Angel in Scarlet

Angel in Scarlet

Jennifer Wilde

For Kerry, Kathy and Janelle

and for their grandmother

with all my love

Book One

Angie

Kent

Chapter One

As I walked across the field toward Greystone Hall with my basket of eggs, I told myself I wasn't at all afraid of The Bastard. Oh, he was bound to be a bad 'un, probably scary as all get out, but I didn't believe half the things they said about him. Eppie Dawson swore she had seen him with her own eyes, claimed he was a giant, claimed he had actually breathed fire! A great pack of lies, that. I might be a year younger than she was, but I had a lot more sense than that silly goose. Eppie Dawson was thirteen and thought she was so bloomin' superior just because she'd already started bleeding. Couldn't talk about anything but hair ribbons and boys, that one. Gettin' the curse once a month might thrill her to death, but I was
glad
I didn't and hoped I never would. Who needed the aggravation?

Across the field I could see the high gray stone wall that enclosed the grounds and gardens of Greystone Hall. I could see lofty green treetops beyond the wall and even caught glimpses of the uneven, multileveled blue-gray slate roofs studded with tottering orange brick chimneys and a forest of sooty black chimneypots. Greystone Hall was two miles beyond the village, and I'd never had a proper look at it before. The Merediths kept themselves aloof from the common folk, although naturally they were the chief topic of conversation in the village. I'd heard about 'em ever since I could remember, felt I knew 'em, though I'd laid eye on nary a one.

Lord Meredith was fifty-seven, a grim, sullen soul who pinched every penny till it squealed and cared for nothing on earth but his greyhounds. He had married Lady Meredith after he came back from Italy with his bastard son, and she was said to be a mite too fond of her liquor, as well she might be, married to a man like that. The Nephew, who would eventually inherit, was a rake, recently expelled from Oxford—spent most of his time in the gambling halls and brothels of London, they said, spent precious little time in the noble halls of learning. Master Clinton was nineteen—today was his birthday—and no comely lass was safe from his clutches, one heard. His features could be clearly discerned on the faces of any number of bastard babes in the area, Eppie informed me. She said he was ever so handsome with fair blond hair and smoky gray eyes and a wonderful, muscular physique. Seen him herself, she said, though I suspected she was probably making it up. If she didn't watch out, our Eppie was likely to end up with an unwanted babe herself, though Master Clinton wasn't likely to look twice at
her
silly face. Bleedin' she might be, buds she might have, but she still resembled a gawky giraffe.

Lord Meredith loved his greyhounds. His lady loved her brandy. Master Clinton loved his card games and wenches. And then there was The Bastard, and
he
loved torturing little children. Loved to catch 'em trespassing on Meredith property, they said, and after he'd tortured 'em to his heart's content he fed 'em to the greyhounds. All the children in the village were terrified of him—except me. I wasn't afraid of anyone. I might be just twelve years old, my chest might be flat as a board, but I was smart enough to know people loved to make up outlandish tales about their Betters. The Bastard wasn't a Better, of course, being born out of wedlock, but I guessed you could call him one by association. He
was
Lord Meredith's son, even though his mother was an Italian woman no better than she should be. She had died when The Bastard was born, which was why Lord M. had brought him back to England.

The Bastard was sixteen years old, three years younger than the heir, and he had rooms over the stables because Lady M. wouldn't allow him in the house. He was rough and dirty and surly as a bear, I knew—my stepsister Solonge had seen him walking down the lane and told us he was utterly un
couth
—but he didn't breathe fire and I seriously doubted he had ever tortured a poor mite. No one had actually
seen
him doing any of the foul things he was supposed to do. That was all just talk, and ignorant people dearly loved to talk. Not just the children. The adults were even worse. They talked about
us
, too. We weren't gentry—though my stepmother made preposterous claims about her aristocratic French ancestors—but my father was an educated man and educated folk were the brunt of almost as much talk as the bluebloods.

No, I wasn't afraid of The Bastard. Not at all. Didn't feel the least bit of apprehension as I crossed the field, swinging my basket of eggs. I had seen the fancy carriages passing through the village yesterday, marvelous carriages filled with marvelously attired gentry coming to stay at the Hall and celebrate Master Clinton's birthday, and I was determined to have a closer look at those elegant creatures in satin and lace. There was to be a garden party this afternoon, and I intended to climb the wall and climb up in one of the trees and spy for a while. Wouldn't do any harm. Wouldn't hurt anyone. No one would be any the wiser—except me. I read about those people all the time, in books and in the newspapers and magazines that flooded our cottage every month, shipped from London at great expense, and now I would see for myself how they looked and how they acted.

There was a Big World out there. My father was always telling me that. I had never been to London, never been more than a few miles outside the village, but I knew all about that Big World and one day I planned to be part of it. Eppie Dawson and her ilk might be content to live and die in the country, rusticating, never knowing about the Big World, never caring, but I was different, always had been. All that reading had ruined me, my stepmother claimed, though no one was more eager to shake the dust of the country from her skirts than Madame Marie. If it were left up to her, we'd all leave for London tomorrow. Me, I was content to wait, to read and observe and prepare myself.

The field was lavishly strewn with wild daisies, like tiny gold and white heads peeking up out of the grass, and I was tempted to put my basket down and gather daisies and forget all about spying. Not that I was afraid. Of course not. The Bastard would probably be cowering in the stables—they wouldn't want
him
in evidence with all those beribboned aristocrats traipsing around the gardens—and the greyhounds would undoubtedly be leashed, but … well, it
was
a bold plan, terribly risky, and if I got caught there'd be hell to pay. My father would grin and shake his head and go back to his reading, but Madame Marie would have conniptions and rave and rail for a week. Marie was always looking for an excuse to criticize me. Never had to look very far, either. I had always been a Thorn in Her Side. With two perfect, perfectly gorgeous daughters like Solonge and Janine, she hadn't much patience with a skinny, scrawny, feisty and unruly lass like me. Maybe if I'd been pretty it wouldn't be so bad, but I was plain as a mud fence, as she was never loathe to remind me.

A bunch of daisies would look lovely in the book room, I told myself. Father would appreciate 'em. He loved flowers. Loved trees, too, and sunsets and long, dreamy walks. When he wasn't reading he was taking long walks and dreaming and contemplating
ideas
. Ideas were all well and good, Marie grumbled, but they never once put food on a table or clothes on a back and here she was working her fingers to the bone in this hideous, uncivilized village no one had ever heard of while her Dear Husband idled away, teaching classes at the local school, scribbling on a history of the Assyrians that would Never Be Finished and Not Caring what happened to his impoverished, put-upon family. Marie had married Beneath Herself, as she was never loathe to remind
him
.

Maybe I would just pick some flowers and carry 'em back to the cottage and not spy on the gentry after all. Marie would have one of her fits if I was late, she needed the eggs, and I'd learned a long time ago that it was better not to deliberately rile her. I had already been gone almost an hour—it was a long walk to Granny Clempson's farm, but Granny had the best eggs, brown, speckled, always fresh, the best cheese and butter, too, and Marie would buy from no one else. I could pick the daisies and take the eggs on home and … and maybe I could slip back out later on. The party was sure to last for hours, and there were even to be fireworks tonight. Everyone in the village was talking about it.

Come on, Angie, I told myself. You ain't gettin' cold feet now.
Aren't
gett
ing
cold feet. If you were going to talk and act like a bumpkin, Father informed me, you might as well
be
one. I might live in the country, but I bloody well wudn't a bumpkin.
Wasn't
a bumpkin. It was bloody hard to remember always to speak properly when Eppie Dawson and everyone else you knew talked like hayseeds. Much easier to drop your “h's” and final “g's” and use words like ain't and wudn't. I was forever slipping.

Taking a deep breath, I crossed the rest of the field and set the egg basket down carefully at the foot of the wall. It was quite high and made of rough gray stones all piled together, half covered with moss and lichen. Climbing up it was easy as could be in my bare feet. I never wore shoes unless I had to. Scampered up it in no time, I did, then pranced along the top until I came to one of the big trees with limbs reaching out in every direction. Swung up into the tree nimble as an acrobat, crawled along a limb until I could get a good look at the gardens through the thick leaves. Felt at home in trees, I did. I'd been climbing them ever since I could remember. My legs were always scratched from bark and twigs, and I was always tearing my skirts. Marie grumbled about that, too, of course.
Her
daughters had never climbed a tree in their lives. It wasn't ladylike, and Solonge and Janine were perfect ladies, ever so refined. At least Marie thought so. I could have told her a thing or two about her little paragons.

Peeking through the leaves, I was bitterly disappointed. The party was obviously being held in the gardens on the
other
side of the house, and although I could hear distant titters and muted laughter I couldn't see a bloody thing but the house itself and the empty gardens below. The house was enormous, grand and gray, kinda run-down lookin', impressive nevertheless with all of them—those—leaded glass windows and the fancy white marble portico in front. Just caught a glimpse of it from where I was perched. Bleedin' waste of time, I thought. All this trouble just to see the house and a bunch of gardens that sorely needed attention. All shaggy and overgrown, they were. Shrubs needed pruning. Flower beds needed thinning. The marble bench beneath the white wicker trellis was stained with moss, too, and the trellis itself was drooping from the weight of the climbing pink roses.

Might as well go home, Angie, I told myself, and then I saw the lady in blue velvet. She was strolling toward the bench, coming from around the back of the house, and she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, even more beautiful than Solonge or Janine. Scooting forward a little, gripping the limb with my knees, I stretched out flat on the wide limb and peered through a hole in the leafy canopy, the lady and that part of the gardens framed in pale, hazy green.

She was a little older than either of my stepsisters. Solonge was fifteen, Janine seventeen, and this woman looked at least eighteen, quite mature, but maybe that was because of the cosmetics. Her eyelids were a shadowy blue-gray, her cheeks cleverly flushed, her lips a deep shell-pink. A small heart-shaped black satin patch was pasted on her right cheekbone, and her lashes, I saw, were much longer, much darker than nature permitted. Her eyes were a clear, lovely blue. Her rich, abundant hair was black, piled carelessly atop her head and caught up with a blue velvet ribbon, two long, thin tendrils curling over her temples and a cascade of waves spilling down in back. I recognized at once that her careless coiffure was the ultimate in style, painstakingly perfected by fashionable hairdressers in London.