by Joan Smith
“I thought you wanted to read the court news.”
“ ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’ Ecclesiastes, I believe. One feels the attraction of court. I own it is a weakness, but we are only frail human flesh after all. We might profit from the essay on idleness,” she said with a pointed look.
Cressida read two pages, after which time Miss Wantage smiled a painful smile. “It is well you have independent means, my dear, for you would never do as a ladies’ companion. You really ought to try to cultivate your voice a little. I believe I shall turn in now. I cannot think what has given me back my headache.”
So saying, she picked up the journal and left Hannah More’s essays behind. While Cressida was still drawing a sigh of relief, Beau’s head peered around the corner.
“Is she gone for the night?” he asked.
“Yes, to bed, thank goodness.”
“What a take-in, Cousin Alice telling me Miss Wantage was down as a nail. She is nothing else but a Jeremiah in skirts. Alice said it only to be rid of her.”
“And who can blame Alice?” Cressida said with feeling. “I warned you what she was like. This was a wretched idea, coming here, Beau. It makes me appreciate Brighton.”
“And London, or even Tanglewood. Tomorrow we shall call on the Brewsters, if they don’t come here first.”
“I mean to call on Lady Dauntry and speak to her about Melbury as well, in case anything is missing from the house.”
As she spoke, the door knocker sounded. Cressida’s expression of ennui faded, to be replaced with an ill-concealed smile of anticipation. Dauntry!
E’er long, he was shown in. “What a delightfully domestic scene,” he said as his eyes alit on Hannah More’s latest tract, “The diversity of your interests astonishes me, Lady deCourcy. I had not taken you for a reformer.”
“It belongs to Miss Wantage,” Beau said. “You have not had the pleasure of meeting Cressida’s chaperon.”
“Pleasure!” Cressida said in astonishment. “The woman is a public nuisance. She does nothing but scold and carp on nothings.”
Dauntrys nostrils pinched in disapproval. “That is poor reward for the lady, after she has been kind enough to leave her home and chaperon you for the summer, Lady deCourcy. It would be more proper for you to behave in a manner that does not cause her to scold.”
“I am not quite ready to join the Clapham sect,” she replied in arctic accents. “Won’t you take a seat, milord, or did you come only to take up where Miss Wantage left off?”
“I would not dare to presume so far on your patience.” He sat down, turning to face Cressida. “That sparkle in your eyes tells me it is my turn to receive a scold. And the servants’ grapevine tells me why. I understand you have suffered a call from Melbury.”
She was sorry he had taken the wind out of her sails. “Indeed we have, and impersonating Mr. Brewster, if you please.”
“He is a wretched fellow. If he comes again, send him up to the castle. I had thought we were rid of Melbury for the summer. I bribed Cousin Beatty to invite him to Bath just after Tony’s wedding. How did you catch on to Melbury so quickly? But my wits are gone begging. Tory, of course, would have told you.”
“Oh, no. Your servant went along with the game—despite your high opinion of her,” Cressida informed him.
“We met Allan Brewster in town,” Beau said, and gave some details of the encounter. “I say, Lord Dauntry, would you like a glass of wine? Or a cup of tea? The tea tray ought to be arriving any minute.”
“I dropped in only to explain—and apologize—for Cousin Melbury.” He pulled at his collar, glancing at the raging fire in the grate.
“Oh, don’t go!” Beau exclaimed. “We are as dead as doorknobs here. Don’t mind the fire. We can remove to the other side of the room. It is Miss Wantage, you see. She is always freezing. She will be cold in Hades—not that she will go to Hades, but if she makes it through the pearly gates, it will be no heaven for me.”
Cressida noticed that Dauntry did not chide Beau for speaking ill of their chaperon. Why did he feel free to criticize her, and not Beau? Dauntry looked a question to Cressida. “Do stay,” she said with an air of indifference. Then added, “Unless you are en route to some other social do, of course.”
He rose and offered her his hand to remove to the far side of the room. The tea tray arrived, and Cressida occupied herself with the pouring, while Dauntry admired the ladylike movements of her delicate wrists and fingers.
“No moonlight waltzing party this evening,” he said. “But if you have so soon discovered the limits of your own resources, why did you not attend the party at the vicarage?”
“Because I did not feel like it,” she replied with a glare that dared him to object.
“If you have had enough of your own company and are ready to meet the local society, Mama has planned a small dinner and rout party for next week. We would be honored if you would attend.”
“I should say so!” Beau exclaimed. “We are finding our own company pretty dull, I can tell you.”
“We were not meant to live alone, cut off from society,” Dauntry said forgivingly. Especially such charmers as Lady deCourcy. She was looking particularly well now that she had put off her sulks.
“What I ought to have done was set up a course of study and brought some books with me,” she said, “for I know I am as ignorant as a swan when it comes to weighty matters like politics. I went to the House once and could not make heads or tails of it.”
“Nor can I, half the time,” Dauntry admitted. “As to your course of reading, I fear you will find nothing of an improving nature here. Cousin Annie was the last occupant. Gothic novels were her main vehicle of culture. I have a fair to middling library at the castle. You must feel free to visit it. I am not as familiar with the library as I ought to be. I spend most of my time in London.”
“Are you here for the whole summer?” Cressida asked, and listened with interest for his reply.
“I shall be back and forth as necessary. I hope to spend the weekends here at least.” He noticed her smile at his answer. Despite her expressed wish for privacy, Lady deCourcy was not immune to dalliance.
“We shall have a picnic one Saturday,” she said.
“But not this Saturday, I hope, or I shall miss it. I must go to London tomorrow.”
“Next weekend, then, weather permitting.”
“My yacht will be here by then,” Beau said. “Don’t count on me, unless you want to have your picnic aboard ship.”
“You know Miss Wantage would not step foot aboard the Sea Dog, Beau,” she chided.
“Precisely! We don’t want her Friday face complaining of gales and drowning, to say nothing of sand and ants. What good is a picnic without sand and ants?”
“Did you plan to supply sand and ants aboard your yacht?” she asked.
“Wind and waves will do as well. So long as it ain’t just sitting at a dull table.”
“One other reason I called,” Dauntry said, turning to Beau. “I wanted to warn you to keep your yacht away from the cottage. There are rocks close to the surface there. They are not visible in the dark water. I have the place marked out with buoys, but really you are better to keep away from it entirely.”
“I thank you for the warning, sir.”
Dauntry noticed Cressida’s interest when he mentioned the cottage. He had hoped that subject was at an end, but within two seconds she had begun pestering him again.
“If you plan to spend most of the week in London, will the cottage be empty?” she asked. “Come now, Dauntry, don’t stare!” she added with a quizzing smile. “It was you who intimated you had a friend installed there. As you so kindly pointed out, I am not a deb. Surely you would have more opportunity to visit your Mend five days a week in London than only two on the weekends.”
“I am kept pretty busy in London.”
“The House will be in recess come July, if it is not already.”
“Most of the members will retu
rn to their constituency, but the inner circle still meets to plot strategies and counterstrategies. No rest for the wicked—and no cottage for the baroness, I fear. So you met young Brewster,” he said, quickly changing the subject. “He is the leading bachelor of the parish. I expect he will soon be enlivening your dull evenings. You want to have him show you over his abbey. A very fine building. The east wing ...”
He spoke on of Brewster’s estate while Cressida half listened, but her mind was on Dauntry’s intransigence. She did not believe he had a chère amie at the cottage. He would have had his gardener tidy up the grounds if the place was occupied. The woman would be seen about the place. Beau spent a good deal of time on the coast, looking out for the Sea Dog’s arrival, and he had reported no sign of life at the cottage.
Dauntry remained for half an hour, at which time he said he had to leave for London early in the morning and must be off. “No need to send for my mount. I walked down,” he said. He thanked them for the tea, said he looked forward to returning soon, and left.
“This room is still too warm,” Cressida said, trying to poke the fire out. “Let us go out for a breath of air before retiring.”
They walked down to the shore, breathing in the fresh, moist air. A new moon cast a sparkling white net on the calm water. About half a mile from shore, a small boat lay nearly becalmed in the still air. Waves washed quietly on the pebble beach. Some other sound was there as well, a sound not loud but regular.
“What is that?” Beau asked. “It sounds like footsteps. Someone is coming.”
A delicious shiver scampered up Cressida’s spine as she and Beau took cover under a spreading willow. They waited, peering through the drooping branches into the shadows, but no one appeared. In fact, the footsteps were receding. Beau darted out to see if he could spot the intruder. He was back in an instant.
“It is Dauntry!” he exclaimed in a low whisper. “He ain’t returning to the castle at all. He is going to the cottage. There is no place else he could be going along this stretch of beach.”
“So he does have a woman there,” Cressida said, and was aware of an angry heat inside her.
“Devil a bit of it. It is something else. Let us follow along and see whom he meets.”
“It is of no interest to me,” she said, and strode back to the house.
Chapter Seven
It took Beau two minutes to convince Cressida to accompany him to the chalet, and another five for her to run upstairs and change her pale rose evening gown for a muslin day dress more suitable to rough usage.
“Dash it, he will be gone by the time we get there,” Beau complained when she reappeared. “If that ain’t just like a lady, having to change her gown at the last minute.”
“I will not destroy my new rose gown for Lord Dauntry. He is not worth it,” she said haughtily, and stalked into the hallway.
“The moonlight is so lovely, we are going out for a walk along the shore, Muffet,” she said in a calmer voice to her butler as they hurried out.
Muffet was not so easily misled; Missy would not be running like a filly to look at the moonlight. He had a fair notion where she was going, and followed after her, taking up a walking stick from the Chinese urn by the door in case there should be blows involved in the lunar excursion. The only error in Muffet’s reading of the outing was that he lay the blame on Melbury, not his cousin, Dauntry. Muffet assumed they had some knowledge that Melbury meant to return and were endeavoring to catch him red-handed.
Cressida had not thought to change her shoes and found the walking rough over the shingle beach in her kid evening slippers. They saw from a distance of a hundred feet that no lights were lit at the cottage. The only illumination was the ghostly reflection from the dark panes of glass. They stopped to look up and down the beach.
“We’ve lost him,” Beau said in disgust. “Next time I shall go by myself. I wager that was a smuggling vessel we saw tacking toward Beachy Head.
“If it was, they did not unload any brandy,” she pointed out. Neither the shore nor the steps of the cottage held any contraband.
“Perhaps Dauntry was placing his order for next time, or just bought a barrel from them. It might be around here someplace. Let us have a look.”
They climbed the stone staircase cut into the cliff, up to the plateau where the cottage stood. They poked around the shrubbery without finding anything.
“He might have taken it inside,” was Beau’s next idea.
Cressida had begun to lose interest. If Dauntry was doing nothing worse than buying a barrel of brandy, it was of no interest to her. She was relieved to see there was no female staying at the cottage, but she had to wonder why he had intimated there was. If he cared for her good opinion, he would have been at pains to hide it. Of course, Dauntry had no interest in her good opinion. He had made that crystal clear.
While she reviewed these thoughts, Beau tiptoed up the four stairs to the front door and opened it.
“It ain’t even locked!” he called to Cressida. “Let us just go in and see if we can find the brandy.”
“That is none of our concern,” she said impatiently.
“Is it not, by Jove? He can scarcely refuse getting me a barrel when he has one hidden away himself.”
“You don’t drink brandy, Beau.”
“No, but I should like to have a hogshead aboard to offer the fellows a drink when they come. All the crack.”
Even as he spoke, he was opening the door and slipping inside. Cressida followed a few paces behind. In the hallway, she stopped to peer around. The blinds were not drawn. Moonlight cast a wan light on the small parlor. She could discern the pot hanging at the open hearth, and as her eyes adjusted, she could see that Beau was not in the parlor.
She went back into the hallway and peered down a long corridor toward the rear of the house, where utter blackness prevailed. After a moment, forms began to emerge from the darkness. That angular construction at the end of the hall was a staircase, of course. And the shadow on it was surely Beau. He was not climbing the stairs, but stood at the bottom, as if listening.
As she stood, watching, she felt the hair on her arms lift in some atavistic warning. She had no idea how she knew, but she suddenly was absolutely certain that she and Beau were not alone in the house. Nor was the other person a friendly one. Some menacing presence lurked nearby. She turned instinctively to flee, then decided she must warn Beau.
Staring toward the staircase, she could not discern any other form. With panic rising to engulf her, she took a sudden dash forward, for she feared that to call her cousin would alert the invisible other and bring disaster down on their heads.
It was about halfway down the long corridor that it happened. One instant she was running, the next instant she had run into a human wall. He must have come out of a doorway leading to the hall. She heard a masculine gasp of surprise, and like an echo, her own lighter gasp following it. Strong hands seized her shoulders. As she stood, trembling in fear for her life, the hands brushed intimately down the sides of her body, gauging her size and sex. Her frightened breaths were the only sound; she was too shocked and afraid even to shout.
Of course, she must call to Beau for help. Even as the thought darted into her mind, the dark head descended and hot lips pressed on hers. Strong arms encircled her waist, crushing her against that firm wall of bone and muscle. Between shock and fear, she scarcely had the strength to struggle.
When she recovered her wits, she braced her hands against the man’s shoulders and pushed with all her might, temporarily dislodging him. A low chuckle sounded in her ear, then his arms tightened and he kissed her again, hot and hard and long, as if in punishment for fighting him.
I am ruined! she thought. This villain is going to have his way with me.
Then he lifted his head and rubbed his cheek against hers. “Tu es très méchante, ma chérie,” he murmured, and was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.
She stood staring all about in the darkness with her he
art pounding in painful excitement, forgetful of Beau. A Frenchman! She might have guessed. Only a Frenchie would kiss like that. Shaking herself back to sanity, she looked to the staircase.
Before her gaze had time to focus, she heard a scuffle and a muffled gasp, followed by a dragging sound. The sounds were congruous with a struggle, and someone or something being dragged along the floor. Fear was left behind in her concern for Beau’s safety. She moved swiftly forward. Her fear for Beau’s life was soon preempted by a fear for her own. Some rough thing—a blanket perhaps—was thrown over her head. It covered her arms and legs, leaving her helpless. She was picked up bodily in a pair of strong arms and carried down the corridor. She heard a door open. She was carried into the room and deposited on the floor. She heard the door close and a key turn.
She immediately pulled the blanket off her head. The stench of fish and seaweed suggested it had been to sea. Before she had time to examine the room she had been placed in, she heard whispers from beyond the door but close at hand. The words sounded like gibberish at first, but as she listened more closely, she could distinguish that it was two men speaking French.
“J’ai cherché partout. Elle n’est pas ici.” The man was telling his companion he had looked all over and could not find her—or it. The French had a troublesome habit of ascribing gender to their nouns and pronouns. Was it Dauntry’s chère amie that was missing?
The reply was also in French. The voice sounded slightly familiar, but the foreign language changed the timbre and inflection beyond recognition. “They must have been looking for it (or possibly her), non? We’ve got to find it/her. I trust you took care of that fellow?”
“Ah, out, and the lady.”
“I hope you didn’t hurt her?”
“A Frenchman hurt a lady? Jamais! Never! I treated her gently as a babe. As to the gars, I gave him only a tap on the head.”