The Marquess (6 page)

Feeling like an idiot standing here listening for something
that didn’t exist, he gave up and took the corridor back to the main front
of the house. A board creaked somewhere, and Gavin jerked around, trying to
locate the sound. In a house like this, boards creaked all the time, but he
couldn’t help feeling jittery. If an arsonist meant to destroy Blanche
Perceval, then he could very well have followed her here. This house might be
an atrociously expensive ruin, but it was the only ruin he owned. He
didn’t mean to lose it.

Deciding the servants’ stairs in the back deserved
consideration if someone were sneaking about the place, he carried his candle
in that direction. Another board creaked, and he hurried a little faster.

Thinking he heard a soft footstep in a spare bedchamber
behind him, Gavin stopped and flashed the candle around. Cursing the darkness,
the heavy draperies, and his decision to leave this room intact, bed hangings
and all, he scoured the interior before discovering the damned cat licking its
paw in the corner. Cursing, he continued toward his original destination.

The servants’ stairs leading up to the third floor
were narrow, dark, and made of wood that creaked with every step he took. He
didn’t know how he could have imagined an arsonist sneaking up here. The
man would be insane to even try. He started back down again.

At the sight of a suspicious light flickering on the
downstairs landing, Gavin hastened his steps, nearly breaking his neck as he
tripped on a loose board.

He could almost swear he heard a ghostly voice calling, “Careful
now!”

* * * *

Dillian sat cross-legged behind the wall, petting the cat
and listening to the monster storm from room to room in search of rats or
ghosts. She had disturbed his terribly light sleep three nights in a row now.
She thought him most probably ready to strangle whatever he found. Or whomever.

The idea didn’t disturb her too terribly. She had led
a boring life on the whole. Playing the ghost of Arinmede Ruin tickled her
fancy. And her mischievous streak rather enjoyed the challenge of outwitting
the Monster of Effingham. Even in his stocking feet she could hear him creeping
down the hall, intent on discovering her lair. She’d left a little
surprise for him in the master chamber. She hoped he appreciated the sentiment.
In the meantime, as much as she would like to see his face when he found it,
she’d best remove herself from this passage. As long as there was any
doubt as to Blanche’s safety, she had to retain the element of surprise.

* * * *

Gavin cursed as his lantern light caught on the perfect red
rosebud set in a crystal vase beside the bed in the master chamber. He swung
the light around to search the room’s shadows for hidden prey. Instead,
he discovered the furniture newly dusted and polished, the linen changed and
fresh, and the rotting draperies torn from their rods to expose mullioned bay
windows. He had no idea where “the lady” had hauled the material,
for no evidence of it remained. For the first time since his arrival in this
ruin, the master chamber appeared a welcome haven instead of a home for rats.

“Why roses?” he yelled in frustration at the
hollow walls.

He thought he heard drifting laughter, but by now, his
imagination could easily conjure up entire leagues of floating ladies in
ghostly apparel.

Frustrated, disbelieving, Gavin knew the foolishness of
following a phantom, but he refused to believe in ghosts. Hitting the panel
hiding the secret door, he entered the dark passage beyond, immediately
tripping over the abandoned draperies on the other side. His recently acquired
cat purred and snaked around his ankles.

He didn’t even bother cursing this time. He caught his
candle before it fell and examined the pile of moldering velvet as the cat
bolted back to the bedroom. No ghost had done this. He held the light up to the
passage, but it didn’t pierce the length. Could Michael have returned and
hid himself for some reason?

He dismissed that notion quickly. Michael wasn’t
inclined to dusting and polishing furniture. And if he stole draperies, he
would do it for profit and not for aesthetic purposes. It had to be Blanche.

But every time he sought the invalid’s room, she slept
soundly with the laudanum. He had dressed the wounds on her hands and face and
knew their painful reality. He had caught glimpses of other, lesser bums, but
she had modestly insisted on caring for those herself. Still, he didn’t
think her capable of moving as swiftly and silently as this intruder, even
could she see. Gavin wished Michael would get his scrawny ass back here so they
could send for a better physician than the local quack. Someone needed to
address the problem of the lady’s vision.

In the meantime he would tackle the dilemma of their newly
arrived ghost.

He slipped back to the corridor, knowing the passage behind
these walls came out in only one other place— Blanche’s bedroom. If
the ghost hid in the walls, it could only run one of two directions. It could
slip past a sleeping Blanche easily enough, but it wouldn’t slip by him.

Gavin carefully lit the lamps he’d set at intervals
all down the hall. He had the ghost trapped now.

* * * *

Silence had never sounded so ominous. Dillian waited behind
the hidden panel. The monster usually stormed into Blanche’s room by now,
certain the poor patient led him a merry dance. She heard no sound of his
approach.

Curiosity driving her more than sense, she slipped through
Blanche’s darkened room and peered into the corridor, hoping to glimpse
the monster marquess. All she saw for her effort was a large cloak striding
down the hallway, lighting lamps. Other than noting his height and the overlong
length of black curls, she could discern nothing abnormal. Muffling a giggle,
Dillian slipped back to the secret passage. She had feared he might get clever
and set a trap. Well, she had prepared for that eventuality.

Swinging the small lamp she had confiscated from the lower
floor, she cautiously crept down the secret passage toward the master chamber.
Those old draperies would make an excellent bed. She need only outwait him. She
hoped he hadn’t found her bowl of soup. He really did have the best cooks
she’d ever encountered.

* * * *

Gavin woke to someone kicking the soles of his feet.
Growling as he stretched aching limbs, he grudgingly opened his eyes to
discover he slept in the upper corridor with only his cloak for a blanket.

“You needn’t take your guard duty quite so
personally,” a voice said reflectively above him. “You could have
slept in the bed in the next room. Or had you meant to present Sleeping Beauty
with that rose as soon as she woke? I hadn’t thought you so romantic.”

Gavin scowled at the perfect red rosebud between his fingers.
The damned little witch! He would catch her one of these days, and then there
would be hell to pay. His hand instinctively checked the hood of the cloak
he’d used for warmth. He felt an odd relief that it remained in place.
Realizing that he’d feared scaring a ghost, he gave a mental curse.

He glanced at the lamps burning their last oil up and down
the hall. He’d wasted all that for nothing. Maybe he should just give up
the chase and let the witch wander as she would.

“Your confounded invalid walks in her sleep,” he
grunted, pulling himself to his feet. The old wound in his side made him wince,
but he kept his face turned away, as was his habit.

“So you thought you’d light her way?”
Michael asked quizzically. “That’s an odd approach. Does she walk
in the gardens, too? You must have amazing healing powers.”

Gavin shoved the rose in his pocket at his brother’s
glance. “Never mind. Where the hell have you been? It doesn’t take
this long traveling to Dover and back. We need a decent physician to look at
the lady’s eyes. And she’s worried about her servants. She wants to
send her solicitor a note. Since you haven’t seen fit to tell me who you
suspect, I didn’t dare send the note she wrote.”

Michael shrugged. “I delivered one for her. The
solicitor has sent the lady’s servants to one of her other homes to air
it out and make it comfortable for her return. Why don’t you take her the
rose? She can smell it, at least. You’ll need to hurry with the wooing.
The duke is half frantic and prepared to take all of England apart. He’ll
start on the Continent next since I’ve told him I found the carriage in
Dover, and I’m currently supposed to be checking ship bookings.”

“Damn you, Michael! I don’t need any damned
dukes breathing down my neck! If the lady is in some danger, why don’t
you just call in the authorities?”

Gavin didn’t even question his brother’s other
statements. He knew Michael’s devious methods too well. He didn’t
want to know which scheme his brother employed to delude the poor duke, or how
he’d forged the lady’s signature.

“Dukes
are
the authority around here.
Neville’s too involved in government to spend much time looking for a
lost cousin. He might spread his wealth around and hire another investigator or
two besides me, but you can handle those pennyweights. Just concentrate on
wooing the lady. In six months time she’ll be rich as Croesus.
You’ll make her an excellent husband, far better than the arrogant duke.”

Michael started drifting off in the direction of the stairs.
Gavin caught his shoulder and shoved him up against the wall.

“Are you telling me that the lady really isn’t
in any danger except from an amorous cousin?”

“Someone burned the house down,” Michael pointed
out logically. “The duke is her only close relative. I’m certain
their solicitor has apprised him of who inherits her fortune. She has put off
his requests for a decision on their marriage for over a year. The date when
she comes into her own wealth is drawing closer. You may draw your own
conclusions.”

“I conclude this is all humbug to throw the heiress in
my direction,” Gavin announced stiffly. “Go find a physician for
the lady. Once she can see again, her desire to remain under my protection will
end quickly enough.”

He strode off toward the master chamber, leaving Michael
whistling, unperturbed, at the head of the stairs.

* * * *

“Dillian, is that you?” Hearing someone enter,
Blanche looked up from her listless contemplation of the square of yellow light
that represented the window.

“Expecting that she-devil, are we?” The voice
contained a mixture of laughter and annoyance.

Blanche strained to remember where she had heard that voice
last, but her memories of this past week were so jumbled she couldn’t
place it. “Who are you?” she demanded sharply.

“Arrah, now, and here I thought you would be
remembering the likes of Michael O’Toole after that delightful evening in
the gardens of your grand house while we searched about for your little
pussycat. I’m that hurt, I am.”

“Michael O’Toole! What in the name of heaven are
you doing here? How did you find me?” Worriedly, she asked, “Did
Neville send you?”

“And you think I would have aught to do with a
spalpeen like that? Faith, and you have little opinion of me. ’Twas me
what brought you here, my lady. His Grace was that set on moving your lovely
self to the Hall, and I thought as how you spoke so harshly of the place, that
I would bring you here where you might reside in comfort instead.”

“Comfort! O’Toole, you have maggots for brains.
I have no maid. I’ve been deprived of my companion and kept in less than
respectability by a strange man who is excessively reluctant to carry on a
civil conversation. I want these infernal bandages off so I might write my
solicitor with better instructions. I can do nothing but sit here and vegetate!
This is your idea of comfort?”

She was normally not one to berate her servants, but she
remembered O’Toole quite clearly now. Insufferably obnoxious and
ingratiatingly clever, he was also too damned good-looking for his own good.
The maids had nearly swooned every time he turned that charming Irish smile on
them.

She couldn’t imagine why she had hired him in the
first place. In fact, she couldn’t remember hiring him. He’d just
appeared one day wearing her livery and helped chase her cat through the
kitchen garden.

“The master of this household has waited upon you
personally, my lady!” O’Toole replied in a voice of outrage. “He
would have no one know of your whereabouts for fear others would do ye harm.
The poor man is nearly white from lack of sleep, and him a lordly marquess and
all. He is that worried about you. The poor man was by way of being smitten
from the moment he set eyes on your fair face, my lady, and that’s the
truth of it.”

“O’Toole, I am not a ninnyhammer to take your
Spanish coin. Go spread it elsewhere.”

“Yes, O’Toole, take your gaff and stuff it.”

A coldly masculine voice intervened before Blanche could
loose any further invectives at her footman’s head. She recognized the
tone of her warden, as she’d come to style him. He certainly didn’t
have the sound of an ardent suitor.

“Wait!” she ordered before she could lose this
one contact with the outside world. “What of my servants, O’Toole?
Have they found places? Has my solicitor acted yet in their behalf?”

O’Toole’s Irish brogue softened as he replied, “That
he has, my lady. They’re airing out the Hampshire house for you,
preparing for your return. I took the liberty of assuring them of your safety.”

“Thank you,” she said gravely. “Now, if
you would be so good as to fetch my companion from wherever she is abiding and
have my maid pack a trunk of clothes from Hampshire and send them to me, I will
be most appreciative.”

Blanche listened to the silence that fell after this
command. She wondered how they would take Dillian’s abrupt appearance.
Dillian hadn’t found any good way to announce her arrival.