Sweet Deception (Hidden Identity)

by Colleen French

  He smiled a lazy smile and looked away, then back at her again. "I'm not sure. I . . ." His green-eyed gaze met hers.

  She went back to brushing her hair. Something about him made her stomach flutter in an unfamiliar way. "Yes?"

  "I was wondering, would you sup with me tonight?"

  Ellen lowered her gaze, immediately wary of the stranger. Richard had warned her she must be very careful with strangers. If she were to keep her identity a secret, she could not allow anyone to become too familiar with her. She could not afford to make friends.

  "I'm afraid that would be impossible, sir."

  Gavin watched her pull the brush through her waves of magical red hair. "You're married?"

  She reached for the hat she had worn into the theater today, wondering where on earth Richard was. He was usually here to pick her up by now. "Kept, and I must say, my keeper is quite a jealous man."

  It was part of the ruse Richard had conceived. She would pretend to be Richard's mistress and therefore off-limits to other men. This way she could live with him in his apartment and enjoy the safety it afforded. Once upon a time Ellen would have been horrified to have thought that anyone might think her a harlot, but it was a way to stay safe. And safety was all that mattered these days.

  "Excuse me." She rose. She was a tall woman, but not as tall as Gavin. "My lord is most likely waiting for me outside."

  He stepped back to let her pass, handing her the fan she had left on her dressing table. Their fingertips touched, and she felt the warmth of his hand as well as his smile. "May I escort you?"

  She quickly moved past him. "I can assure you that won't be necessary." She started through the noisy crowded tiring room, but he followed.

  "I mean you no harm," he told her, taking only one long stride to catch up with her. "I want only to talk."

  Ellen laughed, throwing her light cloak over her shoulders. Though it was quite warm outside, the overgarment was needed to protect her gown from the filth of the streets. "You want only to talk? I find that's quite untrue when it comes to the male of the species, sir."

  "Bring your Richard with you, if you like." He didn't know what was making him so generous, except for the fact that he was suddenly desperate to talk with this mysterious woman. "He can protect you. I've just come back from the American Colonies. I've brought with me some fascinating artifacts."

  She stopped in the doorway of the hall that led to the rear of the theater. Men had asked her to supper before, but she'd never been tempted. She wondered what it was about this man that drew her. "I'm sorry. I thank you for your kindness, but I have to go." Ellen lifted her skirts and hurried down the long hallway, leaving him behind.

  She had almost reached the rear door when he called to her. She thought it best not to respond, but she turned anyway. He was leaning against the plaster wall in an easy stance, his arms crossed over broad chest.

  When she met his gaze, he spoke, his voice casual but sincere. "I'm not an easy man to pawn off. Not easy to forget."

  She smiled again, in spite of herself. "No, I don't suppose you are."

  "I think it only fair that I warn you: I'm going to make you fall madly in love with me."

  Ellen laughed, knowing she blushed. "That's ridiculous. I don't know you and don't care to. I told you, I'm quite taken."

  "As am I. By you."

  The smile slipped from her face, and for a moment she just stood looking at the handsome suitor. Then, suddenly a little frightened, she turned and ran out of the theater and into the evening air.

  Luckily, Richard's coach was just pulling up when she walked out. She was relieved to see him inside when the coachman offered her his hand and helped her up the step. She slid into the seat beside Richard and kissed him on the cheek. "I missed you today."

  He grinned. "Did you, now?" He took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. "And I you." The coach lurched forward and they rolled away from the theater. "Now tell me all about your day."

  Ellen glanced outside the window as they passed the backstage door. Standing there watching the coach part was the mysterious Gavin Merrick. She looked back at Richard. "Nothing of interest. My part's changed for tomorrow. A better one." She pulled on her gloves and leaned back against the leather seat. She didn't know why she hadn't mentioned the stranger, Gavin, to Richard. She told herself it was because she didn't want to concern him. Gavin was harmless. But deep in her heart she feared there was more to the matter than she cared to think.

  Chapter Three

  Deep in thought, Gavin ran a finger through the thick dust that had collected on the mahogany mantel. The moldy crimson draperies had been thrown open to let in the sunlight, but the library still seemed dark and ominous with its shelves of musty books and the strange fresco paintings that decorated the domed ceiling of the room.

  Gavin had come to Havering House to see what he could discover about his sister-in-law. Finding the stately stone and brick home to be in ill shape, he had fired the inebriated caretaker and immediately engaged several servants from the village to see to the estate's upkeep. Gavin intended to sell the house as soon as he was free to do so. In the meantime, he would not have such a beautiful work of architecture crumbling at its foundation because of neglect.

  "I'll expect the place to be kept tidy," he said to the widow with the hardy face standing next to him. He had found Mrs. Spate down in the village and had hired her to see to the upkeep of Havering House until it was sold. "You'll be held responsible, but the others are to do your bidding. Hire and fire as you see fit, and I'll see that payment is made."

  "Aye, sir."

  Gavin lifted a silver candlestick from the mantel. The candle had melted into a puddle and hardened on the carved piece. "There's been no looting?" he asked curiously. The house had been standing empty, save for the caretaker, for over a year.

  Mrs. Spate dropped her hands to her plump waistline. "Most people's too fearful to come up to Haverin' House, even for silver."

  "Fearful? Of what, pray tell?"

  "Of the ghosts, my lord."

  He smiled in amusement. "Ghosts?"

  "Yes, my lord." She twisted her bare foot on the dusty slate floor. "Them in the village says Haverin' House is haunted."

  "By my dead brother's spirit, no doubt?"

  "Some in the village says that late at night you can see flickerin' lights in the tower where Lord Waxton's laboratory was before the fire. That pollute Joey was the third caretaker the gentleman from London hired. None a' the others would stay more than a night."

  "Afraid of the mysterious lights?"

  She chewed on her lower lip pensively, as if deciding whether or not to say more. "No sir, on account of they say there's a ghost woman that runs screaming through the hallways."

  "The man I just sent off said nothing of screeching savages."

  She shrugged. "They say there's some with the sight, some without. Mayhap his head was just too clogged with ale to see more than the pimpled nose on the end of his face."

  Gavin set down the dusty candlestick and glanced at the widow. "You said you would be willing to stay here in the house and sleep in the servant's quarters. Aren't you afraid, Mrs. Spate?"

  "I got four boys and no husband to feed 'im since he drowned last summer past. I'll not let a ghost or two get in the way of me feedin' my boys." She crossed her arms over her lumpy bosom. "I fear nothin' but the wrath of the Lord. He'll protect me from goblins same as he protects me from a win'er storm."

  "Wise woman." Gavin nodded. "It sounds as if you're precisely the person I'm looking for. I've no more time for specters than you do, Mrs. Spate. Now go speak with the others in the kitchen, assign them their duties, and come back to me with any questions you might have."

  "Yes, sir." She bobbed a curtsy.

  "I'm going to look around just a little longer and then I'll be on my way. I'll let you know before I go."

  Mrs. Spate took her leave of the room and Gavin began to explore the large house. Before he had le
ft London, he'd done a little research. He found that Havering House had been awarded to his brother Waldron by Cromwell in the fifties. Before that transfer of title, the lands had been in the Greenborough family for almost three hundred years. Apparently the young woman, Thomasina Waxton, had more or less come with the property. Shortly after Waldron had married the mistress of Havering House, her father, the Viscount Greenborough, committed suicide while hunting stag.

  Gavin wandered from room to room, running his hands along the dusty furniture tops and staring at the walls lined with portraits. The main reason he'd come was to see a portrait of his brother's wife; he wanted to become familiar with what she looked like. He knew there had to be one here; it was tradition to have a wedding portrait painted. But so far he hadn't found any picture that could possibly be the Lady Thomasina Waxton. Those that hung on the walls covered in cobwebs were old ones. Everywhere Gavin looked he saw white-haired men in stiff collars and black suits. The few women whose portraits hung in the hallways or going up the front staircase were dressed in fashions from long ago.

  Gavin went to the second floor and then the third. Most of the rooms had obviously been unoccupied for much longer than the two and a half years since his brother's death. But in a wing there on the third floor, Gavin discovered the apartments his brother and his wife must have occupied.

  The first bedchamber he stepped into had to have belonged to the Lady Waxton. It was a room paneled in oak, and above the fireplace it was carved in scrolls and flowers. The heavy drapes seen in the rest of the house had been replaced with lighter curtains in a pale green, which allowed the sunlight to pour through the glass panes. More of the same filmy material hung from the bed, and every chair and stool was also covered in the same pale green.

  The room was neat though dusty. A basket of needlework rested near a chair in front of the fireplace, as if just left there by an owner who had meant to come back. Inside the heavy oak chest of drawers were a few gowns, slightly out of style and in somber colors, but made of obviously expensive material by an excellent dressmaker.

  Gavin stood back and stared for a moment, his gaze flickering from one piece of furniture to the next. The room gave little clues as to the personality of the woman who had slept here. She was neat. She was not terribly vain, for the only mirror he saw was a small oval one in a gilt Italian frame that hung near the doorway to the hall. No books lay open anywhere, despite the extensive library downstairs, so she was not a reader. Her lady's writing desk was neatly closed.

  Gavin walked through a doorway on the side wall and stepped into a small rectangular parlor. There was a table with a lamp resting on it against the wall between two windows . . . for gaming perhaps. Two upholstered chairs were arranged near a small fireplace, with a round oak table between them. Several books were stacked neatly on the table, scientific volumes and one small leather-bound book of Shakespeare's sonnets. Gavin ran his finger along the spine of the book. So the lady does read.

  He walked through another door and into the connecting bedchamber. Heavy velvet drapes covered the windows, nearly blocking any sunlight. But even in the semidarkness, Gavin could see that this room was filled with masculine subtleties. There was the dark mahogany paneling, furniture in a heavy florid style, and piles of books everywhere. There were several articles of clothing flung here and there and a man's silk dressing gown left out on the bed.

  "So this is where you slept," Gavin murmured thoughtfully. "Not with your young wife, brother?"

  Slowly, he turned from where he stood in the center of the room. Then he saw it, the portrait he'd been looking for! There, hanging over the paneled fireplace, was a painting of a young woman.

  Gavin ran for the windows and yanked open the drapes, one after the next, allowing the full strength of the afternoon sun to pour in. When he turned to face the portrait again, he was immediately disappointed.

  The portrait was indeed of a young woman approximately the same age as Thomasina was said to be. The subject had been painted in full length but, oddly enough, with her face turned away so that Gavin could see nothing but a sweep of dark, shining hair.

  Gavin crossed his arms over his broad chest in utter fascination. The woman was wearing a dark green velvet gown, with a small tiara of emeralds in the hair she wore down her back in the fashion of a virgin bride. Gavin could see nothing of the young woman but the curve of her face, yet there was something about the portrait that he couldn't tear his gaze from it.

  "Thomasina, is that you?" he asked. "Why do you look away? Are you scarred by the pox? Are you harelipped?" Then a strange thought came to him. Or did your husband not wish to share your beauty with anyone, not even with the artist?

  Gavin stared at the painting for another minute, then, on impulse, grabbed a stool and dragged it over the hardwood floor toward the fireplace. He stood on the stool, grasped the portrait of the young woman, and pulled it down. It was heavy and cumbersome, but he managed. And when he had it down on the floor, leaning against the bedpost, he touched the outline of the woman's cheek.

  For the first time in hours, Gavin thought of Ellen Scarlet. The actress had said she would not see him, but there had been something about the way she had said it that made him think she could be persuaded. He smiled to himself. She had only to be persuaded in the right manner.

  Suddenly anxious to return to London, Gavin lifted the portrait of Thomasina Waxton and took it out of his brother's bedchamber and down the hall. He would have one of the servants load it into the coach for him and then he'd be on his way. With Mrs. Spate in control of Havering House, he could return to his business in the City.

  Ellen rolled her head on her pillow, moaning as she sank deeper and deeper into fitful sleep. Her mind was filled with the terror of black swirling clouds and thundering hoofbeats as the man of her nightmares bore down on her.

  "No," she murmured, clutching at the bedsheets that were damp with perspiration. "No, please!"

  But it was always the same.

  She was running through the hallways of Havering House. But the hallways seemed to lead to nowhere. She could smell the stench of the fire in the laboratory and feel its heat on her face. She could hear Waldon's screams echoing off the stone walls. She ran faster but made no progress. There seemed to be no escape.

  Hoofbeats clattered on flagstone. Ellen knew the albino was behind her, though she didn't dare look back. With every turn in the corridor he was gaining on her, growing closer and closer on that great white steed of his.

  Suddenly, a hand reached from behind and grasped her by the shoulder. As he forced her to face him, Ellen opened her mouth and screamed in fright . . .

  "Ellen! Ellen!"

  She thrashed about, struggling to escape but knowing it would be impossible . . . knowing what would happen . . . what always happened . . .

  "Ellen, wake up, love. It's a dream. It's only a dream."

  "Richard?" Her eyes flew open. She saw Richard, stark naked, leaning over her. Richard?"

  "Yes, yes, it's Richard."

  She could feel her entire body trembling with fear. "Another nightmare?" she asked. She never remembered them when she woke.

  "But you're all right now, aren't you, sweetheart?" He sat down on the corner of her bed, where a candle on the nighttable illuminated his handsome face. "I'm here and you're safe." He took a glass of water from the table and pushed it into her hands. "Now drink this."

  She sat up in obedience and drank the water laced with wine. "I can't believe this is still happening. It's been more than two years."

  He ran his fingers through her long red hair, pushing thick locks over her shoulder, soothing her as a father would soothe a young child after a nightmare. "It'll take time, I told you that."

  She looked up over the rim of the glass. "I feel foolish waking you like this. It's the second time this week."

  He leaned foward and kissed her forehead. "Don't." He grinned mischievously. "I like getting the chance to come racing into your room minus my d
rawers."

  She laughed with him. The first time she had seen Richard's mutilated genitals, she'd been shocked, then ashamed of her reaction. But nowadays they were like an old married couple past their years of sexual pleasure. Their relationship was platonic, but it was comfortable.

  In the last year, Richard had taught her how to be comfortable with the person she was. Not just with the nudity that Waldron had somehow convinced her was something evil and to be hidden, but more importantly it was herself that she had come to accept, to even like. Richard's gentle tutoring had taught her confidence; he had taught her happiness. Somehow he had washed away the unfounded shame she had felt all these years, replacing it with confidence.

  She patted the spot beside her in the bed. "Lie down with me. I don't want to be alone."

  "Ellen—"

  She took his hand, looking up at him. "Please, Richard. I just want to feel your arms around me. I just want to feel safe."

  Reluctantly, he climbed over her and beneath the covers. He lay back on a pillow and allowed her to rest her head on his shoulder. "Better?" he whispered.

  She smiled in the darkness. "Better."

  Richard kissed her temple and then closed his eyes. "Then go to sleep. I have to be up early in the morning. I've business at Whitehall."

  Ellen sighed and snuggled against him. As she rested her head on his shoulder and listened to the steady rise and fall of his breath as he drifted off to sleep, her mind wandered.

  Against her will she thought of Gavin Merrick, the man she had met at the theater. For two weeks now he had been sending her gifts. Some were expensive, others without value yet touchingly precious nonetheless. One day it was a bowl of oranges or a single wildflower picked from the outskirts of the city, the next a pair of emerald earrings. In the past she had always returned the gifts from admirers out of respect for Richard, but for some reason she'd kept those from Gavin. The earrings, necklace, and Chinese vase were hidden in a chest at the foot of her bed. She'd shared the exotic fruits and sweets with the other actors and actresses at the theater.