and hold her own, at least on the surface, and who, as a charity boarder, had suffered pity and sly comments about her poverty all those years—had managed to stand up to the gloating way the old man had looked at her and crushed any hope that she might have found her place in the world.
But when that piercing gaze looking out from the shadows in the doorway had tangled with hers, it had sapped her courage dry. She’d scuttled ignominiously back to her place without a shred of dignity remaining.
The sooner she left this place, this house with its dark undercurrents, the better. She’d done her duty. Offered her thanks. Surely she was free to go? She would leave first thing in the morning.
She glanced left and right. Which way? The maid who had brought her to the dying man’s room had found her way with unerring ease, but Mary no longer had a clue which way they had come, there had been so many twists and turns on their journey from her chamber. Not to mention the odd staircase.
Part-dissolved abbey, part-Tudor mansion, part-renaissance estate, it sprawled and rambled inside and out. She’d glimpsed the house at dusk, perched high on a Cornish cliff, crenulated towers and chimney pots rising to the sky. A complete muddle of a house.
Her room was in one of those square towers. At the north end, the butler had told her when he escorted her there upon her arrival. The tower nearest the abbey ruins. She could see them through her small window. She had also heard the muffled rumble of the ocean somewhere deep below the house, in its very foundations. A very ominous sound. She shuddered as she imagined the house undermined by the force of the sea.
She eyed her two choices and selected the one that seemed to amble north. Picking up her skirts for speed, she hurried on, wishing there was more light, or a servant to show her the way.
Another corridor branched off to her right, going south? Or had that last corner she had turned set her off course? The maid had turned off the main corridor, hadn’t she? More than once. She plunged into the new hallway. It looked no more familiar than the last.
She needed help.
She tried the first door she came to. A bedroom, its furniture huddled beneath holland covers. If there ever had been a bell rope, it had been removed.
Blast. She returned to the corridor, heading for another room further along.
Footsteps. Behind her. Thank God. Help at last.
She turned around.
A light flickered and stopped. Whoever held the candle remained masked in shadow.
The wind howled through a nearby crevice, lifting the hair at her nape. Her heart picked up speed. The girls at school had told late-night stories of ghosts and hauntings that started like this. Deliciously wicked in their frightening aspects and heroic deeds. Figments of imagination. She did not believe in ghosts. People like her, practical people, did not have the luxury of such flights of fancy, yet she could not quite quell the fear gripping her chest. ‘Who is there?’ She was shocked at the tremble in her voice.
The light drew closer. A candle held in a square-fingered hand joined to a brawny figure still in the darkness. Him. The new earl.
How she knew, she wasn’t sure, but her skin prickled with the knowledge. Heat flushed up from her belly. ‘My lord?’ she said. Her voice quavering just a little more than she would have liked. ‘Lord Beresford?’
The candle went upwards, lighting his harsh face.
‘Great goliaths,’ she said, letting go of her breath. ‘Do you always creep around hallways in such a fashion?’ Oops. That sounded a bit too much like the schoolteacher taking a pupil to task.
The eyes staring down at her were not dark as she had thought in the old earl’s bedroom. They were as grey as storm clouds. And watchful.
‘Are you lost?’ he drawled in that deep mocking voice with its hint of roughness.
‘Certainly not,’ she replied, discomposed by his obvious indifference. Heat rushed to her cheeks and she was glad the dim light would not reveal her embarrassment. She let her gaze fall away.
‘Liar,’ he said softly.
She bristled.
‘That’s better.’
A snuffling sound drew her gaze down. The dog. It sank to its haunches and watched her with its head cocked on one side. It was enormous. ‘What is better?’ she asked, keeping a wary eye on the dog.
‘It is better when you stand up straight, instead of