One Week as Lovers (3 page)

He hadn’t remembered making a turn as the butler had led him toward the study, but he was at the end of this hall and had to stop and look from left to right and back again. He couldn’t see much in this damned mausoleum, but he thought the entry lay to his left. As he turned in that direction, though, a flash of color caught his eye, a discordant scrap of beauty caught on an otherwise empty wall. Lancaster paused and turned, paying closer attention.

There. He touched a half-open door and the hinges gave way enough to reveal a painting on the far wall of a cozy room. A portrait, actually, of a young woman. It was small but vibrant, and the painter, whomever he was, had captured her likeness perfectly. Lancaster knew this because though he hadn’t returned once in the past ten years, he recognized the slightly mysterious smile and wise brown eyes, the stubborn jaw and wide-set cheekbones. He had suspected she’d grow up to be pretty, but Cynthia Merrithorpe had grown into a woman who wasn’t
exactly
pretty just…inexplicably compelling.

And he’d seen her last night.

The fury that had been working through his body stopped its coursing and then fell away, scattered like dust in the wake of his shock.

He had seen
her
last night. In his dreams. First in the library, and then again in his chambers, in the moonlight, standing over his bed. But how could he have dreamed her like this? Just like this? Perhaps…

Shaking his head, he swallowed hard. Ridiculous. She’d grown into an adult, but her features hadn’t changed. Of course he’d dreamed her like this. What else could she have looked like?

Lancaster stepped back into the hall, but not before he took one long look at that portrait. Her eyes were sadder than he remembered, it seemed.

With a soft curse, he turned and walked away, relieved he’d never have to set foot in this godforsaken house again. But there were memories awaiting him in his own home, and he dreaded the night to come.

“What did you do?” Mrs. Pell demanded.

Cynthia kept her face very straight. “Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ You think I don’t recognize that gleam in your eyes? The viscount looked exhausted this morning.”

Well, she hadn’t done much, honestly. Perhaps he had a weak constitution. Too many years of soft living would do that to a man, or so she heard.

“Cynthia!” the housekeeper growled, then looked around to be sure that young Adam hadn’t returned with the new maids. But her gaze fell soon enough back on Cyn.

She squirmed, plucking at her too-large nightdress. “Nothing, I just…”

“What?”

“I must persuade him to leave, don’t you see? Even if he doesn’t catch on, look how many more people will be underfoot. Two girls coming to help already. I’ll have to stay locked in that attic for days on end.

“It’s harmless,” she continued, defensive already. “I just thought I’d…” Her hesitation didn’t seem to improve the housekeeper’s mood.

“Cynthia.”

“All right! I thought I’d become a ghost. That’s all. I had no idea a harmless female ghost would keep him up all night. He was not so thin-skinned in his youth.”

Mrs. Pell gasped so loudly that Cynthia’s last words were drowned out. “You were in his chambers?”

“For a moment. He sleeps too lightly. It made me nervous.”

“Nervous? I’d say you’re quite mad, young lady!”

She shrugged, perturbed that her excellent idea was being dismissed. “It worked, didn’t it? If he can’t sleep, he’s not likely to hang about, is he? And why
is
he here? Did he tell you?”

“It’s not my place to ask, just as it’s not your place to be in a man’s bedroom in the middle of the night. It’s not proper and it’s certainly not wise. Unless you are hoping to get caught?”

Scowling at the bright encouragement on Mrs. Pell’s face, Cynthia said, “No,” very firmly. “I have devised a plan.”

“Another
plan?”

She knew very well what Mrs. Pell thought of her plans, but there was no other way to escape and ensure her little sister was safe as well. She needed money, and she needed it now. Luckily for her, she had her great-uncle’s diaries.
And
a plan.

“I have no other choice,” she murmured. “How am I to search the cliffs if
he
is here?”

Mrs. Pell muttered something about danger and bad ideas, and Cynthia cursed Nicholas again. She had only just convinced the housekeeper that the plan would work, and his arrival was undoing days of persuasion. Something had to be done.

Cynthia turned to the kitchen table and busied herself with cutting a slice of brown bread. “What is it you think he could possibly do for me?” she asked quietly. When she received no answer, she pulled the crock of butter closer and shook her head. “It’s well known he has no money. Even here in the wilds of Yorkshire we’ve heard he must marry an heiress, so you can have no fairy-tale dreams that he will scoop me up and carry me away to a life of luxury. Why, he couldn’t even afford to set me up as his mistress.”

“Young lady…” Mrs. Pell started, ready to launch into a lecture, but the words faded away as if she didn’t have the heart for it.

Cynthia turned back to her, swallowing a bite of the sweet, dark bread. She shrugged. “I’m hardly mistress material at any rate, so I honestly have no idea how you think the good viscount could assist me.”

Mouth opening as if she would speak, Mrs. Pell twisted her apron between two strong hands, but then she only shook her head.

Cynthia looked down at the thick flannel nightdress that Mrs. Pell had loaned her. Aside from the filthy gray gown she’d arrived in, it was all she had. One could not pack for a suicide, after all. Bound to arouse suspicion.

“Where has he gone?” she asked.

“Off to see Mr. Cambertson. He’ll be back soon with more questions than I’d care to answer, I expect.” She’d hardly finished speaking when the sound of a carriage snuck past the closed kitchen door. “Go!” Mrs. Pell cried, but Cynthia was already leaving. “And you must keep hidden! No more wandering about!”

Cyn slipped the last bit of bread into her mouth and eased open the panel hidden in the kitchen hall, but she didn’t quite close it all the way. Instead she stopped there, just inside the old servants’ passage, and waited until Nicholas arrived. When she heard his step, she put her eye to the opening she’d left.

His dark blond hair was disheveled; the uneven swirls of gold curved over and around each other and made Cynthia’s fingers itch to smooth them. Or muss them further.

He looked so familiar and precious that her heart stuttered over every beat. Yes, she’d seen him twice already, but both times he’d been sleeping. Awake, he was just as she remembered, and yet there were so many things she’d forgotten. The way he ducked his head when he was thinking. The exact rose shade of his mouth. The line of his nose where a little bump revealed a childhood break. And the deep frown lines between his brows.

Except those had never been there before.

She’d been so absorbed in his face that she hadn’t noticed the conversation he was having with Mrs. Pell. The housekeeper was pale and nodding as Nicholas whispered, “I had no idea.”

Cynthia hadn’t worried overmuch about her family’s response to her supposed death, but seeing the sorrow and concern on Nicholas’s face made her realize how self-centered she’d been. She wasn’t particularly close to her mother or sister—and certainly not to her stepfather—but she realized now that her mother must be heartbroken and her sister frightened and sad. But the outcome would’ve been no different if Cynthia had been given over to Lord Richmond: her family would never have seen her again and she’d likely have turned up dead soon enough. She certainly would’ve wished for it.

Selfish she might be, but she was alive and relatively unscathed.

As Nicholas stared at the floor and listened to something Mrs. Pell was saying, Cynthia began to realize that perhaps the frown lines weren’t the only change in him. He was certainly larger than he had been ten years before. Taller and wider and altogether more
male.
And his voice was far deeper and touched with a certain roughness it hadn’t had before.

His hair was far shorter than he’d ever kept it, cut close along his nape where once there had been careless curls.

And he looked…weary. But perhaps that was only the travel.

Cynthia eased the panel fully closed and made her way blindly toward the narrow staircase along the back wall. She touched her tongue against the ridge of the scar that marred her bottom lip, remembering the feel of a wet mouth sucking at her, of sharp teeth breaking through the skin when she tried to pull free. That monster had liked that,
really
liked it, giving Cynthia her final glimpse of the madness lurking beneath her fiancé’s distinguished façade.

The tiny bit of guilt that had started blooming inside of her withered. She couldn’t feel bad over a viscount’s sleepless nights. She couldn’t feel bad over her mother’s grief. Her very life was on the line, and no one had seen fit to worry over that. She was on her own.

Setting aside her guilt, Cynthia put one hand against the wall and raced up the steps as quietly as she could to plan tonight’s excursions.

Lancaster’s neck wouldn’t stop its aching, despite the three glasses of brandy he’d downed in quick succession. He shifted against the kitchen wall, crossed his left boot over his right and stared down at the empty tumbler.

He understood what had happened to Cynthia now, or at least the bare bones of it, but there was so much he didn’t know. He needed to know, needed to know everything.

His life was spent gathering information and formulating the correct response. Plucking every bit of knowledge he could glean in order to survive. He’d perfected this technique upon his family’s move to London. Not only had he never received an education like most boys of his standing—boarding school and all the fraternal bonding that went along with it—his life had been in complete disarray in those first months. So he’d watched and learned and carved out a place for himself among the
ton
by analyzing every situation he was thrust into.

But this wasn’t a matter of social survival. This was life and death and all the suffering in between.

Running a hand through his hair, Lancaster glanced up to find one of the new maids standing there. She nodded timidly toward the glass.

Lancaster smiled at her pale face, trying to relax her into a state calmer than terror. “Lizzy, is it?”

“Mary, sir.”

“Ah, Mary. I apologize. Lizzy is your sister then?” Two of them had arrived shortly after Lancaster had pasted himself to the kitchen wall.

“Yes, sir.” Her voice was only slightly above a whisper, but her knuckles weren’t quite so white against her skirt.

“Well, Mary, thank you for coming to Mrs. Pell’s aid. Seems it takes a household of women to care for one viscount, but that has ever been the case. Could I trouble you to leave Mrs. Pell and me alone for a moment? I wish to speak with her privately.”

“Sir!” she chirped, bobbing a ragged curtsy before she bolted from the room.

Mrs. Pell hurried toward him. “Milord, won’t you relax in the drawing room until dinner’s prepared? It’ll be an hour yet. You’d be so much more comfortable.”

“I like it here. It’s busy.” He gestured toward the table and chairs that had been set near the hearth. “Would you please sit down, Mrs. Pell?”

She gasped, “I would say not, sir!” and stared at him as if he’d just pinched her on the rump.

Lancaster held up his hands. “I’m not attempting to permanently upset the delicate balance between man and his housekeeper, I assure you. It’s just that I wish to speak with you about something…difficult. I thought you’d prefer to be comfortable.”

The blood drained from her face. “Difficult?” she whispered.

“Yes.” He grabbed a chair and pulled it closer before the woman could collapse. She let herself be eased down. “It’s about Miss Merrithorpe, of course.”

The air left her lungs as she slumped. “I…I hoped…Oh, sir, I pray you can forgive me!”

Collapsing into his own seat, he shook his head. “Forgive you what?”

“Well, I knew. Of course I knew! And while I was sure she was making a grand mistake, I could not think how else to help her!”

His confusion increased tenfold. “But how could you have stopped Miss Merrithorpe’s marriage?”

Mrs. Pell’s mouth snapped shut and she frowned at him.

“You knew she planned to take her own life?”

“No!” She shook her head hard, then paused for a moment as if to gather her thoughts. “No, of course not. I’d never have allowed such a thing. But I knew how desperate she was. That man…”

“Richmond?” The name tasted of bile on his tongue. “Her fiancé?”

“Yes, though she never agreed to marry him, milord.” The housekeeper leaned forward in her chair, healthy color returning to her cheeks on a wave of emotion. “She refused. Said he was a devil. So Mr. Cambertson locked her in her room and fed her only bread and water, and still she would not agree.”

“My God.”

“I was so worried for her, but there was naught I could do. And then…And then Mr. Cambertson decided that if he could not convince her, perhaps her betrothed could! He sent for him, and…She’d met him only twice before, but she’d seen that he…”

Mrs. Pell leaned slightly away and looked at him carefully. For once, he had no idea of the expression on his face. Horror or just weariness?

“You must know him, being a viscount and all, but I hope he’s no friend of yours.”

“No.”

“Good. As I said, she had heard he was not
right
, you understand. Cynthia wouldn’t have wanted to marry a stranger anyway, lord or not. But once she met him, she was afraid. And then that last time…” The housekeeper shook her head and her eyes glinted with moisture. “She managed to escape at least.”

Escape. By throwing herself from a cliff. Sad to say, Lancaster understood completely.

And what had happened to her before she ran? “I am sorry,” he whispered into the silence. “I had no idea.”

“Well, how could you have, sir? You’re busy with your obligations in London. I daresay the dramas of our little shire have no bearings on life there.”