by Edith Layton
“Unless he’d given his word,” she said quietly, half-afraid he’d go back on his word, half-afraid he wouldn’t.
“Ah, his word.” He sneered, the expression odd and alien to him. “You’ve heard of my ancestors. What good is the word of an Earl of Clune?”
“But you’re not only the Earl of Clune. For you never expected to be one,” she protested, not for her own safety, but to ease his obviously troubled mind. “Your mama said you were raised to be Colin Haverford, gentleman, and that nothing would alter that. You cannot take on a man’s temperament with his title. I can’t believe that. I’d sooner believe in ghosts than that,” she said bravely, for his face was dark and forbidding as she spoke.
“Precisely,” he said with relief, smiling like the sun coming from behind a cloud.
“It wasn’t at all easy to play vile old Earl of Clune,” he explained gently, “but it was important. I brought you here, just as I said, for privacy. But also to illustrate a point, for we Earls of Clune always have ulterior reasons, you know. My ancestors built this maze for purposes I could not, cannot, enjoy or approve. But I am not them; I am, as you so rightly observed, Colin Haverford, who just happens to have become the Earl of Clune. But only in name. And it’s scarcely fair to punish me for that. Now, you see, I find I want something badly, and perceive that I’ve been held back from achieving it by that title and all the nonsense that goes with it, both in reality and in my own mind.
“Miss Dawkins,” he said bluntly, staring at her, “it should come as no surprise that it’s you I want so very badly.”
“No,” she agreed at once, but before he would say more, she turned her head away. “But the last time we met, you explained it by mentioning sheep’s bottoms.”
“Ah yes.” He smiled. “So that stung, as I intended, did it? But, my dear, then, if you’ll recall, I spoke more like a horse’s bottom myself, I’m afraid. That’s just it: I was afraid. And I tried to terrorize you as well because I was so afraid of losing my freedom. I didn’t understand then that it was already a lost cause. At least for me, it was. Victoria,” he said in somewhat strained tones, sitting down beside her, and possessing himself of one of her hands, “I want you, as I said.
“I want to marry you, in fact,” he declared. “I’ll have you no other way, my dear,” he warned, “for I’ve come to understand I’m indeed no proper Earl of Clune, and I know now that you are a proper female, and never the sort who could come to me in joy any other way. And it’s joy I’m after. Yours and mine, and for a very long time. Why else do you imagine I’d detail the duties of my mistress so joylessly? I’m not such a bad bargainer as that, you know, not when I want something. And I do now. You. And honorably. Hush,” he said quickly as he went on. “You’re an excellent governess-companion, but I don’t believe you’re a good enough actress to have feigned what you felt for me last time we met. Am I wrong?”
“No, but…” she began, as he said sternly, “Hush, I’m not done. I rehearsed this thing to the letter and you’ve got to hear me out. I just wanted to be sure my perceptions weren’t clouded by my ancestors’ vanity. You do love me then, I’m sure of it. Ssh,” he said again, smiling, “don’t be so impatient, I’ll give you a chance to tell me so in a moment. I’ve kept you solitary here at High Wyvern Hall while I was out in the world tormenting myself. But I understand the young doctor’s making courting noises, and now Theo’s brought other young eligibles around. I have to move quickly.
“Now,” he went on, as she stared at him and wondered if she were possibly hearing what she believed she was, yet though his voice was light, his face was as serious as she’d ever seen it to be, “remember, before you reply, if you are an apothecary’s daughter, I am a soldier’s son. We’ve both nothing more to do with earldoms than coincidence would have it. But we’ll do the best we can. I honestly can’t see how we could do worse than the general run of the peerage is doing.
“Did you know,” he asked quizzically, “there’s a duchess who makes Bobby look like an animal hater? The Duchess of Kent has ninety-nine dogs, they say, and all have free run of her home. Her bed is very like a kennel, I imagine, which may be why it’s said her husband hasn’t visited it in years. The Duchess of Oxford, on the other hand, doesn’t need her husband; she’s said to have all her children by different sires. True or not, were you listening closely? For I said, as everyone in the ton does, ‘they say,’ and ‘it’s said,’ and so it is. Constantly. Gossip covers every one of them. And there’s a duke I won’t name who actually does have fleas, which he scratches at incessantly, in all sorts of vulgar places, not only interminably, but in company too.”
He smiled down at her smile. “That’s only a sampling of the beau monde I’ve encountered. Do you think we can do worse? It’s clear to me now that I’d be gossiped about whatever I did. But I’ve learned it also would make no difference, except if I cared. And I don’t. Nor should you. What a flat I’d have to be to marry just to be acceptable to society, and then have to listen to gossip about the length of my wife’s nose, or her manners, or whatever else they’d care to invent forever, anyway. And what a goose you’d have to be to deny me out of fear of them too. Now. Will you marry me, Miss Dawkins?”
“Your mama—” she said, as he replied instantly, “Loves you and only worries that I’ll marry some ‘society idiot’ instead.”
“I don’t know how to be a countess…” she began.
“Good. I don’t know how to be an earl,” he answered.
“I’m your dependent,” she offered, feeling giddy, not wanting to come to her senses enough to think up objections any longer, gazing at him and wanting him to interrupt her ruthlessly now, just this once wishing he’d behave as one of his wicked ancestors had, so that he might seize her up and kiss her until she had to agree to whatever he proposed.
“I work for you,” she elaborated, her eyes growing very wide when he did not answer at once, fearing that she had at last named a real, insurmountable obstacle.
“No you don’t,” he said on a gleaming smile, gathering her up in his arms at last. “I’m afraid you’ve just been dismissed again, thrown out of your post, without a character too. Tsk, tsk,” he said happily. “What a coil. Now I don’t have to keep to my word either, for at the moment, and just for the next few weeks, mind, you’re not my dependent any longer. Just my entire world,” he breathed as he at last kissed her.
“Enough,” he said raggedly a long while later, drawing back from her and taking a deep and steadying breath, “or rather, not enough, but enough for the moment.”
As he helped her smooth her hair and gown, he smiled at her and commented, “There are some things I’d rather not begin in a maze of my ancestor’s making, one of them being my line of descendants, but I’m very heartened by the fact that the thought didn’t occur to you. Yes, you may well blush,” he laughed. “Nonetheless, love,” he said earnestly, turning her face to his and ensuring that she could look nowhere but into his dark, serious eyes, “you haven’t answered, not really. I can’t hold you to a kiss, although I promise I will continue to, but not in a court of law. I need a clear and audible answer.”
“You are sure?” she asked very solemnly.
“More than that,” he answered without a trace of humor, “or I would not have asked. I’m very sure I don’t wish to go on with this lonely business of life without you.”
“Then yes, of course yes,” she whispered.
It was a while longer before he allowed her to speak again, and then there were a great many murmurous things said before he forced himself to draw away from her again. But as soon as he felt it would be sightly for him to arise and give her his hand, he did so, saying simply, “Enough of this placating my ancestors, my love. Let’s go back to the Hall. We’ve business there this evening to prepare for.”
Then he hesitated, and said, “Victoria, I asked Alfie to trust me earlier today; now I ask it of you. I’m aware that I’ve given you no token of my intent except for my embrac
es, but the omission was deliberate. Can you keep what’s occurred between us to yourself, only just a little while longer? Only until this wretched ghost business is resolved?”
She’d forgotten everything in his embrace, but now the real world flooded back to her and she felt a chill very like that of a spectral presence as she gasped, remembering, “But you never asked me about what I saw that night.”
“I had better things to do,” he replied with a grin as he took her arm. But when he noted she was trembling, he asked at once, “Was it so very frightening, then? I understand it was a gray lady you saw in your room, with a gray hood and yards of straggling hair.”
“No. Yes, it was,” she said, shaking her head, “but now I wonder why you haven’t asked me more. My lord, is it possible that even after all you’ve said, all we’ve done, all we plan to do, that you believe I played out a masquerade to bring you home, as you once jested?”
“‘Colin,’” he corrected her, before he said, “no, it’s not possible. In fact, tonight I hope to prove it, for tonight, with your cooperation and with the help of Mama and the boys, I do believe we’ll nab a ghost.”
And if you don’t, she thought with ineffable sadness, as he began to detail his plan while they walked slowly back to the house, drawing apart slightly as they left the maze so as to keep their new status as secret as the place where they’d decided it, if she doesn’t walk tonight, will you ever quite believe that it wasn’t me trying to call you back, after all? Will you, my lord? Will you, Colin?
*
It was a night made for roving spirits. Everyone said so. Lord Burton rubbed his thin hands together in glee as the wind picked up; the doctor, come from the village to observe, allowed as how it could not be better atmosphere as he shook the rain from his high beaver hat; and even the housemaids refused to venture anywhere in the Hall except in pairs with a footman at their back for insurance, as soon as the first long, rolling peals of distant thunder were heard.
Dinner was consumed but scarcely tasted, and there was almost a carnival atmosphere as the company assembled in the Yellow Salon to await their host and hear the plans he had for their evening. Theo and his friends had opted to station themselves around the music room, although Lord Burton was clearly indecisive. Since the ghost had previously manifested itself in the governess’s room and in that hall, he ruminated fretfully, one ought to stay there. However, since two undermaids had sworn they’d seen a ghostly presence in the music room, and moreover, since the harp playing itself off-key there had sent them flying from the room this very afternoon, he agonized over which would be the hottest, or rather coldest, spot to be in this night.
When the earl entered at last, after having paid two giggling young undermaids handsomely and giving them the evening off besides, all speculation ceased, for the gentleman had a resolute air. And, as Theo had pointed out to Lord Burton and his cronies, as his cousin had instructed him to do, there was such a thing as manners. It was, after all, his cousin’s Hall, Theo claimed, and his own ancestor’s wife who was the lady in question.
That argument seemed to carry some weight, for it wasn’t long before the Earl of Clune had everyone’s acquiescence to his plan. Matters of breeding and chivalry aside, another fact that he lightly but definitely touched upon, which was that he could dispossess anyone who disagreed, doubtless lent his words some additional weight. With only a minimum of further grumbling, ended by the sotto voce comment by their host to the effect that he who owned the pack, dealt the cards, Lord Burton, Theo, and the rest agreed to station themselves in the music room. Miss Dawkins would keep to her room, and the earl himself, with his chosen stalwart assistants, would prowl the upstairs hall.
*
At midnight, the interior of the old Hall lay unnaturally still. The thunderstorm had passed and only a gentle rain misted down upon the grounds. The gentlemen hovering in the music room scarcely dared scratch for fear of frightening away the apparition they awaited. The footmen and other servants had either been sent to their rooms or watched breathlessly at their usual stations. Sally had been barred from the proceedings, but she scarcely minded, for she was enjoying herself enormously, pent in her room with Mrs. Haverford and Lady Malverne, with a clutch of maids for company and a manservant outside the door to guard against their uneasiness, as well as their restlessness. And the earl and his chosen stalwart assistants settled comfortably in a corner of the great dark hall. The gentleman sat in the shadows in a small gilt chair, his head laid back against the wall; his stalwart assistants sat at his feet.
After several moments passed in silence so absolute that each could hear the blood singing in his own veins, Alfie ventured a whisper so low that the earl had to incline his head to hear him.
“My lord?” Alfie breathed. “May I say something?”
“Certainly,” his trustee answered softly.
“Well, then, do you really believe in ghosts?”
“Oh, I believe anything’s possible,” the earl answered.
“But not here, not tonight?”
“No, lad,” the earl sighed sadly, “unfortunately, no, not here, not tonight.”
“Aye, me too,” Alfie sighed just as sorrowfully, as his brother nodded solemnly too. ‘
*
Victoria sat alone in her room and resolved not to be a ninny. She had every reason to be joyful this night, every reason to be ecstatic, in fact. But the problem was that she didn’t quite believe in anything tonight. Not in the reality of what had happened in the boxwood maze, although her lips still tingled and her flesh still yearned for that amazing touch it believed in even if she did not, nor did she believe in the existence of ghosts, and not, unhappily, in the nonexistence of them either.
She’d been too embarrassed to request one of Bobby’s four-legged companions when she’d been told to remain within her room all night, but she’d seen his enormous black dog wandering the hallway before she’d closed her door, after the earl and the boys had seen her safely there. She’d attempted to lure the great melancholic brute in, even sinking so low as to offering him a ratafia biscuit she’d put in her pocket against the more easily satisfied hungers of the night, since Lord Burton had claimed that dogs were very sensitive to spirits. Sensitive or not, he was certainly a very large and doubtless protective beast. But he’d only stared at her again and drifted off, never letting her lay so much as a finger on his broad black head, being, she decided uneasily, before she shut her door again, a very disobliging, unnatural sort of pet.
Now she attempted to bravely face the night alone. Not three days before, she remembered, something very like a ghost had appeared from out of nowhere in front of the silk-hung wall she stared at now, and it had moaned and she had almost perished from shock before she’d fled the room, moaning herself. She tried to remember the pudding-crazed ghost the earl had once fantasized for her, and then she remembered him, and then she tried to believe that he had actually held her and told her he loved her and that it was possible he would do so again, and within the bonds of matrimony at that. The idea was still so revolutionary that she was lost in contemplation of it, holding it up to the light of reason to better see all the holes in its logic, turning it this way and that to find its flaws so that her spirit would not be completely flattened when sanity returned to her, or to him, that she did not at first see the thing that stepped out of her wall.
So it stood irresolute, that gray and hooded apparition, as if awaiting her screech of terror. When it did not come, the thing, almost as if against its will, stirred slightly and then hooted.
Victoria looked up at it and stopped breathing. She could not scream. She’d been raised as such a good and obedient girl that she never could screech as satisfactorily as spoiled children could, and so as the thing approached her, all she could do was to rise, and back away, and wish with whatever wit remained to her that she could at least utter a last word before she died of fright.
But then, because she wouldn’t run this time and couldn’t
scream as a proper young lady ought, the thing came nearer. And in her panic, Victoria did the only thing a proper young lady ought not to do, would not be expected to do when confronted by a spirit: she reached toward it to stop it. To her astonishment, her hands did not disappear in a chilling vapor, but rather touched and clutched onto cold but definitely living, cringing flesh. And then there was a fearsome shrieking heard. But it emanated from the ghost.
For as Victoria drew her hands back, the awful hood came away, and although she dreaded looking up from her hands to see a headless thing, or a ghastly decomposing thing, she found herself staring wildly at Miss Comfort instead, who stared wildly back at her.
“Oh, Miss Comfort,” Victoria cried in pity and distress, as the earl and Alfie came bursting into the room, her first disordered impulse, irrationally, being to calm the poor old lady, who’d obviously been frightened by the ghost. It was only when the earl barred Miss Comfort as she turned and began to flee back to the wall that Victoria slowly realized why the older woman wore such a flowing nightrobe, and why she’d combed her hair so high and let it stand in such unruly fashion about her distracted and strained white face. ”Ah, Miss Comfort,” Victoria at last breathed, “did you hate me so much, then?”
