Bella and the Beast (27 page)

Bella rose to her feet and stared at the woman. “What are
you
doing on this floor so late?”

“I had just finished inventorying the linen closet around the corner. One cannot trust the servants with these matters.”

Bella found that highly suspicious. “You? I shouldn't think you would take an interest in such work.”

Helen lifted her chin and looked down her dainty nose. “When I am Duchess of Aylwin someday, this house and all its contents will be mine. Until then, I shall make certain that nothing goes missing.”

The explanation was just barely plausible. Was it possible that Helen was the one playing the ghost? She certainly seemed to resent Bella's presence in the house. “Show me where you were.”

“Well! If you insist.”

In high dudgeon, Helen snatched up a candlestick, lit the wick at the fire, and marched out the door. As Bella followed, Nan jumped up, keeping close to Bella's side. “I saw it, miss,” she said in a shaky whisper. “I know what I saw.”

Bella patted that cold, work-chapped hand. “It's all right, my love. I believe you.”

She
did
believe. Because she'd glimpsed the spectral figure with her own eyes only a few nights ago. But this evening's incident was far more disturbing. Because this time, someone had actually entered her bedchamber with the purpose of frightening Nan.

Or perhaps Bella herself.

They proceeded around the corner and to an open door. All three of them stepped inside. The small room had long shelves filled with numerous neat stacks of linens, and the smell of starch hung in the air.

Holding the candlestick, Helen pointed to a pile of tumbled cloth on the floor. “I dropped those pillow coverings at the sound of your scream. Pick them up, girl. It's your fault they're lying there.”

Nan scurried to do the woman's bidding, refolding and placing them on a shelf. Meanwhile, Bella glanced into the gloomy area outside where her own sighting had occurred.

This short corridor bisected the end of the main passageway. The figure she'd seen had materialized from somewhere near here, perhaps had hidden in this very linen cupboard, then had made its appearance just as she was trudging to her bedchamber after a long day's work.

That time, the phantom had vanished through the door at the end of the short corridor. The servants' staircase.

Helen could have set up the scene, dropped the linens on the floor, and stolen into the bedchamber. But if she'd been wearing a robe, where was it? Everything on the shelves here looked neat as a pin. And so did Helen herself. If she'd flung some sort of ghostly garment over her head, surely her appearance would be rumpled.

But her coiffure looked as perfect as it had been in the archives, not a single golden hair out of place.

Was the perpetrator someone else, then? Had this other person frightened Nan, then dashed into one of the vacant bedchambers before Helen had come around the corner?

Bella couldn't imagine.

“What a lot of bother about nothing,” Helen said disparagingly as they stepped back out into the corridor. She lifted the candle. “Why, you look rather somber, Miss Jones. Do
you
believe in spirits, too? It's rumored that this wing is haunted.”

Nan shivered, clutching at Bella's arm. “Oh, Mrs. Grayson! Don't say such things!”

“Stop frightening the poor girl,” Bella said. “I'm sure there's a logical explanation. Sometimes, one's eyes can play tricks, especially in the dark.”

“But miss…” Nan began.

Squeezing the girl's hand, Bella gave her a silencing look. Nan lowered her gaze to the floor at once. To Helen, Bella said, “Thank you for your help, but you're no longer needed here.”

“Well!” Muttering about rude employees, the woman turned on her heel and marched away down the corridor, her hips swaying.

Since she'd taken the candlestick, leaving them in gloom, Bella quickly ushered Nan back into the bedchamber. She pressed the girl down into a comfortable chair by the hearth, then lit several candles to create a cheerful glow.

Returning, she sat on the footstool and rubbed Nan's cold hands between hers. “Now, I should like for you to relate every detail you can remember about this wraith.”

The maid gazed wanly at her. “You do believe me, then?”

“Of course. I was only trying to get rid of that dreadful woman. Tell me, did the phantom seem tall or short? Thin or heavy?”

Nan's rusty eyebrows drew together in a frown of concentration. “Medium height, not too tall. And … and a bit on the stout side, I think. Oh, miss! Do ye think it could've been a real
person
?”

“Indeed so. Pray don't repeat a word of this, but someone may be trying to play a trick on me, that's all.”

“But why?”

“Oh, just to frighten me as a jest. And I think perhaps that person believed
I
was present in the room.” She patted the girl's hand. “There, you see? It's nothing for you to fret about. Just leave the matter to me.”

Looking relieved, Nan hopped up to finish her duties in the dressing room. Bella remained seated on the footstool. She thought long and hard about who would have done such a thing.

Helen didn't want her here, neither did William Banbury-Davis. Bella tried to imagine the scholar draped in robes and flitting through the shadows. But why would he sneak into her bedchamber and take those letters? Why would he read them and then toss the packet under her bed? The answer remained a mystery.

She couldn't discount Hasani, either. Although he seemed friendly enough, there had been times when he'd stirred a faint disquiet in her. She'd felt it in particular when he had leaned down to pray over the mummy, the eye tattoo visible at the back of his neck …

A light rapping came from the closed door, and she jumped. That sound had not been made by a spirit. Had Miles come, after all? Would he use the basket of fruit as an excuse to call on her?

Leaping to her feet, Bella patted her hair and smoothed her gown as she hurried to answer the summons. Her gaze cut to the dressing room. How would she explain his presence to Nan?

But upon opening the door, she faced the tall stooped figure of Pinkerton. The butler held a silver salver on which lay a folded paper. “A messenger boy brought this for you just now to the service entrance.” His rheumy eyes fastened on her in a keen stare. “I thought I should deliver it myself.”

Mystified, she took the note. “Thank you.”

As he bowed and departed, Bella closed the door and walked to the candle on the bedside table. She broke the red wax seal and scanned the brief message.

Her legs went weak. Unable to believe her eyes, she sank down onto the edge of the bed to read the note again.

 

Chapter 20

Miles left the ballroom only after dusk fell and the room went so dark that he could scarcely pick his way through the shadowy maze of Egyptian statues. His strides echoed down the long corridor with its crimson runner. Here, candles flickered in sconces, the pale light gleaming over the white pillars that stood at intervals along the walls.

Of their own accord, his footsteps veered to the blue drawing room. A glance into the darkened doorway told him that Bella was no longer working among the gloomy piles of artifacts. He hadn't really expected to find her there. If truth be told, he had been avoiding her all day.

He'd awoken at the crack of dawn from an erotic dream of her. Miles had not felt so randy since he was a boy on the cusp of manhood, furtively using his hand under the covers to alleviate his passions. He'd resorted to that ploy today, too. But the release had been perfunctory in comparison to the bliss he'd experienced inside Bella.

I'm sure we can both agree it must never happen again.

He stalked toward the west wing, his solitary footsteps the only sound in the vast reaches of the house. As a rule, he did not show favor toward any particular woman. Why should he when they were all alike in the dark?

Except for Bella. With her, once had not been enough.

As a rule, he did not act on whims, either. He planned out his days, deciding ahead of time the artifacts he wanted to study or which hieroglyphs needed to be deciphered for the dictionary he was compiling.

Except for this morning. Before full light, he had impulsively set out on horseback for Turnstead Oaks, an estate he owned in the hills of Berkshire. The hard ride had invigorated him, the cool damp air whisking the cobwebs from his mind.

I'm sure we can both agree it must never happen again.

Blast it, that was supposed to be
his
line, not hers. It was what he'd been planning to say to her before she'd interrupted him. He should be pleased she shared his view.

And he
was,
dammit.

Upon arriving at his estate, he had taken a walk through the manor house. It was a lovely place, comfortably decorated, more a real home than the museumlike mansion in London. Turnstead Oaks had been his mother's favorite residence, where she'd recovered from her many miscarriages. Miles often had stayed here as a boy. How long had it been since his last visit? A year? Two years? Three? By the astonishment of the servants, perhaps even longer than that.

Bella would like it here. He saw himself making love to her in the big bed upstairs, the windows open to birdsong and summer breezes …

Immediately, he dismissed the fantasy. She had made it clear she would not be his mistress—and that was just as well because an affair carried the risk of pregnancy. Bella was no seasoned whore who knew tricks to prevent conception. And he could not, would not marry her. It was out of the question. She deserved better than a man who knew nothing of love, a man whose sole purpose in life was the study of ancient Egypt.

Better he should focus on extracting more information about Sir Seymour from the lockbox of Bella's memory. Then, when she was of no further use to him, he could dismiss her from his employ.

Edgy and unsettled, he had proceeded to the greenhouses. That had been his real reason for making the journey to Berkshire. He'd chatted with the old gardener, a familiar face from his boyhood days, while selecting a variety of exotic fruits for Bella.

He wondered now if she had liked the basket. Had her face lit up with that warm, open smile of hers? By pleasing her, Miles hoped to unravel the tension knotting his gut. She was a lady by birth and he had taken her virginity. A gentleman would have offered her marriage.

But he could not.

He had vowed long ago to devote himself to the ancient artifacts, to preserve them for posterity, to decode the pictorial language, as his father had wanted to do. Miles had no room in his regimented life for a wife. Only through dedication and hard work could he atone for the sin of causing his father's premature death.

It wasn't your fault. You couldn't possibly have known that brigands would attack that night.

Bella's soft words tugged at him. He'd thought long and hard about her views on the ride into Berkshire and back. Her arguments had been logical and persuasive, and talking to her had somehow lightened the heavy weight inside him. Yet the stone of guilt still lodged in his gut. Perhaps he had carried it so long it had become a part of him, like calcified tentacles wrapping his core.

Only in her arms had he felt freed of that burden. Only in her arms had he experienced a closeness that reached deep into his depths, as if to root out that tangled knot. Only in her arms had he felt loved.

My love.
How sweet those words had sounded on her lips. How perfect she had felt sheathed around him. Yet once they'd achieved euphoria together, she had withdrawn into the cool, efficient employee.

It would be best if we forgot this night entirely. Then we can go on as before. There's no need for us to speak of it ever again.

Miles stalked into his dim-lit study and slammed the door. A fire burned low on the hearth, and he seized the poker to jab savagely at the coals. Tongues of flame leaped up like the blaze inside of him that had not been quenched.

He should be thankful that Bella had no intention of making demands on him. Even though she'd been the one to invite him into her bed, she would have been within her rights to demand a marriage offer. But Bella was not like other ladies. She had gifted him with both her virtue and his freedom. They had shared a highly enjoyable evening together. He had been lucky to escape without any entanglements.

So why was he so troubled?

Fraught with frustration, he walked to the window to fetch a candle from the table. He would ring for his supper and then distract himself with work. The papers on his desk had been sorely neglected these past few nights …

Even as his fingers closed around the silver candlestick, he glimpsed a movement out in the darkness of the garden. A shadowed figure slipped from tree to tree. The rain had stopped, and the pale moonlight shone for an instant on that slender figure.

Bella.

A jolt sizzled through him. Why the devil was she walking outside? It must be damp and chilly after the rain, and she'd catch her death. Yet a certain furtiveness about her actions pricked his attention.

Releasing the candlestick, Miles moved back out of sight. He didn't want her to glance up and see him silhouetted by the firelight. Instead, he shifted the draperies slightly and peered out through the crack, curious to know her purpose.

He found out soon enough.

As she neared the back wall, another figure emerged from the black depths of the shadows. A man, tall and lanky. The moonlight touched briefly on his fair hair and angular features.

Bella went straight to him and took his hands in hers.

Miles gripped his fingers around the draperies. Who the devil was that fellow? Why was Bella meeting him in the garden—and in such a clandestine manner?

She'd arrived recently from abroad. She'd claimed not to know anyone in London other than that antiquarian friend of her father's, Smithers. But the intruder out there didn't appear to be an old man.