From this angle, lamplight lit some of the shorn hairs on his head with silver. Looking closer, Clara spied the same threads of white sprinkled throughout his sideburns. Her heart softened, imagining the rugged life he’d led roaming the dangerous streets of London. No wonder he wanted to trade professions.
The door opened, interrupting her thoughts and pulling Mr. Pocket to his feet.
“Dinner is served.” The butler, resplendent in a black dress coat, matching trousers, and starched white collar, held out his gloved hand in invitation. “If you would all follow me, please.”
Mr. Minnow shot to Clara’s side, nearly toppling Mr. Pocket as he darted past him. His gingery scent assaulted her nose.
“Allow me to escort you, my pet.” He grabbed her hand and placed it on his arm without waiting for an answer.
She gritted her teeth. It was going to be a very long Twelve Days.
They filed out and had just entered the foyer, when the front door burst open and a grey whirlwind blew in, lugging an overstuffed carpetbag and muttering all the way.
“Les idiots! Le monde est rempli des idiots!”
The woman stormed up to the butler and shouted in his face. “Why no one help me carry my bag, eh? Help me from the carriage? Open the door? I will speak to the master of la maison. Now!”
Clara blinked. Miss Scurry clutched her box to her chest. Mr. Pocket took a step closer, scrutinizing the interaction.
Yet the butler merely lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. “Mademoiselle Pretents, I presume?”
“Oui!” The short lady stamped her foot.
A footman appeared and, without a word, managed to remove the woman’s woolen cape and sweep the bonnet from her head, then collected her bag. The quick movements were so unexpected, even Mademoiselle Pretents stood gaping. Her dark little eyes, which were far too close together, narrowed, following his retreat with her possessions. For half an instant, Clara wondered if she would chase after him like a hound to the kill.
“Let us continue then, shall we?” The butler passed beneath the lion head, the doors now open to reveal a great lobby and a grand stairway.
Mademoiselle Pretents flew across the room, yanking Clara’s hand from Mr. Minnow’s arm and placing her fingers on his sleeve. “Oui, let us continue.”
Clara hid a smile. The woman could have no idea the service she’d just rendered.
The group filed after the butler, Mr. Minnow and Mademoiselle Pretents in the lead, followed by Miss Scurry, then Clara, and finally Mr. Pocket. They passed from elegance to splendor, with gilded-framed portraits decorating the corridor walls and thick Persian runners beneath their feet. The sitting room was a bleak den in comparison. Suddenly it made sense that the master who’d invited them would greet his guests in the dining room, for surely such a great man would want to be seen housed in the finest glory.
“Très magnifique,” Mademoiselle Pretents breathed out as she passed through cherrywood doors into the dining room.
“Indeed,” Mr. Minnow murmured beside her.
Miss Scurry entered next, then paused and looked over her shoulder at Clara. “Oh, my beauty, it is glorious in here. Come and see.”
Crossing the threshold, Clara sucked in a breath. She’d attended some of the finest dinners in London. Danced in many a grand ballroom. Visited and taken tea in posh surroundings. All were slums in comparison.
She entered on cat’s feet, padding carefully, unwilling to break the spell of enchantment created by hundreds of crystals raining from chandeliers, lit by candles that must have taken the staff at least a half hour to ignite. Wine-coloured wallpaper, embellished with golden threads, soaked in the light, then reflected it back ever brighter. Silver utensils and fine china adorned the table. Truly, only Buckingham Palace could compare.
At the head of the table, a man stood with his back to them. Tall. Broad of shoulder. Hair the colour of burnt cream, slicked back yet curiously ragged at the ends. Power clung to his frame as finely as his well-tailored dress coat. He belonged here, surrounded by wealth, intimidating any and all who trod weak-kneed into his domain. No one spoke a word. Not even Mademoiselle Pretents.
Clara trembled. Why would such a powerful man invite her here, especially now that she’d sunk so low in society? She was no one.
Slowly, the man turned, gaze passing from person to person. And when those hazel eyes landed on her, she gasped.
A nightmare stared back at her, a ghost from the past who never—ever—should have risen from the grave. The audacity! The gall!
For a moment she froze, gaping, then she shouldered past the other guests and slapped him open-palmed across the face.
CHAPTER SIX
Ben’s head jerked aside, the slap echoing in his skull, the crack of flesh upon flesh reverberating in the room. Unbelievable. This whole day had been one big snarl of impossibility. Even more stunning, Clara raised her hand for another strike. The nerve of the little vixen! He grabbed her wrist, unsure who shook more, her or him.
“How dare you invite me here?” Crimson patches of murder stained her cheeks. “And how foolish of me to have walked into your trap. Was my humiliation not enough?”
“Your humiliation?” He ground his teeth until his jaw cracked. This was not to be borne. He’d rotted in a gaol cell, been beaten, left cold, hopeless, while this pampered princess suffered what? Dinner parties and suitors in his absence?
She yanked from his grasp, rubbing away his touch. “You are a beast.”
A short woman draped in grey and as blustery as a November breeze nudged Clara aside. “I am your servant, Monsieur, Mademoiselle Pretents. Shall I dismiss this rabble for you, hmm?” She fluttered her fingertips at Clara.
He frowned. “Surely you’re not under the impression that I …” He looked past her to the three others inhabiting the dining room. Expectation gleamed in an elderly lady’s eyes. Next to her, a thin man’s gaze burned with eagerness, and even the muttonchopped inspector, Mr. Pocket, leaned back on his heels in anticipation.
Clara turned and strode to the far side of the table, her body so rigid a carpenter could lay beams across her shoulders.
“Monsieur.” The grey lady stepped closer, head bowed. If she were a dog, no doubt her tail would be tucked. “I am so greatly honored to be in your presence.”
He stifled a snort—barely. He’d laugh her off, if the situation weren’t so brutally ironic. All his life he’d worked hard to achieve status such as this, and now that he was a condemned felon, apparently he had it. A perfectly beautiful paradox, really.
Yet a complete lie. He shook his head. “I am not the master of Bleakly Manor, if that’s what you think.”
The grey lady’s mouth puckered and she spit out a “Pah!” Grabbing handfuls of her skirts, she whirled away.
The inspector edged toward him. “Then who are you, sir?”
“Not that it signifies”—he glanced down the table to where Clara stood, back toward him—“but I am Benjamin Lane.”
She did not turn at the name that should’ve been hers by now, but he did detect a flinch.
“Lane? Lane, you say? Hmm.” Mr. Pocket stopped in front of him. This close, his magnificent nose took on a whole new proportion, eclipsing the inspector’s face. The fellow was nothing but one great beak with side-whiskers. “What were you promised if you stay the duration, Mr. Lane?”
Ben studied him. If the lawman had been sent here to keep an eye on him, then the fellow already knew the answer. But that didn’t mean he had to make things easy for the inspector.
“Are you a card player, sir?” Ben asked.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Been known to indulge now and then. Why?”
“Then you will appreciate it when I hold my cards close to my chest.”
Mr. Pocket’s lips parted to reply, but the butler announced from across the room, “Dinner is served. Please, be seated.”
Savory scents entered the room, along with servants bearing all manner of platters and tu
reens. They lined up their offerings on sideboards against the wall.
Ben waited to see where the odd assortment of guests might land, hoping to distance himself from all and especially from Clara. The betrayer. Unbidden, his gaze slipped to where she sat, near the end of the table. Her beauty goaded. Her raven hair done up in a chignon, loose curls falling to her shoulder, taunted him with memories of when she’d let him nuzzle its silkiness with his cheek—the same cheek that yet stung from her slap.
The thin man sat next to her, far closer than decorum allowed. A footman marched over and bent, whispering into the man’s ear. The bony fellow shot up from his chair, upsetting it onto two legs for a moment, then darted to the other side of the table and sank like a kicked puppy onto a different seat.
Only two open seats remained, both next to Clara, one of which was at the head of the table. That gave him only one option, really.
He strode to the seat next to her, the one the bony little man had tried to take, then grimaced to see BENJAMIN LANE written in gold on the place card. Whoever arranged this meeting was clearly toying with him—with all of them. But to what end?
He grabbed the chair and scooted it as far from her as possible. She inched hers away, as well. Had ever a Christmas Eve been so awkward?
A servant placed bowls of steaming green soup in front of each of them, leastwise what he assumed had been served to all. Hard to tell what went on opposite him now that they were seated. A huge centerpiece, filled with green fronds and peacock feathers, ran the length of the table and blocked his view. But he could hear them. Mademoiselle Pretents’s voice berated the server for a perceived slight. The elderly lady cooed about something or maybe to someone. The thin man and the inspector didn’t say a word.
Neither did Clara. Nor did she eat. She sat as a Grecian statue, cold, marble, staring into her bowl. Did she even breathe? Not that he cared.
Liar.
He grabbed his spoon and started shoveling in soup. He did care, and that’s what irked him most. He cared that she’d so easily thrown away everything they’d shared, every laugh, every whisper. Every kiss.
He slammed down the spoon and shoved the bowl away, speaking for her ears alone. “Whatever you may think, I didn’t do it.”
“I cannot believe you deny what you did.” Only her lips moved, for she refused to look at him. Her voice sharpened to a razor edge, one he’d never heard her use before. “You are a thief of the highest order.”
Rage coloured the room red. He’d flattened men for lesser insults. His tone lowered to a growl. “Nor can I believe you so easily accepted such a lie. Tell me, did you lose faith in me immediately after you first heard the accusation, or did you give it a full five minutes?”
She jerked her face to his, blue eyes blazing to violet, the dark kind of purple before a storm. “You are insufferable!”
“I?” Her boldness stole his breath. “Did you even try to find out the truth?”
“What truth? That you put Blythe Shipping out of business? That you ran off with my family’s investment? That you’ve been living like a king God-knows-where while I have been reduced to nothing?” Her chest heaved, and her nostrils flared. A wild mare couldn’t have been any more inflamed. “Or are you speaking of the truth wherein you left me standing alone and unwanted at the altar?”
He clenched his hands to keep from throttling her. What nonsense was this? “It’s a little hard to attend a wedding—even my own—when locked in a cell at Millbank.”
The angry stain on her cheeks bled to white. “Millbank?” she whispered.
Was this a ploy? Some kind of feminine manipulation? He narrowed his eyes. If so, her mistake. He knew her too well, and if her right eye twitched, even the smallest possible tic, her lie would be exposed. “You didn’t know?”
“All I know is that you walked out of my life in the worst possible way.” A fine sheen of tears shimmered in her gaze, begging for release.
But nothing else. No twitch. No tic. For the first time in nine months, his heart started beating. Perhaps—just maybe—she truly hadn’t known he’d been imprisoned. The thought lodged in his mind like a stone, all he’d believed of her swirling around it like water in a river.
By all that was holy, was he falling under her spell yet again? He hardened his resolve and his tone. “On the way to church the morning of our wedding, I was accosted and charged with the embezzlement of Blythe Shipping and your family fortune. I have been at Millbank ever since. Had you the slightest bit of faith in me, you’d have done a little digging and unearthed that nugget of truth.”
“This is hardly the garb of an inmate.” She swept out her hand. “That suit alone must’ve cost fifty pounds. Why should I believe you?”
So many emotions waged war; he tugged at his collar, unable to breathe. Whoever had indicted him had not only stolen his freedom, but the good opinion of the only woman he’d ever cared about. Blowing out a sigh, he edged his chair nearer to her. “Look closer, Clara. Look beyond what you think you know to what really is.”
Her gaze traveled over his face, pausing on leftover bruises, widening at recent scars, and finally landing on the bump on his nose caused by one too many breaks. For a moment, the tears in her eyes threatened to spill, and then a hard glaze turned them to glass. “For all I know, you’ve been brawling over some gambling debt. Tell me, have you lost everything you’ve taken so soon?”
“I did not do it!” He growled like the beast she’d claimed him to be.
At the opposite end of the table, the inspector stood. “Everything all right down there, Miss Chapman?”
“Don’t concern yourself on my behalf, Mr. Pocket.” She glared at Ben and lowered her voice. “No one else has.”
He gaped. He’d taken a punch in the lungs before, but never something as breath stealing as this. He shoved back his chair and stood, done with dinner before the main course and definitely done with Clara Chapman.
“Oh flap! Oy me rumpus! Who’s the wiggity scupper what called me here? Watch yer driving, Jilly.” A wheeled chair barreled through the dining room doors, pushed by a slip of a girl. She shoved the chair to the head of the table, jiggling a large toad of a man seated atop, until both came to a stop. Everyone’s wineglasses quivered from the impact.
The fellow grumbled as if he were the one being inconvenienced. “Now that I’m here, whyn’t we just pay me debt straight off and drink away the rest o’ the days? Which one of you guppers holds the money bags, eh?”
Murmurs circled the table.
The butler once again entered from a far door. “Ahh, Mr. Tallgrass. A bit tardy, but we are pleased you have joined us.”
“Oh flap! Oy me rumpus! Jilly, lend a hand.”
The girl, face drawn into a perpetual sulk, left her post at the back of his chair and grabbed ahold of the front of his shirt, yanking him upward. Then just like that, she let go, so that he flopped backward, now straightened, with a huge sigh.
His head swiveled to Clara. “Well, here’s a fine tablemate. I likes the look o’ you, I do.”
Ignoring them all, Ben stalked away from the macabre gathering and took the stairs two at a time. Australia would’ve been better than this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Clara startled awake, heart pounding. Bed sheets tangled around her legs, and she clutched the counterpane to her neck. Grey light slipped in through the drawn draperies where they didn’t quite meet. Not fully morning, but it would do. She’d tossed and turned enough to call it a night, waking from every dream, each one a variation of Ben’s face. Of the hurt in his eyes. The wildness. The pain creasing his brow. If she listened hard enough, she might yet hear the haunting echo of the anguish in his voice.
“I did not do it!”
She knotted the sheet in her hands. What if he spoke true? His pale skin had lacked his usual healthy luster. A fresh scrape had marred the temple near his left eye, a new crescent scar cut across his jaw, and his once straight nose was now aquiline. Not to mention the stark
bones defining his cheeks, testifying to a lack of nutrition. All lent credence to his claim of being locked in Millbank. It wasn’t a huge leap of faith to change her belief that indeed he’d not run off to Europe with embezzled funds—but that merely meant he’d been caught beforehand. Didn’t it?
So why would her brother, George, allow her to believe otherwise?
She shoved the counterpane aside and sat up. Why indeed. She lifted her face to the ceiling, breathing out the prayer that was now as much a part of her as flesh and bone.
Why, God? Why?
Snatching her wrap from the end of the mattress, she shivered into it. The fire in the hearth had long since died out. Good thing she’d kept her stockings on. Hopefully Aunt would not venture from her bed on this chill of a Christmas morn.
Clara dressed in the semilight, unwilling to lose any warmth to the windows until fully clothed, then she pulled the draperies wide and gasped. La! Such a view. A walled garden coated with a light dusting of snow lay just beneath her wing of the building. Beyond that, rolling hills and, farther on, a wood with towering trees. How lovely this would be when spring blew green upon it.
But for now, wind rattled the panes. Cold air snaked in through a gap in the caulk, and she retreated a step, feeling the chill beneath the grandeur. Both the manor and the grounds were beautiful, yet she could not shake the morbid feeling the place was somewhat of a sham.
Turning away from the scene, she settled in front of a small dressing table and set about pinning up her hair. Winter or not, Ben or not, she would celebrate this Christmas morn, leastwise in spirit, in memory of the Babe sent to atone for all.
She shoved in the last pin just as a small envelope was thrust beneath her chamber door. What on earth? Rising from the chair, she crossed the rug to retrieve it. The thick envelope weighed heavy in her palm, definitely denser than the invitation of yesterday. Would each day bring a new set of instructions, then?
12 Days at Bleakly Manor Page 3
