Teddy was here.
Claire must be hallucinating, for there wasn’t a single reason she could think of why Teddy would be here. Hell’s bells, she’d started on a downward slide from which there could be no recovery. This had to be it—the onset of her madness. She couldn’t remember how her mother’s lunacy began, for she’d been a child then. But she had no trouble recalling her last visit to Ticehurst, when Mama had been convinced a demon sat next to her, urging her to do awful, awful things.
“St. Giles had this idea that we should all come to the reading. You know, to support Beck.” Teddy carded a hand through his dark curls, as he always did when he was nervous. But what could have made him nervous? He was too rational to believe in spirits or witches, or so he claimed.
He certainly sounded real. And he had felt so real, in that moment he held her. She wished he’d never let go, but as with everything Claire wished for, it was an unfulfilled desire.
“I see,” she said, but she didn’t see, not at all.
A minute passed in silence, both of them eying the other at a standstill until the quiet started to swallow her whole, and she thought that any sound—even the shriek of one of Keyvnor’s many reported ghosts—would have been preferable.
“Are you...are you really here?” Her voice came out cracked and haggard, so full of insuppressible doubt.
Teddy blinked. His jaw dropped, but he quickly realized the rudeness of such an expression and closed his mouth. Oh, kind, sweet Teddy, with his rampant thoughtfulness. The second he erred, he took steps to fix his mistake.
Not Claire. She could not break her family’s curse, and so she might as well accept that she was doomed to a life of mistakes, shouldn’t she?
“Of course I’m really here.” Teddy closed the distance between them again, coming to stand next to her. He draped his arm across her shoulders, casually supporting her, as if it was normal for one friend to ask another if he was a figment of her imagination.
She leaned against him, an automatic movement born out of so many years of depending upon him. It was as instinctual as breathing, the way her body seemed to respond to Teddy’s nearness, the slowing of her usually frantic heart and the stilling of her equally frantic mind. “I thought...I don’t know what I thought.” She peeked up at him, every familiar line of his face soothing her further.
“It’s this devilish castle.” He explained away her lapse in judgment as though it were nothing. “Besides, you weren’t expecting me to be here, and I went straight up here after we arrived.”
She nodded. That must be it. Not that she was going mad.
He shrugged. “Hard not to question one’s eyes when everyone’s got a fool story of a supernatural encounter.”
“They’re not fool stories,” she protested half-heartedly, resting her head against his shoulder. He smelled so good, like sandalwood and sage, so distinctly Teddy. His perpetually ink-stained fingers wrapped around her arm, drawing her closer to him, just as he had for so many years.
And this close to him, she longed for him to know how she really felt, how desperately she adored him and his reasonable mind and his lean frame and every blessed thing about him. She longed for him, even though she knew that was the fool story, not the rumors of the occult.
Teddy released her, spinning her so that she faced him. “If there are any ghosts, I’ll give them a run for their blunt.” He put his fists up in a fighter’s stance, punching the air with such a ludicrous grin that she could not hang on to her gloom.
She laughed, a real laugh, not the forced chuckle she’d delivered over nuncheon when Lady Octavia Hambly made a joke. She’d been seated near her cousins, Violet and Letty, and while they had found the conversation diverting, Claire hadn’t been able to focus. Since she’d found out about the curse a few years ago, these kinds of interactions with her cousins had become more frequent. She loved them, and they were always thoughtful and kind to her, but every time she was with them she was reminded of her fate.
It was not their fault, of course, any more than it was her own for being her mother’s daughter. Yet a small part of herself, one she didn’t want to dignify but couldn’t destroy, resented them for it. They would marry, and they would be happy. No one deserved happiness more than Letty or Violet…no one except Teddy.
Teddy, who was so happy to see her that his grin stretched from ear to ear. His joy was infectious; she couldn’t help but grin back at him.
“There’s that smile,” he said. “Shall we walk?”
She nodded, following him out of the corridor and into the hall.
“Should be supper time soon,” he noted. “I’m famished.”
“You’re always famished,” she retorted.
“I’m a growing lad.” He winked at her. Drat her fool heart, for it clenched tight, as if locking the memory inside, a happy time to hold court with all her painful recollections.
“And you’ve been saying that for going on ten years.”
He shrugged. “If it’s not broken, what’s the point of fixing it? It worked back then and it works now.”
But she didn’t. She was broken, and she couldn’t be fixed.
She tried to push that thought aside. Teddy was here. Unexpectedly.
She nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. That was odd. Teddy never did anything unexpected. Why had he come? Lord Michael Beck was made of stern stuff; surely he didn’t need Teddy’s companionship to get through the will reading.
There must be another reason Teddy was here.
He stopped in the doorway of the second floor library, glancing inside. “Looks like it’s empty. Why don’t we wait here until it’s time to dress for dinner? I read Banfield had an excellent collection of Shakespeare folios.” His emerald eyes danced, as they always did when he talked about books.
“Far be it for me to keep you from the Bard,” Claire said.
Entering the library, she headed toward the grouping of armchairs by the fire, glad for the warmth. In these colder fall months, the castle’s stone walls held little warmth. A silver teapot sat on a tray on the low table in the center, and Claire leaned over, putting her hand to the pot.
Good. It was still hot, and the tray was fully stocked with cups and sugar. She poured herself a cup of tea, depositing in a lump of sugar and stirring it. With the cup in one hand, she settled into a ruby brocade armchair, watching as Teddy wandered around the room, exploring all the shelves with wide-eyed glee.
A quarter of an hour passed in which Claire sipped her tea and relaxed by the fire. Teddy came loping back, long legs churning, shoulders back, cheeks flushed. “You’ll never believe what I found.”
Claire’s lips twisted into an amused smirk. “You found an antiquated book.”
“Fine, addle-pot, don’t act excited about my discovery. I am thrilled enough for the both of us.” Teddy waved his hand, undaunted. “The A-text of The Tragical History of the Life and Times of Doctor Faustus! The 1604 quarto, printed by Valentine Simmes…”
He continued on, detailing all the features of the edition, but she only half-heard him. Faust had made a deal with the devil for twenty-four years of Earth with Mephistopheles as his personal servant, yet Faust had wasted that time. If the devil appeared to her and offered her a life with Teddy, free of the madness, in exchange for her eternal soul, would she take it?
Yes. In a heartbeat.
And that thought terrified her, how quickly she would give up salvation to have a taste at normal happiness.
No. She must remain strong. She, of all people, knew that nothing good came from black magic and the occult. Teddy had been right—this castle toyed with her mind, making her believe that the answer to all her problems was secreted in these dark corners.
The end of this week couldn’t come soon enough.
When Teddy paused for breath, she broke in with her own question. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You tell me everything.”
Not that she returned the favor. She’d hidden her feelings for him since she was fourteen.
“A man’s got to have some secrets,” he said airily, with a wave of his hand.
When she didn’t laugh, he fisted his hands at his sides, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Uncomfortably.
If Claire had not been suspicious before, she was now. “What are you planning, Teddy?”
“Nothing,” he said, far too quickly.
She arched a brow at him, as she’d done when he was a child, insisting that unicorns could never be real because there was no palpable proof. They still argued about that, actually.
“Fine, fine, fine,” he muttered all in one breath. “I didn’t want you to tell me not to come. You’re so damnably—ahem, I mean—”
She rolled her eyes. “You can curse around me, Teddy. I’ve seen you deep in your cups, claiming you could fly if you could just get the physics right. I think I can handle a few ‘ungentlemanly’ words.”
Hell, in her dreams, he was doing far more scandalous things than simply being foul-mouthed.
He let out a sigh, peering down the bridge of his nose at her, as he always did when he was frustrated. She returned his irritation with her own level stare, a clear challenge.
“You’re so damnably stubborn, Claire. Don’t try and deny it, you know as well as I do that once you get an idea in your head, there’s no shaking it. This curse, for instance. Just because some witch delivers a diatribe—”
Her fierce scowl cut him off mid-thought.
“Yes, I know. I said I’d stop trying to prove the curse isn’t real. But I was wrong to make such a promise.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, elbows out at his sides. “I’m not going to give up on you. You’re my oldest friend. My dearest—”
Her breath stopped. How would he finish that sentence?
But he didn’t. He continued on as if he’d never started that thought, words falling from his lips at rapid speed. “I can’t let you believe this. What happened to your aunt and your mother was tragic, Claire. I’m not denying that. But it doesn’t mean you’ll share the same fate.”
It was better that he hadn’t finished the sentiment. For a second, she had forgotten he deserved more than she could give him. “You can’t guarantee that I won’t end up like my mother.”
“And you can’t guarantee that you will.”
“I’m preparing for the worst. You, of all people, can’t fault me for that.”
His face fell, and she knew she’d hit a target with that last arrow.
“Teddy, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said gently. “I like how you examine every angle before you make a decision.”
It makes me feel safe.
He didn’t look convinced.
“Truly,” she said, putting all her conviction behind that one word. “It’s why every time I have a problem, I come to you. I know whatever you advise me to do is going to be the right choice, because you’re not just telling me what I want to hear.”
“Then trust me now,” he pleaded, starting to reach for her hand, and then halting, as if he feared she would refuse his gesture. “Let me look into this curse. You said that it happened years ago at this castle, when one of the witches hexed your aunt and mother.”
“Hestia,” she supplied, the word like a match on her tongue, lighting an angry inferno inside. “Her name was Hestia.”
Teddy nodded. “She claimed she was the bastard daughter of your grandfather, right?”
“But no one had ever heard of her mother,” Claire said. “Grandfather was in Italy during the time she said he’d met her mother.”
“Why did Hestia come here?” Teddy asked. “Keyvnor is the ancestral seat of the Hamblys, not your family. I can understand the curse affecting Banfield’s wife, but not your mother—she didn’t live here, and is obviously not a blood relation to the Hamblys.”
“Mama and Grandfather were visiting Aunt Evelyn at the time Hestia came knocking.” Claire sighed, picking at the hem of her gown. If only Mama had not been here that day! “Someone in the village, or one of the servants, must have told Hestia that Grandfather was here.”
“And the guards just let her in?”
“She made such a fuss outside that Grandfather, Mama, and Evelyn came out to see what was going on. Hestia declared that she was family, and she was ready to take her place with his daughters. When he told her there was no way he could be her father, Hestia called him a liar. He eventually had to have the guards throw her out.”
“Which should have been the end of it, you’d think,” Teddy said.
“As the guards escorted her from the grounds, she kept screaming in that old language her coven uses.” She shuddered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, the warmth from the fire no longer sufficient. “If she couldn’t have a happy life, she’d make sure his daughters didn’t either.”
“But she didn’t include Francis or the old Earl of Banfield.”
Claire shook her head. “She didn’t care about them. It was Grandfather’s daughters she envied, especially Evelyn, who had already married into nobility. ”
Teddy cupped his hand around his chin, tapping his upper lip with his forefinger in a familiar gesture of thought. He was determined to approach the curse as he did any other problem, with facts and figures, all logic and tangibility. She ought to want him to cease. To go as far away from her as possible. Start hunting for a suitable bride, one who wasn’t deemed the Mad Daughter.
Yet an entirely different emotion ruled her.
Relief.
Because when Teddy put his mind to something, he was unstoppable. It was why he’d been considered the most likely to go on to King’s Bench, before he’d inherited the title. It was how he’d turned around his family’s finances in a short six months, making his estate into a profitable enterprise.
Before, they’d been too young to properly understand her mother’s curse. And by the time they were old enough, Mama was too far gone into the madness.
But the darkness hadn’t taken hold of Claire yet. Maybe, just maybe…could there be some small sliver of hope for her? Not for a life with Teddy and children of her own—that was too much to aspire to—but perhaps she could stanch the full bleed of the disease. Lessen the curse so that she was harmful only to herself, not others.
As if sensing her slight unbending, Teddy stood up, going to the desk against the right wall of the library. He rummaged through the drawers, finally pulling out a blank piece of parchment and a quill and inkpot. He sharpened the quill, then brought the parchment, quill, and inkpot over to their chairs. “So let me make sure I have the facts of the case right: the targets of Hestia’s curse were solely the late Earl’s daughters, Madalane and Evelyn, and their children, yes? Not any of the other DeLisle relations? So Violet, Letty, and your other cousins are unaffected?”
She nodded. “That was the only part she said in English—the sisters’ names, and that their heirs would feel her wrath. I remember Grandfather saying it all seemed so surreal. Supposedly, Hestia started to chant in that ancient language with all these wild hand motions and then a puff of smoke appeared. When the smoke cleared, she was gone.”
“She could have had a bomb made of smoke hidden on her,” Teddy mused. “The Chinese have been using such since at least year 1000.”
“Because a witch in Cornwall having access to Chinese weapons is so much more likely than a spell,” Claire countered, with a toss of her head. “Nevertheless, my grandparents dismissed it. No one believed Hestia could actually curse us. Not even when Paul died.”
Paul was the son of Evelyn and Jonathan Banfield, and he’d drowned at age five. Evelyn had never been able to carry any more children to term.
Teddy scratched a few notes on the paper, and then met her gaze again. “The townspeople cite Paul’s death as the reason for Evelyn’s brain-sickness. But you suspect it was the curse all along. When did Lady Banfield first start to show signs of lunacy? Does it match with your mother’s timeline too?”
She considered this for a moment. “I don’t remember much about Aunt Evelyn. Paul died long before I was born. But even as a child, I knew Mama was unsound. You remember how she used to act.”
Back then, the marchioness had fits of irrationality and wild mood swings, often shifting dramatically from one spectrum of emotion to the next. Many times, Papa had told Claire to stay with the governess, so that she wouldn’t upset her mother further. As she grew older, Mama’s madness progressed. Two years ago, when Mama had tried to strangle the footman bringing her supper, Papa had decided to commit her to the asylum.
“Papa used to tell me stories about how Mama was before,” she said. “It wasn’t until after they married that she started to decline. When they first courted, she was so vivacious. She had a way of lighting up a room, he said. He fell in love with her spirit—she viewed everything as an adventure.”
She knew that side of Mama, though it had been only in quick flashes before the next wave of insanity took hold. On her better days, Mama had been loving and joyful.
Teddy made another note on the paper. “The commonality in their illnesses then is that both came on after childbirth.”
“That’s it, then, isn’t it? A possible loophole.” Claire leaned forward eagerly. “If Mama and Aunt Evelyn were fine until childbirth, then there’s a chance I might stay sane. Oh, Teddy, if this is true then you are absolutely brilliant, and all I have to do is never have children.”
She stopped, her excitement dimming as she caught sight of Teddy’s crestfallen expression. “Teddy—”
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly, pointedly glancing at the clock. “Oh, look at the time. We’re going to be late. Better be off to dress for supper. Beck, St. Giles, and Blackwater are expecting me, and I’m sure your cousins will want you to sit with them.” He sprung up from his chair, swiftly striding to the desk and replacing the inkpot and quill.
She wanted to stay with him—though she had no idea what to say to him—but it was indeed well past time to get ready for dinner. Papa would be furious if she was late.
Teddy was halfway out the door by the time she’d gathered up his notes on the curse. She didn’t stop him.
This small glimmer of hope depended on her keeping her distance from him. There was no future for them. With Gerald gone, Teddy was the last of the Lockwood line. Without an heir, the estate would pass into the hands of his cousin Reginald, who was even more of a gambler and inveterate than Gerald had been. Teddy had worked too hard restoring Ashbrooke Manor for that to happen, and his tenants depended on him.
But then, as she turned back around, he stopped in the hall outside the door. “Claire?”
“Yes?” She met his gaze, the notes with the possible way out from this hell clenched tight in her hand.
“I’m not giving up on you.” And with that, he was gone, his long strides taking him down the hall before she could think up a sufficient response.