“I’m Anne Hall, Countess of Rutherford, my dear, and you are . . . ?”
In nervous excitement Elise bobbed a quick curtsey to the woman. “I’m Elise Seymour, Marchioness of Bradbury.”
The blue eyes twinkled back at her. “I understand you have a necklace I should recognize. May I see it?”
“Of course, Countess,” Elise replied and waved her hand to the heavy stout door of the main portal in gracious invitation. “Would you care to come inside?”
“I’d be delighted, my dear.”
Elise hastened up the pair of steps and held the door open as the woman advanced with the aid of her cane. Pausing beside Elise, she smiled as she considered the oval face and then nodded as if she found the visage pleasing.
“You’ve a certain look about you, my dear, like the radiance of the sun sparkling through the leaves of a tree into a wooded copse. If I were to guess, I’d say you bring joy and light to those around you. You must make your husband very happy.”
The delicate pink that graced the youthful cheeks deepened to a rosy glow, while a smile came timidly to the soft lips. “I hope so, my lady.”
The aging eyes did not miss that glow of pleasure, nor the agile mind the significance of her answer. “I see you love him then.”
“Very much,” Elise murmured with fervent wamth. The elder patted her hand in approval. “I need not ask if you’re happy, my dear. I can see that you are.”
“Yea, my lady.”
“Call me Anne, dear.” The woman gestured to the door with the hand that held the cane. “Shall we go in?”
“Of course.” Elise laughed and escorted the Countess inside. Leading her into the great hall, she bade a servant to bring tea and refreshments, then ran upstairs to the master’s chambers to fetch the necklace. It was in her rapid descent of those same stone stairs whereupon she had first recognized Maxim that she had to pause now and wait until her head stopped reeling. She would possibly never understand how Maxim managed to leap up and down their ever-turning length without quickening his breath or suffering some dizziness. He ascended them with a boldness that made her tighten her grip about his neck when he carried her in his ams, and at times she was sure he frightened her on purpose with the swiftness of his flight, for he was wont to chuckle in her ear as she clung to him.
The slight twinge of uneasiness she had suffered gradually passed, but it did much to drain the color from her cheeks. Upon her return to the great hall, the elderly woman showed some concern at her pallor and would have risen to give her aid, but with a weak smile Elise waved her back down.
“ ‘Tis naught but a passing queasiness,” she assured her. “I tried to take the stairs too quickly.”
“You are otherwise well?” Anne asked anxiously.
Elise nodded and draped the necklace over the back of her hand as she offered it to the Countess. Anne gasped as her eyes fell upon it and, bracing the cane against her knee, she carefully lifted the piece. Her fingers trembled as she removed a gold-framed spyglass from her purse and examined the jewel-encrusted enamel. After a moment, she clasped the necklace to her bosom with both hands and raised her eyes to the lofty ceiling as a blissful joy suffused her wrinkled face.
“At last!” she whispered as tears made wet paths down her cheeks. Blinking against the wetness, she smiled at Elise. “You say your mother was found with this necklace when she was but a babe?”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Elise answered. “She was left in a basket at a chapel on the Stamford farm.”
“This necklace belonged to my daughter,” Anne confided with teary emotion. “You have the look of my daughter, and I can only believe that you are kin, the daughter of my grandchild who was stolen from us yeas ago.”
Elise’s smile brightened until the glow of it lit her whole face. In rich enthusiasm she informed the woman, “My father kept a portrait of my mother hanging in a cottage he owned some distance from here. I’ve already sent a man to fetch it for me. It should be here any day now. I was foretold that you’d be coming and assumed you would like to see what your granddaughter, Deirdre, looked like.”
“Was that what they named your mother?” Anne inquired, and smiled as the girl nodded. “She was Catherine to us.”
“I hope you’ll be able to stay with us,” Elise eagerly invited “As long as you desire.”
“I would be glad to stay for a while, my dear,” Anne accepted. “I should like to get to know you better and that cannot be done so quickly. We’ve much to talk about.”
The sound of approaching footsteps brought Elise to her feet with a happy announcement. “My husband is coming now. I should like you to meet him.”
Anne chuckled lightheartedly and waved a hand to indicate Maxim’s portrait that now resided on the wall beside the fireplace. “No woman who has ever been to court would miss the opportunity of acquainting themselves with such a handsome man as Lord Seymour, and I’m not so old that I cannot admire those fine gallants Elizabeth is wont to bring into her court. She has quite a discerning eye for handsome courtiers, you know.”
Maxim laughed from the doorway where he had paused to listen. “Countess Anne, we meet again.”
“So, you scamp!” she scolded with humor. “You’ve married yourself to my great-granddaughter. What have you to say for yourself?”
“That I’m a very fortunate man. I can understand now from whom she inherited her beauty.”
The fragile eyelids lowered slightly to partially mask the shining blue eyes as Anne cast him a sidelong stare. “And what are you doing to carry on the family’s tradition of bringing fine, beautiful babies into the world?”
Maxim tossed his head back and guffawed his mirth at the ceiling, prompting Anne to glance at Elise. The flush of color on the girl’s cheeks and the embarrassed, hesitant smile assured Anne that what she wanted was already in the making.
“Stairs, pah!” Anne scoffed with amusement, then informed the couple, “I’ve a liking for girls, and plenty of them.”
“We’ll need at least a boy or two to protect the girls from the roués who’ll be trailing hard and fast upon their heels,” Maxim suggested with like humor.
Anne responded with a tiny shrug, agreeing with the logic of his reasoning. “One or two, at least.”
Elise slipped within Maxim’s embrace and smiled up into his eyes. “If we’re to fulfill such ambitious plans for our family, my lord, you’ll have to stay very close to home.”
“My intentions exactly, madam,” he assured her.
Spence returned with the portrait of Deirdre the very next day, and at Elise’s request, the servant carried it upstairs to the anteroom in the master’s chambers. Elise had planned to hang it above the mantel, and as Spence set about preparing the place, Maxim came in from a dusty ride across his lands. He wiped an arm across his brow and laughed as he saw the dirty smudge on his shirt.
“I’ll have to wash ere I can even kiss you,” he commented with a rueful grin.
“I was never of a mind to think a little dirt would hurt me,” Elise rejoined with an expectant smile.
Maxim chuckled and stepped near enough to look down into those intriguing eyes. He tucked his thumbs into his belt and leaned his head down to savor the sweetness of her lips, then, after a long moment, drew away with a sigh. Over her head, he fixed Spence with a pointed stare, making that one stumble on the hearth.
“You have business here?” the Marquess queried in a tone that would brook no feeble excuse for a reply.
Elise laughed and, with a wave of her hand, dismissed the suddenly clumsy man. “Tell the servants to bring up water for his lordship’s bath,” she instructed, and as Spence hastened across the room she lifted a smile to Maxim. “Lord Seymour will help me hang the painting.”
“Aye, mistress.” Spence had paused long enough to receive her bidding and in the very next instant was moving out the door, reluctant to test his lordship’s patience by staying a fraction longer than he had to.
“
You ogre,” Elise chided through her laughter as she met the dancing green eyes. “I think you enjoy sending everyone into a dither with those ominous looks.”
“ ‘Tis a way of getting them out of my chambers when I’ve my mind set on other things.”
“Such as?” His wife feigned innocence with coquettishly widened eyes.
“You know well enough.” Maxim’s perusal touched her everywhere, cindering her clothes with his burning gaze. His slow smile bespoke of his confidence. “Do you have any objections, my love?”
“Not in the very least, my lord,” Elise assured him, reaching up on her toes to pluck another kiss from his lips, then, with a smile, she drew his eye to the canvas-covered painting. “Only a moment’s delay I would beg ‘til your bath be done. I’d have my mother’s portrait hung ere I invite Anne in to see it.”
“Let me wash some of this dirt off first, my pet,” he pleaded above her lips.
As she smiled her acceptance and moved away, Maxim stripped off his leather doublet and shirt and tossed both garments aside as he strode into the bedchamber. There he poured water into a basin, and, lathering up the soap in the water, began to wash his face, neck, and arms, then bent down to rinse himself. Reaching behind him for a towel, he felt Elise step close beneath his arm and faced her as she began to dry his face and shoulders with a towel. Her lips followed the passage of the towel and touched his moist skin with warm, caressing kisses. His eyes came slowly open to find a sultry heat burning in those jewel-blue orbs. He needed no other invitation. Pulling her close, he leaned back against a high stool and indulged in a long, passionate kiss. The stiff corps of her bodice refused to submit to his questing hand, and, with a wicked grin, he scooped the bulk of her skirts up to clasp her naked buttocks. Lifting her up high against him, he settled her astride.
“The servants will be coming with your bath,” Elise warned in a breathless whisper.
“Aye, I know,” Maxim lamented with a sigh, then he raised his head to grin at her. “Care to join me in a bath, my lady?”
Her glowing eyes promised him much. “That could be a definite possibility, my lord.”
Elise’s lips parted again as his mouth came upon hers, and it was a long moment ere she remembered her mother’s portrait. When reason came stealing back, they reluctantly returned to the antechamber. While Maxim prepared the place above the mantel where the portrait would be hung, Elise carefully slipped off the protective canvas that covered it. Her eyes lit almost immediately on a rolled bundle of parchments secured to the back of the painting.
“What do you suppose these are?” She murmured the inquiry as she sank to a padded bench and slipped the bow that tied them.
Maxim stepped behind her and, leaning down over her shoulder, casually leafed through the parchments. With a curious frown, he took the documents from her and examined them more carefully, noting that each pertained to a specific piece of property. “Elise, do you have any idea what these are?”
“I’ve never seen them before in my life, Maxim. What are they?”
Dropping the sheaves into her lap, he sat beside her on the bench. “Why, my very sweet love, they’re documents giving you the right of inheritance of all your father’s properties.”
Elise glanced down at them in wonder. Nothing of such import had been discovered since her father’s disappearance. “Maxim, Cassandra and her sons searched high and low for these. They meant to destroy them if they could.”
“Did they search the cottage where you sent Spence to?”
“They don’t even know about it. My father preferred it that way.”
“Obviously that’s why he chose to hide them there. He probably considered they’d be safer at the cottage.”
“But why didn’t he give me some clue where he was hiding them?”
“Are you sure he didn’t, my love?”
Elise paused in thought, remembering the urgings of her father to go back to the cottage after his death and fetch the portrait. “Perhaps he did, Maxim, and I didn’t realize it. But are you certain about what these are?”
“Aye, my love. Very certain. Whether your father is alive or dead, I’ve no ken, but these documents are without a doubt a guarantee, signed by the Queen herself, granting Ramsey’s plea to allow you the right of inheritance of his estates if he was killed in the performance of his duties. I’m sure Walsingham had something to do with arranging it all, since Ramsey was working directly for him.”
“You’re not jesting,” Elise stated in wonder, amazed, by the way her father had gone about securing the documents. Perhaps he had been more cautious of Cassandra than she had realized.
“Here, look at this,” Maxim urged and traced his finger along the elaborately scrawled script of each designated property. “According to this, at the time of his disappearance Ramsey still retained possession of all of his properties, a house in Bath, his manor house in London, and the lands upon which he had built the cottage.”
“But what did my father barter off in the Stilliards? There were so many rumors about him taking away coffers of gold. Even Uncle Edward said as much.”
“I’m not sure, my love. Walsingham knew what he was about. And ‘tis evident now that it was your father’s will that you be provided for, and this is how he arranged it, by securing an agreement from the Queen. I can well understand that you were the light of his life, and that he wanted to keep you safe from Cassandra and her sons and those who would do you harm.” He laid his hand where the stiff corps ended in a point over her stomach. “I’d do no less for my daughter.”
Elise leaned her cheek against his arm. “I’ve been thrice blessed in this life, Maxim,” she murmured reflectively. “There was first my father, now Anne, and most dear to my heart, my husband. If the future holds such joys, I’ll gladly meet each day that comes.”
‘Twas the following Friday when Maxim received a summons from the Queen, bidding him come to London. It seemed that one of her ladies-in-waiting had been found dead at the bottom of a long flight of stairs, and though there were no witnesses to say whether or not her death had been accidental, bruises of the shape and size of a man’s fingertips had been found on het throat. The deceased woman was of an age two score and three years, and it was revealed by the weeping attendants that in the last year or so she had on several occasions slipped out to secretly meet a lover.
It was further reported to Maxim that at Newgate gaol, Hilliard had also met with a serious accident. It seemed that sometime during the wee hours of the morning his throat had been cut. None could aver who the culprit was, for the inmates had common cells and every one of them attested to the innocence of the other. Still, there were those who had more coin than usual to bribe the guards, and it was rumored that before the crime took place, a wealthy barrister who no one could correctly name, had come to the gaol to visit a common thief about an inheritance left to the brigand by a dead uncle. Word had it that the bequeathed sum had been delivered in its entirety shortly after Hilliard was slain, effectively squelching tongues that were eager to wag, if truly a bribe it be.
Elise remained at Bradbury, thinking it would be only a matter of a day or two ere Maxim returned. Anne was of uncommon comfort in his absence, for the bond that had quickly formed between the two women was forged with ties of kinship and heritage. After viewing the portrait of Elise’s mother, there remained no smallest shred of doubt in Anne’s mind that she had been the granddaughter who was taken. The resemblance was too close to dismiss, and the necklace by itself alone gave undeniable proof they were blood kin. Elise was jubilant over the matter. She had finally found the core from which she had sprung, while Anne indulged herself in watching the budding glory of her offspring.
Nicholas, Kenneth, and the other two men made their excuses after a trio of days had passed since Maxim’s departure. They took leave of the manor as a foursome with different destinations in mind. Nicholas and Justin went back to the captain’s ship to oversee the loading of new cargo, while Kenneth and Sh
erbourne returned to their respective homes closer to London. As they made their departure, each vowed with fervent troth that if ever Elise had need of them, she had but to send word and they would return posthaste, no matter the distance between them. Almost sadly she waved them off, knowing that she would see Nicholas and Justin only briefly before they left again for some other port, and the knights perhaps only a bit more ere they returned to their duties.
In their absence Elise gave herself over to longer hours in the gardens with Anne keeping her company. The two women laughed and talked, sometimes expressing their innermost thoughts, while other times just commenting on the weather or some other inconsequential matter.
It was early in the afternoon of the fourth day of Maxim’s absence that Elise put shears into a basket and ventured to the courtyard with Anne. There she snipped off fading blooms and cut flowers for the house. About midafternoon she ceased her labors, doffed her hat and gloves, and settled at a courtyard table with the elderly woman to share tea and cakes. As they chatted, a faint, distant yipping persisted and finally commanded a pause in their conversation.
“Why, that sounds like a small dog,” Anne commented as she held a thin hand to her ear to listen. “What do you suppose a dog is doing here on the Bradbury lands?”
“I don’t know, but it sounds like it’s coming from that maze of shrubs growing near the pond. Maxim showed me the place before he left.” Elise rose and put aside her napkin. “I’ll go and see.”
“Take your shears, dear,” Anne suggested. “The poor little thing might have gotten caught in a thicket or some such.”
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