‘Why does everyone think they need to control my life for me? I might as well go back to Norfolk and stay there. You won’t let me choose my friends; you won’t even let me decide whom I should love. You won’t let me live,’ she said. Her lungs seized and she began to gasp for air.
The room started to spin slowly and Clarice reached out a desperate hand to steady herself. The room spun faster and faster as she clutched at thin air. Then her eyes rolled back and blackness overtook her.
Her last recollection was that of her father’s strong arms wrapped tightly around her as she sank into his embrace.
‘No . . .’
David arrived at Langham House at the stroke of one o’clock the following afternoon. If ever he were to gain an audience with Clarice’s father, he knew he had to adhere to the strict rules of society. A true gentleman would not dare to call at a private residence any earlier in the day, especially in the middle of the season.
A footman showed him to a small reception room just off the front entrance and, after taking David’s calling card, asked him to wait. Within a minute or so, the door of the room opened and David found himself in the presence of Lord Langham.
‘Lord Langham, I would —’ David said before the earl cut him off with a raised hand.
‘Young man, I will not allow you to court my daughter. You may think poorly of me, as others no doubt do, but I will protect Clarice, no matter what the cost. If you truly hold any kind of affection for my daughter, I would ask that you do the right thing by her and cease your attentions.’
He offered David back his calling card, at which David shook his head.
‘Please, I would like Clarice to have it; for her to know that I have called.’
The earl looked at him for a moment then put the card on the mantelpiece.
‘Clarice is not here to accept your card. I have sent her home to my estate in Norfolk. It was foolish of her to offer your suit any encouragement. With luck, by the time she returns to London, she will have seen the error of her ways. My daughter is not for the likes of you. Good day to you, Mr Radley.’
And with that curt dismissal, he turned on his heel and left the room. The footman quickly returned and silently ushered David out the front door.
As the door closed firmly behind him, David pulled out his pocket watch and looked at the time. He had been inside Langham House for less than five minutes, and his hopes lay in tatters.
As he put the watch back into his pocket, he was suddenly possessed by an almost overwhelming urge to climb back into his carriage, head to White’s and quickly find his way to the bottom of a whisky bottle. His driver climbed down and opened the door of his carriage.
David took two steps before he stopped and checked himself. He waved his driver away. ‘Thank you, but I feel the need to walk; I shall hail a hack if I decide otherwise,’ he said.
Henry Langham went back upstairs to his study, which overlooked the street. At the window nearest to his desk he watched as David made his way along Mill Street, crossing over at John Street. He pressed a single finger against the glass of the window, covering David’s retreating figure. When he removed his finger, David was a tiny speck in the distance. He stepped back from the window and lightly clasped his hands behind his back.
‘Now then, Mr Radley, let me see what you are truly made of, because only the tested and bloodied hero can lay claim to the greatest prize.’
He turned from the window and went back to his work.
The midsummer rain fell steadily down, soaking David’s black formal breeches and chilling his skin. If he had cared, he would have taken shelter out of the wet, but with his attention focused on the tight anger in his chest, rational thought eluded him.
A door opened and closed behind him. A scuff of boots on the stone steps preceded a familiar shape as it entered his peripheral vision.
Alex took a seat on the step next to David.
‘I could say something about you not living here any more, but from the look on your face, I think this is the best place for you,’ Alex said.
David sucked in a deep breath and looked away, his gaze focusing on a broken hinge on the stable door at the rear of the yard.
‘You should get that fixed,’ he replied, nodding toward the door.
‘Yes, of course.’
If only everything else in the world were as easy to repair as a rusted hinge.
He turned to his brother. Alex had least had the good sense to put on a coat before he came out into the rain. His blond hair was hidden beneath a top hat, giving him the look of a coachman. David scowled. He had taken his own hat off and it was sitting upturned beside him on the step, slowly gathering raindrops.
‘Joining the four-in-hand club, are we?’ he said. ‘I didn’t think your good lady wife would allow you that.’
Alex looked down at his coat and chuckled. ‘I grabbed the first thing I could find on the hook at the back door; this must belong to my new coachman.’
‘How did you know I was here?’ David asked. After leaving Langham House, he had walked. Taking what little was left of his pride, he knew he needed a very long walk. Whether by subconscious design or sheer happenstance, his meandering journey had ended at the mews at the rear of the house he had until recently shared with Alex.
‘Millie saw you from the sitting room upstairs and came to find me. I was going to wait until you knocked on the door, but since it started to rain and you didn’t move an inch I thought it better that I come and collect you,’ Alex replied.
David shifted uncomfortably on the hard stone step, noticing the rain for the first time. He frowned at the large muddy puddle that had formed at the bottom of the steps. From the size of the dirty brown mess, it had been raining for quite some time. He looked up at the grey skies and snorted. The gloomy day matched his mood perfectly.
‘She’s gone,’ he muttered.
‘Where?’ Alex replied.
‘Norfolk. Langham sent Clarice to bloody Norfolk.’
Alex landed a heavy, consoling slap to David’s thigh.
‘Well, at least it’s not Scotland. If you do decide to go after her, you will have only half the journey ahead of you that I had to make,’ he replied.
‘You conveniently seem to forget that I also made the mad dash back to London in order to save your heart after Millie rejected you, Alex, so please grant me a boon and shut up.’
No amount of sympathy or humour from his brother was going to lift him out of the dark depths in which he currently resided. It began to rain even harder, ensuring that whatever part of him had managed to avoid the previous downpour was now thoroughly soaked.
‘Can we please go inside? The way my luck is running today, I am likely to catch a cold and be dead by morn,’ David said, getting to his feet. Alex nodded and stood. David bent down and picked up his hat, tipping it over and letting the water run out.
‘A hatful of rain; could it get any worse?’ he said.
Alex turned and opened the door, ushering David inside.
‘Come on, then; I think a couple of stiff whiskies and an afternoon in our sitting room is in order. Lingering out here getting soaked to the skin won’t do you or anyone else any good,’ Alex replied.
David staggered to his bed somewhere around three the following morning. Alex and Millie had offered for him to sleep at Bird Street, but he’d insisted he had to go home. The evening spent with his brother, mulling over the earl’s rejection of his suit and the sudden disappearance of Clarice while downing several bottles of good French wine, was exactly the tonic his heart needed.
Alex, who had made such a mess of his pursuit of Millie, was the only person whom David felt truly understood his own situation. Knowing the pain Alex had gone through as he struggled to convince Millie he was serious about marrying her had brought the Radley brothers even closer together.
‘You always knew there was a risk in pursuing Clarice,’ Alex had said, as he poured them both another glass of wine.
David had taken the wine and stared at his own glum face, reflected in the glass.
‘Yes, of course; I just thought that since I now had something to offer her, Langham would relent. I can see I had allowed myself to become deluded. That for all my good intentions, I had stopped seeing the reality of the situation.’
‘Which is?’
‘He will never allow me to marry her. I have never been, nor will I ever be good enough for his daughter. Langham made his feelings clear, and just to ensure that I got the message, he sent her away.’
He swirled the glass and watched as his reflection blurred in the spinning wine.
The long evening of imbibing had taken the edge off his anger, but the humiliation still burned like acid in his mind. He had been illegitimate all his life, but today had been the first time he had truly felt he was less than a full member of the ton.
Alex sat forward in his chair. ‘So what will you do now? You are not going to admit defeat, are you?’
‘I don’t know, which only goes to prove how poorly I had thought things through. What I do know is that I need to go home, get some sleep and pray that today was all a bad dream. Hopefully tomorrow I shall wake and none of this will have happened.’
He downed a large mouthful of the wine, and put the glass down. Getting to his feet, he suddenly felt the effect of the alcohol as a rush to the head. He swayed.
Alex offered a helping hand, but it was refused.
‘Thank you, but as I am still capable of speech, I should be able to find my way out of this room without assistance.’
He stopped. ‘The fact that you and I are sitting in this very room, as we did when your own life was such a mess, has not escaped me. My only regret is that you have had to return the favour.’
Alex shook his head. ‘It’s so bloody unfair.’ He threw an arm around David’s shoulder. ‘Don’t give up hope yet, dear brother; we Radleys have a knack of prevailing.’
David squinted as he struggled to focus his gaze on Alex’s face.
‘You won because you played by the rules, but since I am not considered by all to be a full member of the Radley family, I think it’s time I changed tack. If I’m not good enough to be part of the team, then I shall just have to play outside of the rules. Bastard is as bastard does.’
‘David, promise me one thing,’ Alex replied.
‘What?’
‘You won’t go running off after Clarice tonight. I don’t want to have to come and haul you out of a ditch somewhere on the Great North Road.’
David buttoned up his jacket and managed his first real smile of the evening.
‘Don’t worry, brother, I shall return these borrowed clothes of yours in good order; I know your dear wife chose them. And no, I won’t be giving anyone the satisfaction of knowing I rode off into the night while drunk and broke my bloody neck because Langham won’t play fair.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Langham family coach pulled out of the coach inn at Fakenham, Norfolk a few days later. The carriage jerked as the fresh horses took up the slack, causing Clarice to stir from her sleep.
‘Where are we?’
‘Fakenham, my dear,’ Lady Alice replied from the seat opposite. She reached into the cloth bag next to her and pulled out a small bread roll, offering it to Clarice.
Clarice turned her head away. ‘Thank you, but no. The movement of the coach has left my stomach unsettled. Food is the last thing I need.’
Lady Alice put the roll back into the bag. ‘You need to eat something, Clarice. We have been on the road since Monday and apart from a piece of dry bread at supper last night you have not eaten anything. It cannot be good for your health. Would you at least try to have some barley water? You don’t want to faint again.’
She offered a flask to Clarice, who waved it away before pulling her blanket up around her shoulders. ‘Perhaps in a little while. In the meantime I think I shall just try to sleep.’
Lady Alice picked up her embroidery and continued to work on the piece she had started not long after they set out from London.
‘You do know your father is not doing this to punish you? He said so himself.’
Clarice closed her eyes and swallowed. If exile was not punishment then what was? And how could her father possibly think she would thank him for sending her away?
‘He thinks I am not right in my mind,’ she replied sadly.
After she’d fainted in the sitting room, her father had carried her to her bedroom and sat with her until she regained consciousness. Tears and pleading had got her nowhere. Her dizzy spell had only further confirmed his decision to send her away.
Lady Alice leaned across and put a hand on Clarice’s knee. ‘He is only concerned for your wellbeing. You are in a delicate state of mind and he fears you are being influenced by others into doing what they want, rather than what is good for you.’
‘There is nothing wrong with me; I simply hadn’t eaten since the day before. You know what is really happening here. Thaxter Fox and Susan Kirk have poisoned Papa’s mind. They don’t want me to marry David, so they have conspired to ensure it doesn’t happen. I have been sent away in the hope that David may decide to give up on me.’
‘And what of you, Clarice; what do you want?’ her grandmother said, sitting back in her seat.
The last cottage in the town disappeared from view and open fields now stretched for miles either side of the road. Clarice lay back in her seat and stared out the nearest window of the carriage.
‘To be honest, I don’t know,’ she replied.
In her heart she knew she was in love with David. But love, even with all its complications, was unfortunately the easy part. It was better she kept the truth hidden from Lady Alice.
‘Then perhaps you ought to trust your father’s instincts. This time away from London might be exactly what you need,’ Lady Alice said.
Clarice massaged her temples with her thumb and forefinger. The past days had seen her emotions stretched to their limit. From the highest of highs, when David had held her in a passionate embrace, to the utter despair of discovering Susan had betrayed her.
To know that Susan had put her jealousy ahead of their friendship burned deeply. She sighed and shifted on the seat. Who was she trying to fool? Theirs had been a friendship born of mutual need and nothing more; Susan had done exactly what she needed to secure her own future. She had set her sights on Thaxter Fox and the promise of being the future Countess Langham. Clarice doubted the union of Thaxter Fox and Susan Kirk, if it were to happen, would be a happy one, but since she had already seriously misjudged Susan, who was to tell?
Outside the carriage the clouds were grey and threatening. With luck the travellers would arrive at Langham Hall before the heavens opened. Nothing made her travel sickness worse than being on the road in the middle of a storm. Heaving the contents of her stomach out on the side of the road in the rain had been the low point of her last journey back to Norfolk, something she did not wish to repeat.
She sat up in the seat and blinked hard, trying to clear her mind. The smell of the sea had awakened her senses and sleep would no longer come. Very soon she would be home.
Unless her father changed his mind and sent word from London that she could return, she was stuck at her family seat. Defying her father and leaving Langham Hall would be foolish, to say the least. She could only pray that fate would intercede on her behalf.
At least while she was in Norfolk she would be away from Thaxter Fox, a small blessing for which she knew she should be grateful.
‘Would you mind if I borrowed your writing desk?’ she asked, pointing to the rosewood box stored under Lady Alice’s seat. She had been sent to the country, but if Clarice remembered his words correctly, her father had not forbidden her to send letters.
She pushed her blanket off and bent down to pick up the handle of the box. Lady Alice raised an eyebrow.
‘I shall have a drink now, if you don’t mind,’ Clarice said, depositing the box on the s
eat next to her. While she didn’t know the exact address of David’s rooms, a letter sent to Strathmore House would no doubt find its way to him.
Lady Alice handed over a small leather-covered canteen and Clarice took a sip of the lemon barley water. She shuddered as it went down her parched throat. Horrid and bitter though it was, it was better than nothing.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She smiled. Who knew what possibilities could eventuate from this letter? As soon as David discovered where she had gone, she knew there was every likelihood he would follow.
She opened the writing box and set it on her knee. With pen dipped in ink, she sat and stared at the blank page. What was she to write?
Come, save me from my evil father, who has sent me away?
She pursed her lips. Unlike David, she was not certain that she could write a love letter. Not only did the words fail her, but truth be told, she was uncertain of how to proceed. Was she ready to share with him everything of her life, all of her secrets?
The look of pain that crossed his face when she refused to put on the necklace had haunted her dreams. A reciprocal declaration of love would have been easier.. It would have made him happy.
By telling him she was at Langham Hall, it would no doubt create an expectation in his mind. An expectation she was not entirely sure she could meet.
Could she be that cruel?
The carriage hit a large hole in the road and swayed. A fresh wave of nausea hit her and the decision was made for her. She put the quill back into the holder and closed the writing desk.
‘I shall think on things before I send any missives.’
David gave a short flick of the reins and urged his horses on. The faster he got to Sharnbrook, the sooner he could inspect his new livestock. Bannister’s letter informing him of their arrival had been the much-needed catalyst for pulling him out of his dark mood.
With Clarice now resident in Norfolk, there seemed little point in making further overtures to Lord Langham. Instead David had spent the days since his ill-fated meeting with Clarice’s father organising his financial affairs and settling his household purchases.
An Unsuitable Match Page 17
