China Rose

by Canham, Marsha

  She flushed. "Your 'witness' the other night. The young lady you left so happily behind you in your bed."

  "Ahhh...that young lady. So that is what is bothering you."

  "It is not bothering me," she said archly.

  "Good. Because there was no young lady."

  "What?"

  "There was no one else in my room, not that night at any rate. But a man would have to be pretty low indeed to go snooping to find out, would you not agree?"

  "You mean you were bluffing? You deliberately dared Sir Ranulf to look in your room knowing full well that if he did...?" She left the sentence unfinished. "You really are quite insane, you know. What if he had looked? He was angry enough to have done something violent."

  "It was a gamble," he admitted. "But it succeeded."

  She shook her head. "And what on earth drove you to rob him tonight? Your own brother, for pity sakes. Surely you didn't do it for the thirty pounds."

  "A slight underestimate," Justin said quietly.

  "But he is your brother! You attacked him and knocked him unconscious!"

  "Yes, well, that part wasn't planned." He paused and glanced around. "I don't suppose you keep anything to drink in here?"

  "No. There is nothing stronger than water."

  "Hmmm, I wonder." He crossed the room to the paneled wall opposite the windows and counted across the squares, then pushed lightly on the lower corner. The wood made a soft clicking sound and quietly swung open, revealing a deep niche behind it. Inside was a bottle of brandy, well coated in dust. He took it out and found two water glasses, then uncorked the bottle with his teeth and poured some of the dark amber liquid in each.

  China had followed the entire process without making a sound. She took the glass by rote as he handed it to her, but it stayed resting on her lap while she watched him drink. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps there was far more going on under this roof than she wanted or needed to know. As for his trustworthiness...robbery and assault aside...what man would deliberately compromise his brother's fiancée then place her in a situation that would be impossible to explain if she were caught in the lie?

  "I would like you to leave now," she said quietly. She set the untouched glass aside and stood. A moment later she was searching amongst the jars and pots on the small vanity table until she found the brass key for the door. He said nothing, but she could feel his eyes melting the skin between her shoulder blades, and her fingers were trembling as she fitted the key into the lock and swung the door open.

  Mrs. Biggs was standing there, a hand raised, about to knock.

  They both gasped and stepped back a pace.

  The housekeeper recovered first. "Good evening, Miss Grant. I hope I am not disturbing you?"

  China swallowed to force her heart out of her throat. "Not at all, Mrs. Biggs. I was....about to retire for the night."

  The Dragon Lady tipped her head slightly and glanced past China's shoulder as if she half-expected to see a pair of naked men cavorting in front of the fire. When China shifted discreetly to block her view, she straightened and indicated the tray in her hands.

  "I brought you a bite of supper and some hot milk."

  "Oh. Yes, thank you Mrs. Biggs, that was very thoughtful, but--"

  The housekeeper brushed past and walked into the bedroom. China shut her eyes tight and held her breath, waiting for the shocked outcry when the woman saw Justin Cross in her room, but after several throbbing heartbeats passed, and no such cry brought down the walls of Jericho, China lifted her lashes slowly and looked behind her.

  The only sounds from Mrs. Briggs came from her fussing with the tray, setting it on a table by the fire and laying out cup and saucer, fork, knife, and spoon. China turned fully around, but there was no sign of Justin. Even the bottle and two glasses had vanished along with him.

  "Tina mentioned you wished to wear the dove gray morning dress tomorrow, but the silly chit neglected to bring it down for steaming. I'll just fetch it now."

  China opened her mouth to protest but the housekeeper was already through the door into the dressing room. She emerged a few moments later, the gown folded over one arm.

  "I will have Tina bring it back in the morning. You have not forgotten your appointments tomorrow? A fitting at the dressmaker, then a tour of the hospital and luncheon with Sir Ranulf. The master left specific instructions for the carriage to be at the front door at nine sharp. He has also informed me that from now on there will be two extra footmen riding with you at all times. Armed, I believe."

  "Thank you," China whispered.

  The housekeeper sniffed by way of acknowledgement, then tipped her head and swept out of the room. "Goodnight Miss Grant."

  "Goodnight Mrs. Biggs."

  China closed and locked the door. She waited until she could not hear any sounds through the panel, then turned and scanned the room. Not a curtain was out of place, not a bulge or unfamiliar shadow showed where none had been before.

  "Mr. Cross?" she called softly.

  There was no answer.

  "Justin?"

  The fire snapped and a log collapsed into a pile of cinder, but apart from that, there was no other sound in the room.

  "How very ridiculous," she said to herself. She tiptoed to the bed, bent, and lifted a corner of the coverlet between thumb and forefinger. There was a big enough space for a man to hide beneath, but Justin was not there.

  She straightened and studied each of the four walls in turn, recalling what he said about hidden passageways. Of course. How else would he have gotten into the room, with both outer doors locked?

  Something else caught her eye; something that had not been there when she first arrived in the room.

  A single, perfect red rose lay across her pillow.

  As she leaned over to pick it up, she remembered that first night, in the library, when she had blurted out the meaning behind her name to Justin Cross.

  ..it was a symbol of his love, a talisman, a way of saying he would always be there if she needed him...

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The wedding was three days away. China was skittish and on edge, expecting at any moment to be hauled before a magistrate to answer for her complicity in the crime of highway robbery. She avoided Justin Cross as if he was a carrier of the plague, and while Sir Ranulf was understandably more irritable and preoccupied following the incident, he had apologized profusely the next morning, which only compounded her feelings of guilt. She did her best to be attentive and on her very best behavior. She even went so far as to flatter Mrs. Biggs on her ability to run such a large household and assured her that her services would be even more important and appreciated after China became mistress. She sat for hours on end listening to Lady Prudence drone on and on about local gossip, stabbing her fingers deliberately with embroidery needles to keep from tumbling off the chair in a stupor.

  To his credit, Justin did nothing more to place China in compromising positions. He took to spending more time away from Braydon Hall, often not coming home at all.

  In the privacy of her own room, curiosity won the better of China and she tapped and tested, pushed and pulled every likely square inch of wall in her bedchamber. If she had not been present at the time of Justin's disappearance, she would not have believed in the existence of the hidden exit. Her inability to find the secret passage and match Justin at his own game, caused her several hours of aggravated concentration and was, in the end, the reason why she was caught so unawares at the final fitting of her wedding gown at Madame Rochelle's dress shop.

  The seamstress, a buxom, rosy-faced woman, was busy with another customer when China arrived for her three o'clock appointment. Lady Prudence had begged leave to visit the furrier's shop down the street, leaving China to wait in the main salon where exquisite fabrics and sample gowns were displayed. Two other women had entered shortly after China and were amusing themselves by examining the selection of corsets and underpinnings.

  "It was a close call as I understand it," one o
f the women was saying. "The lady of the house was not due to arrive home from visiting with her mother until the next day, and there he was with his mistress, naked as a monkey's arse, when he heard his wife coming down the hall to the bedroom. Ooo-la! He was saved only because of the priest-hole built off his suite. It was hidden behind a false front piece in the mantel and the poor girl nearly melted in there waiting for him to release her again." The speaker, a woman with hair suspiciously blonder than nature had provided, frowned and added, "But we should not laugh, I suppose. It could happen to any one of us. I always make it a point to know if there is another way in or out of a room. That was one of Miss Emmeline's first lessons."

  China was not eavesdropping by choice. The outer room of the shop was small and the two women, seeing they were in the company of a genuine lady, were speaking loudly and exchanging smiles each time they saw the blush in China's cheeks darken.

  The second of the pair, a petite girl crowned by a mass of fiery red hair, had the pixie face of a young girl and the full-blown, blowsy shape of a top-heavy hourglass. She did not seem to be as accustomed to the displays of finery, giving out many "ooo's" and "ahh's" and "ain't it luverly's."

  She giggled and dropped the satin garters she had been fingering. "I ain't never 'ad ter worry over hidey-'oles an' such. Never been in no fancy gen'leman's 'ouse ter speak of. Wouldn't 'arf know a trap door if'n I stepped through it."

  The blonde woman proceeded to describe what to look for, a discussion that made China more alert than when they had been discussing how to conceal monthly courses. The usual disguise, so she learned, was to put the access behind a bookcase--here was one in China's room, but she had stripped the shelves and rattled the casing to no avail--or a false panel in the wall. Some opened just by leaning against it, some needed a trigger mechanism of some kind, a secret switch or a pulley. A painting often concealed the switch, or a misplaced book or carving on a mantelpiece.

  "Some of the older castles have whole wings and tunnels hidden away, with secret chambers, even dungeons."

  "Dungeons! Cor, I ain't got a burnin' need ter see one o' them things."

  "Perhaps not, but you should ask Randy to show you his house sometime. It used to be a smuggler's estate so there are undoubtedly secret old passages and cobwebby portals."

  "Wot makes yer think 'ee'd ever take me ter see 'is 'ouse? 'Ee'll be gettin' married in a few days. I'll be lucky if I even gets ter see him after that."

  The blonde laughed. "Oh, you will see him all right. I understand it's an arranged marriage to some silly country cow who looks and smells like a workhorse. And he isn't affectionately called Randy for no reason. You won't be neglected by the good doctor. If anything, he'll be needing all of your best efforts to make up for the squealing, knock-kneed bride he has to service at home."

  The younger girl laughed, clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle the volume. She glanced over in time to see the slender, dark-haired woman rising slowly to her feet, her wide blue eyes staring in shock.

  "Ooo," said Bessy Toone. "Do yer suppose we're offending 'er?"

  The blonde glanced over at China and smirked. "Serves her right if she hears something that offends her delicate sensibilities. Come to a whore's dressmaker, she should expect to find whores."

  ~~

  China ran in the first direction her feet carried her. She ignored the startled coachman who shouted at her as she bolted from the shop. She ran past startled women and hawking peddlers, past scruffy children and animals rooting in heaps of garbage by the side of the road. She ran until her lungs screamed for air and her sides were cramping from the pain. Only then did she slow down, still walking, moving farther and farther away from the dress shop, deeper into the labyrinth of crowded streets, not caring where she was headed.

  There was no question in her mind that the two women had been talking about Sir Ranulf Cross. How many other physicians were being married in three days time to a...a knock-kneed silly country cow? One who was affectionately called Randy!

  And he had the gall to accuse his brother of being a womanizer, lacking honor and moral sensibilities!

  China surged around a corner and ran headlong into a man carrying a basket of freshly baked meat pies. The basket tipped sideways off his arm and the pies flew in all directions as if they had been ejected on springs. Within seconds there were dogs and children swarming the paving stones, snatching up the steaming wares and scattering again in ten different directions. China was jostled and pushed in the mad dash for free pies. Her hat, already set badly off balance in her wild run, slipped off her head entirely and hung down her back, tethered by blue ribbons around her neck.

  "Wot the bluddy 'ell do ye think ye're doin'? Look wot ye've done to me pies! All day and all night Oy've cooked me 'ands to the bone an' look where it's got me! Look wot ye've bluddy done! Ye'll pay fer this, ye bluddy well will. Every last one!"

  "Of...of course I shall pay you, sir. With my most profound apologies as well."

  "Apologies don't put food on the table fer me young'uns." He held out a grimy hand, palm up.

  "If you will just tell me how much I owe, sir?"

  "Aye, well now," he mellowed only slightly at the thought of turning a profit. "Twenty-odd pies at thrup'nce apiece--"

  "Surely there were only four or five," China said, looking at the scattered crumbs on the stones and the number of pies still left in his basket.

  "Twenty," he said again, "at thrup'nce apiece. That would be sixty pence in case ye think I don't know me numbers."

  China glanced around at the crowd that had been gathering around them, attracted by the yapping dogs and squealing children. She reached for her small velvet purse, but it was not hanging off her wrist where it should have been. She turned and searched the ground around her, but there was no sight of it. Either it had come off when she fled the shop or one of the jostling children had slipped it off her wrist.

  "My purse," she said. "It's gone. One of the children--"

  "So now we're thieves?" A voice shouted. "She pushes Tim Pitts an' spills 'is pies for a lark, an' now she accuses us of bein' thieves!"

  "I will pay you for the pies, I promise I will," China said, appealing to the pieman. "I shall send a man back with twice what you say I owe, and happily so."

  Tim Pitts crossed thick arms over his chest. "So ye'll send a man back, will ye? Hear that, mates? She's goin' to send a man back with coin."

  The crowd laughed, sharing the joke.

  Another onlooker shouted. "I say she's like as n'owt got some coin hidden away in them fancy clothes of hers."

  "I'll give ye tuppence fer that hat," someone else offered with a chuckle. "My missus would look a fine piece struttin' off to church wearin' that."

  "She looks a finer piece naked," came a ribald rejoinder.

  More laughter rippled through the crowd, distracting China long enough that the pieman was able to snatch the hanging bonnet over her head and hold it up at arms length, the ribbons streaming out in the breeze. "Tuppence," he shouted. "I'm offered tuppence fer the bonnet. Who'll give me a shilling?"

  China had been holding so much inside for so long, that this was the final straw. She leaped at the pieman and reached for her hat, catching by the ribbons and pulling it down out of his hand. Unfortunately, he had turned aside and when she dragged the hat down, the pretty little butterfly clasp that adorned the brim scratched across his cheek, opening a thin gash.

  He snarled and grabbed at both of her wrists, clamping them in one of his ham-like hands while he felt at the scratched cheek. His fingers came away spotted with blood and when he looked at China again, his eyes had grown dark with anger.

  "Cut Tim Pitts, will ye?"

  "Got ye a fighter there, Tim boy. Mayhap the dress would fetch a prettier price than the bonnet?"

  The women in the crowd seemed to melt back, leaving only a ring of men forming a tight circle around China and the pieman. She pulled and twisted to try to free her wrists, but his hands were like i
ron from pounding and kneading dough. She tried to kick out at him with the points of her shoes, but he only grinned and drew her close to his chest, running one of his big paws over the bodice of her fitted jacket.

  Feeling his hand groping her breast gave China an extra burst of strength and she managed to wrench one of her hands free. She balled the fist and swung with all her might, catching the pieman squarely on the nose and bending it to the side with a sickening snap.

  He roared with the pain. Under China's disbelieving gaze, he reached up and snapped the broken bone back into place, then slowly raised his fist to strike back.

  "I would not do that if I were you, friend."

  China gasped and searched the sea of blurred faces to find the one she prayed was familiar.

  Justin Cross stood just behind her, his feet spread, his arm stretched out straight, his pistol cocked and aimed between the pieman's eyes.

  "Who might you be?" Tim Pitts growled. "Her husband? Her keeper? Her man?""Who I am hardly matters," Justin said. "Who they are might, however."

  The sound of multiple pistols being cocked drew all eyes to the five men who flanked Justin Cross, all of them brawny sailors with bronzed skin and looks of piratical glee at the thought of shedding blood. The crowd melted further back, the men backing away and lowering their heads to go about what business they had been about before the spilling of the pies.

  "Let the lady go," Justin said quietly.

  The pieman grunted and released China's wrists. She felt Justin's hand on her arm drawing her beside, then behind him.

  "And now you will be on your way, Tim Pitts, or you will be getting a lesson in manners you won't soon forget."

  "She dumped me pies and ruined a day's work!"

  Justin reached casually into his breast pocket and tossed a copper at the man's feet. "For your troubles."

  "Me pies were worth twenty times that!"

  "And your life half, so I would count myself lucky if I were you."

  The pieman hawked and spat on the cobbles before he turned and shoved his way through the few remaining onlookers.