“Then allow me to escort you to a quieter room. There must be a veritable maze of them in this place,” the man replied.
“I am sure I can find my way. I thank you for your concern,” Cecilia replied hurriedly, not wanting to be escorted, simply wanting to be alone.
“Very well. I am Sir Gerald Knightley, by the way, of Brockwill. And you are?”
“Cecilia Sinclair of Penrose,” Cecilia replied, giving the name of her parent’s seat rather than the place where she lived with her aunt and uncle. Hamilton Hall had never truly felt like home.
“Penrose? Indeed. A tragic tale. We really must talk during the course of the evening, about Penrose.”
Cecilia frowned, wondering what this could mean. But the need to escape that room had become overwhelming. She wanted a cooling drink and a breath of fresh air. She wanted to escape the magnetism of Lionel Grisham, to escape the confusion he wrought upon her. The man she reviled for the killing of her brother. The man who made her heart hammer in her chestand her body tingle. She stammered what she hoped was an acceptable goodbye and walked rapidly away, looking for a door that would take her from the great hall and the Duke of Thornhill.
CHAPTER 4
Lionel hoped that his astonishment had not been obvious to those who crowded around him. When his eyes had met those of the woman with the rich, bronze hair and fathomless brown eyes, he had recognized her instantly. That was Cecilia Sinclair. When he had first seen her on the arm of her brother, she had been a girl scarcely into womanhood. Yet she had possessed the charisma of a goddess, had drawn him like a moth to a flame. That girl had eclipsed even Arabella, whom he had believed to be the paragon of womanhood at that time. In five years, the girl had stepped through the doorway of womanhood and now commanded the room beyond. She had matured, her body acquiring the curves so enticing to a male. Her face had grown into its beauty, wearing it like a fine ballgown with confidence and assurance. She had stood out amid the crowd like a beacon fire, drawing him to her.
The constant interruptions of his guests had been an annoyance, like the tiny insects that emerged from the mere in summer to bite and swarm. Like those insects, Lionel had wanted to swat the impudent intruders aside, clear his path to reach Cecilia.Whether that was to look into her eyes, talk to her, or simply offer her his heartfelt condolences for the loss of her brother, he could not say.
In the wake of the murder, he had wandered a fever dream for weeks, straying in and out of consciousness. Blackwood had been his constant companion and nurse, but as time passed, so had the opportunity to reach out to Cecilia and share the grief they both wrestled with. Lionel felt guilty over that oversight. An eventual letter to her had received no reply. Lionel had then become obsessed with his quest for revenge and the demanding, draining task of teaching his body to walk again. Only occasionally had thoughts of Cecilia returned to him. Even less occasionally came thoughts of love, which had once been uppermost on his mind.
But those had been the times before Arabella had crushed his heart and tossed it to the side of the road. Before her betrayal, following hard on the heels of Lord Thorpe. Seeing Cecilia across the room had been the first he had truly thought on her for years.
As a man whose name he did not know and had not remembered from being given it, pestered him with demands for small talk, he looked back to the alcove where Cecilia had been standing. She was no longer there. Her absence struck him as an almost physical blow. A sense of loss yawned within him that he had not expected and he told himself it was pure foolishness. A young man with fashionable hair and dress was standing in her place, looking towards a door that led out to the west wing of the castle. Presently, he glanced around and then quickly walked towards it. Lionel frowned. The young man was a callow youth, shallow and privileged in a way that Lionel disapproved of. His invitationhad been necessary as his family was prominent in the county set. But it did not sit well with Lionel that such a man was his guest.
The man slipped through the door and Lionel wondered if that was where Cecilia had vanished off to. He pursed his lips, answering absently to the small talk being directed at him. Not the nameless man now but another, made anonymous by his similarity to his predecessor. He forced a bright smile and put energy into his voice, looking at the man directly.
“Would you excuse me for a moment, good sir? A matter requires my attention but I look forward to hearing about your…” he racked his memory to recall what the man had been talking about just moments before, “…park in due course. Come and find me in a short while, if you will.”
It was enough to allow Lionel to disengage and he strode briskly towards the west wing door. The guests had not yet all arrived so his absence for a short while would not be noticed. There would be an hour or so of mingling and chaos as the guests mixed and flowed together, renewing acquaintanceships, and forging new ones. Before the dancing began, they would expect a word from their host. He had perhaps an hour.
Face set and stride purposeful, none sought to interrupt him or divert him, for which he was grateful. The stop-start cadence of moving among the throng made his leg ache abominably. It took a huge amount of willpower not to limp or show the pain each step gave him. He was overdue a dose of the poppy juice and his body was crying out for its soothing milk.
His father had taught him from a very young age that he was not born into a life that permitted the display of weaknesses so freely. It was a lesson he strictly adhered to throughout his lifetime. The one time he set this rule aside, his betrothed had abandoned him. Ever since, he had sworn never to let anyone close to him again.
He put the thoughts of it to the back of his mind for now. It was not difficult for Cecilia was still lodged at the front of it, unable to be moved. He hoped that meeting her once again, speaking to her, would exorcize the feelings which the sight of her had engendered in him. No woman could possibly live up to the vision that she represented. He would speak to her and find her to be shallow, vapid, unintelligent, or simply dull. Then he would not think of her again.
Cecilia walked a maze of stone hallways. She fought to recall the tour she had been given by Lionel’s curious manservant, Blackwood. He had been eloquent and knowledgeable and yet spoke in the vernacular of the roughest sailor. Looked forbidding and angry but treated her as though she were made of fine porcelain. But, the horror of events that had unfolded that day had driven her recollection of the tour from her mind. Five years had erased any memory she had and she had become thoroughly lost. Realizing that simply wandering randomly was doing her no good at all, she stopped and sat in a window seat that overlooked a small square of paving at the center of which was a circular pool. Shrubs were planted around the pool and four paths wove towards it from the four sides of the square.Each seemed to be carpeted in thick, lush moss. The sight of the greenery and the rippling water stirred by a breeze was peaceful.
“If only you were here to share it with me, Arthur,” she murmured, feeling unutterable sadness welling within her at the thought of him.
“Do I find you talking to yourself? Or a suitor hidden in a cupboard?” came a voice.
Cecilia stood as Sir Gerald Knightley stepped into view. He held two glasses of wine. The smile on his face had become smug. It was the look of a boy unused to being denied, always expecting to be given everything he wanted. He sipped from one of the glasses and offered the other to Cecilia.
“I spoke to myself and I rarely take wine, good sir. Thank you for the offer.”
“Oh, but you cannot come to such an event and not imbibe. It is practically the law,” Sir Gerald continued, moving closer.
“I will not, thank you,” Cecilia replied, stepping back but prevented from moving further by the window seat.
Sir Gerald moved smoothly into a position to block her escape, moving closer, his smile deepening. Cecilia began to feel extremely uncomfortable, moving along the window seat until she was backed into a corner formed by the window and the wall.
“I think that you wanted me to follow you. You advertised your desire for solitude plainly enough. Well, here we are. Two young people. All alone. None to judge us.”
“Only ourselves,” Cecilia muttered. “I must return to my aunt and uncle.”
“Oh, but we have not discussed Penrose yet,” Sir Gerald added.
“There is nothing to discuss. It is my uncle’s property now. You must direct your interest to him.”
