Both of them breathing hard, he lowered his head against her shoulder, then rolled the two of them so that he lay beneath her. Under her cheek his heart beat strong and fast, matching her own. And this, this connection between them, this was perfection. She never wanted to move again, never wanted to leave the warm circle of his arms. “I love you, Adam.”
“I love you, Isabel,” he returned without hesitation, his low voice resonating through her. “And now tell me, in front of the orb and the stone carvings and the owls and the forest and Nimway Hall, will you marry me?”
He would make her a better Guardian. He already had. And more than that, he would be her partner, her equal, and her love. And that was what Nimway Hall was. Love. “Yes, beneath the moon and all the stars, I will marry you. Very happily.”
As he kissed her again, very softly and gently, she could feel his smile against her mouth, matching hers. “I’ve been trying to find an explanation for why, when I first arrived here and despite everything going wrong, it felt like…home. Now I realize it’s because this place, and I, were both waiting for you.”
That was quite possibly the best compliment she’d ever received, “I’m just glad you and the orb and the house were patient enough to give me time to figure myself out.” Everything had tried to tell her, she realized. Thank goodness she’d opened her eyes and her heart enough to listen and to understand.
And now she – they – had one more thing to see to. Nimway had an unwanted guest who’d badly overstayed his welcome, and before she could declare everything perfect, he needed to go. At once.
15
Geoffrey Bell-Spratt paced. She’d been gone for better than two hours. If Isabel had fallen off the escarpment or drowned in the lake or something equally final, the property would revert to her mother or grandmother. That was the oddness of a female-owned property not controlled by the rules of inheritance. And it would never do. She needed to be alive and well. His reputation wouldn’t withstand being accused of a deathbed marriage twice.
Cursing under his breath, he left the room he’d taken for himself and strode down the hallway and the main stairs. The wretched, stiff-backed butler still stood in the foyer like a dour gargoyle. “Any word?” he asked.
“I would not keep such information to myself, my lord,” Simmons said, not moving. “Of that, you may be certain.”
“Then have my horse saddled, and I’ll lend a hand in searching for Isabel.”
“You don’t know the land, my lord. One wrong turn and you’ll be vanished, as well, and then we’d have to go find you. And it’s never wise for a stranger to be wandering Balesboro Wood in the dark, anyway. Or in the daylight, for that matter.”
He could protest that he’d been poring over maps and therefore knew the property’s trails as well as any man could, but for the moment he preferred to keep that information to himself. It would never do for someone to think he’d overstepped. Not before his position here was officially secured. “I will only be patient for so long,” he returned. “Your mistress and I are to be married, you know. Her presence is required in order for that to happen.” He started to turn away, then paused. “And I’m worried for her safety, of course.”
Yes, one did need to show concern. It looked well, and he was quite proficient at it, if he said so himself.
“Duly noted, my lord. Now if you would be so kind as to return upstairs, the household won’t have to fret over where to find you.”
Geoffrey made his own note, that once he and Isabel were wed, the butler would be replaced by someone less high in the instep. Several things here would change, and several men would be let go – the butler being second on his list. His first target was hopefully out falling off the escarpment and saving them all the bother of having to send him away.
He ascended the staircase again. The bannisters were in good condition, a well-carved and expensive mahogany. He’d also noted the fine carved-marble fireplace in the dining room. The half-naked female bore a passing resemblance to Isabel, though that might have been his imagination.
After marriage the house would not become his, but once he removed Isabel to Alton Park there would be a great deal he could do to earn a bit here and there. Moving out furniture in unused rooms under the pretense of renovations, shipping items off for “repairs” only to discover they’d been ruined in the attempt – providing Isabel de Rossi returned safe and sound tonight, there would be ample opportunity to unofficially render what some antiquated papers declared to be hers, his. As it traditionally would and should have been.
Rather than return to the bedchamber he’d made a show of claiming before the bony-faced butler could arrange to put him on his horse and shoo him away – which had apparently been successful since the man now refused to let him out the front door – Geoffrey continued down the quiet hallway to take stock of some of the other rooms. It was rather like going shopping, looking at furniture and knick-knacks and deciding which ones could be disposed of with no one noting.
One room looked as though it had been set up as a makeshift office, with floor plans and room drawings cluttering a table. Hmm. That could be useful. Selecting one of the plans which detailed the layout of the entire house, he folded it up and slipped it into his coat pocket.
“Who are you, sir, and what are you doing here?”
Stifling a surprised curse, Geoffrey whipped around to see a short, bespectacled man with graying red hair and a slightly ill-fitting jacket that screamed secondhand. The distinct odor of mildew touched his nose as the fellow moved closer. “I am Lord Alton,” he proclaimed grandly. “Who are you?”
“Hodgins. The architect.”
“Ah. What are you designing, Hodgins the architect?”
“An orangery.” The little fellow frowned. “Are you lost, my lord? Nimway Hall is rather…sprawling.”
With one of his famous charming smiles, Geoffrey shook his head. “Were you not informed? Miss Isabel has gone missing. I’m helping search for her.”
“Oh, dear! Let me put my things down, and I’ll join you.”
Damnation. He did not wish to be accompanied by the odor of mildew, or by a common architect. “We’ll cover more area if you take the attic rooms,” Geoffrey said, thinking quickly.
“Of course. Right away.”
Once the small fellow hurried off, Geoffrey made his way down the opposite wing. The house was clearly very old, despite its careful upkeep. That was good; old, well-cared-for things brought more money. He fingered a vase on a hallway table, making a note of its location for later.
The next room he entered was obviously Driscoll’s, and he swiftly returned to the hallway. No sense wasting time in there. Yes, the steward would definitely have to go, but that shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange. Isabel had a very soft heart. A tale about how Driscoll had kept him from marrying Elizabeth when that had been the chit’s dying wish or some such thing – that should suffice.
At the end of the hallway the double doors would be the master bedchamber. If Isabel kept black candles or tarot cards there, that would give him a way to find an additional motivation for her to marry him, if his charm alone proved to be insufficient. People who claimed to have magic or be witches could well find themselves stripped of their property and removed to Bedlam.
The lamp outside the doors flickered and went out. He didn’t feel a breeze, but all old houses were drafty. Extra candles sat about rooms for just that reason. He freed one from the small drawer in the hall table and turned back up the hallway for the previous lamp.
As he reached the wall sconce, that flame also wavered and went out. In response, a slight shiver of uneasiness went through him. Geoffrey rolled his shoulders. It was all nonsense and shoddy upkeep. The master bedchamber would have a fire in the hearth, and that would give him enough light to find any cat bones or mandrake root or any other items of magic she’d hopefully collected. Turning around again, he headed back down the hallway.
One of the doors opened as he reached out
his hand toward it. First it bumped a few inches, then it swung wide open. Geoffrey stopped in his tracks. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered, swallowing. “Do you expect me to believe any of this? Parlor tricks, at best.”
Silence answered him. That was because nothing was there, he decided. The same drafts that had extinguished the lights had simply pushed open a poorly secured door. And a breeze was not going to make him turn tail. Not when a prize lay right at his fingertips. His only regret now was that he hadn’t brought a tarot card or two with him.
He stepped forward again, only to stop as a shadow crossed in front of the doorway. Two glowing green eyes appeared in the dim depths of the room beyond, the height of a man but clearly not human. For several moments the eyes gazed at him, through him, unblinking.
The cat, he remembered abruptly, and his heart began beating again. The stray cat Isabel had found. It must be atop a wardrobe, he decided, giving the illusion that the long-tailed rat was taller and larger than it actually was.
“Shoo, cat,” he ordered, and entered the room.
The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers, a sure sign that the room’s mistress was late returning. Geoffrey squatted down to stir the fire and add another log. When he straightened and turned around, his heart skittered again. No cat lay atop a wardrobe…and no wardrobe stood where he’d seen the eyes.
That spot was bare wall, framed by a pair of pastoral landscapes depicting Glastonbury Abbey and the stone henge. “What the devil?” he whispered, instantly regretting his choice of words. With a frown he squared his shoulders and approached the wall. The paint was smooth, with no sign of the scratches or claw marks that would have been necessary for a cat to climb the wall.
It made no sense. And he didn’t particularly want to remain in the room any longer. On the other hand, finding a bit more evidence that Isabel either believed in or dabbled in magic could provide him with any leverage he might need. Given a choice between him and Bedlam, even a stubborn chit like Isabel should have no trouble deciding.
He opened the nightstand drawer. A sleek gray shape launched at him, hissing, from behind the floor-length curtains. At the same moment the fire behind him roared with heat and light, an instant inferno. Geoffrey yelped, scrambling backward until he tripped over the corner of the bed and fell on his backside.
“What are you doing in here?” Isabel’s voice demanded.
Geoffrey started to roll onto his hands and knees, but the cat leaped onto his head, claws and teeth digging into his scalp. He shrieked, batting at the thing.
For a half dozen stunned heartbeats Isabel watched Geoffrey Bell-Spratt roll about on her floor, a small gray cat attached to his head. Beside her Adam shifted, but she put a hand on his arm. “He doesn’t precisely look menacing,” she whispered.
“He looks like a lunatic,” Adam returned, his voice much louder. “A description I’ll happily pass on at the first opportunity. Get off the damned floor, Alton.”
“Mist! Get away from him!” Isabel seconded, her concern more for the little cat’s safety than for the viscount’s.
With a last hiss and spit the cat ran off down the hallway, escaping between her and Adam’s legs.
“The kitten’s gone, Alton,” Adam stated, reaching out to twine his fingers with hers. “Get up before I assist you with my boot.”
The viscount staggered to his feet. “This is the devil’s house!” he rasped, blood trickling down his face.
To the right side of the room the very-bright fire in the hearth popped and began to dim. Alton had evidently been attempting to burn down the house. She opened her mouth to tell him to remove himself at once, but he flinched away from the fire and made a distinct whimpering sound.
“If this was the devil’s house,” she said, “you would be much more welcome than you presently are. What are you doing in my bedchamber?”
“T-This…” he stammered, waving his scratched hand about the room, “this is real! All the idiotic orbs and rainbows and all the other simpering nonsense you kept prattling on about. It’s real. I thought…” He paused again, uttering a choked laugh edged with hysteria. “I thought you were a moronic, pretty lunatic. I thought if you had a wish to stay out of Bedlam you w—”
“Ah,” Adam interrupted, his voice dropping into a growl. “While I don’t mind hearing all the offal spewing out of your mouth, you’ve insulted Isabel.”
“She—”
“If she decided, wisely, that she didn’t want to marry you, you meant to threaten her with exposing her belief in magic, didn’t you?” Adam interrupted again. “Caught between you and a residence in Bedlam, she’d have no choice but to give you control of all the timber on her property.”
That was all it had been, she realized as Adam spoke. Geoffrey hadn’t believed her, either. The difference was that Adam had argued, while the viscount had encouraged her to speak what he considered to be nonsense in order to use her beliefs against her later.
“Geoffrey,” she said, releasing Adam’s hand and stalking up to her would-be beau, “I will not be marrying you. I’m marrying Adam. And if you show your face on Nimway property ever again, I will turn you into a toad. A very fat, very ugly toad. Do you understand?”
He barked another half-hysterical laugh. “A toad.”
After what Adam had told her, even a toad was better than he deserved. “Yes. A toad. Do you understand?” she repeated.
His light-blue eyes focused on her. “A toad. Yes, I understand. Don’t worry. I have no reason to ever come anywhere near here ever again.” He touched his head, then looked at the blood on his fingers. “Giant green-eyed devil men, devil cats, hellfire – it’s all yours, Driscoll. Now get out of my way.”
Thankfully, Adam stepped aside to allow Alton to pass. A moment later she heard him bellowing for his horse. Adam had ordered Staffordshire in the Morning Light saddled the moment they’d returned to the house, so she imagined that within a very few minutes and beneath the watchful eyes of Simmons and the grooms, Geoffrey Bell-Spratt would be well on his way back to Blackbridge. And good riddance.
“Giant green-eyed men?” Adam repeated, moving up behind her. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”
She faced him. “I have no idea what he was talking about,” she said, lifting a hand to cup his cheek. “You’ve never lied to me, have you?”
He frowned. “Of course not.”
“I know. And Geoffrey did nothing but lie.”
Adam slid his hands around her waist. “He wanted what you have. I want you.”
Isabel smiled, leaning up along his chest to kiss him and relishing in the warm intimacy between them. He’d been a friend long before she’d realized it, and she’d begun to trust and admire him almost despite herself. But now… Now he was everything. He and Geoffrey both believed in the magic of this place now, but only Adam had seen the wonder of it. Because, she realized, he trusted her as much as she trusted him.
“Oh. Oh!” Jane exclaimed from the doorway, her hands flying to her mouth. “I saw Lord Alton go fleeing out the door and I thought, ‘Good heavens’, but now here I am and you’re – well, Mr. Driscoll is in your bedchamber, and—”
“I invited Lord Alton to leave,” Isabel said, remaining in the circle of Adam’s arms. “Mr. Driscoll and I are getting married.”
Jane clapped her hands together. “Thank goodness. I have to say, Lord Alton was pretty, but I’m not entirely certain he meant everything he said.”
“I wish you’d shared that with me, Jane.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Adam cut in. “Everything’s as it should be. In the morning I’ll write my parents, and I assume you’ll wish to do the same for yours and your grandparents.”
Isabel nodded. She wanted everything to begin at once, and she had to remind herself that everything was as it should be. There was no reason to hurry. Not here.
Glancing up at Adam, she pulled away from him and returned to the door. “We’ll see you in the morning, Jane,” s
he said crisply.
“I – What? Good hea—”
“Good night,” Isabel said firmly, and closed the door on her companion’s surprised face.
When she turned around, the sight of Adam’s amused expression warmed her to her bones. “That was rather bold,” he commented. “The entire household will know you’re a ruined woman within the next five minutes.”
“And yet I simply don’t care,” she replied with a grin, returning to him. She dug into his coat pocket for the orb. When she lifted it, it busily did its usual nothing. “Touch it with me,” she said.
The moment his fingers touched the moonstone next to hers, it began its soft glow, lighting and warming the room. As she considered it, it made sense that only the two of them together made the magic work. Adam was her equal, her partner, her love.
When she woke in the morning, close in his arms, she looked toward the table where they’d put the orb. It was gone, Mist curled up asleep in its spot – though how the cat had gotten through the closed door, she had no idea.
This time she didn’t think the orb would be reappearing elsewhere. It had shown her – and shown Adam – what they needed to see. The moonstone wasn’t needed any longer. Nor would it be, until their own daughter was ready to become the Guardian of Nimway Hall.
Fingers stroked the back of her left shoulder. “Did you know you have a birthmark here?” Adam murmured in a low voice. “And unless I’m seeing things, it greatly resembles the orb.”
She turned over to face him. “Yes. As far as I know, every one of Nimway’s guardians bears the same mark. I nearly showed it to you a week ago, but I didn’t care to be ruined for no good reason.”
“Remarkable,” he said, touching her cheek. “Magic all around me, and I refused to see it until last night.”
Isabel kissed him, brushing hair from his forehead. “And I nearly refused to see you until it was too late. But now that you know magic is real, come to the window with me.”
THE LEGEND OF NIMWAY HALL: 1818 - ISABEL Page 19
