Brides of Falconfell Read online

  Ridiculous! I had always been afflicted with too much imagination. Most likely the rain would hold off until after we arrived at Falconfell. And at the moment the river was not more than twenty feet wide, flowing down from the high end of the valley, splashing over rocks and occasionally sporting a small frothy waterfall. Most of the ground was covered with rough grass, with little shrubbery along the river banks and only an occasional wind-blown tree. Some might call it bleak, but I suspected heather lurked here too, just waiting to burst into bloom.

  The bumps were less now, as the incline increased and the coachman slowed to a crawl to spare the horses. The hills on both sides were closing in, moorland jutting into rocky crags. I unlatched the window and tried to stick my head out. Surely we must be close enough to see Falconfell. All I saw was a dust cloud, which hit me in the face, rocking me back, choking and coughing, as I struggled to close the window with my eyes tight shut. Bess, bless her heart, did it for me, nearly landing herself on the floor as the wheels bounced off a pothole. We both fell back on the burgundy velvet squabs, breathing hard.

  After wiping my face, blowing my nose, and a few more hacking coughs, I said, much chagrined, “You would think I was nine instead of nine and twenty. A veritable hobbledyhoy.”

  “I daresay you’ll see him soon enough,” Bess offered. Which is the trouble with servants who have known you all your life, including that one devastating Season in London. I steepled my fingers before my face and did not move or speak until the coach rattled over a bridge onto a graveled drive and finally came to a halt.

  Falconfell. We had arrived.

  The sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel rose above the whuffling of the horses. The coach door opened, and a footman reached out a hand to help me down. Bess had to push me, for my backside was suddenly frozen to the seat. I’d made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have come.

  But somehow I was out, my feet planted on the ground in front of a sprawling pile of dark stone, its arches and turrets decidedly Gothic and even more stark and gloomy than Laytham described, all outlined against dark roiling clouds with rain beginning to sting my face.

  And then I saw the hatchment over the door, the curtains drawn over every window. I looked up at the footman who was waiting patiently for me to move. “Someone has died?” I asked.

  “A great tragedy, miss. ’Tis the missus, Lady Hammersley. Gone not two days since. Funeral’s tomorrow.”

  I had always scorned women who fainted at the slightest drop of a crisis, but at that moment I thought I might join the weaker sisterhood. The world swirled around me, turning gray.

  Helen. My patient. The person I was supposed to save.

  Gone.

  I felt the footman grip my arm. Felt Bess pushing her way out of the coach behind me. “Courage,” she whispered in my ear. “You’ll be needed, never fear. Think of the child.”

  Child. Violet. Yes, think of the child. But that was difficult to do when the gray whirling around me coalesced into a fantasy of Thayne Hammersley. Staring at me; no, through me, a look so fierce it singed my soul.

  I should tell the coachman to turn around and take me home. But of course I couldn’t. He was not my employee. Only Lord Hammersley could tell him what to do.

  Idiot female! Mortified by my momentary lapse, I stood tall, squared my shoulders and marched toward the house, my cloak blowing about me in wind, which I soon discovered seldom stopped. As we approached the Gothic-arched front door, it opened, revealing a butler who might have been at home in any London drawing room.

  “Welcome to Falconfell, Miss Farnborough,” he intoned. “The master awaits you in his study.”

  Chapter Three

  My cloak disappeared into the hands of a footman, and I followed the stiff-backed butler through a series of shadowed rooms to the rear of the house. What could I say? What could I possibly say? The long-ago emotional turmoil and self-doubt of a shy, awkward schoolgirl plunged into London society suddenly seized me by the throat. My heart thundered, my legs threatened to give way.

  The butler rapped once on the door, threw it open, and announced, “Miss Farnborough, my lord.”

  I stood immobile, a single pace inside the room, and stared. Ah, no-o, a decade could not do so much damage. I at least had improved from that shy gawk of a girl, but Thayne—Lord Hammersley—looked . . . old, when I knew he was not a day over thirty-five. I could not see any signs of gray in his chestnut hair, but the room’s dim light was enough to reveal a once handsome face gone craggy, with deep-etched lines about his eyes, a grim set to his mouth. From his slumped position behind his desk, he waved a hand in the general direction of the chair placed directly in front of the desk. Warily, I eyed the glass clutched in his fingers, the nearly empty brandy decanter at his elbow.

  Oh, Thayne. I should have expected devastation, but the few steps from coach to study had not allowed enough time to adjust to the shocking change in circumstances. I should speak, offer my condolences . . .

  I sat.

  His bright blue eyes—full of life with just a touch of cynicism—were also gone. Replaced by pale imitations in which I could find nothing but exhaustion, pain, and defeat. A shadow man—

  I gasped as a resounding clap of thunder rolled over Falconfell, the room we were in too tightly shuttered to allow us the warning of lightning.

  “Regrets already, Miss Farnborough? Can’t say as I blame you.”

  “Oh no,” I burbled before Miss Serena Emilia Farnborough, age twenty-nine, highly competent spinster, finally emerged from the tangle in my mind. I clasped my hands in my lap and looked straight into his anguished eyes. “I fear shock has addled my wits, my lord. Please accept my apologies. And my condolences. I am so very sorry about Helen. She was such a lively spirit.”

  He did not respond but sat there studying my face, as if trying to find the shy young girl he once knew beneath the façade of a woman with eleven years’ experience in adapting to those slings and arrows Shakespeare described so well. “You must wish me in Hades,” I offered. “If you but grant me a good night’s sleep and the use of your coachman, my maid and I will return to Wiltshire immediately.”

  “No.” His dour expression changed by not so much as a flicker of emotion. Just a flat, uncompromising No.

  “But, my lord, I intrude here. I came to help Helen and she is gone. There are other family members who now need me more.”

  “Is that what you do then?” he taunted. “Run from one end of the country to the other at the family’s beck and call? Serena, come here, Serena, go there. Never a place to hang your bonnet for more than a few months at a time?”

  “I beg your pardon?” I sat tall in my chair and glared at him. The effrontery of the man. He had enough problems of his own at the moment, he needn’t so cruelly outline mine.

  A tiny flash of those weary blue eyes. “Shall I tell you what Laytham said when he was here last year? He looked at my household, quite clearly at sixes and sevens, and declared that what we needed was his sister-in-law Serena. A right Tartar she was, a managing female who could put all to rights in a trice.”

  “He never . . .” My breath whooshed out between my teeth as I worried Laytham’s words, struggling to turn them into a compliment. I could feel color staining my cheeks. Unable to meet Lord Hammersley’s knowing gaze, I dropped my head, staring blindly at my tightly clasped gloved fingers.

  “Our household is a strange one,” he continued, speaking over my head. “There was Helen, who enjoyed life but not household management. Her cousin and companion, Justine Raibourne, who also scorns any semblance of household management. And then there is my father’s sister, Maud, who lives in a world of lotions and potions and declares herself a witch. If that were not enough, my father’s second wife Isabelle, and her son Avery Birkett, the product of her first marriage, have become frequent, and extended, visitors to our little castle at the end of the earth.”

  During this speech my head inched upright, my eyes wide with surprise. Laytha
m had warned me, of course, but I had not realized Lord Hammersley suffered problems beyond his wife’s illness.

  “And then there’s Violet.”

  Violet. Of course there was Violet.

  “Allow me to tell you,” Hammersley declared, a definite bite to his words, “I cannot imagine Justine or my Aunt Maud taking any part in the extra care now needed for a motherless five-year-old. And as for the Dowager Baroness, though she dotes on Birkett, I have seen not so much as an iota of interest in her step-granddaughter from the moment of her birth.”

  He paused, his eyes dissecting me, dark questioning brows reaching toward his hairline. With each word his message had become more clear. Oh, Laytham, what have you done?

  I fought to hide my mortification as my inner voice replied: Forced his wife to learn to cope for herself. And stuck you at the end of the earth with the man you’ve loved since you were eighteen.

  “In that case, my lord,” I said through lips that barely moved, “I am willing to help in any way I can.”

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, emitting a drawn-out sigh. I heard a soft thank-you, more like a prayer than words to me, followed by a long moment of silence. I was wondering if I should tiptoe out when he spoke in a thread of his former voice: “Ring for Fraser, would you? Somehow I don’t think my legs will support me. “No matter what happens,” Lord Hammersley added more strongly as I crossed to the bell-pull, “do not let anyone frighten you off. You are needed here.”

  Another clap of thunder punctuated his words. I jumped, straightening quickly, head high, as the butler entered. “This way, miss. I will show you to your bedchamber.”

  My bedchamber. Today and for how many days to come? As I followed Fraser up the stairs, shivers ran up and down my spine.

  “Perhaps supper in your room tonight, miss,” Fraser suggested after leading me to a fine suite of rooms where Bess was already unpacking my trunk. “Time enough to meet the rest of the family when the sun is shining.”

  Bless him. I was going to like Fraser.

  I met the female members of Lord Hammersley’s family during the seemingly interminable wait while the men went off to the churchyard to bury Helen, Lady Hammersley. I stood at a front window in what Fraser called “the morning room” and watched the black-draped coffin being hoisted into a wagon by five brawny men and a much more slender young man in London garb. To my surprise, one of the six pallbearers was the Lord of Falconfell. Last night he had seemed so feeble . . .

  One of the bearers, nearly Thayne’s twin, took a place at his right shoulder as the cortège began to move. A relative, he had to be—the resemblance was remarkable. The young city gentleman stepped up to Hammersley’s left. I suspected this was Avery Birkett, the dowager’s son. The other four men, garbed more like laborers, fell in behind, one towering over the rest by at least a head. Blond, ruggedly handsome, he was the cynosure of most of the maids among the servants Fraser had lined up in the courtyard to bid farewell to the mistress of Falconfell. Ladies, I should add, were excluded from funerals, our sensibilities considered too delicate for such a heart-rending moment.

  When would men learn that they might be physically stronger but women were made of sterner stuff?

  “You’re the nurse.” A sharp voice spoke in my ear.

  Startled, I swung around, gasping as I saw a face which closely resembled the Helen Montague I had once known—a young woman, honey blonde, blue-eyed, with a willowy figure that towered over me by at least four inches. “You must be . . .” I frowned, appalled because her name escaped me. Too much had happened since yesterday afternoon.

  “Justine Raibourne of the Surrey Raibournes,” she declared, eyeing me as if I were a worm crawled out from beneath a rock. “I understand Thayne’s keeping you on as governess.”

  Not yet a minute into our conversation and already I was put in my place. I wanted to ask about the identity of the men in the cortège but did not care to open myself to any further set-downs.

  An older woman slid into the room, softly closing the door behind her. Surely Miss Hammersley, Thayne’s Aunt Maud. A black lace cap topped gray hair streaked with white above a wraith-thin body, lost inside a gown of black silk twenty or thirty years out of date. She walked with a cane whose handle was carved in what appeared to be black onyx. A horse’s head . . . or was that a dragon?

  She gazed at me across the room for nearly half a minute—I felt every moment of that scrutiny right down to my bones. Miss Maud tap-tapped her way across the room until I could see her eyes were nearly as dark as the—I looked more closely at her cane—yes, it was indeed a dragon. “So you’re the chosen one,” she said.

  Words failed. I gaped.

  “I’m a witch. I see things.” With the hand not holding her cane, she tapped her left eye. And offered a gargoyle grimace that was likely intended as a omnipotent smile.

  “Miss Hammersley,” I ventured, “I am pleased to meet you.”

  “Doubt that.” She uttered what could only be called a harsh cackle before turning abruptly away and finding a seat before the fire, turning her back on Miss Raibourne, who had arranged herself with studied grace on the room’s only sofa.

  So far this morning I had met two of the ladies of the house and encountered open hostility and . . . wry amusement?

  When the door opened the next time, I was prepared for almost anything. Or so I thought until Fraser announced the Dowager Baroness Hammersley. Stunningly lovely in a dark sort of way, she appeared barely older than Thayne. I’d had the impression her son was full-grown, but surely that was impossible. She seemed to have traveled with her mourning clothes for her gown had clearly been made for her, an exquisite arrangement of black silk and black lace, sparked by stark white ruffles at collar and sleeve hems. Yet as she drew closer, openly appraising my very ordinary black wool and the black ribbon confining my nondescript hair, I could see the tiny lines around her eyes, the petulant tilt that marred her mouth. Not a happy woman. So why did she linger at Falconfell? Surely London would be more to her taste.

  “Miss Farnborough,” she said, looking down her nose. “Welcome to Falconfell.”

  Some horrid imp almost made me reject the welcome she had no right to give. Untrue, my conscience scolded. She must have been mistress here for many years and had every right to act the role of hostess.

  “I understand you have come to put the place to rights.”

  I choked but managed to murmur, “My lady, I came to nurse Lady Helen Hammersley.” Seizing upon Miss Raibourne’s words, I added, “If Lord Hammersley wishes me to help with Violet, then I will be pleased to do so.”

  “Ah.” She gave me a look which said she could not imagine my being helpful with anything at all and then turned to the others. “Maud, Justine, I would say ‘Good morning’ but clearly it is not.” She stalked to a wingchair, covered in the same gold brocade as the sofa, and sat.

  I eyed a chair in the room’s far corner, but truthfully I was rather enjoying the view, now that the cortège had turned a corner and passed out of sight. It was as if the storm had scoured the air. Everything from the gravel on the driveway, the wooden bridge that spanned the moat—the river that had marked our way up the valley—to the scythed grass and the leaves on the trees shone in the brilliance of the morning sun. Most particularly the lingering snow on the tops of the high hills framing the green valley which stretched out below. Remote? Oh yes, but beautiful nonetheless. Were there gardens, I wondered, or were we too far north for such a typical English delight?

  I swung around as the door opened once again. Oh no! The child, the poor child—they’d burdened her with black. The sad-looking waif was lost inside some garment hastily cut down, though not far enough. She had her father’s coloring, but with hair several shades lighter, the red glints among the chestnut more pronounced. Her eyes, however, were those of her great-aunt, though they had none of Maud’s piercing sharpness. They were sad eyes, wary, suspicious of strangers.

  Her nurse, a
plump and kindly woman of fifty years or so, picked Violet up and plopped her in a chair so out of proportion for a child that her legs stuck straight out in front of her, revealing rather ugly half-boots. Poor dear.

  How could they do this? Why was she not in the nursery where she belonged? This mournful gathering was no place for a child of five.

  I left my place at the window and knelt down in front of her. “Violet, I am your cousin, Serena. I’ve come a very long way to visit you, and your father has asked me to be your friend. Do you think that would be all right? Perhaps I might read to you, take you for walks . . .?” My voice trailed away as she stared at me with dark eyes that suddenly seemed to see more than her Aunt Maud could ever claim.

  “My mother has gone to Heaven.”

  “Yes, I know, which is why your father hopes you will allow me to be your friend.”

  Her lower lip jutted out, and I feared I was about to receive my fourth rebuff of the morning. She shot a quick glance at her nurse, who had seated herself on a straight-backed chair by the door. “I don’t like dolls,” she said, clearly intending to shock.

  “Perhaps later you can show me the toys you do like,” I said, adding, “I had two older brothers who mocked my dolls, so I never cared much for them either.”

  Solemnly, she nodded.

  “Good, that’s settled then,” Miss Raibourne declared from her position on the sofa. “I wish you joy of the nursery, Miss Farnborough.”

  “Sit, Miss Farnborough,” the dowager ordered, “and tell us about yourself. Is it true you are a woman of independent means?”

  Good manners demanded I do as I was told. I sat in a finely upholstered chair next to Violet. “Yes, my lady. My father’s sister favored me in her will.”

  “Then you could be tucked up in a comfortable cottage instead of traipsing about the country at your family’s beck and call?” Her tone clearly indicated I must be mad.

  “I could, my lady, but I prefer to be helpful. To feel I am doing something for others rather than whiling away my hours in idleness.”