The Proud Viscount (12 page)

Nancy shuddered and hugged herself. “I had an awful feeling about it, but I told myself not to be such a pea goose. After all, what could possibly be wrong? So the candle was out; it didn’t mean there was anything to be afraid of. I hesitated at the top of the stairs, then started down. There’s no handrail, so I put my hands on the wall on either side. The steps are much deeper than you expect. You put a foot down and it seems to meet the tred too late and with a thump. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so.” Jane’s skin had begun to crawl. “Go on.”

Nancy moistened her lips. “I’d taken two steps down, enough to begin to judge the distance and stop feeling shaky about it. In a second I would have charged on down the rest of the steps, just to prove I wasn’t afraid. But I thought I heard something. Not from the nursery floor, but from down below. As I started to step forward, I paused, just for a second.

“I was in my bare feet, and my toes felt something soft just as I was lifting them to take another step. Oh, Jane, how can I tell you what instant fear gripped me! There shouldn’t have been anything on the stairs. I was terrified that I would trip over whatever it was, so I threw my balance backward as quickly as I could. That made me fall onto the step behind me. The riser caught me sharply in the back and knocked the breath out of me. But, you see, I still didn’t know what was there in the dark.”

Jane pressed her lips firmly together. The suspense had made her throat tighten as though the danger still existed.

“I reached out in the dark and my fingers touched a piece of fabric. I could tell it wasn’t an animal, not one of the dogs sitting there. Where my fingers first encountered it, it was soft and loose, but higher...“ Nancy’s voice faded again and a tear slipped down her pale cheek. She cleared her throat and continued. “Higher it was taut, almost like a rope. If I had taken another step, I would have tripped over it and fallen, head first, down those awful, steep stairs.”

Her body was shaking again and the tears flowed more freely down her face. Jane hugged her tightly and rubbed her back, trying to comfort and reassure her. “You’re all right now. I won’t let anything hurt you. Go ahead and cry. There’s no shame in being frightened.” Jane felt a fury rising in her, destroying her usual calm and eating away at her steady rationalism.

Nancy gulped down the worst of her sobs and used the handkerchief Jane handed her to blow her nose. “I made a certain amount of noise falling back against the stair. I don’t know what made me do what I did next. I slid down the stairs on my bottom, thumping the walls from side to side, until I smacked my feet up against the door. The material pulled away from the walls as I carried it with me, and I held it in my hands at the bottom of the stairs. Everything was quiet for a short while and then John opened the door. He didn’t say anything.”

“You mean he didn’t call your name? Didn’t ask if you were all right?” Jane questioned, the edge to her voice growing with each word.

Nancy shook her head. “He had a candle and he moved it around, finally bringing it near my face. When he saw that my eyes were open, he nearly dropped it. That was when he finally asked me if I was all right. I told him that I was fine but that the material—it turned out to be my black shawl—had been stretched across the stairs and I’d almost fallen over it.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He told me I must be mistaken. He said that I’d put the shawl around my shoulders before I went upstairs and that it must have fallen off on the steps when I didn’t notice it. He said I should be more careful.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him...“ Nancy put her head down on Jane’s shoulder. Her voice came muffled and low. “I said that wasn’t what happened, but that I would certainly be more careful in future. I came to stay in your sitting room because I couldn’t go back to our room with him. But I wasn’t going to waken you.”

“Oh, my poor dear. I wish I could think of some possible explanation."

“There is none. And yet I don’t understand why he would want to... injure me. He didn’t say anything except that, as I was all right, he was going back to bed. Why, Jane? What’s happening? We haven’t had any particular disagreements. How could he do something like that?”

“I don’t know. He must be a very evil man. We should tell Papa right away.”

“In the morning,” she begged. “I’m exhausted. I just want to go to sleep and forget the whole thing for a little while.”

“Of course you do.” Jane tucked her in and kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep now. You’ll feel better.”

She stroked her sister’s brow until Nancy fell into a heavy slumber. Then she returned to the sitting room, where she was sure she’d seen the black shawl draped over a beige armchair. She struck a flint and lit a candle on the mantel, then held the shawl up to the light. There were two rents in it, about five feet apart. Just the width of the third-floor stairwell.

Chapter 10

Rossmere was aware of a great deal of coming and going at Willow End the next morning, with the parties involved constantly changing. Most everyone appeared grim-faced and preoccupied. The viscount felt certain this had something to do with the disruption of the previous night, whatever that had been. For hours no one offered him any explanation.

When Lady Jane discovered him on his way to the library after lunch, she frowned and asked, “May I have a word in private with you?”

“If you’re quite sure I won’t molest you.”

‘‘That was merely a ruse to make you go away."

“I know it was. And I’m not at all sure making me go away was a wise thing for you to do.”

She glanced sharply at him as they entered the dim room that served as Willow End’s library. Shafts of sunlight came through several windows, but the brightness seemed to be absorbed by the hundreds of leather-bound volumes that lined the walls. There was a rich, musty smell to the room that made Rossmere nostalgic for the better days at Longborough Park.

“Do you have any idea what happened last night?” she asked rather cautiously.

He was afraid that if he admitted how little he knew, she would try to keep the matter a secret. And he was very curious to find out exactly what was going on. So he decided to make an ambiguous reply, calculated to force her to press for details. “Only a part of it,” he said.

“Well, what part?”

“About the stairs,” he said knowledgeably. The noise could have come from no other location.

“You saw Nancy on the stairs?” she asked with patent eagerness.

“No, but I heard her on the stairs.” It was obvious, now, that it had been Nancy he’d heard.

Jane was disappointed. “You didn’t see Nancy at all?”

“I’m afraid not. But I did notice that all the candles in the sconces were out.”

“Yes. That’s important, isn’t it? There is no reason at all that Nancy should have put out the candles.”

“Is someone suggesting that she did?”

Jane stared at her hands for a long moment. Her brows were drawn down and her eyes were clouded with worry. When she raised her gaze to his, she sighed. “I think I will have to trust you, Lord Rossmere. This is too momentous a matter to let it go as it is headed. If there’s even the smallest chance that you can help verify what really happened..."

There was very little chance that he could, but he made no attempt to halt her confidences. She was truly distressed, and her anxiety infected him with an urgency he couldn’t precisely identify. It was all the more alarming because she spoke, even now, in a calm, unemotional voice calculated to strip her speech of any taint of partiality. She was laying before him the facts, as her sister had given them to her. Rossmere withheld any comment until she had disclosed the entirety of the previous evening’s events.

“What did your father have to say about all this?” he asked.

Her expression was pained. “He listened very carefully and then with great sadness told us about John’s concerns for Nancy’s... extravagant imaginings since the baby was born.”

“I see. So he didn’t believe her?”

“No. It’s not just that he’s taking John’s word; Papa feels that Nancy has been different since the baby was born.” Jane pushed a strand of hair back with her long, elegant fingers. “Nancy is the baby, and a favorite of all of us. She’s rather naive because of that, perhaps. We managed to keep her away from the harsher elements of life, I suppose. She cries over the plight of chimney sweeps and children in workhouses. She’s a very good person."

“And marriage is a bit more real than she expected,” Rossmere suggested.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“I take it Lady Mabel is standing behind Parnham, too, even if it means believing that her niece is imagining things.”

“A temporary aberration, she thinks it,” Jane admitted with a certain bitterness. “Aunt has a deep and abiding belief that men are much more inclined to honesty and rationality than women. Already she’s remembering instances of Nancy’s instability as a child. And instances of any number of women she’s heard of who have had similar problems after the birth of a child.” Jane grimaced. “They’re so easily persuaded of her vulnerability. I know her better than that.” Suddenly Jane shuddered. “Do you understand what could happen if she returns with him?”

“Yes. But he doesn’t strike me as a stupid man. It would be rather suspicious if anything happened to her so soon after this episode. She should be safe for a while.”

“But only for a while,” Jane cried. “He could blame anything that happened on her shattered nerves. And to have to live with such a devil. I can’t bear to think of it.”

“Could she live here?”

“I don’t think my father would countenance it for very long, feeling as he does. He can be an obstinate man, and the more I press him on this issue, the more firmly he insists that these are delusions of Nancy’s.” Jane turned her back to Rossmere. “He’s gotten it into his head that observing Richard has somehow made Nancy less steady."

“That doesn’t seem very likely. On the other hand, you may be too attached to your sister to see the truth of the matter.”

Jane swung around to face him. “You don’t believe her, do you?”

“I didn’t say that. My mind is open to any number of possibilities. However, the kind of instance Parnham has described is a little more than depressed spirits after childbirth, isn’t it? Your sister would have to be very disturbed indeed not to remember all the things he says she doesn’t remember. But your sister might not be telling the truth either if she’s embarrassed by her own occasional odd behavior. You might consider that.”

“There’s no need for me to consider that, Lord Rossmere. Nancy is telling me the truth. I don’t doubt it for a moment.”

Rossmere nodded. “I think we have to act on that premise, in any case. If Nancy can’t convince your father to let her stay here for the time being, why not have her get ‘sick’ and need to rest here until she’s better.”

“I suppose that’s what we’ll have to do.” Jane clasped her hands tightly behind her as she strode around the room. “What’s to be done, though, for the long range? She can’t go back to him, she can’t stay here.”

Rossmere stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll have to see how things develop, Jane. You mustn’t let this overset you.”

She shook his hand off and stood glaring at him. “We’re talking about my sister’s life, Rossmere. Not her happiness or some little whim. That man is trying to kill her, and you tell me not to worry about it.”

“He may not be trying to kill her. He may be trying to frighten her, or to drive her crazy.”

“Oh, that’s
much
better.” Her sarcasm bit through the charged atmosphere between them. “Perhaps you haven’t taken a long look at the third-floor stairs. Someone falling from the top, pitched forward by tripping over a shawl made into a rope, would almost certainly break her neck. The stairs are extremely steep and there’s no railing to grab on to.”

Flushed with anger, tense with fear, she still impressed him as a remarkably capable woman. So where did this desire to comfort her, to clasp her against him and protect her, come from? Rossmere supposed it was because she’d had enough trying things happen to her in her life without this added burden. Her flashing hazel eyes, so surprisingly attractive, caught him up in the turmoil of her emotions.

But really, he saw no simple solution to the problem. If Parnham wanted to kill his wife, eventually he would probably succeed. The only real escape Nancy might have was to be bundled off to an asylum, and from everything he’d heard, that fate was worse than death. If Lord Barlow wouldn’t protect her, the best possibility he could see was to find out Parnham’s motivation.

“I’ll need to see the marriage settlement,” he said abruptly.

Jane, who had been following an entirely different track, stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“If we’re going to find out why Parnham is doing this, the first thing I need to know is what’s in their marriage settlement. You thought he needed the money she brought, and I’d like to know what the arrangement is in the event of her death.”

“The dowry was his outright. Her own property, which is considerably more than the dowry, would go to her children.”

“William is safe enough, then,” Rossmere declared. “I suppose Parnham would administer any inheritance of his child’s, so the money would basically be at his disposal.”

“Yes, but I’m sure Nancy would give him any sums he needed now.”

Rossmere regarded her with his former coolness. “Perhaps that arrangement doesn’t suit him.”

“Doesn’t suit him,” she scoffed. “So he has decided to kill her! Does that seem reasonable to you, Rossmere? Do you think you would be tempted to do away with me in a similar situation?”

“Don’t be absurd,” he snapped. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Her eyes flashed, unrepentant. “I know no such thing. You’re quite sympathetic to the notion that a man’s pride cannot tolerate his being under a financial obligation to his wife, aren’t you? The only difference is that you refuse to undertake the obligation and Parnham has undertaken to rid himself of the source of his annoyance.”