As quietly as she could she carefully fetched them and moved to stand with her back against the wall. As she waited, she listened to the haunting wail of the wind outside. She curled her arms around her waist protectively and remained perfectly still. Silence settled over her, but it wasn’t a reassuring peace. As the minutes ticked by, the air shifted and turned into an insidious blackness that threatened to suffocate her.
Please come back, please come back, please come back, she chanted silently as she strained to her any sound from the floor above. Unfortunately, she couldn’t hear a blessed thing apart from her own heartbeat, and she wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or not.
Suddenly, the flurry of movement beside her captured her attention. Everything within her froze. She immediately melted back against the wall and tried to make herself as invisible as possible. Her breath lodged in her throat as she stared in horror at the silent figure that appeared out of the blackness and moved steadily toward her. As stealthily as a ghost, it glided toward her on feet that were as silent as Simeon’s, but she knew it wasn’t him.
The closer the figure got, the more she became aware of the fact that this man was shorter than Simeon. To her utter horror, she heard the familiar thud of Simeon’s boots approach from the opposite direction. Her gaze remained locked on the man who was creeping past her while her mind raced frantically.
What should she do? Should she call out to Simeon to warn him? If she did that the man, who was only an arm’s length away, would know exactly where to find her. She couldn’t run the risk that he wasn’t armed and dangerous. That being the case, she couldn’t remain silent and allow Simeon to walk straight into his intruder. She glanced about her but the only thing she had to hand was a vase on a table that sat several feet away, and the baskets at her feet.
She slowly and silently picked one of the baskets up and watched the intruder hesitate at the top of the stairs. When lightning flashed across the sky outside, the huge stain glass window lit up and cast the hallway in shadow. Eloisa briefly got an impression of a slightly hooked nose, and a dark sweep of bushy grey beard turning toward her before the world went black once more.
Rendered practically blind by the darkness that fell over them, she lifted the basket in one wild swing and flung it in the direction of the man’s back.
Simeon appeared in the hallway just in time to watch the intruder struggle for balance at the top of the stairs before he disappeared into the gloom. Several heavy thumps and grunts warned him that the man had hit the stairs hard on the way down. Simeon paid little attention though. He was focused on the woman who stared at him with wide, terrified eyes instead.
“That was him,” she whispered tearfully. Guilt lay heavily on her shoulders at the thought that she might have hurt the intruder. Thankfully, after a few moments of fraught silence, the rapid clip of boots on the tiles on the floor below broke the silence. She immediately heaved a sigh of relief that. They both watched the man’s shadow race across the chequered floor and disappear toward the back of the house.
“He wasn’t hurt,” she gasped.
“You should have hit him harder,” Simeon growled.
“Are you not going after him?” she asked when he made no attempt to charge down the stairs after their quarry.
Simeon gave her a somewhat rueful look. “I don’t think he will want to challenge us tonight. Not after falling down there. If he is stupid enough to run around this place after dark, he can do it by himself. I damned well nearly fell down the stairs back there myself. I am not going to chase after him on a fool’s errand. Besides, if he goes into the secret passageways, he will vanish in an instant.”
He didn’t add that he couldn’t stand the thought of being locked in one of the rooms while Eloisa was alone in the house. He had to be free to protect her. If anything did happen to him, she would be at the intruder’s mercy until she could run for help and, given the ferocity of the storm outside, God only knew when that would be.
The sudden slam of a door downstairs made them both jump.
“He is leaving,” she gasped
She hurried after Simeon, who raced across the upper hallway and charged into one of the rooms that overlooked the yard. By the time she reached him, his curses blistered the air. She peered around him to see what had made him so angry, only to hear the rapid clip of his horse’s hooves fade into the distance.
“He has stolen my horse,” Simeon growled. “Damn that bastard. He has stolen my bloody horse.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” Eloisa demanded.
“No, he is heavily disguised,” Simeon snorted in disgust.
“At least he isn’t in the house any more. We can secure it now.”
He looked at her and shook his head in disgust. “It is five miles to the nearest village at the very least and he -” he pointed one long finger at the window, “- has just stolen our only way out of here.”
“Well, we will just have to walk then, won’t we?” Eloisa challenged.
“Yes, but what if he comes back meantime? What then? What if something happens to one of us? Walking five miles to the bloody village is going to take far too long for help to come quickly.” He saw fear appear on her face the more he spoke and struggled to control his temper so he didn’t scare her unduly. It was unfair of him to worry her in such a way but she clearly had no idea of how dire their situation had become. Without a way out of there, they had to walk through the woods – out in the open – with nothing but trees to shelter in; trees that their intruder could also hide in. They could be hunted down like foxes and nobody would be any the wiser unless a hunter found their bodies in the spring.
He wasn’t sure now whether it would be safer to stay where they were until someone came to look for them, or better to get out of the house now, while their intrude was also running. The sudden increase in ferocity of the rain that pelted the window made that decision for him.
I hope the bastard drowns out there, Simeon thought in disgust.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Eloisa asked when he neither moved nor spoke.
“We have to secure the house. Lock everywhere up. Check that all the windows are locked and he can’t get back in. He is going to have to break in if he wants to take shelter here. Then we can wait until morning and leave at first light. This storm should have gone by then. We will have to walk into town though, so get plenty of rest.” He eyed her dress somewhat doubtfully but didn’t say anything. He could tackle that little problem when the need arose. “For now, let’s go and find the Dowager’s room.”
Rather than follow him though, Eloisa remained where she was.
When he reached the door and realised that she wasn’t following him, he turned to look at her. “What’s wrong?”
“You chased the man upstairs,” Eloisa declared quietly.
“Yes, there is a third floor, but it is dustier than this floor. The Dowager’s old rooms are at the other end of this corridor.”
Eloisa nodded. “There is another flight of stairs?”
“Yes, the old servants’ stairs. I used them when I chased him,” Simeon replied. “Why?”
Eloisa walked slowly toward him. Even standing next to him made her feel infinitely safer. “Because when you chased him upstairs, he came back,” she nodded in the direction of the Dowager’s rooms. “He came from that direction.”
Simeon frowned at her. “He didn’t come down the main stairs? I thought he must have doubled back on me.”
Eloisa shook her head. “He came from down there. Now, I am not squeamish, you understand, but I think that the hidden corridor, or stairs, or whatever, must be down that way somewhere. I just have no intention of sleeping alongside it.” She glanced at the room behind her. “This will be fine for me.”
Simeon’s mind raced with possibilities and, not for the first time that evening, he cursed the fact that there was very little light within the house.
“If I need to leave in a hurry, I can either use the main
stairs, or the servants’ stairs, which I presume will take me back down to the kitchens?” She lifted her brows and watched him nod. “Then I would prefer to stay here.”
Simeon opened his mouth to argue, but couldn’t really fault her logic. “I will take the room directly opposite then, but will leave the door open. If anything happens, anything at all Eloisa, just scream.”
“I hope he has gone for good,” Eloisa replied with a shiver.
“I am sure he has, darling,” Simeon murmured soothingly, although rather doubted it. “I am going to secure the house though, so will take this candle and leave that one with you. Keep the baskets in here with you and lock the door.”
While he spoke, Eloisa began to knock on the walls.
“What are you doing?”
“Searching for empty spaces,” she replied reasonably. “A secret passageway would make the wall sound hollow, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but -” Simeon frowned as he studied her. Rather than argue though, he started to knock on the walls and slowly began to make his way around the other half of the room.
Neither of them had found anything untoward by the time they met beside the windows.
“It’s safe,” she declared with no small measure of relief.
“Just keep your door locked, and don’t open it until I knock three times,” Simeon ordered. He turned to make his way toward the door only to stop and look back at her. He read the unspoken question in her eyes. Before she could say anything, he nodded and stalked out of the room.
She reached the doorway in time to see him pick up the fruit that had fallen out of the basket she had thrown at the intruder earlier. Once the hallway was clear of debris, she accepted the basket off him with a nod.
“I will wait while you lock the door.”
“You shouldn’t go by yourself. If he is still down there, anything could happen to you and I wouldn’t know about it,” Eloisa said quietly.
She didn’t relish having to walk around this house any more than she absolutely had to, but hated the thought of Simeon lying injured somewhere while she was blissfully tucked up in bed, completely unaware of his downfall. She just couldn’t bring herself to be that selfish.
“I will come with you and carry the candles. You can lock the doors and shutters and close the curtains. Then we can both get some sleep,” she declared firmly.
“Are you always this argumentative?” he asked as he followed her to the top of the stairs. He had to admit that it would ease his mind a lot if he had her beside him, but wasn’t going to tell her that.
“It’s not being argumentative,” Eloisa challenged piously. “I am just being logical, that’s all.”
“Fair enough,” Simeon grunted. “We will start at the back door and then work our way up. It’s going to take a while to go through each room. We just need to make sure that the downstairs windows are locked and there is no way inside. Upstairs isn’t so much of an issue given there is no way to get up to the second floor from the outside.”
“There are no steps outside?” Eloisa watched Simeon shake his head. “What about the towers? Don’t they lead up to the second and third floors?”
“Well, yes, but there is only one window to get through and that is nothing more than a narrow slit. You couldn’t get through it so I really doubt that he could. There is no door on the ground floor of the towers to secure. Come on. Let’s get this done and then we can get some sleep.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
In the study, Eloisa stood beside the door and watched Simeon go through the same process he had carried out in each of the rooms they had been through. Upon entering, he scoured the room carefully, checked behind and underneath all the furniture and then they knocked on the walls. Before they left they locked the windows then closed the shutters and curtains.
An hour later, they reached the last room on the ground floor. So far, they had found nothing untoward, but that circumstance swiftly changed.
“Sit down for a minute, Eloisa, I just want to check the contents of this desk while we are alone,” he murmured. Before she could answer he took a seat behind the desk and began to rifle through the papers in what appeared to be the study.
Eloisa moved to the fireplace, and held her candle aloft.
“Is this your uncle?” she asked as she eyed the rather dapper man in the huge portrait that hung over the fireplace.
Apart from the eyes, the shorter framed man appeared to have fair hair, whereas Simeon’s was dark. There was something about the eyes of the man in the portrait that suggested that he had experienced his fair share of worries in life, and was wiser because of it. She suspected that in life, he had a benevolent wisdom about him that could be a threat to his enemies, and a comfort to those he cared about. She quiet liked him.
“That’s Uncle George. He was a nice old fellow when he was here, I think.”
She turned to look at him. “But your father didn’t get on with him?” She saw rather than heard him sigh. “I am sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”
“It’s not that,” Simeon replied darkly. “It is just that someone has been through this desk. The papers I put in this top drawer all related to finance. They are now all jumbled up in the bottom drawer.”
“Someone has rifled through them.” Eloisa frowned and moved closer to the desk, but she didn’t expect him to answer. “Has anything been taken?”
“It looks like our intruder is, or was, looking for something in particular,” Simeon growled.
“Like what? If it is your financial papers, surely he would have taken them with him, wouldn’t he?”
“If he wanted to steal something or investigate the family’s wealth? Yes, most probably. These have been rifled through in such a way that it looks like our intruder was after something in particular.”
With that, Simeon pulled out several drawers on the other side of the desk and began to rifle through the papers inside. He tried to remember if he had left any financial papers behind but was certain he had taken everything of interest three weeks ago.
He was about to close the drawer when a seal on a parchment located at the back of the top drawer captured his attention. He picked it up and studied the writing but didn’t recognise it as being George’s.
Eloisa tried to peer over the top of it. It was incredibly rude of her to pry, but she was intrigued and, as far as she was concerned, Simeon’s problems involved her now that she was alone in the house with her host.
“What is it?” she asked when the lack of lighting within the room prevented her from reading the spidery scrawl. Thankfully, Simeon was willing to indulge her curiosity and handed her the parchment before he turned his attention toward looking through the rest of the papers.
“Oh dear, I am sorry,” she whispered as she read the carefully penned letter. It was from a captain in the army, notifying George Calversham of the death of his son, Renwick Calversham, who died in a field hospital several days after receiving a gunshot wound to his head.
“Renwick was my cousin. He was about the same age as me, but was a pompous arse, if you ask me,” Simeon growled. He threw her an apologetic look. “I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he was a wastrel as a young man. My uncle threatened to cut him off entirely if Renwick didn’t sort himself out and find something useful to do with his time. When Renwick ignored him, George purchased a commission for him, and waited until Renwick was in his cups, as he was regularly inclined to be. George had his staff deliver Renwick to the army base while drunk. Apparently, Renwick woke up to find the drill sergeant screaming at him, but it was too late to leave. Several months after that, we heard that Renwick had been sent abroad and had died in battle. It seemed that he was as useless in the army as he was in anything else he turned his attention to,” he snorted.
Eloisa stared at him and quietly put the parchment back onto the desk. “Were you in the army?”
Simeon looked up at her. “Yes, but I wasn’t a wastrel. I just wanted to see a bit of the world.
I served abroad, but got sent home when I was injured and unable to fight again.”
“I am sorry,” she replied gently. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask where he had been shot, and when, but didn’t want to unearth painful memories for him, and so remained quiet.
“It’s in the past now. Thankfully, I had my family estate to return to. After a good period of rehabilitation, I was able to help my father run the estates. I recently purchased one of my own in Cumbria. Unfortunately, Uncle George then passed away and, being the sole heir to his estate, I found myself lumbered with this place.” He looked up at her again, this time a little ruefully. “The rest, as they say, is history.”
Eloisa sighed and shook her head. She couldn’t imagine owning a house at all; even a modest one like the rectory. He seemed to come from an entirely different world to the one she was used to, and that alone was more than enough of a warning that she must not get too attracted to him.
Not too attracted, meaning you are already attracted to him. You would be a nincompoop to fall in love with him, a small voice warned her.
She gave herself a stern mental shake and assured herself that this was not love. The tender feelings she had toward Simeon were more along the lines of puppy love; a first crush. It was important to remember that this tall, handsome, debonair stranger was in her life only briefly. As soon as the storm cleared, they would part ways and never see each other again.
Strangely, that thought left her feeling more than a little sad, and troubled her more than the thought of the intruder returning. She wandered aimlessly around the room while she waited for him to finish searching the contents of the drawers. Lost in musings of the heart, she turned around to look at him when his curse broke the silence.
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