Chapter 24

Making his way upstairs, Andrew heard the tattoo of fading hoofbeats as Somerfield made his timely departure.

He heard the hushed whispers of the servants, no doubt already worried about the strife their new master had brought with him.

And as he paused at Celsie's door, he heard the sounds of muffled weeping.

He hung his head, his gut churning with emotion, his hand poised on the latch. Shame and frustration filled him. He hadn't thought Celsie was the crying sort, but she was crying now, and he had done this to her. He felt lower than an earthworm. He knew he should go in there and try to comfort her, but what could he say? What could he offer her? The truth? A half-truth? A downright lie?

His hand slid from the latch. He pressed the heels of his hands to his brow, then raked his fingers back through his hair, tearing out the bit of ribbon that held it queued and crushing it in his fist. Leave her alone, he thought. Just leave her alone for a while. After all, they were both upset, overwhelmed, exhausted from the stress of the wedding, the robbery, and a night without sleep. She needed time to adjust. He needed time to work up the nerve to tell her.

Hell, maybe they both just needed time to be apart.

But even as he thought it, Andrew knew it was an excuse. He was not accustomed to sharing his life with someone, especially a woman, and even less accustomed to confiding in other people. The very idea made a chill snake up his back. No better to just . . . go away for a while. He needed his laboratory. Any laboratory. Someplace where he could lose himself, someplace where he could be alone, someplace where he wouldn't have to think.

He turned and continued down the hall.

In a small study off one of the staterooms, he found a desk containing paper, pen and ink. He scribbled and sealed a note. On his way back down the hall, he paused outside Celsie's door, propped the letter against it, and made himself continue on, telling himself, trying to convince himself, that he was doing the right thing. The weeping, thank God, seemed to have stopped. Or maybe he had simply closed his ears to it.

His heart heavy, he left the house and strode purposefully out to the stables. Newton looked at him expectantly, but the big grey was exhausted and Andrew would not ask him to take him to London. Every other horse in the stable was either too old, too lame, or too small to suit, leaving him to suspect that most had probably been rescued from cruelty or death by his kindhearted wife and were now her beloved pets.

All except a bright chestnut stallion in the last stall. He was a short-backed but handsome fellow, with a long, flaxen mane, a dark eye, and a white blaze that tumbled down his sculpted face and ended at the pink seam of his mouth.

Andrew reached out and stroked the sleek neck. This must be the infamous Sheik, who refused to mount mares, who had been, in his own way, responsible for Celsie's taking the aphrodisiac that had proved to be the undoing of both their ordered lives.

He smiled grimly. Let Sheik, then, be the one to take him to London.

Ten minutes later, Andrew was in the saddle and Rosebriar was disappearing behind him.

~~~~

It was still dark in the room when Celsie awoke.

She lay there in bed for a moment, wondering why her heart was a granite boulder in her chest — until she suddenly remembered the reason for its heaviness.

Andrew had never come to join her. Only Freckles, snoring, was with her, sprawled across the bed, the covers pinned beneath his big body. Celsie reached out and stroked him, blinking in the darkness. Oh, how empty she felt. Like a child promised a toy that was never given. Like a sweetheart promised a kiss that was withheld at the last minute.

Like an abandoned bride.

Slowly she pulled her legs out from beneath the sleeping dog, climbed from the bed, and went to the windows. Shivering, she hauled open the drapes and was surprised to see stars outside, pricking through a night sky laced with cloud.

Good heavens. What time was it? And where on earth was her husband?

She rang for her maid. It seemed to take forever before Anna came in, yawning and carrying a candle. Celsie frowned.

"Anna, what time is it?"

"An hour after midnight, m'lady."

"An hour after midnight? How long have I been up here?"

Anna looked suddenly sheepish. "All day, m'lady. We knew you'd been under a bit of a strain, so we thought it best to let you sleep."

"Where is my husband?"

"Gone, m'lady. He took Sheik out this morning and hasn't come back."

Celsie stared at the younger woman. "He took Sheik? And the groom allowed him?"

"The groom warned him, but my lord wanted to take the horse, and Hodges said it would've been impertinent to deny him . . ."

Celsie put her head in her hands. She had rescued the fiery Arabian stallion from a traveling carnival. To this day, the horse feared and despised men, his behavior a testament to the abuse he must have suffered at their hands. And now Andrew had taken him and still hadn't returned? Oh, God . . . Celsie tried to rub the parade of nightmarish visions from her eyes. She saw her husband lying helpless in some forgotten pasture with a fractured leg, unable to get help. She saw him lying dead out there in the November darkness, his neck broken, his body stiff and cold. She saw him —

She jerked her head up. "Has Sheik returned to the stables, Anna?"

"No, ma'm. And we were all worried to pieces about the new master, but shortly after he left, one of the chambermaids found this outside your door." Anna reached into her pocket and produced a sealed letter, immediately handing it to Celsie.

One fear was replaced by another. Trying to hide her rising apprehension, Celsie slid a shaking finger beneath the blob of wax, opened the letter, and taking the candle from Anna, read the hastily scrawled words.

 

My dear Celsie,

I hope you can forgive me that I shall be long gone by the time you find and read this letter. I did not want to disturb you — or perhaps I am simply taking the coward's way out, for there are some matters I am not yet ready to discuss with you, matters which are unavoidable should I remain with you here at Rosebriar. Thus I thought it best that we spend some time apart, until both of us have had more time to grow accustomed to being with each other. I am going to London, and will return when I feel I am ready to offer explanations for my strange and unpredictable behaviour. I hope you can forgive me.

A.

 

Apprehension turned to fury.

"How the hell are we supposed to grow accustomed to being with each other if he's in London and I'm here?" Celsie howled, balling the letter in her fist and hurling it across the room. "Men! Oh, Anna, are they all this insane, impossible, and bloody-minded?"

"Yes, m'lady. At least Miss Upchurch says so. Would you like me to fetch you some supper? A hot bath?"

Celsie took a deep breath. It made no sense to keep Anna from her bed, and putting her through the trouble of drawing a bath at this hour was not only unfair, but unkind. "No, Anna," she said, on a grim sigh. "But if you could unlace me and help me undress, that will be enough."

Anna was shy but efficient. Moments later, Celsie dismissed her, and stood there in the middle of the room, dressed only in her chemise.

It would not be daylight for another few hours, but she was not so foolish as to travel the highways at night, alone and unprotected. Her journey would have to wait. She crossed the room and crawled up onto the window seat. There, wrapped in a blanket, she leaned her cheek against the sill, hugged her legs, and stared out across the night toward London, counting the hours until dawn.

By the time the eastern horizon began to glow, she was dressed in a smart green riding habit with breeches under her petticoats for riding astride, and heading for the stables.

And by the time the servants began to stir, she was on her way to London.

~~~~

Many miles away, the duke of Blackheath was also up.

He was an early riser, given to taking a three-mile walk across the downs before the servants even rose from their beds to start breakfast. Normally he found a long, hard bout of early morning exercise refreshing to his spirits, stimulating to his mind, a good foundation on which to lay the rest of his day. But as he crested Sparholt Down and stopped to gaze off across miles of valleys, downs, and pastureland, all going dark beneath approaching clouds, he felt anything but invigorated.

He had seen the last of his brothers safely married off, and now only Nerissa was left. But he didn't feel the peace he longed for. He felt infinitely weary, like a man putting his last affairs in order as he tried to outrace a terminal illness.

The dream had come to him again last night.

He had been having it for weeks now. The first time he had written it off as a foolish nightmare and promptly forgotten about it within moments after rising. But it had come to him again three nights later, this time weighing heavily on his mind all through breakfast, unwilling to be shaken off, refusing to be forgotten. Again he'd forced himself to forget it, to write it off as fanciful nonsense. But it was impossible to forget something, to dismiss it as nonsense, when it began to recur night after night with mounting urgency, so vivid and real that it haunted one's waking as well as sleeping hours.

The shadows that Andrew had noticed under his eyes were not the imaginings of an angry younger brother.

And yes, Andrew was angry with him. They all were, even Charles, the sibling with whom Lucien had always been the closest. He was accustomed to their anger, of course. It was something he had lived with for most of his life. He could have told them about the dream, told them why he had been so desperate to get Andrew safely married to Lady Celsiana Blake. But no. Anger was far easier to handle than the concern and the pity they might end up feeling for him — and Lucien could not tolerate that.

Far easier to let them all think he was the diabolical monster he pretended to be. They would never believe that his machinations were done out of love, that he had only their best interests in mind and at heart. He was the oldest brother. He was the duke. It was his duty to take care of them, though that was something they had always resented and would never understand. But Lucien understood it. He understood his responsibilities, and he never forgot a promise. He had made a vow to his dead parents that he would take care of his siblings, that he would see to their welfare and happiness until the day he died.

Even if that day might come sooner than he would have wished.

The duke turned his gaze from the far-off horizon and began the long trek back to the castle. The air felt raw, cold, moist; it would rain soon. He could feel the wind playing tag with his back, making all the thousands of little grasses shiver and tremble all around him as the sky grew increasingly darker.

Time was running out.

For even now, the dream was with him. A duel at dawn. A masked opponent dressed entirely in black. A fatal slip and then red, raw agony exploding in his chest.

He died with a sword through the heart.

Every time.