Isobel kicked at a snowdrift. “That’s a terrible shame. And now”—she looked at her gravely—“you’ll have to tell Mr. Callahan the bad news.”
Janice’s heart ached at the mention of his name. “I can’t. And I’ve already told you that the duke is watching all of us. He told me that if any of my friends get a message to him he’ll know, and he’ll punish Mr. Callahan accordingly. So please don’t attempt to on my behalf.”
“I promise I won’t. But if the duke hates him so much, why doesn’t he simply fire him?”
“I think it’s a game for His Grace, that’s why. He’s hoping I’m pining after Mr. Callahan, and that Mr. Callahan is mooning over me in the stables.”
“That’s so romantic if you are!” Isobel sighed.
“It’s not,” said Janice. “It’s torture. At least for me. I seriously doubt Mr. Callahan thinks about me at all.”
“What do you mean? Every night he puts that lantern in the window. That’s his way of telling you he’s thinking of you.”
“That’s true,” Janice conceded. “But perhaps he’s being ironic. He might hope I’ll run out to the stables so that he can say he was fooling me and turn me right back around. It would be so humiliating.”
Isobel stopped walking. “Lady Janice. You mustn’t let your experience with Finnian Lattimore turn you bitter.”
Isobel had been privy to that story—at least Janice’s part of it, not Marcia’s.
“Mr. Callahan isn’t like Finnian Lattimore at all,” Izzy went on. “He’s strong and quiet and sincere. If he didn’t like you, he’d take that lantern down. He doesn’t play games.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” It was Janice’s turn to stop walking now. Esmeralda looked up at her quizzically, and she bent down to scratch her ear. “But the truth is, my dear Izzy, I was playing games with him. I can’t be with a groom. We both know that.”
Isobel’s face drooped. “I know,” she whispered.
Janice linked arms with her. “I can get away with being close to you because a lady and her maid are together so often and it’s natural to feel affection for each other.”
Isobel smiled.
Janice smiled back. “Yes, I’m more familiar with you than some of my friends are with their maids, but who’s to know? And if anyone did know and objected, I’d tell them to mind their own business. But I could never consort with a man not of my station. It’s not done. And for a very practical reason—money and prestige. One would always wonder if he’s after those. And as you well know, I want to marry for love, if I marry at all.”
“I’ve heard of some fine ladies running away with their footmen,” Isobel said.
“And that causes great scandal. I don’t want to bring that upon my family.”
“Of course not.”
Janice gave a little laugh. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? I’m banned from seeing him. So carrying on a torrid romance would require some sort of miracle.”
They’d come to the corner of the house, the side facing the stable block. Janice rued that they had. She usually stuck to the other side of the garden, but she’d been so immersed in her chat with Isobel.
And then the worst possible thing happened. Mr. Callahan—Luke—walked out of one of the massive arched stable doors.
Esmeralda’s ears perked up.
“No!” Janice cried.
But it was too late. Esmeralda took off like a ball fired from a pistol. She knew that groom. Oh, yes, she did. And she was determined to get to him.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Go, Izzy.” Janice pushed the maid in the direction of the kitchens.
“But Esmeralda!”
“She’ll find her way back to the house, or someone will carry her back. We can’t be seen with Mr. Callahan.”
“Oh, that makes me so angry,” said Isobel.
“It’s how things have to be.”
Inside, they were passing through the corridor on their way to the front hall and up the stairs when they stumbled upon the Duke of Halsey. He was opening the door to the library. “Ah, there you are.” He always looked at Janice as if he could see that she was a bad girl, even if no one else could.
“Hello, Halsey.” She wished she didn’t have to be polite. But the man was going to be her husband.
He raked her with a too-brazen glance. She’d worn her prettiest day dress—a white muslin with cherry red accents—simply to cheer herself up.
“You look lovely today,” he said. “I look forward to outfitting you as my duchess.”
She didn’t like how possessive he sounded already. “Thank you. I’m sure you know that my mother was a seamstress before she married my stepfather. She’ll want to make my trousseau.”
“Will she? I hope she’s accustomed to dealing with demanding husbands. I insist on approving every gown, especially the ball gowns. You must outshine every woman in the room.”
She saw a spark of lust in his eye that made her rather ill.
“I’m sure Mama will enjoy your opinions,” she said, folding her hands together. “If you don’t mind, I’m going upstairs”—Isobel cowered behind her—“to rest for a while.”
“Of course. But I’ve a note here for you.” He pulled a square, folded sheet of paper from his coat pocket. “One of the junior grooms brought it to Cook last night. She was supposed to give it to your maid, who was then supposed to give it to you. But I managed to intercept it.”
He didn’t explain how, which she found disconcerting.
“A note?” she asked faintly.
He was about to hand it to her—she put out her fingers to grasp it—when he drew the missive back and chuckled like a rude schoolboy.
“Fine,” she said, utterly frustrated with him. She wouldn’t enter into his games. She’d learned that indifference was the best way to annoy her brothers when they attempted to tease her.
“I was only jesting, my lady.” He relented and gave her the folded piece of paper. “You must know that.”
Her heart sped up when she saw her name written in a familiar handwriting on the front. It was from Luke. She immediately thrust it back at the duke. “I don’t want it.”
She brushed past him, Izzy staying close beside her.
“Are you sure?” Halsey taunted her.
Her face burned. “Yes, I’m sure!” she called over her shoulder.
She heard him laughing, and then there was the shutting of the library door.
What had the letter said? She was dying to know. And had Halsey read it yet? No doubt he had. He was probably gloating over it at that very moment.
She was so upset that she didn’t notice the butler opening the front door.
There stood Luke, holding Esmeralda in his arms.
Dear heaven. His nearness made Janice stop in her tracks. Isobel actually bumped into her from behind.
“What are you doing coming up the front steps?” the butler scolded the groom.
Luke.
Janice’s heart nearly burst with wanting him.
“Ask the dog,” the groom told the butler, but his eyes bored into Janice’s. “She scampered up here and put her paws on the front door, and I went after her. It seemed rather silly to scoop her up and walk all the way around the house.”
“All right, then,” the butler conceded. “On your way.”
Luke dropped Esmeralda gently to the threshold, and she scampered over it, straight to Janice.
But Isobel scooped her up. “I’ll take her to her pups,” she said, and she hastened away.
Thank goodness. Janice didn’t want to leave the black marble tile she stood upon at that moment, and no doubt Isobel knew that.
Luke put his hand on the doorjamb. “I’m going,” he told the butler, “but can you tell me why the cellar door is never locked on the east side of the house? Shouldn’t it be?”
“Why does it matter to you?” the crotchety old man answered him. “We’ve got nothing worth stealing in there. We use the cellar on
the south side and always lock it. What were you doing there anyway?”
Oh, dear. Janice had to move, in case Halsey emerged from the library—or the butler was one of his spies. She couldn’t simply stand there gaping at a groom.
She walked to the stairs and started up them.
“I wasn’t there,” Luke said in that imperturbable way he had. “A junior groom told me he’d seen His Grace’s hounds nosing at it. Two of them managed to lift one of the doors an inch, but it slammed back down before they could get in. It wouldn’t please the duke to lose one or more of his hounds down there.”
“Hm-m-m,” the butler said. “You’ve got a point. I’ll get someone to secure it tomorrow.”
And then Luke disappeared.
The butler started to shut the door, and raw misery washed over Janice.
“Wait.”
Luke again! Janice’s heart lifted at hearing him speak.
The butler heaved a heavy sigh. “What is it?”
“I might as well tell you,” Luke said, “that there’s a card game tonight in the stables. We start at midnight and end at three in the morning. Want to join us?”
“Of course not.” The butler huffed. “No decent person is awake at three in the morning. You’d better watch yourselves out there. The duke wouldn’t approve.”
Janice did think it rather odd that Luke would ask the butler to play cards. He simply wasn’t the type.
“Three in the morning is awfully late for most people,” said Luke. “You know the superstition, don’t you?”
“No, and I’m not interested in hearing it.” The butler’s testiness would have made Janice laugh under other, less stressful circumstances.
“Oh, but it’s fascinating,” Luke said anyway. “You can’t lie in the dead of night. Ask someone anything at three in the morning, and they’re compelled to give you an honest answer—if they’re brave enough to be awake then, that is.”
“Or stupid enough,” added the butler.
Luke chuckled. “Be careful what you say—I hear the duke is often awake at three in the morning.”
“Not lately he’s not. His friends have left, so he has no reason to be.”
Janice scampered on silent feet up the rest of the staircase and stood back in the shadows.
“Right,” Luke said cheerfully. “Don’t forget about that cellar.”
“I won’t,” snapped the butler, and slammed the door shut.
Janice took off down the corridor, her mind racing. What had taken her so long? Of course Luke wasn’t interested in playing cards with the butler—and he knew that the man would decline the offer.
Luke had been speaking to her.
The cellar. At three in the morning.
It was an extremely crude way to communicate. But she understood.
And terrified as she was to risk Halsey’s finding out—not to mention that cellars weren’t her favorite places—she’d be there.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Would Janice understand? Would she know to meet him here?
Luke wrapped the blanket closer about his shoulders. He’d stolen over a whole half hour early to be certain that he’d have the place ready—which meant he had a lantern burning very low and another blanket for her.
That desperate babbling he’d done with the butler …
It was because Janice’s blue eyes, wide with the shock of seeing Luke, drove him to come up with a crazy plan to see her. He’d tried not to care that she’d ignored his note, but of course he had. He cared very much—to the point that every step he took, every word he spoke to the other stablemen, even his usual chores, was agony. At the very least, he wanted to know why she’d completely cut him off. It had taken everything in him when he saw her not to storm into the house, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her back to the tack room, their trysting place, to get some answers.
Now he listened—and hoped—through the deep silence, which was broken by the occasional creak of some unknown beam above his head and the sough of the wind. It was utter madness, he knew, to expect her to understand that he wanted her to come to the cellar at three in the morning. But at some point after the sun rose that day, the butler would see that a lock was put on it.
If they were to meet there, this was their last opportunity.
He pulled out his pocket watch. It was three o’clock.
His heart rose, then sank.
As the next ten minutes passed, he vacillated between frustration that she hadn’t understood his covert message, depression that she might have understood it but ignored it, and fear that she’d tried to come to him but been caught.
The last possibility drew beads of sweat to his temples.
However, he didn’t hear anything. That was a good sign. Of course, the house was vast, but surely he would have heard something if there had been a conflict.
One of the doors shifted. Every fiber of his being tensed. Let it be she.
He moved to the corner nearest the entrance and waited. Contrary to what he’d told the butler, the doors were tightly fitted. No way a dog could have nosed one of them open. Neither could a beam of light from within the cellar escape. But what if Janice had been nabbed, after all, and this was a footman come to drag him away to be beaten? Or jailed?
What if it was Grayson himself?
Luke had no weapon but his fists, and now they clenched, prepared to slam into the face of anyone who meant him—or Janice—harm.
“Luke!” came the soft whisper.
It was as if a knot of rope in his chest came undone. He rushed to the door and held it up.
“Come in,” he said, his voice warm with welcome.
All fear of discovery took a backseat for that one, incredible moment.
She’d understood. And she’d risked everything to see him. She either had not gotten the note or been afraid to answer it.
Clad only in a night rail and a shawl, she pushed her way through the small crack she’d allowed herself at the door and shut it gently behind her. When she descended the steps, he lifted her at the waist, brought her down snug in front of him, and kissed her.
Here, he said to himself. This is it. Finally.
The place where he felt safe and loved.
If his life were a song, that moment was its glory note.
“Oh, Luke,” she whispered again, in between the kisses he rained all over her mouth, her eyes, her nose, her jaw.…
“You’re here,” he said.
“Of course I am,” she said softly, and drew his head down for another long, passionate kiss. “I’ve been utterly miserable. Halsey is forcing me to marry him. He says he’ll hurt you badly if I don’t.”
Everything in Luke froze. “So he knows about us?”
She nodded. “He discovered me coming back in with hay in my hair.”
It wracked Luke, knowing he’d put her in danger. He gripped her shoulders gently. “Are you all right? Has he tried to punish you in any way? Because if he has, I’ll—”
“I can take care of myself,” she interrupted him firmly. “But I’ll admit I can’t seem to get out of this. My parents and various and sundry siblings are coming this afternoon to first inspect him at close range and then give their blessing to the union.”
“Then you must say no,” said Luke. “When your father arrives, you’ll be well protected from Halsey’s wrath. Tell your parents you’re being coerced.”
“No.” She smiled tenderly and pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “I wouldn’t dare. I can’t put you at risk.”
“I’m not.” Luke tilted up her chin. “I’ve been on my own since I was eleven. I’ve endured countless threats to my person.”
She chuckled. “Your nose—handsome as it is—attests to that fact.”
“So it does.” He pulled her closer and kissed her thoroughly again, this time skimming up her night rail to caress her shapely leg.
She grinned and shook her gown down. “Your seduction skills, excellent as they are, won’t make me
stop talking sense to you. Luke, he’s a duke. He can do anything he wants—have you arrested on false charges, deport you, even kill you, and get away with it.”
“It won’t happen.” He attempted to assure her more by kneading her shoulders. The cleft between her breasts was just visible, making him hungry to worship her body more thoroughly. “As of later today, consider yourself a free woman.”
“No,” she protested.
“Yes,” he insisted. “You can celebrate returning to London with your parents. You can’t be with Halsey and be happy.”
“I don’t care about my own happiness. I only want you to be safe.”
“But I’ll slip away, too. And it will be as if this whole sorry episode with the Duke of Halsey had never happened.”
At those words, she pushed off his chest, her eyes stricken. “How can you speak so easily of my leaving?”
“You know I don’t want you to go.” But what choice did he have but to let her?
“Well, I’m not going. I don’t care what you say—I can’t put you at risk. I would be terribly unhappy in London not knowing what happened to you. Every day I’d wake up and wonder if you were in jail or, God forbid, dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Her voice cracked, and she sank to her knees. Her eyes shone with unshed tears.
Blast it all, he hated to see her so low. And all because of him. He knelt beside her and took her hands. “You have to go,” he told her softly. “You can’t marry the duke. I can’t see you throw your life away on him.”
Her breath hitched. “Whether I’m in London or here, I’ll have a life without you. So what does it matter?”
She shut her eyes, and a single tear fell out, which he brushed away with the pad of his thumb.
Ah, his heart was sore. “You have a chance for happiness in London,” he said huskily. “It’s better for you to go.”
Better for her.
Not for him.
But he must say it.
“You’re wrong.” She had a stubborn light in her eye. “I’ll be happy nowhere. So I choose to stay here and marry the duke. At least I’ll have his word that he won’t come after you. That will be my solace.”
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