She breathed in the fresh air, heavy with the warm spring rain. Greeting her nose was the distinctive smell of the leather of the coach and the tang of the winded horses. She heard their huffing and blowing as they stamped their hooves, impatient to be on the road again. They would leave soon enough, but she was staying. Yancey concentrated on the manor facing her. Viewed through the rain, the imposing mansion seemed to her to jut confidently from the very ground on which it stood. As if the great stones comprising the ancestral home of the Duke of Somerset had tumbled out of the hulking nearby Cumbrian Mountains, only to arrange themselves, of their own volition, into this structure.
Yancey’s roving eye was suddenly captured by a feature of Stonebridge that to her seemed whimsical and defiant in the same breath. Much like a crone in distress, a tall, round stone tower sat imprisoned in the back northwest corner of the manor. From there, the building’s bricked façade spread toward the east, as Yancey faced it. On each of the three floors, many equally spaced tall windows kept the occupants’ secrets behind their closed draperies. And that had her wondering about the people who lived here.
What would the dowager do, she worried, when faced with her? Even more importantly, what would the duke, her “husband,” do? As Yancey had pointed out to Mr. Pinkerton, while his mother didn’t seem to know her daughter-in-law, certainly the duke would know Yancey wasn’t his wife.
Of particular concern to her was the possibility that the duke could turn out to be the mastermind she sought. What if he had, unknown to his mother, driven his pregnant wife away and then had her killed? If that were true, he certainly would not be happy to have another Sarah Margaret Calhoun from America simply pop up here in England. Another consequence had occurred to her. Wasn’t it conceivable that the duke and the dowager duchess could simply think her an opportunist and call the law after her? Well, thank heavens she had in her possession the letters that she’d received from the dowager.
Thinking of the law recalled to Yancey’s mind the men of Scotland Yard. They’d proven more than helpful to her in settling the unrelated case—a theft of a valuable piece of art—that Mr. Pinkerton had sent her here to discharge. While at the Yard, Yancey had easily drawn the men out regarding the Treyhorne family. She’d appealed to their masculine compulsion to brag when faced with a pretty, smiling face, a young woman who hung on their every word. That pose worked every time, and it was exactly why Mr. Pinkerton employed women.
Absolutely enchanted to meet a female operative, something new to their experience, the British detectives had been very chatty. She’d been told the Duke of Somerset, along with his family, was not in London for the season. A situation of some note, they assured her, as Parliament was sitting and the duke should have been in attendance. But instead, still proving eager to gossip about their betters, the men had revealed that the family had gained special dispensation from the queen to repair to their ancestral home. Stonebridge, in the northwest of England. A fairly recent family tragedy lay at the root of their absence from society.
The older brother, Geoffrey Charles Treyhorne, had died suddenly and unmarried with no heir. Yancey now wondered if he’d merely died … or if he’d been killed in some subtle way. The man’s death left the second and, by all accounts, reluctant son—a man who had spent the last several years in America and had taken an American wife—with the title and the considerable inheritance. Considerable enough to kill for, the men had confided. All very intriguing. And Yancey had written what she’d learned to Mr. Pinkerton and had also apprised him that she would be traveling on to Stonebridge.
And now, here she was, seated in the coach, with the high humidity sticking her traveling costume to her skin. She admitted she had no clear idea of exactly what it was she was supposed to do or how she should proceed. Very disconcerting. Especially since, back in Chicago, one Sarah Margaret Calhoun was already dead. Yancey greatly preferred that the second one, namely her, not end up the same way. She would be wise to trust no one here, then. Just watch and listen and learn and keep her wits about her.
Yancey squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. Taking a deep breath, she remarked out loud, “This could be the death of me.”
It was true. Until she’d arrived here and had seen for herself the absolute isolation of Stonebridge, she hadn’t fully appreciated how truly alone and at the Treyhornes’ mercy she would be. Well, so be it, she told herself bravely. She was on her own here and would remain suspicious of everyone. When, since she’d been a girl, had it ever been any different for her? She answered her own question with one word. “Never.”
“Looks like the rain’s letting up, miss.”
Startled, gasping, Yancey put a gloved hand to her throat, where she could feel her pulse racing erratically. Then her mind registered what she was seeing. The coachman, a pleasant, red-faced, paunchy older man named Tom, had appeared at the coach’s door, which he’d just opened. “Tom, you scared the life out of me.”
“Not quite all of it, I’d say, miss, you being able to talk and all,” he answered cheerfully. “Didn’t mean to scare you, though. Got your trunks over there under the eave, out of the weather. We may as well get you out, too, while there’s this bit of a break in the rain.” He opened the narrow door farther and held out a helping hand to her. “Here you go, now. Watch your step, miss. It’ll be slick, it will. Mind your skirt and the puddles.”
Yancey immediately complied. From being days on the rough and rutted roads with Tom, she knew that he was a man who believed in a schedule and who brooked no delays. Still, gallantly he steadied her with a hand to her elbow as she held up the maroon skirt of her traveling costume and navigated the small step that was mounted just under the stagecoach’s passenger door. “Thank you, Tom.”
“You’re welcome, miss. It’s my pleasure.”
Though she liked Tom well enough, Yancey was used to keeping her own counsel and seeing to herself. Her passing thought was how irritating it must be to be an actual duchess, to have servants and maids doing your every bidding and performing every small service having to do with your person. A shudder for such intimacy slipped over Yancey’s American skin.
Now on the puddled, muddy ground, and smelling the commingled scents of the warm, moist earth and the sweet scent of the air, Yancey—with Tom’s ever solicitous help—made her way up a graveled walk to the wide steps that led to the impassive front doors of the manor house. Each step of hers was accompanied by an escalating unease regarding the advisability of her presence here. Her heart thumped dully. Her chest tightened.
She then glanced over at Tom, only to see him casting questioning looks her way. “What is it? Is something wrong?” she demanded.
“Oh no, miss, not with me. But I was just wondering—I mean, the duke and all what lives here … he is expecting you, right? You wouldn’t come all this way without an invite, now would you? A nice American lady like you would know she doesn’t drop in unannounced on her betters, wouldn’t she?”
“An American lady, Tom, would not allow the notion that she has ‘betters.’”
“I meant no insult. But I will tell you that the people who live here will behave like they’re your betters. Be ready for that.”
Yancey chose not to argue the point further, because the truth was, she had done exactly as Tom had accused. She’d arrived uninvited. She’d done something that, according to English custom, simply wasn’t done. Yet she wasn’t about to admit that to her hired coachman and lose status in his eyes. “Thank you for the warning, though,” she added. “Or the etiquette lesson, I suppose it was. Still, you can assume that I do know better. I am expected. Perhaps the duke just didn’t hear your knocks.”
Tom raised his bushy eyebrows at her. “Oh, miss, you’re going to be in a peck of trouble here, I can already tell. It wouldn’t matter if the duke did hear me knocking. He wouldn’t be the one coming to the door. That’s what servants are for.”
Yancey felt her cheeks warming up with embarrassment.
“I know what servants are for, Tom. We have them in America, too.”
“Yes, miss.” That comment brought them to a halt in front of the barrier that was the double wooden doors. To Yancey they looked solid enough to withstand repeated blows from a battering ram. But Tom didn’t appear to be daunted by them. “We’ll just give it another try then, won’t we, miss, with this here brass knocker?”
Yancey waved a gloved hand in permission. “By all means.”
Tom banged the lion’s-head knocker against its solid plate, creating a great racket that Yancey imagined echoing inside through many grand, high-ceilinged, empty rooms. What if I’ve come all this way and no one is here? What then? This was an angry, not a plaintive, thought. How dare people who weren’t expecting her not be home? Hadn’t she come all this way because of those letters that begged for her presence here? Well, here she was, so open up. Yancey was all but tapping her foot impatiently.
Then she made the mistake of looking up. She stiffened her leg muscles as if she were still on board a ship and as if she might stagger at any moment with the movement of the sea. Her wondering gaze traveled up and up to the full height of the dizzying three stories that soared over her head. She put a hand over her heart. Overwhelmed, as if a great wave rose before her, threatening to crash down on her and drown her, Yancey only just stopped herself from clutching at Tom’s arm for support.
Forcing her gaze downward to eye level, and breathing in deeply for calm, she listened to her detective’s instincts, which screamed at her for caution. But overriding that voice was another one, a new voice deep down inside her. Danger lurks here, it whispered. Tensing again with premonition, Yancey peered surreptitiously left and right to the wide banks of windows on either side of the doorway. But nothing met her gaze. Not so much as a flutter or a jerk of a drapery to indicate that it had just fallen back in place.
Shaking her head, she convinced herself that she was overwrought, that was all. The journey here had been long and trying. And she was tired. Very tired. Still, never had she felt so small or unequal to a task as she did now, while she waited and Tom knocked over and over. Finally Yancey put her hand on his arm. “That’s enough, Tom. Nobody’s home. I’m sure they’ll be along presently. I’ll just wait here for them. You go on.”
Clearly he wanted to do just that. He looked from her to the coach and the impatient, stamping horses hitched to it and then again at her. “Well, I don’t like it one little bit, miss, leaving a fine lady like yourself here in the rain.”
Not for the first time in her life did Yancey wish she were more of a formidable presence than she actually was. It was just her luck to be a slender, small-boned woman like her mother. Of course, her delicate appearance accounted for much of her success in her assignments because men never believed her to be a threat. One look at her, one fluttering of her eyelashes, and they fell apart. But none of that was going to work with Tom, her self-appointed protector. With him, she needed to be imposing. So Yancey drew herself up importantly and spoke with great authority. “I will be fine. I am certain the duke will be along presently. And if not, I can take care of myself, Tom, I assure you.”
He was not convinced. Yancey’s irritation with him escalated. It was misty and foggy out here. Clammy and sticky. Right now she could barely breathe this soup the English called air. And she wanted him gone because she intended to enter this manor house, if it had to be through a window or door, locked or otherwise. That being so, Tom’s gallantry posed the bigger impediment to her plans. “Really, Tom. You may go.”
He looked around as if for assistance or guidance. But none was to be found. So he faced her again, his heavy-featured, weather-reddened face showing his lingering uncertainty. “Well, if you’re sure, miss. I do need to be on my way.”
“I’m sure. Thank you and goodbye. You’ve been a wonderful driver and protector.” She accompanied this with her best and most winning smile. She knew how to be charming when she needed to be.
Since they’d already settled their account and she’d tipped him generously, Tom was left with no choice, Yancey knew, except to take his leave, which he finally did. Sprinting awkwardly back to his waiting horses, he quickly climbed up onto the seat, settled himself, took up the reins, then waved to Yancey and called out, “Goodbye, miss.”
Still smiling and making the effort to look confident standing there small and alone on the front steps of a manor situated against the stark backdrop of high and forbidding mountains, Yancey waved back and watched him drive away. The clatter of the coach and the plodding sounds of the horses’ hooves on the muddy drive slowly faded away, leaving Yancey feeling alone. More than alone. Deathly, quietly alone.
She surprised herself by watching the coach, with no small amount of trepidation and longing, until it rounded the far curve of the closest hill and disappeared from view. An unexpected impulse urged her to chase after it and tell Tom she’d changed her mind and she didn’t want to be here. Instantly, Yancey tamped down this moment of cowardice. She pulled herself erect, reminding herself that she was the one with the brave plan to gain entry through an act of stealth. And wasn’t she also the one who had a revolver, her last line of defense should things go badly, tucked away in her purse? Yes, she was.
Thus fortified, Yancey turned around to face the doors. One of them was opening. Her heart pounded with anticipation, which quickly turned to shock because greeting her from the doorway—and tearing a startled scream from her—was the single largest human being she had ever seen in her life. Yancey stumbled back, a hand over her heart. “Dear God,” she swore, sucking in a huge breath. “You nearly scared the life out of me, man.”
If “man” was the right term. This silent, staring creature filled the entire space. Not even good manners could keep Yancey from openly raking her gaze over his large person. Dressed in servant’s livery that wasn’t quite big enough or broad enough or long enough, the man stood several inches over six feet. Several inches. His hair was light in color and blunt-cut across his forehead. The bones in his face were heavy from generations of some giant peasant stock. And an overhanging brow shaded light gray, almost colorless eyes. His neck was more a thick column, while his body was as rectangular as the doorway. With his hands alone he could have uprooted mature trees.
He said not a word. He just stared at Yancey. Unsmiling. Unblinking.
Recovering, she bit at her lip and tried to think how next to proceed. Of course she’d composed, over the course of the past month on her journey here, a veritable speech to offer. But now, faced with the silent giant before her, the words fled from her mind. She finally settled for, “Good afternoon. I’m Yancey—uh, Miss Sarah Margaret Calhoun.”
Nothing. The man did not so much as blink. Yancey couldn’t even be sure he was breathing, except for the fact that he stood there. Then she remembered whom she was supposed to introduce herself as and could have pinched herself. Here only five minutes and already she’d made a mistake. Blame it on the startling giant facing her and disconcerting her. “Of course I was born a Calhoun,” she quickly added. “But I am now a Treyhorne. In fact, I am the American duchess you’re expecting.”
Of course they weren’t really expecting her. And she wasn’t really the duchess at all. The man-mountain seemed to know that because he stepped back inside the foyer and—unbelievably—closed the heavy door in her face.
Standing on the wide, rounded top step, Yancey blinked in astonishment. How very disconcerting. Then she noticed that all around her the day was darkening again. She looked up to the bruised bank of clouds that roiled in upon themselves and seemed to suck up the very air into their many folds. Yancey groaned. More rain was on its way imminently.
That did it. She hadn’t come all this way over land, sea, hill, and dale, all at great expense to Mr. Pinkerton and her aching bones, just to stand out here and get soaked because of some rude, oversized butler. Tired, hungry, angry, and with really no other option than to gain entry, Yancey attacked the brass lion’s-head
knocker with every bit of strength she could muster. Relentlessly she pounded the lion’s nose against the base plate, certain that the only thing she was hurting was her arm.
When that got no results, she pounded directly on the door, hitting it with her flattened palm as she yelled, “Open up this door this instant. Do you hear me in there? You can’t leave me out here. It’s going to rain, and I’m a duchess. I thought you people revered your nobility. Well, let me tell you, I’m as noble as the next son of a—”
A metallic click on the other side had her cutting off her words. Breathing hard, her teeth gritted, Yancey stepped back, waiting. Sure enough, the door opened. The same huge specimen stood there. This time, he reached out a hand and, with his fingers, poked Yancey in her breastbone—hard enough to have her stumbling back down to the second step before she could regain her balance.
“Don’t do that,” he said in a deep voice that rivaled thunder. He then closed the door in her face again.
Her mouth agape, her fists planted at her hips, Yancey stood frozen in place, not able to make the least bit of sense out of this. She looked all about her as Tom had done earlier. No assistance or explanations were forthcoming for her, any more than they had been for him. Frowning, she faced the door again, her expression one of utter disbelief. She dared to bang on the door again. “Don’t do what, you big—”
The door opened. The big, big man grabbed Yancey by an arm and, as if she weighed no more than a rag doll and had fewer bones, snatched her inside a marble-tiled grand entrance hall. Black-and-white tiles in a geometric pattern. She had time only for that one impression before the giant released her and closed the door behind her. Her eyes wide, her heart tripping over itself, Yancey turned to face him. All she could think was finally she was inside. However, all of a sudden, she wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.
The big man pointed a cigar-sized finger at her, right in her face, almost touching the tip of her nose. “Stay here.”
The Marriage Masquerade Page 3