Julie Anne Long (7 page)

But there was something else in the pocket as well. Something cool and smooth and heavier than a coin. She closed her fingers over it and drew it out.

It was a gold locket, a simple gleaming oval attached to a long gossamer chain that pooled in her palm, tickling it. She stared at it in blank astonishment. What on earth was Papa doing with a piece of woman’s jewelry?

Rebecca ran her thumb along the edge of the locket, and gasped when it sprang open.

Inside was a miniature portrait of a stunning woman, her face alight with the certainty of her own beauty, her intelligence apparent in the imperious, amused cant of her blue eyes and uptilted chin. Her hair, gathered into a complex arrangement of curls, was a lustrous black, and her full rosy mouth turned down a bit at the corners in one of those frowns that seemed more like a smile. A peacock feather arced over the top of her head. Rebecca stared at the portrait, confused and mesmerized, as if she could will it to make sense by simply staring.

She froze at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. The efficient measured clicking of heels on marble belonged to Gilroy, who, no doubt, wanted to check the library for empty brandy glasses and refill her father’s decanter. Rebecca frantically stuffed the pound note and the locket into her pocket, smoothed her damp palms against her apron, squared her shoulders, and moved toward the library exit as casually as her pounding heart and guilty conscience would allow.

“Oh, hello, Miss Rebecca.” Gilroy looked a trifle startled. He threw a swift glance over his shoulder, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “He’s hidden the book, you know.”

“So I
gathered
, Gilroy,” Rebecca said, more crossly than necessary. Belatedly remembering her manners, she nodded briskly, moved past the confused butler, and nearly dashed down the hallway.

Gilroy stared after her. “And here I was hoping Miss Rebecca’s dear self would rub off on that young lordship Edelston, and not t’other way ’round,” he said sadly to himself as he collected the brandy glasses.

Chapter Five

T
he first light of dawn always seems to obscure more than it illuminates,
Connor thought with some satisfaction. On this morning of all mornings, this worked beautifully in his favor. He circled the sturdy gray horse standing between the shafts of the cart and ran his fingers under the leather strap on his back one more time, checking the fit of the harness.

It was serendipity, plain and simple, Connor decided, that Sir Henry Tremaine had decided to combine one of Connor’s routine trips to the village for supplies with a visit to a squire in South Greeley to inspect a mare for sale at a shockingly reasonable sum.

Naturally, Connor had thought this trip was a capital idea.

The rest of his plan lined up in his mind’s eye: a dear friend, a woman, who had gladly done him a favor. A town called Sheep’s Haven, far enough off the coach road to throw any pursuers off their trail. A well-hidden hunting box on an estate that had once been both purgatory and paradise for a young boy. And his aunt, his mother’s sister, who ran a school for girls in Scotland—their final destination.

And then it would be off to his new life in America, the life he had only been postponing here with the Tremaines.

With any luck the connection between his trip to South Greeley and Rebecca’s disappearance would not be made for a day or so if at all, allowing them a precious day of relative anonymity on the road. And Connor would not be expected to return from South Greeley for at least a week. By then, Sir Henry and Lady Tremaine and Lorelei would be in London, for he doubted even a missing daughter would cause Lady Tremaine to postpone Lorelei’s London season.

Harness inspection completed, Connor bent to pick up the lunch basket that Mrs. Hackette, the housekeeper, had packed for him. He moved to the back of the cart and lifted the canvas to tuck the basket in with the sacks of feed already there.

“Don’t move. Don’t speak. Breathe as little as necessary,” he hissed under the canvas, then lowered it again.

The cart heaved and squeaked as Connor hoisted himself aboard. Then with a snap of the reins, the gray trotted briskly out of the stable yard.

Edelston was watching a fat bee hovering above one of the fluffy damask roses that lined the front garden of Tremaine House. He gifted it with a dreamily benevolent smile.
I am as the bee
, he thought,
and my sweet Rebecca is as the rose. The bee seeks to drink the nectar from the fragrant petals of the rose, and the . . .

He interrupted himself midthought and shifted on the stone bench, turning his thoughts to a more immediate concern, one that had very little to do with propriety and much to do with his recently discovered sense of honor. In light of the hastiness of the proceedings, he had invited but one guest to the wedding, and the clattering of hooves in the courtyard announced that she had arrived, in a carriage bearing the Dunbrooke arms. Edelston stood, hat doffed, and watched as Cordelia Blackburn, Duchess of Dunbrooke, was helped from her carriage by a brace of eager Tremaine footmen.

She was wearing some restrained confection of a hat, straw with a bit of blue feather fluttering from it. He smiled. It was almost cruel, the way Cordelia always skillfully highlighted her extraordinary features with a tassel here, a bit of lace there. It was one of her weapons, and not the least of them by far. Edelston watched as Cordelia gave some instructions to her maidservant and the dark, bent little manservant who always seemed to hover near her. Finally the clutch of servants dispersed into the house, staggering under trunks.

Then she turned and saw Edelston waiting for her in the front garden, just as they had agreed, and moved toward him.

Cordelia did not so much walk as
shimmer,
her movement a seeming product of the meeting of sunshine and air. Her face bloomed like a lily atop the delicate stem of her neck, and one gleaming blue-black curl caressed the slope of her cheekbone, as deliberate as the final note of a symphony. But just like everything else about Cordelia, Edelston knew her ethereal air was an illusion. Cordelia Blackburn could clamp her silky thighs around a man’s waist like a vise, and he had more than once heard her howl like a banshee in the throes of . . .

He was beginning to feel warm.

“Tony,” she said in that song of a voice, and extended a hand encased in blue kid.

Edelston grasped her proffered fingers and bent over them.

“Cordelia. You are . . . a vision. You steal my breath, as always.”

She laughed, a sound like tiny bells spilling out onto the lawn.

“I see your silver tongue has not been tarnished by your prolonged stay in the damp country air, Tony. Once again I am at its mercy.”

Cordelia did not appear to be at the mercy of anyone at all, Edelston noted. She cast her eyes up at him from beneath the brim of her snug little straw hat. Those eyes were another of her weapons: a limpid sapphire encircled by a rim of midnight blue, enormous with just the hint of a tilt to them. The expression in them rarely changed. There was always some degree of ironic amusement, cool detachment, or subtle challenge reflected there. Edelston had once considered this the height of sophistication, her control of every situation a breathtaking thing. Now he found he preferred unpredictability, specifically the unpredictability of a particular redhead.

“I have indeed been spared tarnish, Cordelia. But do you perhaps detect a . . . patina of happiness?”

“A patina of happiness,” Cordelia repeated slowly, incredulously, as she withdrew her fingers from his. “Oh, dear.”

“Yes, it’s true, Cordelia,” Edelston said solemnly as he led her to the bench and sat down at her side, “I am in love. For the first time in my life.”

It had apparently never occurred to Edelston that someone whose name he had more than once shouted in the throes of passion might wince upon hearing such a confession. But if Cordelia was wounded she did not show it; her eyes merely widened and the amused glint in them glittered more brightly.

“Ah, I see,” she said. “You are in love. That would certainly explain the purple speech. Are you perhaps in love with your bride-to-be? This Tremaine girl, this—?”

“Rebecca,” Edelston said dreamily, because he could not say her name in any other way.

“Rebecca. And is she in love with you?”

Edelston was startled by the question. He had been so busy being in love with Rebecca that he had failed to notice whether or not Rebecca was in love with him.

“We shall be husband and wife soon. It hardly matters, does it?”

“Oh,
hardly
,” Cordelia agreed. Edelston missed the note of irony in her voice; he was buffered thickly by infatuation. “And what will you do with a wife once you are married?”

“Why . . .” he said, and stopped. Here was another issue he had failed to consider. He had a vague image in his mind of Rebecca embroidering pillows in the parlor of his country estate while he went about his life in London.

“Why, I shall be happy, of course.”

“Why, of
course.
And this marriage will allow you to conclude our . . . financial arrangement?” Cordelia prompted delicately.

“Ah, yes,” Edelston said, reddening. “Cordelia, I re- gret the necessity of, er . . . taking advantage of your generosity—”

One of Cordelia’s feathery black brows shot nearly to her hairline at these words, and the corner of her mouth lifted skeptically, but she nodded, encouraging Edelston to continue.

“—and I am happy to say that I no longer have need of your funds. Sir Henry Tremaine has been quite generous with the marriage settlements.”

“It shall be forgiven and forgotten, Tony,” she assured him.

Although Edelston had been vigorously blackmailing her for some time now, Cordelia was not lying about forgiving him. She had begrudgingly appreciated the brash desperation that had prompted Edelston to blackmail her. After all, Tony was a fellow opportunist. One did what one must to survive in the world, and if ever Cordelia had a credo of her own, that was it. Not that the whole episode hadn’t made her angry and resentful indeed; but now that it was nearing its end, she was finding harsh emotions quite a waste of energy. In general, Tony amused her.

“Forgiven and forgotten, that is, once the article of jewelry in question has been restored to me.” She laid her blue-kid encased hand briefly on Edelston’s upper thigh for emphasis. Her eyes widened again at what her hand encountered.

“Missed me, have you, Tony?” she murmured. Her hand lifted slowly.

“Guh . . . er . . .” Edelston reddened, staring for a moment like a startled doe into her amused, knowing blue eyes. Then he collected his wits and reached into the inner pocket of his coat for the locket.

The pocket was empty.

His fingers thrashed about in the pocket’s recesses. It was truly empty. Excruciatingly, resoundingly empty.

“It was here, I swear, I never remove it from here, it
must
be here, my pound note is missing, too,” he muttered insanely.

Cordelia froze, and then turned slowly and fixed Edelston with a long blue stare, which terrified him. Edelston had been on the receiving end of this particular utter absence of expression several times before, and each time it frightened him in a way he didn’t fully understand. It was as though Cordelia had left her body completely, leaving behind a stranger comprised of indifference so absolute she seemed capable of anything.

He patted at his other pockets in an agitated fashion and made a show of glancing around at the ground near the bench, but he knew it was useless. For as long as it had been in his possession, he had kept the locket in his inner overcoat pocket.

He finally stopped searching and squeezed his eyes shut in disbelief. It was gone.

Cordelia and Edelston lifted their heads from their respective torments when they heard the crunch of footsteps in front of them. It was Gilroy the footman, looking reddened and mussed and nearly as agitated as Edelston.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Lord Edelston, Your Grace, but have you seen Miss Rebecca at all today, Lord Edelston?”

Edelston frowned. “No, Gilroy. I thought she was dressing for luncheon.”

“She seems to be . . . well, sir . . .”

“What is it, Gilroy?” Edelston’s voice had gone weak with dread.

Gilroy capitulated with a sigh. “’Twould seem that Miss Rebecca is missing, Lord Edelston. And Sir Henry would like to see you in the house at once. If you would, sir.”

Edelston’s ears began to ring. He found he lacked the breath to stand up.

“Come, Tony, let’s go see what this is about, shall we?” Cordelia said sweetly. She looped her arm through his and nearly pulled him off the bench. Side by side, they followed Gilroy into the house.

From the back of a horse, the road leading away from Rebecca’s father’s estate had always seemed a civilized thing. The cart, however, revealed otherwise; it lurched over countless bumps and pebbles and ruts with a sadistic thoroughness. Before long, Rebecca was convinced that by the time they reached the village her bones would be jellied inside her skin and her teeth would be rattling around inside her mouth like dice.

And Connor’s admonishment not to breathe had proved unnecessary. Breathing had ceased being an attractive pastime once she realized that whatever had occupied the cart before her—dead cattle? rotten turnips?—had generously left behind its essence.

In the cart, she measured the passing of time by the increasing warmth of the sun seeping through the canvas that covered her. Mercifully, after about what Rebecca estimated to be hours and hours, Connor pulled the gray to a halt. The cart lurched and squeaked as he swung down from it, and she heard his boots crunch toward her.

“Rebecca?” he whispered.

“Who else? The Duke of Wellington?” she said crossly, and the canvas lifted from her head to reveal Connor’s white teeth shining down at her like a bright crescent moon.

“Bit of a bumpy ride, eh, wee Becca? It’s smoother up top, but seeing as how we’re spiriting you away, I thought it wisest you should ride like cargo.”

She never could stay cross with Connor. She smiled back at him. “Where are we?”

“Come,” he said, and extended his hand. She gripped it; his hand was warm and rough, dark hair curled at his wrist. With a start she realized she had probably not held his hand since she was twelve years old. The sensation was both new and strangely eternal, and she felt a peculiar impulse to examine it the way she would any newfound treasure. But Connor gave a pull, and Rebecca’s protesting bones and muscles were soon in an upright position on the ground in back of the cart.

In front of them was a little cottage, clean but weatherworn, and a woman stood in the doorway. The woman ran a hand through her dark hair, which was pulled back and fastened into one long braid that trailed over her shoulder, and then rubbed her hands down the front of her apron.

“Ye caught me at me chores, Connor Riordan,” the woman said in a mock scold.

“Aye, my timing is always excellent, eh, Janet luv? This is the friend I told you about. Miss Rebecca, Miss Janet Gilhooly.”

Janet and Rebecca took the measure of each other. Janet had fair skin and large dark eyes set beneath stern straight eyebrows and a wide, generous mouth bracketed by faint grooves. She was very pretty, and older, Rebecca decided, easily thirty or so. Her dress was a clean but faded gray, like the outside of her cottage.

“’Tis jus’ like ye not to run off wi’ an ugly lass,” Janet said at last to Connor, who burst out laughing and had to be heartily shushed by Janet.

“Come inside, the two of ye, for ye haven’t a minute to spare. You can hire a coach going north in St. Eccles, but best ye get there before the sun is too low in the sky. We’ll get yer clothes and a cuppa and then off wi’ ye.” Janet stood aside and made sweeping motions with her hand to usher them into the cottage.

Rebecca felt suddenly shy and very young in the face of Janet’s brisk competence and wondered how on earth Connor knew her.

“Connor first,” Janet said. She pointed to a stack of clothing folded neatly upon the table in her main room. “Use me bedchamber to dress, Connor. I’ll put the kettle on.”