“Rowena Wentworth!”
She didn’t appear.
The matchstick went out again. The darkness felt thick and heavy around us, like a cloak I didn’t know how to shrug off. I could hear Colin fumbling for another matchstick. They scattered to the ground.
“Damnation,” he muttered.
“Ow,” I yelped suddenly. Colin jumped, jostling me.
“What? What?”
“Did you just pull my hair?”
“No, why would I?”
“Well, someone did!” My palms were damp. I wiped them on my skirt. The air went cold.
“Stay close to me.” We were shoulder to shoulder, turning to peer at our surroundings even though we couldn’t see. “I can’t find the damn matchsticks.”
“Maybe we should just leave,” I suggested. “We could find a lantern and come back.”
“Good idea.”
The gate to the mausoleum slammed shut, the clang reverberating through my bones. I yelped, so startled I hit my elbow on the stone wall. Colin cursed and felt for my hand. The air went from cold to frigid until the tip of my nose went numb.
“What the hell was that?” Colin demanded.
I tried to swallow, my throat dry. “A spirit?”
“Can you see him?”
“No, but it’s so cold. That often happens.” My teeth chattered together. “Though this is extreme.” I inched closer to him. “The door’s not far. Let’s make a run for it.”
A hand shoved my shoulder, sending me sprawling. The cold seared through my clothes. I fell hard, bruising my knee. Colin tried to catch me but only managed to trip and fall to the ground with me. The cold wind pressed us uncomfortably against the stones. It was hard to move.
“Stop it!” I yelled to the ghost, scrabbling for the salt I had sprinkled earlier. I flung it into the air. The gate rattled on its hinges.
“Got one,” Colin whispered, striking a matchstick. Ordinarily, the warm glow would have been a comfort.
If it hadn’t revealed the open shrieking mouth of a man’s ghostly face an inch from my own.
I tried to scream so fast I choked. I scrabbled backward, kicking out even though I knew it was useless. Colin lifted his fists even though that was equally useless and he couldn’t see who he was fighting anyway. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest, it hurt.
Then the spirit eased back just as abruptly as it had attacked. “Oh, a pretty girl.”
“What?” I croaked.
“I do beg your pardon.”
“You bloody well should.” I hit my chest, trying to ease the pressure.
Colin looked around wildly. “Where is he? Who is it? Show yourself, you bloody coward!”
The old man in Elizabethan hose grinned. His pointed beard and white teeth gave him a rakish air. I sat up, feeling utterly discombobulated.
“It’s all right, Colin. I think.”
“I’m weary of weeping women in veils,” the man told me. “So depressing. This is a nice change.”
“Which is why you pushed me over?”
He winced. “Terribly sorry about that but you were lurking rather suspiciously. And the only thing worse than a weeping woman is a Spiritualist. They just won’t leave us alone, you know. Very rude.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Lord Rupert Wentworth at your service, my lady.” He executed a perfect court bow.
“I’m looking for Rowena Wentworth, actually,” I said.
“Pity that. Pretty girl too, but she didn’t stay and haven’t seen her here since.”
“Why’s that?”
He shrugged. “Who’s to know? We sometimes get lost or bored or refuse to leave our loved ones. I followed my wife around for a decade until she remarried. He was nice enough,” he confessed. “But a bit of a milksop. When they died, they went off to wherever it is we go off to. I prefer the view from here.”
“He says Rowena’s never here,” I told Colin. I remembered the night in the parlor when Rowena wouldn’t talk to me, only cling to her twin and then fling herself about wailing. “She’s protecting Tabitha,” I murmured, feeling certain. “She flashed once in the mirror, but she won’t leave her sister again. Which means the murderer is still at Rosefield.”
Sir Wentworth leaned closer. “How about a kiss?”
I recoiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Pity.” He drifted away.
“Mind the bloke behind the tree,” he tossed over his shoulder.
I went cold all over. My breath caught.
Colin frowned. “What now?”
I pressed as close as I could against him, breathing my words more than speaking them. “Someone’s watching us from the cedar tree.”
I felt his muscles tighten. “Hell.”
He blew the match out and we eased back onto the path. Colin tugged my wrist and then we were running between the stones, the fog swirling around us. “Faster,” he urged.
“Wait!” A man’s voice called from behind us.
We ran faster. My lungs burned. It was difficult to ignore the hands grabbing at me as we passed by, cold and thin. I was shivering, my teeth chattering violently by the time we reached the iron fence. Colin all but threw me at it. Footsteps pounded behind us. Colin landed next to me on the sidewalk and we broke into a run again, dodging carriages that seemed to jump out of the fog as we darted across the street and lost ourselves in the maze of London streets. My heart hammered. Now that we were safe, I realized I’d recognized that voice.
Mr. Travis.
Once we got home I thought I’d lay in bed awake, but the next thing I knew, sunlight was falling across my eyelids and waking me up. I washed my face and wrote Elizabeth another letter, though I had no hope of her answering that one either. When a knock sounded through the house later that afternoon, I considered pretending I hadn’t heard it, but morbid curiosity got the better of me. I recognized the carriage waiting on the street. Hearing Mother’s lilting tones, I doubled my pace. In my haste I half slid across the wooden floors, nearly bumping into Xavier and sending us both crashing.
“Oh, excuse me,” I said. “A bit slippery there.”
He steadied me, smiling politely. He didn’t remove his hat. Mother’s expression glinted with a fevered triumph. I knew what she was thinking: here was the man who would save our family and take her daughter off her hands.
“Mr. Trethewey,” she said, swaying only slightly. “You are most welcome. Do come in.”
“Mrs … ah … Willoughby.” The pause was not remarked upon but it did not go unnoticed. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Miss Willoughby.”
“It ought be Lady Violet,” Mother sulked. I could all but see the fumes of sherry from where I stood. I could only hope Xavier had somehow lost his sense of smell. By the way his nose was twitching, I rather thought not. “Violet is an earl’s daughter, you know.”
Xavier swallowed, quite at a loss as to how he should reply, if at all. An earl’s unrecognized bastard daughter hardly received the same consideration as an earl’s legitimate daughter. If anything, I probably ought to be going by Miss Morgan now.
“Mr. Trethewey,” I said loudly to cover her next comment, whatever it might be. “Would you care for some tea?” I led him to the parlor. His expression of relief altered to faint bewilderment as he looked around. The drawing room looked naked, bared of most of the decorative knick-knacks which had previously crowded every surface, as fashion dictated. Mother remained in the hallway, calling for Marjorie to bring the tray in an odd, sing-song voice. I tried to ignore her.
“Miss Willoughby—” He ran a finger nervously under his collar. “I’ve come to see if you’re quite all right.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
He was sitting so far away, and so proper. Just a few days ago he had stolen kisses in the dark. Now it felt as if something sat between us, all sharp edges and spikes. He stood abruptly and began to pace. It was quite unlike him to look so flustered. I narrowe
d my gaze.
“Miss Willoughby.” There it was again, the pointed refusal to use my first name.
“Yes?”
“I’ve come on urgent business.”
“I see.”
He turned, paced back. “About …”
“Yes?” My stomach dropped, even though this was hardly unexpected.
“About our engagement.”
“Yes. Shall I tell Mother you’d like to speak with her?” I don’t know why I did it. I just wanted to see him squirm. I didn’t know how else to hide the disappointment. Even if I knew I couldn’t marry him, it would have been nice to know he stood by me regardless. I’d considered him a friend, after all. But I knew perfectly well why he had come.
“No!” he practically shouted. “That is, it’s a private matter. Of some delicacy.” He swallowed convulsively. “Miss Willoughby, you must see that we cannot marry. It would be impossible.”
“Would it?” I was finding perverse pleasure in forcing him to explain every detail.
“My parents won’t allow it.”
I knew for a fact that his mother must have had vapors at the thought of our families being joined. There was fame and then there was infamy. “And you?” I asked quietly.
He looked vaguely confused. “I’m sorry?”
“What do you think, Xavier?”
“Mother forbids it.”
“That’s not what I asked, is it?”
“It would never do for me to call off the engagement, if one had indeed been formally made. I am a man of honor, after all. I am willing to let everyone believe that you were the one to cry off.”
“How very kind,” I answered dryly. He didn’t even notice the sarcasm.
“I am sorry, Miss Willoughby. Truly.”
“And that’s it, then?”
“You must understand. We are a respectable family and you are … well …”
“A bastard,” I supplied with vitriolic sweetness. I stood up sharply. “Good day.”
“Miss Willoughby—”
“You may see yourself out,” I cut him off. He had to leave before I betrayed myself with a trembling lip or damp cheek. He bowed once. I listened to his footsteps recede, the door shutting softly, the horses walking off.
Mother sailed cheerfully into the room, Marjorie trailing behind her with the tea cart. “Here we are, Mr.—” She stopped, frowning. “Where did he go?”
I lifted my chin. “He was called away.”
“When will he return?”
“He won’t.”
She grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my skin even through my sleeve. “What? You let him go? Idiot girl.”
I tried to pull away but she was stronger. “He won’t marry a bastard, Mother.”
CHAPTER 18
Her eyes were slits.
“So now it’s my fault, is it? There’s gratitude for you.” She slapped me right across the mouth. “You’re not to speak to me that way. I am your mother. You don’t know what I’ve suffered. I demand your respect.”
I tasted blood on my lip.
“Stupid girl!” she yelled. “We need him. He was our last hope.” She slapped me again until I stumbled back against a chair. The legs scraped the floor. “Now we have nothing! Nothing!”
It was a punch this time and pain seared my eye, a bruise already blooming like a black rose. I threw my hands up to protect myself as Marjorie sobbed. One of the other chairs slid into the settee, slamming it against the wall. The table tilted and wobbled, untouched, as if some unseen medium sat there.
The spirits were gathering, and Mother didn’t notice their objections to her treatment of me. The curtains flung and twisted as if a storm blew. Angry faces formed in the mirrors, in the windows, even in the milk jug on the tray.
It seemed like ages before Colin burst through the door and pulled her off me.
“Get off!” he yelled. She scratched at him and blood trickled down the side of his face. His eyes were like tarnished silver coins.
“Fine!” she screeched. “You two deserve each other!”
She flung off his restraining hand and stalked upstairs. Her bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the chandelier in the hall. I stayed on the floor, curled into a tight ball. Colin crouched, his breathing hard, his words forced between his clenched teeth.
“Violet, she’s gone.” He reached out to stroke my hair, so gently I might have imagined it. “You’re all right now, she’s gone.”
Marjorie left and then returned and I still didn’t move. She handed Colin a chunk of raw beef wrapped in a towel.
“For the swelling,” she whispered before leaving again. The door shut quietly behind her. It was just Colin and me and the sun setting at the window, burning lavender and orange through the gaps in the draperies. He didn’t say anything, just handed me the towel and went to light a fire in the grate. The scratch of the matches, the lick of the fire against the wood were a comforting lullaby. I sat up carefully, my face aching, my arms sore. I wrinkled my nose at the red meat.
“I don’t know how I feel about having supper on my face.”
“It’ll help,” Colin promised, feeding more wood into the flames. He didn’t turn around until I tried to stand up, and then he was at my elbow almost instantly. I tried to smile even though it wasn’t terribly convincing.
“I’m all right,” I assured him.
He only grunted, but he did step back enough to let me make my own way to the chair nearest the fire. “What set her off this time?” he asked grimly.
I held the raw beefsteak gingerly against my cheek, grimacing. “Xavier came.”
“Ah.” There was a long beat of silence. “And?”
“And you can’t expect a son from a respectable family to marry a bastard, can you?” I tried to ignore the flutter of ghostly movement by the door. Perhaps if I didn’t pay them any mind, the spirits would grow bored with me and leave. Already a pair of disembodied eyes watched me from the doorway, and a head hovered through the glass-encased clock on the mantel.
Colin’s mouth tightened. “He said that to you?”
“He may as well. It’s what he meant to say between all the polite stammering.”
“Ijit.”
I tossed the beef wrap aside. “I suppose I’m better off.”
He was careful not to meet my gaze. “Did you love him, then?”
“I thought I might be able to. I guess not, though, as I’m not nearly as upset as I ought to be.”
“Good.”
“There’s no escape for me now though,” I murmured. When I looked up there was a crush of spirits, all watching me intently. I shivered. Colin followed my glance, saw nothing, looked closer, and still saw only furniture and firelight.
“Stop it,” I said softly but firmly. They remained and seemed only the more interested.
“Tell Bradley I miss him,” came a whisper.
“Can you see us?”
“Where’s the old enameled table that used to sit here? I carved my name on it once, when I was six.”
I shut my eyes tightly for a few moments. Colin took my hand, his warm, callused palm against mine. When I opened my eyes again, most of the spirits had faded except for an older man standing at Colin’s shoulder, cap in hands.
“Miss, if you don’t mind …”
I smiled. “Colin, your grandfather was a gardener, wasn’t he? Back in Ireland? Bushy eyebrows, big hands?”
Colin blinked at me. “Aye.”
I nodded, listening. “When you were five you dug up all of his turnips and ate them. He says you had such a bellyache, he didn’t have the heart to punish you.”
Colin looked behind him. “Is he here?”
“He was,” I said as the old man vanished. “He looks out for you, I think.”
“And my mother?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I could only see him.”
“Hell of a talent, Vi,” he said finally.
“I know.” I pushed my hair off my shoulders,
wincing when my neck protested.
“Does it hurt?” he asked instantly. “You’ve got a right shiner starting already.”
My eye did feel tender and puffy but at least the sharp throbbing had subsided. My lip tingled painfully.
“You have to get out of here, Violet,” he said quietly, grimly.
“Where am I supposed to go? Lord Thornwood won’t take me in, and even if he did, do you expect his family would accept me?” I snorted. “I rather doubt it.”
“I know she’s your mam, but she’s no good for you.”
“Can we not talk about this?” I asked, mostly because I knew he was right. “I really just want to forget this day ever happened.” I leaned my head back. The room was dark now, the sun had long since set completely in the fog. The fire was cheerful and the rest of the house so hushed it might have been deserted. Marjorie and Cook were no doubt in hiding in the back of the kitchen, and Mother always took to her bed after one of her fits, no matter the time. Even the streets outside were quiet.
“Colin?” I was suddenly very aware of his body close beside me, his legs stretched along mine, our boots resting lightly together.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
I seized the moment before I could talk myself out of it.
I kissed him because kissing Colin was like being outside during an electrical storm and refusing to go inside where it was safe. He tasted like candy and smoke. He tasted right. His hand cradled the back of my neck. My cut lip tingled slightly at the pressure but I hardly cared. We kissed as if there was nothing more important, not even air.
Finally, when we pulled apart to rest my already sore lip, we stretched out on the carpet in front of the fire. We drank cold tea and ate all the biscuits and bread and butter sandwiches and talked for hours.
“Perhaps Mother’s wrong,” I said, watching the flames thoughtfully, chin propped on my hand. “I might make a good governess. I do love to read, after all.”
“You’re clever enough,” Colin assured me. “But your mother’s right. No one would hire you. You’re too pretty.”
“Oh, honestly.”