Читать книгу One Week As Lovers - Victoria Dahl - Страница 10

Lancaster had suffered a bad night. First he’d endured strange dreams of a disheveled woman in white, standing over him.

She’d seemed vaguely familiar and harmless enough. But she’d quickly faded away, only to be replaced by the old familiar nightmares of pain and fear. When he’d awoken, sweating in the cold, he’d regretted ever returning to Yorkshire.

He was regretting it still, as the bouncing carriage reminded him of all the sore spots he’d acquired on the trip from London. The day was still and dreary, a mist-shrouded landscape that seemed cramped and endless at the same time. But he could hear the faint shush of the ocean and smell the salt tang. The reminder that he was, at least, not in London began to wear away his foul mood. Better to be here, even in the cold. Even on his way to pay respects to a dead girl’s family.

She was the only Merrithorpe in the house. Her father had died long before, and Lady Merrithorpe had married a stout man named Cambertson who smiled rarely and yelled often. The very reason Cynthia had often fled to Cantry Manor. Mr. Cambertson had not thought much about her as long as she wasn’t in sight, and that was the way Cyn had preferred things. Likewise, Lancaster had not thought much about her once she was out of sight, and now guilt was a burr under the skin that covered his breastbone.

But he had too many people to worry about as it was. His mother, totally dependent upon him and unwilling to see the truth of their circumstances. His sister, almost of marriageable age, in need of a Season or two and all the spending that came along with it. And his brother, in his youthful prime and happy to be indulging his oats. The bills for clothing, liquor, and “indulgences” had long since become unmanageable. Like their mother, Timothy couldn’t seem to understand the concept of poverty. They had nothing. Nearly all the property was entailed. Lancaster’s name and title were virtually the only assets left. His name, his title, and his body.

Heat crawled over his skin, and he pushed the thought away with a physical shift in posture. The carriage window was ice against his fingers when he reached to snap it open, but the freezing air was a welcome distraction. He considered asking the coachman to stop so he could walk the rest of the way, but didn’t get the chance. Oak Hall slipped into view and the shell drive crunched beneath turning wheels.

A thump of familiarity resounded in his chest as they approached from the east. He’d probably only been to Oak Hall a dozen times in his youth, but it was one of those strange old memories that lay forgotten and unknown until it was abruptly recalled by a sight or smell. Here, it was the sight of the three ancient trees that twisted taller than the stone building they shaded. And the unusual dusk blue paint that tinted the shutters and gables of the home.

For the first time since he’d heard the news, he felt a wash of true sadness for Cynthia. Gone were his own self-absorption and pity. Cynthia was dead, and she’d never scramble up the tree under her room again, never watch him with frustration edging her jaw into obstinance, never roll her eyes as her stepfather blathered on about some controversial topic.

Once the carriage had rolled to a stop, he stepped heavily onto the drive and trudged up the stairs. Strangely, no servants arrived to assist, but perhaps a pall had fallen over the household. Still, it had been weeks now. Odd. Lancaster was forced to knock on the door.

And wait.

He knocked again. Apparently the title of viscount no longer counted for much in this part of Yorkshire. This was twice in twenty-four hours he’d been caught knocking fruitlessly at a front door. And he was quite sure he’d just felt a raindrop.

Lancaster was glaring up at the sky when the door opened on a whoosh of air.

“Wot?”

Good Lord. The servant—if he was, in fact, a servant and not an invading peddler—stood all of five feet tall. His grizzled gray hair grew in a strange pattern. A peninsula descended over his forehead and a ring grew ’round the sides, but there was nothing else. Unless one counted his ear canals.

“Wot is it?”

Lancaster blinked from his fascination. “Are you addressing me?”

The old man glared up at him, blood in his eyes. Literally. Lancaster could see the blood vessels quite clearly. He’d bet a sovereign the man was a drinker.

And a belligerent one at that.

Lancaster sighed. “Very well. I am Viscount Lancaster, here to pay my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Cambertson.”

“Milord,” the man wheezed as he bowed, though his expression didn’t change. He still seemed put out by the effort. “If ye’ll follow me, I’ll see if the master is receiving.”

So he followed the hunched figure, promising himself he’d never again lament the youth of his own butler. So fascinated was he by the strange wraithlike servant, he almost didn’t see the startling changes in Oak Hall. They’d already crossed the threshold of the morning room before he noticed what was missing.

Well…everything. Everything was missing. Light squares against the wallpaper marked where paintings had once hung. Tables stood empty, clearly lacking vases or some other small art form. Even the wood floors echoed their bareness, missing the lush, deep rugs that had once softened steps. Lancaster spun in a slow circle as the butler shuffled back into the hallway.

Unbelievable. It looked as if the house were being slowly dismantled. Sold off piecemeal. Foreshadowing of his own future, perhaps.

He was scowling at the thought when the butler returned. “Mr. Cambertson will see you,” he intoned, as if there was some question of whether Mr. Cambertson would receive a viscount.

Still, Lancaster said, “Excellent!” and followed again, noticing the way the halls echoed as dust motes danced with each footstep. There wasn’t a maid in sight, and no evidence that there had been one for quite some time.

“The Right Honorable Viscount Lancaster,” the butler muttered before they’d even reached the doorway to the study. A grunt sounded from inside the room, followed by the squeak of an ancient chair. Mr. Cambertson was pushing to his feet when they entered.

Lancaster struggled not to flinch at the odor of cheap cigars and cheaper gin that filled the room. The curtains were drawn, steeping the room in a brown shade that perfectly matched the stench. And Mr. Cambertson looked right at home too, jacketless, stubbled, and bleary-eyed.

“Milord,” Cambertson rasped. “What an honor it is to receive you.”

“The honor is mine,” Lancaster replied in absolute falsehood. Though Cambertson’s curly hair was still black, it had thinned, and the rest of him had aged considerably. Deep pouches drooped beneath his eyes and his wide, stocky shoulders were hunched as if a great weight hung from them. Still, Lancaster walked swiftly forward to shake the man’s hand, all jovial good humor as always.

Cambertson’s fingers gripped too tight, reminding Lancaster of a drowning man grasping at safety, or perhaps it was the desperation in his eyes that gave that impression.

“Please, sit. Ewing!” he suddenly roared. “Tea!” The words echoed away, leaving them in dim silence.

Lancaster glanced around, wondering if he’d fallen into some strange midday dream, but his surroundings appeared real enough. “Mr. Cambertson,” he said, “I want to offer my sincere condolences to you and to Mrs. Cambertson. I was shocked at the news about Miss Merrithorpe. I can’t imagine how difficult this time must be for both of you.”

“Mm. The missus has run off to her sister’s home. Not sure when she’ll be back.”

“I see.”

He drew a hand over his face, scraping over the black stubble. “Difficult,” he said, as if he were pondering a question. “Yes, it’s been difficult.”

“I’m truly sorry. She was a lovely girl. She’s remembered fondly in my household and will be earnestly missed.” Poor Mrs. Pell had been so distraught this morning she’d barely spoken a word.

But Cambertson was shaking his head. “Lovely,” he repeated. “Lovely enough, I suppose. But in the end, it seems Cynthia was a selfish girl with no concern but her own silly desires. Do you know what she’s done to this family?”

“I…” Lancaster couldn’t begin to think of an appropriate response. He could only stare in shock as Cambertson’s face turned from gray to pink and then fully-enraged red.

“She has ruined us. She had the chance to pull her family back from the brink of disaster and instead she indulged her stupid girlish fears and threw herself from a cliff!”

“She…What?” Lancaster surged forward in his seat, banging a knee against Cambertson’s desk. “She…She threw herself from a cliff?”

“Yes! As if she were the heroine of some maudlin novel. One of your cliffs, as a matter of fact. What a waste.”

“But I thought…” He’d thought she’d died from a fever, or perhaps an accident, but to take her own life? What the hell had happened to the stubborn young girl he’d once known? The room wavered around him. Lancaster blinked hard. “Why?” he finally managed to force out.

Cambertson gave a curt shake of his head. “She had some missish fears about the man she was meant to marry.”

“But…” He couldn’t think what to say, didn’t even know what to think.

The old butler shuffled in, offering a reprieve from the conversation, but Cambertson continued on.

“This family is in dire straits, and well she knew it. But still she carried on as if she were the toast of London. ‘I won’t marry him and you cannot force me,’” he mimicked in a crude parody of a girl’s voice. “We have nothing, Lord Lancaster. Nothing but Ewing here, who could drop dead at any moment—” The butler grunted an agreement. “And a deaf and dumb chambermaid whom no one else will employ. I could not even afford to keep my horses. Do you know what it’s like to ride to church in a mule cart? And yet she thinks she should be allowed to moon about, waiting to fall in love with some young man whose family likely wouldn’t have her anyway. The infuriating folly of youth.”

“I don’t understand,” Lancaster managed to say. Nothing intelligent but at least it was a full sentence. I don’t understand. Except that he was beginning to understand. His gut was telling him that he understood quite well. He met her stepfather’s eyes. “You were selling her off for money.”

Cambertson leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk. “I arranged an advantageous marriage to a titled gentleman of considerable means. She had no reason to object. She certainly had no reason to become hysterical. The truth is simple. Cynthia did not like being told what to do, and so she deliberately ruined everything.”

“By ending her own life.”

“Yes.”

Lancaster couldn’t look at him anymore, so he glanced away, taking in the darkened room littered with papers and empty glasses, everything covered with dust. “And I thought you were in mourning,” he muttered in disgust.

“I am in mourning. We are ruined. And of course I did not wish her dead. Of course not.”

Unable to stop himself, Lancaster shot him a look of utter scorn.

“Ha!” The man’s laugh didn’t hold a hint of amusement. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a simple ‘mister,’ Lord Lancaster. Life is not so easy for men who aren’t born into such important status. She had a duty to her family and she refused to uphold it. So I am unhappy that she is dead, but I cannot find it in my heart to rend my garments and gnash my teeth. I am too occupied trying to find some other way to devise an income. Our sheep were hit hard with foot rot last year.”

A duty to her family. Yes, Lancaster understood quite clearly. But one detail nagged at his mind, and he finally pinned down the problem. “What kind of a titled gentleman can offer an ‘advantageous marriage’ but finds himself paying for the privilege?”

The man leaned back and crossed his arms. “There were certain circumstances…”

Lancaster narrowed his eyes and watched Cambertson’s chin jut out in defiance.

“Nothing more than rumors. Enough to make his marriage prospects a bit dim. Richmond assured me there was no truth to them.”

Richmond. Lancaster heard nothing beyond “Richmond.” His eardrums chimed like a bell. “No,” he managed to say, even as the air fell from the space around him and pooled like cool water around his feet. A vacuum formed, pulling the breath from his lungs and drawing all the blood in his body to the surface so that his skin heated all at once. A flash fire that burned away his nerves so he felt nothing.

Cambertson was still talking, saying words that thankfully seemed to need no answer, because Lancaster could neither hear nor respond.

Richmond. She had been meant to marry Richmond.

No wonder she’d killed herself. The man was a monster. A cold sweat broke out over Lancaster’s skin.

He’d thought Richmond under control. He’d thought the man incapacitated and impotent. And he’d clearly been disastrously wrong.

“She was being forced to marry Richmond,” he heard a voice say, hardly recognizing it as his own.

“Forced!” her stepfather scoffed. “Forced to marry an earl! Hell, the man would have been dead in ten years, I don’t doubt, and left her a countess free to do as she pleased. Forced, indeed!”

He could not meet Cambertson’s eyes. If he met his eyes, he would lunge at him, slap the arrogance off that hangdog face. “Those were not rumors. The man belonged in Bedlam.”

Cambertson sighed. “Of course I would not have granted permission if I believed the tales, but true or not, a little rough bed-sport never killed anyone.”

“Pardon me,” Lancaster bit out, pushing up to stand on stiff legs. “Please convey my respects to your wife.”

Cambertson was muttering something as Lancaster walked out, but he did not try to catch the words. He felt close to snapping, close to turning and throwing his fists against that man’s skull.

Rough bed-sport. How dare he. How dare he even think of sending a young girl into that man’s bed for the sake of anything, much less duty.

Duty. Family. Fear. And death. Death, or at least the desire for it. Lancaster was familiar with it all.

He slammed out of the study doors and rushed down the hall, wondering if every damned family in the empire was the same.

He hadn’t remembered making a turn as the butler had led him toward the study, but he was at the end of this hall and had to stop and look from left to right and back again. He couldn’t see much in this damned mausoleum, but he thought the entry lay to his left. As he turned in that direction, though, a flash of color caught his eye, a discordant scrap of beauty caught on an otherwise empty wall. Lancaster paused and turned, paying closer attention.

There. He touched a half-open door and the hinges gave way enough to reveal a painting on the far wall of a cozy room. A portrait, actually, of a young woman. It was small but vibrant, and the painter, whomever he was, had captured her likeness perfectly. Lancaster knew this because though he hadn’t returned once in the past ten years, he recognized the slightly mysterious smile and wise brown eyes, the stubborn jaw and wide-set cheekbones. He had suspected she’d grow up to be pretty, but Cynthia Merrithorpe had grown into a woman who wasn’t exactly pretty just…inexplicably compelling.

And he’d seen her last night.

The fury that had been working through his body stopped its coursing and then fell away, scattered like dust in the wake of his shock.

He had seen her last night. In his dreams. First in the library, and then again in his chambers, in the moonlight, standing over his bed. But how could he have dreamed her like this? Just like this? Perhaps…

Shaking his head, he swallowed hard. Ridiculous. She’d grown into an adult, but her features hadn’t changed. Of course he’d dreamed her like this. What else could she have looked like?

Lancaster stepped back into the hall, but not before he took one long look at that portrait. Her eyes were sadder than he remembered, it seemed.

With a soft curse, he turned and walked away, relieved he’d never have to set foot in this godforsaken house again. But there were memories awaiting him in his own home, and he dreaded the night to come.

“What did you do?” Mrs. Pell demanded.

Cynthia kept her face very straight. “Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ You think I don’t recognize that gleam in your eyes? The viscount looked exhausted this morning.”

Well, she hadn’t done much, honestly. Perhaps he had a weak constitution. Too many years of soft living would do that to a man, or so she heard.

“Cynthia!” the housekeeper growled, then looked around to be sure that young Adam hadn’t returned with the new maids. But her gaze fell soon enough back on Cyn.

She squirmed, plucking at her too-large nightdress. “Nothing, I just…”

“What?”

“I must persuade him to leave, don’t you see? Even if he doesn’t catch on, look how many more people will be underfoot. Two girls coming to help already. I’ll have to stay locked in that attic for days on end.

“It’s harmless,” she continued, defensive already. “I just thought I’d…” Her hesitation didn’t seem to improve the housekeeper’s mood.

“Cynthia.”

“All right! I thought I’d become a ghost. That’s all. I had no idea a harmless female ghost would keep him up all night. He was not so thin-skinned in his youth.”

Mrs. Pell gasped so loudly that Cynthia’s last words were drowned out. “You were in his chambers?”

“For a moment. He sleeps too lightly. It made me nervous.”

“Nervous? I’d say you’re quite mad, young lady!”

She shrugged, perturbed that her excellent idea was being dismissed. “It worked, didn’t it? If he can’t sleep, he’s not likely to hang about, is he? And why is he here? Did he tell you?”

“It’s not my place to ask, just as it’s not your place to be in a man’s bedroom in the middle of the night. It’s not proper and it’s certainly not wise. Unless you are hoping to get caught?”

Scowling at the bright encouragement on Mrs. Pell’s face, Cynthia said, “No,” very firmly. “I have devised a plan.”

“Another plan?”

She knew very well what Mrs. Pell thought of her plans, but there was no other way to escape and ensure her little sister was safe as well. She needed money, and she needed it now. Luckily for her, she had her great-uncle’s diaries. And a plan.

“I have no other choice,” she murmured. “How am I to search the cliffs if he is here?”

Mrs. Pell muttered something about danger and bad ideas, and Cynthia cursed Nicholas again. She had only just convinced the housekeeper that the plan would work, and his arrival was undoing days of persuasion. Something had to be done.

Cynthia turned to the kitchen table and busied herself with cutting a slice of brown bread. “What is it you think he could possibly do for me?” she asked quietly. When she received no answer, she pulled the crock of butter closer and shook her head. “It’s well known he has no money. Even here in the wilds of Yorkshire we’ve heard he must marry an heiress, so you can have no fairy-tale dreams that he will scoop me up and carry me away to a life of luxury. Why, he couldn’t even afford to set me up as his mistress.”

“Young lady…” Mrs. Pell started, ready to launch into a lecture, but the words faded away as if she didn’t have the heart for it.

Cynthia turned back to her, swallowing a bite of the sweet, dark bread. She shrugged. “I’m hardly mistress material at any rate, so I honestly have no idea how you think the good viscount could assist me.”

Mouth opening as if she would speak, Mrs. Pell twisted her apron between two strong hands, but then she only shook her head.

Cynthia looked down at the thick flannel nightdress that Mrs. Pell had loaned her. Aside from the filthy gray gown she’d arrived in, it was all she had. One could not pack for a suicide, after all. Bound to arouse suspicion.

“Where has he gone?” she asked.

“Off to see Mr. Cambertson. He’ll be back soon with more questions than I’d care to answer, I expect.” She’d hardly finished speaking when the sound of a carriage snuck past the closed kitchen door. “Go!” Mrs. Pell cried, but Cynthia was already leaving. “And you must keep hidden! No more wandering about!”

Cyn slipped the last bit of bread into her mouth and eased open the panel hidden in the kitchen hall, but she didn’t quite close it all the way. Instead she stopped there, just inside the old servants’ passage, and waited until Nicholas arrived. When she heard his step, she put her eye to the opening she’d left.

His dark blond hair was disheveled; the uneven swirls of gold curved over and around each other and made Cynthia’s fingers itch to smooth them. Or muss them further.

He looked so familiar and precious that her heart stuttered over every beat. Yes, she’d seen him twice already, but both times he’d been sleeping. Awake, he was just as she remembered, and yet there were so many things she’d forgotten. The way he ducked his head when he was thinking. The exact rose shade of his mouth. The line of his nose where a little bump revealed a childhood break. And the deep frown lines between his brows.

Except those had never been there before.

She’d been so absorbed in his face that she hadn’t noticed the conversation he was having with Mrs. Pell. The housekeeper was pale and nodding as Nicholas whispered, “I had no idea.”

Cynthia hadn’t worried overmuch about her family’s response to her supposed death, but seeing the sorrow and concern on Nicholas’s face made her realize how self-centered she’d been. She wasn’t particularly close to her mother or sister—and certainly not to her stepfather—but she realized now that her mother must be heartbroken and her sister frightened and sad. But the outcome would’ve been no different if Cynthia had been given over to Lord Richmond: her family would never have seen her again and she’d likely have turned up dead soon enough. She certainly would’ve wished for it.

Selfish she might be, but she was alive and relatively unscathed.

As Nicholas stared at the floor and listened to something Mrs. Pell was saying, Cynthia began to realize that perhaps the frown lines weren’t the only change in him. He was certainly larger than he had been ten years before. Taller and wider and altogether more male. And his voice was far deeper and touched with a certain roughness it hadn’t had before.

His hair was far shorter than he’d ever kept it, cut close along his nape where once there had been careless curls.

And he looked…weary. But perhaps that was only the travel.

Cynthia eased the panel fully closed and made her way blindly toward the narrow staircase along the back wall. She touched her tongue against the ridge of the scar that marred her bottom lip, remembering the feel of a wet mouth sucking at her, of sharp teeth breaking through the skin when she tried to pull free. That monster had liked that, really liked it, giving Cynthia her final glimpse of the madness lurking beneath her fiancé’s distinguished façade.

The tiny bit of guilt that had started blooming inside of her withered. She couldn’t feel bad over a viscount’s sleepless nights. She couldn’t feel bad over her mother’s grief. Her very life was on the line, and no one had seen fit to worry over that. She was on her own.

Setting aside her guilt, Cynthia put one hand against the wall and raced up the steps as quietly as she could to plan tonight’s excursions.

Lancaster’s neck wouldn’t stop its aching, despite the three glasses of brandy he’d downed in quick succession. He shifted against the kitchen wall, crossed his left boot over his right and stared down at the empty tumbler.

He understood what had happened to Cynthia now, or at least the bare bones of it, but there was so much he didn’t know. He needed to know, needed to know everything.

His life was spent gathering information and formulating the correct response. Plucking every bit of knowledge he could glean in order to survive. He’d perfected this technique upon his family’s move to London. Not only had he never received an education like most boys of his standing—boarding school and all the fraternal bonding that went along with it—his life had been in complete disarray in those first months. So he’d watched and learned and carved out a place for himself among the ton by analyzing every situation he was thrust into.

But this wasn’t a matter of social survival. This was life and death and all the suffering in between.

Running a hand through his hair, Lancaster glanced up to find one of the new maids standing there. She nodded timidly toward the glass.

Lancaster smiled at her pale face, trying to relax her into a state calmer than terror. “Lizzy, is it?”

“Mary, sir.”

“Ah, Mary. I apologize. Lizzy is your sister then?” Two of them had arrived shortly after Lancaster had pasted himself to the kitchen wall.

“Yes, sir.” Her voice was only slightly above a whisper, but her knuckles weren’t quite so white against her skirt.

“Well, Mary, thank you for coming to Mrs. Pell’s aid. Seems it takes a household of women to care for one viscount, but that has ever been the case. Could I trouble you to leave Mrs. Pell and me alone for a moment? I wish to speak with her privately.”

“Sir!” she chirped, bobbing a ragged curtsy before she bolted from the room.

Mrs. Pell hurried toward him. “Milord, won’t you relax in the drawing room until dinner’s prepared? It’ll be an hour yet. You’d be so much more comfortable.”

“I like it here. It’s busy.” He gestured toward the table and chairs that had been set near the hearth. “Would you please sit down, Mrs. Pell?”

She gasped, “I would say not, sir!” and stared at him as if he’d just pinched her on the rump.

Lancaster held up his hands. “I’m not attempting to permanently upset the delicate balance between man and his housekeeper, I assure you. It’s just that I wish to speak with you about something…difficult. I thought you’d prefer to be comfortable.”

The blood drained from her face. “Difficult?” she whispered.

“Yes.” He grabbed a chair and pulled it closer before the woman could collapse. She let herself be eased down. “It’s about Miss Merrithorpe, of course.”

The air left her lungs as she slumped. “I…I hoped…Oh, sir, I pray you can forgive me!”

Collapsing into his own seat, he shook his head. “Forgive you what?”

“Well, I knew. Of course I knew! And while I was sure she was making a grand mistake, I could not think how else to help her!”

His confusion increased tenfold. “But how could you have stopped Miss Merrithorpe’s marriage?”

Mrs. Pell’s mouth snapped shut and she frowned at him.

“You knew she planned to take her own life?”

“No!” She shook her head hard, then paused for a moment as if to gather her thoughts. “No, of course not. I’d never have allowed such a thing. But I knew how desperate she was. That man…”

“Richmond?” The name tasted of bile on his tongue. “Her fiancé?”

“Yes, though she never agreed to marry him, milord.” The housekeeper leaned forward in her chair, healthy color returning to her cheeks on a wave of emotion. “She refused. Said he was a devil. So Mr. Cambertson locked her in her room and fed her only bread and water, and still she would not agree.”

“My God.”

“I was so worried for her, but there was naught I could do. And then…And then Mr. Cambertson decided that if he could not convince her, perhaps her betrothed could! He sent for him, and…She’d met him only twice before, but she’d seen that he…”

Mrs. Pell leaned slightly away and looked at him carefully. For once, he had no idea of the expression on his face. Horror or just weariness?

“You must know him, being a viscount and all, but I hope he’s no friend of yours.”

“No.”

“Good. As I said, she had heard he was not right, you understand. Cynthia wouldn’t have wanted to marry a stranger anyway, lord or not. But once she met him, she was afraid. And then that last time…” The housekeeper shook her head and her eyes glinted with moisture. “She managed to escape at least.”

Escape. By throwing herself from a cliff. Sad to say, Lancaster understood completely.

And what had happened to her before she ran? “I am sorry,” he whispered into the silence. “I had no idea.”

“Well, how could you have, sir? You’re busy with your obligations in London. I daresay the dramas of our little shire have no bearings on life there.”

“No, but…” Of course, he could not have known that Cynthia Merrithorpe might be forced into marriage, but he should’ve been keeping watch on the earl. Lancaster was responsible for that wretched life, surely. And by extension, for Cynthia’s death.

“I should like to visit her grave,” he said.

Mrs. Pell flushed and shook her head. “There is no grave. A suicide can never…and besides that, her body was not found.”

He raised his head in a sharp jerk. “No body? Then how can we know she is dead? Perhaps she’s only run off. That seems more in keeping with the Cynthia I knew.”

“I saw her.” The woman’s words descended in a hoarse rush. “I saw her jump myself, so there’s no doubt she’s dead. Milord. I mean to say…It’s just not possible. If…I…”

Despite his own shocked pain, Lancaster saw the stiffness in Mrs. Pell’s face and knew that he’d asked too much of her. She was in mourning and suffering more than he’d known. How horrible to watch a loved one throw herself into the ocean.

“I regret the question, Mrs. Pell,” he said softly. “I apologize for the pain I caused at broaching the subject so callously.”

“Nonsense, sir,” she answered, though she stood and shook out her skirts all the same. “No apology necessary. Let me refill your drink.”

Lancaster watched the amber slide of the liquid as it slipped from the decanter to the glass. He was still watching the play of rusts and golds as the firelight danced against the glass in his hand when he realized he was alone.

Thank God. He needed privacy right now, needed to calm his shaking thoughts. But despite the solitude, he did not reach up to rub the ache at his throat, the prickling heat that spread in both directions before the ends met at his spine. He’d trained himself long ago never to draw attention to the rough scar that ringed his neck, never to touch it…even if it did feel tight as a noose today.

He dreamt of her that night. She stood at the edge of a cliff, winds whipping her skirt to her legs and tangling her hair into writhing Medusa strands. When she turned to look at him, her eyes flooded with dark judgment.

Cynthia knew what he knew, was aware of his absolute failure. But he could save her now, reach out and tug her back from the gaping maw of the gray waters.

But something held him back, something rough and tight and strangling him. Lancaster reached up to claw at the tightness, tried to work his fingers beneath it. His eyes rolled as he looked around for help, but no one arrived. In the end, all he saw was Cynthia, as she took one step back and her body slowly tilted away. The pressure tightened around his neck….

Sheer force of will allowed Lancaster to pull himself from the dream. He’d worked hard at the skill, as there were certain parts of his past that he never wished to know again. But it had been years since he’d suffered that kind of nightmare, and so his mind moved with resistance, rusty with disuse.

He forced his eyelids open, though they sunk closed again before he could focus. Only an impression of something white moving in the moonlight floated to his brain. He breathed, feeling his closed throat expand, and tried again. This time there was only blackness, nothing white at all. Lancaster unwound his clenched muscles and sat up, swinging his legs to the floor. The sweat covering his body cooled to an instant chill, a relief after the feverish fear of the dream.

The crisp air was a relief too, and he breathed deeply to calm his hammering pulse. Just a dream, just a dream.

The image of a length of white moving across his room flashed behind his eyes again, clearer this time. The shape of a gown, the blur of a face. But that had been nothing. Just a remnant of terror, nothing else. Lancaster scrubbed his hands through his hair, then reached for the mug of water next to the bed. And froze.

The water was there, and the lamp next to it, but something else was there as well. Something small and pale and giving off a faint sheen in the moon’s rays. Whatever it was hadn’t been there before.

He glanced around the room, toward the door, and saw nothing. Perhaps Mrs. Pell had entered, bringing him…What? Lancaster squinted at the unknown object and reached for the lamp. The wick caught with a crackle and revealed a tiny heap of harmless fabric.

The flame grew brighter as he reached forward, adding pink to the paleness. As he lifted the material, Lancaster saw that it was a ribbon. A silk hair ribbon, stiff and discolored, stained with white…just as if it had been plunged into the ocean and left to dry on the sun-swept rocks below.