Lady Rosabella's Ruse

While Mrs Mallow played competently, if without inspiration, the rest of the party listened politely or chatted softly. ‘This is so dull,’ Penelope whispered.

‘What were you expecting?’ Garth asked. ‘An orgy?’

Penelope’s cheeks turned pink. ‘You are disgusting.’ Married she might be, but she was no sophisticate.

‘You said you were bored,’ he said mildly.

The pout grew more pronounced. ‘And all you think about is … is …’ Now her face was fire red.

‘It is all any man thinks of.’

Pain filled her pretty green eyes. Tears welled. ‘I know that now.’

Why the hell was she crying? Mark was the one being betrayed. ‘What is going on, Penelope?’

She blinked a couple of times, teardrops clinging to her lashes. She dashed them away. ‘Why would you care?’ she muttered. ‘You are just like him.’ She turned her face away.

‘Penelope?’ he said.

She rose swiftly to her feet with her fingertips pressed to her temples. ‘Please excuse me,’ she said to the room at large. ‘I have a headache.’ She almost ran from the room.

Mrs Travenor leaned forwards and whispered something in Lady Keswick’s ear. The old lady nodded and Rose came to her feet and disappeared from the room.

She looked tired, he noticed, as if singing had tapped her strength. Or was her late-night excursion wearing her down? Would she go out again tonight? If she did, he would be right behind her.

Mrs Mallow finished her piece and the guests applauded.

Lady Keswick got to her feet, smiling broadly. ‘Come along, every one. Rose has arranged for card tables in the drawing room.’

Cards had been an inspired idea. Rosa closed the door on a buzz of conversation and laughter. While the guests, including Lord Stanford, gambled away their wealth, Rosa had something else in mind.

She smiled at Jonas coming the other way with more port for the gentlemen. ‘Goodnight, Jonas. I hope they don’t keep you up too late.’

‘I’m used to it, Mrs Travenor. Got a note for you.’ He nodded at his tray. A white folded square of paper lay on its edge against one of the bottles. Who on earth would be writing to her? No one knew she was here, except her sisters. She nipped the paper between finger and thumb, smiled her thanks and ran off up the servants’ stairs, the missive a dead weight in her hand.

Inside her room, she opened the letter.

The spidery handwriting was unfamiliar, but the signature was not. She sat on the bed to read.

Inchbold’s note relayed the worst possible news. Her grandfather would arrive in two days’ time to ensure all was in readiness for the new tenants. Inchbold had been ordered off to Rye to procure supplies and servants and he would not be back until the day after tomorrow. Just in time to meet her grandfather. The dear sweet man had left her the key under a stone beside the door into the kitchen.

She only had two nights for her search.

Something hard and heavy weighed down her chest. Fear.

Fear that Grandfather’s blistering rant the day he came to the school to inform her of Father’s death was the truth. Fear her father had forgotten his daughters.

She got up from the desk and went to the window, fingers laced so tight her skin burned. She would not give up. She would prove Grandfather wrong.

Whirling around, she grabbed up her cloak and fled, pausing only long enough to pick up the small lantern she’d placed beneath the table near the side door earlier in the day. She lit it from one of the candles on the hall table and ducked out into a light drizzle.

Cloud cover made finding the path through the woods difficult. She shielded her light from the house with her body and held her skirts as high as possible with her other hand. The scent of wet leaf mould and greenery washed clean filled her nostrils. A friendly scent, unlike the heavy perfumes of Lady Keswick’s female guests.

She spun around at a sound. Could someone have followed her? Stanford? Hapton? She shuddered at the thought it might be the latter. She stood stock-still, not breathing and hearing nothing but the pounding of her heart and the rain pattering on soft earth. It must have been raindrops dripping from the trees that she’d heard. Or a nocturnal creature about its business. A badger or a fox. She waited a moment more. Waited for her heart to calm. Then hurried on, crossing the bridge in reckless haste, splashing through puddles and mud. She only had a few hours before she must return. It would not do for any of the early-rising servants to see her coming in.

She found the key as promised by Inchbold, unlocked the door and stepped into a kitchen that seemed oddly chill, when it had always been a warm friendly place in Rosa’s memories.

Where to start?

Her father’s chamber. Mother and Father had always shared a room and Rosa had visited them there in the mornings. To go there in the knowledge they would never be there again clawed at her heart. For her, there was some joy in the sadness. At least she remembered Mother and Father and how happy they were. The girls struggled to remember their faces and Grandfather had insisted that all pictures of their mother be destroyed.

On the way up the well-remembered flight of stairs to the second floor, memories flooded back. The pictures on the walls, all gone now, the pale green paint picked out in white replaced with Chinese silk. She flung open the chamber door, fearing the worst. If the pictures were gone, would the furniture be gone, too?

Everything was covered in holland covers—chairs, chests, tables. Hardly daring to hope, she lifted the corner of a sheet and discovered her father’s desk in its usual place. A cloud of dust rose in the air. She sneezed. The woman who dusted clearly didn’t make a very good job of it.

She smiled at the desk she remembered so well. Her father’s escritoire, inlaid with gilt and rosewood flowers and birds. She’d sat on his lap while he wrote his personal letters. She also remembered the secret drawer beneath the lid.

Could it be this simple? Could what she sought be right here, tucked away and forgotten? If it was going to be anywhere, would it not be here where he must have known she would look?

It had to be.

Chapter Four

Breath held, fingers trembling with hope, Rosa felt far at the back for the catch inside on the roof of the pigeonhole. A small raised knob. It was easier to twist as a child. It slipped from between her thumb and forefinger. She huffed. Tried again. It turned. A faint click.

A drawer slid out from the elegant carving above the writing surface. She peered in. Nothing.

Either someone had found it already, or … Neither scenario boded well for her quest. She refused to give room to her doubts. He must have put it elsewhere.

She would not lose hope. For her sisters’ sake, she must search everywhere.

She glanced around the room. Under the bed?

She crawled on the floor, but found only dust.

Perhaps another secret hiding place. One she did not know about. She walked around the room and its adjoining dressing room, pushing and twisting any projection or seeming oddity in the hearth and the panelling until her fingers were sore.

A loose floorboard squeaked beneath her feet. She snatched up the poker and pried it up. An old mouse’s nest, full of bits of wool and fluff, met her gaze.

Rosa shuddered.

Despair rose in her throat. Hot moisture burned the backs of her eyes. She swallowed hard. She’d been so sure it would be in the desk.

She sucked in a breath. She’d try the other bedrooms on this floor and then the library, and after that, she’d try every other room in the house. And if she didn’t find it tonight, she’d come back tomorrow.

Oh, please let her find it tonight.

Garth wanted to curse. He would never have believed the woman could slip out of a house so quickly. He’d had to run to catch her up. Or at least to catch up to the sight of her lantern willow-wisping ahead to who knew where.