“It felt much longer.” She’d forced herself not to count the hours and tried desperately to use the time to tame her feelings for him. Now that they stood inches apart, she knew how spectacularly she’d failed. That silly hope flared again. Dreams of a future she could not have with him.
“I visited Edgemont.”
“Was it a pleasant visit?”
“No.” He shoved a shaking hand through his hair, sweeping back a tangle of dark waves above his forward. “But I intend my next trip there to be entirely pleasurable.” He swallowed hard and added, “Would you accompany me for a visit?”
Win let out a little gasp.
“Accompanied by your aunt, of course.”
“I…”
“You needn’t decide immediately, but do consider the invitation.” He was nervous, uncomfortable.
Win couldn’t blame him. What he’d experienced two days ago was inexplicable. She wondered what he thought of the incident now. “How can you wish for my company after what happened in the library?”
He turned away from her and began rearranging the tools laid out on the counter he’d built around the observatory. “That’s behind us,” he finally said. “No need to speak of it again.”
A chill chased across Win’s skin. He wanted to pretend. “And your father?”
He stilled, flattening his hands on the counter, keeping his back to her. “I’ve told you enough about my father.”
All but what mattered most to the apparition. All but what would bring peace, for him and his father’s spirit. “Have you forgiven him?”
“Why must we speak of the past?” He turned to face her and lashed his arms across his chest. “You wished to come up to tell me something, did you not? I cannot believe you wished to speak of my father.”
Win pressed a hand to her throat, where the words were caught in a twisted knot. “I came to tell you the truth.”
His eyes lit with pleasure. “Yes,” he nodded and approached, reaching for her. He placed a hand on her arm, drawing his fingers down, clasping her hand. “Let’s only ever tell each other the truth.”
“In a very short time…” Win swallowed past a fearsome lump of fear and uncertainty. “You’ve come to mean a great deal to me.”
Septimus grinned. “And you to me.”
“You’ve won a piece of my heart.” Win looked away. His gaze was too intense. Her heart beat too fast. “I never thought any man could do that.” She lifted her gaze to his again. “It’s almost frightening, how easily I could give myself to you.”
The furrows returned to his brow. “Could give?” He let go of her hand. “You’ve come up here to reject me?”
Win blew out a shaky exhale. “When you know the truth, you will reject me.”
He shook his head.
But she wouldn’t stop. He needed to know all of her history. All of the reasons she was never going to be normal. “You must reject me, Septimus. I am not a suitable young lady. I could never be the countess you need.”
He gripped her arms, pulled her closer, until her chest was flat against his. “You underestimate yourself. If only you could see what I do.”
His scent made Win’s mouth water, his nearness made her feel safe. The heat in his gaze made her feel wanted. She longed to lean into him, to take whatever he offered. To accept this love and admiration.
Instead, she needed to confess the rest.
“My father was mad. A dangerous kind of madness that cost him and my mother their lives.” Win pressed a hand to his chest to carve out space between them, but then she felt his heartbeat—strong and true—thudding against her palm. “My blood is tainted with his madness.”
“No, Win.”
“Septimus, I see specters. I do. You wish to ignore that or explain them away, but it’s not something I can change about myself.” She curled her fingers around the placket of his shirt, slipping two fingers inside where his skin was hot, his chest firm. “Perhaps it is a kind of madness.”
He hooked a finger under her chin and nudged until her mouth was inches from his. “You’re not mad. You’re extraordinary, and I want you for my own.” He kissed her, hungrily, eagerly. Win reached up to grip his shoulder, but he caught her around the waist. He would not let her fall.
Except that she was falling. Irrevocably.
Lifting his head, he swept a curl behind her ear. “You’ll be late for the wedding.”
“We may have missed it already.”
He kissed her again, deeply. Gooseflesh pebbled her skin. “I couldn’t go with so much unresolved between us.”
“Then you’re glad I demanded you bring me up to your observatory?”
With a hand low on her back, he pulled her body flush against his. “I will always enjoy being this close to you.”
Always. That sounded like a very long time.
“What?” He tipped his head and assessed her. “You’re worrying. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Aunt Elinor and I return to London in a few days. Even if we stay to celebrate the new year, we’ll leave soon after.”
“Mmm.” He pursed his mouth as if in serious contemplation, but a glint of amusement sparkled in his eyes. “What if you stayed a bit longer? A lot longer.” Drawing circles around the small of her back, he added, “I’ve spoken to Cornelia. You could stay with her at Penwithyn, and I’ll take up residence at Edgemont. So that everything’s properly done.”
Win frowned. “But if you’re there and I’m here…”
“I wish to court you properly, so that no one can say we rushed into marriage foolishly.”
The lump in Win’s throat became a boulder. “Marriage?”
A smile burst across his face, and he kissed her again. Not her lips. First her cheek, then the other, and on to the tip of her nose. “You are the only woman I will ever want for my countess.” He finally kissed her lips. Too briefly. A tantalizing taste. “Do you think I can convince you?”
“Yes,” Win told him on a hissed breath. He’d dipped his head to kiss her neck, finding a spot behind her ear that turned her knees to jelly. Her eyes slipped shut. She reached up to slide her fingers through his hair. Yes. This was bliss. This was the happiness she’d always craved.
A noise broke the haze of pleasure, and Win’s eyes fluttered open. Above Septimus’s head, a blue mist shifted and swirled. She patted Septimus’s shoulder.
“What is it, love?”
“It’s your father.” Win kept her eyes on the apparition as the old man’s face took shape. Then his misery washed over her in a wave. “He needs your forgiveness if he’s to have any rest.”
“Where?” Septimus asked her, his tone eerily calm. “Where is he?”
Win pointed over his shoulder. “Behind you.”
Septimus took her hand. “Then we shall depart. I must get you to Castle Keyvnor.” He tried for a smile, but his mouth only twisted in a grimace. “Cornelia will be expecting us for the Yule ball.”
“The ball isn’t for hours. There’s plenty of time to resolve this. He’s been waiting for years.”
All the heat in his gaze chilled. She’d shocked him. Disappointed him. Septimus wasn’t good at hiding his feelings, and Win was glad for it. She was so tired of pretense.
“I waited too,” he said in a tone that made her heart ache for the boy he’d once been. A boy whose whole world had fallen to pieces when he lost his father. “I waited for his return. And I waited for someone to end my uncle’s cruelty.” He pressed a fist to his mouth, as to hold back the rest. “I don’t want to discuss the past. All that matters to me is our future.”
She wanted a future with him too, but the specter of his father’s need, an old soul-deep pain, overwhelmed everything else.
“Will you come with me?” Septimus reached for her.
When she didn’t take his hand, he started down the stairs.
“You cannot leave him, Septimus.” Win followed, though he descended too quickly and she nearly tripped on the long skirt of her dress
.
“He left me, love.” He let out a bark of angry laughter. “He was only good at running away.” At the bottom of the stairs, he turned to help her down. “He’s gone. I don’t owe him anything.”
As he strode toward Penwithyn, Win tugged him to a stop. “You can’t run away from him. He’s a spirit now. He will follow you until you give him peace.”
“Not today.” Septimus continued toward the stable. “We’ll hitch the horse to the pony cart for the journey.” He smiled back at her as if the matter of his father was done and forgotten. “We may have missed the weddings, but we’ll arrive well in time for the ball.”
“You’re not listening to me.” Win hadn’t moved from where he’d left her at the entrance of the tower. A breeze rolled in off the sea, tugging wisps of her hair free.
Septimus stopped in his tracks but kept his back to her.
“Even after what you saw in the library, you still don’t believe me. Do you?”
“I saw…something I can’t yet explain.” A single glance over his shoulder was all he spared her. “That has nothing to do with my father.”
“I swear to you that it has everything to do with him.” Win could no longer see the spirt of Septimus’s father, but the matter was far from resolved. Ghosts were tenacious. She understood that much about them, if nothing else.
Septimus shook his head, his shoulders hunched, hands braced on his hips. Finally, he turned to face her, but he held his ground. “Let’s go to the ball and leave all of this ghost nonsense behind. Please, Win.”
The please almost convinced her. Almost persuaded her that they could rush off to a fancy ball and leave specters and the past and all their problems behind. He was the most tempting, appealing man she’d ever met, and he’d somehow managed to chip away at the armor of pessimism that she used to protect herself.
But experience had taught her that problems couldn’t be outrun. Like restless spirits, they followed you. Haunted you. Until there were only two choices—solve your dilemma or make peace with the past.
“You needn’t do this alone,” she told him, her voice so quiet and tremulous she feared he might not have heard her. “For once, my…ability might be an advantage if I can use it to help you and your father.”
“No!” The shout emerged as loud as the first moment they’d met, when he’d bellowed down from his tower. “It’s Christmas Eve,” he said more softly. “The first we’ll ever spend together.” He took one step nearer, but he didn’t close the distance between them. Instead, he lifted a hand, beckoning her to join him. “The first of many, I hope. Let’s go find Cornelia and Miss Renshawe. They’ll be worried about you.”
“Yes.” Win suspected Aunt Elinor, at least, would be fretting.
She strode toward him and he let out a sigh of relief when she laced her fingers with his. Win felt it too. A surge of pleasure chased through her whenever they touched each other.
This time the sentiment was short lived.
She could dance with him at the Yule ball, relish his touch, get lost in every glance they exchanged, but any thought of a proper courtship and happily ever after for them was folly.
Nothing would ever be right between them until the specter found peace.
Septimus’s resistance was revealing too. Perhaps he needed to forgive as much as the specter longed for forgiveness.
10
Win was so lovely in her cobalt ballgown with a satin ribbon twined in her hair that it made Sep’s chest ache every time he looked at her. He didn’t care about the Banfield wedding or the bloody Yule ball. He only wanted her in his arms again.
The more he told himself to temper his feelings, to adhere to caution and reason, the more his emotions spiraled beyond his control.
Mention of his father frayed his nerves.
He’d tried seeking a logical explanation for the book in the library to levitate. A gust of wind. A trick of his eyes. But his theories became increasingly ludicrous. A change in gravitation? An alteration in the book’s weight and volume?
The answers he was left with after two days of rumination were both heartening and terrifying.
Win told him the truth.
Through some unique ability, apparently shared by her maternal aunt, she could perceive what others could not. Some physical manifestation of unquiet spirits. He believed her. And her honesty only deepened his feelings for her.
More disturbing was the prospect that his father was haunting him. Looming over him, seeking an absolution Sep could not give.
The pony cart bounced over a rut in the lane and Win’s body lurched toward his. Sep took the reins in one hand and wrapped his other around her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
“I am.” She grinned at him, and that strangely pleasurable ache throbbed in his chest again.
The lady had managed to animate his dilapidated heart.
“Are you?” she asked, her expression turning serious. “You’ve been quiet since we left Penwithyn.”
Sep fixed his gaze on the horizon, but all his other senses were focused on Win. She gave off an enticing energy, even while sitting still beside him. He owed her an explanation, but he wasn’t sure he could manage to put the pain into words.
“The anger I bear him isn’t only for me.”
She turned toward him as he spoke, but Sep couldn’t face her. He needed to get the story out, even if he mangled every word.
“He was a fool that night he died. He should have listened to my warning and stayed.” The leather reins creaked as he squeezed them in his fist. “The grudge I bear is for my mother.”
“Tell me about her.”
A bit of the tension in Sep’s shoulders eased. “She was kind. Sweet-tempered. Sensitive. Perhaps too sensitive. She took ill easily, and my father underestimated the severity of her final malady. I begged him to take her to London, to seek better medical care than he could give her.” Sep glanced at Win. “He refused. Just as he refused to stay home the night he died.”
“Poor judgement,” Win said softly. “We all make dreadful choices sometimes.”
“His choices cost me both of my parents.” Sep tugged the reins, slowing the horses as they approached the castle.
“Did he regret his decision about your mother?” Win asked as he drew the pony cart into Keyvnor’s courtyard.
“Every day,” he admitted as he assisted her down. “For years.”
She cast him a gaze full of sadness. Pity. But he didn’t want those emotions from her. He wanted to be a man she could respect. One she could love.
“I was a child, Win. I did forgive him, and then he got into a carriage that night and never returned.” There was more, but he was loathe to tell her. “Cornelia wasn’t informed of my father’s death for years.” He spoke quickly, eager to be done with his history. “I was sent to my uncle initially. He was a cruel man, and I ran away. Many times. Eventually he sent me to an orphanage. That’s where Cornelia found me and gave me a home.”
Win put her arms around him, and he held her close, letting out a breath of relief. She fit perfectly, her head tucked under his chin. When she breathed, he felt the hot tickle of her breath against his neck. The warmth of her soft curves soothed him. She was what he wanted. This moment and the next, and all of them with Win by his side.
Let the past be damned.
She tipped her head and looked up at him. “Do you see now that you must forgive him?”
Sep stilled and stepped back. He missed her warmth, but he needed to make her understand. “I could say that I forgive him, but I will always believe he was wrong. I have no absolution to offer him.”
“Then you won’t have peace, either.” She spoke the words with certainty. Not a sliver of doubt. “And we won’t find happiness as long as he hovers at edge of our lives.” She reached for the hem of her gown, spun on her heel, and started toward the castle.
“Win.”
One glance back at him. One flash of disappointment in her clear blue eyes. “I need to find
my aunts.”
Sep let her go. But dark thoughts filled his mind. What if he lost her for good? Their affection was fresh. Fierce but fragile, because they’d known each other only a handful of days. What if she went back to London and he was left with nothing but his father’s ghost to haunt the rest of his days?
He headed toward the castle, striding past the assembly of liveried footman, sparing only a glance for the festive pine boughs and clusters of ruby-berried holly festooning the rooms. The nuptials must have concluded. Guests mingled, conversation and laughter filling the enormous great hall. Sep veered toward a door he’d entered many times. It led to an old stone staircase that ascended to the castle’s parapet walk.
Up there, he could at least busy his hands adjusting his electrical receptor for the coming storm. Science and experimentation had long been his refuge, but he’d found over the previous days that its power over him had waned.
Win was there instead, dominating his thoughts, every single day since they’d met.
With her spirit and honesty, she’d vanquished all of his usual caution. He couldn’t change his feelings for her any more than she could change who she was.
And yet she expected him to change. To see his father’s disastrous choices differently. But how could he? The sense of loss was with him every day, and anger had been all he had as a boy. When he was scared and lonely and bleeding from his uncle’s lashes, the heat of his anger kept him warm.
Stepping out onto the parapet walk, Sep inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the crisp air of winter. There was a sharp, clean scent on the breeze, and he tasted metal on his tongue. A frisson of awareness spread through his body. That scent was a harbinger of lightning. Yet none of his measurements indicated a storm was imminent. Above his head, the heavens were clear. No clouds. Just a bright Christmas Eve sun making her way across the sky.
Sep shucked his coat and began rolling up his cuffs. He had enough tools and chemicals to make the necessary modifications to his device. If some aberrant lightning strike came, he would be ready.
He only hoped it came soon. Lovelorn fool that he was, he already missed Win.
Love for Lady Winter: A Secrets of Gissing Hall Novella Page 9