At breakfast – which Louisa and Harry again took in the private parlor of the Speckled Goose Inn – Harry ate heartily, but Louisa had little appetite.
"Has my special elixir helped your head?" he asked softly.
She nodded. "The head's better. Would that I could say the same for the rest of me. Why did you allow me to drink so much, my lord?"
"I am not your master, Louisa."
She could have sworn he said those words with regret. The effects of the wine must be lingering, clouding her thinking.
When the innkeeper's wife brought another pot of hot tea, Harry questioned her. "I say, my wife and I are trying to decide if Lord Tremaine is the same man we once met in London. Tall, distinguished looking with a beard."
"That sounds like him," the woman said. "Only saw him once meself. At St. Stephen's Church the day they dedicated the new windows. Lord Tremaine paid for them himself. 'Twas the only time I know that he set foot in the church. The family pew sits empty as you please at the front of the church Sunday after Sunday."
Harry gave her a shilling and lavish compliments over the comfort of their room.
Louisa could barely contain her excitement until the woman left the parlor. "Oh, Harry! Lord Tremaine has to be our man."
He nodded solemnly. "A good thing today is Public Day at the castle."
* * *
Since the weather was fair, they decided to walk to the castle, which perched on a cliff above the village of Falwell.
"I understand it dates to the twelfth century," Harry remarked as Louisa gazed up at the stone fortress.
A mighty fortress it must have been, guarding much of the Cornish coast through the Middle Ages. Its battlements had eroded over the centuries but were still plainly visible even from a half mile away. Bulky round turrets anchored each corner of the square castle grounds.
As Harry and Louisa wound their way through the cobbled streets of Falwell, Harry found himself wondering if there was a moat around the castle. Moats and castles had fascinated him as a youngster. He had more than once lamented that Cartmoor Hall was not a castle.
The sun was high in the sky when they strolled up to the gate to Gorwick Castle, which did have a moat that appeared to have dried up centuries earlier.
They weren't sure where to go once they were within the castle walls. Then they saw an old aproned woman with a throng of girls around her.
"Must be a school trip," Harry muttered.
They walked across the yard and stood waiting with the group of girls, whom Harry judged to be somewhere between ten and twelve years of age.
They only had to wait a few moments before the housekeeper opened the huge timber door and welcomed them into the castle, gratefully accepting their shillings.
She led them to the great hall first and gave accounts of the days when oxen were roasted in the massive fireplace. Despite his childhood fascination with castles, Harry found snippets about the inside of the castle exceedingly dull. When would they get to the interesting things like armor and buttresses?
He was rather amazed at Louisa's interest in the building, but he supposed women liked that sort of thing. He was a bit embarrassed at being the only man in the group.
Partly out of boredom, partly because he had not forgotten their reason for coming, he was careful to glance down every hallway and into every room, looking for signs of the lord of the castle.
Nearly an hour elapsed, and no luck yet. If only there were a painting of Lord Tremaine. That should be enough for Louisa to make her identification.
When they made their way to the second storey, his interest perked. Surely this was the floor where Tremaine resided. Harry continued to eagerly look down each hall and into each room, even if they were not on the tour. He sincerely hoped the housekeeper did not think he was scoping out the place with an eye to burglarizing it.
Then he realized the foolishness of his idea. The place practically crawled with big, bulky liveried servants. Why would a man need to keep so many strong men in his employ?
At eleven o'clock in the morning, it was far enough removed from mealtime to give the housekeeper liberty to show the group the castle's massive dining room.
"The table seats sixty," she said with pride as she led her group into the rose-coloured room. She reminded Harry of a mother duck leading the way for a trail of ducklings. The room was carpeted, and the smooth walls had been covered with silk damask. Everything was the same soft shade of red. The housekeeper had called it rose. He called it red. Mindful to stand behind the girls so as not to obstruct their view when the housekeeper began her recitation, Harry strolled into the room and stood behind the students.
Harry's glance swung to a portrait that hung above the marble fireplace, and a chill sliced into him. His heart began to drum, and he swallowed hard. He almost questioned his sanity. Was he actually standing in Gorwick Castle, or was he standing in the dining room of Wycliff House in Grosvenor Square a decade earlier?
For the portrait was the missing portrait of his mother.
This image on canvas was the closest thing he had of his beloved mother. Tears pricked as he studied the full-length painting. No woman had ever been more elegant. From her softly powdered hair piled high over her oval face to the pale pink of the gown that draped loosely over the smooth curves of her slender body, she conveyed femininity. A lump balled in his throat as he eyed the Wycliff sapphire adorning her delicate finger.
His eye was once again drawn to her beautiful face. For a fleeting, heart-stopping moment he felt as if those pale blue eyes were studying him. He could almost hear his mother's honeyed voice. His gaze shifted to her mouth. Though she'd attempted a serious expression, Gainsborough had skillfully captured a hint of the playfulness of her smile.
Louisa guessed that something was wrong with him. She moved to his side and lay a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you unwell, Harry?"
He shook his head. "The bloody bastard has stolen my mother's portrait."
Louisa gasped, her glance shooting to the painting that dominated the room. "She's. . .beautiful."
* * *
That afternoon and evening, Harry drank with a vengeance. So much that Louisa worried about him.
She watched him as he sat beside her on the upholstered bench not five feet from the blazing hearth that lighted their parlor. His face took on a gold cast from the light of the fire. His brow was moist with perspiration, and his dark hair was tousled.
"It was almost like seeing her again," Harry said.
He wasn't really carrying on a conversation with her, Louisa knew. He was merely thinking aloud.
Louisa's voice was soothing when she said, "You were very close to your mother."
"Everyone who knew her counted her a friend. She had that way about her. Everyone loved her."
"With such a disposition as well as beauty, I think she must have had an army of suitors – before she married your father, of course."
"Her suitors all came before my father. You can be assured once she wed him, she never looked at another man. She was completely devoted to him." His tone sobered. "You know she died but one month after my father died."
Louisa nodded sympathetically as he continued.
"She defended him when I berated him for losing everything. At the time I thought perhaps she would have been better off wedding the first man she had been engaged to."
Louisa's brows lowered.
Harry gave a little chuckle. "She actually ran off with my father. She had become engaged to a wealthy suitor – she called him George – but had not really been in love with him. Then she met my father and knew she belonged with him, not George."
Louisa asked, "Is there a possibility Lord Tremaine could be George?"
He shook his head. "They would have referred to him as Lord Tremaine."
"Perhaps he had not succeeded to the title until after your parents were married."
He thought on Louisa's comment for a moment, then hurled his glass into the fire.
The fire surged and sputtered, then died down to normal.
Harry turned to her. "You must be right."
They sat there in silence, Louisa watching light from the fire dance along the strong planes of his face.
His face grew solemn. "Killing him would give me great pleasure."
She curled her hand around his arm. "Don't talk like that. There are other ways of reaping vengeance upon him."
"Such as?"
"You could expose him for ruining your father."
"My dear Louisa, there are no laws against taking a man's money and possessions at a gentleman's club."
She thought some more. "We can steal back your mother's portrait."
He searched her face from beneath hooded brows. "You would do that for me?"
"It wouldn't really be stealing. The painting belongs to you. Besides, he is a vile man. We don't want Lady Wycliff's portrait in his possession."
He lifted both of Louisa's hands and kissed them.
It was all she could do not to throw her arms about his neck.
She was drinking nothing stronger than warm milk tonight. No more morning-after headaches for her. She watched with worry as Harry continued to drink hour after hour. At midnight she finally persuaded him to come to bed. With one arm around him, she helped him climb the stairs to their room.
On his own, he staggered the short distance from the room's door to their bed and fell upon it. His eyes were shut and his breathing was deep but steady.
Louisa closed the door and walked to the bed where she pulled off his boots, then placed a single blanket over him.
A moment later, wearing her woolen night shift, she slid under the covers beside Harry. As she lay there, a feeling of comfort swept over her. Why couldn't she have been pledged to a man like Harry? How different her life would have been.
Her hand possessively stroked over Harry's rock-hard shoulders. She could see herself happily lying beside him for the rest of her nights, but such thoughts – such torturing pleasure – must not be invited. For Harry Blassingame, the Earl of Wycliff, was as far removed from her touch as the stars in the heavens.
With the Cornish winds howling outside their casement, the smell of salt air flooding their chamber from the half-open window, and the warmth of Harry beside her, she fell into a contented sleep.
* * *
It was Louisa who brought tea and elixir to Harry the next morning. Harry was in the same position he had been in when he sprawled on the bed the night before.
"Can you not close the curtain?" he asked, refusing to lift his head from the bed. "The blasted sun's far too strong."
"As well it should be," Louisa answered. "It is almost noon."
"Our daylight grows short," he exclaimed, moving to sit up and force down the elixir Louisa offered. Then he laughed at himself. "I was thinking we were still on the road to finding our mysterious lord." He finished drinking and sat the glass on the table beside the bed. "Now, there's no longer a need to make tracks during daylight."
Louisa stood beside the bed and looked down at him. "Now, I think, we will need night, rather than day, to accomplish our mission."
He looked puzzled. "What mission would that be?"
"We're going to reclaim your mother's portrait."
His lips curved into a smile. "You are a positive vixen."
She laughed. "That's what all you aristocrats say about me."
He made room for her to come and sit beside him on the bed while he finished his tea.
It felt perfectly natural for her to be sitting here with a barefooted lord, on a bed, in the village of Falwell, carrying on a conversation about stealing a painting. Everything she did with Harry seemed perfectly natural. As if they were meant to be together. Which, of course, could never really be. Harry was an aristocrat, and she was a bluestocking, and the two did not get on. Add to that the fact Harry didn't really like her. He had made that perfectly clear when he had recovered from his grave illness.
"How would you propose to gain entrance into the castle at night? I expect the drawbridge will be up."
She bit at her lip. "I hadn't actually thought of that."
He looked down at his feet. "Pray, where are my boots?"
"At the foot of the bed."
"And who, may I ask, took them off?"
"I did."
He looked down at her with a devilish glint in his eyes. "Why did you not remove the rest of my garments while you were at it?"
"I had no desire to see you without clothes, my lord."
A cockiness swept across his face. "I don't believe you."
"Shall we continue our discussion on how we are to gain entrance to Gorwick Castle if the drawbridge is drawn at night?" she asked, standing up and walking to the window, then turning back to face him. "I have determined the reclaiming must take place at night because of the immense size of the portrait. We could hardly escape detection in the light of day."
"That's true," he said, nodding. "Yet I believe we shall have to devise a way to get into the castle during the day and wait until after the Tremaine fiend has taken dinner, then we'll – I mean I – will have to, ah, reclaim the portrait."
"Why did you amend your statement, my lord?"
"I can't possibly let you be a party to the reclamation."
"Why, pray tell?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing, her voice hard.
"Because you're a female and because it may be dangerous."
She would see about that! "Tell me, my lord, how do you propose to get in? Public Day won't come again until next Thursday."
"I shall have to think on it."