Secrets and Sensibilities: A Regency Romance Mystery (The Lady Emily Capers Book 1) (5 page)

“I know it is your duty to escort me as the highest ranking
female,” she told him pointedly, “but I am so pleased to have my niece here
that I yield my place to her.”

“Some aunts are too kind,” David quipped, offering Priscilla
his arm. Her head high, smile tilting in triumph, she let him lead her through
the door and down the corridor to the dining room. Hannah took a deep breath to
steady nerves that were already fraying. Of course he must escort Lady
Brentfield. Evidently it was done differently in America. That had to be the
reason he had sought Hannah out. There was no need for that fact to be so
depressing. She nodded to Ariadne, Daphne, and Lady Emily to follow behind the
couple. To Hannah’s surprise, Lady Brentfield fell in beside her at the rear of
the procession.

“Don’t they make a handsome pair?” she confided to Hannah
with obvious pride. “I vow I will be happy to see my niece so well settled.”

So much for the theory that Priscilla was making it up.
Hannah nodded in silence. Yet she could not help but wonder why Lady Brentfield
had resorted to forcing the earl to walk with Priscilla if he were indeed
enamored of her.

“I want you to know that I appreciate how you take your duty
as chaperone seriously, Miss Alexander,” her ladyship continued. “But please do
not stand on ceremony where love is concerned. If my niece and his lordship
desire some time alone together, it is my wish that you allow them to do so.”

“She is your niece,” Hannah replied. As Lady Brentfield’s eyes
narrowed, she realized she sounded critical. “That is, I would not presume to
take your place in guiding Priscilla. I will focus my attentions on the girls
whose relatives are not present.”

“That would be wise,” Lady Brentfield agreed. “And perhaps
we might find something useful for you to do after all. I’m not sure we need
any portraits painted, but I will speak to his lordship on your behalf.”

Hannah bowed her head in acknowledgment of the kindness, but
inside she wondered just how kind Lady Brentfield could be, to Hannah and to
the new earl.

The following morning, five female faces gazed up at David
expectantly. He had been surprised to learn that, in addition to granting him
vast holdings and a country seat, being made earl had also gifted him with all
knowledge of everything having to do with the Brentfield dynasty. When
Priscilla had requested with nauseating adoration the night before that he take
them on a tour of the great house, he had suggested that surely she and her
aunt knew more about the place than he did. That suggestion had been met with
such an outcry of denial that he had had no choice but to offer to lead the
tour, even though he should be attending to estate business. Besides, he had
thought, if he conducted it properly, he would be able to steal a little time
alone with the charming Miss Alexander. He didn’t need an audience when he
explained his concerns about the art treasures.

From the moment the art teacher had entered the blue room
last night, it had been plain to him that her ladyship was not about to let
David start a conversation that involved Miss Alexander. He had made several
attempts and watched with amusement as the countess managed to turn every topic
around to her dear niece. After a while, he had considered making a game of it,
but Miss Alexander’s cheeks kept reddening, and he didn’t like to see her
suffer so had allowed himself to be cozened and manipulated until he could
decently retire for the evening.

Now he stood with the four girls and Miss Alexander in the
portrait gallery of the east wing. It was ten in the morning, and even though
the girls were dressed in white frothy things that couldn’t possibly keep them
warm in the pale spring sunlight, they looked decidedly tired to him. He kept
forgetting what Asheram had told him that Society in England went to bed late
and woke late. This tour had probably forced them all out of bed hours early,
with the possible exception of Miss Alexander, who looked quite presentable to
him, even if she was relegated to that somber dress. Certainly Lady Brentfield
was still asleep.

If he was any kind of host, he’d show them something better
than the portrait gallery. But while there were a number of objects he was sure
Miss Alexander if none of the others would find more interesting, the portrait
gallery was the quickest way he could think of to rid himself of his entourage.
There was nothing more boring, in his opinion, than staring at people you
neither knew nor cared about. Even Asheram, the traitor, had refused to
accompany him, keeping himself busy with household tasks instead. However,
David was already beginning to think that he, and not the portraits, was on
display.

“This,” he obligingly lied, pointing to the first picture,
“is my great-great grandmother, Hortense, fifth Countess of Brentfield.”

Miss Alexander frowned, peering closer at the portrait of a
silver-haired matron in a medieval gown that pushed her chest up to an
unflattering height. As he was soon to be confirmed as the sixth earl, the
fifth countess was unlikely to be his great-great grandmother nor reside during
the Middle Ages. But if the art teacher caught him in his obvious falsehood,
she politely did not mention it. The girls gazed dutifully up at the picture.

“She looks ill,” Ariadne ventured.

“She died of the black plague,” David offered. Lady Emily
looked interested. Priscilla smothered a yawn.

“And this,” he continued with a wave toward the next
gilt-framed portrait in the long sunny gallery, “is her husband, the sixth
earl.”

“I thought he said she was the fifth countess?” Daphne
murmured to her sister. Ariadne motioned her to hush.

Miss Alexander blinked, but still refused to comment. The
man in the portrait was easily twenty years younger than his supposed wife and
wearing the cassock of a priest.

“He must have given up his vows for her,” Lady Emily
muttered to her friends. “They probably tortured him for it.”

“The torture would have been in marrying her,” Daphne
answered with a shudder.

“And now we come to the maternal side of the family,” David
went on determinedly. He nodded to a portrait on his right of a stiff-backed
military fellow with a chest full of medals. “My grandmother, Lady Alice.”

Miss Alexander’s eyes twinkled, and she compressed her lips
tightly together as if to keep from laughing. Daphne, Ariadne, and Lady Emily
exchanged looks of bafflement. Priscilla turned as if to allow the sunlight
from the nearest window to highlight her profile.

“Perhaps we’ve seen enough of the portrait gallery,” Miss
Alexander suggested diplomatically. “There were a number of lovely pieces we
noticed in the west wing, my lord. Perhaps we should start there instead.”

Three of the girls perked up instantly. Priscilla was
turning back and forth as if to see if she could catch a glimpse of her reflection
in the gilt frame nearest her.

David put on his sternest frown. “No, indeed, Miss
Alexander. Asheram tells me that it is British tradition to start in the
portrait gallery, and I am a slave to tradition.”

“Really?” she quipped, eyebrow raised. He wanted to laugh
with her, but it would have spoiled everything.

“Really,” he insisted. “There are at least one hundred and
eighty-three Tenants on these walls, and I will not rest until I’ve shown you
every one of them.”

Daphne groaned, and her sister glared at her. Lady Emily
scowled. Even Priscilla rolled her eyes.

“Of course,” he offered graciously, “if you ladies have
something else you’d rather do, I’ll understand. Didn’t you want to go riding?”

Now they all beamed at him.

“Riding is a grand idea, my lord,” Daphne proclaimed.

“The fresh air is good for one’s constitution,” Ariadne
agreed. “Any number of medical experts agree.”

“I find even the air of the stable invigorating,” Lady Emily
added.

“I have the most darling riding habit,” Priscilla confessed.
“I’ve been longing to show it to you, my lord.”

“Wonderful,” he said with a smile. “If you follow that stair
at the end of the gallery, you should arrive in the rotunda. Yell and someone
will show up. Ask them to lead you to the stables and tell a groom to escort
you. I understand we have any number of horses.”

They obligingly turned and strolled to the stair,
conversation once more animated. Miss Alexander started to go after them, but
he caught her arm.

“Won’t you be joining them, my lord?” she asked, clearly
confused.

“I don’t ride,” David told her, grinning. “I’ve never even
designed a saddle. It’s a waste of good leather, if you ask me.”

“But the girls,” she protested, glancing toward the now
empty stair.

“Will be just fine,” he replied, linking her arm in his.
“They will be happier, and we will be happier. The grooms seem like nice
fellows. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to take the girls out riding. I bet you
already know that you’re the only one who’ll really appreciate a tour of this
place.”

“But Priscilla,” she tried, out of duty, he thought.

“Has most likely seen it all before. She visits often, I’m
told.”

The frown on her face told him she was struggling with the
idea of neglecting her duty. She sighed. “In truth, my lord,” she confessed, “I
don’t ride either. If you truly think they will be fine without me, I should
probably retire to my room until they return.”

“Nonsense,” David asserted. “I told you I had work for you
to do, and since you find yourself free, I’d like you to start right away.
There are several paintings that need to be identified. One’s by a fellow named
Rembrandt.”

She gasped. “You have a Rembrandt?”

“It was hidden away. Come on, I’ll show you.”

The next two hours were some of the most enjoyable he had
spent at Brentfield. He took her to a little-used room at the back of the west
wing, carefully checking the corridor before he unlocked the door. She gasped
again when she saw the pieces piled about the walls. The classical picture of a
warrior and a sleeping goddess she identified with awe as being painted by
Nicolas Poussin, apparently a rather famous French painter from nearly two
hundred years earlier. The colorful piece of an open-air festival she told him
was done by Antoine Watteau, another Frenchman who had painted in the last
century. The fat females cavorting in their all together she claimed, with nary
a blush, belonged to the Flemish painter Rubens. All were the masterpieces he
had suspected.

She was just as interested with the other pieces in the
room. While she rolled her eyes at the bust some long-ago Tenant had tried to
cast himself, she caught her breath at the other bronze sculpture of a rearing
stallion. He watched with pleasure as she dared to stroke the marble of a small
statue one of his forebears must have stolen from a Greek temple and grinned as
she gazed with wonder at the gold and lapis death mask that had surely been
retrieved from an Egyptian tomb.

When she stepped away from the mask, her eyes were serious.
“Priscilla said last night that the house should be opened to tours,” she told
him. “As an artist and an art teacher, I must agree. These treasures should be
shared with others, not piled up in a back room. You must put these on display,
my lord.”

“Only if I can assure their safety,” David replied. Although
he had only spoken of the matter to Asheram, he somehow knew that Hannah
Alexander would understand as well. “I have some concerns about these
treasures, Miss Alexander. I found them hidden.”

She blinked. “Hidden? Why? Where?”

David grinned at her, feeling as if she would enjoy the
mystery as much as he had. “In a series of secret passageways.”

She did not disappoint him. Her dark eyes lighted. “The
house has secret passageways? Who put them in? Where are they?”

“I don’t know who designed the passages,” David told her,
linking her arm in his again and leading her out of the room. “But based on
their location, I would say they were originally designed so that certain
gentlemen could visit certain ladies unseen.”

“Really?” she murmured breathlessly.

He nodded. “But most recently, they seem to have become a
storage place for every movable art treasure in the house. And I don’t think
I’ve found them all.” He escorted her to the sitting room next door, where a
large bronze bust stood on a pedestal along one wall. “Look at this piece, for
example. Tell me, do you notice anything odd about it?”

She peered more closely at the bust. “The lines are a bit
smudged, but perhaps that was the artist’s style.” She frowned. “And I don’t
think this was the original base. It is actually rather small for this bust.
Look, you can see cracks here under the lintel where the pedestal is beginning
to strain under the weight.”

She was as sharp-witted as he’d hoped. “Precisely! Something
else once rested on this base, something much smaller. Something that has been
removed elsewhere.”

“Someone redecorated?” she suggested.

“Lady Brentfield hardly seems the type to notice such things
as the placement of statuary. And from what I hear of the hunting-mad Lord
Brentfield, he was more likely to be found on horseback than playing with the
estates’ art treasures. Besides, I’ve noticed a number of pieces like this.
Wallpaper squares less faded than what’s around them where a painting has been
removed. Cabinets with a circle in the dust showing where a vase or statue once
stood.”

“The russet painting in the Blue Salon,” she guessed.

He nodded. “Yes. In general, inferior objects like my
ancestors’ bust replacing what I imagine were finer pieces.”

She blanched. “You suspect theft, then?”

“I did at first, until I found the secret passageways. While
it’s impossible to match things perfectly, by the coloring or the decoration
scheme, I can sometimes tell where those treasures you saw used to reside. I
bet the rest are still somewhere in the passages.”

“Just how many passages are there?” she asked with a frown.

“They honeycomb this place.” He grinned at her. “There’s
even one starting in your room.”

“There is?” She looked puzzled. “I can’t imagine where it
could be. The room is huge.” She glanced at him suddenly, then lowered her
eyes, a blush creeping to her cheek. “Where does it lead?”

She had every right to be suspicious. Here he was admitting
he knew an illicit route to her bedchamber. But being the proper earl wasn’t
going to solve the mystery of the misplaced art work. “It connects with other
passages at the corner of the west wing,” he explained. “I admit I haven’t been
through all of them. But in each one I tried, I found at least one art
treasure.”

“I don’t see why anyone would hide such work away,” she
protested. “Were they caching the pieces to come back later and remove them
from the house?”

“Or protecting them from someone else who wanted to steal
them?” David countered. “I don’t know. Sometimes things are tucked into corners
or slid behind beams. Sometimes they’re lying abandoned right in the center of
the passage. But I could use help in searching, from someone who understands
what to look for and the potential value of the pieces. Are you willing?”

As she considered the matter, he led her back down the west
wing, stopping before the door of the room she had been given. He could tell by
the way she bit her lip that she was torn. Already she understood why the
pieces must be found and preserved, but he wasn’t sure she trusted him enough
to wander about in the dark unescorted. Perhaps he should prove his
trustworthiness.

Before she could protest, he swept open the door and strode
to the wall between one of the wardrobes and the dressing table. Pressing the
center of the engraved panel allowed him to slide it to one side. She followed
him and peered past him into the darkness beyond. Snatching up a candle from
the bedside table, he lit it and held it before him to step into the hidden
corridor. “Come on. Perhaps if you saw the passages, you’d understand.”