by Ann Clement
Percy harbored no illusions about the condition of the interior, or even its resemblance to his childhood memories.
He left his horse in the usual place and climbed over the ruined wall in the usual spot. Tonight, he could have come through the main gate and the front entrance to the house. But he preferred to let himself in through the hunting parlor, to be there alone with his thoughts.
Percy fumbled in his pocket for a key, then carefully unlocked the door. To his relief, it opened with ease. He closed the door quietly and slipped the key back into his pocket, from which he retrieved a tinderbox and candle.
In the dim light, the hall seemed almost the same as he remembered it, with the exception of the empty wall under the Gothic arch where stuffed deer heads had hung. They had always frightened him and given him a lifelong distaste for hunting. He wouldn’t miss the old taxidermy, but it was probably a sad omen of what he could expect elsewhere in the house.
Indeed, the main hall above the parlor, though prepared for Stanville’s visit, was chilling in its emptiness. The pier tables still hosted flower arrangements, but the ornate looking glasses, once above the tables, had been removed. The paintings were gone too. So were the marble busts of ancient poets, on the landing, brought from the grand tour by his grandfather.
To his left was his father’s study. He pushed the door open. The room was completely empty; even the fireplace mantel had been removed. A surge of outrage washed over him.
The door connecting the study to the library stood ajar. What little remained of the collection was piled haphazardly on bottom shelves. A disemboweled sofa, serving as a support for a now-tri-legged table, stood in the center of the room.
A glance into the drawing room confirmed the same sad state of affairs. In the dining room, a breakfast table and two chairs—an attempt to provide Stanville with a dining space—were dwarfed by the size of the room and its fireplaces.
All that remained from the splendid old chandeliers that had hung in the great hall of the old castle were the hooks in the beams below the ceiling.
Stanville had emptied the house thoroughly. How many of these things graced his other homes? How many had gone to Christie’s auction rooms to supplement his purse already bursting with income from the sugar plantations? Oh yes, on that too Stanville had capitalized to the maximum. All of London knew that most of his household staff were slaves he’d brought with him after each visit there.
Percy straightened his shoulders. He would not succumb to dejection, despite the weighty sadness of an irretrievable loss. His old home, though terribly neglected, was nevertheless his again.
He was about to make his way upstairs when the light on the landing became suddenly brighter.
An old but sharp voice he immediately recognized cut through the silence of the building, “Who’s there? Don’t you dare touch anything, thief! Others are coming.”
“Good evening, Perkins.” Percy turned toward the lantern and smiled.
There was a moment of silence, and then, “Oh heaven be praised! Is this really you, sir? Mary and I prayed for years to see this moment. Oh, God is merciful.”
The lantern swayed to the floor. Behind it, the old footman bowed and sniffed.
“I am glad to be back too, Perkins.”
“Shall I bring you some refreshment, sir?” Perkins asked. “Mary already prepared something to welcome you tomorrow.”
“No need, thank you. Let Mrs. Perkins sleep without interruption. She will have her hands full after tomorrow. And you go to bed too. I have the key to the hunting parlor and can let myself out.”
“Perhaps I can light more candles for you, sir?” There was an almost-childish eagerness in the old servant’s question.
“No, thank you. One candle will do. I just need to see the house by myself, if you please.”
“Very well, sir.” Perkins straightened to attention, though he was grinning and the tip of his nightcap hung behind his ear like a giant, misplaced earring. “Mary and I will be waiting tomorrow to give you the full report and show you the house again. Will Lady Hanbury be coming with you?”
Who? Oh, he almost forgot he had acquired a wife earlier today. Naturally, Perkins knew about their nuptials, since Stanville had stayed here for a week.
“I do not think so, Perkins. Not tomorrow.”
Perkins bowed again and turned to go, but before disappearing in that mysterious way servants had of vanishing into the woodwork, he suddenly seemed to remember something.
“My best wishes for your happiness, sir,” he said and, with a smile, evaporated around the staircase.
“Thank you, Perkins,” Percy muttered.
For a moment, he’d completely forgotten about Letitia. He didn’t want her in his thoughts tonight. There would be plenty of time, his entire life, in fact, to remember about Lady Letitia Hanbury’s happiness.
Alone again, he looked around.
The walls above the staircase were completely empty, and so was the long gallery once adorned with paintings. He had not expected anything else, yet a sharp stub of regret twisted in his heart like a knife. He could buy any paintings, but not the family portraits. What had Stanville done with them?
Most bedrooms remained partially furnished, some pieces under dust covers. Stanville must have stayed in the state bedroom. Its furnishings consisted of a splendid old bed and a few hastily added pieces to provide his lordship with a modicum of comfort in the house he had raided of its belongings years earlier. Somehow, Stanville had not removed the richly carved bed, but the elaborate canopy Percy used to admire for its embroidered battle scenes was gone.
Without realizing it, Percy slowed his step as he walked toward the eastern end of the house. There, at the other end of the gallery, were his parents’ rooms.
He stopped when he reached the narrow passage that separated their apartments from the gallery, leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
It all came back in an instant.
He was five again, standing in the same dark corner of the passage, hoping no one would notice his presence. He was not supposed to be here, but he’d slipped out of the nursery after his nanny fell asleep in her chair while he was playing with his soldiers.
He wanted to see a brother or sister whose arrival had been expected for months by his jubilant parents. Percy was their only child, and they were beside themselves with joy when his mother was expecting again. He had been expecting too. He wanted to see the baby who would share with him the empty nursery and maybe would grow fast enough to become a playmate. He longed for the company of another child. Although his father had begun taking him along when riding around the estate, the sporadic contact with other children in the village was not enough. He wanted someone who would be there all the time.
He also missed his mother. He had not seen her since she had retired to her bed after breakfast the day before, suddenly taken with pain. Since then, the entire household had turned upside down. Servants were riding out in a hurry and coming back with strangers. He was not allowed out of the nursery, but watched carefully from its windows whenever sounds from the driveway reached the top floor.
On the second day of confinement, the walls began to crush down on him. Once he’d even made it downstairs before being ushered upstairs by a very upset Mrs. Dale. Apart from the frustration with the sudden lack of freedom, Percy sensed something was wrong. No one in the house had ever behaved in such a panicked, hushed way. He had never seen his father in such a frantic state—unshaven, hair unpowdered and unchanged, crumpled clothes.
And Mrs. Dale, although she had always been kind and grandmotherly to him, became now even more protective, trying to keep his attention away from what was happening downstairs. Percy did not protest, but as soon as her chin fell over her bosom and she began to emit soft snores, he ran downstairs.
No one had told him anything, yet Percy knew wit
h absolute certainty that that highly unusual state of affairs had something to do with his mother and the baby that had made her slim figure swell so much.
He was very afraid. He needed to see her. He wanted to tell her that he loved her very much, and that it was all right to send the baby away if it didn’t want to come live with them.
But his courage fled him when he reached the dark passage. Too many people moved frantically around. They would never let him in her bedchamber. He had not thought of that. He’d hoped she would be alone and he could quietly sneak in and sit next to her on the bed, as he often used to do.
Other unfamiliar things alerted and frightened him even more; above all, a strange and unfamiliar smell that permeated the passage.
A maid who passed him was weeping. Percy suddenly felt his heart in his throat and blinked against tears. He forgot to be brave and not to cry. He only wanted to see his mother now. Something was very, very wrong.
Heedless of adults, he dashed out from his hiding place and ran across the corridor. In the door to his mother’s room, he nearly collided with two loudly sobbing maids carrying out a huge basket of bloodied sheets.
Terror swept over him. He pushed past the girls and into the room before they had time to close the door.
His father was there, kneeling by the bed, holding his mother’s motionless hand and howling with pain. Mrs. Smith, the housekeeper, stood at the foot of the bed crying, as did his mother’s maid. Two other girls, whom he recognized as the kitchen staff, were cleaning out more bloodied sheets and wiping their wet faces with dirty hands. A stranger in black clothes was packing some strange instruments in a vast, black bag. And the smell that assaulted his nostrils in the passage was overwhelming here.
In the midst of all this, his mother, her face paler than the pillow on which her head rested, lay motionless, her eyes closed. Although Percy had never seen a dead person before, he knew with the inexplicable instinct of a child that his mother was no more. He didn’t want to believe it.
“Mama!” he cried and threw himself on the carpet next to his father.
“Someone take the boy out,” said the stranger with the black bag. “This is not a place for him.”
But his father’s arm came about his small shoulders, and he was suddenly pulled into the heat and sweat and tears, and held there, as in a vise, against a hard, masculine chest.
“We lost them, Percy.” Sobs racked his father’s body. “We lost them.”
Percy wriggled enough to cast another look at his mother’s colorless face. She reminded him of one of the tombstone figures in their church. He knew somehow that that was where she belonged from now on. She’d crossed from one world to another, just as Mrs. Dale had told him happened to everyone who died.
He hid his face in his father’s shirt and began to cry.
Percy hissed and opened his eyes when the hot wax from the candle dripped on his palm.
He was alone, wrapped in the silence of an abandoned house. The wet heat that covered his face was his own tears.
After a deep breath, Percy pushed away from the wall.
He had to summon the courage and go in there now so that his mind would be clear in the morning when he returned to officially take possession of the house.
He forced himself to move and presently opened the door.
His mother’s room was completely empty. Nothing had been left in it.
He used to come here after she died, to sit on the empty bed neatly covered with a pretty embroidered pane. Once he peeked under it, but there were no traces of blood anywhere. Her other things remained arranged exactly the way she used to have them. For some time, flowers on her escritoire were always fresh, until things turned for the worse. After her maid left, he began to bring whatever he himself could pick. He’d done it the last time on the day they moved out.
Percy left the room and walked to another door.
His father’s bedroom stood empty too. In the sitting room separating the bedchambers, he found only two chairs pushed against the window.
He left the house the way he came, relieved by this visit. The shock of facing the memories passed. His mind would be able to concentrate on business when he returned in a few hours’ time.
Letitia stared at the gray shadows on the ceiling. The fact that Sir Percival had a mistress was neither unusual nor to her disadvantage. A coldly rational woman in her shoes would be glad and relieved. After all, what better way to keep him at arm’s length?
It wasn’t easy to be coldly rational when memories lurked in the shadows of her mind, ready to disturb her peace at the least provocation.
Sir Percival’s seemingly innocent remark about Josepha hit hard a very tender spot. Time was supposed to ease pain, but Letitia wasn’t sure how much time would help where Sir Walter Hasting was concerned.
At first she had refused to believe the horrible things coming out of Walter’s mouth. But his words—accidentally overheard casual remarks made to his younger brother—explained so much.
Walter’s professions of love had steadily grown almost…aggressive. He wanted proof that she loved him—though, of course, she could never love him as much as he loved her, he used to say. He insisted he would prove his feelings for her too.
She had loved him. But, somewhere very deep, his demands had grated. Why couldn’t he trust her?
“Stanville will never allow your court, Walt,” his brother had said. “You’re just a neighbor. Stanville will want a dynastic marriage for his heiress.”
Walter had laughed. “There are ways to ensure he will have no choice.”
Hurt and fury had twisted in her chest like a knife.
His next words had pushed that knife in all the way to the hilt. Walter dreamed of her father’s plantations. Of using, like the earl, slaves instead of paid servants and, he chuckled, paid mistresses. That pretty chocolate morsel of Letitia’s maid—damn, he could never remember her name—would please him well enough until he could survey his new possessions in person.
Letitia turned over in her bed to face the wall. Walter’s confident chuckle echoed in her head, opening once more floodgates of anger and discomfort.
Sir Percival had immediately noticed Josepha. That was why Letitia had wrung from him the promise of protection. She meant to hold him to it with every fiber of her being. If he chose to spend this night with his mistress, he could not be much different from Walter—or her father. It was probably only a matter of time before he began fancying Josepha, who was one of the most beautiful women Letitia had known, in addition to being her lifelong companion and friend.
Her mother always had treated Josie as if she were part of the family, though not in the presence of her father. The best either of them could do for the cook’s child in his household was to make her Letitia’s maid.
Letitia clenched her fists in helplessness. Life repeated itself with frightening accuracy. Did she really want to live like her mother, reminded at every turn that the only usefulness of her existence had been her dowry? She’d seen enough to accept such a fate meekly instead of evading it at any cost.
Suddenly, her mind made a reverse somersault and returned to that ominous word.
Evade. Escape.
Letitia sat up in bed, wide awake now. The solution stared her in the face.
She got up and, agitated, began pacing the room while considering her options. By the wee hours of the morning, announced by the silvery chimes of the clock on the mantel, she had a scheme in place.
It might take her some time to prepare its execution, but the genius of her plan lay in its simplicity—she would support herself as a painter. Just like Miss Moser or Mrs. Kauffman. Of course, settling in London was out of the question. Too many potential clients knew her, and she could not hide there from either her husband or her father. No, when ready, she would go to America, settle in Boston or Philadelphia, and p
aint portraits, or anything else she could sell, for that matter. Josepha would run their house.
Her head began to throb from excitement and lack of sleep. Tired at last, Letitia climbed in bed and pulled up the covers. She would give more thought to the details tomorrow. For now, she needed to sleep. It would be a fine thing indeed to show up in the morning with circles under her eyes and let everybody think she had spent the night pining after her unfaithful husband.
Moments later, when her head sank into the soft pillow and dreams began to blur with reality, the sounds of doors being opened and closed echoed faintly in her ears before sleep took over.
Chapter Six
The warmth of the sun caressing Letitia’s outstretched arm and a symphony of buzzing and chirping pouring in through the open windows meant that morning had come long ago.
Letitia cracked open one eye, squinting at the brightness of the light before casting around a cautious glance. The place looked unfamiliar. For a split second, she did not know where she was. This was not the room at Wycombe Oaks, with the air of dejection and its northern prospect never graced by a single sunray. And then memory returned. This was her new home at Bromsholme.
She was a married woman. She had become Lady Letitia Hanbury.
Everything else came back in a flash.
Wide awake now, she swept a curious gaze around the spacious room. It must have been recently renovated. Fresh paint in light powder blue contrasted pleasantly with the creamy woodwork. The fireplace mantel had two caryatids supporting its top. The vase in the firebox’s cavity, with a flower arrangement fanning out like a peacock’s tail, was protected by a heavy fender.
Letitia swung her feet to the floor. They sank into the soft, lush pile of a colorful Oriental carpet. The floor beyond its edges must have been replaced not long ago. An elegant Hepplewhite chest of drawers graced one wall, and a dressing table with a skirt of dark-gold moiré silk filled the space between the windows. Two armchairs and a small table claimed another corner of the room. A chaise longue stood near the fireplace.