The Foundling Bride

by Helen Dickson

  And so she waited as the unbearable, unearthly storm seemed to go on and on. No one moved and all eyes remained fixed in concentration on the boat heading for the stricken vessel. The scene was like a fatalistic tableau.

  Both Marcus and Edward were good, strong oarsmen, moving the oars with precision with every stroke as they battled against the waves. For the first time in their lives they were in unison—together—striving for the same thing. Their very isolation seemed to tighten their bond. Marcus fleetingly thought it a strange situation to be in, but Edward’s presence and support inspired confidence.

  All around them was boiling water, swirling and crashing against the cliff. Through the spray and foam they tried to keep their eyes on the ship battling against the elements.

  They were soon drenched by the spray soaking through their clothes. They were shocked by the coldness of the water but had no time to dwell on it. They had to keep moving. The activity helped to keep their circulation going, but the growing cold and the unrelenting wind were in danger of dulling their senses.

  There was no respite. It was a miracle they weren’t overturned. Both men called on every ounce of skill they possessed to hold course.

  As they approached the vessel they heard a massive crack, and more of the ship broke up. With waves pounding against the hull, it was shifting all the time. The men clinging to the vessel for dear life watched them, hopeful of rescue, but there was a danger of the boat getting caught up in the debris and trailing ropes.

  ‘How many men?’ Marcus shouted when they were close enough to be heard.

  ‘Just eight of us left—others weren’t so lucky.’

  It was no easy matter, getting the men into the boat. How they managed it Marcus would never know. But they helped each other. With each man there was a danger he would miss the boat and fall into the sea. Marcus made sure they were evenly placed to keep balance in the boat.

  They had just hauled the last man over the side when a giant wave hit them with all its force, tossing them against the vessel. The ship lurched and a spar crashed down, hitting the boat—and Edward, who was directly beneath it.

  Blindly, desperately, Marcus made a frantic lunge in the direction he had last seen his brother, but he had gone over the side. Peering into the foam he saw him being tossed about by the savage force.

  ‘Edward! For God’s sake take my hand!’

  Helpless, Marcus could only watch as Edward, unconscious and in no condition to save himself, was swept away by the foaming breakers.

  As they reached shore men ran into the surf to take hold of the boat and drag it up the sand. That was when Lowena’s heart soared in her breast and life began to flow through her anew. Suddenly she was running towards the boat with the rest of them.

  The survivors of the wrecked vessel were helped ashore and blankets were produced and wrapped around their frozen bodies. Marcus was the last person to climb out of the boat. Lowena flung herself upon him and his arms went round her, holding her as she clung to him, unable to speak for all the gladness and relief that filled her heart.

  ‘Thank God you are safe,’ she murmured against his neck. ‘I confess that I feared the worst.’

  ‘They’re all saved that could be saved. They’ll be taken to the village and taken care of.’

  When Lowena found the strength to step back her eyes searched for Edward, the wind whipping her hair across her face.

  ‘Edward?’ She looked to her husband for an answer.

  He shook his head, his eyes tortured with the memory of how he’d tried to save him and his loss.

  ‘He is dead?’ she said, her expression one of sick disbelief.

  Marcus nodded, his gaze going to what was left of the wrecked ship, which was just visible in the growing darkness. ‘He was hit by a falling spar and toppled over the side of the boat. Despite my efforts to save him he was washed away.’

  ‘I am truly sorry. I’m sure you did all you could.’

  He nodded, his eyes drawn again towards the stricken vessel. ‘In the time it took us to reach the ship I felt closer to my brother than I ever have before, at any point in my life.’

  Lowena took his hand, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Come, you are soaked to the skin and freezing cold. We must get you back to the house and out of those wet clothes and get you warm.’

  After making sure that the survivors were being taken care of, Marcus and Lowena left the cove.

  * * *

  Edward’s body was washed ashore with others the following day.

  Marcus was deeply distressed over the death of his brother, and Lowena’s heart went out to him. As Edward’s next of kin he was now Lord Carberry of Tregarrick, and he knew what that would mean to him, and the drastic changes that would take place and affect his life.

  But Lowena knew there would also be changes to her own life. When they moved up to the house she would be faced with the confusing business of running a large household and all those who were dependent on it for their subsistence. It was a task she was totally ignorant of, but she was resolved to play her part. She would learn from Marcus and Lady Alice, and she would rationalise the myriad roles that suddenly faced her.

  * * *

  Considering this most unusual turn of events, Marcus was overcome. Despite the hostilities that had kept them apart all their lives, it wounded him terribly that he should discover and then lose his half-brother so quickly and in such tragic circumstances.

  If there was one thing he had learned over the years, it was that what people had done or not done didn’t seem to have much effect on how one felt about them. Marcus’s heart was warmed by the knowledge that he had seen some goodness in his brother at the end, and that in the span of the time Edward had climbed into the boat and disappeared into the sea he’d loved him.

  * * *

  The day finally came when Lowena made the journey back to Beresford Hall in Devon. She was accompanied by Marcus and her father—and Nessa.

  The house in which she had been born was nothing but a burned-out shell. An eerie, haunting silence reigned among the ruins of the house in which her mother had been raised and—as Nessa had told her—had loved. It struck deep into her heart when she tried to imagine what it had been like on the terrible day when her mother had died and Nessa had taken her away.

  Most of the building had been destroyed. Some walls still stood, with big, gaping holes in them, and the giant chimney stacks still rose into the sky. Ivy clung to the crumbling walls of the once noble house, and it made her think of something beautiful after it had been through the throes of death. The wind blowing off the sea went whispering and searching the holes and crevices in the walls.

  On her father’s suggestion they left the ruins and went to the village church—her mother’s final resting place. There she saw for herself the monuments and alabaster effigies of her Beresford ancestors. Her mother was buried beneath a solid stone slab in the churchyard, with a simple inscription informing those who chanced to look of her name, her birth and the date of her death.

  Weighted down by a terrible sadness, Lowena felt tears fill her eyes as she placed a bouquet of flowers at its centre, trying to imagine what might have been had her father not been in Mexico and had he married her mother.

  Taking a rose from the bouquet, she turned away, holding it to her nose to smell its sweet perfume. There was a lightness to her heart and a little smile playing on her lips as she walked to where Marcus stood waiting.

  * * *

  Marcus watched her come towards him. On seeing her smile, he felt his concern turn to relief and he opened his arms. Not for the first time since he had found her that day in the woods he felt a surge of protectiveness—an unusual twist to his normal desire whenever he was with her.

  The force of her attraction was like the pull of the moon on the tides. It was somethin
g that went beyond all earthly understanding. Her laugh was infectious, and her smile had the power to light up the darkest corners of his heart. She was also volatile, warm and elusive, and he was certain she would never bore him.

  All those qualities, combined with her honesty and the love she carried in her heart for him, made her a prize above all else...

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to miss

  these other great reads from Helen Dickson:

  A TRAITOR’S TOUCH

  CAUGHT IN SCANDAL’S STORM

  LUCY LANE AND THE LIEUTENANT

  LORD LANSBURY’S CHRISTMAS WEDDING

  ROYALIST ON THE RUN

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A WARRINER TO RESCUE HER by Virginia Heath.

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  A Warriner to Rescue Her

  by Virginia Heath

  Chapter One

  May 1814

  The blood-curdling female scream shook him out of his daze instantly. Jamie pulled up his horse and glanced frantically around to see if he could locate the source. All he saw was familiar meadow and trees, and for a moment he thought he might have imagined it. With the warm sun on his face and the leisurely motion of his mount ambling aimlessly beneath him, it was quite feasible he had nodded off. He was exhausted, after all.

  Constantly exhausted from his brain’s inability to stop whirring when darkness fell, conjuring up memories from his past which haunted him even though he knew both men responsible for the pain were undeniably dead and therefore no longer a threat. Yet the ghost of them lingered in his mind, forcing him to stay vigilant and preventing him from snatching more than a few hours here and there, usually as the sun began to banish the darkness away. Or perhaps it was simply the darkness which frightened him as it had as a child? After so many months, he was no longer sure. Just irritated with his own inability to move past it.

  The second scream, no less curdling or high-pitched, raised all of his hackles, putting him on instant alert. With his soldier’s instinct, Jamie raced his horse in the direction of the shriek, which happened to be towards the orchard near the huge wall which surrounded Markham Manor. The orderly trees were arranged in parallel lines with person-width paths of grass in between; aside from the gentle swish of leaves blowing in the summer breeze, silence reigned.

  He cast his eyes methodically up and down the rows until he saw something—a dainty skewbald pony casually munching on the tiny, unripe apples that littered the ground around its hooves. As it was wearing both halter and a side-saddle, yet there was no sign of the rider, Jamie carefully lowered himself to the ground and wrapped his own reins loosely about a branch. At the best of times his temperamental black stallion was foul tempered; around other horses he was prone to be a brute. The pretty cream-and-dun pony, with her long fluffy mane and even longer eyelashes, would not stand a chance.

  Jamie limped towards the abandoned animal slowly, conscious any sudden movement might spook the strange pony and send it galloping off to who knew where. ‘Easy, girl...’ At least he assumed it was a girl. If it were a boy the other horses would tease him mercilessly for that effeminate mane.

  ‘Hello!’ A slightly panicked woman’s voice came from above. ‘Is somebody there?’

  ‘Hello?’ He hadn’t been expecting to address the sky. The sun pierced Jamie’s eyes to such an extent he could not see a thing except blinding yellow light. The woman’s exact location remained a mystery. Unless she was an angel sent to fetch him and drag him off to heaven, which he sincerely doubted. They had had their chance and failed miserably and if he was bound for anywhere it was probably hell. ‘I can’t see you!’

  ‘I am in the tree... I wonder if you would be so good as to assist me, sir. I appear to be stuck.’

  Surreal words, again unexpected. How did a woman come to be stuck in an apple tree? Jamie did his best to shield the worst of the glare with his hand and squinted through the tangled branches. Two wiggling feet dangled nearly six feet above his head. They were encased in half-boots and were attached to a very shapely pair of female legs, clad in fine silk stockings which were held up with rather saucy pink garters. His eyes widened at the garters. From this perspective they appeared to be completely festooned with flowers. Above them, about an inch or two of creamy thigh was also on display. The rest of the woman was hidden by leaves.

  Thankfully, a passing cloud chose that exact moment to block out the worst of the sun, allowing Jamie to get a better look at the rest of the dangling woman. Her slate-coloured skirt, so incongruous in comparison to her choice of vibrant underthings, had inverted and appeared to be wrapped tightly around her upper body. One arm clung to a branch above, the other, and her head, were apparently trapped within the fabric. Her generous bottom was resting on a feeble branch which appeared likely to snap at any moment and, with nothing beneath her except the hard ground, his best assessment of her position was precarious.

  ‘Try to remain still. I’m coming up!’

  He supposed it was the gentlemanly thing to do, although Jamie had no idea if he was still actually capable of climbing a tree. Thanks to Napoleon, he could hardly walk, certainly struggled to run and his dancing days were most definitely over. Quickly, he tried to work out the best way to tackle the challenge. The last time he had cause to climb a tree, he had been a scrawny, nimble boy and he recalled it had been a simple procedure by and large. Thanks to his burly Warriner ancestors, and over a decade of growing, he was now an ox of a man. An ox of a man with a useless left leg.

  However, that damned leg was not going to define him. If he wanted to climb a tree, he would climb a blasted tree! Putting all of his weight on his right foot, and using the strength of his arms, he managed to hoist himself laboriously upwards. It might have raised him less than a foot off the ground, but he had left the ground. He rearranged his good foot and heaved again. Two foot from the ground! What was that if it was not progress? Slow, laboured, feeble progress. Painful, humiliating, soul-destroying progress.

  Oblivious to his grunts of exertion, or the supreme effort it took him to actually climb, the grey faceless bundle above his head decided this was the appropriate time for a conversation.

  ‘I suppose you are wondering how I came to be stuck up this tree in the first place...’ At this stage in the proceedings, how she came to be there was neither here nor there. All Jamie could concentrate on
was putting one foot painfully above the other. ‘It’s a funny story really. My pony, Orange Blossom, has a fondness for red apples.’ As she spoke, her legs and bottom jiggled, causing the fragile branch to quiver with indignation. ‘And rather stupidly, I assumed... Oooh!’

  The flimsy branch suddenly bent downwards as it split from the main trunk of the tree. Fortunately, she had the good sense to hook her legs around an adjacent branch and managed to halt her descent. Unfortunately, in doing so her dress had now ridden further up her thighs, displaying all of her legs quite thoroughly. As legs went, they were rather nice although now was really not the time he should be admiring them. As he had suspected, those saucy garters were festooned with pink-silk flowers. Her shapely derrière now hung between the two branches and directly over Jamie’s head. In her panic, she was wiggling in earnest now in an attempt to free her head from its dull, muslin prison, her visible hand still clinging desperately on to a straining branch above.

  Jamie began to inch closer to her struggling form. ‘Madam, it is imperative that you remain still!’ Because if she fell, it was his cranium which would bear the brunt and the closer he got, the less confident he was he was strong enough to catch her. If her bottom was anything to go by, she was not exactly petite. He pulled himself on to a sound-looking branch and locked one arm around it.

  ‘Take my hand!’ Perhaps he could swing her down to the ground? Unless, of course, she wrenched his shoulder out of its socket. Then he would have a crippled arm to go with his ruined leg.

  He watched her wrestle within her tangled skirts until her other hand burrowed its way out and her arm made a frantic bid for freedom, but instead of grabbing his outreached hand as he had quite plainly instructed, she used it to attempt to cover her exposed legs with her inverted clothing. Tiny, hard, barely formed apples began to tumble out of the fabric and rained down around him. Two of the lead-lined fruits bounced off his head like miniature cannonballs and made him yelp.