Black Widow: A Spellbound Regency Novel

by Lucy Leroux

  He lifted a brow. “What are they?”

  “Martin never said.”

  Gideon suspected Worthing had a very good idea what the conditions were, but he let it pass for the moment. He closed his eyes, guilt flaring again.

  “Worthing…Crispin…my note was the truth. Amelia is hurt. I went to see her tonight.”

  Crispin’s face fell. “Oh Lord, did you argue again? I know she was distraught after the words you had at Westcliff’s.”

  How did Gideon explain what he had done tonight? He couldn’t. All he could do was promise to fix it.

  “I will make it right. In the morning, I will call and explain that I know the truth now. In fact, there’s quite a bit I need to explain to her…”

  Should he bring some texts from his library? The eastern ones on intimacy he acquired in his travels? Christ, he hoped she’d taken his advice and had spoken to one of her married staff about tonight’s events.

  Worthing nodded approvingly. “I’m certain she will be relieved to learn you finally know everything. Keeping secrets is always a burden, and this one did a lot to damage her reputation. Everyone assumed we were lovers. A normal woman would have let loose a discreet hint or two out of self-interest. But that’s not Amelia. She is fierce about protecting Martin’s memory and my own reputation. I will always be grateful to her for that.”

  Gideon nodded, studying the man his cousin had loved. “Worthing…I want to apologize.”

  “There is no need. In fact, I want to thank you. Most men in society would brand me a liar or deviant. They would assume the worst about me.”

  “If my cousin loved you as you say, then that is all I need to know about your character,” Gideon said.

  Martin had not been a naive innocent at all. In his short life, he’d become well-acquainted with the darker aspect of men’s nature thanks to his own father.

  Gideon leaned forward. “If there is ever anything you need, all you need do is ask. However, in return, I would ask one favor in return.”

  “What is it?”

  “Stop asking Amelia to marry you.”

  Worthing coughed, then met Gideon’s steady gaze. “I…I think I begin to understand.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll invite you to the wedding.”

  Chapter 14

  Gideon was pacing his breakfast room, the half-eaten remains of his meal cold and congealed on the table.

  He wasn’t used to feeling so unsettled. And he’d never left a meal unfinished—not even when he’d been hiding from French agents on the continent. With one eye on the clock, he rehearsed what he was going to say to Amelia.

  Gideon had formulated a brilliant speech just before falling asleep at dawn, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember a single word of it now. His efforts to recapture the eloquence of his apology were a spectacular failure.

  And it is only growing worse. Bloody hell. By the time he saw Amelia, he’d be incapable of stringing a sentence together.

  He was contemplating going to his desk to make sense of his jumbled thoughts with ink and foolscap when his butler announced a visitor. Gideon went to the front hall to meet Viscount Worthing.

  The man had been pacing. “I went to see Amelia this morning,” Worthing began. “We are sometimes in the habit of taking our breakfast together when one of us is upset. She wasn’t there.”

  Gideon put his hands on his hips. “Where did she go at this hour?”

  Worthing ran his hands nervously around the brim of the hat he was holding. “Adolfo, her butler, had a message for me. She extended an invitation to visit her in Devon, at her family home.” He grimaced. “According to the man, she had one for you as well if you happened to call, one suggesting you go to a much warmer and…sulfurous location.”

  Damn. “I should have guessed she would run. I’ll have my traveling coach brought around.”

  Not wasting any time, he called out to his butler to pack a bag before hurrying to his study to pen a note to Clarke.

  Worthing followed. When Gideon turned back to him, he was shaking his head. “A change of clothes perhaps, but we cannot waste time waiting for your coach. We must depart with haste.”

  Alarmed, Gideon rescinded his order for the carriage and asked for his chestnut stallion to be brought round instead. “Why? Do you suspect Sir Clarence is in pursuit?”

  “No, you don’t understand. Amelia no longer has a home.”

  Chapter 15

  I’m in the wrong place.

  “This cannot be right,” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the ruin at the edge of the cliff in front of her. Behind, the grey ocean stretched out into the horizon, nearly the same color as the sky above.

  The neglected Palladian her father had so lovingly restored had been destroyed. The entire left wing had collapsed, and there was a gaping hole in the roof. Soot-blackened debris littered the ground next to the crumbling structure.

  “I’m sorry we’re not further along, Madame. Your husband sent some funds a while back to start rebuilding. Do y’see over there,” Gibson, the caretaker, pointing to some scaffolding on the right. “Made a good start, but then the funds stopped coming and so did the workers.”

  “When Martin died,” she mumbled.

  How could he have kept such a secret from her? This had been the home she had shared with her parents—the place where she had known the only true happiness of her life.

  There was no pain, only a numbness that spread through her body as if she’d been submerged in an icy bath.

  “What was the date?’

  “Of the fire, miss? I reckon it was in mid-April of ninety-nine.”

  That was just over a month after she and Martin had departed to the continent.

  “I sent word to the address you left me, the estate of the Italian relation of Mr. Montgomery’s,” Gibson added.

  But the caretaker had directed the missive to her husband, as any employee would once a woman was wed.

  True, she should have seen the letter regardless. Martin wasn’t the type to maintain a steady correspondence or deal with solicitors. Such details had been her purview.

  But Martin had collected the mail. He must have seen the note and hidden it to spare her feelings.

  Gibson hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was starting to look nervous.

  “I would like to be alone if you don’t mind,” she said quietly.

  “Of course, miss. I’ll help your coachman settle the horses. The barn is right as rain. It wasn’t touched in the blaze. There’s plenty of room in the cottage since your father expanded it.”

  Once Gibson had gone, she moved closer to the ruin, walking over the barren ground where her mother’s rose garden had stood. Edging around the house, she found the stone wall that marked the border of the ancient abbey. It had been so well known the property was still called the Abbey, even before the Palladian had been built over the ruins.

  She entered the shell of the house without thought. One moment, she was standing in front of the door and the next she was inside, surrounded by the fragments of a once-happy childhood.

  It was all a wasteland now.

  Picking her way through the charred rooms, she was surprised to see most of the side staircase intact. Her bedroom had been at the top.

  Amelia examined the stairs. There was a fleeting question whether they would still bear her weight, but she couldn’t hold it in her mind. It didn’t matter anyway. She climbed up, lightly leaping over the gap formed by two missing steps.

  The damage was much worse upstairs. The hall was under a gaping hole in the roof. Off to the left, the blackened door to her childhood bedroom stood open. The fire had been cruel there. The better part of two walls was missing, exposing a sheer drop of the cliff’s edge and the cold ocean beyond it.

  Part of the floor was missing as well…if someone wanted to leap out into the sea, they would have to make a running start.

  Amelia sidled closer to the edge, holding onto the wall so she wouldn’t tum
ble through the gap. She took off her gloves and slid down until she was seated in the corner—the part of the floor supported by the massive timber beams that were the bones of the house.

  Wrapping her hands around her knees, Amelia hugged them tight against her body and rested a cheek on top of them.

  The protective fog enveloping her began to melt away. A profound grief overwhelmed her. Part of her felt as if she had already been dashed on the rocks below. For a split second, she thought about making it a reality, but she didn’t move. Instead, she let the tears fall. She cried for her mother and father, and for Martin. And she cried for her dead illusions of love.

  Gideon must think her such a fool. And in retrospect, he was right. When she thought of the depths of her ignorance, she shuddered. Intimacy between a man and a woman was nothing like she imagined. Her aunt Carol had been right. It was both painful and humiliating, a duty women had to tolerate to please their husbands and lovers.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the look of shock on Gideon’s face when he realized she’d been a virgin. And then his explanation…

  We were making love.

  Mortification inundated her. How could she look him the eye again?

  The answer to that was simple. She didn’t have to—and no, the answer wasn’t dashing herself on the rocks below. Women of means had obligations, responsibilities. Amelia was not about to depart this world and leave her staff to fend for themselves. Almost all had been born abroad, and though most of them were learning English, it would be difficult for them to find new employment even with proper references.

  There were also the poor she helped through her charitable endeavors. The school she was building in Paddington, at the edge of the slums, was almost finished. Taking up residence here in Devon wouldn’t be possible, but she’d find another home somewhere.

  There were so many things she still had to do…but Amelia didn’t have to do them yet. For today, and today alone, she could watch the surf below and imagine a new life, one where she wasn’t alone.

  Chapter 16

  It had grown even colder, but Amelia took little notice. All she knew was that the light was growing dim. She could barely make out the waves as they crashed on the shore now, but she could still hear them—and something else. Men were talking, then shouting.

  Had the demon that murdered Martin finally come for her? That was something that should concern her…but at this moment, she was too cold to care.

  “Amelia! Amelia, look at me. I don’t want you to move. Just turn your head and look at me.”

  She blinked sleepily and shifted, looking up to meet Gideon’s waxen face. Was he really there or was it the demon in disguise?

  Gideon wouldn’t come all this way, not for her. It’s the demon, then.

  “Amelia, I know you’ve had an upset, but there’s no call for this, is there?”

  It was the guilt in his tone that pricked her. A demon probably wouldn’t bother with this farce.

  “What?” Her voice was hoarse from disuse and the cold.

  “I said there’s no call for this. I…I’ve spoken to Crispin. I brought him with me. Rather, he brought me. He’s looking for you downstairs. We came to take you home.”

  She raised a brow at the irony. “This is my home.”

  “I meant London, my love. Or we can visit my estate in Derbyshire. You’ve never seen it. I…I could use some advice on the new agricultural improvements I’ve been making.”

  He paused and looked at the floor as if he was contemplating crossing it. She studied the damaged boards lying between the two of them. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The floor isn’t sound, and you are too heavy.”

  A little flare of heat crept up her chilled cheeks as she remembered the weight of his body on hers.

  “Then can you please come here?” he asked, his voice high and thin. He sounded as if he were being strangled.

  “I would prefer it if you left,” she replied, turning back to the surf.

  “Amelia, please—”

  His next words were drowned out by a racket downstairs. Gideon spun and ran to the banister to look over the edge.

  “Worthing, hold on!” He turned around. “Crispin’s crashed through the floor somehow. I need to go get him. Please, please come here!”

  Oh, dear Lord, no.

  It was probably the only thing that could have roused her. She couldn’t lose Crispin. Pins and needles pricked as she got to her feet, wincing as her sore limbs were forced to support her. She rounded the damaged parts of the floor slowly, surprised at how much they creaked under her weight. When she reached Gideon, he grabbed her, pulling her into a crushing embrace.

  “Crispin,” she reminded him sharply when he didn’t let go.

  With a show of great reluctance, he released her and she started down the stairs.

  “No.” He pulled her back. “Let me go first and you’ll follow. Here, take my hand.”

  Amelia rolled her eyes and swept past him. At the gap, she peered down. A sweaty and shaken Crispin waved back at her. Both his legs had gone through the floor, and he appeared to be trapped. With a cluck of her tongue at him, she reached for the railing, sliding along the wide supporting board at the bottom the same way she did as a child.

  “Amelia!” Gideon yelled

  “Do try and not use my name as a swear word,” she snapped, rounding the bottom of the stairs and making her way to Crispin, testing the integrity of the floor with each step.

  “I’ll get him out; get away from there,” Gideon said, edging around the open space with a fluid motion. He was down in a heartbeat with almost no noise. It was almost as if he was accustomed to scaling treacherous ruins on a regular basis.

  When he tried to approach, she stayed him with a hand. “I told you, you are too heavy,” she said, over-enunciating her words. “This whole house is built over the ruins of an ancient abbey, and the fire has weakened the floors. It’s what gave the house its name. There are numerous chambers below. My father said they were used for storage. I imagine it’s a very long drop if you fall through.”

  “Um, Flint, she may be right,” Crispin gasped, almost tripping over his words as he tried to brace himself. His sweaty hands slipped a little on the wood. “Feels as if I’m over the pit of hell itself.”

  Gideon held up his hands and glowered at them both. “I’m going to run and get some rope. Do not move–either of you.”

  He ran out of the house. Amelia looked down at Crispin with a scowl. “How could you bring him here?”

  “The earl was concerned. So was I when I realized you’d come here to Devon.”

  “So you knew as well, about the fire?” she said, bending and lying flat.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, love. Martin was hoping to rebuild before you found out, but he didn’t want to ask you for the funds. I offered him the money, but he insisted on using his allowance… Er, darling, what are you doing?”

  “Spreading my weight over a larger portion of the floor. I suggest you do the same.”

  Crispin lay back awkwardly. Pushing herself with her hands, she helped him adjust and then got to work trying to free one of his legs. The first came out with relative ease, but he cried out in pain when she attempted to dislodge the second. A shard of wood the length of her thumb had pierced him in the fleshy muscle under the knee.

  “Talk to me, Crispin,” she said, trying to distract him. “How could Martin believe he could hide something like this? He had to have known it would take far more than his allowance to rebuild this place.”

  Crispin winced as her movements jostled his leg. “I believe he was hoping to have most of the work done on credit. He was going to apply to you for funds if some of the small investments he made did not bear fruit.”

  “He should have told me,” she said, a wealth of pain in her voice.

  Bloody hell, she would not cry. Not with Gideon nearby. She focused on working the shard of wood free, trying to break off the end.

 
“Don’t take it out! If he’s punctured a vein, he’ll bleed to death.” Gideon had returned.

  “What?” Crispin’s eye’s dilated. His pulse throbbed visibly in his neck. Amelia worried he was about to faint.

  “Believe it or not, I know that,” she snapped at the earl.

  She had some experience with injuries and illness. Isobel had been kind enough to teach her how to treat them during their stay in Italy. “Do you have a knife?”

  Gideon crouched down a few feet away and slid something to her. The blade was impressively sharp and had a nice heft, although it was a bit heavy for her. Working quickly, she started to saw the shard of wood at the base.

  Despite the fact the knife had no teeth, it cut through the thick wood with little effort.

  She would have to remember to ask the earl why he carried such a wickedly sharp instrument on his person.

  The sound of timber creaking signaled Gideon moving closer. She raised her head to glare at him. “Stay away, my lord,” she ordered from between gritted teeth.

  A bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face as she returned to her task. Amelia tried to minimize the jostling of the viscount’s injured leg as best she could, but she winced each time Crispin panted or groaned.

  “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed as the piece of wood broke off, freeing his leg.

  Her eyes gravitated to the darkness exposed by the removal. Her father had been right. This part of the house was over one of the largest of the subterranean rooms. If Crispin had fallen all the way through the floor, he would have plunged to his death.

  Ignoring fear for her own safety, she focused on helping Crispin, half-pulling and pushing until they reached Gideon’s position near the door.

  The earl pulled her to her feet despite her protest he help Crispin first. She was set on the ground in front of the house without a word. Then he went back. He emerged cradling Crispin in his arms like a child.

  Gideon carried the other man effortlessly, depositing him in one of the bedrooms of the cottage while she sent Gibson for a physician. The doctor was young, a man she did not recognize because he was new to the area. At Gideon’s suggestion, the doctor doused Crispin’s wound in strong alcohol before sewing it shut. Then he bound his ankle because it was badly sprained.