The Resurrection of Lady Ramsleigh

by Bowlin, Chasity

  “That is impossible,” the butler insisted. But as he did, his gaze shifted to the left, toward a closed door that was likely the library.

  “She was properly identified by Lady Blakemore, my wife—unless you wish to challenge her honesty,” Graham said tersely. “If that is the case, my good man, we have more to disagree about than whether or not Lord Ramsleigh ought to be interrupted.”

  It was panic that had the butler backpedaling then. “No, my lord. I would certainly never dream of offering such insult to your wife or to the house of Blakemore. It was not my intent at all!”

  “Step aside,” Graham said. “I will see Lord Ramsleigh today and I will do so with or without your permission.”

  Reluctantly, the butler retreated, stepping back and shaking his head to the brawny footman who’d stepped forward to bar Graham’s way. The footman immediately slunk back as well. Graham made for the door that had commanded the butler’s attention earlier. With only a brief knock, he opened it and let himself in. The first sight to greet him was a weeping girl in a torn dress. A housemaid from the look of her, it wasn’t difficult to ascertain what he had interrupted. Nor was it difficult to determine that she had been a less than willing participant. Her lip was bloodied and he could see the bloom of a large handprint on her cheek.

  “Step outside, girl, and wait for me there. Or better still, collect your things and meet me at the front door. You’ll not have to stay here,” Graham offered.

  The girl began weeping anew, but it was with obvious relief. She nodded affirmatively and ran from the library, her sobs echoing after her.

  “Who the devil are you?” the dissolute man behind the desk demanded, even as he reached for a bottle.

  “I am Lord Blakemore… come to inform you of the miraculous resurrection of your aunt, Viola Grantham, Lady Ramsleigh. But I daresay you and your household were well aware that she was not dead.”

  Lord Ramsleigh sneered. “It ain’t her. Even if it is, she’ll never be able to prove it… my uncle kept her well isolated here. Not a single person of quality would be able to vouch for her identity and the cooperation of villagers and servants can be bought easily enough.”

  The rage bubbling inside him was teetering on the brink of disaster. “Including those you’ve raped?” Graham demanded, unable and unwilling to keep the censure out of his voice.

  “I’ll do what I want with my bloody servants, now won’t I? She’d have gotten a coin or two for her troubles,” Ramsleigh said, his tone insolent and smug as he poured a healthy amount of liquor into a waiting glass. “All women are whores, Blakemore. Some just discover it sooner than others. I bet your own wife spreads her thighs much more willingly after you’ve tossed her a bauble or two, doesn’t she?”

  Graham didn’t attack because he knew without question that it was precisely what Ramsleigh wished for him to do. “Speak of my wife again and I’ll cut your tongue out and force you to eat it. I came here as a courtesy to inform you that she had returned. Given that this house and your company are not fit for a lady, she will remain as a guest at Castle Black and our solicitor will be in touch.”

  Stepping out into the hall once more, the door closed just as the glass shattered against it. The maid was there, her things tied up in a simple bundle. It was obviously all she possessed. But the girl had washed her face and stood with her spine straight, clearly eager to be away from the wretched pile that was Ramsgate Hall and its debauched master.

  *

  Nicholas had returned only briefly to his own cottage on the estate, long enough to bathe and dress in clean clothes. An invitation to dine at the castle with the Blakemore family had been extended. Exhaustion weighed on him but so did temptation. He wanted to see her again, to take the measure once more of that wary look in her eye.

  Viola, Lady Ramsleigh, was an enigma to him. By turns fragile and fierce; hauntingly beautiful and also, he sensed, impossibly damaged but far from broken. He found her compelling. It was easy enough to admit that there was little in his life to challenge him. His work with Lord Blakemore, to help him regain his memories, was progressing at a steady pace. Other than the usual fevers and accidents that plagued any small farming or seaside town, there was little to challenge him. There were eligible women in the village, to be sure, many who were far more appropriate to his station than a wealthy and scandalous widow would be. But he was not looking for marriage or for love. Entangling himself with an innocent young miss who would likely expect both of those things held no appeal to him.

  And so, with only a few hours of sleep in the span of nearly three days, he found himself once more entering the great hall of Castle Black. The drawing room was lively with conversation and he turned in that direction. Lady Agatha was there, along with Lady Beatrice and Christopher, Graham’s younger half-brother. The once sullen boy had managed to turn himself around and become at least moderately pleasant company. The wicked influences of his past were no more.

  “Good evening, Lady Agatha, Lady Beatrice, Christopher. I take it Lord Blakemore has not come down yet?” he asked.

  “More like he hasn’t returned,” Christopher answered. Both Agatha and Beatrice looked worried as the young man continued, “He made for Ramsgate Hall earlier today to inform the new Lord Ramsleigh that he’s about to become the almost Lord Ramsleigh. Though, I suspect he’ll buck at that given that the heir to the title is only an infant and not even in this country at the moment.”

  He likely would at that, Nicholas thought. And if he was anything at all like his late uncle, it could go very poorly for his patient. “I see. And is Lady Ramsleigh well?”

  “Well enough,” Beatrice answered. “I looked in on her just a bit ago and she was resting. She did not eat very much, claiming that her appetite was put off by nerves. Though she hardly seems the nervous sort, now does she?”

  Nervous, no? The woman had a spine that might well have been forged in iron. But that didn’t mean she was without fear. Nicholas would have excused himself to check on her but the doors opened once more and Graham stepped inside. His stormy countenance revealed all that was necessary about the nature of his meeting with the lady’s relatives.

  “Oh dear,” Lady Agatha said. “I recognize that look. He is in high dudgeon! What on earth has that despicable man done?”

  “You know Lord Ramsleigh?” Nicholas asked.

  She nodded sagely. “I knew all of them, of course. They are local gentry and, at one time, we were friendly. But over the years, we stopped associating with them as their reputation and finances disintegrated. There was hope when the late Lord Ramsleigh married the girl that he would improve, but alas he did not. As to the new Lord Ramsleigh, Randall is his given name, he is not at all the thing. If his uncle was a bad apple, then he is an entire bushel of them.”

  Nicholas tucked that information away and turned back to Graham just as he saw a maid being ushered up the stairs. “You’re abducting servants now?”

  Graham tensed. “We’ll speak of it privately. Beatrice, Mother, if you’d go into dinner, Nicholas and I will join you shortly.”

  The ladies left the room, Beatrice with a warning glance. “No dueling,” she muttered as she left. Her tone was soft, but there was little doubt that it was an order that would be enforced.

  “You didn’t challenge him to a duel,” Nicholas said. “Please tell me you did not challenge the bastard to a duel!”

  “I did not, though he likely tried to goad me into it,” Graham stated. Quickly, he filled in the gaps, revealing the interrupted attack on the maid and Ramsleigh’s words. “He’s denying her, of course, and the entire household is denying that they have any knowledge of Lady Ramsleigh’s death being a fraud perpetrated by her husband. But it’s lies. All of it. Whether they were complicit or simply cowed, I cannot say.”

  “Is the maid injured?” Nicholas asked cautiously.

  “I do not believe he succeeded in carrying out his intentions for the girl.” Graham’s answer was just as discreetly worded.
“Though, I daresay she may require some minor treatment for bruising and she has a cut on her lip where he struck her. It was my intent that she should stay on here as a maid to Lady Ramsleigh. The girl is acquainted with her from before.”

  “Which will further her claims should her nephew-in-law attempt to deny her place here,” Nicholas surmised. “You are a cagey one, Lord Blakemore.”

  “We did serve on the same pirate ship, Warner,” he reminded the good doctor. “You might not have come aboard willingly, but you stayed of your own volition.”

  Nicholas shrugged. It was true enough and there was little point in denying the accusation. He’d longed for adventure and that brief stint had provided it. “I’ll check on the maid and then look in on Lady Ramsleigh. You needn’t hold dinner for me. I’ll have a tray in the kitchens after I’m done.”

  “Given that we are all but turning Castle Black into a hospital, you should stay here… I can send one of the servants to fetch your things.”

  Nicholas waved him off as he headed toward the stairs. “I’ll go myself tomorrow and get what I need, but I will stay here for the interim. If for no other reason than your cook’s lemon tart.” And the mysterious, dark-haired woman who now rested above stairs—both haunting and haunted, she intrigued him more than anything or anyone else had in a very long time, if ever.

  Chapter Five

  Viola was resting, if one could call tossing and turning in bed such. It wasn’t the fault of the bed at all. It was quite comfortable, in fact. It was her own wayward thoughts that led to her discomfort. The handsome doctor should not have been so much on her mind. He was a distraction she did not need given the very rough path that lay before her. Percival’s decision to have her declared dead, or at the very least to have her “buried” to save face was a complication she had not anticipated. Precisely how did one return from the dead in the eyes of English law?

  A soft knock on the door startled her out of her reverie. She called out for the visitor to enter. Her assumption that it would be one of the Ladies Blakemore could not have been more wrong. A young woman dressed very simply in a drab gown entered with her head cast down.

  “Forgive the intrusion, my lady, I only wanted to let you know that I’ve come from Ramsgate Hall to attend you here.”

  Recognition dawned. “Margaret?”

  “Maggie, my lady. Margaret is my name, but most have never called me that since it was my mother’s name as well.”

  “How did you come to be here, Maggie?” Viola asked curiously as she sat up in bed. Immediately, she hissed with pain as her head throbbed and her bruised ribs protested.

  The maid shot forward and tucked a pillow behind her quickly. “Forgive me, m’lady. I should not have come and startled you so.”

  “It was my own fault. I know well enough the catalogue of my injuries,” Viola answered. And with the girl standing so close to her, she could just as easily make a catalogue of hers. “Is that Randall’s handiwork?”

  The girl blushed and nodded. “Yes, my lady. But he didn’t—that is to say, Lord Blakemore arrived and offered me the position to come here and assist you at a very opportune time.”

  So he was caught in the act. “Is this the first time you’ve suffered his attentions, Maggie?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m not the sort he likes really… not pretty enough or worldly like some of the girls are. Most times he ignored me like I wasn’t even there. I was just unlucky today.”

  Because of her. Randall had been angry at her return and had looked for the nearest victim to inflict his rage upon. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

  Maggie looked up then, understanding in her gaze. “We’ve all got things to be sorry for, I suppose. I worked in that house for four years… long before you supposedly died. And I reckon I understand good as anyone else there why it was you left the way you did.”

  The burn of humiliation, the way it churned in her gut, was not a new sensation to her. It was one she had become agonizingly familiar with over the last few years. But with his handprint bruised on the girl’s cheek and her lower lip split and swollen, it was easy enough to see that she did. “Yes, Maggie, I imagine that you do.”

  The girl nodded and stepped back. “Is there anything I can do for you right now, my lady?”

  Another knock at the door prevented her from answering. She hadn’t even called out to bid the person enter when the door opened and the doctor stepped inside. He had bathed and was freshly shaven, his dark hair combed back from his high brow and his eyes glittered not with vitality but with the slight madness of exhaustion. From the hollows beneath his eyes, it was clear that he’d had no rest or, at the very least, little enough of it.

  “Ah, I see both of my patients have gathered to make my work easier then,” he said congenially. His tone was mild, diffident and clearly intended to set the young maid at ease.

  “My maid is injured and requires your assistance, Doctor. My injuries have already been treated,” she reminded him.

  “Treated, yes… monitored, no. They require frequent checks to ensure that infection is not setting in and that they are not worse than my first examination led me to believe. But I will tend to your maid first as it appears her wounds are a bit more acute,” he said, again keeping his tone mild. He offered the maid a dazzling smile that was sure to set any young girl’s heart racing no matter what she might have been through. “Ran into a bit of a bully, did you?”

  “No, sir. Well, yes, sir. I don’t know, sir,” the maid stammered, clearly dazzled by his handsomeness. Finally with a sigh, she said, “I don’t know what I should say to that.”

  “You don’t need to say anything,” the doctor said. “Come sit over here and let me take a look at your lip.”

  The maid crossed the room to the chair at the dressing table that he’d indicated, looking nervously back at Viola. Whether she thought she would be scolded for sitting in the presence of her betters or whether she was uncertain of Dr. Warner, Viola could not be sure. Whatever the reason, the maid’s uncertainty faded quickly in the face his charm.

  Dr. Warner made a few noncommittal sounds. “It’s not done up too badly. How are your teeth? Nothing feels loose?” he asked.

  “No, sir. He didn’t hit me so hard, really. It was his ring what caught my lip.”

  “Of course, it was,” he said, and there was a coldness in his tone that indicated he’d encountered such a thing before. “Likely a very large one, with a rather pointy setting by design. I’ve seen the like before.”

  From her vantage point, Viola watched him as he tended to the young woman. His touch was gentle, perfunctory and whenever he was within sight of his patient, his expression was even and mild. But when the girl had been seen to, a salve applied to the cut to ease the stinging and swelling, and she’d gone, his expression darkened to one of complete fury. “I ought to kill the bastard and be done with it.”

  “You cannot,” she said, not even remotely offended at his language or tone. “While he is a bastard by deed, he is not one by birth. If you touch him, it will be you who hangs for it. He’s a titled gentleman even if he can lay no claim to gentlemanly behavior.”

  “Do not be the voice of reason now, if you please,” he implored. “Let me indulge my righteous anger for a few moments while I envision beating him to a pulp.”

  She chuckled in spite of herself and then winced at the sharp pain in her ribs. “Please do not make me laugh. And you may envision beating him all you wish, so long as you do not actually do so. I’d prefer not to see you go to the Fleet or the gallows.”

  He crossed the room to her bedside. “Tilt your head, if you please, Lady Ramsleigh. I need to check the incision here.”

  She did as he asked, once again marveling at how remarkably gentle his touch was. Never in her life had she encountered any man capable of such a tender touch. But as her knowledge of men was limited, it was no great wonder. “I’m certain it’s fine, Doctor. But I would have your word about Randall. He is not an honorable
man and I strongly suspect that you are. He would not fight fairly.”

  He smirked slightly. “You are making a number of assumptions about my character, Lady Ramsleigh. It might surprise you to know that I spent a great deal of my time in Jamaica in the company of pirates. Lord Ramsleigh might have a more difficult time than you imagine. You might also be vastly overestimating the degree of honor which I possess.”

  That was something of a surprise to say the least. Raising one eyebrow, she said, “Pirates?”

  “Things are very different in the islands, my lady,” he answered vaguely. “The swelling has gone done further. You should be able to get out of bed tomorrow but I wouldn’t attempt to navigate the stairs just yet. They are dark and uneven in a house this old. Treacherous even under the best of circumstances.”

  “I will keep that in mind, Doctor,” she answered. “But at some point, I must leave these rooms. I will have to return to Ramsgate Hall.”

  His expression hardened immediately. “No. That cannot and will not happen.”

  She’d been ordered about by men for so many years that, having experienced freedom in her current life, she took a great deal of umbrage to it. “Why on earth not? I’d like to point out that while you may be my physician, you are hardly my master, sir!”

  “I lay no claim to the title of master. And while I may not count myself a gentleman, I do pride myself on behaving as one to ladies. Your nephew is thoroughly debauched and without conscience, Madame. If you need further reminders of that fact you have but to look at your maid!”

  “I returned here, facing the prospect of social ruin, to claim to my son’s birthright and my own fortune! I will not be put off!” It was more than social ruin. If the truth ever came out, that kind of scandal would haunt her and her child for the remainder of their days. To keep it from coming out, to keep Randall from bandying those painful rumors and half-truths to the world for his own end, she’d need to confront him and remind him of what it would cost him, as well. She could not do that from a borrowed bedchamber.