02 - Borrowed Dreams

by May McGoldrick

She looked up at Walter’s solemn face.

  “You have not met the rest of the family. Pierce is the middle brother. Younger than Aytoun by three years, he is. And then there is David, the youngest of the three.”

  “Of course.”

  “Aytoun doesn’t talk about them, does he?”

  “I have heard him mention only Pierce’s name, and that was in connection with Baronsford.”

  “Those papers he signed giving this place away are meaningless, I think. There has been no acknowledgment from Pierce. He doesn’t want Baronsford, and I believe he would refuse to accept it in any case.”

  Millicent did not care who owned what. What mattered most was the family that had been torn apart. “How long has it been since they have seen each other?”

  “Since Emma’s death,” he said. “But I know a wedge had been driven between them long before that.”

  Millicent wanted to ask why, but she held back. What right did she have to question Walter? Besides, she herself was not very good at keeping in touch with her own two older sisters. And she had yet to explain to Lyon the reason for the aloofness of her family. No, any answers to the questions about his brothers—questions that were burning a hole in her tongue—had to come from her husband.

  They started walking slowly along the edge of the cliffs. “What do you think happened to Emma? Did she slip and fall?”

  “No. I believe she was pushed.”

  Millicent turned sharply to Truscott. “By whom?”

  He shrugged and shook his head.

  “You don’t believe that Lyon did it, do you?”

  “No. He had already put up with her for two years. He was resolved to endure the curse his marriage had become.”

  Millicent said nothing, trying to absorb Truscott’s stunning revelation.

  “Emma grew up climbing these hills and cliffs. We all swam in that river in the summer. Her family—she was a Douglas—are neighbors to the east of Baronsford. From the time she was just a wee lass, she spent all her time here. I think even then she was planning her siege of the place. In any case, she knew every slippery edge and every loose rock as well as she knew the Pennington lads.” He shrugged again in a matter-of-fact manner. “Despite the foul weather that morning, I do not believe she could have missed a step.”

  “But Lyon fell. Why not her?”

  “He was going down to rescue her, or so he thought,” Truscott argued. “You stare down there and see someone’s eyes looking up at you from the bottom, and it can throw you. I saw her down there, too. I believe Lyon’s fall was an accident, but not Emma’s.”

  “But they were both on these cliffs together. If someone had pushed Emma, wouldn’t he have seen it happen?”

  Walter gave her a sympathetic look. “He hasn’t told you anything, has he?”

  “He has had such a difficult time recovering from his injuries. It hasn’t been very long since he has gotten back to being himself. But no matter how curious I might be, I would never bring up anything that might slow his recovery.”

  “You are a good woman. Selfless…I can see that. After everything he has been through, it is about time.” He raised his face into the air, as if scenting the wind. “I will tell you this because I know you will not ask and because I also know how impossible it might seem right now filling Emma’s shoes at Baronsford.”

  It was impossible, Millicent thought.

  “I mentioned it before.” Truscott’s brooding face turned to her. “Emma had been planning to be the Countess Aytoun, to rule Baronsford, from the time she was a wee lass. She married Lyon not for love of him, but for love of his title. He was the one who would inherit everything. And it was this that brought on the quarreling between the brothers.”

  He waited a heartbeat before turning his gaze on the hills across the way.

  “Wild, beautiful, untamed she was. In their own way, each of the Pennington lads was enthralled by her. Each of them wanted to change her or protect her. Of course, we always knew that Lyon would be the winner. Or loser.”

  Millicent put aside her questions. She focused hard on every word that Truscott spoke.

  “After me, David was the closest in age to Emma. As children, they were inseparable. As they grew older, she became the very embodiment of what a woman sho be in his mind. Of the three of them, I think he was the one who was always in love with her. But of course, he knew he couldn’t have her.”

  He started walking again, ushering Millicent to the side, away from the edge.

  “Then there was Pierce. He was always the protective kind. A born hero, that Pierce. He worried about her from the time she could walk. Watched over her through all the wildness. In a way, I think he regarded Emma as a sister. It was his responsibility to teach her and guide her. He had high hopes, but Emma was willful to say the least. She could never be tamed.”

  Walter kicked a pebble with the tip of his boot, and Millicent watched it roll down the rugged cliffs and bounce high off the rocks before disappearing into the waters of the rushing river.

  “Of course, Aytoun was the one with the greatest expectations and the most to lose. He tried, though. He did his best to make her happy in her role as countess. And she did conform to what was expected, I suppose, but only on the surface.” He cast a sidelong look at Millicent. “Do you know why Aytoun was called ‘Lord of Scandal’ among the members of the ton?”

  “Because of his temper? His duels?”

  Walter Truscott nodded. “Duels to protect his wife’s reputation. To salvage what he could of his honor. All of those men with whom he fought, every one of them, had supposedly had a relationship with Emma.”

  “But was it true?” she challenged. “Rumors have a way of starting with no justification.”

  “Who can say?” he said vaguely. “Emma liked to toy with men. One never knew if she was speaking the truth or lying just to get a reaction. Whatever it was, she thrived on the attention.” He paused, frowning. “But she was also as ambitious as she was wild. And becoming mistress of Baronsford—as grand as that might have seemed to her before her marriage—it was not enough once she had it.”

  Millicent looked back in the direction of Baronsford. Even at this distance, it was immense.

  “Most of all, though, she wanted to control Aytoun. She didn’t know how to go about it, though, so she started this dangerous game of playing on his jealousy. She soon found that she could not easily manipulate him. The more she flirted, the more reserved he became. In a very short time, Emma became a burden that he was responsible for, but that was the extent of it. No affection.”

  The conversation she and Lyon had in bed last night came back to Millicent. In a perverse way, that was what she wanted out of her marriage, as well. Not to control her husband—and never by using the methods that Emma had used—but Millicent, too, wanted to know for certain that she mattered to him. That she was the only woman he wanted.

  “One of Emma’s unforgivable flaws, though,” he continued, “was her insistence on pitting the members of this family against each other. She knew how much David and Pierce cared for her, so from the start of her marriage, she used them as a means of riling Aytoun. Complaints she had were not brought to her husband but to his brothers. If anything at all displeased her, she would run to one of them. Of course, the fault for every problem lay with Aytoun.”

  “Were they so blind?” Millicent asked passionately. “Couldn’t they see what she was doing?”

  “She had been a part of this family for too many years for them to doubt her.”

  “What about the dowager? She must have seen through her?”

  “By the time she realized what was happening, there were not many choices left to her. Emma was already Aytoun’s wife. The dowager’s answer to the problem was simply to stay away and let her son work out his own difficulties.”

  “What happened the day of the accident?”

  “Everyone had been invited to Baronsford for the dowager’s birthday. Now, Emma had planned it, which m
ade it very suspicious to start with, for she didn’t have the best of relationships with her mother-in-law. But still, they all came. Even Emma’s side of the family had been invited.”

  Truscott stopped again and turned to look down at the rocks. Not far ahead Millicent could see the stretch of stony beach at the bend in the river.

  “The morning of the party, while most had gone out hunting, Aytoun and Emma had a row. I don’t know why or who started it. And, to be honest, at the time I didn’t even think it strange, for they often fought when they were together. But then, before we knew it, Emma had run off on foot, and Pierce and Aytoun were growling at one another in the gardens.” He turned to her. “I don’t know what was said or why Aytoun left Pierce behind, but suddenly he was running after his wife, coming in this direction. Pierce lingered here for only a few moments, and then he, too, went off toward the river. He followed Aytoun and found the two of them down there.”

  Millicent looked where Walter was pointing and shivered.

  “You are sure when you say that someone pushed her down.”

  “I am.”

  “But why?” She searched Truscott’s dark gaze.

  “Because many had come to hate her.”

  ****

  “Jonah told me the stonemason was finishing the first section of the river wall in the Grove,” Amina said. “Is something wrong, Vi?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Thanks.” Wrapping her worn shawl tightly around her shoulders, Violet hurried out the back door of the kitchen and moved down the path toward the line of trees.

  Vi had immediately recognized the face of the man who had visited the elder Lady Aytoun. He was the same one she had run into on the stairs that night at the inn in St. Albans. The same one who was going up to meet Ned in his room. Just to make sure she had the name right, Violet had asked Mrs. Page about the dowager’s guest. The housekeeper had said he was Jasper Hyde’s lawyer, a Mr. Platt from London. Vi knew that Jasper Hyde was the scoundrel who had been trying to ruin their mistress before she had married his lordship, but now the connection with Ned made her furious.

  Mrs. Page had also told her that Platt had met his match in the meeting with the dowager, and there was nothing to worry about anymore.

  Violet had been too ashamed to admit to the housekeeper that she had seen the lawyer meeting secretly with Ned in St. Albans. She couldn’t think of any way of letting them know without having to explain what she herself was doing in that tavern.

  The double-dealing, lying, cheating devil.

  Jasper Hyde’s threat was not completely eliminated. With Ned here, poking his nose and anything else he could manage into the business of Melbury Hall, there was no saying he wasn’t sitting and waiting for a chance to cause real trouble.

  When she reached the trees, Violet gathered up the hem of her skirt and started to run. Now that she had her head on right, she recalled with a clarity that made her queasy all the questions Ned used to ask her about Melbury Hall. Her only consolation was that she didn’t remember ever saying anything that could have caused any difficulties for her mistress.

  At a bend in the path, she ran square into the devil himself. Ned Cranch reached right out to steady her.

  “What’s the rush, lassie? Eager to see me?”

  She shook off his hand and stood her ground, refusing to let him intimidate her. “’Tis finished, Ned. Your true colors having been shown.”

  “That’s a good one, coming from a whore.” His smirk turned to a frown. “But what do ye mean by that, I’d like to know?”

  “Everybody has figured it out,” she lied. “Everyone knows you’re being paid by Jasper Hyde. The reason for your being here is to spy on Lady Aytoun and Melbury Hall.”

  “I don’t know no Jasper whatever his name is.”

  “Is that so? Then why did I see his lawyer, Platt, going into your room in St. Albans? You remember the night.”

  Ned’s gaze narrowed and he grabbed her arm. “So are you going to let them know about us then? About how you played the slut for a married man to—”

  “I already told them,” she replied, twisting her arm out of his grasp. “And as we speak, Mr. Gibbs has some of the grooms coming down here looking for you. I probably just need to call out for them to come running.”

  “Ye’re a lying wench.”

  “Believe what you want.” Putting on a look of satisfaction, Violet started backing away. “Stand around and wait until they come for you, Ned. I’d love to see them give you the beating you deserve.”

  *****

  That night, when Jonah came up to the house complaining about the stonemason disappearing midday and leaving a job half done, Violet breathed more easily. Ned Cranch had gone away in a hurry.

  Now her only hope was for him to stay away.

  CHAPTER 28

  The travels the had made to the neighboring estates had added hours onto their day. It was far later than Lyon had ever intended to stay away, but it couldn’t be helped.

  As soon as his chair was placed in the entrance hall, Lyon asked about Millicent.

  “Nay, m’lord,” Mrs. MacAlister said. “She’s not yet retired. In the library, she is. Waiting for ye.”

  “She is not unwell?” he asked, trying not to sound anxious as the servants helped him remove his hat and gloves and cloak.

  “She’d not admit it, I’m thinking. But she looks tired.” Mrs. MacAlister shot him a look that bordered on reproach. “Her ladyship pushed herself today. Far more than necessary. This morning, a wee morsel of breakfast. Then she leaves with Mr. Truscott. Hoping to find you in the village, she was. By the time she arrives, ye had already gone off to hither and yon.”

  “Yes, Walter told me that she’d decided to remain in the village when he rode on to join me at Lord Dumfries’s.” He looked carefully at the housekeeper, surprised by her unexpected concern for Millicent.

  “Well, he would have done better to bring her home, if ye ask me.” The housekeeper sounded downright disturbed. “The condition of the folk passing through upset her. Her ladyship stayed down there far longer than she should have. And then she rode down along the river. There are more vagrants gathered in the camps down there, where ye allow the gypsies to camp in the summer. She spent time there as well.”

  As the servants readied themselves to lift his chair, Mrs. MacAlister continued. “I tried to tell her, m’lord. As mistress of Baronsford, I told her, she is far above getting herself personally involved with the needs of vagrants passing through.”

  “I can just imagine her answer to that.”

  “I do not see how ye could, m’lord,” Mrs. MacAlister said with a note of pride. “But my new mistress said even if she were the queen herself, she’d never turn her back on those in need.”

  Mr. Campbell cleared his throat nervously, drawing Lyon’s attention. “Her ladyship asked me about the number of bedrooms at Baronsford.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Aye, m’lord. And how your lordship might feel about filling them up with guests.”

  “Guests?” Lyon asked, pausing for a moment before beginning to laugh.

  ****

  She put the closed book on the shelf. She took it down again. She clutched it under one arm and then held it against her chest. She put it back on the shelf again.

  Millicent fought to keep herself composed while the servants tried to settle Lyon onto the settee. The hours that they had been apart felt like months, and from the first moment Lyon came into the room, she sensed that his pleasure at seeing her matched how she felt about him.

  “This is far better. I have never been so tired of that deuced chair as I was today.”

  The serving men had not even lefgine room yet, but Millicent could hold herself back no longer. Sliding onto the settee beside him, she threw her arms around him. He held her tight against his chest before pulling slightly back and smiling into her face.

  “I missed you, too.” He kissed her lips with such tenderness that Millicent melted agai
nst him. The door to the library softly closed behind the servants. It was some time before he pulled away, and even longer before Millicent felt herself floating back to earth.

  “I’m sorry I left before you arrived in the village this morning.”

  She shook her head. “I needed some time to establish myself and get my bearings.”

  “I understand you did that and more.”

  His right hand cupped her face. Millicent nestled her cheek into his touch, still amazed that how quickly he was recovering the movement in his hand and arm. “I might have disappointed Mrs. MacAlister with my lack of sophistication.”

  “Disappointed? You have won her over completely. Out there in the entry hall just now, the woman spoke more words to me than she would have normally used in a year.”

  “I’m glad. I believe we shall get along very well. She is very capable and quite efficient, and despite her sharp manner, she is a very warm woman.”

  “Well, I must tell you that you are the first mistress of Baronsford who has noticed that quality in her. She did not have much patience with Emma, who would have dismissed her a dozen times if I hadn’t refused to allow it. And as far as my mother goes, their temperaments were too much alike for anyone to guess they could even stand each other.”

  “She stayed, though, so I suppose your mother must have appreciated her efforts.”

  “I suppose that is true.” Lyon stroked her cheek. “Since you do get along so well with Mrs. MacAlister, then probably you will not mind what I am about to ask of you.”

  “Is it painful?”

  “Very!” He settled back with a tired sigh. “We need to throw a party, very soon. I want to invite every landlord and member of the gentility within an hour’s ride of Baronsford.”

  “How large a group would that be?”

  “About a hundred. Perhaps a few more.”

  Millicent settled back heavily, too. “That is very painful.”

  “And did I mention it that we need to do it soon?”

  She nodded tentatively, trying to blot out of her mind the image of herself in a roomful of distinguished people where no one noticed her presence.