Pure gratitude swelled, and she nodded almost frantically. Leaving wouldn’t change the horror, wouldn’t keep the nightmares from finding her. But it would help. It had to help. She had to leave—now.
Spinning around, she scurried up a few stairs while Brice called out to his sister and mother. And then paused when that same sniveling lord who had questioned the constable charged up to him.
“You’ll do no such thing!” The man pointed, his face scarlet and his chins jiggling with his outrage. “The constable just said we were none of us to leave until this is settled, and that goes for dukes as well as us lowly barons. Isn’t that right, constable?”
Brice looked over to the constable, who lifted his brows and sighed. The man looked more weary with it all than anything. “When did you get back, Your Grace?”
Back? Rowena’s fingers curled around the railing.
“Back?” The lowly baron harrumphed, which made his girth jiggle. “Our company not good enough for you, Duke? Did you leave us this afternoon?”
Brice didn’t so much as glance as the baron. “I just walked in the door, constable. If you need to verify my whereabouts—”
“I know well where you were, and with whom, Your Grace. You and your wife may leave, though I would like to see if anyone else in your party saw or heard anything.” He waved a hand and turned back to one of his men. “Assemble everyone, if you please, Barnes. The women in the drawing room, since that’s where they were all headed, and the men . . .”
Rowena would no doubt leave dents in the banister from where her fingers gripped it. He’d left. After the incident last night, after their first true argument, he left. And why? To go to Whitby Park—she would stake her life on it. She hadn’t intended to believe the gossip about him and Brook, but . . . but their first argument, and that was who he went to. Was it for the purpose everyone here would whisper about, or because of the diamonds?
Did it matter, if he would not tell her which or why or even that he’d done it? Did it matter, if the fact stood that he dismissed her thoughts about the jewels and then sought out Brook’s opinion? Did it matter, if the curse hovered ever over them?
And had just struck again. Her stomach felt likely to heave, so thickly did the darkness choke her. He could call it whatever he liked, he could blame it on man and man’s lust and greed, but it was more than that. Perhaps that was the tool it used, but it was more. She could feel it.
Before he could look her way again, she raced up the rest of the stairs and prayed she could find her way to her room. Prayed that Lilias would be within. Prayed that she could flee this place within the hour and that, somehow, the curse wouldn’t follow.
And yet still a twinge of guilt struck. No one else could leave so quickly, so easily. Some not at all. Poor Catherine, having to endure such violence in her home, when all she’d wanted was to forget the past and begin her future. Would this reflect somehow on her, though she could have had nothing to do with it? Would it be another scandal she would be part of by association?
Would she, too, be haunted by the violence that was already too much a part of her life?
Rowena hurried down the corridor, turned right at the corner. She had hoped they could be friends. As she’d lain awake last night she’d kept seeing Lord Rushworth’s cold, emotionless eyes. Kept feeling the shiver that had overtaken her in his presence. Perhaps he wasn’t exactly like her father, but she knew the eyes of a cruel man when she felt them pierce her. And cruel men were always cruelest to their families, it seemed. Perhaps he had spoken words that sounded concerned for her, but the Kinnaird could do the same. He always knew what to say to outsiders to make them think whatever he wanted them to. But that never stopped him from raising a hand to her in private.
What if Rushworth was the same? What if keeping Delmore was Catherine’s only means of staying free of him? What if all the lady needed was a friend who understood, who could help her escape him?
Yet here Rowena was, running away. Unable to convince her husband to be rid of the diamonds—the only things that could give Catherine independence from her brother, freedom from the debts her husband had incurred, which effectively strapped Catherine to the only financial support she would have for her and her son when Pratt funds ran too low. Unable to offer any consolation, any encouragement.
Unable to offer the same rescue that she had herself so recently been given.
Please, Lord. Perhaps . . . perhaps if she could help another in a similar situation, it would fill one of those empty places inside. If only God would grant her the strength to do so. The means.
But she could do nothing from here. She couldn’t. The violence was too suffocating, the darkness too complete. She would leave now, but she wouldn’t give up on her new friend. She would find a way to help her. To convince Brice to relinquish the Fire Eyes.
Perhaps, if they could use the jewels for such a noble purpose, then it would break the curse. Perhaps, if they bathed them with enough prayers and righteous tears, God would separate the jewels from the evil that had so long clung to them.
All was quiet in the guest chambers, even in her room when she entered it. No Lilias bustling about, preparing her gown for this evening. She was probably taking her tea with the other servants—though the constable’s men would be interrupting them even now, most likely, and unless she had something to offer them by way of information, she would soon return. She would know Rowena would have fled up here, and she would follow.
Rowena wasn’t about to sit around and wait for her. She grabbed the small valise from her trunk and opened it upon the bed. A nightgown, a change of clothes, her toilet. What else would she really need before the others could catch up? The book by her bedside, her jewelry. That would do. She slapped the lid closed and headed for the chifforobe where Lilias had hung her coat and hat—new, like everything else she had here with her. Unfamiliar.
Breath hitching, she sank onto the edge of the bed without putting the garments on. Everything had become unfamiliar—everything but the darkness in Rushworth’s eyes. It had followed her. Maybe it would always follow her. Maybe she ought to be more concerned with the curse that seemed to be on her—to be always the victim of a man—than with the one on the jewels.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She could outrun that curse. She could, thanks to Brice. There would be no cruel father or beau awaiting her in the south. Just more newness. Sussex. Brighton. A place she’d only seen photographs of once or twice, when a friend at school had holidayed at the coast there. An estate called Midwynd that was as shrouded in mystery to her as the isles in Loch Morar of a foggy morning.
A rapping sounded at her door. Rowena couldn’t bring herself to budge. “Come in.”
Catherine stuck her head in, apology bright in troubled eyes. “You’re leaving? I can’t blame you, of course. I would too, were I you.”
Rowena motioned the lady in and forced herself to her feet. “I’m sorry, Kitty. It’s no reflection on you, I assure you. It’s just . . . I dinna . . . I dinna do well with violence.”
“I understand.” Of course she did—and wasn’t her tone indeed knowing, soft? Catherine swept over and clasped Rowena’s hands in her own. “I promise you, I do. You needn’t explain. I would leave too, if I could.”
Her feeble smile made Rowena’s heart squeeze. “I feel as though I’m abandoning you.”
“Nonsense.” Catherine gave a reassuring squeeze of her hands. “I’ll be well. The constable is an able man. He’ll have everything solved soon, and life will return to normal.”
“Yes, but . . .” But how long would the lady’s brother hover here? And how was Rowena to help her, when they’d barely known each other a few hours? She must gain her trust somehow. There would be no freeing the woman from anything until she admitted it. Rowena drew in a breath and gave her a small smile. “You should come to Brighton. It’s pleasant in the winter, I hear. We could take tea together. Get to know each other better.”
Catherine’s eyes lit
only for it to fade away in the next moment. “You’re so sweet, Rowena. But your husband would be furious if I showed up in his domain.” And her brother, no doubt, loath to let her out of his manipulative sight. It had taken Mother years to convince Father to let Rowena go to school—and he had snatched her home again the moment Mother was gone.
“My husband accepted this invitation, didn’t he? What could he possibly say about you taking a holiday in a resort town?” And surely, once he got over his suspicions of this woman, he would see the same aching spirit that he had identified so quickly in Rowena. Surely he wouldn’t begrudge her their help. Not when he had given his whole life to help her.
Catherine smiled and tightened her grip again. “Perhaps I shall. If so, I’ll let you know. And Rowena . . .” Her smile went soft, and she let go Rowena’s hands, perhaps so she could twine her own fingers together. “Rush told me what you said. About helping. I appreciate that—more than you could know—but please, don’t put yourself in any danger for my sake. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
“Nothing will happen to me.” Rowena folded her arms across her middle. Nothing would happen just because she opposed her husband, at least. If something were to happen, it would be because he refused to get the cursed gems out from under their roof. She must convince him of that necessity. To sell them and use the money to achieve good. That would counteract the bad. Break the curse. It must.
Catherine sighed and looked toward the door. “Forgive me if I have little faith in any of our safety when there is a constable in my house and one of my maids dead.”
The shudder wouldn’t be suppressed, and with it came the images. The blood, the stocking-clad legs, the dress hiked up too far, the shoes peeking from under the stairs.
Rowena frowned. “It was an odd place for her to be, don’t you think? I mean, in such a position. If someone were to . . . to attack her . . . why there, so near everyone?”
Catherine shook her head. “One of the constable’s men said it looked as though she had been in the closet beneath the stairs. It is connected to others in the bowels of the house, so who knows where the man actually found her. Their conjecture was that she had got away and was trying to go and find help when he . . . stopped her.”
Sinking back onto the bed, Rowena forced air into her lungs. “That was no mere happenstance, then. Whoever did it must have followed her. Been hunting her.”
With a snort, Catherine waved that off. “More likely is that she arranged to meet someone and then it didn’t go as she planned. Hannah was always looking for a way out of her lot in life, and it could be she thought to blackmail one of the lords—or convince him to set her up as a mistress. Which I will, of course, tell the constable when he speaks to me.”
So desperately she wanted the idea to bring a morsel of comfort—maybe, just maybe, the girl hadn’t been violated, had gone to someone’s arms willingly—but it wouldn’t take hold. Rowena had been alone with Malcolm of her own will too, had wanted to give him a kiss before he left the next day. That didn’t mean she had been offering any more than that. It didn’t mean she deserved the treatment she received.
“I had better get back down there. I only wanted to speak with you before you left.”
“I’m glad you did.” Rowena pushed herself up again, though she felt so very heavy. “Would you . . . would it be all right if I were to write to you?”
The light reentered Catherine’s eyes. “Of course it would. And I’ll write back—though using a different name, or who knows if it would make it to you. My mother’s maiden name, perhaps. Julia Rigsby.”
Should she offer to do the same, for Catherine’s safety? No—Rushworth would probably be glad to see his sister corresponding with her, given that Brice had the diamonds. Let it appease him. She smiled, nodded, and clamped all other emotions down until the door clicked shut behind Catherine . . . and then she fell back onto the soft mattress and let it envelop her. Closed her eyes.
A mistake. Images came. The mattress turned to stone, hard and cold, and the coat that had half-fallen on her became as heavy as Malcolm. Her collar choked her. The fragrant potpourri on her bedside table turned dank and musty, suffocating.
Fighting him off had been impossible—fighting off the memories proved even harder, for the impressions wouldn’t leave her. They were always there, waiting to pounce. Would they be so always? Or would they eventually fade? The nightmares cease?
At length she managed to get her breathing under control and sat up. Her face felt clammy, but she had just moved toward the basin when another knock sounded. Lilias, she hoped. “Come in.”
Brice entered, though only a step. His face was guarded, yet his concern for her nevertheless clear. “The constable is talking to our party first, but it will still be an hour or more before they will all be back to their rooms to pack. We could wait if you preferred, or we could leave now—”
“Now.” Abandoning the thought of freshening up, she darted up and grabbed her coat and hat again.
The memories wouldn’t leave her—but the more distance between her and all the reminders, the better. Then, when her mind was clear enough, she could focus on how to free Catherine—and for that matter, the Nottinghams—from the Fire Eyes’ curse.
Seventeen
ONE MONTH LATER
MIDWYND PARK
The screams awoke him. They weren’t loud—they never were. But Brice’s ears had become attuned to the sound of Rowena’s face turned into her pillow, Rowena’s anguish pouring out in the dead of night.
He rose, slipping his arms into the robe he’d taken to keeping draped on the chair just beside his bed. The fires were banked, the room cool. He’d grown accustomed to that too. Silently, he slid over to the door adjoining their suites—the one she kept locked, never seeming to realize he had a key. But oh, how grateful he’d been that he had, when those screams had first woken him their second night here.
The key slid surely into the lock, turned with a promising click. The door had squeaked that first night, but not since. Not since he’d ordered it discreetly oiled and planed. The last thing he needed was her waking to realize he was in her room, sending her into even more of a panic.
But he was the only one near enough to help. He could have asked Cowan to take a room up here, he supposed, but . . . but it didn’t seem right somehow. It should be a husband who gave his wife comfort in those moments she needed it most.
He knew her room better by night than he did by day, knew which board to avoid and when to sidestep the table. Knew exactly how she’d look with the moonlight trickling through the window and glazing her with silver. Small, fragile . . . lonely. She slept on her side, a pillow clutched to her middle, her face buried in it.
And she cried.
The words varied from night to night. Sometimes she muttered of mazes and closets and Hannah. Sometimes of stones and fog and Malcolm. Sometimes in Gaelic that he couldn’t understand. Always with the same panic. The same fear. The same sorrow.
He eased to a seat on the edge of the bed opposite her face, though he was fairly certain she wouldn’t wake up. She never did. He wasn’t even sure she remembered these nearly nightly dreams. In the morning, she always seemed cheerful, her eyes without shadow as she bombarded him over and again with pleas to be rid of the diamonds.
In what had become routine, he touched a hand to her shoulder. “Shh. You’re all right. They’re gone.” His voice barely made a whisper in the room, as light as the fingers he trailed down over her back. The same soothing motion his mother and nurse had once used to calm him after a nightmare when he was a boy. Fingers up, fingers down, a circle around. The softest touch, the softest words. There but not there.
He prayed as he continued his ministrations, as her pillow-muffled sobs quieted into gasps, then into whimpers, and finally into silence.
A stirring inside told him he must go. Now.
The prompting always came sooner than he wished it would. Every night
it was harder to force his knees to straighten, to force himself to leave when everything within him shouted that his place was here, by her side. Holding her until the nightmares stopped coming. Everything within him told him that if they could get to know each other as just themselves, all thoughts of curses and victims and diamonds aside, then their marriage would improve. Everything, that is, but the voice of the Lord.
He stood, careful to hold in the sigh. As he had twenty times before, he slipped back through the door, slid the key back in the lock. Listened to it turn.
As he had twenty times before, he settled on his knees on the rug beside his bed and let his head fall to the mattress. “How long, Lord? How long until we sort through this? Until she lets me comfort her when she is awake? How long until she lets me be at least a friend? Until she trusts my decisions? Everything I try, every time I think I’m making progress . . .” It seemed there was a wall between them, and though she stretched from one side and he from the other, neither could cross it. Between them always loomed this curse.
He was beginning to think it real. For neither he nor his wife had any greed or lust for the jewels, and yet they were coming between them. Just as the curse said they would.
He prayed the wall would come tumbling down. But the Lord offered no assurances. No peace. No direction on what he should say to his wife in the light of day. Just that same, eternal instruction he had been hearing in answer to all his prayers lately. Listen.
Listen. He was listening, had been all through his six weeks of marriage. Listening for the Lord to reveal how to act and when. Listening for that next instruction. But it seemed he’d have to wait for it. Wait for her to understand. Wait for a time not yet upon them.
He crawled back into his bed and stared up at the darkened ceiling. He didn’t like it. Not when one thing he was waiting on—Lady Pratt to make her move—could well interfere with the other. Not when he didn’t know who among his staff he could trust. But he would wait, listening.
The Reluctant Duchess Page 21
