Читать книгу How Not To Marry An Earl - Christine Merrill, Christine Merrill - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Once she had put Mr Potts in his room and Pepper in her own, Charity headed back down the main stairs and out the front door, hurrying down the drive towards the dower house. He had been right. It was about to rain. The clouds had darkened considerably since their departure from the house, an hour ago. As she ran the last steps down the drive towards the front door, she felt the first drops striking the hood of her cloak.

She ignored them. She was so close to the truth that she could not let a little weather prevent her from finishing what she’d begun when he’d interrupted her. Of course, she needed an umbrella more than a ladder. She had been able to feel the edge of the niche when she had stood on the grate, but had not been able to reach the depth of it.

But with the arrival of an auditor, the day of reckoning had come and there was not a minute to spare for further preparation. She would find a stool in the kitchen of the other house and make do. Either the box was there, or it was not. She had to know.

She pushed through the dower-house door and slammed it behind her, allowing herself a moment of unfeminine pique now that there was no one around to hear. Then, she hurried to the sitting room, where the chimney was.

‘I was beginning to wonder if you were coming.’

Charity gasped and clutched the door frame, startled out of her breath at the words. Mr Potts had removed the holland covers from one of the chairs by the hearth and was sitting comfortably, his long legs stretched out before him.

It took a moment to think of an appropriate response. The cold, rational part of her brain, the part that she could not seem to keep silent, commented that it was rare to be at a loss for words. Or at a loss for breath. It was rare that she was surprised at all. She was accustomed to outthinking the people around her with ease. Yet this stranger had bested her on her home turf.

‘You seem to be winded.’ He leaned forward and pulled the cover off the chair opposite him with a flick of his wrist. ‘Why don’t you sit, as well.’ Then, he smiled. ‘Perhaps I should light a fire for us to chase away the damp of the room.’

He was expecting her to cry out No! and confirm his suspicions that there was something up the chimney. She had no intention of obliging him. ‘How did you know I would come here? And how did you arrive before I did?’

‘What other reason would you have for putting me in a room that faced the back of the house and not the drive?’ He held up a hand. ‘Do not tell me it is because I am an honoured guest. I got the distinct impression before that you wished I would go to perdition.’

‘Not to hell. Just back to America. Or London, at least. Even after much preparation, the house is in a frightful state and not ready to be inventoried.’ She smiled and fiddled with her glasses, doing her best to appear young and out of her depth. ‘My sisters are both just married and Grandmama is travelling on the Continent. It is only just me now.’

‘But none of that explains why you would put me in the best room in the house,’ he said. ‘I assumed you wanted to finish what you were doing without my noticing your departure from the house. You did not come all the way here to close a flue. You were searching for something.’

She touched her hand to her chest, feigning outrage. ‘What reason would I have to lie about such a thing?’

‘I have no idea,’ he replied. ‘But I wanted to find out. It would have been impolite to ask you. It is one thing to accuse a woman you’ve just met of lying and quite another to catch her in said lie.’ He stretched his arms, lacing his fingers and cracking his knuckles. ‘So I shimmied down the drainpipe running beside the window of my room and came back here to see if you would return.’

‘If I hadn’t?’

‘Then I’d have said nothing more of my suspicions.’

Her heart was still beating faster than normal, probably from the shock he had given her when she’d come into the room. And once again, the rational voice spoke in her mind. Or rather, it laughed derisively. Now she was unsure what she should say next. It was a new feeling to be unsure of herself. She did not think she liked it.

But he seemed to be enjoying it immensely. ‘It will save us both some time if you simply admit that I am right. Then I will help you look for whatever it is you are hunting for and we can return to the main house.’

‘I might not be searching for anything,’ she said. ‘I might have been hiding something.’

‘I interrupted you before you could complete what you were doing. You had nothing in your hand when you came out of the chimney and I felt no bulges in your skirt that might indicate you’d concealed an item in your pocket. And the minute you could get rid of me, you came back to finish your search. It is far more likely you were looking for something than leaving something.’

His logic was not perfect, but it was better than she usually encountered. And he had let slip something far more important than a demonstration of deductive reasoning. He had all but announced that, while they had been riding, he had not just been supporting her to keep her from falling. He had held her tight enough to discern the contents of her pockets. Her heart was thumping in her chest, both from the memory of his hands on her and the subtlety of his reason for it.

He had searched her. And she had let him to it, behaving like a foolish school girl, excited to be in the arms of a handsome man. If she was not careful, he would run her like a greyhound after a hare, destroying her plans for an independent future. She must be much more careful.

‘Suppose you are correct in your assumptions,’ she said. ‘Why would you offer to help me?’ She watched for a slight change in expression that might tell her what he was really thinking.

‘I assume that what you are seeking is a part of the estate. We both want it to be found and returned. Don’t we?’ He steepled his fingers and stared at her as though daring her to deny it.

She should lie and tell him that, of course, that was what she’d been doing. To tell the truth was to surrender before he had a chance to attack. If he had the slightest inkling of what was in the chimney, he’d have the whole works under lock and key before she could save even the smallest portion for herself.

‘If there is something missing from the entail, it is only right that it should be returned,’ she said, choosing the hypothetical middle ground, watching for his reaction.

‘Or, I could help you find the thing you are looking for and look the other way,’ he added, his expression pleasant but opaque. ‘I could decide that it was none of my business.’ Now he was the one waiting for her response.

She gave the one that most suited the situation and pretended to be shocked. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’

‘For compensation, of course. It is time for us to lay our cards on the table, Miss Strickland. Whatever you are doing here, I suspect it is something you shouldn’t. I will keep your secret, if you pay me to do so.’

‘You will keep my secret for now,’ she corrected. ‘Until you decide I have not paid you enough and come back for more. That is how blackmail works, is it not?’

He laughed. ‘Very true.’ Then he said, in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I am new at it and have not had the time to think through all the ramifications.’

‘Then how about this one,’ she said. ‘I run back to the house and announce that the auditor is threatening me and I do not think he is an honest man. The servants believe me and contact the Earl. Since he barely knows you, he takes the word of family over anything you might say and fires you immediately.’

Mr Potts gave a brief start of surprise, then clapped his hands. ‘Bravo, Miss Charity. Bravo.’

He should be calling her Miss Strickland. Though as he had been patting her hips before, he probably thought he was entitled to some familiarity. ‘I did not give you permission to use my Christian name, Potts,’ she said, dropping the honorific from his to remind him he was little better than a servant.

He gave an apologetic incline of his head. ‘My apologies, Miss Strickland. But my rudeness aside, we seem to have arrived at an impasse. What are we to do?’ Then he looked at her for the answer.

She considered. It did not really matter if he was a paragon of virtue, or a total villain. The typical masculine response to a situation like this was usually much the same: to go to the chimney and take what was in it. She was smaller and weaker, and she could not stop him. But Potts was confusing her. He was tailoring his actions to hers and at least pretending that she could decide what would happen next.

To flatter your pride, announced the voice in her head. This one is a charmer. Be on your guard.

She touched her finger to her chin, pretending indecision, and scuffed the floor with the toe of her boot. Then she stared at him and spoke without irony. ‘We are going to allow me to get on with what I was doing, Potts. It may still amount to nothing. But if I do not do what I came here for, you will do it yourself as soon as my back is turned and abscond with anything you find.’

He nodded. ‘You have a surprisingly bleak view of my character, Miss Strickland. Not inaccurate, mind you. Simply bleak. But if the thing you are searching for can be split easily between us, I will be out of your hair and your life before cock’s crow.’

She clutched at her heart, feigning ecstasy at the thought of his absence. ‘Will you really, Potts?’

‘My plan on coming here was exactly what you suggested when we first met. I have urgent business back in America and no money for a return passage. I should not have to count every last part of the Comstock entail to get it. If I can find something of value that won’t be missed, I will take it, sell it and get a ticket on the first ship bound for Philadelphia.’ He pointed to the fireplace. ‘If there is such a thing hidden up that chimney, then go to, Miss Strickland. Go to.’

‘Very well, Potts,’ she said, with another insincere smile. If they found what she was looking for, there was no way he could take half of it, any more than she could. But he had planned to take something that would not be missed. She must hope that he could be steered towards discretion and not greed. Then she remembered that there were other issues to be dealt with. ‘I have but one problem. I was too short to reach it on the last visit.’

‘I am taller,’ he said, standing up, ready to take her place.

‘And wider,’ she reminded him. ‘It was a snug fit, even for me.’

‘There is nothing for it then,’ he said, went to the fireplace, hauled the grate out of its place and went down on one knee, patting the level plain of his opposite thigh. ‘Up you go.’

‘I was thinking more of finding a ladder,’ she said.

‘Have you brought one with you?’

‘Do not ask me facetious questions,’ she snapped.

He patted his knee again. ‘Come along, Miss Strickland. Let us settle the mystery in the chimney and then you will have time to berate me on my character.’

She sighed. She did not need her sisters to tell her that what he had suggested was improper. It would take only a minute or two to find something else to stand on. But she wanted an answer to the mystery, not in two minutes, but now.

Everyone said that impatience was a major flaw in her character. And she would address it later.

She stepped forward, crouched to move past him in the fireplace opening, braced herself on the walls of the chimney and raised a foot.

Before she could fumble, he had grabbed her boot and guided it to a place on his thigh. Then he reached beneath her skirts and tapped the back of her other knee as one might do to a horse to make him raise a hoof.

She lifted the foot that was still on the ground and he made a stirrup with his hands, boosting it to join the other one so she could stand on his leg.

He was right. She was several inches higher than she had been when standing on the grate. She felt the bricks surrounding her for the expected niche.

‘Anything?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she admitted through gritted teeth. She stretched her fingers upwards and brushed a ridge and empty air where there should be brick, but nothing else. ‘I can feel it above me, but I am still too short.’

‘Step on to my shoulders, then.’ Before she could argue, his fingers were around one of her calves, firmly guiding her leg upwards.

For a moment, her normally agile mind went blank. His head and shoulders were under her skirt. This was the first, and possibly the last, time that a man would see her legs, much less touch them. She must pray that it was dark under there. If he looked up, he would see far more than her legs. He would be inches from everything she had to offer.

It was…

She shepherded her thoughts, trying to analyse the sensations running through her. The feel of his hand on her ankle was different to any touch she’d felt before, though it was not even skin to skin. The flesh under her wool stocking felt cold, but the blood beneath was racing hot, back towards her heart. And above it all, she was sure she felt the gentle stirring of his breath.

The world seemed to spin and waver around her, unsteady, as if she’d had too much wine. Then she realised that the feeling was not imagination. Her body trembled, trying to find balance as he guided it to stand on his shoulders like a Vauxhall Gardens acrobat. She could stop it by bracing herself against the brick walls around her.

She did so. But she didn’t like being steady. She wanted to feel strange and unsure, laughing as the whole world dropped from under her and she fell to land breathless in his lap.

‘Miss Strickland?’ The voice coming from under her skirts was muffled, but unemotional.

‘Uhh, yes,’ she said, hurriedly feeling for the niche in the wall that was now on a level with her face. Her heart gave another sudden swoop as her fingers encountered a box. ‘I have found something.’

‘Excellent.’ Both hands transferred to her left ankle as he began the delicate process of helping her down. By the time her feet were back on the hearthstones, she had regained control of her senses and could emerge, sooty but fully rational, from the fireplace. Then she held out the thing she had found: a wooden box about eight inches square.

‘It is not very large,’ he said, staring down at it.

‘It does not need to be,’ she said, fumbling with the catch. But she had thought it would be bigger than this. She had imagined a rectangular, leather case similar to the one that held the duplicates, with an easily found latch and hinges. But the wood under her fingers was completely smooth. Nor did there seem to be a separate top that could be lifted off. If she had not felt the lightness and heard a faint rattle from within, she’d have assumed that it was a solid block and not a box at all.

‘Hand it here for a moment,’ he said, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. Once he had hold of it, he buffed enthusiastically to remove the accumulated ash and grime. Then he handed it back to her to admire.

She adjusted her spectacles, wiping the grime from them to get a clear look. What had seemed to be plain mahogany was at least three colours of wood, inlaid in elaborate marquetry, no two sides alike. But though it was lovely to look at, the way into it was not more apparent now that it was clean than it had been fresh from the chimney. She stared back at him. ‘Do you have a penknife I might borrow?’

‘And spoil the fun?’

‘I am supposed to enjoy this?’ she asked, giving it a frustrated shake.

‘You are holding a Chinese puzzle box,’ he said patiently. ‘Perhaps you are not familiar with them, but I have seen them brought from the Orient by sailors.’ He held a hand out for the box.

She hesitated. She had spent half a day up a chimney, rooting around in the dirt. She had run back and forth from the house, twice. All she wanted was a cup of tea and a wash and some sign that this quest was nearing its end. Instead, this clean and poised stranger stood ready to take it away and finish it for her.

She pulled it back. ‘Thank you, Potts, but that will not be necessary.’

‘I thought we agreed to share,’ he said, giving her a smile that could melt the snow off a roof.

She shook the box again, hearing only the faint rattle of the trick marquetry that hid the latches. ‘As you can hear, there is nothing inside. And, even if the box is rare enough to be valuable, it will no longer be so if you try to take half.’

‘Are you sure it is empty?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Perhaps something you do not wish me to see?’

She shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. ‘Even full to the brim, a box this size could not hold very much. If you wish the money to return to America, I am afraid you will have to get it by doing what the Earl expected: an inventory of the entail.’

‘Well, I must say, Miss Strickland, what got off to a promising start has been a most disappointing afternoon.’

‘That could be said of most afternoons at Comstock Manor,’ she said. ‘But there is no point in spending any more time here. Let us return to the main house. Dinner at eight, Potts. And tomorrow, we will begin the inventory.’