Nell (18 page)

Nell sped down the corridor, moving quietly to avoid being heard. As she went, she wondered just when the door had been unlocked. She had heard nothing, which in all likelihood meant that the key must have been turned while Henrietta was crying out. The thought of Mr Beresford sneaking around outside her bedchamber
door made her skin crawl. She determined to be more vigilant in future.

Hetty’s door stood partially open, and from within came the sound of a man’s voice, low-toned. And apparently cheerful? Nell halted in the entrance, unable to believe that her eyes were not deceiving her.

In a chair by the bed sat Lord Jarrow, clad in a dressing gown and reading aloud by the light of a candle on the bedside table. Henrietta, her eyes fixed upon his face, listened, evidently entranced, to the rise and fall of his voice.

‘This speech did not at all abate the Beast’s wrath.

“Hold your tongue, sir,” he commanded, “if you can offer me nothing but flatteries and false titles.” The merchant, although in fear of his life, plucked up courage to tell the monster that the rose which he had been bold to pluck was…’

Nell recognised the tale as that of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ from the book of Perrault’s fairy stories from which she was wont to read to the child. But to find her employer doing so astonished her. Yet with a glow at her heart, her suspicions of him lulled, she saw that one of the little girl’s hands rested in his as he read, the book balanced upon his knees. So this was how he quietened her fits of screaming. And Beresford had given her to understand that his brother-in-law beat the child into submission. Yet another black mark to be added to his misdeeds, Nell decided grimly.

She stood quietly by the door, unwilling to make her presence felt, until she saw that Henrietta’s eyes were sinking. It was apparent that his lordship was aware of it, for although he continued reading, his voice lowered with the child’s gradual slide into sleep. He did not cease altogether until it was clear from Hetty’s even breathing
that she was deep in slumber. He watched her for a moment, and then raised the little hand to his lips and gently placed the errant arm under the covers. Henrietta sighed in her sleep and shifted onto her side.

Jarrow closed the book and set it down. Rising, he tucked the covers more closely around the child, and then moved the chair out of the way and picked up his candle. Giving his daughter one last tender glance, he turned to go and stopped short as he spied Nell standing in the doorway.

F
or a moment Jarrow did not move. Light from the unshuttered window spilled silver over the governess, turning to a ghostly radiance the gleaming tumble of hair upon her shoulders. To see her in
déshabillé
played havoc with his senses, and he was obliged to exercise a rigid control to prevent himself from giving in to base desire. The confinement of her figure within a wrapper caught about her and tied at the waist left little to the imagination. Beneath it he could clearly see the outline curve of her hip and the swell of her breast, and he badly wanted the feel of them under his hand and to taste the wine of her pretty lips with his own. His fingers itched to slide within the silk of her golden hair.

She was regarding him with a lurking smile at the back of her eyes, and the suspicion that she would find it hard to reject his caresses pulled Jarrow up sharply. Let the world believe as it chose, he knew himself for a man of honour. He would not abandon his principles upon a whim. As well sink to the level of she who had played him false.

Motioning Miss Faraday out of the room, he followed her into the corridor and gently closed the door. She had
turned towards him, an eagerness in her face indicative of a wish to speak to him. Hell and the devil! He prayed he might cut her short and remove himself as rapidly as possible from temptation. The candlelight was more forgiving than moonlight, thank the Lord! While her face was reflected in the light from his candle, he could no longer see her figure as clearly. Only he could feel the warmth from her body and an elusive female aroma assailed his senses, yet more arousing. Her words, however, were prosaic.

‘My lord, where is Duggan?’

‘I sent her away.’

There was a pause. She looked as if she wished to say something more, but her hesitation gave him the cue he needed.

‘You will take cold, Miss Faraday, if you stand about in the corridor. All is well now. Go back to bed.’

‘Presently. My lord—’

She broke off, and he read concern in her face. Anxious to be gone, Jarrow spoke more harshly than he intended.

‘What is the matter? If you have something to say, pray say it and be done!’

Her expression altered and she stiffened. ‘I will not keep you, sir. Tomorrow will do as well.’

‘I will not be here tomorrow.’

‘You are leaving the castle?’

Jarrow met her incredulous stare and sighed. ‘I spoke without thinking. I have business in Collier Row, that is all. I shall not be here before nightfall, and if it is urgent—’

‘It is extremely urgent!’

This was so forcefully said that Jarrow became suffi
ciently intrigued as to overshadow the distracting demands of his body. ‘Will it take long?’

Miss Faraday sighed. ‘I have no idea. Probably, since I must overcome a good deal of prejudice on your part.’

A low laugh escaped him. ‘Am I so prejudiced?’

He received a straight look. ‘I do not know, sir. But you are moody and prone to dismiss things that distress you—which gives rise to prejudice, perhaps.’

Jarrow smiled. ‘What I dislike so much about you, Nell Faraday, is that you are not afraid to speak your mind! No, belay that. I like it.’

She did not laugh. ‘My lord, will you give me a hearing—and with an open mind?’

He hesitated. Did she wish to speak of the tricks Toly had been playing? Lord knew he had enough on his hands with the fellow’s more dangerous exploits. Not that he had settled how he was to deal with the man, once he had him cornered.

He eyed the girl’s determined features. He had best do what he might to calm her fears at least. Dared he trust her with the truth—as he was coming to believe it—about Toly? Not yet, perhaps. But he could not in all conscience leave her to imagine worse than there was. She had proved not only stalwart in her determination to remain, but obdurate. He made up his mind.

‘Why do you not accompany me tomorrow? We could talk on the way.’

There was no mistaking the pleasure that lit in her face. ‘Get out of the castle? How delightful that would be!’

Jarrow was taken aback—and inclined to feel a trifle put out. Then he remembered that she had not been outside the walls of Castle Jarrow since her arrival. Lord, how remiss of him to have allowed it.

‘That is settled, then. Ten o’clock?’

In a daze, Nell nodded. Away from here—and in his company! The danger to her emotions did not immediately occur to her, though a rise of internal heat threw the reason into her conscious mind. She had never before seen Lord Jarrow in other than black. In his night garments, with his long hair untied, he stirred an inner hunger. Between the open edges of the collar of a white nightshirt, she could glimpse his skin. Her mouth went dry, and her gaze involuntarily rose to his. She found him looking at her in a way that tumbled warmth into her loins. Heavens, but she must not go with him! It was not fitting. He was the father of her charge. Abruptly she remembered her duty.

‘Henrietta! I cannot leave her.’

Jarrow was disappointed, and acutely conscious of change. For a moment there, the girl had looked anything but a governess. He found himself seeking a way through.

‘She will not be the worse for missing a day of education.’

‘It is not that, sir. You do not understand. I cannot possibly leave Hetty here if neither of us is in the castle.’

Arrested, he stared at her. ‘Are you mad too, Miss Faraday? What in the world do you suppose happened before you came here?’

Nell clamped down upon a rise of panic—and not entirely due to her fears for the child. She was running all too near to disclosing her suspicions, and that must not be done in the corridor where she might be overheard. Duggan had been sent away, but who knew if she had gone as she was bid. And Mr Beresford had certainly been prowling. She had begun upon this on impulse, her judgement swayed by finding that gentler side in Lord
Jarrow. She could not now draw back. A solution presented itself.

‘Might Hetty not come with us tomorrow?’

‘Why?’

The look in his eyes was compelling and Nell knew not how to prevaricate. She lowered her voice. ‘I believe her to be in danger.’

‘Is that what you wished to talk to me about? She is a danger to herself, perhaps.’

Nell began to feel desperate. ‘Lord Jarrow, I cannot talk of it here!’

‘And how will you talk of it if Hetty is with us?’

Nonplussed, she gazed at him. A trifle of amusement showed in his face. ‘No matter. We will find a way. I dare say it will do Hetty good to go out. Lord knows how long it has been since she did so.’

This was dismaying news, but understandable in the circumstances. ‘Since Lady Jarrow died, perhaps?’

‘Longer than that.’ Jarrow did a rapid calculation in his head. ‘It is nigh on three years since we returned from London. Beyond walking in the forest, I believe Duggan has kept her within doors.’

He then wished he had held his tongue. Wrath exploded from the governess.

‘
Three years?
My good sir, is it any wonder that she exhibits signs of instability? It is enough to send any child demented to be incarcerated in such a place!’

Jarrow felt himself pokering up, hot words of resentment hovering on his tongue. Yet he withheld them, torn by an equally hot flush of guilt. He had been unforgivably remiss. Blinded by his own pain, he had ignored the obvious. He should have made it his business to ensure that his daughter spent time away from the castle, at least before he began to suspect her mental condition.
After—well, that was another matter. He could scarce be blamed for refusing to show her abroad when her public conduct could not be predicted. But as for this delusion that the child was in danger! The thought checked as he came under further attack from the governess.

‘Pray, were you obliged to live here through your childhood, my lord? I shall own myself astonished if that is the case.’

‘You are right as usual, Miss Faraday,’ he said ruefully. ‘I was away at school for the most part, and my holidays were invariably spent with relatives. My father lived here, however, doing all he might to make the estates pay. My mother died, you see, when I was relatively young and my father did not wish me to succumb to such chills or ailments as she had done in Castle Jarrow.’

He came under fire from those unusual eyes. ‘It is a pity you could not do as much for your own daughter.’

Triumphant at having reduced him to simmering silence, Nell was just about to walk away when she recalled her mission. Instant remorse attacked her. Why could she not have held her tongue? Now she had alienated him again.

‘I dare say you would prefer not to have my company tomorrow, sir,’ she said impulsively. ‘Never mind. We may speak later, if that is more convenient.’

But Lord Jarrow stopped her as she made to go. ‘Let me not be accused of inhumanity a second time! You will accompany me tomorrow—whether or not you wish to!—and you will bring Henrietta. Goodnight!’

Nell watched him stalk off down the corridor, prey to a jumble of mixed emotions. It distressed her to have upset him so—safer though it was to have him back to his usual self. She knew him well enough to believe it
would not last. His was a moody nature, brought on no doubt by the vicissitudes of his past life, but she was convinced that Lord Jarrow was at heart a just and a gentle man. A part of her looked forward with a glow of anticipation—and inner unrest!—to the morrow. Yet she also viewed the prospect of unburdening her soul with a degree of apprehension. What if she were wrong? Could she not have waited until she had proof positive? But if she had pricked his conscience over the child, she must be satisfied for Henrietta’s sake.

When she arrived back at her chamber, she could only be glad she had forced the issue. The missing key had been replaced on the inside of her door.

Padnall Place was a Jacobean mansion. Purchased, as Lord Jarrow told Nell, in the reign of Queen Anne, and added to in later years, it was a rambling establishment with a great many rooms in several wings. Small wonder his lordship could not afford to live in it.

That he had planned to bring her here was obvious, since he had brought the key, for there was evidently no retainer.

‘How do you ensure that it is kept in good order?’ she asked, passing into a hall of vast proportions.

‘I don’t,’ he responded briefly.

Henrietta, whose spirits had been exuberant throughout the morning, skipped ahead, bolting up the huge central staircase that swept in two directions from a galleried landing. Nell called after her.

‘Take care!’ She turned to his lordship, who was in black as ever, but in outdoor garb of frock coat and top boots, a beaver covering his dark hair. ‘Are the floor-boards sound, or should I recapture her, do you think?’

‘She will come to no harm. There is nothing wrong
with the fabric of the house. It is the condition of the interior that leaves much to be desired.’

Which, Nell saw, was indeed the case. What furnishings there were had been huddled in the centre of each room and covered in holland covers. Yet there was a film of dust everywhere, the wood floors were stained in patches and much of the wallpaper was peeling. Nell ran her fingers over a doorjamb leading into a large parlour and found the dirt ingrained. Patches of damp gave sign that the roofs were unsound, and there was leakage from some of the closed shutters.

Hetty could be heard clattering about upstairs, and Nell became concerned.

‘I had better go after her, sir. She may become lost up there.’

Lord Jarrow headed for the stairs. ‘We will follow, and you may call to her from time to time.’ He set one foot on the stair and turned. ‘Let her roam a little, however. It will give us an opportunity to talk at last.’

Reminded of the purpose of this outing, Nell tried to recapture the feelings that had led her to ask for an interview with him. Irrationally, she began to feel that she had been making a mountain out of a molehill. It must be the influence of the outside world. Away from the castle, she had immediately begun to relax. Lord Jarrow too had fallen into mellow mood, choosing to engage his daughter and her governess in a discussion of the rival merits of Hetty’s favoured fairy stories as they drove to Collier Row. He had left them to stroll about the village green while he conducted his business there, and had returned with a toffee apple for the child. Not much to Nell’s delight, for she had been obliged to dip her pocket-handkerchief into the pond to rid Hetty’s face of the resulting stickiness.

Henrietta had been in high gig from the moment she had heard about the treat. Her surprise had passed swiftly, to be succeeded by a buoyancy that would have been itself a trifle disturbing, were it not clear to Nell that it was induced solely by the release from the tensions obtaining in the castle. If she felt it so strongly, how much more must the little girl feel it? What did surprise her was the ease of the child in her father’s presence. But then it had become obvious that she had been deliberately misled—both by Duggan and Beresford. The man who had sat at his daughter’s bedside last night, and today laughed to see her plastering her face with toffee, was not one who either beat the child or otherwise treated her with severity. His care of her instead showed him to cherish tender feelings for the little girl.

Yet Hetty’s personality underwent no change, for she conducted herself without any idea of polite behaviour—butting in with her non sequiturs upon the discussion of her elders and answering only those questions that she chose. But that, decided Nell indignantly, must be set at the door of her upbringing. If no one thought to teach her how to behave in company, how was the child supposed to learn it?

Following Lord Jarrow up the stairs, Nell found herself reluctant to enter upon the subject that had brought her. Here, despite the dilapidation of Padnall Place, everything was so normal that it felt absurd to talk of vague plots and strange happenings. Prevaricating, she called after Hetty to find out if she was safe. The child’s voice echoed back to her, not far away, and Nell was satisfied.

‘Now then, Miss Faraday.’

There was command in the tone and Nell suppressed an inward sigh. The moment could not be put off any
longer. She paused in the corridor and turned to look at him. The light was dim here, but she thought she detected a return of tautness in his features. Nell drew breath and plunged in.