by Erica Ridley
With that, they were gone.
Violet stared, openmouthed, and then leapt up from the bench just in time to catch the door before it swung closed, locking her inside the prayer room.
Alistair allowed the sanctuary door to close securely behind them before setting his thrashing, kicking daughter down in the center of her bedchamber.
“You listen to me, young lady,” he said quietly, but firmly. “You will treat Miss Smythe with respect. It is high time you treat everyone who cares for you with respect, and I—”
“Why should I listen to you?” Lillian exploded, her pale face tinged pink with pent-up fury. “You never listen to me!”
He sighed. Some days it felt like all they ever did was relive the same timeworn arguments. He was so tired of fighting. “I will listen when you speak in words, not with fists and teeth. And the first words I want to hear are you apologizing to your governess for throwing ink at her.”
“It was an accident! I did apologize! It’s you who should apologize. You don’t care about me!”
“Balderdash.” He couldn’t believe his ears. “Since the day of your birth, I have spent every moment of every day doing everything in my power to improve the quality of your life.”
Lillian kicked her chair away from her desk and dropped onto the seat with a huff.
“Your life is more important to me than my own,” he said softly, hoping his daughter could read the sincerity in his voice and eyes. “Don’t you know by now how much I love you?”
“I’ve known you hate me since I was five,” Lillian rejoined flatly, her thin arms crisscrossed over her chest. “I’ve still got the scars.”
“The sun burned you, not me!” he burst out, dropping to his knees before her. “I searched for you everywhere and carried you to safety the moment I heard you screaming.”
“I remember,” she muttered sourly. “I doubt you do.”
“How could I forget? I was terrified I’d lose you. I would have done anything to trade places. I feel guilty to this day that you were ever burned. Why do you think I had locking mechanisms on every door by the very next day?”
Her dark eyes pierced his soul. “To bury me in here, just like you wish you buried me outside.”
“The only thing I pray for is—” he broke off, sudden understanding clenching his stomach and turning his skin clammy. “What did you say?”
Lillian’s lower lip trembled. “Maybe I can’t read, but I know my own name. It’s embroidered on my pillows, sewn into my clothes, and etched right onto my gravestone. You wish I were dead.”
His heart seized. Horrified, he reached for his daughter. “Sweetling...”
She recoiled, nearly upsetting her chair in her haste to avoid his touch. “No. I tried the locks. I heard the whispers. Then I saw the grave. And I knew I could never, ever trust a single word you said ever again.”
His fingers cold and his breathing shallow, Alistair could barely think over the rushing in his ears. For four years, he’d believed his daughter hated him because he hadn’t saved her in time from the sun. He’d accepted her outbursts, her long silences, her teeth upon his skin, because he believed he deserved it. That any man who allowed his child to be harmed was unquestionably a bad father.
But it was ever so much worse than that.
Her burns had never stood between them, after all. The wounds were not those he could see, but those Lillian carried in her heart. For four years, she believed her own father wished she were dead. Whether or not she was too young to understand that love, not hate, had brought about that gravestone, it was far too late to expect her to believe any part of the explanation. But he still had to try.
“Lillian,” he began softly, his throat clogging from the pain evident in his daughter’s eyes. “I have never once wished you away. There are bad people out there who would have tried to take you from me—or, worse, to harm you—if they knew you were alive. That is the only reason for that stone. It means nothing.”
“Bad people like you?” his daughter answered dully, a sheen of unshed tears glistening in her eyes.
“Sweetling, I—“
“No more make-believe.” She swallowed hard but did not lower her gaze. “You may be my papa, but I don’t love you, either.”
Chapter 10
Violet stood in the open doorway, half in the prayer room and half in a dark corridor, and trembled at the unrelenting shadows.
Perhaps Mr. Waldegrave could see in the dark, but she was not so gifted. She turned to grab a candle, only to realize they were over by the table and well out of reach. Nor were there any convenient heavy objects with which to prop open the door.
With a growl of frustration, she spun back toward the hollow tunnel and picked her way through as quickly as she could in complete blackness. Her throat tightened. She did her best to tamp down the familiar panic crawling up her skin. If she had to feel her way in the dark, at least she wasn’t in the catacomb with the dead monks.
She finally reached the intersection with Lillian’s bedchamber. When her knocks went unanswered, she realized she’d have to traverse the catacombs after all, if she didn’t want to linger alone in the darkness.
Desperately modulating each breath to keep panic at bay, she inched down the musty passageway, keeping her mind from the bodies in the walls by concentrating on the many things she’d like to beat into the thick heads of both Mr. and Miss Waldegrave.
The first fable she’d read Miss Lillian would have to be The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Her charge had every reason to feel unfairly accused, but the first step to earning her father’s trust would be to stop attacking him at every turn.
The story she was saving for Mr. Waldegrave was being invented in Violet’s head with every hesitant step and gaining furor each time her ginger ankle unbalanced her into the moldering walls. She was titling this one, Don’t Assume You Know Everything, and it contained an extra chapter called, Where The Bloody Hell Is The Governess’s Key?
By the time she reached the primary structure, sweat dampened her hair and her heart was in danger of imploding. She refused to reenter the catacombs without a pocketful of candles and a heap of keys.
She banged on the locked door loud enough to deafen anyone in a ten-mile radius. It immediately swung open.
Mr. Waldegrave’s manservant—what was his name? Mr. Roper?—stood at the ready. His surprise at discovering her unaccompanied was as clear as his disdain for her state of disarray.
“Where is the master?” he demanded, without stepping aside to let her pass.
“With Miss Lillian,” Violet panted, desperate for clean air. She squeezed past him into the blessedly well-lit hall.
Mr. Roper stared down his nose at her, suspiciously. “Why are you alone?”
“Why am I—” She tamped down a bubble of hysterical laughter. “Do you think for a moment that I wished to be alone in the catacombs?”
His brows lifted. “There is no need to take a tone with me. I have nothing more to say until Master arrives.”
“A tone? A tone? I’m surprised I can speak at all. Your ‘master’ left me behind!”
He simply gazed down at her as if she’d deserved to be abandoned, and had half a mind to toss her back into the tunnels. Dismissively, he turned to close the door to the catacombs.
Recognizing that her panicked outbursts were not endearing her to her employer’s manservant, she closed her eyes and forced deep breaths until her heart rate returned to normal.
“Please,” she said quietly, as soon as she had somewhat calmed. “I would very much like to return to my bedchamber to tidy up. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”
His gaze was impassive. “No.”
She stared at him. “No? Why on earth not?”
“You are not my master.” He leaned against the closed door as if he did not quite trust the locking mechanism. “He asked me to wait for him here. This is my post, until he says otherwise.”
Violet was starting to see why Lillian had resorte
d to kicking people. “In that case, may I please borrow your key so that I can get in my bedchamber?”
“Absolutely not.”
Grinding her teeth, she glared right back up at him. “Let me guess... Because I am not your master?”
He lifted a brow. “If Master wanted you to have a key, you would have a key.”
She supposed the logic was sound, but he didn’t have to look so smug about it. As if he enjoyed thwarting her. As if her distress made him feel superior. Well, he wasn’t superior. He was a member of the staff, just like her. A human being, just like her. The disgrace here wasn’t the state of her day dress but rather his utter lack of empathy.
“Mr. Roper,” she said, keeping her voice as bland and sincere as possible. “I understand your position. Do you think, this once, it might be acceptable to—”
He turned to face the other direction.
Her jaw dropped. She had just been cut by a fellow servant.
Eyes narrowed, she pushed away from the wall. He didn’t want to loan her his key? Fine. He didn’t have to. She would simply take it. After all, it was her bedchamber.
“Very well,” she said aloud. “I shall wait quietly at the door until some random soul happens by to let me in.”
His scarred chin lifted slightly, as if he found that to be a splendid idea indeed.
He would. She brushed past him and stumbled, taking care not to land upon her swollen ankle.
Reflexively, his arms shot out to steady her. She rested against him for a brief second, ostensibly to regain her equilibrium. Then she continued down the hall with her head held high.
His snort of derision was just audible.
Not until she rounded a corner did she finally slow. She uncurled her fist to reveal a thin brass key nestled inside. Mr. Roper might fancy himself the most uppity manservant in Shropshire, but he hadn’t a lick more sense than the uppity fools who fell for the oh-pardon-me stumble in London alleyways.
Violet allowed herself a small smile. She’d apologize later—and then demand a key of her own. But first, she needed a bath. An hour’s solitude sounded divine. Her limbs practically melted at the sight of her door. With trembling fingers, she fit the key into the lock, and—
Fit the key into the lock, and—
Oh, God help her. She’d nicked the wrong bloody key. Now what?
She sagged against her stubbornly locked door and sighed. Nothing else for it. She’d have to return the ill-gotten key to that prig Roper and admit defeat.
But he was no longer there.
She hopped down the empty corridor in disbelief. All his palaver about his sacred duty to lounge against a locked door, and the man had up and left not ten minutes later. Perhaps he hadn’t been driven by a manic desire to cleave to the letter of his master’s word after all. Perhaps he simply despised her.
Fists at her sides, she cast her incredulous gaze down one side of the corridor, then the other. Now what? Hunt down Mr. Waldegrave? She tugged on the handle to the door his manservant had allegedly been guarding, then attempted to fit the stolen key into the lock.
It refused to budge. Lovely.
She couldn’t return to the catacombs without a working key. Nor could she return to her chambers. She couldn’t even ring for help without a key, because all the bloody bell pulls were locked inside rooms, not dangling about the passageways.
Had she thought the Waldegraves lived a life of privilege? They lived a life of utter madness.
Perhaps she could find the kitchen, if it were located in this structure. A crust of bread, a dram of milk, a spot of water to dab the ink from—oh, who was she fooling? Her stained fingers would eventually fade to normal, but nothing at all could save her dress. The fabric was barely even sticky anymore. It just happened to boast the world’s largest inkblot.
She paused when she reached an intersection at the end of the corridor. Neither of the attached corridors was lit, and she had no candle with which to light her way.
Of course, the only working sconce behind her was the one beside the locked door leading to the catacombs. She supposed she could wait there for Mr. Waldegrave, but what if he had returned while she was attempting to break into her own chamber? That would explain Mr. Roper’s mysterious disappearance. There was no sense standing around waiting for the arrival of someone who wasn’t en route.
The ill-lit passageway also stretched in the other direction, and branched again. Not to say that one way was more likely to lead to success than any other, given she hadn’t the first clue where to find the scullery.
Then again, any room with a bell pull would do. Which meant all the corridors were equally promising. Or unpromising. With that cheery thought in mind, Violet turned down the closest corridor and began to make her way through the murky shadows. At least there was wainscoting. Without dust and dirt and corpses, this darkness was at least bearable.
She ran her fingertips along both walls for balance, taking care to try the handles of every door she passed. True to Mr. Waldegrave’s word, all the bolts were securely locked. And the key fit into none of them. Why on earth would a manservant carry about a key that didn’t unlock any doors?
After a series of unproductive turns, she began to suspect she would’ve been better off waiting by the door to her bedchamber as she’d sarcastically suggested to her employer’s manservant in the first place.
Then there was light. A single sconce, a small one, with a tiny flickering candle—but light nonetheless.
Close on delirious with relief, she rushed forward as quickly as her ginger ankle allowed.
The passageway dead-ended against a lone door. Violet paused to examine her surroundings. She saw no one. Heard nothing. But there was flame on that candle, which had to mean she was in a populated area. She tried the handle. Locked. Of course. No longer imbued with optimism, she fished the useless key from her pocket and slid the brass teeth into the aperture.
Click.
The mechanism caught and turned as if the key had been forged just for this lock. Giddy with relief, she twisted the handle—and then hesitated.
Her stomach was uneasy in the same way as when Mr. Waldegrave had handed over the two gold sovereigns and her first wary thought had been that the money was cursed. She’d learned long ago to place full confidence in the uneasiness of her stomach. And yet... why be alarmed? It was just a door. Just a room. And her only opportunity to call for help.
Ever so quietly, she eased the crack wider. Enough light spilled in from the sconce for her to realize this wasn’t an empty prayer room, but rather a furnished bedchamber. Which meant there had to be a bell pull inside. There was no telling if the only maid Violet had seen would be near enough to hear the bell, but it was worth a try. Ensuring she still held the key firmly in her grip, she allowed the door to close tight behind her.
The dim lighting remained.
Blinking in confusion, she stepped further into the room. Windows! This bedchamber had windows. Covered with not one but two heavy curtains, only the tiniest sliver of light shone in a narrow line across the ceiling and between the hem and floor. Just enough for her to be able to discern the outline of a bell pull on the other side of a large four-poster bed.
What if the prickles along her skin were because there was someone in the bed? Someone who would be less than pleased to discover ex-street urchin Violet Whitechapel trespassing in his bedchamber?
And yet... what were her options? Make herself known, and hope she didn’t get brained with a poker? Cross the room to ring the bell pull anyway, and risk whomever slept in the bed being startled out of their mind? Tiptoe outside, and enjoy another hour roaming the corridors in search of someone with a key?
She vacillated for a long moment, unsure of the wisest course. Then she unlocked her frozen muscles and silently picked her way toward the head of the bed. If Mr. Waldegrave had entered the classroom at noon, as he had promised, then by now it had to be at least two of the clock. The gentry were infamous slugabeds, but surely by t
his hour, even the laziest had to have arisen to greet the day. The bed was likely to be vacant.
She tilted her ear as close as possible to the thick tester without disturbing the fabric. Nothing. No snoring, no movement, no signs of life. She backed up until she reached the fold where the edge of one falling section of fabric overlapped the other. Should she? Could she...?
Holding her breath, she slid a shaking finger between the layers of cloth and slowly, gently, pulled them apart.
Empty. The bed was empty. Thank God.
The bed was made, but the covers rumpled, as if someone had recently lain atop the layers of blankets. Unable to help herself, she reached out a hand and smoothed out the largest of the wrinkles. The mattress was so thick. The blankets were so soft. The pillows... smelled of Mr. Waldegrave?
Violet leaned her face closer and took a deep breath. She hadn’t registered the fact that she’d somehow memorized his scent until she realized the pillow smelled exactly the same. Soap, sandalwood... something else, something she couldn’t place.
Oh, Lord, what was she doing standing about sniffing the man’s pillow? Mr. Waldegrave must not always sleep in the sanctuary. She was in his bedchamber! She had to leave right now.
Abandoning the idea of tugging the bell pull and summoning witnesses here, of all places, she straightened the tester about the bed and turned back toward the door—and caught sight of an open wardrobe. Satin dresses. Silk gowns. A pale pink riding habit.
If this was Mr. Waldegrave’s bedchamber, she’d eat the matching pink hat.
She returned to the bell pull and, this time, gave it a decisive tug. There. Someone should be along shortly. In the meantime, she was dying to see if there was a view. As far as she could tell, this might be the sole unboarded window in Waldegrave Abbey.
Recognizing her folly, she clucked her tongue in self-annoyance. The telltale swaths of light should’ve told her it wasn’t Mr. Waldegrave’s bedchamber. He was far too controlled. Despite the pair of impossibly thick curtains, she doubted a man as threatened by the sunlight as he was would take any risks.