Lindley gathered up the box, and the whole group of them trooped up the stairs to Julia’s bedroom. Sure enough, the book was right where she had left it. Hidden plainly behind the loose panel under the drapery in the far corner beside the bureau. At least there was little risk that anyone else had found it and taken it to their room.
Dashford did the honors and took the book. He thumbed through a few pages, and Lady Rastmoor gasped and threw her hand over Penelope’s eyes. Lady Dashford was blushing again. Julia almost thought perhaps Rastmoor was, too.
“It appears the symbols on the box match symbols handwritten in the book,” Dashford said. “Perhaps if we match them with the letters or numbers they are drawn nearest to, we will decipher the code.”
“Or at least we’ll get a fair useful education, eh?” Rastmoor chuckled, reading over Dashford’s shoulder.
Lindley asked for a paper and charcoal, so Julia found some that Mr. Nancini had used during his mute phase. Quickly the men ran through the symbols on the box, finding the corresponding one in the book and making note of any numbers or words it seemed to indicate. Some of the symbols seemed a bit more difficult to match up, but Julia decided those were the ones that fell on pages with the most intriguing illustrations.
Before long—although it must have seemed ages to Lady Rastmoor, who was stuck with a fidgety and inquisitive Penelope across the room—one certain pattern emerged. The symbols on the outside of the box each corresponded to numbers, from one to six. The symbols inside the box—and there were two on each of the surfaces—corresponded to letters.
“I see it!” Rastmoor exclaimed. “The numbers tell us what order to place the letters. Each panel of this box has an interior side and an exterior. The numbers on the exterior panel tell us what order to place the letters on the inside panel.”
He seemed to be correct. Lindley carefully wrote out letters in the order that Rastmoor called them off to him. Julia peered closely, having to strain to see between her father and D’Archaud. As the tenth letter was written down, she couldn’t help but frown.
This was it? This was the great secret code that would lead them to the D’Archaud treasure? She couldn’t see how.
“Strawberries?” she said, reading what Lindley had written. “All this trouble, and that’s the only clue we have? The code spells strawberries?”
But to Dashford, Rastmoor, Papa, and D’Archaud this seemed to make perfect sense. “Strawberries!” they said together.
“The old man must have put it in his strawberry patch,” D’Archaud said.
“He did love his strawberries,” Papa said with a nod.
They laughed again and slapped one another on their backs. Penelope finally broke away from her mother and demanded to be allowed to go along to the strawberry patch. The men bundled up their code-deciphering tools—Lindley ending up with the armload of box and charcoal and symbol-scrawled papers—and traded suggestions for treasure hunting in a strawberry patch. Julia was surprised to hear that the strawberry patch was actually under cover of a greenhouse, but Dashford assured them all this would have kept the treasure safe from any prowlers or other dangers.
Papa seemed to have no doubt they would find it just as the long-deceased Lord Dashford had left it for them. It still seemed too incredible for Julia, but her father and D’Archaud couldn’t have been happier.
“Ah, ma chérie,” Papa said as they began to file out of the room. “There is a string of pearls in there that will look ravishing against your porcelain skin.”
Rastmoor was at her shoulder, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I’d love to see you in pearls.”
“Heavens, I have nothing to wear with pearls,” she said.
Rastmoor smiled. “All the better, then.”
A thrill of anticipation coursed down her spine. She could go her whole lifetime and never tire of his voice. And she would, too.
“Hurry now, Julia,” Papa called as he followed the excited group. “Don’t you want to find your treasure with us?”
Julia just smiled at him. “I already have, Papa. All the treasure I need.”
Epilogue
It was late, and Rastmoor was tired. More than that, he was not looking forward to another long and lonely night. Three days now he’d been kept from her—surrounded by Julia’s ever watchful papa and her whole nosy theatrical family, not to mention his own nosy family. It seemed the lot of them were determined to keep the couple painfully chaste until the wedding, nearly one whole month away.
Damn their well-meaning meddling! Rastmoor found it downright torture to spend his days in Julia’s presence but be forced to spend his nights bereft. True, he understood the need for respectability, but Lord, it was tough. Every minute that passed, he seemed to love Julia more. Their whole lifetime together would never be enough.
His mother and St. Clement were adamant, though. Tomorrow they would leave for London, where Julia and her father would begin living the life that should have been theirs years ago. The D’Archaud treasure was safe at last. It had turned out to be as rich and remarkable as one might hope; jewels, coin, even a tiny portrait of Julia’s maternal grandfather. Julia and her relatives would never want for anything and could finally count themselves free of any further threats from the continental arm of the D’Archaud family. Julia had no further need to hide from anyone. Their engagement would be announced by the end of the week, as would her connection to an old and honored aristocratic French family. Julia truly was a lady.
But, by God, he wouldn’t treat her like one if he had his way about it tonight. He had a rather lengthy list of things he might love to do to Julia, but none of them seemed suitable for ladies. Why the hell had he agreed to this drawn-out engagement? He would lose his mind in a fortnight.
He stepped into his room and pulled the chamber door shut behind him. How was he to pass these next weeks without her touch, without her breathing beside him in the dark? He wondered if anyone had ever died from frustration or if he’d likely be the first.
The evening was somewhat chilly, but a gentle fire had been lit in the grate. Candles flickered their warm glow around the room. If he wasn’t so blasted alone here, he would have to say the place was downright inviting. And then he realized he wasn’t alone.
Julia was there in his bed, her hair tousled on his pillow and the covers pulled up around her. She wasn’t asleep, though. Her warm, nut brown eyes flashed a desire that equaled his own, and she smiled.
He smiled in return. “Well, Miss St. Clement, it seems you’ve ended up in the wrong bed tonight.”
“No, my lord, this is quite precisely the right bed.”
Instinct told him to kick off his boots and dive into that bed with her, but sheer force of will held him back. She was, after all, a lady. He supposed he owed her at least a moment or two of conversation before he ripped off her covers and devoured her with passion.
“However did you manage to escape your father’s eagle eye?” he asked.
“You were gracious enough to keep him distracted downstairs, my lord,” she replied, her voice teasing him almost as much as the curves of her lovely form beneath those bed linens. “Whatever did you find to discuss for so long?”
“Plans for your arrival in London, of course. Oh, and there’s good news, my love,” he said, moving slowly toward her. “Word has come from your uncle. Sophie is found, and all is well. She’s been staying with some friends she met along the road once she left Lindley’s company. It seems she traveled back to London with them and has been quite worried for you this whole time, in fact. You’ll be seeing her in London when you make your grand debut.”
“Wonderful! And, er, what of her child? Lady Dashford assures me she received a letter from Sophie months ago mentioning a blessed arrival. What on earth happened to Sophie’s child?”
Rastmoor shook his head with a grin. “It was not her child.”
“Not her child? But how could Lady Dashford have been so mistaken?”
Rastmo
or shrugged. “Apparently our hostess had not gotten all the correspondence that had been directed to her. Sophie assured her father she sent two letters to her cousin those months ago. The first explained that a dear friend of Sophie’s was expecting, and the second simply mentioned that the child had arrived and all was well. The first one must have been lost and Lady Dashford, understandably, drew the wrong conclusion. The child Sophie referred to was not hers, but a friend’s. See? All truly does end well.”
Julia sighed and relaxed back into the bed, her huge eyes still flashing at him. “Indeed, but it would be even more well if you would stop making chitchat and please remove your clothing, my lord.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I took special pains to make my apparel pleasing to you tonight, and I shall expect you to do the same for me.”
“Indeed! And just what delightful confection have you robed yourself in for me, Miss St. Clement?”
She didn’t answer but merely gave a coy smile. Hell, he’d been too long without her to play at this game. He strode to the bed and yanked at the covers. They sailed off of her, and she giggled up at him. His eyes took in the scene, and it was several moments before he could speak.
“Ah, how thoughtful. You wore your new pearls.”
KEEP READING FOR A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT HISTORICAL ROMANCE BY SUSAN GEE HEINO
Temptress in Training
COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!
Chapter 1
What? There would be no usual Thursday orgy? Indeed, this was a relief.
Sophie Darshaw could not be too grateful for a break from her household duties. Tidying up after Mr. Fitzgelder’s constant debauchery was quite exhausting. She honestly didn’t believe she had it in her to spend another night restitching some randy reveler’s trousers or hunting down new lacing for some doxy’s willfully dismantled corset. After all, Sophie had her own troubles to tend. She’d learned several long hours ago that a grave error had been made in the design of her latest undergarment invention.
Velvet pantalets, as it turned out, were a decidedly unwise construction. They chafed particularly.
This was a problem, and not merely for the obvious reasons. Madame Eudora, her former employer, had commissioned this project and seemed convinced such an object would suit nicely. Sophie would be obliged to send a carefully worded note tomorrow stressing the, er, unfortunate drawbacks.
Would the Madame still pay the agreed price for the pantalets if she were to fashion them from some lesser, more comfortable fabric? It hardly seemed likely. Or ethical. Sophie couldn’t in good conscience allow it. She would simply have to take a loss on this project and encourage Madame Eudora to settle for something a bit more conventional, like those lovely little silk pillows she’d created to fit snugly into Madame’s bodice to force the woman’s forty-year-old assets back into proper position. Now that had been a useful invention and certainly there would be nothing like this god-awful rash today’s endeavor had got her.
It was this problem precisely that she sought to correct when she spied the linen cupboard. Conveniently, someone had left the door ajar. Sophie would just tiptoe in and make use of the blessedly private and unoccupied space.
At least, she’d assumed it was unoccupied.
Sophie was suddenly face-to-face with her horrible employer, the always-eager Mr. Fitzgelder. That fretful chafing was quickly forgotten. Good heavens, what was the man doing in here? Her first impulse was to glance around for whichever of her unfortunate fellow servants the man must have dragged into the small room for unimaginable purposes, but it appeared this time he was uncharacteristically alone.
In his thin, pasty hand he held what appeared to be a locket hung from a long golden chain. He was working the locket, studying it so intensely she almost believed that little bit of jewelry might hold his attention long enough for her to slide out of the room unnoticed. And unmolested, with luck.
Apparently, though, it could not. He saw her and smiled. The locket was instantly forgotten, folded into his sweaty palm as he moved toward her.
“Well, if it isn’t the proper little miss from Madame Eudora’s,” he said.
His thick, drawling voice irritated her like sand in a shoe, and she knew he chose his words intentionally. Mr. Fitzgelder was not about to let her forget where he had found her and, supposedly, rescued her. He didn’t have rescue on his mind now—that much was certain.
“Beg pardon, sir,” she said, staring at his feet and backing away. “I’ll just . . .”
“You’ll just stay here with me, little dove,” he said, grabbing her wrist and tugging her back into the room.
He kicked the narrow door shut. Now it was dark. Just a thin line of light escaped into the room on three sides around the door. Sophie choked on her panic but forced herself to stay calm. She would find a way to get out of this. She had to.
The room was small. She knew shelves lined each wall, piled high with towels. Bedsheets and all other manner of upstairs linens surrounded them—it would be the perfect place for the unpleasantness her master clearly had planned. Even a fool like Fitzgelder would not overlook such a golden opportunity. Lord, but she should have been more careful. She knew what sort of man her employer was.
Well, she was not ready to give up without a fight. Not that she could count on help from anyone outside that cupboard door, of course. No matter what ruckus she might make in here, Fitzgelder’s servants knew the force of their master’s wrath—they wouldn’t dare interrupt. Especially not for the likes of her. Indeed, although she was ostensibly in training as a maid, everyone knew the real reason Fitzgelder had brought her from Madame Eudora’s brothel to his home. And it did not include polishing his silver, unless of course one was not really talking about actual silver.
But Sophie was not interested in polishing anything—real or hypothetical—for this man. She hadn’t spent the last month repeatedly escaping his groping hands and roving eye only to succumb in a linen cupboard of all places. She’d survived four years as a seamstress—and only that—for Madame Eudora. She was not about to quietly give up what was left of her virtue to a putty-faced, perpetually drunk bastard like Fitzgelder.
And she was certainly not about to let the man find out she’d been wearing velvet pantalets!
“Get off me, sir! I do not wish for this.”
“What fine airs you take on.” He laughed, his thick fingers digging into her shoulders. She knew it would leave bruising.
“Leave me alone or I’ll scream!”
He simply shrugged—she could feel the slight movement in the dark. “Go ahead and scream. I like screamers.”
Well, then screaming was out of the question. She’d conserve her energy for other purposes. Like scratching his eyes out.
But in the dark she had a hard time finding them. Her nails had barely scraped his pock-marked face when he caught her hands in his and clenched them tight. She winced in pain and realized things were not going well for her. She shoved against him but it had little effect. Heavens! Whatever was she to do?
Desperation took over and she slammed her forehead against his chin. Something warm dripped onto her face. Was that blood? Good. With luck she’d caused him to bite his own tongue off. If there were any justice in the world, he’d choke to death on it now.
But he merely sprayed her with warm moisture as he laughed—actually laughed!—at her fury. With one hand fisted in her hair so she could no longer move freely, he loomed nearer, breathing heavily and filling the room with the smell of whiskey and tobacco. She was hopelessly pinned.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he hissed.
No, she was fairly certain he would not. With every ounce of fury she felt, she brought her knee up between them. God was merciful and she caught him dead-on right where she had hoped to aim. He let out an injured yelp.
“Damn it, you’re going to regret that!”
Now he was grabbing at her again, but she’d been able to move slightly to one side, and in the dark he�
��d not known exactly where to find her. She knew the room was far too tight to escape him for long, but there was no way in hell she’d make this easy for him. Too soon, though, he had her pinned in the corner. Now her arms were wedged behind her and she admitted he was not likely to allow her a second chance at attack.
Curse those velvet pantalets that brought her in here! And to think she’d hoped the money she earned from their design might be enough to finally free her from this man and his employment. How mistaken she’d been. She should have known a girl in her circumstance would never earn enough honest wage to set herself up as a proper dressmaker. It was just a foolish dream that—
She blinked in surprise when the door suddenly came open and light flooded into the cupboard. Fitzgelder released her immediately, adjusting his sagging breeches and disheveled coat. Sophie was torn between hiding from the shame of being discovered like this and rushing out to embrace her savior.
As her eyes adjusted to the relatively bright light from the hallway, she did neither. Instead her words of thanksgiving died in her throat as she recognized the intruder. Good Lord, could it really be him? Here, wandering the halls and linen cupboards of Mr. Fitzgelder’s home as if it were his own?
How awful that he should see her this way! What must he think? He stood there in the doorway, his tall, elegant form perfectly silhouetted, taking in the full panorama of what he could not possibly mistake as anything other than what it was.
Richard Durmond, Earl of Lindley. The finest man she’d ever laid eyes upon and one of the few who’d treated her with something like respect when she’d been introduced to him at Madame Eudora’s. Thank heavens he happened to find her here!
Yet he gave no appearance of shock or surprise or even the least bit of distress at her plight. That struck her more than anything. Why on earth was he not distressed?
Honestly, he seemed barely miffed. His voice, when he finally spoke, was disappointingly calm and dripping with ennui.
Damsel in Disguise Page 36
