Captive Bride (5 page)

Thomas’s brow lowered and his gaze shot to Lady
Marstowe
.

“Aunt Grace.” He bowed with stiff formality.

“Scapegrace,” she muttered, and turned toward the castle.

“Thomas, you young scamp.”
Aunt Julia accepted a kiss from him upon her wrinkled cheek with a twinkling smile.

“Oh, let us all go inside and get comfortable,” Lady Bronwyn said, fluttering her lashes at Thomas as he took Aunt Julia’s arm. Bea wasn’t in the least surprised. Despite his often-shabby manners, her handsome brother always attracted the prettiest girls.

Thomas smiled gently at his hostess and followed her through the massive portal with Aunt Julia
.

“So, now we may comprehend your brother’s great interest in Wales,” Tip murmured at Bea’s shoulder as they moved through a heavy passageway lit by torches. They ascended a cramped, winding stone staircase into another narrow corridor and then through a truncated entryway, all of stone, offering no adornments but severe pointed arches.

True to Lady Bronwyn’s word, no footman stood ready to open the door she approached. Thomas did instead, gesturing them all inside. The chamber was broad and hexagonal, obviously one of the enormous towers Bea had seen from the outside. Given its size, it was surprisingly cozy within. Thick, colorful tapestries draped the walls, rugs lined the tiled floor, furniture of recent date and reasonable taste filled the space, all illumined by the glow of a brace of beeswax candles and a merrily crackling fire.

Bea sat beside Aunt Julia upon a brocade sofa, but Aunt Grace remained at the door, perusing the chamber with lifted lorgnette. Lady Bronwyn pulled a bell rope and smiled charmingly at everyone.

“I hope your journey passed smoothly.” She dimpled prettily.

“Very well, thank you.” Bea cast a glance at Thomas, who was staring at Lady Bronwyn like a boy at a new puppy, as any gentleman might when confronted with such loveliness.

Bea’s gaze shifted to Tip. He was looking at her, not at the young beauty

“Oh, Beatrice,” Lady Bronwyn said, sitting beside her and grasping her hands again in delicate fingers. “I have so
longed
for a friend.” Her bright eyes dimmed. “I have not gone out in quite a few weeks, of course.”

“Aunt Grace and Aunt Julia,” Bea said swiftly, “wouldn’t you like to go to your chambers and rest a bit before dinner?”

“I said as much before, didn’t I?” The dowager glared at their hostess, but she looked peaked.

Lady Bronwyn leapt up from the sofa. “Oh, yes, of course!”

Tip offered his arm to Aunt Grace. “May I see you to your chamber, Lady
Marstowe
?”

“No.” She batted his hand away. “I am perfectly capable of seeing myself there, if this girl doesn’t get us lost on the way.”

“Oh, my lady, you are so diverting.” Lady Bronwyn’s chime-like laughter faded into the corridor.

Tip turned from the door and gave Bea a long, steady look before shifting his attention to her brother.

“What’s going on here,
Sinclaire
?”

Thomas frowned. “Not sounding so friendly now, are you,
Cheriot
? I wondered why you’d come.”

“Gentlemen.”
Bea stood and moved toward her brother. “Let us not adopt threatening postures yet, shall we? We have only just arrived.” She set an inquiring look upon her brother. “Thomas, Lord
Cheriot
has come along to assist you, as I have. Your note, however, left us with some questions.”

“I should say so,” Tip put in.

Bea cast him a speaking look. She placed her hand on her brother’s arm. “Tell us what is
happening. For beginners, how have you come to be here? Mama and I believed you to be in Scotland. At least that’s what Papa wrote me in his last letter, though that was some months ago.”

“I meant to go to Scotland. But Charlie begged me to come here instead.”

“Charlie?”

“Charlie Whitney. You know, Bea. I brought him home on holiday three years back or so.
Stirred up a lark with the carolers, if you remember.”

“Yes.” She nodded, vaguely recalling a young gentleman in his cups the entire visit.

“Well, Charlie’s
pater
told him he had to come up here to meet his betrothed. Never set eyes on the girl, but said she was an impressive heiress and he’d fixed him up good, only the contracts left to finalize, but
p’raps
he wanted to see the chit before they were all signed and sealed.”

“And Mr. Whitney asked you to accompany him?”

“Charlie’s never been much for filial responsibility.” He cracked a grin. “Thought we could take in the sights on the way, have a go at the local ales and a few black-haired—”

Tip cleared his throat. Thomas’s gaze shot to him, then shifted guiltily back to Bea.

“Go on,” she said. “So you set out to meet his fiancée.
Then?”

“Then we arrived, Charlie saw how it was, and he
hightailed
it out of here before a fellow could blink twice.”

Bea shook her head. “I fear I am lacking perfect understanding, Tom. You arrived here?”

“Yes.” His gaze shifted back and forth between Bea and Tip, his brow questioning.

“Do you mean to say that Lady Bronwyn is Charlie’s betrothed?” Bea asked.

“Not any longer.” Thomas scowled. “He stayed here for all of three hours before he told her he wouldn’t have her and that her grandmother could give her dowry to the dogs for all he cared about it.”

“Good heavens,” Bea murmured. “But she is very beautiful and seems charming.”

Thomas’s blue eyes shone with sudden fervor. “Aphrodite embodied.
An angel on earth.”

“I daresay.” A grin tugged at Bea’s lips. Warmth gathered at the nape of her neck. She glanced at Tip and again found him watching her. She turned her gaze to the lavishly appointed chamber. “And wealthy, you say?”

“According to Charlie’s father.”

“What did he find to be so repellent about her that he left in such short order? Or is he merely a cad?”

Thomas shook his head. “He’s a good enough sort of fellow. At least I thought he was until this. Now I’m convinced he’s a sorry coward.”

“Coward?”

Thomas studied Bea’s face for a moment. “Didn’t you read my letter? I explained it in perfectly reasonable terms, Bea.”

“I read it, of course. You did not mention how Lady Bronwyn’s servants had all abandoned her, however. Why did they leave?”

“
Iversly
came back, just as she said, and frightened
them
all off.”

“Yes, this Lord
Iversly
.” Bea’s spine prickled.
“When did he return, Thomas, and from where, exactly?
Your letter didn’t mention him.”

“Of course it did.” His brow screwed up and he looked back and forth between Bea and Tip again as though they were slow tops. “He’s the ghost.”

~
~
~

August 6, 1822

“Won’t you marry me, Bea, and have over with these ridiculous refusals? It begins to grate on a fellow.”

This constituted Lord
Cheriot’s
highly intimate and wondrously gallant proposal of marriage to me this afternoon.

Can I be blamed for declining? I don’t understand why he won’t leave me in peace and go bother some other wretched spinster-in-the-making. Or he might even try proposing to a lady who deserves his oh-so-charming nonchalance. I have it on excellent authority (
cousin
Amelia spent the season in London) that he is considered a prize on the Marriage Mart. Of course he is. He admitted to me today, however, that he is weary of town. Little there interests him, he said.

Sometimes he looks at me very oddly. Then he speaks of light matters, a glimmer in his teasing eye, and my heartbeats slow again to nearly regular speed. Never entirely, though.
My heart beats for him.

It will always beat for him, no matter how shabbily he treats me. I am horrified to admit this.

I should accept him once, merely so that he will suffer a touch of the misery he thrusts upon me each time he asks. What a surprise that would be for him!
And a terrible awakening.
Ah ha! Perhaps next time, Diary, if I am courageous (and if there is a next time), I shall. But then I would be obliged to cry off afterward.
Or to marry him.

I suppose it would not do to accept him, after all.

~
~
~

CHAPTER
THREE

Bea frowned. “Thomas, we are already here. This is not necessary.”

Her brother fixed an irritated look on her. “I can’t expect you to see the right of it. Only a girl of real understanding, like Lady Bronwyn, would—”

“That is enough,
Sinclaire
.”

Thomas’s gaze shot to Tip, momentarily repentant. Bea’s remained averted, but pink colored her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Bea, I didn’t mean to be unkind,” Thomas said, too begrudgingly for Tip’s taste. But it seemed to mollify his sister. She set her slender hand on her twin’s arm again.

“Thomas, what on earth leads you to believe that a ghost haunts this castle?”

“He doesn’t precisely haunt the entire castle.
Only Lady Bronwyn.”
His face grew stormy. “He intends to marry her.”

“To whom?”

“To himself!”

“Oh, I see.” Bea’s hand dropped.

“You don’t look as though you do.” The petulance had returned to Thomas’s voice. “I tell you, Bea, this blackguard says he’ll haunt her until she promises to wed him.”

“A
ghost
, Thomas?”
Her smooth brow creased again. “How can a ghost marry anyone, let alone a living woman?”

“I’m certain I don’t know,” he admitted. “But he intends to do it.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told her, of course.”

“He did? That is interesting. And why doesn’t Lady Bronwyn simply leave?”

“At first she chose not to leave because her grandmother is too frail and can’t relocate. But when she finally attempted escape, he wouldn’t allow it.”

“How singular.”

Thomas crossed his arms in an attitude of exasperation and looked across to Tip. “What do you think of this,
Cheriot
?”

“I admit . . .” He paused. “It strains credulity.”

Bea’s lips quivered, but her cheeks remained bright.
Feverishly so.
Her soft eyes too. She looked peculiarly agitated and astoundingly pretty.

Tip’s mouth went dry.

“Well, I believe Lady Bronwyn,” Thomas said staunchly. “What’s more, I’ve heard him speak.”

“You have? You’ve really heard him?” Bea’s fingers twisted together, her quickening breaths now apparent through the slight movement of her lovely breasts. “What did he say?” Her voice was a wisp of its normally even tones.

Unthinkable
.
Beatrice
Sinclaire’s
voice did not waver.
Ever.
Except, perhaps, once.
On the third of November, 1821.
Tip would never forget it.

And now again.

He stared at her, thoroughly transfixed.

“He wasn’t speaking to me at the time,” Thomas said. “He was telling Lady Bronwyn that she wouldn’t require a bridal trousseau.” He glowered. “He enjoys taunting her.”

“Gracious me.
He sounds beastly,” Bea
said,
her tone nearly level again. Tip released a slow breath.

“He’s an awful beast,” Thomas said forcefully.

“Why did he choose Lady Bronwyn, Tom? Why is he haunting this
castle,
and her in particular?”

“He was once lord here, hundreds of years ago.”

“Hundreds?”

Thomas nodded.
“Seems so, though only briefly.
Then he was cursed.”

“Ah. He is not merely an ordinary run-of-the-mill ghost,” Tip said, leaning back against the doorpost. “He must be cursed as well.” He lifted a brow and withheld a grin.
“Intriguing.”

“Yes,” Thomas said peevishly. “The curse requires him to remain at
Gwynedd
Castle until he finds a bride who will marry him.
A living woman.”

“Dear me,” Bea put in. “What did he do to deserve that fate?”

“Isn’t clear.
He hasn’t been straight with Lady Bronwyn, and he won’t speak to me at all.”