“Go after him.” The woman’s voice sloshed through her head again.
“No.” She couldn’t. No matter how intrigued she was by the other man’s strange gesture, this marriage was her duty. But that man-Jordan, he was called- had information. What exactly did he know?
Her memory of that night wavered in and out of foggy moments. She and her aunt had been crossing the channel, Celeste chattering nervously because she feared traveling by water. That memory faded, then jumped to the excitement of being almost home, and then…she awoke alone on a deserted beach in the blazing sun, her dress stained with mud and blood, with that scab on her neck. No one could explain to her what happened, and the gaps in her memory tormented her. Later, she’d first heard the woman’s voice in her head.
What did that man know? Could he answer the questions that drove her crazy? She would be a simpleton to follow him. Yet…follow him was what she needed to do.
She glanced at Grandmum. She would do anything for her. Her father she had no intention of ever talking to again.
“Do you need air, dear?” Grandmum’s gloved hand gently patted hers. “The odd hank of white hair, I found most intriguing.” Her gravelly voice breathed low against Celeste’s ear. “It suited him. Though, I wonder how that came about?”
Celeste stared at her. Why had Grandmum called that to her attention? She didn’t want to know anything about the gentleman…except what he knew of her arriving on the shore. Knowing more about him would only lead to a tangled ball of vexation. She was a new wife, and her duty was to her husband.
“He will be back. Deal with him now, not later.”
She snapped open her fan in an attempt to rid that woman’s voice from her mind. Hudson glanced at her, nodded, then turned and headed with his fellows toward the billiards room.
He had no interest in her at this moment. “Which means you will not be missed if you follow the strange man…”
And that was exactly what she intended to do. Wait. No, she would do this because she intended to find out what he knew. Not because her lunacy told her to.
“Make haste or you shall miss him.”
“Grandmum, air sounds perfect.”
“Good. Deal with him now, or he will be back. He will not allow Hudson to claim you.”
But she was already Hudson’s. Wed by the archbishop himself.
“A more easily accepted thought for you, I am sure, but a frivolous one.”
“Fresh air would do me well.” Grandmum wrapped her hand more tightly about her bicep, and she smiled up at Celeste with eyes lit with fiery mischief. Celeste’s lips curled up. Grandmum would never want for anything because of Celeste’s marriage to Hudson. Celeste would ensure that mischief stayed in her eyes until the day she left this earth.
“Very well.” In her younger days, Grandmum had pursued mischief with little regard for social conventions. Having her here in this new life made Celeste feel not quite so odd. They were two mad ladies in a sea of sanity.
She stepped toward the large doors that opened up onto the front porch and the little garden lit with candles. The air swirled as dancers moved in patterns across the floor, and candles dripped, flickering, in the humid curl created by the dancers’ bodies. She paused. The closed parlor door through which the two men disappeared stood not an arm’s reach away.
She inhaled a steadying breath, and a mixture of the open sea and the fear in being nowhere near land slipped into her nostrils. That same scent had hung in the air as he knelt before her. Sweat pricked her neck. She needed to know more about him. It was silly to deny her attraction. His energy wrapped about her skin and blotted rational thought from her mind.
“Do you wish to know his name?” Grandmum pulled her past the tall closed doors and away from the humid air of the ballroom out onto the empty front porch.
“Who?” She was not about to admit her fascination out loud. That would put her in the Hoxton madhouse with haste.
“The man who knelt before you, dear.”
“No.” She grimaced.
“Is that so?” Grandmum’s smile crinkled the wrinkles around her silken eyes.
Celeste frowned, then sighed. “I am newly wed. I simply wish to discover what he knows of me waking on the shore.”
“There is no harm in finding out his name as well, dear. I certainly would. Especially for a man so intriguing. Simply be respectful of Hudson with your affairs.”
“I know, Grandmum.” The Duke of Hudson was one of the most influential men in England.
“’Tis a shame how he lost his first duchess. They were a love match. He took her loss to consumption hard.”