Read Online Belinda Goes to Bath by M. C. Beaton - Free Book Online Page B

table, and so she ate in steady silence. She finally looked across at him, her eyes widening slightly, for he was staring at her in a way she could not fathom. It was a hard, calculating, almost predatory stare, the distillation of a long line of aristocrats who took what they wanted.
    Belinda flushed slightly and looked down at her plate.
    To the marquess, Belinda had become suddenly available. Any young woman who ran off with a footman could hardly be a virgin. She was not beautiful, but that mouth of hers was definitely disturbing.
    ‘Where is Miss Pym?’ asked Belinda, feeling the silence must be broken.
    ‘I found her exploring the barbican and demanding to see the old torture chamber. What an indefatigable lady she is.’
    ‘Why do you keep such a thing as a torture chamber?’ demanded Belinda.
    ‘For historical interest. I do not torture anyone, I assure you. There is also the dungeon, one of the towers which is said to be haunted …’
    ‘By whom?’
    ‘By the ghost of a Miss Dalrymple, a Scotch lady, governess to the children of the second earl. It was said the second earl was too interested in the lady, and so Miss Dalrymple was found murdered in the toproom of the tower. Rumour had it that the countess had stabbed her to death. Another rumour had it she had rejected the advances of his lordship’s valet de chambre. ’
    ‘And have you seen this ghost?’ asked Belinda.
    ‘I have not the necessary sensibility to see ghosts, Miss Earle.’ His eyes teased her. ‘Would you like me to show you the tower?’
    ‘Yes, my lord, and perhaps Miss Pym would like to come as well.’
    ‘But I do not know where Miss Pym is at present,’ replied the marquess, ignoring the fact that he had only to summon his servants and ask them to look for her. ‘We shall go now, as you have finished your breakfast.’
    Belinda nodded and rose but she felt uneasy. The marquess, although his manner towards her had not particularly changed, seemed to exude a strong air of sexuality. She glanced uneasily at his flaming hair and wondered if he had a temper to match.
    Hannah Pym saw them enter the courtyard together and withdrew behind a buttress. She had no wish to intrude. The marquess appeared to be chatting amiably to Belinda. She was pleased to note that Belinda was keeping quiet and obviously not treating the marquess to any of her frank disclosures of the night before. It was as well Hannah could not hear their conversation.
    ‘None of the rooms in the walls are used now,’ the marquess was saying. ‘As I explained, they are merely kept in order for historical interest. Would you like tosee the torture chamber first? We have a very fine rack.’
    ‘No, I thank you,’ said Belinda with a shudder, blissfully unaware that she was the first lady who had not demanded enthusiastically to see it. ‘I am not the type of lady who enjoys public hangings, nor do I get a thrill from viewing antique instruments of torture. Nor do I see medieval castles as symbols of an age of chivalry and glory, but instead relics of an age of oppression.’
    The curtain walls of the castle that enclosed the castle houses had four massive towers. There was a gatehouse and barbican, chapel, dungeon and torture chamber. The castle houses where the marquess lived were set in the courtyard inside the walls, rather like the buildings of Oxford College.
    The marquess led the way to the tallest of the towers. Snow was falling gently, and Belinda shivered with cold. She was wearing heelless silk slippers, considered de rigueur for the fashionable lady, and she could feel the damp from the snow seeping through their thin soles.
    ‘This is Robert’s Tower,’ said the marquess. ‘Robert, Earl of Jesper, built it with the prize money he gained at Poitiers. They were great fighters, the Jespers, and when they weren’t going on Crusades, or fighting the wars of various kings, they were claiming to find infidels on the Welsh and Scotch borders and murdering