She hesitated. She needed to see Blanche. But she
didn’t want the men knowing of her presence. If they were Neville’s
accomplices, Blanche could be in worse danger than before.
Brushing disheveled curls from her face, Dillian rubbed her
hands together for warmth. She wished she could just walk into Blanche’s
chamber and warm herself at the fire, but she’d learned patience and a
cynical suspicion over these past few years. She had learned she had no
physical strength or power with which to fight men. She had no wealth or fame.
She had only her wits, and her wits told her the element of surprise was her
best weapon.
Listening carefully, she could hear no more sounds from the
other room. She must take the chance. Blanche would be frightened. They needed
to talk.
Cautiously, Dillian clung to the shadows as she slipped down
the corridor from one room to the next. The fire cast a flickering light over
the bare floors and wall. No shadow passed before it. No sound emanated from
the chamber. Taking a deep breath, she entered.
Blanche was prying at the bandage over her eyes.
“Stop that!” Dillian hissed. “Do you want
to ruin your eyes for certain?”
The figure in the bed turned quickly toward the sound of her
voice. “Dillian! Thank heavens. Where am I?”
That was an excellent question, but Dillian couldn’t
answer it. In the dark, all country roads looked alike to her, and she
couldn’t read the signs while clinging in terror to the back of a
carriage. She just knew it had taken over an hour at hair-raising speeds to get
here. She didn’t tell Blanche that.
“We’ll figure that out later. I only have a few
minutes before one of them returns. I just wanted you to know I’m here.
Make them go away, and then we can talk.”
Even as she said it, they could hear the floor creak beneath
approaching footsteps. The monster still hadn’t donned his shoes.
“I’ll be in the wardrobe,” Dillian
whispered. Without hesitation, she slid into the narrow musty darkness of old
clothes. She left the door open just enough to hear.
“Stop that!” a male voice roared from the other
side of the door.
Dillian stifled a grin. Blanche must have been fiddling with
the bandages again.
“I brought you some water.”
He didn’t sound like a monster, more like an irritated
male. She suspected men didn’t much like being woken in the middle of the
night to nurse invalids they didn’t know. But this man lived in a
moldering Gothic ruin and dressed like a madman. She wanted to know his story.
Her imagination had taken flight when Blanche’s weak voice prosaically
asked the questions dancing through Dillian’s mind.
“Could you tell me who you are and where I am?”
Blanche always spoke politely, even when frightened out of her wits. Dillian
held her breath as her cousin continued, “Your accent is odd. Are you
Canadian?”
The man didn’t answer immediately. Dillian considered
his hesitation suspicious. His reply didn’t entirely relieve her.
“Close enough,” he answered the last question
first. “I’m Gavin Lawrence. The house’s official name is
Arinmede Manor. I’m more inclined to call it Arinmede Ruins.”
The man’s wry tone indicated a sense of humor, but
Dillian wasn’t in the mood for laughing. The description seemed apt
enough from what little she had seen of the place. She wondered where the
servants were. Surely, he didn’t live alone in this sprawling
monstrosity. He had mentioned a maid.
She listened to the battle of wills taking place in the room
beyond her hiding place. Blanche used her best little-girl voice trying to send
her host away. Neville always fell for that childish tone of voice, until
recently anyway.
This man didn’t seem impressed. Dillian gritted her
teeth as he insisted on sleeping in the next chamber in the event that his
guest
needed him.
“Oh, no, sir! Not on my account, please,”
Blanche responded sweetly. “It would be highly improper, in any event. If
you have a bell, I can just summon a maid if I need someone.”
Blanche’s innocent posturing had fooled many a male
before, but Dillian didn’t think it would work on a man bent on seducing
an heiress. Of course, a man trying to do what was proper would be caught in
another sort of bind. Blanche could not attend herself. Just as obviously, she
could not have a man as attendant. Dillian found herself listening with interest
to how the monster would resolve that problem.
The growling answer emanating from beyond the door indicated
he didn’t resolve it willingly. “The bell pull rotted long ago.
Just fling the water glass when you need someone. It’s bound to hit
something loud enough for me to hear. The maid is too far away, and Michael
indicated some need for secrecy, so it seems you’re stuck with me.”
Dillian bit back a giggle at this highly original system of
summoning help. She could imagine Mr. Gavin Lawrence wanting to strangle this
man Michael right about now. She almost felt sorry for the poor misanthropic
chap. Almost. The fact that Mr. Lawrence needed a wealthy wife and
couldn’t obtain one through normal means squelched any real sympathy.
“Will you send for my companion in the morning?”
Blanche inquired hopefully. Dillian waited for the reply with interest.
Again, their host hesitated before replying. She
didn’t like it when he did that.
“I’ll look into it,” he answered slowly, “but
if there’s some danger, it might not be the wisest course.”
“Dillian wouldn’t hurt me!” Blanche
replied indignantly.
“Someone could follow her,” he pointed out.
Even Blanche couldn’t come up with a suitable reply to
that. How did one say, “Open the wardrobe, and she’ll appear”
without causing no end of complications? They would come up with a better
solution later. Right now Dillian wanted to find out more about the Lawrences
of Arinmede Ruin.
Blanche and her host apparently reached some understanding
with little more discussion. Dillian listened with relief as the man’s
footsteps disappeared from the room. She wished she’d dared peek at the
monster, but the darkness was too complete.
She leaned against the back of the wardrobe to untangle
herself from a moth-eaten shawl and a ball gown with a train apparently
designed to be carried by a dozen pages. She couldn’t believe women had
trapped themselves in all that frippery in her mother’s time.
Impatiently, she brushed it aside, but before she could
reach for the wardrobe door, the panel behind her lurched, and she nearly fell
backward into a gaping black hole.
Stifling a gasp, she steadied herself by grabbing the ball
gown, then gazed in amazement at the opening where the back of the wardrobe
should have been. A strong draft already wrapped around her ankles. So
that’s where the mysterious Michael had disappeared.
“Dillian, are you in there?” Blanche called from
the bed.
Unable to see anything but blackness, Dillian opened the
wardrobe door. “I’m here. I think I just found a secret passage. I
don’t suppose he left a candle?”
“How should I know?” Blanche’s irritated
reply warned that pain had worn her patience thin. Dillian hopped down from the
wardrobe and hurried to test her cousin’s brow for fever.
“You’re a little warm. Drink some more water,
then I think you’d best take more laudanum. There is no sense in
suffering more than you must.” She spoke gently, wishing she could take
away the pain. A lot of people owed this slip of a girl their lives, but
Blanche would never acknowledge it. So Dillian said her thanks without words.
“I suppose that means you’ll have all the fun
exploring secret passages and this rambling ruin while I lie here like an old
grandmother,” Blanche fretted. “Well, you had best locate a chamber
pot or something before you go. Or take off this ridiculous bandage so I can
look for myself.”
Dillian caught her cousin’s damaged hands before she
could pry at the bandages again. “I think our host has some aversion to
anyone seeing him. That bandage makes him feel safe with you. Leave it on for
now, until I can scout things out a little more. Let me look for the chamber
pot.”
She couldn’t find one in the washstand or under the
bed. Cautiously, she checked the door in the west wall.
“Like in the
Beauty and the Beast
story?”
Blanche asked with interest. “Perhaps he’s a prince in disguise?”
“More likely a wolf in sheep’s clothing,”
Dillian muttered, discovering a nearly bare sitting room behind the door. The
owner certainly had spared the expense when he decorated this place.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” Blanche
asked as Dillian opened another door.
“Wherever it is, it’s a few hours from home.
They have a water closet!” she announced with delight. “The place
may be a ruin, but it’s a modern one.”
“He called it a manor, but it feels more like a
castle. Castles have garderobes. Is there a moat?”
Dillian grimaced as she helped her cousin from the bed. “This
is neither a fairy tale nor Sir Walter’s medieval fantasies. It’s a
great sprawling lump of bad architecture and outlandish expense. I suspect this
wing is relatively modern. I just can’t figure out why a modern structure
would have something so medieval as a secret passage.”
Blanche apparently had time to think about it while she was
in the water closet. When she came out, she announced with satisfaction, “So
the lord of the manor could visit his mistress in secret. I read that in a
Minerva novel once.”
That sounded highly unlikely to Dillian, but she
didn’t argue. Despite her normal good nature and enormous energy, Blanche
was tiring rapidly. Dillian helped her cousin back to bed and tucked her in
before pouring her more laudanum.
“I’ll be right here while you go to sleep,”
she murmured as Blanche obediently drank the sleeping draft.
And right after Blanche went to sleep, Dillian amended
silently, she fully intended to explore this odd household. First, she would
find the monster’s lair so she could avoid it in the future.
Then she would look for a weapon with which to protect
Blanche. No matter how confident their thoughtful kidnapper sounded, Neville
would find them within days.
She had every intention of being prepared for her
cousin’s would-be murderer this time.
“She what!”
The immaculately dressed young duke stared at the disheveled
elderly physician with shock and fury. Behind him, an equally well-dressed man
listened with impatience, exhibited by the tightening of his thin lips.
“The young lady and her companion ran away, Your
Grace,” the physician insisted. “They took my carriage and
disappeared during the night.”
Removing his beaver hat, the duke ran his fingers through
his neatly cut blond hair in a gesture of frustration and bewilderment. He
glanced at his comrade as if expecting some explanation from him. At the earl’s
irritated expression, he turned back to the physician.
“Your message said she was seriously burned. You said
she might be blind and could lose the use of her hands. A gently nurtured
female does not take up carriage driving while blind and handicapped. What have
you done with her?”
The physician could add little more to his story. By the
time the two men departed the small surgery where Blanche had been treated, the
younger had reached a state well beyond coherency.
“There is nothing else you can do, Neville,” the
earl suggested. “If your cousin has chosen to run away rather than
receive the treatment she ought, you owe her nothing else. If we don’t
return to London directly, we will miss the debate on the Home Security bill.
Your vote is too important to neglect your duty.”
“It wasn’t Blanche. It had to be that blasted
companion of hers. The wench is too sly by far. She’s a scheming baggage
if I ever saw one. I should never have let Blanche hire her. What in Hades does
she think she’s doing by stealing Blanche? What can she possibly gain?”
He’d finally caught the older man’s interest. “Money?”
he suggested. “Perhaps the lady’s companion sees your upcoming
nuptials as a threat and seeks to gain sufficient income so she need not worry
about her position any longer.”
The young duke didn’t look placated. “Miss
Reynolds is too cunning for something so simple as that. She has convinced
Blanche to put off our announcement for months. She has something planned. She
is behind this. I’ll set Bow Street on her.”
His Grace looked up with an air of decision only to be
confronted with a slight auburn-haired man in a rather eccentric pink waistcoat
and gray frock coat. The duke tried walking around this apparition, but the man
swept off his tall beaver hat and made a polite bow.
“Michael O’Toole at your service, Your Grace.
Might I suggest we walk along to your carriage as we talk so as not to attract
attention?” Boldly, the eccentric apparition caught the young
duke’s elbow and steered him down the narrow village street in the
direction of the carriage at the bottom of the hill.
Neville jerked his arm away. “You may not suggest
anything. Remove yourself before I whistle up my servants.”
The tall hat returned to cover auburn curls. O’Toole
didn’t look in the least concerned by the threat. “Bow Street is
good for locating stolen goods and known thieves,” he informed the air at
large. “They have their sources in all the dens of iniquity in the city.
They are of little use out here in the countryside, and you can be certain the
Lady Blanche did not run to a den of iniquity.”
The young duke scowled. “How did you know about my
cousin?”
The dapper O’Toole shrugged. “The carriage was
last seen heading south on the main highway about nine of last evening. I have
men checking the way stations now. I am extremely good at what I do. The
origins of that fire were suspicious, you know.”