Love for Lady Winter (Secrets of Gissing Hall Book 1)

by Christy Carlyle

  “Pardon me, miss.” The man looked sincerely repentant. Until he looked shocked. Eyes bulging, he gaped at Win’s white blonde hair. “You’re a rare-looking creature.”

  Sep stood and planted himself between Win and the man’s ogling face. “Find a chair and drink your ale.” When the man began to retort, Sep took a step closer. “Not another word to her. Just go.”

  With a final scowl in Sep’s direction, the man retreated, moving on with his companion to seek a table on the other side of the establishment. But his departure did nothing to quell the murmurs sweeping through the pub. Conversations quieted, heads turned. Some cast side glances in Win’s direction, but others gawped at her with naked interest.

  She’d put her bonnet back on and was struggling to shove all the strands back inside.

  “Let me help you,” Miss Renshawe whispered, urging Win to turn so that she could put a few pins back in place.

  Gradually, most patrons lost interest in the incident and ceased staring at Win. Sep returned to his chair next to her, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He lifted his pint for a first sip of ale, but the glass never made it to his lips.

  A word rose above the din of chatter. “Witch.”

  Sep snapped his head toward the far corner where two old women sat. “Unnatural,” someone close by whispered. Sep searched but could detect no one looking their way.

  In a flash of movement, Win stood and raced from the pub, pushing her way through tables and stumbling on one old man’s boot.

  “I’ll go after her,” Sep told Cornelia and Miss Renshawe.

  “Perhaps, we should all depart.” Cornelia was already fastening the buttons of her pelisse.

  “Let me speak to her first.” Sep craved a moment alone with Win. He preferred convincing her they could face the whispers together rather than running away.

  Miss Renshawe began to object, but Cornelia laid a hand on her sister’s arm to quiet her. “Septimus will see that she’s all right.”

  After a long sigh, Miss Renshawe nodded in agreement.

  He found Win across the lane from the public house, standing at the edge of a field and staring up at the night sky. She’d removed her bonnet and her hair hung in long waves down her back, silver strands gleaming in the moonlight.

  “They’re fools,” he said softly as he drew up behind her. “You shouldn’t pay them any mind.”

  She didn’t reply or turn to face him. Only her shoulders answered, drawing up into the stiff, square posture he’d noted the first night they’d met.

  “Win.” He grappled for words to soothe the cruelty of those gawkers in the pub. “You are lovely. Beautiful. Not to mention clever, spirited—”

  “Enough.” She whirled on him, eyes bright, mouth trembling. No tears or sadness. Only anger, a kind of molten fury, burned in her gaze.

  “I’m sorry.” The last thing he wanted was to add to her unease. “You don’t like compliments.”

  “I don’t like lies.”

  “I’ve never lied to you. I never would.”

  She came closer. So close she tipped her chin skyward to look at him.

  Sep ached to put his arms around her. To give her comfort, protection. To tell her what he felt, though the emotions were so fierce and new and unexpected, he wasn’t sure how to put them into words. Give him an equation. Let him ruminate on a hypothesis for days. He knew all the ways to describe his experiments. But this was like speaking a new language, and he wasn’t fluent at all.

  He’d never before known desire that kept him awake at night. It was an interest and admiration that had bloomed so quickly, he’d had no time for reason or logic to intervene.

  “You think my eyes are diseased?” Win poked a finger against his waistcoat. “I think yours are blind. You’re incapable of truly seeing me, just as you refuse to believe that I see specters.”

  “Win…”

  “I look strange. I am strange. I see what others don’t, and I’ve passed enough mirrors to know that I don’t look like anyone else. Can you not see me as that old lady in the pub did?”

  “No, I cannot.”

  “Then you’re being willfully stubborn. Foolish. Wrongheaded.”

  Sep gripped her arms. “I am stubborn, that I admit.” He slid a hand down and twined his fingers with hers. “But I’m not a fool. I see you, Win, just as you are. And I do not wish you were different in any way.”

  “What if I wish to be some other way?” she whispered, the words catching in her throat, forcing her to swallow in order to get them out. “To have plain hair. Eyes no one would bother to notice.”

  Sep failed to stifle a chuckle. “Even without your unique beauty, you’d draw my notice.” He lowered his head to assess her in the dusk light. “There were clouds over the moon the night we met. I could hardly see you in the darkness, but I was still intrigued.”

  “You were angry at me for touching the metal wand you dropped.”

  “When you walked away, a part of me I feared I’d never see you again.” He could admit the truth now, even if he’d tried to convince himself otherwise at the time.

  Logic warred with his heart. A shiver of fear chased down his spine. He’d vowed to keep away from sentiment. To avoid rejection. Yet, more than anything, he needed to tell Win the truth. “Every day I fall a bit further.”

  “Fall? Like tumbling off of a cliff?”

  Sep chuckled. “Sometimes it feels that way, yes.” He leaned in closer, relishing the hitch of her breath when he stroked his hands up her arms. “Falling under your spell, Win.”

  “I don’t cast spells, despite what the lady in the pub may think.” She tensed, the muscles of her arms tightening under his touch.

  Mercy, he was terrible at speaking from his heart. He’d spent too many years stuck in his own head.

  “Forgive my blundering tongue, Win. If my feelings for you were less potent, I suspect I could express them more easily.” He filled his lungs with the cool night air and blurted, “I’m falling in love with you. Looking back, I see that you quite captured me from the moment we met. And every day since, I…fall a little more.”

  She dipped her head and began examining the buttons of his waistcoat. Sep traced the edge of her jaw and nudged her chin up, needing her to see as much as hear his bungled declaration. If he couldn’t get the words out right, he wanted her to see the truth in his eyes.

  He leaned an inch closer, wishing the moon was brighter, wishing there wasn’t a chance Cornelia and Miss Renshawe might emerge from the pub and interrupt them. “When I look at you…” He swept a finger along the downy slope of her cheek. “I see a woman I wish to know.” He bent and pressed a kiss to the edge of Win’s mouth. “To kiss.”

  He meant to touch his lips to hers gently, briefly, but she responded by clutching at his shoulders, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer. She fit against him as if their bodies had been molded for this moment. He bent to kiss her and shivers of pleasure rippled across his skin.

  But chaste kisses would never be enough with Win. None of his feelings for her were chaste.

  He kissed her again, and again, stroking hair, her skin. She slipped her hands inside his coat, slid one finger between the buttons of his shirt. The stroke of her bare skin against his sent a spike of need through his body. He kissed her one last time. If they continued, he feared he’d lose all grasp on gentlemanly behavior.

  They both struggled to catch their breath.

  “You’re going to tell me we should go back in the pub,” she whispered between them.

  Sep pressed her hand to his chest. He couldn’t bring himself to stop touching her.

  “You don’t have to go back in. I will go and retrieve Cornelia and Miss Renshawe so we can depart.”

  She cast a long, silent look at the pub. Then she looked up at him. “I can do it,” she said in a decisive clipped tone. “I’m ready to face them again.”

  “You won’t be alone.” Sep slipped his hand over hers. She turned her hand s
o their palms fit together and smiled up at him. “If you wish it, Win, you needn’t ever be alone again.”

  Win couldn’t think about ever. If she thought of the future, worry would steal the moment’s bliss.

  She only knew she wanted to kiss Septimus again. In his arms, the world felt right, and all that came before and lay ahead faded into a misty blur. Fears couldn’t crowd in because sensation blotted out every thought. With his heat and scent surrounding her, she felt safe. Desired. Loved.

  He was the first man who’d ever called her beautiful. But she couldn’t let herself relish his praise. Words were hard to trust.

  His reactions were far easier to believe. Every touch, every kiss, every heated breath against her skin told her what he felt for her. The way he touched her conveyed more than any words ever could. Septimus caressed her tenderly and then, when they kissed, he did so fiercely, as if he never wished to stop touching her.

  His kisses weren’t a lie. The heat in his gaze wasn’t feigned. She knew with absolute certainty that he desired her as she did him.

  Perhaps they were alike in that way, both needing proof—empirical evidence, Septimus would say—before they allowed themselves to believe.

  But love still frightened her. Terrified her.

  No matter how she felt about Septimus or he about her, she still saw ghosts. And he was a rational man of science. Regardless of how perfectly unexpected the affection blooming between them was, there was too much to separate them. Rifts of belief and experience that she wasn’t sure they could ever bridge.

  When he led her back inside The Mermaid’s Kiss, only a few patrons turned to note her return. The older lady who’d called her a witch no longer sat in the back of the pub, and those who did glance up assessed her briefly and then returned their gaze to their meal or those sharing their table.

  Sep stroked her arm as they rejoined her aunts.

  Win whispered to him as he pulled out her chair, “I suppose the novelty’s worn off.”

  He cast his gaze around the pub before grinning down at her. “Indeed, but I hope you won’t mind if I continue staring at you now and then.”

  “Are you feeling better after a bit of fresh air, my dear?” Aunt Elinor leaned in and patted Win’s cheek.

  “Much better.” She struggled to meet her aunt’s assessing gaze, praying her cheeks weren’t still flushed and her lips weren’t bee-stung from Septimus’s kiss.

  “Hungry, I hope.” Aunt Cornelia waved to a barmaid, who appeared a few moments later with two bowls of stew.

  Win was hungry, and the stew was hot and savory and delicious. As her aunts began talking about their late father and the first time he’d brought the family to dine at the The Mermaid’s Kiss, Win felt the brush of Septimus’s arm against hers. He leaned slightly toward her as he reached for his glass of ale. She leaned an inch closer to him on her chair. The edge of their knees bumped below the table.

  Their gazes met. Win couldn’t look away. No one had ever looked at her the way he did. She suspected no one else ever would.

  Ever. He’d told she’d never have to be alone ever again. Goodness, she wanted to take what he offered, but it wouldn’t be fair to him. Not until he knew the truth.

  “Winifred?” Aunt Elinor said her name with a questioning lilt. “What do you think of Cornelia’s suggestion, my dear?”

  Win glanced down at her stew and then at her Aunt Cornelia. “What suggestion?”

  Her aunts exchanged a look of bemusement before Septimus spoke up. “She suggested that you and Miss Renshawe stay past the Christmas holiday and we all see in the new year together.”

  “Yes,” burst from Win before she could give a thought to being cautious.

  Cornelia beamed, Aunt Elinor chuckled, and Septimus turned a pleased grin her way.

  “It won’t be long enough,” he said when they all stood to depart, whispering the words so that only she could hear.

  “No,” she murmured in reply. Another week would not be long enough, but it was more than she’d expected.

  Win knew she couldn’t have forever with Septimus, but a few more days, a few more kisses—that she would take. When she went back to London and settled into the spinsterhood she’d accepted as her fate, she would cherish her memories of every moment spent with him.

  8

  A terrible sound disturbed Win’s sleep.

  Loud rumbling, like the rolling cracks of thunder in the sky. Then an ear-piercing clatter of horse hooves. As if a dozen four-horse carriages were bearing down on Penwithyn.

  She scrambled out of bed and pulled the curtains aside. All was calm on the horizon. No horses. No storm clouds. Dawn was just beginning to gild the sky in shades of amber and gold.

  Gradually the sounds became an echo, fading into the distance, until she could almost convince herself they were all in her head.

  Turning, Win scanned the low-ceilinged bedroom, searching for moving shadows or a shimmer of blue in one of the corners. Normally, she sensed the presence of a ghost before an apparition appeared, and she’d come to believe that lingering spirits were constrained by certain rules.

  But none of those rules seemed to apply to the specters she’d encountered in Bocka Morrow. She’d never heard a sound from a ghost before encountering the shrieking woman near Wheel Lannock. Objects had never moved with preternatural power across a room, before the blue man sent dictionaries flying. And she’d never heard a word spoken as clearly as the specter repeated Septimus’s name in the library.

  Septimus.

  Meeting him had changed her life too. There was a spark of anticipation inside her, a constant flare of hopefulness that she couldn’t tamp down with her usual pessimism. Septimus made her feel as if happiness was possible, even for her. Yet she wasn’t sure what she’d done to earn his admiration, and the mystery made the magic of it feel fragile. Ephemeral. As if it might fade at any moment.

  And, of course, it would.

  He was an earl and would need to marry a proper young lady. One without a family like hers.

  Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about Septimus. She wondered if he was still abed and wished it wasn’t entirely inappropriate for her to slip on a morning dress, rap on his door, and find out. Returning to the table near her bed, she filled a basin with water from a pitcher her aunt had left the night before, and began washing.

  Half an hour later, she slipped from her room and tiptoed to the library. She hadn’t seen the blue specter in two days, but she suspected the spirit would reappear. The apparition was desperate to convey some information.

  Believing in spirits might be too much to ask of Septimus, but if there was a message for him from the specter, she needed to find out before she returned with her aunt to London.

  A soft light lit the book-lined room, an almost ethereal illumination. Though in this case, it was only a glow from the spectacular sunrise outside the window. Win found Dr. Johnson’s dictionaries on the shelf and took them down one by one, laying the heavy volumes on the desktop.

  “If you’re here,” she soft quietly, “what do you need Septimus to know?” If he refused to speak to her, perhaps the apparition could string words together via the dictionaries.

  He won’t believe you. Doubt welled up, but Win pushed her fears away. Septimus would at least be willing to hear her out, and that would have to be enough.

  “I’ll try to convince him.” She spoke as much to the ghost as to herself.

  It was easier to allow Septimus to think her nothing more than a young woman afflicted with an eye ailment. But pretense, especially with him, made her miserable. He valued honesty, and everything she felt for him was true.

  Powerful. Undeniable.

  What she truly wished was to make him believe. To accept that she had seen apparitions the principles of science could not yet explain.

  But how would his feelings for her change? She wanted his affection. His admiration. His love. But could any of it be true if there was doubt and pretense between th
em?

  Goosebumps pebbled her arms. The ghost’s presence thickened the air until it pressed like a heavy blanket against her skin. A cloud of blue built in the corner. Before she could turn and face the spirt, a shattering cry split the air.

  Glass splintered behind her. Win spun to find her Aunt Elinor on the library threshold. Her aunt had let her teacup crash to the floor, and stood with her hands over her mouth, her eyes locked on the spot where the specter shifted and shimmered.

  “I-it can’t be,” she let out on a tremulous whisper, pointing toward the old man’s ghost. “Come away, Winifred. ” She started into the room, sidestepping the shards of her shattered teacup. Waving frantically, she urged Win out of the room. “Come away, my dear.”

  “You see it?” Win held her breath, praying the impossible was true.

  Aunt Elinor’s bulging eyes narrowed on Win. “You see the specter too, my dear?”

  The floor dropped out below Win’s feet and her belly plummeted to her toes. She clutched the edge of the desk to keep upright. She wasn’t mad like her father. She hadn’t imagined any of what she’d seen.

  Dear, sweet Aunt Elinor saw them too.

  Septimus burst through the doorway, teacup pieces crunching under his boots. “Are you all right?” His gaze locked on Win for a moment before he rushed forward and took her in his arms.

  She held on, breathing in his scent, warmed by the heat of his body. Then he turned, as if realizing her aunt stood in the room.

  “Miss Renshawe, I heard a scream.” Septimus released Win and stepped closer to place a hand on her aunt’s arm. “What’s given you a fright?”

  Aunt Elinor’s eyes had glazed and she shook her head over and over in denial. “It can’t be,” she muttered under her breath. “It simply cannot be.”

  Septimus indicated the chair in the opposite corner, and Win helped him lead Aunt Elinor over. She stumbled twice but finally slumped down with a relieved sigh.