Good girls don't go snooping where they don't belong.
But Lady Delia Scarborough never claimed to be a good girl.
Lady Delia Scarborough wants her sister back from the grave.
Since that can't happen, she'll settle for the next best thing...
Making...
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Delia came awake sometime later, aware that the ground underneath her was wet, soaking through to her skin. For a moment, she was convinced that she had somehow slipped back in time and fallen asleep in the small wooded grotto behind her family's manor, and that her father would scold her for spoiling her dress.
Then she woke up a little further and realized that her situation was far more dire.
She was tied up, resting on the mossy ground, and not far away from her, a man she recognized as Kieran's valet was tying a noose. His fingers labored over the knot, the rope came undone, and then he tried wrapping it again.
To her shock, he was crying as he did it, and she felt all of the pieces come together in her mind. At that moment, she decided to speak, rather than pretend to remain unconscious.
"You must let me go. If you do right now, they will be merciful on you, or perhaps you will even get away. If you do this terrible thing, you will surely hang."
He looked up at her, and Delia flinched from the darkness in his eyes. He was a surprisingly handsome man, fine-featured, but there was something unbalanced him, something teetering on the edge of sheer madness.
"Do you think that I haven't been in hell ever since that carriage crash, Lady Delia? I have been, and the most terrible thing is that it is a hell without Lissa."
Somewhere behind the wall of fear that threatened to overwhelm her, it occurred to Delia how strange it was to hear someone use her proper address.
"I'm sure that Lissa would not want you to suffer like that. She cared for you very much."
The man's face crumpled, and to her relief, he lowered the rope slightly. "I know she did. We spoke so often of the life we would have. How happy we would be. You must believe me. I loved her, Lady Delia. I loved her so very much."
"So much that you wanted to impress her, didn't you?"
Delia knew that her words might drive him to a pure rage, but she couldn't stop herself from getting the truth now, not when she was so close.
The valet, John, she remembered Kieran calling him once, made a terrible keening sound.
"It was only meant to be a lark, you see. One of Casters' men dared me to do it, to dress as the lord, to go into town for a pint one afternoon. It wasn't supposed to be anything bad!"
"And there you met Lissa, didn't you, John?"
If he was startled to hear her say his right name, he did not show it. He was a man who was eaten alive with guilt, but that did not make him less dangerous. She slowly started to flex her wrists where they were bound in front of her. The ties might come loose if she worked at them.
"I did, I did, Miss Delia, and she was like the light of the sun itself. No one was as beautiful as she was."
"No, I loved her very much, and I can see that you did as well."
