Page 116 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

It was late afternoon by the time they reached Grasmere. A few miles beyond it, Desmond directed their driver to turn off. The lane curved around a tor that thrust up from the ground like the prow of a ship. Nestled beneath the stark cliff was a deep, dark tarn.

Facing this harshly beautiful view was a gray stone manor house, set like a jewel among a cluster of trees. They left the carriage ready to face their adversary, only to be told, rather anticlimactically, that Carson was not at home.

“He didn’t come here?” Thisbe asked the butler at the door, then turned toward Desmond in dismay.

“Oh, no, he’s at the manor, miss. He is simply, um, out at the moment.” The butler peered more closely at Desmond. “Sir!” Oddly, his face flooded with relief. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t recognize you right off.”

Desmond smiled. “I’m surprised you remembered me at all. It’s been several years since I was here.”

“Yes, but Mr. Dunbridge comes home so rarely since his father passed on. Please, come in, let me show you to the drawing room. I’m Willoughby, sir. I’m terribly sorry that Mr. Dunbridge isn’t here to greet you. He didn’t tell us he was expecting visitors.”

“He didn’t know we were coming,” Desmond told him. “We were in Grasmere and decided to drop in.”

“We should have sent round a note first,” Thisbe added. “But Desmond has told me so much about this lovely home, I greatly wanted to see it. I’m sorry to put you to any trouble.”

“Oh, no, miss, no trouble at all. I’m so glad—I’m sure Mr. Dunbridge will be happy to see you.” The butler’s troubled expression belied his words.

“Do you know if Carson will return soon?” Desmond asked. “Or where he went? We could join him.”

“Yes, that is... Well.” Willoughby began to wring his hands and finally he blurted out, “I’m worried, sir. I wouldn’t say anything, but I know you’re a friend of Mr. Dunbridge, and, well—”

“What’s wrong?” Desmond asked cutting through his excuses. “Has something happened to Carson?”

“No, it’s just, well...” He took a deep breath and apparently decided to cast aside his butlerish inhibitions. “He rode in late last night, long after dark. We’d had no idea he was coming, and I hadn’t made up his room. He had no baggage with him, and he...simply wasn’t his usual self. He seemed most agitated, and he was carrying around a quizzing glass, of all things. He wouldn’t set it down or let me put it up for him.”

“Did he say why he came here?”

“No! Nothing that made any sense. He kept talking about some woman named Anne, and he went into his father’s office and rummaged about in it. Then he grew quite angry when he couldn’t find something, which you know is not like him at all.”

“No, it’s not. What was he looking for?”

“I don’t know, sir. He asked where I’d packed away his father’s things and when I told him the attic, he went up there and came down with an old metal box. He locked himself in his father’s office the rest of the night and today, as well. He refused anything to eat or drink. He was, well...” Willoughby lowered his voice to a discreet whisper. “He was rather rude, really. And his manners are always faultless.”

“I fear something is troubling him greatly,” Desmond told the man. “The truth is that’s why we came here. We need to talk to him.”

“Yes, yes, please do. He hasn’t been gone long. He just walked out. Without even putting on his greatcoat! He was rather...unsteady, and I think perhaps he had been sampling his father’s brandy all this time.”

“He was foxed?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, sir—Mr. Dunbridge can carry his liquor, as you know. But he was not himself. He was still carrying that odd quizzing glass, and—and...” The butler took a sharp little breath. “He had a dagger in his other hand.”

“Where did he go?” Desmond gripped the man’s arm. “Which direction?”

“Up, sir.” Willoughby pointed to the front door. “He went up the tor.”

DESMOND’S LONG LEGS ate up the ground more quickly than Thisbe’s, and he was soon far ahead of her. He circled back a time or two to help her over a rougher patch, but Thisbe could see that he ached to run ahead. She would have waved him on, for she didn’t really need his aid, but she couldn’t forget the struggling men in her dream, silhouetted against the sunset. The sun was even now hovering on the horizon.

Thisbe glanced up. The sky had been clear when they arrived, but now dark clouds were gathering above them. Heart in her throat, she hurried after Desmond. He was several feet ahead of her when they emerged on the flatter top of the tor.

He stopped abruptly, and Thisbe, coming up behind him, saw why. Carson stood on a low flat rock at the edge of the tor, behind him only an empty fall to the tarn below. His arms were spread wide. In one hand he held a small dagger, and in the other, the Eye.

Exactly as she had pictured in her dream. “My God,” Thisbe murmured. “It’s him! Carson is Annie Blue’s ‘child.’”

She saw it with blinding clarity now. It was no wonder Desmond hadn’t been affected by the Eye, yet Carson had turned jittery. It was Carson who was under the spell of the Eye and him that Anne Ballew had entreated Thisbe to save.

Carson wore no coat, as the butler had told them, and his shirt hung open down the front. A long line of red slanted across his bare chest. Thisbe realized, shocked, that the red line was blood. The sky was even darker now, and the wind rose, tugging at the open sides of Carson’s shirt and whipping his hair. He looked utterly wild.

Thisbe glanced at Desmond, unsure what to do. Carson was too close to the edge of the cliff for safety; if they rushed him, he might stumble off. Indeed, given his frenzied expression, she wouldn’t put it past him to leap out into the air as if he could fly. Even a shout might startle him into falling.