Chapter Eleven
C hase leaned against the hallway wall outside Tessa’s bedroom and did his best not to snatch up the glass vase on the table beside him and hurl it down the staircase at not being allowed to see her. Damn Lady Bentley and the doctor for keeping him in the hall.
And damn himself for being fool enough to kiss her. Again.
More than kiss, in fact, and that it had happened in total darkness was no excuse. Neither was the truth—that he simply couldn’t help himself.
Tessa had been right. He had needed her, but not the way she thought. The only peace he’d found since returning to England had been when he was with her, laughing together and teasing each other, taking rides across the estate, visiting the tenants—hell, even arguing with her. She filled him with an exuberance and energy he hadn’t felt in years and long before he left for Spain. When he was with her, the guilt over Eleanor and Thomas left him, and even the grief he would always carry was lessened simply because she shared that same grief. No one else in the world understood that the way she did.
No one else in the world understood him the way she did.
He shoved himself away from the wall and once more began to pace the hallway.
She had fainted in his arms in the attic. One moment, he’d been kissing her, taking comfort in her affection and warmth, and the next, a boom of thunder frightened her so badly she’d screamed. In the flash of lightning, he saw her look down at the little ball at her foot. Then her head rolled back and her body went limp, with Chase catching her just before she collapsed to the floor. He’d scooped her into his arms and hurried with her downstairs to her room, shouting for Lady Bentley and ordering Bates to fetch a doctor.
The ball… she’d whispered as he laid her on her bed, her eyes still closed, half-unconscious. Thomas’s ball…
You knocked it off one of the trunks behind you when you backed into them, he’d told her as he deftly unfastened the buttons at the back of her bodice to loosen her clothes and make it easier for her to breathe. As with everything that happened in the attic, there had been a rational explanation. Well, for almost everything. There are no such things as ghosts.
But her eyes didn’t open, and the sight of tears clinging to her lashes nearly broke him.
There hadn’t been time for any more explanations or assurances—or begging of forgiveness. Lady Bentley shooed him from her room when the physician arrived and left him to pace in the hall while the doctor examined her, waiting impatiently for any word on her condition or when he could see her.
Dr. Anderson was in the room with her now. The curmudgeonly old man had arrived half an hour ago, not at all pleased to be forced out into the bad weather for a house call, even upon request of a duke.
The door opened, and Chase spun on his heel to glance into the room as the doctor exited. He could just see around Lady Bentley’s portly frame to find Tessa sitting up in bed, her pallid face as colorless as her white night rail. Her chestnut hair had been gathered loosely over her left shoulder, and her normally sparkling eyes were hollow.
“Tessa?” Chase called out gently.
Their eyes met, and her lips parted with a breath of apprehension, her fingers tightening on the counterpane tucked around her.
His chest tightened at the sight of the normally vivacious woman now appearing so fragile. “Are you all—”
Lady Bentley scurried to close the door in his face with a perturbed grimace that he was still lurking in the hallway.
Chase heaved out a harsh breath that did little to mute the curse that came on its heels. Of all the moments for the baronetess to finally become a good chaperone, she’d picked the very worst one. Tessa had been harmed, and it was his fault. Helplessness ate at him.
“I’ll give my bill to Bates, shall I?” Dr. Anderson called out from behind him in the hall.
Chase wheeled to face him and demanded, “How is she?”
“Oh, she’s fine. Fatigued from her fright, but otherwise just fine.” Anderson’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Most women faint several times in their lives, and almost all recover with no lingering problems. One would think it was contagious based upon the number of times they fall into a man’s arms at opportune moments.”
That wasn’t Tessa. She was one of the most composed women he’d ever met, not some society cake of a miss who swooned at every mild upset. No, she had suffered a serious fright in the attic, one that rocked her to her core, and this conversation was doing little to put Chase at ease about her condition.
“Delicate constitutions,” the gray-haired physician confided. “Nothing to be done about it. They’re born that way.”
Chase bit back a laugh. Anderson didn’t know Tessa if he thought that. Or many women at all, for that matter.
“Here.” The doctor gave him a vial of white powder. “For frazzled nerves. One teaspoon in a glass of water should do nicely.”
“Thank you. I’ll give it to Mrs. Kennings so she can make up a dose when Tessa needs it.”
“Oh no! Not for Miss Albright.” Anderson leaned in and raised his wooly white brows. “For you , my dear boy. Living in a house full of females isn’t for the faint of heart!”
Then the old physician muttered his goodbyes and sauntered away toward the stairs.
Chase scowled at the vial and set it on the hall table.
The door opened, and he started forward. But Lady Bentley stepped out into the hall, blocking his way. He pulled up short, gaining only a fleeting glimpse of Tessa before the woman closed the door after her.
“Dr. Anderson has prescribed a course of bed rest for the remaining afternoon and evening,” Lady Bentley informed him. “I’ll ask Mrs. Kennings to send up dinner trays for us to have in her room.”
Us. Chase wasn’t at all certain that having Lady Bentley at Tessa’s side would prove restful. Even prisoners of war were given better quarter than that. But he knew not to utter that aloud and nodded his agreement. “Of course.”
“We’ll be returning to Weymouth in the morning.”
His heart skipped. “Pardon?”
“Staying here isn’t good for her nerves.” Her voice lowered slightly. “Too much here reminds her of Eleanor, which was certainly the cause of today’s upset.”
No, it wasn’t. He knew better.
“And the isolation of the castle omits her from too much of the town’s entertainments.”
In other words, it was inconvenient for Mr. Renslow to properly court her all the way out here in the countryside. “I understand.”
“Good. So we’ll take our leave in the morning after breakfast.” Her gaze firmly held his, so as to make certain there would be no misunderstanding when she added, “There’s no need for you to accompany us back to town.”
In other words… Please stop interfering in Tessa’s plans to find a husband . Chase repeated, this time more quietly, “I understand.”
“No!” Winnie’s voice rang out from behind Chase, and he turned to find her standing in her room behind her half-opened door where she’d been eavesdropping. “I don’t want to leave. I like being here and having Chase with us.”
She ran to him and grabbed his hand. The pleading look she sent him to overrule Lady Bentley was a gut punch. But he couldn’t do as she wanted.
“You have to listen to Lady Bentley,” he said gently as he lowered himself onto his boot heels in front of her. “She’s right about this.”
“No, she isn’t.” She gave a determined lift of her chin, despite the watery glistening in her eyes. “This place is wonderful.”
Lady Bentley pressed her lips into a hard line and interjected. “Your sister believes it’s haunted.”
“Which is what makes it so wonderful!”
Chase said nothing. It was hard to argue with logic like that.
“I’m just now learning to hit the targets at archery,” Winnie continued, “and Mr. Tanner said he’d give me riding lessons and teach me how to jump.” She wisely avoided mentioning learning to shoot.
“There are horses in Weymouth,” Lady Bentley replied.
“None I get to ride,” Winnie grumbled.
“We’ll get you a dance master who can give you lessons on how to waltz. Won’t that be fun?”
She stubbornly crossed her arms. “Only if I can waltz on horseback!”
Chase bit back a very inappropriate laugh at that.
“We are leaving in the morning,” Lady Bentley restated, putting an end to the argument. “Now, Winifred, go back into your room and pack your things.”
Winnie let out a loud, plaintive whine, but she turned on her heel and did as she was told, although at an impossibly slow speed.
“I am grateful for your hospitality, Your Grace,” Lady Bentley said, straightening her spine, as if she had to convince herself as well as him of her decision, “but our place is in Weymouth.” Her eyes softened with a touch of sadness. “Tessa has enough to deal with as it is, and I am fighting an uphill battle to find her a good match.” A melancholy smile tugged at her lips but never fully blossomed. “As a former soldier yourself, I’m certain you can appreciate the difficulty in that.”
He gave a stilted nod. “I’ll ask Mrs. Kennings to send up one of the maids to help you pack.”
“Thank you.” With that, she disappeared back into Tessa’s room and left him standing there in the hall, like a damn fool.
With a grimace, he headed downstairs. Everything was going wrong. He hadn’t planned on trouble like this when he decided to close up the castle and put his affairs in order. Not even when he asked for Tessa’s help. It was only packing , for God’s sake! How muddled up could packing become?
“Like a nest of adders,” he muttered to himself as he strode toward the study and the new bottle of cognac waiting for him. A bottle? Hell, he needed the entire bloody—
“Your Grace!”
Chase halted in the doorway as Mr. Porter came to his feet from the chair in front of the desk where he had been waiting. The round solicitor flashed him a beaming smile and clutched at his leather portfolio. Behind him on the desk sat a half-empty glass of liquor, the newly opened bottle of brandy next to it.
“Mr. Porter,” Chase returned, keeping in check his aggravation. “Did we have an appointment?”
He shook his balding head. “I have the first report on the financial tasks you gave me, and I thought I would bring it to you personally.” His smile faded. “I don’t think it will be as good as what you’d hoped.”
Of course not. Nothing good seemed capable of coming from this day.
In resignation, Chase poured himself a glass of cognac. “The news must be especially bad to bring you out in this weather.”
“Terrible, actually,” the solicitor admitted, when Chase gestured for him to retake his seat. He reached for his glass and helped himself to a healthy swallow. “I was hoping to go over the initial figures with you, to find out if you still wanted to go forward with your plans once you saw them.”
With a nod for the solicitor to proceed, Chase sank into the leather chair behind the desk and did his best to portray an expression of relaxed nonchalance even though his gut was twisting into coiled knots. He leaned back, kicked out his long legs, and swirled his glass as if he no longer wanted the cognac, when what he wanted to do was drink himself to the bottom of the bottle and then hurl the empty thing out the window.
Porter opened his portfolio and cleared his throat as he pulled out a sheet of paper covered with scribbles and figures. “I contacted the land agents at the larger Greysmere properties and local solicitors at the villages nearest the smaller holdings, sending them a set of questions regarding the income, assets, accounts—those sorts of things—to learn what kind of value each held, if it would be better to sell them whole or piecemeal.” He squinted through his spectacles at the sheet. “The return information was not as good as I had hoped.”
“Terrible, you said.”
Porter gestured toward Chase’s glass in encouragement for him to take a drink. When Chase only returned his gaze, unmoving, he said bluntly, “You just might be the poorest duke in England. Certainly the most indebted. And your agents in London confirmed it by messenger yesterday.”
Chase took a healthy swallow. “How much?”
“Once the debts are all paid in full, the properties’ mortgages settled, everything else set for auction…” Porter shrugged. “Thirty-five thousand pounds at most.”
Chase nearly laughed that a title as old as Greysmere could be worth so little.
“As you know, you can’t touch the entailed properties like Cuillin and the London house or any of their associated assets and funds.” Porter shuffled through the papers. “As for the unentailed properties, most were either mortgaged by your father or were leveraged when he inherited to take out loans to cover the outstanding debts from your grandfather. Most likely, he thought he could make the properties profitable again. That didn’t happen. In fact, his oversight only made things worse.” He leafed through more pages, found the one he was looking for, and scanned it. “Apparently, there are still outstanding accounts at Chippendale and Wedgwood, among others.”
Chase couldn’t help but glance toward the place on the fireplace where he used to keep miniatures of Eleanor and Thomas before the shipwreck. Sins of the father…
“Now, half the properties will result in a loss if sold, causing you to incur even greater debt due to losing their income, which currently offsets the accumulating interest on the liens.” Porter’s voice lowered into a preoccupied mumble. “Had your father had me to assist him, however, I could have steered him clear of the contractual pitfalls.”
Chase let a grim smile pull at his lips. “You would have been around ten years old at the time.”
Porter grumbled beneath his breath, “And still a better solicitor than the one he hired.”
“And the other half of the properties?” Chase asked, bringing the conversation back to task.
“Will barely eke out any profit at all, except that you’ll no longer be responsible for taxes and upkeep.”
“You said thirty-five thousand. Where is that amount coming from?”
“Mineral rights from an obscure property you own in Wales.” Porter found the listing on the third sheet. “Bontddu.” He tapped it with his finger and glanced up. “Apparently, there’s an old Roman mine on the land that still produces enough gold to interest buyers in the property.”
Romans. Chase fought not to roll his eyes. For Christ’s sake, his future had come down to togas and Caesars.
“Fine,” he told Porter. “Proceed with selling the mine and whatever properties won’t dig me deeper into debt, however you see fit.”
Porter nodded, happy to finally have a Duke of Greysmere trusting in his skills. He returned the pages to his portfolio and snapped it closed, then finished his drink in one last swallow and pushed himself out of his chair. “I’ll place an advertisement for the mine in the Times .”
“Thank you.”
“Good day, Your Grace.” With a curt nod, he started toward the door.
Thirty-five thousand… Nothing for a dukedom, yet a fortune for the average Englishman. And more than enough to keep him in luxury on the Continent for the rest of his days. That was all that mattered.
No. Not all that mattered, not anymore.
He sat up in his chair. “Porter, a moment.”
The solicitor stopped. “Yes?”
“There’s something else I need your help with.” He rose to his feet as the solicitor returned to the desk. “You’re aware that I’m related by marriage to Miss Tessa Albright and her sister Winifred?”
“Ah, yes! The Albright misses.” Porter chuckled to himself as he came slowly back to the desk. “Lovely ladies, but that younger one is a handful.”
So is the older one. “I want to make certain they’re taken care of. I want to give them funds.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen thousand pounds.” He paused a moment to consider the idea. “Each.”
Porter gaped at the amount, then cleared his throat and darted a glance down at his empty glass, as if hoping it had somehow magically refilled itself. “Isn’t that amount a bit grand for dowries?”
“Not dowries.” Chase pressed his right fist against the small of his back and stepped his feet shoulder-width apart. It was one of the many positions Titus had taught him to assume whenever he wanted to feel in control. Like now. Something about the stability of the pose grounded him the way few other positions did. “Trusts. Ones that will pay out an annual allowance over the course of their lifetimes and ensure them a comfortable, safe home.” He paused to punctuate his point. “Ones their husbands cannot ever touch, should they decide to marry.”
Porter chuckled at the idea. “With those kinds of funds, they might decide never to marry at all.”
If that was their choice, so be it. But that wasn’t Chase’s intent. The memory of Tessa on Robert Renslow’s arm flashed unbidden through his head—Well, not completely his intent anyway. He didn’t know why the idea of Tessa marrying someone like Renslow should eat at him, but it did. More than he wanted to admit. That money would ensure she could marry whomever she wanted, including for love, or not at all.
“Should any remainder be left to their children?” Porter asked.
Instantly, the image in his head changed to Tessa cradling a newborn babe lovingly in her arms, then looking up at the father with a look of pure joy on her beautiful face. Chase had no idea who she was looking at so adoringly, but he knew instinctively it wasn’t Robert Renslow.
“The ladies can decide that later,” Chase muttered, kneading at a knot of tension suddenly clenching his nape. “Can you create such trusts?”
“Of course.” Porter frowned. “But you do realize, don’t you, that with that large of funding, you’ll only have five thousand pounds left for yourself.” The solicitor paused for emphasis. “For the rest of your life.”
“Spain is cheaper than England.” The damned knot wouldn’t ease. “I’ll live like a king there.”
“Perhaps, if you’re careful with your finances, but you’ll never be able to live like a duke in England again,” Porter warned. “There will be no returning home to your old life, or at least no money upon which to do it.”
“That’s not a concern.”
“Perhaps not now. But there’s no telling what the future will bring.” He paused meaningfully. “I advise you consider the idea carefully, Your Grace, because setting up those trusts to help the Albright ladies might very well mean impoverishing yourself.”
“I only want to protect them.”
“A noble idea, truly.” Porter’s gaze softened sympathetically behind his spectacles. “But how much protection can you provide if you bankrupt yourself in the process?”
Chase blew out a hard breath and relented. “All right. I’ll wait until we have a final tally before I make a decision.”
Porter’s shoulders eased down, visibly relieved at the compromise. “A good choice, sir. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have any offers on the mine.”
The solicitor mumbled his goodbyes with a small incline of his head as he left.
Chase carried his glass to the window and stared out across the deer park and gardens behind the castle. A layer of oppressive clouds sealed over the estate like a blanket, seeming to turn the whole world to nothing but shades of gray and dirty white. The pouring rain had mellowed into a steady cold drizzle, punctuated by an occasional peal of thunder rolling in from the horizon.
When he was a child, he had thrilled at such storms, begging his tutor to let him experience them from the battlement on top the central castle tower. From there, he had unobstructed views of the water as the surf pounded against the rocks and as the waves churned in an angry boil, of the wind as it whipped the trees in the park, of the clouds that sped across the sky as if they were being chased. He had loved the excitement of experiencing such powerful displays of nature, loved how it made him feel so small in comparison yet also part of it, loved how the rain soaked his clothes and the electricity prickled his skin. Even as an adult, such storms had made him feel alive.
All that changed with the shipwreck, in one of the worst storms that area of the coastline had ever experienced. He wasn’t so obtuse not to recognize that part of the reason he wanted to return to Spain was for its warmth and sunny weather. Far fewer thunderstorms there on its Mediterranean coast.
Far fewer reminders of all he’d lost.
He turned away from the window and snatched up the iron poker at the fireplace to stir the coals into small flames. Staring down at the fire and cursing himself, his hand went to his pocket almost of its own volition, to touch the tin soldier he carried there and take a modicum of whatever comfort he could find. He’d lost his mind in the attic when the lanterns had gone out and the darkness covered them. All he knew at that moment was Tessa’s nearness and that she needed him to protect her, even if only from the darkness.
But then, what he was doing became more than simple protection. More than kisses and touches, what she offered was a chance for absolution for his sins—all of them, even those he’d committed long before the wreck and long before he married Eleanor. He had needed her, and not physically. The girl whose friendship he’d always enjoyed had become a woman whose presence was simply irresistible. She possessed a spark of life and an exuberant energy he craved because it was missing from his own life. The past three years had beaten it out of him.
That was the problem. No other woman in his life had ever stirred such feelings in him that he might be forgiven, that he deserved to be granted absolution…that he could be saved.
Yet no matter how much he wanted exactly that, he knew he didn’t deserve forgiveness.