Chapter Four
Later that night, Belle lay in bed and let Earnest warm her feet through the blankets. Mendal’s objections to a dog on the bed were forgotten the moment her maid departed. The owl, whom Belle had named Lady Sefton—after the one benefactress Belle had left following her disastrous second Season—was secure within her bamboo cage and glared at Earnest with studied insolence.
When Belle’s bedside clock ticked two in the morning, she sat up. Earnest jumped off the bed, tail wagging. Under the dying hearth’s dim light, she tied on her slippers and shrugged a warm woolen dressing gown over her nightdress. With Earnest by her side and a candle in hand, she ventured into the corridor.
On the landing by the stairs, she waited, as arranged, and wondered if Susie would come. The girl had skipped dinner so Belle had missed the chance to confirm their rendezvous.
The house was eerily silent. Time ticked by. The entry hall below was unoccupied, the servants long since gone to bed. Earnest sighed heavily and slumped onto the wooden floor.
After several minutes, Belle’s back ached from standing, so she stepped down two stairs and rested her bottom on the landing. Earnest shifted to lie against her back and gave another loud sigh.
She appreciated his warmth next to the cold floorboards. Her comfortable bed beckoned her to snuggle beneath its still warm covers. Should I give up? She rubbed her arms and legs. With lack of movement, the night was chilly, even indoors.
Suddenly, the air stirred, and Belle’s special senses snapped to attention.
Earnest growled low and deep.
Had a door opened? She leaned over the dog to peer to the left. No one lurked along that corridor. Yet Belle was certain she and Earnest were being watched. By the ghost?
Suppressing a shiver, she stood and used her “other sight” to check around her. No shimmer. No shadow. Not even a sound. Yet the warning sensation remained.
Earnest, also on his feet, stayed stuck to her hip like a third leg. Not that there was any reason to be afraid. From all the countess had relayed to Belle’s grandfather, though an ethereal entity hovered near her bedroom ceiling each night, it neither approached nor disturbed an item.
Belle suspected that the spirit was the lady’s recently deceased husband. As such, it might be entirely nonthreatening, but its visits had to stop. She had been summoned to Clearview to ensure that outcome.
She inched toward the left corridor where the presence was strongest. Earnest whined and stepped on her dressing gown. She pulled free. She deepened her breathing, calmed her thoughts from their frantic rush of worries until all she thought about was the corridor, the shadows extending from her candle, each step she took, each breath she released. Her pulse slowed to a soft thump-thump, thump-thump. The air shifted from merely cold to bone-chilling, and her ears popped.
“Who’s there?” she whispered. A breeze grazed her cheek, and she sensed the rush of intense turmoil. A roar of anger whipped through the peaceful corridor. Find him!
Belle reeled in shock, trying to make sense of the ghost’s message. Find whom? And why? “I mean you no harm.” Brave words when the ghost was apparently not the one in danger. “Will you speak with me? Whom do you seek?”
“Belle,” a soft voice said from behind her.
She swung around. Susie stood with flickering candle in shaky hand.
“You came.” Belle’s heart still thundered. The air returned to a normal winter-coolness. Earnest shook himself and gave a loud snuffle. A glance back showed her ghostly visitor had gone.
“Whom were you talking to?” Susie asked.
Belle remembered Lord Terrance’s stipulation about ghostly topics with his family members. “No one. I was worried you had changed your mind.”
“Almost did.” Her nightcap secured under her chin in a fine bow, Susie looked as if she might still run away. She checked over her shoulder.
Belle took a deep breath and sported a mask of gaiety, hoping that would draw the real feeling to her. “Is this not exciting? Far better than hiding in your room, surely?”
“Not if we get caught,” Susie said in a fierce whisper. “If Rufus discovers us, I will never hear the end. His lectures can run for days.”
“We are on a sacred mission.” Belle’s mood lightened at the thought of outfoxing Rufus Marlesbury. That was the best part of her plan. “Heroines must never give consideration to possible retribution. Do your books not say so?”
“They do, but those characters never had a brother like Rufus. Be assured, he will give us his ‘consideration to possible retribution’ when he catches us.”
Earnest whined as if in support of Susie’s concerns.
Belle rolled her eyes at her faint-hearted companions. “If he catches us. Come, we have one more to gather for our party.”
She took Susie’s cold hand and tugged the girl toward her mother’s chamber.
Susie pulled back. “Belle, Rufus’s rooms are across the hall from Mama’s. My heart beats so loudly, he will hear it if we go any closer.”
Earnest lay down and covered his head with his paws.
“Faint heart never won fair lady,” she whispered before urging them toward the countess’s doorway. “You go in first, Susie. She might scream if she sees me at this time of night.”
Susie eased open her mother’s door and peered in.
“Well?” Belle practically mouthed the word.
“No light in here, but her bedroom door is ajar. There seems to be a candle lit there.”
All three entered, and Belle eased shut the door behind her. “Earnest and I will wait here while you speak with your mother.”
To Belle’s night sensitive eyes, the room seemed filled with dainty chairs and knickknacks poised to crash at a dog’s sniff. She took a firm grip on the wolfhound’s scruff before he thought to run wild in here.
Susie scratched on her mother’s bedroom door and then entered to announce herself. After a moment of conversation, the countess appeared, dressed in a silk dressing gown.
“My dear Belle, what a wonderful plan.” Lady Terrance rushed across the room and hugged her. Belle returned the embrace, loving the warm human contact after her chilly supernatural encounter.
Behind her mother, Susie looked pleased and rather proud.
“We must be very quiet,” Belle said when the countess released her. Then added with a mischievous grin, “And do not forget your change purse.”
Soon, like three young girls out for a lark with their dog—with skirts raised, candles shaking and smothered giggles—they tiptoed below stairs. Belle entered the games room first, while the countess, Susie and Earnest cowered behind the door.
The large room, with balcony curtains drawn back, was moonlit and silent. There were antlers on one wall, a tapestry on another, and several comfortable chairs positioned around the hearth. The most striking object, however, was the large rectangular slate table with three ivory balls on its green baize top. It fairly shouted for players to pot all but the cue ball into one of six pockets.
“It is safe to come in,” Belle told her companions.
“Good,” her ladyship said and followed her in.
Susie and Earnest shuffled in last.
“I shall fetch the cue,” her ladyship said.
Belle lit candles and soon had the room ablaze and scented with paraffin and beeswax.
Susie remained motionless by the door. Belle left her to come to terms with joining this party. If she were to truly turn her back on solitude, she must do so voluntarily, or at the first sign of trouble, she might retreat.
Belle used a candle and some tinder to light the hearth’s coals. By the time she turned around, Susie hunted inside a sideboard.
“What do you look for?” She was thrilled to see her new friend actively participating.
; “Port,” Susie said. “I have always wondered why Rufus finds it so appealing.”
The grin on Susie’s face was infectious. If she would steal her brother’s drink, then she had indeed taken the first crucial step to overcoming her dread of wrongdoing.
“Good girl.” Her mother emptied her change purse on the billiard table in a jingle of coins.
Belle did the same, and Susie added her booty to the pile. They separated the coins into three equal portions and then set the rules for the bets.
The countess won the right to start.
“If we are to drink on top of gamble,” Belle said, “we will need sustenance.”
“A grand suggestion,” the countess said. “Be a dear and fetch us some of that roast duck cook prepared for supper. I was not hungry earlier, but now I would love a bite. Susie, let us practice. I have no intention of letting Belle return home with more coins than with which she came. Alford would rub it in with every letter we exchange.”
Belle’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she made her way to the kitchen, Earnest at her heels. While she remained at Clearview, she intended to ensure the countess did not spend another night alone while wide-awake and worried.
By the stairs, her glance flew to where she had encountered the ghost. That brief brush suggested the spirit haunting Clearview was not benign. The icicle crash now made sense. The ghost, in her brief contact, had given the impression that it not only churned with fury, but was also on the hunt.
“Just my luck. I have to deal with a spirit as contentious as his son,” she whispered to the dog.
Earnest whined as he paced between a door to the left and her. He was restless to get to that bone she had promised. “All right, lead the way to the food.”
She followed him to the kitchen. Her thoughts, though, lingered on the late Lord Terrance’s ghost because Belle carried some guilt about his death.
On the day he died, she had been at a card party and had a vivid vision of a pistol aimed at him. Certain that death stalked him, Belle became panicked, determined to go to his rescue. Unable to locate Mendal, she had left a message for her maid and asked Lord Fitzgerald, a gentleman closely allied to the Terrances, to escort her to their London home, post haste.
With her thoughts centered on the imminent danger to Lord Terrance, she had not noticed, until after they entered the carriage, that Fitzgerald was deeply in his cups. His alcohol-imbued breath soon suffocated the confined space. If that were not bad enough, the gentleman then proceeded to mistake her innocent request for his escort and introduction to the Terrances as a cover to a liaison.
When the vehicle finally stopped, Belle, having fended off the letch for the entire horrifying ride, rushed to escape. He drunkenly stumbled after her. Then, in a desperate bid to keep from falling, he had grabbed at her gown, and it tore from bodice to waist. That horrendous ripping of satin and sarsenet still haunted her.
From his front windows, Rufus Marlesbury had witnessed the entire sordid display. She shuddered at the memory. He had a right to his low opinion of her. On the surface, that scene must have looked damning.
Unfortunately, his solution to the problem of unwanted drunken guests on his front steps had been to send her home, thankfully alone, in a hackney. Talk of her escapade could not as easily be resolved, as it spread like wildfire within the Beau Monde.
As Belle dealt with those repercussions, her grandfather brought more bad news. The Earl of Terrance had indeed died the night before. But of a hunting accident, not murder.
Smarting from embarrassment, Belle’s doubts about her so-called “ability” had plagued her for weeks afterwards. Or it had until she arrived at Clearview, and Lord Terrance had accused her of being a charlatan. Since then, she felt compelled to defend her talent and was proud of every sign of its manifestation.
On reflection, her encounter tonight attested that her ability was real enough. “For if the late Lord Terrance’s death was simply an accident, Earnest, why is his spirit so restless?” That begged two more questions. Was my vision at that card party right? Had Lord Terrance’s father been murdered?
They arrived in the kitchen, and ghosts and deaths were apparently the last things on the dog’s mind as he sniffed out the larder. Belle proceeded to pile a platter with roast duck and bread and cheese. Then she procured a meaty wing for her four-legged friend, whom she deemed a more worthy escort than his two-legged master.
In the end, the tray was heavier than expected. Carrying it and the candlestick proved difficult. She debated how to manage the task when Earnest’s attention swung toward the door.
A moment later, footsteps sounded down the corridor. Had her pilfering woken the housekeeper? Or, heaven forbid, Lord Terrance?
Neither option was palatable, so Belle ducked under the kitchen table. Luckily, it had a cloth that hung low enough to cover her presence.
Earnest! He sat too far away to reach and pull in.
The door swung open, and the intruder came into sight. A male wearing expensive slippers and a magnificent Chinese dressing gown, if the embroidered hem was any indication. Belle shivered in excitement at seeing his lordship in his night attire.
“What have we here?” the man asked.
Not Lord Terrance. Where Lord Terrance’s sarcastic tones could send shivers up her skin, this gentleman’s subtle voice merely intrigued. Her hopes came crashing down, and a contrary part of her lamented her bad luck.
Earnest, on the other hand, wagged his tail in welcome.
“Earnest,” the man said, “did you pack that tray yourself?”
It was Mr. Phillip Jones, Lord Terrance’s cousin. Drat!
He bent beside Earnest, and Belle edged back.
Mr. Jones ruffled the dog’s fur. He then lifted the tablecloth and stared at her. “Good evening, Lady Belle.”
“Good evening, Mr. Jones.”
The muscle movements of his cheeks suggested he suppressed laughter. “One might almost say good morning. It is but a few hours before the sun is due to rise.” He shook his head, as if confused. “I thought young ladies did not arise until several hours after sunrise. Are country customs different?”
Belle shifted uncomfortably. How to explain her presence and not give away her partners in crime? “Yes, well, my appetite flared suddenly, and I thought to come here for a bite to eat.”
His eyebrow rose, as if he considered her words, then he raised his head as if to study the mound of food. When he glanced at her next, her cheeks heated.
“With something for Earnest, too, no doubt,” he said. “He does have a big appetite.”
The dog obligingly licked his chops.
Again the eyebrow lift before he silently held out a hand. She accepted his help and scrambled out from beneath the table.
Once she was on her feet, his gaze thoroughly appraised her. As she did him. Her senses flared. This man was more than the dandy he portrayed. Keen intelligence burned behind his inquisitive gaze.
Curiosity replaced Belle’s embarrassment. “If you do not mind my inquiring, sir, why are you here?”
Immediately, a curtain of ennui descended. A handkerchief appeared in his hand, and he waved it about the room. “As with you, Lady Belle, I came because my appetite plagued me.”
As succinctly as those words were pronounced, she sensed them to be a blatant lie. Her inner sight showed him upstairs, hidden by the wall, watching her cross the floor below, and then he deliberately followed her downstairs. Why?
The door burst open, and Susie ran into the kitchen. “Belle, you have been an age. Mama thought you might be lost.”
Her words died under her cousin’s quizzing eyebrow.
“Good evening, Suz,” Mr. Jones said. “We missed you at supper. Aunt said you were indisposed. Glad to see you recovered.”
“Oh, Phillip,”
Susie said in a weak voice.
The girl was retreating, and Belle refused to allow that. Not after she had fought so hard to get Susie to drop her guard. “You have caught us, right and proper, Mr. Jones. We might as well admit all. We—the countess, Susie, and I—plan a game of billiards for tonight. Would you care to join us?”
He swung around, and his gaze again pierced her. “I did not realize ladies played the game.”
“Oh!” Susie said, “you cannot mean for us all to play, Belle? He is my cousin, but he is a stranger to you. It would be most inappropriate, after dark, and you in your nightgown.”
“Dressing gown.” Belle tightened her belt in emphasis. “Besides, I am already in his company—after dark.” She turned to the gentleman. “It would be more appropriate with Susie and the countess as my chaperones, do you not think so, Mr. Jones?”
“Your logic is exemplary,” he said, with a quiet laugh. “Besides, Suz, it is not as if I have any blunt to attract Lady Belle’s attention. So, if you are worried about my virtue, you need not be. I am perfectly safe in her company.”
He gave an exquisite bow, and Belle responded with a deep curtsy, loving his absurd sense of humor. He might be a rogue, but she liked him.
“You are both hopeless,” Susie said. “What will Rufus say when he finds out? And he will. He always does. What if he insists you marry Phillip?”
“Well,” Belle said, “Mr. Jones will no longer be poor, I will have a husband who tolerates my impish behavior, and you will have a new relative who is also a friend.” She patted Mr. Jones’s arm. “But you need not worry about that, sir. From what little I have seen of Lord Terrance and his family, I am certain he will not discover us. He would never guess his mother and sister have any interests outside reading and sleeping.”
“You are mistaken, Belle,” Susie said. “Rufus knows Mama and me quite well.”
“How could that be, Susie,” Belle asked in a gentle voice, “when neither of you spend more than a few minutes with him?”
While Susie pondered that, Belle handed Mr. Jones the platter of food and took the candlestick. “Shall we?”
A Beastly Scandal Page 6