The Deceptive Lady Darby (Lost Ladies of London 2)

“You really are going to the manor then, my lord?”

“I am.” It was time to put the past behind him. Time to face his demons.

“But I assumed you’d changed your mind.” T

wo deep furrows appeared between Mrs Hibbet’s brows. “Rose has already left.”

“Left?” Fear trickled like ice-cold water through his veins. God damn, he’d told her not to go alone. “Did anyone accompany her?”

Macabre images of Miss Stoneway’s dead body, sprawled face up in the woods, flashed through his mind. The look of terror in the poor woman’s eyes visited him often in his nightmares.

“I don’t know, my lord. I presume she asked Dawkins.”

Christian shot out of the chair. “That will be all, Mrs Hibbet. I shall be out of the house for the next hour.”

Without further comment, he strode from the room and made his way to the stables. One glance inside the stalls, and he could account for all his staff. They must have thought he’d lost his faculties, racing about and mumbling to himself.

“Can I help you, my lord?” Jack stopped brushing the chestnut mare and waited for a reply.

“Saddle my horse and be quick about it. I’ve urgent business that cannot wait.”

Jack set to work straight away. Still, it wasn’t quick enough to ease the pounding in Christian’s chest.

What in hell’s name was wrong with him?

Rose was a maid on an errand. She was not Cassandra, not a woman hell-bent on causing mischief whenever the opportunity arose. And there were no patients at Morton Manor. Not anymore. But then the insane were not the ones they need fear.

Chapter Five

The ten-minute ride to Morton Manor passed by in a blur. The pressure in Christian’s head started as a mild pulsing in his temples, but the dull pain built until it mimicked the pounding of his horse’s hooves on the dirt track.

Had he not been galloping at full pace, he would have massaged the back of his neck to ease the mounting tension. And yet the odd sensations plaguing him were so different from those he’d experienced on the night he’d searched for Cassandra.

Fear made him lose his grasp on reality now. Anger had been the only thing driving him then, and perhaps a deep sense of disappointment. He’d known what to expect when he eventually found his wife and the warden. Cassandra had stopped arguing about his insistence she receive help for her anxiety. She’d gone from refusing to move from her bed to demanding the maid style her hair in a fancy coiffure. From being too tired to wash to bathing her body in exotic oils and dabbing her skin with expensive perfume.

Christian may have been a fool, but he was not blind.

Had it not been for the children he’d have gone to London, lived separately from the woman he should never have married. But one did not leave those most precious in precarious situations. And so he’d resigned himself to a life of misery. At least until Jacob and Alice were of an age to make their own way in the world.

But then his wife died in tragic circumstances.

Pain sliced through his heart when he thought of his children. To know of such horrors at such a young age had affected their mental well-being. Mrs Hibbet was right. Another governess was the last thing they needed.

But how could he create a life of stability when the house was in turmoil?

As he approached the rusty old gates of Morton Manor, he had no time to contemplate the answer. Instinctively, his horse grew skittish, pulled up and snorted loudly when Christian tried to guide him through the stone pillars.

“There’s nothing to fear.” He patted the beast and whispered words of comfort. He, too, felt a degree of trepidation. The urge to turn around and ride far away from the eerie place proved overwhelming. But the ghosts of the past informed his view, he reminded himself. And with a horse named Valiant, one expected the beast to have a little courage.

Indeed, his mount snorted once more before stepping across the boundary. Weeds littered the gravel drive. Diseased and gnarled branches lay amongst the overgrown grass on one side of the border. Death and decay were words frequently associated with Morton Manor.

The house came into view like an ugly blot on the landscape.

He would have looked up at the oddly spaced windows, remembered Cassandra’s mocking grin as she watched him depart, but it was the golden-haired ray of sunshine hammering on the front door that captured his attention.

“Rose!” Christian cried out to her, although he’d not meant for the word to sound so sharp. Then again, she had disobeyed his instructions.

Upon hearing the clip of Valiant’s hooves, she swung around. “Oh, it’s you, my lord.”