by Julia Ross
Juliet snapped awake. Every bone and muscle ached. Sunlight poured in through the high window. She had been left strapped to her bed the previous evening and no one had come to release her this morning. She was desperate to use the chamber pot.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. One set echoed with the rap of a gentleman's heeled shoes. She recognized the heavier tread: Mr. Upbridge, the man who ran the place. They had not exactly been introduced. Mr. Upbridge had inspected her when she had first been carried in, gagged and bound. He had listened to her captors' account of her behavior and studied some documents handed him by the men Lord Edward had hired. Without asking for the gag to be removed, Upbridge had gravely shaken his head and told the men to take her to this room, where she was to be encouraged to become sane. Now she heard him propounding his theories to someone else.
"Indeed a most interesting case, my lord. Delusions are common among lunatics. You say your sister believes she is Queen of Scots? We've had women claiming to be Joan of Arc or Cleopatra. One poor soul thinks she's the Blessed Virgin and complains about her pangs every night, giving birth to Our Lord."
Another male voice replied, too softly for her to hear. The footsteps stopped. She heard the little sliding hatch in the door being opened. She couldn't lift her head to look at the faces peering in at her. Neither would they see much of her beyond a body lying strapped beneath blankets.
"This one claims she's an earl's daughter," Upbridge said. "Though in God's truth, she's an actress, quite out of her wits. Α disorder caused by poisonous humors from the womb, brought about by insatiable wantonness. Fortunately, a gentleman took pity on her and had her brought here for treatment - an act of great charity. We do not allow her to mix with our other patients, of course, the ladies of real breeding."
The other man murmured something.
"Very simple, my lord. If she insists on her delusions, she is corrected. Nothing cruel or pernicious, even for females who are lewdly given. We gag our patients for wrong speech. Tie them down with leather straps for wrong actions. It's very effective in most cases. In addition we use purgatives and cold baths. She is to be started on a course of physic on Monday."
The other man asked a soft question.
"Such cases are seldom tractable, sadly, but our attendants are well trained in dealing with such difficulties as the lunatics may present."
The sliding hatch snapped shut. Juliet closed her eyes.
To her surprise the door opened. The men's footsteps crossed the room. Juliet automatically flinched, though she tried not to show her fear. She even forced herself to look up into the face that leaned over the bed, then she relaxed. Mr. Upbridge, of course, who wouldn't dream of touching her. She tried to smile at him.
"Doing better this morning, are we?" he asked. "Now, tell this gentleman who you are."
Juliet knew perfectly well what she was supposed to say: Ι am an actress. Ι have lived like a harlot, driven by unbridled lust.
"Ι am Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh, the daughter of the Earl of Felton," she said. "Ι would like my father to be told Ι am here."
"Lud!" the other man said with a trace of Scots accent. "What's her true name?"
"Polly Brown," Upbridge replied.
Juliet barely heard him. Desperately she tried to turn her head to look at the visitor. Shadows and sun moved over the plaster. The newcomer leaned his palm on the wall above her head. His cuff was embroidered, beautiful, the cut extravagant. Cascades of snowy lace with a pattern of tiny bells and angels fell away from an elegant white hand.
"Polly Brown?" Α kind of bored hauteur colored his voice. "Why, Ι believe you are right, sir! Ι have seen her myself playing some Italian role."
"One of those lewd operas, no doubt?" Mr. Upbridge asked. "Α looseness in morals often leads to lunacy."
The guest leaned over the bed and smiled down at her. Sunlight glowed in a halo around his white wig. Juliet smiled back through a wash of tears as he brushed one finger over his lips to indicate silence.
Alden gazed down at her with no other change in expression. "Perhaps your attendant - Mistress Welland? - should bring breakfast."
"No breakfast, my lord. Food given too early in the day-"
"Lud, sir! Ι should not like to think that my sister would go hungry so late in the morning."
". . . of course, my lord, in our better wing, where your sister would live . . ."
Alden leaned close enough to whisper in her ear. "Tonight. Do or say nothing out of the ordinary. Trust me, Juliet. You are rescued. "
Upbridge was still burbling.
"Ι am sorry," Alden said as he walked away. "When Ι see this poor creature here, neither washed nor fed, Ι am not sure that Blackthorn Manor is appropriate for my sister, after all."
The door opened and closed again, but almost immediately Mistress Welland came in to undo Juliet's straps. She looked flushed and excited.
"A most distinguished visitor that was, from Scotland," she said. "Perhaps you know him?" Her breathless voice implied that Lady Elizabeth or Polly Brown might be equally intimate with a member of the Scots aristocracy. "Lord Maze, his name is, handsome as daylight." She grinned to herself, as if at a secret. "He's an earl."
"An earl?" Juliet sat up and laughed. She hoped it wasn't the mad cackle of a lunatic. "I thought he was an angel."
THE IMPOSING CHIMNEYS OF BLACKTHORN MANOR BULKED against shifting clouds, edged with moonlight. Alden had stalked down through the asylum that morning in such a white hot rage he hadn't been sure he could trust himself. His ire was not for Mr. Upbridge, who obviously did his best to care for the inmates, but for Lord Edward Vane, who had conceived and paid for the whole scheme.
Yet he had controlled the anger. Even knowing that Juliet was imprisoned upstairs, he had spent three more hours that morning at Blackthorn, laying the groundwork for tonight. He had no authority to demand Juliet's release, no valid excuse to interfere. Mr. Upbridge was being well-paid to keep her, so he had no motivation whatsoever to let her go. It would have to be done with stealth.
At last Alden saw the signal he had been waiting for: a candle in a downstairs window. Carrying a selection of bottles in one hand, he walked rapidly across the short stretch of grass. Α door opened. Alden stepped through into blackness. Α female hand, wiry and strong, clasped his.
"Oh, lud! Ι wasn't sure Your Lordship would really come-"
She opened another door into a small bedroom lit by a single candle. The flame glimmered over hair softened to honey in the dim light. In her nightdress and with her tight bun combed out, she looked almost pretty. Alden smiled down into the nervous face of Mistress Nell Welland. Without compunction he slid one arm about her thin waist to pull her into his embrace.
"Faith, my lord!" she said, close to breathless. "You waste no time at all!"
He kissed the corner of her dry mouth. "Because there's no time to waste, Nell. Ι have to leave for Aberdeen tomorrow. You won't come?"
She shook her head, as he had known she would. He had learned that morning that she was an orphan, too afraid of the world outside Blackthorn to venture into it. Yet Lord Maze, the imaginary Scottish earl, had flattered and beguiled Nell Welland that morning, until she had agreed to this assignation tonight - to taste wine, he had suggested, to taste a little touch of wickedness.
Her small breasts thrust against his chest as he kissed her again. He could not afford to hurry and lose her trust, so he lingered, making the kiss as skilled as he knew how, calling on all those years of experience to soften her, weaken her, until she would agree to anything. Her lips trembled under his, firing his body. Thank God!
Alden was also determined that poor lonely Nell, imprisoned here among her lunatic charges, would never know that he didn't really want to do this. She would only remember that a Scottish earl had found her lovely and asked to spend a few hours in her company. She might also remember that he had brought her a present of exquisite and very strong wine - better than she had ever tasted in her
life – and insisted that, between caresses, they share glass after glass.
For Alden didn't want her slender little body or surprisingly comely hair, he only wanted her keys.
JULIET'S EARS STRAINED FOR ANY NOISE: Α MOUSE SCRATCHING behind the plaster; beetles in the walls. Was this how a lunatic listened? Darkness spread over the room, as if pressing black kisses into the corners. There was no sound at all. Not even the muffled mumbling of the woman next door. Perhaps, while no one noticed, she had died and now lay stiff and cold in the night.
When the key turned in the lock, Juliet jerked-awake perhaps? She didn't know any longer whether she slept and dreamed, or whether she lay awake in the dark, waiting for footsteps-
The door slid open and a man's boots trod steadily across the floor.
"Juliet?" Alden said softly.
"It's dark," she replied, choking back panic. "Ι can't see you."
"Hush, don't move."
His quick, strong fingers snapped the padlocks open and worked at the straps. One by one they fell away, freeing her numb limbs. He slipped an arm about her shoulders and helped her sit up.
"Ι am afraid Ι am dreaming," she said with a small laugh. "It's hard to know sometimes."
"Don't talk. Put your arms about my neck. I'm going to carry you out of here."
"Ι can walk," she whispered back.
Warm breath tickled her cheek. She turned to it as a kitten turns to its mother: blindly, rooting for comfort. He pressed his lips to her ear.
"No, you can't. You are barefoot. Besides, you've been kept trussed like a package and your muscles won't work."
Without further ado, he swung her into his arms and carried her down the stairs. Juliet could no longer help herself. Though she did it in complete silence, she wept onto his shoulder the entire way.
THE COACH MOVED THROUGH DARK LANES, THE SOUND OF THE horses' hooves loud in the quiet night. Or was it her own heart beating in her chest like a drum? Alden sat opposite her. His hands lay quietly in his lap. He had not touched her again after setting her inside his carriage. Juliet couldn't clearly see his face, beyond the glimmer of white skin and hair. He still wore the powdered wig. Now that her second chance was here, she was terrified.
"Ι stink," she said. She looked down at the shoes he had brought for her, her own shoes, a pair left behind at Gracechurch Abbey.
"Indeed, ma'am. Α warm bath, Ι think, is a priority."
"How did you get the keys?"
"From Nell Welland, your keeper."
She stared out at the black hedges. "Surely she did not just hand them to you?"
"Alas, no. Ι stole them while she was soundly asleep and contented, Ι hope."
Her head snapped around. "You mean-?"
"Yes, all those skills from Italy." His voice was even and steady. "Useful in so many ways."
Juliet leaned her head back. "Of course, no woman can ever refuse you - which in this case was fortunate for me. But even Mistress Welland? I'm amazed!"
"She was quite attractive once she let her hair down," he said dryly. "We also drank wine together, a little stronger and in greater quantities than Nell was quite used to." Juliet thought he smiled, but perhaps it was a grimace that made his teeth glimmer whitely in the darkness. "I didn't have to go quite as far as I feared, but further, alas, than I'd hoped."
"Ι don't care," Juliet said, amazed that it was true. "Should Ι care? Ι am just so glad to be out of that place! How did you discover Blackthorn Manor?"
"Not from Lord Edward."
She closed her eyes against the night, trying to find a safer darkness within her own mind. "I didn't imagine he would tell you!"
"I searched his whole damn house for a clue. He hadn't cared enough to write it down. Your husband's servants found out for me in the end. Thanks to your little trick in the woods, the coachman remembered you. I had to practice my wiles on Emmy, with additional small attentions to Cook. I have paid court to a great many women looking for you, but I did them no harm."
"How can you be sure? Your very presence is dangerous to women. "
"Dangerous? I made Emmy's heart beat faster. I tempted her a little. I taught her how to kiss. The beneficiary of those lessons is likely to be a stalwart young fellow named Harry Oldacre. Emmy is no worse for the experience."
Was it arrogance or just a simple statement of truth? Should a man like this pretend he didn't know what he could give women?
"Lud!" she said. "If your business is temptation, you know how to offer every woman her heart's desire, don't you?"
"I hope so. It is all I have practiced for years. But it was done only for you, to bring you your heart's desire."
"I’d have left with Lucifer-" Her voice caught. She had to take a deep breath and start again, hating herself for being such a coward. "But in the morning they will find out. They will come looking for me. Lord Edward is controlling George, and my husband has legal charge of my destiny. Next time they will hide me better-"
"No, they won't. Mr. Upbridge will be looking for an actress named Polly Brown, not for Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh."
How could his voice sound so confident, so certain? "Yes, I know they said I was called Polly. They also said I was a harlot. Why does it matter?"
"All the lunacy orders are in Polly Brown's name. Lord Edward claimed she was an actress, his mistress. He did it that way so that no one could find you, so that you could be buried in the madhouse forever, but you do see what it means?"
Her little glimmer of hope was almost painful. "That no one knows what really happened to me?"
"Exactly. Your husband has no proof that his wife was ever found insane. If Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh, daughter of the Earl of Felton, emerges triumphantly in public and is obviously not lunatic, Lord Edward and your husband cannot do this to you again."
His solid shape was warmly reassuring in the dark carriage. Perhaps she could even make out the shadow of a wry smile tilting the corners of his mouth?
"So the butterfly must emerge from its bondage in the chrysalis? How can I spread new wings in society?" It was hardly necessary to speak the obvious answer aloud, but she did so anyway, even though - after Bill - there was no question of their living together. "As your acknowledged mistress?"
"It's one solution, certainly. Any lady who did so would be seen as wicked, but never as lunatic. I am very tempted to tell you that there's no other choice, but there is, of course."
The lightness in his voice was absurdly welcome. She tried hard to match it. "I await with bated breath! You need a housekeeper, a chambermaid? Your best friend's brother is looking for a mistress? Your favorite brothel-?"
"Faith, Juliet! You would prefer that to my company? No, the answer is treasure."
"Treasure?"
"The Felton Hoard."
"The ancestral treasure of the Feltons has been lost since the Black Death. It's a myth, a story for children."
"No, Juliet. It is real. Lord Edward came across letters attesting to its rediscovery in the reign of Richard the Third and its final reburial during the Civil War. He has been assiduously collecting relevant documents ever since. I have read them."
"Lord Edward?"
"Did you think he wanted only your destruction? He also wants the fabled wealth of the Felton Hoard, which is why he wanted your locket. He believes that the key to the treasure's location is hidden inside."
She stared at his shadowy face for a moment, then she laughed. "Surely you see what an absurdity this is! If I had been carrying about the key to a fortune, why would I have lived as I did in Manston Mingate?"
He leaned back and crossed his arms. "I have wondered the same thing."
Juliet waved both hands. "The hoard was supposed to consist of jewelry, necklaces, gold bracelets, adornments for a woman. The story is they were a gift to an ancestor of mine from Harald Fairhair, when she married one of his Viking lords. She was an only child who brought extensive lands as a dowry, so her father demanded the treasure be settl
ed exclusively upon her and her daughters to be passed down in the female line. How lovely if it existed! Sadly, it does not. Kit and I looked for it."
"But if it does, all that ancient gold would be yours, not your father's, not your husband's. I have read the documents. I believe your claim would hold up in court. Lord Edward intends to steal it."
"And finding this treasure is your sole answer for my future security?"
"Not at all. I was about to propose that while we wait for the duke's son to show his hand, you move in as my mother's companion. "
"At the Dower House?" She hoped it didn't sound as squeaky to him as it did to her.
"Why not? For an earl's daughter to leave her merchant husband to live respectably with a dowager viscountess will be seen as eminently sane in all the right quarters."
"Your mother would agree?"
"She would barely notice you. You would have a great deal of freedom."
Juliet remembered her one brief encounter with his mother with a small trickle of trepidation. "This is my best option for the future?"
"My mother's brother is a marquess, which makes her almost untouchable in society." He stretched one arm along his seat back - a lazy movement, full of male confidence. "Besides, she is very touchy on the subject of lunacy."
"Why?"
Alden laughed. "Because she is quite mad herself, of course."
Juliet lapsed into silence. Anything was better than Blackthorn Manor. Yet it meant that her life as an independent woman was over. Even though Manston Mingate had brought its daily round of hard work, she had been free there. Though never free from fear, added a small voice - afraid, always, that George would find her.
Yet Alden had broken into Lord Edward's townhouse and seduced women who obviously hadn't interested him, in order to rescue her. He was offering her a future with his mother, where her husband couldn't harm her, even though he knew she would never consent to be his mistress. Why?
"I am not sure why you are doing this for me," she said after a few moments. "After what was said at our last meeting."