Seduction Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  Adrian’s insistence that he had not fallen but had been pushed down the steps had been brushed aside as heated imagination by April and Miss Ketty.

  “Pushed you!” exclaimed Miss Ketty. “Why, I never heard anything so foolish in my life. Why would one of these fine gentlemen push you down those stairs?”

  “I didn’t say that one of them pushed me,” Adrian replied stubbornly. “I said that it felt like someone pushed me.”

  “Oh, felt like,” repeated April, rolling her eyes. “You just don’t want to admit that you stumbled over your own feet.”

  “I did not!”

  “Did too!”

  “That’s enough,” said Daphne, entering the fray. Smiling at Adrian, she added, “It doesn’t matter. You’re very lucky that all you broke was your arm.” Her smile wavered. “You could have broken your neck, you know.”

  Adrian hunched his good shoulder. “I know, but I tell you—”

  “What you’re going to tell me, young man, is that you are going to drink this draught right now and go to bed,” interrupted Miss Ketty, thrusting the laudanum under his nose. “And with no further argument.” Since his arm was aching and he knew that tone in Miss Ketty’s voice, Adrian gave in and retired.

  None of the five adults now gathered in the library had questioned Adrian’s assertion that he had been pushed, but Daphne suspected that no one had dismissed it out of hand, either. She glanced at Charles, curious as to what he was thinking. So far she’d not had a moment to speak privately with him, and she sensed that he had much to tell to her.

  “Odd doings tonight,” Marcus said abruptly, breaking into her thoughts.

  Staring at the flames bobbing on the hearth, Julian said, “Most odd.”

  Daphne put down her half finished negus, and looking at Charles, she asked quietly, “In the dark, is it possible that one of you bumped into Adrian and accidentally caused him to fall down the stairs?”

  Charles shook his head. “No. None of us touched him, even accidentally.”

  “It was no accident,” Julian said slowly.

  Charles glanced at him sharply.

  Julian met his gaze unflinchingly and said, “There is something very peculiar going on in this house, and I think it is time that you and your wife told us the truth.” He looked at Daphne. “You just happened to spy the outline of a doorway that led to the staircase?”

  Daphne flushed, her gaze flying to Charles’s. For a long second, their eyes held, and then Charles sighed and looking at Julian, said, “Nothing slips by you, does it?”

  “You forget that I’ve known you a long time. I know when you’re hiding something from me,” Julian answered, his keen gaze fixed on Charles’s face.

  “Charles, what is it?” said Nell. “Is it about Raoul?”

  “You might as well tell us,” said Marcus. He frowned. “I agree with Julian: Adrian’s fall was no accident. If you know something, you need to tell us.”

  “It has nothing to do with Raoul,” Charles muttered, almost wishing that it did. His relatives would be far more likely to accept the notion that Raoul had pushed Adrian down the steps, he thought acidly, than the idea that a ghost had done it.

  “Then for God’s sake, what is it?” demanded Marcus impatiently.

  “Surely you know that you can trust us,” said Julian.

  Charles threw Daphne a hounded look. She knew he would hold them at bay forever if need be, but it was unfair to ask him to do so.

  “It is something rather fantastic,” Daphne said in a low voice. “Most people would say even, um, unbelievable.” She swallowed. “Some people might think that we are mad…or highly imaginative.”

  Julian and Nell’s eyes met. Turning to look at Daphne, Nell covered Daphne’s hand with one of hers and said, “We are not unfamiliar with, ah, the unbelievable. And the highly imaginative can be instructive.”

  “My wife is correct,” added Julian. “Three years ago, we faced our own fantastic events, and I discovered that there is much in this world that I do not understand, that I cannot explain. Tell us.”

  Daphne looked at Charles, and he smiled encouragingly to her. “They are related to me, my love; you’ll find them not unintelligent.”

  Julian’s lips twitched, and Marcus snorted. Nell smiled encouragingly at Daphne and repeated Julian’s command. “Tell us.”

  And so Daphne and Charles told them about Katherine and Sir Wesley. All of it. When they finished speaking, there was a long, thoughtful silence.

  Marcus sipped his brandy. Julian stared at the fire. Nell held Daphne’s hand.

  “Ghosts,” Marcus said after several nerve-racking moments.

  “Katherine and Sir Wesley,” murmured Nell, staring off into space.

  “Well, why in the devil not?” said Julian. “That makes as much sense as anything else that has happened so far.” Sending Charles a searching glance, he asked, “And you believe that it was Sir Wesley we felt on that landing? And that he shoved Adrian down the steps?”

  Charles nodded. “I do. Remember, I have felt his presence before, and it is not a sensation one is likely to forget.”

  “But why?” Daphne cried. “Why did he attack a mere boy, of all people?”

  “Because Adrian wants to open the chamber,” Charles said calmly.

  Daphne’s eyes widened. “Of course! Sir Wesley doesn’t want us to find out what is in there!”

  “But what could be so terrible that this, this ghost doesn’t want us to discover even now?” demanded Marcus. He shook his head. Looked at his brandy. Shut his eyes and murmured, “I cannot believe I asked that question. First, Nell and her nightmares, and now, ghosts!” Plaintively, he asked, “Does anyone but me long for the day when the only things unexplainable were Parliament and the weather?”

  “But think how boring that is,” teased Charles.

  “I like boring,” complained Marcus. “I like my life calm, ordered, normal.”

  “Pity,” said Julian, watching Marcus with affectionate amusement. “In another few years, if you don’t change your ways, you’ll be a member of that cadre of crusty old men one finds in the reading rooms at White’s or Waiter’s.”

  “The ones,” added Charles, “that are always harrumphing and complaining about the ill-mannered young of today.”

  Marcus looked offended. “Well, thank you very much for that! Just because I am more sober in my habits than either one of you, there’s no reason to be insulting.” He glanced from one smiling cousin to the other. His gaze narrowed. “And I suppose that you two paragons of wisdom have a solution to save me from myself.”

  “Indeed,” said Charles, grinning.

  “You need a wife,” said Julian, his eyes dancing.

  “One who will turn your well-ordered life on its heels,” added Charles with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

  Marcus looked at Nell and Daphne for help, but they just smiled at him. “A wife,” he said in tones of horror. “I’d rather settle for ghosts!”

  Daphne found it remarkable that they accepted the notion of ghosts so easily, and she said so.

  Julian grimaced. “If this conversation had taken place three years ago, I would have most likely assumed the pair of you were candidates for an asylum or that my cousin had married a woman of a highly excitable, imaginative nature, but we are not unfamiliar with the, ah, unexplainable.” He sighed. “I could wish it otherwise, but I cannot pretend that there is much in this world that is beyond my understanding.”

  Nell nodded. “He had a difficult time believing that there was a mental connection between Raoul and me and that in my nightmares, I could actually see Raoul’s monstrous deeds. I cannot explain it myself. But he came to believe me and accepted, with no little reluctance, I might add, that I dreamed of real events as they were happening.” She smiled faintly. “After that, ghosts are quite simple.”

  Daphne glanced at Marcus, a question in her eyes. “And you? Do you believe?”

  Marcus hunched a shoulder. “I don’t want
to, but it’s either believe or assume that my entire family has turned into a pack of lunatics.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I’m not saying I’m totally convinced that it was a ghost tonight in the passageway, but I am saying that I shall at least consider the idea of ghosts.”

  It wasn’t quite the wholehearted endorsement Daphne would have liked, but at least Marcus hadn’t just simply dismissed the notion as utter nonsense.

  Nell agreed enthusiastically with Daphne that the little ghost had to be Katherine and that it could only have been Sir Wesley’s malevolent spirit that had pushed Adrian down the stairs. Julian endorsed Nell’s opinion, but Marcus resisted somewhat, and it took the four others some time before they finally convinced him to accept the reality of Katherine and Sir Wesley. Once Marcus’s skepticism had been put aside, a plan of action was decided upon. Tomorrow, while the ladies perused the collection of family papers for any mention of Katherine or Sir Wesley, the gentlemen would see to the opening of the old arrow slits in order to let more light into the staircase. With that accomplished, they could then tackle the destruction of the wall on the landing. Everyone expected to find a chamber of some sort behind the wall.

  “I think, too,” Charles said as they prepared to retreat to their bedrooms for what remained of the night, “that we shall search for another entrance to the staircase. I cannot believe that it is a completely internal passageway, and I’ll wager that there is a door that opens to the outside. We just have to find it.”

  Daphne was uneasy about using her bedroom until the newly discovered secret door could be securely locked. Bad enough she had a ghost visiting her at night, but the thought of that doorway’s existence and of something else opening it and coming into her bedroom while she slept was more than she could bear. She snatched up her gown and dressing robe from the bed and retreated to her dressing room to change. Having slipped into a primrose yellow robe and a white lawn gown embroidered with tiny yellow daisies, she steeled herself to go back into her bedroom. She stiffened her spine and walked out of the dressing room. Her gaze went immediately to the newly exposed oak wall. No one looking at it would ever suspect that there was a doorway hidden there. Even knowing where it was, she could not discern the outline of the door, and she wondered how she had even glimpsed it beneath all the various coats of wallpaper and plaster and lath.

  Her breath caught. She hadn’t glimpsed it. Katherine had shown it to her. Katherine had wanted her to find it.

  She was staring so intently at the wall that she didn’t hear Charles enter the room, and his hand on her shoulder was the first warning she had of his presence.

  Nearly leaping out of her skin when he touched her, she shrieked and whirled around. “Oh, Charles!” she exclaimed when she saw who it was. “It is only you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He grinned. “Who did you think I was? Sir Wesley?”

  “I didn’t think. You just startled me.” She glanced back at the scarred wall. “Do you think we could sleep in your bedroom tonight? I am uneasy about that door.”

  Charles was uneasy about that door, too, specifically the staircase behind it. Until they knew more about it and where it meandered, he’d already concluded that it would be wisest if they chose other rooms for their use.

  Sweeping her up into his arms, he dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose and said, “My sentiments exactly,” and carried her off to his bedroom.

  Shutting the door to his bedroom with his shoulder, he tossed Daphne onto his bed and locked the door. The door safely locked, he swung around, and arms akimbo, he looked at the enticing sight she made sprawled across his bed, her hair undone from its tidy knot at the back of her head framing her face in a riot of curls. The yellow robe was half open, and he glimpsed the faint gleam of her skin beneath the almost sheer fabric of her gown. Slim as a willow, sweet as a sugared plum, she lay smiling at him, those mysterious half green, half blue eyes soft and warm.

  “Hmmm, yes, this is much better,” he said, coming to join her on the bed. He pulled her against him and kissed her soundly on the lips. “Yes. Much, much better,” he murmured several moments later when he finally lifted his mouth from hers to stare down into her flushed features.

  He’d been longing all evening for privacy with his wife, just the two of them, and he savored the moment. Intently, he studied her face. Could Adrian be right? Did Daphne love him? Her reaction when he and Adrian had appeared before her, both of them streaked with blood, had been most gratifying. It had been to him that she had rushed, her beautiful eyes full of anxiety, not her brother. And it had been his wounds that had been the focus of her concern, not Adrian’s far more serious ones. Charles tried to feel guilty for being pleased, tried to be ashamed at his elation at the way she had brushed aside Adrian’s condition to worry over his, but it was beyond him. The joy of finding himself first in her thoughts was far too powerful for any guilt to mar his delight.

  Daphne had put him first, not her brother, and for Charles, that was monumental as until her advent in his life, he hadn’t even known that he wanted to be first in someone’s heart. He loved Daphne with all of his being, and he longed, nay, hungered for her to feel the same about him. Adrian’s words rang in his ears. Could it be true? Dare he believe?

  Daphne squirmed under his steady regard. “What is it?” she asked finally. “Do I have a spot on my nose? Why are you staring so?”

  “Can’t I stare at my lovely wife?” he asked softly, his heart so full of love he thought it would burst. Yet vulnerable as he had never been in his life, he hesitated to speak of his love. What if Adrian was wrong? What if he had misinterpreted her anxiety for him? Charles tried to master his chaotic emotions. I should tell her how I feel, he told himself raggedly. I should boldly speak aloud my love and not dither like a schoolboy. But he could not, and hitherto always confident and sure of himself, he discovered that he was shy and uncertain…for perhaps the first time in his life. Avoiding the subject uppermost in his brain, he dropped his head and lightly bit her bottom lip. “Are you still angry with me for not waiting to explore the passage?”

  Gently, her fingers caressed the cut on his eyebrow. “I wasn’t angry so much as terrified.” She closed her eyes, remembering the stark terror she had felt when Marcus had said that there had been an accident. Meeting his gaze, she said, “You could have been killed…” Her throat closed up, and tears seeped into her eyes. Her voice thick, she finally got out, “I would have died if something had happened to you. You are everything to me.”

  Her words undid him, and unable to hold back his emotions any longer, he muttered, “Oh, Daphne! I adore you!” Raining kisses across her cheeks and nose, he said huskily, “You are the most glorious thing that has ever happened to me, and I shall thank God every day for the rest of my life that you took into that pretty little head of yours to explore that sea cave.”

  Stunned, Daphne stared up at him. She’d hoped for this. Yearned with all her heart for this. Yet now that the moment was upon her, she could hardly take it in. “You love me?” she asked wonderingly.

  He shook his head, a tender smile curving his mouth. “No. You haven’t been listening, my sweet. Love you? Absolutely not. I adore you!”

  Joy bloomed within her, and she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Charles, I love you, too! So very much.” She laughed and added, “No. Not love. I adore you.”

  Charles couldn’t describe his happiness at that moment. This incredibly precious woman loved him. Him! Charles Weston. And no one else. Him!

  He buried his face in her wild black hair. “Daffy, sweet, darling, adorable Daffy, I do love you. I lost my heart almost from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  “That soon?” she asked.

  He raised his head and looked into her eyes. “That soon,” he said. “I remember watching you climb over those rocks and thinking…” He grinned. “Thinking most indecent thoughts.”

  “That wasn’t love,” she argued, though her eyes
were laughing at him.

  “Yes, it was,” he protested. “If it wasn’t love, why else did I stay with you in the sea cave?”

  Guilt smote her. “Oh, Charles, I disliked you at first. I didn’t fall in love with you until our wedding day.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said with quiet joy. “All that matters is that you love me and I love you.”

  Daphne’s fingers traced his hard features, lingering on his mouth. “Mmm, it’s nice, isn’t it? Being in love. Being in love with your spouse.”

  “Very nice,” he murmured. Flicking open her robe, he cupped one breast, anticipation rippling through him when he discovered her nipple already hard and swollen. “And I intend to show you precisely how very nice it is.” And did.

  It had been well after three o’clock in the morning when the five parted to seek their beds, and it was a bleary-eyed group who met in the morning room just after noon the next day. After several cups of strong coffee and a substantial meal, they were revived somewhat and ready to set their plans in motion.

  With April accompanying them, Daphne and Nell adjoined to the library and the shelves upon shelves of Beaumont family papers. Telling April only that they were looking for references to Sir Wesley and his wife, Katherine, each lady took a stack of pages and sat down to read.

  The gentlemen, followed by a half dozen husky servants gathered from the fields, set out to remove the boards from the arrow slits. Despite his broken arm and bruised ankle, and hobbling along with a cane, Adrian insisted upon coming with them.

  As they left the house, Charles took Goodson aside and requested that a chair be sent around to the south side of the house. “That young cub will be glad of it before long,” Charles murmured as he turned to rush off and join the others.