Carola Dunn (19 page)

Nonsense! It was far too late for regrets. He slipped out into the passage.

And he groaned and he howled and he screeched and he bawled and he bellowed and finally he gnashed his teeth. Not the slightest sign of life from either Miles’s or Nerissa’s chamber. Maybe he had left it too late and they were fast asleep, or else they had convinced themselves that he was nothing but a horde of squabbling cats.

How dared they so insult him!

Gibbering with rage, he squeezed under Miles’s door. Miles lay sprawled on his back, the bedclothes spread over him in a loose, disorderly heap.

Sir Barnabas grinned nastily. It was a cold night. If Miles were sufficiently chilled, he’d seek warmth, and the nearest source of warmth was in Nerissa’s bed. Gathering his strength, the baronet pulled and pushed the covers onto the floor, counterpane, blankets, sheet and all.

Exhausted, he sank down onto Miles’s bare feet, adding the cold of the grave to that of the frosty night.

Miles shivered, woke, and felt for his blankets. His groping hands met nothing. He sat up, dislodging Sir Barnabas, then swung his legs off the bed. Sir Barnabas landed on the floor. Miles reached for his dressing gown and thrust his arms into the sleeves. Candlestick in hand, stumbling across the room, he raised the latch, opened the door, and stepped out into the passage.

Painfully Sir Barnabas crawled after him and reached the threshold just in time to see him cast a yearning look at Nerissa’s chamber door.

Chapter 13

Miles found it hard to sleep after seeking out and marking the naughtiest bits of the first few stories. Two months without a woman and four to go! No wonder his awareness of Nerissa just next door was such an aching temptation however hard he tried to persuade himself he looked upon her as a little sister.

At last he fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning and tangling with his blankets. His dreams were filled with a horrid caterwauling, but he was awoken by frozen toes.

He must have kicked his bedclothes onto the floor. Well, he was quite capable of remaking the bed without waking a servant, but he needed light to do it. Rather than wrestle with a tinderbox, he’d go out to the night-lamp in the passage.

Tying the cord of his dressing-gown, he picked up his bedside candle and felt his way to the door. His teeth chattered. Simply climbing back into a cold bed would never warm him up, he thought. As he stepped out into the passage he cast a longing look at Nerissa’s chamber door, behind which she lay curled in slumber, warm as toast.

Sternly admonishing himself, he went to light his candle with a spill from the vase by the lamp. He decided to go down to the kitchens to see if he could find and heat a couple of bricks or a warming pan, and perhaps a hot drink.

First he returned to his chamber to put on his slippers, which were hiding under a chair, and to make the bed ready for whatever heating device he could procure.

When he returned to the passage, he suddenly wondered who was hiding behind the curtain, spying on his comings and goings. Though it made no difference to his actions, he was growing tired of the surveillance. Perhaps it was time to disabuse the watchers of the notion that he and Nerissa were ignorant of their presence.

He strode past Nerissa’s chamber to the end of the passage and flung open the curtains.

The rattle of the curtain rings roused Miss Sophie. She huddled there wrapped in an inadequate shawl, blinking up at Miles, shivering convulsively.

“Good gad, what folly is this?” He took her bluish, icy hand. “My dear Miss Sophie, you’ll catch an inflammation of the lungs. To bed with you!”

“I d-don’t think I c-can m-move, M-miles.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Here.” He picked up her rug from the floor where it had slipped and draped it over her, then took off his dressing-gown and tucked it around her shuddering shoulders. “Wait just a moment.”

He went to bang on Nerissa’s door and, when that brought no immediate answer, opened it. Holding his candle high, he saw her sitting up in bed, huge, dark eyes fixed on him.

“Miles!” she squeaked, pulling up the covers.

“Don’t be missish. I need your help. Miss Sophie’s out here freezing to death.”

“Oh Miles, I’ll come at once.” She scrambled out of bed, treating him to a brief glimpse of one white, slim leg. He turned away, returned to the alcove, and a moment later she joined him, decently swathed in her dressing-gown. “Dear Cousin Sophie, what a sorry pickle you are in. Miles, can you carry her to her chamber? I shall go ahead to open the door.”

He gently deposited Miss Sophie upon a chair by her smouldering fire, which did little on such a night to drive the chill from the room. Nerissa chafed the poor little lady’s hands.

“I shall d-d-do very well now, d-dear,” said Miss Sophie. “I am s-so s-sorry...”

“Nonsense,” said Nerissa firmly. “I shall help you into your night-rail. Miles, do you go down and wake Lil--the kitchen maid. She sleeps on a pallet by the kitchen fire. Have her prepare a warming pan or hot bricks. Or better, both, and a mug of hot flannel besides. Here is your dressing-gown.” She blushed as she handed it to him without looking at him.

He put it on and went down as ordered, but he had no intention of waking Lil if he could help it. The fewer people knew about the night’s alarms and excursions the better--except that he was determined to confront Mrs Chidwell and forbid her to make her sister stand watch. If the widow chose to do so herself, that was her own affair. She was well enough padded to survive the cold.

The kitchen maid was fast asleep on her straw pallet by the hearth, snuggled beneath a tattered blue and yellow patchwork quilt, her rosy cheek pillowed on her hands. Probably it was cosier there for such a slip of a girl than up in the servants’ garrets, but Miles resolved to ask Nerissa about it.

He must also explain to her that “hot flannel” was no drink for a lady. Though the combination of gin and beer, heated, sweetened and spiced, was certainly warming, Sir Barnabas would never have allowed a drop of blue ruin in the house. A negus of wine and hot water was what Miss Sophie needed. However, since Snodgrass locked up the wine-cellar every night, she would have to make do with chocolate.

The kitchen’s warmth drove the chill from his bones as he crept around, setting a pan of milk on the range and two bricks to warm on the hearth. He found a gleaming copper warming pan hanging on the wall and quietly filled it with hot coals, one by one with the fire-tongs instead of the shovel. He made the chocolate in the pantry so as not to wake Lil with the chink of spoon against mug. It was as he stood gazing down at the hot bricks, wondering how he was to transport all his impedimenta upstairs, that he realized the child was staring at him with wide brown eyes.

He sighed. “Go back to sleep, Lil.”

“Lor’, sir, howdja know me name?”

“Miss Wingate told me.”

A light of fervent devotion entered Lil’s eyes. “Aye, miss knows it, she do.” Sitting up, her skinny shoulders clad in red flannel, she regarded his preparations with curiosity. “You cold, sir? I coulda done that for you.”

“I didn’t want to wake you. Now I don’t know how to carry everything upstairs.”

She considered. “You c’d drink the choc’lit here. Or I c’d carry summat for you, ‘cepting Mrs Hibbert says I’m not to go ‘bove stairs. I know what, sir, I’ll getchera towel and you c’n tie the corners in a knot and carry it over your arm wi’ the bricks inside.”

As she started to push her quilt aside, Miles said, “Stay there, don’t get cold. That’s a clever notion. Just tell me where to find a towel.”

Lil directed him to a back kitchen. Returning, he gathered up his burdens, bade her goodnight, and set off for the upper regions. He nearly told her not to mention his nocturnal visit to anyone; on second thoughts, to keep it secret he’d have to take everything back downstairs again. It would be easier just to make sure he removed the evidence from Miss Sophie’s room to his own.

This he explained to Nerissa when she answered his soft tapping.

“Yes,” she assented, relieving him of the warming pan, “I’ll bring it all to you as soon as I have her settled. But we can only hope to keep the secret from the servants. I mean to speak quite plainly to Cousin Effie in the morning. Miss Sophie is not to be set to watch us again.”

“We think alike. I had already planned to issue an edict on the subject, so you need not. It’s best if your involvement is not revealed to anyone at all.”

“Come now, Miles, you cannot expect Miss Sophie to lead her sister to believe you helped her to bed!”

“No, perhaps not,” he conceded, grinning. “All the same, let me tackle Effie.”

“I shall be glad to,” Nerissa admitted. “One way or another, she is sure to kick up a dust.”

* * * *

Sir Barnabas made sure he was present to witness Euphemia’s discomfiture. He followed her from the morning room when Miles sent Snodgrass to request an interview in the library.

Though answering a summons, Effie swept into the library like a high and mighty duchess. Miles rose and came round the desk to seat her courteously in a shield-back chair. Then he went to close the door. Settling on a corner of the desk, Sir Barnabas noted that the click of the latch made somewhat of a dent in Effie’s assurance.

Miles returned to his seat. Regarding her sternly, he asked in a deceptively mild voice, “Have you spoken to your sister this morning, ma’am?”

“To Sophie?” said Effie, startled. “Not this morning.”

“Have you asked after her? I take it you have noticed that she is not yet come down?”

“Naturally. I suppose you do not expect me to carry her breakfast to her!”

Miles matched her sarcasm. “I might expect you to be concerned at her lying late abed, since she is usually an early riser. As it happens, Nerissa persuaded her to stay there to try to ward off the effects of her unpleasant experience last night.”

“What unpleasant experience?” Effie asked uneasily.

“When I found Miss Sophie, ma’am, concealed in the alcove on your orders, she was so cold as to be unable to move her limbs. We can only pray that she will not take an inflammation of the lungs.”

“You cannot blame me because she has not the sense to wrap up properly.” Now she sounded like a sulky child.

“I blame you for setting her to watch Nerissa and me. For yourself and the others I care not. You are capable of deciding for yourselves whether to do anything so crackbrained. Miss Sophie obeys your command.”

“She certainly does not, if she told you I commanded her to spy on you!”

“My dear Mrs Chidwell, I have known for some time that Nerissa’s loving relatives are willing to expose themselves to extreme discomfort in the hope of catching her--and me--out.”

“Then no wonder no one has seen anything!” Effie burst out in disgust. “I might as well call the whole thing off for all the good it’s doing.”

“You might indeed, though what you do is a matter of indifference to me.” Miles stood up and leaned with both hands on the table. “However,” he said grimly, “I forbid you to involve your sister in any more midnight vigils.”

Quite like the head of the family, thought Sir Barnabas, surprised. Who would have thought such a here-and-thereian could put on such a show of authority?

“Trust Sophie to make a mull of it,” Euphemia snapped. Flouncing from the room, she slammed the door behind her so vigorously that Sir Barnabas only just dodged past without being squashed.

She returned to the morning room, where Jane was at her eternal stitchery and Aubrey flipped idly through The Gentleman’s Magazine.

“They have found out!” she announced.

Jane dropped her needle, looking as terrified as if she had been party to a conspiracy to assassinate the Prince Regent. Aubrey turned his head as far as his overstarched cravat permitted and stared at Euphemia.

“Who found out what?” he enquired.

“Miles and Nerissa know we have been keeping them under surveillance.”

“Good,” said Aubrey. “Then we need not do it any longer. As Raymond said, if they know we are watching they will take care there is nothing to be seen.”

“We shall lull them into a false sense of security. I made sure Miles knew I thought it pointless to continue. For a week or two we shall abandon our post, lest they check. Then, when they believe themselves safe from observation, we shall resume the watch.”

Much as Sir Barnabas hated to acknowledge Effie as his chief ally, he had to admire her cunning. Not that it was anything new. He was still not quite sure how she had weaselled her way into his household when her husband died. Of course, if she had not brought Sophie with her he’d not have been so poor-spirited as to yield.

Miles and Nerissa were good to Sophie, he had to admit. At present he felt almost kindly towards them. Ah well, he would leave them free of midnight alarms for a while, at least until Euphemia decreed a renewed vigil.

Aubrey groaned. “Not until after the Christmas assembly in Porchester,” he protested. “I simply must look my best for that, and nothing is so devastating as a night without sleep.”

“Pah!” said Euphemia, silently echoed by Sir Barnabas.

“That reminds me,” Aubrey continued, “I must tell Nerissa she will need a new gown. I wonder whether she knows how to dance respectably or only the sort of cavorting performed by opera dancers.”

“You will not teach her the country dances and cotillions,” Euphemia commanded.

“Aubrey,” his mother wailed, “surely you do not mean to take that girl to the assembly?”

“Of course he does, Jane. Do pull yourself together. Everyone will be there. It will be a splendid opportunity for her to ruin herself.”

“It will cause no end of talk if she does not go,” Aubrey pointed out.

With a heavy sigh, Jane resigned herself.

“It’s too late to get in a fidget,” said Effie. “You already lend her countenance by joining her to receive visitors when she is queening it in the drawing room.”

“It would look excessively odd if I did not,” Jane said petulantly. “I cannot snub old acquaintances just because of the wretched girl. How I wish she had never come to Addlescombe.”