The Temptation of Your Touch

by Teresa Medeiros

  “At least he escaped with his life. The one before him weren’t so lucky.”

  “Took a tumble out a fourth-floor window, he did. Found him in the courtyard, his head twisted clean round on his neck.”

  A hush fell over the common room once again. The rain had subsided, and for a long moment there was no sound at all except for the eerie whistle of the wind around the eaves.

  When Max finally spoke, his voice was soft, but edged with an authority that dared anyone within earshot to defy him. “I’ve spent the last twelve years of my life journeying to places most of you will never see, not even in your darkest dreams. I have seen men do unspeakable things to each other, both on the battlefield and off. I can assure you ample evil lurks in the hearts of men without conjuring up phantoms and monsters from the shadows of our imaginations. Now,” he said briskly, “I’ve no intention of squandering any more of my time or yours.” He reached into an inner pocket of his greatcoat and withdrew a leather pouch. He tossed it toward the nearest table, where it landed with an impressive clunk. “Twenty pounds to the man who possesses the backbone to get me to Cadgwyck Manor before the rain sets in again.”

  The eyes of the inn’s patrons gleamed with avarice as they gazed upon the pouch.

  Max wasn’t playing fair. But if he hadn’t tried to play fair for most of his life to atone for the one time he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have ended up stranded in this miserable tavern at the mercy of a bunch of overly superstitious rustics. The men in the tavern were fishermen, shepherds, and farmers living a hardscrabble life on whatever scraps the sea and the land deigned to toss them. Twenty pounds was more than most of them could hope to earn in a year.

  Still, no one moved to accept his offer.

  Until a scrawny young man rose slowly to his feet. Ignoring the dismayed gasps of his companions, he drew off his cap in a gesture of deference before wadding it up in his tense hands. “Derrick Hammett, sir. I’m yer man.”

  Max eyed him thoughtfully, taking in the sunken hollows of his cheeks and the way his clothes hung loosely on his rawboned frame, before retrieving the pouch and tossing it to him. “Very well, lad. Let’s make haste then, shall we? I’m sure this White Lady of yours is only too eager to meet the man who will be her new master.”

  MAX HAD ENVISIONED ARRIVING at the gates of his new home in the dry, cozy comfort of a carriage, not while perched stiffly on the bench of a rattletrap cart with chill rivulets of rain trickling beneath his collar and down the back of his neck. Despite his young driver’s best intentions, the lad had been unable to make good on his promise to get Max to Cadgwyck Manor before the rain returned.

  As they passed between two stone gateposts, one of them leaning crazily to the left, the other to the right, the sky hurled violent gusts of rain at them, rendering the brim of Max’s hat utterly useless. Twice during their journey up the long, twisting drive he was forced to climb down from the cart to help the boy dislodge its wheels from jagged ruts carved by the rushing water, an exercise that ruined his expensive gloves and left both his boots and his temper much the worse for wear.

  The weather in this place was as perverse as its people. Just as they reached the top of the hill and the promise of shelter, the wind gathered speed, whipping away the last of the rain. It carried on its breath the salt-tinged scent of the sea and the muted roar of angry waves breaking against the cliffs on the far side of the house.

  Setting his jaw in a rigid line to keep his teeth from chattering, Max peered through the gloom, struggling to catch his first glimpse of his new home.

  A pale splinter of a moon materialized from behind a wisp of cloud, and there it was, perched at the edge of the towering cliffs like some great hulking dragon.

  Max’s father had informed him he had picked up the property from a distant cousin for a song. If that were so, Max thought grimly, it must have been a very sad song indeed. Perhaps even a dirge.

  It was difficult to believe the manor had seen better days, although he might be convinced it had seen better centuries. An abandoned stone tower crowned one corner of the structure, complete with crumbling parapets and a lopsided turret. A glistening curtain of ivy had clawed its way up the weathered stones and through the gaping black holes of the windows, making it look like a place where Sleeping Beauty might dream away the years while waiting for a prince’s kiss that would never come.

  The front door was set like a rotting wooden tooth in the mouth of an ancient gatehouse that must have been part of the original castle charged with the duty of guarding these cliffs. The various descendants of that castle’s lord had haphazardly slapped Elizabethan wings on each side of the gatehouse, then adorned the entire monstrosity with several deliciously droll Gothic touches—gables pitched at dizzying angles, lancet windows set with cracked panes of jewel-toned glass, impish gargoyles spitting streams of rainwater on the unsuspecting heads of anyone reckless enough to pass below them.

  A tragic air of neglect hung over the place. Shutters hung at awkward angles over the grimy windows. The roof sported several bald spots, where slate shingles had been hurled into the night by the gleeful fingers of the wind and never replaced.

  Had the village lad not been with him to confirm this was indeed their destination, Max might have mistaken the manor for a ruin. The house looked as if it would do them all a great favor—especially Max—by completing its inevitable slide over the edge of the cliff and into the sea.

  Despite its dilapidated state—or perhaps because of it—Max felt a curious kinship with the structure. The two of them might just suit after all. The manor looked less like a home and more like a lair where a beast might go to lick its self-inflicted wounds in privacy and peace.

  The wind sent a fresh veil of clouds scudding across the moon. Darkness reared up to cast its shadow over the house once more.

  That was when Max saw it—a faint flicker of white in the window of the crumbling tower, gone as quickly as it had appeared. He frowned. Perhaps he had been wrong about the tower being abandoned. Or perhaps a broken pane of glass still clung to a splintered window frame, just large enough to pick up a reflection.

  But a reflection of what?

  With the moon cowering behind the clouds, there was nothing but an endless stretch of moor on one side of the manor, and jagged cliffs and churning sea on the other. The flash of white came again, no more substantial than a will-o’-the-wisp against that solid wall of blackness.

  Max glanced over to see if his companion had noticed it, but Hammett was using every ounce of his attention to keep his team from bolting back down the hill. Both horses were tossing their heads and whinnying nervously, as if they were as eager to depart this place as their young master. By the time Hammett got them under control and brought the cart to a lurching halt, the tower was once again shrouded in darkness.

  Max gave his eyes a furtive rub with the palms of his hands. He was hardly a man given to fancy. Those spectral flashes must simply be a symptom of his own exhaustion—a trick of his weary eyes after the grueling journey. Due to the run-down state of the house, a man was more likely to be murdered by a loose chimney pot or a rotted banister than a vengeful ghost.

  “Are ye sure they’re expecting ye, m’lord?” Max’s young driver blinked the last of the rain from his ginger lashes as he gazed anxiously up the hill toward the manor’s forbidding edifice.

  “Of course I’m sure,” Max replied firmly. “My solicitor sent word over a month ago. The household staff has had ample time to prepare for my arrival.”

  Despite Max’s insistence, he couldn’t blame the young man for his skepticism. Except for that mysterious flash of white, the house looked as deserted and unwelcoming as a tomb.

  Max gathered the single portmanteau he had salvaged from his baggage and climbed down from the cart. He had decided to leave the rest of his bags at the inn and risk the villagers picking through them rather than transport them in the back of the cart, where they would have been soaked through in minutes.


  “It’s nearly ten o’clock,” he pointed out. “The lateness of the hour must be taken into account. And I can hardly expect even the most devoted of servants to be lined up in an orderly row on the front steps to greet their new master in this foul weather.”

  Although Hammett still looked dubious, he managed an encouraging nod. “I’ll bring the rest o’ your baggage at first light, m’lord. I swear I will.”

  Reaching into his coat, Max drew out a second purse and tossed it to him. “In my years with the East India Company, I came to believe a young man should always be rewarded for both his bravery and his gallantry.”

  “Oh, sir!” Hammett gaped down at the purse, a disbelieving grin splitting his gaunt face. “Why, thank you, sir! Me mum and me sisters thank you, too. Or at least they will once they see this!” Although he was plainly itching to go, he shot the house another reluctant glance. “Would ye like me to wait until ye’re safely in?”

  “I appreciate the offer but that won’t be—”

  Just like that, Hammett snapped the reins, wheeled the cart around, and went careening down the hill.

  “—necessary,” Max finished on a whisper heard only by his ears. The rattle of the cart wheels quickly faded, leaving him all alone with the desolate wail of the wind.

  Gripping his portmanteau in one hand and his walking stick in the other, he turned toward the house. Once, he had imagined returning from some long journey to a far different scenario. One where a loving wife ran out to greet him, trailed perhaps by a towheaded moppet or two, all eager to leap into his arms, smother his face in kisses, and welcome him home.

  Squaring his shoulders, Max went striding toward the door, ruthlessly banishing that vision from both his imagination and his hopes. As he climbed the stone stairs leading up to the makeshift portico tacked onto the gatehouse, the wind tossed a few fresh droplets of rain into his face.

  Drawing off his hat, he hesitated at the top of the stairs. He was at a complete loss as to how he should proceed. He was accustomed to being greeted with deference wherever he went, not left standing outside a closed door like some beggar at the gates of heaven.

  Should he use the tarnished brass knocker to alert the servants to his arrival? Should he test the doorknob himself? Or should he just go striding into the place as if he owned it?

  Which, of course, he bloody well did.

  He was lifting his walking stick to give the door a firm rap when it began to swing slowly inward, its unoiled hinges creaking in protest.

  Chapter Five

  MAX STOOD HIS GROUND, half-expecting to be greeted by a swirl of mist or some chain-clanking ghoul. A stocky, stoop-shouldered man with a snowy white mane of hair appeared in the doorway, bearing a single silver candlestick. The candle’s flame cast wavering shadows over the man’s downcast face, a victim of his unsteady hand.

  Without a word of explanation or greeting, the man turned toward the interior of the house, as if it were of no particular import to him whether Max chose to follow.

  Max cocked a questioning eyebrow but didn’t hesitate for long. While the musty smell and flickering candlelight could hardly be called cozy, it was a definite improvement over the darkness and damp of the night.

  The two-story entrance hall of the manor was covered in some sort of burgundy velvet-flocked paper. Sections of it had peeled away in moldering strips to reveal the unpainted plaster beneath. Max suspected some valuable wainscoting was buried beneath it as well. Despite enduring the abuses of more recent centuries, the ancient gatehouse had sound structural bones.

  His gaze drifted upward as they passed beneath a grand chandelier. Cobwebs draped the fixture’s tarnished brass arms, and its once-graceful tapers were melted down to beeswax nubs. On the far side of the entrance hall, a broad staircase climbed up to a second-story gallery shrouded in shadows. A handsome longcase clock hugged the wall at the foot of the stairs, its pendulum hanging still and silent. Its gilded hands were frozen, seemingly forever, at a quarter past midnight.

  Max’s silent escort led him through a pair of open pocket doors and into the drawing room. A handful of oil lamps scattered on various tables battled the gloom. Despite their valiant efforts, it wasn’t difficult to see why the manor had looked so dark and inhospitable from the drive. The house had been graced with ample windows, but dusty velvet drapes guarded every one of them.

  Remembering with a pang of longing the crackling good cheer of the fire at the Cat and Rat, Max noted that a fire hadn’t even been laid on the drawing room’s marble hearth to welcome him. Could the manor’s staff be so provincial they were ignorant of even that basic courtesy? He lowered his portmanteau to the faded Turkish carpet. The butler—or at least Max assumed it was the butler, given that there had still been no proper introduction—set his candlestick on a low-slung pier table, shuffled over to the wall, and gave an unraveling bellpull a feeble yank. A cloud of dust spilled down upon his head, sending him into a violent fit of sneezing.

  The man was still snuffling and dabbing at his eyes with the cuff of his shirt when the door at the far end of the drawing room swung open. It seemed Max had done his staff a disservice. They had turned out to greet their new master after all.

  They paraded into the drawing room, only managing to arrange themselves in a proper row after a fair amount of elbowing, giggling, muttering beneath their breath, and treading on each other’s feet. Max felt his anger melting to dismay. No wonder the manor was in such sorry neglect. There wasn’t nearly enough staff for a house of this size. Why, his town house on Belgrave Square had twice the number of servants!

  It hardly strained his advanced mathematical skills to count the still wheezing butler, five housemaids, and a lad wearing footman’s livery plainly tailored for a grown man. A powdered wig that looked as if it had been rescued from the head of some unfortunate French aristocrat just after his trek to the guillotine sat askew on his head. Max blinked as a moth emerged from the wig and fluttered toward one of the oil lamps.

  While the maids quickly averted their gazes to their feet, the lad settled back on his heels and gave Max a look rife with insolence.

  There was no sign of a cook, a wine steward, or a groom of the chambers. Max was already beginning to regret not forcing his valet to share his exile. He had just assumed there would be a manservant in the house he could recruit for the position.

  Just when he had given up any hope of receiving a proper welcome, a woman glided through the door and took her place at the end of the row, her lips curved in a dutiful smile. “Good evening, my lord. I am Mrs. Spencer, the housekeeper of this establishment. Please allow me to welcome you to Cadgwyck Manor.”

  In Max’s experience, the butler customarily did the welcoming when one was needed. But his new butler was currently occupied with plucking bits of dust from his moth-eaten coat, the faint tremor in his hands even more pronounced now that he’d divested them of the heavy candlestick.

  Max inclined his head in a curt bow. “Mrs. Spencer.”

  Despite the rather motley appearance of the rest of the staff, Mrs. Spencer appeared to be all that was proper in an English housekeeper. Her posture was impeccable, her spine more ramrod straight than that of most military men of Max’s acquaintance. A crisp white apron offset her stern black dress.

  Her brown hair had been drawn back from her face and confined in a woven net at her nape with a severity that looked almost painful. Her pale skin was smooth and unlined, making it difficult to determine her age. Max judged her to be close to his own thirty-three years, if not older.

  She was a plain woman with nothing striking or unique about her features to draw a man’s eye. Her chin was pointed, her cheekbones high, her nose slender and straight, though a shade too long to be called delicate. She smiled with her mouth closed as if her lips were accustomed to holding back as many words as they spoke. Or perhaps she was simply seeking to hide bad teeth.

  The only feature that might tempt a man to take a second look were her eyes. Their dark-gr
een depths sparkled with an intelligence that could easily have been mistaken for mischief in a less guarded woman. Her sole concessions to vanity were the delicate tatting peeping out of her collar and the thin chain of braided silver that disappeared beneath it. Max’s natural curiosity made him wonder what dangled at the end of it. A cheaply painted miniature of Mr. Spencer perhaps?

  “I trust you had a pleasant journey,” she said, lifting one delicately arched brow in an inquiring manner.

  Max glanced down. Water was still dripping from the hem of his greatcoat to soak the carpet beneath his feet, and fresh mud was caked on the once-supple calfskin of his favorite pair of Wellingtons. He returned his gaze to her face. “Oh, it was simply divine.”

  Just as he had expected, his sarcasm was wasted on her. “I’m so very pleased to hear that. I’m afraid there are some who find our climate less than hospitable.”

  “Indeed,” he said drily, his words underscored by a fresh rumble of thunder. “That’s certainly difficult to imagine.”

  “If you’ll allow me, I shall introduce you to the rest of the staff.”

  If he hadn’t been distracted by the velvety timbre of her voice, Max would have informed the housekeeper the only thing he was interested in being introduced to at that moment was a tumbler of brandy and a warm bed. The cultured note in her speech shouldn’t have surprised him. The upper servants of a household might hail from the local villages, but they commonly affected the accents of the ladies and gentlemen they’d been hired to serve. Most were talented mimics. It seemed his new housekeeper was no exception.

  “These are the housemaids,” she informed him, gesturing toward the row of young women. “Beth, Bess, Lisbeth, Betsy, and Lizzie.” Mrs. Spencer had just reached the end of the row when a sixth maid came racing into the drawing room, skidding to a halt at the far end of the row. “And Pippa,” Mrs. Spencer added with somewhat less enthusiasm.

  While her fellow maids had at least taken the time to pin up their hair and don aprons and caps, young Pippa looked as if she had just stumbled out of bed. Her gown was rumpled, its collar gaping open at the throat, and she hadn’t even bothered to hook the buttons on her scuffed half boots.