Bedazzled by Bertrice Small Page A

door, it would only take her a little while to dress and go down to join him. She wasn’t certain she would sleep, but she did, Fortune snuggled close next to her, making her familiar little sleep noises.
    India awoke suddenly in the darkness. The clock in the hallway struck three times. She lay quietly for several minutes and then arose carefully, wincing as her feet touched the icy floor boards. Padding across the chamber, India added some coal to the fire, and it soon after sprang to life again. The clock chimed the quarter hour. She dressed slowly in a black velvet gown, a starched white ruff about her neck. On her feet she wore dark walking boots. In the attics she had found a mourning veil she would wear with her dark gloves and long dark cape. While she dressed, the clock in the hall chimed the half hour, and now was chiming three-quarters of the hour. India stuffed her jewelry pouch in her beaver muff and slipped quietly from the room.
    She tiptoed down the staircase, moved as silently as she could through the hallway and entered the library. Going to the panel, behind which her father hid the valuables, she opened it and thrust her hand inside. Immediately her fingers made contact with the chamois bag. Pulling it out, she opened it, making certain that it was filled with gold coins. Satisfied, she pushed it into her muff with her jewelry and closed the panel. Now she hurried out into the main hallway of the house again, and, going to the front door, she slowly, and not without some difficulty, drew the bolts securing the entrance aside. She did not have to wait long.
    There came a gentle scratching at the door, and India opened it immediately, allowing Viscount Twyford into the house with another man. He immediately picked up one of India’s trunks and headed back down to the river.
    “Take the other trunk,” India instructed Adrian. “I want to rebolt the door so no one notices the door unlocked in the morning and raises an alarm too soon. I’ll go out the library window, my love, and join you in but a moment.”
    The viscount took up the second trunk and India shut the door behind him, sliding the bolts back into place. She then retraced her steps to the library and exited through one of the casement windows, pushing it shut behind her. It was unlikely anyone would notice the window was unlatched if it gave the appearance of being closed tightly. Then, without a backward glance, she hurried down the lawns to the quai where her transport awaited her. As he helped her into the boat, she had only a momentary pang, but then her heart soared. They were free!
    “Lift your veil, madame, so I may be certain it’s you, and not your papa hiding beneath the gauze,” he teased her.
    India raised the silk fabric. “ ’Tis I, my love,” she said.
    The werry moved quickly down the river into the Pool, and was rowed directly to a dock at the O’Malley-Small Trading Company. Adrian Leigh climbed from the small vessel and helped India onto the dock. Leading her to a sturdy gangway before a great sailing ship, he helped her to board. India moved slowly and heavily in her guise as an elderly widow. Beneath her veiling she might have been anyone.
    “Ahh, Signore di Carlo,” a cultured voice spoke, “you are right on time, sir. And this will be your aunt? My condolences, madame, on your great loss.”
    “Monypenny was old. He lived a good life,” came a gravelly voice from beneath the veils. “You are one of Lynmouth’s lads, aren’t you?”
    “Aye, madame, I am his fourth son,” Captain Thomas Southwood replied. “Geoff is the heir. John is a churchman, and Charles is married to an heiress. I, however, prefer the sea as a wife. She’s less troublesome, and asks little of a man.”
    “Heh! Heh!” came the snicker from beneath the veils. “Then you are like your grandmother, who, I am told, was a pirate.”
    “A base canard, madame.” Captain Southwood was smiling. “Now, my steward will show you to your