Alaric clenched his jaw. “As do I. Before it’s too late and everything we’ve built here comes crumbling down about our heads.”
She shook her head as he stepped back out of her gentle embrace. “There is a reason that you were made the High Priest. It is because you have the fortitude to take on any challenge that comes your way. You should not doubt yourself when I know the sort of man you truly are.” She smiled. “I did raise you. A slight against your courageous character is a slight against me.”
Alaric had to chuckle. If there was anyone who had the ability to set him back on track, it was this woman. He had long admired her fortitude when it came to dealing with his doubts and misgivings. “That would be unforgiveable, I agree. I should fight any man who dares to impugn you.” He sobered. “You know this is the right course of action when it comes to easing my mind, so that I can act accordingly. I don’t imagine it will take long before I am able to gain the truth from her. If she is under some kind of casting from Hector, I shall uncover it.”
She eyed him steadily. “Just recall that she is not your enemy as yet. Treat her with kindness.”
He laid a hand over his heart. “You have my word as a gentleman. I shall not harm a single hair on her head.” He lifted a brow. “Unless it is warranted.” He softened his words with a broad grin, which caused her to roll her eyes, and then he added, “The carriage will depart at dark.”
Marlene passed a fitful night, where her dreams were filled with shadows of a sinister force coming for her. She sat up in bed with her heart pounding and perspiration dotting her forehead. She put her head in her hands and wondered how long she might have to endure this torture. For years she had been spared the terrifying visions that used to plague her, but they had returned with a vengeance.
The question was—why now?
She thought of Sir Gothry, and she wondered if he was involved somehow. But then she discounted that notion out of hand. What reason would he have to cause such ill effects when he’d just met her? Surely, he wouldn’t have brought her into his employ, just to scare her away.
Perhaps it was Mrs. Bates. The housekeeper made her wary most of the time. It could be that she didn’t care to be usurped by a stranger. It was possible that she had feelings for Sir Gothry that she’d long harbored, and now that Marlene had arrived, she had encountered competition for his regard.
She laughed aloud at the idea. Mrs. Bates was old enough to be his mother, and although it wasn’t unheard of for an older woman to take a fancy to a younger man, she decided that the woman was too uptight in her stays to dare to overstep the line between servant and master.
Rather than make herself crazy trying to ponder the reasons her nightmares had returned after all these years, seeming to intensify in this place, although she still had yet to discover why they had resurged, Marlene rose with the dawn. It was going to be a long day, but spending time with Lady Erica always helped to turn her mind to other matters. It gave her a reprieve from her own uncertainties.
Once she’d dressed, Marlene checked Lady Erica’s quarters first, and after finding them to be empty, she checked outside where she already knew the lady liked to sit. When she wasn’t there, Marlene started to grow concerned. She checked the dining hall and the main parlor, but her charge was nowhere to be found. Marlene was crossing the foyer, about to hail down one of the servants to see where Lady Erica might have gone, when a deep voice spoke up. “Looking for my aunt?”
She turned to see Sir Gothry standing in the hallway. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, but he was formally dressed in black breeches and a gold threaded waistcoat. His shoes boasted a matching golden buckle. His hair was pulled back in the usual queue that drew attention to his piercing, ocean blue eyes. A tremor of awareness trailed up her spine, but she firmly pushed it away. She had to cease this incessant fantasizing about her employer. “Yes, I was.”
He adopted a lazy smile as he walked toward her. “She has decided to go visit a close friend for a few days.”
Marlene frowned at this revelation. “She said nothing to me about this yesterday.”
He shrugged. “I believe it was a last-minute decision.”
“I see,” she murmured. “I do wish I would have had the chance to say goodbye, or perhaps even join her.” She put a hand to her forehead. Without Lady Erica there, she was suddenly feeling quite useless—and quite aware of the man standing before her. The lady was the sole purpose for Marlene to be there, and if she was gone, then what would she do with her time?
The image of the key fluttered through her mind, but she shoved it aside. After it had burned her with a phantom heat, she wasn’t eager to pick it back up just yet. Whatever secrets it entailed, obviously weren’t ready to be uncovered just yet. Even then, she wasn’t confident she wanted to find what it might be hiding. She could very well open a Pandora’s Box that could never be closed.
“Does it distress you so much that she is gone?”
She nearly rolled her eyes. “She is the reason you placed the advertisement I answered, is she not?”
He lifted a brow, and she got a sudden sense of unease when he murmured, “Perhaps there was another reason you were led here aside from my aunt. Fate can be a fickle mistress, twisting and altering our futures to suit her purpose.”
She hugged herself to ward off the chill his words created, but her voice was sure and steady when she said, “I’m not certain I believe in fate.”
“Is that so?” His voice was taunting. “I do. I’ve witnessed its effects too many times to discount. The longer you remain here, the more easily your mind might alter to believe in fate as well.”
She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to engage in conversation with him any further, desperate to escape, so she offered a slight curtsy. “Since I seem to have some time to myself, I think I will write a letter to a dear friend to see how she is faring. If you will excuse me?”
In her chamber, Marlene gently blew on the ink of the freshly penned letter, and then carefully folded it and added a dollop of wax. The seal she used to press it closed had belonged to her father, the one thing that she knew would be recognizable to her friend, a sign that she knew she could trust as authentic and not some sort of ploy used by her cousin. Although she didn’t think he would play such a nasty game between them, considering he’d cast her out, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t put it past him to do anything so cruel.
By all rights, the seal belonged to the estate as much as the manor house and all the belongings therein, but Marlene had shoved it into her valise at the last minute, determined to take something of her former life with her. Other than the small miniature of her parents, and the memories she carried with her, it was all she had left to remind her of her past life in London.
She held the missive in her grasp and was about to ring for her maid to send it with the rest of the post, but she decided that she would take it down to the foyer herself. Without anything else to occupy her time, she might as well do a bit more exploring in the manor. She certainly didn’t feel like staying in her room for the entire day, but she hesitated on where she might go. She had been plagued in the orangery, and after a glance outside that showed there was a steady drizzle of rain, she wasn’t eager to find herself caught out of doors in a storm.
The portrait gallery was somewhere else she would rather avoid, as the image of the woman with the smug smile still haunted her. But in a manor the size of Rosedale Heights, she knew there would be other places she could go that would, hopefully, give her some sort of peaceful reprieve.
She left her room and headed down the silent hallway until she reached the grand staircase. Upon descending to the first floor, she found herself glancing at the spot where she had parted ways with Sir Gothry a short time earlier, as if she might see him standing there still. He was gone, and she released a relieved breath. Setting her letter on the silver salver with the rest of the post, she decided to let her feet guide her way.
They dared to lead her down the west wing. When she passed the portrait gallery, the odd sensation of being watched made her grit her teeth. She rushed forward and went inside the next doorway that was open to her. Her heels clicked on the ornate, black and white checkered marble floor as she pressed herself against the wall and closed her eyes, listening for the sounds of pursuit, as if waiting for the demons to follow her.
