Ring of Secrets (9 page)

Whatever string had held him so tight seemed suddenly to fray. Mr. Lane relaxed again, all the way into awkwardness. “I…yes. Quite.”

They plodded in silence for a few feet, and then the girls clustered together and resumed their usual chatter about sack-back gowns and brocade shoes, Spanish lace and British beaux.

Mr. Lane held Winter back half a beat, long enough for the others to get a few steps ahead. Then he turned his face toward her, his mouth in an uncertain line. “My apologies, Miss Reeves.”

She did not have to feign the question in her blink this time. “Whatever for?”

“Well.” Brows drawn, he pursed his lips. “Something, surely. Lapsing into argument with your friend's mother, perhaps.”

“It cannot always be helped.” She smiled, perhaps with more cheek than required. “Just this morning I had to argue with her myself when she dared to say that her daughter's hat had too many feathers—as if such a thing were possible!”

He glanced at Winter's hat, with its single plume, and his lips twitched up. As if he somehow realized she didn't favor the frivolous
as much as she might claim. “I defer to you in such matters, to be sure. And I see thanks are in order. You have obviously taken pity on me and have begun your campaign to make powder a thing of the past.”

Her hand flew to her hair. She hadn't considered that Mr. Lane would see her before she whitened it this evening. Had she anticipated this encounter, she would have given into Grandmother's prods in a heartbeat to keep from encouraging him. “Oh, how terribly out of ton I must look. Perhaps if I had Dosia's flaxen locks—but I ought not to have ventured out of doors with hair so dreadfully brown.”

The twitching of his lips increased. “Are you fishing for a compliment, Miss Reeves? I daresay gentlemen enough have told you that your loveliness far outshines any other's in this city.”

She dropped her hand, as fast as if her hair had burned her. “I most certainly was not.”

“Ah, there we have a bit of genuineness.”

'Twas obviously time for a deflection. And how better to achieve it than with a smile of blinding brightness? “Your genuineness was striking as well as you defended your friend. I do hope Mr. Knight realizes how blessed he is to have such an advocate.”

“I daresay he would prefer not to be judged, so he would need no advocate.” He studied her for a long moment. “He thinks you have a low opinion of him as well, Miss Reeves.”

It took all her restraint to keep from wincing, and a second longer than it should have to dig up a smile to cover it. “Nonsense, sir. I have no opinion of him at all—only that of my grandparents.”

Outside the Shirley house the ladies stopped, though their prattle did not. Mr. Lane pulled her to a halt several feet away from them and turned to face her. “We both know that is utter rot—both their opinion and your clinging to it instead of professing your own. Why do you do it, Miss Reeves?” He shook his head and lowered his chin, his gaze still arrowing into hers. “You are a true conundrum.”

The way he said it, with such affection on the word
conundrum,
explained more of him than she intended to show him of her. That, then, was what he found so intriguing. Not the looks Grandmother had cultivated and polished, not the wealth or respect of the Hampton name. Only that he saw contradiction within her, and he was the type to want—perhaps even need—to resolve it.

He deserved credit for his skill in observation. But such an interest was no better than any other gentlemen's, who saw only her face. For what were her choices then? Either refuse to give him more than a glimpse, and so be forever exactly as she was now, or show him the true Winter under the facade and lose his interest.

As with every option in her life, there was no way to win—not in the long run.

Well, then. Best to send him on his way sooner rather than later, so Grandmother could put aside that hope and focus once more on Colonel Fairchild's suit. Winter rolled back her shoulders and tipped up her face so she could better look into his. “My grandparents have rules, Mr. Lane, that do not take into account Monsieur Descartes's observations. Perhaps I
am
—a fact which has always displeased them—but they will not suffer that I
think
.”

There. A simple answer, and one for which he would no doubt have little respect.

His head shook, slow and contemplative. “How can
you
suffer
that
?”

She forced a small smile and reached to reclaim her package. “'Twas not so difficult a sacrifice, as thinking always led me to pain anyway.”

His eyes dimmed. Because the mystery was solved, or because he knew she had layered her usual deception overtop the kernel of truth?

Either way, he would make excuses to himself hereafter and fade from her life. Exactly what she required of him. The box of stain cradled in her hands once more, she dipped a short curtsy and turned away. “Until this evening, Mr. Lane.”

“Good day to you, Miss Reeves. Ladies.” He tipped his hat to the group, made as if to say more, and then spun away, apparently thinking better of it.

Dosia sidled over to her with a smirk. “I cannot decide if I envy you his favor or not, Winnie. On the one hand, he is so very wealthy and not bad at all to look upon. But on the other, he is so very awkward and more than a little dull.”

Lizzie appeared on her other side. “A boring, backward husband I could manage quite nicely, thank you, given his looks and amount of sterling. So if you are through with him, Winnie, direct him my way.”

“Why should she be? She is the only one he seems able to converse with.” Dosia huffed and folded her arms over her chest.

Winter pasted on the only grin of hers they knew. “If only I could understand any of what he said.”

Giggles served to dispel any lingering tension, and a few moments later Mrs. Parks ushered her and Dosia into the carriage and they were headed toward Hampton Hall. Winter spent the ride with her eyes closed, allowing her companions to think her fatigued from the hours of shopping.

Once they had arrived at her grandparents' home, she gathered herself together, and, package in hand, she bade them farewell with profound relief and waved them back down the drive.

No one opened the front door. No one ever did, unless she knocked upon it like any other guest. Yet another of her grandfather's dictates, meant to remind her that Hampton Hall was not, nor would ever be, her home. In this instance it suited her fine, because she had no desire to enter the mausoleum of a house anyway. Once the Parks' carriage was out of sight, she skirted the perimeter and ran across the back lawn, not stopping until she'd gained the shadowed interior of the stable.

Freeman looked up from the stall he was mucking out, a broad smile creasing his face. “Did you bring me a present, Winnie?”

For the first time since her last visit here two days ago, she really, truly grinned. “Indeed, Free—for 'tis another level of safety.”

He glanced all around before motioning her toward the hidden door in the floor of one of the stalls. After checking over her shoulder to be sure no one watched, Winter stole down the dark, narrow steps and into the forgotten cellar that had been a mass of cobwebs when they first discovered it a year ago.

Now it smelled of citrus and wax, and the lamp she lit glowed rich and warm upon scavenged, scarred tables and once-broken chairs. Winter moved to the largest of the tables and set her box down, and then she removed her hat pins so she could toss that away too.

Freeman, hunched under the low ceiling, peered over her shoulder as she opened the box and pulled out the two priceless vials. “Is it that stain you told me about?”

“Indeed.” She uncorked the first of the bottles and held it under her nose. No distinct odor, though it was the color of pale straw. “I wonder what it's made of.”

Freeman shook his head and sniffed the second vial. “Vitriol, perhaps, in this one?”

Winter smelled it too. Mostly odorless, though there was a faint hint of sulfur at the finish. “Could be, in part.”

“What is the paper there?”

She drew out the note and huffed at Robbie's handwriting. Naturally, he would never dare entrust her with anything without some warning.

626
ycmm
298.

I will instruct.

The slip of paper she slapped onto the table, the vial she handed to Freeman. “Of course he will.”

Her friend lifted a dark brow. “Will what?”

“Instruct me. For a man who swears up and down he could not fulfill this duty without my help, he trusts me not a whit. He probably thinks I will waste the entire vial upon a single experiment if left to my own devices.”

Freeman chuckled and slid the corks back into both vials. “Now, Winnie, don't be cross with him. If the situation were reversed, you would insist upon the same.” He shook his head and exchanged the stain for the note. “Have you the whole code memorized now?”

Arms folded over her chest, she shrugged. “I've little else to fill my time with, and 'tis only seven hundred words.”

“Well.” He returned the piece of paper to the table and motioned toward the stairs. “Back up I go before my neck complains too loudly. Are you coming?”

“I shall store these somewhere first.” And bask in the comfort of her little sanctuary a while longer.

Once Freeman nodded and plodded up the steep steps, Winter loosed her pent-up breath and took the stain and counter liquor in hand. Her fingers itched to open them again, to find a quill, perhaps a paintbrush, and see how they worked. And if it took Robbie too long to make his way out here to show her how to use them properly, she might. But for now, she would forgo curiosity for the sake of peace.

The shelves Freeman had built for her already held a variety of homemade invisible inks. Lemon juice dilute was her top choice, both
because of its fragrance and because it developed under heat more quickly than the others. But she had also tried the onion juice dilute, as well as honey water. These new additions she placed on the top shelf, in the position of honor.

A layer of dust had accumulated, so she grabbed the rag she kept handy for such purposes and cleaned each surface with care, ending at the rather hideous desk that held her beloved contraband. The book of Puritan prayers, copied in Father's own hand from a manuscript he had found of his grandfather's. Mother's diary, filled with words of love for her husband, home, and daughter.
Common Sense
, which Father had read aloud to her and Mother three years prior, when the pamphlet had first been printed.

She pulled out the prayer book and opened it to a random page.
Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights.

“Help me to see Thee, Lord,” she whispered into the cellar.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart.

Tears stung her eyes. She had been pulled so far down, trodden so low, broken to slivers. But praise to the God of her fathers, He was always there. Cradling her spirit, lifting her again.

She pulled another forbidden book from its place and smiled at the embossed name of the author. Rene Descartes. She opened it too, flipping not to the familiar portion that had been quoted that morning, but rather to a place a bit beyond it. “I am, therefore God is.”

That, in her opinion, was the true epiphany the Frenchman had hit upon. Not that one proves one's existence by merely wondering about it, but that the existence of a rational man demands the existence of a God to have created him.

“Winnie!” Panic permeated Freeman's voice as he stuck his head down the stairs. “Mr. Hampton is coming!”

Six

A
muted squeal slipped out. Winter dashed for the table, grabbed her hat, extinguished the lamp, and vaulted up the stairs. Freeman was pulling the door closed and pushing hay back atop it even as she flew from the stall toward the horse they had brought with them from Long Island. Old Canterbury nickered in greeting—she could only hope it covered the sound of her galloping pulse.

When Grandfather stomped into the stable, 'twas as if the light of the sun fled his presence. Any hope she had that his business here would have nothing to do with her evaporated when he strode her way and yanked her forcibly from Canterbury's stall.

She knew better than to make any sound of protest, in spite of the pain. He gave her a shake, lightning flashing in his eyes. “What in thunder are you doing out here again, you worthless chit? I told you not to step foot in this place unless it be with my instruction.”

She pulled her arm free of his grip and backed up a step. If the reddening of his face were any indication, rebellious fury sparked from her eyes in that way he so hated. “You have told me many things, Grandfather. What I may wear, what I may eat, what time I may rise and go to bed. With whom I may socialize, what opinions I might express in society. Who among my family is allowed to live in my conversation. How am I, stupid girl that you think me, to keep it all straight?”