Lady Anne 01 - Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “He confessed?” Anne asked, reflecting on the suggestion that Osei Boatin was named as her other lover rather than Jamey, the groom.

  “He did. I heard it myself.”

  “And said he was the father of her baby.”

  “Yes.”

  “But she taunted him, saying she had taken Mr. Boatin as a lover?”

  “Yes!” Mr. Grover said, fastening his walleyed stare on her.

  “How could you tell all that?” Anne asked. “I spoke to that fellow, and his dialect was incomprehensible.”

  “But I have lived here many years, madam, and understand the language.”

  “It sounds like a lot to decipher.”

  “Thank God,” Lord John said, sighing. “A confession. That poor girl—to have sunk so low as to try to force a man like Spottiswode into marriage!”

  “It defies belief,” Anne agreed, thinking of what she had heard of Cecilia’s and Jamey’s affair. None of that accorded with what Spottiswode apparently said, even about Cecilia supposedly having taken Mr. Boatin as a lover, but then, who was to say she wasn’t lying to Spottiswode to make him angry? To hurt him? He had certainly been infuriated about Mr. Boatin when she briefly spoke to him.

  “I thank you, sir, for bringing us the news,” Lady Darkefell said hoarsely, rising on unsteady legs, her full skirts swaying with her movement. “If you will excuse me, I find myself in need of rest.” She left the room, and Grover departed soon after.

  ***

  It was only Anne and Lord John at the dinner table, for Lady Darkefell pled illness, as did Lydia. Lord Darkefell, after he dropped Anne off that day, had disappeared. With this new development, he likely had to confer with the magistrate.

  Anne toyed with her whitefish, pushing it around her plate and eying Lord John. “You and I have not had much occasion to speak, Lord John.”

  He nodded.

  “Lydia has been badly frightened by this werewolf nonsense. Do you have any idea what is happening? I understand it’s not just your own people who have seen it, but villagers as well.”

  He blandly said, “Some dog is killing sheep.”

  “While that’s possible, it doesn’t explain the sightings of an actual werewolf, seven feet tall and standing upright like a man.”

  “Idiocy. If people are frightened, they should stay in at night.”

  His demeanor was truculent, and she began to wonder if she had been too hard on Lydia when she thought the girl imagined her husband’s change of manner toward her. “Is that how you’ve comforted your wife, by telling her that?”

  “My behavior toward my wife is no one’s affair but my own.”

  They were both silent while a footman—not Andrew but a lesser fellow—made the change of courses.

  “Do you deny that you have changed in your behavior toward her?”

  He was stonily silent, eating his beefsteak, but his cheeks flamed.

  “Where were you the night Cecilia was killed?”

  “You saw me,” he said.

  “But you came from the back hall,” Anne remarked. “Where were you before you entered?”

  “I fail to see what business any of this is of yours, Lady Anne!” he said, rising.

  “Will you not tell me what has gone on? I’m trying to help,” she said. “What of Fanny Allengate’s death? And Tilly Landers? What about your brother, Lord Julius, being accused of Miss Landers’s death and disappearing to the Canadas? What say you of that?”

  “Good evening, Lady Anne,” he said, his face red, the blush extending down to his cravat. He bowed. “I’m going to see my wife. Apologize for my abrupt departure. Ask the serving staff for anything you require!” He bowed again and exited hastily, bumbling into the sideboard on his way.

  Anne retired early to her room but sat up in the window seat. So Cecilia had been murdered by a lover, but such a lover as Spotted Willie, or whatever Mr. Grover had named him! Why, if Cecilia had been successful in winning the handsome–by-all-reports Jamey as a lover, did she take up with the loathsome Spotted Willie? And was this same fellow also responsible for the slaughtered sheep and the deaths of Tilly Landers and Fanny Allengate?

  The moon shone down on the lawn, and a movement drew her attention. Someone was stealing out a side door and moving stealthily, just as another figure moved toward the lodge from the opposite direction. Mindful that, though she had conjectures, she still was not sure of the identity of the prankster who was posing as a werewolf, Anne leaped into action. She recognized Ellen, draped in a shawl, her blonde curls escaping and illuminated like burnished gold in the moonlight. The other figure, moving toward her, was surely Jamey. Perhaps she would find out more about the werewolf hoax by following them. The young man had much to answer for, wooing both Cecilia and Ellen—who knew what other mischief he was up to?

  She rushed into her adjoining dressing room. Mrs. Hailey had agreed that it would be least upsetting to the household if Mary and Robbie had cots in her dressing room. She crossed and found Mary’s bed; the woman was not sleeping and sat up immediately, still fully dressed.

  “I knew y’wouldna be asleep yet, milady. Do you wish something?”

  “Yes, I wish your company,” Anne whispered. “Let Robbie sleep, get your cloak and mine, and come!”

  Mary, accustomed to sudden decisions, didn’t protest. She helped Anne into a warm dressing gown and hooded cloak, donned her own, and they were soon outside Ivy Lodge and following the direction Ellen took. Anne damned the time it had taken to find a discreet exit, creep from the lodge and, staying off the noisy gravel, steal along the lodge walls toward the open lawn where she thought Ellen and her swain would meet. Now she could see no sign of them, even as she and Mary were out in the open.

  She peered into the dark, and it came to her in a flash; she knew where they would head. The tower! She grabbed Mary’s arm and headed up the slope toward the structure, explaining in a hushed tone along the way, but then both fell silent as the rigors of scrambling through the night required all their concentration. It was fortunate indeed that her ankle had recovered quickly from her first night’s misadventure. Anne blessed Mary’s stalwart and loyal nature, for this was beyond what a lady’s maid should be expected to do.

  Happily, the moon was waxing, not waning, and the trees were still light of leaf. Being a countrywoman had its benefits; the terrain was hilly, and night noises would have made an inferior woman nervous. Anne occupied the time identifying noises. One in particular she recognized was the night sound of a moorhen. They must be near water. She remembered seeing the stream and waterfall from the top of the tower; the stream’s path must meander close by.

  Just then a howl rent the night air, silencing the other night noises. Mary gasped, and Anne reached back, grabbed her arm, and the two stopped. The small hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms stood straight up as Anne pushed her cloak hood back, whispering, “I heard that howl the night I arrived, just before I heard Cecilia Wainwright’s death cry.”

  The howl echoed through the night again, and then a woman screamed.

  “That must be Ellen! Come, quickly,” Anne said, pulling Mary after her.

  The howl split the night air again. As Anne and Mary crested the hill and found the tower, a black blot in the dimness of the shadowy grove, Anne heard a rustling sound then saw, in a clearing, a creature lope by, running to the top of the next hill, where it stopped and howled. It moved on, but a moment later Anne saw the indistinct shape of a creature on two legs… a man? But no—it had, outlined clearly by the moonglow, a long snout!

  “What is that?” Anne cried, but by the time Mary turned and followed her pointed finger, it was gone.

  “What?” Mary cried, gasping for breath.

  “We must find Ellen!” Anne turned toward the tower, fearing the worst. Her stomach churned in fear.

  “Who’s there?” a male voice called out.

  Anne, heedless for her own safety and concerned only with the young maid, headed toward the vo
ice, breathlessly demanding that Mary stay in the open where she would be safer.

  “I’ll no’ leave you on yer own, milady,” Mary cried, following on her heels.

  A wavering light flickered and fluttered, and Anne stopped, terrified into caution for just a moment. She dreaded what she might see—had poor Ellen suffered the fate of Cecilia? Did that mean they had the wrong man as murderer, and young Jamey was the culprit?

  “Who’s there? Where’s Ellen?” she demanded again, her voice quavering.

  “Lady Anne?”

  A slim figure, illuminated in the flickering flame of a lantern, emerged from the shadows at the base of the tower, and Anne almost wept in relief.

  “Ellen, you’re alive!” she cried, falling on the girl and hugging her in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. She released her and set her at arm’s length as a young man—Jamey, it seemed likely—emerged from the shadows after her. “What’s going on here?” Anne asked. “I heard the howling and a shriek. Are you two cozening me?”

  The young man, a fresh-faced fellow of about twenty, stepped forward and brazenly said, “Ow’d we do that when we din’t even know you wuz there?”

  Ellen stepped forward and pushed Jamey behind her, saying, “Excuse him, milady. We didn’t mean nothing. Just some joshing on Jamey’s part. You won’t report me to Mrs. Hailey, will you? She’d let me go!”

  Anne, her heart finally beginning to settle down, regarded her thoughtfully. “Did you not hear that howl? I saw the creature running, and it stopped and howled. A wolf, it looked like.”

  “We heard the sound, ma’am—that’s what caused me to scream like that.” She paused then continued. “Well, that and I was startled when Jamey, he was… he tickled me, see, and scared me—”

  “Enough,” Anne said, holding up one hand. She decided not to say a word for the moment about the two-legged creature. “I think you should come back to Ivy Lodge with me, Ellen. You’ll suffer more than a damaged reputation if you persist in creeping out at night to meet this fellow. You’ve not been completely honest about your feelings about Cecilia Wainwright, and though her killer has been caught, I’m still interested to hear the story.”

  Her chin went up, a mulish expression on her sweet face. “We were friends, ma’am, weren’t we, Jamey? Cecilia an’ me were friends,” she said, looking back at her beau with a significant look and digging him in the ribs.

  He nodded. “Aye… friends.”

  She had handled them all wrong, Anne thought ruefully, giving them a chance to present a united front. “That’s not what I’ve heard. Nevertheless, Ellen, I would strongly advise you to accompany me back to the lodge.”

  It was interesting how the meek girl Anne had met the first morning returned in an instant.

  “Yes, milady, of course.” She cast a glance back at Jamey. “You remember what I said, now, Jamey.”

  “Go along with Mary,” Anne said to Ellen, “for I’d like to speak to Jamey for a moment.”

  Mary said, eyeing the sullen young groom, “I don’t like leavin’ ya alone just now, what with th’wolf an’ all.”

  “Nonsense. That has to have been a dog, not a wolf, after all.”

  “Like no dog I’ve ever seen,” she muttered, but at a look from her mistress, she took Ellen’s arm and said, “Right, you come along with me, and we’ll wait for her ladyship down’t th’ bottom of the hill.”

  Anne turned to the groom as the two women departed; he appeared uneasy. “You, young man, have caused quite a bit of trouble among the girls of Ivy Lodge with your flirtatious ways.”

  “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,” he said, the sullen expression still on his handsome face.

  He was a good-looking enough fellow in the flickering light of his lantern, with a broad face, even, unblemished features, good teeth, and a sturdy frame. Among the other farm workers and stable staff, he likely looked a prince. That was the only explanation for so elevated a creature as a lady’s maid—Cecilia Wainwright—falling for him, that and her evident loneliness since coming to Ivy Lodge. A lady’s maid would normally set up a flirtation with a footman, as they were, without exception, tall and handsome. Or a secretary, like Mr. Boatin, would be a catch for a girl like Cecilia.

  “Do you deny that you had a flirtation or more than that with Cecilia Wainwright? And that you met her on the night she died?”

  At that he looked genuinely frightened. “Look ’ere, yer ladyship, I were nowhere near Ivy Lodge that night. Wasn’t me she met. You arsk that blackamoor whut he was doin’ talking to a girl like Cece.”

  “Cece? A pet name?” she asked, watching his face. He wasn’t as handsome as he first appeared, and she could see how coarseness was creeping in on him. Eventually he would become careless about his personal grooming, his beard would coarsen, his clothes fail to fit over a thickening belly, and one day soon he would be just a scratching, spitting, belching groom, and the girl who married him would sigh for the handsome lad he once had been and wonder where he had gone. He eyed her with ill-concealed dislike. A girl as refined as Cecilia had seemed to be, on the one or two occasions Anne had seen her when visiting Lydia’s home, was wasted on him. Ellen, simpler of mind and heart, would be more his cup of tea. “What do you say to that? You had come so far as to have a pet name for Cecilia?”

  He reddened. “Didn’t say we wasn’t friends, just said I din’t meet ’er that noight.”

  “And she and Mr. Boatin were friends, too. If she could have you as a… friend, could she not also speak to Mr. Boatin?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “And the werewolf costume you and some friend devised—tell me about it, how you made it, what you’ve done with it? Come, tell me, for I know it was you all along posing as a werewolf. Did you and a friend not frighten the girls in turn, howling and running about? Who is your confederate in this? He’s out this very evening, isn’t he?”

  But Jamey, a mulish expression on his face, turned, muttering, “Got to get back t’the castle.” He turned on his heel, and without permission, bolted, racing quickly out of sight, taking the light with him.

  “Dash the fellow!” she exclaimed as darkness closed around her. She could no longer hear Ellen and Mary but hoped she could find her way, orienting herself from the dark tower and heading off carefully in what she thought was the right direction. Once she was out of the brush, she would be all right.

  A rustling nearby made her pause. “Mary?” she said. No answer, but more rustling. She tried to go faster, but she was afraid she had gone astray a little. She paused and called out Mary’s name again. No answer.

  Something was near, though, she could feel it, and her hair stood straight up on her arms again. A quivering, superstitious dread trembled deep in her belly and she stumbled, trying to move toward a faint hint of light… or at least a lessening of the dark shadows within which she was mired.

  Out of the woods rushed a figure, and she screeched, but then a very human hand clamped on her arm and another over her mouth.

  “Shhh, don’t scream, and stop squirming!”

  It was the marquess’s gruff voice, and she wriggled around in his grip, beating at his arm, but he would not loosen his hold, so she bit his finger.

  “Ow, damn you!” he grunted, releasing her.

  “What do you mean by following me, creeping up on me, then grabbing me like that!” she gasped, panting.

  “I didn’t want anyone to know I was here. Then came you and your confounded prying. You almost ran into me in your blundering through the woods! You moved so quickly, and I wanted to catch hold of you before you hurt yourself in stumbling about in the brush.”

  “I began to move so quickly only because I heard you rustling around in the brush,” she exclaimed. “Cecilia’s confessed murderer has been arrested. Doesn’t that mean the property is safe? What are you doing out this time of night anyway?”

  “I should be asking you that, milady.” He grabbed her arm and began to propel her forward. “Wh
y are you out here in the woods?”

  She ignored the question. “I saw that wolf you say doesn’t exist,” she said as branches whipped in her face and her feet seemed to barely touch the ground. She wrenched free of him after a few moments, exclaiming, “Let me find my own way, if you please, if you’re going to be so violently difficult!”

  “You were going in the wrong direction!” he exclaimed. “That’s why I had to stop you, or you would have ended up on the other side of the woods near Staungill Force. I’m bloody well not going to have another woman take a tumble off that.” He took her arm and more sedately helped her through the forest.

  They finally came to a clearing, and a shot of moonlight silvered the darkness. She shivered and looked around, not recognizing where they were. “I didn’t come out alone, anyway—Mary, my maid, was with me and will be worried sick if I don’t join her.”

  He chuckled, a deep rumbling sound in his chest that was terrifyingly attractive. He moved closer to her, so close his body heat bathed her in warmth. “Are you saying that,” he whispered close to her ear, “because you wish me to know someone will miss you if you disappear?”

  Determined to keep her dignity intact, she shrugged away from his warm breath and said, “Sir, please do not play at being menacing. It only makes you appear foolish.”

  “You are a most unusual woman,” he said after a moment, moving away from her. “Perhaps I’m flirting with you. Some women find mysterious men attractive. Have you considered that?”

  “That you flirt with me? No, for I gave you credit for more sense than that, though I can easily change that opinion if necessary. But I have considered that you’re trying to hide something, like who is perpetrating this werewolf hoax. Or what the real animal is, for I heard and saw something, Lord Darkefell, and it was not human. I also saw something else… something that perambulated on two feet!”

  “Nonsense!”