Page 98

Sir Nathan Cruikston, in the manner of an unusually efficient civil servant, wrote Deveraux the same day Leona came to call on him and apprised him of Miss Leonard’s receipt of the fateful button.

Deveraux acted swiftly. He sent the carriage with postilions to Rose Cottage accompanied by a strongly-worded letter, lacking both sympathy and hesitation, in which he informed her the carriage would convey her the next morning to Castle Marin.

Though reluctantly agreeing to go to Castle Marin as the least of all evils proposed for her, Leona remained determined to follow her own course, for she did not take kindly to the type of autocratic pronouncements Mr. Deveraux seemed in the habit of making.

By inventing last-minute chores and obligations in the neighborhood, she managed to delay the departure one full day and part of the next.

It was a small victory for her rebellion, but one that brought a satisfied smile to her lips.

She was drowsing against the plush squabs when one of the maroon-and-blue-liveried servants called out to her that Castle Marin was visible ahead.

She opened her eyes and leaned toward the window to catch a glimpse of what she could only think of as her future prison.

To her astonishment, it appeared they were indeed approaching an actual medieval castle rather than some large stone mansion with pretensions to greater grandeur, as had many homes dubbed “Castle.”

A silver-gray curtain wall, some two to three stories in height and studded with mural towers, dominated the landscape.

It appeared to be encircling an old Norman motte, or hill, for beyond the wall, silhouetted against a gathering, tumbling mass of afternoon storm clouds, could be seen the crumbling darker gray stonework of an old keep.

In front of the curtain wall, she thought she caught the silvery green glimmer of a substantial moat.

She shook her head as awe and amusement battled each other.

“Maria, look!”

Maria Sprockett shifted in her seat to look over Leona’s shoulder. “Oh, my. Gracious, I do see why Mr. Deveraux was confident we should be safer here than at Rose Cottage,” she observed dryly.

Leona laughed. “It hardly looks real, does it?”

“Hmmm. It looks like something Lord Byron or Shelley might rhapsodize over in one of their long poems. I almost expect to see archers along those walls and in those mural towers.”

“Look! There is a gatehouse ahead guarding a bridge across the moat to the barbican.”

“Do you think it is a working drawbridge?” Maria mused.

“No, it appears to be made of stone.”

“Pity.”

Leona laughed. “Yes, but take heart. I do believe I see the iron bars of a portcullis in the gatehouse.”

The carriage turned right toward the gatehouse, and soon Leona and Maria heard the sound of the horses’ hooves rattling on stone as they passed under the great bars of the portcullis and over the bridge.

The wind picked up as the clouds gathered above, whipping around the castle curtain walls.

Wind shuddered against the carriage and set it swaying, threatening to toss it into the moat.

Leona pulled the lap robe provided by Deveraux closer about her.

Maria glanced up at the darkening sky. “I hope the rain waits until we are safely in the castle. I fear it will be a deluge.”

The carriage turned right again to follow the inside curve of the castle wall.

Leona and Maria slid to the other side of the carriage to look up at the old keep.

It stood stark and alone against the gathering gloom.

Closer, it was easy to tell it was no longer habitable, for one-third of its walls were tumbled ruins.

It was, nonetheless, a compelling and arresting landmark for the property.

Leona looked back out her window to try to see the real Deveraux home.

They came upon it suddenly when the curtain wall was turning back upon itself.

Leona felt her breath ease in her chest. She smiled.

The face Castle Marin showed the world was that of an imposing fortification, but the reality was so different as to be farcical.

It made the pretensions she previously considered weak by comparison.

The house, built against the curtain wall, was a rectangular gray stone building with circular towers at the corners.

The exterior was not ornate. In contrast to one’s first impression of a romantic medieval pile, its restrained appearance could only have been deliberate.

Perhaps the house’s simplicity was a way to tell visitors to look at the keep and other more important visual aspects of the estate.

Nonetheless, it was a welcoming house. Light streamed out of the ground-floor windows, promising warmth and shelter from the approaching storm.

The carriage drew close to the broad stone steps that led up to the entrance, and one liveried servant hustled to let down the steps and hand his charges out, while another ran up the steps to appraise the inhabitants of their arrival.

The coach creaked and swayed in the heavy wind, the coachman and the groom at the horses’ heads nervously holding the restive and pawing animals while on guard against the chance that a stray tumbling branch or scrap of paper might spook the horses.

Leona shivered as she stepped down and aside to wait for Maria. Lightning cracked the black sky, and thunder rumbled across the countryside. The wind wrapped her skirts about her ankles, threatening to trip her, and fretfully slapped her bonnet ribbons against her cheeks.

The large carved oak door to the manor opened, spilling a stream of light down the steps to Leona’s feet.

In the open doorway stood a tall black silhouette with legs planted apart and arms akimbo, hands on his lean hips.

Leona had no trouble identifying the black form.

It was Deveraux. She shivered again, though on this occasion not from the cold.

She straightened and took Maria’s arm to walk with unhurried dignity up the stone steps just as the first mad rush of rain fell.

Quickly Leona ducked her head down, abandoning dignity, as she propelled Maria up the stairs before her. The silhouetted figure stepped back before their headlong dash for shelter.

Leona laughed as she reached the warmth and dryness of the entrance hall.

She was soaked in that brief distance from carriage to house, and a glance in an ornately carved pier-glass mounted between columns informed her that her often refurbished bonnet could never be refurbished again.

She flipped back green and gold feathers hanging limply over the brim and turned with undisguised interest to survey her surroundings.

Once more, she was surprised, for the house's plain exterior gave no hint of the lavish elegance waiting inside.

The entrance hall was done in red-veined Italian marble.

Columns set six feet from the wall rose three stories to a domed roof, which would flood the entrance hall with sunlight on a clear day.

Wide-eyed, she turned around again, this time to confront Nigel Deveraux leaning against the closed door, his arms crossed over his chest. He was dressed in a dark mulberry jacket that strangely suited his complexion.

Still, Leona was surprised to see him in a colored jacket.

After meeting him at Rose Cottage, she had formed the impression that he only wore black.

Her eyes traveled to his face, and her smile faltered at the sight of his rigidly set jaw and half-veiled eyes.

Black was the color more suited to his expression, she decided dismally.

Nevertheless, no matter his mood, she was not going to allow him to ride roughshod over her!

She straightened and tipped her head up, her jaw unconsciously thrusting forward.

Deveraux noted her challenging chin, and his eyes narrowed farther. This woman needed to learn a few sharp lessons, he decided. A curious excitement churned in his loins at the prospect. He almost smiled. “You’re late,” he growled instead, languidly straightening and walking toward her.

“Late? I don’t see how. It cannot be much past four, can it?”

“You were to arrive yesterday.”

“Oh. Are you upset because your people were forced to put up at the Golden Goose last night? My apologies, but there was much too much to do to come haring off on such short notice.”

“You should have left the minute you received that confounded package! You made a promise, Miss Leonard.”

Leona winced at the knife thrust to her conscience.

That blasted promise was a treacherous subject best avoided.

“If you’d written first,” she said through strained patience and clenched teeth, “I would have told you when we could leave. And there was no reason for you to send a carriage. We were quite prepared to post down, weren’t we, Maria?

But, if it would mend fences, I will pay for your peoples’ lodging. ”

“Damn it, woman, that is not the point, and well you know it!”

“Nigel!” A tiny woman with gray-streaked black hair and eyes nearly as blue as Deveraux’s walked briskly into the hall from one of the rooms off to the left.

"ImbecileI Betel They are here to live, not to die of pneumonia! Les pauvres! They are drenched to the skin. They must have hot baths and a brandy—for the medicinal purposes, mademoiselle,” she assured Leona on a quick breath.

The scent of roses clung to the woman. “My son,” she confided to them.

“He is too much in the army with men, men, men. The only women—bah, nothing. You must be Mademoiselle Leonard, non? Ah—my dear granddaughter has told me much of you, and you, too, Mademoiselle Sprockett. So, Nigel, what do you stand there for? Ring for Madame Henry. She shall take care of you with hot baths and scents and soaps. I have tried to get the secret for her family’s scent, but she is a stubborn one. Ooh, so stubborn, you know?”