Nina Coombs Pykare (28 page)

Her lovely eyes widened. “She was not harmed, milord. Thank God for that!” Her lower lip trembled and she clasped her hands in her lap and stared down at them as though they could help her find answers. “But she was up on the parapet, milord. She said—she said her mother was calling to her.”

Henrietta on the parapet. How could that have happened? “But I locked the tower door,” he said, his voice strained. “I know I locked it. I have the key—over there—in the top drawer in my writing desk. I locked it immediately you asked me.”

“There must be another,” she insisted, her chin jutting out stubbornly. “Henrietta told me she found the door already open for her. And it was unlocked when I arrived there.”

“Catherine had a key,” he said softly, seeing her lovely face in his mind. “She carried it about with her because she liked to go up there often. She walked up there sometimes, in the cool of the evening and in the night when she couldn’t sleep. She had trouble sleeping sometimes. But the key was not on her that morning—when – we—found her.”

Edwina felt a chill creep over her flesh. Could a ghost keep a key? Could it manipulate physical objects? She really didn’t know.

She pulled her thoughts up short. She couldn’t believe in ghosts. That way lay madness. “Milord, have you enemies in the village? Or in the countryside about here?” Enemies like Lady Leonore, she wanted to say, but didn’t dare.

The earl looked at her in surprise, his eyes curious. Then he shook his head. “Enemies? No, Miss Pierce. Catherine had no enemies. Not to my knowledge. Why do you suggest such a thing?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” she declared, though not as strongly as she would have liked. “There must be some other explanation for what is happening here. There must be. I thought perhaps some enemy—”

“I have no enemies.” He sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair. “I almost wish I did. But it is Catherine’s ghost. It must be. She wants her children. She wants
me
.”

Edwina frowned. “But milord, I cannot believe a good mother would want to bring harm to her children. It isn’t loving. It isn’t reasonable.”

For a moment the earl looked like he, too, doubted such a thing. Then he sighed again. “But she does, she does call them. You heard them say so. She calls to them to come to her.”

Edwina forced herself to remain calm. She hadn’t forgotten that ungodly moaning outside the nursery door, but she wasn’t going to tell him about it. Besides, a person could have been doing that moaning, a person could be doing all these things. It must be a person. “The girls are young, milord, impressionable. It’s common to dream of the dead. I’ve heard that people often do that.”

The earl gave her a quizzical look. “Miss Pierce, I assure you, the girls didn’t dream they heard their mother calling them.”

She could feel her stomach tying itself in great knots, but she had to persist. “Milord, you’re a grown man. How can you be taken in by such childish nightmares?”

The earl’s shoulders straightened and he took on that expression of authority that made him look greater than his normal self. “I haven’t been taken in, Miss Pierce. I can assure you of that, too. The girls have heard their mother.”

“Milord!” Edwina protested. “You cannot know what they heard.”

“Yes, I can know. I do know.”

In the face of such stubbornness she didn’t know how to proceed. He made her so angry. How could he give in so easily? She straightened her shoulders. “I don’t understand you, milord. You take as truth the wildest fancies of children. You allow a supposed curse to deprive you of the right use of your wits.” She was growing angrier and angrier. She shifted in the chair. She was so angry she could hardly sit still. She wanted to hit him with her fists, to make him wake up before it was too late. “Why don’t you just throw the girls off the parapet yourself and leap after them? That ought to satisfy your ghost!”

She stopped short and raised a hand to her mouth. Oh God! What an appalling thing to say! Why did he look at her with such pity? What did he know?

“I didn’t wish to tell you this,” he said, “but I suppose I must. I know that Catherine—Catherine’s ghost—has spoken to the girls. I know,” his face darkened, “because she has spoken to me.”

“Milord!” Edwina gripped the arms of her chair with hands that trembled. “Surely you cannot mean that.”

He nodded, his face solemn. “Oh, I mean it. It’s the truth. I haven’t been dreaming. I am sure of that. Catherine—Catherine’s ghost—has spoken to me many times.”

Frantically Edwina searched for some way to dissuade him, some way to make him understand. “But how can you know it’s her?”

He gave her that look of pity again. “She knows things, things only Catherine would know.”

Dear God, Edwina thought, how could she combat an illusion like that? It must be an illusion. It must be. But the only way to fight—illusion or ghost or person—was with love. Love was her only weapon.

“Can’t you leave this place?” she asked. “Take the girls and go somewhere else to live.”

He shook his head. “I cannot do that. I have few resources left now. I have nowhere else to go. Given its history no one will take the castle off my hands.”

She cast about frantically in her mind for someone, anyone, to help. “The viscount? Lady Leonore? Surely they can help you.”

Charles frowned. “No. Crawford is even more strapped than I am, and I would never ask Leonore for anything. I have done enough to her family already.” He shuddered and before her very eyes he seemed to dwindle in size. “I must remain here. So must the girls. There’s nothing else to do.”

“The treasure room,” she cried. “Maybe you can find the treasure room.”

He sighed. The treasure room again. He was tired of hearing about it, tired of looking for it. He was no longer sure it had ever existed. “I have been over the castle, time after time. We all have. We could not find it. It’s useless to look any longer.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Then you must fight—fight for your daughters. For yourself.”

He smiled sadly. She was always so determined. Even now her chin jutted out, her eyes blazed at him, and her bosom heaved with the force of her feelings. If only he could- No, he couldn’t do that. He shouldn’t do that. He was Catherine’s husband, still her husband. Always her husband. He had no right to care for another woman, no right to bring danger upon her.

He had to think about his daughters. “I have a request to make of you.”

Anything, Edwina was about to say, but what if he meant to send her away? “Yes, milord?”

“You care about my girls.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, milord. You know I do.”

“If anything happens to me, will you continue to care for them, stay with them no matter what?”

A cold shadow of fear clutched at her heart “But, milord. You’re still a young man. You have many years of life left.”

The earl ignored this. He got to his feet and stared solemnly down at her. “Please, give me your word on this.”

“But why?”

“Your word,” he repeated sternly.

She could hold out no longer. “Yes, milord. You have it. But are you ill?”

His lordship shook his head. “No, I’m not ill. But I am very tired. You see, Miss Pierce, Catherine speaks to me.” His voice fell to a lower register. “I think Catherine wants me to come to her too.”

“No!” She was on her feet instantly, facing him, determined to make him see, make him understand. “You must not! Please, milord, you must not.”

Without thinking, she put her hand on his arm. He covered it with his own. “Miss Pierce, you must not make yourself so distraught.”

“But, milord, you cannot.” Her eyes filled with tears. “The girls, the girls will be lost without you. I cannot care for them alone. Really I can’t.”

She realized that she was clutching his arm, but she didn’t let go. She was close to him, so close that she began to remember his angry kiss. To wish for another. To wish for his arms around her. To wish for words she had no right to hear. If only-

She raised her eyes to his-—only inches away. “Please, you must promise me. Don’t go up on the parapet, milord. Please?” The last word was almost a wail and she couldn’t keep the tears from overflowing and running down her cheeks.

For a long moment he looked down at her, at her tear-stained pleading face. Gently he reached out and wiped away a tear with his thumb. “Come, Edwina, Miss Pierce. You must not take on so.”

His touch sent tremors racing through her and the sound of her Christian name on his lips made her knees go weak with longing.

“Please. I—I can’t bear it if anything happens to you.”

He gathered her into his arms. Against her cheek she felt the warmth of his dear chest. Around her she felt the comfort of his strong arms. She let the tears come.

She couldn’t stop crying immediately. But he held her patiently until she was quiet. “You’re becoming overwrought,” he said, taking a step back from her. “I’m not that important a person. I have been kind to you, true, but that was no more than Christian decency.”

She shuddered. She couldn’t tell him the truth—she could never mention her love for him.

She raised gaze to his. “Please, milord, promise me you won’t go up on the parapet.”

He smiled sadly. “You don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”

He was evading her request. “Please, milord.”

He sighed and his dark eyes held pity. “You really know very little about ghosts, my Edwina. I can promise you not to go up on the parapet. But if Catherine wants me- If she really wants me- There are other ways to achieve her purpose.”

“No! I won’t let her. I won’t let her have you.” She threw herself back into his arms and clung to him. She was past all caring—about her pride or anything except him. But she knew instinctively that she must not speak of love. He would know that loving him placed her in even greater danger. She would not leave him. She could not.

“Poor child,” he murmured. “All this has been too much for you.” He smoothed the hair back from her forehead.

Feeling his touch, the warmth of him against her, she grew bolder and raised her head again. “Milord, you know I am not a child.”

For long moments their gazes remained locked. He moved slightly, as though to push her away from him and then, with a muttered curse, he drew her closer still and covered her lips with his own. There was no savagery or brutality in this kiss, only the hunger of a lonely man—a hunger that seemed to match her own. She went weak in his arms, swept away by feelings she’d never known before, marvelous, breathtaking feelings.

Just as suddenly as he had bent to her, he straightened. “Dear God, I have done it again! After I’d vowed not to.”

She stayed there, within the circle of his arms, the safe circle of his arms. “It’s all right, milord. I’m not offended.”

“But don’t you see?” he said, his dark eyes full of misery. “I’ve put you in additional danger. I didn’t mean- But I couldn’t help—”

She wanted to take away that misery, to make him feel good, feel like living again. “Please, milord. Don’t distress yourself so. It was only a kiss, was it not? You have been long without a woman. I can understand that.” She forced herself to regard him calmly.

The look he gave her was indecipherable, but he took his hands from her waist, stepped back so that she could no longer lean against him. She felt bereft, empty, but she dared not seek again the shelter of his arms, not when he had that blank faraway look on his face.

He spoke, his voice distantly polite. “Of course. You’re right. It was only a kiss. Still, I must beg your pardon.”

“It’s given,” she said stiffly, not knowing what else to say. If only she could move back into his arms, to hold and comfort him, to confess to the depths of her love. But she couldn’t.

“You should have gone to London,” he said. “When you had the chance.” The misery in his voice stabbed at her heart.

“I didn’t wish to leave the castle.” That was the truth, though not the whole of it. It was him she didn’t wish to leave.

“You’d be better off away from here.”

“Do you dismiss me?” she asked, holding her breath, praying it wasn’t true. “Is that what you’re saying?”

He turned anguished eyes upon her. “I cannot. God help me, but I cannot. The girls need you. You have made a new life for them. And I — I—” He couldn’t continue.

Edwina turned toward the door, catching sight of the curtained bed, the bed where he’d loved Catherine. Now acutely aware that she wore only her nightdress and robe, she knew that if she stayed in this room any longer, if she looked at his face, at the desire in his eyes, any longer, this ache to return to his arms would overcome all her good resolutions, would put her in grave danger of losing her reputation, her virginity, perhaps her very soul. If there were a ghost, if Lady Catherine really haunted these halls, what would she do to a woman who tried to usurp her place? Or to the husband who had once been hers?

Edwina mustered all her courage and said, “I must go back to the girls, milord. And—and I must not be seen abroad like this.”

A strange look of pain crossed his features. “There is one thing that is certain,” she went on, her head high and her voice strong. “As long as I live, no one, and nothing, shall drive me from Holmden Hill. This I swear on all I hold holy, on the sacred memory of my mother.”

Then, before he could protest any more, before he could reach for her as she so desperately wanted him to, she moved past him to the door and marched out. She had to stop on the other side, gathering the strength not to turn and rush back, into his arms. She leaned there, breathing hard, and a cold chill shivered down her spine as she heard him mutter into the empty room, “I’m sorry, Catherine. I’m sorry.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

The girls were sleeping soundly when Edwina took off her robe and slipped into the bed beside them. She stretched and relaxed. Their rest—and hers—had been disturbed. So perhaps in the morning they’d better sleep late. Just once it wouldn’t hurt to lie abed.

So it was past mid-morning when Edwina followed them down the stairs to the great hall and sent Simpson to tell Cook they were ready for breakfast. She wasn’t sure how she was going to face the earl. But perhaps, because they were late, he would have eaten already. In a way she hoped so. It was difficult to face him with the children present, difficult to keep in check the strength of her feelings for him.