Mesmerized (25 page)

“What? What were you going to say?”

“Well, this is nothing, really, but I just had a thought. Maybe some of your really old books are stored. Is that possible? That they’ve been boxed up and put away somewhere? I mean, it seems likely to me that a book that concerns this time period could be quite old.”

“Or very dull,” Stephen added. “Which would make it a likely candidate for being stored away. All right. I’m willing to try it. We are nearly through with the books here, and we’ve found nothing useful. Where else shall we look? The unused wing of the house?”

“I don’t know. Do you think there are books there?”

He shrugged. “It’s possible. Or there could be boxes of books in the attic, I suppose.”

They decided to explore the attic first. After a consultation with the housekeeper as to where such things as books might have been salted away, they climbed to the highest floor, where they went up a narrow staircase into the large attic. It was a vast gloomy room under the roof, lit only by windows at either end. Stephen had come prepared with a lantern, but its circle of light illuminated only the small portion around them, leaving most of the rest of the huge room in shadows.

They started toward the east end of the attic, the bobbing lantern in Stephen’s hand casting ever-changing light and shadow over the hodgepodge of objects they passed. There were cabinets and other
odd bits of furniture, as well as trunks and hall trees and assorted oddments, including canes, a dressmaker’s form that looked heart-poundingly human at first glance, and even a grotesque umbrella stand made out of the foot of an elephant.

When they reached the far end, where the housekeeper had directed them, Stephen put down his lantern on a nearby trunk, and he and Olivia set to work opening the various trunks and boxes around them. They found an assortment of things inside the trunks, usually clothes and shoes and toys, mementos of days past. They came at last to a cache of books, and they went through two trunks, taking out each book and looking at it, then going on to the next. They worked side by side in companionable accord.

Olivia’s hands and skirts were soon streaked with dust, and she suspected that her hair and face had gathered quite a bit of dust, too, but, frankly, she didn’t care. She felt sure that someone like Pamela would scorn what she was doing, but she was enjoying it. She and Stephen talked about this book or that as they pulled it from the pile, joking and exclaiming over some of his ancestors’ reading choices. He looked equally grubby as she, she saw with amused affection, one cheek streaked with dirt and his hair decorated with a cobweb of dust.

They did not find anything helpful in the first two trunks of books, but they continued back the way they had come, opening and exploring more boxes and trunks. They came upon another trunk full of books,
and it was there that Stephen at last held up a volume in triumph.

“‘A Compleat Historie of Black Hope Manor,” he read aloud, and grinned at Olivia.

She let out a squeal and said, “What does it say?”

He opened the front cover and held it closer to the light. “It seems to be a piece of pompous puffery, as best as I can tell, written by one of my illustrious ancestors.” He sighed. “He writes about the house, but he begins with the St. Leger acquisition of the place.”

“Hardly what I would call ‘compleat,”’ Olivia complained.

“Yes, well, it looks to me as though his chief objective is illustrating how grand the St. Leger family is. He focuses more on the additions than anything else.” He flipped carefully through the aged leaves of the book. “Wait. Look. There is a piece of paper folded and stuck in the back cover. No. It’s glued in there, I believe.”

Gently he unfolded the fragile paper until it was four times as big as the back cover to which it was attached.

“It looks like a family tree,” he said.

Olivia moved closer to look over Stephen’s shoulder at the multitude of connected lines. “Your ancestors?”

“I guess—no, look—” His voice rose in excitement. “These are the Scorhills. This name is the martyred Lord Scorhill. See the date?”

“How far back does it go?” Olivia asked, peering down to look at it.

Stephen’s forefinger traced the lines back. “Here! Look—Sir Raymond, born 11??, died 1173.”

“No descendents,” Olivia said, “but here are three bars out to the side. These are wives, are they not?”

“Yes.” Stephen pointed to each name, “One unknown, one Gertrude of Rosemont.”

Olivia following his finger, finished for him. “And one Alys.”

A chill went through her as she looked at Stephen. “We have found her.”

T
hey stayed in the attic for another hour, looking through trunks and boxes in the spots that the housekeeper had deemed likeliest to contain books. They found nothing else significant, although they did come across a history of the county that seemed to date back to the medieval period and another general history book that they thought might have possibilities.

It was getting on toward teatime when they emerged, dusty and disheveled but still excited by their finds. They carried the books down to Stephen’s study and set them on his desk for later perusal.

Olivia looked with a wry smile at her dusty skirts and said, “I fear that first I must clean up a bit.”

“We are not exactly presentable for the tea table,” Stephen agreed.

Just as Olivia turned to leave, there was a quiet knock on the door, and the St. Legers’ butler entered. “There are two gentlemen to see you, my lord,” he
began, not betraying by even a twitch of his face that he found Stephen’s and Olivia’s appearance unusual.

“Now?” Stephen looked surprised. “As you can see, I must clean up before I can meet anyone. Who are they? What do they want?”

“As to what they want, I cannot say. One is a Mr. Rafe McIntyre, an American gentleman, I believe. And the other is the Lord Bellard Moreland.”

“Rafe!” Stephen exclaimed, looking thunderstruck.

“Uncle Bellard!” Olivia gaped at the butler, then ran past him and down the hall to the entryway. Stephen was close on her heels.

“Uncle Bellard!” she cried again when she saw the small man sitting on a bench not far from the front door, gazing about him with interest, his hands resting on his gold-topped cane.

Beside him sat a much larger and younger man with tousled light brown hair, streaked with gold by the sun. Both men rose at Olivia’s entrance, neither of them appearing taken aback by her disheveled appearance or unladylike enthusiasm.

Bellard Moreland smiled in his shy way at his great-niece, setting aside his cane and reaching out his hands to her. “Olivia, my dear.”

Olivia hugged her great-uncle as Stephen came up beside them, saying, “Rafe! I never thought I would see you here.”

The other man laughed and drawled, “Stephen, old son, how’re you doing?”

“Better now that you are here,” Stephen replied, laughing. “Olivia, I want you to meet my friend and partner, Rafe McIntyre.”

Olivia turned and took a longer look at her great-uncle’s companion. He was a tall man, taller even than Stephen, with tanned skin and brilliant blue eyes. He had handsome, even features, and a charming grin that lit up his face when he smiled.

“Mr. McIntyre,” Olivia said, extending her hand.

“How do you do, ma’am?” he replied, taking her hand and bringing it up to his lips. His blue eyes twinkled at her as he went on. “You must be the pretty niece that Mr. Moreland here was telling me about.”

Olivia could not help but smile back at him, even as she felt a blush rising in her cheeks. “I—I didn’t know Lord St. Leger had a partner,” she said, then felt hopelessly inept, as she usually did when making conversation with strangers.

Rafe McIntyre, however, was a person who made it difficult to feel inept. He grinned and said, “Yeah, St. Leger tries to keep me hidden.”

“Indeed,” Stephen agreed, smiling. “But it is a losing proposition, I’m afraid.” He turned toward Olivia, explaining, “Rafe and I met in Colorado.”

“He saved my neck, matter of fact,” Rafe contributed. “I got into a little
contretemps
with a couple of Yankees.”

“Yankees?” Olivia looked puzzled. “But I thought—”

“People from the northern United States,” Stephen interpreted. “Rafe is from the South, you see.”

“Oh. But it’s been ten years since the war there was over, hasn’t it?” Olivia asked. “Surely there’s not still fighting.”

Rafe grinned. “Not in any official way. This was just a little private quarrel regarding the other fellow’s ancestry.”

“It was actually over a card game,” Stephen put in. “And Rafe here was a trifle outnumbered, so I stepped in.”

“Stepped in with a Winchester, I’m happy to say,” Rafe went on. “And we got along, so we decided to pitch in together.”

“I see,” Olivia replied, although she wasn’t entirely certain she did, what with the combination of the American’s accent and his vocabulary.

“We were partners in the silver mine. Then I sold my share of the mine to Rafe when I had to return to England,” Stephen explained.

Great-uncle Bellard entered the conversation. “Mr. McIntyre and I met on the train up here. We were quite astonished to discover that we were bound not only for the same village but for the same estate.”

“Helped to pass the time, having somebody to talk to,” Rafe said.

“We had an interesting conversation,” Great-uncle Bellard confided. “Mr. McIntyre told me quite a bit about the state of Virginia, where he is from originally. I was intrigued to discover that one of his an
cestors was a follower of Bonnie Prince Charlie in his doomed attempt to capture the throne, and he fled to the American colonies after their defeat.”

“The McIntyres have always been given to lost causes, you see,” Rafe stuck in with a self-deprecating smile that Olivia noticed did not quite reach his eyes.

“But why were you on the train in the first place, Uncle?” Olivia asked curiously. “Not that I am not happy to see you, for of course I am. It’s just that, well, it is unusual for you ever to leave London.” Indeed, it was unusual for Great-uncle Bellard to even leave the house, but Olivia saw no reason to add that.

“I received your letter,” he explained. “About the untoward things that had been happening here and your questions about the history of the house and all that. As it happened, I had already been looking into the St. Leger family—idle curiosity, I’m afraid,” he said, with a shy smile to Stephen. “And when you wrote me, of course, I went to see Addison Portwell, who is something of a scholar on old estates. He lent me several of his texts. Highly interesting, I must say. It led me to a wonderful book on the Scorhill family—written by a St. Leger, so naturally I cannot be certain of the accuracy of it.”

“Uncle!”

“Oh.” The old man realized how his words sounded and looked immediately distressed. “I did not mean any slur upon you or your family, my lord. I simply meant that since the St. Legers were given
the estate that once belonged to Lord Scorhill, they would, of course, have a vested interest in, well, showing that the Scorhills were not the best people to have the land. For the St. Legers to be right in owning Blackhope, then King Henry VIII had to be right to take it away from Lord Scorhill, don’t you see? It’s only natural and quite common in histories, I’m afraid, especially those written immediately after an event. But, of course, it means that one must take great care in reading it not to put one’s faith in it entirely.”

“Of course,” Stephen said, with a smile for Great-uncle Bellard. “I understand perfectly. I am not offended, I assure you, and I agree that we cannot swallow it whole cloth. But I am very pleased that you found some information.”

Relieved, Great-uncle Bellard smiled happily. “Yes, it was quite good, actually, and after what Olivia had said in her letter, I hated to waste the time writing it all down and posting it. So I decided to pack up my books and bring it straight here.”

“Uncle! That’s wonderful!”

“Yes, thank you,” Stephen added. He glanced around at the group. “Let us do this—I am sure you two would like to have a chance to settle into your rooms. And Lady Olivia and I, as you can see, have been exploring in the attic, and we could use a chance to freshen up, as well. So why don’t I ring for tea for us in my study in a few minutes, and we can talk then about what you’ve found out?”

It turned out that Great-uncle Bellard and Rafe, politely not wishing to burden Lord St. Leger, had left their things at the inn in the village, but Lord St. Leger, of course, would not hear of them staying anywhere but in one of the many guest rooms of Blackhope. So, after some courteous social sparring, it was arranged that the two guests would indeed stay at Blackhope and a groom would be sent to the village to bring their bags back to the house. Stephen rang for the butler to give him instructions regarding the rooms and the baggage.

Olivia, linking her arm through her great-uncle’s, took him off with her upstairs. “I am so happy to see you,” she told him, squeezing his arm.

He smiled. “And I, you, my dear. I quite like your young man.”

Flustered by his words, Olivia was not sure what to say. “You know, Uncle, I came here because of the medium. I wrote you about that.”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded happily. “And all the other events. Most interesting, my dear.”

“So Lord St. Leger is a colleague, actually. Not my ‘young man.”’

“Oh? Pity. He seems to admire you.” He switched the topic suddenly. “Very old house—quite a lot of history to it. Do you suppose Lord St. Leger would mind if I used his library?”

“No, I am sure not. What makes you say he admires me?”

“What? Oh.” Great-uncle Bellard looked thought
ful. “I’m not sure, actually, just an impression I had. He looked at you a certain way is all, rather the way your father looked at your mother. Still does, really. As if he had made an extraordinary find. You know.”

Olivia chuckled. She knew exactly what her great-uncle meant, and it made her heart beat faster to think that Stephen St. Leger might look at her in that way.

Downstairs, Stephen turned to his former partner. “Rafe.” He shook his head, smiling. “I never thought I would see you here.”

Rafe grinned. “I got bored, sitting there in Colorado by myself. Some fancy Eastern outfit kept wanting to buy me out. So I thought…why not? There are a bunch of things I haven’t seen or done yet. There’s no more adventure to be had out of that mine. It’s just business dealings now, and you know me—I’m not all that fond of sitting around talking about money.”

“So you sold it?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Invested in some other things. Went back home for a little while. But it hardly seems like home anymore. Some changes you just can’t get past, you know.”

Stephen nodded.

“So I thought, why not see Europe? And I caught a boat over here. I figured, since I was in the country, I might as well look you up.”

“I’m glad you did.” Stephen nodded toward the stairs. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room, and
I’ll get cleaned up. Then we can sit back and discuss old times.”

“Sure. Long as you got something stronger than tea.”

Stephen chuckled. “I do.”

They started up the stairs.

Later, the two of them settled in Stephen’s study, sipping glasses of Scotch that Rafe allowed to be “damn near as good as sour mash,” while they waited for Olivia and her great-uncle to join them.

“I approve,” Rafe said idly.

“Of what?”

Rafe grinned. “Your lady friend.”

“What makes you—” Stephen stopped as Rafe let out a chuckle.

“You think I’m blind?” Rafe asked. “It’s clear there’s something going on between the two of you.”

“I’m not sure exactly what is going on. She’s, well, she’s different.”

“I figured that, to have caught you. You always seemed pretty down on high-toned ladies.”

“Mmm,” Stephen answered noncommittally.

“What’s the matter? Miss Moreland not the right sort for you?”

Stephen smiled to himself. “I don’t know if you can say that Lady Olivia is any ‘sort’ at all. She is rather unique. Her father is a duke.”

“Yeah? She and her uncle don’t seem high-and-mighty.”

“Oh, she’s not. Not at all. Her family is quite egalitarian. They are something of an oddity. Which only adds to her charm.” His face softened unconsciously. “She is witty and independent and intelligent, and when I look at her—”

Stephen stopped and shook his head. “I don’t want to make a mistake. I’m not looking for a wife. I decided long ago that I would not marry. My history in that regard is poor, at best.”

“But this isn’t the same girl that made you gun-shy, is she?”

Stephen grimaced. “God, no. Olivia is nothing like Pamela.”

“Then what’s the worry? There’s no reason to think that this one will break your heart.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to say that than to believe it.” Stephen sighed. “I want her, more than I ever wanted Pamela. There have been a time or two when I barely remembered to play the gentleman. But I can’t help thinking, what if this is like that other time, with Pamela? What if it is only lust I feel, and it fades as quickly as my lust for Pamela did after I left England?” He looked up at his friend. “I have always said I distrusted ladies. I’m not sure whether it’s simply that or if I distrust myself, as well.”

“Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith,” Rafe suggested. “Love isn’t a matter of logic. It’s feeling.”

“I know. But I find it easier to trust my head than my heart.” He paused, looking down at the glass of
amber liquid in his hand, idly swirling its contents. When he raised his head, his eyes were lit with amusement. “By the way, you will have a chance to meet Pamela. She is also here.”