Last Night's Scandal

by Loretta Chase

  He held up the candle. She stood on tiptoe, peering in to the space the stone had concealed.

  In it lay an ironbound chest.

  Chapter 18

  At least it seemed to be an ironbound chest.

  Olivia stood gaping at it.

  She hadn’t, really, expected to find a treasure chest.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but the very last thing was this.

  “Good grief,” she said. “Good grief.”

  “Looks like a chest,” he said.

  “Is that dirt?” she said. “Is it as filthy as I think? Or is it rotting?”

  “It looks as though it was buried somewhere else first,” Lisle said. “Maybe they put it in the ground, then changed their minds.” He reached in and caught hold of the sides. He tugged. It didn’t move. He tugged harder. It moved a fraction of an inch.

  He was strong, she knew. He could lift her up effortlessly. She was taller than many women and hardly undernourished. But he could simply pick her up and put her down as if she were a teapot.

  “It’s heavier than I thought,” he said. “I’ll need Nichols for this.”

  He went out.

  She remained, staring in disbelief at the chest. She was still trying to get her mind to believe what her eyes were telling it, when Lisle reappeared with Nichols and a set of tools.

  She stood back while the men scraped dirt away.

  This was what they did, she thought, in Egypt.

  A handle appeared. With Nichols pulling on the handle and Lisle guiding the box, they eased it out of the hole and, with obvious effort, onto the floor.

  “It’s amazingly heavy,” Lisle said. “But some of the weight might be centuries of dirt. We’ll need to carry it into the next room to see properly what we’re doing.”

  After Nichols cleaned off the other handle, the two men carried the chest through the adjoining closet and into the guardroom.

  Nichols continued cleaning. A minute or two later he paused. When he recommenced, he did so more slowly and gingerly.

  It was hard to stand still, looking on. Inwardly, Olivia danced with impatience. “This is the way you deal with ancient artifacts, I suppose,” she said. “No wonder you said it wants patience. This is merely a chest. Even my imagination can’t grasp what it must take to unearth a tomb or a temple.”

  “Sand is different,” Lisle said. “And we do have a crew of men. Even so . . . Is there a difficulty, Nichols?”

  “Not exactly, your lordship,” said Nichols. “But I thought it best to exercise caution.”

  “It’s not going to explode, is it?” Olivia said. “Cousin Frederick did have an odd sense of humor.”

  “No danger of that, miss,” said Nichols. “It’s simply that certain features indicate sixteenth- or seventeenth-century German make.”

  She’d barely got used to the chest. This wanted a moment to sink in. “German,” she said. “Sixteenth or seventeenth century.”

  “What?” Lisle to her. “Why do you look like that?

  “Like what?”

  “As though it had exploded.”

  She moved nearer to Nichols. “These chests are famous,” she said.

  “Complicated,” said Nichols.

  “Diabolically so,” she said. “Great Uncle Hubert DeLucey, who could open anything, said he spent days on one. And he had the keys.”

  “Indeed, miss,” said Nichols, still diligently and delicately working. “One wouldn’t want to damage the mechanisms inadvertently.”

  Her fingers itched to get at it. She made herself keep a distance. While Nichols carefully and patiently removed the thick crust of dirt, she walked around the chest, studying it.

  It was about two feet long, a foot wide, and a foot deep. It was made of iron bands.

  By the time Nichols finished, the sun was setting.

  He swept the area.

  She knelt in front of the chest. Lisle knelt beside her. “False keyholes, you see,” she said. “And hidden keyholes. And the outer locks. One must begin there, of course.”

  “I assume that’s the easy part,” he said.

  “I hope so,” she said. “I’ve only ever seen one of them, and I’ve never had the chance to work on any. One must unlock the locks in a certain order and turn screws and such. Even with keys it’s challenging, and we don’t have the keys.”

  Lisle looked up at his valet. “We’re going to need candles,” he said. “And a fire. I suspect we’re going to be here for a while.”

  Four hours later, Olivia sat at the table with her chin on her hands, scowling at the chest.

  Things weren’t going well.

  After she and Lisle had carefully cleaned off the rust and oiled the locks, she’d gone to work.

  “It’s been ages since I had a proper lock to open,” she’d told him.

  After the first hour passed, he had Nichols bring down a table and chair. He and Nichols lifted the chest onto the table.

  After the second hour, Bailey brought in tea for them all and a heavier shawl for her mistress.

  During the third hour, Lisle said, “We ought to go up and change for dinner.”

  “You go,” Olivia said. “I’m not leaving this cursed thing until I’ve solved it.”

  Instead, he told the Harpies to proceed without them. He brought sandwiches and wine back to the guardroom.

  Olivia tried every lock pick in her housebreaking kit, and that amounted to scores of picks. She tried hairpins, dress pins, toothpicks, sewing needles, and wire.

  Now, after four hours of her getting nowhere, Lisle said, “Sometimes you have to leave it alone for a while, and come back.”

  She said, “I’ve never met a lock I couldn’t unlock.”

  He said, “You’ve never met one of these. You said yourself that it wasn’t simply a lock or a set of locks. It’s a puzzle. How many years did it take Aunt Daphne to decipher the signs for ‘Ramses’?”

  “It isn’t a lost language! It’s locks, pieces of metal. It’s the one thing I can do!” She tipped her head sideways and glared at a keyhole.

  “What nonsense,” he said. “You can do all sorts of things. The trouble is, you haven’t the proper sort of mind for puzzles like this. It wants a plodding, methodical, obstinate sort of mind. Yours is all”—he made swirling motions with his hands—“excitable. Emotional.”

  Her head came up again, and the blue glare she shot at him could have blistered steel.

  “Are you saying you can solve this?” she said.

  “It might be time to let me try,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “I can do this. And I can do it without any help from amateurs.”

  He started to go out. He got halfway to the door when he saw in his mind’s eye her face, and he heard again the contemptuous tone with which she’d uttered “amateurs.” He set his hand on the wall and looked down at the floor, but he couldn’t control it. He laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

  She bolted up. “You great, arrogant thickhead! It isn’t funny.” He caught her up and pulled her close and kissed her. She struggled, but only for a moment. Then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back, angry and wild. And after a moment, her body shook, and she broke away and laughed, too, that rich, velvety sound, echoing through the room and cascading over his skin and through his heart like a waterfall of joy.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. Still laughing, she stamped her foot. “I want to tear my hair out.”

  He brought her close again, and stroked the top of her head, over the silky curls. “Maybe it isn’t you,” he said. “Maybe the locks have seized up.”

  “What then?” she said. “A sledgehammer?”

  “That will relieve your feelings, but it could destroy the chest an
d, possibly, what’s in it,” he said. “What we need is a blacksmith.”

  That night

  “You’re late, Mary,” Roy said, startling the housemaid as she came up the path to the cottage she shared with her brother.

  “He’s all right, isn’t he?” she said. “You didn’t—”

  “Jock’s looking after him, real careful. Don’t want nothing to happen to his fingers, after all. How could he work then? What took you so long?”

  “It’s Sunday,” she said. “Most everybody took the half day.”

  “But you didn’t. Glaud told me. You should have told me, Mary.”

  “They pay extra if you work your half day,” she said. “You know I need the money.”

  “And you ought to know, just because the tavern’s closed, you can’t sneak home without talking to me,” he said. “I’d start talking, was I you.”

  She looked nervously about her.

  “No one’s about,” he said impatiently.

  “They . . . found something,” she said. “Miss and his lordship. Everyone else was gone except their own servants and they didn’t realize I was there. I . . . listened, like you wanted.”

  “I know you listened. What did you hear?”

  “They found a chest.”

  Roy took a deep breath and let it out. “Is that so?”

  Mary looked about again. She was wringing her hands.

  “You better tell me,” he said. “You’ll feel better. Glaud will, for sure.”

  “They found an iron chest in the old guardroom in the south tower and Mr. Nichols was hours cleaning off the dirt and they can’t get it open and they’re taking it to the blacksmith tomorrow and that’s all I know,” she said in a rush. “Let me go in, please. Glaud needs his supper.”

  She tried to move past him, but he caught her arm. “The blacksmith,” he said. “When?”

  “Early,” she said. “First thing. Before word gets about. Before the workmen get to the castle. So they can be at the blacksmith as soon as he opens his shop, and get it done and come home without causing a stir.”

  He let go of her arm. “Go on in,” he said. “And tell Jock I said to come out.”

  She hurried inside. A moment later, Jock came out. Roy told him the news.

  Monday 31 October

  It was not a mile from the castle to the village, a short journey, even at a slow pace. Lisle led a horse towing a small cart of the kind used for miscellaneous country tasks. The obstinately closed chest, with an old rug from the stables thrown over it, sat in the cart. Olivia walked alongside the cart. It was a chilly, grey morning, and most of their workers hadn’t set out. The few they met on the road, huddled against the cold, merely nodded as they passed.

  On a brighter day, later in the day, they might have paused and stared. But Lisle and Olivia had dressed for warmth rather than elegance. She wore the heavy boat cloak that was supposed to keep her warm on the night she’d waited for the ghosts. Lisle wore his oldest overcoat, one Nichols had tried to give away more than once. It wasn’t suitable for the Earl of Lisle, but it was the warmest coat he owned. His body still hadn’t adjusted to the climate. He wasn’t sure it ever would.

  In any event, his attire didn’t attract attention.

  Not that there was much attention to attract at this dark hour. The sun had barely climbed above the horizon—theoretically, that was. The thick clouds concealed its doings, and one could barely make out which part of the sky was lighter than another.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Bailey’s padded me with layers and layers. Flannel petticoat and drawers, and a thick quilted corset and wool dress.”

  “Thank you for the detailed picture,” he said.

  “The man who tries to get me out of this rig will have his work cut out for him,” she said.

  “Is that a dare?” he said.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “What an excellent idea.”

  “We haven’t time,” he said.

  “We never have time,” she said.

  “We can’t have time,” he said.

  “I’m tired of being good,” she said. “It isn’t natural. Not to mention this whole business is completely unfair. One discovers a Great Passion, and then one can’t do it anymore.”

  “One is supposed to discover it on one’s wedding night,” he said.

  “A woman is supposed to, you mean,” she said. “Men might discover it whenever they like, and do it as much as they like. But we women—”

  “We don’t,” he said. “Not whenever we like. If I could have discovered it whenever I liked, do you think I’d be in this predicament? But no, it had to be you—”

  “You’re so romantic,” she said.

  “It had to be you,” he said. “And you have to be the one who wants the sun and the moon and the stars and The Love of a Lifetime in capital letters. I should make a perfectly good husband, for your information.”

  “To a mummy, perhaps.”

  They were both cross. Lack of sleep and balked lust made an unpleasant combination.

  “I stand to inherit a marquessate and acres and acres of property and several houses and pots and pots of money,” he said. “If, that is, my father and mother don’t squander the lot and drive away all the tenants and lose all our income.”

  “You make it sound so tempting,” she said.

  “Good. Sarcasm. Exactly what one wants at seven o’clock in the morning.”

  “It’s nearly eight.”

  “Who can tell? There’s no sun in this blasted place.”

  “You have to stop wanting Scotland to be what it isn’t,” she said. “You need to accept what it is. In its own way, this is a beautiful place. But there’s no sand and no smelly camels and smellier mummies—”

  “And nothing here ruins properly,” he said. “It can’t simply subside gracefully into the sand. Look at that church.” He waved his hand at the crumbling edifice to his left. “Moss and mildew and the stones turning black. A piece of wall here, and a few window arches there, and trees coming up between the paving stones. People are buried under that church, aren’t they? Buried and forgotten. Even the graveyard—”

  He saw them then, and stopped the horse. “Run,” he said.

  As he said it, two masked men burst through the graveyard gate.

  She didn’t run but turned toward the graveyard as the men ran out of it and leapt into the road.

  The horse reared in fright, and the chest slid backward. It crashed through the back of the cart and fell into the road. One of the men went after it. Lisle grabbed him and flung him at the cart. The man bounced back and lunged at Lisle. Lisle grabbed him again, hit him, and threw him aside. This time the man went down and stayed down.

  Olivia shrieked. Lisle turned that way. The other ruffian was grappling with her. He held her at arm’s length while she tried to tear off his mask with one hand and hit him with the other while kicking his shins.

  With a roar, Lisle lunged for the brute.

  Olivia screamed “Look out!”

  Something hit the back of his head.

  He was aware of pain but more aware of Olivia’s face, the blue eyes round and wide, her mouth shaping an O.

  Then a black sea closed over him.

  “Nooooo! Noooooo!” Olivia was screaming, madly fighting to get away from her attacker, to get to Lisle.

  “Leave ’er be!” A voice shouted. “Here! Give a hand! The thing weighs a ton.”

  The man let go. Olivia ran to Lisle and knelt beside him. He was sprawled on the ground, too still. A red stain marred his neckcloth.

  “Don’t be dead,” she cried. “Don’t you dare be dead!”

  She pressed her fingers to his neck, feeling for the p
ulse. There. Yes. She let out a whoosh of air. “Lisle?”

  She looked about her. The men had disappeared with the horse and cart. The road turned sharply here and dipped. Trees stood on either side. It was a perfect spot for an ambush, invisible from the castle and the surrounding fields. Not that there was anybody about to see. But the workmen would be along in a minute, she hoped.

  What time was it? They’d seen men on the road, but only once. She didn’t remember seeing others coming. But she and Lisle had entered that sharp turn while they were arguing, and she hadn’t paid attention to anything else.

  “Help!” she shouted. “Somebody help!”

  She returned to Lisle. “Wake up,” she said, keeping her voice firm. “You must wake up.”

  Gently, gently she slid her hand behind his head, his poor head. It was sticky.

  She’d seen the man get up behind him, the rock in his hand. She’d shouted, but the man was too fast, and Lisle, focused on her, was too slow to heed her.

  Then everything slowed. One endless moment: the upraised hand with the rock . . . she, screaming the warning . . . Lisle folding up and dropping to the ground.

  “You must wake up,” she said. She knew something about blows to the head. The longer one was unconscious, the more dangerous the injury. “Wake up!” She patted his cheek. She patted harder.

  He moved his head from side to side. His eyes opened. “What the devil?” he said.

  “Oh, L-Lisle.” She threw herself onto his chest.

  His arms went around her. “Yes,” he said. “Well.”

  “You must never, ever die!” she sobbed. “I can’t live without you!”

  “It’s about bloody time you realized,” he said.

  Gorewood Castle great hall

  “How did they know?” Lisle said. He sat in a chair near the fire. Nichols, having cleaned the wound, applied a sticking plaster while Olivia and the ladies looked on.

  Olivia could have patched him up, but she knew better than to get between a man and his valet. She’d sat at Lisle’s right, though, to watch, and to make sure the wound wasn’t worse than the men claimed it was. It had looked dreadful at first, when the workmen finally arrived and loaded him onto a cart. Lisle had loudly protested being carried, but his workmen wouldn’t hear of his walking. They’d acted insulted at his suggesting it. She’d followed, her heart in her mouth, all the way back to the castle.