The Deception (8 page)

He wasn’t even looking at her, merely frowning at his face in the shine of his boots. “Very well,” he said.
“In a month or so, after Edmund has driven you distracted, and you find yourself on the point of throttling him, you will pay a visit to London. You don’t have to marry any man there, I promise you.” “I won’t ever want to leave Chesleigh.” “We shall see,” he said. He drew his watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. “It’s late. Perhaps your nonsensical opinions result from fatigue.”

“Just because I have no liking for your kind of life, your grace, you believe me stupid. Oh, dear. I’ve insulted you, haven’t I? I am sorry for it. Will you still let me remain as Edmund’s nanny?”

“Do you know,” he said after a moment, “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a woman like you before? You run smoothly along a certain road, then suddenly take a turn that leads to another road that goes in the opposite direction. You’re something of a puzzle. I have always been quite good at solving puzzles. Why don’t you say good night? No, don’t say any more. I’m giving you the chance to escape the drawing room without further offending your host.”

He took a step toward her, then paused. His long fingers stroked his chin. “Before you retire, let me inquire exactly what you believe my kind of life to be.”

She looked up at him full face. “I believe you to be a man of the world, a man who can have most anything he wishes with but a snap of his fingers, a man, in short, who, because of his wealth, rank, and personal attributes, can indulge himself in any pursuit he fancies.”

“In conclusion, not a very estimable man.” She said without hesitation, “I will always believe you an estimable man, your grace. I think you have a good deal of kindness. Indeed, how could I ever believe
otherwise?” She turned and walked to the drawing room door. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and said over her shoulder, “After all, have you not allowed a poor cousin-in-law to invade your stronghold?”

“Yet another different glimpse of you,” he said quietly. “I trust you won’t regret coming here.”

“I cannot regret it, your grace,” she said, and quickly left the room.

Her choice of words perplexed him. He went to his library. He decided an hour later, before he went to his bed, that he would postpone his return to London, at least for a week, until he was certain that she and Edmund rubbed along well together.

I
t was raining hard; the building was old gray stone, an open gutter flowing in front of it. Inside, she could hear the echo of her boots on the stone floors. She’d never known such fear in her life. One of the two men shoved her through a door into a small, narrow room. There was only one high window in that room behind a young man who appeared so thin as to be gaunt. He looked like a monk in his cell. He was sitting behind a very old, scarred desk that held no papers, nothing, on its surface. The young man rose slowly, never looking away from her, his eyes never leaving her face. He was wearing a black, musty-looking wool coat and trousers.

He walked up to her and took her chin in his long, thin fingers, lifting her face. She tried to jerk away, but one of the men twisted her arm behind her, saying low in her ear, “You hold yourself still, Mademoiselle, or I’ll break this pretty wing.”

The fingers on her chin tightened, then suddenly released her. He motioned to a chair. “Sit down.”

She sat. There was no choice. She wanted to ask where her father was, but the words were buried too deep in her throat. Why had they brought her and her
father here? To Paris? She was so afraid, the words were stuck in her throat. The man said, “My name is Houchard. I need you. You will do exactly as I tell you, or I will kill your father.”

Where were the words to scream at him, to demand why he was doing this, whatever this was?

“I’m relieved that you’re well enough looking. The duke only likes beautiful women. If you must, you will bed him.”

She leapt from the stingy chair and screamed, “What are you talking about? What duke? I know no duke. What have you done with my father?”

“Oh, you know the duke. Soon you will know him even better. You’re half English. I find it amusing that you will aid me in my cause. You bloody English, you are always so certain that you and only you are right. I wonder if I should bed you first to see that you’ll know how to properly seduce the duke, if, naturally, the need arises.” He turned to one of the men. “Did you strip her? Examine her?”

The man shook his head. “The little chick was too frightened and her father too incensed. I didn’t want to have to kill him. Do you want me to strip her now?” Houchard looked at her, slowly shaking his head.

He threw back his head and laughed and laughed. Then, with no warning, he started singing in Latin, in a deep monotone, as would a priest intoning a benediction to the people.

The two men standing behind her began to sing as well, their voices high as young boys’, pure and light, their Latin beautiful and smooth and resonating in that monks’ cell of a room. Evangeline jerked awake, her heart pounding, sweat
heavy on her face, breathing so hard she thought she’d choke.

A dream.

It had been nothing but a dream. But most of it had happened. She wondered why she’d dreamed that Houchard and his henchmen had sung in Latin? She hadn’t understood what they were singing, and perhaps that was the point. She had no idea what would happen now.

A dream.

God, it had been so very real. She shook away the last remnants and pushed back the covers. She could deal with this. If she didn’t, her father would die. She’d won the major concession, thank God. The duke, for the moment, had accepted her, had welcomed her as a member of the Chesleigh household. She would be Lord Edmund’s nanny, if Edmund accepted her. Houchard’s drama was set irrevocably into motion, and there was nothing she could do to prevent his characters, herself included, from playing out their roles.

The morning sun was shining brilliantly through her bedchamber windows. There was no fire lit, and indeed there was no need for one. It was so warm one would believe it was summer. This had happened several times during her growing-up years in England. There would be torrential rains, freezing weather, snowstorms, then several days so vivid and bright, so warm, that one dreamed of summer, lush and hot and so very green. She looked out at the naked-branched elm trees. Well, not really summer.

Then, naturally, winter would return with a vengeance. There was so much she had to do, the most important thing to make friends with the duke’s son. If he took an instant dislike to her, she was ruined.
She remembered saying this to Houchard. He’d merely shaken his finger at her, saying, “If that happens, my dear, I suggest you prepare yourself for your father’s funeral. The problem will be, of course, that you will never find his body.” She’d believed him then. She still believed him.

She was dressed and ready to leave her bedchamber when she heard the sound of slow, heavy steps dragging closer and closer to her bedchamber door.

She knew a spurt of terror. The two men who’d taken her and her father from their home, their image, their voices, were deep and strong in her mind. The smooth, younger one had been called Biron. She couldn’t remember the other man’s face, just his voice. He’d been a little ferret of a man who looked as if he hadn’t ever said a kind word to anyone in his entire life. At least they hadn’t harmed their servants, Margueritte and Joseph, merely left them staring out through the drawing room windows toward the carriages, their faces drawn and pale in the candlelight, wondering what was happening. They’d thrown her in one coach, her father in another. At dawn they’d arrived in Paris. And they’d shoved her into that narrow room that held Houchard.

So quickly, her life had changed so very quickly, and irrevocably. No, no, she was being foolish. She was in England, in her bedchamber at Chesleigh. No men were waiting outside her door to drag her anywhere. She quickly pinched her cheeks to bring color to her face. She patted the severe chignon at the nape of her neck and called out in beautiful, clear French,
“Entrez!”

She heard someone mutter something, then shouted out, this time in English, “Enter!”

The muttering continued. Frowning, Evangeline opened the bedchamber door.

An old woman shuffled into the room, small feet peeping beneath a beautifully woven dark blue gown, fitted at her meager waist in the style of the last century. Her face was the texture of fine parchment paper, her back hunched forward with age. Her sparse white hair was pulled into a skinny bun, revealing patches of pink scalp. She didn’t come higher than Evangeline’s chin. She looked ready to fall over at any moment; indeed the look of fragility was frightening until she raised her eyes to Evangeline’s face. She had beautiful eyes, bright with awareness and intelligence, as blue as a summer sky, a young girl’s eyes.

Was she a mad great aunt the duke kept hidden away in the attic? She had a hand ready just in case the old lady decided to crumble where she was standing. She said, “My name is Evangeline. Who are you?”

The old lady didn’t say anything for the longest time, just stared up at Evangeline, her head tilted to the left, like an inquisitive sparrow.

“May I do something for you, ma’am? If you’re lost, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I only arrived at Chesleigh yesterday afternoon.”

“Och, I know where I am, and I know who ye be, my little lass. Ye be her dead grace’s cousin, all grown up now.” She had the softest voice, lilting in a faint Scottish accent. It was like singing.

“I’m not such a little lass,” Evangeline said, smiling. “My father calls me his grand big girl, and so I am. Would you like to sit down, ma’am? I could ring for tea if you would like some.”

“Oh, no, I don’t drink that vile brew. Nay, I only drink the distilled ochre bark from the pine nut tree.
Aye, ye’re a grand big girl all right, a perfect height ye are. Now, ye think I’m going to croak it here, right on this carpet, don’t ye, lass?”

“I sincerely hope that you won’t. Please, sit down. Tell me who you are and what I may do for you.”

“I’m Mrs. Needle.” She stopped cold, expecting, naturally, that Evangeline knew exactly who she was.

“Hello, Mrs. Needle. I’m very glad to meet you.” What was she to do?

“Ye’re not as pretty as she was—her dead grace—but ye’ve more character than that sly little peahen, who hadn’t hardly enough character to fill a thimble, and ye’ve got the heat in yer eyes. Smart eyes ye’ve got, not a little lassie’s eyes, not her dead grace’s eyes. She had tempest eyes, all quivery with temper when she was thwarted. Jest a young little thing she was: spoiled, petulant, and demanding one minute, the little charmer the next, aye, a winsome child, fooled my boy but good, but that didn’t last long. A pity she tried to cheat my boy, thwarted him she did, all because she was terrified she’d die birthing another babe. Then she died anyway.

“Aye, and jest look at that chin of yers, all strong and no nonsense, that chin. Ye’ll give as good as ye get. What do ye think of that, my little lassie?”

Evangeline said after all that, without hesitation, “What do you mean, I’ve got heat in my eyes?”

The old lady laughed, a dry, choking laugh that made Evangeline think her fine old bones would crumble with the strength of it. “Och, little lassie, ye won’t know until ye have his hands on ye. Once that happens, ye’ll niver be the same again. Ye’ll be lost and found, both at the same time, jest as it’s supposed to be, but hasn’t yet been for my boy.”

“Mrs. Needle!”

It was Mrs. Raleigh, standing in the open doorway, her hands on her hips, looking as if she’d faint and spit at the same time. Her gown today was a pale lavender with darker lavender lace at the wrists and neck. Her hair was a billowing rich white piled atop her head. Her ring of keys looked even shinier today than yesterday.

“Mrs. Needle, whatever are you doing here? This is his grace’s cousin, Madame de la Valette. It’s very early. Surely you should be resting in your room.”

But Evangeline didn’t want the old lady to go anywhere. She wanted to know more about this heat in her eyes business, but she was afraid it was over now.

“Oh, it’s ye, Clorinda. Always sticking yer nose in between the cracks where it don’t belong. I need more time with the little lassie here. She’ll be jest perfect, don’t ye think? I’ve waited and waited and so I told her grace, and she shook her head. Doubted she did, but now she’s come jest as I knew she would.”

“Mrs. Needle, Madame needs to come have her breakfast. Perhaps she can visit you later.”

“Actually, now is a very good time for me, Mrs. Raleigh. I’m not at all hungry, and we were just—”

“No, little lassie, ye go with Clorrie here. She frets, ye ken? All will be well, ye’ll see. I know ye’re afraid, but it will be all right. I promise ye. I’ve already seen it all. Aye, I can see ye and my boy laughing. It’s good.” Evangeline stared at her, mesmerized. This mad old lady knew she was afraid? How, for God’s sake? How did she know things would be all right? She and her boy were laughing? It was nonsense, an old lady’s madness. Nothing would ever be all right. The only thing she could look forward to was saving her father, if Houchard allowed her to save him. All else was betrayal. She turned reluctantly to Mrs.
Raleigh. “Yes, very well. May I take you back to your rooms, Mrs. Needle?”

The old lady laughed one of her creaking laughs and waved a small veined hand. “Och, no, lassie. I’ll make me own way back to the North Tower. Ye don’t worry aboot things, no, don’t.”

“Now, Mrs. Needle,” Mrs. Raleigh said, seeing Evangeline’s pale face, “you don’t want to make Madame uncomfortable. She doesn’t understand you just yet. Give her a while.”

“Time grows short,” Mrs. Needle said. “I had to come now. Mind to yer own affairs, Clorrie. Now ye may take my little lassie here down to her breakfast.” The old lady shuffled out of the bedchamber. She turned, studied Evangeline for a very long time, then said finally, “Ye’ll come to the North Tower, Madame. I’ll wager yer only memories of yer cousin are from yer child’s mind. But ye’ve come home, just as I hoped ye would. We’ll talk, lassie. Aye, there’s much we have to speak about, but we must do it soon. So little time left.”