The Secret Rose (3 page)

Ethan folded the letter and leaned back in his chair. He breathed a deep sigh of relief.

All he had to do was get the stones back and his problems would be solved.

. . .

Fallen Oaks stood in the distance. A winding lane lined with mammoth oaks led to the massive country estate. Withered leaves lay crushed and scattered on the ground, discarded by winter’s stark hand.

Langdon’s manor house reached upward in towering majesty, its sturdy strength the guardian of an immense domain, the rugged stone structure a formidable yet welcoming refuge.

Ethan spurred his mount cautiously down the lane, careful to avoid the craggy ruts, hard from last night’s freeze.

Thick black smoke curled from the roof, its warmth beckoning him inside.

He both dreaded and anticipated his meeting with Langdon and the girl. Dreaded because he’d hoped never to set eyes on either of them again. Anticipated because they held in their grasp the fortune that would wipe away Stephen’s debts.

A cold wind whipped around him, and Ethan lifted the collar of his greatcoat, then stuffed his hands deeper into the coat’s generous folds. He didn’t remember it ever being this cold, even in the dead of winter. It seemed the weather had decided to correlate a foreboding prediction with the reception he would receive.

Ethan stiffened his spine in resolve. He didn’t give a bloody damn how precious Stephen’s gift of the stones was to her or how reluctant she was to give them up. She was no longer Stephen’s betrothed, and Ethan needed the jewels far more than she did. He’d be damned if he’d leave without them.

Ethan dug his heels into his steed’s sides and made his way closer to the manor house. A dozen or more carriages lined the lane, their middle-of-the-day presence an unsettling premonition. A light mist was falling, its wetness turning to icy shards that pelted him about the face. He lowered his head to shield himself from its sting and crossed the circle of cobblestones, then raised his gaze.

The drapes in every window were pulled shut, the downstairs windows covered in black. Black satin draped the door frame in formidable forewarning.

He was too late. Edward Langdon was gone.

Ethan dropped to the ground and handed his reins to a young lad who’d run to take his horse. He hesitated once, then he walked toward the huge black wreath that rustled ominously above the entrance. An uneasy feeling swept over him.

Before he reached the portal, the front door swung open. A tall man with a generous sprinkling of gray in his hair stood as an indomitable sentinel. He wore a finely tailored suit and an air of authority that indicated he considered Ethan’s late arrival an intrusion. He gave Ethan a harsh glance, then his look narrowed, turning cold and serious.

Ethan knew the moment the loyal butler remembered him from his youthful visits.

A fresh gust of wind whipped his coat around his legs as Ethan waited to be admitted.

A look of deliberation passed over the man’s face as if he debated whether or not to let this late and clearly unwelcome guest enter. Finally, he stepped back and let Ethan step inside before closing the door.

Without a word, the butler led the way through the front part of the house, out the double doors that took them across a terrace, then through the brown, ice-covered garden, to a small chapel. They walked down the narrow aisle, and Ethan barely had time to notice the stained-glass windows before they exited the warmth of a church just vacated, to step into the stark, frigid outside air.

They walked down a cobblestone path until they reached a small fenced-off area. Dozens of marble headstones marked the graves of the Langdons already buried there.

The somber-faced butler stopped, indicating with a less-than-subtle gesture that Ethan should stand at an obscure place in the back.

Ethan ignored his warning and walked forward, focusing on the front of the small throng of mourners gathered around the freshly dug grave. There he found her.

She barely resembled the young girl he remembered from before. Gone was her look of youthful innocence. Her boldness seemed a gallant effort to withstand and conquer this latest hardship thrown at her. There was a bravery to her stance as she stood at her father’s open grave. With her chin held high, her spine rigid and straight, her shoulders squared with regal pride, she portrayed a single-minded self-reliance.

Yards of dull black cloth draped across her slender form, cloaking her in shrouds of formidable resolve. Yet each drab fold seemed to add to her strength and self-confidence, and transform her into an image safeguarded with an intractable resolve.

She shouldered her burden alone. No one stood close to her—no family to support her, no friends to comfort her. Only a small crowd of neighbors and tenants and household staff who had come to pay their last respects.

The minister read the familiar quotation from the Bible, committing Langdon’s flesh to the earth with words rife with dust and ashes.

Ethan made his way to the front, ignoring the eyebrows that lifted as he passed. There was no reason for him to be here. She and Stephen were no longer betrothed. From her rigid stance, she did not expect anyone to stand beside her.

He took another step toward her.

A dry, brittle twig snapped beneath his booted foot, and she turned her head. Huge, sad green eyes, as deep as the most brilliant emeralds God had ever fashioned into stone, looked up at him.

Recognition, though not immediate, was, when it came, jarring. A flash of awareness overtook her face—the sudden fear he glimpsed hidden so quickly he nearly missed it. It was as if she possessed the ability to camouflage her vulnerability by turning it to indifference.

She lifted her shoulders. With her gaze still locked with his, she held steady, then slowly turned her icy glare away. She stood in rigid defiance, as if daring him to intrude where he was not welcome.

Ethan moved to stand beside her.

Her reaction was the same as before, when he’d gone to tell her that Stephen had left. She drew within herself, closing herself off from the world around her.

And from him.

Abigail reached deep inside herself to find every last shred of courage she possessed so she could endure just one more minute of this day. She was hard-pressed to find the strength she needed. She’d lost so much.

She allowed herself to cast a quick glance in Ethan Cambridge’s direction. He occupied a vacant corner of the room as if he owned not only the area where he stood, but the entire room.

Something about the harsh expression on his face, and the narrowed look in his eyes as he assessed his surroundings, caused the people Abigail had known her entire life to avoid coming into contact with him. Even Reverend Smythe’s wife, who went out of her way to greet any stranger, kept her distance, realizing there was something to fear about him. And Abigail was afraid. She was afraid because she realized that she could lose everything.

He leaned against the far wall and silently watched the guests as they came forward to offer their condolences. Just as he watched her.

His presence filled the room like a commanding sentinel, his stillness far more intimidating than if he’d muscled his way through the small crowd of mourners.

Piercing blue eyes evaluated her as his broad shoulders braced for battle, his muscled arms crossed over his chest in readiness. The closed look on his face remained steadfastly unreadable.

He was as dark as Stephen had been blond. As menacing as Stephen had been congenial. As mysterious as Stephen had been endearing. She would trust Ethan Cambridge even less than she had learned she could trust Stephen.

Abigail turned her face. His penetrating eyes sent waves of trepidation racing through her. A cold chill wracked her body. She recognized it for what it was. Fear.

The room spun around her as her mind screamed a denial, and she focused her attention on the small group of people who had come to bid her father farewell. The gathering seemed to move in slow motion, as if their reason for being here wasn’t real, but was a nightmare from which she would soon awaken.

She shivered and clutched her hands around her arms for just one second before pulling them away and clasping them together in her lap. She could not let anyone know how close she was to giving in to her grief. And her fear.

One by one her father’s friends and acquaintances finished the light lunch her servants had laid out, and wished her well before leaving.

“Our most sincere sympathies, Miss Langdon,” George Peacroft said, twisting the corners of a perfectly pressed handkerchief. “If there’s aught me and the missus can do, ye only have ta let us know. Yer father was a right fine master, and we’ll sorely miss him.”

Abigail lifted her head and tried to smile. “Thank you, George. Thank you, Emma. Father would have appreciated that you came. And don’t worry. Please tell the other tenants that nothing will change. Things will be run as they’ve always been. With everyone’s help, everything will go smoothly.”

A broad smile crossed George’s lips. “You can count on us, miss.”

Abigail stood to walk the visitors to the door and swayed as the room moved beneath her feet. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten. Or the last time she’d slept. Her father had been ill for so long she couldn’t remember when she’d had even a moment to herself. Especially this last week.

She reached out her hand to steady herself against the end of the sofa. Strong arms clamped around her waist to anchor her.

She looked up. A deep frown creased Ethan Cambridge’s forehead. His full lips pressed to an unsmiling straight line. When he tightened his grip around her waist, the unease she felt surged to a new level.

“Please leave,” she whispered, her voice soft yet firm. “I don’t want you here. Any association between our two families was severed long ago.”

He made no move, as if her words did not affect him.

Every eye in the room focused on them, and in a commanding tone of voice, he tilted his head and announced just loud enough to be heard, “I think it is time to bid your remaining guests farewell so you can rest.”

As if his command had been a royal decree, the last of the stragglers made their way to the door.

A wave of resolve crept through her. She was not the confused eighteen-year-old she’d been that night eighteen months ago when her world had crashed down around her. She was nearly twenty. How dare he step in as if he owned her. She was nothing to him, as he was nothing to her.

Abigail stiffened her shoulders and twisted out of his arms, praying her legs would support her as she walked across the room.

She thanked the remaining guests for coming, while ignoring Ethan’s towering presence which hovered a few feet away from her. Twice she’d had to hold on to the extended hand of one of her guests until the room stopped spinning, but she quickly stiffened her back when she saw him move toward her. She would not show such weakness. She would not allow him to help her.

The door closed behind the last of the guests, and Abigail resisted the urge to lean her forehead against the cool wood while the earth rotated back into place.

Why had he come? He had to know how uncomfortable it was to have him here, but in a possessive show that indicated he didn’t care, he offered her his arm and ushered her back into the parlor. Her butler hovered nearby.

“Your name,” he demanded when the butler stepped near.

“Palmsworth, sir.”

“Palmsworth,” he said, his voice more a command than a request. “Perhaps you might bring Miss Langdon a tray with something more nourishing than those little sandwiches and cakes. And a cup of fresh tea.”

Palmsworth hesitated a moment, then nodded but didn’t leave.

“There is no need to watch me like I’m about to do your mistress harm, Palmsworth. I have no intention of being the cause of another burial at Fallen Oaks.”

“Bring the tea, Palmsworth,” she said with as much force as she could.

When Palmsworth left, Ethan Cambridge led her through the parlor. He ushered her to the long sofa in the center of the room with the practiced ease of a man accustomed to being in control.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Abigail protested. She tried valiantly to keep her voice from sounding like it was ready to give out on her.

“You aren’t strong enough to carry your fancy lace handkerchief to the other side of the room without assistance, let alone the little flesh that’s left on your body. When was the last time you ate?”

Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the fireplace and placed another log on the dying embers. When he was assured the fire was again blazing, he moved one of the large wing chairs nearer the heat. “Come, sit by the fire.”

“Why are you here?”

He ignored her and moved a small table nearby for the tray of food Palmsworth had been ordered to bring.

“Why have you come?” she said a little louder.

He halted with his back to her and turned around slowly. The vivid azure depths of his startling blue eyes stopped her short.

“You have my sympathies. I didn’t know about your father.”

“Would you have had the courtesy to stay away if you had?”

The look he gave her told her it wouldn’t have mattered, but Palmsworth entered the room, silencing him for the moment. A servant followed with a tray, and Cambridge stepped back while the servant set down the food and poured two cups of tea. “Thank you, Palmsworth. That will be all.”

Palmsworth turned a questioning glance to Abigail, and she answered with a nod.

Although she would love to, there was no use putting off hearing what Ethan Cambridge had come here to say. Unlike Stephen, Ethan Cambridge didn’t seem the type to be dissuaded.

“If you need me, mistress, you have only to call. I will be near.”

Abigail forced a smile to her lips. “Thank you, Palmsworth. I could not have managed this day without you.”

Palmsworth gave Cambridge a lengthy look of warning, then left the room.

“Come over by the fire and eat,” he ordered. His voice was soft, but contained a threat.

“The soup will stay warm enough.” She stood to face him. “We’ll talk first. If you didn’t know about my father, then you had another reason for coming. What was it?”