Milady in Love (The Changing Fortunes Series, Vol. 5)

by M C Beaton

  The wall of her room, over on the left-hand side, was a sheet of flame.

  She leaped from her bed and fell on the floor. Her legs were strangely wobbly and would not seem to support her. She crawled to the door and pulled herself upright by hanging on to the handle. Then she turned the handle. The door would not open.

  She screamed and battered at the door with her fists.

  “Over here!” called a voice at the open window.

  Eyes dilated with fear, Yvonne swung around. Patricia was at the open window, balancing precariously on the top rung of one of the stonemasons’ ladders.

  Yvonne tried to run to her, but once more her legs gave out. Patricia climbed through the window and, with surprising strength, hoisted Yvonne up and slung her over her shoulder. Then she made her way out of the window, and, crying to Yvonne to lie still, she began to edge her way down the ladder while the great fire bell of Trewent Castle beat on the still night air.

  The viscount, roused from a deep sleep by the cries of his servants and the clamor of the bell, ran up the stairs toward the noise and shouting.

  He, too, found it impossible to open Yvonne’s door. “Try to break it down,” he shouted to his servants. “The masons’ ladders are outside. I shall try to reach her room from the outside.”

  And so it was that Lord Anselm reached the foot of the ladder just in time to witness Patricia’s gallant rescue.

  He was stunned with gratitude and admiration. How pale and brave Patricia looked when she set his ward on her feet. Yvonne promptly slumped on the ground and began to cry.

  With infinite patience, Patricia soothed Yvonne and coaxed her into trying to take a few steps. Then with Patricia’s strong arm about her waist, Yvonne was led around to the main door of the castle.

  “Let me carry her,” begged the viscount at one point, and shocked and groggy as she was, Yvonne gritted her teeth in fury as she heard Patricia’s calm refusal.

  She was led into a little-used morning room on the ground floor and laid on a sofa.

  One of the servants came in to say that the door had not been locked after all but must have been jammed. They had heard someone call “Fire” from the other end of the corridor, and they had all ran in that direction. When they had returned, having found no other fire, the door of Yvonne’s room was lying open and they were able to extinguish the blaze. The fire had not spread to her ladyship’s dressing room, so all of her clothes were safe. A writing desk, a commode, and a table had all been burned. An oil lamp had been found smashed on the floor. It must have been knocked over and started the fire.

  “But I did not light the oil lamp,” cried Yvonne, but Patricia said soothingly, “Shhh, my dear,” and signaled to two stout housemaids to carry Yvonne upstairs again. A spare bedroom had been prepared for her, said Patricia, and she would be able to return to her own room in the morning after it had been cleaned and repaired.

  To Yvonne, it was like being caught up in some weird dream. She could barely keep her eyes open.

  As she was carried from the room, the last thing she saw was the glow of admiration in the viscount’s eyes as he looked at Patricia.

  Yvonne was kept in bed for the whole of the next day. She felt oddly weary and kept dropping off to sleep. By evening, after a light supper, she began to feel refreshed and settled back against the pillows to turn over the events of the fire in her mind. It had certainly been very brave of Patricia to rescue her. Who would have thought such a cool, elegant lady would have so much strength? Then there was the question of the oil lamp. It had definitely not been lit when she fell asleep. But was she sure? Yvonne remembered being wide awake one minute and plunged into sleep the next. Perhaps Patricia had put something in that glass of milk to make her sleep.

  But the real source of Yvonne’s worry was that she had shown herself to the viscount to be little more than a careless girl who might have burned his house down about his ears. In comparison, Patricia must seem like a paragon of all the virtues.

  Yvonne began to resent Patricia, although chiding herself all the while for her uncharitable thoughts. Patricia had saved her life.

  Before she fell asleep again, Yvonne decided to put her silly feelings about the governess away and concentrate on some way of seeing her guardian alone.

  Next day, after haunting the hall between study periods—for self-education could hardly be called lessons—Yvonne decided to hide in the library behind a Chinese lacquered screen that stood in one corner.

  The library was the viscount’s favorite room. Yvonne planned to stay in hiding until she heard him come in. She would pretend to have fallen asleep. That way she would be able to see him alone.

  But Yvonne had forgotten about the viscount’s regular four o’clock meeting with Patricia. She had been hiding behind the screen when she heard him come in. She was about to yawn loudly and affect to have just woken up when she heard Patricia’s voice and the swish of her long skirts over the floor.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Cottingham,” Yvonne heard the viscount say. “How is that wretched child?”

  “She has made a good recovery,” replied Patricia. “We have been studying more science today.”

  “Excellent. Yvonne is fortunate in having so highly educated a governess to teach her. Miss Cottingham, I cannot begin to express my gratitude for your bravery—for having saved Yvonne’s life.”

  “I was only glad to be of assistance, my lord.”

  “But what courage! What resourcefulness! You put your own life at risk. Let us hope there will be no more frights and alarms caused by that headstrong little girl. I shall be very glad when she finally marries.”

  “Then what will become of me, my lord?” Patricia’s clear voice held a note of teasing, of flirtation.

  “You have a home here for as long as you want,” said the viscount.

  “I cannot possibly stay here alone with you,” said Patricia. “It would occasion much gossip.”

  Yvonne pressed one eye to the hinge of the screen.

  Patricia was standing with her hands clasped, her head turned slightly away from the viscount. He was studying her averted face.

  He took one step toward her. “You could stay as…”

  But the rest of his words were lost in one almighty crash as Yvonne toppled the screen over.

  Yvonne did not like the expression in her guardian’s eyes. Never before had any man looked at her with such dislike.

  “Enough,” snapped the viscount. “Leave us.”

  But Yvonne was not going to leave him alone with Patricia. She was not going to allow him to finish the sentence he had started. As far as Yvonne was concerned, there could only be one ending to that sentence, and it went, “as my wife.”

  She put her hand to her forehead and swayed toward Patricia. “I feel faint,” whispered Yvonne. “I fear I am not yet fully recovered.”

  “Oh, take her away, for goodness’ sake.” The viscount sighed. “We will speak further, Miss Cottingham.”

  Yvonne felt the arm Patricia put about her to assist her from the room was unnecessarily tight.

  Once in her own sitting room, Yvonne pretended to make a quick recovery.

  “May I leave you?” asked Patricia. “I have things to do.”

  Yvonne bit her lip. She felt sure one of the things Patricia meant to do was to return to the library and get the viscount to finish that sentence.

  But she could not think of anything to say to detain her. Patricia went along to her own sitting room, but Yvonne was sure the governess was only going to stay long enough to arrange her hair before going down to the library.

  Panic seized Yvonne. She did not want her guardian to marry Patricia. She did not know why. All she knew at that moment was that the whole idea was abhorrent to her.

  A diversion! She must create a diversion. The fire bell. Where was it? She remembered one of the maids saying it was in the cellars.

  She slipped along the corridor. Patricia was singing as she moved about her sitting roo
m.

  Yvonne darted down the main staircase and then down the back stairs. There were noises coming from the kitchen, the clatter of dishes and the sizzling of roast meat. If only these stairs went on down to the cellars. There was no way she could possibly get through the kitchen unobserved.

  The stairs went on, down and down, until she found herself confronted by a stout oaken door. To her relief, she saw a key in it and turned it. The hinges of the door were well oiled, and it opened without a sound. A candle and a tinderbox stood on a barrel just inside the door.

  Tinderboxes usually seemed possessed of the devil and sometimes would take as much as twenty minutes to supply a light, but this one worked almost immediately. Holding the candle in its flat stick, Yvonne flitted quickly through serried rows of barrels and wine bottles. Where on earth was the fire bell? She was about to give up when she saw a long rope dangling in a far corner. Of course! The bell itself would not be in the cellars but somewhere up on the roof. She ran to the rope and looked up. Far, far above her head was the black mouth of the fire bell surrounded by a small square of blue sky—too far away to affect the temperature of the cellar below.

  She put down the candle, seized the rope, and gave an almighty pull.

  Upstairs, Patricia paused with her hand on the handle of the library door as the fire bell began to sound. The door swung open and the viscount almost collided with her.

  “Outside!” he commanded. “Make sure everyone is outside.”

  Downstairs in the cellars, Yvonne gave the rope a final pull and then made her way toward where she remembered the door to be. And then she heard footsteps coming down the cellar stairs.

  She blew out the candle and crouched down behind a barrel against the far wall.

  The voice of Fairbairn, the butler, reached her ears. “I know there’s no fire,” he was muttering. “We was all in the kitchens, so who’s been ringing that bell?”

  The butler was carrying a branch of candles. “Whoever you are,” called Fairbairn, “I’ll find you. I’m locking us both in.” Yvonne heard a click as he locked the cellar door. “I know every inch of these cellars, so you shan’t escape me.”

  Yvonne felt her mouth grow dry with fear. If Fairbairn found her, then she would be dragged before the viscount. He might be so angry, he would send her away.

  The glow from the branch of candles held by the butler grew brighter and brighter.

  Yvonne pressed back against the wall. It seemed to give a little. She pressed harder. What she was pressing against appeared to be not the wall but a piece of wood or a small door. She twisted about and pushed with all her might. She could not see, but she felt what must be a small door swing open, and she crept through on her hands and knees, feeling her way in the blackness with the tips of her fingers. It was as well she did not straighten up, for all at once her groping hands encountered nothing. She felt lower and found she was at the head of a flight of stone stairs.

  Not wanting to venture farther in the blackness, she stayed where she was, hoping Fairbairn did not know of this strange exit.

  After waiting a long time, she cautiously made her way back, feeling on the cellar floor for the candle and tinder-box. She waited again, listening, wondering if Fairbairn was lying low, trying to trick her by keeping quiet.

  But the oppressive blackness of the place pressed on her nerves. She decided to light the candle.

  This time the tinderbox took its time in producing a flame. By the time the candle was lit, Yvonne was frightened and thoroughly ashamed of herself. She turned to check the door through which she had groped her way. It was not really a door but a piece of wood covered with sacking placed over a small hole. She held the candle higher and found the sacking had been daubed with gray paint to make it blend in with the stone of the walls and pasted onto the wood.

  Perhaps the prisoners had used this way as an escape in the old days, thought Yvonne with a shiver. She hoped Fairbairn had not locked the cellar door. She dreaded having to explore the blackness of the secret way.

  To her immeasurable relief, the cellar door had not been locked. When she reached the kitchen level, she listened hard but could not hear a sound.

  She poked her head around the kitchen door. No one. She made her way out of the castle by the same route she had taken when she had first gone to look for Gustave.

  By the noise coming from outside, she gathered that everyone was still assembled on the lawn in front of the castle.

  She crept around a corner of the building. Everyone was listening to Fairbairn, who was telling them the bell must have been rung by the ghost of Black Jack, the pirate, who was said to haunt the old dungeons that were half covered by the sea under the castle.

  Yvonne strolled over and stood at the back of the crowd. No one noticed her.

  “Tish, man,” came the viscount’s voice. “I do not believe in ghosts or phantoms or rubbish like that. Where is my ward?”

  “Here, my lord,” called Yvonne sweetly. The crowd parted to let her through.

  The viscount looked relieved. Beside him stood Patricia Cottingham. For one brief moment before she lowered her eyes, Patricia looked at Yvonne.

  And Yvonne saw suspicion in those eyes, suspicion and the beginnings of dislike.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next day dawned sunny and warm. The sea stretched out below the castle like watered silk.

  “I wish you liked riding,” said Yvonne with a sigh, pushing away her books. “All you ever seem to do, Patricia, is go out for walks in the middle of the night.”

  “What do you mean?” The needle that Patricia held in one well-shaped hand stopped flashing neatly through the tambour frame.

  “I awoke in the middle of the night and went to your room,” said Yvonne. “Your bed had not even been slept in.”

  “What did you want?”

  Yvonne hesitated. What she had really wanted had been to find out whether Patricia had received a proposal of marriage from the viscount, something that now, in the clear light of day, she felt she could not ask her.

  “I could not sleep,” she said. “I awoke at two in the morning and could not get back to sleep. I thought that perhaps you could give me some laudanum or whatever it was you put in my milk on the night of the fire.”

  “I put nothing in your milk.” The needle began to flash again as Patricia embroidered a Jacobean design of curved leaves and fruit. “I went down to the kitchens during the night to make myself some tea. I could not sleep either.”

  “Have you always disliked riding?” asked Yvonne.

  “It is not that I particularly dislike it,” said Patricia. “I do not ride well, and I do not show to advantage in the saddle.”

  Yvonne shifted restlessly. Now that the weather had turned fine, she could not bear to waste the whole day indoors with her books. “We could go for a walk,” she suggested without much enthusiasm.

  Patricia stabbed her needle into the tambour frame and walked to the window of Yvonne’s sitting room. “I can row,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Do let us go down to the village, Patricia,” begged Yvonne. “I am sure we could hire a boat.”

  “There is no need to do that.” Patricia smiled. “There is a little rowing boat belonging to the castle. About half a mile along the cliffs from the main door, there is a winding path that descends the cliffs. The boat is tied to a jetty at the foot of the path. I shall take you there if you would like.”

  “I should like it above all things.” Yvonne laughed. “What shall we wear?”

  “Something old and serviceable. We do not want our good gowns to become stained with saltwater.”

  Yvonne was delighted at the prospect of the outing.

  As she set out along the cliffs with Patricia, she felt a rash of affection for the older woman.

  She had misread that look in Patricia’s eyes the day before. I have become jealous, thought Yvonne ruefully, and all because of a pompous guardian who does not even like me.

  As the ca
stle fell behind them, Yvonne felt the image of the viscount that she always seem to carry in her head dwindle away to nothing. It was not that she was even in love with him, she told herself. It was more as if she had become obsessed with gaining his approval.

  The path down to the jetty was steep with a few rough steps hacked out of chunks of rock to make the descent easier.

  Sea pinks blew in the wind from tussocks of rough grass, and seagulls sailed overhead, hardly moving their wings.