by Anna Bradley
Mrs. Boyle shifted her burden to her arms again. “Yes indeed, but they adjoin the master’s apartments, you see, and Lady Hadley doesn’t like…that is, ever since his lordship passed… Well. I’m sure you understand.”
No, he didn’t understand. That was the trouble. He didn’t understand any of this, but he wanted to, and finally here was a stroke of luck. He could hardly ask Mrs. Boyle where her mistress slept without arousing the good lady’s suspicions, but he didn’t need to ask. Those linens in her hands could only be for Charlotte. There were no other guests, and his room was in another wing of the house. Mrs. Boyle was about to lead him to her mistress’s bedchamber, and he’d sleep in front of Charlotte’s door before he let her slip away from him again.
“May I help you, Mrs. Boyle?” Before she could refuse he lifted the bundle of linens from her arms. “Where shall I take these?”
“Oh no, that’s not necessary, Captain.” Mrs. Boyle’s hands fluttered like two agitated birds. “I couldn’t possibly ask you to—”
“You didn’t ask.” He smiled. “I offered, and I insist.”
Mrs. Boyle flushed. “Oh well, I suppose that’s all right, then. So kind of you. Just this way, Captain. I should have sent a maid to do this, but the silly girls refuse to enter this part of the house. They claim it’s haunted. Can you imagine such nonsense?”
Julian followed Mrs. Boyle down the hall, past the stairwell, and around a corner. “Well, young girls are a dramatic lot, and Hadley’s death was rather tragic, I believe?”
“Just here, Captain.” Mrs. Boyle held out her arms for the linens. She didn’t answer his question, and she clearly didn’t intend to let him into her mistress’s bedchamber.
But Julian wasn’t quite finished with Mrs. Boyle yet. “Difficult for your mistress, wasn’t it? Such a shock.”
“Difficult, yes.” The housekeeper said no more, but nodded meaningfully at the linens.
Damn it. Mrs. Boyle wasn’t a gossip, unfortunately. Julian tried a different tack. “I wonder, Mrs. Boyle, if you might help me. Your mistress is suffering from low spirits since she returned from London. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might cheer her?”
Mrs. Boyle’s face softened at mention of Charlotte’s distress. “Ah, well. It’s the house, you see, Captain. Not enough time has passed for her ladyship to be easy here. His lordship is gone just over a year now, and then there was that terrible business with the dowager ladyship, and what followed afterwards—”
“Afterwards?”
But his expression must have been too eager, because Mrs. Boyle gave him a wary look. “Well, the less said about that, the better. This house holds too many distressing memories for her ladyship, Captain. The best thing you can do for her is to take her away from Hadley House.”
Julian couldn’t agree more, but short of abducting her, he didn’t see how it could be done. He handed the linens into Mrs. Boyle’s waiting arms. “Have you seen Lady Hadley today, Mrs. Boyle?”
The housekeeper’s brow furrowed. “Now let me see. No, not since this morning. She took tea in her room, quite early. Didn’t eat a bite, though.” Mrs. Boyle shook her head over this. “Doesn’t eat enough, you know. Too thin by half.”
Julian did his best to disguise his impatience. Lady Hadley was thin, but not quite invisible yet, which meant someone must have seen her. “And you haven’t seen her since then?”
“No, I’m afraid not. She likes to walk in the small garden off the study. Perhaps you’ll find her there.”
He doubted it. Charlotte knew how to disappear. He’d not find her in any of her usual haunts. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Mrs. Boyle.”
He spent the rest of the day scouring the house and grounds for Charlotte. He wandered from the portrait gallery to the drawing room, from the library back to the hallway outside her bedchamber, from the rose garden to the stables. He spoke to one giggling maid after another, cornered each of the footmen, and even followed the butler about until the harassed man finally ducked into the pantry to escape him, but no one had seen Charlotte.
By tea time he’d nearly gone mad, and to make matters worse, Charlotte didn’t appear for tea. Julian took it alone, then retired to his chamber and threw himself on the bed, exhausted. He lay there with his arm over his eyes for a long time, lost in thought. Dusk had descended before he at last dragged himself from the bed and took a seat at the desk by the window.
He’d have to write to Cam. He doubted his cousin would be surprised to receive his letter. Cam must have known all along it would come to this, and was only waiting for Julian to admit it to himself.
A kindness on Cam’s part. One I don’t deserve.
Cam would have to come and retrieve Charlotte himself. She must leave Hadley House at once. Her happiness—no, her very health depended on it, and he could see now she’d never agree to let him take her to Bellwood. He’d hurt her too badly, and nothing he said or did would make her trust him again.
He pressed his palms to his eyes and let the emotions roll over him—each more familiar than the last, but terrible still, for all that they’d become his constant companions. Loss. Regret. A sorrow so deep his bones ached with it.
All the time he’d chased Charlotte around London he’d told himself it was for her own good, but he hadn’t truly done it for her. He’d done it for himself, because every time he looked at her he was reminded of the man he’d once been. Julian. That man had embraced life, had treasured every tug and swell and burst of his heart as the sweetest thing life had to offer.
Joyful, and kind—so kind, with eyes both dark and light at once, like a sky full of stars.
Every time he saw Charlotte he was reminded he wasn’t that man anymore, but he wanted to be—God, he wanted to be, but how could he when he had nothing left in his heart but hurt? Even now, sitting here at this desk, he still didn’t know who he was.
But he knew more than he had when he’d arrived.
He knew who he wasn’t.
He was no hero, and he couldn’t save Charlotte any more than he could bring Colin back to life. The best he could do now was make amends by taking care of Jane. Maybe Charlotte was right and there was no luck, only justice, and he’d pay his dues with a lifetime of regrets.
He stared listlessly out the window. Below in the stable yard a groom led out an enormous gray stallion and held him with some difficulty as the horse pranced and pawed at the ground, anxious to be off.
The man called to someone behind him, someone Julian couldn’t see. Damn risky time for a ride. It was nearing dusk. Who—
Charlotte hurried into the stable yard clad in a dark blue riding habit.
Julian rose slowly to his feet. No. She couldn’t possibly be so foolish.
She mounted the block and swung herself up into the saddle.
His fist met the glass, but neither the groom nor Charlotte turned at the sound. They were too far below to hear him. The groom was speaking to her, his expression earnest. He hadn’t relinquished the reins to her yet, and now Julian focused every particle of energy he had on the man as he pounded again and again on the window.
Don’t let her ride out. Refuse her—
Charlotte tapped her crop impatiently against her boot. She shook her head at the groom and thrust out a hand, beckoning with her fingers for the reins.
No! For God’s sake, don’t let her—
Julian held his breath, but it was no use. The groom handed the reins over to Charlotte. She grabbed them, brought her crop down lightly on the horse’s flanks, and in the next breath she was off, the whirl of her dark blue skirts lost in the great cloud of dust kicked up by the stallion’s heavy hooves.
Julian raced for the door, his chair toppling to the floor with a crash behind him. He didn’t notice the bedchamber doorways flying past him as he tore down the hallway, and he didn’t hear the startled squeak of the maid he ne
arly trampled in his fury to get down the stairs.
Dear God, but the front door was miles away and, incredibly, retreating farther with every one of his pounding strides to reach it.
This house truly was haunted, haunted and cursed.
At last, at last he was through the door and flying toward the stables, his heart sinking in his chest as he realized how deep the shadows around the house had become, deep and ominous, and that horse, Jesus, he’d never seen a larger horse, and the way it twitched and stamped to be off it looked almost wild—
No, don’t think about it. Don’t think about Charlotte’s fragile body broken, her neck twisted…
Don’t think on it. Just get to her.
It took years to reach the stables. Decades. A lifetime, and at some point the words became an endless refrain set to the rhythm of his ragged, panicked breaths—don’t think on it just get to her—until it became one word only, echoing over and over in his frenzied brain—
Please, please, please…
He began shouting before he reached the stable yard. “A horse, at once! Now, damn you! Move!”
The groom whirled around, his mouth falling open in shock as he saw Julian barreling toward him, but he darted into the stables and returned at a run, pulling a tall black stallion behind him. The groom tossed him the reins and Julian mounted in one quick, fluid move.
“I’m sorry, sir! I tried to go with her, but she—”
“Later.” Julian’s reply was tense, clipped. “Where will she go?”
The man looked up at him. “Maybe to the summerhouse? She likes to go there sometimes—”
“Are you sure?”
The groom shook his head miserably. “No, but she went off west, and that’s the direction—”
Julian didn’t wait to hear the rest, but set his heels into the horse’s sides with one sharp jab and headed west, urging his mount into a full gallop as soon as he’d cleared the stable yard. Charlotte had a hell of a start on him—he couldn’t see any hint of her in front of him, not even a telltale cloud of dust. It was too dark.
But he was cavalry. He knew how to handle a horse.
He leaned low over the animal’s neck until he could see the ground flying beneath him through the horse’s ears. The refrain still echoed in his head with each beat of the hooves against the turf…please, please, please.
And with each soundless plea came the truth, as sure as the beat of his heart in his chest. He’d never leave Charlotte here. If Cam wanted him out, he’d have to drag him out, and Julian would claw and bite and kick with everything inside him to stay. He’d never give up on her.
He would catch her. He had to.
Chapter Twenty-one
No one could catch her. She wasn’t running anymore—she was flying.
Charlotte pressed her knees hard against the heaving flanks of the horse beneath her. Sweat gathered in the hair at her temples and even through the heavy skirts of her riding habit she could feel the damp heat of the horse against her legs as he raced across the grounds like a demon turned loose from hell.
Hell, or Hadley House. It amounted to the same thing, didn’t it? Except she was the demon, and she’d never truly be turned loose from her hell. Her freedom was a thing of the moment, nothing more.
She eased her grip on the reins and gave the horse his head, her gaze focused on the distant tree line, but she didn’t see it. She didn’t see anything, hear anything, or feel anything other than the smooth, powerful strides of the horse, his hooves reading the landscape as he sailed over the rocks and the tree roots that grew larger and thicker as they neared the forest.
She was nearly there. A steep incline into the dense ridge of trees, wide open parklands on the other side, and then, at the far western edge of the property the tiny summerhouse at the crest of a hill where she liked to stop and gaze at the sweeping views of the valley below, to remind herself there were still places she found beautiful.
But maybe this time she wouldn’t stop. Maybe this time she would ride over the parklands forever, her hair flying out behind her and the wind whipping color into her cheeks—
Charlotte, stop!
The shout drifted over her, brushed against her, but she paid it no heed. Why should she stop? She was flying, because when the ground collapsed from beneath you, and you could no longer run, you flew.
When Julian walked into her study a week ago, the ground had trembled under her feet, but she’d pulled that lovely numbness around her like a cocoon and burrowed into it, and she’d held her footing. But then they’d walked in the garden, and he’d asked about Hadley.…
An accident… It’s time you stopped blaming yourself for it.
And the thick, dense cocoon protecting her had dissolved like spun sugar on a warm tongue. The ground had given a mighty wrench, and she was left dangling in mid-air, raw, her skin flayed from her bones and her feet scrambling for purchase.
So she ran. But running wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t fast enough.
So she flew.
Charlotte! Stop, stop, stop…
Louder this time, a shout, hoarse and panicked, borne forward by the wind. It was behind her, the sound of pounding hooves drawing closer.
Julian’s voice.
Charlotte brought her arm down, hard and fast. Her crop sliced through the air and her horse surged so violently beneath her she swayed sideways in the saddle.
From behind her came an agonized roar. No!
And then in the next breath he was there, impossibly he was there, beside her, their knees almost touching as his horse paced hers. One of his hands reached for her reins and her heart stuttered to a halt, froze, her terrified gaze on his one white-knuckled hand still holding his own reins.
One hand.
Dear God, he would fall. “No! Let go!”
The wind tried to steal her scream, to silence her, but Julian heard her. He jerked his head hard, once. No.
Panic clawed at her as her horse plunged for the tree line, his head low and his sinewy legs devouring the ground at their feet. Julian couldn’t hold him for long at this pace without being thrown to the ground and trampled to death under his horse, or hers.
Please don’t let him fall, please don’t let him fall, not again, not this time, not Julian…
“Let go! You’ll fall!”
He knew the danger, he must know, but he wouldn’t let go.
The tree line ahead dipped and rose crazily in front of her as it drew closer and closer, and oh, dear God, one of them would strike a tree—him, it would be him, she knew it, and her rein was wrapped so tightly around his gloveless hand the leather must be cutting into his flesh, and yet still he held on.
He held on to her, and wouldn’t let go.
Charlotte wrapped her calves as far as she could around her horse’s belly, threw her weight backward in the saddle, and yanked on her reins. Her horse screeched a protest and pulled viciously on the bit to loosen her hold, but she kept her elbows tight to her body and held on, and miraculously the horse began to slow. His pace slackened until at last, with a toss of his head and a sulky snort he came to a halt.
Julian dropped both reins and leapt down from his horse, but Charlotte remained frozen in the saddle, her fingers curled into claws around the leather in her palms.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t make herself drop the reins, so she sat and stared dumbly at the trees swimming in front of her. Close. So close. If she stretched out her arm, she could almost touch one, but something was in her eyes, black at the edges of her vision, and the trees began to tunnel.…
Hands wrapped around her waist, strong and firm, gentle.
Julian slid her carefully from her saddle, but as soon as he had her safely on the ground he released her and turned away. The world titled sideways without his hands to steady
her, but she said nothing, only watched as he retreated a few paces. He kept his back to her, his head down and his hands on his hips, silent aside from the great, ragged breaths he pulled into his lungs.
Charlotte gripped her skirts between numb fingers. Why didn’t he say something? Anything would be better than this awful silence.
He ran a hand through his hair and made a low, rough sound, as if his throat had been scraped raw, then turned to face her at last.
The blood left her head in a dizzying rush. His skin was stretched taut over his white face, his full, sensuous lips tight and grim, and his eyes… Oh, he looked nearly wild, his eyes two burning slits of dark fire.
Dear God. He was furious.
Yet he’d touched her so gently just now, his hands careful against her waist as he lifted her from her horse. No matter how angry he was, he would never hurt—
Charlotte’s breath caught hard in her chest as she stared at him. This man—the one who stood before her now, his eyes tormented and his face twisted with anguish—he didn’t have Captain West’s cold, flat eyes. This man wasn’t a stranger.
He was Julian. And Julian would never hurt her.
“Are you hurt?”
His voice was shaking, but not only with anger. With fear. He was furious, yes, but mostly he was terrified. For her.
“I—” Was she hurt? She hardly knew. “No. I don’t think so. Are you all right?”
He didn’t look it. His hair was damp and tangled and his breath heaved in and out of his chest. He wasn’t wearing either a coat or waistcoat, and his white shirt was transparent with sweat. One of his sleeves was ripped from the cuff nearly to his elbow. Oddly, this was what she focused on, and the longer she stared at it, the harder it became to tear her gaze away.
How had he torn it? He’d torn the flesh underneath, as well. She could see the blood. He was hurt. But torn flesh could be treated, couldn’t it?
Not like a broken neck.
“Why are you trying hurt yourself, Charlotte?”
