An Earl To Remember

by Jasmine Ashford

  “About fifteen years,” Lord Brokeridge replied. “Would you care for tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He poured a cup of tea and now walked over to the window. Evelyn was not sure if the tea was hers or his, and hesitated, her hand hovering over the teapot.

  “Did you have a pleasant day?” he asked solicitously, standing with his back to her as he looked out of the window.

  “Y...yes,” Evelyn said, licking lips that were suddenly dry with tension. “I did. I met a friend in town, an old family acquaintance, and I had some tea with him.”

  “Oh, good,” Lord Brokeridge said lightly. He came back and sat opposite her. “Oh, and I forget my manners,” he added ruefully, noticing the teacup in his own hand. He passed her the tea, and poured another cup.

  “And how was your day?” Evelyn cut in, hoping to stall him before he asked her anything about the friend or who he was. She lifted the tea and drank. It was warm and fragrant, vaguely too sugary for her usual liking, but now the sweetness flowed in her veins, relieving her anxiety and hunger pangs somewhat. Just what she needed.

  “Oh, tedious,” he replied easily. “As any day is, with too much work and no friends with whom to pass time.”

  “Indeed,” Evelyn observed, feeling acutely uncomfortable. She sipped her tea and wished he would put an end to this elaborate farce. She was drinking tea with a murderer, and all she wanted to do was leave. As soon as possible.

  Lord Brokeridge seemed in no hurry. “This friend of yours,” he said lightly. “He is someone from Ireland?”

  Evelyn blinked at the sudden strike. He was clearly looking for information. “He has lands there, yes,” she said, and then instantly wished she hadn't – he could easily deduce she had visited Lord Tallinn from that information. But on second thought, why hide it? He knew she knew. Why was he playing with me like this?

  “I know most of the lords with land in Ireland. I even met your father once or twice,” he added conversationally. “Capital sort.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Evelyn said woodenly. Her head ached with the tension in the room and she was finding it difficult to focus. She drank a little more tea, hoping the sugar would clear it.

  “Rawling seems to have forgotten the pastries,” Lord Brokeridge said lightly. “Remiss of him.”

  “Yes...” Evelyn said faintly. She reached for the teapot to pour herself more tea.

  “Allow me,” he said hospitably.

  “Thank you,” Evelyn said, lifting a hand to her temple and rubbing it while he concentrated on pouring the tea. It must be the tension making me feel so ill, she decided. She took the cup the man passed her, and drank thankfully.

  “I did make an interesting discovery today, mind,” Lord Brokeridge added. “I ran into a friend who breeds horses. And he was telling me your father's stables are well-known?”

  “Mm,” Evelyn agreed. Her voice seemed to come down a long tunnel, and she had to think about what he was saying very carefully. Replying was an effort: she felt as if her lips were too tired to move. “We have very good groomsmen,” she replied.

  “I heard,” Lord Brokeridge commented.

  Evelyn said nothing. The mention of the stables made her think of Bronson, and that thought made her sad. She sniffed and drank some tea, trying to warm up. She wished she had sat in the sunshine, even though that would have meant she sat closer to his lordship. It was so cold where she was sitting!

  “...and then Alfred said he was heading off to his estate in Surrey...”

  Evelyn blinked. Lord Brokeridge had been telling a story, and she had somehow lapsed out of consciousness during most of it. She shook her head, trying to concentrate on the words.

  “...Lady Epworth will be joining them there...capital horse rider...”

  Evelyn shook her head again. Her eyelids felt heavy and her heart was thudding in her chest. She could hear the beats. Thump. Thump.

  “...and what would you say, Lady Evelyn? Evelyn?”

  Evelyn tried to sit up, but she felt too tired. The room was stretching away from her, leaving her alone in a space of menace, a frightening place where things lurked to attack her. She turned to Lord Brokeridge, but his face wavered and swam before her.

  “...I feel faint,” she managed to say. Her words came down a long tunnel, each word an effort, forced out between stiff lips. Closing her eyes once more, she let herself slip, with trepidation, into the waiting oblivion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  NO WAY OUT

  NO WAY OUT

  Light. It lanced onto Evelyn's eyelids, searing and painful. It hurt.

  “Head...sore,” Evelyn murmured.

  “I'm sure it is,” a voice said some distance above her head. The words were sarcastic, remote and cold. Moreover, Evelyn knew precisely who it was who spoke them. Lord Brokeridge.

  She stiffened. She wanted to run, to scream, to move. However, he was here, above her. She couldn't get away. In addition, she was tired, so tired. She felt her eyelids closing heavily over her eyes. She wished she could stay awake. She wished she could sit up. She wished...

  “You seem a better guest, when you are thus,” the voice continued lightly. He walked across the floor, for Evelyn could hear his boots on the stone. The sound made her head ache and her stomach clench. “It should not be necessary to incapacitate my guests to stop them spying.”

  “Not...spying,” Evelyn said as forcefully as she could. Her voice came out a faint whisper. Why am I so tired? Evelyn had never felt so drained and exhausted all her life.

  “I don't know what you call it,” he said lightly. “But that is the word I use. Prying about in my house, searching in rooms I have had closed. Asking difficult questions and making notes.”

  “Notes...” Evelyn tensed. He had her notes?

  “Yes,” he drawled. “Don't think I didn't know about that. Who do you think had them all this time? At first I was quite touched – you taking an interest in my family history. I never thought your idle chatter could actually lead you somewhere. Then I saw her.”

  “Her..?” Evelyn asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.

  “Yes. That wretched woman who was my wife's attendant. Whatever her name was – I forget. When I saw her, then I knew. I knew you knew too much. I should have had her silenced years ago,” he added smoothly.

  “What have you done...to Rebecca?” Evelyn hissed, horrified. He would not have killed her, would he? If he had, she would be responsible...she shuddered.

  “She is in much the same state as you, or so I have hard,” Richard Brokeridge said smoothly. “Held up in the cellar, awaiting transportation to the Barbary Coast.”

  “What?” Evelyn hissed.

  “Yes, it seemed somehow...appropriate. If she did not wish to be a servant, then she can be a slave. I've heard there is a lucrative trade.”

  Evelyn felt her whole body stiffen. The man would sell Rebecca as a slave. Because she might know something about his wife's death? She didn't even know that Lady Brokeridge had been murdered! She suspected, but nothing more.

  “...wrong,” she murmured feverishly. Her body felt like it was burning now, the lethargy gone. She felt her heart thumping as it had before, the slow, exaggerated thump. The monsters that lurked on the edge of her vision seemed to gather and grow strength. She whimpered.

  “You are seeing things?” Lord Brokeridge asked comfortably. “She did too,” he added. “The doctor was...most concerned about her mental state. It made it so much more believable when she finally took her own life.”

  “...didn't...kill herself,” Evelyn whispered. She felt him tense beside her and she stiffened, as if warding off a slap.

  “I thought you might have reached that conclusion,” he said evenly. “Why do you think you are here?”

  “...Fainted...” Evelyn whispered, though she knew that was not what he meant.

  “Fainted!” he chuckled. “Not without some help. You didn't really think I'd let you expose my story to the
world, did you?”

  Evelyn blinked. “You...admit it?”

  “Well, it's a change to be able to tell someone,” Richard purred. “I've kept it to myself for far too long. And where you're going, you won't be able to tell anyone the truth, so why hold back?”

  Evelyn shivered. “...Not going anywhere,” she said defiantly. Speaking was a huge effort. Why can't I think straight? she thought desperately. For that matter, why am I so drowsy? Why am I seeing things? As if strengthened by her acknowledgment, things on the edge of her vision grew in stature and menace, pressing close. Evelyn whimpered as her nightmares took form.

  “Yes you are going somewhere,” Richard said evenly. “You will be found in the attic, having done great damage to my property and to your own person, fainted away. The doctor will declare you insane, and you will live out the last days of your life in seclusion somewhere in Ireland, unable to do any harm.”

  Evelyn shuddered. “No...” she whimpered. At that point, she would rather be dead. And what if she really was going mad? What had happened to her?

  “Adam will see to it that your symptoms match whatever the doctor will believe,” Richard said evenly.

  Adam..? Evelyn thought back to the conversations she had over the last few days. Memory teased at her, a flicker of candlelight in the darkness. The knowledge flared into her brain like a lamp. “...Tea...” she whispered.

  He had put something in her tea. Some herb that made her drowsy, that made her hallucinate. Some herb that made her too tired to go anywhere or do anything. That made her feel afraid. Exactly what he had been giving Lady Brokeridge to convince people she was mad.

  “Oh, yes,” he beamed. “You do catch on. I did slip some of a mixture I had from Adam in your tea, just as I did with the countess. No one ever guessed she was entirely sane. The tales of her malaise made her death so much...easier to understand.”

  Evelyn could not believe what she was hearing. “...Why?” she whispered. “...murder...”

  “Why?” he laughed. “My dear lady! Have you any idea how much this place cost to build? To maintain? Lady Brokeridge was the heiress to a fortune that could equip an army! And that money went to me.”

  “You did this for money?” Evelyn whispered. What was happening to her was barbaric. The thought that Lady Brokeridge had lived like this for months, unable to move around or think straight, unable to live a normal life, was horrible. It would have been kinder simply to kill.

  “Why not?” Lord Brokeridge asked. “I suspect my ancestors did so before. How else do you think the Brokeridges of Norwich made their vast, vaunted treasury?”

  Evelyn whimpered. It was monstrous. She had met Barrett and fallen for him, and found herself drawn into a world of nightmare. “That is...evil!” she whispered.

  “Is it?” Lord Brokeridge smiled. “Oh, my. I am a committee of multiple sins, am I not?”

  “Multiple?”

  “Theft, deception, murder. Fornication, too, now that you mention it. Adultery.”

  Evelyn stared. “Adultery..?”

  “Oh yes!” he said smoothly. “You don't think your precious Barrett is the only issuance of my body, do you?” he laughed. “Though for the line to continue and his inheritance to be uncontested, he has to be. Legally-speaking, of course. I had always meant to find the other one, but he disappeared before he could be eliminated, so to speak.”

  The other one? Eliminated...? Evelyn's head was whirling. The effects of the drug, whatever it was, seemed to be lessening, for which she was grateful. She managed to roll onto her side and half-sit. “You are...monstrous!”

  “Oh, no,” Lord Brokeridge sighed. “I am not. At least, I haven't been. But you tempt me to be so, by being so tediously awake.”

  He drew his shoe back and kicked her hard. Evelyn gasped. The pain was blinding. Her vision exploded into stars. As she passed out again, this time from the stunning impact, she thought she heard him say something. There was a noise behind her, like a cannon firing.

  Then she was lost in the darkness once again, this time mercifully free of nightmare shapes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  QUESTIONS ANSWERED

  QUESTIONS ANSWERED

  Light. It filtered gently onto Evelyn's eyelids, making her stir and waken. She groaned. Her head hurt. Her body hurt. Each part of her hurt. She stretched to her feet and felt smooth sheets below her. She wanted to open her eyes, but they would not obey her. Besides, her head hurt too much to allow for it. She listened. She could hear the crackling of a fire, somewhere someone dropping a piece of cutlery. She could hear a bird singing in the tree outside.

  She breathed in. She smelled lavender. It was a scent she recognized. “...Mother?”

  Evelyn could not believe her senses. She could almost disbelieve her ears when she heard a gentle voice beside her answer:

  “Yes?”

  “Mother!”

  A hand reached out and took hers, cool and gentle, the skin soft and tender. She did not want to believe her sense of touch, either.

  “Darling,” the voice said gently.

  Cautiously, fearing the return of pain and what she might see, Evelyn opened her eyes.

  She was in a pale-lit room, the light filtered and green through half-drawn curtains, the sheets cool beneath her body. Beside her bed, a red-haired woman with a thin pale face and wide gray eyes sat, looking haunted. Her mother.

  “Mother,” Evelyn repeated. She moved her hand to squeeze the fingers that held her wrist. They squeezed back, gently so as not to wound. “How..?”

  “I received your note,” Ada explained gently. “I am so glad. We could have been too late...” she shuddered.

  “You came!” Evelyn said, realizing that it really was true. Her mother was here, wherever here was. She was alive. “How did this happen?”

  Her mother sighed. A small frown crossed her brow and her eyes were sad. Lady Donnelly hated upset of any kind, Evelyn knew. She wished she did not have to ask her, but she had to hear the truth of what had happened.

  “I arrived at Brokeridge Manor at around five o' clock in the evening,” Ada explained. Her voice still trembled as she recalled the day. “I was told you were not there. I was not sure I believed that – I had seen the Clarence in the drive, just down from the stables, so I knew that you and Lord Barrett were likely still at home. I took tea and waited until I met a maidservant.”

  “Sutton?” Evelyn asked.

  “Yes,” her mother continued. “She had a conflicting story. She said you were here, that you had had tea with the Master and had not returned to your room. She said she heard you were taken ill and the doctor had confined you in case of infection.”

  “Clever,” Evelyn murmured. If nothing else, she had to admire the man.

  “Well, you might say that,” her mother sniffed dryly. “I think it is wicked. I questioned the maid more carefully, and she said you had been out of the house for most of the day, and before that you had seemed strange.”

  “Really?” Evelyn murmured.

  “Yes. She said you had confined yourself to your rooms more and more, feeling ill. She said the mistress had gone like that before she died. That was what made me determined to see you.”

  “You thought I would die?” Evelyn asked, touched. She still felt weak, and having her mother here, who loved her so clearly, was reassuring.

  “I thought there was something odd happening,” Ada confirmed. “I have never heard of a malaise that is passed on simply by being in line to become mistress of a household,” she sniffed. “I had to find out what was really happening. And I had seen Alexandra in the town. She was distressed.”

  “She was?”

  Ada inclined her head. “She said the Brokeridges would do you harm. I asked her why she thought that, and she said Lord Tallinn said so. I thought then that there was some truth in the tale. Lord Tallinn is not known for his wild imagination.”

  Evelyn chuckled, but it hurt her head, so she stopped. “What happened?” sh
e asked.

  “I insisted on seeing Lord Brokeridge. His son came down to see me instead. He was, to give him his credit, absolutely distressed. He said you were missing and he could not find you. Then I knew something was wrong.”

  Her voice was stiff with anger and Evelyn felt her heart swell. Her mother was such a quiet, gentle person. She would never have imagined she would be so fierce and angry in her defense! “What happened?”

  “I demanded to be taken to Lord Brokeridge. No one seemed to know where he was. I questioned the butler, the maidservants, and the steward. They all gave different answers, but in the end, their stories led me upstairs to the attic. It was then that I heard a sound like a cry of pain. I beat against the door until it opened.”

  Evelyn stared at her mother. “You did?” She remembered the thunderous noise just before she sank into unconsciousness. Had that been her gentle, quiet mother?

  She laughed. “Mother,” she said simply. “Thank you. You are remarkable to have saved my life.”

  “No,” her mother countered. “You are remarkable. You traced down a murderer across the fifteen years that have lapsed since the crime. Not many would have been so brave. Or had the wit to trace a story back when it was so well-concealed.”

  “Well, besides you,” Evelyn grinned.

  They shared a smile. The two women sat in silence for a while after that, while Ada stroked Evelyn's hand and Evelyn tried desperately to think and to make sense of everything she had heard.

  At that moment, there was a knock on the door. The doctor appeared. Evelyn suddenly remembered something. “Rebecca...” she murmured. Ada and the doctor looked at each other, frowns on their faces.

  “Look in the cellar,” Evelyn whispered. “Look for a woman. I know there is someone hidden there.”

  Ada turned to the doctor, who nodded. “Have the cellar searched,” she said curtly. Evelyn had never heard her mother use such a commanding tone. The gentle Ada Donnelly clearly had a core of steel Evelyn had only just discovered.