What a Gentleman Desires (7 page)

Reluctantly, Daisy continued to turn the pages.

...Ah, Rose, dearest sister. My heart overflows with joy for her. It would seem her Chas has proposed marriage, and she is off to the countryside to be introduced to his mama. So giddy is she, I can barely make out her scribbles as she crosses her lines on the page, but I do wish I knew more of this man. I can only rejoice for her. Mr. Beckwith is becoming a problem. My wages can’t come quickly enough, and then I will return to London to see Rose.

...Where is she? Three weeks without any word. Why has there been no letter? This is so unlike her, especially when she must be over the moon with happiness. Did the man’s mother not care for her? How could she not? Rose is the sweetest creature in nature, and her manners are all that is pleasing. Oh, she is driving me mad with worry!

...The penny post has at last brought an answer from Miss Hopkins, who shares Rose’s flat above the ribbon shop. Rose has not returned, and there has been no word from her. Only a servant, sent to gather the remainder of her belongings. He told her some faradiddle about Rose having decided to emigrate to America. That can’t be, Rose would never leave me, not without a word! Miss Hopkins knows no more than I about this Chas, save that she did manage to ask the servant where he was taking Rose’s possessions. Unfortunately, she can only remember that the man wore green livery and said they were heading south, with nearly twenty miles to cover before nightfall to be home and dry, and to an estate with the word
wood
in it somewhere. Burnwood? Oakwood?

Daisy closed the diary. She knew the remainder of the entries by heart. How she had searched the maps in the Beckwith library whenever she could, and then collected her quarterly wage and left at once, not giving a second’s thought to Mrs. Beckwith’s “good riddance to bad rubbish” and the lack of a reference. She’d ridden as an outside passenger on the posting coach, haranguing the drivers, begging them to dredge their memories for estates with the word
wood
connected to them. She ate little, slept even less and had been soaked to the bone more than once. She’d stopped and asked questions at villages nearby estates dubbed Laurelwood, Fleetwood, Inglewood, Far Woods, Birchwood—had Englishmen no imagination at all? But, at long last: Fernwood, owned by one Lord Charles Mailer.
Chas.

Inquiries at the posting inn extracted the information she needed: Lord Mailer had two children living at home, yes. The Mailer livery was green. No, his lordship was not in residence at the moment, but his lady wife and the children were on the premises.

Finally, after a month of searching, crisscrossing the countryside within the perimeters of the large rectangle she had drawn on a map pilfered from Mr. Beckwith, Daisy had found what she was looking for. Now to breach the walls, as it were.

She’d paid down nearly the remainder of her small purse for a room and a bath, brushed her most presentable gown clean, wrote three letters of recommendation in differing handwriting (Mrs. Beckwith’s letter was particularly effusive in its praise) and set out on foot for Fernwood the next morning.

And here she’d been the three months since, learning nothing about Rose, but every day growing more suspicious that something terrible was going on at Fernwood, and if she only watched, and waited, she would learn what it was. Then she would confront Lord Mailer and demand he tell her what he’d done with Rose.

But it was left to Valentine Redgrave to give her answers she didn’t want to face.

She should go, just as he’d demanded. There was nothing more she could do here. There would be no rescue, there could only be more dreadful, damning answers. Rose was gone. Not to America, not horribly deceived and then abandoned, too mortified to return to London, too ashamed to confess her mistake to her very own sister. No, even if now those two fates seemed to be wished for events. If Mr. Redgrave was correct, and Daisy still longed to disbelieve him, Rose had moved beyond the powers of her sister to save her.

“Oh, God, why do You allow such things? I don’t understand. Why does the devil so often win? Papa raised us to believe good follows good, the righteous will have their reward. It was all so easy to understand as long as our lives ran smoothly. But this...this is too much. This is all so senseless and wrong.”

Daisy wiped at her damp cheeks in an attempt to collect herself, looking out through the window once more onto an unimpressive view of several outbuildings and the rear of the horse stables. Crying never helped anything, most especially a broken heart. She had to stiffen her backbone, retrieve her resolve. She had come here to find her sister, and that’s exactly what she would do. If she had to break every Commandment along the way, she would find Rose, and take her home, see that she was laid to rest beside their parents.

She watched as Valentine Redgrave appeared on horseback, heading away from the stables. He was alone: no Lord Mailer with him, no groom. She experienced a moment of panic before realizing he couldn’t be leaving; he had arrived in Mailer’s coach. Besides, he was here for a purpose, and Daisy doubted he was simply off to have himself an enjoyable gallop. She didn’t think anything Valentine Redgrave did was that uncomplicated.

When he turned away from the gravel drive that led to the front of the estate house and the direction of the gates, she decided his ride would keep him on Fernwood land, which wasn’t all that extensive outside its plowed fields, all of them already planted. Lord Mailer was rarely seen on horseback, and mostly used the pony cart when he did go out on the estate. His major recreation when in residence, she had learned, other than the monthly
parties,
consisted of sitting in his study and drinking himself into a stupor. By all rights, he and his family should be living in genteel poverty, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

For an inquisitive sort, as she felt sure Mr. Redgrave was, that left little of interest save for the stream, the penned cattle and sheep, the spit of dense trees, the cliff and the stones.

Daisy had seen the remains of standing stones before, and it had been obvious to her from the first that this particular construction definitely did not have its birth thanks to long-ago Druids or other worshippers. It wasn’t nearly so sad as the Gothick Ruin Mrs. Beckwith had ordered constructed at Beckwith Park. Poor woman, no matter how industriously the gardeners tried, they could not succeed in coaxing moss to grow on the stones of the supposed ancient chapel. In fact, the only embellishment at all remained the generations of doves who inhabited it, leaving their drying nests, molted feathers and nasty droppings everywhere.

There was moss growing on the standing and toppled stones at Fernwood. Daisy knew that because she’d taken her charges there several times, as they enjoyed running along the supposedly fallen lintel stones lying in deep grass populated by wildflowers. A few of the tall lintel stones had been set in place, age and weather not yet softening all the chisel marks. It may not be an overwhelmingly accurate construction, and quite a poor imitation of Stonehenge, but as it perched very near the cliff, at the topmost rise of the hill, she supposed some would find such a
folly
impressive. There was even an altar of sorts...

The journal tumbled to the floor as Daisy stood up quickly, slipping her feet back into her half boots. She grabbed for her shawl and a heartbeat later was hurtling down the servant stairs.

CHAPTER FIVE

V
ALENTINE
WAS
NO
more than a quarter hour into his ride before he decided three things. One, the entire Fernwood estate could neatly fit inside the boundaries of Redgrave Manor at least five times. Perhaps six. Secondly, although actually first in the order of discovery, Charles Mailer was no judge of horseflesh, clearly preferring showiness over breeding. The gelding he was aboard had been the best of a bad lot, which said little for the gelding and much about the rest of the stable.

Lastly, he was comforted to realize he’d have no problem explaining away any interest he might show now, or at dinner, in the stone circle—it was the only thing of even marginal uniqueness on the entire estate. Well, that and the horseshoe-shaped cliff, clearly created long ago by industrious folk who had quarried stone there for a time, but then abandoned the area.

He’d asked one of the grooms if there were any interesting spots he should visit on his ride, and was told maybe sir would like to take a peek at the queer stones his lordship had ordered built in the middle of the trees a couple of years ago. Valentine had longed to kiss the top of the man’s head to have his suspicion confirmed, but refrained, only asking directions to the spot, a cleared patch of land surrounded by ancient trees. “But don’t wander too far, sir. It be trees, and then the cliff, bang, with no warnin’. His lordship’s first missus mistook where she was, and went over. Sad, that.”

After pretending an interest in other areas of the estate, Valentine finally dismounted at the bottom of the tree-covered hill. With Piffkin’s warnings ringing in his head, he slipped the sword cane from the saddle, ostensively to employ it as he entered the treed area and climbed up the gentle slope alongside the cliff, trying to imagine anyone so desperate as to fling herself over the edge and onto the sharp stones below, leaving behind two small children. He held a special compassion for children abandoned by their mother.

Of course, she might have fallen. People toppled off cliffs all the time, didn’t they? No, they didn’t. The woman had most probably jumped...or had had help. Valentine shivered as he imagined a broken body sprawled fifty feet below him. He could only hope she’d been already dead.

There was no sense in delaying this any longer. It was on to the standing stones. At last the trees gave way to a surprisingly large, cleared area. It all looked bucolic and romantic enough, he supposed, long grass and wildflowers nodding in the breeze that seemed to circle the ruin as if undecided whether to linger or move on.

Valentine pushed his hair out of his eyes and stepped inside the circle, heading for what was obviously some sort of altar. The grass grew thicker here, higher. He’d half hoped it would be trampled, showing signs of visitors. Then again, grasses could grow quickly between full moons.

His boot trod on something hard yet round and he nearly slipped. “That can’t be good,” he muttered to himself. “Not for a man with a strong imagination which, sadly, it appears I have.”

Employing the sword cane, he prodded the area, bending the grass away to one side. Bones. Definitely bones. “How lovely.”

“What? What did you find?”

Valentine would never say he had jumped out of his skin at the sound of Daisy’s voice coming from behind him, but it had been a near-run thing.

He whirled about to confront her; she was standing a good six feet behind him, a pale blue shawl covering her hair and wrapped about her neck. She could have been a nun, an apparition of some Druid goddess. Mostly, she was an increasingly painful metaphorical thorn in his side. “What in devil’s name are you doing here, sneaking up on me like that?”

“I frightened you?” Did she have to sound so...so smug. Yes, that was it. Smug. And exactly like a governess.

“Hardly,” Valentine countered, once again brushing his blowing hair out of his eyes. “You damn near got skewered, actually,” he said, sliding the swordstick partially out of its hiding place to emphasize his point.

The distraction didn’t work.

“Oh, dearie me. I’m certain that’s massively impressive when you show it off to your friends. Now I repeat, what did you find, Mr. Redgrave?”

Valentine smiled in spite of himself. “You sound very like one of my tutors years ago, when I presented him with a strange white frog I’d found in the pond.
Extraordinary indeed, Master Redgrave, but now if you’ll please allow us to return to our sums.
I’ve just realized something, Miss Marchant, ma’am. It must be quite the adventure, teaching young minds who would rather you go stuff your head under the pump.”

She readjusted her useless yet incredibly important-looking spectacles. “One does what one must do. If not always personally rewarding, it does allow one to eat,” she said tightly. “Again, if you would show me whatever it is you’ve found?”

“Bones.” There was no diverting her. “I found bones. I imagine there were more than simply bones, originally. That would explain why the grass grows thicker and higher here.” As she opened her mouth to speak, he held up his hand to stop her. “Small bones. Probably a chicken, or a young goat.”

“A kid,” she said rather vaguely, her color, which had been sadly missing there for a moment, flowing back into her cheeks.

“Your pardon?”

“A young goat is a
kid,
Mr. Redgrave. A female kid is further designated a doeling, and the males are bucklings. Once castrated, males are wethers.”

Valentine was as near to speechless as he’d been in his entire life. “Why do you know that?”

“I know that, Mr. Redgrave, because I am a—”

He waved off her words. “Yes, yes, because you’re a governess, and I suppose I’m suffering this education because I so doubted you and you’re determined to drive the nail all the way in, aren’t you? But I didn’t ask you how you know, I asked you
why
you know. Why would anyone want to know that?”

She loosened her shawl, allowing it to fall onto her shoulders, clearly trying not to smile. He could see and appreciate her struggle as she answered: “It’s probably of some interest to the goats.”

“Especially the males,” Valentine said, and then she did laugh.

God, what a sound, like sweet music. And her face seemed to light up, no longer frozen in what must be her idea of a raised-chin professional demeanor. Her eyes sparkled, her mouth was wider than he’d supposed, her teeth white and even save for one front tooth that slightly infringed on its mate.

Perfection was such a bloody bore.

When she attempted to cover her smile with the back of her hand, she looked young and vulnerable and...not at all like a governess.

If this was what a single smile, a single laugh, could do to her, imagine how she’d look after what he was fairly certain would be her first kiss. She wasn’t a great beauty; she was more than physically beautiful. She was Daisy Marchant, and very much her own person.

With thick, glorious copper hair that curled around his finger, hair that, when spread across his pillow, would be the eighth wonder of the world. The tip of his tongue tingled at the thought of running along that delightfully crooked tooth.

And you don’t have time for this,
he told himself.

But then she did something else surprising, although, if he considered the revelations of the past few hours, probably to be expected.

Daisy Marchant began to cry.

She didn’t sob. She didn’t make any sound, really. She just stood there, those huge blue eyes filling with tears that soon chased each other down her cheeks as she continued to hold her hand to her mouth.

“Miss Marchant,” Valentine said, extending one arm toward her, not sure how she would react if he actually touched her. Crying women were a puzzle; she could push him away, she could throw herself into his arms and weep all over his lapels.

“I...I brought Lydia and William here for picnics. We did fairy dances. And all while...” She took off her spectacles to wipe at her eyes. “I didn’t know.”

He winced. There wasn’t a lot he could say to that. He could barely look into those huge, blue cornflower eyes; they were too tortured, too sad.

“Is this...is this where they...did what they did?”

He hastened to reassure her. “No, unquestionably not. This would be where they have their ridiculous hellfire rites. To entertain their guests, I’m sure, and to impress the impressionable. It’s isolated, yes, but much too public for what...what else they do.”

Someone might hear the screams. One of the poor creatures could escape into the trees, or over the cliff.
But he didn’t say either of those things.

His mind, however, whispered something interesting to him:
You say
d
o,
but she said
di
d.
You’re speaking of the present, but when she spoke, it was as if about something in the past. The extremely punctilious governess had made a mistake? Or had she?

“Then where did they—” She stopped, either unable to finish the question, or belatedly realizing what she was revealing to him with her questions.

Valentine decided to ignore her mistake. “I would imagine indoors, somewhere. But that’s not for you to worry about, is it? I know this has been a trying day for you, Miss Marchant, and it may be cruel of me to push at you. There are two things I must ask, however. Do you have any names for me? And, are you now ready to listen to reason, and allow me to have you removed to safety at Redgrave Manor?”

Daisy gave one last swipe at her cheeks with the back of her hand, and replaced her glasses. “You seem almost unnaturally eager to be shed of me, Mr. Redgrave.”

It was amazing. She could put him through an entire gauntlet of swiftly changing emotions in the space of a few minutes. Surprise, humor, shock, compassion...downright seeing-red anger.

“For the love of God, Miss Marchant—”

“I would thank you to leave God out of this, Mr. Redgrave. He certainly hasn’t been involved up to this point. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Because you came here for a reason,” Valentine said, giving up all pretense. “I’ve already figured that out with my minuscule brain.”

She bit her bottom lip, shook her head. “I don’t wish to speak about this with you. I simply can’t. If you don’t mind, Mr. Redgrave, although to do so violates my feelings of privacy, I would rather give you my journal. My reason, and the names of a few of Lord Mailer’s guests, are catalogued within. I’ll mark the page where you should begin, and ask you to swear not to satisfy your curiosity by reading the previous pages. Your word as a gentleman, sir.”

“You have it...Daisy.”

“Thank you, Mr. Redgrave, but as we have serious business to confront, I would rather we two remain on a more formal basis. For you to address me as Daisy automatically relegates me to the role of subservient, and for me to address you by your given name hints at a friendship between us that is most certainly neither appropriate nor desired.”

Valentine shook his head. It would probably be best if he didn’t tell her how much he suddenly longed to rip away those hideous spectacles and plant a whacking great kiss square on her prunes-and-prisms lips. “As my grandmother would say, you’re a pip, Miss Marchant. She’d enjoy watching you put me through hoops.”

“I’ve no intention of putting you through hoops. I should only ask the same favor in return. We should separate now, and I will meet you to turn over my diar—my journal just outside the servant entrance behind the stables in a quarter hour. The full moon could be as close as this very night.”

Valentine pulled a small silver disc from his watch pocket and looked at it closely. There were, in fact, three discs, all joined together at the middle, and each could be moved independently of the other. “Yes, it begins tonight.”

Daisy stepped closer. “How can you know that for certain without consulting a chart? What is that strange thing?”

At last, something she didn’t already know! He passed it over to her. “Just something I discovered in a shop in Bond Street. I’m assured the language is German, so it may have found its way here along with the first George. But the months are also marked with their Zodiac signs, so it’s all read easily enough. You move the dials about, and the small openings reveal the days of the week, the phases of the moon, even the number of days in each month, the length of the days and nights.”

Daisy was studying the disc, turning it round and round. “The
Calendar Ivmperpetuum.
Perpetual
calendar, I imagine. And you’re right, quite old. There’s a date here, 1696. So if I slide the disk to the correct year, month and day— Ah, there we are. It’s rather amazing, isn’t it? Don’t lose it.” She handed
the disc back to him. “Now, as to meeting again. A quarter hour. Are we agreed? Please don’t dawdle.”

And with that she was gone. Without another look toward the stone altar, or to him, for that matter.
Don’t lose it. Please don’t dawdle.
She was handing out orders now. “I told Piffkin she’d get in the way. And now she’s gone and done it.
Dawdle?
God, she’s wonderful!”

She was, precisely thirty minutes later, also late. Valentine didn’t pace, like some anxious Romeo waiting to steal a moment with his Juliet—because that wouldn’t be
appropriate
behavior—but he was beginning to worry. He was adequately concealed amid the fairly overgrown shrubbery flanking the servant entrance, but at any moment a servant could be popping in or out, and that would put paid to any secrecy, which couldn’t be a good thing.