with the words of the blasted “Fair Maid of Islington” echoing in a wearying loop in her head, she climbed under the coverlet, eyes wide open, and reconciled herself to a sleepless night.
What would Lord Darlington’s lips feel like under her fingertips? They looked soft. Were a gentleman’s lips soft? They were full, temptingly so, his lower lip a trifle plumper, just the tiniest hint of a pout.
Goodness.
She tucked the coverlet closer as a delicious warmth settled low in her belly. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she was just embarking on a scandalously delightful dream about Lord Darlington’s lips when she was startled awake by Seraphina, who suddenly woke from her nap at the foot of Cecilia’s bed, let out a growl, and leapt to the floor.
“Seraphina?” Cecilia reached for the cat, but Seraphina darted away before she could get a hand on her. “Whatever is the matter?”
That was when she heard it. It was muffled, so faint she nearly missed it, but it sounded like a—
Scream.
Cecilia shot upright as another scream, this one much louder and edged with panic, shattered the silence of the castle. Seraphina let out another yowl, and scrambled across the floor to the door leading to the hallway, clawing in a frenzy to be let out.
Cecilia vaulted from the bed, tripping over the hem of her night rail in her panic to get to Isabella, but the scream hadn’t come from her, nor had it woken her. She was curled up in her bed, sleeping the sound, peaceful sleep of a child.
A door slammed in the hallway. Cecilia whirled around, her breath stopping as a third scream rent the air.
Dear God, it sounded as if someone were being murdered.
Her lungs heaving like a bellows, she snatched up a shawl and flew out her bedchamber door. At the other end of the hallway she could see Lord Darlington, Lord Haslemere, Amy, Duncan, Mrs. Briggs, and Mrs. Honeywell crowded around Miss Honeywell’s door. There was no sign of Miss Honeywell, but Cecilia could hear a desperate wail echoing from inside her bedchamber.
“Fanny! Open this door at once!” Mrs. Honeywell was beside herself. She rattled the latch until the door shuddered in its frame, her shrieks drowning out her daughter’s howls. Her face was so red she looked as if she were one scream away from a convulsive fit.
Cecilia flew down the hallway, her shawl streaming out behind her, and came to a stumbling halt beside Amy in front of Miss Honeywell’s door. “What’s happened?”
Amy gave her a stricken look. “I-I’ve no idea. Mayhap Miss Honeywell had a nightmare?”
“Stand aside, Mrs. Honeywell.” Lord Darlington’s face was pale, but he was utterly calm as he eased Mrs. Honeywell away from the door. “Some assistance, if you would, Haslemere,” he added, gesturing toward the locked bedchamber door.
He and Lord Haslemere made quick work of it, slamming their shoulders against the door until the latch on the other side gave way, and it burst open.
“What the devil?” Lord Haslemere froze on the threshold, his eyes widening, and Cecilia and the others crowded around the door, peeking around him.
Miss Honeywell was in her bed, her eyes squeezed closed, tears streaming down her cheeks, and one deafening shriek after another issuing from her gaping mouth. She was so overwrought, she seemed not to notice a crowd had gathered in her doorway.
Mrs. Honeywell pushed forward, flew across the room, and seized her daughter by the shoulders. “Fanny? Fanny! For pity’s sake, child, what’s happened?”
Mrs. Honeywell was obliged to shake her daughter until at last Fanny opened her eyes and choked out through breathless sobs, “I-I heard a noise outside, as if someone were moaning. I rose from my bed, and I s-saw…there was a woman, standing under my window!”
“A woman? My dear, it was likely just one of Lord Darlington’s servants.”
Cecilia and Amy glanced at each other. There was no reason a servant should be wandering around the grounds in the dead of night.
“No, Mama!” Miss Honeywell clutched her mother’s arm, her knuckles white. “It wasn’t a servant! S-she was a ghost!”
A collective gasp rose from the bystanders.
Mrs. Honeywell jerked free, anger replacing the panic on her face. “Goodness, Fanny, all this fuss over a nightmare? Why, you nearly reduced the castle to rubble with your screeching.”
“It was no nightmare, Mama! She was dressed in a flowing white gown, and her face…” Miss Honeywell shuddered. “No living, breathing being, no woman of flesh and blood could have such deathly white skin. She looked as