Fascinated (6 page)

“He says he hopes to call on her this morning,” said Aunt Eugenia to the other two aunts.

“Well.” Aunt Hester set her cup down silently on its saucer. “You’d best get yourself ready, hadn’t you, Alicia?”

“Aunt Hester, please, give her a moment,” said Verity, but in tones much softer than she usually adopted. “She’s barely had a morsel.”

“She can eat—” began Aunt Eugenia.

“When I am married. Yes. Thank you, Aunt.” Alicia got to her feet, folding her letter with quick, precise motions. “I’ll go get ready now.”

She strode out of the room before anyone else could comment, or object. The truth was she was glad to escape the breakfast table. She needed a chance to think. Something had happened last night; she was certain of it. It was something untoward and
uncomfortable, but try as she might, Alicia couldn’t remember what it had been.

Perhaps I had too much champagne?
Alicia fingered her brooch uneasily as she climbed the stairs and entered her room. No, that couldn’t be it. She’d have a headache. Cousin Raymond always had a headache when he drank too much. Then what?

Alicia closed her door behind herself and drifted to the center of the room, frowning hard. She remembered the ball; she remembered dancing with Edward…Lord Carstairs, and sitting with him at dinner. His conversation had been excellent, his manner polite and deferential. He’d talked politics with the uncles and about the Season with the aunts. Indeed, he had behaved exactly as one would wish. Then he’d had to leave, a matter of government business, he’d said, and she’d had to return to the ballroom to make his excuses.

Return to the ballroom?
Alicia froze in place.
When did I leave the ballroom?

A knock on the door startled Alicia out of her reverie. It was Verity, carrying a tray that held toast spread with marmalade and a cup of tea.

“Here.” Her cousin set the tray down. “I don’t care what Aunt Eugenia thinks. You have to eat something.”

“Thank you, Verity.” She looked at the plate of toast, but could not arouse any interest in its contents. Her stomach was clenched too tight.

“Are you all right? Only you seem distracted this morning.”

“I always seem distracted.”

“Yes, but this is a bit much even for you.” Verity laid a hand on Alicia’s arm. “Truly, Alicia, are you well?”

“You mustn’t worry about me, Verity.” Alicia remembered she should pat Verity’s hand for reassurance, and did so.

“I do worry. You’ve no one to look out for you, not really.”

“Lord Carstairs will look out for me.” Alicia paused. Where had those words come from? More than that, where had the certainty behind them come from?

“I hope so. You…you are glad to be marrying him, aren’t you, Alicia?”

“As much as I can be.”

“At least it will get you out of this house,” Verity muttered. “I swear sometimes it’s as if I can’t breathe in here.”

At these words, Alicia’s throat closed. She had not permitted herself to think that she would really and finally be leaving Hartwell House, which meant leaving Verity. What would she do without her one understanding cousin to stand by her?

“You’ll have to come visit me,” said Alicia. “Often. We can have you out to the country to stay in the summers. I’m sure his lordship will allow it. They say his estate is quite beautiful.”

“I’d like that.”

A fresh knock sounded on the door. “Alicia!” came Aunt Eugenia’s shrill voice from the other side. “Lord Carstairs is here! He’s waiting.”

“Oh, lor’!” Verity rolled her eyes. “I’ll go down. You’d better get yourself dressed before Aunt Mary expires of apoplexy. And have some of that toast!” She whisked out of the room.

Verity was right, as usual. Alicia needed to set aside her inconsequential thoughts of last night and concentrate on this moment. A vision of Edward’s face, and his keen gray eyes, flashed in front of her mind’s eye. Her skin remembered him being very close to her, and her heart wanted him closer. She remembered the
shape of his mouth, strong yet sensual. And there was something more, something stronger.

Alicia shook herself. She was woolgathering. She needed to get ready. Lord Carstairs was expecting her, and it was important she not disappoint him.

“
…I can’t think what on earth is keeping the girl,” said Mary Hartwell, the smallest of Alicia’s maiden aunts, for the hundredth time. She knotted a lace handkerchief in her stout fingers and her attention always seemed to be flitting in six directions at once. Her gray hair was done up in what had surely been a severe and tidy knot that morning, but now curling locks strayed out from under her cap. As a girl, Mary Hartwell might have been sweet and vivacious, but age had turned her simply nervous. Age and, Carstairs suspected, the stern rule of her older sisters.

Indeed, Carstairs was surprised that only Mary was sitting with him in the sunny morning room. During his previous visits, he’d had to contend with all three of the maiden aunts. They were, Alicia had told him once, actually her great-aunts, and they were as daunting a trio as ever a man faced. Especially Hester Hartwell, with her hooded eyes and thin, dry smile. The brothers, Gavin and Morris, might have ownership of the house and management of the money, but it was Aunt Hester who ruled the family, and she did not care who knew it.

Any other morning, Carstairs might have been relieved by Hester’s absence, but now that he knew about Alicia’s enchantment, he found he wanted to speak to Aunt Hester and get a closer look at her keen eyes. For if anyone in this house knew what mystery surrounded Alicia, it was she.

The door opened. Miss Hartwell jumped and turned in her seat at the same time. “Ali…Oh, it’s you, Verity. Where is Alicia?”

“She’ll be down in a moment,” Verity replied.

Carstairs got to his feet and made his bow to Alicia’s cousin. Verity was a slender girl of eighteen or so. Unlike most of the Hartwells, Verity was darkly complected, but she had a strength about her that took well to the color. She already carried herself with pride and assurance, and would grow, Carstairs was sure, into a formidable woman.

As if to prove his observation, Verity gave Carstairs a brief curtsy, then sailed straight past her aunt to fix him with a hard glower.

“The roses are in bloom in the garden,” Verity said, her eyes never wavering once from his. “Perhaps Lord Carstairs would be interested in seeing them?”

“Verity, really—”

Plainly, this was not the time to defer to the sensibilities of a timorous spinster. “Thank you, Miss Verity.” Carstairs bowed once more, effectively cutting off whatever protest Aunt Mary meant to make. “I would enjoy that.”

“You’ll tell Alicia where we are, Aunt? Thank you.” Verity breezed out the French doors. Carstairs bowed again to Aunt Mary, who pressed her knotted handkerchief to her mouth as if she’d witnessed some ghastly horror. Then he followed Verity out into the garden.

The garden of Hartwell House was large, and laid out with old-fashioned geometry, and the roses were indeed blooming. Verity did not make any effort to pay attention to them. Instead, she marched straight ahead, her eyes flitting this way and that as if she expected an ambush. This was not what he expected from one
of the very correct, very disapproving Hartwells. They were a thin, gray sort of family who lived in a strange air of either resignation or boredom, all except the three aunts, and Verity.

As soon as they’d rounded a neatly trimmed box hedge, Verity turned and faced him.

“I want your word.” Verity folded her arms. “Your word as a gentleman that you will take proper care of Alicia.”

Carstairs folded his own arms, mirroring the girl’s defiant stance. The truth was, Carstairs wasn’t sure whether to be amused or insulted by her. But he was definitely surprised, and intrigued. “And who are you to demand any promise from a man not your relation?”

“I’m the only person in this family who has ever cared about Alicia.” Verity stepped closer to him, her face tilted up to meet his. Carstairs, more than a little shocked, received the distinct impression she was spoiling for a fight. “And I swear, if you hurt her or neglect her in any fashion, I’ll
murder
you.”

Carstairs’s urge to laugh at this bit of drama lasted only for a moment. There was genuine determination beneath Verity’s overwrought words. “Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why should you care about her? If, as you say, no one else in this family does?”

That took Verity aback. “Because…because she’s Alicia. Because she’s had more difficulties than the rest of us, and no one even tries to help her.”

“How so?” Aunt Mary might not be willing to talk about more than the weather, but this girl was plainly bursting at the seams for someone to confide in.

For the first time, though, uncertainty crept into Verity’s
manner. “I shouldn’t have spoken. I’ve probably ruined everything.” But there was something else in the back of her dark eyes. It tugged urgently at Carstairs’s attention. He needed to keep her talking.

“Please. Tell me what you know. I want to understand.”

Verity cocked her head toward him, studying him carefully. “You know, I believe you mean that.” She took a deep breath, looking at her hands, the sky, at anywhere but him. Carstairs forced himself to be patient. Whatever the girl had to say, it was not coming easily to her. A sudden sense of familiarity was growing in him as he stood with her. He would be able to give it a name in a moment.

“Alicia was kidnapped when she was a little girl,” Verity whispered.

“Kidnapped?”

Verity nodded. “She and her parents lived in Northumbria, and she was kidnapped by highwaymen on the Scottish border. They held her for weeks. The family got her back, though. There must have been a ransom paid, but no one talks about it. Alicia swears she doesn’t remember anything that happened. But…her father was killed during the affair and her mother died of fever shortly afterward, and no one talks about that, either.” Verity sucked in a deep breath. “I think…I think something happened to her because of it all, the kidnapping and her father’s death. She’s not…normal, you see. She doesn’t feel things the way people usually do. She says it’s a deformity of her character, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Carstairs forced his voice to remain calm and steady. He could not let Verity know how very badly her words
shook him.
Look at me,
he urged her silently.
Look at me, Verity Hartwell.

But Verity didn’t look at him. She looked instead at her own fingers, which were knotting themselves together, and for a moment she very much resembled her aunt Mary. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m a silly girl.”

“I promise you, Miss Verity. Apart from Alicia herself, I think you may be the most sensible person in this family.”

Verity took a long time deciding whether to believe this. But, to Carstairs’s relief, she at last began to speak. “It’s just a feeling. I’ve never understood it, but when I’m with her, I always feel like there’s another Alicia underneath the one I see. It’s as if she’s trapped somehow…” She faltered again, and Carstairs realized he’d stepped toward her, and reached out a hand. He retreated hastily before she could become truly alarmed.

“Verity,” he said. “Thank you for this. I believe you are entirely correct, although in ways you may not be able to imagine, at least not yet.”

“You’re taking me seriously?” She searched his face for any trace of mockery. “No one ever takes me seriously.”

“I do. And what’s more, I promise you I always will. In fact, I think you and I must have some more conversation in the very near future.”
Because you, Verity Hartwell, are a Catalyst, and you need to know about it.
“Tell me, has Alicia ever spoken of having strange dreams? Or perhaps seen things and people no one else has?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“I see.” Carstairs let out a deep breath, his mind racing, but to no purpose. He could not change course now. He must play this
through, and take whatever came. “We need to get back before your aunts come looking for us,” he said aloud. “But, please believe me, I will care for Alicia as best I can. You have my word as a gentleman.”

“Thank you, Lord Carstairs.”

Aware he was being reckless, Carstairs decided to trust Verity a little further. He needed some cover for the rest of his day’s scheme, and Verity could provide it. “Before we return, or one of your inestimable aunts arrives, I have a favor to ask. I’ve come to invite Alicia to take a carriage ride with me. Of course, we must be chaperoned, and I intend to ask you to go along. Once we’re in the park, I need you to invent some excuse to leave us alone. Can you do that?”

Verity frowned up at him. Carstairs let her study him, although he felt his patience champing at the bit.
Come, come, Verity, you know you can trust me. You can feel we are of a kind, you and I.

“Yes,” Verity said slowly. “I think I could manage.”

“I will be in your debt. Let us go back. Alicia will surely be there by now, and I think we should spare her as much of Aunt Mary’s company as possible, don’t you?”

Verity laughed. “I think I’m going to like having you as my cousin, sir!”

Carstairs permitted himself a smile. “I hope so, Miss Verity. I very much hope so.”