by Sophia James
‘Did Mrs Wilson cut your hair?’
‘No.’ The word was almost spat out. ‘Why would she?’
‘You did it yourself, then?’ His cousin sported tresses a good twelve inches shorter than she had done yesterday and her expression was guarded.
An unprepossessing child, angry and diffident. He sat himself down on the step at her level and looked at her directly, the thought suddenly occurring to him that he might find out a lot more of Clive Sherborne’s life from questioning her than he ever could from the yellowing paper in boxes.
‘Was Clive a good father to you, Anna?’
Uncertainly the girl nodded and without realising it Francis let out his breath.
‘Better than my mother at least. He was there often. At home, I mean, and he took me with him most places.’
‘Did you have other brothers or sisters?’
‘No.’
‘Aunts. Uncles. Grandparents.’
‘No.’
‘Did Clive drink?’
She stiffened and stepped back. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because he died in a warehouse full of brandy.’
One ripe expletive and she was gone, the thin nothingness of her disappearing around the corner of the dim corridor. But Francis had seen something of tragedy in her eyes before she could hide it, a memory he thought, a recollection so terrible it had lightened the already pale colour of her cheeks.
He took me with him most places. God, could the man have taken her there to the warehouse and to his appointment with death? Had she seen his killer? Had she seen the only man she knew as a father die? He shook his head and swore again roundly. At his uncle and at her mother. At the unfairness of the hovel Anna had been brought up in, at the loneliness and the squalor. She was angry, belligerent and difficult because in all her life it seemed no one except the hapless Clive Sherborne had taken the time to get to know her, to look after her. And now she was abandoned again into a place where she felt no belonging, no sense of safety, no security.
She’d cut her hair as a statement. No one can love me. I am uncherished and unwanted. His hands fisted in his lap as he swallowed away fury.
Well, he would see about that. Indeed, he would.
Chapter Five
This outing to Kew had been a mistake, Sephora thought a few days later as she walked with Richard, his second cousin Terence and his wife through the greened pathways of the gardens.
‘Are you quite recovered from your dreadful accident? It was the very talk of the town.’ Sally Cummings asked this in a quiet tone, her eyes full of curiosity.
‘I am, thank you.’ She didn’t particularly want to discuss further what had happened to her at the river as she did not fully understand it yet herself and so was not at all pleased when Richard joined in the conversation.
‘Sephora was left with only a small wound on her leg after all the fuss and that is quite cleared up now.’ He tightened his grip on her arm. ‘We were lucky it was not worse.’
She smiled tightly at this assessment of her health. Richard truly believed in the minimal effects the near drowning had left her with, but her hands still trembled when she held them unsupported and she had not slept properly for a full night since the fall.
Shaking away her irritation, she tried to look nonplussed. Richard had been most attentive on the drive here today, tucking a blanket around her legs and telling her how lovely she looked in her light blue gown. She knew this destination was not one he would have chosen on his own account and for that, too, she was grateful. It was Terence Cummings who had suggested the journey and she had assented readily because plants calmed her, the large expansive swathe of endless greens settling the air around her in a way the city never did.
Sally Cummings was usually quite a silent woman, but today she was chattier. ‘You look happy here, Sephora. I heard Terence say the marquis was hoping that after your wedding in November you might venture to Scotland for a short while. The Highlands are renowned for their wonderful fauna and flora.’
‘Scotland?’ Sephora had not heard this mentioned before and turned to her husband-to-be. ‘You thought to go there?’
Richard shrugged. ‘Well, we cannot travel to Paris with all the problems in France at the moment and Italy is just too far away. I doubt I could spare so much time either, for there are things here I need to keep my fingers on, so to speak.’
‘Of course.’ The words were ripped from her disappointment. Just another plan that differed from what they had once discussed.
The older woman took her arm and tucked it into hers. ‘Terence changes his mind all the time, yet if I do so even once he is most unhappy with me. It is the way of all men, I suppose, their need to be in charge of a relationship and the leader in the home. My father and uncle were both the same. At least you have known Winslow forever and that must be most comforting. A shared history, so to speak.’
Sephora was not sure comforting was the correct word to use at all as the number of years they had known each other wound around inside.
Richard was two years and three days older than she was. For much of that time they had celebrated their birthdays together, their parents making a point of adding two candles on the cake after she had blown hers out, so that he could have his own special occasion. A family joke with all the small traditions observed to consolidate a union and protect the considerable property of two important families whose land marched along shared borders.
She saw the tiny scar under Richard’s chin where he had fallen from a tree when he was ten and the larger one on his small finger when glass had almost cut through the tendon at sixteen as he’d run from her in a game of hide-and-seek.
Memories. Once she had cherished them. How had that changed? Now when he was with her Richard often seemed like a man who had forgotten others had opinions that were also valuable and worthy. Sometimes, she thought, he barely even bothered any more with the pretence of listening to what she had to say.
Sally’s voice came again through her musings. ‘You are not wearing that beautiful ring Winslow gave you, I had noticed. Is it being cleaned?’
‘She lost it in the river.’ Richard answered, this time surprising Sephora, for she did not think he had noticed at all. ‘That actually was the worst loss of the whole fiasco at the Thames. It was an expensive ring and now the fish are swimming with it.’
He laughed at his joke and so did the others, yet all Sephora could think of were his words.
‘That actually was the worst loss of the whole fiasco...’
If they had been alone she might have said something, might have tried to make him understand how hurtful a comment like that was to her. But with Terence and Sally standing next to them there was no opportunity to question him and so she left it altogether, gathering her breath and looking around at the beauty of the trees in the gardens.
Shouting from behind had them all turning and a moment later a group of men came into view.
‘Isn’t that the Earl of Douglas?’ Terence Cummings queried. ‘What the hell is he up to?’
As he said this a punch was thrown. It was so far away Sephora could not see whether it was Francis St Cartmail who threw the first punch or one of the others, but then without warning the whole situation escalated into a full-blown fight, one man being laid into by the others.
‘Should you help him, do you think?’ Sally Cummings asked this of both men, but Richard shook his head.
‘Douglas no doubt has had a lot of practice in such things. Let’s see how he does.’
Terence Cummings nodded his agreement.
Sephora could now see Francis St Cartmail more plainly and although he was one against three it didn’t take long for the others to begin to fall back.
Cummings was giving some sort of a running commentary, but she did not really listen. All she could comprehend was the hard knock of fists against faces, the sound of bone against bone and the shattering of flesh. It was not a fight as she had imagined them to be,
not a boxing match or a ruled combat. No, this was more ferocious and untamed, the civilised world of the ton slipping back into a savagery of primitive masculinity. She could never in a million years have imagined Richard letting his emotions rule him in the way these men were.
Finally after a few moments those in the larger group broke away and turned to disappear into the trees from where they had come, leaving Francis St Cartmail alone to pick up his hat and sling his jacket across his shoulders. When he turned suddenly she saw the slick darkness of blood around his lips. With his long hair loose and the white linen of his shirt straining against the sinew and muscle beneath he looked...unmatched. His stance caught at her, his stillness magnified by a gathering wind and the moving leaves behind him, a man caught in time and danger, the white clouds scudding across a cerulean sky.
And then he was gone.
‘Just another one of Douglas’s many fights and disputes, I suppose,’ Terence Cummings drawled. ‘The man is a complete and utter disgrace to his title and seems to enjoy flaunting his skills in violence at every possible pass. He needs to be taught a lesson.’
‘Well, he did save Sephora the other day—’ Sally Cummings began, but Richard cut her off.
‘He’s a competent swimmer and it was not far to the bank side. If one is proficient at something it does not make it such a risk.’
Terence’s wife caught her glance at the retort and then looked away, the undercurrent of poor sportsmanship on the Marquis Winslow’s behalf evident in her frown.
But Richard had moved on now, in an opposite direction to the one St Cartmail had taken and all the talk was of the pagoda and the possibility of walking up its interesting and unusual oriental shape.
‘You would not be able to manage it at all, Sally. You will need to stay at the bottom and wait for us.’ Terence gave these words and his cousin nodded.
‘Sephora can wait with you,’ Richard said. ‘She has never been one for heights.’
The anger that Sephora had felt just below the surface suddenly boiled. ‘I think I could manage that.’ She watched as a group of ladies and gentlemen came out of the entrance at the bottom of the structure. Many of them were years older than she.
‘But Sally will have nobody to stay with her if you come.’ Richard gave this in a tone of quiet reprimand, no thought or mention of Terence staying with his wife.
‘Well, I do not wish to be a nuisance...’ Sally’s words were worried. ‘It’s just I have a problem with breathlessness and I shouldn’t wish to get only halfway up and not be able to manage the rest of it.’
‘Indeed you should not, my dear, for that would be most disconcerting for all of us.’ Terence patted her hand. ‘Come, Richard, we shall tackle the thing with as much speed as we can muster and be back before you know it.’
And then they left, Sally Cummings’s frown the only remnant left of the altercation.
‘Terence has his own worries at the moment and so it will be most beneficial for him to take this exercise. Winslow has his sadness, too, with his father’s ill health, I suppose.’
The day felt cooler as they walked around the base of the pagoda and through the many scattered trees that had been planted to enhance the vistas of the place. Sephora wondered whether the Earl of Douglas had left the gardens already and looked about to see if she could find any sign of him still being there, but of course there was none.
‘I am sure Francis St Cartmail is long gone.’
Sephora had hoped that her interest was not so easily read.
‘You are not married just yet. Surely you are able to still look at a man who is as unforgettably fine as Douglas most assuredly is.’
Without meaning to, Sephora laughed because Sally Cummings’s statement was so unlike her more usual reticent uncertainty. As if reading her mind the other woman began to explain.
‘I still have thoughts and a voice even though Terence would prefer me not to have. I am sorry to stop your ascent of the pagoda, but I needed a moment to relax again. My husband is not such comfortable company these days and I find my nerves become most frayed. I am taking a pill my doctor prescribed which should allow a marked improvement to my disposition, but so far I have just felt sadder.’
Like I do.
Sephora almost said this out loud, there in the blue of the day and the green of the park, there where Francis St Cartmail had fought with his fists and with a passion largely missing now from anything at all that she did.
Sally was six years older than she was and looked twice that number. Would this be her fate, too, in that many years again, walking here in Kew and finding any excuse at all to avail herself of half-an-hour’s absence from a domineering spouse?
She was trapped somehow between expectation and her own inability to understand what it was she wanted. Richard was safe and familiar and if he was also dogmatic sometimes or overbearing, then were not all relationships based on some sense of compromise? What married couple had the perfect and flawless balance?
It could not be wise to throw away all that was known and familiar for a shot at some whimsical fantasy threaded with danger and hope. Surely such was the way to ruin.
Smiling, she turned to Sally Cummings and commented on the beauty of the gardens and was glad when the other began to describe a plant to one side of the small pathway upon which they walked.
Chapter Six
Francis visited the Wesleys the next morning with the express purpose of procuring a salve from Adelaide Hughes for his split lip, so he was glad to find both husband and wife in the front room of their town house.
‘We were just speaking of you, Francis.’ Gabriel made that observation as he placed The Times on the table before him. ‘It seems as if you were in a fracas at Kew Gardens yesterday and the doyens of the ton are not well pleased.’
‘Winslow’s gossip, no doubt. I saw him there.’
‘Who the hell waylaid you and why?’
‘Men who felt jeopardised because I was asking questions about the illicit supply of liquor.’
‘Something to do with Clive Sherborne’s murder then, I am guessing?’
He nodded. He’d told Gabriel the story of Anna’s guardianship and was glad that Gabriel had remembered, for it made things easier. ‘His lawyer sent me a list of Clive Sherborne’s enemies and it seems that they have taken up their old gripes against me. My ward is deathly frightened and I think she knows something of how Sherborne died, but is not saying.’
‘My God. Are they likely to be back?’
Francis glanced across at Adelaide, who sat listening to this conversation with a heavy frown across her forehead. ‘There is good money to be had in the handling of smuggled liquor. I thought I had been more than careful in my questioning, but...’
Gabriel shook his head. ‘Lord, Francis, you are caught in the role of protector and getting crucified because of it and no way short of abandoning Anna to make it different. Your actions are the talk of the town and after the kerfuffle at Richmond you are becoming persona non grata to those mamas who may have thought you a good match for their daughters.’
‘Thank goodness for that.’ Francis took the tea that Adelaide had poured for him and smiled. He could not remember the last time he had drunk the stuff, though the taste was different from what he remembered it to be like as he took a sip.
‘It’s a new brew I have been experimenting with. The valerian root helps with anxiety and insomnia.’
‘A medicine?’
‘Tea began as that, Francis, but along the way it changed into what it is today. Anxiety comes from the absence of routine and peace in your life. You need a reason to settle down.’
He knew what they were going to say next and pushed the cup and saucer away from him as Gabriel spoke.
‘We were saying that we ought to have an afternoon tea here. We thought perhaps Lady Sephora Connaught should be the first on that list.’
Francis felt the shock of her name, but stayed perfectly still. She’d been at Kew Garden
s yesterday and he had seen the fright in every line of her body. He wished he had not. ‘I think she is taken.’
‘But not yet married.’ Adelaide joined in the conversation now. ‘Her lady’s maid is my maid’s sister and she is not at all certain the marquis is the one her mistress should be tying her hand to. She says that even before her near drowning Lady Sephora had been restless and sad. There was talk, too, of a letter in her possession with your name upon it.’
‘Lady Sephora wrote to thank me. There is hardly any scandal in that.’
‘Perhaps she is a lot more than just grateful.’
‘What are you saying, Adelaide?’
‘All the things that you are not, Francis.’
He began to laugh. ‘I have spoken to her for two minutes in total and have had a short correspondence from her once.’
‘You have dragged her to the side of a swollen river, skin against skin, and from what Gabe has related to me given her the kiss of life whilst beneath the cold waters of the Thames. So I want to ask her to come to take tea with us this week. Would you like to join us, too? A small and select gathering.’
Adelaide watched him carefully as she asked this. ‘I shall not be inviting the Marquis of Winslow, but I will invite Lady Sephora’s sister. Lady Maria Connaught is an interesting young woman in her own right. Perhaps we might see if Mr Adam Stevenage could join our party as well for he is newly back from the Americas and I always found him intriguing.’
Gabriel brought his wife’s fingers to his lips. ‘I think you are in your element with matchmaking, Adelaide, though Francis here looks less than enamoured with the idea. Perhaps he should humour you, though, for it is my thought that such an endeavour lies akin to your medicine. Fix the body, fix the heart.’ When they looked at each other and smiled, it seemed for a second that they’d forgotten they were in company. Francis envied them for that.
