The Ruin Of A Rogue (16 page)

Although she had the impression he wasn’t eager for her company, he didn’t object when she followed him up the main stairs, along the wide central passage of the first floor, through a door at the end, and up a narrow winding staircase to the cramped upper floor. She caught herself staring at his buttocks and thighs, delineated by snug breeches. About to lower her eyes she thought,
Why not
? He’d never know and it was an interesting and not disagreeable sight. Not disagreeable at all. Her stomach quivered in the way that often happened when she looked at him.

“Here it is,” he said.

“It seems a shame to destroy such a stout door.”

“Its stoutness is why I need the axe. I’m not strong enough to break the lock on my own. Stand back.”

He seemed quite strong enough to Anne as he swung at the area of the door closure. Watching a man exercise his muscles proved quite stimulating, until the axe hitting wood raised a shower of splinters and she cried out and put a hand to her face.

He stopped at once. “Are you all right?”

“Something hit my nose.” She examined her palm. “No blood. I’m fine. But you are hurt.” Blood trickled down his cheek.

“It’s nothing. You’d better go downstairs, out of the way.”

“I have an idea. Did you try kicking?”

“No. I tried to force the door with my shoulder.”

“Let me try.”

“Really? Be my guest,” he said with an exaggerated courtly gesture.

She thought about it, enjoying the puzzle and determined to triumph over his skepticism. Then, with a little run, she used all her strength to thrust the sole of her foot just below the lock.

“Ow!” She hopped up and down. “My half boots are too thin.”

He laughed at her, the devil, but gave her a comforting pat on the back. “Mine aren’t. And I think you have the right idea about where to apply force.”

It took half a dozen kicks before the lock yielded and the door creaked open.

“We did it!” she said.

“Yes we did.” She saw something in his smile that was new, a mixture of affection, admiration, and an unguarded pleasure. It had a different quality than the ingenuous look that had first beguiled her until she learned it was designed to deceive. She felt her mouth curve in response, and her chest tightened at the warmth in his eyes. “You’re a clever little thing, Miss Anne Brotherton.”

She looked away, made shy by the best compliment she’d ever received. “I’m not little. As a matter of fact I’m quite tall for a woman.”

“You are right. There’s nothing small about you. In any way.”

Except for her revenge after she’d discovered him a fortune hunter. She didn’t regret plaguing him with the dullest sights in all London, but the money she’d made him spend on her pricked her conscience. He could have used it to improve his tenants’ cottages.

“Let me look at your wound.” Holding his chin steady, she gently dabbed the blood on his cheek with her handkerchief. His green eyes regarded her without wavering as she took a good deal longer than necessary to clean a scratch. Her breath quickened and her heart raced and she stared at the mouth, inches away, and thought about asking for a kiss.

“Shall we see what’s in there?” she mumbled instead.
Coward
.

“Of course,” he said with a little shake of his head. “Lead on.”

“You go first. It’s your house.”

He wasn’t fooled. “Aha! The spiders.”

They entered a spacious attic, dimly lit by the fading light through dirty dormer windows. The place was entirely empty except for a small traveling trunk in the middle of the rough floor. Anne fell to her knees and rubbed the dust from initials stamped on the lid: “E.C.H.” She felt Marcus tense behind her. “Ellen Hooke? Your mother? What was her second name?”

“I don’t know.” The three words struck her as ineffably sad.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Is it locked? Will you open it?” If it were hers she’d rip off the lid.

“It’s not very large. I’ll carry it downstairs.”

“Supposing it’s full of books? Or gold bars?”

He hoisted it onto his shoulder easily enough. “No gold bars.”

M
arcus stood alone in the drawing room. He hadn’t wanted to open the trunk in front of Anne. Whatever stolen or villainous thing his father had left him, he couldn’t risk her seeing it. She’d departed in her carriage, her burning curiosity obvious but unexpressed, from good manners and a natural delicacy. Before she left she’d rested her hand on his and given it a little squeeze and left him alone in the unheated room. Far worse than the chilly atmosphere was a cold fear in his heart at what he would find.

He folded his arms and stared at the leather trunk, a plain but well-made piece with an arched lid and brass hasp. All he could think of was that he didn’t know his mother’s full name. Aside from a few distant childhood memories, he knew nothing about her. He didn’t know if he dreaded more what he would find or what he would not.

He knelt and examined the closure. It wasn’t locked. Considering the efforts he’d made to find the mysterious legacy his father claimed to have left at Hinton Manor, he couldn’t understand his reluctance to look inside. His sense of foreboding was ridiculous. Pressing his lips together, he flipped up the hasp and raised the lid.

The contents had belonged to a lady. They were the kinds of thing a woman might leave behind when she left a house to be married. Nothing of value or importance, merely the remnants of an old life not worth packing for the new: some worn undergarments, a cracked embroidery hoop, a crushed bonnet. A handkerchief bore those same initials in a corner, figured in blue thread. Marcus raised it to his nose, expecting—hoping—to be wafted back to the long-forgotten scent of his mother’s embrace. He smelled only musty linen.

At the very bottom lay a paper package, about the size of a novel. He recognized the handwriting of the inscription from the papers in the office. In his uncle’s upright and resolute letters were penned five words.

“The Sins of the Father.”

Most likely letters incriminating some rich and powerful person, blackmail material that, for whatever reason, Lewis hadn’t felt were ripe for use. If so, Marcus wanted no part of it. Though a weakness in one who thought himself impervious to most prickings of conscience, he drew the line at extortion.

He untied the knot, and a collection of neatly folded squares tumbled out onto the floor. At a glance they appeared to be written in a lady’s hand. What erring society dame’s love letters had fallen into his father’s hands? He expected a duchess at the very least. Resigned disgust had scarcely had time to settle when he noted that the addresses were all the same: to Josiah Hooke, Esq., at Hinton Manor, Wilts. When he opened one at random and scanned the closely written lines, his own name, Marcus, popped out at him. The letter was signed,
Your obedient niece, Ellen C. Lithgow
.

He learned when he had taken his first steps. The date told him he’d been a little less than a year old. He had no idea if that was early, or whether he’d been an unusually backward child. Either way, his mother’s pride was patent. His father’s reaction was not recorded.

Gathering up the letters, he carried them to the warm office and settled down to read them in chronological order. His mother and her uncle had been on terms of some affection but she had not been obedient. Her marriage to Lewis Lithgow hadn’t pleased him. She started out a happy new bride, excited by a move to London and a host of new experiences, eager to assure Josiah that he had been right when he reluctantly gave permission for the match. She made sure to inform him of her husband’s many virtues.

The culmination of her happiness came with her son’s birth. Marcus had no doubt that he’d never, in all his life, caused anyone so much joy as his mother felt at the mere fact of his existence. He knew nothing of maternal love. In fact he knew little about love of any kind, his relations with women having been casual, sometimes carelessly affectionate, and almost always carnal.

He read on. He had, apparently, been the sweetest, prettiest, and most precociously brilliant infant that ever lived. Every evidence of his childish wit, which seemed commonplace to him, was recounted in exhaustive detail. He was the source of her greatest satisfaction and quickly her only one. They’d moved to the small house outside town as being more spacious than their rooms in Harley Street and healthier for the baby. For a long time she defended her husband, cheerfully recounted his long absences as necessary for business and the well-being of the family. Then an uglier picture emerged. Reading between the lines Marcus guessed that Lewis had been a neglectful and faithless spouse.
Yesterday was Lewis’s birthday so I had a fine dinner ordered. Alas, he was detained in town. I don’t know where he stayed.

The money troubles began.
I don’t entirely understand
, she wrote,
but Lewis has tied up my dowry in some investments or funds and I fear I must request a small loan. He asks me to assure you that it will be only this once and you will be promptly repaid.
Once became three times and Josiah resisted. Ellen begged him to forgive her importunity and talked about Marcus’s rapidly expanding feet and garments worn from outdoor play with the neighbors’ sons. He had a faint recollection of a small garden, being dared to climb an apple tree. The next letter confirmed his memory.
I dare not disturb Lewis now with demands for new clothes to replace Marcus’s suit, which is torn beyond mending. His affairs have suffered reverses.
Losses at the table, Marcus guessed. His father could never resist the big gamble, the chance for the spectacular win. When he had money he liked to throw it around, behave like the great man he wasn’t toward people he wished to impress. These did not, it was clear, include his wife.

As the years passed the letters grew fewer. Josiah, it seemed, had tired of the Lithgows’ sponging and Ellen refused to leave her husband and return home. And she became ill. As he read the very last letter, Marcus could hear the coughing that had been a constant refrain in his seventh year. His eyes blurred as he read the brief note.
My dear uncle
, she had written in handwriting sprawling and weak.
I am alone with Marcus. We have only one servant now, a poor little maid who has gone to summon the doctor. I want to acknowledge that you were right. Lewis never loved me. He only wanted my fortune, and since it has all been spent he has no use for me. I fear what will happen to Marcus if I die. Please, Uncle, I beg you. Forgive me and take care of my son. Your finally obedient niece, Ellen.

Terrified, he had held his mother’s hand as she coughed her life away. Lewis had appeared hours later, too late to say good-bye to his wife. Within days the contents of the house were disposed of and he and his father began their years of wandering. “We’ll have a grand time, son,” Lewis had promised. And Marcus, excitement cutting the dull misery of his grief, had believed him. At last he had the attention of the father, previously a dazzling, elusive figure who would swoop into the house, full of charm, then disappear again.

He slumped in his chair, castigating the poor fool that he’d been, worshipping a man whose only consistent trait had been that of betrayal. During their one short visit to Hinton, Lewis must have persuaded Josiah to take Marcus off his hands. Surely not because of any belated sense of guilt for his son’s nonexistent education, but because it was convenient to shed himself of the encumbrance. And Josiah had acceded to his niece’s last wish and sent Marcus to school.

The wrapping that had contained the letters lay in his lap. He snatched it up to read something written inside.
I wash my hands of Marcus Lithgow. He has proven himself his father’s son.
It was dated just after Marcus was thrown out of Oxford.

Josiah was right. Wasn’t he exactly like his father, hunting an heiress for her money? Yet Josiah had given him one more chance, by leaving him the manor. A chance to make something of himself, to lead a decent life. He wasn’t sure he could do it. Supposing he persuaded—or tricked—Anne into wedding him. Supposing he made her unhappy, as miserable as his own mother had been. He had to let her go. A pity, because he thought he might be able to love her. But he couldn’t wager her future against the slim chance that he might
not
be his father’s son.

Chapter 16

T
he next day it rained hard all day. Confined to the inn, Anne and Cynthia caught up on their correspondence, forwarded to them from Cynthia’s estate.

“Lady Ashfield is quite tetchy,” Anne reported. “She wants to know if I have heard from my guardian and when I will be coming to her. I think I shall tell her Morrissey’s last letter was lost in the Irish Sea.”

“She has no idea we are in Wiltshire, then?”

“Her sources of gossip are not as good as I thought. Maybe I should drop her a hint. I could write to her from here instead of sending the letter for your steward to forward to London.”

“Keep still, will you.” Cynthia looked up from the sketch she was making of Anne, in the absence of any Roman artifacts. She pronounced herself relieved to have a subject who was both alive and modern. “I think it’s time to leave here. We can go back to my house and with luck no one will ever learn that you have been Lord Lithgow’s maid of all work.”

“And wed Lord Algernon?”

“You are stronger than you think. You can summon the fortitude to resist your guardian without having to ruin your reputation.”

Anne thought Cynthia might be correct. She felt a different person from the timid young woman who doubted her ability to ignore the wishes of her elders. The old Anne would never have ignored her guardian’s order to stay at Lady Ashfield’s house. If this was what association with Marcus Lithgow had done to her, she couldn’t regret it.

“I want to stay longer. I’ve almost reached the furnace.”

“You’re quite mad. It’s December, for goodness’ sake. Very likely it will start snowing.”

“Give me a little more time. If I don’t find the furnace soon, I’ll stop and we’ll leave.”

“Praise God! No more housework!”

“You don’t mind polishing furniture, you said so.”

“True, I don’t. And I’ve enjoyed drawing those funny little things. But you do realize your next task is going to be cleaning the fireplaces. Have you ever watched a servant doing that? It’s a filthy business.”

“Scouring iron grates isn’t an appealing prospect,” she agreed, “but I haven’t minded the other work too much. It’s quite a lovely house.”

“I prefer a modern place with more light. And servants. And no ghosts.”

“You have no romance, Cynthia. I thought I was the staid and practical one.”

Cynthia arched her brows. “Romance? Could your passion for a very dilapidated manor be connected to its owner?”

“I’m not going to marry Lithgow.”

“That’s not an answer to the question.”

Anne had no answer. She didn’t want to talk about the way her head jerked toward the door at the sound of a footstep, the thrill when Marcus appeared, the disappointment when someone else came in. Nor could she bring herself to consult Cynthia about the belt buckle. Better not to know, she decided, and hid the thing behind a row of books.

“I’ve rarely enjoyed myself more,” she said instead. “The villa, you know.”
And its owner
. “While I agree on the necessity of servants, and I have resolved to treat mine with more gratitude in the future, I also find a certain freedom in not having people around me at every turn.”
Except Marcus
. “And my days are my own, with no duties or expectations imposed by others.”

Except an hour and a half a day that was no burden. She actually looked forward to playing servant, found a perverse pleasure in being ordered around; it had turned into a game.

“I’m even getting used to the spiders.” Not really, but she enjoyed being rescued from them.

Cynthia said nothing but her look spoke volumes.

“Marcus Lithgow is an unprincipled fortune hunter,” Anne said.

“I’m not so sure,” Cynthia said. “If I based my opinion only on what I’ve seen I wouldn’t think so.”

“Remember what I overheard.”

“Perhaps he has changed.”

It frightened Anne how much she wished Cynthia was correct.

The rain continued all the next day, a relentless downpour sometimes mixed with lumps of sleet. Anne finished reading the books she’d brought with her and even the equable Cynthia grew irritable. Anne could not in good conscience keep her at Hinton much longer. They agreed to leave for Hampshire, to spend Christmas with Caro and Castleton, in good time for the holiday.

The third day dawned brighter and after breakfast they donned their warmest clothes and headed out into the village. Though not much of a place—they’d long since explored the churchyard and exhausted the possibilities of the few shops—anything was better than the four walls of the inn. By the time they reached the bottom of the street the meager charm of Hinton had palled and the road across the brook beckoned. “I’m going to the manor,” Anne announced.

“Betty says it will start raining again by afternoon.”

A glance at swelling gray clouds told Anne that Cynthia’s weather prophet, she of the presciently curling hair, was likely right.

“I’ll walk to the villa. I won’t go up to the house.”

“You naughty thing. Are you going to cheat Lithgow by conducting a little excavation without paying first?”

“Certainly not. I’ll just look around. I need the exercise. Will you come with me?”

“No thank you. My boots and skirts will get muddy. I’ll content myself with the draper’s.”

It was less than a mile down the lane to the swollen brook. The bridge creaked alarmingly but Anne barely noticed. Across the field at the villa stood a man in a topcoat.

Marcus
. She was going to see him today after all.

As she hurried over, with a pang of disappointment she recognized Mr. Bentley, crouching to examine the area on which she’d expended so much effort.

“Miss Brotherton.” He stood to greet her. “I didn’t expect to find you here today. I see you are made of sterner stuff than most young ladies.”

“I needed air.”

Bentley looked down at the columns of the exposed hypocaust. “You’ve made progress. I congratulate you. Have you done it alone?”

“Lord Lithgow helps me on occasion, when not occupied elsewhere.”

“And have you found much of interest?”

“Oh yes! Quite a trove of artifacts in this part of the villa. It’s why I haven’t yet reached the furnace. Assuming you and Mr. Hooke are correct about its location.” The area in question was still covered with grass. “I’ve made myself proceed methodically, much as I long to disinter it.”

“A pleasure prolonged is a pleasure doubled.”

“I hope so! I’m ready to start on it as soon as the weather improves. Then I must stop for the winter.”

“All best wishes for success, Miss Brotherton. If I don’t see you again, may I say how much I have enjoyed our brief acquaintance? I must leave now if I’m to get home dry.”

“I won’t linger myself. Good-bye, Mr. Bentley.”

Although last time he’d come over the hills, he headed for the bridge. Anne supposed he’d left a horse or carriage in the village but hardly cared. She walked slowly around the perimeter of the building, memorizing the outline of the various walls, taking mental notes for future work. She needed to measure them so that she could draw an accurate plan. Lifting the canvas, she checked that the precious terrace had survived the storm without damage and said an affectionate good morning to Frederick. There was so much to do, so much to discover. A whole second building filled with who knew what wonders.

Above all, the furnace was a siren call. She would just start the process of removing the sod, softened by the rain.

It was easier than she thought and soon it became clear that Mr. Hooke had in fact uncovered this area before. On her knees, scraping away at the edge, she discovered brickwork a few inches below the surface. In the glow of satisfaction that accompanied a new discovery, she worked away, scarcely noticing the darkening sky. Water on the back of her neck stopped her for a moment. Just another few inches. She was wet already and would be soaked by the time she walked home, so why worry?

Pieces of sod piled up behind her as the uncovered brickwork grew. She set aside the trowel to grasp a large dock whose roots had penetrated the bricks. The plant proved a tough adversary. As she squatted to gain purchase, her heels slipped in the mud and she crashed forward through crumbling bricks into a deep hollow.

She’d found the furnace.

Her first reaction was fascination at the dimensions of the brick-lined circular chamber, at least four feet in diameter and even deeper. She could barely see out standing on tiptoes. Beneath her feet she could feel debris but it was too dark to know what kind. She must tread lightly in case she break anything. She removed her soiled gloves to run her fingers over the walls, which seemed to be in a remarkable state of preservation. This was an important find and she imagined the report she would write for a journal, complete with detailed measurements and drawings. She hoped the rain, now coming down hard, wouldn’t damage it. The piece of canvas used to protect the tools would make a temporary cover.

Then it occurred to her. She was stuck in a deep hole with no obvious exit.

With a nasty qualm in her stomach, she assessed the situation. She was neither tall nor strong enough to pull herself up by her arms, unless she could climb at least halfway up the walls. Exploring them by touch, on one side she found a narrow ledge of protruding bricks a couple of feet from the floor. With a crouch to lend momentum, she stepped up onto it, grabbed the jagged top of the wall, and sprang. The bricks crumbled under her hands and she fell back hard with something sharp sticking into her bottom. All she’d managed to do was widen the opening for the driving rain.

Time for a new approach. She thought of all she knew about the construction of a furnace. There had to be a door for the stoking of fuel. It didn’t take her long to find the place where the wall gave way to earth in an area about two feet square. She would fit through it, if she could dig her way out that way. Too much to hope that the trowel had managed to fall in with her. It hadn’t. Back onto the ledge to grope for the tool, which remained maddeningly inches beyond her grasp.

The earth deep down was dry and packed as though it had been baked. All she got for what felt like hours of labor were broken nails and sore digits. Then she jammed her forefinger into a shard, tasted blood and dirt when she sucked on it and felt a flap of broken skin on her tongue. She slumped down, put her head on her knees, and started to cry as icy water poured down her neck and penetrated her collar.

What in heaven’s name was she to do?

Stupid! Cynthia would think she’d gone up to the house and send the carriage. Then Marcus would come down and find her. She just had to wait. Unable to read the tiny hands on her watch, she had no idea of the time. Surely she wouldn’t have to wait long.

Minutes passed, then hours as she grew colder and wetter. Her voice was hoarse from calling out in the vain hope that someone would hear her.

Oh God
, she prayed.
Don’t let me die here.

T
he roof repairs to Burt’s cottage had survived two days of hard rain but Marcus wasn’t nearly as sanguine about the dam, which could burst at any time and flood the meadows. He despaired of paying for improvements to the drainage. This damnable storm, which matched the state of his spirits, might destroy all hope of keeping Hinton Manor. Uncle Josiah had given him one more chance and he’d failed. Having rejected the course his father would have taken, he couldn’t succeed at respectability. The irony failed to entertain him. The only thing left was Lewis’s mysterious treasure.

Back home, he went into the study, intending to look over the estate books, hoping to detect a glimmer of light where his knowledgeable attorney had failed. But the room had been taken over by Anne. The neat rows of miscellaneous antiquities labeled in her hand threatened his resolution to let her go. He flipped open a notebook, her catalogue of finds. The last entry made him smile.
Metal object, possibly a bronze belt buckle, formed of a cylinder and two spheres
. He would have enjoyed giving her a practical lesson in its true identity, but it was not to be.

The drawing room wasn’t any better. Anne had swept this floor, washed the window glass, de-cobwebbed the mantelpiece. There wasn’t a spider left in the place. Finally he retreated to the kitchen, where Travis was ironing his shirts and neckcloths. Heaven forbid that he shouldn’t look his best.

As he assembled the ingredients of a hearty ham and vegetable soup and set it on the fire, he half listened to Travis’s sonorous complaints about the difficulties of drying laundry and the absence of his cohort Maldon. Mostly the latter. Marcus knew how he felt. He refrained from telling the valet that Miss Brotherton’s maid would soon be gone forever, along with her mistress. They could mourn together as they left Hinton and resumed a life of aimless wandering.

“Where’s Jasper?” he asked. “He’s usually here by now, looking hungry.”

“He drove the gig into the village this morning for supplies.”

“He must have decided to stay with his brother there. Likely warmer than the stable cottage.”

Travis frowned. “Jasper hates his brother.”