He could not make the earl love his daughter.
Catherine pushed the thought away. She said lightly. “So, I will be quite rich. How lovely.” Beaseley looked at her blankly, then realised that she was joking.
“I do not anticipate any problems, my lady,” he said. He hesitated and seemed about to say more, but Catherine decided that she was bored with the topic.
“That is good to hear.” She yawned. “I am quite tired. I wonder if I might go up to see my father?”
“He has been unconscious for several days. The doctor does not believe that he will recover.”
“Well, good.” Beaseley did not flinch at her candour. Catherine put down her cup. “You may send for Clara.”
Chapter 4
The footmen carried the chair as far as the earl’s rooms. When they had set her down, she rose and made her way to the heavy doors. She knocked. Warren, her father’s ancient valet, opened the door almost immediately. Stooped and grim, he moved aside without a word.
For a moment, she stood silently in the doorway. Her father lay in the great curtained bed, the room still as death. Thick curtains covered the windows, and the smell of sickness was heavy and fetid in the air. In spite of herself, she felt a thin edge of nervousness in her stomach. Her father had always awed her. Even as she hated him, she could not deny that he was the image of a Crusader lord, afraid of no one. She could not remember ever entering his bedchamber as a child. The very notion would have terrified her.
“Leave me with my father, if you please,” she said over her shoulder. She heard the faint rustling of Clara’s gown and the soft click of the door. Then the silence became so heavy that her ears hurt and her gorge rose. She was being suffocated, crushed in velvet layers of sickness and silence.
Slowly, she moved forward. Without either Clara or a crutch to hold on to, she still hobbled slightly on her twisted leg. The rhythm was familiar to her ears. It was the sound of being alone.
A chair had been placed beside the bed. She grasped its finely carved back gratefully and paused, a little out of breath. I must do this, she thought. She raised her eyes, and stared at the wasted frame of the terror of her youth. She looked until her eyes watered and tears gathered. She blinked.
“I am here, Papa.” She whispered the words. They fell dully into the silence, the velvet counterpane muffling the edges of her voice. She tore her gaze away and looked around the room. There was nothing comfortable about it – it was made for the sleep of earls.
A harsh sound escaped the earl’s throat. She looked quickly back at him and bent a little, trying to see his face. The eyes were closed.
“I see that, as usual, my presence does not interest you,” she said, feeling a little bolder now. She waited. No response. Carefully, she eased herself into the chair. “I came all this way to see you, Papa. Will you not speak to me?” Catherine watched the light, rapid rise and fall of the bedclothes heaped over his chest. A tic quivered the corner of his mouth. She suddenly wondered whether he could hear her – perhaps, although he could not rouse himself from this state of sickness, he might be able to hear and understand. A luxury, this! To be able to speak to him without fear of recrimination, without fear of a roar of temper, without fear of an argument.
She hesitated, still watching the frail form. She had rehearsed so many times the words she would say to him if she were able. If society could be relied upon not to condemn a girl for hating her father, if there were any hope at all of him listening to her – even for a moment – without losing his temper, if it might ever occur to him that it was too cruel to blame a child for the loss of an earldom, if … and if and if. But somehow the words did not come flying off her tongue with the ease she had anticipated.
“I disappointed you, Papa,” she said. “But it was not my fault.” She considered this notion. No, it was not her fault. She would have been born a boy if she could. She was an excellent rider, and guns did not frighten her. She was skilled at cards. She enjoyed her books. In fact – and here she almost laughed – she displayed a woeful lack of proficiency in most of the womanly arts. She would have been a much more successful boy.
She painfully lumbered across the room to the windows, pushed aside one of the heavy velvet curtains and peered through the dusty glass. The view of the park surrounding Albrook Hall must have pleased him, she thought. She remembered staring at that same view from the dirty window of her nursery, hour after hour, day after day, rain and shine. The view was engraved, etched in her brain. She was startled by the realisation that it must be etched in her father’s brain as well.
How very strange. Was it possible to have images permanently seared in one’s being? And, if so, why was this one so powerful? She was yet a child when she left Albrook. This place was not her home.
“Perhaps we have more in common than I had supposed,” she said to the window. She nodded at the view. “Look at the wood, the rowing boats on the lake – I could tell you the colour of every boat and where the missing oars might be. I could tell you which horses have been exercised, when and by whom. I could tell you that the dairymaid’s child belongs not to her husband, but to the stableboy’s friend who now sleeps with the bay mare because his wife will not take him back. But these are things that you know, I assume. Are there any besides us? It is unlikely.” She touched the glass with her fingers. “I know I am not a boy. But my blood runs thick here, too.”
She turned, the light from the window streaking harshly across her father’s motionless form. “There is no one else. Just you and I. Clavertons, both of us. I am crippled in body but you are crippled in spirit.” She let the drapery fall, and once again the room became a dusky, silent cave. “We might have been a comfort to one another.” She said this accusingly. Then mused, “Now your body too has failed you. But I – I am free. Freer than you could possibly have imagined. An irony, is it not?” Slowly, she approached the dying man again, dragging her bad leg. She placed her hands on the bed and leant in for a good look at this person who had had no use for his own flesh and blood, who had told her governess – loudly and within earshot – that he wanted to hear nothing of the cripple.
“Maybe you enjoyed your noose,” she said. “Maybe you enjoyed being a prisoner of your own name. I do not. I am grateful that you freed me.”
Her mother had not been the earl’s first Countess. She had married him after his first wife, and all their children, had died. It was his last effort to save the family. Catherine was their only child, and the earl had flown into a rage when, on the day she was born, he received the news that his only living child was a girl and a cripple. When his second wife died, the earl sent Catherine away and became a recluse. But he and she were the only two Clavertons left on the face of the earth.
Catherine stared down at the wizened shrunken features of the man who had once frightened her so desperately. Despite her bold words, she knew deep inside that she was lying. She was a Claverton, and she would run from this fact for the rest of her life. This place was part of her, and she of it, try as she might to rid herself of its clutches.
Despair clutched her heart.
“God help me,” she whispered. “God help me! My only fear is that I am your daughter and I will share your fate. I do not want to die alone.”
Chapter 5
For four days, the earl dangled between life and death. The London physicians who attended him shook their heads gravely and predicted he would not wake again. On the fifth day, Catherine decided that she had had enough.
“I cannot stay here forever,” she said to Beaseley. “He may linger for weeks.”
Beaseley inclined his head. “Yes, my lady.”
“I will return to Bath. I leave the management of this house in your hands, of course.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“And, should there be any news, ensure I am notified at once.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Catherine looked at him. He was polishing and re-polishing his spectacles with his handkerc
hief, his mouth grim. “Why, whatever is the matter?”
Beaseley jumped guiltily. “Nothing, my lady.”
“Then why do you fidget?” Catherine frowned. She returned her cup to the tea tray. “You have been uneasy with me since my arrival. I know the circumstances are grave, but—”
“I beg your pardon, my lady.” Beaseley had been pacing up and down in front of the windows, but he now slowly circled the room before coming to stand before her for a moment. He then seated himself in a chair next to her own.
“I have hesitated to mention this matter,” he began. “But, after much thought, I have decided that the time has come for you to be aware of … certain facts.”
“Facts?” Catherine drew back a little. “What facts?”
Beaseley looked down at the floor. He sighed, then seemed to come to a decision. “This is very difficult for me, my lady. I would ask your indulgence if I struggle to explain.”
Catherine blinked. She had noticed Beaseley’s nervous silence but had attributed it to the general tension in the great house, the coming and going of the London doctors and the misery of the staff. They had certainly been confiding in Beaseley, begging him for assistance as they went about their dreary tasks, waiting for the earl to die. She herself had not given him much thought at all, save her usual acknowledgement of his perpetually awkward position. “Certainly. You must speak freely,” she said.
Beaseley rose again. Hands in pockets, he went to the fireplace, where he stared absently into the flames. “By telling you all, I am breaking my word to the late countess.”
“My mother?”
“Yes, my lady. Before she died, she asked me to come to her in great secrecy. No one, not even the earl, knew.”
“For what purpose?” Catherine watched as Beaseley turned and walked to the windows opposite. A damp spring day, with mists rolling in over the pond, provided a dreary vista for his detached gaze.
“To discuss the settlement of her own estate.”
“I know,” Catherine said slowly, “that she was orphaned quite young and raised by a … an uncle, was it? Or a cousin? I never met any of them.”
“A great-uncle. When he died, there was no one else. You would not have met any of her people. Your mother was under the care of her own mother’s best friend. But she was quite a bit older than the countess, and died before you were born.”
“But you have not told me anything that I do not know. When I left Albrook, it was to go to Mama’s home. And the Bath residence is – was – also Mama’s.” Catherine’s brow wrinkled. “Is there not also something else? A farm? I don’t quite remember. I have a vague memory of Nurse telling me about Mama’s people. But Papa … well, you know he dismissed everyone – all those who knew Mama and would have remembered her to me.” She tried to keep her tone light, but it was a memory of which she did not often speak. Not only had the earl seen fit to send her away, but he had also removed any who connected her to her mother. He had not only disowned her as a Claverton but had also permanently separated her from the other side of her family.
“The house at Wansdyke-on-Avon is not your mother’s ancestral home.” Beaseley’s voice was flat, definite.
“I beg your pardon! It most certainly is,” Catherine began hotly. She stopped, then spoke more slowly. “At least … at least, I always believed it to be so.” She shifted her gaze from Beaseley to the far window. In the distance, she saw a young boy walking one of the mares; it was Willow, the old bay. She remembered her as an excitable young horse; it was amazing how calm she had become in her old age. “But there was no one to tell me any stories of Mama’s family. When I arrived at Wansdyke, all the staff were new. My governess had never known Mama. And the villagers had never seen her. I assumed that such a grand house could only have once been the seat of her family.”
“That is not very far from the truth: your grandfather’s family did own Wansdyke. And the house is yours, as it was always meant to be. It was never placed in the earl’s possession. It was the cause of some disagreement when the marriage contract was drawn up, but it was out of your mother’s hands because … well, you will see why. At any rate, it duly passed from your mother to you on her death.”
“I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
Beaseley turned from the window. “What I am about to say is very important. It is also confusing, so please listen carefully.”
Catherine nodded, but with growing trepidation. “You are beginning to make me nervous.”
“I apologise, my lady. There is nothing bad in what I am about to reveal, save for my own part in the business. You see, I swore an oath to your mother that I would not reveal the particulars of her estate until either you were of an age to handle them or the earl was dead.” He paused. “I agonised for many long months about whether to tell you before the earl died. I was waiting for you to reach your twenty-fifth birthday, but it seems the earl will leave us before that date.”
“But why? Why should it make any difference at all?” Catherine shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t see why—”
“Forgive me, Lady Catherine. But I don’t know when I may see you next. And this is better explained in person than by letter. When the earl is dead, there will be difficult decisions to make about his estate and the properties, and they will consume my attention. I don’t want your needs to be neglected.”
“All right. That is fair. Tell me, then – what did my mother charge you with?”
“Your mother, Lady Catherine, was the Countess Delamare through her marriage to your father. But she was also the Countess St Clair, a title she held in her own right from her mother, the previous Countess St Clair.”
“But I have never heard of such a thing!” Catherine protested, a little alarmed. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Most certainly. In fact, all of the staff here at Albrook knew her as the Countess St Clair before she married your father.” He paused. “After you were born, however …” His voice faltered, but his gaze held steady. “… after you were born, the staff were forbidden to mention your name, and certainly never to speak of you as the heiress to the St Clair title. In fact, he allowed people to assume that your mother had ceded it to him on their marriage. Nevertheless, you have been the Countess St Clair since your mother’s death.”
Catherine jerked back in her seat. Her voice trembled. “Who-who is responsible for keeping this from me?” she managed to choke out.
“Primarily, your mother,” Beaseley said. “She feared what would happen if it became known while you were still a child that you were both extravagantly wealthy and held your own title. She did not want evil people to manipulate you for their own gain. And she hoped that your father would come to love you as his own flesh and blood, without the constant reminder—”
“—that my mother had borne an heiress for her own line and left his bankrupt! Oh, how she misjudged him!” she cried. “My poor mother! She thought that her actions would protect me, but she underestimated the power of my father’s resentment!”
“And secondarily, of course, your father. As I said, he would not permit the name to be mentioned in this house, the servants could not address you as countess and, when he sent you to Wansdyke, he dismissed the old servants. No one knew your mother or could tell you anything about her.”
Catherine felt numbly in her pocket for a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes, but they filled again. She was unaccustomed to having her armour pierced. Venturing into the hotbed of gossip that was Bath after years spent alone at Wansdyke had taught her how to maintain her calm. It had not been easy to insinuate herself into society; it would have been far easier to remain in seclusion as her father had intended. Those difficult first excursions into the public eye – when she had been stared at, whispered about, and occasionally laughed at – had led her to believe she could endure anything.
But now she discovered she was not quite at that point. There was, apparently, some feeling in her yet.
“Sh
all I send for Clara, my lady?” Beaseley was looking concerned. She shook her head.
“No.” She choked a little on the word, but raised her head. “No. I … there are things I need to know, questions …”
“Of course, my lady.” He bowed. For a moment, the silence hung thick between them.
Catherine spoke. Her voice rasped. “This is in writing?”
“Yes. That was the source of the disagreement when the marriage contract was drawn up. Your mother insisted that the St Clair properties were to be held in trust for future heirs to the title. They never entered your father’s hands. The documents are in my possession. Your mother passed them to me and required my oath of secrecy.” He looked deeply upset. “I am sorry that I felt I could not honour her request to the end. With your father so ill – and unsure as I am when I might see you next – it seemed impossible.”
Catherine shook her head. She was still confused. “My mother, and her mother before her – Countess St Clair. Does the title only pass through the female line?”
“No, my lady. It is an earldom.”
“An earldom!” For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Beaseley filled the silence for her.
“It is a very old title, much older than your father’s. It was originally meant to pass to heirs general – the heir might be male or female, at the pleasure of the Crown. But your grandmother was the only living heir of the last earl, and your mother was her only heir, so both became countess without challenge. Should you have a son, he would become the next Earl St Clair.”
A son! The thought had never entered Catherine’s mind. She had a fleeting image of a plump golden-haired child, laughing and toddling. A son who would become the next Earl St Clair. She shuddered and chided herself. It was a ridiculous, far-fetched thought.
She looked at Beaseley blankly.
“You have a castle in Wales,” he continued. “It is more or less in ruins, although there is a manor house on the site as well. It has not been lived in for a very long time, although it is the seat of the St Clairs – with the line passing through several females, maintaining even that has been a difficult task. The women married into other families,” Beaseley said apologetically. “And they … well, they made only token acknowledgement of the needs of the St Clair estates. But if … if there were a male heir, the family could thrive and grow once more.”
The Portrait Page 3
