“My lord,” said the valet, low-voiced, “you don’t really believe Miss Mel… the young lady is involved?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Drake replied. “Who would have ever believed that
Jim
…”
“She never came up to the house with her wares,” the valet defended. “Those who had need always went to her cottage.”
“Were you among them, Griggs?”
“Yes, my lord,” he said defensively. “She makes a fine balm that soothes sore feet and bunions out of nettle and marshmallow leaves and reeds that grow down on the far side of the beck. Mrs. Laity recommended it.”
“And you would certainly benefit from bunion balm wouldn’t you, what with the way we’ve run you ragged,” Drake said, suppressing a smile. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to add to your burdens.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“I’ve told you all this because I need someone in that house that I can trust, who can keep an eye out when I am not able. It’s going to involve doing errands and chores beyond the official duties of a valet at times.”
“Whatever you need, my lord.”
“Good,” he replied, with a crisp nod. “You’ll be paid accordingly, of course. To begin with, I’ll want you to have a smith come out and change the lock on the valuables chest in my study. Have him change the door lock, too. It will have to be done when Mr. Ellery is out of the house. I will see to that, and while we’re gone, you will fetch the smith and see to it yourself. None of the other servants or Lady Ahern are to know. We’ll stop at the village on the way back and I will alert the locksmith that his services will be needed shortly, so there shan’t be a delay once I remove Mr. Ellery for the day.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Bring him yourself if possible.”
“But what if Mr. Ellery attempts to open the door… or the chest afterward, my lord?”
“That’s the point, Griggs, he really has no reason to open it now that I am come home. If he does, he’s a fool if he confronts me.”
“But he’ll know you suspect him, my lord.”
“He’d have to be blithering idiot to think this little tour we’re making hasn’t found him out. Besides, I really haven’t a choice. I’ve got notes and cash in that chest, not to mention the Shelldrake diamond. He isn’t going to get his hands on anything else, bigod, you can bet your blunt upon that. I intend to keep the study door locked when I’m not in it. If he challenges me over it, I can always say I suspect that we might have a thief among the servants—even enlist his help in keeping watch. His vanity is such that he’ll probably fall for it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“There is one more thing,” Drake said, reluctantly, “but there’s a sting at the end of it, old boy.”
“A ‘sting’, my lord?”
“Quite. I need you to keep an eye on Mr. Ellery… and Lady Ahern after hours—once they’ve retired after dinner. I shouldn’t have refused to share you so hastily. It would have been easier if you were in closer proximity of him at least. As it is, you’re going to lose some sleep. That’s the sting.”
“That’s all right, my lord. What is it you’re after exactly?”
“I want to know if they’re having any assignations.”
“Oh, my lord, I sincerely doubt—”
“Don’t be so quick to scoff at such a notion,” Drake interrupted. “I saw him enter her chamber myself the night before we left.”
“She’s been
compromised
, my lord?”
He nodded. “And he paid Zoe half-a-crown to disappear while he was at it.”
“I can scarcely believe—”
“Yes, well, I was disappointed myself, since I made it quite plain to Mr. Ellery upon my return, that no such licentious activity was to take place under my roof.”
“But, Zoe, my lord… I am quite bowled over.”
“She’s very young, Griggs, and he’s been her master for the past five years. She just needed to put her loyalties in order. I’ve taken care of it. I don’t think it will happen again.”
“I should certainly hope not, my lord.”
“I don’t want you to do anything, mind. You needn’t interfere with whatever takes place, that would undermine your anonymity, just report your findings to me.”
“Of course, my lord. Shall I keep an eye on Zoe as well, my lord?”
“What I’m really asking of you, Griggs, is that you be my eyes where
everyone
is concerned, whether I’m in residence or not.”
Ten
James Ellery presented a sober and contrite image at breakfast. No mention was made of the incident the night before, nevertheless, Melly ate hurriedly and excused herself before Smithers poured her second cup of coffee, anxious to put as much distance between herself and the steward as possible.
One thing he’d said seemed to make sense to her—that she should take advantage of Drake’s absence to gather herbs for her new wares. On one hand, she had no guarantee that the earl would keep his word in regard to the sale, but on the other, she had no doubt in her mind that he’d keep it in regard to uprooting the herbs on Drake’s Lair the minute he returned. If she were to salvage what she could beforehand, there was no time to lose.
Mrs. Laity wasn’t keen on the idea, and it took a good deal of coaxing to enlist her as an accomplice, but she finally persuaded the skeptical housekeeper to let her borrow one of the maid’s black twill uniforms. Then, armed with a marketing basket and some makeshift tools—an old serving spoon and meat fork from the scullery—she set out for the beck. It wouldn’t do to gather too close to the house proper.
It was a glorious day. The wind had died to a whisper, and the sky, the color of bluebells recalling her Manchester childhood, was painted with cottony clouds. The air smelled fresh and clean, of fertile earth laundered by the gale that had stirred new life into the land. As she neared the beck, the pungent, camphor-like scent of tansy teased her nostrils long before the plants’ brilliant yellow flowers came into view. Tears welled in her eyes, and her heart quickened. Oh, how she’d missed gathering.
The Tinkers believed tansy to be a charm against misfortune, but that couldn’t be true. She’d had nothing but misfortune since she found that tansy bed the day she met the enigmatic phantom, Tristan Hannaford, Earl of Shelldrake. Whatever else he was, he was the phantom still. Hadn’t he disappeared in true phantom fashion two days ago without a word to anyone? It was useless to pretend she didn’t miss him.
She gathered all morning. When she’d saved all the tansy she could, she took off her slippers and waded across the beck to the other side. The water was icy-cold, sending shockwaves coursing through her body that took her breath away. It was wonderful. On the far side, she gathered the tall reeds, and further up the slope, she found thistle, and marshmallow. Her basket was brim-full by noon.
She didn’t return to the house for nuncheon. Cook had packed her a cold meat pasty, a bit of cheese, a ripe pear, and a small jug of water. She sat down beside the stream and ate ravenously. She was herself again, Miss Melly, communing with Nature, taking her gifts with a grateful heart—a joyful heart, not Lady Demelza Ahern, all gotten up like a show horse in the borrowed gowns of a regal countess—
his
countess. They would never fit her. She didn’t measure up. She wasn’t herself in them—could never be herself in them. This was who she was, who she wanted to be, and she took a deep breath of the fragrant air and hugged herself before the sun streaming down through the tracery of lacework leaves and branches swaying overhead.
The afternoon’s gleanings were no less bountiful. She gathered watercress rippling with the current in the beck when she crossed back over. Chamomile, comfort, and bright orange nasturtium awaited her in the meadows. Rosemary and speedwell were plentiful by the copse along the lane, as well as the precious goldenseal, prized for its fever-reducing properties, in constant demand by Dr. Hale. There were others, too, that she never dreamed of finding, sweet flag, and herb Robert. These last were dangerously close to the house. She didn’t care. Her basket was overflowing, her spirit was renewed, and her heart was lighter than it had been since the fire for having rescued something precious to her, for having discovered something new to her, for having spent the day doing something she loved and considered worthwhile.
She reached the Lair with her finds well in advance of the dinner hour, and claimed a secluded corner at the back of the wine cellar below the servants’ quarters to serve as her herbarium, at least temporarily. Water was brought for those specimens that required it, and string for binding and hanging those that needed drying, these she bound in small bunches, and hung upside-down from an empty wine rack that seemed made for just such a purpose. Once she’d made her herbs comfortable in their new environment, she stole up the back stairs to her apartments, where Zoe had already prepared her bath at Mrs. Laity’s instruction. After a relaxing soak in water silkened with oil of lavender and fresh rosemary, she let the abigail dress her for dinner.
To her relief, James Ellery didn’t join her. Prowse informed her that the steward had gone out for the evening, and she relaxed and actually enjoyed her meal for the first time since she’d come to Drake’s Lair. Afterward, she went below to the wine cellar for a final check on her gleanings, to find that Mrs. Laity had set up a small table for her in the recessed alcove. The housekeeper had also supplied jars, a mortar and pestle, and mixing utensils from the scullery.
Melly hugged herself and spun around in delight. Judging from the dust that had collected on the rest of the bottles in the cellar, and the distance between her new herbarium and the first racks close to the door, it wasn’t likely that her secret would be discovered anytime soon, and she picked up the branch of candles that lit her way and returned to her suite.
Zoe was waiting to help her undress and prepare for bed. She had laid out one of the countess’s nightgowns on the chaise lounge in the dressing room. It was a summer gown. Blue, of the finest silk gauze, with a neckline that dipped so low it barely preserved modesty. It was as light as air, and she stood before the cheval glass imagining how the countess must have looked in it, with those tall, graceful lines, that aristocratic bearing. With no mother to guide her since she was a child, she hadn’t yet developed her deportment when her world came to a crashing halt and cast her onto a poor relation to make her way on her own. All at once she bitterly wished she hadn’t been robbed of her training. The petite, tousle-haired creature staring back at her from the mirror was ridiculous. Though her figure suggested nothing less than a woman, no matter how she stretched and strained, the image in the glass was that of a child playing dress-up in her mother’s cast-off clothing.
She didn’t linger long before the mirror. Too depressing. Zoe was yawning and dropping hints that she wanted to retire. What was wrong with the gel? She had been so happy at the prospect of her new appointment as abigail that she could hardly contain herself, until the night it came to pass. Then all at once, she became sullen and withdrawn, reverting to her former mouse-like self. Totally. It was a puzzlement to be sure, and though she had questioned the girl about it on several occasions, Zoe assured her that nothing was amiss.
Shrugging those thoughts off, Melly took up the contract for one last perusal, and climbed into bed. The hour was late, but she couldn’t sleep—not in that nightdress. She kept thinking of the earl’s lean, turgid body pressed against his wife’s in it. Her mind’s eye pictured his hands—those strong, skilled hands—sliding over the sky-blue silk, exposing those perfect breasts she’d envied in the portrait to his touch. With no education in such matters, that was as far as her imagination would take her. She had firsthand knowledge of those hands, after all—of his eyes, those incredibly articulate eyes, stripping her naked, just as they must have done to his exquisite wife. Her heart began to pound as strange primal vibrations gripped her utterly, reliving his embrace. Had he held the lovely Eva in that manner? Well, of course he had. She was his wife wasn’t she? Was this wrenching ache inside jealousy—of a
ghost
? Though it was hardly practical, that’s just what it was. She would have rather been jealous of flesh and blood. There might have been a chance to defeat such as that. What hope could she possibly have of exorcising the sainted dead? Bound to those cogitations, it was several moments before a foreign sound bled into her reverie.
It came again. Someone was turning the door handle.
Frozen bolt upright in the mahogany four-poster, she stared at the door. No, she hadn’t imagined it. The branch of candles still lit on the gateleg table showed it clearly. She held her breath. Had she locked the doors? That one, yes, or whoever it was would have come through it by now. She was almost positive that she had locked the sitting room door as well, but she sprang from the bed, lifted the nightgown from dragging on the floor, for it hadn’t been hemmed, and ran through the adjoining doorway to the one that gave egress to the corridor, just as it turned as well.
Cold chills gripped her spine, and her heart nearly stopped. Frozen in place, she stared at the handle, watching it slowly work its way up and down, listening to the wood creak as the would-be intruder pushed against it. Should she call out? No. Any reputable person would have announced his presence with a rap at the door and identified himself.
All at once the situation harkened back to the night she was certain that someone had been in her rooms. She remembered the poker, and snatched it from the hearthside. But the door handle was still now, and her heart leapt again. She hadn’t locked the dressing room door. What if Zoe hadn’t?
Racing back through the bedroom, she burst into the dressing room, where the abigail lay sound asleep snoring on the cot behind the folding screen, and reached the door just in time to throw the bolt. She had scarcely taken a step back, when that handle lifted, slowly at first, then more anxiously, rattling so fiercely that she was certain Zoe would wake. But aside from a shift in the abigail’s breathing pattern, she didn’t stir.
Melly backed away and tiptoed to the bedroom, where she snuffed out the candles. The wind had chased the clouds. There was enough light streaming through the mullioned panes now from the full moon to outline the door. The gilded handle was moving vigorously. Had the earl returned? Was that his hand working it? Or had James Ellery come home drunk, thinking to finish what he’d started in the library?