The Second Lady Emily Read Online Free Page A

but the image had featured her ratty flyaway hair. Today she’d pulled it into a neat coil. Sunglasses, baggy jeans, and her assumed name of Heddy Anderson allowed her to pass unrecognized.
    Little remained of the estate that had once stretched along several miles of the English Channel and included some of the richest grazing and agricultural land in the county. Even the park had shrunk until the four follies that used to offer grand vistas of lake, wood, and shore, now marked the corners of the property. All were in ruins. All were surrounded by overgrown thickets, for the National Trust only maintained the house and formal gardens. But the Regency wing and grounds were renowned, which had placed Broadbanks high on her itinerary when she had planned this trip. Little had changed since the sixth marquess commissioned Repton to redesign the park in 1812. That marquess had also redecorated the house, scandalizing the neighbors, according to Lady Travis, by refusing to allow his wife any say in the results – which suggested good judgment on his part; another letter had condemned the marchioness for her utter lack of style. Cherlynn would soon decide for herself. The only redecorating since the sixth marquess had been the addition of plumbing and electricity.
    She stayed at the back of the tour group when they entered Broadbanks Hall, so she could absorb as much as possible without drawing attention to herself. Yet room after room offered no insight into the people who had lived there. Not that Broadbanks was dull. It had grown from an Elizabethan core, one wall of which had belonged to an earlier fortified manor. By the time the last addition was built in the late eighteenth century, the Hall sprawled across twenty acres, boasting two hundred rooms in a dozen wings. Courtyards, sheltered gardens, and terraces filled odd corners. Only the Regency wing and the Elizabethan core – which held the great hall and state apartments – were open for the tour.
    At first, Broadbanks Hall seemed much like other English great houses. The elaborate railings on the main staircase took her breath away, as did the ornate stuccoed ceilings and intricate marble fireplace surrounds. Faded fabrics graced furniture and windows. Painted paneling glowed in the study and library. Threadbare carpets and patched wallcoverings tried to remain unobtrusive.
    But the gallery triggered uneasiness. Forty-eight portraits lined its walls. The last had been completed barely a month before the forty-ninth marquess relinquished the estate to the National Trust in 1916. The marquesses represented every manner of man – thin to stocky, short to tall, light to dark, homely to handsome. The guide explained that every picture had been commissioned the day its subject acquired the title. The first four men looked stern. Number five was arrogant. The suicidal sixth was missing. But beginning with the seventh marquess, who acceded in 1815, every subject observed the gallery through haunted eyes.
    “Your first visit, dearie?” asked an elderly lady.
    Cherlynn jumped. “Yes. And you?”
    “Oh, no. I come here often. Broadbanks is fascinating. You should try one of the October tours. They focus on the ghosts instead of babbling about the curse like Mrs. Tibbins is doing today,” she said, naming the guide. “Inevitable, of course, with poor Lord Broadbanks selling the title and all.”
    “Don’t you believe in the curse?”
    “Go on with ye!” cackled the woman. “It’s real enough. An’ powerful strong. My great-grandmama had the tale from her grandmama who married one of the Broadbanks grooms. He heard the gypsy utter the fateful words himself. But no one knows if it truly attaches to the title or to the head of the Villiers family.”
    “You mean selling the title may make no difference?”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. But curses are dull things. Ghosts are more interesting. Broadbanks is the most haunted manor in England – all those horrid deaths, you know.