Carisbrooke Abbey (5 page)

Yes, that was far more likely.

The conversation moved on to general topics, until it was time for Hilary to withdraw. If there had been other ladies present she would have gone with them to the drawing-room whilst the gentlemen sat over their port, but as she was the only lady present it did not seem necessary.

Instead, turning to Lord Carisbrooke, she said, ‘I am tired. If I could have a candle, I would like to retire.’

‘A good idea.’

He went over to the mantelpiece and lit a single candle from the branched candlestick that stood there, whilst Mr Ulverstone helped himself to a glass of port.

‘A word of advice,’ growled Lord Carisbrooke to Hilary. ‘It would be wise not to leave your room tonight. The corridors have a number of loose flags. You might stumble in the darkness.’

‘I am not afraid of a mis-step,’ she replied.

‘Good. You will need strong nerves if you are to remain here. And not just because of loose flags. There are some who say the abbey is haunted.’

She felt a frisson of fear before her good sense reasserted itself. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘Then you will not be afraid if you hear strange noises, or see an apparition. It is said the abbess walks.’

‘The abbess?’ she asked, before she could stop herself.

‘The abbey is a very old building. The last abbess is said to have cursed my ancestor for buying it, and there are those who claim she has walked its corridors ever since.’

‘You are trying to frighten me,’ she returned. It was probably another of Lord Carisbrooke’s tests, she reasoned. He did not want a woman at the abbey because he thought women were nervous creatures who were constantly having fits of the vapours. Well, she would show him she was not of that sort. She lifted her chin. ‘But you will not succeed.’

‘It’s one thing to be brave in a well-lit dining-room in the early hours of the evening. It is another to be brave, alone in your room late at night,’ he said.

He handed her the candle.

As Hilary took it, to her annoyance her hand shook.

By the curve of his mouth, she knew he had seen it.

Steadying her hand, she said repressively, ‘Good night, Lord Carisbrooke.’

He gave a grim smile. ‘Good night, Miss Wentworth.’ Adding ironically, ‘Sleep well.’

The wind howled and the rain lashed down. The storm, which had abated during the evening, returned full force in the middle of the night. Hilary slept fitfully, and awoke to find herself sitting bolt upright in bed. Her teeth were chattering, her face was covered in cold sweat and she was trembling with the after effects of a bad dream.

The chamber looked ominous in the moonlight. Some of the furniture was still shrouded, and under its white dust sheets it looked like misshapen ghosts. Even worse, she thought she could hear pattering footsteps outside her door, the same pattering footsteps that had followed her in her dream. It was only when she had strained her ears for fully five minutes that she was able to convince herself it was no more than the sound of the rain pattering against the window.

Breathing a sigh of relief she lay down again and fell into another fitful slumber, only to be disturbed by an even worse dream. This time she awoke with the conviction that she could hear a pitiful moaning. As she clutched the covers up to her chin she was convinced that she could still hear it ... until she realized that it was nothing more frightening than the sound of the wind howling in the chimney.

She was just about to lie down again when she suddenly felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Once again she was convinced she could hear footsteps in the corridor outside ... and this time she was not asleep, she was awake.

She froze.

They must be Lund’s footsteps as he busied himself about some household task, she told herself bracingly.

But what would Lund be doing out of bed at this time of night?

Of one thing she was certain. If she did not discover the cause of the footsteps, there would be no further sleep for her tonight.

Summoning her courage she threw back the covers and slipped out of bed. She padded over to the fire, and from the glowing embers she lit a candle. Then she crossed to the door and opened it a crack. Peering out, to her astonishment she saw Lord Carisbrooke, dressed in nothing more than shirt and breeches. He was clutching his arm ... and it was seeping blood.

Her common sense immediately drove away her fear. Here was no ghostly visitation, but a man of flesh and blood who needed help.

‘What happened?’ she asked, hurrying over the cold stone on bare feet.

‘Hell’s teeth! What are you doing out of bed?’ he growled, turning round as he spoke.

His voice lacked its normal strength, and told Hilary more clearly than words that he was suffering from the loss of blood. So ignoring his question, she said, ‘Come in.’

She took his good arm and guided him, cursing under his breath, into her room. It was a measure of how much blood he had lost that he went with her.

‘Here, sit by the fire,’ she said, pushing him into a chair by the glowing embers. Quickly lighting the candles in the candelabra she took a closer looked at his damaged arm, assessing the injury. ‘How did it happen?’

‘The storm,’ he growled through gritted teeth. ‘It’s blown in part of the attic roof. I heard a crash and went up to see what had happened. There was a gaping hole, and a sudden gust of wind lifted more slates and sent them crashing down on me.’

‘They must have been sharp,’ said Hilary with a frown, taking his arm and turning it gently between her hands. There was a deep gash in his forearm.

Satisfying herself that it was not beyond her small skill to dress his wound, she went over to her portmanteau. She took out a pair of scissors and a number of pins. Returning to him, she deftly slit the fine lawn of his shirt sleeve before gently pulling the fabric away from the cut.

‘Where did you learn to do this?’ he asked.

His manner was less hostile than usual. Although his voice was a low growl, there was a relenting of his former gruffness.

‘My father was a doctor,’ she told him.

‘And he showed you how to dress wounds?’ he asked in surprise.

‘I used to go on his rounds with him, and I learned a great deal from watching him. My mother died when I was young,’ she explained, ‘and my father brought me up alone. He would set me up on his horse in front of him and we would ride together from house to house. Sometimes I would wait in the kitchen whilst he tended his patients, but on other occasions I would be his helper.’

‘A strange childhood,’ he remarked, but nevertheless he sounded interested.

‘In a way. But it was also an interesting one, and it was useful.’

He smiled. ‘As you are busy tending my wound, I can hardly disagree.’

‘But you would like to,’ she said mischievously as she pinned the cut fabric to the elbow of his shirt, so that it would be out of the way when she came to cleaning his arm.

‘Hah! Then you think I am argumentative?’ he asked with a low growl.

Her mouth quirked. ‘I do.’

‘And no doubt you think I am bad-tempered?’

She smiled. ‘Sometimes, yes, I do.’

‘You’re a brave woman, Miss Wentworth,’ he laughed. ‘There are not many people who would dare tell me that to my face, and I would venture to say there are
no
young ladies who would dare. Or who would even want to. Young ladies, in my experience, prefer simpering to telling the truth.’

‘I don’t believe I know how to simper,’ she laughed.

He looked at her appraisingly. ‘No, I don’t believe you do.’

She went over to the washstand and poured some water into the porcelain bowl. Then she looked around for something to use as a cloth, but she could see nothing suitable. She glanced at his neck tie.

‘I need to use something to clean your wound,’ she said, going over to him. ‘I will have to untie your cravat.’

‘Resourceful as well as useful,’ he growled, as she knelt down in front of him.

With deft fingers she set about undoing the barrel knot.

‘I am,’ she said. Then added audaciously, ‘Ideal qualities for a librarian who must organize a neglected library without supervision!’

‘Hah!’ he exclaimed. But by the light in his eye she knew her remark had gone home. ‘You don’t give up easily. You have experience, I suppose?’

‘I do. As I told you in my letter, I helped my uncle to reorganize his library some years ago. I cleaned the books and catalogued them, repairing them as necessary before returning them to the shelves.’

‘Your uncle was a gentleman, then?’ he asked.

‘He was. And so was my father. But whilst my father’s interests led him to pursue medicine, my uncle pursued a more usual path. He went to Eton and then to Oxford, where he flourished. He often told me about his years there, and I believe they were the happiest of his life.’

‘Bandaging wounds, organizing libraries ... strange occupations for a young lady,’ he said, his eyes roving over her face with interest.

‘Perhaps,’ Hilary conceded. ‘But I enjoyed them.’

To begin with she worked at arm’s length, but the knot was firmly tied and she had to lean closer in order to loosen it. As she did so she felt his warm breath against her cheek. The sensation was strangely pleasant. It was akin to the sensation she had felt when he had taken her foot, only gentler and yet somehow deeper, setting up reverberations inside her body which she could neither control nor understand. Was it this that made her fingers began to tremble? she wondered. Or were the two circumstances unrelated?

Whatever the truth of the matter, it was making it difficult to untie his cravat.

‘Here.’ He spoke more gently than usual.

He let go of his arm, and raised his hands to help her. As he did so, his fingers brushed her own.

She gasped. It felt as though she had been struck by lightning.

What had been the meaning of the strange force that had assailed her?

He seemed not to have felt it.

But a moment later she realized he had, because his manner had become gruff again. It was as though the lightning bolt had angered him.

‘Let me.’ He pushed her hand aside.

Even that slight contact made her shiver inside.

Why was she feeling so strange? Was she ill? she wondered. Had she perhaps taken cold from her soaking? But no, she did not feel ill. Only light-headed, and yet at the same time intensely alive.

He undid the knot and handed her the cravat. As he did so his shirt fell open, revealing a portion of chest. It was broad and powerful, and against her will it drew her eye. Hard ridges of muscle crossed it, covered with dark hair. She felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch it, running her hands across its surface before tangling her fingers in the black waves.

‘Your uncle lived near to you, I take it. He must have done, if you helped him with his library.’

His words broke in on her unruly thoughts.

‘To answer your question, no, my uncle did not live close to my family. In fact, he lived almost at the other end of the country. But I went to live with him when my father died.’

She went over to the washstand and soaked one end of his cravat in the porcelain bowl. Then she set about cleaning his arm.

‘Why did you leave him?’

‘He, too, passed away.’

She spoke unemotionally, but in fact it had been a cruel blow.

‘He was old,’ she went on, ‘and he had had a good life. But his death left me with nowhere to go.’

‘He did not provide for you?’

‘He could not. He had very little. His house was mortgaged, and by the time his debts were paid there was almost nothing left. And so I set about seeking employment.’

She dabbed away the blood. Although the cut was deep, it was now clean.

‘You’re fortunate,’ she said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any slate embedded in the wound. It should heal quickly.’

She dried it with the other end of his cravat, then her hands suddenly stilled as she felt his eyes on her.

How she knew he was looking at her she could not have said, for she determinedly kept her eyes on her task. Nevertheless, she knew that he was watching her. She could feel his eyes roaming over her face, tracing the outline of her brow, her nose and her jaw, before coming to rest on her mouth.

She swallowed.

She should not be doing this, she thought suddenly, aware for the first time of the impropriety of the situation. She should not be tending him in her bedchamber, wearing nothing but her nightdress. But it was too late to do anything about it now. She had started, and she must finish the task.

‘There.’

Having cleaned his arm, she sat back on her heels, glad to be able to move away from him.

‘Thank you.’

His voice was not his usual growl. It was low, but it was husky, and his thanks were genuine.

He was perplexing, she thought, as she stood up. Hard and craggy on the outside, but with something softer on the inside. It called to her, that softness, intriguing her with its hidden depths, and making her wonder what had caused it to be hidden under such a crusty exterior.

But such wonderings were nonsense, she told herself. There was most probably no more to his strange demeanour than an uneven temper. She must not let her imagination run away with her.

He made to rise but, practical once more, she pushed him back into the chair.

‘Your arm isn’t bandaged,’ she said.

She could not use his cravat as it was wet. She looked around the room. The dust sheets were too dirty. There was nothing for it, she would have to use her handkerchief for a pad to place against the wound. It was a pity, for her fine lawn handkerchief was the last good thing she possessed, but it must be done. Then she would have to find something to bind it in place. Her eye alighted on her shawl. It was serviceable rather than beautiful, like all her clothes, but that did not matter for the purpose she had in mind.

First things first. Rising to her feet, she went over to her portmanteau and took out her handkerchief. She folded it into a neat pad and held it over his cleaned wound.

‘Here. Hold this,’ she ordered him.