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  Vexed

  The Haunting of Castle Keyvnor

  Erica Ridley

  Ava Stone

  Elizabeth Essex

  Ava Stone Inc

  Contents

  Copyright

  Romancing the Rogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgments

  About Erica Ridley

  Also by Erica Ridley

  Once Upon a Moonlit Path

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  About Ava Stone

  Also by Ava Stone

  Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About Elizabeth Essex

  The Earl of Banfield’s Last Will & Testament

  MORE - The Haunting of Castle Keyvnor

  Copyright © 2016 by Erica Ridley, Ava Stone & Elizabeth Essex

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Romancing the Rogue

  Erica Ridley

  Chapter 1

  Castle Keyvnor

  October 13, 1811

  Bocka Morrow, Cornwall, England

  A gust of cold ocean wind from the black depths of the horizon swept across the encroaching night. The gale shrieked through the lonesome turrets of South Cornwall’s most carefully avoided stronghold: the soaring monolithic stones of haunted Castle Keyvnor.

  From the day the castle had been constructed over six hundred years earlier, generations had been plagued by ill luck. Some of the villagers claimed the grounds—and its inhabitants—were cursed. A few had even met their untimely demise within the castle’s dank walls.

  Only a fool would willingly cross the ancient stone threshold into shadowy depths from which one might never return.

  At two-and-twenty years, Miss Rebecca Bond was nobody’s fool. She was, however, desperate. And destitute. After five long years of living virtually unnoticed within the countless nooks and crannies of Castle Keyvnor, she’d come to think of it as her home.

  Until now.

  Rebecca aligned her billiard cue with the blood-red carom on the felt-topped table and drove the ball into its cushion with one strike. As with the other shots, systematically knocking the carom ball into a series of cushions with a single strike no longer brought a flutter of pleasure.

  She was too worried about losing her home to care about a record six-month streak of successful billiard shots.

  Besides, no one knew about her record. Few souls recalled an orphaned miss named Rebecca even lived at Castle Keyvnor. Including its current owner, the Earl of Banfield, who lay upstairs in his sickbed.

  The elderly earl was not expected to survive the night.

  Even on his deathbed, Lord Banfield’s bedchamber brimmed with life. Maids, footmen, surgeons, the vicar, even the heir apparent to the earldom…and Castle Keyvnor. A shiver snaked down Rebecca’s spine. Time was running out.

  The old earl might not remember the slip of a girl he’d allowed into his sprawling castle after her parents had died, but Rebecca was reminded of that kindness every moment of her life.

  She placed her billiard cue back in its stand and arranged the balls for lagging, as if she had never touched them. When the billiards room appeared as undisturbed as every other abandoned chamber, she slipped out into the dark corridors to make her way toward the kitchen.

  Because so few inhabitants of the castle registered Rebecca’s presence, she had not only dined alone these past five years, but had also been obliged to forage for her own meals.

  At first, she had expected the vanishing bits of bread and cheese or the sudden appearance of raisin biscuits in the oven to raise eyebrows amongst the scullery maids. But once she realized that the staff attributed the random appearances and disappearances of foodstuffs to interference by any number of the castle’s meddlesome spirits, secretly helping servants keep the castle in order became something of a game.

  After all, a girl needed something with which to occupy her time.

  The billiard room and the sumptuous library were Rebecca’s favorite haunts, but she believed it was bad form even for a forgotten guest to devote herself solely to her own entertainment. The least a poor relation could do was tidy up after herself and ensure her presence caused no undue burden upon the staff.

  Tonight when she slipped into the kitchen, the cook—Mrs. Woodbead—was nowhere in sight, but an exhausted scullery maid slumped fast asleep next to a table full of half-peeled apples.

  Rebecca’s stomach gave a happy growl. Mrs. Woodbead’s apple pies were exquisite. The missing cook had likely dashed upstairs for any last minute instructions from the earl’s sickbed.

  Without waking the scullery maid, Rebecca cleaned, cored, and peeled the rest of the apples. She gave them a quick rinse of honey water to keep them from turning brown before the cook returned to the kitchen.

  To save room for pie, Rebecca ate a quick supper of cheese and bread before heading back toward her guest chamber, where a stack of accounting journals awaited her careful eye.

  When Lord Banfield had fallen ill, he could no longer audit his steward’s accounting entries into the estate journals.

  Rebecca, however, had nothing but time on her hands—as well as a fine head for figures. She had even found a few tallying mistakes in previous years’ journals, and had taken to leaving the steward unsigned notes requesting his prompt attention to each discrepancy.

  After inhabiting the dark recesses of the castle for five years, Rebecca wasn’t the least surprised when the steward obeyed each mysterious command as if he had been reprimanded by the earl himself. If the rebukes did not come from Lord Banfield, the steward undoubtedly presumed he was being targeted by the restless soul of a deceased castle guest…and truly, which was more frightening?

  ’Twas little wonder the Banfield accounts had never been in better form.

  She tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. Minding the books was one of the countless small ways in which she attempted to earn her keep. But because all her acts were performed anonymously, what worth did she have in the eyes of others? A woman who was rarely glimpsed could scarcely expect her efforts to be acknowledged. She sighed.

  A life of seclusion had done well for her these past years, giving her the time she needed to make peace with her grief and find solace in solitude.

  In fact, she quite preferred to be alone. She enjoyed being Lord Banfield’s unsung woman of numbers, a secretary so secret even the earl himself had no clue. She liked being mistaken for one of the many castle ghosts when she helped cook or clean or ironed a bit of laundry. And when the day was done, she loved quiet evenings curled up with a book by the light of the library fireplace.

  After all this time, she finally felt like she had a home again.

  She paused outside her chamber door and decided to turn instead toward the earl’s sick quarters. Lord Banfield might not remember his great-niece still resided on the castle grounds, but Rebecca often stood in the shadowy corridor with her back to the wall, praying for his swift recovery.

  As she neared her usual haunt, the earl’s door flung open and a horror-stricken chambermaid staggered out with her hands clapped over her pallid face.

  “Mary, what is it?” Rebecca asked, although a pit was already forming in her stomach. Nonetheless, she reached a calming hand toward the maid. “Are you all right?”

  “Milord is…dead,” Mary gasped. “I hope his spirit is not trapped here with the others.”

  The maid ran off down the hall before Rebecca could comment.

  Not that there was any comfort she was in a position to offer. The castle servants all had contracts. Steady wages. Letters of recommendation.

  Rebecca had nothing.

  Two men strode out of the sickroom. She recognized them at once. The pale, gaunt man on the right was Mr. Timothy Hunt, the earl’s solicitor, who had spent days by the earl’s sickbed, helping him refine his last will and testament.

  The dark-haired, middle-aged man on the left was Mr. Allan Hambly, the heir apparent. No, not the heir…the ne
w Earl of Banfield. Allan Hambly was now lord of the castle—and the new master of Rebecca’s fate.

  Both men stopped short when they saw her.

  “Who is this?” the new Lord Banfield asked.

  The solicitor’s brow furrowed, as if he had almost recognized Rebecca’s face, but couldn’t quite place her.

  Very well. She straightened her spine. This was bound to happen sooner or later. Might as well get on with it.

  “I am Miss Rebecca Bond,” she said quietly. “The late earl was my great-uncle.”

  “You don’t mean… Agnes’s daughter?” Lord Banfield asked in surprise.

  She nodded shyly. “And your niece.”

  “But what the devil are you doing here?” the new earl demanded in obvious bafflement. “Banfield’s only just passed. We haven’t even addressed the announcements, let alone sent for family.”

  “I—I live here,” Rebecca admitted.

  She would not be hurt that her mother’s brother had completely forgotten her after the death of her parents. Heirs were busy being important. She did not want his attention.

  She merely wished to be left alone in the castle.

  “Live here?” Lord Banfield spluttered. “You can’t live here. I am already responsible for five daughters and a wife, which are more than enough females for any man to contend with. I cannot possibly take on another.”

  “You don’t need to ‘take me on,’” Rebecca explained earnestly. “I am long used to tidying after myself, and I shan’t trouble you in the slightest. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  “Won’t even—” He burst into laughter. “Why, that’s no life for a lady, and everyone knows it. What you need is a husband, girl. The sooner, the better. Mr. Hunt will read the bequests on the first of November, after which my daughters will expect me to direct my full attention to their dowries and trousseaus. You must be wed by then. It’s the only fair solution.”

  Rebecca’s mouth fell open in horror. Wed within a month? The only fair solution? It wasn’t any sort of solution at all! Not only was there no one she’d care to wed—well…not anymore—there were certainly no gentlemen interested in marrying a bookish orphan without a penny to her name.

  “The will,” she gasped. “Perhaps you needn’t worry about my wellbeing at all. Lord Banfield—”

  “—did not mention your name in his bequests.” The solicitor accompanied this pronouncement with a kind look, surely meant to calm impending female hysteria.

  Rebecca hadn’t been this far from calm since the last time she’d lost her home, after her parents’ accident. But she had never been prone to hysteria. Her escape was always in plans and schemes and numbers.

  Although it didn’t always work. Her plot to keep to the shadows in order to live in the castle indefinitely had served perfectly well—until “out of sight” meant “out of mind” when it came to the prior earl’s will.

  “You cannot mean to toss me out on my ear,” she begged, as the reality of her situation wrapped cold tentacles about her heart.

  “I intend to marry you off, girl. I daresay that’s hardly ‘out on your ear.’” Lord Banfield stared at her as if she’d gone mad.

  No—it was perhaps worse. Up until now, she had been mistress of herself. As a wife, however, she would lose all autonomy. Her independence would be gone forever.

  A flash of lightning lit the corridor, followed by a crack of thunder that shook the very walls. As it always did on nights such as these, the icy ocean wind shrieked through the castle turrets like the high-pitched wail of a madwoman.

  Lord Banfield’s cheeks blanched at the eerie sound. “Honestly, child. You cannot wish to stay here. No sane person would.”

  Rebecca swallowed. Castle Keyvnor had been the last place she’d wished to visit when her parents had first proposed the idea five years ago. Back then, her life had been full of laughter and joy. Seventeen years old and the light of her parents’ eyes, her first London Season had been everything Rebecca had dreamed.

  Until her childhood friend and the love of her life—the delectable and devilish Daniel Goodenham, Viscount North Barrows—had given her the cut direct at the height of the Season. She’d been too distraught from his cruel rejection to even consider putting herself forward with other men. When her parents despaired, she’d reminded them there was always next Season…

  Except next Season never came.

  Lord North Barrows might have been the first to forget about her, but it had taken no time at all for everyone else to do the same.

  Now that the new earl had been reminded of her existence, she was nothing more than a problem to be fixed. An error to scrub away as quickly as possible.

  “I’ve nothing with which to attract a husband,” she said dully. “I haven’t so much as a ha’penny. And every frock I own is five years out of style.”

  “Piffle,” Lord Banfield scoffed. “I’ll give you a dowry, of course. Five hundred pounds should do. Plenty of men would wed a sack of grain for less.”

  Splendid. Rebecca pressed her lips together. Her attractiveness as a wife was comparable to marrying a sack of grain. Was it any wonder she preferred to be left alone?

  And yet…that much money could completely change her life.

  “If I were to live very simply,” she mused aloud, working the details out in her mind, “five hundred pounds might be enough for me to live on my own as a woman of independence.”

  “You don’t get the five hundred pounds,” the earl reminded her impatiently. “It goes to your husband.”

  “You could give it to me instead,” she said hopefully.

  “And have you spend it on tiaras and fur muffs?” He laughed. “Come now, child, I’m far too practical to blunder that badly. Have you forgotten I live with six ladies of impeccable taste? What you need is a strong hand, I’m afraid.”

  Not as afraid as Rebecca was. The last thing she needed was a husband. For the past five years, she hadn’t needed anyone at all.

  She’d missed her parents, of course. Dreadfully. And at first, she’d even missed other people. But when her year of mourning concluded, she’d had no money to return to London and no sponsor to accompany her to another Season.

  More importantly, by then the idea no longer interested her. She held no desire to be among silly people, or have Lord North Barrows’ sharp tongue flay her anew. The castle was her home now.

  Or had been.

  She straightened her shoulders. “You cannot possibly expect me to find a husband inside of a month. You are a practical man. If marrying off women were that simple, your eldest daughters would be wed by now.”

  He frowned. “If you insist upon a Season at your advanced age, you may attend with my family in January. But my focus, as you correctly point out, must be on my own daughters. Your wardrobe and entertainment costs will be deducted from your five hundred pound balance, leaving you very little with which to attract a husband. You would need to charm him fast.”

  Rebecca’s fingers curled into fists as she fought to hold her tongue.

  Her uncle’s assumption that she could not attract a suitor without aid of a dowry hurt only because it was true. She had learned that much during her sole, ill-fated Season, in which Lord North Barrows had been too embarrassed to be seen with her in public.

  Suffering through another London Season would be a living hell.

  “There has to be another way,” she whispered.

  Lord Banfield brightened. “If you don’t want a Season, we can have the thing solved in no time. Surely a village like Bocka Morrow must have at least one bachelor in want of a wife?”

  Rebecca pressed her hands to her roiling stomach. She would have no more chance for happiness with one of the local fishermen or wayfaring smugglers than she would with the London crowd.

  What she wanted was her independence. Not a husband of any kind.

  “Please, Uncle.” She clutched her hands to her chest, fully prepared to beg. “Could you please give me the money outright? I promise never to return, asking for more.”

  He laughed jovially. “Of course I cannot. The very question proves how silly you are. How would you pay your bills? Everyone knows women aren’t good with figures.”

  A bolt of impatience flashed through her.