Suzanne Robinson (7 page)

“Valin North, get hold of yourself.” He had to take the very rich and pretty Miss Philippa Kingsley
riding early this morning. He groaned at the thought. Another callow young lady.

He’d much rather go riding with Emily de Winter. God forgive him, what he really wanted to do with Emily wasn’t to be thought of. He hadn’t known how utterly miserable he’d been until he met her. He’d been living in a nightmare because he was surrounded by people whose interest in Society he didn’t share. God, he’d wager boredom could be fatal, to the spirit at least. And then Emily de Winter had quoted Shakespeare at him.

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,/ Though to itself it only live and die
.

She was like that, a summer flower come to grace his barren garden. Valin lifted his head from the windowpane. “Dear God, what am I thinking? I’m waxing poetic about a young lady I barely know.”

And there was something strange about Miss de Winter. Not just her air of assurance, but something more. He couldn’t quite decide what it was. Perhaps it was her foreign upbringing, although she didn’t have an accent. A young woman raised mostly in France should have an accent. And then there was the way she’d suddenly appeared in Society out of nowhere. Few people knew her. He’d asked around. There was something mysterious about Emily de Winter. Thank Providence. Here
was someone who interested him, intrigued him, and made him feel alive among Society’s dead fish.

He wanted to solve the mystery of Emily de Winter. Damn! He was mooning over a woman. He never lost sleep over women. They’d fallen into his arms too often for that. This lady intrigued him, but he wouldn’t make a fool of himself over her.

Yanking the curtain back into place, Valin stomped back to bed. He jerked the covers over his head, annoyed with himself and determined to forget Miss Emily de Winter. At least for now. He had to get some sleep; he could think about her all he wanted in the morning. Then it occurred to him that he didn’t know when he’d see her again. Surely he would see her again. She’d said she was in town to be married off.

Sighing, Valin sat up and rubbed his burning eyes. He’d have to see her again. Perhaps next time she wouldn’t seem so fascinating or mysterious, and then he could forget about her and get some blasted sleep.

Emmie—alias Mrs. Apple or Miss Emily Charlotte de Winter—was invited to Agincourt Hall, as she’d intended from the moment she discovered the clues to the hiding place of the Spanish gold.
The intervening weeks were barely long enough for her to find a suitable chaperone and a girl who knew enough about the job to be her lady’s maid.

Emmie located a Society matron who, for a financial remuneration, would use her connections on behalf of a likely young lady. Such arrangements were often made when a family had a daughter to marry off but lacked the social connections to match her well themselves. Lady Ruth Fitchett had been happy to take Emmie’s money. Lady Ruth liked money and found ingenious ways of getting it and holding on to it.

The lady’s maid was more difficult. An upper servant such as a lady’s maid had to be presentable and somewhat educated. She attended to her mistress’s intricate wardrobe, including its many layers and frills and, in the case of evening gowns, thousands of beads sewn onto fabric. She also arranged hair, accompanied her mistress on calls, when she shopped, and on country house visits, as well as attending to a thousand other personal details.

No lady of quality did without a personal maid. Emmie had counted on Dolly to play the part, but Dolly was involved in schemes of her own. Just in time Emmie remembered another friend, Betsy Nipper, who could do the job. Betsy was Turnip’s niece, and her mother had been a lady’s maid before she had been brought low by drink.

Meanwhile Emmie scrounged around her
rooms and found her old French and Latin dictionaries. She translated the foreign phrases in the packet of clues and struggled to divine their meaning. So far she’d been unsuccessful. Perhaps they would make sense once she got to Agincourt Hall.

Between the night of the North ball and the day she left for the country, Emmie saw the marquess several times at Society functions. Before an art exhibition, a musical evening given by Adelaide’s mother, or a concert or opera, she would convince herself that she’d vanquished the fluttery confusion that threatened whenever she looked at Valin North. But although he sought her out and she never allowed him to see her alone, she fluttered anyway. Even more humiliating was the knowledge that she didn’t trust
herself
when alone with the marquess, much less him. These skirmishes with herself made time pass tortuously.

Finally, on the appointed day, Emmie and Betsy Nipper drove through the grounds of the North family seat with Turnip on the coach box. Also with her was the street urchin, one of her gang, who would play her page. Emmie was proud of herself for thinking of the page. Having such an extra servant would proclaim her wealth to everyone and assure Valin North that she had no need of marrying for money. Thus he wouldn’t have cause to suspect her of angling for his hand. Pilfer Oxleek was enterprising and bright enough to do
the job, and he wouldn’t cause comment among the other servants, since his position was as lowly as his station in life.

Pilfer sat beside Betsy, opposite Emmie, and craned his neck out the window as they drove down the avenue toward Agincourt Hall. “Coo! Look at all them trees, missus.”

“Pilfer, I told you to say miss.”

The boy nodded. “Yes, miss.”

Emmie tried not to smile. Pilfer was small for his seven years and spoke in an oddly deep voice with a lisp and an air of gravity that startled most people. He would stand as tall as he could, look up at an adult with a frown, and say disconcerting things in a bass voice, such as, “What’s the matter? Don’t yer like children?”

“Ooo!” cried Betsy. “Emmie, I mean miss, look at that gatehouse. That there is a fortress, is that.”

“Betsy, sit down. Lady’s maids don’t hang out the window and gawp at things.”

“Sorry. I forgot. How old d’you think this place is?”

Emmie gazed at the high stone walls of the fortified manor. “The oldest parts are medieval, but most of it was built under the Tudors over three hundred years ago. I suppose it’s been modified again and again.”

“Cor,” Betsy said in tones of wonder.

The carriage passed under the gatehouse and into a court that would have held half a dozen St. Giles boardinghouses. Turnip slowed the vehicle to a stately walk as they passed between two identical reflection pools.

“I read about this,” Emmie said in hushed awe. “It’s the Fountain Court.”

As she spoke water shot into the air from dozens of spouts along the edge of the pools and from enormous tiered fountains set in their centers. The sound was entrancing; the sun pierced sprays of water, causing misty rainbows. Emmie was staring at the arcs of transparent color, or she would have seen the tall figure coming around the edge of one of the pools to meet the carriage. Instead she only glimpsed Valin North when Turnip stopped the vehicle. She turned to Betsy and Pilfer.

“It’s him! Behave yourselves.”

And you control yourself, Emmie thought as her stomach lurched at this unexpected encounter. She could see the gold-brown gleam of his hair through the fountain mist.
Stop that, Emmie Fox! Think about the treasure, not the man
. Glancing at her companions to see if they’d noticed her harried state, she composed her features and watched the marquess near the carriage.

Elegant, easy, and confident, Valin North opened the carriage door and inclined his head. “Ah, it’s Miss de Winter. Welcome to Agincourt
Hall. Allow me to help you down. If you’re not too fatigued from your journey, I’d be honored to show you some of my house.”

Without waiting for her answer he held out his hand. To refuse would appear rude, something a lady never wished to do, especially in front of servants. She put her hand in his and got out of the carriage, no easy task in her voluminous traveling dress and crinoline. She was relieved to reach the ground without tipping the hoop over her head.

North spoke to Turnip. “Drive around the house. Thistlethwayte is the butler, and Mrs. Parker is the housekeeper. They will show you everything.”

Turning to Emmie, he offered his arm and they walked slowly behind the carriage, until it vanished through a gate in the courtyard wall.

Gesturing to the pools and water sprays, North said, “This is the Fountain Court. Mostly for show, really, but I like to come when the sun is at the right angle to see the rainbows.”

Emmie had been staring. Either the sound of the water or the magic of the rainbows was causing a thrill to run through her body. The cause couldn’t be the feel of his arm beneath the layers of his clothing. She wouldn’t allow it to be.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

He looked at her oddly, then smiled. “You’re
kind, Miss de Winter, but you must have seen many like this in France.”

A mistake already. She had to concentrate or she’d trip herself up.

“Still, this is very fine.”

They continued into the next court with Emmie castigating herself and trying to be as alert and wary as she usually was when engaged in one of her schemes.

North described the Lion Court. “It’s named for the statues of the North lions.” He pointed to the animals perched at either end beside the gateways.

Emmie murmured her approval while she looked for anything that resembled the clues to the Spanish gold. According to the room assignments given by Beaufort, “Monsieur d’Or” was lodged in “
la chambre sur la spirale
.” The chamber under the spiral. She wanted to find a spiral of some kind. Until she could make sense of the other foreign phrases, it was her only guide.

“I haven’t seen Miss Cowper of late.”

Startled out of her search, Emmie said, “What?”

“I said I haven’t seen Miss Cowper lately.” North had stopped beside a lion statue and was looking down at her.

“She’s—she’s gone home.”

“So early in the Season? I thought I was the only one who left London in May.”

“Miss Cowper found that her strength wasn’t equal to remaining in town any longer.”

“I hope she’s not ill.”

“No, only fatigued. She is already better now she’s home.”

Walking through the next gate, North said, “Now you’ll see why I prefer Agincourt Hall to London.”

Another step brought them into a courtyard framed by open-air galleries, each a series of rounded arches supported by columns covered in ivy. The house itself formed the fourth side of the court, a soaring structure in creamy stone with a shining leaded roof of fish-scale tiles. Emmie glimpsed rows of dormer windows, rounded turrets, and elegantly carved pilasters.

“How lovely.” She made the mistake of looking at him, at those deep-set silver eyes, and said the first thing that occurred to her. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He was looking at her oddly again. She’d said something wrong—again.

“You’ve never seen the chateaux of France?” he asked. “Just where was this French boarding school you attended, Miss de Winter?”

“Oh. Well—for shame, my lord. I try to compliment your house, and you find fault with me.”

Emmie didn’t breathe while she waited for him to respond. Drat this man. He made her feel as if
there were mad butterflies in her brain. He was frowning at her, not in his usual ill-humored manner, but in confusion. Finally he smiled and bowed.

“You’re right. Please forgive me.” His arm swept around. “The garden is Italian, and too formal for my taste, but I love the galleries.”

Relieved to have escaped another blunder, Emily glanced around the court. Then she turned to stare at the house again, aghast. She’d been looking for a spiral, and she’d found it, or rather, them. There were spirals everywhere. Spirals formed one of the elements of the friezes that separated the first and second floors, and the second and third floors. A pattern of sculptured wreaths, tendrils, grotesque figures, and spirals repeated itself over and over. Spirals decorated the architrave over the portal for the front door. They were on decorated piers that surmounted the architrave; they were on ornate gables carved over the dormer windows of the house. She even saw spirals on keystones in the rounded arches of the galleries.

“
La chambre sur la spirale
,” Emmie muttered to herself.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, nothing, my lord.”

“You said something about a room. Are you tired?”

“No, no. I’m quite interested in architecture, although I don’t know as much as I would wish.”

“Allow me to give you a tour of the whole house, then.”

“I should enjoy that,” Emmie said. What luck. He was going to show her everything right away, and she’d get a better idea of where to start looking.

North offered his arm again. As Emmie laid her hand on his sleeve, he said, “Have you no quotations about houses with which to regale me?”

“I can think of none. Where are we going?”

“To the gallery,” North said as he led her beneath a rounded arch and into darkness.