Winterset

by Candace Camp

  Reed shot her an expressive look. “As if you’ve ever hesitated to say anything to me.”

  “Well, that is true,” Kyria admitted, giving a little grin. “But no doubt others would not have dared to approach you, you looked so grim. And I have seen how Miss Holcomb looks at you, too.”

  “She looks at me?” Reed leaned forward, his eyes intent on his sister’s face. “How does she look?”

  “The way a woman does when she is interested in a man,” Kyria replied. “Her eyes kept straying about the room this evening, and whenever they lit on you, she would stop. Then, a few minutes later, she would do the same thing.”

  Reed grimaced. “Most likely she was looking for me so she could avoid me.”

  Kyria smiled a little smugly. “I don’t think so. There is a certain warmth in her eyes when she looks at you.” She cocked her head to the side, studying her brother. “There is also the little matter that she is far too attractive and likable a woman to be still unmarried. What happened when you were here three years ago, Reed? Did you break her heart?”

  “I? Why would you assume that it was I who broke her heart?” Reed asked.

  “Are you telling me that it was the other way around?” Kyria asked.

  “I offered for her. She refused me.”

  Kyria stared. “She turned you down?”

  A faint smile touched Reed’s lips. “I suppose it is gratifying that you find that so startling.”

  “But of course it is! There are always women dangling after you, you know that. Why, the only bachelor who is more sought after than you is Theo, I warrant, and that is only because he will be a duke one day.” She paused, frowning, then said slowly, “Unless, of course, she was already in love with another…”

  Reed shrugged. “I have no idea what happened. I will doubtless appear insufferably arrogant, but I was certain that she would accept my proposal. She seemed…well, we had not known each other long, but from the moment we met, there was a…a certain feeling between us. I cannot explain it.”

  Kyria smiled and glanced at Rafe. “I know what you mean.”

  Reed smiled. “Yes, I suppose you do. But apparently the feeling was entirely on my side. I thought it must be clear to her what my feelings were, and she—well, I thought she encouraged them. I called on her frequently, we went for rides together—I even held parties, just so that I could have an opportunity to dance with her.”

  “My goodness, you must have been bewitched,” Kyria teased.

  “I was. I knew almost as soon as I met her—the way Papa says he felt when he met Mother.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure.” Reed shook his head, his face tinged with the old sorrow. “She had been ill. I had not seen her for a few days. Looking back on it, I suppose she wasn’t really sick at all those days, simply avoiding seeing me. But at the time, I had no suspicion. Certainly, when she did see me, she looked pale enough to have been ill. I thought I should wait until she felt better to ask her, but I could not. As soon as I started proposing to her, she looked as though I had struck her. She would not even let me finish. She was quite agitated. She popped up, then sat back down, then got up again and paced about the room. Then she said all the things that women are taught to say in such circumstance—what an honor I had done her, how surprised she was, how she had not realized how I felt, how she had not meant to mislead me, but there was no possibility. We would not suit.”

  He stopped, his mouth grim.

  Kyria looked at him, frowning. “I scarcely know what to say. It sounds so…so odd. I would never have guessed, from seeing her with you, that she had turned you down. I would have said that she had…well, feelings for you.”

  “I thought so, but obviously I was wrong. And tonight, I—” Reed stopped, looking uncomfortable. “It seemed to me again that she felt something for me, that she would not be averse to my suit, but then she turned and all but ran from me. I don’t know what to think.”

  They were silent for a moment, then Rafe said, “What made you decide to come back now, after all this time?”

  “Oh.” Reed grimaced. “You will think I’m mad if I tell you. That’s why I said I was coming to see about selling the house. The real reason is absurd.”

  “I am sure we will not think you are mad,” Kyria assured him. “We have had some rather bizarre things happen to us, as well, you know.”

  “I came back because of a dream,” Reed said with the air of a man owning up to a dreadful flaw.

  “A dream?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I dreamed that I was with Anna, and that she was in trouble. Something was pulling her away from me in the dream, and I could not move, could not reach her. It sounds foolish when I say it, I know, but you cannot imagine how real the dream was. Even after I woke up, I was seized with something close to terror because I could not help her. I tried to tell myself that it was only a dream—and that whatever happened to Anna was not my concern, anyway. I felt sure that she would not welcome my help. But I knew I could not stay away. I had to see if she was all right. I had to help her if I could.” Reed cast his sister an abashed glance. “You have every right to think I am insane.”

  “Why? Because you’ve had one of the famous Moreland dreams?” Kyria asked lightly. “I am the last person who would say you were foolish to do something on the basis of a dream—or a feeling. You know what happened with that reliquary.”

  She paused, thinking back to two years ago, when a man had died at the Morelands’ house, bringing with him a reliquary and setting into motion a strange chain of events that had brought her love and almost cost her her life. Kyria could remember quite clearly the sense of connection she had felt with the reliquary and the huge black diamond on its side, and the peculiar dreams she had experienced after she held it.

  “Or what happened with Olivia and Stephen,” Rafe added, alluding to Reed’s and Kyria’s sister and the man she had married, Lord St. Leger. Rafe had been Stephen’s best friend and had shared part of their eerie adventure. “The dreams they shared…the couple seemingly speaking to them from the past…”

  “Maybe Grandmother was right,” Kyria told Reed. “Perhaps there is a special…sensitivity in our family.”

  Reed rolled his eyes. “I have a little trouble believing that Grandmother was sensitive in any way. I think her ‘visions’ were more a way of keeping everyone’s attention focused on her than anything else.”

  Kyria chuckled. “That may be. But I know what happened with me, and I don’t doubt that there were forces at work there that were far beyond my understanding. When that happens, I think it’s best not to fight it. You felt that she was in trouble and you should come here. And I think that is what you should have done.”

  “I felt a fool when I got here and spoke with her. Everything was obviously all right with her, and she wished me gone. I could see that. But now, after tonight, I wonder….”

  “You think your dream was prophetic? That she is going to be in trouble before long?” Kyria asked.

  “And that this maid’s death is part of the trouble that she is in—or will be in?” Rafe added.

  “I don’t know. Obviously, it is a terrible thing, although I cannot see how it connects to Anna—I mean, more than superficially. But clearly I am dealing with something that I don’t understand. If I heard someone else say the sort of things I’ve just been saying, I would be certain he was an idiot.”

  “Well, murder is very real,” Kyria said.

  “If the maid was murdered. It could have been an accident,” Reed pointed out.

  “You think she was really killed by an animal?” Kyria asked skeptically.

  Reed cast her a sardonic look. “I doubt it was some mythical beast, if that is what you mean. That is simply the sort of sensational story people seem to prefer to the truth.”

  “People always love a good story about a supernatural beast,” Rafe put in, taking a sip of the fiery cognac. “I remember a story that used to go around home about t
he swamp cat. There was some swampland not too far from where I lived, closer to the coast, and people swore there was a black panther that lived in there. But not just any old panther—no, sir, this one was bigger and stronger than any ordinary cat, and he had eyes that glowed like red coals in his head. People said he couldn’t be killed, no matter how many times you shot him. The devil’s cat, they said, and if you got lost in the swamp, when nighttime came, you were likely to meet him. Thing was, he didn’t just kill you—he took your soul, as well.”

  “I think it’s most likely that the maid was attacked by an actual animal,” Kyria put in.

  “Like what?” Rafe responded. “That’s the problem I see. I haven’t noticed too many wildcats or bears or such running loose in England.”

  “No. But it could have been a mad dog, I suppose.”

  “What I find the most intriguing about it,” Kyria said, “is the fact that it’s like those killings that took place almost fifty years ago.”

  “If it is like them,” Reed pointed out. “We have very little information about either the original killings or the body that was found.”

  “Well, it seems clear to me that we need to find out more about both this death and the murders that took place fifty years ago,” Kyria decided.

  “‘We?’” Reed asked. “I was just about to suggest that you and Rafe take the twins, Emily and Miss Farrington, and go back to London.”

  “You are kicking us out?” Kyria asked with mock indignation.

  Reed grimaced. “Hardly. But if there was a murder here, it scarcely seems like the place for children or a gently reared young lady like Miss Farrington. And someone has to take them back.”

  Kyria started to speak, then stopped and sighed. “Yes, I can see your point. It’s all so different when one has a child, isn’t it? But I cannot really see how this woman’s death, even if it is murder, could affect one of us. I mean, obviously it has to do with the local people and something that was going on before we arrived.”

  “Mmm. Probably this fellow that Miss Holcomb was saying they thought the girl ran away with,” Rafe agreed.

  “That may be. But I think you will agree that investigations of evildoing have a way of getting out of hand,” Reed said.

  “I won’t go out investigating,” Kyria protested. “I am a mother now. I’m not going to endanger my child or her future. Or the twins or Miss Farrington, for that matter. And with both you and Rafe here, I can’t think there will be any danger to us in this house.”

  “I should hope not.” Reed glanced over at Rafe, who smiled wryly, and Reed knew that he was thinking the same thing Reed was: the more one tried to push Kyria into doing something, the more determined she became not to be moved.

  “It would be quite bad of you to toss us out,” Kyria went on teasingly. “It seems the least you could do is to let us stay here awhile longer, since you don’t mean to let us buy Winterset, do you?”

  Reed looked faintly surprised, then thoughtful. “No, I think you are right. I don’t want to sell this house. I’m sorry. I thought I would, but now that I’m here—I really can’t give it up. I suppose I had better send a note to Mr. Norton tomorrow telling him I’ve changed my mind.” He paused, then looked at his sister seriously. “But you will promise me, won’t you, Kyria, you’ll leave and take the children if there appears to be any real danger?”

  “Of course I will,” Kyria agreed. “If there is real danger.” After a moment she added, “But right now, I think we had better concentrate on finding out what we can about what’s going on.”

  “Whose body it was, whether or not she was murdered, and how, if at all, it’s linked to Anna,” Reed said.

  “We might do well to find out about those old murders, too,” Rafe pointed out. “I have a little trouble believing that somebody now, as well as two people back then, were all killed by wild animals. I have even more trouble believing that there’s some ancient man-beast popping up every fifty years or so to kill somebody.”

  “So where will you start?” Kyria asked, looking at Reed, the expression on her face challenging.

  He sighed. “With Anna, of course. I’ll ride over there tomorrow and see what I can find out about this servant.”

  They finished off their brandies, and Kyria and Rafe left the study, starting up the stairs toward their bedroom. Rafe’s arm was looped around his wife’s shoulders, and he held her close against his side.

  He leaned down and nuzzled her hair, saying in a low voice, “Why do I get the feeling that you were trying to maneuver Reed into going to see Miss Holcomb tomorrow?”

  Kyria smiled and turned to kiss his cheek. “Perhaps because I was.”

  “And your reason for throwing the poor man together with the woman who broke his heart three years ago is…?”

  “My brother is a wonderful man, but he has a maddening habit of listening only to his head and not to his heart. She told him she wouldn’t marry him, and he accepted it because that was the logical thing to do. But his heart obviously has a different opinion. I don’t know whether Miss Holcomb is in trouble or not, but I do know that he dreamed of her, and that when he thought she was in trouble, his first instinct was to fly to her rescue. That is his heart speaking, and he should follow it.”

  “And what if she turns him away again? What if she still does not want him?”

  Kyria cast him a sideways glance. “I looked around the room this evening and saw that neither my brother nor Miss Holcomb were there. A few minutes later, she came sliding back into the room from the terrace, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling, a certain expression on her face, as if she’d just barely saved herself from falling off a cliff. I don’t know why Miss Holcomb turned him down three years ago. But I think I can definitely say that it is not the case that she does not want him.”

  She smiled her cat-in-the-cream smile at Rafe. “Maybe they just need to be thrown together until finally they figure out that they belong together.” Her smiled curved up even more as she said, “After all, that’s what happened with us.”

  Then, with a giggle, she pulled away from him and ran lightly up the rest of the stairs. Rafe, grinning, went after her, taking the stairs two at a time.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Anna met Dr. Felton with a subdued smile, extending her hand to him. “It was very kind of you to come here today, Dr. Felton.”

  She gestured him toward the couch, and she and her brother sat down on the pair of blue velvet chairs that faced the sofa. It was the afternoon following the party, and she had been waiting anxiously all day for news about what had happened the night before. When the butler had announced Dr. Felton, she had been filled with a combination of relief that she would at last find out and dread that the body must indeed have been Estelle’s, for why else would the doctor have come straightaway to tell them?

  “I wanted to tell you myself,” Felton said.

  “It was Estelle?” Kit asked. “You identified the body?”

  “Yes,” the doctor answered. “I was fairly certain as soon as I saw the body, but her father identified her, too.”

  “I feel terrible,” Anna murmured. “We should have done something more. Looked farther afield for her.”

  “I am sure you did all you could,” Felton said comfortingly.

  “We thought she had run off with a man,” Anna explained. “And all that time, she was dead!”

  “We had no reason to think otherwise,” Kit told her. “You mustn’t blame yourself. By the time we became aware that she was missing, she was probably already dead. Why else would she not have come home? Even if we had searched in the right place and found her, we could not have helped her.”

  Anna turned toward Dr. Felton. “Is that true? I keep thinking, what if she had fallen or something, and she was lying there all this time….”

  “No, you must not worry yourself about it. Sir Christopher is right. There was nothing you could have done for her. She had been dead for several days—doubtless she was already dea
d when you were searching for her. It was no accident. She was murdered.”

  “Oh!” Anna had known in her heart that such was probably the case, but still the words hit her like a blow.

  Murder was something that happened in London and other far-off places, not right here at home. And not to people one actually knew. Anna had seen Estelle every day for years now; she had come to work for them when Anna was only twenty-two. She had spoken to her often, had given her remedies for her toothaches and catarrh. She remembered again that day in the servants’ hall when she had seen Estelle return, and the grin that had touched Estelle’s pert face when Anna had protected her from the housekeeper.

  “I knew,” she said, her voice sinking almost to a whisper. “I saw her come in one morning from the outside, and I realized that she must have been out all night. But I didn’t tell Mrs. Michaels, because I hated to get her into trouble. If only I had, she probably wouldn’t have been able to sneak out again. And she would still be alive today.”

  “Or Mrs. Michaels might have let her go right there and then for moral turpitude,” Kit reminded her. “In which case, she would probably have been in exactly the same place.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Anna agreed. “Still, I cannot help but feel…responsible somehow.”

  “You take too much upon yourself, Miss Holcomb,” Dr. Felton assured her. “I doubt very much that there was anything you could have done to prevent this.”

  At that moment the butler appeared silently in the doorway, and when they looked toward him, he said, “Lord Moreland is here, Sir Christopher. Shall I show him in?”

  “Yes, of course,” Kit answered.

  Anna’s stomach tightened. She did not want to deal with Reed today; she was in too much turmoil already. But there was nothing she could do about it now. She could scarcely stand up and flee the room just as he walked in.

  The butler returned with Reed, announcing him with a certain pride. It was not often that they had titled guests. Reed took in the room at a glance, nodding to Kit and the doctor, and bowing over Anna’s hand. Her heart sped up at his nearness. She could not help but think of those moments in his embrace last night, the feel of his lips on hers, of his hand sliding up her body.