“Poor Charlotte,” I murmured, caught up in my own musings.
Henrietta seemed to think I was talking to her. “Poor Miss Charlotte, indeed. Her brother a ne’er-do-well and her parents invalids…What a burden her family has been to her.”
Kit and I were nodding sympathetically when the kitchen door opened and Mr. Bellamy entered the room with his arms wrapped around a large bundle of cloth.
“Hello, Mr. Bellamy,” boomed Henrietta. “What’ve you got there? Curtains for me to wash?”
Mr. Bellamy acknowledged her query with a nod but didn’t answer. Instead, he crossed to stand wordlessly behind me and Kit. Kit and I exchanged questioning glances, then turned our chairs around to face him.
“I beg pardon for intruding,” he said, with a formal half bow, “but I have explained your plight to Miss Charlotte, and she wishes to be of further assistance to you. Since your garments are besmirched, she hopes that you will allow Mrs. Harcourt—”
Henrietta snorted.
“—to clean them properly for you before you leave,” Mr. Bellamy continued, ignoring Henrietta and holding the bundle out to us. “Miss Charlotte offers these garments to you to wear while your own are being cleaned. She has also expressed an interest in conversing with you and would be most grateful if you would join her in the music room.”
Henrietta let loose an astonished squawk, but her astonishment was nothing compared to mine and Kit’s when we realized that the bundle Mr. Bellamy had presented to us was, in fact, a pair of bathrobes and two pairs of bedroom slippers.
Kit looked as though he’d rather die a slow and painful death than take his clothes off within a hundred miles of Henrietta, but I would have worn a bathing suit and flippers if it meant we could have an audience with Miss Charlotte. When Kit opened his mouth to express what I was sure would be a resolute refusal, I deftly beat him to the punch.
“How thoughtful of Miss Charlotte,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Where do we change?”
Fourteen
I changed in the servants’ bathroom, Kit in the butler’s pantry, and we met afterward halfway down the adjoining corridor, where Mr. Bellamy stood waiting for us. He took our “besmirched” hiking clothes from us with a faint moue of distaste and conveyed them at arm’s length to the kitchen.
“You are brilliant,” I said to Kit in an ecstatic whisper when the kitchen door had closed behind the butler. “Hiking over here in the rain, climbing that horrible hill—strokes of genius! We couldn’t have looked more authentically awful if we’d tried! And Shakespeare himself would have cried his heart out if he’d heard your tragic soliloquy at the front door! Your plan is working perfectly! Look at us! We’re on our way to see Miss Charlotte in the music room!”
Kit was clearly unmoved by my panegyric. He stood with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, looking utterly mortified.
“Yes, look at us,” he said through gritted teeth. “We’re wearing dressing gowns.”
I nodded happily. I had a hunch that Mr. Bellamy had come up with the idea of asking us to change into clean garments—he hadn’t wanted us to muddy his precious floors with our boots, so it stood to reason that he wouldn’t want us to soil the music-room furniture with our filthy trousers—but I didn’t much care whose idea it had been. I loved my robe so much that I wanted to sneak it out of Aldercot Hall in my day pack when we left.
Mr. Bellamy—I presumed—had selected for me a fluid, floor-length, kimono-like gown made of silk woven with a pattern of snow-white cranes in flight on a silvery background. It wasn’t the sort of thing I could wear while frying bacon for Bill or scrubbing mud off the twins, but it satisfied my girlie side in a way that blue jeans and sweaters never could. I felt as though I shimmered when I walked. Kit’s plum-colored paisley silk dressing gown was classy, but not nearly as beautiful as my kimono.
“How could you do this to me, Lori?” he demanded in a high-pitched, outraged whisper.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” I flapped a hand toward his robe. “It’s not as if you’re naked under there.” I hesitated, then asked uncertainly, “You’re not, are you?”
“Of course I’m not,” Kit said irritably.
“Neither am I,” I said. “So why are you making such a fuss? At least your slippers are practical sheepskin models. Look at the slippers Mr. Bellamy picked out for me.” I lifted the kimono’s hem and held up a foot to display a confection of beaded midnight-blue velvet trimmed in fluffy blue feathers. “They have pointy little heels, for pity’s sake. What woman in her right mind wears bedroom slippers with pointy heels?”
“If Henrietta comes after me,” Kit murmured, casting a hunted look over his shoulder, “I’m going to use your pointy heels to fend her off.”
I scarcely heard what he was saying, because the sight of my slipper had inspired a magnificent new scheme to spring, fully formed, into my mind. I peered up at Kit and explained excitedly, “If I sprain an ankle because of these stupid slippers, Miss Charlotte will have to let us stay overnight. We’ll have all night to search the house from cellar to—”
“Don’t even think about it,” Kit broke in, looking daggers at me. “Rendor may not be a vampire, but Henrietta Harcourt is, and I’m not spending the night with her scratching at my bedroom door.”
“I’ll protect you,” I whispered, giggling.
“I don’t think she’s afraid of garlic,” Kit said glumly. “I’ve tasted her sausages.”
We fell silent as Mr. Bellamy emerged from the kitchen and beckoned us to follow him down the service corridor. It wasn’t until he closed the kitchen door that I noticed how cold the corridor was. As I tottered toward the butler, I tucked my hands into the wide sleeves of my kimono and wished I’d donned my spare wool socks instead of the feathery slippers.
I’d seldom taken part in a more curious procession. Bald Mr. Bellamy, in his immaculate black suit, led the way, as erect and solemn as an undertaker. Kit came next, with his arms folded across his chest and his broad shoulders hunched forward, looking as though he’d rather be cleaning Mount Everest with a toothbrush than walking through a strange house clad in someone else’s dressing gown. I took up the rear, enjoying the touch of smooth silk against my skin and peering avidly at my surroundings.
My first impression was, appropriately, one of gloom. The service corridor was lit by just two light fixtures, and they were fitted with low-wattage bulbs and spaced widely apart. Every door we passed was shut, and the only sounds that disturbed the heavy silence were the shuffling of Kit’s sheepskin slippers, the faint squeaking of Mr. Bellamy’s leather shoes, and the tapping of my ridiculous heels on the plank flooring.
When Mr. Bellamy led us up a wooden staircase and through a baize-covered door, I expected to be temporarily blinded by the light in the upper room, but it was no brighter there than it had been in the service corridor. The dim glow of a single wall sconce guided us across a parquet floor to the foot of a gold-streaked white marble staircase that was the centerpiece of what appeared to be an entrance hall.
I’d visited quite a few stately homes since I’d move to England, and I’d seen my share of entrance halls. The grand foyers tended to be elaborately dressed to give visitors a good first impression. Most held family portraits, gilt-framed mirrors, console tables, spindly chairs, potted ferns, and perhaps an oak settle or two. Many featured a fireplace around which guests could gather after divesting themselves of their coats.
Aldercot’s entrance hall bore little resemblance to any entrance hall I’d ever seen. Granted, it had a fireplace, but there was no fire burning in it, nor was there so much as a smudge of ash to suggest that a fire had ever burned in it. The buff-colored walls were devoid of both paintings and mirrors, and the furnishings consisted of exactly three shabby items clustered forlornly near the front door: a chipped blue-willow-patterned umbrella stand, a frayed coir mat, and a freestanding metal coatrack that would not have looked out of place in a dentist’s office.
The murky light emphasized the room’s cavernous emptiness. Blackout drapes hid the tall windows on either side of the front door as well as the round window above it. The lightbulbs had been removed from the hall’s fabulous crystal chandelier and from all but one of the gold-leafed wall sconces. As my gaze traveled down the blank walls to the uninterrupted expanse of parquet floor, I felt as if I were looking at the bones of a room that had been stripped of its decorative flesh.
The starkness reinforced the air of abandonment I’d sensed when I’d first seen Aldercot Hall. The neglected garden, the missing lightbulbs, the chill in the air, and the reduced staff suggested to me that Miss Charlotte might not be as wealthy as she’d once been.
I thought of Mr. DuCaral’s long illness and Mrs. DuCaral’s debilitating stroke and wondered if Miss Charlotte had fallen on hard times after her parents’ deaths. Perhaps, I thought, she’d been forced to sell her possessions and reduce her living expenses drastically in order to maintain ownership of Aldercot Hall, the repository of the dark secrets she’d sworn to keep.
“If you’ll come this way, please, Ms. Shepherd?” said Mr. Bellamy, his voice echoing hollowly in the gloom.
I realized with a start that I’d wandered away from the foot of the stairs and come to a standstill beneath the unlit chandelier.
“Sorry, Mr. Bellamy,” I muttered, and hastened to follow him and Kit up the marble staircase and along a second-floor corridor.
The buff-colored wallpaper continued on the second floor, as did the spare lighting, the silence, and the depressing absence of furniture. When Mr. Bellamy finally ushered us into the music room, it was like reaching an oasis after a long sojourn in a desert.
The music room, unlike the entrance hall, was simply but elegantly furnished. The Aubusson carpet looked as though it had been dyed to match the soft greens and pale golds in the silk wall-coverings and the stiff brocade drapes. A half dozen gilt-framed landscapes hung on the walls, and a few choice antiques—two George III armchairs, a mahogany drum table, a Chippendale sofa—had been arranged around the handsome Adam fireplace. A modest coal-fire burned in the grate, and a row of porcelain figurines graced the mantelshelf—a shepherd, a shepherdess, a winsome milkmaid. A pair of floor lamps with fringed shades flanked the sofa, and, much to my surprise, both were lit.
There were other notable antiques scattered around the music room, but the crowning glory was a gleaming black grand piano. It projected into the room from a U-shaped alcove with windows that would have framed magnificent views of the grove if they hadn’t been covered from ceiling to floor by the heavy brocade drapes.
A middle-aged woman sat at the piano’s keyboard, playing music so sweetly plaintive that it brought a lump to my throat and made my heart tremble with undefined longing. She went on playing after Mr. Bellamy led us into the room, as though she were so absorbed in the melancholy tune that she hadn’t noticed our entrance.
Mr. Bellamy raised a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, to catch the woman’s attention. She played one last poignant chord before looking up from the keys.
“Your guests have arrived, Miss Charlotte,” the old man informed her.
“Thank you, Bellamy,” said the woman. “You may go.”
The butler bowed to her and exited the room, closing the door silently as he left.
I hadn’t realized how clearly I’d envisioned Charlotte DuCaral until she rose from the piano bench and crossed the room to greet us. In my mind’s eye, she was an attenuated, white-faced ghoul with raven hair and bloodred lips, dressed in a tight-fitting black gown with a plunging neckline and a hemline that trailed behind her spiky heels. Her fingernails, like her canine teeth, were long and pointed, and her eyes were outlined in black and shadowed with dark makeup.
I’d unconsciously assumed that she would have rancid breath, cadaver-cold hands, an unnaturally strong grip, and the sort of twitchiness that came with heightened senses, but I’d also assumed that her oddities would be offset by her immense charm, because, as Aunt Dimity had pointed out, a vampire could be immensely charming…when it’s attempting to seduce a potential victim. I had, of course, labeled myself and Kit as potential victims the moment we’d entered Aldercot Hall.
My preconceived notions crumbled into dust as soon as Mr. Bellamy spoke his employer’s name, and when the real Charlotte DuCaral left her place at the piano and walked toward us, I felt myself shriveling with embarrassment at my own foolishness.
Miss Charlotte was tall and slender, but by no means attenuated, and she’d pinned her long hair up in a tidy bun. She had the fair skin of a woman whose white hair had once been blond, but she wasn’t unnaturally pale, and although her face was careworn, she’d made no effort to conceal it or her blue-gray eyes behind a mask of makeup.
Instead of a clingy black gown, she wore a matronly navy-blue cardigan over a pale blue blouse tucked into a gray tweed skirt, and there was nothing spiky about her plain black pumps. Her only adornments were a pair of simple pearl earrings and a double strand of pearls around her neck.
When she smiled at us, she revealed a row of perfectly normal teeth, and when she held her hand out to shake mine, I saw that her nails were trimmed to a length that wouldn’t impede her piano playing. Her handshake was firm, but not overwhelmingly so, and her hand was warmer than mine. I didn’t even try to smell her breath.
“How do you do?” she said. “As you may have gathered, I am Charlotte DuCaral, the mistress of Aldercot Hall, but there’s no need to observe the formalities. You must call me Charlotte, and with your permission, I shall call you Lori and…Kit, is it?”
“Yes,” said Kit. “It’s short for Christopher. And yes, you may call me Kit.”
“Everyone calls me Lori,” I chimed in. “You play the piano beautifully, Charlotte. What piece were you playing when we came in?”
“It doesn’t have a name,” said Charlotte. “I like to improvise.” She shrugged as if to ward off further compliments, then put a finger to her lips and peered anxiously at our unusual attire. “Oh, dear. How dreadfully awkward you must feel. Won’t you sit down? Awkwardness is always reduced by half when one is sitting down.”
She motioned us toward the armchairs, and when we were seated, she sat midway between us, on the Chippendale sofa. The fire’s warmth almost made me forget the chilly corridor.
“Bellamy insisted on the dressing gowns,” Charlotte explained apologetically. “They belonged to my late parents, who were rather more extravagant than I am.” She sighed. “Dear Bellamy. He’s terribly protective of my things.”
“He has every right to be,” I said. “We were filthy.”
“Yes, he told me that the storm caught you out,” she said. “I do hope you’ll be able to find your way when you leave.”
“We will,” I assured her.
“Bellamy tells me that you’re an American, Lori,” said Charlotte. “How long have you been in England?”
“Nearly eight years,” I replied. “I live in a cottage not far from here, with my husband and my sons. And a nanny and a cat,” I added, in the interest of full disclosure.
I thought my answer would pique Charlotte’s curiosity, but she simply nodded politely, then turned her attention to Kit.
“And you, Kit?” she said. “Where do you live?”
“I have a flat in Anscombe Manor,” he said. “It’s not far from Lori’s cottage.”
“Anscombe Manor,” she said, and something seemed to freeze behind her eyes. “How long have you lived there?”
“Several years, recently,” said Kit. “But I spent the earliest years of my childhood there as well. My family once owned the manor. I should be familiar with the trails by now, but the storm—” He broke off, interrupted by Charlotte’s short gasp of surprise.
“You’re Christopher,” she said, putting a hand to her breast. “Christopher Anscombe-Smith. You’re Sir Miles’s son.”
Kit looked as startled as Charlotte, and I thought I knew why. Only a handful of his clo
sest friends knew his full name, and none of us ever used it. And no one, including Kit, ever talked about his father.
“Did you know my father?” he asked Charlotte.
“Not well,” she said, shaking her head. “But I knew your mother. She was closer to my age than your father was. She married quite young.”
Kit shifted his gaze from Charlotte’s face to the fire. “My mother was twenty-one when she married. She was nearly twenty years younger than my father.”
“She died young, too.” Charlotte sighed. “What happened to Sir Miles? I lost touch with him after he remarried.”
I watched Kit from the corner of my eye, wondering if he would tell Charlotte DuCaral the truth. Would he tell her that his father had hanged himself after a long battle with severe mental illness? Or would he tell her simply that Sir Miles Anscombe-Smith had died?
“He died nine years ago,” said Kit.
I looked down at my hands. I couldn’t blame Kit for withholding the details of his father’s death from Charlotte. If my father had committed suicide, I would have been equally reluctant to discuss it with someone I’d just met.
“I’m so sorry,” said Charlotte, and she sounded as if she meant it. “Ah, here’s Bellamy with the tea. I know it’s too early for tea, but I thought you might enjoy it after your adventures.”
A soft knock had sounded at the door, and Mr. Bellamy reentered the music room, pushing a three-tiered tea trolley. A splendid old silver tea service and three bone china cups and saucers sat on the top tier, but the lower two held serving dishes filled with the cakes and cookies I’d seen cooling on the counter in the kitchen. Mr. Bellamy rolled the trolley to within Charlotte’s reach, bowed, and departed.
“Shall I pour?” Charlotte asked, placing the silver tea strainer on one of the cups.
Her question made me uncomfortably aware of how much I’d already had to drink in the kitchen.
Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter Page 14
