Echoes in Stone (3 page)

Clean, warm, and with her belly comfortably full, Jessa read once more through Lily’s letter, this time with eyes opened by the odious beast himself. Lily’s natural inclination toward theatrics had surely been stimulated in this lonely house, and by her ogre of a husband. Perhaps this time, it had been justified.

It was always passion and high drama with Lily. There were times Jessa could’ve throttled her herself. And yet, who could blame her? With her upbringing… Jessa sighed. Lily had never even tried to contain her passions. But she hadn’t deserved to die for them either.

She blew out the lamp, huddling under the coverlet that hinted mustiness of long disuse. Her thoughts leapt and strayed like a roomful of cats as she hovered in the liminal state between wakefulness and exhausted sleep.

What had attracted Lily to Dashiell Tremayne? Not his looks, of course. Jessa shuddered at the memory of that ragged, torn face, and of the man’s lips, so close to hers. Certainly not his charming manner. Perhaps his breadth of shoulder had attracted Lily, or his intriguing pewter eyes…. No.
Please—don’t let me be like Lily
.

Sometime in the deepest part of the night, Jessa jerked fully awake from her fitful sleep. Her skin prickled in awareness, as if someone—or something—watched her. She lay very still, fighting to keep her breath deep, even. She listened, stretching out with all her senses.

“Sooo.” The sibilant hiss came from nowhere, everywhere. Words, no more distinct than sighs, swirled around the room.

Just the wind, whispering through the gaps in the windows.

“You have come too late. Too late.” The breathy voice died away. Long, tense minutes later, the sensation of another presence in the room, watching her, dissipated.

Days of jouncing around in a carriage, the atrocious welcome, and now this? What the devil kind of place had she come to? If Dashiell Tremayne thought such a cruel trick would force her into leaving….

Every muscle in Jessa’s body ached with tension and fatigue. Nevertheless, she threw back the covers and struck a lucifer to her lamp.

Of the room’s three doors, one led to the hall, one led to a small washing room, and the third, locked, remained a mystery. She dragged a chair away from the fireplace, shoving it hard against that third door. She double-checked the hall door as well. Locked. Nothing could have come through there.

Her head throbbed, her patience stretched to breaking. Before climbing back into bed, she turned the lamp low, but didn’t extinguish it. The friendly light would be a welcome guard against whatever dwelled here.

She lay on her side, her eyes shut tight.
I’m not like Mother. Not like Lily. I won’t give in to idiotic dramas
.

Far away, down the corridor, a door slammed. Likely her sotted, inconsiderate host, taking himself off to bed. Had he paused outside her door, whispering through the keyhole? But that voice…

Nothing more than a long journey. Overwrought nerves. An old house creaking in a storm. That couldn’t have been Lily’s voice. Lily was dead.

IN THE DIM light of the study, Winston studied his cousin through narrowed eyes. He’d watched Dash do battle with his inner demons many times over the last few years, but somehow, tonight was different. God knew the man had already been through enough with his family, his past. With Lily.

Winston hated to pick at old wounds, but something had to be done to detour Dash from his self-destructive path. Too many mistakes had been made already.

Dash had always protected Holly from her mother—from Lily’s odd fancies and her temper tantrums. He loved the child. But the little girl still needed help, guidance. Dash was the only person in any position to provide that. But not if he continued to allow himself to be controlled by his bitterness.

Winston blew out another puff of smoke from his cigar, watching the silvery wisp spiral toward the high ceiling. He cleared his throat, uncrossed his legs, and leaned forward.

“What are you going to do now, Dash?” he asked. “Though she bears some passing resemblance to her, you know as well as I that was not Lily there in your foyer tonight. That was a flesh and blood—and thanks to you—very frightened, woman.” His voice sharpened. “We are so far off any of the main roads, there is not the slightest chance her being here is an accident. She will still be here in the morning. You will need to be sober enough—and sane enough—to listen to her explanations. I suggest you put down that glass and let me help your drunken, sorry self to bed.”

Winston crossed the room to the man swaying before the fire. He removed the glass from Dash’s unresisting hand. The fight had left his friend as suddenly as it had come upon him. Winston cajoled Dash across the now-empty foyer, up the long flights of stairs, then down the drafty corridor to his rooms.

“Come along now, Dash. Let me help you with those boots.” Winston assisted him to a chair, then pried off a boot. He looked it over with a jaundiced eye. “God only knows how you got them into such sad shape. What on earth have you been tramping in?” The fine black leather was filthy, a sure sign Dash had been out in the rain. What would drive a man to dare the storms on a night such as this?

Dash stared into the fire, unresponsive.

“Never mind. I’ll deal with them.” Winston sighed.

Dash glared at him, but with no real heat in his eyes, which were fast losing the battle to remain open. He’d not said a word on the long journey from study to bedroom, only emitting the occasional grunt at a missed step or bump against a wall. Now, he flung himself, still dressed, across the enormous bed.

Winston continued as if his cousin still listened to him, which was unlikely in his state. “Get some rest. I’ll be by in the morning to give you a shave, whether you like it or not.” He yanked off the other boot, then drew a blanket over Dash. “No beard will fully hide that gruesome face of yours. You’ll only horrify the lady further if you come to breakfast looking as if you just escaped from Bedlam.”

Silence answered him. In any other circumstances, Dash would have growled at any comment about his face. Then again, he was rarely ever this sotted. It had only been the storm tonight that had raised the specter of Lily and driven him to seek oblivion in a bottle. It had stormed in just this way the night they’d lost her.

Winston sighed again, then gently shut the door as he let himself out of Dash’s rooms. Far off, in another corridor, a door slammed. He glanced around, but could see little in the dim light. Probably only that poor woman, ensuring her door was firmly locked against the troubled devil who now rattled the windows with his snores.

At least he hoped that’s all it was. Trouble and grief already stalked the halls of this house. If that lovely stranger had brought more with her—

Winston shook his head. No. Lily had done her best to destroy them all. It could not be allowed to happen again.

5.

Why come now that Lily’s dead?

“THE WOMAN YOU terrorized last night is your sister-in-law, Captain.” Winston demonstrated his usual good sense by stepping back, ensuring the shaving razor was nowhere near his master’s throat when he made his pronouncement.

Dash leapt from his chair, whirling to face the valet. He clutched the towel draped around his neck as if it were a noose.

“Really, Dash, you’re making such gargling, incoherent sounds, one would think I had actually sliced your throat,” Winston said. “Do sit back down and allow me to finish. With that soap all over your face and your mouth opening and closing that way, you look rather like some rabid fish.”

Dash glared at his cousin, then returned to the chair, drawing a steadying breath. “What do you mean, my sister-in-law? Lily had almost no family. Both her father and stepfather are dead.”

He frowned, trying to pluck a memory from his still muddled brain. Blast it, why had he let a simple stormy night drive him to drink far too much whiskey? “That garish harpy of a mother of hers attended the wedding, but there was never any mention of a sister. No, wait. What was it? I remember something.” Dash reached up to rub his throbbing temple but promptly had his hand slapped away by his razor-wielding valet.

“Good God, Winston. How much did I have to drink? Some nasty little imps are banging away in my head this morning. And where the hell is my coffee? Did I frighten even more servants into running away last night?”

The bath Winston had drawn for him this morning had soaked away the stench of alcohol and eased the tension in his shoulders. His clean hair was now gathered into a queue tied with a band of leather. Winston had long ago given up trying to get him to wear it in a more fashionable cut. Dash hadn’t the patience for such inanity. But without coffee, the devils banging anvils in his brain still  muddled his thinking.

He’d tried to make himself believe the incident in the foyer last night was nothing more than a whisky-induced hallucination, but Winston’s words had dashed all hopes of that.

The memory at last struggled to the surface. “Not a sister, a
step
sister. I remember now. Five or six years younger. Away at school when we were wed.”

He grimaced at the memory of that day. “The wedding was so hasty there was no time to fetch her back for it. Daisy, or Rose, or Iris or some such thing, wasn’t it? Some flower name. I don’t believe Lily ever spoke of her. If she did, I probably wasn’t listening. She rarely said anything I cared to hear.”

“It’s Jessamine, sir,” Winston said. “Like jasmine. That’s the flower you’re thinking of. Mrs. Penrose told me this morning. And yes, she was, or rather still is, I suppose, Lily’s stepsister. Her father married Lily’s mother, I believe. I’m sure she’ll be glad to explain everything, if you ask her more politely than you did last night.”

Winston wiped away the last of the soap but didn’t bother handing Dash a mirror to examine his handiwork. He refused to have a mirror anywhere in his room, or in any room in which he spent time. Some of the guest rooms still had them, he supposed, but all the rest had been smashed to shards on the same long ago night.

“Well, what the devil is she doing here now?” Dash asked. “She never cared to visit when Lily was alive. Why come now that Lily’s dead? Did that odious mother send her to sniff out more money? Or is she simply here to sniff around her sister’s husband?”

His voice rose with his temper. “Do they think what worked once to gain a rich husband will work again? Throw the bitch out now, Winston. I’ve no interest in meeting her.”

Dash rose from the chair, flinging away the towel, then stalked to the window. He pulled back the deep green draperies to permit in the feeble daylight. The storm had ceased hours ago, but a heavy drizzle still fell. At the glimpse of his reflection in the wavy glass of the window, he spun away. If he couldn’t stand the sight of his face himself, how could he expect anyone else to endure it?

“She’s here to see Holly, Captain.”

Winston’s words froze Dash’s heart in mid-beat.

“Says she won’t go without ensuring her niece is safe and well-treated. She told Mrs. Penrose she hoped to spend some time with Holly, to give them a chance to get familiar with one another.”

Dash’s heart resumed beating, at double its previous pace. Ignoring the cravat and waistcoat Winston held out to him, Dash stormed through the bedroom door, headed toward the nursery.

“She can’t have her!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I’ll be damned if I let someone try to take my daughter from me. I wouldn’t let Lily have her. There is no way in hell I’m going to allow Lily’s clutching, greedy family have her either. Holly is mine, dammit. If I have to kill to protect her, I will not hesitate.”

BY THE TIME he approached the nursery door, Dash had most of his anger under control. It wouldn’t do to frighten Holly. The child had already experienced too much fear in her few years. Now, with Lily out of her life, he swore she’d never go through that again.

Dash opened the door, then stopped as suddenly as if he’d hit a wall. His hand fisted on the doorknob. His teeth clenched, reigniting the throbbing in his head.