Their voices echoed eerily in the vast space. She felt as though she was tiptoeing through a cemetery and conjuring up ghosts, instead of remembering the few hours she had thought to treasure in her heart.
“The guest lists from both affairs have been checked,” Griffin said, walking behind her. “The young gentleman who danced with Edlyn is apparently distraught by what has happened.”
Harriet wandered toward the antechamber. Weed and several other footmen stood at the buffet table laid with light refreshments. For a moment she and the senior footman stared at each other in a thoughtful scrutiny, as if by doing so one of them might dredge up some forgotten detail that would prove helpful.
“Edlyn was sitting in those chairs by the door,” Griffin said. “There were people standing by her, but she-”
“-was drinking punch, I think,” Harriet said, “and talking with a woman who had her back to us.”
Weed followed them, bowing deeply. “Your grace, if I may speak?” The duke turned.
“I was present when Sir Daniel interviewed the guests who had gathered in this chamber on both occasions. None of them admitted to conversing with Miss Edlyn. But I do believe Miss Gardner is correct. There was a woman, your grace, and I cannot place her name to the guest list.”
Griffin nodded. “I think you are both right, but I shall be damned if I can describe her at all.”
“She was wearing a green dress,” Harriet said, contemplating the empty row of chairs. “And she might not have wanted us to see her. She left through that side door as soon as we entered the room.”
Weed paled. “Despite the staff’s stringent efforts, one or two intruders often manage to sneak into the marquess’s home during these affairs.” He paused. If Harriet was afraid he might mention her, he quickly proved he was too professional to be misguided from his current duty. “I shall question the servants at length, your grace.”
“All I remember,” Griffin said as he and Harriet walked back across the ballroom to his aunt and the marchioness, “is that I thought Edlyn was safe. And that-that you were the one in danger.”
Harriet slowed to look up at him. “From you?”
His lips tightened. “I wasn’t wrong, was I?”
“I expect we won’t know what was right or wrong until we’re able to think properly.”
He smiled tiredly. “Yes, and that time cannot come soon enough.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
The strain had dampened everyone’s spirits. Lady Powlis appeared to be on the verge of an emotional crisis and had to be taken upstairs by the marchioness to await the family’s Scottish physician, who dosed her ladyship with laudanum and advised a night of unbroken rest.
Her ladyship’s collapse turned out to be a blessing in disguise. No sooner had the duke and Harriet returned to the town house than a messenger boy ran up the front steps behind them, gripping his knees to catch his breath. “Your grace?” he asked, half-bowing as Griffin looked around in surprise.
Harriet caught his arm. The boy appeared to be half her age, too young to conceal his own dismay at delivering unwelcome news. No doubt he ran fast and was agile enough to dodge the seedy characters who infested the streets at night.
“What is it?” Griffin asked, stepping in front of Harriet with the unthinking gallantry that never failed to move her.
“P’rhaps the lady ought not-”
“Go ahead,” Griffin said in resignation. “I won’t be able to keep it from her, anyway.”
The boy finally straightened, holding his cap to his heart in unspoken sorrow. “There’s a lady been found, beaten up outside the ’ood and Grapes. I’ve been directed to take you there.”
“I know where it is,” Harriet said. “Please let me go with you, your grace.”
She saw the hesitation in his eyes. But then he nodded and called out to the driver, who had been about to turn back toward the carriage house. It was a tense ride to the tavern, Harriet chewing her lip and not daring to break the duke’s silence. When at last they reached the Hood and Grapes, not tarrying in the taproom’s smoky gloom, it was only to meet Sir Daniel on the stairs. He stopped to stare as if he could not believe his eyes.
“How did you know to come here?” he asked in astonishment.
Griffin shook his head. “You sent for-was it-is it Edlyn?”
Sir Daniel blinked. “No. It was a shopkeeper’s assistant who had been sent to deliver a packet of thread. She will recover. But how on earth did you find out when I have only been here a minute or so myself?”
“Your messenger brought us here.” Griffin scrubbed his hand over his face with a relief that Harriet more than shared.
“I sent no messenger,” Sir Daniel said, his gaze searching the taproom below. His eyes lifted suspiciously to Harriet. “It would have been unconscionable to bring you here until I reviewed the incident myself.”
Harriet sighed. What might be seen as unconscionable to a gentleman of Sir Daniel’s integrity would not disturb a miscreant like Nick Rydell, who thrived on the misfortune of others. But at least it proved he was on the job, even if he only wanted the reward.
“I do hope you find the person who attacked that young girl tonight,” Griffin said heavily.
“So do I, your grace,” Sir Daniel said with a veiled look at Harriet. “It is a regrettable truth of London life that the ladies we cherish should be guarded at all times.”
“I could not agree with you more,” Griffin said, and did not bother at all to veil the meaningful stare he gave Harriet.
Harriet had not realized how deeply she cared for Lady Powlis until the following day. An undisturbed stretch of sleep had done Primrose a world of good. She was subdued, but with still enough wind in her sails to insist she accompany Harriet and Griffin back to the scene of the Mayfair breakfast party they had attended.
Harriet found it hard to maintain hope that Edlyn was playing a hoax. A disappearance going on almost two days was sufficient time to punish one’s family. The girl had to realize that her great-aunt was getting on in years. In fact, Harriet was so worried about the dear harridan’s health that she was torn between staying with her beneath the fig tree where they had sat or accompanying the duke on his investigation of the park.
“Go with him, Harriet,” Lady Powlis said, waving her off with her cane. “I sent you searching after Edlyn that day, as I recall.”
“But, madam, you don’t look at all well.”
“I wasn’t well then,” Lady Powlis snapped, proving that she was stronger than she appeared. “I’d eaten off mutton, and, believe me, there are few things worse.”
“Harriet,” Griffin called, motioning at her from the small ornamental bridge over the pond, “are you walking with me or not?”
“I didn’t walk with you that day at all,” Harriet muttered as she hastened across the lawn to join him. “As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember that you ignored me.”
“I did anything but.” He grasped her hand to guide her across the bridge. “Be careful where you step. The ground is wet here.”
She caught her skirt in one hand, frowning as his gaze lowered pointedly to her ankles. “You did not spend a single moment in my company.”
“That is different from ignoring you,” he said with a wry look.
She sighed in exasperation. “Well, if that is your memory of that day, I doubt you will recall anything to be of help.”
She walked around him, doing her best to envision what she had done after leaving Lady Powlis at the fig tree. Hang it. This was all wrong. She had not crossed the bridge. She had not come this way at all, because the bridge had been crowded with ladies watching the archery contest. Or, rather, watching the duke, she thought sourly.
She had walked around the dancers, one eye on Edlyn, the other on the contest. But then Edlyn disappeared into t
he rotunda. The duke had removed his frock coat to join the competition. Harriet smiled as she pictured his muscular shoulder drawn back, elbow bent against the sleeve of his fine linen shirt. When he’d hit the target dead center, Harriet had almost clapped in pride, not that he would have noticed her praise amid the audience of admiring young ladies cheering his skills and begging for another display.
The rotunda. She turned toward the domed retreat at the bottom of the garden. Edlyn had climbed the steps and vanished between the ivy-draped columns a moment or so before the duke had taken aim. Harriet had hastened to join her, intent on thwarting an impromptu tryst with some wayward rake who might be waiting for a lonely girl. But Edlyn had emerged from the other side, alone. And Harriet had noticed that she looked considerably brighter than she had in days.
The only other person in the vicinity had been a modestly attired woman in a bonnet. And if Harriet concentrated hard enough, she might be able to grasp at another detail-
“I can’t remember a blessed thing,” the duke said over her shoulder, not only startling the daylights out of her but yanking her straight back to the present time.
She gave a groan of frustration. The images in her mind dissolved like mist. She willed them back, to no avail. A lady in a bonnet that overshadowed her face was hardly enough for Sir Daniel to go on.
“It can’t be a coincidence.” She shook her head. “We both saw a woman talking to Edlyn at the party. You thought you might have seen her standing beside a woman in the park. And I am almost positive that it was this same person who met Edlyn in the rotunda.”
Griffin nodded, avoiding her gaze.
“Well, say something, please. Tell me that this is not suspicious.”
“Everything is suspicious. Primrose thinks she was deliberately poisoned that day. I don’t believe that for an instant, but then, I still cannot believe that anyone would hold Edlyn for ransom.”
Harriet frowned. “Try to think back to when you won the archery contest. The woman in the bonnet must have walked around the target at some point.”
“She might well have.”
She waited. He stared past her at the rotunda. “And?” she prompted, following the path of his gaze until he looked back rather blankly at her. “You don’t remember seeing her at all? You lowered your bow. The crowd cheered. You went to the sidelines and watched the next contestant-”
“No.” He shook his head ruefully. “I went to the sidelines and watched you. In fact, I was watching you all day long. I wanted you to see me shoot. And that is the truth of it. I have noticed no other woman since I met you, Harriet. And-” He broke off.
“Go on,” she whispered, her throat closing.
He glanced up at the sky. “Dear God. Unless I am mistaken, that was lightning I saw above the trees.”
A little thing like lightning would not have stopped Harriet from listening to the rest of his confession. She gave him her hand as they recrossed the bridge. The week had almost come to an end. He had not mentioned his promise to find her another position, and she was certainly not of a mood to remind him until the crisis they faced was solved.
Chapter Thirty
Thy look of love has power to calm The stormiest passion of my soul.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
To Harriet (Thy Look of Love…)
A small box had arrived for the duke while they were gone. Griffin handed it absentmindedly to Lady Powlis, who took it upstairs to open while waiting for her tea. She enjoyed admiring the little gifts that Lady Hermia Dalrymple liked to send her. Griffin peeled off his wet greatcoat and helped Harriet remove her cloak. Butler took the damp garments away to dry. A maidservant efficiently mopped up the puddles that glistened on the marble floor.
The front door, not properly on the latch, flew open. Harriet closed it before a restless spirit could sneak in with the wind. She didn’t actually believe in ghosts, but sometimes she liked to give herself a scare. Either way, there was no point in risking a cold.
“How will Sir Daniel conduct a search in this weather?” the duke asked in frustration. He began to sort through the post on the hall stand salver. Harriet knew by his terse expression that he was half expecting to come upon a letter from Edlyn and that it was a discouraging sign that no one had heard from her.
“Sir Daniel could find a lost kitten in the London fog,” she said quietly. “I hate to tell you all the times he hunted down certain people who shall remain nameless, if you take my meaning. You wouldn’t believe the man’s instincts, the places he could find a person.”
He turned and regarded her with an inscrutable look that closed her throat. She forgot that the maid was mopping circles around them, that another waited patiently to ask whether the duke preferred tea and brandy in the upstairs drawing room with her ladyship or in the library by himself.
“You,” he said, in a clear, grateful voice that everyone in the hall could hear, “are good for the soul, Miss Gardner. I’m very much afraid, therefore, that I have reconsidered your request to leave and cannot allow it. You will just have to trust me a little longer to arrange the particulars. But you are not to leave this house, ever.”
It was a tribute to her academy training that Harriet did not overstep the boundary between her position and what her instincts urged her to do. If she had, she would have asked the servants for a moment’s privacy so that she could force him into explaining exactly what it was he intended to do.
And just as she smiled at him, and he smiled back at her, there arose an anguished cry from above stairs that sent every thought of romancing the duke straight out of her head.
Edlyn was going to make her captors sorry for what they had done. Spite had fired her blood for as long as she could remember. She had made everyone in Castle Glenmorgan as miserable as she could. But it had always been Griffin who came to her defense against her father during their frequent arguments in the great hall.
Would he defend her now?
She remembered the day Griffin and her great-aunts had stood up to her father in the great hall. After she had stormed away, she watched them from the music gallery above, giggling through her tears and promising that they’d be sorry when she found her mother, although maybe, maybe, she’d forgive them later on.
She loved them. And they had loved her.
The same could not be said of the amoral man and woman who had imprisoned her in this dark, moldy attic that stank of steak and fish. She stared down into the dripping street, the cat preening at her feet. She’d never be found once they got her out of London, and she had heard them making plans to buy passage on the Thames.
“There’s someone lying in that wheelbarrow down there,” she whispered, straining to see through the rain. “I wonder if he’s dead.”
Mrs. Porter walked in to the room. The cat disappeared. “Who were you talking to?” she asked, staring out the barred window.
“I was saying my prayers,” Edlyn said meekly.
“Then you’d better pray a little harder.”
“Has my uncle agreed to your terms?”
“He has one day left before we tell him where to bring the money. I daresay he shall no doubt know that we are serious when he sees your headband.”
“Oh, dear,” Edlyn said, crossing her closed hands over her heart. “I very much doubt he’ll want me back at all. You see, I haven’t always been a nice girl.”
Mrs. Porter studied her carefully. “What are you holding in your hands?” “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Show me.”
Mrs. Porter called to the man hovering in the door. “Get over here. Make sure she hasn’t gotten hold of a weapon.”
Edlyn raised her otherworldly eyes. “Do you mean like a sword? But my hands are too small.”
“Show me what you are holding.”
And when she pried Edlyn’s fingers apart, she screamed and screamed as half a dozen brown spiders went scurrying up her arms to her neck into the bodice and sleeves of her dress.
Harriet
thought she might be the only rational person in the house that night. Lady Powlis had gone into understandable hysterics when she discovered Edlyn’s headband in the box. The maids and even one of the footmen had wept in fear and held one another, clearly convinced that Edlyn would never come back. The duke had withdrawn into his library in the worst mood she’d witnessed since knowing him, and that was saying something, as he’d never been all rainbows and roses to begin with. He was afraid, and feeling helpless made it worse.
She was relieved when he went out prowling at half past seven with Lord Heath and one of the night Runners who’d worked for Sir Daniel before he officially retired from service. Griffin would go mad if he sat here twiddling his thumbs all night. If she hadn’t promised to stay home, she’d have been tempted to visit one of the flash houses in Spitalfields or Whitechapel herself. But if Nick Rydell had put out the word, he’d have every thief, prostitute, and parish watchman in London who owed him a favor on the job. She could have helped, though. She had her own friends. But Nick had taken over. He was the one everyone owed.
Edlyn had the best of the beau monde and the city’s underworld joining forces to find her. Her abductors obviously had no idea whom they were up against, and Harriet didn’t give a toss who got the credit. She only wanted Lady Powlis to stop crying and the duke to stop carrying the weight of the world on his well-formed shoulders.
Chapter Thirty-one
So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein- more, far more, will I achieve.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
The town house was as quiet as a tomb when Griffin came home nearly eight hours later. He went straight to the library, lighting a candle before he realized that Harriet had fallen asleep on the chaise. The coals had burned out. He pulled off his jacket and covered her shoulders. There was no point in disturbing her.
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