Clandestine

by Julia Ross

  “I doubt it,” he said. “No ladies’ employment agency in town knows of a widower with six children with any such name.”

  Sarah sank back onto a chair. “But Rachel received all of my letters at his address—and replied to them—throughout almost the whole of last year. The nursery was upstairs, near the roof. In February it was hard to heat, and the children—two boys and four girls—shivered as hoarfrost flowered on the windows. I remember that particularly, because Rachel wrote later that Jack Frost only mimicked the ice in her heart, for that’s when she began to be afraid of her persecutor. She cannot have made up all of that!”

  At the moment he’d rather be anywhere than in this room with Sarah Callaway. Rachel had certainly seen ice on the windows in Hampstead in February, but not in Mr. Penland’s nursery.

  “Why not?” he asked. “We’ve already established that your cousin dissembles.”

  “No!” she said. “Whatever Rachel was doing in the five months before she met you, she couldn’t have invented those six children, nor the man she met after Christmas. Her emotions about that were far too real.”

  “Which emotions?”

  “When she almost fell in love,” she said. “When her admiration turned to loathing. When he began to terrify her.”

  His gut contracted as if he’d been punched. The metaphorical rooms in that elaborate mansion of truth echoed and boomed as he slammed closed every last door, but one.

  “Nevertheless,” he said, “your cousin was not abducted.”

  Her fists clenched as if she would strike him. “I still don’t see how you can be sure of that!”

  Exasperation burned in his blood and set him pacing the room. Almost as if convincing her of this would solve everything, when he knew it was only the first turn of a terrible labyrinth.

  “If I weren’t absolutely certain of everything I’m telling you, Mrs. Callaway, I’d never burden you with such uncomfortable facts. Your cousin lied to you last year about continuing to work for Grail. I strongly suspect that this Penland and his six children don’t exist. But either way, Rachel Mansard just left London voluntarily.”

  “No.” Her skin had become chalky, insubstantial, as if she were fading into a phantom with bright, burning eyes. “I don’t believe it. After writing as she did, she’d never have abandoned me like this without a word. No! Something terrible is going on, and I cannot fathom what it is.”

  Guy strode back to the table where he refilled his glass, with brandy this time. His throat felt as if that February hoarfrost still lingered there.

  “There are advantages to being Blackdown’s nephew. It wasn’t hard to get information out of her landlord, her maid, the neighbors who’d noticed such a lovely young lady living in their midst. Your cousin settled her accounts, packed her valuables, and walked to an inn, where she took the night coach to Salisbury. No one accompanied her, nor forced her.”

  A little shudder passed over her shoulders, as if an undertow of pain dragged through her blood.

  “Then I must thank you for your help, Mr. Devoran. Since I’m not related to a duke, no one would give me that information.” Her voice was tight, almost prim. “Thus I’m sorry if I wasted your time with my foolish concerns. Yet you’ve equally wasted mine by not telling me the truth straightaway. I can hardly comprehend why you didn’t do so. I think I must return to Brockton’s—”

  His glass shattered like hailstones among the dried flowers in the fireplace, soaking them.

  Fiery color flooded back into her cheeks.

  “I said that your cousin left town of her own free will, Mrs. Callaway,” he said. “I did not say that her reasons weren’t desperate, or—since she slipped away so secretly—that she might not still be in some kind of trouble. Rest assured that whatever uncomfortable truths may emerge, I shan’t abandon either you or your cousin. I give you my word on that.”

  The copper hair shimmered as she stumbled to her feet. “No! All of this was a huge mistake. I regret that I ever involved you. I must have been mad. Why didn’t you tell me the truth—about the bucket and the inn, at least—when we first met in the bookshop?”

  “Why the devil should I? It was neither the time nor the place—”

  “No, I suppose not.” Tears broke and fell at last, staining her eyelids. Her nostrils and mouth flamed scarlet. “After all, you had no reason to trust me. So instead you allowed me to run on and on, making a fool of myself. Just as Rachel did with you on the yacht—no, all of that was another fabrication, wasn’t it? Thank you for your efforts on Rachel’s behalf, Mr. Devoran, but I am happy to free you from any further obligation, and I think I must leave now.”

  “You may not leave.”

  She grabbed the back of the sofa. Her face was as fiery as her hair, her eyes blazing.

  “I cannot stay here with you, sir!”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not suggesting anything improper. You’ll be Miracle’s guest, not mine. I have no doubt that something odd is going on, and you cannot solve it alone. I just don’t believe for one moment that some terrible suitor is trying to force your cousin into marriage, or any other relationship.”

  “Perhaps not,” she said with icy dignity. “But I know as clearly as I’m standing here that she’s terrified of this man and that her fear is real. If you had read her letters, you would know that. She was excited—almost giddy—by February. Love does that, doesn’t it? Yet it all changed as she grew more and more afraid of him, until in the end she had to flee. Rachel may have misled me about some of the facts of her employment. She could never have pretended those emotions.”

  Had Theseus known this livid grief when he first gazed into the yawning mouth of the Labyrinth? The way was slippery and dark. Somewhere, deep in these elaborate recesses, the Minotaur lurked.

  “Even so, your cousin met no one who abducted her.”

  “But why did she leave town without telling me? And where is she now? You’ve asked me to accept your word, but now you won’t take mine. Rachel fell in love with this gentleman, then later she rejected him. That was foolish; it wasn’t criminal. But now he’s persecuting her, and she’s terrified.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But unless your cousin has voluntarily arranged to meet someone, she’s alone now. If you’d allow yourself to be shown to a guest chamber, you may also sleep in solitary security until morning. Tomorrow is early enough to take the next step.”

  “The next step?”

  Guy filled another glass and stared into the ruby liquid. He felt like a rat. “To track down the truth about this supposed Harvey Penland and his brood.”

  “No, they must be real—Rachel received my letters there. But the address is in Hampstead, and I had no way—”

  “I understand. I’ll ride out there tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry. You’re very kind.” She glanced down. “In my distress over your news, I was unfair. You did your best to spare my feelings, and you’ve been more than generous—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “I have my own reasons for helping you. I always do. I’m damned if I know why you think me either kind or generous.”

  She stared at him in obvious puzzlement, her hair unraveling around her face, a pulse beating beneath the skin of her speckled thrush throat.

  “You dispute your reputation, Mr. Devoran?” she asked with a flash of amused audacity. “When you’re so universally respected and admired…and liked?”

  He deliberately buried the self-recrimination, and told her the simple truth. “You don’t need to like me, Mrs. Callaway. I ask only that you trust in my honor.”

  Color rose in a pretty flush over her cheeks—a lovely color that made him want to hold out his cold hands to warm them.

  “I didn’t mean to impugn your honor, sir.”

  “Then I pray you will trust me just a little further—” Guy broke off as someone knocked on the door. “Enter!”

  As lovely as night, still dressed as Nell Gwyn, Miracle walked into the room. A maid stood
behind her.

  Guy met the question in the dark eyes and shook his head. Miracle walked past him to smile warmly at Sarah, who had dropped a small curtsy.

  “Come, Mrs. Callaway!” Miracle said. “You look worn out. If that’s Guy’s fault, I’ll pelt him with oranges until he turns blue.”

  “No, indeed,” Sarah said. “Mr. Devoran has been everything—”

  “Mrs. Callaway needs a guest chamber,” Guy interrupted. “She’ll be spending the night.”

  Miracle’s smile still had the power to smite every man in any room to the heart. “My dear friend, I’ve already seen to it.”

  She turned back to Sarah. “It’s far too late for you to return to your hotel, Mrs. Callaway. Penny here will show you to your room. I trust you’ll be comfortable.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said. “Your ladyship is very kind, but it’s not necessary—”

  “Nonsense!” Miracle ushered her toward the door, where Penny, the maid, stood at attention. “If you don’t seek your bed right away, I’ll have to send for some smelling salts. Though Guy possesses more sensibility than most, gentlemen rarely realize when a lady’s had enough.”

  Guy watched the blue skirts and tousled red hair as Sarah Callaway was swallowed up by the shadows in the corridor.

  He glanced back at Miracle to find her studying his face. She met his gaze and smiled with real affection.

  “I thought at least one of you might need to be rescued. I hope I wasn’t wrong?”

  “No.” Guy flung himself into a chair. “God, no! Of course not!”

  “Good, because Her Grace would like you to dance attendance downstairs, before any more of her guests assume that you, too, don’t approve of me.”

  He laughed. “It’s beyond my aunt’s comprehension, I suppose, that I might not wish to dance?”

  “The company simply needs to be made aware of the presence of my most charming cousin.” Miracle strolled to the fireplace. “You’re Ambrose’s godfather, after all. Meanwhile, I’m forced to wonder why you couldn’t bear to let Mrs. Callaway defend your character or motives just now. She was obviously about to do so. What’s the matter, Guy?”

  “Nothing.” He glanced around for his abandoned pirate headband and fake weapons.

  “No, of course nothing’s the matter.” Miracle ignored the mess on the table and poured herself a glass of wine. “You bring waifs and strays to Blackdown House on a regular basis, after enlisting my servants in all kinds of strange subterfuges, then ask both Jack and Ryder to play bodyguard until you can take over.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, my dear friend,” Guy said. “Though I’m grateful for your help tonight.”

  “Because you and Jack believe that Mrs. Callaway might be in some kind of danger?”

  “I’m not sure. Some concerns are better kept to oneself.” He stood to offer her his arm. “But she’s safe here, and we can’t keep the duchess waiting.”

  She caught his fingers in hers, then stared down at his upturned palm.

  “You really have the most wonderful hands, Guy,” she said. “Jack and Ryder do, too, of course. But I’m damned if I can read your future here. In what way is Sarah Callaway a part of it?”

  “I’ve undertaken to help find her missing cousin, that’s all, a young lady who was living in hiding in Goatstall Lane, then suddenly fled town.”

  Miracle glanced up into his eyes, a small frown marking her forehead, as she released his hand. “And you fear there’s foul play?”

  “Very probably, though not the kind that Sarah Callaway dreads.”

  “But you feel some duty or obligation to help, something far more personal than disinterested courtesy. Why?”

  He moved restlessly, glancing up at the paintings: several landscapes, a portrait of an ancestor. “Because of a truth that I cannot tell her.”

  “So you’re being forced to dissemble, and now you’re feeling as soaked in dishonor as those petals are in the duke’s best brandy. On the other hand, you didn’t tell her any deliberate falsehoods, did you?”

  “Prevarication is only another word for lying.”

  She picked up his discarded mask and pirate weaponry. “Guy, I love you more dearly than my own brother and have absolute faith in your honor. If the alternative is to abandon Mrs. Callaway when she most needs your help, I fail to see where that’s dishonorable in the least.”

  “That’s because you’re female,” he said. “Ladies take a more practical view of such things.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s because, unlike you and Ryder and Jack—with all your gentlemanly codes—I was born in a hovel. Such a background helps one to be realistic.”

  “I assure you that I’m feeling particularly realistic at the moment.”

  She placed his disguise in his hands. “Will you need to enlist Ryder in this any further?”

  “Sweetheart,” he said. “Now the duke’s aging, Ryder’s effectively the head of the family. He’ll never agree to be left in the dark, but he knows where his priorities are.”

  “Yes, I know,” she replied. “That’s why we both love him.”

  Guy strapped on the wooden pistols and tied the black cloth about his hair. “You only remind me that I was damned foolish to let you slip away from me all those years ago.”

  Her gaze searched his face. “Love isn’t hard, Guy. We thought it was when we first met and were little more than children, but really, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is,” Guy said. “But the duchess and her guests are waiting.” He slipped on his mask and grinned at her. “How do I look?”

  “Rakish. Demonic. Piratical. And handsome as the devil. Almost as desirable as my beloved husband, who trusts your competence absolutely and wouldn’t dream of interfering in your affairs any further than you exactly requested.”

  Guy laughed, lifted her fingers to kiss her wedding ring, then allowed Lady Ryderbourne to lead him from the room.

  SARAH lay awake for a long time. Every possible need had been met with unobtrusive efficiency: a warm drink, hot water for bathing. A maidservant had carefully combed out and plaited her dreadful hair. The same girl had taken away the blue silk shepherdess costume and laid out a nightgown and robe.

  Warm and safe at last, Sarah had finally fretted into exhaustion the news that Guy Devoran had given her. Rachel had lied. For a good part of the last two years. She had worked as a scullery maid. If it hadn’t been for the money she’d earned for that day on the yacht, she’d have been in desperate straits.

  Yet she hadn’t once asked for Sarah’s help, other than those little pleas for extra funds when she claimed she needed to purchase some frippery or other.

  Life sometimes offered pain that could not be avoided, even great wounds like the loss of Captain Callaway. But this was a hurt of another kind, and it burned with its own intensity.

  Rachel’s deceptions were almost too great to fathom, as if Sarah stared into a well filled with heartbreak. Yet—with the candles finally guttering—she made herself face some of her more uncomfortable memories.

  And then she began to think about Guy Devoran.

  GUY slouched in a chair with his legs stretched out in front of him and contemplated the empty wineglass in his hand. Blackdown House yawned about him in absolute silence.

  The glass gleamed, shining faintly against the dark grate, as dawn feathered into the room.

  Eight bobbed his tail, then sidestepped, feet rasping on the perch.

  “Safe from who?” the parrot murmured, bright eyes fixed on the closed door. “Safe from who?”

  Guy glanced without alarm over his shoulder. “Enter!”

  The knob turned. Wearing a long robe over his shirt and breeches, Ryder closed the door behind him, then strode into the room.

  “Good morning,” Guy said. “I think there’s some wine left.”

  Ryder ignored the invitation. “You bade me come in before I even had a chance to knock? But, no—I see you have Eight with you.”

  The parrot l
ifted both wings. “She’s a miracle, sir! Eight! Eight! Pieces of Eight! Tar ’n’ feather ’em, Your Grace!”

  “Not quite ‘Your Grace’ yet,” Ryder said dryly. He tossed a cloth over the bird’s cage, then plucked the glass from his cousin’s hand and set it on the mantel. “You felt in need of warning if a stranger approached?”

  “Perhaps. Dawn tends to dull the senses. So to what do I owe the honor of this visit? No one else will be up before noon.”

  “I’ve not been to bed yet either.” Ryder dropped into a chair. “Ambrose was fussing. Miracle’s fast asleep now, but you and I need to talk.”

  Guy closed his eyes. “About what? The extraordinary circumstance of Lord and Lady Ryderbourne allowing their infant son to disturb their rest, even though Lord Wyldshay has a dozen maids to attend his every whim?”

  “Don’t be obtuse,” Ryder said. “Miracle would never leave our baby to the mercy of the maids, however well qualified. She grew up in a different tradition.”

  “Which is exactly what’s set London by the ears.” Guy winked. “Considering all of that, you have my congratulations that the ball went off so well.”

  Ryder crossed his long legs at the knee. “Mother certainly considers it a triumph, though there were still a few families who refused to come—”

  “Yes, the Duke of Fratherham’s faction, who’ll always remain implacable enemies of parliamentary reform. The rest will soften in time—”

  “—as long as Miracle and I continue to live happily at Wyldshay most of the year, and we don’t embarrass them in town too often.”

  Guy laughed. “It’s not every day that a duke’s heir marries in a way guaranteed to give such joy to our political opponents. So the duchess was moderately brilliant to hold a costume ball with masks.”

  Ryder’s eyes shone green with amusement beneath his lowered lashes. “Since they could pretend not to recognize her, it definitely meant that certain ladies didn’t have to choose whether or not to cut Miracle dead in public.”

  “Yet they still came.”

  “In spite of my radical politics, I’m just a little too exalted to ignore, as is Mother. It’s one of the advantages of our position.”