I Thee Wed

  Swan flashed Emma a pleading glance. She did not need any of the tea or her own intuition to realize that the poor man was caught in a difficult situation.

  She gave him an understanding smile. “Why not? I believe I will take some more tea, after all. Thank you, Swan.”

  Gratitude flashed in his eyes. The teapot in his hand trembled slightly as he poured the tea.

  When he finished and stepped back, Emma reached for the cup. She pretended to lose her grip on the delicate handle. The cup slipped from her fingers and fell to the carpet.

  “Oh dear,” Emma murmured. “Now look what I’ve done.”

  Miranda looked ready to explode. “Fetch the maid, Swan.”

  “Yes, madam.” Swan fled toward the hall.

  “I believe I splashed some tea on my gown.” Emma rose. “Please excuse me, Lady Ames. As it happens, I am ready to retire for the evening anyway.”

  There was a hard glint in Miranda’s eyes. “But, Miss Greyson, the night is young.”

  “As you know, I do not go out into Society very often. I am not accustomed to its hours.” Emma gave her a sugary smile. “I doubt that anyone will notice my absence.”

  “You are wrong, Miss Greyson. I will notice.” Miranda leaned forward slightly. A hot intensity radiated from her. “I wish to play another game.”

  A familiar electricity sparked through Emma. She felt the hair on the nape of her neck stir. A prickly sensation made her palms tingle.

  I am afraid, she thought, stunned by the sharp premonition of danger. Mortally afraid. For no obvious reason.

  Damn the woman. I will not let her do this to me.

  Miranda watched her the way a cat watches a mouse.

  Another frisson of fear and warning sizzled through Emma. What is wrong with me? It is not as though she is holding a gun to my head.

  With a fierce effort of will, Emma collected her nerves and the skirts of her uninspired gray gown. “Good night, Lady Ames. I have had enough of cards for this evening.”

  She did not dare glance back over her shoulder to see how Miranda had taken the dismissal.

  She forced herself to walk sedately away from the card table. En route to the staircase she paused near the open door of the ballroom to check on her other employer. A large number of people had gathered inside the spacious chamber. In addition to Ware’s houseguests, many members of the local gentry had been invited tonight.

  Chilton Crane had not come downstairs all day, much to Emma’s relief. He had sent word to his host that he was nursing a headache.

  She glanced around and saw Letty standing with a small group on the other side of the room. She was attired in a heavily flounced satin gown that was cut so low at the neckline that it barely contained her breasts. There was yet another glass of champagne in her gloved hand. Her laughter was growing louder by the minute. She would no doubt be calling for her tonic in the morning, Emma thought. She would certainly not be needing the services of her companion tonight.

  Grateful to be free for a while from the demands of both of her employers, Emma started up the staircase.

  Of the two careers she was pursuing this week, she feared her duties for Edison would prove to be the most onerous. If it were not for the fact that she had accepted his offer of employment, she would not have taken another drop of Miranda’s obnoxious tea.

  All the ridiculous talk about a missing book and occult elixirs had given her some serious second thoughts about her new employer. She wondered uneasily if he was mad as a March hare.

  But even if that proved true, he was a very rich mad hare, she reminded herself as she climbed the stairs. And if she lasted the week in his employ, she would have triple her usual quarterly wages to show for it. The thought of the money made her more inclined to view Edison Stokes as clear-witted and eminently sane.

  She rounded the landing on the second floor and prepared to ascend into the darker reaches above. The staff did not waste many candles lighting the gloomy wing in which her bedchamber was located.

  Down below, the music swelled as the dancing got under way in the ballroom. Voices rose in drunken laughter. But the noise was quickly absorbed by the thick stone walls of the old castle.

  By the time she reached the third floor and started along the corridor to her room, the sounds from the ballroom were muted, ghostly echoes in the distance. Her footsteps rang hollowly on the uncarpeted stone.

  She stopped in front of her door and opened her small reticule to retrieve her key.

  Another tiny shiver went down her spine.

  That bloody tea. Edison was certain that it could not possibly affect her. But what if he was wrong?

  In addition to the fact that it made her head swim, she was beginning to have an uneasy suspicion that it actually worked. She had always been good at guessing games, but her luck with Miranda’s cards tonight had been a bit unnerving. Tomorrow she would merely pretend to drink the stuff, she vowed.

  She wondered if she should mention her concerns about the tea to Edison. After a moment’s contemplation she decided not to say anything to him. It was all very well for her to wonder about his sanity, she thought. But she certainly did not want him to question hers.

  She went into her room and closed and locked the door behind her. The rituals of undressing and preparing for bed did nothing to settle her increasingly agitated nerves. Garbed in her nightgown and a little white cap, she eyed the bed.

  She did not think she would be able to sleep.

  The urge to take some fresh air before retiring was suddenly overwhelmingly strong. Perhaps such an excursion would help dispel the lingering fumes of Miranda’s dreadful tea. A stroll around the top of the old castle walls might do the trick.

  Decision made, she took her faded chintz wrapper off the hook inside the wardrobe and put it on. She tied the sash, stepped into her slippers, and dropped her door key into her pocket.

  She let herself back out into the corridor, relocked her door out of long habit, and went down the hall to the heavy oak door that opened onto the battlements. When she reached it she had to lean her full weight against it in order to get it open.

  Outside, she found herself on top of the ancient stone walls. She walked to the edge and looked out past the battlements. Down below, the extensive gardens, bathed in moonlight, ringed the castle. Beyond the cultivated foliage lay thick, dark woods where the moon made no impact.

  She took a deep breath of the brisk air and began to walk toward the far end of the wall. Music and voices drifted up through the night from the ballroom. As she moved farther along the battlements, the sounds of intoxicated revelry receded.

  At the end of the south wall, she turned and walked toward the east. The balm of the cool, crisp night cleared her mind of the residual effects of the tea, but it did nothing to lessen the foreboding sensation.

  Bloody premonitions. She certainly could not stay out here all night just because she was feeling a bit uneasy.

  Determinedly she started back along the battlements. When she reached the door that opened onto the corridor, she used both hands to haul on the ancient iron latch.

  She finally got the heavy door ajar. She stepped into the dark shadows of the corridor. Instantly the dark premonition of impending disaster grew more powerful. She was about to force herself to walk toward the door of her bedchamber when she caught the echo of footsteps on stone.

  Someone was coming up the spiral staircase at the far end of the hall.

  Dread prickled through her. There was no reason for a servant to come into this wing tonight. No reason for anyone except herself to be here at this hour.

  She no longer questioned the urgency that flashed through her. She simply knew with absolute certainty that she could not risk going back to her own bedchamber. Whoever was coming up the stairs might well be headed toward that room.

  Frantically she weighed her options. Then she leaped for the nearest door. The knob twisted easily in her damp palm. She slipped inside the empty, unused cham
ber and eased the door closed behind her.

  She put her ear against the wooden panels and listened. Her breathing sounded very loud in her own ears.

  The footsteps came to a halt. She heard the sound of iron keys rattling on a ring. There was a scraping of metal on metal as one of the keys was fitted into the lock of her bedchamber door.

  She closed her eyes and struggled to breathe quietly.

  There was a soft Curse when the first key failed to unlock the door. She heard another key slide into the lock. Someone had got hold of the housekeeper’s key ring, she thought. Whoever he was, he apparently intended to try all of the keys until he found the one that fit her door.

  Another key slid into the lock. Another muffled curse. A man’s voice, she decided. He was growing impatient.

  Then she heard the unmistakable sound of her bedchamber door opening. She shivered. The intruder was inside her room. If she had not gone out onto the battlements a few minutes ago, she would have been trapped, perhaps helplessly asleep, in her bed.

  “What’s this?” Chilton Crane’s voice, raised in anger, boomed through the open door. It was loud in the empty hall. “Hiding under the bed, you clever little tart?”

  A burgeoning rage dampened some of the fear that had been gnawing at Emma. The Bastard. Obviously she had not hit him nearly hard enough yesterday. It was a pity that Edison had prevented her from pushing him down the staircase.

  “So you’re not under the bed, eh? Then it will no doubt be the wardrobe. It won’t do you any good, my dear Miss Greyson. I know you’re here, somewhere—” He broke off. “Who goes there?”

  Ice formed in Emma’s stomach. There was someone else in the hall outside her room. She had been concentrating so fiercely on listening to Crane that she had not heard the second set of footsteps.

  Neither, apparently, had Crane.

  “I say,” Chilton blustered. “What are you doing here? What’s this all about?”

  There was no response but when Chilton spoke again there was panic in his voice.

  “No, wait. For God’s sake, put away that pistol. You cannot do this. What are you—”

  The muffled explosion of a pistol cut off Crane’s protest. A second later a dull thud marked the sound of a body hitting the floor.

  Inside the dark, empty room, Emma closed her eyes and tried not to breathe.

  After what felt like an infinity, she heard the door of her bedchamber close. There was no ring of shoes on stone, but after a very long time Emma became convinced that the second intruder had retreated back down the corridor. She waited several more minutes, however, before she took the risk of letting herself out of her hiding place.

  There were no cries of alarm. No sound of footsteps on the main staircase. She was not surprised that no one had heard the pistol shot. The thick stone walls had soaked up most of the noise. The music from the ballroom had no doubt taken care of the rest.

  Emma paused outside her bedchamber door. She could not stay here in the hall forever, she told herself. She had to take some action.

  She steeled herself to open the unlocked door. It swung inward very slowly.

  The smell of death greeted her.

  She looked into the moonlit room and saw the body sprawled on the floor. The blood that stained Chilton Crane’s ruffled white shirt looked black in the silver light.

  This time The Bastard really was dead.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Edison raised the flickering taper so that it cast light on the array of small, opaque bottles he had discovered in the bottom of Miranda’s traveling trunk.

  He selected one at random and removed the stopper. A vaguely familiar scent, at once crisp and intriguing, wafted out of the container. He could not name the crushed herb inside, but it brought back memories.

  He had smelled that curious fragrance years ago in the temple gardens of Vanzagara. It was forever linked to that time in his life when he had worn the gray robes of an initiate in the art of Vanza. It brought back memories. He saw himself as a young man studying philosophy under the guidance of purple-robed monks with shorn heads. He recalled dawn vigils at the place where the lush gardens gave way to the jungle; remembered endless hours of vigorous practice in the ancient fighting arts that were the heart of Vanza.

  He pushed the old images aside and put the dark bottle back into the trunk and tried the next one in line. The oddly sweet scent given off by the dried fragments inside it was also reminiscent of Vanzagara.

  Ingredients for an occult elixir, no doubt.

  There was no sign of the Book of Secrets.

  He was about to close the lid when his questing fingers touched a leather case. He lifted it out and opened it quickly. The candlelight glinted on a row of bullets. There was also a box of powder. The space where the small pistol should have been stored was empty.

  He wondered if Miranda had had the gun in her reticule earlier that night when she had attempted to coax him out onto the terrace. It would be interesting to see the reactions of some of her conquests to the notion that she went about her seductions with a pistol at the ready. The realization would no doubt have a dampening effect on the desire of the average gentleman of the ton. Women and pistols were not a common combination in Polite Circles.

  He closed the trunk and rose to cast one more glance around the bedchamber.

  “You surprise me, Miranda,” he said softly into the shadows. “I would have thought you too clever to put any credence in magical nonsense. Now, I must discover if you can lead me to the Book of Secrets.”

  Muffled laughter sounded in the hall outside Miranda’s bedchamber. A woman’s low murmur rose and fell. The trysting had begun early this evening, Edison thought.

  So much for making his exit in a comfortable fashion. He could not risk having anyone see him leaving this room.

  He blew out the taper and went quickly toward the window.

  At least he had resolved one question, he thought as he opened the window and vaulted up onto the casement. The evidence was clear. Miranda had somehow come into possession of the recipe from the Book of Secrets, which Farrell Blue had deciphered before his death.

  How she had got hold of it and whether or not she knew the whereabouts of the Book of Secrets were still open to conjecture. Until he knew the answers to those questions, he would not give away his hand.

  He glanced down and was relieved to see no one about in the gardens. Then he reached for the rope coiled around his waist. He tossed one end out the window and secured the other. He tugged firmly a couple of times. The rope held.

  Satisfied that he had not forgotten how to tie the Vanza knot, he went through the window. Planting his booted feet against the wall, he gripped the rope in his gloved hands and propelled himself quickly down into the shadows of the hedges.

  When he was safely on the ground, he jerked sideways on the rope. The knot at the upper end came free of its mooring. The entire length of the rope tumbled to his feet. He recoiled it swiftly.

  Not bad, considering he had not tried that trick in over ten years.

  He stood in the shadows for a moment, considering his next move. Music still blared from the ballroom. It was nearly two in the morning, but the partying continued unabated.

  If he went back into the ballroom, he would very likely be obliged to fend off Miranda’s advances again. He had had enough strenuous physical activity for the evening. It was not as though he were still eighteen.

  And truth be known, he thought, the only advances he would be interested in receiving tonight would be from his new employee.

  Thoughts of Emma made him smile. It occurred to him that he could certainly summon the youthful vigor necessary to deal with any advances that she might make. Unfortunately, it was highly unlikely that he would be called upon to give a good account of himself in that arena.

  The bloody virtue problem.

  He made his decision. He went back into the castle via a little-used entrance near the kitchens and slipped quietly up the rear
staircase.

  On the second floor he turned and went down the hall to his own room. He stopped in front of his door and reached into his pocket for the key. He paused before he inserted it into the lock. The light from the nearby mirrored wall sconce was dim. There was enough of it, however, to allow him to determine that there were no fingerprints in the fine gray powder he had sprinkled on the doorknob earlier. No one had entered his bedchamber after he had gone down to dinner.

  It had been a minor and no doubt unnecessary precaution, but Vanza taught that foresight was far superior to hindsight.

  He wondered if he should be worried about the fact that the longer this affair continued, the more he fell back on the old habits and ways of his training.

  He entered his bedchamber and closed the door.

  The soft, hesitant knock came only a moment later, just as he finished lighting the bedside candle.

  He groaned. Miranda, no doubt. The woman appeared determined to add him to her list of conquests.

  He walked back to the door and opened it only an inch, just enough so that he could speak to her through the crack.

  “Miranda, I fear I must plead the headache this evening—”

  “Mr. Stokes. Sir, it’s me.”

  He jerked the door wide. “Good God, Emma. What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

  She lowered the hand she had raised to knock, glanced hastily up and down the length of the hall, and then looked at him with huge, shadowed eyes.

  His first thought was that she was not wearing her spectacles. His second was that she did not have the vague, unfocused squint most people who wore eyeglasses got whenever they were without them. Her gaze was clear and sharp and starkly anxious in the candlelight.

  “I sincerely regret this, sir, but I must speak with you at once.” She clutched the lapels of her wrapper at her throat. “I have been waiting in the closet across the way for what feels like forever. I had begun to fear that you would never return to your room.”

  “Get in here before someone comes along.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her swiftly over the threshold.