Seaswept Abandon (The McClellans Series, Book 2) Author's Cut Edition Page 32

  She supposed in some way Jericho had ceased to exist for her also, in much the same manner he had vowed to put her from his mind. She did not find it difficult to believe he never gave her a thought after leaving the room at the inn; he was more adept at erecting barriers than she.

  As she made plans in her mind to leave Linfield, she would idly wonder about the reception Jericho would give her. Rae imagined he would take her in, even marry her once she told him about the child, but it would be an emotionless sort of existence for both of them. She could not imagine them trusting each other any longer with anything so fine and fragile as love, but mayhap they would come to share regard. It would be a marriage for the sake of their child, one of convenience, and lacking passion. She would allow him his mistresses, and some day she might take a lover, but Jericho Smith would never touch her intimately again. She would punish them both in that way.

  Rae gave the china candelabrum in the duke's library a final brush with her duster and glanced around the room to see that it was in order. She supposed Nigel was still eating breakfast with his guest of the last two days, Charles Newbrough. Rae wished the earl had not come to Linfield, because it was a strain to do her work and avoid both men. In truth, the duke was easier to pass by, because he simply took no notice. Newbrough, however, she caught staring after her when she hurried from a room he occupied. Nancy had seen it also and had warned Rae to make herself scarce. Nancy had no idea how seriously Rae intended to take her advice.

  Rahab glanced upward and saw that a few books on the topmost shelf had been put away with their bindings facing the wrong way. Newbrough's doing, she was sure of it. The duke was not so careless.

  Linfield's library held more books than Rae had ever seen. The shelves began at the floor and reached the ceiling on two sides, and because of the enormous height of the room it had been necessary to build a deck about two-thirds up the wall. The highest stacks could be reached by using a small, polished oak stepstool that remained on the loft at all times. There was a comfortable leather chair and a cherry wood table beside it. Two brass candlesticks had been placed there for the ease of a reader who did not want to return to the main floor with his books.

  Rahab climbed the first ladder to the deck, pulled the stool where she wanted it and then stood on tiptoes on the top rung to reach the disarranged volumes. Blast and damn, she thought, when her fingers nudged the books and five of them came toppling down around her head. One of them hit her shoulder and nearly knocked her from her perch, but she managed to regain her balance by grasping at the shelves.

  Much put out by her own clumsiness, she got off the stepstool and knelt on the deck to gather the books. Two of them were law books and held no interest for her, another was something in Latin that she could not read. The fourth volume she picked up was a slender book, and she supposed it to be a book of poetry until she read the title: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. There could be no doubt this was the book Newbrough had been reading. Amused and not a little intrigued, Rae lay on her stomach on the deck and began to thumb through the pages written by an author she had never heard of, John Cleland. Thirty minutes later, blushing to the roots of her hair and feeling a peculiar quickening in her breathing, she knew well enough why no one had ever told her of this book. The heroine, Fanny Hill, was an adventuress, and that was the kindest thing Rahab could think to say of her.

  She shut the book and glanced at the last tome lying on the deck near her face. Her blush deepened. It was the Bible. Surely this was no accident, but the Hand of Providence. With the tips of two fingers she nudged Fanny Hill away from her and brought the heavy Bible closer. Strange, she thought, that Nigel kept what was obviously the Linfield family Bible so far out of reach. Not that he was a God-fearing man, by any means. He didn't attend services in the chapel, even though he provided them for his servants, but the book deserved finer care than it had received next to the likes of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

  Rae opened the cover and found the Linfield genealogy dutifully recorded in a list of marriages, births, and deaths, all properly noted with dates, and sometimes, in the case of deaths, causes.

  Fascinated, Rae forgot about time, her work, or the inappropriateness of her behavior as one of the staff, and traced the history of the Lynnes of Linfield from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign to the present. She saw that Nigel's father had recorded the death of his wife and the birth of his twins on the same day. The ink was smeared slightly by a watermark where she imagined grief had overtaken him. The next entries were in Nigel's own hand, and they puzzled her. He had recorded the death of his father, and a few weeks later, in his same impatient scrawl, he had written the date of his sister's death, recorded the cause as childbirth, and noted the name of the child: Ashley Caroline Lynne. Yet Rae knew the duke let it be believed his twin had drowned and had never told Ashley until her nineteenth year that she was his niece. She wondered why he would give out lies and record the truth.

  Thinking about it, Rae idly turned the pages of the Bible, scanning the verses to find something that would be of particular solace to her now. Instead she happened upon the last thing she wanted to find: The Duke of Linfield's last will and testament. Not Nigel's. His father's.

  Why, when she wanted to put the intrigue behind her, had she had the misfortune to stumble upon it? Rae hesitated, wondering if she had the strength of purpose to put it from her and pretend this document did not exist. She knew she did not. Fingers trembling, she unfolded the vellum pages with great care.

  Robert McClellan had always believed that the old duke had made his daughter Anne the heiress to Linfield, or her issue should she die. Rae's father maintained that Nigel Lynne had never been intended to be the owner of the Linfield holdings, that they rightly belonged to Ashley as Anne's daughter. But without a shred of proof, without the will, it all remained speculation, and Nigel inherited as the duke's only surviving offspring.

  When Rae finished reading, her heart raced as if she had just run the stairs. Her father's words had ceased to be speculation. Here was proof that the old duke had taken measure of his son and found him wanting in every respect, even thinking of him as evil, if the dying man's prose was to be believed. Nigel's father had been willing to let the title die rather than pass it to his son, and the holdings were, without exception, to be placed in his daughter's name.

  This document, along with the record of Ashley's birth in Nigel's own hand, offered better hope for destroying Nigel Lynne than a lead ball from Jericho's pistol. She could have wept that she had found it now, when the risk of carrying it away seemed out of proportion to the life she carried within her.

  She refolded the pages and tucked them in the book exactly as she had found them. Closing the Bible, she rested her cheek against its leather cover and shut her eyes. So many thoughts raced through her head that she could not hear herself think. When calm finally asserted itself and her mind was blissfully quiet, she realized for the first time that she was no longer alone in the room.

  The duke was there with Newbrough, and she supposed it was owing to her position, flush to the deck, that neither man had seen her when they entered. She dared not move now, or even lift her head to see where they were. From the sound of their voices it seemed they were near the hearth, probably seated and enjoying a late-morning cup of tea. In the midst of their conversation she could hear the clink of china cups being set upon their saucers. She nearly groaned aloud when she thought of how long they might have been there, and how easily she could have been surprised while reading the will. Worse, how long she had been in the loft. Someone was bound to begin to wonder where she had gone.

  Carefully she slipped her cheek from its resting place and laid it against the deck's hardwood floor. There was naught to do but wait... and listen.

  "I'm telling you, Nigel, I need a diversion. If I must think on what this upstart Adams is doing, I shall go mad. What say you to a hunt? With Lady Georgina as the vixen? It's been a long time since you've had an enter
tainment here. You used to host the most delicious revels."

  "I say the idea bores me. And Lady Georgina? She'd let herself be caught in the thicket just beyond the front door. There is no sport in that."

  "But there would be plenty of sport in what follows," the earl laughed wickedly. "I hear she's a near insatiable toss."

  "And will open her thighs, I understand, for any man... or woman."

  "Truly?" Newbrough was much caught by the idea.

  "Truly, Newbrough, she lacks any sort of spirit. I doubt her protestations as the hunters closed in would be very convincing. She'd be warding us off with one hand and lifting her skirts with the other. No, if I were in the mood for a hunt, I would choose my vixen more carefully than Georgina."

  "Lady Catherine Kearns, perhaps? She reminds me a bit of the portrait in your study. Your sister, I believe."

  The duke smiled faintly, unwilling to be drawn. "There is some resemblance, I suppose. Cathy intrigues me. Let us leave it at that. Tell me more about this Adams fellow. What do you know about him?"

  Newbrough sighed and rubbed the bridge of his hooked nose with his forefinger. "I believe I've told you all I know. He's recently arrived from India, the wags have it, and he's bent on ruining me. What more is there?"

  "Quite a lot, I should think. His family, for one thing. Where are his lands and how did he come by his title?"

  "Don't know about his family. I spoke to Evans and Lesley on the matter, but they said they were unable to draw him out. The man's a closed one, he is. They say he rarely talks while he is playing and simply vanishes afterwards. It is rumored he came by his title because of his contributions to the royal coffers. Nothing strange in that. And apparently he holds some lands in the north."

  "He's well off, then?"

  "Quite. He's won and lost thousands of pounds at the tables. He'll wager on anything, too. Evans said he once laid three hundred on the number of flounces decorating Lord Hardy mistress's underskirt. He won, of course. Damn lucky fellow. If it had been Hardy's wife, he would have been called out."

  "If he can make so many easy wagers without losing his shirt, why is he collecting your notes? And why yours and no one else's? You're not the only man in London ready to take residence on Dun Street."

  "That's a poser. I can't make it out beyond thinking the man wants to ruin me."

  "Can he?"

  Newbrough shifted uncomfortably in his chair and took a quick sip of tea. His hand shook visibly. "I imagine it depends on the cards he's dealt and how his luck holds."

  "It was careless of you to amass debts to so many people, Newbrough," Nigel drawled. "And dishonorable not to make good on them. What are you going to do about him?"

  "Do? Why I'm trying to win back my notes, of course."

  "From Adams?"

  "No, from the others who still have them. I can't find Adams to play him."

  Nigel smiled at the earl's discomfort. "I have a feeling he'll find you when he wants to collect. Have you many notes still out?"

  "That's the hell of it, Nigel. I've more now than when I started. I've had nothing but bad luck with the cards."

  "You're no more than an average player," the duke said bluntly. "I should think mediocrity is finally taking its toll."

  The earl did not take offense at Nigel's plain speech, for the truth was obvious to him also. "You should know. You have a few of my notes yourself."

  "More than a few. Two thousand pounds' worth. Don't panic. I'll make you a gift of them."

  Newbrough's tiny eyes brightened. "That's damn generous of you."

  "In return for the bay mare I've had my eye on since you brought her home from auction."

  "Can't do it," Newbrough said, his shoulders slumping. "She's gone."

  "What?"

  "She's gone. Stolen, I suspect, though I can't prove it. There was a fire in the stables not above six weeks ago. The grooms got all the horses out, but could not account for some of the best stock when all was over. Said they wandered off, but no one knows where they wandered to. Naturally the men were dismissed, but there's no replacing the prime cattle."

  "You have had a nasty run of luck. Two robberies, a fire in your stables, your notes being systematically collected. Is it coincidence or Lord Adams?"

  "How can I say?"

  "I'd make it my business to find out."

  "As to that, I was wondering if you might play a few hands with his nibs. You have my notes. He would play you."

  "I could lose them," Nigel pointed out.

  "What? You don't lose."

  "Your confidence warms my heart," Nigel said dryly. "But tell me, why should I wager with this man? What have I to gain? Your notes are virtually worthless. Don't you see, if I won them you would be as indebted to me as you would be to this Adams."

  "Yes, but you wouldn't force a collection. I could honor the notes over time."

  "Years, by the sounds of it. Don't be so certain I wouldn't press my advantage, Newbrough. I only say that to warn you. Do you still wish me to try my hand?"

  "Yes. I know you will deal honorably with me."

  "I detect more hopefulness in your tone than conviction. We shall see, won't we? I'll send a man to London and invite Lord Adams here. I've no taste for going there at the moment. I rather think I shall provide you with that diversion you spoke of. Linfield will host an entertainment like none that has been seen in years."

  The earl clapped his hands together. "Capital! When do—"

  Nigel cocked his head to one side and held up a hand to stifle Newbrough's question. "What was that?"

  "What? I didn't hear anything."

  "I did." He rose from his chair and walked toward the door so that he had a better view of the library deck. "Why I think we have had a third party to our conversation. Come down from there, girl."

  Rae thought her heart would surely burst in her chest, but she remained on the floor with her eyes closed and pretended not to hear the stern command then, nor when it was repeated in stronger tones a moment later. She heard the library door open and the duke summon Stephens.

  "It appears one of your staff is showing a shocking lack of conscience for her work." Nigel pointed in the direction of the loft. "Get her down from there. Immediately."

  Stephens nearly lost his solemn composure when he saw it was Rae sprawled on the deck. The length of her body gave her away. He climbed the ladder stiffly and shook her shoulder. "Get up, girl." Rae still did not move. It was then Stephens noticed displaced books and the location of the stepstool. He turned to the duke. "I believe she's been hurt, your grace. She's not merely sleeping. I think some books must have landed on her."

  "Don't tell me about it, do something with her."

  Rae would have liked to pretend unconsciousness so that she might be carried out without ever having to say anything for herself. But it worried her that the descent from the ladder would be dangerous if she was lifted, and she was mindful that a fall could hurt her babe. When Stephens touched her shoulder again, this time placing her fingers over the place where a book had indeed bruised her, she winced and chose that moment to feign coming around.

  She opened her eyes in what she hoped was a dazed and distressed fluttering and immediately put a hand to the back of her head as if to feel for a knot. "Oh, my!" she said, pretending surprise at finding Stephens's face so close to her own. "What? Oh, the books!" She made a convincing show of painful movement as she sat up. At least she had convinced Stephens; she dared not look at the duke or Newbrough, who had left his seat and now stood by the opposite wall that he might also have an unobstructed view of what was happening.

  "Can you come down on your own?" Stephens asked.

  "Yes, I think I can manage. Let me get the books."

  "Leave them. Someone else can put them away."

  "But—"

  "Leave them."

  Rae was loath to do as Stephens requested, for she wanted no one chancing upon what she had found. Still, she had little choice, as Stephens was giv
ing her one of his hard stares that boded ill if she disobeyed. She did stack the books before she followed him down the ladder and tried not to think of Newbrough's beady eyes taking stock of her ankles as she did so.

  Without looking at either Nigel or Newbrough, she dipped an apologetic curtsy and hurried across the room. At the door, the duke stepped in front of her, blocking her exit. He moved her to one side, allowing Stephens to leave.

  "Not so quickly," he said, when she attempted to follow the butler. "What were you doing up there?"

  "I was righting some books, your grace," Rae answered softly, striving for an accent that would not betray her colonial upbringing.

  "And what occasioned you to be on the deck with your ear to the floor?"

  "Oh, no, your grace, I wasn't eavesdropping! I swear it!"

  "Did I say you were?"

  "No, but—"

  "But?"

  "Nothing, your grace," she said meekly. What was it they said about a guilty conscience needing no accuser? Another untimely slip of her errant tongue and surely she would be mousemeat. "One of the books fell on my head and knocked me off the stool. I don't remember beyond that until Stephens touched me."

  "Indeed? Then I wonder what noise brought your presence to my attention?"

  "I cannot say."

  The duke was thoughtful, looking at Rae's bowed head covered in a fresh white mobcap, but whatever he was thinking he kept to himself. "You may go." He stepped aside for her, and once she was beyond hearing he turned to Newbrough. "Watch her for me, would you? You have an eye for that sort of thing."

  Newbrough's brow raised in interest. "A pleasure, but why?"

  "There is something... no matter. Just see that she is not involved in any mischief."

  Stephens was waiting for Rahab at the bottom of the servants' stairs. "You very nearly cooked your goose that time, m'girl. If you value your position you'll be more careful in the future."