Dedication
For everyone who had to find their home without a map.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgments
Unmasked by the Marquess An Excerpt from Unmasked by the Marquess
About the Author
Also by Cat Sebastian
A Letter from the Editor
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
1817
England in June was greener than anything Phillip had ever seen, except perhaps the sort of mold that grew on badly potted marmalade after too long at sea. He had watched the land loom larger on the horizon as grimly as he’d greet an approaching squall. Now, with Portsmouth within a stone’s throw and his ears filled with the familiar sounds of ropes straining and sails catching the wind as the crew brought the Patroclus into harbor, he fought a sudden, mad desire to have the ship turned around, to sail for new shores, places that were less soft and green and familiar. Places that weren’t England. He had seen men go to the gallows with more dignity than he was going to his own damned home.
“We can tie you to the mast,” Walsh said, coming up beside him along the rail, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Like Odysseus, or whoever the fellow was.”
“Get your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight,” Phillip told the surgeon. “You’re still on my ship.” There was no heat in Phillip’s voice, but there didn’t need to be. He was the captain and he was used to having his orders obeyed. Walsh straightened his back and rested his hands on the rail before him. “Besides, I’d quite willingly cling to the mast with my own two arms,” Phillip admitted. “There’s no siren song calling me away.”
He felt a pang of guilt even speaking the words. He had known sailors who wept to leave their families, and here he was dreading the prospect of leaving his ship even for the two months it had to be in dry dock.
“I’m sure you’ll be glad to see the children,” Walsh said dubiously, as if hearing his thoughts. Walsh had read Ernestine’s letter aloud himself, much to the entertainment of the wardroom, so he knew damned well what its contents had been. “They can’t be that bad,” he said in the same glib tone he used to assure sailors that a couple of stitches wouldn’t hurt much at all.
Phillip hadn’t thought they were, to be honest. In his mind’s eye, his children were tidy, bright little creatures, standing neatly in the hall to greet their father during his rare visits home. Caroline had always kept the household running as smoothly as Phillip kept his ship.
But Caroline had been dead and buried these two years while Phillip and the crew of the Patroclus were on the opposite side of the globe. And his sister’s most recent letter had left him deeply concerned about what he would actually find at Barton Hall. “Some of the lads aboard this ship aren’t much older than Edward and James, so I know I’ll be able to bring them around,” he said, more to himself than to Walsh.
Walsh made a noncommittal sound. “One of my sisters has taken a fancy to visiting the lakes this summer, so I may pay a visit on you if you’ll have me.”
“God yes. Please.” Phillip almost groaned in relief at the prospect of a familiar face at Barton Hall. Walsh had been the closest thing to a friend Phillip had aboard ship since McCarthy’s death last year. Christ, McCarthy. The pain of his loss had been blunted a little by time, but Phillip couldn’t think of him without feeling both his absence as the best lieutenant any naval captain could possibly wish for, and . . . well, best not to think of that. Phillip ought to visit the man’s family. But what to say? There was a solid chance that Phillip would sit weeping in Mrs. McCarthy’s parlor while the old lady brought him tea. It would be embarrassing for all of them. And it might raise questions. The sort of questions a man shouldn’t have raised after his death. Probably best not to do the thing at all. “The place has plenty of beds,” he told Walsh. “And my children probably won’t actually murder you, regardless of what Ernestine thought.”
Walsh laughed. “I’ll write you.”
“No,” Phillip said too quickly. “Just come.”
Later, after Phillip had been rowed ashore, after he had gone through the motions of thanking the crew and shaking hands with his officers, he threw a final glance over his shoulder at the Patroclus and took his first shaky steps on dry land.
“Did you hear the latest?” Mrs. Crawford asked as soon as Ben lowered himself into his usual chair. She handed him a cup of tea that he knew without tasting would be exactly as he liked it. She had probably added the sugar and the milk when she heard his footsteps on the path. There were no surprises for him or for anyone else in Kirkby Barton, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. “Captain Dacre is expected back at Barton Hall in as little as two weeks,” she said, shoveling a buttery crumpet onto his plate.
Ben paused, his teacup halfway to his mouth. He ought to be pleased. It was high time for the captain to return to England to serve as head of his family and—more to the point—deal with his hellion offspring. Ever since their mother had died, the children had been expelled from multiple schools and had driven off a series of aunts, tutors, and governesses. Ben rather admired the children’s single-minded perseverance, if not their methods. Surely it was the best of news that their father was to return.
Ben hadn’t ever met Captain Dacre, the man having apparently spent his entire life contriving to render himself as far from Kirkby Barton as geographically possible, while Ben seldom left the place. In fact, his only impression of Captain Dacre was from a rather sinister-looking portrait he had once seen up at Barton Hall. He was all dark eyes and dark hair and dark expression; frankly he seemed exhausting, hardly the sort of figure whose presence would add to the general good spirits of the townspeople. The mere thought of the brooding sea captain stalking the parish lanes seemed to threaten the hard-won comfort of Ben’s life.
He glanced around the Crawfords’ snug little parlor, as if searching for proof that his peace was built on real, substantial things that could not be disrupted by the arrival of one man. Mrs. Crawford had been a kind of mother to him after his own had died. Alice, his dearest friend, would become his wife before the summer was out. He was the vicar of St. Aelred’s. Everything was peaceful, quiet, safe. Even the chair into which he had folded himself, despite being too small and too low for his limbs, had the comfort of long custom. It was all he had hoped for, everything he wanted. No man, however disconcerting his portrait, could compromise that.
“Not a moment too soon,” he said equably, before taking a sip of his tea. “Something really does need to be done about those children. If Digby catches them in the bell tower again, I’m afraid he might thrash them.” Really, the sexton ought to get a better lock for that blasted tower, but likely the Dacre monsters would manage to pick the new one too.
“I can hardly blame Mr. Digby,” Alice said from the sofa where she was propped up o
n a flotilla of cushions. Every week there seemed to be less Alice and more cushion, and Ben briefly wondered how long until there wasn’t any Alice at all. He got rid of that thought as quickly as possible. “Last week they trampled my violets,” she continued, “and I would have thrashed them myself if I could have gotten up and done the job properly.” Ben felt his heart stutter at the reminder that she could not get up, might never get up, and schooled his face not to betray his sorrow. “And if I weren’t a thoroughly lovely person,” she added with a wicked sideways smile at Ben, and suddenly everything was all right, because even if she couldn’t walk, she was his Alice.
Ben let out a laugh that was mainly relief, and which he turned into a cough when he saw Mrs. Crawford’s indignant expression.
“Don’t talk like that, Alice,” Mrs. Crawford chided her daughter.
“About assaulting children or about my illness?” she asked sweetly. “Oh, never mind, Mama, I’ll behave. Go leave me and Ben alone, won’t you?”
“What’s the word on Bath?” Ben asked as soon as Mrs. Crawford left them in the privacy they had suddenly merited when they became betrothed. Their marriage, which had always been taken for granted as a vague but certain future occurrence, became a matter of pressing concern with the onset of Alice’s illness and Ben’s bedside presence at all hours. Ben couldn’t quite figure out how it had happened, given that Alice was delirious with fever and couldn’t very well give her consent, but he was mightily relieved to have it all settled.
Alice pursed her lips. “Mama can’t be made to understand that a long journey would be impossible. But the doctor says we have to go to Bath, which just means he’s given up on me and wants Bath doctors to shoulder the blame for whatever happens.” She spoke lightly, but Ben knew her well enough to pick out the strains of irritation and fear in her voice. “Really, Ben, how am I supposed to get in and out of a traveling carriage? How am I even supposed to keep myself from being jostled off the seat? And that’s setting aside the fact that we haven’t the money to travel anywhere, let alone as far as Bath.”
Ben frowned. “Do you want me to talk to them? As a man of the cloth and all that?”
“That would only make it worse. They don’t want you to think about how I’m more or less lame. That’s one of the reasons they’re so keen on whisking me away to Bath.”
“I’d say the cat’s rather out of the bag, my dear.” Alice had fallen ill at Easter with a fever and sore throat, but when she recovered it was to find that she had hardly any feeling in her legs. Now it was midsummer and she had yet to walk more than a few steps. Everyone, Ben included, was starting to wonder if a full recovery was even possible.
Alice was looking at him with an affectionately quizzical expression. “Sometimes I forget that you think everyone’s as straightforward as you are. My parents are afraid that if you stopped to consider the implications of having a bedridden wife, you wouldn’t want to marry me.”
Ben reared back. “Please tell me they didn’t actually say that out loud.”
Alice laughed. “I love that you think that’s what matters.”
“Do they think I’m too stupid to have noticed that you can’t walk? Or do they think me such a fickle man?”
She smiled weakly. “Nobody who knows you could ever think those things,” she said, not precisely answering his question.
“Well, I am going to marry you, so you’ll all just have to get used to it. I’m going to read the banns myself this Sunday.” And then they could marry inside a month.
“Is it already June?” She looked startled. He supposed it was hard to note the passage of time when every day was the same as the one that had preceded it. Sofas and cushions and well-meaning relations. “I thought I’d be better by now,” she murmured. “Perhaps hold off on reading the banns for another few weeks, at least until I know whether I’m to be carted off to Bath.” And then, in a brighter, brisker tone, she said, “I’m very tired, Ben. When you come tomorrow, will you bring me some seedcake? I can smell that your Mrs. Winston is baking and it’s all I can think about.”
He rose to his feet and dutifully kissed her hand. How hadn’t he noticed how thin and pale it had gotten? Once in the hall, he leaned against the closed door.
“Ah, there you are, Sedgwick,” said Alice’s father, who had clearly been waiting for him to appear. “Wonder if I can see you alone for a moment?”
“Of course,” Ben said, following Mr. Crawford into the study.
“Hate to trouble you,” Mr. Crawford said as soon as the study door was shut behind them. He was the village solicitor, and he used this room to meet with clients as well as to escape family life. He was bluff and hearty, with red cheeks and sparse gray hair. “But it’s about those children.”
Ben didn’t need to inquire which children. “I’ve spoken with Mr. Digby and we’ll order a new lock.”
“It’s not only that, I’m afraid.” He gestured for Ben to sit in another too-small chair and sat down himself behind the desk. “Since their aunt left, they’ve been in the charge of the few servants they haven’t driven off. What they need is a young person to keep them in check.”
“I was under the impression that their father is expected shortly.”
“Captain Dacre’s ship is due presently in Portsmouth, but imagine how much mischief those children could get up to in the time it’ll take for him to travel north.” The older man shuddered. “It seems their efforts are intensifying,” he said gravely, as if talking about an enemy army and not three motherless children.
“I could post another advertisement for a tutor,” Ben offered doubtfully. “But I’m afraid that after what happened with the last one we’ve been blacklisted from all the respectable publications.” Ben still remembered that poor fellow in his nightly prayers.
“Exactly,” said Mr. Crawford, as if Ben and he were of one mind, when in reality Ben had no idea what to do with those children other than let them romp through the countryside like the misbegotten elf creatures they were. “So you’ll go up to the hall and mind them for the time being?”
It took Ben a moment to realize that Mr. Crawford was serious. “My duties keep me here in the village,” he said diplomatically. Every day he visited the poor and the housebound, trying to find small ways to improve their lot or at least their outlook. That was why he had gone into the church. Not to wrangle the naughty children of an absent gentleman.
“The hall is only a ten-minute walk from the village if anyone needs you. And you raised all those brothers of yours, more or less, so you’ll know better than the rest of us what to do.”
Ben was momentarily at a loss. The mention of his family threw him off balance, as it always did. And he couldn’t tell if that “more or less” was meant to underscore Ben’s mere partial success—the successful raising of three-quarters of his brothers and the shameful way he had failed the fourth. He passed a hand over his mouth. He was conscious that he was being presumed upon—in no way was child-minding one of his duties as vicar—but he also had a niggling sense that perhaps he ought to have done more for the wayward Dacre children than comforting their harassed tutors.
“You think I ought to stay at Barton Hall?” he asked slowly.
“Yes,” Mr. Crawford said, clapping his hands together, “that’s exactly the thing.”
Sending Ben to Barton Hall might ingratiate Mr. Crawford to Captain Dacre. The Dacres did business with a firm of solicitors in Keswick; the Crawfords, who had always spent freely, could use the additional income from a wealthy client. That, he suspected, was Mr. Crawford’s true objective. Indeed, a shifty expression flitted across the older man’s face and Ben tamped down a surge of irritation. Ben deliberately relaxed his hands, which were trying their best to make fists. “Quite right,” he agreed.
Ben took his leave and crossed the lane to the vicarage. Alice was sicker than he had realized and none too enthusiastic about getting married, it seemed. His future father-in-law didn’t trust him. He was about to leave
his cozy house for the mayhem of Barton Hall. And soon there would be a grim-faced stranger in his midst. By the time he had packed a bag and headed off to Barton Hall, he felt like the comfortable, safe life he had always dreamed of was somehow slipping out of reach.
Chapter Two
After the fact, Phillip thought he might have handled the situation a bit more gracefully if the children hadn’t been in a tree. But he was not at his best, having walked the distance from the coaching inn to the house, with each step growing more disoriented by the sheer familiarity of the terrain. Surely the place ought to have changed. But every rock and tree aligned precisely with memories Phillip hadn’t even realized he still had.
Despite having sent a messenger ahead with the approximate time of his arrival, the children were not waiting in the hall to greet him. Of course they wouldn’t be, he told himself. That had been Caroline’s doing, and she was gone. Their failure to appear was just further proof of how badly Phillip’s intervention was needed. He needed to get to work turning them into well-behaved, competent midshipmen. Children, he corrected himself. Yes, children.
The servant who opened the door told Phillip he’d find the children in the orchard with the vicar. Phillip found this surprising, as nothing in Ernestine’s final letter had indicated religiosity as part of the children’s reign of terror. But instead of discovering the children at work in prayer or singing hymns, he found them high up in a cherry tree.
The plain fact of the matter was that children did not belong in trees, at least not when they ought to be in the hall awaiting their father’s return. Nor did vicars belong in trees at any time whatsoever. He might not have much experience with either, and thank God for it, but he knew trees were not the natural habitat of either class of person. He had expected to see his children for the first time in two years in a setting that was slightly less arboreal. Somewhere he could properly see them and they could properly see him and they could all say whatever the hell they were supposed to say in this situation without Caroline to manage things. Instead all he got was a glimpse of booted feet vanishing higher into the branches accompanied by the sound of stifled laughter.
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