Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) (9 page)

“
T
his is nonsense
,” Rafe murmured fifteen minutes later as Octavia slipped through the door he’d unlocked from the inside the portrait gallery.

They had successfully gained entrance to Maidenstone Abbey. It wasn’t difficult, although they could easily be caught if their luck turned. He had strolled into the drawing room through the French doors on the elevated terrace and walked through the last remnants of the after-dinner gathering like he had been there all along.

Lucy kept country hours, and the party was already mostly dispersed — he would need to be careful not to be locked out of the drawing room on future nights. The few remaining men lingered sullenly over their brandy as though they had already given up the fight.

The field of suitors was too crowded for their liking. He’d heard some grumbling that evening — the suitors were not having an easy go of it. Lucretia should have done well that night — she was far prettier than any man who would marry a stranger for a chance at a house had any right to expect. But she had kept her eyes downcast and hadn’t encouraged any of them.

That left Callista, the American cousin who had unexpectedly arrived that afternoon. She had been in the foyer of Maidenstone Abbey when Rafe and his siblings had driven over from Salcombe, in the middle of an argument with Lucretia and not caring at all that a duke and his entourage were standing behind her. Even before he saw her face, Rafe knew Callista was a lady to be reckoned with. She stood with her hands on her hips, wearing a divided riding skirt and boots, hair tumbled down her back, as though she’d just endured a forced march and was ready to tear Lucretia limb from limb.

Thorington oddly, seemed entirely enchanted with her. He claimed it was for Anthony’s sake — that he wanted Anthony to marry her. But Thorington had spent the evening glowering at anyone who went near Callista — not that many of them did, since she looked capable of skewering them herself.

Octavia would have trounced the other girls soundly if she had been invited.

When Rafe unlocked the door to the portrait gallery and Octavia sauntered in with total nonchalance, he pictured how she would look if she entered the drawing room like that. The women would be unspeakably rude to her — and perhaps some of the men would, too, although they hadn’t avoided the parties she had hosted as Somerville’s mistress. But she would command the room as though she owned it — as though she had already won Maidenstone Abbey.

Which is why he declared that this was nonsense. It was nonsense that Octavia was here, with him, alone, breaking into a house she had lived most of her life in, and attempting to ruin a party that she could have ruled over.

It was nonsense to think that he could help her while also using her for his own ends. Nonsense to think that he could use her to learn Somerville’s secrets without feeling guilt.

And it was nonsense to think that he could do it without wanting her. As she stood, fearless, in the doorway of the portrait gallery, he didn’t want to think of skulking through dusty attics.

He wanted to imagine that fearlessness in his bed. And he wanted to consider whether, maybe, her fearlessness could overcome all the ways in which love could end badly.

That, he knew, was the most nonsensical idea of all.

“What did you say?” she asked.

He had muttered it under his breath without thinking. “This is nonsense,” he said again.

She shook her head decisively. “This isn’t nonsense. It’s a sound plan executed against a deserving foe. The only nonsense I can think of is that we will have difficulty searching the attics without light. Perhaps we should have come during the day despite the risk of being caught.”

The attics would be prohibitively dark at night. But if they had come during the day, someone would almost certainly have seen Octavia as she entered the house. “If you’re caught with me, you might have to marry me,” he said. “Can’t risk that, can we?”

“Pish. If anything, your reputation will suffer more than mine if we are caught together. I’m ruined beyond repair.” Her voice was cheerful, caught up in the excitement of adventure. “But we won’t be caught. There will be no marrying each other, never fear.”

He laughed, but he couldn’t quite explain why some small part of him was oddly disappointed by her pronouncement. It was true, though — no one would expect him to do the honorable thing and marry Somerville’s former mistress if he compromised her. A mistress couldn’t be compromised, not like an innocent.

He reminded himself that this was a temporary arrangement. They would only be partners for as long as it took to ruin Lucretia’s party — and for as long as it took him to unearth whatever secrets he could find that would hurt Somerville. Once that was done, they would part ways.

And Octavia would likely hate him once she realized that his aim was to destroy Somerville. So, really, it was for the best that she was so focused on her own plans. The more distance there was between them — the more this was a business arrangement, rather than anything more satisfying — the easier it would be to walk away from her at the end of it.

He ushered her into the room and closed the door behind her. The door was almost entirely glass, one of a pair in the long gallery that opened out into the gardens, and he was careful to lock it behind them. He didn’t know how diligent the footmen would be about checking the locks, and he didn’t want to leave traces of their passage. They might need to come this way again another night. He didn’t want anyone looking for them.

“Shall I light a candle?” Octavia asked.

“I don’t know if there are candles here,” Rafe said, looking around for a table or other likely location for a candle and tinderbox.

She held up her reticule. “I’d be little use as leader of this expedition if I didn’t bring supplies.”

“How resourceful. You will be promoted to field marshal in no time at all.”

“Let’s not count our chickens, my lord. It is too soon to consider whether we’ll be mentioned favorably in the dispatches.” She knelt in front of him, sparing no mind for her borrowed skirts, and emptied her reticule on the floor. She had a tinderbox in her hand a moment later.

“Allow me,” he said, reaching for the box.

“Julian said I could make sparks faster than anyone,” she said, ignoring his offer as she struck the flint and showered sparks onto the tinder nestled in the box. The tinder glowed moments later, and she lit a candle before damping the tinder and closing the box. Then she looked up at him with a grin. “I don’t think he meant it as a compliment. He didn’t like it when I bested him.”

Rafe knelt beside her, taking another candle from the pile of goods she had dumped from her reticule. He’d left his lamp at the edge of the woods, where they could retrieve it later for the walk back; they couldn’t risk using it to cross the gardens. He tipped his wick into her flame, waiting for it to catch. When their light doubled, he sat back on his heels. “Whether he meant it as a compliment or not, he was right. If you can set up a tent as efficiently as you can make a fire, you’d be well-regarded on the Peninsula.”

Octavia shuddered, an exaggerated motion that made Rafe want to laugh. But she had already made him laugh, too much, and he needed to focus on the task at hand. He tried to remind himself of that as the candlelight caught her eyes and gave them a glow that he could have pretended, momentarily, was for him. “Madame Octavia is made for townhouses, not tents,” she declared.

It was odd that she called herself “Madame Octavia.” What was she reminding herself of by saying that? In this domain, she was a Briarley — or should have been.

She gave him her candle and stuffed her other belongings back into her reticule. He saw the flash of a pair of opera glasses and the gleam of something that might have been a knife, but the rest of it disappeared before he could make out what else she had brought with her. Then she took her candle back, and the sudden firming of her mouth told him that she had put aside whatever memories she might have had of her brother, or of her family, or of some other time at Maidenstone. “This is the only war I want to make at the moment, my lord. The Peninsula will have to wait for my services. Shall we proceed to the attics?”

He stood, offering her his hand so he could pull her up. Her grip was strong and sure, but he still felt protective as he grasped her hand.

He didn’t stop her, though. She led the way down the portrait gallery toward the far door, the one that led to the servants’ stairs. Her walk was steady, and her hips swayed as though she strolled through a crowded drawing room rather than an abandoned hall.

Suddenly, she stopped. He nearly ran her over, but he caught himself in time. “What is it?” he asked, his voice as low as one he might have used on patrol in Spain.

She turned to her left, holding her candle up to examine a painting. It was unexceptional — some Briarley ancestor, wearing an elaborately powdered wig and colorful suit from the previous century. But there was unusual shading on the wallpaper around the portrait. Something else had hung there once, and only recently been replaced by a smaller frame.

“Nothing,” she said.

Her voice was as muted as his, but he caught a note of annoyance. She didn’t elaborate, though, and Rafe knew better than to press an unrelated issue while they were in the middle of a mission. Not that either of them were in danger of being killed — although it was hard to remember that, in the dark, as his blood heated and his body remembered the rush of battle. But he didn’t want Octavia to be caught.

And he didn’t want any other suitors to know that Octavia was in the area.

As they reached the door to the stairs, she stopped again, this time at a table near the door. There were candles there after all, but she left them where they were. Instead, she stole two candleholders — not elaborate, but good enough to protect their hands from dripping wax.

She smiled up at him. “Are you ready to brave the attics, my lord?”

“As long as they do not require a bloody siege.”

“Ghosts do not bleed,” she said cheerfully. “But I thank you for coming to protect me.”

Rafe could protect her from almost anything they would find, save for artillery fire and Lucretia’s servants.

But he might not be able to protect her from himself.

T
he attics were smaller
than Octavia remembered, but the smell was the same — decay, lightly overlaid with floor polish and candlewax. The attics were cleaned regularly, albeit not daily. But even the best-kept rooms, when left closed up, were prone to mustiness. In late August, the hot, still air trapped in Maidenstone’s attics made the rooms less tomb-like than they felt in other seasons — but somehow even more uncomfortable.

“I should have expected this,” Rafe muttered behind her. “I despise the heat.”

He sounded truly disgruntled. “Cheer up, lieutenant,” she said, as though she really could command him — as though the thought of commanding him wasn’t ludicrous. “I’m sure you experienced worse in Spain. We’ll be done with our mission and away before the heat overcomes us.”

“I am a captain, not a lieutenant. But I should be a colonel, at the very least, if I’m to suffer this.” He held up his candle, surveying the first attic. “Does anyone come here at night? Anyone who might catch us?”

He’d asked the same question the night before, but he seemed not to trust her answer. Octavia shrugged. “No servants roomed in these attics when I lived here. Lucy wouldn’t have changed that.”

He frowned. His gaze roved past her, into the dark shadows of the attic’s corners. “You last lived here years ago. I should have done more reconnaissance before bringing you here.”

“This room looks exactly as it always has. I can’t imagine Lucy would have turned the rest of the attics into bedchambers and left this one intact. No one could possibly live in this mess.”

He ignored her sensible observation and moved past her into the middle of the room. With boxes and shrouded furnishings piled around him, and his prowling, predatory grace suddenly coming to the fore, she could almost believe that they were in danger.

She could definitely believe him capable of protecting her from it. The dissolute rake he’d seemed to be only moments before was gone, replaced by a warrior — a man who had surely seen, and done, worse things than she could imagine.

Despite the heat, she went cold. This mission was a game for her, in some ways. There wasn’t any actual danger in her plan — Octavia was already ruined, and if she were caught in Maidenstone’s attics, it wouldn’t be catastrophic.

But as Rafe inspected dark corners and stepped over creaking boards as quietly as if he were on patrol in enemy territory, she suddenly wondered if the real danger was choosing him as her partner.

“Stay there,” he ordered as he approached the door in the far wall that led to another attic. Gone was any humor; gone, too, was the farce that she was in command. “I will check the other attics for occupants before we proceed.”

“If the trunk is still where it was when I lived here, it will be in this room,” Octavia said.

“We’ll find it when I’ve made certain you’re safe.”

He disappeared through the far door. His candlelight dimmed as he moved through the second attic toward the door that led to the third. There were seven attic rooms in the Palladian wing, all connected. They had never been meant for habitation, but rather as storage for the vast troves of belongings that her Briarley ancestors refused to use, yet couldn’t bear to part with.

Most of her ancestors had hated each other — she had heard that there was even a special symbol in the Briarley family Bible for those who had died at the hands of a relative, although that Bible had disappeared when Callista’s father had left England. And so when a Briarley died, his son or brother or whoever else took over the running of the estate would embark on some new decorating scheme, or build a new wing to live in, and clear every trace of the previous inhabitants’ tastes. All those dishes, carpets, and furnishings inevitably went to the attics, waiting for the day when a later generation, rebelling against their fathers, might seek out the belongings of their ancestors and reuse them in the grand halls below.

Rafe was gone for five minutes — as she had suspected, there was little reconnaissance to be done. But surrounded by centuries of Briarley memories, in suffocating darkness lit only by a single candle, it felt like fifteen.

By the time he returned, she had uncovered an ancient armchair, sitting in it to keep herself from pacing over the creaking boards. “Any enemies lurking?” she asked, her voice a little too high-pitched in the shadowed silence.

“No.” He wasn’t close enough for her to read his face, but tension threaded through his words. “Still, there are far too many servants at Maidenstone at the moment, what with the valets and maids brought by Lucretia’s guests. They will be finishing their duties for the night, which will make our escape more difficult.”

She stood and walked over to him. She had never pegged Rafe as the nervous sort — he’d always seemed too dissolute for nerves. But something had him on edge. She lowered her voice into the half-teasing, half-placating tones she used when Somerville was fretting over something in Parliament. “Lucy and the local staff would never be caught up here after sunset. The ghosts may only be rumors, but they’re powerful rumors. And if a visiting servant catches us, we would have to have very bad luck indeed for them to recognize me. They will assume you are seducing someone else’s servant and leave it at that.”

He eyed her darkly, not at all placated. But finally he sighed. “Our die has been cast — there’s little point in retreating now. Where are the costumes?”

“They should be in this room. The schoolroom is on the floor below this, and we often played here when we escaped our governess.”

She didn’t want to remember those days. But flickers of memory tugged at the edges of her mind — the games they used to play, when they spent whole days digging through costumes and playing at being princesses and prisoners. They even took the costumes into Maidenstone Wood occasionally, dragging the too-long skirts through the fallen leaves as they pretended to rescue each other from dragons.

She would have let a dragon eat Lucy if she had known what was in store for them as adults.

Rafe must have sensed that she was distracted again. He pulled her back into the present. “It would be useful, general, if you give me a description of what we seek.”

Octavia shook off the fog of memory. “There are many trunks full of clothing, but the best costumes for our plan were in a carved trunk from the Tudor era. It belonged to the first Countess of Maidenstone, or so our grandfather said.”

“Those dresses would be nearly three hundred years old,” Rafe said. “Your family kept everything, didn’t they?”

“Always,” Octavia agreed. “Lucy never wanted to play with those dresses, though. The first countess met a bad end, possibly at her husband’s hands, and she is rumored to haunt the Tudor wing. It seemed like bad luck to use her belongings.”

Rafe held his candle up, casting light and shadows over the shrouded furniture and piled boxes. “I hope you are correct about which room we’ll find it in,” he said. “The other six attics are similarly full. It could take days if we can only search by candlelight.”

Octavia pointed toward the far corner. “Let us start there. Briarleys are unpredictable, but you can always predict that they will leave the past to fester until the next generation comes along and sweeps them aside. Lucy won’t have moved anything up here — she’ll leave it all for whomever inherits next.”

“And if you inherit? What would you do?” he asked.

She had a flash of a future that wouldn’t exist. Formal drawing rooms decorated with newer furnishings, made over to entertain the political set while she wielded influence with every cup of tea she poured. Guest rooms filled with men and women of the highest classes, all of whom had forgotten, or at least forgiven, how she had spent the last four years. Perfect summer sunsets on the cliffs overlooking the sea — perhaps walking with a man who adored her, and would take her to bed after. Not because it was expected, but because he couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

Perhaps a man with grey eyes and an easy laugh, one that covered hidden depths.

And little girls with dark hair and Briarley hearts, pretending to be princesses in Maidenstone Wood.

At least that dream would come true. But it would be Lucy or Callista’s daughters instead of hers.

She shook her head. “I won’t inherit, so it doesn’t signify.”

She brushed past him toward the corner she had pointed to. She sensed that he wanted to ask another question, so she said, over her shoulder, “I thought we were supposed to focus on the mission, captain?”

“Make me a colonel,” he said, with that easy laugh that she realized, now, was entirely too dangerous. “My mercenary fees are increasing with every minute I spend in this heat.”

The saucy part of her knew that she could flirt with him if she asked how he would expect to be paid. It would all come so easily after that — the fun, delicious repartee that was expected of a courtesan.

But she wasn’t really a courtesan. And she couldn’t let thoughts of him — and that momentary flash of a dream in which he could have been her future — distract her from beating Lucy.

“Hold my candle,” she said, keeping her voice as neutral as she could — as though she was in command, and observing proprieties of hierarchy. “The trunk should be under one of these dustcloths."

He handed her his candle instead. “Allow me. Generals don’t dirty their hands with manual labor.”

It was almost like he wanted to flirt with her. But she stayed quiet as she took his candle, not wanting to encourage him. Her daydream still lurked, even in darkness.

He could have snuffed both the candles, led her over to the windows, thrown wide the drapes, and let moonlight filter through the heavy old glass. He could have pulled her into his arms, skimming his war-toughened hands over her hips — or perhaps higher, over the corset and chemise that suddenly chafed against her skin, over the breasts no man had ever touched. He could have kissed her, gently, with lips that were as suited to pleasure as they were to laughter — or perhaps roughly, more like a conqueror than a gentleman. He could have….

“I found it,” he said.

“What?” she said.

He looked over his shoulder. “Are you feeling well?”

She nodded.

“Are you sure? You seem distracted.”

Octavia shrugged. “Battle nerves.”

His laugh said he didn’t quite believe her, but he didn’t push the issue. “Is this the first countess’s trunk?”

She moved closer, until the light from both candles illuminated the ancient box. It was intricately carved, covered in twining vines and leaves and reinforced by iron bands. The lock, engraved with an “AB” — for Anna Briarley, the first countess’s name before she was known as Lady Maidenstone — had been broken generations earlier.

Octavia drew a breath. It was just as she remembered it, in the exact position where she had last seen it.

“Well done, Rafe,” she said. “Your promotion to colonel is approved.”

He took the candles from her. “You should do the honors, general.”

The trunk waited for her. But she hesitated.

She wanted to pretend she wasn’t superstitious — but then, she used to go to the Maidenstone clearing whenever she wanted a blessing from it, which was the height of superstition. Maidenstone Abbey was named after an ancient rock situated in a clearing at the heart of Maidenstone Wood. The rock was vaguely shaped like a woman — one who had supposedly been turned to stone to save her from the Devil. She supposedly granted blessings to any Briarley who deserved them.

It was exactly the kind of superstitious nonsense Octavia never would have admitted believing in. But Maidenstone Abbey had many such legends. Every Briarley knew the story of the first Lady Maidenstone. It had never been confirmed that her husband had killed her — but they weren’t buried together, and her name had been savagely crossed out of the family Bible.

Octavia suddenly wasn’t sure she wanted to wear the dead woman’s clothes — especially not in the middle of the night, in the same halls where her ghost supposedly still wandered.

“You seem as hesitant as Sir Percival would be,” Rafe said drily. “He loves dramatic stories such as this. Shall I fetch him so you can commiserate?”

She scowled at him. “Don’t insult me.”

He pointed at the trunk again. “Open the chest. I may mutiny if I sense weakness in my commanding officer — and we wouldn’t want that.”

Octavia most definitely wasn’t in command. But she took a small step forward. Then another. And then she laid her hand on the lid.

“Save me, Octavia,” Rafe said behind her, in a high-pitched, womanly voice.

Octavia jumped. “Not funny, my lord. I’ll have you court-martialed if you can’t behave.”

“Can anyone behave around you?” he asked.

She felt, again, how easily she could slip into flirtation with him — into flirtation, and perhaps into something else. And she knew she should hold herself back.

But should she deny him? If she didn’t stop Lucy, she would have to find some way of providing for herself. And the most likely option, given her ruined status, would be to become someone’s mistress.

Somerville’s offer hung over her. It was the easiest path. She could have a house and an easy living. But if she took that offer, she might never know what she had missed by not kissing, or touching, or….

She pushed all that away and opened the trunk. Rafe leaned forward, casting light into the recesses. “Is this what you expected?” he asked.

There were dresses in the trunk, carefully folded and stored in tissue. It all smelled heavily of cedar and faded lavender, tucked in among the clothes to prevent rot. “I will smell like a ghost, at least,” she said. “But I don’t know if anyone will believe that I am one.”

“If it’s late enough, and the men have drunk enough, you’ll be convincing.”

She pulled out the first dress. She had never gone beyond the first one; even though she had made fun of Lucy’s superstition, Octavia didn’t want to disturb the first countess either. It was a rich, elaborate dress, covered in seed pearls, with a tight, low-waisted bodice and a voluminous skirt. Beneath it, a headdress waited, complete with a veil that matched the dress.