10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

L aughter.

Laughter echoed along the stones of the castle to reach Thomas as he stumbled out of the library after falling asleep the previous night in the chair before the fireplace.

A chair that was quickly becoming worn out for how often he couldn’t find his way to the stairs and his room.

He couldn’t remember the last time laughter had graced the halls of Ravenstone.

Real laughter. Not the insipid giggles the governess he’d hired two weeks ago was prone to.

There hadn’t been real laughter lightening the air since his mother had passed when he was a small child. Yes, the laughter of parties and balls had echoed through the corridors since then, but it had always been tinged with an edge of desperation, of unease—not the honest laughter of a person who knew they belonged within these stone walls.

More laughter reached his ears.

Thomas shook his head.

He had to still be dreaming, even if he could feel the cold scrape of the stone floor along the hallway under his bare feet.

He stopped, waiting as the silence resettled into the walls. Waiting for the silence to continue as it should. As was right. As was this castle.

Lifeless and cold.

But then there. A chortle—a loud guffawing one—followed by more laughter.

Laughter, he didn’t recognize.

He’d heard Miss Derrington—Sylvie—laugh in the last fortnight. Always with him and always with a note of hesitancy to it, as if she wanted to laugh in his company, but was afraid to do so.

Not that he was giving her any reason to be comfortable in his presence.

He gave her short answers, limited his time with her, didn’t ask questions. It was the best he could do in this situation he loathed to be in.

He didn’t know what the governess did with Izzie during the day. Where she went with her, how they spent their time. Not that he wanted to know. He’d asked her to do the impossible—turn a rabid girl into a marriageable one—and he didn’t care how she did it.

Sylvie would give him reports every night, of course, so she was certain he knew she was performing her duties.

Izzie learned to sit properly today. Izzie learned how to not grab at food with her bare hands. Izzie learned how to not bite me when I helped her put on her dress.

By all accounts, his distant cousin truly was feral, and he had come to terms with the fact that she would be under his roof for a long spell, no matter what magic Sylvie could perform.

There was much to do to turn Izzie into something akin to wed-able.

He’d hoped to have her educated with the basics of reading and writing at the very least before finding her a husband, but that was a preference he’d abandoned. She would be under his roof for years for that to happen. Silly to even aspire to it, when plenty of women never learned to read, much less were educated on any number of subjects that would be helpful were he to attempt to wed her to a man of stature.

A farmer, perhaps, would be his best option for a husband. A farmer that would receive a sizable dowry with the girl—enough so that Thomas wouldn’t have to give her well-being another thought for the rest of his life. Enough so that he could wash those eyes of hers from his memory.

More laugher.

Laughter that was real and not a figment of his imagination.

In the hallway outside of the library, he turned left toward the sound, or toward where he thought the laughter came from. It was impossible to interpret sound in the castle, for the ancient stones twisted noise.

Creeping down the long corridor that led to the south side of the castle, Thomas stopped near the drum tower that anchored this corner of Ravenstone. He stilled.

No laughter, but the slightest echo of voices.

Voices.

Plural voices.

Sylvie, clearly, with her breathy, higher-pitched voice. But she was talking to someone. Who?

Jensen? Or maybe the new coachman? Or was this the day the maid came to the castle? But what would she be doing with Sylvie in the tower room?

Thomas stepped into the circular staircase that wound upward in the center of the tower.

His bare feet light, he moved up step after step, training his right ear toward the sound.

It took a while before he could make out full words.

“He told me it would never do, the thought of me being away from him,” Sylvie said in her high pitch.

“What did you say?” A female voice.

“I told him that there was only one way I would stay, and that was if he licked my boots, like he had made Marjorie lick his. Except the bottom—I wanted the ass licking dung from the street.”

“You didn’t—you knew you weren’t staying.”

“I did. He deserved it.”

Laughter cut through the air—sudden and loud. That unknown distinctive chortle-laugh he’d heard below, and he knew it wasn’t from Sylvie’s lips.

He made sure his feet stayed silent on the worn stone steps as he crept up the last few stairs, and he paused at the door to the solar. The ancient wooden door was slightly ajar and he had to hold his fingers back from pushing it open farther.

“What do you think of this?”

Laughter—breathy this time, signature Sylvie. “It is completely awful.”

Sylvie had to be talking to the maid instead of performing her duties with Izzie.

The woman was here for one reason alone, and sitting about gossiping with his maid was most certainly not it.

He’d had enough. He pushed the door open, only to freeze in place.

Sylvie and Izzie sat near the fireplace, both with embroidery in their laps.

With the fire crackling just beyond them, they made the perfect portrait of two fine ladies whiling away the hours.

What in the hell?

He looked around the room. No one else.

Just those two.

Those two talking.

Talking.

Izzie talking normally. Looking normal—not curled into a ball in the corner.

Not screaming at him like a mad badger.

Not rabid.

Dressed appropriately. Sitting comfortably. Embroidery on her lap. Embroidery.

Sylvie was the first to react, her embroidery clattering to the floor as she scrambled to her feet. “My lord, you found us. I did not think you would be awake at this early hour or I would have moved to a different part of the castle.” She glanced over her shoulder, the motion jerky, nervous. “I was just teaching Izzie how to embroider.”

“Get the hell out of here, Miss Derrington.”

“But, my lord.”

His hands clenched into fists, his glare locked solely onto Izzie. She sat still, her head bowed as she refused to look up at him. Sylvie shifted slightly to her left, standing between them and not moving.

His glare shifted to the governess, his voice dropping to a vicious growl. “I said get the hell out of here, Sylvie. Get out of here before I throw you out that bloody window.”

Sylvie quickly turned and picked up her pile of cloth and thread on the floor, tossed it onto her empty chair, then scurried a wide path around him toward the door.

Her footsteps were quick to descend the stone stairs, drifting away.

Izzie hadn’t moved a muscle, her head still bowed.

Thomas spun back to the door and slammed it closed, not bothering to take even a moment to calm himself before turning around and charging toward her. “What in the bloody hell sort of game are you playing?”

She didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle, her neck nearly breaking for how far forward her head was bowed.

He leaned over, crowding in on her, both of his hands grabbing the arms of the chair she sat in and trapping her in place.

His voice pitched into a roar. “You’ve not uttered more than one-word grunts at me this entire fortnight, but to her you can have an actual conversation? You are playing me for a fool, you little hellion, and you will damn well look at me right now.”

Just when he was about to grab the back of her hair and yank her face upward, words came small and muffled into her chest.

“I am not playing any game.”

He jabbed his fingers under her chin, grabbing her jaw, and he lifted her face to his. “You are and you better tell me exactly what it is this instant.”

Her dark blue eyes went wide, flickering about for escape, not understanding there was no escaping him.

It took a long moment before her twitching gaze settled and she looked directly at him, her voice in a whisper. “It…it kept me safe. Safe for so long.”

His eyes narrowed. “What did?”

She tried to shake her head, but couldn’t for the force with which he held her chin. “It was not my idea.”

A fool. A damn fool he’d been.

His top lip snarled. “So you’re not feral. Start talking.”

“It was Mrs. Dellcrane, before she died. Years ago. She knew she was dying and she feared for me alone—there are those in our town that would have taken advantage of me, there, by myself.” Her words tumbled out, breathless, shaking.

“Who the hell is Mrs. Dellcrane?”

She tried to pull back but couldn’t with his grip on her. “My neighbor—she told me to go feral. Told me exactly how to do it. I didn’t believe her and then one of them…one of them found me along the road, walking home from her cottage. He dragged me into the forest that lined the path…and…and…”

Her voice cut out in a choke, her eyes closing and all the rage instantly left his limbs.

Well…shit.

His head bowed as he seethed in a breath and his fingers fell away from her chin.

Her head shifted backward as far from his face as possible and her eyes opened to look at him. Haunted tones vibrated in her voice. “I got away…he ripped away my dress but then couldn’t get his trousers free and I hit him with a rock and I got away. I ran.”

Fucking steaming heap of rubbish. The muscles along Thomas’s forearms tensed, needing to choke the life out of the snake that had done that to her.

He pushed up from the chair, his stare on her face. “And then?”

Her shoulders lifted, her voice small. “And then…then it was just easier…easier to let everything go. To become an animal. To not care.”

His stare ate into her, digging deep into her soul.

She could speak. Quite well, at that.

Speak full sentences. Not madness.

A liar.

A liar with good reason, it seemed.

“Did Mr. Smith know this of you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I was always silent around him. Gave his wife only one word at a time, even before Mrs. Dellcrane died. My father forbade me to talk to anyone in town, even though he was never around. Mrs. Dellcrane taught me how to live, how to be, as she was our only neighbor. I didn’t truly know anyone else—we were too far from town.”

The anger still simmered deep within him at her deceit, threatening to boil out of control, but it was deuced hard to let that happen while looking at her face.

Fear. A stark fear filling her dark blue eyes. She’d been caught in her elaborate deception and she knew it.

Right that she should fear him. He was an arse.

He straightened fully, folding his arms across his chest. “Why did you maintain the farce once you were here?”

A flash of annoyance cut across her eyes. “Those people thought to drown me, to kill me because I wasn’t something they could control. I could only assume I was to be delivered to that same fate here, just from another’s hands. I had no clue what you were going to do to me—I still don’t. Maintaining the farce—fighting—has been my best—my only—chance at survival.” Her voice sounded almost defiant.

Bold, for the position she was currently in.

Though to keep up the farce of a rabid madwoman for as long as she had, it had taken the utmost brazenness.

His fingers tapped along his upper arm. “Clearly, I didn’t kill you.”

Her head gave a slight shake. “No, but I still don’t know what you think to do with me.”

“I brought a governess here to tame you. That should be enough proof I don’t intend to have you killed.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Is it? Is there any reason I should trust you?”

His glare ate into her. He was an ass, but he wasn’t a murderer and to have her even suggest that possibility rankled him. “Believe me, if I thought to send you to float in the sea or to an asylum, I would have done it the first day you were dumped like rubbish at my door.”

She winced. As though the very thought of being trash sliced her to the core.

Instant regret slammed into him.

Rarely did he rethink the words that flew from his mouth, though he knew they could be cold and mean and cutting. But a shot of regret jabbed through his belly at seeing that odd sort of softness in her eyes, in the way the muscles of her face tightened when wounded. It wasn’t quite innocence. More a vulnerability she was trying to hide, he guessed.

Whatever it was, it was a slice of humanity that he’d never possessed himself, and he found it rather fascinating on her.

He cleared his throat, his voice awkward as he searched for words. “You are not rubbish, Izzie. If you were, I would have tossed you from the castle myself. I did not do that. I took you on as my responsibility and I hired you a governess, and yet you have insisted on continuing on with this charade of being a rabid creature for no discernable purpose.”

“It was discernable to me.” A frown curled her full lips. “I did not know what to expect here. I still do not.”

“Tame you, was the first thing on my list.”

Her look lifted to him. “Then consider me tamed—I am here, having a conversation with you, and you didn’t even need to drug me to get me under your control.”

He paused, staring at her for a long moment.

She wasn’t rabid and she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what he’d done to her that first night. That was the festering crux of her distrust of him.

Rightly so.

He heaved a sigh. “I apologize for that. You left me little choice.”

“You apologize?” Her eyebrows lifted high. “But you…you stripped me down…you are no different than that boy in the woods. You?—”

“I am nothing like that wretched boy in the woods.” His words thundered into the room, the vehemence of them startling himself. “I got Cook to oversee the bathing—she was the only choice of female help once I realized you were not…” His look ran down the front of her dress, pausing at the shadow along the swell of her breasts.

Eyes up. Stop looking at what is untouchable.

Still, his fingers curled inward, itching his palms at the thought of where his hands had been on her body. Tried as he did to pretend touching her was no different than washing a dirty dog, he knew in that awful little spot in his mind where he didn’t like to admit to truths he didn’t care for, that his hands had enjoyed every piece of her skin that they had roamed.

His gaze snapped back to her face. “Once I realized you were not a child. I could not rightly tell for how small you had curled yourself into a ball. But I did not have a choice. Vermin were crawling all over you. I cannot have that in this house.”

“Then you should have left me to the stables.”

“Should I have? You seem to have taken just fine to living within the castle walls. To playing about your days, no doubt laughing with Miss Derrington at my ignorance.”

“We haven’t laughed at you. In fact, Miss Derrington has been ever insistent I tell you that I am more than you think of me. I have refused.”

“She should have told me.”

“She knew it was not her place to expose my secret.”

He let loose an exasperate sigh.

He couldn’t abide this. Liars. Two of them, under his roof.

“And she is about to lose her job because of it. She kept the information that you can talk just fine to herself—openly lied to me about your progress when I am her employer—not you. You are nothing more than the waif I’ve taken in.”

Another wince, this one smaller, more hidden. Izzie was a prideful little charlatan.

She leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasping together as she looked up at him, her dark blue eyes impossibly big. “No—please. Sylvie has done nothing wrong. I asked her to keep the secret. I have never known anyone like her—kind and willing to listen to me. And she has been teaching me plenty.” She picked up the embroidery in her lap. “Just today she has been teaching me to properly knot embroidery stitches. Please, please do not relieve her of her post. There is no one here to talk to, and I can learn so much from her.”

He growled. “You are impossible—to think to ask me of this after what you have done.”

“Please.” Her eyes begged. “I know she has much to teach me. She is very good at her job, and there is much of this world—your world—that I do not know how to navigate.”

He glared at Izzie for long seconds, then shook his head, moving away from her and going to the window. From this tower, one could see far out to the sea, past the cliffs that dropped sharply to the rocky shore below. The wind had picked up to ambitious gusts early this morning, the force of it a constant whistle along the window sashes. The chill easily seeping into the room.

Dreary. As were most days at Ravenstone. Just as he liked it. He never did know what to do with sunny days—like something more was expected of him, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

He reached out, his fingertips pressing against the cool glass. Cold that took the itch out of his fingers.

“How old are you, truly?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two?” He near choked on the words as he looked back to her. She was far, far from a child. Farther than he’d been led to believe. No wonder he had a hard time looking at her and not seeing a woman instead of a child. “But Mr. Smith said you were seventeen, eighteen at most.”

“Time is elusive to him. His wife died nine years ago, and he still thinks it was last year.”

“He is more addled than you are.”

Her eyes narrowed on him. “Living in realities that don’t align with yours does not make him—or me—mad. It keeps us safe. Content. One could argue it is better than whatever the reality is that you are living in.”

A barb, meant to gouge, and it did just that.

He turned back to the window, his voice gruff.

“Now that I know you can speak well enough, I don’t yet know how my plans for you will need to change.”

Her dress rustled against the chair as she stood behind him. “You had plans for me?” A hesitant note in her voice, as though she didn’t want to ask but knew she had to.

“My plan was to marry you off to a farmer.”

“You what?”

“Yes.” He turned around to find her standing next to the wingback chair, her fingers picking at a few stray threads worn free at the top of the upholstery. “I had planned that once you could reasonably hold a fork and knife in your hands and sit at a table properly, along with managing a few words that weren’t screeches, I was to find you an understanding husband, probably a farmer, and pay him off to marry you.”

Her head snapped backward like he’d punched her straight on. It took a long moment before her gaze crawled back to him. “Why would you do that?”

“To get you out of Ravenstone. You would be taken care of, that seems sufficient enough a responsibility the earldom holds to you.”

She drew in a deep breath, her chest lifting as she swayed slightly. “And you still think to do that?”

He was not about to lie to her on this score. Not when honesty was the only thing keeping him sane at the moment. He needed her out of the castle, so she would stop creeping into his thoughts at random, unguarded moments. So he could stop the phantom feel of her skin under his palm as he’d held her neck above the water in that tub. So that his eyes wouldn’t wander to the curve of her hip, wanting to see again the peculiar crescent-moon-shaped freckle that sat over the sensitive flesh just inside her left hip bone. So that her full lips wouldn’t appear in his dreams, wrapping themselves around his cock.

She wasn’t the type of woman that he was normally attracted to—Sylvie fit that bill far better. Yet by her very existence alone, Izzie had somehow wormed into the dark crevices of his soul to haunt his depraved mind.

He needed this to stop. All of it.

He needed his castle empty again. Void of people. Void of laughter.

His gaze set hard on her. “Yes, I think to remove you from the castle, Izzie. One way or another. Tell me, are you educated in the slightest?”

“I can read and write.”

“Any other languages? Ever pick up a newspaper? Ever perform the duties of a genteel wife?”

She shook her head.

“Then Sylvie can stay to teach you some of that as I arrange your future.”

She stepped toward him, her hand outstretched. “But?—”

“But what?” He cut her off, his voice harsh. “What could you possibly say to make me not think of you as a liar living under my roof?”

Her hand dropped away from him, her head bowing.

“Tred lightly, dear Izzie.” He walked to the door, opened it, then paused. “How you conduct yourself during the next weeks will determine how well the future will suit you.”