Lord of Fire (4 page)

“I go!” Harry squirmed out of her arms and went careening out of the room with small pattering steps, trailing his blanket from his tiny, clenched fist. “Mama! Mama!”

For a moment,
Alice listened to her nephew’s hollers trailing down the hallway, and his nurse Peg Tate’s hearty exclamation as the big, sturdy woman intercepted him.

His rambunctious excitement at the prospect of seeing the glamorous stranger, his mother, nearly broke her heart. He wanted so badly to get to know the baroness, but every time Caro visited, she would leave again just when Harry was starting to get used to her. It left the child confused and angry—and played havoc with
Alice’s future. She sighed quietly, turned, and took a long look at the bright, airy room where she spent most of her time. Her gaze traveled from the large, intricate cage of white-painted cane that she had fashioned to house her pet canary, to the round table where she idled away the serene country hours of her life at
Glenwood
Park
, absorbed in her various crafts, all very suitable for a quiet-tempered young lady. Yet she couldn’t help but feel she was living in a dream here while life was passing her by.

She was haunted by a hunger for she knew not what, sometimes so intensely that it kept her awake at night. She was torn between her devotion to her nephew and the running of
Glenwood
Park
, and her own need to
find
her life. But the overriding fact was that Harry needed someone he could depend on to be there for him all the time, not just when the whim struck her. Since it was a duty his mother had abdicated, that person was
Alice. She slipped her hands into her apron pockets and stood very still, the sunlight warming her skin, glistening upon her bright, reddish-gold hair. She tensed her body tightly, trying to get rid of the well-hidden tension that plagued her, then forced her shoulders to relax and took deliberate pleasure in gazing upon the vase of dried hydrangeas that she had arranged just yesterday. The flowers graced the center of the table. Beside them lay the elegant silk purses she was sewing as Christmas gifts for a few of her
London friends, and her delicate japanning tools, perched well out of Harry’s reach. Her latest piece, an intricate jewel box, sat in a middle stage of completion. All of her hobbies ran in an artistic vein, but in her heart, she knew in a sense they were merely distractions, her way of trying to burn off her restlessness.

Hearing the baroness’s carriage rumble to a halt outside the manor house,
Alice moved dutifully to the window to wave hello, but when she looked out, her eyes widened in appalled shock. It was not Caro’s fashionable yellow barouche.

It was the mail coach. She paled and pressed her hand to her mouth, realizing instantly what this meant. A letter. A paltry letter!
She isn’t coming. She simply doesn’t care.
The realization dazed and then enraged her.

Her dark blue eyes narrowed, and her pale, oval reflection in the window filled with an untapped depth of passionate fury that reached down for fathoms below her placid surface. Overwhelming anger seized her, but very little surprise. She shook her head in silence.
No,
she thought fiercely.
Not this time, Caro. I will not let you do this to that child. This is the last straw.

She straightened up from the window, pivoted, and left the parlor, walking out to the entrance hall. At the front door, she paid the postman and glanced at the folded letter, then exchanged a worried look with Peg, who had ambled into the entrance hall, wiping her large, capable hands on her apron.

Peg Tate, Harry’s nurse, had been Phillip and
Alice’s nurse when they were children.
Alice thought of her more as a family member than a servant. Kind-hearted as she was, even Peg was skeptical when it came to Lady Glenwood. “This ought to be a good one,” she grumbled.

“It’s not from Caro,”
Alice said tautly, examining the letter. “It’s from Mr. Hattersley.” Hattersley was their
London butler, who ran the Montagues’ elegant townhouse in

“Oh, dear, I hope nothing’s wrong,” Peg murmured, her wrinkled brow creasing more deeply with worry.

A premonition prickled along
Alice’s spine. She had long feared that her sister-in-law’s reckless pursuit of pleasure would end in disaster.

“Where’s Harry?” she asked uneasily.

“Nellie’s washin’ him up to see his mother.”

Alice
nodded and cracked the seal. “ ‘Dear Miss Montague,’ ” she read out quietly, “ ‘received your letter day before last. Regret to inform you Lady G. left Town yesterday in the company of Lord Lucien Knight.’ ” She stopped and looked at Peg in astonishment. “
Lucien
Knight? But I thought it was Lord
Damien
. . . Oh,
Caro
!” She groaned, grasping at once what the feckless creature had done. Just when the woman had finally managed to pick a decent man—a man who would have made a perfect stepfather for Harry—she had gone and ruined it by running off with his brother!

She still recalled the conversation she had had with her sister-in-law weeks ago, when Caro had first bragged about catching the eye of the national hero. She had mentioned that Lord Damien had an identical twin brother, Lord Lucien, who was in the Diplomatic Corps. Demon and Lucifer, Caro had called them.
Alice remembered it clearly because the baroness had shivered with a strange look of fascination in her eyes.
I would never get involved with Lucien Knight,
she had said.
He scares me.
Nobody scared the flamboyant Lady Glenwood.

“What else does Mr. Hattersley say?” Peg asked in trepidation.

“Lord, I hardly dare look.”
Alice lifted the letter and read on. “ ‘They were bound for the gentleman’s country house,

Peg scratched her cheek in stumped silence.

For a long moment,
Alice stared at the floor, shaking her head in rising anger. She looked over broodingly and found the old woman watching her in patient, stoic concern. She gazed at Peg for a long moment, narrowed her eyes as her exasperation climbed, then suddenly handed Peg the letter and stalked past her toward the stairs.

“I’m going after her.”

“Oh, dearie, you mustn’t!” Peg exclaimed.

“I have to. This flagrant behavior must stop. Now.”

“But this man is a stranger and a scoundrel, I fear! If Her Ladyship sees fit to act like a hoyden, that is her concern.”

“And mine, as well. Did I not promise Phillip on his deathbed that I would take care of them—both of them? Harry needs his mother, and Caro needs to come home. Do you really think this man cares about her?”

Peg shrugged skeptically.

“Neither do I. I daresay this time she has gone and got herself caught in the middle of some petty sibling rivalry.”
Alice paused. “Besides, you know if it turns into a full-blown scandal, it will taint my reputation, as well.”

“But
Bath is so far, dear.”

“Only a day’s travel from here. I know the journey well. I have been there often enough.” She glanced toward the French windows, dainty and white, like the intricate bars of her canary’s cage. Dared she fly free out into the large and dangerous world?

She knew how Phillip would have answered—with a resounding no. Her brother would have called it unthinkable for a gently bred young lady to venture halfway across
England without benefit of a male relative’s protection or the chaperonage of a married lady at the very least, but at the moment,
Alice had neither. Besides, acting swiftly might be the only way to prevent Caro’s reckless affair from blossoming into an ugly scandal.

She turned back to her worried old nurse. “The weather is fine. If I leave right away, I can be there by tonight and have Caro home by tomorrow evening. All will be well,” she insisted with more self-assurance than she felt. “Mitchell will drive the coach, and Nellie will attend me.”

“Oh, but my dear,” Peg said sadly, “you and I both know she’ll only get in the way. We can tend him better by ourselves.”

Just then, Harry came barreling out of the hallway that led from the kitchen and hurtled against Peg’s skirts, clinging to her. He peered up the stairs at
Alice. “Where my mama?”

Alice
gazed at him in pained love. “Lost, lambkin.” She exchanged a meaningful glance with Peg. “But I know where to find her, and I am going to bring her home to you straightaway. I promise.”

“I come!”

“No.”

“Don’t scratch,” Peg chided, pulling his hand away from his scalp. He fussed and growled at her like an annoyed kitten.

Watching the scowl on his poor, red-spotted face,
Alice felt torn in two. She could not bear to leave the child at a time like this, even for the purpose of fetching his errant mother, but she knew Caro would not come home unless she showed up in person to browbeat her into doing the right thing. She knew that with Peg on hand, she needn’t fear for Harry’s safety. Peg Tate had shepherded scores of children through the chicken pox and worse in her sixty-odd years and knew more about the whole matter than the arrogant local physician.

“Well, then,” the old woman said as she smoothed Harry’s rumpled hair, “the sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back. I’ll tell Mitchell to ready the horses.” She bent down and scooped the lad up, bouncing him in her fleshy arms and distracting him from his itches with a teasing little song.

Alice
held up her skirts as she ran up the stairs to her bedroom. With brisk efficiency, she packed a satchel for her overnight stay, then took off her apron and morning gown and changed into her smart carriage dress of dark blue broadcloth. It had long, tight sleeves with a puff at the shoulder and pretty ribbon trimming along the hem.

Going to stand before the mirror, she neatly buttoned up the high-necked bodice, frowning at the slight tremble in her hands. In truth, she was unaccustomed to traveling alone, and Caro’s shadowy seducer did sound a wee bit intimidating. He was not going to like it one bit, she supposed, that she would soon arrive at

Pulling on her prim white gloves, she stared hard into the looking glass and squared her shoulders, ready to do battle.
Enjoy your escapades, Lady Glenwood, for they are about to come to an end. As for you, Lord Lucien Knight, whoever you are, you, sir, are in a great deal of trouble with me.
With that, she picked up her satchel and marched out of her room.

CHAPTER
TWO

A thousand hours later, or so it felt,
Alice sat tensely in her jostling carriage, steadying herself with a cold-sweating grip on the leather hand loop. They still had not found the place. The full moon led them along the bumpy, winding road through the moors like a sly links-boy with his lantern—one of those dubious London street urchins who, for a coin, would convey a pedestrian homeward through the city after dark, but who were just as likely to deliver one into the hands of thieves.

She glanced constantly out the windows, certain that she and her two servants were going to be set upon by highwaymen in this desolate waste. They were hopelessly lost in the Mendip Hills, far from any sign of civilization: up another slope through woods of oak and beech, to a rough, wind-blown heath like the one they now traversed; down again, into the plunging combes and gorges, up and down, again and again. The weary horses strained and stumbled in their traces; the night air wrapped them in a clammy, vaporous chill; and it was anyone’s guess how much longer they might be on the road. The only thing, in fact, that
Alice knew for certain was that she was going to wring Caro’s neck for this.