A Wicked Wager (Avenging Lords Book 2)

by Adele Clee

  An earthy tang invaded her nostrils. The temperature plummeted. Every hair on her arms stood to attention. When she exhaled, puffs of white mist penetrated the darkness, swirling into the atmosphere like a ghostly apparition.

  “Rufus!”

  With her hands braced on the wall for support, she edged forward, past the first chamber piled with straw that acted as insulation. A sliver of daylight in the middle chamber drew her to the room with a mound of ice in one corner. The groundsmen were waiting for the first hard frost of winter to replenish supplies. The fast-flowing water from the stream powered the giant wheel, the race serving as a means of draining the water should the temperature rise and the ice melt.

  Juliet pushed at the iron railings leading into the chamber and stepped into the room. Worried that Rufus had fallen into the water channel, she shuffled closer to the wheel. Fear crept across her scalp. She could feel someone watching, their beady eyes boring into her back.

  Then she heard Rufus charging along the tunnel behind her, heard the iron gate slam shut and the clunk of a latch sliding into the lock. Juliet swung around, noted a hooded figure on the opposite side of the iron bars.

  “Wait!” Juliet called. Panic rose like a wave in her stomach. “Don’t leave me in here.”

  Had the groundsman not seen her?

  She darted forward, her legs moving before her mind could form a thought, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

  Disturbed by her sudden movement, the figure shrank back against the corridor wall, back into the shadows.

  “Open the door,” Juliet demanded, though the nervous thread in her voice made her sound desperate. Weak. “Can you hear me?”

  Silence breezed cold through the tunnel to prickle the hairs on her nape. Silence loud enough to overshadow the creaking of the wooden wheel or the rush of running water.

  A blast of breath left the figure’s mouth in a puff of white smoke.

  “What do you want?” Juliet kept her voice calm. It suddenly occurred to her that the clawing fear in the air was not her own.

  A croak left her captor’s mouth. “Tell me where I can find the letters.”

  Juliet considered the slender silhouette, the feminine ring to her tone despite the woman’s desperate attempt to disguise her voice. Hannah would not hide in the darkness. She would confront her quarry, ready to parry swords, ready for battle.

  “Tell me where I can find the letters,” the woman repeated, “and you can leave here unharmed.”

  “Letters? You will need to be specific.” Juliet’s mind whirred quicker than the wheel. Each time she came to the same conclusion. She recognised the harsh edge to the woman’s voice. “But I think you need to explain why they are so important you would lock your mistress in the icehouse, Mrs Barbary.”

  Silence ensued.

  Juliet could feel the uncertainty, the confusion, filling the space between them. Perhaps it was foolish of her to speak the housekeeper’s name aloud. Perhaps the woman’s only dilemma now was how to dispose of her mistress and make it appear as a terrible accident.

  “Explain why you want them, and I shall tell you what you need to know,” Juliet said, offering an olive branch. “I trust you speak of the letters written to Charlotte Drake.”

  Mrs Barbary took a step forward. A sliver of daylight streaming down from the round hole in the ceiling caught the side of her face. The hard, disapproving stare Juliet had witnessed too many times to mention was replaced by one of panic, of pain.

  “Are you trying to protect your mistress?” Juliet said, aware that Charlotte Drake had encouraged her maid to give up her child. “Is it that you do not wish for others to learn of her dealings with the Bromfields?”

  “The Bromfields.” Mrs Barbary almost spat the bitter words from her mouth. “You’re all the same. Evil is in your blood.”

  “And I do not disagree with your assessment.” How could she after all she had learnt about her father, about her grandparents? “But I am not a Bromfield. I am a Duval, now a Drake. If you open the door, we can discuss this problem in a rational manner.”

  The tip of Juliet’s nose was numb, her fingers, too, despite the fact she wore gloves. The thought of spending any more time in the icehouse chilled her to her bones.

  “It’s too late for that.”

  “It is never too late.”

  Mrs Barbary shuffled on the spot. The longer she stood there, the more agitated she became. “Just tell me where I might find the letters. I know you have them. Three years, three long years I’ve searched the house.”

  Three years?

  Had Charlotte Drake confessed hours before her death? Had she asked Mrs Barbary to destroy the letters but died before she told her where to find them?

  But there was more to the story than that. There had to be.

  Mrs Barbary’s actions would see her swing from the gallows. Did Charlotte Drake’s reputation mean so much that the woman would risk her life?

  “You were Charlotte’s maid once,” Juliet said. “Did she teach you to read and write? Was she kind and loving? I’m told she cared for her staff.” No doubt that was her penance after the abominable way she had treated her maid Susan. “I need to know that Charlotte trusted you before I can tell you anything.”

  Mrs Barbary took another step forward. The woman seemed changed. The solid shell had cracked to reveal a trembling wreck hidden beneath. But fear and frenzy went hand in hand just like night and day. And it was plain to see that a catalogue of emotions battled beneath the surface.

  “Charlotte loved you like a daughter,” Juliet said, hoping to prompt the woman to speak, to confirm or deny the statement. “You must have been close, considering the time you’ve spent at Blackwater.”

  A sob caught in the back of the woman’s throat, but she fought to keep it at bay. “It was all a lie. An ugly lie that tainted every happy memory.”

  “Did Charlotte tell you something before she died? Did she make her last confession, to you her trusted confidante?”

  Had Charlotte shattered the illusion?

  “Trusted confidante?” Mrs Barbary blurted. “The woman lied to me for fifty years.”

  Lord, they were going around in circles. Frustration wrung tight in her chest. Juliet could not reveal a family secret to a servant. The only way to gain any ground was to incite the woman to speak.

  Juliet gripped the iron bars and squeezed in the hope of getting the blood flowing to her fingers. “Charlotte was everything a mistress should aspire to be,” she said in a tone the housekeeper often used to show her disdain. “I cannot believe a lady of her standing would lie to anyone. I can only assume that you have committed a great sin and that the evidence of it is written somewhere amongst the missives.”

  Juliet stamped her foot—not for effect but because her feet were as frozen as the blocks of ice stored in the underground room.

  “Oh, you would not say that if you knew how she spoke about your family.” Her thin mouth twisted in contempt. “She would never have permitted her grandson to marry Bromfield’s bastard.”

  The words hit like a stone to the throat—hard, stealing her breath, leaving an uncomfortable pain that made it hard to swallow. The urge to shrink within herself, to hide, to know her place, left her shoulders slumped, her head bowed.

  The wheel churned in the water, creaking, groaning, taunting, the sound growing as loud as Hannah’s mocking jeers.

  You’re no good. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere.

  “You would never have been mistress of this house if Charlotte Drake were alive.” Mrs Barbary’s blunt tone sliced through the air, intending to maim.

  “Then clearly you do not know your new master very well,” Juliet heard herself say. “No one tells Devlin Drake what to do.” Devlin was a man who cared nothing for propriety, for other people’s opinions.

  You’re the love I never thought to find. You’re the love I thought denied me.

  Devlin’s words bulled into her mind, knocking a
way all doubts.

  Then a thought struck her. The baron’s illegitimacy affected Hannah, too.

  “Did Charlotte disapprove of Ambrose’s ch-choice of bride?” Juliet’s teeth chattered. “Did she force him to end his betrothal to Miss Bromfield?”

  “Of course she disapproved.” Mrs Barbary snorted. “I was there that night, hiding in the shadows during their heated argument. She told him all about the baron’s tainted bloodlines, about the role she played in ruining her young maid’s life.”

  Mrs Barbary knew everything.

  So why did she need the letters?

  “Ambrose did not strike me as a man who would condone her behaviour.” But from what Devlin had said, a pure bloodline was on Ambrose’s list of criteria he looked for in a bride, along with wealth and reputation.

  Mrs Barbary shook her head. “Ambrose was furious. Ashamed of what she had done. But still, he did his grandmother’s bidding.”

  And in doing so, he brought about his own demise.

  Perhaps the arctic chill in the chamber made it difficult to think clearly. Perhaps there were so many conflicting tales, Juliet didn’t know what to believe.

  “And so you despise the Bromfields for what happened to Ambrose.” Juliet was only repeating what Devlin had told her. “You despise the Bromfields for corrupting your beloved mistress. And the fact she kept the secret causes you pain.”

  It was the only logical explanation.

  A growl resonated from the back of Mrs Barbary’s throat. Fire flashed in her hard eyes. Anger—hot and volatile—collided with the frigid air.

  “You’re all the same,” Mrs Barbary raged. “Poor Charlotte. Poor Ambrose. What about Susan? No one mentioned Susan. No one mentioned the girl abused by those in a position to know better.” Now the housekeeper had started ranting she didn’t stop. “No one mentioned me. A girl taken from her home at the age of twelve. A girl who believed her mistress cared for her when all the time her love and devotion served her own ends.”

  Juliet simply stared and tried to absorb the constant stream of information.

  “For fifty years I’ve lived a lie. She took me in to repay a debt.” Mrs Barbary swiped the air. “I had to hide in the dressing room and listen to her tell her grandson how she had done her duty by me to make amends for what she had done to my sister, Susan.”

  Susan? Susan was Mrs Barbary’s sister?

  Heavens above!

  “And all these years I thought my sister died from a fever while serving at the Bromfields’ house. Yet she died giving birth to that bastard’s by-blow. And it was Charlotte Drake who condemned her to death.”

  Ice-cold fingers crept up Juliet’s back. She shivered. Tried to stop the morbid thought entering her head, but it swept through her like a bitter wind, leaving her trembling inside.

  “How did Charlotte Drake die?” Juliet asked in so quiet a voice it was barely audible.

  Mrs Barbary’s vacant stare was unnerving. “She breathed her last breath as I smothered her with a pillow,” the housekeeper said in a tone that would keep the blocks of ice in the corner frozen for months. “It was only fitting that she died in her bed, too.”

  The blood drained from Juliet’s face. She felt sick to her stomach.

  But it was not pity for Charlotte Drake that brought the tears to her eyes. It was the realisation that she knew too much now. That this woman had murdered once and would easily do so again.

  “Now tell me where I might find the letters,” Mrs Barbary said in the tone that always sent the maids scurrying.

  “So you might shame the baron?”

  “So I can destroy them and protect my sister’s memory.”

  They were not Juliet’s letters to give away.

  It was not her decision to make.

  “I cannot tell you what you want to know.”

  Mrs Barbary pressed her sallow face to the bars. “Then I shall return in an hour. Let’s see how you fare once the cold bites your bones.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Devlin stared at the array of letters spread over his desk. He had retrieved them from beneath the mattress in Juliet’s bedchamber intending to reread them. But somehow it did not seem important, and he couldn’t quite rouse the enthusiasm.

  The baron’s version of the events surrounding Ambrose’s death rang true. All evidence pointed to Ambrose being attacked with a cudgel by footpads. Even so, Devlin struggled with the fact a man of Ambrose’s intelligence could be so foolish.

  But Devlin had come home to restore his brother’s reputation, to punish Miss Bromfield for her wicked lies and tales. The letters gave him the leverage needed to succeed in the task. The Bromfields would pay. But another powerful emotion replaced the vengeance that once burned in Devlin’s veins.

  Love.

  Every nerve, every fibre of his body thrummed with this new sensation.

  He could not keep his hands off his wife. Indeed, when she returned, he would lock the study door and take comfort in her sweet voice, in the potent scent that clung to her skin. He would tell her again what she meant to him, that she had saved a devil of a man from a life in hell. He would make love to her, show her the depth of his passion.

  Lord, he was working his way through every room in the house, replacing a miserable memory for one that heated his blood. In the dining room, Juliet made him forget about the raps on the knuckles with the cutlery, the taunts that clumsy boys must learn obedience. In the ballroom, he forgot that a beast looked ugly seated on the bench, that a man his size lacked the skill to compose music. And when he made love to his wife on the desk in the study, he would forget the lecture that said he was too wild and unpredictable to be the master of Blackwater.

  Devlin glanced at the mantel clock.

  A fire in his chest ignited when he imagined Juliet bursting in through the door, her cheeks rosy, a beaming smile illuminating her face.

  He waited. Ten minutes felt like an hour.

  Where the hell had she got to?

  Another twenty minutes passed.

  The clock chimed two.

  Frustration itched beneath his skin. Devlin stood, stared out of the window for a time.

  An uneasy sense of foreboding overcame him, forced him to wind the bell on the wall behind and ring for Withers.

  A light rap on the door signalled the butler. “You rang, sir?”

  What was he supposed to say? Where the hell is my wife?

  “I want you to check with the stable hands and see if Mrs Drake has returned with Rufus.”

  No doubt the hound had taken to his heels again. And Juliet would not return without him. The air outside was glacial. A raw, biting wind meant it was too cold to spend more than an hour outdoors. Was this what his life had come to? Worrying about the wind, the rain, about anything that might see his happiness dragged from underneath him?

  “I shall visit the stables at once, sir.” Withers inclined his head, turned in the slow, methodical way that was supposed to instill calm and confidence but in this instance did the opposite.

  “Never mind, Withers, I shall go myself.”

  The voice in Devlin’s head shouted for him not to overreact. The crippling ache in his heart made him dart through the corridors as if the barn was on fire.

  Rufus was not in the stables.

  “I saw Mrs Barbary chasing after him some time ago,” a groom shouted. “I expect he ran away from Mrs Drake again.” But Devlin was already racing back to the house.

  Devlin found Mrs Barbary in his study, gaping at the letters on the desk. Her face was ashen. Perhaps seeing his grandmother’s name on the missives brought back memories of the past.

  “Oh, Mr Drake.” The housekeeper jumped to attention. She seemed unsettled. “I came looking for you. I came to—”

  “Yes. I know. Rufus is up to his tricks again and has run away from his mistress.”

  Mrs Barbary nodded. “He came bounding across the lawn. I tried to catch him, but the beast is too quick for a woman of my age.”
>
  “And where is Mrs Drake?” Impatience rang in every word.

  “Mrs Drake?” The housekeeper glanced at the letters again. “I’ve not seen Mrs Drake since she took Rufus for a walk.”

  “And where does she usually take him?” A gnawing feeling of dread settled around him when the long-case clock struck the half hour.

  After the incident in the brook, the hours spent in the church last night and now the lengthy time spent out of doors, Juliet would be lucky if she caught just a chill.

  “Mrs Drake takes him far from the house so that he might run and expend his energy.”

  God damn, she could be anywhere.

  He dragged his hand down his face and sighed. “Have a hot bath drawn in her chamber. Have Tilly warm her bed with a pan. And ask Cook to make a tisane. I shall see if I can find her.”

  There was no time to wait for the housekeeper’s reply. Indeed, he was at the study door before a prickle of awareness forced him back to the desk. He gathered the letters together and stuffed them into the inside pocket of his coat.

  Mrs Barbary watched his every move.

  Devlin was already out past the orchard, staring at the vast expanse of fields when he decided the search would be easier on horseback.

  Then another thought struck him.

  Would Juliet have ventured so far after what happened with Biggs? The blackguard had not returned to Blackwater and was probably hundreds of miles away by now. Still, would she have taken the risk?

  The icy wind whipped at his hair and stung his cheeks to remind him that time was precious, and he could not linger about too long.

  Heading back through the orchard, he took the shortest route via the walled garden. As he passed the potting sheds, he heard scratching and whining. Sad eyes and a slobbering mouth met him as he stared in through the small window. Rufus! No doubt the wayward dog had darted into the shed, and the door had closed behind him.

  “You have a lot to answer for,” Devlin said as he turned the knob.

  The door was locked.

  He looked around, hoped to glimpse one of the many gardeners or groundsmen who serviced the estate, but to no avail.