Damsel in Disguise (48 page)

“And it’s not there?” Julia asked quickly, changing the subject.

“No,” Papa said. “Unfortunately it’s the sort of book that, if discovered, might be rather . . . engrossing.”

“We’re afraid someone might have taken it,” D’Archaud finished.

But Julia thought she had an inkling why everyone was being so cryptic about this book and why Lady Dashford was still blushing.

Botheration. She had to tell them, didn’t she? “Er, I think I may have been the one to take it.”

Papa gaped at her. “You?”

“Is it the sort of book you’d wish me to read, Papa?”

“Absolutely not! You’re a lady, Julia St. Clement.”

“Well, then this sounds like that book. I took it up to my room.”

Rastmoor gave her a questioning look, but she just shrugged. It would be a shame to let him know she’d borrowed a few, er, techniques from that book. She’d rather he simply go on crediting her with superior creativity.

Lindley gathered up the box, and the whole group of them trooped up the stairs to Julia’s bedroom. Sure enough, the book was right where she had left it. Hidden plainly behind the loose panel under the drapery in the far corner beside the bureau. At least there was little risk that anyone else had found it and taken it to their room.

Dashford did the honors and took the book. He thumbed through a few pages, and Lady Rastmoor gasped and threw her hand over Penelope’s eyes. Lady Dashford was blushing again. Julia almost thought perhaps Rastmoor was, too.

“It appears the symbols on the box match symbols handwritten in the book,” Dashford said. “Perhaps if we match them with the letters or numbers they are drawn nearest to, we will decipher the code.”

“Or at least we’ll get a fair useful education, eh?” Rastmoor chuckled, reading over Dashford’s shoulder.

Lindley asked for a paper and charcoal, so Julia found some that Mr. Nancini had used during his mute phase. Quickly the men ran through the symbols on the box, finding the corresponding one in the book and making note of any numbers or words it seemed to indicate. Some of the symbols seemed a bit more difficult to match up, but Julia decided those were the ones that fell on pages with the most intriguing illustrations.

Before long—although it must have seemed ages to Lady Rastmoor, who was stuck with a fidgety and inquisitive Penelope across the room—one certain pattern emerged. The symbols on the outside of the box each corresponded to numbers, from one to six. The symbols inside the box—and there were two on each of the surfaces—corresponded to letters.

“I see it!” Rastmoor exclaimed. “The numbers tell us what order to place the letters. Each panel of this box has an interior side and an exterior. The numbers on the exterior panel tell us what order to place the letters on the inside panel.”

He seemed to be correct. Lindley carefully wrote out letters in the order that Rastmoor called them off to him. Julia peered closely, having to strain to see between her father and D’Archaud. As the tenth letter was written down, she couldn’t help but frown.

This was it? This was the great secret code that would lead them to the D’Archaud treasure? She couldn’t see how.

“Strawberries?” she said, reading what Lindley had written. “All this trouble, and that’s the only clue we have? The code spells
strawberries
?”

But to Dashford, Rastmoor, Papa, and D’Archaud this seemed to make perfect sense. “Strawberries!” they said together.

“The old man must have put it in his strawberry patch,” D’Archaud said.

“He did love his strawberries,” Papa said with a nod.

They laughed again and slapped one another on their backs. Penelope finally broke away from her mother and demanded to be allowed to go along to the strawberry patch. The men bundled up their code-deciphering tools—Lindley ending up with the armload of box and charcoal and symbol-scrawled papers—and traded suggestions for treasure hunting in a strawberry patch. Julia was surprised to hear that the strawberry patch was actually under cover of a greenhouse, but Dashford assured them all this would have kept the treasure safe from any prowlers or other dangers.

Papa seemed to have no doubt they would find it just as the long-deceased Lord Dashford had left it for them. It still seemed too incredible for Julia, but her father and D’Archaud couldn’t have been happier.

“Ah,
ma chérie
,” Papa said as they began to file out of the room. “There is a string of pearls in there that will look ravishing against your porcelain skin.”

Rastmoor was at her shoulder, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I’d love to see you in pearls.”

“Heavens, I have nothing to wear with pearls,” she said.

Rastmoor smiled. “All the better, then.”

A thrill of anticipation coursed down her spine. She could go her whole lifetime and never tire of his voice. And she would, too.

“Hurry now, Julia,” Papa called as he followed the excited group. “Don’t you want to find your treasure with us?”

Julia just smiled at him. “I already have, Papa. All the treasure I need.”

It was late, and Rastmoor was tired. More than that, he was not looking forward to another long and lonely night. Three days now he’d been kept from her—surrounded by Julia’s ever watchful papa and her whole nosy theatrical family, not to mention his own nosy family. It seemed the lot of them were determined to keep the couple painfully chaste until the wedding, nearly one whole month away.

Damn their well-meaning meddling! Rastmoor found it downright torture to spend his days in Julia’s presence but be forced to spend his nights bereft. True, he understood the need for respectability, but Lord, it was tough. Every minute that passed, he seemed to love Julia more. Their whole lifetime together would never be enough.

His mother and St. Clement were adamant, though. Tomorrow they would leave for London, where Julia and her father would begin living the life that should have been theirs years ago. The D’Archaud treasure was safe at last. It had turned out to be as rich and remarkable as one might hope; jewels, coin, even a tiny portrait of Julia’s maternal grandfather. Julia and her relatives would never want for anything and could finally count themselves free of any further threats from the continental arm of the D’Archaud family. Julia had no further need to hide from anyone. Their engagement would be announced by the end of the week, as would her connection to an old and honored aristocratic French family. Julia truly was a lady.

But, by God, he wouldn’t treat her like one if he had his way about it tonight. He had a rather lengthy list of things he might love to do to Julia, but none of them seemed suitable for ladies. Why the hell had he agreed to this drawn-out engagement? He would lose his mind in a fortnight.

He stepped into his room and pulled the chamber door shut behind him. How was he to pass these next weeks without her touch, without her breathing beside him in the dark? He wondered if anyone had ever died from frustration or if he’d likely be the first.

The evening was somewhat chilly, but a gentle fire had been lit in the grate. Candles flickered their warm glow around the room. If he wasn’t so blasted alone here, he would have to say the place was downright inviting. And then he realized he wasn’t alone.

Julia was there in his bed, her hair tousled on his pillow and the covers pulled up around her. She wasn’t asleep, though. Her warm, nut brown eyes flashed a desire that equaled his own, and she smiled.

He smiled in return. “Well, Miss St. Clement, it seems you’ve ended up in the wrong bed tonight.”

“No, my lord, this is quite precisely the right bed.”

Instinct told him to kick off his boots and dive into that bed with her, but sheer force of will held him back. She was, after all, a lady. He supposed he owed her at least a moment or two of conversation before he ripped off her covers and devoured her with passion.

“However did you manage to escape your father’s eagle eye?” he asked.

“You were gracious enough to keep him distracted downstairs, my lord,” she replied, her voice teasing him almost as much as the curves of her lovely form beneath those bed linens. “Whatever did you find to discuss for so long?”

“Plans for your arrival in London, of course. Oh, and there’s good news, my love,” he said, moving slowly toward her. “Word has come from your uncle. Sophie is found, and all is well. She’s been staying with some friends she met along the road once she left Lindley’s company. It seems she traveled back to London with them and has been quite worried for you this whole time, in fact. You’ll be seeing her in London when you make your grand debut.”

“Wonderful! And, er, what of her child? Lady Dashford assures me she received a letter from Sophie months ago mentioning a blessed arrival. What on earth happened to Sophie’s child?”

Rastmoor shook his head with a grin. “It was not her child.”

“Not her child? But how could Lady Dashford have been so mistaken?”

Rastmoor shrugged. “Apparently our hostess had not gotten all the correspondence that had been directed to her. Sophie assured her father she sent two letters to her cousin those months ago. The first explained that a dear friend of Sophie’s was expecting, and the second simply mentioned that the child had arrived and all was well. The first one must have been lost and Lady Dashford, understandably, drew the wrong conclusion. The child Sophie referred to was not hers, but a friend’s. See? All truly does end well.”

Julia sighed and relaxed back into the bed, her huge eyes still flashing at him. “Indeed, but it would be even more well if you would stop making chitchat and please remove your clothing, my lord.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I took special pains to make my apparel pleasing to you tonight, and I shall expect you to do the same for me.”

“Indeed! And just what delightful confection have you robed yourself in for me, Miss St. Clement?”

She didn’t answer but merely gave a coy smile. Hell, he’d been too long without her to play at this game. He strode to the bed and yanked at the covers. They sailed off of her, and she giggled up at him. His eyes took in the scene, and it was several moments before he could speak.

“Ah, how thoughtful. You wore your new pearls.”

KEEP READING FOR A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT HISTORICAL ROMANCE BY SUSAN GEE HEINO

COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!

What? There would be no usual Thursday orgy? Indeed, this was a relief.

Sophie Darshaw could not be too grateful for a break from her household duties. Tidying up after Mr. Fitzgelder’s constant debauchery was quite exhausting. She honestly didn’t believe she had it in her to spend another night restitching some randy reveler’s trousers or hunting down new lacing for some doxy’s willfully dismantled corset. After all, Sophie had her own troubles to tend. She’d learned several long hours ago that a grave error had been made in the design of her latest undergarment invention.

Velvet pantalets, as it turned out, were a decidedly unwise construction. They chafed particularly.

This was a problem, and not merely for the obvious reasons. Madame Eudora, her former employer, had commissioned this project and seemed convinced such an object would suit nicely. Sophie would be obliged to send a carefully worded note tomorrow stressing the, er, unfortunate drawbacks.

Would the Madame still pay the agreed price for the pantalets if she were to fashion them from some lesser, more comfortable fabric? It hardly seemed likely. Or ethical. Sophie couldn’t in good conscience allow it. She would simply have to take a loss on this project and encourage Madame Eudora to settle for something a bit more conventional, like those lovely little silk pillows she’d created to fit snugly into Madame’s bodice to force the woman’s forty-year-old assets back into proper position. Now
that
had been a useful invention and certainly there would be nothing like this god-awful rash today’s endeavor had got her.

It was this problem precisely that she sought to correct when she spied the linen cupboard. Conveniently, someone had left the door ajar. Sophie would just tiptoe in and make use of the blessedly private and unoccupied space.

At least, she’d assumed it was unoccupied.

Sophie was suddenly face-to-face with her horrible employer, the always-eager Mr. Fitzgelder. That fretful chafing was quickly forgotten. Good heavens, what was the man doing in here? Her first impulse was to glance around for whichever of her unfortunate fellow servants the man must have dragged into the small room for unimaginable purposes, but it appeared this time he was uncharacteristically alone.

In his thin, pasty hand he held what appeared to be a locket hung from a long golden chain. He was working the locket, studying it so intensely she almost believed that little bit of jewelry might hold his attention long enough for her to slide out of the room unnoticed. And unmolested, with luck.