Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,37
best she could.
The river sounded much louder than usual. She paused at the centre of the bridge, looking at the dark swirling water in the circle of light from her lantern. It looked angry.
She hurried on, flinching at each clap of thunder, blinking against the flashes of lightning. No light shone from Inchbold’s cottage. Nor did she expect it, but it would have been nice to see his cheerful face. She soon had the back door open and stepped inside. The wind rattled the windows and shrieked down the chimney. She shivered. An empty house in a storm was a lonely place indeed.
Cellars first, or attic? The thought of the cellars made her shiver again. Then that was where she must start or she might avoid them altogether, although she really didn’t think her father would have kept important papers down there. She really had her hopes pinned on the attic.
She took a deep breath. Cellars first.
A low arched door led to the cellars from the kitchen. She’d never been down the stairs, but she’d known of their existence.
She lifted the latch and opened the door and gasped at the smell of mould and damp. A set of stone steps twisted downwards into darkness. Holding her lantern high with one hand and the wooden balustrade with the other, she marched boldly down the steps.
A narrow passageway led past a series of archways, some of them with doors that were open, some with no doors at all. The cellars were ancient and the ceilings low. As she peered into all the empty spaces a feeling of hopelessness filled her chest. A fool’s errand. She had to stop hoping, it was just too painful each time her hopes were dashed.
Footsteps. Loud. On the steps. She whirled around, her lantern casting dizzying shadows. Another lantern twinkled at the far end near the stairs. Her stomach did a belly flop. ‘Who is it?’
‘Find anything?’ a cool mocking voice asked.
‘Stanford,’ she gasped over the sound of her pounding heart. ‘You scared me. What are you doing here?’
‘Thought you’d give me the slip, did you?’ He had to bend his neck to prevent hitting his head on the arching ceiling.
She bit her lip. ‘Yes.’
His laugh echoed off the walls. ‘Well, I have bad news for you.’
‘You found me.’
‘That’s not the worst of it. The bridge is out.’
She stared at him, then, as he lowered his lantern, she saw that he was soaked to the waist and dripping water in a puddle all round him.
‘Oh, no. You fell in the river. You could have drowned.’
‘Wouldn’t that have solved your problems?’
‘Hardly. What sort of person would wish another drowned? Why did you follow me? I told you I was done here.’
He stared at her silently for a moment. ‘And like a fool I believed you.’
He sounded a little bitter. She recalled his opinion of women as liars with an odd sinking feeling that she’d proved him right in her case, too. ‘Oh.’
‘It’s a good thing I saw you from the library window, or you might have found yourself in the river on the way home.’
He was right, dash it. ‘Then I must be glad you are here.’ She did feel glad. Far happier than she had a moment ago. Because even though she’d found nothing in the cellar, the feeling of despair had receded, as if the light of his lantern had driven it back.
‘Did you find anything?’
‘There is nothing down here but some empty barrels, dust and a heap of coal.
He walked past her down the passageway, peering in the empty cellars much as she had. ‘Not much of a cellar.’
‘I think they were built for the original house. It burned down in the seventeenth century.’
He turned and came back to her. ‘You know a lot about this house.’ He sounded suspicious again.
She shrugged. ‘I told you. I lived here. You learn things about a house when you live in it.’
‘I suppose you do. Are you done down here?’
She sighed. ‘Yes. I can’t imagine anyone keeping anything of value down here. It is too damp.’
‘And cold,’ he said with a shiver.
‘Perhaps we should light a fire and get you dry?’
His eyes widened. ‘Why, Mrs Travenor, are you asking me to remove my clothes?’
Heat enveloped her. ‘Of c-course n-not,’ she stuttered.
‘Then you are thinking of parking me beside a nice warm fire while you go off and search on your own. I don’t think so.’
Horrid suspicious man. Dash it, let him think what he liked. ‘Suit yourself. But