imagine, madam. I trust you and your daughter will be gone from Darlington Castle before breakfast tomorrow.”
Silence followed this announcement. It seemed even Mrs. Honeywell thought better of arguing with an enraged marquess who’d just ordered her and her daughter to leave his castle. Sensing this was the end of the discussion, Cecilia whirled around and scurried down the hallway to her own bedchamber before she could be caught eavesdropping.
She closed her own door with a quiet click, but even then, she heard Mrs. Honeywell’s shriek of fury, followed by the abrupt slamming of a bedchamber door.
Dear God, that shriek.
Miss Honeywell would have done better to take her chances with the ghost, rather than her mother.
Cecilia hovered by the door and waited, her heart pounding, and after a few moments she heard the tread of footsteps coming down the hall. She assumed it was Lord Darlington returning to his bedchamber, but when the steps didn’t pass her door, she eased it quietly open and peeked through the gap.
Lord Darlington and Lord Haslemere were standing in the shallow alcove just off the landing, mumbling to each other. Cecilia could see by their earnest expressions that whatever they were saying was of some import, and she edged the door open a bit wider.
It was an evening of eavesdropping, it seemed.
“…didn’t believe it until tonight.”
It was Lord Darlington speaking. Cecilia would have recognized that deep voice anywhere. His next words were muffled, then he said, “It’s possible she’s come back, Haslemere.”
She? Who’d come back? Who could Lord Darlington mean?
Lord Haslemere murmured something Cecilia didn’t catch, then, “…even then, how can she simply disappear as if she’s vanished into the air?”
Cecilia pressed her eye to the gap and saw Lord Darlington run a distracted hand through his hair. He said something else, too low for Cecilia to hear, then, “…knows the area better than I do.”
Lord Haslemere made a frustrated sound and mumbled a few words in reply.
Cecilia held her breath, her ears straining. Oh, why couldn’t they speak clearly?
“…know where to start…grounds too extensive.”
Dear God, it was maddening. Cecilia caught her tongue between her teeth to keep herself from shouting at them to speak up.
“…unstable, Haslemere. Miss Honeywell’s story…go after her.”
Unstable? Cecilia’s hands curled in an agony of frustration. Go after who?
They were just far enough away she could only catch a word here and there, but she’d caught enough of it to know one thing for certain.
Something was terribly amiss at Darlington Castle.
The two conversed for another minute or so, but aside from a stray word here or there she couldn’t make sense of, none of what they said reached Cecilia’s ears until Lord Darlington said, “We need to search the grounds.”
Cecilia stared at Lord Haslemere’s back as he hurried down the corridor toward his own rooms, then she ducked back into her bedchamber and slid her door closed. Lord Darlington’s footsteps echoed down the hallway, passed her room, and then she heard him moving about in his bedchamber.
She crept toward the connecting door. She didn’t dare open it even a crack, but she could hear rustling on the other side, then the thud of boots across the floor. His bedchamber door creaked open, footsteps strode down the hallway, and then…
Silence.
Cecilia took a stumbling step back from the door, her thoughts in turmoil.
She, they’d said. She, over and over again, but the only “she” Cecilia knew of who was in any way involved in this mystery was…
The Marchioness of Darlington.
The dead Marchioness of Darlington.
Was this a mystery, a ghost story, or a nightmare? Cecilia no longer knew, and there was only one way to find out the truth.
Follow Lord Darlington and Lord Haslemere. Not tonight—she couldn’t leave Isabella alone—but she’d seize her chance when it presented itself. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the night after.
Until then…
She glanced over her shoulder at Isabella, who was still curled up on her side, fast asleep in her bed. Cecilia started toward her, but she paused when her gaze fell on the connecting door between her room and Lady Darlington’s forbidden bedchamber.
Her heart took up a dizzying, pounding rhythm inside her chest. She pressed her palms flat against the wall at her back, as if that one small act of retreat might be enough to keep her from moving toward Lady Darlington’s door.
What did she think she’d find on the other side of it?
Some mystery Lord Darlington was hiding? Some lie he’d told? A White Lady, or a missing marchioness? A pile of bones secreted away inside the