Fortune's Flower

by Mary Ellen Boyd

  “My lord? My lord, I have the book for you.” The words penetrated his thoughts, dragging him back, sounding like they had been repeated several times.

  He turned around to the shopkeeper and had to blink to bring himself back from Thernwood and a head of curly blond hair and green eyes, colors of spring and warmth. He plunked down the coin, took the wrapped book and left, taking one last glance at the young woman against the wall in spite of his every effort not to look.

  Just as he reached the carriage door and grasped the latch, his young tiger hanging onto the strap behind the carriage, too cold to move, the raw reddened face sending a new lash of guilt through Damon, a rich feminine voice called his name.

  “Sir Damon! Sir Damon! What an unexpected surprise this is!”

  Unexpected for himself, Damon thought, but he highly doubted it was as much a surprise for her. Banging his head against the carriage door in frustration would attract attention he did not want. After months of dodging the woman from his gazebo, even avoiding balls and operas where he knew she would be after he learned her name, she had finally trapped him. Madelaine Osgood, the wife of a school friend of Andrew’s.

  He did not know Osgood, he and his brother had been just far enough apart to have belonged to different sets at Cambridge, but it seemed that only made him prime bait.

  Taking a moment to remove all expression from his face, Damon turned slowly, and bowed. “Mrs. Osgood. What brings you out in such inclement weather?”

  “I was on my way home,” she smiled at him from under a small-brimmed hat liberally dusted with snow. He wondered if she had been standing there waiting for him to come out so she could waylay him without an audience. “How very fortunate to run into you. Might I request a ride the rest of the way?”

  His jaw clenched. Where was her own carriage?

  He glanced up at the coachman, and back at the young boy getting colder by the minute, and made his decision. “I was going to allow my tiger to ride inside before he got sick.” He beckoned to the boy and opened the door. One quick look at Damon and the youngster wasted no time jumping down off the back and scrambling in.

  Mrs. Osgood’s nose wrinkled, and her lovely brows came down in a scowl. “You would have me ride inside with your servant?” She tossed her head, and flakes drifted off, sliding down her curls.

  “Then let me hail you a hansom cab.” Damon stepped in front of the carriage door, blocking her entry.

  Mrs. Osgood merely shrugged, her black eyebrows arched as her dark eyes taunted him. “I merely wanted to ask how it felt to be an uncle. Your parents must be delighted at the new addition.”

  His hand clenched on the carriage door. “You are mistaken, madam. I have neither niece nor nephew and I assure you both of my sisters are above reproach. I would be careful about spreading such a slanderous story.”

  She chuckled, low and throaty. “I was not talking of them, Damon.” His name rolled easily off her tongue even though he had not given her leave for such familiarity. “You have another woman in your family, and I assure you, she is in the family way.”

  Damon stared at her.

  She clapped a gloved hand over her mouth in overdone disbelief. “Don’t tell me you did not know? Surely you must have guessed!” She smiled a mocking smile. “Well! This is rich! If your family had not been so shocked by Andrew’s death, they would have seen. The symptoms were unmistakable. My room was near hers, and I heard her be sick every morning. How very odd, though,” she tapped her chin with a finger, “I have not seen your brother’s widow for some time. Is the pregnancy going hard on her?”

  The cold burned his lung as he gasped air in. “Edeline? Are you speaking of Edeline? She is not – ” but he could not finish the sentence.

  Edeline, so pale and white, weeping all over Thernwood, and leaving endless plates of food untouched. The mysterious message that needed such secrecy. Verbena and the absolute disgust in which she held his family. No wonder, turning out a pregnant woman!

  He whirled to the coachman. “My house, quickly, man!” and leapt inside with such lack of caution the pain at his sudden movement did not catch him until he was already seated. He slammed the door behind himself, leaving Mrs. Osgood smirking on the sidewalk.

  *

  Despite the February sun shining through the carriage windows and glinting off the mounds of snow, threatening to blind everyone nearby, it gave no heat. The cold cut through Damon, making his wounded leg throb and pained sweat break out all over his body. It immediately chilled in the bitter temperature of the carriage, making the pain grow worse. After the past three days of this, he firmly expected to fall flat on his face when he tried to get out. That would be a lovely way to present himself to Verbena and her family, especially when he wanted to stand there, in high dudgeon, and demand answers from Edeline. It was hard to demand when one was lying flat on one’s face in a pile of snow.

  At least it was not mud.

  If Mrs. Osgood was right, depending on how far along Edeline had been at the funeral, she might well have a babe in arms by this time.

  Why did she do this? Relations with his family had not been good, granted, but to deprive a child of his rightful inheritance?

  The carriage turned into the entrance to the rundown estate of the Barnes’. The chimney sent hearty smoke into the air, its dark grey color peeking above the bricks before being caught by the wind. He caught a whiff of the woodsy smell, and just the thought of it made him feel warmer.

  Damon rapped on the carriage roof, and the trapdoor opened. The coachman’s chapped red face peeked through. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Get us out of the wind. Pull around to the side of the house. I’m not so conscious of my dignity that I insist on the front door. I just want out of the cold.”

  The red face grinned. “I agree. Will do, sir.”

  The carriage turned neatly around the corner, and Damon immediately felt the difference in the wind whistling past the cracks in the door. The carriage swayed as the man climbed down and opened the door. If Damon thought he had been freezing before, this was a whole new level of cold. The porch steps were marked with tracks of all sizes, from larger boots to the smaller ones that were obviously from the girls. He saw signs that someone had tried to shovel, but the snow had fought back.

  Damon dragged his aching body out – to promptly slip on some hidden ice and fall spread-eagled on the porch floor, staring up at the porch roof and icicles that hung poised like bullets stopped in flight.

  Damon glared at the icicles. Forewarned was clearly not always forearmed.

  The door opened. “Damon!” Julius appeared above him, looking down with utter relief. “Thank goodness you are here!”

  Damon spit snow out. “Get me up, will you?” Julius’s face was followed by all the others, and one more he did not expect to see, Mrs. Downs. Hands appeared for him to grab. He was hauled to his feet with surprising dispatch and busily dusted off.

  “Thank you.” He looked around at the clustered group staring back at him. Tasty aromas drifted through the open door, fresh-cooked bread, a roast just reaching the point of doneness, and carrots sending their summer reminder into the air.

  What was Mrs. Downs doing here?

  “Come in, hurry, you must be cold,” Julius said with such an adult manner that Damon wanted to smile. Maybe once his face warmed up, it would break through. The children still blocked his path, seemingly immune to the cold that bit through his greatcoat.

  He looked at the face that surprised him most. “I did not expect to see you here, Madam.”

  “Well, as to that – ”

  Mrs. Downs was drowned out by four other voices. “Some aunt sent it – ” “Edeline is sick – ” “Verbena had to leave fast – ” “We did not even know Edeline was with child.”

  That last sentence grabbed his attention. One question answered in the din. Mrs. Osgood had been right.

  The four young faces held varying stages of worry and excitement. He would unravel the w
hole story from the warmth of the house. “Might we all go inside? And once my driver takes care of the horses, may he come into the kitchen to warm?”

  “Of course!” “Come. Come!” “We missed you!” He was dragged in amid a second chorus and divested of his coat and hat. Seated, a heavy cup of hot tea in one hand and a plate of slices of buttered bread and meat close to the other hand, Damon felt pummeled with words from all four, no five, voices, making a disjointed picture in his mind of letters and cold and money and Verbena whisked away in a great carriage.

  He raised a hand to quell the hubbub. “Now, one at a time. What is going on here? When did Edeline leave, why is Verbena not here and who took her away?” He had to take a breath to calm himself.

  “Hush up, everyone! Let me tell it!” Julius shouted them down and answered. “A letter came over two weeks ago from our mother’s sister. Edeline went to live with her after you left. She was in the family way, but no one knew. I did not know, either.” A touch of injured dignity slipped through in that last sentence. “Aunt Mabel sent money for us to hire Mrs. Downs again so Verbena could go there because something is wrong.”

  Damon’s breath caught. Something was wrong? How bad was it? That was Andrew’s child! What was Verbena expected to do?

  Julius was still speaking. “I don’t know what is happening now.” He looked pointedly over at the girls.

  Damon beckoned the girls over, and they pressed close, as if he was their savior. “I need you two to stay here in the kitchen with Mrs. Downs and help her take care of my driver, when he comes in. Julius, is there some place we can talk in private?”

  Lizabeth did not move. She glared at him. “Again? Every time you come, you always send us out. We never get to hear anything.”

  He fought the smile. “I am very sorry, but I have to do it again.”

  Matthew said, “I will stay with the girls.” His eyes were ringed with red. Damon suspected the boy had been crying in private.

  Julius led the way out of the kitchen. “The only room is the parlor.” He started talking before they had passed the dining room. “My sisters were close before Edeline married, and when she came back this summer they were thick as thieves again. Edeline stayed a week or so after you left, and then said she had to go, and went away.”

  He pulled open the parlor doors. Damon noticed with a passing flash of pleasure that they were still working.

  Julius waved into the room. “Sit wherever looks most comfortable. Anyway, the girls cried when Edeline left, but Verbena said she needed a place alone to mourn, so I never questioned it.” He dropped down into one of the straight-backed chairs, and leaned forward, arms propped on his knees.

  Damon chose the settee. “Did you know she had gone to live with the aunt?

  Julius nodded. “Oh, yes. They told us that. Just not the other. When I found out about the baby, I said Edeline should have gone to London, where there are lots of midwives, but Verbena said she did not want to go. She fairly told me to mind my own business.”

  Damon tapped his finger against arm of the settee. “And you don’t know where this aunt lives?”

  Julius shook his head miserably. “Bath, but I don’t know more than that.”

  “Big town.” Damon thought for a moment. “Where is the letter from this aunt? Do you still have it? Or did Verbena take it with her?”

  “I don’t know. If she left it, it would be somewhere in her room, most likely.”

  “Let us find it.” Damon pulled himself to his feet.

  Julius led the way, retracing their steps. A spate of laughter met them as they entered the kitchen, a good sign that the grownups were working hard to keep the mood up.

  Julius opened a door tucked away in the corner. Despite the cooking Mrs. Downs had been doing, inside Verbena’s room it was bitterly cold. Damon frowned down at the thin mattress, the broken bits of straw that had fallen out of the casing onto the otherwise spotless floor, the worn blankets. Verbena slept on that? She should be on a featherbed, with down quilts, like his . . .

  He forced his attention to the room. There was a notch in the wall, perhaps once a closet, with hooks for gowns and two small shelves above, holding a couple of bonnets, long out of fashion, a comb, two worn books – Shakespeare, he was not surprised to note – and other miscellany.

  “Damon?” Julius’s voice was low, and he looked anxiously over his shoulder as if afraid of being overheard. “Verbena has been gone too long. She wrote to say she had arrived, to tell us about Bath, but she never mentioned when she would be back. Two weeks, Damon! She would never be gone this long if everything was all right.”

  Damon was afraid of the same thing, but he clapped a reassuring hand on Julius’s shoulder. “I intend to find out what is going on.”

  They began moving items, the hats, the books, even checking under the covers on the bed. Damon shoved aside the uncomfortable feeling of violation as he laid the covers, such as they were, back into place. She would not be sleeping in this excuse for a bed again. If he had to defy his entire family, he would find a way to wed her.

  Why had Edeline abandoned her child’s inheritance? Nothing could have been that bad. Well, now she had someone to protect her.

  The whole family had someone to protect them.

  At last, checking any last places they might be hidden, on the back of a shelf Damon picked up an old corset he doubted Verbena had ever worn or ever needed to. A small collection of letters and a fine white handkerchief fell out onto the floor. He plucked out the letters but folded the handkerchief and replaced it.

  How easily the packet might have been overlooked. Inside a corset, of all things!

  The letter on top was done in an unfamiliar feminine hand. And it had an address. From Bath. Damon slipped it into his coat pocket. “Thank you, Julius.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder, realizing as he did so that in the time he had been away Julius had grown from a boy into a young man. “I promise I will find out what is happening, and bring your sisters back.”

  He hurried into the kitchen to pick up his greatcoat. His driver took one look at him, rose and slipped out the door.

  “Take care of the children,” Damon told Mrs. Downs. He pulled out some paper notes. “Use this, get whatever you need.”

  And he headed back out into the bitter wind.

  CHAPTER 15

  To say their Aunt Mabel lived ‘in’ Bath was a bit of a stretch, Damon thought as the carriage turned into a drive. The post they had passed, tall, wooden and layered with snow-crowned boards announcing names and accented by arrows, gave the house he was looking for, and the arrow had pointed this direction.

  Three more days of struggling with snow covered roads and rutted puddles when the snow melted. And wind. Always the wind. It had followed him all the way from the north country, and now Bath was having one of its rare winter storms. The wind battered the flakes that tried to settle on the ground, and drove them through the carriage door seams. A layer of white edged the floor by each opening.

  It had been a hard journey. Worry dogged him every mile, reinforced by frequent re-readings of the aunt’s letter. Guilt battered him along with the worry. His father had tossed Edeline out. No matter how one tried to pretty it up, that was what it amounted to. Tossing her out. They bore the responsibility for anything that happened to either Edeline or the child. Had she stayed, she would have been in London, with access to the best of doctors.

  Granted, Bath was a veritable healing center. Perhaps the care she had received here might be the equal of anything she would get in London.

  Although he did not put much faith in the supposedly miraculous powers of the hot springs.

  The house finally could be seen in bits and pieces, screened by trees, some bare for the winter, others evergreen. Through the swirling snow and the needles and branches, Damon saw mourning black hanging on the door.

  Damon held the carriage window’s curtain aside and stared at the big black wreath. It grew larger and more ominous the close
r they came.

  Death had visited here. A weight grew in his chest.

  The vehicle rocked to a stop. His driver opened the door and flipped the step down. Damon climbed out, straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath of the cold air that chilled his lungs as the wreath had chilled his heart, and walked to the door.

  For whom had they hung that black wreath? The aunt? Edeline? The child?

  The heavy knocker’s clang echoed in the clearing, a rude noise in the light of the black crepe he could now see draped across the inside of the nearest window as well. But the rumbling sound had the desired effect – the door eased open and a young woman in a maid’s cap poked her head out. “May I help you?” She made no other move, just stood there with only her head showing, her eyes wide and uneasy.

  “I am Damon Thern. Mrs. Thern is my sister-in-law,” he said. Her eyes only narrowed, unease becoming distrust, and to his amazement, in one swift move she swung the door shut.

  Or started to. He caught it with his hand, and pushed it open, slipping past the door’s edge the moment there was enough room. “For whom is the mourning wreath on the door?” His voice was too loud in the still house.

  “Wait here,” she snapped, no welcome in her words or her manner, then scurried across the poor excuse for a foyer, in actuality little more than just an opening in the hall, and up the dark stairway that ran sideways directly in front of him, her hand barely skimming the handrail. The steps were built tight to the wall, and at their foot an open doorway indicated more house beyond. At the top of the stairs there was a railed opening as wide as the staircase that climbed toward it.

  Clearly, everyone was upstairs. Damon wanted to follow her, the house was again quiet and he could clearly hear the sound of shoe heels clicking not far away. If this place had a drawbridge, it would have been pulled up tight. He waited, hearing footfalls back and forth in the floor above him, and voices like a faint hum running along the walls.