For All Eternity

by Heather Cullman

  He blinked again, then smiled. Everything was exactly as it had been since his earliest childhood memories …

  Everything except Mother, he amended, his heart missing a beat as he focused on the bed to his left. So alarmingly pale was her normally rosy face, that he instantly wondered at his father’s wits for questioning the legitimacy of her illness.

  As he stood gaping, too appalled to do anything else, she smiled weakly and rasped, “Colin, my dearest son. Do come give your mother a kiss. I have — ” She broke off abruptly, her eyes bulging as if in surprise. In the next instant they rolled back in her head, and she succumbed to a frightening fit of chokes and twitches.

  Galvanized by fear, Nicholas forcibly uprooted his shock-planted feet and hurried across the room.

  “Colin.” She sighed, then fell deathly still.

  His eyes blurred with tears, he clasped her limp head to his breaking heart, sobbing, “Mother… please … I love you …”

  She stirred faintly against his breast. “What a good boy you are to come and be with me in my final days.”

  “No. No!” He gave her a fierce hug. “I shall suffer no such talk from you. Do you hear? Not a word! You shall be in prime twig in no time at all. Indeed, I shan’t be a whit surprised if you’re up and ordering us all about by the end of the week.” Praying without hope that his words would prove true, he laid her back upon her pillows and kissed her cheeks.

  She made a mewling noise and closed her eyes, visibly wearied by the slight exertion. “Promise me something, son.”

  “Anything,” he solemnly vowed.

  “Promise me that you shan’t grieve when I’m gone. Promise — “

  “Mother — “

  “No. Let me finish while I am able. I want you to promise to remember me with joy, and know that I leave this world with no regret — ” a feeble cough ” — save one.”

  “Which is?”

  As she lay limply against her pillows, her mouth waged in trembling battle to reply, he heard his father clear his throat. Reminded anew of his sire’s untenable dismissal of his mother’s condition, Nicholas more glared than looked to where he lounged in a chair at the opposite side of the bed.

  His father widened his eyes and patted his breast.

  Nicholas frowned and shook his head, almost certain now that his parent ran dotty.

  Returning his frown with one of his own, the marquess thumped his breast again, this time more insistently, then patted his own cheek, finishing his addled charade by discreetly pointing to Nicholas’s chest.

  Utterly dumbfounded by his queer play of motions, Nicholas glanced down to where his father pointed. Streaking his dark blue greatcoat was a chalky substance. When he glanced back up in question, his father indicated his mother, who now gasped in addition to her lip quivering, then tapped his own cheek again. Rolling his eyes in an expression of repressed hilarity, he mouthed, “Powder.”

  Powder? Nicholas returned his gaze to his now quivering, gasping, and twitching mother, his eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion. Though the bed curtains shielded her face from the nearby candlelight, he could still discern enough of her complexion to note its texture.

  It looked grainy … and blotchy, a description at odds with the frequently uttered one of “porcelain perfect and fine.” And come to think of it, wasn’t it just a shade too white? If he remembered correctly from when Quentin had almost died from pneumonia, a gravely ill person’s skin ran more akin to ash than snow.

  His eyes little more than slits now, Nicholas edged a fraction nearer. Aha! His father was correct, she did wear powder. A barrel of it. Indeed, so thickly applied was the cosmetic that she looked as if someone had rolled biscuits on her face.

  Though he knew he should feel relief at the discovery, he didn’t. As much as it shamed him to admit it, it merely deepened his alarm. That she would feign a fatal illness to sway him to her purpose could only mean that she planned something to which she knew he’d be vehemently opposed.

  Slanting his father a long suffering look, he tensely awaited her to finish her scene and spill the bag. She did so a scant second later.

  Her voice barely intelligible for all her forced trembling, she whispered, “My only regret is that I most probably shan’t live long enough to see you wed and hold your babes.” She uttered the word babes on a long, shuddering moan, one reminiscent of the ghost in the production of Hamlet he’d seen three weeks earlier … only her moan was much more convincing. It seemed that his mother had missed her true calling in life.

  Stifling his urge to laugh, he pointed out, “That is two regrets, not one.”

  She sighed. “Were you wed, I could die safe in the knowledge that I would someday look down from heaven and see you surrounded by your children … my grandchildren.” Her voice grew gradually weaker and weaker until the last line was barely audible.

  “Well, then, I guess you shall just have to hold on to your last breath a bit longer,” he countered unsympathetically.

  “If but I could! If but I could!” She moaned again, this time with a resonance that would have carried from the stage to the uppermost galleries of Covent Garden.

  He made an exasperated noise. “I would wed tomorrow if I met the right woman today. You know I would. But I shan’t do so until I find a suitable bride.”

  “And what qualities — ” a choking gurgle ” — make for a suitable bride?”

  He didn’t have to consider her question to reply. “The woman I marry must be good, kind, loyal, and sensible. Find me a wife like that, and you shall have a grandchild within a year.” Nicholas could have cut out his tongue the instant he uttered that last line. Oh, bloody — bloody! — hell. He’d just challenged his mother to find him a bride.

  By the glint in her eye as she stole a peek at him, he saw that she was fully prepared to meet that challenge. He groaned inwardly. He was in for it now.

  Shutting her eye again, she responded in a reedy voice, “If that is the sort of wife you seek, then you’ve been searching in the wrong place.”

  “Indeed?” This was from his father, who looked enormously entertained by the whole performance.

  She made a great show of nodding, her motion more a spasm than bob. “The only sort of gels one finds in Town during the Season are stupid, selfish, greedy little creatures like that Barrington chit. Lovely, yes. But not worth a farthing to a man.”

  His father chuckled. “I seem to recall having met you in London during the Season, Fanny, my love, and you haven’t a stupid, selfish, or greedy bone in your entire body.”

  She lifted her head to shoot him a look that was anything but feeble. “That was thirty years ago, and the times were entirely different. Gels back then were raised to be helpmates to their husbands, not — ” She broke off abruptly, her eyes widening as if suddenly remembering herself. Thud! Her head dropped back to the pillows. Instantly reverting to character, she finished with a groan, “Witless ornaments.”

  An amused look passed between Nicholas and his father. “Be that as it may, Mother, I’m no more likely to meet the right woman here at Hawksbury than in London. Therefore, it appears that I shall be forced to remain unwed until you either die or recover.”

  “Maybe not. One never knows who might turn up on their stoop,” she rasped.

  Nicholas gazed uneasily at his mother, who looked rather pleased with herself. Loath to ask but compelled to do so, he gritted out, “Pray do tell what you mean by that cryptic remark.”

  She choked a couple of times in response, then heaved

  several labored breaths. In a voice as thin as watered gruel, she finally replied, “Please don’t hate me, Colin, but I simply shan’t be able to rest in peace knowing that you are unwed. Therefore I — “

  She broke off in an impressive paroxysm of coughing. After tossing in a few gasps and gargles for enhanced effect, she finished, “I have invited three suitable young ladies to visit separately over the next three weeks. It is my — ” cough! sputter! ” — d-dying
wish that you take one of them for your bride.”

  Nicholas watched his mother’s masterful encore of pants and twitches, more filled with horror than if she were indeed suffering death throes.

  “You wouldn’t… wouldn’t deny me my … dying wish, would you?” she appealed between seizures.

  His horror exploded into outrage as she collapsed into a perfect portrait of imminent demise. Like hell he wouldn’t deny her! How dare she try to manipulate him like this. He was a grown man, and as such would decide for himself when and whom he would marry. It was high time she realized that and ceased her meddling.

  He was about to tell her exactly that and announce his intention to flee to Scotland, when she added, “I promise you that all the gels are fine, well-bred creatures. Unlike that wicked Barrington chit, any one of them shall be honored to be your wife.”

  Sophie. Nicholas’s words froze in his throat. So engrossed in his mother’s performance was he, that he’d forgotten all about her. If he fled now, he would lose what most probably was his only chance for vengeance. Yet, if he stayed …

  He grimaced. Heaven only knew what sort of females his mother sought to fob off on him this time. It was entirely possible that one or all of them were cut from the same shallow cloth as Miss Barrington, and would thus be repulsed by his disfigured cheek. Was revenge worth the risk of suffering more blows to his selfesteem? Then, there was the matter of the scandal —

  As if sensing his thoughts, his mother launched into a mock convulsion, then more gasped than said, “You needn’t fret on account of the Barrington affair. Since none of the gels were in Town for the Season, all are unaware of your embarrassment. Indeed, all three have yet to come out, which means that they are untarnished by tonnish excess.”

  Not out yet? A sudden warning shrieked through Nicholas’s mind. Not out usually meant that a miss was either overly young or too dreadful to merit the expense of a Season, both exceedingly ghastly prospects. He shuddered. Almost ghastly enough to tempt him to forget his lust for vengeance and seek sanctuary in Scotland.

  Struggling to decide, he muttered, “Please do tell me more about these rustic paragons.”

  The triumph on his mother’s face was unmistakable, though she did remember herself enough to hack out a few feeble coughs before replying. “One of the gels is Lady Julianna Howland, the daughter of the late Marquess of Chadwick. She’s … oh, let me think. Twenty? Yes. Twenty. And most sensible. Indeed, it was she, herself, who decided against a Season, judging London to be a frightfully unhealthy place. Unlike those greedy, pampered creatures at the Marriage Mart, you shall find Lady Julianna perfectly disposed to spending the bulk of the year helping you tend to your estates.”

  Chadwick? H-m-m. Hadn’t there been some recent scandal involving a Chadwick? Nicholas considered for a moment. Ah, but of course. Lord Chadwick was that quiz who’d died in a drunken brawl over a bit of muslin last year. Poor Lady Julianna. She’d probably foregone her Season not from health concerns, but from shame, an emotion with which he was intimately acquainted.

  A slight frown worried his brow. Understanding her humiliation as he did, how could he possibly refuse to meet her? If he did so, she might attribute his refusal to her family’s disgrace, and thus feel all the more stigmatized. Besides, simply meeting her didn’t obligate him to wed her. It required only that he be kind and courtly, and in this instance, demonstrate to her that her sire’s foolishness in no way reflected upon her person.

  Thus, he nodded and murmured, “She sounds delightful.”

  “She does?” His father couldn’t have sounded more shocked had he consented to wed the girl sight unseen.

  “She is delightful,” his mother assured him, pointedly ignoring her husband’s outburst. “As is Miss Minerva Mayhew, daughter of Viscount Brumbly. You might recall the viscount from the times you accompanied your father fishing in Scotland? His manor neighbors ours.” “Of course he does,” his father interjected. “How could one forget salmon-mad Brumbly and his endless fishing inventions?”

  How indeed? Nicholas thought, nodding. With his drifting left eye and maniacal zest for anything with fins and a tail, he was a most memorable character.

  “Yes, well, of course,” his mother more wheezed than said. “As for his daughter, I had the pleasure of meeting her several years back at a fishing party in Cumberland. She was but eleven at the time, but showed much promise.”

  “And you say that she has yet to come out?” Nicholas prompted, not willing to credit the girl by virtue of promise alone.

  “With her mother dead and Brumbly’s preoccupation with fishing, the matter has most probably been overlooked.” This was from his father.

  Nicholas glanced at the other man, who grinned as if he found something exceedingly funny. Worried that that something was Miss Mayhew, he inquired, “And have you met the viscount’s daughter as well, Father?” “No. No. Can’t say as I’ve had the pleasure, though I know plenty about her from Brumbly’s rattling. Never misses a chance to boast of her skill with a rod and lure.”

  A miss who shared his pleasure of fishing? That virtue alone merited her worth a look. He nodded. “She sounds promising.”

  His mother, who lay gagging like a cat with a hair ball, abruptly ceased her theatrics and smiled. “That brings us to the third and, I might add, best bridal prospect: Lady Helene Stancliffe, daughter of the Duke of Windford. I’ve been friends with her mother, Suzanne, since girlhood, and have followed Helene’s progress through her letters. She is reported to be a most lovely and accomplished creature. The dear child was to have made her bow this Season, but her brother, Reginald, died unexpectedly, and the family is only now out of mourning.” A duke’s daughter? Lovely and accomplished? Nicholas fingered his damaged cheek, cringing inwardly. She sounded just the sort of miss to be offended by his scar. The others, well —

  “What have you to say, Colin? Am I to rest in peace or not?” his mother prodded in a faltering voice.

  Nicholas sighed and dropped his hand from his face to his lap. Though he longed for revenge, would vindication be balm enough to soothe the wounds from its exaction? More importantly, would the pain from those wounds be any worse than that he’d suffer in having to acknowledge himself a coward? And indeed he would be a coward if he fled to Scotland to escape his fear. Miss Barrington would have made him one.

  His hands tightened into angry fists at that thought. No! Damn it, never! She may have crushed his pride, but he would never allow her to unman him. He was Nicholas Somerville, Earl of Lyndhurst and heir to the Marquess of Beresford. He would never allow himself to be bested by a mere cloth merchant’s daughter. Never! He would remain at Hawksbury and teach her what it meant to reap what one had sown. And she would find it a very bitter harvest indeed.

  A slow smile twisted his lips as he imagined her reaction when she tasted her crop. “I shall meet the misses,” he announced.

  “Thank you, dear.” His mother closed her eyes as if lapsing into a coma. “Because of you, I shall find peace.” If all went as planned, so would he.

  Chapter 9

  Churr! Churr! — flap! — whoo-s-sh!

  Sophie jumped, a scream startling from her lips as a dark shape glided from the trees lining the moonlit lane. Down it swooped, its long black wings flapping wildly as it twisted, then turned and shot straight for her head.

  A bat! With a shriek she dropped into a crouch, almost toppling over into a faint as she remembered the tale Lydia’s brothers told her about the creatures; one involving a bat becoming entangled in a woman’s hair and sucking all the blood from her brain. To die such a gory, gruesome death —

  Shuddering, she grasped her mobcap and slumped yet lower, certain that the murderous fiend hovered overhead, poised to attack her scalp. Bracing herself for the worst, she waited …

  Dreading and…

  Nothing happened. Blessed stillness reigned above.

  She hazarded a glance at the sky. As she did so, another eerie cry rent the air, thi
s one sounding from a distance. An instant later the fiend fluttered across the full moon, its form silhouetted against the pale lunar orb.

  It had a birdlike tail. Yes, distinctly birdlike. And that pointy thing was most definitely a beak. As for the contours of its wings, well, didn’t they look more hawk than batlike?

  Sophie frowned as she sought to recall the drawings she’d seen of bats. When she did, she sighed. Yes. Whatever it was, it most certainly was not a bat. Not with a wingspan like that. Thus assured of her brain’s safety, she picked up the valise she’d dropped in her panic and resumed her trudge down the country lane.

  Exactly how long or how far she’d traveled, she couldn’t say. All she knew for certain was that she had to reach the road to Exeter by dawn. Dawn was when the farmers traveled to town for market, at least that was what she’d heard Cook tell a kitchen maid, and she hoped to wheedle one of them into giving her a ride.

  And when she reached Exeter, then want?

  She sighed. She didn’t know. In truth, she hadn’t considered what she’d do or where she’d go from there. All that concerned her now was getting as far away as possible from Hawksbury …

  And Lyndhurst. Sophie kicked at a tuft of moon-silvered gorse, imagining it to be his lordship’s head. Despicable beast! No doubt he’d alerted his parents as to her identity and now searched the house for her with vengeful intent. She couldn’t help smiling at the thought of him lumbering through room after room, bellowing like a speared boar each time he failed to find her.

  And when he finally ascertained that she’d fled?

  She sniffed and shifted her heavy bag from her numb right hand to her left one. Arrogant tyrant that he was, he’d probably drag the other servants from their beds and bully them for information as to her whereabouts. Not that it would do him a whit of good. No one had seen her leave, not even Pansy.