‘But – ’
‘I shall send a message to the Rector to tell him that we misjudged your recovery and that taking you out for a drive this morning has made you feverish.’
‘You cannot lie on my behalf like that.’ Will sounded as though he was pronouncing from the pulpit.
‘It is no such thing,’ Perry said, passing cold ham to Laura. ‘You are clearly feverish to even consider it.’ He narrowed his eyes at the protesting curate. ‘In fact you are exceedingly flushed.’
‘He will just have to make the effort and take the services himself,’ Laura said with some satisfaction. Will still looked about to protest. ‘Agree, or I will ask Pitkin to remove all your nether garments and hide them.’
As Will was considerably thinner than any of the men in the household with the exception of the valet himself, that proved to be the deciding argument.
The afternoon felt like a complete anti-climax to Laura after the excitements and horrors of the morning. Perry wrote to the Rector, then immersed himself in long-overdue estate business. Theo spent an age shut away in the library writing his London letter and then retired behind a succession of the newspapers that had been piling up in Perry’s absence.
Will admitted that his back was hurting him and retired to bed. Pitkin could be found in the scullery labouring and lamenting over the clothes they had all worn in the crypt and the tunnel and Mrs Bishop, finding her kitchen invaded by Laura fidgeting about, remarked that if she was in want of occupation, there was a heap of sheets that needed minor repairs.
Hemming, darning and patching might result in a stiff back and pricked fingers but they were not particularly tiring tasks and left far too much time for thinking. And yearning. And reproaching herself for it. No-one seemed very talkative over dinner except for agreeing that the guard on the house should be kept up.
Laura looked in on Will who had taken his meal in bed, left Pitkin on first watch in the bedchamber and retired to her own room with the book that she had seen Theo return to the shelves earlier that day.
An hour later, wide awake and bolt upright in bed, Laura admitted that it had been a serious mistake to take it without looking carefully first. What she had at first thought would be a volume of charming Norfolk folk tales and legends turned out to consist of one gruesome or spine-tingling story after another. Her senses seemed unnaturally alert and she realised that she was listening intently. Around her the house was already still, except for the groans and creaks that she ought to be familiar with by now.
Something scratched at the window and she twisted sharply to stare at the thick curtains that obscured it, suddenly very aware that she was on the ground floor. The sound came again, like a fingernail running over the pane.
A twig against the glass, that is all it is. But the image of the bony yellow fingers of the dried-out corpse would not leave her now she had thought of it. Don’t be foolish. You do not believe in ghosts. You do not believe that the dead walk. And besides, he was a man of God, even if he was a criminal too. I should snuff out my candle and go to sleep.
The clock struck the quarter, making her jump. When it chimed the half hour she was still sitting there, book clutched on one hand, her gaze fixed on the curtains and their faintly swaying hems. Just a draught, that’s all it is.
When a noise like the rattle of dried bones being dropped sounded right outside she was out of bed and halfway across the room before she was conscious of moving. The doorknob slipped under her hand, then it opened and she was in the passageway between hall and kitchen.
The body she ran into was solid and warm and blissfully familiar. It was also unmistakeably, marvellously, alive. ‘Theo.’
‘What’s wrong?’ He wrapped both arms around her and hauled her against his chest, swinging her around away from her bedchamber door. ‘Is someone in your room?’
‘No. No, I am just being foolish. There was a sound like some… something scratching on the window glass and then a terrible rattle like a heap of falling bones and – ’
‘Sorry I was so long, my lord, but I dropped the whole bloody armful halfway back from the woodpile.’ Terence’s voice came closer. ‘Oh, I beg pardon, Miss Darke, I mean Mrs Albright. I didn’t see you. I mean, I haven’t seen you. Er…’
‘Thank you, Terence. Just put that wood in Mr Thwaite’s room and then go out again and check that there isn’t something scratching on Mrs Albright’s window, would you? That, and you dropping the wood, alarmed her.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Terence hurried past, eyes averted and Laura realised that she was clad only in her nightgown, her feet bare, her hair coming out of its plait.
‘Laura.’ The way Theo said it was a caress and she clung to him.
‘I was reading ghost stories, you see. I mean, I didn’t intend to, but I picked up the book and before I realised that it wasn’t just charming legends…’
‘Poor darling. And on top of a morning like we’ve had, that was more than enough to ruin your sleep,’ Theo said. He showed no sign of letting her go.
Darling? ‘If you could just put me down?’ she suggested, desperately reaching for the prosaic, the safe, response. ‘Only my feet are dangling in mid-air.’
‘Of course.’ Theo lowered her to the ground, adjusted his grip. ‘Laura – ’
‘Right you are, my lord. Fire’s banked up and the wood stacked. I’ll just go and check that window.’ Terence went past again, his gaze fixed firmly on the far corner of the kitchen.
‘Laura.’
He is going to kiss me. The temptation was simply melt into his arms, tip up her face and surrender to all that potent masculine desire was considerable. But where’s it going to end? He’s a viscount with the reputation of a rake and a strong desire to order everything to his liking. I’m just gentry, almost trade, and I want my independence. And he is spoken for. There is another woman, waiting for him. Wanting him. This is so wrong of me.
Theo desired her, she was not so innocent that she could not tell. If truth be told, it was hard to miss the fact, given that she was plastered against his body. But that meant he had only one thing in mind. Seduction. She was not going to be any man’s mistress, however desirable he was. If she escaped from this coil with her uncle and retrieved her money without causing a scandal and ruining her good name, then that would be a miracle. But if she achieved it, then she could be both independent and respectable.