Page 2 of A Fearless Heart
There was a knock on the door, and Cady stood up straighter. “Yes, bring the tray in!” she called, forcing her tone to be light and cheerful.
“Tea for you,” her maid, Martha, announced, carrying a huge tray to the low table by the fireplace. “We’ll have snow tonight, I shouldn’t wonder. Those clouds look nasty.”
“If we do, it will be the last snow of the season,” Cady said. “The wild onions are up, and even the garden plants are waking. I don’t suppose there have been any takers for those positions I asked Mr Rundle to post? I need a groundskeeper, or we’ll all be living in a tanglewood come June.”
“He’s not mentioned it, but I’m sure we’ll have new faces here soon.” Martha’s optimism was brittle, and Cady knew why. Despite offering greater than usual wages, she still couldn’t convince locals to come to the estate. Not with the rumors that began to fly the moment her father, the Earl of Calderwood, passed away.
“Some men to help out would be best, I think. The dogs want exercise, not to mention the horses.”
“Perhaps I could walk them…” Cady began to say, though she already doubted herself.
Martha must have been having her own doubts. “Nonsense, my lady. You couldn’t possibly manage them on your own.”
Her father’s wolfhounds were massive creatures able to take down a full-grown deer. Cady lacked the physical strength to hold their leashes should they spot prey. However, the other reason that she refused to walk them (or spend any time with them now) was that she was afraid of them. She hadn’t always been. As a little girl, she remembered curling up against the dogs and drowsing before a fire on a winter’s day. But now that her father wasn’t around, she was always worried that the dogs would turn on her, decide she was the prey, and then tear her to pieces.
Sighing, Cady turned her attention to the tea tray. “Is this all for me, or did I invite ten guests and just forgot about it?” Another poor joke. There hadn’t been ten guests at the house for months. She dipped her finger in the dish of cream and then held her finger toward Oscar, who leaned over to lick it off. His yellow eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“All for you, miss—notthat cat—and I do hope you’ll partake of some of it. You’re wasting away. Cook made her onion soup and there’s fresh bread and that good white cheese from over the hill. Will you want supper downstairs?” she asked.
Cady shook her head, wearied by the maid’s questions. Her own servants ordered her around all the time! “No. Just a tray up here again. About six, and then I’ll go to my lab.”
“And stay up all night working on your experiments. You’ll work yourself sick.”
“It’s not work, it’s just a way to pass the time.” Cady couldn’t explain the intricacies of botany to Martha, who regarded plants as either useful in a salad, or weeds to be yanked out of the pathway to the dairy. And she certainly couldn’t confide the more esoteric hopes she had in her chemical experiments, which utilized the exotic specimens growing in a special glasshouse next to her laboratory. The servants did not like her laboratory, and it was the one place where Cady could count on being alone.
A dark spot moving on the china caused her to jump, and she tipped the plate as she grabbed for it. The darkness fell to the floor.
“Was that a spider?” she gasped.
The maid leaned over with a frown and plucked up the dark spot. “Goodness no. Just a currant that escaped the scone. Besides, it’s too early in the year for spiders.”
“Of course. My mistake.” Cady tried to look calm. How she wished she had someone to talk to, someone she could trust to listen and not laugh in her face when she recited her litany of fears. To hope for someone tosolveher problems did not even occur to her…and if it had, she would have instantly dismissed the hope as too ambitious. No, the mere presence of a friend would be miracle enough.
There was her brother…but no. She could not add to his complications by piling on her own amorphous, probably entirely fanciful fears.
“Enjoy your tea, my lady,” Martha said on her way out.
Cady maintained the proper posture and the light smile until the door closed and the footsteps faded down the hall. Only then did she carefully set the teacup down and curl up into a tight ball on the armchair, folding herself into a tiny, compressed seed. Oscar saw his opportunity and pounced upon the forgotten dish of cream.
Had she also imagined the spider outside in the garden? Was she prodding at her hand, looking for a bite from a creature that was not just harmless, but maybe never even existed?
“I am losing my mind,” she whispered. “God help me, I am completely losing my mind.”
Chapter 2
That same evening, miles awayin London, a large and utterly boring building stood on one corner where Powell and Gate Streets met. A painted placard on one brick wall announced it as a prime location for commerce and progress…which in practice meant that offices were available to let.
A number of firms had their offices in the building, from a tiny one-desk affair rented out by an elderly gentleman offering Russian, German, and French translation services, to a publisher of cheap novels that occupied an entire floor of the building. Nearly all of these businesses were exactly what they purported to be.
One was not.
Despite the hour, a man walked up the steps and opened the far left door. An observer would first notice that he looked dead tired. His eyes were accented by dark circles, and his blond hair hadn’t seen the benefit of a comb for several days. His outfit was unremarkable for a laborer, though few laborers came to this building. A shabby greatcoat, perhaps a castoff from an employer, kept off the chill of the night air. His footwear was difficult to discern in the slowly rising mist.
Gabriel Courtenay went inside and proceeded to pass by every door of every business—which was just as well, considering that all the businesses were long closed at this hour. Not that most people would look upon him as a good prospect, with his rough clothing, his unshaven face, and the general air of weariness he exuded.
When he reached the fifth floor, Gabe shuffled down the long hallway and knocked at a door with a sign declaring it to be the offices of Circle Imports. He knocked in a very particular rhythm, showing more energy than his appearance would suggest.
A moment later, the door opened.
