“I am accustomed to getting what I want,” he said softly.
Was she dreaming, Sylvia wondered, or was that a thinly veiled threat that referred to much more than the painting? She laughed shortly, angry that this man could be so sure of her capitulation. “Then your heart has misled you, my lord, and you had best prepare yourself for disappointment. That painting is not for sale.” Nor is anything else you may have set your heart on, she added to herself.
He grinned at her, a devilish, catlike grin. Had he read her thoughts? “I offered you the chance to contribute to the art collection in the Long Gallery at Longueville, my dear. A singular honor, I might add. My mother is anxious to add my likeness to the family heirlooms. You are my choice, Lady Sylvia.”
She blushed and glanced towards the cliffs. The prospect of hours of intimacy with this man, alone in her studio, unnerved her. ...
The Lady
in Gray
Patricia Oliver
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: The Betrayal 7
Mystery Cove 13
The Lady in Gray 21
Echoes from the Past 32
Angelica 41
Unanswered Questions 46
Summer Beauties 56
LAe First Clue 63
77ze Missing Figure 71 9. Jason 80
10. Past Deceptions 88
11. Portrait of a Pirate 93
12. The Dinner Party 102
13. Portrait of a Highwayman 108
14. The Flowers 116
15. A Second Wife 126
16. The Lost Letter 133
17. In Flagrante Delicto 143
18. First Kiss 150
19. From the Past 157
The Ball 164
The Threat 173
The Debt 182
Kidnapped 191
Pirate's Cove Revisited 199
A Birthday Surprise 208
The Second Countess 214 2 7. Lore Conquers All 216
Prologue
The Betrayal
Weston Abbey, Horsham, Sussex October 1804
“Cornwall?”
Lady Sylvia heard the quiver of hysteria in her voice and fought to control it. “Oh, Papa, I hate Cornwall. Please, oh please, do not send me there.”
The Earl of Weston glowered at his youngest daughter, shaggy eyebrows crunched together over his large patriarchal nose.
“You should have thought of that before you shamed us all, my girl,” he growled. After a short, pregnant pause he added somberly, “You leave at dawn tomorrow.”
There was a finality about her father’s tone that frightened her. For the first time Lady Sylvia began to realize that her latest escapade—which even she had to admit made her regular peccadilloes pale by comparison—had driven her doting parent beyond the limits of his endurance.
The silence in the earl’s study became oppressive, pressing in upon her until Lady Sylvia imagined herself shrinking, compressed by the weight of disapproval that hung in the air.
She was not accustomed to disapproval. Indeed, Lady Sylvia had been confident that when her dear papa realized how set she was against the match he had arranged for her, he would indulge her. As he had so many times before.
She had been dreadfully wrong.
When the news reached Lord Weston that his daughter had—
civilly and with all the respect due to an aging marquess—declined Lord Warburton’s obliging offer, the earl’s bellows of rage had been clearly audible down at the gatehouse.
Lady Sylvia had been ordered to present herself instantly in her father’s study—a summons she considered wise to obey with more than her usual alacrity—where she was subjected to a tongue- lashing such as she had never before experienced from her mild- mannered parent. The outcome of this unpleasant encounter was not open to dispute, her father informed her grimly. The rejected marquess had graciously agreed to renew his offer, overlooking what Lord Weston chose to excuse as an attack of modesty in a young lady unaccustomed to such an honor. Lady Sylvia would behave like any self-respecting, obedient daughter and accept her father’s choice of husband without further protest.
“But, Papa, I cannot love Lord Warburton,” she remembered blurting out, hoping against hope that her indulgent parent would grasp the impossibility of the match he proposed. “Besides, he has grown sons older than I am.”
It had been the wrong thing to say.
“Love?” the earl had shouted, his face turning an even deeper shade of purple. “Love has nothing to do with the matter, you silly little fool. This is what comes of reading that insidious, romantical nonsense from the lending library, child. I warned your mother how it would be. A good marriage is founded on trust, obedience, and duty. Love is for fools and those damned poets who have nothing better to do than spout rubbish to fossilized half-wits at so- called literary soirees.”
Daunted but not deterred by this plain speaking, Lady Sylvia had held her piece, and had finally been dispatched to her room to ponder the error of her ways. It took her less than twenty minutes to determine that her dear papa was mistaken; love had everything to do with her choice of husbands. Once this was firmly established in her mind as irrefutable logic, Lady Sylvia had dashed off an impetuous note to Sir Matthew Farnaby, whose protestations of undying devotion—couched in that very poetic form maligned by her father—had become so convincingly insistent of late that Sylvia had been swept off her feet.
Sir Matthew had instantly understood her dilemma and come to her rescue quite in the manner of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s romantical heroes. Lady Sylvia had been dazzled at the baronet’s suggestion that she throw a few things into a bandbox and meet him down by the gatehouse at midnight. She had been less enthusiastic at his insistence that she leave her abigail behind. Molly had been with her since childhood, and Sylvia had flung herself into the abigail’s plump arms and wept when the moment came to mount Sir Matthew’s traveling chaise and depart her father’s house, perhaps forever.
Ten days later, looking back on that magical midnight moment when she had taken that momentous step from which there was no turning back, Sylvia still found it impossible to believe that she was not the respectable married lady Sir Matthew had vowed to make her. Had she not the marriage lines to prove it?
Lady Sylvia fidgeted restlessly under her father’s accusing gaze. Her eyes fastened on the crumpled paper Lord Weston had tossed contemptuously on his desk at the start of this painful interview. Marriage lines did not lie, she reminded herself firmly, clinging to the one piece of evidence that could save her from utter disaster. If only her father would admit that he no longer had the authority to send her to Cornwall or anywhere else. She must remind him of that fact, instead of pleading with him as if she had no loving husband to protect her.
“Tomorrow at d-dawn?” Her voice sounded decidedly unsteady to her own ears. “That will be impossible, Papa. I must pack my trunks and be ready when my husband comes to escort me to my new home in Bath.”
“What husband, you silly chit?” Lord Weston demanded, his voice thunderous. “When will it penetrate that addle-pated head of yours that you have no husband, Sylvia? You have been led down the garden path like some ignorant scullery maid.”
Sylvia flushed at this unkind cut. “Oh, no, Papa. You are mistaken. I have the marriage lines to prove it.” She gestured weakly towards the crumpled document on the desk.
“Marriage lines, indeed?” he exclaimed, his voice heavy with disgust. “Poppycock! How any daughter of mine could be such a nodcock as to believe that Banbury tale is beyond me. Rest assured that Town Tulip will not dare show his face around here again. Doubtless he is back in London enjoying a good laugh at our expense.”
The specter her father’s words conjured up caused Sylvia to wi
nce. Ever since Sir Matthew had made his precipitous retreat from that poky little chamber at the Blue Duck Inn in Dover moments before her father’s arrival, Sylvia had found any number of explanations for her new husband’s continued absence from her side. Her father’s cynical conclusion had never, until that moment, been one of them.
Now she was not sure what to believe.
The fact remained that her dear Matthew had disappeared from the inn, leaving her to face an irate Lord Weston alone. Her father had not ceased to repeat this indisputable truth during the entire journey back to Weston Abbey. Matthew could not have abandoned her, Sylvia kept telling herself, but her excuses for his prolonged absence were becoming less and less convincing.
Sylvia felt a lump in her throat, and blinked back the tears that clouded her eyes. She had promised herself she would not dissolve into a watering-pot. Up until now she had held firmly to the belief that as soon as Matthew came to claim his bride—acknowledging before her father and the world the validity of those precious days and nights they had shared at the Blue Duck Inn—her life would miraculously fall into place again. She would be feted and celebrated as the new bride she felt herself to be.
Perhaps her dear papa might be persuaded to hold a Public Day on the grounds of Weston Abbey as he had when her sister Margaret had wed Viscount Scovell several years ago. At the very least he would insist on a church ceremony in the ancient Saxon chapel attached to Weston Abbey, with old Reverend Martin—his jolly red face wreathed in smiles of approbation—banishing any lurking hint of scandal from the match.
She sighed. None of this could happen unless the elusive bridegroom put in an appearance, of course. And as the hours dragged by, Lady Sylvia found her dream of wedded bliss slipping from her grasp. How inconsiderate of Matthew to leave her alone at a time like this.
As her father’s carriage left Dover in the pre-dawn hours to return posthaste to the Abbey, she had expected to hear the rattle of Matthew’s traveling chaise behind them on the coastal road. But she had evidently expected too much of her new husband. Even the slovenly serving wench at the Blue Duck had known of Sir Matthew’s defection. A most mortifying revelation, Sylvia recalled. The girl had informed her with a smirk—after taking Sylvia’s proffered shilling—that it was pointless to send billet- doux to the handsome dandy, because his nibs had left in a bang not ten minutes since, springing his horses as though the bailiffs
were on his heels. Which—the saucy minx had the audacity to suggest—like as not they were, since he had not paid his shot.
Lady Sylvia had pooh-poohed this uncharitable notion, although she had wondered why her darling Matthew had chosen such an out-of-the-way, ramshackled inn for their wedding night instead of the elegant Turk’s Head in the center of town. She had been so nervous at the time that she had scarce paid heed to his explanation. And afterwards, Sylvia recalled—with a faint blush at the memory of her unsuspected wantonness—it had hardly mattered where they spent that and the following delirious nights, as long as they were together.
Looking back at those few blissful days, Sylvia wondered why she had not thought to ask why the passage to France—where Matthew had promised her the wedding trip of her dreams—had taken so long to arrange. But she had known nothing of France, of ferries, of wedding trips, of men. She was a novice at love, a stranger to betrayal.
And if Sir Matthew Farnaby had betrayed her, as her father was suggesting, and those marriage lines were counterfeit, then Lady Sylvia Sutherland was indeed ruined beyond repair. What did it matter, she thought miserably, whether she lived in the wilds of Cornwall, the faraway hills of Ireland, or the bleakest moors of Scotland? She could not stay here. Here at Weston Abbey, where everyone knew her shame. Where everyone she had ever loved would look at her as her father did now. With pity and sorrow, ashamed of her.
The sudden wetness on her cheeks seemed to signal the end of her resistance. Now that it was too late for tears, Sylvia realized that her father had been right. Love did not guarantee happiness. In her case, it had brought profound misery. Perhaps it had no place in marriage, after all, she thought sadly. Perhaps such delightful interludes only occurred between the covers of library books. She would never know, of course. No one was likely to marry her now. Even the assiduous Marquess of Warburton had departed for his estates in Kent, washing his hands of a female who had thrown herself away on a charming philanderer and disgraced her family name forever.
She glanced at her father’s stem face.
“Tomorrow at dawn?” she repeated. “That is so terribly soon, Papa. May I not wait until after my birthday on Sunday?”
Sylvia’s heart lifted at the uncertainty she saw in her father’s
eyes. Perhaps he would relent if only she might celebrate her eighteenth birthday at the Abbey. Perhaps he would forgive . ..
“No,” he said heavily, and her heart cried out at the pain in his voice. “Tomorrow at dawn. There will be no more birthdays for you here, lass. You have brought too much shame upon this house. It is only fitting that you go to your Aunt Marguerite. After all...” Lord Weston sounded as though he would say more, but he stopped abruptly. Then he waved dismissively.
“Go and pack, child. Your brother will escort you down to Whitecliffs in the morning.”
Chapter One
Mystery Cove
Whitecliffs, Cornwall
June 1814
A cool, wet nose burrowing under her arm caused Lady Sylvia Sutherland to pause in her careful application of cerulean blue to the canvas before her. She glanced down into two pools of liquid umber and smiled.
“Time to find out what Cook has packed for us today, is it, Rufus?” she asked, her fingers automatically reaching for the dog’s sleek head.
“Woof!” the collie responded obligingly, feathery tail confirming his readiness to interrupt his morning exploration of rabbit warrens for a more rewarding occupation.
Her brush still poised over the clear blue sky in the seascape she was completing, Lady Sylvia let her eyes slide over the scene before her with a deft proficiency gained from years as a successful artist. She was pleased with her rendering of the strangely desolate subject she had chosen.
The rocky coastline was broken at this point by a tiny cove indented into the sheer cliffs, as though some hungry sea monster of long ago had stuck his snout into the rocks in search of lurking eels. The darker green water in the cove promised depth and safety for small craft seeking a place to beach. Sylvia wondered how many storm-pressed vessels had found a brief respite from the rock-infested waters of the coastline in that hidden inlet. It was
clear to her—from the warped, sun-bleached shapes huddled against the foot of the cliffs—that many had not been so fortunate.
The weather-beaten stone shanty clinging to a ledge in the steep incline just above the reaches of all but the highest tides appeared, at first glance, to be part of the cliff itself. Sylvia had come across it quite by accident during her first weeks of banishment in Cornwall, and had been charmed by the rugged tenacity of the primitive little hut. She had sketched it many times, but this was her first attempt at a full-scale likeness in oils. She was more than satisfied with the results.
When she had first come to Whitecliffs at eighteen, full of bitterness and regret at the blow fate had dealt her, Sylvia had taken up her childhood hobby of dabbling with sketchpad and paint as a means of blocking out painful memories. As time passed, however, she had grown tired of reproducing endless pictures of gulls, and farmyard animals, and her aunt’s gray tabby cat, Jonas, and turned her hand first to portraits of the reclusive inhabitants of the wild Cornish coast, and then to the ever changing sea.
Leery at first of the intrusion, the local fishermen had kept out of her way, averting their eyes or mumbling incomprehensibly when they chanced to cross her path on the lonely cliff tops. Gradually, however, and particularly after Sylvia had the brilliant notion of offering a few coppers to a tow-headed lad with more cheek than his fellows, she was able t
o acquire all the subjects she could handle.
But it was the sea and everything connected with it that presently held her attention. Sylvia found the little gray hut on the cliff side especially fascinating, and had amused herself during those long wintry evenings at Whitecliffs imagining all manner of mysterious explanations for its presence there. Even now, in the warmth of the bright June sunlight, her mind drifted to the tragic circumstances—Sylvia knew in her bones the history of the stark hut had to be tragic—surrounding the half-hidden stone structure that occupied a prominent place on her canvas.
Perhaps little Timmy Collins, the cheeky lad who figured so often in her sketches, was right about it being haunted, she mused, dipping her drying brush in the jelly-jar of turpentine she always carried with her. Perhaps ...
The damp nose under her arm gave an impatient jerk, interrupting her ruminations on the past. There was nothing like a dog to
keep one’s mind firmly on immediate concerns, she thought wryly, and Rufus’s mind was clearly set on food.
“All right, old boy,” she murmured, getting to her feet and stretching, “let us explore Cook’s basket and see if we can find something to take the edge off your appetite, shall we?”
Followed by the ecstatic collie, Lady Sylvia ambled over to the stunted clump of gorse bushes that huddled, like a troop of bedraggled survivors of a particularly vicious military encounter, beside the faintly rutted path that led down to the cliff. Sylvia had often speculated on the unknown feet that must have worn that track into the tough Cornish grasses. Her vivid imagination had led her to speculate on marauding Vikings from long ago, putting ashore to kill and plunder, making off with female captives and meager livestock. More recently she preferred to visualize hunched figures of smugglers trudging along beneath the weight of French brandy in the waning moonlight, furtive glances on the lookout for excise men from nearby Falmouth.
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