“Indeed,” Hyacinth said with a smile. “I am close with all my siblings. As the eldest, I’ve been responsible for the younger ones almost since they were born. In some ways, I rather feel more like their mother than their sister.”
“You lost your mother some time ago, then?”
She nodded.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said. The words were stiff, but she didn’t doubt his sincerity. Most people were sorry. They were sorrier still when they learned the truth of who and what her mother had been.
She didn’t want that, Hyacinth realized. She didn’t want that beautiful man to look at her with the pity so many did or the speculation of others. Neither would be welcome from him, and so she would keep those truths well hidden. “Are we very far from Dubhmara?”
“It is just over that rise. Going cross country as we are, rather than following the road along the coast, we will likely reach it before the carriage and Lady Arabella do.”
Worry gripped her then, and no small amount of shame. She’d been so busy mooning over him and what he might think of her that she’d barely spared a thought for poor Lady Arabella in her runaway coach. “You’re certain that the carriage will be fine?”
“The horses reared and bolted on the uphill portion of your journey. I daresay that incline took the wind out of them,” he offered reassuringly. “We’ll get you settled and if Lady Arabella does not arrive by that time, I will go back out and look for her myself.”
Hyacinth glanced over her shoulder at his chiseled face, so perfect it should have been intimidating. “You must send someone else. You’re soaked through, my lord, and I would not have you catch a chill from having to rescue me in the pouring rain!”
He smiled then, an upward turn of his lips just at one corner. “I am made of heartier stock than that, Miss Collier. I assure you. All will be well.”
As they crested the hill, Dubhmara rose before them. Carved of the same black stone that littered the hillsides and that made the beach beyond gleam like obsidian when the waves washed over the sand, it was imposing. No, it was terrifying. Massive towers and battlements marked it for what it had once been—a fortress.
Ian felt her stiffen in his arms. He could only pray that it was a result of her first glimpse of his rather foreboding ancestral home and not because she had discovered the rather damning effect that her nearness was having upon him. It had been far too long since he’d held a woman in the circle of his arms or smelled softly-scented hair as it brushed his cheek. He likely would have been poker-stiff even if she’d been a toad-faced shrew. But as it was, Miss Hyacinth Collier was lovely and delicate. In her speech and manner, she was all that was practical. But in her appearance, she was like some fey goddess who had fallen into his arms. It was a heady and tempting combination.
“It’s rather imposing, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice so soft that the wind almost carried it away.
He held back the sigh of relief and shifted in the saddle, trying desperately to create more space between his rampant erection and the delicious curve of her surprisingly lush bottom. “It can be. Dubhmara is a house of many secrets and most of them I have yet to learn.”
“Haven’t you lived here your whole life?”
He did laugh at that. “No, indeed. I became Lord Dumbarton quite unexpectedly. My father was the youngest of three brothers, you see. The eldest had only daughters. The second son, my uncle, had two sons, and I was a man with no prospects at all. Then my uncle’s second wife died, as did the son she birthed, of a terrible fever. And the elder two… one was killed on the Peninsula. The other—” He broke off, uncertain why he was airing all of the family’s dark and sordid secrets.
“What happened to your cousin, Lord Dumbarton, that you became heir?”
“He was not the same after the war, I was told. I did not know him well, you see. But he came home and drank heavily… too heavily. It was not a good death, Miss Collier, and it was not dignified one, suffice to say.”
“I’m terribly sorry, my lord. I should not have pried.”
“Then I should not have broached the subject at all. It was wrong of me to pique your curiosity and then refuse to satisfy it.” The moment the words escaped him, he regretted them. They conjured all sorts of images that related to satisfaction, and none of them had to do with her curiosity about his cousins.
“You’re very kind, my lord.”
But he wasn’t. He wasn’t kind at all. He was cold and selfish. Mean, cruel, unyielding, and every other terrible thing his wife had once called him. And now, Annabel was gone, too.
“Hold tight, Miss Collier. It’s a bit bumpy going down the hill,” he said, trying to keep his own dark thoughts from being evident in his voice. The young woman in his arms had done nothing wrong, after all. She should not have to pay the price of his ill temper because he was incapable of controlling it or his lustful thoughts.
Chapter Three
They’d no more than reached the house and dismounted than the sound of carriage wheels rang out in the distance. The carriage, minus one door which had apparently been lost en route, rolled up the hill and came to a stop in front of the house.
Lady Arabella hadn’t even alighted from the coach before she began issuing edicts. “This cowardly coachman wouldn’t turn about and go back for her! Poor Miss Collier is lost somewhere on the cliffs and we must send out a party to search her out at once! Oh, pray that she is not dead! Pray with all you have, Phyllida. For if that girl has come to harm on my watch, I know not what I will do!”
“I’m right here, Lady Arabella,” Hyacinth called out.
Lady Arabella poked her head out the gaping hole where a carriage door used to reside. She looked quite surprised to find her there. “But how can you be here? You fell over a cliff! I saw you!”
“I saw her, too, Cousin,” Lord Dumbarton explained. “I was only a few yards behind you on the road and saw the coachman lose control of the horses. I saw Miss Collier fall and I thought I should expend my energies on her behalf as I assumed the uphill travel would take care of the runaway horses soon enough.”
Lady Arabella let out a loud harrumph. “And so it did! The broken-down nags have barely moved beyond the pace of a snail since we made the top of the hill! I did not think we would ever get here! Tell me, dear Hyacinth, are you injured very badly?”
Hyacinth thought nothing of Lady Arabella’s rapid speech and equally frenetic change of topic. She was always thus. “I’m quite well. A few bumps and bruises, but otherwise hardy.”
“I should say not. You were unconscious when I found you. We’ll send for a doctor notwithstanding,” Lord Dumbarton said and dismounted before reaching up for her.
Hyacinth felt the same fluttering sensation within her when his hands closed over her waist as he lifted her down. It began low in her belly and then blossomed outward, like the wings of a dozen butterflies taking flight. “Th-thank you, my lord, again.”
“Let us get you inside before the fire,” he said, clearly mistaking her stammering for the effects of a chill rather than the effects of his nearness.
“Indeed, yes,” Lady Arabella said, as a footman helped her down. “The air is quite frosty out here. Why, I cannot imagine that we will not have snow soon! Just think of it, Hyacinth, all these lovely seascapes you can paint with snow surrounding them! Her watercolors are most excellent, you know? She’s very accomplished! Aren’t you, dear?”
Hyacinth glanced back at Lady Arabella whose voice sounded high and thin as she extolled Hyacinth’s own virtues. “I’d hardly say that. Lila is the true artist, after all. I only dabble. And I only do that to fill the time.”
A knowing look passed between Lady Arabella and Lord Dumbarton’s mother whom she’d been introduced to before the arrival of the carriage. The two women appeared to be conspiring with one another about something. Hyacinth dared a glance at the sharp and perfectly carved profile of the man who escorted her in and then back to the two women who trailed after them. With h
is black hair, only lightly threaded with silver, and his fierce expression, he looked like a warrior of old. Her own imagination was running away with her!
Glancing back at Lady Arabella and Lady Dumbarton who were whispering fervently with one another, suspicion bloomed in her. Surely Arabella had not betrayed her by playing matchmaker? Surely not!
Yet even as the thought occurred, Phyllida, Lady Dumbarton, eyed her son speculatively and gave a quick nod to her cousin. They were! Oh, no, no, no, no. The very minute she and Lady Arabella were alone, Hyacinth would put a stop to it. The man was a peer, after all. What on earth would he want with the dowdy, illegitimate daughter of a reprobate and a prostitute? It didn’t matter that her sister had married well. It certainly didn’t change where she’d come from, what she had seen. Marriage was not for her, and the sooner Lady Arabella and Lady Dumbarton accepted that, the better off all them would be.
Having seen Miss Collier to her room with Lady Arabella and his mother right on their heels, it was apparent to Ian precisely what the two meddling women were about. And he would have none of it.
“Mother, a word, if you would… in the library.”
“Can’t it wait, darling? I need to apprise the cook of the change in dining arrangements. I imagine that Miss Collins will want to dine in her room after the ordeal she’s been through.”
“Collier. Her name is Hyacinth Collier,” he corrected automatically.
His mother beamed at him. “So it is, dear. So it is. Charming girl. Such a pity that her arrival here was so fraught with danger and chaos! But how heroic you were to save her as you did!”
Ian was nonplussed. He was also impervious to his mother’s blatant manipulation. “I could hardly leave her to freeze to death. That doesn’t make me heroic, Mother.”
“I daresay it was heroic to her,” Phyllida replied. “She’s a charming girl, Ian. And I am very glad you found her when you did.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you plan this? Did you pay the driver to do all of this? Why else would they have stopped there such a short distance from the house? What sort of scheme are you two hatching?”
“That was my doing,” Lady Arabella said, emerging from Miss Collier’s room. “If you’re going to shout about all of this, let us at least retreat to your library, Ian, so that my companion may rest. Her injuries, as I’m sure you are aware, are quite real.”
Biting back a curse, Ian turned on his heel and marched away, the two women falling into step behind him. A footman opened the door to the library and Ian immediately dismissed the servants. He would likely be shouting and they gossiped enough already. When the door closed, he turned to face them, looking from his mother’s guilty face to Lady Arabella’s implacable one. “The two of you cannot possibly be matchmaking!”
“We’re not. Not really. And even if we were,” Phyllida said with challenge in her voice, “what would be so wrong with that?”
Ian shoved his hands into his hair. “Because I’m still married!”
“You most certainly are not,” Lady Arabella said dismissively. “Your wife has been dead for over a year… and I daresay your marriage was over long before!”
“Missing, Cousin. She has been missing for one year and I do not mean to discuss the failings of my marriage with you regardless!”
“Missing and presumed dead,” his mother added. “She’s not coming, dear. And delaying the inevitable will not change that.”
“I don’t want her to come back! God in heaven! That’s not what any of this is about!” he protested. Half of society believed him to be a murderer and the other half believed his wife to have been some sort of melancholic and misunderstood soul who suffered from hysteria and ended things herself.
“Well, of course you don’t!” Phyllida agreed quickly. “She was horrid to you. Wretched to everyone really. I can’t imagine how she feigned such a sweet temperament before the wedding and became such a bedeviling shrew after!”
“Phyllida!” Lady Arabella snapped. “The poor girl is dead. Let us not denigrate her character any further!”
Phyllida had the good grace to blush. “Quite right. Forgive me for that. Regardless, we aren’t truly matchmaking, Ian. I asked your cousin to bring someone with her that would be young and pretty and might sway you to consider that your future could be different, that might convince you to set in motion all that needs to be done to procure your freedom to wed again. I only wanted you to remember what you were missing!”
His chest tightened with a kind of rage he could barely contain. “And Miss Collier? Is she privy to your plans?”
“Certainly not!” Arabella snapped. “She would never have consented to come with me otherwise.”
“Then how did you obtain her consent?” he demanded.
Arabella looked away guiltily.
“How?” he snapped again.
“Fine!” His cousin relented less than graciously. “Miss Collier is under the impression that I have been having spells… of forgetfulness and dizziness and heart palpitations. She needn’t know that I am as hale and hearty as ever. I would not embarrass her so. And for the record, the carriage was supposed to be out of control before she nearly climbed aboard it. I would never have intentionally endangered her that way. She would have only been left alone for a bit until I could convince you to go back and collect her.”
He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. She, at least, was not a liar. The woman who’d rested in his arms, who had stirred his blood so easily, was at least innocent of such wicked machinations. “Certainly not. Leaving a young and beautiful woman alone on the roadside always has good results, Cousin! Thank heavens, she came to no serious harm. Naturally, you are both welcome to stay as long as you please, but your efforts at matchmaking and at whatever is you’re hoping to gain from all of this subterfuge will cease immediately. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Ian,” his mother acquiesced.
Her agreement was too quick, too easy.
“Arabella?” he queried. “Your word, Madam, that it will cease!”
“I will do nothing more to further our plan,” Lady Arabella agreed.
Satisfied, Ian gave a stiff, jerky nod. “I am off to change. These clothes are likely ruined and my valet will need appropriate time to mourn them. Excuse me, Mother, Cousin.”
Lady Arabella watched her cousin leave and a slight smile curved her lips. Beside her, his mother was clenching her hands like a nervous nelly, her handkerchief twisted into knots between her fingers. “Do stop taking on so, Phyllida. Really!”
Phyllida shook her head. “I told you, Arabella, that he would see through us. I’ve never been able to lie to my boy.”
“It doesn’t matter. He can see through us all he likes now. She’s here in this house, injured no less. He feels responsible for her and that is half the battle. Ian will want to check on her, to tend to her. And Hyacinth, as lovely as she is, has a quality about her that will draw him in. In fact, I daresay our work is done, my dear.”
Phyllida stared at her dumbly. “How can you say that? He just told us we are to cease any and all attempts at matchmaking!”
“And we will. Because we don’t need to make the match. We simply needed to put them both under the same roof and let the match make itself,” Arabella insisted. “Did you see the way he looked at her, Phyllida? And the way she leaned against him.”
“Well, of course she leaned against him! We all but threw her over a cliff!” Phyllida said.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen. How was I to know it would storm and that the entire plan would go awry? If we can thank our lucky stars for anything, it was that Ian was traveling back from the village as we came through!” It was a pity that poor Hyacinth had been so injured. “There is a connection between them now, Phyllida, forged by his heroics and by the enforced intimacy of riding pillion together. Your son is no saint, and for the three years of his marriage and the last year of his being a miserable widower, he has lived like a monk. I daresay, hol
ding a pretty girl in his arms for an hour will do far more for our cause than any scheme you or I could devise! We’ll let them be and see what happens… and if we have to intervene again, we will!”
“We promised him!” Phyllida protested. “He’ll be so angry!”
“Do you want your son to be happy?”
“Certainly, I do,” the other woman replied in a whining tone.
Arabella gritted her teeth. “Then our lies when we accepted his terms were simply for the greater good. We’ll see what happens over the next two days and go from there.”
Chapter Four
Ian had retreated to his rooms. His morning rides, this one interrupted by chaos and the machinations of two women who should certainly know better, were his only reprieve. The very moment he’d entered Dubhmara, the tension had returned. The anticipation.
It was not something he’d discussed, not with his mother, or his servants. In truth, it was something he had not even uttered aloud to himself. But he feared he was going mad. Either that, or he was actually being haunted by Annabel. Of the two, he could not say one was preferable to the other. Ultimately, both left him utterly unsuitable as a companion to anyone, especially a young, delicate beauty like Hyacinth Collier.
Cursing under his breath, Ian began removing the wet, mud-caked clothing that had grown increasingly more uncomfortable. His valet, Champton, entered from his dressing room and assisted him with his boots. “Your bath is prepared, my lord.”
“Thank you. See to the clothes, Champton. I won’t need further assistance until it’s time to dress for dinner.”
The valet’s eyebrows rose. He was clearly scandalized by Ian’s decision not to dress formally for the day, especially with visitors in the house.
“That will be all, Champton,” Ian said, and while he was not short or abrupt with the other man, his tone brooked no argument.
“Certainly, my lord. I’ve laid out a fresh shirt and breeches.”
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 46