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He offered Margery his hand to help her down. Her fingers
trembled in his and he gave them a tiny squeeze of reassurance. Her eyes met his
then, troubled and dark. For a second he thought she was going to smile at him
but then she withdrew her hand smartly from his and started off up the steps
like a small but determined ship on a choppy sea. Nothing could have made it
plainer that she did not need his assistance and did not want him at her
side.

The butler bowed them inside where no fewer than four footmen
were waiting to take their outdoor clothes away. Henry saw Margery hesitate for
a second as though she could not quite believe her eyes. Her gaze swept around
to encompass the black-and-white stone floor and the soaring marble pillars. Her
lips parted on a gasp and Henry knew she had recognized the house from those
elusive memories of her childhood.

His mother, Lady Wardeaux, and Lady Emily Templemore were both
in the hall waiting for them. Lady Wardeaux offered Henry her cheek so that he
could place a kiss an inch away from it in the air. Lady Emily fluttered around
Margery like a fulsome moth in a riot of draperies and clashing beads.

“My dear, I am your great-aunt Emily and so very happy to meet
you. Let me look at you…such a happy day…my, what a striking resemblance you
bear to your late grandmama…not your mama, she was tall. Do you recall anything
about her?”

Margery smiled, pressed Lady Emily’s hands and tried to answer
her questions while she suffered herself to be hugged tightly.

Lady Wardeaux, elegant in coffee-colored silk and understated
pearls, was considerably less effusive. She took Margery’s hand and held it as
though she was not sure whether it was clean or not.

“Welcome, my dear,” she said. “We must not keep Lord Templemore
waiting any longer. He has been fretting himself to flinders these three hours
past, awaiting your arrival.”

Henry saw Margery absorb his mother’s tone and the implication
that this delay was entirely her fault. He saw her shoulders straighten and her
chin come up. She was not going to be intimidated and Henry admired her very
much for that.

“I am sorry to have kept my grandfather waiting, ma’am,”
Margery said politely. Her gaze swept over Henry and he felt her thoughts as
clearly as though she had spoken aloud.

So this cold, empty creature is your
mother.
Now I understand your cold, empty heart.

“This way,” he said, abruptly, gesturing to the west corridor.
“I will take you to Lord Templemore.”

The dome in the ceiling above them was dark as they walked
beneath it. There was no scattering of colored light tonight. Nor did Henry
pause to point out the Hoppner picture of Lady Marguerite Saint-Pierre as a
child. There would be plenty of time for Margery to absorb the weight of history
and find her place in this huge barn of a house.

He knocked on the library door. The earl’s voice bade them
enter.

Margery looked very small and unprotected as she stepped into
the library. Henry allowed her to precede him then followed her in.

“Lady Marguerite, my lord,” he said.

The earl was sitting before the fire, one of his spaniels at
his feet, but as they came in he rose, holding himself upright more by force of
will than physical strength, Henry thought. His gray gaze, sharp as a hawk,
sought them out and fastened on Margery with a hunger and a desperation that was
painful to see. Henry felt Margery pause, as though she was afraid. He wanted to
reach out to her, to reassure her, but he kept his hands firmly at his
sides.

“Come closer, my child.” The earl’s voice cracked with emotion.
For the first time in his life Henry saw the old man’s feelings completely
naked, the hope and the fear and the longing.

Margery saw them, too. She hesitated a moment longer and then
she did something that Henry would never have imagined, something that he, for
all the years he had known Lord Templemore, would never have done. She ran to
her grandfather and put her arms about him.

Henry heard the old man’s breath catch in his throat and saw
him go absolutely still. For a moment he wondered if the shock might actually
have killed the earl, or if his godfather would chastize his granddaughter and
tell her that no one at Templemore would dream of being so demonstrative, that
it was not the done thing to show emotion and that she had a great deal to learn
of the right way to behave.

The earl did no such thing. He put his arms about Margery and
drew her close, slowly, with the rusty unfamiliarity of someone who had
forgotten what it was to love. Margery was smiling and crying at the same time;
she was speaking but Henry could not hear her words, and the earl’s head was
bent as he listened and held his granddaughter as though she was the most
precious gift he had ever received.

Henry felt as though someone had punched him in the gut. In
that moment, he saw the earl not as the dusty old autocrat who had ruled
everyone’s life like a minor despot but as a man with the same fears, hopes and
failings as all other men and the same need for love.

He remembered the evening he had spent with Margery. He
remembered her laughter and her generosity of spirit, and how he had thought she
could make the world a warm, sweet place again. For her grandfather she had done
precisely that. He felt shaken, because for a short moment, fiercer and more
sharply than before, he wanted that same light in his life. There was a
dangerous ache in his throat. He waited for the cold indifference to return and
sweep away such thoughts. Nothing happened. The ache remained. The longing
threatened to devour him whole.

He stepped back, closed the library door softly behind him, and
left the earl and his granddaughter alone.

CHAPTER NINE

The Seven of Swords: Malice. Be careful in whom you place your
trust

M
ARGERY
AWOKE
IN
A
BEDROOM
the size of
Berkshire. She had been so tired that she was convinced she would sleep the
clock around, but the habit of early waking was ingrained in her and she could
see that it was barely past six. As soon as she was awake, her mind was already
busy with memories and impressions of the previous day, of the journey and the
house and her grandfather. When she had first seen him she had been terrified,
for he had seemed so grand and so aloof. Then she had seen beyond the
superficial to the sick and lonely old man, and in that moment she had loved
him.

In some ways the earl reminded her of Henry. She shifted
restlessly under the weight of the bedcovers. Henry, the real Henry Wardeaux and
not the charming man who had nearly seduced her, was driven by duty, cold,
ruthless and determined. There was a hard shell to him that was impossible to
penetrate. It was no surprise that he was so self-contained, she thought, if he
had grown up in this great empty house or somewhere similar, with a mother who
looked as though to smile might crack her face, and with no love or laughter or
joy. She felt a pang of pity for the solemn child Henry must have been.

Then there was Lady Emily, her great-aunt, trailing scarves and
reading the tarot cards. Over a late supper she had fixed Margery with her
sorrowful gray eyes and had told her that she had drawn the Three of Wands in
connection with her arrival. Margery had been unsure if this had been a good or
a bad thing but thanked her aunt very carefully.

“It is a card of good luck and opportunity,” Lady Emily said.
“But one must beware of the reverse. It also signifies stubbornness.”

“A defining Templemore characteristic,” Henry had murmured, his
eyes meeting Margery’s across the teacups.

Margery was still a little hazy on the family relationships but
she already knew about the scandal involving Lady Emily. The previous Lord
Templemore, her great-grandfather, had lived openly with his mistress after—or
perhaps also before—his wife had died, finally marrying her and legitimizing
their daughter. Lady Emily was considerably younger than her half brother, the
earl, and seemed a timid creature, always on the edge of nervous speech.

Although Lady Emily was nominally her brother’s hostess, it
seemed that Lady Wardeaux took command when she was in the house. It was a most
uncomfortable situation, and Margery was profoundly glad she had brought Chessie
with her for some friendship and good advice. She had the feeling she was going
to need it.

She slipped from the vast bed—it had almost engulfed her, and
the mattress was so
soft
—and pulled back the heavy
gold-velvet drapes at the window. It was going to be a beautiful spring day. The
sun was already above the line of hills to the east and its light gleamed on the
still waters of lake in front of her window. The Little Lake, Henry had called
it. The Big Lake must be the size of an ocean.

There was an odd, piercing call below her window. Looking down,
Margery could see a peacock strutting across the gravel, tail feathers spread in
all their iridescent beauty toward a group of drab brown peahens. The peacock
reminded her of Henry, as well. He was the elegant male and she the dull little
female who, no matter how much she wished to deny it, was drawn to him by some
sort of force of nature she would really rather ignore.

She turned her back on the window. In the morning light she
could see all the elements of the room that she had missed the night before. It
could have accommodated an entire army. The huge bed of dark wood, hung with
heavy gold tapestry, dominated the space, complemented by two clothes chests and
a writing table in the same gloomy dark style. There were acres of soft carpet
beneath her bare feet.

No fewer than five windows looked out across the deer park, and
four doors led out of the room. Turning the handles one by one, Margery found
that the first led onto the landing, the second to a closet, the third to a
dressing room and the fourth was locked. She stood in the middle of the room,
revolving slowly, and decided that this simply would not do. She was a small
woman and she required a small room.

In the dressing room she found her bag and unfolded her only
spare gown. Lady Grant had assured her that a provincial dressmaker would come
straight out to Templemore as soon as she was required, and that her services
would do until Margery could return to Town to purchase a proper wardrobe.

The idea of summoning someone to come and clothe her had
appalled Margery, but given that the alternative was to endure the sort of
supercilious contempt that Lady Wardeaux had shown toward her gown the previous
night, she could see that she had little choice.

Chessie had whispered to her that Henry’s mother was aunt to
the Duke of Farne, which was no doubt one of the reasons she was so high in the
instep. The other reason, Margery thought, was probably just natural
unpleasantness. She felt another wayward flicker of sympathy for Henry.

She dressed swiftly then slipped out of the room and down the
staircase, running her hand absentmindedly down the shining mahogany surface, as
she had been wont to do when she was a housemaid, to see if there was any
dust.

There were so many faces looking down at her, so many portraits
of her dead ancestors. They peered down from the walls, their eyes following
her, staring down their aristocratic noses as though they could not quite
believe that she, a maidservant, was the last of the Templemore line. She still
could not quite believe it herself.

Her grandfather had told her the previous night that he rose
late, and no doubt the household revolved around him. The only part of the house
from which there was any sound of activity was beyond the green baize door at
the end of the west corridor. On impulse Margery pushed open the door that led
to the servants’ hall and went down the steps.

It was a world that was immediately familiar. The cook was
lighting the range. A number of yawning housemaids were collecting their brushes
and pans. A scullery maid, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, was already
scrubbing vegetables and one of the footmen was sitting with his feet up on the
battered pine table flirting with a maid. When he saw Margery a look of utter
horror came over his face and he swung his feet to the ground, leaping up,
smoothing down his livery. Silence fell like a shroud. The clatter and bustle
died. Everyone turned to look at Margery.

They all looked appalled.

It was in that moment that Margery realized she had dreamed of
finding some friends here in the world below stairs, the world that she knew.
But she had completely misjudged matters. The servants at Templemore were not
pleased to welcome her as one of them. She was the earl’s granddaughter, the
heiress, and she was expected to behave as such. There would be no borrowing of
the ovens to bake her confections or cleaning the chandeliers with the
housemaid’s feather duster.

She read the panic in their faces because they did not know
what to do. This was up to her, she realized. It was her first test. She drew
herself up and smiled. She hoped it looked gracious rather than terrified.

“I am very pleased to meet you all,” she said. “Please don’t
let me interrupt.”

She saw their faces break into smiles of relief. They bobbed
curtsies, sketched bows and waited for her to leave. She was shaking as she went
back up the stairs. She felt as though there was nowhere for her to go.

In the empty entrance hall the dome scattered light in colored
shards over the tiled floor. Margery shuddered at the memory. She ran up the
stairs and into her huge room, slamming the door. She ripped off her Sunday
best—it was a maid’s outfit and there was no place for it here—and ran into the
dressing room. There was an ewer of cold water on the dressing table. Furiously
she scrubbed at her body as though she was trying to wash away her very
self.

Big fat tears fell on her bare skin, mingling with the cold of
the water. She cried for herself and everything she had lost and for fear of the
future.

Eventually she stopped crying because, really, it did no good
and she had never been one for self-pity, and she went to the door to try to
find something to dry herself. And realized she was locked in.

* * *

I
T
WAS
A
PERFECT
MORNING
for a ride
over the hills to drive out his demons. Henry gave Diabolo his head as they
thundered down the chalk track toward Templemore. It was barely ten o’clock and
already he had had an exceptionally trying morning. His mother, never an early
riser, had made an entirely unexpected and unwelcome appearance at the breakfast
table where he had been enjoying some peace and the
Oxford
Morning Chronicle.

“I don’t like her,” Lady Wardeaux said, without preamble.

“There was never any likelihood you would,” Henry said, “since
she is heir to Templemore. The earl likes her, and that is the salient
point.”

“I heard them laughing together last night,” his mother
complained. “If we are not careful we will find that his health will improve. He
could live for years!”

“That would be no bad thing,” Henry said.

“On the other hand,” his mother continued, as though he had not
spoken, “he could be so excited to find his granddaughter that he will have a
heart attack and die. One simply cannot tell. Already he is speaking of going up
to London in order to give Lady Marguerite a Season. A Season! Can you believe
it? It would be a disaster!”

“She’s hardly that unpresentable,” Henry said.

His mother made an exasperated, flapping gesture. “That is not
the point. She is sure to run off with some ne’er-do-well like her mother did.
The Templemores are sadly unsteady.” She tapped her fingers impatiently on the
top of the table. “You must marry the girl at once, Henry, as soon as we can
contrive it. We must not miss our chance.”

Henry had slapped his paper down, drained his coffee cup and
walked out without another word.

Marry Margery.

The words rang in his head now like temptation incarnate as his
stallion crested the ridge and the whole of the Templemore estate was laid out
before him. As ever, Henry felt a clutch of the heart to see it in all its neat
perfection. He thought he would never grow tired of this view. He had wanted
Templemore from the first moment he had seen it at the age of seven. The memory
of these green fields was what had kept him sane through the horrors of war on
the Peninsula.

If he married Margery he could keep Templemore. If he married
Margery he could seduce her properly because his reaction to her had been very
similar to his reaction to Templemore, give or take twenty years.

He had seen her and he had wanted her.

He set his teeth and set Diabolo to a gallop. Better to run off
his energies out here on a ride than indulge in misplaced fantasies of ravishing
the delectable Lady Marguerite. Desire was a bad basis for marriage because in
time it burned out, leaving nothing but ashes.

He looked at the view of Templemore. The view gazed back at
him, golden and tempting and beautiful.

No
.

He would not become a fortune hunter, not even to regain
Templemore. He had too much pride to be his wife’s pensioner, living off her
money, forever in her shadow. He would leave for his estate at Wardeaux as soon
as he could and put Margery, marriage and temptation behind him.

He took the track down to the River Cole at breakneck speed and
splashed across the ford heading for the open fields beyond. By the time he
turned back to the house and rode into the stable yard the morning sun was
high.

Ned, the head groom, came hurrying to take his bridle.

“There’s trouble, my lord,” he said.

“Trouble?” Henry swung down from the saddle.

“Lady Marguerite,” the groom said. “She’s vanished. The house
is at sixes and sevens, my lord. Your lady mother has been out here herself to
see if Lady Marguerite might have taken a horse and run off.”

“I assume she has not.” Henry shot him a swift look.

“She’s not taken a horse, my lord,” the groom confirmed.
“Though where milady is, I have no notion.”

Cursing under his breath, Henry ran up the steps. He did not
believe Margery had run away. She had too much courage. In the short time he had
known her she had always chosen to stand and fight rather than to run.
Nevertheless he hoped his faith in her was justified.

As soon as he entered the house he saw at once what Ned meant.
There was a feeling of suppressed panic in the air, a hum of anxiety just below
the surface.

The dining room door opened and his mother hurried out closely
followed by Lady Emily. “Henry—” Lady Wardeaux began.

“I’ve heard,” Henry said briefly, forestalling her. “What
happened?”

Lady Wardeaux shuddered. Lady Emily was dabbing at her eyes
with the corner of a lacy handkerchief but there were no tears. On the contrary,
Henry could see that her eyes were bright with pleasure and excitement.

“Lady Marguerite visited the servants’ hall early this
morning,” Lady Wardeaux said. “The servants’ hall, Henry!”

Henry merely raised his brows and waited.

“When her maid took her morning chocolate up there was no sign
of her. We’ve searched everywhere.”

“Everywhere!” Lady Emily confirmed eagerly. “I asked the
cards,” she added. “I drew the Eight of Cups reversed. The cards say she has run
away.”

“Did they say where?” Henry asked. “It might save us a lot of
time if they could be more precise.” He turned back to his mother. “Has anyone
woken the earl?”