Barbara Metzger (16 page)

“Our people do not gossip, my lord.”

“I did not mean to disparage your staff, Wheatley. Whoever you select will need to keep watch over the cottage until I can get to London and take care of a bit of business.”

“Is he a, ah, desperate criminal, my lord? Should the footman be armed?”

“He’s older than dirt, and only has one leg, dash it, or I’d have beaten him to a pulp. He’ll be gone from here as soon as I can arrange passage out of the country for the dirty dish. Notify the stable I’ll want the closed carriage first thing in the morning.”

“In the morning.” Wheatley stared somewhere over Lord Maitland’s shoulder. “And Lady Maitland?”

Lady Maitland. He’d forgotten he was a married man. What an insult his leaving would be to a new bride! And how embarrassing she’d find the household’s pretending nothing was wrong. But there was nothing for it. He had to go to London. The War Office was bound to know what young officer was fetched home the week Michael…died. If not, they could dashed well find out. Besides, he couldn’t trust himself with Senta. While he was here, while she was his wife, he was going to keep wanting her.

“Lady Maitland must be asleep by now. I’ll leave her a letter. She’ll understand.”

Sir Parcival fell off the pedestal where he’d been making the acquaintance of a long-dead Sir Morville slumbering in his suit of armor. Understand? When cow’s milk turned blue!

Chapter Four

He was leaving her. The letter had been brought up with Senta’s chocolate and toast. She’d asked for breakfast in her room rather than confront Lord Maitland over his kippers and eggs this morning. After the mortification of last night, she needed more than a fresh dress to face him.

Her husband had gone out last night. Senta’s bedroom overlooked the carriage drive. He’d returned sometime before daybreak, while she huddled miserably awake in her cold bed. Lord Maitland had been so disappointed in her, he’d had to leave the house in the middle of a snowstorm.

Senta had spent the entire night thinking of how she was ever going to make things right. How could she explain to such a serious-minded, rational man like her husband that she’d been frightened by a ghost? Or whatever that figment of her imagination and indigestion called himself. Maitland was sure to hurry home for that—to see her locked away in Bedlam! Fairy tales come to life, by George! Next thing she knew, Beowulf would be chasing Grendel through the corridors of her dreams.

Well, now she wouldn’t have to think of another excuse for her skitter-witted behavior. He was gone.

His letter spoke of urgent business in London. While he was supposedly on honeymoon? And oh yes, he’d added a brief personal message: While he was in London, Lord Maitland intended to speak to his solicitor about obtaining an annulment. Personal indeed! He did not believe, the viscount wrote, that nonconsummation on its own was grounds enough to negate a marriage; it was bound to be a consideration, though, when he sought the annulment because their vows were already forsworn. If the fact that she loved another man didn’t sway the courts and the clerics, he wrote, a few generous donations would. It seemed to Senta, as her teardrops made blurry tracks down Maitland’s letter, that whereas money couldn’t buy love or happiness, it could surely purchase his freedom.

Lord Maitland hadn’t put it quite that way, of course. No, what he wrote was that he wanted what was best for her, with no discredit to her name. Whatever gossip arose would be a nine days’ wonder, especially since most of society’s gable-grinders were away from London in the dead of winter. Her speedy remarriage to a man she chose for herself would put paid to any scandalbroth. She wasn’t to think of what effect an annulment might have on his, Maitland’s, reputation. Her happiness was all that mattered.

How kind, how honorable, how thickheaded could one man be? If Lee Maitland were here right now, Senta swore she’d throw something at him! Herself. She would force him to see that
he
was the man she wanted, and none other.

Unless he was just looking for an excuse to get out of a misalliance. Miss Nobody from Nowhere was no match for the noble scion of the Morville dynasty. Why, she knew nothing about running a grand household or holding a man’s interest. She couldn’t even keep her own husband for one night.

And now what was she supposed to do? Wait around for him to toss her back, like a fish too small to keep? She didn’t feel she had the right to begin her reign as mistress of the Meadows, not when it was to be one of the shorter tenancies in history. Nor did Senta feel like facing the stares and sympathy of his lordship’s staff. Already this morning her own maid was clucking her tongue. For all Senta knew, the rest of the servants, from the stately butler to the saucy parlor maids, were blaming her for his lordship’s sudden flight. Most likely none of them thought she was good enough for their beloved master either.

So Senta escaped to the little family chapel where she had been married just yesterday. The flowers had been removed to the public rooms and the slate floor had been scrubbed after the guests left. No one would bother her here.

It was quite beautiful, besides, with the stained-glass windows letting in a flood of gem-colored light. The thin layer of snow on the ground outside must have magnified the effect, for rainbows patterned the walls and floor and benches. Senta took a seat in a clear crimson sunbeam that streamed through some ancient Morville’s robes.

Yesterday she’d been too excited to notice more than the sea of faces, neighbors and family and friends, with retainers standing in the back behind the last filled row of carved wooden pews. After that, she’d only had eyes for her magnificent groom, in his white satin breeches and midnight blue tailed coat. He had a single white rosebud in his lapel, to match the bouquet Senta carried.

She did remember now how the chapel was filled with flowers, their scent everywhere. Someone, Wheatley, she thought, had proudly informed her the blooms were all from the estate’s own forcing houses. The man in the back who wept throughout the service must have been the Meadows’ gardener. Senta reminded herself to thank
him later, to tell him how happy his great sacrifice had made her.

And she had been happy, facing her new life with all the hopes and dreams of innocence. She was going to make Henley Morville the best wife there had ever been. She’d keep his house, entertain his guests, bear his children. She practically had the infants named. There would be no babies now, no chance to make him love her.

*

“What, are you weeping again? Dang, I hate that.”

Senta looked up at the sudden draft and wiped at her eyes. “I thought even the ghosts had deserted me.” No such luck.

Sir Parcival was standing in a patch of blue reflected from the stained-glass sky above a cherubic Morville who had died too young. Everything about him was blue, right down to his shoes. As he stepped closer, though, through other colored rays of light, Senta realized he was dressed all in white, with sequins sewn all over his coat. Senta was almost blinded by the rainbows bouncing back from the tiny mirrors. “Are you sure you aren’t an angel?”

“I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, sweetheart, but never that, if I recall.”

“No, and you haven’t exactly brought me any blessings,” she concluded sadly. As a matter of fact, she blamed most of her troubles on this phantom’s appearance, but she was too polite to say so. He had enough trouble searching for his missing memory without assuming a burden of guilt for her misery.

On the other hand, he might just be a hallucination and she really was ready for the lunatic asylum. In which case, his feelings wouldn’t be hurt. “Oh, go away, do. You’ve been nothing but a headache.”

“Now,
that
,
I’ve been called.” He sat next to her, and Senta couldn’t resist the urge to touch him, to see if he was real. She nudged her hand along the cushioned seat
of the pew, to his sleeve. Her hand passed right through, with a tingling feeling that sent chills up her spine.

“Yeah, it was always like that.” He gave her a slow smile that instantly explained to Senta why he always had that effect on the girls.

“So what are you going to do,” he was saying, “sit here all day in a river of tears or something?”

“What am I supposed to do, go back to my parents?” Her lip trembling, she waved Maitland’s letter, crumpled now and waterlogged. “He doesn’t want me.”

“Oh, he wants you, all right, sister. A blind man could see that. Of course, he thinks he’s too old for you to love him back, but what are twelve years or so? Nah, he’s just upset over his brother’s death.”

“I know. That’s why he married me. With his brother gone, he needed an heir.”

“No way. He couldn’t help falling in love with you. Trust me, I mightn’t know my name, but I know about these things. Some loves are just meant to be.”

“Thank you.” She sniffed into her handkerchief. “But he’s still gone.”

“So that leaves you to find out what really happened to this brother Michael.”

“It was a terrible accident.”

“No, that’s what they told everyone, but your man knows that just ain’t true. He thinks Michael killed himself after making a deal with the enemy that got his own men killed.”

“Oh no, not Maitland’s brother! I can’t believe it.”

“But he does. That’s what has him chasing his tail like a dog with fleas.”

“You mean he’s not just angry at me?” Senta permitted a little hope to creep back into her heart.

“He’s just trying to protect you, it looks like. Only he’s going at it hind end first, begging your pardon, ma’am. Seems there’s this old army retiree who might have the real facts, only your boy wouldn’t listen. He shut the old guy up in some abandoned cellblock in the
woods. We’ve got to go see the codger and find out what he knows.”

“But I can’t interfere.”

“Well, you can’t just sit here, crying in the… What did you call this place?”

Chapter Five

What happened to Lord Maitland’s sweet and docile bride? If Wheatley the butler was wondering, at least he kept his thoughts to himself. He sent to the stables for the gig—one horse, no groom—as his new mistress had ordered. Her unfamiliarity with the surroundings, the fog settling in over the thin layer of snow, the general unsuitability of Viscountess Maitland going abroad unaccompanied, none of Wheatley’s respectful protests were heeded.

“Begging your pardon, my lady, but I am sure the master would not approve.”

“Then the master should be here to drive me himself.”

Senta got the gig. And she was not going without a companion, for Sir Parcival sat on the bench next to her, directing her to direct the horse, Lulu.

“She was a Christmas present from Lord Maitland,” Senta said when Sir Parcival admired the bay mare. “I call her Lou.”

“Lou Christmas?”

He really was attics-to-let, her ethereal guest. “No, that’s Father Christmas. Goodness, will he be showing
up here, too?” He’d be more useful, she thought with just a touch of regret.

They drove up the hill, still within the Meadows’ boundaries, and down into the hollow where the viscount maintained a cluster of homes for his tenants and workers. The fog was so bad there, Senta could barely make out the lane to follow.

“It’s like pea soup, in the valley.”

They had to backtrack a bit on the other side of the valley to find the trail that led through the home woods. At last they reached the clearing.

Senta got down, tied the horse, and said, “This isn’t any gaol; it’s just a house.”

“But the back room has a lock on it.”

Sir Parcival followed slowly, his head cocked to one side. “Jailhouse lock?”

Senta picked up a likely-looking rock for smashing the padlock, in case Maitland had taken the key with him.

“Jailhouse stone?” He shook his head. “Nah. That ain’t it either.”

The key was on a hook beside the door. Private Waters was thrilled to see them, to see Lady Maitland, at least, Sir Parcival being invisible to him.

“Fellow from up at the Meadows brung me food and got the fire going again, but he wouldn’t listen to nothing I said about the lieutenant, or Mona, or anything. It was like I didn’t exist.”

“I can relate to that,” Sir Parcival muttered.

“I even tried to slip some coins under the door here, for him to go tell Mona where I’d got to, but he wouldn’t touch a groat of it. It’s that worrited I am. So if you can just reach me down my wooden leg, I’ll say what I come to say and be on my way afore his lordship has a change of heart.”

Senta started to say, “His lordship didn’t—” but Sir Parcival pinched her. It wasn’t exactly a pinch, more a frosty blast, but she got the message. “That is, his lordship truly wants to know what really happened to his brother. Lieutenant Morville could not have been a traitor, could he?”

“Not on your life, my lady, and I’ll take on any man who dares say different. He was a good officer, and took right good care of his men. He wouldn’t of done nothing to put them in danger, least of all lead them into an ambush.”

“And he was loyal to the Crown? He didn’t have any Populist leanings?”

“He was an Englishman, ma’am. No offense.”

Senta nodded. “Then what happened? How could they accuse him of trafficking with the enemy?”

“Well, I don’t know about trafficking, but someone sold the information, that’s for sure. We marched right into a company of Frenchies. The lieutenant, he managed to regroup the rear columns and take them around to come behind the Frogs, to save what was left of our troops. He was a regular hero, and none of the men who made it out of there alive could figure why he didn’t get a chestful of ribbons. Instead, they shipped him home, quiet like, saying he had an accident”