The carriage cameto a halt before a sprawling Tudor estate, gated, surrounded by thick hedges that might as well have been made of stone. As the gate was closed behind the vehicle, she felt Grace Durham tense beside her. “Are you certain this isn’t some sort of scheme?”
“What sort of scheme would it be?” Caris demanded.
Grace shrugged. “I wish I knew. But this house is quite terrifying.”
“It’s imposing,” Caris corrected. In truth, Grace’s description was more accurate. The house was terrifying, but it felt somehow disloyal to the now departed Mrs. Denworthy to say so. Hayton House had been her childhood home, after all, though she’d rarely spoken of the place. Recalling how the elderly woman had protested when her stepchildren had banished her to it and claimed the townhouse for themselves, she felt a frisson of fear. Because it hadn’t simply been that she didn’t want to return. It had seemed to her, even at that time, that Mrs. Denworthy had been frightened beyond reason. Frightened enough that perhapsthe return to Hayton House might even have hastened her death.
When the carriage halted before the wide stone steps flanked in their rose brick balustrades, they disembarked with far more hesitation than was seemly. And as she reached the top step, she felt the overwhelming sensation of being watched. Glancing about, she noted the lone figure of a dark-haired man standing before a window to what was likely a drawing room or study. Despite the intensity of his stare, Caris felt that wasn’t the source of her discomfort. Then, beside her, Grace gasped.
Caris followed Grace’s gaze to an upper window in one of the towers and noted the outline of a woman, her shape little more than shadow behind the glass. A shiver raced through her. What sort of place was it they had come to?
Chapter One
From inside thestudy of Hayton House, Lord Felix Graves, Viscount Grimsleigh, watched the approach of Miss Caris Fortune and her companion. In her borrowed black garb, as evidenced by the fact that the sleeves of the gown were a good two inches too short for her arms, she was not what he had expected. The letter he carried in his pocket, written in a trembling scrawl, contained the last communication between himself and his marital aunt, Mrs. Edith Denworthy. Her late husband had been his mother’s elder brother, but he’d spent far more time with Edith than he had with his own mother who simply hadn’t bothered with him. Edith had been a different sort, kind and caring when others had been cold and distant. And that, perhaps, was why he was even entertaining the mad proposition that had been put before him.
Thinking of his aunt and her suffering with the terrible palsy that had ultimately proven too much for her, he grimaced. He should have spent more time with her. But he despised Hayton House. Loathed it, in fact. And it would go to the next male in the Hayton line, a distant cousin of hers, no doubt, and he was glad of it. If he never had to step foot inside those shadowed walls ever again, he would be quite relieved.
Focusing on the companion once more, he saw the pair of them stop, saw their eyes drift upwards toward that infernaltower. He knew what they saw, what lurked there, what had invaded his nightmares since childhood.
Turning away from the window, he saw the door to the drawing room open. Mr. Fitzsimmons stood there, his lean frame vibrating with a kind of tension that only the most driven and focused of men could muster; he waited for whatever pronouncement was to come.
“Miss Fortune has arrived along with her friend and chaperone. We are waiting only for the Denworthys, and heaven knows they will be late in arriving.”
“They do like to make an entrance,” Felix noted. “Has Miss Fortune been apprised of what is to come?”
Mr. Fitzsimmons looked away. “No. Per your aunt’s instructions, I have not shared the details with her… not about the contingencies of the will or the peculiarities to be found here at Hayton House. She thought it was best the girl not be forewarned.”
Lest she should be forearmed, he thought somewhat bitterly. It felt underhanded to keep such pertinent details to himself, but that was what his aunt had requested. Violating the wishes of a dead woman seemed equally wrong.
“We will read the will after dinner,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “I think, under the circumstances, it would behoove you to make yourself known to her and attempt, my lord, to muster whatever charm you possess.”
That was damn little, he thought. It was difficult to be charming when one was weighted down under the burden of debt and the threat of ruin.
*
Caris had thoughtstepping inside the house might change her instantaneous response to it—that the interior would perhapsnot match the exterior and her misgivings would seem nothing more than silly fantasies fueled by too many gothic novels and an overactive imagination. Alas, that was not to be. The dark wood panels, heavy beamed ceilings, and red clay floor tiles—interspersed with mortar now blackened with age—did nothing to alleviate anyone’s discomfiture. If anything, it only underscored her unease.
“Miss Fortune.” A tall, lean man in a well-tailored though not overly fashionable coat and waistcoat stepped forward. He was handsome in a hawkish sort of way, with sharp features and eyes that seemed to see everything at once. And presently, though he was speaking to her, his gaze was locked on Grace. “I am Mr. Fitzsimmons, Mrs. Denworthy’s solicitor. I do apologize for the short notice. I was only just made aware that my notice did not reach you yesterday as intended, but only arrived today due to… a lapse in duty of one of the servants here.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right. Misunderstandings and lapses occur quite regularly for most of us. That is what makes us human,” Caris observed, somewhat confounded by the man’s very stiff manner.
“You are a remarkably gracious young woman to accept the inconvenience of it with such ease.” He paused then and looked back in the direction from whence he’d come. “Ah, if it pleases you, Miss Fortune, I should introduce you to a relation to Mrs. Denworthy. Her nephew by marriage, the stepson of her sister, Lord Felix Graves, Viscount Grimsleigh.”
In the doorway behind the solicitor stood the same gentleman she’d seen in the windows. Dark haired, tall, and broad shouldered with a build that implied controlled power and strength. He was, Caris thought somewhat gloomily, far more handsome than she’d accounted for after that initial vision of him through aged, wavy glass. His features were finely sculpted, strong, and quite reminiscent of Roman statuary she’d seen atthe museums in town. And he was staring at her most peculiarly. Likely trying to discern why he was being introduced to someone of her class.
“And, my lord, may I present Miss Caris Fortune? She was companion to your aunt while she resided in London, before her… removal to Hayton House.”
“Exile,” the viscount corrected. “She was exiled here.”
At that correction, Caris had to reconsider her initial impression of him. Perhaps he saw and understood more than she had initially given him credit for.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Fortune. My aunt spoke very highly of you in her letters to me. She was most disappointed that you were not permitted to accompany her when she was sent to Hayton House for her… I cannot bring myself to call it convalescence when it was well established she would not recover,” he added.
“Indeed, it was well established, and I was quite heartsick at not being permitted to join her. She spoke highly of you, as well, my lord,” Caris managed to say past the lump in her throat. Mrs. Edith Denworthy had been thrown out of her home, packed off to an estate on the outskirts of the city, far from any acquaintances who might call on her and provide her company and comfort as she faced her death. Even she, a hired companion, had been barred from seeing the woman. The Denworthy children, Mrs. Denworthy’s stepchildren, had banished a frail and elderly woman to die alone in a house she despised. It was unconscionable.
“Sellersby, the butler, will show you both to your rooms… there is an adjoining suite that should do nicely for you,” Mr. Fitzsimmons stated. “Also, the servants here, Sellersby included, tend to be… superstitious. Ignore them. When you’ve refreshed yourselves, tea and a light repast will be served in the conservatory at half past. I cannot say when dinner will beserved as we are at the mercy of the Denworthys. Nothing can be done until they arrive.”
It wasn’t the first time that they’d inconvenienced an entire household on little more than their own selfish whims.
