by Jane Charles
Lord Michael and St. Giles nodded and settled onto the settee while Redgrave sat in another matching chair and Kendall leaned against the mantle above the fireplace.
Adam drained his glass of brandy, welcoming the warmth in this stomach and then rose to refill his glass.
“You never mentioned what Thomas suffered from,” Redgrave finally said.
Adam practically snorted when he returned to his chair. The only person in this room he’d kept up a correspondence with was Redgrave, but even he didn’t know the full truth behind Thomas’ illness. “Ah, that was because Grandfather would not have anyone know. Fear of gossips wagging their tongues and all of that rot.” He took a deep drink before answering. “My dear fellows, Thomas died of the pox.”
Their eyes widened for a moment as Lord Michael and St. Giles crossed their legs as if to prevent the same from happening to them.
St. Giles cleared his throat. “Usually that disease doesn’t kill so young.”
“True.” Adam took another drink. “But, add an addiction to the poppy and a deep appreciation for brandy, and one’s fate is sealed.” Adam shook his head and took another drink. “I didn’t realize how bad it was until Thomas was returned home. The restlessness, anxiety, he wasn’t sleeping, stomach cramps, and nausea. I wanted him to break the addiction, but Grandfather couldn’t stand to see him in so much pain.”
“What did he do?” Lord Michael asked.
“Provided an endless supply of laudanum,” Adam answered dryly. “I’m still not certain if it was one thing that brought about the end, or the combination, but at least my brother is now at peace.” He sat up and set his empty brandy glass aside. As much as he wished to get drunk, he would not. Though a bit of brandy and a rare hangover wouldn’t bring about his end, Adam had no desire to start down the path his brother had taken. “Enough of that. You are all here for the reading of the will?”
“They are, I am not,” St. Giles corrected.
Where Michael was, St. Giles was usually close, so Adam was not surprised.
St Giles leaned forward in his seat, staring quite pointedly at Adam. “Have you got a scar or something you’re trying to hide under that beard? Barely recognized you.”
Adam shook his head, but before he could reply, Lord Michael chimed in, “Though you do stand out in the red. Since when did that become fashionable funeral wear?”
Adam couldn’t help but chuckle. “Gypsy custom, my friends.” And as the words left his lips, the captivating image of Lady Charlotte flashed in his mind, with her apple blossom cheeks, delightful hazel eyes, and ample breasts, and the pieces began to fall into place. Redgrave and Lord Michael had a younger sister, Charlotte, whom he’d never met. Or, perhaps he had. “I believe I met your sister yesterday,” he said to Redgrave.
Redgrave frowned. “I don’t believe that’s possible. She’s been at the castle.”
“I’m sure he’s mistaken,” St. Giles rushed to assure them, as if alarmed by the prospect
“Blonde hair?” Redgrave asked. “Hazel eyes?”
Adam looked from the angry Redgrave, to an irritated Lord Michael and finally, the worried St. Giles before he answered slowly. “Yes. My grandmother gave Lady Charlotte a talisman to protect her during her stay at Castle Keyvnor.”
“Talisman?” Redgrave growled. “It won’t protect her from me. I’ll throttle her!”
“Or, at least blister her backside. She’s not too old for that, I believe,” suggested Lord Michael.
Adam couldn’t understand their concern. Lady Charlotte had come with a maid, the Gypsies were on Banfield land. He’d never been secretive about his mother being Rom. Were his friends prejudiced against them, like so many others in England, but he was an exception because of who his father was? Why hadn’t he realized that before now? “I’m surprised my grandmother didn’t foresee the need to add a charm to protect Lady Charlotte from the two of you.”
“You don’t understand. Charlotte needs to be protected,” Redgrave began.
“We know the manner of gentlemen out there and don’t wish for her to be taken advantage of, or worse,” added Lord Michael. “She’s too trusting by half and a bit too adventurous, which is why she is not supposed to go anywhere without one of us or one of our parents.”
She had gotten into his carriage without a proper introduction, not that he’d given it much thought at the time. “Her trip to my grandmother was harmless, and I did see her home. All is well with Lady Charlotte and will remain so.”
Redgrave turned to his younger brother. “I thought here of all places we wouldn’t need to keep an eye on her,” he complained.
“Apparently not,” agreed Lord Michael, “But we will from now on.”
Chapter 6
Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief when Martha advised her that Mr. Adam Vail had come to call. Finally, she’d be able to leave her room. Not that anyone had locked her up in here, of course, but when Anthony and Michael returned yesterday, practically bellowing her name and demanding to know why she’d gone to visit Gypsies, she’d ducked into her room and hid under the covers, claiming an illness from being caught in the storm the day before.
They’d come to check on her a few times but finally left her in peace after supper. Hopefully they were calmer and more reasonable now because she was not about to miss a visit with Adam.
As she’d done the day before, Charlotte shoved the pouch between her breasts and reevaluated the prospect of having proper pockets sewn into her dresses. Certainly they couldn’t be so difficult to add because it was ridiculous that she had no means to carry anything about with her.
She found Adam standing by one of the leaded windows, staring out to the drive. Her heartbeat picked up its pace, and her palms broke out in a sweat. Goodness, she’d never been so thrilled to see anyone in her life. It was a shame he was dressed as all the other gentleman now and not as she’d first seen him in just a shirt, open at the neck, and tight-fitting trousers.
As if sensing her presence, Adam turned, a slow smile forming on his lips, his blue eyes capturing hers, darkening with each step he took in her direction.
“So glad to see you’ve recovered, dear sister.”
Charlotte nearly jumped at Anthony’s voice from behind her.
“Harry, Michael, and I were very concerned and hoped you hadn’t caught your death during your little…sojourn.” He said that last with a pointed look toward Adam.
“Where was it you went again?” Michael asked as he followed his brother into the sitting room.
Why did they have to be here now? Why couldn’t they have gone into Bocka Morrow? It seemed as if everyone else was going into town. The only reason Charlotte had remained behind was because she was waiting for Adam to call.
“Oh, yes!” Michael put a finger into the air, as if an idea had just come to him. “To the Gypsy camp, for your fortune, without asking permission or taking a proper chaperone.”
“Martha was with me,” Charlotte defended.
“As if your timid mouse of a maid could protect you if someone wished to harm you.” Anthony snorted.
“She is not a mouse!”
“Your sister is in more danger here than with my family,” Adam warned as he drew to her side. At least she had a champion against her brothers.
“How could she possibly be in more danger with her family?” Anthony scoffed.
“She did not tell you of the danger to her here?”
“We didn’t even know she went to your grandmother until yesterday, and she’s avoided us since,” Michael grumbled. “So no, she hasn’t warned us of any danger.”
“There is no danger!” Charlotte insisted, though she hadn’t been able to forget someone grabbing her as she started down the stairs, even if she had reasoned it away as being her unruly cousin, Toby.
Adam took a step back and looked her up and down before he frowned. “Did you dismiss her words to you? Your promise to me?”
“Of course not!” Charlotte insisted.
“Then, where is the putsi? I don’t see it.”
“Putsi?” Anthony asked.
“Talisman, fashioned specifically for Lady Charlotte.” Adam focused back on Charlotte. “Is it in a pocket because it’s not around your neck?”
Charlotte’s face heated.
“Let me see it,” Anthony said, holding out his hand.
“I’m curious too,” added Michael.
“I can’t get it for you right now.” Goodness, this was embarrassing.
“My grandmother warned you…”
“I have it on my person, I assure you.”
“Then hand it over,” Anthony ordered.
Adam took a step back and slowly looked her over from the top of her head to the hem of her skirt and back up, a slow, almost seductive smile coming to his lips as he lingered for but a moment on her breasts.
Blast! He knows exactly where it is. “Excuse me.” Charlotte turned her back to her brothers and Adam, reached inside her bodice and retrieved the putsi.
“Charlotte, how could you?” Anthony raged. Once again she’d disappointed her oppressive, prig of a brother.
“I don’t have any pockets, and I promised.”
“Rather creative if you ask me,” Michael laughed.
“My grandmother did suggest she keep it close to her heart.”
Her face was going to go up in flames any moment now. Even Adam was laughing at her.
“Well, hand it over.”
The moment she dropped the pouch into Anthony’s hand, a gust of wind swept through the room, billowing her skirts and sweeping up the curtains. An instant later, something squeezed her throat and lifted Charlotte from the floor. Nothing was there, but Charlotte grasped at whatever was cutting off her air and kicked out her feet, trying to find purchase. Her brothers and Adam were yelling, but Charlotte couldn’t make out their words over the wind and panic pushing through her brain as she tried desperately to draw a breath. Darkness clouded her vision until there was only a pinpoint of light, and in a moment she knew she’d be dead and nobody was helping her.
Suspended off the floor, choking, clawing at her throat, but nothing was holding Charlotte there. Nothing! It had to be Tyrell, but how could he fight a ghost? Especially one he could not see?
Adam swiped through the air, but all his fist connected with was frigid air, while Michael reached out to grab Charlotte, only to be flung across the room by an unseen force. Anthony stepped forward to assist, and a roar reverberated throughout the room, sending him stumbling back. Adam reached forward to grab whatever it was around her neck, but again, only cold air and nothing to pry from her neck.
The putsi! Without it she would die!
Adam grabbed it from Anthony and shoved it down Charlotte’s bodice where it had been kept before. In a blink, the winds stopped and Charlotte fell to the floor before he could catch her. She lay there, gasping for breath, eyes wide with fear. Adam scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the settee.
“What was that?” she finally asked, her voice raspy, harsh, as if she’d been ill…or strangled.
“That, I believe, was Lord Tyrell.” The only thing keeping Adam from grasping Charlotte to him and carrying her from this place were her two brothers in the room.
Bloody hell, what had just happened? Adam knew his grandmother’s talismans could be powerful, but he’d no idea it was literally keeping Charlotte from being murdered.
Charlotte rubbed her neck, and that’s when he saw the marks. Tyrell may be a ghost, invisible, but eight bruises were forming, four on each side of her neck, each the size of fingertips. The ghost had picked her up from behind.
Redgrave stood staring at them. His face pale, fear in his eyes, and for once, his rigid composure was gone as he focused on the bruises forming on Charlotte’s neck. “Good God, Charlotte.” Then sank down before her, taking her hands in his. “Are you all right?”
She blinked at him, her hazel eyes clouded with confusion and fear. “I…I…think so.”
Lord Michael pulled himself from the floor, his hands shaking as he attempted to straighten his clothing. “Tyrell?” he asked. “Who the bloody hell is Tyrell?”
Redgrave pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’d heard rumors of ghosts, dismissing the possibility, of course.” His eyes met Lord Michael’s, as if they weren’t sure what to make of what just happened.
Adam wasn’t even certain. In his few encounters with spirits, it had never been dangerous—deadly.
“Perhaps you should tell us about this danger to our sister,” The gravity of Redgrave’s voice matched Adam’s emotions perfectly.
Lord Michael requested a tea service, and Adam told them everything his grandmother had said while Charlotte sipped her tea and recovered the best she could.
“We need to find the portrait gallery,” Lord Michael finally said when Adam concluded.
“But first, Charlotte needs a scarf or something around her neck, and for God’s Sake, keep that putsi, or whatever it is, in your bosom and never let it go,” Redgrave insisted.
“I’ll get a scarf,” Lord Michael said as he hurried from the room, and Adam settled onto the settee beside Charlotte, taking her cold, shaking hand in his. “How are you feeling?”
“Frightened.” Her hazel eyes caught his. “There really are ghosts.” She said it with such amazement, and despite the circumstances, a smile pulled at his lips.
“Yes, well, I suppose you have the proof you required, but did you have an explanation for my earlier question?”
“What question was that?” Redgrave demanded.
Really, the man had been one of his closest friends since Eton, and even though they hadn’t seen each other in a few years, that didn’t mean he needed to be so protective of Charlotte around him. He’d never harm a hair on her head.
“Mr. Vail wished to know how I could believe in God when I didn’t believe in ghosts, and what I thought was nonsense, until today.”
“Did you have an answer?” Adam asked.
“Simply faith, which you could easily argue with.”
“Sometimes faith is all we need to believe something is real.” She was shivering. Was it a chill or fear? “You are as cold as ice,” he said as he put an arm across her shoulders and drew her near.
Redgrave narrowed his eyes on Adam but made no objection.
“Oh dear, I feared this would happen.”
Adam looked up to find Mrs. Bray, the housekeeper, standing at the entrance to the room. Beside her was Lord Michael, holding a flimsy piece of material that Charlotte took and wrapped around her neck to hide the bruising.
“What would happen?” Charlotte asked, her voice still no more than a croak.
“Baron Tyrell,” Mrs. Bray answered.
“How did you know?” Adam demanded.
“The moment I laid eyes on Lady Charlotte, I knew it was only a matter of time.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Redgrave demanded.
“As if anyone’d believe me,” Mrs. Bray scoffed. “All of them descending on this castle, some frightened, others unbelieving, and still others, simply making fun. It’s not right, and I’ll be glad with the will has been read.”
“We believe you now. Tell us of Lady Helena and the others,” Redgrave insisted.
Chapter 7
Charlotte’s legs were weak, and her body still shivered uncontrollably, but she was so thankful to have Adam at her side, his arm at her waist, as they climbed the stairs to the portrait gallery. Without him, she might not have the strength to move. And, even though two of her older brothers were with them, it was Adam who made her feel safe and protected.
The ghost of Baron Tyrell had tried to kill her. As impossible as it may seem, it was the only explanation. Her life could have been over if not for…she wasn’t even certain what had occurred. One moment she couldn’t breathe and her neck felt as if it was being crushed, and in the next, she was falling to the ground and Adam was beside her. He’d been caring
for her since, and she didn’t want to let him go. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her again. Of that, she was certain and didn’t need any proof to make it so.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Bray announced as she reached the long gallery at the top of the stairs.
They followed her to the opposite end where she stopped before the portrait of a young, blonde woman. She, her brothers, and Adam all sucked in their breaths at the same time. “Lady Helena?” she asked. The woman in the portrait looked exactly like Charlotte, though this one dated back decades, and she wore an Elizabethan gown with a high, ruffled collar.
Mrs. Bray nodded. “I assume you know she was strangled on the eve of her wedding by Baron Tyrell.” With that, she turned and walked further down the gallery, stopping at another portrait. “Lady Eleanor.”
She, like Lady Helena, was the very image of Charlotte. The only difference being Lady Eleanor wore an ice blue gown, squared across the bosom, worn off the shoulder, with full sleeves, as was fashionable in the mid-1600s. “She was a cousin, twice removed, and married to one of Hambly’s sons. When he went to his wife’s chamber, the night they’d wed, he found her strangled in her bed.”
Charlotte grasped her neck as a chill went down her spine, knowing very well the terror the young bride must have experienced.
Mrs. Bray then continued on to a third portrait, and Charlotte was almost afraid to look. “Lady Alice.”
Charlotte took a deep breath and then opened her eyes. Again, it was the very likeness of her and the others, except she wore the large paniers that were so popular during the reign of Marie Antoinette.
“A Hambly niece, come to live in the castle when she was orphaned. Only sixteen and didn’t last a week.” Mrs. Bray shook her head sadly and turned. “Now, you are here.”
“Not for long,” Redgrave announced. “Have Martha pack your trunks, Charlotte, we are returning home.”
No, Adam wanted to shout. He couldn’t explain it, but Adam was convinced that Charlotte was in danger, not only in the castle, but away from him. If she returned to her home, he’d not be able to protect her there, not that she should need his protection away from Keyvnor, but his gut warned him not to let her go, no matter what.