The Nightingale Legacy

by Catherine Coulter

  “No, no, yours is not the right kind of happy, my lord, and as a Nightingale man, you know it’s only temporary. Also, we’ve all seen you laugh immoderately, exercise wit without sufficient restraint. You’ve even gone so far as to make people smile and laugh with your jests. It isn’t proper for a Nightingale man to be so at ease with other people and with himself. A Nightingale man has more unplumbed depths, more richness of soul; a Nightingale man ponders profoundly the pitfalls of life and how best to avoid them. A Nightingale man lives more years than allotted to other less thoughtful, less discerning men. Well, at least some of them do.”

  Caroline stared at him. North could but shake his head. He said now, “Coombe, I can no longer trust you. You have lied to me, you have betrayed me. You are retired from service to the Nightingales as of today. There will be a sizable pension so that you may buy a cottage and remain in the area or, if you wish, you can travel elsewhere. I suppose you provided sterling service to my father and that this is what he would do. I’m sorry, Coombe, that it had to come to this. I truly am. I had hoped you would realize that your attitudes were not only outmoded, but just plain wrong.”

  “Your father wouldn’t dream of doing this to me, your grandfather either. Both of them would have believed me had I told them she would be the cause of your downfall. Neither of them would ever have trusted a female more than they trusted me or any other man in their service. Both your grandfather and your father were saints, pious thoughtful men, they—”

  “Both were bloody mean-spirited bastards,” North said, and slammed his fist down on his desk. “Now, this is quite enough. I don’t think I could tolerate you accusing me of making them spin in their graves.”

  “There’s also your great-grandfather, doubtless a discerning, intelligent man, who—” North took a step toward him, so furious that Coombe finally realized he would soon be dead if he didn’t shut his mouth. He managed to do just that, but he looked like he wanted to shout down the draperies. He looked pale and drawn and Caroline felt a stab of pity for him until he looked at her and she saw such fury writ on his face that she took a step back.

  North said, once Coombe had left the library, “Forgive me, Caroline. Had I simply acted immediately when he lowered the monster’s head to scare you out of your wits on our wedding night, then this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t know it was him, but I had a one-in-three chance of getting it right. Yes, I should have guessed, because he’s the youngest of the three and thus the most agile. That roof is steep over your chamber. Too bad he didn’t fall and bash in his damned head.”

  “I’m sorry too, North. I do wish it hadn’t ended like this. I didn’t want discord. I’d truly hoped they’d come to grips with things.”

  “I too,” he said.

  She walked to him, clasped her arms around his back, and kissed his chin. “I’m sorry about Coombe, but I’m frankly relieved that he won’t be here to cause more mischief. You are an amazing man, North. You’re compassionate, kind, funny, and the best lover in the whole of Britain.”

  “I must brood sometime, Caroline, surely it’s in my black blood, else I might go mad and not ever slaver all over you again.”

  “Can I brood with you?” Her hand stroked down his chest to his belly. She felt him tremble and kissed his mouth. He lurched, pulling her hard against him. “The damned door,” he said against her mouth. In a moment, he’d locked the door, then turned to look at her. “I want your legs around my waist, Caroline. I was thinking of that, picturing you with your back arched against my hands, your hair free and loose down your back. Yes, it’s what I want.”

  She gave him the most radiant smile a man could dream about, and said, “All right, but I’m not quite certain how this will work.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “You usually do unless you let me tie your wrists to the headboard and I got to do that only once.”

  His breathing hitched. “Now, Caroline.”

  He lifted her onto the desk, and his hands were beneath her skirt, going upward to the top of her stockings to stroke the skin of her inner thighs. “Oh goodness, that’s quite nice,” she said, then nipped his earlobe. When his fingers touched her she nearly fell off the desk.

  “Easy,” he said, freed himself, and lifted her onto him. He slid upward into her, felt her tight around him, felt her muscles clenching, and it was the finest feeling he could remember having in his life. He lifted her and she laughed, startled and excited, as he raised her legs to close around his waist.

  “This is what I was thinking about,” he said against her throat as he whirled her around, going even deeper inside her. “This is exactly what I wanted.” She arched her back, pressing closer, and North thought he would go over the edge. “Hold still and that’s an order.”

  She held perfectly still. “Is this all right, North?”

  “No, but it will have to suffice. Jesus, Caroline, I couldn’t have imagined anything like this and I did try to.”

  “This is very strange, North. You’re walking around with me and you’re inside me and it’s very nice and—”

  “Caroline, please keep still, at least about what we’re doing. It drives me just as wild as you moving about.”

  “Then what can I do?”

  He closed his eyes as he slowly withdrew, then pushed back into her, deep, very deep, and she moaned, her back arching again. “Just be you and it’s too much,” he said, and began to kiss her wildly. He laid her back on top of his desk, her legs dangling over. “No, this isn’t the way I want it to be,” he said, then shoved her legs up, bending her knees. “Yes, that’s it.” Then he very slowly withdrew from her, lifted his hands beneath her hips and brought her to his mouth.

  There was a knock on the door. “Is anything wrong, my lady?” It was Mrs. Mayhew, and she didn’t sound at all concerned.

  Caroline’s eyes were nearly crossed. She could scarcely draw a breath. She stared up at her husband, smiled at him, and said, “I am ready to expire now, North, quite ready.”

  “Oh no.” He kissed the tip of her nose, rested his palm on her belly, and called out, “Mrs. Mayhew, everything is all right. Her ladyship merely slipped on the carpet. I’m seeing to her. Go away.”

  There was a long pause, then, if North wasn’t mistaken, a very discreet giggle. Miss Mary Patricia? Oh no, surely not Miss Mary Patricia, not their resident pregnant governess.

  He turned back to look down at his wife. Her eyes were closed, her lips roughened by his mouth, and parted. He saw the tip of her tongue. She looked utterly abandoned, her skirts tossed up about her waist, her legs bent, her hair free of its pins and tangled about her head. He said nothing, merely touched a finger to her soft flesh. She quivered.

  “Shall we finish, Caroline?”

  She opened her eyes and there it was again, that adoring look that made him feel like a king, a look so soft and warm it made him hard as a stone, a look that made him know there was something beyond what he knew was in this world and perhaps that something could be his. He came into her and she gasped with the pleasure of it.

  A long time later, when Caroline sat in his lap on a huge wing chair in front of a fireplace that wasn’t lit, when they were so sated with pleasure that they should have been quite content to just sit there and think about nothing at all, Caroline said, “There seem to be an awful lot of bad people around us, North. Understand, I haven’t seen all that much of the world, or known many people, but most of the few I have met haven’t been very nice.”

  “I know,” he said. He raised her hair off her neck and kissed her. She tasted like salt and woman and Caroline. “I know and I’m sorry for it. At least you found me and I’m a nice person.” He seemed surprised that he’d said that, but perhaps not as surprised as he would have been even two weeks ago.

  “You’re more than nice. You’re the very best. You make up for all the others.”

  He hugged her, felt her breasts against his chest, felt the precious surge
of lust wash through him, and wondered vaguely how he could possibly want her again so very soon after nearly killing himself two times before in far too short a time. He raised his hand and began to caress her breast.

  She pushed forward, filling his hand, smiling at him, looking absolutely delighted. He made love to her yet again with her facing him in the chair and it was surely the finest moments he’d ever experienced in his life, if he didn’t count the other finest moments he’d been with her, loved her, and caressed her.

  Caroline’s face was against his throat. She was panting, utterly limp. He very much liked her this way and knowing that he’d pleasured her so much she was ready to fall into a collapse. “I don’t think I’m going to make it this time, North. It was too much.”

  “Yes, and I’ll do it to you again just as soon as I’ve regained a modicum of vigor.”

  She giggled against his throat and bit his chin. “I love you, but I do need some reassurance. What do you think Polgrain and Tregeagle will do?”

  He stilled, his hands now loose on her hips. Her gown was a mess, one of her stockings was hanging off the edge of the desk, the other lying like a white snake curled around the hearth sweep. Her slippers were at drunken angles by the chair. She looked well loved and it pleased him inordinately. “I don’t want to think about them right now, but I know I must. I’ll speak to them in a little while. This time I will be alone.”

  She was a coward, she realized, because she agreed with his plan immediately. “Not yet,” she said, as she leaned down and kissed him. “Not just yet.”

  That night Caroline dreamed of Timmy the maid. He was pointing his pistol at North, and she was shrieking at him not to shoot, that North wasn’t his father, that Timmy was confused. There was a loud report. Caroline jerked awake at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Miss Mary Patricia’s pale face in the dim early-morning light.

  “It’s time, Miss Caroline. Oh God, it’s time.”

  31

  DR. TREATH AND Bess Treath arrived at Mount Hawke within the hour. Miss Mary Patricia, efficient and stoic in giving birth as she was in conducting her everyday business, didn’t lower herself to yelling or crying, and presented a squalling black-haired little girl at nearly noon the following day, the very picture of the master of the house who had raped her, she’d told Bess Treath, then hugged the tiny child to her breast.

  Caroline hadn’t been allowed in the room, Dr. Treath having said firmly, “You don’t know about any of this, Caroline. You will learn all about it when you have your first child and not before.”

  It seemed strange to Caroline, but Bess Treath just laughed, saying, “My brother believes that if a girl saw another giving birth, she would never allow a man to touch her.” She paused a moment, then added thoughtfully, “ Perhaps he has a point. Giving birth isn’t pleasant. I think it would have to be a very special man before I’d agree to it.”

  Caroline wanted to ask her why, then, she was allowed to witness the dreadful ordeal when she herself wasn’t married and never had been, but she didn’t. She supposed that Bess Treath’s age, which was at least thirty, gave her more resistance for such unpleasantness, that and her experience assisting her brother for so many years. But what Bess Treath had said—it did sound frightening as the devil and Caroline said as much to North as they waited downstairs for Miss Mary Patricia to get on with it. “Is it so very dreadful, then?” she asked. She kept her voice low. The last thing she wanted was for Alice or Evelyn to hear her. They were, at present, being distracted by Owen, who even managed to make Alice laugh once.

  “Yes,” he said, nothing more.

  That diverted her instantly. She grabbed his arm and shook it. “Come on, North, how do you know about birthing babies?”

  “I helped a woman deliver a babe in the hills of Portugal. Her husband had just been killed and it brought on her labor. My men set up a tent and I—well, I tried to help her.”

  “What happened?”

  “The baby boy was dead. She died just moments later.”

  “Why did she die?”

  “She was trying to birth the babe for nearly two days. She was exhausted. Her husband was dead. The baby was dead. She had no will to live.” North realized then what he’d said, for Caroline’s face was perfectly white.

  He kissed her, hugged her. “Caroline, I was a fool to tell you about that. You are nothing like that poor woman. When you become pregnant, I’ll be here to watch over you, to take care of you, and Dr. Treath will attend you. There can be tragedy in bringing life into the world, but not with you, Caroline. I won’t allow it. I’ve felt your belly, you know, and even managed once or twice to look at you without undue lust. You’ve wide hips, surely wide enough to bear as many babes as you want to.”

  When Bess Treath came into the salon at nearly noon, holding the small babe in her arms, she smiled and announced, “She’s a healthy little angel. Miss Mary Patricia wants to name her Eleanor. After your aunt, Caroline.”

  “Oh,” Caroline said. To North’s astonishment, she burst into tears.

  * * *

  Little Eleanor was sleeping soundly in her cradle next to Miss Mary Patricia’s bed. Owen had returned to Scrilady Hall after assuring himself that Alice had drunk a warm glass of milk prepared for her by Mrs. Mayhew. Bennett Penrose, in the company of Flash Savory, was now journeying to Honeymead Manor to Mr. Ffalkes, carrying with him a letter from North that requested he take Bennett in hand and make him into a man, a task North wasn’t certain anyone could accomplish—he’d grinned then and told Caroline he believed, after his own dealings with Ffalkes, that the man considered himself above every other mortal in the land. It was a challenge he trusted Mr. Ffalkes wouldn’t be able to refuse. Also, what more could Ffalkes want than a chance to pound another man into the ground after he himself had been so thoroughly pounded?

  North was now standing against the mantel, his arms crossed over his chest. He said to Caroline, “I didn’t have a chance to tell you all of it.”

  “Do you think Bennett will stay at Honeymead Manor with Mr. Ffalkes?”

  “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I asked Ffalkes to pay him for his labor. I also asked him to teach the fool how to gamble so he wouldn’t lose all his wages. I also mentioned that Bennett’s whining was rather annoying and he might also consider encouraging Bennett to stop it.”

  She laughed. “That’s just perfect, North. You thought of everything.”

  Again, he felt as if something deep inside himself was unfurling, growing full and heady—her words and that lovely smile of hers making that something expand deeper and deeper still and making him want to smile and laugh and kiss her until his mouth was numb.

  “We’ll see,” he said, trying to sound not at all touched, and probably failing. “Now, let me tell you about Polgrain and Tregeagle. They were at first very stiff in the collar, wouldn’t meet my eyes, treated me like the hangman. I asked them if they wished to remain. Tregeagle said he hadn’t realized what Coombe had done. He said the letter to me was beyond the line. However, he thought the monster’s face on your wedding night hadn’t been a bad idea, only he would have known it wouldn’t work with you, for you’re too bloody stubborn, too strong-willed. He said that argument and logic were the only weapons appropriate to men of goodwill. Polgrain then said he feared that Mr. Coombe had put something in the oxtail soup.

  “I then asked them if Coombe had felt so strongly when my father first married my mother. They looked at each other but refused to say it wasn’t so, which leads me to wonder if perhaps Coombe, even as a very young man, took a hand in continuing with the Nightingale legacy of betrayal. I don’t know, and I believe neither Polgrain nor Tregeagle knows either.

  “So, I put it to them. They are to tell me tomorrow what they wish to do—either stay here and treat you as you should be treated, or retire to a quaint cottage down by Land’s End and learn how to fish.” He paused, expecting Caroline to say something. Indeed, he’d expected her t
o say something long before this, but she was utterly silent, just sitting there in the chair, very still, which was quite unlike her, not even moving her hands, which were always doing something, and when they were doing things to him, it invigorated him to his very toes.

  “My God,” he said at last, staring at her. “I do believe you’re brooding. My Caroline is actually brooding. I must call the hounds and insist that you walk with them on the moor. I must fetch you a volume of poems from the library written to depress the spirit, to darken the soul, to question man’s very existence on this pitiful earth. I must buy you a black billowing cloak and have you sit on those ancient pitted rocks by the sea and stare into infinity as a strong wind gusts around you.”

  She finally looked up at him and gave him a crooked grin. “I’ve never brooded before. Leave me alone, North. It’s an experiment. I’m not certain I like it but I’m willing to give it a chance. A black cloak, did you say? Billowing in a nice high wind? I quite approve the gothic touch.”

  He laughed deeply, paused a moment, surprised that he’d laughed, then swooped down on her, hauled her up in his arms, and hugged her tightly against him. “Your laugh is wonderful, North,” she said against his throat. “Just wonderful. I think I’d rather listen to you laugh than brood, all right?”

  “All right. Don’t worry about all the unpleasant folk. I have the feeling that Tregeagle and Polgrain just might surprise us.”

  “I shan’t lay a wager on it, North.”