Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Elizabeth Rolls

  She couldn’t imagine Will Barclay saying anything of the sort whether he could be overheard or not. She doubted he was a bottom pincher either. Glancing over, she saw that he’d pulled out a book and was reading. She registered his reading glasses with a jolt. A stray lock of brown hair fell over his brow and she caught herself wondering if he had someone to smooth it back. As if he felt her scrutiny, he looked up and their eyes met. She wanted to look away, but something in his gaze held her trapped. And then he smiled below those ridiculously attractive reading glasses. Not a lascivious smile, nor a seductive smile accompanied by a suggestive wink and a smacking of lips. A friendly smile that crinkled his eyes and invited her to smile right back.

  Her wrist turning the handle slowed and her breath shortened as an odd fizzing sensation invaded her belly. Annoyed with herself, she jerked her attention back to what she was doing. The handle was turning without resistance which meant all the coffee and sugar had gone through. She tipped them into a pot, added cardamom pods and a cinnamon quill, poured water on them and set the pot on the stove to brew beside one that was nearly ready. Swiftly she set up the trays and beckoned to Sally.

  Sally cleared a table, nodded to the occupants and swirled up to the counter. ‘Who’s the new boy, then? Got an eye for you, he has.’

  ‘Nonsense. Of course he hasn’t.’ Curse it! Her cheeks were heating. ‘He’s Lord Huntercombe’s secretary. He brought a message.’ If she was going to stretch the truth a little...

  ‘Now Lord Huntercombe’s a nice one.’ Sally tucked a stray curl behind her ear. ‘Always got a kind word for a body, nor he don’t pinch no bums neither.’ She heaved a gusty sigh. ‘More’s the pity.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Sally!’ Smothering a laugh, Psyché snatched the first pot off the heat and poured it into the waiting cups. ‘Lord Huntercombe must be fifty!’

  Sally gave a low chuckle. ‘He’s still a handsome one. And he’s only married a couple of months back, you said. Saw him with his lady when he called on Mr Selbourne. I’ll wager he pinches her bum.’

  ‘You just said he wouldn’t do that.’ Psyché added a small jug of hot milk to the tray for Mr Wilkes and Mr Barnes.

  ‘His own lady’s bum.’ Sally took up the tray. ‘Watch me get tuppence out of this. You taking the new boy’s tray over?’

  ‘Yes.’ Psyché made that decision on the spot. Really, if she’d had any doubts about Will Barclay, knowing he was Huntercombe’s secretary ought to have settled them. It was a wonder she hadn’t met him before.

  ‘Thought you might.’ Sally grinned knowingly and strolled off, hips swaying in good-humoured invitation.

  Psyché stared after her. Sally couldn’t have known what she’d only just decided.

  Got an eye for you, he has...

  Whether he did or not, she should take his tray over personally. When challenged, he hadn’t backed away. He’d deliberately acknowledged a mistake and refused to smooth it over with a polite lie. Very like Lord Huntercombe, in fact. She set cream and hot milk on the tray, not knowing which he liked. How odd that she hadn’t asked. That was what came of allowing herself to be distracted by a customer. With a muttered curse, she added a small custard tart. The fragrance rose as the coffee frothed up the pot and she took it off and set it on the tray.

  Lifting the tray, she began to weave a path through the tables, exchanging quick greetings as she went.

  ‘I say, Miss Psyché! Did you say that was Huntercombe’s secretary? Has Selbourne got something special for his lordship?’

  Mr Phelps, seated near the counter, also collected books, although not on the scale of Lord Huntercombe. Psyché sidled around his question. ‘I couldn’t say, sir.’

  She’d known Huntercombe for years, meeting him often as a child in her great-uncle’s house. He and his first wife had been among the few to engage her in ordinary, sensible conversation when she and Hetty were brought down to the drawing room by their governess after dinner. She was more than happy to keep his secrets, along with those of Ignatius Selbourne.

  Mr Barclay looked up from his book as she approached and his friendly, disarming smile set off warning bells and more of that wretched fizzing.

  ‘Your coffee, sir.’

  He drew an appreciative breath as she set the pot before him and his smile deepened. ‘That smells excellent.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ She couldn’t help smiling back. ‘I didn’t know if you preferred cream or milk.’

  ‘Neither,’ he said. ‘Am I forgiven? You didn’t really say.’

  She gave a rueful smile. ‘I think I owe you an apology.’

  His gaze narrowed. ‘We might have to agree to disagree on that. Huntercombe would have cuffed me around the ears, metaphorically speaking, for being a clumsy lout. However, I’ll admit to curiosity. How does any young woman come to be running a coffee house?’

  ‘By having a great-uncle who is friendly with Lord Huntercombe.’

  ‘I see.’

  He didn’t ask who her great-uncle might be. She had to give him credit for that when the question had to be burning a hole in the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Viscount Staverton.’

  His jaw dropped, for which she really couldn’t blame him.

  Slowly he said, ‘Then...you’re Staverton’s Folly.’

  Psyché inclined her head. ‘I see you know the story, Mr Barclay. The pot for Mr Selbourne will be ready when you are.’

  She walked away. Thirteen years ago, London had buzzed with the scandal of Viscount Staverton’s perverse attitude towards the mulatta child the Polite World had unanimously dubbed Staverton’s Folly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  London—July 1791

  The noisy, smelly inn stood close to the docks. Most of the luggage and Nyx had gone somewhere else, but the sailors had refused to carry the father any further. The innkeeper had been willing enough to take the money offered, but put them in this tiny, dark room, well away from other customers.

  ‘God only knows what he’s got! Is the darkie wench with him?’

  The sailors had said she was, a servant of some sort.

  ‘Right. Saves one of my servants having to look after him.’

  Psyché didn’t argue about being a servant. It didn’t matter. The father was sick and someone had to look after him. He’d started with stomach pains and vomiting a few days before they’d sighted the English coast. Even so, he’d insisted on coming up from the cabin to see and had pointed out landmarks to her.

  ‘That’s the Cornish coast... There’s the Lizard...’

  She thought he pointed things out more to taste the names on his tongue than to inform her, but she listened, shivering in the bitter wind that hurled the ship through the leaping waves, striving to learn about this strange new land. Green, she could see how green it was, but it was a different green to Jamaica, and instead of the blue skies she was used to, it was all grey and dull, and there was rain, more cold grey rain, sweeping towards them.

  ‘Better get below. You’ll need warmer clothes when we reach London.’

  Cold wind and rain had lashed them all the way up what the father called the Channel. She remembered from her lessons that while England lay to port, France lay to starboard. The French called this stretch of water La Manche. And as the ship beat its way up the Channel against the wind, the father became sicker and sicker, until he could no longer leave the cabin, could barely stand to void himself in the bucket, or vomit.

  Psyché emptied the buckets, walking Nyx on the deck at the same time. She brought food the father couldn’t keep down and held his hand when he cried out against the agony tearing him apart.

  In a rare moment of lucidity he ordered her to write a letter for him to his uncle. Gave her an address to send it to.

  ‘Uncle Theo. He’s a viscount. Send it as soon as we reach London. He’ll find a place for you if I can’
t. Tell him...’

  But the pain seized him again before he could tell her what to write. But she had the address. So she wrote what she thought was right and then signed the letter with the only name she had ever used: Psyché Black, because Mam had been Black Bess on the plantation records, although the father had only ever called her Bess.

  Black Bess—house slave

  Psyché Black—house slave, her daughter

  She ran into the captain when she was returning from emptying the bucket. One of the sailors had been kind, emptying it for her and tying a rope to duck it in the water and cleanse it.

  The captain stopped her. ‘How is your master?’

  She didn’t really know. ‘Bad, sir. He...he can’t keep anything down and he doesn’t know where he is.’ Or when for that matter.

  The captain frowned. ‘Do you know where he planned to go when we reach London? We’ll dock on tomorrow morning’s tide.’

  Her stomach flip-flopped. ‘I...he had me write a letter. To his uncle, a viscount. I have the address.’

  The captain looked relieved. ‘I’ll have him carried to an inn. You can send the letter from there.’

  * * *

  So here she was, still emptying buckets and holding the father’s hand while he drifted and tossed in a sea of pain, and his skin burned like a thousand suns. Jamaican suns, not the pale watery thing that passed for a sun in this England of his. She had sent the letter, asking the landlord how to do it. The landlord had glanced at the direction on the letter and his brows had shot straight up.

  ‘I’ll have one of the grooms take this at once.’

  She hoped he hadn’t stolen it, although there’d been nothing of value in it, and the landlord had sounded impressed—even intimidated. But it had been hours now. Although she didn’t know how far Highwood House in Hampstead—that was the address—might be. It might be a day’s ride. More.

  * * *

  Darkness pressed against the tiny window and she was nearly asleep in her chair when she heard voices and footsteps in the corridor.

  ‘He’s in here, my lord. Had to keep him away from the other guests, you understand.’ The landlord sounded oily, not at all like when he spoke to her. ‘There’s no telling what might be ailing him.’

  ‘Of course, my good man. Here. Something for your trouble.’

  She straightened in the hard wooden chair. Patted the father’s hand.

  He roused. ‘Bess?’

  ‘It’s Psyché. Your uncle is here.’

  Awareness crept into the fever-bright eyes. ‘Thank God!’

  * * *

  The door opened and two men walked in. Psyché gasped. The second, the younger of the two, looked like the father. He had the same golden hair, the same features and tawny eyes.

  His gaze fell on her. ‘Who the hell are you? Get away from him, wench!’

  The father struggled to sit up, gripping her hand. ‘No. Leave her, Lucius. She’s...mine.’

  Lucius—this man who could be the father’s double was his brother, then. He’d told her a little on the voyage before he fell ill.

  Lucius gave a short laugh. ‘The hell she is, Jack. Not now you’ve been fool enough to bring her here. No slavery in England.’

  No slavery? Could that be true after all?

  ‘My daughter. She’s my daughter.’

  ‘Your—’ His brother gave a bark of laughter. ‘Good God, man! You’ve come home to marry Maria Hempleworth and brought your mulatta by-blow?’

  Psyché flinched. She hadn’t heard ‘by-blow’ before, but she could guess at the meaning easily enough.

  ‘Enough, Lucius.’ The older, silver-haired man glanced at her. ‘The child is right there.’

  Lucius shrugged that off. ‘What of it? It’s what she is and she probably doesn’t understand one word in ten anyway.’

  ‘I speak French, too,’ she blurted out, stung.

  She quailed as he whipped around, eyes blazing, and took a step towards her. ‘Watch your tone, wench! You’re in—’

  ‘Do you, child?’ The older man was somehow between them. ‘Tu es très intelligent, petite. Quel âge as-tu?’

  ‘Merci, monseiur. J’ai onze ans. Êtes-vous Français?’

  He laughed. ‘Are you, now? No, I’m not French, child. But I know France well enough. Speaking her language well is the mark of a gentleman. Or...’ he bowed slightly ‘...a lady.’

  ‘The brat is irrelevant, Uncle!’ The younger man was scowling as he bent over the father. He glared at Psyché. ‘Where the hell is this Psyché Black?’

  Swallowing her fear, she answered. ‘I’m Psyché.’ He hadn’t liked her speaking before, but he’d asked her a direct question now.

  He snorted. ‘Rubbish! She wrote to summon us. You may speak better than the average parrot, but—’

  ‘You wrote that note, child?’

  She looked to the older man, the uncle. ‘Yes, sir—my lord.’ The father had said his uncle was a viscount. That meant he was my lord.

  He smiled. ‘Told you that, did he? Sir will do.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Uncle Theo!’

  He glanced at the younger man in mild reproof. ‘She speaks French. Her English is excellent and she writes a good, even hand. I’ll warrant you could not do as much at eleven.’

  Lucius stared. ‘How do you know she’s eleven? Did you know about this?’

  My lord winked at Psyché. ‘She told me a moment ago, Lucius. In French.’

  The younger man’s mouth and eyes hardened as colour rose on his cheeks and he stared at her. From that moment Psyché knew that Lucius Winthrop hated her.

  The father spoke. ‘Uncle—’

  ‘I’m here, lad.’ The old man bent over the bed and Psyché scrambled up to give him her place. ‘Thank you, my dear.’

  He sat down. ‘Gently now, Jack. We’ll get you home.’

  ‘Listen,’ the father got out. ‘The child—’

  ‘Jack!’ Lucius spoke sharply. ‘You can’t waste your strength worrying about some mulatta brat you sired! God knows why you brought her home, but if anyone finds out she’s your spawn—’

  ‘She’s my daughter!’ The father’s pain-racked gaze wandered, then settled on Psyché. He beckoned to her.

  She obeyed, hesitant, keeping an eye on Lucius.

  My lord took the father’s hand, patted it. ‘What would you have me do, Jack?’

  ‘I was going to find her a place. A safe place. She could be a...companion. Run errands for Aunt Grace. Will you do it?’

  He brought their hands together, placed hers in my lord’s. The old man stared down at their joined hands. She wondered what he saw. Hers was so much smaller, so much darker. She made to pull away—no white man ever touched a mulatta willingly except to punish or take his pleasure—but his fingers, cool and dry, closed strongly on hers.

  He let out a breath. ‘Very well. My word on it, Jack.’

  The father fell back, as if he had reached the uttermost end of strength. ‘Thank you, Uncle.’ He looked at Psyché. ‘You will be safe.’ He shut his eyes.

  * * *

  Jack Winthrop died three days later in his uncle’s house at Hampstead, clinging to Psyché’s small hand. His uncle sat beside her, his brother on the other side of the bed holding the father’s other hand. Tears tracked down Lucius Winthrop’s cheeks and Psyché knew he had loved the father. His wet, grieving eyes met those of his uncle. ‘He’s gone.’

  Fear choked her, but she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry...sir.’

  He stared at her. ‘Hold your insolent tongue!’ He released the father’s hand, rose and strode from the room.

  ‘He grieves, child,’ said my lord. He bent forward and closed the father’s sightless eyes. ‘Be at peace, lad,’ he murmured. Then, to her amazement, he lifted Psyché into his lap. ‘There. We’ll sit f
or a little. Keep him company.’

  So she sat, exhausted with the endless fear devouring her. Tired to the bone, she slept cradled in his arms, her cheek resting on his shoulder.

  * * *

  She woke to fear and loneliness in a strange bed the next day and discovered herself to be in the care of the servants. Lucius had gone back to some place they called town and my lord had gone, too. They would return for the funeral. The servants had told her that.

  She had been given a room in the nursery. Much bigger than the nursery she had been used to in Jamaica, it was a whole set of rooms, with a schoolroom that held a single small desk, but she had only peeked in there. There were also several other bedrooms, including those for a maid and nurse, although they were all empty. There was also a bigger room just called the Nursery. She was very unsure of what she was supposed to be doing. The room was empty except for a couple of chairs.

  A maid sat with her after assisting her to dress. But there was nothing to do now that the father was dead. Nothing to do, nothing to read. The maid sat and mended, her needle flashing in and out as she worked. At first Psyché looked out of the window. They were very high up, both in the house and high on a hill. The world beyond the treetops fell away in rolling greens, down to where she could see buildings, misty with distance. One fascinated her—she thought it must be enormous, although all she could see was the great, rounded roof with a sort of tower on top, reaching towards the sky.

  On the second day she asked the maid, Sarah, what it was.

  Sarah looked up. ‘That’s St Paul’s in the City, child. Went right up there once on my day off and, if you know where to look, you can see this house all the way up here on the Heath.’