Then she was falling, falling, falling into a vast abyss of nothingness, her own anguished scream echoing in her ears.
Lottie jerked upright at the writing table, her fevered flesh drenched in icy sweat.
Still trembling, she shoved aside the crumpled pages of her manuscript and buried her face in her hands. The dream must have been her punishment for writing so late into the night and dozing off in the middle of a chapter. After helping Harriet move her meager belongings from the servants’ quarters to the bedchamber across the hall, Lottie had retreated to her writing table to pour all of her doubts and suspicions into another scene of her novel. A scene where her heroine first begins to suspect that the man to whom she has entrusted her heart is a heartless killer.
But the dream had been more vivid than anything Lottie had ever written. Although she’d never caught a clear glimpse of the lover’s face, she could still taste his kiss on her lips, still feel the unfamiliar ache between her thighs.
She pressed her fingertips to her temples, struggling to make sense of it all. Had the woman on the edge of the cliff been her or had she been poor doomed Justine, betrayed by a faithless kiss? Had the dream been a vision from the past or a premonition of the future? Or had it simply been a product of her own distraught imagination, fueled by that disastrous encounter between Hayden and Allegra in the schoolroom.
Lottie started as her bedchamber door flew open. Harriet came rushing in, her nightcap sliding down over one bleary eye. “Can’t you hear those terrible screams? What on earth could make such an ungodly noise?” She bounded into the middle of Lottie’s bed, barely missing Mr. Wiggles, and tucked her bare feet beneath her nightdress. “Could it be the ghost the servants are always whispering about? Is the manor truly haunted?”
For the first time, Lottie realized she hadn’t dreamed the bloodcurdling scream that had awakened her. As she cocked her head to listen, the distant screaming evolved into shrill screeches punctuated by the sound of breaking glass.
Lottie shook her head. “That, my dear Harriet, is no ghost.”
Harriet blinked like a frightened owl. “Then what is it? Are we being set upon by smugglers? This is Cornwall, you know. Are we going to be ravished in our beds?”
Still suffering the feverish aftereffects of the dream, Lottie muttered, “We should be so lucky.”
But she knew perfectly well that no ghost or smuggler could set up such a dreadful racket. As those outraged shrieks continued, she felt her own temper mounting. She’d spent the last three weeks keeping it in check—striving to be a genteel wife, a patient stepmother, a long-suffering governess. And what had it gotten her? She’d been defied at every turn by a ten-year-old tyrant, mocked and insulted by her own servants, and left aching for the touch of a man who refused to so much as deny that he may have shoved his last wife over a cliff in a fit of jealous pique. As far as she was concerned, virtue had yet to reveal any rewards at all.
She rose, shoving the pages of her manuscript back into her writing case and snapping it shut.
“Where are you going?” Harriet demanded as Lottie snatched her dressing gown off a chair and stormed toward the door.
Lottie spun around, her eyes glittering with a look her friend recognized only too well. “I’m going to show a certain young miss why they call me the Hertfordshire Hellion.”
As Lottie hurried down the stairs to the second floor, tightening the sash of her dressing gown as she walked, the long-case clock on the landing chimed midnight. Usually at this time of night, there wasn’t a servant to be found anywhere outside of their quarters, but tonight maids and footmen scurried like frightened mice through the corridors of the manor. Several of them slanted her curious glances as she passed, plainly startled to find their mistress marching through the house in her nightclothes with her hair unbound and streaming down her back.
Lottie rounded a corner only to nearly collide with the burly footman who had taken such delight in that cruel caricature.
As he stumbled backward, his broad cheeks flaming, Lottie tossed her curls. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to rendezvous with the king for a romantic interlude.” She touched a finger to her lips, lowering her voice to a whisper. “But please, whatever you do, don’t tell the master.”
Leaving him leaning against the wall with his mouth hanging open, she continued on her way. On this night she had no need of a candle or a ghostly melody to guide her. The corridors blazed with light, as if every lamp in the house had been lit to ward off a terror even more chilling than a spirit from beyond the grave. Several servants had gathered in the corridor outside of Allegra’s bedchamber, their faces white with strain. The floor beneath their feet was littered with broken porcelain, and Jem, the stable boy, was leaning against the wall, clutching a bloody rag to his head. Allegra’s door was closed, but inside the room, the storm raged unabated.
Before Lottie could even reach the door, little Meggie threw herself in front of it, bobbing an awkward curtsy at the same time. She had to shout to be heard over the screaming. “Oh, m’lady, we don’t dare open it again!” The maid flinched as something heavy struck the door from the other side. “She’s already blackened Girt’s eye and given poor Jem here the very devil of a headache.”
The stable boy nodded in agreement, the motion making him wince.
“I know you’re only trying to protect me, but I can look after myself. Please stand aside,” Lottie commanded.
Meggie cast the bleeding stable boy a frantic look. “Go fetch the master, Jem. And hurry!”
Groaning, Jem shoved himself away from the wall and went loping down the corridor.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Meggie. Truly I do,” Lottie assured the maid. “But as your mistress, I insist that you step aside and allow me into that room.”
She was still arguing with the girl when Hayden came striding down the corridor. With his hair uncombed and his eyes ablaze with determination, he looked so much like the lover from her dream that Lottie felt her skin flush and her heart start to beat faster. Not even the two kittens trotting at his heels could make him look any less forbidding.
“What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”
Although he loomed over her, Lottie stood her ground. “Your daughter is disturbing everyone’s sleep, including mine. I’d simply like to have a little chat with her.”
Casting a grim glance toward the servants, Hayden caught her by the wrist and dragged her into the deserted bedchamber across the hall. The room was lit only by moonlight, just as that windswept cliff in Lottie’s dream had been.
Pausing just long enough to sweep the kittens out of harm’s way, Hayden slammed the door behind them, muffling the din to a bearable level. “You can chat until you’re blue in the face, but I can assure you that you’ll be wasting your breath. There’s no reasoning with Allegra when she gets like this. I’ve already sent Martha to the village for the doctor.”
“And just what do you expect him to do?”
“Keep her from harming herself. Or anyone else.” He ran a thumb along the thin scar beneath his left ear, probably not even aware he was doing it. “If he can get some laudanum down her throat, she might even sleep until morning.”
Lottie wondered exactly how he’d gotten that scar and just how many sleepless nights he had endured waiting for the doctor to come pour laudanum down the throat of someone he loved.
Steeling herself against a rush of empathy, she said, “It sounds to me as if Allegra needs a dose of laudanum less than she needs a sound thrashing.”
As he backed her up against the door, Hayden looked utterly capable of doing violence. “I’ll have you know that I’ve never once laid a hand on my child!”
As Lottie gazed up at him, big and angry and dangerous in the moonlight, she was startled to realize that she desperately wanted him to lay a hand on her. She wanted him to lay his hand against her breast, to tenderly cradle its softness in the cup of his palm as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers and
…
An outraged shriek pierced the thick wood of the door, shattering the shocking fantasy.
“Yes, that much is evident, isn’t it?” Lottie retorted, struggling to gather her wits. “Perhaps if you had, we’d all be in bed asleep right now. So would you care to tell me what set her off this time? I trust it didn’t go well when you summoned her.”
“Not particularly.” Stepping away from her, Hayden rubbed the back of his neck, his reluctance to confide in her nearly palpable. “I told her that if she didn’t offer you an apology in front of the servants, I was going to send her away to school. And I told her I meant it this time.”
A tendril of warmth unfurled low in Lottie’s belly. The last thing she had expected him to do was champion her. But then another thought occurred to her. If he sent Allegra away to school, he would have no further need of her. Although she couldn’t have said why, that realization flooded her with an emotion dangerously close to panic.
She turned around, closing her hand around the doorknob.
“I’m warning you,” Hayden said. “You won’t be able to reason with her. Not when she’s seized in the grips of this madness.”
Lottie cast him an exasperated look over her shoulder. “Oh, she’s mad, all right. She’s absolutely furious!”
Throwing open the door, she marched into the corridor. Meggie watched her approach, her eyes wide with alarm.
Following fast on Lottie’s heels, Hayden snapped, “Let her in.”
Although the maid’s eyes widened even further, she clearly had no intention of defying her master. She threw open Allegra’s door, then quickly sought shelter in young Jem’s arms.
Lottie’s steps never faltered, not even when a porcelain washbasin went whizzing past her head and smashed into the corridor wall, only a few inches away from where Hayden was standing. She simply reached behind her and closed the door in his face. Judging from the shambles the room was in, Allegra was rapidly running out of things to throw.
The girl crouched in the middle of an enormous four-poster, her hands gripping the tumbled bedclothes. Her face was mottled with rage, her long, dark lashes clumped together by tears. As Lottie calmly surveyed her, Allegra let out an earsplitting shriek and reached for the only object still left on the bed—which just happened to be Lottie’s doll. Snatching the doll up by one foot, Allegra drew it back over her head.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Although Lottie’s voice was low, it was laced with enough threat to give the girl pause. Especially when Lottie reached behind her once again and turned the key in the lock.
Allegra slowly lowered the doll, her eyes wild and her chest heaving. “Didn’t they warn you? You shouldn’t come near me when I’m like this. I’m quite mad, you know. I-I-I can’t control myself. I might hit you or kick you or scratch you…or…or…” She bared her pearly little teeth. “Why, I might even bite you!”
“If you do, then I shall bite you back. I’ve had experience, you know. I once bit the king.”
Allegra’s jaw dropped. “Of England?”
“The very same. It took six of his guards to pry my teeth loose from his arm. Or was it eight?” Actually, it had only been three, but Lottie felt a little exaggeration was never amiss, either in literature or in life.
She meandered over to the bed. Allegra scrambled backward until her shoulders were pressed against the headboard. “I’m warning you! Don’t come near me. If you do, I’ll…I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue.”
“Go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you.” Lottie sank down on the foot of the bed, smiling pleasantly at the child.
Looking more irritated than enraged now, Allegra gulped in a deep breath, pursed her lips, and puffed out her cheeks. As the child’s eyes bugged out and her color slowly shifted from pink to purple, Lottie counted beneath her breath. She had only reached thirty-five when Allegra collapsed on the pillows, gasping for air.
“Not very impressive, I’m afraid,” Lottie said, shaking her head. “Once when my sister gave the last tea cake to my brother, I held my breath for almost two minutes. By the time I was done, my sister was weeping and George was on his knees, begging me to eat the cake.”
Allegra sat up, lowering her head like a bull about to charge. She’d obviously saved her most dire threat for last. “If you don’t leave my room this very instant, I’m going to scream.”
Lottie simply smiled.
Allegra opened her mouth.
Lottie screamed.
It was a full-throated, operatic masterpiece, designed to pierce every eardrum within a fifty-league radius. If there had been an unbroken piece of porcelain left in the room, it would have shattered into a thousand pieces.
Only as the scream tapered off did Lottie become aware of fists pounding frantically on the door and a masculine voice shouting her name. The door came crashing inward, splintering right off its hinges. Hayden quickly followed, stumbling to a halt and looking utterly flummoxed to find Lottie sitting on the foot of the bed, a serene smile curving her lips while Allegra cowered against the headboard, her hands clamped to her ears.
Martha and a white-bearded gentleman Lottie assumed must be the village doctor hovered behind Hayden, their own expressions equally bewildered.
Sobbing hoarsely, Allegra went bounding off the bed. She ran right past her father and into Martha’s arms.
Throwing her arms around the woman’s ample waist, she cried, “Oh, Martha, please make her go away! I’ll be good, I swear I will! I’ll do whatever Father wants! Just please don’t let her bite me or make that dreadful noise again!”
As Allegra buried her face in Martha’s bosom, still sobbing, Lottie rose from the bed. Hayden was staring at her as if she were Attila the Hun and Joan of Arc all wrapped into one.
“I believe she’ll sleep now,” Lottie told him. She gave the doctor a pointed glance. “Without the laudanum.”
Tightening the sash of her dressing gown, she sailed past them all and out of the bedchamber. She emerged into the corridor to find Meggie, Jem, and the rest of the servants eyeing her with a newfound mixture of trepidation and respect.
“Oh, m’lady, we thought the young miss was murderin’ you, we did,” Meggie blurted out. “I’ve never seen the master in such a state. Why, he shoved Jem right out of the way and broke down the door hisself!”
As Lottie passed, biting back a smile as she imagined Hayden battering down that door like a knight rushing to the rescue of his lady fair, each of the servants in turn offered her a bow or curtsy. She knew Allegra’s apology could wait until morning. Now that they were free to finish out their night in peace, it no longer mattered to the servants if she was rumored to have been the mistress of every nobleman in London.
They were simply grateful that she was now theirs.
Chapter 13
How was I to discover what terrible secrets lurked behind the locked door of his heart?
AFTER THAT NIGHT, ALLEGRA BECAME A MODEL pupil. She showed up for her lessons each morning promptly at ten o’clock, pinafore starched and stockings neatly gartered. She would stand beside her desk, hands clasped in front of her, and decline one Latin noun after another, then follow that with a matter-of-fact recitation of her multiplication tables. She could locate Marrakesh on the globe and deliver an oral history of both the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths that would have made the Romans weep with envy.
Lottie no longer had to shake out her shoes each morning before donning them or hide her bonnets just in case a stray goat wandered into her bedchamber. With both Allegra and the ghost holding their silence, they were all able to enjoy several blissfully peaceful nights of sleep. It seemed a truce had been declared at Oakwylde Manor, albeit a wary one.
But without the challenge of foiling Allegra’s schemes, Lottie soon found herself plagued by another malady—boredom. If anything, Hayden was even more distant than before, treating her with the remote courtesy one might accord to a second cousin thrice removed. And although she was grateful for her f
riend’s loyal companionship, Harriet’s company had never been overly scintillating. Her chief topic of conversation was usually whatever they’d had for tea the day before.
One gloomy Tuesday morning found both her and Allegra gazing out the schoolroom window, watching rain trickle down the mullioned panes. As one raindrop merged into another, Lottie felt her eyelids growing heavy. Allegra’s yawn was quickly echoed by one of her own.
Catching herself before she could slump into a full-blown doze, Lottie closed the book on her desk with a decisive snap.
Allegra started guiltily and began scribbling madly in her ledger.
Lottie rose. “We’ve been studying Magellan and de Soto for the past week. Well, I say what better way to understand the mind of a great explorer than to go exploring.”
“Exploring?” Although Allegra looked no less wary than usual, a spark of interest lit her eyes.
“Rumor has it that this manor has over fifty rooms and I’ve probably only seen half of those. Why don’t we start with the attic and work our way down? We might even find some of those priest holes and secret passages Meggie and Jem are always whispering about.”
“But what about Father? If I don’t finish my lesson for today, he won’t be pleased, will he?”
Lottie felt an impish smile curve her lips. “Rumor also has it that your father rode over to Boscastle with his steward this morning to settle some accounts and he won’t return until late afternoon. Even Martha has gone off to the village for the day to visit her sister.” Although Allegra still looked doubtful, Lottie held out her hand. “Come, my little conquistador, there are new worlds for us to conquer.”
On such a dark and windy day with the rain beating against the gabled roof, there was no better, more cozy, place to be than a sprawling attic. The interconnected warren of rooms with their trunks full of moth-eaten clothes and abandoned toys kept Lottie and Allegra occupied for most of the morning. In one corner, Lottie found a speckled rocking horse. She gently ran a hand over its rough-hewn neck, wondering if it had once belonged to Hayden.
One Night of Scandal (Avon Historical Romance) Page 15
