‘I can’t find my wife or Jenny,’ he told her, trying to clear baffled horror from his mind and work out how to get all the remaining staff looking for them.
‘I told you the little demon was being too good to be true, didn’t I?’ Joan told her companions.
‘Been fretting about it all the way here she has,’ Carrie the nursery maid confirmed glumly.
‘Especially after one of the leaders cast a shoe and we had to wait for the smith to come home before it was replaced,’ the Burrows girl said wearily.
‘I will go and fetch Dawkins and his lads and anyone else he can find to help search, you three light candles and have a good look in all the rooms here one by one, just in case Lady Jenny was hiding and got trapped.’
‘And Duchess Rosalind managed to get in there as well? I doubt it, lad,’ Joan said and she was right; he would end up chasing his own tail if he didn’t calm down and do this rationally. ‘Light those candles, then see if you can rouse anyone else while I search here,’ Joan ordered her companions.
‘The staff will be in the kitchens in the old house at this time of day. Go outside and in through the back door or you will get lost,’ Ash said even as his mind reeled with all sorts of paralysing fears. He tore out of the back door to meet the taciturn groom and send him for as many minions as he could find.
‘Right old rabbit warren,’ Dawkins said gloomily.
‘The Duchess said they would only explore the New Wing,’ Ash said with a puzzled frown.
‘Best begin there, then, Your Grace.’
The man was right; there was one connecting door to the main house and even Jenny probably wasn’t bold enough to dare the spiders and ghosts in looming darkness. So where the devil was she and why hadn’t Ros answered his desperate calls as he dashed through the house roaring like a madman?
‘Did you hear that?’ he demanded as the faintest of faint whimpers whispered down to him through the gloom. ‘The Lookout’, he realised, terror increasing tenfold as he made himself look up and try to see through twilight by willpower alone.
At the top of the bay window tower a platform had been made to take advantage of the even better view than could be had from the drawing room a couple of rooms down the bay. It was the perfect place for a picnic on the leads and he and Jas and Charlie used to sneak up there and pretend to smoke one of Grandfather’s cigarillos and choke on sips of brandy from a forgotten flask as boys. Later they would watch the sun fade from the valley and exchange hopes and dreams before Jas went back to war, Charlie to school and Ash to Oxford.
But the Lookout was safe enough, as long as you didn’t peer over the edge and feel the earth spin when you realised how far away the ground was. Surrounded by a stone balustrade, your legs would hold you long enough to turn away and get your land legs back, but he recalled that pothole in the drive and the boarded-up windows and felt his heart race at the hazards there could be anywhere in this neglected house that had not been properly maintained far too long.
Maybe his face looking up was clearer than the faintest movement he could see silhouetted against the sky, but he had heard another faint cry. ‘Pa—pa...’ came very faintly through the dusk so at least she had heard his frantic cries and knew he was looking for her. Back inside the New Wing with Dawkins on his heels, Ash groped for the hidden door on to the back stairs from this ground-floor level only someone who knew the house well should be able to find. Unless Jenny began it down in the kitchen. Of course, the servants’ side of the house was purely functional. The back stairs were hidden from view by cleverly disguised doors on this side, but it was easy to find from down there. Someone in the family must have had an obsession with servants being not seen and not heard when this part of the house was built and Jenny could have found the start of the spiral back stairs leading up from the kitchens easily enough. He should never have left his wife and child alone here. He blamed himself for forgetting the devilment in Jenny’s eyes the day he first saw her in that stable loft. His delight in having such a child made the mischief Rosalind and Joan were always on the lookout for seem exaggerated to him. Now he found the jib door, left it open behind him and raced up the back stairs, yelling at Dawkins to fetch ropes and light, and scolding himself for not listening to them.
Ash’s legs were wobbly with effort and fear after he ran up three flights of narrow stone steps to the hutch-like exit on to the roof. He had to get his breath back before he could be any good in whatever trouble Jenny had got into while his back was turned.
‘Over here,’ he heard Ros murmur as soon as he was outside.
Ash sucked in another breath of cool Yorkshire air and crept carefully on to the leads lest he blunder into her. Unsure where he was treading, he even got down on his hands and knees so he did not fall over her.
‘Papa?’ he heard Jenny’s voice wobble and she sounded far too close to the Lookout and the edge of the roof for comfort. The little platform gave an awesome view on a summer day, but it was not meant for frosty evenings and he wondered why Ros did not simply pull her back from the edge and bundle her back inside with a severe scold to stop her doing it again.
‘No!’ he gasped once he was close enough to see a gap where the balustrade should be in the last glimmer of twilight. Jenny must have slipped on the slimy lead and fallen against it so the stonework gave way. Ros would have made a desperate grab for their child, but now her clutching hands were all that stood between Jenny and certain death as he followed the line of their hands and marvelled they had not both pitched over to their deaths.
‘Shush,’ Ros ordered as she tightened her grasp on Jenny’s wrists as if she could only keep holding on to her by changing her grip now and again.
‘It just...’ Jenny said, but Ash saw the strain in Ros’s shaking arms and managed to crawl past her.
‘Save your breath, Jenny love,’ he said gently when he reached that precious bridge of hands and wrapped his large one around Jenny’s suddenly very tiny arm. ‘Let go now, my darling,’ he urged Ros and felt the effort it cost her to do as he said a finger at a time. He braced his knees and called on all his strength to get their daughter back on to the roof. ‘I have you now,’ he told her and shifted his grip as Ros wriggled backwards out of the way to give him enough room to rise to his feet, then brace them on the slippery leads. ‘Trust me to hold on to you, Jenny love. Let your feet dangle,’ he ordered steadily as he felt her resist any demand she let go of the foothold she had somehow managed to find on the smooth stone below the parapet. ‘I’m strong enough to fell a giant, don’t forget,’ he joked and felt her almost laugh, then trust him to take all her weight. She was a headstrong little demon, but by God she was brave. He summoned every muscle he had into action and stood as steady as he could to pull her upwards, then safely back through the gap and over the jagged remains of this section of the balustrade. Her feet flailed for a grip on it by instinct and he heard them scrabble and leant back to pull her as far out of danger as he could get her up here. A great sigh of relief shook him as his little girl stumbled on numb legs, then clung on to one of his as if she could hardly believe she was safe either. Backing away from that yawning gap with a fast-beating heart, he wasn’t sure he would believe it until they were at least another floor down with the door to this deathtrap safely locked.
This time he really would have someone’s head. Every single stone of the balustrade on this roof should have been checked regularly, but it was obvious nobody had been up here for years. The gutters were blocked and ice must have cracked the stones once the iron rods inside rusted. Their near miss on the drive this afternoon and now this close shave still felt random, a sign of the carelessness and neglect Charlie had been raging about for years, but it would be very convenient for those who let it happen if the new Duke followed the last one to the family mausoleum within hours of getting home, wouldn’t it? He wondered who the next in line for the dukedom was, if Ros did not bear him a b
oy this time, and resolved to find out. But it still felt like criminal neglect rather than malicious intent and he had a wife and child to thank God for preserving first.
‘I was so scared,’ Jenny confided in a shaky little whisper now he had found the strength and presence of mind to move them away from that horrible gap with her in his arms and neither of them wanting to let go.
She wriggled against his chest as if trying to climb inside his jacket for comfort. Not much comfort to be had in there, my Jenny, he silently argued as he felt the chill of the cold wind through a long rip caused by the effort of pulling her away from danger.
‘Me, too,’ he heard Ros murmur with so much shock and weariness in her husky voice he wanted to hold her as well. If he was horrified when he realised where his little girl was calling from, how must Ros have felt when Jenny almost toppled over the edge and only a mother’s desperate grab stopped a fatal fall? At least instinct had got him up here and whispered what to do, because Ash the Father was still cowering in a corner somewhere with Ash the Husband; biting his nails and gibbering with terror.
‘Hand Lady Imogen to me, Master Ash,’ Dawkins said as he appeared out of the hutch-like turret with a lantern. He took in the frozen tableau they must have made and shook his grizzled head. ‘Your missus looks as if she needs to get inside,’ he said succinctly.
‘Jenny love, you can let go now, you’re safe,’ Ash said, but she clung even harder and shook her head.
‘Ash,’ Ros said simply and crept all the way towards this absurd little turret on her hands and knees, then used her hands to climb up his shaking body, as if she only dared try to stand if he was her prop. A poor prop when he was never there when she needed him most, he decided as he shifted to accommodate the two of them as best he could.
* * *
‘Oh, Ash.’ Rosalind heard her voice shake and bit her lip to hold back the torrent of relief, and reproach, for not coming sooner.
‘Hush now, love, let’s get you both inside and warm again.’
‘Jenny?’ she gasped, wondering if she would ever dare let her daughter out of her sight again with the memory of her slipping on an icy puddle against the balustrade and it crumbling so her child was hurtling towards certain death even as Rosalind made a desperate grab for her arm. That terrible moment kept playing over and over in her head, as if it was a painting someone kept showing her although she kept begging them to stop.
‘We have to trust her to Joan’s troops, love,’ he said as he shifted Jenny so he could hug Ros as if he never intended letting go of her either. Luckily he was soon barking terse orders and didn’t seem to feel her jerk of surprise at that unwary word. It must have been his fear and relief talking—not the deep-down truth she wished for.
‘See that door is nailed up tight, man,’ he ordered Dawkins. ‘I don’t want anyone coming up here until there is scaffolding all around the house and enough stone masons to rebuild York Minster waiting to put things right. The jib door from the nursery corridor must be locked from now on and Lady Imogen will not sit down for a week if I ever catch her up on any of the roofs here ever again, girl or not,’ he added with a severe glance down at his child. Jenny’s only response was to burrow even closer into Ash’s shoulder and Ros felt the mighty shiver that rocked him as he hugged them both even closer as if he didn’t believe they were all still here either.
‘Base of the stone is cracked clean through, Your Grace,’ the man said, rather daringly in Rosalind’s opinion. ‘Nobody could have known.’
‘Maybe not, but every single roof on this barrack will be inspected for such faults once a month from now on, whether I am here to see it is done or not. I never, ever want to be that terrified again,’ Ash finally turned around to say that last sentence to her as if only she could truly understand how deep that terror was.
Rosalind could still see it in his eyes, even by the meagre light of Dawkins’s lamp. Then one of the maids turned up with a lantern and at least they could see their way down the twisty stair now. It was getting very crowded inside the boxy little turret on the roof and most of their current staff seemed to be waiting in a shocked line down the roof stairs and out on to the nursery floor. Since Jenny was still clinging to her father like a limpet, Rosalind insisted on going down the narrow stair behind him despite her shaky legs and a bad attack of the shivers.
‘Aye, and I’m tempted to have that one nailed up as well,’ Ash said after he had ordered the maids through it ahead of them and never mind them using the wrong stairs for as long as they needed to. ‘Bolt it from the inside, will you, Dawkins,’ he ordered the man he seemed to have elected his deputy and pulled it shut before Dawkins could argue.
‘Never mind that now, Your Grace, the little madam needs her bed and might even get supper if she’s very lucky. She certainly don’t deserve any after scaring us all half to death,’ Joan stepped forward to chide and Jenny seemed to relax a little as her world began to settle back into its familiar order.
Ash carried his little girl through to her new bedroom and persuaded her to let him go, but Ros could only stand in the doorway clinging to the frame, still too shocked at such a narrow escape to bounce back like her daughter. She would love to slip away to the peace and quiet of the master suite, but it might as well be a mile away. Ash turned away from the bed and took in the sad state of his wife.
‘You can cope here, can’t you?’ he asked Joan and picked Rosalind up as if she weighed not much more than Jenny before Joan could say ‘of course’. He carried Rosalind down the stairs to the bedroom floor despite her protests and refused to put her down even when they got there and she could probably manage the rest.
‘Jenny needs you and you’ll do yourself a mischief,’ she protested, but he marched to their bedroom before he gently set her down on the daybed with a sigh of relief.
‘Oh, Ros—’ he said shakily, then broke off whatever he had been going to say to her as a motley crew of grooms and the gardener’s boy filed in with steaming cans of hot water and a slipper bath. ‘What on earth is it now?’ Ash barked.
Joan had left her precious charge with the new maid and governess to dash downstairs behind them and breathlessly ordered one of the boys to light the fire and another to bring up coal before he left.
‘Bath night,’ the eldest of the stable lads explained tersely to Rosalind as if she was the less terrifying of his new employers. ‘Mrs Dawkins sent our hot water and we ain’t that dirty,’ he added and left with his fellow urchins.
Even Joan looked a bit lost. ‘Miss Jenny doesn’t deserve all of us fussing over her and pampering her after the dreadful shock she just gave us,’ she said with the fury of huge relief as she unpacked Ros’s night things, laid out fine soap and turned down the bedcovers instead.
‘I think she gave herself one as well,’ Rosalind said gently.
‘Little devil,’ Joan said on such a sigh Rosalind hoped Ash realised it was as well if she left the others to see to Jenny’s bath and get her into bed so Joan didn’t have to shake her precious charge for terrifying her so badly.
‘I won’t argue,’ Rosalind said. ‘And if I hurry up with this bath it will be warm enough for you, Ash. I heard your coat rip so you must be cold.’
‘Hmmph,’ Joan grumbled as she bent to get the fire to do as she wanted even if the rest of the world seemed out of kilter. ‘I’ll leave you two to get on,’ she said tersely once it was behaving properly. ‘Dinner won’t cook itself.’
‘It doesn’t need cooking,’ Ash argued, but didn’t stop her. He made sure the door was properly closed, then undid Rosalind’s neat spencer jacket and pushed it off her shoulders as if he didn’t think she had the strength and he was probably right. He gently undid her laces without his usual sensuous intent. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked very softly. She read fear for her and his unborn child in his intent grey gaze, as well as something deeper that made her wonder if he might have decid
ed to love her again after all. Unlikely, Rosalind the sceptic cautioned, considering their marriage of convenience.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Luckily this Hartfield seems a tough customer.’ She rubbed her flat belly and knew there was no point pretending she wasn’t anxious for the tiny life growing inside her after she had stretched every nerve and sinew in her body to save the child she already had. ‘I was so near the end of my strength, Ash,’ she told him shakily. ‘So very frightened I would get too tired and cold and lose my grip. I didn’t quite have enough strength to pull her back in.’
‘You were superb, Ros. I don’t know how you managed to catch our child in time to prevent her falling, but I think the time between me realising where you both were and getting to you must have shaved a decade off my life.’
The thought of him spending less time on earth than her was enough to make her cry when he finally got her completely undressed and plopped her into the bath like a helpless infant. Unable to stop now the tears had begun, she felt forlorn and silly while he soaped her soothingly, then rinsed out the sponge to wipe her tears away tenderly as a parent with an overwrought child.
‘I should go up to comfort Jenny, not sit here weeping,’ she managed to say between sobs. ‘She has had a terrible shock. Oh, Ash, our little girl could have died. How could I have taken my eyes off her for five seconds, knowing that she’s forever falling into mischief when my back is turned?’
‘She is too much of a daredevil for her own good, she proved that today and I should have listened harder to you and Joan. High time I came home to bring a little discipline into her life,’ he said half-seriously.
‘As if you are not as soft as butter with her,’ she chided with a mighty sniff and even managed a wobbly smile at him through the tears.
‘Let’s get you out of there before you overflow the tub with your tears,’ he teased, but still looked worried when he held up a large towel invitingly until she stood up and stepped out. He wrapped her in it like a swaddled baby, then lifted her up again to put her in the chair by the fire.
The Duchess's Secret (HQR Historical) Page 18