Page 10

Henry laughed. “You’re lucky you didn’t get over that wall,” he said. “What if Graymont caught you wandering about in your nightgown? Then there’d be a scandal.”

“Pooh,” said Viola. “How can you be so poor-spirited, Henry?”

“At least I’m not a peahen.”

“At least I took action. I saved Mama’s piano. And besides, ghosts can’t be involved in scandal.”

Henry snorted. “Some ghost you are, with your hem six inches in mud.”

“Well, if you won’t act, I will. I must. The castle is our home. We have always lived in the castle.”

They reached the lodge porch, and Cordelia held up her lantern for Henry to open the door. Viola limped onto the porch. She looked a very waif, with leaves and dirt in her hair, a scratch on her forehead, and a smear of mud on one cheek. Cordelia had to give her sister points for pluck, if not for sense.

“You want him gone, and so do we all. Let’s find out why he left London and what can draw him back … some lady love or family duty or amusement. I will write letters—”

“Letters! Oh Cordelia, what are letters but words on paper? Who is ever moved by a letter?” Viola halted in the doorway. “Unless … do you really think he’s involved in some scandal? Who would know? Cousin Georgiana?”

“I’ll write to her directly. Now let’s get you clean and warm. In you go,” Cordelia urged.

Chapter Three

Cordelia came up from the sea as the dawn’s raucous birdsong began to fade and sunlight gilded the top of Delamere’s south tower. She wrapped the worn coverlet that served her as a towel firmly around her, pulled off the wool cap that covered her hair, and stuck her feet into a pair of Henry’s old boots for the trek up the cliff. In the wood above her, the descending notes of the chaffinches mixed with a lone blackbird’s mellow, fluting song. Behind her, gulls cried and waves lapped the shore. She drew a breath of salty air. It was going to be a good day.

She’d had her swim, the sea calm after the storm, her mind as clear as the sky. She had a plan to keep Viola occupied and away from Lord Graymont, and she had letters ready to send—to their solicitor, who must be able to do something for them; to their banker, who must be persuaded not to send any funds to their father before the auction; and to cousin Georgiana, whom Cordelia implored to find anything that might help them understand Lord Graymont’s motives. Surely, business or pleasure would soon call him back to London.

She knew nothing good of him. He was a fashionable London sophisticate. He liked giving orders. He seemed unmoved by ordinary sentiment. He gambled for high stakes. On a whim he could restore a family possession while accepting that the turn of the cards in a game of chance gave him, a complete stranger to them all, the power to take over a beloved family home and turn out its occupants.

She headed up the zigzag path through the trees, and there, as if her thoughts had conjured him, was Graymont, coming down in a lawn shirt and loose trousers of the sort she thought of as Egyptian. She’d seen such a costume in a play once. His feet were bare, and he had a dark-blue towel over one shoulder. She half expected to see a scimitar at his waist and a silk scarf around the loose dark locks that fell to his jaw.

“Good morning, Miss Staveley. This is your time, is it?” He came to a halt in the middle of the path, frowning at her.

“It is,” she said. “If you make a note of it, there will be no need for us to meet.”

“Ah,” he said. “You would have me change my habit.” His gaze took in Henry’s boots and the legs of her brother’s old nankeen trouser suit that Cordelia had fashioned into a swim costume. Graymont looked like a dashing adventurer. She looked like a street urchin. The birds went on singing while he made some assessment of her attire. She shrugged. Her swim costume was hardly less eccentric than his.

His gaze returned to her face. “Should we not come to some mutual agreement about times?”

“Mutual agreement? This has been my time for many years. A few minutes later on your part, and our paths need never cross.”

“Or I could come earlier if you cannot alter your habit.”

He was deliberately provoking. “Is it your habit to intrude on a neighbor’s privacy?” she demanded.

One of his brows went up. “It is my habit to take a morning swim. I do not, on the other hand, climb trees to peer through my neighbor’s window while he dines. Is your sister recovered from her … adventure? She took no serious harm?”

“None.” Cordelia felt her cheeks burn. His position in the middle of the path made it impossible for Cordelia to pass. He understood precisely what Viola had been up to the previous evening.

“Will she try again?”

“I beg your pardon.” Cordelia stiffened. If her words of the previous evening, as she’d brushed leaves and dirt out of her sister’s hair, had any effect, Viola would be a model of decorum. Cordelia could hope.

Graymont’s frown lightened as if he found some secret amusement in her situation. After the previous evening, he no doubt thought the Staveleys a ramshackle lot. “Will she try again to scale my walls? She appears an enterprising young woman.”

“Have no fear. I intend to keep her occupied with activities suited to her station.” Cordelia sounded priggish even to herself, but to call Delamere’s walls his walls.

“You would clip her wings, then?”

“I would keep her from … scrapes,” she said. The superior voice grated on her. She did not like the implication that she would dull her sister’s spirits. “Do you have sisters? A brother?”