Eloisa's Adventure

by King, Rebecca

  “I suspect that there is someone hiding on the estate somewhere, I just don’t know where.” Admitting it galled him somewhat, and he resolved once again to do something to correct that as soon as possible. “Once I find whoever is here, I am going to have them arrested for trespassing. If I can find sufficient evidence, I will have them arrested for the murder of my uncle too.”

  “Did your uncle have any enemies?”

  “Not as far as I am aware,” Simeon growled.

  He hated to admit it, but he didn’t really know his uncle all that well. George hadn’t gotten on very well with Simeon’s father. As a result, it had been difficult for Simeon to maintain a proper relationship with him. He had no idea if his uncle was one of the most respected people in the area, or the most despised.

  “Do you have a title?” she asked cautiously. “I mean, should I call you ‘my lord’, or something?”

  Simeon looked at her and smiled. “I think you should call me Simeon given that is my name. I have a title, but I don’t think it is entirely appropriate to use it right now.”

  “What is it?” she asked curiously.

  She suddenly felt a gulf of difference open up between them. Although she knew his first name, and it was just as ordinary as hers, he had a title, and that was something that set him far apart from her.

  “Lord Pendlebury,” Simeon declared flatly. “You can call me Simeon.”

  By the time she thought of something to say, Simeon had stepped out of the barn but then frowned and turned back to look at her.

  “Do you have a title?” he asked thoughtfully.

  Eloisa slowly shook her head.

  “Come on, let’s get inside,” he muttered. He glared up at the sky and waited until she drew alongside him before he escorted her to the house.

  Eloisa had little choice but to follow him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He opened a side door and stood back to allow her inside first. She stepped tentatively through the door and glanced around the well-worn but tidy kitchen.

  It was cold and unwelcoming.

  She jumped at the quiet click of the door behind her, and turned around in time to watch her host remove his hat. The pristine whiteness of his shirt stood out against the darkness within the dingy confines of the room, but it was his face that captured her attention.

  His forehead was high and wide and led to an angular face with a chiselled jaw and square chin. The dark pools of his eyes were heavily lashed and gave him a look of smouldering sensuality that made her feel warm and tingly inside. His hair was as black as midnight, and longer than was fashionable, but his dark sexuality only emphasised his raw masculine power.

  Eloisa tried to reassure herself that he was her rescuer, and nobody she should worry about. If it wasn’t for him, she would still be stuck out in that storm, or could have arrived here alone. That thought made her close her eyes on a silent prayer of thanks. If there was one thought that unnerved her more than anything else, it was of what she could have had to face if she had arrived here by herself.

  She suddenly wished she hadn’t accepted Mr de Lisle’s offer of going to the ball or taken up dancing lessons in the first place. If she had remained at home where she belonged, she would be beside the fire by now, with Cissy, watching the storm from the warmth and safety of her own home.

  As it was, she was with a tall, dark and extremely attractive stranger, in a house that was just as sinister as he was.

  “Let’s see what we can do about getting some light in here, shall we?” He murmured quietly when she continued to stare at him. As he passed her, he ran a palm through his hair when his body was teased by the delicate scent of lavender she wore.

  She stood back to allow him past and watched him move across the room with the silent grace of a panther. Strength emanated from him so naturally that she was enthralled by how someone so large could move so quietly.

  Simeon bent down in front of the fire and quickly lit the logs. He frowned at the neatly laid timbers before him. He knew he had just found more evidence that someone had been here. The last time he had been at the property he had left the fires to burn out. As far as he was aware, nobody should have been at the house in the three weeks he had been away. When flames roared heartily in the grate, he stood and turned to face the room.

  God, she is stunning, he mused as he eyed the damp ringlets that bumped gently against her pink-tinged cheeks. Even through the gloom, the shimmer of rainwater on her shoulders held him captivated. He suddenly had a strong yearning to light the room, and quickly, so that he could see more of her. The desperate need to take some air while his body cooled pushed him out of the door.

  “Go and sit by the fire where it is warm, then you can take that cloak off. It must be soaked, and will give you a chill if you keep it on,” he suggested. “I am going to fetch some water from the well. I won’t be a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “All right,” she murmured reluctantly. She opened her mouth to ask him where she could go, but he didn’t give her the chance to speak. He disappeared into the storm before she could even get across the room. Rather than sit in one of the chairs beside the hearth, she hurried to the window, but it was too dark to see anything outside. The only thing she could see was her reflection in the window.

  She stared at the reflection of her dress in disgust and looked down at her soiled skirt. It was only when she looked up again that she became aware she was no longer alone. A scream locked in her throat when, in the reflection of the window, a second figure appeared on the opposite side of the room. She spun around with a gasp of alarm. Her heart pounded in her throat but, to her consternation, all she found was an empty room. She scoured every nook and cranny, and even looked under the table, but found no trace of anyone else. Had she just imagined it? Or had she just seen Simeon outside the window, and mistook him for a reflection of someone in the room?

  Get a hold of yourself Eloisa, she sighed. She closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down.

  It was only when Simeon re-appeared that she remembered he had a white shirt on. It was easily recognisable from across the width of the room. The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when she realised the figure she had seen behind her had been wearing black.

  “All right?” he asked as he closed the door behind him and slid the bolt across.

  Eloisa opened her mouth to speak. What could she say? No, she most certainly wasn’t alright? I thought I saw someone? If she told him that, and he asked her for further details, she couldn’t tell him anything. Now that she came to think about it a little more, the figure hadn’t had a face. There had been just an outline of a person dressed in black. If what she had seen had been a real person, the paleness of their face against the darkness of the night would have been visible – wouldn’t it?

  “Are you alright, Eloisa?” he prompted as he stalked across the kitchen and placed the pale on the table with a dull thud.

  The sound of her name on his lips snapped her out of her daze.

  “Yes, fine,” Eloisa assured him jerkily. “I was just looking at the storm outside.”

  Simeon bit back a snort of disbelief. He knew she had just lied to him. Had she been worried about being alone in the house after what he had said about the place? Had she been trying to see him, to reassure herself that he hadn’t gone too far away from her, and frightened herself somehow?

  That thought worried him. The last thing he wanted, or needed, right now was a clinging female to contend with. Not even a beautiful one like Eloisa. There were more than enough problems in his life at the moment. He didn’t need to complicateHe matters by being far too interested in a woman who was intent on following him everywhere. She deserved his hospitality and respectful consideration until the moment she left his house, and could resume her own life. All he had to do was keep his hands off her.

  With that thought firmly locked in his mind, he put a pot of water on to boil. When he turned toward her to suggest that he show her
which room was hers, his words vanished in an instant. It was then that he realised she was considerably more than his guest.

  Their eyes met across the table, and held for several moments longer than necessary. Eloisa felt a flurry of something warm and strangely exciting settle deep in the pit of her stomach. She struggled not to squirm beneath his intent stare, and wondered what on earth he was looking at.

  She knew she must look a fright but really, what was he staring at? It was a struggle not to poke self-consciously at her hair while she waited for him to speak. When she couldn’t stand the silence a moment longer, she tipped her chin up defiantly.

  “Would you like a hand with anything?” she asked in a desperate attempt to get him to look at something else.

  Simeon was so captivated by the way her dress shimmered around her whenever she moved that he missed what she said. He tried to wrack his brains to remember what it was, but had no idea.

  “Pardon?”

  “I asked if you would like a hand with anything,” she prompted.

  “For now, we need to remain in here. Damn,” he muttered, when he realised he had left his saddle bag on the stable door. “I need to go out to the barn. I won’t be a moment.”

  “What for?” Eloisa said without thinking. It was rather rude of her to be so bold as to ask the man his business, but the last thing she wanted was to be left alone in this house again.

  Simeon’s brows lifted. A part of him was annoyed that she had the audacity to ask, but another part of him fully understood her reluctance to be left by herself. After all, she was in a strange house in the middle of nowhere. He had been the one to give her a warning that it wasn’t safe. He only had himself to blame now she wanted to cling to him.

  “As far as I am aware this house isn’t likely to be stocked with anything we could eat, so I brought a meagre supply of food with me. It’s in my saddlebag.” He didn’t add that he had been too distracted thinking about her earlier, to remember the blasted thing.

  “Which is in the stable,” she finished for him, and almost groaned when he nodded.

  Eloisa turned to glare balefully at the cloak. It was soaked. The last thing she wanted was to put it on again because she was cold enough already. If she went outside in the pouring rain without it though, her dress would become even wetter than it already was. What choice did she have?

  “Why don’t we look in the cupboards? There must be something,” she said with an air of desperation.

  “Fine,” he sighed but suspected that they weren’t going to find anything. “You search that side, I will search this.”

  “How do we see?”

  Simeon sighed again and nodded toward the box on the mantle. “There are some beeswax candles in there. The spills are in the pot.”

  Eloisa stared at his back and wondered if he was being obtuse for a reason. It irked her to think that he considered her a useless female. She knew what spills were because she used them every day of her life at home. After throwing a dirty look at his back, she turned around and lit several candles. Once she had placed them at various points around the room, and it was sufficiently lit for them to see what they were doing, they began to search the cupboards.

  “Simeon,” she said quietly when she opened the door to the pantry.

  One look inside made her stomach churn. She jumped when he moved to stand behind her because she hadn’t even heard him move. As she turned to face the room again, she lifted her candlestick so he could see what she had found.

  “From the smell, they are fresh,” she whispered. She took a tentative step into the room, and poked at the two loaves of bread that sat on the small table on the back wall.

  Sure enough, they were fresh, as was the ham, freshly cooked beef, and cheese. She eyed the basket of fruit and vegetables at the end of the table and picked up a fresh apple.

  Simeon walked toward the door at the far end of the room and rattled the latch.

  “Where does that go?” she asked curiously.

  “It’s the door to the wine cellar,” he replied. He picked up the half-drunk bottle of wine from the table beside him. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t heavily dusted as he would expect it to be if it had sat in the cellars for several months. It hadn’t been in the pantry for any length of time either. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, this had been opened recently. He turned to study the rest of the shelves.

  “Either the housekeeper is still coming here and keeping house, or someone is using this place as a refuge,” Eloisa said, and tried valiantly to ignore the loud rumble of her stomach.

  Simeon studied the table in the middle of the pantry, and the rows of carefully made preserves. He knew that the last time he had been here the shelves had been full. His uncle’s housekeeper had made new batches of quince jelly and strawberry jam just days before George’s death. As a result, the shelves had been heavily laden. Now though, there were gaps where there should have been jars.

  Someone had been helping themselves.

  He turned to look at Eloisa, only for the quiet click of the door behind her to halt his words. A dark scowl marred his brow as he noticed the door had closed all by itself. He raced past her and yanked on the latch only to stare at it in disbelief when it refused to open.

  “Give me a hand,” he snapped. He thrust his candle at her and used both hands to try to yank the door open. It didn’t budge.

  Eloisa lifted the candles so they could both see the latch. She frowned when a gentle breeze wafted over her ankles. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she lifted one hand to study the door that Simeon had told her led to the wine cellar.

  “Simeon,” she whispered.

  “What?” he turned to look at her and followed her gaze to the door.

  A flurry of awareness swept through her when she touched his arm, but she forced it aside as she dragged him to stand where she was. “Do you feel it?”

  “What?” he frowned at the floor while he tried to focus on what she was talking about.

  “There is a cold breeze coming from the door.”

  “It’s the cellars. It will be cold,” Simeon explained reasonably. It was a struggle to keep hold of his patience. He was trying to get them out of there and she was bothered about cold spots in the room.

  Eloisa glared at him for a moment but he was too busy wrestling with the door to notice. She cautiously made her way over to the cellar door. She felt as though some unseen force was telling her that it was the only way out. She frowned and wondered if it was a flight of fancy to even contemplate going in there, but Simeon wasn’t able to get the main door open, and there really was no other way out.

  She pulled the door open and, once again, felt a gentle breeze tickle her cheeks. From the safety of the doorway, she lifted her candle and peered into the gloom. A small flight of stairs disappeared down into inky blackness. She glared at the impenetrable gloom and felt a shiver of foreboding sweep through her.

  “Jesus, we are stuck,” Simeon growled in disgust. He glared at her as though it was her fault. “There must be something here, a hook or something that I can use to get the door open. Help me look for something that might help, will you?”

  Eloisa looked back at the stairwell for a moment before she reluctantly moved back into the pantry and helped him search. In some ways it was a relief to be able to close the door while in others, it was worrying to know they were trapped.

  Simeon shook his head in disgust and stared at the door when, ten minutes later, they both came up empty handed.

  “Why lock us in here?” Eloisa whispered.

  “Because they want to confine us,” Simeon snapped. “How should I know?”

  He sighed deeply when a small voice warned him that he really was being unfair on her. After all, it wasn’t her fault they were in this situation. He gave her a somewhat conciliatory look and thought about her question. “It is the only room in the house with a lock on the outside,” he mused.

  “It’s a pretty stupid thing to do, isn’t it?” El
oisa replied carefully. She turned to look pointedly at the fresh food sitting on the pantry. “I mean, what are they going to eat?”

  Before he could say anything, she tore off a chunk of bread and pushed it into the fresh pat of butter beside it. She handed it to him before she repeated the process, and began to eat.

  “Wine?” she asked somewhat ruefully. She didn’t give him the chance to reply before she handed him one of the bottles that were already open.

  Bemused, he took it off her and watched her pick up the second bottle. She sniffed that too before she took a sip.

  “It’s nice,” she declared with an approving nod. She bit into the bread again and turned to look at him when he moved to stand beside her.

  “Heavens above, Eloisa,” Simeon smiled. It was like some bizarre tea party where she was serving and he was the guest.

  “It’s a pity they didn’t leave any seats,” she mused. “We may get chilly, but at least we won’t starve.”

  Once she had finished her bread, she picked two apples out of the basket, handed him one and began to eat her own while she thought about their situation.

  “Now, we have the food. Unless they have some more food stashed away somewhere, they are going to go hungry really quickly.”

  He chewed thoughtfully on his succulent apple and nodded. “They are going to come back for something to eat.”

  “I think that there must be another way out of here,” Eloisa mused. She hated the thought of anyone coming back for the food, and the resultant confrontation with the dark shadow she had seen earlier. “Didn’t you say that there were some secret passageways around this house, only you have never found them?”

  “Well, yes, but we are not going to look for them now,” Simeon declared flatly.

  If he was honest, he was impressed by just how well she was handling their situation, and definitely approved of her calm logic in times of crisis. He was starting to feel a little easier now about having her in the house. At least she wasn’t cowering, whimpering, and demanding he take her home in the middle of the storm.