CHAPTER 13 #2
He led her down the stairs and left her while he went out to saddle and bring his horse around. She waited outside the front door for him, her reticule in hand. He led the horse while together they walked to the road.
* * *
How odd the day seemed. How strange to be walking beside Gareth in the sunshine, with his monster of a horse plodding behind.
She glanced at him on occasion. Her heart still danced at the sight of him. Perhaps it always would. If she had thought last night’s intimacy would dull that girlish excitement, she had been wrong.
Upon wakening, and seeing where she lay, and remembering the night, there had been one moment of panic.
It passed, however, as the memories grew clearer and his phantom body pressed hers.
The small soreness still throbbing deep inside provoked a smile, not dismay.
While she washed, she wondered if she had become as wicked as he, to partake of pleasure so casually with a man she did not love, then know no guilt afterward.
Wicked. An interesting word. Not at all the same as evil. Far more damning than naughty, though. One could not deny that wicked often carried implications of being a sensual rogue. She supposed she was one now too.
He had said last night that she could have had her choice of many men if she wanted. It had been a gentle kindness that touched her. A generous and thoughtful lie. He, on the other hand, most certainly could have had his choice of many women.
“I am hungry,” she said when they rounded the bend that took Albany Lodge out of sight.
“I should have fed you something.”
“I will find some cheese when I get home, assuming the intruders did not take it or ruin it. Nor could we dally for a breakfast this morning. It would not do to have the magistrate arrive at my house only to find me gone.”
Gareth pushed open the door, which she was sure she had not closed when she ran. Her trunk, canvas, and other things still lay right over the threshold, where she had dragged them. He stepped inside.
“It is worse than you said, Eva.”
She followed, and looked around the front chamber at the destruction that greeted her return yesterday. Gareth walked over and picked up one of her paintings. He stared at it with angry eyes, then set it down. He came back to her and took her hands.
“We will see how bad it is in the rest of the house. Before that, you need to consider what you will say to the magistrate about last night. I think you should say you spent the night here and came for help in the early morning. I know you do not want to lie, but—”
“It is a lie, but one that can be excused. Should the truth ever become known, it will be obvious why I obscured it, and I do not think anyone will blame me.”
He took her face in his hands. “Since I do not think I will have the chance to do this later—” All of last night lived in the kiss he gave her. Then he led her to the reception hall and handed her up the stairs.
She went to her bedchamber and stared at the corner floorboards.
Nothing. No one had pried them up. Her coins still hung on that nail.
Even more weighed down her reticule. She would survive this destruction because she had some money.
She shuddered at the thought of how she would have managed if she did not.
The boards were fine, but nothing else. All the beds up here had been overturned. Cupboards had been emptied, their contents strewn around the space. A storage area behind a low door in Rebecca’s chamber gaped, the door open and the trunks ransacked.
“It looks as if they searched for money or valuables,” Gareth said.
“One has only to enter to know there will be none. We do not even have decent furniture.”
More of the same waited on the next level. There was no furniture up here, but some trunks that held her mother’s clothes and memories lived in one room. Those too had been violated, and on seeing this final assault, she lost her composure.
Weeping, she dropped to her knees and began gathering the old silks and shoes that still held the scents of her childhood from long ago.
Even the destruction of her paintings did not hurt as much as this.
A murderous rage took hold of her. She held the dresses to her face and cried out her anger and frustration.
Gareth knelt beside her. He took the clothes from her hands, folded them carefully, and placed them back in the trunk. “I do not like the idea of your living here alone.”
“It is my home.” She wiped her eyes with her hand. “I’ll be damned if I will be driven out.”
“Still—”
“I will not be made afraid to live in the only home I have known by whoever did this. I won’t.”
He said nothing more. He stood, and offered his hand to help her up.
They went back to the library and waited for the magistrate.
* * *
Sir Thomas Pickford appeared to be a competent magistrate. Tall, slender, and still much the officer he had once been in the army, he paced through the house, noting the destruction. He returned to the library and set its one chair close to the divan where Eva waited.
“You did not see them?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I do not even know if it was one or more.”
“Probably more. Two at least. The chambers above show a careful method. This down here—” He gestured around. “A different mind did this.”
“It is clear she has nothing to steal,” Gareth said.
“True, but they searched just the same, while they had their fun.” He ignored Gareth and peered at Eva. “Is there anyone you have angered? Someone who might want to do this in spite?”
“That is an odd question, Sir Thomas,” Gareth said. The notion anyone would want to hurt Eva was preposterous.
“Not so odd, sir. Look around. We do not see the likes of this in this county, I can tell you that. Oh, there are thieves enough, but this—” He shook his head.
“Well, you have seen it now. I trust you will find those responsible.”
“I will try, but there is no telling who they are or where they are, is there? I will make inquiries, to find out if anyone saw something, perhaps while passing on the road in the evening. We will do what we can.” He turned his attention back to Eva.
“It was not wise of you to wait until morning to seek help, Miss Russell. Are you going to be alone here much longer?”
“My sister will return in a few days.”
“Well, lock your doors. I do not think they will be back, but better to be careful.”
Sir Thomas took his leave, riding off. Gareth began setting the rest of the furniture in order in the house. When he came down from the bedchambers, he found Eva wiping paint off the landscapes.
He had felt a bloody rage on seeing the way those two paintings had been ruined. There could be no point in it other than cruelty. Perhaps Sir Thomas was correct and someone had done this out of spite.
Eva noticed him watching her. “I can use the canvases again,” she explained.
“They were lovely, and well done.”
“Not really. I know I have a middling talent. I enjoy painting, however. I intend to work at it and get better too.”
He went over and took the canvas from her hands and looked at it.
The remnants of the landscape could still be discerned.
“Middling talents paint like everyone paints, Eva. This had a distinctive look, what with the way you used light on the ground and trees. You do not give yourself enough credit.”
“Forgive me, but—do you know what you are talking about?”
“Actually, yes. I do. Art is the one thing I know very well.”
She beamed at his compliment, then laughed. “Not the one and only thing, I think it is safe to say.”
Her bawdy allusion heartened him. She seemed to be recovering from the renewed shock of seeing her house like this.
She set the painting aside and reached for her reticule. “I would like you to do something for me, if you would be kind enough.”
“Anything at all.”
She plucked some pound notes out of the reticule and thrust them at him. Sparks of determination flashed in her eyes. “Please buy me a pistol, and teach me to use it.”