Mary tucked a plain linen scarf in the neck of her bodice and picked up her brush. ‘Superstitious nonsense.’ She brushed hard. ‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’ She glanced past her own reflection at the maid, who looked a little pale.
‘No, miss.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘And I’ve worked here for three years. But I don’t go out there at night.’
Mary coiled her hair around her fingers and reached for her pins. ‘The ruins sound fascinating. I will be sure to take a look.’ She wished she had used her time in the library the previous day looking at a map of the area instead of reading romantic poetry.
‘Would miss like me to fix her hair?’ Betsy asked, looking a little askance at the plain knot Mary favoured. ‘I can do it up fancy like Mrs Hampton’s maid does, if you like. I have been practising on the other girls.’
Mary heard a note of longing in the girl’s voice. ‘Why, Betsy, do you have ambitions to become a lady’s maid?’
Betsy coloured, but her eyes shone. ‘Yes, miss. I would like that above all. My brother works down Beresford’s tin mine. If I had a better paying job, he could go to school.’
Her mine. Or it would be if she married. ‘Is it a bad place to work?’
Betsy looked embarrassed. ‘It’s hard work, but the manager, Mr Trelawny, is a fair man. Not like some.’
‘How old is your brother?’
‘Ten, miss. Works alongside my Da, he does. Proud as a peacock.’
The thought of such a small boy working in the mine did not sit well in her stomach. But she knew families needed the income. As the mine owner, if she really was a mine owner, she could make some changes. To do that, she had to marry. And then the mine would belong to her husband and not to her. It was all such a muddle. Being a schoolteacher was one thing, but this...this was quite another. Besides, it was easy to see that if she married the earl, he would rule the roost. He was not the type of man to listen to a woman.
What she needed was some sensible counsel to see her through this mess. While Sally Ladbrook might not be the warmest of people, she had a sensible head on her shoulders. ‘Perhaps you can help me with my hair another day. That will be all for now.’
How strange it sounded, giving out orders to another person in such a manner, but Betsy seemed to take it as natural, bobbing her curtsy and leaving right away.
Oh dear, Mary hoped the girl wouldn’t be too disappointed that Mary could not offer her a position, but she really couldn’t stay. Not when Lord Beresford considered her death a plausible option.
Besides, she desperately needed to speak to Sally about the other matter the earl had raised. The money. There had to be a plausible explanation, other than misappropriation. The earl was wrong to suggest it.
She sat down and drank the chocolate and ate as many of the rolls as she could manage. The last two she wrapped in a napkin and tucked in her reticule to eat on the journey.
She counted out her small horde of coins and was relieved to discover she had enough to get her back to Wiltshire on a stagecoach. After packing her valise and bundling up in her winter cloak and bonnet, she headed for a side door she’d noticed in her wanderings. She just hoped she could find it again in the maze of passageways and stairs.
After a couple of wrong turns, she did indeed find it again. A quick survey assured her no one was around to see her departure. She twisted the black-iron ring attached to the latch and tugged. The heavy door, caught by the wind, yanked the handle out of her hands and slammed against the passage wall with a resounding bang.
Her heart raced in her chest. Had anyone heard? Would they come running? Rather than wait to see, she stepped outside and, after a moment’s struggle, closed the door behind her.
She really hadn’t expected the wind to be so fierce. She pulled up her hood and tightened the strings, staring around her at crumbling walls and stone arches overgrown with weeds. The jagged walls looked grim and ghostly against the leaden sky, though no doubt it would look charmingly antiquated on a sunny day.
Clutching her valise, she picked her way through the ruins, heading north, she hoped. A green sward opened up before her. Not the cliffs and the sea. In the distance, a rider on a magnificent black horse galloped across the park, a dog loping along behind.
The earl. It could be no one else. Hatless, his open greatcoat flapping in the wind, he looked like the apocalyptic horseman of Death. She shivered.
No, that was giving him far too much in the way of mystical power. He was simply a man who wanted his birthright. And she had somehow managed to get in the way. The thought didn’t make her feel any better.
Realising she must have turned south, she swiftly marched in the other direction, around the outside of the ruins, up hill this time, which made more sense if she was headed for cliffs.
The wind increased in strength, buffeting her ears, whipping the ribbons of her bonnet in her face and billowing her cloak around her. She gasped as it tore the very breath from her throat. It would be a vigorous walk to St Ives and no mistake.
She licked her lips and was surprised by the sharp tang of salt on her tongue. From the sea, she supposed. Interesting. She hadn’t thought of the salt being carried in the air. Head down, she forged on, looking for a path along the cliff top. The upward climb became steeper, so rocky underfoot she had to watch where she placed each step or risk a tumble. She paused to take stock of her progress.
A few feet in front of her the ground disappeared and all she could see ahead of her was grey surging waves crested with spume. It was lucky she had stopped when she did.
But where was the path mentioned by Gerald? She scanned the ground in both directions and was able to make out a very faint track meandering along the cliff top. It looked more like a track for sheep than for people.
The wind seemed intent of holding her back, but she battled into it, following the track frighteningly close to the edge.
The strings of her hood gave way against a battering gust and her bonnet blew off, bouncing against her back, pulling against her throat. Strands of hair tore free and whipped at her face, stinging her eyes. A roar like thunder rolled up from below.
She leaned out to peer through the spray into the boiling churning water. Hell’s kitchen must surely look and sound like this. As each wave drew back with a grumbling growl, she glimpsed the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff and off to her left a rocky cove with a small sandy beach.
Out in the distance, the sky and sea became one vast grey mist. The world had never felt this big in the little Wiltshire village of Sarum. She leaned into the wind and felt its pure natural strength holding her weight. She laughed. She couldn’t help it. She had never experienced such wildness.
Something nudged into her back.
She windmilled her arms to regain her balance. Her valise went flying over the cliff. And the ground fell from beneath her feet.
She screamed.
Chapter Four
An iron band of an arm closed around her waist at the same moment her feet left the ground. She hung suspended above the raging sea for what felt like hours, but could only be seconds. That arm twisted her around and plonked her down. Not on the ground, but on a pair of hard muscled thighs gripping a saddle.
Teeth chattering, heart racing, she gazed up into the earl’s hard face. With a click of his tongue he backed the horse away from the edge. Was he mad? They could all have gone over the cliff.
Clear of the edge, he halted the horse’s backward progress and wheeled around so they were no longer facing the sea. Further along the cliff, a shepherd, crook in hand, was running towards them. The earl waved, an everything-is-fine acknowledgement, which it wasn’t, and the shepherd stopped running and waved back.
‘Put me down,’ she demanded.
A grunt was all the answer he gave.
She felt his thighs move beneath her as he clicked his tongue. The horse headed down hill. Back the way she had come. The urge to protest caused her hands to clench.
‘Are you ma
d?’ she yelled over the wind. ‘I almost went over the edge.’
His cold gaze flicked over her face. He took a deep shuddering breath as if to control some strong emotion. Fear? More likely anger. His next words confirmed it. ‘It would have served you right, my girl. What the devil did you think you were doing?’
She shoved the annoying lengths of hair out of her face. Dash it, she would not lie. ‘Walking to St Ives. Now I have lost my bag.’
‘You are lucky that was all you lost,’ he murmured like a threat in her ear.
He meant she could have lost her life. She swallowed and glanced back towards the headland, where the shepherd, a hand shading his eyes, was still watching them. It would have been the answer to all the earl’s problems if she had gone over that cliff. She could have sworn something nudged her in the back. Had he changed his mind at the last moment?
A cold hand clawed at her stomach. She glanced at his grim expression. He’d been angry about that will. She could well imagine him taking matters into his own hands. But murder? A shiver slid down her back.
The further from the cliff they got, the less the sea and the wind roared in her ears. She lifted her chin and met his chilly gaze. ‘You have no right to keep me here.’
‘I have every right. I am your guardian.’
‘Only in your mind,’ she muttered.
He stiffened. ‘You need a keeper if you think it is safe to walk along that cliff top.’
Now he was pretending he minded if she fell. Why? So she wouldn’t guess his intentions? It certainly wasn’t because he cared about what happened to her. The cold in her stomach spread to her chest. She readied herself to jump down and run for her life.
He hissed in a breath, as if in some sort of pain. ‘In heaven’s name, stop wriggling.’
‘Then put me down.’
‘I’ll put you down when I am good and ready.’
The big horse pranced and kicked up his back legs. She instinctively grabbed for his lordship’s solid shoulders. He tensed and she heard him curse softly under his breath. He pulled the horse to a stop and, putting an arm around her waist, lowered her to the ground. He dismounted beside her.
‘No need to interrupt your ride,’ she said brightly. ‘I can find my own way.’
He grasped her upper arm in an iron grip. Not hard enough to hurt, but there was no mistaking she could not break free. ‘How did you get out of the house without anyone seeing you?’
She gasped. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I left orders that you were not to leave.’
‘Orders you have no right to give?’
‘Don’t test my patience, Miss Wilding. I will have no hesitation in dealing with you as you deserve.’
She swallowed hard. ‘Killing me off, you mean?’ Oh, no. She couldn’t believe she had just blurted that out.
He released her as if she was hot to the touch. His eyes flashed with an emotion she could not read—pain, perhaps? More likely disgust given the hard set to his jaw. ‘I assure you, when I want your death, it will not occur in front of witnesses.’
So he had seen the shepherd and thought better of it. She tried not to shiver at the chill in his voice. ‘I will keep that in mind, my lord. Thank you for the forewarning.’
He stared at her, his lips twitching, his eyes gleaming as if he found something she had said amusing. ‘You are welcome, Miss Wilding. Come along, I will escort you back to the house.’
So now they were to pretend nothing had happened? That he hadn’t seriously thought about pushing her off a cliff? Perhaps she should pretend she was joking about thinking he wanted her dead. She quelled a shiver. She hated this feeling of fear. Anger at her weakness rose up in her throat, making it hard to breathe or think, when she should be finding a way to beat him at his own game. She gave him a look of disdain. ‘Did no one tell you it isn’t polite to creep up on a person?’
‘I was riding a very large stallion over rocky terrain. That hardly counts as creeping.’
‘I didn’t hear you over the noise of the sea. Surely you could tell?’
He gave her a look designed to strike terror into the heart of the most intrepid individual. ‘I had other things on my mind.’
Such as pushing her over the edge. She began striding down hill. Unlike most men of her acquaintance, he easily kept pace, the horse following docilely, while the dog bounded around them. Surprisingly, his steps matched hers perfectly. On the rare occasion when she’d walked alongside a gentleman—well, back from the village with the young man who delivered the mail—she’d had to shorten her stride considerably because the young man was a good head shorter than she. The earl, on the other hand, towered above her. A rather unnerving sensation.
All her sensations with regard to this man were unnerving. The fluttery ones when he kissed her, the shivery ones when she felt fear and the one she was feeling now, a strange kind of appreciation for his handsome face and athletic build when she should be absolutely terrified. It seemed that whereas her mind was as sharp as a needle, her body was behaving like a fool.
It was this silence between them making her react this way. It needed filling to distract her from these wayward thoughts and feelings.
‘The Abbey is an extraordinary house, isn’t it?’ She gestured towards the sprawling mish-mash of wings and turrets.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Highly impractical. Ridiculously expensive to run. It should be torn down.’
Aghast, she stopped, staring up at his implacable face. ‘But think of all the history that would be lost.’
‘A history of murderous brigands.’
‘Rather fitting, don’t you think?’ The words were out before she could stop them.
He gave her a look askance, as if he found her a puzzle he would like to solve. Well, she had solved his puzzle. She knew exactly what was on his mind. Her murder. A bone-deep shudder trembled in her bones.
They reached the ruins near her tower. He stopped, his gaze fixed on the door through which she had left. ‘You came through there.’
It wasn’t a question. She shrugged and kept walking.
He caught her arm and halted her. ‘Give me your word you will not try to leave again without my permission.’
‘You have no authority over my actions. None at all.’
He let go a sigh. ‘Very well, that door and all the others will from now on be locked and barred.’ One corner of his mouth curled up, and if his voice had not been so harsh, she might have thought it an attempt at a smile. ‘You might as well use it to go back inside.’
She pulled her arm free. Anything not to have to spend any more time in his company. Her runaway heart was going to knock right through the wall of her chest. She headed for the door.
‘Miss Wilding,’ he said, softly.
She turned back.
‘Be in the library at eleven o’clock.’
‘Why?’
‘There is a funeral to arrange.’
Why would she need to be involved in family arrangements? Unless he still thought she was some sort of relation. The very idea made anger ball up in her chest, because while she had longed for it desperately, it wasn’t the case. And that was just as foolish as the way her emotions seemed to see-saw around him.
She shot him a glare as he stood there, waiting for her obedience, one hand on a hip, the other gripping the horse’s reins, watching her with those unnerving grey eyes as if she was a recalcitrant child.
With no other alternative in sight, she lifted the latch and went in.
* * *
As custom dictated, the ladies were not expected to attend the funeral. Mary also refused to attend the reception arranged for afterwards. She wasn’t family and there had been quite enough speculation about her relationship to the deceased earl. She had no wish to run the gauntlet of local gossip. Besides, she had nothing suitable to wear now her valise was gone. Reluctantly the earl had agreed.
Heady with triumph at winning the argument, Mary had settled herself in
the library with Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda. Romantic nonsense, Sally would have called it, but it had a depth to it, too, that Mary found fascinating.
‘What are you reading?’
Startled at the closeness of the voice, Mary looked up with a gasp. The earl, dark and predatory, loomed over her looking like a dark angel. Much as he had looked at his grandfather’s bedside. Perhaps not quite as grim.
‘Shouldn’t you be at the reception?’ she asked sweetly.
‘It is over.’
A hot flush travelled up her face as she realised that evening was drawing in rapidly. The afternoon had flown by in unaccustomed idleness. She was already straining to see the words on the page, but she’d been too engrossed to get up and light a candle. She closed the book. ‘I didn’t realise how late it was.’
He glanced down at the cover. ‘A novel. I should have guessed.’
The back of her neck prickled because he was standing so close. Because once more his cologne invaded her nostrils and recalled to mind her disgraceful response to his lips on hers. Her body warmed in the most uncomfortable way at the memory. How could she think about his kiss after he had practically dropped her off the cliff earlier in the day? Her mind must be disordered.
‘Was there some reason for your interruption?’ She gave him the frosty glance that had new girls quaking in their slippers.
It troubled him not one whit, it seemed. Indeed he didn’t seem to notice the chill in her voice at all, since a flicker of amusement passed across his face. Hah! She should be glad he found her entertaining.
He held out a note. ‘The post brought you a letter.’
Oh, now she felt bad for being rude.
He moved away to give her privacy and began browsing the shelves on the far side of the room.
She frowned at the handwriting. She had not expected Sally to write after such a short time. Sending mail such a distance was expensive. Now she would owe the earl for the cost of the postage and she had little enough money in her purse. She broke the seal and spread open the paper.
Haunted by the Earl's Touch Page 6