“Thank you,” he said, as he stepped inside. “This is a lovely home,” he observed, as his eyes scanned the foyer. “What a beautiful painting.” He gestured to the one of the horse, with a genuine smile.
This seemed to relax Lady Esther, who started to smile herself. “It was my brother’s favorite. This was their house, before their passing several years ago. It was left to us.”
“To us?” George said, as Lady Esther led him into the drawing room and invited him to take a seat. “Do you mean yourself and Miss Beauchamp?”
The mention of Miss Beauchamp made Lady Esther’s face soften. She looked a little sad. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Is she here?” George wondered. “I’d very much like to meet her. I’ve heard a great deal about her.” It was the truth, and it made Lady Esther smile sadly.
“Have you? Good things, I hope?”
“Wonderful things,” he assured her.
Lady Esther smiled and looked down at her hands. “I’m afraid she isn’t here, father,” she admitted, with shining eyes.
“Are you alright, my Lady? Do you have something on your mind?”
With a watery gaze, she looked up at him. “It’s nothing, father. I only miss her. Pardon me, father, but what is your name?”
“I am Lord George Everton,” George replied, making an effort to keep his voice steady.
Lady Esther’s face suddenly sharpened. “Everton?”
“Yes, that’s right. Lord Philip is my brother.”
Lady Esther stood abruptly. “Then you are unwelcome here.”
George blinked in surprise, his lips faintly parted. He stood too. “I am terribly sorry to have intruded, my Lady… I did not mean to impose.”
His politeness and willingness to leave seemed to cause her to waver in her conviction. When he turned to leave, she said, “Wait.”
George paused and looked back at her. She was looking at him as if he was some alien creature she didn’t understand. “Are you quite sure that you are an Everton?”
George frowned. What a queer question. “Quite sure.”
“You do not look like an Everton.”
“In what sense, my Lady?”
“I’d never imagined an Everton as a man of the cloth.”
“Do you know much of us, my Lady?”
“I knew your father,” Lady Esther said, in a stiff voice.
That explained a great deal. George offered her a small smile. “I am sorry if he gave you a poor impression of us, my Lady. He did not have the best reputation in his youth.”
It was a forthright thing to say, but he imagined that honesty would go a long way with Lady Esther. She stood fidgeting for a moment, before gesturing silently at the seat he’d just abandoned.
He thanked her with an inclination of his head and sat again. “Not all Evertons are alike,” he assured her, as he sat.
Lady Esther scoffed at this. “You may not be like your father, but your brother certainly is.”
George was not accustomed to being spoken to so candidly, without regard for etiquette. But he didn’t give way to her brash tone. He remained calm and kept his voice gentle. “Since the death of our mother, Philip has not been himself. At least… not until he met Miss Beauchamp.”
“Then that is why you are here.”
George nodded. “My Lady, I only come to ask you if you know where she might be. We would like to establish contact with her.”
“Why?” Lady Esther bit out. “She does not want to hear from him.”
“That may be true,” George acknowledged. “But I am afraid that Philip very much needs to hear from her.”
“Can he not find some other woman to pester?”
George expelled a soft breath. “Miss Beauchamp is not so easily replaced,” he said. “As I am sure you know.”
Lady Esther lifted her chin higher, making it very clear that she had no intention of helping. “My Lady,” George said, even more softly. “My brother has made mistakes.
But his love of your niece is genuine. And until he has closure from her, I do not know if he will be able to recover from this heartbreak. I ask you to help us.”
Lady Esther stiffened her lips and stayed silent. Resigned, George nodded and stood. “Thank you for affording me an audience with you, my Lady,” he said. “Good day to you.”
Once again, she stopped him.
“I do not know where she is, father,” Lady Esther said, in a broken voice. “That is the truth. Even if I wanted to, I can’t help you.”
George looked back at her and offered her a sympathetic smile. “Family come back, Lady Esther,” he murmured.
He watched as tears rolled free of her eyes and her lip started to tremble. “She will come back to you eventually. And I will pray for you both.”
With those final words, George took his leave.
Chapter 35
Lord Philip Everton, Marquess of Blackhill
In his dream, he’d received a letter from the Beauchamp estate. A letter written in Loraine’s hand. All that was written was three words.
Come see me.
Philip woke from this dream in a sweat. It was three in the morning and he was still drunk. Drunk enough to believe that the dream was real, or some kind of prophecy.
Breathing heavily, he rolled out of bed and ran out of the Everton estate. He daren’t saddle up his horse, because he wasn’t steady enough to ride.
He hit the ground running, barely noticing that there was a storm underway. He was soaked through to his skin within seconds, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t feel the cold.
Philip ran to the Beauchamp estate and thumped on the door while lightning and thunder clashed overhead. “Loraine!” He called. “Loraine, please let me in!”
Philip shouted over and over again until his voice started to break. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with purple. He was sleep-deprived and he hadn’t been eating properly for weeks. In fact, he looked so unhealthy that a passerby might have thought that he’d escaped from a hospital.
But there were no passers by. He was all alone.
Philip stopped banging and turned away from the door. He sank down onto the courtyard steps and put his face in his hands.
Perhaps it truly had just been a dream. This thought brought tears to his eyes and his shoulders shook with the force of his misery.
“You mad fool,” came a voice from behind him. It was Lady Esther, holding a candle, having clearly just tumbled out of bed. She wasn’t dressed to be seen, but had a dressing gown wrapped around her.
Philip looked at her with heavy, watery eyes.
“Come inside,” she snapped at him, and opened the door wider to allow him to pass.
Dazed, Philip stood and staggered in, dripping rain from his clothes. “You’ll catch your death,” another woman said. He recognized her. Mrs. Barrow.
Mrs. Barrow came towards him and pulled his jacket off. “He’s drunk,” she remarked to Lady Esther. Philip looked between them slowly, as if he didn’t understand.
“Get him some dry clothes. Check my brother’s old room.”
Mrs. Barrow did as she was told, leaving Lady Esther and Philip alone. She led him into the drawing room, where she had another servant light the fire.
Mrs. Barrow came with clothes and they gave him a moment of privacy, so that he could change.
It took a lot longer than it should have, because he struggled with the buttons and fastenings. But he managed, after a while, and when Lady Esther called to ask if he was ready, he called out that he was.
“Is Loraine here?” He murmured, when the women stepped back into the room.
“No, child,” Mrs. Barrow said, with surprising tenderness. She put her hand on his shoulder and coaxed him to sit down. He did, and the fire warmed his cheeks.
“Oh,” he answered, and looked down at the ground.
“She’s in America,” Lady Esther reminded him.
He nodded unsteadily, as the truth became clear. It had all been a dre
am. “I thought…” He didn’t finish.
Mrs. Barrow brought him some water, which he sipped at intermittently. “Should we call a doctor?” Lady Esther asked.
“Perhaps.”
“No, no,” Philip slurred. “No doctor.” He tried to stand so that he could leave, but Mrs. Barrow pressed down on his shoulder to keep him from doing so.
“You need to be still for now, my Lord.”
“Yes,” Lady Esther added. “You will be still and answer my questions.”
“I am sure that now isn’t the time,” Mrs. Barrow said, pointedly. But Lady Esther wouldn’t listen to a servant.
“Would you give us some privacy, Mrs. Barrow?” It was an order in disguise.
Mrs. Barrow hesitated, before leaving.
“Now,” Lady Esther said, as she took a seat opposite Philip. “Tell me why you’re here.”
He looked confused. Wasn’t it obvious?
“Tell me why you continue to obsess over Loraine. I know your type, Lord Blackhill. And I am sure that there are plenty of other women out there who will not be so impervious to your charm.”
Just hearing her name spoken by another living soul made his heart pound with painful force. “There aren’t women like her,” he whispered, in a raspy voice. “There just aren’t. And I thought…”
“You thought what?”
“I thought she loved me.”
Lady Esther scoffed. “Why the devil would you think that?”
His eyes watered, but the tears wouldn’t roll free. “Because that’s what she told me.”
He looked down at his water and thought about the time they’d spent in the waterfall. How she’d felt in his arms. Philip didn’t realize how long Lady Esther had been silent until he looked up again and saw her face.
She was staring at him, with her lips parted.
“Is that the truth?” She whispered. “Did she truly say that?”
Philip’s silence was answer enough.
“How do you expect me to believe that your affection is sincere, Lord Blackhill? Given how it all started.”
Philip’s brow puckered. “How what started?”
“This thing between you and Loraine.”
He was trying to understand and failing.
Lady Esther expelled an impatient breath. “The bet.”
The bet.
She knew.
Which meant that… that Loraine knew.
“Is that why she’s gone?” He cried. “She found out?”
“Of course she found out.”
“No, no, no,” Philip chanted. He put the glass of water aside and threaded his fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. “It was a mistake. A horrible mistake. I didn’t know her. I thought it was right.”
“How could such an abysmal thing be right?” She snarled.
“You don’t understand,” Philip said, looking and sounding like a wild beast. “After what happened to Edgar-”
“Edgar Strath?”
***
Lady Esther Beauchamp
“Yes,” Lord Blackhill answered. “He was my friend. And after what happened to him, I was just so angry. But the more I knew of Loraine, the more convinced I became that she didn’t deserve my anger. I swear it stopped being about the bet long ago.”
It all came together then, like the pieces of a puzzle.
In the days following Loraine’s departure, Mrs. Barrow had tried to console Esther. Which had been quite peculiar, given that Mrs. Barrow had never seemed to like her very much.
At that time, Esther had been crying all day and all night. And Mrs. Barrow had tried to convince her that it wasn’t just the matter of Lord Strath, and Esther’s part in his death, that had pushed Loraine away.
She told her about Lord Blackhill’s bet. About how hurt Loraine had been when she’d discovered that he’d been playing her. This had comforted Esther to some extent. Because it meant that Esther could stop feeling wholly responsible for driving her niece away.
But, perhaps to protect Esther’s feelings, Mrs. Barrow hadn’t told her why Lord Blackhill had made the bet. She didn’t tell her that the two things, the bet and Lord Strath’s death, were connected.
But now the truth was out. And Esther realized, with a sudden feeling of horror, that all of this had started with her. All of Loraine’s pain… was rooted in her.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake…” Esther whispered to herself.
Lord Blackhill lifted his face from his hands and looked up at her. She met his gaze. “Loraine never even knew he was dead.”
Lord Blackhill’s brows pulled together softly. “What?”
“When Lord Strath last came to see Loraine in Louisiana, she wasn’t in. When I saw him I was so overcome by fear that he’d take her away from me. So I told him that she-” She could hardly bring herself to say it aloud.
Lord Blackhill’s face was hardening. “You told him what?” He pressed, in a tight voice.
She swallowed. “I told him that he should stop pestering her. That his presence annoyed her and that she had no interest in him.” Her voice shook a little as she spoke. “She never even knew why he stopped visiting until recently. That was the day she decided to leave. When she learnt of his death, and of the bet.”
Silence reigned once she’d finished speaking, but she could see that Lord Blackhill had started trembling. And she didn’t think it was the cold.
He stood, slowly, with a dark expression that made her shrink back into her seat. When he spoke, his voice was unsteady and breathy. “It was you who sent him away.”
“Lord Blackhill-”
“It was you!” He bellowed, which made her flinch. “And what you told me… that I was just a game to her. That she was just trying to punish me. That was a lie too, wasn’t it? You were doing to me what you did to Edgar.”
“No,” she answered. That one word seemed to shatter him open. His anger retreated and his pain returned. “No, that was the truth,” she admitted. “At least at first. But in time I could see that she didn’t want to do it anymore. She didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Why did she ever care about hurting me in the first place? Why me?”
“She didn’t care,” Esther confessed. “It was me who cared. I persuaded her to play with your heart, but not only to punish you for your wrongdoings. It was revenge.”
“Revenge?” Lord Blackhill whispered. “What did I ever do to you? You killed my friend.”
Her eyes filled with bitter tears. “I knew your father once,” she murmured. “A very long time ago. He played with my heart. He took my innocence from me… and then he left.”
“Do you mean to tell me that all this, all these games, have been about something that happened decades ago? You dragged us all into this heartache for some measly attempt at getting back at a man you haven’t seen since your youth?”
Her tears spilt over, and she said nothing.
“You are a bitter, gormless woman,” Lord Blackhill said. She could hear the sound of a sob rising in his throat, but he wouldn’t let it loose. “If I do not find Loraine, know that you have crumpled more hearts than my father ever did.”
Esther felt her heart break open, as this truth settled in her mind. As Lord Blackhill briskly left the room, she put her face into her hands and wept.
***
Lord Philip Everton, Marquess of Blackhill
Philip was starting to sober up, and all the things he’d learnt that night were crashing into him. He could hardly cope with the information. It was stirring up a storm in his mind.
Before Philip reached the door, he was stopped by Mrs. Barrow. “Lord Blackhill,” she said.
He stopped and turned around, but his expression was vicious. “I suppose you played a part in all this?”
Mrs. Barrow’s calm countenance didn’t change. “I was wary of you,” she admitted. “But I didn’t agree with Lady Esther’s plans. And neither did Loraine, at first. But her aunt can be very convincing,
and Loraine has always felt indebted to her. You must understand that saying no was almost impossible for her.”
It was what he needed to hear. He needed to understand what had driven Loraine. But more importantly, he needed to know how much of her was real. “When did it stop being a game?”
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