Tiffany dreamed she was looking at herself, chained up in a tower.
Exiled from society, hidden away from everyone, cold and lonely and watched over at every second. Her jailers tossed pieces of bread and cheese on the floor, threw water over her, laughed.
‘Let me help you,’ Tiffany said to her nightmare self.
‘No one can help me. This is of my own making,’ she sobbed, and her jailers laughed and laughed.
Tiffany woke with a gasp. It was the fourth time she’d dreamt of it this week, and she was wrung out from it.
Well, not just from the dreams.
The whole of the last few weeks had felt like she had drunk too much Madeira. After they’d got Santiago back to the house, bleeding profusely all over Tiffany, the guests had stayed a day or two and then rushed back to London to share the exclusive news of the betrothal.
From then on, everything had been about the wedding.
Tiffany had moved her belongings from Dyrehaven straight to Esme’s house and simply not asked Elinor’s opinion on the subject. Santiago was established under Robinson’s care, with daily visits from Madhu to administer whatever potions she cooked up in the kitchen. Tiffany barely saw him.
And now it was her wedding day, and all she felt was a sort of sick terror.
Once she was married, would that nightmare come true? Would she be shackled to him forever, kept prisoner by endless childbearing? Would she be locked away in his castle—according to the Peerage it was actually a castle—in the far reaches of Yorkshire?
Would she turn into Elinor, brittle and judgemental, desperate for the good opinion of others? Or … worse. What if she turned into her mother, and simply ran?
She was to be married from her brother’s house, and so for the sake of quieting the gossips, had agreed to travel there early in the morning to get ready. Esme dressed her, Madhu pressed soothing drinks into her hand, and Nora sat around exclaiming over the sheer decadence of the room.
Tiffany had chosen to be married in her silver tissue dress, the only one she’d ever really liked, and the one Santiago had first seen her in. Esme dressed her hair with flowers, and fastened on an exquisite opal necklace she had never seen before.
‘Where did this come from?’ she asked, touching the stones. They felt strangely warm to her touch.
‘It is my gift to you,’ said Esme. ‘Beautiful, changeable, enigmatic. Fire and ice at the same time.’ She paused, and added quietly, ‘I gave your mother something very similar.’
Tiffany whirled around. ‘You knew my mother?’
‘Yes.’ Esme exhaled sharply. ‘I knew her and I loved her.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
Her face shuttered. ‘I only wish I did, child,’ she said.
‘But … can you tell me about her? Nobody speaks of her—’
‘No,’ said Esme, and the sound was harsh. ‘No,’ she repeated, more softly. ‘There is little I can say. Now, are you ready?’
Tiffany was not. She still didn’t know if she was making a terrible mistake or if this was a wonderful opportunity.
Had the words she had uttered when she thought he was dying been true?
She could run. Could make herself invisible and escape the house. Go somewhere, anywhere, and never have to see him again.
Or she could make the best of the bed she had made for herself. Santiago was not a cruel man or a stupid one, duels not withstanding, and he was handsome and her heart beat faster when she looked at him.
And she was a witch, and Esme would probably help her put a curse on him if he turned out to really be dreadful.
‘I am ready,’ she said.
* * *
Tiffany was luminous.
Santiago was fairly sure he’d seen stars shine less brightly. She wore her silver tissue dress—the one she’d worn when they first met!
Cornforth gave her away, as despite even Esme Blackmantle’s best efforts, nobody had been able to contact Tiffany’s father. He gave Santiago a polite nod, and in return Santiago’s arm gave a twinge. Madhu’s potions had worked wonders, but it had only been a few weeks since a bullet ripped through the underside of his bicep as he held his arm aloft, nobly shooting into the air.
Then Tiffany was there beside him. She turned to him, those mermaid eyes shining like the sea, and gave him the smallest of smiles.
Santiago beamed right back at her.
He remembered nothing of the ceremony, apart from when he slid the ring onto Tiffany’s finger. It felt so … transformative. She was his now. Joined together in the eyes of God.
He walked her back down the aisle, and people cheered and wished them well. He sat down beside her at the wedding breakfast—which, this being the Ton, was served in the mid-afternoon. He allowed Esme Blackmantle and the other witches to bestow upon him terrifying curses should he ever think of distressing Tiffany in any way. He made small talk with any number of complete strangers whilst Tiffany went to get changed into her going-away dress, and he caught her in his arms in an unfashionable display of affection when she returned.
There had been a small part of him that thought she might have climbed out of the window.
‘Ready to leave, Your Grace?’ he asked her, and her pale face got paler.
‘Yes, Your Grace,’ she whispered, and he led her out to the waiting carriage.
And then finally, finally, they were alone.
‘You are so very beautiful,’ he told her, and she smiled tightly. Her throat worked. ‘Are you all right, mi amor?’
‘Perfectly well,’ she replied, but she was not a good enough liar. ‘Just a little tired. A busy day.’
It had been a busy day, and he was tired too, but that wasn’t what was happening with Tiffany. With horror, he realised the truth.
They were travelling to his house on Grosvenor Square, which had been hastily staffed and cleaned and made ready for its new duchess, and then in the morning they would travel to Castle Aymers, a house that would be new to Santiago too.
But in between…
Tonight was their wedding night.
He thought about the way he’d had to coax her to share his body heat that night at the ruins. Oh, she might have been tempted to kiss him the following morning, but no more than that. He wondered if she even knew what to expect. If anyone had talked to her about it. If her uptight sister-in-law had scared the life out of her.
‘Tiffany—’
‘It will be three days, will it not, to reach Aymers Chevres?’
He blew out a breath. ‘I believe so. William assures me the finest rooms in the finest inns have been booked. We could even take the time to sightsee,’ he offered, because he had seen little of the country himself.
‘If you like,’ she said politely.
Oh dear. Something was terribly wrong. Tiffany was never polite to him unless she was furious with him. And what more reason could she have to be furious than being forced to marry him against her will?
No matter that it had actually been her idea. Santiago had thought, for a brief moment, that she’d said she loved him that terrible morning at the ruins, but he must have imagined it. A woman in love would surely not be so quiet and polite on her wedding day.
But then why had she married him?
‘Mi amor,’ he began, and she gave him the sort of politely interested smile she might to a bore at a ball. ‘I know it was not your wish to marry me. But I promise—’
‘Haven’t you learned it’s dangerous to make a promise to a witch?’ she said lightly.
‘Evidently not. I swear to you, your fears of marriage are unfounded with me. I will never treat you as a possession. Your life will be your own.’
She looked down, and said quietly, ‘Your vows said you would honour and keep me. Mine that I would obey and serve you.’
Had they? The whole ceremony had been a total blur. ‘But those are just … words,’ he said. ‘You do not belong to me,’ he said, in defiance of his heart, which very much insisted that she did.
‘In the eyes of the law, and of God, I do.’
‘But in my eyes you are your own person. You are no one’s possession. You belong to no one but yourself, Tiffany.’
She looked up at him then, shyly. ‘Do you swear it?’
‘I swear it,’ he promised, and she gave a little smile.
‘Your Grace,’ she began, and he groaned.
‘No. Not you. Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Call me Your Grace. I’m not a grace.’ Santiago leaned back against the squabs and said moodily, ‘I’m disgraceful.’
‘Are you, though?’ she said doubtfully.
He took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I have lied and stolen and cheated,’ he said. ‘I have been a pirate and smuggler. I have committed every wicked sin you could think of.’
‘But you are not wicked,’ she said.
And when she looked at him like that, he did not feel it. ‘Am I not?’
‘Your— San— Look, what should I call you?’
‘Santiago,’ he said firmly.
‘The priest called you Edward.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes!’ She was smiling now. ‘You just took your vows as Edward George William.’
‘Did I?’ he said in wonder. ‘Well. To be honest, nobody has called me that in… well, ever, I think.’
She turned in her seat to look at him. ‘Really? Why?’
He shrugged. ‘My father named me after himself, but I don’t recall him ever actually calling me anything. And my mother… None of those names mean anything to me. I have no claim to them. But Santiago… it is the city where I was born, and it is St James in Spanish, and so it is what I called myself. It is my name.’
Tiffany nodded as she thought about this. ‘And I should call you that too?’
He nodded, and took her hand. She was gloved, but when they got home she wouldn’t be, and he would just be able to feel her bare fingers against his. The thought was intensely erotic. ‘And what should I call you, Your Grace?’
She paled a little. ‘Well, not that. I don’t know how I’m going to get used to being a duchess.’
He laughed. ‘If my experience is anything to go by, it won’t happen quickly.’ He added hesitantly, ‘Tiffany.’
She darted a smile at him. ‘As long as you never call me Theophania.’
‘Done.’ He shook her hand and she laughed.
The staff, some of whom had been working for Santiago for barely a week, were lined up inside the hall of the ridiculous mansion that was now his home. The staff were introduced to Tiffany, and she gave every appearance of being interested to know their names and positions.
But of course, she had been trained to do this since birth.
Santiago wanted nothing more than to whisk her to his bedchamber and ravish her, but he had promised her he would wait until she came to him, and he meant to stick to that. Even if it killed him.
Later that night, as he lay staring at the canopy of his bed while imagining Tiffany lying naked in hers, he thought it very much might.
* * *
Dinner was served at opposite ends of a very large table. Santiago declared this was absurd and invited himself to sit next to Tiffany, ‘because I am a duke, and I can.’
There were footmen going in and out all the time, and so no chance for real intimacy, but she found herself yearning for it. Santiago was so handsome in the candlelight, his golden skin burnished to a deep copper, his eyes dancing, his strong hands flying as he talked. He kept picking up the wrong cutlery, swearing in Spanish, and trying again.
‘It is a good job you did not make it to any ball suppers,’ she teased.
‘I will need my wife by my side to correct me,’ he replied, his eyes on hers, and something leapt inside Tiffany.
His wife. She was his wife. And quite apart from the duties of a duchess and that huge array of servants—whose names she had attempted to memorise and failed—there were the duties of any wife.
Elinor had told her, before the Season even began, that she should submit to her husband in private matters. That it was her duty to bear him children. And that there was no point complaining about it because every woman had to go through it.
Privately, Tiffany thought that every woman having to go through it was not a good enough excuse for every woman having to go through it.
And so, no matter how charming Santiago was throughout dinner, how he smiled when he caught her hand and led her into the drawing room—‘How can I drink port alone when my beautiful wife is in the next room?’—and how heated his expression was when he bid her a goodnight at the top of the stairs, she could not help the sick feeling in her stomach.
Aunt Esme’s frank explanation hadn’t helped in the slightest. Nor had Madhu’s gift of a packet of powders that she assured Tiffany would allow her to ‘plan your family’. Tiffany allowed her new maid to undress her and brush out her hair, while fixating on the details that simply couldn’t be true. She lay in bed, trying to think about how it had felt to see Santiago dishevelled and sweaty, standing in the doorway of the saloon at Dyrehaven. If she could conjure that again, that desire, that desperation to be near him, then perhaps she could banish her fears.
She had more or less succeeded when she heard the clock strike, and realised she had been waiting for him for over an hour.
He wasn’t coming.
As she washed and dressed the next morning, she told herself he was probably waiting until they reached Castle Aymers. Given the jolting of the carriage along the Great North Road, she thought privately that perhaps it was a good thing that he hadn’t taken her virginity last night. Both Elinor and Esme, their approaches being quite different, had intimated that pain would be involved.
He did not visit her at either of the inns they stayed at along the way. Robinson had booked them into the finest inns the road book could recommend, and at each stop the proprietors were beside themselves at the prospect of serving a duke.
‘It is ridiculous,’ Santiago murmured, clearly embarrassed, as the tap room led a cheer to him and his new bride. ‘I am merely a sailor.’
‘A sailor with a castle,’ Tiffany reminded him.
She wished Aunt Esme had let them use the magic door, but then again as Esme seemed to regard it as only for emergencies, she assumed it took something out of her to open. And besides, how would they explain to the servants that they’d arrived instantly?
When Castle Aymers finally did come into view, three days after they’d left London, Tiffany could only lean out of the window and stare.
‘Is that it?’ said Santiago, behind her, and she realised he’d never seen it, either.
‘We have just driven through Aymers Chevres,’ said Tiffany, who had been consulting the map tucked into the back of the Paterson’s road book. ‘It said Castle Aymers is on the left-hand side.’
‘My house is on the map,’ muttered Santiago.
He came up behind her, and Tiffany tried not to be affected by the proximity of his body to hers.
‘But that is not a house! That is a … a…’
It was absurd. The wild, bleak landscape had been rising for a while, but now it thrust abruptly from the earth in a rocky heap, and from that heap a castle appeared to have grown.
The whole of it had a distinctly organic look, as if someone had planted castle seeds and a few hundred years later it was still growing. Buttresses and turrets sprouted from the rock, supporting a confused collection of keeps and walls. Roofs slanted in every direction. There were crenellations.
Tiffany giggled. She couldn’t help it.
The road wound up the steep hillside, passing under an ancient, crumbling gateway that had holes in the top for pouring boiling oil on invaders. The outer walls of the castle had arrow slits in them.
‘I had read your family have been here since the Conquest,’ she said, looking around at the lowest of what appeared to be several courtyards. ‘But I didn’t quite realise they’d inhabited the same castle ever since.’
Beside her, Santiago looked a little nauseous.
The coachman, who had worked for the old duke, drove them around an ancient stone wall, through another gateway with boiling oil holes, and then suddenly they were curving around a neatly kept lawn bordered with rosebushes and lavender.
What seemed to be the entire staff of the castle had lined up outside what Tiffany was relieved to see seemed to be a more modern part of the castle—which was to say, probably only three hundred or so years old. Santiago stepped out, and offered her his hand.
‘Here we go,’ he murmured, a gleam in his eye.
The butler was an elderly man who had clearly served the old duke for many years; Tiffany guessed he was expecting to retire soon as he also introduced an under-butler to them. The housekeeper was a very sensible-looking woman who informed Tiffany that refreshments were on hand and so were hot baths if required, or perhaps a tour of the principal rooms? It could be a little tricky to navigate, she allowed, on account of the castle being made up of many additions and renovations that encompassed seven or eight hundred years of history…
Tiffany stared around at the great hall, which lived up to its name. Banners hung from its lofty ceiling, and there was a fireplace large enough to roast a cow.
‘Mi amor?’ said Santiago, touching her arm. ‘Perhaps you would like to rest?’
She blinked at him. She was feeling somewhat faint. Castle Aymers was huge and so much more ancient than she had expected. It was probably haunted. And she was mistress of it.
She was shown to rooms that were perfectly spacious and elegant, and had lovely views through mullioned windows over a formal garden with more roses.
‘His Grace’s rooms are just through there,’ said the housekeeper, Mrs Langham. She pointed to a door next to the dressing room. ‘I shall leave you to get settled, ma’am.’
Tiffany took a nap, bathed and dressed for dinner in a new gown, which was blue and caught her eyes very prettily. A footman guided her down to the drawing room, where Santiago was fulsome in his praise of her loveliness. He was looking exceptionally handsome too, but Tiffany didn’t know how to tell him that.
After dinner they took a branch of candles and a bottle of wine and went exploring through huge reception rooms and narrow stone corridors, frequently having to be rescued and redirected by footmen.
‘This place is a maze,’ Tiffany giggled. She never giggled. It must be the wine—and the proximity of her handsome husband who was surely going to come to her room tonight. ‘We shall need to tie a piece of string to our doors.’
‘String?’
‘You know, like with Theseus and the Minotaur.’
He looked blank, but allowed her to lead him past ancient tapestries and through a heavy old door with a large latch.
‘Oh!’
They were outside. A cold wind blew out most of the candles, and Santiago placed the branch on the ground, where it was sheltered by the battlements. The battlements.
‘You have battlements,’ Tiffany giggled, peering over the edge and wishing she hadn’t. They were very high up.
‘We have battlements,’ Santiago corrected. ‘All this is yours as much as mine.’ He looked like he wanted to add something else there, but didn’t.
‘It is completely mad,’ she said, turning to him and stumbling a little. ‘A castle!’
He caught her in his arms, and for a moment she forgot how to breathe.
Moonlight illuminated his face, threw the contours into shadow and darkened the hollows. His hair blew around his face in a breeze that made her shiver. He pulled her closer, against his warm body, just as he had that night at the ruins.
‘Tiffany,’ he murmured, and she tilted her face up for him to kiss her.
And then he froze, and stepped back.
‘I apologise,’ he said.
She blinked at him, suddenly chilled. ‘What for?’
‘That was not appropriate. It is cold out here. Come, back inside, and maybe the kitchen can send up some chocolate.’
She had never been more baffled. Not even when Esme had told her she was a witch.
She was sure he’d been about to kiss her. And she’d been sure he’d come to her that night, now they were here at his ancestral home.
But as she lay awake in an unfamiliar bed for the fourth night in a row, the only thing to visit her was the nightmare.
She was locked in a tower, only now the tower looked cruelly like one of Castle Aymers’s turrets, and she wasn’t looking at herself but looking out of her own eyes at a bleak cell. Outside, a light swung and flashed. There was nothing in the cell but a straw pallet and a stone basin. When she stretched out to see inside it, a chain attached to her ankle clinked and chafed.
She was a prisoner. She had left everything behind and come to the other end of the country, to this fortress, with a man who was clearly repulsed by her. Was it because she was a witch? Was he frightened of her? Did he hate her? Perhaps he still thought she was the source of the creature that had attacked him and tried to assault Parliament.
He had blackmailed her, after all. Threatened to tell the world what she really was. A witch, in league with the devil, performing unnatural feats that would surely send her to hell.
Why on earth had he married her? He was a powerful man, and she a nobody, just a few parlour tricks to intrigue and entertain him. And he so handsome and commanding, a true hero and leader of men, with such sadness in his eyes. She had only wanted someone to love her, to show her the affection her family never had. In that strange febrile time, they had clung to each other, and now she was paying the price for it. While he enjoyed his freedom she was trapped, locked away, little more than a broodmare.
And then the demons came to take her. The old stories said that witches had compacted with the devil, but she never had, she had only tried to be right and good, but the evil inside her was too alluring and now the demons came to infect her mind and poison her child against her. She had to leave, if this baby was to have any chance at goodness and purity. Had to travel far away so her daughter could survive—
Tiffany woke on a breath so sharp it nearly choked her. Her hands went to her belly, but there was no baby there. How could there be?
Had she just dreamed of her own future?
* * *
Santiago was worried about Tiffany.
Last night on the battlements he had come within an inch of kissing her, but he had made his vow—and for all he knew, a vow to a witch came with terrible punishments if it should ever be broken. He wanted her, quite desperately, but he could not slake his lust on an unwilling wife.
At breakfast she did not appear, and he was informed she had chosen to break her fast in her room. Apparently this was normal for married ladies, and nobody turned a hair, but Santiago had breakfasted with her for three mornings now, and he missed it.
William arrived, bringing Billy and some paperwork from his solicitors in York, and the two of them rode out to survey the land while Billy made a thorough investigation of the kitchens and selected himself an alcove in the servant’s quarters. Santiago did not see Tiffany until just before dinner, and she seemed pale, distracted. She jumped when his hand brushed her arm.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, and she nodded, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
‘Perfectly. Will Mr Nettleship be joining us?’
‘No, he has rooms in the village.’ Santiago was glad of this, because he wanted Tiffany to himself. ‘Perhaps we can invite him for dinner another day?’
‘It will be nice to get to know him,’ she agreed.
A perfectly polite dinner passed, and she bid him goodnight before he could even ring for his cigars.
In fact, a week of perfectly polite dinners passed. Tiffany invited various local worthies to tea or to dinner, smiled and laughed and played a perfect Society hostess. She already seemed to know the names of all the upstairs servants and had found her way around the principal rooms. She made plans to decorate some of the more old-fashioned areas of the castle and renovate others.
She was, in short, the perfect duchess.
But he could not coax her to ask him to her bed.
Santiago had spent a lifetime relying on his wits and charm, and he had never had a problem getting a woman to agree to … well, anything. But here, in his own castle with his own wife, he found himself deliberately showing off.
As she took tea on the terrace with the wives of the local gentry, Santiago cantered past the edge of the formal gardens on his horse. It was a warm day, but that was not why he paused to strip off his coat and stretch. Feigning ignorance of the ladies watching him, he cantered on, clattering down one of the narrow cobbled passages to the outer keep.
Tiffany asked him if he had enjoyed his ride, and said no more of it.
He contrived to be in the stableyard when she came back from a trip to the village, and stripped off his shirt to wash under the pump. She walked straight past as if he was not there.
When he learned that a kitchen cat had kittens, he brought one up to show her, because what woman was unmoved by a kitten? She could come closer to stroke it and play with it, and their hands would touch, and—
‘He doesn’t like how you’re holding him,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘He thinks you’re going to drop him. It’s very high up there and he misses his mother.’
‘How do you—’
She tilted her head and mouthed the word ‘witch’ at him.
Right. Of course. She could understand animals. Of course she could. And she preferred listening to the kitten than looking at him.
‘Santiago?’ she said, as he turned to go.
‘Yes?’
‘He is very sweet. Perhaps—’
His heart swelled with hope.
‘—perhaps when they’ve been weaned, some of the litter can come up here? It would be nice to have companionship.’
He nodded and smiled and took the kitten back to its mother and managed not to scream that he was her companion, dammit.
He went to bed that night ready to cry. Tiffany had been especially beautiful that evening, her gown like the sky at twilight, her hair like moonlight, her eyes shining like stars. When she breathed, her bosom hypnotised him. When he gave her his arm to escort her up the stairs, the brush of her hip against his had him painfully aroused.
He dismissed Robinson and threw off his clothes in a rage of misery. Was this some punishment for his past sins? Was God testing him? He hurled himself into a chair and wondered if he should send for some whiskey.
He was so lost in his own misery that he almost missed the scratch at the door.
‘I don’t need you tonight, Robinson,’ he called. ‘You can sort it out in the morning.’
‘It’s not Robinson,’ came his wife’s voice.
He sprang to his feat in one movement. ‘Tiffany?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes!’
Hurriedly, he raked his fingers through his hair and stood, tugging his robe into place as the door between their chambers opened.
Tiffany stood there, in a robe that was little more than a froth of lace and artistry, her hair loose and tumbled about her shoulders, her cheeks pink and her eyes flashing.
‘Are you ever going to come to my room?’ she demanded, and Santiago abruptly forgot how to breathe.