Intellectually, he knew the purpose of this wall-walk. In medieval times, the allures had been instrumental in the castle’s defense, for they allowed quick travel between the various towers. The garrisons had also used the walks to repel intruders.
Intruders like me.
He hadn’t been invited to Castle Keyvnor. The will reading was meant only for the Hambly Family and their many relations. Relations like Beck, who had received the summons to attend when they were all at Newmarket. Relations like Claire, his beautiful Claire, who would have to face all the memories Castle Keyvnor brought back of her Aunt Evelyn’s descent into madness and eventual death here.
A mere year had passed since Claire’s own mother, Evelyn Banfield’s sister, had died in the asylum.
He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—let Claire face this bloody castle, and all it stood for, alone.
So he’d come with St. Giles, Blackwater, and of course Beck. They were a merry band of brothers. Where one went, the rest followed.
Yet for all they’d proved their worth over the years, for all the support they’d given him, there were still some things he had to do alone.
Like moving off of this damned wall. He started to count under his breath, and when he got to the count of three, he still hadn’t moved.
Just do it already.
He shut his eyes and pushed off from the wall. He remained still, heart hammering and stomach churning, until numbness sloshed through his body.
For the love of God, he was the Earl of Ashbrooke now! How could he possibly help Claire fight her demons if he could not even face his bloody fear of heights?
No one wants to marry a white-feathered coward.
He opened his eyes. Stared straight ahead. Pretended that there was absolutely no chance that he could fall to his death, splashing his blood and guts upon the green grass below. Except that didn’t work, for he’d always been horrid at pretending. He preferred to live in reality, where logic and law won the day.
He nudged one foot forward, and then the other, until he was at the parapet. Hands out in front of him, he held onto the lower portion of the stone. Embrasure. Being able to put a name to the lesser segment of the alternating portions of the battlements gave him some sort of solace. If he could understand it, see it with his own two eyes, he could face it.
Notching his chin higher, he surveyed the landscape beneath him. The village of Bocka Morrow, so peaceful—and so bloody small. Each tiny cottage looked like a doll’s abode. And if he looked directly down, which he did only for a few moments because his stomach roiled fiercely and bile rose in his mouth, he saw the gatehouse and the front gardens.
The old Teddy would never have asked a servant how he could get to the allure. The old Teddy would have stayed with his friends, instead of striking out on his own.
But the new Teddy, the one people addressed as Ashbrooke, and not Lockwood, had climbed this whole bloody tower and faced his fear.
Even if he currently wanted to double over and retch on these stones.
What was it Claire had once said, when they were younger? “The bravest thing one can do is act in spite of fear.” Granted, at the time she was eight years old and trying to convince him to filch biscuits from the pantry, but the philosophy held. He retreated to the wall, leaning his head against the cool stone and sucking in a deep breath. His heartbeat gradually slowed, no longer galloping toward an imaginary finish line like a racehorse.
That was enough for one day. Maybe tomorrow he’d work on his crippling fear of spiders, take a hike outdoors, or finally eat black pudding. His stomach gave an unwelcome leap at the mere thought.
Or maybe he’d just focus on convincing Claire she wasn’t cursed.
He nodded swiftly. That was clearly a better plan, and it didn’t involve him eating blood sausage. He turned away from the wall, pointedly avoiding looking down as he made his way to the stairwell. He’d already proved he could do it—no need to be excessive.
His descent was much faster, as he practically sprinted down the steps in his urge to get to solid ground. By the time he reached the last step, he’d started an all-out run toward the door at the end of the landing, leading to the interior of the castle. He flung open the door and surged through.
And he smacked straight into another body. A warm, petite body with voluptuous curves that had haunted his dreams more times than he could count.
Claire.
He grabbed hold of her, his hands clutching her arms seconds before she fell. He helped right her, not releasing her until she’d caught her breath.
Even then, he did not want to let her go. She was here—his Claire, with her crystal blue eyes and red lips. That pert little nose that wrinkled whenever she was amused. Her blond brows that arched just so whenever he said she was good and true and never, ever would she become something so dark and malignant as she believed.
“Steady now,” he told her, as she regarded him wide-eyed, surprise splashing pink across her high cheekbones.
He let her go, dropping his hands to his sides and taking a few steps back, because that was what friends did. Friends did not linger, their touches too long, their mouths dry from the mere sight of each other.
They were friends now, but God how he longed to change that. And he would, devil take his soul. Because the urge to drag the pad of his thumb across her full lips and down her soft skin until he met the curve of her chin was so pressing, he could barely breathe. It was as if he was up on that tower all over again—except now he only saw her.
She reached up, checking that her chignon was still secure. Alas, it was, and for what was probably the four hundredth time he vowed he’d see her with her golden curls unbound, flowing freely down her shoulders.
“Teddy?” She blinked up at him, so adorably confused. “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 2
Teddy was here.
Claire must be hallucinating, for there wasn’t a single reason she could think of why Teddy would be here. Hell’s bells, she’d started on a downward slide from which there could be no recovery. This had to be it—the onset of her madness. She couldn’t remember how her mother’s lunacy began, for she’d been a child then. But she had no trouble recalling her last visit to Ticehurst, when Mama had been convinced a demon sat next to her, urging her to do awful, awful things.
“St. Giles had this idea that we should all come to the reading. You know, to support Beck.” Teddy carded a hand through his dark curls, as he always did when he was nervous. But what could have made him nervous? He was too rational to believe in spirits or witches, or so he claimed.
He certainly sounded real. And he had felt so real, in that moment he held her. She wished he’d never let go, but as with everything Claire wished for, it was an unfulfilled desire.
“I see,” she said, but she didn’t see, not at all.
A minute passed in silence, both of them eying the other at a standstill until the quiet started to swallow her whole, and she thought that any sound—even the shriek of one of Keyvnor’s many reported ghosts—would have been preferable.
“Are you...are you really here?” Her voice came out cracked and haggard, so full of insuppressible doubt.
Teddy blinked. His jaw dropped, but he quickly realized the rudeness of such an expression and closed his mouth. Oh, kind, sweet Teddy, with his rampant thoughtfulness. The second he erred, he took steps to fix his mistake.
Not Claire. She could not break her family’s curse, and so she might as well accept that she was doomed to a life of mistakes, shouldn’t she?
“Of course I’m really here.” Teddy closed the distance between them again, coming to stand next to her. He draped his arm across her shoulders, casually supporting her, as if it was normal for one friend to ask another if he was a figment of her imagination.
She leaned against him, an automatic movement born out of so many years of depending upon him. It was as instinctual as breathing, the way her body seemed to respond to Teddy’s nearness, the
slowing of her usually frantic heart and the stilling of her equally frantic mind. “I thought...I don’t know what I thought.” She peeked up at him, every familiar line of his face soothing her further.
“It’s this devilish castle.” He explained away her lapse in judgment as though it were nothing. “Besides, you weren’t expecting me to be here, and I went straight up here after we arrived.”
She nodded. That must be it. Not that she was going mad.
He shrugged. “Hard not to question one’s eyes when everyone’s got a fool story of a supernatural encounter.”
“They’re not fool stories,” she protested half-heartedly, resting her head against his shoulder. He smelled so good, like sandalwood and sage, so distinctly Teddy. His perpetually ink-stained fingers wrapped around her arm, drawing her closer to him, just as he had for so many years.
And this close to him, she longed for him to know how she really felt, how desperately she adored him and his reasonable mind and his lean frame and every blessed thing about him. She longed for him, even though she knew that was the fool story, not the rumors of the occult.
Teddy released her, spinning her so that she faced him. “If there are any ghosts, I’ll give them a run for their blunt.” He put his fists up in a fighter’s stance, punching the air with such a ludicrous grin that she could not hang on to her gloom.
She laughed, a real laugh, not the forced chuckle she’d delivered over nuncheon when Lady Octavia Hambly made a joke. She’d been seated near her cousins, Violet and Letty, and while they had found the conversation diverting, Claire hadn’t been able to focus. Since she’d found out about the curse a few years ago, these kinds of interactions with her cousins had become more frequent. She loved them, and they were always thoughtful and kind to her, but every time she was with them she was reminded of her fate.
It was not their fault, of course, any more than it was her own for being her mother’s daughter. Yet a small part of herself, one she didn’t want to dignify but couldn’t destroy, resented them for it. They would marry, and they would be happy. No one deserved happiness more than Letty or Violet…no one except Teddy.
Teddy, who was so happy to see her that his grin stretched from ear to ear. His joy was infectious; she couldn’t help but grin back at him.
“There’s that smile,” he said. “Shall we walk?”
She nodded, following him out of the corridor and into the hall.
“Should be supper time soon,” he noted. “I’m famished.”
“You’re always famished,” she retorted.
“I’m a growing lad.” He winked at her. Drat her fool heart, for it clenched tight, as if locking the memory inside, a happy time to hold court with all her painful recollections.
“And you’ve been saying that for going on ten years.”
He shrugged. “If it’s not broken, what’s the point of fixing it? It worked back then and it works now.”
But she didn’t. She was broken, and she couldn’t be fixed.
She tried to push that thought aside. Teddy was here. Unexpectedly.
She nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. That was odd. Teddy never did anything unexpected. Why had he come? Lord Michael Beck was made of stern stuff; surely he didn’t need Teddy’s companionship to get through the will reading.
There must be another reason Teddy was here.
He stopped in the doorway of the second floor library, glancing inside. “Looks like it’s empty. Why don’t we wait here until it’s time to dress for dinner? I read Banfield had an excellent collection of Shakespeare folios.” His emerald eyes danced, as they always did when he talked about books.
“Far be it for me to keep you from the Bard,” Claire said.
Entering the library, she headed toward the grouping of armchairs by the fire, glad for the warmth. In these colder fall months, the castle’s stone walls held little warmth. A silver teapot sat on a tray on the low table in the center, and Claire leaned over, putting her hand to the pot.
Good. It was still hot, and the tray was fully stocked with cups and sugar. She poured herself a cup of tea, depositing in a lump of sugar and stirring it. With the cup in one hand, she settled into a ruby brocade armchair, watching as Teddy wandered around the room, exploring all the shelves with wide-eyed glee.
A quarter of an hour passed in which Claire sipped her tea and relaxed by the fire. Teddy came loping back, long legs churning, shoulders back, cheeks flushed. “You’ll never believe what I found.”
Claire’s lips twisted into an amused smirk. “You found an antiquated book.”
“Fine, addle-pot, don’t act excited about my discovery. I am thrilled enough for the both of us.” Teddy waved his hand, undaunted. “The A-text of The Tragical History of the Life and Times of Doctor Faustus! The 1604 quarto, printed by Valentine Simmes…”
He continued on, detailing all the features of the edition, but she only half-heard him. Faust had made a deal with the devil for twenty-four years of Earth with Mephistopheles as his personal servant, yet Faust had wasted that time. If the devil appeared to her and offered her a life with Teddy, free of the madness, in exchange for her eternal soul, would she take it?
Yes. In a heartbeat.
And that thought terrified her, how quickly she would give up salvation to have a taste at normal happiness.
No. She must remain strong. She, of all people, knew that nothing good came from black magic and the occult. Teddy had been right—this castle toyed with her mind, making her believe that the answer to all her problems was secreted in these dark corners.
The end of this week couldn’t come soon enough.
When Teddy paused for breath, she broke in with her own question. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You tell me everything.”
Not that she returned the favor. She’d hidden her feelings for him since she was fourteen.
“A man’s got to have some secrets,” he said airily, with a wave of his hand.
When she didn’t laugh, he fisted his hands at his sides, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Uncomfortably.
If Claire had not been suspicious before, she was now. “What are you planning, Teddy?”
“Nothing,” he said, far too quickly.
She arched a brow at him, as she’d done when he was a child, insisting that unicorns could never be real because there was no palpable proof. They still argued about that, actually.
“Fine, fine, fine,” he muttered all in one breath. “I didn’t want you to tell me not to come. You’re so damnably—ahem, I mean—”
She rolled her eyes. “You can curse around me, Teddy. I’ve seen you deep in your cups, claiming you could fly if you could just get the physics right. I think I can handle a few ‘ungentlemanly’ words.”
Hell, in her dreams, he was doing far more scandalous things than simply being foul-mouthed.
He let out a sigh, peering down the bridge of his nose at her, as he always did when he was frustrated. She returned his irritation with her own level stare, a clear challenge.
“You’re so damnably stubborn, Claire. Don’t try and deny it, you know as well as I do that once you get an idea in your head, there’s no shaking it. This curse, for instance. Just because some witch delivers a diatribe—”
Her fierce scowl cut him off mid-thought.
“Yes, I know. I said I’d stop trying to prove the curse isn’t real. But I was wrong to make such a promise.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, elbows out at his sides. “I’m not going to give up on you. You’re my oldest friend. My dearest—”
Her breath stopped. How would he finish that sentence?
But he didn’t. He continued on as if he’d never started that thought, words falling from his lips at rapid speed. “I can’t let you believe this. What happened to your aunt and your mother was tragic, Claire. I’m not denying that. But it doesn’t mean you’ll share the same fate.”
It was better that he hadn’t finished the sentiment. For a second, she h
ad forgotten he deserved more than she could give him. “You can’t guarantee that I won’t end up like my mother.”
“And you can’t guarantee that you will.”
“I’m preparing for the worst. You, of all people, can’t fault me for that.”
His face fell, and she knew she’d hit a target with that last arrow.
“Teddy, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said gently. “I like how you examine every angle before you make a decision.”
It makes me feel safe.
He didn’t look convinced.
“Truly,” she said, putting all her conviction behind that one word. “It’s why every time I have a problem, I come to you. I know whatever you advise me to do is going to be the right choice, because you’re not just telling me what I want to hear.”
“Then trust me now,” he pleaded, starting to reach for her hand, and then halting, as if he feared she would refuse his gesture. “Let me look into this curse. You said that it happened years ago at this castle, when one of the witches hexed your aunt and mother.”
“Hestia,” she supplied, the word like a match on her tongue, lighting an angry inferno inside. “Her name was Hestia.”
Teddy nodded. “She claimed she was the bastard daughter of your grandfather, right?”
“But no one had ever heard of her mother,” Claire said. “Grandfather was in Italy during the time she said he’d met her mother.”
“Why did Hestia come here?” Teddy asked. “Keyvnor is the ancestral seat of the Hamblys, not your family. I can understand the curse affecting Banfield’s wife, but not your mother—she didn’t live here, and is obviously not a blood relation to the Hamblys.”
“Mama and Grandfather were visiting Aunt Evelyn at the time Hestia came knocking.” Claire sighed, picking at the hem of her gown. If only Mama had not been here that day! “Someone in the village, or one of the servants, must have told Hestia that Grandfather was here.”
“And the guards just let her in?”
“She made such a fuss outside that Grandfather, Mama, and Evelyn came out to see what was going on. Hestia declared that she was family, and she was ready to take her place with his daughters. When he told her there was no way he could be her father, Hestia called him a liar. He eventually had to have the guards throw her out.”
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