Tempest(8)

Suddenly alert, Hermione pushed herself up against the peach damask pillows. “We must have a dinner party to make the announcement. Only think, my darling, soon you shall be Her Grace, Duchess of Sunderford! Isn’t it too wonderful for words?”

“It takes my breath away. In fact, I think I’ll go to my room and rest for a bit.” She stood, then turned back to add, “Mother, you will wait for Papa to return for the announcement party?”

“Word shall be sent to him immediately.” Hermione pulled the bell cord next to the bed. “I can scarcely wait to see the expressions on the faces of my friends when they hear the news. This is truly a coup! We’ll put Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding in the shade. Alva will be outdone once and for all.”

“Very exciting.” Catherine scurried to the door and was about to turn the handle when her mother’s voice stopped her.

“Until the betrothal is finalized, we’ll just continue our current arrangement, staying quietly at home.”

“Do you mean I still can’t go out? Or have visitors?” She tried to suppress a tide of panic. “Not even Elysia?”

“No.” Seeing the housekeeper, who had appeared in response to her mistress’s ring, Hermione shooed her daughter away. “Perhaps you ought to look after the duke.”

“He’s going to Wyoming to explore the Wild West.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least those plans provide us with an excuse to announce the engagement quickly. It isn’t altogether proper etiquette, but when one has a duke proposing, one mustn’t dawdle.”

Catherine was only too happy to return to her own rooms, but then she found herself at the window, staring out at the ocean while nibbling at a fingernail. Now what? She was a prisoner in the palace!

Just then the door opened and Isobel entered with a stack of thick towels. “Oh! Sorry to disturb you, miss. I didn’t think you’d be here.”

Turning, Catherine smiled reassurance, then stared at her from head to toe. “I never noticed before, but you and I are about the same size, aren’t we?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Are you aware that they have locked me in this house until my engagement is announced? I am not even allowed to see friends!”

“Are you really getting engaged to the duke?” The girl’s eyes were like saucers. “I don’t know if I think that’s a good idea!”

Catherine hurried to her side, beaming. “You are the one person I can trust because you truly want what’s best. No, I won’t marry the duke, but I can’t put my alternate plan into effect unless I get off the grounds of Beechcliff— just for tonight. Isobel, would you think I’d gone mad if I asked to dress up in one of your uniforms...?”





Chapter 6




As the clock on her mantel struck eleven, Catherine lay in bed, fully dressed, waiting. The huge house was quiet at last. She’d peeked into the corridor at intervals, watching to see the bars of light extinguished under doorways. The last one, from the duke’s room, had gone out a quarter hour ago. Had one of the servants been assigned to watch her? It would be horrible to be caught, but that was a risk she must take.

Slipping out from under her covers, Catherine stood in a beam of moonlight and donned an embroidered lawn apron over her dove-gray gown. Her heart was pounding. Isobel’s frilled mobcap nearly hid all of Catherine’s hair, and she liked the streamers that went down her back.

Reaching under her bedcovers, she arranged to pillows to resemble a sleeping person. This scheme was quite mad. It was the most rebellious thing she had ever done; more than mere folly. If her mother found her out, there would truly be hell to pay.

She carried her shoes and padded into the corridor, inching the door closed. Fortunately, there was a door leading to the maze of servants’ stairways just a few steps away and as she crept toward it, she felt safer already. Sheer nerves guided her down to the door leading into the kitchen garden. Outside, the moon was luminous and waves pounded the rocks below Beechcliff. Catherine donned her shoes and headed through the trees toward the grand brick stables. There were lights upstairs, where the coachman, grooms, and other stable help lived, and she could see silhouettes and hear laughter.

She smiled at the memory of her pleas to Isobel for help. The maid had been so fearful that they’d both be caught and punished that Catherine had been forced to get down on her knees and cling to the maid’s skirts in order to break down the last of her resistance. Finally, she’d agreed to everything: the uniform, the unlocked door, and even to opening the stable door to allow easy access to her bicycle.

There was a pathway through the trees that led right out to Bellevue Avenue, the thoroughfare that would take Catherine directly into the center of town. She had to hitch up her skirts to ride the bicycle, and it was hard going as she rolled bumpily westward, away from the sea. Once, a policeman stopped her and she explained that she was going to fetch a special nurse for her employer. Her brown eyes were so wide and earnest that he merely cautioned that a female had to be very careful at that hour of night.

The heart of Newport still consisted of a hodgepodge of eighteenth century buildings, homes, and shops, harkening back to the town’s golden age as a thriving seaport. Catherine received her share of curious glances as she guided the bicycle onto Touro Street, past Washington Square, and finally rolled to a stop at the intersection of Marlborough and Farewell Streets.

Rising up before her nearly at the edge of the sidewalk was the Whitehorse Tavern. The gambrel-roofed structure had welcomed travelers for more than two hundred years, and Catherine smiled to herself as she leaned her bicycle against a picket fence and walked through the pedimented doorway. As a little girl, she had loved to wander these streets with her brother, enjoying the games he invented about the Revolutionary War. Once they’d sneaked into the Whitehorse in search of a British spy...

“And what can I do for you, miss, at this late hour?” The rotund tavernkeeper strolled toward her, wiping his hands on a wine-stained apron. His expression was kind but concerned.

She smiled. “I’ve come from the Osseltrom home, on behalf of Mrs.Osseltrom herself. She’s sent me in search of a family friend, whom we believe to be one of your guests.”

“Ossel... trom?” he repeated with a furrowed brow.

“I can’t spare much time, sir. Please direct me to the room of the Viscount Raveneau. Is he in?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid that I can’t let you go up there, miss. It wouldn’t be seemly—”

“Sir, I am Mrs. Osseltrom’s personal lady’s maid, and I am here on her business. I have been instructed to deliver a private message to his lordship. Would you have both of them angry? I thought not. Kindly direct me.”

“All right then, but I don’t like it.”

Catherine made a point of flicking the streamers on her mobcap as she ascended the ancient staircase. She could feel his puzzled eyes on her, but then new patrons entered and the tavernkeeper was distracted.

Outside Adam Raveneau’s door, she paused, suddenly panicky. What she was doing flew in the face of all convention. Catherine squeezed her eyes closed, her heart pounding, and imagined herself in a marriage bed with Sunderford. That was enough to give her courage, and she knocked at the paneled door.

“Bloody hell, Byron, can’t you allow me five minutes’ peace?” shouted an all-too-familiar voice from inside the room. “I’ll never finish packing at this rate—”

The door flew open and she came face to face with a stormy Adam Raveneau. He wore only light trousers and a starched white shirt, open halfway down the front to afford a glimpse of a dark, muscular chest. His feet were bare and his black hair was tousled. Her heart began to pound in a rather different way. She gave him what she hoped was an engaging smile.

“You must be wondering what I am doing here at this hour.”

Adam could only stare in disbelief. Leaning out into the corridor, he checked for passersby then pulled her into the room and closed the door. “Wondering?” he repeated hoarsely. “Just because an elite Newport heiress appears at my door at nearly midnight— gotten up like a serving maid?”

“Lady’s maid,” she corrected. “I borrowed my own maid’s uniform, and I’m beginning to like it.” Spinning around, Catherine let the streamers work their magic, but Raveneau did not seem to be impressed. “I wish you wouldn’t think of me as an heiress. You know how burdened I feel by that nonsense.”

Alice the Labrador, who had been sleeping on a pillow near the fireplace, rose very slowly and tottered over to greet their visitor. Catherine crouched down to pet her. “Aren’t you sweet? If only you could talk, girl, you could tell me how many other ladies have visited your master late at night.”

He pulled her to her feet by her apron strings. “Are you drunk?”

“A little, but not the way you mean. It’s intoxicating to be out of Beechcliff, away from my mother, and to be pretending to be someone I’m not.” She wanted to add that he was the most intoxicating element of all, but his expression was too forbidding.

“How did you know where to find me?”