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“So do our marchioness’s daughters.”

“True enough.” After placing the book beside the bed, she moved to the dressing table to put the brush and pins and handkerchief in their drawer. “I can only imagine having time to spend on such nonsense.”

Hiram chuckled. “Can you imagine wearing all this fuss and bother day in and day out?”

She spun and flew his way to snatch the pale-blue silk from his hands. “If you soil that—”

“Easy, Dee, I wouldn’t.”

Knowing him, he had indeed checked his hands for dirt before picking it up, but that was hardly the point. If so much as a bead were lost, she would be the one held accountable. She held it against herself, away from him, with exaggerated fervor, so it came off as a jest rather than testiness.

Hiram’s eyes went soft and teasing. “It’s a good color for you. Do you ever wish you had such pretty things?”

When the only way to get them would be to let Lord Pratt make a mistress of her? And then to know such a frock could have paid her family’s way for a month or more? Nay. She would sooner wear burlap. “Given that you just accused me of spying, I dare not say yes, lest you also accuse me of conspiring to thievery.”

He chuckled, then took a long stride away. “Never. But, Dee . . . ?”

“Hmm?” She folded the beautiful blue silk, careful not to make any hard creases.

“Such lovely dresses would suit you. You’ve the face for them.”

She snapped upright, but he was already out the door. Still, the words echoed in the room, tangling in the emerald-green bed-curtains and sticking to the paler-papered walls.

Her eyes slid closed, though it was her insides that felt heavy. Heaven help them all. She hoped he didn’t mean anything by his words. Because nothing could lay down that road. Not so long as she was bound by debt to the farm.

And worse, to Lord Pratt.

Shaking the heaviness off, she turned back to the trunk and made quick work of storing the dresses. And then paused, fingers hovering over a leather-bound book. Its lack of words on the cover or spine made her think it must be some kind of journal. Should she put it out for the girl, with
Dracula
? Or store it with the other bandboxes that she’d discovered with a glance were full of correspondence?

Lifting it out, she weighed it and glanced inside, at the last pages, to see if they were dated. If the girl wrote in it regularly, she would want it out. But the last dates were from 1902—yet the hand was too mature to have been the lady’s when she was so young. The words looked like French.

Slapping the cover closed again, Deirdre stood. It must be the journal of the opera singer. Which meant it might disclose who the girl actually was. If so, his lordship deserved to know. Not that Deirdre could read French to tell him anything she happened to see . . . but she knew someone who did.

Checking over her shoulder out of habit, she slid the book into the large pocket beneath her apron. If the girl asked, she would say she had put it with the other letters. But with any luck she would have it back before it was missed.

As soon as she knew whether the chit was a fraud or not.

Seven

B
rook jolted awake, a cry clawing at her throat, begging for release. Her chest still heaved, her pulse still galloped. It took all her might to keep from leaping from the bed and running, so fervent was the impression that she must escape. She tried to scrabble for the dream that had found her, but so little of it made sense. Thunder. Lightning. Darkness, consuming and pursuing. And that unmistakable impression that danger poised, ready to pounce.

She squeezed her eyes shut and ran her hands over the unfamiliar blanket covering her. “
Un rêve. C’était seulement un rêve
.” Only a dream. A dream could not chase her, could not hunt her. Could not hurt her.

“Are you all right, my lady?” The soft question came from somewhere in the predawn shadows to her right. And the English words gave her pause.

Whitby Park. Brook drew in a ragged breath and pushed her errant curls out of her face. “
Oui. Je . . .
” English, she must wrap her tongue around English.

The servant stepped forward, away from the unlit fireplace. “My lady?”

“I am well.” She managed to speak in the correct language, though Brook heard the French in the words more than usual. She cleared her throat and concentrated on speaking as Justin would. “Only a bad dream. Apparently
Dracula
is not wise bedtime reading.”

But it hadn’t been Transylvanian monsters hunting her through the darkness. A chill danced over her limbs and made her shiver.

The maid must have seen it, as she hurried to the bedside and pulled the blankets up around Brook’s chin. “There now, my lady. I shall light the fire for you, and you can go back to sleep. It is only half past six.”

Brook relented—for a moment, though she had no intention of succumbing to that dark dream again. Instead, she studied the face of the maid. She had seen her several times yesterday. Outside. Coming from her cousin’s room before dinner. And in the drawing room at tea. “Deirdre, isn’t it?”

The young woman paused halfway back to the fireplace. “Aye.”

Brook nodded and nestled under the covers. Did every English morning have such a damp chill, or was it due to the mist tapping its fingers at her windowpane? “A fine Irish name—I have read some of the island’s lore and remember the story of Deirdre.”

The maid turned, offered a tight smile, and went back to her task. “Hard to forget such a bloody tale, I imagine. I can’t think why my parents gave me a name wrapped in violence.”

Brook noted the perfect profile, the creamy complexion, the rich dark hair peeking from the snow-white cap, and could well imagine why they would name her after the most beautiful woman in Irish history. But beauty had been a curse in the story, and the woman’s manner wasn’t one that invited compliments.

The cold compounded. And lying abed certainly wouldn’t
hold it at bay. Brook tossed the covers aside and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Then, when Deirdre spun back to her, wondered if she had done something wrong.

Though the maid’s lips smiled, her eyes had narrowed. “Can I assist you in something, my lady?”

Oh, how she missed her lady’s maid. Odette knew her habits, her preferences, and had never once made her feel as if she’d committed a crime by standing up.

She took a moment to stretch, wishing for a barre. Ballet was no doubt out of question this morning, but she could surely find some exercise somewhere. “If you would help me into my corset, I can otherwise manage for now, thank you. I think I’ll dress and go outside.”

“At this hour?” Alarm saturated Deirdre’s tone, though she cleared her throat as if to cover it.

Brook poured hot water from the pitcher into the matching basin. “Is no one else up?”

“Lord Whitby, perhaps, but the ladies never rise until after eight.”

“Ah.” Brook would have to learn the way this house operated and change some habits accordingly, but on other things she couldn’t compromise—and wasting so much time in bed was one of them. The early morning hours were her favorite. “I’m afraid I always rise with the sun. Or,” she added, looking out at the grey morn, “with the fog, it would seem.”

“Of course, my lady.” Perhaps most young ladies wouldn’t have noticed the subtle disapproval in Deirdre’s tone—but Brook had heard enough of it over the years from Prince Louis to pick it out of any voice.

And had decided long ago not to waste her life trying to please those who did not
want
to approve of her.

She chose a soft washcloth from the bottom shelf of the stand and wet it, wiped the residue of the nightmare from her face.

“Shall I choose a walking dress for you?” A walking dress, not her riding habit.

Brook turned and gave the girl, probably six or seven years her elder, her most endearing grin. “Is a ride out of the question?”

The maid paused midreach into the armoire. “If you wish to ride, give me but a moment to rouse the grooms from their breakfasts and—”

“
Non
. Never mind.” Brook certainly didn’t need the grooms to be put out with her. “A walk will be perfect.”

Finally, a smile absent the veiled frustration. Deirdre held out a clean chemise and drawers, and Brook took them with her behind the screen. A moment later she emerged ready to slip into her corset. Silence held as Deirdre pulled the stays tight, then helped her into a walking dress of fine grey silk satin as light as the mist, which had a matching kimono coat.

“Would you like a tray of tea and toast before you venture out of doors, my lady?”

Had she offered coffee, it may have been enough to tempt her. But tea? “No thank you.”

“Shall I assist with your hair, then?”

“No need, just for a walk.” To prove it, Brook ran her fingers through the curls and then twisted them to her head as she walked toward the dressing table. A few pins strategically jabbed, and it was as neat a chignon as one needed for a foggy morning promenade. She fastened her pearls around her neck and turned toward the door.

Deirdre stood poker straight beside the unlit fire. Brook slid her coat on and then paused before the maid. “Thank you for your help—and I am sorry to have startled you this morning.”

“It was my pleasure to assist you.”

Brook let the lie slide and smiled. She then hurried from the room and toward the stairs that would lead her to the great hall and a garden exit.

She passed a horde of housemaids busy polishing and dusting in the main rooms but otherwise saw no one—which suited her well. Stepping into the cool morning, she let the fog slide over her as she walked, until she felt like nothing more than a shadow in the obscured garden.

At the moment, disappearing into the low-hanging cloud soothed her as nothing else could. All the previous evening, every single set of eyes about the place seemed trained on her. Watching, waiting for her to slip up, trying to discern who and what she was.

If only she knew, so that she could show them.

She passed the hulking forms of the shrubs, went into the flower garden. Other than the occasional birdsong, the fog dampened any noise and cocooned her in precious quiet.

Then, after exiting the gardens and wandering across the lawn until she couldn’t make out so much as an outline of the house behind her, after climbing a hill, she heard sweet music—the crash of waves on shore. Brook hurried up the remaining rise and sucked in a breath at the scene before her.

Perhaps a storm raged somewhere out at sea, for the water rose and fell in a froth of whitecaps, choppy and savage. A blurry impression of white floated about the horizon, where the sun struggled to stake its claim on the day. A gull screeched and dove.

This was beauty. This could be home. More than the high ceilings and masterful plasterwork, the gleaming chandeliers. Those had evoked something in her, yes. But they hadn’t beckoned like the sea.

The words she had read last night from Hosea echoed now in her mind. “
Therefore they shall
be as the morning cloud and as the early dew
that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with
the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke
out of the chimney. Yet I am the Lord thy
God
. . . .”

She drew in a deep breath, pulled her coat tighter around
her. And listened for the Lord in the clap of surf, where she always heard Him best. Where He lurked from time eternal, no matter what else may change around her.
Let me not be like the mist,
mon Dieu
, she prayed.
Let me not vanish into it
in this strange new place
.

A horse’s pounding hooves broke through the stillness mere seconds before a startled whinny brought her around. The beast reared only a few feet away, sending a spray of sandy earth in her direction.

It was a fine creature, one that spoke of wealth and a keen eye. She stepped to the side and murmured a soothing phrase in French while its master called out a harsh “Whoa!”

Her focus traveled from horse to man, and she barely held in a gasp. Obviously a man of means, the rider bespoke masculine beauty in his every line. Muscled legs, tapered waist, broad shoulders, a perfect face.

But it was the eyes, dark as jet, that made her stomach clench with the memory of the dream, that made her want to turn and run all the way to Monaco.

“Good morning.” His voice was all it should be. Smooth and cultured, a rich baritone. But it made her retreat a step. As did the way his gaze swept over her. “Are you lost, Miss . . . ?”

She had the sudden urge to babble something fast and senseless in Monegasque. But it felt cowardly, so instead she lifted her chin in the way Maman had taught her. “I am not lost.”

Horse calm again, the man dismounted and held the reins in one hand. The smile he gave her made unease skitter over her neck. How far had she wandered from the house? Too far, certainly, for anyone to hear her if she screamed.

But this was a gentleman. Surely it was only the nightmare, the mist, his unexpected appearance that made her uneasy. Surely she would laugh at herself once the sun broke through the clouds and she had a cup of strong coffee to bolster her.