Randall had some fears over hurting her, or the child he was sure he had set to quickening within her. But he could not have stopped for anything in the world, even if Isolde had not been driving him upwards to the paradise he only ever found within her. They both soared and soared.
This time there was no sensation of coming back down to earth, only a blinding light, a wall of heated brightness, a rainbow of colours shimmering down, and at last, a dreamless sleep with them locked in each other’s arms. Randall and Isolde clung to each as if they would never let go.
A fortnight passed, then a month. As her illness in the mornings diminished, their certainty grew. "I’m glad you’re not so sick any longer," he whispered against her brow one morning as she sat up and sipped some cool milk, and smiled wanly as it soothed her queasy stomach.
"I’m sure you miss my little bottom, though."
"Not at all. I don’t want you on the hard marble floor unless I absolutely can’t help myself. And I love our bed. With you in it, of course. If this is how all women behave when they’re pregnant, it’s a wonder so many couples take such great pains to avoid conception."
She kissed him, then frowned.
"I know what you’re thinking. I give you my word. It may not be an honorable admission to make, but I knew only too well the rules of the game. Have your fun, and don’t get caught. It wasn’t really fun. It just left me more discontented than ever. There was no loss of control. Always preventive measures. There was nothing compared to the pleasure I feel with you. You’ve seen them. Not a single one of the lads and lasses have dark hair or look like me, now do they. None of the children are mine, I swear. But I don’t love them the less for all that.
"Yet I’m glad too in a way, because you're so important, so special in my life that I want you to have all of me, every single inch of my flesh. All I can offer you of myself. I only hope that for my first ever child I get a little girl who looks as lovely as her mother."
She smiled. "I hope not, for I would pity the poor child. After your career as a rake, I think you would lock her up in an ivory tower somewhere to keep her from marauding males just like you. No, I want a son, tall and dark-haired like his father, with a devastating smile. Just so long as he doesn’t try to roger all the women he comes across just like you’ve done."
"Far be it from me to deny you your heart’s desire. So we shall have to work on having both. And he won’t be anything like me." He shook his head. "He shall be happy, never know an ounce of pain or despair. He’ll always be loved and treasured, as I was before everything went so terribly wrong," he said in an agonized whisper.
She cradled his head softly against her shoulder. "No indeed, my love. He shall suffer none of those things. But I want him to be like you in all other respects, kind, generous, devoted, and above all, caring of others."
"Caring?" He grimaced. "So caring I killed my own brother."
"You were young. You made a mistake. You took one life, but gave the children a whole new one, each of the eight of them. And me, and now our child."
He shook his head sadly. "It doesn’t tip the scale."
"I know. But it has to count for something."
"I pray God it does, but I have the feeling I shall be going to Hell all the same."
She kissed him on the lips. "I’m sure not. You’ve already been there so long."
He hugged her hard. "Not since you came to me that first night."
"I’m glad."
He heaved a huge sigh and dragged himself out of bed. "Well, I got one of my wishes at least. A couple, actually," he said with a smile as she looked up at him lovingly. "You are looking up at me smiling and happy, and you’re pregnant. Thank you, my love."
A cold chill settled over her for a brief second. She had been so preoccupied with her pregnancy and her daily life with Randall, that she had let the rest of the world fall away and not pushed forward with her self-appointed task of discovering who had deliberately set out to destroy Randall’s father.
"What? What is it?" he asked, seeing her face fall.
"Nothing. I’m just glad some of your wishes did come true. I only wish they all could." She felt the icy trickle of fear run down her neck and spine again. He was right. Some of them had. Was it possible...
Isolde began to seek answers anew, asking to her brother Stephen once more to go home to Surrey and leave no stone unturned in finding the papers which her own father had been so certain would incriminate Randall’s.
And while Randall worked on his business papers or played with the children, she spoke with his mother gently, trying to get her to reminisce about her deceased husband in order to find any hints, names, dates places, anything she might recall.
At first the Dowager was rather vague and seemed confused. But when Randall and Isolde broke the news to the family about Isolde’s pregnancy, the whole atmosphere in the house changed, and his mother improved rapidly every day.
One bright morning, Isolde went in to see how her mother-in-law had fared during the night, and discovered she had actually put on a proper day gown and had had her hair dressed. A week later, she was sitting up in bed reading a book.
"Come in, dear," she said with a broad smile.
Isolde wondered at the marvelous progress she was making. Another wish come true....
Lady Hazelmere was in a talkative mood. As always, Isolde loved to hear any details she could about Randall and his boyish escapades. But today her discourse took an unexpected turn in more ways than one.
"I was always so proud of Randall. He was the best of my sons in so many respects. He was such an affectionate and loving boy, until he had the misfortune of meeting Clarissa Dawson. Damn near ruined him. He was so decent a lad. Outgoing but sensitive too, and fiercely intelligent. Adored his studies, was all set to take a First at Oxford even though he was not quite eighteen. Then his brother was killed, she eloped, and he changed completely."
"Killed. In the war you mean?" Isolde asked as she poured the tea.
She shook her head. "No, that was Robert and Michael who went into the Army. No, I'm talking about Francis and the riding accident. We all adored Michael, but he was so difficult. So uncompromising about everything he ever did. Francis was Randall’s last straw in some ways, just as Michael dying at Toulouse was my husband’s. Nothing was ever the same for them again. I think my husband began to lose his fight after that. He had been ill for quite some time, you know."
Isolde looked at her in surprise. "No, I didn’t know that. Randall never mentioned it."
Her mother-in-law nodded. "At first we though it was grief over Robert dying in 1812. He became very thin and pale, wouldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. Then he began to get more and more forgetful, and had to go around with all sorts of notes to remind himself of people, places and things."
"That's not uncommon with age."
"True, but it got to the point he did not dare be without me or his secretary to help him with all his work. Sometimes I couldn’t even be sure if he knew who we were. Toward the end he was certain that Randall was Michael. They were the most physically similar of the boys, apart from the eyes."
"I see," Isolde said tightly, the burden of the secret she was carrying weighing heavily on her conscience now.
"Before my husband began to get really badly off, he made me promise that I would never let him become some gibbering idiot who had to be locked away in an institution. I gave him my word, and he had a small vial of opiate prepared for the end," she confessed in a low tone. "But I couldn’t do it. I kept hoping against all hope that he would somehow come back to us.
"I suppose mercifully by the time my husband Michael died, he wasn’t even aware of most of what was going on around him. Having raised five sons to manhood, and then to lose four of them, was devastating. It's the hardest thing that any loving parent could ever have to bear.
"That’s why Randall was so happy to take on the children. To try to make a fresh start for our family. It’s been the making of him
, now that you’ve helped bond them into a real family, not the flotsam of the debaucheries of some of his friends, and the poor unwanted orphans of others."
"Tell me about his father’s death again. Randall told me he died of apoplexy."
His mother shot her a nervous look from under her lashes. At length she said, "That was what Blake told him. It was kinder than the truth, that he gave up, took the drug himself. My beloved Michael promised me he wouldn’t, that he would say goodbye, that we would decide when it was the right time. But when the scandal broke, well...."
"The scandal," Isolde said quickly. "If your husband was forgetful, then how would it have been possible to steal from the investment bank? He surely could not have been so organised. And if not him, then who? You said he had a secretary."
She shrugged one shoulder, as if the matter were of little importance. "I don’t know what ever happened to him. He vanished at about the same time."
"Vanished, you say?" she said with a start.
"Yes. Never even came to the funeral, after all those years they were together."
"And Clarissa vanished?" Isolde said, wondering why this struck her as odd.
Her mother-in-law looked confused for a moment at the seeming non sequitur. "Yes, I suppose so. I mean, she eloped, but she never came back to the district to show off her conquest, or contacted anyone that we know of. We never did learn who she ran off with.
"Her poor parents always prayed she would return with a little grandchild or two but she never did. Probably married a rum one, ended up in the Americas or some such thing." She shook her head, though her tone held little pity. "She was never one for education, so I suppose it’s not so strange that after all these years they've never had a letter from her."
"Still, she could afford a scribe for a few pennies," Isolde said quietly, her mind awhirr.
Lady Hazelmere shrugged. "She must be poorer than we think, then. Or is just indifferent to her parents. She was never a devoted child like Randall. Nor like you. You’ve been the making of him. She would have been the ruination. Of all my sons." Her lips thinned.
"Oh, I’m not so sure about that. I love him, but Randall is very unhappy deep down inside. I just wish there was more I could do to help. He still wants answers as to who gave my father those papers which seemed to confirm that he had peculated funds from the investment bank. The fact that your father’s secretary disappeared suggests something seriously amiss. Randall said he doesn’t even know who all the partners were in the scheme. If they are so determined to keep their identities secret, and haven’t come forward to get any return on their investment from this estate now that the Earl has passed away, it suggests to me that they have not done so because they already got what they wanted, and do not dare come out into the light of public scrutiny."
A new light sparked in the Dowager's eyes. "I know my husband was innocent, but I could never prove anything. And I was ill with grief. He was dead, so there seemed little point in investigating the matter further."
"Honour is important to Randall, though he feels he has little enough himself. But he adored his father, his family."
"Little enough family left now," the Dowager Lady Hazelmere sighed.
The worry which had been flickering on the edge of her consciousness now came forward, and Isolde gave voice to it almost without being aware of it. "If Randall dies, who would inherit the title?"
Lady Hazelmere shook her head. "If Randall died without issue? I’m not exactly sure. The eldest cousin named in my husband’s will. We have many cousins. I never worried my head over it because I had five sons."
"But you only have one now," Isolde said through stiff lips. "So who are these cousins?"
"The Howells, the Baggotts, and the Tavistocks, I think in that order.I'm not sure which of them is eldest now."
Isolde gripped the arms of her chair as the floor appeared to slide away from her. "The Howells are eldest?" she gasped.
She nodded. "Randall mentioned them, did he? They spent a great deal of time with us here until Francis died. Now they live in Surrey, I believe. Two brothers and sister. The eldest boy a real scholar, but I think I heard he had passed a year or two back. The sister a quiet little thing, very smart."
"What about the third one, a boy, I think you said," Isolde whispered.
The older woman waved her hand dismissively. "A most unsavoury rogue even as a lad."
Isolde could see it all now. She rose from her chair and began to pace up and down. "You are correct. He's always been most unsavory. For you see, he's a distant cousin of mine as well. It must have been his brother's death that set all of this in motion."
"All of what?" her mother in law asked in confusion.
"I never met his elder brother. He was at university, and was then a man of business. Once he was dead…"
The older woman was staring at her as though she had taken leave of her senses. "I'm sorry if I seem to be talking in riddles, Madame, but you see, after my own father died, seemingly of a stroke, our affairs were also in complete disarray, just as yours were when your husband's secretary disappeared. We were told my father's estate could be tied up for years.It was Chauncey Howell who tried to debauch me himself, thinking I would give in to him to help my family."
"Oh, my poor dear girl."
"When that failed, he tried to get me to compromise my reputation with Randall. He planned for he and Randall to fight a duel over me. He knew he would inherit. Knew Randall had bought his vowels to help out a friend."
"Are you sure of all this?" she gasped.
Isolde nodded. "When his first scheme, failed he tried to get my brother to duel and kill Randall. If Stephen had succeeded, Howell would have inherited. If my brother had failed, Howell would also have inherited."
"I don't follow—"
"At the very least, my sisters and I and my mother would have been left without a male protector. Since we too are related distantly to the Howells, I would not be at all surprised to discover he was the next in line for our estate as well. My God, the man is a fiend."
She had sensed Howell’s dark aura more and more. Randall’s own aura was red, with the black swirling and hovering like a malicious blight on his life. Was it possible...?
"Lady Hazelmere, Mother, I know this is hard for you, but please, can you tell me about Francis’s death?"
She sighed. "There isn’t much to tell. He fell from his horse, broke his neck."
"Randall told me that Francis and Chauncey were friends."
"That’s right, they were. In fact, it was Howell who was out riding with him the day he was killed."
An overwhelming sense of dread had Isolde sit down with a thud on the edge of the bed facing the older woman. "Tell me everything about Francis. I need to know," she said urgently.
Lady Hazelmere smiled. "My second son. Stunningly handsome in his own way, though still not as good-looking as Michael and Randall. Very religious, adored horses. Like them better than people, I think. He had a favourite chestnut stallion called Blarney, and had been training a remarkable jet-black Arabian called Blaze. It had only the tiniest white spot on its forehead, hence the name. Magnificent animal.
"He went out riding Blaze one day. It tried to jump a wall, broke its legs, threw him. He was killed. Blaze had to be put down. Poor Blarney was devastated, pined away I’m sure, for it died shortly afterwards. Such a shame. Such a waste.
"Blaze was a high-spirited horse, but not foolish or headstrong in my son’s hands. Can’t imagine what happened. Something must have startled him. An animal breaking cover, a blow?" She shrugged.
"And your son?"
"A broken neck and huge stripe across his chest. He might have hit a branch, I suppose. Been unhorsed, got back on but wasn’t quite steady. I don’t know."
"And where was Randall when all this happened?"
"At Oxford studying for his exams."
"And did he come home for the funeral?"
She shook her head. "No, his father insist
ed he remain where he was, try to finish his degree."
"And has he ever spoken of this to you, returned here?"
"No, never. Randall never came back to Somerset, not until you persuaded him to return."
Isolde had been trying to summon up her vision again, and recollect Randall’s version of events. "You said a black stallion? Blaze?" she asked quietly, her mind racing.
She nodded. "Yes, he was black. And he was called Blaze. What a bargain he was," she reminisced. "A local landowner was in Queer Street and had to sell. Splendid beast, though Blarney was still his first choice of mount unless he was racing."
"And he and Howell would race?"
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