Now that made Hartwell stand up and advance on Steele so quickly that Steele actually tripped on an unseen ottoman and fell against a round table still covered with a few piles of books and a tasseled paisley throw. Hartwell glared into Steele’s wide, terrified eyes. He felt his nostrils flare and heat rise at his temple. His mother had always said he looked rather ugly when he was angry, and Hartwell, in an errant thought, figured he must look worse now than as a child with his scarred face. It was a safe assumption, given the way Steele cowered.
“Say that again and I’ll rip that idiotic hair piece right off your lip,” Hartwell said. He kept his voice soft and silky, remembering how it had frightened his sister when they were children. It worked just as well on adults in the courtroom, and seemed to work even better on a fool such as Steele.
“If you’re so upset by it, why haven’t you offered for her hand?” Steele said, gulping.
“Because unlike you, I like to think things through before taking action. Do you think I’m about to propose to a woman knowing her aunt may very well be threatening the life of my nephew? Do you think any amount of affection would entice me to bring such a woman into my family? I would have to love Mary a great deal to want to bring Mrs. Durham along for the ride.”
Steele almost looked impressed. “Why Hartwell, I didn’t know you were so calculating.”
With a great shove, Hartwell toppled Steele, the table, and the books to the floor. “It’s not calculating, it’s common sense. I came here for a purpose, and I’m not leaving until my family is safe. I can’t be chasing after the skirts of a lovely woman just because you pose some sort of competition or threat.”
“Aha!” Steele said before he caught the murderous look in Hartwell’s eye. He scrambled across the floor in case Hartwell decided to kick him. “So you do think she’s a lovely woman. You’re a fool, Hartwell, not to have offered for her hand.”
Steele was right, of course he was right, but Hartwell had no intention of showing he felt that way. Even though his chest felt a little tight at the idea of Mary joining hands with this pale upstart of a man, Hartwell refused to get in the way. He came here to find a blackmailer, and it seemed he had. All he needed was the documentation, and a bit of time to draw up the papers, and he would leave. He would file his complaint and have the authorities take care of Mrs. Durham.
Hopefully, by the grace of all that was good and mighty in the world, Mary would forgive him the act of placing her sole living family member in the gaol. She would break her engagement with Steele, citing complaints that he was a bit vain, and entertain the idea of getting to know Hartwell a little better. She would laugh at the antics of his nephew, and share a disbelieving glance at the not-so-entertaining antics of his socialite sister.
Also, he would completely heal so it would look as if he had never been scarred in the first place.
Also, Hartwell was kidding himself, and he knew it.
“And what do you intend to do then?” Hartwell said. He sighed and rubbed his aching forehead. “Seeing that you have offered for her hand and I’m obviously not going to challenge you?”
“To be honest, I rather thought you were going to fight me. I hadn’t gotten past that point.”
“If Mary accepts your hand, there’s absolutely no way I could ever marry her,” Hartwell muttered. He liked to think of himself as a good man. He wasn’t so good as to think he could marry a woman dumb enough to actually want to marry Steele. He cleared his throat and raised his voice so Steele could hear him. “So now that you know I’m not about to fight you, what is your plan?”
“Well,” Steele said, “I suppose I ought to handle this blackmailing issue, now that you mention it.” His expression darkened, and then, after studying the brooding Hartwell, brightened.
“No. I will not take care of this for you. You got yourself into this mess, you can get yourself out. I’ve the information I need.”
“You’re not leaving!” Steele cried, following as Hartwell threw open the library door. “You would leave me with this madwoman?”
Hartwell rounded on Steele, flattening him against the hallway wall. The wire-hung paintings swayed overhead. “Don’t you ever call Mary that to her face.”
“I’m speaking of Mrs. Dur—what do you know?”
Just then a pain shot up Hartwell’s spine and landed at the space between his eyes. He clutched his forehead, stumbling into the staircase banister with a gasp. “Nothing,” he managed. For the love of all that was painful, Trentwood must not have liked him assuming Steele had been referring to Mary! “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hartwell! I insist you tell me what you know!”
“I must get some sleep if I’m to return to London in the morning.” Jamming the pads of his fingers against his temples, Hartwell staggered up the staircase, ignoring Steele’s shrieks that he return and answer his questions.
Hartwell fell into his bedroom and kicked the door shut. He heard a squeak through the wall. Far too human-sounding to be a mouse. Belatedly, he remembered Mary shared a wall with him, and felt some remorse. But the pain wasn’t going away, and he was going to have to do something about it if he wanted to be able to open his eyes without searing pain ripping through his skull.
“All right, Trentwood,” Hartwell said through gritted teeth, “show yourself!”
“I’m not entirely certain I can, but can you hear me all right?”
Hartwell’s mouth dropped open. He sat on the floor, not knowing what else to do.
“Oh. Excellent. Apparently you can.”
***
THIRTY-ONE
Steele remained at the foot of the staircase, unsure he wanted to follow Hartwell and continue insisting that his questions be answered. It was that scar of his; Steele just couldn’t get past it, and had no idea how Mary could laugh with such gruesome features.
Mary.
With a low groan Steele buried his face in his hands. He had proposed to the woman, knowing she had waited for those words to come from his mouth for a year. A year! And now he was bound to her until she gave her response. Well, that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? A way to distract Mary, to take her mind off Hartwell and her dead father? To remove those harmful influences?
It bothered him that he didn’t know why he cared about such things, but he did, and such caring had made him do the unthinkable: propose to a woman he hardly knew.
“Idiot,” he breathed, tapping his temples with the heels of his hands. “Stupid idiotic emotional fool.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
Steele jumped. “Where have you been?” he asked when he realized it was Pomeroy who had spoken. He straightened his tie and waistcoat self-consciously; the tussle with Hartwell had no likely put permanent creases into his slacks, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Beeton, sir,” Pomeroy said, as if all butlers lowered themselves to the position of kitchen maid to help the cook do the dishes.
To be sure, Pomeroy’s hands were red and wrinkled from sitting in water for the past hour, and Steele winced. He never went near the kitchens at home, he avoided any and all servants until he needed them. That was the right thing to do, the proper thing. It was unnatural, the way Pomeroy appeared at his whim and left the same way. It was disgusting the way Mary so obviously depended upon him to keep the house in order.
“How long have you been with this family?” Steele asked, smoothing his moustache.
“Since before Miss Trentwood’s birth, sir,” Pomeroy said.
Steele sighed inwardly. Hartwell was right about one thing: he was far too transparent. He might never make it as a true barrister. With a single question he had put Pomeroy on edge, and who knew what he would get out of the surly butler now.
“If I’m to understand correctly, sir,” Pomeroy said, taking a step closer to Steele, “you have proposed to Miss Trentwood.”
There was a hesitation in Steele’s nod.
�
��If you’re not serious about her, you ought to call it off, sir, pardon my saying so. Miss Trentwood’s too much work for the likes of you, pardon my saying it.”
Steele gaped at Pomeroy. “What?”
“Sir,” Pomeroy said, his tone gaining a sense of urgency, “you must understand one thing: Miss Trentwood thinks she is haunted by her father.”
Scoffing, Steele waved his hand at such nonsense. “Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Trentwood has been acting rather oddly last I saw her, of course, and rightly so, given her father’s death, but to say she’s mad!” Steele caught his breath. Mad? No, Pomeroy hadn’t used that word, but perhaps that was what Hartwell had meant by his misplaced assumption. Just what did these rascals know?
Pomeroy shook his head. “That’s the worst of it, sir, Miss Trentwood’s not mad, but she certainly thinks she’s being haunted.”
“I don’t see a difference.”
A creak on the stairway above them made both men look up to find Mrs. Durham watching them with an odd smile. “So you think my niece is a bit confused as well, Mr. Steele?” she said.
Steele inhaled. Neither Hartwell nor Mary was around to stop him. He could go ahead with his plan. He needn’t fear marriage to Mary if the blackmailing stopped. “Mrs. Durham, I’d like a word with you, if you please.” He held out his hand as she descended.
“You’d be wise to not confide secrets in this one,” Pomeroy muttered, sidling away.
Lip curling, Steele shrugged away the uneasy feeling that lurked in the pit of his stomach. What could the butler know, anyway?
“What is it you wish to speak to me about, Mr. Steele?” Mrs. Durham asked, wrapped in her heavy, fur-lined Bernhardt mantle though it was actually rather balmy out. Her eyes kept darting around, but Steele didn’t notice due to the late hour of day. The sun had set, and they walked with a lantern to guide them in their circuit around the manor house.
“Mrs. Durham, you know me to be a simple man, I hope.”
She tittered. “Has Mr. Hartwell been at you, Mr. Steele? You are by no means simple. I think you a highly educated man entirely deserving of my bookish niece!”
If she could have seen his face clearly, Mrs. Durham was certain she would have seen the blond man turn red, if the annoyed embarrassment in his tone was any indication.
“No, Mrs. Durham, I mean to say that I am a frank man. I dislike dissembling and have no talent for it, so I’d like to get to the point.”
Mrs. Durham’s eyes narrowed in the darkness. They were approaching the dreaded stone staircase, now crumbled shambles, if she remembered correctly. “And I’m not one to appreciate dissembling, Mr. Steele.”
He puffed a sigh into the cool air. “Mrs. Durham, I know that you are blackmailing Mr. Hartwell’s sister.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Durham said, moving in the direction of the staircase. She could walk this path in her sleep, she knew it so well, having traversed it so many times in daylight, and far too many in darkness. She heard Steele stumble on a slippery rock and bite back an oath behind her. She smiled. “I’m not entirely certain I understand what you mean,” she called over her shoulder.
“Mrs. Durham, you know exactly what I mean. Now—wait!”
Deftly lifting her skirts, Mrs. Durham sped into the overgrown brush that was more of the Minotaur’s labyrinth than the garden her sister had once loved to tend. If she turned right just then, she could hide in a cranny of the brush, and Steele would run past her. Which he did. She stepped into the broken pathway, following his frenzied chase in her own leisurely fashion. How long would it take him to realize she was no longer his quarry, but his predator?
“Mrs. Durham,” Steele roared, “show yourself.”
Not long enough, it seemed. “Come, come,” Mrs. Durham said, near enough for him to hear her voice, but not near enough for him to determine where her voice came from. “You are being quite silly, Mr. Steele.”
“Mrs. Durham, I’ve come to ask you to stop blackmailing Lady Kirkham. I’m determined to... to marry Miss Trentwood and it’s quite appalling to think I might be related to a blackmailer. Surely you understand. Surely we can come to an arrangement.”
“Of course we can,” Mrs. Durham said softly.
Steele spun on his heel, but not in time to prevent a large rock from knocking him unconscious into the bushes. He fell with a hard thud on the cold ground, the lantern falling from his hand. It rolled in an arc, landing at Mrs. Durham’s hem as she knelt beside him. He had a pulse, which was good, but it wasn’t the strongest ever, which was even better.
“I think this arrangement shall work nicely for both of us,” she said, lifting the lantern as a dark liquid trickled from his forehead. “You need some rest, Mr. Steele. You have had quite a day.”
***
THIRTY-TWO
The pain in Hartwell’s head was beginning to abate, thank goodness. He wasn’t certain how much longer he could have withstood the way the room would occasionally brighten as though lightning had struck, or the high-pitched squealing in his ear, or the nausea that made him want to gouge out his stomach.
He remained sitting on the floor because that felt the safest place to be. If he crawled into bed, he might fall asleep given everything that had happened earlier, and now was not the time to sleep.
Lest he should forget, he had a ghost in his bedroom. A ghost whose presence caused those unfortunate symptoms he no longer suffered. Was hearing the ghost’s voice worth the lost pain? Most certainly. Was not suffering from the pain worth the thought that he might have lost his mind? Well, that was questionable.
“I sympathize with you, my boy. You’ve no idea what I must have thought when I first realized I was of a spectral-sort. Imagine how poor Mary felt, seeing me crawl from the grave moments after having me placed there!”
Hartwell shivered. Trentwood’s voice was deep and seemed to have a constant undercurrent of amusement that made one wonder if he was making fun of them. There was a hollowness behind his words, though, which made it sound as if he were in an empty chamber, or a music hall with poor acoustics. Was that what it was like for a ghost? Standing alone in an empty music hall with only a person or two as one’s audience?
The nausea was returning. Hartwell placed a steadying hand at his abdomen and swallowed away the bile taste that crowded his mouth. “You are dead, are you not?”
“Oh yes, most certainly.”
The voice was coming from the vicinity of the window, so Hartwell shifted around to face it. “Might I ask why, exactly, you’re haunting your daughter?”
“She’s in danger.”
“From Mrs. Durham?”
“Of course.”
There was something in Trentwood’s tone that caused Hartwell to pause and tilt his head. What else could be threatening Mary? Hartwell catalogued everything he had learned about Mary in what little time he had known her:
1. She was not insane, but
2. She most definitely thought she was haunted.
3. Given the circumstances, Hartwell tended to agree with her.
4. And then there was still that unfortunate business of her aunt blackmailing his sister.
5. Though he still hadn’t figured out why.
Was Mrs. Durham’s reason for blackmailing his sister the reason why Mary was in danger? And if Mary was in danger, who else was in danger?
“You have to understand something, son,” Trentwood said, this time his voice sounding much nearer, as though the ghost had walked toward Hartwell while he thought. “Ophelia’s been a jealous woman her entire life. Jealous, and possessive, and more than a bit obsessive.”
Hartwell pictured Mrs. Durham with her idiotic dog. He had to agree with Trentwood about the possessive and obsessive part.
“She had a happy marriage starting out, but I suspect things went a bit sour when they realized she couldn’t bear children. Mr. Durham was very keen on that, understandably.”
Mr. Durham, Trentwood had said, and though Hartwell knew it was quite right for
Mrs. Durham’s husband to be named Mr. Durham, it irked him that he hadn’t made the connection earlier. Mr. Durham couldn’t have been the very same man who often paid visits to his sister, could he?
“The man was a doctor, of sorts, who could cure female ailments. That’s how Ophelia met him in the first place. She was suffering from hysterics in the days before my marriage to her twin, and they called Durham in to provide treatment.”
A smirk formed at the corner of Hartwell’s mouth. Treatment for hysterics from a doctor, Trentwood said. He knew better than most that such treatments tended to be of a physical stimulation. The sort that seemed to increase the woman’s hysterics before she’d fall into a languorous sleep; upon waking, she’d feel refreshed and giddy from the experience.
Yes, he knew such treatments, and understood how Mrs. Durham could have latched her affections upon such a man. Hadn’t his sister done the same?
“Anyway, when Durham couldn’t cure his wife, he turned elsewhere for affections, I suspect.”
“Yes, to my sister, no doubt,” Hartwell muttered.
“What was that?”
Hartwell jumped and scrambled closer to the door. Trentwood’s voice had come from a space just beside him. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought of carrying a sort of ghostly bell with you, to let others know where you are.”
Trentwood laughed from a safe distance away. “You know my daughter suggested the very same? Perhaps I ought to invest in one. You wouldn’t happen to know a ghostly bell procurer, eh?”
An annoyed blush spread across Hartwell’s cheeks. “Well put.”
Clearing his throat, Trentwood said, “So then. I suppose perhaps we both know why your sister is the victim of Ophelia’s blackmail.”
Hartwell’s nod was curt.
“Might I ask you a question, son?”
With a deep inhale, Hartwell closed his eyes and nodded. He knew what was coming. It was the inevitable question that polite society refused to ask but always wondered. Perhaps being a ghost freed one from such dogma. Hartwell opened his eyes. Rather refreshing, these two Trentwoods: they spoke their mind regardless of polite society.
Haunting Miss Trentwood Page 16