Why did the touch feel so real? Hadn’t he grabbed her arm and brushed his thumb along the satiny surface of her wrist? Surely not. Perhaps there was a ghost at Fermoy. No other possibility made sense. Every servant he questioned said the same thing. No members of the Townsend family were in residence. And Charlotte was dead.
Perry’s own father had confirmed what the Baron Percy had told him all those years ago: an illness ravaged her body, and she was unlikely to survive. Her family had hidden her away on a family estate and refused to let him see her, regardless of how much he begged and pleaded. The baron demanded she be left in peace and for their privacy to be respected. Should she recover, she would be married off to the Viscount Dewberry. Perry had been unable to convince them to let him say goodbye or marry her on her deathbed, which he would have gladly done, despite his own betrothal. It had never occurred to him that Charlotte could be alive. Especially after his father had confirmed his worst fears, announcing that she had passed. The woman had disappeared from society, the city, and his life. There had been no mention of banns or a wedding with the viscount. Charlotte had simply vanished.
He had presumed her dead.
Had he seen her tomb with his own eyes?
No.
Had the death been announced by the family?
Not that he could recall.
Was it possible that the elder Duke of Bridgewater had lied to him? Absolutely. To what end?
The truth was tugging at his drug-addled mind. Perhaps the thoughts were simply the effects of days spent in bed in a laudanum-induced haze. Each fantasy was more improbable than the last. Hobbling on unsure feet, he groped his way back to bed, needing more time to mull over his thoughts and allow the drugs to wear off.
Either Peregrine was a fool who believed in ghosts, or something else was occurring. Perry was being haunted by a spirit who was very much alive.
Chapter Fourteen
Relieved of the grogginess fogging up his mind, Perry saw everything more clearly. Of course, he revealed none of his thoughts to the servants bustling around the room and feeding him. Well-managed servants could be the effects of a trustworthy housekeeper, of course, but the way they seemed confident in their movements and routines was suspect. This wasn’t a few servants tending to an empty home. They changed the bedding and offered to help him use the chamber pot, to which he drew the line. He was strong enough to manage himself. His arm throbbed, and he gritted his teeth as he adjusted himself back into the bed.
The doctor had given him a full inspection and was encouraged by the healing progress beneath the freshly replaced bandage. The older man’s pleased hums and pokes caused Perry to hiss a breath through his clenched teeth in pain. In a few more days, the doctor believed Perry would be well enough to travel away from Fermoy, if he so desired.
He was eager to leave this place, which evoked so many memories and stoked a familiar longing that had been banked for so long. It was making him unwell.
Obsessive almost.
He surveyed the empty room, quiet now that the servants had left him to rest. At least, that was why he had requested privacy. He needed a moment to gather his thoughts and make sense of these feelings swirling in his mind.
For reasons that escaped him, he had been shot by a mysterious blackguard that had been lurking in the shadows waiting for him—or perhaps it was a rogue bullet from a hunting rifle. Leaning his head against the fresh linens, he was struck by how helpless he was. He hadn’t kept his weapons on him and had been caught unguarded. The sooner he left this bed, the faster he could investigate who had fired that bullet.
Had someone wanted to kill him? The idea was inconceivable, and yet, here he was, lying in bed recovering after being the target of a bullet. Curling his fists into the sheets, he grunted with the pain. It reminded him that his body wasn’t completely healed. His vulnerability was humbling. At the mercy of all the servants living at Fermoy, he was pampered and coddled like a child. Safe, but struggling.
Plagued with dreams and so many memories he hadn’t touched for so long.
Parts of him ached, not from the bullet, but from a wound that had been freshly torn open when he awoke at Fermoy. The pain highlighted the depth of the sorrow that clung to his very bones. Unresolved feelings, questions that had never been answered.
Losing Charlotte had been painful, but his inability to find her, to say goodbye, to caress her skin one last time, tore through him. He had moved on—at least he thought he had. Truly.
For some precious moments, other women, alcohol, and travel with friends had helped numb the pain. Forget it, even.
Perry realized what a fool he had been. Being at Fermoy reminded him of those better days, evoked the memory of a tender touch he missed, and a sweet voice he believed silenced forever.
Had it truly been silenced?
Or had he—and all of society—been duped?
Tucked away in his luxurious bed for the last few days, with the laudanum keeping him quiet and mindless, he healed. Now, his legs pulsated with restless energy as his mind examined all the possibilities.
The woman caring for him in the night. The reverent touch across his brow. The familiar scent of gardenias haunted his feverish dreams. It was an impossibility that was somehow—possible.
Waiting for the truth to be revealed was not something Perry was willing to do. He was hungry for answers. On the verge of leaving this estate for the comforts of his own, he needed to know. To be certain.
A fire that had dulled to an indiscernible flicker of light within him was stoked into a raging blaze. Curiosity laced with anger. Had Charlotte been hiding here all these years?
How could she have been kept away for so long? If she was unwell—or at death’s door—as her father had told Perry, why was she tending to him in his moment of weakness? His breathing quickened as rage fed his spiraling thoughts.
