by Gaelen Foley
It was the mail coach. She paled and pressed her hand to her mouth, realizing instantly what this meant. A letter. A paltry letter! She isn’t coming. She simply doesn’t care. The realization dazed and then enraged her.
Her dark blue eyes narrowed, and her pale, oval reflection in the window filled with an untapped depth of passionate fury that reached down for fathoms below her placid surface. Overwhelming anger seized her, but very little surprise. She shook her head in silence. No, she thought fiercely. Not this time, Caro. I will not let you do this to that child. This is the last straw.
She straightened up from the window, pivoted, and left the parlor, walking out to the entrance hall. At the front door, she paid the postman and glanced at the folded letter, then exchanged a worried look with Peg, who had ambled into the entrance hall, wiping her large, capable hands on her apron.
Peg Tate, Harry’s nurse, had been Phillip and Alice’s nurse when they were children. Alice thought of her more as a family member than a servant. Kind-hearted as she was, even Peg was skeptical when it came to Lady Glenwood. “This ought to be a good one,” she grumbled.
“It’s not from Caro,” Alice said tautly, examining the letter. “It’s from Mr. Hattersley.” Hattersley was their London butler, who ran the Montagues’ elegant townhouse in Upper Brooke Street off Grosvenor Square.
“Oh, dear, I hope nothing’s wrong,” Peg murmured, her wrinkled brow creasing more deeply with worry.
A premonition prickled along Alice’s spine. She had long feared that her sister-in-law’s reckless pursuit of pleasure would end in disaster.
“Where’s Harry?” she asked uneasily.
“Nellie’s washin’ him up to see his mother.”
Alice nodded and cracked the seal. “ ‘Dear Miss Montague,’ ” she read out quietly, “ ‘received your letter day before last. Regret to inform you Lady G. left Town yesterday in the company of Lord Lucien Knight.’ ” She stopped and looked at Peg in astonishment. “Lucien Knight? But I thought it was Lord Damien . . . Oh, Caro!” She groaned, grasping at once what the feckless creature had done. Just when the woman had finally managed to pick a decent man—a man who would have made a perfect stepfather for Harry—she had gone and ruined it by running off with his brother!
She still recalled the conversation she had had with her sister-in-law weeks ago, when Caro had first bragged about catching the eye of the national hero. She had mentioned that Lord Damien had an identical twin brother, Lord Lucien, who was in the Diplomatic Corps. Demon and Lucifer, Caro had called them. Alice remembered it clearly because the baroness had shivered with a strange look of fascination in her eyes. I would never get involved with Lucien Knight, she had said. He scares me. Nobody scared the flamboyant Lady Glenwood.
“What else does Mr. Hattersley say?” Peg asked in trepidation.
“Lord, I hardly dare look.” Alice lifted the letter and read on. “ ‘They were bound for the gentleman’s country house, Revell Court, which I was able to learn lies about a dozen miles southwest of Bath. Her Ladyship is not expected back until next week. As the baroness ordered me not to tell you anything, I do not wish to cause any awkwardness. Please advise. Your servant, et cetera, J. Hattersley.’ ”
Peg scratched her cheek in stumped silence.
For a long moment, Alice stared at the floor, shaking her head in rising anger. She looked over broodingly and found the old woman watching her in patient, stoic concern. She gazed at Peg for a long moment, narrowed her eyes as her exasperation climbed, then suddenly handed Peg the letter and stalked past her toward the stairs.
“I’m going after her.”
“Oh, dearie, you mustn’t!” Peg exclaimed.
“I have to. This flagrant behavior must stop. Now.”
“But this man is a stranger and a scoundrel, I fear! If Her Ladyship sees fit to act like a hoyden, that is her concern.”
“And mine, as well. Did I not promise Phillip on his deathbed that I would take care of them—both of them? Harry needs his mother, and Caro needs to come home. Do you really think this man cares about her?”
Peg shrugged skeptically.
“Neither do I. I daresay this time she has gone and got herself caught in the middle of some petty sibling rivalry.” Alice paused. “Besides, you know if it turns into a full-blown scandal, it will taint my reputation, as well.”
“But Bath is so far, dear.”
“Only a day’s travel from here. I know the journey well. I have been there often enough.” She glanced toward the French windows, dainty and white, like the intricate bars of her canary’s cage. Dared she fly free out into the large and dangerous world?
She knew how Phillip would have answered—with a resounding no. Her brother would have called it unthinkable for a gently bred young lady to venture halfway across England without benefit of a male relative’s protection or the chaperonage of a married lady at the very least, but at the moment, Alice had neither. Besides, acting swiftly might be the only way to prevent Caro’s reckless affair from blossoming into an ugly scandal.
She turned back to her worried old nurse. “The weather is fine. If I leave right away, I can be there by tonight and have Caro home by tomorrow evening. All will be well,” she insisted with more self-assurance than she felt. “Mitchell will drive the coach, and Nellie will attend me.”
“Oh, but my dear,” Peg said sadly, “you and I both know she’ll only get in the way. We can tend him better by ourselves.”
Just then, Harry came barreling out of the hallway that led from the kitchen and hurtled against Peg’s skirts, clinging to her. He peered up the stairs at Alice. “Where my mama?”
Alice gazed at him in pained love. “Lost, lambkin.” She exchanged a meaningful glance with Peg. “But I know where to find her, and I am going to bring her home to you straightaway. I promise.”
“I come!”
“No.”
“Don’t scratch,” Peg chided, pulling his hand away from his scalp. He fussed and growled at her like an annoyed kitten.
Watching the scowl on his poor, red-spotted face, Alice felt torn in two. She could not bear to leave the child at a time like this, even for the purpose of fetching his errant mother, but she knew Caro would not come home unless she showed up in person to browbeat her into doing the right thing. She knew that with Peg on hand, she needn’t fear for Harry’s safety. Peg Tate had shepherded scores of children through the chicken pox and worse in her sixty-odd years and knew more about the whole matter than the arrogant local physician.
“Well, then,” the old woman said as she smoothed Harry’s rumpled hair, “the sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back. I’ll tell Mitchell to ready the horses.” She bent down and scooped the lad up, bouncing him in her fleshy arms and distracting him from his itches with a teasing little song.
Alice held up her skirts as she ran up the stairs to her bedroom. With brisk efficiency, she packed a satchel for her overnight stay, then took off her apron and morning gown and changed into her smart carriage dress of dark blue broadcloth. It had long, tight sleeves with a puff at the shoulder and pretty ribbon trimming along the hem.
Going to stand before the mirror, she neatly buttoned up the high-necked bodice, frowning at the slight tremble in her hands. In truth, she was unaccustomed to traveling alone, and Caro’s shadowy seducer did sound a wee bit intimidating. He was not going to like it one bit, she supposed, that she would soon arrive at Revell Court to snatch her sister-in-law out of his arms. Alice was not a particularly bold creature, but she knew she could stand up to anyone for Harry’s sake.
Pulling on her prim white gloves, she stared hard into the looking glass and squared her shoulders, ready to do battle. Enjoy your escapades, Lady Glenwood, for they are about to come to an end. As for you, Lord Lucien Knight, whoever you are, you, sir, are in a great deal of trouble with me. With that, she picked up her satchel and marched out of her room.
Chapter 2
A thousand hours later, or so it felt, Ali
ce sat tensely in her jostling carriage, steadying herself with a cold-sweating grip on the leather hand loop. They still had not found the place. The full moon led them along the bumpy, winding road through the moors like a sly links-boy with his lantern—one of those dubious London street urchins who, for a coin, would convey a pedestrian homeward through the city after dark, but who were just as likely to deliver one into the hands of thieves.
She glanced constantly out the windows, certain that she and her two servants were going to be set upon by highwaymen in this desolate waste. They were hopelessly lost in the Mendip Hills, far from any sign of civilization: up another slope through woods of oak and beech, to a rough, wind-blown heath like the one they now traversed; down again, into the plunging combes and gorges, up and down, again and again. The weary horses strained and stumbled in their traces; the night air wrapped them in a clammy, vaporous chill; and it was anyone’s guess how much longer they might be on the road. The only thing, in fact, that Alice knew for certain was that she was going to wring Caro’s neck for this.
She exchanged a taut look with her frightened maid, Nellie, but neither spoke aloud what both women were thinking: We should have stayed the night in Bath.
Alice was beginning to wonder if the maitre d’ at the elegant Pump Room, where they had stopped for tea, had deliberately lied to her when he had said that Revell Court was only fifteen miles to the southwest. Perhaps it had only been her imagination, but she thought she had detected a faint, disapproving sneer in his countenance when she’d asked for directions to the place. Given the urgency of their quest, and confident that they could cover the distance within two hours, Nellie, Mitchell, and she had unanimously agreed to press on in spite of the fact that the October sun had already set.
Now, with the night growing blacker by the minute, she realized uneasily that if they ever succeeded in finding Revell Court, they were going to have to spend the night there, accepting Lucien Knight’s hospitality—provided, of course, that he offered it. Who could say for certain what to expect from a man who seduced his brother’s chosen lady? She only prayed he was not heathen enough to turn travelers away in the dead of night, for she and her servants were ravenous, bone-tired, and full of aches and pains from being battered and bounced over the coaching roads of England all day.
Looking back over the day’s journey, she shook her head. There had been the queerest traffic on the roads since they had left Bath. Nearly twenty carriages—some flashy, some gaudy, some elegant—had passed them at breakneck speeds, but the passengers had all seemed either mad or intoxicated. Adults—male and female—had actually pulled faces at them like rotten children as the carriages went careening by, sticking out their tongues, yelling taunting abuses. She shook her head to herself, still puzzled.
Gazing out the window as the road descended into the gloom of another hidden valley, she studied the trees raking the indigo sky with their stark, brushy silhouettes. Moonlight polished the eerie, majestic limestone outcrops until they gleamed bone-white, while the road floated precariously above the forest, a sheer, high pass that hugged the mountain on one side. On the other yawned a gulf of empty darkness. She moved to the edge of her seat and stared down over the dizzying drop into the wooded ravine. You could throw a stone and it would fall forever, she thought. As her gaze pierced the deepest recesses of the black abysmal forest, suddenly she saw it—a distant flicker of fire.
“There’s a light! Nellie, do you see it? There, in the valley!” She pointed in excitement. “There!”
“Yes, I see it!” her maid cried, clapping her hands. “Oh, Miss Alice, at last, it’s Revell Court! It must be!”
Suddenly animated, both women called to Mitchell, the coachman, who was slumped down in dejection on the driver’s box. He let out a cheer when he, too, saw the bonfire burning like a beacon in the valley.
“By Jove, we’ll be there in ten minutes!” he boomed.
Even the horses picked up their pace, perhaps smelling the distant stable. Alice felt new life rushing into her veins. She hastily dug in her reticule for her combs and began trying to put her hair into presentable order. “Oh, how I long for a warm bed,” she said ardently. “I could sleep until noon!”
“Bed, pshaw! I’ve had to use the w.c. for the past two hours,” her maid retorted in a whisper as she buttoned up her pelisse over her plump bosom.
Alice chuckled. As they came down to the bottom of the valley, the carriage clattered across a stout wooden bridge that straddled a small, lively river. She was taken aback to notice how the cascade spurted straight out of the living rock. Falling in rills and milk-white spume, the little river glistened in the moonlight, churning and eddying in countless miniature gullies beneath the bridge.
“There’s the house,” Nellie exclaimed suddenly, pointing out the other window.
Alice peered out eagerly. In the foreground loomed tall wrought-iron gates whose formidable pillars were topped with rearing stone horses. Beyond them, the courtyard bustled with activity as servants in maroon-and-buff livery hurried about, tending to the dozen or so carriages lined up there. It seemed their host was entertaining, Alice thought uneasily, half certain that she recognized some of those carriages from on the road today. The house was an ivy-covered, red-brick Tudor mansion built in a U shape around the courtyard, with two large gabled wings that jutted forward symmetrically from the sides, their banks of mullioned windows reflecting the glint of the great iron torch stand that towered in the center of the cobblestone courtyard.
This was the wheel of fire that had beckoned to them from the distance, she realized, and as she gazed at the dancing flames, writhing and reaching for the black velvet sky, she was filled with the strangest intuition that the unknown object that her heart had yearned for in secret was very near. Then her bemusement turned to dread as half a dozen armed guards—big, menacing men in long black coats—materialized out of the shadows and began marching toward her carriage, each with a rifle under his arm. They yelled roughly at her driver to halt.
Mitchell had not expected armed guards any more than she had, but when Lord Lucien’s men continued shouting at him, telling him he must turn the coach around and leave, Alice’s fury soon overtook her fear. She jumped out of the carriage without warning, her long, fur-trimmed cloak swinging around her as she angrily marched over, going to her driver’s defense. She was too incensed, hungry, and irritable from the day’s exertions to accept this sort of insolent trifling from servants. Ignoring their requests—veiled orders—for her to get back in the coach, she stood arguing with them in the cold for a quarter hour. It seemed there was a written guest list, and her name, of course, was not on it. But that was only the beginning. When they told her she must give the password if she wanted to go in, she scoffed outright.
“You listen here,” she scolded sharply, hands on her hips, “I have no truck with such things as passwords and secret handshakes. For heaven’s sake, I am here to fetch Lady Glenwood for the urgent reason that her child is seriously ill. Allow me to be very blunt—Lady Glenwood is Lord Lucien’s mistress. If you do not allow me in to collect her—if you turn me away—she is going to be furious. She will blame your master, and Lord Lucien, in turn, will blame you. Is that what you want? I’ve heard he is a man not to be crossed.”
“Aye, ma’am, that is our worry exactly. Come ’ere, lads,” the leader mumbled to the others. Grumbling in disgust, the gatekeepers walked away to confer on the matter.
Alice could feel Mitchell and Nellie staring anxiously at her, but all her attention was focused on the men as she attempted to eavesdrop on their argument. She was not leaving here without Caro, she thought, her firm chin stubbornly set.
“Wee spunky thing, ain’t she?” the first gatekeeper muttered.
“She ain’t one of ’em. I never seen her ’ere before,” another said.
“Course you ’aven’t. Look at her. She’s harmless,” muttered one big fellow with a scar on his face. “I say we let her in.”
&n
bsp; “He’ll kill us if we let ’er in without knowin’ the password!” another whispered harshly.
“But she says she’s related to his mistress! He’ll kill us for embarrassment if we turn the lass away.”
“That devil,” the scarred one muttered. “We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, with ’im.”
Clearly, Lord Lucien’s men held their master in awe, but it was their terror of getting him into trouble with his mistress that finally persuaded them to allow Alice and her servants through the gates. She was displeased when Nellie and Mitchell were separated from her and hurried off to the servants’ quarters, but she dared not complain for fear of being turned away again. The big, scarred gatekeeper showed her into the manor house and entrusted her to the care of the austere, gray-haired butler, Mr. Godfrey.
While the guard gave the butler some instructions pertaining to her in a low, secretive tone, she glanced into the dark, empty rooms adjoining the richly carved entrance hall and promptly found herself more puzzled still.
Where were all the guests? The first floor was eerily silent, and barely a candle burned in the cavernous rooms. Something very strange was going on here, she mused. She had seen the carriages and the army of servants, and had personally run up against the exclusive guest list, so she knew that Lord Lucien was having a party tonight; but there was no sign of life in the house. Then she overheard a bit of the conversation between the butler and the guard that piqued her curiosity even more keenly.
“See that she stays in ’er room. She is not to go down to the Grotto.”
“I understand. We will inform His Lordship of the young lady’s presence in the morning.”
Alice looked over quickly, glancing from one man to the other. As though noticing her furtive study, Mr. Godfrey bowed to her.
“This way, Miss Montague,” he said cordially. “I will show you to your room.” Lifting a candle branch from the wall holder, he picked up her satchel and led her up the dark oaken stairs, which had wood-carved statues of knights and saints serving as stair posts. A large portrait of a nobleman in sixteenth-century doublet and ruff peered down haughtily from the landing where the stairs turned. He had piercing, steel-gray eyes, a pointed black beard, and a sly smirk of a smile. He seemed to watch her as she passed.