His Haunted Duchess

Chapter 1

“Quick! The wheels! It’s falling!”

Screams and water pushed on her from all sides.

The liquid surged into her eyes, her throat, her ears, roaring like a lion desperate for the kill.

Caroline screamed, but water filled her mouth, stifling the noise and fueling her terror.

She thrashed with her arms, slicing her hands on the shattered carriage windowpane.

The door burst open, swirling more dark water into the void. A woman’s voice cried out in despair.

“Help! God save us!”

She had to get out. She had to get free. The urge to breathe pierced her chest. The dark water swept her forward—swirling, swirling like a dark, deathtrap top. Her head broke the surface. A dark figure came down the bank toward her, reaching out its hand.

Caroline gasped awake. Shafts of daylight peeped through the heavy curtains draped across her window. She squinted at them, relieved to be conscious but not ready yet to embrace their brightness.

Oscar yawned, flashing his long, white teeth. Caroline rubbed her temples.

“It was the nightmare again, Oscar.” She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose, steadying her heartbeat. Her hands still shook a little, but she felt better. “I should be used to it by now, I suppose.”

She tucked the dark dream further back in her mind and sat up, stretching her arms like daffodils to the sun. Nightmares had no place in such brilliant sunshine. Today was a new day. Today was—her arms fell again. The ball. Today was the first ball of the Season.

Caroline groaned and flopped back onto her pillow. Oscar, curled next to her, raised his head questioningly, the right side of his whiskers squished like a breakfast muffin.

Caroline’s stomach grumbled. It was time for breakfast.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair waved delicately around her clear, open face like shiny hawthorn branches against the morning sky. A long, lurid scar stretched from just above her right eye down to her defined jaw. She traced its line pensively.

“Maybe I really am cursed,” she muttered. “Or at least I certainly look like it.”

She tossed the old chemise into a convenient basket. Oscar, unperturbed, yawned. Caroline smiled.

“You see,” she said, moving to pat him on the head, “this is why I tell you instead of Aunt Olivia. I’d much rather have a yawn than a frown.”

A cheery knock rang on her door.

“My lady—are you awake?”

She pulled her fresh chemise into place.

“Yes, Winifred, please come in.”

Winifred did, shutting the door behind her. Oscar raised his head and meowed.

“I know, I know, dear—” Winifred said, bustling to the wardrobe. “You want her all day, but we need a share of her, too.”

Oscar stretched, splaying his legs as far onto the bedspread as he could reach.

“He’s not impressed,” Caroline smiled. “But then, I don’t think he often is.”

Winifred brushed a few blowsy curls out of her face, running her hands over several of Caroline’s more extravagant gowns. Caroline sighed.

“Surely I don’t need to dress in full ball regalia even before breakfast?” Winifred tactfully ignored her. “Is Aunt Olivia still set on going?”

“Set as the hounds on a fox,” Winifred said. “In fact, more so—the hounds can lose the fox, if it’s lucky, but your aunt won’t lose sight of this ball for anything.”

She held up a long, trailing, blue silk dress.

“It complements your eyes, dear,” she said.

And takes attention away from my scar, Caroline thought but said nothing.

She’d learned long ago to avoid talking to her lady’s maid about her deformities and associated beliefs about them.

When she mentioned the scars in Winifred’s presence, her eyes flashed like a bulrush in August. Caroline took the dress.

“It is lovely fabric,” she admitted. “It feels almost like wearing a moonbeam.”

Winifred handed her another, plainer gown—a rich Indian muslin with gold fringe at the neck and hem. Oscar batted at it.

“None of that, ferocious one,” Winifred shooed him. “We need her to wear that dress yet.”

Oscar scooted to the door, his nose in the air, whiskers twitching. Winifred helped Caroline into the muslin.

“Must I go?” Caroline asked. “Since I was a child, balls—” She stopped. “Balls have held no charm for me.”

Winifred looked at her.

“We’ll dress for the ball later. But for now, to attend your aunt—”

“Winifred! Caroline!”

Aunt Olivia’s voice echoed up the stairs like a trumpet. Winifred rolled her eyes.

“It isn’t couth to holler up the stairs like a common shepherdess, your ladyship,” she yelled back, helping Caroline slide her arms into the delicate sleeves.

“I’m not hollering, I’m raising my voice to match my exalted station,” her aunt called back. “And anyway, the breakfast is getting cold.”

Winifred finished fastening the buttons on the back of Caroline’s dress.

“Your aunt,” she said, straightening out the train, “as I have no doubt you heard, is ready for you to attend her.”

Caroline settled herself into place, left her hair pins and her dark dreams behind, and headed downstairs.

The morning light streamed through the high windows above the great hall staircase, speckling the steps with golden beams. Caroline passed through them, enjoying the temporary surge of warmth.

Oscar trailed sedately behind her until, caught at last by the entrancing gleams, he settled down on a carpeted stair to sleep.

Caroline’s steps echoed around the hall as she crossed to the breakfast room. She glanced at the letters on the entry table. Almost all of them were addressed to The Right Honorable Viscountess of Vaugh. For as long as she could remember, she’d lived with her Aunt Olivia, Winifred, and Oscar.

She had been strangely fortunate. Fortunate to have loving relatives so close who were willing to take her in. Strange in the misfortune that made that shelter a necessity.

Aunt Olivia sat at the head of the table, looking over a letter written in flourishing green ink, dark as a forest in late summer.

“Here’s good news for you, dear,” she said, cheerfully. “Lady Ethington is going to the ball tonight as well.”

Caroline’s heart dampened like a cat in fresh snow. She took her seat, keeping her eyes on the table.

“Are you certain you want to go, Aunt?”

She could feel Aunt Olivia’s eyes resting on her and tried to stem the blush rising on the back of her neck.

“I am certain,” her aunt said, putting the letter down, “though it sounds as though you might not yet be.”

Caroline picked up her napkin and spread it carefully across her lap.

“I’m not, as you are no doubt aware, inclined to balls,” she said. She closed her eyes and breathed in the heavenly aroma of plum cake and steaming tea.

“Bohea, please, Sarah—” Her aunt directed the servant. “I’m not inclined to Hyson.” She turned back to Caroline. “My dear, this first ball of the Season will be—” she checked herself “—could be a valuable opportunity for you.”

Caroline breathed in the delicious vapor rising from her teacup, trying to steady her nerves. She felt butterflies starting to flit about the tips of her fingers and the base of her stomach.

“An opportunity for me? How so?”

Aunt Olivia shot her a pointed glance.

“How specifically?” she amended. “It seems as though you may have a specific benefit in mind.”

Her aunt added two rolls and a poached egg to her plate.

“You’re—ready for this ball,” she struggled. “Ready to start searching, perhaps, for a potential husband.”

Caroline’s blush rose even higher. They had been through this discussion before, of course.

At three and twenty, what girl hadn’t? But other girls, full of bright, undaunted hopes, were not pursued by the relentless circuit of speculation and gossip her disfiguring scars stimulated. Her aunt sighed.

“I know it hasn’t been easy, dearest—” She laid her hand on the table, reaching invitingly for Caroline’s “—but you can’t always live with two old maids.”

Winifred bustled into the room. She settled into the seat opposite Caroline.

“What’s this I hear about old maids?” She flicked her napkin into place and loaded her plate with a helping of stewed beans in the same gesture. “Surely no ladies at this table.”

Aunt Olivia smiled ruefully at the lady’s maid. Long isolation and intimate connection with the family had made Winifred and her brisk opinions essential at private meals. Winifred hefted the teapot, pouring both for herself and for Caroline as she spoke.

“It’s time for you to make appropriate connections with other families—form friendships, so to speak, that could, with good timing, turn into something more.”

Caroline made a truly magnificent effort not to fiddle with her teaspoon.

“The last time—” she started, but her aunt waved her comment away.

“This won’t be anything like that, darling. Absolutely nothing like.”

Winnifred looked pointedly over the top of her teacup. Aunt Olivia glared at her.

“Do you have something to say, Winifred?”

Winifred put her cup back on its saucer and briskly loaded a piece of toast onto her plate.

“People are going to say what people are going to say—”

Aunt Olivia frowned until the corners of her mouth threatened to touch her jaw.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“And yet, the gossip will continue as gossip always does.” Winifred looked Caroline in the eyes. “Pay them no heed, dear, even as you would pay no heed if someone told you that cats belong in the stable.”

Aunt Olivia huffed.

At first, when Oscar had been but a kitten, Aunt Olivia had stated a specific preference for animals to remain outdoors.

So many years later, Oscar was as much a fixture of the home as any other element, as was a surly African grey parrot, and a velvet-eared spaniel—not to mention Khan, the sunroom monkey.

“You’ve brightened our lives in many ways, dear, especially mine,” Aunt Olivia said, much more warmly. “And,” she shot a significant glance at Winifred, “I won’t stand for anyone—public or private—saying otherwise.”

Winifred cut through a poached egg.

“That’s fortunate since you and I will most likely be sitting—I in the kitchens with a nice Negus and you in the ballroom, chatting, no doubt to Lady Engalls about horses.”

Aunt Olivia stuffed a chunk of toast in her mouth so vigorously that Caroline feared it might come out the other side. She chewed like a tanner beating out a hide, glowering from beneath her furrowed brow. She swallowed.

“The point is,” she resumed, “this ball can be a fabulous step forward for you. You’ll always be our Caroline, but I’d love to see you continue to be a lady.”

Caroline picked at a slice of toast. The daughter of the former Earl of Pranton lived on borrowed time.

Since her father’s early death, she had survived on the ample charity of Aunt Olivia.

Her aunt—while more than hale as the vigor with which she attended her breakfast testified—was not immortal.

Her cousin wouldn’t likely turn her out of her aunt’s estate, but the possibility loomed always in the far distance.

She looked out the window. The willows near the pond swayed in the morning light, brushing patterns on the patch of lawn directly in front of them.

What would it be like, Caroline wondered, to live in a place permanently?

To call somewhere a forever home? With a start, she realized her aunt was still speaking.

“It’s of utmost importance, then,” she said, gesturing with her fork as if she were laying out a battle plan, “that you attend the ball tonight.”

A flicker of panic fluttered in Caroline’s chest. She had been to balls before—been and hid. From a very young age, even supposed good breeding didn’t prevent other patrons from commenting on her scars—or, in whispers, her curse. She looked at Winifred pleadingly.

Winifred dabbed her face with a napkin.

“Strictly speaking, your ladyship, Lady Caroline would not be required to attend this ball—or technically any other this Season.”

Olivia glared at her in exasperation.

“And where else, might I ask, is she going to find a husband worthy of her station? Camp out on the grounds, will he, springing out with the crocuses in the spring?”

“Oscar would enjoy that,” Caroline laughed. “He loves a good opportunity to pounce.”

“However, dear,” Winifred continued with a gentleness that spoke to Caroline’s heart, “your aunt is correct. In paving a road to a beautiful future, this ball would be an excellent place to start.”

Caroline looked at her plate. The deep, sinking feeling hadn’t left her stomach, but a flicker of courage stirred somewhere deep within her.

“I—I did think the blue silk a lovely choice,” she said timidly.

Aunt Olivia smiled like the sun coming out from behind a storm cloud.

“That was your mother’s dress. I’m sure you’ll do her credit. She was such a beauty at your age.”

Caroline sighed and put down her napkin, too nervous to finish. At least the ball was just one night. Surely nothing too terrible could go wrong in so few hours.