A Bewitching Governess

by Patricia Rice

  She wrapped her arms, broom and all, around his waist, and willingly returned the kiss. At the sound of mouse feet skittering, she pushed away. “I think I’ve turned off all the lamps. We need to find the box in Hargreaves’ room.”

  “The lamps?” Simon glanced at the unlit one they stood under.

  “Best not to ask. Is Lawrence still in his room?” Broom in one hand, him in the other, she tugged in the direction of the suite.

  “No, Drew took him down the hidden stairs. Jameson will be up shortly though. We’ll have to bring the old man with us. The dastards are likely to heave him in the snow for spite.” Simon took her hand and eased down the dark corridor, fortified by that kiss and relieved that she was safe.

  “You smell good even covered in soot,” he murmured, hand on wall to guide him to the door in the dark. “How do you do that?”

  “Refresh myself in snow?” she asked in amusement. “Is this what thieves discuss as they prepare to break in?”

  “It’s what I discuss when ma heid’s mince,” he retorted, locating the door and pushing it open.

  Boots pounded up the stairs. “If I find the witches who did this,” Ramsay’s voice approached. “I’ll strangle them with my own hands.”

  “It’s your own fault for running out of whisky. They’d have slept through it all if they’d been drunk,” Glengarry shouted from a distance.

  Simon shoved Olivia into the suite and turned the key in the lock. “Where’s the box?”

  She pointed at the wardrobe. “Behind there. The door slides, so the wardrobe only needs to be moved enough to put my hand behind it.”

  Simon eyed the monstrous armoire with disgust. “Who the devil came up with that idea? If there was a fire, no one could reach it in time.” He placed his back against the heavy piece and shoved.

  “What’s that noise?” Ramsay cried from down the corridor.

  Simon clenched the hilt of his dirk and stood between Olivia and the door while she crouched down to pry at the hidden door.

  “Got it,” she whispered in triumph.

  Someone rattled the door latch.

  Shit, shit, shit. They were trapped.

  Glancing down at Olivia’s slender back as she removed papers from a box, Simon knew he couldn’t risk her by rushing the door and cutting throats.

  They had to take the hellhole. His head nearly exploded from the pounding tension of holding back his temper and terror. He’d rather tackle an army then be trapped in that narrow stairwell.

  For Olivia, he had to do it. He couldn’t send her down alone.

  Twenty-three

  Retrieving the leather document folder from the wall safe, Olivia hastily shoved it into her apron pocket. Outside, Ramsay cursed and kicked at the locked entry. Jameson’s rounded tones lost some of their luster as he pleaded with the scoundrels not to break the master’s door.

  Hoping the butler could take care of himself, she lifted the tapestry and unlatched the panel to the secret stairs to sweep at cobwebs with her broom. Only when she realized she didn’t have a lamp did she notice that Simon wasn’t with her.

  “I know you have the keys, you old fart,” Ramsay shouted in the hall. “What did you do with them? He could be dying in there.”

  Simon glared at the bedroom door as if he had a claymore in hand and wanted to lop heads. Impatient with the male warrior syndrome, she took his arm. “Can you light that?” She indicated the lamp he’d retrieved from the table earlier.

  Lighting the wick, he studied the tight passage before reluctantly following her. If she hadn’t known the mad Scot was fearless, she’d believe him terrified now. He seemed stiff with tension, and his hands shook as he held the lamp. With the concealed door closed, the meager light cast a path down the dark stairwell.

  Before they could tread more than a few steps, a faint female voice pleaded through the thin panel at the bottom. “No, Mr. Glengarry, I’m only looking for a place to lay my head. They don’t want the likes of me down in the kitchen.”

  Lily? Her former maid, the one now working at the tavern? Why would she be here?

  She’d puzzle that out later. The terrifying news was that Glengarry was in the withdrawing room, blocking their bolt hole. And Ramsay was outside the bedroom at the top. They were truly trapped.

  Simon gripped her shoulder. “Don’t move.”

  She hadn’t planned on it, but having him close allowed her to breathe again. Praying the boys and everyone else were safely on their way home, she set aside the broom, sank down on a step, and waited for the coast to clear. Oddly, the wind howled through here as badly as outside. She shivered beneath the old flannel she’d borrowed.

  “Sit,” she told Simon, who seemed frozen in unusual indecision.

  He sank down on the step above her, but he was still tense, as if ready to explode. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.

  “We could be snowed in if we don’t leave soon,” she agreed. “I’m afraid the kitchen isn’t as well stocked as you’d like if we’re forced to camp here.”

  She leaned back against his knee, taking comfort in his presence. She was dying to know if the documents she’d found were the ones she needed, but she couldn’t read in this light. It was rather comforting simply sitting here with Simon. Far better than if she’d been alone. Together, they had enough strength and quick-thinking to stay safe.

  Thank all that was holy, she heard no scampering feet. Phoebe must have driven the mice out.

  To her dismay, Simon removed a flask from his pocket, took a sip, and inexplicably murmured, “When the carriage flipped, it trapped me under it for an entire day and night. I never want to be stuck like that again.”

  His voice sounded shaky. Olivia frowned at the flask, but he didn’t tuck it away. The wind dropped a notch, and worriedly, she inched up to sit closer. The staircase was almost too narrow for the both of them. “Explain.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her presence but rambled on, as if to himself. “When the axle broke, Letitia was thrown out and down an embankment.” He shuddered, and the windy draft increased. "The horses bolted. I could only watch her fall. I saw her and the skies went black and the wind howled like a mad creature, like me. I couldn’t reach her. The horses dragged the carriage, and I had to cut the leathers so they could run free.”

  Even in his anguish, he’d thought of the animals.

  Above and below, she heard the rumble of voices. No one knew they were in here. They were safe enough. “And then the carriage flipped over?” she suggested when he fell silent.

  “Then I threw the carriage down the embankment myself, so I could reach Letitia. I’d some mad thought that the wind would fly me to her. Instead, the carriage turned over.” He fell silent, not explaining the impossibility of deliberately throwing a runaway carriage anywhere.

  “The carriage hit a bump and turned over,” she suggested.

  “No, I was howling like the wind, and I lifted the carriage and flung it over the bank. There was no thought to it. Letitia was down there. I had to go with her. But then the carriage fell on me and I lost consciousness, and I couldn’t do it again.”

  She tried to understand what he was telling her, but she couldn’t. “You couldn’t do what again?”

  “Lift the carriage. When I woke, I knew she was dead. Even though she talked inside my head, I knew she wasn’t there. And I wanted to die too. But I kept thinking of the bairns.”

  Lift the carriage? “I’m glad you didn’t die.” She’d been thinking of him as this big, invulnerable man who could do anything he set his mind to. And he was, but not inside. Inside, he was hurting in ways only he understood.

  Drink was not the answer, however. She tried to take away the flask he sipped from, but his grip was firm.

  “Is she with you now?” she asked warily.

  “No, you are. But I’m afraid of what I’ll do to you. It wasn’t natural what I did.” He took another drink.

  “You kept her talking?” she suggested, wondering if that w
as why Letitia’s ghost lingered.

  “That too, but it was the wind. . .” He pulled off her cap and stroked her hair. “It’s good to be alive, but I don’t want to be trapped and helpless again. Bad things happen when I lose restraint.”

  He wasn’t making sense, she told herself. He was rambling because he was terrified of something she didn’t quite grasp. “When I lost Owen, the whole world turned shades of black and purple. That terrified me as much as losing him.”

  He pulled her into his lap and rested his chin on her hair. “Talk to me. It helps. How did you lose him?”

  The wind dropped and the temperature warmed slightly. She slid the flask out of his grip while trying to stroke the tension from his muscled arms. “A bull escaped a tenant’s pasture, and Owen tried to stop it from reaching Bobby. He suffered for days. The doctor could do nothing but give him laudanum and tell me to pray. I stopped believing in prayer the day he died, but I’m trying to start again. You and the children have given me hope.”

  He held her tighter. “We’ll be rid of the blighters, and you can have your home back. I need my flask to help me hold my. . . temper. . . a little longer.”

  His temper, or his fear? She was starting to understand that they might be one and the same in Simon’s case. Still, remembering her father’s drunken rages, she was reluctant to return the whisky.

  The voices at the bottom of the stairs grew louder in anger—and hysteria. A sharp slap, and a woman shrieked in pain.

  Simon’s grip on Olivia tightened until he was nearly crushing her. “I keep hearing Letitia’s screams.”

  “I think that’s Lily down there. She has a little boy. I can’t let them hurt her.” Afraid for Lily, afraid for Simon, Olivia tried to shrug him off and stand.

  His grip didn’t relinquish. The flame in the lamp flickered as if caught in a draft—and then blew out.

  The shrieks shredded his last tattered nerve. Simon clutched Olivia, holding her so she did not fly away as Letitia had. The pressure in this confined space escalated until his ears popped.

  He could do nothing, he told himself. He could not abandon Olivia to save a complete stranger no matter how loud she cried. . . He needed the whisky. . .

  A hurricane wind shrieked through the staircase, exploding doors top and bottom. Cursing, fighting forces he didn’t understand, Simon held Olivia as the tempest battered and buffeted them like leaves in a cyclone—like the one that had flown his carriage down the bank.

  Olivia didn’t scream in fright. The woman below did. Through the open door, he could hear furniture slamming against walls. A man shouted in shock and fury.

  “This is fun,” Olivia said dryly in his ear. “Now that we’re about to be discovered, shall we take the initiative and attack first? I have a broom and one of your dirks.”

  Given permission to release his riotous emotions and act, he yanked her upright. “Stay behind me.”

  In a red rage enhanced by his fury at himself, Simon pounded down the rest of the stairs, dirk in hand. He thought one of the treads cracked, and with it, a safety valve on the pressure inside him broke. The wind howled with renewed purpose. Simon hoped Olivia understood what he did not—because this was no ordinary fury or ordinary wind.

  He burst from behind the downstairs tapestry, dirk upraised, catching Glengarry closing his trousers. If the estate agent had a weapon, he’d dropped it while attacking the maid, who fled behind an overturned couch to avoid airborne table lamps. The storm tore through the room, raising layers of soot, flinging draperies as if the windows were open, tumbling ornaments, and swinging the chandelier.

  Glengarry attempted to flee through the hall exit, but the panel opened inward, and the wind howled too strong. Simon didn’t bother to control his temper. Shoving his dirk back in its sheath, he shouted at the maid, “Open the windows before they break!”

  While Simon grabbed Glengarry by his collar, the terrified woman hastened to tug back the draperies. Cautiously emerging from the stairwell, Olivia widened her eyes, then raced to help the maid open the old mullion windows that were shaking enough to break the glass loose.

  As soon as they were open, Simon grinned maliciously and heaved the dastardly estate agent into the blowing snow.

  Olivia and the maid slammed the panes on the agent’s cries. Apparently, his fall wasn’t steep enough to break his neck. A pity.

  Both women stared at him. Ignoring their terror, Simon turned his attention to boots running down the corridor. With Glengarry out of the way, the wind had died, allowing Simon to open the door to the corridor. He waited until the boots were close, then stepped out and swung his fist with the force of a broadsword.

  Ramsay went sprawling backward from the blow.

  “Well done, cuz, saved me the last bullet.” Drew emerged from the servants’ stairs at the back of the hall, pistol in hand. “What the devil happened in there? I thought the roof had come off.”

  Simon kicked the steward as he attempted to sit up. Shaken, taking deep breaths to release the remaining tension, Simon tried to work his head around what had just happened. Had he nearly blown off the roof, while terrorizing everyone in the vicinity? If so, he was a menace to all.

  “Never mind that.” He dismissed Drew’s question. “I threw the other one into the snow. What do we do with this one?”

  “I don’t think we have the law behind us yet. Let’s rope him up and leave him, see if Hargreaves wants to save him in the morning.” Apparently unperturbed by weird gales, Drew studied the short, heavily-mustached man Simon held beneath his boot. “Do you think the viscount will save you?” he asked.

  Ramsay spit on his boot.

  “Drapery ropes, gentleman,” a cold, feminine voice said from behind them. “I don’t know where to find any others.”

  Allowing the rest of his tension to flow away, Simon swung around and held out his hand. “Give me the flask.”

  She handed it to Drew. “Whisky isn’t what you need,” she said irritably. “If you don’t learn to control your talent without it, you’ll destroy yourself and everyone around you.”

  “I’ve no talent!” he shouted. “I don’t see pretty colors or float paper. I’m a man, not a puny female. I get angry and things happen, and I need my whisky.”

  “Pretty colors! I do more than that, and so do you,” she shouted back. “You’ve a dangerous talent, and you’re letting it turn you into a drunken coward!”

  He yanked the flask from his startled cousin’s hand while Drew stared at him with incredulity. He hated that. “I’m not abnormal!” he roared.

  “Did you call Letitia abnormal?” she cried. “She’d be ashamed of you. Where are the boys and Phoebe? Have you blown them away too?”

  Simon drained the flask and flung it across the room.

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Drew kneeled in the soot to bind their cursing victim. “I persuaded them and the servants to leave in the wagon. Not sure if there are any horses left in the stable besides our own. Maybe Simon can blow us home.”

  With the last of the whisky burning through him, Simon refrained from kicking his cousin. “If there’s a cart, Thor can pull it. Don’t risk your skinny mounts.”

  “There’s a cart,” the maid whispered, reminding them of her presence. “They used it to bring me here.”

  Unwillingly, Simon studied the women. Looking tearful and still furious, Olivia hugged the maid, who appeared battered and bruised but not broken. He let Olivia handle women’s work. He was too wary of raising his rage and another storm.

  Assured Ramsay wouldn’t be shooting anyone anytime soon—not even the rats—Simon searched the hall for wherever the butler hid coats. “Wrap yourselves in whatever you find. I don’t want to stay in this place another minute.”

  Olivia looked bereft at the sooty battlefield her home had become. Surely, the fool woman was not so afraid of him that she would want to stay here?

  She followed him reluctantly, setting a simmering fire to his anger. He’d thought she wa
s the one person who might understand. . .

  They took the outerwear hanging in the closet in the cloakroom. The storm had subsided with the wind and his rage. Simon still didn’t believe he’d done it. The wind was just coincidence.

  Originally trained to traces, Thor waited patiently as they strapped him to the small farm cart. Simon helped the women in. Drew threw in all the horse blankets he could find.

  Simon hooked Drew’s horse to the back of the cart and ordered his cousin to ride on the seat beside him. He had feared the confines of a carriage this past year or more, but the cart was open, and his rage was tempered by Olivia’s terror. He’d made her afraid of him.

  The maid wept. Olivia murmured solace. Simon was pretty certain this was the Lily who had been her favorite upstairs maid and had spent these last years as a whore. The damned female collected strays. He supposed the maid’s infant would become part of his menagerie once they could ride to the village and fetch him. He’d have to put a muzzle on Maggie if she learned the new maid’s history, and she would.

  He let those weary thoughts and others drift through his head as Thor found footing down the snowy lanes. The ground was frozen solid, and the remains of the wind blew icy flakes in waves along the dirt and gravel. Thank all the heavens, the blizzard had blown past without dumping more than this. A pity though—Glengarry would find shelter soon enough, maybe even untie Ramsay. Would they run?

  His mind danced uneasily around the lady in the back of the cart. He knew she’d found documents. What would that mean to him? She didn’t need him anymore? After what he’d shared, would she even stay under his roof? She’d seen the deep dark hole that was his soul.

  She might find it safer to flee.

  Twenty-four

  Olivia felt as if this were the longest day of her life, but amazingly, most of the household was still awake when the cart rolled into the yard. The staff reassured her that the boys were fine and in bed asleep, then led her to a heated bath in front of a good fire in her chamber. After the icy ride, she sank into the hot water in gratitude. She might never scrub off the filth, although the bath salts smelled heavenly.