“You are charming tonight, my child. Utterly charming.”
Lady Pamela smiled. “I should not miss the
bal
, my lord.”
“Lord Sheldrake has been asking after you,” said her host. “Such a sad case, you know, his wife, poor woman...”
Perry Sheldrake had been widowed that past year. He was handsome and possessed of a good fortune, but without a single ounce of wit. Inwardly, Lady Pamela sighed. Everyone she knew seemed too concerned, these days, with her
affaires de coeur
.
Or lack thereof.
“And Sir Jeffrey is here as well. A broken engagement, if you can believe, shocking, just shocking.”
It was to be a pleasurable evening. But even as Lord Sheldrake sought her hand–and was refused–for a second waltz, even as she admired the hangings of gold and silver netting, and enjoyed the earl’s fine table, Pam found her thoughts turning, time and again, to the deserted mansion in Audley Square. The house called to her, haunted her, and she wondered, as often before, if she should stop her daily visits. Nothing at Marchers changed but the weeds, and the neglect was painful to see.
But, foolish as it seemed, ’twas as if the house was asking for her help.
Tomorrow afternoon, Lady Pamela knew, she and Maggie would walk through Audley Square once again. The visits to Marchers had become more important to her than she liked to admit, and abandoned or not, it was the only connection she still had to the Duke of Grentham.
CHAPTER THREE
The duke’s first view of Marchers House was less than inspiring.
“Blimey,” said the coachman, startled into speech.
“Well, if that don’ beat all,” said Josiah.
Benjamin said nothing. He stood, weighted down by what he saw before him; weeds grown chest high, vines trailing across the ground and climbing the front staircase to attack the stone columns of the entryway. Broken windows showed on every floor.
Blimey, indeed. Benjamin squared his shoulders and jumped from the coach, determined that the servants would not see him cowed by bricks and mortar. As he and Josiah walked along the path toward the rectangular portico that seemed to mark the main entrance, the duke noticed a rusted piece of iron half-buried in the weeds and dirt.
A heavy bar, long as a man’s arm, flared and beaten flat at one end. He looked at it curiously.
“Muck-scraper,” said the valet. “For yer shoes.”
“Ah,” said the duke. Josiah was, as always, a fount of odd bits of information. Benjamin was about to toss the bar aside, then thought better of it. No time better than the moment to start putting his house in order. He carried the muck-scraper up the steps and set it carefully against one of the columns of the portico.
The columns seemed sturdy enough at least, even if their paint was chipped and peeling. They were elaborately carved in the Corinthian style, with the pediment above boasting a frieze of heroic figures
à la grecque
. The portico itself was rectangular, its floor set with mosaic in yet another classical motif. Benjamin looked closer. ’Twas ‘The Seduction of Hera’ he decided, although it was difficult to be sure through the accumulation of vine and dirt.
An interesting choice of mythology.
A second staircase led to the front door, which was, as his solicitor had said, unlocked.
Benjamin pushed gingerly on one of the heavy oak panels. The door yielded reluctantly, screeching loudly. Josiah immediately reached into his coat pocket, producing a small, clean rag and a tin of oil. He dabbed carefully at the hinges.
The duke was amused. Josiah had been thinking ahead, it seemed.
But he found nothing amusing about the interior of the house. Benjamin heard rats scurrying into the dark as they entered, and he smelled the years’ accumulation of their waste, together with the homelier odors of dust and damp. Josiah had followed behind; the valet stopped one pace into the entrance hall and looked around, mouth agape.
“Glory be,” cried Josiah, “They’ve run her aground!”
* * * *
The day following the Earl of Carnath’s ball was cool, a perfect day for a long walk, and ’twas later than usual in the afternoon when Lady Pamela found herself, once again, in Audley Square. The house appeared to be as lifeless as ever, and Lady Pamela was about to continue homewards when something, half-noticed, caught her eye. Something not quite right. She looked closer.
The front door to Marchers was ajar.
The opening was no more than a few inches, but surely she would have noticed before if the door had not been closed....
Pam hesitated.
“Milady?” asked Maggie. The maid looked dubiously at the house, then back to Lady Pamela. The girl had accepted that her mistress would continue to take them this roundabout way home, but that house–that ill-kept house, with its broken windows–was no place to tarry.
“The door is open,” murmured Lady Pamela, her heart beginning to race.
“Oh, no, milady,” the girl said. “ ’Tisn’t open.”
Maggie’s face had taken on a mulish expression. Was her mistress about to do something foolish, something that would reflect badly on the maid? Maggie was only seventeen, but dogged in caring for her employer’s well-being. Pamela would have been shocked, no doubt, to discover that a
knife
was part of the maid’s usual accouterments for their daily walk. Or that Maggie knew how to use it.
Pam felt her feet moving toward the house.
“Milady! Milady, you can’t go in
there
!” Maggie grasped Lady Pamela’s hand and tried to pull her away. This was an impertinence of the highest order, but Pam hardly noticed.
“I won’t be but a moment,” she told the girl. “Stay here, Maggie, if you wish.”
Pam continued walking up the path that led to the entrance portico.
“ ’Cor,” muttered the maid, defeated. She followed Lady Pam through the garden and up a wide, brick staircase–some of it crumbling from neglect–into a rectangular portico and, finally, the front door. It was a tall, heavy oak door, arched at the top but not double. And it was, indeed, open by the width of a hand.
Lady Pamela stood at the top of the steps, listening. She heard nothing from inside.
Pam told herself that she was only acting as a good neighbor, doing what anyone would do
–should
do–who noticed such an occurrence. A door left ajar–why, anyone could walk in, and take anything.
After a moment’s indecision, she pushed gently on the central batten of the door. To Pam’s surprise the door opened easily, swinging silently on its hinges.
“Hello?” she whispered, then–“Hush, Maggie, ’tis nothing to be in such a fidget, there’s no-one here.”
Lady Pam stepped into a cavernous entrance hall, only to be greeted by deep shadows and clouds of dust. Tall, unwashed windows admitted only a few faint patches of light, showing pale through the grime. The ceiling of the foyer seemed to be floors away; she craned her neck to see it through the half-gloom and noticed a staircase descending from... somewhere.
She sniffed, and made a small expression of distaste. The odor was unmistakable to anyone born and bred in London,
haut ton
or not. Best not to mention it to the maid.
Maggie was not fooled. “Rats!” she said, “milady, there’s rats here, piles of ’em by the smell–”
“Hush,” said Lady Pam. “Every house in London has rats.”
“Hillsleigh don’ have rats!”
Lady Pamela waved the girl quiet. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw an expanse of forest green marble stretching before her. The marble was veined with gold, which glittered here and there amidst the general accumulation of dirt. Picking up her skirts, she moved across it, toward the staircase.
“Milady!” hissed Maggie in outrage. Lady Pam did not hear her. She was caught up in the feelings of sadness and regret that permeated the house, as tangible as the dust. The old duke’s wrath, she thought. It damned them all–Lady Guenevieve to an early death, the duke and duchess to a life without their daughters, and their granddaughter to a motherless childhood. At least Helène had since found happiness....
The entrance hall to a grand house was usually filled with furniture and potted plants, and Lady Pamela’s own home was no exception. But this room was barren, empty of everything but the draperies at the windows and a firescreen guarding the hearth. Except–
A large painting caught her eye; it hung above the foyer hearth and was draped with dusty streamers of black silk. Lady Pam, moved by curiosity, approached closer, wishing she had a candle to help pierce the shadows and the murk. The painting was of a young woman dressed in a fine white gown, a string of pearls around her neck. She was graceful and smiling, and Lady Pam felt a sudden sense of welcome.
Ah. Guenevieve Phillips. Pamela recognized the woman in the painting as Helène’s mother, dead now for many years.
And, according to every account, cast out by her father. But here, in the duke’s foyer, a portrait of the Lady Guenevieve held pride of place.
Why? A small mystery, decided Pamela. She was moving away from the hearth, half-intending to climb the staircase–Maggie notwithstanding–when something glinted at the corner of her eye.
There, to the right–a side corridor, leading to the back of the house. And thence to the kitchens below, possibly, or the servants quarters, thought Pamela. This arrangement was common in the great houses of the
ton
. The servants moved about using a rear staircase, fetching their cleaning supplies, or food and drink, or candles–anything their master or mistress might require. A door interrupted the corridor, closed as always, ensuring that no visiting lord or lady would be forced to glimpse any of these less-exalted activities.
The door itself had caught her eye. The wood was clean and polished, redolent with–now that she noticed it–the familiar scent of lemon oil. And next to the door, a half-moon side-table, also clean, and a shining brass candlestand holding three large candles of beeswax.
The candles had been lit, saw Pam. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks, her knees threaten to weaken. No thief, however bold, would stay to polish the woodwork, or the house brass.
Who could it be then?
Pamela considered the door, wishing she knew what–who–might greet her on the other side. The duke’s own quarters would be on an upper floor, of course. But perhaps someone had been recently employed to look after the house. To ready it for Lord Torrance’s arrival.
Common sense interrupted this line of thought. The duke’s arrival? ’Twas nonsense. The house would need an army of servants, and months of work, before it would be ready for Lord Torrance.
She must know. She must. Lady Pamela’s fingers inched toward the door knob. But Maggie had reached her limit.
“Milady, no,” she protested. “There’s nobody ’ll be thankin’ you to walk in on ’em, unawares like.”
“Someone lives here,” replied Pam. “I should find out–”
“Aye,” said Maggie, braving the interruption. “Somebody lives here, maybe. But they don’ look to be expectin’ company, do they?”
Lady Pamela frowned at the girl. She allowed her servants considerable licence, true, but this was too much. How dare the girl question her decisions?
Maggie is showing better sense than you are, answered a small voice. Walking into a strange house, uninvited–anyone on the street might have seen you entering or leaving. And to drag the poor maid into your own foolish imaginings is unconscionable.
Lady Pamela sighed. “You’re right,” she told Maggie. “I suppose we must go.”
Her curiosity might get the better of her if they stayed much longer, thought Pam. And ’twas probably nought but a runner, hired by the duke’s man-of-affairs to ensure no more windows were broken. Her heart threatened to sing; her mind replied that this was the outside of enough, and there would be no more visits to Audley Square.
Maggie pulled the door firmly closed on their way out.
* * * *
Benjamin watched from the balustrade of the second floor as Lady Pamela and the girl–her maid, by the sound of it–departed. He drew in a long, deep breath, wondering if he had been mistaken not to call out and acknowledge his visitors.
Pamela. Pamela.
He had been sorely tempted to do so. But why was she here? Lady Pamela Sinclair, of all people–the one person in London he most dreaded to see.
How had she found Marchers? Did she know that this was his home? And did she often walk into strange houses willy-nilly with no thought as to who might be within? The duke felt a twinge of irritation to combine with his worry. The chit showed a bothersome lack of concern for her own safety, especially as he and Josiah had seen evidence that the townhome had been inhabited, from time to time, by a few of the London street folk.
Benjamin found himself imagining what might have happened if some footpad had chosen to bed down in Marchers for the night just past. Lady Pamela might have been harmed, and there would have been no-one to find her, to even know where she had disappeared.
Her maid accompanied her, Benjamin reminded himself. And you were here, as well.
But–
“Why’n you talk t’ her?”
His valet advanced out of the gloom of the second floor hallway, dusting cloth in hand.
“Ah,” replied the duke. “Mmm.”
“Won’t make no headway, if you don’t talk t’ the gel,” added the valet. He spat tobacco juice in the direction of a nearby urn, one of the few items still decorating this area of the house.
Benjamin sighed. Men spat as they wished in the Virginia countryside, but he had yet to convince Josiah that matters were different in London. He was about to remonstrate when a rat, apparently disturbed by the commotion, crawled from the urn and scurried down the corridor.
Well. Perhaps the house was not so fine, as yet, to scorn a bit of tobacco.
“Who said I wished to make headway with Lady Pamela?” the duke asked the valet, immediately regretting that he had made any reply. The valet tended to forget their relative positions as master and servant, and Benjamin ought not to encourage him.
“Eh,” said the valet, shrugging. “Don’t make no never mind t’ me–”