Regency 01 - The Schoolmistress and the Spy

by Julia Byrne

  Had she lost her mind down there in the drawing room? Surely she wasn’t thinking of embarking on an affair? Charlotte would be horrified. Tibby would succumb to a fit of the vapours. Even she was appalled.

  Well…somewhat startled.

  It was all Lucas’s fault, of course. If he hadn’t touched her in that incredibly arousing way she wouldn’t have contemplated an affair for a moment. For that matter, if he was the sort of fellow Mr. Poole had inflicted upon her, the very notion of an affair wouldn’t even occur to her.

  But Lucas wasn’t really a ruffian, even if he was a little rough around the edges. Actually, there was a lot to recommend him…as a friend, she told herself hastily. He was kind to the girls. Indeed, she suspected he was kinder than he thought himself to be. He was protective of her reputation; even tonight he had stopped before she’d thought to protest, which meant he was honorable. He was honest—to a fault sometimes, but she could trust him to tell her the truth. If she was ever to give herself to a man—

  Oh, dear, now she was back to thinking about an affair.

  Well, why not, she thought rebelliously. It wasn’t as if she wanted to marry anyone. Her grandparents had made it abundantly clear that her background and upbringing were insurmountable drawbacks to a suitable match, and she had seen nothing in Polite Society to make her think otherwise. Lucas was probably the only man she knew who wouldn’t care about Society’s rules, but marriage didn’t appear to be on his mind. No doubt because it had the word future hanging all over it.

  Not that it mattered, of course, because she wasn’t waiting for a proposal. She did not wish to lose her independence. Marriage would mean handing over her school and everything else she owned to a husband, which could turn out to be a disaster. But why should she deny herself the opportunity to experience passion? This might be her only chance. And if she was very, very careful, she could protect her reputation.

  But what of her heart, she wondered, suddenly uneasy. What price might she pay for a few weeks or months with Lucas? Already she thought about him far too often. She’d wanted to know more about him from the outset, but that need was now deeper, more imperative. She wanted to know what caused the shadows she’d seen in his eyes that morning. And if she could heal them.

  Yes, that was where the danger lay. Maybe she could experience passion just once. It shouldn’t be too difficult; Lucas was already living in the house. How risky could it be for her to go to his room? It wasn’t as if everyone else was going to be wandering about in the middle of the night.

  A soft scraping noise came from the ceiling above her.

  Emily froze. Good heavens, this was what came of making scandalous plans. She actually thought she was hearing someone wandering about in the middle of the night.

  The noise came again, the smallest whisper as if something was being moved across the floor.

  Someone was in the attic.

  Emily sat bolt upright, a chill raising goose bumps on her arms. Her shocking thoughts hadn’t conjured up that noise. Someone was in the attic. The servants? They had no reason to go into the other rooms at night. One of the girls? On a dare perhaps?

  She leapt out of bed and threw on her dressinggown. Without bothering to tie the sash, she raced out of her room and down the passage, her bare feet silent on the carpet runner. Halfway along the corridor a lamp stood on a small table. It was kept burning low all night in case one of the girls felt ill and needed attention. Emily seized it and softly opened the first dormitory door. All the girls were asleep in their beds. The same scene greeted her when she checked the second dormitory.

  She stood in the corridor and listened again. She wasn’t fool enough to go racing up the stairs to tackle a possible house-breaker by herself. Nor would she endanger Tibby or Charlotte. She needed Lucas.

  She ran back to her room to close the door. As she did so she heard another almost silent brushing sound. It sent a chill down her spine.

  Turning, she sped down the stairs and along the hallway to the servants’ stairway. There was no light burning in the kitchen. Clutching her lamp, she descended into darkness.

  *

  Luke lay with his hands clasped behind his head and grimly contemplated the deep hole he was digging for himself. He should never have touched Emily. He shouldn’t have kissed her. Hell, he shouldn’t even have gone into the drawing room and danced with her.

  But after that tiny taste this morning, he could no more resist her than a starving man could resist falling on a banquet after the first delicious mouthful. She was softness, sweetness, feminine warmth; everything he had craved in that moment. Everything he still craved. And she had responded with such innocent sensuality. Her small, startled gasp when he’d traced the exquisite curve of her lips with the tip of his tongue had speared through him straight to his loins. Even the memory of it had his body clenching in an almost painful surge of desire.

  Gritting his teeth, Luke threw back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. He groped for his tinder box and lit the lamp he’d borrowed from the kitchen. The glow reached the battered old portmanteau he’d hauled around the Continent for the past several years.

  That was a reminder of the sort of life he’d led. He hadn’t even unpacked the damn thing, apart from a few necessities. What was the point? Another week here and his task would be done, with no result to show for it unless he found those papers.

  And what of Emily? Was he going to walk away from her and never look back? Even imagining it made his stomach clench. He couldn’t bear the thought of not touching her again, of not tasting that sweet mouth again, of never sinking himself into the hot depths of her body and making her his. But to do that he would have to tell her the truth about himself, and she would be furious. Worse. If he got to the bottom of the blackmail notes, Emily was going to be more than furious, she was going to be hurt. And he would be the one to bring that hurt down upon her. She would never forgive him.

  Luke thrust an impatient hand through his hair and got to his feet. Maybe a glass of brandy would take the edge off the emotions churning inside him. Sitting here contemplating the possibility that he could lose Emily was tying him in knots. Contemplating why he didn’t want to lose her threatened to tear him apart. It would be better to suspend thought altogether.

  Cursing, he yanked his breeches off the top of his portmanteau and pulled them on. As he fastened the buttons, he realized the old chest looked different than it had earlier in the day. He’d positioned it flush against the wall, but now one corner was an inch out of line. He hunkered down in front of it and held the lamp close to the left-hand strap.

  The tiny thread he’d placed through the back of the buckle was missing.

  Well, well. That was interesting. Putting the thread in place was a normal precaution, so ingrained he no longer thought about it. But, here in Emily’s school, it had been disturbed.

  He opened the portmanteau. Nothing was missing, but he knew immediately that someone had searched through his belongings. Frowning thoughtfully, he lowered the lid again and stood up. Either someone was very curious about him, or the blackmailer was making sure that the new man-of-all-work was exactly what he purported to be.

  Before he could decide one way or the other, an urgent tap sounded on the door. “Lucas,” Emily called softly, “are you awake?”

  He took two strides forward and yanked the door open.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she said, before he could ask what the hell she was doing knocking on his door at one o’clock in the morning. “There’s someone up in the attic.”

  “What!” Without waiting for an answer, he turned back toward the bed, slid his hand beneath the mattress to retrieve his knife, then reached out to haul Emily into the room. “Could it be one of the girls?”

  “No, I checked.”

  “What about Miss Tibberton or Miss Haymes?”

  “Well, I didn’t stop to see if they were in their beds,” she answered tartly. “Why would they be in the attic at this hour whe
n they can go up there any time they like?”

  “Good question,” he muttered, pulling on his boots. He saw Emily’s eyes widen as she watched him slip the knife into his right boot. He headed toward the door before she could delay him with questions.

  “What about the lamp?” she asked.

  “I won’t need it. Stay here.”

  Emily glared at him as he went past. “Sometimes, Lucas, you seem to forget who owns this place. I’m coming with you.”

  He gritted his teeth, but there was no time to argue. “Yes, Miss Proudfoot. Be sure to stay behind me, Miss Proudfoot. Otherwise, Miss Proudfoot, I will put you over my knee at the next convenient opportunity.”

  There was no answer. Either Emily knew an empty threat when she heard one, or she needed all her breath to keep up with him because he was climbing the stairs at high speed.

  But he could feel her fuming behind him.

  He hesitated on the first floor, but all seemed quiet. They continued up the stairs. When they reached the top floor, moonlight filtered through the window at the top of the main staircase, giving him a clear view of the empty passage.

  He looked down at Emily and put a finger to his lips. She nodded and they trod silently past the servants’ rooms. Not that there was much danger of being heard. Mrs. Starling was snoring fit to bring the house down.

  He stopped again and put his lips to Emily’s ear. “What part of the attic?” he breathed.

  “Over my room,” she whispered back. “The far corner, away from the street.”

  He nodded and drew her closer to the wall as they moved forward. When they reached the door, he bent to slip his knife into his hand. He turned to Emily. “Stay here,” he whispered, and narrowed his eyes at her. “I mean it.”

  Her lips parted, then she nodded.

  Luke flattened himself against the wall, put his left hand on the door latch, raised it silently, and flung the door open with just enough force to send it back against the wall without making too much noise. At the same time he went through the doorway in a low, fast-moving crouch.

  Moonlight streamed in here, also, illuminating the mounds of boxes and furniture. Everything seemed to stare at him in sad reproach for his rude entry. Nothing appeared to have been moved since his visit that afternoon. There were no human intruders.

  “You can come in,” he said, straightening. “There’s no-one here.”

  Emily appeared in the doorway. “Are you sure? They could be hiding behind something.”

  “I’d know,” he said, not bothering to explain that fourteen years of experience and honed instincts told him the place was empty. But he walked through the discarded items to the other side of the room to reassure her.

  She drifted in his wake like a worried little ghost. “I did hear something, Lucas.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?” he asked absently. He had just spied an old tallboy, the bottom drawer of which appeared to be slightly out of alignment. He couldn’t be sure because it was behind a smaller chest of drawers, and he didn’t want to move anything until he could check the room in daylight.

  “Positive,” she said. “I was awake.”

  He turned his head sharply at that, but she wasn’t looking at him; she was glancing around the room. He ruthlessly stifled an impulse to ask if she’d been lying awake thinking about him.

  “There could be another rat up here,” he said instead. It wasn’t altogether unlikely. He’d presumed that Jenkins had obtained his deceased rodent from the wharf area, but the man could have trapped it here in the first place. If his belongings hadn’t been searched he might have accepted that explanation, but noises in the attic occurring within hours of someone going through his portmanteau seemed too coincidental.

  “I suppose it might be a rat,” Emily murmured. “The noise I heard sounded like something sliding across the floor, but it was very faint. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

  “There you are, then.” He looked at her. She had found time to tie the sash of her robe, but the memory of her modest white nightgown peeping through the gap when he’d opened his bedroom door was too clear in his mind for comfort. He needed a distraction.

  “This is a good sized room,” he said. “You should do something with it.”

  She seemed to brighten right before his eyes. The sunny smile she gave him almost lit up the entire space. “A large family used to live here,” she explained. “This was probably a schoolroom or nursery. Actually, you and Monsieur Maurice aren’t the only people to think of its potential. Mr. Quadling came up here when he escorted Charlotte home.”

  “Did he indeed.”

  “He said something about using it for painting and drawing classes.”

  Luke nodded, but made a mental note to discover how Maurice and Quadling spent their evenings so he could plan a search of their lodgings.

  “I’ll start clearing out this room tomorrow,” he said. “You’ll have a better idea of the space once the rubbish is gone.”

  “That would be helpful. Well—” Her smile faded. She glanced down at her bare toes peeping out from under the hem of her nightgown. Luke couldn’t be certain in the dim light, but he could have sworn she blushed. “That was all for nothing, wasn’t it. I’m sorry I disturbed you, Lucas.”

  “I wasn’t asleep,” he murmured. He started toward her, ready to usher her out of the room. Apart from that quick glance down at her feet, she hadn’t taken her gaze off him for several minutes. He suddenly remembered he was bare from the waist up. The intimacy of the situation wasn’t lost on either of them. He had to get her out of here.

  “Don’t lie awake worrying about what you heard,” he said somewhat curtly. “I’ll take a look around the rest of the house to make sure nothing’s been disturbed.”

  “Thank you.” Her hands clasped and unclasped. “At least we didn’t wake anyone else. That’s very fortunate, don’t you think? Considering we were running all over the house.”

  Luke eyed her narrowly as he approached. For some reason, she seemed more agitated now than when she’d come tapping on his door.

  “Very fortunate,” he agreed softly. “You’d better go back to bed, Emily. It’s been an eventful day, one way and another.”

  “Yes.” Her gaze lowered to his chest. She seemed about to say something else, but as he moved into the moonlight, she caught sight of his scar. “Oh, Lucas—”

  “Go to bed, Emily,” he growled. “You don’t want to hear the story of my wounds tonight.”

  She blinked at his rough tone. Then an impossibly innocent expression crossed her face.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said airily. “But I think you should know that one of the second dormitory windows overlooks the yard. You might want to keep that in mind when you’re shaving. Good night, Lucas.”

  She turned and fled out of the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Luke was up in the attic early the following morning, armed with a lamp. The day was cloudy; daylight was not going to illuminate the far corner where he’d seen the tallboy. At least, not as well as he’d like it to.

  He studied the floor as he approached the stack of furniture. Thanks to the footprints he and Emily had left last night, there was no way to tell if anyone had preceded them. However, a few cobwebs floated from the ceiling or draped themselves between pieces of furniture, and a thick layer of dust coated the surfaces, which might prove helpful.

  When he reached the chest of drawers in front of the tallboy, he moved the light over it. The dust appeared disturbed here and there, but, again, there was nothing to tell him whether or not the piece had been moved recently.

  Emily had said the noise she’d heard sounded like something sliding over the floor. He lifted the chest slightly at one side and drew it away from the tallboy. A faint scraping sound ensued as the other side moved an inch or two. That seemed to prove that human agency, not a rat, had something to do with the noise.

  He shone the light onto the front of the tallboy. The
drawers weren’t flush with the frame, but overlapped a little. He pulled out the top drawer and made a sound of satisfaction. As he’d hoped, a very fine line of dust lay along the upper edge. Clearly, the furniture had been stored here for a long time. Unless the other drawers were opened and closed regularly, they would show the same line of dust along their top edges.

  And so they did, except for the bottom drawer. Across the center of it’s upper edge there was no dust at all.

  Luke hunkered down in front of the tallboy and contemplated the clean top of the drawer. It wasn’t conclusive, but it did indicate that this drawer had been opened and closed recently by someone whose sleeves must have brushed across the rim as they’d removed whatever was stored here.

  No, not stored, he thought, straightening. Hidden.

  Damn it, he should have searched the attic first, although no one had come tearing up here to remove anything while he’d been hunting for the dead rat. For all anyone knew, the hapless rodent could have dropped dead on top of the tallboy and he could have removed the drawers to check for a nest.

  The fact that no one had been worried by that possibility made it likely that whoever had hidden something up here didn’t live in the house, and was therefore unaware that he’d been in the attic on the day he’d arrived.

  Monsieur Maurice or Rupert Quadling immediately came to mind. One of them could have hidden the papers at the school because they knew suspicion would be bound to fall on Emily if any of the blackmail victims went to the authorities. Which was precisely what had happened.

  But that theory left the question of how Maurice or Quadling had found the papers in the first place. And how whoever it was got into the house last night. The window latches were secure. No one had crept in via the kitchen; he would have heard them. The front door was locked and bolted. That left the area door which was locked but wasn’t fitted with a bolt; a circumstance that needed to be rectified, because anyone capable of blackmail was equally capable of taking the key from its hook beside the rarely-used door, having the key copied, and returning it.