“It’s dictated by the limitations of my pocketbook,” he said grimly. “To bring a house of this antiquity up to snuff takes an inordinate amount of time and money. The modernizations have had to be gradual. I’m afraid they don’t extend throughout the house just yet.” He stopped in front of a wood-paneled door and opened it. “Your room, ma’am.”
Helena entered ahead of him into a spacious bedchamber. It smelled of lemon polish, starched linens, and washing soda. At its heart was a magnificent carved Elizabethan bed with a half tester of red damask. She glanced back at Justin.
He cleared his throat. “From the sixteenth century. But the carpets are new. As are the wall hangings. And just in here”—he led her through another open door—“is the bath.”
Given the Abbey’s age, she’d expected nothing better in terms of plumbing than a water closet and a tin tub. But what lay before her was a thoroughly modern room, with black-and-white tiled marble flooring and mahogany paneling stretching halfway up the walls. There was a tall cabinet, a washbasin and beveled mirror, and an enameled tub with a rolled rim that looked large enough to accommodate a person twice her size.
Justin stepped forward and twisted a brass spigot. Water gushed out into the tub.
“Running water,” Helena said softly. “Oh, how marvelous.”
He turned off the tap. “You can have a bath if you like.”
“I would like that. Above all things.” She wandered back into the bedchamber. Justin followed. A queer sort of electricity seemed to pulse between them. She moistened her lips. “Was this to be our room?”
“It is our room. I’ll simply be sleeping elsewhere for the time being.”
“Where?”
“In the adjoining chamber.”
Her conscience twinged. “It should be me who sleeps elsewhere. Not you.”
“I think not.”
“It would only be fair.”
“For me to force my new wife to sleep in the second best bedroom?” His brows lifted. “What sort of man do you think me?”
“One who is very much put upon.”
“Helena, I was a soldier. Shall I tell you some of the places I’ve slept during the course of my career? A slightly shabby bedroom is a paradise, I assure you.”
“Yes, but this room has clearly been refurbished. You’ve taken a lot of trouble—”
He caught her hand in his as she walked past him. “Do you like it?”
She stopped and turned to face him. It was there again. That faint hint of almost boyish uncertainty lurking behind his eyes. It moved her deeply. “It’s more than I ever dared hope for.”
Justin held her gaze for several seconds. “I’m glad it pleases you.” His voice was deeper than usual, if that was possible. For a moment, it looked as if he wanted to say something more. She waited, but in the next instant he released her hand. “We dine at seven. Shall I come and fetch you?”
“Do, please. I’ll never find my way to the dining room otherwise.”
Justin inclined his head to her and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him.
Helena exhaled heavily. She looked around the bedchamber again, trying hard not to compare it to her luxurious room in Grosvenor Square. Was Jenny still there? Was she, even now, sitting in front of the marble fireplace and knitting a pair of mittens for one of her charity cases? She’d promised she would remain. That she would wait to hear from Helena.
“Once you’re married, you send a note to Mr. Finchley. He’s an enterprising sort of fellow. He’ll see I get it. And then, my love, if you need me, I’ll be on the next train to Devon.”
But what if Jenny had already gone? What if—after Helena’s disappearance—they’d cast her off into the street?
Or worse.
Much subdued by her thoughts, Helena returned to the bathroom.
A half hour later, she emerged from the tub in a much more positive frame of mind. Tonight, after dinner, she would tell Justin everything. She wouldn’t let another day pass without him knowing the truth. And if he was angry or disappointed…
Well, then, she would just have to bear it, wouldn’t she?
She unpinned her hair, giving it a half-hearted brushing as she made her way back into the bedroom. The rain sounded far lighter than the deluge that had marked their drive from Abbot’s Holcombe. She drew back one side of the heavy damask curtains and peered out the window. Raindrops streaked down the glass in haphazard squiggles. Through their watery blur, she could see out over the drive and down to the stable beyond.
It was still muddy, gray, and miserable, but the rain had lessened, even if only by a small amount.
Perhaps the road to the Abbey wouldn’t be impassible after all?
She propped her hip on the window embrasure and, through sheer force of habit, stared out at the view a little longer. It was stupid to continue keeping such a vigil. No one would dare come here in pursuit of her. Even if they knew where she was, they wouldn’t brave the roads. Not in this beastly weather.
Besides, she was a married woman now. The only man who had any legal rights over her was Justin Thornhill. No other man could compel her to do anything. They simply hadn’t the power. Not to hurt her—to confine her or to lay hands on her. And certainly not to force her to return to London.
She moved to rise.
And then she saw it. Lights blinking unsteadily at the bend of the cliff road.
She squinted, trying to make them out. It wasn’t necessary. They grew brighter before her eyes, coming closer and closer still. They were advancing toward the Abbey at an unrelenting pace.
An icy cold trickle of fear skated down her spine.
They were carriage lamps. And they were attached to a coach that was, even now, turning into the drive.
She watched, frozen where she stood, as it came to a halt in front of the entrance to the Abbey. A footman leapt down from the box and opened the door to the coach. He lowered the steps and then stood back as a man in a heavy black coat descended. Another man followed close behind. A hulking and all-too-familiar figure. He lifted his head to scan the face of the Abbey and—
Oh, God!
Helena backed away from the window, her heart in her throat.
And she didn’t think. She couldn’t. All rational thought seemed to have fled in the face of so much terror. Nothing was left but instinct.
So, she did what she had always done.
She ran.
Justin leaned against the fireplace mantel, arms folded across his chest. Things would have been so much easier if Helena had consented to remain at the hotel. He’d had it all so carefully arranged. The comfortable room. The champagne. The complete absence of interruption. Now, instead of enjoying privacy with his new wife, he was standing in a slightly damp library, contemplating two equally damp men.
One of whom was the local magistrate.
“Captain Thornhill,” he said.
“Hargreaves,” Justin said in reply.
George Hargreaves had been the magistrate since Justin was a boy. There was no love lost between the two of them. Indeed, upon entering the library, the man hadn’t even offered to shake Justin’s hand.
Not that Justin had been any more welcoming. He hadn’t asked either man to sit down. And he certainly had no intention of offering them something warm to drink.
“Bloody awful weather,” Hargreaves said.
“Not the best time to be paying a call,” Justin pointed out.
“Couldn’t be helped.” Hargreaves removed his hat. He was ruddy-faced and fleshy, with a balding pate and white side-whiskers curving down to a double chin. “A bad business, this.”
The fair-haired man who stood beside Hargreaves said not a word. He was a brawny brute of a fellow, the seams of his overcoat straining across the broad expanse of his back and shoulders. He was not as tall as Justin. Nowhere
near it. But his neck was thick as a tree trunk and his gloved hands appeared to be the approximate size of dinner plates.
He was looking about the library, perusing the contents of the room with all the subtlety of a bailiff.
“The matter is straightforward enough,” Hargreaves continued. “If you would—”
“Where is Lady Helena?” the brutish gentleman asked.
Justin turned his gaze on the man, even as his heart slammed against his ribcage. Lady Helena? It was only through sheer force of will that he was able to keep his countenance. “And you are?”
“This is Mr. Horace Glyde,” Hargreaves said. “He represents the Earl of Castleton. His lordship is looking for his missing niece.”
“The Earl of Castleton!” Boothroyd exclaimed from his place in front of the closed library doors. “Do you mean to say that Miss Reynolds—”
“Lady Helena is his lordship’s niece,” Mr. Glyde said. “And I’m empowered by law to retrieve her. Even if I have to tear this place apart.”
Justin stood to his full height. Anger was rising steadily within him, coiling in his muscles and imparting a dangerous edge to his voice. “Are you indeed. And tell me, Hargreaves, since when does British law allow a stranger to come into a man’s home and threaten to lay hands on his wife?”
“She’s here, I knew it.” Mr. Glyde’s lifted his face to the ceiling, as if he could see straight through it to the floors above. “Do your duty, Hargreaves. Or I shall go up and fetch her myself?”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Justin said.
Mr. Glyde’s eyes glittered. “Oh you wouldn’t, would you?”
Hargreaves stepped between them. “Now, now, gentlemen. Let’s handle ourselves like civilized human beings. I’ve no doubt that once Thornhill understands the ruse that’s been perpetrated, he’ll willingly cooperate.”
“Ruse? What ruse?” Boothroyd had been hanging back, listening, but at the mention of some deception lost no time in entering the fray. He crossed the floor to join Justin near the fireplace.
“Lady Helena disappeared from her uncle’s house in London three days ago,” Hargreaves explained. “Mr. Glyde traced her as far as King’s Abbot. It was there he learned of your impending marriage, Thornhill.”
“And I went straight to the magistrate,” Mr. Glyde said. “You’ll find that the law is on his lordship’s side in this matter.”
Hargreaves sighed. “I’ll say this, sir. We’ve traveled a mite too much for my taste today, with it raining as if the world’s about to end. First to Abbot’s Holcombe and then back here. That cliff road’s a menace, Thornhill.”
“It is,” Justin agreed. “Yet still you came.”
“Couldn’t be helped. After visiting the registrar’s office and learning of your marriage—”
“Such that it is,” Mr. Glyde interjected.
“What’s this?” Boothroyd jerked his head to the magistrate. “Is the marriage not valid, sir? And why not, pray? Is the lady not of age?”
“Lady Helena is of age,” Hargreaves said. “But Mr. Glyde possesses documents which appear to show that her ladyship hasn’t the capacity to consent to marriage.”
“Lord Castleton was in the process of having her committed to a private asylum,” Mr. Glyde said. “She’d be incarcerated there now, had she not fled in the night like the veriest criminal.”
Justin’s blood ran cold. “I don’t believe it.”
Hargreaves turned to Mr. Glyde. “Show him the documents, sir,” he said with some impatience.
Mr. Glyde reached into the interior of his overcoat and withdrew a packet of papers. He thrust it at Justin. “There’s your proof.”
Justin took the packet without a word. The topmost paper within was thin and yellowed with age. When he unfolded it, he saw what appeared to be a woman’s death certificate, the names and dates written in a spidery script.
“Honoria Reynolds, the late Countess of Castleton.” Mr. Glyde came close enough to jab his thick finger at the faded name on the death certificate. “Died in an asylum in 1844.”
Justin raised his gaze to Mr. Glyde’s face, looking first at him and then at Hargreaves. “What the devil does this prove?”
Mr. Glyde snorted. “It’s her mother, isn’t it? Madness is in the blood. His lordship’s doctors will attest. Here, you see. A report written by Dr. Philemon Collins, the earl’s personal physician. And another by Sir Luther Fortescue, from St. Andrews University.”
Justin skimmed the doctors’ reports. They’d both been written in the past year. And they were both oddly alike, using eerily similar turns of phrase to describe Helena’s condition. Words like hysteria and melancholia leapt out from the pages. One notation mentioned prolonged delusion. Another made reference to hydrotherapy and electrotherapy.
“First treatment a success,” Dr. Collins had written. “Patient greatly subdued.”
Justin’s jaw clenched as shock swiftly gave way to rage.
“A bad business, as I said.” Hargreaves struck a conciliatory note. “But we need take no more of your time with it, Thornhill. Simply fetch Lady Helena and we’ll be on our way.”
Boothroyd opened his mouth to speak, but Justin shot him a quelling glance. He could deal with this himself. And he would deal with it, for at last he understood the precise reason Helena had married him. “She is my wife,” he said.
Mr. Glyde snatched back his papers and returned them to the pocket inside his coat. “Lord Castleton will naturally have the marriage annulled. He’s even arranged a modest compensation for you. For your troubles, as it were.”
“Compensation,” Justin repeated. The word stuck in his throat.
“Small, but generous,” Mr. Glyde said. “You won’t find his lordship tightfisted. In exchange for your silence and cooperation, he’s prepared to advance you a sum of five hundred pounds, another five hundred to be paid upon the dissolution of the marriage.”
“Generous indeed,” Hargreaves remarked. “One thousand pounds would go a long way toward renovating the Abbey, aye, Thornhill?”
Mr. Glyde gave Justin a complacent smile. “His lordship has as much interest in keeping this scandal quiet as you do, sir. He has no wish to see his family name splashed across the broadsheets.”
“Is an annulment possible?” Boothroyd asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Hargreaves said. “We’ve managed to intervene before the wedding night. And with the marriage left unconsummated—”
Justin cleared his throat. “As to that…”
Three sets of eyes flashed to his, staring at him with varying degrees of alarm.
“There will be no annulment,” he said.
Hargreaves gaped. “Do you mean to say…?”
“Quite,” Justin replied.
“It’s a lie!” Mr. Glyde burst out. “You’ve had no opportunity—”
“I’ll not discuss my marriage with either of you,” Justin said. “Except to say that, if you doubt its validity, you may inquire at the registrar’s office in Abbot’s Holcombe.” He paused for effect. “If that isn’t sufficient, I direct you to The Stanhope Hotel, where my wife and I had the pleasure of sharing a room together after our wedding ceremony.”
“A hotel room?” Mr. Glyde was aghast. “In broad daylight?”
Hargreaves motioned for him to be silent. “See here, Thornhill. This changes the complexion of things. If the marriage has already been consummated, extricating you from this predicament won’t be as—”
“I have no wish to be extricated.” Justin glanced at Mr. Glyde. “You may tell the Earl of Castleton that Lady Helena is mine now. And I keep what’s mine.”
Mr. Glyde reddened with outrage. “Who the bloody hell do you think you are, sir?”
“A bastard,” Justin said quietly. “In every sense of the word. If you require further clarification, no doubt Hargre
aves can provide it during your journey back to King’s Abbot.”
Slow-dawning comprehension registered in Hargreaves’s eyes. “By God, Thornhill, does your ambition know no bounds? First you drive a good man to his death in order to acquire this house. And now you wed a feeble-minded lady in order to…what? Worm your way into the aristocracy?” He shook his head in disgust. “Have you no shame, sir?”
“None whatsoever,” Justin said. “Will that be all, gentlemen?”
Mr. Glyde was beginning to look apoplectic. He took a menacing step toward him, fists clenched at his sides.
Justin didn’t budge an inch. He had no wish for the proceedings to devolve into violence, but if it was a fight Mr. Glyde wanted, he was more than happy to oblige him. In truth, he rather felt like putting his fist through something. And, at the moment, Mr. Glyde’s sneering face seemed a particularly desirable target.
“Ahem.” Boothroyd edged in front of Justin. “If I may interject, sirs. You will observe that the thunder we’ve been hearing is now accompanied by lightning. If the rain doesn’t relent, the cliff road will soon wash out.”
Hargreaves cocked his head toward the windows, listening to the heavy rain beating relentlessly against the glass. He heaved another sigh.
Sensing his capitulation, Mr. Glyde puffed up even further. “I won’t leave without seeing Lady Helena. His lordship commands—”
“Enough, Mr. Glyde,” Hargreaves said. “I’ve no wish to be stuck in this godforsaken abbey for the next four days.” He looked at Justin. “Lord Castleton is a powerful man, Thornhill. If his niece lacked the capacity to consent, no judge in England will consider this marriage valid.”
“The courts will void it,” Mr. Glyde said. “It won’t matter if it’s been consummated.”
“Some legal remedy will be found,” Hargreaves concurred. “You may depend upon it.”
“The cliff road, Mr. Hargreaves,” Boothroyd murmured. “Conditions are worsening by the second.”
Hargreaves settled his hat back on his head. “As you say, Mr. Boothroyd.” He touched the arm of his still fuming companion. “Come, Mr. Glyde. Nothing can be done tonight. We will return after you’ve received further instruction from his lordship. And when this foul weather has abated.”
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