Bane Beresford

Who the devil was she? Bane sent her a baleful glance. She inched deeper into the shadows, but her blue eyes, her Beresford-blue eyes, never left his face and they held a kind of fascinated horror.

The earl’s gaze dropped to his other grandsons and moisture ran down his cheeks, glistening, running into the crevasses on his cheeks. Then he drew in a shuddering breath, his jaw working. He turned his head and his eyes, still wet with tears, fixed on Bane. ‘You’ll do your duty by the family.’

‘I have no family in this house.’ Bane let his scorn show on his face. ‘You failed to be rid of me when you had the chance and they bear the consequence. The sins of the father will be visited upon these children of your line. And there will be no more.’

The old man chuckled, a grim sound in the quiet room. ‘Cocksure, aren’t you. And proud. Yet you hold the losing hand.’

The wry amusement gave Bane pause. Intimidation. The old man excelled at terrifying those weaker than himself. Bane was not his or anyone else’s victim. He’d made himself too strong to be any man’s punching bag. He leaned over, speaking only for the old man to hear. ‘You forget, it will all be within my control. My only regret is that you won’t see the desecration of your family name.’ He flicked a glance at his cousins, the coolly insolent one who hid his true nature from the world and the half-scared boy. ‘It would do them good to work at some low honest task for their bread.’

The old man groaned, but there was something odd in his tone, as if he wasn’t so much in agony, but stifling amusement. ‘You think you are such a cold devil,’ he muttered. ‘I will be sorry to miss the heat of your anger.’

Bane drew back, searching that vindictive face. ‘What have you done?’

‘You’ll see.’

A resounding crack of thunder split the air at the same time as lightning flickered around the room. The storm’s last violent convulsion.

Ranger howled. The old man jerked upright in that wild blue light, the colour draining from his face, from his clothing, from the twisted hand clutching his throat. He sank back with a sigh.

The kneeling boy uttered a cry of despair. Jeffrey leaned over and felt for his pulse. Mrs Hampton rushed forwards. The tall girl remained where she was, a hand flat across her mouth, her eyes wide.

Bane curled his lip as he looked down on the empty shell of what had once been a man who had wielded his power to harm the innocent.

Bane was the earl now. And to hell with the Beresfords.

He spared a last glance for those gathering close around the bed and shrugged. Let them weep and wail at the old man’s passing. It was of no import to him.

Weariness swept through him. After travelling hard for three days, he needed a bath and a good night’s sleep. He had a great deal to do on the morrow if he was to set his plans in motion. He had debts to pay and a coalmine to purchase.

As he turned to leave, he caught sight of the young woman hanging back, her expression one of distaste. What mischief had the old man planned for her? Nothing his grandfather could do from beyond the grave could harm Bane. But he did not like to think of yet another innocent female destroyed by his machinations.

Unless she wasn’t as innocent as she appeared. Was anyone in this family innocent? It was hard to think so. And if she wasn’t, then Bane was more than a match for her, too.

He snapped his fingers for Ranger and headed down the corridor, hoping like hell he could find the way back through the maze of passages to his assigned chamber.

While the family members hovered and wept around the body of the old earl, Mary made good her escape. Her brain whirled. Her stomach cramped. And she ran like a cowardly rabbit.

When she’d been invited to meet her benefactor, the man she’d recently learned had paid for her schooling, her every meal, for most of her life, she had wondered—no, truly, she had dreamed that at last some family member, some distant relative, had decided to claim her as their own. A childhood fantasy finally fulfilled.

She’d certainly had no idea that the man was at death’s door until the butler guided her into that room earlier this evening. And when she’d asked her question with breathless hope and seen the surprise in those watery blue eyes and the wry twist to his lips, she’d felt utterly foolish.

Was she a member of his family? The answer had been a flat no.

Sally Ladbrook had been right. The man had viewed her as a good work, a charitable impulse, and was looking for recognition before he met his end. Unless he intended to impose the obligation on his heir.

She shivered. Just the thought of the new earl’s overwhelmingly menacing presence in that room made her heart race and her knees tremble. She’d been transfixed by the sheer male strength of him, while he had stood in the shadows as still as death.

She halted at the end of the corridor and glanced back. A sliver of light spilling on to the runner revealed the location of that horrid room. Never in her life had she witnessed anything so morbid. She rubbed at her jaw, trying to erase the sensation of cold papery fingers on her skin and shuddered.

To make it worse, once the heir had stepped out of the shadows, the hatred in the room had been palpable. Like hot oil on metal, hissing and spitting first from one direction and then another, scalding wherever it landed.

And the man. The new earl. So dark. So unexpectedly large, even handsome in a brutal way. A powerful man who had overshadowed his dying grandfather like some avenging devil.

He didn’t walk, he prowled. He didn’t speak, he made utterances in a voice composed of velvet and sandpaper. And his eyes. His eyes were as deep as an abyss when he had stared directly at her. That look owed nothing to the gloom in the room, for it was the same when he stood within the light of the torches. Worse. Because she could see the pinpoints of flickering light reflected in his gaze and still make out nothing in their shadowed depths.

She—who prided herself on being able to stand in front of a class of spoiled daughters and hold her own, at least on the surface, and who, as a charity boarder, had suffered pity and sly comments about her poverty all those years—had managed to stand up to the gloating way the old man had looked at her and crushed any hope that she might have found her place in the world.

But when that piercing gaze looking out from the shadows in the doorway had tangled with hers, it had sapped her courage dry. She’d scuttled ignominiously back to her place without a shred of dignity remaining.

The sooner she left this place, this house with its dark undercurrents, the better. She’d done her duty. Offered her thanks. Surely she was free to go? She would leave first thing in the morning.

She glanced left and right. Which way? The maid who had brought her to the dying man’s room had found her way with unerring ease, but Mary no longer had a clue which way they had come, there had been so many twists and turns on their journey from her chamber. Not to mention the odd staircase.

Part-dissolved abbey, part-Tudor mansion, part-renaissance estate, it sprawled and rambled inside and out. She’d glimpsed the house at dusk, perched high on a Cornish cliff, crenulated towers and chimney pots rising to the sky. A complete muddle of a house.

Her room was in one of those square towers. At the north end, the butler had told her when he escorted her there upon her arrival. The tower nearest the abbey ruins. She could see them through her small window. She had also heard the muffled rumble of the ocean somewhere deep below the house, in its very foundations. A very ominous sound. She shuddered as she imagined the house undermined by the force of the sea.

She eyed her two choices and selected the one that seemed to amble north. Picking up her skirts for speed, she hurried on, wishing there was more light, or a servant to show her the way.

Another corridor branched off to her right, going south? Or had that last corner she had turned set her off course? The maid had turned off the main corridor, hadn’t she? More than once. She plunged into the new hallway. It looked no more familiar than the last.

She needed help.

She tried the first door she came to. A bedroom, its furniture huddled beneath holland covers. If there ever had been a bell rope, it had been removed.

Blast. She returned to the corridor, heading for another room further along.

Footsteps. Behind her. Thank God. Help at last.

She turned around.

A light flickered and stopped. Whoever held the candle remained masked in shadow.

The wind howled through a nearby crevice, lifting the hair at her nape. Her heart picked up speed. The girls at school had told late-night stories of ghosts and hauntings that started like this. Deliciously wicked in their frightening aspects and heroic deeds. Figments of imagination. She did not believe in ghosts. People like her, practical people, did not have the luxury of such flights of fancy, yet she could not quite quell the fear gripping her chest. ‘Who is there?’ She was shocked at the tremble in her voice.

The light drew closer. A candle held in a square-fingered hand joined to a brawny figure still in the darkness. Him. The new earl.

How she knew, she wasn’t sure, but her skin prickled with the knowledge. Heat flushed up from her belly. ‘My lord?’ she said. Her voice quavering just a little more than she would have liked. ‘Lord Beresford?’

The candle went upwards, lighting his harsh face.

‘Great goliaths,’ she said, letting go of her breath. ‘Do you always creep around hallways in such a fashion?’ Oops. That sounded a bit too much like the schoolteacher taking a pupil to task.

The eyes staring down at her were not dark as she had thought in the old earl’s bedroom. They were as grey as storm clouds. And watchful.

‘Are you lost?’ he drawled in that deep mocking voice with its hint of roughness.

‘Certainly not,’ she replied, discomposed by his obvious indifference. Heat rushed to her cheeks and she was glad the dim light would not reveal her embarrassment. She let her gaze fall away.

‘Liar,’ he said softly.

She bristled.

‘That’s better.’

A snuffling sound drew her gaze down. The dog. It sank to its haunches and watched her with its head cocked on one side. It was enormous. ‘What is better?’ she asked, keeping a wary eye on the dog.

‘It is better when you stand up straight, instead of hunching over like a scared schoolgirl.’

As a schoolgirl, she had tried to disguise her ungainly height. It spoke to her discomfort that she had fallen back into that old habit.

She looked up past the wide chest and broad shoulders, past the snowy cravat and strong column of throat, his full mobile mouth at eye level, then up to meet his gaze. Most men were either her height or shorter. This one was taller than her by half a head—he must be inches above six foot tall—and he reeked of danger.

What snatches of conversation she’d heard between him and the dying earl had been positively menacing. And, unless she was badly mistaken, some of the venom shifting back and forth between them had been directed at her.

‘If you will excuse me, I must be on my way.’

‘On your way where?’

‘To my room.’

He shot her a wolfish smile. ‘So that was not your room. The one you just left.’

‘No,’ she muttered, making to step past him.

‘What were you doing in that chamber?’

Did he think she was trying to steal? She stiffened her spine, meeting his gaze full on. Such directness usually sent men running for the hills. On this one it apparently had no effect. Or none visible, though she did sense a sharpening of interest in those wintery eyes.

She huffed out a breath of defeat. ‘I will admit I am a little turned about. My chamber is in the tower at the north end of the house. I thought I would ring for a servant to guide me, but there was no bell pull in the first room I tried.’

‘A clever thought.’

‘I am clever.’ She bit her lip. That was just the sort of quick retort men did not like. A habit of bravado honed in the schoolroom.

He didn’t seem to notice. ‘Follow me.’ He strode past her down the corridor, the dog following at his heels, leaving her to trot along behind as best she might.

He took a flight of stairs down and then passed along a stone corridor that smelled of must and damp. She was sure she had not come this way.

He hesitated at yet another intersection of passageways.

She huffed out a breath. ‘Don’t tell me, you are lost too.’

He gave her a scornful look. ‘I never get lost.’

Doubt filled her mind. ‘Have you ever been to this house before?’

‘North is this way.’ He set off once more with the dog padding beside him.

Hah. Avoidance. He was just as lost as she was. More lost. Because she was quite sure from the increasingly dank feel to the air that they were now in the cellars. The sea growled louder too. Typical. Why would men never admit to being lost?

About to insist they stop, she was surprised when he took off up a circular flight of narrow stairs she hadn’t noticed. At the top, he turned left and there they were, at her chamber door. How irritating. And she still had no idea how she got here. It didn’t matter. She had no reason to learn her way around, since she would be departing at once.

‘Thank you, my lord.’ She dipped her best curtsy and prayed he would not hear the wry note in her voice.

He held his candle high and caught her chin in long strong fingers just like the old man had done. But these fingers were warm with youth and strong with vigour and, while firm, they were also gentle. She jerked her head, but he held her fast.

She stared up at his face, at the beautifully moulded lips set in a straight line hovering above hers. His head dipped a fraction. Angled. She could feel his breath, warm on her cheek, inhaled a hint of cologne, something male, mingled with leather and horse and briny air that made her feel dizzy.

She drew in a deep breath as his gaze fell on her mouth, lingering there, until she thought he would kiss her. Longed that he would to break this dreadful tension between them.

Nervous, she licked her lips.

His eyes narrowed and he raised that piercing gaze to meet hers as if he would read her mind. Stroked her chin with his thumb and, she shivered. He leaned closer and for a wild moment, she thought he really did intend to kiss her and her body hummed at the thought.

Instead, he spoke. ‘Who are you?’ he rasped softly.

‘Mary,’ she managed to gasp in a breathless whisper, her breathing beyond her control. ‘Mary Wilding.’

‘Wilding?’ A brow went up. ‘And what brought you here, Miss Wilding?’

She swallowed. ‘I was invited. By the earl.’

‘The late earl.’

She nodded.

He stepped back, releasing her face. ‘And what is your purpose here, I wonder?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I will be leaving first thing.’

‘I see. Well, Miss Wilding, I bid you goodnight. We will talk before you go.’

She remained frozen as he disappeared back down the twisting stairs and she was left alone, in the silence, not hearing even his footsteps and feeling strangely giddy.

Breathless, from … fear? The fluttering in her belly, the tremble in her hands, could be nothing else. Though what made her fearful, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps her reactions? To him? Would she have actually let him kiss her, had he wanted to do so?

Could she have stopped such a powerful man taking whatever he wanted? A little thrill rippled through her. Perverse. Unwanted.

All he had wanted was to question her.

She pressed cold fingers to her hot cheeks and hauled in a deep breath before stepping inside her small chamber. While thanking her benefactor had been one of the less pleasant experiences of her life, meeting the new earl had been something else entirely. Disturbing and exciting. It might be as well to avoid him before she left.

Coward.

Chapter Two

The maid Betsy, assigned to help Mary dress, arrived at nine the next morning.

Mary didn’t needed help dressing. Just as always, she’d been awake and dressed by six, before light touched the grey wintery sky. At school, it was her task to see that the girls were washed and dressed before they came to breakfast. The maid had to content herself with drawing back the curtains and putting coal on the fire. ‘This room is always cold,’ the girl announced cheerfully. ‘Will there be anything else, miss?’

‘I would like a carriage to take me to St Ives.’

‘You will need to speak to Mr Manners,’ the girl said, her Cornish vowels hard to decipher.

Of course. The butler. He would be in charge of such things. ‘Where will I find him?’

The small brown-eyed girl raised her brows. ‘In the breakfast room. Serving the family.’

The grieving family. She wanted nothing to do with any of them, especially the new earl. But since she needed to order the carriage, she straightened her shoulders and smiled. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to guide me there?’

Betsy bobbed a curtsy. ‘Follow me, miss.’

It wasn’t long before she was deposited in front of a large oak door off the entrance hall. ‘In there, miss.’

‘Thank you.’ Mary sailed through the door as if she had been making grand entrances all her life. Or at least she hoped she gave that impression.

What a relief. No brooding earl awaited her in the oak-panelled room with its polished furniture and gleaming silver. Only his cousins sat at the table. Blond and handsome, they rose to their feet as she entered.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘Good morning, Miss Wilding,’ they replied gravely.

The older one, Mr Jeffrey Beresford, gave her a swift perusal. A slightly pained expression entered his vivid-blue eyes. No doubt he thought her dreadfully shabby in her Sunday-best dress, but it was grey and she’d thought it the most appropriate under the circumstances. The younger one nodded morosely.

Both young men wore dark coats and black armbands. Of Mrs Hampton there was no sign. No doubt she preferred to breakfast in her room on such a sorrowful day.

‘Miss Wilding,’ the butler said, pulling out a chair opposite the Beresford cousins. She sat.

They followed suit.

‘Did you sleep well, Miss Wilding?’ Mr Beresford asked, assuming the duty of host in the earl’s absence.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She certainly wasn’t going to admit to her mind replaying the scene with the earl outside her chamber door over and over as she restlessly tossed and turned.

‘Really?’ Mr Hampton said, looking up, his face angelic in a shaft of sunlight that at that moment had broken through the clouds and found its way into the dining room to rest on him.

‘Is there some reason why I should not?’ she asked a little stiffly, surprised by his sudden interest.

He looked at her moodily. ‘They do say as how the White Lady’s ghost haunts the north tower.’

‘You are an idiot, Ger,’ the other cousin said. ‘Don’t listen to him, Miss Wilding. It is an old wives’ tale.’

‘‘Tis not,’ Gerald said, his lips twisting. ‘One of the servants saw her last week.’

‘And that is a bouncer,’ his cousin replied repressively. ‘One servant saw her fifty years ago.’

The younger man scowled.

Mary felt sorry for him. Boys liked their ghost stories as much as foolish young girls did, no doubt. ‘It would take more than a ghost to scare me,’ she said calmly, ‘if I actually believed in them.’ It would take a tall dark earl with a sinful mouth to make her quiver in fear. Or quiver with something.

The young man looked a little insulted. ‘If you see her, you will tell me, won’t you? I’ve been keeping track of her sightings.’ He pushed his food around with his fork. ‘They say she appears when there is to be a death in the house.’ The utter belief in his voice gave her a strange slithery sensation in her stomach. It also reminded her of last night’s events with a pang of guilt.

‘Although I had never met your grandfather before last night, I hope you will accept my deepest sympathy for your loss.’

Both young men nodded their acceptance of her condolence.

‘Coffee, miss?’ the butler asked.

She usually had tea in the morning. And only one cup. But there was another scent floating in the air, making her mouth water and her stomach give little hops of pleasure. ‘Chocolate, please, Manners.’ She’d had her first taste of chocolate this morning when Betsy had brought her tray and really couldn’t resist having it one last time.

The man poured a cup from the silver chocolate pot on the sideboard and added a generous dollop of cream. Such luxury. Wait until she told Sally. Her friend and employer would be so envious. Chocolate was one of those luxuries they dreamt of on a cold winter’s night.

The butler brought her toast on a plate and offered her a selection of platters. Deciding to make the most of what was offered—after all, she was an invited guest—she took some shirred eggs and ham and sausage and tucked in with relish. Breakfast at Ladbrook’s rarely consisted of more than toast and jam and porridge in the winter months. Ladbrook’s School for Young Ladies was rarely full to capacity and the best food always went to the paying pupils. As a charity case, she had managed on leftovers. Since becoming employed as a teacher things had improved, but not by much.

Hope of improving the school was why she had agreed to travel all the way from Wiltshire to meet the late earl. If he had proved to be a distant relation, she had thought to convince him to provide funds for improvements, to make it more fashionable and therefore profitable, as well as enable the taking in of one or two more charity boarders like herself.

She let go of a sigh. The earl’s death had put paid to all her hopes, including any hope of some family connection. She ought to speak of the school’s needs to the new earl, she supposed, but his behaviour so far had led her to the conclusion that, rather than a man of charitable bent, he was likely to be one of the scandalous rakes one read about in broadsheets and romantic novels.

‘What do you think of the Abbey, Miss Wilding?’ Mr Hampton asked.

‘It’s a dreadful pile,’ his cousin put in before she could answer. ‘Don’t you think?’

Tact seemed to be the best course between two extremes. ‘I have seen very little, so would find it hard to form an opinion, Mr Hampton.’

‘Call me Gerald. Mr Hampton was my father. That pink of the ton is Jeffrey.’

His older cousin inclined his head, clearly accepting the description with aplomb. Mary smiled her thanks, not quite sure what lay behind this courtesy for a virtual stranger.

‘What shall we call you?’ he asked. ‘Cousin?’

She stiffened. Had they also formed the mistaken impression they were related, or had they heard the earl’s mocking reply to her question and thought to follow suit? Heat rushed to her cheeks. ‘You may call me Miss Wilding.’

Gerald frowned. ‘You sound like my old governess.’

‘I am a schoolteacher.’

Jeffrey leaned back in his chair and cast an impatient glance at Gerald. ‘Miss Wilding it is then, ma’am. At least you are not claiming to be a Beresford.’

Mary caught her breath at this obvious jibe at his absent older cousin. She had heard some of his conversation with the old earl and gathered there was some doubt about the legitimacy of his birth. She hadn’t expected the issue addressed so openly.

Last night she’d had the sense that the old man’s barbs had found their mark with the heir. Not that he’d had shown any reaction. But there had been something running beneath the surface. Anger. Perhaps resentment. And a sense of aloneness, as if he too had hoped for acceptance from this family.

She certainly did not approve of sniping at a person behind their back and their family quarrels were certainly none of her business, so she ignored the comment and buttered her toast. She had more important matters on her mind. Getting back to school. Preparing her lessons. Helping Sally find ways to reduce expenses still further if the earl’s munificence was indeed ended.