Page 6 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

6

Light is an agent capable of producing various chemical changes. It is essential to the welfare both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; for men and plants grow pale and sickly if deprived of its salutary influence.

—Mrs. Jane Marcet

“I understand the Great Western Railway will soon stretch to Cumbria,” said Karolina.

“Hmmm. Some enterprising persons could build a railway bridge right over Hadrian’s Wall. That will show those Romans,” Sam replied.

Karolina gave Sam a weak smile, unable to discern if he was joking or not.

“Well, it would have been a sight easier had it gone past Liverpool, but beggars can’t be choosers,” Phoebe said. Indeed, beggars would have been delighted to find themselves in the Hunt women’s position.

Sam Fenley had come to call—this time at the proper hour—a few days before they were to leave, and offered to accompany them north and inspect the manor as a potential investment.

Rather, he’d made a show of asking her mother if she might grant him the privilege of hosting them on a private railcar from Victoria Station to Liverpool.

Moti had agreed before Sam finished speaking.

Phoebe had her doubts, but in the end agreed as well. She suspected Sam was more interested in inspecting Karolina as a potential investment, and that was fine with her. Phoebe shared her mother’s disdain for Lionel Armitage.

The slight burn in her chest at the thought was due to her change in diet since coming home. Certainly not envy.

Certainly not.

Indeed, Sam spent the first leg of the journey attempting to charm the marchioness and succeeding in charming Karolina, if her sister’s pretty blushes were any indication. It made no difference to Phoebe that Sam’s flirting was reserved for the other two women. With her, Sam spoke directly as though to another man.

Phoebe appreciated his businesslike manner. She was not disappointed Sam hadn’t tried to make her blush or laugh.

After a while, the train’s swaying motion lulled them. Moti and Karolina closed their eyes. Phoebe sat on a bench at the back of the railcar, staring out at the landscape. Her passion in science was electricity, but any powerful phenomenon was enough to engage her interest. The combustible engine was a triumph in engineering, and she relished the thrum of rails beneath them.

For a while, Phoebe amused herself by peering out the window and trying to calculate how many miles per hour the train might be going based on how fast they passed stationary objects, but her speculations were interrupted when Sam came and sat next to her.

“Are you enjoying your trip, Lady Phoebe?” he asked.

“My mother is enjoying the trip,” she replied. She kept her face pointed toward the window but stared out of the corners of her eyes, arrested by the sight of Sam’s thigh pressed up against her skirts.

Phoebe had ridden the railways in America—the cars available to paying customers, not the luxury of a car like this—and had myriad tricks up her sleeve to dissuade men who thought to use the motion of the train to “accidentally” rub up against her.

Her favorite was asking whether the man had seen the pet snake traveling in her dress pocket. The snake wasn’t too poisonous, but if the gentleman could stand up and look…?

This was in her second year as an agent of Tierney no other light spilled from the house. They’d come around back to the kitchen garden full of rotting stalks and black stumps, where the last of the sprouts had been cut to store away in the root cellar.

Sam cleared his throat, his discomfort vibrating in the air, but Phoebe didn’t bother putting him at ease. They were home. It took everything she had to open the carriage door and set foot on the hard-packed earth.

The driver quietly unhitched the horses and led them to a trough, then hailed the second carriage, which held the luggage and servants. The kitchen door swung open, and Karolina flinched, but it was only Cook limping out to greet them with a surly nod and a muttered promise of supper.

Moti went first toward the house, her head held high, hands hidden inside a rabbit fur muff—Phoebe assumed they were trembling. Hers were, though she’d fisted her hands and pushed them into the folds of her paletot.

None of them looked to the left, behind the garden where the doors to the icehouse stood closed and locked.

Karolina followed hard on her mother’s heels, giving Cook a wan smile as she ducked her head beneath the low stone lintel that had stood since the manor was naught but a single great room.

Sam came to Phoebe’s side, and she breathed in his scent as though it were a talisman against the shades that dwelt in the rooms before them.

“How old is the manor?” he asked, his voice soft but not fearful.

Not yet.

“We don’t know. Most likely it belonged to a chieftain who was displaced by the Romans when they built Hadrian’s Wall. Once the Romans left, the first of my father’s family took over. Whether they were the original owners or simply took advantage of the empty fort isn’t recorded.”

He shook his head slightly. “Imagine knowing where you come from so far back in time.”

Phoebe turned and took in the sight of him. The light had seeped out of the sky, but she could still make out the color of his eyes and the curve of his chin as he lifted his head.

“Hundreds of years of history weigh heavy on a place,” she said. On impulse, Phoebe reached over and grabbed Sam’s hand. “Marry Karolina, if she’ll have you, but please, don’t make her live here.”

Sam’s surprised gasp sounded like a bark. “What? Are you…I certainly…”

Embarrassment fizzed through Phoebe’s chest, and she dropped his hand. She faced the manor once again.

“Or do what you want,” she said between gritted teeth. “You’re a man. You’ll do that anyway.”

Cook had already gone back into the kitchen and Phoebe didn’t turn around to see if Sam followed as she went inside.

If he were smart, he’d stay outside with the horses and drive back the way he came.

No good came of visiting with ghosts.

···

This far north, day and night lost meaning.

The early darkness of winter so close to Scotland was to be expected. What Sam hadn’t foreseen was its suddenness .

Any light behind the Hunt women’s eyes died the moment they entered their home. Only an hour after arriving, the rest of the day’s light fled the entire house. Shadows that had clung to corners and behind doors grew unchecked in the dark, covering everything with shades of black and gray.

Having been divested of his greatcoat by a tiny woman whose dark black eyes gave him the shivers, Sam let himself be guided into the parlor, a scantly furnished room with two drafty windows facing each other to create a stiff breeze, and a stuffed deer head poking out from the wall above the fireplace.

He plonked himself on an itchy horsehair couch, careful to stay in the middle of the room. Until the half-moon showed itself in the sky, the only illumination came from the crooked candles obviously remade from stubs and a sickly fire twisting in the grate.

The ladies joined him soon after for a delightful taste of what was to come on this visit.

The marchioness barely spoke, and when she did, she would lapse into Lithuanian half the time so her daughters had to translate. Sometimes they didn’t even bother. Lady Karolina would blush and make an excuse, and Lady Phoebe simply shook her head.

Aside from the tiny maid with scary eyes, a brooding giant of a man with dark brown eyes and an improbably beautiful face named Jonas was the only other person who appeared. He wasn’t a servant, for they were introduced, although Sam was unsure whether the names given were Jonas’s surnames or a description of his profession. Sam did not understand a lick of Lithuanian. However, it did sound like Polish.

He didn’t know Polish, either.

Jonas did not sit with the family. He stoked the fire and, without speaking, brought Sam a glass of something yellow. The marchioness watched Jonas as though he were going to disappear at any second, and her smiles toward him were hesitant and pleading. She spoke to him only in Lithuanian.

Jonas, for his part, treated the marchioness with equal care, as though she were made of glass, as though he had seen her broken. Lady Karolina and Lady Phoebe he treated with a bemused familiarity and ignored Sam after handing him the drink.

“I am afraid Cook did not expect us until tomorrow morning,” Lady Phoebe said, translating the conversation between her mother and this Jonas person. “If it isn’t too poor a fare, Jonas will bring toasted bread and cheese to go with our tea and your viryta .”

Viryta is what he’d been given by the giant, and it was the only thing keeping Sam from running out of the house. A specialty of Lithuania, the honey liquor smelled like Christmas and was as potent as it was sweet.

“Toasted bread and cheese is my favorite meal,” Sam assured the marchioness, his hearty response fueled by a healthy swallow of viryta . “Nothing poor about it.”

The marchioness’s slow blink at his declaration was an unspoken reminder that what Sam considered “poor” and what this woman considered “poor” were oceans apart. Continents apart, even.

Deciding he’d participated enough in the niceties, Sam examined the bottom of his liquor glass, contemplating how polite it would be to get up and pour himself another drink. At his sister Letty’s new home, servants seemed forever underfoot, filling glasses and cleaning up spills without a second’s hesitation.

Here it seemed the family fended for themselves.

Sam leaned forward toward the fireplace, but the fire was too small, and he sat too far away to feel real warmth.

“Are you cold, Mr. Fenley?” Lady Karolina, delightful woman that she was, sat next to him and her body heat was palpable. “I shouldn’t think Prentiss Manor as nice as Lord and Lady Greycliff’s manor,” she said, a half smile pulling her lips down like the slope of a wave.

“Who? Oh—” Sam would never get used to his sister Letty being referred to as “Lady Greycliff.” Before Letty had established Athena’s Retreat with Violet and Phoebe, the closest he’d ever come to the aristocracy was delivering packages to their homes.

“It’s pretty countryside there,” he agreed. “Lots of orchards and flowers. Sun. A great deal of sun.”

Lady Karolina sighed. “Take heart, Mr. Fenley. What we lack in sun we make up for in gloom and dust.”

Smelling like lilacs, the lady tilted her head and Sam admired the sight. Lady Karolina was truly a pretty woman and had a sense of humor as well. Perfect. Now all Sam had to do was be his irresistible self, and she’d fall ears over arse in love with him—worth the expense of the trip to a cold, inhospitable manor house.

“I will gladly brave the gloom and a little dust to keep company with such a delightful lady,” he said, keeping his tone light but fixing his eyes on hers.

Drawing Lady Karolina into his web of charm, like a spider draws a fly.

“As long as the ghosts stay away,” he teased.

The web broke.

Lady Karolina’s creamy skin turned pale as chalk, and a gasp from Lady Fallowshall drew their attention.

Seated to the left of him in a straight-backed wooden chair with no cushion, the marchioness wrung her hands in distress. Next to her stood Lady Phoebe, arms crossed over her chest. The lines bracketing Lady Phoebe’s mouth had been hidden in the light of day but, now revealed, made her look more her age. Twenty-nine or thirty, Sam supposed, since she was a year older than Letty.

Lady Karolina leapt from her seat and hurried over to the older woman while Lady Phoebe walked over to the cart where the collection of liquors was kept. Lady Karolina took one of her mother’s arms and Jonas took the other. In a matter of moments, their good-nights were said, and the room emptied of everyone but him and Lady Phoebe.

“Please excuse my mother, Mr. Fenley,” Lady Phoebe said, having poured herself a healthy glass of the viryta . “She will be regretful for her rudeness in the morning, but tonight she is overly tired and exhaustion has trumped her hospitality.”

She fell more than sat onto the couch next to him, a glass of the honey liquor in one hand and the half-empty bottle from whence it came in the other hand.

“Thirsty, are we?” Sam asked.

“We are,” she replied.

They sat for a while in an easy silence. Sam watched the fire sputter and gasp while the north wind rattled the windows.

A muted knocking sounded from somewhere outside the parlor, and Sam turned to gaze at the doorway, but no one entered. He resettled himself, back against the couch, when the knocking came again.

“Have you heard of the American author Edgar Allan Poe?” Lady Phoebe asked. She did not appear to have heard the knocking, holding the glass up to the feeble light and examining its contents.

“I have not. Is he someone you read while on your…visit?” Sam asked.

Lady Phoebe snorted. A ladylike snort, but a snort, nonetheless.

“Visit. Is that what you want to call it?”

Ahh, frost covered her words, and although he was chilled to the bone, Sam welcomed the sensation. Unlike his frontal assault on Lady Karolina, Sam examined Lady Phoebe’s profile from the corners of his eyes.

A museum. That was the only other place he’d seen such assured beauty.

Beautiful. Genius. Villain.

An inappropriate curiosity as to how her skin might taste beneath the tip of his tongue sent a wave of heat down Sam’s spine.

The cold must be doing something to his brain. This curiosity would do nothing to further his ultimate goals, and if Lady Phoebe’s bite was anywhere close to her bark, might even get him mortally wounded.

Still. Pity a woman blessed with looks and intelligence was so cutting and intimidating. Sam would like to hear her laugh.

Truly laugh, from the belly.

Another knock came, this time it sounded farther away. Lady Phoebe still showed no reaction.

“Poe is the author of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ One of my favorite stories,” she said.

Sam sat forward now, happily expectant. “Is it a romance? Do you know I have read all of Mrs. Foster’s horrid novels. My favorite is The Perils of Miss Cordelia Braveheart and the Castle of Doom .”

A look of disgust crossed Lady Phoebe’s face.

Obviously, she knew nothing of great literature.

“?‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ is the narrative of a nameless man who confesses to murder,” she began. Her gemstone eyes sparkled in the dark.

Odd, considering there was barely light to illuminate them.

“Every night the nameless narrator would enter an old man’s room and watch him while he slept. His only motivation was a fear of the old man’s pale blue eye,” she continued, “yet the nameless narrator insists he is not mad.”

Sam clamped his lips onto the side of his glass to keep them from making a round O as he listened. In The Perils of Miss Cordelia , the villain kidnaps the heroine, but that’s all right because he marries her in the end.

Marries, not murders .

“One night while the narrator is watching him, the old man wakes up and cries out,” Lady Phoebe said, her eyes on some distant point. “The nameless man hears a dull pounding. It is the sound of the old man’s terrified heartbeat. Worried others might hear the noise, he kills the old man and hides the pieces of the body below the floorboards in the bedroom.”

“Ack.” Sam cleared his throat and swallowed the last of his Christmas drink to wet his dry mouth and settle his churning stomach. “What on earth…Is this the kind of story they tell in America? Pieces? Pieces of the body?”

Lady Phoebe’s gaze turned to Sam, her eyes half-closed, and she tilted her head as though listening to something. Straining his ears, he heard nothing but the wind shuddering through the ancient windows.

What had made that knocking noise?

Why had it stopped?

“The neighbors heard the old man’s scream and called the watch. The nameless man lets them into the old man’s home and pretends nothing is out of the ordinary until a knocking sound begins.” Her voice had dropped to a low purr Sam might have appreciated if he wasn’t bloody terrified.

“It is the sound of the old man’s heart, pounding away beneath the floorboards, louder and louder, until the nameless man is driven to confess.”

Lady Phoebe set her glass on a rosewood table to the side of the couch, stood, and shook her skirts.

“Delightful tale,” she said cheerfully. “I shall lend you my copy if you are interested.”

“What? Is that it? That is the tale?” Sam asked. That didn’t seem right. Where were the sword fights? The hidden treasure and tremulous embracing?

“I must apologize,” she said in a distinctly un apologetic tone. “Due to the shortage of help, there may not be a chamber pot in your room. If you must use the necessary, there is a privy directly behind the kitchen garden, right next to the family burial ground.”

What?

What?

Burial what?

“Sleep well.”

With that, she left.

Sam stayed frozen after she closed the parlor door behind her. In fact, he sat in the parlor long into the night, trying to decide whether Lady Phoebe Hunt had played a brilliant joke on him or if he would still be alive when the morning came.