Historical Jewels

by Jewel, Carolyn

  “I’ve felt odd all day. My head feels stuffed full.” She straightened and lifted a hand to the spot where a killer’s bullet had left a scar. “Hew wants to marry me. I told him to talk to you.” Tears filled her eyes, a fact of which she appeared entirely unaware. A blink sent them rolling down her cheeks. He found his handkerchief and handed it to her. With a nod of thanks, she dabbed at her eyes. “I don’t want to marry him. I’ll be miserable if I do. But what am I to do, Sebastian? I haven’t anything left. No money, no place to live. Mama is so ill, and Mrs. Leveret’s nephew is going to teach at the school instead of me.”

  “Hush, love. All will be well.”

  “How can it be when Hew turns my stomach?” She leaned against him again, lifting her face to his, eyes full of misery. He gathered her into the crook of his arm. “Whenever I am with Hew, I feel like I’m living in one of my nightmares. Frightened without knowing why.”

  What he saw in her eyes made him pause. “How badly does your head hurt?”

  “Like someone’s going at me with an axe. I can hardly see for the pain. I shall go mad if it doesn’t stop.”

  “Shall I call Ned?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Olivia. Did my brother ever give you reason to fear him?”

  She was pale, but when he said that, she turned the color of chalk. “Andrew would never hurt me.” Her attention flicked past her shoulder, toward the top of the stairs. He turned, expecting to see the Black Earl. But it was James walking toward them. He released Olivia but did not put any more distance between them.

  “Miss Willow,” James called, eyes shifting between them. “Has he apologized? I told him I’d never speak to him again if he did not.”

  She rose and shook out her skirts. “Yes, Lord Fitzalan, he has.” But her voice shook.

  “Prettily, I trust?” James came into the alcove.

  “Lord Tiern-Cope is yours to command, my lord.”

  Sebastian laughed. He stood and bent to her ear. “No one commands me, Olivia. Not James, not his sister. No one, that is, but you. Pray do not forget it.” He straightened. “She’s going to dance with me, James, to prove she’s no hard feelings.”

  “I don’t—”

  He grabbed her hand. “That’s an order,” he said. He gripped her hand. Five minutes dancing, ten minutes alone to plead his case.

  “You’ll have to dance with her later, Sebastian. It’s time.”

  “For what?” Sebastian said.

  James rolled his eyes and lifted his hands, fingers wiggling. “To summon the Black Earl.”

  Diana appeared at the top of the stairs, making frantic gestures. “Come along. Oh, do hurry. Everyone’s waiting.”

  Not until they reached the darkened parlor and Diana had them arranged in a circle with hands linked did Sebastian realize that from the alcove to the parlor he’d never let go of Olivia’s hand. Diana stood on one side of him, Olivia on the other. Hew Willow stood between Miss Cage and Diana. At a signal from Diana, a footman put out the last light. The room plunged into darkness.

  “Oh, spirit of Pennhyll,” Diana intoned.

  In the darkness, he felt Olivia’s fingers against his palm. He smelled verbena. He gave her hand a squeeze. The light was less black now that his eyes had adjusted. He could make out faces and bodies. Hew Willow among them.

  “Earl of Tiern-Cope.” Diana lifted her chin to the ceiling. “We summon you to us tonight, the anniversary of your passing to the spirit world. Give us a sign of your presence.”

  In the silence, someone choked off a laugh. Someone else cleared his throat.

  “We must have absolute silence. Lord Tiern-Cope, who walks the halls of his ancestral home. We summon you. Give us a sign.”

  Sebastian felt pressure increasing behind his eyes and in his ears. Olivia’s fingers tightened around his. She swayed, her shoulder brushed his upper arm.

  “Tiern-Cope. You are summoned.”

  Thump.

  Not a near sound. The noise came from outside the circle.

  Thump.

  “Remain calm,” Diana said. “I do not sense evil.”

  Thump!

  The light shifted, a draft whistled through the room. Several people gasped. Olivia crushed Sebastian’s fingers when a shape emerged from the wall opposite them. Draped in white and uttering a wailing, low-pitched moan, the figure moved toward the circle, dragging a length of chain behind it.

  “The Black Earl,” Hew said, right on cue.

  With arms raised, the figure moved toward Sebastian. At his side, Olivia bumped his shoulder again. The spirit pointed at Sebastian, moaning in agony and shaking the chain. Sebastian had every intention of letting the trick play out, but matters took a farcical turn. The “ghost” took a step, tripped over his sheeting, got his feet tangled in the chain and landed on the floor with an undignified thud.

  “Dash it,” said the ghost.

  One of the footmen turned up his lantern, then another. Black Earl indeed. James pulled the sheet off his head and after untangling his feet from the chain and the sheet, stood, grinning amid the clamor and exclamation. Sebastian wished James were closer, because he dearly wanted to give him a black eye. Behind him, an opening gaped in the wall, and James, still in the throes of delight over his joke, pointed. “Came in through that door. Willow told me where it was, and with a bit of luck and some help from Price, we found it. Just in time, too.”

  Sebastian felt Olivia’s hand slip from his. He left off listening to James crow over his joke and looked at her. The black dress highlighted her natural pallor but her color wasn’t right. He took her elbow and bent to her ear. “We need to settle this once and for all,” he said in a low voice. “In privacy.”

  Her head whipped around.

  “I’ll wait in my office for you.” He released her. “Give me half an hour.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  11:23 p.m.

  Olivia touched the door to Tiern-Cope’s office, but hesitated before making herself known. For this one moment, just one moment more, her life was the same as ever. And after she went in? Nothing would be the same, she believed that to her core. With a deep breath, she tapped on the gilt panel.

  “Enter.”

  She went in, smoothing her velvet skirt. Edith had helped her dress again, without any objection whatever to her leaving her bed. “My lord.”

  Tiern-Cope faced the window, hands clasped behind his back. A spark of awareness shot through her and made her stop rather than continue in. His broad shoulders were a familiar sight now, which surprised her. She’d not realized how used she’d become to him.

  He turned. “Olivia.”

  She didn’t move, and neither did he.

  “Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “I want to know what’s happening.”

  “You’re beautiful in that gown.”

  A hush settled over the room, and Olivia filled it by closing the door. Her fingers trembled. “Thank you.”

  “Sit.”

  She did. “My lord.”

  “Can you not call me Sebastian?”

  Her heart tripped. “I don’t think so.”

  “He’s not here. The Black Earl.”

  “I know.”

  “So, for the moment, we are safe from that madness.”

  “I don’t feel safe.”

  “With me? You know you are safe with me.” He inhaled. “How long have you been seeing the Black Earl?”

  “A few days now. You?”

  “Since I came to Pennhyll.” He walked to the fireplace. She turned sideways on her chair, but all he did was stare at the fire, hands clasped and pressed against the small of his back. The fingers of one hand clenched and unclenched. He turned. “What of me? How long have I been in your head?”

  “Before the Black Earl, I think. Only I didn’t know they weren’t just dreams.”

  “More and more intimate.” His mouth thinned. “I confess to once or twice in my life imagining making love
to a woman I admire. God knows you’re a pretty woman, but I don’t just imagine being with you. When I make love to you, you’re not thoughts and images in my head, you’re in my arms, real and warm. I can taste you and breathe in the scent of you, feel your skin against mine. We’ve never made love, but I’ve been inside you. Jesus, Olivia, you know I have.”

  She nodded.

  “Hell, for all we know it’s possible I’ve made a child in you.” His eyes pinned her. “Did anything like that happen between you and Andrew?”

  “No.”

  “You sound certain.”

  “I am.”

  “You never saw the Black Earl until I was at Pennhyll?”

  “Never.”

  “Andrew never came to you in—as I have. As we have together?”

  “No. I never thought of him that way.”

  “You do me, though.”

  She nodded.

  Tiern-Cope regarded for what seemed an eternity. “Very well,” he said at last.

  “What?”

  “Your cousin has relayed to me your wishes in the matter of your marriage.”

  “My lord.” She clasped her hands on her lap, interlacing her fingers. Her heart turned into a lump of clay.

  “Do you want to marry him?”

  “Yes.”

  He tilted his head. “May I ask why, when tonight you told me you feel sick at the thought of him?”

  Her throat threatened to close up. “Mama and I cannot stay here forever and not past your marriage.”

  “That does not answer the question I asked.”

  “I haven’t any choice.”

  He walked back to the fireplace, grabbed a poker and stirred the embers.

  “Sir?”

  He threw the poker back into the stand by the grate. “It’s my doing. Every bit of it. I’m the reason you weren’t hired for the school. I believed you were inches from James’s bed, and I told Mrs. Leveret I could not recommend you. I told you James was not sincere in his attentions even though I suspected his feelings had changed. I closed you in that cell tonight and nearly got you killed in the process.”

  “Oh, my.”

  He walked to his desk and put his hand on a sheet of parchment. “This is a deed, Olivia. The estate was yours, free and clear, but your uncle, with my father’s complicity, mortgaged it for twice what it was worth. I have signed over the deed to you. It’s now truly yours. As it should have been. You have three tenants. I expect you and your mother can live well enough on the rents.” He drew in a breath. “The issue of your marriage settlement is, therefore, somewhat more complicated than you believed when you spoke to your cousin, as there is now property to consider. That is,” he said, “if you still wish to marry him.”

  She stared at the document in her hand.

  “Perhaps, Olivia, you ought to consider other options.”

  “Such as?”

  “James.”

  “Do you think I should?”

  His eyes settled on her and after a bit, he said, “Egremont and I leave for Falmouth on Saturday.”

  “So soon?” Just four days away. Oh, God. In four days, he would be gone from her life. Four days. That must mean he would marry Diana immediately. “And your wedding, sir? Can it be arranged so quickly?”

  “I think so.”

  She forced her mouth to curve in a smile. “Please accept my congratulations, my lord.”

  “Thank you, but felicitations are, perhaps, premature. I have not yet settled matters with my intended.”

  “Oh.”

  “Diana is a lovely girl, but I have no affection or desire for her. Nor can I imagine Diana dealing well with my absence for the duration of the war. You, at least, are not a flighty young thing raised for the ballroom and the parlor. You are a capable and resourceful woman with more than a passing knowledge of the world. Your husband—your future husband, that is, need not woo you with pretty words and sentimental drivel that resembles reality in no way at all.” He went still, but his eyes fixed on her. “Perhaps I ought to try.”

  “Sentimental drivel, you mean?”

  He smiled. “Sentiment, at any rate. You are the only woman I can imagine dealing with me. In point of fact, you’re the only woman who so far has done that.”

  “My lord?”

  “It’s not as though—whatever the hell it is that happens—that I don’t find you attractive. I do. And I do like you. You make me laugh and smile. And I want you in my bed. I want you to be the mother of my children. I want you.”

  All the emotion ever to exist in the world lodged in her throat. She swallowed a lump the size of Pennhyll and tried to speak. All that came out was a croak.

  His gaze remained on her. “I have not time for anything but honesty and plain speaking. You are constantly in my thoughts, at the center of my most intimate desires.”

  “I am irreverent. Outspoken and at times undignified.”

  “As ill-befits your age and station in life. Yes, I agree that’s so. But that changes nothing.”

  “Marriage, my lord, is for a lifetime.”

  His mouth twitched. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure?”

  “Have you considered that?”

  “That fact has not been far from my mind. I have no romance in me. No fine words. No high sentiment. I am as incapable of sweeping a woman off her feet as thoroughly as I lack the polish expected of my present situation. Believe me, Miss Willow, I have considered my feelings at great length and am quite content with them. Use that logical brain of yours. Not only am I a more eligible husband than your cousin, you have less reason to dislike me. Do you love James?”

  “No.”

  “In that case, it would be illogical for you to refuse me.”

  “You must be the most perverse man in creation.”

  “We are well matched.”

  “What about Andrew? And Guenevere?”

  “There is that.” He shrugged. “If you remember, well and good. If you do not, I am prepared for that as well.” He clasped his hands behind his back again. “Olivia. Among the reasons I gave you this property is that I did not want you to feel compelled to marry by reason of your circumstances. When you tell me yes, it will be because you know I’m right. We belong together.” He walked toward her and didn’t stop until he stood inches from her. He hauled her to her feet. One arm curled around her waist and like that, her chest pressed against him. “I may have been raised the spare, Olivia, but I manage to get what I want.” His other hand touched her cheek and curved around the back of her head. “Pennhyll wants you. The Black Earl wants you. I want you. And I will not dishonor you by offering you anything less than my name. I don’t give a damn how many times I’ve made love to you in my head, I want you in life, undisputably and without the Black Earl standing around. When next we make love, Olivia, you will be my wife.”

  Time stopped when he lowered his head. Her skin flushed hot and then cold and then hot again as his lips brushed hers and lingered. A short while later, he drew back. “I think,” he said with no change in expression, “that deplorable lack of restraint should be removed from the list of your faults.” And then he looked over her shoulder and said, “Right on time.”

  Olivia looked back, too. Mr. Verney stood in the open doorway, bible in one hand. Captain Egremont and Ned Fansher were right behind him.

  Chapter Thirty

  11:55 p.m.

  Sebastian stood unnoticed in the doorway and watched Olivia pace. Fifteen steps from the fireplace to the foot of his bed. She was his. At last. For the first time in more than a year, the world felt right. Hell. For the first time in his adult life. He’d done a splendid thing, marrying her. Tonight, at long, long last, he would in reality unfasten her hair and thread his fingers through those curls. His mouth would cover hers in fact instead of in thought. Tonight, he would hold her as tenderly and lovingly as any man ever held his own wife.

  He kept his hands on either side of his thighs, thinking of how he would uncover her and how he wo
uld ask her to use her mouth on him. All manner of shocking requests entered his head, but in the main he wanted to lay her down on the bed right now, flat on her back and come into her as a man was meant to come into his wife.

  One lamp burned in the room so that she walked in soft and furious darkness. Any minute she would see him, turn those gold-as-honey eyes on him, and he would be unable to do anything but fall on her in a mad, rutting lust when he ought instead to maintain a comfortable and distant aloofness. Jesus. He needed control over himself. Her bare feet trod the silk carpet, the thick braid swinging with the rhythm of her step. Her arm swung forward, and the ring he’d put on her finger flashed in the lamplight. He reached behind him for the door and gave it a push. Metal parts slid past each other with a sharp click as the fittings engaged.

  She whirled. “My lord.”

  “Olivia.” He stepped away from the door between his sitting room and his bedchamber. There hadn’t been time to prepare the adjoining room which had once been Guenevere’s, so their wedding bed was his. He’d practically pushed McNaught out the door in his haste to join his bride. Jesus. He’d made Olivia his countess. His. Even in the dimness, her eyes shone like gold. He walked to the center of the room. She looked him over, pausing at the V made by the two halves of his pewter robe. Good, he thought. Let her think what that meant, his bare skin showing. “My apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said, pleased he managed not to sound as impatient as he felt.

  Her hair caught the light and flared like molten fire. Tonight, at long last, he would have his hands full of glorious copper curls. He would know exactly how they felt against his fingers. With some effort, he looked at her face instead of her bosom. Her eyes threatened to swallow him whole. A man could lose himself in her eyes. “This is just an awful mistake,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “I feel like jumping out of my skin or screaming or maybe just dissolving into a shapeless heap.”

  “Restrain yourself, if you will.” He smiled. “For now.”