Brides of Falconfell Read online

  Brides of Falconfell

  by Blair Bancroft

  Published by Kone Enterprises

  at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 by Grace Ann Kone

  For other books by Blair Bancroft,

  please see http://www.blairbancroft.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  Chapter One

  “How dare she?”

  Accustomed as I was to my sister Cressida’s gasps of outrage over any action which deviated from what she thought proper, I did not even look up from mending the flounce on my second-best petticoat.

  “Such effrontery! Poor little Edmund but a babe of three months, and she thinks to steal you away from me.”

  At that, I straightened, crumpling my stitching in my lap. “May I inquire who has put you in such a pet, and over what?”

  “Our dear cousin Tess,” Cressida informed me with considerable venom. “It seems her mother’s health is not all it should be, and she has taken it into her head that you might care for a change of scenery. Imagine her putting it like that when ’tis obvious she wishes you to take over the burden of her mother’s care.” My sister punctuated her words with a huff of disgust.

  “If she wishes my help, I would think she might have written to me,” I returned in as mild a tone as I could manage, not wishing to encourage Cressida’s indignation, which could rise to theatrical heights.

  “She knows quite well how much I need you here at Laytham Hall. I daresay she wishes to turn me up sweet before daring to approach you.”

  Myriad thoughts chased through my head, jostling, shoving, trampling each other, as I fought to keep them contained, to keep them from reflecting on my face. The simple truth was that I, Serena Emilia Farnborough, was sitting in the drawing room of my sister’s home in Wiltshire, where I had resided off and on since I refused a second Season as London’s most neglected wallflower and declared my intention of living out my life as no more than aunt to the children of my two brothers and my sister. I had not expected to end up the family nurse, summoned from house to house for birthings and dyings, with many a serious illness between those moments of joy and sorrow. But that is what I had become, with no one to blame but myself.

  I have a talent for it, I suppose. I am told I take after my name—that what I lacked in skill when I began my sojourn into nursing, I made up for in serenity, a quality often needed in the sickroom. Yet the family has no idea an imp seethes inside me, longing to burst out. I do not resent my patients—never that—but at the sadly withered age of twenty-nine, I have come to realize I was a coward to run from that second Season, to hide behind the skirts of my family, eschewing any effort to find a place of my own in this world. Which is what has brought me to this: being fought over by family members like dogs over a bone. I bent my head to my sewing and allowed myself a private wince.

  “Well, I never! In a fortnight, she says. Imagine that. As if you were a servant to be summoned at the drop of a hat.”

  Was I not? There had been many times when it certainly seemed that way.

  “Serena, dearest, tell me you will not leave me. Already Laytham is talking about another babe, and I simply could not, could not, face another confinement without you. Truly.”

  Cressida has always had a flare for the dramatic, but I was not without sympathy, for I had to admit I thought Laytham a trifle precipitate in wishing to add to his nursery again so soon.

  “Oh.” My sister’s voice went flat as she sorted through the remainder of the mail, evidently considering the issue of Cousin Tess’s request settled. “Here is a letter for you, Serena. The frank is such a scrawl I cannot read it, nor can I can imagine whom we know with a title, particularly a gentleman who would dare to write to you directly. Ah, but of course, it must be from his wife and he has merely franked it. Do open it, dear, I am quite overcome with curiosity.”

  “If you would give it to me,” I murmured, holding out my hand.

  Cressida, looking a trifle startled, handed me the folded letter. She was right. The title scrawled in the upper right corner was unreadable. The paper was high quality, however, and sealed with a signet in red wax. Not just any imprint but what appeared to be the crest of a noble house. For some reason a shiver traveled up my spine. Cressida, ever socially astute, had analyzed the situation correctly. Except for Laytham, who was a viscount, our family was a mere sprig off England’s nobles vines. Well-born, well-educated, far from poverty-stricken, but not a title among us. Our Cressida capturing Viscount Laytham’s interest was quite the greatest event in the Farnborough family in several generations.

  “Serena, pray do not be such a ninnyhammer. Open it!”

  My hands never shake in the sickroom, even when my insides are churning with apprehension. But they shook as I opened the mysterious letter.

  Dear Miss Farnborough,

  You may not remember me, but we are, I believe, connected through our mothers’ families, making us some degree of cousins too complex for a mere male to decipher. We did, however, meet during your Season in London, where I believe you were acquainted with my wife, then Helen Montague.

  “My dear, whatever is the matter?” Cressida cried. “You’ve gone quite pale.”

  My mind a complete blank, I stared at the letter as if I’d never seen one before. I propped both hands and the letter on the arm of my chair and willed them to stop shaking. Cressy must never guess how much this communication out of the blue affected me.

  “Well, what does it say?”

  I forced myself back to the words written by Baron Hammersley, whose offer for Lady Helen Montague, had sent me reeling into spinsterhood. Not that he ever really noticed me beyond politely acknowledging our distant connection by asking me to stand up with him five times that Season and occasionally offering polite conversation while I sat out dances during my woeful attempt to fit into the ton. But that hadn’t kept me from dreaming . . .

  Although Northumberland may seem the end of the earth to you, my Aunt Eversley keeps me apprised of all that happens in the family. She tells me that you have become the family angel of nursing, the one who can be relied upon in times of crisis. And I fear we have a crisis at Falconfell. Helen suffered a fall and is not mending as we had hoped. I thought that perhaps someone from happier times, someone she knew in London, as well as someone with proven nursing skills, might be just what she needs.

  Will you come to us, Miss Farnborough? I humbly beg you to consider it, though I know your sister, Lady Laytham, cannot like it. If your answer is yes, I will be eternally grateful, for I fear we may lose Helen else.

  Yours in entreaty,

  Thayne Hammersley

  “Serena!” Cressy’s sharp tones brought me back to the reality of the drawing room.

  “My presence is needed in Northumberland.”

  “What?” my sister screeched, scattering the mail to the four winds.

  When I explained the situation, her voice rose even higher. “Baron Hammersley? Northumberland? They’re as wild as the Scots up there. Laytham
will never allow you to traipse off to some place called Falcon . . . Falcon . . .?”

  “Falconfell,” I told her. “And Laytham has no say in the matter. I reached my majority long ago. And what need have I had for the money Aunt Tingley left me? I have served the family by choice, but I assure you I am not dependent on others for a roof over my head. I shall go to Falconfell, if I please.”

  My sister fell back in her chair, her hand over heart. “Serena, you have given me palpitations. I feel faint.”

  I extracted the vinaigrette I always keep by me—for others, not for myself—and waved it under Cressy’s nose. But even as I did it, I had no qualms. The die was cast. I was going to Falconfell.

  Chapter Two

  There is nothing like a very long carriage ride—an infinitely long carriage ride—to precipitate second thoughts, third thoughts, qualms, quakes, and the absolute certainty I had committed myself to the most disastrous mistake of my life. And then I recalled Cressida’s increasingly hysterical attacks of the vapors, the frigid letter from Cousin Tess in response to my missile informing her I would be unable to attend her mother. I had to admit to a moment of sympathy for Laytham, however, whose face clearly revealed anxiety as he watched my trunk being loaded aboard the coach sent from Falconfell. But years of being used as nurse, companion, and superior housekeeper by family members who did not care to be burdened by the demanding, or even uninteresting, tasks of life, had hardened my heart. It was time my sister learned to cope with the world without leaning on my shoulder.

  A fine sentiment that did not make the many miles between Wiltshire and the far north go any faster. The presence of my maid Bess helped, of course, as did the luxury of the crested coach, ensuring that each inn accepted two women, traveling alone, with smiling alacrity. Once, in the dim, dark past Cressida and I shared Bess’s services, and after my sister’s marriage Bess stayed with me, sharing my adventures, or lack thereof, as I traveled from pillar to post across the country in my role as the Farnborough family’s ever-helpful spinster.

  For a moment my resolve wavered. Poor Cressida. I should have stayed with her, no matter how much of a widgeon she is.

  Tess’s mother needed me more.

  Indeed. But perhaps it was time to think of myself. I needed to escape to the wilds of Northumberland, which were as far as one could go in England without entering Scotland. The county was, in fact, so far north that most of it was east of Scotland, not south. I knew little about Northumberland but was nearly certain there would be moors, like Dartmoor in Devon where I was born and raised. Some hated the so-called bleakness of the moors; I did not. I longed for their wide open spaces, the rocky crags. The freedom to roam.

  And then, of course, there was Thayne Hammersley. Does a woman ever forget her first love? In my case, my only love. For the Lord of Falconfell, the only man to offer me consistent kindness during that dreadful London Season, I would do anything . . .

  My lips curled into a wry smile. Well, perhaps not anything, but my wounded eighteen-year-old soul owed him a debt I would shun all other obligations to repay.

  And then there was Violet. Lord Hammersley’s second letter had mentioned a daughter, a child of five, much in need of care her mother was unable to give. If I had not already determined to go, that would have made up my mind. The thought of a little girl rattling around in that great stone castle—an eighteenth century Gothic Revival, Laytham told me—tugged at my heart. My brother-in-law had overnighted at Falconfell while returning from a visit to an old school friend in Edinburgh last autumn. He declared Falconfell not as inconvenient as its Medieval predecessor but a great dark pile, nonetheless, with the Pennines looming behind it and a rushing stream imitating a moat. Laytham added that he’d expected ghosts to materialize at any moment or at least the sound of clanking chains in the corridors.

  Shortly before I left the Hall, I’d asked Laytham for more details about Falconfell. He’d frowned, appearing reluctant to speak, though he finally offered, “There’s a gloom about the place, probably no more than Lady Hammersley’s long illness. Besides Hammersley, his wife and child, there’s a cousin lives with them. Justine something. A pretty piece—can’t fathom what keeps her so far from society. There’s also an ancient aunt of Hammersley’s . . . seemed short a wicket or two. Plus the dowager and her son. Though what a young sprig of his age is doing hiding in the Pennines one can only wonder.” Laytham broke off, looking flustered. “An odd place, Falconfell, but you’ll do well there, Serena. They need you.”

  My pleasure at his kind words faded as the reason for my journey came back to me. “Helen was so beautiful, so vital, it’s difficult to picture her ill.”

  “A diamond of the first water,” Laytham agreed. “I remember her well. But not as lovely as Cressy, of course,” he added quickly. And winked.

  I liked Laytham. A good solid gentleman who tended to his estate, he was a perfect match for my volatile sister and the reason I could go off and leave her with only an occasional stab from a guilty conscience.

  I ordered the coachman to pause in York long enough for me to admire York Minster, a perfectly amazing bit of fourteenth and fifteenth century architecture, undoubtedly one of the great cathedrals of the world. And humbling. If I had got above myself, thinking I had become the great panacea for my family’s woes, I now knew better. The magnificence of the cathedral’s design, the devotion that went into its construction—who was I to so much as light a candle or offer prayers inside its walls?

  Much subdued by being firmly put in my place by both the genius and religious fervor that built York Minister, I shoved pride and arrogance to the farthest reaches of my mind, though I feared my managing nature would not allow them to stay there. As we crossed into the unknown wilds of Northumberland, I pressed my nose to the glass and kept it there. Here, a new life beckoned. What it would be, I had no idea. Yet I felt the wonder, the breathless excitement, of entering a new world.

  Stone surrounded us. Stone everywhere. Farms, barns, long undulating lines of stone walls, giant rocks thrusting above the surface of bubbling streams and racing rivers. To the right, low rolling hills; to the left, the dark outline of the Pennines, making other so-called English mountains I’d seen look puny in comparison. They called to me. If Laytham’s description was correct, Falconfell was nestled close to a mountain, or at least something which could be described as a towering hill.

  I sat back suddenly, burying my face in my hands.

  “Miss?” Bess asked anxiously.

  “No, no, I’m quite all right,” I assured her. “But I was enjoying myself too much, absorbing the sights of something new and wonderful when I recalled why we are here. I should not be taking pleasure in the scenery when Lady Hammersley is so ill.”

  “Nonsense!” Bess declared with all the familiarity of a servant who has known me since I was in leading strings, and was inclined at times to mother me more than my own mother ever had. “Your family has been using you for their convenience for years. It’s high time you enjoyed a bit of pleasure, even if it’s looking out the window at this Godforsaken land, when you should be looking for a man to keep you warm at night.”

  “Bess!”

  “It’s nothing but the truth, miss, and it’s scarce the first time you’ve heard me say it. Look at you,” she added. “Your hair’s but a shade darker than your sister’s, tawny like a lion it is. With eyes to match. You’d be right pretty if you but thought you were.”

  “I am a poor brown peahen, Bess. No, not even that. You will recall Papa always called me, his ‘little partridge’ for being such a squab of a female. When I call myself a peahen I am assuming airs I do not have.”

  “You have a fine figure, miss. Nicely rounded.”

  I choked, but managed to return, “You are a treasure, Bess. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “Looks don’t mean everything, child. There’s many a man would take you for your good heart, if you’d but let him see it.”

  “Enough.
” But there was no bite to my words. I had, quite foolishly, fallen in love with a dream at eighteen and, even more foolishly, had never been able to let it go. The fault was entirely mine, and I had suffered for it. As I would continue to suffer when I arrived at Falconfell and did my best to keep alive the wife of the man I had dreamed of for more than a decade. The man for whom I had shunned all others.

  Fool, fool, a thousand times a fool.

  I did not truly feel we had come to the end of the world as I knew it until we crossed Hadrian’s Wall, or what was left of it after farmers built their houses and barns and outlined their fields from its stones. Yet the remains of a wall built more than fifteen hundred years ago to keep out the barbarians of the north still endured. And I was crossing it, willingly delivering myself to God alone knew what. Or had God deserted this land that was becoming more barren by the minute?

  I shivered and drew my shawl more tightly around me.

  By the time the coachman turned the horses off the post road and headed toward the mountains, I felt I had been traveling for a month instead of little more than a week. Already worn to the bone, Bess and I braced ourselves as the ruts and bumps grew to teeth-rattling proportions. I dared not press my nose to the badly shaking glass, but I leaned forward and peeked out nonetheless, incautiously curious about the environs of my new home.

  We seemed to be climbing up a valley, with hills gradually increasing in height to both right and left. The day was gray, with the darkest clouds hovering over the high hills at the end of the valley, a warning we were driving straight into a storm. I grimaced, imagining what could happen if the heavens opened up and turned the road into a quagmire. Or the river that paralleled our route burst its banks, sweeping away all in its path.