She laid her fingers across the curve of his lips, stopping him. The love they dared speak of was yet new. But Phaedra knew with dread certainty, two things which would put the tenuous bond between them at risk.
“I want to exchange a promise with you,” she said solemnly.
Despite the tender light in Armande’s eyes, one brow shot up in an expression that was as wary as it was questioning. Nonetheless, she continued, “I promise to ask no more questions that you cannot answer if you will pledge?—”
She felt Armande tense.
“You pledge that there will be no more ma belle or ma chere , no more playing the French marquis. Not when we are alone together-like this.”
For one moment, she feared he would refuse her even that much honesty. Then, he relaxed. “Very well. My beautiful Phaedra.”
He laughed and pulled her close for another long and satisfying kiss that set the seal to their promises ... promises that could never be kept.
Phaedra slipped back to the house much later in a far different mood than when she had fled from it earlier. She sought out the backstairs, humming snatches of outrageous Irish ditties she had learned from Gilly-songs no lady ever ought to know. But then, she had never looked less like a lady than she did now. Anyone who saw her would guess what she had been doing in the sweet smelling grass by the pond.
Armande’s passion might well have been stamped upon her face for all to see. She could feel her skin glowing, how tender her mouth was from the force of his kisses, her hair tumbled about her like some wild-eyed gypsy’s. It was as well she encountered none of the servants, for she could not have concealed the tumult of her emotions.
Armande said he loved her. His unexpected declaration filled her with wonder. She had never thought to hear those words from any man, certainly not the icy Marquis de Varnais. Ah, but he was not the marquis, and whoever he might be, it was enough to know him as the man who loved her, whom she loved in return. She would make it enough.
Even living on the edge of this precipice was preferable to the lonely existence she had known before Armande came. Now she reveled in the riotous thrum of her pulses, the excitement tingling through her veins. The crash might come, bringing in its wake a despair darker than she ever had known. But it wasn’t coming today.
Armande loved her, her, Phaedra. Not ‘Lord Ewan’s relict.’ Not her grandfather’s heiress. Herself. She skipped toward her room so blithely that for a moment she might well still have been that barefoot little girl from Donegal. She barely noted that the door to her bedchamber stood ajar until she bounded across the threshold. She nearly collided with the grim figure of Hester Searle.
A gasp, half of fright, half of annoyance, escaped Phaedra. She drew back in a gesture as reflexive as shrinking from a repulsive toad. “What are you doing in here?”
Even though she towered over the housekeeper by a full head, it was she who felt at a disadvantage as Hester’s beadlike eyes took in Phaedra’s mud-stained skirts, studying her flushed face. A soured expression twisted Hester’s pinched visage.
“I’ve been checking on the housemaids to make sure as yer rooms be cleaned proper. It scarce happens by magic, ye know.”
“Or by witchcraft. Phaedra offered her a too-sweet-smile. “I am quite satisfied with condition of my room, so you may go.” Not even Madame Pester should be allowed to spoil her happiness this day. She stalked past the woman to her wardrobe.
“If I have intruded, I am sorry.” Hester sneered. “I had no idea yer ladyship would be wishful of changing clothes at this hour of the day.”
Phaedra yanked open the wardrobe door, searching through the silks for a fresh gown. “One usually does after slipping on the wet grass and taking a tumble.” She immediately despised herself for offering any explanation of her disheveled state. She was not obliged to render an accounting to the likes of Hester Searle.
Hester stooped to pick up some blades of grass that had dropped from Phaedra’s petticoats. Crushing them between her crooked fingers, she said, “I’ve just put the maids up to doing the bed in the marquess’s room. Do ye reckon he will be needing to change his garb, as well?”
There was no mistaking the insinuation in Hester’s voice. Phaedra flushed.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” she snapped. She snatched a sacque back gown of peach-colored silk from the wardrobe and stormed into the powdering room to change, slamming the door behind her.
That Searle creature was going to push someone too far one of these days. She only hoped she was there to see it. The woman could not have made the connection between herself and Armande unless her prying eyes had been at work again. Perhaps the woman had been listening at the keyhole last night when she and Armande had made love. Phaedra suppressed the thought, the mere suspicion of such a thing enough to make her feel quite ill.
She tugged off the soiled gown without summoning Lucy to aid her. Searle’s suspicions had been bad enough without her maid wondering why her mistress returned from a morning’s walk with her corset strings all tangled in knots.
As Phaedra struggled into the peach silk, she thought of Hester’s spiteful expression with increasing dissatisfaction. It occurred to her that the woman’s penchant for spying could present a real danger to Armande. Hester might search through Phaedra’s bedchamber as much as she liked. All of Phaedra’s secrets were carefully locked away in the garret. But could Armande say the same for his? She thought of the wooden casket he kept in plain view upon his dressing table. One of Hester’s hairpins might be enough to pry it open. She ought to warn him.
Phaedra’s lips curled into a wry smile. After trying so hard to expose him herself, it was rather ironic she should now seek to protect him. Being enamored of a man made a great many changes in one’s perception. If love was not precisely blind, it did render one far more willing to look at things a different way.
Still smiling, thinking of Armande, Phaedra rustled back into the bedchamber. To her displeasure, Searle was still there. The woman stood smoothing the lengths of Phaedra’s ivory counterpane, although the bed had already been made up by one of the maids. Hester’s rough fingertips snagged on the satin brocade, a brooding expression darkening her features.
How out of place, in her stiff, black bombazine, the wizened creature looked amid the lace and frills of Phaedra’s bedchamber. Phaedra frowned, the image of Hester caressing her bedclothes somehow disconcerting, like the shadow of death passing through a bride’s bower.
“I told you, you can go, Mrs. Searle,” she said in her frostiest accents. Not waiting to see the command obeyed, Phaedra swept over to her dressing table. Settling herself into the gilt carved chair, she pulled up the mirror and began brushing the tangles from hair.
Phaedra had never been given cause to feel vain before, but as she regarded her reflection in the mirror, she could nearly believe Armande’s words of endearment when he had called her beautiful. What fairy spell had he worked upon her in the pond’s hidden glade? Never had her eyes shone so bright and luminous, her skin tinted with such a soft pink glow. Her lips quivered as though harboring the sweetest of secrets only a woman could know. How she-
Phaedra dropped her hairbrush, a frightened cry escaping her. Another face flashed beside hers, like some hobgoblin appearing within the depths of the mirror, the features contorted into an ugly mask. It took Phaedra a moment to realize it was only Hester hovering behind her. She placed her hand across her bosom in an effort to steady her jumping heart.
She retrieved the fallen hairbrush, unwilling to let Hester see how much she had startled her. She glared at the woman.
“Was there something else you wanted Mrs. Searle?” The woman’s eyes met hers in the mirror and in their depths, Phaedra read a degree of hatred and jealousy that unnerved her.
Phaedra shivered. She had never been afraid of Hester before, but in that instant, she felt terrified. The woman’s blue-veined lids slowly lowered, her eyes assuming their customary sly expression. Once more she was nothing but the prying housekeeper, a source more of irritation than terror. Phaedra let out her breath.
“No, milady. There was naught else.” Still, Hester did not leave. She lingered by the dressing table, daring to finger Phaedra’s fan and her dainty kid gloves. Although she was no longer afraid, the woman was making Phaedra decidedly uneasy.
When Hester picked up the porcelain shepherdess Phaedra had found in the garret, she commanded, “Put that down.”
Mrs. Searle’s clawlike fingers tightened around the delicate figurine until Phaedra feared she meant to crush it. “Where’d ye come by this?”
“That is none of your concern.” She moved to take the shepherdess from the woman, but to Phaedra’s outrage, Hester whisked it out of her reach.
“Miss Lethington meant this geegaw for Master Ewan, so she did. How did you come to have it all this time?”
Lethington. That was the name the shopkeeper had mentioned just yesterday. But how strange to hear it fall from Hester’s lips. Although she had a strong urge to box Hester’s ears and send her packing, Phaedra’s curiosity got the better of her.
“Miss Lethington? You don’t mean Miss Julianna Lethington?”
“Certainly I do. This here statue was meant for the Emperor of Austria, but Miss Julianna, she vowed to give it to my Master Ewan instead. Only he never got it. He always believed as how someone stole it.”
Despite her anger with Hester, Phaedra felt a tingle of excitement. Was it possible after all that her shepherdess was part of the famous Lethington set? Or was this only more of Hester’s odious tale-spinning?
As she snatched the shepherdess back from Hester, Phaedra said loftily, “I found this in the attic, so I consider it mine now. And if it is the treasure you claim, why on earth would Julianna Lethington have wanted to give it to my husband?”
Greatly to Phaedra’s astonishment, Hester broke out laughing. She could never remember having heard the housekeeper give way to mirth before. It was an unpleasant sound, like the strident cry of a raven.
“I don’t see what is so amusing about my question.”
“Don’t you?” Hester rubbed the back of her hand against her watering eyes. Phaedra marveled that such a mirth-filled gaze could at the same time harbor so much malice.
“I only be surprised, that’s all, what with you not being able to bear having the woman’s cloak about, that ye should so cherish her china.”
Cloak? China? What the devil was the woman talking about? Phaedra stared at Hester.
“Lord bless us, ye really don’t know, do yer?”
Phaedra did not know, but as she glanced uneasily from the housekeeper’s malicious face to the “figurine, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“The gray cloak, my dear Lady Grantham,” Hester purred. “Ye recall it. The one that belonged to?—”
“I know full well whom the cloak belonged to. What of it?”
Phaedra no longer felt disturbed by the memory of Ewan’s precious lost love, Anne, but she loathed discussing her former humiliation with Hester all the same.
“We-e-ell,” Hester drew the word out, obviously determined to savor every moment of the revelation to come. “The lady who owned that cloak is the same who fashioned the china.” She crooked one finger toward the statuette Phaedra cradled so protectively in her hands. “Miss Julianna Lethington was Master Ewan’s lost love.”
Julianna Lethington had been Ewan’s Anne? Dear Lord, no wonder Hester nearly wept from laughing. It was indeed an irony that the figurine that Phaedra so loved should turn out to be but another memento of her husband’s lover.
Phaedra turned the golden-haired shepherdess carefully in her hands, almost able to picture the graceful fingers that had wrought the statue’s beauty. For years, fear, hurt, and jealousy had stifled her curiosity about the mysterious Anne. But she felt far differently now. That likely had much to do with Armande’s whispered words of love. She no longer need feel any envy of a phantom woman whose memory her husband had cherished in her stead.
“So Anne was the daughter of china makers,” she mused. “No wonder Ewan never wed her.” The proud Grantham family would never have suffered one of their members to marry a girl of such low birth and no fortune. Indeed they had been reluctant to accept Phaedra, despite the lure of her grandfather’s money. and the fact that her mother, Siobhan, had been a lady.
“Such a great tragedy it all was.” Hester fetched a deep sigh. “Master Ewan, he loved Julianna Lethington so.”
Did Hester think to wound her still with that sort of spiteful reminder? Phaedra gave her a scornful glance. “And what would you know about it? You were not even employed here at the time.”
“Lord Ewan didn’t treat me with the contempt as some in this house do. Oft his lordship would confide in me.”
“I doubt that. I knew my husband well. He was never the sort to pass his time of day with the housekeeper.” Phaedra placed the shepherdess back on the table and started to stroke the brush through her hair again. She broke off with a gasp as Hester’s hand hooked over her shoulder, the woman’s nails biting through the gossamer fabric of Phaedra’s gown.
“Ye never knew him, nor me, neither,” Searle snarled.”I was more than just the housekeeper when Master Ewan lived. The same blood flows in my veins as any Grantham. Aye, the Searles be just as good, though we fell upon harder times.”
Phaedra struck the woman’s hand from her shoulder. Her flashing green eyes met Hester’s malevolent black ones in the depths of the mirror. “You’d best go now,” Phaedra said through clenched teeth.
“He loved her, he did, not you.” Hester stabbed the words at Phaedra as though she wielded a knife. “Loved his beautiful Julianna. She was as fair and delicate as that there china. He never stopped loving her-no, not even after what her murdering brother did to my poor Master Ewan’s papa, Lord Carleton.”
Phaedra twisted around in her chair. preparing to thrust Hester from her room if she had to. But she blinked as though she had been dazzled by the light of a hundred chandeliers. A light that suddenly made all crystal-clear.
“Lethington ... old Lethe,” she said wonderingly. “The old Lethe who killed Carleton Grantham was Anne’s brother.”
Hester regarded her with the contemptuous patience usually reserved for the village idiot. “That’s right. James Lethington. He be the one. The same tale as I’ve tried to tell you many a day, but ye’ve always been too high-minded to hear it-or perhaps too afraid.”
“I’ve just never had any interest in a past that does not concern me.”
She turned her back on Hester once more and tried to resume brushing her hair, annoyed to see that her hand trembled. Perhaps Hester’s sneering suggestion was correct. Perhaps she had been a little afraid, as suggestible as any of the children Hester loved to terrify. Phaedra was oft haunted enough by her own past. She didn’t want to add anyone else’s grim story to the collection.
But Hester’s voice dropped to its low, sinister pitch, and Phaedra could not seem to stop her. The crone peered over her shoulder again, her haggard image hovering, nigh mesmerizing Phaedra with her witch-black eyes.
“It was in a springtime of long ago, it was,” Hester droned. “That my handsome Master Ewan declared his love for his Miss Anne. Fair she was, a maiden all gold and roses, so dainty she scarce reached the master’s shoulder. He could neither eat nor sleep for thinking of her, and he vowed to make her his bride despite the difference in their stations.
“That pleased neither the Granthams nor the Lethingtons. Oh, yes, they were proud as Lucifer, too, Miss Anne’s mama and them brothers of hers who were no more than street rabble. James and Jason. But it would have taken more than the likes of them to have stopped Master Ewan getting what he wanted. It was his father Lord Carleton as done that. And all because of you.”
Hester fairly spat at Phaedra. Phaedra lowered the hairbrush, the bristles digging into her palms as she held it clenched tight in her lap.
“By then your grandfather was dangling prospects of fortunes afore Lord Carleton’s greedy eyes, offering to pay off the family debts. The Granthams, they were always in debt. And then, of course, you were the daughter of an Irish lady.” The term might well have been an insult the way Hester pronounced it.
“The match was clapped up without consulting Master Ewan. He’d never been strong about opposing his father—Carleton Grantham was the very devil of a man. But for the sake of his sweet Anne, Master’d have defied them all. Lord Carleton, he figured he’d find a way to buy Julianna Lethington off-or maybe frighten her away. And the devil succeeded.
“He got his way, all right. There came a night-the girl had a tryst planned with Master Ewan. She was supposed to be coming and to bring him that little statue as a pledge of her love. But she vanished from the face of the earth.”
Phaedra’s gaze traveled to the fragile porcelain figurine, which would be so easily crushed—just as the delicate girl who made it could have been.
“Master Ewan was brokenhearted,” Hester continued. “But that brother of hers, that James, fetched after Lord Carleton in a perfect fury.”
“I well imagine that he might,” Phaedra said warmly. “And if Ewan so loved the girl, he should have done the same.”
Hester’s mouth pinched, but she otherwise ignored the slur upon her beloved Master Ewan. “Mr. Weylin and Lord Carleton were below in the study going over the details of the marriage contract, not knowing James Lethington had followed Lord Carleton here. All the servants were gone that eve. They’d been given a holiday. So it was an easy matter for old Lethe to creep into the hall unseen and take his choice of weapons. He took the mace down from where it had hung on the wall and waited?—”
“Aye, so he did,” Phaedra interrupted impatiently. “James Lethington killed Lord Carleton and was hanged for it. But what of Julianna? Was she never found?”
“Only a few of her belongings, her shoes and her purse left laying upon the river bank not far from the spot where they say she chose to end her life.”
Phaedra frowned. She sensed there was more than one detail missing from this tale that Hester spun for her with such wicked delight. It seemed far too convenient that Julianna would have obliged Lord Carleton by committing suicide-unless Ewan’s father had terrified her into doing so. If Julianna had killed herself, how did the missing shepherdess come to be abandoned in her grandfather’s attic?
“What became of Julianna’s mother and the other brother?” Phaedra asked.
Hester shrugged. Apparently, having committed no gruesome murders, Jason Lethington held little interest for her. The housekeeper tried to resume her grisly detailing of the death of Lord Carleton.
“A most wicked heavy weapon that mace was. Capable of crushing a man’s skull with but a light blow?—”
“That will be all, Mrs. Searle,” Phaedra said sharply.
Hester’s eyes snapped to hers in a hate-filled glare. “Oh, aye, aren’t you the one for dismissing’ me after ye’ve heard all ye care to hear. The great lady with yer fine peach silks and cream satin bed.”
Phaedra jerked to her feet and stalked over, pointedly opening the bedchamber door. She must have been mad to have listened to Hester even this long.
“For all yer airs,” Hester said. “Yer naught but a poor relation, same as me. Only I grub and truckle fer a living’ on the pittance yer grandfather flings me. Ah, but he’s too kind, letting me have the used tea leaves to sell fer a little extra. Since I be lacking other things to peddle, such as ye bear.”
Phaedra flushed a deep red. “Get out of here!”
“First flinging’ yerself at that drunkard Danby and now at the marquess with my poor Master Ewan not buried a year.”
At the mention of Danby, Phaedra stiffened at the realization. “You! You were the one who locked me into the Gold room with Lord Danby.”
Hester did not even bother to deny it. She merely laughed.
“By God, this is the final straw,” Phaedra cried. “I will have you dismissed without a character?—”
But Hester interrupted her angry threat with another cackle. “And how will ye accomplish that, milady? By carrying tales of what happened to your grandpapa? Ye wouldn’t dare.”
Phaedra nearly choked with the effort to suppress her fury because she knew Hester was right. She could hardly complain to her grandfather about what Hester had done without having to try to explain what she had been doing alone with Lord Danby in that bedchamber.
Hester looked so maliciously smug, it was all Phaedra could do not to slap her.
“‘Course, ye need not worry so much about protecting your reputation. It won’t matter a jot in the end. Ye’ll never be no marchioness. That Lord Varnais don’t love ye no more than Master Ewan ever did. He’ll but use ye?—”
“I said get out!” Phaedra advanced upon Hester, not quite sure what she might have done had the housekeeper not at last shown the good sense to back away from her. She bobbed an insolent curtsy.
“Aye, just as ye wish, yer ladyship.”
As the woman marched out the door, Phaedra sank down upon the gilt chair, cursing herself. She had allowed Hester to get the better of her again, drive her to anger just when she had fancied herself immune to the woman’s vicious barbs.
The creature must indeed be a witch, searching out Phaedra’s heart with her hag’s gaze. When one tender area had healed, she knew just where to direct a new thrust. That Lord Varnais don’t love ye ... he’ll but use ye.
Phaedra slammed the palm of her hand upon the dressing table. She would let no more of Hester’s poison enter her heart. The housekeeper was nothing but an embittered, jealous old woman. Phaedra would not allow one particle of her happiness to be snatched away by Hester’s grasping fingers.
She tried to resume brushing her hair. But she found herself staring at the golden-haired shepherdess perched before her. It was as though Hester’s malice had tainted even her enjoyment of that, the figurine’s eyes appearing sad, the hue of the lips as crimson as a slash of blood. Phaedra seized the statue and buried it deep in the dressing table drawer.