Page 64 of Beguiling the Baron

Chapter 42

Hal’s face paled as his eyes bore into Tia’s. “Don’t say that. Don’t tell me I’m a madman. I’m an artist. I’ve been striving for perfection, creating a masterpiece. It’s what artists do.”

All she could think about was the fact he’d closeted himself away from the world for three years, building a shrine to his dead wife. She fought down the bile rising in her throat.

“I can’t do this. I can’t. I can never match up to her.”

“Darling, I care nothing for her now, nothing. I’ll have all the sketches, all the pictures, taken out and burned—whatever you wish. It is only you who has been able to bring the light back into my life. I need you to trust me. When it comes to Mary, there is no competition, I swear it. Don’t throw away our chance of happiness. Tell me how I might prove my love to you, and I will.”

But she was no longer listening. Her heart had shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, glass-sharp splinters that pricked and stung, goading her for being such a fool as to fall in love with a man obsessed with the memory of his dead wife. His charismatic, stunningly beautiful wife. Whom he’d loved to the end, even though she had cuckolded him and condemned him to do penance for the rest of his life by committing suicide right in front of him.

Turning her back on Hal, Tia made for the outside door.

She thought she heard him call after her to take care, but her body hardly knew what it did. All she knew was the need to quit this dreadful place, hie away from the tomb of all her hopes and into the sunlight and fresh air.

The walls of the folly seemed to shudder and close in around her, and when she burst out through the door, the stairs bucked beneath her as if they were alive. She struggled to find her way down, her eyes blurred with tears, limbs shaking in abject misery.

The rock under her feet gave an abrupt shudder, and she lurched forward several steps before she was able to regain her balance. She reached the level surface of the lawn and heard Hal call out to her.

But he wasn’t begging her to return to him. He was shouting, “Run, Tia, run!”

Catching the note of fear in his voice, she turned back and saw him swaying at the top of the stairway while the whole mountain of stone rocked beneath him. Unable to tear her eyes from the terrifying spectacle, she froze, torn between rushing back to help and keeping herself out of danger.

White-faced and furious, he yelled again, waving her away. She stumbled backward as the ground shook. With an almighty roar, the tower and its base blurred, expanded, then shivered into pieces. She threw herself down as dust and shards of rock billowed toward her, slicing into her skin, embedding themselves in her hair.

A sound, like thunder, rolled off into the distance. Moments later the ground ceased to vibrate. All she could hear was the cracking, splintering sound of broken pieces of rock settling and boulders coming to rest on the grass.

Coughing and sputtering, she dragged herself onto all fours, crawling in the direction of the folly. Nothing remained of it but a jumble of black, formless rock.

Of Hal, there was no trace.