An Heir of Uncertainty

by Everett, Alyssa

  “Why, look,” Colonel Vaughan said, peering over her shoulder. “Isn’t that Mr. Niven?”

  She suspected the colonel had spoken mostly to keep her from coming to blows with Sir John, but she looked behind her and, sure enough, there among the pedestrians was dapper, self-important Mr. Niven, perusing the goods in the haberdasher’s window. “I wonder what he’s doing in Malton?”

  “Probably catching the mail coach to York,” the colonel said. “I had a note from him last night informing me business there requires his return.”

  “I believe I’ll have a word with him before he leaves,” Sir John said. “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am.” He didn’t even bother bowing to her before he walked away.

  Frowning, Colonel Vaughan watched him go. “I can’t say I care for his manners.”

  “What manners?”

  The colonel laughed, giving her another glimpse of that bad-boy twinkle, and the heaviness that had settled over her upon seeing Sir John lifted immeasurably.

  “Ah, here’s the rest of our party,” she said. After Cassie had spotted Mr. Frederick Vaughan and his little niece watching a trained dog perform its tricks, Lina had left her to enjoy the entertainment with them. Apparently the show had ended, for an entire crowd of onlookers was coming toward them at once, Cassie and the colonel’s brother and daughter among them.

  Lina immediately regretted saying our party, as if she and Colonel Vaughan had come to Malton together, but he didn’t seem to have noticed.

  His little girl caught sight of them and came racing forward to join her father, all excitement. “Papa, you should have seen! His name was Smoky, and he walked on his back legs and even jumped through a hoop!”

  Colonel Vaughan grinned at his daughter’s exuberance and set a fond hand on her head. “Did he indeed?”

  At the affection evident between them, Lina’s heart did an unexpected flip-flop. It appeared her first impression of him had been wrong, and he was a doting father after all. Why did that make her want to get him alone and press every inch of herself against him? It had to be her condition. Apparently, something about pregnancy was making her think like a wanton.

  His little girl’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, and Uncle Freddie said it was as good as Astley’s circus, and almost as good as a racing pigeon.” She held a length of blue ribbon aloft for him to see. “But the bow came out of my hair.”

  “Again?” He took it from her with a look of chagrin. “We’ll attend to it later.”

  He was about to slip the ribbon in his pocket, but Lina said, “Do you mind if I try my hand at tying back her hair?”

  “By all means.” He passed her the ribbon. “I’m all thumbs at that sort of thing, and Freddie is even worse.”

  “I really couldn’t care less about hair ribbons,” Mr. Vaughan said in his curiously monotone way, sidestepping to allow a pedestrian by. “It’s not as if I wear them myself.”

  “I expect I’ve had more practice than either of you. I used to do Cassandra’s hair, and our sister Fiona’s when she was alive.”

  Miss Vaughan came to stand before her. As certain as Lina was that she would give birth to a boy, it was most agreeable to have a little girl to fuss over, if only for a minute or two. She twisted the front sections of Miss Vaughan’s soft hair into rolls and brought them together in back, deftly wrapping the ribbon around them and tying it into a snug bow. She stepped back to survey her handiwork. “There, that should hold for a while. Thank you for keeping so still.”

  The little girl curtsied. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “My lady,” her father corrected her.

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  Lina smiled, and Cassie looked her way with evident admiration. “Lina is very good with hair, and with little girls.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” the colonel said thoughtfully. “‘Lina’? That’s a rather unusual name.”

  “It’s short for Evalina.” Explaining it always made her self-conscious. Her mother had taken the name from Mrs. Burney’s famous novel, purely because she’d liked the sound of it—never mind that the Evalina of the story had been a fatherless girl, unacknowledged by the libertine who’d sired her. Sometimes Lina felt her mother might just as well have named her Infamous Parentage.

  But Colonel Vaughan answered with no trace of irony, “Very pretty, and certainly far superior to my own given name. I was christened after my mother’s family. I can’t imagine anything more pompous-sounding than Winstead.”

  “It sounds terribly grown-up to me,” Cassandra said.

  Lina examined him critically. “It rather suits you.”

  A playful smile tugged at the colonel’s lips. “I won’t ask whether that means I strike you as pompous or just terribly grown-up.”

  The noise of carriage traffic grew louder, and Lina glanced up the high street. A towering black-and-maroon coach was speeding their way, pulled by a galloping team of six horses. Her mood lifted still further. “Here comes the Royal Mail.” The mail coach meant Mr. Niven would be leaving, and she didn’t mind seeing him go.

  “Keep back,” Colonel Vaughan said to his little girl, stretching out a protective arm to prevent her from stepping into the street as the coach and team grew closer. “Nothing moves faster than the Mail.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Lina agreed over the escalating thunder of the horses’ hooves. “The Mail doesn’t even stop for—”

  She never finished her sentence, for someone in the press of people crowding the pavement bumped up against her from behind, and before she had time to cry out, determined hands seized her and shoved her hard into the path of the speeding coach.

  * * *

  Win was never sure how it happened. One second he was standing on the pavement with the countess on one side of him and Julia on the other, and the next second Lady Radbourne plunged forward, falling headlong from the pavement to sprawl on hands and knees directly in front of the mail coach, the racing horses only a second away from trampling her.

  Win didn’t think. He just acted.

  Four years of fighting in Spain took over, and in one reflex motion he leaped off the curb, seized the countess about the waist and tossed her clear of the plunging horses.

  He had almost enough time to jump clear of them himself.

  Almost.

  But not quite.

  Chapter Seven

  Rich the treasure,

  Sweet the pleasure;

  Sweet is pleasure after pain.

  —John Dryden

  “How serious is it?” Stripped to the waist, trying to keep his breathing steady despite the pain, Win steeled himself for the bad news. “Will it have to come off?”

  “Your arm?” Dr. Strickland’s long fingers kneaded an area halfway between Win’s elbow and his left shoulder, where his arm had taken on a disturbing new angle. They were in the study, the young doctor perched on a wooden stool he’d pulled up beside Win’s leather wingchair. “No, nothing so serious as that. Your humerus is broken, that’s clear enough, and the bone displaced, but it’s not a compound fracture. I’ll set it, and with a little luck and a few weeks in a sling, your arm should be as good as new.”

  Win blew out his breath in relief and let his head fall back against the leather upholstery. He’d seen enough men go under the saw on the Peninsula to know how an amputation could end. Besides, he’d possessed two arms for the past thirty-one years, and he preferred to keep it that way.

  “From what Lady Radbourne tells me, you were quite fortunate,” Dr. Strickland said, opening his medical bag. “As well as heroic.”

  “There was nothing heroic about it. I simply didn’t have time to think better of what I was doing.”

  The doctor broke into a wry smile. “Isn’t there an old saying about fools rushing in?”

  “Exactly.” Win lifte
d his head, wincing as the doctor straightened his broken arm along the armrest to stabilize it. The pain was sharp and constant, making it hard to sit still, and it only worsened with movement. “You’re certain she’s all right? In all the commotion, I had little chance to—”

  “Yes, quite certain.”

  Thank God. On the drive home from Malton, Win had insisted that Lady Radbourne and her sister share his carriage, and the countess had assured him she was well—but Julia was with them, and both his daughter and Miss Douglass were crying, and Win’s arm hurt like the very devil. In all the tumult, it had been difficult to tell whether her pallor meant she was merely shaken, or whether she too had been injured.

  “In her case, at such at early stage in her condition, the incident amounted to nothing more than a stumble,” Dr. Strickland continued. “She’s lucky you were there, though it was most unlucky for both of you that some oaf chose that precise moment to bump into her.”

  Win looked up sharply. “Someone bumped into her? That’s what she told you?”

  “No, I heard it from Mr. Channing. Isn’t that what happened?”

  “I didn’t see,” Win said, though he had his doubts. Lady Radbourne hadn’t merely tripped or lost her balance, she’d gone plunging forward into the road as if shoved. But Mr. Channing had hurried to the scene in his capacity as magistrate, and he’d questioned Lady Radbourne while Win was busy comforting Julia, so perhaps the doctor was better informed.

  It was the first time Win had set eyes on Dr. Strickland, and he tried not to be too obvious about inspecting him. Certainly he could find nothing objectionable in the doctor’s appearance. Strickland was handsome enough in a chiseled, blue-eyed kind of way. He looked to be in his late twenties, though he wore the conservative clothing of an older man.

  Win hoped there was no truth to the rumors about the doctor and Lady Radbourne, and for reasons that had little to do with the difficulty the countess would have explaining herself if her baby arrived with auburn hair.

  Glancing up from his examination of Win’s arm, Dr. Strickland caught him staring. “I’ve seen that look before, Colonel. I hope you haven’t been listening to gossip.”

  Win took care to keep his reply neutral, as if the frown he’d been wearing had more to do with the grinding pain in his arm. “I haven’t been here long enough for that.”

  “Good, because I’ve no designs whatsoever on Lady Radbourne. Any late-night calls I’ve made have been strictly to attend Miss Douglass. She has a condition called asthma, an episodic paroxysm of the lungs.”

  If Strickland really was Lady Radbourne’s lover, Win scarcely expected the man to confess it—especially not to him, the potentially dispossessed heir. Then again, it was to the doctor’s credit that he’d chosen to address the rumor head-on. “Lady Radbourne made mention of her sister’s lung condition.”

  “Admittedly, of late I’ve also been keeping a professional eye on the countess, at Miss Douglass’s request,” the doctor said after a moment’s hesitation. “Her husband’s death came as quite a shock.”

  “I’d be surprised if it hadn’t.” Though the night Harriet died remained etched indelibly in Win’s mind, he could scarcely remember the year that had followed. He’d blocked it out, or been so caught up in his own troubles that the succeeding days and months had simply washed over him, as featureless and ineluctable as the tide. “I met the late earl’s guardian today. I’ve been wondering why Sir John opposed his nephew’s marriage to Lady Radbourne.”

  “I expect his objections were partly due to the lady’s lack of fortune, and partly due to her family background.” The doctor took two wooden splints and a length of linen bandage from his medical bag. “Lady Radbourne’s grandfather was the Dean of Dalchester and a favorite to become the next bishop, at least until his daughter ran away with a married man.”

  The Dean of Dalchester? Win had pictured Lady Radbourne’s mother as a London actress or an opera dancer, not the daughter of a respected Yorkshire clergyman.

  “The scandal ruined his career,” Dr. Strickland continued, “and he died soon after. Not surprisingly, public opinion blamed his daughter for his broken health. As if that weren’t bad enough, the scoundrel who’d seduced her, Lord Horne’s younger son, went back to his wife and refused to recognize the child.”

  Win was about to say that he couldn’t fathom failing to recognize one’s own child, but he realized just in time that if the gossip about Dr. Strickland and the countess really should be true, their arrangement would require the doctor to do precisely that. “Lady Radbourne was denied by her own father? That must have been painful for her.”

  “I’m sure it was—not that one would know it to look at her. There are some very close-minded people in this corner of the world, but she’s always held her head high.”

  Win recalled the way she’d charged out of nowhere to confront him about scolding Julia, and the coolness with which she’d told Sir John Blessingame I am in mourning. Yes, he could believe she wasn’t one to cower under public opinion.

  “After her grandfather’s death, Lady Radbourne’s grandmother took her in.” Dr. Strickland set one hand on either side of the break in Win’s arm. “Her unfortunate mother was in and out of her life, at least until the grandmother died. After that they were forced to remove to lodgings that were barely respectable, and her mother’s indiscretions only added to the upheaval in the children’s lives, with another baby coming along every two or three years.” He glanced up at Win’s face. “Brace yourself, Colonel.”

  Win tensed, his toes clenching in his boots. With a grimace of concentration, the doctor pulled both sides of the broken bone in opposite directions. Win sucked in his breath through gritted teeth as a searing stroke of pain knifed through his arm.

  “Very good,” Dr. Strickland approved, apparently referring to his realignment of the broken bone rather than Win’s imperfect attempt at stoicism. “Hold still.” He reached for the splints and positioned them on either side of Win’s arm. “As I was saying, after the grandmother’s death, Lady Radbourne and her siblings were dependent on the generosity of their mother’s protectors. More often than not, they had no notion where their next meal was coming from. It was only through the influence of first their grandmother and then the young earl that Lady Radbourne and Miss Douglass were received anywhere at all.”

  Shabby genteel, Sir John Blessingame had called the countess, but Win couldn’t help wondering how anyone who had lived through such a chaotic childhood could carry herself with so much dignity. “You seem to know a good deal about them.”

  The doctor colored slightly as he wound the linen bandage around Win’s arm, securing the splints in place. “One tends to hear gossip, watching beside a sickbed.” He tied the ends of the bandage in place. “I daresay the late Lord Radbourne could’ve made a far more advantageous match, but he and Lady Radbourne were devoted to each other—though I sometimes wondered if he simply enjoyed having a wife who was willing to do all his thinking for him. Fortunately she was accustomed to looking after her younger brothers and sisters, and never seemed to mind looking after her husband as well.”

  Win cocked an eyebrow. “You make him sound like a child.”

  “Oh, no, not so bad as that,” Dr. Strickland said lightly. “He was personable enough, just young and callow. He spent a good many evenings drinking at the local tavern, and had an impish sense of humor. Whenever I hear the word puckish, I can’t help but picture his face.” The doctor’s mouth assumed a wry curve. “It never occurred to me before, but I suppose Lady Radbourne’s condition is his final joke on the world. To die in such an abrupt fashion, yet leave his widow newly with child? Now everyone must wait months, not knowing if the baby will be a boy or a girl, the next Earl of Radbourne or simply a temporary inconvenience to you, Colonel Vaughan. If the late earl is watching from on high, I imagine he must find it all rather amusing.�
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  Though Win liked to think he had a healthy sense of humor, he didn’t find the joke very funny. He doubted Lady Radbourne did, either.

  “Well, the bone is set.” Dr. Strickland stood. “You’ll need to keep that arm in a sling and as immobilized as possible, both to minimize the swelling and to ensure the bone knits properly. I’ll be back in a week to check on your progress, though be sure to send for me if your arm becomes inflamed or if you should develop a fever.”

  Rising, Win retrieved his shirt. He pulled it over his head carefully, so as not to disturb the splint, and tucked the ends in his pantaloons. “I will.”

  “I’ll leave a bottle of laudanum for you. You’ve taken it before, I assume?”

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t.” Win’s father had been of the “pain builds character” school of thought, and after Nivelle, laudanum had been in such scarce supply that Win had gone without, despite his bayonet wound.

  The doctor waited for Win to finish buttoning his waistcoat, then handed him the bottle. “Take twenty drops in a little wine if the pain keeps you from sleeping.”

  Win tucked the bottle in his pocket and saw the doctor out. Then he went looking for Mrs. Phelps, to ask for some cloth he could fashion into a sling.

  “Shall I have dinner sent up to your room this evening, sir?” the housekeeper asked as she took a length of linen from a chest tucked against the stairs. “Mr. Frederick said to tell you he was going to the old dovecote and would be dining late.”

  “Isn’t he with my daughter?”

  “No, sir.” Mrs. Phelps folded the cloth into a triangle and tied the ends together for him. “Miss Julia was most upset about your accident, and Mr. Frederick himself was little better. Lady Radbourne offered to look after her while the doctor was attending you.”

  Win took the sling from her and slipped it over his head. “They’re at the dower house?”

  “Yes, sir. Lady Radbourne borrowed a footman to walk them there and back, and said she would have Miss Julia home in time for bed.”