The Rake and the Heiress

Stamppe. The name was definitely familiar. He would write to Frances in the morning, tell him to crack the whip over the will, and get him to find out what he could about the lovely Serena and her father. Yawning, Nicholas placed the guard over the fire, snuffed out the candles, and headed wearily for his bed.

In the end, Serena decided not to introduce Madame LeClerc to Nicholas unless it became absolutely necessary—and she refused to allow herself to contemplate just what she meant by that. She made an early start the next morning, leaving her lodgings long before her companion surfaced for breakfast. On the assumption that the search would be dusty work, she wore a simple dress of printed cotton and sturdy half-boots of jean. A short woollen cloak protected her from the early chill of the English spring, and her hair was looped on top of her head, a bandeau of the same material as her dress holding it in place.

Charming was the epithet with which Nicholas Lytton greeted her, himself simply attired in fitted buckskins that clung to his muscular legs, teemed with a dark blue waistcoat and plain dark coat. He clasped Serena’s gloved hands between his for a brief moment on greeting, but made no further attempt to touch her. She could not make up her mind whether to be relieved or not.

They sat together in the small morning room over a pot of coffee, discussing how best to tackle the search using the only clue they had. ‘I suppose it’s safe to assume that the hiding place really is here,’ Serena said. ‘You don’t have any other houses with rose panelling, do you?’

‘No. And both the London house and the hunting box post-date the time you said your father gave mine his papers—over twenty years ago, do I have that right?’

Serena nodded. ‘He told me he sent them not long after I was born.’

‘Where was that?’

‘La Bourgogne. Burgundy—it is where my mother comes from.’

‘So that is where you would call home?’

‘No, Maman’s family did not approve of the marriage. My parents would not talk about it. I don’t think there’s anywhere I’d call home, I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to put down roots.’

‘Why not?’

She thought for a moment, her lips pursed, a small frown drawing her fair brows together. ‘It’s strange, but I’ve never really questioned why. Papa said it was expedient for his—his business interests, but I’m not sure that’s wholly true. He just liked to travel. I’ve lived in some beautiful cities, Vienna, Rome, Strasbourg, and Paris of course, but I’ve always considered myself an outsider. We lived so much, my parents and I, in a little world of their making. I have any number of acquaintances, but I don’t really have any friends of my own.’

‘May one ask what precisely Papa’s business interests were?’

‘Oh, he dabbled in lots of things,’ Serena said vaguely. ‘He preferred me not to become involved in such matters.’

‘Whatever your father was involved with, it must have been lucrative. I could not fail to notice the quality, and expense, of that delightful outfit you wore yesterday. Assuming, of course, it was your father who provided the funds.’

He was looking at her with that curling half-smile that made her pulses flutter and raised her hackles at the same time. ‘You think I have a rich protector? A fat, elderly gentleman perhaps, on whom I bestow my affections in return for gifts?’

Nicholas felt a sudden and most unexpected pang of jealousy at the thought of anyone being in receipt of Serena’s affections. His smile hardened.

‘This is a ridiculous conversation,’ Serena said, sensing the change in his mood. ‘There are no skeletons in my closet, I assure you. Now, can we stop wasting time and start looking for my papers?’

Nicholas shrugged. ‘Oh, very well. There are a number of secret panels and a couple of priest holes that I know of, we can start with those. You don’t mind getting a little dusty, do you? Some of the places won’t have been opened for years. At the very least I suspect we’ll find a few spiders. Maybe even some rats.’

‘I’ve encountered much worse, believe me. I’m not fond of them, but they don’t scare me. Papa taught me never to be missish; you needn’t worry that I’ll be fainting into your arms.’ Serena looked up to see surprise writ on Nicholas’s face, and raised her brows. ‘Oh dear, were you wishing me to faint into your arms? I do beg your pardon. I suppose I could pretend to be afraid if you had your mind absolutely set on it?’

He laughed softly. ‘No, thank you. If I wish to have you in my arms, my intrepid Mademoiselle Stamppe, I can think of easier ways of managing it.’

Serena rose from her seat, shaking out her petticoats. ‘You take rather too much for granted, Mr Lytton.’

‘We shall see,’ was all he vouchsafed in return.

Three hours later they were both smudged with dirt, and Serena had a goodly amount of cobwebs trailing from her frilled petticoats, but of the papers they had found no trace.

In the first priest’s hole located beneath a cupboard at the side of a fireplace carved with a number of Tudor roses there had been only some mice droppings.

The second priest’s hole was a cunning little trapdoor in the upstairs drawing room operated by turning yet another rose in a nearby panel. When Nicholas lowered himself into it, he found a squashed shallow-crowned hat from a much earlier age. He emerged from the hiding place wearing it. Serena laughed, not so much at the absurd spectacle he presented—for the hat was much too big—but at the ring of dirt it left around his brow when he removed it. With the dusty halo and those gunmetal eyes he looked, she thought fancifully, like a dark angel. Or maybe a devil. She reached up to brush it away, drawing back immediately at his startled look. ‘I’m sorry, you have—if you look in the mirror, you have dust on your hair.’

In the large formal dining—once more panelled with a design of roses—a concealed door lifted away to reveal a space built into a hollow column. ‘My father was minded to keep his own papers here, until I informed him that the entire household, if not the whole countryside, knew of the place. After that he stuck to the rather more orthodox method of locking them in his desk.’ Once more the space was empty.

In the master bedchamber, where Nicholas pulled back one of the window shutters to reveal yet another ‘secret’ space, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. He handed it to Serena, smiling at the look of anticipation on her face as she opened it, bursting into infectious laughter when it turned out to be an account for three pairs of evening gloves and six ostrich feathers.

‘This was my father’s room. I can only assume it was a bill he didn’t want my mother to see. Before he married my stepmother, my father was rather free with his favours.’

‘Was he? Well, so was my father after my mother died—and before he married her, I presume.’

‘Don’t you find that shocking?’

‘No, why should I? Papa was very much in love with Maman, and it was a long time after she died before he took an interest in any other woman. Why should I grudge him pleasant company?’

‘What a very enlightened attitude.’

Nicholas’s coolly ironic tone irked her. Remembering just in time, however, that it was not in her interests to quarrel with him, Serena took a calming breath before speaking. ‘It’s not enlightened, it’s just—honest. Why pretend the world works one way when it is obvious to anyone who cares to look that it works in quite another? I don’t mean that I approve of such choices, but to deny that they happen would be quite foolish.’

‘Foolish, I agree, but it’s what most of your sex claim to do none the less. And may I ask if Papa had the same enlightened attitude when it came to his daughter?’

‘Of course not. It’s different for a woman, as you very well know. I think you’re making fun of me.’

‘On the contrary, I must commend you for the candour of your outlook.’

Once again she struggled to contain the spark of temper his words ignited, for though he denied it she knew she was being deliberately riled. Biting back the riposte that sprang to her lips, Serena instead executed a mocking curtsy. ‘You are too kind, sir. I would that I could commend you for the same.’

‘Well done, mademoiselle. A hit, I acknowledge it.’

She was forced to laugh. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, please call me Serena. I can’t bear to be on formal terms. In any case, it’s absurd, to have been grovelling about amongst all this dirt and cobwebs and still to call each other Mr Lytton and Mademoiselle Stamppe, a name I find rather strange, even if it is my own.’

‘I’m honoured. Serena is a beautiful name, and I’d be flattered if you’d call me Nicholas.’

‘Papa named me for serenity, although I’m not sure he got it quite right. But thank you, Nicholas.’

She pronounced it in the French way, leaving off the last consonant, making awareness curl in the pit of his stomach. There was something inherently sensual about her, made more so because he could not make up his mind whether or not she intended it. Nicholas. It was like a caress.

‘I take it you don’t favour this room yourself,’ Serena said, looking around her, oblivious of his stare. ‘I’m not surprised, it’s quite depressing.’

‘I agree,’ Nicholas replied, dragging his mind back to their conversation. ‘To be honest, I’ve never been enamoured of the idea of taking over the room of a dead parent. Rather off-putting, I would imagine, especially if one had company. As if one was being watched at a time when one would particularly wish not to be observed.’

Serena gave a startled gasp. ‘There was no need to be so blunt! I thought only that the room was oppressive. What you do—or don’t do—in your own bedchamber is none of my business.’

‘Not yet.’ Giving her no time to respond to this challenge, Nicholas grasped Serena by the elbow and headed towards the door. ‘That’s the last of the hiding places I remember for the present. It has obviously escaped your notice, but it is long past noon, and I am ravenous. I asked Hughes to set out a luncheon for us downstairs, but before you sit down, my lovely Serena, you should know that you have smut on your nose, so I will direct you to a room where you can clean up, and I will see you as soon as you have done so. Don’t keep me waiting lest I faint from hunger.’

Turning her by the shoulders, he pointed Serena in the direction of a doorway down the long corridor and strode effortlessly down the stairs towards the breakfast parlour.

After lunch they engaged in a few more hours of fruitless searching before Nicholas judged it time to call it a day. ‘There’s always tomorrow,’ he said brightly. ‘Rest assured I’ll rack my brain for more ideas to occupy us then.’

‘You don’t sound overly disappointed by our lack of progress,’ Serena said suspiciously. ‘In fact, you sound quite pleased.’