The Lady in Gray

by Patricia Oliver

  Moving with deliberate slowness, Sylvia picked up the piece of thick wood.

  The baronet held out his hand for the bar, but Sylvia continued to ignore him. Without it whoever was outside trying to get in— and she gloried in the knowledge that it was Nicholas—would eventually break the door wide open.

  And he would save her, she thought, making no move to approach her captor. She wondered if she had the strength to raise the wooden brace and hit him with it. Appalled at the violent thoughts this man had generated in her, Sylvia gripped the bar with both hands and remained rigid, staring with growing anxiety as the door buckled more under each blow from outside.

  Without warning, Matthew stepped back, and the door slammed open. The earl came flying in, carried by the impulse of his own blows. Tripping on the uneven stones, he was thrown spread- eagled onto the dilapidated settee, covered with an old wool rug in a faded red and blue tartan. The ancient settee, weakened by years of ravaging by rodents, collapsed with a loud crack and overturned in a cloud of dust, landing the earl on the stone floor.

  When he groaned but made no move to rise, Sylvia took a step towards the inert form, but felt herself violently jerked back.

  “Oh, no, you do not, you sneaky little bitch,” Matthew snarled. “You will never belong to him, I can promise you that.”

  With that, the baronet picked her up and strode outside. When he rounded the seaward comer of the hut, Sylvia gasped in terror. Was she about to be tossed over the cliff to her certain death? Exactly as the young countess—Sylvia saw the scene clearly in a flash of intuition—had been flung over the edge by a man driven mad by thwarted passion?

  Without warning he put her down, and she found herself standing on the edge of the cliff, the dark green sea swirling against the rocks fifty feet below.

  Nicholas opened his eyes and blinked. He lay flat on his face on a stone floor, and it took him a second or two to remember how he got there. When the events came flooding back, he staggered to his feet, wincing at his aching shoulder, which he had used to throw himself against the door of the hut. A single glance around the tiny room told him that his quarry had fled. With a groan he ran out. Matt was capable of anything, and in his cousin’s present crazed state, Nicholas feared for Sylvia’s safety.

  The sound of a strident, angry voice drew him round the comer of the hut at a run. What he saw brought him to an abrupt halt, his heart in his mouth.

  His cousin stood at the edge of the cliff, legs spread and hair tousled by the breeze coming from the sea. At first glance Nicholas thought Matt was alone, and his world tilted sickeningly as the image of Sylvia crushed and broken on the rocks below flashed through his mind. Then his cousin moved and there she was, standing perilously close to the precipice, her face pale and drawn. Nicholas drew a great, shuddering breath of relief.

  But there was no time to lose. Matt held Lady Sylvia by one arm and was shouting at her. Every now and then he shook her viciously, and to the earl’s horrified gaze it appeared as though his beloved was in imminent danger of falling backwards over the cliff.

  As Nicholas racked his brain feverishly for a means of preventing the disaster that enfolded before his eyes, snatches of his cousin’s words reached him.

  “... lied to me, she did. Thought she could keep me at her beck and call, the little slut.”

  Matt shook her again, and Nicholas’s heart stood still as Sylvia swayed over the edge. She uttered a little shriek, and Nicholas braced to fling himself upon his cousin. But at the last moment he paused, knowing that any false move on his part would precipitate disaster rather than prevent it. His cousin was sure to thrust her over the edge at the first sign of interference.

  “Reject me, would you?” he screamed in a voice that reminded Nicholas of his cousin’s childhood tantrums. “No woman rejects Matthew Farnaby and lives to boast of it, let me tell you. I warned you ten years ago, but you would not listen, you lying little tramp.”

  “You are confused, Matthew,” Sylvia cried, struggling to free herself. “I never rejected you ten years ago; we were to be married, remember? You loved me or so you—”

  “Married?” His cousin’s voice rose hysterically. “Of course we were to be married, you two-faced strumpet. But you jilted me when that cousin of mine came sniffing around.”

  “I never knew your cousin then, Matthew,” Sylvia pleaded. “Please be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable? How can you ask me to be reasonable when I am surrounded by conniving, deceitful females? Heartless sluts every one of you. You deceived me once, Angelica, and now you want to do so again, do you? Well, let me tell you something, Angel, I know what to do with deceitful chits like—■”

  “I am not Angelica,” Sylvia interrupted, her voice rising with frustration.

  The baronet lifted her bodily from the ground and shook her violently, sending her hat with its saucy pink feather flying over the cliff and spilling a cascade of auburn curls down her back. Nicholas clenched his fists, but dared not make a move. How could he live with himself if by some careless act, the woman he loved was thrown to her death by a madman?

  “Are you not?” Farnaby snarled, holding her aloft for an interminable instant before putting her down again. “Then I should not be surprised to hear you deny you are carrying my child, I suppose. If you can lie about that, Angel, you can lie about anything.”

  “Of course I am not carrying your child, Matthew. You are being quite ridic—”

  “You swore you were, and now you say you are not. What kind of a harpy are you, Angelica, to mock a man by promising him a son and then snatching that joy away?”

  “I never promised you a son, Matthew,” Sylvia insisted, and Nicholas could tell from the quaver in her voice that she was becoming increasingly frightened at Matt’s wild accusations. “And I am not Angelica. I am Sylvia. Look at me, Matthew. Have you forgotten the Blue Duck Inn at Dover, where my father caught up with us? Remember the gilded music box you gave me that played ‘Greensleeves’? You got so tired of hearing it you threatened to throw it out of the window?”

  “Of course I remember that infernal noise,” Farnaby growled. “But it was your brother who tossed the damned thing into the street, Angelica, not I.”

  “My brother? But you never met John. He was away in Scotland at the time. It was you who—”

  “Cease this infernal bickering, Angelica,” the baronet shouted, giving Sylvia another shake that made Nicholas catch his breath. “It was Jean-Claude who agreed we had heard quite enough of that

  a start of surprise that his heart no longer ached at the memory of her betrayal. It ached to hold Sylvia safe in his arms, to save her from the monster who had her in his power. From the cousin he had known all his life as unstable, selfish, and vindictive, but who had now blossomed before his eyes into a full-blown bedlamite.

  The earl’s musing were interrupted by the sound of a horse approaching at breakneck speed. He heard Jason’s shout and glanced over his shoulder as his friend flung himself from the lathered horse and stood poised at the top of the steps, taking in the spectacle on the cliff.

  When he looked back, his gaze clashed with his cousin’s startled face. He saw Matt’s expression turn thunderous and heard his voice grate across the space that separated them.

  “Welcome, Cousin,” the baronet drawled at his most cynical. “You and your friend are just in time to congratulate us on our betrothal. As you see, Nicky, I have won the day and stolen this lovely lady from you. Meet my affianced bride, gentlemen. Is that not so, my sweet?”

  He transferred his grasp from Sylvia’s arm to her hand, which he raised to his lips with an exaggerated courtly movement. “Tell them you are mine, Angelica,” he commanded.

  Nicholas detected Lady Sylvia’s intention in her eyes, but before he could warn against taking foolish chances, she had ripped her hand from his cousin’s grasp and stumbled across the space that separated them, falling into his arms with a moan of sheer relief. From the comer of his eye Nicholas s
aw a pale-faced lad step from the shelter of the hut wall, slingshot poised.

  Taken by surprise, Sir Matthew uttered a coarse oath and whirled to follow Sylvia. Before he had taken even one step, however, he paused abruptly and rocked back on his heels, one hand flying to his temple. Then he tottered, and before Nicholas could fully comprehend what was happening, he saw his cousin sway backwards, dangerously close to the edge.

  And then he was gone. The cliff where moments before his cousin and Sylvia had stood arguing was empty.

  Nicholas braced himself, and then he heard it. A thin wail of indescribable terror keening up the face of the cliff and spilling over the rim for a second before being cut off abruptly by a dull thud.

  The silence that followed was the loudest sound Nicholas had ever heard in his life.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  A Birthday Surprise

  Lady Sylvia stood at the bow window in the Italian Saloon, watching the rain beat its monotonous tattoo against the glass. It had rained fitfully all week, ever since that harrowing afternoon at Pirate’s Cove, when the darkening sky had seemed to presage the dire events that followed.

  The desolate Cornish countryside lay soggy and uninviting around Whitecliffs, and even the garden was beginning to shed its summer colors. The roses sagged on their long stems, dropping their pink petals one by one under the persistent onslaught of water.

  Sylvia sighed as another gust of wind scattered a cloud of petals across the grass. She knew how the roses must be feeling, for she felt much the same way herself, wilted and spiritless. Almost as though some vital element had been lost from her life. This mawkishness was unlike her, but she seemed unable to shake off the chill that had enveloped her that afternoon on the cliff when she had realized that she was in the hands of a madman.

  “Do come and sit down, Sylvia,” her aunt called from behind her. “Missing your tea will not bring your brother here any quicker, my dear, I can assure you. The roads must be appalling after all this rain, and John is probably bogged down somewhere between Shaftesbury and Exeter.”

  “I had pictured him already past Launceston,” Sylvia replied without turning from her perusal of the rain, “perhaps even stopping for a bite to eat at the Stag and Horn there. You know how much he praised their roast duckling last time he visited us.”

  Reluctantly, Sylvia turned away from the window and made her way across the luxuriant Axminster to take her place on the elegant brocade sofa beside Lady Marguerite. She could not very well confess to her aunt that it was not John who had occupied her thoughts as she stood by the window. Her eagerness to see her brother had been eclipsed by the anxiety she felt over the Earl of Longueville’s prolonged absence from the Castle.

  What could be keeping him? she asked herself for perhaps the fifth time that day, absently stirring a lump of sugar into the tea her aunt had just handed her. Did he not guess how much he was missed here? How much she needed him?

  “My dearest Sylvia.” Giovanni replied, “do not fret yourself to ribbons over that gentleman I fancy you are thinking of. He will come back before you know it, and then you can be happy again.”

  The following morning Sylvia was to hear similar advice from her brother, who arrived in time to join the family in the dining room for nuncheon.

  “Although I should caution you, my dear Sylvia,” John warned her after hearing a full and uninhibited account of his sister’s interest in the Earl of Longueville, “that the ton is bound to frown on such a match. Besides which the Morleys are traditionally pretty well starched up in their adherence to social conventions. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing Morley flying in the face of tradition. If he should do so, however, you may be sure he is well and truly at your feet, Sylvia.”

  Her brother was standing before the small hearth in Sylvia’s studio, gazing admiringly at the portraits of the two gentlemen she had recently executed. Using the new paintings as an excuse, Sylvia had whisked John upstairs as soon as nuncheon was over. She was in sore need of counsel, and knew she could count on her brother to deflate any romantical notions he thought might cause her grief. He would tell her the truth without roundaboutation but with compassion and understanding.

  Sylvia had always regretted not waiting to seek John’s advice before her aborted elopement with Sir Matthew. If she had, she might never have met her betrayer again, but on the other hand, she would never have met Nicholas Morley either. She would not have known the joy of falling in love again. Or perhaps she would; it was impossible to predict the future. But the truth of the matter was, she had confessed to John, she wanted no other man but Nicholas.

  “Now, this other fellow looks like an excellent candidate,” she heard her brother say in a tone she recognized as his conciliatory voice, “and he already has the Sutherland hair. Who is he?”

  “That is Captain Jason Ransome, youngest son to the Marquess of Milford. He has recently become partners with Longueville in a new shipping venture. And yes,” she added in response to her brother’s raised eyebrow, “I like him well enough. In fact, I consider him a good friend, but that is all.”

  “He has not shown signs of anything more?”

  Sylvia hesitated. Had the captain shown more than friendship towards her? she wondered. At times she suspected that had she been more encouraging ... but no, the captain was wedded to the sea and to his ships; there was no room for a wife in his life.

  “Jason is a seafaring man,” she replied slowly. “If he had other thoughts, he said nothing to me. Besides,” she added with a rueful laugh, “he is far too much like you, John. Do you not see the resemblance? I am very comfortable with him, almost as though he really were my brother.”

  “And you are not comfortable with Longueville?”

  Sylvia laughed. The trouble with John was that he knew her too well. Not for nothing were they identical twins. Talking to him was almost like talking to herself, except that she suspected her brother was far wiser in dealings of the heart.

  “Have you never been in love, John?” she countered.

  It was John’s turn to smile. “You know I have not, you minx. You would have been the first to know had I been daft enough to throw my heart away. All I recall is a couple of passing infatuations with heartless chits who made me miserable for a week or two but left no lasting scars.”

  “Well, when you do find the right female—and believe me, you will know it when it happens—one you feel you must spend the rest of your life with if living is to have any meaning at all, then you will find out that love can be very uncomfortable indeed. So to answer your question, yes, I am uncomfortable with Nicholas. It is not what he says that makes me anxious, but what he does not say. It is not what he does, either, for when he kissed me, it felt as though he really meant it, if you know what I mean.”

  “Then I daresay he did mean it,” John remarked, his eyes returning to the highwayman in the tattered cloak and tricorne hat on the wall. “Of course, he does not belong to my set, and that long sojourn in India may have changed him in ways we cannot tell, but if he is a true Morley, I am willing to wager he will make you an offer. But you must be patient, Sylvia. After all, the man has just buried his cousin—”

  “Oh, John, I know that,” Sylvia broke in, her voice quavering, “and I am willing to be patient, but I fear he may decide to run away to India again. He did so when his countess died, you know. Cornwall holds such painful memories for him, and he has that new ship of his sitting in Falmouth ready to sail at a moment’s notice.” She paused for a moment and then added in a choked voice, “I simply cannot bear the thought of being abandoned a second time.”

  Her brother turned away from the portrait of the earl and came across the room to put an arm around her. Sylvia laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “I am so glad you are here, John,” she said in a muffled voice.

  Tired, and wet, and splattered with mud, Nicholas cantered under the stone arch that for centuries had guarded the entrance to his estate. He had ridden down from Bath in re
cord time, pushing on in spite of the intermittent rain, stopping only to quench his thirst and rest his horse.

  The austere fortress that was his home appeared almost benign in the pale sunlight that had begun to filter through the dark clouds as he rode through Helston. The rain had finally broken, and by the time he cantered across the stone bridge and into the cobbled courtyard of the Castle, Nicholas felt a rush of intense joy at being home again. He was no longer the stalwart warrior of his childhood dreams, returning with the spoils of war after an arduous campaign on the battlefields, and there was no lady in green and gold awaiting him in the Great Hall. But a battle had certainly been fought and won, a battle that would determine—if the last remaining skirmish went his way—his future and the future of his line.

  Love and war should not belong in the same arena, but he had recorded evidence in the annals of Morley history that they did. The old baron’s eldest son had, according to the story, stolen his bride from a neighboring castle and then fought the lady’s chosen suitor for the right to keep her. The young Morley—or Morais as he had been then—had won that battle, conducted, it was also recorded, in full medieval armor and mounted on war horses.

  Nicholas felt the fierce joy of that barbaric victory sing in his own veins even as he tried to repress it. In light of the past week’s events, it seemed almost sacrilegious to be overcome with joy. And with thoughts of love.

  For at that moment Nicholas had discovered he could love again. He finally understood what had driven that warrior ancestor to stake his life on love. Nicholas could only be thankful he had not himself caused his rival’s death, although he could not forget that his ancestor had had no such qualms.

  He threw his gloves on the hall table and allowed Greenley to take his damp cloak. The past week had been trying in more ways than one, and Nicholas had been glad to leave the dowager and his aunt in Jason’s capable hands and come home. His mother had refused to leave Aunt Lydia by herself in that old house, emptied now of all its menfolk. In an ironic twist of fate, Matt’s desperate action had changed the course of their family forever, but in ways his cousin had not anticipated. Instead of stealing a wealthy wife from under his cousin’s nose, and eventually inheriting his title, Matt’s death had brought Farnaby Hall to die earl, Matt’s only heir.