Heart of Darkness (39 page)

It would take stealth and cunning to take
back what had been wrested from his family and he was ruthlessly
determined to avenge his father and his family name and take back
what he could reclaim that had been lost.

Perhaps, in time, if he succeeded, and the
day came when he watched his own sons pelting through the ancient
family manor, he could reclaim his memories, too, enjoy them as
they were meant to be enjoyed without having them tainted by all
the losses that had come after.

He paused in the secret passage as he heard
the buzz of conversation within the dining room--women’s voices.
Having no interest in anything the occupants of the house might
find worthy of discussion, he only paused a moment before
continuing along the passage. Not much in the way of conversation,
if it came to that. Dull wenches. Mostly all he heard was the
irritating whine of the old woman complaining about the food.
Wincing, he moved on quickly, and then more carefully when he heard
the old woman demanding of one of the man servants if he had put
out the poison like she had asked to get rid of the rodents before
they gnawed the old house down and it fell about their ears.

He spied one of the culprits as he set his
foot on the narrow stairs that led up to the second floor and
studied it speculatively for a moment, an unholy gleam entering his
eyes. Harry would have snatched the furry little demon up and left
it for the old battle axe to find when she turned down her
bedclothes.

The gleam died in the next moment.

Harry was gone, too, shot down in the prime
of his life by a sniper’s gun half way around the world, all for
the glory of God, King, and Empire.

Banishing the ghost of his brother’s grinning
face from his mind irritably, Ransom climbed the stairs that were
more ladder than stairs, placing each foot carefully after he heard
a board creak ominously beneath his weight. He didn’t hesitate when
he reached the second floor. He went directly to the one room in
the house he had not yet searched.

It had to be in this room. Had to be. There
was nowhere else to look.

He discovered as he stood outside the panel
that led into the room that he was still reluctant to go in, even
after all these years, even knowing that what he sought must be in
there because he had searched the entire house and come up empty
handed.

In spite of all he could do the memory of the
last time he had been in the room crashed down on him, crushing him
with the full weight of a six year old boy’s terror and grief.

His mother had died in this room, struggling
to deliver a child that had never drawn its first breath, screaming
until she was hoarse. Mostly he remembered the relief and shame he
had felt because he had been grateful that she could not scream
anymore because no matter how far he ran or how carefully he
covered his ears, he could still hear the pain, and then the fear
and grief.

He remembered the sound even now.

And the blood. God he remembered the blood.
The sheets had been soaked with it, the maids hurrying back and
forth, carrying away the bloody linens and bringing more.

And he remembered his mother, almost as pale
as the sheets as the life slowly seeped from her body, her
beautiful hair tangled and wet with her labors. She had been cold
already when she had summoned him to kiss him goodbye and tell him
to be a good boy that she would be watching over him to make
certain he grew up to be a fine man.

Scrubbing a shaking hand over his face, he
eased the panel open and glanced around, confirming that the room
was empty as he’d suspected it would be, that the Mansfields were
both at dinner. Pushing the panel wide, he stepped into the room,
wincing as the hinges creaked. He would have to remember to bring
oil the next time he came--if he had to come again at all.

Straightening, he glanced around for the most
likely place to search and made a discovery. The room looked
nothing like he’d expected, nothing like he remembered. He was
relieved, at first, when he saw that it looked nothing as it had
the day his mother died, nothing like he remembered the last time
he had steeled himself to go into the room before he had left to
seek his fortune, for his father had had the room closed after his
mother’s death and had not allowed it to be touched.

In point of fact, he wondered for several
moments if he had stepped into the wrong room by mistake but then
he noticed the cherubs that supported the fireplace mantle, and the
bay windows where his mother had often sat in those last months of
her life, happily engaged in making clothing for the child she
would take with her to her grave.

Unaccountably, fury surged through him as he
looked around the room again, critically this time, and it occurred
to him that they had callously desecrated his mother’s memory,
packed up her things and swept the life from the room as if she had
never existed at all. His mother’s rocking chair and sewing basket
had vanished, the little tables once filled with knickknacks, the
small portrait that his mother had had commissioned of her and him
and Harry. Her carpets were gone.

The bed was not the same.

The one that stood there now had once rested
in one of the guest chambers.

With an effort, he tamped the anger, quashed
the memories of the little things that he remembered that had
vanished, studying the room again more purposefully.

A woman lived in his mother’s room, one of
the two downstairs he was certain and not a companion or
maidservant for they had neither. Pray god not the old battle ax or
he might be tempted to come back and strangle the old harridan in
her sleep.

It did not help his feelings a great deal
more to think it was the spinster, but after he’d examined it
again, he decided it was undoubtedly her, for he saw none of the
silly, frilly little things he would have expected to see if the
room was occupied by the old woman. It did not smell of the
aged--no laudanum or other quack remedies and tinctures in bottles
beside the bed, no hot water bottles for aching joints, no ugly
armor plated corsets lying about.

The sister then. The spinster. No doubt she
was getting long in tooth by now. Perhaps it wasn’t her room after
all?

She must be getting old enough by now to be
desperately seeking beauty aids.

Not that they were likely to do her much
good, whether she was pushing thirty or not. She had to be ugly as
hell if even her brother’s money had not snagged a husband for
her.

Or maybe it was her temperament he couldn’t
sell?

Closing the secret passage door finally, he
moved into the room and examined the contents of the dressing
table. There wasn’t much in the way of beauty supplies--some sort
of cream that smelled like flowers and felt like fat when he rubbed
it between his fingertips. Moisturizing cream to soften her age
toughened hide? He put the jar down again and replaced the lid,
looked around for something to wipe it on and finally just cleaned
his fingers on the sleeve of his shirt.

Aside from that a brush and mirror set, cheap
and worn with age, which he discovered still held a few stray
reddish blond hairs, there was stationary, a pen and inkwell and
nothing else. There was a small box on the dressing table, of the
sort ladies liked to use to hold their trinkets and he opened it
and examined the contents. Hair pins. He found a locket, as well,
of the sort generally worn by, and given to, young girls. When he
opened it, he found without much surprise, a small lock of dark
hair.

Closing it again, he dangled the locket above
the box for a moment, thinking of all of his mother’s things that
had been disposed of, and finally dropped it in.

He had not come for petty little revenges,
but to recover his heritage.

When he had shut the box, he glanced around
the room, wondering where she kept her real jewelry. Under her
mattress?

He studied the bed speculatively but finally
dismissed it.

Maybe she didn’t wear jewelry, he thought
derisively? Maybe she realized there was no point in hanging
beautiful things from her neck and ears?

No perfume, no jewelry beyond the child’s
trinket.

After a moment, he moved toward a hand
painted chest at the foot of the bed. Delicate roses scrolled
across the lid. He pried it open, digging through its contents in
search of the box he’d come for. He found nothing more than extra
blankets and stoles.

He studied it over for several moments,
lifted his head to make certain he could hear nothing to indicate
the ladies of the house had finished their dinner, and moved to the
armoire. He wasn’t certain what he expected to find, wasn’t certain
of why he was even curious but he knew even as he reached for the
first drawer pull that he was not merely searching for the box that
had brought him.

Telling himself that he should know his
enemies well, he yielded to the impulse to prowl.

Her brother, he knew. A low down scoundrel,
that one, as low as they came, fleecing anyone slowwitted enough to
mistake him for a gentleman and sit down at the card table with
him, for he didn’t doubt for a moment that his father was not the
only one the bastard had cleaned out over the gaming table.

It didn’t say much for his father that he had
been one of the man’s victims, but his father had been old, and
grief stricken, and given to drinking heavily in the past few years
according to his old butler. A gentleman would have refused to play
him, not welcomed him in and cleaned his pockets.

Dismissing the thoughts, he checked the small
drawers first and found naught more than reticules and
undergarments--all very plain and sensible. No frills. Certainly
nothing to indicate the woman realized she was a woman--unless she
was a pious old prude. Closing the drawers, he stood and opened the
upper section where her outer clothing was hung. There was little
beyond riding habits in the armoire, he discovered, and those had
seen three or four seasons at the least from the look of
them--carefully mended but still mended. There were a few day
dresses, but those looked older than the habits. No ball gowns.
Apparently, she was so hideous her brother kept her hidden in the
country.

Mannish, he thought derisively. No perfumes,
no trinkets, no sewing box that he had seen, and a closet full of
riding habits.

A vision of his enemy rose in his mind’s eye,
dressed in the habits.

There was a disgusting thought. He supposed
he was no judge of women’s tastes, but the man looked like a troll
as a man. Even trying to envision a female version revolted every
sense.

He was on the point of closing the wardrobe
again when the corner of a box caught his eye. He stared at it in
disbelief for a moment. Slowly, he pushed the skirt aside that had
concealed all but one corner and pulled the box out.

A mixture of fury and triumph began to filter
through his shock as he stared at the strongbox in his hands, the
chest that bore his family crest. There was no mistaking it. The
casket had been a gift to some long forgotten grandfather, the
first Marquis--a gift from his king that had held the description
of the holdings that had been bestowed with the title. His father
had prized it above everything else he owned. It had always held
pride of place in the main salon.

And now it had been tucked away in the back
of a ‘lady’s’ wardrobe.

He would get it back, he thought furiously.
The lands belonged in his family’s name. The box, he knew, held his
father’s will and legal papers, the papers he had been searching
for for months now. It would be the proof he needed to secure his
father’s estate once more.

He’d just discovered that it was locked when
he heard the distinctive click of a woman’s shoe on the hardwood
floor beyond the room. It was sheer luck that it even penetrated
for he had been vaguely aware of increased activity for some time,
a commotion below that he had put down to arriving guests and the
bump and thud of servants carrying trunks and bags upstairs.

The sound was so clearly brisk feminine
footsteps, however, that his head came up as if it had been jerked
upright by a puppeteer’s string.

Tucking the box under his arm, he stared at
the door, listening as the tap crossed the upper hallway, clearly
coming closer, and then glanced toward the secret passage. The room
loomed cavern-like as he gauged the distance between himself and
the panel and calculated the likelihood of reaching it and
disappearing before the woman was in the room.

Whirling even as the knob began to turn, he
strode toward the opening and stepped through. He only just barely
remembered the telltale squeal of the hinges in time to prevent
himself from giving his retreat away. Faintly breathless with the
adrenaline pumping through his veins, he held perfectly still,
hoping he would get the chance to seal the door before she noticed
anything amiss. Furious with himself for his carelessness, for
allowing himself to get so caught up in his curiosity about the
spinster that he was liable to end up in jail, he mentally berated
himself, peering through the slight opening to see if the woman had
noticed the crack in the wall paneling.