The Virgin Who Vindicated Lord Darlington

by Anna Bradley

  He took a quick step forward, and to Cecilia’s shock he grasped her chin and tilted her face up to his. He studied her in the light from the fire for long, silent moments, the strangest expression on his face, then he asked in a hoarse voice, “Have you been crying?”

  Cecilia stared up into those bright blue eyes, her throat working. If her humiliation hadn’t been complete before, it was now. “I-I do believe I’m overwrought, my lord.”

  He released her chin, but he didn’t step back, and to her surprise, the trace of a smile curved his lips. “Yes, I imagine you are, though perhaps less so than Mrs. Honeywell is. Lord Haslemere had to help her from the drawing room to her bedchamber. He wasn’t at all pleased about it, either. I daresay he’ll take you to task for it tomorrow.”

  “Oh, dear,” Cecilia muttered, worrying at her lower lip. This evening continued to worsen with every moment. Perhaps she should retire to her bed, before she caused further trouble.

  But first, she’d get the last, worst bit over with. She cast a guilty look at Lord Darlington. “I’ll gather my things together tonight, so I can be gone first thing tomorrow morning.”

  He went still. “You’re…you intend to leave Darlington Castle?”

  Cecilia’s eyes widened. “I assume you intend to dismiss me.”

  “Is that why you think I came to speak to you tonight? To dismiss you?”

  “Well, yes.” What other reason could he have for appearing at her bedchamber door?

  He stood quietly before her, his hands braced on his hips and his head down. Then, without a word he crossed the room to his niece’s bed. He gazed down at Isabella for some time, then reached in and stroked his big hand gently over her curls.

  When he turned toward her again, his face had softened. “I’ve no intention of dismissing you, Cecilia. I won’t say I approve of your musical performance tonight, but I also don’t condone Mrs. Honeywell’s behavior. The way I see it, you were…unbearably provoked.”

  Cecilia stared at him, mouth agape.

  “You were unbearably provoked, weren’t you? You don’t make a habit of singing bawdy drinking songs to your employer’s guests of an evening, do you?”

  She peeked up at him from under her lashes. “Bawdy? As to that, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my lord. It’s simply a drinking song, isn’t it?”

  “I can see by your blush you know perfectly well what I mean. Where would a young woman such as yourself learn such a wicked song?”

  “Oh, we used to sing it—” Cecilia broke off, biting her lip. She’d learned that song years ago from the mudlarking boys on the Thames, but it wouldn’t do to blurt that particular truth out to Lord Darlington. For pity’s sake, one half-hearted smile from him, and she was ready to confess her every secret.

  “I, ah…I learned it from one of Lady Dunton’s footmen,” she finished lamely. “He was a dreadfully wicked young man, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ve no doubt.”

  Neither of them seemed to know what to say after that, so they stood there staring at each other, until the silence became so awkward Cecilia found herself rushing to break it. “He was forever singing wicked songs. I might have done worse than I did, and sang “The Fair Maid of Islington,” or the one about Mother Watkin’s Ale, or…”

  She trailed off, her cheeks burning again. Lord Darlington stared at her for a moment, eyebrow raised, but just as Cecilia braced herself for a stern lecture about the evils of bawdy pub songs and the unspeakable sin of singing one in a drawing room full of company, the unthinkable happened.

  He grinned at her.

  Not his usual joyless twist of the mouth, or the pallid echo of a smile, but a true, unreserved grin that started at his lips and spread over his face, warming his bright blue eyes and revealing a pair of fetching grooves at either side of his lips.

  Dimples. Lord Darlington had dimples.

  Cecilia stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. “Oh.”

  Isabella’s wide, irresistible grin, that grin Cecilia adored, the one that always coaxed an answering grin from her…it was her uncle’s smile.

  The sweet curve of Isabella’s lips, the brightness in her eyes, those fetching dimples at the corners of her mouth…it mirrored the smile now gracing Lord Darlington’s lips. Isabella didn’t look like him, but she’d learned to imitate his smile.

  How could Cecilia not have seen it before now?

  Because I’ve never truly seen him smile.

  His smile faded into a look of uncertainty as she continued to stare at him. “Is something wrong?”

  “I…no. No, my lord, it’s just…well, Isabella’s smile is just like yours.”

  Lord Darlington went quite still, his eyes going as dark as a midnight sky. His fingers flexed at his sides, and for one wild moment she thought he would come to her. Cecilia’s breath stopped, every inch of her aching for him.

  He didn’t, but he didn’t turn away, either. Impossibly, his grin widened. “I might even venture a laugh if you sing “The Fair Maid of Islington” to me.”

  Cecilia stared at him. Was he teasing her? “Oh, no. I couldn’t. It’s terribly improper.”

  “As opposed to Down Among the Dead,” which I’ve heard sung in drawing rooms all across England.”

  Oh, he was certainly teasing her. Cecilia had never been teased by a marquess, or by any gentleman, really. She wasn’t certain what to do, so she just stood there like a peahen, her cheeks on fire and a foolish grin on her face.

  He didn’t seem to expect her to do anything more, however. He gazed at her as if her smile was enough to please him, before he straightened and eased away, murmuring, “It’s late. Go to sleep, Cecilia.”

  He crossed the room and went into his own bedchamber, but Cecilia stopped him before he could close the door between them. “My lord?”

  “Yes?” His face was half-lost in shadow, but she could just discern the quirk of his lips.

  She wanted to say, I’ll sing you any song you like. She wanted to say, I believe you’re a good, kind man. She wanted to say, I wish for you to have more reasons to smile.

  But in the end, she didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she drew in a quick breath and said, “Good night.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was a day for being overwrought, it seemed.

  After those breathless moments with Lord Darlington—moments in which she’d had to fight an overwhelming urge to trace her fingertips over his lips to commit that rare smile to memory—Cecilia knew sleep would elude her for the rest of the night.

  After pacing from one end of her bedchamber to the other with the words of the blasted “Fair Maid of Islington” echoing in a wearying loop in her head, she climbed under the coverlet, eyes wide open, and reconciled herself to a sleepless night.

  What would Lord Darlington’s lips feel like under her fingertips? They looked soft. Were a gentleman’s lips soft? They were full, temptingly so, his lower lip a trifle plumper, just the tiniest hint of a pout.

  Goodness.

  She tucked the coverlet closer as a delicious warmth settled low in her belly. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she was just embarking on a scandalously delightful dream about Lord Darlington’s lips when she was startled awake by Seraphina, who suddenly woke from her nap at the foot of Cecilia’s bed, let out a growl, and leapt to the floor.

  “Seraphina?” Cecilia reached for the cat, but Seraphina darted away before she could get a hand on her. “Whatever is the matter?”

  That was when she heard it. It was muffled, so faint she nearly missed it, but it sounded like a—

  Scream.

  Cecilia shot upright as another scream, this one much louder and edged with panic, shattered the silence of the castle. Seraphina let out another yowl, and scrambled across the floor to the door leading to the hallway, clawing in a frenzy to be let out.


  Cecilia vaulted from the bed, tripping over the hem of her night rail in her panic to get to Isabella, but the scream hadn’t come from her, nor had it woken her. She was curled up in her bed, sleeping the sound, peaceful sleep of a child.

  A door slammed in the hallway. Cecilia whirled around, her breath stopping as a third scream rent the air.

  Dear God, it sounded as if someone were being murdered.

  Her lungs heaving like a bellows, she snatched up a shawl and flew out her bedchamber door. At the other end of the hallway she could see Lord Darlington, Lord Haslemere, Amy, Duncan, Mrs. Briggs, and Mrs. Honeywell crowded around Miss Honeywell’s door. There was no sign of Miss Honeywell, but Cecilia could hear a desperate wail echoing from inside her bedchamber.

  “Fanny! Open this door at once!” Mrs. Honeywell was beside herself. She rattled the latch until the door shuddered in its frame, her shrieks drowning out her daughter’s howls. Her face was so red she looked as if she were one scream away from a convulsive fit.

  Cecilia flew down the hallway, her shawl streaming out behind her, and came to a stumbling halt beside Amy in front of Miss Honeywell’s door. “What’s happened?”

  Amy gave her a stricken look. “I-I’ve no idea. Mayhap Miss Honeywell had a nightmare?”

  “Stand aside, Mrs. Honeywell.” Lord Darlington’s face was pale, but he was utterly calm as he eased Mrs. Honeywell away from the door. “Some assistance, if you would, Haslemere,” he added, gesturing toward the locked bedchamber door.

  He and Lord Haslemere made quick work of it, slamming their shoulders against the door until the latch on the other side gave way, and it burst open.

  “What the devil?” Lord Haslemere froze on the threshold, his eyes widening, and Cecilia and the others crowded around the door, peeking around him.

  Miss Honeywell was in her bed, her eyes squeezed closed, tears streaming down her cheeks, and one deafening shriek after another issuing from her gaping mouth. She was so overwrought, she seemed not to notice a crowd had gathered in her doorway.

  Mrs. Honeywell pushed forward, flew across the room, and seized her daughter by the shoulders. “Fanny? Fanny! For pity’s sake, child, what’s happened?”

  Mrs. Honeywell was obliged to shake her daughter until at last Fanny opened her eyes and choked out through breathless sobs, “I-I heard a noise outside, as if someone were moaning. I rose from my bed, and I s-saw…there was a woman, standing under my window!”

  “A woman? My dear, it was likely just one of Lord Darlington’s servants.”

  Cecilia and Amy glanced at each other. There was no reason a servant should be wandering around the grounds in the dead of night.

  “No, Mama!” Miss Honeywell clutched her mother’s arm, her knuckles white. “It wasn’t a servant! S-she was a ghost!”

  A collective gasp rose from the bystanders.

  Mrs. Honeywell jerked free, anger replacing the panic on her face. “Goodness, Fanny, all this fuss over a nightmare? Why, you nearly reduced the castle to rubble with your screeching.”

  “It was no nightmare, Mama! She was dressed in a flowing white gown, and her face…” Miss Honeywell shuddered. “No living, breathing being, no woman of flesh and blood could have such deathly white skin. She looked as if she’d just crept from her grave, and she was staring up at me, and she…she raised her hand and pointed her finger at me! It was a threat, Mama! She wants me gone from this castle.”

  Another gasp arose from the servants crowding the doorway, and Amy slapped a hand over her mouth. Lord Darlington strode to the window, jerked the drapes open and peered down into the grounds below. “There’s no one there now.”

  Mrs. Honeywell threw her hands up in the air. Servant, nightmare, or ghost, she was having none of it. “How could an apparition threaten you, you silly girl? It was certainly a nightmare. If she were truly there, then where has she gone?”

  Miss Honeywell cast a wild look at the window, the coverlet clutched to her chest. “Oh, I don’t know! I ran back to my bed, and…and pulled the pillow over my head!”

  Amy let out a terrified squeak. Lord Darlington turned at the sound to find all of them standing in the doorway, witnessing the lurid scene, and his face darkened. “Return to your beds at once. As you can see, Miss Honeywell is perfectly safe now.”

  Lord Haslemere remained where he was, his arms crossed over his chest, but the servants shuffled out and began to make their way back to their bedchambers. Cecilia followed along after them, but she took care to be the last one out the door. She left it open a crack, and lingered in the hallway to listen, with her eye pressed against the narrow gap.

  “Safe!” Miss Honeywell rose to her knees in the middle of the bed and pointed one shaking finger at Lord Darlington. “You wicked, wicked man!”

  Mrs. Honeywell gasped. “Fanny! How dare you address Lord Darlington in such a way? Beg his pardon at once!”

  But Miss Honeywell, who was well beyond rational thought by this point, didn’t beg Lord Darlington’s pardon. “Darlington Castle is haunted, just as everyone in London says it is! The late Lady Darlington roams the grounds, seeking her revenge on you for her death. You really are the Murderous Marquess!”

  “Murderer or not, he’s still a marquess!” Mrs. Honeywell cried.

  “I don’t care if he’s a duke! I’m leaving Darlington Castle tomorrow morning, Mama. I want to go home.”

  “Leaving! But you’re to be married at the end of the week!”

  “What, and get murdered, and end up haunting a dreary castle for the rest of my days? No, Mama. I won’t do it!”

  Mrs. Honeywell, who saw her dream of becoming mother to a marchioness dissolving before her eyes, rushed to the bed and shook her daughter until her teeth rattled in her head. “You’d throw away the chance to become a marchioness over a ghost? God in heaven, that I should be cursed with such a fool for a daughter!”

  Mrs. Honeywell was now as hysterical as Miss Honeywell, and she might have shaken her daughter into unconsciousness if Lord Darlington hadn’t intervened, and dragged her away from the bed. “Release your daughter at once, madam.”

  “What duke would have you now, you selfish, ungrateful girl!” Mrs. Honeywell had quite lost control of herself, and was spitting and scratching to get free. “You’ll be lucky to get a lowly viscount if you jilt a marquess!”

  “I don’t care! I’ll marry a farmer if I have to!” Tears were once again leaking from Miss Honeywell’s eyes, and she buried her face in her hands.

  Mrs. Honeywell gave up trying to reason with her daughter, and turned to clutch desperately at Lord Darlington. “My daughter is a bit…distraught, my lord, and doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’ll come to her senses by morning—”

  “No.” Lord Darlington plucked his shirt out of Mrs. Honeywell’s grasp.

  “No? But my lord, I promise you—”

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Honeywell, but I’ve no wish to marry a lady who doesn’t wish to marry me, nor do I want a wife who believes I’m a murderer.” He turned to offer Miss Honeywell a stiff bow. “I release you from our betrothal, Miss Honeywell.”

  If any specters still lingered near Darlington Castle, Mrs. Honeywell’s deafening shriek would have sent them all scurrying. “I warn you, Lord Darlington, I won’t have every malicious tongue in London wagging about my daughter jilting a marquess. Either you marry her, or I’ll put it about you jilted her. It will be your reputation left in tatters, not hers!”

  Lord Darlington let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Do what you will. I don’t give a bloody damn.”

  Mrs. Honeywell gasped at the curse. “How dare you?”

  “Far more easily than you’d imagine, madam. I trust you and your daughter will be gone from Darlington Castle before breakfast tomorrow.”

  Silence followed this announcement. It seemed even Mrs. Honeywell thought better of arguing with an enrag
ed marquess who’d just ordered her and her daughter to leave his castle. Sensing this was the end of the discussion, Cecilia whirled around and scurried down the hallway to her own bedchamber before she could be caught eavesdropping.

  She closed her own door with a quiet click, but even then, she heard Mrs. Honeywell’s shriek of fury, followed by the abrupt slamming of a bedchamber door.

  Dear God, that shriek.

  Miss Honeywell would have done better to take her chances with the ghost, rather than her mother.

  Cecilia hovered by the door and waited, her heart pounding, and after a few moments she heard the tread of footsteps coming down the hall. She assumed it was Lord Darlington returning to his bedchamber, but when the steps didn’t pass her door, she eased it quietly open and peeked through the gap.

  Lord Darlington and Lord Haslemere were standing in the shallow alcove just off the landing, mumbling to each other. Cecilia could see by their earnest expressions that whatever they were saying was of some import, and she edged the door open a bit wider.

  It was an evening of eavesdropping, it seemed.

  “…didn’t believe it until tonight.”

  It was Lord Darlington speaking. Cecilia would have recognized that deep voice anywhere. His next words were muffled, then he said, “It’s possible she’s come back, Haslemere.”

  She? Who’d come back? Who could Lord Darlington mean?

  Lord Haslemere murmured something Cecilia didn’t catch, then, “…even then, how can she simply disappear as if she’s vanished into the air?”

  Cecilia pressed her eye to the gap and saw Lord Darlington run a distracted hand through his hair. He said something else, too low for Cecilia to hear, then, “…knows the area better than I do.”

  Lord Haslemere made a frustrated sound and mumbled a few words in reply.

  Cecilia held her breath, her ears straining. Oh, why couldn’t they speak clearly?

  “…know where to start…grounds too extensive.”