The Earl's Captive

by Lorna Read

  She paused by the door of the library, where the voices were coming from, and was about to walk by when the door was suddenly flung open. Lucy flattened herself against the wall, half hidden by a large cupboard. Through the gap between the back of the cupboard and the panelled wall, she could see Philip escorting another man in the direction of the vast marble hallway.

  The library door had been left open and she could see a sheet of paper lying on the table. Calculating that it would be several minutes before Philip returned, she darted into the room and snatched it up. The beautiful script that covered the page in swirls of black ink was her false reference from Philip's aunt which declared that Lucy Skinner – Skinner? – had been an excellent and skilled maidservant.

  With the shock of Rory's death and her depression of the last few days, plus her growing, grudging liking for Philip and their rides together, Lucy had completely forgotten about the purpose for which she was being kept at Darwell Manor, and she found she didn't at all like being reminded.

  Passing her eye quickly down the page, she noted that the reason for her leaving was an inability to settle down in London, Lucy being country-born and bred. However, Lady Clarence had added, she was honest and dutiful, clean and trustworthy and could be relied upon to perform her tasks with speed and industry.

  The reference was such a fanciful embroidery that Lucy found herself admiring the lady's artistry and regretting that she could not meet her, as she seemed highly intelligent and in possession of a lively sense of humour.

  Replacing the letter exactly where she had found it, Lucy left the library and wandered on down the corridor, through the banqueting hall and into the long-neglected ballroom with its faded, cobwebbed hangings. Filled with spectral light reflected from the snowy ground outside, the ballroom was a haunted place of half-glimpsed figures, unfinished romances and a tingle in the air like the vibration from unheard violins.

  Lucy knew it was only her imagination at work, but she loved to linger in the ballroom, looking out at the park from the huge windows which ran the whole length of one wall and opened onto a long, covered balcony from which one could descend, by way of stone steps, to the sloping lawn below.

  As she stood dreaming by the window, shivering slightly in air that was so cold that she could see her breath floating before her, the sound of the imaginary violins in her head grew louder. Humming to herself, she began to move her body, letting her feet carry her in a waltz tempo out into the middle of the dusty floor. Closing her eyes, she imagined a partner guiding her, and she dipped and swayed and twirled until she had made a complete circuit of the room and found herself by the windows once more, whereupon she halted, panting and chiding herself for being silly.

  She could still hear the echoing strings playing the dreamy, slightly wistful melody and she shook her head to wake herself up, but the sound carried on. It was only one violin, not many, and she had no idea where the music was coming from, but it filled her with terror.

  Lucy had never seen a ghost but she believed in them all the same; and now it looked as if she was in the company of a shade from the past. She couldn't see anything, but at any moment she expected a man from another century to materialize, wearing strange, old-fashioned garb. Perhaps it was the Devil himself! The book she had read several nights earlier had mentioned that the Devil sometimes prefaced his appearance with the sound of a violin.

  She began to tremble. What would she do if she were suddenly faced with a satanic vision? Make the sign of the cross? Recite the Lord's Prayer?

  Speaking aloud, with all the conviction she could muster, Lucy began the first few words: “Our Father, who art in Heaven …”

  She had got as far as “Thy will be done …” her voice growing shakier with every syllable, when peals of demonic-sounding laughter rang out and echoed around the empty room. He was here! The Devil! Any second now, she would see him, red-eyed and fork-tailed, and he would drag her off to his sulphurous underground pit to wreak terrible tortures on her!

  No! He would not get her. Life suddenly returned to her limbs and, with a piercing shriek, Lucy flung herself towards the door, tearing her fingernails painfully in her efforts to wrench open the unyielding barrier between nightmare and safety. She scrabbled, pushed and pulled with all her strength, but it was jammed, or else locked from the other side, or perhaps held fast by some supernatural power.

  When she realized she was trapped, she sank to the floor, eyes fixed in a challenging stare, willing whatever was in the room to go away and leave her alone. There was no sound at all now save that of the spasmodic rattling of the windows as they were buffeted by gusts of snow-bearing wind, but still Lucy remained there, tense and alert.

  And then she heard it; a slow, muffled creak, followed by another, slightly louder. Footsteps … but where were they coming from? A grey mist of terror formed in front of Lucy's eyes and the room seemed to recede and then return in waves of dimness and clarity. Still she could see no one and yet she felt as if she were being watched, an uncomfortable sensation which made her scalp crawl and the tiny hairs along her arms bristle like the fur of an angry cat.

  The footsteps stopped, and the feeling of being observed grew stronger. Lucy's heart was thudding so hard that she could see the tiny, rhythmic movements of its palpitation in the fluttering material stretched across her breast. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a movement. One of the frayed wall coverings was wafting as if in a draught – and a dark-clad man was standing in the centre of the ballroom floor, surveying her!

  All she glimpsed before the rushing noise in her ears overwhelmed her like a dark tide, was his vague outline and the violin he held in one hand.

  Slowly, dazedly, she became aware of a warm pressure against her lips and forehead. Then she heard her name being repeated over and over again. “Lucy, wake up. Lucy Swift, are you all right? Please wake up, Lucy.”

  She wasn't conscious of having willed her eyelids to open, but they did and she found she was gazing directly into the concerned grey eyes of Philip Darwell. As soon as he saw that she had recovered consciousness, a look of relief came over him and he placed an arm under hers to help her to her feet.

  “I'm so sorry,” he said. “I really do beg your pardon. I had no idea you would wander into this particular room when you did and I had no intention of scaring you.”

  “I – I thought you were a g-ghost,” stammered Lucy, shivering with a mixture of fright and cold.

  “Here, let me help you to the drawing-room. Martha can fetch you a drink to warm you up and steady those nerves of yours.”

  The Darwell Manor drawing-room had once been elegant and attractive. The room, of noble proportions like the rest of the house, was at the rear and looked out over an exquisitely laid-out rose garden which now, like the rest of Lancashire, lay hidden beneath a blanket of snow. A warm fire was crackling in the hearth and the heat of the mulled wine which Matthew had brought sent threads of fire burning through her right down to her toes.

  She thanked Philip gratefully, then asked, out of sheer curiosity, “Do you often spend time in the ballroom?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I love the atmosphere there. Years ago, when my father still had money, we had some glorious times. Apparently, when my mother was still alive, the Darwell Manor balls were talked about all over the county. Relatives would come all the way from London specially to attend.

  “My father carried on the tradition for a while after my mother's death, because everyone hoped it would help take his mind off his grief – and I think some hoped he would find himself a second wife from among the guests – but when I was about four or five, entertaining in our house gradually dwindled, partly through lack of money and partly because my father grew tired of the endless matchmaking that was being done on his account. However, I think my love of music dates back to those happy times.”

  “You play the violin very well,” Lucy informed him, privately thinking that he could express his feelings far better throu
gh the well-tuned strings of the instrument than he could through his own vocal chords. “I couldn't see you when you were playing. Where were you?”

  “Next time you enter the room, look way up towards the ceiling at the far end. You'll spot a small gallery there – 'the kissing gallery,' we used to call it, because couples would stray there from the dance floor and conduct their courting high up over the heads of their mothers and fathers and sometimes even their wives and husbands.

  “There's a narrow staircase leading up to it which is concealed behind the tapestry next to the big, gilt-framed mirror. It's not a place you would find by accident. I, of course, have always known of it.”

  “I suppose there are a lot of hidden tunnels and secret hidey-holes in an old house like this?” Ever since childhood Lucy had nourished a secret dream in which she would discover such a passage and find hidden treasure at the end, but alas, the Swifts' farmhouse, being a mere sixty years old, held no such surprises.

  “Yes, there are one or two,” replied Philip, smiling at her sudden enthusiasm. “However, I hardly think you'll have time to explore them. I received the reference from Lady Clarence this morning.”

  Although she had already seen it for herself, she flinched inwardly. Did that mean he wanted her to leave immediately? She wasn't in the least bit prepared and she felt sad at having to terminate what was fast becoming a very pleasant existence. Everything seemed to be happening far too quickly.

  Philip must have informed Martha already of Lucy's imminent departure, because the maid was waiting in her room with the dress in which Lucy had arrived, now neatly mended. It was wrapped up in a small bundle, from which protruded a scrap of brown material that Lucy recognized – it was the homely garment which Martha had made herself, the one Lucy had so admired.

  “Martha! I can't take that, I mustn't. You've put so much work into it, so much love,” Lucy exclaimed.

  “That's why I want you to have it, my dove. You'll need it over at Rokeby Hall. It's a cold house, so they say.”

  The maid's slight wink indicated that her words held more than one meaning.

  Feeling a rush of gratitude, Lucy hugged her. “Oh Martha, dear Martha, you've been so good to me all the time I've been here. I really don't want to leave in the slightest!”

  “Then why must you? It's bitter weather. It must be something really important to force you out on such a day.” The maid's flat statement held an unspoken question.

  “It is,” Lucy told her. “It's something I have to do for the young master. It must be done right away.”

  “I see. Well, I hope some good comes of it, for it's a bad day for a journey.”

  Martha resumed her bustling about and resisted Lucy's offer to change back into her old dress and return the velvet gown of Lady Eleanor's which she was wearing.

  “The young master said as how you were to take it. We don't want Miss Rachel looking down that snooty nose of hers, do we?”

  Martha hardly needed to spell out her obvious dislike of Philip's former betrothed. As Martha had met Rachel, Lucy ventured to ask, “What's she like?”

  “Your face and figure would beat hers into a cocked hat. She's cold – cold as that snow outside and hard as an iron horse-shoe. The young master would have had full hands and an empty heart if he'd married that girl. I've not time for any of that Hardcastle crew, nor has my Matthew. They're mean and devious, sneaky as foxes in a thicket. Have as little to do with them as possible, that's my advice.”

  Lucy longed to be able to tell Martha the truth about her mission to Rokeby Hall, but she refrained, partly from fear in case Philip found out she'd been prattling his secrets to the maid, and partly because she knew the warm-hearted woman would be horrified and upset at the thought of her having to work for Rachel Hardcastle.

  When at length she stepped into the trap driven by Matthew, which was to convey her down the snow-covered lanes to Rokeby Hall, Lucy felt like a martyr going to the stake. Her final vision of Darwell Manor was of a towering grey building, with Philip standing, dwarfed by the huge doorway, and Martha's anxious face peering from the library window.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You little cat. You did that deliberately!”

  Rachel pushed her face close to Lucy's and there was a mad, yellowish glint in her narrowed eyes. Suddenly, her hand lashed out and struck Lucy on the cheek. The force of the blow was, in itself, not so painful but the large emerald ring Rachel was wearing caught her on the cheekbone, drawing blood, as Lucy discovered when she raised a hand to her stinging face.

  The girl was of an age with Lucy and, if it hadn't been for the mission she had given her word to fulfil (how could she forget Philip's dark words, “It's that or your life”?) Lucy would have struck her back. The girl was so coldly, deliberately spiteful and cruel that Lucy wondered if she were possessed by an evil spirit.

  She had been there only three days and already they had been the longest, most unpleasant three days in her whole life. Nothing she could do was right in Rachel's eyes. No sooner had Lucy brushed her hair into shining golden splendour and twined it into ringlets with heated irons, than Rachel would twist her wrist painfully, as if trying to make her burn herself on the hot tongs, then rake her fingers through her locks, undoing all Lucy's careful work and insisting it was exactly the opposite to what she wanted.

  She was the same over her clothes. “Fetch me my green dress,” she would order imperiously. Lucy would go dutifully to the closet and bring Rachel the required garment, whereupon she would tear the dress from Lucy's hands, throw it on the floor like a child in a tantrum and fume, “Not that one, stupid, the peacock blue one.”

  “But you said …” Lucy had soon learned not to use these words or, indeed, to argue with Rachel in any way. For disagreeing with the pale-eyed girl would bring an instant tongue-lashing down on Lucy's head, or even painful physical punishment; Rachel was not above picking up a riding whip and slashing at Lucy in fury for the slightest mistake.

  Lucy stared at her bloodied fingers. She did not have the temperament to bear much of this kind of treatment, but … it's that or my life!

  Biting back words of reproof, Lucy picked up the hairbrush which she had dropped when Rachel hit her and recommenced dressing her hated mistress's hair. How she loathed her! The closer Christmas loomed, the more irritable Rachel appeared to become. Christmas Eve was in three days' time and on that night, a major ball was due to be held at Rokeby Hall, to which the gentry of many surrounding towns and villages had been invited.

  As far as Lucy could ascertain, the main thing that was preying on Rachel's selfish mind was the wintry weather, which was preventing the best young beaux and dandies from coming up from London and spending the festive season at Rokeby Hall. She had done nothing but moan ever since the snow had set in and Lucy dreaded the thought of having to spend that most precious time of year, Christmas, in her disagreeable company.

  As she brushed – as gently as possible so that Rachel couldn't accuse her again of pulling her hair – Lucy thought about her mother, all alone with nobody except Lucy's father to prepare the Christmas goose for. Even he would probably be drunk and unappreciative. For the first time since leaving home three months earlier, Lucy felt a sharp pang of homesickness and Rachel's golden hair blurred into a haze before her eyes as she thought of the sorrow and loneliness which must be eating at her mother's heart.

  First her brother Geoffrey, and now herself. How could her mother bear it? Maybe she was ill, pining for her two missing children. Lucy longed with all her heart to be able to knock on that familiar door on Christmas Day and bring a glow of happiness to her mother's careworn features.

  “Bitch! I've told you not to do that!” Rachel's elbow shot out and dug Lucy sharply in the midriff.

  She felt she would reach forward and strangle the girl if she kept on at her in this way. No wonder all Rachel's other maids had given their notice, or else run away. Lucy hoped they had found better positions with kinder mistresses. At least
they were properly trained maids. What was she to do, with no home to go to and nothing but a forged reference to her name?

  By the time she slumped onto her hard, narrow bed that evening, Lucy felt weak and dizzy from exhaustion. Not content merely with striking and insulting her, Rachel had, in a fit of pique, hurled a small glass vase across the room. It had hit the wall, smashed to smithereens and Lucy had been required to get down on her hands and knees and pick up every sliver of glass so that Rachel would not cut her feet when walking about her room.

  Lucy, however, had cut her finger painfully, whereupon Rachel had laughed and taunted her. She longed to be able to lay her hands on Philip's precious deeds so that she could walk away from Rachel's tyranny into freedom, but Hardcastle, with the vital key in his pocket, had been away on business in Manchester and was not expected home until Christmas Eve.

  Lucy had not yet set eyes on Rachel's father but she had spoken briefly to her mother, meeting her first of all when she was interviewed for the position of lady's-maid. Lucy had been impressed by her. She was a tiny, dark-haired woman, as delicately made as a doll, totally different to her rangy, blonde daughter who, Lucy guessed, must surely take after her father.

  Harriet Hardcastle spoke in a thin, silvery voice which was in perfect keeping with her dainty appearance.

  “So you are Lucy. Lady Clarence speaks very highly of you. She sent me a letter to say she was giving you a good reference, and her recommendation is certainly good enough for me. I hope you will settle in well with us and join in the Christmas festivities we always provide for the servants. Maud will show you to your room, which you will share with Daisy, the assistant cook.”

  She had given Lucy a charming smile and passed her over to Maud who, Lucy guessed, was around thirty, with an unremarkable face and figure and kind brown eyes.

  In turn, Maud had introduced Lucy to her roommate, Daisy, who was portly, greasy-haired and spotty and was possessed of a snore every bit the equal of Pat's, so Lucy could only snatch brief moments of slumber before being awoken by yet another gargantuan rumbling. Daisy was fussy, and a grumbler – and she also, Lucy discovered, had a liking for the bottle, which no doubt accounted for her surplus weight and the fumes of stout that hung heavily on the bedroom's air each night.