To Rescue a Rogue (15 page)

She rose. “After such a day, I need to go early to bed. We can discuss that tomorrow.”

“Oh, of course,” Mara said, a slight blush showing both her innocence and her understanding. “Good night.”

 

Mara stood in the corridor feeling decidedly sorry for herself without being entirely sure why. Because Simon and Jancy were going to be enjoying marital love? Her turn would come.

Because she'd been warned off interfering with Dare and had tacitly agreed? That certainly hurt, especially when it seemed she might never see him here.

She should go into her room, but it was early and she was restless. Instead she strolled down the corridor.

Dare was with the children, thus presumably on the next floor up, but he would come back down eventually. To his bedroom. She should know where that was from her illicit visit, but she'd not taken in details.

Was this the corridor she'd walked with Dare that night? Yes. She recognized a portrait of a very ugly child clutching a pug dog. Then this, she thought, walking toward the last door on her left, is his bedroom.

She paused to listen, but of course there was no sound. After a glance left and right to be sure no one was watching she laid her palm briefly against the polished oak, trying to sense…what? A memory of him?

What nonsense. She hurried away. She should go to her room and read, but she was too restless for even
Tales of Fancy
.

The big house lay silent around her. She crept downstairs, feeling like a sneak thief, but finding that rather exciting. She jumped guiltily when she encountered a maid leaving the dining room with a broom and cloth, but the woman merely curtsied and hurried on her way.

Mara continued down to the hall, then looked up the stairs, remembering Dare carrying her, but no ghostly representation of that time revealed itself.

She suddenly felt completely alone. The servants were doubtless enjoying a bit of time to themselves before bed. Dare was with the children. Simon and Jancy had each other.

She was not just alone but lonely—a most unusual condition. Loneliness was never a problem at Brideswell, and in Grosvenor Square she'd had Ella's company. And politicians for dinner, she thought with a smile, remembering Jancy's joke.

She went into a dark reception room to look out at the street. She'd crept down that street barefoot, huddled in a blanket. Anything could have happened.

Many things had. There's been such intimacy that night—she could still
feel
Dare bathing her feet. There'd been nothing like it since—until he'd taken her hands in the coach and, later, in the library here. And kissed them.

If Jancy hadn't come in, would he have kissed her lips?

Fingers to tingling lips, she left the room. She really should go to bed, but she wasn't at all tired.

Unlit candles stood ready on a table. She picked up one and lit it at the night candle, which was guarded by glass. Then she indulged in a tour of the ground floor rooms—another reception room, the dining room, and a small parlor that probably served as a morning room.

She considered a closed door, then gingerly opened it to see a pedestal desk and leather chairs near an empty fireplace. This was probably where the duke received visitors who didn't warrant entry to the family part of the house.

She was closing the door again when she spotted a group of miniatures on a wall. She went closer, raising the candle to shed better light. As she'd hoped, they were of the family.

The two oval portraits in the middle must be the duke and duchess when quite young. To their right hung a picture of a stocky man with thinning hair. There was enough of a resemblance to say it was Lord Gravenham, Dare's brother, though he looked older than the twenty-nine she knew him to be. The round-faced woman alongside must be his wife and the two infants his sons.

On the other side of the parents hung a picture of a smiling young woman with loose brown curls. That must be Lady Thea but Mara scarcely gave her a glance because she'd seen the picture of Dare.

This was the Dare she remembered—hair longer, a twinkle in his eyes, a smile on his lips—a smile that promised mischief and adventure. She raised her hand to touch it.

Alerted by something, she whirled, sending her candle flame flaring.

He stood in the doorway, without coat or waistcoat, his shirt open at the neck. In his arms he carried a languid black cat.

“I'm sorry. I was just….”

“Wandering,” he said.

“Prying,” she admitted. “But I really didn't mean to.”

He walked toward her, and to her shame, she took a step back.

He stilled. “Jetta only bites enemies.”

Mara reclaimed her step, though it brought her too close to this half-dressed mystery of a man. “Then assure her I'm a friend, please.”

He glanced down. “A good friend, Jetta.” He looked back at Mara, his eyes strange in the panicked light of her guttering candle. “Is there anything you require?”

“No. I'm sorry.”

“Poor Mara. From tedium to tedium.” His long fingers pleasured the cat, which watched Mara from slitted eyes as if warning her away. “It will get better,” he said. “You'll soon be out until the early hours, dancing and flirting.”

“I hope so,” Mara said, but it was a lie. She'd be fulfilled in this dull room alone with Dare. Silence pressed and she scrabbled for something to say. “Yeovil House is larger than it seems.”

“You can see why I was eager to have guests.”

“Even though you avoid them?”

His fingers paused for a moment, and then resumed their work. “My apologies.”

“No, mine. You were unwell.”

“Yes.”

Mara felt as if she wandered a cliff edge in a fog, but couldn't make herself leave for safer ground. “Will she mind if I stroke her?”

“I doubt it.”

She put her candle on a small table, moved closer, and reached out. Seeing no objection, she stroked the warm fur. “She's lovely.”

“She's full of her own importance. Don't puff her up farther.”

A faint, deep purr made Mara laugh and she thanked heaven for it. She was fiercely aware of being too close to Dare, of their fingers almost meeting as first he stroked then she did. In harmony.

“She's the children's cat,” he said, “but once they're asleep, she prowls to make sure all is well.”

“As do you?”

“No, I just prowl. You should go to bed.”

Her hand stilled on the warm, silky body. “Or?”

He stepped back, taking the cat out of reach, creating cold air between them. “Or you'll be too tired for adventures tomorrow. A silk hunt, I believe.”

“Yes.”

He glanced at the pictures and said, “He's dead, Mara.” Then he walked away.

He'd reached the door before she found voice to call, “No, he's not!”

He continued on without hesitation.

Mara ran to the door to watch Dare mount the stairs by the low light of the one hall candle. She blew out her own candle and returned to her room through the same gloomy shadows.

 

The next morning that encounter with Dare had all the qualities of a dream, yet Mara knew it had happened. Jumbled nighttime thoughts had not interpreted it for her.

She ate breakfast in her room, but found herself finished and dressed for the visit to the silk warehouse far too early, so she wrote to her younger brother and sisters. She wrote letters to Benji at school and Jenny and Lucy at home describing the cork exhibition. She even added drawings of a volcano.

She still hadn't seen Vesuvius erupt, but this didn't seem a good time to ask about that.

She sealed her letters and put them aside, still with time to spare. What to do? Then she had an idea. She could visit Pierre and Delphie and find out what they thought of the cork models Dare had bought them.

She rang for a footman to guide her to the children's area. If Dare happened to be there, that would be cream on the cake. She found the children alone, however, apart from a maid, but they seemed pleased to see her.

The schoolroom was bright and furnished with soft chairs as well as the wooden ones at desks. It felt like the nursery rooms at Brideswell, because most things had clearly been used by generations of Debenhams.

Had Dare played here?

Almost certainly.

Paintings hung on the walls of the sort most likely to appeal to children—a vivid Italian landscape, a naval battle full of smoke, a child playing with kittens, and a medieval picture of jousting knights. A miniature suit of armor stood in one corner.

The two cork models sat on a low table.

“Papa says we will go one day to see the volcano explode,” Pierre said.

“I think that will be frightening,” Delphie whispered.

Mara touched her hair. “I'm sure you won't have to attend.”

“But I like to go with Papa.”

So do I,
thought Mara.

“Milady Mara, please to come see
mes soldats
!” Pierre took her hand and tugged her toward the table, where miniature armies stood in ranks.

But Delphie clung to Mara's other hand. “No! You must see
ma maison de poupé
.”

Feeling like the baby contested between two mothers before Solomon, Mara said, “House, then soldiers.”

Pierre gave in with good grace, but did not go with them to the dolls' house. It was a magnificent work. Sitting on a low table, it was as tall as Mara. Three sides had been removed to show the rooms, but the front was in place.

“Why, this is Yeovil House,” Mara said, studying the details with delight.

“
Oui
, milady.” The house was on a turntable, and Delphie rotated it to point to a room. “Here we are.” It was the nursery, containing four dolls roughly representing a boy, a girl, and two maids.

“It's magical,” Mara said. “I see bedchambers, the library, and the duke's reception room.” In the basement the kitchen and scullery were occupied by little dolls representing servants. Plaster hams and other meats hung from the ceiling. “I feel as if I could step inside.”

“Moi aussi,”
Delphie said. “I like to think where Papa might be.”

“In the kitchens?” Mara teased, and Delphie laughed.

“Papa is never in the kitchens.”

“Then where is he now?” Mara certainly wanted to know.

Delphie began to turn the dolls' house. “He is not in the dining room. He is not in the grand drawing room….”

As the child went through her inventory, Mara marveled. It was an astonishing work.

“He is not is his bedroom…” Delphie chanted.

Mara recognized Dare's room and felt her cheeks heat.

“That's my room,” she said, pointing it out.

“
Alors
, then we will put you there.” Delphie picked up a figure and placed it in the room. Mara didn't complain that it was a rather severe looking older lady.

“My brother and his wife, Lord and Lady Austrey, have the rooms next door.”

“Oui?”
Delphie chose a male and female figure and placed them on the bed, which made Mara bite her lip.

“Papa is not in the ballroom,” Delphie said, turning the house to show a room that took up most of the back. “One day there will be a grand ball there and Papa says we may watch a little. There is a gallery, you see? Musicians will be there, but they will not mind us being there a little.”

Delphie continued, pointing out all the other places where Papa was not. Mara couldn't hold the question back. “Then where is Papa?”

“In Feng Ruyuan's room,” Delphie said. “At this hour, he always is.”

She pointed to a bedchamber where a figure that looked a lot like Dare stood beside an Oriental one. Feng Ruyuan, Mara assumed, whoever that was. He was shown with a completely bald head and wearing a something like a monk's robe, but in red.

“Who is Feng Ruyuan?” Mara asked, feeling as if she'd been shown a portal to another world.

“Papa's friend. He comes to visit us, but we do not go to visit him, because there Papa fights the beast.”

The little girl could as well have said because there he does his accounts or there he cleans his guns.

Mara could think of nothing to say, but Pierre expanded for her from across the room. “One day Feng Ruyuan will teach me the way of the dragon.”

“Me, too,” Delphie said.

“The dragon is not for girls.”

Delphie turned on Pierre, hands on hips, breaking into French. “I asked Uncle Nicholas, and he said it was for girls who wish it!”