Captive Bride (4 page)

“It is better this way,” the dowager countess grumbled. “It is unsuitable for a young gentleman and lady to be in each other’s pockets the way your mother tells me you and he are. Isn’t his estate in Derbyshire? How often does he come to Yorkshire?”

Not often enough
.
“Every few months or so, when Lord
Marke
needs advice.
He is setting up an impressive stable,” Bea murmured, hoping her great-aunt could not see the warm flush rising in her cheeks.

“I understand Lord
Cheriot
has hopeful mamas all over London setting tea just for him,” the dowager clipped. “He is a baron, young, wealthy, and handsome as well. Still he comes to Hart House in the middle of the fall session. Impossible.” 

“Peter is a lovely boy,” Aunt Julia chirped. She dug into her knitting bag, her cap hanging upon springy gray curls over one twinkling eye.

The dowager fixed Bea with a hard stare. “Why are you not yet wed, Beatrice?” 

Because when they had lived in town before Papa left, any time a gentleman seemed to show any interest in her he invariably disappeared without a trace after a few encounters. Because her mother had swiftly wearied of chaperoning Bea to entertainments at which
her
friends were not present.
Because at the ripe old age of fifteen Bea had lost her heart to the man who still owned it
.

“I have not received an acceptable offer, Aunt Grace.”

“Well I don’t wonder at it, with Harriet dragging you to Yorkshire the moment Alfred turned her off,” the dowager said crisply. “But it does not deter that young man from making the trip. What have you done to him, gel?”

From practice, Bea’s hands in her lap remained impressively still
.

“Done to whom, Aunt Grace?” 

Lady
Marstowe’s
ice-blue eyes narrowed. “You
have
offended him, haven’t you? Or you are playing fast-and-loose with him. It must be one or the other.”

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Aunt.” Her heart raced like one of Tip’s prized thoroughbreds. “Lord
Cheriot
is very kind and he dotes on Mama exceedingly.”

“He treats Harriet with a great deal more consideration than she deserves,” the dowager
muttered, “but he is not a brother to you like that fool woman believes.”

“Do you remember, Grace,” her sister said, “that visit to Hart House two years ago when Harriet insisted we sit out on the lawn all afternoon so that she could oversee the planting of the cherry trees and enjoy conversation at the same time? You developed the most disagreeable heat disturbance.”

“Harriet is a selfish fool.” Aunt Grace frowned. “She never thinks of anything but her own comfort.”

“Dear Peter came that afternoon to see Beatrice,” Aunt Julia continued, “but when he observed your illness he went right out and found the doctor.
At night.
Himself! I don’t think he even considered sending a groom.”

“Hm.”
The dowager’s lips thinned, pulling wrinkles around her mouth.

“He was mourning his beautiful mother then.” Julia sighed. “Still he came to visit our Beatrice, didn’t he?” Her entire cherubic face creased into a smile
.

With moths fluttering about her belly, Bea drew aside the window curtain. Whatever Aunt Grace said, Tip did in fact treat her a great deal like Thomas did. He liked visiting because he could be at his leisure with Lord
Marke
and Nancy, as well as with her and Mama. In York he never had anything to worry about—grain prices, sheep shearing, Parliament bills, or conniving mothers.
Certainly not the latter.
And, of course, in York he could hear news of
Georgie
from her and Mama.

Outside the carriage, mists blanketed the landscape, wrapped about gnarled, lichen-covered trees and hovering above grass the exact color of Tip’s eyes. Stone fences crept along gentle hillsides, white sheep rising out of the gray like droplets of spring snow yet to melt. Wales was full of mountains in this northern part, but Bea could not see more than a hundred yards in any direction.

Tip rode along the other side of the carriage as he had for six days already. He had been a lovely escort throughout the journey, arranging lodging along the road, conveying Aunt Grace, Aunt Julia, and Bea to their chambers after dinner and greeting them with a smile each morning. He regaled them each evening with stories, and explained about the caravans of wagons piled high with slate for which they were obliged to make way several times on the narrow highways.

If this trip accomplished nothing else, it convinced Bea once and for all that he truly had no idea of her feelings for him. He smiled, teased, and laughed, and he served Bea and her great-aunts with unhesitating gallantry. But he might have been a hired courier for all the intimacy he showed her.

It was, of course, much better this way.

Bea stared out the window, the clip-clopping of hooves, creaking of carriage works, and clattering of jumbled stones on the road echoing dully through the fog.

Then, quite abruptly, the curtain of fog lifted and Bea’s breath caught.

Ahead, atop a rocky spur amidst a forest of dark evergreens and twisted, brown- and
goldleafed
oaks and ash trees, a stone castle rose in dark, solitary splendor. Built on a massive scale, yet compact in its position tucked against the mountain face, the fortress loomed above the valley like an angry sentinel. Tip had told them that most of the castles in northern Wales were built in the Middle Ages, to help the English king gain control over the rebellious Welsh peoples and their copper, slate, gold, and silver-rich lands. This castle certainly looked darkly medieval, mysterious and sinister.

“
Gwynedd
Castle, my lord,” the coachman called down. The team pulled the carriage to the right, climbing a narrow, exceedingly bumpy track toward the castle.

“Beatrice, bring your head inside,” Aunt Grace commanded. “You will catch your death from the chill.”

Bea obeyed. But she did not draw the curtain. Her pulse beat so swiftly she could hear it.

It was more than she had hoped.
More than she had imagined and dreamed.
Closeted with her demanding mother in the countryside for four years, she’d not had one adventure, not even a spark of excitement. The only true pleasure she’d had—other than Tip’s infrequent visits—came from the novels she borrowed from the lending library in York. Now she had her chance. She only prayed that what Thomas had written in his letter about the castle’s master was true. It couldn’t be. Still, her spine shivered in eerie delight.

The mist seemed to close in on them again as they ascended, as though beckoning them into its haunted embrace. They continued to climb along the hillside, at once doubling back, then again, until they reached a slight plateau. Bea stretched across the seat and opened the other curtain.

The castle was huge, much bigger than it appeared from below. Rising in a double set of rounded towers flanking a central portal, a wall easily a hundred feet high stretched along the ridge of the hill to meet yet another thick tower. Crenellated battlements were pierced by long, narrow slit aperture windows, and here and there a judiciously placed stone hawk completed the portrait of power and strength. Fog encompassed the remainder, rolling down the thick gray stone to unfurl on the grass below. It all looked positively ghastly.
And simply wonderful.

The carriage ground to a halt and Tip opened the door. The coachman lowered the step.

“My ladies,” the baron said, offering his hand. Lady
Marstowe
took it and descended,
then
Tip handed Aunt Julia down. He turned to grasp Bea’s fingers.

“You look as though you have seen a ghost,” he whispered, effectively doubling the number of words he had spoken to her privately since they’d left Yorkshire five days earlier.

She
smiled,
afraid her voice would not function properly. The combined proximity of a formidable castle and the man she adored tied her tongue.

“Why, Bea, I believe you are hoping to do exactly that.” He chuckled.

“This stone heap is certain to be cold and damp.” Lady
Marstowe
scowled. She beckoned to her maid. “Peg, bring my shawl, and prepare the warming pan as soon as we are within. Why hasn’t a footman come out to greet us yet?”

Bea’s knees quivered deliciously as they moved forward, possibly because of the monumental building they approached or Tip’s gloved hand covering hers upon his arm.

“Thomas wrote that Lady Bronwyn keeps the house now,” she said, “with her grandmother, who is apparently quite frail.”

As though on cue, the front portcullis lifted into the heavy portal and behind it a thick, iron-bracketed door swung open. Through it sailed a perfectly angelic creature.

“Oh, you have come!” she exclaimed, her voice a tinkling of the sweetest bells imaginable. In a porcelain-perfect face warmed by rosy cheeks, her gentian eyes sparkled like flowers touched with dew. Ringlets of black hair tumbled about her neck and tapered shoulders, a cluster of white silk flowers tucked behind one ear with a white ribbon. Gowned in a diaphanous confection of snowy lace and muslin, she floated to them upon tiny feet clad in peach satin slippers.

Bea was dumbstruck, although perhaps only because the lady of the house did not quite suit her surroundings. She certainly suited Thomas’s brief description in his letter: young, maidenly, and excessively beautiful.

Tip did not seem quite as flabbergasted by the girl’s exceptional loveliness. He bowed over
her hand.

“My lady, am I to guess that you are our hostess? We thank you for the gracious invitation to your home,” he said, then drew Bea forward.

Bea dropped into a curtsy. “Good afternoon, Lady Bronwyn. My aunts, Lady
Marstowe
and Miss Dews, and I are happy to have come. And may I present to you Lord
Cheriot
?”

The angel’s delicate hand grasped hers and drew her up with surprising strength.

“Oh! You must be Miss
Sinclaire
, for I see your brother’s intelligent gaze in your eyes.” She giggled infectiously and pressed Bea’s hand between both of hers. “I will not have you calling me anything but Bronwyn. I am so happy to make your acquaintance, and thrilled that you have come to visit me on such short notice.” Her sparkling gaze shifted to the elderly ladies
.
“Oh, dear, I am remiss,” she exclaimed. “My lady and Miss Dews, you must be cold and weary from the journey. Allow me to show you and your maid to comfortable quarters.”

“Your housekeeper will do.” The dowager coolly assessed the girl.

Lady Bronwyn’s face fell. “Oh, I fear
Grandmama
and I haven’t a housekeeper any longer. The castle used to be filled with servants, you see, until Lord
Iversly
returned. Now none will stay. He has frightened them all away except Cook, thank goodness, and her husband, Mr.
Dibin
. He is the butler, though he was the groom before. They are both very sensible and say Lord
Iversly
cannot scare them off. Most of the servants I brought with me from London were English, you see, but Cook and Mr.
Dibin
are Welsh, of course.”

“What sort of man frightens his servants?” Lady
Marstowe
glared. “Is he cruel, or does he chase the maids’ petticoats?”

Bea couldn’t resist looking at Tip. He lifted a brow. Clearly, he did not approve that she hadn’t shared with Aunt Grace the entire contents of Thomas’s letter.

“Oh, no,” Lady Bronwyn exclaimed. “He isn’t that sort of man. At least, it does not seem so.” Her brow wrinkled, but it cleared just as quickly. “But do come inside. I will bid Cook to make up some tea.”

Thomas appeared beneath the castle portal.

“Bea!” His brow furrowed.
“And
Cheriot
?
Aunt
Grace,
and Aunt Julia? Why have you brought them, Bea?” he demanded, striding forward.

“That is hardly the way to greet your devoted sister after she has traveled such a distance at your request,
Sinclaire
,” Tip said rather firmly.

Bea grasped her brother’s hands. “It is good to see you, Tom. Mama and I have missed you.”

Thomas at once looked sheepish, his light curls surrounding his face in a boyish manner.

“Yes, well, a fellow gets busy, of course.” He shifted his attention to Tip. “How do you do,
Cheriot
? What brings you to Wales?”

“Lord
Cheriot
has business interests in
Porthmadog
,” Bea supplied. “He graciously offered to escort Aunt Grace, Aunt Julia, and me here. I am sure he will wish to be off first thing tomorrow to see to his affairs.”

“I am in no particular hurry,” Tip said laconically, casting
her a
sideways glance. “And I have a notion to meet this
Iversly
who frightens off all but the most steadfast of servants.”