Simmer All Night (37 page)

"We'll find them, Lana," Cole said, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. "It's my guess they're with Christina and since she doesn't want to be found right now, it's making the search for your children a little more difficult. So instead of worrying about safety, worry about choosing what punishment to dole out. You know if they're with Christina, she'll keep them safe."

* * *

After seeing Jake was on her trail and knowing a search through the basement rooms would keep him occupied for a while, Chrissy ducked into Harpur Priory's ironing room to hide. Her head was spinning and her emotions were a wreck. She needed time to gather herself before facing the visitors from Texas.

Aware her brother would be methodical in his search now that he'd tracked her to the basement, she slipped up a servant's staircase and chose to lose herself among the manor's most elaborate and least visited rooms, the state apartments.

She wandered through the State Drawing Room to the State Music Room, and had settled down at the mahogany and satinwood harpsichord to peck out a tune and think when she heard Michael and Sophie Kleberg's telltale laughter.

"Lana put them to bed long ago," she murmured, rising to follow the sound. The children had no business being here in this part of the house. These grand rooms were designed for display, rather than living in. They certainly were not rooms in which to play.

The giggling came from the State Bedchamber. Chrissy walked inside and winced. "Michael! Sophie! Quit jumping on that bed this instant."

The laughter died abruptly. Slowly, two pairs of eyes peeked out from behind blue damask bed hangings. Michael assumed that sheepish, boyish expression guaranteed to melt a female heart while Sophie offered her innocent little cherub's smile. Chrissy could resist neither one.

"Oh, you two. This the last place you should be. Why aren't you in bed where you belong?"

Michael jumped down onto the floor. "We weren't tired and we started playing spies so when we saw Mr. Bennet come inside, we followed him here."

Sophie nodded, her eyes round and excited. "He went inside the wall, Miss Chrissy. We're waiting for him to come out again."

"Went inside the wall?"

"It's a secret door," Michael explained. He pointed toward the wall. "Right—"

He gasped, then dove for the concealment of the bed hangings as the door under discussion began to swing open. Chrissy thought it best to follow. They'd upset poor Lord Bennet enough today. Better he didn't know the children had invaded the State Bedchamber.

The man carried a leather-bound book in one hand and murmured something beneath his breath as he approached the bed. Chrissy cringed back away from the curtains, certain they were about to be found.

Instead, he reached into the hangings, felt along the gilded bedpost, then grabbed a lever hidden ingeniously in the carved palm tree design. He pushed the lever and Chrissy heard the secret door swing shut. Sophie's wide eyes met hers, and she held a finger up to her lips until the sound of Lord Bennet's departing footsteps died away.

"You two will be the death of me," she grumbled as she crawled from the bed and headed for the door with Sophie at her heels. "Come along. I'll see y'all back to bed."

Michael didn't immediately follow. Chrissy turned back at the snick of a latch. The hidden door swung open once more. "I just want a quick peek," said Michael as he darted through the opening.

"Michael," Chrissy insisted. "Get back here."

"I'll get him," cried Sophie before she, too, darted through the door.

Chrissy sighed heavily, then went in after them.

Deep shadows concealed the passage and she stumbled, almost falling, when her foot found the first descending step. Of the Klebergs, she saw no sign. "Children," she called.

From below came the echoes of their voices.

"Troublesome pair," she murmured. Why, the Klebergs' shenanigans made her own childhood escapades look angelic.

Chrissy descended a spiraling staircase that seemed to go on forever. This was not a normal servants' staircase with its narrow width and dank, dusty steep steps. She spied no exits from the passageway.

Upon reaching a point where light from the room above no longer penetrated the gloom, she noticed a small ledge, upon which sat a matchbox. Gazing below, she saw the yellow glow of a lantern. "Intrepid explorers," she murmured as the shadows deepened to near dark. Weren't those two afraid of anything? By now she figured she must be below the lowest level of the house.

Chrissy continued to descend. Before long she noticed that the light, which earlier had been moving in a spiral like herself, now remained motionless. Seconds later, more light flared and she heard echoes, louder now, of the children's voices. Chrissy picked up her pace and soon she saw just what the children had exclaimed over.

The staircase ended behind a door that led into the crypt directly across from the room housing Lord Bennet's private collection. Chrissy paused long enough to do a quick mental geography comparison to where they'd gone yesterday and where she was now. Yes, she could see how it all fit together. The crypt was large, its tunnels running between the manor and the pool house. No telling how many other rooms and tunnels were hidden below the grounds of Harpur Priory.

No
telling how many other secrets
they contain,
Chrissy thought, shuddering.

"Michael. Sophie. We are not supposed to be here," she said, walking into the lushly apportioned room. To her surprise, the children were nowhere to be seen. Hearing their voices, she glanced to the left and spied another opening, one she'd not noticed yesterday. Looking closer, she saw that it had been concealed by a tall display case now shifted out of the way.

Chrissy walked into the second, smaller chamber and found the Kleberg children standing in the center, gazing around them in wonder. Mud-chinked logs covered the rock walls and gave the appearance of the inside of a cabin.

Sophie looked up at Chrissy and said, "This is just like that old homestead cabin on that ranchland Mr. Cole bought."

Glancing quickly around the room, Chrissy saw that indeed, it was quite similar. A wedding-ring quilt adorned an iron bed and braided rugs softened the hard rock floor. A Dutch oven was nestled amongst coals spread in a false hearth, and an oil lamp sat on a rosewood table, an intricately carved piece that looked strangely out of place, but at the same time, perfectly at home. In log cabins all across the American frontier, families mixed heirloom pieces with those made on the spot from whatever resources were at hand.

A Bible lay opened on the table. Curious despite herself, Chrissy glanced down and read the names written on the record of marriage: Randolph Allen Wilcox and Maribeth Leigh Jones. "Randolph Wilcox," Chrissy murmured. The name seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. The page opposite the marriages recorded births and only one was listed. "John Randolph Wilcox, born December 3, 1851, Houston, Texas."

"My mama had a rocker like that one at home," said Sophie, pointing toward the hearth.

As Chrissy looked toward the chair, her gaze snagged on the oil painting hanging above the mantel. It was a portrait of a man, woman, and child, and something about the painting bothered Chrissy. She walked closer and read the brass plate attached to the frame. "Randolph and Maribeth Wilcox, and their son John. Bluebonnet Ranch, Texas."

She frowned. Something about the painting bothered her, but she didn't want to take the time to figure it out. A sense of urgency plagued her. "Come along, you two. We don't belong down here. Proper house guests don't make themselves at home by snooping in their host's private rooms."

"Now that," came a voice from behind her, "is what they call in Texas a dead open fact."

Chrissy cringed. "Lord Bennet, I'm so very sorry," she said, turning around. "The children..." Her voice trailed off.

Lord Bennet held a Colt revolver pointed at her heart.

Chapter 15

Lord Bennet's voice dripped menace as he finished her sentence for her. "The children made a very big mistake."

Immediately, Chrissy pulled the children behind her. "I don't understand."

"Perhaps not at this moment, but I fear soon you will. I am sorry for this, Miss Delaney. I truly am. But y'all have discovered my secret, and I'm afraid that is something I simply cannot allow."

"Your secret?" Chrissy's mind raced. "You mean this room? We won't tell anyone about it, Lord Bennet. You have my word."

He sighed. "If it were only the room, I might be convinced to let you go. But, of course, it's much more than that."

Sincerity rang in her voice as she insisted, "I don't know anything. I didn't learn anything."

"You will figure it out eventually. You are a smart girl. You found your way down here, didn't you?"

Michael poked his head out from around Chrissy.

"She's not really very smart. She just followed us. We're not that smart either 'cause we saw you open the secret door and then you left these others open. We'd have never found this place otherwise."

Bennet ignored the boy, his gaze drifting past Chrissy's shoulder toward the portrait hung above the mantel. "I realize to be safest I should shoot you all right now. However," he paused, his mouth dipping in a frown, "that would be terribly messy and quite permanent. Hmm... I wonder if there is another way."

"Oh, I'm certain there must be," Chrissy hastened to say, never taking her gaze off the gun.

"Maybe if we give this some time, one of us will think of something." Bennet frowned. "Of course, they'll look for you. I'll need to do something about that."

He thought for a moment, then crossed to the trunk that sat at the foot of the bed. Removing a coiled rope, he shot them a fierce look and said, "Don't move now."

He set down his gun, but even as Chrissy debated the intelligence of rushing him, he withdrew a knife from his boot and cut the rope in two places. Seconds later, he again held the gun pointed at Chrissy and she cursed herself for failing to act.

"No," he said, reading her correctly. "You made the right decision. I'm a strong man, Miss Delaney. You wouldn't get past me." He tossed the pieces of rope her way. "Now, I want you to tie the youngsters' hands behind their backs. Children, go sit on the bed,"

"Tie the children? It's cruel. I won't do it."

"It is better that I shoot them?"

Chrissy and the Klebergs did as he demanded without further protest. Bennet observed her actions, saying, "Tie them well. I'll check your knots and the children will be the ones to pay if they are sloppy."

Once Sophie and Michael were secured, he tied Chrissy's hands and ordered her to sit on the horsehair sofa. Then returning to the trunk, he took a bed sheet and began to tear it into strips. Chrissy decided to try and reason with him one more time. "Don't do this, please. There's no need."

He smiled sadly, "You saw this room, the Bible, the painting. Come on, Miss Delaney, do you honestly expect me to believe you haven't figured out my true identity?"

Her gaze flew to the painting, then back to him. The truth hit her like a fist. He wasn't Lord Bennet at all. The baron was an impostor. "You're the boy."

"Like I said, you're a smart girl." He touched the brim of an imaginary hat with the barrel of the gun. "John Wilcox at your service—"

"How...?"

"Quite easily, actually. I was a third generation Texan, you see. My grandfather fought with Sam Houston at San Jacinto. Family had a nice farm down near Bastrop. Then my mama died in childbirth and my pa drank himself to death. I was seventeen when I lost the homeplace in a card game."

He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "I had three aces. Thought for certain I'd win that hand."

"You bet your home in a card game?" Michael asked incredulously.

"I should have cheated, although if I hadn't lost my home I wouldn't have been riding with a gang of horse thieves when the real Lord Bennet joined up. He looked so much like me everyone swore we were brothers."

Bennet approached her, and using a strip of bed-sheet for a rope, bound her ankles together. "He was a British remittance man. His allowance came twice a year and every single time it arrived he'd get liquored up and talk on and on about his hoity-toity family back in England. I used to wear my ears out listening to him."

He sauntered over to the bed where the children cowered, their eyes round and fearful. Chrissy wanted to kill the man at that moment.

He continued his story as he tied the children's ankles. "When the letter came telling him his brother was dead, and the title and family fortune had come to him, well, it just seemed the natural thing to do to take his place."

Chrissy didn't want to ask how, but he must have seen the question in her eyes because he shrugged and said, "I killed him, of course. He all but asked for it, being so loud-mouthed about his family, telling me everything but their boot sizes. At first I intended to take the money and return to Texas, but I discovered I like being a British lord. It has worked out well, although I do get homesick from time to time. That is why I started my collection, why I built this place. I wanted a tangible reminder of home where I could retreat to when I needed."