Chapter Two
Viola Grantham, Lady Ramsleigh, had thought death both imminent and inevitable as she floated on those broken boards in a rough sea. She’d slipped into the blackness of unconsciousness assuming it was a precursor to the eternal damnation that surely awaited her on the other side.
She no longer felt the cold, nor any of the pain that she ought to have after being tossed about the failing ship like a child’s toy. Opening her eyes, she expected to be staring into the harsh light of dawn. But there was a man there, visible only in silhouette, as he blocked out the light.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
Perhaps she hadn’t defeated death, after all. “Am I dead?” Her throat ached, parched and dry from the appalling amount of seawater she’d swallowed. It burned horribly to speak.
“No, but if we do not get you warm, you soon will be,” he answered. “Before I move you, I need to be certain that you are not so gravely injured it would be more dangerous to do so. With your permission, Madame, I will perform a brief examination.”
“Are you a physician, then?” she asked. Her brain was still muddled as she tried to differentiate the strange dreamlike state she’d been in from what was apparently her current reality.
“Yes,” he replied. “I am.”
To avoid the pain of speaking again, she nodded. It was a terrible mistake. She had thought herself too numb from the cold to feel pain. But as she moved her head, pain exploded in it. So much so that she cried out. Immediately, his hands were there, moving over her scalp through the wet and tangled mass of her hair to the large bump that had formed near the base of her skull.
“Can you recall if you were struck with something?”
“A particularly rough wave threw me from the bunk. I landed against the opposite wall,” she said softly. Having stilled, the pain had subsided to some degree.
“I suspect that you have concussed your brain… but I also suspect that your spine may be bruised. As you have been able to move your limbs, I do not think it more severe than that. Only painful,” he answered. “To make this as pain free as possible, I am going to use a piece of board and some strips of cloth to immobilize your head and neck before we take you up the path to the cliffs.”
She still had not seen his face. His voice was kind and reassuring, his touch oddly gentle and far different from any of the men of her previous acquaintance. It was only when another man stepped closer, stepped fully behind him and blocked out more of the light still, that his shadowed face became clear to her. Handsome. Far too handsome for her peace of mind. Definitely too handsome to be trusted. But what choice did she have? “Do what you must,” she said quickly, before she changed her mind and begged them to just let her die in the cold, wet sand.
He issued instructions like a general, barking orders to those around him like a man used to being obeyed. The man who’d been behind him moved to do his bidding and once more his beautiful face was hidden, blocked out by the light surrounding him. But she knew now what was hidden and because of that, any sense of trust was gone. When the other man moved behind her cradling her head in large rough hands and she was turned to her side by another, she felt them place the board behind her. They turned her onto her back once more and other boards were placed beside her head. Then a piece of cloth was used to tie her to the very bit of wreckage she’d floated on. Panic hit her then, panic at being tied down, at being immobile, at being once more in her life at the mercy of a man she did not know.
“It’s only temporary,” he offered soothingly, in the same gentle tones he’d used before, as if he understood her panic. “If we don’t immobilize your neck and head before moving you, it could make the current damage worse if not permanent. As soon as we can safely do so, I will cut the bindings free.”
Forcing herself to breathe, to ignore her instinct to struggle, Viola squeezed her eyes closed and pictured in her mind the only thing that had ever brought her peace. She thought of her son and steeled herself to do whatever was necessary for his sake. That was why she’d returned at all, to ensure his future.
When they lifted the broken crate, the pain was excruciating. Darkness crept in once more, closing out the light and sucking her back into the abyss of it. She didn’t fight it. It was preferable to suffering the agony while conscious.
*
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Nicholas glanced over at his brandy cask-carting companion. He held the cask like a woman cradling an infant as they walked behind the small cart that was being led up the steep path to the cliffs above and the respite that would be provided for her at Castle Black. Given her identity, it was the most appropriate place to take a woman of her station. “No, she is not dead. She’s unconscious, likely from the pain. Head and neck wounds are particularly agonizing.”
“Oh, I know that, Doctor. I’ve knocked my noggin a time or two!” the man agreed, chortling heartily.
“Was there brandy involved?” Nicholas asked.
The man had the decency to at least appear sheepish. “There might have been some,” he admitted ruefully. “Why do you reckon she’s come back? And why do you reckon old Lord Ramsleigh told everyone she’d died?”
“Those are questions for her and for Lord Ramsleigh,” he answered, keeping his gaze on his patient. Even in her unconscious state, he could see her grimace with pain as they hit ruts in the path or had to make one of the steep turns. In spite of her pallor and her obvious pain, she was likely the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. When she’d opened her eyes and looked up at him on the beach, he’d been struck by the color of her eyes. A deep, pure violet, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Completely entranced by them, he’d been as much at risk of drowning in them as the sea he’d rescued her from.
“Can’t ask a dead man,” the brandy cradler cackled.
“Really dead or dead like she was?” Nicholas asked.
“No, he’s really dead. Some six months back… just before Lord Blakemore returned. Lots of folks in these parts seem to be turning up resurrected. Odd, that.”
“Odd, indeed,” Nicholas agreed. A beautiful and presumed dead woman returns after a near fatal accident to take up her rightful place as the widow of a titled landowner. It was like something from one of those dreadful gothic novels Beatrice had taken to reading.
Why had she left to begin with? What other secrets was she hiding? What had been Lord Ramsleigh’s motives for telling the world she had preceded him in death when that was clearly not the case? A dozen questions about her flitted through his mind and not a one of them had to deal with her present condition. For once in his life, he’d encountered a person who intrigued him more than their various medical conditions did. She was a mystery and one that he looked forward to solving. Glancing at her once more as the cart turned, he caught sight of her in profile. Every feature was perfection from her the perfect proportions of her forehead and the lightly arched dark brows to the tilt of her small upturned nose and the jut of a chin that warned him she would be a challenging woman. If he were honest, he could admit that his curiosity was sparked as much by the mass of black hair and a pair of fine violet eyes as the story of her resurrection.
They reached the top of the cliffs and she was transferred from the rickety handcart that had been carried by several men to a horse drawn wagon. Nicholas climbed up beside her. He looked askance at the brandy cask that was placed down beside him with a heavy thump. It appeared he’d earned a follower.
“What in the world are you doing?” Nicholas demanded, eyeing the man with aggrieved horror.
“I’m helping, ain’t I? Worked for old Lord Ramsleigh, I did. If’n anyone has questions ’bout who she is, I’d be the one to answer ’em, wouldn’t I?”
Realizing that the man, in fact, had a point and that he could not continue to simply refer to him by his drink of choice, Nicholas asked, “And what is your name?”
“William Wells, sir,” he said, and doffed his cap to offer a clumsy bow. “At your service, Dr. Warner.”
Nicholas sighed. He had no doubt that the man would cling to his side as stubbornly as he clung to his cask of brandy. While he might have useful information, Nicholas had little doubt that the man was doing nothing more than assuring he had the most up to date gossip about the resurrection of Lady Ramsleigh. He’d be paid for it in free drinks at the local tavern, no doubt.
They made the remainder of the journey in silence. Upon arriving at Castle Black, the doors were flung open and a bevy of servants rushed out to assist. Most of them defined assistance as gawking at the unconscious woman. Clearly, word of her return had reached the house long before her battered body had.
“Has a room been prepared for her?”
“Yes, Doctor,” the butler intoned as he looked disapprovingly at the unconscious woman. “But it would likely be best if she were not to remain at Castle Black overlong. She is a scandalous woman, after all… abandoning her husband! I cannot imagine what would be said of Lord and Lady Blakemore for entertaining such a woman here.”
“Scandalous or not, she’ll stay here until she’s well enough to go elsewhere. And no one shall speak of her scandalous past, her husband or anything related to his erroneous report of her death. Is that clear?”
The edict came from the open doorway of the castle where Beatrice stood. She’d taken to her role as lady of the manor with aplomb. The butler, chastened, inclined his head and apologized, “Forgive me, my lady, if I have overstepped.”
“There is no if. That was decidedly overstepping. But you are forgiven, and you will ensure that while she is here as our guest and under Dr. Warner’s care, that she is not importuned in any way or harassed about whatever her past may hold. We are none of us without sin or blame,” Lady Beatrice said sternly.
The butler, thoroughly scolded and slightly embarrassed, signaled two strapping footmen to come and carry the woman inside. As they passed her, Beatrice looked down at the patient and frowned. “It really is her,” she said to Nicholas. “I thought it was exaggeration or perhaps simply mistaken identity, but it is Viola Grantham!”
“You know her then?” Nicholas was more than a little surprised. The events that had surrounded Graham’s disappearance at sea and the nearly two decades before his return had kept the occupants of Castle Black terribly isolated.
“Ramsgate Hall is five miles inland from her… I would take long walks and Viola would ride frequently. Our paths crossed on occasion. And while I never called there and she never called here, we had a friendly acquaintance if you will. I was very disturbed when her husband reported her death. I feared that he was very unkind to her.”
“You mean he abused her,” Nicholas surmised. “It is not uncommon.”
“Yes,” Beatrice answered evenly. “Quite so. If she did abandon him and run away to heaven knows where, I certainly would not blame her a bit for it.”
His mystery woman was growing more complex with every passing minute. “And Ramsleigh is dead now, and she’s returned to claim the estate?”
“It might be very difficult for her to do so. Lord Ramsleigh’s nephew, Randall Grantham, has taken up the title and the estate. He’d be unlikely to hand the land or the house over to his uncle’s resurrected widow! Unless of course there is a child. But she’s been gone nigh on two years and if she kept her child from his father—of course, that could be why she left when she did. Perhaps she was attempting to protect more than just herself?” she mused.
“I need to attend her. If she succumbs to the cold or the head injury I fear she has, we will never know,” he replied gravely. “You should rest. You look pale.”
“That is because I must cast up my accounts every day until at least tea time,” she answered sharply.
“Drink ginger tea,” he replied with a wave of his hand as he stepped into the cavernous great hall of Castle Black.
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