When Lawrence’s carriage entered through the stone gateway of Culford Manor, dusk fell as heavy and morose as his mood. Pitted stones crunched beneath the wheels as he and his sisters were jolted along the long avenue leading to the house. It neared nine o’clock, the hour purposely late and chosen by Lawrence with the forethought his mother might be abed for the night and he would have until morning to prepare himself to face her again.
It had been almost three years since he’d last set eyes on her as he’d bid her and his sisters farewell for a second time. Three years that had badgered his conscience as he’d fought against his familial duties.
He’d returned for his father’s funeral and the memory of the day still lay like a sepia photograph in his memory. A grey and cold day in March, the Culford family, their staff and a few chosen tenants his mother had deemed of enough importance to attend. Lawrence had stood frozen throughout the service and burial at the local parish church, not so much as a twitch moving his statue-like state. His gaze had never shifted from his father’s oak coffin, his heart impervious to his sisters’ sniffles and his mother constantly dabbing her cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. For Lawrence, the funeral and wake afterwards had been the first steps towards forgetting the past and moving on. Now he was home to witness what could be the final death that would secure an end to his parents’ torment.
The carriage slowed to a stop and his sisters gathered their purses and skirts, readying to alight, his nephews on either side of Lawrence peering through their respective side windows. A tinge of resentment pinched his heart that he’d left Rose and Nathanial behind for fear his mother’s malice would touch them in even the smallest of ways. And, no matter how much he’d wanted her there, he’d left Esther behind too. There was no way on God’s earth he would have subjected her to his mother and the person he would undoubtedly become now he was here.
He met his sisters’ cautious gazes and forced a smile. ‘Here we are, then. Let the games begin.’
A modicum of a smile curved Harriet’s mouth, but Cornelia turned to the window and stared at the stone, slate-tiled manor house beyond, light glowing behind some of its many latticed windows. ‘I wish I had your sense of humour, Lawrence. I feel nothing but dread.’ She glanced at him, then Harriet. ‘Promise me neither of you will breathe a word about David. I’ll tell Mama about our separation in my own time. Do I have your agreement?’
Lawrence exhaled and ran his hands over the backs of Alfred’s and Francis’ heads. ‘Of course. It might even be advisable to keep your counsel until we know just how long Mother has to live.’
Harriet took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Lawrence, do not say such a thing!’
‘Why not? Have you brought me here under false pretences and she’s not at death’s door, after all?’
‘Of course, she is, but to mention her death so offhandedly…’ She glared. ‘To positively wish it, is grotesque and beneath you.’
Lawrence matched her glare. ‘Maybe, but provoking my anger is what she does. I’ve no love for her, Harriet. The sooner you accept that, the better. I hate that I’ve had to bid farewell to Esther with just the promise of a telephone call or letter once I know how the land lies. Whether you or Mama like it or not, Esther is important to me and I won’t be happy if my return to this godforsaken place risks what we have between us.’
‘How on earth could visiting Mama affect anything between you and Esther Stanbury?’
‘Because I change when I’m here, that’s why. Everything I despise about the place seeps inside me again like poison and I refuse to have any of it taint Esther’s goodness.’
She flashed him a glare before snapping her gaze to Cornelia. ‘You cannot keep the strife between you and David from Mama. It’s not fair. I’m still upset that you chose to keep your troubles from me until yesterday. Mama has every right—’
‘She has no rights as far as my family is concerned.’ Cornelia’s tone was firm, her determination clear. ‘What interest has she shown in me or the boys since David whisked me away to a life she considered suitable? A life she told me time and again I should be profoundly and endlessly grateful for.’ She faced Lawrence, her jaw set. ‘I’ll heed your advice and keep quiet about the separation until we are certain how things are. Come, McIntyre is approaching from the house. Lord only knows how he’ll react to the children’s presence, let alone how Mama will.’
Lawrence stood and stepped from the carriage, the hired driver holding open the door. With his back to the house and his mother’s approaching butler, Lawrence helped the boys out and then his sisters. Only when they were assembled as a unit did he face McIntyre.
The butler gave a discreet bow, his rheumy gaze running over the Manor’s newly arrived visitors. He dipped his head first to Lawrence and then to Cornelia. ‘Mr Culford, sir. Welcome home. And the same to you, Miss Cornelia.’
Harriet stepped forward. ‘Is Mother awake, McIntyre? We will see her immediately, if she wishes it. Otherwise, we’ll allow her to rest and see her at breakfast.’
Lawrence inwardly cursed. All he’d wanted was the time and space of a single night before being forced to face his mother in the morning. Harriet had put paid to that wish.
McIntyre dipped his head. ‘She’s awake, Miss Harriet.’
‘Then I’ll go—’
‘She asked that only Mr Culford be admitted to her room this evening, I’m afraid.’
Annoyance burned through Lawrence’s chest and he breathed deep. Why, in God’s name, had he come back? He’d acted as little more than his mother’s puppet. Something he’d stopped entertaining the moment he’d walked from the estate. Clenching his jaw, he glowered at McIntyre before striding towards the house, leaving the others to follow.
He was here now, and he’d see her right away. Like a razor-sharp cut through skin and flesh, if its impact was quick enough, he’d barely feel the incision. It was the aftermath that would linger with potent pain, but he’d have time to rebind the wound of dealing with his mother once he’d safely returned to Bath, Esther and the children.
The aged-oak front door stood open and Lawrence marched inside. Little had changed in the vast hallway and the same musty, dark smells lingered in the air. Lawrence shivered and clenched his jaw against his father’s ghost as it passed through him.
The ornate staircase that wound to the second and third floors stood to his right and two wing-backed chairs were placed before a low mahogany table to his left. Ahead of him, a long sideboard, polished to a high sheen, held an enormous floral bouquet in a crystal bowl, sepia photographs, that he had no desire to contemplate, fanning either side in a variety of glass and silver picture frames. Two lamps with red and gold painted shades held sentry at the sideboard’s edges, the lit sconces on the walls sending prisms of colour over the entire display.
He lifted his study to the walls, where his father’s watercolours still held pride of place. Each painting depicted a season, a ball, a garden party or shooting weekend that had taken place at the Manor. The pictures held none of the menace he associated with his father. Only happy times, laughter and good cheer resonated from the canvases.
Sickness churned inside Lawrence.
Was he the same chameleon his father had been? Hiding his true feelings like a great pretender, masquerading through life so no one really knew him?
Except for Esther.
With her, he easily became the real him. The true him. The man he wanted her and his children to know for the rest of their lives.
Blood thundered in his ears, muting the sounds of his sisters and nephews entering the house behind him. Even when Cornelia rested her hand on his arm and Harriet’s fingers closed around his, Lawrence couldn’t look at them. To do so would chip away some of his anger that he needed to hold onto until he’d seen his mother.
Standing united with his sisters, he breathed deep. The acidic, poisonous stench of his childhood filtered into his nostrils, bile rising bitter in his throat. Digging into the many reserve
s that had got him through the last years, he reached for the tenacity that had made it possible for him to become a self-made man, a father, a hotelier and employer.
His mother could no longer affect his emotional state.
Abruptly, he drew away from Cornelia and Harriet and stepped back. ‘Why don’t you go to your bedrooms and unpack? As Mother has asked to see me alone, tomorrow is soon enough for you—’
‘But, Lawrence—’ Harriet pleaded.
Cornelia shook her head. ‘Lawrence, no. We’ll—’
‘This is what she wants. There is little point in aggravating her the moment we come here. Besides, it’s for the best that I have this first conversation with her alone. I’ve no idea how I’ll react to seeing her again. No idea what I’ll think or feel. Please. Just allow me this time.’ He took a breath and lowered his shoulders. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Cornelia opened her mouth as if to protest further, before shaking her head and turning to her sons as they ran about the hallway, much to McIntyre’s clear consternation. His aged face had the expression of a man chewing a particularly poor brand of tobacco, his eyes narrowed and his cheeks scarlet.
Harriet sighed and nodded. ‘Tell Mama I’ll come to bid her goodnight as soon as I hear you leave her room. She won’t like for me to go straight to bed without speaking with her.’
Lawrence glanced towards the landing balustrade. ‘You said she has her maid attending her.’
‘She does, but that will hardly make her forget my absence. She knows I’ve returned, Lawrence. I must see her.’
‘As you wish.’ He turned to Cornelia. ‘Take the boys upstairs or maybe even into the kitchen if they’re hungry. I won’t be long with Mother and then I think it best we all retire.’
Her steady, assessing gaze stayed locked on his and Lawrence returned her study.
She nodded curtly.
Clearly satisfied with whatever she’d read in his gaze, Cornelia gathered the children with a firm hand to each of their collars. ‘Tomorrow will probably be here quicker than either of us would like.’ She flashed him a small smile. ‘Good luck.’
His sisters and nephews climbed the stairs to the landing, where Harriet disappeared one way and Cornelia and the boys, the other. When McIntyre sent him a sneer before heading along the hallway, Lawrence watched his retreating back until the butler had disappeared, too.
McIntyre had always bent to Lawrence’s mother’s every whim and demand. ‘Yes, Ma'am.’ ‘No, Ma’am.’ It had been nauseating as a child, even more so now. Culford’s butler had been a silent spectator to Lawrence’s treatment and abuse and Lawrence could not wait for the day when Harriet, or whomever their mother chose to bequeath the estate to, came to the decision McIntyre’s services were no longer required.
Pulling back his shoulders, Lawrence inhaled a strengthening breath and ascended the stairs, stopping outside his mother’s room at the front of the house.
A montage of memories assaulted his mind and senses. Shouting, crying, the slap of his father’s belt on bare skin, the slamming of his sisters’ bedroom doors, his mother’s reprimands joining his father’s before she was urged away from the ugliness by the ever-present McIntyre.
Raising his knuckles, Lawrence tilted his chin, knocked and pushed open his mother’s bedroom door.
Lawrence squinted through the semi-darkness. Candlelight flickered on the walls and canopy of the four-poster bed, the rich gold in the wall coverings shimmering. Although opulent, the space was drowned in the cloying, acrid scent of death and the fact this visit could be the last time he saw or spoke to his mother finally hit him. Before any amount of care could set in, Lawrence pummelled it back into the recesses of his stupid, weakening heart. Wheezing and a soft female voice reading aloud filled his ears as his strained vision fell on the shape propped against the bed pillows, a white nightgown shrouding his mother’s emaciated form.
He flicked his focus to the woman sitting by the side of the bed, an open book in her lap.
Mae Townsend.
Trepidation skittered along the surface of his skin. What in God’s name was she doing here? Where was the maid who was supposed to be tending his mother?
He hadn’t seen Mae in years, a childhood friend who’d been another candidate on his parents’ list of the local gentry’s daughters they considered suitable for their son to marry.
Walking closer, Lawrence curled his hand around one of the bedposts. ‘Good evening, Mae. It’s somewhat of a surprise to find you here.’
‘Lawrence.’ She slowly stood, closing the book and clasping it in front of her. ‘You’re home.’
‘Culford will never be my home.’
He looked at his mother. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly slackened. Anyone else might assume her asleep, but Lawrence knew differently. Her quivering eyelids and unearthly stillness illustrated that she feigned sleep in order to eavesdrop on his and Mae’s conversation. Clearly, his mother was not quite at death’s door if she still had the strength to perform. Well, if she wanted a show, she’d damn well have one.
Facing Mae, Lawrence crossed his arms. ‘How long have you been tending Mother?’
She smiled softly, and gently touched his mother’s knee through the blankets. ‘She asked if I would look after her while Harriet went to Bath to fetch you home. You don’t mind, do you?’
Lawrence carefully searched her expression for an indication of what part she had in an assured and mitigated plan fully orchestrated by his mother.
He shrugged. ‘Not at all, I’m no longer a part of this household. What happens between these walls doesn’t matter to me.’ He dropped his crossed arms. ‘I can see my mother is in good hands. I’ll bid you good—’
‘Lawrence? Is that you?’ Ophelia Culford moved and tilted her head to the side on her pillow, her steel-grey eyes watery, yet as astute as ever. ‘You came.’
He clenched his jaw. Her eyes were sunken and her cheekbones as sharp as blades beneath the thinness of her skin. Merely a shadow of the robust, unyielding presence he’d known his entire life. When his mediocre concern treacherously rose once more, he clenched his jaw, shutting it down.
‘I was sorry to hear you are so unwell, Mother.’ He inhaled. ‘But as I haven’t had a message from you in months, I was surprised by your summons.’
‘Nor have I received word from you.’ She stared at him, her lips drawn into a thin line until she snapped her attention to Mae who’d resumed her bedside seat. She gently smiled. ‘Mae has been wonderful while Harriet was away. Are you pleased to see Mae, Lawrence? Doesn’t she look a picture?’
He turned to Mae. Her green eyes were gentle on his, her hands drawn perfectly together in her lap, her blonde hair swept into a pretty style, not a strand out of place. He nodded. ‘You look quite lovely.’
‘Thank you.’ She dropped her gaze to her hands. ‘It’s been my pleasure to nurse your dear mama.’
He stared at her bowed head, his unease reigniting. He looked to his mother. ‘Why am I here?’
‘I’m dying, Lawrence. Can’t I ask to see my only son once more? The physicians say I have days to live. I need you here.’
‘Why?’ He asked, hardening his heart to her imminent fate. ‘If you asked for me on your deathbed, your motivation can only be money or the house. Which is it?’
Mae’s sharp intake of breath sounded in the room.
Lawrence waited with only the crackle of a guttering candle and the painful wheeze of his mother’s tortured breaths echoing around him. He straightened his spine. ‘Well?’
Slowly, her gaze changed from gentle concentration to wariness… to anger.
Lawrence glared back as memories pummelled him. Her icy-cold scorn, her rushing to tell on him to his father, however slight the provocation. Her demanding that her son, time after time, be beaten, taught a lesson and reminded of the greatness that awaited him amongst Society. His ears filled with his father’s yells, the whoosh of his belt through the loops of his trousers an
d the crack of leather on naked skin.
His mother glanced at Mae. ‘Would you be kind enough to leave us alone, my dear? Please ask Cook to prepare my medicine and maybe some hot milk.’
‘Of course, Mother.’
Her skirts rustled over the floorboards, softly muted by the rug before Mae left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
Mother? Lawrence’s patience snapped, and his body trembled with a suppressed aggression he hadn’t felt for months. He was here on a command… a demand to marry Mae.
‘Sit down, Lawrence.’
The frailty had disappeared from his mother’s voice.
The matriarch had returned.
Fury whirled inside him as he clenched his fists and purposefully remained standing.
He lifted his chin. ‘I won’t do it, Mother. Not again.’
‘Pray, do what?’
‘I am clearly here to pay court to Mae in preparation for a marriage proposal. It is never going to happen.’ Lawrence held her gaze as Esther burned hot in his heart. ‘I plan to marry for love next time or I’ll never marry again.’
She emitted a sharp laugh, which quickly turned into a crackling cough. She held a handkerchief to her mouth and coughed again. Once spent, she faced him. ‘You are needed to run the house and estate. You’ll need a wife to oversee the staff and be a friend and guide to Harriet. The girl is weak. Goodness knows, I’ve tried my best with Harriet, but to no avail. No one of any stature will marry her while she lacks such backbone. Mae can teach and advise her. You’ve had your liberty away from your true duties for far too long. It’s time to come home.’
‘The Manor stopped being my home seven years ago. I have no wish to be here. My home is in Bath now. You are delusional if you think I’ll return or even entertain the idea of marrying someone of your choosing. Abigail died without knowing true love. Do you think I’d ever doom another woman to such a fate?’
She glared. ‘So, you mean to give up the estate in favour of your hotel? Your work? Don’t be a fool, Lawrence. Thanks to your father, we are a moneyed family and you could soon be a wealthy man.’
A Rebel at Pennington’s Page 27