One Week as Lovers (2 page)

“And you as well, of course. Have you prepared for our match?”

“Prepared?” the older man snorted. “By dulling my wits with whisky? ’Tis the only preparation I need for a chess match with you.”

Lancaster inclined his head. “Then I have you exactly where I want you, Gainsborough. I shall strike when you least expect it, pounce upon you like a doxy on a drunkard. Or a debutante on a duke, I suppose.”

“Oh!” the old widower chortled, holding his gut against the laughter. “Oh, by God. You do cheer me up, young man. Every single time.”

Lancaster chuckled and glanced toward the mantel clock. Twelve hours more and he would make his brief escape.

Spring may have begun its arrival in London, but it hadn’t yet touched the coast of Yorkshire. Freezing rain drummed against the carriage roof and tinged the air with ice, despite the brazier hidden beneath the seat. Lancaster watched his breath form mist before him, and marveled that he’d planned to stay here for six weeks.

They’d just passed the village of Neely, where he’d spent so many hours of his youth, so they were nearing Cantry Manor.

His family had abandoned their smallest estate when they’d moved to London ten years before. He’d never returned, had never even thought much about it, despite all the years spent here during his adolescence. It was cared for by Mrs. Pell, the housekeeper, and the rents were just enough to support the nominal upkeep. No thought required.

But of course, it was deeper than that. He did not like to think about his time here because that led to other memories, other histories…. It was a testimony to just how desperate he’d been to escape London that he’d given no thought to the demons that might be exhumed here.

I am a man now
, he told himself as he shifted in the hard seat.
Not a boy to run from nightmares
.

Just as anger began to rise like bile in Lancaster’s throat, the coachman shouted something and the carriage began to slow. They’d arrived. Old Mrs. Pell would be out to greet him in a matter of moments.

For the first time since he’d departed, it occurred to him that Mrs. Pell would be grieving. Cynthia Merrithorpe had spent hours in her kitchen every day. Sometimes it had seemed as if she’d spent more time in his family’s home than her own. If she hadn’t been following Lancaster around the estate, then she’d been in the servants’ quarters, trailing after Mrs. Pell like a shadow. Poor woman probably felt as if she’d lost a daughter.

The carriage slowed to a stop, sliding a little before the coachman controlled it. Within seconds, the door opened to a blast of rain; clearly Jackson didn’t want to remain in the sleet any longer than necessary.

“Looks dark, milord. No one about.”

“Lovely. Well, I’ll let myself in, Jackson. You get the horses settled, then come ’round the kitchen for something hot.”

“Yes, sir. My thanks, sir.”

Lancaster steeled himself against the shock of the frozen rain before he stepped to the ground and dashed toward the wide front doors. He made it to the faint shelter of the doorway, but Jackson was pulling away before Lancaster realized the doors were bolted tight against him.

“Christ.” A niggling suspicion that had begun to bounce around his head suddenly became solid and real. Beeks had neglected to inform Mrs. Pell that the viscount would soon be in residence. He could only hope that the housekeeper hadn’t decided to take this week to visit her younger sister in Leeds.

“Well, there’s no help for it,” he muttered, and stepped back out into the deluge. By the time he made it around the square bulk of the manor, he was soaked through and half numb with cold. But the knob of the kitchen door turned easily in his hand, and then he was rushing into warmth and glowing light.

“Adam,” a familiar voice called from the darkness of a short hallway, “if you’re dripping rain all over my floor, you’d best be planning to clean it up. I’ll not—”

When Mrs. Pell stepped into the kitchen, she looked up and gasped in surprise. Her shock did not turn to horror until Lancaster spoke.

“Good evening, Mrs. Pell. It seems my man in London has neglected to inform you of my imminent arrival. But here I am, all the same.”

“Nick?” she whispered, causing a little shock to course through his veins. No one had called him Nick in years.

“Yes, it’s me. Nick. Returned from the—” He caught himself just in time, and cleared his throat. “I apologize for catching you unawares, Mrs. Pell. I know the past two weeks must have been difficult for you, and now I have come to add to it.”

She’d yet to recover; her lips were still parted in shock, her skin pale, and he’d begun to fear she’d simply fall over, though she looked as sturdy as ever. The laugh lines around her eyes had deepened certainly, her hair had gone grayer, but she wasn’t as old as he’d remembered. Youth had a way of inflating age, it seemed. “Mrs. Pell?”

She blinked, and that finally seemed to release her from her trance. “Milord,” she gasped, and fell into a slow curtsy. “Milord, I apologize. Please forgive me. I—Let me put the water on for tea, and then I’ll open the library for you, if that will do for a few moments. I’ll need to make up your bed and…”

“I’m sure the library sofa would be just lovely for the night, if—”

“Never say so!” she gasped. “A bare hour, sir. That’s all I need.” She snapped into motion, and the teapot was on the stove and warming before he could form another sentence. A blur of calico and white cambric flashed by, but Lancaster managed to snag one trailing end of an apron tie and tugged hard enough to distract her.

“Mrs. Pell.”

She stopped, but she didn’t turn toward him. She stood frozen, hands clasped tight in front of her, wisps of gray hair drifting from her coiled braid. Her shoulders rose and fell in deep, rapid breaths.

“Mrs. Pell, I want to offer my condolences. I know how close you were to Cynthia. Her death must have been a terrible shock.”

Her breathing hitched, and he was sure that she would cry. He was reaching out to wrap a comforting arm around her when she nodded and stepped away. “Yes, sir. Thank you.” A brief glance over her shoulder showed eyes bright with tears, but she blinked them away. “You are as kind now as you always were, milord.” She brushed her hands over the apron as if she were dusting off flour. “Come now. Let’s get you settled in the library so I can brew the tea.”

“Hm. You wouldn’t happen to have any of my father’s special whisky about, would you?”

Her face creased into a familiar smile. “Only for medicinal purposes, sir. But you’re clearly on the verge of catching your death. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

“You’re an angel sent from heaven, Mrs. Pell. The best housekeeper a man could hope for.”

The smile that had taken over her face fell away, and she dropped her clutched skirt and turned. Lancaster had no choice but to follow. Any questions he had would wait until the morning.

A half-filled cup of tea. An empty glass tumbler. The crumbs of a vanished bit of bread and cheese. These things lay scattered over the long table.

She drifted closer.

A man was stretched out along the dark green fabric of the sofa, his feet crossed at the ankles, hands folded over his flat stomach. A strange visitor. A stranded traveler. Or…

No.

The cool air of the room pressed her white gown to her legs when she stopped in shock before him. It could not be. Not now, not when he could no longer help her.

But the golden waves of his hair were undeniably familiar in the flickering light of the fire, as were the fine straight line of his nose and the gentle curve of his mouth. She did not need to see the color of his eyes to know it was him.

“Nick,” she whispered, the word falling from her unwilling mouth and stirring his eyelids.

She backed away, but not before his eyes opened, just for a moment, then lowered again in sleep.

Cynthia Merrithorpe turned and ran, disappearing into a dark shadow in the wall. If the man woke behind her, she did not know and did not care.

Nicholas had returned, the answer to her girlhood prayers…and she could not allow him to stay.

“What have you done?” Cynthia whispered as soon as Mrs. Pell stepped foot into the attic.

The housekeeper jumped, already shaking her head. “Nothing!”

Cyn clutched her arm. “You wrote to him, asked his help!”

“I did no such thing, missy. And how did you know of the viscount’s arrival?”

“
Viscount
,” she muttered, irritated as ever by his new status in life. He’d been no more than a tall, humble boy when she’d known him. A tall, humble, handsome boy with impossibly sweet brown eyes. “I saw him,” she finally admitted.

Mrs. Pell looked doubtfully toward the tiny round attic window.

“No, I was worried when you did not bring tea. I feared you’d fallen ill. I had no idea I’d stumble over a grand lord asleep in the library.”

“Tell me you didn’t!”

“What?” Cynthia chewed thoughtfully on her thumbnail.

“
Stumble
over him!”

“No, of course not. He didn’t see me.” Hopefully.

“Well, for the love of God, no more sneaking about. Stay in the attic. Surely he’ll leave soon. If he finds you here, he’ll toss me out on my rump without a reference.”

“He would not.”

“And stop biting your nails. It’s not ladylike.”

Cynthia snorted at the woman’s priorities. “You just told me to stay in the attic. I’m hidden away like a leprous mistress. Hardly ladylike.”

Mrs. Pell nodded in distraction, but then her eyes focused on Cynthia’s woolen stockings and thick robe. “It’s not fair, what’s happened to you,” she said, as she’d said every day since Cynthia had arrived, bloodied and frightened, on her doorstep.

Cynthia stepped forward to take her hands and clasp them between her own. “I know I shouldn’t have asked you to take me in. I’m sorry. It’s too much to ask anyone. Did you…Did you write to Nick and ask his help?”

“I wrote, but only to inform him of your death.” She crossed her arms, only succeeding in making herself look more guilty. “It would’ve seemed strange otherwise! And he’s not Nick, anymore, sweeting. He’s Viscount Lancaster.”

“Yes,” she agreed quickly, and met Mrs. Pell’s eyes straight on. “He’s not Nick anymore. And we’d do well to remember that. We must get rid of him as quickly as possible, or he’ll ruin us both.”

“Cynthia, your plan is mad, child. And he doesn’t seem so changed. Perhaps he’d—”

“No. Even if he didn’t turn me over to my stepfather, there’s nothing he can do to help me. I need him gone.”

Mrs. Pell didn’t nod, but she pressed her lips together and didn’t voice whatever objection she had.

“Promise you won’t tell him. If he sent me back to my family…That man will kill me.”

The old housekeeper, more a mother to her than her own mother had been, finally gave a curt nod. “I’ll not tell him. But we will discuss this again, missy. Don’t you doubt it.”

Cynthia held her tongue, implying consent, but she had no intention of discussing Viscount Lancaster and his imaginary usefulness. If she had anything to do with it, he wouldn’t be around long enough to unpack.

She needed a few weeks alone, perhaps only a few days. And then she’d be gone from this place as if she’d never existed. A ghost of a girl that no one truly remembered.

She would be free.

Lancaster had suffered a bad night. First he’d endured strange dreams of a disheveled woman in white, standing over him.

She’d seemed vaguely familiar and harmless enough. But she’d quickly faded away, only to be replaced by the old familiar nightmares of pain and fear. When he’d awoken, sweating in the cold, he’d regretted ever returning to Yorkshire.

He was regretting it still, as the bouncing carriage reminded him of all the sore spots he’d acquired on the trip from London. The day was still and dreary, a mist-shrouded landscape that seemed cramped and endless at the same time. But he could hear the faint shush of the ocean and smell the salt tang. The reminder that he was, at least, not in London began to wear away his foul mood. Better to be here, even in the cold. Even on his way to pay respects to a dead girl’s family.

She was the only Merrithorpe in the house. Her father had died long before, and Lady Merrithorpe had married a stout man named Cambertson who smiled rarely and yelled often. The very reason Cynthia had often fled to Cantry Manor. Mr. Cambertson had not thought much about her as long as she wasn’t in sight, and that was the way Cyn had preferred things. Likewise, Lancaster had not thought much about her once she was out of sight, and now guilt was a burr under the skin that covered his breastbone.

But he had too many people to worry about as it was. His mother, totally dependent upon him and unwilling to see the truth of their circumstances. His sister, almost of marriageable age, in need of a Season or two and all the spending that came along with it. And his brother, in his youthful prime and happy to be indulging his oats. The bills for clothing, liquor, and “indulgences” had long since become unmanageable. Like their mother, Timothy couldn’t seem to understand the concept of poverty. They had nothing. Nearly all the property was entailed. Lancaster’s name and title were virtually the only assets left. His name, his title, and his body.

Heat crawled over his skin, and he pushed the thought away with a physical shift in posture. The carriage window was ice against his fingers when he reached to snap it open, but the freezing air was a welcome distraction. He considered asking the coachman to stop so he could walk the rest of the way, but didn’t get the chance. Oak Hall slipped into view and the shell drive crunched beneath turning wheels.

A thump of familiarity resounded in his chest as they approached from the east. He’d probably only been to Oak Hall a dozen times in his youth, but it was one of those strange old memories that lay forgotten and unknown until it was abruptly recalled by a sight or smell. Here, it was the sight of the three ancient trees that twisted taller than the stone building they shaded. And the unusual dusk blue paint that tinted the shutters and gables of the home.

For the first time since he’d heard the news, he felt a wash of true sadness for Cynthia. Gone were his own self-absorption and pity. Cynthia was dead, and she’d never scramble up the tree under her room again, never watch him with frustration edging her jaw into obstinance, never roll her eyes as her stepfather blathered on about some controversial topic.

Once the carriage had rolled to a stop, he stepped heavily onto the drive and trudged up the stairs. Strangely, no servants arrived to assist, but perhaps a pall had fallen over the household. Still, it had been weeks now. Odd. Lancaster was forced to knock on the door.

And wait.

He knocked again. Apparently the title of viscount no longer counted for much in this part of Yorkshire. This was twice in twenty-four hours he’d been caught knocking fruitlessly at a front door. And he was quite sure he’d just felt a raindrop.

Lancaster was glaring up at the sky when the door opened on a whoosh of air.

“Wot?”

Good Lord. The servant—if he was, in fact, a servant and not an invading peddler—stood all of five feet tall. His grizzled gray hair grew in a strange pattern. A peninsula descended over his forehead and a ring grew ’round the sides, but there was nothing else. Unless one counted his ear canals.

“Wot is it?”

Lancaster blinked from his fascination. “Are you addressing me?”

The old man glared up at him, blood in his eyes. Literally. Lancaster could see the blood vessels quite clearly. He’d bet a sovereign the man was a drinker.

And a belligerent one at that.

Lancaster sighed. “Very well. I am Viscount Lancaster, here to pay my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Cambertson.”

“Milord,” the man wheezed as he bowed, though his expression didn’t change. He still seemed put out by the effort. “If ye’ll follow me, I’ll see if the master is receiving.”

So he followed the hunched figure, promising himself he’d never again lament the youth of his own butler. So fascinated was he by the strange wraithlike servant, he almost didn’t see the startling changes in Oak Hall. They’d already crossed the threshold of the morning room before he noticed what was missing.

Well…everything. Everything was missing. Light squares against the wallpaper marked where paintings had once hung. Tables stood empty, clearly lacking vases or some other small art form. Even the wood floors echoed their bareness, missing the lush, deep rugs that had once softened steps. Lancaster spun in a slow circle as the butler shuffled back into the hallway.

Unbelievable. It looked as if the house were being slowly dismantled. Sold off piecemeal. Foreshadowing of his own future, perhaps.

He was scowling at the thought when the butler returned. “Mr. Cambertson will see you,” he intoned, as if there was some question of whether Mr. Cambertson would receive a viscount.

Still, Lancaster said, “Excellent!” and followed again, noticing the way the halls echoed as dust motes danced with each footstep. There wasn’t a maid in sight, and no evidence that there had been one for quite some time.

“The Right Honorable Viscount Lancaster,” the butler muttered before they’d even reached the doorway to the study. A grunt sounded from inside the room, followed by the squeak of an ancient chair. Mr. Cambertson was pushing to his feet when they entered.

Lancaster struggled not to flinch at the odor of cheap cigars and cheaper gin that filled the room. The curtains were drawn, steeping the room in a brown shade that perfectly matched the stench. And Mr. Cambertson looked right at home too, jacketless, stubbled, and bleary-eyed.

“Milord,” Cambertson rasped. “What an honor it is to receive you.”

“The honor is mine,” Lancaster replied in absolute falsehood. Though Cambertson’s curly hair was still black, it had thinned, and the rest of him had aged considerably. Deep pouches drooped beneath his eyes and his wide, stocky shoulders were hunched as if a great weight hung from them. Still, Lancaster walked swiftly forward to shake the man’s hand, all jovial good humor as always.

Cambertson’s fingers gripped too tight, reminding Lancaster of a drowning man grasping at safety, or perhaps it was the desperation in his eyes that gave that impression.

“Please, sit.
Ewing!
” he suddenly roared. “
Tea!
” The words echoed away, leaving them in dim silence.

Lancaster glanced around, wondering if he’d fallen into some strange midday dream, but his surroundings appeared real enough. “Mr. Cambertson,” he said, “I want to offer my sincere condolences to you and to Mrs. Cambertson. I was shocked at the news about Miss Merrithorpe. I can’t imagine how difficult this time must be for both of you.”

“Mm. The missus has run off to her sister’s home. Not sure when she’ll be back.”

“I see.”

He drew a hand over his face, scraping over the black stubble. “Difficult,” he said, as if he were pondering a question. “Yes, it’s been difficult.”

“I’m truly sorry. She was a lovely girl. She’s remembered fondly in my household and will be earnestly missed.” Poor Mrs. Pell had been so distraught this morning she’d barely spoken a word.

But Cambertson was shaking his head. “Lovely,” he repeated. “Lovely enough, I suppose. But in the end, it seems Cynthia was a selfish girl with no concern but her own silly desires. Do you know what she’s done to this family?”

“I…” Lancaster couldn’t begin to think of an appropriate response. He could only stare in shock as Cambertson’s face turned from gray to pink and then fully-enraged red.

“She has ruined us. She had the chance to pull her family back from the brink of disaster and instead she indulged her stupid girlish fears and threw herself from a cliff!”

“She…
What?
” Lancaster surged forward in his seat, banging a knee against Cambertson’s desk. “She…She threw herself from a cliff?”

“Yes! As if she were the heroine of some maudlin novel. One of your cliffs, as a matter of fact. What a waste.”

“But I thought…” He’d thought she’d died from a fever, or perhaps an accident, but to take her own life? What the hell had happened to the stubborn young girl he’d once known? The room wavered around him. Lancaster blinked hard. “Why?” he finally managed to force out.

Cambertson gave a curt shake of his head. “She had some missish fears about the man she was meant to marry.”

“But…” He couldn’t think what to say, didn’t even know what to think.

The old butler shuffled in, offering a reprieve from the conversation, but Cambertson continued on.

“This family is in dire straits, and well she knew it. But still she carried on as if she were the toast of London. ‘I won’t marry him and you cannot force me,’” he mimicked in a crude parody of a girl’s voice. “We have nothing, Lord Lancaster. Nothing but Ewing here, who could drop dead at any moment—” The butler grunted an agreement. “And a deaf and dumb chambermaid whom no one else will employ. I could not even afford to keep my horses. Do you know what it’s like to ride to church in a mule cart? And yet she thinks she should be allowed to moon about, waiting to fall in love with some young man whose family likely wouldn’t have her anyway. The infuriating folly of youth.”

“I don’t understand,” Lancaster managed to say. Nothing intelligent but at least it was a full sentence.
I don’t understand.
Except that he
was
beginning to understand. His gut was telling him that he understood quite well. He met her stepfather’s eyes. “You were selling her off for money.”

Cambertson leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk. “I arranged an advantageous marriage to a titled gentleman of considerable means. She had no reason to object. She certainly had no reason to become hysterical. The truth is simple. Cynthia did not like being told what to do, and so she deliberately ruined everything.”

“By ending her own life.”

“Yes.”

Lancaster couldn’t look at him anymore, so he glanced away, taking in the darkened room littered with papers and empty glasses, everything covered with dust. “And I thought you were in mourning,” he muttered in disgust.

“I
am
in mourning. We are ruined. And of course I did not wish her dead. Of course not.”

Unable to stop himself, Lancaster shot him a look of utter scorn.

“Ha!” The man’s laugh didn’t hold a hint of amusement. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a simple ‘mister,’ Lord Lancaster. Life is not so easy for men who aren’t born into such important status. She had a duty to her family and she refused to uphold it. So I am unhappy that she is dead, but I cannot find it in my heart to rend my garments and gnash my teeth. I am too occupied trying to find some other way to devise an income. Our sheep were hit hard with foot rot last year.”

A duty to her family.
Yes, Lancaster understood quite clearly. But one detail nagged at his mind, and he finally pinned down the problem. “What kind of a titled gentleman can offer an ‘advantageous marriage’ but finds himself paying for the privilege?”

The man leaned back and crossed his arms. “There were certain circumstances…”

Lancaster narrowed his eyes and watched Cambertson’s chin jut out in defiance.

“Nothing more than rumors. Enough to make his marriage prospects a bit dim. Richmond assured me there was no truth to them.”

Richmond. Lancaster heard nothing beyond “Richmond.” His eardrums chimed like a bell. “No,” he managed to say, even as the air fell from the space around him and pooled like cool water around his feet. A vacuum formed, pulling the breath from his lungs and drawing all the blood in his body to the surface so that his skin heated all at once. A flash fire that burned away his nerves so he felt nothing.

Cambertson was still talking, saying words that thankfully seemed to need no answer, because Lancaster could neither hear nor respond.

Richmond. She had been meant to marry Richmond.

No wonder she’d killed herself. The man was a monster. A cold sweat broke out over Lancaster’s skin.

He’d thought Richmond under control. He’d thought the man incapacitated and impotent. And he’d clearly been disastrously wrong.

“She was being forced to marry Richmond,” he heard a voice say, hardly recognizing it as his own.

“Forced!” her stepfather scoffed. “Forced to marry an earl! Hell, the man would have been dead in ten years, I don’t doubt, and left her a countess free to do as she pleased. Forced, indeed!”

He could not meet Cambertson’s eyes. If he met his eyes, he would lunge at him, slap the arrogance off that hangdog face. “Those were not rumors. The man belonged in Bedlam.”

Cambertson sighed. “Of course I would not have granted permission if I believed the tales, but true or not, a little rough bed-sport never killed anyone.”

“Pardon me,” Lancaster bit out, pushing up to stand on stiff legs. “Please convey my respects to your wife.”

Cambertson was muttering something as Lancaster walked out, but he did not try to catch the words. He felt close to snapping, close to turning and throwing his fists against that man’s skull.

Rough bed-sport. How dare he. How dare he even think of sending a young girl into that man’s bed for the sake of anything, much less
duty.

Duty. Family. Fear. And death. Death, or at least the desire for it. Lancaster was familiar with it all.

He slammed out of the study doors and rushed down the hall, wondering if every damned family in the empire was the same.