Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

  “No, I did not,” Thomas said simply and looked away from his brother to stare out across the glassy flat surface of the lake.

  He looked at the opposite shore, staring at the trees caught upside down in reflection, seeming for all the world as if they pierced the water and carried on down for twenty feet, even though he knew the water to be much shallower than that.

  The green of the leaves and the blue of the sky were reflected faithfully, almost nothing to choose between the reflection and the real thing. He tried to imagine himself and Catherine there, hand-in-hand and strangely upside down as they walked alongside the reflected trees.

  “You went to Derbyshire, did you not?” Pierce’s tone had become almost gentle.

  “Yes, yes, yes. I went to Derbyshire, Pierce. I went to the Peak District, as a matter of fact, and searched for Catherine Ambrose.” Despite his confrontational tone, Thomas did not bother to take his eyes off the lake to even look at his brother as he spoke. “Now run along and tell Father, there’s a good fellow. He might even notice you this time.”

  “Thomas, I am not asking you because I seek information with which to regale our father, far from it.”

  “It matters not to me, Pierce. You may tell him or not tell him as is your want. Do you not see, there is nothing left to be done to me that you have not done already? You have won, Pierce. You are the victor as always, so why are you not satisfied? Why are you not rolling around in your victory? It is complete after all.”

  “Because it is not a victory to me.”

  “Dear me, then it would seem that you wasted your time,” Thomas said sarcastically.

  “Did you find her?” Pierce said with a sigh, clearly intent on carrying on regardless of his brother’s mood.

  “No,” Thomas said and felt as deflated at that moment as he had at the time.

  With no information whatsoever, Thomas had travelled to the Peak District of Derbyshire. He had never been that far north before and had no idea what to expect. He had somehow thought that it would be much smaller than Hertfordshire and that a few simple inquiries would soon lead him to the homestead of the sister of the Earl of Barford.

  He had travelled post-chaise all the way from Hertfordshire, all the while trying not to think of the inevitable foolishness of his journey. Thomas knew he had to try. He had to do something.

  But when he had first seen the very beginnings of the Peak District itself, he quickly realized that he was never going to find her.

  It was immense, so vast that he could hardly believe it. It was rugged and remote, and it spanned so many miles that he knew that it was all so pointless.

  His first inquiry had been at a coaching inn on the outskirts of a small town called Glossop. He had asked a sceptical looking northerner if he knew of a young woman from the South moving in with her aunt of late. The man had asked him which town or village, and he could not say.

  The man then asked the name of the aunt, and when he could not respond to that either, the man had screwed up his face, snorted, and walked away as if he thought that Thomas would be better placed to head back down South and present himself at the bedlam.

  Thomas had not even stayed a full day in the Peak District, knowing that the whole thing had been an exercise in futility. There was nobody to ask, no names to give that would be recognized, nor even an idea where in that vast, beautiful landscape she might be.

  And so, in the end, he had travelled back to Hertfordshire post-chaise, utterly defeated and sadder than ever. It had made their separation so final, so permanent.

  Thomas had made the journey back over some days without speaking to a soul. As he climbed into each new post carriage, he kept his eyes averted, not wanting anybody to strike up a conversation with him. He realized that made him a most disagreeable travelling companion, but he did not care.

  From then onwards, Thomas had been even more withdrawn and sullen than he had before embarking upon his trip to Derbyshire. He let the hopelessness settle about him like a shroud and did not care what became of him from there onwards.

  All he had for himself was bitter castigation. He had gone to Derbyshire with the idea of finding her, taking her hand, and running away. He wanted to escape with her, marry her, and live simply. And they would live simply too, for he had very little money to his name and no skill with which to earn any more. That did not matter to him if only he could find her.

  But worse was the idea that he had failed to come up with the plan before. He was sure that if he had taken Catherine’s hand that night at the Lodge on the edge of the Barford estate – if he had beseeched her then to run with him, to live in poverty even, she would have done it.

  But why had he not thought of that at the time? Why had he let shock and disbelief overtake him and render his thoughts useless and impractical?

  “Thomas, I am sorry that you did not find her,” Pierce said, and for the first time, his voice was welcome.

  If nothing else, it pulled Thomas out of the wheel of self-blame that he fell into every time he was left alone.

  “Are you?” Thomas narrowed his eyes and glared at his brother.

  “I know you will not believe me, but I am. I am sorry for all of it, every bit of it,” Pierce said and looked down at his feet. “And if I could take it all back, I would.”

  “The thing is, my dear brother, you cannot take it back. It is done now, and it cannot be repaired. There is nothing left in my life that I care about anymore, and that includes you. I cannot look at you without seeing my own loss; do you not see that? You were the cause of it, Pierce. And what had I done to deserve such treatment from you? When had I been so unutterably cruel? What had I done to you that you hate me so?”

  “It was not that; it was never that. I have never hated you, Thomas,” Pierce said and let out a great sigh.

  “But that cannot be true. You cannot have hatched such a plan and carried it to fruition without hating me.” Even as he spoke, Thomas knew that even he did not believe that.

  What Pierce had done from beginning to end had been very little to do with Thomas or his feelings for him. It was entirely centred around their father and an immature young man’s desperate attempts to have his approval. Thomas’ pain was nothing more than a coincidence, a byproduct of such searching.

  “Thomas, I do not know how to begin to explain my actions. And even if I did, you are too good and steady a man to understand my motives. It would make no sense to you, for you have always been very sure of yourself and your place in the world.”

  “Is that so?” Thomas was sullen again.

  “Yes, it is so,” Pierce struggled on. “All I can do is apologize to you for what I did and for everything that followed it. Had I known how bad it would be, I would not have done it.”

  “Your explanations and apologies are all very well, Pierce, but they do not change anything. Not only do they not change my world nor do anything to make it better, but they do not change how I feel about you. I am not ready to forgive you, and I doubt that I shall ever be. You have effectively destroyed my life; you have killed me in your own way.”

  “Thomas, please.”

  “No, it is true. Perhaps the only thing that you can do for me is to die yourself, for at least then I would not have to look at you. Do you not understand that you are dead to me already?”

  Pierce, with nothing left to say, slowly turned his horse and led him back up the slope. And as he watched him go, knowing that Pierce had only moved to disguise the fact that his eyes were filling with tears, Thomas regretted his words.

  He knew why Pierce had done it, and even if he could not forgive him, he did not truly want to hurt him so badly. After all, at the root of it all was their father. If there was anybody who should accept the blame for it all, it was the Duke of Shawcross.

  But that was never going to happen, and Thomas’ heart was so broken that he needed somebody to blame.

  Pierce would just have to do.

  Chapter 12

  As Cather
ine packed the last gown into her trunk and closed it down finally, she wondered what Lytham would be like. She had never been to Lancashire before and only knew it to be either further north than Derbyshire was.

  Celia had told her that it was on the coast and that they would be able to see the Irish Sea crashing onto the shoreline from the window of their lodgings. At least she thought they would, for she had left the arrangement of their lodgings to Agnes Price.

  Catherine liked Agnes Price and imagined that if she said their lodgings were close to the sea, then they would be. She was an extraordinarily efficient woman of around Celia’s age, and she held a position at Ivy Manor that was hard to describe succinctly.

  For the most part, it struck Catherine that Agnes was somewhere between being a paid companion and a housekeeper. She was a woman who had been widowed young, and never having any intention or inclination to marry again, had found her unique position in the home of Celia and Charles Topwell.

  Agnes regularly took tea with them in the drawing room, and she and Celia often went out together to play bridge or to go into Glossop to order fabric and other such similar sundries. They were certainly friends, that much Catherine had discerned with ease.

  Ivy Manor was not a place that was blessed with many household staff; there were just enough to keep things going.

  There was a man who acted as driver and butler rolled into one, although more often than not Celia answered the front door herself. There were two maids of all work and a gardener, although the gardener was of the jobbing variety and lived at the other end of Little Hayfield. He had other gardens to tend and generally spent only a day or two a week on the beautiful grounds of Ivy Manor.

  Catherine had to admit that she did not feel any deprivation at the smallness of Ivy Manor nor the general lack of staff. She liked it all the better, content to do things for herself and finding it more like home than Barford Hall had been.

  But now she was to leave it for the next four months, and she realized what a wrench that would be. Catherine had settled in so well at Ivy Manor that she had come to think of it as home already, even though Philip was not there, and Thomas still left such a hole in her heart and her life.

  But things could be very much worse, that much she knew now. Catherine could be homeless altogether, given her condition.

  When she had realized that she was with child, Catherine hardly knew what to do next. She had been at Ivy Manor only three months, and despite the fact that Celia felt so familiar and warm to her, still, Catherine had not been able to find the words to tell her.

  In the end, it was Celia who had approached Catherine and not the other way around.

  Catherine sat down on the bed and sighed as she thought of Celia’s kindness on the day they had first spoken of it. They had been taking tea together in the drawing room, and her Uncle Charles was mercifully out of the house, down in Glossop on some business or other.

  “Sooner or later, Catherine, we are going to have to talk about it,” Celia had said quite out of the blue as they drank hot tea in comfortable silence.

  “I beg your pardon, Celia?” Catherine had responded, her tone innocent as her stomach lurched.

  “Forgive me for confronting you, my dear, for I would not upset you for the world,” Celia began and seemed concerned and uncomfortable. “But you are with child, are you not?”

  “I … I …” Catherine had almost dropped her cup, and her cheeks flushed so violently that they were almost painfully warm.

  “I am so sorry to bring it up, for I do not want to make you upset.” Celia had risen from her seat in the armchair to sit at Catherine’s side on the small couch.

  “I do not know what to say,” Catherine said as tears of fear and shame rolled down her face. “Except to tell you that I had not meant it to happen. It was not a habit with us, you see.” She was desperate to explain herself, to have her aunt know that she was not a bad person. “It was that last night in Hertfordshire; Philip had arranged for Thomas and me to say goodbye to each other without my father’s knowledge. We were both so upset, so desperate at the realization that we would never see one another again and it just … It just …”

  “I understand, my dear. You do not need to explain yourself, and you must not suffer the idea that I despise you for it, for I do not. I know you are a fine young woman, and I know what you suffered at your father’s hands. That your emotions ran away with you on the night you were to be parted from Thomas is understandable.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Celia. Thank you for being so kind when I had not even the courage to tell you myself.”

  “I cannot imagine that it would have been an easy thing to say.” Celia took Catherine’s hand. “In truth, it was not an easy subject for me to broach either. But we can only move forward, my dear, and I think that we have some plans to make now, do we not?”

  “I do not know where I am to live now,” Catherine said, and her voice grew thick as she tried to control her fear and emotion. “You see, I cannot go home, and I do not know anybody else.”

  “What on earth do you mean, Catherine? You live here, do you not? Here at Ivy Manor.”

  “Yes, but when you tell Uncle Charles, he will disown me too, will he not? I am certain that he would not want me here under his roof, and I would not blame him for it. It is enough that I was sent here to be a burden in the first place, without bringing such trouble with me.”

  “Trust me, my dear niece, Charles Topwell will not throw you out. He will not turn you out of Ivy Manor now or ever, so you must not upset yourself so badly.”

  “It is kind of you to try to keep my spirits up, Aunt Celia, but you cannot know how Uncle Charles will react. I cannot think that he will be anything other than angry about it.”

  “He is not angry, Catherine.” Celia smiled at her kindly.

  When she smiled, Celia Topwell bore no resemblance whatsoever to Catherine’s father. Her dark eyes were warm and kind and her skin still bright and clear, despite the fine lines. There was something in her treatment of Catherine that was so motherly and tender that she found her tears flowing again.

  “He knows?” she said in a dry, cracking voice.

  “He knows,” Celia said gently. “Or at least he knows that I believe it to be true. That is why he is out of the house today, to give us a little time to talk privately so that you might talk freely and without embarrassment.”

  “And he does not want to throw me out? He does not want to turn me away?” Catherine said incredulously.

  “No, of course, he does not. We have discussed it and think we have come up with something that will be very easy to do. Something to help you, you understand.”

  “But what can be done?” Catherine said and looked down at her slightly thickened waist. “It is soon going to be very obvious to all what condition I am in, is it not? And how will Uncle Charles bear the humiliation of it all? It is not fair of me to expect him to do so.”

  “We have plans to make, Catherine, and I hope you will feel a little better when the details are all arranged.”

  “Really?”

  “Charles has assorted relations all over Lancashire, and it is not unusual for us to visit them from time to time.”

  “So, we are to stay with Uncle Charles’ relations?”

  “No, but that is what we shall lead everybody here to suspect. Not that there are too many people who are overly interested in how we choose to spend our time here at Ivy Manor.” She laughed. “We are not a family of such note that we are much out in society, and for the most part, we are pleasantly beneath the notice of others.”

  “But where shall we stay then?”

  “We are going to go to Lytham in Lancashire; it is on the coast. We shall take some lodgings there for the next few months until the baby is born.”