The Marquess (7 page)

“Yes, O’Toole,” the supposed marquess
responded gravely, “go fetch the lady’s companion and her garments
while you are also finding a good physician. And see that you return in good
time for a change, no more gawking at maids or lifting an elbow at taverns.”

Blanche wished she could see O’Toole’s face at
this command. She did not possess the boldness to speak her opinion of the
man’s excuses, but the marquess had nailed him quite succinctly. She
waited for the glib reply, the laughing rejoinder, but she only heard a curt “Aye,
aye, your lordship” and the sound of departing boots. He left her feeling
rather bereft. The marquess might be all that was proper, but he was deadly
dull also.

She heard the
thunk
of something hard hitting the
table beside the chair where she sat.

“I’ve brought flowers, my lady. The day is warm,
and they have a pretty smell. Shall I open the window for you?”

She almost laughed at his awkwardness. As daughter of a
marquess, granddaughter of a duke, and an heiress in her own right, she was
accustomed to a great deal of male flattery. Men bowed and kissed her hand and
quoted passionate verses for her amusement. This man just thunked what was
probably a pewter cup on the table and said the equivalent of “there you
are.”

“I would like that very much, my lord,” she
murmured politely. If nothing else, she was always polite. The fact that she
wanted to scream and stamp her feet with frustration had nothing to do with
anything.

She felt the warm spring breeze rush in as he pushed open
the squeaking window. She longed to be outside, grubbing among her flower
bulbs, playing with her kitten, laughing at Dillian’s nonsense. She
supposed she would never do those things again. Even if she were not blind, she
must start facing facts. She was almost twenty-one years old and the possessor
of a great fortune. She would have to marry and accept her responsibilities.

With wistfulness, she inquired, “Is the scar very bad?”

He hesitated before answering. He was the most cautious, irritating
man she had ever met, but she waited patiently for his reply. She had little
choice. She couldn’t see the mirror herself.

“What scar?” he asked uncertainly.

That seemed an idiotic question, but she answered, “I
can feel how it pulls at my skin. It must look terrible.”

Gentle fingers traced the line of her jaw. “It seems a
sin that anyone should wish harm to such beauty, my lady. I can tell very
little of how it will look when it heals. Wounds such as these look far worse
when fresh. I would not concern yourself about it unnecessarily. Even should a
mark remain, your inner beauty would erase it.”

Startled by the sudden switch from gruff bluntness to gentle
flattery, Blanche didn’t dismiss his remarks as she would have if
O’Toole had made them. Remembering that Dillian had told her this man hid
himself in darkness and behind cloaks, she thought she understood some of the
depth of his feelings. Cautiously, she placed her fingers on his rough hand as
he started to withdraw it.

“I thank you for taking me into your home despite your
reluctance to do so. I hope someday I can reward you in kind.”

He made a noise deep in his throat that may have been a
grunt of approval or disbelief, she couldn’t tell which. She didn’t
cling when he withdrew his hand.

“You can reward me now by calling off your witch. My
servants are convinced she is the ghost that portends terrible consequences. I
have no desire to lose my cook.”

Blanche fought a smile at this abrupt change in mood. The
Monster of Effingham had returned.

She couldn’t betray Dillian. Dillian was the only
weapon she possessed. But if the marquess already guessed that she existed,
then she would be weapon for not much longer. Still, she would prefer talking
it over with her cousin before revealing anything.

Rather than give the reply he sought, she merely answered, “Had
I a witch of my own, sir, I would have her transform me into health again.
Perhaps my presence is in some way disturbing your servants? Shall I come down
and meet them? I cannot know how isolated we are out here. Would it not be safe
just to meet a maid or your cook and reassure them?”

The marquess growled and slammed a hand against a paneled
wall. She could hear the loud clap and shivered inwardly. Her host evidently
was not a small man, nor a physically frail one. What in heavens name had
O’Toole got her into?

“They gossip. All servants gossip. It will soon be out
that we have a ghost. How long do you think it will take before your duke hears
the rumors and wonders if the truth beneath them might relate to his missing
cousin? You and your witch have nothing to fear from me, but if O’Toole
is correct, you have something to fear from the duke. I leave you to consider
it, my lady.”

Dillian carefully dusted the charming watercolor she’d
found in the attic. She’d never had a house of her own to decorate or
putter around in. She rather enjoyed applying her imaginative tastes on this
lovely chamber. She particularly enjoyed knowing she drove the monster mad
every time he discovered another adornment in the master bedroom he had never
used. She hung the painting next to the vanity, in a white space where another
painting must have hung. ’Twas a pity she couldn’t find wallpaper
or paint.

Carefully checking the dark expanse of hallway outside the master
chamber, she slipped toward the servants’ stairs. Blanche had fallen
asleep hours ago. She couldn’t find the monster anywhere. The game of
hiding from him grew a little thin. Blanche was right. She would just have to
appear on the doorstep and say O’Toole had sent her.

Unfortunately, unless she showed up in the bedraggled and
filthy gown she’d worn while clinging to the carriage, she would have to
appear in one of the unfashionable and outdated gowns from the attic wardrobes.
Men might not know a great deal about ladies’ attire, but even Effingham
would suspect something if she arrived in that French gown with no carriage in
sight.

Her mind nibbled at the puzzle as her feet found the places
on the stairs that didn’t creak. She’d worked out the progression
over these last nights: first step to the right, second to the center edge,
third to the inside left. She thought it much like learning a dance routine,
but the next to last step was a little tricky. Her legs had some difficulty
reaching from the right side of one tread to the far left side of the next.

She winced and grabbed the wall as her slippered foot slid
on the tricky step. She froze, waiting for the monster’s heavy footsteps
to come running. He had not gone out once in all these nights but lay awake
waiting to catch her. Didn’t the man have any social life at all? What
did he do for women? All men kept women in her experience, except for the ones
who were a little strange. The Monster of Effingham might be odd, but she
didn’t think him the type to dislike female companionship.

Surprised when she heard no rush of running feet, she
shrugged. Perhaps he’d finally given up the game. She meant no harm.
Surely, he understood that by now. She’d tried showing him by decorating
his chamber. Now he could sleep in comfort instead of on the narrow sofa in his
study.

Not that he’d slept in the bed yet. If he had any
brains at all, he should have known he would put an end to her best escape
hatch by sleeping in the room where the secret passage ended. Perhaps he grew
bored with the game also.

Deciding no one had heard her misstep, Dillian gently pushed
open the door at the bottom of the staircase. Her tallow candle blew in the
draft through this back hall, but it illuminated no hulking giant in the
shadows.

That was an unfair description, she thought as she slipped
down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. Effingham didn’t really
hulk. The monster stalked these halls with a certain flair and elegance. She
rather liked the swashbuckling sight of his cloak billowing out behind him as
he raced down the stairs in an effort to cut her off. For a man so tall, he
moved gracefully. She wished, just once, she could dance with a man like that.

Dillian blew out the candle as she stole through the kitchen
doorway. The cook slept as lightly as her employer. She didn’t wish to
disturb her sleep any more than necessary. She just wanted to see what
delicious fare she could scavenge from this night’s dinner. She wondered
idly if Blanche could steal this cook away should she ever return to her proper
place.

“Aha! Caught you!”

A large shadow materialized from the hidden alcove behind
the stove, directly in her path. Dillian gasped, dropped the candle, and fled
down the corridor beside the pantry.

* * * *

Gavin cursed as he ran after the ghost and saw nothing but
closed doors. He stopped and listened, but he could only hear himself
breathing. He’d been so damned close...

She was just a slip of a thing. She couldn’t possibly
outrun him. Unless he wanted to believe in ghosts, she had to be hiding behind
one of these doors.

He opened the shutter of the lantern he carried and threw
its beam into the first doorway on his right. A closet of cleaning equipment.
He could see no possible hiding place in there. He crossed the hall and threw
open the next door. An empty chamber, no doubt intended for some lower servant.
The same with the next one. Cursing now, he continued down the hall. She had to
be here somewhere.

Gavin swung around at a loud groan and creak behind him.
What in hell?

He raced back the way he had just come, but he could find no
source for the noise. He stared at the wall from which it emanated. The creak
of ropes and pulley came from over his head now. The dumbwaiter, damn the
little witch!

Taking to his heels, he raced up the servants’ stairs.
He thought he knew this house inside and out, but he’d spent little time
in the servants’ quarters. He didn’t know how she’d found the
dumbwaiter, but he knew what one was and where it would go. This time, she
couldn’t escape.

The servants’ stairs led to the main block of the old
portion of the house. A maze of corridors led behind the walls of the salons
and public rooms in this section. Ingeniously hidden doors opened into all the
main rooms so the servants might come and go without guests seeing them in the
public hall. Gavin knew exactly which door opened into the huge, drafty formal
dining chamber.

He burst through and nearly fell over a broken chair laying
in front of the never-used door. Even his cousin-in-law, the antique dealer, had
given up any hope of selling the enormous furniture in here. Carved pediments
representing dozens of Greek gods supported a massive table long enough to seat
a starving army. From the scars in the old wood, a starving army must have
dined off it without benefit of plates. Then they’d had a free-for-all
with the heavily carved, hideously uncomfortable chairs. Gavin stumbled over
another one on his way around the room, searching for the door leading to the
dumbwaiter.

There had to be one. Food would have arrived icy cold if
maids had carried it up the way he had just come. And he knew the sound of
ropes and pulleys when he heard it.

He heard the sound now. Going down.

Damn!
He didn’t have a hope of getting back
down there before her. He’d had little enough hope of reaching here in
time. He’d just thought he could see which direction she took. She must
have waited somewhere in between the floors to see where he went, then gone the
opposite way.

Gavin didn’t know why he bothered, but he slipped back
down the stairs again. He didn’t even know why he assumed the ghostly
intruder was a she. From what little he had seen in the darkness, the
apparition wore breeches. Idly, he wondered if Lady Blanche had a younger
brother, but he couldn’t remember mention of one.

To his surprise, he discovered his blood running with
anticipation as he avoided the main corridor to the kitchen and took a back one
he’d learned in his days of exploration. He thought it most likely years
since he’d felt this kind of excitement. The only thing he could remember
running close to it in recent memory was receiving the letter saying he’d
inherited this estate. That excitement had worn off quickly once he’d
figured out that an estate which couldn’t send him the fare to England
couldn’t be much of an estate.

He’d probably find disappointment at the end of this
adventure, too, but for the moment, he enjoyed the chase. Lurking in this great
hulk of a palace bordered on tedious most of the time. He found some
satisfaction in squeezing profit out of every little asset he possessed, but
despite his circumstance, money had never been his driving force. He
didn’t have a driving force anymore.

That said volumes about his life, he supposed, but he set
his lips in gratification as he saw candlelight dancing beneath the kitchen
door. He had counted on his ghost’s penchant for good food.

With quiet care, Gavin locked the back stairwell door. Then,
following the corridor to the front of the house in his stocking feet, he
waited at the only other route to the upper floor.

Perhaps one of these days he’d brave the stares of the
villagers and go in to be fitted for shoes, but in the meantime, saving his
boots for outdoor wear made sneaking around easier. If his resident “ghost”
tried the dumbwaiter trick again, he’d hear her. He thought her a little
too clever to use the same trick twice.

When he saw her finally emerge from the same corridor he had
taken, she moved warily, as very well she ought, Gavin thought grimly while
keeping an eye on her progress. Wrapping his fingers around the rope tied to
the door through which she had to enter now, he lingered in the shadows behind
the ridiculous suit of armor guarding the main hall to the public stairs. He
thought he just might enjoy seeing if he could turn a ghost’s hair white.