Last Night's Scandal (The Dressmakers 5)

“I’m not sure.” Olivia climbed down from the bed. In the light of the dying fire, she saw the poker. She snatched it up. “But whoever’s causing it will be very sorry.”

Oooowwwoooeeeyowwwoooooooyowwwooooeeeewooyowooooooo.

Lisle woke and leapt from his bed in one movement and grabbed the knife from under his pillow.

“Sir? What is it?”

“Horrible. The most horrible sound on earth. The sound of death and torture and the agonies of a burning hell,” Lisle said. “Damn them. It’s bagpipes.”

“Quick,” Roy said. “They’re coming.”

He and Jock ran across the long second-floor room and through the door into the north-tower stairwell and hurried down. The stairwell was black as pitch but they’d been up and down it hundreds of times, and night and day was the same to them.

Down to the first floor and across the great hall to the other stairwell, back into the south tower. They raced down the stone steps. Then Roy stopped and said, “Now, one for the old ladies.”

Olivia and Bailey burst into the second-floor drawing room at the same time Lisle and Nichols did.

“Did you see them?” Lisle said.

“Only heard them,” Olivia said. “Was that—”

“Bagpipes,” Lisle said grimly.

“Really? It sounded so horrible.”

“When don’t they?”

Muffled screams came from the south-tower stairs. Olivia ran that way. Lisle was at the door ahead of her.

“Stay,” he said. He pulled her out of the way and started down the stairs.

She elbowed Nichols aside and went after him.

“I’m not afraid of bagpipes,” Olivia said.

“Anyone who’d use them to wake people in the middle of the night would stop at nothing,” Lisle said.

“Really, Lisle, they’re not as bad as all that.”

“They are. It’s the worst sound on earth. It’s the sound of ten thousand deaths.”

They reached the open doorway of Lady Withcote’s room. She came to the door, her maid still trying to tie the ribbons of her dressing gown. “So sorry, dears. But that dreadful squalling startled me. I’m sure I leapt straight off the bed up into the air. Can’t remember the last time that happened. Lord Waycroft’s cold feet, I think.”

Seeing she was unhurt, Lisle plunged back into the stairway, Olivia close behind.

They found Lady Cooper standing on the step outside of her bedchamber, looking down into the dark stairwell. “It came from there.” She pointed. “You never mentioned ghostly bagpipers, Olivia,” she said reproachfully. “If I’d known they were coming, I would have watched for them. Have you ever seen a man blowing the pipes? It wants strong lungs, you know, and strong shoulders and legs—”

“Good, I’m glad you’re unharmed,” Lisle said.

He entered the small passage leading to the great hall, Olivia on his heels.

“Let me go first,” he whispered. “Give me a moment. I need to listen, and you’ve no idea how loud your shift is when you move.”

“It isn’t a shift. It’s a nightdress.”

“Whatever it is, keep it quiet,” he said. “And do be careful with the poker.”

The hall’s darkness was absolute. Since Lisle couldn’t see anything, he listened. But all he heard was the silence of the room. Whoever they were, they knew their way about. And they were gone.

After a moment, Olivia came through the door. He didn’t have to see her. He could hear her. The soft rustle of her nightclothes sounded so loud in the great, silent room.

She drew near and he could smell her, the light fragrance wafting from her clothes, and the scent of her skin and hair and the faint . . . something . . . too indistinct to be a scent, but it conjured sleep and still-warm bedclothes. Then other images rose in his mind’s eye: pearly skin in the moonlight, the low sound of her laughter, the quick shudder when she came to climax. . .

He clenched his hands—and realized he was still tightly clutching the knife. He relaxed his grip.

He wiped the images from his mind.

“They’re gone,” he said.

A light appeared in the minstrels’ gallery. Herrick stood there, in his dressing gown, candle in hand. “I’ve calmed the staff, your lordship,” he said. “Those who heard the noise, at any rate. Apparently the sound didn’t carry to the upper floors.”

“Lucky them,” Lisle muttered.

“Shall I organize the men to search the castle and grounds, your lordship?”

“Our ghostly musicians will be long gone by now,” Lisle said. “Tell everyone to go back to bed.”

Herrick quietly departed.

Lisle turned back to Olivia. His eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, and enough moonlight reached them to show the outlines of her semi-transparent, beruffled and beribboned gown. He redirected his gaze to the nearest wall niche.

“We can’t hunt them down at night,” he said.

“Certainly not,” she said. “They’ll know the countryside, while our London servants will only stumble about in the dark and break their necks.”

“They must have been out there, in the second-floor drawing room,” he said. Mere feet from her bedroom. “Taunting us.” He longed for something to hit.

“I must admit, it was disturbing,” Olivia said. “No one expects to hear bagpipes in the middle of the night, and when they’re played badly—”

“How can you tell?”

“Played well or ill, it’s a haunting sound,” she said.

“I’m sorry we didn’t catch them,” he said. “I should have liked to see you take a poker to that vile bladder thing. It’s exactly like the Scots to invent a fiendish device like that. Bagpipes. Golf.”

She laughed.

The sound slithered down his neck and left heat trails.

“Olivia, go to bed,” he said.

“But surely you want to—”

Yes, I surely do.

“We can’t talk now,” he said. “Use your head. Look at what you’re not wearing. One of us has to be sensible, and we both know it won’t be you. Go to bed—and be careful with that poker.”

Chapter 14

Wednesday 19 October

The sun was sinking behind the hills. Roy and Jock stood in the shadows of the ruined church, watching the men trooping down the castle road back to the village after their first day’s work at the castle. Some carried tools on their shoulders, some pushed carts, some drove wagons.

“Another week and they’ll have it sealed up tight as a drum,” Jock said.

“Not if we unseal it,” Roy said.

“Are you daft? A score of men and more working sunup to sundown. All that work they done? And us with a few hours at night?”

“Not all of what they done,” Roy said. “Only the work down around the basement, so we can get in. How much you think them Londoners can stand, night after night, us waking them up?”

“Don’t know how much I can stand,” Jock said. “All that running up and down them stairs, lugging them curst pipes. All that time we could spend digging.”

“Useful? Digging by night? All this time we been looking in broad day. What luck you think we’ll have shifting rocks at night?”

It was hard enough finding coins in the daytime. It wasn’t like the things shot off shiny sparks at them, saying, “Look here. Money.” They were the same color as the ground, and hard to tell from rocks and pebbles.