He dropped both missives onto the desk and sat back, wondering if he would ever hear from his other friends. He was not yet defeated, though it seemed strange that he had not received replies from Randall and Fitch—two of his closest comrades—for they had both insisted Nash contact them if he had any need. Nash had written them immediately upon his arrival at Ashby Hall, and there had been more than enough time for them to reply.
He wondered if any of the mail could have been lost. Or misplaced.
The fire gave a loud crack, startling Nash, but at least it did not immediately take him back to Hougoumont Farm this time. He took a deep breath and thought of Mercy’s kiss and the soft press of her body against his, and was soon able to function again.
He’d meant it when he told Mercy that Helene was not for him. Nash’s own funds would have to suffice for now, and when he needed rams for the mating later in the year, Nash had decided to ask Sir William to borrow a few. Surely his old friend would understand Nash’s need to conserve his money and put off any significant purchases until he was better able to afford them.
He also decided to delay his house party, since it would cost money he needed to put into the sheep. Besides, he would likely meet several of the men from Hoyt’s deer stalking at the ball. He doubted it would be as productive as having them all together and talking freely at Ashby Hall, but he might be able to glean some of the information he sought.
Feeling slightly more settled on the issue of his humble finances, he took Arthur’s ledgers from a drawer of the desk. Poring over the pages, he searched for the notation about the land Carew had wanted to buy.
He finally came upon the page, very near the end of Arthur’s neat entries. “South acres a boggy mess, but they are mine,” he had written, underscoring the word mine twice. Then, he had added: “Once again, NO to Carew.”
Which implied that Horace Carew had offered at least once before to buy the land. Nash could not imagine what was so bloody appealing about those acres. They would never be good grazing land, but perhaps Carew intended to complete the improvements Nash had in mind. Maybe the man hadn’t wanted to say as much to Arthur.
He wished Arthur had noted what price Carew had offered, for that would put Nash in a better position to negotiate. But in the absence of that information, Nash decided to ask Sir William what he thought the land was worth, boggarts and all.
Then Nash would ask for ten percent more.
He got up from the desk and went to the window, catching sight of Mercy with Emmaline, playing catch with a ball, and felt a surge of emotion unlike any he’d experienced before. He allowed his gaze to wander over the governess’s fetching form, wanting nothing more than to go down to the garden and take possession of her now.
Philip Lowell’s arrival interrupted Nash’s musings, but did naught to abate his intense craving for her.
“Yes, my lord? You wished to see me?” He caught sight of Arthur’s ledger on the desk. “Did you find something of interest?”
“Not really. I just wanted to have another look at this note my brother made about the land he refused to sell to Horace Carew.”
Lowell’s expression was devoid of expression, but a flush of color rose up on his neck. Nash found it curious. “I don’t understand.”
“ ’Tis naught,” Nash replied. He returned to the desk and closed the ledger. “Just thinking about why Mr. Carew would want a handful of useless acres.”
“If he offers to buy them from you, I hope you’ll take the offer.”
Nash regarded him curiously. “Why?”
“Why not? If they’re so useless, you won’t miss them, and Ashby has need of the funds.”
But why, then, would Carew want them?
Lowell shrugged, but Nash sensed more interest than he wanted to show him. “Well, at least, I hope you’ll consider it.”
“I will,” Nash said as Lowell started for the door. “One question before you go, Lowell . . .”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Have you made any progress on finding a sheep man for us?”
“No, sir,” Lowell replied. “I’ve asked everyone in town, but no one knows of any—”
“Very good. Because I’ve found a man for us. He should arrive tomorrow, or perhaps the day after.”
Lowell showed a moment of bafflement, but quickly recovered, and Nash found himself doubting whether his steward had really put forth much effort to find them a head shepherd. He did not know why the man wanted Ashby to fail, but to Nash’s growing understanding of the estate’s finances, it had started its decline with Lowell’s arrival. That had been nearly a year before Hoyt’s death.
Was he a villain, or merely an incompetent?
“Who did you find, my lord?”
Nash returned to his desk and sat down. “Turns out Grainger’s brother has quite the reputation in the Lake District for managing sheep farms. I’m surprised you didn’t hear of him.”
Lowell did not blink, but turned directly to practical matters. “How will you pay him, my lord?”
Nash tapped his fingers on the cover of Arthur’s ledger. “For now, the man will work for naught, just to be close to his brother and away from his son’s wife. A fortunate turn of events for us, yes?”
“Yes, of course, Lord Ashby. You will not find many who sell their labors so cheaply.”
“As you’ve done yours?”
“Of course not,” Lowell said, though Nash detected a slight hesitation before the man’s reply. Clearly, he was sorry.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Nash managed to keep any sarcasm from his voice.
Lowell turned to go, but Nash stopped him. “One more thing . . .” He looked at the steward carefully, wondering if he had the wherewithal—and the motive—to orchestrate his brothers’ accidents. “I’d like you to make yourself available to take George Grainger around the estate and show him our borders when he arrives,” he said. “Probably tomorrow. And Lowell . . .”
“Yes, my lord?”
“From now on, Roarke or Bassett will be picking up the post in Keswick. You have other duties, so there is no need for you to trouble yourself with it any longer.”
A muscle twitched near the steward’s eye, confirming at least one of Nash’s suspicions.
“Very good, my lord.” He gave a slight bow and took his leave as Roarke and Harper came into the library for their orders.
Somehow, Mercy managed to get through Emmaline’s morning exercise and lessons, but after lunch, Ruthie took over. The girl was not so very much older than Emmy, and was clearly bored with her nursery work. She wanted to play.
“You mustn’t have had an afternoon to yourself in ages, have you, miss?” the nursemaid asked. “If you’d like to take some time, Emmaline and I will be fine. Won’t we?” she asked, turning to Emmaline.
Since Emmy had taken to Ruthie so well, Mercy agreed. Besides, it was a struggle to keep her mind on the task at hand when all she could do was dwell on what she had to do.
She left Emmaline in Ruthie’s capable hands and went across to her bedchamber. She removed her mother’s journal from the drawer and took it to the chair near the window, the one from which she’d nearly fallen that first night, only to have Nash catch her just in time.
He could not catch her now, for she’d already fallen as deeply as she could. She pressed one hand to her breast and tried to quell the futile longings within. Lord Ashby might want her, but the Ashby earldom did not need her. No matter how incredible the experience they’d shared the night before, Nash would have to come to the same conclusion.
Mercy knew how badly it would hurt when he realized what he must do.
Leaving her letter to Reverend Vale in the drawer, she opened Susanna’s journal and skimmed past the entries Emmy had already read.
22 August, 1795. Robert promised to keep Mercy’s origins secret, and he holds me to that same promise. Not that we really know anything about the child—only that she is unwanted by her own kin. What kind of mother would
give away her child? My husband says she cannot have been a moral Christian woman.
Robert intends to take us far away from our Lancaster parish where we’ve lived all during our married life, to St. Martin’s Church in Underdale. No one will know us there, no one will know the girl is not our own. It pains me to leave here.
Mercy wondered if her true family was in Lancaster—the kin who did not want her. Who were they? And what were the circumstances of Mercy’s birth? Why had her mother abandoned her to the Franklins? She read on, afraid she might find a horrible answer to her questions.
12 September, 1795. The child is already three years old, but barely speaks. And yet she wails all the time, calling for her mama and for “Teeny.” And when she is not wailing, she sucks her thumb raw while she looks at us as though she cannot understand a word we say. Robert believes she might be addled. We pray for her nightly.
Mercy felt a striking mixture of sorrow and anger. She was not addled, but clearly just a helpless child who desperately missed her mother and someone with the unlikely name of Teeny.
Holding her temper in check, she read on until she came to the following entry.
30 September, 1795. We’ve moved so very far from St. Edward’s and all our friends, just to keep the secret. It is altogether too dishonest and so unlike my dear, forthright husband. But the £5,000 given us by Robert’s friend, Mr. Newcomb, went far to convince him of the value of the move. I, however, can hardly reconcile myself to it.
Five thousand pounds! Mercy clutched her chest. The Franklins had been utter mercenaries. The money was a veritable fortune, obviously given to the Franklins for Mercy’s keep. They could not possibly have spent it all.
And yet Susanna had possessed next to nothing after her husband’s death. Mercy could not imagine what had happened to all that money. More importantly, she realized that she had come from a family of some means. For who else would have handed over such an exorbitant sum of money for the care of an orphan?
9 October, 1795. Every time she calls me mama I want to tell her the truth, but Robert has forbidden it. He promised never to tell another soul—including the child—that she is not truly ours.
So much deceit from the two most righteous people Mercy had ever known. They’d lived a lie every day throughout the twenty years Mercy had lived with them. She found herself softly weeping as she turned the pages, the book a strange and perverse window on her life in Underdale and the parents who were not parents at all, but mere caretakers of a child they did not believe in.
She wiped tears from her eyes and read yet another page.
7 April, 1803. We must guard against any sign of wantonness in the girl. Fortunately, she has a knack for gardening, which Robert said we should encourage. He says it will keep her busy and likely prevent her embarrassing us someday.
Mercy’s world trembled on its mooring. Her mother had been a cold woman, but this was so much worse than anything she could have imagined. She opened to the last few pages, hoping her mother would have developed at least some fondness for her toward the end. But alas.
3 May, 1815. Reverend Vale should not have spoken to Mercy before asking Robert for her hand. Her enthusiasm for the match indicates an unhealthy passion for the young man. A marriage between them would only encourage an ungodly wantonness in Mercy. We have always worried she would make the same mistakes her mother must have done.
Mercy closed the book and leaned back in her chair, trembling. There was nothing more to learn, and a great deal more pain that could be avoided. She rose from her chair and tossed the book onto the bed. She had read enough.
Feeling hollow and empty, she took her heavy woolen cloak from its hook and pulled it on, then walked out of her room and down the steps.
Nash was unsure what more to do about Lowell. He didn’t trust the man, but he had no real evidence against him, other than a few inconvenient absences and the decline of the estate. Nash was beginning to suspect that was not all Arthur’s fault.
He wanted a few moments alone with Mercy to help clarify his thoughts. It seemed like an eternity since he’d last seen her, and even longer since he’d held her in his arms.
He went up to the nursery, assuming he would find her there. Dipping his head into the room, he quickly saw that Mercy was not present. His niece and her new nurse seemed to be completely engrossed in collecting Emmaline’s measurements.
The change in his niece was remarkable. She was still a quiet child, but she’d begun to look directly at him when speaking to him, and was nowhere near as nervous around him these past couple of days. Her governess’s influence, of course.
Nash went across to Mercy’s bedroom and saw that it was empty. A book lay discarded on the bed, with a few folded notes or letters protruding from the pages. A damp handkerchief lay beside it.
He picked up the book and opened it, and saw the name of Susanna Franklin inscribed on the inside cover page. Mercy’s mother?
He read the first few puzzling entries and tried to imagine Mercy reading them, seeing that her deceased parents were not her parents at all, but just two people who’d been paid to take her in.
Had she only just seen this? Bile rose in his throat when he thought of Mercy reading this rubbish, of learning she’d been foisted off on a couple who’d not only lied to her for her entire life, but somehow lost the money they’d been paid to take her in. Mercy would not have sought employment as a governess if she’d inherited any of that money. And yet he could not imagine how the Franklins could have spent five thousand pounds on one young woman in twenty years. They’d squandered it.
Even worse was the cold manner in which Mercy must have been treated for all those years. His heart clenched when he read of her crying for her own mother. He knew little about children, but could only imagine how he would have felt being taken from his own parents.
He knew how Emmaline had reacted to losing hers.
Mercy had not told him much about her past. He knew her father had refused her suitors. Nash recalled that she’d hesitated speaking of the second swain, a clergyman like her father.
Hearing of Reverend Franklin’s refusal of the man had confused Nash. Wouldn’t her father have thought another vicar would suit her?
Her mother gave a feeble explanation for it in her little diary, but the reason noted had been mean and nonsensical. Mercy was intelligent and kind, and conscientious to a fault. She worked hard, shepherding Emmaline out of her desperate isolation, to the point that his niece had not only begun interacting with him, but was allowing the nursemaid to measure her for new clothes. Mercy had stood up to his men—Childers and Bassett, anyway—and gotten them to follow her instructions for getting the Hall into shape according to Nash’s request.
He gritted his teeth at the thought that the Franklins would consider their lovemaking depraved when it had been more honest and pure than anything Nash had ever done.
He left the book on the bed and went downstairs. Mrs. Jones had not yet arrived from Metcalf Farm, but Henry Blue was washing windows in the entry hall. “Blue, have you seen Miss Franklin?”
“Yes, sir, my lord. I saw her leave the house not a half hour ago.”
“Where did she go?”
“I’m not sure, sir, but she was headed in the direction of the pavilion.”
Nash went after her.
The pavilion was a good, long walk from the house, and if Mercy had just been reading Susanna Franklin’s words, she was probably upset. He supposed she might welcome a strenuous walk after reading those entries.
Nash had a fair idea how they had made her feel.
He started on the path to the pavilion as a few sprinkles of rain started to fall. He hardly noticed them in his hurry to get to Mercy. He wanted to give her the reassurance she deserved. The Franklins had not deserved her. Far from it. Had they been alive, Nash might well have gotten on his horse and ridden to Underdale to give them a dressing-down more severe than any he’d delivered in the army.
When the rai
n began, Mercy realized it had been foolish to walk so far, ignoring the looming storm. But her mood had been bleak and she had barely noticed her surroundings. She pulled up her hood against the first fat drops of rain and hurried toward a structure in the distance—the pavilion she’d visited once before with Emmaline . . . and Nash.
She quickly made it to its covered colonnade and moved in close to the wall, just narrowly avoiding getting drenched. Mercy stood still, catching her breath as the rain came down in waves, soaking the hilly lands all around.
Her head bowed, she shivered with the cold, and let her tears fall. She should be grateful, she knew, that she had not been abandoned to the parish poorhouse, or some terrible orphanage. Her life with the Franklins had been reasonably comfortable, in spite of the fact that they had thought so little of her.
She had tried so very hard to please them.
The wind changed and suddenly, the rain started coming down in sheets. Mercy hardly noticed. Her emotions were profoundly raw. She dropped down to her knees and wept, never having felt so alone. She’d spent her life trying to please her parents, always hoping she would soon win their approval. But she’d been hard-pressed to measure up to their high standards, and she knew she’d failed more often than not.
She doubted she would ever measure up.
Her tears of despair flowed as savagely as the rain all around her, and Mercy wished she could just crawl inside the pavilion and stay there forever.
But she would go to Andrew Vale if he would have her, and live her life as his wife. He was a decent man, but Mercy knew she would live out her years feeling empty and aching for the one man who’d touched her soul. The one man who could not offer for her.
She tried to convince herself that it was not so bad a fate. The Franklins had raised her to become a vicar’s wife, even though they’d refused a perfectly proper, acceptable offer from Mr. Vale. And her already shaken spirit reeled at the thought that they would have refused every man of character. They’d believed her unworthy.
Seducing the Governess Page 24
