“I was at her brother’s funeral.”
“I understand you were present when he was killed.”
“I was.”
Mercer pinned him with his gaze. He nodded. “Mrs. Evans—I beg your pardon, Lady Banallt—and my wife have not been bosom companions. They are, I fear, two different sorts of women, and one’s wife... Ah, but you have been married before. As has she. So perhaps you both understand that marriage is not without its moments of imperfection.” He poured a brandy for them both. “I’m curious, my lord, whether you intend to seek a judicial review of Mr. Mercer’s bequests.”
Banallt drank half his brandy before he answered. “Is that why you kept her here? I wondered.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Why, to prevent her from pursuing the legacy her brother intended her to have.” He put down the snifter with a thunk. “The late John Mercer’s solicitor could hardly advise her to seek counsel on the outcome. That would have been a dereliction of his duties. Though she would eventually have thought of it herself.”
“He never executed the documents.”
“You ought to have seen his wishes carried out. A gentleman would have.”
“To the tune of fifty thousand pounds? Or more?” Mercer’s expression hardened. “I should think not. What would a woman do with such a sum of money?”
The Mercers and Havenwood were no longer his affair. He clasped his hands behind his back. “If my wife wishes to know you in future, I will not forbid her. She is free to make her own connections. But be assured, Mr. Mercer, that I do not wish to know you or your wife.”
“But the money—”
“May you choke on it, sir.”
Banallt turned on his heel and went to fetch his bride.
Thirty
WHEN CASTLE DARMEAD CAME INTO VIEW, SOPHIE’S stomach somersaulted. The sight was familiar to her, though she’d usually approached by the field and not the long, curving drive. She felt a pang of recognition when the phaeton passed the spot where, as a girl, she’d left the field for the graveled drive, just before the outer wall that circled the castle proper and marked the boundary of the estate. Someone had begun to clear the vines clinging to the wall. They passed between the huge black double gates that hadn’t been closed in years. Smoke came from one of the chimneys in the guard tower.
When Banallt came to a stop at the top of the drive, a groom ran to the phaeton and held the horses while Banallt got down. He came around for her, but before he did, he instructed the servant that the trunk in the boot was to be brought inside to the room adjoining his. “Shall we, madam?”
She clutched Banallt’s arm as they walked to the entrance. The gray stone exterior was familiar. Little had changed since she’d last been here, more than ten years ago now. She knew the structure almost as well as she did Havenwood. The front door had a fresh coat of black paint. The iron filigree that extended from the hinges across the door had been scrubbed. Her husband opened the door.
Sophie’s breath hitched when he caught her in his arms and carried her into Darmead. She laughed because he tickled her. As they went in, the butler appeared from a pantry to the left. King’s eyes widened when he saw her in Banallt’s arms. Other than that, he was impassive. As if he saw his employer do such things every day. Inside, Banallt slowly put her down. “I promised I’d have you home before supper, Lady Banallt,” he whispered.
“Ma’am,” King said. Sophie slipped off her coat, and Banallt handed over his, too, along with his hat and gloves. “My lord. I trust you had a pleasant outing?”
“Yes, we had. Very pleasant indeed. And now, King,” Banallt said, “you shall be the first here at Castle Darmead to know our news.”
The butler tugged on his damaged ear. “Speak to my good side, then, milord.” He smoothed the lay of Banallt’s coat over his arm.
“Mrs. Evans is Mrs. Evans no more. I have married her.” Banallt’s smile lit the room, and seeing it sent Sophie’s heart flying right toward him. “From this moment forward, you will address her as Lady Banallt.”
King’s eyes fixed on Sophie, and she felt a shock at the intensity of his assessment of her. “Married, my lord?” he said in even tones. He didn’t sound the least surprised. “To this slip of a girl?”
“Yes, King,” Banallt said.
King’s grin broke open. “Why, then, congratulations, my lord!” King grabbed Sophie’s hand in both of his and pressed hard. “Lady Banallt. I hope you know you’ve gone and married yourself to the best man in all of England, that’s all.”
She drew back her hand. The ring Banallt had put onto her fourth finger was an unaccustomed weight. She’d taken off Tommy’s ring the night she saw him with Mrs. Peters, and she had believed she’d never again wear such a symbol of pain and futility. Now, her finger was once more encircled by a band of gold. Lord Banallt was her husband. The idea refused to strike her as anything but impossible. “Thank you, King,” she said. Inside, she shook, and she was astonished at how normal her voice sounded. “I’m glad you think so.”
Banallt put a hand on her waist and drew her close. “Gather the staff, King, so I may introduce my countess in, say, half an hour? Her things are being sent on from Havenwood. When they arrive, they’re to be put in the north tower wing.”
“Milord.” King bowed.
His countess. My heavens. When Banallt said that, he meant her. And King would eventually turn his dark eyes on her and see she was an imposter and that her marriage was a fraud, that she didn’t love him and deserved not congratulations, but contempt.
Sophie felt her life rushing headlong to the end of the world, and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. She wished she were still at Havenwood, or anywhere but at Castle Darmead, where her past, present, and future had collided. The thought of living the rest of her days with Banallt was terrifying and electrifying at the same time. But, of course, he wouldn’t stay, would he? She wasn’t really going to live with Banallt. And if he was sent to Wellington ... She refused to think what might happen.
Banallt led her inside, and Sophie’s sense of unreality increased tenfold. In a blink, she traveled back in time to the Darmead of her girlhood. For the first time since she’d married Tommy she was someplace she belonged, someplace that wanted her, where she wanted to be. A shiver went down her spine. As a girl she’d confidently told anyone who would listen that one day she would marry the Earl of Banallt and come to live at Darmead.
And somehow she had.
She was Lord Banallt’s wife. Her body felt as light as air, and her hand trembled in her husband’s as he led her inside.
Long uninhabited except by a caretaking staff, Darmead retained much of its medieval character, which was why Sophie had so loved to visit as a girl. She’d been mad about history even then, always making up stories set in years long past. Visiting Castle Darmead had, for her, been like stepping hundreds of years back in time. How many dozens of stories had Darmead inspired in her girlish head? Knights in armor, dragons, Viking hordes, reivers from Scotland; in her imagination Castle Darmead had withstood innumerable assaults from villains of all kind.
Almost everything was as she recalled. The arched windows she so loved and the crossed swords hanging on the walls waiting for a warrior’s hand were still there. The gray brick seemed the loveliest color in the world, and the passageway to the butler’s pantry as deliciously mysterious as ever. Her head swivelled to take in the vaulted ceiling overhead and the carved wooden minstrel gallery. Darmead had always made her feel like she’d been plunked in the middle of a story she just had to tell. Well. She had been. Only this time, the story wasn’t one she’d made up.
Banallt took her upstairs. Naturally, she’d been in every room in the castle multiple times, including the dungeon. Once the caretakers had gotten used to her visits and her begging for more stories about the castle and its history, they’d given her free reign. She knew, therefore, that originally and today, the rooms in this wing wer
e reserved for family and were made up of a series of connecting rooms: the great chamber, the presence chamber, the guard chamber, a withdrawing chamber, and the privy chamber. When the first earl lived here in 1651, he’d converted the chambers to something reasonably more modern. The lord’s room she assumed must be Banallt’s room and was the original privy chamber. That room led to a withdrawing room, which in turn opened onto what was to be her room.
“Freshen up, Sophie,” Banallt said. He squeezed her hand. “Then we’ll go downstairs and meet the staff.”
When she was here as a girl, all but a few of the rooms had been closed up. The rest were barely furnished, with bed hangings long gone, rugs rolled up, the furniture covered, fireplaces empty for hundreds of years. She remembered the black larch paneling that covered the walls floor to ceiling, carved with interlocking squares. The marble mantel was precisely as she recalled, columned on either side, with lozenges and the original viscount’s crest carved above. The ceiling, too, was carved with the same interlocking pattern as the walls.
But she’d never seen the room furnished; her imagination had once supplied the details now before her. An azure and cream carpet, blue velvet curtains tied back with tasseled silk ropes, shuttered windows open to a view of Duke’s Head, miles distant. The furniture was old-fashioned and rather dark. But there were modern touches here and there. A series of still lifes hung on the wall: fruit, flowers, a desk with sheet music. The four-poster bed was hung with brilliant blue silk and covered with a black silk coverlet embroidered with gold garlands. She would sleep in that bed tonight.
She removed her gloves to wash her face in the basin. A soft towel had been laid by. She tidied her hair and sank onto a chair by the fireplace, trying to get herself firmly grounded in what had happened. She wasn’t certain she could. Her old life and her present one collided and left her not knowing whether to be giddy at being at Darmead, glad to be away from Havenwood with its unhappy memories, or questioning her sanity for having married the Earl of Banallt. She held up her hands and watched them shake. A wedding band was on her finger. Banallt had put it there himself. She managed herself and walked through the withdrawing room. There was a door directly across from the one she’d entered through. Banallt was on the other side. She didn’t knock on the door as she’d intended.
Instead, she went downstairs, where she met the housekeeper. “Welcome to Castle Darmead, Lady Banallt,” the housekeeper said with the same Scottish burr Sophie recalled. Her dark curls were tinged with gray now. “Or should I say, welcome back, young lady.” She clasped her hands over her apron. “I never did imagine you’d be marrying the master, Miss Sophie, yet here you are. Every inch of you Lady Banallt.” She smiled. “How many times did you beg for a tour when you were still young Miss Mercer of Havenwood?”
“At least a thousand,” Sophie said. She was hollow inside. She had no substance, she was empty, and if King hadn’t seen her for a fraud, Mrs. Layton would. Her clear blue eyes missed nothing.
“Yes, it must have been at least a thousand.” Mrs. Layton threw her arms around Sophie. “We heard about your brother,” she whispered, hugging Sophie close. “I said a prayer for you both.”
“Thank you.”
Holding on to Sophie’s shoulders, she took a step back and looked her up and down. “And now look at you. Grown up and mistress of the castle, exactly as you said.”
“I never forgot the stories you told me, Mrs. Layton. I never forgot you.”
“My dear. Lady Banallt. You’re the same lovely girl you always were, aren’t you?”
Sophie lifted her arms. “It still quite takes my breath,” she said. “All of this. It doesn’t seem real. None of it does.”
“Ah,” said a voice from above them.
Banallt walked to the front of the minstrel gallery and looked down, fiercely handsome and disreputable, what with his too-long hair and his coat unbuttoned to reveal his silver waistcoat. He put his hands on the top rail. “Lady Banallt.” His eyes lingered on Sophie. “Welcome to Castle Darmead.”
Sophie knew a narrow spiral staircase led from the great hall to the first tower, with landings for the minstrel gallery and then the bedchambers and on the other side, a large parlor with an enormous fireplace. More bedchambers were on the third floor, and if you climbed to the very top of the tower, you found not an observatory or an office, but a storage room full of broken furniture and bits of armor.
Her ears buzzed with the effect of seeing Banallt here. As a girl, long before she met Tommy Evans, she’d dreamed of a moment like this. Her first stories had all contained scenes much like this one. She’d constantly imagined meeting the direct descendant of the viscount who had built the original castle. He would see her, a glimpse from afar, and then a nearer one, and they would, naturally, inevitably, fall tragically in love.
Banallt disappeared from the gallery and a minute later emerged from an arched doorway at the side of the hall. The introduction to the staff was over quickly. Banallt knew every name and the position each held, whether they had been at Darmead all these years or he’d brought them with him from London or hired them on when he came here from Town. He turned his attention back to her. “The place is drafty at times. I find it’s most pleasant upstairs by the fire.” He bent close and kissed her cheek before she was prepared. He smelled of lemons and bergamot.
“Banallt.” She managed to hide her reaction from him. She hoped. Surely she wasn’t standing here next to the Earl of Banallt, married to him. His countess. Banallt understood she did not love him. Her heart would not be broken when he returned to London and, inevitably, took a lover. He would fall out of love with her one day. So long as she remembered that, they would be fine.
“We’ll have tea upstairs, King,” he said.
“Milord.”
“We’ll dine privately, I think.”
“About eight, my lord?”
“Excellent.”
The stairs to the parlor were so narrow they had to proceed single file. Sophie went first, then Banallt. She glanced at him over her shoulder and tried for normalcy. “My first novel was a historical romance in which a pitched battle took place on these very stairs, with knights fighting for their lives, defending the upper reaches of the castle from the depredations of a neighboring lord.”
“Yes, I remember. A rousing scene. And it took place here?”
“As a girl,” she said, “I was far too small to see out the windows.” She stopped at one of the arrow slits in the spiral staircase. “Later I was able to see, but not easily.” Since she was in the lead, their stopping meant she was nearly at eye level with Banallt. “It’s exactly as I recall.”
“I should be more than willing to lift you for a view,” Banallt said.
For once she could look him straight in the eye. “That would be quite undignified, I should think.”
He scooped her up in his arms and held her to the slit of a window. She laughed and slapped his chest. “Banallt!”
“Now is your chance, Sophie. Look.” He leaned them toward the opening. “What story would you write with that narrow view of the world?”
“It’s lovely,” she said. Green fields sloped away from the high ground the first viscount had claimed when he built Darmead so many centuries ago. Clouds gathered on the horizon.
“Can you not see the attacking army?” he said. She put an arm around his neck to steady herself. The window opening was several feet deep and narrowed to a point less than four inches wide. “Ample space for an archer, wouldn’t you say?”
“Do you think they ever admired the view as they took aim?”
Banallt held her easily. “I should hope not. That the castle still stands and remains in the possession of the Llewellyn family, I think not. The archer concentrated on his shooting.”
“Do you think he laid his arrows on the ledge? Or did he keep them in a quiver at his back?”
“On the ledge, perhaps? Hm. Do you think there’s room here for him to reach behind him?�
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“You can put me down now,” she said.
“I’d rather not.” Banallt dropped a kiss on her forehead and continued up the stairs with her in his arms, though he had to walk sideways to make the turns without cracking her head on the wall.
“You’ll drop me.”
“I shan’t.” They exited to the hallway that led to their rooms with Banallt still carrying her. She had both arms around his neck by now. “Did you know, Banallt, that Henry IV is said to have visited here?”
He glanced at her and winked. “My ancestor was nearly bankrupted by his call, I’ll have you know. I’ve seen the ledgers.”
“You have?”
“My predecessor here was meticulous in his record keeping. My father set him as the example I should strive to emulate when the time came for me to manage the properties.” His eyelids lowered, and Sophie saw the sweep of his thick lashes. She wanted very much to kiss him. “I shall do the same for our son.”
They didn’t go right to the bedchambers but rather left to the parlor. He put her down in order to open the wooden door. Someone had painted it green, which was new. When last she’d seen the door, it was brown. Sophie leaned against the wall. “I was accused of plotting to live here,” she said as Banallt opened the door to let her precede him inside. “By my father and the caretakers both.”
“You laid a clever scheme, Lady Banallt.”
“Papa always said he expected one day he’d have to explain to the Earl of Banallt how a ten-year-old girl had come to live in his house without his permission.” She smiled at the memory as she went inside. “He encouraged me, you know. He claimed it was his fondest wish that the Mercers should one day find themselves in adverse possession of a castle.”
While Sophie walked the perimeter of the parlor, servants brought in tea. Banallt leaned an elbow on the mantel. The floor was covered with the same Aubusson carpet she recalled from her youth. This room, with its paintings from the days of Banallt’s great-great-grandfather on the walls, had been used to entertain guests who’d come to tour the castle and grounds and who then wished for tea before leaving. The paintings had been among her favorites: hunting scenes, portraits of men and women in stiff collars and wigs, and, her favorite, St. George slaying the dragon.
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