by Karen Ranney
“He’s a generous soul,” Janet said, but then she didn’t know the earl had accused Margaret of trespassing.
Margaret chose the end of one sofa, half-turning toward the fire.
Why had he gone to Inverness? And was he going to be gone for weeks at a time often? If so, she needn’t worry about where her walks took her. After all, she couldn’t be trespassing if he weren’t here to see her.
As if she’d heard the unspoken question, Janet said, “He’s gone to visit his mother. It’ll be the first time he’s seen her since she went to France after the accident.”
A shadow flitted over her face, the sudden expression of sadness so profound Margaret knew she was thinking of the earl’s wife and child.
“There was no grandmother like that woman. She bought the child everything and came to visit her every few weeks, just to make sure, she said, that Penelope was healthy and happy. As if the earl would ever let her be anything else.”
She sighed heavily, seemed to lose herself in thought, then stared at Margaret. “Listen to me, going on and on when there’s lunch to make.”
A scream erupted, and the two of them looked at each other, then raced back down the hall and to the kitchen. Flames were shooting out from the top of each of the cast-iron burners.
“What did you do, you foolish girl?” Janet screamed, rushing to the front of the stove.
“I just added a little more wood!” one of the maids said, staring at the flames. The other girl was backed up against the door, both fists pressed to her mouth. The walls were scorched; the flames looked as if they were racing up to the ceiling.
“There was enough wood in the stove,” Janet said angrily.
She reached into the flames, at least that was what it looked like to Margaret, and pulled the kettle from the back burner. Shooting an angry look at the younger girl, Janet poured the water from the kettle onto the top of the stove at the same time she reached in and closed the lid on the largest of the burners. Steam hissed, rising high above the surface of the stove.
Janet turned and handed the kettle to the older girl, who filled it again from the spigot at the sink.
The fire was soon out, the crisis averted, but the young maid would not stop crying. At first, Janet addressed her sternly, and when her commands could not halt the girl’s tears, she looked at Margaret, rolled her eyes, and enfolded the girl in a motherly hug. All the while, she patted the girl on the back, and murmured, “It’ll be all right, Helen. It’s all right, girl.”
Helen, however, refused to be comforted, and wept against Janet’s shoulder. She grabbed her apron and pressed it against her face, the cloth not muting the girl’s tears as much as enhancing the sound of her sobs.
“Will you be all right on your own for a bit, Miss Margaret?” Janet asked, talking around the girl’s head. “I’ll just go and settle her down a bit.”
“Of course,” Margaret said. “And, please, you don’t have to worry about lunch.”
Janet would have enough trouble trying to get the stove dried out and lit again without having to worry about fixing a meal.
The older woman smiled in gratitude and turned and led both girls to the servants’ stairs.
She really should leave now. There was nothing to keep her here. Nothing but curiosity and a little temptation. Would there be anything wrong with just taking another look at the interior of Glengarrow? In a strange way, she felt as if she’d been Glengarrow’s custodian all these months. True, Tom came and checked on the house every day, to ensure the roof was sound, and there were no openings around the doors or windows to allow the cold or the rain to seep inside. Janet, too, came through once a week, and did a light bit of cleaning.
Glengarrow wasn’t hers, and she’d no right to remain here. Yet she walked down the hall again to the door, opening it slowly, grateful the hinges had recently been oiled and were silent.
There was no sound from the third floor, no noise anywhere in the large house. Glengarrow felt as if it needed to come alive, as if it were waiting, somehow.
Slowly, she rounded the stairs, placing her hand on the banister as she looked upward. There was nothing to gain by going to the second floor unless it was to satisfy her errant curiosity. What right did she have, however, to breach the earl’s privacy? Not only would she gain his enmity, but Janet’s as well.
Despite those very fine reasons for prudence, Margaret took one step, then another, arguing with herself as she ascended the staircase. It felt as if Glengarrow was calling her, summoning her deeper into the house. A bit of nonsense, really. She did not believe in such things as ghosts or spirits or houses that magically became sentient. At the second-floor landing, however, wonder overcame her conscience.
Two corridors branched out from the landing, both of them wide and graced with crimson carpet lined with a design of green and gold. At the top, the wainscoting was heavily carved, as were the doors leading off the hall. But what was truly magnificent was the sight of the chandeliers hanging twenty feet apart from the landing to the end of each of the corridors. Of crystal and gold, they sparkled even in the muted light. She could only imagine the sight in the evening, when they were lit.
At the end of the corridor was a set of double doors. The earl’s suite? No doubt. None of her concern, truly. There was no reason for her to wander there. Instead, she opened the first door on her right.
The draperies were closed, the room shrouded, but she could see the richness of the carpet on the wood floor, and the pale rose of the counterpane. Someone moved in the shadows, and she started, only to realize a second later that it was a mirror mounted on the far wall, and the person she saw was her own reflection.
She closed the door and turned toward the staircase.
What was she doing?
She needed to return to the cottage before she was found. She needed to leave Glengarrow before Janet returned to the kitchen. She simply needed to go home.
She took a step toward the stairs and hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the end of the corridor. Even as she turned toward the double doors, her conscience shuddered in protest. Curiosity was one thing, but this was intrusion.
Slowly, as if to give herself time to reconsider, she began to walk toward the earl’s suite. In front of the double doors, she hesitated. What excuse could she give if she were found? What words could possibly explain her actions? There were none, but she still turned the handle of the door on the right, pushed it inward, and closed it behind her.
She half expected the room to be draped in spiderwebs, the furniture coated with dust. Instead, everything was pristine, as if the maids had just been there. Of course it would look this way—Janet would see to it.
The room was stunning, decorated in cream and gold. To her immediate left was a bed covered in a pale ivory satin coverlet The massive mahogany four-poster was heavily carved in a pattern of thistles and roses and evidently dated back generations.
Immediately opposite the bed on the other side of the room was a vanity adorned with crystal flacons. To the left of the vanity was a large window with a pillow-strewn cushion below it. A door to the right led to an anteroom, one that looked as if it served as a bathing chamber. Across the small hall was the lavatory. On the far side of the room was another door, and this one led to an intimate, sunny parlor.
Margaret turned back to the bedchamber. She could almost imagine a woman standing there, looking like a princess, dressed in something white with touches of gold. She’d have the appearance of an angel, a beauty. Her eyes would be luminescent and her smile infinitely charming. The Countess of Linnet could be no less.
All the drapes had been left open, sunlight streaming through the windows, coloring the space too brightly for a gray and somber winter’s day. Or did the light emanate from an otherworldly source? Heaven? Was the Countess of Linnet an angel, then, visiting her earthly home? Did she grieve for her husband still? Or for those pleasures hers in life? Or did the soul, once transformed by death, have no such ye
arnings? Did the departed only think and dream of a higher purpose? Did the Countess of Linnet want to bestow peace upon living? Or was she here to wipe memories clean, or ease her husband’s grief?
If she had been an angel—had she attained that lofty goal—Margaret doubted that she would have been as ethereal. Instead, she would probably have been angry.
She hesitated in the middle of the room, so quiet that the beat of her heart was the only sound. If the Countess of Linnet was an angry, vengeful ghost, there was no trace of her here.
Margaret didn’t belong here. She was so much a trespasser her own conscience started screaming at her. Go, it yelled. And her feet wanted to obey, they truly did.
She crossed the room to the countess’s vanity. Approaching it slowly, she stretched out her hand and allowed her fingers to trail over the cut crystal flacons of perfume.
“You were French, weren’t you? I know France quite well, you see.”
Silence answered her. With trembling fingers, Margaret picked up a bottle of perfume, removing the stopper. Immediately, lilies and roses filled the air. What a glorious scent.
“He loved you very much, didn’t he?”
She really shouldn’t be so close to tears. There was nothing in this room that was remotely hers or had any chance of belonging to her. This was not her sorrow or her grief, but it suddenly felt as if it was.
It was not right that the Countess of Linnet should be dead. It was not right there was such sorrow at Glengarrow as if the house itself waited in vain, believing its mistress would soon return home.
She turned, half-expecting the earl to be there. He would demand to know why she was here. No words could possibly explain, especially since she didn’t understand her own curiosity.
She should leave him alone with his grief. She should never walk Glengarrow’s paths again. Nor impinge upon his privacy.
But he wasn’t there, thank God, so she didn’t have to answer for her actions.
She walked toward the door, wishing she’d never seen the room, wishing, too, she wasn’t suffused with shame and her own sorrow.
Margaret pulled open the door and found herself face-to-face with the Earl of Linnet.
Chapter 8
Not one word came to Margaret’s mind. She could only stare at him, her eyes widening. Her breath came in fits and starts, and her blood felt like ice.
The Earl of Linnet was not so cursed with silence.
“It was not enough you had to trespass upon my property, Miss Dalrousie? Now you’ve invaded my home as well?”
She couldn’t think of anything to say in her own defense. Everything he thought of her, she’d done. Yes, she’d invaded his privacy, in the worst way imaginable. Shame pierced her like the tip of a spear.
His face darkened, his expression leaving no doubt as to his feelings about her.
He entered the room, raising his hand and flattening it against her bodice, pressing against her. She had no choice but to stumble backward as he moved forward.
He was too close. She could feel the heat from his body beneath his greatcoat. Only inches separated them. He bent his head, just a little, so close she could feel his heated breath.
“I thought you were a ghost, Miss Dalrousie,” he said softly. “I heard you speak, and for a second I thought Glengarrow haunted.”
“I’m sorry,” she breathed.
“You’re sorry?” He straightened, and smiled down at her. A strange smile, with a touch of madness to it, perhaps. “Of course you’re sorry, Miss Dalrousie. You were caught.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, raising her hand and lifting his from her chest. She pushed against him, but he didn’t move, as fixed as a mountain.
“I’m sorry, too, Miss Dalrousie. Sorry you weren’t a ghost. But you’re not, are you? You’re not my wife. You’re simply an intrusive woman with no sense of decency.”
He frightened her. But the fear was mixed with her own shame, and it had less impact on her than it might have if she’d felt virtuous and innocent.
Dear God, she’d never be innocent again.
He put his hand on her shoulder and then her arm, and before she realized it, before she knew what he was about to do, he’d grabbed her hand and began pulling her with him, uncaring if she stumbled as she followed him across the room.
“You want to see all of it, Miss Dalrousie? Have you tried on my wife’s clothes?”
Barely an inch separated them. The pain in his eyes had burned away, and in its place was a stark and fiery rage.
Two armoires sat side by side, exactly the same. He pulled her to the one on the right and opened it. Only three dresses remained, but the scent wafting out was a combination of cedar and the perfume she’d smelled earlier.
“She packed most of her dresses for our trip to France. What a pity that more weren’t left behind. You might have had a greater selection.”
She knew better than to speak.
He jerked one free and tossed it at her with one hand. She didn’t try to catch it with her free hand, simply let it slip to the floor.
“You don’t want to try it on, Miss Dalrousie? To see if it flatters you more than Amelia?”
At her silence, he smiled. “It wouldn’t have. You’re too tall.”
He pulled her back to the bed.
“This is the room I shared with my wife, Miss Dalrousie.”
He dropped her arm abruptly, and strode to the vanity. With unerring precision, he returned the bottle of perfume she’d opened to its rightful spot and turned to face her.
“This wasn’t your place,” he said softly. “Not your ghosts to disturb.” He took a step toward her, and this time, she cringed.
But he only grabbed her hand again, and pulled her from the room, down the corridor, opening all the doors along the way. He intoned the names of the rooms to her as he went.
“Stop, please,” she said, when he reached the last door. “I’m sorry. I know it was wrong.”
He turned to her. “And yet, you did it anyway. How very fortunate you are, Miss Dalrousie, not to be subject to any limitations. Are you the Queen? God in female form? What makes you so very special?”
“Forgive me.” Nothing else seemed right to say. She couldn’t justify her actions. There was nothing that made sense.
He looked at her as if he’d like to throw her down the staircase, but instead, he pulled her with him down the steps, reaching the bottom and waiting only a second for her to regain her footing. He turned left, in a direction she’d not gone, down a shadowed corridor.
“Here’s my library,” he said, opening the door to another room. “You’ll note all the books. I’ve read them myself. Most are treatises on politics, you will find, or books on strategy. I have a great collection of guns as well. But I’m not in the mind to show them to you right now, Miss Dalrousie. I’m very much afraid I might use one on you.”
The next room was a greenhouse of sorts, and he commented on the plants as he led her in a circular pattern through the conservatory and back out again. She recalled the dizzying blur of green and yellowish plants, none of which she recognized.
“My wife was a great gardener, you see.”
One door after another was opened and revealed, with comments on each. She didn’t know whether to be entranced by Glengarrow or appalled at her own behavior and his growing rage, evident from the punishing grip on her hand, and the glittering hate-filled look in his eyes.
Fear made her cold and light-headed, almost as if she were floating out of her body.
“Your Lordship!”
She glanced behind him to where Janet stood clutching an armful of sheets fresh from the airing line belowstairs.
“Miss Margaret? I thought you had gone on home.”
“No, Janet, Miss Dalrousie wanted to see a bit more of Glengarrow. I’ve been showing her the house. Go along now, we won’t be long.” He smiled, but the expression had a feral look to it.
Janet nodded, but she glanced back several times as
she walked down the hall.
Margaret wanted to call Janet back, but one glance from the earl was enough to render her silent.
He was enraged, and rightfully so, and her fear was growing in relation to his anger. A cavern opened up in the middle of her stomach, filled with ice and shivers. Her heart, the steadiest of organs, grew heavy and ponderous until it felt like a stone in her chest.
She took a step backward and realized she’d backed up to a wall.
“Are you afraid, Miss Dalrousie?” he asked, almost pleasantly.
“Yes,” she said softly.
She closed her eyes, unable to look at his face, unwilling to let him know how terrified she was.
“Are you very afraid?”
“Yes.”
“I doubt your fear can equal the depth of my anger, Miss Dalrousie.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, knowing the words would probably only inflame him further. She crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her fingers against her mouth, not unlike the hapless maid who’d been terrified at the sight of the stove fire.
“Don’t hurt me.” The words were uttered in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “Please,” she said, then wanted to recall the word the minute it was spoken. If he wanted to strike her, then let him do so. She would endure it.
In the silence, and in the darkness behind her closed lids, she was safe. As long as she didn’t have to witness his rage, she could compose herself. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm. She’d borne so much more than this. Her trembling was gradually fading. In a moment, she would be strong enough to face him.
When she finally opened her eyes, she was alone.
Robert stood over his desk, arms braced, elbows locked, and his hands flat on the mahogany surface. Staring down at the blotter, he could only see the Dalrousie woman’s face, her white, pinched features, and her green eyes wide and filled with fear.
She’d been terrified, and he’d been the one to terrify her. The fact that anyone had invaded his privacy infuriated him, so much so that he hadn’t been sane for those few moments. In some far-off corner of his mind, he’d been appalled at his own behavior.
