It was too late to turn back now. Lady Clifford had gone to a good deal of trouble to see this thing arranged, and in any case, Cecilia’s business was with Lord Darlington’s servants. If his lordship had any secrets to hide, his servants would know them. Her task was to shake those secrets loose, then return to London without ever crossing paths with Lord Darlington at all.
Molly didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue. “All right, then. My father won’t set foot on Darlington Castle’s grounds, but we’ll take ye as far as we can in the wagon.”
“Thank you.” Cecilia reached for Molly’s hand and gave it a grateful squeeze.
Molly shook her head. “I hope ye don’t live to regret it, Miss Cecilia.”
What an unfortunate choice of words.
Cecilia hoped she did live to regret it, but she didn’t give voice to the insidious whisper inside her head. Instead she followed Molly across the street toward the knot of wagons and carts, dragging her case along behind her.
* * * *
Dusk came upon them quickly, as it tended to do during wintertime in England, but there was enough light for Cecilia to make out Darlington Castle in all its distressing, blood-curdling glory.
God in Heaven. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but if any stray phantoms or wraiths did happen to be floating about in the February mists, this was the castle they’d choose to haunt.
“Grim old pile, innit it?” Molly, who was seated on the far side of the wagon, leaned across Cecilia to get a better look.
“Grim enough. The portcullis looks as if it might eat one alive.” Cecilia gaped at the monstrosity sprawled out before her, and a shiver darted down her spine. She wished with all her heart she was exaggerating, but that portcullis looked like nothing so much as a set of gaping jaws, the pointed iron teeth lined up in a row across the bottom of the latticed grill. If looked as if it were just waiting to snap closed on anyone foolish enough to venture beneath it.
If the first portcullis didn’t sever limb from body, the second one surely would, because if the blackened stone and shadowy courtyard beyond that gaping maw weren’t sinister enough, Darlington Castle had a double portcullis.
A double moat, as well.
The Marquess of Darlington was not, it seemed, the trusting sort, but then if the rumors about him were true, he had a great deal to hide.
“How deep is the moat, do you suppose?” Cecilia fought to suppress another shudder as her gaze fell on the dark, sluggish water under the drawbridge. God only knew what nightmares were lurking in those dreary depths.
Deep enough to hide a body? The Marchioness of Darlington’s body, for instance?
“Not more than a fathom,” said Mr. Hinshaw, Molly’s father.
Only a fathom? That wasn’t so very deep. Certainly not deep enough to hide a—
“Darlington Lake is said to be much deeper,” he added, before Cecilia had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. “But I couldn’t tell ye how deep.”
There was a lake, as well? How many bodies of water did one marquess need?
One for every wife he murders.
Cecilia swallowed, cursing her penchant for gothic horror novels, which had been all very well until she’d stumbled into one.
Molly covered Cecilia’s hand with hers. “It’s not too late to change yer mind.”
Cecilia cast one last fearful look at the wide, yawning jaws guarding the cavernous courtyard beyond, straightened her shoulders, and, with a bravado she was far from feeling, stuck her chin in the air. “No, no. I’ve given my word, and I won’t turn coward now.”
Mr. Hinshaw and Molly glanced at each other, but Mr. Hinshaw came down from his seat, retrieved Cecilia’s case from the back of the wagon, and reached up to help her down. “We’ll wait until you’re inside. If ye do change your mind beforehand—”
“That’s kind of you, Mr. Hinshaw, but please don’t wait on my account.” Cecilia could see the man wished himself and his daughter far away from here, and in any case, she might lose her nerve and flee Darlington Castle if she knew she had such a ready escape.
She took the hand Mr. Hinshaw offered before she could change her mind, leaving the safety of the wagon behind, and paused at the long stone bridge leading onto Lord Darlington’s property.
Mr. Hinshaw handed over her case. “We won’t go until you’re past the portcullis, leastways.”
“To make certain it doesn’t devour me?” Cecilia attempted a smile as her nerveless fingers wrapped around the handle of her case. “Well, then I’d best get on with it, hadn’t I?” She waved to Molly and Mr. Hinshaw, then stepped forward. The heel of her boot struck the wooden boards of the bridge with a hollow thump.
It didn’t feel like a single step so much as a leap into the unknown, but Cecilia continued to put one foot in front of the other until she was standing at the edge of a second bridge—this one the narrow footbridge that led to the portcullis.
She allowed herself one glance over her shoulder, but the wagon was hidden behind the tall, thick hedge that surrounded the castle grounds. After a single wary glance at the iron teeth above, Cecilia stepped onto the drawbridge. She took one step, another, looking neither to the right or left, her gaze focused on the tips of her boots.
Don’t look at the moat.
Another step, another, until she passed through the darkened courtyard and into another world.
Chapter Two
The frozen leaves crunched under Gideon’s feet as he broke through the tree line and strode onto the formal castle grounds.
Dusk was descending, throwing gloomy shadows across the gardens and the rose walk, but it wasn’t yet dark. The dying glimmers of a pale winter sun caught at the rippling surface of Darlington Lake. Beside it he could just make out the gray stones of the courtyard. Darlington Castle itself loomed over the scene like a hulking beast, casting everything it touched into darkness.
It looks like a nightmare.
He hadn’t always thought so. There’d been a time not long ago he’d thought of the castle as his home, but one nightmare had toppled into another this past year, like a row of cursed dominoes, and Darlington Castle had somehow tipped over into the chasm.
This time, the nightmare was ghosts. And why not? Once a lady’s tragic death became a murder and her husband a murderer, a vengeful ghost made sense, the inevitable next step from one nightmare into the next. He’d say this much for the villagers of Edenbridge—they kept their rumors in the proper order.
Gideon didn’t believe in ghosts…or, no. It was more truthful to say he hadn’t given ghosts any thought at all, other than to consider phantoms, specters, and disembodied spirits figments of fevered imaginations only, an invention of harassed nursemaids and exhausted governesses, meant to frighten children into obedience.