Anne kept her attention studiously fixed on the plate she was preparing. “I wouldn’t grow too attached to him if I were you, Dickon. Even without our encouragement, he’ll doubtlessly tire of the provincial country life soon enough and long to return to the excitement of London.”
Pippa shot her a resentful look. “Angelica certainly hasn’t been of much help lately. I’m beginning to think she fancies him for herself.”
“Angelica has had ten long years to learn patience,” Anne replied tartly. “She simply knows how to bide her time.”
What Anne couldn’t tell Pippa was that she didn’t think they would even need Angelica to drive Dravenwood away. She was perfectly capable of doing that all on her own. By denying him the thing he most wanted, she had made it nearly impossible for him to stay at Cadgwyck.
She could not quite squelch a thrill of pride as she gazed down upon her creation. She’d given up trying to starve Dravenwood out of Cadgwyck and started feeding him the same dishes she prepared for the rest of them. Tonight’s meal consisted of a miniature hen Dickon had snared in one of his traps, its succulent skin browned and crisped to perfection, roasted potatoes swimming in a sea of butter, and a salad of greens she’d grown herself in the manor garden.
“Have you finished filling up the saltcellar?” she asked Hodges.
“Almost!” he sang out. He was hunched over the end of the long table, pouring a stream of salt into a chipped crystal bowl. His childlike smile made Anne’s heart clench.
There was no denying his condition was deteriorating. Rapidly. Anne had learned that assigning him some simple task served the twofold purpose of making him feel useful and keeping him out of mischief.
Bess and Lisbeth came bustling into the kitchen. “The master’s at table,” Lisbeth informed Anne, while Bess fetched a silver tray from the cupboard and set it in front of Anne.
Anne placed the china plate on the tray, then arranged some freshly polished cutlery and a snowy-white linen serviette to compliment it. The last addition was a loaf of bread fresh from the oven.
“Just a minute!” she cried as Lisbeth held open the door so Bess could carry the heavy tray through it. Anne hurried over to whisk the saltcellar out from under Hodges’s nose, then plunked it down on the tray.
As the maids disappeared through the door with their burden, Anne sank down on one of the benches flanking the table, wondering what Dravenwood would make of her meal.
For reasons she didn’t care to examine, it was a pleasure to imagine him eating the food she had prepared—his strong, white teeth sinking into the crisp, juicy skin of the hen, his tongue curling around the buttery goodness of the potatoes.
She was still lost in that agreeable image when Hodges said, “I’ve always heard there’s only one way to rid one’s home of vermin.”
Distracted by her wayward thoughts, Anne murmured, “Hmm? What was that, dear?”
“Won’t be any rats dying in their beds of old age in my house.”
Pippa’s pestle froze in midmotion. Dickon slowly stood, his grin fading. Anne turned to look down the length of the table. Hodges was dusting off his hands, looking extremely pleased with himself.
Only then did Anne spot the glass bottle sitting in front of him—a brown medicine bottle with a black skull and scarlet crossbones emblazoned on its label.
“Dear God,” she whispered, horror chilling her blood to ice. “It’s not salt.”
Chapter Twenty-four
DICKON TOOK OFF FOR the door at a dead run, but Anne still beat him to it. Lifting the hem of her heavy skirts to keep them from tripping her, she went pelting down the endless corridors of the basement and up the stairs to the main floor of the manor. In her mind’s eye, she could already see Dravenwood slumped over his plate, his mighty heart laboring harder with each sluggish beat, his piercing gray eyes slowly losing their focus. By the time she finally reached the dining room, her own heart was on the verge of imploding in her chest.
Lisbeth and Bess were just returning through the dining-room door with empty hands, laughing and talking among themselves. Ignoring their startled cries, Anne shoved her way past them and into the dining room.
Dravenwood was gazing down at his meal with obvious pleasure, his fingers poised to add a generous pinch of salt to it. As the crystals rained down from his fingers to dust his food, Anne lunged across the room and used one arm to sweep everything in front of him off the table.
It hit the floor with an explosion of china and crockery, spattering food everywhere, including over the freshly polished leather of his boots.
Silence descended over the room. Lisbeth and Bess stood frozen in the doorway, gawking at Anne as if she’d gone stark raving mad.
Dravenwood slowly lifted his gaze from the carnage on the floor to her face. “Is there something I should know, Mrs. Spencer?” he inquired, the gentleness of his tone belied by the suspicious gleam in his eyes.
Fighting to steady her breathing, Anne tucked a fallen tendril of hair behind her ear, then wiped her sweat-dampened palms on her apron. “Nothing of any import, my lord. Dickon just realized there was a chance the hen might be rancid.”
“Indeed.”
Anne hadn’t even known it was possible for a single word to convey such withering skepticism. Fixing a shaky smile on her lips, she frantically beckoned the maids back into the room. “Don’t mind the mess. Lisbeth and Bess will get it all cleaned up while I fix you a nice mutton sandwich.”
Although he didn’t utter another word, Anne could feel the steady weight of his gaze following her from the room, as inescapable as the coming storm.
IT WASN’T HIS HOUSEKEEPER who visited Max in his bedchamber that night, but his ghost.
Max had almost given up on her. He had been on the verge of being forced to accept Angelica Cadgwyck was no more real than the naughty nymphs and big-bosomed mermaids who had haunted his boyhood fantasies.
But that was before he felt her lips gently brush his brow, then drift lower to graze the corner of his mouth with bewitching tenderness. He turned his head to fully capture her kiss. He had no intention of letting her escape him this time.
Wrapping his arms around her, he tumbled her into his embrace and his bed. Rolling over, he trapped her beneath him, breathing in the sweetness of her sigh in the heartbeat before his lips descended on hers. She tasted like warm, ripe berries on a hot summer day. Like cool rain watering the parched sands of the Moroccan desert.
He tangled his fingers in the silky skein of her curls, thrusting his tongue deep into the lush sweetness of her mouth. His hips were already moving against hers in an ancient rhythm. The heat roiling off his naked flesh melted away the gauzy skein of silk she was wearing until nothing was left to keep them apart. Not fear. Not time.
Not even death. He entered her in one smooth thrust, his soul singing in tune with his body.
She was here. She was real.
And she was his.
Until a gunshot rang out, snatching her away.
Max sat straight up in the bed, biting off a savage oath to find himself alone. He had been dreaming again. A dream so real it had left his body hard and aching for a woman who had died a decade ago.
He shoved aside the bed curtains and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Ever since he had learned about Timberlake’s treachery, he had been haunted by another image of Angelica as well—Timberlake shoving her down on the window seat of the tower, his cruel fingers biting into her tender flesh. Timberlake’s sneering mouth descending on hers to smother her screams for help.
He had wanted answers, but those weren’t the answers he had wanted. He would rather continue to believe Angelica had simply succumbed to the artist’s seduction, that she had stepped off the edge of that cliff still believing Timberlake was a romantic hero who had died adoring her.
Max dropped his aching head into his hands. He supposed he ought to be grateful he had slept long enough to dream. Ever since Anne had come barging into his bedchamber, he had s
pent most of his nights tossing and turning until the wee hours of the morning. His sulking body still hadn’t forgiven him for letting her go. His body didn’t seem to care that she was his housekeeper, only that she was warm and alive and had more substance than a wisp of mist.
He had previously discovered she was capable of delivering a fine scold, but he hadn’t realized until that night that she could work herself into such a magnificent fury. Her ire had brought a most becoming sparkle to her hazel eyes and a healthy flush of color into her alabaster cheeks. With the soft swell of her breasts straining to overflow the confines of her bodice and that provocative curl tumbling out of its pins and over one shoulder, she had borne little resemblance to the prim and proper housekeeper with starch in her spine and vinegar running through her veins. He might have been able to dismiss her dramatic transformation if he hadn’t been fool enough to leave his bed and corner her at the door.
He was still unsettled by her peculiar behavior in the dining room. Angelica might not be real, but the panicked guilt in Anne’s eyes most definitely was.
Perhaps the time had come for him to admit he didn’t belong in this place. There was nothing to hold him here, nothing to stop him from packing his valise and slipping away before daybreak. Wouldn’t it be better to let the villagers mock him as a coward driven from his own house by a ghost than to waste another minute of his life being haunted by not one, but two women, neither of whom he could ever have? Somehow Anne and Angelica had become inextricably bound in his imagination.
And his heart.
He could send for the rest of his things in the morning, then return to London and his position with the Company. He could allow his parents to choose a suitable bride for him and settle down to produce an heir and the requisite spare. He could sleep soundly through the night, never again troubled by mysterious laughter or dreams that left him aching for a passion he would never know.
How would Anne feel when she found his bed empty and his things gone? he wondered. Would she rejoice? Would she gather the other servants around her to celebrate vanquishing another unwanted master? Or would she miss him just the tiniest bit? Would she lie in her narrow bed with the cold winter winds moaning around the eaves of her attic and remember the man who had wanted only to warm her?
A sullen rumble rattled the house. Max slowly lifted his head. It wasn’t the ghostly echo of a pistol being fired that had robbed him of his dream lover after all, but a sharp crack of thunder heralding the arrival of the storm that had been brooding over the manor all day. Fat drops of rain began to pelt the French windows. A flash of lightning illuminated the room.
Max’s breath froze in his throat. Angelica hadn’t abandoned him after all.
Although the French windows remained closed and latched, a sinuous ribbon of mist was twining its way through the room. Max watched in open-mouthed fascination as it drifted this way and that before rising to coalesce beside the bed.
As he waited for the lithe female curves to gain shape and substance, he drew in an uneven breath, expecting it to be perfumed with the sultry aroma of jasmine. Instead, a choking cloud filled his lungs with the acrid stench of gunpowder and brimstone.
A wracking cough doubled him over. He blinked away a stinging rush of tears, realizing it wasn’t mist seeping steadily beneath his bedchamber door, but deadly ribbons of smoke.
Chapter Twenty-five
MAX SPRANG OUT OF the bed and rushed across the room to snatch a shirt and a pair of trousers out of the armoire. There was no time to seek out the source of the fire and try to extinguish it. As ancient and as full of rotting wood as the manor was, it could go up like a tinderbox in minutes. He grabbed a monogrammed handkerchief from his dressing table. He dipped it into his washbasin to soak up as much water as it could hold, then pressed it over his mouth and nose before yanking open the door.
Billowing clouds of smoke crowded the corridor. A flickering glow emanated from the direction of the entrance hall. Ignoring his instinctive urge to sprint down the two flights of stairs and straight out the front door, Max took off in the opposite direction, heading for the back staircase leading up to the servants’ quarters. The smoke made the darkness even more impenetrable, but the fitful flashes of lightning striking the windows guided his steps. Perhaps a bolt of it had struck the house and ignited the fire.
He shot up the steps, his father’s smug voice echoing in his ears: Servants should always be quartered on the highest floor. Should the house catch fire, they won’t be underfoot while you’re trying to collect your valuables and escape.
In his mind’s eye, all could see was Anne nestled beneath her cozy down comforter, enjoying a blissful slumber with no idea her attic room was about to be engulfed by a raging inferno from which there would be no escape.
By the time Max reached the fourth floor, the smoke had thinned out a little. He shoved the damp handkerchief in the pocket of his trousers. The steady drumming of the rain on the slate shingles could easily drown out the sound of crackling flames from below.
He made a beeline for Dickon’s room. He snatched the boy up by his shoulders, yanking him out of the bed and clear off his feet. “Listen to me, lad! There’s a fire downstairs. I need you to get the girls up and out of the house. I’ll meet you by the back gate to help you with Nana. And Tinkles. And Mr. Furryboots,” he added, thinking how displeased Anne would be with him if he let her precious pets perish.
Dickon’s head bobbed up and down like a rag doll’s, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Yes, s-s-sir . . . I mean, His Graciousness . . . I mean . . .”
“Go!” Max shouted, lowering Dickon to his feet and shoving him in the direction of the door.
Dickon took off for Pippa’s room while Max strode toward the steep stairs at the far end of the corridor. As he passed the other rooms, he noted that the Elizabeths had already began to stir, but Hodges’s rumpled bed was empty.
Max took the attic stairs two at a time. He gave the door at the top of the stairs an impatient push, expecting it to swing open at his touch as it had before.
The door was locked.
Swearing out loud, he lifted one bare foot and kicked the door clean off its bottom hinge. As it listed crazily, Anne bolted upright in the bed.
Max crossed the room in two long strides and scooped her into his arms, comforter and all.
Still half-asleep, she blinked up at him, her tousled braids making her look even younger than Pippa. “Forgive me, my lord. I didn’t hear you ring.”
He gave her a brief, but fierce, squeeze, cherishing the solid feel of her weight in his arms. “The manor is on fire. I need to get you downstairs.”
“Fire?” Panic flared in her eyes as she came fully awake. “What about Dickon? Pippa? Hodges? Put me down this instant! I have to warn the others!” She began to struggle against his embrace, fighting to get to her feet.
“They’re all safe,” he promised, feeling a twinge of conscience as he remembered Hodges’s empty bed. “Just hang on to me, damn it all, and you will be, too! Please . . .” When she continued to struggle, he added fiercely, “Anne.”
She stilled, blinking up at him in obvious surprise. He expected her to argue, as was her nature, but after a brief hesitation, she looped her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life. Her trust in him gave his heart a curious little wrench.
They were halfway down the stairs when she cried, “Wait! My locket!” When he glared at her in disbelief, she gave him a beseeching look. “Please . . . Maximillian.”
“Where is it?” he growled, infuriated to discover he had no defenses against that look or the sound of his name on her lips.
“Back of the door.”
Max snatched the locket from the peg on the back of the dangling door, dropped its chain over her head, then carried her swiftly down the attic stairs. His confidence in Dickon had not been misplaced. The servants’ quarters were deserted, the doors standing open to reveal scattered bedclothes abandoned in desperate haste.
T
hey descended the back stairs to the third floor to find the smoke much thicker and blacker than when Max had climbed them. A fit of coughing wracked Anne’s slender body.
Bracing her weight against the wall with one arm, Max tugged the handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it into her hand. “Press it over your mouth and nose.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he promised her grimly, hoping he was right.
Since he didn’t care for the idea of hauling her blindly down that narrow back staircase into a potential inferno, he started across the third floor, heading for the main stairs. If he could get a clear look at the entrance hall, at least he would know what they were up against.
Thunder cracked and lightning flashed as Max sprinted across the length of the house. The smoke seemed to pursue them, snaking through the corridors and down the stairs to the second-floor gallery like a dragon’s tail looking for an ankle to seize. Time seemed to swell until it felt as if it had been hours instead of only minutes since Max had bolted up the stairs to rescue Anne.
The view from the gallery brought Max up short. There could be no mistaking the hellish glow or the hungry crackle of flames coming from the drawing room. Smoke was billowing through the arched doorway and into the entrance hall, but a clear path from the foot of the main staircase to the front door still remained. When Anne lowered the handkerchief and tried to peer over the banister, Max cradled the back of her head in his hand, gently urging her face into his chest, and took off at a dead run.