by M. C. Beaton
But then Jean became distracted. She also had a clear view of the viscount, and he was flirting with a very young lady seated near him. He was a born flirt, thought Jean miserably, and kissing governesses on the neck meant as little to him as a casual kiss to a tavern wench. He looked across at her, and she immediately stared down at her plate of untouched food.
After supper her hand was claimed for the waltz, not by the viscount, but by Basil Devenham, who was stiff and formal in his Puritan clothes. He introduced himself and begged to know Jean’s name, but Jean had no intention of letting the viscount’s rival know she was a governess. He might tell the lawyers that Hunterdon’s governess was unseemly gowned and bedecked in the Courtney jewels, and the lawyers might jump to the conclusion that she was the viscount’s mistress. So she laughed and said he would find out when the unmasking took place. But he questioned her closely about the viscount, and Jean said tartly that he was a good influence on the Misses Courtney and a good landlord, which made Basil fall moodily silent, much to Jean’s relief. But dealing with Basil had been a strain. After the dance was over he offered to fetch her a glass of lemonade and went off to get it. She saw with relief that the twins were still in evidence. Basil returned with the glass, stumbled, and spilled most of the contents over her gown.
Jean brushed aside his apologies and decided to go up to her room and sponge the gown. Amanda and Clarissa were involved in a lengthy quadrille. In her room she quickly removed the stain and made her way out. Surely the viscount would dance a waltz with her, just once.
There was an oil lamp burning on the landing. Then Jean noticed that a cabinet had been pushed to one side, revealing a door.
Startled, she hurried back to the ballroom, her eyes scanning the dancers.
Of Amanda and Clarissa there was no sign.
The viscount was talking with his London friends. She crossed to him, drew him aside, and told him about the secret door and the twins’ absence.
“Show me,” he said. “It would be like them to perpetrate some awful mischief while Basil is here.”
They walked up the staircase together, Jean conscious of curious eyes boring into her back.
He looked at the door behind the cabinet and said, “I’d better have a look. And tomorrow I had better get out the blueprints to this place. Too many secret passages for my liking.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jean said. “Please.”
“You’ll never get through that narrow door with that hoop.”
“Wait!”
Jean ran to her room and tugged off the hoop, unfastened the necklace, hid it under her pillow, looped the silk skirts of her gown over her arm, and ran out to join him.
He had found a candle in a flat stick. “I’ll lead the way,” he said softly.
A narrow staircase wound down. Suddenly the noise of the orchestra was very loud. “The long gallery,” he said, indicating a door. “We should have investigated this staircase before. This is how they escaped up to their rooms after playing ghost.”
On down they went, the candle flame suddenly beginning to flicker and bend in a draft of air, and all at once Jean could smell the sea.
Then ahead stood an open door leading out into the wilderness of the gardens at the back of the house. It was clear moonlight outside, so the viscount blew out the candle and stood irresolute.
“The caves,” Jean suggested.
“No,” he said. “Listen, over to the left.”
She listened and then she heard the faint sound of men’s voices and the steady dip and rise of oars.
“That old summerhouse,” she said. “It’s in that direction.”
They hurried along the path Jean had taken when she was struck down. Briars tore at her skirts and she wished she had had the foresight to change into an old gown.
Finally the tangle of woods and bushes ended and there, in a little clearing above the beach, stood a folly, or summerhouse, tangled with ivy. A gleam of light came from inside.
They crept up to the window and looked in. Through the door, men were unloading barrels and boxes under the direction of Mr. Perdu while Amanda and Clarissa looked on.
“We expects good payment for this,” Amanda said clearly.
“You’ll be paid,” Perdu said, if that was his name, for his accent was now pure Irish. “One more shipload tomorrow. Bring the lights down to the beach as usual, girls, and guide them in.”
The viscount took Jean’s arm in a strong grip and drew her away from the window and back into the shrubbery.
“Smugglers,” Jean said, her face white. “They have been aiding and abetting smugglers.”
Smugglers were not romantic figures. Smugglers threw excisemen off cliffs and tortured to death any who betrayed them. “And Perdu is their leader.”
“What a fool I have been,” the viscount said bitterly. “What a naive fool. So they conveniently knew a dancing master! How they must have laughed behind our backs.”
“What shall we do?” Jean asked urgently. “Call out the militia, the excisemen?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Walk back to the house with me. If we are caught, we will be killed. If Amanda and Clarissa are convicted of smuggling, I will lose everything. The lawyers would decide I was not a proper guardian. If I say they had probably been smuggling for some time, they would laugh at me. What! Two little girls! And everything would go to Basil. No, there is another shipment tomorrow night. That is when the excisemen will find them, but without the girls.”
“How do we keep them at home?”
“Do what they did to those Queen Elizabeths. The physician who attended Lady Conham says he is persuaded she was suffering from nothing more than a strong dose of some opiate. Now we shall return to the ball as if nothing has happened.”
“My gown is ruined,” Jean said mournfully.
He laughed. “Only Jean Morrison could fall upon a smuggler’s lair and still worry about her appearance.”
Back in her room Jean changed into the Elizabethan costume and went back downstairs. After half an hour the twins reappeared, looking smug. Jean could have screamed at them.
And then the viscount asked her to waltz and, for a brief spell, she moved in his arms and forgot about the twins, about perils, about smugglers, seeing the faces of the other guests only as a blur, wishing she could dance with him till the end of time. All too soon it was over. At the unmasking she slipped away and went upstairs. If she took her mask off, Lord Pemberton and his daughters would recognize her and create a scandal. The secret door, she noticed, was closed.
She changed into a morning gown and sat by the window for a long time, listening to the sweet music drifting up through the open window, wondering if the viscount was still flirting, hoping he had enjoyed that dance with her just a fraction as much as she had enjoyed it. Then there came sounds of the resident guests mounting the stairs followed by the rumble of departing carriages outside. When the last sound had died away, she rose and went downstairs again. The viscount was preparing to go out. He had changed into riding dress.
“I cannot sleep until I have told the authorities about our smugglers,” he said. “Go to sleep, Miss Morrison. For you will have a deal of work to do tomorrow to keep an eye on that precious pair.”
“They are horrible,” Jean said with a shudder. “Do you not long for the days when you were a free man?”
He looked at her in dawning surprise. “Faith, I must confess I have grown to love my life here. I live now for the day when those brats will be off my hands. This is a terrible and shocking business, Miss Morrison, and I would dearly love to get that precious pair arrested with the other criminals, but I refuse now to forfeit my inheritance. Well, the ball was a great success, but I am weary of all the company.”
Jean looked up at him anxiously. “How am I going to drug the girls without alerting Perdu?”
“Do you think he will have the gall to show his face tomorrow?”
“Of course. He does not know he has been discovered.�
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“I’ll think of something. To bed, Miss Morrison. And sweet dreams.” His blue eyes teased her, and he raised her hand to his lips.
Jean snatched her hand away. “Are you never done flirting, my lord?” she demanded harshly, burst into tears, and stumbled away from him.
He watched her go in amazement and then shrugged. She was not made of iron, and he should have realized the shock of finding out that her charges were smugglers would overset her.
Chapter 6
JEAN SLEPT VERY LITTLE. She told Mrs. Moody and Dredwort to report to her if the twins stepped out of doors. By early afternoon she felt exhausted. She looked in at the girls, but they were both still asleep. The servants reported that Mr. Perdu was in his room, packing.
By four o’clock the viscount returned, his face grim. He called Jean to the library and sank down heavily into a chair, saying, “Well, all is ready for this evening. We should catch the lot of them red-handed. The authorities have been trying to catch them for the past two years. They have committed murder and torture. I must warn you not to betray any knowledge of what you know to Perdu, if that is his name, which I doubt, by any look or action. Now, how are Amanda and Clarissa to be drugged?”
“I am worried about that,” Jean said, “for if they fall into a drugged sleep, Perdu will be alerted. Perhaps I might find something in the stillroom to make them sick, just for the night. They are always stuffing themselves with sweetmeats when they can get them. I suppose those expensive chocolates came from France.”
“Oh, undoubtedly. But we cannot question the girls until all this is over. I would dearly like to know how they started in this evil trade. I have a feeling they knew Perdu well before he even appeared here masquerading as a dancing master. Also, when this is over, there is the question of what to do with them.”
A hand seemed to clutch Jean’s heart and she looked at him wide-eyed. “What do you mean, my lord?”
“Why, only that they cannot stay here, polluting this house with their evil games.”
Jean attempted a light note. “I should be, in that case, without work.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “Ye-es,” he agreed. “Then what, Miss Morrison? Would your aunt have you back again?”
Jean thought of all the drudgery of her life should Mrs. Delmar-Richardson decide to take her back, and a lump rose in her throat. “I should think that is highly unlikely.”
“Well, I shall just need to find something for you,” he said vaguely.
“Thank you,” Jean said in a low voice. The library door opened and Eliza Conham sailed in followed by the viscount’s three friends. She stopped short at the sight of Jean.
“Servant problems?” she asked lightly.
Jean curtsied to the viscount and left the room quickly. As she crossed the hall, she could hear the light chatter of Eliza’s voice and the viscount’s answering laugh. If the twins were sent away somewhere, what would become of her? She would need to look for another position. She gazed around the great hall, now tastefully furnished with statuary, elegant chairs, paintings, and bowls of flowers. She had come to love this odd monstrosity of a house. From outside came the cheerful talk of the gardeners and laborers who were transforming the gardens. It would have been wonderful to stay long enough to see all the improvements finished.
For the first time Jean experienced a spasm of real hatred for her charges. Why could they not have been normal little misses instead of two wanton criminals?
She went down to the stillroom and asked the maid who was working there if she might look around. The maid bobbed a curtsy and left. Jean studied a large recipe book, turning the pages until she came to Emetic Tartar. “Causes a burning pain in the region of the stomach, vomiting, and great purging. It has not often been known to destroy life.”
She did not want them devasted, only too ill to go out. She searched the shelves until she found a small blue glass jar containing the tartar crystals. But what to put the emetic in? Something, she thought, that they were forbidden to eat. Then she remembered that in the hampers of delicacies that had arrived from London for the supper at the ball had been boxes of chocolates. Amanda and Clarissa had been told firmly to leave them alone. But what if they were to come across some?
Jean went out of the stillroom and asked a maid to fetch her some chocolates if there were any left. The maid brought back a large box that was half-full.
Jean dismissed her and then carefully inserted a tiny amount of the crystals, which she first powdered, into each chocolate. With a warm knife she carefully repaired the sweets so that there was no sign they had been tampered with. Then she fetched a tazza from the kitchen and arranged the chocolates on it. She did not want to be seen carrying the tazza herself, so she handed the glass dish to a footman and told him to take it up to the drawing room. She experienced a momentary pang. What if the viscount’s guests helped themselves to the chocolates? On the other hand, they usually congregated in the library or in the Green Saloon, the drawing room because of the dancing lessons being regarded as an extension to the schoolroom.
She waited for a half hour and then went up to the drawing room, hearing the sound of laughter as she approached. She opened the door. Mr. Perdu was there with the twins. He jumped up when he saw her, crying, “Why, here is our beautiful Miss Morrison!”
Jean’s eyes went straight to the tazza. All the chocolates were still there. She was not worried about Perdu eating any of them, for he had already claimed a distaste for sweetmeats, but she could not understand why the girls had not touched them. On the other hand, if she forbade them to touch them …
“Chocolates!” she exclaimed. “What are those things doing here? You are not to touch them!”
“We haven’t touched ’em,” Amanda said. “We’re keeping ourselves slim and beautiful,” and she threw Mr. Perdu a flirtatious look while Clarissa simpered. Jean’s heart sank. Of course the girls were enamored of the smuggler. Still, it was worth a try. She picked up the tazza. “I shall take temptation out of your way, however.” Then she pretended to hear something and put the glass dish back down. “I think I hear Mrs. Moody calling. I shall return shortly. Don’t touch even one chocolate!”
“You know something,” Amanda said, greedily eyeing the chocolates, “that one fancies herself as mistress o’ the house. We’re the ladies here, not her. Demme, I’m going to have one.”
She picked the largest one and chewed it appreciatively. Perdu laughed. “I always like a lady who’s a cozy armful.” That was enough for Clarissa, who took one as well.
Jean found Mrs. Moody and engaged her in conversation, asking her how long the guests were going to stay while all the time waiting tensely to hear if anything was happening in the drawing room. And then Perdu came running up.
“My ladies are ill,” he cried.
Jean hurried to the drawing room, followed by Mrs. Moody. She was glad when she saw that they had eaten half the chocolates that she had put only a tiny drop in each, for, as it was, the twins looked deathly ill. Maids were called along with Betty, the lady’s maid, to take them to their room and the physician was sent for. He diagnosed food poisoning and purged the twins further and then dosed them with laudanum until, by evening, they were both fast asleep.
The viscount was entertaining his guests at dinner, and so she could not tell him of her success. She herself was forced to dine with Perdu. She was suddenly very glad he did not like chocolates. If he had fallen ill as well, who would wave the lights on the beach to guide the smugglers in? And then how would they be easily caught?
“You are very pensive tonight,” Perdu remarked.
“I am tired,” Jean said. “I did not get very much sleep last night. I did not see you at the ball.”
“As I am only the dancing master,” he said with mock humility, “I considered it better to stay abovestairs.
“How is your head now?” he asked. “I gather a branch fell on you.”
His eyes were teasing, and all at once Jean w
as sure that one of his men had struck her down. She replied calmly that she felt well and ate steadily, managing to maintain a flow of light conversation to hide her loathing and distaste for the man.
At last dinner was over. She retired to her room, rang the bell, and told the footman who answered its summons to ask the viscount if she could speak to him.
The footman returned to say he awaited her in the drawing room. Jean was glad she had taken the rest of those chocolates and thrown them away before anyone else could eat them.
He rose to meet her as she entered. He was finely dressed in an impeccable evening coat and breeches. He looked as if he did not have a care in the world.
“When did Perdu say he was leaving, my lord?” Jean asked.
“Tomorrow morning, of course. He had the impertinence to ask for double the fee promised him, so I told him I would pay him in the morning, by which time he should be well and truly locked up.”
“And what do we do?”
“You do nothing this evening, Miss Morrison, except go to bed. There will be a whole army down at that summerhouse.”
“Do your guests know anything of this?’
“Of course not. I have told them not to be disturbed by any sounds of shooting in the night, that the wilderness of garden at the back is overrun with rabbits and that the servants are clearing them.”
“In the middle of the night? Will they believe that?”
He smiled. “They have all drunk so much, they will believe anything. I also made up my mind to shorten their stay by saying that the builders were moving in tomorrow. My poor friends from London are the only ones who are upset. They keep saying they are tired of making the long journey, only to be sent away again. They had planned to stay for two months.”
“And so what is to become of the Misses Courtney?”
“I shall deal with that problem when I have dealt with the present one. Go to bed, Miss Morrison.”
Jean curtsied and left. She looked in on the twins. They were sleeping heavily. She closed their door softly and went to her own room. She was too strung up to go to bed. She settled herself in a chair and tried to read, but she listened all the while for sounds of shooting.
