by Sandra Heath
"Oh, yes, my lady."
She looked shrewdly at him. "What's afoot, sir? You have discomfort written all over you. Has something happened of which I should know?"
"Yes, my lady. My lord and Sir Greville arrived earlier this evening, and are at this moment at Mahomed's Baths."
Evangeline paused. "Well, that is an agreeable surprise, and hastens things along."
"My lady?"
"No matter. Have they indicated why they have chosen to grace Radcliffe House with their presence after all?"
"No, my lady, but the message they sent from London informed me that although my lord intends to stay on, Sir Greville will return to the capital again on New Year's Eve."
"To avoid Twelfth Night, no doubt," Evangeline observed caustically, recalling the shambles Greville had made of Bottom. "Is he accommodated in the blue chamber as usual?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Which presumably means it is nicely aired?"
"Oh, yes, my lady."
"Well, Sir Greville will have to relinquish it, I fear, for I wish Miss Mortimer to sleep there as it is next to my apartment."
"Miss Mortimer, my lady?" The butler was still unaware of Megan in the doorway behind him.
"My companion. Where is the girl?" Evangeline looked past him at Megan. "Ah, there you are! Come in, come in, don't fidget on the threshold."
Nonplussed, the butler turned as Megan stepped reluctantly into the hall. His critical glance took in the plain maroon hooded cloak she wore over her mustard woolen gown, and the modest black hat beneath her raised hood. He guessed her to be an impoverished gentlewoman, as indeed were most ladies' companions, but why on earth would Lady Evangeline suddenly employ such a person? And not only that, but give her the blue chamber as well? There was surely more to all this than met the eye…
Another footman had emerged from the kitchens in time to hear about Megan. He was in his mid-twenties, with sandy hair, small eyes, and full lips, and the withering look he gave her was also one of outrage that a companion should be shown such undue favor as to be accommodated in one of the grandest bedrooms. Megan was accustomed to resentment, for companions did not rate highly either above or below stairs, being neither one thing nor the other, but she was herself a little startled to be given a chamber that was clearly more suited to a guest.
Evangeline spied the footman. "Ah, Edward. Remove Sir Greville's things from the blue chamber without delay. The mauve room will do for him, for the color will no doubt suit his temper when he finds himself evicted from his usual cozy place."
Fosdyke nodded at Edward, who gave Megan another dark glance before he went swiftly up the staircase. Megan felt very awkward. "Oh, Lady Evangeline, I do not wish to be the cause of Sir Greville's eviction…" she began.
"Nonsense, chit. It will do him good. He and Rupert are most presumptuous, first declining my invitation, and then taking possession of my house behind my back. I intend to have stern words with them. No doubt Greville thinks to avoid my play this year, but his timely presence will enable rehearsals of Twelfth Night to get under way a little sooner than expected. That will teach him."
Megan fell silent. One thing was certain, Sir Greville would regard her as the presumptuous one, not himself. Edward and the butler clearly already did!
Suddenly Evangeline began to feel familiarly hot and uncomfortable, and she stepped hastily away from the fire. She longed to rush out on to the Steine for some cold air, but to her relief the disagreeable flush passed after a few moments, which was more than could be said for a few exceedingly disagreeable occasions during the journey from Wells. Recovering, she waved Megan toward the drawing room, which lay on the Steine side of the house. "Wait in there until your room is ready, Miss Mortimer. Fosdyke, see that a dish of tea is brought to my apartment tout de suite.'' With that she gathered her skirts and bustled toward the staircase.
"My lady." The butler bowed solemnly after his departing mistress, then took himself off to the kitchens.
Megan went into the gray-and-gold drawing room, where lighted candles in sconces illuminated exquisite furniture. Theatrical prints adorned walls hung with Chinese silk, and a portrait of the famous actress Mrs. Siddons as Cleopatra had pride of place on the chimney breast. A longcase clock ticked slowly in a silence that was broken only by Evangeline's voice in the distance, issuing instructions to Annie.
Megan flung back her hood and went to the deeply bowed window to hold the fringed velvet curtain aside. She saw the lights of the houses across the Steine, and at an upper window of the first one, a young woman looking back at her. Slender, with short blonde hair, she was dressed in a white evening gown with a blue sash, and the room behind her was lit by a dazzling chandelier. She seemed taken aback to see someone looking out of Radcliffe House, and stared so obviously that Megan hastily let the curtain fall into place again.
In the house opposite, Chloe Holcroft continued to gaze at Radcliffe House in astonishment. She had been at the window of the second-floor drawing room to watch Oliver March drive off after dining with her father and her, and she had been startled to see lights at Evangeline's house. Now she was even more startled to see a young woman she did not know.
She turned back into the room. "Papa, I believe one of Lady Evangeline's Christmas guests must have arrived after all."
"Mm?" Admiral Sir Jocelyn Holcroft didn't look up from the new newspaper, the Brighton Herald, which had only been in print for a month or so. He was still a handsome man, although his features were now marred by an eye patch over his left eye, and a livid white cutlass scar down his right check to the corner of his mouth, the result of an encounter with pirates in the Mediterranean. Once a distinguished uniformed figure commanding from the quarterdeck of one of the Royal Navy's finest first-raters, he was still impressive in the formal black velvet coat and white silk breeches of a civilian gentleman who had just had a guest to dinner.
Chloe gave him a cross look. "The French fleet has just appeared on the horizon," she remarked in a conversational tone.
"Mm?" The paper rustled as he turned the page.
"And they are putting longboats ashore to raid the town," she went on. "Can't you hear the warning bells of St. Nicholas's?"
He looked up with a start. "Eh? Warning bells?"
"Oh, so you do listen eventually," she declared. "I vow the French really could be at the door, and you would still be browsing contentedly through that newspaper. The next time we have someone to dinner, I am going to insist that you take less port afterward, for I vow it makes you far too dull at the edges."
He gave her a charming but rather sheepish smile. "I'm sorry, my dear. Now, what was it you were saying?"
"Lady Evangeline is away for Christmas, but the lights are on at the house, and I have just seen a strange young woman looking out of the drawing room window."
"Strange? In what way? Does she have two heads?"
Chloe became cross again. "You know perfectly well what I mean, Papa!" He raised a teasing eyebrow, and she colored. "I-I was wondering if perhaps one of her guests has arrived after all," she added.
"We know all her usual guests," he pointed out.
"Yes, but-"
"But?"
Chloe bit her lip and looked away. "Well, perhaps I should go across-"
"And see if there is news of Rupert?" he finished for her.
"Certainly not!"
"That is a great pity." He folded the newspaper and put it on the table beside his chair. "From the heated manner of that last response. I must presume that you are still angry with him?"
"Angry? I'm not anything anymore, Papa. Rupert Radcliffe is of no interest to me, especially now that…" She didn't finish.
He got up and went to pour himself a large glass of cognac. "I do hope that you were not about to mention Mr. March's name," he murmured.
"And if I was?"
"I know that he has come to mean much to you, my dear, but I do not care for him."
"Why not?" she asked in dis
may. "He has just been all that is charming and courteous."
"I know, but I can't help how I feel," her father replied, resuming his seat.
"Just because you and Lady Evangeline have decided that Rupert and I would be a fine match! That's it, isn't it? Well, I do not need to remind you that it was Rupert who broke our friendship, not me."
"No, my dear, you do not need to remind me. Nor, I dare say, would you need to remind Rupert himself, who I am sure now regrets his actions."
"I doubt that very much."
"Chloe-"
"Papa, I do not wish to speak of Lord Rupert Radcliffe, indeed I do not even wish to think of him. Oliver is in my heart now, and I intend to continue to see him. Unless, of course, you mean to forbid it?"
"No, my dear, I will not do that, for I know only too well that to forbid you will only make you the more determined."
"So you will not mind if he takes me to St. Nicholas's church in the morning, to help with the Christmas decorations?"
"I will mind very much, but I will not prevent you from going."
"Well, that is that, then," she declared, as she gathered her skirts and hastened from the room.
Her father gazed sadly after her. He didn't want Mr. Oliver March as a son-in-law, but he very much feared he was going to get him. He glanced toward the window. It was very tiresome of Evangeline et al to be away this Christmas. If things had gone on in the usual way, there might have been a chance to rectify the sorry situation, but with Evangeline in Bath and Rupert in London… well, the way was clear for Mr. March.
With a sigh, the admiral drained the glass of cognac, then grimaced.
Meanwhile at Radcliffe House, Megan had put the young woman in the house opposite from her thoughts, and was studying the portrait of Mrs. Siddons. Suddenly Rollo's footsteps crossed the hall again, and she turned with a gasp, having momentarily forgotten all about the ghost. Her curiosity got the better of her as the steps moved away, and she went out into the hall to follow the sound to the theater. She halted at the entrance, listening to Rollo walk down through the auditorium, past the strange black tent, then up on to the stage, where the curtain shivered slightly as he halted in front of it.
He cleared his throat dramatically, and to her astonishment began to declaim one of Shakespeare's most famous soliloquies as if wishing to be heard out on the Steine. " 'To be or not to be: that is the question…' "
A ghost who recited Hamlet at the top of his spectral lungs? It was so unexpected that Megan almost curled up with stifled mirth, although she doubted if he intended to be anything other than serious.
He continued his flamboyant oration. " 'Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And by it… And by the…' " There was a loud sigh as the next line eluded him. "Oh, plague take it! When will the words remain in this foolish noddle?" he grumbled in quaint old-fashioned English, then the hem of the curtain was raised briefly by an invisible hand, and the ghostly footsteps retreated to the back of the stage. After that there was the sort of silence that told Megan he had departed for the time being.
Suddenly she felt a great deal better about her new post, for how could one be afraid of-or disconcerted by-a spirit who fancied himself a great actor? No wonder Lady Evangeline put up with him! Still smiling, she turned back to the hall, and was immediately confronted by Edward the footman, who had been watching her.
"What are you doing out here? You were supposed to stay in the drawing room!" he said haughtily, thus making clear his inflated opinion of himself, and low opinion of her.
"I-I'm sorry," she replied. "I thought I heard someone making a speech in the theater."
"No one is allowed in there unless her ladyship is present. That applies to you too."
"I'll try to remember."
"Your room's ready. Come on." He paused. "And don't think that because you're in the blue chamber, you can lord it over the rest of us."
"I know my place." Which is more than you do, she added silently.
He eyed her for a moment as if sensing her unspoken thought, but then he conducted her up to a fine second-floor room on the Great East Street side of the house. "This is yours," he announced pushing the door open. "Just don't forget you're still a servant, and while there are guests, you'll be eating with us in the kitchens, so don't think you can treat us to airs and graces."
Megan was provoked as she went inside. "If anyone has airs and graces, it's you," she replied, and closed the door firmly in his face. She guessed that he would now paint a very black picture of her to the other servants, but she was philosophical about it, for she had endured a similar situation at Lady Jane's, but had managed to rise above it and make some good friends. With luck she would do the same here.
She glanced around the room. It warranted its name, for nearly everything was blue, except for a rose marble fireplace and a white ceiling that was richly picked out with gold. A fire crackled in the hearth, and there were lighted candles on the mantel, on either side of a garniture of fine blue-and-white Chinese porcelain vases. The four-poster bed had sapphire-blue hangings, and she lifted her portmanteau on to it to begin unpacking. Her back was to the door, and her hood fell over her hat again as she bent over it.
Suddenly the door was flung open. "You impudent light-fingered scoundrel!" someone cried, and before she knew what was happening, an assailant had launched himself at her. She was knocked sprawling facedown on the bed beneath him.
Chapter 7
Megan screamed and fought for all she was worth to escape, but her attacker-Sir Greville Seton, no less-was infinitely stronger and kept her pinned to the bed. After a struggle that lasted only a minute, but seemed a lot longer to Megan, she stopped fighting and lay still.
Greville thought he had apprehended a male intruder, and knelt roughly astride her. "You damned villain! Let's see your face!" he cried, and snatched back her hood. But he wrenched her hat off as well, and then froze as her long brown hair tumbled down in only too feminine profusion. "A-a woman?" he gasped, and leapt from the bed as if scalded. Then his glance went belatedly to the luggage, which was clearly not his. "What's going on? Who are you?" he demanded.
Angry and frightened, Megan scrambled away on the other side of the bed from him. "How dare you assault me so!" she cried.
"I dare because at the last time of reckoning this happened to be my room, and I caught you apparently rifling my belongings. I see now that I was wrong."
"You are indeed!" she replied angrily. They gazed warily at each other, their eyes bright with instinctive dislike and mistrust. Neither intended to give an inch, because both felt in the right. Megan spoke again. "Am I to understand that you are Sir Greville Seton?"
"You have the advantage of me, madam. Am I to have the honor of your name? Or is that to remain one of life's little mysteries?"
"I am Megan Mortimer, Miss Megan Mortimer, and I am Lady Evangeline's companion."
He stared at her. "Lady Evangeline's what?"
The sharp altercation brought Evangeline at the double from her apartment directly opposite. "Miss Mortimer is with me, sirrah, and this is her room!" she declared as she halted in the doorway to survey them both. She had changed into a peach taffeta dinner gown, and Annie had not quite finished her coiffure, so that several long gray ringlets hung down a little untidily. The little Frenchwoman peered over her mistress's shoulder to see what the noise was about.
Greville whirled about in disbelief, for she was supposed to be far away in Bath! Rupert came running as well, and he too stared at his aunt. "Aunt E? What are you doing here?" he cried.
"I live here, if you recall," that lady replied waspishly, "and I was under the erroneous impression that I was going to spend a quiet Christmas alone with my new companion. Instead I find that my home has been rather presumptuously invaded in my absence!"
Rupert colored. "I, er…" Then he fell silent, for what she said was quite true. Then the import of what
she had said about Megan began to sink in, and his glance slid uncomfortably toward Greville, whose opinion of companions was hardly a secret.
Greville was appalled. Not only had he and Rupert walked into the lion's Christmas den after all, but there was a damned companion here as well!
Evangeline's peach taffeta rustled irritably as she came into the room. "Now, then, sirs, since you are here, allow me to formally present Miss Mortimer, who was Lady Jane Strickland's companion, but is now mine."
Greville's face became very still, and Rupert recalled what had been said in the garden at Hanover Square. This was the same companion who had so brazenly attempted to seduce Ralph Strickland? She certainly didn't look brazen, he thought, nor would Aunt E have employed her if there was any truth in the story Ralph was putting about.
Evangeline continued. "I trust you will both make her feel welcome, for she is about to become very much part of my household. She will be taking her meals with us, and is to be treated with respect in every way."
Megan's lips parted. Take her meals with them? Oh, that was not at all the thing! Her place was in the kitchens with the other servants.
Evangeline observed Greville's stony expression. "Sir, pray do not forget my wishes in this, for your private attitudes are not to be aired while beneath my roof. It is hardly Miss Mortimer's fault that your fool of a father ran off with your mother's companion when you were only six."
He was nettled that she should express such a derogatory opinion in front of Megan. "Aunt E, I hardly think Miss Mortimer is interested in my childhood," he replied in a tone as blunt as hers.
Evangeline already regretted her sharp tongue. "I shouldn't have said that. Please forgive me. It's just that it grieves me to see you still so bitter about something that happened such a long time ago. On top of which, I hardly think it is fair of you to direct your antagonism toward Miss Mortimer without her knowing why you feel as you do."
Greville didn't reply, and his silence conveyed that he didn't consider it to be any of Miss Mortimer's business.