by Gaelen Foley
Derek stared at him in shock. In all his life, he had never heard of his ultra-responsible elder brother shirking his duties. “But, Gabriel, you’re the firstborn.”
“So? It’s not like there’s a title to consider. Father can leave his fortune to either of us. I’ve spoken to him and he’s agreed to my plans. I had Charles Beecham draw up the papers. All you have to do is sign—and then, congratulations. You can be the firstborn, so to speak. I hope it pleases Lily. And her mother,” he added ruefully.
“Gabriel, why are you doing this?” Derek asked in deepening worry. “This is your birthright. I can’t possibly take it away from you. Have you lost your wits?”
“No, of course not. I’ve never been saner in my life. Will you do it or not?”
“Well, I will do whatever you ask of me, but—” His words broke off, for he was thoroughly stymied.
Obviously, this would change his situation, his future prospects. He would draw a larger income from the family’s holdings, one that could support a wife and children much more lavishly. As the designated heir to a nabob as rich as Lord Arthur Knight, all the merchants in England would give him virtually unlimited credit. He could live as he liked, and he knew how to manage the finances every bit as well as Gabriel did.
But he couldn’t help frowning. “Is this your way of trying to rescue your little brother once again?”
“No. Well, maybe in part.”
“Gabriel—”
“Derek, I want you to do this for me. You don’t understand. I have more pressing matters to attend to. I can’t be burdened with all of these material concerns.”
“What’s going on?”
He waited for some other guests to pass by to avoid being overheard and then leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You were there when I was struck by the arrow. You saw what happened to me.” Gabriel stared at him with feverish urgency.
“Yes.”
“Death came for me,” he said barely audibly, “but I slipped through his fingers. There has to be a reason why. There is something I’m supposed to do. I can feel it. But I don’t know what it is yet. I have to find it. I have to be ready. There is some new fate in store for me, and when the time comes, when it reveals itself, I will have to be ready to go. I cannot have these worldly impediments weighing me down.”
“Go where? I don’t understand.”
Gabriel’s stare intensified. “Into the light.”
“Oh, God—”
“Derek, my death was only postponed—”
“Don’t talk like that! Your end will not come about for another forty years!”
“Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that next time, I intend to be ready.”
“What do you mean?” he asked uneasily.
“Derek. This is what I didn’t want to tell you when you were still hell-bent on being a soldier. When I died—”
“Gabriel.”
“When I died,” he repeated insistently, “I caught a glimpse of the place where I was going. And let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”
Derek’s eyes widened.
Gabriel leaned closer. “I was shown all the death that I had dealt out in the field of battle, all the agony I had caused my fellow man, the blood I spilled. I have renounced it. All of it.”
Derek swallowed hard, wondering if Gabriel’s vision could be real.
“My mind is made up. I have put down my sword. I will not fight again, and I have no use for these worldly possessions. You have married. I will not.”
“You’re giving up women, too?” he exclaimed.
“My fate is coming, Derek.” His brother grasped both of his shoulders and stared fiercely into his eyes. “If you don’t understand this, no one will. Somehow I have to clear the slate. I’ve been given a second chance to make up for all the blood I’ve spilled, and when my destiny presents itself, I must not hesitate. You must take care of Father and Georgie and the others. Promise me.”
Derek eyed him warily. “You can count on me, but—are you sure about this?”
“Dead sure.”
“Very well, then. I will do as you ask.”
Gabriel smiled guardedly and gave him a nod of thanks. Relief flickered in the depths of his dark blue eyes. He walked away abruptly, and as Derek watched him vanish into the crowd of guests, he could only wonder uneasily if his idolized brother was a little mad after his ordeal—or all too sane.
Lily had hoped that the picture-perfect weather on the day she brought her husband home would have shown off Balfour Manor in the most favorable light. But as they got out of the carriage, the brilliant sunshine had the opposite effect, illuminating every flaw and bringing its decrepit truth to light.
Her heart sank a bit as she gazed at her home after having been away long enough to view it with fresh eyes.
It was a sad and gloomy place.
She looked askance at Derek, cringing to see what his reaction might be. He studied it with a trace of worry in the quirked set of his lips. She’d be worried, too, if she were in his shoes. As the new man of the house, all her family’s headaches rested on his broad shoulders now.
“It actually looks better in the fog,” she said.
“Hm.”
“What do you think?”
He turned to her with a smile of slightly forced enthusiasm. “Picturesque.”
“Well, it’s not exactly the Pulteney Hotel.”
He quivered. “God, don’t mention that place. You’ll get me started,” he murmured.
She laughed wickedly as he put his arm around her shoulders. When he ducked his head to whisper a low growl into her ear, Lily would have blushed if she were still able to, but she had lost that ability sometime during their honeymoon.
Ah yes, she still recalled every detail of the glittering suite that Derek had reserved for their three-night stay at London’s most exclusive grand hotel.
If it were not for the fine room service, they’d have surely starved, for they had barely left the bed.
On the fourth morning, she had emerged from their hotel room a vastly more experienced lover, having had her introduction to the Tantric arts. Breath and energy, chakras and complicated positions inspired by yoga. In short, the erotic mysteries of the East were not all that mysterious anymore.
Although Lily had relished her husband’s masterful control, she was well aware that he had learned these delectable skills for the same reason he had once believed that he must attain fortune and glory in order to win his chosen lady’s love. But his chosen lady loved him well before she had ever heard of the Kama Sutra, and so all his study might as well have been in vain—except that it was an extremely pleasant way to spend a night.
Beside her, Derek took a deep breath and braced himself, still staring at the house as though it were a Hindu fortress he had been ordered to storm and conquer. He gave Lily a brave squeeze around her shoulders. “Let’s go.”
Derek refused to flinch when he saw the house.
He told himself it wasn’t half as bad as he had expected.
It was worse.
He met the staff, who came outside to greet them: a lovelorn footman who seemed to worship Lady Clarissa, an ancient groundskeeper who looked like he might keel over at any moment, a plump terse housekeeper, and an exhausted-looking maid. He gave them each twenty sovereigns, which included their back pay and a good deal extra for their loyalty. They nearly broke down in tears.
Doing his best to hearten them, he suggested to Lily a stroll around the grounds and into the village after the long carriage ride. She hastily agreed, perhaps not overly eager for him to view the interior yet.
He was dreading it, but there would be time for a thorough inspection of the place. Soon he would figure out just what he was dealing with. It was not encouraging, if the stable was any sign of things to come. The dilapidated barn was barely fit for a goat, but Mary Nonesuch and the black stallion accepted the indignity without complaint.
Lily, Aunt Daisy, and Cousin Pamela—who still knew no
thing of his visit to John Murray, Publisher—escorted them down the two little streets that comprised their tiny village. They stopped at the church, where they paid their respects at her grandfather’s grave. Lily pointed to her father’s monument, though she said his body had been interred in India.
Meanwhile, Aunt Daisy drifted over to stand by a third Balfour headstone. Derek walked over to her and wondered why she had tears in her eyes. Then he looked at the grave and saw it read Davy Balfour, 1796–1816. Beloved son. He winced, noting the year and short span of the lad’s life, barely twenty when he had died.
Derek put his arm around Aunt Daisy’s plump shoulders and gave her a kiss on the head.
“I am so sorry,” he said softly. No wonder she was always such a wreck.
He was beginning to think that all these Balfour ladies needed rescuing.
“My little boy.” Aunt Daisy leaned her head against his shoulder with a small sniffle. “You and Lily be sure and have lots of sons for me to play with, won’t you?”
“I assure you, my dear, we are already hard at work on the matter.”
Aunt Daisy laughed at his sober tone and smacked him, which he deserved. But having restored a bit of a smile to her face, he let the ladies lead on back toward the grounds.
Lily gazed at him in tender thanks.
His air of calm assurance did not waver, although the interior of the house proved just as dark and dismal as he had expected.
For the following fortnight, Derek strove to get his arms around the whole of the renovation project, inspecting the manor from its damp root cellar to its bat-infested attic, from its sinking foundations to its holey roof and half-rotted beams. The crumbling mortar of all twenty fireplaces needed replacing. In several of them, the bricks had already caved in. Water damage had stained and warped the plaster throughout the top floor where everyone had their bedrooms. No wonder poor Pamela was constantly sneezing, with all of the mold.
Modern water closets and kitchen plumbing would eventually have to be installed to make the place properly inhabitable. They were also in desperate need of a new stable and outbuildings.
Agricultural improvements throughout the acreage would be required to make the fields productive again. The ground wasn’t even ready for oats and barley yet.
The few tenants, long left to fend for themselves, came to complain to him that their cottages also needed mending.
Once Derek grasped the full magnitude of all the problems at Balfour Manor, he had to take deep breaths to restore his calm. What the hell was he supposed to do?
Yes, his prospects had improved considerably as Lord Arthur’s newly designated heir, but he had to be responsible. He was not about to burn through his father’s entire fortune, which was what it would take to put this place to rights.
But even more disconcerting were the changes he observed in Lily. Ever since they had come here, the unhappy influence that this place exerted on his bride became more marked. Derek was worried. It was his duty to protect her, not just in body but in spirit and emotions. He did not know how he was supposed to do that in this place.
He did not know how to fight ghosts, and this crumbling manor house was full of them.
For example, every time Lily went up or down the drive, she had to pass the tree where Lord Owen Masters had first approached her. Derek had asked where that had happened, and when she showed him, he had wanted to chop the thing down, but Lily said it wasn’t as if the big, old tree had done something wrong. “It does not deserve a death sentence, Derek.” Of course. It was only a tree.
Maybe so, but when Derek looked at its knobby old trunk, he saw the faces of ghouls grinning at him, ghouls who preyed on little girls.
That was the first moment that he knew deep down in his survivor’s core that he had to get her out of here. This eerie place had her under its spell, and somehow he had to save her.
Then there was the sad, pathetic ruin of the garden folly that her father had left unfinished for his daughter—another painful memory that she had to face every day. If Langdon Balfour were alive, Derek would have liked to punch him in his aristocratic nose. The garden folly was just one more thing Derek wanted to fix for Lily, to help rebuild and mend her heart. For his part, he would make sure the job was finished this time, and done properly.
But for now, he debated with himself on what to do.
It could not be good for Lily to have to see, every day, these constant reminders of the losses and betrayals she had suffered. Yet the most damaging influence of all came from her mother. By God, he thought, Lily should not be anywhere near that harpy except for the briefest possible visits. The woman was poisonous.
Working on her embroidery in the drawing room, Lady Clarissa would send small jabs of insult and criticism at her daughter all the day long, intimidating Lily and wielding the weapon of guilt on everyone around her. For God’s sake, why wouldn’t the girl stand up for herself?
Though Lady Clarissa didn’t dare try her tricks on him, Derek was careful about intervening—he knew quite well that to offend a first-rate manipulator like her would only end up making him look like the villain somehow. But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could bite his tongue, seeing what all this was doing to his wife.
Subjected each day to her mother’s cruel comments and this place, and the Gothic weight of the past that permeated Balfour Manor, Lily grew quieter, more subdued, withdrawn. Every day she seemed like someone more removed from the fearless goddess who had saved him from the stable fire. She had become almost mousy. It was difficult to watch. His beautiful wife was becoming a hollow-eyed stranger.
To Derek, it would have been easier to nurse her through a bout of the flu. This inward infirmity in her he did not know how to heal.
He knew he had to get her out of here before she faded away like a ghost herself. He had to save her, break her out of this cage and free her, just like she had done for him.
But the cure he had in mind—well, he thought grimly, she wasn’t going to like it.
In fact, she was going to hate it. She might even end up hating him. But so be it. He would do whatever was necessary to protect her. That was his most sacred vow.
His mind made up, Derek wrote to Charles Beecham to get the wheels in motion for the sale of Balfour Manor.
He did not know yet when or how he would tell Lily they’d be moving soon—to wherever she fancied.
He only knew he had to save his wife.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
The ghost of guilt, familiar guilt, whispered its silent curses in her ear later that night as Lily watched her weary husband drag himself into their bedroom, his big, strong body moving slowly, stiffly, after another sixteen-hour day of backbreaking work.
Waiting in her bed for him, dressed in a sleeveless white chemise, Lily watched him, privately stricken to see what she was putting him through.
Although dauntless Derek never uttered a complaint—indeed, he seemed to be taking it in stride—still, he must think that marrying her was akin to indentured servitude or a sentence of hard labor in the penal colonies of Australia.
He peeled off his dirty work clothes and washed himself without a word.
Soldiering on.
Lily felt the sting of tears behind her eyes and had to blink them back. Oh, what was she doing to him?
When he came over and sat on the edge of the bed, she knelt behind him and rubbed his shoulders, kissing his neck in wordless apology. He sighed as she worked out a knot at the base of his neck.
He didn’t have to say it. She knew he hated it here and soon he’d probably start to hate her, too.
She could tell he was not happy. How could he be, working like a dog, subjected to all the tension of life around Lady Clarissa? By now, Derek was probably wondering why he had married her, and coming home to Balfour Manor, remembering the sorry little person she had always been here, Lily had begun to wonder that herself. How had someone as flawed as she managed to snare such a god for a hu
sband, anyway?
Derek had promised he wasn’t going to return to India, but by now he was probably wishing he could. A part of her was terrified, perhaps irrationally, that he was going to leave her, after all, just like her father.
“You all right?” he murmured, reaching up to clasp her hand on his shoulder as if he could hear her churning thoughts.
Lily paused. “I’m fine,” she said in a tentative tone. Whining would only make her look worse. “How are you?”
“I’ve been better,” he admitted with a weary smile in his voice.
“Oh, Derek,” she breathed, sliding her arms around his neck. She held him; he leaned his head against her cheek.
“Mm?”
I’m so sorry for all this. She stroked his long hair, pondering her unformed questions, then moved back and let him lay his head on her lap, caressing his cheek and his chest. She took a deep breath. “What’s on for tomorrow? Pamela and I want to help.”
“Oh, God.” He groaned to be reminded of it. “Some fire hazard in the kitchens has to be taken care of first. But the most important thing is that tomorrow night I’ve got to patch up those roof holes where the bats got in.”
“At night?”
“You have to do it at night while they’re out flapping around, so, that way, when they come home in the morning, they can’t get back inside.”
“How clever.”
He smiled sagely.
She stared at him for a long moment, feeling as if her heart would burst. “Darling, I’m so sorry about all this,” she blurted out. “And I’m sorry about Mother. I know she’s driving you mad. She’s just used to ruling the roost, you see? And now you’re here and she can’t push you around and she doesn’t know what to do.”
“I just don’t like seeing her intimidate you.” Derek laid his hand on her knee. “I know she hurts you, darling. She’s been beating you down for years with her fault-finding, hasn’t she?” he asked tenderly.
“I’ve learned to know when to ignore her.”
“But you shouldn’t have to live that way,” he protested in a soft tone, looking into her eyes. “There is nothing about you that deserves unkind words. Lily, I love you. When I married you, I took a vow to protect you, not just in body, but in spirit, too. If she’s going to be nothing but a harmful influence, there’s going to come a point where I’ve got to say, no more.”