Read Online The Marquess by Patricia Rice - Free Book Online Page A

behind him.
What in hell?
    He raced back the way he had just come, but he could find no
source for the noise. He stared at the wall from which it emanated. The creak
of ropes and pulley came from over his head now. The dumbwaiter, damn the
little witch!
    Taking to his heels, he raced up the servants’ stairs.
He thought he knew this house inside and out, but he’d spent little time
in the servants’ quarters. He didn’t know how she’d found the
dumbwaiter, but he knew what one was and where it would go. This time, she
couldn’t escape.
    The servants’ stairs led to the main block of the old
portion of the house. A maze of corridors led behind the walls of the salons
and public rooms in this section. Ingeniously hidden doors opened into all the
main rooms so the servants might come and go without guests seeing them in the
public hall. Gavin knew exactly which door opened into the huge, drafty formal
dining chamber.
    He burst through and nearly fell over a broken chair laying
in front of the never-used door. Even his cousin-in-law, the antique dealer, had
given up any hope of selling the enormous furniture in here. Carved pediments
representing dozens of Greek gods supported a massive table long enough to seat
a starving army. From the scars in the old wood, a starving army must have
dined off it without benefit of plates. Then they’d had a free-for-all
with the heavily carved, hideously uncomfortable chairs. Gavin stumbled over
another one on his way around the room, searching for the door leading to the
dumbwaiter.
    There had to be one. Food would have arrived icy cold if
maids had carried it up the way he had just come. And he knew the sound of
ropes and pulleys when he heard it.
    He heard the sound now. Going down.
    Damn! He didn’t have a hope of getting back
down there before her. He’d had little enough hope of reaching here in
time. He’d just thought he could see which direction she took. She must
have waited somewhere in between the floors to see where he went, then gone the
opposite way.
    Gavin didn’t know why he bothered, but he slipped back
down the stairs again. He didn’t even know why he assumed the ghostly
intruder was a she. From what little he had seen in the darkness, the
apparition wore breeches. Idly, he wondered if Lady Blanche had a younger
brother, but he couldn’t remember mention of one.
    To his surprise, he discovered his blood running with
anticipation as he avoided the main corridor to the kitchen and took a back one
he’d learned in his days of exploration. He thought it most likely years
since he’d felt this kind of excitement. The only thing he could remember
running close to it in recent memory was receiving the letter saying he’d
inherited this estate. That excitement had worn off quickly once he’d
figured out that an estate which couldn’t send him the fare to England
couldn’t be much of an estate.
    He’d probably find disappointment at the end of this
adventure, too, but for the moment, he enjoyed the chase. Lurking in this great
hulk of a palace bordered on tedious most of the time. He found some
satisfaction in squeezing profit out of every little asset he possessed, but
despite his circumstance, money had never been his driving force. He
didn’t have a driving force anymore.
    That said volumes about his life, he supposed, but he set
his lips in gratification as he saw candlelight dancing beneath the kitchen
door. He had counted on his ghost’s penchant for good food.
    With quiet care, Gavin locked the back stairwell door. Then,
following the corridor to the front of the house in his stocking feet, he
waited at the only other route to the upper floor.
    Perhaps one of these days he’d brave the stares of the
villagers and go in to be fitted for shoes, but in the meantime, saving his
boots for outdoor wear made sneaking around easier. If his resident “ghost”
tried the dumbwaiter trick again, he’d hear her. He thought her a little
too clever to use the same