by Louise Allen
‘True,’ Perry conceded.
‘I think we should all go to Norwich,’ Theo said. ‘Perry and I can support Will’s account to the Bishop, Laura can do her shopping and I want to write to Cal. We have no idea what the situation is about French gold and smuggling. This coin might be nothing out of the ordinary or it might be important. If anyone can find out from government sources it’s a duke, and I daren’t entrust a letter addressed to one to the local receiving office. You never know who is involved in this.’
‘Luncheon, my lord.’ Mrs Bishop looked round the door. ‘I’ve laid it out in the dining room, but if you want it in here – ’
‘No, that’s fine, Mrs Bishop, we’ll come through now.’ Perry stood up. ‘Tomorrow morning, then? We will need the carriage.’
‘Tomorrow is Sunday,’ Will said as they sat down at table. ‘I should be taking services in all three churches.’
‘And quite clearly you are in no fit state,’ Perry said firmly.
‘But – ’
‘I shall send a message to the Rector to tell him that we misjudged your recovery and that taking you out for a drive this morning has made you feverish.’
‘You cannot lie on my behalf like that.’ Will sounded as though he was pronouncing from the pulpit.
‘It is no such thing,’ Perry said, passing cold ham to Laura. ‘You are clearly feverish to even consider it.’ He narrowed his eyes at the protesting curate. ‘In fact you are exceedingly flushed.’
‘He will just have to make the effort and take the services himself,’ Laura said with some satisfaction. Will still looked about to protest. ‘Agree, or I will ask Pitkin to remove all your nether garments and hide them.’
As Will was considerably thinner than any of the men in the household with the exception of the valet himself, that proved to be the deciding argument.
The afternoon felt like a complete anti-climax to Laura after the excitements and horrors of the morning. Perry wrote to the Rector, then immersed himself in long-overdue estate business. Theo spent an age shut away in the library writing his London letter and then retired behind a succession of the newspapers that had been piling up in Perry’s absence.
Will admitted that his back was hurting him and retired to bed. Pitkin could be found in the scullery labouring and lamenting over the clothes they had all worn in the crypt and the tunnel and Mrs Bishop, finding her kitchen invaded by Laura fidgeting about, remarked that if she was in want of occupation, there was a heap of sheets that needed minor repairs.
Hemming, darning and patching might result in a stiff back and pricked fingers but they were not particularly tiring tasks and left far too much time for thinking. And yearning. And reproaching herself for it. No-one seemed very talkative over dinner except for agreeing that the guard on the house should be kept up.
Laura looked in on Will who had taken his meal in bed, left Pitkin on first watch in the bedchamber and retired to her own room with the book that she had seen Theo return to the shelves earlier that day.
An hour later, wide awake and bolt upright in bed, Laura admitted that it had been a serious mistake to take it without looking carefully first. What she had at first thought would be a volume of charming Norfolk folk tales and legends turned out to consist of one gruesome or spine-tingling story after another. Her senses seemed unnaturally alert and she realised that she was listening intently. Around her the house was already still, except for the groans and creaks that she ought to be familiar with by now.
Something scratched at the window and she twisted sharply to stare at the thick curtains that obscured it, suddenly very aware that she was on the ground floor. The sound came again, like a fingernail running over the pane.
A twig against the glass, that is all it is. But the image of the bony yellow fingers of the dried-out corpse would not leave her now she had thought of it. Don’t be foolish. You do not believe in ghosts. You do not believe that the dead walk. And besides, he was a man of God, even if he was a criminal too. I should snuff out my candle and go to sleep.
The clock struck the quarter, making her jump. When it chimed the half hour she was still sitting there, book clutched on one hand, her gaze fixed on the curtains and their faintly swaying hems. Just a draught, that’s all it is.
When a noise like the rattle of dried bones being dropped sounded right outside she was out of bed and halfway across the room before she was conscious of moving. The doorknob slipped under her hand, then it opened and she was in the passageway between hall and kitchen.
The body she ran into was solid and warm and blissfully familiar. It was also unmistakeably, marvellously, alive. ‘Theo.’
‘What’s wrong?’ He wrapped both arms around her and hauled her against his chest, swinging her around away from her bedchamber door. ‘Is someone in your room?’
‘No. No, I am just being foolish. There was a sound like some… something scratching on the window glass and then a terrible rattle like a heap of falling bones and – ’
‘Sorry I was so long, my lord, but I dropped the whole bloody armful halfway back from the woodpile.’ Terence’s voice came closer. ‘Oh, I beg pardon, Miss Darke, I mean Mrs Albright. I didn’t see you. I mean, I haven’t seen you. Er…’
‘Thank you, Terence. Just put that wood in Mr Thwaite’s room and then go out again and check that there isn’t something scratching on Mrs Albright’s window, would you? That, and you dropping the wood, alarmed her.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Terence hurried past, eyes averted and Laura realised that she was clad only in her nightgown, her feet bare, her hair coming out of its plait.
‘Laura.’ The way Theo said it was a caress and she clung to him.
‘I was reading ghost stories, you see. I mean, I didn’t intend to, but I picked up the book and before I realised that it wasn’t just charming legends…’
‘Poor darling. And on top of a morning like we’ve had, that was more than enough to ruin your sleep,’ Theo said. He showed no sign of letting her go.
Darling? ‘If you could just put me down?’ she suggested, desperately reaching for the prosaic, the safe, response. ‘Only my feet are dangling in mid-air.’
‘Of course.’ Theo lowered her to the ground, adjusted his grip. ‘Laura – ’
‘Right you are, my lord. Fire’s banked up and the wood stacked. I’ll just go and check that window.’ Terence went past again, his gaze fixed firmly on the far corner of the kitchen.
‘Laura.’
He is going to kiss me. The temptation was simply melt into his arms, tip up her face and surrender to all that potent masculine desire was considerable. But where’s it going to end? He’s a viscount with the reputation of a rake and a strong desire to order everything to his liking. I’m just gentry, almost trade, and I want my independence. And he is spoken for. There is another woman, waiting for him. Wanting him. This is so wrong of me.
Theo desired her, she was not so innocent that she could not tell. If truth be told, it was hard to miss the fact, given that she was plastered against his body. But that meant he had only one thing in mind. Seduction. She was not going to be any man’s mistress, however desirable he was. If she escaped from this coil with her uncle and retrieved her money without causing a scandal and ruining her good name, then that would be a miracle. But if she achieved it, then she could be both independent and respectable.
‘You are thinking,’ Theo said accusingly. ‘I was hoping to kiss you.’
‘And I was thinking that would be a very bad idea,’ Laura retorted. Anger helped. ‘Just because I kissed you when I was virtually asleep you should not presume –’
‘I am not presuming anything,’ he said indignantly. ‘Laura, I’ve been such a – ’
‘You presume all the time. You presume to know what is best for me, you pick me up bodily and now you presume to think I want to kiss you. Well, I do not, my lord. Most of female creation might suffer softening of the brain at the sight of a viscount, but I do not. And let me make o
ne thing very clear – I do not intend to allow you to seduce me or to make me your mistress.’
The kitchen door banged loudly, Theo let her go and stepped back so sharply that he collided with the opposite wall of the passageway as Terence came in again bringing another gust of cold night air with him.
‘Just a long leafy twig caught in the edge of the frame. Blown across from that fallen elm, I reckon,’ he said. ‘Nothing to keep you awake now, ma’am.’
No, not much. ‘Thank you, Terence,’ Laura said with as much dignity as bare feet and an unflattering flannel nightgown would allow. ‘Good night.’
She closed the door with a finality just short of a slam and hesitated, her hand on the key. No. The house was full of men on guard against intruders and she was in no danger from Theo, she knew with absolute certainty. He might expect her to fall into his arms but he would respect her wishes if she refused, and she just had.
As she stood there she heard the sound of his retreating footsteps. Thank heavens I didn’t turn the key, she thought. He would have been so insulted. Although why she was concerned about the feelings of a man who was clearly ready to take whatever was offered, she had no idea.
She lit a fresh candle It was an extravagance given that the old one was only three quarters used, but this would burn for some time and she did not feel quite brave enough to face a completely dark room. The bed was chilly and she curled up in the middle, pulled the blankets up to cover her nose and told herself firmly that she was very, very weary.
Laura woke on Sunday morning with no recollection of having lain awake for long, but with vivid and confused memories of her dreams. The dead Rector had been pursuing her through all the rooms of the house, bony arms outstretched as she fled before him, and then she had rounded a corner and run straight into Theo’s broad chest. He had carried her into the bedchamber and had begun to make love to her and it had been wonderful until she had opened her eyes and seen empty sockets staring down at her and felt the scrape of long nails on her skin.
She had woken to the light of dawn and a guttering stub of a candle. Why she had not been screaming the house down, she had no idea. Laura looked at Theo across the breakfast table and decided that the deeper recesses of her mind had conjured up that nightmare. Probably her conscience had decided to reinforce her determination not to allow her attraction to the man to overcome her common sense. Because I do want you, she thought. I really do. I want what you want, to make love. But I desire so much more than you can give, my lord and I will not give you what you want.
Chapter Thirteen
‘I have been thinking,’ Perry announced after his second cup of breakfast coffee.
‘Not you too,’ Theo muttered. Everyone was thinking, it seemed, and they all appeared to find it easier to come to definite conclusions than he did.
Laura must have heard him, or perhaps she could lip-read, because she shot him a repressive look from the other side of the table where she was buttering toast as though it was giving her an argument. When she seemed satisfied that it had surrendered she sliced it in half with one swift stroke.
Theo winced.
‘What have you been thinking, Perry?’ she asked.
‘That Gerard Redfern has set up his legal practice in Norwich. He wrote to me about it a couple of months ago and I’ve been meaning to ask him to come over for a couple of days. You remember him, Theo? Yes, of course you do. And I’m pretty certain he is specialising in inheritance law and trusts. He’d be just the man to advise Laura.’
‘If you know him, then it seems ideal,’ she agreed. ‘And saves us from having to go to London.’
‘He may know Swinburn,’ Theo cautioned.
‘I will write to him after breakfast, tell him I want to consult with him tomorrow about a trust and ask him, en passant, if he’s acquainted with my neighbour Sir Walter. No need to link the two things.’
‘It is Sunday today,’ Laura pointed out.
‘I’ll send Terence on one of the hacks. And don’t look disapproving at me! If you can succeed in getting him to attend services then I take my hat off to you. He’s a free thinker of some kind – that or an unrepentant heathen, I’ve never cared to probe too deeply.’
Terence brought back the reply from their old acquaintance in the late afternoon. Yes, Gerard Redfern would be available on Monday and would be delighted to advise Perry and no, he had not yet had the pleasure of meeting his neighbour, Sir Walter.
Both Perry and Theo were shifty when Laura asked about their shared past with Mr Redfern so she assumed they had sowed their wild oats together at university or when they first were out on the Town. Teasing Perry about it was the one entertainment of the day, the rest of the time Laura read or embroidered, Perry went off grumbling to catch up with neglected estate business and Theo wrote letters, went for a long walk and avoided her.
She could not attend church without being recognised, so had to have the morning service described by Perry. He had supported Will, swathed in rugs, who had no need to pretend to seem pale and shaky after his experiences the day before and was helped into a pew and tottered out again with the aid of a cane.
‘That cane was probably a trifle superfluous,’ Perry said over luncheon. ‘But it seemed to convince the Rector that he was unfit to carry out his duties. Mrs Finch was all for having him stay at the Rectory, but I argued against agitating him with a move. The last thing we want is having to provide bodyguards while Will preaches sermons and baptises infants.’
By Monday morning, when Theo climbed into the somewhat crowded carriage, all any of them wanted was to get to Norwich. Laura wanted to talk to the lawyer and to look at anything other than the view from the Grange’s windows, Will wanted to stop worrying about what the Bishop was going to say to him, Perry seemed filled with boundless, undirected energy to be doing something and he wanted…
He wanted Laura but she, of course, did not want him, sensible creature. She knew he was betrothed and she was no wanton.
For himself, he wanted to understand why he wanted her – other than the obvious, primal reasons – and how he could square any of those wants and needs with his conscience and his honour. It had been a profound mistake to rush towards matrimony but he recognised now why he had done it. A wife might have made him feel like the responsible, real, Viscount Northam, not some imposter.
And, of course, he wanted to solve this mystery of the gold coin in the tomb, of why Will had been attacked, of why –
‘My lord. The door,’ Laura said, and he realised he had sat down and left it ajar.
Laura was sitting on the forward-facing seat sandwiched between Nell the maid on one side and Perry on the other. Theo and Will faced them. Perry’s groom Wimblett was on the box with Terence the footman next to him. That had left Jed, Waggett, Edward and Pitkin at the house, although Mrs Bishop had nodded at the shotgun propped by the kitchen range when Perry had asked her if she was comfortable with only four guards. Theo rather thought that anyone attempting foul play was likely to receive both barrels long before any of the men got to the intruder.
Theo slammed the door, settled into a corner to leave Will as much room to get comfortable as possible, and closed his eyes the better to think without having to look at the woman opposite him.
He woke as the carriage clattered into the yard of the Maid’s Head, the venerable inn in the shadow of the cathedral close’s walls. If he had managed to have a single constructive thought before he had fallen asleep it evaded him now.
Laura lowered her veil and climbed down with Perry, Nell and Terence. Ten minutes later Perry returned alone, having settled her in a private sitting room where she would be safely out of sight while the rest of them went to call on the Bishop.
‘We might well have to wait,’ Will cautioned as the carriage drove out of the inn yard, into the street called Tombland and almost immediately through the Erpingham Gate into the Cathedral close. ‘I know he is in residence, but I have no idea of his commitments.’
> ‘We’ll wait,’ Perry said firmly.
Will seemed to become paler by the minute as they wended their way decorously around the towering cathedral to the Bishop’s House at the eastern end.
‘What’s he like, Bishop Bathurst?’ Theo asked.
‘He’s about seventy,’ Will said. ‘Quite the liberal – supports Catholic emancipation, surprisingly, and he’s prepared to go against the norm when approving candidates for ordination. But I don’t think the poor man ever recovered from his second son disappearing like that near Berlin.’
‘I remember that,’ Theo said. ‘Diplomat, wasn’t he? When was it? ’08?’
‘’09,’ Will corrected. ‘Great mystery – he walked out of his room at the inn and vanished between that and his chaise. There was talk he had been a spy.’
‘I suspect all diplomats are,’ Perry remarked as they drew up in front of the imposing mansion. ‘There’s all this nonsense about it being un-English to carry out intelligence work, but I ask you, how else are we going to beat Boney without undercover intelligence work? I’ll wager we are running all kinds of espionage over there.’
The Bishop was in conference, they were informed, but his secretary, an earnest young cleric in an immaculate wig, assured them that Bishop Bathurst could give them some time in an hour or so.
By the time they were summoned Will looked ready to faint and even Perry’s exuberance was somewhat dimmed by the room where they had been waiting, its walls lined with heavy theological tomes.
The Bishop struck Theo as intelligent and likely to be prepared to listen to their improbable tale. He had a mournful face with deep pouches under his eyes and a wide, unsmiling mouth, although he seemed more weary than annoyed.