Mystified

by Renee Bernard

  “Which should have been the end of it, you’d think,” Teddy said.

  “As the guards escorted her from the grounds, she kept screaming in that old language her coven uses.” She shuddered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, the warmth from the fire no longer sufficient. “If she couldn’t have a happy life, she’d make sure his daughters didn’t either.”

  “But she didn’t include Francis or the old Earl of Banfield.”

  Claire shook her head. “She didn’t care about them. It was Grandfather’s daughters she envied, especially Evelyn, who had already married into nobility. ”

  Teddy cupped his hand around his chin, tapping his upper lip with his forefinger in a familiar gesture of thought. He was determined to approach the curse as he did any other problem, with facts and figures, all logic and tangibility. She ought to want him to cease. To go as far away from her as possible. Start hunting for a suitable bride, one who wasn’t deemed the Mad Daughter.

  Yet an entirely different emotion ruled her.

  Relief.

  Because when Teddy put his mind to something, he was unstoppable. It was why he’d been considered the most likely to go on to King’s Bench, before he’d inherited the title. It was how he’d turned around his family’s finances in a short six months, making his estate into a profitable enterprise.

  Before, they’d been too young to properly understand her mother’s curse. And by the time they were old enough, Mama was too far gone into the madness.

  But the darkness hadn’t taken hold of Claire yet. Maybe, just maybe…could there be some small sliver of hope for her? Not for a life with Teddy and children of her own—that was too much to aspire to—but perhaps she could stanch the full bleed of the disease. Lessen the curse so that she was harmful only to herself, not others.

  As if sensing her slight unbending, Teddy stood up, going to the desk against the right wall of the library. He rummaged through the drawers, finally pulling out a blank piece of parchment and a quill and inkpot. He sharpened the quill, then brought the parchment, quill, and inkpot over to their chairs. “So let me make sure I have the facts of the case right: the targets of Hestia’s curse were solely the late Earl’s daughters, Madalane and Evelyn, and their children, yes? Not any of the other DeLisle relations? So Violet, Letty, and your other cousins are unaffected?”

  She nodded. “That was the only part she said in English—the sisters’ names, and that their heirs would feel her wrath. I remember Grandfather saying it all seemed so surreal. Supposedly, Hestia started to chant in that ancient language with all these wild hand motions and then a puff of smoke appeared. When the smoke cleared, she was gone.”

  “She could have had a bomb made of smoke hidden on her,” Teddy mused. “The Chinese have been using such since at least year 1000.”

  “Because a witch in Cornwall having access to Chinese weapons is so much more likely than a spell,” Claire countered, with a toss of her head. “Nevertheless, my grandparents dismissed it. No one believed Hestia could actually curse us. Not even when Paul died.”

  Paul was the son of Evelyn and Jonathan Banfield, and he’d drowned at age five. Evelyn had never been able to carry any more children to term.

  Teddy scratched a few notes on the paper, and then met her gaze again. “The townspeople cite Paul’s death as the reason for Evelyn’s brain-sickness. But you suspect it was the curse all along. When did Lady Banfield first start to show signs of lunacy? Does it match with your mother’s timeline too?”

  She considered this for a moment. “I don’t remember much about Aunt Evelyn. Paul died long before I was born. But even as a child, I knew Mama was unsound. You remember how she used to act.”

  Back then, the marchioness had fits of irrationality and wild mood swings, often shifting dramatically from one spectrum of emotion to the next. Many times, Papa had told Claire to stay with the governess, so that she wouldn’t upset her mother further. As she grew older, Mama’s madness progressed. Two years ago, when Mama had tried to strangle the footman bringing her supper, Papa had decided to commit her to the asylum.

  “Papa used to tell me stories about how Mama was before,” she said. “It wasn’t until after they married that she started to decline. When they first courted, she was so vivacious. She had a way of lighting up a room, he said. He fell in love with her spirit—she viewed everything as an adventure.”

  She knew that side of Mama, though it had been only in quick flashes before the next wave of insanity took hold. On her better days, Mama had been loving and joyful.

  Teddy made another note on the paper. “The commonality in their illnesses then is that both came on after childbirth.”

  “That’s it, then, isn’t it? A possible loophole.” Claire leaned forward eagerly. “If Mama and Aunt Evelyn were fine until childbirth, then there’s a chance I might stay sane. Oh, Teddy, if this is true then you are absolutely brilliant, and all I have to do is never have children.”

  She stopped, her excitement dimming as she caught sight of Teddy’s crestfallen expression. “Teddy—”

  “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, pointedly glancing at the clock. “Oh, look at the time. We’re going to be late. Better be off to dress for supper. Beck, St. Giles, and Blackwater are expecting me, and I’m sure your cousins will want you to sit with them.” He sprung up from his chair, swiftly striding to the desk and replacing the inkpot and quill.

  She wanted to stay with him—though she had no idea what to say to him—but it was indeed well past time to get ready for dinner. Papa would be furious if she was late.

  Teddy was halfway out the door by the time she’d gathered up his notes on the curse. She didn’t stop him.

  This small glimmer of hope depended on her keeping her distance from him. There was no future for them. With Gerald gone, Teddy was the last of the Lockwood line. Without an heir, the estate would pass into the hands of his cousin Reginald, who was even more of a gambler and inveterate than Gerald had been. Teddy had worked too hard restoring Ashbrooke Manor for that to happen, and his tenants depended on him.

  But then, as she turned back around, he stopped in the hall outside the door. “Claire?”

  “Yes?” She met his gaze, the notes with the possible way out from this hell clenched tight in her hand.

  “I’m not giving up on you.” And with that, he was gone, his long strides taking him down the hall before she could think up a sufficient response.

  Chapter 3

  Teddy woke early, as was his custom when he was home at Ashbrooke. What had started as an attempt to prove to the servants and the surrounding village that he would be a different earl than his brother had quickly become habit. He liked the hours right before dawn, when the estate did not hum with activity and for a short time at least, there was quiet.

  Castle Keyvnor did not ever quiet. If it was not the bustle of the other guests moving about the castle, or the staff going about their various tasks, it was the…other. Those bloody supernatural elements he did not want to dignify, yet…after spending the night within these four walls, he could not so easily dismiss the rumors as he had the morning prior. He had stirred awake at one, unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched. The glowing embers of the fire he’d put out before going to sleep were the only light, giving the room an unearthly feel.

  It had to be that. His eyes had been deceived because of the lack of real light. He had not truly seen a ghost in the far corner of his room, by the armoire and dressing table, floating four bloody feet above the ground. That ghost had definitely not glared at him. It was too dark to make out more than wispy film in the shape of a man, dressed all in black.

  Teddy rubbed his hands over his eyes and resettled in his chair at the breakfast table. At this rate, he’d be counting the minutes until the end of this sennight. He was a practical man, a logical man. A man of the law, damn it. He did not believe in ghosts.

  And he most certainly did not believe in curses.

  “Rough n
ight?” St. Giles deposited a plate heaped high with eggs, rolls, plum cake, and meat taken from the sideboard. It put Teddy’s small breakfast of dry toast and coffee to shame.

  Oh, no, everything’s completely normal. Just seeing a ghost, that’s all.

  But he’d rather be pricked in the eye seven times than confess to St. Giles what he’d seen. Besides, he hadn’t really seen it. His mind had been playing tricks on him.

  He shrugged. “Hard to sleep in this drafty place.” It was the first excuse he could think of, and not a very good one.

  St. Giles arched a brow as he pulled out the chair next to Teddy and sat down. “Says the man who once spent two days in a tent in Sussex because he wanted to ‘observe the astrological significance of the purported comet sighting.’”

  That had been a horrible experience, strongly contributing to his fear of spiders, frogs, and nature in general. But he was saved from a response by the appearance of Hal Mort, Viscount Blackwater. “Morning.”

  “Teddy can’t sleep because it’s too drafty.” St. Giles grinned at Blackwater. “I think he’s having problems with his lady love.”

  Blackwater ceased his perusal of the sideboard, turning around to face them. “Are you sure you should propose to Lady Claire?”

  Teddy almost choked on his bite of toast, swallowing it down just in time. “Say that louder, Blackwater, I don’t think the right half of the castle heard you.”

  Blackwater smiled sheepishly. “Everyone knows you fancy her.”

  So maybe he wasn’t skilled at deception. Women valued honesty, right? Teddy sipped at his coffee, letting the warmth of the strong brew reassure him.

  Besides, he had other problems outside of the ton’s knowledge of his besotted state. He had to convince Claire that remaining unmarried was not the way to break her supposed curse.

  “It’s been a bit…complicated,” he ventured. “But nothing worth having is ever easy, is it?”

  “That’s the spirit.” St. Giles paused in inhaling his plate to cuff him on the shoulder.

  “If you’re really sure that’s who you want for your countess…” Blackwater had returned to the sideboard, loading up his plate.

  “Blackwater,” Teddy said warningly, his eyes narrowing.

  St. Giles glanced from Teddy to Blackwater. “What do you think of billiards later?”

  Teddy let out a breath, sending an appreciative glance at his friend for the conversation change. “I could be amenable.”

  Blackwater set his plate down on the table, drawing out the chair next to St. Giles. As Teddy finished off his last piece of toast, the rest of the guests started to filter into the dining room. He waited a few minutes for Claire to show up, but when she didn’t, he figured she’d taken a tray in her room. That was her usual custom.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said to his friends. “I’ve got some correspondence to catch up on.”

  Blackwater nodded goodbye, his mouth full of eggs.

  “See you later,” St. Giles said in parting. “You just need the right amount of charm. Keep trying. You’ll win her over.”

  God, he hoped St. Giles was right. He’d only been here a day and Claire already believed the answer to her curse was never to marry or have children.

  He feared what conviction the next day would bring.

  Chapter 4

  Claire had spent the morning with Kinney, alternating between sewing on a quilt for the parish back home in Kent and reading a novel. Neither had held her attention, so she’d switched to drawing out by the south garden. For the last half hour, she’d been attempting to recreate the rose-covered trellis at the front of the garden. But no matter how she tried, she simply couldn’t get it to look right. She set her charcoal stick on the bench beside her and held up her sketchpad to survey the drawing in full.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, frowning at the drawing. The petals were accurate, but somehow instead of the connecting vines that looped about the white trellis slats she’d sketched words, and not just any words.

  I’m not giving up on you.

  She knew Teddy—God, she knew Teddy’s mind better than her own now. Once he’d given his word, he made sure he carried through with his promise. There had been something else too, an undercurrent that she had never before noticed, deeper than the affection they’d had for each other as children. The look on his face as he’d spoken, as though she was the dearest thing to him in the world, and he couldn’t bear to lose her. She knew that look too, knew it because it was the same she’d seen in the mirror whenever she thought of him.

  Could it be that Teddy loved her as she did him? Seven Seasons she’d endured, and Teddy had never made an offer for her. He stood by as she danced with other men. He defended her when the dragons of the ton called her the Mad Daughter; held her hand as she cried over the patronesses of Almack’s snubbing her, while the news of her mother’s enrollment at Ticehurst spread like wildfire.

  She’d pined for him desperately, but she’d never once told him she loved him. Even if—and this was the smallest chance, what with all those years passing by without a confession of deeper feelings—he returned her affections, the last thing dear, sweet, wonderful Teddy needed was a mad woman for a wife.

  If she could ever marry at all.

  It was the closest they’d come to a solution to the curse. She ought to be thankful. A life of loneliness would not be so bad, not when compared with the possibility of a forced enrollment in an asylum.

  She might have been able to convince herself of this if it were not for his bloody promise.

  “Claire?” Teddy’s voice sounded behind her shoulder.

  She sprung up from the bench, her hands thrown up in the air, for he’d caught her completely unaware. The sketchbook slipped from her fingers, plopping onto the ground.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you,” Teddy said, as she stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at him. He’d appeared out of nowhere, as if she’d conjured him with her thoughts. It was the second time in two days this had happened, and it was distinctly unsettling. “Kinney told me where you were.”

  He came closer to her, his nearness eliminating one fear. He was very real. Visions did not smell of sandalwood and sage. Still, she hadn’t heard him approach. Her stomach churned at her lack of observance. Another sign of the impending lunacy she’d have to hide.

  Then he started to kneel to retrieve her sketchbook, and a much more real fright clutched at her heart. The pad had landed face-up.

  He’d see the drawing.

  She dropped down to her knees as quickly as she’d risen, making a wild grab for the sketchbook, just as Teddy reached for it. Their heads collided with a resounding smack, throwing them both back, bottoms slammed against the grass.

  Her head now pounded like the drumbeat before a firing squad execution.

  But she had the sketchbook.

  Teddy blinked at her, confusion clouding his green eyes. “I was going to get that for you.” He pushed himself off of the ground, offering her his hand.

  She made sure to flip the sketchbook closed before she slipped her hand into his. The warmth of his palm seared through her bare skin as he lifted her effortlessly, righting her. She had removed her gloves earlier to sketch, so his touch was scandalous enough already without prolonging it. They had not yet entered the garden path, so anyone from the house could see them. She recognized the impropriety, yet she made no attempt to take her hand from his.

  Her body had another idea. She craved the closeness of him, the security, the familiarity of his every aching breath—the music that was them working on a problem in tandem, as they always had. Somehow her fingers became laced with his. Locked together in a strengthening bond, strong enough that maybe the madness could not break it. She did not dare draw a breath. She did not dare say a word. She simply clung to his hand.

  They had held hands before, when they were but children, frolicking across the groves of their neighboring estates. Age had stolen this custom from
them, declaiming nearness as a right resolved solely for husband and wife. But nothing in her adult life had ever felt as impossibly right as Teddy’s hand in hers. It was but mere seconds—no more than a minute—yet the time stretched before her, silken threads of childhood happiness and present day sufferings intermixing. Her friendship with Teddy and her love for him. The malediction, marring every memory she had of her mother.

  His gaze settled on their joined hands, the beginnings of a smile twisting the corners of his lips. As another second passed and she did not pull her hand away, that smile bloomed into another of his all-encompassing grins, crinkling his eyes.

  His delight made her pull back, for it spoke of fulfilling promises she could not keep. She could not be his, no matter how much she longed to be. She could not give him the children he’d always spoken of wanting, once he’d become a barrister of the court. Though that dream had turned to naught with him inheriting the title, his role as Earl of Ashbrooke had transformed his desire for a family into a pressing need for heirs.

  A Mad Daughter could not be his countess.

  So she broke the contact between them, turning from him to collect her sketchbook and charcoal. She slid the charcoal back into a red lacquered case, and then put the case and the sketchbook into a brocade-patterned bag. The bag had once belonged to her mother. It was made by French weavers and smuggled into England, despite the provisions of the Weaving Acts forbidding importation of such goods.

  But rules had never mattered to Mama. She’d lived to defy Society’s expectations. Perhaps she’d even died in defiance—it’d been estimated she’d last three months within the confines of Ticehurst. She’d made it two years before they killed her.

  “I have always liked that bag,” Teddy said.