Too Sinful to Deny: Gothic Love Stories #2

by Ridley, Erica

  Chapter 13

  With a reasonably low number of wrong turns—and the discovery of yet another heretofore unseen staircase—Susan found herself shivering in the chill morning air beneath the arched entrance to the Beaunes’ rock garden. Or grave garden, as it were. The serpentine rose vines twining the gate seemed lifeless and frozen, like the grounds of a bewitched castle awaiting the arrival of a handsome prince. Except there would be no waking up from this nightmare.

  The dead would stay dead. (Well, perhaps. If she asked them nicely.)

  Susan tiptoed out from beneath the thorn-encrusted archway, hyper-aware of each impression her booted feet made upon the cold soil. She did not see Lady Beaune. She didn’t see a single soul. Perhaps that was for the better.

  Now that she was looking for such things, she found the three flat stones with relative ease. The first two marble rectangles were unmarked. She might not have recognized them for what they were, had the third—otherwise identical—stone not been engraved, Lord Jean-Louis Beaune, 1755–1813.

  He’d died last year. Last year! Susan’s head swam with the implications. Not that there were overt implications.

  Whom did the other two graves belong to, that their rotting corpses merited neither name nor date? Had they died last year as well? Or longer ago? Or—Susan’s gaze jerked toward the skeletal manor looming over her shoulder—more recently yet? Did everyone who resided here meet an untimely death?

  That was when she noticed the others. The (heaven help her!) dozens of freshly turned plots dotting the so-called garden. How could there be so many? And so recent? And so... small. Susan’s stomach convulsed in revulsion as she realized that such spaces were only big enough for children.

  She backed out of the garden in slow, uncoordinated motions, grappling behind her for a handhold and wincing when errant thorns drew blood from her fingertips.

  The clouds broke overhead. A dull glow whitewashed the dead earth, giving the entire vista a bleached, colorless appearance more appropriate to a dream than reality. The marble slabs glinted. The pungent scent of the dark soil mixed with the too-sweet stench of dying roses. Or something else. Something darker. There were no roses this time of year. The garden itself tilted, uneven, impossible. Susan fled back inside, desperate for the sanctuary of her bedchamber.

  Instead, she took a wrong turn and came upon a hidden staircase.

  Curious, she followed the stairs down, down into the bowels of Moonseed Manor, down into a cellar she hadn’t known existed. From those hellish depths came a plaintive whimper, like that of a lost cat... or a child, terrified of becoming companion to the unfortunates in the cold earth out-of-doors.

  The last place she wanted to go was down into that darkness, from whence those horrible whimpers rose. But if a child needed help, how could she not?

  Careful to keep her descent as soundless as possible—if a villain were there with the wounded child, she certainly had no wish to make her presence known—Susan crept down the steps one by one.

  A dank chill emanated from the stone passageway. Tiny beads of moisture covered the smooth slabs, as if whatever misdeeds took place within these walls caused the house itself to break into a cold sweat.

  Not for the first time, Susan wondered whether it would be smarter to just walk on back to London after all, with nothing more than the pelisse on her back. What were a hundred or so miles to the truly desperate? But then came another soft whimper. If she had within her power the opportunity to save an innocent from a terrible fate, she would never forgive herself for walking away.

  She reached the bottom at last. There was only one room. And no way to miss what hunched inside.

  The ghost from her bedchamber.

  As before, a pair of long white plaits tumbled from beneath a hooded cloak. Age spots dotted ungloved hands. Dirty, ripped fingernails clawed at the cold stone walls, still damp with perspiration. Shadow obscured the rest.

  Or had. Susan must have made a small sound. The figure turned around, hobbled forward, cocked her head... and the crimson hood fell away from her face.

  A gasp fluttered from Susan’s lips. Not a ghost at all. Not even old.

  The elaborate crucifix was missing from the woman’s thin neck. The braids—now that they caught the weak light from the candelabra in the corridor—were palest blonde, not white. And the creature had just managed to brush off one of her age spots with the back of her hand. Dirt. From clawing at the walls. But why—

  Then she saw it.

  A chain. Thin. Delicately so. But strong enough to keep this poor woman’s warped frame shackled to its cage. The slender chain stretched from an iron ring attached to the lowest corner stone to an invisible manacle beneath the hem of the crimson cloak.

  The woman couldn’t have been much older than four or five and twenty. She hobbled toward Susan. And whimpered when the chain checked her progress at her very first step. This time, its taut length revealed the iron clamp encircling a pale, bone-thin ankle.

  Susan’s lungs drew in a sudden, heaving breath as if she’d been underwater all this time and finally come up for air.

  If this woman was locked, trapped, imprisoned... there must be a key to release her. Susan just had to find it. But the walls were empty. Consumed with urgency, she jerked her body around to search the corridor for a nail hanging a key in the shadows.

  She came face-to-face with the giant.

  The master of the manor did not look pleased. The scarecrow stood just behind him, grinning his horrible slash-faced smile. He still carried a shovel in one hand. From the other dangled a ring of keys. Which quickly disappeared into a pocket.

  Susan tried to move, tried to smile and say she must’ve lost her way (dear Lord, why hadn’t she lost her bloody way?), tried to squeeze through the half-inch of space not filled up by the giant and escape Moonseed Manor forever. But her limbs were frozen in place.

  “There you are, Miss Stanton,” drawled the giant’s deep voice, as if he and the scarecrow had spent the entire morning looking for her.

  Perhaps they had. The scarecrow’s tiny eyes glittered at her above his evil smile.

  The giant moved farther into the room. “I see you’ve met my wife.”

  His—Once again, Susan’s lungs failed her. She turned to gape at the frail, hunchbacked creature chained to the wall. How could this be Lady Beaune? The woman whimpered, put both gnarled hands to her face, and cowered into the corner.

  “Y-you keep my cousin chained up in the cellar?” Susan’s voice was faint, tinny, a dim echo of herself.

  “Got to,” rasped the scarecrow, tapping the pole of the shovel into his free palm. “Else she’ll run away from us again.” His button eyes shifted their black gaze to the far corner. “Won’t you, milady?”

  Susan’s horrified focus snapped back to the giant, who simply inclined his head in silent acknowledgment that yes, that’s precisely how things were.

  Is Lady Beaune at home? Always.

  “I-I don’t suppose you might unchain her,” Susan ventured, determined not to flee (or faint dead away) without at least attempting to save her hostess from whatever these two blackguards had planned.

  “I don’t suppose I would.” The giant strode over to where his wife trembled, face to the wall. “She’s been a bit of a bad girl, and hidden something that I need. Haven’t you, love?” His deep voice hardened. “Where did you put it? Show me. Now.”

  Lady Beaune whimpered, dropped to the dirt floor, curled into a ball.

  A growl came from deep within the giant’s barrel chest.

  The scarecrow stood in the doorway, slapping the shovel into his palm, grinning and grinning.

  Disgusted, the giant turned from his wife and loomed over Susan. His shadow cast her into darkness, making his expression impossible to read. “What are you doing down here, Miss Stanton?”

  Somehow, she conjured the ability to speak. “I... got lost on the way to my bedchamber.”

  “Is that right?” He patently didn’t be
lieve her. Not that she blamed him. Shameful as her sense of orientation was, at a minimum she knew the difference between down and up. He turned toward the scarecrow. “Would you mind accompanying Miss Stanton to her... current... lodgings?”

  The shovel dropped into the scarecrow’s palm and stayed there. His straw-thin fingers flexed their grip around the hard wooden handle.

  “My pleasure,” came his scratchy reply.

  “You know,” Susan blurted, the words darting out so fast even she wasn’t quite sure what she was saying, “now that I think of it, I was meant to go to the dress shop this morning and here it is afternoon already. Miss Devonshire is certainly wondering what on earth has become of that slugabed Susan Stanton, and I truly cannot have her and Miss Grey worried about my well-being. I’ll just call over there now, whilst the errand is still fresh in mind, and do that fitting they promised me for the trousseau I ordered yesterday. I can find my way outside, no problem, although I thank you kindly for the offer of assistance.” She cast her wild gaze toward the stairs. “Very well... I’ll be off, then, I suppose. Er, now-ish.”

  The giant and the scarecrow met eyes above her head, reaching an unknown agreement in wordless communication. To her surprise, the scarecrow stepped aside, apparently instructed to let her pass, although he did so with unhidden ill humor.

  Susan did not wait for her pardon to be rescinded, but tore up the steps as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels. She doubted the comparison was very far off. Just ask Lady Beaune.

  “Miss Stanton?”

  At the giant’s deep voice bouncing up the stairs behind her, Susan’s joints froze up so suddenly that she nearly tumbled all the way back down from the top. She flailed for a nonexistent handrail and managed to right herself at the last second with each palm flattened against opposite stone walls.

  “Yes?”

  “It might be best for you not to become ‘lost’ in this area again.”

  “Er, right,” she responded when she found her voice. “I can see where that could be sound advice.”

  “So long as we understand each other,” was the giant’s only reply. A chain rattled somewhere in the shadows.

  “Yes, I... I’m certain we do.”

  The scarecrow poked his head around the corner, the slash across his face splitting his visage far wider than any human grin ever should.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Stanton,” he rasped, once again toying with the shovel. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

  She ran.

  Chapter 14

  By the time she reached Bournemouth proper, Susan’s shift stuck to her back and her lungs were afire. She had never been so terrified in her life. She had to get out of this godforsaken village before escape ceased to be an option.

  It was now more imperative than ever that she win the hearts of every breathing body within the town’s borders. Someone had to help her escape before she stopped showing up one day. Otherwise, all the giant would have to do is say that she’d gone back to her parents, and her face would never cross their minds again.

  Susan stumbled. Was that what was happening? Were all those tiny plots “visitors” who had “gone back home”? She forced her feet into motion. That would not happen to her. It would not.

  As for Lady Beaune... She would rescue her, at the earliest opportunity. Whom should she tell first? Mr. Bothwick? No. He was a particular friend of the very fiend who had locked her in the cellar. Even if not complicit in the actual crime, Mr. Bothwick had already chosen his allegiance. But then whom could she go to? The townsfolk? How would she know who was or wasn’t already in the giant’s pocket? Risking her own freedom wouldn’t help either of them. She needed an outsider. Someone guaranteed to be impartial.

  The magistrate. Perfect. No one else could be expected to confront the woman’s husband.

  But until Mr. Forrester returned, Susan would continue attempting escape on her own. To do that she needed friends and horseflesh. Money, of course, could easily buy both people and beasts, but as she was stuck without coin, she would have to employ an alternate method.

  She slowed to a stop when she reached the motley collection of ramshackle buildings rising from the jawbone of the sandy shore.

  Where to? The only structures apparently open for business were the dressmaker’s (where she really would need a heavy purse if she were to win over those cold fishes) and the tavern, which she supposed would have to do, given the lack of alternatives. At least there would be live persons.

  She pushed open the swinging door and stepped inside.

  The wild-haired barman looked all but terrified to find her within his walls again. The drunks who had crowded her before cleared a berth as wide as if she carried the plague. The priest was the one person who didn’t leap back in horror upon her appearance in the tavern... and by the number of empty tumblers on his table, that might have been because he was no longer capable.

  Nonetheless, the priest had to be the most upstanding citizen present. And when he was not in his cups, perhaps a key source of aid. If he was sober enough—and openminded enough—to take her seriously. Or at least offer shelter to her and her cousin.

  “I’m Miss Susan Stanton,” she informed him when she reached his table. She bathed him in her sunniest smile.

  He glanced up, blinking owlishly, then returned his focus to the glass in his hand, which he couldn’t quite keep on a straight trajectory to his mouth.

  She didn’t bother to hide the slow death of her smile. Definitely not sober enough to help. All right... next plan. Her parents’ money would get here soon enough. It had to.

  “A round for everyone,” she announced, opening an arm in a gesture wide enough to include the entire room.

  The barman didn’t move.

  How Susan hated the loss of having the Stanton name be just as good as gold.

  “That is,” she continued as merrily as possible, given his lack of exuberance, “if you might extend me a spot of credit until my allowance arrives next week?”

  “Aren’t ye the new chit staying wit’ Ollie?” piped up one of the drunks.

  “Aye, she’s one of his all right,” put in the other, sotto voce.

  In a flash, the barman burst into motion. “Your credit’s just fine here, miss. Sit, sit. What can I get you? Name it. Anything. I’m Sully, by the way. At your service.”

  “Nothing for me, please.” She climbed up onto a stool and recounted the patrons. Three. Just three. “But a round for the rest, if you would.”

  “A round for the rest,” he echoed, pouring, “and a wee bit of French brandy for the lady.”

  “That’s truly all right, I—”

  “No, no, there’s plenty, honestly, and more any moment, know what I mean? But of course you do. I’ve seen the company you keep. Truly, drink up. Drink, drink. There’s a girl.”

  Susan found herself swallowing her first taste of French brandy. She was positive it was illegal to possess. Treasonous, even. But she supposed if an MP came to investigate her for a simple glass of brandy, he could rescue her from this hellhole. If not, she could always steal his horse and hie back to London that way. A hysterical giggle bubbled from her throat.

  Sully frowned, concerned. “There, there, miss. Maybe not so fast, now. There’s plenty, mind you, but I don’t fancy—that is to say—”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him, returning the empty tumbler to the counter. “I don’t drink spirits. It’s just been a mite stressful today, one could say.”

  “Hear, hear,” mumbled the priest.

  Then her ghostly pursuer filtered in through the far wall.

  “I know you can see me, so don’t play otherwise,” were his first words. He rubbed a hand from his ginger beard to his bald head. “Just tell my sister I won’t be coming home, and I promise to go away.”

  “I want you to go away now,” Susan hissed between clenched teeth.

  The barman recoiled in alarm from his task of wiping the counter beneath her glass.


  “Begging your pardon, miss,” he stammered. “It’s just that there was a bit of brandy heading straight for the edge, and as I hadn’t wanted it to muss your dress, I thought to myself, ‘I ought to clean that spot, is what I ought to do,’ but now I can see as I was overstepping myself and I surely wouldn’t want—”

  “No,” she gritted out, torn between glaring at the ghost for causing this mess and patting the guilt-stricken barman in assurance. “Not you,” she added lamely, but as the other living patrons were still keeping a fair distance, this explanation only earned wrinkles of confusion in Sully’s brow.

  “I told you, miss.” The bearded ghost floated up to the stool next to Susan. “Just tell my sister I won’t be coming home, and I’ll leave this earth forever.” A flash of doubt wrinkled his brow. “I think. I’m actually not rightly sure as to why I’m still here now, but we might as well make the most of it, wouldn’t you say?”

  She wouldn’t say, actually. Not a bloody word. Not with the barman casting odd glances at her over his shoulders as he tidied up the far end of the bar.

  The ghost materialized in the counter in front of her. “Come now, lass, don’t be like that. Tell her I’m dead, and I’ll be gone. How hard could it be?”

  As it happened, Susan didn’t want to think about the thousands of things that could go horribly wrong with that scenario. On the other glove, the ghost would obviously keep haunting her until she agreed to his scheme with some level of realism, so—

  “What did you say your name was?” she murmured at last, pretending to be interested.

  “Most call me Red,” he replied promptly, at the same time the barman answered with a wary, “Sully, miss. Same as it was a moment ago.”

  Argh. Perhaps she should drink herself into unconsciousness, after all.

  “Sully, darling.” Susan leaned forward with what she hoped was a convincing no-really-I’m-utterly-sane expression. “How about pouring another—”

  The tavern door burst open and a dozen fishermen spilled inside, bringing with them a fair bit of the sea and the rancid stench of raw fish.