remember where I would have met her.”
She stared over the balustrade at Damien, who took only one look at her face before he realized that something was wrong. “In the last room to the left,” she said as he ran up the stairs toward her. “It’s the housemaid that has behaved suspiciously.”
He turned into the hall, Emily and Iris trailing at his heels. “The housemaid?” he asked. “What housemaid?”
“The one Iris distrusts.”
Damien pivoted. “Am I chasing her down for any particular reason?”
“There’s something off about her,” Iris stated. “She’s always listening when I talk to Winthrop.”
Damien shrugged. “Winthrop never mentioned her.”
“I have an odd feeling about her, too,” Emily said.
“I have odd feelings about people all the time,” Damien admitted. “But it usually takes more than a feeling for me to chase them into an unknown person’s room. What exactly do you expect to say to her?”
“Ask her what she is doing upstairs when she has been assigned to the yellow-drawing room on the first floor,” Iris said. And at Damien’s perplexed look she added, “What if she is part of the conspiracy? Wouldn’t a female assassin be the last person you would suspect as a conspirator?”
Damien looked pointedly at his wife. “As a married man I have made it a rule to never underestimate a member of the opposite sex.”
Emily smiled at him.
“However,” he continued, “this sounds like a situation that should best be left to the butler.”
“He’s taking Winthrop’s side,” Iris said to Emily.
Emily stared down the hall, shaking her head. “It can’t be. I have seen her before, Damien. And I remember where. She was working at the Sign of the Raven when we stayed there only days ago. Can it be coincidence that she is here?”
He muttered an unintelligible curse. “There’s only one way to find out.”
? ? ?
As he entered the room, the housemaid swung around from the bed, took one look at Damien, then launched into a tearful confession.
“I admit everything. I am as guilty as the person who paid me. I knew what I was doing was wrong when I offered my services. My dad knows I became involved in their arrangement. He wanted me to do it.”
Damien rubbed his face. How had this girl deceived Winthrop? She was a woeful amateur, and her voice made his head split.
“Iris,” he said, “stand outside in case Mrs. Gladwick returns before we are finished.” He turned back to the housemaid. “How did you become involved in the conspiracy?”
The girl gave him a blank look. “What conspiracy? Oh, you mean the ‘arrangement’?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I mean the conspiracy against the Crown.”
“In this castle?” she asked, her shock palpable. “Don’t tell me I’ve been taking tips from traitors this whole time. I’ll give back every tuppence that I’ve saved for Sunday night gambling.”
“Who hired you?” Damien demanded, wondering which of the conspirators had been impressed by this feather-brained female.
“The castle steward,” she said. “I worked the harvest feast in the Christmas ball last year. I made enough to buy me mum the green cloak she’d been wanting. But she won’t be happy if she finds out about this.”
“Nor will the castle steward.”
“Mr. James? Oh, he wouldn’t mind. It only bothers him when a cuckolded husband finds out and insists on defending his honor with a duel. You should know what I’m talking about.”
Damien glanced at Emily, who half covered her face with her hand. “Why do I have the sense that she and I aren’t talking about the same thing?”
“I am employed at the Raven,” the girl said with a nervous giggle. “My father said that hard work would pay off in the end, but I don’t see that it’s made a difference. The rich still treat servants like filth.”
Emily lowered her hand. “You were the maid who approached me with the tarot card outside my husband’s carriage. You do admit that, too?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” the girl asked in confusion. “I was only trying to be helpful.”
“Then why didn’t you acknowledge me a few minutes ago when we passed on the stairs?”
“I didn’t want to get you into trouble with his lordship. I knew he was watching, and you told me that your husband would be upset if he thought you had consulted the gypsies about your love affair.”
“I said nothing of a love affair,” Emily said indignantly.
“Not in so many words,” the girl replied. “But the card you dropped said ‘passion.’ For all I knew you had another lover or had bought a spell to make your husband love you forever. Desperate women often resort to magic to hold a man’s heart.”
Damien walked to the door, shaking his head, and motioned for Emily and the maid to take their leave. Once the maid slipped into the hall, she wasted no time disappearing down the stairs.
“Well,” Iris said, her hands on her hips. “Was I right or wrong?”
Damien glanced around the room. “You were right to alert me, Iris,” he said guardedly.
“She’s a little liar,” Iris said, her face reddening.
“Yes. She is. Why don’t you go with Emily while I think this over?”
He walked from the room in silence, watching Emily and Iris disappear into his chamber. Footsteps on the staircase diverted his attention. He turned to see Winthrop below him, his face dark with concern.
“What is it?” Damien demanded.
“It’s Batleigh, my lord. I don’t know how it happened, but apparently he tried to escape, and one of the viscount’s guards shot him to death on the way to gaol. We’ll never know now if he was working alone.”
“How convenient,” Damien said.
“I thought the same thing myself,” Winthrop said. “He was never questioned or allowed a defense.”
“He almost killed me,” Damien said.
“Yes,” Winthrop said, clearly shaken. “And I suppose you think it was an accident?”
Damien arched his brow. “Don’t you?”
“No, my lord,” Winthrop said. “I do not.”
? ? ?
Damien was in a fretful mood while he and Emily dressed for the operetta that would be held in the great hall. He slouched against the door, his gloves in hand, his long black coat slung over his arm. Emily had come to the conclusion that this was how her husband dealt with a crisis: withdrawing into himself. She, on the other hand, could not stop chattering when she was upset.
Conversation, even one-sided, seemed preferable to his frequent bouts of silence in which, for all she knew, he was wondering whether another assassin would strike tonight and how he would thwart him if he did. She didn’t know how much longer she could live like this, pretending to be a bride who had no worries in the world, except that someone had tried to kill her husband today. What difference did it make if Damien had not been the intended target?
“Are you worried that there will be another assault tonight?” she finally asked him.
“How do you think it would happen?” he asked, looking her up and down.
“He could be stabbed while the audience is engrossed with the action on stage. He could conceivably be shot during the aria, if the perpetrator enters and escapes through one of the screen doors.”
“There are four guards disguised as footmen in the castle.”
Emily turned to him, no longer able to hide her distress. “Counting Winthrop and Hamm?”
He nodded. “We are still all at some risk. Winthrop will have his eye on Iris the entire night, as I will on you.”
“You cannot keep watch over me and the viscount at the same time. At least not properly. Your commitment is to him.”
He placed his arm around her waist and drew her to him. Her violet satin skirt rustled in the momentary silence. “With apologies to the Crown, my wife comes before all else.”
“Damien, you don’t mean that, and I would not expect you to put me first.”
“Pray God, then, that my loyalty is not put to the test.”
Her emotions blocked the flow of rational thought in her mind. As touched as she was by his courage, she could not contain her concern. If she had ever doubted the dark motives of his enemies, she did not now. She wondered how her husband had ever been able to trust anyone after overcoming evils that she would never understand. And she wondered if it was possible he meant what he had said, that he cared for her and placed her above his profession. She grasped his hand, wishing that she could protect him for once.