by Sahara Kelly
They’d agreed that was the best way to keep any rumours to a minimum. A sad ending to a troubled life, and everyone felt the loss in different ways.
Jeremy was unusually silent; gone was his cheerful grin, and there were no quick witticisms. His face was pale, his demeanour withdrawn, and Gwyneth admitted to herself that she was worried about him.
Actually, she worried for all of them.
This was an unexpected and terrible blow, one that had knocked them all askew.
Royce had acted as she would have expected—with stern composure and little emotion other than the profound sadness in his eyes. He’d seen death too many times to treat it with other than resignation, although this time was a great deal more personal.
Gabriel surprised her with his calm yet sad acceptance. He’d taken care of the details, clearly grieving but coping efficiently with much that needed to be done. He had cleansed the body with tender movements, bringing tears to Gwyneth’s eyes as she observed the respect reflected in every caring touch.
His was the hand clasping hers during the service, his cheeks wet with tears, but remaining silent.
Evan was also touched by the Vicar’s words. His head was bowed, his eyes closed, and yes, there were traces of tears on his cheeks as well. His lips moved a little, probably in prayer.
Then there was Jeremy. Dry of eye and firm of lip, he stared at the small wreath of flowers as the coffin settled in the earth. It was he who walked forward first with a handful of soil, reaching out and scattering it over the wooden lid.
“I’m sorry, Susanna. For everything…”
His voice broke, and he stepped back, his chest heaving as he fought the emotions clearly roiling within.
The others scattered their own handfuls of soil, and it was done.
“Come, my Lady.” Royce moved to her side. “’Tis time to return to Wolfbridge.”
She nodded. “Yes. I want to go home.” Never had she spoken more sincerely.
The large carriage awaited them in the lane bordering the cemetery, and Gwyneth looked back as they walked away. The sunlight dappled the gravestones, and birds sang as they went about their daily business.
It was a beautiful place, and she consoled herself with the thought that Susanna could truly rest in peace at last. They had done their best; there was nobody to notify or invite to the funeral. Jeremy had recalled mention of a sister, but inquiries in the neighbourhood had not been fruitful. Perhaps the woman had moved away since Susanna had appeared at St Polycarp’s…they could only guess. In any case, they would not have let any relation know of the way Susanna had met her fate. But the fact remained that the Wolfbridge party did know. They knew exactly how badly she’d been beaten.
And as the carriage drove away, Gwyneth could sense the anger and frustration still lingering in her gentlemen because she still carried it herself.
“I prepared a simple meal for this evening,” said Evan as they arrived back at Wolfbridge. “I thought it would be best.”
Royce nodded. “Ben will take care of the carriage.” He waved his hand to the lad on the box and watched as he carefully clicked up the horses and headed for the stable. “He’s doing very well. Remind me to increase his pay.”
Jeremy and Gabriel walked silently up the steps and into the house after Evan and Royce escorted Gwyneth. “I think that’s a good idea,” she said. “Trick is certainly irreplaceable, but we do need proper help with the stables. If a few extra coins will help keep Ben with us, then I agree.”
It was idle conversation, she knew, but it was what they both needed at that moment. Something to lift the pall of sadness that had hovered over Wolfbridge since Susanna’s death.
Later that day, Jeremy helped Evan with the trays, and soon they were outside, all of them, in the warm sun, sipping lemonade and attempting to eat.
Gwyneth adjusted her large-brimmed hat and fanned herself as her little Darcy lay panting quietly beneath her chair. “The heat continues,” she sighed. “Perhaps yet another storm by evening.” Her eyes drifted to the shadows building just behind the trees surrounding the expanse of lawn.
“I think you’re right.” Gabriel put his sandwich back on his plate. “I can’t eat. Stupid, isn’t it? Not eating won’t help Susanna, but still, I’m finding it hard to swallow the merest mouthful.”
Royce stood and walked over to the table, pouring more lemonade into his glass. “It’s not unusual,” he commented. “It happens to all of us when something like this erupts into our lives.” He returned to his seat. “Death is inevitable, but its arrival is seldom heralded. With no chance to prepare ourselves, we suffer a terrible shock.”
“That is very true,” agreed Evan.
“We’re all in the same boat here,” continued Royce. “None of us expected to be burying a young woman today. It’s horrid, the result of a despicable act perpetrated by people who are beneath contempt.”
“Royce, I might…I might have an idea about who that may be…” Jeremy kept his voice level as he looked at the other man. “I’m not sure, mind you, but the last time I saw her, she spoke of her divorce.”
“Divorce?” Gwyneth’s eyebrows rose. “I thought her unmarried, Jeremy.”
His sad blue eyes turned to her. “Forgive me. All of you. I’ve lied, and I don’t know how to explain.” He took a ragged breath.
“It is your past, Jeremy,” said Gabriel. “As I understand it, you are under no obligation to share the details with us. We care deeply about you, regardless of what happened before you came to Wolfbridge.”
Gwyneth nodded. “He’s right.”
“I know.”
“And yet I sense that you’d like to clear up the matter, lad,” Royce’s face was sober. “If it will help, then by all means do so. But be assured in advance it won’t make a difference to any of us.”
Gwyneth was hard pressed not to rise, go to Royce, and give him a long kiss for his understanding.
Jeremy nodded and took a breath. “You’re right. I need to get it off my chest.”
Chapter Two
Royce watched him as he turned to the others.
He was a good-looking young man, without question. Tall, with blue eyes and hair on the fair side of brown, he’d always been merry, ready with a jest or a smile no matter the situation.
But since Susanna had been literally thrown at their feet, Jeremy had changed. His eyes grew distant, the smile vanished and his demeanour became solitary.
It was not unexpected, but such a drastic change had to have had a drastic cause. Royce was very curious to know what it was.
“I have to confess something.” Jeremy looked around at them all. “I told my story last year, for the first time. So Evan already knows some of the details. But…” he swallowed roughly, “I lied. I lied by not telling the entire sad tale.”
He lowered his head for a few moments, and Evan—who was sitting next to him—leaned over and touched his arm. “It’s alright, my friend.”
Jeremy shook his head. “It’s not, not really. But now I must tell the truth.” He straightened in his chair. “I did indeed attend Cambridge. It is true that one night I saved a young woman from being…being raped, and in doing so I killed her attacker. That woman was Susanna Brockford.” He sighed, as if speaking her name had been a great effort.
“I was charged with murder and sentenced to death, thanks to the efforts of the attacker’s family. This is all past history now. Or at least I thought it was.” He rested his forearms on his legs and folded his hands together, his eyes downcast. “What I neglected to mention was that Susanna and I…she visited me often during the trial…and I suppose it was inevitable…”
“You fell in love,” whispered Gwyneth.
“Yes,” Jeremy breathed the word. “We were so much in love. Clinging to each other whenever we could.”
“Not surprising,” added Gabriel quietly. “You were both in terrible situations.”
Jeremy nodded. “We were. She was being vilified as a wanton se
ductress by the court and I was facing a death sentence.”
“How sad,” said Royce. “And how bloody unfair to both of you.”
“I agree on both counts,” he answered. “Obviously, I didn’t die. The family quietly arranged for my sentence to be reduced, and not long after that I was surreptitiously released. I can only assume that everyone had come to realise that I had acted purely out of the need to protect Susanna. After I was freed, I went to find her. She’d let me know she’d moved, which wasn’t surprising given the gossip and scandal swirling around her.”
“Did you meet her again?” Gwyneth asked.
“I did.” Jeremy met her gaze. “But only once. Her family had been distraught and had immediately accepted an offer from her hand from an elderly friend of theirs in Yorkshire. She was permitted to see me and tell me of her betrothal. It was…it was a difficult meeting. I tried to persuade her to come with me, to marry me wherever we could find a priest willing to perform the service, but she turned me down. I knew then that the love I felt for her was stronger than hers for me. It crushed me. She wasn’t unkind, just determined that marriage to this man was her best choice for a better future than a recently released convict. She walked away, just left me without even a farewell kiss. I didn’t see her for half a dozen years…not until she appeared at the church service at St. Polycarp’s.”
“And that’s when you learned of her divorce?”
“Yes, Royce. That’s when she told me. She wanted…she said she wanted me. That she’d made a terrible mistake and that she should have run away with me. That I was her only true love.”
“Oh Jeremy,” said Gwyneth. “You must have been quite torn…”
“To be honest? Not really. She’d hurt me badly. Turned aside from me when I needed her the most. I think that taught me not to expect much from anyone, and as I listened to her, I realised I wasn’t in love with her anymore. If she walked away once, she might well walk away again. I had no interest in taking that chance.”
“Understandable, my friend.” Gabriel nodded, his face full of sympathy.
“But that was also the time that she told me of her fears. She was afraid of her husband, afraid he’d find her and punish her for leaving him.”
“A powerful man, then,” Evan commented. “If she’d truly disappeared, it would take someone with a certain amount of funds and influence to track down one young woman…”
Royce nodded. “He’s got a valid point there, Jeremy.”
“Yes, he does,” Jeremy agreed. “And I think…this is only a supposition, mind…that it could have been either her husband or his family that perpetrated the violence on Susanna in retribution.”
“Logical,” said Royce.
“The Orloff family. I believe her husband was Basil Orloff.”
Gabriel tipped his head to one side. “That’s familiar. Let me think…” He frowned. “Banking? Jewellery? Something like that?”
“Banking, I believe,” said Evan. “I’ve heard the name too.”
“So certainly powerful enough to track Susanna. And probably not people we’d like too close to Wolfbridge,” said Gwyneth, pursing her lips in thought.
Jeremy sighed. “If there’s any sign of them around here, I will leave. I’ll not have this place jeopardised by something that happened to me years ago.”
“Nonsense.” Gwyneth stood. “Jeremy, I’m sad for you, and deeply saddened by what’s transpired. But we must go on, and you know that. So let’s all take some time and examine our own thoughts and feelings. To pause and appreciate what we have and to say a prayer for Susanna who has left us grieving.”
She glanced around, and then quietly quit the terrace.
“A good idea,” endorsed Royce, standing and stretching. He looked at Jeremy, Evan, and Gabriel. “Tonight we will all join our Lady. For comfort, for the warmth of our presence and for the ease that our hearts can give one another in troubled times like these.”
True to his word, Royce walked into Gwyneth’s bedchamber late that night, to find her tucked up in bed and staring at him in surprise.
“Royce?”
Her questioning tone was not unexpected, since he did not share her bed, leaving that to the others. But tonight was different. “Yes, Gwyneth,” he replied. “Tonight Wolfbridge shares grief and finds comfort. All of us.”
The others walked in, their robes tied loosely, and within moments they were nude, tucking themselves into Gwyneth’s bed. There was room—there was always room in the massive four-poster dominating the Lady of Wolfbridge’s bedchamber.
“Tonight we’re simply here…to be together,” said Gabriel in his gentlest voice. He clambered onto the lower edge of the bed, stretching out along the footboard.
Evan and Jeremy slid in either side of Gwyneth and she sighed as she settled into their embrace, turning to Jeremy and pulling him close. “Yes. We shall share what I hope will be pleasant dreams tonight.”
Royce removed his jacket and waistcoat and untucked his shirt, then circled the room extinguishing the candles. There was a long couch on one side of the room, and it would be a lot more comfortable than many of the places he’d slept. So he settled down as the others relaxed.
Soon the sounds of sleep filled the air.
Royce closed his eyes, praying that the sadness they all shared would lift and diminish quickly. For surely there would be more challenges on the way…
On that less than uplifting thought he turned to one side and moved to accommodate little Darcy, who seemed to prefer himself to the others. Even that tiny bit of fluffy warmth was welcome, and as thunder grumbled across the countryside, Royce’s eyes drifted closed and he succumbed to sleep.
*~~*~~*
The tragedy remained lingering in the late summer air, and it wasn’t until mid-September that Gwyneth woke without that sense of grief haunting her.
It had taken a few weeks since that revealing moment, but at last the household at Wolfbridge had recovered itself enough to laugh, and share jests, without suddenly feeling guilty.
Royce had pointed out that it was the natural process, that people needed time to come to terms with their sorrows, and to let go of the sense that they were betraying the dead by being alive. And by living.
Most of the nights following the funeral, one or the other of her gentlemen had joined Gwyneth in bed. But it had been a matter of seeking solace, rather than passion. Everyone shared their emotions freely in the quiet of her room, and she knew that Evan, although devastated for his friend Jeremy, was on the mend.
Gabriel also exhibited signs of recovery, snuggling against her with a smile instead of a sigh.
For Jeremy it was more difficult, of course, and Gwyneth had held him while he wept a time or two. But even he wasn’t immune to the beauty of Wolfbridge as the autumn began its subtle approach, and she found him often out of doors on the terrace, just breathing in the air.
Late roses let their scent drift on the breeze to mingle with the tang of early chrysanthemums, and for the first time Gwyneth walked outside with her wrap hugged around her.
Royce casually strolled through the French doors to stand beside her. “A fine morning, my Lady.”
“Isn’t it?” She turned her head toward him, smiling. “The summer is over. And it might be wrong of me to say so, but I’m not sorry to see it pass.”
He chuckled, a warm sound that pleased her.
“Royce, I have been thinking.”
“About what?”
“Well, many things, but mostly about Wolfbridge. We are maintaining it in good heart—or I should say you are managing it perfectly. For which you have my most sincere thanks, of course.”
“But?”
“But should we be thinking of adding to Wolfbridge? Improving it, perhaps? Expanding…” she waved her hands. “I don’t know. I just feel I should be making a contribution to the continuing good health of the estate.”
“Certainly a good notion, my Lady.” He tilted his head toward her in agreement. “Wh
at are your thoughts? An extension to the terrace? A summer house, perhaps? Now would be an appropriate time to build it…”
“I want to buy Fivetrees.”
Royce blinked, and she hid a smile at his evident surprise. Fivetrees, their neighbouring property, was much larger than Wolfbridge, as was the stately home settled on the estate.
“Uh…”
“Think about it,” she said, turning around and leaning against the concrete edging so that she could see his face. “The acreage is substantial, which would be a great thing for our tenants. They could expand their holdings, and improve their income considerably, which would also benefit us, of course.”
“True.” His tone was agreeable.
Knowing he had yet to be convinced, Gwyneth continued. “As far as the house is concerned, there are a variety of options we could explore. Tenants, of course. Although I dislike the notion of a Society family taking up residence so close to us. I like our privacy.”
“As do I. As to all of us, actually.”
“Well, what if we consider using it as an orphanage?”
“A what?”
“An orphanage.” She swallowed, watching his eyebrows draw together in a frown. “You know. The place where children go who have no parents to take care of them.”
“I’m familiar with what an orphanage is, my Lady,” he rebuked her gently. “It’s just the idea of starting one that I find somewhat unusual.”
“It was merely a suggestion,” she answered. “And I realise that there are many financial considerations to take into account. But overall, I think buying it for Wolfbridge would be a very good idea.”
“I cannot argue with you there.”
She looked past him to the building she now called home. “I can’t help thinking of men like Sir Alfred Gylbart. Of the horrific things he’s done. And the threat of him buying Fivetrees and setting up another of his disgusting establishments…I don’t think I could stomach it, Royce. Truly I don’t.” She shuddered at the idea.
“Gylbart is as loathsome an animal as there is.” Royce’s features hardened. “And I endorse your sentiments. If he were to purchase Fivetrees and turn it into what would be little better than a brothel for obscene activities…”
