Chapter Eight
C arys walked away from her agonizing conversation with Dunstan immediately questioning whether she’d made the right decision to stay away from him. Their friendship had never been a cause of trouble or turmoil before. In truth, it was the family and their incessant meddling that was the crux of the problem.
But there was no going back, now that her feelings were beginning to creep out of the locked chamber in her heart where she’d kept them. There was no denying that more than mere friendship hovered between her and Dunstan, just waiting for the right moment to leap up and surprise them.
She felt a bit foolish that she’d never noticed it before. Or perhaps she had, but things had been so lovely between the two of them that she hadn’t wanted to risk breaking what was already there.
Either way, it was over now. At least, for the time being. Once yuletide was over and the rest of the family departed, she and Dunstan might be able to discuss whatever it was between them and come to an amiable way for them to continue without hurting each other.
She wasn’t satisfied with that thought, but neither did she have time to do anything about it. She had been right when she’d told Dunstan there was still much to be done to prepare for the ball that evening. First and foremost, the castle still hadn’t been completely cleaned. The great hall was in as pristine a shape as it was going to get, especially since all the furniture had been removed to make it into a ballroom. The library and all the parlors near it were still something of a disaster, though.
“We can assist with the tidying in here,” Minnie insisted once the family had quit the breakfast room and retired to the library. “We are the ones who removed all the books from the shelves, after all.”
“Perhaps the ball guests should be banned from the library,” Lord Lawrence suggested. His kind expression for Carys hinted that he felt guilty for the scene that had been made in the breakfast room.
“Oh, guests will most certainly be banned from the library,” Lord Waldorf said, wandering over to join the conversation. “But just try forbidding any guest from wandering down this hallway and see what happens.”
Lord Waldorf was right. Whether they were asked to keep to the great hall or not, any guests that arrived for the Godwin Castle Christmas ball would inevitably attempt to sneak around the castle, exploring every room whose door was not locked. The castle had become something of a legend, and it was simply the way of things that when people found themselves faced with a legend, they would attempt to learn its secrets.
The entire Godwin family discovered as much when guests began to arrive well before the invitations had asked them to.
“The roads were smoother than we anticipated,” a certain Lord Harold Charlton said, his expression betraying his lie as he and his wife arrived before supper. Not that the family had planned to enjoy a structured supper in the dining room at any rate. “We figured it was better to proceed than to wait on the road somewhere.”
Lord Harold and his wife weren’t the only ones who were surprised by the ease of their journey.
“It is as if we were all fated to arrive early,” Lady Melba Natterly laughed as she herded her three daughters through the castle’s front hall and along the corridor to the great hall. “Smooth sailing the entire way, as it were.”
“You are quite welcome at Godwin Castle,” Dunstan greeted every one of the early guests as if they had arrived precisely when they were expected. “Do make yourselves at home.”
He escorted each new set of arrivals into the great hall then returned to stand guard beside the large front door so many times that guests began to mistake him for the butler. One grey-haired lady even handed over her thick wrap, as if he were a footman.
“Let me take that from you,” Carys whispered, stepping up behind Dunstan and taking the wrap.
Dunstan pivoted to hand it to her. Their eyes met and their hands brushed as the garment was transferred between them.
Carys’s throat squeezed with emotion at the forbidden interaction. They had agreed to keep apart. She had suggested it. It was madness for her to regret that decision now, or to allow her heart to run away and tell her fairy tales with just the slightest look between them.
She forced herself to turn away and leave Dunstan to greet more guests as she carried the wrap away to the parlor where such things were being kept for the duration of the ball.
That was not the end of her awkward interactions, however.
“Are you one of the new ladies Godwin?” a matronly woman with her hair pulled so tightly into her style that it gave her a look of perpetual shock asked her.
“Oh, no, madam,” Carys said, laughing and curtsying. “I am the housekeeper.”
The woman, who held a lorgnette, raised the instrument to her eyes so that she might have a better look at Carys. “You are not dressed as a housekeeper,” she pronounced. “Did you steal that gown and that brooch from your employer?”
A sharp snap of anger filled Carys. She rested a hand protectively over her Weatherby brooch.
“No, madam,” she said, fighting to maintain her composure. “This brooch is an heirloom in my family.”
“And the gown?” the woman asked, her tone highly suspicious.
“I insisted she wear it,” Lord Gerald said, coming to her rescue just as Carys’s temper was about to get the better of her. “It suits her, does it not?” he asked the guest.
“I cannot believe you would dress up a mere housekeeper as if she were a guest,” the woman said with a sniff, turning away from Carys.
The slight stung, but Carys did her best to ignore it.
The matter would not be pushed aside, though.
“What possessed you to wear such a gown to the family’s ball?” Edgar asked her half an hour later, just as the hired orchestra began to play.
They were in the hallway outside the dining room, which had been set up for refreshments, but the music could be heard throughout the castle.
Carys glanced in the direction of the great hall just in time to witness Dunstan escorting another group of guests into the ball. He even announced their names to the company, as if he truly were the butler.
A tiny smile pulled at her lips, and her heart softened for him.
“Well?” Edgar demanded, yanking her attention back to him. “What is the meaning of this.”
Carys sighed and rubbed her forehead, where a headache was beginning to form.
“I do not owe any explanation to you, Cousin Edgar,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” Edgar insisted, his eyes widening. “You are my kin. If you would allow me, you would be more.”
Carys pursed her lips and stared flatly at him. There was no point in telling the man yet again that she would never marry him.
“Lord Gerald insisted I wear this gown,” she said. “He gifted it to me for Christmas and bade me wear it tonight.”
Edgar snorted. “A likely story.”
Carys’s eyes went wide. “And why would I lie about something as inconsequential as a gown?” she demanded.
Edgar sneered at her as if he could see through her supposed lie. “Lord Dunstan gave it to you, I’d wager.”
“He did not.”
“Well, you can forget whatever designs you have on the man now,” Edgar went on, Carys’s denial falling on deaf ears.
“I have no designs,” she said, crossing her arms. It felt more like she was hugging herself in consolation.
Edgar snorted a laugh. “He is off for London as soon as yuletide is over, you know,” he said.
Carys blinked. She had no reason to believe Edgar whatsoever. The man clearly had ulterior motives for every word that came out of his mouth. But she was too unsettled by her own feelings to discount anything where Dunstan was concerned.
“It is my understanding that Lord Dunstan intends to stay at Godwin Castle, even after the rest of his family departs for their own homes in the new year,” she said, wishing she sounded more confident.
Edgar’s smile turned triumphant. “He told me just this morning that he wishes to flee to London with all haste at his soonest possible convenience.”
“He did?” Carys asked, fighting to appear as though she doubted him.
“He said he was as interested as the rest of his family in the discussions of Joint Parliament and any potential vote about whether to unite Britannia under Mercian law,” Edgar said. “And he hinted that the situation here at Godwin Castle has become untenable for him.”
Carys’s face pinched before she could stop it. It was precisely as he’d said to the family at breakfast that morning. His experience of marriage had been dismal, and he was scarred because of it.
A worse thought struck Carys. In pursuing their friendship, she had inadvertently put someone she cared deeply about in a painful position. Looking back, she could trace the path she and Dunstan had taken to grow closer and closer to each other. At any point, she could have stopped their progress and insisted they resume the places that were proper to them by right of birth.
She’d done just that this morning. She was the one who had widened the distance between them, after all.
Another, worse thought struck her. When had Edgar spoken to Dunstan? Had he made the decision to leave Godwin Castle after she had told him to step back?
“Excuse me, cousin, but I have a great deal of work to do to ensure that Lord Gerald’s Christmas ball is a success,” she said, turning and walking toward the great hall. “Several members of the ton are present this evening, and if anything might provoke the curse to rear its head, it will be them.”
“I merely wish for you to be spared unhappiness, Carys,” Edgar called after her.
His pretend care for her had Carys frowning. Edgar’s interest in her was purely selfish. He could not possibly think that by convincing her Dunstan planned to abandon her, that is, to abandon Godwin Castle, that she would immediately turn to him.
Whether it was her irritated spirits that caused her to bump into poor Ruby as she carried a tray of punch glasses out of the dining room or whether it was some darker force, Carys’s thoughts were pushed far away from Dunstan as the tray went crashing to the floor.
Ruby screamed, punch splashed over the stones of the floor, and within seconds, a veritable army of guests came running to see what had happened.
“Is it the famous Curse of Godwin Castle?” a young woman asked in a squeaky voice as she clung to the arm of a young man.
“Never fear, Lady Jayne. I shall protect you,” the man said, drawing her into his arms.
“It’s not a curse, it’s a clumsy servant,” a tall, thin gentleman said with a sniff. “It’s dreadfully hard to find competent maids outside of London.”
The comment only exacerbated Ruby’s tears. Carys had to spend several minutes consoling the poor thing while one of the other maids and a footman rushed forward to clean up the mess.
After Ruby was dispatched belowstairs to help Cook rather than causing more trouble with breakables, Carys continued into the great hall.
It was a small consolation to see that the guests were enjoying themselves thoroughly, although Carys was not entirely pleased with the topics of conversation.
“And it is said that the Godwin brides have been hard at work exhuming the graves of their predecessors in order to search for marks that the women were murdered,” she overheard one young woman whispering to her friends.
“I would not be at all surprised,” one of them answered. “Every one of the Godwin lords waited forever before marrying. I think it is because no woman would have them, knowing what their fates would be.”
Carys rolled her eyes and continued on, even as another of the silly young women said, “I thought no one would marry them because of the curse.”
Young people were ridiculous. Carys was glad she had been too busy when she was the age of those women to have wasted her mind in such gossip.
That was not the last mention of the curse, however. Before Carys could make it to the other side of the room, where Lord Gerald was holding court with some of his local friends, one of the strings on the violin of the chief musician in the orchestra popped in spectacular fashion. In the process, it sliced an angry red line across the man’s face and caused him to cry out.
The entire dance had to be paused while the violinist was treated and one of the others stepped in to take his place. Carys joined the group seeing to the man’s wound and was pleased that it was only a scratch, but the larger damage had been done.
“This castle is most certainly cursed,” Carys heard a gentleman standing hear the wounded violinist say. “I plan to leave at once.”
“Why would you do that?” another asked, laughing. “I cannot remember enjoying myself at a ball so much.”
“I am desperately eager to see what happens next,” a third gentleman said.
Carys was tempted to roll her eyes at them as well, but the fact that they were enjoying themselves stopped her. It was not her place to tell gentlemen how to enjoy themselves.
The ball continued with various other minor mishaps, more than Carys thought there should be at a simple Christmas ball. A decorated branch broke off one of the trees, falling on a rather large lady who appeared to have been gossiping with her friend. A glass of punch held by a young man shattered in his hand for no discernable reason. And at one point Napoleon, whom Lady Kat had purposedly locked in her and Lord Waldorf’s room, came zipping across the great hall, yowling as if someone had kicked him.
It wasn’t until Carys spotted Edgar off to the side of the room, pushing one of the carpets that had been laid down by the door so that the edge curled in a way that might trip someone that Carys began to suspect the actions of the supposed curse had a different origin entirely.
“That bastard,” she whispered as she started across the great hall, intent on giving Edgar a piece of her mind.
She made it halfway around the throng of dancing guests before Dunstan turned away from a group of men he’d been conversing with and nearly collided with her. Carys gasped, and Dunstan reached out.
They were so accustomed to tricks by that point that instead of falling into each other’s arms, they fussed and fluttered and ended up standing on their own feet, glancing every which way but at each other.
“I’m terribly sorry, my lord,” Carys said.
“Please forgive me, Mrs. Weatherby,” Dunstan said at the same time.
At last, their eyes met, and instead of bubbling over with awkwardness, the years of friendship between them caused them both to break into guilty grins.
“Quite the ball we’re having,” Dunstan said, tilting his head down a bit and looking very much like the man she considered her closest friend in the world.
She could not help herself. Without even thinking, she said, “Are you leaving for London in the new year?”
She hated how uncertain and vulnerable she felt and looked.
She hated it even more when Dunstan’s smile fell into a guilty look. “I am considering it, yes,” he said.
Carys’s heart felt as if it were bleeding in her chest. Damn him, but Edgar hadn’t been inventing stories to draw her in after all.
“Oh,” was all she managed to say. It was all she managed to think as well.
But then something entirely unexpected happened.
“Lord Dunstan where have you been hiding this delightful gem?”
A man of middling years and more than average attractiveness stepped up to Dunstan’s side and smiled at Carys. His obvious regard was so unmistakable that it shocked Carys into stillness. Was a gentleman complimenting her?
Dunstan cleared his throat. “Lord Joseph Bovington, might I introduce Mrs. Weatherby?”
“Mrs. Weatherby,” Lord Joseph said, extending his hand to Carys before Dunstan could add that she was the housekeeper.
Without necessarily meaning to, Carys gave her hand to Lord Joseph, who raised it to his lips. Whether the man noticed she was not wearing gloves or not was unclear.
“My dear, you are as charming as the sky tonight is full of stars,” Lord Joseph went on. “I truly believed that I knew every beautiful woman in the room, but you are the most beautiful of all, and we have not met. Such a shame.”
“I…I thank you, Lord Joseph,” Carys said, curtsying slightly.
She then glanced to Dunstan, at a complete loss. She did not know the first thing about conducting oneself as an eligible lady at a ball.
Compounding her problem, the orchestra finished the song they’d been playing, and after a brief applause, they started into the opening stanzas of the next.
“This is perfect,” Lord Joseph said. “Mrs. Weatherby, are you familiar at all with this new dance from the continent, the waltz?”
“I, er, no,” Carys said, glancing desperately to Dunstan once more.
“Then I shall teach you,” Lord Joseph said. “It is quite scandalous, I must admit. Couples spend the entire duration of the dance in one another’s arms, if you can believe it.”
Lord Joseph adjusted the way he held Carys’s hand, as if he would lead her out to where the other guests were positioning themselves for the waltz.
“I beg your pardon,” Dunstan stepped in, a bit flushed, “but you cannot dance with Mrs. Weatherby.”
For one horrifying moment, Carys thought Dunstan was going to reveal her to be one of the servants, thus embarrassing both her and Lord Joseph.
Instead, he said, “I have already promised her that I will teach her this particular dance. So if you will excuse me.”
Dunstan stepped in, reaching for her hand, and cleverly blocked Lord Joseph from taking Carys anywhere. Instead, he took her right hand with his right, placed his left hand on the small of her back, and whisked her off to the center of the dancers.
Carys wasn’t certain which unnerved her more, nearly being pulled into a dance with a strange gentleman or actually being captured for a dance by the man she liked most in the world.