The Beaumont Betrothal: Northbridge Bride Series Book 2

by D'Ansey, Leigh

  Mama had not tasted her coffee. Sophia sensed her mother’s desperation as their rescue from ruin began to look very insubstantial indeed. Marriage to the second son was misfortune enough, but for that son to be illegitimate—even for Sophia who considered herself liberal in her opinions—the notion was beyond scandalous.

  Her mother’s jaw jutted. “You will need to petition the Court to have your claim recognized.”

  “That is true,” said Mr. Cavanaugh. “The process has already been set in motion. We—Freddy, my father and myself—are bound for London before week’s end to make application to the House of Lords. Lord Beaumont has already dispatched messengers to arrange meetings with his lawyers and his man of business. He has sought an audience with the Prince Regent himself and an envoy will soon be dispatched to Cuba to interview my mother—as long as her health enables such a conversation.”

  Sophia was compelled to release Lady Cranston’s hand and reach across to her childhood friend. If Mr. Cavanaugh’s assertion was genuine, what would happen to Freddy? What of his loss? Not only his future but the whole backbone of his life torn away!

  She glared at Mr. Cavanaugh. “You will be challenged.”

  The scar on his face shone whitely but before he could speak Freddy cleared his throat noisily.

  “M’father didn’t know… thought his first wife was dead. Married m’mother…” his voice trailed away. “Dashed sorry, Sophe. Bruno says it will make no difference to us being married but means you won’t be a countess after all. Dashed shame for you.”

  “Freddy! It’s a dashed shame for you to have been stripped of your inheritance!” declared Sophia with sudden vehemence. She swung towards Mr. Cavanaugh. “Do you have irrefutable proof?”

  Mr. Cavanaugh nodded.

  “Yesterday I presented my credentials to Lord Beaumont. He examined them in detail and questioned me closely. He’s assured I am his first-born son, but every detail will be scrutinised to verify my claim.”

  Freddy shook his head. “Don’t be in high dudgeon on my account, Sophe. Probably would’ve squandered the lot on horses and dogs anyway,” he said with disarming honesty. “Never did want to be an earl.” He gave a lopsided grin. “You don’t even have to marry me if you don’t want to—”

  Mr. Cavanaugh lifted his jaw. His eyes flashed. “She does!”

  Sophia stared. She was ravaged at the strength of Mr. Cavanaugh’s reaction. For those few moments when she had imagined that he and she… but then of course she was being ridiculous.

  Why would Mr. Cavanaugh, a man whose physical attributes would make him outstanding in any company, heir to the Enderby fortune and titles, be in the least interested in she, the penniless daughter of a man who had lost his head, his fortune and in the end his life, over a woman not fit enough for her mother to wipe her boots on.

  She found herself brimming with indignation for Freddy’s sake. Turning full circle from sentiments she had felt even five minutes before, she was now quite determined to marry him. Certainly, it would be scandalous for her to marry the Earl of Enderby’s side-slip, but she had survived scandal before and could do so again.

  She simply could not allow Freddy to suffer the public humiliation of losing his fiancée as well as his lands and titles. They could live on the proceeds of her art and make their home in one of the rickety little buildings in the lower meadow.

  Charmed by the notion, and ignoring her mother’s horrified huff, she gave his fingers a little tug. “Of course we shall still be married, Freddy.”

  Freddy smiled, but it was his usual innocuous smile and gave her little clue as to whether her impassioned announcement pleased him or not.

  Mr. Cavanaugh gave her little time to consider. “My father and I have spoken extensively,” he explained. “The thrust of our conversation was to determine the best way forward and the means by which Freddy would suffer least. And you also, Miss Cranston.” he inclined his head towards Sophia. His sensitive expression could not help but move her.

  He turned to Lady Cranston with a frank gaze. “I am aware that Miss Cranston’s marriage to Freddy may not now be as suitable as you might previously have thought but we would like to offer an alternative proposition.” He paused delicately before continuing and Sophia noted how meticulously he selected his words.

  Her color heightened, for despite his tact, he could not have made it clearer that he knew of their straitened circumstances and the solution they had been bent on to recover them.

  “We enlisted the assistance of the Duke of Northbridge, whose advice I have come to value, and I hope you will find favor in the proposal we worked upon into the small hours.” He turned his palms upwards in an appealing gesture and his smile took her breath away.

  "I regret to say I’m not closely acquainted with the refinements of English society. American culture is layered but not so rigidly as here in Britain and there is more allowance should a man’s circumstances be altered. Freddy’s position would not be so irregular in the new country providing…” He cleared his throat and for the first time appeared uncomfortable.

  “Providing…?” Mama lifted her cup.

  “…he is a man of means,” replied Mr. Cavanaugh. He steepled his fingers under his jaw. Sunshine caught the fine hairs on the back of his hands.

  Sophia frowned. Was he suggesting she and Freddy be banished to America?!

  As if he read her mind he inserted quickly. “At first I believed my father could confer one of his titles on Freddy, but I’ve learned that cannot happen in this case. However, Lord Beaumont has lands that are un-entailed and he will grant his Shropshire estate to Freddy, along with a town house in Mayfair and a generous portion. I am well able to add to the pot.” He paused for a moment, observing each of them carefully before continuing. “Freddy will have a yearly income of around eight thousand pounds.”

  Contravening etiquette, Lady Cranston gasped aloud. Eight thousand pounds was not to be sniffled at!

  Mr. Cavanaugh raised his shoulders and gave a rueful grin. “I have made and lost fortunes and made them again. Opportunities in the colonies are aplenty if a man is prepared to work hard and box clever.”

  He bestowed a smile of such tenderness on Freddy, Sophia’s heart melted. “But no wealth I’ve accumulated has given me the happiness I have found in discovering my own kin, especially Freddy. You cannot know how much it meant to me to learn I had a younger brother.”

  He allowed a pause to lengthen and then said with great consideration: “Have I given you enough information? Is there anything more I can tell you?”

  Sophia’s mother set her cup into its saucer. The cold coffee looked mouse-colored and sluggish. She dabbed her lips with a damask napkin although she had not taken a single sip.

  “My daughter and I must speak privately. Of course, we shall solicit the advice of our man of business before any agreement is considered.”

  Cavanaugh nodded. “That’s only sensible,” he agreed.

  Sophia could not think of a single response. Despite Freddy’s tricky situation, there were many young women whose families would turn a blind eye to the scandal, given the reparations Lord Beaumont and Mr. Cavanaugh had proposed.

  But she felt brittle, as if the slightest touch might cause her to shatter into countless pieces. She wanted nothing more than to retire to her room to be alone with her own thoughts, or not to have to think at all. The restless night, the early morning start, and the revelations of the past hour had taken their toll.

  Mama’s next words brought her sharply back to the present.

  “I have just recently had the pleasure of meeting your wife, Mr. Cavanaugh,” she said, beginning to rise.

  Mr. Cavanaugh’s lips whitened. “My wife?”

  “Her arrival coincided with my departure from Northbridge,” explained Lady Cranston. “We did not have opportunity to converse, but Mrs. Cavanaugh was shown into the drawing room and announced as I was leaving.”

  Mr. Cavanaugh’s eyes took on a flat metallic
stare. “What did she look like?”

  Lady Cranston looked at him queerly. “…exquisite,” she decided upon after a moment. She cleared her throat. “Her hair is the most ravishing shade—”

  Mr. Cavanaugh sprang upwards. Taking up his hat he pushed the bench away with his boot. The weathered timber scraped across the terrace.

  “Freddy! Come.” He had deleted all charm from his voice.

  Freddy sent a sorrowful glance towards his half-full tumbler but scrambled out of his seat and rammed his hat onto his head. His hounds, sensing another sprint through the countryside lolloped over from where they’d been dozing in the shade.

  “Ladies.” Mr. Cavanaugh’s bow was courteous but concise. “I will keep you posted.”

  With Freddy in his wake, he swung away. Moments later Sophia heard the sound of horses’ hooves clattering across the stable yard then thundering through the park. As the dogs’ joyful yelping echoed back through the trees, a rising wind flicked through the boughs. Thin clouds drifted across the sun, transforming Foxwood and the valley around it into a vale of shifting shadows where nothing could be reckoned as certain as it had been just moments before.

  Chapter Seven

  “Who is our man of business, Mama?” Sophia had changed into a high-necked morning gown of sage twill, over which she wore a maize-colored woolen spencer. She’d drawn a muslin cap over her carelessly bundled hair, for the day had turned overcast and the drawing room was cool.

  Luncheon was over long since, but the pressed tongue Cook had produced still sat heavily on her stomach. The tabby cat lay asleep in her lap, rumbling with a contentment that Sophia could not help but envy.

  Annabelle, having missed out on most of the morning’s excitement sat perched on the edge of a winged chair too large for her, poking a needle without enthusiasm into a tapestry destined for Mama’s footstool. She raised her eyes interestedly at Sophia’s query and looked to her mother for response. Lady Cranston did not even glance up from her embroidery.

  “We no longer have one. What was the point of Whitley continuing to manage our affairs, when in fact, there are no affairs to manage?” She set her teeth to a strand of scarlet thread and nipped it from its moorings. “The duke kindly offered his own man of business to act as our agent and his grace himself will oversee all the legalities on our behalf.”

  Sophia knew she should be grateful. The Duke of Northbridge was a powerful ally indeed. He would ensure every ‘i’ was dotted and every ‘t’ crossed. He could be a ruffian in some ways—the manner in which he tied his cravat was an abomination, but he had proved adept at husbanding his lands and he excelled at business in a way embraced by few gentlemen. He had expanded his already substantial heirdom into one of the most prosperous estates in the whole of Great Britain.

  Sophia ran her forefinger along the tabby’s spine, tracing the hard knobs, visualizing the skeleton laid bare without the covering of flesh and fur. Bones were honest, she thought, they showed the true shape of things.

  “How did you come to visit Northbridge this morning, Mama?”

  “I set out to return the cape I borrowed from the duchess last week—when we took gifts for the baby and a heavy drizzle began as we were leaving. It was merely an informal call and I saw no need to send a card ahead.” She looked up. “You know how Vanessa dislikes formality from those close to her. Had she not been at home I should have simply left the cape and returned.”

  Sophia nodded. The Duchess of Northbridge had a steely inner core and could give the cut to those pompous enough to deserve it, but she detested excessive ritual and was always at home to her friends.

  “I had no sooner turned out of the drive than one of Northbridge’s men came hurrying towards me bearing a note from Vanessa urging you and I to attend her post haste.” She selected a new needle from the basket beside her chair. “The man had made a start by chaise, intending to bear us back to Northbridge, but the carriage horse had gone lame, so he had abandoned both creature and conveyance on the roadside and continued to Foxwood on foot. Vanessa’s note expressed such urgency I was bound to complete the journey in our own gig.”

  “Without me?” Sophia said sharply, learning for the first time that she also had been summoned to Northbridge.

  Her mother clipped another length of scarlet thread from its hank. “Sophia. Be reasonable,” she said in a tone that made Sophia bristle because it suggested her reason was dependably under question. “I had no notion of why we had been bid. My first thought was that Vanessa had fallen ill or suffered an accident. I thought it more urgent to reach Northbridge without delay rather than return, search for you, wait for you to clean and dress yourself to a state resembling decent and begin the journey from scratch. The entire morning would have vanished without result.”

  Annabelle let her tapestry fall into her lap. She leaned forward eagerly and inserted herself into the conversation.

  “And what did her grace tell you, Mama? Is it true? That Freddy is a by—” The word remained trapped on her tongue, frozen into place by a frigid stare from her mother.

  Sophia gathered the reins of the exchange. She’d taken her sketchpad and pencils outdoors a couple of hours before, but inspiration had utterly deserted her and she’d returned without making a single mark. Instead, her mind fought to navigate a way through the bewildering narrative it had received that day.

  “So, what is the full story, Mama? Surely Vanessa furnished you with more than the barest outlines.”

  Lady Cranston peered into the eye of the needle she’d selected from her sewing basket. “Mr. Cavanaugh is a long-standing acquaintance of the duke.”

  Sophia declined to reveal that this was not news to her. She waited for Mama to continue, unwilling to succumb any more than she must to events beyond her control.

  After a few moments of fruitlessly poking the thread towards the needle, her mother abandoned her efforts and handed the items to Sophia. “Apparently, Isobel Hexham either slipped or was blown off the cliffs near a relative’s estate in Cornwall. She was increasing at the time.”

  Sophia looked up, her hands suspended in mid-air, her task all but forgotten. “How dreadful, Mama!”

  Annabelle’s shocked gasp echoed her own.

  Lady Cranston nodded. “I have heard accounts of similar incidents. The gales blowing in from the Atlantic can be ferocious. If a person is wearing a voluminous garment, perhaps a cloak or a skirt with wide hoops as was fashionable at that time—” she lifted her hands. “A search was executed but Isobel was never found. Her abigail returned to the house hysterical and could only say that her ladyship had been taken by the winds and blown into the sea.”

  “But what happened in the interim?”

  Lady Cranston raised her shoulders. “Vanessa intimated it was a matter of some delicacy.” She slated a look at Annabelle, and after a suppressing glance at Sophia, nodded a reminder towards the needle and thread.

  So, Isobel Hexham’s plight was not something to be spoken of in the presence of an inexperienced damsel, thought Sophia. As if she, Sophia had any more experience! All she knew was that from the moment she’d first looked upon Mr. Cavanaugh, her world had shifted, as if the ocean had slipped beneath the sand on Brighton Beach and rolled through the countryside to swell and sway beneath her feet.

  She handed the needle over, securely threaded. Idly stroking the cat, she stared out of the window, struck with sorrow for Isobel Hexham and at the same time intrigued about what had happened to her in the intervening years.

  Her fervor towards marrying Freddy had waned as the afternoon drew on (although the idea of living in a pretty cottage had not) and she felt dull and listless. Through the window, she watched a lone hawk circle high above in a sky the color of polished steel and wondered sadly what poor creature would end up trying and failing to evade its avaricious beak.

  “Mama…?”

  “What is it, Sophia?”

  “You are very composed.” She studied her mother carefully. “Under t
he circumstances…”

  Lady Cranston looked up from the linen tray cloth on which she had begun to embroider a cluster of poppies. She arched her fine eyebrows. “Circumstances?”

  “I would have thought you’d be bitterly disappointed that, as events have turned out, Freddy is a…” she flushed before continuing. “…a bastard.”

  Her mother frowned. “That is a vulgar expression.”

  “But the facts of Freddy’s birth cannot be overlooked,” Sophia persisted. “His circumstances have been quite reversed, and therefore, mine as well. You cannot truly now be in favor of my marriage to Freddy, Mama. The ton will view the match as scandalous and you will no longer be the mama-in-law of a powerful lord.”

  Her mother pierced the linen with the point of her needle. She gave an arid smile. “I have stared scandal in the face these past months and remain standing,” she said with a valor Sophia could not help but admire. “And I had never imagined Freddy Beaumont as a powerful lord. At any rate, that has not been as important to me as you might think. What is of greater consequence is escaping the clutches of the bailiff and not being relegated to the poorhouse.”

  Sophia observed her mother with interest. “The legitimacy of Freddy’s birth means nothing to you?”

  “Of course, it means something! It means you are likely to be consigned to the fringes of society, but you have never displayed the least interest in society anyway. For my part, I shall survive.”

  “But what about me, Mama!” Annabelle sat forward. “What about my reputation?! Who will want to marry the sister-in-law of a—"

  Lady Cranston flashed Annabelle an irascible stare. “As long as Mr. Cavanaugh’s claim is upheld, nothing alters the fact that Freddy Beaumont is the half-brother of the future Earl of Enderby. It is clear neither the earl nor his oldest son have any intention of casting Freddy aside. Cavanaugh appears to be closely aligned to the Duke and Duchess of Northbridge and they are powerful figures in our world.” She paused for a moment before continuing, “What is imperative, Annabelle, is that you are brought out this season.”