The North Tower
If it was a moldering heap, she thought, peering from the carriage window as they approached it, it was certainly an impressive one. Uncle Cyrus had said it wasmoldering and was not at all the sort of place shewould want to make her home. But it was hers. Theonly thing of any real value she had owned in her life.Her house, her home. Her castle. Roscoe Castle—alltowers and battlements and massive, ivy-colored graywalls. Hers, though she had never set eyes on it beforethis moment—or on Baron Selbome, her maternalgrandfather, who had recently died and left it to her.
It was magnificent, her new home. There was also something rather sinister about it. It seemed more afortress than a home. Perched as it was on a rise ofland and outlined against the darkening sky of late afternoon, it looked somewhat overpowering to a young ladyof only twenty years and average height and slight build.Her grandfather had lived there alone for years andyears, cut off from his only daughter, who had incurredhis undying wrath by marrying unwisely, eloping whenhe had withheld his permission. The trees of the parkhad grown into something of a forest to the very footof the rise about the castle, leaving very little space forlawns and gardens or for anything that would make itseem like a pleasant home. The sea was not far away. The land rose bleak and barren behind the castle untilit fell away sheer to the sea and the rocks far below.Uncle Cyrus had described it to her. He had been thereonce with his brother, who had been intent on winningthe hand of the baron’s daughter.
“Impressive, is it not?” one of the other occupants of the carriage said. “It is not often that a woman issole heiress to such a property, Miss Borland.”
“And such a very young woman, too,” the other occupant said.
Daphne Borland turned her attention from the approaching castle and looked at the thin, stern figure of Mr. Cecil Tweedsmuir, executor of her grandfather’s will, and at the equally thin and stern figure ofhis sister, Miss Jemima Tweedsmuir, who had beenappointed her chaperone for the journey and her companion for at least the first few weeks of her residencein her new home.
Until her marriage.
“But there is the condition,” she said quietly.
“An easy one with which to comply, surely,” Mr. Tweedsmuir said. “Most young ladies of limited means,about to take employment as a governess, would thinkit a dream come true to find themselves suddenly considerable heiresses with a castle for a home.”
“And an earl for a husband,” Miss Tweedsmuir said, completing her brother’s thought and pursing herlips. “A young man, too, my dear Miss Borland, andreputed to be as handsome as Adonis.”
“And wealthy enough to make you, even with your newfound inheritance, look like a pauper,” Mr.Tweedsmuir added.
Yes, itwasa dream come true, Daphne thought as the carriage climbed the steep slope to the massivepointed stone archway that must lead through to acourtyard. There must once upon a time have beena moat at the foot of the slope, she supposed. It wasa dream come true. She had lived most of her twentyyears with her aunt and uncle, her father having diedin debtors’ prison when she was an infant and hermother having passed away three years later. Her auntand uncle had been kind to her, but they were notwealthy and they had a large brood of their own forwhom to provide. After refusing two offers of marriage—both from tenant farmers, one of whom shefound dull and the other repulsive—she had decidedto take employment. She had already been hired as agoverness and was within three days of leaving homewhen Mr. Tweedsmuir had arrived at her uncle’s door.
The only other known surviving relative of her grandfather’s—also female—was a very distant connection, Mr. Tweedsmuir had explained. And she wasbelieved to be living in America to boot. The baronhad chosen to leave everything to his granddaughter,since nothing was entailed. But there was a condition.She must agree, within two months of inheriting, tomarry the Earl of Everett, owner of Everett Park,eight miles distant from Roscoe Castle. The marriagemust be solemnized within three months.
“But what if the Earl of Everett does not wish to marryme?” Daphne had asked, aghast.
It seemed that the earl, and his father before him, had been wanting to buy Roscoe Castle and all itsland for some time past. But a bitter and longstandingfeud between the two families had made negotiationsdifficult. On his deathbed the baron had finally agreedthat the property might pass into the earl’s possessionif his lordship married the baron’s granddaughterwithin three months of his death.
If either refused to marry the other, Mr. Tweedsmuir had gone on to explain, then the one remaining relative in America was to be the inheritor. Neither,it seemed, was to be allowed to escape from the arrangement by deliberately appearing disagreeable tothe other.
And so, Daphne thought now as she was helped down from the carriage and looked about the largecourtyard with eager curiosity, this was all to be hersfor only a very short while. If she refused to marrythe Earl of Everett, or if he refused to marry her,then she must look for another governess’s post inthree months’ time. If she married him—but howcould she marry a complete stranger even if he wereas rich as Croesus and as handsome as Adonis?—thenit would all belong to him.
Her grandfather, she decided, taking Mr. Tweedsmuir’s offered arm, and stepping into the great hall, in addition to all his other faults, had been a tease.
Mrs. Bromley, the housekeeper, who greeted them in the great hall, did not seem quite to fit her surroundings, Daphne thought. She was plump and pleasant and smiling. It might have been more appropriatefor her and Miss Tweedsmuir to change places. MissTweedsmuir, reed thin and with her severely styleddark hair and black dress—she and her brother woremourning out of respect for the baron’s memory,though Daphne had declined to wear black for a manshe had never known and one who had always refusedto acknowledge her—would have been a suitably sinister housekeeper for such a starkly medieval castle.Especially it seemed so when Mrs. Bromley conducted them upstairs to their bedchambers and walked aheadof them with a candle held aloft. The candle wouldhave been necessary even if it had not been fiveo’clock and fast getting dark outside, Daphne thought.The windows down one side of the long stone passageway were small and narrow. If Miss Tweedsmuir hadbeen walking ahead, casting long shadows on the wallsinstead of the comfortably fat ones of Mrs. Bromley,one might almost have believed that ghosts lurked indark recesses. And it was a good time of the year forthem, too. It was almost the end of October. Daphnesmiled, diverted by her flight of imagination.
Mrs. Bromley stopped finally and opened a heavy oak door into what she proclaimed to be Miss Borland’s bedchamber. But Daphne hesitated for a moment before following her inside the room. MissTweedsmuir, like a silent shadow, stopped at hershoulder. Daphne frowned, looking at the blank stonewall ahead in the passageway. One did not expect ablank wall at the end of a castle passage. All passagesled somewhere. The rounded door into the towershould be there, she thought, before catching herselfin the thought and smiling outright. A rounded door?To the tower? What fanciful thought was she indulgingin now? She shook her head.
“I can see that a fire is burning in your bedchamber,” Miss Tweedsmuir said hopefully. “Shall we step inside, my dear Miss Borland?”
The passageway was indeed cold and drafty, Daphne thought, turning into her room only to findthat the heat from the fire hardly carried across to thedoor. Castles, with their thick stone walls, were reputed always to be cold, even in summer. She wasthankful that she still wore her heavy winter cloak.
“It is a delightful room,” she said, feeling some enthusiasm despite the chill as she looked about her.It did not have any of the pretty coziness of her roomat Uncle Cyrus’s, but it had character, with its highceiling and tapestry-lined walls and heavy canopiedbed.
Mrs. Bromley looked dubious. “I am new here, madam,” she said, “the old housekeeper having retired on his lordship’s passing. I could wish that theplace was warmer, but I have ordered fires kept constantly burning in all the rooms that will be in use.Perhaps a little light and warmth will dispel some ofthe rumors and make the maids less silly about movingfrom place to place unless there is a manservant withthem.”
“Rumors?” Daphne asked with interest.
Mrs. Bromley clucked her tongue. “Ghosts,” she said. “It takes only one silly servant to claim thereare ghosts, and pretty soon she has everyone believingin them and jumping at their own shadows. I have nopatience with such nonsense.”
Miss Tweedsmuir cleared her throat. “I hardly think such gossip suitable for the tender ears of a younglady,” she said, her voice as chilly as the corridorbeyond the door.
Daphne laughed. “Oh, but I am fascinated,” she said. “I must hear the stories tomorrow when I haverecovered from the journey. You need have no fearthat I will awake screaming from nightmares in themiddle of the night, Miss Tweedsmuir. I have not thesmallest belief in ghosts.”
“You are a sensible young lady,” Miss Tweedsmuir said approvingly.
“Of course there are no ghosts,” Mrs. Bromley said. “But I am sorry to have mentioned them,madam. Would you like me to have tea sent to thedrawing room, late as it is? I am sure you and your lady companion and the gentleman must be chilled after the journey. A wicked raw day it is today, forsure.”
