Page 21 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
Diana had begun to wonder if Colin had even heard her question when finally he said in a soft voice, “They told me someone once hanged himself here, from this tree.”
She suppressed the shiver that was poised to shake her to the core. But her nails dug into the hard flesh of the tree, and her breath stilled in her chest.
“I first heard old Missus Fessler telling the story,” Colin said in a distant, sad voice. “Though she wasn’t quite so old back then, of course. She was talking to one of the cooks, somebody who isn’t here anymore. They called it the ‘Hanging Tree.’ I was just seven years old, and somehow the details of what they were saying have faded from my memory. It must have been one of the previous occupants, some ancestor of whichever lord my stepfather purchased the estate from, I imagine. Probably there was some tale of scandal or lost love or the like; whatever it was, I felt compelled to see the place where it had happened.”
He gave a harsh, humourless chuckle. “Even as a boy, I had rather a dark sense of humour, I suppose. I can’t imagine what I might have expected to see—it’s not as though they left the noose dangling from whichever branch it had been done from. I think I must have decided it was this one we’re sitting on now, though I had no proof of it. Perhaps I just wanted some sort of physical connection to whichever distant land my own father had been carried away to. Between its appearance and Missus Fessler’s story, this tree must have presented itself as a sort of … I don’t know, an intermediary. Between this life and the next. As if I could know whoever it was who had died here, could learn something of death so it would not frighten me so much. So I could stop it from taking someone else I loved.”
The low bough of the tree fell once more into a quiet, uncomfortable silence. Suddenly the air felt thick and oppressively still, the songbirds in the nearby foliage stifled. Diana’s mind flew back to her jokes at the breakfast table an hour earlier—her dark jests seemed much less funny to her now.
After another long, tense pause, Colin sighed deeply. “To be honest, I don’t remember much of what happened that day. I knew I must have fallen from the tree because the next thing I remembered, my stepfather was carrying me into the house. His arms were so big, and I remember he was cursing at someone nearby.”
Diana felt Colin look over to her, but she could not bear to meet his gaze; she feared seeing the tears she heard in his voice, and then she would begin crying as well. “He never spoke to me of what had happened that day.” After a few shuddering breaths, he spoke on. “I hadn’t even finished healing before I was climbing this tree again, though. Even after what had happened, I couldn’t keep myself away. Whenever I needed a moment to myself over the following years, I would come out and sit here, knowing my stepfather would not come after me again.”
Colin’s muscles were tense, his shoulders stooped. A sudden desire filled Diana, though precisely what it was she wanted escaped her. She wanted him to stop talking, to stop telling her such horrid things; she wanted to reach out and embrace the man, to comfort her.
She wanted him to reach out and embrace her; she wanted to flee and never lay eyes on Colin Mullens ever again. Her good sense, with its typically masterful timing, was utterly silent on the matter. Unsure just what she was doing, Diana took a breath, her arm moving toward Colin’s thick shoulder …
But by then something had changed, and Colin laughed once more, freezing Diana in place like a frightened rabbit—it was not the grim, dark laughter she had heard during his story of death and rescue, but one that sounded hurried, impatient, wearing the painted-on smile of a clown. Whatever had peeked out at Diana had retreated back into its hermitage.
No,she thought,not just peeking. It was reaching out to me, inviting me to reach back. Suddenly the whole thing struck Diana as a heartbreakingly tragic thing.
The branch beneath her shook gently as Colin patted it affectionately. “The Hanging Tree and I have become quite acquainted, you know. Especially with such a view as this.”
In a great push, Colin dropped down from the branch. Diana felt a rush of fear, reaching out a hand and crying out his name in alarm … but he had already landed nimbly on his feet, ten feet or so beneath her. He laughed again, more mockingly this time. “Concern? For a wicked soul such as I? Don’t waste your effort, My Lady; my bones have already been damned to Hell and aren’t worth your prayers.”
Diana matched his evil grin with one of her own and began to scramble down out of the tree. “For a wicked soul, you seem awfully sure that I was concerned about your safety. How do you know I wasn’t just barking at you not to forget to help me down in all your acrobatics, you conceited blade?”
“It’s not being conceited if I reallyamthis remarkable.”
In a trice, the two were walking back toward the house; without a word spent on what had just transpired, it seemed they had mutually decided it was time to bring their adventure to an end. But Diana found herself walking much closer to Colin than she had an hour before. By the time they re-entered the house and made their way to the back staircase, they were laughing and cracking jokes with one another again.
They stopped there, and it occurred to Diana that their enjoyable morning together had wound to an end. Trying to ignore the inexplicable pang of regret that sank into her heart at this thought, she forced a yawn and gestured to the stairway. “I thank you for a most entertaining morning, Mister Mullens. Now, I think it well past time for—”
“You know, Miss Hann,” Colin said, interrupting her in a soft but insistent voice. They were standing near enough that she could feel his breath on her as he spoke this—a fact that he seemed to realise at the same time, as he dipped his eyes away before continuing, “I’ve, ah, I’ve heard from Missus Fessler that you still have not been shown around our home in any meaningful way.”
Diana blinked, feeling the unmistakable crackle of energy pass to her from Colin’s emerald green eyes. “I … thought that was already clear. Why else would I be so eager for a tour of the grounds?”
Colin laughed awkwardly at this, his laughter absent of any of its usual causticity. “No, I mean … that is, I know that. But I mean that the inside of Sir James’ house has many of its own peculiarities, as I’m sure you have noticed.”
“I’d like to think I have proven myself perceptive enough to pick up on such things, yes.”
“Then perhaps we could … continue the tour inside?” Colin coughed and rubbed the back of his head, looking away as though suddenly afraid of meeting Diana’s gaze, though he still did not take a step back. “If you do not have anything better to do, of course. And if I have not already bored you into an early grave with the tour to this point.”
Diana readied herself to quip back at the man with a sarcastic remark … but for the first time since she could remember, her mind did not supply her with such a comment. Instead, all she could think to do was to smile earnestly and say, “That sounds lovely; thank you.”
But before she could give voice to this answer, a low baritone drifted down to them like a cannonball running down the stairs:“Colin, is that you?”
Right in front of her eyes, a transformation came over Colin. His posture was drawn straighter, his face suddenly shot with nervousness and then just as quickly covered with a stony, implacable façade. “Yes, Sir James!” he called up the stairs.
“I’ve something I need your help with if you’re not otherwise occupied mucking about on an otherwise productive morning!” Though Diana could not see him from where she was standing, the irritation was plain in his voice, and the sound filled her with an urge to flee.
“I’ll be right there, sir.”
Colin immediately turned and began climbing the stairs, leaving an emptiness in the air by Diana’s side that she had never felt before. He moved quickly to follow this order, his limbs stiff and jerky as he walked up to where the staircase turned.
But before he moved out of view, Colin Mullens turned back and flashed a boyish smile at Diana, one gleeful and excited and blastedly handsome enough that it left her staggered. By the time she recovered her senses, he was gone.
Chapter 10
