Teresa Medeiros (23 page)

A
melia Winters flinched as the thunderous crash of a door and shouting masculine voices shattered the quiet of her domain. Her fingers tightened into claws on the windowsill. Outside, sleet skittered from the pewter sky, coating the tiny garden within the walled courtyard in a shiny layer of ice. Amelia stared absently at the dormant rosebushes. They needed to be pruned. She’d been forced to let the gardener go with a tidy sum after he’d threatened to summon the constable when the Scarborough girl had stabbed his son.

The door behind her creaked open. Timid feet shuffled on the worn carpet. “His Grace, the Duke of Winthrop, to see you, ma’am.”

“Show him in.”

“Aye, mum.”

Amelia smiled bitterly. Doreen always slipped back into cockney in moments of travail. It was a habit Amelia had bred out of herself after she had clawed her own way out of a rookery crib to found this school.

Heavy footsteps shuddered the floorboards. They might have been the footsteps of her executioner. London had been abuzz with the young duke’s return for over a week, and now she knew her brief reprieve was done.

The door slammed into the wall. Cold air from the foyer buffeted her. Amelia steeled her spine and swung around, somewhat relieved to finally come face-to-face with her most dreaded nightmare.

Her relief was short-lived. A man stood in the doorway, tall, gaunt, but undeniably striking. Drops of melted sleet beaded the cape of his greatcoat. He was scandalously hatless, and his eyes burned like twin flames beneath a sweeping fall of dark hair. His clenched jaw was shaded not with a proper beard, but by the stubble of a savage. She had heard rumors that he’d been living with cannibals for the past seven years. He looked more than eager to devour her frail bones.

His sheer masculine presence dwarfed the shabby parlor. The room seemed suddenly full of people. Doreen hovered at the door, her homely face more pinched and pale than usual. Barney stood behind their callers, eyeing them with ill-disguised hostility. The slender stranger at the duke’s elbow tipped his bowler to her, his face a bland, affable mask that did not fool Amelia for an instant.

The duke moved toward her, his greatcoat swirling around his boots. She realized that despite the silver threads at his temples and the sun-etched lines around his eyes, Justin Connor was younger than she had expected. Much younger. And far more dangerous. She clutched at the high collar of her blouse.

“I have come for my ward,” he announced, giving her a bow so brief as to be an insult. A volatile muscle twitched in his cheek. “Your Miss Dobbins has tried to tell me that she is not in residence at this school.”

A sharp cough failed to unravel the knot in Amelia’s throat. She was terrified his knowing eyes would burn
away the layers of her deceit, exposing the ugly truth for all to see. “I fear she is correct.”

“Then I demand an explanation. My partner David Scarborough left his only child, Claire, in your care seven years ago. I have written record of it.”

“As do I. But as my staff tried to tell you, she is no longer here.”

Justin raked a hand through his hair, thankful for Bentley Chalmers’s unruffled presence at his elbow. This woman’s cryptic explanations were maddening him to distraction. He had wasted a week working up the courage to come to this place. A week in which his old insomnia had returned with a vengeance. A week of driving past the school in his luxurious carriage, wondering which of the lighted windows might be Claire’s. He had risked everything to come here. Even Emily.

A maid carrying a bucket of coal slipped into the parlor. Justin sighed, summoning his last ounce of self-control. “Then would you mind telling me where I might find Claire Scarborough?”

Was it a reflection of the fire, or did he see a flicker of malicious satisfaction in the old woman’s eyes? “I haven’t the faintest idea where the girl is. She ran away months ago.”

Blood roared through Justin’s ears. The room went dark, then red. Then he was moving forward, only dimly aware of hands tugging at him and a woman’s terrified keening.

“Your Grace!” It was Chalmers’s imperturbable voice, shaken to near hysteria, that finally reached him.

The room slowly lightened. Chalmers held his arm while the sullen lad with the big ears clung to his leg. Justin shook the boy off like a mongrel pup. The young teacher had pressed a handkerchief to her mouth to muffle a scream, her complexion as chalky as her mistress’s. The maid was a vague white shape, open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the hearth.

Only Amelia Winters stood unmoving, almost as if she expected his blow, even welcomed it. Stricken to his soul, Justin lowered his arm.

Wringing her hands, the old woman began to babble. “I did everything in my power, but the child was always headstrong and wicked. I could not control her. I tried to guide her by the Christian principles of discipline and self-restraint, but she remained unrepentant and hopelessly ill behaved.”

Justin gripped the spine of a rosewood armchair, sickened by how close he had come to striking this woman. He bowed his head. He was too late. The child was gone. He had come this close only to lose her, perhaps forever. His own cowardice had cost him the girl. What right did he have to berate this pathetic old woman?

Her voice soared on a note of hysteria. “Even with my limited means I gave her the best care and education I could afford. Why, I treated her like my very own child!”

“She’s lying!”

The words burst out like a breath of wind in the stale air of the parlor. Justin jerked his head up. The coal bucket clattered to the hearth in a cloud of ashes. The young maid marched toward him, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Shut yer trap, Tansy, or I’ll shut it for ya,” the boy snarled, starting for her.

With one smooth motion Justin grabbed Chalmers’s cane and slammed it down across a table, neatly blocking the boy’s path. He ducked his head and shot Justin a glare of pure hatred.

Even in his agitation Justin couldn’t help but notice how startlingly pretty the maid was. Silky tendrils of black hair escaped her drooping mobcap. Her drab, stained apron couldn’t hide the bold curves beneath the limp ruffles.

Her brilliant blue eyes brimmed with angry tears. “The old witch is lyin’. She treated the girl like a bloody
slave. Made ’er ’aul coal and work in the kitchens dawn to dusk. Made ’er teach the little ones so she wouldn’t ’ave to pay no one else to do it. Fed ’er scraps just like she does me. Always throwin’ it up in ’er proud little face she’d be on the streets fendin’ fer ’erself if it weren’t fer Miss Amelia Winters’s bloody Christian charity.”

She grabbed his hand, painting streaks of coal dust between his fingers. “The girl weren’t wicked, sir. I swear she weren’t. High-spirited maybe, but not truly wicked.” She nodded toward Barney and Doreen. “Not like them there. Why, before ’er da died, she was a regular angel, and even after that she was the best mate I ever ’ad.”

A fresh pain jolted Justin’s heart. The girl tried to withdraw her hand as if shamed by her own boldness, but he held it fast. She gazed up at him, awestruck. She must have known so little kindness in her short life, he thought, but was kind enough herself to befriend an orphaned child.

“Did she leave any clue as to where she might be going?” he asked. “A letter? A note? Anything?”

The maid ducked her head. “I couldn’t ’ave read it if she ’ad. She just up and disappeared one night when the wind was ’owling ’round the attic.” Her accusing gaze flicked to Doreen. “About the same time those two—”

“Tansy!” Barney barked.

Justin thought he might have seen a flash of genuine fear in the girl’s eyes. “Show me where she slept,” he said gently but firmly. He was determined to find some clue as to why the maid’s confession was making them all fidget.

“Take one step, Tansy, and you’ll be dismissed.” The headmistress’s voice rang out like a steel bell, then softened to a wheedling tone. “Just think of all I’ve done for you.”

The girl wavered for only an instant before lifting her round little chin in proud defiance. “I am, Miss Winters. By gawd, I am.”

With a regal swish of her stained skirt she gestured for Justin to follow. Chalmers took two steps, but Justin
stayed him with his hand. There were some things he would have to do alone.

He followed Tansy up the stairs, making rapid mental notes to stave off his panic. The carpet was faded, its floral pattern worn bare in the center of each tread. Several of the balusters were cracked, and only the newel post at the bottom of the stairs showed signs of being replaced in recent years. As they reached the upper landing, the patter of feet was followed by the slamming of a door. The sound echoed as if there were very few warm little bodies to absorb it.

Tansy took a candle from a hall table and led him to a rough-hewn door. Justin’s dread swelled. As she opened the door, the flame quivered in a blast of cold wind. Narrow steps wound into utter darkness. He hesitated, knowing he did not want to see what awaited him. But the thought of Emily gave him courage. She would have charged headlong up those steps, banishing every shadow with her unrelenting light.

Wiping his clammy palms on his trousers, he started after Tansy. Chill, heavy air bore down on him. Before he was halfway up, his breath was billowing out in frigid clouds.

They reached a shadowy landing. Tansy pointed to a door. “That there is my room.”

He understood her gentle prodding. There was only one other door.

He reached for it, his hand shaking. The battered knob felt like ice. He turned it and pushed, half hoping it would be locked. The door creaked open. Tansy hung back as if reluctant to finish what she’d started.

As Justin saw where Claire Scarborough’s weary steps had led her each night, something inside of him curled up and died. It would have broken David’s heart to know his daughter had come to this.

The room was cramped, barely more than a closet
tucked beneath the attic beams. As he ducked beneath the lintel, cobwebs brushed his hair.

A grimy window let in a thin sliver of winter light. Beyond the pigeons cooing on the sill he could see an endless ocean of chimneys and roofs, all dulled by a miasma of soot. A narrow bed sat in one corner, still rumpled as if someone had just climbed out of it. He ran his hand over the lumpy tick, knowing it madness to wish it might still be warm. He sat down on it, dropping his head into his hands.

Someone was watching him. Tiny prickles danced along his spine. He twisted his head to find stoic blue eyes gazing at him. A doll sat propped against the pillow. He picked her up and brushed his hand over golden curls matted with age, touched the jagged crack in her porcelain skull.

Tansy’s voice startled him. “That there is Annabel. I used to ’ear ’er talkin’ to the doll when she thought I weren’t listenin’. Sometimes she’d cry.” She shrugged apologetically. “The walls are thin.”

The doll hung limp in his hands. Yes, the walls were thin, he thought. Even now he could hear within them the rustle of mice and other skittering creatures.

It shouldn’t surprise him that the child had run away. It should only surprise him that she had stayed so long.

Icy fury poured through his veins, washing away the hopeless despair, sharpening his sense of purpose. His hands tightened on the doll. Damn Amelia Winters for condemning an orphaned child to this attic coffin! And damn himself most of all for letting it happen!

He rose and started down the stairs. Tansy followed, galloping behind him. As he strode into the parlor, still clutching the bedraggled doll, even Barney backed away, leaving the headmistress to face him alone.

The woman’s name suited her, he thought maliciously. She was as gray and colorless as the peeling paint and faded carpet of her school. How could David have left his
precious Claire with this grim creature? Of course, he and Nicky had convinced David he would be gone for only a few months. Not forever.

His baleful stare fell on the old woman’s gnarled hands. They were trembling as if palsied. Her steely façade was cracking just like the paint on the medallioned ceiling. For the first time Justin saw her for what she was. A pitiful old woman whose school was crumbling around her head.

His empathy did not soften the bite of pure contempt in his voice. “My detectives are going to comb this city for Claire Scarborough. If so much as one curl on her little head has been harmed, I’ll see you ruined. I’ll tell all of London about that attic prison you built for David Scarborough’s daughter. I’ll ensure that even the poorest merchant wouldn’t trust his dog to your care.”

He spun on his heel, whipping his greatcoat around him. He paused in front of the wide-eyed Tansy and pulled a fat handful of pound notes from his pocket. Money meant little to him. He had lived too long free of its encumbrance.

He pressed the notes into her hand. “If you remember anything else about the night Claire ran away, or if you require any kind of assistance at all, come to Grymwilde Mansion in Portland Square and ask for me.”

“Gor blimey, sir! Ya really mustn’t!” But she was already shoving the money into the bodice of her shirt.

“Lord Winthrop.”

The voice raked down Justin’s spine like a steely claw.

The headmistress’s gray eyes bored into him. “I may have failed with the child, Your Grace, but your own care left much to be desired.”

His jaw twitched. The clock on the mantel ticked in the utter silence. Then he dipped at the waist in a gallant bow. “I concede your point, madam. If I have the good fortune to find her, I intend to spend the rest of my life atoning for my neglect.”

“Aye, that ya will. She’ll see to it, I’ll wager,” Tansy muttered under her breath.

Chalmers cast her a curious look, but Justin hadn’t heard her. The agent tipped his derby and gave his cane a jaunty toss. “A good afternoon to all of you,” he wished them before following the duke’s determined form into the winter afternoon.

Justin didn’t think he would ever be warm again. The dawn sun shining through the carriage window shed pale light but little else. His clasped hands were numb beneath their white gloves. The cold sank deep into his joints, chilling him to utter exhaustion. He tried to let his mind drift away, but each passing day made it harder to hear the chanted song of the sea, the taunting whisper of a balmy breeze against his skin. His memories of Emily were his only warmth.