The Love Affair of an English Lord (11 page)

Chapter 12

When Chloe came downstairs for breakfast the following morning, it was to find the household in chaos. Uncle Humphrey was hurrying through the hall with his walking stick tucked under his brown greatcoat. His hair was unbrushed, and his cravat was askew as if he had dressed in haste. He gave Chloe a panicked look as he noticed her at the foot of the stairs.

“Fetch your cloak and escape with me while you can, my dear,” he said in a stage whisper. “A madness has descended on us, and I wish no part in it.”

“What madness?” Chloe asked, but her voice was drowned out by the furor of female voices in the parlor and the yapping of dogs outside waiting for Humphrey's promised walk in the woods.

Pamela appeared in the parlor doorway, her freckled face animated and pink. “Oh, Chloe, at last you are here. The meeting has already begun.”

“The meeting,” Chloe echoed, her brain still in a fog as Pamela came forward to pull her into the parlor. “What meeting?”

“My mother has called the ladies of Chistlebury together to discuss our common crisis.”

Chloe's temples began to tighten with the unpleasant tension of an impending headache. She was cross and tired from laboring unsuccessfully over Brandon's letter until four in the morning. And she was still angry and at odds over whether Dominic had actually touched her during the night or whether she had dreamed those naughty things he had done to her.

She couldn't decide which was worse. She did know she was in no mood to sit and discuss the misconduct of the Stratfield Ghost. The parson's wife rose to shepherd Chloe to the overcrowded sofa, where a matron and her two unmarried daughters sat avidly discussing this frightening threat to the female community. Pamela squeezed beside her.

A deep hush fell over the parlor. All attention moved to Chloe in a combination of sympathetic curiosity and prim disapproval. Almost as if
she,
by dint of her reputation, had brought this scandal upon their excitement-starved village. She cleared her throat and met their stares with a guileless smile.

All at once the women began to speak again.

She rested her head back on the sofa, stifling a yawn. Numbers from Brandon's cryptic message danced behind her burning eyelids. Why had he felt the need to write in code in Nepal? Had Napoleon's agents been sent to that distant outpost to challenge British interests?

She opened her eyes in startlement as the woman seated next to her shook her arm. “He must be laid. Don't you agree, Lady Chloe?”

“What did you say?”

The woman looked at her in concern. “It is our duty to lay him.”

“To do what to whom?”

“Lay him. To rest, my dear. The poor spirit is clearly seeking a woman to help him find peace.”

To Chloe's way of thinking, the “poor spirit” had been seeking something else from a certain woman last night, and laying him might or might not be the answer.

“How do you propose to do this?” she asked, thinking she probably did not want to be involved.

Before the matron could answer, the room erupted in an uproar. A newcomer had arrived, a striking Gypsy woman in a scarlet skirt and fringed green shawl, gaudy silver bracelets stacked on each wrist. Her sparkling brown eyes, set above a small hooked nose in a thin face, surveyed her audience with amused disdain.

Aunt Gwendolyn pushed a Chippendale chair into the center of the crowded room for her esteemed guest to hold court. “Tell us, Madame Dara,” she demanded, clasping her hands to the back of the chair. “Tell us which one of us will be his next victim.”

“Madame” Dara, who was probably nineteen if she was a day, circled the chair with indolent grace, recognizing an enrapt audience when she saw it.

“Get me something to drink.”

The parson's wife sprang from her chair to pour a cup of tea. She passed the cup and saucer to Pamela, who passed it in turn to the woman beside her, who handed it to Gwendolyn with the reverence one might impart to the Holy Grail.

Madame Dara took the tea and sat. The other women in the room watched her slurp in fascinated silence as if even this simple act held grave import for their future.

Chloe's eyelids felt heavy with fatigue. She was dying to go back upstairs and work on Brandon's letter, but she had not slept much in the past two days. The strain of what was happening had begun to catch up with her.

“It is . . .
you.
”

She heard the collective gasp that went around the room and looked up in curiosity, alarmed to see the Gypsy pointing straight to the sofa where Chloe sat. Her heart jumped into her throat. The Gypsy could not possibly know. It was a wild guess, an unfair judgment to pass due to the gossip about her scandalous past.

“Now wait a moment,” she said, her face growing warm. “Just because I am the stranger among you is no reason to assume—”

She did not have a chance to finish. The chatter in the room rose into a cacophony of voices, shrill, shocked, a dozen women sympathizing with the chosen victim.

“This really is not fair,” Chloe said in embarrassment.

Aunt Gwendolyn was veering toward her with such a look of distress that Chloe could not help feeling guilty. Was it possible the Gypsy knew the truth? No. She couldn't know. Labeling Chloe as the ghost's chosen one was—

“A mistake,” Aunt Gwendolyn sputtered. “It must be a mistake. Not my innocent little lamb.”

Chloe blinked, turning her head to examine the young woman seated beside her. Pamela? The Gypsy had not pointed to Chloe at all, but to her cousin, who was grinning like an elf at being singled out for this unexpected honor.

“I shall fight this with all my strength,” Aunt Gwendolyn cried in a militant voice, raising her fist to the heavens. “The Stratfield Ghost will not have my daughter!”

The Stratfield Ghost, Chloe thought cynically, might have a word or two to say on the subject himself. But considering the fact that for the first time in ages Chloe was not the center of scandal, be it real or imagined, she chose to hold her tongue and enjoy a little obscurity.

It would be nice, for a change, to be ignored. It might even give her a measure of liberty. Of course, Dominic would not appreciate having this ludicrous attention drawn to him again. But then if he did not want his spirit laid, he should not sneak into women's bedrooms to take advantage of them as they slept. Someone really ought to put a stop to him. He was certainly more lascivious than he would admit.

Still, he had stolen back his letter, and Chloe thought it unlikely that she would ever have another chance to scold him as she would like. Given the danger that surrounded him, she told herself this was for the best.

 

She saw him that same night.

She had intended to study Brandon's letter, certain she was on the verge of a discovery that would shed light on the mystery of her brother's death. Perhaps the truth would give her a sense of peace and acceptance.

She had planned on a light supper at home. But her uncle had met Sir Edgar Williams while walking the dogs in the woods just before twilight.

Sir Edgar had invited Uncle Humphrey and his family to dinner that evening. Uncle Humphrey explained to his wife that his first impulse was to refuse, but that he could hardly do so as Sir Edgar was now their closest neighbor.

“Of
course
we cannot refuse,” Aunt Gwendolyn said, a crafty gleam in her eye. “It is our duty, after all.”

Uncle Humphrey had shared a glance of alarm with Chloe. “Our duty?” he asked cautiously.

Gwendolyn stood facing the parlor window, her voice vibrating with dramatic importance. “If Stratfield has chosen Pamela as his next victim, we must do everything in our power to intervene. Who will court our daughter after a ghost has taken her, Humphrey?”

He glanced again at Chloe. “The same men who did not court her before, I suppose.”

But Aunt Gwendolyn would not be dissuaded. The parson and the Gypsy woman had convinced her that drastic steps must be taken to protect Pamela's virtue. As for the prospective victim herself, Pamela could hardly conceal her delight that a notorious spirit had chosen
her.
She even asked if she might borrow one of Chloe's nightrails to wear for the occasion.

The four of them had dressed for dinner. Gwendolyn insisted they must arrive in the carriage, even though Humphrey pointed out that he could practically spit into Stratfield's lake from his doorstep.

“That is crude, Humphrey,” Gwendolyn said, her gloved hands folded in her lap.

“It is not crude, Gwennie. It takes us longer to get in and out of the damned carriage than it does to walk to the doorstep.”

“Sir Edgar shall not think us yahoos,” she replied, undeterred.

During the short drive, Chloe caught herself staring into the moonlit trees. She thought it probable that Stratfield had found a hiding place somewhere in the woods. Was he well? Had the Gypsy medicine done him any good? Where could he spy on his own home and not be observed? She could not imagine how he had arranged his own funeral without help from someone else.

She considered the possibility that he had found an underground smuggler's tunnel or a cave to conceal him. Heath had once told her that some subterranean passageways in Sussex had been reopened to be used in the event of a coastal attack by Napoleon.

The carriage rattled around the stand of silver beech trees in whose glistening shadows Dominic had kissed her. The memory of his gloved hands on her face, his mouth taking hers, unleashed a burst of disturbing heat deep in her belly. He was a dangerous man, all right, in more ways than one, even though she knew what had made him so. Perhaps it was because she could empathize with him that he posed such a danger to her.

She remembered thinking how sad he'd seemed in the woods, and she had begun to understand why. He had reason for his melancholy. No doubt she would have been better off never seeing him again. Yet if somehow his peril involved Brandon, then she was also meant to be involved.

But was desire to be part of the package? Surely she could help while not becoming personally involved with him. Away from Dominic she decided that she could. And yet deep inside she knew it was fortunate she did not have to face temptation again.

 

She gave a start as Pamela nudged her out of her trance. “Why are you looking so grim, Chloe?” she whispered with a mischievous grin. “I'm to be the sacrificial lamb, as they say, not you.”

“You don't look at all grim yourself,” Chloe said.

Pamela's grin widened. “Admit it,” she whispered. “You're a little curious about what it would be like to be seduced by Stratfield's ghost.”

“Of course I'm not,” Chloe retorted. Because she already knew. That ignominious privilege had recently been granted to her, and she wasn't liable to forget it in a hurry.

The coach had passed the tall vine-clad gatehouse of the estate. As Chloe smoothed out her gray silk gown, the coachman stopped in the crushed-shell drive before the elegant late-Elizabethan house.

The mellowed stone home with a turreted roof and gables seemed to be as proud and strong as the man who owned it. Chloe could almost see Stratfield standing at the tall bay windows of the long gallery, looking down at his estate with satisfaction. Yes, even a ghost might find peace watching the swans glide on the moonlit lake below the sunken gardens.

An undergroom and two footmen emerged from the top of the stone entrance steps to assist them. Chloe felt a slow prickle of sensation raise goose bumps on her skin. Was someone staring at her?

She glanced up quickly, in the middle of Aunt Gwendolyn reminding her husband not to gulp his food like a wolf. A tall black-haired man was walking toward them, broad-shouldered, with the erect, confident bearing of a professional soldier.

In the dark he looked enough like his nephew Dominic that Chloe caught her breath. Commanding, with those same brooding eyes and arrogantly carved features. His voice was different, though, not quite as deep, with the lyrical lilt of his Welsh origins. He gave his guests a welcoming smile.

“How good of you to come on such short notice,” he said, placing his hand on Humphrey's shoulder. “And what lucky men we are to have three beautiful women grace our table.”

Sir Edgar smiled most warmly at Aunt Gwendolyn and Pamela, who was explaining that she had wrenched her ankle and was not usually as clumsy as she appeared.

His gaze lingered last and longest on Chloe. She smiled back at him, a polite reflex that had been instilled in her from the cradle. No, the man was
not
as compelling as Dominic, and he was several years older. There was a calculated intelligence in his eyes, as if his every word and deed were carefully weighed. His skin was dark from foreign service, his face more angular than his nephew's. His manners and dress seemed impeccable, from his gracious welcome to his snowy cravat and gleaming boots that clicked smartly on the steps.