affair. He’d have to tread carefully though. He was loath to shock or worry their mother and cause her undue emotional stress.
God knew, she’d endured enough of that to last a lifetime.
CHAPTER 15
Almost fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself, to check the shriek, that was escaping from her lips, and, letting the curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the motions of the mysterious form she saw. It seemed to glide along the remote obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it approached the hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what appeared to be a human figure.
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Muircliff Castle, Isle of Skye
September 25, 1818
Olivia woke to the sound of the wind and waves battering the castle and flames licking the logs in the gray marble fireplace in her room. A chambermaid had obviously slipped in while she was sleeping to relight the fire, and she was glad of it. Muircliff—perhaps because of its exposed aspect atop a cliff, and the fact that they were so far north—was a cold residence indeed.
Pushing herself up against the pillows of her enormous tester bed, Olivia yawned and brushed her tangled hair from her eyes. She had no idea what time it was, but she suspected she’d slept late. Despite the fact that the long journey north had been exhausting, her mind wouldn’t rest, and she’d tossed and turned most of the night until fatigue eventually claimed her sometime in the small hours. Even then she’d been troubled by odd dreams.
One in particular stood out in her mind. It had seemed so very real and was altogether unsettling. At one point, Olivia could have sworn there was someone in her bedchamber.
Although the fire had all but died and the room was poorly lit, a dark ghostly figure—a female wearing a black mourning gown and heavy lace veil—drifted across the carpeted floor toward her bed. As the figure hovered by the carved oak footboard in watchful silence, Olivia’s throat had constricted in terror. But before she could scream, the mysterious wraith seemed to melt completely into the dark shadows cast by the bed canopy and its heavy velvet hangings.
Now Olivia didn’t know what to make of her nightmare. The vision she’d seen couldn’t have been real . . . although the lingering feeling of uneasiness inside her certainly was.
The rosy glow of the fire and a gray shaft of morning light penetrating a chink in the curtains revealed that everything in her room appeared to be in its place. No figure—real or imagined—lurked in any of the shadowy corners as far as she could see. The jib door between her room and Hamish’s was firmly shut. She supposed all of the gothic novels she’d been reading of late, such as The Mysteries of Udolpho, had made her as fanciful as Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. Or perhaps it had been Tilda’s comment on their arrival about ghosts that had put the idea in her head.
Olivia rose, and after ringing for a maid, she wrapped herself in her cashmere shawl, then crossed to the nearest window. Drawing back the dusky blue damask curtains, she then lowered herself onto the window seat to take in the magnificent view. However, her mind was as troubled as the wind-tossed sea stretching toward the pewter gray clouds on the horizon.
Just like last night when she’d tried in vain to fall asleep, thoughts of Hamish and the disastrous state of their marriage had tumbled about in her mind. After he’d stormed away from her following their visit to the nursery, she hadn’t seen him at all. And she was partly to blame. When Mrs. Boyd appeared to help settle her into her new bedroom, she’d informed Olivia that dinner would be served at seven o’clock should she care to join Lord Sleat and Lord Angus in the downstairs dining room.
But Olivia, in a fit of pique, decided she wouldn’t go. She was so very tired of being rebuffed by Hamish. The fact that Mrs. Boyd had delivered his invitation to dinner spoke volumes. So she’d politely but firmly declined, opting instead to visit the nursery and share Tilda’s meal of coddled eggs, toast, cock-a-leekie soup, and poached pears in custard.
If her husband wanted to spend time with her, she’d reasoned, he could jolly well issue his invitation in person. And if he didn’t believe the message she had asked Mrs. Boyd to relay back to him—that she