The Spare (36 page)

"You left them for dead." A draft swept through the room, and whatever wind had sprung up found its way down the flue because the fire flared, sending a swirl of ashes and embers above the height of the screen before it settled back to a softer glow.

"I thought I'd killed them all. I rarely miss, even under duress, and I saw the bullet hit her. Marksman's instinct, I suppose." He shuddered, unaware of the tears spilling down his cheeks. "Killing women. A nasty business. Not at all like a duel. I never wanted to kill anyone like that. I've consigned my immortal soul to Hell when all I wanted to do was marry Olivia so I wouldn't lose everything when your bother got through with me. I fled the country, for God's sake, and nobody came after me." He swiped the back of a hand across his eyes.

"Why did you come back?"

"After a while, I decided they must all be dead, and no one knew it was me. So I came back. You can't imagine what went through my head when I saw the two of you in Far Caister that day. Have you any idea how much you resemble your brother? I thought you were Andrew."

"How do you live with yourself?"

His eyes held a desperate appeal. "You've killed men. How do you live with yourself? Knowing you've committed the blackest sin of them all?"

"Maybe you don't."

He gave a shrill laugh. "Do the dead haunt you?" He raised red-rimmed eyes to Sebastian. "I think we're both going to Hell."

"Perhaps so."

"I'm going mad, you know. Ever since I came back, he's been haunting me. Your brother. Every time I close my eyes I see his face." He drew in a shuddering breath and pointed at Sebastian. "I can see him right now. There, behind you."

Sebastian rose. "There's no one here but us."

"Yes, there is. He came in with you. Can't you hear him? He's calling my name."

"Let me summon your servant."

Willow stood, staring past Sebastian's shoulder with eyes the size of sixpence. "He's talking to me." His voice was a low, coarse whisper. Then he laughed, a sound that sent the hairs on the back of Sebastian's neck standing upright. "Don't you hear him? He's right you know. I only have to pull the trigger one more time."

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4:07
a.m.

Sebastian stood outside staring at the lighted windows of Pennhyll. Hew Willow's suicide put a quick end to the party. Most of the guests had gone once the word got out, taking advantage of the break in the weather to go home. By now, he imagined, only Ned and
Egremont remained. James and Diana, too, of course, though they were leaving at first light. He walked to the right of Pennhyll's gated entrance with its doors permanently open, portcullis forever raised. The rooms on the north side were darkened. Lights shown in a few upper floors in the servant's wing, and one in a parlor a floor down. Olivia's tower was darkened, of course. Soft light shone from his window. Strange he'd never noticed before just how close their rooms were. One story and a hundred yards at most. He shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets. The storm had long since blown itself out. New snow covered the ground, drifts piled high along the walls. Despite the chill, his head didn't feel any clearer.

Somehow, he thought, as he stared at the castle, Pennhyll had become home. His wife was there. His future. He crossed the courtyard, the sound of his boots on the snow-covered cobbles a comforting sound. Olivia was his now. His wife, and the future mother of his children, though the thought of facing her after what had happened with Hew this evening filled him with a dreadful anticipation. He'd made a lifetime commitment to her, and he hoped to hell she felt the same. He was not a God-fearing man, or hadn't been in some time, but he found the vow he'd made meant something.

He reached an outcropping of the granite that formed the foundation of the most ancient towers of Pennhyll. If he picked his way around the side, he'd be at the back entrance, not far from where he and Olivia had nearly plunged down the mountain. He put a hand on the rock to steady his footing, and he could swear he felt something, some flow of energy pass from the granite to him. Olivia was right. Pennhyll had changed him. He wasn't the man he'd been when he came here.

Today, he'd begun as an unmarried man and ended a married one and few changes were more life altering than that. He had his commission and more, command of a fleet. The sort of responsibility and challenge he'd dreamed of, had lived for. Now that he had it, his heart lay like a boulder in his chest. Cold. Lifeless. What if something happened to him while he was away from everything he loved? He might die, and she'd never know how he grateful he was for the gift of her heart and her passion. Here he thought he had yet another momentous decision to make, and he didn't at all. He was home at long last, and he didn't want to leave.

"You've been a low and scurvy craven," he muttered. He drew his coat closer. The moon dipped behind the clouds and blurred the distant details of wood and bramble. He turned the corner that would take him to the door and found he'd walked into a wall of gray. His outstretched hand disappeared into the mist.

In the blink of an eye, darkness and fog reduced visibility to less than the length of his outstretched hand. The moon reappeared, scattering light in all directions. He looked behind him and saw the indistinct shape of the granite outcrop he'd passed. He took a step forward, then another. Mist swirled around him. He could taste and smell the thick fog with every breath. Now, if he looked over his shoulder, he couldn't even see the rock. Pennhyll, he knew, stood to his left. Too much to the right, and he'd plunge down the hillside.

He heard something. A whisper? The faint sound of metal moving against metal. He waited. Another moment later and the fog swirled, but low to the ground. Pandelion emerged from the mist, and he bent to pat the hound's head. The dog whined and nudged him. "Have you brought him with you?" he asked. The dog barked once and turned its muzzle toward its tail. The mist swirled again and for a moment, he was convinced he'd seen someone. He slowly walked. Ahead of him, the fog shifted. The sound of metal moving rang gently as Pandelion dropped back. He stared at the shape materializing before him. Pandelion whined and then trotted to the very limit of Sebastian's sight. The hound sat, staring forward into the fog and he joined the dog, peering ahead, trying to pierce both dark and mist. "Are you there?"

The reply, if any there was, could have been nothing more than the wind that sometimes howled over the ramparts of Pennhyll. He'd reached the door to the tower. The moon illuminated a man wearing a tunic emblazoned with the sigil of the earls of Tiern-Cope. His eyes were blue beneath dark and unruly hair. The hilt of a broadsword poked over his shoulder. Fresh from his haunting of Hew Willow? "Are you going to tell me what the bloody hell to do about Olivia?" he asked.

The man shook his head and took a step toward him and then another and another. A blaze of cold shot through him, a jolt that shook him with the force of a blow. His head snapped back, and then the sensation was gone. He shook his head, but for the space of two breaths he felt dizzied by the sensation of someone else looking out his eyes. Then, the separation was gone. His head swam and he thrust out an arm to keep his balance. Pandelion nudged his hand.

By the time he opened the tower door, he knew what to do. The stairwell was pitch black, but the hound knew where it was going. Had he ever climbed these narrow twisting stairs? He had, with Olivia cradled in his arms. He touched the wall and other memories crowded behind his recollection of Olivia. Impressions from a different time, from different men. Andrew, too, had walked the stairs. He felt his brother, his father, and all the earls Tiern-Cope.

He stopped at a wooden door even though the stairs continued upward. He opened it easily, and found he was, indeed, in his suite of rooms. Not the bedroom, but the anteroom he used as a private office. The door to his bed chamber was ajar. He slipped off his coat but did not go to Olivia because he had one thing yet to do. Pandelion padded in.

When he returned, he went straight to his bedroom. She was dressed in her black velvet, sitting on a chair by the fire. Pandelion had come in and was being petted by Olivia.

"Olivia," he said.

"My Lord."

"
Sebastian"
he said.

"You got what you wanted."

He faced her, keeping his hands behind his back. "What are you talking about?"

"My head. You got what is in my head."

"I did at that."

Her eyes flicked over him and then settled on the floor to the right of where he stood. "What now?"

"We make a life together."

"Do you think we can?"

"Yes." He rocked back on his heels.

"Is Hew dead?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill him?"

He grimaced. "I wanted to see him hang for what he did. But he… took matters into his own hands. There was nothing I could do. Price was there, and I was telling him to fetch me two footmen to watch over him." For a moment, the wall between them seemed as high and vast as the towers of Pennhyll. "No. Olivia, no, don't cry. Please do not cry. I cannot abide women who cry." He brought his hands from behind his back. Feeling ridiculous and annoyed that he'd spoiled his grand gesture, he stared at the disordered bouquet of roses and orange blossoms he'd gathered from the conservatory. "Price will have my head for this."

When he looked at her, her eyes fixed on the roses.

"They're for you," he said. What a clod he was. A bumbling display worthy of the likes of Mickey Twilling. "Bugger it," he muttered when a thorn jabbed his thumb. He walked to the washstand and plunked the flowers into the ewer. He faced her. "They're for you, Olivia, and I wish I had words to go with them."

She walked past him to the washstand and bent her head over the ewer. "They smell heavenly."

"Olivia." He reached for her, pulled her close, burying his fingers in her hair, well aware that though she stood close, she was quiescent in his arms. "Olivia." Her hair smelled of verbena. He took a deep breath and the world wasn't big enough for his feelings and he didn't give a tinker's curse how big they were. They came out because they had no place else to go but to the woman in his arms. "I love you," he said. "I love you."

Slowly, very slowly, her body relaxed against his. "I love you, too." Her arms crept around his shoulders and then his neck. "When do you leave?" she whispered. "How long do we have?"

He broke their embrace in order to fetch Egremont's packet. He tapped the parchment before handing the papers to her. "I have many duties. To my title, my King and to you. Until today it seemed they diverged and there was no resolution to satisfy them all."

"You must go," she said. "If it's command of a single ship or of a fleet makes no difference, you must go. You cannot do anything else."

"I don't want to go."

"It might be weeks before you sail. I could come with you as far as Falmouth."

"I should like that." He touched her shoulder. "But read these first." He watched her open the packet. "Read."

She unfolded the pages and held them flat. There were several sheets inside, and after a bit she stopped reading. "Command of a fleet. I knew it. I knew it! Your brother would be so proud."

"He would be."

"I'm proud of you. A fleet."

"If I want it."

"Of course you do."

He could not help smiling. "There's more," he said.

She returned to the papers and gasped when she reached the page covered with seals and ribbons. "Oh, my. You've been raised to the peerage. A Viscount. An hereditary peerage. An estate and an income. Twenty thousand a year. You must have been brave indeed to merit this. Well, I know you were. You're the bravest man I know."

"The petition," he said while she scanned the letters patent, "was made before Andrew died. There's another letter in here hinting at raising me further in the peerage than Viscount, but I expect they'll think that unnecessary now."

"I don't see why."

"Keep reading, Olivia."

He knew the moment she found the letter because she drew in an outraged breath, God love her. "A position in the Admiralty." She scowled at the papers. "Give up command of a fleet? Never. This you cannot possibly accept."

"Why not?" He wanted to laugh, because for him there wasn't any question of leaving Pennhyll, and that been true for quite some time. Her outrage on his behalf pleased him.

Letters clutched in one hand and the rest of the packet in the other, she stared at him. "I won't let you. Unthinkable. You have the command of a fleet. It's everything you've wanted. What your brother knew you would have. What you've wanted all these years."

"I don't want it anymore."

"Of course you do."

"I've been a sailor twelve years, Olivia. Oh, you're right, I've loved the sea. I let the Navy consume me until I really did believe my blood was salt water in His Majesty's service. But since I came to Pennhyll, I've felt something missing. Missing in me. I thought if I went back to the ocean everything would be the way it used to be, but I was wrong, and the minute I saw those papers, I knew in my heart I was done with the sea." He let his voice drop. "I am done. Twelve years is enough, Olivia."

"You want to go back. You know you do."

"You were what was missing, Olivia, not the sea." He took the packet from her, letting the papers scatter to the floor as he hauled her to her feet. "If the sea were my heart and soul, I would go back, Admiralty or no. You can't begin to know my relief when I realized I could serve my King in another way. If you believe nothing else, believe this; I want a life here with you. I want Pennhyll and I want you, and I want a family."

"An heir and a spare?"

Laughing, he pulled her into his arms. "That's right. An heir and a spare. Besides," he whispered over the top of her head, "the bloody dead Black Earl told me he'd never stop haunting me if I left."

Neither one of them felt the draft or heard the embers pop in the fireplace. The next day in Far Caister anyone up at dawn swore he or she saw the Black Earl pacing the ramparts, but by evening, there wasn't even one tale of disaster or misfortune to be boasted of in the Crown's Ease.