Secret Letters (11 page)

T
HE HOUSEKEEPER
was waiting with her hands on her hips when I returned, tapping her foot next to a full coal scuttle. Luckily, before she could ask where I had been, the butler came in with urgent news about a broken vase that she needed to attend to. I grabbed the heavy scuttle and hauled it upstairs, unloaded half the coal into the dining room fireplace, and then proceeded to the drawing room.

A little of the dust had floated onto one of the brightly upholstered pink divans by the pianoforte, and as I swept it up, I studied the gold-framed portraits of the Dowling family on the wall above me. The largest painting showed the earl and his second wife in formal wear, staring proudly into the distance. Nearer the harp in the corner hung a portrait of Lady Rose, which showed her leaning forward against a column, dressed in a flowing Roman gown, a harp balanced on her hip. She was a beautiful girl, pink-complexioned and full figured, with large, heavy-lidded green eyes and a sweet pout on her lips. She appeared graceful and innocent among the flowers; the artist had erased the awkwardness which had troubled her parents. On the opposite wall, Lord Victor’s picture presented a vivid contrast to his sister’s smiling one. Shown with one hand holding a horse’s reins and the other a hunting rifle, the young lord’s confident pose was true to its owner’s real image. Judging by what I had heard so far, the brother’s and sister’s charms were equal only in their portraits.

I was gathering up my brush and scuttle when the red baize door suddenly swung open, and Flora entered, bearing a basket of rags and a heavy broom. She did not see me standing in the corner, and I was about to greet her when the sound of a familiar voice stopped me.

A tall, roughly dressed workman was standing behind her, his shoulder against the doorpost, his arms crossed across his chest. He grinned broadly, clicked his tongue, and murmured something that made the girl drop her basket and giggle. I shrank slowly behind the pianoforte and watched, barely breathing, as Peter Cartwright sauntered into the room, swinging a workman’s cap. He saw me, of course, and winked while her back was turned, then directed his attention to the maid, who was abstractedly brushing a rag over an already spotless table.

“Now, sir,” she protested, as he circled her. “We’re expecting a houseful of guests tomorrow, and I’m already late on the sweepin’ and dustin’ that I were supposed to have done this morning before breakfast. You’ll be causin’ me to get my notice, sir, and me with my poor mum to support.”

Cartwright leaned forward, the fringe of his wool scarf brushing her reddening cheek, and whispered hoarsely, “Naw, Miss Flora, I don’t see how any gentleman in his right mind would have the heart to bring a tear into them blue eyes, not over an harmless bit of gossip, when your work’s mostly done.”

“It’s the housekeeper that does the firin’, and much she cares for me eyes,” Flora shot back, tossing her head and looking pleased. Cartwright murmured something in her ear and indicated the portrait of Lady Rose. She jumped backward, jabbing at him playfully with the handle of her broom, and let out a sound between a laugh and a snort.

“Oh, my young mistress is most lovely, sir, and no plain workin’ girl like me could hold a candle to her.”

“Ah, miss, I’d like to see the girl that’s prettier than the one in front of me, that’s a fact.”

Flora sniffed and shrugged. “Well, you won’t be seein’ her today. She’s gone to her aunt’s place quite sudden-like. The servants have all been talking about it. We all say she’s in some sort of trouble. As for me, I think I know what it was that started it.”

“How’s that?” Cartwright inquired blandly.

“Mind you, I heard it meself, but I haven’t told anyone yet,” she informed him. “I was cleanin’ the rug outside His Lordship’s study on Wednesday, and I sees young miss storm past me into the room. Her face is that pale, but her eyes are wild, not meek and sad, like they usually is. And as she opens the door I see that her fingers are dirty, covered in mud—she that is always so proper and clean. She shuts the door, and I hears her speaking to someone inside. Then I leans against the keyhole, you know, as I was headed that way in my cleanin’, and I hears her say, ‘You don’t really expect me to keep this a secret, do you?’ If the missis hadn’t called for me, I’d have heard the rest. Now, what do ye think o’ that?”

Cartwright shook his head and smiled. “I think, my dear, that you are not the only little spy in this place. That pretty one there behind the piano has been standin’ there with her mouth open for nigh on five minutes.” And he pointed to me.

Flora spun about to face me, her cheeks an angry crimson. I gave her a shamefaced grin.

“I didn’t want to interrupt—” I began, but she turned on her heel and flounced from the room, leaving the rags scattered behind her.

Cartwright bowed gravely to me as if to say, “Now,
that
is how it’s done,” closed the door behind her, and then collapsed dramatically onto the sofa.

I was glad to see that he had lost the tension of our last encounter. Perhaps watching me in my role had eased his worries somewhat. I was clearly managing at Hartfield decently enough. He could see that I was safe, despite my fragile gender; the demons of the Underworld had not yet swallowed up my maiden’s innocence.

“Well, so
I
must be discreet at Hartfield, Mr. Cartwright, but you may leave a trail of broken hearts behind you?”

“Come now, don’t be so dramatic. I doubt that I made much of an impression on that pretty maid. Girls like her are used to being courted.
You
seemed to be more affected by my performance than she was.”

“Oh, I was absolutely captivated, sir.”

He gave me a guarded smile. “Were you, really?”

“Yes, indeed. I would never have thought that you could charm a pretty female, even a brainless one like Flora. And yet it was
quite
a show.”

He frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Let’s talk about the case, shall we?”

“Oh, yes, let’s. Did you get the message that I gave to Perkins?”

He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “I just met him outside. What ‘suspicious behavior’ were you referring to?”

“James was behaving oddly before Lady Rose disappeared. One of the maids was concerned about it.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, no, actually. The maid, you see, is carrying his child.”

He blinked at me. “Unexpected fatherhood makes most men behave oddly. But that is not the mystery we are investigating.”

I shifted uncomfortably and bit my lip. I really had
nothing
else to offer, and he was going to make me feel my failure.

“Well, what do you make of Flora’s statement, then?” I remarked after a brief pause. “Do you believe that James is blackmailing Lady Rose? Flora overheard her speaking of a secret.”

He shook his head. “If we are to believe the maid, Lady Rose looked triumphant, not meek, before confronting the person in the study. Any other theories?”

“Well, I did think it rather odd that Lady Rose vanished on the very day that her father happened to be away from home. It seems rather a strange coincidence.”

“Yes, I was wondering about that as well. So while you are rummaging through the coal dust here, I plan on investigating the earl’s alibi.”

“And I will examine the family bedrooms next.”

“I have already covered the daughter’s chamber, but you may feel free to go through it again, in case I missed anything.” His sarcastic smile was a little too much to bear. I immediately decided that I
would
search Lady Rose’s room and find something he had overlooked. I made my resolution quietly, and felt a little better for it. Without looking at him, I rose to my feet and grabbed my coal scuttle.

“Miss Joyce.”

I glanced over my shoulder to find that he was watching me with an intent, disturbed expression; his light eyes flickered for a moment, and then his jaw set. “You understand that we are investigating a serious crime, the kidnapping of a young woman?”

“Yes, of course. I already told you that I’d be careful.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But don’t be so careful that Lady Rose dies while waiting for us to find her.”

I flinched and turned quickly toward the door. He had spoken in a hushed, bland voice, without a trace of mockery or conceit. I could always protest when he teased me and easily cut into his arrogance, but there was no way to argue with the truth.

So I simply left the room.

I
T WAS TIME
to break the timid maidservant mold, that was certain. As important as it was to remain inconspicuous, it would be useless if I learned nothing that Cartwright did not already know. It was already twilight by the time I had finished with my tasks. I would have to begin afresh the following morning, I decided.

Despite my determination it was early evening on my second day at Hartfield before I could get away. All morning I was sent on errands—first to Sheffield Green, the tenant village, to purchase replacements for the buns that the cook had ruined, and then to scrub the front steps white with shale-oil soap in preparation for that night’s dinner party. Setting the servants’ table was my final chore, and after I had finished, I fled upstairs for my real work. One of my duties was filling fireplaces before bedtime; so for the second time that day I hauled a heavy coal scuttle up the winding staircase. I began my researches in Rose’s bedroom, partly because I was eager to fulfill my little promise to myself, and partly because I knew it would not discourage me too much if I failed. After all, the trail was five days old by now, and Cartwright had already canvassed the area.

It was a sad, cold little chamber, lavishly decorated but barren, as if its owner had taken the warmth with her when she vanished. There was a desolate eeriness to the place, and I found myself looking over my shoulder, as if the missing girl might suddenly spring upon me and demand to know what I was doing. I crept about the floor for a while, dove under the bed, hung out of the window, and went through every drawer, but I discovered nothing new. A tall bookcase laden with some twenty timepieces was the only unusual feature of the room. Only one clock caught my notice, however, for it did not match the others. It was the simple wooden one which Cartwright had mentioned briefly to me. It was unique only for its size, and for the fact that its minute hand pointed to the hour, while the rest of the clocks pointed to the half hour. Lady Hartfield had told Cartwright that her daughter had set the clocks to correspond to time zones, but this one seemed to have stopped entirely. I remembered the broken clock mechanism in the rubbish bin and shrugged. It was the plainest piece in the collection, and the girl had simply not bothered to get it fixed. The discovery did not seem to be worthy of a report.

I was discouraged, of course, but I passed hopefully on to Lord Victor’s bedchamber; it had not yet been searched, and perhaps I would uncover something. I crept into his room, closed the door behind me, and lit the gas lamp. From corner to corner, from bedspread to desk, birdcage to ferret pen, I inspected every inch of the entire area. Half an hour later I had discovered that the heir of Hartfield enjoyed smoking in bed, reading questionable literature, and feeding chocolate truffles to his ferret. I was fairly certain that Cartwright would not be interested in any of these details, assuming he was not already aware of them.

The fireplace was my final hope. A careless maid had forgotten to empty out the grate, for it still contained some glowing embers at the very back of the hearth. It appeared that Lord Victor had recently been burning something in his room. Carefully, I plucked out the blackened slips of paper with coal tongs and examined them beneath the gaslight. The writing was illegible, for the faces of the pages were charred, but the article that I had rescued appeared to have once been a bound notebook. The string that held it was still intact, but as I strove to separate the pages, the entire package crumbled in my hands and fell in ashes to the floor.

This was beginning to feel hopeless. Burnt paper meant nothing; many people discarded their old documents by throwing them in the fireplace. I was kneeling by the hearth to sweep up the mess when a sound upon the landing outside brought me to my feet. I glanced at the fireplace and groaned at my own foolishness. My full coal scuttle was still in Lady Rose’s chambers, and my excuse about lighting fires was no longer believable. The hot water and towels for washing had already been set by the valet. There was no credible explanation for my presence in the room at this hour. It would be bad enough if I was discovered by Lord Victor, but if it was James, I would be alone with a suspected blackmailer and kidnapper. I dimmed the gas lamp, scrambled onto the windowsill, undid the latch, and threw open the shutters. The turning knob on the bedroom door glinted in the moonlight, and the hinges creaked their warning. As the door swung open, I slid out onto the ledge and crouched outside the casement between the shutters and the open windowpane. The large embroidered curtains hid me from view, but since I had not closed the glass behind me, I could hear and see everything that passed within.

James had entered his master’s bedroom and turned up the gaslight. As I watched, he drew a small sliver of paper from his pocket and then walked over to the fireplace. He stood there for a few moments; I could not see what he was doing for the curtain was in my way, but after only a minute he stepped back into the center of the room and gazed with satisfaction in the direction of the mantelpiece. Then he wiped his hands carefully on his handkerchief and shoved the slip of paper back into his pocket. I shivered and pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders. It was unseasonably cold that night, and my knees were aching from kneeling on the marble ledge. I hoped that James had done whatever he had come for and that I would soon be able to sneak back into the bedroom.

Unfortunately for me, however, someone else was also very interested in James’s movements. There was a soft tapping at the door, and James spun around and quickly reached out to lower the flame in the gas lamp. “Who is it?” he called out.

Agatha entered; she slipped into the room like a frightened ghost and then shut the door behind her. They gazed at each other for a moment; even by the dim lamplight I could see the color rising in his cheeks and the tremor in her lips. I groaned inwardly and slumped against the shutter. There was a scene coming, anyone could feel that. And I certainly had no desire to be a witness to it.

“I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” she said, her voice barely over a whisper.

James seemed to waver for a moment; then, with a smooth motion he shifted a little closer to the desk. I noted that he had now positioned himself to stand between Agatha and the fireplace, and was blocking her view of it.

She didn’t seem to notice his movement, though. She was attempting to speak again, but something seemed to have stuck hard in her throat. I was truly sorry for her then, and I prayed that her lover would take pity on her and say something to make her stop shivering so pathetically.

But it was soon clear that her misery had touched him too. When Agatha had first come in, James’s entire body had been taut with caution, ready to spring to action. But as he watched her quake in front of him, his expression brightened suddenly. He was grinning at her now; all the tension drained away from him in a moment. He seemed totally at ease and in control, as if he was drinking in her embarrassment and actually enjoying it. With a fluid, gentle movement he stepped over to her, reached his arm out, and drew her close. His hand slid over her waist and up her spine; her body stiffened in surprise and then relaxed against him. With one finger he lifted up her chin and kissed her, then traced her lips with his, trailing slowly across her blushing cheek down to her collar.

She shuddered and tried pull away, but his arms twined more forcefully around her back; he murmured something in her ear, and she ducked her head and laughed, her face resting against his shoulder.

“Did you have something you wanted to say to me, darling?” he whispered, twisting a coil of her hair around his forefinger. She reached up and took his hands in hers, then slipped out of his arms. He moved closer to her, but she stepped back, one palm outstretched in front of her.

“I did, James,” she answered in a shaky voice. “And I cannot wait a moment longer.”

“Well, then, tell me quickly, and afterward let me kiss you again,” he begged her, with a silky pout. “Oh, sweet girl, you have no idea how hard it’s been for me out there, pretending to ignore you. You drive me absolutely mad, my darling.”

She was still trembling, but the color which he had kissed into her cheeks had darkened to a flaming scarlet. I couldn’t blame her for the feeling; there was something so vital and sincere about him now. He was not a cool criminal at all, not in front of her. All of his worries seemed to have vanished in that moment, and his thoughts were only about her. In spite of myself I actually envied her then, just for a second. What must it feel like to captivate a man like that?

“So—you’ve been pretending not to notice me?” she asked him in a hopeful voice.

“Of course, what else could I do?” he exclaimed, throwing his hands out in front of him. “Do you want me to lose my place, Agatha? Do you want to lose yours?”

She glanced down at her waist and blushed. I could see what she was thinking, and I gritted my teeth in anticipation.
Don’t tell him
, I begged her silently,
please don’t tell him now
.

“How much longer, James?” she asked him finally. “What exactly are we waiting for?”

His jaw hardened, and he crossed his arms. “Not much longer,” he told her grimly. “There’s an old injustice that I have to set right. But I promise you—it won’t be long.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “What injustice do you mean? The earl has been nothing but good to all of us. Lord Hartfield is probably the best master you’ve ever had.”

“Oh, yes, he’s certainly a perfect
master
,” James retorted through his teeth. “Kind and generous to everyone, isn’t he?”

“
I
think he is. And I don’t understand why you seem so angry at him sometimes. It makes no sense. He doesn’t owe you anything.”

“Oh, no,” he responded carelessly. “
He
doesn’t owe me anything. We’re not waiting for him.”

She looked confused. “Then what—who are we waiting for?”

He chuckled to himself and reached his hand out to her in a sweet gesture of submission. “We are waiting for Lady Rose to come back home,” he said. “She is our ticket to a real life, dearest, a life without masters and their slaves. So we are waiting for that unhappy girl to find her way back home—back home to her loving family.”

She stepped back from him and shook her head. “What do you mean, James? Lady Rose is on a visit to her aunt’s. That’s what everybody says.”

He laughed shortly and leaned back against the desk. “Oh, come on, Aggie, when have you ever heard of a noble lady traveling without her maid? In the middle of the night? Are you joking?”

“Well, then, where do you believe she’s gone?” she demanded sharply.

“I have no idea,” he shot back. “But I expect to find out soon.”

“You expect—”

“And I also expect that you’ll trust me and be patient. No more sneaking into my room, no more meetings behind the greenhouse.
Nothing
can change between us until I’m ready. No one can suspect.”

“But I can’t wait—”

“You
can
wait, and you will,” he interrupted firmly. “Or we can end this now. I can’t risk losing everything at this point.”

“But—”

“And if I’m distant for a while, or even if I smile at another girl, I can’t have you flying at me in a rage. I know what I am doing, Aggie. And I promise that you won’t regret it in the end.”

She seemed about to protest, but he pulled her close again and put his lips up to her ear. I leaned forward a little and held my breath, straining to hear what he was saying. “You have no idea how long
I’ve
waited, dearest,” he murmured sadly. “You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to get here. But every other effort, every other scheme has been so small, so
insignificant
compared to this, that I can’t believe that I’m actually getting close now. If in the process I make a few pounds, close an important deal, then so much the better for us. But I will
never
lose sight of my goal. I know you don’t understand, and you probably never will because no one’s ever really hurt you. But if you trust me and don’t let me down, I promise to make you happy, just as I always have.”

She nodded mutely and hastily brushed her sleeve over her cheek. “You know that you can trust me, James. I’ll do whatever I have to do—”

Her hand slid down to rest briefly at her waist, and she took a deep breath. She might have spoken then, she might have confessed everything to him. But it was obvious now that James was no longer listening. He kissed her forehead and turned her toward the door. “We’d better go now before they miss us, Aggie. And remember what I told you. Nothing can change until I say so.”

He turned the lamp off as he spoke and then quickly led her out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. I breathed a short prayer of thanks and scrambled to my feet. I had to hurry back to the kitchen; the housekeeper would be missing me and I had no excuse to offer her.