“How did you know about those?” he asked, although he shouldn’t be surprised. His mother remained mistress of the house, despite rarely leaving her rooms.
“I have my spies,” she said. “They tell me that the ghosts are back.”
“What nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. As a new bride, I saw Lady Mary on the battlements.”
“On a foggy night, Mamma.”
“I’m not the only one.”
“At least you were sober.”
His mother’s jaw firmed. They’d had this argument before. She fancied that the castle, parts of which dated to the fourteenth century, was haunted. “Lady Mary’s visiting us again.”
“On the battlements?”
“No, in the library. For the last three nights, lights have been seen after midnight.”
He thought he heard a strangled gasp from Miss Trim, but when he glanced at her, she’d lowered her eyes in her perfect servant pose.
“Who the devil’s skulking in the gardens at that hour?” he asked.
“Garson was watching for poachers.”
“And drinking to pass the time,” Leath said with grim amusement. “I’ll have a word with him. If my gamekeeper has taken to the bottle, he’s not safe wandering the property with a gun.”
“You mock, James, but you know it’s true that Lady Mary’s husband strangled her.”
“I know that’s true. I don’t know it’s true that she lingers to keep an eye on her descendants. And if she does, I doubt that she’s developed a taste for literature. Especially as I have it on good authority that my library is full of boring books.”
He didn’t look at Miss Trim. But his brain worked, even as he argued with his mother’s conclusions. Despite his joke, Garson wasn’t a drunkard. If he said he saw lights in the library, odds were that he had.
A determination to catch Miss Trim in the act gripped him. If he could prove to his mother that the girl meant no good, he could send her away.
And conquer this inconvenient itch to bed her.
Chapter Six
Nell had read every thought that crossed the marquess’s mind when his mother told him about Lady Mary’s ghost. He’d known immediately who was flitting around his library. Fear had twisted her stomach into knots as she waited for him to denounce her. Then she’d realized that he’d take this as a golden opportunity to catch her prowling about.
Her suspicions were confirmed that evening when she saw Mr. Wells, the daunting butler, delivering a tray to the library. Obviously refreshments for his lordship’s watch.
For once, she was a step ahead of Lord Leath.
The diary wasn’t in the library. The next likely place—in fact always the most likely place—was his lordship’s bedroom. After all, the scandalous document would hardly be shelved alongside Fordyce’s Sermons where anyone could lay their hand upon it. The problem was entering
the marquess’s rooms unobserved. His vigil in the library provided the ideal chance.
Now as she crept along darkened hallways, only a candle to light her way, the house seemed twice the size it did by day. And by day, the sprawling pile stretched for miles. Thick carpeting under her feet muffled her passing, but she remained preternaturally alert.
His lordship’s valet lived above his rooms, but last week Selsby had been called away to his sick mother. Everything conspired to allow her to search Leath’s apartments.
She prayed that she’d find the diary quickly. She desperately needed to escape Alloway Chase. The longer she stayed, the flimsier became her resolution. Every moment she spent with the marquess left her more befuddled. Witness today when he’d surprised his mother with those books. Hardly the act of a thoughtless cad. And was he hypocrite enough to denounce Lord Byron for sins he himself had committed? She wouldn’t have thought so.
If she’d been ignorant of the marquess’s offenses, she’d like him. Oh, who was she fooling? She’d more than like him. Even knowing his wickedness, she found him breathtakingly attractive.
However dirty that made her feel.