Choppy seas, she thought. It was a metaphor, no doubt, for the muddle she’d made of her own life. She should have been happier to be home, happier to be returning to Castle Black and a quiet life with her family. That Nicholas was forgiving enough as a man to even have her back was a testament to his character. Certainly there was bitterness between them. And there would be, perhaps, forever. But he had not denounced her. He had not divorced her and left her to ruin in Paris. It was within his rights to cast her off, to petition the House of Lords and the church for a divorce and leave her to her considerable shame. But he had not. Despite the hurt she could see so clearly in him, he had simply stated that they would return to England together and leave her brief madness behind. She should be grateful.
But all she could think of was Etienne, the man she’d nearly thrown everything away for. Even now, with her son below deck and her husband tending to him, returning to her life as a member of the upper echelon of British society, she’d throw it all away in a moment if he’d have her.
But the ugly truth of Etienne’s betrayal was undeniable. She’d loved him and he had used her, had preyed on her loneliness and the weakness of her character that she had never suspected before. His sole interest in her had been to have access to her husband’s papers, to find out precisely what he knew about the movements of British operatives covertly working in France. She’d been his dupe and she’d risked everything she held dear for a moment’s passion with a man who could never be trusted. So now, thanks to the mercy of her husband, she was being permitted to return to the life she’d nearly destroyed.
The ship lurched again, so violently that she lost her footing and had to grasp the railing to avoid being pitched overboard. A particularly nasty gust of wind came up, tearing at the sails. An ominous crack sounded, but the shouts and frantic running of the sailors truly sparked her alarm.
“Graham,” she whispered, her own sickness and misery forgotten. She needed to reach her son and her husband.
Struggling to her feet, she made her way to the narrow stairs that would lead below deck. As her feet touched the floor, water rushed up around her ankles. They were sinking. The ship would go down and they would go down with it.
No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she saw him, Nicholas. Her husband. He rushed from their cabin holding Graham to him.
“Get back up those stairs and get to one of the longboats,” he shouted.
“What’s happening?” Agatha screamed.
“The mast has broken… the ship will founder and sink. Our only chance is to get to one of the longboats. Go, Agatha! Hurry!” Lord Nicholas shouted.
He’d never raised his voice to her. He’d always been calm, reasonable and a bastion of strength and stalwart sanity in an otherwise crazy world. Yet, she could see the fear in him, she could see that he was terrified. She also knew that his terror had little to do with his own survival but with hers and Graham’s. Even now, in the wake of her betrayal, he continued to be selfless and perfect. She didn’t deserve him.
“Agatha,” he said again, pleading. “I cannot carry you both up to that deck. Do not make me choose which of you to save!”
Those words brought the ugly reality of their situation crashing down on her. With a jerky nod, she turned and scrambled back up the stairs to the main deck. Nicholas was behind her, Graham clinging to him with the awful seasickness that had plagued them since they’d boarded the ship at Calais. It had seemed such a hardship then but, now, facing true danger, it seemed such a minor thing.
Once on the deck, chaos reigned. Members of the crew were rushing to and fro as the ship pitched and rolled, taking on more and more water. It was already listing dangerously to one side.
“Lady Blakemore!” The first mate rushed toward her. He grasped her arm in a breach of etiquette. But under the circumstances, one could hardly cling to the rules of society. “You must get into the boat.”
She did, though with difficulty. Leaning starboard as it was, she had to leap into the boat, her skirts tangling about her legs. As she looked up, Nicholas was clambering over the side and into the boat as well. He reached up to take Graham’s wan and nearly lifeless form from the crewman when the ship suddenly pitched again. The ropes securing one end of the longboat snapped. Agatha screamed as she clung to the sides of the boat. Nicholas reached for her, grasping her wrists to hold on to her.
“I’ve got to cut it loose,” the crewman said.
“No!” Agatha shouted. Graham was still on the ship.
The man ignored her protests, cutting the ropes that secured the boat and sending it crashing to the waves below. The seawater nearly swamped the boat as it rushed in, but Nicholas was there, bailing out quickly.
Every wave carried them further away from the ship, further away from her son who still remained there with the crew of the doomed vessel.
“Go back! Go back for him!”
“If we are near the ship when it goes under, it will take us with it,” Nicholas said, grasping her arms.
“I don’t care! You must save him.”
“I must save you,” he insisted. “And the child you carry.”
“It isn’t yours,” she admitted.
“I know,” he said. “They will put Graham on another boat. We will find him shortly, Agatha. But for now, for the sake of you and your unborn child, we must wait here.”
She wept then. Knowing the truth of what he said, having to choose between the safety of her son and the safety of her unborn child was a position no woman should ever be put in.
A loud groan emanated from the ship and then it began to break apart, the boards snapping beneath the pressure of the water rushing into it. It was only minutes until it disappeared entirely, swallowed by the raging sea.
“God is punishing me,” she muttered, her voice rising with hysteria. “God is punishing me and I deserve it, but he does not. Please, dear Lord, give me back my son… give me back my son.”
She was still muttering that phrase beneath her breath, her voice having grown weak with the strain hours later when their small boat reached land. Other survivors were there. Bodies littered the beach, driven there by the raging sea. They lay stretched out like driftwood. But they were all grown men, sailors. There were no little boys.
Graham, the only son and heir to Lord Blakemore of Castle Black, had vanished—taken by the vicious and greedy sea her husband had warned her of.
Chapter One
December 1822
The winds were howling outside, lashing at the stone walls of the castle as thunder cracked and lightning flashed across the sky. It was typical weather for that time of year and generally no cause for alarm. Storms were a fact of life when living so close to the sea. Still, it seemed especially ominous that evening, as if the weather itself were a harbinger of other things to come.
In the years since she’d come to live there as an orphaned child, Castle Black had changed exponentially. In those years since, beset with tragedy and with the neglect born out of the ensuing grief, it had come to live up to its dark moniker. At only six years old, she’d arrived on the doorstep uncertain of her welcome. With both her parents deceased and no family to take her in, the tenuous connection of the late Lord Blakemore and her father as school chums had hardly offered an auspicious beginning. They could very well have made her a servant in the house or, worse, sent her to an almshouse to make her way in the world as she might. Instead, Lord Blakemore and Lady Agatha had welcomed her with open arms. She had to wonder, if she’d arrived later, if it had been after Graham’s disappearance, their hearts hardened by grief, if the outcome would have been the same.
Shaking off her morbid thoughts with a slight shiver, Miss Beatrice Marlowe waited for her maid to put the finishing touches on her hair before going down to dinner. The family was no doubt gathered already and she would receive stern and disapproving looks for being late. But as the thick, dark mass of her hair seemed to defy every attempt to contain it in a reasonable chignon, was i
t any wonder she could never make it downstairs on time?
“That should hold it, Miss. I think,” the maid said skeptically.
“Thank you, Betsy. If it does, we’ll call it a victory. If it fails, it’ll be much like any other attempt to control it. I should cut it and be done with it,” Beatrice mused.
“No, Miss. ’Tis a lot to work with to be sure, but ’tis too fine to chop at,” the maid protested. “One day, you’ll have a husband who’ll appreciate the beauty of it.”
A more unlikely circumstance Beatrice couldn’t imagine. Prior to the late Lord Blakemore’s passing, she’d had two seasons in London at the expense and to the dismay of her guardians. Both had been abject failures. She wasn’t a great enough beauty, or a great enough wit to have made the kind of impression on society that a virtually penniless woman without rank would require to land a worthwhile husband. In the words of Lady Agatha, it had been money well wasted. They’d not be foolish enough to throw more in the same direction.
She surveyed her reflection once more. She was pretty enough, though not in a fashionable way. Her lips were too full, her mouth slightly too wide, with large, wide-set eyes the same stormy gray as the sea raging outside. One gentleman had remarked that her eyes were unnerving. Of course, he’d only made that remark when she’d pointed out that he had yet to look at them as his own gaze had been affixed permanently to her abundant bosom.
Shaking her head slightly, she addressed the maid’s wide-eyed concern over the mention of caving to popular fashion and shearing off her hair. “It doesn’t matter,” she admitted. “I’d be too terrified to cut it. The weight of it, at this point, is the only thing that makes it manageable. Without that, I can’t even conceive of what it would look like.”
The maid was smiling at that quip as she draped a paisley shawl around Beatrice’s shoulders. “Well, it looks lovely for now.”
“So it does,” Beatrice agreed. “Thank you again, Betsy.”
“If I must say, Miss, you appear less than thrilled at the prospect of going down for the evening meal. You could always ask for a tray in your room,” Betsy suggested.
Beatrice considered it. “I could, but I fear that if I am not there, Edmund will browbeat Lady Agatha until she simply caves in to his demands. He’s become unrelenting.”
“Not to be forward in saying so, Miss, but do you not reckon it’s time to have his lordship declared dead? ’Tis been nigh on twenty years… surely, if he were alive, he’d have made it back to us by now.” The maid had no knowledge of Castle Black in the time when Graham had been present. Betsy had only come to work there in the year after his disappearance.
There was no denying the truth of Betsy’s words. The likelihood of Graham’s survival had been given up by most of them long ago. She had no real reason to believe that he was still alive. It was simply that she could not dare to rob Lady Agatha of that last hope. To let things alone and, after she passed, then petition the House of Lords for a declaration seemed the most merciful route to take. But Edmund had little use for things such as mercy. No doubt, he was motivated at the behest of his father, Sir Godfrey Blakemore. A more vile man she’d never met. He’d begun rallying the troops to have Graham declared dead as soon as Lord Blakemore had passed away. His lack of grief at his brother’s passing had surprised no one. Gout had taken the man to Bath and they were well shed of him, but she knew that he wrote Edmund daily, pulling strings like a master puppeteer.
It wasn’t unreasonable to request it, but the manner in which they demanded and bullied set her teeth on edge. After eighteen years, what other than death could explain such an absence? Of course, even if Graham were alive, he’d be no better. He’d been cruel and vicious as a boy, teasing her, shoving her, pulling her hair, and when she’d cry, he’d laughed at her. All of his pranks, as the late Lord Blakemore had called them, had been harmless, but it had been his glee in seeing her cry that had marked his cruelty far more than anything else.
The dinner gong sounded and Beatrice sighed. She was even later than usual. Dinner was not something to be looked forward to at Castle Black. Not while Edmund was present, at any rate. It was always more peaceful when Lady Agatha’s nephew was away. But her lateness had little to do with dread of the meal or the company. It was a tactical maneuver on her part—strategy to avoid Edmund’s unwanted advances. She’d learned the hard way that it was best not to be caught unawares in the corridors by him. The memory of it made her shudder.
And yet, she would have to sit across from him at the dinner table, withering under the pretense that nothing had happened. It goaded her to have him sit there, his wife, Eloise, at his side. Of course, Eloise rarely bothered to leave their chambers so she was typically not present to witness when Edmund allowed his improper and proprietary gaze to roam over her bosom. He had not succeeded in forcing himself on her, but only because she’d had the wits about her to dive into the nearest chamber and ring the bell pull. When two maids had arrived to determine what was needed, Edmund had tried to dismiss them. But she’d insisted that she was unwell and needed them to assist her to her chamber. The ruse had fooled no one, but it had allowed her to escape with her virtue intact.
Making her way down the stairs, she entered the dining room to find the other occupants of the castle already taking their seats. Naturally, Edmund’s badgering had already begun. Eloise sat at his side, appearing bored with the entire thing as she sipped her wine.
“Lady Agatha, I know you’ve no wish to discuss this further, but decisions must be made!”
Beatrice eased into her chair as the footman pushed it toward the table. There was nothing useful for her to interject in their conversations and, for her part, she knew she would do better to draw as little of Edmund’s attention as possible. It was a familiar topic, one brought up at least daily by one of the many occupants of Castle Black. Settling her gaze on Lady Agatha, Beatrice noted the woman’s pallor. The constant badgering was taking a heavy toll on her. Her skin was ashen and her hands trembled terribly. There had been many days in the last weeks where she had not left her room at all, staying abed and letting her maid tend to her.
She adored Lady Agatha and always had, but it wasn’t entirely altruistic on her part that Beatrice was concerned. Lady Agatha was her only link to respectability. If she were to pass, then it would be impossible for her to remain at Castle Black with Christopher, Lady Agatha’s younger son. And she feared that without the steadying influence of their matriarch, Edmund’s behavior would go far beyond simply unwanted advances and become something decidedly more violent.
“Edmund,” Lady Agatha began, placing her hand to her heart as if it pained her. “I cannot simply give up. There is no proof that he is gone!”
“And there is no proof that he remains, my lady! If he were still amongst the living, would he not have found his way back to us by now?” Edmund demanded. “What of Christopher? Forced to live as a younger son with no prospects when there is no heir in front of him!”
At the end of the table, Christopher sat in sullen silence, clearly uninterested in anything happening around him. His sole focus was the brandy snifter he’d carried in from the drawing room. It seemed more and more of late that he was never seen without a drink in his hand.
In truth, Beatrice knew little of him. He’d been sent away to school, rarely returning home, then to Oxford, where he’d been sent down without explanation. He lived amongst them like a shadow, always present but doing little to draw notice. The boy had always kept to himself, avoiding all of them. She doubted that he’d have any inkling of how to run the estate as he’d certainly never made any attempt to learn that she had seen. But that was, no doubt, Edmund’s plan. He wished to have Graham declared dead, have Christopher take on the role of Lord Blakemore, and then he, Edmund, could be Christopher’s trusted advisor. Edmund, in days long past, would have been a toadying kingmaker, a sycophant living off the court. Had he the fashion sense and panache that Prinny demanded, he’d no doubt happily take him
self to London and vie for a position at the prince’s feet.
Lady Agatha rose then, swaying alarmingly as she clutched her chest. Her face had grown more pale and she looked to be on the verge of swooning. “If my son were gone from me,” she stated, her voice shockingly firm given her frail appearance, “I would know. I would feel it. A mother always knows!”
“The estate is falling to ruin!” Edmund protested. “While we wait for his return, it’s decaying around us! If he does return, it will be to poverty! Father cannot assist us with these things any longer given his own frail health. Now is the time for action!”
His face was all but purple with rage and there was a wild glint to his gaze that was worrisome. Beatrice had never seen him so angry, so incensed at Lady Agatha’s entrenchment. What was driving him so, she wondered? What had he done that he felt so keenly now more than ever that the status quo could no longer stand? Although this was a theme that Edmund had spouted for years, he seemed more intense about it than ever before.
Beatrice wanted to intervene. She wanted to demand that he leave the older woman be. But she’d never been more aware of how tenuous her position within the Blakemore household truly was. She’d been the ward of the late Lord Blakemore and when he’d passed away, Lady Agatha had taken on the roll as there was no Lord Blakemore to see to the task.
Were it not for Lady Agatha, she’d have been tossed out into the streets long ago. Edmund had made no effort to hide his disdain for her. During their ugly encounter that night in the corridor, he’d made it abundantly clear that there was only one way for her to remain at Castle Black after Lady Agatha was gone. She’d be his mistress, installed right under his wife’s nose, or she’d be tossed into the streets without a tuppence to make her way in the only way that a woman could.
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 72
