Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss

‘Now look here!’ he’d blustered, storming into Lord Matthison’s rooms late the next afternoon. ‘You cannot go about compromising young girls, and then scaring them off with half-baked tales that sound as though they’ve come out of a Gothic novel!’

‘Is that so?’ he’d drawled, not even bothering to raise his eyes from the deck of cards he was shuffling from his left hand into his right.

‘It most certainly is! As a gentleman, you owe it to my daughter to offer marriage!’

‘Out of the question,’ he’d replied, taking the pack in his right hand, splitting it in half, and dextrously folding it over on itself with supple, practised fingers. ‘I am already betrothed.’

That assertion had not silenced Mr Winters for more than a couple of seconds. ‘Ah. You are referring to the Montague girl!’

Lord Matthison had felt the shock of hearing the man speak her name in such an offhand way clear through to his bones. And when Mr Winters had gone on to say, ‘She’s dead, ain’t she?’ the cards had spluttered from his hand to land in a confused jumble on the table top.

He’d got up, stalked across the room and leaned his forearm against the window frame, staring sightlessly down into the bustling courtyard while he grappled with the urge to do his visitor some serious bodily harm.

‘Yes,’ he had finally managed to say, with lethal calm. For nobody knew better than he that Cora walked the spirit world. ‘Technically, I suppose you could claim I am free to marry again. But since nobody has ever managed to discover her body, her family prefer to think of her as missing. And I, therefore, am still legally bound to her.’ With bonds that went beyond the realm of mere legalities, far tighter than any mortal man could ever suspect.

A nasty smile had spread across Mr Winters’s avaricious face. ‘Then we will just have to, legally, unbind you, will we not? So you can have no more excuse to avoid making an honest woman of my daughter.’

Before he could express his opinion that nobody had the power to make his daughter honest, since duplicity was such an intrinsic part of her nature, Mr Winters had declared, ‘I do not care what it costs, or how long it takes. I will have Miss Montague declared legally dead. And then, my lord, we shall have you!’

Three days ago, that had been. Three days since Mr. Winters had declared his intent to instigate the proceedings that would kill Cora Montague all over again.

But he did not know Robbie Montague. Good ol’ Robbie, he grimaced, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the area railings.

Robbie would have no truck with Mr Winters’s suggestion that it was time to let go of his sister by holding a memorial service and finally putting up a gravestone. Robbie would never set him free to marry again, and fill Kingsmede with children that were not his sister’s. If he could not see him hang, Robbie’s only satisfaction would be to make sure he remained suspended in a legal limbo.

Mr Winters, he smirked, had quite a fight on his hands.

The amount of hawkers pushing their handcarts up to the big houses, and the shortening of the shadows on his side of the street told him that it was well past daybreak now. Of the fourth day. His smirk turned to a grimace of despair. For the three consecutive nights since Mr. Winters had declared war on Cora’s memory, he’d lost heavily at the card tables.

Last night, he had finally accepted what that meant.

He had thrown down his losing hand, tossed what he owed onto the green baize tablecloth, and stumbled from the gaming hell into the street. To confront his own personal hell. He’d had to clutch at the door frame for a few seconds, his heart had been beating so fast, while he’d fought down a rising tide of horror.

Not that he cared one whit for the money he’d lost. It was no longer financial necessity that kept him going back to the tables, night after night, but need of an entirely different nature.

‘Cora,’ he’d moaned uselessly into the empty alley way. ‘I couldn’thelpit!’Butthere had notevenbeen an answering echo.

She was not there.

For the first time in seven years, he could not feel her presence, anywhere.

He’d damned Mrs Winters for conspiring with her daughter to compromise him. He’d damned Miss Winters for forcing her lips against his in that unholy parody of a kiss. And he’d damned Mr. Winters for daring to speak of Cora as though she was of no account. Between the three of them, they had managed to do what even death could not.

They had driven her away.

He had never told anybody that she haunted him. They would have thought he had gone crazy. Hell, he often wondered about his sanity himself!

But it had only been a few days after the last time he had touched her warm soft skin, that he had felt her spirit hovering close by.

At a race track, of all places.

He had gone there with Robbie’s accusations and curses ringing in his ears. He had been stunned when Robbie had accused him of murdering his sister. ‘If you can believe that of me, then you will want this back!’ he had yelled, throwing what was left of the money Robbie had lent him to pay for the wedding at his chest. ‘I thought you were my friend!’

The purse had fallen unheeded to the floor. ‘You have enough friends in these parts, it seems,’ Robbie had sneered. ‘Nobody will say one word against ye. And without a body, that magistrate says he dare not put the only son of the local lord on trial.’

They had flung increasingly harsh words at each other, which had culminated in Robbie yelling, ‘Curse you and your title! May you rot in hell with it!’

Hell, he’d mused. Yes, he had felt as though he was in hell. And like so many of the damned, he had set out on a path of deliberate self-destruction, staking all that was left of Cora’s wedding fund on a horse that was certain to lose.

He’d eyed up the runners, and been drawn to one that was being soundly whipped by its infuriated jockey. It was frothing at the mouth, its eyes rolling as it went round and round in circles. The jockey had lashed at it some more. He still couldn’t get it to the starting line.

That horse doesn’t want to be here any more than you do, he could imagine his tender-hearted Cora saying. Poor creature.

And that was when he knew he had to lay her blood money on the horse she would have felt sorry for.

When had it romped home a length ahead of its nearest rival, he heard her delighted laughter. He would swear to it. And pictured her clapping her hands in glee.

In a daze, he’d gone back to the betting post, feeling like Judas at the thought of the cascade of silver that would soon be poured into his hands. In the next race, he’d backed the most broken-down nag he could see in a last-ditch attempt to purge away his overriding sense of guilt. He had to get rid of that money. Robbie had cursed it!

As the pack set off, he thought he felt Cora sigh as the sorry specimen he’d backed lumbered wearily along the track. Dammit if he hadn’t wagered on the very horse she would have chosen again! This time, he had felt there was a certain inevitability about the outcome of the race. Two furlongs from the finish, a riderless horse ran across the field, causing the leaders to stumble, and creating a few moments of mayhem, during which Cora’s favourite wheezed up on the outside, crossing the finishing line while the rest were still disentangling themselves from the pile-up.

Cora had cheered. He’d heard her. No question.

The noisy crowds of race-goers faded from his consciousness as his mind had gone back to the day he had finally managed to place his ring on her finger.

‘Nothing will be able to part us now,’ he had said with grim satisfaction. And then, anticipating their wedding vows, he’d added, ‘Except death.’

‘Not even that,’ she had breathed, gazing up at him with naked adoration in her eyes.

And that was the moment he’d realised that no matter what Robbie might think, Cora was still his. He had felt her lay her hand on his sleeve, and hold him back when he would have tossed even those winnings away on the favourite in the next race. ‘Enough now,’ she had cautioned him. And tears had sprung to his eyes, because he had known, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she loved him far too much to want to watch him blight his future with reckless gambling. And he had walked away.

From that day forward, he had done nothing without considering what she would have made of it. And the more he asked her opinion, the more often he had felt her hovering close by.

Robbie had stormed off back to Scotland, his parents had washed their hands of him, neighbours regarded him with suspicion, and former acquaintances shunned him.

But Cora had stood by him.

There had been times when he had sunk into such despair that he considered following her into the after-life.

But he could see her shaking her head in reproof, and hear her declaring that suicide was a mortal sin. He did not care if it was a sin, if it could bring them together. But something told him that whatever part of the after-world she inhabited would exclude sinners of that sort.

And so, since he knew she did not want him to take that course, he’d just had to go on existing. He could not call it living. Cut off from his family and friends, he had begun to haunt the lowest gaming hells in London. They were the only places whose doors were still open to him.

But even there, she watched over him, giggling at the stunned faces of the men from whom he’d won cash, deeds to mines, and shares in canal companies.

And it was she who urged him, when he had just donned the first set of good quality, brand-new clothes he had ever owned, to walk into White’s and face them all down. She had crowed with laughter when he had walked out, £20,000 the richer.

It had brought him a measure of satisfaction to pay off the mortgage on Kingsmede, when his father had died. And to pay off his inherited debts out of winnings he’d gleaned from the very men who had fleeced his shiftless parent. Since then, he had gradually been able to make all the improvements to his estate Cora had talked about when she had been there. His tenants might whisper about him, and the way he came by his money, but it did not stop them from being glad he was re-thatching their cottages, or draining low-lying fields to improve their harvests.