Lady Anne 01 - Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Sad,” Anne said. They trotted through a wood that was dappled yellow and green with sunlight filtering through the new greenery. It was a lovely sylvan spot, and amongst the trees she spotted drifts of primroses, their yellow flowers glowing like butter. “Stop!” she cried.

  He pulled the pony to a halt. “What?”

  She shed the cloak she had draped over her shoulders, jumped down from the pony trap without waiting for his hand, and lifted her skirts; she climbed a small rise into the woods beyond the primroses, sinking to her knees among the damp leaves. “Look!” she said, and stripped off her gloves then cradled the lovely perfect blossom on her hands.

  “What is it?” he asked, crouching at her side.

  “A wood anemone,” she said softly, cradling the pinky white blossom and fondling the petals. “Isn’t it lovely?”

  “It is,” he said, his tone husky.

  She looked up, and he was staring directly at her. Overcome with shyness, she felt the blush mounting her cheek. What could he mean, saying such a thing while looking at her? Stuttering back into speech, she said, “I-I have heard it said that the wood anemone is found only in old, well-established woodlands, so this must have always been a forest?”

  “I suppose,” he said. He reached out and plucked one of the delicate blossoms then tucked it behind her ear under her bonnet. He let his hand linger, touching a loose curl that drifted down under her bonnet and caressing her neck. But then he stood and held out his hand. “Come, my lady, we have much more to see.”

  Grateful that he hadn’t taken advantage of the solitary nature of the woodland copse to kiss her again—or was she sorry rather than grateful?—she gave him her bare hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. He helped her back up into the trap and leaped up, taking the reins and clicking to the patient pony.

  He was silent, and she felt awkward, so she began talking about the first thing that entered her mind, and that was oddly related, she supposed, to her thoughts of a few moments before. “It appears from our experience in the woods last night that Jamey has not mourned his lost love, Cecilia, for long, and has gone back to his other flirt, Ellen.”

  “I presume you have some source for this knowledge, that Jamey was involved with Cecilia?”

  His manner was refreshingly normal, and Anne thought for a moment then said, “Well, yes.” She told him about Mary’s discovery of the love posset ceremony and Cecilia’s claim that Jamey’s spirit had taken and eaten her cake. “And the young man himself did not deny it when I asked him last night. That’s why I don’t believe she could have been involved with Spottiswode. Look objectively at both men. Which do you believe a young woman of Cecilia’s intelligence and attractiveness would prefer?”

  “I take your point.” He was silent for a long moment then said, “I suppose that Osei, if he was sworn to secrecy by Miss Wainwright about the identity of the father of her baby, would respect that secrecy beyond the grave. Perhaps that’s the secret he’s keeping.”

  The path opened out just then to the riverbank and the sparkling vision of the waterfall above them. “How lovely!” she cried, clasping her bare hands together. She had neglected to put her gloves back on but didn’t care about the impropriety, not in such company and on such a day. There was something about the marquess that encouraged a lack of decorum in her.

  The bank was mossy and verdant, with a slender creeping vine that blossomed, opening trusting flower faces to the sunlight that filtered through the newly green branches of languorous willows. He brought the pony trap to a halt, jumped out, and lifted her down, pausing for a long moment with his hands at her waist, staring down into her face. Breathless, though she had taken no exercise, she turned and took a few steps away from him to regain control of her breath and to view the scene.

  “How happy it makes me to see a view such as this, that has been left alone as the hand of the Creator made it,” she said.

  “I’m not one to tamper with what God and nature have conspired to create. I leave that to my mother, who never sees a patch of open ground without wishing to tame it.”

  “But cultivated gardens have their place, my lord,” she said, ambling toward the eddy, a swirling, shadowed pool at the base of the waterfall. She stood on a humped hillock of moss and stared, admiring the sparkle of sunlight on the drops that scattered as a rivulet hit a rock. Mist billowed from the force of the falls and bedewed her cheeks.

  “I still prefer the wild,” he said.

  She started and whirled; he was right behind her, his approach so silent that it took her breath away. He pulled her into his grasp and stared down into her eyes. His were dark, the sooty lashes long and striking, but the effect not the least bit feminine. So hard-muscled and masculine a man could never be thought of as effeminate.

  “My lord,” she gasped.

  “I wonder,” he murmured. “Would you strike me again if I kissed you?”

  “I’m likely to, if you act without permission.”

  “Alas, I rarely ask permission.” He bent his head and paused, then kissed her lips, the touch clinging, cloying at first, becoming firmer.

  She closed her eyes; a light breeze caressed her cheek with the mist moistening them both, the sound of a lark somewhere not too distant fluted, and the trilling of the waterfall was music. And the kiss, his lips full, her own answering… she wouldn’t strike him this time. It finally ended. She opened her eyes to find him still staring down into her eyes. Had he closed his eyes as she had, or kept them open?

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, breathless.

  “Because I wanted to.”

  “Do you always do what you want?”

  “Always.”

  “Oh.” She tried to work out how they had progressed from speaking of gardens to kissing in the dappled sunlight of an April Sunday afternoon drive, but it failed her, and she gave up trying to connect any action previous to the kiss with the caress itself. She didn’t care to ask any further questions. “I suppose it’s blasphemy to behave thus on the day our Lord rode into Jerusalem.”

  “I cannot consider so pleasant a thing blasphemous. That is the voluptuary in me.” He turned her around and took her arm, strolling with her to the water’s edge.

  She had been thinking of something earlier and now gave it voice. “I hadn’t realized before that there is a cart track right up to the falls. If Fanny and Tilly were murdered elsewhere, they could easily have been brought here and thrown in.”

  “You are the most extraordinary woman,” he said.

  She looked over at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon? Why do you say that, sir?”

  “You have just been kissed and appear to have enjoyed it immensely, and yet, in another moment, you can calmly speak of murdered young ladies and discuss how and where they were possibly dispatched.”

  “What’s extraordinary about that?”

  “If you don’t know, I must assume you know no other young ladies or that your acquaintance is made up entirely of extraordinary young women.”

  Indignant, she faced him, hands on her hips. “I take exception, my lord, to your taunting. I am not extraordinary. I’m no different than any other young lady.”

  “All right, then,” he said, taking her arm in his steely grip. “You’re quite ordinary. Let us climb.”

  “And another thing, Darkefell, I resent that you presume to say that I enjoyed your kiss immensely. How do you know such a thing?”

  “I know.”

  She stopped talking, then, for she longed to offer him a setdown, but her honesty would not let her lie. She had enjoyed the kiss, thoroughly, deeply. He might persist in viewing her as an extraordinary young woman, but he was without doubt an extraordinary man and exceptionally skilled.

  After a climb, they were at the top of the waterfall, and she saw why it might be an admirable meeting place for lovers. There was another rise, climbing up into humped rolling hills, but set in the steep hillside was a protected overhang. She headed for it, lifting h
er skirts and scaling the steep rocky incline, grateful that she had worn sturdy kid half boots, the soles scuffed from vigorous tramps along the Kent coast, for the moss was extremely slippery.

  She entered the shadowy cavern and stood, staring. “Oh, my goodness! Darkefell, come quickly!”

  Sixteen

  Darkefell climbed up to her, panting from exertion, and stood staring into the mouth of the cave. “Somebody has been living here,” he said, stalking into the cavern.

  She followed. A shabby rug covered the floor, and in the gloomy depths, a half-broken chair listed by the remains of a fire. She shivered, a rush of air from the depths of the cave and the dampness from the waterfall’s mist uniting with the scene to send a chill down her back. She should have kept her cloak on instead of leaving it behind in the trap. “Or at least visiting on occasion. When did you last see this cave?”

  Moodily, he shook his head. “It’s been months. I’ve had no cause to come here.”

  She glanced at his face, remembering their conversation about Fanny Allengate. As imperious as he occasionally seemed, finding the young woman’s body had affected him deeply, she thought, making this spot one of horror. She could commiserate. “Who would do this?”

  “It could be anyone,” he said. “Could even be some of the lads from Hornethwaite.”

  “Really, Darkefell, would village boys dare live on your property like this? That doesn’t seem likely.” She took a few steps and stooped to examine the rug. It was old but had once been of excellent quality. Crouching by the fire, she poked a stick through the ashes then rose, dusting off her hands. She roamed the cavern, her gaze pausing on the rattan garden chair, a pile of blankets, and an old fur robe.

  Fur. She laid it out carefully and examined it. “Darkefell,” she said over her shoulder. “Could you please move? You’re blocking the light from the cave mouth.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady,” he said with exaggerated politeness. He approached and knelt at her side. “What are you looking for?”

  She glanced at him. To tell or not to tell? Information should never be given without some hope of recompense. In this case, that recompense should be in the form of information she knew he was holding back. “If I tell you, you must promise to answer one question from me, honestly and completely.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, my lady,” he said, his dark eyes glittering. “How do I know that what you tell me will be worth the price? And what if I cannot answer your question because of a promise to another or because I don’t know?”

  “Really, Darkefell,” she said, exasperated. “If you don’t know, I won’t hold it against you. And a promise… ” Reluctantly, she sighed and said, “I respect a promise of secrecy. I’m willing to tell you what I’m looking for—and it’s worth knowing, trust me—in exchange for one question. If you can answer with honor, do so.” She looked down. Yes, this was it, she was almost sure.

  “All right.”

  She parted the fur of the robe, isolating the spot she now knew was the one. “The other morning when you and your brother found me at the spot where Cecilia was murdered, remember the gold chain we found?”

  “Of course.”

  “By the way, have you established to whom it belongs?”

  “No. Was that your question?”

  “Of course not,” she chided. “Before you found me, I had just seen something else, and I… well, I hid it from you.”

  “You what?”

  “I know, I have no excuse, except you startled me and—” She broke off.

  “And infuriated you? Yes, I had that sense.”

  “Well, I had found a thick tuft of fur wedged in the crook between a thorn and the branch.”

  “Fur?”

  “Yes, but it was not torn from its origin. It was, as my maid pointed out, cut evenly from a mantle or tippet, she suggested. Or from a fur robe like this.” She moved her body out of the way but still held the spot where the fur of the robe had been evenly snipped, a sizable chunk missing. The color matched exactly; she was sure of it.

  “Somebody planted those items in the thicket where Cecilia was found, then, to further the idea of a wolf attack,” he said.

  “No, not a wolf attack… an attack by something or someone pretending to be a wolf. Wolves do not generally wear gold chains.”

  He nodded his agreement. “But how could they count on them being found? It was dark when you found Cecilia.”

  “But if I had not been walking to Ivy Lodge just then and had not heard her cries, not alerted you, she wouldn’t have been found until morning.”

  “So, whoever had these items, no matter to whom they originally belonged or were meant to point to, must be culpable in Cecilia’s murder.”

  “It stands to reason.” She thought for a long moment. Her legs were getting numb from crouching, so she sat down with a bump on the rug. “Unless we were meant to think that.”

  “I think you’re giving the murdering villain too much credit for deep thinking.” He stood and stretched his legs, walking to the mouth of the cave. He fiddled with his jacket as he walked, tugging it down. “I think we should look at it in a straightforward light,” he added over his shoulder.

  Anne could not speak at the moment. The marquess’s perfect masculine form was outlined in the brilliant mouth of the cave, his figure shadowy, but the broad shoulders tapering to a solid waist and supported by thickly muscled legs all too evident. She was tongue-tied, feeling the flush of unwanted attraction overcome her, intensified by the memory of lips molded to hers in a warm, long kiss.

  “Don’t you think?” he asked, turning back and evidently regarding her, though his face, and so his expression, were shadowed, his back to the light beyond the cave mouth. He stalked back and stood over her. “Anne?”

  His simple utterance of her name, unadorned, confused her. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He must have seen something in her eyes, on her face. He knelt by her and took her hand.

  “Why did you kiss me?” she finally asked, staring at him.

  He was silent for a long moment then said, “I told you the truth before. Because I wanted to.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” She scrambled to her feet.

  He rose, too, and put one hand on her shoulder as she turned away. “My lady,” he said.

  “Yes?” She looked back at him, but it seemed that was all there was to his sentence. “My lady.”

  ***

  He brooded as he drove them away from the waterfall. She had swiftly become businesslike and distant, going back, as she always did, to the problem at hand: Cecilia’s murder. Finding a possible link between the waterfall where Tilly Landers and Fanny Allengate had been found with the murder of the maid, Cecilia Wainwright, had left them both puzzled. She had asked who owned the fur robe, but he honestly did not know.

  They agreed that he would send up two of his trusted men to remove what was in the cave and bring it to the castle without saying a word to anyone else. But now he was haunted by something else entirely. While she was busy with the fur robe, he had found something else, and it chilled him to the bone. He had found the weapon that he suspected killed Cecilia Wainwright.

  “I still have my question to ask,” she said.

  “Yes,” he replied abruptly.

  “But I think I’ll reserve it for another day.”

  “That wasn’t our agreement.”

  “But there were no terms, and so when I ask the question should be immaterial to you.” She glanced around. “We’re going back by a different path,” she said as they trotted over a stone bridge to the other side of a stream.

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he said.

  Unlike any other female he had ever come across in his whole life, she did not ask who it was. She didn’t tease or plague him nor tug at his sleeve. She did not archly conjecture, nor did she pout, she simply waited, satisfied to find out in due time. A most unaccountable fe
male.

  He pulled the pony trap up to a tiny cottage made of local stone and roofed in slate. Hens clucked in the yard, and the first green shoots of vegetables and herbs pushed through the damp earth. A small fence enclosed the yard and was centered by a gate, which Darkefell held open for Lady Anne after helping her down from the trap.

  But even before he guided her up the walk, the door flew open, and a rosy-cheeked girl of about thirteen trotted out, wiping her hands on her blue apron. Anne cast him a questioning glance, but he was enjoying keeping her in suspense.

  “Is your mistress free, Moggie?”

  “Aye, milord,” she said with a curtsey.

  Through the open door, ducking his head, Darkefell guided his captive into a large open room. An old woman sat in a comfortable chair by the fireside, but she was not still. Her hands worked at an incredible rate, knitting a blue blanket. She didn’t look down at her work; in fact, she seemed to look at nothing. She stilled when she heard them, then her wrinkled mouth widened in a smile.

  “Master Anthony!” she cried.

  “Nan,” he said, “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”

  She stilled. “Have you, now? An’ oo would that be?”

  Her voice was strong, still, though she was clearly of advanced age. Anne glanced at Darkefell then back at the woman, noticing her unfocused gaze. The woman was blind or almost completely so. Advancing toward her, she said, “My name is Anne, ma’am.”

  “Lady Anne Addison, Nan,” the marquess said loudly. “She’s visiting John’s wife, Lydia, down at Ivy Lodge. Lady Anne, this is Mrs. Patterson, as she was known among the trembling servants of the castle when I was a child.”

  Anne stepped over to her, crouched, and took the woman’s outstretched hands in her own. They were crooked with arthritis, and the joints were gnarled, but they were still warm and strong. She squeezed Anne’s hands within hers.