Tempest

by Sandra Dubay

  "I suppose he would have arranged an accident for me."

  "Doubtless. There would have been a quick, private funeral, then he would have returned to London and resumed life with Octavia FitzGeorge, albeit on a grander scale."

  He must have been delighted when I fell from the carriage in Newington," she said softly. "When the report reached Patterton Park that I'd been pronounced dead, he must have been overjoyed."

  "His plan would have succeeded without his having to lend a hand to your death," Justin agreed. "It must have been a great shock to him when he heard you were still alive."

  "And then in London . . . Do you think he enlisted Lord Rawley's help in a second attempt?"

  Justin frowned. "I think Lord Rawley was as much a victim as you. I suspect Geoffrey meant for Rawley to kill you but then, I think, he always meant to kill Rawley. That way, he could plead self-defensewhich he did, successfullyand say he killed old Rawley while trying, in vain, to save you. He was cunning, if too impetuous."

  Rubbing her arms, Dyanna sat on the footstool near Justin's chair. She raised troubled eyes to his face and said:

  "I don't want to believe Uncle Horatio had anything to do with it. He was so kind to me, so caringand yet it was he who brought Geoffrey and I together. From the first he was promoting a marriage between us."

  "I don't think he had any part in it," Justin told her seriously. "I told him what I knewthat Geoffrey had married Octavia FitzGeorge and yet had tricked you into eloping. I told him my suspicions. He already had suspicions about his grandson. He disinherited him, you know."

  "Geoffrey told me. He said his grandfather was going to marry Lady Hayward. I hope they're happy together." A frown wrinkled her brow. "But, oh, Justin, I don't like to think of someone plotting my death. This whole business frightens me. I can't quite believe it's over."

  "It is over, sweetheart," Justin insisted, taking her hands in his. "And a happier time is beginning. Once we are married"

  "My lord!" Dyanna cried, standing. "I don't recall your proposing marriage."

  His eyes twinkled. "If you want me to get down on my knees, minx, you'll have to wait for my side to heal. And who knows? By then, I may have changed my mind."

  "Wretch!" she hissed, balling her fist and delivering a gentle punch to his arm. "If you change your mind, more than your side will have to heal!"

  "Ah, there speaks the true daughter of Rakehell McBride!" he laughed.

  "And don't you ever forget it!" she ordered. "Now, I'm going up to see how Charlotte is. While I'm gone, you think about someplace splendid for us to go on our honeymoon."

  Leaving the morning room, Dyanna climbed the stairs and went to Charlotte's room high on the third floor, almost directly above her own. The doctor had told her that although the maid had lost a good deal of blood, she was a healthy, strong girl and would recover quickly.

  "Charlotte?" Dyanna said softly, opening the door. She hoped she would not awaken the maid if she were sleeping. "Charlotte . . . ?"

  Dyanna's face flamed crimson when she found Charlotte propped up in her bed looking very pale and pretty with her thick, titian curls tumbling about her shoulders. Seated on the bed facing her, his lips pressed to hers in a kiss as tender as it was fervent, was Justin's valet, the wry, ever-vigilant Swiss, Bertran.

  The couple drew apart as Dyanna appeared in the doorway. Charlotte's face darkened with a blush no less hot than Dyanna's own, and Bertran, obviously mortified, dropped Charlotte's hand and rose to his feet.

  "I beg your pardon," Dyanna murmured. "I had no idea. That is to say, I never imagined . . . ."

  "Please, mademoiselle," Bertran said quickly, "allow me to explain. Charlotte and Iwe love one another. We would like to marry. But we know many people do not want their servants to marry. Neither of us has the private means to support a life outside service. But if we could save"

  "Bertran," Dyanna interrupted. "Bertran, please, you need say no more. For my part, I should be delighted to see you and Charlotte married. And I would not turn either of you out of service. I cannot speak for my Lord DeVille, althoughand you are the first to knowhe and I are to be married as well . . . ." She blushed with pleasure as they both exclaimed joyfully. "In any case, I think if you were to speak to your master about it, you would find him perfectly amenable to having a valet who was the husband of his wife's lady's maid.''

  Beaming, Bertran pressed another brief kiss on Charlotte's forehead. Then, with a bow for Dyanna, he rushed out of the small chamber.

  Dyanna, going to the doorway, called after him: "He's in the morning room, Bertran."

  Then, with Bertran dispatched on an errand she felt certain would end happily for all concerned, Dyanna went to Charlotte's bed and perched on the edge, eager to offer her thanks for Charlotte's help in sending Justin to rescue her and to inform Charlotte, though she suspected Bertran already had, of how the matter had ended. To all this, she added her warmest congratulations and her most heartfelt wishes for Charlotte and Bertran's future happiness.

  Chater Forty

  The new, smart, dark blue-and-black traveling coach moved along the dusty roads drawn by a matched pair of gleaming white horses. Inside the coach, the Earl and new Countess DeVille sat, the Countess snuggled against her husband, dozing.

  "Dyanna," Justin said softly, nudging her awake. "Dyanna?"

  "Hmmm?" Dyanna sat up and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. "What is it?"

  Justin pointed out the window. There, framed in an opening in the trees, was a sight that could never fail to bring a rush of warmth and pleasure to Dyanna's heart.

  The winding river stretched away, crossed by a triple-arched bridge of golden stone. Beyond lay the village of Wykehurst and above, built on a rock ledge jutting from the high hillside, lay Blaykling, looking for all the world as if the huge building, with its many towers and turrets and fanciful, twisted chimneys, were floating somewhere near the clouds.

  Dyanna sighed. "I wonder if Charlotte and Bertran have everything ready for us."

  Justin laughed, thinking of the newlywed valet and lady's maid who had gone on ahead to await their master and mistress's arrival.

  "They will if they can leave each other alone long enough to see to their work."

  "They have no self-restraint," Dyanna sniffed, feigning airy disapproval. "Thank heavens we are not like them."

  Justin's golden eyes twinkled as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "Yes," he agreed when at last his lips left hers. "Thank heaven we are not like themor we wouldn't have set foot outside DeVille house for another month!"

  Dyanna laughed, then frowned, curious, when Justin rapped on the roof of the carriage, signaling the coachman to stop just as they were passing over the bridge.

  "What are you doing?" she demanded, bracing herself as the carriage rocked to a halt.

  "Something I should have done long ago," he told her. From a compartment built into the carriage wall, he took Dyanna's copy of The Life and Death of Wicked Lord Lucifer Wolfe.

  "Justin?" Dyanna called as he climbed down from the coach. "What are you going to do with? Justin! Wait!"

  But by the time she had scrambled down from the coach, he had dropped the book over the balustrade. Leaning over, Dyanna watched the volume float out of sight beneath the bridge, then ran to the other side to wait for it to reappear. But it did not; somewhere beneath the bridge, on the bottom of the slow-flowing river, the notorious book now rested.

  "Why did you do that?" she demanded, following him back to the coach.

  "It was hardly the kind of souvenir I'd have you keep to remind you of our courtship," he told her. "A love letter or a pressed flower would be more conventional."

  "You never wrote me a love letter," she reminded him, "and you've never given me flowers. And, I need hardly tell you, our courtship was not precisely conventional."

  "Neither will our marriage be if you persist in reading books like that."

  Dyanna frowned as Justin pounded on the roof, settin
g the coach into motion once more. "But I like to read books like that," she protested.

  Justin sighed. Twining one of her silky, silvery curls about his finger, he told her fondly, "Your imagination is too fertile, my love. You have only to read about a ghost and you start hearing the moan of tortured spirits and the rattling of phantom chains. You need only to read about a curse and you begin to feel symptoms. If you read about a haunted house, you begin hearing voices in empty rooms." He laughed as she punched him in the arm. "I'm sorry, my pet, but it is true. If you have to read, please, read gentle romances or history or something that will not fire that imagination of yours."

  Lifting her chin. Dyanna pouted prettily as they rode on toward Wykehurst.

  In the village, Justin once more stopped the coach.

  "There are a few things I want to get before we go up to the castle," he told Dyanna, helping her down. "I'm going to the haberdashery there, across the street."

  "I think I'll go look at the bonnets in Mrs. Riber's shop," Dyanna decided.

  Dyanna watched as Justin crossed the street and disappeared into the shop of the Messrs. Eyesham and Flyte, Haberdashers. When he was lost to view, she turned, fully intending to look at Mrs. Riber's bonnets. But the pretty, bow-fronted shop of Mr. Digby, Printer, beckoned irresistibly.

  The little brass bell over the door tinkled cheerfully as Dyanna entered the shop which served Wykehurst as a printers, stationers, and book shop.

  The proprietor, Mr. Digby, was a short, stout man whose boisterous spirits made him the joy of the monthly balls. His round, ruddy face lit up with pleasure as he emerged from the back room, wiping his inky hands on a cloth as he came.

  "Miss Dyanna!" he cried. Then his eyes widened and his mouth became a horrified 'O' as he realized his mistake. A rougish grin spread across his face as he made her as grand and low a bow as his girth would permit.

  "Your pardon, my Lady DeVille. Allow me to offer you my congratulations on your marriage, my lady."

  "Thank you, Mr. Digby," Dyanna answered, dimpling.

  "Your lady's maid was here a few days since. She said her master and mistress would be following directly. Will you be living at Blaykling now?"

  "For a while. Perhaps you and Mrs. Digby could come to dinner some evening while we are here."

  "Nothing could give us greater pleasure. Would you, by any chance, be looking for a book to read?"

  "Well . . ." Dyanna remembered what Justin had said. Several volumes lay on the table nearby and among them Dyanna noticed slim, light romances and works of deep, scholarly interest. Either would probably win Justin's approval; neither stirred the slightest interest in Dyanna.

  "The reason I ask," Mr. Digby went on, "is that there is a new book, published not long since. A Gothick novel in two volumes which I think cannot fail to stir your ladyship's interest."

  Dyanna felt the familiar pricklings of excitement that the prospect of a new story never failed to evoke in her. "I don't know if I should . . ." She hesitated.

  "I think you will be interested in this. Once your maid said you were coming, I put a copy aside especially for you. It was written by a man whose grandmother was once housekeeper at Blaykling, and it is based, so they say, on tales she told him as a child."

  "Tales?" Dyanna asked. "What sorts of tales?"

  From beneath the counter, the printer drew two books bound in green leather, the names of the book and of the author, a Mr. Philip St. Aubyn, in shining gold letters.

  Dyanna took Volume I from Mr. Digby. "The Secret of Blaykling Castle," she read aloud. "Blaykling! I didn't know Blaykling had any secrets."

  Mr. Digby laughed. "According to my wife, there are many, quite startling revelations

  recounted in the story. Of course, they must be nothing more than the imaginings of an enterprising author."

  "I suppose," Dyanna allowed, "but would he use the actual name of the castle if his story was not based in truth?"

  "I should not imagine so," Mr. Digby agreed. "Still, only your ladyship can vouch for the accuracy of his descriptions of the castle and its history."

  "And I could only do that after reading the book," Dyanna observed, laughing when the printer had the grace to flush. "Well, I will buy it. If only as a curiosity."

  Surely, she told herself as she paid for the books and waited for Mr. Digby to wrap them, even Justin could not disapprove of her buying such an item of interest.

  Still, after she left the print shop, she tucked the volumes deep down in the carpet-bag she'd brought in the carriage to hold her personal necessities. Then, so she could not accuse herself of lying to her husband, she darted into Mrs. Riber's shop and tried on several bonnets.

  It was there that Justin found her.

  The hour was late when Dyanna lay beside her husband in the enormous, century-old bed hung with scarlet Spitalfields silk. She could not sleep, despite feeling warm and drowsy, lost in the heated afterglow of Justin's lovemaking. Her mind was engaged in speculating about what secrets of Blaykling Castle might be disclosed in the book Mr. Digby had sold her that afternoon.

  "Damn you, Mr. Digby," she said softly. "I should have known better than to let you sell me that book! I should have known myself well enough to know I could not resist reading it."

  With a glance at Justin who slept beside her, she slipped out from beneath the coverlets and felt around in the darkness for her shift.

  Slipping it over her head, she stood a few feet from the bed, torn between retreating to the sitting room to steal a glance at a few pages of the book and being a dutiful wife and climbing back into bed. At last, as she had been almost certain it would, her curiosity won out and she tiptoed into the sitting room and went to the writing desk where she had hidden the books and took out Volume I.

  Lighting the candles in a three-branched candelabrum, she carried it to a table beside a comfortable armchair.

  For a few more moments she hesitated. It was not too late, she told herself, to remain an obedient wife. But then, throwing cautionand obedienceto the wind, she opened to the first page of Volume I and began to read:

  Chapter 1

  "It was quite by accident that I happened upon the first clue to the secret of Blaykling Castle. I had come there in answer to a summons from the Earl of Lincoln and his Countess, who were in need of a housekeeper, their previous housekeeper having retired after years of good and faithful service.

  But though my position entailed the overseeing of a regiment of servants, I prided myself on attention to detail. It was this attention that drew me to the massive, ornate, intricately carved marble inglenook that was the chiefest attraction of the great, barrel-roofed drawing room at the north end of the first floor.

  The intricacy of detail made it the bane of every housemaid's existence, for it seemed impossible to remove every speck of the dust that covered it with distressing regularity. It fell to my lot to inspect it and discover those nooks and crannies which some parlormaid's negligence had overlooked.

  It was while engaged in this tiresome activity that I discovered the secret passage. I had noticed a neglected film of dust within the deeply carved wing of the fat cherub who cavorted nearest the left corner of the mantelpiece. Taking out the cloth I carried in the pocket of my apron, I wiped away the dust to reveal the dark-veined, cream-colored marble.

  Because of the depth of the carving, I was obliged to press harder than is my wont. As I did so, the wing seemed to lift, as if the cherub was about to take flight. I had no sooner recovered from my wonder at this than a harsh, grating sound filled the room and a panel at the back of the yawning fireplace slid out of sight to reveal the gaping mouth of a passage I had not heretofore suspected might exist. . . ..''

  Dyanna closed the book, her finger marking her place. A secret passage! In the drawing room! She knew the room wellthe author had certainly described the inglenook with an accuracy that suggested he had either seen it or known someone who had. But a moving cherub wing? A secret passage? Surely that could
be nothing but the figment of an overactive imagination. There could not be any such thing. She would have discovered it during the happy years she lived at Blaykling. Wouldn't she? Some one of the servants with whom she was on terms of affection and friendship would have told her if any such passage existed. Wouldn't they?

  Mentally, she chided herself for reading the book in the first place. Justin had been right. It had done nothing but fire her imagination. It was just a story, after all, written by some- one with a more foolish imagination than her own and with the impertinence to name Blaykling as the setting for his imaginings.

  Still . . . What if it were true? There could not be any harm in looking. And then, when she had proven to her own satisfaction that there was no truth to Mr. St. Aubyn's book, she could lock it away and think no more of it.

  Just this once, she promised herself, lighting a candle in a brass chamberstick from one of those burning in her candelabrum, just this once she would be so foolish as to investigate Mr. St. Aubyn's claim. And then she could abandon the book and Justin would never know of her foolishness.

  Her way lit by the golden glow of her single candle, she tiptoed down the elegant, soaring main staircase to the great hall with its magnificent, fan-vaulted ceiling, and into the drawing room where the massive marble inglenook that had been her grandfather's contribution to the home of his ancestors, gleamed in the shadowy darkness of the room.

  Reaching it, Dyanna consulted the book once more before abandoning it on one of the high-backed settles beneath the wide overhang.

  "The cherub nearest the left corner of the mantelpiece," she reminded herself, holding the candle close to the corner in question.

  Well that, at least, was accurate, she thought, finding the fat dancing cherub. Her fingers touched the deeply carved wing. It seemed of a piece with the background. She pressed it with her fingers; it would not move. Leaning closer, she placed the heel of her hand against it and pressed upward with all her might. To her astonishment, the wing grated, then swung upward.