The abbey did not yet have gas piping. Even in the dim light of a candle, he could see the sadness in her long-lashed eyes.
“My sisters know more of society gossip than I do. I will ask them to compile a list of our guests and ask if any of them are anticipating an inheritance. When I have the list, I will send it to all my relations and ask if any of them know the families and relate the story Bess told me. If you would give the list to Ashford when he arrives, he could expand the search.”
Will probably knew more people on Bess’s level than his aristocratic half-brother. But Will didn’t write letters, and the people who might know Bess often couldn’t read them. Still, he followed the lady when she entered the library and lit candles from the one she carried. “I’ll send a groom with the message to your sisters. It will be faster than the post.”
He should leave her there. He had the dogs to see to. But the fairy lady looked so fragile and alone sitting at that huge table, Will couldn’t tear himself away. Or so he told himself.
He hated libraries. To hide his discomfort, he spoke. “You must know the names of your guests. If you could give me the names of a few, I could start now. Who were the three at the inn?”
“Lords Clayton, Baldwin, and Rush,” she responded instantly, finding paper and pen and ink in the table drawers. “Lord Clayton is apparently up the River Tick as Rain says. But his father is a wealthy earl. Lord Baldwin is something of a bookworm and not much on fisticuffs. Other than knowing he likes lavender scent and is older than the others, I don’t know Baron Rush well.”
She looked up with a start, her eyes darkening to azure. “That night, there was a bit of conversation. . . I try to shut out private talk, but when they’re very intense, I can’t avoid them.”
Will waited, his gut unreasonably knotting as she seemed to disappear inside her head.
“I only caught pieces,” she said, rubbing her temples. “I cannot recall more than a man’s voice asking And Rose? Since rose is such a very common thing, I did not think he might be asking of a person. He seemed agitated, which is why the question stood out from among all the other voices. My gift is more annoying than useful.”
“Not if it means you heard the brute in your house that night.” Horrified, Will tried to think of some other reason for men to have conversations about a rose and could think of none. The abusive scoundrel had been in the castle?
“But if he was asking after our Rose, then he was not the one who let her wander the moors.” He tried to temper his fury with that rationalization. It didn’t work.
Her eyes widened. “I had not even thought. . . A gentleman might have hired someone to do his dirty deeds. He could have been talking to a valet or groom or almost anyone. We don’t have a chance of finding him this way!”
“If he hired someone, he is as guilty as the perpetrator. Keep writing,” Will ordered, then bit his tongue. He had no right to order about the daughter of a duke.
But she returned to scratching her lovely script across the paper as if what he said mattered. He wasn’t much given to introspection, but he had to wonder why he was surprised that she listened. Even his arrogant titled brother listened to him. But Ashford knew him. The lady didn’t.
“You have family in London, don’t you? You could write to them,” she suggested.
He panicked. This was why he was surprised when strangers, particularly educated ones, listened to him. “When you have a complete list, Ashford can give it to Erran. My barrister brother will pay more attention to Ash than me.”
She sighed and continued writing. “I want a magic wand. I want it all to happen yesterday.”
“If you had a magic wand, it wouldn’t have happened at all. I should let the dogs out.” He had to escape the library. “Send someone to me with your letter when it’s done.”
“I only need to blot it.” She hunted in the drawers for what she needed.
He almost said Already? It would have taken him an hour or more to compose such a letter. She scribbled it off as if it were the alphabet.
“Take a look and make certain I’ve asked all the right questions, please.” She handed it over after she’d blotted it. “I don’t want to alarm my sisters.”
“I’m sure it’s fine. Just seal and address it so no one else is tempted to open it.” He handed the paper back to her as if it were a hot potato.
“Rain always tells me I leave half of everything out.” She looked uncertain as she dug out the sealing wax.
“You realize your brother is a perfectionist who can never be satisfied, don’t you?” He shouldn’t have said that, but he was so relieved that she’d accepted his suggestion without argument that he felt compelled to offer what reassurance he could.
“That’s probably my fault,” she said sadly. “He blames himself for little Alan’s death, but I was the one who was too late.”
Why didn’t he simply bang his head against a wall? It was sheer torture to hear and see the lady’s sorrow and be unable to do anything about it. He could set dogs on thieves, but dogs couldn’t solve grief. Will took the letter she handed him, tucked it in his pocket, and thought to make a run for it, but to his own shock, he heard himself asking, “Alan?”
She rose in a rustle of crinoline, her halo of ivory hair shimmering like jewels in the candlelight. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bore you. Alan is the reason Father keeps us home if he’s not about. You were probably at school when it happened. It was quite a sensation at the time.”
Will doubted that he’d been at school unless it happened well over a decade ago. He’d probably been in rural nowhere, attending to his dogs and paying no attention to gossip. “You might as well tell me the story now that you’ve started it.”
She took his arm, reminding him that he should have offered it. Her full evening skirt brushed his legs, and he recalled why he had not offered his arm. In her presence, he was a lust-riddled oaf.
“Alan would have been about fifteen now, I think.” Her voice was soft and sensuous, even though she spoke with sorrow. “I was only about six and he was an infant when he died.”
“You had a brother who died?” Fifteen years ago, he’d been a grubby little boy hiding in kennels. Will itched to move this story on and escape her delicious apple-pie scent and proximity.
“Rain was the heir, Alan was the spare,” she said with rueful wryness. “The entire household was positively giddy to have another boy after three girls. I remember it well. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t next in line since I was next eldest. I didn’t understand the excitement and was just a bit resentful.”
Will chuckled at her tone, relaxing a little as he related to her childhood. “You would not have fared well in Iveston. We beat up each other regularly on the basis of who was most fitting to be heir—not to the title, mind you. Titles are irrelevant to childish minds. We wanted to be heir to the horses and dogs and the pond and anything our small minds could claim.”
She sent him a grateful smile that nearly brought him to his knees.
“Then you’ll understand a little of why I was so angry with Rain when he didn’t listen to me. I told him that Alan was crying and that the nursemaids couldn’t find him. He brushed me off, and I thought I’d show him, I’d find Alan myself, and then I would be the hero and the heir.”
Will didn’t think he liked the direction of this story, but he couldn’t walk away either. He’d spent the last decade rambling the length and breadth of England—the better part of that time had been spent pursuing tragedy. “You don’t have to explain,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t.
She halted at the foot of the stairs leading to the upper stories. She released his arm, but now she faced him in the brighter light of the foyer. Shadows haunted the enchanting fairy face that was meant to be wreathed in happiness and laughter.
“It’s all quite predictable, I know,” she said. “My six-year-old self took off after the footman I heard yelling at Alan, who was wailing. I was mad and meant to kick him hard on th
e shins and tell him Alan belonged in the nursery with the other babies. But I was too late. I was in the house, but I was hearing them from that copse of trees at the far end of the property. My legs were too short. I arrived only to see him ride off. By then, I was much too far away to call for help.”
“If Rain was only twelve, even if he’d listened to you, he couldn’t have caught a kidnapper.” Will thought he might suffocate from the turmoil roiling in his chest. He needed to be outside, away from her sorrow, away from his need to hold her and tell her that life was hard and people were cruel. Rescuing the lost was a heartbreaking and impossible task most days, as he knew too well. “Did your brother not believe you heard distant voices?”
“It’s hard to say. We were both too young and raised too far apart to communicate well.” She looked at the floor rather than at him. Will had the urge to lift her chin so he could see her eyes—or kiss her. With the fear of his animal instincts instilled in him, he resisted with all his might.
“We still don’t talk much,” she admitted. “By the time I ran back to the castle, crying, everyone knew Alan had gone missing. Rain was already on his horse. My father wasn’t there, so Rain ordered all the grooms in the direction I told them. But it was too late. Alan and the footman were long gone. I believe the ransom note must have arrived that evening. I only overheard some of the tale when I was older. I played no part in whatever happened over the next days. As a child, all I knew was that Alan didn’t come back, the house was draped all in black, my mother couldn’t stop crying, everyone talked in whispers, and no one would play with me anymore.”
“The blame lies solely on the kidnapper, you do know that, don’t you?” Will asked, watching a sparkling tear fall from her cheek. He didn’t dare look lower. Her gowns were often modest, but his thoughts weren’t.
“I don’t ever want to have to live with that again,” she said weakly. “Alan’s death tore the heart out of my entire family. I could not face it happening again.”
“Which is why you agree to being sealed behind castle walls,” he said, finally understanding.
“And I should never, ever have allowed my sisters to invite men of whom Father didn’t approve. But they were too young to remember what happened. They don’t understand our isolation, and I feared their resentment would lead to disaster. Besides, I could not see why being poor should keep young men from our door, since we all have dowries. So I agreed to the house party.”
“And now you are blaming yourself for inviting a brute?” he asked in incredulity.
“If it was one of our guests who did that to Bess. . . I could not live with myself,” she cried.
And then, to his utter shock, she fell against him, weeping.
Chapter 10
Weeping as she had not in years, Aurelia soaked poor Mr. Madden’s linen. He had no choice but to wrap his arms around her. Cocooned in all that muscular warmth, she felt safe to express her terror and anxiety. She tried so hard to be the calm one, the reassuring one, the older sister, but she wasn’t. She was an hysterical lunatic with no ability to help anyone, anywhere. And poor Bess and her children would suffer for her ineptitude, just as her family had.
Hard arms tightened and rocked her as if she were a babe—or a dog. And that was when she realized she didn’t want to be a pampered infant anymore. She wanted to be a whole woman, one who could be held by a man in a normal way, without hearing the scolding voices in her head of countless nursemaids and governesses and family.
And right now, with Will, she didn’t hear anything but him. Wrapped in his arms, all she could hear was the beat of his heart.
It was such a relief that she reacted to an instinct as old as mankind. Standing on her toes, Aurelia kissed Will’s whiskery chin, missing his mouth. He corrected that instantly, cupping the back of her head as he angled his mouth and bent to smother her lips with brandy-flavored excitement.
She’d never been kissed. She had no idea where to put her tongue or teeth, but he had no such uncertainty. He growled low under his breath and took her mouth hard. Then, at her wobbly reaction, his lips softened, nipped, caressed, until her insides softened like butter and her legs grew wobbly.
She parted her lips on an exhalation of pure desire. He braced his legs apart and lifted her to deepen the contact. His big hands on her bottom reduced her spine to hot oil, shaking her down to her very soul.
His tongue licked, and she thought she might go up in a tower of flame. How had she never known. . . ? And then their tongues touched, and she almost climbed his legs to be closer to this intoxicating new experience. She wrapped her arms around his manly neck, dug her fingers into his rough tweed, and hung on while her head spun. He was all bristles and strength and heat. . .
He abruptly crushed her sleeves, tugged her off, and set her an arm’s length away. A vast chill rushed between them. With the lamplight gleaming in his burnished gold hair, he appeared an angry god.
“Don’t taunt me with what I cannot have, princess. I will not write you poetry.” He released her and walked away, vanishing down the dark corridor.
He would not write her poetry? She had just experienced the most bone-melting, thrilling event of her life, and he talked about poetry? Had she missed some lesson by not being more socially skilled? Did the gentlemen who wrote her awful rhymes expect to be paid in kisses? She couldn’t ask Bridey. That would be too humiliating.
Holding her melted midsection so she didn’t slide to the floor, she pondered. . . life, men, and misery. Wiping tear streaks from her cheeks, Aurelia stomped upstairs to check on the nursery. Rose had smuggled Tiny inside again. The pair lay sleeping on a cot next to the twins—who both had deerhound puppies with them.
That at least gave her something to smile about while returning to her lonely room.
After a restless, sleepless night, Aurelia summoned the courage and determination to demand that Mr. Madden explain himself. She didn’t care that Sir Pascoe said his nephew never explained. That was specious nonsense. She had felt something last night, something she had felt for no other man, and she thought surely he had felt it too. But for some obtuse reason, he wouldn’t admit it.
They were playing with the pups, miss. . .
Rose? Where is Rose?
The frantic note caught Aurelia’s attention as she descended to the breakfast room. It sounded like Bess. Why would she be worrying about Rose?
Rascal wants out!
She tried to filter out the cursing from the stable and the bustle in the kitchen and the newlywed couple’s amorous murmurings in their bedchamber as she dashed down the rest of the stairs. Whoever was with Bess wasn’t excited enough to be heard clearly from this distance. Instead of going in to breakfast, she re-directed toward the door leading to the courtyard.
Mr. Madden pushed in, carrying Edward, one of Pascoe’s twins. “Take him to the nursery. Lock him up while I search the grounds. Kick Pascoe out of bed and tell him the dogs saw an intruder.” The boy cried and kicked his feet.
Swallowing hard, Aurelia took the sturdy four-year old. She staggered beneath his weight.
“Edward, hush, where’s your sister?” she asked, remembering Bridey’s tales of the twins talking to each other without words.
“She’s scared,” he wailed. “She’s scared. I gotta go.”
Aurelia’s stomach plummeted, remembering her own childhood disaster. Surely this was not the same! Still, she must listen to the boy as no one had listened to her.
“We’ll look for her,” she murmured to the terrified child.
“Take him to his parents,” Will ordered. “Let them see if he can tell them anything.”
Heart beating too fast, Aurelia murmured more soothing words as she hauled Edward up the stairs. Emma was scared? What about Rose? Thankfully, a worried nursemaid met her at the main floor so she needn’t climb another set.
“Mr. Madden says to lock the nursery. Are the girls there?” But she knew the answer before the maid could give it.
�
�No, m’lady, we can’t finds them anywhere. They took the pups outside to wee and went to see the kittens in the stable and no one’s seen them since.” The maid was almost weeping. “We thought they’d be fine with the grooms and all.”
“Wake Sir Pascoe and his lady,” Aurelia ordered. And then having an awful thought, she asked, “Where’s the infant and wet nurse?”
“They’s fine in the nursery, m’lady.” She took the squirming, complaining Edward.
Aurelia drew in a deep breath to ease her spiraling panic. Not the baby, thank all that was holy. Who would want to take the girls? Surely, the naughty pair were playing a game.
“I think you’d best take Edward to Sir Pascoe. Tell him Mr. Madden says there was an intruder. If the girls return, lock them in the nursery. I’m on my way to the infirmary.” She didn’t wait to see if the maid obeyed.
If there was an intruder, she needed to see to Bess, and Pascoe needed to protect his son.
Where would two little girls go if they were hiding from an intruder? Aurelia couldn’t let herself think past that to the worst. Recalling her awful childhood memories last night had awakened old fears.
Outside, Mr. Madden had one of the deerhounds on a leash and was searching the various derelict buildings surrounding the courtyard. Aurelia ran straight to the infirmary.
Bess was sitting up in bed, looking pale enough to faint. The gash on her face had scabbed over, but the pink halo of infection still marred it. She’d lost too much blood to even sit straight—and she was trying to stand. The maid who had been left to tend to her hovered anxiously.
“Where’s Rose?” the patient asked the moment Aurelia entered.
The whimpering terrier sprawled on the floor answered all her questions. His wiry hair was coated in blood. Aurelia fought down her nausea and screamed, “Willllll! Will, come quickly.”
No Perfect Magic Page 11