“Why, to spite Aunt Viveca, of course.”
She smiled at him over her teacup, and Nick thought her husband must have been one lucky fellow, while he lived, to see that smile at his breakfast table every morning.
“And because it was Christmas,” she was going on, “and because you asked.” Then she set her cup aside and stared at the low-burning fire in the hearth. “And because I know how the Mundy ladies must have felt, alone and afraid.”
“As you felt when your husband died?”
“Before. After my mother passed away, my father went into a decline. He never made provision for my future. I had no home, no income, no dowry. I had no choice but to accept Mr. Merriot, a neighboring widower, a mill owner. He paid Papa’s debts, so I was grateful, but he was not…not a comfortable husband.”
That man who Nick had thought so lucky just moments ago was lucky he was already dead. Anyone who could bring such a note of sadness to Amy’s voice deserved to be thrashed. “And then?”
“Then he died, in his mistress’s bed, and his son from his first marriage inherited the mill and the house. Alfred Merriot was even less…comfortable.”
“The dastard.” Nick could well imagine what a pretty, defenseless young widow had to endure at the hands of some loose screw of a stepson. “So you fled to your aunt’s.”
“Only to borrow enough funds to see me through till I could find employment. Aunt Viveca had other notions. According to her, a Rostend did not go into service, not for wages, at any rate. Becoming Lady Rostend’s unpaid servant was much more fitting my station and breeding.”
It was a tribute to that breeding, Nick thought, that the poor puss hadn’t lost her spirits altogether in a life of hopeless drudgery. Despite the evidence of her dreary gray gowns, Amelia Rostend Merriot had not become that shadowy nonentity, the poor relation. She was still a warm, vibrant young woman with a giving heart and a laughing soul. How long her vitality would last in the face of Lady Rostend’s bitterness was anyone’s guess, but Nick would not place money on Mrs. Merriot’s happy future at Rostend Hall. She’d be better off staying here, taking care of—
Nick had an idea that was as startling as an icicle on his tongue. He tasted it, swirled it around, and found the idea palatable, no, not merely palatable, but downright appetizing. Here was a way to repay his debt to Gregory Rostend: in return for his own life, Nick could rescue Greg’s cousin. He could marry her.
Lud, marriage.
He could do it, though, for Gregory’s sake. Without puffing off his own consequence, Nick knew he had a lot to offer a woman: the barony, wealth, three estates, and a hunting box in Scotland. He owned a town house in London that was currently leased, but he could pay off the renters if she wanted to make a splash in Society with a new wardrobe and a new title. He would not demand that she live with him, nor would he insist on his husbandly rights if she could not bear the sight of his battered body, much as leaving her untouched might kill him.
What he could not offer her, unfortunately, was a love match. Amy deserved a knight in shining armor, white charger and all, professing undying devotion, but she’d have to make do with a weary old warhorse. At least she would never again be alone and afraid, or at the mercy of her relations.
“Mrs. Merriot…Amy, I have a proposition to put to you. Would you consider becoming my—”
A great crash came from the old part of the castle. Amy jumped to her feet. The dog started growling from under the sofa. Miss Charlotte woke up, screaming about specters. Stoffard came running, brandishing a fireplace poker.
“No, no, it’s nothing,” Lord Worth reassured them. “One of the suits of armor must have fallen over, that’s all. It happens all the time.”
Chapter Five
“Look at them, holding hands like frightened children. You might as well have shoved the girl into his arms, by St. Germaine’s garter.”
Sir Olnic was shaking his head at the fallen armor strewn about the Great Hall. “Never liked that Sir Harlock anyway. What was he, our great-grandson?” He kicked Sir Harlock’s helmet under a table.
“Never mind that pile of rusted rubble. The woman is the problem, husband. Get rid of her.”
“Nay, I cannot. Not until I get the dog to find your blessed ring.”
“You could not get a foxhound to find a flea. You are wasting precious days of our Christmas season. Again.”
“Nonsense. We have more than a sennight remaining. Why, ’tis not even the new year yet. I’d have the ring in the house days ago but for the lady keeping her mongrel on as tight a leash as you try to keep—” Sir Olnic bit back the rest of his words, eternity being a very long time to spend with an angry wife. His beloved was already finding something else to bedevil him about anyway.
“No, you will have to frighten her off, and soon, before she falls in love with him.”
“What? After a handful of days, and little enough of that spent in his company?”
Lady Edryth tapped her foot. “I fell in love with you the day we met. I might have been regretting it since, but that is the way of a female’s heart. Once given, it is not reclaimable.”
Sir Olnic stroked the beard on his chin. “Nay. He is a braw lad, I’ll grant you, but all those scars will repulse a tender damsel. Asides, our Oliver Nicholson is naught but a rough soldier.”
“As were you, when first we met.”
“And so I remain despite your best efforts, and you love me still, no matter what you say.” He ignored her humph. “Do you think the lad might love her, too? ’Od’s teeth, I have been worrying so hard about retrieving the ring, I never thought about t’other, the true love’s hand to put it on. Damme, could we be that close to ending this wretched bane, this ceaseless half existence at last?”
“No, no. Do not get your hopes up. The heir is merely acting noble, rescuing the maiden fair from her dragon-like relations. Some notions of chivalry never die, it seems. But, nay, this Baron Worth does not know the meaning of love.”
“What man does, until the right woman explains it to him?” He did a little jig over the fallen armor. “He’s already interested, I can tell that much. In sooth, what man wouldn’t be? Mrs. Merriot is a cozy armful under those stiff, shapeless frocks she wears, with soft womanly curves in all the right places.”
“What? You’ve been spying on the lady at her bath? Why, you—” Lady Edryth took off down the hall after her laughing husband.
*
Amelia was enjoying herself too much. After five days at Worth Keep, she was too comfortable, too nearly lulled into ignoring the dangers of her situation. There was a snake pit ahead, into which she was blithely waltzing. Doom lay in the direction she was dancing, with nothing but doubt and despair.
She was liking Oliver Nicholson, Baron Worth, too much. She’d always liked him, way back in the idyllic summers of her childhood when she’d visited Rostend Hall with her parents. The Nicholsons and the Rostends were not on good terms even then, but both heirs attended the same school and were fast friends.
Gregory never let his young cousin tag along after them. Neither did Oliver, but he had taken the time to explain that their adventuring was not safe for a mere poppet, and he’d bring her back a treat from the fair, or the village, or the Gypsy camp. He’d never gone back on his word, either. He would not renege on his vow to preserve her reputation now. It was her heart that was in mortal danger.
They were hardly alone; he’d seen to that, with Miss Charlotte’s assistance. Now that she was feeling more the thing, the elder Miss Mundy was needing less sleep, so they played three-handed whist during those nighttime hours. Nick let the old dear win his pennies, after paying her pretty compliments on the lace-edged nightcaps he’d fetched from the Mundy cottage. He plied the old woman, and her sister when she was awake, with wine and delicacies he bought at the bake shop in the village. Miss Charlotte and Miss Henrietta would have nothing but happy memories to take back with them to their little house. Amelia would be taking shattered dreams bac
k to Rostend Hall.
Nick would never marry. All the neighbors had said so, and the Mundy sisters confirmed the gossip. His cousin in Hampshire had three sons, and word was that one was being schooled as the next baron. The baron’s scars and war injuries were part of the on-dits now, although Amelia thought his hand would regain some of its strength if he kept currying the horses and wielding the pitchfork. No, it was the Christmas Curse, the December disasters, that were keeping Lord Worth from taking a bride all these years. That’s what everyone said, anyway. Amelia believed Nick was just noble enough to sacrifice his own future happiness to protect his would-be wife from the superstition, despite his own avowed disbelief in the hauntings or the hex.
If Nick would never marry, Amelia should not tarry. She ought, she told herself again as she brushed out her hair in front of the mirror, she really ought to go home before her heart was well and truly lost. “We’ll both be happy back in our own room and our own gardens,” she told Sir Digby at her feet, knowing that she was lying to both of them. Aunt Viveca’s gardeners hated the little dog, and only tolerated him because he kept their tool sheds free of vermin.
How were either of them going to face the prison that was her aunt’s home after this enchanted interlude? Rostend Hall was more luxurious, better staffed for certain, more sociable, than Worth Keep. Aunt Viveca held endless teas and encouraged interminable visits between the neighborhood matrons. No one called at Nick’s castle, not even the vicar, yet Amelia was far more content with the company and the conversation. Too, too content, she repeated to herself as she got ready for bed in her room across the hall from the sickroom suite. Her maid Stoffard was there now, keeping watch for the last night. The old ladies were well enough to sleep without nursemaids, nearly well enough to return to their own home. Amelia ought to be returning to hers, too, to assist Aunt Viveca with her New Year’s Eve party. She could never accept Nick’s offer of a housekeeper’s position or whatever other charity he’d been about to offer the last time they were alone. No, leaving was her best choice, her only choice. A horrid choice.
Amelia straightened the blanket placed before the hearth for Sir Digby, then climbed into her high bed and blew out the candle. She could hear the dog circling his blanket, then wadding it into a ball. She’d wake up to find he’d jumped onto her bed anyway. Soon she could hear the terrier’s soft whuffling snores, but her thoughts were keeping her awake, not the dog’s noises. She rolled over, pounded the pillow, threw one of the covers off the bed. No matter what she did, or how exhausted she was, sleep was not forthcoming. Finally she sat up and relit the candle with the nearby flint and started to read from the book she kept by her bedside. She was asleep in minutes.
Amelia had no idea how much time had passed when she heard the noise. The candle had burned out, and the book was beside her. No, that was Sir Digby, curled against her ribs, starting to mutter a sleepy growl.
“Just the old part of the castle settling,” Amelia told the dog. “Or another of those ridiculous suits of armor collapsing.” If this were her house, Amelia swore, angry at having her hard-won rest disturbed, she’d have the whole row of chain-mail mannequins sent to the attics. She shut her eyes, but there it came again, a soft, stealthy creak, as if someone was carefully opening an old warped door, inch by insidious inch.
Her bedroom had just such an old door, with no lock on it.
Sir Digby was standing now, facing in that direction, gnarling in earnest.
“Stoffard, is that you? Is aught amiss with the ladies?”
Stoffard did not answer. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Amelia could see the outline of the door, banded in a lighter shadow from the oil lamp kept burning down the hall. The band was growing.
“Stoffard?” Amelia got out of bed, fumbling for the flint and for her slippers at the same time. She caught the faint scent of cooked meat, similar to the fricasseed chicken they’d had for dinner. “Mrs. Salter?”
She turned to light the candle, and when she faced the door again, she thought she saw a man silhouetted in the cracked opening, a tall, dark-haired man. “Nick? Lord Worth? This is not amusing.” Sir Digby barked.
The dark figure in the doorway muttered, “Damme. A pox upon you and your plaguesome pet.”
Amelia screamed. Actually, she whimpered, her voice having frozen in her throat. Should she make a dash for the fireplace poker, or simply swoon? No, she was made of sterner stuff. She screamed louder. Sir Digby barked louder. The intruder cursed louder. Then Nick was there, his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
“The ghost,” she gasped. “I saw the ghost.”
“Nonsense. You have been keeping long hours, is all. Your weary mind produced a nightmare.”
“No, someone was there at the door, I swear. Sir Digby saw it, too.” Sir Digby was cowering under the bed, his fur all ruffled.
“I would have passed anyone in the hall, if one of the servants had come to check on the fires or the hall lamp. I saw no one.”
No one had come yet. Her screams hadn’t even disturbed the old ladies across the hall, and Stoffard must have drowsed off over her mending. “But I saw him. It. The ghost,” she insisted.
“Too much Madeira, my dear. You know there are no such things as ghosts.”
Now that her heart had stopped racing and her breath stopped coming in short rasps, Amelia did know it. There were no ghosts. Especially none that smelled of chicken fricassee. But if not a ghost, and not a servant, then who…? For that matter, now that she could think in a rational fashion, how had her host come to her aid so quickly? He wore a white nightshirt, and his feet were bare, but his hair was still neatly combed as if he’d never gone to bed…thinking he’d go to her bed.
“Why, you cad, frightening me like that. And coming here! Now I understand what kind of proposition you wished to make me. I thought you’d be offering me a position, and I was right, only I never imagined the position you had in mind was that of mistress.” She hauled back her right hand and slapped him with all her might. “I might be a poor relation, but I shall never be that poor! My aunt’s charity is cold comfort indeed, but at least I have my pride and my dignity. And my virtue, too, of course. I will be leaving in the morning, while I still have an honest reputation.”
Nick staggered back. “What the devil?” Was it he having the nightmare? He’d been going over some papers in his bedroom when he’d heard her dog barking. Thinking to take the mutt down to the garden for her, he’d approached her opened door. For coming to her assistance, he’d been soundly smacked. Thank goodness he’d decided to wait to make his proposal till Mrs. Merriot left his household, thinking that only a dastard would place a gentlewoman in the uncomfortable position of refusing an offer from her host. Perhaps he ought to rethink his decision to offer for the woman altogether, he pondered, if she was unhinged. “I never offered you carte blanche.”
She sniffled. “No, but you were going to.”
“I was?” Mrs. Merriot did not look like mistress material to him, not with her blonde hair in a girlish braid and her toes peeking out from under the hem in her high-buttoned flannel nightgown. She looked adorable, though, and her bosom was definitely heaving. Of course that was with self-righteous wrath and not burning passion, but, hell, he’d already been slapped for being a rake. He might as well deserve the sore cheek. So he kissed her. And she, despite her scruples and her fears for the future, kissed him back.
Chapter Six
“She enjoyed it.”
“You watched? You moth-nibbled knave!” Taking a page from Mrs. Merriot’s book, Lady Edryth slapped Sir Olnic, her hand making a whistling sound as it passed through his image.
“What, you did not?”
“I turned my back, of course. I am a lady.”
“A lady who used to be a lusty wench in her day.” Sir Olnic waggled his thick eyebrows at her.
The lady raised her chin and changed the topic. “How did you know Mrs. Merriot liked Nick’s kiss?”
“Zounds, she didn’t slap him again, did she? Asides, she turned all rosy, and her breath came hard.”
“Fie, she was merely embarrassed. Confused and upset to be manhandled in such a fashion.”
“So confused that she twined her arms about him like a vine? So upset that she had to stroke the back of his neck? So embarrassed she had to hide her reddened cheeks by taking a step closer to him, making sure their bodies touched from tip to toe? I swan, you could have seen the sparks fly between them, had there been an inch betwixt.” Sir Olnic held his hands together, as if to show how close Nick and Amelia had been standing, or to give a prayer of thanks.
His lady frowned. “I suppose the heir enjoyed the kiss, too?”
“Hah! His short sword was well out of its scabbard when he left.”
“That was lust, you old goat. The Nicholson men were ever a passionate breed.”
“Nay, if ’twere only a man’s hunger he’d never have left the lass. Mrs. Merriot was so moonstruck, he could have had her for the asking, the fool.”
“Why did he not stay, then?” Lady Edryth wanted to know. “Prithee, why did he not ask?”
“What, and dishonor his future wife? Our boy is a motley fool, but a courtly, gentle dunce for all that.”
Lady Edryth sighed. “Then, I suppose we shall have to accept her into the family. If she does not flee back to that whoreson’s house this very morning, the way she swore she would.”
“The lady is not leaving, not if I have anything to say in the matter.”
He did not have to say much at all, not even “Boo.”
*
Miss Henrietta suffered a setback. She saw a vision near dawn that next day. Not a double vision, just an apparition, a dark-haired, dark-bearded, hairy-backsided bare man. Unlike Mrs. Merriot’s, her shrieks were enough to roust the entire household.
“It was just a bad dream,” Amelia said soothingly, pouring a glass of restorative for the trembling woman and shooing the wide-eyed servants out of the room. Miss Henrietta swore the man had winked at her, though, which no man ever had, awake or asleep. “Likely it was some prankster, then,” Amelia told her, “using one of the escape tunnels all old castles have, or an ancient priest hole passage. You needn’t fear a repeat of his visit, however, for we can all go home to our own houses today.” She made sure to keep the regret out of her voice.
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