Tempting the Marquess (7 page)

The specter, seeing it had her attention, held out an arm. Olivia sucked air into her lungs and opened her mouth, but her scream died in her throat as the ghost gave a slight shake of her head and raised one pearly finger to its lips.

“Nay, be not affrighted. I mean thee no harm.”

Though the ghost’s lips never moved, somehow Olivia heard the antiquated words.

“I must be dreaming,” she whispered shakily. She slowly sank down to the floor, unmindful of the rough wooden boards beneath her knees.

“Thou art not asleep. I am as real as thee, albeit somewhat less corporeal. Hast thou not yet heard of the White Lady of Castle Arlyss?”

Olivia wet her lips. “I have heard. . . . No, this is impossible.”

“I pray thee, listen. I come on behalf of another, less tied to this world. She lingers, restless, unable to find peace until those she loves are also at peace.”

A faraway look came over her pearly visage.

“She says you must remain strong. He will resist, but he needs you. They all do.”

“I don’t understand.” Olivia shook her head in confusion. “Who is—? No, don’t go. Not yet. Please, come back!”

The apparition faded into shimmering moonlight.

“He needs you.”

The words reverberated through the tiny room, and suddenly Olivia sensed she was once more alone in her room. She rose unsteadily to her feet and moved to the door. He needed her. . . .

“He needs you.”

The words echoed in her mind. Was she simply recalling her dream, or . . . ? In a flash, she was out of bed, reaching for her wrapper. Before she gave herself time to think about what she was doing, she crossed the room and rapped lightly on the door connecting her chamber to the marquess’s. If he was asleep he likely wouldn’t hear, and if he wasn’t, if he needed her—

The door opened to reveal a harried-looking Lord Sheldon. His face was drawn and his hair was disheveled—but she couldn’t deny he also looked quite splendid in his red silk banyan. Then she heard it. The sound of a child crying.

“Miss Weston? Is something amiss?”

“I—I heard something and grew worried. Perhaps the door between our rooms was ajar,” she invented. Now was not the time to discuss the possibility that she had been visited by the castle’s ghost.

“I am sorry to have woken you, Miss Weston.”

Olivia peered past him and made out a little huddled mound in the middle of an enormous tester bed.

“Your son.” The words hovered between a question and a statement.

The marquess nodded. “Yes, my son, Edward. Now, if you will return to your bed . . .” He took a step toward her, clearly expecting that she would retreat to her chamber.

Livvy held her ground. “Does he have night terrors?”

Lord Sheldon let out an impatient sigh. “If you must know, Edward suffers from a chronic chest complaint. He is prone to asthmatic fits.”

“Has the doctor been sent for?”

“That old fool? His bleedings and blistering plasters nearly killed Edward.”

“Have you no other physician treating him? There must be something that can be done.”

He raked a hand through his hair, standing it on end. “I’ve sent for special doctors from London. I’ve bought special breathing contraptions and restorative elixirs. None of it does any good, and some of these so-called cures have left him a great deal worse. There is nothing for it but to wait it out.” He cast a worried look back at the bed.

The sight of such concern over his son stirred Livvy’s heart and left her feeling decidedly unsettled. Of course, it was an excellent thing for Lord Sheldon to care for his son, because such tender feelings boded well for his ability to fall in love again. What she didn’t like was her immediate, unfounded surge of jealousy toward the unknown woman who would one day claim his heart.

You are being ridiculous, she scolded herself. Feeling anything other than casual attraction to the marquess would be the very height of foolishness.
He
might have stepped out of one of her novels, at least when he kept his mouth shut.
She
, on the other hand . . . Well, no one would ever mistake Miss Olivia Jane Weston for a heroine.

No, she would never be a heroine, but she might be able to help Lord Sheldon’s son if she could stop mooning over his father long enough to concentrate on the problem at hand.

“Do you know the cause of his ailment?” she asked.

“Anxiety. Excitement. A change in the weather.” He waved his hands in an encompassing gesture. “Any number of seemingly benign events and emotions can trigger it. He can go to bed in fine health and, with no warning, wake an hour or two later struggling to draw breath.”

“How awful,” Olivia said feelingly.

“Quite.” The marquess’s tone was clipped. “If you will return to your chamber, I must attend to my son.”

Olivia brushed past him and headed over to the bed. Perhaps it was having so many younger siblings, or maybe she had been born with more than her fair share of maternal instincts, but a child in distress was not something she could sit back and ignore.

Lord Sheldon snagged her arm, halting her progress.

“No. He is shy with strangers and crowding may exacerbate his symptoms.”

“He is a frightened child who is feeling ill.” She shook off the marquess’s hand and strode to the bed. “Hello, Edward. My name is Olivia, but you may call me Livvy if you like. That’s what Charlotte calls me. I am her cousin, you know.”

He was a beautiful child. With his dark hair and eyes, he was a tiny replica of his father, though his features still had the softness of youth. He was too pale, though, and the labored rasp of his breathing sent icy tendrils of fear spiraling through her. A fit of coughing wracked his slight frame, and Livvy took an involuntary step backward. She had no experience with sickness of this magnitude.

The realization left her feeling helpless and adrift.
What was she doing there?
Not just in the marquess’s bedchamber, but here at Castle Arlyss. What madness had possessed her to believe
she
, Olivia Weston, could help the marquess or his son? She was about to run back to her chamber when a sense of calmness settled over her, and she suddenly knew what to do. She didn’t know if the knowledge came from some deep-rooted instinct, or whether it came from outside her. Maybe it was a gift from the spirits residing outside space and time—a healer and a mother—who watched over the castle’s inhabitants. Wherever the knowledge came from, she was grateful.

Olivia imagined that the boy’s panic over the attack was contributing to it, feeding it in a vicious cycle. She needed to distract him. She saw that the boy was looking at her curiously. If he was focused on her, he would think less about being scared. She also imagined he would not be so frightened if he was not alone.

Livvy was also a firm believer in the healing power of touch. Whenever she fell ill, her mother’s touch seemed to alleviate some of her misery. She wasn’t Edward’s mother, but perhaps any nurturing presence would do.

“Shall I climb in beside you and tell you a story, Edward? Would you like that?”

“I really don’t think—” the marquess began, but he stopped when Edward nodded and scooted over in the bed. The rasp of the boy’s labored breathing filled the room.

Olivia hoisted herself into the enormous bed and drew Edward to her side. He nestled trustingly into her body as she pulled the quilts up over them. The marquess stalked over to a chair by the fireplace, seated himself, and crossed his arms over his chest, his expression inscrutable. She ignored him and focused on Edward.

“Once upon a time,” she began, stroking the boy’s silky hair, “there was a young prince—Prince Edward was his name—with a very special talent. He could talk to dragons. . . .”

Sometimes he wondered if having to stand by helplessly and watch his son suffer was a sort of penance for his wife’s death. Laura’s accident could have been prevented.

If only he had been more strict . . .

If only he hadn’t let his pride get in the way . . .

If only he had insisted . . .

If, if, if, if, if . . .

“If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there would be no need for tinkers’ hands,” he muttered to himself, quoting one of his father’s favorite sayings.

He didn’t want to think of the dead any more tonight. He focused, instead, on Miss Weston’s voice. By degrees he felt himself relax. His last thought, before he drifted off to sleep, was that perhaps he had been too hasty in dismissing her storytelling skills.

“My lord?”

Jason ignored the voice. Surely whomever it belonged to could see he was resting.

“My lord.”

The voice came again, a bit louder and firmer this time. Damnation, couldn’t a man even dream undisturbed?

The slight pressure of a hand on his shoulder catapulted Jason awake. He shot to his feet and glanced around in confusion.

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Disoriented, Jason blinked several times, finally focusing on the source of the words. At first he was certain he was still dreaming, and that the vision before him was a figment of his imagination, conjured up out of too many lonely, sleepless nights. Then he decided she must be real, for if he was going to fantasize about a woman in his bedchamber, her hair would be loose, not in a long plait, and she would not be dressed in an ugly wrapper that covered every inch of her.

She would be dressed in nothing at all. Or perhaps just in her stockings. There was something about a woman dressed only in stockings and garters that was more titillating than having her fully nude. Somehow it just seemed a little more . . . wicked.

He wondered if the woman before him—the woman who was likely real and not a dream—was wearing stockings under that bulky flannel monstrosity.

The woman folded her arms over her chest. “There is nothing wrong with my wrapper,” she growled through clenched teeth. “It keeps me very warm. As for the other, it is absolutely none of your business!”

Jason wasn’t sure if he had spoken aloud or if the woman had somehow divined his thoughts. There was something about her, something about the annoyance radiating from her, that was familiar. In a rush the day’s events came back to him and he shook off his tired daze.

“Miss Weston!” he blurted out.

She put a finger to her lips and jerked her head in the direction of the bed. Before he could respond, she headed for her room, crooking a finger at him to follow.

“He is asleep?” Jason asked, once they were inside her chamber.

She nodded. “As were you. I only meant to wake you so that you might move into the bed. That chair could not have made a very comfortable place to sleep.”

“My thanks, Miss Weston, and my apologies as well, to you and your wrapper. I fear I spoke before I was fully awake.”

“That is all right, my lord. I should probably think this”—she waved a hand down her front—“a hideous monstrosity, too, if I had such a lovely dressing gown as yours.”

He couldn’t help himself. He was a man. And the slight longing in her voice made him imagine her in his banyan, the crimson silk sliding over her pale skin like a lover’s caress. . . . A slight groan escaped him and, despite the distress it was currently causing him, Jason was grateful for the loose-fitting garment.

“Are you all right? Would you like to go to bed now?”

Jason clenched his fist and reminded himself that the girl had no idea what she was innocently offering. He wanted very much to go to bed, but not to sleep. No, his body was wide awake now.

Christ, this was just what he needed—another sleepless night. Soon he would be fit for Bedlam. Then again, given the direction of his thoughts over the course of the evening, perhaps he already belonged there.

“My lord?”

Jason shook his head. “I am perfectly well, just somewhat dismayed to find that the desire for sleep has fled. I’ll leave you to your rest, then.”

“That is probably for the best.”

Was that disappointment he detected in her tone? No, surely not. Whatever her feelings when she entered his home, Jason suspected that by now Miss Weston rued the day she had decided to travel to Arlyss. His feelings had undergone a bit of a reversal as well. She was still a guest, and thereby a nuisance, but he could not regret that she had come.

For Edward’s sake.

Not because the thought of her in his red silk banyan made his pulse race.

He headed for his chamber. “Good night, Miss Weston.”

“Sleep well, my lord.”

Jason closed the door between their rooms and resisted the urge to bang his head against the wood panel.

Sleep well
, she’d said.

Right, as if there was any chance in hell of
that
happening. However good she might be for his son, Jason had a growing suspicion that Miss Weston was going to be very bad for him. He just wished he didn’t find the prospect so bloody exciting.