Bound By A Scandalous Secret

She finished the song and lifted her eyes to his.

‘Lorene,’ he murmured.

There was a knock on the door, breaking his reverie.

The butler appeared. ‘Beg pardon, sir, my lady.’

‘What is it, Jeffers?’ Dell asked, his voice unsteady.

‘The weather, sir,’ Jeffers said. ‘A storm. It has begun to snow and sleet.’

Lorene paled and stood. Dell stepped towards the window. She brushed against him as he opened the curtains with his hand. They both looked out on to ground already tinged with white. The hiss of sleet, now so clear, must have been obscured by the music.

She spun around. ‘We must leave! Where is Genna?’

‘I sent Becker to find her,’ Jeffers said.

‘Well done, Jeffers. Alert the stables to ready the carriage.’ Dell turned towards Lorene. ‘You might still make it home if you can leave immediately.’

Lorene placed her hands on her cheeks. ‘We did not expect bad weather.’

Dell touched her arm, concerned by her distress. ‘Try not to worry.’

‘Where is Genna?’ she cried, rushing from the room. ‘Why did she have to tour the house?’

* * *

Genna led Ross through dark narrow corridors, stopping at doors that opened into the other bedchambers. On the other side, the doors to the secret passageways were nearly invisible to the eye. While they navigated this labyrinth, sometimes they heard music.

‘Lorene must be playing the pianoforte,’ Genna said.

The music wafting through the air merely made their excursion seem more fanciful.

It was like a game. Ross tried to guess what room they’d come upon next with the floor plan of the house fixed in his mind, but he was often wrong. Genna navigated the spaces with ease, though, and he could imagine her as a little girl running through these same spaces.

She opened a door on to the schoolroom. ‘Is it not bizarre? The passageways even lead here. Why would my great-grandfather care if servants were seen in the nursery?’

‘I wonder why he built the whole thing,’ Ross said.

She grinned. ‘It made for wonderful games of hide and seek.’

He could picture it in his mind’s eye. The neglected children running through the secret parts of the house as if the passages had been created for their amusement.

‘It even leads to the attic!’ They came upon some stairs and she climbed to the top, opening a door into a huge room filled with boxes, chests and old furniture. Their little lamp illuminated only a small part of it.

Ross’s shoe kicked something. He leaned down and picked up what looked like a large bound book.

‘What is that?’ she asked, turning to see.

He handed it to her and she opened it.

‘Oh! It is my sketchbook.’ Heedless of the dust, she sat cross-legged on the floor and placed the lamp nearby. She leafed through the pages. ‘Oh, my goodness. I thought this was gone for ever!’

‘What is it doing up here?’ he asked.

‘I hid it for safekeeping and then I could not remember where it was.’ She closed it and hugged it to her. ‘I cannot believe you found it!’

‘Tripped over it, you mean.’ He made light of it, but her voice had cracked with emotion.

When had he ever met a woman who wore her emotions so plainly on her sleeve? And yet...there was more she kept hidden. From everyone, he suspected. With luck the Christmas season would afford him the opportunity to see more of her.

She opened the book again and turned the pages. Illuminated by the lamp, her face glowed, looking even lovelier than she’d appeared before. Her hair glittered like threads of gold and her blue eyes were like sapphires, shadowed by long lashes. What might it be like to comb his fingers through those golden locks and to have her eyes darken with desire?

He stepped back.

For all the scandal in her family she was still a respectable young woman. A dalliance with her would only dishonour her and neither she nor he wished for something more honourable—like marriage.

The time was nearing when he would be forced to pick among the daughters of the ton for a wife worthy of becoming a duchess. Not yet, though. Not yet.

She looked up at him. ‘What should I do with it?’

‘Take it, if you wish. It is yours.’

Her brow creased. ‘Would Lord Penford mind, do you think? He might not like knowing I was poking through the attic.’

He shrugged. ‘I cannot think he would care.’

She stood and, clutching her sketchbook in one hand, brushed off her skirt with the other. ‘We were not supposed to take anything but personal items.’

He pointed to the book. ‘This is a personal item.’

She stroked it. ‘I suppose.’

He crouched down to pick up the lamp. ‘In any event, we should probably make our way back to the drawing room.’

She nodded.

He helped her through the door and down the stairs. She led him through the secret corridor down more stairs to the main floor where they heard their names called.

‘Genna! Where are you?’ her sister cried.

‘Ross! We need you!’ Dell’s voice followed.

Genna giggled. ‘They must think we have disappeared into thin air.’

‘Does your sister not know of the secret passageway?’

‘She knows of it, but we really stopped using it years ago.’ She paused. ‘At least Lorene and Tess did.’ She seized his hand. ‘Come. We’ll walk out somewhere where we will not be seen emerging from the secret passageway.’