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She pursed her lips, looking around the tower with a speculative expression. ‘What is this room?’
‘This was my mother’s private sitting room. Our old playroom, too, when we were little. She liked to keep us close to her.’
‘I like it better in daylight.’
She caught at one of the dust covers, tugging it away to reveal a blue-velvet chair, and he felt a sharp pang in his chest, struck with the memory of his mother sitting there, reading to him and Arthur. For some bizarre reason he hadn’t thought that the tower would affect him as much as the family bedrooms, but now he felt as though his heart were being gripped in a vice, so tight he could hardly breathe. Maybe it served him right for having imprisoned Violet yesterday.
‘Captain Amberton?’ She sounded concerned. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Lance,’ he corrected her, struggling to get his features back under control. ‘Yes. It’s just my leg. It hurts sometimes.’
‘Perhaps you should sit?’
‘No,’ he answered too vehemently. ‘I’m all right.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It’ll pass. It always does.’
‘If you say so.’ She looked faintly dubious. ‘In that case, I’ll forgive you on two conditions.’
‘Name them.’
‘One, if I stay, I’d like to have this room as my own. It seems a waste not to use it.’
‘Very well.’ He supposed he deserved that, too...
‘And two, whilst I’m thinking about it, you have to let me do whatever I want. No telling me where to go or watching me or even asking where I’m going. If you’re offering me freedom, then you have to prove that you mean it.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Good.’ Her eyes sparkled with a look that was borderline mischievous. ‘Because apart from yesterday I’ve never been outside in the snow before and I’d like to know what it feels like. I want to explore. If that’s acceptable to you—Lance?’
Chapter Seven
Violet kept up a dignified manner as she crossed the courtyard, waiting until she was out of sight of the front door before charging headlong through the snow towards the maze. It was harder to run than she’d expected. Her feet stuck in deep trenches every few steps, making a crunching sound that seemed especially loud in the otherwise eerie silence. The snow seemed to be muffling the real world—all the sights, sounds and smells of nature—and yet she relished the feel of it. The hem of her dress was heavy and wet, the cold air stung her face and she was panting heavily, but she didn’t care. It felt good not to be cosseted, to be outside on her own, to prove that she wasn’t so small and delicate after all.
The memory of Lance’s expression when she’d told him she wanted to go outside made her smile, too. He hadn’t been happy about it, that had been obvious, but considering what they’d just been talking about, he hadn’t been able to refuse. He’d arranged a luncheon for her first, however, still claiming not to be hungry himself, and then offered to accompany her, but she’d declined. Even if it hadn’t been for his leg, she’d needed for him to prove that he meant what he’d promised. Freedom.
She stopped at the entrance to the maze and looked back at the hall, wondering if he was watching from one of the windows, but there was no sign of anyone, not so much as a twitch of a curtain. From a distance, the building looked unreal and slightly forbidding, though that was only fitting, she supposed. Not much that had happened over the past few days seemed to make a great deal of sense, as if she’d actually slipped into a fairy tale.
The very hall seemed to belong to some imaginary realm, looking like someone’s fantasy of a medieval castle, which in fact it was. All it needed was a moat and portcullis to complete the effect. It was Lance’s mother’s fantasy made real, though Violet wondered how much the rest of her life had lived up to it.
According to Lance, it hadn’t. He’d said that his father had only married her for her money, as if there had never been any other bond between them. No romance, no comfort, no love, just money. And now he was offering her the same. Could she bear to accept such an arrangement? Could she live with it? More importantly, could she risk giving any man that much control over her life again?
She heaved a sigh. Perhaps his parents’ relationship explained the faint air of sadness that hung about the place, as if the history of the family who’d lived there had seeped into its very walls. Its current owner certainly seemed tainted with it, too. When she’d woken that morning she couldn’t have imagined feeling any emotion but anger towards him, yet when he’d mentioned his mother she’d found herself wanting to offer sympathy. Not that he’d asked for it. He’d been almost matter-of-fact about the details of his parents’ marriage, but the emotion behind the words had been palpable.
Perhaps he wasn’t quite the heartless beast she’d taken him for after all. His reputation was appalling, justifiably so by his own admission, but perhaps she’d misjudged him, too. She certainly hadn’t seen him at his best the previous night and now he seemed to want to make amends for it...
After crying herself to sleep, devastated by his accusations, she’d come down to breakfast ready to demand that someone take her back to Whitby, snowdrifts or not, but he’d actually come to find her to apologise. More than that, he’d told her that what had happened to Arthur wasn’t her fault. If there was any blame on her shoulders, he’d forgiven her and, in so doing, given her licence to forgive herself. Amazingly, she’d actually felt grateful to him.
So she’d stayed.
She turned her back on the hall finally and headed into the maze, selecting the path to her left. The snow was shallower between the hedges, the paths being better sheltered from the wind, though there was still enough that she could follow her own footprints back. Which might be a good thing, she decided, since her mind was spinning with so many emotions that she was finding it difficult to concentrate.
That was the other reason she’d wanted to come outside, to get some space to think—something that seemed impossible to do in the company of her erstwhile suitor. As much as she hated to admit it, there was something about him that seemed to disrupt her thoughts even more, not to mention her body. When he’d stood beside her that morning, first at the desk and then at the window, she’d felt as though she’d been standing too close to a fireplace. All of her nerves had seemed to tingle and vibrate at once, making her whole body pulse alarmingly. She’d avoided looking at him so he wouldn’t be able to tell.
She shivered at the memory, though not with cold. How was it possible
