Ravenstone (Book 1, The Ravenstone Chronicles)

by Louise Franklin

  “Charles,” she called after him. “This isn’t fair.”

  He didn’t respond but continued on his way, not at all sure that he was right but always coming back to the same question. Why had their mother agreed to keep the children and pretend they were hers? The person he knew his mother to be would never have agreed to this unless there was another reason. Something so terrible it had to be hidden at all costs. All he knew was that he was tired of the lies and he would have the truth one way or another.

  16

  It had been a few days now and still he would not talk to her. Charles watched Georgiana from a distance, his face set in a brooding line of discontent, while she ignored him, deciding to make the most of her time with the girls. Picnicking on the grass, she relaxed on the pillows and laughed as she watched Rupert and James run away from the twins who wanted to pin flowers on the boys.

  Later Rupert managed to transform them into proper fighting soldiers and with wooden swords in hand, he marched them up and down the lawn before sending them into battle. He set up an ambush and they waited for their first victim behind the shrubs. Unfortunately, her mother was the first to pass their hiding place and they pounced on her with fierce growls. She jumped and screamed, dropping her basket of flowers and ran in fright, truly fearing for her life.

  Georgiana spent a good hour calming her mother. She lay on the blanket and Georgiana fanned her face to cool her while the children circled them, their swords drawn to make sure their prisoner did not escape.

  “Do make them go away, Georgiana,” Lady Wyndham said harshly, glaring at Rupert, who commanded his troops to hold steady.

  “Rupert,” Georgiana said. “I think you may yet gain another prisoner.”

  He followed the direction of her gaze and smiled to see Harry, pushing a wheelbarrow toward the stables. With a quick word to his soldiers, he had them in line and marching off to battle again.

  Relieved, her mother calmed down, and managed to sit up and take a glass of lemonade. Georgiana glanced at Charles who sat on a bench near the house, his face turned to the sun.

  “What have you done to Charles?” her mother asked, her voice clipped.

  “Done?” Georgiana asked. “I’m not sure I understand your meaning.”

  “Why is he not sitting here with us?” she asked. “He has been behaving strangely since our arrival.”

  “And you think I have something to do with it?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I think Charles is trying to make a decision about something and he is staying far away from me so I do not overly influence that decision.”

  “What decision?”

  “I don’t know, do I?” she said teasingly. “That’s the whole purpose of the distance, Mother.”

  “Fiddlesticks,” she said. “I shall go ask him.”

  Her mother stormed off in Charles’s direction and she watched them argue for a moment before her mother seemed to give up and leave him to his musings.

  He had refused an invitation to see the lovely Miss Kingstons, but not to be put off, Lady Kingston arrived to call on Ravenstone. They all sat in the drawing room politely drinking tea, the young Caroline and Dorothea trying to draw Charles into conversation, which he allowed reluctantly. They did not direct their conversation at Georgiana and she guessed she had not yet been forgiven. It meant her mother was left to carry the entire visit, which she did well while Charles, like the Kingstons, refused to even look at Georgiana.

  She had been angry for finding herself in the predicament Charles had so cleverly used to discover the truth. She was now at his mercy, a position she had long ago come to despise. She wanted to trust her brother. She even believed she could, but a part of her was fearful that he really was not the brother she remembered.

  The truth was she did not know what he would do now that he knew she could walk. Would he give her up? It was a question that went around in her mind so often she no longer cared to know the answer. Her cards were on the table, and it was his turn to show himself. She had faith in him, she told herself. She had to trust someone and if not her own beloved brother, then who?

  She felt sorry for him, watching him struggle against everything he had been taught; the indoctrination of young males to favor their fathers started at birth. Everything he had learned to be and everything he had thought himself to be, a young gentleman with honor and duty, was being put to the test. Everything he knew about what a woman should be, she had proven wrong.

  When the tea was gone, Lady Kingston finally had no other recourse but to leave, and tried to get Charles to promise that he would visit them soon. He murmured something that seemed to satisfy them and they departed.

  Meanwhile, he took long rides and stayed away from the house even when the rain arrived to drench the countryside. On the night before he was to leave, she dressed in her breeches and after everyone had gone to sleep, she tried his door but it was locked. She took another route, over the roof and down to his window. Using her knife, she unlatched the window and opened it quietly, then slipped into his dark room.

  He slept on his back, the covers thrown carelessly off. She moved cautiously forward and sat at the foot of his bed, folding her legs under her. She watched him sleep for a moment, almost too afraid of waking him. She needed to know if he would keep her secrets.

  She must have been gazing at him intently for he seemed to sense a presence and opened his eyes. With his first sleepy instinct, he seemed to sense that it was only his sister, and he almost smiled. Then his second instinct must have screamed at him that it was his sister. He bolted up and away from her in fright, and she almost wanted to laugh except it was sad he must think she would do him harm.

  “How did you get in?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trying not to look like he was concerned and failing by the nature of the question.

  “It wasn’t difficult,” she shrugged and pointed to the widow.

  “Christ, Georgiana, you cannot just climb in my window in the middle of the night.”

  “You locked the door,” she said accusingly.

  “Because I did not wish to be disturbed.”

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  He got off the bed and covered himself with his robe, tying the belt tightly. “What do you want?”

  “An answer, I suppose. What will you do?”

  He lit a candle from the embers, which still smoldered in the fireplace. He placed the candle on the nightstand, and inched further away from her. He looked her over, his gaze taking in her breeches and coat, the knife in her hand that she played with. She saw his eyes linger on the knife.

  “Are you afraid of me?” she asked softly.

  “Of course, I’m bloody afraid of you,” he said, raising his voice. “You lie to everyone and you do it so well for years that no one suspects a thing. Then you crawl into my window and sit at the end of my bed with a knife in your hand and watch me sleep. I’d be an idiot not to be afraid of you. I don’t even know who the hell you are anymore.”

  He was really shaken. Else he would never have used curse words in front of her. A gentleman did no such a thing, and he prided himself on keeping those standards. He walked over to the window and leaned out, apparently to see if she had used a ladder. He did it without turning his back on her. Not seeing anything, he looked up toward the roof and was still left without an answer.

  “You are my brother and I love you. I would never hurt you,” she said, her voice filled with reproach.

  “I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” he snapped.

  She sat at the foot of the bed watching him and he looked out the window again, a frown on his face.

  “Do you want me to show you how I did it?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, annoyed. “I most certainly do not want you to try and break your neck again. I would like to understand any and all of what you have not told me.”

  She reached down to take off her shoes, then her breeches.


  “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  “This is hardly appropriate,” he said, looking away from her.

  “You wanted the truth, didn’t you?”

  She pulled her breeches down and moved her legs to the light so he could see the jagged scars running down her legs.

  “Look,” she said.

  He turned his head slightly.

  “My God,” he said, horrified at what he saw.

  “Do you want to know how I got them?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Dearest Papa took a hammer to my legs.”

  He swallowed hard. “Why?”

  “He didn’t want me running away from him again.”

  “He beat you for being with child?”

  “No,” she smiled. “For they are his children.”

  He paled at her words, and sat down heavily on the bed.

  She got dressed again. “After the girls were born, Father wanted to get rid of them. He was going to sell them. I found out because one of the nuns at the convent took pity on me. She helped me escape, and I ran away, taking them with me, but he found me. In his rage and so that I would never run away from him again, he broke my legs.”

  “Dear God.”

  She shrugged. “Father was clever at hiding his true nature and even died with his honor intact. Mother, of course, was quite instrumental in assuring that end.”

  “She knew?” he asked, aghast.

  “Oh, I told her, but she chose to not believe me. It was easier for her to believe me willful and manipulative, than to think her own husband would rape her daughter.”

  “But surely after Jane and Margaret were born, she could not deny it?”

  “Could she not?” Georgiana laughed. “I was simply promoted to whore. Mother quite refused to see anything she didn’t want to see. It was the scandal she feared above everything.”

  Charles took her hands in his. He was shaking.

  “I should have been here,” he said, tortured. “Georgiana, none of this would have happened had I not abandoned you.”

  She laughed. “It would have made little difference to Father. Had you tried to stop him, he would have killed you.”

  She turned to look at him, and noticed the tears that ran silently down his face. She wiped them with her hand and turned his face to look at her.

  “Charles, my only consolation all those years was that you had escaped him. Don’t you see there was nothing you could have done?”

  “But your legs,” he said.

  “I am fine again. The physician was quite skilled, and was able to reset the bones. I could not walk for some time. I had no feeling in my legs, and it wasn’t until after the third year that feeling returned. By then, Father had lost interest in me. I had become useless to him as I grew older. He preferred young girls.”

  “And Jane and Margaret? How did you manage to keep them? ”

  “As soon as I was able to put ink to paper, I wrote to everyone in society of my joy in being again a sister. I promised my nurse a fortune if she would deliver them herself. I thought Mother would kill me the day Lady Aster paid a visit to congratulate her on not only having twins, but having so cleverly concealed her confinement. She stormed into the nursery before Mother could prevent her, only to find that indeed the two new babies were real. They had no choice after Lady Aster informed others of this miracle.”

  “Were he alive, I would kill him myself,” Charles said.

  She sighed, rubbing a knuckle over her brow. She moved to sit on the floor in front of the cooling fire and added a lump of coal to burn.

  “What happened that night?” he asked. “The night Father died.”

  “I was afraid for them, Charles. After I heard about his plans to marry me off, I decided I couldn’t leave the girls at his mercy,” she said slowly. “I killed him.”

  Slowly she stumbled through the story, not realizing she was crying until he handed her a handkerchief. Putting an arm around her shoulder, he pulled her close. He kissed the top of her head and held her while she cried. After a long while, she pulled away and he let her go. They sat side by side, watching the glowing embers.

  “His death was too good for him,” Charles said finally. He took her hand in his and held it between his own.

  “I don’t regret it, Charles. I only wish I had done it sooner.”

  “I understand.”

  Did he? She tried to read his face but the light was not sufficient to give her enough information.

  “Do you think I should feel guilty?”

  “No,” he said but she did not believe him.

  She laughed, the sound harsh in the stillness of night.

  “He raped and used me for years, tried to sell his own children, crippled me and committed who knows what other terrible acts and God help me, Charles, I feel no guilt for killing him.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Is it, Charles?” she asked sadly. “I feel so lost sometimes. I will never be the ideal well-bred young lady. They are right to call me an abomination.”

  “It’s all so ridiculous, don’t you see that?” he said.

  “I think I do, but then sometimes I do not. I believe in morality and honor and duty as much as you do, but I am condemned by my thoughts and actions that exile me. I cannot be what is expected of me, for I see a lady as everything that is weak.”

  He was silent for a time and then he turned to her and said, “Georgiana, do you know, I don’t think I will ever marry.”

  “Marry?” she asked confused, not understanding why he spoke so suddenly of it. “Why ever not?”

  “Because you have spoiled for me the idea of what a lady should be. To me, you are the definition of everything that is good and strong. A true lady, and I fear there are no others out there for me to find.”

  “You must marry, Charles.”

  “No, I fear I cannot.”

  “If you do not, the good matrons and their young offspring shall hound me to hell itself did they discover your reason.”

  He smiled.

  “I missed you, Charles,” she said.

  “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” she said and kissed him on his brow.

  “Do you want me to leave Jane and Margaret with you?”

  Her heart missed a beat. She did want it desperately.

  “I miss them terribly, but my first duty is to them and not my own need. If it is ever discovered who their real mother is, they are ruined and will suffer for the rest of their lives. It’s too much of a risk,” she said. “It would seem strange that I am raising them instead of Mother. It will set people to thinking about it and if anyone dangerous, with enough intelligence, were to start asking questions, it could all come undone for them. I would not risk their life and yours like that.”

  “Mine?”

  “The scandal would end your career in politics.”

  “I care less for it than you.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “There is more.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I find myself in a rather dangerous position. I am not sure exactly how I shall escape it, but I would fear for Jane and Margaret here.”

  “What danger?”

  “A Major Price paid me a visit and threatened to expose my smuggling contraband, did I not help him.”

  “But you are not smuggling contraband,” he said angrily.

  “That is not important. You yourself pointed out that since it is being done on my property and with workers from my fields, it will look like Edward and I are involved.”

  “And what does this Major Price want?”

  “Arnaud Rochette. A French spy who is somehow connected to Ravenstone.”

  “I don’t understand how you can help him.”

  “Neither do I, but he is convinced. He wants to discover who the leader of this gang of smugglers is.”

  “And you propose to do so, don’
t you?”

  “Why not?” she shrugged.

  “Because it’s dangerous and foolhardy.”

  “My very reasons for making sure Jane and Margaret remain with you.”

  “I forbid you to do this,” he said angrily and stood up. “You cannot mean to place yourself in such danger.”

  “Oh, Charles,” she sighed. “Surely by now, if nothing else, you realize I am capable.”

  “I only mean to protect you, not question your skill at God knows what,” he said, frustrated.

  “Protect me by protecting the girls,” she said and standing up, she reached for his hands and held them in hers. “The rest I can do myself. If nothing else, Father taught me to fight back.”

  He smiled. “I almost feel sorry for Major Price.”

  “Now you understand it all,” she said. “But I must go for soon Harriet will come to wake me and find me gone.”

  He unlatched the door and she slipped out into the hallway.

  ***

  Peter returned some days later from London with six boys who settled into one of the newly finished cottages. They had arrived in time for the harvest. Fortunately, with not enough workers in the fields, their appearance was more welcome than suspicious among the locals.

  They knew nothing of farming, or how to work the land, but they learned quickly. She rode past a field in which the hay was being cut to store for winter. The laborers were mostly women and children as so many men had gone off to fight. The six new boys were collecting the cut hay into bushels. The bushels were then tied by the tiers who came behind. The hay would next be put into stacks so it could dry. The process had to be attended to quickly for to leave the moist hay without drying it could result in spontaneous combustion.

  On a hot summer day with not even a sea breeze blowing across the fields, she was thankful the new boys were adjusting. She wiped the sweat running down her face, and seeing a grove of shady oaks on a nearby hill, she urged Bella toward them. She galloped up the slope and into the shade, only to stop short as she noticed a horse tied up to a branch. It was a beautiful bay, and she admired the lines even as she scanned the shade for its owner. Her gaze met a pair of familiar eyes.