by Anne Mallory
The butler gave her a tight nod. He thought her as strange as the rest of them did—but he was a proper servant.
She trudged up the steps holding on to her mother’s elbow. Her mother seemed to recall herself halfway up and pulled her arm away. Abigail thrust aside the hurt and continued to ascend the stairs with her, just in case she faltered. She could feel Rainewood following behind and Aunt Effie floated ahead, chatting as usual.
“I have tea. Hot and piping. Two lumps. A twist of lemon. So hard to get good lemons in winter.”
Abigail shut her out. She wanted to do the same to everything and everyone.
Her mother uttered a nighttime farewell and listlessly shuffled toward her room. Her mother’s maid ushered her inside, sent Abigail a long glance, and closed the door.
It was dangerous to leave Mrs. Browning downstairs with the constable and servants, but at the moment Abigail was too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to care. She resolutely walked the few steps to her own room.
The room was a disaster. Clothing was strewn across the floor, and drawer and table items had been scattered. Telly was rushing around in an attempt to put everything back into place.
Abigail felt more than a moment’s unease. Her room looked far worse than the parlor. “Were the other rooms this desecrated, Telly? You said downstairs that you didn’t find anything missing, so I thought…”
“I don’t know, miss, I think so. It will take me another few minutes to get everything back in place, I’m sorry.”
“Do not worry yourself, Telly, it looks as if you are doing a fine job.” She chewed her lip. “I just didn’t expect this type of damage.”
“I don’t know how it happened, miss. All of the servants were present downstairs.” She looked as if she might start crying at any time.
“It’s not your fault, Telly.” The servants had all been at Templing’s too and yet she had somehow avoided getting caught. She stooped down and picked up her favorite, cherished brush, pulling the ivory inlaid handle through her fingers and checking for damage. “I think I’m going to have a lie down, if you don’t mind.”
Telly put down the pile of clothing in her arms. “Let me help you ready for bed.”
“No.” She waved her hand. “I’m just going to slip in for a few minutes. I think Mother will require me again.”
She needed to prepare herself to run interference with Mrs. Browning, if necessary. She crawled under the top cover, still fully dressed, and closed her eyes.
“Smart, we need to talk.”
“I don’t wish to speak with you right now, Rainewood.”
Something crashed against the wall and Abigail peeked an eye open to see Telly wincing as she picked up a fallen hanger. “Sorry, miss. Got away from me.”
Abigail closed her eyes again and heaved a sigh. The bed didn’t depress next to her, but she felt him sitting there, hovering. Her heart picked up speed.
“Smart, someone took that ledger.”
“I know.”
“It was Penshard.” The distaste was evident in his pronouncement.
She smoothed her fingers over the inlay on the brush’s handle and then pushed it further beneath the coverlet. “Perhaps. In a minute.” She trusted her maid to a point—she had to trust her as her only ally—but something made her hesitate.
Telly slipped from the room minutes later, promising to be back to help her to bed when she was ready.
“Why do you think it was your cousin?” she asked as soon as the door shut.
“He hates me. He’d love to see me dead.”
“But that doesn’t mean he tried.” She looked at him, leaning over her, fiddling with the coverlet as if he could touch it. “If you truly think you are still alive, why is someone keeping you in that state? Why not just dispose of you? That would make more sense with what you are accusing Gregory of—if you think he is after the title.”
Brooding eyes met hers. “I don’t know. Perhaps they are selling my perfect body for pleasure.”
She closed her eyes. “Rainewood—”
“It doesn’t matter. The fact is that they are keeping me in this state.”
“There are no facts here.” She turned over to her side, leaning up on one elbow to face him. “Why would Gregory pick up the ledger? How could anyone know that I’m helping you? It’s more likely that some servant found it while cleaning up during the party.”
“I don’t believe that. Perhaps someone saw you leave the party and go to Templing’s.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That isn’t amusing. I should have made you stay behind me to watch. No, no I shouldn’t have gone at all.”
Why had she developed a penchant for trouble again now?
The man in front of her stretched then pinned her with rich brown eyes. Right. That was why.
“And now your house has been turned inside out.”
The unease that had been sifting beneath her skin bloomed. “What makes you say that?”
“Don’t be stupid, Smart. You know as well as I do that it is extremely convenient that the night you rob Templing someone robs you.”
“I didn’t rob anyone. I merely borrowed Mr. Templing’s ledger.” When his brow rose she pushed up on both hands. “Under your direct orders, might I add.”
“Yes, the man that isn’t even here.”
She tried to untangle herself from the covers. Better to endure Mrs. Browning downstairs than to deal with Rainewood and the idiotic decisions she made around him.
Fingers curled around her wrist. “No. Listen, Smart.” He gave a sigh. “This means that we are on to something. The thread of events makes me think that we are making progress.”
She said nothing.
“And that progress is dangerous.” His fingers lightly caressed the underside of her wrist for a second, then slipped through. “You need to tell someone. Someone who will help and do these tasks instead. Like searching Penshard’s place. Or having him followed.”
“And just who am I going to tell? And what will I tell them?”
“Basil. Or the constable downstairs. Tell them exactly what you see.”
“Absolutely not.” She threw back the covers and rose, pressing through him the slightest bit.
“You have to, Smart.”
“Do I? I’ve only told three people willingly about being able to see spirits and every time it has gone horribly wrong.” She couldn’t help the tears that formed. She turned away. “My maid is the only one who doesn’t think me a freak.”
“I don’t think you a freak, Smart.”
“Oh?” She gave a harsh chuckle and turned around. “Really? Stay away from me. Never speak to me again. Those ring any bells in your empty belfry, Rainewood?”
His eyes tightened. “I didn’t believe you.”
“Didn’t or don’t? Let’s be honest here, Rainewood. You still aren’t entirely convinced this isn’t a dream. And I’ve seen the looks you’ve given me when I mention other spirits.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Abigail.”
“I know you very well, Valerian.” She gave him a smile without humor.
“And I know you.”
“No. No, if you knew me, you wouldn’t have turned against me. Wouldn’t have let Thornton play his game. You knew exactly what your brother was made of.”
He shoved away from the bed, fueling her ire.
“See, even now you can’t admit your mistake.” She stomped over and pushed him in the arm, making him turn. For some reason she seemed to be able to touch him longer and more fully than he could touch her. “I won’t go through it again. I won’t tell anyone else.”
He grabbed her arm for a fleeting instant before it fell through like so much dream smoke. “Why? You are in danger. You need to tell someone.”
“No.”
“Yes. I need your help, Smart, but it can’t be you doing these things.”
“Why do you even care?”
He looked down at his shirt and flicked some
thing invisible from his sleeve. “I don’t. But don’t be stupid.”
“Fine. Find another way for someone to know. Find something tangible.”
“Tell Basil,” he said as if she hadn’t said a word in disagreement. “He will help.”
“Maybe Basil is the one who took the ledger, have you thought of that?”
He stared at her. “Yes, yes I have. It is not a kind thought to have. No one wants to think ill of their brother.”
She let her shoulders slump. “I can’t, Rainewood. You don’t know what they did to me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What who did to you?”
Damnit. She had not meant to say that. Never. To anyone. “Forget it.”
“No, tell me.”
“No, Rainewood. You don’t want to discuss your brother, brothers, and I find myself unwilling to discuss this.”
They stared at each other, wills raging, both of them too stubborn to give in. It had made them an unbeatable combination when getting into trouble so long ago. It had become somewhat less of an asset later.
“I’ll find out, Smart.”
Something inside her tightened. “You can’t do much at the moment, Rainewood.”
He stepped forward and his hand brushed down her arm in just that taunting way that he loved. “I will find out, Smart.”
His hand slipped through a half-second later, thankfully. She hated it when he touched her.
Hated how it made her want for things she could never have.
She stepped away from him, putting some distance between them in more ways than one. “I’m not going to your family, Rainewood.”
“Then the constable—”
“And say what exactly? People think you are either gallivanting around the countryside or kidnapped. I would think you were off wenching too, were you not standing in front of me in all your ghostly splendor. Everyone will assume that I did you in should I reveal knowledge of you in this state.”
“I’m not a ghost. My body—”
“Yes.” She put a hand over her forehead. “As you keep reminding me.”
A soft touch made her arm tingle. “Listen, Abby. Just give in.”
Her throat choked. A rush of emotions overtaking her for a moment at his words before she could speak. Feelings she had kept locked down slipped from the box before she could restrain them.
“What was the last gaming hell that you visited, Valerian?”
There was a strange look in his eyes. Satisfied and conflicted. “St. Thomas’s. Down by The Stout Hearted Goat Tavern.”
She nodded her head resolutely and walked over to pull the cord for Telly. The box refused to close.
“You will tell Basil, then?” He loped behind her.
“No. We will go to the hell tonight. You can look yourself.”
“What?” He tried to pull the cord from her hand, but it simply slipped through. “You can’t go there.”
“You wanted me to go before, if you recall.” She spread her hands down her dress. “You are changing your tune.”
“Damn right, I am. Don’t be stupid, Smart.”
The comforting old lick of anger crept over her. “It’s a better option for me than telling someone straightaway that I’m crazed. Do you want to go to the hell or not? I assume you’ve tried to haunt Basil already to no avail.”
Pressed lips gave her affirmation.
“Then you either come with me or you don’t find whatever it is you think you’ll find there.” She strode to her closet and started rummaging through her things. “I am not without my resources. I can take care of myself.”
“Against forest creatures—squirrels and rabbits. Not here. Not in the city.”
She swung around. “I don’t know why you suddenly care, Rainewood,” she said a little viciously against the old hurt. “You hardly gave a care for my well-being before.”
His eyes tightened. “I gave a care for your well-being.”
“Once? Yes. Perhaps. Though I find it hard to reconcile your recent behavior were those past feelings true.”
“Don’t talk to me about feelings, Smart. You—”
Telly chose that moment to pop in. “Yes, miss? Are you ready for bed?”
“Is the constable gone? Mrs. Browning?”
“Yes. They both left.”
“Good. I need you to acquire an outfit for me.” She swallowed as she thought back to an earlier conversation. “Male.”
“What? Bloody—”
She tuned out the deep male voice and concentrated on Telly’s confused, and slightly alarmed, face.
“Telly, can you acquire a footman’s outfit or the like for me?”
“I suppose I can, miss.”
“Excellent. I’ll need it within the hour, if possible?”
Telly tentatively nodded. “I will do my best, miss.”
“And don’t say a word to anyone, Telly. If they ask, say you are making repairs to the cloth.”
Her maid blinked. “Very well, miss.” She stood there for another second, as if she was waiting for Abigail to change her mind. Abigail gave her a shooing wave to get her moving.
Telly turned, shot a look over her shoulder, and exited the room.
“Even your maid thinks you are barmy.”
She gave a brittle laugh. “I am barmy, Rainewood. You’ve been right all of these years.”
Silence greeted her and she went back to her closet to see what she could find to aid in their, her, mission.
Telly returned a half hour later with a clean young footman’s outfit. She reluctantly handed it over. “Miss, I have a bad notion in my gut.”
“Telly, if someone asks for me, tell them I’m sick. Casting up my accounts.” Her mother would never enter her room under those circumstances. “I’ll be back before you know I’m missing.”
“Then you truly are leaving dressed in this? Miss, let me travel with you, at least.”
“Yes, Abigail, don’t be a goose.” Rainewood leaned against the four-poster pole, arms tightly crossed. “If you are going to be foolish, at least take your maid.”
“She needs to cover for me in case of Mother.”
“Your mother is asleep, miss,” Telly said quickly. “She was most distressed and took one of her pills. She won’t wake until the morning.”
And she won’t care anyway, except for your status as her ticket to society.
“Why are you doing this, Smart?” Rainewood’s voice was low, questioning, shielded.
Abigail felt the urge to weep creep upon her again. Why was she? Rainewood had touched her, looked at her in that way, and she’d up and set upon this path. Thrown her lot in with him just like any other foolish society girl who thought she might have some chance with him if only.
Stupid, stupid.
He’d called her Abby.
She could ignore him. She could spill the entire tale to someone who might be able to help—if the person she chose weren’t the party responsible for his disappearance in the first place—and get a first-rate opera ticket to a sanitarium in thanks. Or even if they didn’t commit her right off the bat—or accuse her of doing in Rainewood herself—at the very minimum her mother would hear the story, and regardless of the ton’s off-and-on fascination with the paranormal, Abigail would be put under the doctor’s care again.
And she couldn’t allow that to happen. She had done everything to get away from him. She shuddered.
He’d called her Abby.
But going out into London on her own with a spirit as her lookout was folly. Taking her maid wasn’t much better. But at least she could have an extra pair of eyes and ears.
“Very well.” She ignored Rainewood’s question. “But you have to dress differently too, Telly.”
“Yes, miss.” She bobbed. “I will be back in a thrice.” She ran from the room.
Telly was true to her word, and she came back with a boy’s outfit (“my brother’s, miss, just like yours”), quickly donned it with help from Abigail (“couldn’t have anyone seei
ng me on the way”), then helped Abigail dress.
The trousers stretched between Abigail’s legs—an odd sensation as her skin rubbed against them from the inside. She pushed a leg forward and examined it.
“It’s a pair of common trousers, Smart, not the latest fashion from Paris.”
“They feel…strange. Clasping around my legs, hugging them almost.” She stood and took a step forward, holding on to the top of the trousers that Telly, who was rummaging through a bag, promised a rope would cinch. The lack of layers was disconcerting. “I feel naked.”
“You walk around in those dresses with nothing beneath. And now you feel naked?” Rainewood asked in disbelief.
“There is plenty beneath my dresses,” she said, irritated that her cheeks were hot thinking about him peering under her clothes every time she changed.
“Miss?” Telly looked anxious. “We should go before it gets too late. Unless you’ve changed your mind?” She asked hopefully.
“No, let’s go.”
They cleanly escaped from the house with the help of Rainewood acting as a lookout ahead of them. Abigail hailed a hack down the street and they were off, caps firmly in place to help shade their features and hide their hair. Telly had a bit of apoplexy when she heard the direction Abigail gave the driver, but Abigail ignored her pleas to turn back.
She already knew she shouldn’t be doing this. It was dangerous and stupid. She blamed the donkey and that look upon his features when he had said something about protecting her.
And he’d called her Abby.
Stupid man. Stupid thoughts.
The driver stopped down the street from the gaming hell. It was located in a shady section of town. Not completely beyond the pale, but also not like walking down Bond Street in the middle of the day either.
They exited the carriage and she chanced a look at Rainewood. Anticipation and perhaps a touch of unease graced his handsome, pale features. Telly paid the driver and the hack swayed away across the stones, clippity-clop.
Rainewood started walking, energy in his usually languid gait. Abigail followed, trying to keep her eyes averted and at the same time sharp to her surroundings. It was an exercise in futility. She decided that the risk of discovery was slightly less worrisome than being unaware of what was going on about her. Men of all shapes and sizes prowled the streets and walks engaging in all matters of side betting, copulating with hard-looking women in the unlit corners, and urinating in convenient places.
