Chapter Three
T essa halted so quickly that Chase walked on a stride before stopping to turn back to face her. Her fingers tightened into the kerseymere sleeve of his jacket, afraid he’d simply dissolve away right then at that very moment and disappear forever. After all, he’d done just that three years ago.
She searched his face for answers. He looked older, of course, the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth having grown deeper since she last saw him. That was to be expected, given the passing of years. Even the fine hairs at his temples had turned a bit salt and pepper, just as his father’s had at his age, captured in the portrait hanging in Cuillin Castle’s great hall. The light in his eyes had dulled, although she knew that was from the loss of his wife and son. But the broad shoulders and narrow waist were the same, so were the muscular legs beneath the white breeches, along with the firm cut of his jaw and cheekbones. Physically, she would always recognize in him the same man she’d idolized as a schoolgirl.
But as for what couldn’t be seen and what mattered most… Well, apparently, he hadn’t changed at all, because he was still running away.
“If you keep staring at me like that,” Chase drawled, “everyone’s going to wonder if you’re planning to throw another drink in my face.”
“Perhaps I should.”
Oh, what a damnable arse he was! To show up here without warning, looking as confident and dashing as ever, only to make that declaration—
“Nodcock,” she bit out and snatched her hand away from his sleeve.
He blew out a breath. “Tessa, please don’t be angry.”
She wasn’t angry. No, she felt betrayed .
“I need to move on to a new life,” he explained quietly, “but I can’t do that until I put the past to rest. Which means dealing with the estate.” He paused. When he continued, his voice was a harsh rasp. “Which means dealing with Thomas and Eleanor’s possessions, and I have no idea what do with them.”
The soft evening breeze that drifted in from the open terrace doors stirred his dark curls, and for a fleeting instant, Tessa caught a glimpse of the boy he once was. The vulnerability she saw in him painfully squeezed her chest.
“I don’t know what to keep, what to give away…” He raked shaking fingers through his hair. “It doesn’t seem right to just lock it all away in storage, or to make it someone else’s problem to deal with once I’m gone.”
She stiffened. He didn’t mean gone from England. He meant once he was dead, and the terrible thought jolted through her like an electric shock.
He took her hand and placed it back on his arm, as if to continue their walk around the room. Instead of moving, though, he simply stood there, looking soberly down at her. “Nothing’s been touched since the morning they left for London. The trunks I was supposed to send on to them are still there, still packed and sitting in her bedroom and up in the nursery. I told Bates to lock up the rooms and not allow anyone to enter.” His voice grew impossibly hoarse. “That was the last order I gave before I left three years ago.”
Tessa’s eyes stung as hot tears blurred her vision until she could barely see his face.
“Maybe there are things among their belongings that you and Winnie might want.” He shook his head. “Or maybe it just makes me a coward that I can’t face that task alone. But I need you to be there, Tessa, to help me. That much I know for certain.”
She whispered, her voice almost lost beneath the noise of the dance around them, “Once the rooms have been sorted and the castle closed up, you’ll still leave as planned, though, won’t you?”
He looked away with a stiff nod.
“Then by all means, go.” Her shaking voice lacked all strength, but the words were clear. She slipped her hand away, her heart breaking. She hadn’t thought it possible for Chase to wound her again, certain that power had left with him three years ago. She was wrong. “But you’ll do it without my help.” She swallowed hard to clear the tightening knot of emotion in her throat. “I won’t help you run away again.”
Afraid her gathering tears might spill free, she spun on her heel to hurry away, only to stop abruptly as she came face-to-knot with a white silk cravat. She caught her breath and glanced up, greeted by the smiling face of Robert Renslow.
Her shoulders sank as she swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Oh, of all the rotten luck! The man possessed terrible timing.
“Mr. Renslow.” She forced a smile even as his faded. He was more than sharp enough to note her distress, although anyone could have at that moment, she supposed. “How good to see you again.”
His gaze drifted over her shoulder to Chase, and concern darkened his expression. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“You’ve interrupted nothing,” she assured him unconvincingly, her voice sounding strained even to her own ears. “His Grace and I have finished our conversation.”
He seemed dubious of her answer, yet he nodded, accepting it. “Lady Bentley said you were looking for me.”
Tessa darted her eyes across the room to the baronetess, who waved her fan encouragingly at her.
Wonderful. She rolled her watery eyes. Just what she needed at that moment—a reminder of how important this season was to her future, exemplified in the man standing in front of her. Unfortunately, he wasn’t at all the sort of man her heart wanted. That silly thing still wanted to help the man standing behind her.
“She hinted that you had an answer for me.”
An answer Tessa was in no condition to utter at that moment. “I…uh…”
Chase, that devil, stepped up beside her, although he certainly was the furthest thing from a savior, and lifted a curious brow at Robert.
She rolled her eyes at that obvious silent question. “I don’t believe you two have been introduced.” She gestured a hand at Robert. “Your Grace, may I introduce Mr. Robert Renslow? He’s in Weymouth for the season. Mr. Renslow, this is His Grace, the Duke of Greysmere.” She added beneath her breath, “He’s in Weymouth for the evening .”
And blast that deuced man that an amused grin curled his lips! She considered running for the refreshments table for another glass of water, but there weren’t enough drinks in the entire ballroom to properly drench him as he deserved.
Chase gave a nod to Robert in greeting and corrected, “For slightly longer than that. Cousin Tessa is out for the season. What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t make certain it was going smoothly for her?”
Buckets. She wanted buckets to rain down upon him.
“Cousin?” Robert asked, his surprised glance darting to Tessa. “I wasn’t aware Miss Albright had any male relatives.”
“Distant cousins by marriage,” Tessa clarified.
“But I think of her as a sister,” Chase added.
Drat that man! Not buckets—she wanted an entire bucket brigade . She dismissed any importance to his comment with a wave of her hand. “His Grace married my second cousin Eleanor,” she explained. “So we’re mostly just passing acquaintances who see each other every few years or so.”
But her explanation didn’t ease the growing tension she felt rising between the two men. A tension she couldn’t name but one she would have sworn was oddly territorial.
“I didn’t realize you had an association with a duke,” Robert mumbled.
“Then we’re even.” Chase clasped his hands behind his back and rocked onto his heels. “I didn’t realize Miss Albright had made an acquaintanceship with such an accomplished industrialist. I hear you own a factory in the Peaks.”
“I’m only a partner with a small stake, I’m afraid.” But pride laced through Robert’s answer. “Still, it’s a good venture. I’ve invited Miss Albright and Lady Bentley for a visit to see it. I’ll extend an invitation to you, as well, if you’d like.”
“That’s kind of you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
“His Grace won’t be staying in England long enough.” With that, Tessa dared Chase to contradict her. Oh, please, contradict me! Prove me wrong…
But he didn’t say a word.
Her eyes stung anew. Forget bucket brigades. She wanted to plunge him into the Channel up to his neck.
“I understand. Perhaps a future visit, then.” Robert turned a friendly smile onto Tessa. “And the answer you wanted to give me, Miss Albright?”
She couldn’t. Not here, not now…certainly not in front of Chase. She didn’t want him interfering in her life, especially when he seemed so eager to leave it.
Instead, Tessa placed her hand on his arm. “That I would be delighted to have a second dance with you, Mr. Renslow.” Ignoring Robert’s visible disappointment in that dodge of an answer, she nodded toward the dance floor. “Shall we?”
As Robert mumbled his goodbyes to Chase and led her away, Tessa didn’t dare glance back to see if Chase was watching her leave. One look from him right then would have broken her.
*
Hours later, Chase snapped out a curse at another hour spent staring up at the dark canopy overhead. He sat up in his bed and raked his fingers through his hair. Eleanor, Thomas…now Tessa. Troubled thoughts and restless dreams of all three made getting any sleep tonight impossible.
So did the old castle around him. It was dark but not quiet. From his master’s suite of rooms in the east wing, he could hear the old building groaning and settling around him, and the relentless awareness of every strange noise was maddening. So was the appearance of shifting shadows as the heavy clouds rolled in from across the water and intermittently blocked the moon.
He shouldn’t have spent the night here. He should have stayed at the hotel in town or, at the very least, in the dower house.
“Coward,” he chastised himself, then threw off the counterpane and pushed himself out of bed.
He yanked on the pair of breeches he had tossed over the settee at the end of the bed when he’d arrived back from Weymouth and didn’t bother adding a shirt or banyan as he crossed to the window. He flung open the drapes to see for himself how much of the night remained until dawn because the mantel clock had died. Its hands had frozen in place God only knew how many months—or years—ago, and no amount of winding would ever bring it back to life.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
He scanned the horizon, just as he used to do during the wars when he’d served as a mercenary with the Prussians. His formal duty had been reconnaissance, to report information on the enemy’s movements, and for that, he’d earned the nickname the Mad Duke—the man who dashed wildly about the countryside as if his life didn’t matter. But a great deal of his work had also been espionage, sabotage, and sometimes even worse. For that, he’d earned the name the Grey Wolf and the respect of not only the Prussians but all the allied armies and, grudgingly, also the French.
But on nights before every battle, he had been wide awake like this, searching the horizon for any movement. Old habits died hard, apparently. Even now, years later, he could sense the rain that would arrive in the morning, could practically smell it on the air. Just as he instinctively knew from the darkness of the sky that dawn was still several unbearable hours away.
A movement at the side of the terrace snagged his attention. A willowy figure in white moved along the edge of the lawn toward the cliffs only a few yards away.
His gut tightened as icy fingers played down his spine, and he whispered, “Eleanor…”
Yet whatever he was seeing couldn’t be her. She was dead, for God’s sake, her body lost forever to the sea. He knew that.
But he couldn’t stop himself from racing from his room and down through the dark castle. Couldn’t slow the pounding of his heart and the adrenaline coursing through his veins with every jarring beat. Couldn’t clear the pain from his mind or the tingling numbness from his limbs.
He threw open the rear terrace doors and ran outside on bare feet. Then he stopped, panting hard and deafened by the pulse drumming in his ears. The damp air bit into him, and his breath rose like a white cloud against the darkness, matching the thickening layer of fog swirling across the cliff tops and pressing in upon the castle like a specter. All was silent and still beneath the layer of clouds thickening overhead. He heard nothing, saw nothing…but he felt it. An unearthly presence that stirred the short hairs on his nape and along his bare arms.
The clouds parted. For one brief moment, moonlight sliced through the darkness, and he saw it again—a figure in white moving beside the terrace.
He started after it, hurrying down the wide stone steps toward the cliff top.
But when he reached the edge of the parterre where the grass gave way to chalk and stone beneath his feet, the moon drifted back behind the clouds, and the white figure dissolved away like the morning mist.
He hit back a curse. Christ! What he’d seen was nothing more than a mirage created by the fog and damp. A trick of the moonlight. He felt like a damned fool. The castle played tricks on everyone. Always had. He should have known it would do the same to him, especially since he’d been gone for so long. But for him to think the apparition was Eleanor…
He tilted back his head to stare up into the dark sky and rasped out, “God help me.”
In answer, the devilish blackness let loose a torrent of icy rain, soaking him through to the bone. But he didn’t feel the cold of it, didn’t notice the rivulets running down his bare back and chest, seeping into his breeches, gathering on his lashes.
He felt nothing at all.