The Love Affair of an English Lord (20 page)

Chapter 18

“Are you here?” she whispered almost inaudibly into the dusty gloom of the mill tower house. If anyone asked what she was doing, she would of course claim to be hunting the glove. But it would be a lie. She hoped desperately to find evidence that Dominic had been here in recent days.

There was no answer, no sign of him. Broken boards, some cord, a post, and several rusted axles forced her to tread a careful path into the tower house. Already the hem of her light wool dress wore a ruffle of gossamer strands of dust and cobwebs.

Dominic had left no evidence of his visits to this desolate place.

“Where are you?” she whispered.

A rectangle of light fell to her left as the tower door creaked open. She turned, heart in her throat, at the gruff questioning voice behind her.

“Did we find what we are looking for?” Sir Edgar asked in a stage whisper.

She pivoted, trying not to show he had startled her, how reluctant she was to be alone with him. “The glove—”

“Is this it?”

He entered the tower, bending at the waist to pick up the pair of gloves Chloe must have dropped. “These are blue, and a pair. I thought—”

“Oh, they're mine,” she said in embarrassment. “Miss Redmond's glove is yellow.”

“Shall we put them back on you?” he asked, the perfect gentleman. Stately, trim, his bearing erect, his demeanor gallant. Holding aloft her delicate gloves.

“No.” She had answered too fast, but she did not want him to touch her. She could not bear to be touched by the hands that might have caused her brother's death and scarred Dominic in body and soul. Just being alone with Edgar in this isolated place made her eager to escape his company.

He glanced around. “Someone said that this tower is haunted. There have been lights seen here at night.”

Chloe's heart skipped a beat. “I hadn't heard.”

He gazed at her directly. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Where was he leading? “Perhaps,” she replied. “Certainly there are people who haunt us all our lives.”

He smiled, considering her more closely. “A provocative answer.”

“It was a provocative question.” She edged away with a giggle, playing the lighthearted female to the hilt. “I thought the glove might be hidden in—” She held her breath. The floor had moved. She was sure of it. The floorboard beneath the broken window had . . . lifted. Dear God. Was Dominic about to pop up like a jack-in-the-box? Had she led Sir Edgar to his hiding place? Well, at least she knew now he was still alive and up to his usual dangerous mischief.

Edgar's alert gaze followed hers. “What is it?”

“A . . . a . . . a rat, I think.”

“A rat?” He looked amused. “Are you—”

She screamed at the top of her lungs and lunged into his arms, hitting him in the chin with her reticule. Her shriek nearly brought down the dusty rafters of the tower. Sir Edgar blinked in surprise, then started to laugh.

“There! There!” Chloe shrieked, pointing in horror to the opposite side of the tower.

Edgar swung around.

“He's gone,” Chloe breathed, crossing her hands over her heart. “Oh, thank goodness. How brave you were, Sir Edgar. I swear the thing was enormous—with burning red eyes and long yellow fangs.”

He took her elbow, clearly comfortable coming to the rescue of a helpless female. A commotion of footsteps resounded outside the unhinged tower door, and Justin appeared with his brother and Pamela beside him. “Even a seasoned officer such as me is afraid of rats, my dear,” Edgar admitted with a deep chuckle. “Disgusting creatures, living in dirt and darkness.”

Justin waved the hidden glove over his head. His boots and the hem of his cashmere pantaloons dripped water onto the floor. “I found it! I knew I'd seen Tom in those reeds. Come on and claim the prize with me, Chloe.”

She did not resist as he drew her away from Sir Edgar's side. It took all her willpower not to glance back at the floorboard that had moved. She was positive it had not been her imagination.

Did Sir Edgar know anything? He had given her no indication that he suspected that Dominic was even alive; if he did, he was practiced enough in deception to hide his thoughts. Chloe couldn't help wondering how he'd react if he learned that she had become involved with the nephew he'd intended to murder.

Her fingertips felt icy as she slipped her gloves back on. “Do join us outside, Sir Edgar. This place is oppressive.”

Had she sounded convincing? She thought she saw him glance once again in the corner before he turned toward her.

Pamela pushed the tower door open and light poured into the penumbral gloom, illuminating the angular planes of Sir Edgar's face. He smiled at Chloe, but not before she caught the hard glint in his eye.

Even her return into the sunlight did not make her feel any warmer. Her coldness came from within. It was only a matter of time until Edgar discovered the truth and reacted. Dominic would have to bring his deadly game to an end before much longer.

 

Dominic unclenched his fist one finger at a time. He felt the chill sweat of relief break out across the tense muscles of his back. From his cramped position beneath the trapdoor at the back of the tower, he had overheard every word of the conversation between his uncle and Chloe. He had listened with a blood rage filling his mind.

If Edgar had touched her, had threatened her in any way, it would have been all over. He would have died at Dominic's hand before he realized what had happened. Only now that Chloe had safely gone did Dominic loosen his death grip on his dagger. The stinging surge of blood returning to his fingers helped to restore his sanity.

“I cannot go on like this,” he muttered as he blindly felt his way back along the chalky tunnel. He would have to wait until evening before he could return to his house. Hours of claustrophobic impatience, of not knowing what Edgar was doing, where he was.

Yet Dominic had never been closer to bringing his vengeance to fruition than he was now. Two nights ago he had discovered documents hidden in Edgar's campaign chest that provided more evidence of his crimes, how he had paid to have Gurkha rebels ambush Brandon and Samuel, how he had sold military secrets to the French. In his arrogant belief that he was too clever to be caught, Sir Edgar had put more than a few condemning details of his treachery to paper, clues to the identities of the agents who had worked with him during the war, of the information he had revealed in Portugal while he served in the regular army.

With Adrian's help, Dominic had gained enough knowledge to fill in the gaps and instigate a formal Crown investigation. It was time to play his hand.

Chapter 19

She should have known that her aunt could not remain closemouthed about her ghostly encounter in the rose garden for long. The day after the picnic, Chloe arrived home from an afternoon walk with her uncle to find the parlor once again in utter chaos. The clink of teacups could barely be heard between the excited flow of female chatter. Every matron in Chistlebury appeared to be in attendance for this emergency meeting.

“Ladies, please, let us have order,” implored the sensible Widow Roberts. “Madness will not catch a ghost. Nor will it assist our fund-raising attempts to repair the church steeple.”

“Shall we lay a trap?” one lady asked quite seriously.

“A trap?” Aunt Gwendolyn pursed her lips as Chloe swept into the room with a frown of disapproval.

She was sorely tempted to shake the gentle-hearted woman for this impulsive betrayal of Dominic to her friends. She could only hope that when word of this reached Edgar, he would pass this development off as so much feminine hysteria. Would he really believe that his middle-aged neighbor had spoken with Dominic's spirit in the garden?

The robust red-haired Lady Ellington shook her head. “One of us would have to volunteer to be, well, the bait.”

“I'll do it,” Pamela offered through a mouthful of gingerbread, her freckled face ingenuous.

“You shall do nothing of the sort,” her mother said in horror, flinging a napkin between them.

“Why not?” Pamela asked. “I'm the one Madame Dara said he wanted. It would seem I should be the logical choice of bait.”

“You are far too young to face such danger,” Lady Ellington insisted. “It will take a woman of some experience to lay this spirit to rest.”

Lady Wheaton, a baroness with five daughters of her own, added her agreement. “This a dangerous endeavor. An older woman would be better able to handle him in the event he turned on her.”

“Did Stratfield . . . attempt to force himself upon you?” Lady Ellington asked Gwendolyn.

“I took my precautions, my dears,” Gwendolyn replied rather smugly.

The eight ladies in attendance leaned forward from their chairs as one.

“Precautions?” whispered the baroness.

Gwendolyn nodded. “I sprinkled a protective powder of salt in a circle around my feet before I began the ritual.”

The group glanced expectantly at Chloe, who raised her brow and murmured, “Well, don't look at me. I did not see the ghost.”

Which she would not qualify as a lie. The Dominic Chloe knew was a breathing, infuriating, flesh-and-blood human being. A man capable of inciting very carnal, earthly emotions indeed. There was certainly nothing ethereal about the way he had taken over her life.

“How do we set this trap?” Lady Wheaton asked.

“Are we all to be involved?”

“Should the parson be present?”

“Will it be necessary to lure him? This Stratfield Ghost, I mean, not the parson.”

Another squall of conversation broke out. The ramifications of such a courageous sacrifice were discussed in the frankest detail. The assembly concluded, not unhappily, that the ghost would most likely continue his nocturnal seductions until he was stopped.

The exact plan for setting the trap was temporarily put aside as the discussion veered to settling on the identity of the ghost's next victim, now that Pamela was under her mother's protection.

“I don't know why he should come to you in the first place, Gwendolyn,” said Lady Harwood a trifle sourly.

Pamela leaped to her mother's defense. “We're living in his former house, for one thing. We were his closest neighbors.”

“And we have taken his beloved dog to our bosom,” Aunt Gwendolyn added.

The ladies glanced at the rather overweight dog sprawled out across the hearth as if it had only now occurred to them to associate the beast with his wicked master. Ares, a few moments ago regarded as a benign mutt, suddenly assumed the menacing appearance of a hound from hell.

“Do you think that animal communicates with the viscount's spirit?” Lady Ellington whispered behind her hand.

Aunt Gwendolyn nodded. “Naturally.”

Lady Fernbrook narrowed her eyes. “Why don't we ask him to show us his master's next victim?”

“An excellent idea,” Aunt Gwendolyn agreed. She closed her eyes. She pressed her fingertips together in a prayerful attitude.

The cozy parlor grew so quiet one could hear only the popping of the coals in the grate. A bottle fly buzzed against the window. Then even the insect fell silent as if caught in the spell of suspense.

“Ares,” Aunt Gwendolyn said in a low, breathy voice that made Pamela elbow Chloe in amusement. “Communicate with your master. Ask him the name of whom he will seek solace from next.”

Her nostrils flared with emotion.

The hound lifted one eyelid and gazed indolently around the room. His tail thumped the carpet.

“Show us,” Aunt Gwendolyn commanded, her voice rising. “Show us the person your master seeks if she is in this room!”

Of course there was no contest.

Chloe's lip curled in disgust as the lazy cur, who must have gained half a stone since coming to Dewhurst Manor, deigned to rise from the hearth to scratch its rear end.

Chloe had walked that dog for hours. She had brushed and petted the useless hound, allowed him to sleep in her room. But Aunt Gwendolyn had been sneaking Ares sausage bits under the table for days.

The dog padded straight across the carpet and poked his muzzle between her knees.

Aunt Gwendolyn cleared her throat and nudged the animal discreetly to her side.

“Perhaps we should move on to the matter of the annual
bal masqué
?” Lady Ellington suggested with a faint sneer.

 

Sir Humphrey voiced his doubts about the existence of the Stratfield Ghost that evening in the parlor. Chloe and Pamela were playing an unexciting game of piquet in the corner. Aunt Gwendolyn was trying unsuccessfully to communicate again with Ares, who was staring wistfully at the door with his head buried between his paws. It was past the time for his nightly walk.

“I feel he is trying to say something,” Gwendolyn said, on her hands and knees before the hound.

“Probably ‘Help! I am being accosted by a lunatic,'” her husband muttered from his armchair. “Damnation, Gwennie, do get up from that humiliating position. Are you even sure it was a ghost you saw in the garden the other night? How do you know it was not the dog hiding in the trees?”

Aunt Gwendolyn gave him a frosty glare. “I daresay I know the difference between a dead man and a dog.” She glanced past him to the window. “And once again, I sense that something is not right with poor Stratfield.”

Humphrey snorted. “Well, he's dead, for starters. How much more ‘not right' can the poor sod be?”

“Language, Humphrey!”

He put down his book. “I'm taking the dogs out for a walk.”

Ares and the two sheepdogs dozing by the fire sprang immediately into action and raced to the door. Chloe looked up from the card table, her face brightening.

“This late at night, Humphrey?” Aunt Gwendolyn asked in concern. “Do you think it is safe?”

“My family has lived in Chistlebury for half a century, and the viscount's murder is the first of its kind. I doubt that his death was anything but an aberration.”

“May I come, Uncle Humphrey?” Chloe called after him.

“Certainly not!” her aunt replied before Humphrey had the chance. “I have just received a letter this morning from Heath and Emma in London. As I have already written back to reassure them that you are enjoying a peaceful retreat from your former, let us say, attraction to misfortune, I feel compelled to assure them that it is true.”

“So I cannot go?” Chloe asked in disappointment.

“There is absolutely nothing in those woods or its environs that should attract a young lady at night.”

“Except for the viscount's ghost,” Pamela said softly behind her hand of cards.

 

Sir Humphrey let the dogs sniff ahead as he took a detour off the familiar footpath through the woods. There was little moonlight to guide him to the ferny escarpment that marked the edge of Stratfield's estate. But he had often walked this pleasantly overgrown track, using his stick to shove the occasional blackberry brambles out of his way. He knew the hidden tracks by heart.

He had met Stratfield on this path more than once in the past, along with that dashing young hothead brother of his Samuel, who could talk of nothing but his upcoming adventure in Nepal. In Humphrey's opinion, the brave fool had met his death defending a handful of greedy merchants who would annihilate the entire world in the British Empire's interests. More than once Humphrey had tried to persuade Samuel to seek out a different career. But posters promising adventure and fortune lured innumerable young men into joining the Honourable East India Company.

Samuel and his two older brothers, the late Michael and Dominic, were cut from a different bolt of cloth altogether. Dominic and Michael had been more reserved and logical, thinking out every aspect of their lives. Humphrey had always liked Dominic. He could not quite believe he was dead.

In fact, he did not believe it at all.

He stopped, his nape prickling, and stared behind him. Ares was exploring the earth around a foxhole.

“Something caught your fancy, Ares?” He turned a pile of humus over with his stick, his face reflective. “Those toadstools have been trampled since two nights ago when we were last here. Odd, isn't it? I'd say someone besides us is sneaking about.”

He heard branches rustling in the undergrowth behind him, a man's crisp voice calling out, “Stop right there. I've a gun— Oh, it's you, Sir Humphrey. I wish to Hades you'd stop giving me these scares. I've orders from Sir Edgar to shoot any trespassers on sight.”

Sir Humphrey raised his walking stick and turned to greet the Irish gamekeeper who worked at Stratfield Hall. “Ah, Finley. Just the man I was hoping to meet. I'd like to have a word or two with you.”