Midnight Secrets

by Jennifer St Giles

  “You mean Jamie’s outburst?”

  “Rightly so. I fear she’s goin’ ta blame ya for it, too. Today’s goin’ to be ’ard, but ya do right and she’ll settle ’er ire down soon.”

  “Bridget!” Mrs. Frye snapped. “You’re talking when I’m talking. There’ll be no meal tonight for you. I expect your utmost respect and for you to have better manners than this.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bridget said.

  “B—” I opened my mouth to protest, planning to inform Mrs. Frye that as I was new and Bridget was only explaining my job, but Bridget pinched my arm so hard that my voice escaped in a gasp.

  Mrs. Frye glared at me. “You are already causing trouble here. Today you will polish the dining room again by yourself so you will remember exactly how it’s done. When you are done with that task then you can help Bridget in the library. I want every book on every shelf dusted.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bridget grabbed my arm and pulled me from the kitchen. I had to swallow the words of protest stuck in my throat.

  Bridget marched angrily and I followed, realizing that she headed for a closet filled with cleaning supplies. Once there, she shoved rags and a huge tin of polish into my hands.

  “I don’t believe her,” I whispered. “Why—”

  “’er!” Bridget hissed. “It’s you that I’m not believin’. I’ve me sickly mama and a little brother to feed, and until I ’ear from Flora, me post ’ere is all that’s savin’ us from the poor ’ouse. That place is a death sentence for sure, ya ’ear. Don’t be takin’ on airs that’ll cost me.”

  “But—”

  “Just go. If she catches us gabbing, it’ll only make thin’s worse, I tell ya.”

  My heart wincing, I went directly to the dining room and redid everything Bridget and I had done the day before, from polishing the wood to the silver. As I worked, it occurred to me that in my six years of answering questions on women’s problems in “Cassiopeia’s Corner”, I had a very limited view of the world to be giving out advice like I did.

  Midday I finished with the dining room and joined Bridget in the library. In just two days of scrubbing, several blisters spotted my now reddened hands. And the aches and pains in my arms had spread all the way to my shoulders and down my back. All I could think about all morning was a hot bath. That is until the moment I walked into the library where Bridget dusted. Thoughts of a bath flew as Sean Killdaren’s presence took over. Even though it was just a canvas and paint likeness in the room with me, I couldn’t ignore him. The aura of the portrait was almost magical in its ability to capture my attention. Again, I stood before him and just stared at him. I studied the cleft in his chin, the determined angle of his nose, and the glint in his green eyes—eyes that matched the vibrant emerald eyes of the carved dragon on his cane.

  He appeared tall in the picture, with an imposing breadth to his shoulders that made me want to step back to make room for him to pass, as if he were an otherworldly prince capable of deciding more than just my earthly future, but the fate of my soul as well.

  Impractical nonsense. Utterly ridiculous, I admonished myself. Since I never had the luxury of fanciful dreams, my mind was determined play them out during the day with this man. Otherworldly prince, indeed! I shook my head and set to work. Pulling a book off the shelf, I began dusting and then froze as I read its title. Powerful Vampires and Their Lovers.

  “Good Lord!” I dropped the book.

  Bridget came running over. “Whot is it?”

  I pointed at the book, speechless.

  She picked it up, dusted it off, and held it out to me, puzzled. “Somethin’ wrong with it?”

  “Didn’t you read the title? Powerful Vampires and Their Lovers. Who’d have such a book?”

  Bridget reverently ran her finger over the gold embossing. “Blimey, that whot it says?”

  I pulled my gaze from the book and my mind back from its wild path. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the book’s content or those who owned it. Why, if someone poured over my books and chose to pull Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein down, they could suppose any number of horrible things about me. Then the significance of what Bridget said slowly dawned on me.

  I gently placed my hand over hers. “You can’t read.”

  She pulled away and slipped the book back onto the shelf. “Never ’ad the time for nonsense such as that, I tell ya. Too much to be done. What would I do with readin’?”

  “I’ll teach you to read. Pick any book, and I’ll teach you to read it, Bridget.”

  She glanced cautiously at the door then at me. She looked as if she’d been handed her heart’s desire, but didn’t dare take it because it would disappear if she did.

  “Please,” I urged. “You’ve helped me so much already. Please let me do this for you.”

  “Well…” She glanced at the books as if they were forbidden candy. “Whot titles are ’ere?” She waved to the shelf that held the vampire book.

  I pointed to each book, finding all of them intriguing and disturbing. Powerful Vampires and Their Lovers. The Trail of Blood: Vampires and their Victims. Haunts and Hunts Worthy of a Vampire. Mastery of Druid Magic. The Sacred and Profane Rites and Rituals of the Druids and Their Children. The Druid’s Thirst for Humans.

  Reaching, she chose the first book. “Powerful Vampires and Their Lovers.” Her eyes danced with a saucy gleam. “Every Sunday I ’ear the Good Book read, but I don’t think there’s a soul around who’d tell me about vampires and such.” She looked at Sean Killdaren’s portrait. “I’m thinkin’ there’s a thing or two I want to know about things I shouldn’t.”

  I followed Bridget’s gaze and encountered Sean Killdaren’s green eyes and his imposing, black-draped figure. “I know exactly what you mean, Bridget. Tonight we’ll read about vampires.” I set the book aside until we finished cleaning then hid it in the ample folds of my dress when we went back to our room.

  My hopes for more revelations about Mary or to conduct any investigations met a frustrating end my second day in the castle. Mrs. Frye kept Bridget and me so busy we didn’t even get a moment’s respite, and I couldn’t explore. We worked until the evening meal, then Bridget retired to our room and I went to dinner. If not for my plan to steal food for Bridget, I would have gone with her to our room. Jamie did not appear, but Stuart did. He ate quickly and left without saying a word.

  I myself could barely swallow the food on my plate. I kept thinking of Bridget alone in our room doing without her meal because of me, and that burned inside. I’d never given much thought to the demands my family made of the handful of servants in our home, or of the power to help or harm that I held as an employer. But in my short time at the castle, I’d quickly learned about the power the upper servants had over the lower servants and the harshness of the servants’ world.

  I managed to snitch three pieces of cheese and some bread, wrap them in a clean silk handkerchief, and tuck them into my pocket for Bridget. I think Mrs. Murphy caught me, but averted her gaze and went on speaking to Janet and Adele Oaks, asking them if they’d take the clean-up after the meal until the blisters on my hands healed. It surprised me that she noticed my blisters and that the Oak sisters agreed. I knew they had to be exhausted too, and shouldn’t have to bear the burden of my work as well. I thanked them and Mrs. Murphy, feeling tears sting my eyes at their kindness. They had so little and worked so hard, yet gave so freely to help another. I couldn’t recall many of the ladies in Oxford’s social strata who would be that kind under these conditions.

  Everyone in some manner or another seemed to be silently protesting Mrs. Frye’s judgment against Bridget, but nobody voiced their opposition, and I didn’t either, I realized with surprise. My desire to stay employed in the Killdarens’ castle outweighed any principle of right I’d be willing to stand upon. At least when it came to the matter of punishing Bridget by taking away a meal. Something more severe I was sure I would have stood up for what was right no matter what.

  I’d learned
something, though. Had someone written to “Cassiopeia’s Corner” about this very situation, I would have advised her to stand on principle. Yet, now that I was in the situation, I had chosen differently. The more I lived of life away from the isolated world of my home and family, the more difficult the answers to even the simplest questions became.

  Bridget nearly cried when I handed her the bread and cheese. I wanted to hug her, yet I didn’t, sensing she would reject any overtures of comfort on my part. She ate quickly and then we settled on her cot, huddling by the light of a small candle to read the vampire book. We went through the alphabet and the sounds each letter made, many of which Bridget already knew, then we read only five sentences of the vampire book before her eyes drooped and she fell asleep.

  I couldn’t blame her. The day had been exhausting and the vampire book had offered very little excitement, just a description of an old stone church and a lonely woman entering it to pray. I’d expected that a book about powerful vampires and their lovers would have started out differently and I set it aside disappointed. After tucking Bridget beneath her blanket, I spent the next hour bathing, with only the basin of cold water available to ease my skin irritations and curtail the growing sense of dirt clinging to my body. I desperately longed for a tub of hot water, so I could sink into its comforting heat and feel the soothing bath salts cleanse my skin free of dirt, perspiration, and cleaners. I even went though the difficult task of washing my hair in the basin, using up every ounce of water from the ewer.

  When I finished and had smoothed rose and milk cream over my chafed skin and reddened hands, wincing at my blisters, I slipped on an old cotton dress I’d brought with me and put my father’s pistol into the pocket. If Mrs. Frye continued to keep me and Bridget working so hard during the day, I would have to accustom myself to investigating at night.

  Stuffing my hair into my mob cap for appearances, I quietly tiptoed downstairs as the massive mahogany clock in the center hall chimed the quarter hour. Bits of silver moonlight shone through the portal-like windows, lighting the servants’ stairs in gray shadows. The kitchen that bustled with frenzied warmth from dawn to dusk seemed like a dark, shadowed sea after midnight, a place where dragons might lurk, waiting for a tasty meal.

  Butterflies flurried in my stomach, as if trying to warn me to go no further, and I almost turned back, but then shook my head and determinedly snatched my imagination back from the folly of its wandering. I could only blame my grandfather’s stories for my fanciful thoughts.

  Turning down an unlit corridor off the center hall, I nearly jumped when booming male voices reached me in the dark. I ventured closer down the carpeted corridor, wondering if Sean Killdaren was in the room just ahead. My pulse leaped at the thought of seeing him. Flickering light spilled from the room, accompanied by the snap and crackle of a fire in the hearth. After a moment, I realized it was Sir Warwick and the earl, and they were well in their cups, which would explain why I hadn’t recognized their voices from earlier. I backed into the shadowed doorway of a room across the way to listen.

  “The bloody idiots are determined not to wed. Made a pact to have no heirs so the bloody curse will die with them,” the earl said.

  Sir Warwick laughed. “It’s ironic. Your by-blows will likely leave you a dozen brats and your heirs none.”

  “There is nothing amusing to the situation. Alexander is as determined as Sean. Were that chit Helen alive today, I’d murder her myself for ruining my sons’ lives.”

  “Why don’t you outsmart them and arrange marriages for them both?

  “I may have to if I expect to see an heir before I die, though my sons would more likely murder me than wed if I did betroth them. Unfortunately, few fathers will let their chits marry men suspected of murder, at least none with worthy enough dowries.”

  “I’ve heard the Bow Street Runners have solved impossible cases. Hire a man to clear the boys’ reputation.”

  “I would if I was sure neither of my sons had killed the chit, but I’m not. The evidence was entirely too damning. I’ll—”

  A leather gloved hand clamped over my mouth and nose from behind. An arm wrapped around my stomach and arms, trapping me, and jerking me back against the hard body of a large man. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t reach my pistol. I could barely move. Terror flamed in my breasts and fired through my veins. The man pulled me deeper into the darkened room, shutting the door. Dear Lord. Is this how Mary disappeared?

  Wrenching violently, I tried to free myself, but the man clamped me tighter to him, crushing me with his strength. I pressed my head back, fighting to ease the pressure on my face enough to breathe. In my panic I remembered the size of Jamie Frye, his anger, the veiled threat that if I were to die none would care. Then the hand covering my mouth and nose loosened enough for me to suck in blessed air. I smelled leather, mint and something frighteningly unknown, but compelling enough that I drew another needed breath.

  “The scent of roses,” a deep, cultured voice with a hint of an Irish burr whispered close to my ear, and I knew it wasn’t Jamie. “The feel of a woman.” As he spoke, his arm about my stomach slid higher, pressing beneath my bosom, almost caressing the undersides of my breasts a moment. I rammed my spine back, lifting myself to my tiptoes, trying to keep from knowing the warmth of his muscled arm so intimately against me. This brought his mouth and the heat of his breath closer to my ear.

  “The actions of a thief.” His tone was soft, menacing. My heart thundered harder, more painfully. “Will you come to such an ill fate, lass? ‘Like a rose, she has lived as long as roses live…the space of one morning’? Or will it be even less for you?”

  Any affinity I had for Malherbe’s poetry met a quick death at that moment. I shook my head, trying to speak, but only managed a muffled squeal.

  “Let’s see what you’ve stolen, my rose.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant to do until he moved his gloved hand from beneath my breasts, sliding downward, pressing firmly along the contours of my body all the way down to my hips, then brushing over my intimate flesh as he slid from one dress pocket to the other, and finding my father’s pistol. His body jerked with surprise and he drew a sharp breath.

  “Run or scream and I will kill you instantly.” He pulled the pistol from my pocket. His voice chilled and became deadly. I’d never heard true menace before now.

  “Are you an assassin?” He released me, shoving the muzzle of the pistol into my back, urging me deeper into the room.

  My legs shook, and my vision blurred. “Assassin? Good God! Please. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t stolen anything either. The pistol is mine. To keep me safe.”

  I heard him light a lamp, filling the dark-paneled room with a muted glow. I barely saw the billiard table before me and the numerous game tables beyond that. I was too aware of the man behind me with my pistol to my back.

  “Take off your cap,” he ordered.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I pulled off my cap, feeling almost as if I was removing my clothes before him. I hadn’t taken the time to pin my hair and it spilled down my back.

  “Turn around, slowly.”

  I did as he asked. Opening my eyes to fearful slits, I kept my gaze on the pistol and his large, black-gloved hand. At that moment I wanted to know if and when he would pull the trigger more than who he was or what he looked like. He’d barely eased my pistol back enough to allow me room to turn. As soon as I did, he pressed the muzzle deeper into my breast, directly over my pounding heart.

  When he didn’t shoot, when he didn’t say anything at all, I finally lifted my gaze and met his deadly green stare. Sean Killdaren was everything his portrait promised and more.

  “Who are you?”

  Swallowing a lump of pure fear, I found my voice. “Cassie Andrews. I’m…the new housemaid.”

  “I don’t know how well you can see, but I assure you, I am not that stupid. You’re no more a housemaid than I am a street urchin. The truth.
”

  “’Tis the truth. I am Cassie Andrews, and I…I needed work. Hard times…my father lost his post.” I held up my blistered hands.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Oxford.” I cringed, realizing I should have lied.

  “You’re educated. You can’t convince me that between this hell and Oxford there wasn’t a single teaching post.”

  “I left home…there was a…scandal. I had to,” I said, desperate. Inferring that I was a fallen woman seemed the only plausible excuse for why an educated woman would seek employment as a housemaid so far from home. I took heart in that every word I’d said was essentially the truth. I considered Mary’s death a hidden scandal.

  Bolstering myself with that, I met the fire of his gaze as he studied me. Dressed completely in black right down to the cape he wore, he was as dark as his midnight painting had portrayed him and just as dynamic. The cleft of his shadowed chin, the fullness of his mouth, the height and breadth of him in person loomed larger than life, even more so than the painting. Only the fire in his dragon green eyes gleamed brighter than his picture, and I noted a sharper, more sinister edge to him, as if he could very well be a vamp—

  I mentally shook the ridiculous thought away.

  “Why the pistol?”

  I swallowed and shut my eyes. “Protection. The scandal.” Heat flooded my face.

  “Look at me, lass.” He pressed his gloved fingers to my chin.

  I met his gaze with trepidation. How could I so unashamedly lead another person to such untruths?

  His thumb caressed my cheek and a different sensation besides that of fear, coiled inside of me. The unknown emotion gripped me just as strongly as my terror had, but left me wanting to know what his ungloved touch would feel like against my cheek.

  Whatever he looked for, he must have found it in my gaze, for he lifted the pistol from my breast and stepped slightly back, releasing my chin. “You’ll not need a weapon in my home, so I will keep it safe for you for now. Before you go, I want to know why you were eavesdropping on my father and Sir Warwick.”