“I was not asleep. You know I can never sleep until you and Beau are in your beds. Is Beau home?”
“He will be up shortly,” Cressida said, wavering between a lie, to let Miss Wantage sleep, and the truth, which would ensure a few more hours of wakefulness.
“Was it a good party?”
“Very nice. Could I get you a glass of warm milk? Muffet it still up.”
“I don’t like to be a bother to anyone. I’ll just glance over a few pages of my Bible to pass the time. What happened to your coiffure, dear? It looks all of a heap.”
“The country dance ...”
“A cap would keep your hair in place. So much neater, and at your age ...”
“Good night, Miss Wantage.”
Cressida escaped to her room, where Jennet had laid out her lawn nightgown and turned down her bed. Miss Wantage was sawing logs in no time; it was Cressida who lay awake, thinking. Dauntry would be spending the weekdays in London. He would be at the seaside only on the weekends, and Amarylla would be at the cottage, so he would be kept busy. She need not see much of him. It would be disastrous to go on seeing him. Society’s idea of marriage was not her idea.
She would not go back to London in the autumn. Two Seasons were enough. She would go home, and perhaps marry one of the local gentlemen while she was still young enough to start a nursery.
She heard Beau tiptoe upstairs an hour later. As his room was at the other end of the hall, he did not disturb Miss Wantage’s slumber.
Of course, she did not see Dauntry, or have the faintest notion that he had not gone home, but had gone to the cottage, where he spent the better part of an hour searching in vain for the missing letter.
It was close to three o’clock in the morning when Cressida finally slipped into a troubled doze. The quiet clicking of her door handle turning was enough to awaken her. She assumed it was Miss Wantage, with one of her migraines. Cousin Margaret had warned her of them. Dulled by sleep, Cressida sat up, peering into the shadows, as a figure crept silently toward her bed.
“What is it, Miss Wantage?” she asked, trying to dampen the annoyance in her tone.
The shadow stopped. Cressida had raised the blind to allow fresh air into the room. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, the shadow began to take on human form. It seemed strange that Miss Wantage did not speak or advance closer to the bed.
“What is it?” Cressida asked with an edge of fear.
Still, there was no reply. The shadow’s head turned toward the door. Cressida noticed that the head was smooth and the shoulders broad. Miss Wantage had been wearing her cap with the frilled edge. If she had removed it, her hair would have hung loose. This was not Miss Wantage. It was a man!
“Beau?” she asked sharply. The fear was rising insensibly to panic. “Is that you?”
Instead of answering, the man turned and pelted out of the room. The soft thud of receding footfalls echoed through the open door. Without realizing she was doing it, Cressida opened her lips and emitted a high-pitched scream. She ran to her door, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Beau! Muffet! Help!”
Within seconds Beau came pelting down the corridor and Miss Wantage’s capped head appeared at her door, holding a lighted lamp. This pious dame’s first concern was not for the life of her charge, or even her jewelry, but for propriety. She took one look at Beau’s pale legs protruding from beneath his nightshirt and covered her eyes,
“Beau! There are ladies present!”
Beau had the sense to ignore her. “Sid, are you all right?”
“A man—in my room.”
“Good God!” Miss Wantage said weakly. She did not faint, but she turned white as paper and stood trembling with excitement. “He might have been in my room, too!” she exclaimed. “My room is closer to the staircase than yours. I thought I heard something—”
“He went that way,” Sid said to Beau, pointing to the far end of the corridor, where a curtained archway led to the servants’ stairs.
Beau went darting after him.
“Take a gun, Beau!” Cressida called.
“Put on your robe, Cressida,” Miss Wantage said.
Cressida ran into her room and picked up the poker, as Beau had not heeded her warning to get a gun.
“Your robe!” Miss Wantage called after her as she ran, wearing nothing but her nightgown, toward the stairs after Beau. “What will the intruder think of you ...” Her voice petered out.
As Cressida ran carefully down the narrow, unlit servants’ stairs, she heard a scuffle in the kitchen. It sounded as if Beau had cornered the intruder. Turning the bend in the stairs, she could hear the men gasping and thrashing about on the floor. There was not enough light to be certain which one she would hit if she used the poker, and she did not know where the lamps in the kitchen were located, so she stood at the ready. If the intruder won, she would whack him on the side of the head when he stood up.
One man rolled aside and scrambled to his feet. “Beau?” she called, and was answered by a grunt from the floor.
When she turned back to the other man, he was already heading for the back door. He overturned the kitchen maid’s stool behind him. It caught Cressida a sharp blow on the shin, temporarily disabling her. It was long enough for the man to unlock the kitchen door and flee into the night. He took one look over his shoulder before he darted off, Cressida fully expected to see the face of the man who called himself Melbury. In the pale rays of moonlight she saw a black mask, which made the whole affair even more frightening.
She bolted the door, lit a lamp, and went to Beau’s assistance. “Are you all right?”
He rose, gasping for breath and rubbing the back of his head. “He was a strong lout. He caught my head between his two hands and banged it on the floor.”
“Good gracious! He might have broken your skull.”
“He might have killed me—but I had the feeling he didn’t really want to hurt me. It wasn’t a very hard bang, and he was strong.”
“How very civil of him!” Cressida sneered.
The racket was enough to bring Mrs. Armstrong forth from her bedroom, which was just off the kitchen for convenience’s sake. She appeared with her white hair hanging in a tail down her back. True to England, her sleeping attire continued her color theme with a white gown, blue robe, and a red ribbon tying her braided tail.
“What is all the ruckus?” she demanded. “Why are you dashing about in the middle of the night, next-door to naked?”
Although less squeamish than Miss Wantage, she was no lecher and went into her bedroom to provide the youngsters with something to cover their sins. She handed Beau a patchwork quilt and Cressida her own Sunday-best shawl.
While Cressida and Beau recounted their adventure, she stoked up the smoldering fire and put on a kettle.
When she had heard the gist of it, she said, “Why don’t the pair of you go up to the saloon and be comfortable? I’ll bring you up a nice cup of tea as soon as it’s brewed. No need to rouse up Old Muffet. Age wants ease. Let him rest.”
As the seating in the kitchen was rudimentary, they did as she suggested.
“Who do you think it was?” Beau asked when they were settled in above stairs.
“It cannot have been Melbury. He is supposed to be in Bath. The man was the size and shape of the brash swaggerer who called, pretending he was Brewster. His covering his face suggests we would recognize him. Of more interest, Beau, what was he after? He was not carrying off the silver.”
“No, and not looking for it upstairs either, I shouldn’t think.”
“He might have been after my jewelry,” she said.
“Or you,” Beau added with a warning look.
She drew Tory’s shawl more closely about her. “Don’t say such things. You’re making my flesh crawl. How did he get in? Are you sure you locked the door after you when you came home?”
“Positive.”
They went to check and found the front door locked and bolted. The kitchen door had also been locked. The French doors in the library were the only other doors to the outside. When they checked, the doors were ajar, but there was no sign of a forced entry.
“Is it possible he has a key?” Cressida asked, worried for the future. “Muffet would certainly have locked this door when he made his rounds. I don’t believe it has ever been open since we came here.”
When Tory brought the tea, they asked her about it.
“I feared as much. I have been thinking about it, and I’ve figured out how it happened,” she said. “I left the library door on the latch when I went out this evening—just to have a word with Cook at the castle, since you were both away. I enjoy the bit of fresh air. I have no key to the front door, you see, and I saw no point in bothering Old Muffet.”
“Why did you not lock the library doors when you came home?” Cressida asked. She knew from Tory’s averted eyes that she was making this tale up out of whole cloth.
“That’s his job, isn’t it? He don’t like interfering with his chores. No doubt he thought I had locked it. Another time, I’ll make sure one of us tends to it.”
“Do you not have a key to the back door?” Beau asked.
“I do, but when I got home, I found out I’d forgotten to take it with me.”
“Why did you leave the library doors on the latch if you thought you had the back door key with you?” he persisted.
Without a blink of delay Tory had her lie ready. “It’s the rats,” she said. “Jennet spotted a rat hiding under the back stoop. If there were rats about, I meant to use the library doors. It’s not pleasant to have a rat run up your leg. Then, when I discovered I’d left my keys behind, I went and used the library doors. I’ll have the rat catcher in tomorrow to be rid of the vermin.”
“Would you have any idea who the intruder might be?” Cressida asked. She knew she would not hear the truth, but by the process of elimination, she might discover who it was not, at least.
“Very likely it was young Melbury again.”
“He is in Bath.”
Tory gave her a sharp look. “No, he isn’t,” she said, surprised. She looked Cressida right in the eye as she spoke. So she was telling the truth then. “I didn’t want to distress you, milady, but he was seen hereabouts this very day.”
Beau and Cressida exchanged a questioning look. “Supposing it was Melbury,” Beau said, “what do you think he was after upstairs? Is it possible he meant to—harm Lady deCourcy?”
“Attack her in her bed, do you mean?” she asked, astounded at such a charge. “Not he! He can have his pick of the common village women. Why would he risk putting his neck in a noose by attacking a lady? Sure Melbury never had to use force in that way. He is all honey and sweet talk. The Dauntrys have taken a good deal from him, but they would draw the line at that, I promise you.”
“He was not looking for teaspoons in my bedroom, Tory,” Cressida said reasonably.
“No, that was not the silver he was after. His aunt Annie used to have a silver dresser set there of a comb and brush and mirror and I don’t know what all. We moved it when we learned you were coming. She left it to him in her will, but he never bothered to pick it up, for he said if he took it he’d only hawk it, and he wanted it for a keepsake of his auntie. A hair loom, as they say. Likely he is in dun territory and dropped by to pick it up tonight.”
“In the middle of the night, wearing a mask?” Beau added with a disbelieving eye.
“If he is supposed to be in Bath, then he wouldn’t want to be recognized in case the Dauntrys learned he is here. I believe his lordship had a bit of a falling-out with his cousin and sent him to Bath for a spell.”
It was clear they were to get no more information out of this accomplished liar. She was dismissed, and Cressida and Beau just sighed.
“We’ll never know,” Beau said. “That woman can lie faster than a dog shakes his tail. She ought to be in Parliament.”
“I think she was telling the truth about Melbury being in the neighborhood. We caught her off guard, and she accidentally blurted out the truth.”
“But she was lying about the dresser set and about our intruder being Melbury,” Beau said. “She wore her shifty look when she said it.”
“Odd she would put the blame on him, as he is such a favorite. She tried to dilute his guilt by that story about the heirloom. She must be protecting someone she likes even better than Melbury. Who could it be?”
“Dauntry?” Beau suggested. “The size was about right.”
“No, he is a little taller. He would not come into my bedchamber, Beau. If there were anything here he wanted, he could have got it before we came. I cannot believe he was after my jewelry. No, I don’t believe it was Dauntry at all.”
“If it wasn’t Dauntry, and it wasn’t Melbury, then who was it? Allan Brewster?”
Neither of them believed this unexceptionable gentleman had suddenly turned into a ken smasher.
“It must have been a tramp,” Cressida said.
“A tramp who knew his way about the house very well,” Beau said disbelievingly.
“Well, a local tramp,” she said.
They left it at that, although they both felt in their bones this was not the answer.
Miss Wantage still had to be informed of the story and pacified before they could retire for what remained of the night. She insisted on having Jennet hauled from her bed. A truckle bed was brought from the servants’ quarters for Jennet, who spent the hours until daylight inside Miss Wantage’s locked door in case the villain came back. It was either that, or Miss Wantage would bunk in with Cressida, who was in no mood to accommodate her after such a harrowing night.
Of course, her precautions were unnecessary. Their caller did not return. As Beau said to Cressida just before yawning his way off to his room, “Pity he hadn’t gone into her room. One look at Wantage and the fellow would not show his nose around here again. The fact of the matter is, she is jealous as a green cow that you were the one he chose.” None of which was much consolation to Cressida.
One other suspect occurred to her as she lay in bed, staring at the door. The desk she had pushed in front of it to ward off interlopers formed a dark rectangle against the white square of door. The intruder could have been the Frenchman who was talking to Dauntry at the cottage. Thus far, she had not revealed to Dauntry that she had seen him there the night of her attack. She sat straight up in bed as another idea occurred to her. He might have been looking for it, the mysterious
elle
they had spoken of! It was time to reveal all, and demand that Dauntry do the same.