She would be a fool to go.
What am I if I do? Can I still love my father and my country when I am starting to wonder if they might be wrong? Or must I give up both for the sake of doing what’s right?
Alicia stared up at the house, seeing the dull flicker of light in the window. She pictured her father by the fire, morose and sullen. Likely drinking heavy spirits, alone. To come home would be at his sufferance.
The boy was at the crossroads just outside of town. He had an extra horse waiting for her, a warm cloak draped over the saddle for her use. Still somewhat dazed, Alicia allowed the boy to help her to mount.
Chapter 29
There was an hour until the evening meal. Jacob straightened his cravat as he walked, glancing uneasily out the window at the purpling sky. How long until sunset? At sea he could estimate, here on land it was a harder task. Maybe before the evening meal, maybe more. Or maybe less.
By now she would be waiting for him. Jacob strode with his teeth clenched until he could feel the muscle twitching in his jaw.
“Jacob!”
The cry came from behind, high-pitched and feminine and extremely unhappy.
“Mother.” He said the word simply, taking a breath before turning, unhappy to be stayed in his progress when time was so fleeting. “Was there something you needed me for?”
He spoke with rigid formality, ending with a short bow. Perhaps he would not have been so stiff had his mother’s voice not held such a note of sharp censure. That she was furious was evident in the way she pursed her lips when looking at him, as though she had eaten something very sour. Her eyes were hard, her entire body held with a rigidity that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with barely suppressed fury.
“I wish to talk to you,” she started without preamble.
Jacob could well guess what about. “I daresay we will talk at dinner, Mother. If there are details about the party this weekend or the ball two days’ hence, I imagine there are any number of ladies present who would delight in being of assistance. I know little about ballrooms.”
“You know little of manners,” she snapped and turning, led the way into her sitting room.
Jacob seethed inwardly. He had been dreading this encounter all day. After the altercation in the courtyard, he had fully expected she would summon him to her, to give him a dressing down for brawling. It was a speech he could predict near word for word at this point; he had heard it often enough as a boy. What his mother failed to realize was that he was a man grown now.
I may as well get it over with. The sooner she speaks her piece, the sooner I might leave.
If only the sun would stay aloft a little longer…
His mother was seated upon the settee as he came into the room, her fan fluttering in her hand as she waited. For years, she had used her fan to inform the wary of her emotions. It fluttered rapidly when flustered or angry. It might well have beat in time with a hummingbird this evening.
“I may as well save you the trouble. Yes, I agree I was completely out of line this afternoon, and that I owe Owen an apology. I will endeavor to do so the moment he turns up.”
Maybe his tone was less than a son should have for his mother. It lacked filial devotion, perhaps. He sighed and added, “I shall also apologize to both you and our guests tonight at dinner if that should please you. I would have done so sooner, but I have been preoccupied with…certain matters.”
Those matters had included the removal of the body of one stable hand. Elias Moore would never give him the answers he sought. The poor lad might have been in the conspiracy up to his neck, but no one could have reckoned on him being killed for it, taking a bullet for his own Duke.
Jacob’s mother never so much as twitched an eyelash at this speech. She was waiting for him to be seated, he realized. With another wary glance toward the window, Jacob sank into the nearest chair. “I apologize, Mother. I am afraid my manners are somewhat missing tonight.”
“Humph. It is a poor excuse of an apology, but then I have never expected much from you. How could I when you have absented yourself from this family for so long? You know nothing of life here at Ravencliff. You could not possibly understand the constant trials I have undergone in your absence. Or what I have had to do in order to make things tolerable.” Her fan continued to flutter, even as she sighed again, her expression morose.
Jacob flinched. “I wrote you many times regarding my decision. And you will note that I am, in fact, here now. Whatever trials you have faced, I will see to. We can talk perhaps at length about these things tomorrow morning, before the added guests arrive.”
The fan snapped shut and dropped onto the table next to her with a clatter. “You would put me off, when the threat to our family is obvious? You might have been killed today. It is by sheer luck that another fell in your place—”
“I doubt he would see himself so lucky,” Jacob muttered, wiping his hands on his pants as he rose. “There is no threat to our family, Mother, only to me. In case you have not noticed, there is not a soul here who has suffered so much as an inconvenience, save myself. I think the locals have made themselves very clear.”
“Hardly. They are only biding their time. Mark my words, Jacob, they will strike at all of us, and when they do it will be a wonder if we are not murdered in our beds. These Irish—”
“Are British citizens, same as us, and they are deserving of the rights of those same citizens. That some are unhappy is clear, though as I have said before, it is a matter of my own making. I made an enemy in the village on my first day here, and have been suffering for it since. I assure you, you are in no danger!” He said, and headed for the door. “We will discuss things further if you wish to do so, but I have an appointment I must keep…” Already the twilight lay deeply over the lawn.
She shot to her feet, still remarkably agile for her age. “You are no better than your father! A loving son would take his mother to London, away from this wretched place. Your love for the Irish is misguided. Ask your brother where it has gotten him. It was the Irish that arranged for him to take the blame for that poor man’s death today!”
She spoke this last in triumph. Jacob stared. He answered cautiously. “I beg your pardon. I fail to see what the Irish could have to do with the matter.”
He winced as he said these words, but her prejudice against the Irish was so clear that the last thing she needed was to hear what he had found of conspiracies and secrets within the walls of the estate. He still felt the animosity toward him was created by one man, Alicia’s own father, in response to their altercation in the street. He might well have stepped out of some medieval romance, the downtrodden lout at war with the Lord.
He likely sees himself as some heroic bandit straight out of a ballad.
“The Irish are behind it all. Everything!” she spoke in a near whisper, her hands outstretched, dramatically encompassing the whole of the room, of the estate.
Jacob blinked. The poor woman was obviously delusional. From all accounts, Owen had not had trouble with the locals at all, except in the usual manner, that handful who wished to not pay their taxes, or the usual discontent about boundaries and usage of land.
Still, what if she were right? Alicia had decidedly come into the house to spy on him. Jacob was starting to suspect the stable hand had played some part in this, as well. There were too many questions that as yet were needing answers, and the very person who could give him those was standing in a copse of trees a half mile distant. If she had not already taken her leave.
“We will talk later,” he said soothingly and turned to go, only to be brought up short by her hand on his sleeve. Her grip was exceedingly strong, her fingers twining about the material in such a way that the fabric would easily rend were he to try and pull away.
“You will promise me,” she hissed, looking uneasily around as though expecting Irish spies to be hiding behind the drapes. “You must promise me that when the last guest leaves for London, that we will go as well. Leav
e the estate to Owen who has betrayed us for these creatures. Let him wallow in the mud with the Irish pigs. Only take me from this place.”
Jacob pried at her fingers, bending low to look in her eyes. “We will discuss it, Mother, as I said we would,” he said as he freed himself. “But truly I must take my leave.”
“Tell Owen, when you find him,” she advised, her eyes narrowed on him.
“Find him?” Jacob paused in the doorway uneasily. “What do you mean by that?”
“Do you not know? He has gone. Left us for the Irish. You will not find him here at Ravencliff, or anywhere else. He is one of them now.” Eleanor turned from him, with a wave in his direction dismissing him. “As you said, we will talk later.” She picked up the silver bell next to her fan and rang it once, sharply, clearly dismissing him, even as she called for her servant.
“Wait…”
But she refused to look at him. In her mind their conversation was over.
Jacob left, uneasy and out of sorts. That his mother was so adamant had come something as a surprise. While he had known her wishes regarding his eventual marriage, the vehemence with which she spoke of leaving was entirely new.
Have I truly been so blind?
It was unsettling, to think he had known someone, only to find they were a stranger to you, after all. He left the house thoughtfully, whipping his horse to a lather and wondering if he was making a dreadful mistake in chasing down this woman who was a stranger to him, but who he still very much wished to know.
Chapter 30
The hour had grown late. True night had fallen, the stars shining so bright above her that the sky might have been a piece of cloth draped over the sun, pierced through to allow the light upon the landscape.
I am not meant for this, she thought. I do not care for conspiracies, nor do I wish to be caught in someone else’s war. I only wish to go home. But where was home now? She had no answer to that particular question. Not the cottage, and not the life that had gone before all of this—when her father had held the title of ‘Lord,’ in a distant, bygone memory that he would not allow her to forget.
“Alicia…”
The voice that spoke was not that of the waiting boy in the trees, but that of a man. The figure came into focus, too tall, too broad. Even had she not heard him call her name, she would have known him.
“Your Grace…” she whispered, and sank to her knees.
“What the devil are you doing?”
Alicia heard him as if from very far away. “I think, perhaps, it has been a very strenuous day,” she said and looked at her hands, which seemed to be resting in the mulch on the forest floor.
He was beside her in an instant, one arm around her, raising her to her feet and guiding her to a nearby stone. He helped her sit, and stepped back, his face a study of emotions in the moonlight, for indeed it had risen after all.
“I am still quite angry at you, but you are making it deuced difficult to start an argument,” he said, standing and staring down at her, his hands on his hips, obviously frustrated.
Alicia laughed, wishing her head wasn’t spinning quite so hard. “If it helps, Your Grace, I am also quite put out with you right now. I told you quite clearly that your brother was not responsible for the…man shot…”
“You said quite a bit more than that. Here.” He rummaged in his cloak and came up with a roll and a slab of cheese. “I realized that there was no way I would make it to dinner if I kept my engagement with you and thought to grab something from the kitchen on my way to the stables.”
“You do realize they would have put up an entire meal for you, had you asked,” she said, taking the roll from him and tearing it in half.
“You might have left,” he said, taking out a knife and dividing the cheese, the blade glinting dully in the moonlight.
“I was about to,” she retorted, accepting half the cheese from him, and offering him the half roll in return. “I am not your servant and am certainly not obligated to obey you.”
“There are some who might argue the matter, given that I am the Duke, and you live within the village here.”
“Are we in the days of old, where everything within your sight can be claimed as part of your demesne?”
“You seem to have little respect for your betters,” he said drawing himself up.
“You might want to ask yourself just how much your title means here. In some quarters, I would say very little, Your Grace,” she said, taking a bite of bread and cheese together and finding that she was indeed much hungrier than she had supposed.
For a moment she thought he might leave her there, so angry was he. She had pushed him too far, acted too disrespectfully. She had lost the deference she should have for him as her Duke, or even as an employer. She stared at the roll in her hand, guilt washing over her. “I am sorry, Your Grace. I have been behaving abominably. You have brought me here for a reason, and even shared with me your own food…”
“You are tired and hungry. I daresay it has been a…a trying day.”
“For Elias, as well,” she said, and for a moment felt a pang of sadness over the loss of a life, even his. “He had done me a service, and this is how I thank him. Had I found you, things would have been different…I should not have gone to my chamber…”
“What service? When you met with him in the study, you mean?”
She lifted her head to stare at him. “Whatever do you mean? He was never with me in the study. I daresay he never set so much as a foot past the kitchen. He knew his place.”
“If not him…” He got up to pace. “Your father. That makes more sense, though I had not credited him with the audacity to come within the walls of Ravencliff…”
“I think there is little my father would not dare,” she said uneasily, lifting a hand as if to stop him, then hesitating when she realized how utterly improper it would be to lay a hand upon the Duke, even in so innocent a gesture.
“Here, I am not hungry,” he said, shoving his own meal into her palm.
Her fingers closed around the food reflexively, startled. “I did not…”
“Hmm?” he paused in his pacing, turning to look in her direction. It was too deeply shadowed here under the trees to see his expression but even from here she could see the distraction in the set of his shoulders, in the way he tilted his head toward hers.
“Your Grace, you need to understand that my father holds a deep grudge against the Duke of Woodworth. It is nothing personal against you, he would feel the same over any who occupied Ravencliff,” she said, lifting the Duke’s portion and taking a bite without thinking.
“And what of your father’s daughter? Does she likewise bear a grudge against this Duke?” he asked, harshly, from several feet away. “Enough so that she would take the Duke’s own brother into her bed?”
“Botheration!” she exploded to her feet, losing the cheese off the roll somewhere in the darkness and being mad enough to throw the roll after it. “You might have tried asking your brother to explain what I meant, rather than expecting me to explain. You would require a lady to speak so indelicately?”
“You are the one who brought it up in the first place!” he shot back. “In front of witnesses, I might add.”
“Only in desperation. You would have half-killed your brother before I managed to get you to listen in any other way.”
“You certainly were clear enough when you clattered the musket upon the pail,” he muttered. “You might as well have tried to take my head off with it.”
“I shall have you know that had I wished your head to be removed from your body, you would not have it still sitting nestled between your shoulder blades now. The musket had already been fired, or I would have shot it into the air to cease the nonsense between yourself and your brother, instead of beating that pail with it.” She stood, arms akimbo, and stared him down.
He stared at her a long moment. “You have fired a musket before?” He nodded, as if to himself. “That one in particular, I am sure. I no
ted you checking it, as if you knew it. How else would you have been so certain that it had been fired—?”
“Before you accuse me of attempting to kill you, you might want to check with your brother as to my whereabouts. I was—”
“Yes, yes, we have been over this ground before. You were within your own chamber with my brother between the sheets.”
“More on them than between them,” she muttered rather indelicately, after all. “Though in truth I was quite twisted within their confines…”
He strode to her, reaching as if to grab her, only to drop his arm and whirl away, groaning deeply, with his hands pressed to his head. “Is this your goal, to see if you can reduce a Duke to madness?”
“Am I any less mad?” she asked turning away and wrapping her arms around herself, suddenly cold. “Why am I here, Your Grace? Why did you summon me back to Ravencliff to meet with you like this? My reputation would be ruined were we to be seen together…”
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