The Second Lady Emily (3 page)

And so they had found a pigeon willing to bid without doing a moment of research, a pigeon who was now the seventy-seventh Broadbanks.

“Damn!” She had just bought herself a death sentence. Hurling the paper across the room, she succumbed to icy tremors. But she had only herself to blame. Christie’s catalog had mentioned all eight titles as well as the startling information that the purchase would include full privileges and citizenship. Yet she had not read it – undoubtedly the only potential bidder in the entire world who had not. Why else had she won?

There had to be a way out. Pacing intensified her restlessness, so she sprawled across the bed, burrowing under a quilt to counteract her continued shivering. She would have to draft a new will, of course. Foisting a curse onto Beth was unfair. Willard would make a better heir.

But that was no solution. She wouldn’t be around to see him suffer, and nothing would induce her to meekly accept an early demise. Thus she must find a way to break the curse.

Morning brought more rational thinking – along with a new stack of newspapers that were not tabloids. Allowing yesterday’s sensationalists to stampede her was ridiculous. The
Times
did not mention any curse, though its story referred to the many tragedies that had beset the Villiers family. Surely she was intelligent enough to accept death without needing a villain to shoulder the blame. She had been taught to believe only in what she could see. Paranormal manifestations were fine in books and movies, but they did not exist in the real world. Nor did curses. Accidents and disease had claimed many people in earlier centuries. Losing entire families was not unusual. But the credulous could easily terrify themselves into believing some supernatural phenomena was at work.

She studied the summary of the Marquesses of Broadbanks that had accompanied one of the stories. The family was patriotic, but unlucky. Four lords had died childless only because their sons had earlier perished at Waterloo. A later marquess lost both sons in the Crimea. Other heirs had died in China, South Africa, India, Ireland, both world wars, the Falklands, and the Persian Gulf. In fact, the only military man in two hundred years who had returned alive was the sixth marquess, who shot himself a week later.

She removed the military from her list of potential employers, then chided herself for foolishness.

There was no pattern to the accidents, though she suspected that many of them proved fatal only because of the deplorable state of medicine in earlier times. She had nearly convinced herself that the curse was no more than media hysteria when she noticed the dates.

Seventy-one dead marquesses, five miscarriages, plus the death by accident or in war of twenty-nine heirs. Every fatality took place on March 15, June 15, September 15, or December 28.

* * * *

Cherlynn slipped through a staff entrance, escaping into the early dawn. She had spent the rest of yesterday and last night formulating plans. Somehow she had to neutralize the curse. Given the current publicity, selling the title was out of the question, and she suspected that giving it away would do no good unless the recipient was willing to take it on. Fat chance! CNN had carried the story, so virtually everyone on the planet would have heard the details by now. She had no idea how to proceed, but learning about the family seemed an obvious first step. Thus she purchased a railroad ticket to Dover where she joined an afternoon bus tour to Broadbanks Hall, former seat of the Marquesses of Broadbanks.

An enterprising reporter had caught her on videotape as she exited Buckingham Palace, but the image had featured her ratty flyaway hair. Today she’d pulled it into a neat coil. Sunglasses, baggy jeans, and her assumed name of Heddy Anderson allowed her to pass unrecognized.

Little remained of the estate that had once stretched along several miles of the English Channel and included some of the richest grazing and agricultural land in the county. Even the park had shrunk until the four follies that used to offer grand vistas of lake, wood, and shore, now marked the corners of the property. All were in ruins. All were surrounded by overgrown thickets, for the National Trust only maintained the house and formal gardens. But the Regency wing and grounds were renowned, which had placed Broadbanks high on her itinerary when she had planned this trip. Little had changed since the sixth marquess commissioned Repton to redesign the park in 1812. That marquess had also redecorated the house, scandalizing the neighbors, according to Lady Travis, by refusing to allow his wife any say in the results – which suggested good judgment on his part; another letter had condemned the marchioness for her utter lack of style. Cherlynn would soon decide for herself. The only redecorating since the sixth marquess had been the addition of plumbing and electricity.

She stayed at the back of the tour group when they entered Broadbanks Hall, so she could absorb as much as possible without drawing attention to herself. Yet room after room offered no insight into the people who had lived there. Not that Broadbanks was dull. It had grown from an Elizabethan core, one wall of which had belonged to an earlier fortified manor. By the time the last addition was built in the late eighteenth century, the Hall sprawled across twenty acres, boasting two hundred rooms in a dozen wings. Courtyards, sheltered gardens, and terraces filled odd corners. Only the Regency wing and the Elizabethan core – which held the great hall and state apartments – were open for the tour.

At first, Broadbanks Hall seemed much like other English great houses. The elaborate railings on the main staircase took her breath away, as did the ornate stuccoed ceilings and intricate marble fireplace surrounds. Faded fabrics graced furniture and windows. Painted paneling glowed in the study and library. Threadbare carpets and patched wallcoverings tried to remain unobtrusive.

But the gallery triggered uneasiness. Forty-eight portraits lined its walls. The last had been completed barely a month before the forty-ninth marquess relinquished the estate to the National Trust in 1916. The marquesses represented every manner of man – thin to stocky, short to tall, light to dark, homely to handsome. The guide explained that every picture had been commissioned the day its subject acquired the title. The first four men looked stern. Number five was arrogant. The suicidal sixth was missing. But beginning with the seventh marquess, who acceded in 1815, every subject observed the gallery through haunted eyes.

“Your first visit, dearie?” asked an elderly lady.

Cherlynn jumped. “Yes. And you?”

“Oh, no. I come here often. Broadbanks is fascinating. You should try one of the October tours. They focus on the ghosts instead of babbling about the curse like Mrs. Tibbins is doing today,” she said, naming the guide. “Inevitable, of course, with poor Lord Broadbanks selling the title and all.”

“Don’t you believe in the curse?”

“Go on with ye!” cackled the woman. “It’s real enough. An’ powerful strong. My great-grandmama had the tale from her grandmama who married one of the Broadbanks grooms. He heard the gypsy utter the fateful words himself. But no one knows if it truly attaches to the title or to the head of the Villiers family.”

“You mean selling the title may make no difference?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But curses are dull things. Ghosts are more interesting. Broadbanks is the most haunted manor in England – all those horrid deaths, you know. The best-known ghost is the sixth marquess, who haunts the library where he shot himself. Any number of people have seen him. He first appeared the day his wife died in Scotland, leading many to conclude he had previously been haunting her. A more enigmatic ghost occasionally appears on the cliff path, but he has never been positively identified. At least nine family members perished out there, and we can’t see him clearly enough to identify his clothing. The most elusive one lives in the great hall. It is probably female, but even that is uncertain. All anyone’s ever seen is a flash of blue. Theories range from a servant to the fifth marchioness, who was said to fancy blue. Of course the most frightening ghost is the gypsy, but only the marquesses see her. She is not confined to the estate, and her appearance always presages a death. None has survived the sight by more than forty-eight hours. At least one – the sixtieth, I believe – died on the spot.”

“Mabel Hardesty, if you’re cackling on about ghosts again, why don’t you come up here so everyone can hear you,” chided the guide, but it was clear she had a soft spot for the old lady. Mabel happily complied.

Mrs. Tibbins paused in the doorway to the great hall, waiting patiently while the last of her charges trickled through. Mabel was expanding her tale of ghostly wonders. “I hope she wasn’t annoying you, my lady,” she whispered. “It’s been eighty years since a Broadbanks last set foot in this house. I want the occasion to be a positive one.”

“You know?” She cringed.

“How not? Stay after the others leave and I’ll show you the rest of the place. Don’t worry about reporters. I doubt those outside recognized you. They are hoping to see the stars.”

Cherlynn raised a brow.

“We’re turning the Hall over to a film crew at five o’clock, so they can shoot Jane Austen’s
Mansfield Park
. This will be your last chance to see the place until autumn.”

“Thank you.” The words lent a different twist to the urgency that had propelled her to Broadbanks this day. What had she hoped to find? It had not been used by the family since World War I. Had she thought the sixth marquess might materialize to explain how to break the curse? If any clues existed, surely one of the many previous marquesses would have found them. Her incentive was no stronger than theirs. They had all faced early death.

Unless it was the gypsy herself who had impelled this visit. Perhaps she needed Broadbanks Hall to connect with someone outside the Villiers bloodlines.

“Oh, my God!” she muttered under her breath. It was June 15.

Perspiration instantly soaked her shirt, bringing on clammy chills from the cool air. She fought down her fear. This was a perfectly ordinary English great house full of perfectly ordinary tourists. No one was going to leap out and strike her down. Besides, she had seen no one resembling a gypsy – which showed how superstitious she had suddenly become.

Biting her lip to control incipient hysteria, she concentrated on Mrs. Tibbins’s lecture, turning obediently to examine the portrait above the mantel.

It was the missing sixth marquess. His expression was grim, his eyes revealing fathomless grief and stoic determination. Neither was suited to his face. The drawing room had held a painting of five children, commissioned when this man was fourteen. In the group he had been happy, radiating life and laughter with a face designed for smiling. What had happened in the intervening years to turn him into this dour shell? It couldn’t have been the curse, for this portrait had been completed before it was cast, if Lady Travis’s letters were accurate.

She drifted closer until she stood directly below him, mesmerized by his haunted countenance. Despite pain and desolation, his mouth remained sensuous. With melting warmth added to the chocolate brown eyes and a light breeze ruffling his short brown curls, he would be a lady killer. Those muscular shoulders bespoke athleticism. She could see him laughing as he effortlessly controlled a team of fractious horses.

Where had that image come from?

Stiffening, she tried to back away, but her feet were rooted in place. New shivers attacked. A writer needed a healthy imagination, but nothing in this portrait pegged him as a sensuous Corinthian. Deep furrows plowed his forehead above eyes nearly black with despair. Lines dragged his mouth into bitterness. The weight of the world bore down on his shoulders, bending his back into a permanent stoop.

She wanted to pull him into her arms and comfort him, to remove his burdens and free him from care. Her hand stretched upward, straining to reach those sagging shoulders. Empathy flowed from her fingertips. His countenance matched her own reflection during those last weeks of her marriage, reviving her pain, her helplessness, and that overwhelming certainty that she had no future. He had been right about his own prospects, and unless she could do something, hers were no better.

Mrs. Tibbins was gathering her flock to lead them into the gift shop. Ruthlessly suppressing her thoughts, Cherlynn turned to follow.

Unseen hands grabbed her shoulders and pushed. Hard. As she fell, she caught a glimpse of blue out of the corner of her eye. Then her head hit the stone hearth, and blackness engulfed her.

CHAPTER TWO

June 15, 1812

Drew Villiers, by courtesy Earl of Thurston, made an unnecessary adjustment to his cravat and sighed. Procrastination served no purpose. Even contracting some dreadful disease that would keep him away from the great hall would change nothing. His fate had been irrevocably sealed three months ago. The contracts were long since signed. This was merely the public acknowledgment of a
fait accompli.

He indulged in one last grimace before forcing his countenance into
ennui
, which was as close to pleasant as he could manage. How discouraging to discover at six-and-twenty that his range of emotions had permanently shrunk. Fury now stood in for passion, grief for joy, hatred for love, and bitterness overlay everything. But somehow he would survive.

Emily.

His cowardice was yet another cross he had to bear. He had committed solecism upon solecism in the past two days, refusing to greet her when she arrived, pointedly ignoring her in the drawing room, and abruptly reversing course when she had approached along the hallway that afternoon. Charles had noticed, of course, but assumed that he was avoiding a potential scene. Charles had often joked about his sister’s virulent case of calf love. Drew had never contradicted him, though he knew that Emily’s feelings went far beyond infatuation. As did his own. The pain on her face at his pointed cut had matched the agony stabbing his own heart. She deserved an explanation, but cowardice had won in the end. If he got close enough to gaze into her eyes, to feel the heat of her touch, to smell the delicate lilac that always enveloped her, he would be incapable of carrying out his sworn duty. If Charles had not been his closest friend, he would not have invited them to his betrothal ball – or would at least have arranged for them to stay elsewhere. But again fate had conspired against him.