If not for her respect for the girl’s mother, Felicity would have already cast Rachel out. But Cook was saving funds to send her daughter to finishing school in America in hopes the girl would find some rich beau, since she hadn’t the “motivation or intellect to amount to anything other than a trophy or plaything.”
Cook claimed to only need a few more months of saving. So Felicity tried to cleave to patience. She supposed the maid hadn’t done anything unforgivable, other than being driven by desire.
After Rachel left the room, giddy from her verbal exchange with Nick, Felicity stood from the table and tamped her jealousy. Nick followed her lead. He stepped behind his chair to avoid disturbing his sleeping dog as he garnered his stick-horse cane.
“Before we conduct our business,” Felicity said, “I must ask one favor. That you honor the secret of my castle. It is of utmost import that I keep the girls safe.” Felicity strolled to Lia’s drawings on the wall, stopping at the child’s latest attempt to sketch a carousel.
“Of course. As you said, it’s no concern of mine.” Nick settled behind her—far too close. His proximity pressed her skirts so they clung lightly to her hips. His body heat permeated each protective layer. “I do ask, however, that you give me something in return.”
Disillusionment tugged within her. She should’ve known it would come to this. No man offered an alliance without a price.
She’d expected better of Nick, having built him up for so long. She thought he was different—motivated by compassion. Even more disappointing was her temptation to appease him. The battle to uphold this fragile self-respect she’d earned back over the years waned with the thrill of even the slightest touch shared between them.
“What do you ask of me then?” she mumbled in resignation.
Nick’s breath surged warm on her nape. “That you keep my secret as well. That you not tell my family of my presence here. Unless you’ve already sent word to them…”
Felicity exhaled. That was all? He expected nothing but loyalty in return for his own? “I haven’t. And I won’t.” She reached for the wall and her gloved fingertip traced the carousel’s jagged lines and squiggly curves along the paper.
“So…” Nick stretched out an arm and banked it on the other side of the drawing, pinning her between the wall and him. “How does your little sprite know anything about carousel ponies if she’s never been outside of this fortress?”
Felicity concentrated on the drawing, lest she lose all control. He smelled so inviting … felt so strong behind her. “Lia learned of the ride when Mister Landrigan brought a picture of one that is being disassembled in Larne. He told her he’d buy the used ponies for her. I forbade it. She still hasn’t forgiven me for that.”
Felicity found strength enough to duck under Nick’s arm and walk toward the fireplace. She stopped there, squinting at the flames—letting the brilliant orange heat cauterize her rampant emotions.
Nick trailed her, stalling a few steps behind. “Speaking of Donal … do you plan to marry the wastrel?”
She turned to face her guest. “Now that I have you, I’ve no longer any reason to feel pressured into the union.”
“Now that you have me.” Nick stared at her, the blinking fire and the dog’s steady breaths playing harmony to Felicity’s rapid heartbeat. She had heard of men undressing women with their eyes, but this was so much more. This man already had her bared and was consuming her—flesh, soul, and spirit.
“Now that you’re offering to invest,” Felicity barely managed to whisper the clarification.
Her companion regarded her lips, warming them with a prickly fever. “Suppose I wish to offer something other than money. Would you be receptive to that?” He closed the space between them. Gaze ravaging her again, he dragged a finger along her arm. “You’re not at all the stuffy dowager you wish to appear to be, are you? There’s passion beneath those layers … I read enough of your chapter exchanges with Emilia to know the truth.”
She didn’t step away, frozen by his perceptiveness, but he was only half-right. Were he ever to learn the real truth behind her contribution to that romance novel … he would think her crazy … inept to raise her nieces. Her pulse pounded against his fingertip despite her discomfort, as if he were a magnet to her blood, causing it to flare toward his touch.
Skirts rustled outside the door and Felicity drew back in the same instant Nick dropped his hand. They exchanged chagrinned glances as Binata rushed in, dark face fraught with worry.
“Miss Felicity, there’s been an accident. Aislinn fell from the trees. Clooney is with her outside, checking if she can be moved. She ain’t seem to wake up!”
Chapter Eight
The stable hands and Clooney clambered up the steps, carrying Aislinn on the same stretcher they’d used for Johnny Boy. Nick had wanted to follow them outside but everyone scrambled away so fast—Miss Felicity at the head—he thought his purpose better served apprising the other servants of the situation. Helping them prepare for the injured girl’s arrival to the castle. He knew a few things about aiding the wounded, both animals and humans, having learned from his father’s example in his youth.
As the rescuers crossed the threshold, Nick noticed the younger of the stable hands, the sandy-haired Tobias, had a very strained and pallid expression on his face. He kept craning his neck to look at the patient, appearing almost sick with worry while carrying the stretcher’s front end.
Nick wondered if Felicity had any idea of how that boy felt about Aislinn.
“Sissy!” Lia held her sister’s fingers where her arm dangled from the edge of the stretcher. She rubbed the back of Aislinn’s hand across her wet cheeks then kissed her palm. “Sissy, wake up. I’ll give you water to sip and sing rhymes to you and tell you fairytales. Just wake up!” She sobbed—a nursemaid with sleepy eyes and a heart of gold to match her plaited hair.
It inspired Nick to awe, how that self-absorbed and outspoken little creature from breakfast could metamorphose into the epitome of benevolence without so much as a blink of her impenetrable lashes.
Felicity intervened, prying the girls’ hands apart.
“I want to help!” the blonde angel cried.
“You can help best by saying a prayer for her, Lia.” Sending the sprite to the kitchen with Binata, Felicity added, “Have the maid gather clean cloths. Tell Cook to boil some water.”
“We’ve already done all that,” Nick said, falling into step with Felicity behind the stretcher.
Appearing surprised, Felicity cast him a grateful nod then eased forward to take the hand Lia had been holding. “Aislinn, if you can hear me, squeeze my fingers.”
Nick caught some movement between the clasped hands, then he saw the girl’s eyes flutter open. They held a pained depth, their violet hue deep as blueberries at harvest.
Felicity gasped. “Thank God! She’s awake.”
Aislinn favored her younger sister, aside from the fact that her hair and lashes were jet black. Their bone structure and facial shape were similar, but on Ailsinn the plumpness of childhood had surrendered to the fine-boned softness of a young lady. An angry red gash stretched across her forehead, bleeding profusely. Head wounds often did. Yet the sight was unsettling on one so delicate and fairylike.
“The Dark Raven…” she whispered. “He can fly…” Then she wailed, favoring her left wrist.
“She’s in so much pain she’s babbling nonsense,” Felicity said to Clooney, worry tightening her lips. “Is it broken?”
Clooney shook his head. “I believe merely sprained is all.”
Nick craned his neck to hear better, but everyone hushed as the girl lapsed into unconsciousness again.
Clooney looked over his shoulder, leading the boys carrying the stretcher up the first flight of stairs. “I need to wrap the wrist, staunch the head bleeding, and watch for signs of brain injury. Which room?”
“The playroom. I want her next to you.” Felicity glanced from Clooney to Nick, the fear in her eyes grippi
ng his heart. “We will move you to either Lia’s or Aislinn’s room on my floor. Though the upper levels have dozens of bedchambers, we only have five that are furnished. Lia will wish to be with her sister for the night, so their rooms will be empty.”
Nick nodded and stayed at the bottom of the stairs as they made their way up. Tearing her anxious brown gaze from his, Felicity followed the others.
He hated that the child was hurt. Hated even more that he was already thinking of ways he could use it to his advantage. The countess had nearly swooned beneath his touch earlier. He’d venture that no one had bedded her since her husband died. She was vulnerable now. Being on the same floor as her chamber, he’d have ample opportunity to charm his way into her bed and in turn, learn where her brother kept his scientific findings. Then it would just be a matter of stealing them.
As much as he despised himself for it—almost hearing Julian’s scolding voice accusing him of being a cur as he had in their youths—he knew now what he’d been too proud to admit back then: He would never be the man his twin was.
Nick winced at the tug of remorse within his chest. Old habits die hard, and his need to reunite with Mia and his son trumped all else.
The seduction would begin tonight.
The next week passed in a blur of medicines and hushed concerns. Nick groused over his foiled plans for seducing Felicity but had no one to blame but himself. Though his ribs and head were healing up nicely, he won a slight fever due to his negligence with the salve, and his leg worsened. Unable to climb to the second floor to sleep, he spent each night in the parlor with Johnny Boy, dozing beneath quilts.
Clooney applied yarrow and blackberry leaf poultices to Nick’s stitches to “strengthen his torn tissues and curtail the infection.” Every other waking moment, the old groundskeeper ran into town for supplies or tended to Aislinn’s recovery.
Nick tried several times to get up, worried for the young patient. He wanted to assist in some way, but the maid would not allow him to move from his spot. “Yer Graceship mustn’t aggravate his inj’ries.”
Rachel waited on him exclusively, smothering him. Thankfully, he was blessed with reprieves when the stable hands helped him to the water closet set off of the servant’s quarters. Or when little Lia scrambled in to pet Johnny Boy—pitying the dog’s ugliness and prattling on about her upcoming birthday. She ended each visit with her pert nose held high as she gushed over the bog-pony put up in their stables, convinced Nick had brought it just for her.
The highlight of his days came when Miss Felicity stopped to take tea with him, offering updates on Aislinn’s recovery. The countess had so many walls erected around her, it was refreshing to see her show real emotion about something.
Nick was moved by her concern for her niece. It spurred a pang of sympathy and guilt which threatened to overplay his plans of seduction and reconnaissance. Why the hell did she have to be so bloody human?
Even in her worry for Aislinn, Nick sensed tension between her and her eldest niece. It seemed as if something hung there, unspoken. It cut familiar to Nick, as he had always been the outcast in his home. He hated to think Aislinn might feel the same.
Unlike his parents, Felicity had reason to be proud of Aislinn. The collages in the dining hall were hers—as Nick had first suspected. From what Felicity said, Aislinn inherited her father’s inquisitive mind and superior intellect. The girl had been studying the tropical passion vines in the greenhouse, convinced the blight upon them would harm Felicity’s caterpillars.
It was to that end Aislinn climbed to get another sample of the unusual fungus she’d observed growing upon the caterpillar’s fodder. It had surprised her to see the same fungus leeched upon the highest branches of a dying coniferous tree about five yards south of the greenhouse. Had the limbs not been so weak and brittle, perhaps she would have accomplished her task.
On the eighth day, as dusk came to settle in a purple haze throughout the parlor, Nick found his leg much improved and his fever abated. He slipped from beneath the lovelorn maid’s thumb while she helped the cook wash dinner dishes, then ascended the first two flights. He planned to look in on the room he’d be sleeping in and, if he felt able to climb to the fourth floor, visit Aislinn afterwards.
While scouting the second level, he came to a stop at the bottom of a dusty and spider-infested stairway at the end of the corridor closest to Felicity’s room. As he stood there, looking up at winding steps which faded into darkness on their climb, the hair at the back of his neck lifted. He curved his fingers along his nape to stave off the eerie sensation. Being so isolated, this turret would’ve been the ideal place for a scientist to contemplate his studies. Perhaps Jasper’s notes were up there.
Footprints wound up and down the steps, stamped in the dust—one set small and one larger. Yet everywhere else, the powdery film was intact along with the cobwebs. As if someone made the effort to leave the passageway with an atmosphere of abandonment—a deterrent, perhaps. A deterrent that only exacerbated Nick’s desire to explore. He regarded the winding steps. He’d seen the tower from outside … knew there were too many flights to even contemplate trying to conquer in his injured state.
He was just about to attempt going up anyway when the cook appeared behind him.
“His Lordship mustn’t wander any further,” the plump woman’s nasally voice warned. “The turret stairs are off limits to everyone. They’re impassable up top.”
Nick kept his hand on the railing. “Impassable. How so?”
“The upmost flight was leveled upon the professor’s final request.”
“Why? What’s up there?”
She scowled. “Nothin’ but death, sir. An urn and some ashes.”
Meeting the servant’s wrinkled gaze, Nick frowned. He wondered if they were Professor Blackwood’s ashes. “Scientists are an eccentric lot,” he said, thoughtful. “I suppose he wanted to be locked away with his findings even in death.” Nick tapped the stick pony on the floor, awaiting the cook’s concurrence.
“Her Ladyship is a private woman,” came the cryptic response. “A gentleman would respect that.”
“A gentleman.” He smirked. “That’s the one thing I’ve never been accused of being.” Nick offered the boxy servant a nod then strode toward the main stairway. He limped up the next two flights to the playroom, determined he would get the answers on his own later when there weren’t any spies about and his leg was closer to mended.
Arriving at the playroom door, he propped his left shoulder against the frame, watching Binata tend to the bandages on Aislinn’s head. Clooney had gone to run some errand in Carnlough before dinner and had yet to return. He’d left the nanny in charge of the patient.
Only one lamp lit the room along with the flames in the fireplace, enough to provide adequate illumination without being too bright. The patient had been sensitive to light ever since the fall. Even the slightest glare caused her head to ache to splitting proportions.
Nick didn’t see Lia or Felicity anywhere.
“When can I go out again?”
Binata unwrapped the girl’s wrist. “Soon enough. Let’s see if the wrist is good without it’s bandage, then once the headaches stop, you’ll be right as a rainbow.”
“I need to find the Dark Raven.”
Nick dipped his head into the room to hear Aislinn’s hoarse voice more clearly.
“He flew up into the branches beside me,” she said, staring imploringly at the nanny who coaxed her to lie back on her pillow. “I saw him clearly. He’s not made of feathers at all … he’s made of butterflies.”
“Hush child.” Binata placed a compress on her head. “Ain’t no kinda man made up of butterflies.” The nanny had a strained quality to her deep, rolling voice.
Aislinn groaned, her eyes closing. “Not actual butterflies. Just their shadows. I know what I saw.”
Binata sized up the child with a concerned expression.
Nick could read the doubt behind it. Everyone assumed Aislinn delus
ional from the bump on her head. Everyone but him. He believed her, considering his family’s own experiences with ghosts and the afterlife. Nick’s own uncle had been murdered … and it was his ghost that had brought Nick’s father and mother together, and in the end, aided in their falling in love.
Even without that, Nick couldn’t refute the sensation he’d encountered while standing at the turret’s stairwell moments before. There was something decidedly otherworldly and unnerving about that tower.
And he hoped that very something would lead him to Mina.
Feeling a tug on his trouser leg, he glanced down. Lia stared up at him. Assuming her aunt close behind, Nick edged out into the corridor, but Felicity was nowhere in sight.
“Mister Sir.” Lia followed him into the hall, her fingers still gripping his trousers.
Wet curlicues draped down to her waist. Her skin glowed pink, scrubbed from a bath. She obviously had something important to say.
Nick attempted to kneel, holding out his bad knee at an odd angle. “Yes, my lady.” As she released his trousers, her scent enfolded him: vanilla custard and rose petals—purest innocence. It sent a trickle of tenderness through him.
She crossed her arms. “Now that you’re better, Auntie says you and your ugly dog will be sleeping in mine or Aislinn’s room tonight.”
“That is correct.”
“If you choose mine, I should ask that neither of you slobber on my pillows.”
Nick bit back a chuckle. “I vow to sleep with my mouth closed. But my nose is feeling a bit drippy … might you have a clothespin I could borrow?”
Lia scowled viciously. “You can use your earring to hold it shut.”
Nick laughed.
“And if my ghost visits,” she continued unfazed, “I should ask you be a good host and entertain him. He likes tea parties. Or you may direct him to the playroom. I fear he must be missing me.”
The Glass Butterfly Page 8