Rose brightened. “My parents have a box at the opera. We could go there.”
“Excellent. I will ask Mr Jarvis to arrange a carriage for us. We will go en grande tenue and then you will feel better, nein?”
The opera was Rigoletto. Rose leaned forward in the box, lost in the music. At the interval, Madame Bailloux raised her opera glasses and scanned the boxes, demanding to know the names of all the best-dressed women.
She lowered them and said, “So many people are staring at us. Why is that?”
“I am considered scandalous,” said Rose. “They have no doubt read in the newspapers about the events in Paris. I am afraid my parents will really have to send me to India now. I have become unmarriageable.”
“The good captain seems taken with you. He is not what I would call conventional.”
“I do not think he wants to marry me,” said Rose. “We were engaged, but only in name. We arranged it to stop me being sent to India.”
“If Captain Cathcart agreed to such a scheme, then he really must care for you.”
“I think I irritate him, madame.”
“You may call me Celine. We are friends, non?”
“I hope so,” said Rose and felt a little of her feeling over the loss of Daisy dissipate.
As they stood outside the opera house after the performance, waiting for their carriage, Rose felt the same frisson of fear she had experienced on the quay in Paris and looked wildly around.
“What is the matter?” asked Celine.
“Just a feeling,” said Rose. “I had the same feeling in Paris just before I was pushed in the river.” She could see the earl’s carriage inching through the press of cars and carriages. Rose scanned the crowd. Apart from the people leaving the opera, there were crowds of onlookers, come to gaze at the fine gowns and jewels of the ladies.
She sighed with relief when at last they were safely in the carriage. “Probably my imagination,” she said.
When they arrived at the town house, the first footman told them that Captain Cathcart was waiting for them in the drawing room.
“Don’t tell him anything about my fears,” said Rose to Celine, as they mounted the stairs. “I do not want to be sent away to anywhere nasty again.”
“Why did you go out?” demanded Harry as soon as they walked in.
“I was restless,” said Rose. “It is miserable being confined here.”
“Someone tried to kill you in Paris and that someone has probably followed us back to London. I wish we knew the real identity of Dolores Duval. I wonder if she was English, but then why would she turn up in Brittany?”
“My parents are due back,” said Rose. “What am I to do? They will either send me to India or back to that convent.”
“I will discuss matters with them when they return. You must be sent somewhere safe.”
“I am dreading their return,” said Rose in a small voice. “What if they send Madame Bailloux away?”
“We must see to it that they don’t. I wonder if it would not be better to send you out of London before they return.” He rang the bell and asked a footman to fetch Matthew. When the secretary arrived, Harry asked, “Can you think of anywhere to send Lady Rose which is far from London?”
Matthew stood for what seemed a long time, his brow furrowed. Then his face cleared. “There is your Aunt Elizabeth.”
“She is not really my aunt,” said Rose. “She is a distant cousin of my father’s.”
“Where does she live?” asked Harry.
“In Drumdorn Castle, somewhere in Argyll on the coast.”
“Sounds ideal. When did you last see her?”
“Several years ago,” said Rose. “Aunt Elizabeth came on a visit to Stacey Court. I remember her as being amiable but eccentric.”
“Would you send her a telegram?” asked Harry. “And suggest that Lady Rose goes on a long visit.”
“What will Lord Hadshire say?”
“I will deal with him.”
♦
Aunt Elizabeth sent a telegram the following day to say she would be delighted to entertain Rose. The day passed in packing and hurried preparations. Rose was to travel north with Madame Bailloux and Hunter, the maid, for company. Harry said he would also send Becket and Daisy up to join her as soon as they had returned from their honeymoon. Rose could only be amazed at how placidly Madame Bailloux accepted all the rush.
It was a long and exhausting journey. First the train to Glasgow and then the hire of a car and chauffeur to take them into the wilds of Argyll over a twisting nightmare road called The Rest and Be Thankful.
Drumdorn Castle was perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea. It was an old castle with smoky stone-flagged rooms downstairs and small cold bedrooms upstairs. Aunt Elizabeth, Lady Carrick, was a widow who greeted them effusively. She was a tall, thin, spare woman, dressed in the clothes of the last century and wearing a white lace cap over grey hair. Her face was wrinkled and she had very heavy, shaggy eyebrows.
“So delighted to see you, my dear,” she said. “I do not often have company apart from the servants.”
“It is very kind of you to invite us. I feel I should tell you why we have come here.”
Aunt Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled. “You mean it wasn’t for the delights of my company?”
“I am delighted to have a chance to get to know you better,” said Rose, “but the fact is, my life is considered to be in danger.”
“We do get the newspapers even in as remote a part as this,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I have been following your adventures. You will be safe here. There is a sort of bush telegraph operating in this area. Any stranger within miles of the castle will be spotted. I received a telegram from Captain Cathcart and I gather he is to join us shortly. I find it all very exciting. Do change for dinner and we will talk further.”
The dining room was more like a smoke-filled baronial hall. “The wind’s in the wrong direction,” said Aunt Elizabeth as another cloud of smoke belched out of the enormous fireplace.
Tattered banners hung from the ceiling and dingy suits of armour lined the walls. There was a large landscape painting over the fireplace but it was so black with smoke that it was hard to make out what landscape it was supposed to be portraying.
There was an elderly gentleman in knee breeches sitting on a stool by the fireplace, his white head resting uncomfortably on a caryatid.
“Who is that gentleman?” asked Rose.
“That’s Angus,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “He was my butler for many years. He doesn’t want to be pensioned off and feel useless, so he prefers to remain on duty.”
“Are you finished with your soup yet?” demanded a highland footman looming over Rose.
“Yes,” said Rose, startled, not yet being used to the democratic freedom of speech of highland servants.
“When you get the warm weather,” said Madame Bailloux hopefully, “perhaps the fire will not be necessary.” She was sure her gowns would reek of smoke for months to come.
“We sometimes get a few warm days,” said Aunt Elizabeth, “but not often.”
Madame Bailloux suddenly thought longingly of Paris. The sun would be shining and people would be sitting on the terraces, chatting and drinking coffee. Living in London had been relatively pleasant, but she did not know how long she could take being a guest in this smoky castle.
She sighed with relief when they moved to a drawing room where the fire was modest and did not smoke. The furniture was heavy and Victorian. There were many stuffed birds in glass cases, a grand piano draped in what looked like a Persian carpet, and little tables laden down with framed photographs.