Dark Obsession

by Allison Chase

‘‘Now, Milly, Nora says it wasn’t her, and I believe her.’’

  ‘‘Thank you, Papa.’’

  ‘‘You’re welcome, child. You’re a good girl and I never doubted you. But London will—make no mistake. And if you think to escape by running off to Paris, think again. Scandals are fleet of foot, my dear. This one will arrive in any city of consequence long before you’ve even packed your bags. No, the only way to diffuse the barrage is for you to marry—marry well and marry swift.’’

  ‘‘Yes, but with whom? A butcher’s son?’’ Millicent shut her eyes and groaned as if about to be ill. ‘‘After all my efforts to see her well connected . . .’’

  ‘‘No, my dearest, she’ll not marry a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. Our Nora will have her nobleman yet, for I believe I know just the man we seek.’’

  ‘‘Who?’’ Nora and her mother exclaimed as one.

  ‘‘Sir Grayson Lowell.’’

  A gasp flew from Nora’s lips, but Papa didn’t notice. No, he was too busy leaping from his chair and running to aid his wife, slumped over onto the table in a dead faint for the second time that day.

  Grayson stood at the edge of the headland, renamed Tom’s Tumble by the villagers, as if this outcropping of dirt and stone confronting the Atlantic Ocean were a site of frolicsome sport rather than a place of death and the personal hell it had become for him. But even to those who had devised the moniker, the term held no jest; it was merely a simple, grim remembrance of what had occurred here nearly a year ago.

  Squinting against the winds shuddering off the water, he peered out at the whitecaps riding the sea like ghosts on a midnight gale. His brother, Thomas, Earl of Clarington—dead these many months. Right from this spot he had slipped, among the heather and gorse and bluebell, on a sparkling summer’s day, a day the ocean shone so bright it seemed the sky itself had drifted to earth in a billowing waft of silk.

  The sun hadn’t shown its weary face since, or so it seemed to Grayson. No, a perpetual dusk had descended over Blackheath Grange that day, over the hills, the moors and the sea. Over him. And over ten-year-old Jonathan, orphaned and silent ever since, little more now than a shadow and a huge pair of eyes that slid over Grayson to imprint his guilt deeper and deeper still. . . .

  He backed away from the cliff, intending to head home. He’d found no answers here, not that he’d expected any. Tom was dead and it was his fault. His.

  The knowledge fanned an ember inside his chest, a constant, searing reminder of those last awful days. . . . The despicable words Grayson had blurted upon his discovery that the estate was bankrupt, the Lowell family nearly penniless. Grayson might have offered his understanding, his compassion, his assistance in rectifying his elder brother’s disastrous financial decisions. Instead he’d . . .

  Young Jonny was earl now, but of what? An empty title, a shell of an estate. And who to look after him but his shell of an uncle, haunted, guilt ridden and shriveled of heart.

  ‘‘Ah, Tom, forgive me. . . . Forgive me. . . .’’

  A thrash of his heart tore the whispered words apart. A chill slithered beneath his skin, raked the hairs on his arms and neck. He whipped around to view the headland behind him, gripped by a sense of being watched.

  Again.

  Pulse lashing in his wrists, he scanned the rocks and wildflowers, the hillocks that cast craggy shadows into the grassy hollows. Once more he felt the oppressive weight of a presence that watched him, that seemed always to hover just over his shoulder.

  Limbs trembling, he raised a reluctant gaze to the more distant trees. In their summer-heavy branches he saw movement, an assemblage of shape and form that was not tree, not shadow, neither solid substance nor a figment of the wind.

  And it was, indeed, watching. As it had twice before.

  ‘‘Thomas?’’

  Dread pooled thick in his throat, cutting off breath. His legs fell out from beneath him and he landed on his knees in the weeds, head slumped between his shoulders. His right hand fisted, and as though to yank the pain from his being he rent purple blossoms from the earth.

  But the pain and the horror of that day had become his boon companions. What would he be without them? His quaking fingers opened, offering a token to the wind.

  The flowers spiraled from his palm and soared above the water as if intent on meeting the gulls and cormorants flapping over the tossing waves. But the breeze faltered and the flowers dipped, disappearing over the cliff to float gently to the rocks below.

  Tom hadn’t floated gently down. No, he’d . . .

  Grayson sucked a breath through his teeth and stumbled to his feet. He stared into the trees and saw nothing, not even the trees themselves; only shadows and emptiness. Had he truly seen something or merely taken a glimpse inside himself?

  Sleep. He sorely needed some, but ever since that day he hadn’t been able to steal more than two or three hours’ slumber at a time, and restless ones at that.

  Slowly the breath began moving freely in and out of his lungs. His vision cleared. His resolve, like the apparition itself, reaffirmed and took shape inside him.

  ‘‘I’m going to marry her, Tom. For Jonathan’s sake. Her dowry will restore the Grange and the earldom and give your son a future—the grand one he deserves. He’ll have everything a boy can want. And he’ll never know how close we came to losing everything. That’s my promise, Tom. I swear it on my life.’’

  Ah, such paltry security for his pledge. For what worth did his life hold now? Soon to be shackled to a woman he didn’t know, much less love. And while the optimist might hope love would grow over time, Grayson held no such illusion.

  He had appealed to Zachariah Thorngoode for a loan. He’d come away with unlimited funds. . . . And betrothed to the man’s daughter.

  London’s notorious Painted Paramour, as the ton had dubbed her. Rumor held her to be bold enough to make the most seasoned demimonde blush. He deserved her. They deserved each other. A sardonic chuckle broke from his lips.

  Ah, what a glorious couple they would make.

  Grayson alighted from his curricle just beyond the front steps of the Earl of Wycliffe’s Park Lane town house. Raising a gloved hand, he adjusted his beaver hat and stepped onto the pavement. ‘‘You needn’t wait,’’ he said to his driver. ‘‘I’ll more than likely stay the night.’’

  If not, he’d walk home to Clarington House, a mere half dozen streets away. His driver nodded and clucked to the matching grays.

  ‘‘Should tonight go badly,’’ Grayson added under his breath as he watched the gig recede, ‘‘I don’t know how much longer you’ll be in my employ.’’

  But how could the evening be anything less than an unqualified success? He was here at his closest friend’s home to officially offer for Honora Thorngoode, a little farce they would play out for appearance’s sake. Never mind that all of London knew the truth of it: theirs was a union fashioned out of desperation and nothing more.

  Thorngoode had assured him of his daughter’s hand, insisted she was delighted with the match. Of course, that was merely another way of saying there could be no backing out for the chit, not with her reputation in such tatters. Nor could there be for him, not with Jonathan’s future equally laid to waste.

  He placed his foot on the bottom step, then went utterly still. From the dark void of the park across the street, a strange hissing rode the wind. He heard it sift through the branches overhead, felt it scour the street. Beneath his clothing, his flesh prickled. From a chilling wisp of breeze, an eerie murmur uncurled.

  Gray . . .

  He clenched the railing. ‘‘Who’s there?’’

  His eyes strained in the darkness. In the fog prowling Hyde Park’s lawns, did he see . . . ?

  No. There was no one. Nothing. No gathering of shadows, no eyes glaring in accusation. Merely branches fluttering in the mist.

  As the thumping of his heart ebbed, he stood a moment longer, relieved the swirls held no hint of anything more sinister than a London nig
ht typically contained. He’d heard the wind, not words. Foolish of him to believe it could be anything more.

  It had only ever happened at Blackheath Grange, if indeed it had happened at all. What had he seen that day on the bluff or those other times in the house? Shifting shadows, a trick of the light. Or was he going mad?

  The grind of coach wheels halted his speculation. Could this be his betrothed? He held his breath, waiting with clenched stomach.

  A barouche drawn by no fewer than three matched pairs, their glossy coats a continuation of the vehicle’s lustrous black lacquer, turned the corner and ambled in his direction. Some four houses away, the coach came to an abrupt stop. The driver remained stiffly at attention in the box.

  Grayson exhaled, a long and deep release. Surely if that barouche carried the Thorngoodes they would have pulled up in front of Wycliffe House rather than linger halfway down the street. Good. He didn’t wish to meet her here, in the dark emptiness of the street; he would far rather be inside among familiar surroundings, with his longtime friend at hand.

  Oddly, though, the coach seemed to be trembling on its wheels, was presently listing back and forth as though an altercation were taking place inside. The horses pawed the road fitfully. From inside came muffled voices but no screams, no shouts for help.

  With a sigh, he mounted the town house steps two at a time. Soft lamplight spilled from the windows; the muffled sound of voices seeped through the door. His nerves settling, he raised the brass knocker and let it fall with a resounding clang.

  ‘‘Good heavens, can that be him?’’ Nora pressed her nose to the barouche window as she peered down the street at the man standing on the steps of Wycliffe House. ‘‘Is that the man I must marry?’’

  The front door opened just then, spilling golden light onto the figure silhouetted on the threshold. In a top hat and a two-tiered cloak that billowed languidly around him, he was a study in shades of black— charcoal, ebony, raven’s wing, obsidian—forbidding and devoid of light, yet as fascinating as a fitful dream.

  She could make out no distinct details, only lean, graceful lines, broad and tall, filling the doorway with an aristocratic confidence she could never hope to emulate. As he stepped inside, his cape eddied in an inky wave behind him. He seemed . . . otherworldly, a phantom born of Hyde Park’s mists, here to sample human pleasures before returning to vapor at dawn.

  Those night mists had always frightened her as a child; she had always wondered what mysteries lay hidden within. . . . What secrets, what sins.

  What dangers . . .

  ‘‘Is that Grayson Lowell?’’ she whispered, wondering what lay hidden beneath the gentleman’s exterior.

  Her father leaned over her shoulder to follow her gaze. ‘‘Aye, that looks to be him.’’

  A sinister little chill raised gooseflesh down her back.

  ‘‘Stop the coach.’’ She rapped twice on the ceiling, their driver’s signal to rein in the team.

  ‘‘What the blazes are you doing?’’ Her mother reached up and knocked once, the signal to drive on. The horses lurched into motion.

  Nora just as quickly countermanded that order with a second series of raps. The horses stopped, started, stopped again as she and her mother waged a battle against the coach ceiling.

  ‘‘That will be quite enough. This little game is far from amusing.’’

  ‘‘Nor is it meant to be, Mama.’’ No, something inside her—instinct, intuition or perhaps merely her heart’s desire—had dug in its heels. ‘‘I’m not going through with this. There is no reason for me to meet this man tonight because I am not going to marry him. And there’s an end to it.’’

  ‘‘Don’t be ridiculous. The Earl of Wycliffe has graciously lent his home for the occasion. One does not keep an earl waiting, Honora.’’

  ‘‘Make my apologies.’’ She reached for the door handle. ‘‘And don’t worry about me. I shall hail a hackney.’’

  She succeeded in opening the door an inch or two before her father’s fingers encircled her wrist, holding her gently but fast. ‘‘Use your head, girl. Without this marriage there’s no future for you.’’

  And what future would she have with a murderer? She didn’t say the words aloud, but her father nonetheless seemed to read her mind. Holding her gaze, he said evenly, ‘‘Have you been listening to the same gossips that branded you a fallen woman?’’

  With a gasp, her mother snapped open her fan and whisked it back and forth in front of her face.

  Zachariah stilled her with his free hand. ‘‘Both claims are hogwash, Milly, so don’t work yourself into yet another lather. Lowell’s no more a killer than our Nora is compromised.’’

  The coach door hovered partly open, wavering back and forth as Nora considered her father’s assertion. Most gossip constituted nothing more than the imaginings of the bored and idle. She of all people understood that. Still . . .

  ‘‘How can you be so sure about him, Papa?’’

  ‘‘The magistrate declared him innocent.’’

  SUSPICION MARKS THE EARL OF CLARINGTON’S DEATH. HIS OWN BROTHER UNDERGOES QUESTIONING. . . . Last summer’s scandal sheets had brimmed with the sensational details. But no conclusions.

  ‘‘He wouldn’t be the first nobleman to get away with murder.’’

  Her father grasped her chin and turned her face to his. His dark eyes penetrated the shadows, searing in their intensity. ‘‘I’ve met Grayson Lowell and I can vouch for him. He is not a murderer. It isn’t in him. I would know if it were. A murderer’s black heart reflects in his eyes, but Lowell’s eyes are clear.’’

  Her forearms prickled; the hairs on her nape rose. It was said Grayson Lowell never denied the crime, that he’d had little to say during the investigation. It was said the magistrate exonerated him because there simply hadn’t been enough evidence to place Sir Grayson at the scene of the death.

  Part of her wished to demand how her father knew exactly what to look for in a man’s eyes to judge his innocence or the lack of it. But to ask would be to pry into things about Papa’s past she didn’t wish to know. Perhaps couldn’t bear knowing.

  ‘‘Goodness, Nora, all this fuss.’’ Fingering the sapphire and diamond necklace around her neck, her mother tsked. ‘‘After all that’s happened, you should be grateful a nobleman will have you. A baronet, knighted for his services to the poor. So he’s got a bit of a past. What nobleman doesn’t have a skeleton or two rattling about in his closet?’’

  True enough, he’d earned his knighthood for helping establish schools for Cornwall’s poor. All well and good, but her mother’s blithe dismissal of the rest made her eyes go wide with disbelief. ‘‘How many of those skeletons happen to be the nobleman’s brother?’’

  ‘‘Oh, drivel-dravel. Your father has arranged a brilliant match, all things considered. Stop complaining and do as we ask.’’

  It wasn’t her mother’s peevish command that convinced her to release the door handle and rap once on the ceiling. It was her father’s quiet entreaty.

  "Trust me, Nora.’’

  At those simple words, the storm inside her quieted. Papa had once been a criminal—that much she knew—and God alone knew what secrets he carried within him. But to her he had never been anything but kind, loving and completely straightforward.

  If Zachariah Thorngoode said Grayson Lowell was not a murderer, then by God, she could wager her finest sable paintbrush that the Earl of Clarington died by far less sinister means.

  She hoped.

  ‘‘All right, Papa.’’ She drew a breath. ‘‘You win. I’ll marry him.’’

  ‘‘There’s my bonnie good girl.’’

  Yes, but then she wasn’t Zachariah Thorngoode’s daughter for nothing. She’d marry Grayson Lowell, but she would do so on her own terms, as the man would very shortly discover.

  Chapter 2

  Grayson was about to knock again when the paneled oak door creaked open a few circumspect inches. The butler’s stern face appeared
in the gap. ‘‘Ah, Sir Grayson. Good evening.’’ He swung the door wide. ‘‘Do come in, sir.’’

  Grayson smiled as he stepped into the foyer. ‘‘Good evening, Harris. Why so vigilant?’’

  ‘‘One can never be too careful, sir.’’ The elderly man gave a disdainful sniff as he went on to explain, ‘‘There have been vagrants about of late. His lordship has issued the strictest instructions not to admit anyone who appears the least bit suspicious.’’

  ‘‘I’m sure the earl is quite safe with you at hand.’’

  ‘‘Indeed, sir.’’

  The mingled aromas of roasting meats, tangy sauces and sweet desserts wafted from below stairs, stirring an appetite Grayson had not thought he would experience tonight. He swung his cloak into Harris’s waiting arms, then added his top hat and gloves to the bundle. ‘‘Is his lordship in the drawing room?’’

  ‘‘His lordship is right here.’’ Chadwell Rutherford, Earl of Wycliffe, stopped halfway down the staircase, one manicured hand resting on the banister, the other curled in a fist on his hip. Light from the chandelier above him picked out gold glimmers in his freshly trimmed hair. He raised one slightly darker eyebrow and grinned. ‘‘I’d all but given you up for lost. What the blazes kept you?’’

  Grayson frowned. ‘‘Kept me? I was about to apologize for being unforgivably early. In fact, I’d rather hoped there’d be sufficient time for my host to offer me a fortifying brandy before feeding me to the wolves.’’

  ‘‘The wolves should be here any moment, and they’re sure to be hungry. Ravenous enough, in fact, to find even the sorry likes of you palatable.’’

  ‘‘You’re enjoying this, you insufferable swine.’’ Grayson started up the stairs.

  ‘‘Enjoying watching you land yourself a stunning little package of wealth and wit?’’ Chad shrugged. ‘‘I’ll admit I shan’t weep for you, my friend, though I do understand what’s causing you to dig in your heels. No man likes to feel dragooned. Why not try pretending this was all your idea, rather than Thorngoode’s?’’

  When Grayson reached his lifelong friend, he stopped and faced him levelly. ‘‘Remind me that I have no choice, Chad.’’