Chapter Sixteen
“My God, I actually thought I was hallucinating,” Peverill said, as they entered the foyer. “Who expected she was such a little minx beneath all those manners?”
“Keep your voice down,” Justin said, shortly. He was in no mood for Peverill’s merry attitude.
“I knew you took a fancy to her,” he replied.
“Stop talking.”
“I think she likes you too, you know, judging by how she was practically devouring you,” Peverill said, adding a low whistle.
“I told you,” Justin said, gripping the lapels of his friend’s coat, “to shut it.”
Peverill held his hands up. “All right. I see. She’s important to you then?”
“What was the news you called me back for?” Justin asked, doing his best to change the subject.
He was not yet ready to answer that question for himself, and he doubted Cordelia was as well.
In fact, his mind was so muddled with emotions that completely contradicted one another he could hardly see straight.
He was angry at her low opinion of him. Completely besotted with her.
Burning with lust. Wanting to smash a window at the thought of her stubbornness.
“There was no news. I just thought I’d better call the two of you off one another before I had to act as best man at your upcoming wedding.
Don’t think if this gets out that society won’t march you both down the aisle.
They think of women differently in this world,” Peverill said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“And that little encounter would have done well enough.”
Justin’s stomach flip-flopped. Marriage. To Cordelia. Why did that fill him with equal parts foreboding and anticipation? He’d always assumed that eventually he would get married and have children of his own. But he had never seriously considered it, not perhaps until this moment.
“Right,” Justin said, pausing for a moment to wipe his brow. He needed a hot bath and a glass of brandy. “I think I should put a stop to our meetings for the time being. Our friendship has become a little too incendiary for comfort.”
Peverill laughed. “I would certainly say that! Good luck, zanmi.”
Clutching his hat in his hand, Justin made his way to his rooms. Hollyhead was unusually quiet as the storm raged outside.
He made a mental list in his head of what needed to be done before dinner.
There was correspondence that he’d been putting off.
He needed to write letters to his partners at the firm, informing them of the project at Hollyhead, and he also had been deferring a proper response to his mother’s letters, which were asking for thorough updates of his current situation.
Dear Mother,
I’ve gotten myself into a somewhat compromising position with an infuriatingly beautiful creature…
In spite of himself, he was smiling, remembering the look on Cordelia’s face as she pulled him back down to her. Her brown eyes had darkened and her eyelids were heavy, her full lips parted, ready for him.
“What happened?”
A thick, heavy voice stopped him in his tracks. He was just passing the library as he heard it. There was no question that it belonged to Portia.
“I know it’s difficult, but you’ll need to keep your voice down.” And that one was Cordelia.
“I’m trying,” Portia said. “Tell me what’s going on. The last I saw you, you were riding like the wind.”
“The Lady Prudence article,” Cordelia replied. Her voice was choked. “It has made assumptions that the duke and I…”
“And are you?” Portia’s voice was dripping in acid.
“How could you think that?” Cordelia’s voice was rushed, urgent.
“You spend so much bloody time with him!” Portia replied, louder this time.
“I told you to keep your voice down,” Cordelia said. She sighed heavily. “He’s keeping me close because he is suspecting of us. Speaking of which, have you managed to make any headway?”
“None. I am beginning to think that father was sending us on a wild goose chase for no reason,” Portia replied, sounding frustrated.
Justin leaned closer to the crack in the door to hear better. A floorboard creaked beneath his muddy boot. He retreated as soundlessly as possible but braced himself to be discovered.
“Hush,” Cordelia said. “I think I heard something.”
“Peverill and Wright are still caught in the storm,” Portia said. “Don’t change the subject. Are you sure there’s nothing further? Have we even thought of everything?”
Cordelia paused. “Nothing.”
Justin decided he needed a stiff drink sooner than later. Permitting the carpet to muffle the sound of his heavy footfalls, he allowed the disapproving dukes, hanging in paintings high above him, to stare down at him as he made his way to the office.
Good, he thought to himself, there’s that then. She is not interested in you. Let it go.
Though he agreed with the words that rang in his head, it was difficult to ignore the stab to his gut, like a small paring knife had been twisted between his ribs.
It was the truth all along, wasn’t it? Dukes were meant to be highborn, sleek, and without imperfection; and Justin was certainly none of those things.
Better to learn the truth now than draw it out longer than necessary. Behind the hurt, there was another clear thought. He had to be rid of Hollyhead House, and soon.
*
Cordelia felt positively wicked for boldface lying to her sister earlier that evening, after Portia had pulled her into the library.
A pastor had once preached in the little chapel on Hollyhead’s grounds that each lie a person told dripped a small black stain on their heart.
Out of all of her sisters, she felt like her heart was the most splattered with lies.
Where to start? Was it the sneaking out of doors dressed like a man to ride?
Or perhaps discovering another clue to finding the Hollyhead treasure and not telling another soul these past two weeks?
It also could have been leaping into the duke’s arms this past afternoon, without a thought for appearances.
And then there was the vehement denying of it all to her closest sister, the very one who had propped her up this past year, helping her care for their dying father and then plan funeral arrangements.
Lying in her bedroom, she stared up at the canopy of her bed. A moth had eaten a hole through a corner of the blue fabric, which had been turned a dull gray in the moonlight.
“You fool,” she admonished herself. Because who else would be there to chastise?
The worst part of everything was that they all considered Cordelia to be the upstanding and steady girl they knew.
And if she wasn’t that, which she’d recently proved to herself again and again, then who was she actually?
Turning on her side and fluffing up her pillow, she spun to face the window in her bedroom.
The maids drew the curtains every night and then Cordelia would promptly open them.
It started when she was a child; seeing the lawn drenched in moonlight, the gravel glowing under the dark sky, made the room not feel so small.
She did her best to close her eyes again and pretend at sleep, but every time her mind grew quiet, he would appear.
And he would be wrapping his arms around her and bringing his warm mouth to hers, his callused hands sliding up her spine, over her breasts, tracing the knobs of her vertebrae up her neck until he was pulling the pins out of her hair.
Cordelia sighed, sitting up and fluffing her pillow again. She really needed to get a grip on her sanity. This had been going on since she first crawled into bed after another tense dinner. Lord save her from this world and its awkward dinner conversations!
Hearing the grandfather clock chime two in the morning, she pulled the covers off and stepped onto the threadbare carpet.
If she was not going to sleep now, then it was never going to happen.
Gathering her wrapper off of the floor, she stuck her arms through the garment and double tied it around her waist.
Deciding she had enough armor to protect her from the rest of the world, Cordelia went in search of a glass of warm milk.
Creaking open the door to her bedroom, she started down the long hall to the kitchens, a candleholder balanced in her left hand, the other holding up the hem of her dressing gown.
Taking a steadying breath, Cordelia eyed the door to the library, determined to pass it. But there was something calling to her. Sighing heavily, she pressed on the hefty double doors, surprised when they did not creak as loudly as she anticipated.
She did not bother to close them; she knew that this would not take much time.
Every day for the past two weeks, when she could find the time, Cordelia had taken the Complete Works of Shakespeare and flipped through its copious contents, searching for the next clues.
But it was not any use. So much of her time had been taken up helping the duke with Hollyhead that she only had moments to steal.
Twice she’d been caught flipping through the volume, once by Portia and the second time by Mrs. Norris.
Both times she told them she was trying to remember which play contained Hermione’s name.
That excuse would not hold water the next time they found her, however.
Look here, the tome beckoned and Cordelia pulled it off the shelf.
Setting the candle down on a side table, she opened the book, holding it near the light.
Flipping through the pages, which smelled of mold, she reminded herself of the riddle.
Find me among friends, it had told them.
Only in the night. There was nothing there.
Just as there had been nothing there for the previous mornings. She groaned to herself.
Cordelia was the more patient of her sisters, but even she was growing weary of the task.
She doubted anyone had gotten closer to solving it, however.
Portia was clever but tended to take one idea and run with it, with Henry Peverill likely keeping watch.
Hermione was hiding in the greenhouse most days and Bea was forever exploring the estate.
Justin had been far too busy working on improvements to the Hollyhead grounds to concern himself with riddles.
Justin. Taking in a sharp breath, she had a sudden memory of his lips on hers. Shuddering, she closed the tome.
“My lady?”
Spinning around, Cordelia dropped the heavy book to the floor, pages face down.
“Mrs. Norris!” Cordelia said. Look here stared up at her as she kicked it under the settee. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Oh, bless you, child, no. I was having trouble sleeping tonight. Actually, I have been having trouble sleeping for a while now,” the older woman said, offering her a congenial smile.
“We share that problem,” Cordelia replied.
“Shall I get you a cup of warm milk?” Mrs. Norris asked.
In that moment Cordelia could have wept from the comfort being offered by a familiar face. She settled herself down on the settee, grabbing a cushion to hold in her arms.
“Everything all right, love?” Mrs. Norris asked, coming to stand near her. She leaned on the back of a chair.
“Oh goodness, Mrs. Norris, are any of us all right?” Cordelia said, but then she smiled. “You know how the Nichols women are. Stiff upper lip.”
The chatelaine smiled. “I’ll be right back, love. Don’t you move.”
Cordelia smiled and stretched out on the settee, feeling her back crack. Turning her head, she saw the empty place where she’d taken the book from on the shelf. She thought she’d better put it back, just in case. Yawning and reaching under the sofa, she pulled the tome up, dusting it off.
“Nothing, eh?” she said, as though speaking to it would coax the book to reveal its secrets.
Though she couldn’t make out the words in the darkness, Cordelia flipped through it again. And then nearly dropped it a second time. There were… large lines, and they were painted with the same glowing stuff that someone had used to write the letters on the book’s spine.
Cordelia did not have much time, and though she knew her father would roll in his grave, began ripping out pages where the paint had been marked, dropping them next to her. She licked her index finger as she leafed through the book, finding ten pages in total with glowing paint.
Her heart was hammering so loudly in her chest, she thought it could have been Mrs. Norris’s footsteps.
It would surely take her time to light the stove and warm the milk, but Cordelia would be cutting it close.
Unable to resist, she laid the sheets out in front of her and saw…
well she wasn’t sure. They were all a series of lines, some curving and others straight as an arrow, all painted on top of Shakespeare’s works.
Come to think of it, this was not much different than a puzzle. Cordelia matched up three of the straight lines, which led into a curve and gasped. It was not a deranged art project. It was a map.