hat over his head to catch Gideon’s attention. “Something’s wrong, Haslemere.”
“Miss Cecilia sent me,” Duncan panted, leaning over his horse’s neck and struggling to catch his breath. “She bid me to fetch you at once, my lord. There’s something amiss up at the castle, and—”
“Christ, Darlington. Look.”
Gideon turned at the cold dread in Haslemere’s voice, and found his friend staring at the castle in horror. “What? I don’t see—” But in the next breath he did see, and his heart gave a sickening lurch in his chest. Smoke was issuing in a thin, black stream from one of the second floor windows.
Cassandra’s bedchamber window. Her apartments—the apartments attached to Cecilia and Isabella’s bedchamber—were on fire. For a frozen moment Gideon could only gape at that ominous thread of smoke, his throat working. “Where is everyone, Duncan? Are they—”
“They’ve all gotten out, my lord. I looked back when I rode off to fetch ye, and I saw them all gathered on the drive.”
Gideon snatched up Duncan’s reins, jerking his horse closer so he could look directly into Duncan’s eyes. “All of them? Are you absolutely certain of it, Duncan?”
Duncan swallowed. “I didna get a close look, but I-I think so, my lord.”
“Fetch the rest of your men, Haslemere, and bring them back to the castle to help us fight the blaze.”
Haslemere shot off in the direction of the woods, snow and bits of torn ground flying from his horse’s hooves. Gideon took off toward the castle at a flat run, Duncan right behind him, but the castle seemed to recede into the distance with his horse’s every stride. His gaze was locked on the window, his lips moving in a prayer to a God who’d taken his wife and son from him—a God Gideon believed had long ago forsaken him.
Please. Please don’t take them, too.
As they drew closer, he began counting heads, the frantic prayers still pouring from his lips. Mrs. Briggs, and Amy, with Isabella clutched in her arms, and Fraser beside her, yes, they were there, four of them were there, but—
Cecilia. She was missing.
Gideon leapt from his horse before he’d brought him to a stop. “Cecilia? Where is she?”
Amy whirled around at the sound of his voice. She was sobbing as if her heart were torn apart, tears streaming down her cheeks. “The White Lady! S-she’s got Cecilia trapped with her in Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber! I didn’t want to leave her there, my lord, b-but she begged me to get Isabella and Mrs. Briggs out—”
Gideon didn’t wait to hear more, but burst through the doorway and into the entrance hall. The fire hadn’t spread to the ground floor, and there wasn’t much smoke yet. Wild hope flared in his chest. There was still time to get Cecilia out.
The White Lady’s got Cecilia trapped…
But there was no White Lady. She was an illusion, a ghost born from a rumor, the rumor born from lies, lies told by those who didn’t understand the truth could be far uglier than the worst thing their imaginations could conjure.
He’d known Leanora would come back, despite her promises to stay away. From the moment she first set foot in Darlington Castle she’d been unpredictable, selfish, and vindictive, and she’d only grown more bitter and resentful with each year that passed. He’d known she’d stay away only as long as it suited her to do so, and not a moment longer.
How had she found her way into the castle? Had she been wandering his hallways all this time? All these nights he and Haslemere had spent searching the grounds, hour upon hour roaming the darkness—had it been a fool’s errand?
Gideon raised a shaking hand to his face, trying not to think about the damage Leanora could have done while he’d been out chasing her ghost.
He slowed his steps to a crawl when he reached the second floor landing and crept silently down the corridor. The stench of burning—of a life going up in flames grew stronger as he neared Cassandra’s bedchamber. Wisps of smoke were drifting from the narrow crack under the door, and he heard female voices.
One was Cecilia’s. The other…
It had been months since Gideon had heard it, but he knew that chilly voice, the sharp edges of it that cut like broken glass. Leanora had ruined Nathanial with that voice—chased him from Kent back to London. Even then he hadn’t truly escaped her, and now…
Now she’d turned it on Cecilia.
Gideon’s hands fisted with the effort it took not to crash through the