A Hazard of Hearts Read online

  “But of course! You are certain it is the gardens that interest you? You would not rather search the house? For all I know, one of my guests may be in league with the smugglers. They may even be exchanging signals from a bedroom window.”

  “I think it is unlikely, ma’am,” the Lieutenant said.

  The Marchioness sighed.

  “Perhaps you are right. Most of them, I regret to say, are too cork-brained to have intelligence enough to plan let alone carry out such a scheme. One day when I have time I must turn smuggler myself and then, Lieutenant, I will give you a chase worthy of your wits!”

  “Let’s hope that day is not too far distant, ma’am,” the Lieutenant said gallantly. “To capture a smuggler like yourself would be a crowning achievement in a somewhat humdrum career.”

  “Well spoken,” the Marchioness approved and then, stretching out her hand to Serena, who had stood quietly and unobtrusively on one side while this conversation was taking place, she said, “Come, child, we must to the salon. But gaming will seem dull after our talk with the Lieutenant. There is real excitement and adventure for you.”

  “Your servant. ma’am.”

  The Lieutenant made his bow and marched away with his little band of men.

  Serena, at the Marchioness’s side, heard Lord Vulcan instruct a footman to show the Lieutenant to the East door, which led into the garden. It was a door that she well knew was the farthest away from the cliffs. It let directly into a walled Herb Garden and from there into the intricacies of an ancient maze and beyond that into the Rose Garden.

  It would take some minutes at least before the Lieutenant and his men found themselves finally on the lawns that bordered the cliffs and even then there was no direct access onto the cliffs themselves save by the little door that she herself used, but which would be hard to find at night and without a guide.

  Now she and the Marchioness were surrounded by friends who were listening, spellbound to the Marchioness’s gaily told story of what had just occurred.

  “Pray Heaven they don’t search the house,” she was saying, “for I swear that the barrels of brandy which were delivered from London three days ago look as if they have been smuggled. If they are found, the Excisemen are certain to accuse us of having brought them over ourselves and maybe even Justin will be accused of handling an oar in a guinea boat.”

  There was a roar of laughter at this and the Marchioness continued,

  “La, but I am sorry for the smugglers, whoever they may be. You never saw such determined, stalwart young men as those soldiers and the Coastguards looked like bruisers. If it came to a fight, I would be sorry for the smugglers, pon my soul I would.”

  “I’ll take any odds that the smugglers can look after themselves,” a young fop drawled.

  “I only wish I could encounter such gamecocks,” the Marchioness retorted. “Now Isabel Calver and her brother can tell us all about them, for it was only yesterday that they went to Dover and conversed with one.”

  There were exclamations of surprise at this and several of the company went in search of Isabel and Gilly to question them as to what they had seen.

  “And what does our sweet Serena think of all this?” a hateful voice said close to Serena’s ear and she looked up to see Lord Wrotham gazing at her intently.

  While she hesitated for an answer, the Marchioness supplied one.

  “She is afraid, poor child,” she said, but there was no sympathy, only a sneer in her tone.

  “And who shall blame her,” Lord Wrotham replied, “when it is obvious to the most inexperienced eye that only Paris could have produced such exquisite material for her gown?”

  The Marchioness raised her eyebrows for a moment and then she laughed.

  “Harry, you are cursed sharp, does nothing escape your eagle eye?”

  “Not much,” he said, “and nothing where such beauty is concerned.”

  He leered at Serena, who turned her face sharply away from him.

  “Harriet, I need your help,” he continued. “Our sweet Serena, whom I have known since a child, is angered with me. I have proffered her apologies, my most abject apologies, but she will not listen. Use your influence, Harriet, that I may at least have a fair hearing.”

  He spoke lightly enough, but there was a deep undercurrent in his voice, an undercurrent so dark and treacherous that Serena could only turn to the Marchioness and say hastily,

  “I beg you will hold me excused, ma’am. My head aches and I would, with your permission, retire for the night.”

  The Marchioness glanced at her. She was wise enough to realise that the girl had reached breaking point. There was nothing further to be gained by keeping her.

  “Go to your bed if it pleases you,” she said, “for sure these rooms are hot enough to give the strongest of us a headache.”

  “I am obliged to you, ma’am. Goodnight.”

  Serena dropped a curtsey. She did not even glance in the direction of Lord Wrotham. But as she moved away she heard him say quite clearly and distinctly,

  “Harriet, I have a proposition to make to you and one that I think you will find distinctly interesting.”

  His voice was sinister, but that, Serena told herself, was nothing new where Lord Wrotham was concerned. At the same time she wondered if that proposition could concern her? Such an idea was absurd and she assured herself that she was being stupidly imaginative. The events of this evening had frightened her so that she saw danger on every side.

  She reached the Great Hall. It was empty save for two footmen waiting by the outer door. Then, as she put her hand on the carved banister and her foot on the first step, a question arrested her,

  “You are retiring, Serena?”

  Lord Vulcan had come out of the anteroom and was approaching her.

  “Yes, my Lord, I am going to – bed.”

  Her voice trembled a little despite her resolution to be quite calm.

  “Something has upset you,” he said. “I saw it in your face when you came downstairs with my mother.”

  She looked up at him. For the first time there seemed something kindly and almost compassionate in his voice. He was at least human amongst what seemed to her over- wrought imagination at this moment a crowd of inhuman monsters.

  For the moment she was a little uncertain of what had happened only a short time ago. It was all so fantastic, so twisted in her mind, which was full of tangled and distorted emotions and imaginings. She only knew that out of a nightmare of horror from which every nerve of her body shrank, Lord Vulcan seemed to her at that moment a man whom one could trust.

  His eyes were looking down into hers.

  She had not answered his question, she had only stood there, very small and vulnerable, her face drained of all colour, her eyes dark with suffering. The Marquis put out his hand and took hers from the balustrade where it rested.

  It was very cold, and he held it for a moment in both of his as if he would warm it.

  “What has occurred?” he asked gently.

  In answer her fingers fluttered in his like a captured bird and then for an instant they clung to him, clung with a pathetic effort at reliance, yet with the desperate clasp of someone who is drowning.

  “I-I cannot – tell you, my Lord.”

  The words were hardly above a whisper and he must bend his head to hear them.

  “Don.t try then. In the morning things will seem better.”

  “Better!” she echoed, as though such a word was an astonishment to her. “I shall never – never forget – never.”

  She was not far from tears now. The shock that had held her numb was breaking. For one moment her fingers clung to his again, for one moment her other hand, quite unconsciously, sought the warmth of his clasp.

  And then like a frightened fawn she was free of him.

  “I must – away.”

  She knew only that she longed for the shelter of her own room. She wanted to be alone and she wanted to forget.

  Her flying feet carr
ied her up the staircase and along the passage and then in the seclusion of her own bedchamber she lay prostrate face downwards on her pillows in an agony of mind which was beyond the relief of tears.

  *

  Next morning found Serena with a heavy head and eyes dark-ringed from sleeplessness.

  It was late afternoon before Eudora would let her rise and then she made no effort to leave her own chamber, but sat on the window seat staring out to sea.

  Eudora brought her food and milk and Serena drank the milk but refused the food, saying that she did not feel like eating.

  She had not told Eudora what had happened. Somehow she could not bear to put into words what she had seen, but the picture of it was there before her eyes. The flaming torches lighting the rough-hewn stone roof, the great sprawled figure on the dark floor, the dark red stream of blood. Would she ever forget it?

  It was afternoon when Torqo, whining a little and thrusting his nose into the limpness of her hand, made her remember that he was missing his accustomed walk.

  “I will go out, Eudora,” Serena said, rousing herself from her reverie with a vast effort.

  “’Twill do you good,’ Eudora said, ‘for you look as pale as a corpse. If you were a child again, I would be certain that you were sickenin’ for an indisposition.”

  Serena sighed.

  “I am not a child, unfortunately, and what ails me is not what is about to happen but what has already occurred.”

  Eudora waited for her confidence, but when it did not come, she said nothing. She knew well those moments of reserve that had been Serena’s ever since she was tiny and how, when something perturbed or hurt her over-much, she could not speak but could only suffer.

  Serena was suffering now and, while Eudora’s heart bled for her, there was nothing she could do but tend her as best she could, and hope that sooner or later she would gain her confidence.

  Moving to the cupboard she fetched a bonnet of chip straw, but when she brought it Serena shook her head.

  “Give me my hood,” she said, “I would rather wear that for it hides my face.”

  “You look fatigued, ’tis true, but even so immeasurably fairer than anyone else in this place.”

  Serena smiled at Eudora’s partisanship.

  “I was not thinking of my looks in vanity, but it’s that I have no heart to be seen. In my hood people are less likely to recognise me and they will not think me impolite if I hurry away at the sight of them.”

  She felt it would be impossible for her at this moment to talk lightly even with Isabel or Nicholas.

  ‘If I see anyone,’ she thought, ‘I will run in the opposite direction.’

  Isabel had already sent up a message earlier in the day to ask if Serena would ride with them, but she had sent back word to say that she was feeling extremely fatigued and hoped to sleep until dinner time.

  It was unlikely that either Isabel or Nicholas would be in the gardens, but Isabel was as unaccountable and as changeable in her plans as a weathercock, so that one could never be certain of her movements from one hour to another.

  Serena’s hood of pale blue wool, trimmed with ribbons, was her own. Yvette was already engaged upon making one of velvet trimmed with sable, but it was not yet ready and today she was thankful to be able to wear something that had been bought and paid for with her own money and was not a gift from the Marchioness.

  It was silly to mind little things, Serena chid herself, when there were greater and far more important issues to be faced, nevertheless she felt a tiny pinpoint of satisfaction in the fact that the hood was hers and the Marchioness was not in any way connected with it.

  When she was ready and Torqo, knowing that his walk was imminent, was bounding noisily about the room, Serena went to the window. She looked at the garden below and saw that it was empty. Then she opened the door into the little turret room. The windows here looked both South and East and gave her a good view of the gardens. Here again there was no one in sight save a gardener tending the flowerbeds.

  “Would you wish me to precede you,” Eudora asked, “and see that there is no one on the stairs?”

  She did not understand Serena’s sudden desire for solitude, but she was prepared to respect it and to help her all she could. Something had happened, something that had brought her Mistress to bed white and trembling like a frightened child. But what had been the cause of it she had not been able to ascertain, even from discreet enquiries amongst the servants.

  Eudora was not friendly with Martha, whom she suspected because she was in attendance on the Marchioness and his Lordship’s valet had nothing to report save that a party of Coastguards and Dragoons had arrived during the evening to search for a smugglers’ boat and found nothing.

  Perhaps Lord Wrotham was responsible, Eudora thought, and she muttered darkly to herself, for she too hated the man who had seduced the pretty Charmaine.

  Serena turned to leave the turret room.

  “I will slip down the small staircase,” she said and then she gave a little exclamation. “I wonder where this door leads to?” she questioned.

  She pointed to a door in the turret itself. It was low and narrow, with ancient wrought handles and a heavy latch.

  “I have never tried it,” Eudora answered.

  “I expect it is locked,” Serena said, but at the same time she put out her hand and lifted the latch. The door opened.

  “Why, Eudora,” she cried, “there are steps here, steps going down. Do you think this leads to the garden?”

  Eudora came from the bedchamber to look. The steps were small and followed the curved proportions of the turret, twisting their way out of sight.

  “I would not be surprised if the people who built this place used such stairs as a bolthole,” Eudora suggested.

  “But of course,” Serena agreed, “and it is obvious that the stairway leads direct to the garden. This solves my problem, Eudora. No one will see me and I can go in and out as I desire.”

  She was smiling now and Eudora felt relieved that something had roused her from her lethargy.

  “’Tis reasonable enough,” Eudora said. “Torqo will protect you and the staircase must have been intended for use or the door would have been locked.”

  “Come on, Torqo,” Serena called and set off down the steps.

  She had to go slowly for the way was narrow and twisted, but there was just enough light to see from the arrow slits placed at intervals in the walls.

  Down, down they went until finally the stairs stopped and she came to another door. It was rather dark and she felt with her hand until she found another latch similar to the one on the door above her.

  It was a little stiff and she gave it a push so that the door was flung open suddenly.

  She found herself, not as she had expected in the garden or in a passageway, but standing at the top of a short flight of polished steps that led directly into a room. The room was lined with books and in the centre of it, sitting at a big desk that was also piled high with books, was an old man.

  For a moment it was difficult to know who was the more astonished, Serena or the occupant of the room.

  Then Torqo, impatient of being confined in the narrow stairway, pushed his way past Serena and bounded into the room.

  Without waiting for an invitation, he ran up to the man at the desk, sniffed at him and wagged his tail. The man put out his hand and stroked Torqo’s head and then rose to his feet.

  “Will you not be pleased to enter, ma’am?” he asked Serena.

  Serena came down the polished steps and walked across the room.

  “I must offer you my apologies, sir,” she said, dropping a curtsey. “I believed that these stairs, which lead directly out of my bedchamber, would bring me to the garden. I was about to take my dog for a walk.”

  “This was originally the Guard Room,” was the answer, “and those stairs led to one of the look-out turrets. They have not been used for many years and I believed that the door at the top was locked.�
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  “I must indeed apologise, sir,” Serena said again.

  “But please! I assure you, ma’am, that you are very welcome.” He put his hand up absentmindedly to his bald head. “Oh, dear me, where is my wig? We are so unused to visitors that I am afraid we are looking very untidy.”

  He gazed round the room and espied his wig hanging on a chair. He picked it up and clapped it on his head, slightly crookedly so that it gave him a rakish air. Then he went across to the fireplace and emptied a big armchair of the books that covered the seat.

  “Will you be seated, ma’am?” he asked, with a courtly grace that told Serena all too clearly that he was no ordinary librarian as she had at first suspected. His shoulders were now bent, but it was obvious that in his youth he had been a tall man.

  When he first looked up from the desk, it had seemed to Serena that his face was familiar, but it had only been a fleeting impression and now she saw that his face was lined with age and pallid as if with ill-health.

  “What a number of books you have here!” she remarked, looking at the volumes which overflowed from the shelves onto the floor, to the chairs, the tables and in fact everywhere in the room.

  “My library,” the old gentleman said proudly. “I am engaged in writing a history and I require a great many books for reference.”

  He glanced towards a parcel that stood unwrapped in the centre of the room. “Those arrived yesterday by Post chaise from London. I have not yet found time to unpack them, but I fancy they will prove of great interest. Have you a partiality for books, ma’am?”

  “Indeed I have, sir, for we had a large library at my home. My father had no love of reading, but my grandfather was a scholar. You may perhaps have heard of him – Sir Hubert Staverley?”

  “Hubert Staverley! Why, God bless my soul, he was at school with me. A fair-haired fellow, I recollect, who put us all out as he always gained all the prizes.”

  Serena felt curiously pleased that here was someone who had an acquaintance with her own family.

  “You were at Eton, sir?”

  “I was indeed. All my family have been schooled at Eton.”