At her astonished look, he warmed to his theme, hoping to convince her of the wisdom of his argument. "I have never believed in giving everything to the eldest, who has won all just by a trick of birth. It is heartless abandoning the others to shift for themselves, and encourages the younger children to be envious of the one who gets the whole of an estate by a mere matter of chance rather than merit.
"Nor do I approve of entailing estates away from girls, or dowries, which are little more than attempts to bargain the hapless girl child away for the right price. Henry and I were loved by our parents, treated equally. I want that for our children as well.
"I want a wife who is intelligent, not vain and empty-headed. Someone who thinks of others more than her gowns and toilette. I think you are that woman, Vanessa. You possess all those qualities and more. And since you are so unconventional, and your brother has compromised your reputation, I fear many more conservative and traditional men will not consider you a suitable partner in life."
She sighed, acknowledging inwardly the truth of his words.
He rubbed his hands together, and deciding the room was cooling off now that the pale autumnal sun was going down, he went over to the hearth to build up the fire.
"I know you think you have reason to be suspicious of me. Gerald has never spoken well of me in his life, I'm sure. All I'm asking is that you not fight me on this. Just accept the fact that I like and admire you and am only trying to help.
"We have time to get to know each other, until the end of the month. If you decide prior to that time that you really cannot abide me, we will make other arrangements for you. But I shall not permit you to reside with Gerald any longer.
"I am sorry to be so blunt, but you asked for the truth. I feel most strongly that he has not protected your interests as a good brother should. You should not be left in the hands of someone who has behaved so irresponsibly with regard to your welfare and reputation."
"I am sure my lawyers can make arrangements for me. You need not trouble yourself. Or I can go to my Aunt Stephens--"
Clifford shook his head, and explained his position to her as if to a small child. "Surely you cannot be so naïve. I do need to trouble myself, as you put it. Trouble is not the word I would use, but never mind that for now.
"Firstly, I wish to take a personal interest in what happens to you because I am concerned for your well being generally. Moreover, I do not wish people to say I cast you off, or that you jilted me, both of which would also damage your reputation."
Vanessa sighed. "You're right, of course. Thank you for being so solicitous of my good name."
"It's the least I can do, given none of this has been of your own making."
"Still, I'm grateful, even if I don't seem to be." She gave him a timid smile. "It's all been so sudden. Has been so confusing."
"If there's anything I can do to help lift the confusion, you have only to say. I shall try my best to help."
"It's just--" She clamped her hand over her mouth and blushed.
"Go on," he prompted gently.
"It's just that you are so different from what Gerald has told me. And everything is so new and strange. I've barely got my feet back under me after my aunt's death. Now I'm being forced to move out of the only real home I've ever known, back to Hawkesworth House, which I barely remember, and only with dread."
His honey-blond brows lifted. "Dread? An interesting word. Rather a strong emotion, wouldn't you say? And an unusual one. A place where she grew up ought not to fill a child with dread."
She massaged her temples and looked at him in puzzlement. Meeting his gaze, she said shyly, "I'm not sure why I used the word. Perhaps I should have used the word misgivings."
"Dread is as good a word as any, if it was the first that came to mind," he said, leaning forward in his chair to examine her more closely. She had certainly become awfully pale again.
She pressed one trembling hand to her forehead. "Please don't look at me as though I'm mad. I'm accustomed to stares from the servants and neighbors back in Dorset, but I don't wish to see that doubtful expression in your eyes."
He took her hand in his own. "I never said you were mad. The expression you see is simply one of worry. You are as sane as I, my dear. Confused, perhaps, at the moment, but otherwise certainly very bright and intelligent.
"Weak men fear that. I am not weak, however, of either willpower or mental capacity. So I do not fear you. I hope a time will come soon when you will no longer fear me."
She pushed herself down deeper under the covers. "Please, I need to rest and think."
He stroked her auburn hair on the pillow, marveling at its softness. "Yes, of course. I shall call Emma now, and let you sleep."
He rose and left the room. Much to Vanessa's regret, he did not return with Emma.
Vanessa made small talk with the girl for a moment longer, and then put her head down dutifully. She closed her eyes, but sleep was a long time in coming. Even when it finally did arrive, it brought no refreshment.
Luridly-colored visions of the maze and lawn at Hawkesworth House, and a woman in a blue gown with blood all over her, haunted her sleep. Dark shadows, approaching footsteps, a dead cat, a decapitated puppy, a plate full of writhing worms, a dead lamb, a maimed horse, spun through her head in a terrifying swirl, until at last she could bear it no longer and flung herself off the bed screaming.
"Clifford! Clifford, help me!" Emma shouted in alarm.
He took the stairs two at a time, and put himself between Emma and the flailing arms of Vanessa as she thrashed about, still caught in the throes of her nightmare.
"Vanessa! It's me, Clifford. You're safe! You're safe. Please, let me help you. That's it, that's it, you're safe."
Her fisted hands gradually relaxed, and her arms stopped waving about. She allowed him to pull her to his chest, where he ran a soothing hand down her auburn hair to her shoulders. He sat her on the bed and covered the upper half of her body with the warm dressing gown she had worn that morning.
"You're all right now," he soothed the wild-eyed girl. "I'm here. I won't leave you. Emma and the others won't leave you alone either. You're at Dr. Gold's house. Do you remember? Nothing will hurt you here. Nothing. Do you understand?"
Vanessa nodded, and loosened her crushing grip upon his shoulders. "I'm so sorry. I have no idea what came over me," she apologized, still shuddering like a leaf in a gale.
"A nightmare, if I had to guess. What did you see?"
Vanessa struggled to recall the images. As she did so, he lay her back down on the pillows which Emma had fluffed up. At length she replied, "A dead puppy, a plate of worms. But that makes no sense."
He rubbed his hand in small circles on her back soothingly. "Nightmares rarely do. Don't fret yourself. You'll be fine. You're not mad, do you hear me? I know it's what you fear. With all the gossip about you, you're terrified, and naturally so. But I tell you, you're not mad."
"Will I never escape from Hawkesworth House?" she whispered so quietly that only Clifford caught her desperate words.
He tucked her into the bed tenderly, rearranging the disheveled covers she had tossed about. "You escaped once, my dear. You will again. I give you my word. You can come to Stone Court as my bride, and will never have to step foot in that place again."
She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and shook him violently. "Don't you understand! I can't escape! I carry it around with me! In me!"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Clifford grasped her wrists, and forced the distressed Vanessa to release the worsted wool of his lapels and allow him to lay her back down again. "You're not mad. You're stronger than that, my dear, and so am I. It will be fine. I give you my word."
Emma stood staring and wringing her hands at the alarming scene. She was relieved when Dr. Gold came in to give Vanessa a cordial to soothe her.
The two of them helped administer it to the distraught woman while Clifford held her hand quietly against his chest, stroking it tenderly.
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Vanessa drank all of it down, and fell back against the pillows once more, still trembling and by now utterly exhausted.
Emma tucked her in again, and all three of them sat with her until she fell into a deep slumber. Then the doctor signaled for them to come outside with him.
"Given that violent display, I think we should have both a woman and man sit watch with her at the same time. I shall go fetch Josephine and Henry up here, and then you and I are going to have a chat, Clifford."
Clifford nodded curtly, and watched the two of them descend the stairs. He waited until his brother and future sister-in-law came up to the room, and then made his way to the doctor's study. He shut the door behind him, and sat in the empty chair by the blazing fire.
Dr. Gold avoided his earnest blue gaze and rubbed his hands together nervously. It was most unlike him. Clifford steeled himself for bad news, but he still felt a crushing sense of fear.
The doctor cleared his throat and said tentatively, "Clifford, I'm relatively new to the area, compared with yourself. I don't recall the Hawkesworth family apart from Gerald, with whom I have tried to have as little to do with as possible. But given what I've just heard, and witnessed last night, I have to ask you, is it possible that what they are saying is true? That the Hawkesworth family were, are, all mad?"
Clifford heaved a huge sigh, and leaned forward in the chair to put his head in his hands. "I don't like to speak ill of the dead, and I certainly don't want to think badly of Vanessa. But there have been some past, er, well, shall we just say, peculiar circumstances in the family."
"In what way peculiar?"
"Both of Mr. Hawkesworth's wives died in odd circumstances, as he did himself. Gerald as we all know is a most unpredictable chap, and now you have seen Vanessa acting strangely. Her aunt had some eccentric notions about the place of women in society, but I would not say that made her mad."
"Vanessa has evidently been under a great deal of strain recently. It is easily explained. Her aunt's death, her grief, her relocation to a place which is strange to her--"
"Dread."
"I beg your pardon?"
Clifford sighed. "She said her home was a place she dreaded. I thought it an odd word at the time, but given what she just told me she saw in her nightmares, perhaps an apt one."
Clifford repeated what Vanessa had told him of her dreams. Both men lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
"So far as I recall, Gerald's mother killed herself after a long illness. Now she comes out of a locked house that she escaped from with symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Perhaps the whole family isn't mad. Maybe only one of them is?"
Dr. Gold's brows knit. "How did the father, and Vanessa's mother die?"
"Vanessa's mother died in a hunting accident, so far as I can remember being told. Her father had a riding accident several years later," Clifford revealed.
"So many accidents, unnatural deaths, it is a wonder that no one said anything at the time."
"I'm told their solicitors are most discreet, and handled the affairs swiftly and quietly."
The doctor shook his head, and looked more grim than Clifford had ever seen him. "Not swiftly and quietly enough in the case of Gerald's London season. I have heard it said that he did the girl he became enamored of so much damage she was forced to retire to the country and was never heard of again."
Clifford ran his hands through his lush blond hair. "I have heard the same rumors, though apparently Edmund Cavendish was also involved in the scandal in some way, so that Gerald was believed to not have been entirely at fault. Something about jealous rivalry, a duel? I cannot recollect, but we might do well to find out more."
"The eldest three Cavendish boys are wild, there is no doubt about it. It would not surprise me in the least about Edmund."
"Gerald's reputation as a lusty country squire has only grown over the years. He shows no signs of settling down at all. What on earth were Vanessa's solicitors thinking to allow her to come back to that house?"
Dr. Gold shrugged. "She is no longer a defenseless child. And her aunt Stephens is nearby."
"She may not be a child, but she is a woman, and as such should be protected appropriately. Though she is clever and brave, she's certainly no match for Gerald. I cannot think it's a coincidence that she shows symptoms of poisoning.
"But she has a great deal of family loyalty, and will never denounce Gerald. It would make her own position here completely untenable, and disgrace the Stephens into the bargain. Her aunt is a silly woman, apt to all sorts of crochets. But she has enough cunning to know it would be a good match for one of her lads to marry their cousin."
"Not that they are any great prizes," John Gold said with a shake of his gray head. "Well, the eldest two anyway. Peter is ambitious, grasping. Has ice water in his veins. Toby is a roué, apt to chase anything in skirts."
Clifford nodded. "Aye. Sad but true. Neither of them lifted a finger to stop Gerald last night. I was in the room the whole time, and saw everything. They were more than happy to wager for her, and very stunned that they did not succeed. If her solicitors expected protection and guidance for Vanessa from her paternal aunt and cousins, they will be sadly disappointed. Only Paul is worth a damn, and he is so unworldly, and so far away, he is almost entirely of no use."
"It's a damnable shame," the doctor said with a sigh.
"So there we have it," Clifford declared, thumping one fist on his knee as though he were a judge banging his gavel. "Gerald gambled her. The Stephenses want her money. She has not seen them for nearly five years, and has no idea just how reprehensible they are. Add to that the fact that Gerald has done his utmost to turn her against me, and this is a fine muddle we're all in."
"Well, Clifford, given the fact that she nearly died in that house, I have to agree with you that it does look like Gerald, rather than a bad oyster, may well be responsible for her present state." The doctor rose to pour them some sherry.
"Henry or Malcolm might have more information pertaining to this matter, but for the moment, let us assume that to be the case."
"All right." He handed Clifford a glass, and resumed his seat.
"Therefore I want to keep her here as long as I can until she is well. Then we need to think about her safety, and her reputation. And I will do whatever I can to help. Look for clues, evidence, if need be."
"You can all stay as long as you wish, or need to."
"Thank you, John, You don't know what it means to me to know that I'm not alone in all this. The trouble is, we're running out of time, aren't we. I'm still willing to go through with the marriage, but short of dragging her up the aisle kicking and screaming, I'm not sure what I can do to get her to agree."
"Perhaps tell her our suspicions?" Dr. Gold suggested.
Clifford shook his head. "She will only deny it, and argue on behalf of her family."
"There must be some proof. As I said, I'll do what we can."
"We suspect him of other crimes in the past, don't we."
"Aye?"
"Then I have to say here and now that Gerald would not have got away with killing people by being careless."
"That may be true, but he does not have a father protecting him any longer either."
At Clifford's surprised look, the doctor nodded. "Think about it. It's the only thing that makes sense given all you've told me," he argued perceptively.
"The mother died unnaturally, his stepmother as well. Gerald is the type of person who is prone to excess. He would have also had no qualms about torturing his little sister, if we are to take Vanessa's words about dreading the house, and her horrendous nightmares into account."
"One could suspect the father of the two murders of his wives, could they not?" Clifford said, willing to play Devil's advocate as John had done with him.
"Yes," the doctor agreed, "were it not for the fact that he himself died unnaturally. Gerald's continued use of violence, as for instance in London, and the bizarre attacks on local women and livestock, would als
o support this theory."
Clifford looked as worried as he felt. He rose from his chair to poke the fire, deeling chilled to the bone.
Dr. Gold continued, "We're dealing with a fiend, one who was protected by his father and his solicitors, but who has been desperate for money for some time, and now has another victim within his grasp.
"We cannot let her go the way of the rest of the family. She must be protected, and we must find some proof of Gerald's misdeeds before it's too late."
Clifford began to pace in front of the hearth as he tried to absorb all the doctor had said. At length he replied, "I shall tell Malcolm all you've suggested, but one fact remains. We have no proof, only speculation. Even if we tried to convince her, had some sort of concrete evidence, Vanessa will never believe us."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 1 Page 14
