Echoes in Stone
Authors: Kat Sheridan
Tags: #Romance, #Dark, #Victorian, #Gothic, #Historical, #Sexy
Echoes in Stone,
Copyright 2013 Kat Sherican
Published by Kat Sheridan
Cover design by Kim Killion at HotDamn! Designs
Digital and interior layout:
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author at [email protected]. This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
For more information on the author and her works, please see
www.KatSheridan.com
This book is also available in print from online retailers.
For Edward Shaw, who believed I could
and
Jan-Alan Nale, who said I should
When love hath turned to madness
And flesh hath seared from bone
Then howls the tomb for vengeance
And echoes in the stone
Ashes, Anonymous
I wept not, so to stone within I grew
Dante Alighieri “Inferno,” cto. 33, l. 49
The Divine Comedy (1321).
Table of Contents
1.
I killed you once…
Cornwall, England, May 1837
PASSION KILLED LILY. Passion and Dashiell Tremayne
.
The words repeated in Jessa Palmer’s mind, keeping time with the thundering rhythm of the carriage wheels as she stared out the window into a night black as the devil’s soul. Lily’s letter—her last desperate plea—lay crumpled in Jessa’s fist, read a hundred times already.
Should anything happen to me, look to Dash Tremayne for answers.
Thank God this journey was nearing its end. The harrowing carriage ride had been a never-ending nightmare of creaking springs, jarring motion, and a litany of prayers that she and the horses would survive the ride. The treacherous, winding path hardly seemed a road at all. The thunder echoed from the sky one moment, and from overflowing rivers the next, as if God himself chastised her for her folly. The coachman’s harsh swearing kept cadence with the relentless torrents of rain; the lash of his whip played counterpoint to the cracks of the lightning. The very mud of the road sucked and clawed at the wheels of the carriage, as if to stop her reckless flight to a darkness even deeper than that afforded by the forests that lined the rugged road.
Jessa’s stomach grumbled with hunger and her head throbbed with weariness. Only Lily’s letter—and the worry for her niece, Holly—kept Jessa from turning back.
Drat it, Lily, why do you always do this to me
? Jessa considered herself a throwback to her practical, sensible grandmother. Not for her the invented maladies or the fainting couch. She wished, not for the first time, for a father, brother, uncle—anyone she could turn to, who could manage Lily and her unceasing drama. Remorse flooded through her.
Someone
had
taken on the burden of Lily. Captain Dashiell Tremayne.
Then, six months ago tonight, somewhere very near here, there had been some sort of terrible accident. Six months ago tonight, Lily had died.
The man had a great deal for which to answer, beginning with why Lily’s letter had reached her only three weeks ago.
Jessa dozed fitfully, the words of Lily’s letter never far from her thoughts.
This has to end. I’m always watched now. I am no longer permitted near Holly. All I hear is I’m not fit to be her mother. I’m afraid for her, Jessamine, afraid of what will happen. You have to help us. I don’t know how much longer I can stand against them. Please, come. I need you. It has been too long, my dear little sister. I know we have never been close, but there is no one else I can ask. Please, Jessa, help me escape this wretched man and this God-forsaken place. Should anything happen to me, look to Dash Tremayne for answers. He’s trying to kill me…
The cessation of motion roused Jessa, followed by the rush of cold, damp air.
“We be here, miss, and may God help us.” The feeble light of the lamp the coachman held aloft illuminated his craggy face, visible through the carriage door he held open. He’d already flung both her trunk and valise from the top of the carriage down into the mud. Couldn’t the blasted man have waited for a footman to help carry her belongings indoors?
“Tremayne Hall, miss, and why ye wish to be here, oi’ll never unnerstan’.” The coachman spat, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “‘Tis a bad place, and was ere t’ last mistress passed so sudden like. Be ye expected? ‘Tis naught a night t’ be standin’ on a doorstep like a vagabond, miss.”
A shiver wracked Jessa’s body; her heart pulsed hard and fast.
Don’t be such a ninny. ‘Tis merely the cold
. Part of her longed to do nothing more than curl up in a corner of relative safety in this tatty coach and risk the long ride back to last night’s coaching house, thunder, lightning, and muddy roads be damned.
Lily had asked this of her, had begged her. There’d been no chance to come in time. Like everyone else in Lily’s too brief life, Jessa had failed her. A miniature had accompanied her last letter. Jessa had spent hours studying the painted image of Holly’s smile and the sad shadow in Lily’s green eyes. Lily’s eyes, so like her own.
Now, only Holly mattered.
Jessa wiped the vestiges of sleep from her eyes, then ran her hands along her skirt, doing her best to smooth the wrinkles from the gray wool traveling dress. She adjusted her simple chignon, trying to gather the locks into some semblance of order, but it was useless. All she could do was straighten her black bonnet and hope for the best. She pulled the ghostly wisp of the mourning veil down over her face. Someone needed to mourn for Lily. God knew her husband likely didn’t.
What did it matter, when the rain still poured in rivulets down the coachman’s silhouetted form? She drew a deep breath to still her trembling, then accepted his outstretched hand and stepped into the rain.
How could this castle bear the prosaic name of Tremayne Hall? The immense stone mansion loomed over her, perched on the edge of the cliff like a bird of prey. Three stories rose above her, stretching out to both sides from the central portion. Rounded towers punctuated stone wings at either end, topped with crenellations biting like giant’s teeth into the night sky. A light glimmered in a window, high in the eastern tower. An additional glow shone through the colored glass panes framing the massive gothic arch of the front door. Otherwise, the house stood shrouded in darkness.
The coachman ran ahead and banged his fist upon the door, then gave the bell pull several sturdy yanks before racing back to his carriage, more worried for his horses than for her safety.
Jessa lifted her gray skirts and ran through the rain, but was sodden by the time she reached the small portico. The heavy wool clung to her body, deepening her chill. She raised her hand to the bell pull, but never reached it.
A bolt of lightning cracked overhead. The horses screamed. By accident or design, the coachman departed at a clattering pace, abandoning her alone on the doorstep of Tremayne Hall. A second flash of lightning followed hard on the first, as the heavy wooden door opened with a resounding crash.
Jessa recoiled, gasping, unable to tell if her racing heart owed more to the sizzle in the air or the figure illuminated in the flash of light.
They stood in a frozen tableau, staring at one another. Towering over her, the monstrous man looked large enough to manage any unwary hound of hell that crossed his path. A wild mane of unkempt ebony hair fell to his shoulders, leaving his face half in shadow. Powerful-looking thighs strained the seams of his black trousers. His knee-high boots, spattered with mud, molded muscular calves.
In that single flash of lightning, his black silk shirt, open to the waist, had revealed a fine mat of coal black hair curled against bronze skin. Nothing disguised the breadth of chest and shoulders.
Jessa raised her chin, drawing a sharp breath.
Why am I not surprised to find the devil at the door this night?
“I’ve come—”
“You lying, cheating bitch! Come back from the fires of hell to taunt me, have you? I killed you once; why will you not stay dead?”
With the shouted words still echoing around the half-lit room behind him, he seized Jessa’s wrist and yanked her into his arms.
2.
...that treacherous tongue still lies within that exquisite mouth…
JESSA JOLTED, AS if licked by a tongue of lightning. A frisson of electricity sizzled from the rough hand clutching her wrist, hissing through her body, engulfing her senses. Her heart pounded as loudly as the thunder that continued to rumble overhead. Heat, radiating from his body against hers, poured over her in waves.
Shock immobilized her. Words strangled in her throat. What little breath she was able to draw into her lungs came in ragged gasps and coherent thought was beyond her capabilities.
The nightmarish creature held Jessa in a bruising grip. He vibrated with fury; the tension of it jangled her nerves.
Pent up worry and exhaustion from the journey already had her head throbbing. Now terror sluiced through her veins. Surely, the master of the house had lost his mind, to allow this madman to answer his door.
He unclenched a white-knuckled fist, raising his hand. The beast!
Anger to match the man’s own fired her blood. She raised her chin, challenging the anticipated blow. “How dare you—”
He did not strike, but moved his hand to the curtain of ebony hair shadowing his face. He raked his fingers through it, pushing it back to reveal what had been hidden. His eyes bored into hers, daring her to look at him.