Captive Bride (12 page)

His jaw grew hard. He looked extraordinarily handsome, so severe, his eyes intense. She wished she could be sufficiently piqued to be blind to it. But the spark in his gaze made her sluggish pulse jump.

“You may not pursue this matter further, Bea.”

“Of course I may. Mama is not here to tell me what to do, and you cannot order me around either, Peter
Cheriot
. You haven’t any authority over me.”

“I don’t. You have assured that rather successfully several times, haven’t you?”

Bea sat speechless. It was a day for firsts, it seemed. Not once had he ever referred to his failed marriage proposals unless he was actually proffering another. And on only one occasion had he ever shown displeasure over the fact that she refused him: September 9, 1819. But then his mother had recently died, his father not even a year in the grave yet, and he had seemed very serious throughout, not just after she refused.

“Your mother placed you in my protection on this journey,” he added. “I bear responsibility for your safety.”

“Then you may investigate with me. That is your only option, I’m afraid.”

“I begin to suspect you are not afraid of much, in fact.” He looked surprised by that, and not particularly pleased.

“Perhaps I am not afraid of anything.”
Except never seeing him again.
“As you know perfectly well, Mama is a gorgon. I have been trained to quiet courage.”

Abruptly Tip’s jaw relaxed and his mouth curved up at one side, but the smile seemed reluctant and his eyes remained sober. “You have, indeed.”

“Beatrice, will you take some broth?” Lady Bronwyn came forward with a bowl.

Bea started to shake her head, but Tip’s brow lowered menacingly. She accepted the bowl.

He left with Bronwyn to inform Lady
Marstowe
and Thomas of her recovery. But the memory of his concern lingered like a warm summer day. His imperious attitude came as a surprise, but she supposed he felt guilty. Bea didn’t consider that all bad. At least he harbored some strong emotion because of her.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

After lunch, they began their investigation in the corridor facing the north tower adjacent to the bedchambers. Lady Bronwyn visited her grandmother and the great-aunts rested, so Thomas came along.

After glancing at several rooms that seemed to be storage areas, cluttered with old furniture, building materials, and even a rusting suit of armor, Bea pushed open a thick door crossed with iron bars to reveal an ample sized chamber lined with shelves of books.

“A library,” Thomas grunted.

“Ever been in one,
Sinclaire
?” Tip grinned. His mood seemed so much lighter than earlier, as though he had shaken off the accident, and his smile went straight to Bea’s toes. She dragged her gaze away.

Thomas remained at the threshold. “I’ll have you know,
Cheriot
, I received top marks at Eton.”

“What about Christ Church, then,
hm
? Keep it up through university, did you?”

“Good heavens.” Bea crossed the chamber to draw open heavy, sun-faded curtains. “If you two plan to continue this, I will be much happier investigating alone.”

“Apologies, Bea,” Thomas grumbled.

Tip moved beside her. “You won’t get rid of me so easily, Miss
Sinclaire
,” he said quietly, sending a shiver of warmth down her spine. “Ah, look here,
The Necromancer’s Diary
. Perhaps that is what we need.”

“A magician?”
Thomas scoffed. “The curse is demonic. Mark my words. A man like
Iversly
is bound to have consorted with the devil.”

“You don’t know that, Tom,” Bea said, rifling through a stack of dusty yellow papers. “Perhaps he stumbled into the curse accidentally. He seems reasonable enough for a man of his era.”

Tip glanced at her, frowning.

“He’s a monster,” Thomas insisted. “Any man would be to demand marriage from a girl who doesn’t want him.”

At her side, Tip stiffened perceptibly. For a moment he remained perfectly still,
then
he spoke.

“Perhaps he has no choice but to marry,” he said in unexceptionable tones. “Perhaps he must marry the first maiden to reside in the castle.”

“In four hundred years there must have been maidens in this castle before Lady Bronwyn.” Bea opened a slim, leather-bound volume
.

“The local curate might have a record of residents of the place over the centuries. Tom, have you been to the village?”

“Not since the day we arrived. Charlie and I had a mug of ale to fortify his courage,
then
we came up here. I haven’t left the castle since I made Lady Bronwyn’s acquaintance.”

“So you have not asked the locals what they know about the
curse?
”

“No,” the younger man replied rigidly. “After Charlie flew off, I didn’t want to leave her alone with
Iversly
.”

Bea drew a resigned breath. “We can begin with Cook and
Dibin
, but if they cannot help we really must investigate in the village.” 

“You cannot,” Tip said.

She looked across the space separating them. He watched her steadily.

“I cannot, you are correct. Then you will have to do so instead. Thomas, won’t you go, too?”

“I won’t leave her, Bea.
Iversly
spoke to her again last evening. He means to force her to wed him by tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?” Bea jerked around. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“He’s been threatening to marry her for weeks already,” he said in a rush, “and he only told her this last night. Though I don’t know how a ghost plans to marry a living woman, especially without a vicar around.”

“Did he ever mention a specific date before?” Tip asked.

“No.” Thomas’s face looked stormy. “Listen, the two of you cannot come prancing in here and think you know what’s best for Lady Bronwyn, especially not after your fiasco at the castle boundaries. I’ve promised to protect her—”

“You don’t seem to be doing a very practical job of it,” Tip interjected.

“See here,
Cheriot
.” His chest puffed out. “What business is it of yours—
”

“You wrote asking for help,” Bea cut in, impatience disguising her anxious excitement. Lord
Iversly
claimed he would fulfill the curse in less than thirty-six hours. “Lord
Cheriot
is gracious to offer his assistance. Now if you two will quit bickering like schoolgirls perhaps we can discover something that will help us help Lady Bronwyn.”

Neither replied.

“Good.” She pulled a set of musty volumes from a shelf. “
Astral
Projectivity
Unbound
.
Hm.
There are a great many books here in French, and some in German. Do either of you read German?”

“A bit,” Tip replied, coming to her side. His fingers brushed hers as he drew the book from her grasp. Bea smothered a sigh. It didn’t matter that they had argued earlier. She could still feel the warmth from his hand around hers, deep down in her belly.

“This isn’t going to do us any good,” Thomas muttered, still standing in the doorway. “I don’t see the point of looking through a bunch of crumbling books.”

“I am hoping to find a spell book, or even a diary or ledger of some sort, Tom. Perhaps someone who lived here might have something to tell us about
Iversly
or the curse.”

“Spell book?” her brother said incredulously. “It would be better to talk with
Iversly
himself, I’ll wager.”

“That is unlikely to help us,” Tip said, his voice odd.

“Perhaps I will go down to the village and have a look around, after all,” Tom said. “Someone at the pub might have something useful to say.” He disappeared into the corridor.

This time Bea allowed herself the sigh. Thomas was infatuated with Lady Bronwyn, devoted to protecting her, yet in the end a mug of ale won his attention more surely. He really was a frippery fellow.

Tip flipped through the volume and laid it down on the table, taking up another.

“
Opus in
Speculis
.
Something about mirrors?”
Bea smudged away encrusted grime from a gilt-edged binding.
“Conjuring Spirits.
Well that seems more to the point.” She pulled the volume down and opened its stiff pages.
“Hm.
It seems to be about distilling gin.” She chuckled and went for another.

Tip perused the shelves in silence.
Alone with him again for the first time since the night before in the corridor, Bea could not halt her nerves from singing quietly.
She could still feel his
lips on hers, even as brief as the caress had been. She would remember it for the rest of her life.

“Here is one entitled
Six Hundred Sixty-Six Love
Philtres
,” she said.
“How singular.
Isn’t six hundred sixty-six the Number of the Beast?”

“Perhaps the author had poor luck at love,” he replied. “But how you know about the Number of the Beast, I cannot imagine.”

“Thomas told me about it once when he was on break from school.”

“Ah, so he did learn something.
And shared it with his innocent sister, the rapscallion.”
His voice smiled.

“I daresay he tells me many things he should not. He is often tactless.”

“One of these days Thomas should consider growing up.”

Bea glanced up. Tip’s attention was fixed on the book in his hands as he paged through the folios. A lock of dark hair tumbled over his brow like a schoolboy’s, but his firm jaw and the serious set of his beautiful mouth were thoroughly man.

“He is not that much younger than you. Five years or so,” she
said,
her voice foolishly airy.

He met her gaze. “Five years and the death of both one’s parents to violent accidents make the world of difference, I should say.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Tip.”

He set the book down and turned to her, a slight smile playing about his mouth.

“You are not at fault, of course. But even if you were, when you lay off calling me ‘my lord’ I believe I could forgive you anything.”

Bea’s knees went weak. His emerald eyes held the expression that for years had kept her heart at his feet—warm, appreciative, as though they shared some wonderful secret. She opened her mouth to speak.

Tip’s gaze slipped to her lips.

Her breaths stalled. The night before, he had looked at her mouth that way.

Bea couldn’t bear the silence.

“Why do they call you Tip?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

His gaze rose again to her eyes, he seemed to take a slow breath,
then
turned back to the shelf. “My sister gave me the nickname when I was a child.”

Bea forced herself to speak calmly. “How did she come upon it? It is unusual.”

“She overheard me speaking with my father.”

“About what?”

A muscle contracted in his jaw. “About a horse I was particularly fond of at the time. I wished to purchase it and my father suggested it was not a wise choice for a boy of fourteen. I was rather—” He paused. “Rather adamant about my feelings on the matter and refused to give way.” The tone of his voice shifted, and the air in the chamber seemed to grow still.

“Really?
But what did your sister overhear?”

“My father said that if I failed to control my emotions concerning a stupid beast, I was bound to tip beyond the acceptable point when someday it came to women.”

Bea’s heart turned over, leaving a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach.

“Elizabeth heard the chastisement,” he continued, his face stonily expressionless. “She thought it would be a great joke to tease me incessantly. My schoolmate visiting at the time adopted it. And so it goes.” He shrugged.

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed. My father was clearly something of a hypocrite.”

“I suspect he meant it for the best,” she murmured. Everyone knew of Lord and Lady
Cheriot’s
stormy marriage, so often entirely public. When Tip’s father suffered the accident that led to his death, Bea and her mother had still lived in town. Gossip flew for days about how the couple fought openly at a ball, as usual over how he had taken up with another mistress. Lady
Cheriot
fled London and her husband sped after her, apparently to make it up to her as he always did. On the road he ran his horse lame, it stumbled, and he was thrown, breaking his back and paralyzing him from the waist down.