she cannoned into him.
‘No,’ she murmured and gave him a push towards the stairs to let him know there was no point arguing.
‘Exasperating woman,’ he mumbled under his breath. She glared when he half turned to glower at her and bade him watch his step. ‘Keep quiet then and don’t give us away,’ he told her softly and they went up the stairs while she was trying to think up something pithy enough to demolish his arrogant certainty he was in command.
Tight lipped, she did her best to tread as stealthily as he did, but that was impossible. She managed to avoid the stair that creaked after he did the same without seeming to think about it. He must have explored the house with this sort of stealthy pursuit in mind. It looked as if the dangerous adventures Lady Virginia hinted at when she visited were very real and not a cunning scheme to soften her heart as she thought at the time. She was glad she hadn’t known what he was really up to at the time and terrified he knew too much about the darker side of life to be her idealistic and loving Gideon again. Now where had that come from? She didn’t want this man to be anything of the sort to her again, did she?
Never mind that now, they were on the half-landing and heading for the attic stairs. That seemed so absurd she stopped wondering how she felt and kept as close as she could to him. Her world felt right and safe when she was near him and that should worry her. The door opened without a sound and why were the hinges so well-oiled when these rooms were full of lumber? The maids slept on the other side of the house and the stableman lived over the stables, so what had once been the male farm-servants’ quarters were now empty.
Why was Gideon creeping towards a lot of dusty rubbish as if on the track of lost state secrets? Callie noted footprints in the dust on the twisting staircase and held her breath for a moment, then shook her head in disbelief. There was nothing much up here and it was already uncomfortably hot. His tension still made her listen for the slightest noise and she recalled a few Gothic touches in her own novel then wished she hadn’t. It was absurd to let her imagination run riot, but she felt a flutter of superstitious fear before she told herself sternly this was no time for spectral visitations. They were a few steps up the twisting stairway when Gideon waved his hand to stop and she forgot imagined horrors for real life.
Frozen in her tracks, she was cross with herself for obeying orders like a soldier on parade. From the soft murmurs ahead it sounded as if there were two people in the little storeroom furthest from the stairs. Impatient at him for being a step closer to danger than he was prepared to let her go, she pushed the small of his back to urge him on. He resisted, as if he had to stand between her and hurt like a wall. He must have felt her impatience with such overprotective nonsense, because he reluctantly went up a step so she could hear, as well. First there was her aunt’s voice saying something impatient and a lighter voice in reply. Why was Kitty arguing with her aunt here when they could do it downstairs in comfort? It didn’t sound as if they were discussing using the rolls of dimity and calico stored here to make new gowns and aprons for the maids. Her aunt economised on them until threadbare, but surely that wasn’t an important enough to linger over in a stuffy attic on a day like today.
‘You are impudent,’ her aunt raised her voice to say regally, as if trying to overawe Kitty with her importance as head of a school and Kitty’s employer. ‘Nobody will believe a vagrant maid over a lady of means and standing in the neighbourhood.’
‘They won’t have to. I’ll have my money and keep my place till it suits me to leave. You won’t want me to tell the constables what I know, will you, Mrs Bartle?’
‘I changed my name to avoid being known as the widow of a depraved fool. That will earn me more sympathy than censure.’
‘You can say you’re the queen of the fairies if you want to. It’s what you did to him that’ll make them prick up their ears. I can read, you see? I wonder you never bothered to find out I was hired to keep an old woman out of mischief in my last place. She taught me to use my talents, then I learnt how stupid it was to trust anyone when she turned on me.’
‘I expect she saw you for the cunning little ferret you really are.’
‘I’d be careful what you say, Mrs Bartle. When the world knows what you did to keep your niece here and her husband’s money flowing into your pockets, nobody will believe you. Such a sweet story for the scandal sheets, I dare say I’ll make a fortune if you’re too stupid to pay up.’
Now Callie knew why Gideon warned her to stay silent. Kitty’s words seemed to echo like a clap of thunder and fell into her mind so surely she knew they were true. She managed to stifle a gasp of horror, but her senses were intent as Gideon’s as she realised everything she and her aunt had built here was a sham. With him here—the real Gideon next to her—the truth of him somehow cancelled out her aunt’s lies.
How had she believed every word Aunt Seraphina said against him until yesterday? Was he right; did part of her want to believe him guilty? Maybe it had been easier to blame their ills on her husband, but didn’t that make her a coward as well as a fool? She had hardened her heart against him and believed her aunt must love her because she was there after everyone else fell away. Every artlessly accidental comment about her appearance, Aunt Seraphina’s clever slights and well-placed reminders of all Callie had lost at the hands of a careless husband kept her locked down and hurting, but she hadn’t seen the truth because it was easier not to.
‘No one will believe you,’ Aunt Seraphina was sneering and how hadn’t Callie seen through her until today?
‘The stableman is coming to take this lumber down so the boxes are empty for my niece’s luggage and he certainly can’t read, so it will all be ashes in a few minutes.’
‘No, they stay here and I keep the keys.’
‘You couldn’t stop a fly doing what it wanted, let alone me, now could you? A fall down those awkward stairs will remind you who is mistress here and who is the servant.’
If Kitty didn’t have the sense to shiver at the casual malice behind that question Callie did it for her. ‘If aught happens to me, the landlord of the Crown in Manydown has a letter saying who to look for. Do you want him and half the county on to you for attempted murder?’ the girl said boldly and she was evidently a more subtle opponent than Aunt Seraphina thought.
‘So that’s where you’ve been sneaking off to. I should never have let my niece persuade me to give a trollop like you a chance when your last employer turned you off for chasing her sons. She never mentioned blackmail, though, curse her for a soft fool when you should clearly be in the local bridewell.’
‘We’re both bad, but you could’ve been better if you wanted. As for that milksop I worked for, I knew far too much about her spindle-shanked sons for her to risk it and they weren’t worth it, anyway. Miss Sommers is a better woman than either of us and took me in despite that woman’s spiteful tales, but you betrayed her long before I got here, didn’t you? So who will the world judge the worst rogue of us two, Madam Bartle?’
‘You spied on her for me, despite owing her a roof over your head, and blackmail is a serious crime. If you survive the little accident you’re about to have, you will regret relying on that weak sot from the Crown for aught but a roll in the hay, you know that, don’t you?’
‘He has me to put steel in him, Mrs Bartle, and I have this,’ the little maid said triumphantly and Callie heard her aunt gasp. ‘An account written by your husband of times he was ill after he ate with you and accidents he had on his way out to get drunk and not coming back as you claimed. He even knew a man you paid to murder him. They had a fine spree with the money, then you decided to do the job yourself and he went in
