is your married name? My apologies, I must have misread your card, madame.’
‘I’m not married. My name is also Stamppe.’
‘Yet your card says Cachet.’
‘Yes, because—oh dear, this is most awkward.’ Serena risked a fleeting glance up, caught her host’s sardonic expression, and looked quickly down again. Nicholas Lytton was smiling sceptically. In her lap, her fingers twined and intertwined, weaving a complex pattern of their own devising, which all too clearly betrayed her discomfort. She clasped them together and forced herself to meet Nicholas’s gaze properly. ‘Cachet means seal. My real name is Stamppe, though I did not find that out until my father informed me of it on his deathbed. He had a whimsical sense of humour.’
At this, Nicholas gave a twisted smile. ‘Amazing what facing mortality will do to a parent.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I sympathise, mademoiselle, that is all, having had a similar experience. It must have come as a surprise.’
‘A shock. Papa died very suddenly; he was the victim of a violent robbery. I find it difficult—I still find it hard to accept.’ She paused to dab her eyes with a handkerchief plucked from her reticule.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Nicholas said more sympathetically. ‘Do you have other family?’
‘No. No one. At least—no. Maman died when I was ten, and since then it has always been just me and Papa. Now it is just me.’
‘I find it hard to believe that someone so very lovely as you is wholly unencumbered. Are Frenchmen quite blind?’
‘Perhaps it is just that I am quite choosy, Mr Lytton. We seem to have strayed some way from the point.’
‘Ah, yes, the point. Your papers, which have lain unclaimed with my father for—how long?’
‘Over twenty years.’
‘And you have known about them all this time?’
Serena inspected her gloves. ‘No. Only since…’
‘Don’t tell me, Papa told you about them on his deathbed.’
She laughed nervously. ‘I know, it sounds like a fairy story.’
‘Exactly like one.’
‘I see you don’t believe me.’ And no wonder, she thought, rising to leave. She would just have to face the lawyer without her documents. ‘I won’t waste any more of your time.’
Though he did not doubt that her papers, if they ever existed, were lost, Nicholas was not ready to allow Serena to leave just yet. He was bored beyond measure and she was quite the most beautiful creature he had clapped eyes on in a long time. With her air of assurance and her cultured voice she could pass for quality, but he was not fooled. No gently bred young woman came calling on a single gentleman unaccompanied. Of a certainty, none allowed themselves to be diverted from their call into watching a mill. The more he saw of her, the more certain he became that her gratitude would be worth earning.
‘Don’t be so hasty, mademoiselle, give me a moment to reflect. Your father’s name—his real name—does sound familiar. Is there nothing else you can tell me that would help?’ He was simply teasing her, drawing out her visit in order to while away the time, so her reply surprised him.
‘The last rose of summer left blooming alone. I was to say those words so that your father would not doubt my identity.’ She smiled in reluctant response to Nicholas’s crack of laughter. ‘I know, it sounds even more like a fairy tale now.’
‘Perhaps it’s a clue,’ Nicholas said, pointing to the panelling. He meant it as a joke, having no faith at all in his visitor’s story, but Serena’s reaction gave him pause.
‘Of course,’ she said excitedly, clapping her hands together. ‘A hiding place. How clever of you to think of that.’
A long curl of hair the colour of ripe corn tangled with her lashes and lay charmingly on her cheek. Her vivid blue eyes sparkled like turquoise. She smiled at him quite without guile and he remembered the feel of her soft lips beneath his own. Delicious. She was really quite delicious and he was really very, very bored. ‘Of course,’ Nicholas agreed lightly, ‘a clue. Why not? This house is Tudor, after all, it’s absolutely strewn with roses. There are roses on the panelling in almost every room, to say nothing of the ones worked into the stone on the fireplaces, and even hidden away on some of the original furnishings. What’s more, when it was built the family were Catholic. We’ve priest holes, secret passages, concealed doors, the whole kit and caboodle. It could take weeks to search it thoroughly.’
‘Weeks!’
Chasing rainbows seasoned with a little light dalliance would pass the time most agreeably, he decided. He had planned to quit the Hall within the week for London or, depending on the news he was awaiting, the Continent. He could not bring himself to care which. Why not indulge the so-charming mademoiselle with some tapping on panels in the meantime? Such enforced intimacy was bound to bear fruit. Delicious, forbidden fruit. ‘Perhaps just days, if you have someone to help you—someone who knows where to look,’ he said with an innocent look.
‘You mean you,’ Serena said cautiously.
‘Yes, who better? Though you should know that you’d be keeping company with a murderer.’
She could see from the tightening of his mouth and the frown that brought his heavy black brows together that he was no longer teasing her, yet she could not take him seriously. ‘I hope you jest, Mr Lytton.’
‘No jest, I assure you, although I am not quite a murderer yet. I fought a duel two weeks ago. A stupid thing, but I was in my cups, and my opponent was so very insulting I could not resist the challenge.’
‘My papa was given to saying that it is better for gentlemen to fight it out fairly and in cold blood than to resort to what he called fisticuffs in the height of a quarrel.’
‘A man of sense. That is exactly what we did. My opponent is a poor swordsman, whereas I am attributed somewhat better than average. I pinked him, a mere warning cut, a perfect lunge that caught his shoulder and disarmed him at the same time. Harry Angelo, my fencing master, would have approved, but my opponent, I am sorry to say, was merely angered. I turned away, assuming all was over. He picked up his sword and lunged at me. I had no option but to fight back, and, in being caught unawares, caused him an injury that may yet prove fatal. So here I am, rusticating and awaiting the outcome, ready to flee to the Continent from the hands of the law should he avenge himself upon me by dying, for duelling is become illegal now, you know. And so you see why I am quite happy to put myself at your disposal.’
The glint in his eye made her uncomfortable, for she could not help wondering what he might want in return. ‘That is very kind, but I can’t help thinking it would be an imposition. And in any case, it wouldn’t be proper for me to spend time here alone with you.’
‘Proper! No, indeed, I was very much hoping that it would be quite the opposite.’
Startled by his bluntness, Serena got hastily to her feet, blushing wildly. ‘I fear my coming here unaccompanied has misled you as to my character.’
He
