Tempest

by Sandra Dubay

  "He's been going off in the evening very often as well," was Charlotte's unwelcome reminder.

  "Perhaps" Dyanna squelched the thought. She'd been about to wonder aloud if there was some woman Justin might be seeing, but she could not, would not allow herself to so much as consider the possibility. "Ah, well, I suppose he has a great deal of business to attend to. Particularly now that he's become such a crony of the Duke of Cumberland and his set."

  Wandering back to her favorite armchair, Dyanna picked up the book Justin had given her when they'd begun their journey back from McBride Hall. Try though she had, she could not enjoy the bookthe story of a rebellious girl who comes to realize that the man she regards as a tyrant is, in truth, a wise and just protector. It hit a little too close to home for comfort, and she suspected that Justin had chosen it more as a lesson for his errant ward than for her entertainment.

  Laying the book aside, Dyanna left the room and strolled up the hall. At the far end, a short, narrow passage led off the main hall to the attic stairs.

  Dyanna peered down the passage. The door at the far end stood open. The steep, twisting attic stairs of bare, painted wood rose up, turning at a sharp angle and disappearing into the darkness of the enclosed stairwell.

  At the top, she knew, though she had never climbed those stairs herself, were storage rooms and the servants' quartersseparate, dormitory-like rooms for the footmen and the maidservants. Only those servants at the very top of the household hierarchyBertran, the master's valet; Ipswich, the grand and imperious butler; and Charlotte, whose position as

  Dyanna's personal maid set her apart from the ordinary maidshad their own rooms.

  Going to the foot of the stairs, Dyanna heard voices from above. One she recognized as belonging to Ipswich. Curious, she climbed the stairs, holding tight to the railing, which had been worn smooth by the hands of hundreds of maids and footmen over the course of decades.

  At the top, Dyanna followed the sounds to the men servants' dormitory. One side of the long, narrow room was taken up with beds jutting out from the wall, each surmounted by a shelf on which personal belongings could be stored. Opposite each bed was a tall, slim armoire where livery was kept both for daily wear and formal evenings.

  Near the far end of the long room, Ipswich and two maidservants were grouped around the last armoire in the row.

  The retort of Dyanna's heel on the wooden floor brought Ipswich to attention.

  "Miss Dyanna," he said, bowing shallowly.

  "What is happening?" Dyanna asked, craning to see that the maids seemed to be packing the contents of the armoire into a wooden crate.

  "Tom, the young footman engaged shortly after milord's arrival in London from Portsmouth, has run off, I fear." The butler's mouth pursed in disapproval. "He took several pieces of silver, I'm afraid. Doubtless to sustain him in his idleness. He always was a lazy wretch. I blame myself for not turning him out."

  "What will you do?" Dyanna asked, sitting on the edge of the bed while the maids folded young Tom's belongings and tucked them into the crate.

  "Nothing, I fear, miss," Ipswich replied, unable to conceal his frustration. "I suggested to his lordship that the Bow Street Runners be set on the wretch's trail, but his lordship said he would not see a sixteen-year-old boy hanged for the sake of a few teaspoons."

  "You don't approve, do you?" Dyanna observed.

  "No, miss, I fear I do not. Such leniency will only encourage others to follow his unfortunate example. It may be commendable from a Christian point of view, but in the end it could prove disastrous."

  With that, the crate containing Tom's belongings was trundled off to the storage rooms at the other end of the attic and Dyanna followed Ipswich back down the stairs.

  That diversion at an end, Dyanna wandered downstairs to the music room. But even the harpsichord held no attraction for her. She'd forgotten how much she'd once enjoyed her musicshe'd forgotten everything except her resentment against Justin for immuring her in DeVille House.

  "Spite!" she announced to the gleaming instrument that had lain silent since her flight with Geoffrey. "That's all it amounts to. I will not answer his question, satisfy his curiosity, salve his male pride, so he shuts me up here while he prances about the town. I hope he"

  Glancing up, she found Bertran standing in the doorway, a paper-wrapped parcel in his hand.

  Flushing, she smiled sheepishly at the valet. "Good afternoon, Bertran," she said softly.

  The valet grinned. "Good afternoon, Miss Dyanna," he replied. "You were, I believe, about to express some wishes with regard to his lordship's future?"

  Her blush deepening, Dyanna shot him a shaming glance. "They can wait, Bertran. What have you there?"

  The valet turned the parcel over in his hands. "His lordship sent me to the stationers, Miss, and while I was there, I saw this novel. Newly written and published, I believe. I thought you might find it diverting."

  "Why, Bertran!" Beaming, Dyanna took the parcel from him and unwrapped it. Bound in green leather, the title, embossed in gold, read:

  Lady Feversham's Secret

  Opening the book to the first page, Dyanna's eyes skimmed the opening paragraphs:

  "Feversham Court is abandoned now, its walls crumbling, overgrown with ivy, its windows merely gaping holes, like sightless eyes, staring out at the derelict gardens. The little door in the garden wall is hidden, concealed by the thick, thorny tangle of climbing roses that once framed it so prettily. Its hinges are rusted, the key and the lock now one, immovable, mute, giving no sign that they once, in the not too distant past, represented freedom for the beautiful, tragic mistress of the house.

  Like the great manor that was once her home, Lady Feversham is no more. There is little to remind one of the roles she played: that of mistress of Feversham Court, wife of the brutish and tyrannical Sir Roger Feversham, and the other more exciting, if less honourable part she played beyond the little door in the garden. . . .."

  Dyanna beamed delightedly at Bertran, who seemed inordinately pleased to have given her such a welcome present.

  "Thank you, Bertran," she said, leaning up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "I've been so dreadfully bored. You cannot imagine how I've longed for a new book to read."

  "I am glad you are pleased, Miss Dyanna," he murmured.

  Dyanna giggled delightedly at the sudden color that stained his cheeks. "Why, Bertran! I've made you blush!"

  The color in his cheeks deepening, Bertran made her his best valet's bow and retired. Behind him, in the music room, Dyanna hugged the book to her bosom. Lifting her skirts in one hand, she hurried up the stairs to her sitting room where, ensconced in her favorite armchair, she began to read about Lady Feversham and her secret.

  By the middle of the afternoon, Dyanna had made the acquaintance of Lady Anne Feversham who, having been forced into an alliance with a loutish and overbearing husband, one day discovers a long-forgotten door in the garden wall. Unable to bear the miseries of her marriage any longer, Lady Feversham, in various disguises, escapes through the garden door and seeks adventure in the countryside beyond.

  In turn, as the chapters progressed, the audacious Lady Anne was a highwayman, a stableboy, a tavern maid, and, having decided to play the part of an invalid at homethe better to have long periods of privacy during which she could retire to her room and issue orders that she not be disturbedescaped to London itself and went on the stage.

  Dyanna was enchanted. Lady Anne was everything she admired. Her life, the dual roles she carried off with such enviable panachewas the stuff of Dyanna's fantasies. How she longed to lead such a life of excitement! But she, like Lady Anne, was the victim of a tyrannical master. In her present mood, she saw Justin as no less cruel, no less overbearing and harsh, than Sir Roger Feversham himself.

  By the time she was summoned down to dinner, Dyanna could not bear to leave Anne Feversham and her adventures. Sending down word that she was not hungry, she remained in her room, even though Charlotte had told
her that Justin was dining at home that eveningsomething he did rarely since their return from the country.

  She was in bed, propped on half a dozen lace-frothed pillows, when Justin appeared.

  "Are you ill, Dyanna?" he asked, sitting on the edge of her bed. "You didn't come down to supper."

  She shrugged. "I wasn't hungry."

  Justin's golden eyes lingered on the spill of her silver hair over her shoulders, on the pale perfection of her skin and the rosy tinge that just touched her cheekbones, on the inviting pout of her lips that reminded him all too keenly of that night at the Black Swan Inn when he had come so close to casting off all restraint and making love to her as he so longed to do. She was, whatever her faults, however reckless and wild her character, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen and to be near her was an exquisite torment composed of equal parts pleasure and pain.

  For Dyanna's part, she could not deny, however much she might wish to, that he was like no other man she had ever known. Her heart, her senses leapt at the sight of him, at the mere thought of him. Even as they sat there, an awkward silence lying heavily between them, her fingers ached to twine themselves in the thick, tawny silk of his hair; her body longed in every fiber to feel his arms around her.

  Taking a deep breath, she tore her eyes from his and shrugged. "I was reading. Bertran brought me a book this afternoon."

  Justin lifted the volume from where she'd laid it on the coverlet. "Lady Feversham's Secret," he read. "What is her secret?"

  "By day she is a dutiful wife. By night, she rides the highways, robbing and stealing. She's been a tavern maid and other things. It's very exciting."

  "She won't find it so exciting if she's caught," Justin predicted. "They hang women, too, you know."

  "Oh, pish! She won't get caught. She's too clever for that!"

  Justin smiled fondly. "I hope you're right, sweetheart."

  Rising, he allowed himself the luxury of bending and softly, quickly, kissing that delicate, petal-soft cheek.

  "You're going out?" she asked, checking an impulse to reach out to him and draw him back.

  He nodded. "I have to see a manon business."

  Dyanna said nothing as he turned and left the room, but a troubled scowl creased her brow. It was still there when Charlotte appeared with a tray of Cook's most delectable sugared rolls.

  "Lord DeVille said to bring these up to you," she said. "I passed him in the hall as he was on his way out."

  Dyanna nodded. "He was just here. He says he has to see a man on business. But I wonder . . . Do you think he is seeing some woman, Charlotte?"

  "I don't know, miss," the maid answered honestly. "It's possible I suppose."

  Sighing, Dyanna reached for her book. "I wish there was some way of knowing for certain. I wish I could follow him some night and see where he goes." She laughed. "Lady Feversham would have done it. She would have dressed in disguise and slipped out through her little garden door and found out what she wished to know. She would have gone as a man, I suspect. For London is dangerous at night for a woman alone."

  Charlotte nodded, a little mystified. She had

  no notion of the plot of the book Dyanna was reading and so knew neither who Lady Feversham was nor why she should have resorted to disguises.

  At a loss for anything to add to Dyanna's line of speculation, Charlotte changed the subject.

  ''Did you hear, miss," she asked, "about young Tom, the footman?"

  "Yes. Ipswich said he ran off and took some of the silver with him. I was upstairs earlier today while Ipswich and two of the maids were packing away Tom's clothes"

  Dyanna drew a sharp breath. Her eyes flitted from Charlotte's face to her book and back again.

  "Charlotte," she said thoughtfully, "Tom was not a very big lad, was he?"

  "Oh, no, miss. He was rather small and thin."

  "About my size, would you say?"

  "Wellyes, about, I should think."

  Lying back on her pillows, Dyanna's lips curved into a mischievous grin.

  Watching her, Charlotte could not imagine what mad scheme was hatching in her all too fanciful brain, but she knew her mistress well enough to be filled with foreboding at the mere thought of what it might be.

  Chater Twenty-Six

  It was long after midnight before Dyanna considered it safe to make her way up the steep and winding stair to the attics of DeVille House.

  Creeping past the doors leading to the men and women servant's dormitory, Dyanna shielded her candle with her hand. She did not want any wakeful footman or parlormaid to notice the glow of the candle flame as she passed and come to investigate.

  The room to which the errant Tom's belongings had been taken was low and dark, its slanting roof proclaiming it to be beneath the very eaves of DeVille House. Dyanna searched among the boxes and trunks for the one with the least dustthe one approached by a path of footprints in the thick grey dust that carpeted the floor.

  Setting her candle on the lid of an iron-bound trunk, Dyanna lifted the lid of the crate and sorted through the garments inside. There were Tom's everyday and formal liveries, two pairs of breeches, a shirt, and a worn, brown cloth coat. A tricorne had been set atop Tom's chestnut-colored, pig-tailed wig, making it look eerily as if someone were still wearing it.

  Dyanna sorted through the clothes. She could not, she knew, simply cart the whole crate down to her roomit had taken two maids to carry it into the storage room.

  Burrowing her arms into the wooden box, she pulled out Tom's everyday livery, one pair of dark-blue cloth breeches, the shirt, and the coat. Studying what was left, she pulled out a pair of stockings and the wig and hat. A pair of shoes lay in the bottom of the box, but they were of no use to Dyanna. Although Tom had been a small, thin boy, his feet were far larger than Dyanna's. But she had a pair of scuffed leather slippers that would do well enough if they were not examined too closely.

  Gathering the clothes into a pile, she scooped them into her arms and replaced the lid on the crate. With her bundle wedged between one arm and her hip, she took up her candle and started her stealthy retreat to her room.

  Below, in the privacy of her bedchamber, behind the doors she only dared lock when Justin was out of the house, Dyanna pulled off her nightdress and kicked off her satin slippers. With a sense of delicious naughtiness, she pulled on the long white stockings, then the dark blue satin breeches that buttoned just below the knee with two big brass buttons. The white shirt, though too wide in the shoulders and too long by half, she tucked into the breeches and hid beneath the dark blue coat with its padded shoulders and high, stiff collar. The brass buttons that surmounted the vent in the back glittered prettily as she turned before the gilt-framed pierglass.

  Delighted, Dyanna rummaged in her closet for her oldest black slippers. They would do creditably if one did not look too closely and notice the decidedly feminine bows on the toes. Well, that could be remedied. Tomorrow she would take a knife and cut the silken threads that fastened the bows to the slippers.

  There remained only the matter of her hair to contend with. It was too long, too curly and of too unusual a shade to simply tie back in imitation of a man's. Her eyes went to the dark, rich brown wig whose eurled pigtail was tied with a black grosgrain bow.

  Skewering her hair atop her head, she fitted the heavy wig over her own silver curls and tugged it down into place around her ears.

  Her image in the pier glass delighted her. She looked like a boyalbeit a young, exceptionally pretty boy. All that was needed to make her the perfect example of the young footman was the immaculate white gloves that completed the livery.

  Where could they be found? The butler's pantry, no doubt. A sudden, mad impulse sent her venturing out from behind her locked bedchamber doors and down the grand staircase, a candle clutched in her hand.

  From the entry hall she passed through progressively smaller and less grand chambers of DeVille House until she found herself in the butler's pantry. She was certain Ipswich
would be mortified by this invasion of his inner sanctum, but it could not be helped.

  Dyanna rummaged through cabinets and drawers until she found what she sought. In a drawer, separated by layers of tissue, lay the white gloves worn by the footmen on formal occasions.

  Taking a pair, Dyanna closed the drawer and retreated to the entry hall. She had never before visited the depths of the house where the day-to-day business of running a great and extensive household was conducted.

  In the entry hall, Dyanna put her candle on a table and drew on her gloves. They buttoned at the wrists and she drew the wrist frills of her shirt down over them and tugged the wide cuffs of her coat into place.

  A mirror hung on the wall of the entrance hall, flanked with ornate sconces. The candles in them burned inside their crystal globes in anticipation of Justin's late return. In the golden glow of the flames, Dyanna regarded her reflection with utter enchantment.

  So engrossed was she in her transformation that she did not hear the clip-clop of iron-shod hooves on the drive outside. She did not notice the crunching of the gravel beneath Justin's feet as he dismounted nor the retort of his heels on the steps outside the door as he made his way up them.

  It was not until the door-latch rattled in his hand that Dyanna realized he was home. It was too late to fleeshe could not even have reached one of the doorways that led off the hall in time. Trembling, she watched in terrified fascination as the door swung open.

  Entering the hall, Justin pulled off his hat. Without looking, he dropped it on top of Dyanna's head where it dropped over her eyes; only her nose kept her face from disappearing completely. Unfastening the clasp of his evening cloak, he pulled it off in a fluid, swirling motion and draped it over her, making her stagger with its sudden weight.

  "You didn't have to wait up, Tom," Justin muttered wearily, heading toward the stairs without a backward glance. "Just throw those over the chair and go to bed, there's a good lad."