Summer at Dorne

by Mira Stables

  SUMMER AT DORNE

  Mira Stables

  © Mira Stables 1977

  Mira Stables has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1977 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  “My dear Shan! You will permit me to say that, in the circumstances, your scruples are a little absurd.”

  The girl eyed him steadily. “I am not your dear Shan,” she said quietly. “If you wish me to listen to your remarks, you will address me with due formality. I may have to submit to your odious society, but ‘Shan’ was Papa’s name for me and I will not have it soiled by your lips. As for my scruples, you may accept them as unshakeable. It will save you considerable loss of face in the end.”

  The Honourable Giffard Delaney, second son of the new Earl of Hilsborough, sought to ease a too-short neck in a too-high stock and smiled thinly at his cousin. “As you wish, my dear,” he conceded, affecting indifference. “Shall I call you Cousin? Or must I address you as Milady, since we are but second cousins after all? In any case it is of little account, since by the end of the week you will be my bride. And then I shall address you as I choose – and take steps to deal with your curst superior ways. I make no doubt that within a month you will be as sweetly docile a wife as a man could desire. I quite look forward to the taming process. I always enjoyed breaking a filly of spirit.”

  Chantal had seen her cousin’s ways with his cattle; had heard stories of his dealings with any wench upon whom his capricious fancy chanced to fall. She knew the mercy she might expect at his hands. But her father’s blood was quick and proud within her. Not by the quiver of an eyelash did she betray the sick fear that surged in her breast.

  “You are mightily confident, sir, to bespeak me so,” she told him coldly.

  He laughed. “And with good cause,” he told her merrily. “My father wholeheartedly approves the match. Yours made you a very attractive bride when he endowed you with all the unentailed estate in addition to his private fortune. I doubt if the money alone would have been sufficient to appeal to me,” he went on judicially, “and since my brother must inherit the earldom I must do as best I can for myself. I have a fancy to be a landed gentleman. With your acknowledged physical charms to sweeten the bargain” – he bowed mockingly – “it was irresistible.”

  “And I am to have no choice in the matter?” she wondered scornfully.

  “Not now, my dear. Six months ago, perhaps. But not now. It is all settled. As a gentleman I stand too far committed to be able to withdraw in honour.”

  He smiled, as at some private joke. There was something unpleasantly convincing in his manner. She did not see how she could be forced into marrying him against her will, but anxiety was growing within her. Somehow, despite her revulsion, she must try to discover what was in his mind. If she could draw him out – his conceit was his weak point – persuade him to display his cleverness to the helpless victim, she might learn how to escape the trap that threatened to close upon her.

  “Indeed, sir, how may that be?” she enquired innocently.

  He did hesitate. But the temptation to boast, to repay her contumelious attitude by showing her how her own behaviour had played into his hands, was more than he could resist.

  “You were always such an odd creature,” he reminded her maliciously. “Oh – never flouting the bounds of propriety, of course, but definitely eccentric – outré. To the only child of a wealthy earl, much is forgiven. But it is not forgotten. Those occasions when you made a mockery of rigid conventionality must have rankled in many a dowager’s bosom. A pity you cannot hear them now. ‘Poor dear Lady Chantal,’ they murmur in the boudoirs and wherever the chaperones gather. ‘Such a tragedy! But not really surprising. One always felt that she was not quite – er – normal. It is natural enough that the balance of her mind should have been finally overset by the horrid circumstances of her Papa’s death, for whatever you may say to her discredit, Lucinda, she was perfectly devoted to him. Oh no! No hope at all, or so I am informed. A number of her friends have driven down to Delaney Court to visit her, but she receives no one. John Summerhayes saw her riding out in the grounds and said she looked well enough, but I believe they keep a careful guard on her. A grave responsibility, but one really could not endure the thought of the poor girl shut up in Bedlam. The physicians say that she is harmless so long as she lives very secluded in the country. She is very fortunate that her relatives are so kindly disposed. Not every man would have the patience to deal so tenderly with an idiot girl.’”

  He had mimicked to perfection the acid-sweet tones of one of her bitterest critics. She was left in no doubt that this was the tale that had been put about. Exactly the kind of tale that society would love, and knowing her cousin she had no doubt that it had been skilfully done. The grave face, the deep sigh, the half sentence bitten off just a word too late. And as regards her own conduct he had spoken truly enough. With no mother to guide and advise her and a father whose pride was in her courage and honesty rather than in decorous behaviour, she had ridden too high, and many would be happy to see her brought down.

  It had been foolish, too, to seek shelter here at the Court when she had been so shockingly bereaved, though at the time it had seemed the natural thing to do. The Court was her home, the new Earl her father’s cousin and her own nearest relative. Who could have dreamed that so simple and instinctive an action would breed such trouble? For that she was in very deep trouble she no longer doubted. Her cousin’s disclosures only served to link and explain a long series of puzzling circumstances that had come to light during the past weeks. Ever since, in fact, she had begun to emerge from the shock of hearing of her father’s death. Small things in themselves, yet mounting to a formidable total when taken together. It had seemed reasonable enough that the new Earl should have pensioned off Wagstaffe, her father’s old butler, for he was sadly frail, and the grief of losing his beloved master had born heavily upon him. But it was odd that Wagstaffe had never come to bid her goodbye, and odder still that no one seemed to know where he had gone. Buried in her own grief – a grief that Cousin Giffard, in especial, was at some pains to keep alive by maladroit references to the more distressing aspects of her father’s death – she had paid little heed when one by one the older members of the household staff were replaced by newcomers. She had Hepsie, her father’s nurse, who had mothered her in childhood, maided her in girlhood, and who now remained her sole bulwark against the horrible fantasies that invaded her dreams and sapped her love of living.

  She saw now, all too clearly, how she had delivered herself into the hands of her scheming cousin. He it was who had broken to her the full tale of her father’s end; the small advance party set upon by savage tribesmen; the brave resistance against overwhelming odds; the inevitable end, with torture, mutilation and death for the man she had so dearly loved. Openly he had described unimaginable horrors, on the pretext that she, with her courage and her love of the truth, would prefer to know the whole. Small wonder that she had suffered for weeks from hideous nightmares and wakened screaming and hysterical. Easy enough, on that evidence, to put about a rumour that her mind was unhinged by her sufferings; to keep visitors from her lest they discovered the truth. And here, again, sh
e had helped them by refusing to see even her most intimate friends during those early weeks. She recalled now, penitently, her own bitter remarks to Hepsie on the fickleness of human affection when the weeks had become months and still her former friends stayed away.

  It was Hepsie’s illness that roused her at last from the utter selfishness of her absorption. Since the tragedy the old woman had occupied a little slip of a room opening off Chantal’s. The girl had only to call and Hepsie would be there. But there came a night when the call went unanswered, and Chantal, going in to investigate, had found the old woman sunk in a slumber so deep that it seemed to approach unconsciousness. It was then that, for the first time, she took note of the sunken cheeks, the yellowing skin and the colourless lips and realised that something was gravely wrong. Hepsie, struggling back to painful consciousness, did not deny it. She had consulted the doctor a year past, when the master first went off to Afghanistan. It was already too late. She had a canker lump in her breast and there was nothing to be done. The doctor had given her syrup of poppies to take when the pain was bad, and tonight she had taken a dose rather larger than usual. Which was why her ladyship had had difficulty in rousing her. Her only regret was that when death called her she must leave her charge unprotected. Otherwise she would be “main glad to go.”

  Forgetting her apathy in the need to tend Hepsie, sending a message to summon the doctor, arranging for tempting and nourishing food to be specially prepared for the sick woman, Chantal had suddenly awakened to the fact that she was practically alone among strangers. Even the doctor was new to the district. And everyone had treated her with a careful respect which she had ascribed to her mourning state. She realised now that it had probably had a very different origin.

  “That was cleverly thought of,” she told her cousin. “And I can see that there would be plenty of people all too willing to believe. But I do not understand how you expect it to forward your marriage plans.”

  The compliment, trivial as it was, tickled his vanity. He was happy to tell her just what he had in mind for her. “It accounts for the ceremony being conducted in private,” he explained. “A bride of your social standing would naturally be expected to have a fine society wedding, but since you are so reluctant a bride, my father and I regret that we must deprive you of this pleasure. It would give you far too many opportunities of proclaiming your wrongs. But a bride who is touched in the upper works is a very different matter. We are held to have shown the greatest delicacy in our arrangements – indeed I understand that one or two ladies have been heard to express admiration for the nobility with which I am sacrificing my bachelor status in order that I can care for my poor little idiot cousin.” He giggled at the thought.

  Chantal kept a firm hold on her temper. She must make the most of this communicative mood. “But why put yourself to the pains of marrying me?” she said, wrinkling her brow as one genuinely puzzled. “If you could have me pronounced insane, surely your father, as my guardian, would have charge of my estate?”

  “Because the trick won’t hold for ever,” he told her frankly. “We’ve got rid of everyone down here who might know it for a hum, and fobbed off your friends from Town for the time being. But we can’t keep you a close prisoner for ever. Sooner or later someone is going to turn up who will recognise that you’re as sane as the next person. So by that time we’ll have you safely tied up in matrimony, my dear, and no one will be more delighted at your complete recovery than your devoted husband, while all the world will declare that the miracle has been wrought by love.”

  “It’s an affecting tale,” she said drily. There would be no more to be got out of him. Already suspicion was again alight in the close-set eyes, a faint frown creased the white brow. She shuddered with distaste. The Honourable Giffard passed for a handsome young man, save that he was, perhaps, a trifle on the plump side. His close curling dark hair and the smooth, thick white skin had moved some of his admirers to vow that he had something of a foreign air – Greek, or Italian, perhaps. He reminded his cousin of nothing so much as the unsavoury creatures that stir to pallid life when a stone is overturned. “It’s a pity it will never be told. I repeat, sir, that nothing will persuade me to marry you.”

  His mood changed with a vengeance. “Who spoke of persuasion?” he said softly. “If that is still your temper, my pretty love, to whom will you turn for help? You cannot leave the grounds. All the servants have been warned of the danger of letting you stray abroad; told just how pitiful and convincing you can be in your protestations. Who do you think they will believe? You have enquired once or twice about my father’s absence. I did not see fit to answer you in detail at the time, not wishing to provoke one of your tantrums. He has gone to bring the clergyman who is to marry us. Oh yes! A genuine clergyman. No mock marriage for us. He is wholly devoted to my father’s interest, being in fact his natural son, though this he does not know, and grateful for the education and training that enable him to support himself. He had the misfortune to contract the measles while sick visiting in his first parish, and as a result he is completely deaf. My father found him a post as librarian to some scholar recluse. Our pathetic story has been explained to him in writing and he has expressed his willingness to oblige Papa by emerging from his seclusion to marry us. How will you explain your predicament to him? Even if your mouthings and gesticulations alarm him, it will be but a matter of postponing the ceremony. He will be told that you are subject to fits at certain phases of the moon. And I, my love,” his voice rose in pleasurable anticipation, “shall have the pleasant duty of bringing you to a proper state of submission. After a week spent in my apartments, I do not think you will lightly reject a second opportunity of being respectably married.”

  She studied him with an oddly dispassionate gaze. Since her suspicions had been aroused they had burgeoned rapidly. It was no more than she had expected. As she gazed, his lips parted and the tip of his tongue was passed lingeringly over them. She sickened. The unconscious betrayal of that small gesture was more disgusting than his boastful words.

  She said fiercely, “I had rather throw myself in the lake.” And heard a servant’s voice announce behind her, “Luncheon is served in the morning room, sir. Shall I set covers for her ladyship?”

  It did not need the triumphant gloating on her cousin’s face to confirm the suspicion that her rash remark had been overhead and would go to confirm the story that she was mentally unhinged. She knew, too, what would come next. This was a recent trick – to keep her short of food. She had thought it designed to lower her physical resistance, but possibly it was also meant to further the impression that she was under medical supervision. She vaguely recollected reading in some journal or other that a low diet was recommended when the brain was thought to be affected. And here it came.

  “Lady Chantal is not feeling quite the thing. She prefers to lunch in her own apartments. See that a light meal is sent up to her.”

  She knew what she would find, as she slowly climbed the stairs to her room, revolving plans for escape, each in turn to be dismissed as impractical. The ‘light meal’ had been served to her on a number of occasions. At first, worried for Hepsie and lacking appetite she had paid little heed. But it seemed as though, while Hepsie’s life flickered and faded towards its close, the eager young life in Chantal clamoured for survival. The meal – it might be a glass of milk and a slice of delicately thin bread and butter, or a cup of thin broth and a rusk – became a penance to be avoided if dignity permitted. The food was insufficient for an elderly invalid, let alone a healthy young woman.

  At least, so far, they had brought food for Hepsie. At times the old nurse would seem a little better. There would be a temporary easing of her pain, and though she was growing very feeble her mind was perfectly clear. Sometimes she fancied her meals, at others she merely pecked at the food. On several occasions Chantal had hastily devoured the cooling remnants before putting the tray out. Once or twice Hepsie had nearly caught her doing it. Now, today, had come th
e threat of stopping the doctor’s visits to Hepsie and the supply of medicine that was needed to allay the worst of her pain. It was this urgency that had made Chantal seek an interview with her cousin. And small good she had got of it, unless to have her worst suspicions confirmed could be counted a good.

  Hepsie was up and dressed with her customary neatness, though heaven knew at what cost in physical anguish. She looked up placidly enough from her seat beside the fire in Chantal’s room.

  “And what’s amiss with you, that you don’t fancy your victuals?” she enquired in a voice that was little more than a thread, and nodded in the direction of the tray that had just been brought in.

  One glance was enough. On the small table at the invalid’s side stood her own empty tray, her meal obviously enjoyed today. Beside it stood a cup of broth, carefully wrapped and covered to keep it warm, not even so much as a rusk to keep it company. Chantal had endured a trying interview. She was frightened and hungry. The sight of that mockery of a meal was the last straw. She burst into tears and subsided on the rug at Hepsie’s feet, her face buried in that comforting lap as she sobbed out her woe and desperation.

  Hepsie was no fool. Already she had a strong inkling of the true state of affairs, though Chantal had done her best to keep her in ignorance. Now the girl’s defences were down. She had no one but Hepsie to confide in. It needed but a few well-directed questions and the whole tale came tumbling out.

  There was a long silence when it was done. Then Hepsie said slowly, “You’ll have to get away. I knew he was a wicked one but I never dreamed how bad. And to think he’d drag you down into the mire with his scheming. Well – no doubt the Almighty will punish him in His own good time, but we’ll not dare wait for that.”

  Chantal said curiously, “You knew he was wicked? I never liked him, but I confess I never suspected him of such villainy as he has shown.”