A Fine Caprice - A Regency Romance (15 page)

‘What was his name? I’m acquainted with one or two families in that county.’

This brought her up short. She didn’t have a name to give him, not that
would withstand scrutiny for if
she said the wrong one, that of a family she knew it would be just her luck
that he would be
intimately acquainted with
them
. A happy thought occurred.

‘I promised not to say,’ she told him solemnly, ‘to my dying day, I am not allowed to mention my father’s true family. It was only because of that promise that my mistress found another place for me and gave me enough
coin
for the journey.’

She was rather pleased with that. Nobody could expect a person to break a promise, especially not a nobleman. He met her eyes for a long moment and she held the look, her own as limpid with blameless integrity.

‘Of course,’ he said softly, after a moment. ‘A man would be a
scoundrel
to enquire further.’

And to her intense relief, he let the matter drop.

After breakfast they set out
to explore the grounds before Ravener and the Grand Duchess were up
and, quite possibly, watching their every move. It was a damp
but delightful morning, the air invigoratingly clean, tinged with the scent of salt from the ocean
that lay
close by
, the overgrown garden wet from the nigh
t’s downpour and smelling of damp
earth and flowers
.

Caprice felt a little strange, walking beside the tall, noteworthy figure of his lordship. Her experience with such men had always been filtered through the careful social boundar
ies of Society and she had rarely
actually been in a man’s company by he
rself.
Except for h
er father
, of course
and her former
fiancé and Eric hardly counted as she had known him forever.
She cast
a quick, sideways glance at Merridew
and felt a definite flutter in the pit of her stomach. It might have been the way the early morning sunlight fell on him, but Lord Merridew was as impressive a gentleman as she had ever met.

Is this how a young stableboy would regard the man
, she chided herself, watching
his strong, well-shaped legs stride along
the path
in front of her.
Assuredly not.
But as she wasn’t actually a stableboy, perhaps she could be forgiven. She wondered what he would say if he knew who she really was
.
Nothing complimentary, in all likelihood
.
Much as she might like to think that Lord Me
rridew was different to other gentlemen of
the
ton
, he would undoubtedly be
just as shocked as anybody
by her behavior, his good opinion (for he did
seem to have formed one)
quite overset.

No, Caprice decided with a tinge of regret. She could not reveal her true nature to him for it would be dreadfully disappointing to see those grey eyes cloud with disappointment and censure.
She did wonder what it would be like to meet him in different circumstances. When she was arrayed in one of her best dresses, hair carefully arranged, glowing with… dare she say it… cleanliness! What would he think of her then? Would he be attracted? Good God, would she
want
him to be attracted? She hadn’t thought in those terms in for quite some time, simply because she rarely felt stirred
in
to any genuine interest in the men she met at the local assemblies.

How utterly typical that she would find the one man she could not hope to impres
s
right beside her? And in a perfect position to get to know him without the usual flutter and fuss o
f watchful guardians around her. She sighed, wondering if fate was playing with her, punishing her for all those times she
hadn’t
felt any interest the men who paid court.

‘I suspect that there might be an entrance into the system of underground network of tunnels that are rumoured to run beneath Abbey Cross in the gardens,’ his lordship said, breaking into her reverie. ‘At least, that’s what I’ve always been led to believe.’

‘Why do you want to find one in the garden? Why not the house?’

‘I’ve taken a fairly good look around the house and, apart from the usual ones, I couldn’t find a thing.’

‘The usual ones?’ Caprice echoed with a certain amount of trepidation.

‘Oh yes. There’s one that opens onto the library and leads to the main bedchamber upstairs. And another that goes down to the cellars
from the main hallway
.
A priest hole in the library and a secret panel in the green bedchamber that legend has it
was
made to conceal a previous chatelain
e’s lovers. But it’s the tunnel
that run
s
off
the cellars
themselves that interest me. I have to believe it exists for how would Uncle Abel
have been able to transact with his elicit friends
if it did not? They’d want a direct route up from the beach but
I cannot find it. I
have to
confess, it
s location has eluded me.
’

Secret passages that riddled
the house.
Lovely. Caprice could not help but remember those quiet footsteps in the corridor outside her door last night. She still wasn’t convinced it had been anything more than her imagination but the idea that somebody could pass through the house unseen and unheard was a little unnerving. ‘So what makes you think we’ll be able to find something in the garden?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not convinced, just hopeful. It would make sense that they had something fairly close to the house
;
that they had an external exit
. I believe a smuggler has a fondness for multiple escape routes.’

‘Oh.’ I
t did make sense, she supposed. She began to look around her more closely
, wondering what they should be looking for
.
What did the entrance of a tunnel look like from out here?

The garden really had gone to rack and ruin but, unlike the house, nature
’
s reclamation had a rather lovely edge to it in the wild borders and ov
ergrown hedges. Aging flowers
were shedding
frag
rant, shaggy
leaves across the pathways, which
themselves were a little hard to discover thanks to the
verdant life of grasses and moss.

‘This place is a mess,’ his lordship observed wryly.

‘What are you going t
o do with it? Now that it’s your responsibility again?
’

‘An excellent question.
A great deal needs to be done, that much is obvious. I suppose I shall have to find some caretakers for the place.’

‘But are you just going to leave it empty, then?’

‘Well I certainly can’t imagine living here.’

Caprice paused, looking up at the building. Now that it was full daylight, she could appreciate the bones beneath the neglected façade. Abbey Cross had been constructed of stone that had mellowed over the years to a
n
aged, golden glow. Ivy crept along its walls, hooking itself over
the old wooden shutters, some of which were hanging precariously, in need of refixing. The steeply slanting roof was slate and from it chimney stacks rose frequently.

‘I think it’s rather nice.’

‘Do you?’ Merridew paused, looking at the place with narrowed eyes. ‘I suppose it does have a certain appeal,’ he admitted. ‘But still, it’s hardly convenient.’

‘For what?’

‘For anything.
Apart fro
m anything else, it’s dreadfully
remote.’

‘No more so than a lot of other country places. Do you know what
I think is wrong with it
? Apart from the repairs that it so clearly needs.’

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘I think it needs a family here. It feels lonely. Neglected.’

His lordship gave her a sideways glance and shook his head. ‘You’
re the fanciful type, I see
.
A curious trait in a stableboy
.’

‘Why?’ Caprice enquired, a little defensive. She really should
curb the random words that made a habit of
pop
ping
out of her mouth. She might look like a stableboy but that in no way gave her an insight into what a stableboy, even one who had been reared under peculiar circumstances, migh
t actually say. The problem was that
she was too used to saying whatever was on her mind, a tendency that would not do in her current position.

Lord Merridew shook his head, clearly a little amused. ‘Most young fellows your age are not prone to flights of fancy. Not about a house, anyway.’

For once she decided to apply a little bit of circumspection and remained silent. It seemed the safest option.

They searched around the shrubbery,
poking behind things, until they were both rather damp from the drops of water that fell off the leaves and a little grubby, although his lordship managed to be rather
less
grubby than Caprice somehow, as if dirt hesitated to attach itself to him.

‘You’re going to need a bath, young Jem,’ he said, removing a twig from her hair.

‘A bath?’ she repeated, almost hopefully. ‘Sure
ly
they don’t have such a thing here?’

‘Of course
they do
. My uncle was a scoundrel but I daresay he immersed himself once a year at the very least. The tub is in his dressing room. If you like, we can stick you in it later. I’m beginning to fancy a dip
in it
myself
after sorting through years of accumulated rubbish. Although if
the weather warms up a little w
e can always throw ourselves in the lake out the back.’

Sudden visions of stripping off her protective outer layers around Lord Merridew made Caprice swallow heavily, suddenly a little weak at the knees. Of course he wouldn’t think anything about it for males often stripped down to their smalls for a swim. But she was most assuredly
not
a male and, while her feminine assets were not up to those of some of the tavern maids s
he had encountered on her journey into Dorset
, breasts all but bursting out of the bodices of their gowns, she still had bits that a stableboy did not. She had elected to wear a waistcoat that was sever
al sizes too small. It acted rather like a corset, compressing her chest into a flatter line. It was a remarkably effective disguise, so much so that it wouldn’t do to remove it. She thought, briefly, of stripping off in his lordship’s dressing room and a warm flush slid through her. There might be certain circumstances where standing naked before this man would be
delicious beyond belief, but it was far too disturbing a
thought
to allow
herself
to dwell on
.

‘I’m not much of a one for bath
s,’ she said rather lamely.

He chuckled. ‘What boy is? It builds character, young Master Morris.’

‘I’ve got a very large character already, thank you,’ Caprice returned quickly. ‘And I wash every morning.’

‘Trust me, a wash doesn’t get all the dirt off.’

As if he’d ever accumulate
d
enough dirt to know! Her eyes searched the garden, desperate for something to distract him. ‘What’s that over there?’ She pointed to a creeper-covered mound on the ground. Th
ey were around the side of the house now. A stone wall had once created what
must have been a very pretty sit
ting area but a rampant creeper had turned it into a green, verdant jungle, its eager tendrils clinging to whatever surface it had come across.

They walked over to the mound. A closer inspection showed them that it was circular. His lordship dragged a few clinging vines away, revealing wood. ‘Hello,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘looks like a well.’

Caprice wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t particularly fond of wells. Dark, dank and deep… they always made her nervous.
‘Well there isn’t likely to be an entrance down
there
.’

‘Let’s get the cover off and have a look.’

Caprice sighed inwardly. As a stableboy who was under the employ of this man, she hardly had any choice but really, it seemed an entirely pointless thing to do. They dragged off some more ivy, making the discovery as they did so that it was far more yielding than anticipated
. Caprice went around
and found that the ivy had been clipped away neatly. It wasn’t visible to a casual passer-by but it was obvious from the other side.