Heart of Fire

Three

A cool spring breeze floated through the open windows of the carriage as it rumbled toward the village of Castle-on-Avon, a small, picturesque market town surrounded by rolling green fields and thatch-roofed cottages. On a knoll near the edge of the village, Selkirk Hall loomed majestically over twelve hundred acres of rich grassy earth. A structure three stories high, it was built in the Georgian style, of golden Cotswold stone.

Coralee, Aunt Agnes and Allison were returning to the country in Agnes’s carriage, not the viscount’s fancy four-horse rig. Corrie couldn’t risk her father’s coachman telling him she had left the carriage before its arrival at Selkirk Hall. In fact, she meant to depart at the Hen and Raven, a nearby coaching inn, where she would hire a room for the night and continue to her destination as a different person in the morning.

It had been less than a week since Corrie had come up with her outrageous plan. Three days ago, she had presented it to Aunt Agnes and Allison.

“It will work—I know it will!”

Aunt Agnes had twisted her handkerchief in her plump hands. “I don’t know, Coralee…it sounds extremely dangerous.”

“To begin with, no one is going to know who I am,” Corrie explained. “I shall pretend to be Letty Moss, the wife of Lord Tremaine’s very distant cousin Cyrus. Letty is destitute in the wake of her husband’s abandonment, and desperately in need of the earl’s help.” A story that could likely be true.

Corrie had run across the information during her research on the earl and his family. Through a friend who knew a friend who knew one of the earl’s distant cousins—a man named Cyrus Moss—she had learned that Cyrus had left his much younger wife in residence in York and set off for America to make his fortune. After two years, Cyrus had not yet returned.

According to her source, Lord Tremaine had never met Letty Moss and knew little of his very distant cousin. The information gave Corrie the perfect means of getting into Castle Tremaine. Doing so, she believed, was the only way to discover if Lord Tremaine was the father of Laurel’s child, and if so, whether he might be responsible for her and little Joshua’s death.

“It will work, I tell you. It has to.”

Aunt Agnes had fretted and argued, but in the end she had agreed to the plan. If Corrie could discover the truth of what had happened to her beloved niece, then she would go along with her scheme.

Corrie watched the landscape passing outside the carriage window—rolling hills beneath shadowy clouds, an occasional barking dog, a merchant’s cart pulled by a tired-looking horse.

“I don’t see how this can possibly succeed,” Aunt Agnes grumbled from the opposite side of the carriage. “Surely someone from Selkirk Hall or someone in the village will recognize you.”

“I haven’t been to Selkirk since I was twelve years old. Mother and I both prefer London to the country. Whenever Laurel and I wished to visit, my sister always came to the city.”

To distance herself even further from events at Selkirk, Corrie had decided to come out of mourning. She didn’t want anyone connecting her to Laurel’s death, and wearing those dreadful black garments just might put the notion in someone’s head.

Corrie didn’t think her sister would mind. She believed Laurel would rather the truth be discovered than that her younger sister mope about in dismal black, doing nothing to clear her name.

Agnes cast Corrie an inquiring look. “You are determined to discover the truth, but what if that truth turns out to be something you do not wish to learn?”

There was certainly a chance facts would surface that Corrie would rather not know. She would have to trust that Laurel was an innocent seduced into the affair, as Corrie believed she was.

“I’ll deal with that circumstance should it arise.”

“And the danger?” Agnes pressed. “If the earl is truly a murderer, what will stop him from also killing you?”

Corrie waved her aunt’s worry away, though the thought had crossed her mind. “I told you, Tremaine will not know who I am. Besides, if he did murder his wife, he did it for money. And if he murdered Laurel and Joshua, he did it to keep his freedom, or perhaps to protect his family from scandal. As I am merely a destitute relative there for a visit, he would have no reason to murder me.”

“And I will be there with her,” Allison added softly, referring to the role she had agree to play: Corrie’s maid.

“That’s right. Allison will act as my liaison with you should any problem arise.”

Fortunately, during the time Allison had been at Selkirk with Laurel, she had been pretending to be a widow with a newborn child. She had been dressed in mourning clothes and had never gone into the village, which meant she was safe from recognition at Castle Tremaine.

Agnes released a deep sigh. “I hope you two know what you are doing.”

So did Corrie. At least she knew the Earl of Tremaine was in residence at Castle Tremaine, and had been for several weeks. Agnes had told her the man had been at the castle at the time of Laurel’s death, and for several months before that. Lately he seemed to be spending even more time in the country.

Perhaps he had found a new victim on whom to ply his seductive skills.

Ignoring her companions, Corrie turned to look out the window and caught sight of the inn up ahead, the Hen and Raven. A tremor of nervous anticipation flitted through her. She was still gowned in black, her face hidden beneath a veil of black tulle, and would be until she left the inn on the morrow.

Then she would be dressed in the clothes of a gently reared young woman fallen on hard times, clothes Allison had collected from the local rag merchant: several slightly worn traveling suits, well-worn muslin day dresses, and a number of unimpressive but serviceable dinner gowns with barely frayed cuffs and soiled hems.

Though the gowns were not at all the sort she was used to wearing, in a way Corrie didn’t mind.

Anything would be better than the dismal black that reminded her how she had failed her sister.

Four

Ignoring the creak of leather as he shifted in his saddle, Grayson Forsythe, sixth Earl of Tremaine, surveyed his estate, the lands surrounding Castle Tremaine.

All the way to the low stone wall on his left, past the dense copse of trees in the distance, to the river running along the perimeter on the right, fields of gently rolling hills, verdant with the new grass of spring, beckoned as if whispering his name. Beneath him, his big black stallion, Raja, pranced and sidestepped, eager to continue the ride they had begun early that morning. Almost as eager as Gray.

For the past ten days, the only peace he could find came from riding the hills, escaping the confines of the house, escaping his family…and the memories. Every year, as the dreaded day drew near, the past began to haunt him like a specter.

May 19, the day his pretty young wife, Jillian, had died.

Gray nudged the stallion down off the hill, into a ground-eating gallop. Wind tugged at the thick black hair he wore unfashionably long and tied back in a queue, and fluttered his full-sleeved, white lawn shirt.

Out here, he could examine the memories and wash them clean, know they would eventually fade, as they did every year. Back at the castle, which stood next to the river where she had died, it was nearly impossible to do.

Gray rode for the next hour, reached the far edge of his property, turned the stallion and began to walk the horse at a cooling pace back toward the house.

In time, the memories would leave him. Day-to-day problems with his tenants and his fields, Tremaine account ledgers, and the businesses he had inherited along with the title, would engage him once more, and the past would return to its place in the corner of his mind. But May 19 was almost a week away.

Gray steeled himself and urged Raja toward the ancient castle on the hill next to the river.

Corrie stared through the window of the shabby carriage she had hired at the Hen and Raven. Up ahead, at the end of a long gravel drive, Castle Tremaine perched on the top of a hill like the fortress it had once been. Inside the thick stone walls she would find Grayson Forsythe, the man who might well have murdered her sister.

“Are you certain about this, Coralee?” Allison leaned toward her, her hands clasped nervously in her lap. “Aunt Agnes could be right, you know. We might be putting ourselves into dreadful danger.”

“It’s Letty or Mrs. Moss. You must remember, Allison, to call me that. And they have no reason to harm us. They are going to think I am a destitute relative. And if something happens that gives us the least reason to believe we might be in danger, we shall leave in very short order.”

Allison smoothed her simple printed cotton skirt, even worse for wear than Corrie’s pale blue gown trimmed with ecru lace. Though the lacy overskirt had been carefully mended, it was clearly past time for the garment to be replaced. Corrie adjusted the matching blue-and-ecru lace bonnet, ignoring a soiled spot that barely showed on the lower edge of the brim.

Like the rest of the clothes in her trunks, the well-worn dresses had been altered to fit. She looked just as one would expect—like a distant country cousin in need of a wealthy relative’s aid.

With a lurch that nearly unseated them, the carriage rolled to a halt in front of the huge stone structure that was Castle Tremaine. Though the moat had been filled and planted with daffodils, the ancient building modified over the hundreds of years since its construction, the castle was impressive, with huge carved doors and two-story wings added onto each side of the high round keep that had once been the center of life there.

The Forsythe family had a respectable fortune—increased by the timely demise of Grayson Forsythe’s wife.

The coachman helped Coralee and Allison from the rented carriage, tossed down their trunks, then climbed back up onto the driver’s seat. “Ye want I should stay till yer settled, missus?”

Corrie shook her head. “We’ll be fine. I am his lordship’s cousin, you see, here for a visit.” And she wanted the carriage to leave so there would be no way the earl could toss them out on their shabbily dressed derrieres.

She collected herself, gave the coachman a moment to set the carriage into motion, then heard the fading jangle of the harness as the conveyance disappeared down the long gravel drive. Ignoring the rubbery feeling in her knees, she climbed the steps to the majestic carved wooden door.

A few sharp raps and a butler, dressed immaculately in black tailcoat, black trousers and snowy white shirt, pulled open the heavy portal.

“May I help you?”

Corrie pasted on a smile. “I am here to see Lord Tremaine. You may tell him Mrs. Moss—Letty Moss, his cousin Cyrus’s wife—is arrived to see him.”

She wasn’t sure the earl would even recognize the name, was hoping it rang only a distant bell.

“I’m afraid his lordship is not in at the moment, but his brother, Charles, is here. I shall inform him of your arrival. If you will please follow me.”

The gray-haired butler, thin to the point of gaunt, led her and Allison into a drawing room that was furnished in quite a tasteful manner. It was done in a neoclassical style, with ornate white molded ceilings, a marble fireplace and graceful sofas and chairs upholstered in amber tones brightened with rich ruby accents.

Allison sat down in one of the chairs, her gloved hands clasped nervously in front of her. Corrie silently prayed the girl wouldn’t completely dissolve into a fit of nerves before the first act of the drama had played out.

Seating herself on the brocade sofa, Corrie kept her smile carefully in place and waited, then rose at the swish of heavy skirts and the sound of feminine footfalls approaching down the hall. Allison rose, as well. Corrie could see she was fighting not to tremble.

A woman with golden-blond hair, parted and pulled into a cluster of glossy curls on each shoulder, swept into the drawing room. She had very blue eyes and a strikingly beautiful face. She surveyed the two women and, noticing Corrie’s gown was simple and slightly frayed, but of better quality than Allison’s, sharpened her gaze accordingly.

“Mrs. Moss, I presume?”

“Yes. Mrs. Cyrus Moss. My husband is Lord Tremaine’s cousin.”

“And this is your maid?”

“Yes… Miss Holbrook.” Allison dropped into a curtsy, which the woman ignored. “I am here to speak to the earl on a matter of some importance.”

“Lord Tremaine is not returned from his morning ride. As my husband is presently occupied, perhaps I could be of some assistance. I’m Rebecca Forsythe. If your husband is the earl’s cousin, then he must be Charles’s cousin, as well.”

“Why, yes. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Forsythe.” Corrie flicked a glance at Allison. “Perhaps my maid might wait in the kitchen so that we may speak in private.”

“Of course.” Rebecca called for the butler. “If you would, Mr. Flitcroft, show Miss Holbrook down to the kitchen for some refreshment. And bring tea and cakes for us.”

Corrie kept her smile in place. She had been hoping to speak to the earl. Ultimately, it would be Lord Tremaine who would decide whether or not she would be allowed to stay. But she could hardly ignore this woman, who was her supposed cousin Charles’s wife. Corrie would have to tell her story and hope to gain the woman’s sympathy.

Allison cast her a worried look and followed the butler out of the drawing room. Corrie returned to her place on the sofa and Rebecca joined her there.

The blond woman smiled. She was incredibly beautiful, no more than five or six years older than Corrie, with a full bosom and very small waist. She was wearing a gown of aqua dimity with a full skirt heavily embroidered with roses.

“I’m afraid I’ve never met Cousin Cyrus,” Rebecca said. “But I believe Charles had a distant acquaintance with his father. Where did you say you lived?”

“Cyrus and I make our home in York…though unfortunately, he has been away for more than two years. That is the reason I am here.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Corrie thought of Laurel, which helped her work up a tear. She pulled a handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed it beneath her eyes. “This is all so dreadfully embarrassing.”

“Just take your time,” Rebecca said encouragingly.

“I met Cyrus through friends of my parents, and in the beginning of our marriage, we were happy. Being older by nearly twenty years, he doted on me. Perhaps he loved me too much and that was the problem. You see, Cyrus had very little money, only what he inherited from his father, and that seemed to dwindle quite rapidly once we were wed. But Cyrus was determined to give me the things he believed I deserved.”

Rebecca’s blue gaze drifted over Corrie’s worn garments. “And where is Cyrus now?”

“Well, you see, that is the crux of the matter. Cyrus wished to give me the best of everything—which is the reason, I suppose, that he left England and headed for America to make his fortune. Cyrus had plans, very big plans, and he had friends there he believed would help him.”

“I do seem to recall Charles mentioning a distant cousin who left England for America in search of adventure.”

Corrie nodded vigorously. “That was Cyrus. According to his letters, he arrived there safely. Then his letters stopped coming. I haven’t heard from my husband in nearly two years.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Mrs. Moss.”

“Even worse than losing Cyrus, my funds have run out. Frankly, Mrs. Forsythe, I am quite destitute. I am here to humble myself and beg the earl to offer me shelter. If he refuses, I don’t know what I am going to do.” She dabbed the handkerchief again, ready to break into sobs if she thought it would help.

Rebecca began to frown. It was not a good sign. “You are not asking to take up residence here, are you?”

“Well, I—”

Just then voices drifted in from the stone-floored entry. One Corrie recognized as belonging to the butler, but the other was deeper, more resonant.

“I believe the earl has returned,” Rebecca said, rising gracefully from her place on the sofa. A faint knock sounded as she floated across the drawing room, and an instant later, the butler slid open the door.

“His lordship is returned,” the gray-haired man said. “I have informed him of his visitor.”

Corrie still sat on the sofa.

It was a very good thing.

The man who walked through the door was not at all what she had expected. This man, with his black hair tied back in a queue, was dressed not in a tailcoat and trousers, but mud-spattered black riding breeches, black knee-high boots and a full-sleeved white shirt. With his fathomless dark eyes, he looked more like an eighteenth-century highwayman than a wealthy English lord.

“Gray! I was hoping you would return. We have a guest, just arrived—your cousin Cyrus’s wife, Letty Moss.”

Those piercing eyes swung in her direction and seemed to hold her prisoner there on the sofa. “I didn’t know I had a cousin Cyrus.”

“I’m sure Charles has mentioned him. He is the son of your deceased third cousin, Spencer Moss. Spencer lived near York, as did Cyrus, if I recall. Mrs. Moss has come quite a distance to see you.”

Tremaine didn’t apologize for his rather disheveled appearance, simply turned and made a faint bow in her direction. “Mrs. Moss. Welcome to Castle Tremaine. Now, if you will excuse me, there are several pressing affairs I need to—”

“I should like a word with you, my lord.” She rose from the sofa. “It is a matter of some importance and I have traveled quite far.”

One of his black eyebrows arched up. It was clear he wasn’t used to a woman speaking out as she had just done. For a moment he simply stared, as if taking her measure in some way.

The edge of his mouth faintly curved. “I suppose…since you have traveled, as you say, quite some distance, I can spare a moment.” There was something in that hard-edged smile that made her stomach lift alarmingly.

Tremaine turned to his sister-in-law. “If you will excuse us, Becky…”

Rebecca’s smile slipped. “Of course.” She retreated toward the sliding doors, but didn’t look happy about it. Corrie got the distinct impression the earl’s sister-in-law wasn’t pleased to think his impoverished distant cousin might move into the house, no matter how large it was.

The earl waited until the butler closed the drawing room doors. “You wished to speak to me. What can I do for you, Mrs. Moss?”

He didn’t invite her to sit. It was clear he didn’t expect the interview to take that long. Corrie steeled herself against a hint of irritation, followed by a rush of nerves. The earl was even more handsome than rumors about him had said. He was very tall and extremely broad shouldered, with a flat stomach and long, muscular legs clearly outlined by his snug black riding breeches. Looking into those penetrating dark eyes, she found it easy to imagine an innocent young woman like her sister succumbing to such sheer masculinity.

“It is difficult to know where to begin….” Corrie gathered her courage and prepared to get into her role.

“Just tell me why you’re here, Mrs. Moss.”

Fine. So much for the long, heartrending performance she had planned to give. “Well, my lord, to put it bluntly, your cousin Cyrus—my husband—left me high and dry and ran off to adventure in America. I have waited nearly two years for his return and still have received no word of him. I have no family, no one to help me. I have spent my last farthing getting to Castle Tremaine, my lord, and I am desperate for your help.”

Those dark eyes traveled over her, taking in her simple garments, the tatters that had been carefully repaired, making a thorough assessment of her bosom, which was quite full for her size and apparent even in a gown that was buttoned to the throat.

“As I said, I have never heard of Cyrus Moss. I do not doubt that he is some distant relation, since my sister-in-law has said so, but how do I know you are actually his wife? For that matter, how do I know he even has a wife?”

She had come prepared for this. According to her sources, Grayson Forsythe was a highly intelligent man. He’d been a major in the army, a man who had traveled to far distant countries. He would not be the sort to be easily duped.

Corrie reached into her reticule and pulled out two folded pieces of paper. The forged marriage certificate hadn’t been cheap—or easy to come by. But she was in the newspaper business and she had some very good connections.

She crossed to where he stood and handed the papers to the earl, hating the fact she had to tilt her head back to look at him.

“The first document is a certificate of my marriage to Cyrus Moss three years ago, which was duly recorded in the church. The other is a letter from Cyrus, addressed to me as his wife and posted to me from the city of Philadelphia in America.”

She had worked on that bit of tomfoolery herself, writing the letter with the heavy pen strokes of a man.

The earl perused the letter, reading where Cyrus professed his love and promised to return. Happily for Corrie, her sources assured her he hadn’t yet set foot on English shores.

“Cyrus met your father on several occasions,” she said as he finished and refolded the papers. Corrie hoped her information was correct. “I believe my husband held a high opinion of the man. Since the late earl is no longer with us, I am coming to you for help.”

Tremaine frowned at the mention of his father, and she wondered if there had been some ill will between the two men. He seemed none too pleased as he handed back the documents, and Corrie held her breath.

Finally, he sighed. “If you will follow me into the study, I will write you a bank draft and you can be on your way.” He turned and started walking.

Corrie fought a surge of panic. “Wait!”

Lord Tremaine turned. His attention fixed on her face and she felt again that odd floating in her stomach.

“I said I would give you money. What more do you want?”

Her eyes welled with tears. It wasn’t that hard to do since her plan was about to fail. “I—I am in need of a place to stay, my lord—but only for a while. In a few weeks’ time, I shall come into a small inheritance. My father set up a trust, you see. When I am two-and-twenty, I shall be eligible for a monthly stipend that will see to my comfort. It isn’t much, but it should be enough to keep me in simple fashion until Cyrus returns.”

The earl’s slashing black eyebrows drew together. “Your father and mother are dead, then? You have no one else who might aid you?”

“As I said, I have no living relatives. It is one of the reasons I married Cyrus. With no one to look out for me, I needed his protection. Unfortunately, his protection didn’t last all that long.”

“How long were you and Cyrus together before he left?”

“Just a little over a year.”

The earl studied her for several long moments.

Corrie took a deep breath, her eyes tearing as she prepared to release a wailing sob she hoped would add a bit of persuasion. The earl held up his hand to forestall the outburst.

“There is no need for that. You may stay…at least until I can figure out what to do with you.”

Her face lit up. She gave him a watery smile, brightened by an inward surge of relief. “Thank you, my lord. I shall be forever in your debt.”

He merely nodded. “I’ll speak to Rebecca, tell her we’ll be entertaining our cousin for a while.”

“This is very kind of you, my lord. I’m sure Cyrus would be even more grateful than I am.”

Tremaine ignored the remark, turned and started for the door. As soon as he stepped out of the drawing room, Corrie sank down on the sofa, her legs no longer willing to hold her up.

She had done it! She had managed through a bit of deception to weasel her way into Castle Tremaine! As soon as she was settled, as soon as the Forsythe family had begun to let down its guard and trust her, she would begin her search.

Corrie’s lips thinned. Gray Forsythe might be one of the handsomest men she had ever met, but that didn’t mean he was innocent of murder. And if he had killed her sister and baby Joshua, the Earl of Tremaine was going to pay.

Gray stalked through the halls, his ill humor worse than it was before he left the house. He wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened, but somehow, during her appearance in his drawing room in her mended garments, during the minutes she had looked up at him so pleadingly with her thick-lashed, jewel-green eyes, he had let down his guard and allowed a woman he had never met move into his house.

He didn’t understand it. He had seen through her theatrics from the start, the false tears and wringing hands, the beseeching looks and trembly voice. But during her performance he had also caught a flash of something that intrigued him. He thought it might be desperation, for he was certain that was there, but this seemed more like determination. Whatever it was, it had interested him enough to let her stay.

Gray shook his head. For all he knew, Letty Moss was a charlatan, there to cajole him out of his money, rob him or worse.

He thought about the petite young woman with the fiery copper curls peaking out beneath the soiled brim of her bonnet, and almost smiled. He had been a soldier, a man who’d commanded troops in the British Army. If she gave him any trouble, he would simply toss her out on what held the promise of being a very attractive derriere.

The thought stirred him in a way he didn’t expect. Since Jillian had died, he had slept with few women. It was his conscience, he knew, that kept him from indulging more in the pleasures of the flesh he so enjoyed, guilt that he was alive and Jillian was not. That he had not been there to protect her when she’d needed him.

He looked up to see Rebecca approaching down the hall.

“I hope you were a gentlemen about it,” she said with a smile. “I realize she hoped you would let her stay here at the castle, but—”

“She’s staying.”

“What!”

“It won’t be for long. She’ll soon come into a monthly stipend that should be enough to provide for her until her husband returns.”

“But…but we don’t even know her. How can you simply let her move in?”

The smile he gave her was sardonic. “You are always chiding me about my manners. It would be the height of bad taste to toss a member of our family in need of assistance out into the street.”

“Yes, but I thought you would give her money, not invite her to move in.”

Though Rebecca was tall for a woman, Gray looked over her shoulder toward the massive, carved wooden staircase leading up to the floors above. “There are two separate wings and seventy bedrooms in this house. Put her somewhere she won’t bother you.”

“But—”

He started walking. “I won’t be down for supper. See that our guest has something to eat.” Rebecca generally ran the household, another reason he was surprised by his actions today. On the other hand, he was the earl, which his family seemed mostly to forget. Perhaps it was time he made the matter clear.

Gray continued down the hall, suddenly desperate to get back outside in the sunshine, away from the thick stone walls of the house. He wondered again why he had offered the woman his protection.

Undoubtedly, it was nothing more than boredom.

Still…