Page 1 of The Lady’s Deception

Chapter 1

The ghost was the last straw.

Lord Dashfort’s two children, still grieving the loss of their mother, had been most unwelcoming. An orphan herself, Rosamund had tried to be understanding. She’d ignored the items that had disappeared from her trunk. Shrugged away a grimace when salt had been substituted for sugar in her tea. Swallowed her shriek of surprise when she’d found the half-dozen muddy toads in her bed—accompanied by an equally muddy set of child-sized footprints leading to and from her bedchamber.

But the spectral figure of a child drifting across the south lawn of Kilready Castle went well beyond the realm of an ordinary prank.

Within hours of her arrival at Kilready, Rosamund had begun to hear bits and pieces of the tragic story, whispered through the castle corridors in a brogue almost unintelligible to her English ear: servants’ tales of the tragic loss of Lord Dashfort’s first son, brought into the world too soon. As soon as she’d been able to travel, Lady Dashfort had left for London, declaring she meant never to return to her husband’s Irish estate. The grief-stricken earl had followed her. The servants swore he’d been driven away by the ghostly sounds of babbling in an empty nursery. In the years that had followed, the legend had grown with the lost child. Unexplained footsteps in an abandoned schoolroom, books knocked askew by an unknown hand. And now the shadowy form of a boy who walked the castle grounds on moonlit nights.

Rosamund had been accused of imagining things so often, she was inclined to doubt the proof of her own eyes. But she felt certain she was not imagining this. Not that she believed in ghosts. No, her first reaction to the sight was more disappointment than fear. She liked children. She might have bonded with Alexander and Eugenia over their shared experience of loss. Instead, the two of them had plotted and planned to give her a fright.

In the evenings, after she’d readied for bed, Rosamund often sat by the large window in her chamber, studying the choppy water of the Irish Sea. Now and again, she fancied she caught a glimpse of the neighboring island and wondered how things got on at home. The children had obviously discovered her habit.

As if expecting to find her at the window, a boy who could only be Alexander paused in his progress and looked up, his pointed face unearthly pale. An effect of the moonlight, which bathed everything it touched in pearly luminescence. Still, she shivered and clutched her shawl closer—afraid not of a specter, but of the steep cliff that lay just beyond the scrub into which the boy was now disappearing. How easily he might lose his footing and tumble into the sea. With a soft yelp of alarm, she leaped to her feet and hurried out of her room.

The stairwell, aglow with that same strange light, sent another chill through her. She refused to allow her eyes to dart into corners or to examine the oddly-shaped shadows that stretched up the walls. Her hurried footsteps whispered across the flagstones, and in a few moments she was standing on the threshold of the nursery.

Two child-sized lumps filled two child-sized beds, and in the corner their nurse nodded over some sewing. Sparing nothing more than a frown for the woman’s inattention, Rosamund stepped to the bed on the left-hand side of the room.

“Eugenia.” A whisper, but only just, and harsh with fear. “Eugenia.” A shake this time, and at last the lump stirred. “What can you and your brother have been thinking? Where is he now?”

“Xander?” Eugenia mumbled in a fair imitation of drowsiness. Tousled brown curls made an appearance from beneath the bedclothes, followed by a pair of eyes puffy with sleep. Still, Rosamund was not convinced of either the girl’s ignorance of her brother’s whereabouts or her innocence in this scheme. Though she was only just seven, she was unquestionably the leader of the pair, considerably more hardened than her soft hair and lisping voice suggested. Alexander—diffident, quiet, and hardly taller than his sister—was far too squeamish to catch toads. She could only guess what coercions had been required to convince him to take a midnight stroll across the lawn.

“What is it, Miss Gorse? Is Xenia ill?”

The sound of Alexander’s muffled voice, coming from the neighboring bed, nearly sent Rosamund to the floor.

After a few ineffectual swats, the boy managed to paw the blankets away from his face and sat up, his blond hair sticking out at all angles and his rumpled nightshirt clinging to his slight frame. Unless he had developed the powers of flight, he could not have made it to the nursery ahead of her, changed into his nightclothes, and climbed into bed. Yet there he sat.

Rosamund could not keep herself from reaching out to reassure herself he was not a specter, excusing the action by brushing the hair from his pale, pinched brow.

If Alexander was in the nursery, who—or what—had she seen on the lawn?

Had she perhaps dreamed the whole thing, dozed for a moment and fallen into a nightmare fueled by the ghoulish gossip of the castle’s servants? Her brother was always chiding her flights of fancy.

Or had the boy been a villager, bent on poaching or stealing? There seemed to be any number of desperate people in the vicinity of Kilready, and midnight was an hour for mischief. Perhaps she ought to tell someone what she’d seen. But who would believe her? And if by chance someone did, well… Justice would not be served by sending a poor child either to the noose or to New South Wales.

“Why, Miss Gorse.”

Lord Dashfort’s voice made her jerk as if struck. She turned to find him standing in the doorway of the nursery, her shawl gathered in his hands. Reflexively, she felt for it around her shoulders. When had it slipped away?

“How kind of you to come up to wish the children good night,” he said, his eyes traveling over her lightly-clad form.

“What’s this? What’s this?” The nurse bustled toward them, shaking off sleep more quickly than the children. “Who’s feelin’ poorly?”

“No one,” Rosamund said. “No one. I came because—” With a little shake, she broke off. How could she possibly explain why she’d come? What she’d seen? Or thought she had…

“Why are you here, Father?” Alexander demanded.

Lord Dashfort’s chuckle did not disguise his annoyance. “You must be half asleep, my boy. Don’t I always come and wish you and your sister good night?”

The surprised faces of both the nurse and the children persuaded Rosamund that the answer was no.

Nevertheless, Lord Dashfort approached. In a strikingly awkward economy of affection, the earl patted his son on the head with his free hand, at the same time leaning toward his daughter for a kiss. Eugenia squirmed away, her eyes still fixed on Rosamund. “Are you quite well, Miss Gorse?” she said. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

“I daresay she’s simply cold.” Lord Dashfort straightened and turned, unfolding Rosamund’s shawl as he spoke. Under pretense of assisting her with it, his arm came around her shoulders and did not leave. “Come, Miss Gorse. Let me escort you back to your chamber. It’s easy enough to lose one’s way in this old pile, especially after dark.” He paid little heed to his children’s murmured “good nights” or the nurse’s curtsy as he steered Rosamund from the room.

Several times as they walked along, she shrugged, trying and failing to dislodge his arm. “Why, you’re shivering, my dear Miss Gorse. I hope you haven’t taken a chill.”