“A ghastly sight she is, floating in the air, with only the toes of her white slippers dragging over the ground. Old Mrs. Crocker saw her t’other night, and she’s been in a hysterical fit ever since.”
“A hysterical fit?”
“I’ve never known Mrs. Crocker to be silent a day in her life, but not a word has crossed her lips since she saw that ghost. She sits and stares, her mouth frozen open in horror.”
“Ye don’t have to go there, Miss Cecilia.” Molly clutched at Cecilia’s arm. “Ye can go back to London right now, and never spare Darlington Castle another glance.”
Cecilia cast a longing look at the stagecoach driver. She could be back in London in a matter of hours, back at the Clifford School where her friends would welcome her with smothering kisses and squeals of delight, and she’d be petted and soothed until she forgot the cowardice that made her break her word toLady Clifford.
She might have done it—she might have let her misgivings get the better of her, despite her best efforts. Indeed, she’d actually taken a step toward the stagecoach when it occurred to her that nothing material had changed since she’d boarded the stagecoach in London.
Moats, and skeletons hidden in the castle walls, ghosts and hauntings—it was just more gossip, much the same as the gossip she’d heard in London. More lurid, yes, but still gossip, nonetheless.
Ghostly rumors or not, her task was to discover the truth about the marchioness’s death, and Lady Darlington was, alas, as dead as she’d ever been.
Or undead, if the villagers had the right of it, but Darlington Castle might be stuffed to the rafters with frightening ghouls, and Lord Darlington the fiend all of England supposed him to be, but shewouldkeep her promise, even if it meant she ended her days floating face-down in the Murderous Marquess’s moat.
“No, that won’t do, Molly.” Cecilia bent to grasp the handle of her case, then straightened and met Molly’s eyes. “I’ve already accepted the post. Mrs. Briggs, Lord Darlington’s housekeeper, isexpecting me.”
It was too late to turn back now. Lady Clifford had gone to a good deal of trouble to see this thing arranged, and in any case, Cecilia’s business was with Lord Darlington’s servants. If his lordship had any secrets to hide, his servants would know them. Her task was to shake those secrets loose, then return to London without ever crossing paths with Lord Darlington at all.
Molly didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue. “All right, then. My father won’t set foot on Darlington Castle’s grounds, but we’ll take ye as far as we canin the wagon.”
“Thank you.” Cecilia reached for Molly’s hand and gave it a grateful squeeze.
Molly shook her head. “I hope ye don’t live to regret it,Miss Cecilia.”
What an unfortunate choice of words.
Cecilia hoped shedidlive to regret it, but she didn’t give voice to the insidious whisper inside her head. Instead she followed Molly across the street toward the knot of wagons and carts, dragging her case along behind her.
* * * *
Dusk came upon them quickly, as it tended to do during wintertime in England, but there was enough light for Cecilia to make out Darlington Castle in all its distressing, blood-curdling glory.
God in Heaven. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but if any stray phantoms or wraithsdidhappen to be floating about in the February mists,thiswas the castle they’d choose to haunt.
“Grim old pile, innit it?” Molly, who was seated on the far side of the wagon, leaned across Cecilia to geta better look.
“Grim enough. The portcullis looks as if it might eat one alive.” Cecilia gaped at the monstrosity sprawled out before her, and a shiver darted down her spine. She wished with all her heart she was exaggerating, but that portcullis looked like nothing so much as a set of gaping jaws, the pointed iron teeth lined up in a row across the bottom of the latticed grill. If looked as if it were just waiting to snap closed on anyone foolish enough to venture beneath it.
If the first portcullis didn’t sever limb from body, the second one surely would, because if the blackened stone and shadowy courtyard beyond that gaping maw weren’t sinister enough, Darlington Castle had adoubleportcullis.
A doublemoat, as well.
The Marquess of Darlington was not, it seemed, the trusting sort, but then if the rumors about him were true, he had a great deal to hide.
“How deep is the moat, do you suppose?” Cecilia fought to suppress another shudder as her gaze fell on the dark, sluggish water under the drawbridge. God only knew what nightmares were lurking in thosedreary depths.
Deep enough to hide a body? The Marchioness of Darlington’s body, for instance?
“Not more than a fathom,” said Mr. Hinshaw, Molly’s father.
Only a fathom? That wasn’t so very deep. Certainly not deep enough to hide a—
“Darlington Lake is said to be much deeper,” he added, before Cecilia had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. “But I couldn’t tell ye how deep.”
There was a lake, as well? How many bodies of water did onemarquess need?
