It was always sometime after midnight, usually around one, that his mind started to swirl, scenarios of what could have happened, or sometimes what had happened, racing through his mind, making sleep impossible. On rare nights he could talk himself into staying in bed, although he never slept once dark thoughts began. Last night, no amount of deep breathing had been able to calm him down. The horror of the afternoon, those wild, long moments when he had believed Charlotte had been taken or trapped herself somewhere and died, had triggered a terror in him that the darkness of the night only made worse.
Tobias’ servants were well trained. They would not leave the front door wide open, or any of the other side doors. It didn’t matter how many times he reassured himself that was the case,there came a point when he could bear it no more and he had to go and check the building was secure for himself.
At Glanmore House, there were fourteen doors that led to the outside, not including the servants’ quarters. He’d checked them all twice, because once he’d finished the last one, he could not remember doing the first one and so he had started again, moving through the house like a wraith. He knew if anyone was aware of what he was doing, he would be carted off to Bedlam but he wasn’t about to tell anyone, so he was fine. Or at least as fine as a man could be walking around in only a shirt, checking on doors more than once.
At the end of his second check, he could confirm that all the doors were secure. No one would be able to get in and take Charlotte. Even so, he’d had to visit the nursery twice to convince himself she was still tucked up in bed, thankfully unaware one of her uncles only had a very tenuous grip on his mind.
He’d fallen asleep near dawn but not for long.
He was so damned tired, which was why his sister-in-law’s question was so damned irritating.
‘Why do I have to be in the music room with you, Edward?’
‘You have to be here as chaperone because…’
‘Kate is going to be living here for a long time,’ Emily interrupted him. ‘Very soon, I will be having a baby and I will not be able to be with you every time you want to have a conversation with her. Nobody knows what goes on behind these walls; the two of you will not be compromised and forced into marriage. You are being ridiculous, Teddy.’
‘No.’ He held up a hand; she’d gone too far. ‘You are not going to call me that. I will not live in a house with a Teddy and aFreddie.’ Emily sniggered. ‘I think I liked you better when you were meeker.’
Rolling her eyes, she smirked at him. It wasn’t true, he realised. His sister-in-law had been a mild-mannered ghost of a woman when she lived with her mother, a woman who put her daughter down at any moment. Since she had come to live with him as Freddie’s wife, she had become a friend. That wasn’t something Edward had expected, but he was glad for it, despite how irritated he was with her.
‘It is not like I have asked you to do this every day and it is not going to become a habit.’ He had no intention of spending any more time than was strictly necessary with Kate Hornel. It didn’t matter how soft her skin looked, because he would never touch it to find out. ‘I have only spent time with her on three separate occasions, but when I was talking to her yesterday, I realised she does not have very much to do. She must be bored and alone. I thought this—’ he gestured to the pianoforte ‘—might help.’
Emily’s features softened, her amusement fading into something that looked a little wistful. ‘I want her to be content here too. She’s very witty; sometimes my face aches after we have lunched together because she has made me laugh so hard. If I was not exhausted all the time, I would spend more time with her, but I really am very tired, Ted…’ He scowled. ‘Edward,’ she corrected herself, not before hiding a smile behind her hand.
When Christopher had first used the name Teddy in front of Charlotte, he should have put a stop to it straight away. The blighter had only done it because he knew it would irritate Edward if the name caught on. Even now, he could stop Charlotte from calling using the moniker and make her go back to calling him Uncle Edward. The only problem was that when she looked up at him with her big, round eyes and called him Teddy, his heart melted. Not that he would admit it toanyone. He was Edward Dashworth, damn it. Before he was an uncle he’d been something of a tearaway; not badly behaved as such, but certainly no saint. No woman had breathily whispered Teddy as she dragged her fingernails down his spine. Edward had been someone men had wanted to be and women had wanted to be around. He needed to get back to being that person before he became Teddy to the world and lost his masculinity completely.
Before he could argue with Emily any more, Kate pushed open the door and made her way in. His breath caught in his throat and he glanced down at the rug near his feet, hoping no one had noticed the way his body had jolted at the sight of her. If asked, he couldn’t say what it was that made her so irresistible to him. Her hair was like flames and her soft curls could make a man weep, but it wasn’t just her otherworldly beauty. There was something indefinable about her, something about the way she was inside that called out to him. Every time he looked at her it was as if a match lit something within him and his whole body began to burn. It was not an entirely comfortable feeling, but neither did he want it to stop, no matter what he told himself.
‘I am sorry to keep you both waiting,’ Kate said as she came towards them. ‘I spent rather a lot of time searching for the music room on the other side of the house.’ She bit her lip and Edward busied himself with some sheets of music to stop himself from groaning. ‘Please apologise to Christopher for me. I do not think he wanted me to see what he was doing and, although I did say sorry a few times, I am not sure it was enough.’
Her soft, secret smile did not help to stop the burning inside him. ‘I am intrigued,’ he said, trying to inject levity into his own voice. ‘What on earth was he doing to have elicited such a reaction?’
Her eyes crinkled in the corners. ‘I swore I would never tell a soul.’
Leaning forward, he realised the tiredness that had been dragging on him all day had gone, her presence burning it away. ‘I will endeavour to catch him unawares tomorrow.’
Her laughter lit up the room. ‘I should think he will be more careful in future. Quickly changing the subject, I was wondering whether there is a map of the house or even a simple sketch marking out the places I should not go. I would hate to walk in on His Grace should I make a similar mistake.’
Emily grimaced, although her eyes were sparkling with laughter. ‘I cannot imagine the horror!’
‘My brother is not all bad,’ said Edward, though he understood what the ladies meant. Tobias guarded his privacy intensely and Edward did not relish the idea of accidentally walking in on him either. Being the oldest, Tobias had borne the brunt of Miss Dunn’s awfulness. Goodness knows what it had done to his soul. ‘I am afraid there is not a map. I would suggest you avoid all six rooms past the entrance to the conservatory. I thought your maid was escorting you to rooms.’
‘Ah yes, she was, but I made the mistake of assuring her I was fine and she did not need to do so any more. Unfortunately, she believed me.’
‘One of us will give you a tour,’ said Emily, and Edward was fairly sure his sister-in-law intended for him to do it. Despite telling them all they should not push a match between him and their guest, and outlining the reasons for this, all of which still existed, it seemed they were all determined to ignore him. Perhaps it had been his quite frankly slanderous comments about poor Alexander Wright that had suggested he was lying when he said he was not interested in Kate. He should not have said any of those things, should not have even thought them,because there was no truth to the statement that Alexander was a bore. There was nothing wrong with the man, but after having had one too many glasses of wine one evening, Edward hadn’t been able to stop the words pouring out of him, listing all the reasons he did not think Mr Wright was the man for Kate and well… his mistake had not done him any favours.
‘What are we doing here this morning?’ asked Kate.
‘I thought I could teach you how to play the pianoforte,’ he told her, gesturing to the instrument.
Her head tilted to one side, regarding him. ‘To what end?’
‘I…’ He stalled. Because he thought she might enjoy it, that everyone should have music in their lives and that it would give her something to do in the long months waiting for her brother’s return. ‘It is a skill young ladies are supposed to have,’ he said, instead of all those better reasons.
‘I am hardly young.’
He found that hard to believe. ‘How old are you?’
