A Loving Spirit (8 page)

"That is Sir Belvedere," Cassie explained. "He thinks it is improper for him to come in here."

"Very polite of him," Antoinette answered. She tapped one long finger thoughtfully on her chin. "I could certainly
try
to summon up Lady Lettice for you, if you would like to see her again. It would be an interesting challenge."

Louisa leaned forward eagerly. "Sir Belvedere and I would help you. Oh, it would be so
nice
to have some excitement here again! I end up playing chess in the East Tower with Sir Belvedere every night, and he cheats horribly."

"Vile slander!" a voice cried in the corridor.

"It is an incantation I have never tried before," Antoinette warned.

"But I have every faith in your powers, dear Antoinette," Cassie said with a thrill of excitement and apprehension at the thought of a new incantation.

"We would have to try it this Friday, when the moon is in the right phase."

"Could we invite Lady Royce and Aunt Chat?" Cassie said. "I am sure they would not want to miss it."

Antoinette gave her a sly little smile. "And Lord Royce, too? Perhaps we could make a believer of him."

Louisa snorted in a most unladylike fashion. "Nay, not him! He is too much like my own husband. Cynical and doubting. William never saw the truth of what was before him, either." She looked away, but before she did, Cassie saw her glowing blue eyes turn sad.

"I think we
should
invite him," Cassie said. "It might be quite interesting to have him there." She laughed, but she could not forget that flash of sadness in Louisa's eyes. Cassie wondered how
she
would feel if her own husband did not understand her. But then she shook her head. That would never happen, since she had no plans to ever take a husband!

"Very well," said Antoinette. "We shall make a party of it, then. This Friday, in the East Tower, I think. We will make a believer of Lord Royce if it is the last thing we do."

Chapter 10

"I think we should have a ball," Lady Royce announced the next morning as they all walked along the cliffs on their way to a picnic.

"A ball, Mother?" Lord Royce said, shifting the large hamper under his arm. "Who would we invite?"

"Why, all the neighbors, of course! They are all back from Town, and from their holidays in Brighton and Bath, and they haven't been invited to the castle in a very long time. We should do
something
to entertain our guests properly."

"Oh, don't go to any trouble on our account, Melinda," said Chat. "We are quite happy just being here. Are we not, girls?"

Cassie and Antoinette murmured in agreement, but secretly Cassie thought a ball sounded splendid.

"Nonsense!" Lady Royce cried. "We will have a ball. A masked ball! There is a dressmaker in the village who can do our costumes for us. I will have her come to the castle this week!" It was obvious that she had thought about this ball idea quite a bit.

"A masked ball?" Lord Royce said, his handsome face the picture of dismay.

"Yes! A masked ball. You can wear a toga, dear, or whatever it was Greeks wore. You don't need to worry about a thing, Phillip. I will plan it all." Then Lady Royce took Chat's arm and led her ahead on the pathway, saying, "Now, Chat dear, you do so much entertaining in Bath, I would like your opinion on the menu for the ball..."

Antoinette walked ahead with them, leaving Cassie alone with Lord Royce. They followed the three women slowly.

"You do not seem very enthusiastic about the idea of a ball, Lord Royce," Cassie said.

"It would be very—interesting. You can tell a great deal about people by what they choose to dress as at a masked ball," he answered, but his expression was still doubtful.

"Indeed." Then, since she was rather excited by the idea of the dance and didn't want him dampening her enthusiasm, she changed the topic. "My aunt tells us that your work on ancient Greece is very well known. I've already told you that you are quite admired by the members of her Philosophical Society."

He tilted his head as he looked at her, as if puzzled by her words. "I have had some modest success," he said quietly. "Though some say it is not proper for an earl to write and publish, I feel that the knowledge is too important not to share, no matter what the gossip."

"Quite right. And how is it you became so interested in Greece?"

"Do you truly wish to know, Miss Richards?" he asked, taking her elbow in his free hand to help her down the steps to the shore. Even through the thick wool of her pelisse, his touch was warm and reassuring. "Or are you just being polite?"

Cassie would never have thought she would truly be interested in the intricacies of ancient Greece. But she found that, strangely enough, she was. Very much. "I am interested."

"When I was a child, my father had a book about the wonders of ancient Greece. I read it over and over until it fell apart. It inspired me to study the classics at Oxford," he said. "But other than that one book, I did not know much about the ancient world. My tutors, and the school I attended, were much more concerned with the running of estates and playing cricket. It was at Oxford that I first read Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, and they opened my eyes to so many things."

"Things such as what?" Cassie asked, intrigued.

"Well, for a beginning, they emphasized logic and the meanings of words. They based their beliefs on empirical knowledge rather than religion or rituals or myth. They sought natural explanations for natural phenomena. Our own world seems so very chaotic at times, do you not agree? With the wars, and Prinny in charge, and all these poets running about."

"Hmm," Cassie answered slowly, going over his words in her mind. "Order
can
be comforting. It was a great relief to me to be in Aunt Chat's safe, comfortable home after the confusion of my father's death. But the Greeks were not always so reasonable, were they? I mean, the Delphic Oracle was not such a sensible idea, was it, yet they believed it. And they had plenty of poets of their own 'running about.'"

She expected him to quarrel with her, and stiffened her shoulders in preparation to retort. After all, it was rather intimidating to argue with a scholar when one knew almost nothing about the subject.

But, to her surprise, Lord Royce just laughed, and said, "Touche, Miss Richards! And quite right, too. There are some things about human nature that never change. I should know that, from all the reading I have done of late on the foolishness of the Greek wars."

"Exactly so. The horrors of war do not change. Neither does family, or honor, or—or love."

Lord Royce looked at her, and, for one long, sweet moment, Cassie felt that they were in accord with one another. She wanted so much to go on talking of these things, things she had never really stopped to think about before, but Lady Royce called out to them.

"Come along, you two!" she cried over the sound of the waves. "What are you dawdling about for? We have found the perfect place for our picnic, here behind these rocks."

Lord Royce smiled at Cassie, and led the way over to where the others were waiting. Chat had already spread the blanket out carefully on the sand, and they waited only for the hamper Lord Royce carried.

It
was
the perfect place, Cassie thought as she settled herself on the blanket next to Antoinette and leaned back against a large rock. The crash of the waves was muffled here, and the wind turned away. She would
almost
have thought herself warm, with the pale sunlight beaming down on her uncovered head. It held all the promise of a perfect afternoon, with good friends and the sea.

Yet she almost wished she was alone with Lord Royce, so they could just go on and on talking, with him watching her with his lovely gray eyes.

"What were you two speaking of?" Lady Royce asked, unpacking the bounty of pork pies, cold chicken, and apple tarts from the hamper. "You were talking so
intently."

"Your son was telling me about his work, Lady Royce," Cassie said. "About the philosophy of ancient Greece."

"You poor dear! Here, you must be in need of some sherry." Lady Royce poured out a generous measure of the dark gold liquid and passed it over the hamper to Cassie.

"Mother! I am hardly in the habit of boring guests so deeply that they require potent drinks to stay conscious," Lord Royce muttered.

Cassie laughed and sipped her sherry. "Indeed, I was not bored, Lady Royce! I found it quite fascinating."

"After the exciting life you must have lived in the Indies?" Lady Royce sounded most disbelieving.

"Jamaica was not always as exciting as all that," Cassie said, thinking back on the long, hot, lazy days, and the flower-scented nights, when the distant sounds of drums and the ocean would come through her open window.

No, not terribly exciting. But very sweet.

"Not exciting at all?" Lady Royce said in a disappointed voice.

"Well, there
were
a lot of parties. Especially when my mother was alive. How she loved to dance!" Cassie smiled at the memory.

"My brother's wife was a beautiful woman," Chat offered. "And a vivacious spirit."

"Indeed? What of
your
mother, Miss Duvall? Was she also a—vivacious spirit?" Lady Royce asked Antoinette.

"My mother was devoted to her studies, Lady Royce," Antoinette answered. "Just as your son is."

"People came from all over the island to hear her wisdom," said Cassie.

"Just like the Delphic Oracle," Lord Royce murmured. "I should very much like to hear about it sometime."

"Would you truly? Or are you just being polite?" Cassie teased, echoing his earlier words to her.

He laughed. "I assure you, Miss Richards, I am never 'just polite.'"

* * *

After they finished eating, Cassie, Antoinette, and Lord Royce set off to look at the tunnels, leaving Chat and Lady Royce to their gossip and the last of the sherry.

The passages were mostly blocked up, just as Lord Royce had said they would be, and what was left was drafty and damp. Sand and pebbles had blown in to form a thin layer on the hard-packed floor. There were crates piled up along the cold walls, and a few upturned fishing boats.

Cassie thought, with a small thrill, that it looked like a smuggler's lair. She leaned back against one of the boats and looked around, wondering what sort of daring adventures had once happened in these tunnels.

Suddenly, her reverie was broken when Antoinette gave a scream and collapsed into a heap on the dirty floor. Her green cloak spread about her in a dark pool.

"Antoinette!" Cassie cried, running across the tunnel to fall down on her knees at her friend's side. "Antoinette, what is it?" She placed Antoinette's head carefully on her lap and rubbed at her cold wrists, wishing desperately that she was the sort to carry smelling salts around with her.

"What happened?" Lord Royce said, his voice hoarse with concern, as he knelt down beside them. "Is Miss Duvall ill?"

"She was perfectly well before," Cassie answered, frantically waving her hand in front of Antoinette's face. "Perhaps it was something she ate!"

"But we all ate the same things. Do
you
feel ill, Miss Richards?"

"Not a bit. Oh, Antoinette, do wake up, please!"

As if in answer to Cassie's panicked entreaties, Antoinette's ebony eyes fluttered open, and she glanced quickly about. "Cassie? What has happened?"

"Thank heaven you are conscious!" Cassie said in great relief. "You fainted."

"Did I? How very odd." She struggled to sit up, with Cassie and Lord Royce's help. Her turban was askew, and she pressed her palm to her forehead as if in pain. "I would like some water, please, if there is any."

"I will just fetch it, then," said Lord Royce. "Miss Richards, you stay here with Miss Duvall and lower her head to her knees if she feels faint again. I will not be gone long." Then he hurried off on his errand.

As soon as he was gone, Antoinette clutched at Cassie's hand and whispered, "We must come
here
on Friday night, not the East Tower. I feel that Lady Lettice's presence is very strong here."

"Is that why you fainted?" Cassie whispered back. "You sense something frightening here?"