Violet fluttered her lashes until her eyelids finally opened. She felt cold, or more correctly, one side of her body felt cold. The other side was extremely hot, nestled against Lance’s shoulder and enveloped in his body heat. Both of his arms were curled loosely around her, but without any blankets her exposed skin was still covered in goosebumps.
Carefully she moved his arm away and sat up, tugging the coverlet gently up the bed, though it was no comfort. She was hungry, too, she realised. No, not just hungry. Their night-time exertions had left her ravenous. She glanced down at her sleeping husband and smiled. Their night together had been more wonderful and surprising and just more than she’d ever imagined, as if once he’d decided to stop living in the past, he’d been determined to make up for lost time. It had hurt a little, but not in any way that she’d minded. Now the soreness between her thighs was a reminder of what had just happened between them and she wouldn’t take that back even if she could.
She draped her legs over the side of the bed and wriggled into her dressing gown before quietly opening the door and stealing downstairs. Considering the amount of food provided for supper, there had to be something left over. Judging by the darkness, it wasn’t dawn yet either so she was unlikely to disturb anyone in the kitchens.
She was halfway across the hall when she heard a faint scraping followed by a heavy click, like the sound of a key turning in a lock and a latch being lifted. Sleepily, she looked over her shoulder, sure that she must have misheard, when she saw the front door swing open. She stopped dead in her tracks. The last of their guests had left just after midnight, the servants had all been given the morning off to recover, and it was unlikely that anyone else would be entering the house at this hour. Anyone who ought to be there anyway.
She sucked in a breath, too shocked to call out. There was no time to look for a weapon. No time to do anything but hide, she realised desperately, darting behind one of the armchairs beside the still-smouldering fireplace, and then peering out from around the edge.
A black silhouette in the shape of a man wearing a tiered greatcoat stood framed in the doorway, as if he were reluctant to actually cross the threshold. In the darkness it was impossible to make out any features, although something about him seemed strangely familiar. Was he a burglar? Slowly, she reached around the side of the armchair and slid the poker from its place by the fireside, gripping it tightly in one hand. Surely no one with any good intentions would creep into a house in the dead of night?
The stranger stood in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, staring straight ahead of him as if he were somehow transfixed. Then at last the draught made the fire flicker and he stepped over the threshold, closing the door softly behind him. Violet watched closely, wondering whether or not to scream. But if she did, then Lance would surely coming rushing to find her and the last thing she wanted was for him to trip on the stairs and hurt himself.
Maybe if she made a run for the servants’ quarters instead? There was another staircase at the back of the house. If she could reach it and find Martin, then there was no need to frighten Lance. Silently, she raised herself up on her haunches, ready to run. The stranger was coming closer. She had to move before he reached her, had to...
She let out an audible gasp as he moved into the faint puddle of light thrown by the fire. It was Lance! Except that it couldn’t be, her confused brain realised. She’d just left him sleeping upstairs. Which meant that there was only one other person it could be, but he was dead...wasn’t he? A shiver raced down her spine. Was it a ghost?
Whatever, or whoever, it was made a movement towards her and she leapt up, wielding the poker above her head like a club.
‘Don’t come any closer! Get back or I’ll scream!’
‘Wait!’ The ghost raised a hand as if to defend himself and then dropped it again, looking almost as surprised as she was. ‘Miss Harper?’
She lowered the poker uncertainly. The ghost knew her name, her old name at least, although he seemed ignorant of her new identity. Somehow that fact made her less afraid of him. Ghosts were supposed to know everything, weren’t they? And surely they walked through doors rather than opened them...
‘Arthur?’ The truth hit her like a thunderbolt.
For a moment he looked as if he were about to deny it, before he sighed and nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘But how...what...?’ She didn’t know which question to ask first. What was he doing there? Where had he been? And, most of all, why was he entering the house in the middle of the night like some kind of criminal?
‘I thought you were a ghost!’
He gave a crooked smile. ‘I feel a bit like one. It’s strange to be back here again.’
‘Everyone thinks that you drowned! They found your boat.’
‘Yes.’
‘There was a search.’
‘I thought there might be.’
‘Then how... No, where have you been?’
He ran a hand over his face. ‘You might not believe me if I told you. I can hardly believe it myself.’ He pulled the hand away again suddenly. ‘But what are you doing here, Miss Harper?’
‘I live here.’
His face turned even paler than a ghost’s. ‘You mean that your father bought the house?’
‘No.’ She blinked. He was talking as if he knew nothing about the events of the past nine months. ‘My father’s dead. He died three months ago. Your brother inherited the hall.’
‘Lance?’ One of his hands shot out and clutched her arm. ‘He’s alive?’
‘Of course.’ It was her turn to be shocked again. ‘Surely you knew that?’
‘I heard that he was shot. I thought...’
‘He’s not dead. He was shot, but he survived.’
‘Thank you.’ He bent his head with a muffled-sounding sob. ‘You don’t know what it means to me to hear that.’
‘I think maybe I do. I’ve watched him mourn you as well.’ Gently she removed his hand from her arm and moved away. ‘Wait here while I go and wake him.’
‘Wake him?’ Arthur regarded her curiously. ‘You mean that you and my brother...’
‘We were married two months ago.’ She couldn’t help bursting into a smile at the words.
‘But...you and Lance?’ He looked incredulous. ‘Forgive me, miss, that is, Mrs Amberton, but I’d hoped to find my brother alive. I never expected to find him married as well.’
‘It was a surprise for everyone, us included, but between my father’s will and your father’s hopes for the estate...’
His expression shifted from incredulity to horror. ‘You mean that their agreement still stood? I thought that it was only made in relation to me?’
‘I believe it was supposed to be just you, but my father’s will only mentioned the heir to the Amberton estate and your brother...’
She stopped talking as Arthur began pacing up and down the hallway, dragging his hands through his hair as he went. ‘I had no idea. Believe me, I never imagined the two of you would have to go through with the marriage.’
‘You weren’t to know what would happen.’
‘No, but I knew that your father was sick a year ago and unlikely to recover.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘I confess that was part of the reason I left. But I also knew what he thought of my brother, and even if he hadn’t, I would never have expected Lance to go through with it. I thought that with me gone, that would have been an end to the whole business.’ He stopped pacing for a moment. ‘I’ve been so selfish. I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need. I’m happy.’
‘With Lance?’ He sounded stunned and she laughed.
‘Very. So you can stop being sorry for that at least.’
‘Violet?’
The sound of Lance’s voice calling out from the landing above made them both start in surprise. She looked up to find him already leaning over the banister, candle in hand, though in the near-darkness she supposed it was impossible for him to see who she was speaking to. All he’d be able to tell was that it was a man. Ridiculously enough, she almost felt guilty.
‘Lance?’ She moved quickly across to the staircase. ‘You’d better come down.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Come and see.’ She repressed a smile, part of her tempted to tell him straight away to break the tension, but it wasn’t her place to tell.
‘Lance?’ Arthur moved out of the shadows as he reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s good to see you again, Little Brother.’
There was a heavy silence as Lance halted abruptly, standing so still that for a few moments it looked as if he’d stopped breathing. Then both brothers moved at the same time, flinging their arms around each other in a fierce, bearlike embrace.
Violet felt a lump in her throat and stepped to one side, unwilling to intrude upon the moment, although it was impossible not to be moved by the poignancy of the scene. Lance’s expression held so many emotions she could hardly name them all. Surprise, relief, joy...yes, even joy. Her heart glowed to see it.
‘Let me look at you!’ Lance stepped back finally, though he kept hold of Arthur’s shoulders, clasping tight as if he were afraid to let go. ‘You’re alive! How is it possible?’
‘It’s a long story. As I’ve just been telling your wife.’
They both turned to look at her then and she smiled, sharing their happiness. It was strange, looking at two versions of the same face, and yet despite the obvious physical similarities, the differences between them were more exaggerated now than before. Arthur in particular looked like a whole different man, with cropped hair, tanned skin, and shoulders that seemed to have doubled in size during his absence. He looked as if he’d spent the whole of the past nine months out of doors. A stranger might not even have noticed that he and Lance were twins.
‘Come and sit.’ She gestured towards the hearth and then reached for the coal scuttle, adding a few nuggets to the fire before stoking it back into life. ‘Tell us everything.’
‘Yes.’ Lance drew his brother towards one of the armchairs and then settled himself in the other, grasping hold of her hand and drawing her on to the chair-arm beside him as he did so. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. I think I must have run mad for a while.’ Arthur’s gaze moved between them with open curiosity. ‘What must you think of me, Miss Harper? After the way I behaved towards you in the past, you must hate me. I was trying to prove something to my father, but I was unforgivably rude. You were as much a victim as I was, but I treated you atrociously. I’m sorry.’
‘You didn’t want to marry me.’ She said it matter-of-factly.
‘No, but believe me, it had nothing to do with you. I never meant to insult you.’
‘It’s all right. You didn’t know me. We didn’t know each other. I won’t deny that it hurt at the time, but you were unhappy. Anyone with eyes could see that.’
‘I suppose I was, though at the time I simply felt trapped.’
‘Is that why you ran away?’
‘Yes, though I’d no intention of doing so, I swear. I went sailing that day without knowing what I was going to do. All I remember is sitting on the prow, thinking about the future, about the life my father had planned for me, knowing that I didn’t have the strength to fight him. The next thing I knew I was in the water, except that it didn’t seem like me either. I didn’t feel anything, not the cold, not the shock, nothing. It was like I just stopped thinking and jumped.’
‘So you weren’t trying to drown yourself?’ Lance’s voice sounded unsteady.
‘No.’ Arthur shook his head. ‘I didn’t have a plan. I just knew that I didn’t want to think any more. So I swam and swam and kept on swimming. I felt the currents take me and I didn’t fight them. It sounds ridiculous now, but I thought I might find an answer if I just kept going. Luckily a fishing boat found me before I froze to death. They were on their way back to Aberdeen and I asked if they would take me with them. I didn’t have any money, of course, but the skipper was a kind man. He probably thought I was on the run from the law, but he said I could work off the cost of my passage if I wanted. So I did and I enjoyed it. It made a refreshing change to have a purpose, a task to do. I’ve always been good on the water and it turns out that I’m good with my hands, too. The crew must have known I was a gentleman, but I proved myself with hard work, and after a while they accepted me. When we got back to Aberdeen I asked if I could stay on board. The skipper offered me a pittance to try to dissuade me, but I accepted.’
‘Let me get this straight...’ Lance leaned forward slightly. ‘Are you saying that all these months, you’ve been fishing?’
‘Improbable as it sounds, yes.’ Arthur looked towards her ruefully. ‘So you see, I’m no ghost, Miss Harper. I’ve simply been in hiding. Which is another way of saying I’ve been a coward.’
‘You were desperate.’ She got up from the chair-arm and crouched beside him. ‘There’s a difference.’
‘Wait.’ Lance put up a hand. ‘What about Father?’
Arthur’s expression became pained. ‘I didn’t know. It’s easy to avoid news when you’re at sea and I didn’t want to know what was happening. I assumed that things would just work themselves out without me, that you and he would be reconciled...’ He dropped his gaze. ‘I didn’t know about his death. I didn’t know anything until we made port at Newcastle yesterday and even then it happened by accident. I was sitting outside a tavern on the quayside when I overheard the landlord telling a story about a family near Whitby. The father had been a viscount, he said, who’d died in the same week one of his sons drowned and the other was shot overseas. He told it like some kind of morality tale, though I’ve no idea what the moral was. It was the first I’d heard about any of it and it was like my eyes suddenly opened again, as if I’d been asleep and dreaming for the past few months. I asked him what had happened to the other son, but he didn’t know, so I came back here as quickly as I could. I know I shouldn’t have broken in during the night, but I couldn’t wait another moment. It was bad enough hearing what happened to Father. I’ve been so afraid of learning the worst about you, too.’
‘Come.’ Violet stood up, trying to break the sombre mood. ‘You must be exhausted if you’ve been travelling since yesterday. I’ll get a room ready. Are you hungry?’
‘Wait!’ Arthur put out a hand to stop her. ‘No one else should know that I’m here. Now especially.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Lance started out of his chair. ‘We ought to wake up the whole house and celebrate.’
‘No.’ Arthur’s voice had an imperative tone she’d never heard there before. ‘As far as everyone else is concerned, I drowned that day.’
‘What? No, Arthur, you’re back.’
‘It’s too late. If I come back, then there’ll be repercussions for all of us. What’s done is done. We ought to just leave things as they are.’
‘But this is all yours. The house and estate are your birthright. You’re the—’ Lance stopped mid-sentence, his eyes turning towards her with a look of anguish.
‘What?’ Violet felt a tendril of foreboding tickle the back of her neck. ‘He’s the what?’
‘The heir.’ Her husband’s lips seemed to have turned white suddenly. ‘Arthur’s the heir.’
* * *
For a few moments, Lance felt as though time had stopped and all three of them were held suspended, unsure of what to do next, the implications of his words echoing loudly in the air between them. There were so many emotions coursing through him that he wasn’t sure which was dominant, only he was aware of a strong undercurrent of panic.
Arthur was the heir. Arthur was alive. Which had been astonishing and incredible and wonderful all at the same time, yet the panic was still threatening to overwhelm him. The realisation brought with it a stab of guilt. How could he feel panic now of all times? The brother he loved, that he’d thought he’d lost, was alive. That was a cause for celebration, not panic. He ought to be jumping with joy, but instead all he could think of was Violet.
She’d been supposed to marry the heir. That was what his father had wanted, what her father’s will itself had stated. Now that Arthur had returned, all of it would be called back into question. There would be lawyers and courts and precedents and rival claimants all clamouring over her inheritance. Would she lose the money after all? Did he care? The thought brought him up short. No, he didn’t give a damn about the money. He wanted it for the estate, that much was still true, but if it came to a choice between Violet and her inheritance then there was no choice. He wanted her.
But what could he offer her in return? On his own he was just a disgraced former soldier. If he hadn’t deserved her before, then he certainly didn’t deserve her now. She deserved to keep her fortune and her freedom, too, to be mistress of Amberton Castle, but with a better man at her side—Arthur.
He felt an ache in his chest as if his heart were really breaking in two. Maybe this was his real test, the way for him finally to make amends. This was the pain he deserved. After last night, however, he had a feeling she wouldn’t just accept that, not unless he made her—unless he pushed her away. If he could bring himself to do it.
‘You can’t just leave again, Arthur.’ He forced himself to speak calmly.
‘I can now that I know you’re all right.’
‘So that you can pretend to be dead again? I won’t take your inheritance.’
‘You’re not taking, I’m giving it to you. If I stay away for seven years, then it’ll be yours anyway. I don’t have to be gone for ever.’
‘No.’ He held Arthur’s gaze, his own intractable. ‘I’ll go to the authorities and tell them you’re still alive if you try to leave again. Father wanted you to run the estate. He wanted you to be his heir.’
‘Why do you think I ran away?’
‘He wanted you to marry Violet, too.’
‘It’s too late for...’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘What?’
It was Violet who spoke this time and he turned reluctantly to face her.
‘We can get a divorce.’
‘On what grounds?’ She looked as though he’d just threatened to push her down the stairs and his heart twisted.
‘Deceit. You can say that you were misled, that you were tricked into marrying me when the rightful heir was still alive.’
‘I’ll say no such thing!’
‘You have to. Otherwise, your inheritance might be forfeit.’
He heard her draw a sharp intake of breath. ‘My inheritance?’
‘Yes.’ The look of hurt and betrayal on her face made him feel sick, but he kept going. ‘You married the wrong man. I’m not the heir.’
Her eyelids flickered. ‘So you want me to put you aside and then...what?’
He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to utter the worst. ‘Then the two of you can marry. It’s what both our fathers wanted, what ought to have happened in the first place. It might be the only way to secure the money.’
There was a heavy silence before she spoke again, her voice sounding almost unnaturally, eerily calm.
‘In that case, I’ll return to Whitby in the morning.’
‘What?’ Arthur’s face was aghast. ‘Have the pair of you gone mad? This is ridiculous.’
‘It’s the best thing for everyone. I don’t want to be the heir, Arthur.’ He limped slowly towards the drawing room, pausing briefly in the doorway before slamming the door shut behind him. ‘I never wanted it and especially not like this!’