Erran clamped his jaw shut to prevent howling. She wanted to go to Wystan with him? Women often had maggots in their brains, but he’d thought this one to be sensible.
Miss Rochester was looking very much like a Spanish princess this morning, with her mahogany hair scraped back from her high cheekbones, highlighting her heavily lashed, almond-shaped eyes. Pearls and a lacy collar draped around her loathsome gray gown added to the image. But the uncanny blue of her eyes was intense and perspicacious and had him wondering if he’d heard her wrong.
“You wish to go to Northumberland?” he asked carefully. “It is a great distance from here.”
“Is it very costly?” She refilled her tea cup and offered to fill his. “I can ride, if renting a horse would be cheaper than a carriage. How did you mean to go?”
“Very quickly,” he said, taking a seat and helping himself to a piece of toast so he had something to rip with his teeth.
“How long does such a journey take? It’s not as if we haven’t been here since spring, suffering the slings and arrows of adversity. Could a day or two more matter?”
She looked so damned respectable—while suggesting a highly indecent expedition. “It’s far more than a day or two. You can’t travel with me. It’s not proper.”
She tilted her head as if considering that. “I could take Trevor. Or if we’re journeying by carriage, a maid.”
Erran tried a different tactic. “What can you possibly accomplish by traveling to a moldering tower in the middle of absolutely nowhere? Even if you took a carriage, you’d have to ride the final miles. Ashford has been receiving complaints that the road has washed out again.”
“I have heard some of the legends of Wystan. I understand its significance to Malcolm women. Should it come to pass that Lansdowne keeps me from returning to my home, I shall need a place to live. I thought I might be of use there,” she said demurely.
That would be one way of moving her out of the house. She was dangling temptation in front of him, but Erran heard the lady’s determination beneath the politeness. Her manipulative charm didn’t work with him. “Give me truth or you’ll have to find your way on your own.”
The flash of her eyes warned that he’d gone too far and was already in over his head. Women were much of a mystery to him, but this one . . . spoke too clearly.
“I have been sheltered all my life,” she stated frostily. “And that has made me weak. From now on, I want no knight errant, no noble protection, no more being helpless. If Wystan holds the answers to our problems, then I wish to be there to help solve them. My parents wrote hundreds of journals. I am not at all certain I want you reading them, but even so, it would take you weeks to peruse them all.”
“I had planned on simply looking for the appropriate dates.” Erran set down his cup to pace to the window where he couldn’t see the plea in her proud visage. “Planning a journey with women and carriages and trunks will take me longer than reading through the journals I need.”
“Then I shall dress in Trevor’s clothes and ride on horseback. We are not so proper in Jamaica. I’m well accustomed to riding astride. If there is any chance of finding what we need to claim the plantation again, I could go home.”
There was the argument that could sway him. If he could send the Rochesters back to Jamaica, where they belonged, he would have the townhouse back again. Finally, he would have accomplished a task the way it should be done. He would prove to Duncan that he would make an excellent estate solicitor. With a respectable abode in the house of a marquess, he might even be able to persuade the judge to let him back in a courtroom again.
They would all get what they wanted. He had to keep his mind on the goal—and not on sea-blue, slanted eyes and rich feminine scents.
“I meant what I said about staying in Wystan,” she continued when he did not immediately agree to her pleas. “I am not cut out for society. I will not take, as you say it. I am too old, too different, too independent to ever want a society marriage.”
Startled out of his cogitations, Erran swung around to stare at her in disbelief. “Not take? You are the most stunning woman in all London, and you don’t believe men will be crawling at your feet? What kind of insects do they breed in Jamaica to leave you believing this?”
She looked genuinely shocked at his idiotic speech. He tried to go back over his words to discover which had shocked her, but he couldn’t take back any of them.
She looked as if she’d speak. Then she closed her mouth and set down her cup and blushed. He’d actually made her blush. He’d simply been honest. The house had mirrors, after all. She had to see herself. Her beauty couldn’t be a surprise.
“Modistes flatter me so I will spend money. Gentlemen have courted me for my dowry,” she said, hunting for words. “But if I wished a particular gentleman to take me to a dance, I had to use my vocalization on him. I was never belle of the ball. Even if I wear no heels, I tower over most men. I am dark, and gentlemen prefer pale English skin. I believe my ancestors had Spanish blood, perhaps native. It’s attractive on Trevor, but not on me. But looks are not what I’m talking about. It’s me. Who I am.”
She was beseeching him to understand, but he did not. She was not only attractive, but she had grace and a quiet strength he admired far more than he ought. It was for his own safety that he fought. Days in her company, and he’d go stark, raving mad with the need to throw her into bed and possess her—when all he should want was to send her home. He returned to his chair to plead with her common sense.
“I do not comprehend how riding to Wystan with me will prove anything, unless you wish to prove that you have no care for your reputation,” he said as disparagingly as he could.
Except in the back of his mind, he was actually trying to figure out a way to let her go with him. He would enjoy her company, yes, but she would also be an excellent buffer to whatever women were currently occupying the castle. The notion appealed to him entirely too much. She was already making him mad.
“Fine, then, go. I will find some other means of traveling on my own,” she said stiffly.
Erran wanted to rip out his hair at the thought of this beautiful woman, a stranger to England’s ways, traveling alone by coach, staying in inns with treacherous men, innocent of all the dangers.
His teacup rose from the saucer on its own. Hoping she hadn’t noticed, Erran swiped the errant china from thin air and pretended to sip from it.
“I’ll let Aster talk to you,” he said curtly, setting down the cup and rising to head for the door. “She’ll make you see sense.”
***
“Oh, I wish I could come with you!” Lady Aster cried upon being presented with Celeste’s proposal of traveling to Wystan. “My family is only a day’s ride from Northumberland. But if Erran is to gallop off and leave the construction project, someone needs to be available to see that Ashford’s needs are met. Besides, I cannot desert Theo. He is buried in harvest duties and swearing like a sailor already. I know a perfectly competent companion who can travel with you, and you can take Ashford’s barouche. It’s most comfortable for distances.”
“Not the barouche!” Lord Erran practically moaned. “I hoped you’d speak sense to her!”
The frosty gentleman was deteriorating rapidly under their continued pressure, Celeste thought—not with satisfaction. She wanted him to want her with him, and that was the very definition of insanity.
He had called her stunning. And he’d been sincere. She’d heard it in his voice—a new phenomenon she’d developed since moving here. She could hear the emotions in other people’s voices—or she thought she could. She’d almost talked herself into imagining he really wanted her with him but was trying to talk her out of it for the sake of propriety. Just the possibility had given her the courage to stand up for herself.
His flattery had rattled her thoughts. She needed to remember she was no longer interested in a man’s approval.
“We cannot find good horses along the way to haul a carriage that large,” he insisted, “and that unbalanced monstrosity certainly won’t navigate Wystan’s narrow lanes. Can’t you see this is a mad idea?”
“A post chaise then?” Lady Aster asked dubiously. “That won’t be very comfortable.”
“Did I not read that the mail coach can reach Edinburgh in two days? I will simply travel that way,” Celeste said serenely. “Lord Erran may travel as he wishes.”
Both Lord Erran and Lady Aster looked appalled. His lordship ran his hand through his dark curls until they tumbled about his brow, creating a rather dashingly romantic image. Celeste turned her gaze to her tea to avoid falling for everything he said simply because she wanted to please him.
“I have a cousin working with a steamship engineer,” he admitted reluctantly. “He wants to develop a transportation route through the North Sea using a steamship combined with sail. I don’t know how far north they can take it or where it will port, but even if we only reach Newcastle, we can save several days of travel.”
“A steamship?” Celeste widened her eyes in apprehension at this terrifying new development. “It will not explode?”
“Says the lady willing to travel in close proximity with filthy flea-ridden drunks for forty-eight non-stop hours,” Lord Erran said disdainfully. “No, it will not explode, or they would not still be alive, would they?”
Celeste set her jaw. If new experiences did not kill her, they would make her stronger. “Then steamship it shall be. When will we depart?”
They could not be any more in debt to Lord Erran than they already were, and she could not bear to sit here for weeks sewing shirts, while he rode off to the rescue. If she was to be labeled bastard and cast out of her home, then she would have time and a little more knowledge to make plans. Penury was horrible enough, but without honor, she would simply wither away in shame.
“Marvelous!” Lady Aster cried, clapping her hands. “Just be certain when you arrive that they give you rooms on separate floors. Legend has it that the first marquess was conceived in Wystan by magic.” She smiled happily.
Celeste didn’t dare look at Lord Erran after that.
When Celeste explained her intentions later that day, Sylvia and Trevor were appalled. Trevor wanted to take her place, until she explained that Wystan was where Malcolm women went to have their babies. Since Ashford was the property owner, Lord Erran had the excuse of visiting as his brother’s representative, but unmarried gentlemen were not particularly welcome.
Apparently a castle of expectant women seemed safe to her siblings—she didn’t mention Lady Aster’s mad assertion about magical conceptions—and the argument was surrendered. Lord Erran’s brother, Theo, promised to take Trevor, Sylvia, and Nana to Iveston, where they would be protected from any more of Lansdowne’s depredations.
“It will look as if we’re running from scandal,” Trevor said worriedly, even though his eyes had lit with delight at the invitation to the countryside.
“We will simply say the construction crews are causing too much disruption. No one would question that. We can depart in all directions with no one being the wiser,” Celeste explained. “Jamar and the workers will be here to protect the house.”
“But what about the dinners and parties Lady Aster promised?” Sylvia cried.
Celeste considered Wystan a far better solution than dining among society to prove they weren’t afraid of the earl’s scandal-mongering, but she answered in terms her sister could understand. “We’ll still do that after our wardrobes are complete, and we have proof in our hands. We’ll make a grand entrance!”
Her siblings breathed easier, not knowing the exigency of travel ahead for her.
Of course, the noble Lord Erran was barely speaking to her by the time all the arrangements were made. If she must learn not to rely on him, that was probably best, but she missed their often lively give-and-take. That was understandable. She was lonely, she acknowledged. She would find other companionship—perhaps at Wystan. She was rather looking forward to this mysterious outpost.
Unwilling to delay, Lord Erran swiftly arranged their travel. Two mornings later, he escorted Celeste and her new companion, Mrs. Lorna, to a carriage to take them to the docks. He rode alongside, accompanied by a groom. Celeste thought the pistol, whip, and sword he carried a little excessive in civilized London. It wasn’t as if they were traveling with jewels or even fat coin purses. All she had was her sewing money.
In the early morning fog, the docks seemed muffled and tamer than the noisy, colorful ones in sunny Jamaica. Of course, in the gray mist, she could not see more than a foot in front of her face as Lord Erran helped her from the carriage.
“You will not rethink this journey?” he asked curtly once she stood beside him. “I can send you back with the groom. Lady Aster will be delighted to have your company while I am gone.”
“I am looking forward to steamship travel. The water reminds me of home,” she lied, studying what little she could see of the dock to hide her terror. “I am sorry to be a burden to you. If you’ll simply tell me what we must do, Mrs. Lorna and I will be out of your way.”
His curt tone was painful, but it was better that she not develop notions based on his silly comments about her looks. He had softened her heart in ways no other man had ever done. She could not risk such vulnerability.
She knew the pain of carving someone out of her heart. Her father’s death was still too raw.
Celeste clenched his lordship’s arm for the scary crossing onto the ship. Once there, a crew member escorted her to the cabin, along with the stout, wide-eyed lady Aster had sent as a chaperone. Lord Erran stayed on deck to discuss the wonders of steamship travel with his friends. Out of the cold damp, with a brazier to warm their feet, it was almost comfortable, despite the bobbing of the water beneath them. Trying to pretend she was in a drawing room, Celeste settled in with her sewing. Mrs. Lorna nervously took out her knitting.
She didn’t know where they had taken her trunk, but one of the crew thoughtfully carried in their food basket. Cook knew how to prepare food for long journeys.
Gentleman that he was, Lord Erran stepped in to ask after their comfort before they sailed.
“There is not much light, but we are warm, and the bench cushion is comfortable,” Celeste replied. “Do you know how long we will be at sea?”
“If the weather holds, we’ll make excellent time, and should make port by nightfall. If we catch the tide, we may even sail into Newcastle, where we can hire a post chaise. But this is not a season for predictable weather, so I can make no promises.”
His voice was all that was polite, but Celeste heard his underlying concern. She wished she didn’t. Her memories of the storm that had killed her father were painful. She merely nodded acknowledgment without expressing her fear.
“We have plenty of food and lemonade, whenever you need it,” she said serenely.
His eyes narrowed, as if he heard the terror she was holding in check. It was bad enough that she couldn’t charm him. It was worse if he could actually hear what she tried to hide. Tensely, she forced a smile, letting him believe what he must.
“Thank you. I wish to observe the engine room, but I will join you for luncheon, if you do not mind.” He bowed out, leaving them to the cozy cabin.
“He is most particular about our comfort,” Mrs. Lorna said in satisfaction. “I am sure all will be well.”
That certainty lasted only until the ship sailed from the Thames into the North Sea. At that juncture, Celeste realized the difference between a large ocean-going vessel and a small river-sized one. They felt every surge of the waves, every blast of the wind tilting the small craft about. The roar of the boiler and churn of the paddle seemed to strain as they chugged northward.
Mrs. Lorna groaned, looked decidedly greenish, and set aside her knitting.
At least Celeste had experience with seasickness. She urged her companion to sip ginger root tea with a little honey and when that did not help, took a bucket from the wall. The lavatory facilities were limited to a closet and not what one could want when ill. She wiped Mrs. Lorna’s forehead as she lost her breakfast, and resigned herself to treating her for the rest of the journey.
The waves and wind worsened by mid-day. Lord Erran clung to his hat as he blew into the cabin, leaning against the door to close it. Taking one look at the prostrate woman on the bench, he grabbed the foul bucket and struggled outside again.
“We’re hoping it’s only a brief squall,” he said when he returned. “We’re still making good time.”
Until we crash on rocks, Celeste thought. Or a wave tosses us over. Or the wind blows us to France or whatever is across this ocean.
“Would you like a sandwich?” was all she said. Perhaps all that was required for a stiff backbone was the façade of civilization.
“I will not apologize for the conditions,” he said stiffly. “I begged you not to come. The ship is experimental.”
Celeste glanced down at the woman on the bench, but Mrs. Lorna seemed to have fallen asleep. She met Lord Erran’s gaze. “Do you read minds or are you simply assuming that I’m complaining?”
He looked uncomfortable. Rather than answer, he poked through the basket and found a sandwich wrapped in brown paper. He took one of the small lemonade containers and sipped from it, and handed her another.
“You . . . convey what you’re feeling when you speak,” he said, apparently thinking it through as he spoke. “You have this marvelous voice, one that could soothe babes to sleep or melt a man into a puddle of wax. I’d love to hear you sing. But underneath . . . you are raw emotion. If you sang an unhappy song, I might fling myself into the sea.”
Celeste stared. He did not seem pleased to disclose this, so it was not flattery. “No one has ever told me that my voice made them suicidal,” she replied, striving to understand.
“I don’t think anyone else hears what I hear,” he admitted. “And the converse is that when you are happy, it makes me unreasonably pleased. But I think others hear only what you want them to hear, which is dangerous.”
“If I want people to hear my unhappiness, I have only to voice it?” she asked in doubt. “I have only ever tried to wheedle them into doing what I want.”
The ship lurched, and he steadied himself on an overhead beam. “Your family hasn’t noticed this? You never experimented to see what else you could do?”
“I’m rather amazed that you know what I do and admit it,” she said, somewhat testily. “No, my family never noticed. Jamar and Nana seem to know and mostly ignore me. I don’t believe I’ve ever upset them as you say I can.”
“It’s good to know that not everyone is affected.” He bit into his sandwich as he pondered the preposterous. “It’s possible that once people are attuned to you and recognize what you’re doing, it’s easier to block out the charm.”
She frowned and thought about that. “Are you saying our gifts are different, that you must bellow authoritatively to make people do what you wish? I can hear when you really want to shout, and I admire your restraint.” Celeste opened a sandwich and nibbled at the cucumber filling.
“I only discovered my oddity this past year, with my first courtroom case.” He paced the tilting floor. “I terrified a judge into not only returning my client’s home, but into demanding that his landlord pay him damages. I was furious that a scurrilous landlord would evict a poor man with three small children. I fear I was outrageously bombastic in his defense, and it was most certainly not my knowledge of the law that brought the entire courtroom to their feet, shouting, ready to stone the landlord—and the judge, if he did not side with me. It was an ugly scene that could easily have evolved into riot. I wasn’t certain if we’d escape with our skin intact.”
“I would like to do that,” she said fiercely. “I would sue Lansdowne and bring the rafters down about his ears.”
His smile was almost fond and caused an irrational flutter beneath her breastbone.
“I don’t think it works that way. I think you would bring them to tears with your plight and even the earl would beg to shower you in gold, or whatever you asked. Yours is a rather more gentle persuasion that my riot-inducing ability. And I feel like the veriest sapskull even saying this.” He poked around in the basket and produced an apple.
“There have been great orators over the centuries,” she said, unconcerned. “It is not real magic. If I had real magic, I’d bring back my father and slay Lansdowne. I don’t know why your speaking ability bothers you.”
“Oration and what we do are two different things,” he asserted. “It is possible that what we do is related to Mesmerism, but I would have to study a science that seems little more than Aster’s foolish astrology to find out. Besides, I want to win cases honestly, on their merits, not with an unfair advantage based on emotion or voodoo that is neither just nor logical.”
“Politicians win elections by saying things people want to hear,” she argued. “There’s not a great deal of difference as far as I can see. You believe in your case. Your opponent believes in theirs. Only the future will tell who is right. It would be terrifying if you could stop the wind, but you’re only doing what generals have done over the ages—asserting your authority. Generals are not always right.”
He didn’t look convinced. It was sad that he was the one person she could not persuade, and rather terrifying that he could hear how she felt as she argued.
The floor tilted ominously, and bucket and basket slid toward the door.
“Would you rather I stay here through this storm, or should I leave?” he asked, glancing at the stormy clouds through the porthole.
That was a terrible question to ask when he could tell if she lied.