Lucy's head snapped around in Elizabeth's direction.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"Miss Smith is my fiancée, Miss Varcolac. We are to be married tomorrow." There was an edge to Devlin's voice.
"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Varcolac," Elizabeth said. Lucy lifted her chin slightly and a deep breath swelled her chest.
"And I," Lucy said, "am pleased as well." Her wide red mouth stretched in a sensual smile. "You smell so....good...if you will forgive me for saying so."
Elizabeth had time to do no more than nod. Devlin turned quickly, propelling her to the end of the table, opposite where his father sat. He seated her before a plate that had a small white card with her name on it in flowing script, then signaled a footman. Two additional plates were laid. But as the guests took their seats, Miss Varcolac ignored Randall's proffered arm, extending her hand to Lord Devlin instead. His face expressionless, Devlin seated her between Randall and the countess before taking his place beside Elizabeth.
Footmen in silver and black livery served course after course of some of the most delicious food Elizabeth had ever tasted. Yet most of those gathered around the table ate little. Countess Glenbury sat rigid and frowning. Harriet flirted relentlessly with Marlbourne. The duke ignored Father Vlad's frowns, continuing to drink from Harriet's glass. When the priest motioned to the footman to pour Harriet no more, Marlbourne switched to emptying Mrs. Blakely's wineglass while she directed her attention to Dr. Bergen.
Dr. Bergen nodded randomly at whatever Amanda's mother said, his attention rarely leaving Countess Glenbury's new companion. The expression in his pale blue eyes puzzled Elizabeth. Miss Varcolac was a striking woman. That there was a degree of longing in Dr. Bergen's gaze was not surprising. But there was something else as well, something achingly raw and wounded. Elizabeth looked away, embarrassed, feeling she'd somehow trespassed into the doctor's heart.
Like his guests, Lord Devlin ate little. Like the doctor, he seemed focused on Lucy Varcolac. But there was no longing in Devlin's eyes. As the meal progressed it became obvious to Elizabeth that the entire assemblage was obsessed with the woman. Yet Miss Varcolac seemed completely unstirred by the attention. Though she too did not touch the food, her eyes devoured Lord Devlin. But to Elizabeth's satisfaction, seated so far away, the countess's new companion had no opportunity to speak to him.
When the final covers had been removed, Devlin rose. The duke stumbled to his feet as well and the gentlemen retired to Marlbourne's study, leaving Elizabeth unsure how to proceed. Had she already been married to Devlin she would clearly be the hostess and so be charged with leading the other ladies into the parlor. There the gentlemen would eventually join them to while away the evening with cards or musical entertainment. But she wasn't yet married and had no clear right to act as hostess.
The other women were looking at her expectantly when Lucy rose to her feet and walked to the door. One hand on the knob at her back, she faced the ladies.
"I shall have a headache and retire," she stated, her tone leaving no one in doubt that she had no headache.
"You are now my mother's companion." Harriet stood, her lips twisting.
Elizabeth cringed. Harriet's expression and tone were familiar. Elizabeth knew what was coming and felt a sudden unreasonable fear for the young woman who had tortured her so relentlessly in the past.
"You will retire," Harriet raised her nose at her mother's new companion "when, and if, my mo--"
"Harriet," Elizabeth interrupted. Lucy's eyes had narrowed on the girl, and Elizabeth knew she must intervene quickly. What she feared would happen, she wasn't sure, but everything about Lucy Varcolac sent warning chills racing over her flesh. "Perhaps you could help me show the ladies to--"
"You are Randall's sister?" Lucy's accented voice cut Elizabeth off.
"Yes, of course," Harriet said.
"It is good for you." Lucy opened the door and left the room.
Harriet made a huffing sound and looked at her mother. The countess said nothing. Elizabeth led the ladies into the drawing room. Both Amanda Fosse and her mother pled the fatigues of travel and withdrew to their rooms early.
Elizabeth spent the rest of the evening serving tea to her former employer, soothing Harriet's wounded pride, and waiting for the gentlemen. They did not return.
Chapter Fifteen
A clock in a distant part of the house chimed ten as Elizabeth mounted the first of the steps in the entrance hall. The stairs seemed to stretch endlessly upwards, from the shadows below into the darkness above. It would be a difficult climb. The evening had left her both physically and emotionally exhausted, amplifying the customary pain in her joints. And because of the duke's warm greeting before dinner, new bruises were forming at her ribs. She would need to take the climb in easy stages.
Where the gentlemen had gone and why they hadn't returned to the drawing room remained a mystery. She'd waited with Harriet and the countess until almost nine. When those ladies had finally taken themselves off to their rooms, she'd dismissed the servants. Then she'd waited another hour to be sure the house was abed, all to ensure there would be no one about to witness her painful negotiation of the stairs. During her employment with Countess Glenbury she'd become quite skilled at hiding her infirmities. She'd had an entire week of practice avoiding the servants here at Heaven's Edge: discovering each spot where she might pause and pretend to study a vase or painting while the pain passed, every back stairwell to hobble down slowly when the household was busy elsewhere with chores or meals.
The swish of skirts and the soft tap of heels sounded from the landing above. Elizabeth backed down to the main floor and sought for a place to hide. She was too exhausted to invent awkward excuses not to go up the stairs until whoever it was had gone.
In one dark corner of the cavernous entry hall stood a tall cupboard displaying artifacts from generations past. She'd noticed it days ago, charmed by the hodge-potch of surviving china and crystal used by Devlin ancestors over the last five hundred years. She'd also been delighted by the tapestry that hung alongside the cupboard. Its carefully woven scenes of lords and ladies of ages past frolicking at a country faire had seemed too lovely to be hidden away in a shadowy corner. Now she was glad it had been. She hurried to the cupboard and pulled the tapestry away from the wall, stifling a sneeze as she slid behind the ancient material. It covered her to the tops of her satin slippers.
Footsteps pattered on the stairs. More than one person descended. A tiny point of light showed through the woven fabric. Elizabeth eased over until she could see through the hole with one eye. A man and a woman paused at the bottom of the stairs. The woman giggled and waved what appeared to be a net on a stick at her companion. Then she reached out and scratched him behind the ear as if he were a spaniel.
"Naughty girl," the man whispered and, using his own netted stick, whacked the woman playfully on the backside. She tilted her head and the moonlight pouring in from the transom glinted off her glasses. Amanda stood on tiptoe and kissed Leo. His arms wrapped her, one hand sliding down to squeeze her bottom. Amanda squealed, then made a shushing sound.
"Are you trying to get us caught?" she scolded, but her hand slipped down below her husband's belly. This time he was the one who made a sound.
"Do that again and we'll go right back up those stairs, and I promise you'll catch something considerably larger than agriopis leucophaearia," Leo warned.
Amanda made a suggestive hum and scratched Leo's belly as if he were a puppy. He caught her hand and started toward the stairs. She pulled free and pranced to the door that led to the kitchens.
"Perhaps I'll catch moths," she whispered, "and, umm, that something larger out in the woods tonight." Then she dashed through the door, Leo fast on her heels.
Elizabeth forced herself to begin counting as soon as the door closed. Behind the tapestry it was hot and musty, and Leo's talk of moths made her think of bugs. What might already be crawling in her hair or down her
back? But being discovered creeping out from behind the wall hangings was a bit of ridiculousness she would never live down. A bug bite was small by comparison. So she waited a full count of ten before groping her way to the tapestry's edge.
Somewhere a door creaked. Elizabeth froze, listening. The creaking sounded again. Elizabeth sidled back to her position at the pinhole. Who this time?
Two maids held hands as they crept on stocking feet through the puddle of moonlight at the bottom of the stairs. Each girl clutched a pair of shoes in her free hand. They were dressed for the outdoors.
"Why are we leaving out the front door? Wouldn't it be better to go through the kitchens?" Katie whispered.
"Better for what?" Margaret hissed. "Getting caught? Cook's room is right next to that door. The woman sleeps lighter than an infantryman."
She stopped just outside the circle of light. Elizabeth couldn't see her face, but imagined she glared down at the younger girl. "If you're afraid, Katie, then stay behind. But I don't intend to spend the rest of my life tending another woman's home, even a woman as nice as the new mistress. Lennie's the man for me. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on him, and I'm not going to wait around while some other sly girl gets him."
"But can't you talk to him during the day?" Katie asked. "I know he's mysterious an' all, but what sort sends a girl a note to meet him in the woods at night? No good can come of it, Margaret. When a man wants a girl to sneak out for him, marriage ain't what's on his mind."
Elizabeth nodded against the tapestry in silent agreement.
"Marriage ain't what's on any man's mind," Margaret whispered. "Not unless a girl puts it there for him. Anyway, that's why I'm taking you along. You're my chaperon. Now, are you coming like a true friend would, or am I going alone?"
"I'm coming."
There was a faint scrape of metal against metal. Where had Margaret gotten a key to the front door? The door swooshed open, then closed, and a puff of breeze stirred the bottom of the tapestry. The key grated in the lock once more. This time Elizabeth counted to twenty before emerging. She paused in the shadow of the cupboard, listening.
The indistinct rumble of men's voices caused her to press her back to the cupboard. She fumbled with the tapestry, trying to find the edge so she could return to her hiding place, but the material baffled her fingers. A bobbing light appeared from the hallway that led to the study where the men had retired after dinner. Elizabeth pressed her back against the cupboard, trying to shrink into its shadowy corner.
Dr. Bergen came into the entry hall carrying a small lamp. Elizabeth held her breath, but he did not even glance in her direction. He was alone, but the muffled sound of men's voices drifted from behind him, as if a door stood open. Elizabeth bit her lip. The other men would be coming as well, probably carrying lamps of their own. The cupboard shadows would not be equal to concealing her against that much light. If she wished to avoid the humiliation of being caught lurking in the darkness, she needed to get behind the tapestry again before the rest of the gentlemen appeared.
Her fingers crept along the wall, seeking the edge of the fabric. Dr. Bergen paused with one foot on the bottom stair, his profile serene in the lamplight, his chest expanding as he pulled in a deep breath and released it again. His lips quirked.
"A rose by any other name..." His accented voice drifted back to her as he moved up the stairs on silent feet. "Goodnight, Miss Smith."
Elizabeth's trembling hands found the tapestry edge and she slid behind it. On watery legs she shuffled into position before the hole. How had the doctor known? Not once had he looked in her direction. She was certain of it.
Light danced from the hallway again. Lord Devlin came into the entry hall. Father Vlad and the duke followed close behind. They stopped in the circle of moonlight at the base of the stairs.
"This is wrong, Nicholas." Father Vlad sounded weary, as if he repeated an argument made too many times. "Marrying that girl will be a disaster."
"How can marrying a pretty young girl like that be a disaster?" The duke slapped the clergyman on the back. All signs of his earlier intoxication had vanished. He stood straight and strong, his speech no longer slurred, his movements those of a sober man. "The boy needs a wife. Tomorrow he'll have one. And," the duke addressed this last bit directly to his son, "within the year I'll expect a grandson and heir. Pretty little mare, so that should be no hardship, eh, Nickie?"
Elizabeth twitched her nose, as much from annoyance at being compared to a breeding horse as from the dust of the old fabric. Devlin nodded, but even in the flickering light Elizabeth could tell he wasn't really listening.
"It is wrong," the priest repeated. "Nedrept." He lifted the hems of his black robes and started up the stairs. Marlbourne followed.
"Coming son?"
"Not just yet. I seem to have left something I need down here." Nicholas set his lamp on the flat top of a stair baluster, then blew it out. He stood in the pool of light from the transom and watched until the priest and his father had disappeared up the stairs. He was still looking upward when he spoke.
"You can come out now, Elizabeth." He pivoted on his heel, faced the tapestry and waited.
Elizabeth fumbled her way from behind the ancient fabric with as much dignity as she could muster and crossed the floor to stand before him in the pool of moonlight, her eyes downcast. Streaks and smudges marred her new dress. The fancy bun Katie had done her hair in dangled in a ball against the nape of her neck. She put a self-conscious hand up to pat what she could back in place. A fat black spider crawled across her hand and up her arm.
Elizabeth squealed. She flapped her arms and hopped about. The spider, having nearly reached her shoulder, clung on tenaciously. Devlin's hand shot out, capturing her wrist, holding it steady. With the other hand he brushed the spider away. The fat fellow dropped to the floor and scurried off into the darkness. Elizabeth shuddered with revulsion. Devlin released her.
She bent over double, shaking her head with such violence that the loose bun beat painfully against her cheeks. Frantic hands brushed at her dress.
"What are you doing?" The amusement in his voice only increased her agitation.
"There could be more!"
"Hold still." His hands were in her hair and she did her best to remain still. Though her hands, bent double as she was, continued to brush at the hem of her gown. What else might have crawled up under it?
"There," he said. Her hair released from the bun to fall in waves past her temples. "Stand up straight," he ordered. She did and suddenly it all felt strangely familiar: a spider, moonlight, her hair loose, Devlin's hands on her. Isn't this how it had all started just three weeks ago?
He moved around her, running his hands over her arms and back, belly and skirt. He stopped in front of her and eyed her bodice. She blushed and used her own hands to make sure it was clear.
"My hair, please," she pleaded, past caring about her dignity. Having to ask him to check her for bugs after being caught spying on him was humiliating, but she couldn't bear the thought the spider might not have been alone.
Devlin came closer. His fingers framed her face, splaying along the hairline, then combing slowly through her hair. Again and again his hands moved, starting near her face, stroking back to the nape of her neck, with each pass the rhythm becoming slower and more sensuous. Elizabeth clutched the material on either side of his waistcoat to steady herself against the knee-weakening sensation of each intimate pass. Masculine heat radiated from him and some inner decadence urged her to press herself against it.
His fingers stopped their stroking and one hand wrapped the thick rope of hair at the base of her skull. He pulled back gently, just as he had done upstairs earlier that day, and her face turned up to him. His lips brushed hers, feather-light, then pulled away to hover just above her mouth. His breathing was deep and fast. She could taste his breath, brandy-sweet against her mouth, sense the tension in him. Something primal and feminine deep within her responded. She wanted this man, at
this moment, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Elizabeth closed her eyes. Devlin moved away.
His hand remained encircled about her hair as he stepped behind her. Then the slow stroking began again, this time starting at the back of her head and traveling the length of her hair to where it brushed past her hips.
"So, was it a game of hide and seek?" he asked. "Will I find Mrs. Blakely tucked under the stairs? Or the countess behind a potted plant?" His questions caught her off guard.
"No, nothing like that."
His fingers reached the tips of her hair and brushed against her bottom. An odd quiver spiraled low in her stomach. Tomorrow night he would be her husband. How would he touch her then? How would it feel?
"What then?" he asked.
For an instant she thought he was echoing her own thoughts, but of course he was curious about finding her behind a tapestry.
"I was about to go upstairs, but then someone came and... I hid." This would be the perfect time to tell him the truth, to tell him how her father had died, how her brothers had died, how she bore the same cursed blood and would die soon as well, and why those stairs that were no problem for others were agony for her. But his fingers were trailing through her hair, brushing her back, her waist, her hips, hinting at things to come. Would it be so wrong to just enjoy this moment? She could tell him in the morning, when he wasn't touching her like this.
"Elizabeth," he said. "Heaven's Edge is not a prison. You are free to come and go as you please in this house. You needn't hide. Not from me."
"It wasn't from you," she murmured. "At least not in the beginning."
"Who then?" There was a strange edge to his voice that might have alarmed her if she hadn't been so mesmerized by the motion of his hands.
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