Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) (23 page)

“Did she tell you this?” Anger filled him at the thought of
Elizabeth complaining of her lot to his uncle. She was the one who demanded
separate rooms and separate beds.

“She says nothing!” Gareth insisted. “I watch and observe
people, you know this. Every time you cross paths with her as O’Rourke, I see
her heart crying out for a kind word from you, for some small acknowledgement,
for love and acceptance. For forgiveness--for what she perceives as her failing
in your eyes.” Gareth’s voice roughened, “And you just walk away, oblivious to
the fragile flower you’ve crushed beneath your boots, day after day. Every day,
she wilts a little more. You shame the girl with your behavior, and you shame
me!” His uncle slapped his chest. “For I must lie to make her think it is
business that keeps you away and not your schoolboy sulking!”

With that, his uncle left him standing in the garden to
consider his unwarranted advice.

*******

Elizabeth stood at the window overlooking the small kitchen
garden. She was observing a maid flirting with her husband. She couldn’t hear
the exchange, but she could see Sally trying to look coy as she giggled over
something he said. Donovan stood with his hands on his hips and a detached
smile, playing the affable Mr. O’Rourke—a bachelor—in front of the woman.

With quick wrist action, Sally made it appear as if she’d
accidentally dropped the bundle of herbs. She bent to retrieve them, giving him
a view of her ample bosom. Donovan smiled and then laughed at something the
vixen said, behaving as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Elizabeth held her breath, waiting for her worst fears to be
realized.

To his credit, her husband did not step forward to embrace
the maid in a clandestine tryst. He turned away from blonde Sally with her
overflowing bosom and strode down the cobbled path to the stables. The maid
gazed after him with a yearning Elizabeth knew well.

She turned away from the window. Her time was better spent
taking inventory of the linen closet. A short time later, she entered the
second floor closet and set the candle on the shelf. Just as she suspected, the
sheets were showing their years. Lace edges were unraveling and small holes
appeared as the fabric showed signs of disintegration due to age.

 The door closed with a whoosh, snuffing out the candle. She
spun about to open it only to find that the door was locked. Nobody locked
linen closets, for pity’s sake!

Elizabeth tried the ring of keys her husband gave her. The
lock was jammed, it wouldn’t respond to any of the keys, and she was on her
second round of trying before she realized it wasn’t an accident, something was
keeping her imprisoned in the dark closet.

“Tell him!” Mama’s desperate voice cut through her in the
darkness. “Tell that man what your stepfather did to me. I can’t rest until you
do.”

“What good would that do? Can’t you see I’m nothing but an
annoyance to the man?” She retorted, weary of Mama’s dramatic petulance. “Why
are you never concerned about me?”

Mama didn’t answer. She left to go sulk somewhere else.
Elizabeth pounded on the door and called out. The idea that no one might notice
she was missing brought a rush of terror as she went from patient calls to
panicked cries. No one came. No one heard her cries for help.

She tried to remain calm. It was difficult as she imagined
dying alone here, trapped in the dark, no one even noticing she was missing
until she’d joined her mother in the hereafter.

“Don’t be frightened.” A soft, husky voice like rustling
silks whispered to Elizabeth in the cloying darkness. Maureen’s radiant form
materialized and it was then Elizabeth realized she was crying, just like the
other night when Maureen appeared. Ghostly fingers moved over her hair and her
wet cheeks. “I won’t let her hurt you, darlin’.”

“Mama would never hurt me.” Elizabeth asserted. “Would she?”

 Without a reply, Maureen disappeared.

The door popped open, just like that, setting Elizabeth
free.

Chapter
Twenty

Donovan sauntered into the room behind the kitchen that
served as the servant’s dining area. He plopped down on the wooden bench beside
the footmen playing cards at the end of the long trestle table.

Elias Jones set his tin mug on the table and belched.
Donovan could understand why Elizabeth had hired him. Elias had a neat, clean
shaven appearance and knew how to behave in a respectful manner in the presence
of a lady. What she didn’t know was that Elias fancied himself a rake and had
already boasted of having tupped one of the maids more than once since his
arrival here. The conversation among cards each night this week had been
dominated by Elias’s bragging about his secret trysts and his companion eating
his every word as if it were toasted cheese and not a pile of horse shit.

Henry Chilton was a small, unremarkable man with mud brown
hair and mutton chops that met beneath his chin. He possessed wide brown eyes
and a ready smile, traits that might seem appealing in a footman. By himself,
he was no more threatening than an overgrown puppy. Unfortunately, Henry seemed
to be under the thrall of Elias, the more conniving one of the pair.

“You in, O’Rourke?” Henry asked, offering him a toothy
welcome.

“Aye.” Donovan rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

Henry dealt him in. Donovan picked up the cards and arranged
them in his hand. The footmen had invited him to join their nightly game the on
second day they were here. They complained to him that Giles, the middle aged
footman, was a starched shirt determined to get into her ladyship’s good graces
and thus shunned their manly pursuits after hours, and the fourth footman, a
lad of nineteen, was too close to a Methodist to warrant an invitation to their
circle.

As O’Rourke, Donovan had been taking his meals with the new
staff. He bantered with them in the back rooms whenever possible and tucked
away tidbits of information about each one as they spoke openly among
themselves. He didn’t like having his home crowded with strangers as a rule
when he was a bachelor. Having a wife who experienced petit seizures made him
doubly anxious regarding the integrity of said strangers residing under his
roof. A dishonest maid could pocket milady’s necklace and make her mistress
believe she had misplaced the item herself. A footman might swoop in with more
dangerous intentions while Lizzie was caught in an episode of confusion.
Donovan had to make certain his darling was safe in her own home.

Elizabeth’s maid of chambers, Miss Ramirez, had only good to
say of her mistress. She seemed to have developed a fondness for her lady in
the short time of her employment. She exhibited a loyalty that became apparent
when another maid uttered a complaint about hauling water due to milady’s
penchant for bathing daily in her hearing. Chloe Ramirez was an effusive,
chatty sort, the type of female Donovan found vastly annoying. As long she
proved loyal to his wife he didn’t care about her other flaws.

“Why the grim face?” Elias asked, watching Donovan study the
cards he’d been dealt. “Horse kick you in the balls today?”

Henry guffawed loudly, acting as if Elias’ remark was clever
instead of crude.

“Not me.” Donovan grinned disarmingly as he spoke,
determined to ride out the uncouth jesting until he completed his mission. “The
Count’s Arabian damn near gelded poor Johnny. And I doubt the lad’s even gained
his spurs.”

“Aw!” Elias howled. “I know a chit or two who’d be pleased
to ‘educate’ the boy. We’ll take him with us to the alehouse, next time, eh,
Henry?”

“Spades.” Henry replied, turning the top card over on the
table. “Your bid, Eli.”

Elias opened the bid. Donovan bid higher. Henry passed. And
so went the evening.

After losing to Donovan, Elias complained that he was out of
quid until next quarter day. “I have a different wager in mind.” He looked
behind him to assure they were alone and then leaned forward to let them on in
his plan.

“What is it, dice?” Henry bubbled forth while Donovan
remained silent.

“Not dice.” Elias smirked. “The countess. That spook she’s
married to acts as if she doesn’t exist. Makes a fellow wonder if he ain’t
crazy like they say, ignoring a sweet young thing like that. Spending all day
locked up in his lab pulling the wings off of flies.”

“He is a queer one.” Henry chimed in. “She deserves better,
aye, O’Rourke?”

He grunted his assent, placing a finger on his brow. “But
what does Madame Beaumont have to do with this wager?”

Elias sat up a little straighter with a smug smile on his
face. “It’s like this; a young woman married to a lunatic. She’s bound to get
lonely, being ignored by her man, stuck on an isolated island estate halfway
around the world from her kinfolk.”

Donovan didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He remained still,
so as not to startle his prey. “Go on.” He muttered, keeping his balled fist
locked on his thigh beneath the table.

“Oh, you want to bet how long before she leaves the count?” Henry
put in. “Good one, that way we don’t have to pay up ‘til it happens—if it
happens.”

“No, stupid.” Elias cuffed Henry’s shoulder. “I never had a
noblewoman beneath me.” He went on, looking and speaking to O’Rourke as if only
he were man enough to understand. “And that one’s mighty fine. It’s a shame to
let a good pussy go to waste, don’t you think?”

“Ah, Elias, you aren’t suggesting we hurt her, now, are
you?” Henry whined.

“I’m proposing seduction, you twit. Been watching her, I
have. She’s lonely. Why, she fairly lights up every time that bastard uncle
gives her the time of day. What I propose, my lads, is a wager between the
three of us, with the countess as the prize. Which one of us can charm her into
giving him a place in her bed? That one gets 10 quid from the other two.”

Elias paused, letting his words settle before asking, “What
do you say, lads? Are you in? You up to hunting peacock instead of pea hens?”

Henry nodded, agreeing to the scheme. “Aye, she is a pretty
little thing.”

“O’Rourke, are you in?”

Donovan stood, his fists clenched. “I’m in. Deeper than you
care to know.”

Without warning, he kicked the stool out from under Henry,
who was seated at the end of the table between Eli and himself. As the footman
fell on his ass, Donovan lurched across the wooden table and dragged Elias over
it. The wily footman raised his fist, attempting a right hook in his defense.
Donovan blocked the attack with his forearm and twisted the man’s hand behind
his back. Elias tried to wiggle out of his grip. Donovan pounced on the man,
wrestling him to the floor with ease. He knelt over the man, pinning him with
his knees.

“Mr. O’Rourke?” Pearl appeared in the doorway. “What goes on
here?”

“Debauchery, Mayhem.” Donovan answered through clenched
teeth. “And it ends, here.” He turned his eyes to the man in the doorway while
keeping his hand on his victim’s throat. “These two are out of the game. I want
them trussed up and delivered on the docks of Basseterre before dawn. Get me
some rope.”

Chapter
Twenty One

Elizabeth was perched on a ladder in the freshly painted
salon just off the stairs. She was attempting to hang the newly washed curtains
herself as the maid below was afraid of heights, the other two were outside
hanging the rest of the laundry, and the fourth was helping the cook prepare
lunch in the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t be up there, mum.” Sally informed her. “I’ll
catch hell from his lordship if anything was to happen to you!”

“Stuff and nonsense.” Elizabeth replied, attempting to
maintain a good humor. “My lord wouldn’t notice I was missing. He’d keep
working, trying valiantly to cure the diseases plaguing mankind until someone
screwed up the courage to inform him that I was buried last week.”

“Oh, mum!” Sally trilled. “That’s funny. You be a rare one,
working alongside the rest of us, mopping and scrubbing and polishing all day
as if you weren’t a countess, why I have never heard the like, have you Mr.
O’Rourke?”

Oh, Bollocks! Elizabeth braced herself for some lewd remark
about her backside to be expressed by the man. He was nothing if not brash when
in his swaggering O’Rourke persona.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” A languid colonial
drawl barked from the vicinity of her ankles. Elizabeth looked down at him and
then at the maid, wondering if Sally noted the abrupt change in his speech. As
Elizabeth hesitated, he placed a boot on the lower rung and clasped the ladder
firmly with both hands. “Get down, before you fall and break your neck. I
should paddle your bottom until you can’t sit down, just for being so damned
foolish.”

“Mr. O’Rourke, you’ve no right to be talking to the mistress
like that!” Sally cautioned.

Elizabeth smiled. The woman raised a valid point. Mr.
O’Rourke was a servant. She let the heavy curtain drop to the floor and then
carefully descended the ladder.

“What’s your excuse, Alice? You’re gaping up at the ceiling,
laughing while your mistress is doing work I’m paying you to do.” Donovan
reached up and grabbed Elizabeth about the waist to pull her from the last few
rungs when she didn’t move fast enough to satisfy him.

“This is Sally, Mr. O’Rourke, and she’s afraid of heights.”
She informed him.

“I don’t give a damn about her.” Donovan returned, glaring
daggers at Elizabeth.

She couldn’t help but smile. He couldn’t tell buxom, blonde Sally
from plump Alice, the scullery maid? That was encouraging since Sally had been
flirting with him shamelessly all week.

“You are not to be climbing ladders, young lady.” Towering
over her with a dangerous forefinger stabbing the air between them, Donovan
seemed to forget the gruff Irish tone he used as O’Rourke. He was scolding her
in the cultured colonial drawl that was his natural speech. He looked from her
to Sally, then her again. “What’s this about scrubbing and mopping? You’re not
strong enough to be doing menial chores and the moment my back is turned I find
you risking your neck hanging heavy curtains. That’s a man’s job. Where is a
footman?”