The Devil's Necklace (14 page)

Had his fill?
Hardly. He was leaving because he couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

“Why did you marry me, Ethan?”

“You know why, Grace. You are carrying the child I put in your belly. That child needed a name.”

She glanced away from him. They weren’t the words a woman wanted to hear, but they were the only ones he could allow himself to speak.

“The baby is yours, Ethan. Have you not the slightest regard for it?”

“The child, male or female, will want for nothing. I told you that before.”

“Yes, you did. And you are certainly a man of your word.”

A faint flush climbed up beneath the bones in his cheeks. “I never lied to you, Grace. I never promised you more than what you are getting. Any number of married couples live separate lives. Odds are if you had wed another man, your future would be much the same.”

Her mouth thinned. “You’re wrong, Ethan. It would not be the same because I would never have married a man who cared nothing for me.”

He didn’t argue. He couldn’t afford for her to know the true extent of his feelings.

“On the other hand,” she said, tracing a finger over the polished top of the library table. “Perhaps you are right. I have always been an independent woman. This way, you will have your life and I will have mine. In the end, both of us can be happy.”

A frown pulled between his eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I am merely agreeing with you that in a way, perhaps separate lives would not be such a very bad thing. We could both take our pleasure wherever we—”

She gasped as he jerked her against him. “Do not think to make me a cuckold, Grace. You are my wife. You belong to me and that isn’t going to change.”

She stared at him and something flashed in her eyes, something womanly and knowing that made him want to turn and walk away.

One of her burnished eyebrows went up. “I am only asking for what is fair. If you do not wish me to find satisfaction outside our marriage bed, then you will have to see to the task yourself.”

His jaw hardened. God’s breath, the woman was a handful. He drew her flush against him and the intimate contact made him go rock hard.

“You little witch, you dare to threaten me?”

“I am merely saying that what is good for the goose is also—”

Before she could finish, his mouth crushed down over hers. He had wanted her for days, felt the raging hunger every time she walked into a room. His hands encircled her waist and he lifted her up on the library table, set her on the gleaming surface, and came down on top of her. “You want satisfaction? Then I shall see that you get it.”

Grace gasped as he shoved up her yellow muslin gown and settled himself between her legs. She was spread wide for him, soft and wet, he discovered, as he found her core and began to stroke her. Popping the buttons at the front of his breeches, he freed his erection, felt it throbbing with need.

She was amazingly wet and ready. A woman whose passions matched his own, he thought in some distant corner of his mind. He kissed her as he leaned over her, sank himself inside her, pushed into her welcoming flesh until he filled her completely.

“Is this what you want, Grace?” He surged deeply, heard her soft moan of passion. “You’re mine.” He thrust into her again. “You will cleave to me and no other.”

He felt her legs lock around him, felt her body arch beneath him as she began to move, matching the rhythm he set, taking him deeper still. No woman had ever fit him so perfectly, ever felt so right for him. He took her and took her, and Grace took from him.

Together they reached release, his muscles tightening, Grace biting back a soft, pleasure-filled cry. Not long after, they began to spiral down.

For the first time it occurred to him that he had taken his wife on a table in the library! Sweet God, how could he have so badly lost control?

Ethan helped her down from the table, eased her skirt down over her hips, and tried not to be pleased by the soft glow of completion on her face and the becoming blush that rose in her cheeks.

“I’ll come back,” he heard himself saying as he finished rebuttoning his fly. “No other men, Grace.”

She looked him square in the face. “No other women, Ethan.” Then she turned and walked away.

Grace stood at the window of her bedchamber watching Ethan prepare to leave. He was dressed the way he had been on his ship, in a full-sleeved shirt, snug black breeches and knee-high boots, with a riding coat draped over his arm. A groom led a prancing black gelding up to where he stood and he tied the coat behind the flat leather saddle. Ethan ran a hand along the black’s neck and swung onto the animal’s back as effortlessly as he did everything else.

For a moment, he looked up at the window where she stood and their eyes met, his the color of the sky on a cool
fall day, hers filled with an anguish she hoped he could not see. He was leaving, just as she had feared, and with him any hope of happiness for the future.

She watched him ride out, tall and lean, broad-shouldered and easy in the saddle, riding with the same confidence he strode the deck of his ship. Grace watched horse and rider head off down the lane and disappear amongst the trees, and her heart squeezed hard inside her.

She had tried to steel herself, to insulate her feelings. He was still the devil captain, after all.

But there was something about Ethan Sharpe, something that drew her as no other man ever had. Aside from his commanding presence, lean, hard-muscled body and remarkable skills as a lover, there was something in his eyes when he looked at her, something of loneliness that reached inside and touched a cord of loneliness in her.

Something that beckoned her to see those beautiful blue eyes filled instead with happiness and love.

It wasn’t going to happen and convincing herself that it might had only managed to get her battered heart broken again. She looked back out the window. The lane was empty. Ethan was gone.

They were married now, but nothing at all had changed.

I
t was nearly two hours later when Grace had finally composed herself enough to face the day ahead. She left her bedchamber and descended the stairs, resolved once more to the way things were. Her husband had abandoned her, as she had feared he would. But over the years she had learned to depend on herself and no other, and there was the child to consider.

Leaving the house through the French doors leading out to the garden, her mind on the discussion she meant to have with Lady Belford, Grace climbed the slight rise to the dower house and knocked on the ornate wooden door. There were things they needed to discuss and Grace felt strongly that honesty was the best approach.

“Good morning, my lady,” said a gray-haired butler she hadn’t seen before. “You must be the new Lady Belford.”

“Yes. I am here to speak to—”

“Do come in, Grace, dear.” Harriet walked toward her, short and round-faced, with bruised yet smiling eyes. “I suppose we are both Lady Belford now, are we not? Some times all of these titles get so bothersome.” But it
was obvious Harriet Sharpe was far more comfortable in the role of a peeress than Grace ever would be.

The small blond woman led her into a comfortable drawing room done in soft shades of sea-green and ivory. Sea-green damask draperies hung at the windows while a floral-bordered deep green Aubusson carpet warmed the floor. As the widow had said, the dower house was in far better condition than the main house.

They sat down on an overstuffed sofa and Harriet instructed the aging butler, Colson was his name, to bring them tea and cakes.

As the man quietly disappeared through tall mahogany sliding doors, Harriet turned to her and smiled. “I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here at Belford. In the months since Charles has been gone, I have missed him terribly. It has been unbearably lonely without him.”

“It must have been awful for you…losing your husband so suddenly.”

She sighed. “I was devastated. One day he was laughing and vital. What seemed an instant later, he was gone.” For a moment, a mist of tears glazed her eyes and Grace could tell she was fighting not to cry. “I loved him dreadfully. We had been hoping to have a child, but it wasn’t to be.”

Grace glanced away, her cheeks warming with color.

“Do not be embarrassed, my dear. You are with child, are you not?”

Grace’s head came up. “How did you know?”

“I can see the glow in your face. Besides, there is no other way you could have dragged my brother-in-law to the altar. But I am glad he is wed. Ethan is a difficult man. He has suffered in the past and it has left him bitter and disillusioned. I believe that you will find a way to lead him out of the darkness.”

Grace’s throat tightened. She turned away, her eyes welling with tears. Crying in front of a woman she barely knew was definitely not part of her plan, but Harriet’s words released the feelings she had so carefully locked away.

Lady Belford disappeared for a moment and returned with a pretty embroidered handkerchief. “You mustn’t cry, my dear. You will only make me think of Charles and I will start weeping, too.”

She extended the handkerchief to Grace, who dabbed it against her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. It’s just…”

“Just what, dear?”

“Once I was desperately in love with Ethan. I loved him the way you loved your Charles.”

“But you don’t love him now?”

She pressed the handkerchief beneath her nose. “I refuse to love a man who doesn’t love me.”

Lady Belford took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Just then the drawing room doors slid open and they both turned toward the sound of the tea cart rattling into the room.

“I see that Colson is arrived with our tea and I believe we could both use a cup.”

The small, gray-haired butler pushed the cart over to the sofa, then withdrew, sliding closed the heavy wooden doors. Lady Belford expertly poured the steaming brew into two gold-rimmed porcelain cups, adding a lump of sugar to Grace’s before passing it over.

“Now…what is this about you and Ethan? Are you saying the reason he left is because he doesn’t love you?”

The cup and saucer rattled in her lap. “Aside from the physical desire every man seems to feel, in truth, he can barely stand the sight of me.” She looked over at Harriet,
her chest aching at the painful words she could barely force herself to speak, wishing she could tell her sister-in-law the truth. But she couldn’t explain without betraying the secret of her parentage and that she could not do.

“It’s a very long story,” she said instead. “Suffice it to say, I am the last woman on earth he wished to wed.”

“Then why did he?”

Grace shrugged her shoulders. “Ethan is a man of honor. He felt responsible for getting me with child.”

Harriet smiled slightly. “I don’t believe you know my brother-in-law nearly as well as you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Ethan Sharpe truly hadn’t wished to marry you, there is nothing on this earth that could have moved him to do so.”

S
everal weeks passed, May slipping toward June, the gardens blooming in pinks, yellows and reds, even as friendship blossomed between Harriet and Grace. The young widow was as sweet and kind as she had first seemed and Grace was eminently grateful for her friendship.

With time stretching in front of them, the women decided on a plan to restore Belford Park. The week following Ethan’s departure, they set to work, dedicating themselves to the task, spending mountains of Ethan’s seemingly limitless funds. Like a flower in spring, the mansion came to life, the once-empty halls bursting with carpenters, marble layers, roofers, drapers, upholsterers and wallpaper hangers. The work absorbed most of Grace’s time and helped to keep her mind off the man who hovered in her thoughts.

In the evenings, Grace shared with Harriet her interest in the stars, the two of them spending the lonely hours after supper discussing the constellations and the Greek and Roman myths that accompanied them.

“I have come to think of us as Gemini,” Harriet said, leaning down to peer through Grace’s small brass tele
scope positioned out on the wide stone terrace. “In these few weeks, we have become like sisters.”

“You mean like the Dioscuri twins.” The devoted brothers of Greek mythology.

“Yes. We rarely argue. We are usually in perfect harmony on most matters.”

“Which, according to the myth, was the reason Zeus placed the twins in the same place in the sky.”

Harriet smiled, which she seemed to be doing more often lately. “Exactly.”

Work continued on the house and even the staff seemed uplifted by the whirl of activity around them. On the occasion of Harriet’s twenty-seventh birthday, Cook insisted on preparing a special meal, and in honor of the event, Grace wore the necklace.

There was something special about it. Whenever she put it on, she felt comforted, her spirits lifted from the despair in which she often found herself. Afraid Harriet might be missing her husband on this, her special day, Grace wanted to be in an especially good mood.

Descending the wide marble staircase, she made her way down to the dining room, which was next on their list for repair. Though the upholstery on the twenty-four chairs lining the long mahogany table was a little worn and faded, each crystal on the ornate chandeliers overhead had recently been cleaned, along with the heavy gilt sconces on the walls.

Wearing a turquoise gown overlaid with a skirt of rose silk embroidered in a Grecian motif, Grace reached the dining room just as Harriet arrived, also dressed more fashionably tonight, in a pale blue silk gown edged with pink lace.

“Happy birthday,” Grace said, brushing a light kiss on her cheek.

“Thank you. Amazingly I don’t feel a single day older.”

“Well, you certainly don’t look it.”

Harriet smiled. She seemed to be happier lately, beginning to look at the world with hope again. Her hazel eyes came to rest on the necklace. “My, what a lovely piece of jewelry.”

Grace reached up to touch the strand of pearls gleaming in the light of the candles in the silver candelabra on the table.

“It was a gift from my friend, Victoria Easton. She hoped it would bring me good fortune.” Grace tried not to think of Ethan, to wish that the necklace had worked its magic on them.

As they took seats at the far end of the table, Grace went on to tell Harriet the story of the necklace, of Lord Fallon’s great love of Lady Ariana of Merrick, and the legend that accompanied the precious gift he had given her.

“Of course, it’s all nothing but nonsense,” Grace finished. “I don’t believe in legends, even if the pearls did seem to bring happiness to my friend.”

“Still, it is an interesting tale. Especially so, since Castle Merrick is only a few miles away. Amazing what a small world it is.”

Grace’s head snapped up. “Castle Merrick is close to Belford?”

“Why, yes. Very near Alterton. The castle is in ruins, of course, but there is something quite fascinating about it. Perhaps you would like to visit sometime.”

“Oh, yes, I would like that very much.” Grace touched the pearls. They seemed to warm beneath her fingers. “I was speaking to one of the carpenters, a Mr. Blenny, and he said that his toe has been aching. He thinks it may rain
for a couple of days, but he is certain it will be nice again by the end of the week. Perhaps we could go then.”

“Oh, let’s do. We shall make a day of it. I should love for you to see the castle.”

Though the weather remained inclement—Mr. Blenny’s toe apparently still aching—the trip to Castle Merrick went off exactly as planned. A chill breeze gusted over the road way, whipping the branches on the trees as the carriage rolled past, but Grace was so excited she barely noticed. What an incredible stroke of fortune that she had come to live in a place so near the castle!

“How much farther?” she asked Harriet, as eager as a child to get there.

“Another mile perhaps, not much farther. As soon as we round the next turn, you will be able to see it up on the hill.”

Braving the chill, Grace rolled the isinglass window up to the roof of the coach and tied it in place, then stuck her head through the opening. The fur trim on her cloak whipped in the wind and cold air rushed past her cheeks, but her eyes were fixed on the towering remains of the castle.

It sat on the top of a rise, the tall, round keep all that remained of what had once been a very large stone fortress. Though one side of the tower had crumbled into ruins, the rest of the keep rose into the sky, its jagged stone parapet still encircling much of the top. Dark clouds floated above it as if they belonged there. She couldn’t imagine the place wreathed in sunlight.

“The moat is gone now,” Harriet said, “but you can see the indentation in the ground where it once was.”

She could, indeed, see the depression of what had been a wide ditch lined with stones that encircled the
castle for protection against invaders. She looked up at the tower and a faint shiver ran through her. Lady Ariana had climbed up to the parapet at the top of the tower and jumped to her death on the stones in the moat below.

“Pull up, Driver!” she called to the coachman, who obeyed by drawing the team of matched bays over to the side of the road. She turned to Harriet, sitting opposite her on the seat. “I’m going up to take a closer look. Do you want to come along?”

Harriet shivered and shook her head, pulling her heavy fur lap robe a little closer around her. “I was hoping for a better day. I believe I’ll stay right here, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Grace told her, secretly grateful to be exploring the castle on her own. She slipped out of the sleek black Belford carriage, pulled the hood of her cloak up against the wind, and started up the hill.

When she reached the edge of the moat, she paused to look up. The parapet towered overhead, an icy wind keening through the arrow slits in the walls making an odd moaning sound. She crossed the moat, filled now with dirt instead of water, and paused again on the opposite side. The walls of the castle were fashioned of rough gray stone, cold and damp to the touch, edged with slick green moss.

In the past, the door to the keep had been a full story off the ground to keep out unwelcome guests. Stairs would have led to a heavy wooden door leading into the great hall, but it had long ago rotted away. Grace made her way round to the back of the keep, found a place where the walls had crumbled nearly away, stepped over the fallen stones, and slipped inside the castle.

The stone walls remaining formed a barrier against the wind and inside the great hall, the air seemed oddly still,
just the low moaning from above and the creak of a few ancient timbers. The huge stone hearth remained, sit ting at the far end of the room, its once-warming embers long dead, swept away by time and ill fortune.

Grace stood there for long, silent moments. Then a new sound reached her ears, a quiet shuffling that seemed to be growing closer. Grace whirled toward the sound.

“Welcome to Castle Merrick.”

It was a woman, ancient, wrinkled, bone-thin and stoop-shouldered, a twisted wooden walking stick gripped in a gnarled hand. Swathed in black from head to toe, the hood of her heavy garment obscuring a portion of her wrinkled face, she was a character out of a medieval tale.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Not at all, my dear.”

Grace glanced around, but saw only the barren walls, a pile of rotting roof timbers, and a narrow stone stairway curving upward. “I am…I am Lady Belford. And you are…?”

“Mabina Merrick. Many years ago, my family lived here.”

Merrick.
The woman must be a descendant of Lady Ariana. “Yes…I know a little of the history.”

“I see that you do. You are wearing the pearls.”

It had seemed only right somehow that she wore the pearls to their place of origin. Now she wondered if she had made a mistake.

“They belonged to your family once,” Grace said.

“Back in time…many years ago…”

“They belonged to the Lady Ariana.”

She nodded. “They were a present from her lover, Lord Fallon. He had them made especially for her. The earl picked each of the diamonds himself—a treasured gift
for his bride. She was wearing the necklace the day that she died.”

Grace looked up at the steep stone stairs winding along the curved walls leading up to the parapet. “She killed her self when she found out Lord Fallon had been murdered by thieves on his way to the wedding. She must have loved him very much.”

“Aye. For Ariana, there could never be another. Nor could there be any other woman for him.”

Something squeezed in her chest. “In the story, it is said…that she was carrying his child.”

The old woman nodded gravely. “And so she was. They were lovers, you see, even before they were betrothed. She loved him from the first moment she saw him.”

“What of him?” Grace asked. “Did Lord Fallon feel the same way about Lady Ariana?”

Mabina Merrick shook her head. “At first he merely desired her. It is the way of most men. But time passed and he came to know her heart. He came to admire her courage and her goodness. His love for her grew each day, and in time he realized that he loved her deeply, that he could be happy with no other.”

The old woman’s arthritic fingers reached toward the pearls. A bony hand stroked gently over them. “These were meant for you. You were destined to wear them, just as she was.”

Grace shook her head, a strange feeling of unreality settling over her. “They were a gift, nothing more. It is only by chance that I came here today. Only by chance that I happened to be wearing them.”

The old woman smiled and Grace saw the black stumps of her teeth. “You may think that if you wish.”

“My friend hoped they would bring me happiness, as they did for her.”

“Happiness…or tragedy. That is yet to be determined.”

Grace began to back away. None of this was real. It was only by accident she had discovered the castle was here, only a simple desire to see it that she had come to the castle at all.

“I’m afraid I must go. My sister-in-law is waiting for me in the carriage. I would be happy to give you a ride back to your home.”

The old woman cackled, a raspy, grating sound. “I don’t think that would be possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go, child. Trust in the pearls…and in your heart. Do what your heart tells you, and if the Fates agree, all will be well.” Turning, she started to hobble away, leaning heavily on her twisted walking stick. As the old woman stepped outside the walls of the keep, the wind whipped her heavy black garments, pressing the fabric against her thin legs. Hunched into the icy breeze, Mabina Merrick kept on walking.

Grace watched her disappear over a rise and realized her heart was pounding. Her palms felt damp and her hands faintly trembled.

Sweet God, what on earth had just happened?

An eerie meeting with a strange old woman, nothing more.

And yet there was this feeling, deep inside her chest. It kept expanding, seemed to grow stronger each moment, an odd sort of knowing unlike anything she had ever felt before.

Grace looked up at the darkening sky above the crumbling walls of the keep, her gaze searching the heavens. Lifting the hem of her skirt up out of the way, she turned and ran out of the ruined castle. The hood of her cloak fell back and the wind whipped her hair as she raced down
the hill toward the carriage. She was chilled to the bone, her fingers numb with cold, but she didn’t care.

She thought of Ethan, thought of the baby she carried, and her heart squeezed.

For the first time in weeks, she knew what she had to do. She was off to London and nothing was going to stop her.

Grace shivered. She just prayed the Fates would be kinder than they had been before.