by Anne O'Brien
As Nick had announced, ‘It was always Hal’s nightmare that he would ever be called upon to be Marquis of Burford. I wager he is plain Mr Faringdon in Faringdon and Bridges.’
And Eleanor knew that he was right.
‘A visitor, my lady.’ Marcle entered the room, disturbing the feminine chatter.
‘Who is it, Marcle?’
He coughed, a warning. ‘Lady Octavia Baxendale, my lady.’ The butler’s eyes and face remained amazingly bland, given the extent of knowledge below stairs. ‘She is alone and requests a moment of your time.’
‘Octavia!’ Startled, Eleanor looked around the circle of faces. She was the last person who might be expected to pay a formal visit to Park Lane. ‘I thought she had left London. They are no longer at Faringdon House, I know.’
‘What on earth can that woman want?’ Mrs Stamford was immediately hostile. ‘I would have expected the lady and her despicable husband to have slunk back to the country. Will you indeed see her, dear Eleanor? I don’t advise it. You should say that you are not receiving visitors—she will undoubtedly understand the snub.’
‘Yes. I will see her.’ Octavia’s visit was intriguing and there was nothing to fear from it. ‘Alone, I think. Would you perhaps give me a little time?’
The ladies withdrew to a parlour, reluctantly, wishing they could do something so lacking in gentility as to listen at the door.
Marcle, all cold arrogance and affronted dignity for the past treatment of his mistress, showed Lady Baxendale into the morning room, offering her the smallest of bows. Eleanor stood beside the fireplace, waiting with interest. How would the young woman react? What on earth was it that she wished to say? Eleanor had no idea.
‘Lady Baxendale, my lady.’ Marcle withdrew, as reluctant as the ladies in the parlour.
‘Forgive me for encroaching on your time, my lady. You are very kind and…very kind to see me.’
Octavia was just as Eleanor remembered her at their last meeting in the garden of Grosvenor Square. Calm, placid, apparently unmoved by the unusual circumstances of this visit, showing neither embarrassment nor undue emotion of any description. She was carefully groomed, her fair hair in smooth, well-ordered ringlets, her dress fashionable—no longer black but in a youthful shade of eau-de-nil, her straw bonnet with feathered trim becoming, her gloved hands clasped lightly on the handle of her parasol. Her blue eyes gazed at her hostess with a strange guileless innocence, brow smooth, lips relaxed. She could pass for any young woman of respectable birth and independent means. Not one who had been integral to a dangerous game of fraud and deceit.
‘I am at a loss to know why you should be here.’ Eleanor broke the silence that had descended on Marcle’s departure. She remained standing and did not immediately invite Octavia to sit.
‘No. Of course you would wonder. I could hardly be welcome in your home.’ Octavia’s voice was light and pleasant, her expression accommodating. They might have been discussing the fashions of the day.
Eleanor mentally shrugged. There was no understanding this young woman who could stand before her with such apparent lack of awareness of the hurt she had wittingly caused. ‘Please sit.’ She gestured to the sofa.
Octavia did so, supremely composed, laying aside her parasol and removing her gloves with calm intent. She folded her hands comfortably in her lap and looked once more at her hostess.
‘We will leave London tomorrow for Whitchurch. Edward does not know I am here. He would not be pleased.’ A tiny frown creased her smooth brow. She looked, Eleanor thought, ridiculously young, little different, she imagined, from the débutante who had made her curtsy four years ago and caught Thomas’s passing interest.
‘I had to come,’ she continued. ‘I have tried to see Sarah, but she would not.’
‘You cannot blame her.’
‘No. I think that we did not deal well with her. Perhaps some time in the future…’
‘I don’t know. She will stay with me for the present, at Burford Hall.’
‘Yes. I liked Burford Hall—I remember thinking how pleasant it would be to live there when I first visited you.’ Such an ingenuous comment almost made Eleanor smile. ‘I came here to say that I am sorry. I caused you much pain. And I remember Thomas with much fondness. It was wrong of me, perhaps, to pretend that he was less than honourable.’ For the first time Eleanor caught a flash of discomfort on the delicate features.
‘It was. Why did you do it? Why did you go along with such an outrageous charade? It could have worked, of course. But would you have been content, happy knowing that you had stolen what was not yours to take?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’ Lady Baxendale appeared to give it some thought.
‘So why?’
‘It was Edward’s decision. His plan.’ The lady lifted her hands, then allowed them to drop back into her lap, as if her answer explained everything.
‘But if you were uneasy with the lies and deceit, why did you not refuse?’ Eleanor frowned her lack of understanding. ‘I find it impossible to believe that you could be so…so accepting.’
‘It is very simple, my lady. I love Edward. And I will do what he asks. It has always been so. I have known him all my life, you see.’
‘And what will you do now?’
‘Go back to Whitchurch, of course. It is my home. It will not be unpleasant to go back.’ Octavia’s reply was immediate and accepting of her changed circumstances, accompanied by the slightest of shrugs. ‘It is Edward’s decision. And I do not think that we will be made welcome in London when the truth is known. But Edward will take care of me, whatever the future might hold.’
With such an explanation, there was nothing more for Eleanor to say, nothing more for Octavia to add.
On that acknowledgement, Octavia stood. ‘I have outstayed my welcome. I cannot expect forgiveness from you. Edward would say that I should not even offer my regrets. But I felt it right.’
‘I admire your sense of justice. Your recognition that your actions were the cause of great harm and sorrow.’ Eleanor’s tone was a little dry as she too rose to follow her guest to the door.
‘Oh, no.’ Octavia admitted. ‘I am sorry that I hurt you—but I would do the same again tomorrow if Edward asked it of me.’
She turned at the door, replacing her gloves, drawing them over her wrists with neat precision. ‘I know that you will condemn me for my actions. But it seems to me that when your heart is engaged, then nothing else in life seems as important.’ She gave another elegant little shrug, which sat quaintly on her young shoulders. ‘Edward is everything to me. I would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of me. It is not an excuse, my lady, just a fact. And I thought that you should know.’ She dipped the slightest curtsy with impeccable grace. ‘I doubt that we shall meet again. Good afternoon, my lady.’
Octavia Baxendale opened the door and left the room, closing it quietly behind her.
Eleanor found herself staring at the closed door, an arrested expression on her face.
‘What did she say? What did she want? Was she indeed repentant for all the lies she told and all the misery she caused?’
Octavia had no sooner stepped out of the front door, escorted by a still disapproving Marcle, than the ladies quitted the parlour to return to the morning room, questions tumbling from their lips. To find Eleanor standing as Octavia had left her, eyes a little glazed, rigid tension in the set of her shoulders.
‘What did she say?’ Eleanor repeated, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. ‘That she loved Edward more than anything in her life, had always done so. That she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of her.’ She repeated the words as if they were engraved on her heart.
Mrs Stamford instantly bristled. ‘Had she no shame? Could she not even offer the semblance of a heartfelt apology? Any true remorse? To you and to dear Sarah. When I think how she was prepared to use a child to achieve their fraudulent claims… A colder woman I have never had the misfortune to meet. She wo
uld appear to have no sense of right or wrong.’
‘No.’ Eleanor shook her head, turning away from the little group. ‘I think she knows very well. She was sorry to cause hurt, she said. But in her eyes her devotion to Edward excused everything. Even though she knew that what she did was wrong.’
‘And I suppose you accepted her explanation, expressing your admiration of her fortitude.’ Mrs Stamford stepped up to her daughter to take her arm in a firm hold, exasperation clear on her face. ‘And probably sent her on her way with your blessing, if I know you! Eleanor, how could you!’
‘No, Mama. Admire Octavia? How could I? But I do understand her—her love for Sir Edward…’
‘And I suppose you told her that, too!’
‘No. I…I did not… Octavia expressed her regret. Then just explained why she had done it…and left. I don’t think she wanted my forgiveness. It did not seem to matter to her. Edward was the only one who…’
To the shock of everyone present, and to her own, Eleanor promptly burst into tears, covering her face with hands that shook. All the pent-up anguish flowed out, all her carefully constructed self-possession, held in place since Henry’s departure, was obliterated in a storm of weeping. She sobbed uncontrollably, one thought only in her mind. She could not admire Octavia. But the lady’s affirmation of unconditional love for Edward had touched her heart.
Judith tutted in sympathy, rushed to take her in her arms and to lead her to the sofa so recently vacated by the unrepentant Octavia.
‘I am so sorry.’ Eleanor sniffed as she tried to stem the sobs. ‘What must you think of me?’ She dabbed ineffectually at her tears with a small scrap of lace-edged linen.
Judith produced her own handkerchief and added it to the flow, making soothing noises and patting her shoulders. Until the sobs gradually abated.
‘Nell. Look at me.’ Eleanor raised her tear-ravaged face at the masterful demand from a usually easy-going lady. ‘This cannot go on! Tell me what you most want in life. Be truthful!’ Judith added as she sensed Eleanor begin to withdraw behind her habitual shield. ‘What would you wish for, if any wish could be granted at this moment?’
‘To be with Hal.’ Tears threatened again.
‘We thought as much.’ Judith looked round to meet the eyes of the other interested ladies, a curl of satisfaction in her smile. ‘Now don’t cry again!’
‘We knew that was the way of it.’ Sarah nodded in agreement.
‘But he has left me.’ Desolation refused to loose its hold on Eleanor.
‘Then follow him!’ Judith gave her a small shake in frustration. ‘Do it. Go to him!’
‘I can’t. He does not want me.’
‘Nell—this is not like you. Where is your strength and courage?’ Judith’s vivid Faringdon features, so like Henry’s, were afire with determination on behalf of her friend. ‘Of course you can. Being a man, he probably does not realise what he wants.’
‘Oh, but he does. Indeed he does, Judith. But he must not marry me. The law forbids it…’ Sobs threatened her returning composure again.
‘There now. Such a little thing!’ The Countess of Painscastle snapped her fingers in casual dismissal of the laws of man and God. ‘You say that you love Hal. And yet you would live the rest of your life without him? Go to him, Nell. Anything is better than needless loss and regret.’
‘What if he refuses to take me with him?’
‘Are you going to give him the chance? I had thought better of you!’
Eleanor looked across to where her mother now sat. The lady’s features were carefully schooled when she spoke. ‘You love him, Eleanor. I should have known… I too did you a great wrong, as you know… And I suppose I would make recompense.’ She winced a little at the sheer surprise that Eleanor could not disguise, but continued none the less. ‘I don’t like it. It breaks my heart to lose you and the child—but I can see in your face that you would be with him.’ Mrs Stamford’s eyes were bright, but no tear was allowed to escape, no expression of weakness. ‘If you want him, Eleanor, then take Judith’s advice. I will not put my weight of argument against it.’ But she turned her face away.
‘Octavia would do it.’ Eleanor considered her previous conversation with that lady. I would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of me. ‘She would allow nothing to come between her and Edward.’
‘There now. If she can, insipid creature that she is, so can you. It is settled.’ Judith was now triumphant. ‘And Sarah will go with you, won’t you, Sarah?’
‘Sarah?’ Eleanor felt as if she were being swept along by a veritable hurricane, all her arguments ignored, all her reasoning disputed and thrown out. And even her mother… She felt momentarily helpless, but the feeling could not compete with the sudden surge of hope in her heart. I can do it. I can go to him and insist that I go with him!
‘I would go with you.’ Sarah’s face lit at the prospect and she nodded towards Judith. ‘We have talked of it and decided. I believe that Captain Russell might have liked the idea of his son to be brought up in America. I have a mind to see it for myself. Will you let me accompany you?’
‘Oh, Sarah!’ Eleanor dabbed once more at her eyes.
‘Don’t anyone say anything else to reduce her to tears again!’ Judith instructed with a frown. ‘Sarah—go and tell Nick that it is all decided. He will know what to do.’
Eleanor laughed softly. ‘I have stopped weeping—I do promise you. What has Nick to do with it?’
‘All your possessions are packed,’ Judith explained. ‘It seemed to us that you will have just enough time to take the coach to Liverpool and catch the sailing. Nick will arrange it, of course.’
‘Have you been scheming behind my back?’ Eleanor’s fine brows rose at the extent of her family’s duplicity.
‘Yes. But only for your good.’ Judith leaned to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘It broke my heart to see you so unhappy. Go to Hal and make a new life for both of you, and for Tom.’
They left her alone with Nicholas.
‘I see that Judith has been arranging everyone’s life, as usual. And yours in particular.’ He walked across the room to take her hands in his, lift them to his lips in formal salute, much as Henry was wont to do. The resemblance had never been so strong.
‘Do you disapprove, dear Nick?’
‘No. How could I?’
‘Hal cannot marry me. Any union between us will not be legal.’
‘I know it.’ There was no condemnation here.
‘Even if I take Tom with me? Out of the country?’
‘Eleanor.’ Nick’s voice was gentle as he released her hands. ‘He is Hal’s son. Am I right?’
Bright colour suffused Eleanor’s cheeks, but she would not deny it. ‘Yes. Oh, yes. I did not realise…’
‘No one gives me any credit for any percipience. You are as bad as Hal!’ He huffed out a breath in mock annoyance. But smiled at her confusion and was quick to reassure her. ‘I guessed long ago. Watching the two of you, it was not difficult to see the connection between you and Hal. The love that neither of you could deny, no matter how hard you might try. And Tom is as much like Hal as he resembled Thomas.’
‘Oh.’
‘And Thomas, being the honourable man he was, made you his wife and gave Tom a father because Hal did not know. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’ She sighed at his quick understanding and his calm acceptance of what many would have condemned out of hand.
‘And Hal knows,’ Nick continued, ‘but fears taking you into hardship and danger.’
‘Yes. That is it. You know us very well.’
‘So it seems. You will join him in Liverpool and Sarah will accompany you. Or that was Judith’s plan.’
‘Yes. But what about the estate, Nick?’
‘I will run it, with Hoskins dealing with all the legal business. When Tom comes of age, he can claim it. He can choose to live where he wishes.’
‘But—’
‘Before you ask, it will not be a
burdensome task to me. I shall enjoy having a free hand.’ Nicholas took her shoulders to shake her, much as Judith had done. ‘Look, Nell. Do you love Hal?’
‘More than life itself.’ She found herself deliberately echoing Octavia’s words, a tender smile touching her lips, leaving Nick in no doubt of the power of her love. He was quick to banish the sharp twinge of envy and turn his mind to the practical.
‘Then go to him. You will catch the sailing. Everything is arranged.’
He took her hands once more and pressed a light kiss of farewell to her forehead, his smile a little sad at the anticipation of loss for himself.
‘Thank you. Dearest Nick. I can never express my gratitude enough.’
‘You do not have to…’ But he spoke to an empty space. Eleanor had turned on her heel, to collect her son and begin her journey to Hal.
‘Poor Hal.’ A sudden grin lightened Nick’s rather sombre expression as he envisaged the meeting in Liverpool. ‘He does not know what fate has in store for him.’ Then followed the Marchioness of Burford from the room to arrange the travel documents and the stowing of the luggage in the travelling coach.
Chapter Thirteen
In Liverpool, the days passed slowly for Lord Henry as the Sea Emerald made ready to sail. He put up at the Black Bull, a small but comfortable establishment close to the docks, and tried without success to exert some patience. Captain Armstrong and the ship’s officers set about the supplying of the vessel with food and water, and the careful stowing away of trade goods, mostly cutlery and domestic hardware from Sheffield and the Black Country. Henry’s impatience did not make it happen any quicker, but the ship’s company was soon used to his interested presence on board. After all, the experience, invaluable in itself to a man newly engaged in trading contracts, took his mind off other issues. Or at least that was his plan.
