In horror, Emma looked down at her gown, the handsome gown she’d found waiting for her this morning. Black stained the material over the knees. She had soot on the bodice and all over her right arm, and somehow, somewhere, she’d torn her white cuff off completely. “This is the second gown I’ve ruined in two days. Do you think Lady Fanchere will notice?”
Leaning his head back, he roared with laughter; then, when he had stopped, he leaned back and looked at her. Just looked at her, but the expression in his eyes was different. Interested, or intrigued, or . . . something. “I think she will. And very soon.” Still smiling, he turned the cart into the Fancheres’ estate.
“Can you take me to an entrance where I won’t be seen going into the château?” She spread her hands in her lap. Her nails were stuffed with soot, and somewhere she’d lost her gloves.
“Of course. The château is full of passages and entrances.” Driving her to a small side door, he stopped the cart before a stoop. “Before the Fancheres moved the kitchen, this served as the servants’ entrance. It will take you on the shortest route to your room.” When she prepared to climb out, he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
She looked at it warily. What did he intend?
“Listen carefully while I give you directions to the servants’ quarters,” he said.
She relaxed. “Thank you.” So he had had a peculiar expression in his eyes when he looked at her. He had been a perfect gentleman. She was foolish to imagine anything else.
She listened as he told her which stairs to take and how many corners to turn. She assured him she could find her own room, although she was none too sure of that, and allowed him to help her to the ground. She hurried toward the château.
His voice stopped her. “Miss Chegwidden.”
She turned, once more on edge.
He opened the hamper at the back of the cart and brought forth her medical bag.
“Thank you!” She had almost forgotten it. She turned away.
Again he called, “Miss Chegwidden.”
She swung back to see him holding another bag, her old, worn travel bag that seemed stuffed with . . . “My clothes! How did you get them?”
“I had the maids collect them while you were busy with the child.”
“Thank you, you’ve saved my life!”
“No, Miss Chegwidden, I did not save your life, and let us both pray I never have to try.”
“True. I wouldn’t like that, either.” Because she didn’t believe he could do it.
Opening the travel bag, she found her second- best gown crammed within and undoubtedly wrinkled, but at least clean. Beneath that was the wool shawl the ladies in her village had woven for her, her father’s miniature, her mother’s copy of Pride and Prejudice. “You have done a great many services for me today,” she told Durant. “I will remember, and I promise, somehow, I’ll repay you.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” When she looked at him, startled and abruptly worried, he smiled with well-practiced insouciance and slouched against the cart. “Do you remember my directions to your room?”
“Yes. Thank you again!” With a wave, she hurried into the château.
He watched until the door closed behind her.
Before his arrest, he had been carried away by pleasure, by anger, by the love of adventure. Wherever his feelings took him, he willingly went without prudence or forethought. His brother had complained about Durant’s excess, telling him that sooner or later, it would get him in trouble.
Jude had been right, and someday, Durant intended to tell him so. But for now . . . On his release, Durant had discovered the dungeon’s dark loneliness had pressed away his capacity for delight.
How fascinating that, after so long, a woman as cautious and jumpy as a kitten should make him feel real emotion. Miss Chegwidden made him laugh. That laughter felt familiar, as if something in him well remembered when he took joy from every day. At the same time, the amusement that bubbled up in him felt new, as if he’d never felt the sunshine on his face, smelled the cut grass, experienced the pleasure of listening to a pretty girl.
Miss Chegwidden was right to be wary. He had a mission to accomplish, and then . . . and then, she would discover the manner of man Michael Durant had become.
Chapter Thirteen
Emma recited Michael’s directions to herself while dodging maids and footmen, and made it all the way to the servants’ quarters without being seen.
Then her luck ran out.
Lord Fanchere paced up and down the corridor. He looked worried, running his hands across his bald head, ruffling the tufts of hair around his ears, and she thought—she wasn’t certain, but she thought—he had staked out her bedroom door.
She picked up speed. Had something happened to Lady Fanchere?
Catching sight of her, he burst into speech. “Thank God you have returned. Where have you been?” Before she could even try to answer, he gestured dismissively. “Never mind that. Come at once. I want you to take my wife and her cousin to the spa to take the waters.”
“Your wife and her cousin . . .” What he said was so very different from what she had expected. “Lady Fanchere is well?”
“Very well, but she must go to Aguas de Dioses at once.”
“I . . . I don’t understand. If she is well, why must she ...?”
“Aimée is crying because her husband is dead, God rot him. She says the Reaper killed him, and that Prince Sandre is going to kill her for saying so.”
Emma nodded as if she understood, when all the while her mind was racing to put together the clues. . . . The Reaper had killed Rickie de Guignard, so this Aimée was Lady de Guignard, Rickie’s wife. Or rather, his widow. “But why is Prince Sandre perturbed by Lady de Guignard’s declaration? I thought the Reaper had killed Rickie de Guignard.”
“Don’t you start saying that. If Sandre’s official story is that the Reaper doesn’t exist and didn’t kill Rickie, then anyone who contradicts him could suddenly disappear. Do you comprehend me?”
“Yes. Yes, I fear I do.” Had she not been told this already today?
“Eleonore likes you, she’s become attached to you, and your disappearance would distress her.” Lord Fanchere pointed a finger at her. “I won’t have her distressed. Aimée is saying things that will bring Sandre’s wrath down upon us, and ruining Eleonore’s serenity. I want Aimée muffled and distracted. Ergo . . .”
“The spa. But . . . is not Lady de Guignard in black crepe and deepest mourning? For her to go out in public at such a time will surely create a scandal.”
“She’s wearing black. But I assure you, she is not in mourning, and Aguas de Dioses is a place where ladies go to take the waters, to bathe, and to recover from grief and disappointment. No one will gossip.” He seemed very sure.
But Emma was still doubtful. In England, this plan would be unacceptable. But more than once since she’d arrived in Moricadia it had been forcibly borne in on her that she was not in England any longer. “Very well. Let me clean up and change my gown—”
“No time for that.” He caught her wrist and tugged her down the corridor. “Come on!”
Horror-stricken, she tugged back. “My lord, I can’t go to your wife in this state.”
He glanced at her, and for the first time seemed to see her and the stains that covered her from head to toe. “What did you do? Fall in a chimney pot?”
“Something like that.”
“Perfect.” He walked on again, dragging her after him. “Both women will be aghast at your plight.”
He seemed a very odd man, but worried to death about his wife, and for that, Emma liked him. But to appear before Lady Fanchere and Lady de Guignard in such a state . . . “This isn’t proper.”
“This is Moricadia. Propriety takes a backseat to profit, to expediency, and especially to survival.” He glanced back at her with a pitying eye. “I know it’s hard to believe, in light of the luxury that surrounds us, but we live balanced on the narrow blade of a sword, an
d one wrong move could be fatal. Right and wrong have become muddled in this country, so please, Miss Chegwidden, for your own sake, say as little as possible and don’t get involved with matters of conscience.”
“You’re the third man to give me such a warning today.”
“Take that as a sign.” He stopped before a wide double door.
From within, Emma could hear loud weeping.
He placed his hands on the doorknobs. “Now, remember. Your task is to move them to Aguas de Dioses. So . . . distraction. Distraction. Distraction!” Flinging open the door, he called, “Eleonore, Miss Chegwidden seems to have gotten herself into trouble again. Can you and Aimée help her?”
The trip to Aguas de Dioses was accomplished with relative ease. While Lady Fanchere and Aimée exclaimed over Emma’s spoiled gown, their maids packed their bags. By the time Emma was bathed and dressed in yet another new gown, the traveling coach was at the door. Lord Fanchere handed the ladies, and Emma, into the coach and admonished them to relax and enjoy themselves. The road was good, the coach well sprung, and when they arrived at the spa in the early evening, Emma exclaimed in surprise and delight.
Aguas de Dioses was more than a place to take the waters. Set in a tiny, verdant bowl of a valley, the spa was a whole town built around the warm springs that eased from the earth, rich in iron and sulfur, and the cold water tapped from a bright blue glacier near the top of the mountain. The assembly rooms were its beating heart, and glowed pink and white with marble from Italy.
Tall, luxurious hotels bookended the springs, and wide streets wound up from there, full of shops that sold breads, cheeses, hats and gloves, fine lace . . . anything a bored lady or gentleman of leisure could desire. Below the assembly rooms, narrow streets led to homes where lived the maids and footmen who worked in the shops, the hotels, and the impressive assembly rooms.
Lord Fanchere had sent them to the smaller and more exclusive of the two hotels, and their arrival was greeted by a gathering composed of the manager, the butler, the housekeeper, the chef, the concierge, and five maids, two assigned to each of the ladies and one to Emma.
In her travels with Lady Lettice, Emma had visited a great many hotels, but never had she been given a maid whose instructions were to make sure she needed for nothing. “I am very impressed,” she said as she watched the maid take her small valise up to her room on the fourth floor.
Lady Fanchere laughed. “It is beautiful here, one of my favorite places in the world.” She took Aimée’s arm and strolled through the lobby, gesturing for Emma to follow. “We can relax here, can we not, Aimée?”
“Oh, yes. Prince Sandre is far away, and surely the Reaper can’t find me here.” Lady de Guignard’s voice shook with little quavering tremors. “Can he?”
“Now, don’t start that again,” Lady Fanchere admonished.
The first time Emma heard Lady de Guignard mention the Reaper, faintness had once again overcome her. But she’d recovered, for she had heard the same plaintive moan all the way to Aguas de Dioses.
Yet she couldn’t dislike Aimée de Guignard. Lady de Guignard was a petite woman with rich auburn hair, a plump face, and blue eyes made sad by too many years spent with the wrong man. She seemed not to have a speck of sense or discretion, but when she saw Emma’s soiled gown and heard the story, she had been kindness itself, insisting that Emma try one of her day dresses, then giving it to her because, By the time I’m out of black crepe, the fashion will have changed, and anyway, the color doesn’t flatter my coloring at all, but the violet makes your eyes sparkle like jewels!
Emma smoothed her hand over the polished cotton. She straightened the white lace insert that ran from the bodice to the waist, then down the skirt in a panel, and she swore to herself she wouldn’t ruin this dress as she had ruined the others.
Lady de Guignard babbled on, uncaring that the housekeeper arranging the flowers or the footman carrying the luggage could hear every word. “The Reaper is the ghost of King Reynaldo, so as a phantasm, can he go wherever he wishes? Or is he tied to the area around the castle where the de Guignards hanged him?”
“The Reaper is not a ghost,” Lady Fanchere said.
“I saw him. He glared at me through empty eye sockets.” Starch crackled as Lady de Guignard clutched the fall of ruffled lace at her throat.
“He’s not a ghost,” Lady Fanchere repeated patiently. “He’s a man dressed like a ghost.”
“That’s what Sandre said, too, and he got quite angry with me about the matter.” Lady de Guignard took a shuddering breath. “I don’t know how my death will come, but I know it’s imminent, either from supernatural means, or because Sandre will murder me.”
“Sandre would not harm a lady, much less a lady who is his relative.” Lady Fanchere had lost her patient tone.
Lady de Guignard came to a halt. “You didn’t hear what he said to me.”
“But I know Sandre.” Lady Fanchere was firm.
“You think he is the same boy with whom you played as a child, and he takes care to keep you in that belief.” Aimée’s voice began to rise. “He isn’t. You know what Rickie always was, and what Sandre did with Rickie in that dungeon is the stuff of nightmares. Now Sandre wants to silence me. But I can’t lie about how Rickie died. I saw him. I saw his body hanging on the tree, and the Reaper on the rise behind him, waiting to guide his spirit to hell—”
“Shh.” Lady Fanchere patted her hand and glanced behind at Emma, silently summoning her to help.
Remembering Lord Fanchere’s admonition—distraction, distraction, distraction—Emma hurried to Lady de Guignard’s side. “I see the dining hall is this way, and the servants have put cloths on the tables for the evening meal. I know it’s early, but our dear Lady Fanchere is looking pale and in need of sustenance. Lady de Guignard, can you help me take her there?”
On cue, Lady Fanchere staggered slightly.
Lady de Guignard sniffled, glanced at Lady Fanchere, and at once agreed that she should be coddled because she was—Aimée spoke in a piercing whisper that carried throughout the lobby—increasing.
Apparently, Lady Fanchere had shared her secret with Lady de Guignard, and from the exasperated expression on Lady Fanchere’s face, she now knew it would be a secret no more.
By the time Emma had cared for the ladies—made sure they were fed, taken to their third-floor adjoining suites, helped them into their nightgowns, and put them to bed—she was glad to adjourn to her own small, neat room, one of the three dozen rooms in the attic assigned to the personal maids and companions who accompanied the ladies to the spa. Apparently the spa had thought matters through, assuming that servants living in comfort would encourage their employers to stay longer.
Here under the eaves, the daytime sun had created an uncomfortable heat, so Emma went to the window, opened it, and let the nighttime air wash over her. It was four stories to the ground, and only the occasional dormer broke the slope of the steep, slick slate roof. Overhead, diamond stars twinkled in a sky so deep and dark, it looked like eternity. The lights of the town sparkled in the midst of a forest, dense and primal, that pressed close to the edges of the town.
As if on cue, Emma’s heart picked up speed. She broke into a sweat. She had walked into the wilderness. Been menaced by a wolf. And been rescued by . . . by . . . she didn’t know who. Or what. She could not remember, but when she did, she knew it would mean . . . something.
Faintness overcame her. She yanked her head inside and covered her face with her hands. Hidden in her brain was something she did not want to confront, something she feared so much. . . .
Taking a long breath of the fresh nighttime air, she gained control of her wayward emotions.
The maid had unpacked Emma’s bag, hung up her second-best gown, and put her underwear into the drawers of the tiny dresser, leaving Emma with nothing to do but comb out her long hair, braid it, and change into her white cotton nightgown. The sleeves covered her from her shoulders to her wrists. The length covered her f
rom her throat to her toes. Yet the amount of material was deceptive, for the nightgown was so old and thin, it was like tissue. She wrapped herself in her beloved wool shawl and, candle in hand, threw back the covers and examined the sheets. They were clean and white. The comforter was also white, thick and full of down. She climbed into bed and sank into the deep, plush feather mattress. She fluffed the pillows at her back and sighed with relief.
It had been a very long day.
Her mother’s worn copy of Pride and Prejudice rested on the nightstand beside the burning candle; she lifted it with the resolve to read only a few pages.
Five chapters later, it was midnight and she was so involved in the story she had forgotten where she was. A breeze from the window ruffled the pages of the book. She glanced up, disoriented, as a rumble of thunder snatched her back from Regency England. The soft snick of a turning latch made her stare, still caught up in her longing for Mr. Darcy, as with the creak of hinges, the door swung wide to reveal—the Reaper.
Emma dove out of bed and prepared to scream—then her breath caught in her throat.
Chapter Fourteen
Emma recognized the pale, corpselike figure. . . . She remembered him!
The Reaper leaped across the small room to the bed, clapped his white-gloved hand over her mouth, held her tightly, and shook his head in silent warning.
She stared, wide-eyed, at the figure that had inspired so much fear and loathing.
He stood over six feet tall, clothed in a white shroud and ragged winding clothes. A dingy white hood covered his hair; a pale mask concealed the upper half of his face. White powder dusted his broad jaw, his generous lips, and the hollows of his cheeks, while streaks of charcoal, carefully placed, created a skeletal illusion. In the flickering light of the candle, with the storm gathering overhead, he was a frightening creature.
But Prince Sandre was right: The Reaper was not a corpse, but a man.