A faint smile crossed his face. “I thought that you were a devoted follower of these books.”
“I have outgrown fairy tales.”
“Have you? Do you know that I once witnessed two elderly ladies in a library weeping as their companion read aloud the very passage that you mock?”
“Perhaps they were weeping because it was so very bad.”
“My goodness. We are a sourpuss, aren’t we?”
“It’s all twaddle. Heroes and heroines and badly researched history.”
“Do you honestly dislike those books?” he inquired in what, if she hadn’t known better, was a genuinely concerned voice.
“Dislike them? No. I hate them,” she burst out. “I despise every wonderful, horrible word. I hate them because they aren’t true and that world doesn’t . . . doesn’t . . .”
He removed a clean folded handkerchief from his vest pocket. “Go on.”
She stared at the handkerchief in annoyance. “What is that for?”
“To dry your tears.”
“Do you think I would weep over a book, like your old ladies in the library?”
“There is nothing wrong with a woman having a good cry.”
She nodded. “I’m more convinced than ever that a woman wrote these books. Some poor deluded spinster who has no idea of what she is writing about.”
He tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket. “The author is not poor, from what I understand of publishing. Deluded is quite a possibility.”
“It’s indecent,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“I wish,” he said wryly, “that you had expressed these opinions the evening we met.”
“You,” she countered, “only pretended to be passionate about Wickbury. Why did I fall for such an obvious lure?”
“I did not pretend.”
She subjected him to a dubious scrutiny. “What am I going to do? Where will I go?”
“We will decide that when we reach St. Aldwyn House tonight.”
She turned to the window.
She felt his piercing stare. “Perhaps then,” he added, “we can come to a better understanding.”
They did not speak again for another three hours, until they changed horses at the next inn and the Devon countryside turned lonely in the encroaching shadows of twilight. What a perfect place for the disillusioned, Lily mused.
The horses climbed a track marked only by a stone cross. The coach wheels shook, churning up peat. An unexpected tranquillity stole over Lily. She closed her eyes in reluctant drowsiness, despite or perhaps because of the jostling rhythm. But no sooner had she begun to drift off than she felt the duke at her side, anchoring her in his arms.
“It is a perilous ride from here,” he said, his breath caressing the hollow above her collarbone. “It might even be the most unsafe place on the moor.”
Enveloped in his embrace, Lily could hardly disagree. His body felt like warm iron and infinitely dangerous.
“Listen carefully,” he said, his voice low and lulling as he glanced toward the window. “Do you hear anything out of the ordinary?”
“Only the wind or water rushing over a bed of rocks. I have lived in the country, Your Grace. Nature soothes me.”
He shook his head. “But you aren’t listening with your inner ear.”
“What am I doing here?” she whispered to herself. “How did this happen to me?”
He took her chin in his hand, tilting her face back to the window. The silhouette of a castle stood in stark isolation on a hill. At this distance it appeared to hang in the rising mist above the moor. The dark towers enhanced its atmosphere of abandonment, as did the boulder-strewn approach and its border of thorns.
It struck her as melancholy and Gothic and beautiful at once. It was a ruin for the intrepid to explore and for the timid to avoid. The Lily of old, who’d had influence over her fate, would have insisted that the carriage take a detour, and she would have been obeyed.
She gave a sudden start. “I think I just saw a figure on the walkway. It couldn’t have been, could it?”
“Who knows?” he mused, staring over her shoulder. “The castle is said to be haunted by its former inhabitants.”
Lily slowly turned to regard him. His face hovered indecently close to hers. She slid nearer to the door. He gave her an inscrutable smile.
“I might like to sketch that castle by day,” she said to cover her discomposure. “If I stay.”
“Do you sketch?” he asked, his dark eyes irresistibly warm.
“Not as well as I should after years of study. But I enjoy the art as an amateur.”
“Perhaps you had better choose another subject, one nearer the manor house.” Amusement deepened the seductive timbre of his voice. “If you stay. The castle interior is in shambles and unsafe. On misty autumn nights the gypsies take shelter and brew their potions to sell at the fair.”
“That doesn’t sound as off-putting to a country girl as you undoubtedly mean it to,” Lily said. “Are you afraid to cross the drawbridge?”
He laughed. “It is not my theory that the castle is haunted and that Satan rules a court of ghosts within. The villagers believe this.”
“Who owns the castle?”
“I do.” He said this as if she should have guessed, and deep inside she had.
“And do you not believe in ghosts?” She recalled the question his agent had asked of her the day of her interview.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I haven’t made up my mind. I would not be scared, though, if I encountered one. Would you?”
“I’m not frightened of ghosts at all,” she said firmly. “And I don’t know what I would do if one appeared to me. I might chase him away. Or I might ask him for advice. But would I be scared? If I am not afraid of you, Your Grace, why should I cower from something I cannot see?”
He was relieved that she had agreed to ride with him inside the coach. It seemed absurd that as Lord Anonymous he could enact a romantic abduction and be lauded for it. When would he learn that what played out well in Wickbury had unfortunate consequences in reality?
Of course, as a duke, he had encountered a few women who would have relished the adventure. The problem was that none of them particularly inspired his adventurous spirit. And Lily did. Even now, his conscience stinging, he was drawn to her. It was clear that she did not return the sentiment. Had he ruined the chance to offer himself as her guardian? Could he be strong enough to deny his nature while he proved his worth?
Perhaps not. She tempted him too much. Her soft body was surely made for pleasure and a man’s protection. But to earn her trust? It did not seem possible when he had not revealed his complete identity.
He had dug himself into deeper graves than this. Now the urgent questions nagged at him. Could he plot his way to the daylight? Could he merge all his identities into a man whom Lily could not resist?
Chapter 19
Approaching the gatehouse from the end of the sweeping gravel drive, the uninitiated visitor would not suspect that St. Aldwyn House hid any secrets. It appeared to be a peaceful estate. The elegant gray facade presented the epitome of late Elizabethan charm, untouched by centuries of architectural trends.
Multiple rows of majestic cypresses stood like wooden soldiers on either side of the circular drive-way. The manor house sat in the notch of a mossy hill upon which three or four unpastured ponies grazed on uneven clumps of grass. Granite composed the manse, stone the outer walls. A bucolic frame of broken wooden fences smothered in tea roses and sweet-briar enclosed an undetermined acreage. Picturesque, Lily thought. A proper English estate set like a multifaceted jewel against moody purple moorland and a blood-orange sky. The barn and outbuildings huddled behind the northwest wing.
And yet if one looked deeper . . .
The long mullioned windows seemed to shine a trifle darkly in the twilight. Perhaps she noticed this only because she had once dreamed of being a mistress of such an idyllic country manor, and not its housekeep
er.
“She’s here!” A gangly young girl in pigtails and a gray dress pelted across the drive. She had been hiding in the rhododendrons. Lily hoped she belonged to one of the servants and was not the duke’s love child.
The duke neither discouraged nor invited the girl to approach, although one of the footmen shook his fist at her, to no effect at all.
“This is for you, miss,” the girl said, sweeping up her mud-stained skirt to make a curtsy.
Lily stared at the bouquet of beheaded thistles thrust beneath her nose. “Thank you. What on earth is it supposed to be?”
“It was your wedding posy, in case the duke brought home a bride. But it took so long for you to get here, you can put them on your grave.”
Lily straightened, curious to see how the duke was responding to this impertinence. He was striding up the manor’s entrance steps, apparently oblivious to this dubious tribute.
“How thoughtful,” Lily said dryly, taking them in her gloved hand. “I do hope, however, that you won’t have to lay any flowers on my grave for a long, long time.”
Naturally it was only then that she noticed the unusual triad of granite cairns cresting the hill that protected the house. The raw power of the unadorned stones appealed to Lily . . . until she recalled that such formations often marked ancient burial places.
The manor house stood beneath a graveyard.
It didn’t matter.
She wasn’t going back to her old life.
Miss Lily Boscastle, the disgraced bride-to-be and former gentlewoman, was as dead as one of the duke’s ghosts.
Chapter 20
A sharp-eyed housemaid, the head housemaid, she informed Lily, was a pretty red-haired Parisienne in her late twenties. She led Lily up to her room, checked that the fire gave enough heat, that the basin of wash water felt warm to her knuckles, and that a basket of soap balls sat beneath. She inspected the bed, the desk, and dressing table before backing to the door. She was reed-thin and looked quite proper in a frilly prim cap and white apron over a plain black dress. Her green eyes sparkled with unspoken knowledge.
They stared at each other, each judging, wondering, not saying a word. Then, “My name is Marie-Elaine,” she said with a proud nod. “Ring me if you need anything else. I think you shall be comfortable in here.”
Lily looked around, not noticing a thing. “It’s more than nice. Thank you.”
“One more thing, miss.”
“Yes?”
“For your own peace of mind, stay inside this room after everyone else has gone to bed. Do not explore this house late at night if you know what is good for you.”
Lily stood, rendered speechless by this advice.
Before she could unfasten her cloak another maid knocked and bustled into the room bearing a tray of hot tea, scones, a bowl of tiny strawberries, and a pot of clotted cream. Lily washed and gratefully sat down at a Louis XIV table to eat. She noticed then that the room had been furnished throughout in the same lavish French style. Curious, she rose to study her surroundings.
She opened the French tulipwood desk to find it supplied with pens, writing paper, and an inkwell. To her right sat a delicate floral-upholstered armchair that seemed to call her name. Literally. She bent to stare at the cushion. Embroidered golden lilies adorned the fabric.
She straightened, looking down at her feet.
Lilies.
Woven into the carpet were naked water nymphs splashing in abandon from lily pads. She looked up.
Tiger lilies festooned the gilded frame of the rectangular mirror hanging on the wall. She turned. The crystal perfume bottle that glinted on the dressing table? It drew her. She unstopped it and sniffed the heady scent. Lily-of-the-valley.
She returned to the desk and opened the front again to examine the wax seal beside the inkwell. What a surprise. A lily. Still, the bedcover had been decorated with roses, hadn’t it? Or perhaps it was embellished with the same fleur-de-lis pattern repeated on the window curtains. Irises, weren’t they? Or lilies.
Lilies. Everywhere.
The duke appeared to be obsessed with the blessed flowers.
Either that or it was a coincidence. Her employer happened to have a bedchamber at his disposal with a lily motif. Perhaps he had thought it would please her.
Her skin tingled. Perhaps he had planned to bring her here for some time. Plotted, even. Schemed. The knight-errant and chivalrous dreamer who mocked everything the world believed.
She sat down on the bed, sinking back against an array of silk pillows. Was this the bed of a mistress or a housekeeper? Was he truly penitent or merely waiting for a weak moment to pounce again?
Her eyelids grew heavy. She liked this room. Irrational though it might be, she felt almost at home. And given the choice of living under the same roof with her former betrothed or a duke with a romantic nature—what should a disgraced lady do?
A pleasing place in which to do work. A pot of tea to brace the nerves. Lilies as a tribute wherever the eye wandered. A duke who had a way about him. She started to doze off, the strain of the preceding weeks slowly releasing its stranglehold on her spirit. She kicked off her half boots and stretched out across the coverlet.
Rest. For this moment, at least.
Peace.
A reprieve.
Or so she thought until she heard a distinctly female voice cry out in distress from the depths of the house. “Unhand me, you accursed grave-robbing ghoul! If I am going to lose my virtue, it will not be to a depraved creature like you!”
Chapter 21
Samuel threw his manuscript against the wall and scowled over his wire-rimmed spectacles at the woman tied by her apron strings to the arms of an oval-backed chair. He was ready to tear out his hair. “I did not write that line. Furthermore, if I had, Juliette would not be screeching it like a rabid shrew at Sir Renwick. God.”
Marie-Elaine paused respectfully, staring down at the pages in her lap before she erupted into an impassioned disagreement. “Juliette would not be screeching or speaking to the Sir Renwick your audience has come to love and loathe if this chapter made the least bit of sense. He’s going to stick a heated sword through Lord Michael’s heart. Why does Juliette think that losing her dignity will change anything?”
Samuel peeled off his spectacles. “It changes everything. Lord Michael’s goals. Sir Renwick’s revenge. Juliette’s . . . devotion. Perhaps as their political elements are revisited, it will change the course of English history.”
“Perhaps it will change the history of this house,” Emmett commented from the fireplace, where he stood with a bowl over his head, he and his twin brother, Ernest, playing two of the Roundheads waiting to kill Lord Michael.
Marie-Elaine wiggled her bound wrists in agitation. “Can you untie my apron strings? If I’m not going to give up my maidenhood, I ought to make sure that Mrs. Halford doesn’t forget the broth she put on before she went to bed with her brandy bottle.”
Samuel reached over his shoulder for a sword letter opener on his desk.
“Don’t cut the strings,” she protested. “I’ll do it myself.”
He lowered his arm, then froze, glancing up at the distinct sound of light footsteps running across the gallery of the west wing. “I told you that scream was unearthly,” he said in a disgruntled voice. “She’s going to think we are having an orgy.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Emmett said from the hearth. “A fictitious one, I meant, Your Grace.”
Samuel removed his broadsword from his scabbard. “That wasn’t exactly the impression I wanted to give Miss Boscastle on her first night in the house.”
Bickerstaff, the butler, started collecting pages of the scattered manuscript while Emmett and his brother hid props from the scene behind a towering chinoiserie cabinet. “She wouldn’t have had any cause for a bad impression if Marie-Elaine hadn’t shrieked to bring down the beams.”
Marie-Elaine at last succeeded in tugging her apron knots loose with her teeth. �
��What rational woman wouldn’t scream with a roomful of soldiers waiting to kill the man she loved? And being ravished at the same time by the other man she loves?”
Samuel stopped, halfway to the door, and stared at her. “So you’re saying that Juliette has been in love with Sir Renwick all along?”
She pushed a crop of bright curls under her cap. “Well, that’s what this chapter implies. I am only giving my interpretation.”
Samuel glanced up through the door at the darkened gallery. No one was there. He was certain he’d heard a floorboard creak. “Juliette invited Renwick to her bed. She offered herself to him—in front of witnesses.”
“She was haggling for Wickbury’s life,” the housemaid said hotly. “Of course she’s going to say that she loves the other louse to keep Michael from being tortured and left to rot in another rat-infested prison.”
Samuel blinked. “Well, I’m fed up with Wickbury winning every duel and vaulting over balcony railings in his ruffled shirt and satin breeches. The self-righteous bastard has to fall sooner or later.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she said with conviction. “It would be a betrayal, Your Grace. Your readers would mob you.”
“They have to find me first. I—”
Samuel looked up again. There. From the edge of his eye he saw Lily, darting like a wraith back to her room. “Wickbury has to change,” he said quietly. “Otherwise he will become a cartoon of what he was meant to be.”
Emmett and Ernest drew together, tall, grave faced, glancing from master to housemaid. Samuel was aware of how this conversation would sound to a stranger, to the wellborn gentlewoman upstairs who had no inkling that her employer was an anonymous writer of scandalous prose. Or that his staff of reformed varlets not only protected his secret, but contributed their personal experience to enrich the Wickbury world. Each of them considered Samuel as a savior of sorts. He knew their association to be the other way around.
“I have to write Michael as I perceive him,” he said decisively. “I’d be lost at the first line if I did anything else.”
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