by Sophia James
She nodded.
‘Did your father read the conditions you wrote?’
‘He didn’t.’
‘His seemed to contradict your own.’
‘I think he hopes for much more than each of us would wish to give, my lord.’
‘Indeed?’
His hand reached out towards her and he tipped her chin up into the light, peering at her injured cheek. ‘That should not have happened.’ Colouring profusely, she felt the heat of his words roll across her face. ‘Did you love Gerald Whitely, Amethyst?’
‘No.’
For the only time in that whole day he smiled like he meant it, as he let her go. ‘We will stay here at Montcliffe until the day after tomorrow. Then we shall travel to Dunstan House. Your father will accompany us.’
‘You have spoken to him of it?’
‘Yes.’
He turned then to the cabinet behind him and, using a key, unlocked a safe that held a long leather box. She saw a profusion of small boxes within, but stayed quiet whilst he opened one container and then the next. Finally he found what he sought and came to stand beside her.
‘Give me your left hand.’ With trepidation she did so, watching as he carefully removed the ugly diamond ring and replaced it with a delicate deep purple amethyst set in ornately wrought rose gold.
‘The clasp on this one won’t hurt you.’
Smooth and beautiful, the underlying colours of red and blue glinted in the light of the room. No small worth.
‘It is my birthstone.’
‘I know.’
She was surprised at this. ‘What stone is yours?’
‘A diamond for April.’
Without meaning to she laughed and the humour was not lost on him.
‘The hardest substance on earth.’ He waited for a moment before carrying on. ‘Imbued in the folktale is the belief that diamonds promote eternal love.’
A new awareness filled the space around them.
‘We barely know each other, but the circumstances that have thrown us together require at least some effort of knowledge. Perhaps if we start here.’
‘Here?’
‘My parents loathed each other from the moment they married and I do not wish to be the same. Is politeness beyond us, do you think?’
She shook her head.
Her hand was still in his, the warmth of skin comforting and sensual, though after a quick shake he allowed her distance.
‘Would you come for a ride with me around the Montcliffe estate this afternoon?’
‘In your carriage?’
‘I thought after our last jaunt together that you might prefer horseback. The stables here are not quite empty yet.’
When she nodded he leant down to ring the bell and a servant she hadn’t seen before appeared immediately.
‘Could you show Lady Montcliffe back to her room?’ He consulted the same watch she had seen him glance at before. ‘Would an hour be enough time for you to be ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I will see you at the stables at four.’
A slight gesture to his man had him turning. He did not look back as he opened a further door to one end of the library and disappeared from view.
* * *
He walked into his brother’s chamber after their conversation and sat in the chair before the desk in the untouched room. Nigel was everywhere, in the models of ships that might ply the Atlantic much like Cameron’s fleet and in the books of maps that he had treasured in a wayward pile next to his bed. He had barely been in here since his brother’s death, but this was a room he had often enjoyed as a youth.
Daniel could not decide which emotion he felt more, love or anger, but they were both closely aligned to the guilt he had never let go of.
He should have been able to save Nigel as he had in their childhood when his brother would ride too fast or lean out too far. Daniel had been younger by eighteen months, but he had always felt older, more in control, and the Earldom had not suited his sibling’s temperament.
Responsibility worried Nigel and he began to drink heavily. A week before Daniel left for Europe he had found Charlotte Hughes déshabillée in the attic of the stables entwined in the arms of his brother, an identical look of shame and shock on both their faces.
His former lover was no loss whatsoever, but Nigel’s betrayal was. Daniel had not sought him out when he left England with his regiment, an action he regretted when a bullet went through his leg in Penasquedo as he tried to shelter Moore from the battle, and regretted again when the fever took him into the realm of pain, heat and hopelessness on the transports home.
Charlotte had long gone north with her rich Scottish beau by the time he returned and his brother had been drawn into the company of a group of men who had forgotten what was good and true and sound about life.
Sometimes Daniel thought he had forgotten, too, but he was fighting to cling on and Amethyst Cameron was a part of that, despite the lies about her dead husband.
After he had begun to recover from the wound to his thigh from La Corunna he had gone to recuperate at the London town house. His mother and sisters had left to stay with an aunt in Coventry, the sudden shock of the death of Nigel affecting his mother in a way that had made her even more unstable. Hence, when Daniel arrived home from the hospital and in no fit state to travel, his grandfather was the only person left in residence in town.
Harold Heatley-Ward had been a man of few words all of his life, but in the time they were thrown unexpectedly together, he had begun to talk more and Daniel would hobble each night to his grandfather’s sitting room.
‘Your mother was never an easy woman, Daniel. I blame my wife for spoiling her and allowing her every wish. Sometimes disappointment and frustration can help to build a character’s resilience. Janet never had a chance to nurture hers and as an only child was wont to get whatever she favoured.’
He’d produced a large bottle of whisky after the confession, taking the top off it with a sort of quiet excitement.
‘The stuff of legend,’ he had said. ‘Brandy hasn’t a heart compared to the best of what Scotland can offer and whilst we are alone with no one to sanction our taste we should enjoy it.’
And they had until well into the following morning.
‘Your brother left you a letter, by the way,’ his grandfather had confessed at around three o’clock, words slurred. His movements were clumsy, too, as he went to retrieve the missive from a drawer next to his bed. From the drink or from the creeping arthritis, there was no true way to tell.
‘Nigel made me swear that I would not give this to you until we were alone. Unseen if you like. From such instructions I have taken it that he did not wish for your mother to read the thing.’
‘Have you? Read it, I mean?’
‘No. It is sealed.’ He handed over the note. ‘From Nigel’s state of mind when he gave it to me I think I have a fair idea about what it might contain.’
Daniel hadn’t known whether to open it up then and there or leave it until later. But, cognisant of his grandfather’s worry, he broke the wax.
Daniel,
You always knew what to say and do. You should have been the Earl because I have made an awful hash of it and I don’t know which way to turn any more. Now that you are home in England again the Montcliffe estate may have found its saviour.
Seeing you yesterday in London has confirmed my belief that if I wasn’t in the world things would be easier for everyone. However, I am sorry for ending it the way that I hope to. A shot to the temple is quick, but unlike you I have always been a coward. I also sincerely hope that any debt I have incurred will die with me. I pray and hope history will record my demise as an accident.
Grandfather has promised to deliver this letter to you when
a moment arises where he has you alone. I think he understands me better than anyone. Tomorrow I leave for Montcliffe Manor and I don’t mean to come back.
The letter was signed with an N., embellished with two long flicks and underlined.
Closing his eyes against the tilting world, Daniel screwed the paper up in a tight ball and tried to hold in the utter sadness.
‘His servant was adamant that the gun went off by mistake as he jumped a fence?’ The question in his grandfather’s tone was brittle and Daniel passed the missive over and waited until Harold had read it.
‘It is not a surprise,’ the old man finally said, tears welling in his eyes. ‘Nigel took the world too seriously until he started to gamble, then he forgot to think about anything else at all. Your father was afflicted with the same sort of sickness.’
Anger claimed reason at the ease of such an excuse as Daniel stood, trying to control his fury. ‘When I was in Spain I saw men fight for their country and die for liberty and loyalty. This sort of death is...wasteful.’
But his grandfather shook his head. ‘Be pleased that the same melancholy that took over your brother’s mind was not inherent in your own.’
‘A coward simply lets go. A braver man might fight.’
‘You were the only one of the Wyldes who ever knew how to do that. You escaped, can’t you see, with your friends and your school and your unwillingness to belong here in a household that did not understand the importance of family or loyalty or lineage.’
He had never belonged. The thought came quick and true. But neither had Nigel, in the cutthroat tug of war between his parents and the quieter but equally brutal boarding school that they were both finally sent to.
There Daniel had met Lucien and Francis, but Nigel had drifted on the edges of friendships, never quite establishing himself in any particular group.
‘Janet would most likely be even more heartbroken if she knew the truth. If we could keep this from her...?’
Harold left the option as a question, and Daniel found himself nodding as he took the confession over to the hearth, struck a tinder and watched the flame catch. Indeed, an accident whilst out hunting was a lot more palatable to explain.
The smoke rose in small curls from the missive, there was a slight flare of flame and then it was gone. Scuffing the ashes with his boot to make sure the damning truth was lost, he turned to his grandfather.
‘I am glad Nigel felt he could at least trust you in the end.’
The old man merely nodded his head and bent to watch the last puffs of grey smoke, tears still rolling down both his cheeks.
* * *
Montcliffe was a beautiful property, Amethyst thought, the house sitting on a lake and surrounded by sloping meadows and falling to a river that wound through a valley. Everything was green.
‘My father and Nigel never really understood the history here at Montcliffe or the beauty of it.’
On top of the same large black stallion he had ridden in London her husband looked...unmatched. Amethyst smiled at the word and his eyebrows rose.
‘But you love this place.’
He nodded. ‘It’s the peace of the country, I suppose, and the silence, though I have not spent as much time here as I would have liked to.’
Each word made her pleased. He was not a man who over-enjoyed the party life, then. Like Gerald.
‘And your family?’
‘This was my father’s heritage. My mother seldom ventures far from the social scene in Brighton in summer or London over the winter. I doubt she enjoyed it here right from the time she and my father married and my sisters have not either.’
‘You are lucky to have so many close relatives.’
When he laughed she wondered if he felt the same, but the sun was on her face and it felt so good to be riding. Here and now, the strained events leading up to their wedding were further afield.
‘Did your first husband like horses?’
The bubble popped completely, but she made herself answer.
‘I think he felt daunted by any outdoor pursuit.’
‘What did he like then?’
Not me.
She wondered what would happen if she just said it, blurted the truth out about how in the end he hated every single thing she stood for. But that honesty was too brutal even for her, and there were things that she would never tell another soul. Staying silent, she did not add all of the sordid, degenerate and shameful facts and there were so very many of them.
‘The mistakes of others are not our own,’ he said quietly.
She smiled, liking his sentiment, but the tears that sat at the back of her eyes felt close.
‘My father has a habit of saying the same.’
‘Then it is time you believed it.’
‘Papa insists that people come upon the destiny they deserve, but I always thought that was a bit harsh.’
‘Why?’
‘Sometimes destiny just falls on our heads and squashes us flat.’
He began to laugh. ‘If you are referring to yourself, you have never seemed squashed to me.’
Delight ran through her at the compliment and just like that the ache in her body was explained.
She was falling in love with the Earl of Montcliffe. She was. She was allowing herself to believe the fairy tale and ignore all the conditions of what, to him, would be simply a way out of bankruptcy.
He was innately kind—had not Mrs McBeth told her so?—and he was a gentleman reared in the art of manners and comportment. He had asked for civility and she had agreed, so her ridiculous want for more could only embarrass them both.
Already he was looking away, waving to a man who worked in the fields. The late sun gave the Earl’s hair dark red lights and when his horse reared to one side he easily controlled it, gentling the stallion with a few well-chosen words.
She had never before been around someone who was as effortlessly certain, the smile on his face breaking the skin around his eyes into lines. Perhaps he was also a man who laughed a lot. She hoped so.
‘Your father’s pallor seems better here than in the city?’
‘That is because his favourite places are the countryside and the ocean, and he thinks the land is beautiful around here.’
‘Did you ever go with him to the Americas?’
‘When I was younger I did. But then...’ She stopped.
‘Then?’ He looked at her carefully, a slight puzzlement in his eyes.
‘I became a different person. I would like to say that the display of histrionics in the carriage was not my finest hour, my lord. The accident that resulted in the loss of my hair came when travelling too fast and now whenever I am inside a conveyance that goes at more than a walking pace, I panic. Normally I am innately sensible and very correct. I like order and regularity and control and seldom let my emotions rule me. My temperament is usually far less emotional and far more calm, if you are able to believe it. After the Herringworth ball the shock of everything made me...unreasonable and I am sorry for my behaviour.’
A shout had them both turning and a man on a horse was coming across the field towards them.
‘Smithson is one of the cottars and he wants a word with me. We will have to finish this conversation later, but thank you for the explanation.’
Nodding, she jammed her shaking hands into the divided skirt of her riding attire and hoped Daniel had not seen the racing pulse at her throat.
Chapter Nine
They had an early dinner and it was a simple affair, the leftover meats from the wedding breakfast and a bowl of fruit in season. Mrs Orchard, the housekeeper, had cut up the cake and arranged the pieces carefully on a plate. The same figurines from the wedding now twirled in the middle on their own revolving pedestal. An eternal embrace.
Her father
was in a good mood, his appetite the best Amethyst had seen it for months as he helped himself to the food.
‘Your man showed me around the stables, Lord Montcliffe, and impressive it was, too. Who built them?’ The lilt in his voice was audible.
‘My great-grandfather. He was a firm believer in the philosophy that horses need a view to thrive so every stall looks across the lake.’
Robert began to laugh. ‘You will find Dunstan House to be nowhere near as attractive, though we can rebuild everything to imitate the style here if that is your wish.’
The conditions of their union came to the table with them, Amethyst thought, all present and accounted for, each one a reminder of the absence of what should have been. She wished her father might just leave it at that, but as he went on with the discussion any hopes sank.
‘The greys are to be brought up next week from London for I was certain you would want them back. Mr Tattersall has been at me for another chance to market them, but I said that he would have to wait in line for the progeny. He was most interested to know that you would be involved in a breeding programme, my lord, although I did tell him we would not be changing their names.’
‘Here’s to Maisie and Mick, then.’ Daniel raised his glass and laughed. ‘But don’t give them to me, give them to my wife.’
A strike of excitement flared inside Amethyst.
‘Very well, but on the condition that you will teach my daughter what you know about horses, my lord. She has always been an avid rider, but we have never had the time for more.’
He turned to her. ‘Is this something you wish for?’
‘It is.’ She hoped her father would not notice the expression that she was sure would be in her eyes as she helped herself to a slice of cake.
Indifference was getting harder. The ring glinted against the light, its purple depths lending a richness to the gold and the wine she’d had was making her relax.
Her husband’s voice was soft as her father spoke with Julia McBeth on the other side of the table. ‘You would like to try your hand with the horses, then? Be warned, though, for the work can be hard.’
