Chapter Three
Olivia’s head flashed with a pain that left her momentarily blind. The air turned dense, too thick to breath. In the middle of the maelstrom of sensation, just when she could see again and draw breath, there stood Andrew’s brother, framed in the opening of the doorway. A mad impression dashed into her head: he wasn’t real. Druid warriors must have magicked him into existence and let him loose to wreak havoc among dream-bound and waking mortals alike. Like the man in the portrait, his eyes were blue, but there the resemblance had both birth and death.
God knows he had the Alexander looks: blue eyes, dark hair and a narrow face. The resemblance to Andrew was remarkable, but something in the face set him apart from other handsome men, indeed, from any other man she’d known. The sharp cheekbones, the confident way he held himself, but most especially the eyes. Where the other gentlemen were open and gregarious, the earl’s eyes gave nothing away and put a frost on his smile. Nothing of Andrew’s gentleness, Olivia thought. Nothing at all. The sea had washed away whatever gentleness he’d possessed.
He stood perhaps an inch or two over six feet, but the impression of height came from his posture: rigidly upright. Tan breeches stretched taut over a flat belly and followed the shape of his thighs. His bottle-green coat, unbuttoned to show a gold-striped waistcoat beneath, did not fit as perfectly as Fitzalan’s but his shoulders were no less broad for the imperfection. Above the waistcoat, the plain front of his shirt begged for less sober lace. His boots, though shined to brilliance below the turned-down tops, set no example of London fashion. No one who saw him walking down the street would think him an aristocrat.
Hair cropped unfashionably close to his head revealed a stubborn and determined physiognomy, a man who knew what he wanted and took it. Gauntness defined the ridge of his cheekbone more than nature intended. Every feature could be marked in the portrait. Except, to England the sea returned not the youthful lieutenant of near-legend, but a man fully grown and in command of himself. There was no denying his striking looks, but it was his air of assurance, Olivia decided at last, that set him apart.
Tiern-Cope stared at them as if they were furniture in his way, a look devoid of welcome or interest. He was thirty, which for a man was still young. Though in truth younger than Andrew, he seemed a thousand years older and where Andrew wore his emotions on his sleeve, the captain was about as easy to read as a block of granite.
Diana leaned forward, hiding her face behind her spread-out fan. “James, you’re such an awful liar.”
Olivia didn’t see how anyone could have heard that soft exclamation over such a distance, but she felt a ripple of awareness come from the earl. He swept the room and each of its occupants in ruthless assessment. Olivia fancied his gaze lingered when it reached her. Her hair, of course, which she knew from long experience was coming free of its pins. Everyone who saw her for the first time stared at the shocking copper curls. His glance, and that was all it was, ended almost before it began, which was to be expected. If there was anything good to be said about her position in life, it was that her lack of rank afforded ample opportunity to study people. Olivia considered herself a student of knowledge gained through observation.
“James.” A slow curve of his mouth brought no warmth to his eyes. He bowed, rather stiff and more to the left than the right. Diana smoothed her skirt. Miss Cage fluttered her fan and turned pink. Feminine hands went to curls or lace, adjusting and readjusting. The gentlemen stirred. One or two tugged on their waistcoats. Despite the flurry of activity his behalf, the earl’s expression did not soften.
Olivia frowned, disappointed, which she realized was unfair of her. The good people of Far Caister, herself included, knew more about the Naval career of Captain Sebastian Alexander than they did about Admiral Nelson. Andrew had been so full of life, a cheerful man who rarely lost the opportunity to relate his brother’s exploits in the highest of terms that she hadn’t expected a joyless man whose mouth refused to move beyond the facsimile of a smile he wore right now. Olivia wondered if he’d ever truly smiled in all his life. Probably not. How sad that Andrew’s brother should have no joy in him. How disappointing. After all those tales of courage at the line of battle Olivia had constructed a very different picture of the man. A girlish, romanticized ideal that, of course, had no relation at all to reality.
“Good afternoon,” the earl said.
“Lord Tiern-Cope,” said Fitzalan, bowing. Any trace of his usual good humor vanished with the serious business of introducing the earl. “You remember my sister. Miss Diana Royce.”
The captain—no, Olivia reminded herself, the earl—walked to Diana with a stride that put her in mind of an animal; the vicious sort with sharp teeth, relentless energy and boundless hunger, which was an odd impression to have of a man so recently and sorely wounded. Heavens, what must he be like at full health?
“Miss Royce,” said the earl, taking Diana’s hand and pressing it between his. His voice flowed over the room like silk over stone. Here stood a man used to giving orders and having them followed. And everyone in the room, from oldest to youngest, responded to that air of authority.
“My lord.” Diana, dazzled like the others, swept into a low curtsey, completely abandoning her boredom. Olivia liked her better for the uncertainty, though doubtless that was her own lack of polish showing.
Lord Fitzalan cleared his throat.
“Miss Royce, do not stand on my account.” The earl caught Fitzalan’s eye and added, “Treat Pennhyll as if it were your home. Please.” With another stiff bow, he extended his elbow to her, and Diana put her hand on his arm. He led her to the chaise, seeing her seated before he faced the room in general. Olivia could not help but recall the rumor that Tiern-Cope had a special license, and that he intended to be married and return to the Navy forthwith.
Fitzalan managed the remaining introductions. The earl acknowledged everyone with a bow and a murmur. Not impolite, just not warm. In order of precedence, Olivia came dead last and so, eventually, only she remained to be introduced. Fitzalan remained silent long enough to give Olivia the unpleasant thought that he did not mean to present her at all. Tiern-Cope’s arctic eyes landed on Fitzalan.
“James.” Inflection made the word a query, but no one doubted he’d uttered a command for introduction.
“Ah, yes, do forgive me.” Fitzalan guided Olivia’s gloved hand to the earl. “Miss Olivia Willow. May I have the pleasure of presenting the Right Honorable Sebastian, earl of Tiern-Cope and master of Pennhyll Castle?”
He must know something of the night his brother died, that she’d been there, too, and nearly died. Perhaps he blamed her, certainly she doubted he pitied her. He didn’t strike her as a man likely to pity anyone. Whatever he thought, she ought not expect anything beyond polite reserve. She got less. Tiern-Cope took her hand without even an approximation of a smile. Rather the opposite in fact. Well. So be it.
“Tiern-Cope, I present Miss Olivia Willow of Far Caister.” That might have sounded grand if only Far Caister weren’t a village not a mile from the castle walls.
While she curtseyed she felt him taking in everything about her, from her satin slippers scuffed at the toe and much down at the heel to the lack of ribbons and lace on her gown. This meeting wasn’t anything like what she’d imagined, nor was the man, for that matter. Without doubt, any interest he showed was due to that awful day, and still the intensity of his regard made her wish for finer jewelry than her coral beads or for gloves better able to withstand such scrutiny. Most especially, she wished for a grander place to call home than Far Caister. The vanity of her regret struck her as so absurd that when she raised her eyes, she was smiling. Not at him, of course, that was accidental, but he might be excused if he thought so. She met a pair of cold, blue eyes. “My lord.”
“You have red hair.” The remark most definitely accused.
“Red, indeed,” she said. For heaven’s sake, did he think she had red hair just to irritate him? “Hopelessly red, my lord. And violently unfashionable.” She grinned and made sure her eyes emptied of emotion. “The bane of my existence, I’ll be the first to tell you.” She cocked one eyebrow, still smiling. “I am content with my hair, for I know I shall never be mistaken for anyone else.” A titter guaranteed he’d take her for just another gormless female. She despised herself for it.
“You and I have much to discuss.” He watched her with something between a glare and a glower. That, too, was unfair of her, she decided. For all she knew, this was his usual expression of good cheer.
“Sir,” she said. Of course he wanted to know about that night, only there was precious little she could tell him. In her head, she saw him pacing the deck of a ship, a cat-o-nine tails clenched in a fist while sailors cowered at his feet. The image, perversely, since it seemed so apt, made her smile again.
Silence reared up, a vast, icy wall. Oh, Miss Cage was right, the man was handsome, handsomer even than Fitzalan. Handsome, she thought, without actually being handsome, at least not in the manner of Fitzalan’s faultless looks. Once, long ago, that mouth might have been gentle, but now the stern, cheerless face chilled to the very bone. With some effort Olivia kept her smile, though her cheeks ached with the effort.
“The earls of Tiern-Cope,” he said in voice about as blithe as basalt, “once owned nearly every soul in Far Caister. So I’m told.”
Olivia called on a hard-won ability to speak in modulated tones whatever the cost. No one, absolutely no one, could take offense at her reply. No groveling toady could be more obsequious in the face of insult. “I’ve heard the same.”
“Only nearly?” Fitzalan said. “My dear Sebastian, why on earth didn’t you own them all?”
His head moved enough to take in Diana and her brother without losing sight of her. The plane of his cheek caught the light and cast the rest of his face in stark shadow. Olivia shivered at the sight. What a terrifying man. “A failing on the part of my ancestors.”
If Fitzalan had made the retort, she was sure they would all have laughed merrily, but the captain sounded as though he’d like to reach through the years and show the earls Tiern-Cope what it meant to be noble. No one moved. Like people increasingly horrified that a pebble dropped down a chasm had yet to hit bottom, no one spoke. No one dared.
Olivia hurried to fill the silence. “The earls of Tiern-Cope have been the pride and lifeblood of Far Caister for so long no one hereabouts thinks anything but that they could be master of us all.”
“Including you, Miss Willow?” His eyes landed on her like the sharp edge of a knife. Her headache pulsed, a slash of pain along her scar that made her long to lie down in a darkened room.
“Certainly, my lord.” She felt sorry for Miss Royce. A husband with no joy in him would be worse than remaining a spinster at twenty-four.
The blue eyes stayed on her with relentless chill. “Why aren’t you married?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He stared until she felt the size of a walnut about to be cracked beneath his heel. “You heard me.”
Fitzalan groaned. “Sebastian.”
By the merest of margins she kept a light tone. “Never loved and never in love, I suppose.” A bald-faced lie, but the truth was not his affair, no matter how horrible his aspect.
“What of your relations?” A smile slid over his face, then vanished like seawater into sand. “Did my ancestors once own yours?”
“Sebastian. Not now.”
She pasted on another vapid smile but the wall of cheerful nonchalance crumbled under that deepening gaze. “Happily for the Willows, the relation was more testamentary than proprietary.”
“Indeed.” Though his expression didn’t change, his voice sneered.
“Sebastian!”
With a quelling look at Fitzalan, he bowed. “How fortunate for you, Miss Willow.” When he left her to claim the seat nearest the fireplace, an excruciating silence filled the room. It was, Olivia thought, like having a wild animal to visit. Everyone watched him warily, uncertain of his tameness except for Fitzalan, who apparently knew he wasn’t to be trusted. The viscount went to the sideboard and grabbed a bottle and a glass. “Drink?”
The blue eyes fixed on Fitzalan. “Help yourself, James.”
“Don’t mind if I do. Sherry anyone? Diana? Miss Cage?” He shrugged when his sister shook her head. “Miss Willow?”
“Oh, my no, thank you. I never touch spirits in the afternoon.” Olivia gave a mental roll of her eyes. For pity’s sake, she sounded like somebody’s aged aunt, the one nobody much liked.
“Well, I do.” Fitzalan filled his glass. “Cheers.”
“You should follow Miss Willow’s example, James.”
“No, Sebastian.” Fitzalan settled his weight on one hip. “I don’t think I ought.”
“Suit yourself.”
“You’re enough to drive any man to drink.”
“I did warn you, James.” Another smile appeared and then vanished, incongruously young in that ageless face. “I have all the manners of a sailor.”
She’d never seen anyone so thoroughly terrorize a room. Everything about the earl suggested experience of a life lived close to the edge and in full acceptance of any and all consequences. No telling what he might do.
Fitzalan cleared his throat. “Fine weather we’re having, don’t you agree? I’m sure in London it’s nothing but ice and snow the color of ash.”
The others stole surreptitious glances at Tiern-Cope. They probably didn’t speak for fear they would suffer Olivia’s fate and be smartly slapped down. Still, Olivia could not, in good faith, leave the viscount dangling. She cleared her throat and plunged into the fray. “For the time of year, the weather is fine indeed, my lord.”
“I wonder, Miss Willow, if we will have new snow.” Fitzalan drank the rest of his sherry. “Do you think we shall have snow, Miss Cage?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” Most brave of Miss Cage, Olivia thought, to speak at all.
The earl left his chair for the fireplace where he stood with his hands tucked into the small of his back. He studied Diana with what Olivia found an unsettling gleam of possession. Like a wolf stalking its prey, Olivia thought. Now there was another apt comparison. The man was a wolf playing at domesticity. He’d come into this room decided on Miss Royce for his bride. That he wasn’t capable of self-doubt was plain. She wondered why he hadn’t brought the vicar and married Diana on the spot. The notion of Mr. Verney hiding behind the door, ready to spring out bible in hand brought a smile to her lips. The earl’s attention shot to her. Just in time, she hoped, she smoothed her expression and let the smile drain of all but the pretense of emotion. His look left a wake of shivering anticipation that did not quickly dissipate. He was, after all, the Captain Alexander. Andrew’s brave and daring younger brother.
“Miss Diana Royce,” the earl said. “I trust you had a pleasant journey to Pennhyll.”
Diana’s fan waved a hurricane beneath her chin, and she giggled, which gave a measure of the earl’s effect on everyone. Olivia watched him, gauging his reaction to the girlish sound but could divine nothing from his expression. “I must say, my lord, that I despise nothing more than traveling, and, I daresay, the roads could do with some improvement.”
“No doubt,” he said.
“The country,” she said, “is not at all like Town.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“Oh, Town, of course. All the best people are in Town. There’s ever so much to do there.”
Tiern-Cope refused to smile, and poor Diana, breaker of countless hearts, wilted under that basilisk stare. None of the young ladies were in anyway prepared for a man like him. The earl might have begun life as privileged as any nobleman, but he’d been a dozen years at sea, commanding the elements, not catering to feminine sensibilities.
This time Fitzalan leapt to fill the breach. “Now that Tiern-Cope is with us, we must think how we will entertain him.”
“What else but a ball?” said Miss Cage. She brushed a hand over her curls and fluttered her eyelashes. A waste, a sad, sad waste, for the earl took no notice whatever of her effort. Nor Fitzalan either. A few of the young gentlemen added their approval of the idea. Brave souls. And what a pity they faded into the background, spaniel puppies in the presence of a full grown wolf.
“A ball,” Fitzalan said. “In celebration of your recovery, Sebastian.”
“I am not in a condition for dancing. Not yet. Nor,” he added, “would I be able to organize such an affair. Unless, of course, you wish to dance upon a ship. With a ship under my feet, nothing is impossible.” He swept the room with that cold and barren gaze and settled on Diana with the same passion a man might have for assessing the state of a fence. “Until I have a suitable hostess to guide me, social niceties must continue to escape me.”
“Miss Willow,” said Fitzalan, desperate appeal in the loft of his eyebrows. “What is your opinion? Shall we have dancing?”
“Oh,” Olivia said with a jaunty wave of her gloved hand that belied her twisting anxiety. “I think our young ladies and gentlemen here should be much amused by a dance. On ship or off. A winter ball would be just the thing.”
“One thing I dislike more than a stupid woman,” the earl said, “is an intelligent one pretending she is not.”
No one quite knew what to make of the remark because he’d spoken to no one in particular, and was now a masthead of wooden silence.
“Come now,” Fitzalan said. “We must have a dance.”
“I do so adore dancing,” said Diana.
With a flash of insight that shocked her, so deep and sure was her understanding, Olivia realized Tiern-Cope meant what he’d said when he deferred the suggestion of a ball. She knew herself how recovery from serious injury sapped one’s strength and will. He was in no condition for dancing and ought not be downstairs at all. His wound pained him considerably. That he gave no overt sign of discomfort was proof of iron control, not intractable nature.
“Perhaps not right away,” she said. “When Lord Tiern-Cope’s had a chance to learn the country and, I am sure, love it as all Far Caisterians do.”
“Splendid advice.” Fitzalan clapped his hands. “Splendid. What would we do without your wise counsel, Miss Willow?”
“Muddle along, I’m quite sure,” said Olivia.
“Well, Sebastian? What do you say? Will you make a liar of me? And disappoint all the lovely young ladies?”
“Very well,” the earl said at last. But he did not look pleased. “When I am able.”
“Give us a date, Sebastian.”
“Six weeks.” This brought a round of groans from the young ladies for whom a ball six weeks distant seemed a lifetime away.
“Why not St. Agnes’ Eve?” said Miss Cage. “We young ladies can fast in the hopes of dreaming of the gentleman we’re to marry.”
Diana sat straight. “What a marvelous idea.”
“That is too soon,” said the earl.
“Come, come, Sebastian,” Fitzalan said. “That’s nearly three weeks from now. Plenty of time for you to recover your strength.” He glanced at the ladies. “Miss Cage has hit upon the very thing.” His grin spread. “We unmarried gentlemen will fast as well. So as to dream of our future brides.”
“Oh, we must,” Diana said. “James, we must.”
“There, you see, Sebastian?”
“I have another idea,” said Diana. “Oh, James, it’s a simply brilliant idea.”
“Do tell.”
“Is not Pennhyll reputedly haunted?”
“Yes.” James’s eyes sparkled. “By the Black Earl.”
“Ghosts are a particular passion of mine. Tell me what you think.” Diana clasped her hands. “A seance to call upon the spirit of the Black Earl.”
Tiern-Cope whirled, eyes flashing with exasperation. “Miss Royce—”
Diana fluttered her brown eyes at the earl and then at, of all people, Olivia. “What do you say, Miss Willow? Isn’t it the most magnificent idea you’ve ever heard?”
“An idea among ideas, Miss Royce.”
“Splendid.” The earl didn’t smile, and his eyes stayed cold as January ice. “Have your ball, Miss Royce, but as to a seance—I will not participate in anything so rank with superstition.” He walked toward Diana, then turned on his heel and returned to the fireplace. He didn’t move like a man still recovering from a wound. His coattails hung about six inches above his knees in the back and each stride forward displayed a length of inner thigh and a flash of firm roundness above, long legs shaped by muscle. Nature had carved him inside and out, Olivia decided, honing him to one purpose: survival. Indeed, in watching him walk, her original and fanciful notion that he resembled a wolf seemed fitter than ever.
“We’ll summon the Black Earl. I’m sure of it.” Diana’s eyes flashed.
“Bilgewater.”
“My lord,” Olivia said. “It’s all in fun.”
He turned on her. “And just what do you know about the Black Earl?”
“According to legend,” she said, “the Black Earl met his death sometime during the night between the twentieth and twenty-first of January. Quite possibly on St. Agnes’ Eve. It’s said that from dawn to dawn on the anniversary of his death, he meddles in the affairs of the living.”
He fixed her with another of his implacable stares. “Do you believe that?”
“I’m sure I do. Why, half the people of Far Caister claim to have seen the Black Earl right before some misfortune befalls them.”
Diana sat up. “Have you seen him, Miss Willow? Oh, do tell us what he was like. Were you unbearably frightened?”
“I’m told that when an earl of Tiern-Cope sees the Black Earl, it means he is soon to be married.”
Lord Fitzalan clapped the earl on the shoulder. “There you have it, Sebastian. Your doom awaits.”
Diana leaned forward. “What did he do that was so awful anyway?”
“Yes,” Fitzalan said. “Do tell us, Sebastian.”
“I refuse to repeat such a monumentally thickheaded fabrication.”
“Miss Willow,” said Diana. “You will tell us, won’t you? I simply must know.”
“According to the story, he treated his wife abominably.” Olivia did not look at Tiern-Cope, but she could feel his eyes on her. “Before they were married, he spread lies about her honor and prevented her from marrying a man who loved her deeply. He’s also said to have locked her in the dungeon, but so few survived imprisonment at Pennhyll, I’m sure it’s not so. At some point, so goes the tale, he saved her life, and then he forced her to marry him.”
“Since you have nothing to say that is not ridiculous, Miss Willow, say nothing at all.”
“A high price to pay, even for one’s life, don’t you think?” Poor Miss Royce, Olivia thought, suppressing a smug grin. Poor, poor Miss Royce. She sent a prayer of thanks to whatever guardian angel had seen to it she was the spare instead of a candidate for countess.