The Lady in Gray

by Patricia Oliver

Oddly enough, the lady’s less than pristine reputation made Lady Sylvia more attractive to the earl than a chit of unimpeachable honor. Not as a mother for his children, naturally. That was out of the question, given her tarnished standing in the ton. But there were other, less formal arrangements that might be worth exploring.

  Nicholas found himself smiling at the thought.

  His eyes rested on her face as she refilled his aunt’s cup. A beautiful face, he thought, lovely in a restful, unself-conscious way. He had an unexpected urge to run his knuckles down her cheek, as the Italian had done to Lady Marguerite. A gesture of affection And possession.

  Nicholas felt his body respond to the eroticism of this fantasy. He withdrew his gaze and found himself under the scrutiny of a pair of hazel eyes. Lady Marguerite appeared amused, and her generous mouth was curled in a half smile.

  “What do you think of my niece’s latest portrait, my lord?” she inquired. “I do believe she has flattered me quite outrageously.” “Not at all, cara, ” Giovanni cut in before the earl could think of a polite response to the lady’s leading question. “Sylvia’s painting is but a poor rendition of your beauty—”

  “Thank you for that kind remark, Giovanni,” Lady Sylvia remarked acerbically. “Remind me to include every single one of your blemishes before I conclude the sitting this afternoon.”

  “The sitting is already concluded, my dear Sylvia,” the Italian retorted. “Have you forgotten that Lord Hazelworth is coming down from Bodmin to choose a statue for his new folly?” He glanced toward the house. “I am surprised he is not already here.” As if on cue, Hobson sedately stepped out onto the terrace, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in his forties.

  The earl watched as Hazelworth bowed gracefully over Lady Marguerite’s fingers and nodded to Petomo.

  “Longueville.” He acknowledged the earl with a careful smile. “What a pleasure to see you again. I trust you have come back to stay. The company around these parts has been sadly dull without the summer festivities at the Castle.”

  The earl extended his hand, which the baron shook with a heartiness belied by the flicker of unease in his bold blue eyes.

  “So I have been told,” Nicholas replied dryly.

  “And how is your lady mother, Longueville?”

  “Her ladyship is in good health, but glad to be back in England,” he answered briefly.

  The baron did not pursue the issue, but turned instead to the last member of the party.

  “And my dear Lady Sylvia,” Hazelworth said, and Nicholas became aware of a subtle softening in the baron’s tone. “What a delight to find you as dazzling as ever. You quite put the roses to shame, my dear.” The gallantry of this remark sounded rather forced, and the earl sensed a sudden tension in his hostess.

  Nicholas could not see the baron’s face, but he caught a flicker of annoyance in the lady’s eyes. Had he imagined it, he wondered, or could it be that Lady Sylvia was less than enthralled at Hazel- worth’s visit?

  “You are much too kind, my lord,” she said coolly. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

  The awkward moment passed as the conversation turned to the sculpture Hazelworth had commissioned from Signor Petomo. But Nicholas could not forget the brief annoyance—or was it disgust?—in Lady Sylvia’s eyes.

  Was it possible, he mused, as the lively conversation flowed around him, that this consummate lecher had designs on the lovely artist? Or perhaps there had been an understanding between them that had run its course, as such affairs invariably did with Baron Hazelworth?

  For some inexplicable reason the vision of Hazelworth’s hands exploring the intimate secrets of Lady Sylvia’s lovely person brought the earl’s blood to a sudden boil. He experienced the unnerving urge to throttle the life out of his erstwhile friend and neighbor.

  As quickly as his rage had surfaced, however, it subsided, leaving him with the uncomfortable feeling that he was no less contemptible than Hazelworth.

  Had he not, that very afternoon, lusted after the lovely Sylvia himself?

  The arrival of Baron Hazelworth disconcerted Sylvia. Had she remembered that he was riding down from Bodmin this afternoon, she thought, wincing at the touch of his lips on her fingertips, she would have remained in her studio.

  The marked attention of the handsome baron had begun shortly after her arrival at Whitecliffs ten years ago, long before Lady Hazelworth had been carried off by influenza. His address was so polished that at first Sylvia—unaware of the existence of a mistress at Hazelworth Hall—had been flattered.

  She was still smarting from her father’s blunt dismissal of her chances of ever becoming a wife and mother, and the baron’s admiration had eased her loneliness.

  “You must resign yourself, child,” her father had said during that last dreadful interview in his study. “No decent man will have you now. You are ruined, Sylvia. A blot on our family name as black as any your Aunt Marguerite inflicted upon us with her wild ways.”

  Sylvia had refrained from reminding her irate parent that the streak of wildness in the Sutherland women could be traced much farther back than Aunt Marguerite. The earl’s own grandmother, Lady Giselda, who had brought the Cornwall estate as her dowry when she wed the second Earl of Weston, had been known to gallop along the cliffs on her big roan gelding, her red hair loose and streaming in the wind.

  Sylvia looked with distaste at the baron’s sleek black head bent over her fingers. She had been eager to believe the comforting words that flowed so smoothly from his smiling lips. How naive she had been, Sylvia recalled, returning the baron’s appraising stare as he straightened and raked her with a covert glance. That innocence had been brutally shattered when she discovered the existence of Lady Hazelworth, and lost forever when the libertine had offered her a carte blanche in her aunt’s drawing-room.

  Lady Sylvia looked away only to meet the earl’s interested gaze. Was it possible, she reflected wryly, that she had attracted the interest of yet another lecher? The glint of admiration in Longueville’s dark eyes had been unmistakable. Sylvia had seen it before. In Baron Hazelworth’s. In Sir Geoffrey Huntsville’s, who continued to ogle her although she had attended his wedding several years ago. And most memorably, in the man she had thought to wed, Sir Matthew Farnaby.

  So, she mused with a flash of humor, her father had been right. Her admirers had improved in rank and fortune, from mere baronet to earl, but none of them would give her the future she had yearned for at seventeen.

  After tea, her aunt and Giovanni bore Lord Hazelworth off to view the Italian’s latest sculpture, and Sylvia was left to entertain Mrs. Hargate and the earl. Perversely—or so it appeared to Sylvia—Lord Longueville showed no sign of wishing to view statues of Greek goddesses in deshabille, and followed the two ladies into the house.

  As they passed through the Italian Saloon, the earl paused before one of Lady Sylvia’s latest landscapes, which she had called Longueville Castle at Twilight.

  “You have captured both the majesty and the mystery of the place,” Mrs. Hargate remarked reverently. “One can still sense the strength of the Morleys stretching back into history. The Castle was originally a fortress, you know, my lady, built to defend the shores of England from pirates and other rascally invaders.”

  The earl glanced down at his aunt, a wry smile on his face. “You are incurably romantic, Aunt,” he said, and Sylvia was surprised at the affection in his voice. “The Castle was a barracks, cold and drafty. It still is, of course, and were it not for the improvements my grandfather added, it would be impossible to live there.”

  “Oh, Nicholas!” Mrs. Hargate exclaimed in a shocked voice. “Never say you are not proud of your lineage, my boy.”

  “I said no such thing, Aunt,” the earl replied gently. “But you are right about the majesty and mystery. Lady Sylvia has an uncanny knack of evoking the historical atmosphere, of drawing it out of the past and immersing us in it.” He paused for a moment, then added, “It should be hanging in the G
reat Hall at the Castle. How much will you take for it, my lady?”

  Sylvia was no stranger to selling her work, but Lord Longueville’s interest surprised her. The vivid memory of the earl interrupting her work on the cliff hut and ordering her off his land flashed into her head. His rudeness still rankled, and she felt no desire to let him have the painting at any price.

  “That particular painting happens to be one of my favorites, my lord,” she responded.

  “That does not answer my question.” He spoke as though he understood her resentment. “I am prepared to meet any price you name.”

  Sylvia found the arrogance of the earl’s tone offensive. “The portrait is not for sale, my lord,” she said firmly and turned away. “A thousand pounds? I believe that is a fair price.”

  And indeed it was, Sylvia thought, much more than fair. But she would not allow herself to be bullied into changing her mind. ‘Two thousand?”

  She turned and stared at him. His expression was veiled, but she knew he was baiting her. The sum he mentioned was preposterous on all accounts, and she finally laughed. “Are you always so extravagant, my lord?” she murmured. “I wonder that you are not under the hatches. And no, the picture is still not for sale.”

  “Are you merely being obstinate, or is there another reason why you will not sell to me?”

  Sylvia hesitated briefly, then decided that she should not be afraid to tell the truth. “That is my last portrait of Longueville,” she began. “I treasure it for that reason.”

  “Your last, my lady?” Mrs. Hargate exclaimed in surprise. “Surely you jest, my dear?”

  Sylvia laughed. “I wish I was. But your nephew has forbidden me to set up my easel on Longueville land, so I must go farther afield for historical subjects.”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Hargate replied sharply. “Tell me this is not so, Nicholas.”

  When the earl made no answer, Lady Sylvia smiled and turned once more towards the stairs.

  “Perhaps I was a little hasty,” she heard the earl admit grudgingly. “I withdraw the ban, my lady. You may paint anything you fancy on my land.”

  Sylvia glanced over her shoulder at him. “I accept your apology, my lord,” she said, “but only if I may return to the cliffs.”

  The earl hesitated, his face suddenly grim.

  “Oh, Nicholas, do say yes,” Mrs. Hargate exclaimed from where she stood at the foot of the stairs. “Only see this fascinating portrait Lady Sylvia has done of the local legend.”

  Lord Longueville moved—almost reluctantly, Sylvia noted—to stand beside his aunt. He stared at the picture for a long time; then he swore under his breath and, without a word, turned and strode out of the room, leaving the two women to stare after him.

  Sylvia slowly let out her breath. Her gaze returned to the pale scene she had whimsically entitled Mysterious Lady by Moonlight. Two violet eyes looked back at her, filled with ambiguous emotions. Was it defiance? Sylvia wondered. Or triumph perhaps? She remembered attempting to capture a mixture of both emotions while she worked on the portrait.

  In the dim light of the staircase, Sylvia suddenly had the eerie sensation that the expression in the countess’s staring eyes was neither defiance nor triumph. It was fear.

  Chapter Seven

  The First Clue

  The following morning, as Lady Sylvia rode into Helston to collect the art supplies she had ordered a month since, she mulled over the earl’s strange behavior of the afternoon before.

  Mrs. Lydia Hargate had appeared as startled as Sylvia by her nephew’s abrupt departure.

  “Poor Nicholas,” she murmured as they watched the earl’s tall figure disappear from sight. “1 suspect he is still grieving for Angelica. Even after all these years he cannot seem to put the specter of her death behind him.”

  “But that tragedy happened ten years ago,” Sylvia murmured. “I would expect the pain to have diminished by now.”

  “Oh, I cannot speak for Nicholas, of course,” Mrs. Hargate said as they climbed slowly to the attic studio on the third floor, “but my own experience tells me that certain kinds of pain haunt one forever. I still remember, as vividly as though it happened yesterday, the afternoon they carried my eldest son, Luke, back to the Castle, bruised and broken beyond recognition.”

  Sylvia heard a catch in her guest’s voice and recalled that the death of the countess was not the only tragedy to haunt the cliffs around Longueville Castle. Ten or more years before the earl brought his bride to Cornwall, Lady Marguerite had told her, his favorite cousin had fallen from the cliffs during a game of hide- and-seek. Young Morley had been one of those who carried the battered boy back to the Castle.

  Summer festivities had been abruptly cancelled after the service in the ancient Longueville chapel, with all the neighborhood in at

  tendance. Had there been rumors of foul play in that tragedy, too? Sylvia wondered. Familiar with the superstitious nature of the local inhabitants, she would not be surprised, although Aunt Marguerite had never mentioned it.

  Sylvia had visited the chapel and committed its austere beauty to canvas several times during her stay at Whitecliffs. She knew it had been built by the first Norman baron who received the land and English fortress as a reward for services to William, Duke of Normandy. She had that first baron’s likeness on canvas, too, inspired initially by the blurred features of a harsh-faced man with a full beard discovered in the Long Gallery at Longueville. She had named it The Invader.

  “What a shocking experience for you,” Sylvia murmured, trying to imagine what it was like to lose the son she would never have. “Sudden death in one so young is indeed a tragedy,” she added, stating the obvious. “And then the young countess, not yet eighteen, I understand, came to a similar...”

  “Oh, I was not at Longueville when that happened,” Mrs. Har- gate interrupted, and Sylvia thought she detected a nuance of disapproval in her tone. “I never came back to Cornwall after Luke’s death. Until now, of course. The place held too many painful memories for me. It still does, if you want the truth, my dear. But not on account of Angelica. I hardly knew the gel, you see. They were married in London, and Nicholas brought her to Bath on their way down to Cornwall. He has always been quite my favorite nephew.” Sylvia was itching to ask if Mrs. Hargate thought her favorite nephew had done away with his lovely bride, but she could hardly expect a doting aunt to admit such a thing. Instead she changed the subject.

  “I am sorry his lordship was upset by my Mysterious Lady. I should have explained to him that the romantic combined with the tragic is irresistible for a painter. The death of beauty is inherently tragic, of course, but when it occurs under such mysterious circumstances, the artistic imagination takes certain liberties.”

  Mrs. Hargate sniffed. “And your imagination was influenced by that silly tale of the ghost rider on the cliffs during the full moon, my dear. An unlikely story, if you will forgive me for saying so.” Sylvia smiled. “I tend to agree with you, ma’am, although many villagers swear to have seen the mystery lady riding along the cliff top on her white horse.”

  “Poppycock!” Mrs. Hargate exclaimed sharply. “It never ceases to amaze me what ignorant minds are capable of inventing. Pure superstition it is, of course, never doubt it, my dear.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” Sylvia conceded, wondering how she might broach the other tale that still circulated among the earl’s tenants concerning his lordship’s role in his young bride’s death.

  Before she could introduce the topic without being offensive, Mrs. Hargate did it for her.

  “And if you are thinking there is any more truth in that malicious rumor regarding poor Nicholas having a hand in the accident—and accident it undoubtedly was, regardless of what you may have heard—then you are as addle-pated as that prosy Huntsville fellow,” Mrs. Hargate declared heatedly. “I confess I was mortified beyond endurance to hear the rogue give credence to what is nothing but gossip spread by peasants.”

  “Did you know that Sir Geo
ffrey composed a narrative poem in the Italian style on the tragedy? Needless to say, that gave shape and substance to the rumors, which have since become a legend around here.”

  Mrs. Hargate looked alarmed. “I trust that gapeseed has the good sense not to read such nonsense at the memorial service next month,” she said uneasily. “I understand Reverend Rawson is determined to continue to celebrate the anniversary of Angelica’s demise. Nicholas is quite capable of pounding that pompous nose of his into a pulp,” she added with unmistakable relish.

  Taking that unflattering remark about noses to refer to Sir Geoffrey’s admittedly large appendage, Sylvia smiled. “The vicar has done so every year since the accident,” she said diplomatically. “I do not always attend, since I never met the countess myself, but my aunt never misses it if the weather is fine.”

  Sylvia got the distinct impression from the silence following this remark that Mrs. Hargate was not one of the Countess of Longueville’s many admirers.

  As she entered the village and made her way towards Connan’s Book Shop, Sylvia made a mental note to find out why.

  When Sylvia finally stepped across the narrow threshold of the small but well-stocked shop, the clock in the church tower was striking eleven. She had been forced to make an unscheduled visit to Mr. Gordon, the blacksmith, when she detected, from the uneven clatter of her horse’s hooves on the cobbled street, that Grey- boy had cast a shoe.

  Interpreting the smithy’s assurances that he would have the horse ready for her in a jiffy to mean at least an hour, Lady Sylvia walked the short distance into the center of the village.

  “My dear Lady Sylvia,” George Connan gushed effusively as soon as he saw her, rubbing his thin hands together as though he had been stung by an army of ants, “how delightful to welcome you to my humble little shop.”