or another.”
“More bloody nonsense. This is why I detest small villages, Darlington—willful ignorance and malicious gossip. I can’t think why you’d stay here at all. Once you’re married, you should bring your bride to London.”
Gideon stared down into his glass. “Most of London thinks I’m a murderer too, Haslemere. You may be the only person in England who doesn’t.”
“Miss Honeywell doesn’t think so,” Haslemere reminded him. “No one with any sense does.”
The thought of his betrothed should have cheered Gideon, but the faint spark of hope he’d felt while he remained in London seemed to have been swallowed by the shadows lurking in every corner of Darlington Castle. A marriage wouldn’t undo what had happened between these walls. It wouldn’t make him forget.
But the alternative was even grimmer. He couldn’t remain in this desolate castle alone forever. He owed Isabella better than that, and even putting his niece aside, he had an obligation to his title. He couldn’t remain here, in this dismal place. “Perhaps you’re right, Haslemere. Perhaps we’d be better off in the London townhouse.”
“You can’t be worse off than you are here. It’s something to think about, anyway.” Haslemere rose to his feet. “I’m off to bed. We can have another look in the woods tomorrow night, if you like. There’s no ghost, but someone else may be out there.”
Gideon nodded. “Good night, Haslemere, and thank you.”
Gideon remained in his study for a while after Haslemere left, sipping his port and staring out the window at the thickening shadows falling over the grounds. It had become his habit to avoid his bed. Being there only reminded him how elusive sleep had become.
But it was late, and the day had only grown more wearisome after his abrupt awakening this morning. He finished off the last of his port and set the tumbler on the windowsill. He was just turning away from the window when he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye and jerked back around, his heart quickening. “What the devil?”
It was a light near the tree line, faint but unmistakable. He tracked it as it moved steadily closer, toward the rose walk and the castle courtyard.
Mrs. Brigg’s mysterious lantern light.
He watched, breath held, as the light wound around the edge of the wood, flickering as it passed through the trees. Someone was out there, and whoever they were, they were cunning enough to have eluded him and Haslemere.
Gideon followed the movement of the light as far as the rose walk, but as it neared the wall surrounding the kitchen garden, it vanished. He squinted into the darkness, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, swallowed by the gloom.
He ran from his study into the entrance hall, then darted through the doorway into the courtyard beyond and found…nothing. The light and whoever had been carrying it were gone, vanished into the air as if they were…
A ghost.
A chill rushed through Gideon, helped along by the biting February wind. He didn’t give the wild stories about the White Lady any credit, but what he didn’t know was how far one of the villagers might go to make him believe his castle truly was haunted.
He stood in the courtyard, the wind tearing at his cloak as he peered into the black night. By the time he gave up the vigil and went back through the arched doorway and into the long, narrow entrance hall his hands and feet were numb from the cold and his eyes tearing from the relentless assault of the wind.
The house was dark and silent, but Gideon couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling gnawing at him as he mounted the stairs to the second floor. He started down the hallway, intending to have a quick look into Isabella’s room before he retired, just to reassure himself she was slumbering peacefully, but he hadn’t gone two steps before he froze, his heart leaping into his throat.
He’d heard a squeak, like the sound of footsteps creeping across the floorboards, faint but unmistakable, coming from a bedchamber he’d forbidden his servants to enter, one that should be still and shrouded in silence. A locked bedchamber, sealed up as tight as a tomb for more than a year now, with a connecting door into the sitting room where his young niece was now sleeping, vulnerable and defenseless.
Cassandra’s bedchamber.
Panic and fury surged through him, weakening his knees for an instant before instinct took over. His heartbeat thundered in his chest and his ragged breaths