Lord Somerton’s Heir

by Alison Stuart

  Cissy opened the door and turned back to him.

  ‘You wait here,’ she said, and then, as if remembering who she addressed, she added with an embarrassed smile, ‘if you don’t mind, my lord. I need a moment or two to make sure Ma is ready.’

  While Sebastian waited, he could hear Cissy’s low voice in the parlour. He went over in his mind what he should say to this long lost grandparent and it seemed an age before his aunt appeared, standing back to admit him to the little room. Once again, Sebastian ducked his head to avoid the low beams and wondered if the entire village had been constructed by midgets.

  An elderly woman sat in a chair beside the fire, looking just as he had imagined a grandmother should look. Fluffs of white hair escaped from her neat lace cap and milky blue eyes looked up at him from a face that looked as fragile as tissue.

  ‘Lord Somerton, Ma,’ Cissy announced, unnecessarily.

  ‘You’ll have to come closer, boy,’ the old woman said. ‘My eyes aren’t that good.’

  ‘She’s all but blind and quite a bit deaf, so you’ll need to talk clear,’ Cissy whispered in his ear.

  Sebastian went down on one knee at the woman’s feet and took her hand. He kissed it, feeling the delicate skin beneath his lips. When he looked up, she had tears in her eyes. Her hand went to his hair, caressing him as if he were a small child.

  ‘I never thought I’d see the day when Marjory’s boy would come to me,’ she said as her gnarled fingers moved to his face, lightly touching his eyes, his nose and his mouth as if the touch would in some way produce a picture in her mind. ‘You’ve a good strong face,’ she said and smiled, cuffing him lightly on the cheek. ‘And you have come out without shaving. That will never do!’

  ‘He’s as like his father as he could be,’ Cissy said.

  ‘Oh, he was a good boy, James,’ his grandmother said, ‘but headstrong like our girl.’

  As he straightened, Sebastian found himself completely bereft of the well-rehearsed words. He coughed to disguise the unfamiliar prickling sensation at the back of his throat.

  ‘I… I…have a brother and a sister. Your grandchildren too.’

  The old lady looked in the general direction of her daughter. ‘Oh, Cissy. All these years and we never knew.’ She turned back to Sebastian, her fingers found his and she squeezed them tightly as if afraid to let go. ‘Your grandfather, the Reverend, was undone by her eloping with the lord’s son. He forbade letters from Marjory. If she ever sent them, he threw them unopened into the fire.’ Her voice shook with emotion as she said, ‘We only heard she was dead by sheer chance. That good man, her husband, passed a message by word of mouth to a friend and he whispered it to me when he came to visit.’ She shook her head as if trying to vanquish the memory.

  Sebastian lowered his head. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of the Reverend Alder, both he and his mother would have ended up in the workhouse — or dead. Such unspeakable cruelty by her own father beggared belief.

  As if answering his unspoken words, his grandmother continued. ‘You mustn’t judge your grandfather, lad. Marjory was promised to marry a young clergyman from over Grantham way. He’s a bishop now. Her running off like that, jilting her intended, and with the lord’s son doing the same to his young lady, and him with not a penny to his name after his father cut him out.’ She shook her head and lowered her eyes. ‘It brought terrible shame to this house.’

  So that had been how it had happened. His parents had both been betrothed to other people, facing two loveless marriages or the fleeting chance of happiness together, even with the approbation of family and society. Whatever happiness they had enjoyed had been short-lived. He wondered if his mother had appealed to her father after James had died. If she had, it sounded like her cry for help fell on stony ground. So much for Christian charity.

  He glanced out of the window at the solid respectability of the church building and shook his head. These were matters that belonged in the past. His mother’s second marriage to the Reverend Alder had been a happy one and she had died greatly loved and greatly mourned.

  His grandmother echoed his thoughts. ‘Those are sad memories we must leave in the past. You are here now, where you rightly belong, and I know your mother and father would be proud of you. A hero of Waterloo, Cissy read to me.’

  Sebastian laughed. ‘Hardly a hero, grandmother. Merely lucky to still be alive.’

  ‘But you were hurt?’ She frowned. ‘Are you recovered?’

  ‘I am,’ he replied. ‘Lady Somerton ensured I had the best of care.’

  ‘Ah, Lady Somerton! She’s a good lady.’ His grandmother nodded with approval. ‘Not like that good-for-nothing husband of hers.’

  ‘Mother!’ Cissy reproved.

  ‘I’m too old not to speak my mind, Cissy, and you know it. The late lord did more to undo this estate in a few short years than his ancestors had spent in building it up. And the way he behaved after the baby died… Disgraceful.’

  ‘Baby?’ Sebastian asked, but his grandmother didn’t hear.

  ‘Edie!’ The old woman called, and a young maid appeared at the door, bobbing a quick curtsey and colouring when she saw the two ladies had a visitor.

  ‘Edie, some tea, and bring some fresh baked bread and our strawberry jam. His lordship looks like he needs feeding up.’

  Sebastian opened his mouth to protest that he had already had a large breakfast but the maid had vanished. He was desperate to ask about the baby but he had to curb his impatience until Edie reappeared with a tray of tea and bread and jam.

  Only after his aunt had ensured that he had been served a doorstopper sized slice of bread and had a hot cup of tea did he feel he could return to the subject.

  ‘Grandmother,’ he said, noting that she coloured with pleasure at the new mode of address, ‘what were you saying about a baby?’

  Cissy answered for her mother. ‘You don’t know? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t unless her ladyship has told you, which she obviously hasn’t.’ She took a sip of her tea and settled in to impart the gossip. ‘Her ladyship had a baby boy. William, they called him. A bonny little lad he was, wasn’t he, Ma?’

  ‘Oh, he was. All smiles and chuckles during his christening… His mother and father just doted on the boy. Never seen them really happy together but the baby seemed to heal the rift. You go on, Cissy.’

  ‘It was so sad,’ Cissy continued. ‘When the babe was only six months old, the nursemaid found him dead in his cradle. Not a mark on his little body, she told me, just cold and dead.’

  Sebastian set his empty cup down, recalling Isabel’s words. ‘As Anthony and I were not blessed with children, you are the heir to my husband’s estate…’ She had been blessed, but for such a short time.

  ‘When was this?’

  Cissy frowned. ‘It would be about a year ago now. They both took the death hard, in their own ways. Her ladyship became…well…as you see her now, and his lordship went back to his wild ways. Drinking and gambling, so they say…’ Cissy continued.

  ‘Now, Cissy, that is gossip,’ her mother said.

  ‘It’s fact, Ma. We all know who he was visiting the night he died. That Lady Kendall —’

  ‘Cissy!’

  That Lady Kendall again, thought Sebastian.

  He would like to make the acquaintance of Harry’s scandalous sister. As he took a bite of the still warm bread and the tastiest strawberry jam he had ever eaten, he thought about Isabel and her dowdy clothes and severe hairstyle and realised that she did not wear mourning for her husband but for her child, barely a year in the grave.

  Cissy sniffed and glared at her mother. ‘I’m sorry Lord Somerton had to die like that but if it meant a good man, our Sebastian, came home, then that is God’s will,’ she concluded.

  Sebastian brushed the crumbs from his breeches.

  ‘Are the Somerton family graves in the church?’ he asked.

  ‘Only the old ones. Your great-great grandfather, he’d be, had a mausoleum built on the hil
l looking over the Somerton lands. ‘Tis that white building beyond the lake. ‘Twas he that built the hall, earned his money trading in slaves,’ Cissy added with pursed lips that indicated her disapproval.

  Sebastian agreed with her. So his fortune, such of it as had been left to him by successive generations, had been built on the misfortune of others. The thought depressed him.

  ‘Enough dark talk,’ his grandmother said. ‘Tell me about your brother and sister while Cissy pours us another cup of tea.’

  Sebastian told them about Matt and Connie and their life in the vicarage at Little Benning before his stepfather’s death. His aunt and grandmother sat in silence, hanging on his every word. Cissy in her turn told him about his aunts and the veritable tribes of cousins. It was only when the clock on the shelf chimed ten that Sebastian jumped to his feet.

  ‘They’ll be wondering where I am,’ he said. ‘I must go. We will…we must…you must…’ He struggled to find some words to say that he wanted them to come to the Hall, to visit, to live, to be with him. They were his real family. Not outsiders like Fanny and Freddy.

  Cissy put a hand on his sleeve. ‘All in good time, my lord. We’re content, more so for knowing you are here. You will bring Matthew and Constance to see us, when they arrive?’

  ‘Of course, and I will visit again.’

  ***

  ‘Where’s Sebastian this morning?’ Fanny enquired as Isabel sat down at the table for breakfast.

  Isabel raised an eyebrow at Fanny’s peremptory tone and the familiar use of Lord Somerton’s forename. ‘While it is no business of yours, Lord Somerton is probably feeling the effect of the long journey and, if he has any sense, he will spend a few days resting and recuperating.’

  The door burst open and Sebastian strode in. His appearance caused even Freddy to lay down the broadsheet he had been reading.

  Isabel took a breath. Far from resembling the languishing invalid whose portrait she had just painted, Sebastian had a good colour in his unshaven face. It didn’t look as if a comb had seen his hair and he wore his shirt open at the neck with no neckcloth, under a long, green coat. In this dishevelled state he exuded energy. In their short acquaintance, she hadn’t seen him looking so — she struggled for a word — alive.

  ‘Breakfast?’ Fanny enquired, staring at this apparition.

  Sebastian glanced at the groaning board. ‘Er, no. I’ve already eaten. I was looking for the London broadsheets. Parker said they had arrived. Ah…you have them, Lynch.’

  Freddy folded the papers and, as he handed them over, he remarked, ‘My dear fellow, you haven’t been out looking like that?’

  Sebastian looked down at his ensemble. ‘Looking like what?’

  ‘My dear Somerton. Unshaven…no neck cloth.’ Freddy’s mouth formed a moue of disapproval.

  ‘I’ve been for a walk. I didn’t intend on social calling but, as it happened, I had a long talk to Wilkins the publican, and I met my aunt and grandmother.’ He glanced at Isabel. ‘A delightful surprise. And as every woman in the village seemed intent on fattening me up, I have no room for anything more to eat. No thank you, Johnson,’ Sebastian waved aside the footman with a proffered dish of kidneys.

  Freddy’s knife clattered on the plate and he glanced at Isabel. Isabel read the horror in his eyes. One never acknowledged a servant by name. She picked up her napkin and dabbed at her lips to hide the smile.

  As Sebastian turned to leave the room, Freddy straightened in his chair. ‘You’re probably unaware, Somerton, that now you have arrived at Brantstone there will be a veritable parade of the county notables all leaving their card for you. The local mamas will be simply dying to introduce you to their darling daughters.’

  Sebastian looked back at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He means you are the most eligible male in the county,’ Fanny said, turning her blue eyes on him. ‘That is why this ball is so important. We have to launch you properly into society and find you a suitable bride.’ She smiled.

  ‘As you said you didn’t dance, I have arranged for Monsieur Fromard to attend on you tomorrow morning,’ Freddy said.

  Sebastian’s mouth tightened but he responded pleasantly enough. ‘And what does Monsieur Fromard do?’

  Freddy shot him a frosty look. ‘Dancing and deportment, dear fellow.’

  Sebastian drew himself up to his full, formidable height. ‘I am an officer of the Duke of Wellington and quite well schooled in all the usual dances one would expect at such an occasion, but let’s get one thing quite clear, Lynch: I don’t dance.’ His tone dripped ice.

  ‘Oh, were you at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of Waterloo?’ Fanny clapped her hands together.

  ‘A mere captain of the line?’ Sebastian gave her a withering glance.

  ‘But you’re Lord Somerton. How rude of the Duchess.’

  Isabel looked at Fanny with amazement. ‘Fanny, neither Sebastian nor the Duchess were acquainted with his antecedents.’

  Sebastian cast Fanny a look of sheer exasperation. ‘Miss Lynch,’ he said, employing a tone of polite patience and resorting to the ‘bad leg’ excuse. ‘Have you not noticed that I walk with a limp? A French musket ball ended my dancing career. Trust me, whatever my inclination towards a cotillion, I make a most difficult dance partner. I therefore choose not to dance on these occasions.’

  ‘Cousin Sebastian,’ Fanny adopted a wheedling tone, ‘how do you hope to find an eligible young lady if you cannot dance? There are expectations…’

  Sebastian stalked towards the door. With one hand on the doorknob, he turned and said. ‘There may well be expectations from every mother with an eligible daughter in the county, but I’m not some prize steed and I am not, I repeat, not in the marriage market!’ On the last he opened the door. ‘Now please excuse me, Lady Somerton, Miss Lynch, Mr Lynch.’

  Fanny stared at the door as it shut behind him with a firm bang. ‘Well, really!’ she said in a huffy tone.

  ‘No breeding,’ Freddy said, primping the corners of his mouth with his napkin. ‘What can you expect? Can you imagine Anthony strolling around the village looking like a veritable ruffian, hobnobbing with the tenants? Oh, my dear Lady Somerton, what have you brought home?’

  Freddy rose to his feet and huffed out of the room.

  ***

  ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  Sebastian looked over the top of the broadsheet as Freddy slid into the chair across from him, a slim leather volume held in his hand.

  His jaw tightened with annoyance. He had sought out the library in the hope of finding a quiet corner. For a house this size, it seemed remarkably busy. The walls of this fine room, with a magnificently painted ceiling sporting nymphs and cupids, were lined with high, heavy bookcases, filled with an impressive array of leather-bound books, and seemed to provide a sanctuary of male solidity.

  ‘Are you a reader of the poets, sir?’ Freddy enquired, with a slight curl of his lip as if he anticipated the answer.

  ‘I rather enjoy Lord Byron, but I find Shelley a bit flowery for my taste. I prefer the older poets such as Donne,’ Sebastian said, retreating back behind his paper.

  Freddy cleared his throat. ‘Well, cousin, it is encouraging to know we share something in common.’

  The possessive use of the familiar ‘cousin’ had begun to grate on Sebastian’s nerves. His fingers tightened on the edges of the broadsheet.

  ‘I understand from Lady Somerton that we are not blood relatives,’ he said, without lowering his paper.

  ‘Well not blood relatives, dear chap, but surely cousins by marriage?’

  Sebastian folded his paper and set it down on the table beside him. ‘I wouldn’t presume upon a relationship that does not exist in law.’

  ‘Presume? Oh, my dear chap, I presume nothing. Fan and I are just your humble servants.’ Freddy looked down at the quizzing glass that hung from his neck, produced a kerchief and began polishing it. ‘Fact is, we have nowhere else to go. If it were not for dear
Anthony’s kindness, we would be on the street. My late father left me with debts, dear chap. Debts! With poor Anthony now gone, we will, of course, make other arrangements, but I do crave a little leniency to allow us time to find suitable alternate accommodation.’

  Sebastian considered the man. He could not, in good conscience or Christian charity, throw them both out if they had nowhere else to go, and maybe some sort of settlement would be required.

  ‘Of course. You are welcome to stay for as long as it takes,’ he said without much warmth.

  ‘Oh, you are too kind. You have my assurance that we will be gone as soon as is possible.’ Freddy folded his hands across the front of his waistcoat and smiled expectantly.

  When Sebastian resumed his reading of the broadsheet and did not initiate any further conversation, Freddy said, ‘I suppose you are one of those chaps who spends his time hunting and shooting?’

  ‘I was brought up in the country. I both hunt and shoot but I can’t say they are my favourite occupation.’

  Spent too many years hunting and shooting French, he thought.

  ‘Cousin Anthony’s stable was judged one of the finest in the county,’ Freddy continued and Sebastian felt obliged to lower his paper and give him his attention. ‘Knew his horseflesh, did Anthony.’ He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and said in a lowered voice. ‘Pity he was a little less choosy about his wife.’

  Sebastian bristled and the paper crackled in his hand. ‘I will not have Lady Somerton spoken of in that way.’

  Freddy’s eyes widened and he held up a deprecatory hand. ‘Lady Somerton is a fine woman but not…Anthony’s sort. He liked his women with a bit more spirit in ‘em. They weren’t exactly what you might call a match made in heaven and, to be honest, would you take with a woman who dresses like such a dowd? I mean, my dear, the child’s been dead well over a year and dear cousin Anthony nearly as long.’

  The child again.

  ‘So tell me, Lynch, why did my cousin marry her?’ Sebastian asked, curiosity finally overcoming his better judgment.

  Freddy laughed. ‘My dear chap, only one reason a fellow like Anthony would marry a woman like Isabel: money. She was an heiress. If he hadn’t married her, he’d have lost Brantstone. Just like my late, unlamented father did our estate,’ he concluded with ill-disguised bitterness.