If this was a typical ton marriage—and I feared it was—no wonder I had not been tempted to break out of my mourning. Though I had to admit my sister Rosalind and her bucolic baronet seemed to live in a bubble of bliss in Hampshire, eschewing the temptations of London for all but an occasional visit to avoid being termed “stodgy” by family and friends.
Thus Emilia became a co-conspirator, readily agreeing to adhere to the tale devised by the supposed Earl of Thornbury. I did not, however, burden her with my fears for either Nick or myself. That, at least, I could spare her. We did, however, discuss the house-party guests, particularly relishing dissecting the characters of the young ladies vying for Thornbury’s attention. Quite horrid of us, of course, but is that not what sisters are for? To indulge in topics we could speak of with no one else?
I quickly discovered we both heartily disliked Lady Ariana Rutledge, with her friend, Lady Cynthia, a close second. The nubile young lady I had seen descending from her coach was Lady Melinda Dabney, daughter of the Duke of Rockingham, and thus much favored by Lady Winterbourne, even though she was far too young and tempermentally unsuited to a man such as Thornbury. Or so I declared with rather more heat than I’d intended. Emilia fixed me with a penetrating stare but said nothing, going on to comment on two more female offspring of distinguished lineage.
“I doubt any of them can compete with Lady Ariana,” Emilia offered when she reached the end of the list. “She’s the one you must watch out for. She means to have him, and woe to anyone who dares interfere.”
My brain dinged a warning. But no, at the time of my precipitous fall from the third floor to the second, Lady Ariana had no idea the nurse she’d encountered at the grotto was actually Lucinda Neville. And even if she did know, her arrogance, her firm belief in her own shining self-worth were too strong to allow her to consider the disgraced daughter of a baron as serious competition. The kind of competition requiring drastic measures.
“Luce? Where have you gone, Luce? Is there something you’re not telling me?” Emilia was, after all, my older sister, the one who had always known when I had done something I shouldn’t.
“No, no, it is nothing.” I waved her concern away. “I was just wondering how poor Nick is getting on. He is accustomed to having me around, and I miss him quite dreadfully.”
“Lucinda Nellwyn,” my sister declared in a voice she reserved for the most heinous offenses, “you must forget the child. Imagine the scandal! You disappear for weeks, only to reappear as guardian to a baby—”
“Em! I’ve been gone a scant three weeks, not nine months!”
“Nonetheless,” she huffed, “no matter how absurd, there will be talk. Particularly when you have been discovered in the home of one of the ton’s most eligible titled gentlemen.”
“I promised Nick’s mother I would take care of him, and I will!”
Emilia threw up her hands. “Not if you wish to join the matrimonial sweepstakes, you won’t. The gossip will put you quite beyond the Pale.”
A long silence while I sucked in air through my teeth, wrestled with my temper, and considered my options. “I am about to become Lady Winterbourne’s companion,” I said at last, “not only because I must fulfill my promise to the babe’s mother but because I personally care about his welfare.”
My sister was looking nearly as grim as when she admitted to knowing about her husband’s peccadillos. And then, oddly, her face lightened, her frown easing into speculation. “You are indeed stubborn enough for such a course,” she conceded, “but I suspect there is more to it than that. When the houseguests go home, you will still be here, will you not? Under the same roof with most eligible bachelor in the realm?”
I was saved from what would have been an excruciatingly awkward reply by the arrival of Dr. Hobart. My sister hurried out, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. I wondered if she was off to spread the news of my miraculous return, or had Thornbury already informed the houseguests Whichever was true, I could only hope their cries, exclamations, and innumerable questions would have been asked and answered before I was expected to go among them.
As I suspected, Dr. Hobart agreed that the good fortune that had kept my injuries to a minimum when the coach overturned had continued to favor me. Except for the blow to my head, a small burn on my leg, and aggravation to the twinge in my shoulder that had persisted since the coach accident, I had suffered nothing worse than bumps and bruises. On the morrow I might rise and dress, though not venture out of my room for another full day.
After the good doctor offered a cheerful farewell and left the room, I considered suffering a serious relapse. But then I would not be allowed to climb the stairs to see Nick. I would not see Anthony. I would have no chance to discover what menaces lurked at Winterbourne. And who was doing what to whom.
No, I was not cut out to linger in bed when there was work to be done—more challenging work than I had ever done before. I rang for Josie and had her help me into a chair by the window. By tomorrow I would be up and about, and the devil take the hindmost. Perhaps it had taken a bump on the head to make me see there were, after all, advantages to not being confined to the fourth floor. I intended to make the most of my new-found freedom, no matter how great the risk might be.
But when tomorrow came, I was not so optimistic.
Shortly before the dinner bell the previous day, Aunt Trevor had paid me a visit. And her news was daunting. Winterbourne’s houseguests were indulging themselves to the hilt in shocked whispers, furtive glances, wagging tongues, and all-too-knowing looks. The tabbies had their claws unsheathed, their young charges well warned away from the menace in their midst. Miss Lucinda Neville was anathema.
How poor dear Lady Winterbourne could even think of having such a creature in the house . . .
The earl wanted her, don’t you know?
Well, of course he did. And did you hear there’s a baby . . . ?
“Nauseous,” Aunt Trevor declared, “but I doubt they’ll have the nerve to speak so to your face. You are Neville’s daughter and as such command respect. It’s not as if you and your officer got away with eloping, after all!” she added with such indignation I had to choke back a bark of laughter. Poor Brant. How mortified he would be if he knew what misery his valiant attempt to marry me had caused.
Shakespeare had the right of it when he titled his play, Much Ado About Nothing. Except what had happened to our pitiful attempt to express the strength of our love through a runaway marriage had been anything but a comedy.
After my Aunt Trevor left, I tried to convince myself I had the courage to carry off a return to the ton, even in the humble position of companion. Most particularly, in the humble position of companion. I was unsuited for subservience, and I’m certain Thornbury knew it. But what other choice was there?
He could declare his undying love and marry me by special license.
Now there was a thought to demonstrate that six years had brought neither maturity nor a realistic mindset to Lucinda Nellwyn Neville. Truth was, I’d better settle to some serious thought about the situation I was in, or all was lost.
Who was I?
Since Brant’s death I had been a shadow of my former self. After the first few months of isolation, I had begun a round of visits to my sisters, watching their lives change from the glow of newly married to the settled maturity of five children between them. I enjoyed the role of indulgent aunt, as well as the companionship of my sisters. I even missed the constant hubbub when I was back under my parents’ roof at Neville Manor. But I was not alive. As horrid as it was to strike a man down, run away, deliver a baby and watch his mother die, these events had forced me back to life. So much so that what I felt for Nick was not the fondness of an aunt but the fierce protectiveness of motherhood. Nick was mine.
An absurdity easily destroyed by reason.
Nick might be the rightful Earl of Thornbury, heir to the House of Deverell. Alternatively, he could be part of a plot to put a wholly foreign bastard in direct l
ine to an English marquisate. Then again, relatives entirely innocent of any plotting might come all the way from Greece to claim him. Or . . .
Someone might kill him. Or me.
I shuddered.
Pandemonium burst my moment of depression, as a giggling Ivy, carrying Nick, slipped into my room, closely followed by Flora hugging Dulcie tight. My friends had come to me!
“He was crying his head off, miss,” Ivy said. “Missed you somethin’ awful, he did.”
“Truly,” Flora said. “Not even a feed would satisfy him.”
Nick gurgled at me as Ivy placed him in my arms. He smiled. If my heart hadn’t already been totally enraptured . . .
“Miss?” At the tentative note in Ivy’s voice, I forced my eyes away from Nick to meet her solemn gaze. “His lordship explained the whole, miss. And o’course we always knew you were a lady. Flora and me, we’ll take right good care of Nick, we promise. And his lordship says you can visit him every day.”
“We’re that happy you’re staying on, miss,” Flora added. “Beggin’ your pardon, but it’s more’n Nick would miss you.”
Tears stung my eyes. I was saved from some maudlin response when a knock on the door was closely followed by Josie’s smiling face. “Your gowns have arrived, miss,” she said. “I’m to unpack for you the moment the footmen bring up your trunks.”
“Oo, miss,” Ivy cried, “how grand. We’ll get to see all your fine gowns.”
As much as I was touched by her enthusiasm, I had to warn her. “I fear most are sadly out of fashion. I have not gone into society for some years now. Anything less ancient than six years has come from a local seamstress in Nether Westcote.”
“What do we know of fashion, miss?” Flora asked. “Ladies’ maids must keep up with the latest fal-de-lals, but not us. We just want to see the pretty materials, the colors, the lace ’n’ embroidery.”
“That’s right,” Ivy echoed. “I know as much about fashion as—as Nick or Dulcie. So there! Let us have a grand time looking at every last piece—petticoats and all!”
We all laughed, and I felt myself settling into some odd compromise between the nursery world, the life of Miss Lucinda Neville of Neville Manor, and the life of a companion. And then I recalled the shadow hanging over us. The wind howling through Nick’s window, the all-too-solid apparition that shoved me down the stairs.
Not now, not now. I shoved my cares to the back of my mind
For the next hour we indulged in that most feminine pastime, enjoying the unveiling of my wardrobe, some gowns not seen since my come-out in London all those many years ago. Fortunately, though they were not of the latest style, they were well-designed, well-made. The Nevilles, after all, were far from impoverished. The idea of being myself again, even if everyone knew I was to remain at Winterbourne as a lowly companion, gradually became more appealing. Until a third knock on the door presaged Babcock himself, proffering a letter. Addressed in my mother’s handwriting.
Chapter 16
If only there had been a raging inferno in the fireplace where I could toss my mother’s letter and watch with grim satisfaction while it curled at the edges and turned brown before disintegrating into fine flakes drifting up the chimney, to be scattered and forever lost in the beauty of the Cotswold landscape. But it was July, the fireplace bare, and in spite of all that had happened to me, I had been most properly brought up, including instruction in the commandment to honor thy father and mother.
Fortunately, Nick chose that moment to indicate that he’d had quite enough socializing, thank you very much, and that he was quite sure he had not eaten in at least a sennight. With indulgent smiles for the babe who had turned in a trice from a charming infant into a squalling, red-faced tyrant, my guests made their farewells and returned to the nursery, leaving me to sink into the comfortably upholstered chair near a window, ignoring the letter in my hand. I had already been scolded by Thornbury, Aunt Trevor, and Emilia. I did not feel up to being told yet again how foolish I had been.
They had not been there that night. They had no inkling of my desperation. I feared I’d killed my brother-in-law. I ran. I had played that moment over and over again in my mind, and the result was always the same. Even if I had known Geoff still lived, I would have run. Perhaps I should have gone straight to Emilia, but the horror of telling her . . . No, never! I could not do it.
And now to find she’d known all along . . .
The sound of crinkling parchment . . . I looked down to discover I had turned my mother’s letter into a crumpled ball. Drat! My wishes had failed to turn it to illusion. I smoothed the creases, flicked away the cracked pieces of the seal, and unfolded my mother’s finely embossed stationery.
It was, of course, as I feared. For four paragraphs, heavily underscored, she waxed eloquent on the subject of my many failings, among them my inability to get over the disappointments of childhood . . .
Brant’s death was a childish disappointment?
How the Neville family had spawned a young woman with my unfortunate looks she could not imagine. (A remark I had heard so frequently I skipped right over it). My conduct was quite, quite shameful. If she had not suffered so mightily to bring me into this world, she would swear I was a cuckoo left in the Neville nest by some evil witch. Perhaps I had been switched at birth.
And so it went down to the final paragraph, where my mother suddenly transformed into the Neville version of the doting mamas attending the Winterbourne house-party.
Since for some reason beyond my comprehension, Lady Winterbourne has seen fit to accept you into her household, I adjure you to make the most of it. Perhaps your looks may be of some use at last, for I cannot deny you attract men like flies to honey. Capturing Thornbury’s attention would be a great coup for the family. His matrimonial intentions (heavily underscored). After all the suffering you have caused us over the years, it is long past time for you to do something useful with your life. Lucinda, Marchioness of Winterbourne, has a fine ring to it. Pray do not miss what must be your last opportunity to escape being a nonentity.
Tainted. That’s all I could think—my undeniable attraction to Anthony was now tainted by my mother’s command to snabble him for my own. Even if the impossible happened and we made a match, she would always think it her idea—I had become Lord Anthony Deverell’s wife only because she told me to.
Anthony Deverell. That, I realized, was how I thought of him. In my heart, it seemed I had already accepted that he was not Thornbury.
I laughed out loud, though a trifle bitterly, I admit. For what would Mama think of that? How I would love to see her face when she found out a month-old babe was Thornbury. And that the man her youngest daughter was supposed to inveigle into matrimony was never going to be a marquess.
And just that quickly the taint was gone. If Anthony was not Thornbury, then marriage to him would sufficiently thwart my mother’s plans to keep any taint at bay. My lips curled into a smile as I watched a sunbeam glimmer across my lap, cast a narrow beam across the wood floor, run up the side of the bed, and bisect my pillow. Silly fool that I was, I took it as a sign of approbation, of better days to come. A sign I should be of good cheer, all would be well.
Alas, while sitting there glaring at my mother’s letter, I should have realized a quite different thought should apply: that old saying about there being many a slip betwixt cup and lip.
In my naivety, however, I woke the next morning with a sense of excitement. Of hope that the Lucinda Neville who emerged from this room today would be a new person. Neither the automaton of the last six years nor the heedless girl who’d come before—the girl who had been unable to think beyond the transports of first love to the harsh reality of living on a junior officer’s pay and following the drum in a time of war.
The dull ache still plaguing my head rumbled a warning. I was not being truthful with myself. The Lucinda Neville of seventeen would have managed quite well, and every last vicissitude the Peninsular campaign threw at me would have been
worth it as long as I could share those moments with Brant.
So . . . not a new Lucinda, but an older, more experienced version of the stout-hearted young miss who had gone no more than fifty miles on the Great North Road before her father caught up with her. Violence was avoided only because Father was somewhat mollified by discovering that Brant and I had separate bedchambers. Papa had dictated a compromise. He would not report Brant’s transgression to his commanding officer as long as Brant made no attempt to see me before his regiment left for the Peninsula.
We had little choice, of course, since it would be four long years before I was of age. I was ruined, without any of the joy, or enlightenment, that should have occurred in the course of an elopement. There had been many times when I regretted Brant was such a true and noble gentleman.
Josie’s cheerful face broke my reverie as she brought me tea and toast and lingered to help me choose which gown I would wear for my return to the ton. My attempt to return to the ton. After my godmother’s warning, frissons of doubt skittered up my spine. But surely, if I aspired no higher than the post of companion . . .
I sighed and turned my attention to Josie, who seemed eager to choose a garment that would rival Lady Ariana and Lady Cynthia. A garment, alas, which I did not own. We settled for a moss green round gown with a single flounce and a waist too high for the latest fashion, but it was exquisitely embroidered at neck and hem in white silk and was entirely suitable for a summer day in the Cotswolds. Josie did a fine job of arranging my hair in a less severe style than I had worn in the nursery.
I was surveying the whole in a pier glass, frowning at the slightly careworn woman reflected there, when Mrs. Randall came to fetch me. “The ladies are gathering in the drawing room this morning, miss, prior to luncheon on the terrace. This afternoon they are off on a sketching expedition some distance from here—I imagine you will not care to join them. Doctor Hobart would not approve, I think.”
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