Page 1 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
Chapter One
April 30, 1802
Reims, France
Amber paused, huddledin her ragged clothes against the chill of the night, her hand midair ready to knock on her own kitchen door.
“Swallow your reluctance,ma chérie.” Her husband’s baritone filled her senses. Maurice was gone now, dead these many months, but she heard him clearly. So like him to come to her here, where they had lived and loved and where she now had to enter to save herself.
“You are brave,mon amour.”
And also stupid to have come to this juncture, Maurice!
“Non!March on!”
His encouragement, always, was dauntless when she hesitated in her work.
Still, she shivered. Fingers to her trembling lips, she breathed deeply to quell her fright. It was not for herself that she feared, but for those in the house. Never would she wish to bring darkness to their lives and sully the years of devoted service they had rendered to her husband and her.
She rapped on the old wooden door. The sound resonated along the narrow cobbledruellebehind her townhouse—and she flinched.
But no other sound filled the alley. No one walked here. No one usually did after midnight. Especially not on a cold night at the end of April.
Spurred to action, she knocked on the door once more. Themajordom, Bonnet, would be in bed. Their kitchen maid had a tendency to stay up far after the other two servants in the house. The housemaid, deaf Nancy, would not hear a thing, though often she compensated for her lack with an uncanny awareness of things gone awry.
Amber cared not who answered the door, only that someone came quickly. She did not want her hired carriage and grooms questioning where she’d disappeared and roam the streets searching for her. They were to circle the ancient cathedral for forty-five minutes, then come to a stop across from the great west door and wait for her. They would return, she knew, because she had to pay them the promised balance of their fare. Then she would dismiss them and vanish into the night to escape the ghouls who pursued her.
A light shone in the kitchen window. Was it the kitchen maid, Mimi, who lit a candle to light her way to the servants’ back door? It had to be…unless Amber’s butler Bonnet had hired someone new since Amber had been away. She prayed that was not so. She curled her shoulders round her. These days she trusted no one new in her life.
The peephole in the kitchen door slipped aside. One wizened eye peered out at her, and the female’s gasp within told her that Mimi recognized her. Even in her men’s floppy hat and worn frock coat.
Amber heard Mimi scramble away, the three-hundred-year-old floorboards creaking beneath her feet. She inhaled, at peace as a ray of light appeared above in the butler’s rooms atop the old house and spilled out to the alley. The warmth of that light,and the promise of relief that it signaled, had Amber panting in relief.
Sounds of other footsteps down the stairs and around hallways offered her more comfort. Then the kitchen door swung wide.
“Madame!” The broad smile of her fierce and fondmajordom, Monsieur Bonnet, thrilled her and filled her with his warm affection. “Come in! Come in!”
The fragrance of cinnamon floated out from the vast kitchen. That brought her peace as well.
Bonnet gave her a little bow of polite welcome, the smile on his thin face broad and effervescent. “Madame, you are cold. The night air predicts a piercing sleet. Let me light a fire and make you warm.”
“No, Bonnet.” She swept off her hat and tucked it in her coat pocket. “I am not here long. Do not bother with that.”
“But surely a drink? Mulled wine? Tea?”
“Oui, that would be quick and good. A drop of good calvados brandy with my tea,s’il vous plaît.It is all I have time for.”
“You do not stay?Je regret,madame.”
“Et moi, Bonnet.” She swept inside and went up the servants’ steep stairs to the main floor, then stepped out into the long hall and paused. Ever was she struck by the Rococo beauty of the three-hundred-year-old house, especially the circular stained glass window that sparkled as the moon poured all the colors of the rainbow upon the thick red and blue Turkish carpet runner.
She hurried on before she let her tears fall. This had been her beloved home with Maurice. Now she had none. None! She clutched at her throat and swallowed her despair.
“Forgive me,” she said as Bonnet followed her into the salon. She smiled and pointed toward one large Louis Quatorze overstuffed chair. “I must sit in one of my good chairs. I’ve been riding in a terrible carriage, and the jostling hurts my back.”
She had developed tenderness in her spine after she miscarried her baby last year. She had writhed so in the ordeal that she had put her bones in distress. Ever after, she’d had to sit in well-upholstered chairs.
“You have come, madame, in a carriage not your own?”
