The Earl's Revenge

by Allison Lane

  Perhaps that was why Helen appealed to her so strongly. Not that their situations were alike, but both had been denied proper instruction even in subjects like sketching that were deemed suitable for females. Each could blame only her father.

  Lord Grimfield was a religious fanatic who had demanded that his daughter spend much of her day in prayer and atonement for her sins. Lady Grimfield had been Elaine’s sole teacher until her death when the girl was eleven. The lady had tried to properly train her daughter, knowing that Elaine would eventually wed a gentleman. But Lord Grimfield refused to countenance such frivolous pastimes, punishing both wife and daughter if he caught them. He was a pinchpenny of the worst sort who condoned no waste of time on nonproductive activity.

  Elaine learned needlework by mending endless linens and constructing her own clothes. She learned to read only so she could study the Bible. A pianoforte was an unnecessary expense because hymns could be easily rendered with the voice, which needed no training. Deportment consisted of lessons in humility, obedience, the superiority of men, and the desirability of instantly executing every demand of her father or brother.

  Not until after she left home did she realize that her father hated females even more than he revered God. And it was later yet before she admitted that the deity he worshiped was even more tyrannical than the harshest taskmaster depicted in the Old Testament, a deity far different from the loving, forgiving Father of the New Testament.

  After his wife’s death, Grimfield had looked for someone to raise his daughter, hiring a governess recommended by his vicar. Miss Becklin was a cousin of the vicar’s wife and the daughter of a rector, so she would naturally be well versed in those subjects his lordship approved.

  But the experiment had failed. Mary – as Elaine was called at home – was thrilled with the improvement in her fortunes. Miss Becklin quickly became a close friend, for there were but nine years difference in age. Mary learned more in the eleven months of their association than in the previous eleven years. And Miss Becklin encouraged Mary’s talent with brush and pencil.

  But such deviation from the prescribed program made a confrontation inevitable. Miss Becklin departed and Mary was packed off to Grimfield’s sister for the next five years, not returning home until her seventeenth birthday.

  Elaine shook her head and turned the page. The drawing she had been working on was now covered with unflattering caricatures of her family. At least Helen did not suffer the restrictions, punishments, and penalties that had been so large a part of her own childhood. Not that Elaine approved of how the girl was being raised.

  Bridgeport was a hedonistic libertine who shamefully neglected his daughter, providing inadequate supervision and no affection. It was true that few children of lords spent any appreciable time with their parents. Custom relegated them to the hands of a cadre of servants.

  The neglect in Helen’s case came from those servants – an aged nurse who was physically unable to control the child, and two maids who were still children themselves. Where Mary Thompson had suffered from too much discipline, Helen Parrish received none. Nor did Miss Beddoes make any effort to teach her. Formal education did not normally fall under the duties of a nurse, but Helen’s mind was very keen. Curiosity drove her to explore and experiment. With no one to keep her company, or even keep her safe, she would soon find herself in serious trouble.

  “I can’t get the cottage to look right,” Helen complained in frustration.

  “Let me see.” Elaine glanced at the page. The girl was really quite good for her age. “Here is the problem. You know that the sides of the building form rectangles, and that is the way you drew them – with beautifully straight lines, too. But if you look carefully, you will see that the eye does not really perceive the building as straight and square.” She pulled out a page she had readied for this first lesson in perspective. “The hole in the paper forms a frame. Its edges are straight, but compare it to the cottage walls.”

  “I see,” exclaimed Helen in delight. “The sides go up and down, but the top and bottom are slanted.”

  “Excellent. And if you measure the height of the walls, you will find that those farther away appear shorter.” She turned to the next page in the girl’s sketchbook. “Use the frame as a guide and try again.”

  Half an hour later, she could honestly praise the new effort. “That lesson applies to anything, not just buildings. When you draw, you must be careful to evaluate what the eye sees and not produce what your mind knows is really there. Now let us work on your reading for a few minutes, and then I must return home.”

  Pulling out a worn book, she placed it in Helen’s hands. They had spent the first two weeks of their acquaintance working on the alphabet, and Helen was now applying those lessons.

  “The dog is b-black,” Helen began hesitantly.

  Elaine listened with one ear while she finished drawing a gnarled oak tree. Eventually she packed away her pencils. “That is enough for today. Nana will be worried.” She led the girl back to the Manor, then took her leave and returned home. Thornton’s illustrations should be finished within a fortnight.

  * * * *

  Another rivulet of sweat trickled down Bridgeport’s back. Thank God Treselyan was now only three miles away, for spring arrived earlier in Cornwall than farther east. He should have worn a thinner driving coat.

  Patches of color on the moor marked wildflowers and resurgent growth. Piles of rock protruded from the ground. Unlike the eerie circle of standing stones he had passed earlier, these were the exposed ribs of the land itself, radiating strength and solidity. Overhead a hawk circled lazily, a black silhouette against a blazing sky. There was more beauty here than he had expected.

  But the contentment that the scenery offered did not last long.

  Turning his curricle through the ancient stone gates of Treselyan Manor, he grimaced at the park. It had been lunacy to rely on an unknown steward’s reports that all was well. Nelson had often urged him to make annual inspections, or at least to delegate Cramer to do so. But Bridgeport needed Cramer for other things and had always postponed thinking about it. Stupid fool! He knew that his man of business was seldom wrong. He should have listened. Not that the place was derelict, but signs of neglect were everywhere.

  Mark had come into the title three years earlier when a freak accident killed both his parents, but he had owned this estate for eight years. Its acquisition had been one result of the desperate gamble that had founded his financial empire.

  His father, the sixth Earl of Bridgeport, had been a gentle scholar, uninterested in the duties of a powerful earldom. Inheriting came as a surprise, for he had originally possessed two older brothers, but one had died in a hunting accident at the tender age of twenty, and the other succumbed to smallpox while Mark’s father was still at Oxford. The disease had also carried off the fifth earl, his wife, and two daughters, suddenly propelling the unprepared student into a title he knew nothing about. Understanding the perils of the world all too well, the grief-stricken earl immediately married and sired an heir. But he’d neither comprehended nor cared about estate management. Having done his duty to the future, he’d turned the operations over to his man of business and several stewards, and retired into his books.

  The countess applauded this action, for it left her in charge of nearly everything. Before her marriage a discerning eye might have noted all the signs of an incipient harpy. With a weak-willed husband who exerted no control over her, she grew into an autocratic tyrant who was not content merely to run the house and raise the heir.

  She soon had the estate steward and Bridgeport’s solicitor under her thumb. The only one she could not control was the earl’s man of business, who remained in London out of her reach. But she was the most manipulative woman Mark had ever met. Woe be unto anyone who tried to ignore her! He’d learned at an early age to accede to her desires, at least on the surface. His most enduring childhood lessons were in prevarication and pretense. By age fifteen, he despised h
er and loathed her determination to control him for the rest of her life. Nor was he much more charitable to his father, who so feared scenes that he invariably followed her directions.

  Resolved to never allow his mother or any other woman the slightest control of his actions, Mark initiated a grandiose plan to make himself independent.

  At first, it was difficult. Schoolboys had little money and less access to the financial world, but his luck had always been uncanny. One of his schoolmates was the son of a banker. Mark cultivated the lad, liking what he found, for Nelson was intelligent, astute, and scrupulously honest. Theirs was an odd friendship, but Mark’s prowess at sports meant that few of his peers questioned him on it. Swearing Nelson to secrecy, he turned over a portion of every quarterly allowance for the lad’s father to invest. To cover the expenditures, he fostered the image of a luckless gamester, deciding that the losses necessary to maintain that fiction were worth it if he could pull the wool over his mother’s eyes. Any hint of his plans, and she would reduce his allowance.

  When Mark left Oxford, an increased allowance allowed him to expand his investments, this time with his classmate handling the money directly. Nelson’s acuity multiplied his wealth many times over, but the proceeds still fell short of what he needed. And time was running out, for he must assure the succession. Despite his determination to avoid female control, duty demanded an heir of his own. He knew that his mother would insist on choosing his bride. A biddable, easily dominated daughter-in-law would guarantee her continued reign as queen of the neighborhood. She also expected that Mark and his wife would live at Bridgeport Abbey.

  He could accept his mother’s candidate, for a weak-willed chit was just what he wanted, but his wife deserved a place of her own. He would return to town as soon as she was with child, never seeing her again if the child was a boy, yet he could not leave anyone under his mother’s thumb.

  Unfortunately, such plans required money. The first thing his mother would do if he defied her would be to cancel his allowance. Never mind that he was Bridgeport’s heir.

  An even worse problem was his mother’s incompetence. She was poorly educated and often stupid, forcing adherence to her whims even when she did not understand the consequences. And her wasteful expenditures outstripped Bridgeport’s income, forcing him to sell shares. She had vulgarly redecorated the Abbey, torn up vast portions of the grounds that had been laid out by Capability Brown, and embarked on the installation of a dozen grotesque follies. His wedding would provide another showcase for her extravagances.

  When he turned five-and-twenty, she rejected further delays and voiced her ultimatum. In desperation, he took a gamble, praying that some overlooked thread of courage lurked in his sire’s breast.

  He smiled now at the deal he had arranged eight years before. Mark had agreed to accept his mother’s chosen bride if his father first turned over one hundred thousand pounds and the deeds to the two unentailed estates. It would strip the earldom of most of its accumulated wealth, but after watching his mother play ducks and drakes with the family fortune, Mark was determined to remove as much as possible from her reach. Nelson would invest it wisely. No matter how many debts the countess ran up, Mark would be able to handle repayment when he achieved the title.

  Terrified of being caught in a squabble between his wife and his suddenly determined son, the earl had agreed. He’d even agreed to say nothing before the wedding, explaining the land transaction afterward as a family tradition that allowed the heir to acquire expertise in running an estate before he assumed the larger duties of the earldom.

  Mark sighed as the house came into view. Nelson had outdone himself, increasing the holdings until Bridgeport was now one of the wealthiest men in the country. Few people knew the full extent of his fortune, however. And he would not enlighten them, for much of it derived from manufactories, shipping, and other ventures that smacked of trade. Three years after his mother’s death, he still clung to the habits of secrecy that had served him so well.

  A correct butler answered his groom’s knock.

  “I am Lord Bridgeport,” Mark declared, noting the flicker of surprise in the butler’s face. “I know I was not expected.”

  “Welcome, my lord,” intoned the butler, leading him into a darkly paneled hall. “I am Burgess. The master’s rooms are always kept in readiness.”

  That sounded encouraging. “My luggage coach should be along soon.”

  A child’s squeal raised Mark’s brows.

  “Your daughter, my lord. She must have escaped her nurse again. Allow me to show you to your rooms.”

  “And arrange a bath,” ordered Mark, barely able to get the words out through his shock. He had completely forgotten that one-sentence exchange with Cramer some months earlier.

  The girl cannot remain in residence while the roof is being replaced, his secretary had noted.

  Send her and the nurse to Cornwall, he had suggested absently, his mind on other matters.

  Now, as he followed the butler up the stairs, he cringed, unwanted memories crowding his head. His wife’s death had meant nothing in itself, but he had been furious that the child was a girl. It made another marriage inevitable, and the prospect was more than daunting.

  He had managed to keep the agreement with his father secret for the entire year between that first disastrous betrothal and his marriage. Thank heaven he had been able to disappear immediately into Westron. Lady Bridgeport’s fury at having her will crossed proved even worse than anticipated. He later learned that his father had locked himself in the library and taken meals separately for several weeks for fear of a physical attack. Several servants had willingly departed without references rather than endure the countess’s tantrums.

  He tried to remember his wife, but could not bring her image to mind. She had been an insipid, quiet mouse, so uninteresting that he had barely been able to consummate the marriage. That was an unexpected flaw in his plans, for he had never before experienced such a problem. It had taken every bit of willpower he possessed to get a child on the chit. And then she had died, leaving him still in need of an heir. Out of consideration for his father, he allowed his mother to again choose his bride. But the wedding never took place.

  What wretched fate! Why, of all the spots he could have gone, had he chosen Cornwall? Where was his vaunted luck when he needed it? He had no desire to meet a child who could only remind him of a period he wished to forget.

  He was sorely tempted to leave immediately, except that the estate problems he had already noted must be addressed. Sighing, he entered a large chamber crowded with heavy walnut furniture and hung with deep red draperies. It was clean and showed no sign of damp. At the least the household staff seemed competent.

  * * * *

  An hour later there was still no sign of Federsham or his luggage, but Mark had washed away the dust of travel and was ready to meet his steward. The house dated to Elizabeth’s reign with few changes since its construction. The rooms contained no means to summon a servant, and the lack of anyone in residence meant that there were insufficient footmen to carry messages. That would have to change.

  He had reached the main staircase when running footsteps forced his eyes up to the second floor. A young girl was racing down the stairs, her face twisted in agony.

  “Never run on stairways!” he barked, hardly aware of the words as his eyes widened in shock. He was staring at a living portrait of himself at age seven – slender body, coltishly long legs, russet hair tumbled in disheveled curls, green eyes shining. But in her case, the glow was a sheen of tears.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “Who are you?” But she continued without waiting for a response. “Please help, sir. Nana has fallen and is in great pain. She cannot rise, and I am not strong enough to lift her. Please come!”

  Waiting only until he took the first step in her direction, she raced back up the stairs. His mind in chaos, Bridgeport followed.

  The girl moved so quickly that he was forced to break into a trot
to keep up. She finally threw open a door at the end of a long hallway. The room was equipped as a Spartan nursery, but he had no time to take in the details. The old woman crumpled on the floor was feebly trying to rise, but even an untutored eye could tell that she had broken a hip. There was no sign of anyone else.

  “I brought help, Nana,” the girl announced, kneeling solicitously beside the old lady and laying a trembling hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Everything will be all right now. You’ll see.”

  “Thank you, dear Helen,” the nurse managed in reply. “Who is he?”

  “Oh, dear. I don’t know.” She stood and turned to Mark. “I am Lady Helen Parrish and this is my nurse, Miss Beddoes.” She managed a creditable curtsy.

  “And I am your father, the Earl of Bridgeport,” he replied gravely. “Who is the housekeeper?”

  “Mrs. Burgess.” Wariness crept into Helen’s eyes, causing a strange tightness in Mark’s chest.

  “Good. Tell Burgess to summon a doctor. Then find Mrs. Burgess and ask her to come here. Nana needs more help than I can give her.” As Helen scampered out of the room, he carefully lifted the nurse and carried her into the adjacent room. She was unconscious from the pain by the time he laid her gently on the bed.

  Mark’s head swirled dizzily as he pulled up a chair and sat down. He had not even known his daughter’s name. Shame washed over him. How could he have treated her so shabbily? It was true that he had no particular use for children and that he’d been furious that she was a girl, but that was a selfish reaction to the prospect of doing it all again. It certainly wasn’t the child’s fault.

  Yet in six years he had not even bothered to inquire as to her name.

  His wife had written a month before the birth to say that her own nurse would care for the babe. That was the last time he had even considered arrangements, leaving details of her upbringing to the estate steward. He had known nothing of the nurse’s character or age. She must be nearly eighty and should have been pensioned off years ago. No matter how well behaved Helen might be, it was impossible for this woman to properly care for her. Burgess had hinted that escaping her nurse was a regular occurrence. A maid must immediately be found who could care for the child.