Chapter Twelve
When Scarlett entered Parkhorne Hall the next morning, she resolved to keep her distance from Mr. Malcolm Brown.
She was done with enduring his humiliations.
She supposed that, taken in a generous light, the concern he expressed on the walk back from church yesterday could be seen as honorable.
But all Scarlett had felt was searing mortification. This man had no desire to marry her. And yet to prove how honorable he was, how proper, despite not being a man of the metropolis, he kept offering to do so nonetheless.
He was so handsome, so evidently desirable, and she was so plain. He must assume that she was burning to accept him. Well, she hoped she’d showed him that, while physically unremarkable, she at least was not desperate. She had her dignity, if nothing else.
His concern about her being with child had struck her as immediately ridiculous.
But then she had had a moment of pause when she remembered what she had done after he had left her room that night.
How she had dipped her fingers in the seed left behind by his spend and used it to find her own pleasure.
How she had taken that evidence of his presence, of his pleasure in her nearness, and introduced it deeper into herself.
She had not comprehended any risk at the time. She had enough friends who had married that she knew getting with child was not always as easy as it might seem.
But she supposed that it was not impossible.
Christ, what had she been thinking?
When she imagined finding out that she was carrying Mr. Malcolm Brown’s child, a humiliating flutter of excitement ran through her. Then she would have to marry him. She should feel only horror at the prospect of a life relegated to the countryside with a man she hardly knew.
Unfortunately, she had to admit that it was not only horror that she felt in the face of such a possibility.
Worst of all, she had been plagued last night by a variation of her usual dream—only in this one, the man holding her and rutting her deeply and a little roughly was definitely Mr. Malcolm Brown.
Tilly had, of course, made much of his request to walk with her.
“Perhaps he has developed a preference, Scarlett!” Tilly had said, when she went to visit with her stepmother and sister in their room yesterday afternoon.
Scarlett obviously couldn’t explain the truth to her sister, so instead, she had insisted the man was just being polite.
Given that Tilly hadn’t mentioned him yet this morning, despite ample opportunity at breakfast, it seemed she had been convinced.
The fact that Scarlett and Malcolm Brown had dined in near silence yesterday evening, more stilted and awkward than they had been even the night before, had done little to dispel her characterization of his interest in her.
And that was all for the better, as far she was concerned.
Yes, it would be gratifying to be the kind of woman who captivated a man like Mr. Brown, but Scarlett knew she wasn’t.
And she was too proud to endure the humiliation of his proximity for any longer.
Thus, when she entered the drawing room for the Marchioness’s scavenger hunt, she had resolved to avoid him.
Until, of course, she was immediately paired with the man for the duration of the morning.
The Marchioness of Leith was the one reading off the teams, each composed of a lady and a gentleman, and Scarlett and Malcolm were at the very top of her list.
She may have groaned audibly.
Tilly, at least, glanced up at her.
Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, she swore.
Her sister also looked perturbed at her own pairing. She was not given George, but his brother, Mr. Severn Westmore, once more, and—worse, Scarlett was sure—Gertrude was paired with George.
Miss Marburry also looked upset. Even though she was Mrs. Salisbury’s supposed favorite, and a longtime friend of the family, Scarlett had noticed that the girl seldom found herself paired with George in anything.
It seemed that Mrs. Salisbury had given up hope of that match coming to fruition.
Scarlett made a note to mention it to Tilly later, as it would give her sister some small measure of relief.
Now, Philip, the youngest of the brothers, handed out the clues, and the other couples took them, giggling.
“Remember, there is a grand prize for the couple who reaches the end of the hunt first,” the marchioness said from the center of the room. “So, hurry off.”
Scarlett did not feel like hurrying off. Nor did she like the sound of a prize that would involve her and Malcolm being thrown together even further.
A shadow fell over her armchair. And she knew, without a doubt, to whom it belonged.
“Miss Perkins,” a deep voice said.
She hated how that voice stirred her. She hated how she wanted to draw nearer to him upon hearing it.
She stood hastily. “Yes, Mr. Brown. Shall we?”
He nodded, brandishing the first clue.
“May I?” she inquired tartly.
He handed it to her and she read the card.
You will find me cool and dark,
even when in the sunlight I lark.
“It is the fishpond,” he said, in a voice even flatter than usual. “It could be nothing else.”
Not wanting to prolong their conversation or their time together, she nodded and followed him as he walked from the house.
The fishpond was not far from the house—it was in a little verdant garden, which when they arrived, George and Gertrude had already reached. Of course, the brothers of the house had an advantage in such a hunt.
When Gertrude saw her and Malcolm approaching, she grabbed George’s arm and pulled him from the spot.
As Tilly’s sister, Scarlett didn’t like how willingly George followed the other girl.
“I see no second clue,” she said.
He pointed down into the water—and there she saw a little stone that had words carved into it, just below the surface.
“Classic Beatrice,” Malcolm said, dryly. “Too clever for her own good.”
The stone read,
About my looks, I cannot boast,
but to a royal, I did once play host.
“What on earth does that mean?”
Whereas she might have been able to puzzle out the fishpond from the first clue, this one she was positive she could not understand.
“She means the dungeon,” Malcolm said, irritation lacing his tone.
“Dungeon?”
“Parkhorne Hall is very old. It was built in the fourteenth century. There is—uh—a dungeon in the basement. The legend is that it once held Mary of Modena for a night, when she was escaping from England to France, with the infant Bonnie Prince Charlie.”
“Why was she kept in the dungeon?”
He shrugged. “Because she was traveling under cover of night, allegedly. She was in hiding.”
“So now I have to enter a dungeon?”
Truly, the indignities of Parkhorne Hall had no end.
“It is not really much of a dungeon. It’s more of a room underneath the house. Come.”
Scarlett swallowed hard. She didn’t care for cramped spaces herself. It had taken her time to adjust to traveling in a carriage, although it did not bother her now.
But she wasn’t about to show her consternation to this man.
They walked in silence back toward the house. They entered through the back and then he opened a door that led to a stairwell. He led her down a staircase, past the levels of the kitchens, and then one level lower. It was merely a corridor with a low ceiling.
He gestured for her to go first, and she did so.
But her heart was beating wildly.
She hated leaving the wide world and the sunshine above.
“It’s the last door to the left,” he said from behind. His body felt even bigger in the cramped space.
She grabbed for the nearest door and opened it.
“No, Scarlett.”
She barreled into the small space, which was pitch-dark, and smacked against something hard.
She let out a scream. The space was her worst nightmare. Small, dark, cramped. Like a tomb. A coffin.
She heard a slam and then, in a moment, strong arms closed around her. “I’ve got you,” Malcolm said into her ear. “You’re fine.”
“Let me go,” she said, but her voice sounded unconvincing, even to her own ears.
“I’ll do that when you stop shaking.”
Of course, she knew that he had held her in an even more intimate embrace, which made this one feel positively chaste by comparison.
“I am fine,” she croaked. “I merely abhor small spaces.”
“You should have told me. I wouldn’t have led us down here, for Christ’s sake. Come, let’s go.”
She realized that this space was so cramped that they could barely stand apart. It was filled, it appeared, once her eyes had adjusted, with various types of broken furniture.
He let out a heavy sigh into the dark.
“What?” she asked, his arm still around her.
“This door. Sometimes it sticks.”
He rattled it, but it was a heavy, old door. When he shook the handle, it didn’t budge.
“We’re trapped?”
“Someone will be down shortly. My brothers will know that Beatrice refers to the dungeon in her ridiculous hunt.”
“We’re trapped,” she repeated, unable to believe it.
“Don’t fret.”
“Don’t fret! Are you mad?” Scarlett cursed the day she ever set eyes on Parkhorne Hall.
Now she was going to die. In this tiny catacomb below the place. With him.
Then a horrible realization descended upon her.
“Is this the dungeon?”
“Er, no. That is the next door over. This is just a—closet.”
“So, no one is coming here specifically?”
“They will be coming to this corridor specifically. They will hear us. And good thing, too, because usually no one comes down here.”
“Dear God, what if you are wrong about the clue?”
“I am not. Beatrice can mean nothing else. I am surprised my brothers aren’t here already.”
Scarlett tried to breathe evenly, but she found it difficult. She truly might swoon.
“Oh, God.”
Strong arms steadied her again.
“I’ve got you. Here. Sit.”
He had managed somehow to pull out one of the less broken-looking chairs from the pile, but it quickly became clear that she would not be able to sit while he stood.
Her vision began to narrow. She placed her hand on the door to steady herself. Her knees had gone weak.
“Christ,” he swore, catching her. “Here.”
She found herself seated, then. She was on his lap. He had his arms around her.