Philip was a proud young man and would need his privacy to come to terms with his loss. And she knew that he would never have her see him in tears, even at such a moment. When the driver rattled the reins, she gave her brother one last look.
She smiled bravely, and Philip winked. The idea that she would never see him wink at her again in that silly, secret way of theirs, was the final straw. There was only time for her to wink back and nod sadly before the carriage drew away, and she finally dissolved into painful, chest-racking sobs.
Catherine reached into her velvet drawstring purse to retrieve a handkerchief and gently dabbed her eyes, not wanting to rub the tender skin to redness in the moments before she met her aunt for the first time.
The carriage pulled away again, and she knew that she could not dwell on everything that had happened and everything that she had lost. There would be plenty of time for that when she found herself alone again, but now, for the moment, she would have to stay present. She would have to be in the here and now, not some point in the past, and not wallowing in fears of the future.
Catherine needed to concentrate all her energy on this most pivotal meeting. Above all things, she would not appear weak to this woman, for if she was anything like the Earl of Barford, her aunt would sense that weakness and seize upon it like a bird of prey.
The carriage turned off the main road through the tiny village of Little Hayfield and began to grind its way along a winding gravel driveway.
The driveway was narrow and tree-lined, making it a little dark and strangely claustrophobic, even though Catherine could see the sky if she opened the window of the carriage and looked up.
Unable to see anything ahead for the twisting of the driveway and the many shrubs and trees, Catherine had leaned out of the window a little in the hopes of at least discerning something.
When the end of the driveway came, the house appeared quite suddenly. It was a small manor house, not much bigger than one of the lodges on the edge of her father’s estate. But it was lovely nonetheless, built in a light grey stone.
The stones were large and textured, not the smooth stone of the buildings of Hertfordshire, but the sort of stone that must have been quarried in that area. Her first thought was that it was much more pleasing to look at, especially with the darkest green ivy she had ever seen growing up from one side and across at least a quarter of the front of the building.
The manor house was on two storeys, with square windows, their wooden frames painted white. And the wide wooden door was painted black, a gleaming black that looked almost wet it shone so.
When the carriage finally drew to a halt, Catherine could hardly imagine what she should do next. She should be moving, but of course, she could not. Instead, she was rooted to the spot as if her gown had been sewn to the carriage seat.
This was the moment she had been dreading, the moment she had been trying to put out of her mind every single day of her long journey to Derbyshire. She was about to meet her father’s sister when all she wanted to do was jump down from the carriage and run away.
In her mind’s eye, she could see herself running down that twisting driveway; she could almost hear the crunch of the gravel under her boots. She would run and run until she had no more breath and what she did from that moment onwards hardly mattered at all. Catherine just wanted to be away.
The carriage wobbled as the driver jumped down and continued to do so as he un-strapped her luggage from the back plate.
Catherine remained in her seat, her mouth as dry as sand and her palms clammier than ever. And then she saw it; a movement out of the corner of her eye. It was the door, that gleaming, glossy black door slowly opening inwards. This was it; this was the moment.
Catherine’s heart was pounding, and she wanted to look away, and yet she could not. All she could do was stare uselessly at that door and wait, not breathing until she saw her aunt at last.
The woman in the doorway looked out curiously, her keen eyes taking in the carriage and the driver’s hurried occupations.
She was wearing a dark blue gown that was simply cut with long sleeves, the toes of neat black boots peeping out from beneath its hem. Her hair was light, probably a little grey, but it was hard to tell given that she was fair-haired.
There was something about the shape of the woman’s face that was familiar to Catherine, and she knew, without a doubt, that the woman in the doorway was her father’s sister.
The woman suddenly came to life, hastening down the narrow stone steps and walking smartly towards the carriage. Despite all her determination not to show any signs of weakness, Catherine could not stop her hands shaking.
She stared out of the carriage window as the woman approached, and the two of them locked eyes for a moment. The eyes were familiar too, for they were the same shape and colour as her father’s.
The woman reached for the handle and opened the carriage door, and Catherine thought for all the world that she was going to faint at that moment.
That was until the woman smiled. It was such a warm and welcoming smile that she no longer resembled the Earl of Barford in any way.
“You must be my niece,” she said in the gentlest voice Catherine had heard since her own mother had died. “My dear Catherine, how tired you must be. Let us get you inside so that you may rest a while.” And with that, she reached into the carriage to take Catherine’s hand.
Chapter 10
Catherine’s little chamber at Ivy Manor always benefited from the sunshine first thing in the morning; when the sun was out at any rate. And that morning, it was shining brightly, proudly announcing that summer was well and truly upon them.
Catherine had finally grown used to waking in that chamber, so small that it would have fitted into her old room at Barford Hall several times over. But, small as it was, she already felt at home there. She did not wake with the sense of muted dread that had been her constant companion for twenty years. Instead, there was a little sense of relief as she began to awaken every day, the sound of starlings and sparrows tweeting in the trees outside her window gently rousing her.
But the sadness was still there, and she had come to realize in the last two months that it was something that would never go away. She had not just lost the only man she had ever loved, but she had been forced away from her beloved brother, and the pain of them both was something that she knew would be eternal.
Still, Catherine knew how to be grateful for what she did have, even when what she had lost was without measure. She knew how to be grateful for peace at home, even the luxury of going down to breakfast at a sensible hour and not worrying about who would be at the table.
Every day at Ivy Manor, to find either her aunt or uncle or both at the table was nothing short of a joy. They had both been so kind to her from the moment she had arrived, and it was a kindness that she had not expected for a moment.
All her fears of a cruel aunt who thought and acted no better than the Earl of Barford had been dissolved into nothing within moments of her arrival.
When her aunt had smiled at her so kindly and reached in to take her hands and help her down from the carriage, Catherine had almost wept with relief. She had been entirely unable to think of anything to say and had simply stared back at her dumbfounded aunt without making a sound, her mouth silently opening and closing as if there was something she ought to say but had forgotten how to say it.
Celia Topwell had hurried her into the manor house, straight through into the drawing room. It seemed she had not been there a minute when a great tray of tea arrived, although Catherine was so dazed she could not have said who had set it down on the table.
“You are quite shattered my dear, are you not?” Celia had sat down at her side on the little couch and had gently untied the ribbons of her bonnet and removed it for her. “I shall leave your cloak for a moment, for I think fatigue has left you a little cold. Still, a nice hot cup of tea will restore you, and food. You need food, my dear.”
“You are so kin
d,” Catherine said incredulously and turned to look at her.
Even though Celia Topwell’s eyes were exactly those of her brother, now that Catherine knew a little better, she could see the kindness in them. And even the shape of her face, which had so disturbingly reminded Catherine of her father, seemed to develop subtle differences before her very eyes, marking the woman out as somebody very different indeed.
“You sound surprised, Catherine.” Cecile laughed, and it was such a wonderful sound, so warm it was almost like an embrace. “But I cannot blame you for that. You no doubt wondered if I was the same sort of person as your father.”
“Forgive me, I ...” Catherine said and still found herself a little too dazed to partake of ordinary speech.
“There is nothing to forgive, my dear. You and I have never met, and you have only your father’s behaviour to go on as a yardstick by which to measure the rest of your paternal family. But I must tell you immediately that I have nothing at all in common with my brother, except perhaps the blood that runs through our veins. But then we none of us can help that, can we?” She smiled and laughed again.
“No, I suppose not.”
“I cannot begin to imagine what you have suffered prior to coming here, Catherine, but I daresay in time you will come to trust me and find yourself able to tell me about it. But I can speak to you plainly as one who has also been treated cruelly by the Earl of Barford, and so I think you will find in the end that the two of us might have more in common than you would think.”
“I had never heard of you before, not once. Until my father disowned me, I did not even know he had a sister. And I still do not even know your name,” Catherine said, feeling just a little more comfortable now that she was starting to trust that her aunt spoke true.
“Well, I am Celia Topwell. Obviously, I was once Celia Ambrose, but my marriage to Charles Topwell changed all of that.” She smiled broadly. “You may call me Celia, my dear, or Aunt Celia if you prefer it. But I understand if that is a little too informal for you, given that we have only just met. I think you have been through enough that you may choose it for yourself.”
“Aunt Celia,” Catherine said slowly, testing the words out for herself.
“I am not surprised that my brother has never mentioned me in all these years. He is a great one for disowning family members, or at least the females at any rate. I think it gives him a little power, and since he does not rate females particularly highly, it is a power at very little expense to himself.”
“He disowned you too, Aunt Celia?” Catherine said in a tiny voice, peering at her aunt in an awestruck, childlike fashion.
“He most certainly did, Catherine. And I was a little younger than you are, my dear.”
“But I am only just twenty.” Catherine’s eyes were wide.
She was suddenly full of wonder at how it was her father could have disowned his own sister as such a young woman. They really did have a good deal in common already.
“And I was only just eighteen.”
“Eighteen? Where did you go? How did you manage?”
“I had to get married. It was the only option open to me, but it was the right one I am glad to report.” She smiled, and her eyes crinkled a little. Celia looked as if she were reminiscing, and the reminiscence was truly pleasing to her. “You see, I had fallen in love with a dashing young man from the North, Charles Topwell. He was a little older than me and from a nice family. But my brother had decided that I was to be used as a commodity by him, nothing more. I was to be given away to a friend of his, almost as a gift. But I had no interest in his friend, and I was determined I would not marry him. The more interest that Charles Topwell paid me, the angrier Oscar became.”
“And it is Charles you married? Charles Topwell?” Catherine asked as her aunt pressed a hot teacup into her hand.
“Yes, and I was very lucky that he agreed to marry me after so brief an acquaintance. You see, we had known each other only a few weeks when my brother decided that I was to marry his friend. He told me that if I did not do as he said, then I would be disowned. I knew I could not marry the man of Oscar’s choosing, and so I had to accept that I was no longer a part of the Barford estate, no longer recognized as the new young Earl’s sister.”
“My father had only just become the Earl then?”
“Yes, and he was thoroughly enjoying his new status. But my own father was rather arrogant and unforgiving, and so I suppose that is where my brother learned his art. Oh, but he learned it well, for he could have turned the whole thing around and taught our father afresh.”
“But what happened next?” Catherine was suddenly diverted from her problems and intent on the historical ones of her aunt.
“I was disowned before I had even a chance to explain it all to Charles. I went to see a mutual friend of ours and was amazed to find Charles there. As I told our friend of my misfortune, Charles bore witness, and by the end of the conversation, he had proposed to me.”
“Oh, how wonderful,” Catherine said and wished that her own ending in all of this had been so happy.
“At first, it did not seem so, even though I had fallen in love with him. You see I was wise enough to know that I had not known him long enough to truly know his character, and so I was well aware that I might have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.”
“But you had not?”
“No, I had not. Charles was, and is, the finest man I have ever known.”
“And he is not angry about me being here? After all, it must be the most dreadful imposition to suddenly have an unknown niece, a practical stranger, thrust upon your household. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable it makes me and how very sorry I am about it all. But I think you perceive already that I had no control over any of it, even though I am awfully glad to meet you at last.”
“And I am awfully glad to meet you, Catherine.” Celia took the half-drunk tea from Catherine and quickly topped it up again. She then placed a small triangular sandwich onto a plate and handed it to her. “You must eat something,” she said before continuing, “there is no imposition at all in having you here; none. You must let go of that notion immediately, for I think you will have had enough to put up with these last weeks. And as for Charles, he is thrilled that we shall have a young person in the house. We never were blessed with children of our own, you see, and so I think it will liven him up no end to have some young company.”
“I cannot tell you how much better I feel, Aunt Celia. Truly, these last days have been the most anxious of my life, not to mention the saddest.”
“Am I to understand that you have been forced to leave somebody you love behind?” Celia said gently.
“Two people,” Catherine said, and her eyes welled with tears.
Her throat felt tight, and she laid the plate with the uneaten sandwich back down on the table, knowing that she could not swallow if her life depended on it.
“Tell me,” Celia said and placed a hand on either side of Catherine’s face.
“My brother, Philip,” Catherine said as her voice broke. “And Thomas. I loved Thomas.”
“And is Thomas the reason your father disowned you in the first place?”
“Yes,” Catherine said and nodded miserably. “He is the son of Duke Shawcross, you see.”
“For heaven’s sake!” Celia said in a slow, amazed way. “You surely do not mean that my brother continues the ridiculous argument that our father had with the old Duke?”
“If anything, it grows more fevered by the year. The current Duke and my father are very similar men, I believe, and my brother and I were raised never to speak to the Duke’s sons.”
“And that is all it took for your father to disown a girl who ought to have been most beloved to him.” Celia shook her head in an aspect that was both sad and angry all at once. “That man does not deserve any family around him at all. And what of your brother? What sort of a man is he?”
“Philip is so kind and caring, Aunt Celia. And he is a very fi
ne man. I am certain that he will make a far better Earl than my father has. But I wish I had never had to leave him behind, for we were the best of friends, you see.”
“You have suffered a good deal, and I will not ask you any more about it today,” Celia said and blinked hard at her own little tears.
As much as she had not wanted to upset her aunt, to see her tears on Catherine’s behalf when they were so newly acquainted was one of the most touching things she had ever witnessed.
Even two months later as she lay in her bed in the small chamber waiting for the day to begin, Catherine felt the familiar stirring of emotion as she thought of it.
And her aunt’s kindness had continued in that same vein ever since. Never once from that moment had Catherine felt at all uncomfortable at Ivy Manor. And meeting Charles Topwell, the man she had come to call Uncle Charles almost immediately, had only served to make her all the more comfortable.
A Soulmate for the Heartbroken Duke Page 8