A Notorious Proposition

by Adele Ashworth

  Pain…diamonds, Garrett, Ian…Snowflakes falling, sparkling, jewels…

  Garrett…Help me!

  The pain in her head thudded her to partial awareness, slowly, bringing with it a fear of something. Something urgent. She couldn’t see, couldn’t remember who she—where she…

  What happened?

  And then the smell struck her soundly. Putrid, rotting…the smell of death…

  The cat…in the tunnel…

  Garrett…please…find me…help me…

  I’m…in the tunnel!

  She tried to raise her eyelids but couldn’t manage it. They weighed so much. She couldn’t move, wanted to sleep, needed to sleep. But the pain made her feel so sick, kept her awake enough to sense an indescribable danger.

  Something was wrong…the smell, so horrible. The silence, so terrifying…. Something…is wrong…

  Ian’s face, Garrett, fear…snowflakes…diamonds…

  …find me!

  She stood over her for a long time, watching Lady Ivy struggle with her dreams, nearly aware for a moment before drifting back to unconsciousness.

  It didn’t matter. She’d hidden her well, in a place no human should spend a moment, much less eternity. But her plan focused on nothing but the diamonds, and for that she kept the lady alive.

  Time was getting short. He would be searching by now, had probably received the gift she left, and the note, and he would panic. He would search, but he’d never find this place. It hadn’t been maintained for centuries, forgotten by all.

  No, unless the Marquess of Rye paid her for her troubles, poor Lady Ivy would die here, and rot, just like her brother. Just like poor, foolish Benedict.

  That thought made her smile, and without the slightest wavering in her decision, she closed the door to the chamber, locked it, and quietly left the dungeon.

  Penelope was truly getting annoyed. She’d accepted an invitation to a magnificent ball, an invitation so grand it should—by itself—grant her presumed attendance at lesser social events in Winter Garden for a long time to come. And because of this presumption, she mingled proudly for the first hour or so without a care to the hard stares and snide tongues of those who couldn’t believe she had the audacity to attend tonight’s Winter Masquerade with her two daughters.

  Learning that the secretive Marquess of Rye was none other than Mr. Garrett Burke the architect proved shocking at first. It had, however, taken her only a moment or two to realize with extreme satisfaction that he had been welcomed in her home on one occasion. And so she decided to use that detail as the night carried on, as she mingled with guests who once knew her personally and invited her to tea and dinner parties, but who now snubbed her as if she reeked.

  Unfortunately, it so happened that events like this one, regardless of that fact that this was the first in two years to which she’d been invited, tended to spur the memory of what Hermione and Viola’s older sibling had done. And bringing the…opium-smuggling incident and the baron’s disgrace forefront in her mind incensed her. She’d chosen to forget about the horror of scandal as she readied herself for tonight’s spectacular event, but now as she stood in the hot, loud ballroom, still unable to secure for her daughters a formal introduction to Lord Rye, her irritation had started to bubble to the surface like an acid stomach gone untreated.

  True, Hermione had met him once, even if she didn’t know his actual identity at the time, but Viola had not. And even if she never spoke it aloud, she realized her hope of a good marriage for Hermione was all but gone. The scandal had destroyed it, and soon her faithful middle girl would be on the shelf, likely to look forward to nothing more than taking care of family as she aged. But there lingered a hope that Viola, the prettier of the two, and the more innocent, could make a decent match and secure them all financially.

  Penelope prided herself on her rationality. She understood how the world worked, and that Viola was little match, either socially or in appearance, for a man of such superb stature and title as the marquess. And after his somewhat grandiose entrance tonight, it had become painfully clear that the man had his eye set solely on Lady Ivy, a woman better suited to his class and needs as a gentleman. Still, she was a keen woman, and although there lingered a trace of hope that he might find her youngest daughter engaging, she’d been aware from the start that just being invited to one of Lord Rye’s marvelous galas mattered most of all, for Viola and their future.

  But the marquess had left his own party. And now she couldn’t even find Hermione or Viola. Even that selfish and obtrusive Lady Margaret of Brighton had vanished, though the perfectly played music continued as the guests became intoxicated with drink and dance and laughter. Not so for her. She intended to work at this event, to introduce her available, marriageable daughters—who’d been unfortunately restrained by social castration for two long years—to Winter Garden’s finest eligible gentlemen. But she couldn’t very well accomplish her goal if her daughters weren’t even in the ballroom.

  So, in a huff, she went looking for Catherine, finding her friend in deep conversation with Lady Isadora, a woman who was slowly losing her mind to age and had no memory of the damage caused by Lord Rothebury or the scandal that enveloped her daughters. She only wished she could say the same for everybody else in the village. If that were the case both her daughters would now be married and she could spend the remainder of her days in peace and relative comfort.

  As it was, they were running out of time. And so after learning that the two ladies hadn’t seen her girls in at least thirty minutes, the three of them began their own quiet search.

  Garrett and Madeleine left Ivy’s bedchamber and began a sweeping search of the second floor, exploring each room rather than just calling her name from the doorway. If she’d been drugged, she could very well be unconscious, lying on or beside a bed or dressing table somewhere and unable to reply.

  But as they met again at the top of the landing, neither of them had seen her or heard any noise that might be unusual for a house preoccupied with a masquerade ball.

  “What next, the bottom floor?” Madeleine asked breathlessly, her tone overflowing with worry. “I can’t imagine she’d enter the tunnel in a ball gown, and it’s freezing outside.”

  Garrett gazed down at the small box in his hands, studying it as if it held some key to the sender he didn’t quite perceive.

  “Why give me this now?” he asked, thinking aloud.

  Madeleine shook her head. “I don’t know, but the timing does seem…odd, does it not?”

  He felt the muscles in his shoulders tense as his stomach roiled with anxiety. “Someone has been holding my grandmother’s tiara, without the diamonds, only to present it to me tonight.” He turned and looked at the Frenchwoman. “Why tonight?”

  Madeleine crossed her arms in front of her. “It’s…the biggest event in Winter Garden. Someone wanted to surprise you, obviously.”

  “And that would make sense if a woman waltzed into the ballroom wearing it. Or even if it had been sent to Ivy for her to wear as my hostess. But that’s not what occurred. It was sent in a package to be opened by me alone.”

  “Well,” she replied, “if we had found it in Ivy’s bedroom, I would think it’s from whoever was drinking champagne, but the fact that it arrived separately could mean anything. Of course, the obvious answer is exactly what the note suggested, trading the diamonds for Ivy.”

  “Blackmail,” he whispered. “But I don’t have the diamonds…”

  “And whoever possessed the tiara all these months would certainly know that,” she added for him. “So why give it back to you?”

  “Precisely my question,” he said, his jaw tightening. “Why return the tiara when it alone is worth so much? The rubies are intact. They could be removed and sold, the gold melted down.”

  “Or the person could have blackmailed your family for the return of the tiara without the diamonds.”

  “Exactly.” He studied the box for a moment, then lifted the lid to look d
own at his priceless treasure. “Extortion for money cannot be the reason it was returned to me.”

  “Perhaps this seems so confusing because there is more than one person involved,” Madeleine speculated, lowering her gaze to the tiara again.

  “There has to be,” he conceded. “But it’s more than that. When I was attacked in London two years ago, I saw the figure of a woman just as someone hit me from behind. There were two people involved at that time, and I assumed it was Ian and…I don’t know. Some woman who knew one or both of us.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his aching temples. “But what if these are separate events? Different people with different plans?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  He scrubbed a palm down his face, then glanced to the bottom of the stairs, ignoring the music, the laughter of the ignorant as most of his guests remained unaware of the maliciousness taking place this night.

  “I’ve been thinking too symmetrically,” he murmured seconds later. “Too…rationally.”

  “Garrett—”

  “Why am I being told to find the diamonds now,” he cut in, “after all this time in Winter Garden? What makes this…person think I can suddenly discover their whereabouts and exchange them for Ivy before…what? The crack of dawn?”

  He realized he was being snide, and further perplexing her, but his frustration level had risen to match the gravity of the event—an event he wasn’t sure he understood at all.

  “It hardly seems likely that you could do such a thing,” she remarked with an air of doubt. Thoughtfully, she asked, “So…you think receiving the tiara at the precise time you did isn’t blackmail but…more of a message?”

  Very slowly, Garrett shook his head. “No, not a message.” He sneered. “It’s a taunt.”

  Her brows rose, then, inhaling deeply, she asked, “But who on earth would taunt you? What would be the purpose?”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “The only person who had the diamonds, as far as I’m aware, was Benedict Sharon.”

  Her mouth dropped open a little. “You think he’s alive, hiding…somewhere in the house all this time?”

  “No, that’s impossible,” he replied after a moment of careful speculation, replacing the lid on the box. “Even supposing he could live for months in this house without being noticed, he’d have no reason to stay here, especially if he had the diamonds. He’d more likely be on the Mediterranean shore basking in the sun and spending my wealth at his leisure.”

  Madeleine pulled back a little, her lips curving upward. “You don’t think it’s his ghost,” she said rather than asked.

  He snorted. “Absolutely not.” Seconds later, he drew in a long full breath, and muttered, “But someone is playing me for a fool, ridiculing me from a position beyond my grasp, and being remarkably clever in the process.”

  “Lady Margaret?” Madeleine whispered.

  He frowned. “She’s clever, but she wouldn’t return my tiara if she had it in her possession, whether the diamonds were missing or not, because I would then suspect her in the theft. She’d be better off selling the rubies.”

  “But she knows something,” Madeleine warned, “or she wouldn’t be here.”

  He nodded. “Indeed.”

  She waited, her eyes narrowed in contemplation, then muttered, “Can you think of anyone else who could possibly gain something from playing with you in such a dramatic fashion? It seems so…irrational.”

  He stared at her through narrowed eyes. “That’s exactly what it is.”

  Irrational. Like a gentleman stricken with sudden impoverishment, or a woman scorned by a lover.

  At that moment, Garrett decided he’d finally had enough—enough of the malevolent teasing, the secrets and lies. Enough of the fear and panic. This was his home, his party, and yet someone toyed with him over and over, probably watched him from afar, likely doing so since he’d purchased the property and arrived in Winter Garden. Someone knew the house inside and out, and even now sat waiting, mocking him into action.

  Well, he would take action, take command, and to hell with the gossip should propriety be violated. Ivy was in this house, or very near it, whether awake and held against her will or incapacitated, and he would do everything in his power to find her, even if his actions caused scandal, or he had to tear apart his new home with his bare hands.

  “So what do we do?” she asked, her quietly spoken words slicing into his thoughts.

  With resolve, he shoved the box into Madeleine’s hands. “Give this to Newbury and tell him to put it in the safe for now. He’ll do it without question. Then find Lady Margaret. Stay close to her, but don’t let her know you’re suspicious of anything.”

  She nodded. “And you?”

  With a half smile, he straightened his collar. “I’m going into the tunnel.”

  “Why?” she asked at once.

  “Because there I can move freely, see and hear things from a different perspective. And if Ivy’s inside, I’ll find her.”

  “But…dressed like that? And alone? Garrett—”

  “She should be my wife, Madeleine,” he stressed, his voice filled with a bitterness he couldn’t hide. “If not for this despicable deception, she would have been my wife for these last two years.” He straightened, his own words filling him with an inner strength. “I will find her, regardless of who is hurt in the end. Just as you know Eastleigh would go to any lengths to find you if you were missing and in danger.”

  She sighed with clarity, admonishing in a near whisper, “Be careful.”

  He nodded once, then turned and headed back to Ivy’s room.

  Chapter 21

  It was the smell that stirred her into final wakefulness, a stench more powerful than anything she could have imagined.

  Ivy opened her eyes slowly, seeing nothing but utter blackness. Disoriented, she glanced around blindly as she reached out with her fingers, realizing immediately that she lay on a freezing stone floor, someplace void of all light and sound.

  A sudden terror gripped her tightly, and she swallowed a scream. She tried to sit up, though it took great effort, her body aching with every minute movement, her head splitting from sharp, intense pain. The putrid smell of rotting flesh nauseated her, and she turned her head to the side, taking short breaths through her mouth to keep from losing her stomach. She managed to pull herself up onto one elbow as she fought to relax and think rationally, to calm her racing heart, to remember.

  She’d been at the ball, and then—in her bedchamber, with Margaret. But Margaret left and then…

  It hurt to think, and she shuddered from the dampness, the extreme cold. She needed to find a way out, to get away from the horrid smell. She still wore her ball gown, making movement difficult, though thankfully the layers would probably keep her from dying in such a frigid temperature.

  But her head hurt too much to attempt to crawl, and so she drew herself up as she lay once more along the stone floor, clasping her hands together at her belly and doing her best to shield herself with her knees, wrapping a layer of her silk skirt around her shoulders and neck, purposely keeping her face to the wall in some measure of protectiveness.

  She couldn’t judge the time and so she could only pray that Garrett would already be looking for her by now. Forgiving him would take time and a lengthy discussion, but finding herself suddenly alone and afraid, it was his face she longed to see, his arms she longed to feel around her.

  She loved him with every breath, and the thought that scared her most was that she’d never be able to tell him. Now, in the darkness, she would gather strength by keeping his face, his determination, at the forefront of her mind, trusting him.

  I’m here, Garrett, my darling. Please, please find me…

  He wasn’t sure what he’d be looking for in the tunnel, but when he returned to Ivy’s room and once again observed the mess of broken glass and spilled champagne, he felt a renewed sense of urgency. Quickly, he disregarded the scene and walked to the tunnel entra
nce, tossing the chair aside and clicking the latch to open the paneling.

  Darkness loomed ahead, and he grabbed a spare oil lamp on Ivy’s wardrobe closet, lit it, and then entered the chilly, musty passageway.

  He knew his way without giving it much thought, and so he moved fairly quickly, deciding that since they’d found nothing on the second floor, he would take the stairs to the library entrance, then move toward the cellar. But as he approached the top of the steps, he paused, hearing faint strains of music from the ballroom coming from his immediate right and behind the wall.

  Surprised, he lowered the lamp to the wooden floor, then placed his palms flat on the paneling, feeling the vibration of the music from the other side.

  Hastily, he began to feel his way upward along the wall with his fingertips, moving quickly toward the top, searching for a now-familiar latching mechanism to slide the paneling. He found it almost at once, and with a click the lock gave way and he began to push the wall aside as he’d done in the wine cellar.

  With little resistance it moved easily, and seconds later he peered into a shortened closet of sorts, a small room now vacant, but with a beam of light coming in through a tiny hole in the floor, no larger than the circumference of a lady’s finger. Kneeling, he brushed traces of dust aside with his hand, then lowered his head and placed his eye directly on it.

  There beneath him he could see nearly all of the foyer, Newbury handing a coat to a gentleman, two ladies standing at the top of the ballroom stairs as they talked and laughed and drank liberally from their champagne glasses.