by Diane Gaston
‘We went to Scotland to marry,’ Lady Brookmore responded. ‘I married as myself. We’re going to make up some story about why Garret will call me Rebecca, but otherwise we’ll simply let people think what they will.’
‘How did you know about me? That I’d be here?’ Claire asked.
‘We read about it in the Morning Chronicle,’ Brookmore said. ‘We knew it must be you, because, of course...’ He inclined his head towards his wife.
‘Honestly, I would never have pretended to be you if I’d had any idea you could be alive.’ Lady Brookmore looked distressed again.
Claire had no feelings at all about this woman impersonating her. She certainly could not have assumed that governess position. ‘It hardly matters.’
‘If you wish to marry Lord Stonecroft and remain Rebecca Pierce, you are welcome to. I will not cause you any trouble over it. I do not need to be Rebecca Pierce any more, now that I am Lady Brookmore.’ She cast another loving gaze at her husband.
‘I will not marry Lord Stonecroft,’ Claire admitted.
‘There is another matter we must tell you about,’ Lord Brookmore broke in. ‘Warn you about. It is the reason we sought you out.’
That sense of dread that hovered in her dreams returned. ‘Warn me?’
He leaned forward to explain. ‘Before you became governess to my nieces you were a governess in Ireland. That is why you were sailing from Ireland to England on that packet boat.’
She was not from Ireland?
‘You were governess to the young daughters of Sir Orin Foley, a baronet, and his wife,’ he went on.
The little girls at the school table, the ones who appeared in her dreams?
His wife took up the tale. ‘Sir Orin apparently developed a romantic attachment to you.’
‘A romantic attachment?’ Had she been wanton after all?
Lady Brookmore quickly added, ‘Oh, we do not think you returned his sentiments. We believe you were running away from him.’
‘How do you know all this? Did I tell you all of it?’ That seemed unlikely. Surely she was more private than that.
‘No. He came for you at Brookmore House,’ Lord Brookmore explained.
‘He thought I was you,’ his wife said.
‘We have reason to believe he is a danger to you,’ he added.
‘He tried to kidnap me!’ Lady Brookmore told her.
‘And he said that his wife died,’ Lord Brookmore went on, ‘which we thought was very convenient. He came to take you away with him because he was now free to marry you.’
‘We think he may have killed his wife!’ Lady Brookmore cried.
Then that sinister figure in her dreams might have been real? And that figure might be the man who was probably watching the house this very moment?
No. It could not be. ‘But if he thought you were me, why would I be in danger here?’
‘We feared he would find out as we found out. From the newspaper,’ Lord Brookmore said.
‘I had to tell him I was not you. I told him my real name.’ Lady Brookmore looked distressed again. ‘If he reads that newspaper, he’ll realise that the Lady Rebecca in the article is probably you. If we found you, he could find you.’
Claire stared at the room’s window, facing the green field across from the Crescent. ‘Tell me. Does this Sir Orin have red hair?’
‘Yes!’ Lady Brookmore said.
‘Then he has already found me.’
* * *
Claire explained her encounters with the red-haired stranger and the Brookmores were convinced it was Sir Orin.
What these people told her about herself settled comfortably inside her, but she still did not remember any of it. Worse, it made her feel that what happened to her while she’d thought herself Lady Rebecca had been nothing more than a fantasy. Would it become so unreal she would lose her memories of the fishermen, the innkeepers, the store clerks in Dublin? Ella and Cullen?
Lucien.
She was more determined than ever to find her school in Bristol. The Brookmores offered to accompany her, but she declined. Being with them distressed her. More people telling her who she was and what she did not remember.
Lord Brookmore insisted upon hiring a carriage for her and that offer she accepted.
They also devised a way for her to leave the house without Sir Orin knowing it. She and Lady Brookmore would exchange clothing and Claire would leave looking exactly like the woman who called upon her. When she was safely on her way to Bristol, he’d come back for his wife.
Claire brought Lady Brookmore up to her bedchamber.
‘I am nearly ready to leave,’ she told her.
She glanced in the full-length mirror in the room and saw them both reflected in it.
Lady Brookmore stood at her side. ‘We compared our images in a mirror on the ship.’
Claire could not remember.
As they helped each other change dresses, Lady Brookmore said, ‘It must have been terribly difficult for you to not remember your past.’
‘It has been a challenge,’ she responded. ‘Tell me about what happened to you, though.’
While they arranged their hair, Lady Brookmore told about her experiences as Claire, about Brookmore’s dear nieces, about the house and estate and its people there.
‘I learned I am a terrible governess,’ the lady added.
They looked in the mirror again, this time dressed as each other.
Lady Brookmore put an arm around Claire’s shoulders. ‘If not for this remarkable resemblance and for meeting you on that ship, I would never have met Garret. Because of you, I have the greatest happiness I can imagine, being his wife.’ She leaned her head on Claire’s. ‘Thank you, Claire.’
Without this remarkable resemblance Claire would have never met Lucien and though she now experienced a great sadness, she would never regret knowing him.
Claire finished packing the portmanteau and walked over to the desk.
‘I have letters. One for my maid. One for Stonecroft. And one for Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton.’ She took them from the desk drawer and put them on top of the desk where Ella would be sure to find them.
Claire picked up Lady Brookmore’s hat and placed it on her head. Lady Brookmore arranged the veil.
‘Wait a moment.’ Claire realised she’d almost left her Kashmir shawl behind. She draped it over her arm. ‘I am ready now.’
They returned to the drawing room where Lord Brookmore waited.
He looked at them side by side. ‘Remarkable.’
He kissed his wife goodbye and picked up Claire’s portmanteau. ‘I’ll arrange her a coach to Bristol and I’ll come back for you.’
His wife smiled. ‘In the meantime I’ll pretend again to be Claire.’ She turned to Claire. ‘You must write to us at Brookmore House. Tell us how you are doing. Let us know if you ever need anything. Anything.’
She hugged Claire.
Claire left the house with Lord Brookmore, for the last time, playing Lady Rebecca.
* * *
Lucien paced the floor of his bedchamber.
She doesn’t mean it.
Ella’s words echoed in his mind, repeating over and over.
He’d not even thought of speaking to Sir Richard like he’d said. Instead he left the house and walked down Gay Street towards Queen Square, turning on Back Lane and entering the Gravel Walk. The Gravel Walk ran behind one section of the Circus and at its top opened up into the field facing the Royal Crescent.
Lucien stood and stared at that magnificent example of Bath architecture, but he was not admiring buildings. He was hearing Ella’s words.
She doesn’t mean it.
Could it be that she, Lady Rebecca, was lying to him about planning to marry Stonecroft? Was she weeping because Lucien was leaving her with no other choice?
/>
The footman attending the hall went in search of Lady Rebecca.
When he returned, he said, ‘Her ladyship is resting and does not wish to receive callers.’
‘She’ll see me.’ He straightened and used his Captain’s voice. ‘Tell her I will search this whole house until I find her and she listens to me.’
His message landed firmly. The footman’s eyes grew large and he hurried up the stairs again.
He returned shortly. ‘She will see you in the drawing room.’
Lucien climbed the stairs and entered the room where he’d developed that first instant dislike of Lord Stonecroft.
She was alone in the room and turned at his entrance. ‘Captain Roper?’
Captain Roper? Something was off. ‘You become formal now, my lady? You’ve used my given name almost since you’ve met me.’
‘Well,’ she said uncertainly, ‘tell me what is so urgent you had to interrupt my rest.’
Good God. She sounded like an aristocrat.
‘Something’s wrong...’ He could not place it.
A nervous look crossed her face, but she steeled it into something haughty. ‘I am still waiting to hear the reason for this visit.’
He came closer. The light from the window illuminated her face. He could not place his finger on it, but something was wrong.
But he went on. ‘I came to urge you to reconsider your decision.’
That distressed expression returned. ‘What decision?’
He changed tack. ‘Ella said you were ill. I came to see for myself.’
The lines in her forehead smoothed. ‘Oh, I am quite recovered. Not ill at all. There is no cause at all to be concerned.’
She started to show him the door, but as she passed him, he took her arm and stared directly into her face.
‘Release me this instant!’ she cried.
He did not release her. ‘You are not...’ No, it was impossible.
He let go in confusion.
She sank down in a chair. ‘Sit, Captain Roper. I have something to say to you.’
‘That you are not her,’ he said. ‘You are not her.’
It was impossible, but that was the only conclusion he could make.
‘That is correct,’ she admitted. ‘I am not her, but I am Lady Rebecca. And I will explain it all.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Claire stood in the hall of the White Hart, waiting until the coach that Lord Brookmore had hired was ready to pick her up. The coachman had said it would be only minute, but she waited a great deal longer. She held the Kashmir shawl in her arms like a blanket.
She was Claire Tilson, a governess, a woman without relations, alone in the world. She certainly felt alone at this moment. She must become used to this new identity, though. It must be the true one. All the bits and pieces flitting through her mind, her dreams, what Lord and Lady Brookmore told her about herself, were like pieces completing a puzzle. Everything fit.
Everything was there except her memory.
And Lucien, of course. He’d become a part of her—a part of a fictitious Lady Rebecca. He never knew her at all. And now he was gone.
The pain of losing him stabbed at her heart once more. She closed her eyes, trying to bear it.
‘Claire Tilson?’ a man’s voice spoke.
Expecting word of her coach, she lifted her head and opened her eyes.
But it was not a coachman. It was the red-haired stranger. Sir Orin Foley.
He smiled. ‘It is you.’
Before she could rise to flee, he sat down next to her and pressed something sharp against her ribs.
‘This is a knife,’ he explained in an eerily calm voice. ‘Make a sound and I will push it through your skin.’
She clutched her shawl.
‘I thought that was you,’ he went on in that mild tone. ‘Not the other one. She would not have walked back from the Royal Crescent with a portmanteau, now, would she? And she wouldn’t have answered to your name.’
He had been watching her, both at the house and here.
‘I was quite surprised to see the other one show up here. In the same inn as I, no less. Then imagine my surprise when they walked precisely where I was bound.’ He laughed. ‘It did not take me long to surmise what was afoot. An attempt to fool me again.’
The hall of the inn was not without other people about, but everyone seemed preoccupied with their own affairs. No one noticed the look of alarm on her face, her silent pleas for help.
‘Now.’ He became firm. ‘You will stand when I stand and come with me. We will go to my room until I figure out how to take you back to Ireland where you belong.’
He walked her to a deserted staircase and together they climbed to the third floor. When they reached it, Claire attempted to pull away.
The knife cut through her dress and pierced her skin. She ceased her struggle.
They walked down a long hallway.
‘How fortuitous it is that they provided me with such a secluded room,’ he remarked.
The hallway was empty and quiet.
He painfully gripped her arm while he worked the key in the door. The room was sparsely furnished. One bed. One chair. A bureau. He shoved her on to the bed and walked towards her, like the sinister figure of her dream.
Her head pounded and she closed her eyes.
And the memories came.
First of him trapping her in rooms of his country house, trying to seduce her, forcing her to kiss him, fearing that he would force more on her. Then other memories. It was like starting a book at the end and flipping the pages back to the beginning, to her childhood, her father smiling at her, her playing in the churchyard.
She doubled over with the onslaught. How ironic that she would be given back her memory at a time when her life could very well end.
But not if she could help it. She’d endured too much to let this man rob her of life.
‘You have gone to a great deal of trouble to find me, Sir Orin.’ She kept her voice calm.
He laughed again, a crazed look in his eyes. ‘You must know I would do anything for you, my dear Claire.’
‘Then let me go.’
He looked wounded. ‘I can never let you go. I need you. My children need you. Their mother died, you see.’ He made a smirk, then a sad face.
‘I am so sorry to hear of your wife’s death,’ she said. ‘Such a dear lady. Had she been ill?’
He smirked again. ‘Not ill.’
A shiver went up her spine. Perhaps he had killed her.
This man was inhuman. ‘How could you have left your children after they lost their poor mother?’
He had never paid the children much mind. She remembered—she remembered!—he was far more interested in her, the governess, than his own daughters.
He waved her words away as if they were inconsequential. ‘Oh, my two sisters came to take care of them. They are spinsters, poor as church mice, and quite devoted to the girls. And to my son, though he is at school most of the time. They will be happy to live off my wealth and I am delighted for it, because it freed me to search for you. We can be married quickly, my dear Claire. In Scotland, perhaps.’
She would escape long before Scotland, she vowed. ‘But I have had a better offer, Sir Orin. Yours does not signify.’
His expression darkened. ‘That Captain? What can he offer you that I cannot?’
He thought she meant Lucien? If he were here, Sir Orin’s life would be in danger.
But Lucien was not here, so she must fend for herself.
‘Not the Captain,’ she said scornfully. ‘He has no title, after all. I meant Lord Stonecroft. He is a baron and that would make me a baroness. And he would marry me properly. In church.’
Sir Orin looked wounded. ‘I am a baronet. That is almost as high. Besides, I have be
tter things to offer you than some old man.’
His eyes raked her and she remembered when she’d first seen that look on his face. After that narrow escape she had confided in his wife and they hatched a plan for her to leave in secret.
His poor wife.
She lifted her arm and felt where the knife had cut her. Blood had seeped from the wound.
‘I think you should release me, Sir Orin, and court me properly. After your period of mourning is up, that is.’ She stood.
He pushed her back down. ‘And have you marry that feeble Baron first? Never!’
She clutched her shawl and thought of Lucien. Her rescuer. She was alone now, though. She remembered now just how alone she was. But she also was not the same defeated person as that governess who’d first stepped on the deck of the Dun Aengus. She’d gained strength and courage. Lucien had taught her both.
Lucien listened to this unbelievable tale Lady Rebecca told him and he believed it. She fit the picture of the Lady Rebecca he imagined would emerge if his Lady Rebecca—Claire Tilson—regained her memory.
Although Lucien rather liked this version as well, aristocratic or not.
When she finished, he said, ‘I believe you.’
She looked relieved.
‘There is something I should tell you, though.’ This time he would not hold back. ‘We have a connection, you and I, and it is not a happy one?’
‘A connection besides Claire?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ He took a breath. ‘Your grandfather tricked my grandfather out of his property in Ireland. He impoverished my mother’s family.’
She averted her gaze. ‘That horrible man. I detested my grandfather. He was vindictive and cruel.’ She looked back. ‘Rather like my half-brother, as a matter of fact.’
He went on, ‘That is why I travelled to Ireland and was returning on that packet boat. I went to provide financial assistance to my uncles. They’d struggled for many years and this year has been the hardest.’
Her expression turned sympathetic. ‘I am so sorry for it. You must let me know if there is anything I can do to help them. My Garret would certainly understand.’
