A Marquess, a Miss and a Mystery Page 12

  ‘Ah. Your sister was right then. About you being too young when you left to...that is, I beg your pardon. I don’t mean to imply that...’

  He gave her a cool look. ‘There is never any harm in double-checking a plan,’ he retorted, leading her up a flight of stairs. ‘After the stream, I did wonder if, for example, during the years since I rode my hobby horse along the corridors, artefacts that fascinated me might have been moved.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I meant to say,’ she said, as they reached the first landing, cursing herself for her ability to put her foot in it no matter the occasion and the fact that, now she’d irritated him, he was not going to be at all receptive to her ideas about the King Charles clue.

  He paused. Turned to her. Seemed to register her chagrin. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the truth is, what Jane said did make me think. I was very young when I left. And memory has a tendency to...well, let me put it this way. I remember that stream as a marvellous place with great steep banks where rabbits hopped about.’

  ‘All true.’

  ‘Yes, but...it is a question of perspective, I suppose. I had embellished it, in my mind, with a kind of glow of nostalgia until it resembled something not far short of the Garden of Eden. Which led me to wonder, did that suit of armour I admired so much as a boy really have scrollwork like birds in flight up the arms? Or had I embellished that, too, during my years of exile?’

  Golly. Had he actually confided in her? Admitted to having doubts about his own brilliance? She had better take great care what she said next, because he had just opened up to her in a way she suspected he very rarely did. Which was a huge compliment. She wouldn’t want him to think he’d been mistaken in thinking he could trust her.

  So naturally, her mind went blank.

  After breathing in and out, and pushing her spectacles up her nose, she remembered the tactic that had worked so well the night before. She didn’t need to come up with anything brilliant. She could just ask him about himself.

  ‘And had your mind embellished the suit of armour? And the rest of the house? With things that had never actually been there?’

  A frown flickered across his normally smooth brow. ‘Ah. Well, that is a three-point question. To the first part, no, my memories of the suit of armour that stands guard over the foot of the stairs in the entrance hall is entirely accurate. Although as an adult, I wonder at the mental state of whoever ran amok with an engraving tool over what was surely intended for riding into battle.’

  ‘Good. Well, that must have been...um...well, I mean it is a good thing that you have discovered your memory is not at fault.’

  ‘In a way, yes, but...’ He took her arm and urged her to a walk. ‘We can as easily discuss the efficiency of my memory while making our way to the Duke’s rooms.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, resting her hand on his sleeve. For one thing it meant she didn’t have to watch his face and wonder if the apparently open expression he’d just shown her was just another mask. For another, she liked the feel of his sleeve beneath her hand. And the presence of his body at her side. Far more than on that one occasion when he’d danced with her, because then he’d looked bored and she’d known he was only dancing with her out of duty. Today...well, never mind the fact that she’d had to ambush him in the chapel yesterday and force him to take notice of her. Today he was treating her as if, almost as if, they were friends.

  They came to another set of stairs, began to climb them. When they reached the top, he turned and grinned at her.

  ‘Just as I’d hoped. No footmen. The Duke will clearly do anything if he thinks it will benefit his daughter.’

  ‘I don’t think it is just that.’

  ‘What else could it be?’

  ‘Well, from what Miss Underwood says, I think he would like to mend fences with your side of the family.’

  He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘If so, it works in our favour. Come on,’ he said, taking her by the arm again and drawing her along the landing.

  She’d already been a bit breathless, because they’d been walking so fast. But now her heart did a funny little skip and her stomach went all warm, as though she’d just had a glass of mulled wine.

  ‘The Duke’s rooms are just along here,’ he said, indicating a cross between a broad alcove and a short corridor branching off the main landing. It was formed mainly by two massive sets of double doors on each side.

  ‘How do you know?’ she’d whispered. Why on earth she’d whispered, she couldn’t think.

  ‘It was my father’s room. And he told me it had always been the master suite,’ he said, all trace of humour leaving his voice. ‘I can’t see a man like my half-brother breaking generations of protocol to move somewhere else. Can you?’

  The question was clearly rhetorical, since he carried on without appearing to draw breath.

  ‘The Duchess will occupy the rooms beyond these doors,’ he said, waving his hands to the doors on the right-hand side. ‘My mother...’ A strange expression flitted across his face, then vanished, to be replaced by the smile she was beginning to see he donned whenever he wished to mask whatever he truly thought.

  ‘There, you see,’ he said, indicating the deserted corridor. ‘No footmen on duty. Nevertheless, I shall need you to stand guard and alert me should anyone come. It is one thing to be caught in a corridor where we shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be loitering, but it will take a deal of explaining if anyone knows I was actually inside the holy of holies.’

  He looked over each of his shoulders in turn, put his hand to the set of double doors facing the ones he’d said had once been where his own mother had lived and knocked gently.

  ‘Just as I’d hoped,’ he said, setting his hand to the door knob. ‘Nobody there.’

  And then he darted inside, leaving her standing in the deserted corridor, her heart knocking against her ribs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Horatia stood perfectly still for a couple of minutes, staring at the closed door. What was she supposed to do now?

  Lord, but it was quiet up here in the Duke’s domain. Eerily so. It was as if the house, as well as she, was holding its breath.

  She let one out. Then sucked one in. Tiptoed a bit closer to the Duke’s rooms and pressed her ear to the door.

  Nothing. Not a peep. If she hadn’t seen Lord Devizes walk through that door a moment ago, she would never have guessed he was in there, turning out drawers and peeking under the bed, or whatever he was doing.

  Until he suddenly opened the door and she nearly fell into the room.

  ‘What are you doing with your ear to the door?’

  ‘How could you tell?’

  ‘Never mind that. You must not, ever, loiter right outside the door to any room I may be searching. Especially not with your ear to the door, or your eye to the keyhole.’

  ‘My eye was not to the keyhole.’

  ‘It would have been, in a moment or two, if I hadn’t come out and told you not to put it there.’

  She opened her mouth to protest. Then shut it, realising that it probably would have been the next thing she would have done.

  ‘Go and stand in a less suspicious place.’ He pointed to where the stub of the corridor leading to the Duke and Duchess’s apartments branched off from the main landing. ‘Keep an eye out to see if anyone comes up the stairs, from either end, so you can give me ample warning.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course,’ she said, as he shut the door softly, yet firmly, in her heated face.

  She went to the end of the short passageway, stepped on to the main corridor and paused. She must not look as if she was loitering in a suspicious manner, yet she had to keep an eye out for anyone approaching. How on earth could you keep an eye out while not looking suspicious? Her hand crept to her mouth and she began chewing on a nail. It was all very well for Lord Devizes; he was experienced at sneaking about. But she’d neve
r sneaked anywhere in her life.

  She whipped her hand from her mouth and firmed her lips. She must not start complaining. Or even thinking along the lines of raising a complaint. Hadn’t she done all she could to persuade Lord Devizes to allow her to join him in such activities? Yes, she had. So she had better start behaving like a...sneaky person.

  Placing her arms straight down at her sides, she began strolling in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner in the direction of the nearest staircase. Only her attempt at nonchalance probably bore more resemblance to a guard patrolling outside a sentry box. Oh, dear, she hoped nobody came. She couldn’t look more suspicious if she was holding a crowbar in one hand and a sack full of stolen goods in the other.

  And then what she most dreaded came to pass. The sound of a heavy, measured tread upon the staircase. She froze, her heart hammering. Which wouldn’t do. She had to warn Lord Devizes that someone was coming.

  Although, unless it was the Duke himself, or his valet, or some other servant with the right to enter the master suite, Lord Devizes would probably be safe.

  And if it was anybody with a perfectly good reason for going into the room he was searching? She would just have to...oh, no! Lord Devizes hadn’t told her how she was to warn him. Unless it was by dashing up to the door and hammering on it, and it was too late for that, because she could now see the top of a white head through the banister, which meant whoever it was coming up the stairs would soon notice her. Particularly if she darted from her place like a startled deer and went bounding along the corridor to the Duke’s rooms.

  Her stomach turned over. Fine lookout she was, standing here in a panic instead of doing something to the purpose. Like making a loud noise of some sort, something that would warn Lord Devizes of approaching danger, without alerting anyone to exactly where he was. Something like...like...

  And then her gaze snagged on a fragile-looking vase of virginal white roses standing on one of those little half-moon tables that were of no use for anything much.

  She sidled up to the table, keeping one eye on the man mounting the stairs, and before he could notice her she picked up the vase. And swallowed. She had never deliberately broken anything in her life. And the vase might be worth hundreds of pounds. But, well, if the Duke valued it all that much then he jolly well shouldn’t have left it out in a corridor where anyone could chance by and hurl it to the floor. And anyway, desperate times called for desperate measures. Taking a step out into the very middle of the corridor, she raised the vase over her head and then hurled it to the floor with all her might.

  It made a satisfyingly loud crash as it shattered, although rather a lot of water seemed to bounce back in her direction, soaking the bottom half of her gown.

  ‘What? What, what?’ The man who had been coming so slowly and deliberately up the stairs paused, peering up over the landing like a bewildered owl. Horatia recognised him at once. It was the elderly chaplain, who had presided over Sunday prayers in the chapel the day before.

  ‘Oh, dear me,’ she cried, dropping to her knees, right in the middle of the worst of the mess, which would coincidentally block his way if he’d been intending to turn right at the top of the stairs. ‘So clumsy of me. Look what a mess I’ve made.’ Then, as though she was the kind of hen-witted female who would try to pick up shards of broken pottery rather than ringing for a maid to fetch a dustpan and brush, and a mop and bucket while she was at it, she began to gather up as much as she could. He’d have to step right over her to get past. Surely that would give Lord Devizes time to...to...well, if he’d heard her, that was, and correctly interpreted her signal.

  ‘Guilt,’ said the chaplain sourly, prowling in her direction. ‘I have caught you where you should not be. Guilt is writ all over your face.’

  A horrid feeling squirmed in her stomach at his condemnation. For she had felt guilty from the moment Lord Devizes had put her on guard outside his half-brother’s door.

  ‘Thou wanton,’ the chaplain continued, drawing near.

  Why was he calling her a wanton? Unless he’d been listening to gossip about her and Lord Devizes and believed it. Well, whatever his reason for looking at her that way, he was certainly succeeding in making her feel extremely guilty.

  ‘At least you have the grace to fall to your knees,’ he added, coming to a halt so close to her that she had to lean back a touch to avoid bashing her forehead on his thighs.

  ‘Really, Dr Grimes,’ came a soft, disdainful voice from over her shoulder.

  Lord Devizes! Oh, thank goodness. Though how on earth he’d managed to leave the Duke’s room and appear just there, she could not imagine.

  ‘Did you not receive,’ said Lord Devizes, sauntering over as though he had not a care in the world, ‘the same warnings I did, upon arrival, about this being a respectable house party?’

  ‘I have no need of warnings,’ retorted the elderly cleric.

  ‘That is not,’ said Lord Devizes with what looked like amusement, ‘what it looks like from where I’m standing. If I were not a man with similar tastes, I would be very shocked to see you attempting to coerce an innocent female into such an act, in a public corridor, too.’

  For some reason that Horatia could not fathom, that cryptic remark had the cleric taking a hasty step back.

  ‘She...she...’ he blustered, pointing a gnarled finger at her. ‘She was on her knees when I got here.’

  ‘A likely story,’ said Lord Devizes affably. ‘You should really come up with something more plausible.’

  ‘I have no need to come up with anything, you infernal scoundrel. The woman is at fault.’

  ‘Ah, the eternal Eve,’ said Lord Devizes, nodding. ‘The woman is always the temptress, the man but the poor weak dupe...’

  The conversation was becoming more and more bewildering, but at least somehow Lord Devizes was getting the cleric so flustered that he was not asking them what they were doing there.

  ‘Miss Carmichael,’ said Lord Devizes, finally turning to her. ‘You seem to be in a spot of bother. May I be of assistance?’

  ‘Oh, um...’ she said, racking her brains for a suitable response. ‘That is, I was...’

  ‘Looking for a place to hide a clue, I would guess,’ he supplied helpfully.

  ‘Yes. That is it,’ she agreed with relief.

  ‘A clue?’ Doctor Grimes glanced suspiciously from one to the other of them.

  ‘Yes. Miss Underwood has tasked us, Miss Carmichael and I,’ Lord Devizes said, placing one hand on his breast, ‘to arrange a treasure hunt for the children who seem unaccountably to have turned up along with the guests invited to my brother’s wedding.’

  ‘And she wanted to hide a clue in a vase of flowers?’

  ‘Hen-witted, I grant you,’ said Lord Devizes. ‘The paper would have gone soggy and the clue become illegible, no doubt. Really, Miss Carmichael,’ he said, bending to offer her a hand so she could get to her feet, ‘I had expected better of you.’

  Oh, had he? Well, for her part she’d thought she’d come up with a brilliant way of distracting the chaplain so that he hadn’t noticed that Lord Devizes had been in the Duke’s rooms. She shook off his hand as she got to her feet. If it hadn’t been for her quick thinking, the chaplain might have wandered into the Duke’s rooms and caught Lord Devizes red-handed.

  ‘This part of the house is not at all suitable for a treasure hunt,’ said Dr Grimes peevishly. ‘Especially not for a bunch of unruly children. Why, look at the damage you have caused already!’ He pointed at the mess of broken pottery, petals and stalks seeping into the carpet.

  ‘Come along, Miss Carmichael,’ said Lord Devizes, taking her by the arm and steering her past the quivering cleric. ‘Let us see if we can find somewhere more suitable for our endeavours.’

  * * *

  She was rigid with annoyance. And trying to tug her arm from his grip, so that he was obliged to ho
ld on to her a bit harder than he would have liked.

  ‘I hope you are not one of those people who bruise easily,’ he said, when he was pretty sure that he was out of earshot of the snooping old chaplain.

  ‘You wouldn’t need to consider it if you weren’t so determined to drag me away like a...criminal being taken to prison,’ she hissed at him, still trying to free herself.

  There was an alcove ahead. In only a couple more paces, he swung her into it and leaned in after, pressing her back against the wall. ‘Spit it out,’ he advised her.

  ‘Spit? I don’t spit. What do you mean?’

  ‘Then tell me, in plain words, what has set up your bristles.’

  She glared at him. ‘I should have thought it was obvious. You made me look like a complete fool.’

  ‘That chaplain was already halfway to thinking that. I only needed to give him the slightest push—’

  ‘You did not need to push him anywhere!’

  ‘Oh, but I did. If I had not kept him in a state of irritation, or condemnation, he would have started to wonder what we were really doing up here. And you lent yourself to the part of scapegoat so splendidly, smashing the Duke’s priceless Ming vase in that reckless way.’

  Her hand flew to her throat. ‘Was it really? Priceless, I mean? I would have thought he would have locked it up in a cabinet if it was worth very much...’

  ‘I have no idea. But it was such an ugly thing it ought to have been smashed. And it could not have been broken in a better cause.’

  ‘You heard it, then? When I saw him coming up the stairs, I could not think how to alert you, apart from making a big noise, and screaming would have made him suspicious, and you told me not to act suspiciously—’

  ‘Yes, you did very well, considering.’

  ‘Considering?’ She gave him that look again. The one that reminded him of his nanny just before she told him that she didn’t believe a word he’d said and that he would have to take his punishment.

  ‘Considering you have never done anything like this before.’