The Viscount's Wicked Ways

by Anne Mallory

  “We can stop here on the way back if you’d like.”

  She nodded. “Absolutely. I’d love to explore.”

  They rode at a more sedate pace along the winding country lane sprinkled with encroaching grass. A break in the hills allowed her a first glance of the abbey, and she saw a view that caused her breath to catch.

  Verdant sloping hills and the gentle flow of the river gave the area a romantic feel. The abbey ruins were enveloped by the greenery, yet strangely removed from the peaceful scene. The walls of the abbey stood as sentinels on the hill. Lonely and forgotten. The slight rustling of the wind against the tall grass and infrequent caws of crows were the only sounds that broke the stillness. The sentinels stood silently in their wait.

  The building had once been a mighty fortress. A fortress of study and God and political corruption.

  It was a shame that the abbey had been allowed to fall to ruin. But there was something tragically beautiful and wild about the crumbling walls, the fallen rocks, and the lichens that nestled in the cracks.

  Thomas’s low, soothing tones broke through her reverie. “Welcome to Farstaff Abbey, founded by King John in the thirteenth century, dissolved by Henry VIII in the sixteenth, along with every other monastery in Britain.”

  She smiled. “I thought you didn’t know anything about the abbey?”

  His feigned innocence couldn’t hide his smirk. “I don’t?”

  They dismounted, and Thomas took her hand and led her toward the gutted structure. She peered back to see the guards disappear from view over the southern hill. They were alone, but Thomas didn’t seem concerned about the lack of chaperones as he pulled her along. She wondered why she felt no concern either.

  “The most unique thing about this abbey is the way in which the builders used the land and river and compensated in their designs to structure it. The cloisters were not square, the dormitory was on the southwest, rather than the southeast, the infirmary was on the north side.”

  He pointed to the crumbled walls and foundation stones that traced the building’s pattern across the earth, walls that were now merely stone paths among the grass. Two bands of columns holding a great arch stood proudly, covered in carvings. Arched recesses were still standing in some of the walls.

  “The main problem was drainage. Unable to redirect the river, the engineers and masons had to conform to the land and flow of the river.”

  She noticed an admiring tone to his voice. Thomas liked something that was considered an antiquity? She kept quiet, determined not to provoke an argument. At least not yet.

  They walked through the ruins and discussed the layout. The cloister, infirmary, stables, storehouses, cellar workshops, refectory, abbot’s private rooms, record room, scriptorium. They poked at the standing fireplace and chimney. Patience smiled as two rabbits hopped through the rooms, one seeming to give chase to the other.

  The entire trip was enjoyable, and Patience was surprised by Thomas’s knowledge, though more scientific in nature than aesthetic.

  “You seem very knowledgeable about the abbey and the life of an ascetic. Something you are interested in?” Patience rested against one of the pillars and raised a brow in mock challenge.

  Thomas placed an arm against her pillar, his body moving close to hers. “The ascetic life?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” he whispered as he came closer. “That’s not at all the life for me.”

  The sun was on a downward path, and Thomas was backlit by its rays. They caressed the sides of his face and hair as his mouth descended upon hers, and she was momentarily covered in darkness. His hands moved to her neck and lightly ran fingers across her cheeks and into her hair. The caress was almost sweet. Not demanding as she had thought it would be. More coaxing and questioning.

  Patience watched him lean forward, once more feeling as if she were in his thrall. And she found herself responding to the question and kissing him back. The moment was pure bliss. The sun’s rays hit her face again as he gently pulled back and again trailed his fingers through her hair and across her cheeks.

  “It’s getting late, we should return to the castle,” he murmured. “Another day we will come back and explore the gatehouse.”

  She knew he was right, but all she really felt like doing was continuing to receive those melting kisses. The romantic feel of the area had for a time overridden the lonely and proud ruins.

  Hand in hand, they walked back to the ridge where they had last seen the two accompanying servants. They reappeared, and Patience felt as if time had been compressed. As if she had only arrived five minutes before and now was being told to leave. She smiled. If she didn’t know better, she would think she was being seduced.

  The ride back was silent but comfortable. Henry, the stablehand, met them at the front gate, helped her dismount, and led her horse down the cobblestones toward the stables. She and Thomas were alone once again.

  “I will see you at dinner?”

  Her cheeks felt heated. “Yes. Thank you, Thomas, for taking me to the abbey. It was lovely.”

  “Lovely things are always a pleasure to see. And it was my pleasure today,” he said, with a roguish grin as he walked backward. He gave her a faux bow and wink before riding off toward the stables.

  Patience stood watching his retreating form, trying to regain her bearings, cool her cheeks and stop her heart from beating right out of her chest.

  “Patience!”

  Patience whirled to see John rushing across the courtyard toward her. “John?”

  He finally reached her and rested his hands on his knees, attempting to catch his breath.

  “John?”

  “Mr. Tecking had an attack.”

  Patience immediately started toward the castle. “Was it bad?”

  John was still breathing heavily, but he kept pace with her. “Not as bad as his last. We don’t know what brought this one on. He was looking out the window, you know, as is his wont.” John took a breath. “And something that he saw sent him into a fit.”

  Patience felt a chill despite her dismay for her colleague. “Do you know what he was looking at?”

  John shook his head.

  “Has a doctor been called?”

  “Yes, Lady Caroline sent for one. Meanwhile, Mrs. Tecking is trying to calm him.”

  They rushed through the halls, dodging servants. Patience caught her breath at the landing of one flight of stairs. She turned to John. “Which room was he in?””

  John’s expression was grim. “He was in the gallery facing north.”

  Toward the buildings lining the woods. Toward the Hastings Building and the monster.

  Patience nodded before hurrying up another flight of stairs. They ran into the room to find Mr. Tecking still flailing his arms and fighting to sit upright. He didn’t seem able to talk, but his gaze was caught between panic and rage.

  Patience looked to his wife. “How long has he been like this?”

  Mrs. Tecking’s face was more pinched than normal. “The servants said twenty minutes.”

  Mr. Tecking was prone to fits, but to Patience’s knowledge, he had never experienced one for any length of time. She noticed a half-full glass and liquid spilled over the disheveled bedcovers.

  “How did you manage to move him in here?”

  Mrs. Tecking gave her a nasty look, but answered anyway. “It took two footmen and Mr. Fenton to move him.”

  “But why did you move him?”

  Mrs. Tecking’s eyes narrowed. “What did you expect, for us to leave him there?”

  Patience refused to rise to the bait. “Frankly, yes, since that is what you have done before.”

  If Mrs. Tecking were a dragon, Patience would have been burned to a crisp. “I’ll have you know that he was in the midst of a roomful of weaponry. Would you rather have had him thrashing around cutting himself?”

  Patience ignored the barb, but not her words. A prior doctor had said not to move him while he was convulsing. And he had bee
n in the middle of a roomful of broadswords last time. They had been told to move the swords, not the man.

  The next fifteen minutes were a mad confusion of rushing servants, shouting, and seizures. Mr. Tecking went limp just minutes before the doctor arrived. The doctor promptly began removing what he called the “ill humors” from Mr. Tecking, and everyone but Mrs. Tecking filed from the room.

  John leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. Patience nudged him.

  “Tilly is sending for tea. Would you care to join me?”

  He nodded, and they walked to her workroom. John plopped into a chair just as Tilly brought in the tea. Tilly sat in a chair as well and propped her feet up. John raised his brow, but Tilly closed her eyes and began humming to herself, totally oblivious.

  He turned his gaze on Patience who, accustomed to Tilly’s eccentricities, just shrugged and sipped her tea.

  John cleared his throat. “Did you like the abbey?”

  She withheld a blush. Barely. “It was wonderful.”

  “Nothing untoward happened?”

  “What, like a pillar falling on me?”

  He looked disgruntled. “No, you know that’s not what I meant. With Blackfield. Did he do anything inappropriate?”

  She continued to keep tight rein on her impending blush. “There were two servants with us.” Well, they had been there on the ride to and from the ruins. She hadn’t actually seen them while they were at the ruins.

  John frowned. “Patience, I want you to be careful.”

  “For goodness sake, I can take care of myself, John.”

  He held up a hand in a conciliatory fashion. “There are other things going on here. Things you don’t know about.”

  He shot a look at Tilly that Patience could only describe as furtive.

  “So why don’t you enlighten me?”

  There was that look again. Definitely furtive. “Just be careful.”

  Patience let out a sigh. “That isn’t very helpful or specific, you know. Perhaps you have some other warnings you’d like to be vague about?”

  “I’m serious, Patience.”

  “Well, then give me something tangible.”

  He threw up his hands. “Fine, fine. There was a lot of talk in town about Blackfield selling secrets to the French.”

  Surprise didn’t begin to describe her state. “Blackfield? The same man who basically accused me of selling secrets to the French?”

  She could almost hear John’s teeth grinding. “I’m just letting you know what I heard. Interesting personal tidbits have cropped up about Blackfield. Rumor has it that on the rare occasions when Blackfield is in London, women throw themselves at him. And that he delights in taking them up on the offers. Seems a bit strange that he was antagonizing you one day and flattering you the next.”

  Patience bristled at his implication. “I’m not an idiot, nor a country bumpkin. At least not anymore. And I also don’t put much stock in rumors, you know that.”

  His face softened a fraction, but she plowed on. “Of course, I have heard some rather outrageous rumors about him myself. Like his selling monsters. Or his soul.”

  John’s gaze turned to frost. The room felt a few degrees cooler. “What have you heard?”

  Patience again experienced the wariness she had felt the day of the explosion. She attempted a laugh, although it sounded forced at best, and even Tilly opened an eye to peer at her. “Every castle has dungeons and monsters, don’t you know?”

  John’s eyes remained narrowed. “Patience, if you know something, I insist that you tell me.”

  And, just like that, her cousin and childhood friend was gone, replaced by the cold, demanding stranger seated across from her.

  She leaned forward and refilled her cup, refusing to let her unease control her. “If I see any monsters, I’ll be sure to let you know, John.”

  She finished her tea and wondered when her world had turned topsy-turvy. Instead of being open and forthright, she was being evasive with her cousin while protecting a man that she had met only two weeks ago. A man who vacillated between tormenting and charming her.

  She was startled when she felt John’s hand cover hers. “I’m just worried, Patience. Forgive me?”

  “Of course, John. It has been strange here. Even with my normal flights of fancy I have found myself jumping at shadows. It’s just the castle. And too many gothic novels.”

  John smiled, although his manner still seemed strained.

  Throughout dinner and the evening John’s words and actions stayed with her. When night claimed the sky, she pulled the drape back from her window, as she had done every night since arriving at Blackfield Castle. And once again she observed the unnatural mists circling the grounds, the figures disappearing into its jaws, the pearly arms sucking the unwary into its grasp. A flash. A boom. A howl.

  She wasn’t just sticking close to Thomas because she was beginning to like him. She was still trying to discover what was amiss. She added John to the list. She needed to figure out what, beyond familial concern, was wrong with him as well.

  BOOM. CRASH.

  She padded to her bed and tucked herself in, as unsure as ever where her day ended and dreams began.

  Chapter 14

  Patience wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and directed the men to move the last sarcophagus to the other side of the room. The four men had been drafted earlier when Thomas had passed by the room and seen her trying to maneuver a small, stone sarcophagus onto the wheeled platform she had built for such occasions. He had immediately volunteered the four men walking with him, then left them to their fate.

  Disgruntled to say the least, they had been sending her suspicious looks the entire time she had been telling them where to move the heavy items.

  She was finished with the burial items. The canopic jars were labeled and loaded in straw-lined crates. The ceremonial masks and jewelry were neatly wrapped, packed, and ready for shipping. Two sarcophagi were tied on their wheeled platforms, waiting for the third and final one to join them against the far wall.

  The men fidgeted, obviously growing impatient. Patience was curious about them. These men were not servants, and she wanted to know their roles on the estate.

  She had seen Jim and Theodore talking to Thomas before the mysterious evening meeting; Richards, an arrogant-looking man, regularly walked the grounds at night; the fourth man, Peter, was unknown to her. It was Jim, the slightly rotund man with the perpetual frown, who intrigued her the most. He was the one who had been covered in blood when she last saw him.

  With a final heave they lifted the sarcophagus, but unlike their experience with the larger two sarcophagi, this lift was wobbly and poorly coordinated.

  Thwack.

  Patience winced as Theodore, the tall, thin man, dropped his corner of the sarcophagus on his toe. He squealed like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and began hopping in a circle, holding his injured foot and swearing in what sounded like Welsh. Patience stepped forward to offer assistance. Unfortunately, the small, rotund man, Jim, who had been helping with the same side chose that moment to step backward to balance the heavy weight. His foot connected with Patience’s, and she stumbled into him, causing him to lose his grip on the sarcophagus.

  Which landed on his right foot.

  Jim, obviously Cornish, began swearing, too. And with the one end of the sarcophagus down, the weight dragged Peter and Richards forward, and they lost their grip as well. The twenty-stone sarcophagus promptly fell on the foot of the hard-looking, Richards, who bellowed. The fall shook the lid off the sarcophagus, and it hit the floor with a ground-shaking thud. Peter, who had escaped a flattened foot breathed a sigh of relief.

  A very short sigh of relief.

  The elbow of the hopping, rotund Jim jabbed him in the back, sending Peter into a headfirst plunge. Right into the open sarcophagus.

  An earsplitting shriek ripped through the room as Peter moved body and soul to extricate himself from the coffin and the dea
d body inside. He managed to snag a loose piece of wrapping as he struggled to free himself.

  Patience ran to help, but before she reached him, Peter succeeded in disentangling himself. Unfortunately, he disentangled a portion of the mummy, too. The force of his tug tore a finger from the mummy, which snapped upward, hitting him straight between the eyes.

  He went cross-eyed for a split second, his eyes rolled backward in his head, and, as he passed out, he finally caught a piece of good luck—his fall was cushioned by a rug.

  The whole incident took less than ten seconds. Patience took stock of the situation. Three men were swearing, their combined voices creating a cacophony of language. The fourth man was peacefully slumped on the rug, so she left him for last. She grabbed the nearest man to her, Jim, and pushed him toward a chair. She had just gotten him seated before two maids, the butler, John, and the Teckings jammed in the doorway, all vying to enter at the same time.

  “We need some bandages,” she called to no one in particular, heading toward Richards, who held up his hands to fend her off.

  Kenfield backed out of the doorway and disappeared. The jostling allowed the others to enter, and the maids immediately went to help the remaining two men. Patience slumped in a chair and rubbed her eyes. She knew that staying in bed that morning would have been a good idea.

  “I never liked the floor in here either.”

  The low, warm voice melted over her. She grunted, unsurprised that the noise had attracted him, too, and looked at the disaster area. The sarcophagus looked remarkably intact. It hadn’t fallen far. She’d still have to check it over for damage. The wood floor, however, had at least two large dents.

  “What happened to Yensen?” Thomas was pointing to Peter, who was passed out on the floor.

  “Beaten by the mummy.”

  “Ramses Jr. puts up a good fight, eh?”

  “Harrumph.” A smile threatened to ruin the good sulk she was planning.

  “Well, do you want that thing moved?”

  She peered up at the viscount. “Yes. But do you think anyone will be willing to assist me now?”