Guy took it and began to read while Hester delved deeper. ‘Accounts for building the Moon House dated 1760, a journal for…’ she squinted at the faded writing in the poor light ‘…July 31, 1764. I have never felt the need to write before but now, now all my happiness and hope of support has-I cannot read this word, gone, I think-I will set it down, for to whom can I… possibly this is confide…yes, it is. Darling Allegra… No, the rest of the pages are water-stained and mildewed.’
Hester glanced at Guy, but his face was set hard and unreadable and she sensed he had erected a wall to guard his emotions. She could not ask questions, not here. Turning away, she began to dig under what seemed to be loose sheets of accounts, a page of music and reached the bottom of the box.
‘There is nothing more. No, wait.’ Her fingers touched a chain and; pulling it, revealed a locket. It flicked open under the pressure of a fingernail and there, smiling up in the flickering light of the lantern, was the blonde lady from the slashed portrait on one side and on the other a small child, hardly two, all unformed chubby cheeks, a mop of blonde curls and eyes of blue which blazed from the tiny portrait as intensely as those of the man who lifted it slowly from Hester’s lax fingers.
‘This goes with me.’ His voice was still a whisper, but Hester’s breath caught at the emotion in those few husky words.
‘What about the letter?’
‘That can go back. It is no wonder they thought there was something of great worth within the walls of the Moon House. It is full of references to treasure, something valued, precious, to be kept safe and protected.’
Hester reached out and took the paper from his hand, letting her own fingertips brush across his in a silent caress. ‘Do you know it all now?’ she whispered and received a nod in return.
A twist of the picklocks and the box was shut. Hester pushed it back carefully until it fitted its old mark on the carpet, then helped Guy position the chaise so it too fitted into the dents its feet had left. She held the lantern barely open while he retrieved the cushions, then let herself be swung down into the flowerbed while he followed her, closing the window soundlessly behind.
It seemed they were safe.
Guy clenched his teeth firmly shut and drew along, steadying breath of freezing air in through his nose. His head was spinning with tension, concentration, fury with Hester and churning emotion over the discoveries in that box.
First things first, he told himself, keeping one hand firmly on Hester’s shoulder and guiding her towards the low wall. ‘Go along the wall.’
‘I know,’ she snapped back, low voiced. ‘How do you think I got here?’
‘By broomstick,’ Guy muttered and was almost caught off balance as she swung round furiously to face him.
‘That was unkind, unjustified-’
‘Look out!’ Guy seized Hester as she swayed on the wall and the terrace was suddenly lit by a flood of light from the central room facing on to it. This was more than one candle: someone had lit every light in the room and then thrown the curtains back.
Caught like an actor in the stage lights Guy froze, Hester clasped in his arms, and looked at the scene within. Lewis was standing with his back to the window, having obviously just flung back the curtains, his sister, untying the ribbons of her bonnet, was walking towards him. At any moment they would look out on to the terrace and see the figures on the wall, petrified like two statues.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Run!’ he urged and Hester did, straight as an arrow, surefooted on the narrow wall, unhesitating until she got to the end where she caught hold of a branch and swung herself quietly down on to the betraying gravel. Despite his anger with her Guy felt a wave of pride wash through him. Foolish and stubborn she might be, but Hester had courage and quick wits, which filled him with admiration.
Not, he thought grimly as he took her arm and marched her unceremoniously around the house and down the drive, not that l am going to hesitate for one moment in turning her over my knee and tanning her backside just as soon as we are somewhere safe.
To be afraid on his own behalf had not occurred to him; one assessed the risks, took precautions, had a strategy for escape if necessary. But to find the woman he loved careering around in the darkness, plunging herself into danger in a house occupied by people whom she knew to wish her no good-that had shaken him.
And Guy Westrope was not accustomed to being shaken, decidedly unused to people flouting his wishes and, most of all, a complete stranger to having his mind and will taken over by a brown-haired chit of a girl with golden flecks in her eyes.
They turned out on to the road and he unshuttered the ‘glim’, as Stuttle, the third footman, called it. The small crowbar-or ‘bess’, according to Stuttle-was wedged uncomfortably in the waistband of his trousers. It had proved extremely effective; Guy resolved to slip the man a half- sovereign. Besides rewarding him for his assistance, it would do no harm to keep him loyal. Men with Stuttle’s skills were better on the inside than on the outside with a ‘bess’ in their hands.
The grim smile this thought provoked must have lingered on his lips, for as soon as they reached the barn and Hester tugged her arm free of his grip, she demanded, ‘And what is so amusing?’
‘Nothing whatsoever.’ Guy checked on his hunter, who was nose to nose with Hector, then set the lantern down on a ledge. ‘There is no humour whatsoever in a well-bred young lady galloping around the countryside, unconvincingly dressed as a boy and attempting breaking and entering.’
‘I more than attempted it, I succeeded,’ Hester snapped back, a not-unattractive flush colouring her cheeks. ‘And the breeches are simply because I needed to be able to ride easily, I was not attempting to convince anyone I was a boy.’
‘Well, that’s a mercy,’ Guy drawled, allowing his gaze to wander from the feminine curves filling Jethro’s breeches to the angry thrust of her bosom. God, how he longed to push her down on to that heap of hay, kiss that angry mouth with its full lower lip, caress those long, shapely, provocatively displayed limbs.
‘Why you… you rake!’ Hester took an impetuous step forward, hand raised. ‘How dare you ogle me like that?’
‘I am merely…Hester, what have you done to your hands?’ He caught her wrists, turning her hands palm up and pulling her towards the lantern, lust and anger turned instantly to concern. The cuffs of her shirt had blood and dirt on them, the gloves were shredded and grazed, cut skin showed through the tears. ‘Hester.’ Words would not come.
Somehow, through all the mysteries and alarms at the Moon House, he had managed to keep his apprehension for her within bounds, to be rational about it, to assess the dangers and put what precautions he could in place without giving way to his instincts to simply march in, drag her out to a carriage and drive her away somewhere safe.
But these ugly grazes on her soft skin, the way she had ignored what he knew must be painful while he had dragged her out of the house and down the drive, made his heart stop. ‘Hester,’ he said again, gently turning back the cuffs of the gloves and drawing them off her hands. ‘Oh, my poor darling.’ He lifted them, one by one, and kissed the inside of her wrists, clear of the grazes. Under his lips her pulse fluttered beneath the blue-veined skin.