The Beaumont Betrothal: Northbridge Bride Series Book 2

by D'Ansey, Leigh

  Beaumont cleared his throat and Bruno saw the effort it took for him to inject authority into his voice, weakened by age and emotion. Beaumont withdrew his hand and placed it back on the arm of his chair, gripping until his knuckles showed bone-white.

  “But by God, I must be sure. I’m an old man and my instincts are no longer trustworthy.” Despite the uncertainty inherent in his announcement, iron threaded the feeble voice. He loosened his grasp and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, looking past Bruno into the room where dust motes floated in the pale afternoon light.

  After a few moments he returned his attention to Bruno, his voice resolute. “There’s too much at stake to take you at face value only because of a family likeness that could apply to almost any Beaumont.” He shook his head, his voice rasping as he inspected Bruno again. Raw emotion distorted his features. “And even though instinct tells me you are my son; even though you have my face and her eyes, you will be challenged in the courts. I must ask you. What evidence can you produce?

  Bruno removed a sheaf of documents from the inner pocket of his coat. “My birth was registered at the chapel near where I was born. Your name is recorded as my birth father. There’s correspondence from the priest who is still incumbent at that church, and from the nuns at the convent where my mother was sheltered all these years. There is also this letter.” He held out the pages his mother had written and implored him to deliver by his own hand.

  Beaumont’s fingers shook as he snatched the documents. Holding the pages to the light, he squinted and began to read, every now and then exhaling a breath with a hiss that made the thick paper quiver.

  At length, he let the documents fall onto the table at his side. In the time it had taken to read the letter, his cheekbones seemed to have sharpened beneath his skin.

  “Isobel entrusted you with something else, I believe?”

  Bruno nodded. From his pocket he extracted a black leather sachet and opened it to reveal a heavy ruby and diamond ring whose facets threw out brilliant points of light.

  “My grandmother’s ring.” Beaumont leaned forward, took the ring and held it in his hand where it glowed like an ember in the dying leaf of his palm.

  When he looked up at Bruno, his eyes were wet. Closing his fingers tightly around the ring, he held out his free hand. Bruno enclosed his father’s quavering hand in both of his own. His eyes burned. When he spoke, his voice was deep and ragged. “I haven’t come to take anything from you. Having read the documents, you’ll understand I had no idea of your existence until very recently.”

  He did not reveal how that knowledge had staggered him, while at the same time it had filled him with hope and clarified why he had never truly felt as if he belonged anywhere or with anyone.

  But Beaumont was not immediately concerned with Bruno’s state of mind. He sat forward urgently.

  “Where is she now?”

  Bruno gripped his father’s hand in his own. “In a convent on the island of Cuba.”

  He had meant to ease into the story but why hunt for soothing words when so many years had passed? The hunger on his father’s face was brutal and his own breath felt raw against his vocal chords as he began to tell the story told to him just three months before.

  “Cuba!” Beaumont breathed the word with disbelief, but he recovered quickly. Slamming his free hand against the arm of his chair, he snatched the story away from Bruno.

  “We thought she had drowned off the Cornish Coast thirty years ago! Isobel and I had been visiting distant cousins of mine near the town of Sennen when I was commanded to Court. We’d been married just three months.” His mouth worked. “One morning when she was walking with her abigail she simply disappeared. The winds were fierce above those high cliffs and I had cautioned her against them many times.

  “Others had been blown away or lost their footing and been swept into the sea. But she would not abandon her daily walk. ‘It is so exhilarating, Johnathon!’ she’d say, and despite my warnings, she’d carry on and do exactly as she pleased.”

  His lips twisted into the grimace of a smile. “Her defiance was one of the qualities I loved most about her—and at the same time it exasperated me beyond reason. Isobel would laugh in the face of the devil himself.”

  He turned his gaze away towards the hills, as if he’d caught sight of some movement in the far distance. He straightened his shoulders but did not look at Bruno. “Tell me what you know,” he said hoarsely.

  When Bruno had finished his account, dusk had filtered into the room and a pale lavender mist hovered over the gardens and shrubberies that surrounded Enderby.

  Beaumont drew in a deeply tortured breath. After a moment or two he began to speak. “They found her reticule and one of her boots washed up on the rocks, but no sign of her was ever seen again,” he said. “I waited… more than seven years I waited and then I married Freddy’s mother—”

  His grip on Bruno’s hand stiffened. Bruno saw his mind working, assimilating the facts and their consequences. Here, thought Bruno, hungry for clues that would reveal his long-lost father, was a glimpse of the military commander who had served his country with distinction. In his expression Bruno caught something of the ruthlessness he knew he himself possessed.

  Beaumont’s brow furrowed. He turned his head from side to side as if martialing his thoughts, but it was some time before he began to speak again. “What you have told me makes my marriage to Freddy’s mother null and void.” The old man had made his calculations swiftly. He jerked his head, drummed his fingers on the hard wood of his chair. “It makes my son by that marriage illegitimate.” There was no uncertainty in the look he snapped at Bruno. “Freddy is your half-brother and has just become betrothed.”

  Bruno nodded. His mouth tightened. “I am aware of that.” He swiftly excised the memory of his encounter with Sophia Cranston. “I stayed last night at Northbridge Castle. Ashton is an acquaintance of mine. He informed me of Freddy’s status.”

  Beaumont nodded, waving away Bruno’s summary. “Of course you would be cognizant of the details. I don’t rank you as a man who’d confront a situation like this without pre-arming yourself.”

  Bruno released the earl’s hand and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his own hands clasped loosely together. He stared resolutely into his father’s eyes and hardened his voice. “Sir, I’ll make myself very clear. My visit to you is solely to honor the promise I made to my mother. If I hadn’t made her that vow, while there’s every possibility I’d have looked into the circumstances of my birth, I may not have made myself known to you.

  “I don’t need the fact of my birthright to become known. I especially don’t wish to cause…” he negotiated his way around the lump in his throat, “…my brother any grief or to take anything away from him.”

  The earl gave an abrupt shake of his head. “Freddy cannot inherit,” he said inflexibly. It is against the laws of primogeniture. The Enderby estate is precisely entailed.”

  Bruno straightened. Although his inheritance had excited and intrigued him, when he’d discovered the existence of a younger brother, he had determined no injury should come to Freddy by any action of his own. He injected his voice with steel, knowing his father would be a formidable adversary. “Nothing needs to be said.”

  Beaumont raised his jaw pugnaciously. “It is in the nature of things that secrets and lies will one day be revealed.” He sliced the air in front of him with a now-unwavering hand.

  Recognizing the gathering resolve on the old man’s face and understanding the consequences for a brother he did not yet know but longed to meet, Bruno wondered whether he should simply have chosen to live with his remorse and dishonor the oath he’d made at his mother’s bedside.

  He remembered how she’d held his face in both her hands, her fingers burning his skin with their dry heat as she related the events subsequent to the violent gust that had snatched at her cloak and swept her into the wild Cornish sea so many years before.

  “I will
not rest until you promise me,” she’d said fiercely. “Promise me, my son, that you will make yourself known to your father. Through no fault of any of us, you have both suffered a grave injustice.”

  And so he had sworn, for at that time it had seemed vital to lighten the burden his mother had shouldered for more than three decades. He had been so sideswiped by the knowledge he had both mother and father who were related to him by blood, he had not given clear thought to the repercussions and when the time came that he did, he had the greatest confidence he’d be able to handle them.

  He’d wanted to stay with her, but she forbade it. “Do not waste time tarrying at my bedside. Make haste to do as I bid and make yourself known to your father. There is bound to be an investigation through the courts and the sooner things are set in motion the better.”

  She had fallen back then, the Caribbean light striping her face through the wooden blinds that shuttered high, narrow windows. Drawing her hand away from his, she’d whispered; “I have done everything in my power to smooth your passage. Now, I need to rest and gather my strength. Go now.”

  He left her reluctantly but also imbued with an urgent need to connect with his newly-discovered kin. Before he embarked for England however, he delved further into his background, and when he finally crossed the Atlantic, it was not only his father at the forefront of his mind, but also a younger half-brother whose best interests he held at heart, no matter the cost to himself.

  He had not expected to be foiled in a single day by the identity of the most desirable woman he’d ever met, nor the iron will of a man whose health was reputed to be so precarious that his death was imminent.

  He stood. “Sir—” he began but got no further before the door to the bedchamber was pushed open and Preston entered followed by a maid with a tea trolley and a shambolic young man whose raw face and shy smile made Bruno wince as he realized the inevitable was about to happen.

  “Freddy!” called Beaumont imperiously. “Come and sit down. There is someone you should meet.”

  Chapter Four

  Desperately seeking both solitude and activity, Sophia had evaded contact with any inhabitant of Foxwood by returning home via the copse. She hurried along overgrown pathways until she came to a broad stone terrace tacked onto Foxwood’s south-west corner, and entered her atelier through tall French doors, still unlocked from her presence there that morning.

  Too distracted to apply herself to the canvas she’d torn herself away from earlier that day, she began to sort the materials on the long refectory table that served her as workbench.

  She removed the mouse skeleton from her pocket and placed the tiny bones on a shelf already crammed with other objects unearthed during her years of exploring both the exterior and interior of her childhood home. She tidied her brushes in their wooden caddy, poured Prussian blue pigment from its container and mixed it with oil to make the color she loved to use for summer skies; made up carbon black and red lake and longed for more vermillion, but its cost was prohibitive and so she used it sparingly.

  All the while her hands were busy, her mind reviewed her encounter with Mr. Cavanaugh. Try as she might, she could not dispel his image: his sheer physicality, the lift of his jaw, the laughter in his eyes set against the gravity of his expression, his exciting, masculine thrust. Everything about him had set a flame flickering inside her, only to be extinguished by his shocked withdrawal the instant she’d spoken her name.

  Exasperated by her unruly reflections, she threw a rag onto the paint-splattered surface of the old table. What did it matter anyway? That morning, with her mother and sister’s plight at the forefront of her mind, she had sat through Freddy’s clumsy proposal.

  “I’ve always wanted a brother, Sophe,” he’d said, and at her startled glance he’d hemmed and hawed and finally spluttered, “We’ve always rubbed along all right, caught tadpoles in the creek, rode our ponies together, what? If I must sit across the breakfast table from someone, it might as well be you. Wouldn’t mind the company. Dashed lonely place, Beaumont Hall.”

  She had not outright refused him, and she knew, to Freddy’s uncomplicated way of thinking, she had therefore accepted his offer. Her mouth twisted. After all, what young woman in her right mind would not? A young woman of independent means, that’s who, she told herself bitterly, wanting nothing more at this moment than to fold herself onto the bench at the table and burst into tears.

  She cast her eyes around her atelier, at the paintings on canvases, wood panels and paper, and even fabric stretched onto frames when she had had nothing else. Had she really thought she could support herself and her family with this rag-tag muddle of finished and half-finished work? Did any of it really have any merit at all?

  Her confidence had been buoyed by the Duke of Northbridge’s generous commission to complete likenesses of the duchess and their baby, but she could not help wondering whether his patronage was merely a kindness instigated by his wife. Although some years older than she, Vanessa and Sophia shared an easy friendship and the duchess had encouraged Sophia’s endeavors, urging her to submit several pieces to the Summer Exhibition.

  “I am no judge of art,” the duchess had said frankly, “but I believe the picture of Mr. Deacon’s daughter is outstanding. I happened to be visiting the Deacons when they were hanging it over the fireplace in their drawing room. And it was not only I who was impressed. Dr. and Mrs Paget were there that day and you know they are both people of impeccable taste.”

  “And?” Sophia could not help but smile at Vanessa’s fervor.

  “They were enthralled by your painting. I shall not be at all surprised if they solicit a commission.”

  Despite Vanessa’s enthusiasm, Sophia remained reluctant to submit her work to the Academy. She had never received formal tuition, teaching herself by trial and error, guided by instinct. But was that enough? While she knew of celebrated female artists—the likes of Mrs. Cosway and Madame Le Brun; and Angelica Kauffman and Mary Mosey had been among the founding members of the Royal Academy, she simply did not feel entirely confident her work was up to standard. And if her paintings were rejected, what then? If her hopes were dashed, would she have the confidence and strength to continue?

  A brisk knock on the door sounded a knell to her unhappy thoughts and she became aware that the large room was shadowed as the afternoon melted into evening.

  Sarah, the remaining downstairs maid crossed the threshold uncertainly. “Lady Cranston asks if you will be coming to dinner, Miss Sophia.”

  At the mention of dinner, Sophia’s stomach grumbled. She had not eaten since the snatched sandwich in the early afternoon. She’d walked for what seemed like miles, experienced emotions so turbulent they had thrown her off balance and spent a considerable amount of time ordering her workspace. She realized she was now very hungry.

  “Thank you, Sarah.” She smiled at the diminutive maid. “I’m afraid I was so preoccupied I did not hear the gong. You should not have had to fetch me along all these gloomy passageways.”

  With a last, despairing glance around her, she gathered up her coat from the bench by the French doors, buttoning it against the chill as she followed Sarah along dim passageways and up a flight of thinly-carpeted stairs until they came to the small parlor where dinner was served.

  Her mother and sister were not yet at table. They each sat upright in winged chairs arranged either side of an imposing fireplace in which a modest fire lent warmth only to those closest to its hearth.

  “Sophia!” announced Lady Cranston, sweeping her daughter with a look Sophia could only read as disapprobation. “Every other woman in the civilized world changes for dinner. What makes you exempt? That garment is hideous beyond belief.” She cast her eyes over Sophia’s battered attire, all the worse for wear after Sophia’s afternoon in the outdoors. “It looks like something one of the stable boys might wear."

  “I don’t see how it can have escaped your notice, Mama, but we no longer have stable boys.” Sophia took hold of a s
turdy upholstered chair and drew it into the space between her mother and Annabelle. Once, a footman would have been in attendance, but now the household boasted only a kitchen maid, Mrs. Brixton the housekeeper, old Mallard and Sarah, whose frame appeared so delicate Sophia refused to ask her to do anything she could undertake herself.

  “My coat is warm and comfortable and perfect for working in,” she said, when she had taken her seat.

  “Work!” sniffed Lady Cranston. “Work is generally considered an activity that produces at least the dregs of an income and there has been scant evidence of any revenue to date.”

  Accustomed to her mother’s sometimes stinging remarks, Sophia shrugged tightly. “As you know, Mama, his grace has commissioned two portraits. He has made a most generous advance and I have wasted no time in beginning.”

  She did not mention that the advance and more had already been spent. When Annabelle had returned from Switzerland the previous week, her constitution noticeably improved from weeks in the clear alpine air, Sophia had been glad to grant her sister’s request for new gowns, bonnets and other falderals in preparation for the English spring. After all, it was the least she could do, given she was responsible for her sister’s fragile constitution.

  “At least you have discarded that odd turban you had wrapped around your hair at luncheon,” said Annabelle, sending a languid glance towards Sophia’s untamed curls.

  Sophia’s pulse quickened, stirred by the image of Mr. Cavanaugh reaching out to snatch her scarf from the wind. Struck speechless, she had not even had the presence of mind to request the return of her headdress before spinning away to make her escape.

  Now she leaned forwards and held her hands to the warmth, unwilling to reveal her confusion. Let Mama and Annabelle attribute the heat suffusing her cheeks to the fire, not the flames that rose inside her at the very thought of that wretched man!