6

“Jack, you won’t believe what I discovered.”

“So tell me, Marcus.” Jack held the telephone as he sat on the edge of his desk. Since returning from the morning’s ride with Grace Mabry, he’d been reproaching himself over his clumsy interrogation. Like a novice, he’d drummed her with so many questions that even the most innocent person might become suspicious. He’d been trained by the best at MI5, and it unnerved him to think he’d lost his edge.

“Patrick Mabry bribed a clerk in the WFC to place his daughter at Roxwood,” Marcus said. “It seems your hunch was well-founded. She’s obviously there to obtain information for her father. Whether Mabry believes you still have proof against him is debatable. Ordinarily you would already have brought it forward—”

“Except for the fact I’m blind, you mean?” Jack said. “Does he think I perhaps misplaced his letter and now I cannot find it?”

“I think if he knows you were on the Acionna when it went down, you might have something on him,” Marcus countered.

Jack said nothing. Hearing Marcus corroborate his suspicions about Grace Mabry didn’t offer the anticipated reaction. Instead of crowing with vindication, he felt disappointment. He rather enjoyed his sparring match with her today. She’d made her annoyance to his questioning quite clear, her responses seeming impulsive and unrehearsed. Despite her father’s bribe to get her here, she certainly didn’t fit the profile of a spy infiltrating her target and gaining his trust.

“Jack, my schedule’s a bear right now with the spy Mata Hari’s upcoming trial, but I can come out after the weekend—”

“No,” Jack cut in swiftly. “I need more time with her.” He relayed to his friend their employment agreement. “Miss Mabry will tell me what I wish to know.”

“Yes, but in light of this new information, I need to come out and meet with her.”

“Your presence will only make my fact-finding more difficult,” Jack insisted. “She’ll become suspicious and the opportunity will be lost. We need information, Marcus, and I feel she can provide it. Right now there’s no direct evidence with which to indict Patrick Mabry. We need to prove his involvement with James Heeren and the spy ring MI5’s been after. I can get names from her, other agents her father’s worked with.”

“I don’t know, Jack. The Admiralty is keen to investigate any suspicious activity. There have been recent developments. If Mabry or his family is involved—”

“She’s not going anywhere, Lieutenant.” Jack’s tone hardened. “I’ve put my entire staff in charge of keeping track of Miss Mabry’s whereabouts. When she’s not with me, she’ll be working with the WFC.” He paused. “I need this, Marcus. I’m the one who’s had so much at stake. Please,” he said in a low voice, “let me be useful.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Finally his friend said, “You’ve got a week. Then I’m coming out.”

“Thanks.” Jack’s shoulders eased. “Anything in particular I should ask her?” He hoped to discover what “recent developments” his friend spoke of.

“No, it can wait, old boy. Just keep me informed.”

Once Marcus rang off, Jack returned to sit behind his desk. The Admiralty had information they wanted kept hush-hush. Secrets his friend wouldn’t risk talking about over the telephone. And likely it involved Grace Mabry’s presence at Roxwood.

Jack thought back to their outing. Despite his inept interview, he’d manage to learn a bit more about her. Red hair and green eyes . . .

Miss Mabry’s description had brought to his mind another image—the mystery woman whose delicate lines and features had been committed to memory, his goddess in green. Pandora . . .

She was beautiful, her thick auburn curls held captive in green satin bands, her eyes gleaming like emeralds. Her lithe body, swathed in a gauzy Grecian-styled gown, had walked gracefully toward him, the fullness of her lower lip curved upward as she’d offered him her hand for his kiss. Reaching into his vest pocket, Jack withdrew the white feather that had somehow survived the explosion and gently brushed his thumb along its silken softness. He’d never learned her name, but during his weeks in hospital and the ensuing months of darkness, the vision of her had stayed with him, keeping the night at bay, along with the panic he often felt at never being able to see again.

If only he had stayed by her side that night.

Jack pushed himself up from the desk. Wishful thinking couldn’t alter the past. He had only the present, and right now he thirsted for justice. His friend had just given him the chance to seek it out.

Excitement coursed through him as Jack returned upstairs to his room. He was back in the game. Already he anticipated his next encounter with Grace Mabry. Ringing for his valet, he mentally prepared the questions he would ask the following day.

He had a week to get his answers. And Jack would get them.

The butler answered Grace’s summons with the same sour look the following morning. Perhaps it was permanently etched into the craggy features. Determined to be sunny, she made an effort to smile. “Good morning, Knowles.”

“His lordship will be with you presently, miss.”

“Thank you.” She tugged at her gloves. “I’ll wait in the car.”

Grace remembered to open the passenger door before she moved back around the car and got in. She’d also left the Daimler’s top intact. Lord Roxwood would have no reason today for curmudgeonly behavior.

She gazed up wistfully at the clear July sky. With summer in full force and haymaking to begin on Monday, Grace had hoped to join in with the camaraderie of her co-workers, instead of playing driver to a man whose inconsideration stretched the limits of her patience.

He appeared outside the front door. Again wearing his ugly mask, he was clad in a suit of summer linen and wore a brown felt motoring cap. With her initial fear of him gone, Grace marveled anew at his uncanny sense of direction. He seemed to know exactly where he was going without the use of his sight.

“Miss Mabry?” He paused beside the Daimler.

“Good morning, Lord Roxwood.” Feeling a bit devilish, she said, “Shall I come around and assist you inside?”

“I am blind, woman, not feeble.” He slid onto the seat and closed the door.

Grace felt a moment’s triumph at taking a bite out of the man’s endless supply of arrogance. “Where shall we go today?” She was eager to drive to another new place.

“Take the first left before you reach the village. There’s a post marked Warrenton Road. Travel south until it connects with Isle Crossing, which leads toward Canterbury. We won’t go into the city, but there’s a lake and a wilderness park not far from the turnoff.”

He rested his arm against the back of the seat and turned to her. “And I feel ready to venture a bit farther, knowing you won’t run us off the road.”

As much as he seemed to enjoy being unpleasant, she vowed she would not allow him to ruin this glorious day for her. Releasing the brake, she eased the car along the graveled drive. They traveled in blessed silence for the first few minutes, and she thought she might get a reprieve from yesterday.

She was wrong. “What are your plans for tomorrow, Miss Mabry?” he asked.

“Well, it is Sunday.” She glanced at him, hoping he didn’t plan to make her drive him about so he could bombard her with more questions. “Mr. Edwards said I would have the day off.” A sudden thought struck. “Or shall I be taking you to church? I’m happy to do it. I believe service in the village starts at eight o’clock. I’ll fetch you at a quarter till the hour, if you like.”

“Miss Mabry, if I ever decide to step inside another church, be assured, I’ll summon you.”

Didn’t he attend church? The news surprised her—until she remembered his reputation in London. Perhaps he felt beyond saving. Her attitude softened. “If you like, I’ll speak with the vicar, Reverend Price,” she said. “I’m sure he’d be willing to come to the house and talk with you . . .”

The rest of her sentence died with his fit of coughing. Grace slowed the car. “Lord Roxwood, are you unwell?” His shoulders had begun to shake. Was he having some kind of seizure? “What shall I do?” she asked, leaning toward him, alarmed. “Should we go back—?”

“Ah, I’m impressed, Miss Mabry.” He sounded winded as he fell back against the seat. “I had no idea when I hired a driver, I’d be getting a missionary in the bargain.” His tone held amusement.

He’d been . . . laughing at her? “I merely wish to give you the opportunity to receive the benefit of Christian counsel and comfort,” she said hotly. “Reverend Price—”

“Is forbidden to enter my house,” he cut in, all humor gone. “As for ‘counsel,’ you can keep your own in regard to any sermons you might think to impart to me, Miss Mabry, such as those from the good reverend.”

Grace clutched at the steering wheel. “So, you don’t believe in God.”

“What difference would it make? I’d still be blind and have these scars.” He turned his masked face ahead toward the road. “I believe in myself. I ask for nothing from God. I expect nothing. A much simpler philosophy and no one suffers disappointment. Now please, just drive.”

Shocked by his tirade, she resumed the car’s speed. He blamed God for his misfortunes? Grace recalled the townhouse fire, the rumors of his heavy gambling, and his having been drunk when he accidentally set the place ablaze. If he chose to behave abominably and suffer the consequences, it wasn’t God’s fault.

Such un-Christian thinking, she chided herself, glancing at him. Jack Benningham had more than paid the price for his folly.

She slowed the car as she spied the village directly ahead. The wooden post for Warrenton Road was off to her left. Grace made the quick decision to drive into town first. She’d written a letter to her father days before, but postponed its mailing when she thought her career in the WFC had ended. As she was once again secure in her position, she would post it.

Grace glanced at Lord Roxwood beside her. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she took a moment to send it off before they continued their outing.

She eased the car to a halt in front of the post office.

“Why have we stopped?” he demanded.

“I’ve a letter to post. I didn’t think you’d mind. It won’t take but a minute.”

“You . . . you’ve brought me into town?”

Her breath caught at his enraged tone. “I promise I’ll only be a moment.” Then she noticed the knuckles of his left hand whiten as he gripped the frame of the windscreen. His other hand lay fisted against his knee, and if he sat any more rigid he’d be made of stone. She realized her mistake. “I am sorry.”

“Get on with it!”

Grace quickly set the brake and exited the car. As she looked toward the cobbler’s shop where she’d sewn sacks with Lucy, she thought she saw Clare Danner and someone else—a man—standing together inside.

She started for the shop, intending to find out, before she noticed people staring toward the Daimler. The blacksmith, clad in his leather apron and holding a hammer, emerged from his smithy to gawk at the man in the car. Two older men stood outside the butcher’s shop, and a woman with her young daughter paused in front of the greengrocer’s, parcels in hand, each gaping at the Tin Man in his mask. As if he were some kind of monstrous curiosity they’d never seen before.

A dog barked in the distance, then yelped, and Grace saw the cur tuck its tail and run behind a building for shelter. The woman selling bread actually left her cart in the street to walk toward the car, staring.

Seized with righteous indignation, Grace tucked her letter back inside her uniform. How dare they look at him that way! She marched back to the Daimler and slid behind the wheel. Removing the brake, she swung the car around and headed back out of town.

“That was quick.” With the car’s motion, Lord Roxwood’s hand relaxed against the frame.

“I forgot to bring money,” she lied. “I’ll post my letter another time.”

“Ah, the freak comes to town and everyone has to stop and stare, is that it?”

Darting a glance at the mask, Grace wondered if she was being too harsh on the villagers for their reaction. To someone who had never caught sight of him before, the image he presented was frightening.

“I understand,” he said when she didn’t answer. “It must have been a very busy day in the village of Roxwood.”

Despite the light remark, Grace heard his bitterness. “More like busybodies,” she muttered. She slowed the Daimler, making the turn he’d indicated.

They began heading south on a well-maintained graveled road. “They’re just simpleminded folk.” Oddly she felt a need to assuage his pride. “When I first met you, I was a little surprised, but I’ve discovered you’re not a monster.”

“Ah, so that’s the current rumor they’re spreading.”

Why couldn’t she govern her tongue? “Such silliness,” she said.

“What else are they saying?”

Grace didn’t think it wise to reveal the outlandish things she’d heard. “You know how people talk,” she said vaguely.

“Tell me.”

She froze as he leaned closer to her.

“Now, Miss Mabry, unless you’d like to tell me more about yourself and your family?”

Grace needed no further prompting. “If you must know, I was told you had pointed ears and a hunched back, that you limp, which of course you don’t, and that you howl at the moon.”

The same choked noise—laughter—emerged from behind the steel mesh. “They say all that, do they?” he said finally. “I suppose it does make me a monster.”

He turned to the open window. Grace refocused her attention on the road. Plane trees bordered the pastureland to her left, while beyond lay an endless stretch of valley, dotted with majestic oaks and a body of water much larger than Camden Pond. “I see a lake, coming up on the left.”

“Harmon Lake.”

She glanced at him. “Did you fish there, as well?”

“Rarely,” he said. “Most of the time we took Grandfather’s small sailboat and crossed back and forth between shores. Harmon Lake is quite large.”

Indeed it was. Grace tried to imagine a small boat traversing such a body of water.

“Turn right just before the lake at Isle Crossing. Follow the road for about two miles until you reach the first hill.”

She did as she was told, and when they began to ascend the mild incline, he said, “Pull over at the crest. There should be a semicircular patch on which to park.”

Grace saw the place he’d described and marveled anew at his sense of direction and his powers of memory. Once she parked the car, he turned to her. “I’d like you to cross the road and walk about five hundred yards. You’ll know when to stop.”

His request surprised her. He must have sensed her hesitation. “The view is not for the simpleminded, Miss Mabry, therefore I think you’ll enjoy it.”

She blinked. He’d just given her a compliment. Was it due to her earlier defense of him? She thought to ask, but her curiosity to see a place he deemed worth looking at won out. “I won’t be long.”

Exiting the car, she traveled a short distance through woods scented with ferns and painted with a splash of white roses and purple orchids. The faint, sweet smell of honeysuckle reached her nostrils as she came to a stop before a precipice overlooking a valley.

It was the same verdant stretch she’d seen earlier. To the east, the sun cast a pink glint against distant clouds, while below her the sparkle of water—a river—meandered like a shiny piece of ribbon across the vale floor. Forests rose in the distance, in varying shades of green, with red-berried hawthorn and the white catkins of sweet chestnut adding their touches of color.

Grace admitted the pastoral scene was unlike any she’d viewed in London, and much more beautiful. She wondered if Ireland might be like this. Da had often talked of his homeland. She’d heard the love in his voice and seen the wistful look in his eyes when he spoke of Uncle Brian’s farm outside Dublin. He had told her and Colin there were more shades of green to be seen on the island than in any other part of the world. If it was anything like this view, then she wanted to visit one day.

“Well?” Lord Roxwood demanded when she returned to the car.

“Magical.” Grace heard the wonder in her own voice. “I felt as though I were looking at a painting.”

“I call the spot Eden,” he said. “Who could not wish to paint such a paradise?” He tipped his masked face down. “The view was one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen.”

Was. Compassion seized her, and for the first time Grace saw his guise as the infuriatingly arrogant employer begin to crack around the edges. He’d given her a gift, sharing with her a place once so beautiful to him, now lost forever. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure I will never forget it.”

He nodded, and Grace heard the rustling chink of metal. Trapped from the beauty of the outside world. “Shall I drive on?” She didn’t wait for his agreement as she set the car back in motion. Again she considered his kind gesture, and her mood lightened. Perhaps they might begin anew and enjoy being in each other’s company for a change.

“When we first met in my hedge maze, you said you worked for the Women’s Forage Corps. How did you come to be at Roxwood in particular?”

Her optimism faded. “I went where I was assigned. Why?”

“I was curious to know if you could choose your posting. Is your father affiliated with the WFC?”

“Of course not,” she said with impatience. “It was my choice to join up and do my part to help my brother and others in the cavalry by working to feed their horses.”

“Yes, you told me he’s in France. The BEF—British Expeditionary Force?”

“Yes, Colin is in the Second Cavalry Division.”

“Have you or your father attended any of the war aid benefits held in London? I ask because at one time I frequented several, doing my bit for our boys overseas.”

Grace’s mouth twisted in scorn. “Doing his bit” meant drinking, womanizing, and hiding out from the war.

“In fact, the last benefit was held at Lady Bassett’s home in April,” he said. “Perhaps we met there?”

She gripped the steering wheel tightly. Was he baiting her? Had he known all along she was at the ball? Grace’s mind raced. While she disliked being evasive with him, telling the truth would get her banished from Roxwood. “I believe I told you yesterday, my father stays too busy with his tea business to attend parties,” she said truthfully. “And while Lady Bassett remains his chief patroness, we are in trade, sir. Neither I nor my father have ever received such an illustrious invitation.” She omitted the fact she’d shown up at the ball without one.

“I’d like to know why you persist in these questions,” she said, taking the offensive. “In our brief time together you’ve been more than a little keen to know about my family, my father in particular. Please tell me why.”

“I’m merely making polite conversation while we take in the country air.”

His interrogation was hardly polite. “I’ll make you a bargain,” she said as inspiration struck. “You can ask me a question, then I’ll ask you one. Does that sound fair?”

She could tell her terms annoyed him. He turned to face the open window, his fingers tapping against the doorframe. “All right,” he said finally, swinging the mask back around to face her. “I’ll go first. Have you and I ever met before? Prior to you chasing a pig into my labyrinth?”

The fine line she was treading seemed ready to snap. “We were never introduced, but I have seen you before,” she said with as much honesty as she dared.

“Aside from my photograph in the newspapers?”

“That’s two questions. I believe it’s my turn now. What kind of mask do you wear?”

“You’ll answer my question first.” His implacable tone resonated from behind the mesh. “Well? Yes or no?”

Grace chewed on her lower lip as she weighed how much to tell him. “Yes, aside from the newspapers, I did see you. You were getting into a hired cab,” she said, recalling his swift departure from Lady Bassett’s ball.

He snorted beneath the mask. “That could be any one of a thousand places.” He leaned back in his seat. His voice turned wistful as he added, “There was a time when I was always on my way somewhere.”

“I believe it’s my turn,” Grace said again, longing to change the subject.

He let out a deep breath. “It’s called a splatter mask. The metal slats over the eyes and the steel-mesh curtain across the mouth are designed to protect the wearer from metal and paint flakes shearing off inside a tank during shelling.” He paused. “Tell me why you decided to join the Women’s Forage Corps.”

“It wasn’t my first choice. I wanted to become a munitionette at one of the factories in London, or drive a field ambulance with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, but Da—my father—wouldn’t allow it. He said it was far too dangerous.”

“Yet he approves of your baling hay for horses in the fields.”

“My turn,” she said. “Why do you wear the mask?”

She jumped when he leaned toward her and snapped, “Isn’t it obvious? I believe you got a good look the other day in the labyrinth.”

“I . . . I did,” she admitted. “But why wear such a macabre disguise?” She glanced at him. “The mask makes you look positively frightful.”

His shoulders eased as he retreated from her a safe distance. “It protects my face. My burns are still healing, and direct sunlight is bad for the skin, or so my physician tells me. As to why I wear this particular covering, well . . . what else would a monster wear?”

Hearing his bitter tone, she looked down to see his hand fisted against the seat.

“Well?” he said.

“I suspect my father allowed me to join the WFC because he was concerned over the recent bombings in London and wanted me safely away,” she said quietly. “And he also happens to be Irish.”

“I understand the first reason, but why does being Irish matter?”

She smiled. “Everyone knows the Irish love the land. Aiding the war effort in this way is both noble and relatively safe, so Agnes and I signed up and were sent here to Roxwood.”

“Agnes?”

Grace tired of keeping track of whose turn it was. “She’s my maid from London.” She looked at him. “Do they hurt? The burns, I mean.”

“I’m very tired, Miss Mabry. If you’d turn the car around at the first opportunity, I’d like to return home.”

Apparently his scars were off-limits. Grace did as he asked and soon had the car heading back toward the manor. When she parked the car and made to exit, he surprised her by opening his own door. “Until Monday,” he said, hauling himself from the Daimler.

“You’re certain about church tomorrow?” she called to him. Oddly, the notion of his staying at home alone bothered her. The villagers might see him as less frightful and more God-fearing if he at least attended services with them.

“Good day to you, Miss Mabry.” He turned his back on her and mounted the steps.

Watching him, Grace felt a jumble of sentiment: irritation at his demands and his constant barrage of questions, but also compassion, as she felt driven to defend his privacy after seeing how others looked at him. Then later, when he’d shared with her the place so very special to him, Eden . . .

Grace felt her insides flutter. He’d complimented her, allowing her to see a side of him rarely revealed to anyone else. It felt intimate in some way.

As she drove the Daimler to the garage, she considered that despite the few answers she’d received from him today, Jack Benningham was an even greater mystery to her now than before.