“The very last thing I choose to worry about, Elspeth, is whether or not someone hears the sound of a drum. We’d be in a constant state of alarm.”
Elspeth nodded. “I agree, Your Ladyship. Plus, the girl who heard it was a silly sort anyway.”
“We’ll put off the tour of the secret passages and the dungeon for later,” she said.
“If it’s all the same with you, Your Ladyship, I’d rather not see the dungeon, and the secret passages give me the shivers. The 10thLord was all for the maids using the passages to go fromroom to room, but Mrs. Brody put a stop to that when one of the girls forgot how to open the door in the study. You could hear her scream through the whole of Doncaster Hall.”
“Mrs. Brody sounds like an eminently practical woman.”
Perhaps she should emulate the housekeeper and become more practical herself. Dismiss the notion she could feel the emotions of others. Banish the thought, too, that she’d seen anything in Montgomery’s magic mirror.
In the next three hours, she met with the seamstresses and was then given a comprehensive tour of Doncaster Hall, including those rooms she’d already seen. She didn’t mention her earlier explorations. Nor did she tell Mrs. Brody, when the housekeeper asked if the Family Dining Room would be suitable for their dinners, that she was certain Montgomery would avoid her if he could.
From now on, she would either take a tray in her sitting room or do without dinner altogether. Too much pity was, well, simply too much pity.
Three lanterns illuminated the interior of the distillery, with another lantern on each end of his makeshift worktable providing enough light despite the hour.
It’s that damn airship again,James said, repeating a refrain he’d uttered often enough in life.
Montgomery checked the barrel of paraffin oil next to the wall and performed a final inspection of all the empty crates.
I would have thought you’d get bored with that.
He had no intention of arguing with a ghost. James had been an irritant when he was alive. Why should death render him silent?
This time, however, he also heard Alisdair’s comment, one his older brother had made numerous times.
He’ll give it up once the newness wears off.
He thinks he can fly like a bird.James flapped his arms.
“Am I supposed to be amused?”
They never answered him. He’d be shocked if they did. His ghosts were remnants of memory, plucked from the past and set among his present moments. Perhaps his mind did so in an attempt to ease him, to remind him he’d once been surrounded by people so intrusive he’d wished for solitude.
Veronica could soften his loneliness. Veronica, with her ability to make him smile, her surprising passion, and the comfort he found in her arms.
He owed her an apology. Would she see his appearance as that? Or as weakness, that he couldn’t resist her?
Damned if he cared at the moment.
After dinner, Veronica took a bath, dismissed Elspeth, and retired to her sitting room. For long moments, she sat there, trying to calm herself. The emotions coming from others were sometimes easier to decipher than her own feelings. Was she simply angry? Or hurt as well?
Montgomery could touch her, and her will melted. Her body knew his, craved his. Outside their bed, he wanted nothing to do with her. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t spend any time with her.
She was a wifely concubine.
She stood, walked to the connecting door, and hesitated. Was he inside? She heard no sounds to indicate he’d returned. She opened the door and stared into Montgomery’s room. Being there was, no doubt, violating some marital rule. A wife was not supposed to transgress against her husband’s privacy or dare too much. Theirs was not any ordinary marriage, was it?
Where would he have put the mirror?
She moved to his armoire, feeling a tug of conscience for violating Montgomery’s privacy as she opened the doors. She found the drawstring bag in the bottom of the armoire, grabbed it, and returned to her chamber.
Montgomery was standing in her bedroom.
She took a step back, acknowledgment that he was a formidable man. Not only was he extraordinarily handsome, but he was filled with all sorts of emotions she wished she could understand.
He glanced at the drawstring bag in her hand.
