After traveling slowly for several feet, Rowena finally emerged. She was breathing hard and a wave of pleasant relief swept over her. She had not realized how anxious she had been as she made her cautious way.
The center of the foliage broke out into something she was not expecting at all. Where she had expected to see a patch of flat ground, a few trees, and not a great deal else, there was an old log cabin. It was not immediately obvious, for there were shrubs and bushes grown up around it, but still, it was there, solid and undeniable.
Rowena tucked herself out of sight behind some thick rhododendrons and peered through the waxy green leaves at the cabin, making a fuller study. Her heart was beating a little faster as she wondered if she was about to be challenged by someone from inside. But the more she studied, the more she formed the opinion that the cabin was unoccupied; perhaps even uninhabited altogether.
The cabin was small and looked to have stood on that spot for years. The wide timbers had aged, giving the wood a silvery-grey tone, and she could see a stone-built chimney running up through the side.
The windows were small and dull looking, years of dirt making them sightless eyes onto the world. Rowena stared at them hard but could see nothing beyond. In the end, after straining to listen for any sound and hearing nothing, she crept out from her hiding place and slowly made her way closer to the cabin.
To begin with, Rowena simply walked cautiously around the perimeter, peering at every part of it as she went. She could see that the surrounding wall of foliage was as thick on the other side and it gave her a feeling of security.
Perhaps that was what it had also given the occupant, if somebody had ever truly lived there.
With her confidence growing bit by bit, she finally stepped up onto the porch of the cabin and stood in front of one of the windows. Taking a handkerchief from the skirt pocket of the gown which was now a little grubby from her exploits, Rowena rubbed at the dirt on the thin glass and was finally able to see inside.
It was no more than one room, the full size of the cabin and, although there was furniture inside, the place looked as if it had been deserted many years before.
In the far corner, there was a wooden bed frame and mattress with an ancient patchwork quilt draped over it. The bed looked small but curiously cozy in the corner of the room and Rowena smiled as she imagined waking up in that little bed, no sound but the birdsong and the rustling of leaves on the breeze.
The fireplace was at the other end of the room, its grey stonework neat and the hearth empty, albeit in need of a sweep. In front of the fire was an old wooden rocking chair with a flat-looking cushion on its seat and, next to that, a plain wooden chair that seemed to belong to the small, square wooden table against which three other chairs of similar design were placed.
Beyond that, there was little else but an old writing desk which looked strangely out of place. It was battered but ornate, seeming as if it had come from a much finer establishment elsewhere.
There were no warm coverings on the dusty wooden floor, not even a rug. Still, everywhere looked dry and it was clear that the roof and windows were doing a fine job of keeping the elements at bay.
Rowena felt a little twinge of excitement. There was something so romantic and secret about the little cabin and she began to think she had found a new destination for her walks out.
There would, of course, be nothing much to do there, but it was a quiet place in which she could not be observed. She could just sit and be herself. She could think her own thoughts and dream her own dreams about the little cabin and who the occupants might have been.
At that moment, Rowena heard a rustling and the snapping of dry twigs underfoot. With a gasp, she realized she did not even have time to hide herself from view, never mind get back over to the place through which she had entered minutes before.
She was rooted to the spot, her heart thundering fearfully as a man sprung out from the thick foliage just as she had done. Only he came in through a different place altogether and it looked as if his struggle to make his way in had been a little greater than her own.
“Oh!” The man said as he began to straighten up.
“Forgive me, Sir.” Rowena said and looked at him with wide eyes and a reddening complexion.
“Forgive you? Whatever for?” The man smiled at her in such a friendly way that Rowena began to calm down immediately. “After all, I burst in upon your solitude, not the other way around. I daresay I should be the one to beg your forgiveness.” He bowed deeply, displaying wonderfully thick ashen brown hair that was sporting a thick leaf-covered twig.
Rowena laughed and quickly covered her mouth to hold it back. The man looked at her quizzically and so Rowena pointed to his head.
“Oh dear.” He laughed as he reached up and removed the twig, studying it for a moment before tossing it aside. “That is the only problem with coming here. It is so dreadfully difficult to get in and out unscathed, as it were.” He shrugged and smiled in such a disarming way that Rowena could not help but like him.
It did not hurt his cause, of course, that he was so very handsome. He was older than Rowena, perhaps by as much as ten years, but there was a freshness about him, a youthful exuberance to his broad smile.
His hair was the sort of light brown that was made all the better for a touch of silver here and there, reminding her of dark cinders. He was a big man, tall and broad, but he was lean and muscular with it. Rowena thought that he must spend a good deal of time outdoors exercising in some way; walking and riding she had no doubt.
His skin looked smooth, lightly tanned, and cleanly shaved, and his eyes, she was sure, were green. She could be surer if she got closer, but she did not think she ought to.
For all that he had struggled to make his way into the little domain that had briefly been hers, he still looked neat and smart. He was wearing a brown tailcoat with a waistcoat to match with dark ivory breeches and brown boots which reached almost to his knee. The color suited him very well, as did the cut, although Rowena thought that a man as well-proportioned as he appeared to be would cause little trouble to his tailor.
“Is this your cabin, Sir? Am I trespassing?” Rowena said in a quiet voice, feeling she ought to say something to explain her appearance in that place, or at least apologize for it.
“No, it is not my cabin at all. Although I must admit, I have rather felt as if it were these last years.”
“I am afraid I do not understand.” Rowena said truthfully.
“Well, you are the first person I have ever encountered in this magical little place.”
“So, nobody lives here?”
“I have never seen anybody. But I have looked in through the windows and I am certain that nobody lives here at all. Nothing ever changes. That little pile of wood there, do you see?” He said and pointed over to a small collection of chopped logs which looked almost as aged as the timber of the cabin. “That has never changed in years. Nobody has removed a log from that pile to burn, and nobody has added to them. I think that is why I like this place so very much. It is almost like a moment trapped in time, a tiny space where nothing ever moves.” He laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “But then I am afraid I have something of a vivid imagination, young lady. Perhaps so much so that you ought not to listen to me at all.”
“Oh no, I like what you say,” Rowena said and realized that she was, perhaps, just a little overenthusiastic. “I mean, I had a little something of that feeling myself when I peered in through the windows. It is almost as if somebody simply got up and left one day with every intention of returning, but they never did.”
“Oh, I do feel better.” He laughed again, and Rowena thought he looked even more handsome when he was amused. “If you are the same as I am, then at least you will not think me strange.”
“I do not think you strange at all,” Rowena said and relaxed enough to return his smile. “At least what I know of you so far. You might be strange in other respects, I could not say.”
&nb
sp; “That is a very good observation.” He laughed, enjoying her gentle humor.
“But do you know who owns this place? After all, you did say that you have been here many times before.” Rowena was over the shock of seeing him suddenly in that place and her curiosity had taken over once more.
She wanted to know more about the little cabin, more about the person or the people who had lived inside it.
“I have never known, I am afraid. It is so far out of the way and it is a place that nobody ever talks of. But then I have wandered a fair distance from home as you must have also, given that we are in the middle of nowhere. At one time I had an idea that it belonged to a farm further to the north, but only because that is the nearest establishment. I even asked the farmer myself and he simply looked at me blankly and claimed to know nothing of it.”
“I suppose it is very well hidden.” Rowena said and looked all around her at the trees and thick foliage.
“And yet you found it.” He said with a smile.
The man had a nice voice. It had a richness to it, a depth that was not at all loud. In fact, Rowena thought it was rather soothing.
“I did.” She said and nodded. “And it is the first time I have ever walked this way. I do not usually come out so far and certainly not into this wilderness. I tend to walk the edges of the fields to the south.”
“Then you have done very well to find this place on your first visit. I had been walking this area for some years before I realized that there might be something on the other side of all this undergrowth.”
“And you say that you have never seen anybody else in here, Sir?”
“Never.”
“And how long ago did you discover this place?” Rowena knew that she was asking one question after another, but she really did have a longing to know.
“Goodness, it must be more than a decade. As a matter of fact, it must be fifteen years, for I was a very young man of just fifteen years myself when I first squeezed my way in past the branches and thorns.”
“And have you come here regularly?”
“I make the effort to force my way in every time I walk or ride this way.” He smiled. “So yes, regularly. I cannot count the number of times I have been in here.”
“And yet you have never seen anybody.” Rowena said almost to herself.
“This place has captured your imagination, I can tell, just as it captured mine all these years ago. In truth, I think I am as mesmerized now as I was then. There is something magical about it, as if it has possibilities I cannot yet see.”
“Have you been inside?” Rowena turned back to look over her shoulder at the door of the cabin.
“No, but I am bound to admit that I did try the handle of the door. But whomever it was who left on that day when the cabin was abandoned had locked the door behind them. I did not try to force it, it would have been wrong of me. Instead, I have contented myself with peering in through the windows from time to time and simply sitting on the porch and enjoying the solitude.”
“Dear me, and I have disrupted your plan of solitude today Sir, have I not?”
“And I am glad that you did.” He smiled again, and Rowena thought that she was also very glad.
“Have you walked very far?” He asked conversationally, triggering her sudden concern.
“Oh yes, I have.” She said with some panic. “Goodness me, I had lost track of myself in this beautiful place. I should have turned around to head for home long before now. Goodness, I think I shall be late now, and my mother and father are expecting me.”
“That is a great shame.” He said. “I should have liked to talk to you for a little longer.”
“You are very kind, Sir, but I really must leave.”
“May I assist you in any way?” He said and looked doubtfully back at the little gap through which he had made his own entrance.
“I thank you, but I had found another way in.” She said and pointed. “And I really must leave. Forgive me.” Rowena smiled at him and wished that she had more time to spend with him.
“Well, I hope that I shall one day see you here again.” He said and walked with her to the place through which she had entered. “Are you quite sure you will manage?”
“Perfectly, Sir.” She turned to smile at him before darting in through the foliage and disappearing. “Goodbye.” She called back.
“Goodbye.”
It was not until she was almost halfway home, dashing along and red-faced with the exertion, that Rowena realized that she and the handsome man had not introduced themselves. She had no idea who he was as he, undoubtedly, had no idea who she was.
The faster she went, the more she began to smile to herself. She did have somewhere new to go now, a secret place, a beautiful place. And if she was very, very lucky, she might one day see that handsome man again.
Chapter Four
“Rowena, I do not work so hard on these meals just so that you might pick at them. I cannot see that you have eaten more than four mouthfuls, the rest you have simply pushed about the plate.” Lady Lockhart was in her customary mood that evening at dinner; she always spoke as if she had actually made the meals herself, rather than just making demands of the cook as to what they should have.
As far as Rowena was concerned, simply giving voice to what it was you wanted to eat could hardly be described as work of any kind. Still, it was her mother’s custom to build her part in everything.
Rowena had made it home in plenty of time to rest for a few minutes before making herself presentable. It was clear that her mother had no idea of the time she had returned or she would have mentioned it already.
Rowena knew that her lack of appetite was entirely down to the afternoon’s excitement. The long walk to get to the little cabin, not to mention the walk back, was certainly enough exercise to have made her as hungry as a horse.
But her head had been full of thoughts of the handsome, pleasant man from the very moment she had left him, and she was simply too excited now to eat.
She had chastised herself for not making an attempt at an introduction, for it would have secured her his name at least. Not that that would have done her any good, for she was out in society so rarely that she would likely not have recognized his name if he had given it.
But he certainly seemed like a very well-bred man with manners, intelligence, and most certainly a good education. But what she liked most were the little flashes of imagination that seemed to make their way out unguarded as he talked about the cabin.
Rowena was an imaginative woman herself, a trait she thought she could largely attribute to the loneliness of her life, and she liked the idea of seeing that imagination in someone else.
“Forgive me, Mother. I am afraid I feel just a little out of sorts.” Rowena gave this spurious explanation rather than try to force herself to eat.
“I see.” Lady Lockhart responded without warmth of any kind.
If only Rowena had a mother who would be concerned by the idea that her daughter did not feel entirely well. A mother who would not simply shrug it off and look down to her own plate to continue eating.
“Mother, you said that you had something you wished to discuss with me.” Rowena said, remembering the brief conversation she had had with her mother that morning before leaving Frinton Manor.
“Yes, I do.” The Baroness cast an eye across the table to her husband and, when Rowena looked over at him, he stared down at his own plate a little awkwardly.
It seemed to her that he could not meet her eye for some reason and suddenly she began to feel a little afraid. What on earth was it they had to tell her?
“But what is it?” Rowena said a little urgently.
“Well, we are to have company here in a few days’ time, Rowena.” Lady Lockhart began.
“Company? But who is coming?” Rowena did not know whether to feel excited or afraid; they so rarely had visitors.
“We have a Duke coming to visit us, no less.”
“A Duke?” Rowena sa
id in confusion. “I was not aware that we were acquainted with a Duke, mother?”
Whilst it was true that her parents were no strangers to attending social occasions without her, she was sure that if her mother was acquainted with a Duke, Rowena would certainly have heard about it.
The Baroness had such delusions of grandeur, such a clamoring to be in the upper echelons of aristocracy rather than being stuck where she was on a mediocre estate with a husband of minor title and means to match, that if she knew a Duke, she would have climbed up upon the roof of Frinton Manor and shouted it out for all to hear.
“Yes, he is a most pleasant man.” Lady Lockhart spoke in a cooing voice as if the man himself was sitting at the dining table.
“But when did you become acquainted with him?” Rowena’s curiosity was in full flow.
“Oh, your father and I have been loosely acquainted with him for years.” There was something about the way her mother spoke which made Rowena doubt that very much. “But he has never been here before and it would certainly be a very fine thing for Frinton Manor and the Lockharts.”
Now that sounded very much like the Lady Eleanor Lockhart Rowena knew well. She was always such a sycophant in the company of men of great title, something which had embarrassed Rowena in the past.
“I see,” Rowena said uncertainty. “And when is he to come?”
“The day after tomorrow, my dear.” Lady Lockhart said, and Rowena bristled. Her mother very rarely called her by anything other than her name. Little terms of endearment were seldom used, and Rowena felt suddenly suspicious. “And so, I should like you to think in advance about what it is you are going to wear and how you will have your maid arrange your hair for you. You really must look your best. It is absolutely essential.”
“Is it?” Rowena looked from her mother over to father who had, as yet, uttered not one word at the dinner table.
The Duke's Christmas Mystery: A Regency Romance Christmas Mystery Page 9
