One Night Of Scandal (20 page)

They finally emerged from the attic near noon with dirt-smudged stockings and cobwebs in their hair. Although Allegra clung to her stony reserve, Lottie kept up a stream of chatter amiable enough for the both of them.

They wandered the second and third floors for a while, finding only bedchambers and sitting rooms dusty from disuse. They had reached the end of a long portrait-lined gallery when they heard footsteps approaching.

Lottie snatched up Allegra's hand and darted toward a back staircase. Although she knew very well that it was probably only Meggie carrying an armful of fresh linen, she hissed, "Come, de Soto! It's those cursed English seeking to plunder our ships and steal our booty!"

By the time they reached the ground floor, Lottie was breathless with laughter and even Allegra seemed to be struggling to hold back a smile. They emerged from the stairwell and stumbled to a halt in the middle of a broad corridor lined with doors.

Her expression darkening, Allegra began to back toward the mouth of the corridor. "We shouldn't be here. It's not allowed."

Lottie slowly turned, recognizing the double doors at the far end of the corridor. They were in the west wing, standing in the very spot where she had heard the ghostly strains of piano music her first night at the manor.

Allegra cast a guilty glance over her shoulder, her voice growing more urgent. "We really should go. I'm not supposed to play here."

But Lottie's gaze was drawn back to those mysterious doors. The doors Hayden had pinned her to with his hot, hungry hands. The doors he had refused to so much as look at when she had mentioned the music.

She began to walk toward them, her steps measured. "What sort of explorers would we be," she asked softly, "if we fled at the first sign of danger?"

She reached for one of the doorknobs, her fingers trembling ever so slightly.

"There's no use." Allegra drifted toward the doors, almost as if she couldn't help herself either. "They've been locked for over four years. Martha's the only one allowed a key."

Lottie knew it was wrong to encourage Allegra to disobey her father. But curiosity was fast overcoming her conscience. If he had nothing to hide, why would Hayden insist that the doors be kept locked?

Allegra crept nearer as Lottie reached into her chignon, tugging out a hairpin. Since she wasn't wearing a hat, it would have to do. After several minutes of poking, jiggling, and muttering, she finally felt the lock surrender to her touch.

She straightened. Allegra was hovering so close Lottie could hear each rapid, shallow breath the child took. She reached behind her and clutched Allegra's icy hand, not sure if she was doing it to reassure Allegra or herself.

As Lottie eased open the door, an involuntary sigh escaped her lips. The octagonal-shaped room was exquisite — airy, delicate, and feminine, without a trace of the dark mahogany that brooded over the rest of the manor. It had been decorated in the Greek revival fashion so favored by the cream of society only a few years ago. The walls were paneled inwhite wainscoting trimmed with gold leaf. Hand-painted flowers adorned every cornice and frieze. Slender columns graced the perimeter of the room, soaring toward a domed skylight that defied the gloom by coaxing every last drop of light from the weeping sky. The lower panels of the dome had been painted an ethereal shade of blue and splashed with fluffy white clouds.

"I've always imagined that heaven would look something like this," Lottie whispered, reluctant to disturb the hush.

Except for the gentle patter of the rain against the skylight, the only sound was the shuffle of their slippers as she and Allegra drifted across the parquet floor, hand in hand.

If this was heaven, then the woman in the portrait hanging over the white marble mantel must surely be an angel. As soon as Lottie had been old enough to crawl out of her cradle and toddle over to a mirror, she had recognized herself as an Incomparable Beauty. But this divine creature with her flowing sable curls and laughing violet eyes was beyond comparison.

At least Ned had the good sense not to send me a brunette
.

As Hayden's rueful words echoed through her memory, Lottie absently touched a hand to her own hair. For the first time, it seemed washed out to her, a pale shadow of some more vibrant hue.

The woman in the portrait didn't have the alabaster complexion of an English rose, but a sultry Gallic glow. She was gazing at someone just to the left of the artist, someone who coaxed a teasing pout to her lush lips and made her eyes sparkle with unspoken promises. It was difficult to believe such a spirit could ever be snuffed out of existence. Even frozen forever on canvas, Justine was more alive than most women could ever hope to be.

She was the sort of woman a man might die for. The sort of woman he might kill for.

Lottie was so shaken that she didn't feel Allegra's fingers slip away from hers until they were gone. She turned to find the child gazing up at the portrait with an almost eerie detachment.

"Your mother was very beautiful," Lottie said, struggling to hide her own unease.

Allegra shrugged. "I suppose so. I don't really remember her."

Hoping to break the portrait's seductive spell, Lottie turned her back on it, realizing as she did so that the chamber wasn't a drawing room, but a music room. A gilded harp sat in one corner next to a low-slung divan. In the opposite corner was a clavichord that would have probably been more comfortable in a music room of a century ago. But the centerpiece of the room was a Viennese piano that had been hand-painted white to match the wainscoting. Its wing-shaped lid was propped upright, its curved cabriole legs a study in grace.

Lottie moved to the instrument and gently ran one finger along its gleaming bone and ebony keys. There wasn't a speck of dust to be found anywhere on it. If Martha was the only one allowed a key to this chamber, then she was a very diligent keeper of her former mistress's memory.

Catching a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, Lottie asked Allegra, "Do you play?"

The girl snatched her hand away from the keys and tucked it behind her back. "Of course not. Father would never allow it."

Lottie frowned. There were several yellowing pieces of music scattered across the music stand, almost as if their mistress had simply excused herself to indulge in afternoon tea and might return at any moment. As Lottie slid onto the bench, she felt as if she were profaning a sacred altar.

She flexed her fingers, toyed with a few awkward chords, then began to play. The piano had a beautiful tone — rich, sweet, and majestic. Lottie had always enjoyed banging away on just about any instrument. Long before Sterling had engaged her first music master, she, George, and Laura had spent many a happy evening gathered around the battered pianoforte in Lady Eleanor's drawing room.

After a stumbling start, her fingers danced nimbly over the keys in a sprightly passage from Handel's "Water Music" that had always been one of her favorites. She stole a glance over her shoulder at Allegra.

The child was gazing at the keys with a rapt hunger Lottie had never before seen on her face. Shifting tempo, Lottie launched into a merry Scottish jig. Grinning over her shoulder at Allegra, she sang in a exaggerated Scottish burr —

"My wife's a wanton wee thing,

She winna be guided by me.

She sell'd her coat and she drank it,

She sell'd her coat and she drank it,

She row'd herself in a blanket,

She winna be guided by me."

Before long, Allegra was humming along and tapping her foot in time to the rousing rhythm. After the third verse, she joined in on the chorus, shyly at first, but gaining confidence with each note. Her voice was a dusky alto, the perfect complement to Lottie's soprano.

For some reason, Lottie couldn't bear the thought of watching Allegra retreat back into her wary shell. After she had exhausted every verse of the song, she began to make up verses of her own. Her absurd improvisations soon had them both laughing so hard they could barely gasp out the words to the chorus. Neither one of them realized that they had left the door to the music room ajar.

* * *

Music and laughter.

Two sounds Hayden had thought never to hear again at Oakwylde Manor. Yet when a washed-out bridge cut his journey to Boscastle short, he had returned to find them both ringing through his home.

He stood in the entrance hall, rainwater dripping from the brim of his hat, and listened to that ghostly echo. For a dazed moment, he actually believed that time had somehow gone skipping backward in his absence.

He saw himself striding along the corridor that led to the music room, his steps not weighted with dread, but light and eager. He threw open the doors to find Allegra, not tall and gangly, but small and chubby, perched on her mama's lap.

Their dark heads merged into one as Justine patiently arranged Allegra's pudgy little fingers on the piano keys, singing an airy nursery rhyme in her sweet contralto. Hayden leaned against the doorjamb for a long time, content just to watch the two of them together. To his keen relief, there were no shadows beneath his wife's eyes that might bode ill for his homecoming.

"Papa!" Allegra squealed, her eyes lighting up as she spotted him. She slid out of her mama's lap and came scrambling over to be swept up into his arms. As she pressed her plump little cheek to his, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply of her baby-sweet scent.

When he opened them again, he was still standing in the drafty entrance hall, his arms empty and his heart aching with loss.

"My lord?" queried a puzzled-looking Giles. "You're quite thoroughly drenched. May I take your coat and hat?"

Hayden didn't even reply. He simply brushed the man aside and started for the music room.

Lottie and Allegra were so engrossed in their merriment that they never heard his clipped footsteps cross the room, never realized they were no longer alone until the lid of the piano came slamming down with a mighty crash, revealing him behind it.

Chapter 14

Alas, every word that fell from his lips was a pretty lie, designed to seduce me!

R
ISING FROM THE BENCH
, L
OTTIE FACED
Hayden across the gleaming expanse of the piano's lid, her ears still ringing.

He hadn't even taken the time to doff his coat or hat. Rain dripped from the shoulder-cape of his coat to the parquet floor, while the brim of his hat shadowed his eyes. From the corner of her eye, Lottie could see Allegra visibly shrinking, her shoulders hunching inward, her lips growing narrow and pinched. The sight made Lottie want to stamp her foot in frustration.

"Who let you in here?" Hayden demanded.

"No one," Lottie replied, truthful and defiant all at once.

He shifted his accusing gaze to his daughter. "Allegra?"

The child shook her head violently. "I certainly don't have a key."

He swept off his hat. After catching her first clear glimpse of his eyes, Lottie almost wished he'd left it on. "Then how in the devil did the two of you get in here? You know it's forbidden."

"We were playing at explorers," Lottie confessed, hoping to divert his attention from the child.

Her ploy worked a little too well. Hayden rounded on her, his narrowed eyes and taut jaw challenging her to continue.

She lifted her shoulders in an apologetic shrug. "And as I'm sure you know, there's nothing more enticing to an explorer than the lure of the forbidden."

For just an instant, something else flickered through his frosty green eyes — something both dangerous and alluring. "So what did you do? Steal the key from Martha?"

"Of course not! I would
never
encourage Allegra to steal." Lottie folded her hands primly in front of her. "I simply picked the lock with one of my hairpins."

Hayden gazed at her in disbelief for a moment, then let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Oh, that's rich! You won't encourage my daughter to steal, but you have no qualms about teaching her how to pick a lock." Allegra came around the piano and tugged at the sleeve of his coat, but he was too busy glaring at Lottie to notice. "What do you plan to do for your next lesson? Show her how to hold up a coach at gunpoint?"

Before Lottie could sputter a retort, Allegra gave her father's sleeve another tug, this time succeeding in getting his attention. "She didn't teach me how to pick the lock. She picked it herself." Her voice rose. "And do you know why? Because she saw that I was lonely and bored and unhappy and she was the only one in this house who cared enough to do anything about it!"

Both Hayden and Lottie gaped at the child, astonished by her passionate outburst. Never in a million years would Lottie have dreamed that Allegra would come to her defense. As she studied the girl's fierce little face, she felt an unexpected rush of tenderness.

Hayden, however, did not seem to be suffering any such sentimental pangs. "Your stepmother might not be well acquainted with the rules of this house, young lady, but you are. There's absolutely no excuse for your disobedience." He shook his head, his expression grave. "I'm deeply disappointed in you."

"Well, that's nothing new, is it, Father? You always have been." Somehow, it would have been less damning if Allegra had burst into tears and fled. Instead, she turned and strode stiffly from the music room, her small hands clenched into fists.

Biting off an oath, Hayden swung away from the piano only to find himself face-to-face with the portrait of his first wife. Lottie was almost thankful that she couldn't see his expression in that moment. With an intuition she hadn't even known she possessed, she suddenly knew exactly who had been standing just to the left of the artist when that portrait was painted. Justine's laughing eyes and teasing pout were for Hayden alone.

"After she died," he finally said, his voice as dry as grave dust, "I spent over a fortnight in this room — refusing to eat, refusing to sleep, refusing to see my daughter. The day I finally found the strength to walk out those doors, I swore I'd never set foot in here again as long as I lived." He stiffly turned away from both the portrait and Lottie, as if he could no longer bear to look at either of his wives.