The Earl's Captive

by Lorna Read

  As she gazed round her, fascinated, she felt her eyes being drawn to the centre of the room, where an enormous wooden table bearing two branched candlesticks, their candles lit against the dimness of the day, dominated the floor. Two places were set, but no one was yet seated.

  In the great hearth, a towering log fire roared and crackled, sending skeins of red sparks shooting up into the dark chimney. Lucy was surprised that there was no smell of dampness or mustiness in the vast hall and said as much to Martha, who informed her that keeping a fire burning in the hall throughout the winter was one of her master's few extravagances.

  A faint creak sent Lucy's eyes scanning the room. She sensed a movement and found it. The tall figure of Philip was silently poised in a doorway at the far end of the hall, just to one side of the ornamental window.

  As she watched, he descended a flight of stairs similar to the ones on which she was standing, stood by one of the set places at the table and beckoned to her. Feeling unaccountably nervous, Lucy began to descend the stairs.

  Then Philip's voice rang out: “Stop!”

  Lucy felt a hot blush mounting to her cheeks as she sensed his eyes inspecting her. His next words made her redden still more.

  “That dress! Terrible! It just doesn't suit you. Martha!” The hunched woman scurried to Lucy's side. “You know where Mother's things are. Find her something better. She looks like a peasant in that rag of yours.”

  “Sorry,” whispered Lucy in Martha's ear, as they retraced their earlier journey down the corridor. She was furious with Philip, not only for the way in which he had made her feel insulted, as if she were an object, an article of furniture maybe, which had to be draped to suit him, but also for upsetting the good-hearted Martha. She saw the stricken look on Martha's face and smarted for her. Why did Philip have to be so cruel?

  A stirring of fear revisited her. If he could be this unkind to the woman who had brought him up from a small child, what could he have in mind for her? The memory of his behaviour in the stable came back to her and she shuddered, but then recalled how different he had been in those moments when he had dropped his guard. He was an enigma, a completely unpredictable man, and she was, unfortunately, absolutely at his mercy.

  Back in her room, Lucy gave in to a bleak wave of loneliness, the first she had experienced since leaving home. She missed the cheery and loving company of Rory. Doubtless he was in some roadside inn by now, revelling in the company of a slut. Lucy winced and thrust the thought away. She was not going to think of him impressing another with his stories, pressing another with his body. An excruciating, infuriating pang of desire stabbed her at the thought of Rory's naked, virile body.

  Luckily, at that moment there was a light tap at the door and Martha entered, carrying a swathe of blue material that brushed the floor. As she lifted it and shook it out, Lucy gasped at the magnificence of an old-fashioned but exquisite dress made of gleaming, light-catching silk draped with lace of a paler shade, and worked with beads and ruffles on the low-cut bodice.

  “I can't wear that!” exclaimed Lucy worriedly. Not only was it too grand and too old for her, being more suited to a titled lady of at least twenty-five, but Lucy feared the effect on Philip of seeing her clad in a gown which had once graced his dead mother.

  “But Master Philip said I was to give you –”

  “I don't care what Master Philip says. I am not wearing that gown. Take it away. If he insists on lending me something that belonged to his mother, then please find me something simpler and more suitable. I may be dining in a grand house, but I'm just an ordinary young girl, not a dowager duchess! And anyway –” she lowered her tone confidingly – “I'd much rather wear that dress of yours than all this finery.”

  Martha looked pale and anxious. “Cook has the food all ready and the young master has a fine temper when he's aroused. You've no need to take my advice but I'm giving it with the best of intentions. Wear this one and keep Master Philip happy.”

  “Oh, all right, if I must,” sighed Lucy wearily. She felt very hungry and if it meant gliding to the luncheon table in a twenty-year-old ball gown, then glide she would, although she would feel utterly ridiculous.

  Martha had applied some powder to the bruises on her neck so that they no longer showed. Lucy knew she was curious as to how the injuries came about, but she felt that, at this stage in their short acquaintanceship, she could hardly tell her that they had been inflicted by Martha's “young master.”

  As Lucy descended the stairs into the banqueting hall for the second time, she felt the heat in Philip's eyes as they looked her up and down. She reached for the platter of freshly cooked lamb but the sound of someone clearing their throat just behind her caused her to withdraw her hand.

  “Allow me, miss.” A man in servant's uniform took the serving dish from her and, with impeccable manners, proceeded to serve meat, vegetables and gravy to both Philip and Lucy.

  Bowing his head to his master, their serving man apologized for not having been there earlier, having been out chopping wood. Lucy realized that he must be Martha's husband Matthew, a pleasant-looking man with an erect bearing, silver hair and an engaging smile.

  Philip forgave him and explained to Lucy that servants were in poor supply in their household due to the Darwells' straitened circumstances and that each was expected to do several jobs. So that was why the gardens looked so abandoned, Lucy thought. With so many roles to fulfill, Matthew had to neglect something as there simply weren't enough hours in the day. In any case, it would take a whole team of gardeners working full-time to keep the estate looking well-tended.

  “I gathered that,” she replied, “from what I overheard of the conversation between yourself and, er, Rachel.”

  She gave a sideways glance across the table. Philip's hair was glinting in the firelight. He caught her eye and remarked, rather bitterly, “Yes. Rachel. The girl I was to marry.” He sighed heavily. “That's where you're going to help me.”

  A forkful of meat paused on its way to Lucy's mouth. Perhaps he wanted her to act as a go-between, passing messages and apologies to Rachel and negotiating between them. Alas, she was not destined to play Cupid, as Philip's explanation revealed.

  “If you overheard our conversation, you will probably have gathered what has happened. My father was, as Rachel so rightly pointed out, extremely foolish. He had no talent with cards and he could easily be tricked by unscrupulous people like Rachel's father. I begged him to stop gambling but he wouldn't listen. He said gaming was his only pleasure in life now that my mother was gone.”

  “Why did he never marry again?” asked Lucy, thinking that a man with a title and a manor house and all the accoutrements the Earl of Darwell must once have had, would have been a pretty catch for any young lady.

  Philip sighed and she wondered if she had overstepped the mark with her question, but he was quick to answer. “He was devoted to my mother, Lady Eleanor,” he explained. “She was very beautiful and, they say, gentle, kind and accomplished, too. Everyone loved her, as Martha will tell you.

  “My father wrapped himself in a solitary world after she died. He didn't think of the future. Even now, his mind dwells in the past. I've heard him talk to my mother as if she is there with him in the room. That's why losing the money and the house didn't mean anything to him. He was an old man, destined to die soon. He didn't think about his son being left with nothing to inherit.

  “The one thing I cannot understand is why he gambled my mother's jewels. I would have thought they would have been more precious to him than either money or property.”

  “Do you love Rachel?”

  Philip froze in the act of helping himself to another potato, Matthew having left the room to fetch more firewood.

  He sat in silence for a few moments, as if battling with his conscience, then answered finally, “No. I admire her, I respect her, but I don't love her. She's cold –” As you are cold, thought Lucy – “and she has a cruel, callous streak in her like her father ha
s. I've seen him lash a dog to death with his riding crop just because it had chewed a boot.

  “No, it would have been purely a marriage of convenience. Hardcastle desperately wants a title for his daughter. I will inherit my father's on his death, but that is when Hardcastle will seize Darwell Manor. He kindly allowed us to continue living here until that day arrives.

  “I want to keep this house. I love it. It's been in my family for three hundred years, although it's been remodelled several times, and bits added here and there.”

  His eyes sparkled as he talked about his home, bringing a warmth to his expression which softened his angular features and made him look younger and slightly vulnerable. Lucy found herself reminded of her brother Geoffrey, who had possessed the same shade of hair, though his face was more rounded.

  “So, by marrying Rachel, you would be able to carry on living here in perpetuity and she would have gained a title, thus pleasing everybody.” Lucy's words were a statement of fact and Philip nodded. “By losing Rachel, you've lost Darwell Manor.”

  She pushed her plate aside, feeling replete. Philip had also stopped eating and was looking at Lucy as if trying to make up his mind whether or not to say something. Her stomach tensed as she remembered that she was not just his luncheon guest, but his prisoner.

  Briefly, she wondered where Rory was, and whether Pat and Smithy had moved on to the next town yet. If only she could get a message to them, to warn them. Maybe Martha …

  Then Philip spoke. “Lucy Swift, you have impressed me as a girl of courage and spirit.”

  Lucy looked at him, startled. What could this be leading up to?

  “After my father played his last game of cards against Hardcastle, in which he lost Darwell Manor and was forced to hand the deeds over to that obscene old ale-sack, I went into the study where they had been playing and I found –” he fished around in a pocket and brought out an object that looked like a playing card, – “this.”

  He handed it to Lucy. In the gloomy room, it looked just like an ordinary ace of clubs with a pattern on the back.

  She handed it back to Philip with a puzzled expression. “I can't see anything odd about it.”

  He rose from his seat and came round the table to Lucy's side.

  “Here,” he said, turning the card over. “You'll have to look extremely closely but, just by this red design in the corner … Can you see it?”

  His index finger pointed to the spot and Lucy bent her head to examine it. There, to one side of the swirling pattern, was a tiny marking in a different shade of red. She looked up at Philip, sudden comprehension in her eyes. “You mean …?”

  “Yes. Every single one of his cards is marked in some way. I have visited his house since and stolen a good look at each of his packs of cards. If you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd miss it, but I knew what to expect and this is what I found. I'm surprised the old cheat has got away with it for so long. Yet he boxes clever and makes sure his phenomenal wins are sprinkled with a few losses, so that his successes could, by a slight stretch of the imagination, be attributed to luck.”

  “Isn't there anything you can do? I mean, is there no one to whom you could expose this trickery?”

  Philip shook his head. Striding to and fro in front of the fire, his hands clasped behind his back, he seemed to be considering how to reply.

  “This is a private matter,” he said at length. “Hardcastle has many influential friends. All I want is to recover what is rightfully mine. And I want you to help me do it.”

  “How?” Lucy half rose in her chair, gripping the edge of the table. A pang of anxiety stabbed her and she tightened her grip on the table. “What is it you want me to do?”

  He paused in his stride. “It won't be easy,” he said, looking at her warningly.

  “It has to be easier than the alternative,” muttered Lucy drily, picturing herself swinging from a gallows.

  “I want the deeds to the house back,” he announced abruptly. His chin came up and he stared at Lucy almost defiantly, as if challenging her to play the weak woman and whimper that it was too much to ask of her.

  He looked surprised when she responded quite calmly, “And how do you propose I do that?”

  Philip fetched a wine decanter from a side table and filled the two glasses that were standing by their plates. Lucy reached her hand halfway to her glass, then withdrew it as she saw that Philip was not yet drinking.

  “In answer to your question,” he replied, his face resuming its usual stern expression which reminded Lucy once more of her precarious position in his household, “what I propose is this – that you take up the position of personal maid to Rachel Hardcastle, then find a way of stealing back the deeds.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  If a battalion of mounted cavalry had, at that moment, ridden their horses right through the wall and into the banqueting hall, Lucy could not have been more thunderstruck. To steal into somebody's house and take something was one thing. That quite appealed to her sense of daring. But what he was proposing was, quite frankly, outrageous and, she felt, way beyond her powers to carry out.

  “I … a maid?” It was an insulting suggestion, implying that he thought her of lowly birth and that this position was befitting of her station in life. “I can't… I wouldn't know how.” She bit her lip in anger.

  “Don't forget, it's that or your life,” reminded Philip.

  At his sharp words, Lucy's wits returned. “Have you thought that perhaps she saw enough in the stable to be able to recognize me?”

  “It was dark in there and besides, you were struggling and your hair was all over your face. The only thing she got a good view of was my back.”

  “How do you know she is even in need of a personal maid?”

  Philip flung back his head and laughed, showing even white teeth. “Rachel is always in need of a maid. It's no sinecure working for Rachel Hardcastle. The duties are, to say the least, arduous.

  “But you shouldn't have to stay for long. If you leave after four weeks, you'll be just another in a long succession of girls who, unable to stand working for Rachel, have done precisely the same thing. Rachel's mother is a kind woman; she always gives them a reference. She knows only too well what her daughter is like.”

  “But I've never been a maid before. How am I supposed to get a reference saying I'm a good, honest, trustworthy lady's maid? And what if someone has heard of my father and recognizes my name?”

  The more Lucy thought about it, and the more she recalled Rachel's imperious tones, the less she liked the idea. As for stealing … Suddenly, she remembered Emperor and was forced to admit to herself that she was quite capable of theft so long as her conscience was clear.

  “Leave the arrangements to me,” said Philip. “I am quite sure my aunt in London, Lady Clarence, will oblige. She is in my confidence and is quite au fait with the situation.”

  “Just supposing for a minute that I am given the position, which I think is highly unlikely …”

  “Nonsense, they're desperate for someone,” put in Philip.

  “As I was saying,” continued Lucy, “supposing they do take me on. What then? I have no idea of what these deeds look like or where the papers are kept, so how am I supposed to get them back?”

  Philip pulled his chair out from the table and carried it round, replacing it next to Lucy's.

  He pushed aside the dishes and cleared a space and then, dipping his finger in his untouched wine, began to draw on the table top the interior layout of Rokeby Hall.

  “Here is the entrance and here, the corridors leading to the drawing-room. The dining-room is there. Here's the study, and there, to the right of the study door, is the main staircase.”

  Lucy nodded. She had a good visual memory and was already picturing herself walking towards those stairs, which would be broad and curving to allow the graceful passage of a wide, flowing ball gown. She forced herself out of her fantasy as Philip started to draw a different plan.

 
“Now, this is the map of the upstairs rooms. The servants' quarters are all at the back, over here. This fork represents the main corridor on the first floor. Rachel's bedroom is here.”

  He picked up a silver salt cellar and placed it close to the edge of the table. Lucy wondered how many times he had entered that room himself – if the frosty-sounding Rachel had permitted him to, which Lucy doubted very much.

  “There is an empty guest room here, next to Rachel's. There is Rachel's mother's dressing-room and bedroom and here –” he dropped a fresh blob of wine onto the table-top – “is the master bedroom where George Hardcastle sleeps. His dressing-room connects with his wife's.”

  His sleeve touched her arm as he made some additions to his diagram. She gave a slight shiver and wasn't sure why. Philip took a handkerchief and mopped up his tracings. Dipping his finger in the glass once more, he began a fresh drawing.

  “This is Hardcastle's bedroom. Bed here, dresser there, bureau, chest, door leading to dressing-room here. He keeps the key to the bureau in the oak chest over here by the window. There is a small ledge inside and the key is on it.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Lucy wonderingly. Philip just smiled and continued.

  “Inside the bureau on the right-hand side there is a small drawer with a brass handle. That is where he keeps the deeds, not only to his own house, but to some farm cottages he owns, a property in London and …” he paused, “Darwell Manor.”

  “And does he keep this drawer locked?” inquired Lucy, thinking how very complicated it all seemed.

  “Unfortunately, yes. He always carried the key about his person, usually in a pocket inside his waistcoat.”

  “How am I supposed to get hold of it?” Stealing a key out of a chest was one thing, but having to be a pickpocket required a sleight of hand which Lucy didn't possess.

  “That, my dear, is a problem you will have to solve. All I can do is get you into the house. Once you are there, you will have to think up your own plan for acquiring the key and the deeds.”