Trust no one. Elias had been sent to watch her. He’d been warning her to not even trust him. That meant that there was a second plan in play, one that involved more than just reporting on the actions that went on within the manor itself. This implied a plot.
Alicia found herself outside the Duke’s door. But the study was open and no one was within.
They would make an example of him.
The milk she had just drank soured in her stomach. For a moment she wondered if she truly would be sick. Given the need for the guest list, it would not only be the Duke that would be made an example of. They were all in danger, every last one of them. The guests in this house who had only treated her with kindness. The strangers who would start arriving later today.
What was worse, is it was all her fault. She had given them the very list they would use to pick their targets.
She turned in a slow circle, as though somehow the Duke would be hiding somewhere in his study, and she had only to look in order to find him. Her heart fluttered within her chest.
She had spoken foolishly the day before. Despite herself, she already was coming to care for him. Now it was up to her to save him.
Chapter 22
There was no point in staying further. It was obvious that Jacob was not there. The problem was, she had no idea where to find him, and if her suspicions were correct, then he was in grave danger.
I will leave him a note, she thought, moving finally to the desk, and searching for a fresh piece of notepaper. This proved more difficult than she had thought when she could not find the words to express her concern sufficiently. To say something along the lines of “you will die” seemed overly melodramatic, especially when all she truly had was a rather cryptic warning.
Besides, she wasn’t altogether sure she had understood the meaning of Elias’ words. No, this was a matter that needed discussion. A note would not do.
Reluctantly she replaced the paper, only too aware that her only solution lay in finding out where the Duke had gone, an action that would involve a certain amount of risk to her position within the household. Already she was taking too much time away from her duties, and to go hunting one errant Duke could take most of the morning.
Alicia bit her thumbnail as she thought, moving without thinking to the window to look out, wondering if he were perhaps already out wandering the estate somewhere. If that were the case, then she would just have to trust that if there were a danger, that he was accompanied by enough men to afford him a measure of protection. With any luck, he was perhaps riding with his officers, men quite capable of taking care of their Captain.
There was no way of knowing for sure. The view from the window showed fields and workers, a single rider upon the horizon, no doubt upon some errand to town. The lands were too vast to survey through a single pane of glass.
Sighing, she turned to go and froze.
The drapery next to the window was gathered with a long tie that bound it to a decorative holder in the wall, allowing light to come into the room. This particular bunching of drapery seemed rather…corpulent.
Made more intimidating by the scuffed boots clearly visible beneath the lower edge of the drapery.
Alicia bit back a scream. Without giving herself time to think she picked up the heaviest thing at hand, a large spyglass lying upon the tabletop and hefted it, with the intent of bashing senseless whomever lurked within the study of her employer.
She swung the spyglass back and nearly killed herself when she drew herself up short suddenly, as the scoring on the boot nearest her gave her a rather horrifying realization of just who was lurking within the draperies.
“Father!”
The spyglass clattered to the floor, thankfully cushioned by the thick carpeting as she flung herself forward and tore the drapery back to reveal the face of Robert Price.
“Daughter, fancy seeing you here!” Her father stepped into the room, brushing dust from his sleeve with the ease of a man who might have come to call, not one who had been found where he most decidedly did not belong.
“Dinna be ‘daughter-ing’ me!” Alicia ground out through gritted teeth as she darted for the door and shut it after a quick glance into the hallway beyond to make sure that no one had seen. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“Well, seeing as how my only daughter has betrayed me so completely, is it any wonder that I am forced to take more radical measures?” He dug around in his pocket and came up with a folded piece of paper which he waved under her nose. “You’ve given me a poor list, gal. Why, half the names on it are nonsense and the other half names of those long dead and gone from this world.”
“I am positive that the list was accurate. Why I…Let me see that!” She tried to rip the paper from his hand, but he brushed aside her attempt, replacing the document in the pocket from whence it had come.
“No bother, no bother. I found what I needed well enough. Though I’m sore disappointed in you. What your brother would think, to have played me so false.”
“Found what you needed…” Her eyes went to the desk, seeing nothing amiss. It was the shelf behind she should have noticed upon coming into the room. The books there were tumbled every which way on the bottom shelf, one lying open with several pages obviously torn from the ledger.
Alicia shot a look at the door, terrified lest someone come in that this moment. “Father, you need to give those pages back to me. You have no idea—”
He stepped toward her, grabbing her roughly by the arm, and pulling her up until her feet were near off the ground. He bent his head until they were nose to nose, his foul breath causing her to flinch away. “I have more idea what’s at stake here than you seem to, my girl. It’s time you learned to do what you were told.”
His grip on her arm was excruciating. “Father…it hurts…” she said through tears, struggling to get free.
He shook her once, hard enough so that it felt like her teeth were rattling in her head. “I will do more than this should you cross me again. To think your brother was willing to die for the cause and you sniveling coward of a girl would rather deceive me to help the very ones who put the shot through his head.”
“He was nae shot…He died of dysentery…you know that.”
One hand lashed out, striking her hard enough across the cheek to have her seeing stars. “They might well have shot him,” her father muttered, and cast her to the ground. He might well have spit upon her, his contempt was so great.
Alicia lay crying where she lay, furious at him, at herself for not fighting back, though she knew from experience that to get up would only mean being struck down again. “I gave you the list from the Lady’s own desk,” she said, though there was a hint of doubt in her voice and her father heard it.
“You never got it from the Englishwoman,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “It was given you, by a man no doubt. One of these high and mighty English officers, perhaps? Elias had a thought you were working with someone here. Treasonous slattern! Hedge creeper!”
“No! I…” Alicia scrambled to her knees, grabbing at her father’s hand. “I swear to you…”
He backhanded her, hard, sending her into a chair. For the second time she was left stunned, ears ringing, only this time he was not waiting to see whether she got up again or no. He turned to go, fumbling with the latch at the window.
“I shall not be seeing you again,” her father muttered, one foot on the windowsill, the other already outside. “As far as I am concerned, I have no daughter.”
With that he disappeared, bold as you please, into the garden beyond, as though he had every right to do so. She sat up, one hand pressed to her face where he’d struck her, the dull ache in her jaw nothing compared to the pain in her heart.
Chapter 23
What had she done? For the sake of…what exactly…had she betrayed her own flesh and blood. For love? She scoffed at the thought. Her feelings toward the Duke were nothing more than an infatuation brought about by the fact that he’d shown her kindness. They’d fo
rged an alliance.
Only he’d betrayed her. That list!
Alicia brushed angrily at the tears that coursed down her cheeks. Half in a daze, she got up to straighten the books, pausing over the defaced volume, rifling through the defaced pages, trying to figure out what it was that her father had taken. This was no list of partygoers. In fact, it seemed a ledger of names, with amounts next to them.
She studied the words through a sheen of tears, but could make no sense of it. An employee roster or detail regarding payment for goods sold? To her mind, the book seemed completely unimportant, with the dates next to the amounts covering several months during a time period a dozen years past.
She closed the book thoughtfully and replaced it on the shelf. It slid into its spot just as the door behind her opened.
Thankful that the Duke had returned after all, Alicia’s head shot up and discovered just how ungraceful she was when she tried to rise. She’d wrenched her back when she’d fallen and so her concentration was on the desk, which she had to use to leverage herself to her feet, and not on the one who’d come in.
“I am most thankful you came after all. I was afraid you would not be able to get away…” she said, her smile faltering as she realized it was not the Duke after all who stood framed in the doorway, but Mistress Marigold, who looked most unhappy to find her there.
“That who would get away? What are you about? You have not been assigned this room to clean today. Why are you crawling about on the floor?”
“I was…I had thought…I noticed…”
There truly was nothing Alicia could say that would be the right answer in this moment. If she’d confessed to waiting for the Duke, then she would at worst be called a liar, or even accused of attempting to curry the favor of His Grace. If she mentioned seeing the books askew and trying to straighten them, it might raise the question of how she had seen that from the door. Or worse, would draw attention to the damaged book.
No matter what she said, it seemed there would be trouble. Feeling somewhat faint, Alicia pressed her lips together, and only bowed her head.
“I have given you every chance…” Mistress Marigold said, her tone high-pitched, near hysteria. “I agreed to give you a chance, as a favor to…never mind who it was to. Others would not have been so agreeable. Your delicate constitution alone should have prevented you going into service. But this is three times now I have caught you away from your duties. Worse, to be in this of all chambers…on the floor?”
Alicia wavered on her feet, willing herself not to cry, not to faint.
Mistress Marigold drew herself up, her face quite pale but for two bright spots of color upon her cheeks. “And then you have the audacity to…to arrange for an assignation here! Of all places! Will you or will you not name the gentleman you were expecting?”
“There was no…” But that was not true, either. If the Mistress questioned the staff, would someone remember seeing a man escaping through the window, one who wore rough clothing? How long before there was a hue and cry over the stranger who had broken into the house and stolen from the Duke’s own private ledgers? Men were hung for less.
Alicia bit her lip and lifted her head, meeting the older woman’s gaze without flinching. So be it. She would not speak. There would be consequences, of that she was sure. If so, then she must pay them. She had known this could happen when she took the position, though capture by the enemy had seemed more…heroic…than this.
Mistress Marigold gasped, and darted forward, grasping Alicia’s chin and turning her head toward the window. “Child! What has he done to you?”
Alicia had forgotten the bruises already, the sting in her cheek one she was long accustomed to. She wondered how bad it was. Without a glass to check her reflection she truly had no idea. Her father had not been stingy with the blow, and she wondered if he had succeeded in blackening the eye, as he had on another occasion. “I…”
“Waiting for him to return, the devil. I demand that you tell me who has done this to you! Nor will you lie to me, lass. Was it the stableman, that one you make eyes at over breakfast? Or another such? Someone jealous of your trysts? You foolish thing. Never mind, you are clearly to be punished for your indiscretion. I will need to talk to His Grace myself, to be sure nothing was stolen.”
“Stolen! I have not—”
Mistress Marigold drew herself up. “Silence! I will not have you talking back. Go to your room this instant. I will say you were…indisposed. You bolted from the table quick enough this morning. I would suggest you think carefully what your hide is worth, for if we catch you in a lie, you will be treated accordingly. Oh, that made you pale enough. You are none too delicate to be whipped, my bonny girl. Now off with you. And no tricks!”
With that, she gave Alicia a hard shove toward the door. The girl stumbled, nearly colliding with one of the men, a houseguest of the Duke who was passing by in the hallway. Head down she gave a murmured apology and fled for the stairs that led to the servant’s quarters.
Alicia’s feet made soft thudding sounds on the floor as she ran, no longer caring whether she was seen by her betters. She passed the quiet rooms with the big glass-paned windows, aware that further punishment might be inflicted if she disturbed the guests of this house. She ran with the numbness of one who had already seen the most awful of all possible outcomes, and knew of a certainty that it could get no worse than this.
Fortunately, she made it down the length of the hall without anyone stopping her. She slipped through the door that separated the main house from the rooms where the work of the estate was done. Here she fled past sewing rooms and storage, the areas assigned to the weavers whose sole purpose was to create the broad lengths of linen the estate was known for. A voice called to her to stop but she kept going.
Alicia had been ordered to return to her room. What courage, that had propelled her down the long hallway in the main house, left her now. All that remained was for her to make it to her own room, where she might close the door and cry.
No. Not cry. She had done quite enough of that for one day.
Breathless now, she found her steps lagging as she climbed the long staircase that wound in circles up to the third floor where her room lay tucked under the eaves. The house up here felt too still and quiet, with nothing stirring. There wasn’t a soul in this part of the house, save her.
Heart pounding in her chest so hard that she thought it might burst, Alicia staggered into her room and threw herself down on the bed to catch her breath and think.
“I have done nothing wrong!” Alicia raised her hand to touch her cheek where her father had struck her. It was still warm, impressively so. He had indeed marked her. It was no wonder Mistress Marigold had been so startled to see her, and so adamant that Alicia needed to stay in her room where no one would see her indiscretion.
Though it seemed quite unfair that she would be blamed for the marks upon her face. Another injury I have done nothing to deserve. Once again, she knew this was not her fault. Her father was the guilty party, not her. Not that it mattered. She could have screamed that at him until she was scarlet-cheeked, and it would not have made a jot of difference. He thought himself infallible in his judgements and his punishments. And that made him all the more dangerous when he flew into a fit.
She shifted until she was lying with her head on a pillow, though whether it was her own or Meghan’s she had no idea. She enjoyed the luxury of lying in the center of the mattress, able to sprawl out without having to share the space. At home she only had a narrow cot. This thin mattress, old, with feathers escaping every time one turned over, was far too comfortable to her weary bones.
She found her eyes drifting closed, though she clung onto consciousness a short while longer.
“Mistress Marigold will have to deal with the problem…that being me…later. After the meal is over,” Alicia informed the room, needing to justify her slumber. It truly was slatternly behavior to take both pillows and to pull the blanket up over her head to blo
ck the light from the window that spilled across the wall behind her head.
So intent was she on getting comfortable that she quite missed the sound of the door opening. In fact, the first awareness she had that she wasn’t alone was in the thud of a boot upon the floor, the creak of protest the bed made when something heavy came to rest upon the foot of it.
“Meghan...?” Her cry was muffled, disappointed. She had hoped to at least gain some good from the day, and she was so terribly tired.
“Ah, my pretty, thinking to get away?”
The voice was not Meghan’s, the hand upon her shoulder rather large and heavy. Masculine. She felt him leaning over her, fingers pulling at the blanket, the soft chuckle. “Games? You wicked girl…”
Frantic now, feeling the body pressing along one side of her, Alicia did the only thing she could. She kicked out at her feet at the descending weight and rolled out the other side of the bed, landing with a thump on the floor, still tangled in the blanket, with both pillows next to her. Startled from the sudden fall, terrified, she stared up at the face peering down at her from the bed, the one hand reaching down to grab at her.
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