by Mara
“She is a pirate’s daughter and inclined to reach for what she wants. ”
He’d leave if he could. Keep on riding. Head for Portsmouth instead of Pickmanwell and take ship. Yesterday he might have done it, but now he couldn’t. Not after the first evidence that the plot against Ashart might have sharp and deadly teeth.
Chapter 10
Damaris drifted up from a dream of difficult travel. She opened her eyes to musty darkness, but the gloom was from closed bedcurtains. She sensed it was morning, but even in the tent of the bed the air was icy against her nose. And damp. Damp in the air, damp in the hangings, damp in the very walls.
Ah, Cheynings. She remembered it well.
She was huddled as deeply under the covers as she could be and still breathe, and felt the lack of a nightcap to keep her head warm. She wondered if someone had started the fire, but suspected not.
Something made her think this was the same room she’d stayed in during her last visit. Maisie had slept with her then, but Damaris was now alone in the bed. Perhaps Maisie had gone to get hot washing water and someone to light the fire. Damaris decided to stay where she was and hope.
She didn’t even remember coming to bed....
Then all yesterday’s events returned, and she sat up. Cold bit, and she slid back under the heavy covers. But now she wanted to get up and find out if anything new had happened. If Genova was well. If Fitzroger had solved the mystery.
She emerged far enough to pull back the hangings on one side of the bed, getting a sprinkle of dust for her trouble. The window curtains were still down, but weak daylight shone around the edges.
“Maisie?” Damaris called. Then she yelled, “Maisie!”
Silence.
She’d been correct about the bedchamber. It was called the Blue Room, but the walls were a dingy gray. On her last visit she’d moved one of the paintings and found a cornflower-blue patch behind. It had struck her then that Cheynings had died at some point. Perhaps it all tied in with the dowager’s dead children.
Damaris wasn’t fanciful by nature, but huddled under the covers she wondered if there might be a curse on the house of Trayce. Thank heavens she wasn’t marrying into this family or this moldering building.
Finding out what was happening meant getting up. Her skin puckered at the thought of being exposed to the icy air, but she was no delicate blossom. She’d never had a fire in her bedroom at Birch House unless she’d been ill.
She saw her brown woolen robe hung over a rack in front of the dead fireplace. An expanse of uncarpeted floor stretched between it and the bed. She braced herself, slid her feet out of bed and into her slippers, and dashed across the room and into her robe.
It was new and of thick wool, but even wrapped in it, she shivered. She hurried to the washstand, but found only a thin layer of ice. When she raised the festoon curtains and pulled open the warped shutters, she faced windowpanes obscured by a layer of ice so thick her fingernail made no impression. It must be as cold in here as outdoors!
Aha! She flung open the armoire and laughed with giddy relief at the sight of her blue cloak. In moments she was huddled in its furry warmth, hood up. She tucked her hands into the muff, rubbing them together and feeling much better.
Cheynings would not defeat her.
But she could hardly go in search of others until she was properly dressed. That would not have been a problem in Birch House, but now her fashionable clothes required a lady’s maid.
What time was it? She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, but of course it had not been kept wound. She glared around the room in frustration and saw the wood box beside the fireplace. She opened it and grinned. Kindling and two logs.
In moments she had the ashes raked out of the hearth. She paused to rub warmth back into her fingers, then built the fire. She coaxed a flame from the tinderbox and set it to the kindling. By some miracle, the chimney drew without too much smoke.
She brushed her hands off and tucked them back inside the muff, almost purring with satisfaction. So much for Cheynings, marquesses, and the whole pampered, aristocratic world! She might be a rich heiress, but she could take care of herself.
Even in danger? she wondered, yesterday’s events settling on her. She couldn’t rid herself of the thought that someone had been threatened by that drink.
Oh, perhaps it had all been sorted out. The sooner she joined the others, especially Fitzroger, the better.
The door behind her opened, and she rose to see Maisie come in, huddled in two shawls. She was followed by another shrouded maid bearing a bucket full of wood.
“You shouldn’t have bothered with the fire, Miss Damaris,” Maisie said as if it were a sin. “This one’ll do it.”
The other maid scurried to the fireplace. Her skirt was kirtled up to her knees, revealing darned sagging stockings, and her hands were red and chapped. The poor woman filled the wood box, swept up the cinders, and crept away.
“Do you want your washing water now, then, miss?”
Damaris shuddered. “I’m not going to strip to wash until this room warms up. Breakfast, please, Maisie. And how is Miss Smith?”
“I think she’s well, miss. A doctor attended last night, but she didn’t need him. They say the dowager screeched about the expense.”
“A true miser. I hope the servants’ lives here are not too uncomfortable.”
“I’ll survive,” Maisie said, but in a martyred tone.
When she returned shortly with a breakfast tray she exclaimed, “I almost dropped the lot. A mouse ran right over my foot down there. I can’t abide mice!”
Damaris helped with the tray, but said, “You grew up on a farm, Maisie. You must be used to them.”
“We had cats, miss. Excellent mousers. And look,” she declared, pointing at a corner. “There’s mouse droppings in here, too. I won’t sleep for thinking of it.”
As Maisie went right to sleep in any condition and slept soundly, Damaris doubted this, but she made soothing noises. “Why not share some of this food? It’s simple fare, but there’s more than enough.”
“Thank you ever so much, Miss Damaris!” she said, grabbing some bread and cheese. “Barley bread and dripping. That’s all they have down there, and they’re stingy with the dripping. And ale so thin I swear it’s watered.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You shall share my breakfast every day. And,” Damaris added, inspired, “I insist that you spend as much time as possible in this room. With a decent fire, of course. I’m sure my wardrobe needs much mending and altering.”
Maisie giggled, but she didn’t protest.
Damaris was ready to dress, and though the room was warmer, she hurried into her clothes, choosing the traveling outfit. The heavy skirt and quilted jacket were her warmest, but even so she wasn’t looking forward to crossing the big house.
She went to the window to see the weather. The room had warmed enough to thin the ice on the panes so she could scrape a clear spot. The park was a study in gray and white, and no sunshine brightened it. In fact, the place looked dead, but then a figure entered the frozen landscape—a man in a long cloak, saddlebags slung over his shoulder.
Fitzroger! The very man Damaris wanted to see, and here was an opportunity to speak with him privately and find out what he knew.
“My cloak, Maisie. Quickly!”
Maisie picked up the blue velvet, but then said, “It’s all dirty at the back, miss. How did you do that?”
“I fell.” Damaris thought quickly. “I’ll wear the red pelerine.”
Muttering about the work it would be to clean the velvet, Maisie found Damaris’s hip-length red velvet cloak that was lined with mink, and the matching muff. Damaris put them on and hurried out.
She turned down the service stairs near her door and two floors down found a door to the outside. A rusty key sat in the lock, and though it turned stiffly, it did turn. Once she’d tugged the warped door open Damaris was outside.
The air was sharply cold, but after the
musty house, it was refreshing. She puffed mist for amusement as she hurried in search of Fitzroger.
Turning the corner of the house, she saw him at the same moment that he saw her.
She walked forward. “Up early again, Mr. Fitzroger?” she teased.
“Running away again, Miss Myddleton?”
His tone was more biting than humorous, and she realized he looked as if he’d been on a long ride. What had he been up to? “Have you been away all night?” she asked.
He continued on past her toward the house. “If so, it’s no business of yours.”
She hurried after, firing off a question in a tone as blunt as his own. “Where have you been?”
“In search of a saucy wench.”
For a moment she believed the implication, that he’d spent the night with a woman, but then she made the leap. “I think that’s a cock-and-bull story, sir.” She saw his lips twitch and grinned with triumph. “You went back to Pickmanwell! What did you discover? Was the maid who gave me that pot an inn servant or not?”
She thought he sighed. “Inn servant.”
“And she said?”
He didn’t look at her or slacken his brisk pace. “That a gentleman gave her a penny to take the pot to you.”
“And the gentleman’s appearance?”
“Medium height and build. Crossed teeth at the front.”
“I saw him!”
That stopped him. He looked at her. “When?”
“Outside the inn. I thought he was sneering at me, but then I realized that the poor man only had a deformed mouth. Or I thought so. He sent me poison?”
He raised a brow. “You are given to dramatics, aren’t you, Miss Myddleton? He probably knew he’d upset you and wanted to make reparation.”
He turned and continued his long-legged walk toward the house. “There was no dire plot. Others suffered the same effect as Genova, though not as seriously. It appears something got into one bowl of cider by mistake, and it must have been concentrated in the bottom. The inn is suitably horrified and chastened.”
She hurried to keep pace with him, breath shortening, feet freezing, feeling deflated. She should be glad that there was no scheme to hurt Genova, and she was. But it had been exciting to be part of an adventure for a while.
As if sensing her low spirits, he put an arm around her and urged her toward a nearby door. “Come on. You’ll freeze.”
“In all these furs?”
“I don’t suppose you’re wearing fur-lined shoes.”
“I’m thinking of commissioning some.”
Once inside he took her this way and that through dingy basement corridors, where Damaris saw the effect of the mice Maisie had complained of. She wasn’t squeamish about the rodents, but all the same, droppings unswept on the floor and gnawed skirting boards made her shudder.
When they arrived in the kitchen they found the room in keeping with the rest, with grease and soot heavy on the walls and the fire in the huge hearth smoking. At least the long deal table used for food preparation looked well scrubbed and the morose cook looked clean. Damaris could imagine the struggle of trying to run this huge kitchen with an inadequate staff.
Fitzroger set to charming the woman into giving him food. Damaris waited, growing rather hot in her mink-lined cloak. He didn’t seem uncomfortably hot, but then, his riding cloak was not fur lined. That didn’t seem right when everyone else’s cloaks were. Ashart’s cloak was of wolf, and she wanted to give Fitzroger something similar. Something better, even. Russian sable, or—yes!—the fur of the white northern bear.
She imagined it lining a cloak of ivory leather. Impractical, but with his blond hair and silver-blue eyes, he would look like an ice warrior. She bit her lip. This must be how a rich man thought when he wanted to drape a woman in silks and jewels.
When he came over to her carrying a tray covered with a cloth, she said, “Everyone has a fur-lined cloak but you.”
“This is a dense weave of wool. Adequate and waterproof. Have you breakfasted?”
She almost said yes, but then realized he probably hadn’t. So she lied, hoping for a chance to share his meal, to spend more time in his company.
“There’s ample here,” he said, and led the way upstairs.
Damaris wondered if he intended to eat in his bedchamber. That would present a problem, but she had to suppress a grin at the thought of a wicked meal like that. However, he eventually ushered her into a luxurious parlor she remembered from her tour. They called it the Little Library, though it didn’t hold many books. It was the marquess’s private sanctum, and Ashart was there.
“What did you find out?” he demanded, but when he saw her, his expression became neutral. “Miss Myddleton?”
“We met outside.” Fitzroger placed his tray on the card table. “I assume you’ve eaten, Ash?”
“Yes.” Ashart looked at her again.
The message was clear, and Damaris had no choice. Pleading hunger wouldn’t move the marquess.
She dropped a curtsy and left, pulling a face. She would have liked to hear Fitzroger’s report. But then, he’d told her most of the story and there was no poison, no snaggletoothed villain, no adventure. Probably that whole business of “state secrets” had been her imagination.
She paused in the Royal Salon, breath puffing white.
She had to accept that Fitzroger was simply what he appeared to be—an impoverished ex-soldier who ran errands. But he also stirred her passions. Most of her reason for rushing out to meet him this morning had been to spend time alone with him. Merely being with him was like sunshine in her blood.
And yet, he was apparently tarnished by scandal. She had to find out about that before she sank deeper into folly, and Lady Thalia might know all. She wanted to rush to demand the information, but it was too early to disturb the other ladies. Seething with impatience, she paced the large room.
The Royal Salon was used as a portrait gallery, and on her previous visit she’d been shown around by the dowager herself. There was nothing new to see, but she paused in front of the magnificent full-length painting of Ashart in his peer’s robes of scarlet and ermine. This image of dark, arrogant beauty hadn’t helped her sanity the last time she’d been here, but nor had her realization that as his marchioness she would have similar robes to wear.
A duchess’s were finer, she reminded herself.
She looked right and left at similar pictures, but of monarchs in their coronation robes. She remembered thinking the arrangement peculiar before, but she hadn’t been willing to question it. Since then, she’d seen the Rothgar Abbey portrait gallery, which contained no monarchs at all. A loyal portrait of the present king hung in the Tapestry Room at the abbey, but nothing like this.
Here, Ashart was displayed in company with Charles I, his son Charles II, and Charles II’s brother and heir, James II. Kings of the last century and Stuarts, to boot?
The Stuart line had failed, and their distant relatives from Hanover, Germany, had been invited to take the throne. Thus far, there’d been George I, George II, and George III, but none of them were represented here.
Suspicions stirred in Damaris’s mind. There had been two serious attempts to return the Stuart line to the throne. The supporters of the Stuarts were called Jacobites after King James—Jacob in Latin.
Were the Trayces secret Jacobites? Not so secret, even, if they hung Stuart portraits on the walls! It defied belief, but made her even more glad not to be embroiled with them.
Despite furs she was growing chilled, so she returned to her room. She sent Maisie in search of Lady Thalia’s maid to ask that she be told when the other ladies were ready for a guest.
“And find out the time!” she called after her, then set to winding the clock. While she was at it, she used a handkerchief to dust it and the mantelpiece it sat on. She stopped when she found mouse droppings again. This place truly was disgusting.
When Maisie returned with the news that it was half past nine and the other ladies w
ere up and eager for her to join them, Damaris was happy to move to cleaner and more comfortable quarters. She was also ready to question the older lady about Fitzroger’s past.
She found Genova and Lady Thalia dressed and taking breakfast in front of the fire, which burned so hot that they were both shielded by fire screens. Damaris instantly shed her cloak but was still too warm.
Genova, looking fully restored to beauty and health, rose to take Damaris’s hands. “Thank you, thank you, my dear friend! You are so clever!”
“You feel fully recovered?”
“As if nothing happened. How embarrassing. I’ve never fallen into a panic like that before.”
“But it wasn’t,” Damaris said. “Fitzroger went back to Pickmanwell to investigate. A number of people were affected. Something got into one bowl of cider.”
“How awful. Is everyone else safe?” Genova asked.
“Apparently. He thinks your flagon was the last of the bowl and the noxious ingredient was concentrated there.”
“Thank heavens no one was in danger. Now, come sit and breakfast with us. Regeanne, another chair.”
“I’ve eaten,” Damaris said, “and I’m too warmly dressed to sit close to the fire. I’ll take the sofa.”
Talk turned to plans for their stay here. Lady Thalia wanted to explore the house.
“But didn’t you grow up here?” Damaris asked.
“Yes, but I left as a young woman—when my brother married Sophia Prease, you see. Her nature was little better then than now. I haven’t been back here since”—she thought—“since Ashart’s christening! His majority was celebrated in London.”
Damaris wondered what she’d make of the state of the house beyond this room. “Then I recommend you imitate me and wear your furs, Lady Thalia. It’s very cold at the moment.”
“How clever, dear! Cold can be so treacherous. And afterward we will return to this warm room and play whist.”
Damaris confessed. “I’m afraid I don’t know how to play whist, Lady Thalia.”
“Not know how to play whist! That will never do. We will teach you.” She began to rattle off the rules, giving Damaris no chance to ask about Fitzroger’s scandal.
