The Velvet Cloak of Moonlight

by Christina Courtenay

  Arabella gasped. ‘That was you? Oh no! But—’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul, I swear. I have no idea what you were doing, but your secret is safe with me and whoever you were meeting. Was it someone dear to you? An old retainer perhaps or a relative?’

  She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t meeting anyone. I was hiding something. But you definitely mustn’t ever tell anyone about that.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise.’

  ‘And that means I owe you my thanks twice over – you saved me from those men that night too, didn’t you?’

  ‘I only helped a little. It was nothing.’

  ‘It was! I would never—’

  ‘Shhh, let’s forget that night as well.’ He felt absurdly relieved that she hadn’t been going to Merrick to see anyone, but he’d think about that later. For now, he needed to calm her down and reassure her. ‘Are you sure you’re not hurt, cariad? He didn’t …?’

  ‘No, just a few bruises and my head hurts, but you came in time. Really, I can’t thank you enough.’

  He pulled her even closer and she buried her face in his shoulder. ‘No need for thanks. I shouldn’t have had to rescue you. That man is a menace, but perhaps you’re right. I won’t report him. I’ll just continue to watch him. And I will ask some of the others to help.’

  She raised her head. ‘You were spying on him?’

  ‘Just keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. I thought he was in cahoots with you, remember, but now I know he’s likely here for his own purposes. I’ve heard of your uncle and I doubt very much any nephew of his will be a Royalist.’

  ‘No, never. He admitted as much that day outside the kitchen, but he said if I told anyone he’d kill me. And he means to marry me so he can get his hands on Merrick Court. He’s welcome to the estate, but I wouldn’t wed him if he was the last man on earth!’

  ‘Oh, Arabella, I’m so sorry …’ Rhys felt that he’d failed her spectacularly, but he would make up for it now. ‘And I never gave you that knife I promised you. If I had, you could have defended yourself better. I’ll see to it as soon as possible.’

  Her hand came up to cup his cheek, her fingers stroking his soft stubble. ‘Thank you, Sir Rhys. I am in your debt.’

  He took her hand and held it. He was very tempted to kiss her, but sensed that this was not the right time. Not with the memories of what Howell had tried to do so fresh in her mind. ‘No “Sir”, just Rhys, if you please, at least when there is no one else around. And you’re not indebted to me at all. Just promise me you’ll be more careful from now on. Don’t go anywhere in the castle alone.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘As I said, we’ll be watching Howell, so if he tries anything else, just scream.’

  And he’d be keeping an eye on Arabella too, as much as he could in between his duties fighting for the garrison. He’d never let Howell hurt her again.

  Merrick Court, 18th June 2016

  Josh opened his eyes and shivered. The sun was going down and the grass was beginning to feel cold and damp underneath them. He pulled in a deep breath, then looked around for the shadow. It was gone.

  Sir Rhys had shown him what had happened to Tess, although it wasn’t really her. It was some woman the man had been in love with, a long time ago. Arabella. She looked a bit like Tess though – same golden hair and big blue eyes – so had Sir Rhys mistaken her for his woman? And had he shown her the images too? That would explain why she was so shaken.

  Josh had heard about people becoming possessed by spirits, but he’d thought it all a load of rubbish. Now he knew differently. But Sir Rhys didn’t appear to be doing it with any evil intent, he was just relaying events that had happened. The question was why? What did these things matter now? Damned if Josh knew. He just had a very strong urge to protect Tess, even though he had no idea what she needed protection from.

  It was all scary as hell.

  ‘Tess? Wake up, time to go inside.’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, sorry, did I nod off?’ She stretched and Joss guessed she was stiff from the awkward position she’d been sitting in.

  ‘Want to tell me more now?’ He regarded her with his head tilted to one side, blocking her way.

  ‘Er, just some stupid dreams I’m having. Honestly, it’s not a big deal,’ she murmured.

  Josh hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to push for more answers, but she obviously wasn’t ready to share yet so he’d wait. Dreams. Or visions? He’d been right – she was being shown things by Sir Rhys, probably the same events he’d seen himself. But at least she seemed okay now. And Arabella, whoever she’d been, was fine as well.

  The mystery of why this was happening would have to wait for another day.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Merrick Court, 19th June 2016

  Tess was woken in the middle of the night by Vincent’s frenzied barking. She hadn’t gone as far as to let him sleep on her bed, but he had an old duvet on the floor next to her so the racket he was making had her sitting up in seconds.

  ‘What is it, Vince?’

  She scrabbled for the light switch and scanned the room while trying to focus in the sudden brightness. Vincent was by the door, pawing at it, and she got out of bed and opened it. He raced off down the stairs, still barking, and Tess heard a crash somewhere. She ran after the dog.

  On her way to the nineteenth century part of the house she almost collided with a bleary-looking Louis who came shooting out of his room. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘No idea. Burglars maybe?’ She threw the words over her shoulder as she ran and was glad when Louis sprinted after her. She’d rather not confront anyone on her own, guard dog or not.

  They found Vincent in the library, barking at an open window. The catch at the top appeared to have been sawn through and the sash raised high enough for someone to climb in. A small lamp lay on the floor, knocked off a side table, its bulb in a thousand pieces. Tess’s gaze was immediately drawn to the open safe which had been hidden – rather predictably – behind a painting on one wall. It was like something out of an Agatha Christie novel, old and cumbersome.

  ‘Quiet, Vince! I think whoever it was has gone now. Shush!’ She patted the dog. ‘Good boy. Well done for waking us. Now, please sit, over here, out of the way of the shards of glass.’

  ‘Shit!’ Louis breathed, coming to a stop next to her. ‘All your valuables! There’s nothing left.’

  Tess couldn’t help it, she snorted, then shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid whoever got that open had a wasted evening. It was empty already.’

  ‘What?’ Louis blinked. ‘But the family jewels and all the important papers! Uncle Giles showed some of them to me last year and said they were irreplaceable. He kept them in a special box with a lock.’

  ‘The papers are safe upstairs in my room – I found the box in another cupboard last week. As for the jewels, there aren’t any. They’re all gone. Giles sold them.’

  ‘Why?’ Louis was nothing if not direct, a trait Tess liked normally, but it wasn’t easy to have to explain to him that his uncle had squandered the family’s wealth. And all because he’d had a compulsion he couldn’t control and refused to seek help for. Still, she’d have to tell Louis now.

  She sighed. ‘Your uncle was a gambler. And not just the odd flutter on the horses – a serious gambler at the really up-market casinos. It was one of the reasons he and I weren’t getting on so well towards the end. He’d lost every penny we had and was starting to sell anything of value he could find here. The jewels, the silver, even some copper stuff, although I managed to hang onto most of that. Sadly, there weren’t any Rembrandts or anything, but he found some Chippendale chairs upstairs and they fetched quite a lot. Plus that painting your mum was asking me about. The Hinton.’

  ‘Jesus! If he was still alive, Mum would kill him. She’s always going on about the Merrick jewels and how she thinks she ought to be allowed to wear them and not just …’ He stopped and flushed as he seemed to realise wha
t he was about to say.

  ‘Not just me,’ Tess finished for him. ‘I know. And believe me, I would’ve been happy to share them with her, but I couldn’t because there aren’t any.’ She didn’t mention the earring she’d found – perhaps she would show him later.

  Louis scowled. ‘And there was Uncle Giles telling Mum you wanted them to yourself “as was your right”. What a bastard! Mum was so pissed at you.’

  Tess put a hand on his shoulder and shook him slightly. ‘He only said that because he was desperate for her not to find out. I think he was ashamed of what he’d done. I had agreed he could tell her that because he’d promised me he was going to stop gambling and one day buy them back, at least some of them.’

  ‘That’s still a shit thing to do.’ Louis threw himself down in an armchair. ‘He should have been man enough to fess up.’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t think it was easy. Your mum can be quite … er, formidable, when she wants to.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Louis muttered. He looked around the room. ‘So what else did he sell? I haven’t noticed any gaps on the walls or anything.’

  ‘As I said, he didn’t find much of any great value. He looked everywhere and had some specialist dealer come in as well, but short of selling all the furniture at once, he wasn’t going to raise any great sums. I think he must have been getting pretty desperate, because he started looking for some old family treasure he thought was buried in the cellars. He didn’t find anything.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that. Mum told us about it too but I think it’s just a bunch of bull. Apparently they used to hunt for it when they were kids, but if there was such a thing, it would’ve been found ages ago.’

  ‘That’s what I told Giles too, but he wouldn’t listen.’ She swallowed hard, determined to tell Louis everything now. ‘Actually, it seems he found a different solution to his problems, although a temporary one. He didn’t tell me but he’d started signing IOU’s.’

  ‘No!’ Louis’s eyes opened wide. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Some casino owner came to see me and he emailed me copies. Said Giles owed him half a million pounds.’

  ‘Half a m—! What? How the hell did he lose that much?’

  ‘It’s easily done at places like The Black Rose. I should know. I used to work in a casino, remember?’

  ‘Yes, but … half a mill? That’s insane.’

  ‘Gambling is an addiction. A form of insanity, you could say, so, yes, it is pretty crazy.’ Tess paced the floor, thinking. ‘Maybe this break-in had something to do with Marcus Steele?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy who came to see me. He didn’t seem to believe me when I told him I didn’t have any money at all. Perhaps he sent someone to check?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I guess he knows now.’ Louis nodded at the empty safe. ‘Unless he thinks you keep your jewels under your mattress?’

  ‘He’d better not try and look there or he’ll have Vince to contend with.’ She made a fuss of the dog again. ‘You really are a good boy, aren’t you? The best. I think this deserves a treat. I can’t sleep now anyway, not with a broken window. Want some hot chocolate?’

  Louis cracked a smile at last. ‘Is that your answer to everything?’

  ‘Yes. Well, chocolate in one form or another, I’m not fussy. Come on.’

  Bristol, 19th June 2016

  ‘The safe was one of them old ones, easy as hell to find and open, but you didn’t say nothin’ about no dog, boss. I don’t do jobs where there’s dogs. Hate the mutts.’

  Marcus stared at Archie, one of his best employees when it came to more nefarious duties, and tried not to shout. Who cared if there was a dog or not? You could just kick the mangy creature and get the hell out.

  ‘You’re saying there was nothing in the safe? Nothing at all? Not even computer disks or something?’

  ‘Nope. A bunch of dust bunnies, tha’s all. Looked like it hadn’t been used for years.’

  ‘Then it must be a decoy. You’ll have to go back and find the real one.’ Marcus didn’t like being led on a merry chase and he had the feeling he was being played right now by that glossy widow. He wasn’t having it.

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I heard you.’ Marcus waved away Archie’s protest. ‘Take someone with you next time with a baseball bat or something. Hit the mutt over the head, whatever. I don’t care. Just. Get. It. Done!’

  Archie’s expression turned mulish, but he’d known Marcus a long time and finally sighed and capitulated. ‘Okay, fine. But not for a while. They’ll be on their guard now so we’ll ’ave to let them get over it first.’

  ‘Well, don’t wait too long. I want this finished soon. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Marcus watched him leave and drummed his fingers on his desk. He couldn’t tell Archie the real reason he was so impatient. That he wanted the woman herself. No, that would seem like a weakness and if there was one thing he disliked above all else, it was to appear weak in front of his employees.

  He clicked open a document on his laptop and stared at a photo of the beautiful Lady Merrick – Therese – and a streak of lust shot through him, making him instantly aroused. He really ought to go and see her again, but he wasn’t sure he could trust himself not to give the game away. No, better to just send her a little reminder and then wait a bit until he could be sure she’d been lying. If he could prove that she was as wealthy as he thought, he’d have her exactly where he wanted – at a disadvantage and dependent on his goodwill.

  Actually, if she wasn’t she’d be even more in his debt. He smiled.

  Yeah, that would work too. Perfect.

  Merrick Court, 19th June 2016

  Josh knocked on the back door of Merrick Court with a nagging feeling of unease. Tess had phoned Bryn to let him know what had happened the night before and asked for Josh to come and help fix a window. He’d brought a toolbox as he didn’t quite know what she’d meant. He wasn’t a glazier but anything else he could manage. But he didn’t like the fact that there had been a burglary. Not one bit.

  A woman alone in a huge house like this – his house – with only a dog and a teenage boy for protection, anything could have happened. Shit. Now she wasn’t just having weird ‘dreams’, as she’d called her experience of the day before, but people in the real world were hassling her and all.

  ‘Josh, hi. Thank you for coming so quickly.’

  Tess didn’t look too upset and Josh couldn’t understand why. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, before greeting Vincent and nodding to Louis, who was munching his way through a big bowl of breakfast cereal.

  ‘Yes, thanks to Vince. He’s my hero, aren’t you, boy?’ She bent to kiss the top of the dog’s head and Josh exchanged looks with Louis as they both made a face.

  ‘Eeuuw, do you know where he’s been?’ Josh teased.

  ‘What? He’s clean,’ Tess protested. ‘I gave him a bath myself recently, so there.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Josh wished she’d kissed him instead. Jealous of a dog – how pathetic was that? She was looking stunningly beautiful this morning though, despite being a trifle pale from lack of sleep. Her blue eyes were outlined with a little bit of make-up, but in truth she didn’t need it as she seemed to have naturally dark lashes. She was wearing those micro-shorts again, which showed off her tanned legs, and her feet were bare with delicately painted lilac toenails. How the hell could toenails be sexy, for God’s sake? But they were.

  He followed her to the library. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Yesterday …’

  ‘I’m fine, really. And I’d rather not talk about that, okay?’

  Josh had hoped she’d be ready to open up, but he didn’t feel he had the right to push her so he nodded.

  She pointed to the window. ‘Can you nail some bits of wood to the sides, please, so it can’t be opened more than a couple of inches? Most of the other windows have side locks on them, but for some reason this one doesn’t.’


  Josh could see what she meant. It was an old-fashioned sash window and if you inserted a small saw it was easy to break off the catch, then the window could be raised high enough for someone to climb in. By adding blocks of wood they would act as a brake so the window couldn’t be opened much even with a broken catch. An easy job.

  ‘Isn’t there an alarm though?’ Josh couldn’t believe anyone would live in a mansion like this and not have a burglar alarm.

  ‘Yes, but it can only be turned on when I go out, not when someone’s in the house.’

  ‘We should have that fixed. Can you call the alarm company? I’m sure they can make it so the ground floor alarms can be on when someone’s upstairs.’ Josh didn’t want to think of her here on her own when any burglar worth his salt could virtually stroll in without her knowing. Thank God for Vincent.

  Tess nodded. ‘I will.’

  ‘What about the police?’ Josh added. ‘Have they been already?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t bother contacting them.’

  ‘What? Why? Surely we need to report this.’ He couldn’t believe she’d be that blasé about it.

  Tess nodded towards an empty safe and shrugged. ‘There wasn’t anything in there so no theft to report. And I doubt the burglar would have been stupid enough to leave fingerprints. Everyone knows to wear gloves these days, don’t they?’

  Josh could see her point so he didn’t argue.

  He fixed the window and checked all the others, just to make sure. He only found one more without side locks and added bits of wood to that one too. Then he made his way back to the kitchen where Louis was busy washing up. Well-trained kid, obviously. Josh was impressed. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to help out at home at that age.

  Tess came into the room with the day’s post in her hand and sat down at the table to open the envelopes. ‘Make yourself some coffee or something if you want.’ She waved a hand towards the kettle.