All My Broken Dreams (Locksley Hall #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

T hey sent a car for her so she didn’t have to climb the wall like a thief in the night. It was clear, no snow but the stars were not visible in the night sky. City lights overpowered their delicate twinkle.

Deacon said they dress for dinner at the Croft so he went out and bought her a gown of dark blue velvet that hung in rich folds over her hips. Mrs. Cameron stopped in to give her a set of keys and did her hair in an upsweep, fastened with bobby pins.

She applied her makeup with care, not wanting to overdo it; she wasn’t sure about the blush so she went without.

Deacon wasn’t invited, he told her. He was to drive her there and take her home after the meal. She would be on her own. The other occupants in the mansion would not be present.

“It’s good, it’s good,” he kept telling her. “It’ll give you a chance to get to know them.”

“I don’t want to get to know them,” she’d retorted. “I want to find out where Harry is so I can go home. That’s the only reason I’m doing this.”

But it was her decision to accept the dinner invitation and now that she had to go through with it, her stomach was in knots. A wall enclosed the entire estate.

“There were fields at one time when the house was built. The wall was to keep out marauders and sheep,” Deacon explained. He tapped a code on the keypad and the iron gates swung open.

The drive was not long but thick forest obscured the gothic mansion until the last moment. Deacon drew up in front of a set of stone steps and stopped.

Lights shone from every window. It looked like a spooky wedding cake.

“This is it,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“I have no choice, do I?”

“If it gets to be too much for you, send me a message on your phone and I’ll find an excuse to interrupt.”

Relief flowed through her. “You’d do that for me?”

He gave her a smile but his eyes looked sad. “Sure. Now, stop worrying and try to enjoy yourself. At least, you’ll be getting a decent dinner that wasn’t cooked on a hot plate.”

Deacon opened the door for her and helped her out. The night was cold. Robbie was intensely grateful for the warmth of the dress and the long wool cloak Mrs. Cameron loaned her.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “They are going to fall in love with you, Robbie.”

She tilted her face to meet his eyes.

They didn’t sleep together last night and they wouldn’t tonight either. She knew without asking. Deacon wouldn’t talk about it, but she could feel the change in him. Aloof, businesslike, cold–he wasn’t the same open, gentle-natured man she met when she first arrived. She wondered if he even liked her anymore.

“I don’t need their love, Deacon. I need the truth.”

The front door swung open, spilling a swath of light onto the stairs.

The young blonde man she met the other night stepped out to greet them. His hair was like sculpted butter and he was dressed to perfection in a formal black dinner jacket, a blindingly white shirt and black tie.

“Good evening, Miss Listowel. Thank you for coming.”

She gripped Deacon’s hand to climb the stairs. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name. You used a pseudonym when we met.”

“Robbie, this is Casey Manderville,” Deacon said. “He is Harry’s half-brother. His blood name is Bannerman. I couldn’t tell you his real name until now.”

Casey extended his hand to take hers. “I apologize for the need for subterfuge. Our order survives by keeping our identities a secret. To accomplish what we need to do, we must keep a low profile. Come in. We can talk inside. Deacon, will you take the car around back? Wait for us in the kitchen. We will call you when we need you.”

Robbie cast a final glance at Wake, but his eyes were blank, looking at her as though she was a stranger. Feeling the sting, she took Casey’s hand and allowed herself to be led into a great and lavish foyer.

A regal staircase divided the center hall. The parquet floor was polished to a gleam. The stone walls were adorned with Renaissance oil paintings of men and women in dark historical dress. At the top of the stair, a stained glass window set with a thistle and a coat of arms glowed down over the entrance.

Casey helped her out of her cloak, handing it to a butler named Harris who appeared out of nowhere.

“Lord Manderville has been called away on an urgent matter,” Harris said. “He asks that you make yourself comfortable in the library and he’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

Robbie’s breath caught and her heart jumped as soon as she entered the room. Floor to ceiling shelves of leather-bound books, a huge wood fire that must cost a fortune to burn, and four comfortable, well-worn russet leather armchairs that were positioned in front of the hearth. Tables were scattered over the room, set with lamps, creating pockets of solitude in the surrounding darkness. Turkish rugs covered the floor boards.

“It is perfect,” she breathed. “We don’t have anything like this back home. In New York, a place like this would have to be inherited.”

“Dugald Croft was inherited in a manner of speaking. It was built for Fuil Bratach in the middle ages and has been passed down generation to generation. Please, take a seat in front of the fire to warm up. Can I offer you a drink?”

“I’ll take sherry if you have it.”

Casey grinned. “You’ve been spending time with Deacon, I see. He discovered sherry last Christmas and presses it upon every woman he meets. As though that will make up for his other defects.”

“He doesn’t have any defects,” she laughed. “I take it that you two are not close?”

Casey Manderville artfully pushed a heavy lock of hair off his face with a charming, self-effacing smile. “Not for want of trying, I can assure you. He’s five years older than me. I didn’t know my father until I turned sixteen; my parents were separated but not divorced. After my mother died, I came to live at Dugald Croft and was introduced to my cousin, Deacon. I admit it–I was an emotional nightmare at sixteen. I was thrust into living with a father I barely knew. I suppose I pestered Deacon with my meltdowns. I can’t blame him for getting physical with me. I deserved every beating I got.”

He handed her the glass of sherry with a laugh that she sensed disguised a great deal of pain. “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible. He seems so patient and kind.”

“Oh, he probably is, don’t get me wrong. We were young; he’s probably matured out of his violent temperament. I was a handful.” Casey took the chair opposite the hearth and gazed wistfully into the fire. “I hope you don’t think ill of me. It’s hard to lose a parent. I don’t think anyone really understands what that does to one until they go through it.”

“That is true.” Robbie’s chin trembled. “My father died last year. We were very close. I took it badly. I sort of retreated to my apartment and didn’t come back out. No one understood why. It was … it felt like….”

“Like your whole world had been upended,” Casey said softly. “Like the ground under your feet opened up and you were falling down a dark hole with no end in sight.” He gazed at her under a lock of glinting hair. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Her chest constricted like a band had been tightened. She swallowed a mouthful of sherry to hold back the tears. “Thank you. This is nice. I am glad I came. I didn’t know what to expect when I received your father’s invitation. Did you get to spend much time with Harry before he disappeared?”

A shadow crossed over his features. “Not as much as I wanted to, obviously. I try not to worry about him. I have a tendency to worry about everyone. My father tries to hide it, but I know how anxious he is–not that we think there’s anything wrong. Far from it.”

Casey leaned back in his chair, cradling his drink. “Well, you know what it’s like to miss someone. Your mind does crazy things.”

“I could honestly strangle him for doing this to us!”

He laughed with perfect white teeth. His green eyes were lost as his laughter took over his whole face. “I like the sound of that. You are accepting us into your family.”

“We’re not related though, are we? It’s a question I had for Deacon too. We’re not cousins and I’m not your half-sister. We had different parents.”

His grin turned sultry. “Different parents entirely. Now it’s your turn to tell me all about yourself. How was it growing up in New York with Sarah Stewart for a mother?”

Robbie’s face went hot. “I didn’t know her as Sarah Stewart. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know her family history at all. My mother didn’t confide in me; we didn’t have that kind of relationship. My father was devoted to her. She was beautiful,” she finished lamely, realizing she didn’t know what to say about her mother.

“My father says you look just like her at the age he knew her. Naturally, I had questions after Harry rocked up on our doorstep, announcing he was my half-brother. Father said Sarah Stewart was fourteen when they began seeing each other in secret.”

He seemed to be waiting for her to take this in. Robbie tried to appear unfazed. “As I said, my mother didn’t confide in me.”

“Well, it gets worse,” Casey continued. “I know things were different back then. Our generation would be shocked, but my father said it wasn’t unusual for a fourteen-year-old girl to date a nineteen-year-old boy. Sarah was mature for her age, clever and aware of how beautiful she was. Her brother was overly protective. Don’t tell my father I said this, but I think your uncle, Bryan Stewart, was right to be protective. If you were my little sister, I wouldn’t let any man get near you.”

Robbie experienced the strangest feeling with Casey. Contradictory emotions of being deeply drawn in by him, and deeply distrustful at the same time. He was too handsome, that was the problem. A god of a man tells you how beautiful you are, you are going to distrust the shit out of that.

“How did they meet?” she asked.

“Sarah came to a dance at Locksley Hall. My father was a first year student, living on campus in the dorm. He wasn’t very social; his roommates forced him to put away his books for one night and have fun. He said he spotted her right away. Of course, he didn’t know she was fourteen at the time and by the time she told him how old she was, it was too late, he was madly in love.”

Robbie did the math in her head. “She’s forty now. That means she was seventeen when she met my father. She gave birth to Harry when she was only fifteen.” She stared at Casey, astonished. “How did I not know this? I never thought about it. She was always the youngest mother in the playground, but I never thought about it. My dad was only a few years older. Harry and I never talked about how stupidly young our parents were.”

Casey nodded and sighed. “We don’t think of them as having lives before we came along. They will always be old to us.”

The library door flew open and the man Robbie knew as The Black took a lurching step forward, covered his eyes when he saw her and then spun around to close the door.

“Please forgive me,” he said. “Rowena, my name is Alastair Manderville.”

Casey half-rose from his chair. “Father, what is it? What’s happened?”

Manderville’s face crumpled, ravaged with grief. “Please. Sit down. Sit down. I have some terrible news.”

Robbie dropped the glass she was holding. She heard the crystal shatter as it hit the floor. A distant buzzing sounded in her ears and her heart stopped pumping blood.

Harry Listowel’s body had been found at the foot of Arran Tower on the Isle of Arran. The twenty-four-year-old man with so much promise was dead. An apparent suicide.