The Curse of Lord Stanstead

by Mia Marlowe

  “I’m grateful to have your help with it now. Have you always been a Finder or did the gift come upon you later in life?” Had Meg’s psychic capabilities been activated upon losing her purity, too?

  “I’ve had the knack for it for as long as I can remember. If Uncle Rowney mislaid something, I could always tell him where it was. At first, he thought it was a pretty handy talent, that I was just the observant sort with a good memory. Then he suspected I hid his things on purpose so I could show off by finding them later.” Meg’s voice trailed off to a whisper. “He beat me pretty good that time.”

  Cassie didn’t know what to say. Her father had never so much as raised his voice to her or her sister. Of course, she always told herself that disappointing him hurt worse than a beating, but Meg’s stricken face made Cassie rethink that.

  “Then once Uncle Rowney realized I weren’t up to any tricks, that I really could find things I had no business knowing the whereabouts of, well, it weren’t no time at all that he thought up ways to use it. We traveled from town to town, me helping people find their lost things and Uncle Rowney squeezing every tuppence out of ’em for the privilege.” Meg shrugged again. “It was easier than pickpocketing, especially since Uncle Rowney weren’t as quick-fingered as he used to be.”

  Cassandra wondered why Meg had stayed with her uncle after he beat her.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but why did you finally separate yourself from your uncle?”

  “Uncle Rowney wanted to marry me to his sister’s son. Oswald traveled with us that last year and Rowney thought it would be handier all around if we was to tie the knot.” A shudder racked her slight frame. “Rowney weren’t no great prize, but Cousin Oswald, he… He’s the meanest creature on God’s earth and that’s the truth.”

  She went still as a hare in the thicket after that. Some things didn’t bear repeating. But then Meg started talking as if someone had turned on a spigot.

  “So I lit out one night when we were close enough to London. I figured it were easier to lose myself in a city than in the country. As I was walking past Lady Dalton’s house, I heard her housekeeper shouting at someone about the lady’s lost earring. Well, I thought to myself, here’s the main chance. Ain’t nothing worse for servants than for something of value to go missing, you know.”

  Cassandra nodded. Once, the servants in her father’s household had gone into conniptions when the downstairs maid had accidently mislaid her mother’s prized jade vase. It was a heavy piece and, in ignorance, the girl had used it to prop open a door while some furniture was being moved. The vase had been kicked over and had rolled harmlessly under the heavy damask drapes, but the parlor had to be turned inside out before it was discovered. Everyone had been certain Sir Cornelius would sack the maid, but since the vase had sustained no damage, he just told her to be more careful in the future. The girl would have licked the soles of his boots in gratitude.

  Much anxiety could have been avoided if they’d had someone like Meg Anthony around who could have located the vase immediately.

  “Well, I says to myself, here’s a likely place you might come in useful, Meggie,” the Finder went on, “so I marched up to Lady Dalton’s door, bold as brass. I told her I might be able to help. After she described the piece, I did what I always do.”

  Cassandra had only seen Meg go into her Finding trance once. The display was odd enough to impress most folk, especially when she followed it up with the exact location of the item that had gone missing.

  “Well, the housekeeper was that grateful, I can tell you, and weren’t nothing for it but that she had Lady Dalton hire me the very next day,” Meg said. “I was ever so happy there, and safe too, but then His Grace found me.”

  “Aren’t you happy here at Camden House?”

  “It’s not a question of being happy. It’s a question of getting above myself. After being a cutpurse, I thought being a lady’s maid was as high a rung as I could reach. Now His Grace has propped up a ladder for me that fair reaches the stars. I try ever so hard, Miss Cassandra. I work on speechifying like a lady and watching how I move about so I can blend in, but the height His Grace expects me to climb scares me, indeed it do.”

  Cassandra rose, ready to try her hand at pickpocketing again. “Well, if His Grace hadn’t thought you capable, he wouldn’t have given you the opportunity.”

  “I collect he feels the same about you, miss.”

  Cassie smiled at her. Whatever else Meg Anthony was, she was also a first-class encourager. “You were right to pick a saint name.”

  “Well, in the split of a moment, I knew it had to be either Anthony or Nicholas for me.”

  “Nicholas?” There wasn’t the least thing festive or Christmassy about Meg. “I understand Anthony, but why Nicholas?”

  Meg smiled back, the expression sly instead of shy this time. “Didn’t you know? He’s the patron saint of thieves.”

  …

  “Your Grace, a word in your ear.” Garret cornered the duke in his study a few days later.

  “What is it, Sterling?”

  Garret ground his fist into his open palm. “I know this jaunt to the country to retrieve the Infinitum at the masquerade was my idea, but I wonder if Cassandra is up to it.”

  “Miss Anthony assures me she is a worthy student of a decidedly unworthy skill. I’m told Miss Darkin can pick a pocket like a proper guttersnipe.”

  “That’s not in question. It’s just…” Garret decided honesty was the only thing that would serve. “I’m afraid she is becoming too important to me.”

  “Oh, I see. And you fear she may make an appearance in your dreams.”

  “Yes.” In fact, she already had. Fortunately, as soon as her sweet face had materialized in the ether of his night phantoms, Garret had jerked himself to wakefulness and paced his chamber until dawn. He couldn’t chance dreaming a catastrophe for her. It would kill him to hurt her like that.

  “Have you been doing your mental exercises?”

  Mental exercises. Deep breathing. Directed thought and meditation. How could those things keep the horror of his nightmares away?

  “To be honest, I try to get roaring drunk before retiring each night so that if I dream, I have no recollection of it in the morning.” That seemed the best way to guard against dreaming a disaster for someone he cared about. A disaster that was destined to come true at some point, if he remembered the dream.

  The duke shook his head. “You underestimate the power of the mind to produce results.”

  On the contrary, Garret knew perfectly well how powerful his mind was and how his dreams, once realized, could upend his life. Especially if Cassie was at the center of them.

  “So you won’t rescind sending Cassandra to Lord Bellefonte’s party?”

  “I can’t. It is for the good of the Order.”

  Garret turned and stormed out of the study. If the duke wouldn’t protect Cassandra, then he would.

  The only trouble was, he had to protect her from himself and to do that, he had to put distance between them. If he didn’t spend time with her, didn’t think about her, didn’t—dear God!—play lover’s games on her delectable body, maybe there was a chance she wouldn’t steal into his dreams and become the focal point for a calamity. He had to give her up for her own safety.

  He wouldn’t go to her chamber. Even though Vesta reminded him that since they’d completed their first mission for the Order together, their physical relationship could take a more evenhanded turn, he couldn’t chance it. More than wanting to love her completely, he wanted to protect her.

  Garret climbed the stairs to his chamber with the leaden steps of a man destined for the rack.

  Chapter Eleven

  Escape me?

  Never—

  Beloved!

  While I am I, and you are you,

  So long as the world contains us both…

  —Robert Browning, from “Life in a Love”

  After a few more days of intense practice wi
th Meg Anthony, Cassandra and Garret traveled in the duke’s elegant coach to the rolling green countryside of Wiltshire to visit Cassie’s family. Lady Easton accompanied them. The duke’s sister fancied walking the hedgerows on the Darkin property and “enjoying the fresh breath of green growing things.” Plus her presence on the journey preserved Cassandra’s reputation. No young unmarried lady’s good name would survive a coach ride of that duration alone with a handsome fellow like Garret Sterling.

  Cassie’s parents were thrilled to welcome Lady Easton and Mr. Sterling to their home. As neophyte members of the ton who clung to the bottom-most rung of the aristocracy by their nouveau-riche fingernails, the Darkins could scarcely believe their luck.

  “And to think you wanted to give up on your Season,” her mother said to Cassie on the first evening she was home. Lady Harriet Darkin hadn’t quite learned that one should guard one’s tongue before the servants and paid no attention to the maid who was brushing out Cassandra’s hair as she rambled on. “You’ve quite surprised—I mean, you’ve made us all so very proud. Befriending the sister of a duke, no less. And the heir to an earl on your arm! This is most unexpected—I mean, what a lovely turn of events. Now, tell me, dear, when should your father expect Mr. Sterling to make an offer for you?”

  “I highly doubt it will come to that.” Cassandra fought to keep from laughing at her mother’s efforts to extricate her foot from her mouth at every turn. She didn’t blame her. Cassie had never imagined she’d come to the attention of such high-ranking individuals either, but she couldn’t tell her mother it never would have happened if not for her pesky ability to order fire from the air. “I don’t believe Mr. Sterling is looking for a wife.”

  Lady Harriet’s pencil-thin brows drew together over her equally thin nose. “But he’s so very eligible, being heir to Lord Stanstead and all. Don’t you think you could come to love him, Cassie?”

  Cassandra hesitated, dismissing the maid to give herself time to consider her answer. There was no doubt she had feelings for Garret, some very warm, very passionate feelings. But she’d thought she loved Roderick and that had ended badly, indeed. Emotions were as ephemeral as a soap bubble. She didn’t trust them one smidge.

  Now, since before they’d arrived in Wiltshire, Garret hadn’t been himself. When they were in the company of others, he displayed outright boredom. He hadn’t even presented himself at her door for the heart-stopping loveplay that helped her control her inner fire and had given no explanation for the change in his behavior toward her. She was beginning to think he didn’t like her much at all.

  “No one could ever love Mr. Sterling more than he loves himself,” she told her mother, trying to tamp down the hurt she felt over the way he’d distanced himself from her over the last few days. Cassie drew a deep breath and mentally counted to ten before releasing it. She still felt as if a lit fuse smoldered near her heart. “He and I are simply”—she cast her eyes heavenward as if the right word might hover in the air above her head—“friends, I suppose.”

  “Friends? Good heavens, a man and a woman cannot be merely friends. What possible common interests can they have if not to build a home and family together?”

  “I’m certain Mr. Sterling has no plans along those lines.” When the subject had come up in passing, he’d been adamant that he would never marry. She should have believed him. It would have saved her the burning ache in her chest now.

  “I see.” Her mother’s brows arched in surprise. “My cousin’s third son was like that. Didn’t fancy women at all. Fortunately, my cousin arranged a nice little living in a vicarage for him where he could tend his plants and his flock in peace. I must say, I didn’t peg Mr. Sterling for the type.”

  The idea of Garret not fancying women was laughable, but Cassandra bit her lip to stifle a snort.

  “Please accept that my association with Mr. Sterling is merely that of friendship, Mother.” Friendship sounded better than partners working together in the service of the shadowy Order of the M.U.S.E. And her mother would faint dead away if Cassie admitted she and Garret had been lovers, after a fashion.

  Yes, friends would have to do.

  Though friends didn’t spend so much time avoiding each other. In fact, by the middle of the afternoon on the day of Roderick’s masquerade, she had yet to encounter Garret alone anywhere. After the lovely things he’d said to her, after that world-altering kiss, how could he have pulled away without warning? She searched her memory for some reason, some possible offense that had driven him from her side, but she could think of nothing.

  Once her mother left her chamber, hot tears pressed against the backs of Cassie’s eyes. She hadn’t meant for this to happen. Garret would be the first to remind her that she’d been warned against forming an attachment. But feelings, even those she resisted naming, didn’t ask to be admitted to a human heart. They simply bloomed there, as unwanted as a weed.

  She hadn’t been able to resist trying to locate Garret, if for no other reason than to confront him about his abrupt turnabout. According to the stable lads, he’d gone riding long before Cassandra rose, so by the time she took her sedate trot around the paddock, he was already done tearing over the meadows on the spirited mount her father had made available to him. Garret had already broken his fast and left the breakfast room before she made an appearance at the heavily laden sideboard and he didn’t seem to spend any time in her father’s library. At least, Cassandra never found him there poring over the many volumes. And Garret considered nuncheon something only for the womenfolk, so he never presented himself for the midday repast. If the Darkins hadn’t provided a supper fit for a king each night in their long dining room, Cassie thought Garret might as well be a rumor rather than a guest.

  She supposed it made sense that he never presented himself in her bedchamber. They were in her parents’ home, after all. No matter how much she would have welcomed his presence, she couldn’t let Garret Sterling play her body like a harp with her mother and father just down the hall.

  She’d almost given up looking for him when she nearly tripped over him in the garden grape arbor. Hidden by the fat green leaves and seated on a stone bench in deep shadow, Garret was nearly invisible until he spoke.

  “I’ll leave if you’d like privacy,” he offered.

  Cassandra startled at the sound of his voice and her heart did a disconcerting flutter in her chest.

  No, she ordered herself sternly. She refused to feel something silly and romantic for this man.

  “You can stay.” She resisted the urge to say “please.” She didn’t want him to think she was begging. “There’s room for the two of us here.”

  She sat beside him on the bench. Eternal cold from the stone seeped through the layers of her thin muslin gown and petticoat. Silence yawned between them. That was something new. Even if it meant they were wrangling about something, conversation had never been stilted. She glanced sideways at him. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes, almost bruises, and the whites were crisscrossed with red veins, as if he’d not slept in a few days. The flutter in her chest changed to a squeeze.

  “Are you unwell?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.” He leaned back and hitched one booted foot over his other knee in studied nonchalance.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “That’s too direct by half.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Your grasp of polite conversation is slipping.”

  The silence returned.

  “Have I done something to offend you?” she finally asked.

  He shook his head. Then he gave her a cocky, knowing look. “Have you been in need of my services, princess?”

  Yes, she almost blurted out. She bit down on the tip of her tongue instead. His condescension stung. She’d ached for him on numerous occasions, but as Vesta had told her once, “When one is without a partner, self-gratification has its place in a fire mage’s arsenal of control.”

  Touching herself was a poor substitute for Garret’s hot hands and mouth o
n her, but if she imagined she was with him, she was able to subdue her urge to immolate something. It wasn’t as emotionally satisfying as being with Garret, but it saved her from setting the drapes ablaze.

  “We can’t very well have you caught in nocturnal wanderings on your way to and from my room, can we?” she said in what she hoped was a breezy manner. “Besides, I’m quite sure you have no idea which chamber is mine.”

  “True. If I stumbled into the wrong one, Lady Easton likely wouldn’t welcome me as warmly as you do.”

  Cassandra bristled and she felt rising steam inside. She’d give him warmly. She was sorely tempted to set his right boot ablaze. If he could do without her, she could certainly do without him. Anger was a safer emotion to let herself feel than hurt. “What makes you think I’d still welcome you?”

  “Cassie.” When he said her name, her insides shivered, focusing her growing heat. Garret took her hand and found the small open spot in her glove at the inside of her wrist, the shivers turned to flame. It licked at all her secret places and made her want impossibly wicked things. She shifted uncomfortably. It wouldn’t do to let him see how such a slight touch affected her.

  “Honesty, remember,” Garret said, making small circles on the tender skin of her wrist with his fingertip. “We may not have anything else, but we have that.”

  “Very well. In the interest of honesty, why have you been avoiding me?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Never say you haven’t been. You’ve been as rare in my society of late as a dodo in an aviary.” She needed him so. Couldn’t he need her just a little bit?

  “All right.” He released her hand and crossed his arms over his chest. “If you want the truth, I’m avoiding you because I’m trying not to dream about you.”

  Relieved that he didn’t despise her after all, she turned and looked at him full-on. “It doesn’t appear as if you’ve been dreaming about anyone of late.”

  He dragged a hand over his eyes. “Well, not sleeping does seem to be the one sure way not to dream.”