Читать книгу One Week As Lovers - Victoria Dahl - Страница 11

Richmond would have to die.

Lancaster stared into the low flames of his bedchamber’s hearth and nodded at the sparks that floated up. Richmond must die.

His death wouldn’t remove the guilt eating at Lancaster’s heart, but it was the only thing he could think to offer the ghost of Cynthia Merrithorpe.

She’d entered his room for three nights now, always after he slept, always leaving some token of her presence. A ribbon. A surf-smoothed stone. And last night, worst of all, a cold, wet strand of seaweed on the floor near his bed, as if it had clung to her dead foot on her journey from the cliffs.

Likely, she wouldn’t follow him to London if he left; he’d never heard of ghosts traveling. But he didn’t think he could live with the knowledge that she was stranded here, wandering these lonely rooms for all eternity. Mrs. Pell might not appreciate it either.

Wondering if he was going mad, Lancaster folded his clothes and eased wearily beneath the icy sheets of his bed. Tired as he was, he didn’t think he’d sleep. His thoughts were tumbling over themselves, getting caught up on wisps of bad dreams and hateful memories.

He’d been just fifteen when his father had sent him on that trip to the Lake District. At the time, his family had only recently become sure that the current viscount, a distant cousin, would not pass his title to his rightful heir. The young boy had begun to suffer fits on his sixth birthday and, according to rumor, had only deteriorated as time passed. There had been speculation that he was close to death for years, but the viscount hadn’t wanted to admit, to himself or anyone else, that his son would not live to adulthood.

So despite the fact that Nicholas’s father would one day ascend to the title, no one could acknowledge it. The family had no social connections and no means of developing them. They were left poor and waiting on the barren Yorkshire moors, like crows anticipating the death of a young boy.

Isolated from society, his family had been thrilled when an opportunity had presented itself. A tour of the Lake District. A chance for Nick to make connections with good families.

Lancaster felt nauseous at the memory. My God, what country fools they’d been. Fish in a barrel, unaware of danger looming overhead.

But it no longer mattered. None of it. Cynthia was dead, and it was Lancaster’s fault as much as it was Richmond’s. Even the spirit world recognized that.

So Richmond would die. It was the only solution to this mess that Lancaster could conjure up, and it would serve two purposes. First, Cynthia would hopefully be hastened on to heaven…or whatever place avenged ghosts went. Second, it would keep Richmond from ever harming anyone again. Plus there was one added advantage: the thought of shooting that man between the eyes satisfied the dark need that lurked deep inside Lancaster’s soul.

That primal thing had shaken with joy at the first thought of murder. Lancaster might end up damned for killing, but he would go to hell with a clearer conscience than he had now. He’d neglected this responsibility for far too long. Cynthia certainly believed so, or she wouldn’t bother with haunting his house.

A board creaked somewhere nearby, and he raised his head, wondering if this would be the night he’d see her without the veil of sleep to cloud his eyes. But no wraith lurked at the foot of his bed. Just the spirit of the old manor settling around him, or perhaps the new maids readying for bed.

Weariness tugged at him despite his restlessness. Perhaps he would sleep after all, tossing and turning, fighting ghosts and memory. Lancaster lay his head to the pillow and closed his eyes.

Cynthia eased into the narrow space of the old servants’ stairs. Her thick stockings were too slippery on the risers, but they were silent. And warm. The rough wooden walls tugged at her nightdress each time she brushed against them, reminding her how narrow the space was. The smallness helped to guide her in the pitch black though. She could only move straight down until she reached the floor below.

It seemed that Nicholas had forgotten more than just his friends when he’d left. He’d been almost too large to fit into the passageways even in his youth, but Cynthia had loved darting in and out of the hidden panels, careful not to be caught by Mrs. Cantry, who would not have appreciated a neighbor child using her home as a personal labyrinth.

But however little time he’d spent in the mysterious passages, Nicholas should have remembered there was a secret entrance to this bedchamber. But he didn’t. He’d left his old life too thoroughly behind when he’d gone to London. Cynthia was in no danger of discovery.

Knowing she was close to the bottom step, she ran her hand carefully along the wall until she felt the corner. She could turn left or right here. Left to go toward the other bedrooms and the stairway down to the main floor, right to go to Nicholas’s bedchamber. She turned right, careful not to brush the wall that ran just behind his bed.

Her legs began to weaken with nervousness as she neared the panel, but she ignored her own anxiety and pushed ahead. She’d been subtle in her haunting so far, and was having no effect on Nicholas as far as she could tell. Oh, he believed he was being haunted—he’d said as much to Mrs. Pell—but he didn’t seem frightened or inclined to leave. Strange man. Perhaps he was one of those mystics who thought it exciting to make contact with the dead. She half expected to stumble upon him wearing a turban and chanting over a brace of candles, eager to chat with her spirit.

More drastic action had to be taken. She couldn’t possibly scramble around on his cliffs knowing he could decide to enjoy the sea view at any given moment.

She clutched the stick in her left hand and held her breath to listen. He didn’t snore, damn him, and it took all her concentration to pick up the faint rhythm of his breathing. It was slow and steady—no chanting—and the unbroken darkness confirmed that his lamp was out. Cynthia eased open the panel.

The relative warmth of the room swept over her, carrying the faint tang of soap. She thought wistfully of a bath, a steaming tub of clean water she could lower her whole body into…but there was naught but hurried, cold washing in her immediate future, no matter how much her body shivered at the thought.

His bed lay to the right of the panel, and she could not see him without moving fully into the room, by far the most nerve-wracking point of her expedition. She eased her head beyond the open panel and peeked around it, confirming that he lay in his bed, asleep.

Even the faint moonlight seemed bright after emerging from absolute darkness, and she could see him. As always, he lay on his back, covers pulled high on his chest, one hand wrapped in the sheets. He seemed always to frown in his sleep, which tugged at Cynthia’s curiosity. Why was his sleep so troubled? He’d never had a care in the world during his younger years. Perhaps the haunting was working better than she’d expected.

Other than his frown and the lines of his eyebrows, there wasn’t much she could make out, though she’d tried hard over the past few nights. She itched to fire the lamp and truly look him over, but that would’ve been foolish and unnecessary. Completely uncalled for. Still, she glanced toward the lamp before she turned away and tiptoed toward the wall farthest from his bed.

She raised the charcoal and put the end to the faded wallpaper. The first scratch echoed through the room with startling sharpness, nearly pulling a gasp from her throat. As she bit it back, she whipped toward the bed, muscles tensed for flight.

He hadn’t moved. His frown didn’t deepen, there was no gleam of opening eyes. If his breath had changed, she couldn’t hear it over the crazed thumping of her heart.

Just a scratch against the wall. It couldn’t have been as loud as it seemed. She steeled her nerves—or tried to—and turned back to her work. The second line of the “L” seemed even louder, but she kept going with only one glance backward. Cringing, she moved on to the “E,” then the “A.” She was shaking by the time she finished the last letter and finally let herself breathe.

Leave here. Simple, yet hopefully effective. She’d thought the seaweed would do it, but perhaps he was a dullard and needed blatant prodding to get out the door.

She was sliding toward the open panel when it reached her ears…silence. No rhythmic shush of air. Cynthia froze. She should have run, but her body locked itself with a nearly audible snap. The hair on her nape stood on end, then gooseflesh spread down her arms.

Don’t look. Don’t move and he won’t be awake.

“It’s you,” a hoarse voice whispered, and her heart plummeted a frightening distance. Just like jumping off a cliff.

“It’s you,” he repeated. “Why are you here?”

Oh, God. Oh, God. She’d been caught, found out. He’d send her back to her family and then she’d go to that man—

You are a ghost, something inside her said, scolding. Cynthia blinked and forced down her panic. A ghost. Of course. He still thought her a spirit.

She turned slowly, replacing her terror with a stern look. No need to talk, really, so Cynthia just glared at him.

The man should have been frightened, terrified, but his head tilted as if he were puzzled. Perhaps he really was a dullard. All those London nights of drinking and whoring had taken their toll.

“I am sorry,” he said softly. “Truly.”

She wished she’d brought a length of chain. A rattle would be the perfect sound to leave him with as she slipped away. Lacking that, there wasn’t much she could do, so she pointed toward the words she’d scratched and tried to glide toward the door…and promptly slipped on the polished wood.

Though she caught herself, the slight stumble seemed to jolt Nick from his daze. He sat up a little more as tension entered the silhouette of his shoulders. She glided faster.

Her movement must have drawn his eye toward the open panel. His head turned toward it, then back to her. She saw the moment he was about to rise, could feel a wave of awareness as his mind fell free of sleep. Cynthia bolted.

Her fingers managed to catch the edge of the panel when she ran past, but it banged on her heel and bounced back open…right into Nicholas if his gasp was any indication.

A burst of triumph flooded her veins as she sprinted toward the stairway. He didn’t know these passageways and he couldn’t see in the dark. Her escape seemed even more sure when a sharp crack sounded behind her. Nicholas cursed loudly and thoroughly, and she imagined him rubbing his elbow while she slipped away into the black maze.

She was planning her next move, mentally gathering up the few belongings she’d stashed in the attic, thinking where she could go…and then her foot slipped. A small scream escaped her as the world tilted. Her legs floated in the air for a moment before they crashed down to the hard steps and pulled her back toward the floor she’d just escaped.

The man she’d just escaped was waiting at the bottom. His hands closed over her shoulders in an impossibly strong grip.

“Bloody hell,” he growled, not sounding like Nick at all. “Who the hell are you?” Every shred of terror she’d managed to tamp down burst free to course through her body.

She pushed her feet against his legs and tried to pull away. Dull pain throbbed through her shins, but she ignored it and pushed harder. Foolish, apparently, as he simply plucked her up and carried her toward the faint silver rectangle that marked the open panel.

“You must be mad, pretending to be a dead girl,” he muttered. His fingers dug into her arm and hip. “Completely insane, not to mention heartless and cruel. I actually thought you a bloody ghost.” Bitterness had crept into the anger, and now he really sounded like a stranger. She never could have imagined such coldness in Nicholas’s voice. He didn’t sound the least bit soft or slow now, and nothing close to charming.

“Please,” she gasped, as he ducked through the opening.

“Please, what? Ghosts don’t feel fright or pain, do they? I can do with you what I like.”

What did he mean? The words pushed Cynthia to struggle in earnest, but it was too late. He only laughed and tossed her on the bed. Before she could catch her breath he had one hand wrapped tight around her ankle. She screamed and twisted, but only succeeded in hurting her own leg. Glass clattered, a match flared, and Nicholas managed to light the lamp with one hand.

Desperate, Cynthia kicked out with her free foot, meaning to knock the lamp to the floor, but she didn’t make contact with anything but Nicholas’s arm. He grabbed that ankle as well, as Cynthia pressed her face to the blankets and reached out to pull herself toward the other side of the bed.

“Well,” he scoffed as the lamplight grew brighter around them. “Your thighs certainly look pink enough. I don’t think you’re dead at all.”

Alarm stiffened her spine when she realized that the coolness against the back of her legs was air. His grip stopped her from snapping her legs together or even shifting her position. A different kind of fear was just sizzling over her nerves when he tugged her closer. He moved her ankles together, offering more modesty, but now he was turning her toward him. What to be most concerned with, her virtue or her identity?

Identity, her brain screamed. She had little to no virtue left anyway.

Cynthia made very sure her face was still hidden in the blankets. When his weight dipped the bed and his hold loosened, she shifted fully to her stomach and scooted down toward him, knowing it would push her nightdress higher. Cool air swept under her skirt and Nicholas froze. Her little distraction was working. Now if she could only reach something heavy…

The thief—what else could she be?—clearly had no idea what was happening with her gown. Every attempt to struggle pushed the skirt higher…and higher. In fact, Lancaster was just beginning to get a glimpse of the soft, generous rise of her bottom where it curved up from pale thighs. Jesus.

Anger was already pushing his blood hard, screaming through his nerves. He briefly considered that, whoever she was, she was at least in need of a good spanking. But that was ridiculous, of course. He was no rutting hound, and for all he knew she could be somebody’s grandmother. But she didn’t look like a grandmama from this vantage point. Not at all.

Irritated with his ridiculous train of thought, Lancaster huffed in anger and pushed completely off the bed. “Madam, you may wish to adjust your skirts. Then if you’ll stop this meaningless resistance, we can decide what is to be done with you.” He’d gotten his voice back under control, but he still felt swelled with rage. A common thief and she’d actually had him believing in ghosts and vengeance and wandering spirits.

She’d stopped wiggling, but her arse was still teetering on the brink of exposure. He glared very pointedly somewhere else—at the back of her head where a tangled mess of braid snaked down her spine. “Mary or Lizzie? Which of you is it? Come now, there’s no point putting this off.” Her spine stiffened, drawing his eyes back down….

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he growled, lunging forward to yank her gown down himself. Before the thick flannel was even covering her knees, she’d twisted beneath his hands. He’d finally see her—

Fist. Holding the small clock from the other bedside table. He got a very close view of it when it landed right between his eyes. He’d ducked his head enough that it didn’t catch his nose, but it still hurt like the devil. She jerked beneath him, trying to yank her body out from under his, but Lancaster was done with her games and simply put his forearm to her neck. Even if the pounding in his head suddenly overcame him, his weight would work to his advantage.

The woman soon gave up pushing at him and instead began clawing at his arm. Sympathetic to the horror of suffocation, he relented quickly and eased his arm up until the sound of air rushing into her lungs filled the room.

“Now then—” he started, but the words dissolved to ash in his mouth when his gaze finally focused enough to see.

Her. Cynthia. Her face, not waxen with death, not hazy and ethereal, but flushed with life. Her eyes, not clouded over, but bright and real and blazing with fury.

“Holy bloody hell,” he wheezed.

“You sodding bastard,” she answered.

Lancaster shook his head, leaned closer to be sure his vision hadn’t failed him. “You’re alive.”

“Not for long if you don’t get your arm off my neck.”

He murmured, “Sorry,” and climbed off her to stand and stare in shock. His limbs felt numb and yet the rest of the world seemed sharper, more real. “You’re alive. Cynthia…My God. You’re alive.”

“Yes, well…” She rubbed her neck and her gaze moved to him and then around the room and back to him again.

Strangely, her face was growing redder despite that he’d released her. Perhaps he’d injured her throat or—

“You are, um…” Her eyes dipped down his body. “You’re very naked, Lord Lancaster.”

“Am I?” he was saying just as her words hit him. He looked down. Of course. He’d been sleeping. “Yes, I see that you’re right.”

“It seems inappropriate now that I am no longer dead.”

“Of course.” But he couldn’t move, could only stare at her, breathing and talking. And blushing. “Sorry,” he repeated and looked dazedly around for his robe. The dark blue robe lay tossed over a chair, and as soon as he had it in hand, he turned his eyes back to her to be sure she hadn’t disappeared.

It suddenly occurred to him that this might all be a dream. After all, not only was she alive and in his bed, but she was watching him quite immodestly as he shrugged the robe on. Not to mention that he’d just seen a good bit of her naked bottom.

Lancaster rubbed his forehead, then jerked his hand away at the sharp stab of pain. Perhaps he wasn’t asleep, but knocked unconscious and tumbling toward death.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

She blinked as he tied the robe, then finally pulled her gown down to cover her legs. She folded her knees to her chest, tugged the skirt down to hide even her toes, and glared at him. There were the stubborn jaw and wise eyes. Her cheekbones were high, eyes almost slanted at the corners. An interesting, compelling face, just as he’d thought. Relief bubbled up and mixed with his confusion.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked when she said nothing.

“Well, to begin with, you’ve ruined everything.”

“You must know I have no idea what that means, Cyn—Miss Merrithorpe.”

She frowned, stubborn mouth turning mutinous. “It’s not so hard to puzzle out, surely. I am pretending to be dead. Your estate provided the perfect hiding place. Until you returned for reasons I can’t quite fathom.”

Not a dream. This was definitely the working of a damaged brain. He shook his head, then pressed his palm to the spot above his left eye that shrieked with pain. “You hit me.”

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “Of course I hit you, what else could I do?”

“Politely ask for help?”

She snorted, but when he lowered his hand to look at her, her snort turned to a gasp. “You’re bleeding!”

“I’m not surprised. Are my brains spilling out? It rather feels as if they are.”

She scooted off the bed and drew close. “It’s just a small cut. Already healing. I…Oh, I am sorry, but you shouldn’t have tried to stop me! You forced me to hit you!”

He felt a smile tug at his mouth. A real smile. Nothing contrived or meant to charm. Nothing false or prompted. It was just joy. “Cynthia,” he whispered, as she pursed her lips and stared at his forehead.

“Hm?”

“Cynthia.”

She finally met his gaze and her eyes went wide. Her mouth relaxed and her breath hitched a little as she exhaled. “What?”

Lancaster raised a hand and touched one finger, just one, to her cheek. Her skin was warm, soft and tender, and he thought he felt a tiny shiver work through her muscles. “You’re alive.”

Though she’d been still for a few long seconds, she finally moved, her shoulders rising and falling as she took one deep breath. “I must ask you to tell no one, of course. But yes…” She nodded. “Yes, I am alive.”

His grin widened. He began to laugh.

And then Cynthia smiled.

Lancaster felt a dull concussion, as if something significant had exploded on the horizon of his life. But perhaps that was only the head wound.