A Duke for Christmas (13 page)

A book had suddenly become a necessity. She took up one of the chambersticks waiting for the household at the bottom of the stairs. Dimly, she heard the men laughing in the room sacred to sport. It sounded as though Dominic has succeeded in raising Kenton’s spirits. She felt an impulse to go in there, to spend a few minutes in cheerful company. Women, her beloved family, seemed to want to turn her over and shake out all the loose bits, as if she were a broken clock. Dominic—that is to say, men—didn’t do that. They were content to talk about impersonal matters.

She walked toward the sound of their voices. Before she’d gone very far, however, she thought the better of it. No doubt they had their coats off, their cravats undone. She would only disturb their comfort.

She turned back. Book, then bed. In the morning, she’d have the exhausting duty of consulting about dress. Sophie wished she could pretend to be a mere doll, a female-shaped object to be dressed as wiser heads decreed. Knowing herself, however, she foresaw that she’d struggle fruitlessly against her mother and sister’s advice.

The library fire had died down to a mere glow. Which explained perhaps why Sophie shivered when she walked into the room. Her candle flickered, casting shadows that: raced over the walls in a
dame macabre.
Cupping her hand about it, she stepped to the bookcases. Somewhere there must be a book that would calm her thoughts.

A rustle registered only as a sound to be expected in a library, the sound of paper or curtain. Yet an instinct deeper than civilization allowed spoke. Sophie felt her whole body tighten. With utter care, she turned her head.

The dark was cave-like. Her single flame penetrated only a few feet and had the sole effect of making the darkness darker yet. Sophie suddenly realized that having the only light was not a good thing at all. She couldn’t see, but stood exposed to the hostile eyes she instinctively knew were focused upon her.

“Sophie?”

When a deep voice spoke her name, a strangled scream broke from her lips and her hand flew up. The candle dropped, snuffing itself on the carpet. “Dominic,” she whispered hoarsely. “Someone’s here.”

A swirling blast of frigid air tore through the room, driving spicules of ice against her skin. The French door at the far end of the room slammed, breaking a pane of glass.

Dominic ran past her, touching her back fleetingly, and pursued. Sophie fell back to the doorway and shouted for help and light. As if echoing her demand, she heard a dog barking wildly somewhere beyond the walls of the house.

She had no notion that Finchley held so many souls. People seemed to pour out like ants when their nest is stirred by a stick. Half a dozen maidservants appeared, including Lucia and Angelina, some screaming before even knowing what was happening. Boots and footmen came storming from behind the green baize door, youngest and oldest alike dancing with excitement and alarm. The haughty month-nurse who kept strictly to herself in the empty nursery ran down the stairs and added to the confusion by tripping on the first step and riding down the rest on her tailbone.

When Tremlow appeared, stately as a great galleon scattering lesser vessels in the way, the cacophony died away to near quiet, punctuated only by the whimpering of the poor month-nurse.

Sophie grabbed Kenton’s arm. “He’s gone out after him.”

“Who?”

“Dominic. There was someone in the library. He frightened me. Dominic ran after him.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. It was dark.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I went in for a book. There was someone there.”

“All right,” he said. “Men, search the grounds. Tremlow, send someone to alert the stables.”

“Very good, my lord.” He pointed two lordly fingers at the boots. “The stables, at once.”

“Yes, Mr. Tremlow.”

Kenton seized a branched candelabra from the cook’s trembling hands and led the way into the library. “Throw some logs on the fire, someone.”

“Sophie, what’s toward?” her mother asked, making her way through the milling servants. Her gray hair lay in waves on her shoulders, her wrapper caught to her bosom with one hand. “Are you all right?” she demanded, putting her arm about Sophie’s shoulders.

The sight of her mother’s concerned frown made Sophie pull herself together. “I came in for a book and I surprised an intruder. That’s all. He ran away as soon as Dominic appeared.”

“You’re not hurt? He didn’t touch you?”

“No, I’m fine.” She smiled at her mother with a courage that ceased to be feigned after a moment or so.

Kenton was by now examining the broken window, stepping gingerly amid the pieces of glass, some crushed to powder by Dominic’s racing feet. Sophie came closer, stopping on the end of the carpet, where the glass and the blowing snow hadn’t reached.

“That happened when the burglar ran out”

Kenton steadied the door, which had a tendency to swing in the icy breeze. He frowned at the white woodwork. “I think...” he began to say.

Mrs. Lemon lifted a wavering hand, pointing over Kenton’s head. “Look, look there.”

A man appeared, wraithlike on the other side of the windows. Everyone stared, even the master of the house. Then Dominic pushed against Kenton’s hold. “Let a fellow in. I’m colder than a fish.”

“What happened?” Ken demanded, throwing open the door. Dominic and Tip entered, spattered with snow.

Sophie looked around and saw the figured silk-and-wool shawl Maris had been wearing earlier in the evening thrown over the back of a settee. She took it up, feeling the weight and warmth with pleasure. Without saying a word, she reached up on her toes to drape the shawl around Dominic’s shoulders. The fabric of his coat showed darker spots where the snow had melted. His hair, too, had turned darker, especially where he raked it back from his forehead. He grasped the shawl and threw her an absent smile before his attention was once more captured by what Kenton was showing him.

“There’s blood here,” he said.

That was too much for the cook. She gave a piercing scream, startling every one, and tottered, first one way and then another. Though far from the overly plump cook of common knowledge, she nonetheless knocked down the tweeny and Lucia when she collapsed.

Dominic met Sophie’s eyes and his lips twitched uncontrollably. She felt the laughter rising up like champagne inside a shaken bottle. A few giggles escaped and she coughed to disguise it, lest someone assume she was hysterical.

“It’s not my blood,” Dominic said, holding up his hands one after the other to show that there were no wounds anywhere.

Poor Mrs. Lemon had roused just enough to hear the word “blood” again and promptly crashed down. This time the tweeny managed to sidestep her and avoid being flattened.

“Therefore, it seems as if we must look for someone with a cut on their hand,” Kenton said, turning his head briefly at the noise of the fall. “I’ve sent the men out to search.”

“They won’t find anything. I was following the footprints, but the snow is blowing around and wiping them
out.”

Sophie spoke up. “Let’s discuss this elsewhere before Dominic—and poor Tip—catch their death.”

They all looked down at the dog. He looked up, his sherry-colored eyes alert. A rag hung from the corner of his mouth. “What’s that?” Kenton said, bending low. “Come on, boy. Give it up.”

He held it out on his palm. An irregularly torn piece of fabric, two inches square, of some rough material, it had evidently been ripped from some larger piece; “Our poor burglar is an unlucky devil. First he cuts his; hand, then Tip gets a hold on his best trousering.”

“You’d better keep it. That’s a valuable piece of evidence,” Dominic said, shivering.

“You go change your clothes and dry your hair,” Sophie demanded. “I’ll make tea, as Mrs. Lemon is indisposed.”

He snapped to attention, saluting sharply. “You have but to command, ma’am.”

“It seems I missed all the excitement,” Maris complained, waiting for the carriage the next morning. “I cannot believe that no one bothered to awaken me, not even Kenton.”

“Did you scold him for it?” Sophie asked.

“Indeed. I hold that a man has certain responsibilities toward his wife, one of which is certainly to awaken her when the house is under siege by bandits.”

“Just one bandit,” Sophie said, “And he, it seems, didn’t steal anything.”

“Now that’s very curious. As almost everything at Finchley is an heirloom, I may as well admit that we have a plethora of beautiful things. Quite a lot of it is portable, as well.”

“Yet he stole nothing. That is odd.”

“I can only assume that you interrupted this burglar before he could carry out whatever plans he had.” Maris patted Sophie’s hand. “I’m very grateful to you and Dominic. Did he really chase after him into the dark? And on such a bitter night?”

“He did indeed. Without an instant’s hesitation.”

At the time, she had not thought very much about his courage in running out into the dark. Anything might have been waiting for him, from a shot to a club on the head. Yet he hadn’t hesitated. She could still feel the touch of his hand as he went past her.

“Are you all right?” Maris asked.

“Very well, thank you.”

“You shivered.”

“Did I? There must be a draft.”

Maris looked around the entryway. “I suppose so.” Distracted by the arrival of the carriage, she took her sister’s arm. “Where’s Mother? Go see if you can find her. Kenton doesn’t like it when we keep the horses standing in the cold.”

“Certainly.” Throwing open her pelisse, Sophie went in search of her mother.

She found her talking to Kenton and Dominic in the library. “Mother? The carriage is here.”

“Is it? Excellent, we’ll go at once. I can’t wait until you are dressed as you should be. Don’t you think so, gentlemen?”

What could they do but agree? Sophie looked at them with an understanding smile. Kenton agreed instantly, siding with his mother-in-law—no fool he.

Dominic cleared his throat. “I see no fault in Mrs. Banner’s appearance as she stands.”

Sophie didn’t mind that he said it; it was good to hear that she didn’t offend
everybody’s
eyes. However, she could have wished he hadn’t declared his admiration quite so publicly. Her mother was already wearing the same speculative expression Sophie had seen on Maris’s face.

“Is it true ... Maris told me that nothing was stolen last night.”

“Nothing we’ve been able to discover. Tremlow and the others have been taking a painstaking inventory. Tremlow knows every piece of plate, every picture, every objet d’art better than I do myself, and I own them. If our thief had made off with so much as a thimble, Tremlow would know.”

“Then did I simply interrupt before he could do whatever he came for? Maris thinks that is what happened.”

“I think so, too.”

Dominic reached out to touch her lightly on the wrist. “Don’t do that again.”

“I didn’t mean to do it the first time.” She turned to her mother. “We mustn’t keep the horses standing. And Miss Bowles will be waiting.”

The snow muffled the sound of the horses’ hooves and the wheels so that it seemed as if the carriage was flying silently through the air. Everything she saw was black, gray, or white. The dark trees drooped with the weight of the snowfall like old men carrying too many heavy sacks. A few ravens flapped into the steel-colored sky with halfhearted calls.

The view was no brighter in the village, except where the red clay soil was exposed at the edge of the road. The half-timbered front of the inn and the gray bulk of the church, at opposite ends of the spectrum socially, made a pleasing, if somber, composition. Miss Bowles’s little house, clinging to the far end of the village, came as a bit of a shock to an eye grown accustomed to the monochromatic landscape. While no more than a house of dirty white brick, some unskilled hand had painted the shutters and front door a lively shade of crimson. A streak, fading now, even decorated the doorstep.

Sophie glanced with raised eyebrows at her family. Maris eased her position in the corner. “I can’t remember if you have ever met Miss Bowles.”

“No, she moved here after Sophie went to Rome. She’s daughter of Miss Menthrip’s cousin. She came to look after Miss Menthrip.”

“Then why does she live here? Miss Menthrip lives down at the other end.”

Mrs. Lindel’s smile, had it been less good-natured, would have qualified as a smirk. “I’m afraid Miss Menthrip didn’t appreciate Miss Bowles as much as she might have done.”

“Miss Menthrip isn’t exactly simplicity itself to live with, either,” Maris said tartly. She had lived with Miss Menthrip for some weeks before Kenton had proposed and was one of the few people of whom Miss Menthrip spoke with favor. “Miss Bowles had a difficult time adjusting to her sharp tongue. I could never persuade her that Miss Menthrip did not mean all that she said.”

The crimson door opened and a woman peered out. She wore her dark hair very high, almost high enough for a formal ball. The face under the creation, however, was meek and unassuming, with slightly protuberant eyes and a bumpy chin inexpertly covered with powder. But her smile, when she realized her customers had arrived, was truly beautiful, for she had better teeth and a more generous mouth than either Maris or Sophie.

Despite the cold, she stepped into the street. Sophie emerged from the carriage. “Good morning,” she said, holding out her hand to greet little Miss Bowles. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh, it’s my honor, ma’am. If you knew how I’ve longed to see Italy ... you must forgive me if I pester you with questions.”

“Ask what you like,” Sophie said, unable to remember when she’d ever taken a greater liking to someone at first sight. “If I can answer, I will.”

“Oh, thank you. Here’s her ladyship! I never thought she’d come, in her condition,” she added, dropping her voice. “I shall run in and put another cushion in her chair.” Good as her word, she whisked inside as the footman assisted Lady Danesby to descend.

The plume on her hat tossed and bounced as she awkwardly sought with her foot for the step she could not see. The young man looked terrified of dropping his mistress. His arms shook with strain as he reached up for her hand and elbow.