Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (22 page)

She should have felt as though she’d outgrown this room, but she didn’t. It was welcoming and restful, and if there were any ghosts, they were all pleasant. Her own things that she’d brought from London were the very same things she’d taken with her when she’d left Haddo for good. Her silver brush and comb set, which once belonged to her mother, was laid out on the dressing table, and her sewing box was in its usual place on top of the dresser. Only Miss Glennings would have known to put it there.

She had the oddest feeling that time had stood still, that she was still a young girl again and had stepped out of her room for only a few minutes.

With a long, lingering sigh, she sat on the edge of the bed as thoughts drifted in and out of her mind. The day she’d left this safe haven had been the worst mistake of her life. Her letters were amusing, Trish said. What choice had she had? She’d made her bed and had to lie in it. Wasn’t that what Grandmother Radley always said? There was no point in making everyone miserable just because she had made a mistake. Her pride had played a part in that decision as well.

But her amusing account of life as a soldier’s wife had had an effect she could not have foreseen. And now she was in the unenviable position of having to put Sophie right about a few things, and she didn’t know how to begin.

She stretched out on top of the bed as another thought occurred to her. Why would Grandmother Radley entrust her with such a task? She had eloped. She had disgraced herself and her family. A woman
in her position was the last person anyone would ask to advise a young girl on matters of the heart, and Grandmother Radley knew it. Grandmother Radley was up to something.

Devious
, thought Gwyn as her eyes closed.
Devious and manipulative
. Grandmother Radley might look as though she’d softened, but she didn’t fool her. She was up to something.

Just what she needed. Something else to worry about.

She made herself think of something pleasant, and the legacy came to mind. It wasn’t the money she was thinking about, but the thought behind it. Someone, somewhere, must really like and admire her; someone who wanted to bring her and Jason together. She thought of Judith, Trish, and even Lady Mary Gerrard. She might have added Brandon to her list, but he didn’t have that kind of money. She remembered there was a small estate somewhere, but Trish said he’d let it go to wrack and ruin.

Someone, somewhere wanted to bring Jason and her together. If only they knew how much pain they were giving, at least on her side, they might have thought twice about it.

Her thoughts drifted, and she began to think of all the pleasant ways she could spend the interest from the legacy. That was much better. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

N
o one was surprised when, not long after dinner that evening, Gwyn pleaded fatigue and retired to her room for the night. But as tired as she was, she could not settle. Memories were flitting in and out of her mind, and she was determined to suppress them. She rang for Maddie, asked for a hot toddie, and after drinking it to the dregs, found some relief.

Eventually, she fell into a troubled sleep. She was walking home from the Ladies’ Library wearing Gracie’s blue coat, when the street turned into a maze. Her heart began to race uncontrollably. She could hear someone breathing, hear his footsteps as he stalked her. She wanted to run, but her feet were like lead weights. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. He was gaining on her. But straight ahead, there was a gap in the hedge. All she had to do was get through that gap and she would be safe. Her skin was damp with perspiration, her breathing was labored, but she struggled on, one agonizingly slow step after another. She knew he was reaching for her, could feel his warm breath on her neck. But she made it! She was through the gap.

Then she realized her mistake. She wasn’t safe. She was standing at the edge of the cliff just below Haddo, and the maze wasn’t a maze. It was Haddo itself. There was no way out. Her pursuer’s hand was on her back, pushing, increasing the pressure, and she was falling … falling …

She awakened with a sob of terror. Her heart was pounding; her nightgown was damp with perspiration. She breathed deeply, slowly, and her panic gradually receded.

When she felt calmer, she slipped from the bed and groped her way to the dresser. After finding a fresh nightgown, she changed into it and reached for her robe. It took only a moment to get the candle on the mantel lit. A glance at the clock told her that it was well after midnight. The house was silent. All she could hear were windowpanes rattling, buffeted by the wind that swept in from the English Channel.

She moved to the window, drew back the curtains, and looked out. There was no moon, but the lanterns at the front porch were lit. She sank down on the window seat and closed her eyes. Memories came and went. She moved restlessly. Memories. That’s all they were. Ancient history. Ghosts from the past.

She was eighteen years old, and curled up in her night clothes in the same window seat, staring down at the midnight revelers who were making enough racket to be heard in Brighton. Jason was the ringleader, of course. It was his birthday, and he had descended on Haddo a few days before with a party of friends from London: fashionable young men with a reckless glitter in their eyes, and ladies who, though they were ladies by birth, left much to be desired, in Grandmother Radley’s opinion.
Dashers
, she called them scathingly.
Adventuresses!
But that was in private.
In public, she was forced to curb her disdain because George insisted on it. He was master of Haddo, he said, and this time, he meant it.

This was more than a desire to keep the peace on George’s part. Gwyn suspected that he was smitten with one of the dashers, Mrs. Leigh Granger, and he was determined to be as reckless and amusing as any of the young men who vied for her attention. There were curricle races to Brighton, midnight parties on the beach, and a host of other entertainments to which Gwyn was not invited.

All the same, there were other occasions she met Jason’s friends—at the breakfast table; when she went out riding; on her daily walks in and around Haddo. It didn’t take her long to work out that though there was no Mr. Granger present, George still had a serious rival for Mrs. Granger’s affections—Jason.

She remembered wishing, as she watched Jason and his friends strike out for the path that would take them to the cliffs and the wooden staircase to the beach, that Mr. Granger would suddenly appear on the scene and carry his wife off. Of all Jason’s friends, Leigh Granger was the only one whom Gwyn truly disliked. It wasn’t because she was beautiful or charming or witty. It was because Mrs. Granger treated Gwyn like a schoolgirl. She wasn’t hostile or rude. In fact, she was the opposite, but Gwyn always felt, after one of their encounters, that she’d been mauled by a cat.

If Trish had been there, they would have presented a united front to Mrs. Granger. In the privacy of their chambers, they would have thought up witty rejoinders to cut the ground from under the butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth tigress. But Trish was married and living in Norfolk, and Gwyn knew that she alone was no match for the worldly Beauty. Jason didn’t help. He’d taken to ruffling her hair, pinching
her cheeks, and calling her “little cousin.” She might have been afraid to cross swords with Mrs. Granger, but with Jason she gave as good as she got. Leigh Granger watched them sparring and Gwyn sensed that she didn’t like it.

She’d watched the darkness swallow up the last of the revelers’ lanterns, then she padded back to bed. It was so humiliating, she remembered thinking, to be all grown-up and yet excluded from a midnight picnic on the beach as if she were a child. What was so sinful about a picnic on the beach that she could not be included? But even if she had been invited, Grandmother Radley would not have allowed it. Why was everyone so determined to treat her as a child?

The next thing she remembered was awakening to a ferocious clap of thunder. Almost immediately, lightning streaked across the sky, turning night into day, then another clap of thunder exploded overhead. It took her a moment to come to herself, a moment to remember Jason and his friends were picnicking on the beach.

Her window was open and she quickly rose and crossed to it. She loved storms, loved the sound of the rain and the wind rattling the windowpanes, but not tonight. She stood there for a moment or two, her hands braced to close the window, and she felt a sense of doom so intense that her whole body went rigid.

Her head jerked round when she heard a door slam. A tortured cry was quickly cut off. She heard footsteps and another cry. With alarm pumping through her veins, she felt her way to the chair beside her bed, found her dressing robe, and slipped into it.

Downstairs, the lamps had been lit and Harvard, the butler, stood in the middle of the hall looking like a lost little boy. Footmen and maids were everywhere,
and the midnight revelers, some with blankets over their shoulders, all of them soaked to the skin and looking like ghosts of their former selves, were docilely being led by servants to the stairs. No one looked at her or said a word as she passed them on the way down, not even Mrs. Granger.

She scanned the faces in the great hall, but there was no sign of Jason or George. Her throat was so tight that when she came up to Harvard, she could hardly get the words out. He gave a start when she spoke to him. “Harvard, what’s happened? Where is Jason? Where is George?”

“They took a boat out, Miss Gwyneth,” he said. “Mr. Radley and Master Jason went out in the boat with some friends. Someone is missing. I don’t know who. Everyone is accounted for but Mr. Radley and his brother. They’re still searching the cove.”

What happened next was a blur of memories that ran together. Grandmother Radley and her maid, Glennings, were in the library, looking as stunned as she felt. Someone put a glass of brandy in her hand, but she couldn’t remember whether she drank from it or not. Grandmother Radley did all the talking, alternating between hope and despair. And she herself sat there silently, like a pillar of stone, inwardly making bargains with God that she could not possibly hope to keep.

An hour passed, the worst hour of her life, then they heard footsteps crossing the marble floor and they rose as one. When Jason and only Jason entered the library, Grandmother Radley let out a strangled cry. Gwyn’s knees buckled and she sank back in her chair. Jason’s face told them everything. Nothing could disguise his defeat or despair.

Gwyn felt as though her heart would break, but beneath the anguish was a well of thankfulness.
Jason
was safe
. Until that moment, she had never truly known herself or her own heart.

He had changed his clothes and was dressed in the coarse garments of a fisherman. He knelt in front of his grandmother’s chair. “I was swept overboard,” he said, “and George tried to help me. We almost made it. They were hauling us on board when another wave …” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, bitterly sorry. When I found him, it was too late.”

His grandmother recoiled as though he had slapped her. “It should have been you!” she wailed. “You’re to blame for this. George should never have gone out in a boat in the dark. He can’t swim. You should have stayed away, you and your harlots. You’re all to blame! You’re all to blame!”

Jason’s face was frozen. “I must see to my brother” was all he said, and left them.

Gwyn could never remember clearly the events following those harrowing few minutes in the library. She had vague impressions of people coming and going and talking in whispers. The doctor arrived and ordered Grandmother Radley to bed. It was much later, in her own room, that the numbness began to wear off, and as her emotions thawed, tears welled up and spilled over. She cried for George, she cried for Jason, she cried for a senseless and unfeeling world where bad things happened to good people. She cried until there were no tears left.

She didn’t know how long she lay on top of her bed, her emotions spent. She didn’t know why she eventually rose and dressed herself. She remembered thinking that in every crisis of her life, Jason had been there to comfort her. Now Jason needed her.

She went in search of him. The butler was patrolling the corridors, and she learned from him that Jason had left the house.

“Leave him be, Miss Gwyneth,” Harvard said. “He’s not himself. He needs to be alone.”

Harvard’s words sent her mind spinning. She remembered the way Jason had looked when he’d told them about George, and his stricken expression when his grandmother had lashed out at him. The sense of doom she’d experienced earlier swept back. She didn’t take time to think things through. She flew down the stairs, out of the door, and hurled herself into the night.

She found him in the abandoned fishermen’s hut on the beach, not far from the wooden staircase that descended from the top of the cliff. There was no light in that one-room shack, but light or no, she knew it was Jason.

“I thought I heard your voice.” He sounded drowsy, as though he’d wakened from a sleep.