Sea of Secrets: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense by Amanda DeWees Page A

When the wind died I could just hear the waves, and it was strange to be unable to see them.
    Since he seemed disinclined to conversation, I took a few minutes to better look at our surroundings. The multitude of chimneys, some as wide as four men standing shoulder to shoulder, scattered seemingly at random, gave the roof the feel of a sparsely wooded forest; anything could be hiding a few feet away, unknown. Perhaps that was why Herron paced instead of keeping his vigil by the parapet: he wanted to be sure that nothing was concealed from him? But what would he be seeking? I wondered who he had expected to see when he uncovered my face.
    A mistress, came the cynical thought; if he had been Lionel, that would have been likely. But the duke had not behaved as if greeting a beloved when he seized me.
    He was pacing again, his hands thrust in his pockets, the wind ruffling his hair. I moved to relight my candle at his lamp and heard his steps pause. There was no sound as I coaxed my candle into life again, and an uneasy feeling crawled up my neck at the knowledge that he stood somewhere behind me, silent and watching.
    “Do you believe that the dead return?”
    The suddenness of the words was no less startling than their sense. I turned slowly, taking time to collect myself.
    He was standing very near and staring at me intently, as if my answer was of great importance. Unnerved though I was, I could not help but notice the unearthly beauty of his face in the lamp’s soft illumination. Covered in the cloak, he might have been a figure from another time, a visitant himself, doomed to walk on nights like this.
    “Do you mean ghosts?” I asked, uncertain.
    He shrugged impatiently. “Ghosts, revenants, haunts—whatever you wish to call them. Do you think the soul can return after the death of the body to move among the living?”
    I had never given the subject any serious thought, and I felt a doubt lest he was baiting me. “Well, one of my governesses once told me that Anne Boleyn still walks in the Tower…”
    At once I knew I had said the wrong thing. Pushing past me, he snatched up the lamp. “Is that all you know about? Servants’ gossip and All Hallows’ spooks? You’re as useless as the rest.” He was striding to the door, and I hurried after him and the receding circle of light, which suddenly seemed like a refuge.
    “Wait, please. I haven’t ever seen one, but that does not mean—” The meaning of his words struck me. “Have you? Is that what you’re looking for?”
    His step faltered, but only for an instant. He plunged down the stair, and by the time I had fastened the door behind me he was gone; only the penumbra of the lamp retreating down the hall gave any sign of his existence.
    I fumbled my way back to my room and crept into bed. Burrowing into the welcome warmth, I played the strange encounter over again in my mind. I could not forget the sight of his face, staring out of the darkness, his eyes intent and seeming to see far beyond the present. Somehow he put me in mind of the old ballad of Tam Lin, the human whose beauty so captivated the Queen of Faery that she claimed him for her own. Generations might come and go, but when unwary mortals summoned him from the other world, he was still young, still fair, but with a terrible knowledge in his eyes. Herron had looked as I had always imagined Tam Lin to look: like a man who had seen worlds beyond this one, and knew they could endanger a man’s very soul.
    Had he seen something? Or did he only hope to?
    * * *
    After this incident, my life at Ellsmere fell into a fairly unexciting routine. It was not what I had expected when I had made plans with the duchess in the city: I had somehow imagined that I would be instantly assimilated into a new family, that my days would be crammed with company and conversation. I had eagerly anticipated discussing poetry with Herron, politics with Charles, and everything else with the duchess and Felicity. Since