The Promise

by May McGoldrick

  “Indeed, sir. Lord Stanmore is in the library, sir.”

  Nicholas fell in step with the steward.

  “Did his lordship fall ill while you were in Hertfordshire?”

  “No, sir,” the tall, angular steward responded with a turn of his head. Together they ascended one of the grand staircases that curled, like great marble arms, around the immense entrance hall.

  “Then did he suffer a fall from his horse? Sprain an ankle?”

  “No, sir,” Philip answered in his immutable monotone.

  “Hmm. A new colt then has been added to the stables?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It must have been a beautiful woman. Out with it, man.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then, it had to be an orgy of wantonness! That rogue master of yours has secretly assembled an entire harem of women down there! Is that it, Philip?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Has your brother, Daniel, burned down Solgrave, yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  Nicholas paused on top of the stairs and looked sternly into the steward’s bland expression. “Then tell me this, Philip. Does anything ever make you smile?”

  “No, sir.”

  Nicholas turned and strode through the massive, elaborately detailed doors into the library. As the door closed behind him, he spied his friend writing at a huge desk by the window.

  “Your steward,” he began without a greeting, “is by far the most miserable old bugger I’ve ever had occasion to know in all my life.”

  Samuel Wakefield looked up from his correspondence and smiled at his friend. “Of course! Philip is Philip. You shall only be the more miserable for it, if you think you can change him.”

  “That has the ring of a challenge to it,” Nicholas growled with a toss of his head toward the door. “Your majordomo, my friend, has only known me for the last twenty years or so. Don’t you think he could greet me with a good morning? Or, what a fine day it is outside, sir? Or, whatever was the cause of that nasty cut on your handsome forehead, Sir Nicholas? The problem with the world today is that no one asks the right questions!”

  “Why, that is a fine mark on your brow, Nicholas. Who was it this time?” Stanmore pushed aside the work on his desk and leaned back in his chair. “No, never mind that. I wouldn’t know your cohorts anyway. Tell me, though, where you acquired such a finely wrought crest?”

  Instead of answering his friend’s question, Nicholas picked up the copy of the Morning Chronicle from the earl’s desk and pointed to an article on the front page.

  “Here is perfect proof for my argument. Imagine, this rag of a newspaper giving that John Wesley fellow all the credit for those five new ships being sunk last…well, whenever it was.”

  “Friday.”

  “Exactly. Do they ask how some religious zealot managed to get those slave ships out there where they could be blasted to splinters by His Majesty’s Navy?”

  “Do they?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Well, Wesley is a strong voice against the slave trade.”

  “Even so, Stanmore, you cannot tell me that prayers and good intentions were enough to steal those ships after they were paid for and before they could go south on their hellish business.” Nicholas eyed his friend wryly. “Such a trick would take a great deal of planning and finesse…and money, too, I should think.”

  “Very well, I concede your point…about the questions, that is. But tell me, Nicholas, about the wound you bear so handsomely. Where did you get this one?”

  “If you must know, ‘twas at Wimbledon.” Nicholas dropped the paper on the desk and touched the cut on his forehead. “These deuced country fairs are not what they used to be. And before you start your lecturing, m’lord, you should know that I was an innocent bystander…until I was pushed into the ring. From there on, it was self defense.”

  “Pushed? Ha!” Stanmore pointed to a chair. “I have yet to meet a man—or a woman, for that matter—who can push Nicholas Spencer into anything.”

  “Yes, well, while we’re on the subject of being pushed…” Nicholas seated himself across from Stanmore. “I certainly hope you were not spending piles of money down in St. Albans.”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Very well. Straight to the point, then, and with just the right question. During your absence from London, the latest paramour of yours was quite distressed. The word about town—not that I ever listen to it, of course—but the word is that this same lady has consoled herself by losing immense sums of money at a variety of gaming establishments this past sennight…far more than usual.”

  “Louisa and I have an agreement. I refuse to support her gambling habits.”

  “Say what you will. But be warned, my friend, the siren is, I believe, a bit desperate.”

  “Is this all you have to do, Nicholas, spread gossip?”

  “Why, no! As a matter of fact, I have quite a full schedule. Just today, for example, I will be extremely busy exercising my new pair of very handsome grays before dropping in on a little soirée over at Lady Mornington’s. Then I shall do my best to keep up appearances as a man-about-town by losing money at either White’s or Brooks’s…I haven’t decided which. Later on, of course, I must spend the requisite hour in the pleasure gardens…what do you think, Stanmore, Vauxhall or Ranelagh this evening? And then there is the sporting…but wait.” Nicholas stretched his long legs out before him and studied his friend’s serious expression. “There is something else troubling you, isn’t there. And if I am not mistaken, Lady Nisdale’s gambling is not the source of it.”

  Stanmore rose to his feet and walked to the large window overlooking Berkeley Square. “Your acute powers of observation are not diminished by your roguish style of living, Nicholas.”

  “The devil take my style of living, Stanmore. I’ve known you too long. Tell me what is wrong.”

  “I received news of Elizabeth while I was away.”

  Nicholas straightened in the chair and stared at his friend’s grim profile.

  “Oliver Birch was indeed able to track her.” The earl’s glance at his direction was brief and hard. “He sent me a letter from New York bearing the news.”

  “So Elizabeth has been living in the colonies for all these years.”

  Stanmore turned sharply and faced him. “She died on the journey across, ten years ago.”

  Nicholas knew better than to offer any sympathy.

  “Oliver managed to find the ship that took her across.”

  “What of the lad?”

  “He wrote me that the infant, it appears, survived the journey.”

  There was no look of happiness in the earl’s face. Nicholas could not discern even a hint of relief there, as he would have expected in his friend’s countenance. After all, Stanmore had just told him that his own lost son might possibly still be alive.

  “Oliver’s letter concludes with his intention of traveling to the Province of Pennsylvania. The last anyone saw of the lad, he was in the care of a woman who had accompanied Elizabeth during the crossing. The woman’s destination was apparently Philadelphia.”

  “Does Birch know who the woman is?” Nicholas watched his friend walk away from the window and move toward the large fireplace dominating one side of the room. “The way I remember it, none of the servants went with Elizabeth, and no one in her family or in her circle of friends had even been contacted when she disappeared that night.”

  Stanmore stood erect, staring up at the portrait of his father, the last earl of Stanmore, hanging above the mantle.

  “You remember the details correctly,” he said after a long moment of silence. “I do not know who the woman is.”

  Nicholas followed his friend’s gaze. “So what is your plan?”

  “I wait to hear again from Oliver. In the meantime, there are announcements and arrangements that need to be made regarding Elizabeth.”

  “Of course.”

  After a few moments, Nicholas joined his f
riend before the portrait.

  “You know that you are now fair game…a ‘catch.’”

  “A catch that has no intention of ever again being netted.”

  “Nevertheless a challenge in the eyes of every eligible female.”

  “They can all go the devil.”

  “A shocking attitude for a peer of the realm.” Nicholas shook his head disapprovingly. “You have to remember what the old man had in mind for you. A title and wealth...which you have. Respect...which you have earned. A beautiful wife...which you had at one time and will certainly have again. But most important, a son. An heir. It all came down to that, didn’t it?”

  “More than you know,” Stanmore said grimly. “But there is already a son and heir, and Oliver Birch will bring him back to England soon enough.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The sun was warm on his face, and the pungent tang of tar and sea and wood smoke filled his lungs. Listening to the sounds of sailors and longshoremen, Stanmore considered that these were the very smells of a glorious past—of the England of Drake and Ralegh and Hudson and Smith—and they was also the odors of a less than glorious present.

  Stanmore gazed out the window of the rooms that Birch had taken in the inn on Broad Quay. Below him at dockside, sledges piled high with tobacco, sugar, and cotton formed a steady stream of traffic along the timeworn cobbled street. The countless number of ships moored along the miles of Bristol’s dock stood so thick together that it resembled a tangled forest of masts and spars and lines for as far as he could see.

  By a trading ship directly in front of the inn, a line of Africans sat in chains while the slavers prepared to load them for the voyage to the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The sight sickened him, and—looking up at the massive square steeple of St. Mary Redcliffe—he swore inwardly that he would never give up his fight against the barbarous trade.

  The sound of the door opening behind him brought Stanmore around, and he watched Sir Oliver shake his head as he walked back inside the room.

  “Sorry to make you wait. But there is no sign of them in their rooms. Since it is such a beautiful day, Mrs. Ford must have taken young James for a walk. I left word for her to immediately come here as soon as she arrives.”

  Stanmore turned his attention back to the quay.

  In the distance, beyond a pier piled high with casks of Madeira, a young urchin of a lad was running in wild circles around his mother. The worn blue breeches, the shabby red waistcoat, the untamed hair riffling in the breeze—all tokens of the careless and yet natural freedom of a child of the lower classes. Stanmore frowned. It was a manner that he himself had never had been allowed to enjoy, and neither would James. He watched the gray-cloaked mother, opening her arms and catching the boy as he threw himself roughly against her. The two toppled, and he watched with dismay as they fell laughing against an empty sledge.

  “She is not what you are expecting.”

  Stanmore rested a hand on the open window as a few passersby blocked his view of the two. He did not turn to look at the lawyer. “And what is it exactly that I am expecting?”

  “It is clear, m’lord, that you are expecting someone who can be bought off. I mean no disrespect, but you are quite off the mark in your assumption that Mrs. Ford is here because I failed to offer her a large enough reward in Philadelphia for the services she has rendered.”

  “We shall see how ‘off the mark’ I am, Oliver.”

  He continued to peer out until the people blocking his view moved on and he could see the two again. The woman was crouched before the boy. The hood of her cloak had fallen back in the chaos of the moment, and flowing locks of golden red hair now caught the bright sunshine. She had her back to him, but Stanmore could see the way her hands were cradling the boy’s face. He assumed she was scolding the lad, but all the love in her gestures spoke differently. A moment later the boy placed his arms around her neck, remaining in the mother’s embrace for several moments. In spite of the openness of their public display of affection, a sense of intrusion on something private stirred in the pit of his stomach, and he averted his eyes.

  Birch’s furrowed brow greeted him as he looked across the room.

  “Speak your mind, Oliver, for God’s sake! You look as if you’re being led to the gallows.”

  “I had the pleasure of spending some time in Mrs. Ford’s company on the journey over, m’lord. I must tell you that despite the pressures of being a widow without resources endeavoring to raise a child, she manages to maintain a remarkable attitude of poise and grace. Despite her simple attire, she possesses exquisite manners. Numerous times during our journey, I witnessed instances where the woman’s kindness and lack of pretension won the approval of men and women alike. She is no rustic, m’lord, and she possesses that quality that—without any conscious effort on her part—elicits people’s respect.”

  Stanmore’s dark gaze fixed itself on the lawyer. “Come to the point.”

  “I have already come to the point, m’lord. She is simply not a woman who will be bought.” The man’s voice expressed his conviction. “Mrs. Ford has acted in the capacity of James’s mother for nearly ten years. And I must say that her affection for him—her relationship with him—well, it is of the type not generally found among the haut ton.”

  To hide his growing irritation, Stanmore strode away from the lawyer, taking a survey of the room’s sparse furnishings. By a small fireplace between two windows, he picked up a slightly bent poker.

  “I encourage you to listen to her recommendations and her concerns regarding the lad before dismissing her. On the journey over, she enlightened me with--”

  “You appear to have spent a great deal of time in each other’s company during this crossing.”

  Color crept up the lawyer’s neck. “It is not what you think, m’lord. We did, however, have reason to converse from time to time. Quite reasonably, I should say, Mrs. Ford had questions about James’s future…concerns about where the lad was to live and how much time he would be spending in your lordship’s company. She has definite opinions about the importance of living in the country versus the city and…” He looked away under the pressure of the earl’s gaze.

  “I must say that you sound like a man smitten, Oliver.” He waved off the lawyer as the man started to object. “Don’t take me wrong. You know I am the last man to meddle in another’s affairs.”

  “You are misconstruing my motives in speaking on her behalf, Lord Stanmore. Your son’s welfare was the point of our discussion on the journey and--”

  A soft knock curtailed any further explanation. Stanmore nodded toward the door, and Sir Oliver moved to open it.

  Standing with his hand on the latch, he looked into the earl’s eyes. “You pay me to advise you, m’lord. I advise that you give the woman a fair hearing.”

  *****

  Standing in the corridor outside of the rooms taken by the earl, Rebecca tried to reassure herself that Jamey was fine. The cheerful Irish serving woman who was helping him clean up and change into his best clothes reminded her of an older Molly Butler, and Jamey obviously felt comfortable with her. He would be ready for his appointment with his father.

  She herself had not even bothered to shed her cloak before directing her steps to Lord Stanmore’s rooms, for the message from Sir Oliver had said that his lordship wished to speak to her first.

  Cold dread washed through her as she raised her hand to knock. She had tried. Lord knows, she had tried to tell Jamey the truth of his parentage. When they were walking along the quay, she had once again failed to find a way of telling him—just as she had failed each time she’d tried on the ship. The simple truth was that she just couldn’t cut the bond between them before he’d had a chance to form a new one. She couldn’t leave him alone and vulnerable—not until there was another to take her place.

  She prayed for some understanding and compassion on the peer’s part on her failure to do what was right. She desperately hoped that a solution might even be sugg
ested by Jamey’s father. She lifted a trembling hand to the door again.

  A flushed Oliver Birch opened the door.

  “I’m very glad you are here, Sir Oliver,” she started in a low voice. “I wanted to make certain that I received the message correctly. His lordship wishes to meet with me before he meets with James?”

  “That is correct, Mrs. Ford.”

  As Rebecca listened to the lawyer’s quiet words, her gaze was drawn to the broad back of the man in riding clothes who moved to look out the window across the room. He was slightly taller than the lawyer, but something in his build, in his wide confident stance, in the way the black jacket hugged his back, made him appear larger than any man she’d ever known.

  “What of James? Shall I have him brought here after a short while?”

  “Don’t concern yourself with that just now, ma’am.”

  Rebecca shot a quick look at the lawyer’s face. His eyes flickered away, and she felt a chasm open in the pit of her stomach. She turned her attention again to the earl’s unmoving back. Dark, unpowdered hair, the color of night, tied neatly in the back was all she perceived.

  “But before I can…” She hesitated. “It is important that his lordship meet his son before…”

  “Please come in, Mrs. Ford. His lordship has been waiting. I shall go and look in on James shortly.”

  Lord Stanmore turned and faced them.

  For a long moment, Rebecca stood perfectly still, stunned and staring, unidentifiable thoughts flitting through her head. This was not the man she had envisioned…not the man who had driven his wife away.

  Strangely, the face had no flaws. High, firm cheekbones. A strong, determined jaw. A straight and perfect nose. His eyes, curtained by lashes long and dark, were fixed on the floor between them. The earl of Stanmore was a dangerously handsome man.

  And his son, Rebecca thought, looked nothing like him.

  ***

  “Please come in.” Birch repeated the invitation and stood back for her to enter. “Your lordship, may I present Mrs. Ford?”