There were only a handful of plausible explanations but, in truth, they presented themselves more as questions. Had Lady Dumbarton fled and faked her own death? Had she never left at all? Was there someone who could masquerade as the late Lady Dumbarton? If so, to what end? Was it all just to torment his lordship? Ian.
Thinking of him so familiarly was dangerous ground to tread. She knew that, but after the very charged and intimate moment they had shared that morning, how could she think of him any other way? She wouldn’t lie to herself and pretend she didn’t want him. She did. Oddly enough, she worried that in their current situation, she would be taking advantage of him rather than the other way around. He was isolated and alone, tormented by heaven knew what or whom, and she was his only ally. How could she act upon her attraction when she had no notion if his feelings for her were only because he felt dependent upon her in some way?
Their walks were a high point of her day, but the more time she spent in his presence, the more obvious it became that she was quite literally playing with fire. That moment in the gallery, when he’d been on the verge of kissing her, all reason had fled. She’d wanted nothing more than to press herself against him and toss all of her inhibitions to the wind. And he would be joining them very shortly. Any questions she had needed to be asked quickly.
Hastening her stride to close the distance between herself and the sedan chair, Hyacinth asked, “Lady Arabella, how did Lord Dumbarton meet his wife?”
“In London, of course. It’s where everyone goes to meet a husband or wife. Honestly, I cannot understand your aversion to it given your unmarried state. If ever you want to correct it, you’ll have to get beyond that, girl! I know, know! You think you want nothing to do with it and that spinsterhood is the only course for you. But you are quite wrong! And you are entirely too young to give up hope!” Lady Arabella finished with an emphatic thump on the side of the sedan chair that very nearly sent her spilling out onto the rocky path. “I say, watch what you are doing, young man!”
Retreating into silence as Lady Arabella scolded the footmen, Hyacinth considered whether or not to tell the elderly woman that she had decided to indulge in, not an affair precisely, but at the very least a flirtation of sorts with Lord Dumbarton. Ultimately, she decided it was in her best interest to keep the nature of their alliance—and any impropriety that it might lead to—to herself. The last thing they needed was for Lady Arabella and his mother to start meddling again.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, Hyacinth heard the thundering of hooves. Lord Dumbarton was riding toward them on the same massive black stallion he’d been riding when he’d rescued her that first day.
“Good morning, Ian,” Lady Arabella called out. To Hyacinth, she continued, “Now that’s a man worth setting your cap for, my girl. Why, just look at him! I daresay you’d find no better in all of London or Bath. And he’s not one for society so your other complaints hold no water there! And at your age, my dear, you could do far worse!”
One of the footmen cast a sidelong glance at her, clearly in agreement with Lady Arabella’s assessment. Hyacinth fixed him with a disapproving stare and slowly, in an imperious gesture she’d learned from watching her brother-in-law, lifted one eyebrow. Immediately, the footman’s gaze turned back to the path and a bright red flush crept up his neck.
Satisfied that she’d put the rather impertinent young man in his place, Hyacinth addressed Lady Arabella. “And he is not free, is he? I cannot set my cap for a man who is still legally wed to another!”
“No, but you might well inspire him to take the necessary steps to secure his freedom. Mightn’t you?” Lady Arabella challenged. In a softer tone, she added, “I didn’t just come here for your benefit, my girl. I love that boy. I love him as if he were my own. He needs to be free of all this and to pursue a happier life for himself.”
Those words rattled her. Lady Arabella was correct. He did need to be free of it. But it wasn’t simply having his missing wife declared dead. He needed to free himself of his own guilt, his own self-imposed responsibility, and from the gross accusations and insults of his mother-in-law. Was it selfish not to pursue him?
Hyacinth found her gaze drifting once more to Lord Dumbarton. He’d dismounted and was leading his horse toward them. He wore only breeches, mud spattered boots and a simple coat. His waistcoat was clearly forgotten somewhere and there was not a cravat in sight. He looked better, she thought, certainly less troubled than he had that morning.
“Good morning, Cousin, Miss Collier,” he said easily, but his gaze lingered on her until she blushed. “I thought I might join you if you do not mind.”
“Of course we do not mind!” Arabella scoffed. They had reached the area where Lady Dumbarton was already alighting from her sedan chair and footmen were setting up a table and chairs in preparation for their lunch. “Though I daresay sitting atop the cliffs will not offer much excitement for you. As I will have full view of the beach below, and your dear mother as well, we can provide adequate chaperonage from here if you’d like to head down to the shore. Unless it is too painful for you?”
His eyes clouded briefly, but then his expression cleared. “Not at all, Cousin Arabella. I’d be happy to take you down to the water’s edge, Miss Collier, if you’ve a mind to see it.”
“I would certainly love to. I’ve never really been somewhere that I could enjoy the sea in all its natural and raw power,” Hyacinth admitted. “I’m very anxious to go.”
“The two of you go ahead,” Lady Arabella suggested, “And have one of the footmen do something with the hulking beast you rode here upon! I’ll not have it eating my bonnet or destroying our luncheon while you gallivant about!”
Dutifully, Lord Dumbarton led the horse away and tethered it to a large oak just off the path. Afterward, he relayed some instructions to a footman and then returned and offered Hyacinth his arm. “There are stairs of a sort, just beyond that rock.”
Hyacinth nodded and allowed him to lead her off the path and around a rather large boulder. A set of steps had been carved out of the rocky cliff wall that led all the way down to the beach. They were completely hidden from view and all but invisible unless one was standing directly over them. Recalling the woman she’d seen walking on the beach, Hyacinth had to suspect that those stairs had been her entrance and exit. Which meant that woman knew Dubhmara and knew it well.
“Who else uses this path to the beach, Lord Dumbarton?”
He turned and glanced back at her as he held out his arm to steady her on the steps. “Surely after our walk this morning, and our very near miss in the portrait gallery, you could call me Ian.”
“I don’t think that I should,” she replied. “If anyone were to wonder at such familiarity or to discover that breach of propriety, I’d be quite ruined, my lord. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Everyone at Dubhmara uses this path, Miss Collier,” he said, placing particular emphasis on her name. “There is another path that comes in from the village and another yet from beyond the castle, but it’s out of the way for those who live and work here. Just last year, I had the steps repaired and installed the chains you see on the rock facing so that it might be a bit less terrifying for those who fear heights or are less than steady on their feet.”
“And did Annabel fear heights?” she asked. She was finding herself more and more curious about the woman he had married.
He grew quiet again, but finally replied, “I do not think Lady Dumbarton feared anything other than boredom. She’d come down to the coast like this in all manner of weather, storms, rain, wind, even snow… none of it seemed to sway her.”
It was a terrible and useless thing to be jealous of a dead woman. “You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
They were nearing the small landing about halfway down. He stopped and glanced back at her with shock written plainly across his strong features.
“That was impertinent of me, my lord,” Hyacinth said. “Forgive me for prying. She wa
s your wife and of course you loved her.”
His expression hardened, his lips drawing into a taut line and his brows furrowing. “It was not impertinent. I can think of no one in the world who would have more right to ask than you. But I didn’t love her, Hyacinth. Not at the end. Not at the beginning either, if I am to be truthful.”
Her breath caught. What had he meant by that? Was it only because he’d nearly kissed her earlier? Or was he hinting at perhaps even deeper feelings? It was too fast and too much. It made her feel dizzy and weak. And excited. And hopeful.
“What happened? You loved her once, surely?”
He shook his head. “I married Annabel because I was infatuated with her. I had only just inherited the title and the estates. I knew I was not long for London as there was so much to see to here. And my mother was quite eager to tell me that it was my duty to marry and produce an heir, lest something should happen to me, as well. And Annabel, was—well, she was a stunningly beautiful woman and I was foolishly entranced by her loveliness and her vivacity. I didn’t see, not until it was too late, that there was also a streak of cruelty in her and a willfulness that went beyond simply wanting to have her way. It was rather like watching a child have a tantrum when they are tired or sick. She had no ability to regulate her temper and would shout, throw things, break things out of spite. Then she would cry because they were broken… as if it were someone else’s fault.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult that was.”
He shrugged. “Eventually, we just avoided one another altogether. She asked to go to London and I will admit that I was relieved to see her go. Until I began to receive letters from friends warning me of—”
It hurt him still to speak of it. Perhaps not his heart, Hyacinth thought, but his pride. And for a man like him, that might possibly be worse. “She was disloyal to you.”
They walked further, making their way down the steps before he answered. “I don’t think so. Well, I don’t think she would have termed it that. She had an affair, but it was to punish me, to bring me to heel. She wanted to live in London and she thought if she indulged in such an open and scandalous manner that I would have no choice but to join her. It never dawned on her that I would cut off funding for her little adventure and force her to return here. I didn’t want to do that… but there was more at stake than my pride or my marriage. I owe it to this estate, to the family line, to be certain that any child of our union would actually have been mine.”
Hyacinth had no notion what to make of that. What he described seemed almost as if she were mad. “I’m terribly sorry that you had to go through all of that. But you are not the villain here. A husband should expect a faithful wife and vice versa.”
He shook his head. “I should not speak ill of her, Miss Collier. I apologize for being so ungallant and I must beg your forgiveness for my behavior this morning. I should not have asked you to remain with me and I should not have taken the liberties that I did.”
“Please do not apologize for that, Lord Dumbarton. And understand me, I mean nothing inappropriate when I say that I mean to see you tonight, as well.”
Ian said nothing. His eyebrows drifted upward in surprise and he stared at the perfectly ladylike picture of Miss Hyacinth Collier as she proclaimed her intent to spend time alone in his company in the dark of night. While a part of him wished to reject her offer out of hand, as the risk was too great for her, a part of him was so infinitely grateful and relieved not to face the long shadows of Dubhmara alone that he could not utter the words to tell her no.
“Tonight?” She did not mean what he wanted her to mean. He told himself that again and again.
She cocked her head to one side and inquired sweetly, “Isn’t that when you are so tormented by her presence? By scent, sound and sight?”
He sighed, any hope for an assignation fleeing in the face of her explanation. “It is highly irregular, Miss Collier,” he finally managed.
“So is being haunted by one’s late wife,” she replied. “And I don’t think you are. Not really.”
Ian moved over the steps, toward a large piece of driftwood that would serve as a bench of sorts. “But did you not say that you saw the apparition of my late wife on the day of your arrival?”
“I did. And three mornings back, I saw a woman on this very beach,” Miss Collier insisted, as he helped her to sit. “She had lovely red-gold hair which was blowing in the breeze and she wore a white dress. Very similar in all aspects to what I observed in the portrait of your late wife that is in the gallery. But that does not mean it was her, not really. It only means that someone wanted you and others, from a distance, to be able to mistake them for Lady Dumbarton. The mind sees what it wants to see, my lord, what it expects to. You are harangued constantly about whatever role, if any, you might have played in her death… is it any wonder you’d expect to be visited by her angry spirit?”
A self-deprecating laugh escaped him. All of those things had entered his mind and been just as easily dismissed. “Am I so easily manipulated then? And the shadows that move through the house? The sound of her music box? And that box was destroyed, Miss Collier. It was thrown at my very own head and shattered into hundreds of pieces. If it were only one thing, I could dismiss it. But there are so many. They grow more frequent and more inescapable daily.”
“Have you considered, Lord Dumbarton, that there are those who have reason to make you question your sanity? Those who are benefitting from your guilt?”
They had reached the last of the steps and from there it was something of a drop. Ian jumped down first, dropped the driftwood and then turned to lift her down, his hands closing over the indentation of her narrow waist. It was a tantalizing hint at the feminine curves hidden beneath her simple day dress. Such thoughts were hardly conducive to maintaining any semblance of an appropriate acquaintance with Miss Collier. He was not a man free to pursue anything beyond that with her and to pursue anything else was a dishonor to them both. “Miss Collier, I cannot imagine that even in her grief, Mrs. Lee would use her daughter’s death for her own financial gain.”
“Would William?” she asked, her chin tilting upwards stubbornly.
Ian looked at her for the longest moment, noting the way the sunlight caught on her golden hair that appeared determined to escape the confines of her bonnet. There was a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and behind her spectacles, her eyes were such an impossible shade of violet he could not imagine anything in nature that equaled them. She did not possess the same sort of stunning beauty that Annabel had, that which immediately rendered a man insensible. Miss Collier possessed a beauty that was quiet and soothing, yet no less powerful and that would never fade. Unnerved by the direction of his own thoughts, Ian turned away and looked out at the dark waves tipped by white caps that rushed to the dark sandy beach.
“William does little enough without being told to by his mother. It is hard to imagine he would take any such initiative. But I will not dismiss the idea out of hand, Miss Collier. It is far preferable to me to think that those subsisting on my hospitality would be capable of such perfidy than to think myself mad or haunted.”
Apparently satisfied with his answer, Hyacinth stared silently at the waves for a moment. Her lips queried up in a strange half-smile as she said in a rather bemused fashion, “I always imagined that the water would be a bright blue.”
“It’s the sand,” he explained. “The water picks up the color of all the things around it. With these dark rocks and sand, it makes the water appear black. But when I was in Italy, I saw the bluest water you could ever imagine. It was like a clear sky on a summer’s day.”
“I would love to see that.” The words escaped her on a sigh, her voice filled with longing.
“Perhaps one day you shall, Miss Collier. Now that we are at peace, tentative though it may be, travel on the Continent is not so out of reach.”
“For you,” she replied with a laugh. “You are a man and go where you please. I
am a woman, and an unmarried one at that. Some things, my lord, are nothing but dreams and will never be anything else.”
Was she? Was the promise of comfort and passion in the arms of a woman such as her naught but a dream for him? Ian prayed it was not so. In a matter of days, she’d etched herself into his very soul it seemed. The only bright moments of his days were those spent in her company.
Chapter Nine
Dinner was a tense and uncomfortable affair. Lady Arabella and Lady Phyllida had said little. For once, neither had gotten a word in edge wise. Mrs. Lee dominated the conversation. She spoke at length about her daughter’s accomplishments, her daughter’s beauty, the tragedy of a life a cut short. And then she’d turned her ire on Lord Dumbarton.
“It must be so difficult for you, my lord, to face a life bereft of her presence,” Mrs. Lee said. “And now, with no body to bury, you are forever bound to her memory.”
“Unless he chooses to petition the House of Lords,” Lady Arabella finally interjected. “Even without poor Annabel’s remains, they could declare her dead and he would be free to remarry and pursue his own happiness. I cannot imagine that you would not wish him to do so!”
Mrs. Lee’s eyes flashed with fury. “And if she is not dead? If my poor child is simply lost?”
Lady Arabella continued, clearly impervious to the other woman’s venom, “The likelihood of such an occurrence is very slim. There was nowhere for her to go from that stretch of beach but into the water. If she did not come back out of it, then only one outcome is likely, however tragic it may be. And the tragedy of a young, virile man being damned to a life alone because one woman cannot accept the sad and terrible truth… well that is only one tragedy compounding another in my book!”
Hyacinth covered her face with her hands as she awaited the inevitable explosion. She was not disappointed. Mrs. Lee rose to her feet, all but shrieking at the other women.
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 50
