Swept Away By a Kiss (17 page)

“Fine, fine. Today is too far advanced already for any interesting out-of-doors activities, I fear. But tomorrow we will have a foraging expedition in the woods for greenery to fest the castle. I need the help of younger people to make the place suitable for Christmas. I do hope you will join the party, Lady Valerie.”

“Oh, wonderful. I will take my brother along.”

“Why so eager, sister mine?”

“Darling, you cannot imagine that your inelegant complaint about my company will go unpunished? And so much snow needs a good purpose, don’t you think?”

Valentine quirked a smile.

Lord March chuckled. “Never cross a clever lady, Alverston. She will always double-cross a fellow in return.”

Anna and Valerie laughed at her brother’s nonplussed expression. Lady March’s gaze slued abruptly to Valerie, strangely sharp again as she seemed to study Valerie anew.

Valerie’s grin faltered. “My lady?”

“Oh, yes,” the countess chortled belatedly. “Gentlemen can be so blind, can’t they, my dear? Now I have just recalled a matter I must attend to.” She turned their party over to the housekeeper and hastened away.

Valerie’s shoulders tingled with unease as she followed the housekeeper to her bedchamber. Knowing her hostess intended to attach Valerie to her godson, she had not really wished to come to Castlemarch. But she did not particularly wish to be anywhere else for the holiday, and certainly not without her family.

A mere six months home, and the rest of her years stretched out before her like a dreadful eternity. Nothing, not even gay Christmas festivities, could enliven that.

Near the cliff, from the shadows below, voices called out. They seemed to be inside the waves crashing against the sheer rock face.

Her hands were bound, tied to the people in front of her and behind. The man walking toward the cliff just ahead was huge and uncannily familiar, but he seemed likewise helpless in his bindings. She was cold too. Only a thin lace night rail covered her nakedness. But she felt no shame, only helplessness as they marched toward the wind-buffeted cliff’s edge.

A man appeared at the rim, one hand in his waistcoat pocket and the other lifting a pinch of snuff to his nose. He stood casually, watching the line of people disappear over the cliff’s edge. He was very tall and well dressed, and she knew a moment of hope when she realized he must be English. He could save her and the others if only she could open her mouth and force the words out. As she struggled to make her voice heard, he turned and she saw his face. As she recognized the hooded eyes and aristocratic features, his full lips parted in a toothy smile.

Valerie awoke gasping, covers strewn to either side upon the canopied bed. She sat up, shaking her head free of the dream’s vivid images. Gathering the goose-down blanket to her, she curled up in a ball beneath it.

Even as a prisoner aboard the
Blackhawk
she had not dreamed in such horrifying images, and she rarely played such a significant role. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shivered under the warm covers.

The Marquess of Hannsley was arrogant and opinionated and looked at her as though he owned her. But plenty of English noblemen fit that description and she did not invent sinister roles for them in her dreams. The night before, discovering the marquess as a guest at Castlemarch hadn’t bothered her, but now she could not banish his ghastly grin from her mind.

Her hand stole from beneath the covers, seeking the bedside table. Soft leather smoothed beneath her fingertips. She took in a long, steadying breath of cold morning air, pulled the Bible forward, and turned onto her side.

She cracked the volume open, releasing the scent of old leather and incense. The incense might be in her imagination, but it suited her notion of the exotic, alien world so distant from hers now. Each tissue-thin page was marked in the margins with notes in a hand too abbreviated to read for the most part. It was the same with nearly all the pages. In the six months since Etienne gave it to her, she had studied the entire thing from cover to cover.

Reluctantly she placed it again upon the table and lay back. She closed her eyes. The cliff loomed behind her eyelids, dark bodies falling from it.

She sat up and shoved away the bolster. Fools depended upon prayers and memories. Activity would drive the dream from her mind, as it always did. Without busy activity, the past months would have been a slow torment, both night and day.

Three quarters of an hour later she sipped the final drops of a cup of tea in the morning salon. The little chamber overlooked the frost-touched, terraced gardens that cascaded down behind the castle to a frozen lake and woods beyond. As she stared out the window at the crystal white and blue day, a rider emerged into view from the woods, cantering up to the stables along the north side of the house. She leaned forward and peered through the glass, the window’s frost cooling her skin.

The big, rawboned bay was not attractive, but his lope was as graceful as the seat of the man astride him. As she stared at the rider, a peculiar tingling of familiarity skittered across Valerie’s shoulders. She shrugged, trying for the second time since rising to dispel unwelcome feelings.

Stepping away from the window, she set her china cup upon the sideboard as a gentleman entered the chamber. He bowed rigidly.

“Good morning, madam.”

“Good morning, sir.”

He stared at her, his brow furrowed under a Brutus-cut thatch of curly brown hair.

“Please forgive my presumption, ma’am. I feel we have met before, but I am ashamed to disremember where and when I had the pleasure. I am Alistair Flemming. It is my aunt’s and uncle’s home in which we enjoy Christmas this year.” He bowed again.

“I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Flemming. I have attended your aunt’s salon in town. Perhaps we met there.”

Mr. Flemming’s smile rested uncomfortably upon his face.

“You are Lord Alverston’s sister, then. I understand you recently lived in the United States for some time.”

“I returned from Boston in July. Are you interested in America?”

He poured out tea. “Somewhat. I have business concerns there.”

“Really? My cousin has as well. A mercantile company. What about you, Mr. Flemming?”

“Oh.” He waved a hand, as though regretting that he had introduced the topic. “My aunt’s interests, you know.” His cheeks turned pale. It was not the usual bluster of a gentleman defending his investments in trade and industry, and it struck Valerie as odd, especially in light of what Lord Hannsley had said about the Countess of March’s political leanings.

“Mr. Flemming, you are Lord Hannsley’s cousin, aren’t you?”

His eyes narrowed, and the awkward smile creased his face again. He nodded.

“I presume you were at my aunt’s salon the evening he called me out.”

“And yet you are both present here,” Valerie said. “Whatever came of the duel?”

His smile vanished. “It is remarkable to meet a lady who does not already know about it. The feminine sex often seems to take such pleasure in gentlemen’s violence.”

Nausea tickled her stomach.

“I fear I haven’t attended carefully to gossip lately.” But the hideous image of Lord Hannsley in her dream taunted anew. “Was it a draw?”

The gentleman shook his head.

“Hannsley’s grandmother, the duchess, forbade the duel. Her interference infuriated him, but he retracted the challenge.”

“I thought Lord Hannsley was independent.” The marquess was one of the wealthiest men in England, and his wealth would only increase once he inherited his grandfather’s duchy.

“Hannsley’s income is considerable, it’s true. But reputation means more to him than money and title combined. If he lost the duchess’s favor, the
ton
would invariably cut him.” He paused before continuing. “It was fortunate for me she intervened. Clifford is very handy with both sword and pistol.” Mr. Flemming’s mouth slid into a tight line, as though he wished to end the conversation. Valerie reached for her shawl.

“Will you join the party gathering greenery in the woods this morning, Mr. Flemming?”

“Unfortunately I have business to attend to in the village.”

“Then, good day, sir.”

He bowed. “Good day, madam.”

None of the other guests was abroad yet, and Valerie wandered the castle’s empty corridors until she discovered the library. She spent a comfortable hour reading before the others roused, and finally a group set out to brave the cold in search of holly and fir branches.

The outing restored Valerie’s spirits and banished the horrid dream from her mind. When the party straggled back into the hall, greenery-laden, smelling of sweet pine and tart spruce, bedecked with the snow now falling in swirling gusts, she felt almost like herself again. The others swiftly shed cloaks and gloves and headed for the drawing room’s fire and the lunch laid out there. Valerie lingered in the hall to change her half boots into indoor slippers, appreciating the moment alone as she never would have two years earlier. Anna was right, she had changed in so many ways.

Lady March and Mr. Flemming appeared across the great hall and Valerie went toward them.

“Dearest Lady Valerie, I am so glad you and my nephew became acquainted this morning.” The countess placed her hand lightly upon Valerie’s cold cheek, and Valerie had the sudden thought that Mr. Flemming must be her godson. How the countess could ever imagine he would compete for any lady’s attentions with a man like Timothy Ramsay, Valerie could not imagine. But mothers, even godmothers, were wont to be prejudiced.

“You have clearly been out gathering with the others, despite the snow and wind,” Lady March said. “Have they all returned and gone off to the drawing room without you? We will go together and find something to warm you up.” She took Valerie’s arm and gestured for her nephew to follow.

The doors at the other end of the hall opened in a bluster of cold. A gentleman entered, shrouded in snow blowing in upon the wind. His many-caped greatcoat billowed about him and a footman hurried to shut out the elements.

The countess squeezed Valerie’s arm. Mr. Flemming broke from them to move across the hall as the gentleman offered his coat and hat to the waiting footman.

“Ashford, you have finally returned,” he said.

The stranger swiveled around, his face lighting into a smile.

“Indeed, I have finally returned.” His voice was rich and tempered with the perfectly modulated accents of an English aristocrat. His sunlit gold hair was cropped short and slightly tousled from the curly-brimmed beaver hat he had removed. As he held out his hand for Mr. Flemming to grasp, he moved with the grace of a great cat.

The room spun around Valerie.

Chapter 18

F
or an endless moment, only Lady March’s arm held Valerie up.

It could not be. It must be some trick of the light, some devilish play of her imagination. She’d heard that everyone had a double somewhere in the world. A perfect twin.

Mr. Flemming stepped back. Lady March laughed warmly as the newcomer turned to her, a smile upon his breathtakingly handsome face.

“Steven, how good of you to come before the snow begins in earnest.” Gently, she released Valerie’s arm and moved forward. “We were concerned the weather would stall your arrival until after Christmas. But now here you are, safe and sound, just in time to complete our gathering.”

“Dearest godmother, I would not have missed joining your party for all the world.” His long strides brought him gracefully to the countess. He grasped her hands and kissed her upon both cheeks. Still smiling, she freed a hand and reached back to Valerie.

“Lady Valerie, come meet my godson, Viscount Ashford,” she said, taking Valerie’s cold fingers and drawing her forward. “Steven, this is Lady Valerie Monroe, sister to the Earl of Alverston.”

Perhaps his features arrested for an instant. But when Etienne La Marque’s tawny eyes met hers with nothing more than courteous interest upon the surface of their expressive depths, Valerie’s heart stopped.

He bowed elegantly. “Your servant, ma’am.”

Valerie’s heart reeled into life again at the sound of his voice addressing her, the voice she had heard in her memory every day for months, that she thought to never hear again. It sounded as warm and caressing now in impeccable English as it had in his beautiful French.