‘Have you any clue to what my quest could be, Lady Chloe?’ Tom asked to remind the lovers he was still here, before it was he who needed to leave the book room in a hurry instead of them.
‘Oh, that quest. No, I only hand out the letters,’ Chloe said with a shrug that admitted she was so deep in love with Luke they were very poor company.
She flicked a glance at Tom’s name and titles inscribed on his last message from his godmother and he was in danger of being ambushed by grief all over again. It was such a stark absence, having to acknowledge Virginia’s wit, warmth and energy had left this world for the next. She and Virgil had lit up his life, and he felt the loneliness of losing both hit him anew.
‘I had such plans, very seductive and beautiful ones they were as well,’ he grumbled to hide his true feelings on such a joyful day.
‘Rakehell.’ Luke dismissed that objection with the wolfish good humour of a man about to have his own wildest fantasies come true. ‘And where would be the fun in my great-aunt being predictable in death as she never was in life?’
‘Fun for you, I suppose, Romeo, now your task is safely over.’
‘True, watching you squirm is a pleasant side effect of standing at my own Lady Farenze’s side while I watch three more idiots run about in their turn. If Virginia can see us from her place in heaven, I bet she’s enjoying the view even more than I am right now.’
‘Knowing her, it won’t be some simple task easily got through and back to town before anyone misses me either.’
‘Oh, I suspect those seductively beautiful plans of yours will, but we have to leave, and you need to discover whatever it is Virginia wants you to do in private,’ the new Lady Farenze intervened.
‘The fun’s just starting—do we really have to go when it’s getting interesting?’ her lord said with the easy humour of a man whose task had come to a deeply satisfying conclusion.
‘We do, Luke Winterley,’ Chloe said with a severe look that only made him laugh.
Tom hadn’t seen his friend and honorary brother this carefree since he was a dashing and hopeful youth, always game for a lark. The marriage his father arranged when Luke was barely twenty certainly knocked the youthful high spirits out of him far too young and he’d turned into a virtual hermit when the silly chit left him. After that Luke had locked himself away in his northern stronghold to raise their baby daughter and Tom blessed Virginia for managing to chip Luke out of frozen isolation, but he didn’t want to be next the next victim on her list all the same.
‘Well, we’ll leave you to it then, Mantaigne. Try not to miss us too much, won’t you?’ Luke said with a mocking grin at Tom and a hot look at his lady that made her blush, then stride ahead of him, clearly in nearly as much of a hurry to begin married life as he was.
The door shut after them with a soft snick and Tom was left with the last letter he’d ever receive from his godmother, wishing she was here to tell him what maggot had got into her head this time herself. He’d spent the best years of his boyhood in this house and sometimes wondered if he had imagined his stark early childhood as the true lord of an ancient castle and vast estates, but master of nothing.
* * *
‘Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard could be marching about on the cliffs tonight and we wouldn’t be any the wiser.’
Polly Trethayne shook her head, then remembered her companion couldn’t see her in the heavy darkness. ‘I really think we would,’ she whispered, wishing her friend and ally had stayed inside. ‘If it is smugglers, we really need to be quiet.’
‘Better for us not to know when they’re out and about, if you ask me,’ Lady Wakebourne grumbled a little more softly.
‘I didn’t and we can’t simply sit back and let them use Castle Cove to land cargo whenever they fancy. The riding officers are sure to find out and report it, and the last thing we want is for the Marquis of Mantaigne to take an interest in Dayspring Castle for once in his life. He’ll turn us out to tramp the roads again without a second thought and leave the poor old place to go to rack and ruin.’
‘Even if he wants Dayspring to tumble down as the locals say, I’m sure he’d rather we stay than leave it empty for any passing rogue who wants a hiding place.’
‘One or two may already be doing that and we are the rogues as far as the rest of the world is concerned. No, long may he stop away,’ Polly argued.
Meeting Lady Wakebourne and finding this place abandoned on his lordship’s orders was a small miracle and Polly had prayed every night for the last six and a half years for the man to stop away. Even the memory of how it felt to wander the world with a babe in her arms and two small boys at her heels for six long and terrifying months made her shudder.
‘I doubt if anything would wrench him away from the delights of a London Season at this time of year, so I don’t suppose we rogues need worry,’ Lady Wakebourne whispered with an unlikely trace of regret.
Polly shook her head at the idea her practical and forthright friend secretly dreamed of playing loo and gossiping with the tabbies and dowagers of the ton, whilst the glitter and scandal of soirées and balls played out round them. Deciding she must be a freak to think the whole extravagant business sounded appalling, she wondered fleetingly how she’d have fared in that world if she had been obliged to make her come out in polite society. The idea was so far removed from her real life it made her want to laugh, but she bit it back and reminded herself this was serious.
‘Surely you heard that?’ she whispered urgently, listening to the night with the uneasy feeling it was listening back. ‘I’d swear that was a window opening or closing on the landward side of the house.’
‘The wind, perhaps?’
‘There is no wind; nothing ought to be out here but foxes or owls.’
‘Some poor creature could have got in and not been able to get back out, then,’ Lady Wakebourne murmured.
‘I refuse to believe bats and birds can unbar shutters or open windows,’ Polly said as lightly as she could when this black darkness made her want to shout a challenge at whoever was out there.
‘Tomorrow we’ll go in and see for ourselves, but if you take another step in that direction now I’ll scream at the top of my voice.’
‘They will be long gone by then,’ Polly argued, although she knew Lady Wakebourne was right and she couldn’t afford to encounter an unknown foe in the unused parts of the castle.
Her three brothers had to grow up and be independent before she was free to have adventures, but it was so hard to fight her wild Trethayne urges to act now and think later. At least memory of her father’s recklessness reminded her to leash her own though; she was all that stood between her brothers and life on the parish, if they were lucky, and she had no plans to leave any of them in the dire situation Papa’s death had left her in as a very naive and unprepared seventeen-year-old.
‘At least we’ll find out if these felons of yours exist outside the pages of a Gothic novel. If they do we’ll have to get them to believe there really are ghosts at Dayspring Castle and leave us in peace with them.’
‘Perhaps I should cut my hair and borrow a fine coat, then ride up the drive and announce myself as the Marquis of Mantaigne come back to claim his own,’ Polly suggested as the most absurd way of scaring anyone out of the old place she could think of.
‘And perhaps you should stop reading those ridiculous Gothic novels the vicar’s sister passes on to us when she knows them by heart.’
‘Aye, they’re about as likely to come true as the idea Lord Mantaigne will ever come here without being kidnapped and dragged up the drive bound and gagged first. So ghosts it will have to be then,’ Polly