Captive Bride (30 page)

He staggered back. “
Wha
— But it’s better to know this now before I get caught in a parson’s mousetrap with her. Or else I’ll end up in a marriage like our parents’ shamble of a thing.”

Impatience got the best of Bea. She folded her arms tight across her chest. “You should have taken that into consideration before you bedded her.”

“Your sister is right,” Tip said at her shoulder.
“As usual.”

Bea’s heart turned over. She pivoted around and he glanced down at her, his unsmiling expression unreadable.

“I should have thought of it, it’s true,” her brother said with a scowl. “But I didn’t, and now I’m truly dished up.”

“Tom,” Bea said, more to allow time to wrest control of her racing pulse than because he deserved the reprieve, “Lady Bronwyn suggested to me that she might not be entirely amenable to a betrothal to you, either.”

Thomas’s pout of misery turned to affront with comical speed. “Well, I daresay the tart could have told me that herself.”

“Tart?
Thomas
.”

“Chit,” he acquiesced.

“Did you tell her your feelings on the matter?” Bea asked. Tip’s presence behind her was a solid wall of silence.

Thomas stiffened. “What are you thinking, Bea? A gentleman can’t cry off from a betrothal, especially not under these particular circumstances. Would you do such a thing,
Cheriot
?”

“Of course not.”
His voice lacked color entirely.

Bea’s insides twisted. She clutched her hands in her skirts.

“Nevertheless, Tom, I recommend that you find Lady Bronwyn and make a clean breast of it. If neither of you wish to marry the other, you certainly should not.” She paused.
“Unless it becomes necessary, of course.”

“Well, there, you see, Bea, after only one time a girl doesn’t always—” A flush stole over his cheeks. “That is to say— I took care—”

“I know how these things work, Tom.”

Thomas’s gaze shifted uncomfortably to Tip. “Of course you do,” he said hastily. Then his
eyes lit with guarded hope. “But you’re right. If I’m clever enough, she’ll cry off before I have to, then I won’t be in the wrong.” He slanted a hopeful smile, pushed away from the barrel and headed off down the corridor.

Bea could not make her body turn around.

“I am on my way to inquire if Lady
Marstowe
has need of anything for Miss
Dews’s
comfort,” Tip said. “Would you care to accompany me?”

Not if he continued speaking to her like a stranger.

“Yes, thank you.” She fell in beside him. He did not offer his arm. “How did your business proceed in
Porthmadog
?”

“Well.
Untroubled.”

“Thank you for seeing to the doctor’s quick arrival yesterday.”

“It was nothing.”

“
Iversly
came to speak with Aunt Grace and me. He is looking into Aunt Julia’s illness.”

“Is he?”

Bea’s insides curdled. He was still displeased with her, as everyone always was.
But never him before this past week.

She halted. He did as well. She looked up at his face and read absolutely nothing there. No anger, no pleasure, no teasing camaraderie. Nothing but handsome features set still as stone.

The words tumbled to her lips. “Would you like to cry off as well?”

His jaw hardened. “No.”

“I only thought that perhaps you—”

“That I am as great a rogue as your brother?”

“No, I only—”

“I do not wish to speak of this.” He started up the stairs.

She went after him. “We quarreled, and then you left without telling me.”

“You were asleep when I departed.”

“Lady Bronwyn has set her cap for you.”
Oh, Lord
. She ought to cut out her tongue.

“Then she is doomed to disappointment.”

Warmth shimmered through Bea.
Ridiculous
.
She was a complete fool, just as her mother always said. But she could not halt herself.

“There must be dozens of young ladies in town, not to mention Derbyshire, who will be disappointed as well.”

He rounded on her. “What are you doing? Do you want to ruin yourself?”

She choked beneath the full force of his stare. “I already did that, two nights ago.”

“Not entirely, but you are doing so now. Do you wish to be released from your obligation to me, Bea? Is that what this is about?”

She couldn’t breathe. She could save him now. He was offering her the opportunity. No one else would ever need to know about what had happened between them. Given his own situation, Thomas could be convinced this was for the best. Aunt Grace would be more difficult to persuade, but she would see the right of it once Bea explained. She must.

Tip’s eyes seemed almost black in the dim corridor. He stood for another moment watching her as she searched frantically for words that would suffice. Nothing came.

“I will take your silence as assent,” he said in a low voice. He turned away. “Unless you find yourself with child, you are released.” 

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

Bea’s lungs felt as though they collapsed. She sucked in desperate breaths.

What had she done?

“I don’t want criticism from you.” She ached to reach out and put her hand on his rigid back.

He turned a cool gaze on her. “You have just assured that you will get nothing whatsoever from me now.”

“Peter—”

“No, Bea. This is not how it works. I will not replay my parents’ foolishness, arguing until someone weeps,
then
reconciling to the detriment of everyone around, most especially themselves.” He swallowed hard. “Do you know how my mother died?”

Bea nodded.

“In a carriage accident?” he supplied.
“As published in the papers?”
His eyes glinted with derision. “Elizabeth and I wrote that, inventing a faulty axle and a skittish lead horse so as not to be obliged to write the truth, that she went out alone at night on a horse that was barely broken. She sought the exact spot on the road where my father fell from his mount a year earlier while racing to apologize to her for yet another infidelity. She arrived there in one piece, amazingly enough. But she hadn’t left matters up to fate. She brought a pistol in the event that the horse did not finish her off first.”

Bea’s hand slipped over her open mouth.

Tip nodded slowly. “So you see the way of it now, I trust.” He took a hard breath, shuddering slightly on the exhale. “I will not have any part of that life.” He turned to the door and knocked.

Bea hardly knew when Peg opened the door and Lady
Marstowe
came into the corridor. Her mind and heart were a sea of confusion.

“
Iversly
has been here,” the dowager said, her sharp gaze shooting to Bea, then back to Tip. Her brow creased. “What is amiss? Beatrice, you look as though you are ill, too.”

“I-I—”

“She has had an encounter with her brother that overset her,” Tip said smoothly.

“The nincompoop.”
Lady
Marstowe
scowled. “I will see about him once we are finished with this.”

Bea bore down on the tears surging behind her eyes. “What did Lord
Iversly
say, Aunt Grace?”

“He believes he has found the source of Julia’s malady, but he requires your assistance, Lord
Cheriot
. And yours, Beatrice.”

“If it will help Miss Dews return to health, he has it,” Tip said.

“Of course, Aunt Grace.”

“You must go to the village,” she said to Tip, “to that woman’s cottage.”

“Miss Minturn?” Bea asked.
“Whatever for?”

“He wishes to speak with her.”

“And if she will not return here with me?” Tip asked.

The dowager’s assessing gaze shifted between them.

“He believes that he may be able to communicate through the pair of you.”

“What do you mean, Aunt Grace? Does he wish for us to hold some sort of séance? I understand they are all the rage in London now. Mama attended one, though she would not take me.”

“No,” the dowager scowled. “
Iversly
does not need conjuring up. He is perfectly present here, of course.”

“What does he wish us to do?” Tip’s mouth was set in a thin line.

“He believes that if Beatrice remains here in contact with him, you will be able to speak on his behalf. He depends upon your bond with one another.”

“That is ridiculous.” His implacable tone hit Bea like a slap.

“It does seem improbable,” she managed to say barely over a whisper. Her throat would not function properly.

“I told him the same thing,” the dowager said, her lips pursed. “But looking at the two of you now, I am beginning to see his way of it.”

Tip didn’t move or speak. His jaw looked like stone, his shoulders stiff.

“If Aunt Julia’s welfare depends upon it,” Bea said, “I will do whatever he suggests.”

“Why not prepare a speech that I may repeat to her?” Tip said.

“I asked him that,” the dowager shook her head. “He says it will not suffice. She will only respond to him, apparently.”

“Why, Aunt Grace? How can she help?”

“She will provide us with an antidote for Julia’s illness. It seems that Miss Minturn is a witch. To get revenge on
Iversly
, she has poisoned my sister.”

Bea stood across her bedchamber from
Iversly
. He was by the window, as usual. He had informed her of his location, a strange consideration given how awful he could be at times. But he was not the man any of them had imagined. His actions now proved it. And his voice held a harsh note of anxiety, as though Aunt Julia’s fate truly mattered to him.

“The woman has been teaching herself potions and the art of sorcery for a dozen years,” he said.

“Since you broke her heart.”

Iversly
remained silent.

Bea crossed the chamber to her dressing table chair and sat on the edge of it. Aunt Julia’s fever had risen again, and Lady
Marstowe
was seeing to her comfort while Peg ensured that Lady Harriet and the servants from Hart House were busily engaged elsewhere.

“How did you learn about the poison?” she asked. “You were gone for quite some time.”

“I heard rumors of it,
then
needed only confirmation.”

“Rumors?
How?”

“The dead, my dear, practice methods of communication that would shock your innocent senses.”

“After this week, I do not feel particularly innocent any longer.
In many ways.”
She tilted her head. “I thought you could not communicate with other ghosts.”

“Not all the dead are ghosts.” His voice grated.

“I see.”

“I hope you do not.”

“Why must you speak with her yourself?”

“She fears no others. She will bend only to my will.”

“Do you truly believe this will suffice, or is it merely another method to mend fences
between me and Lord
Cheriot
?”

“I was not aware that those fences required mending at this time.” His tone sounded lighter, as though the change of topic relieved him.

“I guess I have grown accustomed to you knowing the details of everyone’s lives around here, I thought—
But
you were away all night and day, of course.”

“Have you displeased him? I cannot imagine it of you.
Nor of him.”

Bea wished she had not broached the topic. She looked to the clock on the mantel.
Nearly six.
Tip would arrive at Miss Minturn’s cottage in moments. He had left without a word, neither giving his consent to the experiment nor withholding it. Aunt Grace assumed his cooperation, of course. Bea suspected he would go through the motions of it, if only to please the dowager and Aunt Julia.

One
more minute
.

“We must begin soon,”
Iversly
said quietly.

A shiver of apprehension went through Bea. “What will you do?”

“I will enter you.”

Her eyes shot wide. “You did not—”

“Not as you imagine. Though it is a pity, forsooth,” he rumbled. “I may only take corporeal form once each century, as you know. Tonight, I will remain ethereal.”