Half-formed warnings, arguments, a protest that she shouldn’t be in his bedchamber, much less his bed, all rushed to Cecilia’s lips, but each of them died a withering death beforeshe spoke them.
This was where she wanted to be, where she needed to be. Not because his bedchamber was warmer than hers, but because Gideon was here, and he was the warmest thing she’d ever known. Even if it was only for tonight, this was where she belonged. “Gideon, I—”
“Shhh.” He stirred the banked fire until it was blazing again, then turned back to her. “Are you warm enough?”
Cecilia nodded, eyes widening as he drew closer. His voice was gentle, but his lips were pressed into a stern line.
“You broke your promise to me, Cecilia. Why?” Gideon stopped halfway between the fireplace and the bed, waitingfor her answer.
“I did, yes. I, ah…realized I’d left my sketchbook in the kitchen garden when I was out with Isabella the other day.” Cecilia swallowed. “I—it began to snow. I didn’t want it to be ruined, so I just nipped out to fetch it.”
“Your sketchbook,” Gideon repeated, searching her face.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Gideon. I should have waited until morning.” Shewassorry, so sorry to lie to him, but there were so many unanswered questions still, so many mysteries as yet unsolved…
Cecilia peeked up at him from under her lashes, hesitating. She’d prodded and poked into every corner of this castle, searched his attics and quizzed his servants, but the one thing she hadn’t done was simplyaskGideon for the truth. “Gideon, why have you insisted Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber remain locked allthese months?”
He blinked, surprised at the question. “Because of Isabella.”
“Isabella?” What did Isabella have to do with Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber?
Gideon blew out a breath. “A week after Cassandra died, Isabella woke in the night and crept into Cassandra’s bedchamber, searching for her. I found her there the next morning, huddled in Cassandra’s bed, shivering, with dried tears on her cheeks. It was…” He dragged a hand through his hair, his face pained. “Unbearable. After it happened a second time, I had the bedchamberdoors locked.”
Cecilia gazed up at him, her throat working, and wondered why she hadn’t known it at once, when everything he was, everything he did, was for Isabella’s sake. “I…yes, I see.” She wanted to say more, to tell him everything then—her real reasons for venturing into the garden tonight, what she’d read in Cassandra’s diary, her suspicions about Cassandra’s death, but she bit her lip before any of these truths could spill out.
Because they weren’t truths. Not yet. They were suspicions only. She had no evidence, just her instincts and a half-dozen of the purple-tipped stalks she’d picked in the garden tonight, hidden in her apron pocket. There were too many uncertainties still, too many questions she had no answers to. She wouldn’t turn Gideon’s world upside down until she knew beyond a doubt thatshe was right.
“I asked you to remain inside the castle because I was concerned for your safety.” Gideon drew closer and pressed gentle fingers to her lips, hushing her when she tried to speak. “The Darlington Castle ghost, Cecilia. The White Lady. She’s my brother’s widow,Lady Leanora.”
Cecilia stared at him, stunned. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how badly she’d needed to hear him tell her the truth, and how uncertain she’d been he ever would. “H-how long have you known? Since she first appeared?”
He shook his head. “No. Until a few days ago I thought the White Lady was just another rumor invented by the Edenbridge gossips. I still don’t know what she’s doing here—she’s meant to be marrying the Marquess of Aviemore in a few months. I foolishly allowed myself to believe we were safe from her until Miss Honeywell saw her. Then I realized there really was a White Lady. I knew then it must be Leanora.”
It made sense. Fanny Honeywell had no reason to lie about it, and every reason not to, given how determined her mother was for her to become Marchionessof Darlington.
“I believe she’s come back to take Isabella. She’s…not well, Cecilia. I didn’t want you to venture out because I can’t be certain what she’ll do, or how far she’ll go. Until tonight, I never believed she’d hurt anyone, but it must have been her who locked you in the kitchen garden.” Gideon met her gaze, his eyes bleak. “You might have frozen out there.”
“But I didn’t, Gideon. I’m perfectly well, as you can see. I climbed up the limbs of an espaliered apple tree to get out. That’s how I cut myself.” Cecilia tried a smile. “I did tell you I’m much heartier than I look, didn’t I?”
Gideon’s lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close. “You did, yes. I should have listened to you.”
“Certainly, you should have.” Cecilia settled against the pillows at her back with a huff. “Let that be a lesson to you, Lord Darlington.”
“It’s not the first lesson you’ve taught me. Not the last either, I imagine.” Gideon’s lips quirked in a smile, a realone this time.
“No, likely not.” Cecilia grinned at him, nestling further into his bed. It was warm and soft, the fire crackling in the grate, and Gideon…he was here, with her, so close she could touch him. “Your bedchamber is much warmer than mine. May I stay here with you tonight?”
He laughed softly. His eyes, such a deep blue tonight, drifted over her, and a smile of pure masculine satisfaction crossed his lips. “Did you think I’d let you go? I like seeingyou in my bed.”
Cecilia shivered at the low rumble of his voice, the heat in those deep blue eyes that seemed to stroke every inch of her skin until the last vestiges of cold and fear still lingering in her body turned topulsing warmth.
He watched every shift in her expression, every breath she took as he stripped off his cloak and tossed it onto a chair near the bed. His riding coat followed, and then he set to work on his cravat, his long fingers working the knot until the length of white linen unraveled. He slid it free from his neck and wound it around his hand, his gaze still holding hers.
Cecilia’s breath caught as he tossed the cravat aside and moved his hands to his waist. He tugged his shirt free of his breeches, but paused, his fingers toying with the hem as he waited to see if she’d object.
She didn’t. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, her breath quickening as she watched him.
The white cotton clung damply to his skin as he dragged it up his torso and over his head, and then the muscular chest that had so fascinated her that first morning at Darlington Castle emerged, bare, sleek skin pulled over taut muscles, that smattering of dark hair, thicker in the center of his chest and around his navel before vanishing in a tempting line into the waist of his breeches.
