The Heir to Evercrest Hall

by Andrea M. Theobald

  When I was alone with Aunt Pam, I dismally explained to her that I would be staying up at the big house from now on. My fabricated reason—to save having to walk back and forth all the time now that I was a full-time employee who would be starting at the crack of dawn. I wasn’t counting on my aunt’s reaction, for her face did not light up as I expected, although her words were contradictory. “That is understandable, my love.”

  Since discovering Davenport was ill, I had anticipated my secret schedule with the rustlers, and now that it was close approaching nightfall, trembled with nerves. However, to add to my worries, I was alarmed to find my cousins had decided to go to the inn, meaning they could be out all night or could return home at any given moment and discover I was out when I ought to be in my bed.

  Aunt Pam finally went to bed, not before overhauling the range with a good clean out, much to my protest that I would do it for her instead. I could only manage to hurry her along by emptying the soot bucket outside and emptying and refilling the wash bucket for the breakfast.

  The clock on the mantel struck ten times. Aunt Pam had begun her sleep talking. I climbed out of bed, removed my nightdress, having already dressed with Frankie’s clothing beneath, and with efficiency, I shaped the preloaded sacks of clothing into an elongated lump in my bed. Excited that my plan rolled into action without hindrance, I made for the side porch door, where I put on my navy cloak and repeated the actions I’d done on the night of the rustlers.

  Quietly, I walked along the lane. I could just make out the sounds of frogs from a pond somewhere on the other side of a stone wall. Accompanying them were crickets within the long grass, their raucous racket stopping when they were aware of my immediate presence. The quietness was left behind when I reached the coach road. I had to hide in the long grass when several horse and riders, mostly in groups of twos or threes, passed on by. Moments later, a carriage rolled along, all oblivious to a spy watching them. I assumed they were all heading to the same property I was going to—the Dorchester’s.

  The carefree feeling that no one was the wiser that I roamed about free in the night was uplifting; yet my complacency nearly got the better of me when a lone horse and rider trotted around a bend from behind. I quickly dived into the grass, but not quick enough for the horse not to have seen me. The animal, as it neared the place I hid, refused to move past the spot. With gentle persuasion from the rider, after the horse resorted to rearing on its back legs, I prayed the animal would obey. After much coaxing from a familiar voice, the horse passed the troublesome spot, much to the praise of its rider.

  “So you’ve decided to attend your bride-to-be’s ball, after all,” I whispered.

  Not before a few more annoying nocturnal passersby, did I finally pass through the gate onto the Dorchester’s land, the very one that the poachers had discussed at the Old Rose Inn. Most of this field was conveniently shielded from the main house by the roll of the land and its tree park, so I was free to wander about and find refuge amongst one of many clusters of trees.

  For a long time I sat to the sound of an orchestra ebbing and flowing in the gentle breeze. I could see over my shoulder the glow of lights disappearing and reappearing as the tree boughs swayed softly to the musical harmony. I wondered what Alby was doing in that very building. I wondered if he was making his acquaintance with the family before his plan to woo the girl with all the money was followed by the request for her hand in marriage. I was ever aware of a stabbing pain in my heart at the thought.

  The unmistakable sound of a horse stomping its feet nearby within another tree cluster to my left had me frozen to the spot. Had the rustlers seen me? I tried to squint for an outline of the hidden animal, but it was too dark; suddenly, it was the sound of the gate latch being tampered with that had me staring away.

  Loud whispering came from one of the two riders. I could not make out what they said as each rode their horses through the gateway. I realized the stomping feet must have been a trick of sound. Someone said, “Way back.” Suddenly, from amongst the horses’ legs ran out a dog. The gate was pulled wide open and one of the riders remained nearby. I noticed the horse that was ridden in the direction of the trees to my left had the unusual covering of white on its underbelly; it was the same horse I’d seen on the bridge the other night.

  Orchestra music conveniently smothered the sounds of the cows bellowing as they were being silently herded by the dog. Where I sat, the music was not loud enough to smother out another sound within the trees, where the second rider had ridden into. I swore I had heard a muffled cry. Next, the horse that had disappeared into the trees ran out void a rider.

  The other half of the thieving duo quickly gave a high-pitched whistle. The dog abandoned its duty. The man quickly dismounted and tied up his horse, and hurried along to the trees where the other horse had run out from. I caught my breath at the glint of moonlight striking on what the man tugged out of his pocket. Next, there was a cry as a body launched itself from the shadows of the trees and on to the man with the weapon in his hand.

  There was no mistaking the fair-head of the man who had leaped from the darkness. A struggle ensued, bodies rolled about the ground, and just as the felon had the dominant position on top of his attacker, a loud gunshot pierced the air. I let out a scream. I ran over, stumbling on the uneven terrain at one point. One man had already run for his life toward the gateway to mount the horse that stood there, while another clambered to his feet to look on the lifeless body of the other.

  “Thank God you are safe,” I cried, nearly cannoning into the man as I threw my arms about his neck.

  Davenport uttered between heaving breaths, “We have to get out of here.” He looked beyond at the Dorchester’s house, where the orchestra music had stopped and had been replaced with exclamations on the breeze, although the words were unintelligible because of the distance.

  I released my hold of the man and looked at the ground; the smell of gunpowder eminent in the air. “Is…is he dead?”

  Davenport said nothing. He crouched by the body and listened for breathing. Quickly, he got to his feet, ran within the trees, and returned back with his horse.

  “What are we going to do with his body? What if we get caught? What if we get arrested?”

  “First things first, we have to get out of here,” said Davenport. He leaped up onto the horse and reached out for my hand, tugging me upward behind his saddle as if I were a rag doll. “We must keep the gate open so everyone will assume it was a cattle poaching gone wrong.”

  Seated behind him in uncomfortable silence as we trotted along, I gingerly had both hands clinging to the fabric of his waist. I was ever aware of the man’s excessive body heat against the front of me. The faint smell of manly perspiration, mixed with some pleasant exotic fragrance, was exciting all my senses.

  The sight of a large white gate loomed before us. Without dismounting, Davenport swiftly opened it, and with equal adroitness, secured it back into place. We continued riding into the field, following an old sheep trail that led us down a steep incline and into a small gully. When we were some distance away from the road, Davenport startled me when he yelled, “What the hell were you doing back there?”

  “I didn’t think you would be coming, seeing you were ill. Looking back, I now see it was a big fat lie!”

  “I needed a feasible reason to stay home. Even if I hadn’t been able to make it, what would you have done, huh? Did you have a plan to apprehend the men alone?” I ruminated for an answer. He made a grunt. “Exactly as I thought, you didn’t have one. You might’ve been harmed, you foolish girl!”

  “At least I didn’t kill a man!”

  “It was he who pulled the trigger; it was self-defense on my part,” he said with a snarl. “Besides, it wouldn’t’ve happened if I wasn’t busy concentrating on you.”

  “How dare you! I was only trying to help.” I was on the verge of tears.

  After a long silence, he said, “No one must know what happened. Promise me you
will keep this quiet.”

  “I might wish not to, what then?”

  “I have a good mind to push you off right here! Answer me now or further conversations with you will cease forevermore.”

  I released my hands from his waist. “Does this mean you will silence me to death?”

  “Not at all, though it would be tempting to entertain the thought. I’m asking that you promise to keep this quiet.”

  “Why should I make a promise with you? You don’t know how to keep one yourself.”

  “You are getting on my wick now. How dare you speak to me in such an insolent manner?”

  “I can speak to you in a manner I see fit. You are used to people pissing in your pocket, doing what you command. Well, I am not any of those people.”

  Davenport let out a high-forced laugh. “Oh, Miss Smithers, you sound hateful!” The horse stopped in its tracks. I wondered if he was going to shove me off. “It is a deep-rooted kind of hatred. Tell me, little Miss Maria, what is it that I have done to cause you to be so hateful toward me? What promise was it that I made to you that I broke?” He turned about in his saddle to face me; his sneer was spookily defined in the moonlight.

  I felt an uncomfortable stirring of the painful memory of my childhood. The sight of the boy’s changed face, now mannishly striking in the moonlight, was one I could no longer bear to gaze upon. I slid off the horse’s back and yelled, “Because you are a liar. That is why I hate you!” I turned and ran up the hill toward the road.

  Feeling as if I were running in slow motion, with the air coming into my lungs like hot embers, I made it to the top of the slope and only had to cover the small distance to reach the road gate when strong arms wrapped about me. With one swift movement, we fell, his body having twisted to prevent me from impacting heavily with the ground. He did not wait. He rolled me over so he was directly on top of me, with my hands pinned above my head.

  Davenport stared into my eyes. He said, between breaths, “I only lie to protect those I care for.”

  Struggling to wrestle out from under him, it was as if his hands were heavy anchors. I growled, “I hate you!” I did not want to add, “Because you abandoned me those many years ago.”

  “Maria,” he said softly, releasing my hands and placing his palms on each side of my face. “I don’t hate you. Far from it.”

  “I don’t care what you think. Please let me go,” I whimpered, my heart had never pounded so incessantly before.

  “Whatever the reason for your hatred, I’m sorry. I want you to feel like I’m feeling, a feeling that is far from hate.” His lips were over the spot where he had once viciously sunk his sharp teeth into where they now lowered and caressed my neck. He raised his head to peer deeply into my eyes again, causing me to tremble.

  To my astonishment, suddenly his warm lips covered my mouth. More astonishingly, I wrapped my arms about his body and reciprocated his affection by kissing him back too. He moved one of his hands down my arm, causing the feeling of goosebumps to spread across my entire body. Again we kissed, but this time more desperately as if we wanted to devour one another. He pulled at the tender skin below my earlobe with his lips; the tenderness turning to passionate biting, in turn causing me to sigh uncontrollably. I found my hands moving downward, smoothing the contours of his back, at the same time gauging his muscular firmness. When one of his hands wander across my pelvis, triggering an overpowering reminder of Father Davidson’s sermons about the story of Dinah, a story he used as a warning for every young woman being seduced out of wedlock, I felt the hard sting of Davenport’s cheek against my palm.

  “What was that for?” he exclaimed, recoiling his hand and body away.

  I slapped him again and hurried to my feet, making sure to give him a wide berth. “You despicable creature; how dare you, how dare you!”

  In a bewildered stagger, he got to his feet. “You wanted it too!”

  “I didn’t want it! That was the last thing I wanted. You were touching me just because I had lowered my guard. You were going to commit your wicked way with me and afterward discard me!”

  He stepped toward me, I stepped back, and he pleaded, “I would never use you as you accuse.” He rubbed his hand desperately through his blond hair, then extended an arm with palm upward. “You weren’t shy showing me your feelings. I mean, the way you touched me, and kissed me, the way you looked at me with those seductive eyes of yours. How is a man supposed to react when a woman does that to him?”

  “Here we go, blame the woman for your waywardness.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm, the momentum fiercely swinging me about to face him.

  “Maria, we are close like no other, we have a special—”

  “I thought so too,” I said with a snarl, “but one is too demanding of the flesh.”

  “You are so self-righteous you, you exasperating woman!”

  “And you are a user of women.”

  “Why, because of what just happened?” His voice was incredulous. “It takes two to tango, my dear.”

  “You’ve done more than your fair share of tangos, Mr. Davenport.” I laughed wickedly. “And now look, one of your little dances has come back to haunt you.” I wagged my finger before Davenport with a click of the tongue. “I know your big dirty secret, the biggest one of them all.”

  “A man was shot, but it was self-defense. I didn’t set out to kill him.”

  “Not that!”

  He threw out his hands in surrender. “Surprise me!”

  “You have a by-blow upstairs in your nursery.” I hadn’t counted on the reaction of the man. There was dead silence. I added with mirth, “Oh my, that touched a nerve, didn’t it, milord?”

  “Who told you that?” His voice was like a thunderous rumble.

  “I was busy helping upstairs when I came across the nursery. I helped your maid to look after your son, but you are not to know he is there, Aunt Charlotte’s orders!” Davenport’s breath was shaky. Uncomfortable with his silence, I asked, “How long are they going to keep him hidden from the world, keep people from seeing what a ram you are, a result of sleeping with some maid or other?”

  “That’s enough! You…you were not to know about this child!”

  “Well, well, so all along you knew you had one?” I tut-tutted. “It’s such a shame to keep such a pretty little baby hidden away like that, almost barbaric if you ask me.”

  “You were not to know. No one was to know!” His voice was unsteady, manic even.

  I paced judiciously backward and forward before Davenport. “He can’t stay up in the nursery forever. How will you introduce him?” I stopped and pivoted to face my solemn audience. “Will it be, ladies and gentlemen”—enthusiastically I thrust out a respective arm to the announcement of each gender—“I have spent much of my youth sowing wild oats. I have sown many a field, but low and behold, to my huge surprise, I have harvested!’” My laugh was hysterical.

  “You are vile!” Davenport yelled. He turned and marched toward the direction he had come.

  I yelled after him, “I gather you will not be requiring my assistance furthermore?” I did not get a response, so I let out a high-shrilled laugh. However, it was a façade of bravado, for I had longed for an explanation from him about the baby. Now left all alone, I wandered toward the gate with a sick, regretful feeling in my stomach.

  My greatest fear, as I approached the cottage, was that the lights would be on, and they were. Normally, the boys, once they returned home, went straight to bed after a night of drinking. And if they arrived home any later, it was at the crack of dawn and you wouldn’t see them again until the midday meal. Frightened, I loitered outside the side porch, where from within, there was a hum of voices, where I swore I could hear a strange woman’s voice. I wondered if Aunt Pam’s “don’t bring drunken women back home” commandment had been broken. As the woman spoke again, I realized it was Aunt Pam, but her voice sounded unusually strained. Without thinking, I stepped backward, only to catch my heel on the
soot bucket that I had forgotten to return indoors earlier. The clanging sound it made as it hit the woodshed wall was followed by a lantern light streaming out of the porch door. It was too late for me to hide.

  “Oh, Maria, it is you!” Aunt sounded as if she had been crying.

  “Where the hell have you been?” bawled Trevor. He ignored his mother’s cries of protest as he pushed past her and staggered down the steps. He gripped my arm and hauled me roughly into the house. Before I could answer and look about at the horrified expressions on the faces about me, Trevor yelled, “You little whore, I can smell it on you.” I felt the crunch of Trevor’s knuckles on my cheek, the force of the blow felling me to the floor.

  “Trevor, stop it!” cried Aunt Pam, her effort to hold him back was violently shrugged off.

  Frankie this time tried to intervene as Trevor kicked me with his boots, but he was unable to overpower his much stronger brother, who shoved him aside. My only choice was to protect my face with my arms and curl up into a ball; my cloak hardly a barrier to the heavy boot blows. Finally, Trevor pulled me up off the floor by the front of the shirt, tearing the sleeve halfway off at the shoulders, and dragged me into the bedroom. With one almighty shove onto my mattress, accompanied by cussing, Trevor slammed the door, leaving me in darkness. I lay on the opposite side where my cheek pounded with pain. I heard Aunt Pam weeping as the lone footsteps moved about to the sound of drunken mutterings. Trevor had made it clear that I was to leave the cottage, or he would leave the family forever. At least, I had an option to live under another roof, but whether it would remain an option depended on whether Charlotte found out I had betrayed her secret to the very person I was supposed to keep it from.

  It seemed like an age before I heard the boys climb up the ladder to the attic. Not long after, the door opened and the desolate face of my aunt was lit by the lantern; to my relief Trevor was not with her. She tiptoed over and placed the lantern carefully on the clothing chest between my bed and hers.