The Virgin Who Vindicated Lord Darlington

by Anna Bradley

  He turned back toward the entrance hall. “I’ll ask Mrs. Briggs to gather the servants and tell them there will be no wedding.”

  Haslemere chuckled. “They likely knew that even before you did, Darlington. Servants always know everything.”

  Gideon dragged a hand down his face. It was true enough, and he’d wager one of his servants knew more than the others. “I don’t want anyone wandering into the grounds at night until we’ve put this matter to rest.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “Make a few changes to the sleeping arrangements.” And one of his servants wasn’t going to like it.

  She wasn’t going to like it at all.

  * * * *

  “You’ve assigned a guard to watch my bedchamber door?” Cecilia stared up at Lord Darlington, certain she must have misunderstood him.

  “Not a guard, Cecilia, a footman, and Duncan will remain in the hallway outside your bedchamber only at night. You may move about the castle as you always do during the day.”

  Cecilia crossed her arms over her chest. “But I’m to be a prisoner every night, and afforded no more freedom than a criminal at Newgate.”

  Very well, it was a bit of an exaggeration. She didn’t believe Lord Darlington was trying to imprison her, exactly, but he was hiding something. A ghost, an undead wife, a misplaced marchioness? He was chasing someone throughout the castle grounds.

  “How curious you should assume Duncan is there to keep you in, Cecilia, rather than everyone else out. Though now you ask,” he went on, holding up a hand for silence when she would have interrupted, “perhaps it will keep you out of trouble, as well.”

  Cecilia pinched her lips together. “I don’t require Duncan lurking outside my bedchamber door to keep me out of trouble, my lord.”

  “You wouldn’t think so, would you? Yet when left on your own, you turn up in the unlikeliest places. Perhaps Duncan’s presence in the hallway will discourage you from wandering about.”

  Cecilia huffed out a breath. “I have no idea what you mean, my lord.”

  My, what an accomplished liar she’d become since she arrived at Darlington Castle. There’d been a time when falsehoods hadn’t flowed with such ease from her lips, but now not even a hint of a blush stained her cheek at this shameless untruth.

  “No? You haven’t even the vaguest inkling?” One corner of Lord Darlington’s lips quirked in a faint smile. “If you require anything during the night, Duncan will fetch it for you. I prefer for you not to leave this bedchamber once you and Isabella have retired. Isabella must have an attendant at all times, so I can be certain she’s—”

  Safe.

  He bit the word off, but Cecilia took his meaning at once, and she seized on it. “Safe? Does this mean someone really did threaten Miss Honeywell last night? Was it the White Lady? If so, I don’t see what use Duncan will be. I’ve never heard of a ghost who’s afraid of a footman.”

  Lord Darlington crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t say a word about a ghost. What I was about to say is, where I can be certain Isabella’s taken proper care of.”

  “I always take proper care of—”

  “Are you questioning me, Cecilia? Because I assure you, I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to my servants, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  Cecilia eyed him. His hair was a tousled mess, and purple smudges shadowed the skin under his eyes. Something was amiss at Darlington Castle, and whatever it was, it had caused Lord Darlington a sleepless night. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to protect Isabella, and there was no sense in arguing with him about Duncan.

  Not when she was certain she could find a way around him.

  “Well, of course I’ll do just as you say, my lord.” She would, too. Right up until the moment it proved inconvenient. Then she’d do what she pleased.

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he said only, “Yes, Cecilia, you will.”

  * * * *

  Lord Darlington and Lord Haslemere remained closeted in Lord Darlington’s study for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, Cecilia was occupied with Isabella, who’d woken in an ill humor, then spent the rest of the day driving Cecilia nearly as mad as her uncle did.

  That evening she was obliged to sing to her until her throat was raw. By the time Isabella’s big hazel eyes closed at last it was past dark, and Lord Darlington and Lord Haslemere had long since left the castle.

  They could be anywhere by now.

  Cecilia hurried to the window and peered into the darkness, even as she knew catching a glimpse of them was a futile hope at best. She could only see a small part of the grounds from her window, just the rose walk, part of the kitchen garden, and the edge of the tree line—

  There! Cecilia pressed her nose to the glass, a gasp on her lips. Just there, on the other side of the glass, as if she’d conjured it herself from sheer determination, was what she’d been searching for. A light in the darkness, just at the brink of the forest beyond, weaving its way through the trees, bobbing as it would if it were a lantern held in someone’s hand.

  Cecilia whirled away from the window, snatched up her cloak, and, with one last peek at Isabella, hurried to the door, threw it open, and…

  “Oof!” Ran smack into a man’s broad back.

  She bounced off the wall of muscle. Her hand flew to her nose, which had taken the brunt of the impact, and she would certainly have stumbled to the floor if the man hadn’t steadied her with an enormous hand around her shoulder. “Aw right there, Miss Cecilia?”

  Cecilia stared up into a fair-skinned, freckled face. A shock of curly ginger hair hung over a wide forehead, and a pair of startled blue eyes gazed down at her. “Beg yer pardon, Miss Cecilia. I didna think ye’d come running out so wild.”

  Dash it, how could she have forgotten Lord Darlington had assigned a night watchman to her door? Not just any night watchman, either. No, he’d given the job to Duncan, the largest footman at Darlington Castle. Cecilia hadn’t a prayer of fighting her way past him.

  “It’s not the wee lass, is it?” Duncan’s brows pulled together in concern.

  “No, the wee lass is fine,” Cecilia muttered irritably. “It’s the big lord who’s causing the problem.”

  Duncan gave her a blank look. “Beg yer pardon?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing. Isabella is perfectly well, sleeping peacefully, and I thought I’d just going down to, er…fetch a book from the library.” There, that sounded plausible enough.

  “Yer taking your cloak to the library with ye?” Duncan glanced down at the cloak clutched in her hands, then back at her face, his red eyebrows lowered.

  “Well, it does get rather chilly in the library at night, so—”

  “Nay, Miss Cecilia. His lordship warned me ye’d try to sneak past. He made me promise not to fall prey to any tricks.”

  “Tricks!” Cecilia’s usually mild temper began to burn, and she grew more determined than ever to discover what was happening on the castle grounds. If Lord Darlington would go to such lengths to prevent her from leaving her room, it must be wicked, indeed.

  “Aye.” Duncan nodded, but he was fighting back a grin. “Tricks. That’s what he said, Miss Cecilia.”

  Cecilia braced her hands on her hips, her mind churning. What might Georgiana do in a similar situation? There was no question of her forcing her way past Duncan, but mightn’t she be able to talk her way around him?

  For all his imposing size, Duncan was quite a young man, with a sweet, affectionate temperament. He was particularly sweet on Amy, whose presence turned him from a confident, friendly lad into a blushing, stammering schoolboy.

  Cecilia would never be so cruel as to mislead Duncan with false hopes, but she happened to know Amy was as sweet on Duncan as he was on her, so what was the harm in it? A little stealth on her part, and all three of them could have what they wanted.


  “I don’t see what’s so awful in wanting a book. I saw a copy of Mrs. Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho on a shelf when I was down there earlier, and I promised Amy we could read a bit of it together tonight, once Isabella fell asleep.” Cecilia gave a careless shrug. “Amy will be terribly disappointed, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

  As Cecilia had expected, Duncan’s face flushed as red as his hair at the mention of Amy’s name. He bit his lip, struggling between his duty and his affections, then he gave Cecilia a hopeful look. “Just a bit of reading?”

  “Yes. Nothing so sinister in that, is there?”

  “Mayhap I could go and fetch the book for ye, Miss Cecilia?”

  Cecilia thought quickly, then shook her head. “No, you don’t know where it is. It will be much quicker if I just nip downstairs and fetch it myself.”

  Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “Ye wouldn’t be trying to fool me, would ye?”

  “No, of course not.” It was awful of her to tell so many lies to poor Duncan, but she had to get out onto the castle grounds. “Here, I’ll even leave my cloak behind, if it reassures you.”

  Duncan let out a sigh, as if he already suspected he was going to regret trusting her, but the lure of the lovely Amy was too much for him, as it so often was with amorous gentlemen, and he stepped away from the door to let Cecilia pass. “Not more’n a few minutes, Miss Cecilia.”

  “Yes, yes!” Cecilia scurried down the hallway toward the tiny bedchamber where Amy had moved once Cecilia became Isabella’s nursemaid, and knocked briskly on the door. Amy threw it open, frowning when she saw Cecilia standing there. “What are you doing running about the hallways? Lord Darlington says we’re to remain in our bedchambers tonight.”

  Cecilia ignored the question. She took Amy’s hand and pulled her through the door. “Oh good, you’re still dressed. Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I was hoping you’d agree to keep an eye on Isabella while I, ah…run downstairs for a bit.” Cecilia didn’t mention she intended to run downstairs and straight out the front door.

  Amy had been following along after her willingly enough, but now she tugged her hand free. “What do you need downstairs at this time of the evening?”

  “Just a book from the library, but I don’t like to leave Isabella alone.”

  Cecilia’s cheeks heated a little at the lie. Amy noticed it, and gave her a long, searching look, her arms crossed over her chest. “A book.”

  “Yes. Mrs. Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Remember I said we might read it aloud?”

  Cecilia had hoped mention of the Gothic romance would distract Amy, but her friend snorted. “Oh, it’s Mrs. Radcliffe now, is it?”

  “Yes.” Cecilia widened her eyes innocently. “What else would it be?”

  Amy stared hard at her with her lips pursed. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re about. You’ll catch your death out there in the cold, and if you don’t, the ghost will get you.”

  “Come now, Amy. We both know there’s no ghost in those woods—that is, no ghost in the library, I mean.” But something, or someone was out there, and Cecilia needed to find out who, or what it was.

  Amy knew Cecilia well enough by now to know there was more to this than a copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho. She was quiet as she battled with her better instincts, but at last she sighed and slid the shawl from her shoulders. “All right. Go on, if you must, but take this.” She handed the shawl to Cecilia.

  “You’re a treasure, Amy.” Cecilia threw her arms around her friend in an impulsive hug. She turned and dashed toward the stairs, but paused on the landing. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Lord Darlington’s set Duncan to guard the door to my bedchamber. He’s waiting there for you.”

  Amy’s cheeks turned bright pink. “Duncan Geary?”

  “Yes, Duncan Geary. He’s the only Duncan in the castle, as far as I know.” Cecilia gave Amy a mischievous wink, then scurried down the last flight of stairs, into the entrance hall, and out the door before Amy could change her mind and call her back.

  The cold came at her like a blow, and she staggered back a step. She drew Amy’s shawl more tightly around her, a quiet exclamation leaving her lips. She didn’t dare venture as far as the woods in this cold. She didn’t know the grounds well enough, and if she got lost, she could freeze to death. No, as vexing as it was, she’d have to stay near the tree line, in sight of the castle.

  The last thing Darlington Castle needed was another suspicious death.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time Gideon and Haslemere gave up searching the grounds and turned their steps back toward the castle, Gideon’s fingers had gone numb inside his gloves, and Haslemere’s lips were blue.

  They’d been out for hours, but the White Lady proved as elusive as ever. They’d explored every corner of the formal grounds, peered behind every tree in the forest, and prodded every hedge and shrub in the gardens, and hadn’t spied a fold of a white gown or found a single strand of white hair.

  It had been another night wasted, chasing a ghost who vanished at will, and Gideon was weary down to his bones. “It’s strange, Haslemere. The White Lady has appeared before half the villagers in Edenbridge, but until Miss Honeywell, not a single person from Darlington Castle has laid eyes on her, despite days of searching.”

  Haslemere fell into step beside him. “She only appears when she has something to gain by it, and she gains nothing by appearing to us.”

  “What do you mean?” Gideon’s brain was so fuzzy with worry and exhaustion, he couldn’t make sense of anything anymore.

  “Think about it, Darlington. The rumors about the Murderous Marquess began to fade while you were in mourning, but as soon as you returned to society this ghost appears, wandering about your land and haunting your castle. What better way to revive the gossip? Clever trick, really, conjuring your wife back from her grave to start Edenbridge tongues wagging again.”

  Clever, yes. She’d always been clever when it came to getting what she wanted. “The villagers were right about one thing, then. The White Lady is here to wreak her revenge.”

  Haslemere grunted. “They’re wrong about everything else.”

  Gideon dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m thinking of closing Darlington Castle, Haslemere.” There was nothing for him here but loneliness, grief, and a vengeful ghost. “London presents its own challenges, but it can’t be worse than—”

  “I’ll be damned.” Haslemere came to a dead stop, his gaze locked on the castle. “Darlington, look. There, on the south side of the castle, near the kitchen garden. I thought I saw something.”

  Gideon peered into the darkness, the skin on his neck prickling. “What was it?”

  Haslemere’s gaze met his. “A flash of something white.”

  Neither of them said another word as they crept from the far end of the rose walk toward the castle. Closer, and closer—

  “There.” Haslemere’s voice was low, urgent. “By the gate. Do you see it?”

  Gideon went still, every one of his senses screaming to attention. He squinted into the darkness, waiting, one moment crawling after the next, and then, to one side of the kitchen garden gate, just where Haslemere had said, he caught a glimpse of something white, fluttering in the wind.

  He and Haslemere stole forward in silent accord, the frosty grass slippery under their boots, and crept toward the gate.

  She was turned away from them, half-hidden in the shadows of the high stone wall surrounding the kitchen garden, invisible but for a blur of white, and strangely still, as if she were…listening for something.

  Or someone.

  Him.

  She must have known he’d come after her, that he’d tear apart the grounds and prowl around every inch of the castle until he found her. It was what she wanted. He was what she wanted, and she was abou
t to get her wish.

  “Wait, Darlington—”

  Gideon dimly registered Haslemere’s warning, but it was already too late.

  He struck quickly, springing forward, only half-aware he’d moved at all until he caught a handful of her billowing skirts. Her sharp cry pierced the silence, but before she could utter another sound or gather her strength to run, he jerked her back against his chest and covered her mouth with his hand. “Don’t bloody move.”

  Gideon was aware Haslemere was shouting something at him, but he heard nothing, was aware of nothing but the soft press of her lips against his palm, the quivering of her slight body, the brush of her hair against the side of his neck.

  Full, trembling lips, soft, silky hair…

  Cecilia. Not a ghost, not the White Lady, but Cecilia.

  He’d only held her once before, had never inhaled her scent, but somehow, he knew the feel of her in his arms. “It’s all right. I’m sorry. I won’t hurt you, Cecilia,” he murmured, as she trembled against him. He placed a gentle hand on her jaw to still her, and crooned into her ear until his whispered words penetrated her shock, her heaving breaths calmed, and her body went limp against his.

  Let her go, let her go before you can’t.

  He needed to set her away from him, now, before he could no longer think, but even as the warning wound through his head, he was burying his face in her hair, his eyes closing as his lips parted over the soft skin of her neck.

  A sound, the crunch of footsteps over frozen ground recalled him back to himself. He opened his eyes, steeling himself to face Haslemere’s knowing gaze, but his friend had melted into the darkness.

  Gideon allowed himself to breathe her in, to hold her against him for another instant before he took her shoulders in his hands and turned her in his arms. “What are you doing out here? Is it Isabella?”

  “No, Isabella’s fine.” She gazed up at him with huge dark eyes. “I didn’t leave her alone. I-I fetched Amy to watch her.”

  “Then why are you out here, wandering in the dark?” Gideon’s fingers tightened on her shoulders as fear gripped him, squeezing his throat. What if the alleged “ghost” had come across Cecilia out here? “Did it even occur to you it isn’t safe to be out here alone?”