Cecilia turned to find her new acquaintance regarding her with a puzzled look. Molly was her one and only friend in Edenbridge, and it wouldn’t do to frighten her away by muttering to herself like a Bedlamite. “No, I…I was just saying it’s taking ages for our driver to hand down our baggage.”
Molly’s broad face split into a grin. “Anxious to get on, are ye? Ye never did say what brings ye to Kent. Do ye have a sweetheart here?”
Cecilia smothered a snort. The closest she’d ever come to having a sweetheart was an infatuation with Valancourt, the hero of Mrs. Radcliffe’sThe Mysteries of Udolpho. “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve come to take up a post as a housemaid.”
Housemaid, investigator, spy—weren’t they all just varying degrees ofthe same thing?
Molly gave Cecilia a doubtful look. “Ye look a bit dainty to be a housemaid, but no matter.” She nodded at their stagecoach driver, who’d climbed onto the roof and was handing the baggage down. They hurried to retrieve their things, then stepped aside as the other passengers pressed forward. “My father’s coming here to fetch me. Mayhap he can take ye where yer going, to save ye the walk.”
“Oh, that’s kind of you. I’m going to Darlington Castle.”
A gasp arose from the small knot of travelers nearby. The coachman froze, a trunk tumbling from his hands and landing with a thump in the frozen dirt below. Cecilia glanced behind her at the scuffle of shuffling feet, and found her fellow travelers had backed away from her, as if she were tainted.
Molly stared at her, aghast. “Darlington Castle? Ye mean ye’re going to serve as housemaid forLord Darlington?”
Cecilia gulped as her gaze shifted from one horrified face to the next. “Er, yes. I—”
“But he’s a murderer!” Molly patted her chest, as if the very mention of Lord Darlington was giving her palpitations. “Did away with his wife, didn’t he?”
“There’sno proof he—”
The lady beside her silenced her with a hiss. “Don’t be daft, girl. Everyone in England knows he did awaywith his wife.”
A murmur of assent rose from the crowd, and a craggy-faced man stepped forward and shook his finger in Cecilia’s face. “Sent her off to an early grave. Make no mistake about it, miss. He’s the Murderous Marquess, sure as I’mstanding here.”
Cecilia pressed her lips together. They called him the Murderous Marquess here in Edenbridge, as well? She’d thought the nickname an invention of theton, but it seemed folks here were quite as capable of being horrible as thosein London were.
Perhaps Lord Darlingtonwasa murderer, and perhaps he wasn’t. Lady Clifford had tasked Cecilia with unraveling that particular mystery while his lordship was in London with his betrothed, Miss Fanny Honeywell. Cecilia had seen him there herself just yesterday, walking in Hyde Park with Miss Honeywell on his arm.
For her part, Cecilia didn’t think he looked much like a murderer. Given the gossip about him, she’d been expecting a sinister, monster of a man, but if Lord Darlington had committed the wicked deeds he was rumored to have done, his sins didn’t show on his face.
Even her friend Georgiana, who knew a great deal more about sins and murder than Cecilia did, had admitted that if Lord Darlingtonwasa murderer, he was an exceedingly elegant one. Of course, Georgiana had also pointed out a handsome gentleman in a fine silk waistcoat was as likely to murder his wife as any other. More so, really, as people were quicker to condemn a plain face than a pretty one.
But it wasn’t his handsome face that inclined Cecilia in his favor. No, it was the protectiveness with which he held Miss Honeywell’s arm, his head bent graciously toward hers as he guided her over the uneven pathway. He was a large man, far larger than Fanny Honeywell, who was a petite, fair-haired creature, and he handled her with great care, as if she were a delicate china figurine on the vergeof shattering.
Try as she might, Cecilia couldn’t imagine so civilized a gentleman would murder his wife, not even when Georgiana reminded her the notorious highwayman John Rann was thought to be quite charming and elegant, and his neck had still been fitted for a noose.
Cecilia hadn’t argued the point with Georgiana. She knew herself to be too soft-hearted by half, and too apt to think the best of everyone, including the murderous—that is, including Lord Darlington—But there was no proof he was a murderer. Just ugly gossip, never in short supply in London.
Lady Clifford might have been content enough to leave him alone to molder away in his castle if his betrothed, Miss Honeywell, hadn’t been niece to Mrs. Abernathy, and Mrs. Abernathy a generous benefactor of the Clifford School. But poor Mrs. Abernathy had fallen into a hysterical fit when the betrothal was announced, and Lady Clifford had been obliged to promise she wouldn’t allow Miss Honeywell to toddle off to her doom without lifting a fingeron her behalf.
“Some say as he smothered her with a pillow.” Molly drew closer to Cecilia and lowered her voice to a horrified whisper. “Others say he poisoned her and hid her poor murdered bones in the castle walls, but I think he drowned her in his moat.”
Cecilia shuddered. “Heavens, how vile!”
“I don’t know for sure he done that, mind, but he’s done something with her, and I don’t see why he’d bother digging about the castle walls when he has a moat. I can’t speak to that for sure, but I can tell ye this much—there’s not a soul in Edenbridge who saw the poor lady put proper-like into her grave.”
“Aye, he’s a murderer, all right,” said the man with the waggling finger. “But the good Lord sees our sins, and Darlington won’t get away with his wicked deeds. The marchioness is back again, come to take her revenge.”
“Back?” How could the Marchioness of Darlington beback? There were plenty of rumors about Lady Darlington’s death flying about, but no one seemed to doubt shewas, in fact, dead. So, how could she come back to take her revenge?
Unless…
A chill rushed over Cecilia’s skin. “You can’t mean—”
“That the poor marchioness as was is now a lonely, wandering spirit? Aye, miss. That’s what I mean. Half a dozen people in the village have seen her ghost drifting through the woods behind Darlington Castle. They call her the White Lady, on account of her white gown and hair, and a face paler thandeath itself.”
Cecilia’s mouth dropped open. No wife wished to be consigned to the murky depths of her husband’s moat, but at least then she could rest peacefully. It struck Cecilia as dreadfully unfair a murdered wife should be put to the trouble of haunting the husband who’d murdered her.
