Beauty Like the Night

by Liz Carlyle

  “By no means,” she answered, willing the uncertainty from her voice. “Of course we are still the best of friends, Thomas. I should be pleased to drive out with you tomorrow.”

  Ariane sighed into the darkness. Miss Helene had returned from her walk, just as she had promised. But Papa had not come back. Dark had come quickly, and dinner was over. Now Chalcote lay under a warm blanket of silence, drifting off to sleep just as the big house always did.

  Normally, this was her favorite time, because it was the time when her papa would come up to tuck her in. Then he would stretch out on the bed beside her, and tell her a story about King Arthur. Or of magical fairy forests and dancing druids. Once he had even told her a silly tale about a singing pig. She had certainly not believed that one, but she had laughed anyway—inside her head, of course.

  It never seemed to trouble Papa that she did not talk back, nor ask any questions about the stories. But often, she did want to ask questions, very desperately. They tickled at the tip of her tongue, but she did not let them out.

  Often, Papa would guess her questions, and simply say them out loud. Somehow, he always knew just what it was that she wanted to ask.

  “Ah ha!” he would exclaim. “I can see just what you are thinking, Ariane! How did the brave knight save the Fairy Queen from the fire-breathing dragon’s jaws?” The question would be whispered in a small, breathless voice. It was just the sort of voice Ariane would have used, too.

  It was really quite nice to have a papa who understood such things. He had a different tale to tell every night. But tonight he was not home, and she did not know when he would return.

  “Perhaps in two days, ma’am,” she had overheard Milford explaining to her fretful Aunt Belmont this afternoon. Aunt Belmont’s visit to Chalcote had come about rather unexpectedly. After Miss Helene set off for her walk, Ariane had heard her great-aunt’s big coach come rumbling up the drive.

  She had peered out through the schoolroom window to see a vast, rolling cloud of dust. The coach was moving very fast, just as her aunt had proceeded to do, once the vehicle stopped.

  Aunt Belmont had sprung from the carriage door, then hopped quickly up the front steps. She looked like a rabbit escaping its hutch, then bolting for a hedgerow.

  That had been the signal. Ariane had hurried to the balcony. With grown-ups, she could always predict when something exciting was about to happen. They moved fast, and spoke loudly. And Mrs. Belmont had indeed been speaking very loudly. Nothing Milford said could stop her.

  For reasons Ariane did not understand, Mrs. Belmont was quite put out with Milford. In the hall below, Mrs. Belmont screeched like a bird and hopped about like a rabbit, while poor Milford had grown quieter, and even whiter, than before.

  Except for Milford, Ariane had thought it all very funny. Papa had once told Aunt Cat that ladies never moved fast, and never shouted. Somebody, it seemed, had forgotten to tell Aunt Belmont.

  At last, Miss Helene had come in through the conservatory. Aunt Belmont had shot her a cold look, jumped back into her coach, and driven away as fast as she’d come.

  And now, long after dark, with the events of the day at an end and her papa still not home, Ariane stood at her bedchamber window, staring across the rear gardens and into the pitch-black night. Miss Helene, though, was very near. And so, even with the draperies open, Ariane felt safe.

  She could no longer remember just what he looked like up close. But she knew that he was out there. The watcher. Just as he had promised. She had seen him in daylight, and she had seen him at dusk. A hundred times she had seen him, and twice as often she had felt that he was near. Like tonight. Even in the dark. He lurked in the woods and on the paths of Chalcote, hanging about the house like Boadicea prowling around a mouse hole. And Ariane felt like the mouse.

  But what did he want? All he had ever done was watch, and from far away, too. Sometimes Ariane would see someone up close—someone who she thought might be him. Then she would hide. But eventually, a grown-up would come—Papa, or Uncle Bentley, or Miss Helene—and drag her out and tell her that the person was safe. That he was not a bad man.

  When she had been little, Ariane had feared the watcher greatly. She had imagined he might pounce from beneath her bed, or snatch her up in the gardens, and force her to tell everything—or force her not to tell anything. Ever.

  Now that she was bigger, Ariane was not sure what he wanted. The things that he had once said seemed all tangled up with the things that Mama had said. Like so much of what she used to know, the words and memories had turned into muddle. The memories that had once been clear had become mostly just ... feelings.

  And now, she no longer feared the watcher was under her bed. In fact, maybe she wasn’t afraid of him at all. Well, perhaps a little. But lately, after listening to Miss Helene’s talking and questioning, Ariane felt more angry than frightened.

  And so often now, when Miss Helene would hold her hand and stare into her eyes, Ariane found that she wanted to tell her everything. Sometimes, the words would come bubbling right up from the tight spot in her tummy—as if they might explode from her throat.

  But if she let them out, there would be no way to hide anything. There would be no way to keep her promise, once the words started coming out. And what would happen then?

  Helene awoke the following morning with a vague sense of annoyance. It took but a moment to recall the source of her bad humor when she pulled back the curtains to see that the skies were high and clear. Just as Thomas Lowe had promised, a sunny day was dawning over the Cotswolds.

  She really had no wish to drive out with Thomas today. Indeed, what she wished to do was stay home and await Cam’s homecoming, although it was highly unlikely he would return so soon.

  But the problem today was not Cam, but Thomas. Although she had vehemently denied it, his sudden offer of marriage had changed everything between them. The agreeable friendship she had felt for him had suddenly shifted into something far less comfortable. And what was worse, the fault was hers, not his, for in the face of her refusal, Thomas had been all that was gracious and kind.

  With a sigh, Helene rang for coffee and began to prepare for the long day ahead. Against her better judgment, she had allowed Thomas to persuade her to forgo Ariane’s lessons in honor of their excursion, an outing to the old Saxon town of Cricklade. There, the three of them would picnic near the village ramparts, then visit the old Tudor church. Initially, Helene had been resistant to traveling such a distance with Ariane, but as Thomas had correctly pointed out, it was an excellent educational opportunity.

  At the appointed time, Helene took Ariane down. Thomas had apparently arrived, for his curricle stood outside, hitched to a team of four fine blacks, but the rector was nowhere to be seen. A little disconcerted, she left Ariane to wait while she set off down the hall in search of Thomas.

  Along the main corridor, past the parlor and Cam’s study, all was shrouded in silence. At the end of the passageway, however, just as she turned right toward the servant’s wing, Helene heard a door click lightly open in the shadowed corridor beyond.

  Retracing her steps, Helene peered around the corner. The rector was exiting Cam’s study.

  “Why, Thomas!” she cried, darting back around the corner. “I wondered where you’d—”

  “Miss de Severs!” The rector spun about.

  “I’m sorry,” she answered. “I observe that I have startled you.”

  In the distance, Helene was vaguely aware of Milford silently stepping out of the yellow parlor. With the merest glance at the rector’s back, the butler continued down the hall.

  Thomas met Helene with an elegant bow. “Not startled, my dear!” he answered smoothly. “I was simply arrested by your beauty! But I did think the corridor quite empty. I believe I must have been woolgathering.”

  He turned to give her his arm, and continued to chatter brightly. “Yes, my mind was occupied by the book that I had just returned to his lordship’s shelf. Do you know, Helen
e, that Treyhern has a most extensive collection of modern and ancient poetry? And so generous in lending it, too. I do think the measure of a man can be taken in part by what he reads. Do not you agree?”

  The rector’s soliloquy on literature and character continued until they arrived in the hall to collect Ariane and put on their wraps. And he was still talking about it as they went out and down the steps.

  “Oh!” said Helene, hesitating in the drive. “I did not see Milford! I daresay I ought to tell him where we’re to go.”

  “I had a word with him on my way in, my dear,” Thomas reassured her. “I told him we were off to Cricklade for the afternoon.”

  Helene thanked him, and turned to look at the waiting curricle. “I observe that you have ample horseflesh for today’s journey,” she remarked as Thomas handed her up. “We are certainly stepping out in fine style!”

  Beaming with pleasure, Thomas bent down to scoop up Ariane, who was even more sullen in appearance than she had been the day before.

  “Indeed,” answered the rector, following Ariane up and taking the ribbons. “I find I have grown weary of plodding about with only a pair under the pole. I bought these fine fellows just last week. Are they not well-matched, Miss Ariane?”

  Casually, the rector turned around to chuck her on the chin, but Ariane seemed to be having none of it. In fact, she drew a little nearer to Helene, though given the crowded seat, such a maneuver was hardly possible.

  Nonetheless, Thomas looked instantly hurt, as he always did when Ariane rebuffed his little advances. Helene sought to draw his attention elsewhere. “Well, I think them very grand indeed, sir,” she said, staring down at the fidgety animals. “Fresh, too, so I daresay we shall make prodigious good time down to Cricklade!”

  Immediately, Lowe turned his sunny gaze upon her. “So we shall, my dear! Are we off?”

  Helene forced herself to smile back, and in short order, they were spinning merrily down the drive, then down the hill and away from the village.

  After a late night at a wayside inn, and several hours of arduous travel, Lord Treyhern and his flagging mount arrived home a day early, only to find his much-missed country house as silent as the grave—and seemingly empty, too. It was a crushing disappointment to a man who had thought of nothing but hearth and home during a long, lonely journey.

  He had hoped to be greeted at the door by Ariane, if not Helene. At least the blasted rector wasn’t sitting by the stairs. That, he supposed, was a small comfort. Wearily, Cam tossed his hat onto the hall table and began stripping off his gloves just as Milford came floating down the stairs.

  The butler hastened forward to greet him just as Cam slid out of his greatcoat. “Where the devil is everyone?” asked Cam sourly. “Have I been from home so long that I am to be left standing in my own hall, forgotten by my staff as well as my family?”

  “Sorry, my lord,” mumbled the butler, taking up his master’s coat. “I was in the guest wing counting linen with Mrs. Naffles. As to the family, Mr. Rutledge remains, so far as I know, with your sister at Aldhampton—”

  “But what of the ladies?” interjected Cam, immediately regretting his sharp tone. “Where is my daughter and Miss de Severs? Have they not come down for luncheon?”

  “No, my lord. They left over half an hour past. I fancy you just missed them as they passed through the village.”

  Cam felt a sinking sense of disappointment. “I saw no one in Cheston. Where did they go?”

  Milford seemed to waver uncertainly. “They departed in Mr. Lowe’s curricle, my lord. As to where they went, I fear I cannot say.”

  Cam’s disappointment grew certain and heavy. Once more, there was to be no welcome home from Helene. All of his cherished plans—to immediately pull her into his arms, to whisper his undying love, and to press his proposal of marriage—all these pleasures were to be further postponed. And why?

  Because of the bloody rector! Again.

  But Helene loved him—not Lowe. Cam willed himself to remember that fact. There was no need to be uneasy. And yet he was. Very uneasy. Why had she not waited for him at home?

  Because you were too foolish to send word of your early arrival, came the honest response.

  Yes, he’d meant to surprise Helene and Ariane. But now they were gone. And there was little he could do about it, unless he meant to go after them like some barbarian and drag them back home again. What a tempting thought that was. But it would never do.

  Abruptly, Cam set his jaw at a grim angle and stalked off across the hall. “I shall be in my study, Milford. I daresay there is much to be done.”

  The butler inclined his head in acknowledgment. “And your luncheon, my lord?”

  Cam spoke over his shoulder. “I find I have no appetite, Milford. I thank you.”

  Once inside the study, however, the silence was even more oppressive. Because his return had been unexpected, no fire burned in his hearth. In its absence, even his cat had fled for warmer climes—the corner behind Cook’s stove, in all likelihood. With a sense of resignation, Cam flung open the draperies and sat down to sort his mail. There, in the center of his desk, lay a folded note bearing Helene’s handwriting.

  With a strange sense of foreboding, Cam picked it up, noting as he did so that it bore no seal. It was nothing of a personal nature, then. He did not know whether that was good or bad ...

  Anxiously, he flicked it open. The note simply stated that she and Ariane were traveling to Fairford with Thomas Lowe and would return in the late afternoon.

  Fairford again? What the devil was of such great interest there? Why, one could pitch a stone from one end of the village to the other. Surely they’d seen all there was to see during their last trip!

  In frustration, Cam tossed the note across his desk and began to pick through a stack of unopened letters. Perched atop of the heap was an envelope covered with the barely recognizable penmanship of his Aunt Belmont. From the wildly scrawled direction on the front, it would appear that her temper had not lessened. Another harrowing thought!

  Cam resolved to deal with it later. Abruptly, he shoved the stack away and pulled back Helene’s note, all thoughts of Mrs. Belmont vanishing away on another wave of anxiety. How odd it seemed that Helene would leave him such a message—and a rather coolly worded one at that—when he had not been expected home until the following day. And yet, she had apparently said nothing of her plans to those who should have been told: the servants. It was most unlike Helene, who was exceedingly thoughtful.

  Impatiently, Cam turned the note toward the open window and skimmed it again. The words seemed innocuous enough. The paper was the ordinary sort of foolscap kept around the house in any number of places. It was, however, rather crumpled, and it had been folded and refolded several times. Again, it seemed quite out of character for Helene. Without knowing precisely why he did so, Cam rose with the letter in hand and retraced his steps into the hall.

  In the center of the hall stood Milford, unfurling a filthy drab coat from Bentley’s shoulders. Bleary-eyed and rumpled, the boy had obviously returned from his adventures with Will Wodeway a little worse for the wear.

  His brother barely lifted his gaze to meet Cam’s, almost wincing as he did so. “Morning, Cam,” he managed to mutter.

  Cam absently returned his greeting, then stalked toward the butler. “Look here, Milford. Do you know anything at all about Miss de Severs going off to Fairford again?”

  Milford seemed to stiffen. “My lord, as I have said, she merely drove off with Mr. Lowe. They may have been headed to Singapore for all that she told me of it.”

  Bentley, assiduously engaged in brushing horsehair off his boot tops and onto the floor, jerked his head up in sudden attention. “Helene gone off to Fairford again? What the devil for? There’s naught to see but an old church full of glass and carvings.”

  “As I’m well aware,” snapped Cam, still unable to suppress his aggravation when Bentley showed any interest in Helene. “Yet according to this note, s
he certainly has gone. She and Ariane left with Lowe about a half-hour past.”

  “Well, they didn’t go to Fairford,” returned Bentley as he studied a thick clot of mud on his boot. “Not unless our angelic rector sprouted wings and flew over Aldhampton on his way.”

  “Why?” Cam and his butler spoke at once.

  Bentley tossed them a look of mild disdain. “Because,” he said, pronouncing the word as if he doubted their intelligence, “I’ve just this moment come from Aldhampton. It’s on the way to Fairford. Recollect, if you will, that there is no other reasonable way to travel from there to here.”

  Cam felt inexplicably sick. “And would you have noticed Lowe’s equipage had you passed it?” He spoke in a rush, his unease growing. Had there been an accident of some sort?

  Bentley elevated one brow and surveyed his elder brother with barely veiled disdain. “Give a little credit where ’tis due, Cam. I know every farm gig and mail coach from here to Bath.”

  “Indeed, my lord,” interposed the butler, “no one could have missed the rector today, for he was traveling with four horses, not the usual two.”

  Bentley turned on the butler with a look of amazement. “A foursome? Pulling old Thomas’s rig? By God, the man means to make some time, does he not? Perhaps he did fly over Aldhampton, after all!”

  A stricken silence fell across the three of them. Both Milford and Bentley stared at Cam, as if wondering what next to do. But the butler spoke first, his voice odd and unsteady. “There was ... something else odd, my lord. Just prior to their leaving, I saw the rector exiting your study. It struck me as a little unusual, but I assume one of the downstairs maids showed him in. And Miss de Severs met him coming out.”

  Cam swallowed hard. On the face of it, there was nothing terribly odd in Lowe’s action. The study was on the main floor, and open to anyone who cared to use it. Indeed, the rector had been there often. He had even borrowed books from time to time. But not lately.