CHAPTER NINE.

Tip stood frozen in place, panic gripping him.

She was magnificent. Dark eyes flashing, cheeks crimson, lips dewy, perfect breasts heaving in indignation. As she'd spoken, he'd barely been able to attend to her words. All his energies had gone toward restraining himself from hauling her to the couch and having his way with her.

But he had heard her order him to cease visiting Yorkshire.

He sucked in thick breaths, trying to still his chaotic senses and the voice-actually inside his head this time-telling him he was the greatest fool alive.

He'd always known all that she'd just said about herself. He had tried to pretend otherwise, but it was useless. She did not often reveal her passion, but it always simmered beneath her demure surface, glimmering in her warm eyes, ready to break free. The very night he fell in love with her he'd seen it in her gaze, muted for others then fully apparent to him. In an instant he'd lost both his mind and heart.

But he hadn't lost his will, and for four years he had pretended he had complete control over the part of him that responded to her secret ardor for life like gunpowder to a spark. He wanted her so much he willfully blinded himself to who she had always been. Practical, sensible, clearheaded-yes. But also vibrant, ardent, and deeply feeling.

An image came to him of her beloved garden, a riotous mass of roses, a tumult of rich color and heady fragrance, with her at the center of it.

She was correct. She was not what he wanted in a wife. He wanted agreeable companionship, pleasant conversation, and a bedmate he would enjoy looking at in the morning with her hair in disarray and circles beneath her eyes because he'd kept her busy all night.

He did not want impassioned speeches, hurled accusations, or wide doe eyes sparkling with unshed tears. He certainly didn't want to be called ridiculous names and have his masculinity questioned, or to share his woman with a damned impertinent ghost. He emphatically did not want this tangled tumult in his midsection, this difficulty drawing breath, this crushing sensation in his chest, this wild need to find her now, take her in his arms, and make love to her until her shouts of anger became cries of pleasure.

He dragged a hand through his hair, gripping the back of his neck, his arm unsteady.

Dear God, he was shaking.

Once he had come upon his parents after a particularly nasty row. He'd only been about ten at the time, and miserable over their screaming match though he hadn't understood much of its content.

His father had been kneeling on the ground, his mother bent over him, stroking his hair and kissing his brow. The baron wrapped his arms around her waist and murmured soft words in a broken voice, and she cried, "My darling, you are trembling!" She had cradled his head to her, and Tip found he could no longer watch. He went straight to the stable, mounted his father's fastest horse, and rode until the sun disappeared.

Years later he came to understand why they fought: his philandering ways, her intolerance of it; his pleading, her threats of leaving. It didn't make any difference to Tip. Seeing his father weeping, a great man cowed by passion, and his mother, a gentle soul in such pain, he vowed he would go a different route. That sort of unbridled mania of the heart would never control him. He would choose a wife wisely, a woman he could admire and who would respond to his affections with measure.

He had apparently chosen poorly.

He had never simply admired Beatrice Sinclaire. He adored her from the start. At that Christmas gathering at her great-uncle Sir Jeremy's home seven years earlier, she had bedazzled him-not even sixteen, yet already with the grace and self-possession of a lady. Her chocolate eyes had captured him, their thick, black lashes fanning down when she caught him staring at her, then lifting again so she could cast him a sparkling, irrepressibly honest smile.

The realization that his adoration was love had taken him three more years. In that time she had only grown more beautiful in both body and character.

He did know her. He simply did not know now if he could live with her.

The trouble was, he was quite certain he could not live without her.

Bea tucked herself into a ball on her bed and cried. She could not remember the last time she had wept so thoroughly or at such length. All the hurt poured out, the misery from the constant unkindnesses her mother practiced on her, the ache of her father's negligence, and the pain over finally losing Tip.

He must already be packing to return to Derbyshire.

Then good riddance to him! Perhaps if she didn't see him every several months, her heart could recover from him. In a few dozen years.

A scratch sounded at the door. "Beatrice?" Lady Bronwyn whispered. "May I enter?"

Bea uncurled, straightened her gown, swiped a hand across her cheeks, and went to the door.

Late afternoon sunlight came through the window, dust motes scampering about in the pale glow. Wearing a simple frock of white muslin, her black tresses bound in a knot and her gentian eyes wide, Lady Bronwyn looked like a faery, the sort Bea remembered from childhood stories. The sort she had always wished she could be, free and unfettered from everyone's dispiriting opinions of her.

"How is your grandmother?"

"Oh, she sleeps much of the time now. But, oh, Beatrice, have you been crying?"

Bea turned her back and went to fluff the pillow on her bed. "I have been napping. I am a bit weary after all the excitement, you see," she lied.

Bronwyn perched on the dressing table chair and worried her cherry lip between her teeth. "My grandmother insists she is weary of life." She paused. "Lord Iversly says he is weary of death."

"Yes, he mentioned something like that to me, as well."

"Your brother-" Bronwyn halted, took a breath, and began again with greater certainty. "I think he does not fully understand the danger I face."

"I believe he does, Bronwyn. He was just saying the same to me. He has gone into the village to search for information about the curse."

"Oh, he has?" The girl's face brightened. "Beatrice," she said abruptly sober again, "is he spoken for?"

Bea's eyes widened.

Lady Bronwyn continued, head bent but her tinkling words quick. "Oh, what I mean to say is, I admire him very much. My father arranged for my betrothal to Mr. Whitney, but the contract was never signed." She peeked up sweetly through long, sooty lashes. Bea could not wonder that her brother had lost his head to this girl.

Privately she agreed with Tip that her twin required time to mature. At two and twenty he was still a boy, yet she herself was already on the shelf. "I do not know that Thomas has any plans to marry soon."

"Oh," Lady Bronwyn's pretty face fell.

"If he did have plans," Bea offered, "I am certain you would be the first to know."

Hope spilled from Bronwyn's glittering eyes.

"Bronwyn?" a pallid voice whispered from the doorway.

"Grandmama, what are you doing out of bed? How brave you are!" Bronwyn hurried to her. Though Mrs. Canon seemed of an age with Bea's great-aunts, she shared none of the cherubic health of Aunt Julia or steely energy of Aunt Grace. Instead she was thin as a rail and frail, her eyes wan and watery. She seemed more like a ghost than Iversly.

"Grandmama, this is Miss Beatrice Sinclaire, Mr. Sinclaire's sister. I told you about her last night. She and her friends have come to help us scare away Lord Iversly."

A tremor shook the elderly lady's insubstantial frame. "The fiend," she rasped, then coughed. Bronwyn hovered around her, looking helpless.

Bea took Mrs. Canon's arm and led her to a chair. When she was settled, shrunk back into a corner of the cushion like a child, Bea asked, "Mrs. Canon, do you know anything of the curse that might help us solve this trouble? I understand that you lived here for quite some time before your granddaughter arrived."

"Oh, she never heard the ghost before I arrived," Bronwyn supplied.

"You did not? But he spoke with us nearly the moment we came here."

"Iversly does not show himself unless a maiden resides in the castle." Mrs. Canon's voice shook, from age or perhaps fear.

Bea's attention prickled. "How do you know that? Did one of the servants tell you?"

Bronwyn's grandmother shook her head. "The woman did."

"The woman?"

"Oh." Bronwyn's delicate brow creased. "She must be speaking of Miss Minturn."

"Who is Miss Minturn?"

"My old governess. She lives in the village, but I have not seen her in an age. She is sickly, you know. Much worse than Grandmama."

"This Miss Minturn told you about the terms of the curse, Mrs. Canon? And about Lord Iversly's habits?" Bea's nerves stirred with renewed eagerness. "How does she come to know about them?"

The grandmother shrank further back into the chair.

"I suspect everyone around here knows about him," Bronwyn replied.

Bea nodded. She had already asked Cook and Dibin to tell her all they could. Either they were not interested in sharing information, or they truly knew little beyond what Bea had already learned. It seemed remarkable that this Miss Minturn would have more information, unless she had been personally involved with Lord Iversly.

Bea peered at the elderly lady. "Mrs. Canon, would you like to return to your chambers and rest a bit?"

She nodded, and Bea gently helped her to stand. Bronwyn followed them through the keep to the grandmother's room and they deposited her in bed.

"I will send up Cook with a posset for you." Bea closed the door and turned to Bronwyn. "Was Miss Minturn ever married, Bronwyn?"

"Oh, no, of course."

"I must ask you something indelicate now."

Bronwyn's long lashes fanned outward. She nodded.

"Do you know if your former governess ever had a gentleman admirer? A particular one?"

Bronwyn's face went blank, then comprehension filled her eyes. "Oh, I am fairly certain she did not. She is very plain."

"I see." Bea chewed on her lip. "Do you think that if my brother goes to see her she would be likely to speak with him openly about the time she lived at the castle?"

"Oh, no. Gentlemen frighten her."

"All right." Bea would find a solution. Perhaps Aunts Grace and Julia would go down to the village and interview Miss Minturn. She could hope.

Lady Marstowe refused. She stared from behind her lorgnette with hauteur and announced that she would not step foot out of the fortress until Beatrice was gone from it.

"Aunt Grace, unless we learn more about the curse, I may never be able to leave."

"Iversly intends to take the chit as his bride tomorrow night. Let him do so and then we will leave."

"Aunt Grace!" Bea exclaimed at the same moment Julia warbled, "Gracie."

The dowager glowered. "I will not be party to further foolishness. You are your family's bedrock, Beatrice. However much I despise most everything Harriet demands, your duty is to her, not to this girl or her ghost."

Something tugged at Bea's attention, and she turned toward the parlor door. Tip had entered, handsomer than ever in evening garments.

Her hands went clammy. But it didn't matter if he had heard her great-aunt's comment. To him she was an unruly, sharp-tongued miscreant.

He was welcome to his opinion. She wished he had already left Gwynedd. His gaze upon her now was warm and she could not help thinking he stayed for her. It was simply odious. And wonderful.

"Gracie dear, perhaps one of our party could make a trip down to the village after breakfast tomorrow," Julia suggested. "I am in need of red thread, and Cook tells me there is a fine sewing shop along the street." She reached into her embroidery bag and pulled out a handful of tangled yarns.

"I will be glad to accompany you, Miss Dews," Tip said with a bow.

Thomas and Lady Bronwyn appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, Dibin tells me dinner is served," Bronwyn said, glancing shyly at Bea's brother. He took her arm and turned her toward the dining room. Tip approached Lady Marstowe and held out his arm, and she laid hers upon it, her thin lips pursed.

Dinner consisted of several remarkably tasty dishes served all at once. Bea wished she could stomach it, but Tip sat beside her and her entire attention wrapped around him.

She despised herself for it, but it could not be helped, she supposed. She could rant and rave all she wished about the true woman within, but she could not force her heart to give him up so quickly after loving him for so long. Especially not with him sitting three feet away, so gorgeously wonderful in every way. Except one.

When the meal ended, he drew out her chair and took her hand onto his arm, stalling her as the others left for the parlor.

"I would like to speak with you in private before you retire tonight, if you would allow it." No hint of anger or displeasure colored his candid eyes.

Bea took a steadying breath. She should say no. Adamantly no. What good could come of more tete-a-tetes with him? More teasing? More accusations?

More heartache.

She must be strong.

"All right."

She could be strong starting in the morning.

He escorted her into the parlor and seated her beside Aunt Julia. Julia gave him a twinkling smile, he winked in response, and Bea's heart made an uncomfortable pilgrimage around her chest cavity.

"I wonder if this governess, Miss Minturn, will come now," Thomas said. "Lady Bronwyn says she hasn't been to the castle in an age."

"She sounds like an imbecile," the dowager remarked with a frown. "Is this Miss Minturn an imbecile, Lady Bronwyn?"

"Oh, no. I do not believe so. She taught me everything I know."

Lady Marstowe's lips tightened.

Bea stifled a grin. Bronwyn was a sweet girl, and Bea herself was an absolute ninnyhammer to feel so giddy, especially when danger loomed so near. They should be doing something about it. She should at least fix her mind upon it, like Thomas and Aunt Grace seemed to be doing now.

Tip stood by the mantle, his hand tucked at the back of his neck and head bent in an attitude of thought. As though he felt her stare, he looked up and across the chamber at her. He smiled. Bea's legs went watery.

This would not do. She had been in love with him for years, friends for the same time, yet it only required one little kiss and a shouting match to thrust her emotions back to her first months of infatuation. Ridiculous. Especially given what he must think of her now.