Her mother could walk just fine without its assistance, but if she wanted to have the object that conducted her powers into massive energy blasts she had to have it with her in some guise at all times. Since the magical community across the world still lived in the shadows, they had to take special precautions to keep those that feared and hated magic from seeing it in public.
“What the ruddy hell?” He looked around as each lamp turned on and off and on again of its own accord. “Oh, my darling girl, that’s it. You show off your magical talents. I think we both know what this means, don’t we?” His voice faltered, an emotional catch entered it. She still couldn’t quite believe that he wanted her—and only her. “I have always wanted you, Sophie. We can’t find destiny, can we? You know what this portends. You know you must accept me now. I am quite astounded by the power this Ruby holds, it must be one of the most powerful magical artifacts in the land. You can’t fight its magic, Sophie.”
She did know it. To refuse him would be tempting fate and yet, how could she have a life of happiness when Sylvie had been robbed of her happy ending?
Her eyes caught sight of his silver-handled walking cane. The head of which was in the shape of a dragon, and by the looks of it, rubies were set in it to represent the dragon’s eyes. He had placed his top hat and white gloves with his cane.
A foreboding shiver rippled through her. She had always loved dragons. It was almost as if they were the perfect magical match. Her heart raced so fast, she feared he could hear it pounding away and if she could hear it, chances were he could as well.
Heat flooded her face and the world started to sway, she had to keep hold of her senses and not show her newfound weakness in front of the man that literally held their destiny in his hands!
“You shouldn’t be surprised to learn about the power that Ruby wields. You stole into this house in the dead of night for a reason, so knock off the surprised bit about the Ruby. I am sure you are still wondering why I can work magic, since my dear little cousin who simpers after you can’t weave a spell to save her soul. You are a bloody poor thespian, you knew enough about the FitzCharles Family to steal the blasted gem in the first place!”
“You must know I wanted it to tell us that we were meant for each other! I heard about the power it held, and I wanted to see if it actually existed, and if it did, I wanted to know if it would lead me to the woman I love—and the woman I love is you! As for sneaking in here like a thief in the night, I was invited. Your father told me when to come and how to do it. He told me so I could be judged, so we could be judged. You are the woman I love, Sophie. You are the only woman I have ever loved. And I will keep professing my love for you until you bloody well believe it!”
“I don’t have any reason to believe anything you are saying. The explanation you just gave sounds a bit half-hearted to me. My Papa wouldn’t…he couldn’t…” Her mouth went dry. “He did,” she said, sighing.
She planted her hands on her hips, attempting to look as threatening as she could be in her lilac coloured dressing gown with her hair spilling down around her shoulders. By the way he stared at her, she didn’t think he was bothered in the slightest.
“In that case, as you have had your curiosity sated, you may leave, right this instant. I won’t detain you. Get out now. The entire household is still asleep, and God willing, they will stay that way. God forbid, the servants wake up. Our housekeeper Mrs. Langtry has quite a loose tongue at times and since she knows about our magical ways she will wag her tongue to all of the maids, footmen, valets and butlers that work for the houses you chum around with, and in turn, the lords and ladies of the ton will know exactly what has conspired between us this evening.
“You should leave before my precious cousin awakens, and discovers what you have been up to! She might be more than a little disappointed to discover that the man she has set her heart on is attached to me through a magical bond, no less,” she coughed. “You realize there is no way to break this bond? Many have tried and failed dismally in the past. Please, go.”
A bitter, vile taste filled her mouth. She felt like screaming her lungs out. She wanted to let her emotions totally get the better of her and let them rip right through the entire house. The only problem being, her family liked to keep a very low magical profile, and if she did that, the scandal would be splashed across magical newspapers and non-magical ones. Consequently, it would set the non-magical ton’s world on fire, and reflect poorly on her family as the magical community would be in quite a tizzy until they made everyone forget that magic existed.
If she did want to brave the resulting scandals, the enchantments placed upon Rayne House would ensure that she wouldn’t blow it up—but she would break a fair amount of the valuable trinkets her mother had collected over the years from her many exotic travels from continent to continent and given the fact that she suspected their family coffers were drying up, it would be an unforgivable act.
Rupert and she would never get along. He was a snobbish, egotistical man drunk on his power and wealth within the ton. The magical circles and the non-magical ones. He had continually rubbed her the wrong way since their first meeting, only three months before.
They had met for the first time on the grounds of her family’s ancestral home, Castle Rayne.
She had been out sitting tranquilly on a stone bench peacefully tucked in a corner in the family’s enchanted maze that had been built as a testament of love to her grandmother and somehow he had found her.
As she had been totally immersed in the novel, Jane Eyre, she had hardly noticed him, and he could have been standing there for longer than five minutes before she did realize she wasn’t alone.
At that point in time, she had been disturbed by how quickly he had maneuvered his way through the complicated labyrinth to find her. He didn’t even know the plans behind it, nor did he know that it had been charmed to change if an enemy of the family happened upon it.
Him being able to find her so efficiently told her that he was meant to be a friend of the family—and moreover, he was meant to be a match for one of the women in the FitzCharles Family.
The thought that he had been her match had never crossed her romantic senses, and now that it had become a reality, she didn’t entirely know how to sort out her conflicting emotions.
Should she rebel at the match or throw herself gleefully into it? Moreover, did he truly want her? Most men avoided her like the plague. Why would Redding want her?
Simone would be so mad! She had campaigned for Redding in a way she had never pursued any of the other eligible young lords.
Of course, Simone could never quite lasso herself a lordly groom as none of the men in their social set wanted to bother with a woman with a mysterious past and no wedding dowry to speak of. And she suspected that her father couldn’t even afford to give her the proper dowry that most men expected in a wife.
If she wanted a husband with magical powers, his family could also be inclined to want a wife based on the magical abilities she would bring to the family to strengthen the magic in their bloodline and poor disillusioned Simone could not even bring that to a marriage.
Everyone in the ton believed that Simone was the daughter of her father’s cousin—even she had believed that until Lord Huntingdon had enlightened her.
Simone coming into the world had been quite the scandalous affair. She had been born in India to a poor British mother who had died shortly after giving birth. The man who was supposedly her father had been taken by a severe fever when she was only days old, after which her father had taken her under his wing. But now, now, she knew the awful truth.
Simone was her older sister. Born on the wrong side of the blanket. She couldn’t quite fathom it, and yet at some point, she would have to deal with it head on.
Misfortune plagued Simone’s existence, and so her parents especially her father, felt deep sympathy for the girl. Her mother was kind to her, but she, like the rest of their family couldn’t put up with Simone’s
sour disposition.
At the moment, Redding’s normally arrogant grin had become non-existent. He looked a little too serious concerning their circumstances. He looked like he was going to take her into his arms, and never let her go.
Instinctively, she took a step backward. Maybe she should make a hullabaloo so they would have some chaperones.
He had probably gotten the guts up to come to Rayne House from a night of playing cards in a gambling hell. She could detect the faint trace of the finest tobacco on him, and the smell of fine liquor. If he had been foxed before he had taken hold of the Ruby, he was quite sober now, dreadfully so by the sheer look of astonishment on his face.
Chapter Six
Damnation.
Did she really not want him? How could he have ruined things so badly between them? Why had he altered her memories? If he confessed now, if he told her everything and restored her memories to what they should be, would she embrace him and give him the love he so desperately missed?
Her eyes burned straight into his soul. She had taken a step away from him, and that movement hurt him straight down to his soul. Had he not been such an egotistical prick they would have been celebrating their third anniversary in a month’s time. They might even have had a child or two.
She would have weathered the storm following Sylvie’s death. Maybe their love would have helped her through it. How foolish he had been! There wasn’t a dumber man alive.
If he could throttle the life out of himself, he would have done so long ago!
He could never give them back the time he had stolen from them, and he often wondered how much she would hate him if she found out what he’d done to them both. He had taken their love away, all because he had been furious at Sylvie for being so reckless, and he had wanted to protect Sophie from the knowledge of what her sister had done.
Not only that, but the spell that had reworked Sophie’s memories of him seemed to be constantly attempting to rewrite her memories over and over again, because no matter how many times he professed his love for her, she still believed he was stuck on Simone, and couldn’t possibly be in love with her.
“Hand the Ruby over to me, this instant!” her voice was strained. He hated hearing her this way. He wanted to comfort her and he couldn’t, damn it!
“Of course. Like I said, I never intended to keep it. I was going to return it to your Mama and Papa once it led me to you.”
“Spare me your no doubt rehearsed explanation, Lord Redding. I can’t understand why you want to pursue me. It makes no bloody sense. As you see, I am no prize. So, I suggest you leave, posthaste. I don’t expect you to take me as your wife. For once in the history since that Ruby was given to the Rayne Family, it has made an error in judgment. I would rather marry a jackass, over being stuck with you for the rest of my life, and I would warrant deep down, you are no more excited than I am at us being a couple locked in the bonds of holy matrimony.
“As soon as my parents discover you are my match, they shall push us up to the altar and keep us there until we agree to take the vows.”
She didn’t believe him! He could declare his love for her over and over, and she wouldn’t believe it, and it was all because of his bloody spell!
He straightened to his full formidable height of well over six feet and muttered, “Bloody hell,” beneath his breath. Looking to the side, his mouth gaped open. He couldn’t believe his eyes. What the ruddy hell was going on with him?
“What in the world is that?” This was something he hadn’t experienced the first time around.
Had Sylvie somehow blocked him from sharing this with Sophie?
Their twin bond must have been the reason why he hadn’t shared in on Sophie’s gift the first time he had touched the Ruby, and now that Sylvie was gone, he could now share Sophie’s supernatural gift.
*****
Sophie’s palms grew sweaty. Her heart raced in a staccato pattern.
Not good, not good at all. Even though the Percy-Lennoxes were charmed like the FitzCharleses were in the magical arts, Lord Redding could not see the sort of spirits she could see. The Ruby’s enchantment opened his eyes to the world that she saw, and it engulfed him almost entirely.
Already, he was able to tap into her special talents, and was probably becoming enamored with her. He professed his love but she couldn’t quite believe it. Who could possibly want her? The way she kept doubting his love made her think that she had been put under some kind of spell—but that was ludicrous—or was it?
For her part, she didn’t feel any different about him. She still thought him a nuisance of the highest class.
“What do you think I am you stupid pillock? You must have your head right up your arse not to know that I am a ghost! Good lord, you are dumber than a jackass. Which, doesn’t surprise me as your Great Uncle George was as daft as a bloody goat! If I was still alive, I could turn you into one to get my point across! Your family has the magical gift in spades, but some have lacked in the wit department, I do declare.”
She closed her eyes, willing her uncle to remain calm. Should he lose his patience now, he could really blow everything straight to the bowels of hell!
“Marrying my Sophie will be the best thing to ever happen to you. At least she will smarten up your family line. Heed my warning, lad, I will be keeping my eye on you.”
Nonetheless, Lord Redding shouldn’t have offended her great uncle. During her Great-Uncle Lloyd’s lifetime, he had been a persnickety curmudgeon. Feared by all and loved by only a select few, and now…well, he wasn’t any better in death, and that was putting it mildly.
Her father told her that the only person in Lloyd’s life that could curtail his sharp tongue was the woman he had loved as a young man. Sadly, that woman had succumbed to a horrific illness before she had reached her twenty-first year.
Lloyd had wanted to cure her by magical means, as he was determined it was not her fate to be snatched by death at such an early age, but her father would have none of it. He had told Lloyd he was a demon spawn for using witchcraft and that he was forbidden to ever see his daughter again. So despite the fact that the fragile Prudence had been his one true love, he had been robbed of ever having her by his side.
“Perhaps I should tell Sophie to turn you into a jackass or something equally as inane, for I swear I have never seen such a man of your arrogance. You have trespassed into my family’s sanctum, and I do believe you should have the stuffing beaten out of you as a consequence. Of course, rather than go to all of that trouble, I could just go and wake the blasted housekeeper. She is a gossip of the worst sort, and her constant blabbering would be punishment enough for what you have done, my boy.”
“Nephew,” Seraphina said, sweeping into the room in her swift way. “You shall leave the boy alone.”
Sophie’s mouth gaped open. She had never heard Seraphina use such an authoritative tone before. What’s more, she had never seen Lloyd’s bravado falter, and fade away as quickly as it now did.
“Another one?” Redding gasped.
“Now, Aunt, I shan’t do him any grievous harm. I merely want to have a bit of fun with the lad.”
“Well, in that case, go ahead,” Seraphina said. “Never say I kept you from having your fun.”
Sophie’s eyes grew wide, and her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the laugh welling inside of her. Lloyd looked like a kid let loose in a sweet shop.
His eyes dazzled with mischief, as he bore down upon Redding. “However, I admit I do admire your forthright attitude and the courage you had to break into a house like this. You must be quite talented. You have two eyes, and you saw well enough to get into that safe for the Ruby. I guess your vision will have to deal with seeing me and the rest of my kind. You will discover that Mayfair has many ghosts. Ghosts that are not as friendly as me and my darling aunt.
“Since you have damned yourself by touching that blasted red rock, you are a goner now. Once the enchantment infects you to the fullest extent, you won’t be able to
keep your hands off of my niece, and if you don’t marry her straight away, you shall tarnish her good name.
“You can say goodbye to your carefree days of debauched bachelorhood where you were able to drink, smoke and gamble as much as you please. You will also have to give up any of the fine brothels you might attend to sate your needs. Those women of ill-repute will miss your considerable purse I am sure.”
Sophie’s cheeks burned. “Uncle, that is quite enough! Please do not speak of such things. It isn’t seemly!”
“Sophie, hush,” Seraphina murmured.
“I am not done yet. Now that you are meant to be his, you can know about some of the illicit subjects a proper gentleman would never speak of in front of an innocent well-bred young lady. He will have to give up all of his current decadent sinful entertainments. Serves you right, I say. A great punishment for your crime! Huzzah!”
A sinking feeling entered the pit of her stomach. She didn’t like the way that her uncle had said crime. It was as if he referred to something other than Redding merely seeking out the jewel for its judgement.
What were they keeping from her?
As for the Ruby, she didn’t want him holding it any longer. Sophie edged toward Lord Redding. If she caught him unaware, she could snatch the jewel out of his hands and maybe break the enchantment before it had time to take a firm root.
It had a slim chance of working in her panicked mind, but she had to give it a go if she didn’t, she would always wonder if she could have averted her fate.
While his eyes were locked on her great uncle, she lunged at him and enclosed her fingers around the gold woven chain of the Ruby amulet. She tugged at it, but he was too strong for her.
“I think I shall keep this, if, you don’t mind.” He gave her a cheeky smile.
The Haunting of Lady Sophie Page 10
