The Lost Heiress

by Roseanna M. White

  After gathering the necessary underthings, she turned the light back off and blinked against the darkness of the bedchamber as she stepped into it. She went stiff when she heard shifting on the bed.

  By now, she knew the sounds. The muttering in French, the thrashing of limbs. The non, non, non. Another nightmare. For a moment, she strained forward. Little Molly’d had the worst nightmares after Da died. Deirdre had always pulled her close, smoothed her hair, whispered until her sister woke up and stopped her trembling. She could still see the fear in the wee one’s big brown eyes. The same fear she had glimpsed in the baroness’s one morning when she sat bolt upright after such thrashing.

  But what could her ladyship have to haunt her? What had she lost to throw her into such turmoil? Nothing. All she had done was gain, gain, gain.

  Deirdre spun for the fireplace. The wood had already been set, and the scullery maid would be in soon to light it, but not soon enough. She would have to do it herself, or else when the lady snapped awake in a few minutes, she would be a-shiver. Have to pull her blankets close. Chafe her hands together. Silent condemnation of Deirdre’s inability to see to her needs.

  Francis said Lords Abingdon and Thate had all but told her ladyship to find another lady’s maid. No doubt she was waiting for an excuse to do so, and heaven help her if Deirdre would provide her with one. She already had the journal hanging over her head, though her ladyship seemed to think the Frenchwoman had misplaced it, praise be to the Lord. Still, she would ask Lord Pratt about it if she could find him alone. He had surely had time enough to translate it by now.

  The first flames chased away the sulfur’s bite when a scratching came at the door. Satisfied that the tinder would catch, she rose and opened it.

  Beatrix stood wide-eyed in the hall. “I don’t know what I’m to do, DeeDee!”

  “Shh.” Glancing over her shoulder to make sure the lady still slept, Deirdre stepped into the hall and eased the door closed. “What is it?”

  Beatrix wrung her hands. “I was taking out the pots in the ladies’ wing and went into Lady Catherine’s room, but she wasn’t alone. There was a man in her bed! Lord Whitby would—”

  “Shh.” Deirdre held up a hand this time to illustrate her point and leaned over. “Hush, Bea. It’s a house party, what do you think happens?”

  The younger girl’s mouth fell open. “Well, not that. His lordship would be aghast—I know he would. And Lady Ramsey—”

  “Lady Ramsey knows the ways of the world, and so long as it isn’t her daughters disgracing themselves, she is happy to turn a blind eye.”

  Beatrix didn’t look relieved. “But his lordship … You remember when he dismissed Bridey last year for getting caught with a village boy in the stables. He’s no tolerance for such things under his roof, he said. And if not from us, then surely not from a lady.”

  “Beatrix, listen.” She gripped her friend’s arm and steered her back toward the exit from the family hall. “We’re not going to tell his lordship. We’re going to mind our own and bite our tongues and not say a word. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “It isn’t our business. And if you told Lord Whitby and he confronted her, she would only say you were lying and try to get you sacked. It isn’t worth it. She’ll be gone when the week is.”

  At last, capitulation filled Beatrix’s eyes. Her friend nodded.

  Deirdre did too, and released her. “Now back to your duties and I to mine.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, Dee.”

  “No matter.” She produced a smile and made a shooing motion that had always sent her siblings on their way. “Off with you now.”

  Once Beatrix had scurried along, Deirdre turned back to the baroness’s door and slid inside.

  “Is everything all right? I thought I heard voices.” Her ladyship’s voice was thick with accent, as usual when she first awoke. Sometimes her first words weren’t even English, and she didn’t seem to realize it until Deirdre blinked at her.

  Now she smiled as warmly as she could manage. “Only Beatrix with a question, my lady. Let me get your wrapper, and then I’ll fetch a cup of that coffee you like.”

  It didn’t produce the enthusiasm she had expected. Her ladyship pulled the blankets higher. Her thank-you was low and soft and mournful. She reached up and wiped at her cheek.

  Deirdre pulled the belted dressing gown from the chair and set it on the bed. The lady had closed her eyes again, but the fire’s light caught on the moisture in her lashes.

  Hesitating, Deirdre almost reached out. But there was no use in that. So she slipped from the room again and hurried to the kitchen.

  Monsieur Bisset was in full steam, like a locomotive charging through the room, barking orders at the under cooks and assistants. Deirdre avoided whomever she could, sneaking a cup of the dark coffee and making her escape. Soon, the dumbwaiter would be coming up and down with platters of food bound for the breakfast room. The gentlemen would stir within the next hour, the ladies an hour after that.

  There would be dressing for breakfast, dressing for the hunt, dressing for tea, dressing for games out of doors, dressing for dinner. She, along with the other lady’s maids and valets, would be brushing this garment, pressing that, cleaning shoes and more shoes and the next pair too when they came in muddy. The guests would laugh and gossip and flirt and relax.

  The staff would hustle and bustle and pray for the week to come to a quick end.

  Thank heavens his lordship didn’t make a habit of this sort of thing. She moved cautiously through the halls, careful not to spill a drop of the scalding liquid. When she finally gained the baroness’s room again, she found her in the window seat, her wrapper on and a blanket around her. The girl stared out the window into the thick fog.

  “Here we are, my lady.” Perhaps the bright note felt false, but with any luck it wouldn’t sound it. She held out the cup.

  Lady Berkeley took it with a smile every bit as feigned. “Thank you. Would you be so good as to hand me my Bible?”

  “Of course.” It sat on the bedside table, as always. The gold-embossed letters read LA BIBLE: ANCIENT ET NOUVEAU TESTAMENT. She picked it up, handed it over. And said, for a reason she could scarcely fathom, “It looks old.”

  The lady ran her fingers over the creased leather. “Justin gave it to me when I was ten—when Maman died. I understood so little of it then, but I made myself read, because he said it was important. So I read and grew and understood and believed and now … now these pages hold memories along with truth.” Yet rather than open it, she set it on her knees and held the hot cup in both hands. Rested her head against the wall behind her. “Was it hard when you came here, O’Malley? From Ireland?”

  Her hands itched for a task. Her feet strained for the door. But she held her place. “It was a blessing—I daresay one I wouldn’t have received had I not had my uncle’s recommendation. I send my earnings home to my family, and I know it eases them to have it. It’s been hard for Mum since my da died, with the farm mortgaged as it was.”

  She hadn’t meant to say so much, had only wanted to sound grateful. She cleared her throat. “Do you miss Monaco?”

  Lady Berkeley sighed and sipped at her coffee. “My grandfather. And the weather.” A smile winked out, disappeared. “But I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. I was not a Grimaldi, not by blood. And there was so much unrest—the people revolted in the spring, demanding a constitution. Even as Grand-père placated them, I kept wondering if I was more like them than him—if I belonged on the streets, protesting with the crowds, or if living behind the palace walls was my place. I wanted to know who I was. So I asked Justin to help me find out, and …”

  “And here you are. Home.” How nice it must be, to go on a search for answers and find all this.

  Life didn’t turn out so fine for most of them.

  “O’Malley.” The baroness shifted, set the Bible on the seat beside her, and met Deirdre’s gaze. “Please don’t pretend. Your position is
safe, I assure you. You needn’t put on this front.”

  Deirdre’s back went stiff. “Sure and I don’t know what you mean, my lady.”

  “I know you don’t like me—and you don’t have to. I’m not … I’m not what you all want your baroness to be. That is mine to accept.” She set the cup on its saucer, the saucer on the Bible. “But duplicity I will not.”

  Deirdre knew not what to say to that, what she was meant to do. Any response she could make may well explode in her face. So she stood there, held the baroness’s gaze until it felt disrespectful, and then lowered hers to the floor. “Do you wish to dress yet?”

  The lady stood, folded the blanket and put it back on the foot of the bed, and moved behind the screen. Deirdre handed her the shift and bloomers, the corset. Then came the dress. Her ladyship slipped it on and then stepped out, back to Deirdre, hair held up out of the way.

  She made quick work of the row of the buttons, and of putting up her ladyship’s hair a minute later while she sipped her coffee. Then the baroness crossed back to her window, her Bible, and dismissed Deirdre with a few quiet words.

  The feeling of freedom she usually felt at the “That is all” didn’t come as she stepped into the hall. She felt only the certainty that she should have woken the lady from her nightmare.

  Maybe the morning would have gone differently if she had.

  She paused at the break in the paneling that would open to the service staircase. And what would Mum say if she saw her now? Or Da, who had always called her his sunshine? She didn’t feel so sunny anymore, hadn’t since his death. But he would be pained to know it. He would be disappointed in seeing the resentment always a-boil inside her.

  Clouds came, he had always said. Sometimes they brought rain to nourish, sometimes hail to destroy. Some years were fat, others lean.

  She closed her eyes, heard his voice in her heart, so deep and sure, even as the fever consumed him. “Crops fail, DeeDee. People die. The bad comes, to one and all. What matters … sure and it’s what we do with it. That’s what makes a man strong or weak, good or bad. Not the outside—the in.”

  The in. She pressed a hand to her ribs, where her heart beat a painful accusation. Aye, he would be disappointed in what she’d done with it. He’d look at the baroness and see a girl too long lost, not a pampered princess undeserving of all she’d been given. He’d see a hurting soul, not a pretender. But he wouldn’t have made a fuss about it. He just would’ve said to Mum, “Bake an extra pie, Bonny-my-bonny. We’ve a neighbor who needs the smile.”

  She straightened her shoulders and pivoted on her heel, knowing what peace offering she could give. A dash down the main stairs, a turn toward the library.

  A book. It couldn’t make them friends, but they needn’t be at odds.

  Stepping into the library, she moved to the right, where his lordship kept the novels. The young ladies had been talking last night about Jane Eyre, and the baroness had confessed she had never read it. Lady Melissa said Lord Whitby had a copy in his collection, though, and Lady Berkeley’s eyes had danced. Deirdre would find it, deliver it to her room.

  The door clicked shut, and a hum as slick as darkness thrummed through the room. “Well, well. You have a taste for literature too? You are a woman of endless allure, Deirdre O’Malley.”

  Though she wanted to jump, to spin, to face the devil so she could read his intent, she restrained herself. Continuing to the shelf, she took a deep breath to ensure her voice came out calm and even. “Good morning, Lord Pratt. I was unaware you passed much time with books.”

  How could a laugh, quiet and short, sound so very menacing? “No. But the room I find intriguing. Has it always been Whitby’s favorite spot in the house, do you think?”

  His voice stayed on the other side of the chamber, muffled as if he spoke toward the opposite shelves rather than her. Good. Whatever his intent, perhaps she could go about her business without ramming into it. “I should think so.” Her eyes perused the titles, alphabetized by author. The D section was before her. She needed the Bs. To the side? No—drat. She craned her neck upward, to the row of shelves well above her head. “I’m glad you found me. I need the journal back, my lord. Her ladyship has turned her room upside down looking for it. She thinks it lost.”

  “Let her think it so, lost in travel. I’m not finished with it.”

  Was his French as bad as all that? “Could you make out none of it? Whether it supports the claim she’s his or not?”

  “She’s his daughter.” His satisfied hum made her feel sick. “I hear she spends much time in here too.”

  Deirdre shot a look over her shoulder at him. He stood with his gaze on a row of matching tomes. Should she press the point of the journal? Much as the thought of leaving it with him made panic nip, he wouldn’t budge. She strode to the wheeled ladder and pulled it to the proper shelf. “Not this time of day, if that is your hope. My lord.”

  “Not at all.” He picked up a decorative book end, flipped it in his hands, put it back. “I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot with her when we first met. But you are with her most of the day—tell me, what does she want in a man?”

  Deirdre climbed up the first few rungs, her eyes scanning for Brontë. “She’s mum about such things, my lord, even with her cousins. But I can tell you she reads academic texts as often as novels, in assorted languages. I’ve heard them discussing scientific papers a time or two, even.”

  No Brontë—neither Charlotte nor Emily nor Anne. She pursed her lips. They had all begun with pen names, hadn’t they? His lordship must have early editions. Bell—that was it. She climbed up farther.

  The ladder shook beneath her. Gasping, she gripped the sides.

  “I am not interested in her reading material, my lovely. Tell me something useful.”

  She glanced down only once at his stormy black eyes. “It is useful. She takes great interest in such things. And faith, she is all the time talking of her faith.”

  He hissed out a breath and grabbed her right ankle. “You expect me to discuss religion with her?”

  The more he pulled on her leg, the tighter her throat went, so that she could barely croak out, “Horses. Automobiles. She wants to learn to drive.”

  Her foot slipped off the rung. He chuckled and set it back on. “Better. And?”

  And his fingers went terrifyingly gentle on her ankle. She pulled it away under the guise of going up one more rung. “That is what she speaks of. Horses, cars, books.”

  “How very dull she would be, were it not for that alluring face, figure, and fortune.”

  Deirdre spotted Jane Eyre by Currer Bell and grabbed it. Though when she glanced down again, she saw him leaning against the ladder like a crocodile on the bank—or perhaps she had paid too much attention to Lady Melissa’s reading of Peter Pan the other evening.

  He offered a patronizing smile. “Do you really think you can climb away from me?”

  Before she could form a response, he grabbed both her legs and pulled hard enough to yank her from the ladder. She tried to bite back the scream, tried to hold to the rungs with her free hand, but in vain. Before she could discern exactly how it happened, he had an arm clamped around her waist and pressed her to the bookshelf.

  Struggling was no use, but she averted her face—and caught a whiff of a distinctly floral perfume. The same too-strong scent that Lady Catherine wore.

  She had a feeling she knew with whom the young lady had been dallying last night.

  His lips found her jaw, his other hand turned her face. Try as she might, she couldn’t hold back a whimper when he kissed her, when trying to twist away accomplished nothing but him pressing her harder to the shelves.

  She managed to turn her face again, at least. “Please, my lord. You promised. You promised if I gave you the information you wanted, you wouldn’t—”

  “DeeDee?” The door slammed open, and Hiram charged in. “I heard a scream. Did you fall? Are you … ?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut
against the horror on his face.

  Pratt had the gall to laugh again. “She did, as a matter of fact, but I was fortunately here to catch her.” He backed away, tweaked her chin. “Tread carefully, old girl,” he murmured. Then louder, “No harm done, I think.”

  He whistled—whistled—his way out of the room.

  Deirdre didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes as the door clicked and footsteps hurried her way.

  Hiram’s arms came about her. Gentle, warm. Comforting. “What happened, Dee? Did he hurt you?” His hand soothed her back where the shelf had bit, his lips settled on her hair. “Tell me.”

  Too soothing. Too comforting. She let her forehead rest on his shoulder one moment more, and then she eased away. “It’s nothing, Hi. I fell.”

  Sorrow shone from the eyes usually bright with laughter. “I know you better than that, Deirdre O’Malley. He had his hands on you. He was—”

  “He kissed me—that’s all.” She spat it out in a gush, praying he would leave it at that.

  But he knew her too well. He stroked her cheek as Da had used to do, brushed his thumb over her lips as no man ever had. “’Tisn’t all, Dee. It never is with men like that, who think they have the rights to whatever they want.”

  A shudder overtook her. She knew it. It was why she’d been hoping and praying he wanted information more than he wanted her. “He didn’t hurt me.”

  “This time, praise the good Lord above.” He leaned in, kissed her forehead. “You’re too beautiful for this world. This place in it, anyway, where the fancy lords can treat you as naught but a plaything.” He let his arms fall and took a step away. “You should have stayed in Ireland. Married a farmer—a big burly one that could fight off any what looked at you crossways.”

  “Oh, Hiram.” He made a muddle of her. And she couldn’t even resent him for it. “It isn’t so bad. It’s a good house.” It’s why her uncle had recommended her here, and why she always filled her letters to him with naught but the good things about it.