Chasing the Heiress

by Rachael Miles

  He knelt on one knee and placed the ring on her finger as she searched his face. She saw nothing but resolve and kindness.

  “Say yes, Em.” He squeezed her hand.

  “Are you sure?” she whispered, aware of their gazes.

  He nodded seriously, his hands tight on hers. He rose and held her to her chest, as always a safe refuge. “Say yes,” he whispered.

  She pulled away, pitching her voice so everyone could hear.

  “Then yes, Colin Somerville, yes.”

  He picked her up and swung her in his arms, as the room cheered. As he put her down, he whispered in her ear, “It was always supposed to be me and you, Em. I know that now.”

  His smile was wide and sincere. No one, not even Stella, questioned his sincerity.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Sally, please leave your station and go to the matron’s drawing room.”

  Lucy felt the now familiar panic. She couldn’t think of anything she had done to call herself to the matron’s attention. She couldn’t bear another week confined in the straitjacket and chained to the floor in her room or locked in the darkness of the basement.

  But now at least she knew the rules.

  “I should wash my face and hands.”

  “No, miss, she’s said to come straightaway. I’m to escort you there and back.”

  A new torment. Require submission to the rules, then deny her the opportunity to obey them. But the promise of a “back” meant that she might be allowed to return to the kitchen and to her dishes.

  Sometimes, when she was washing, she could almost imagine she was still free, washing dishes in Nell’s inn. That she had her own room with a real bed and a fire when she wanted one. And friends. She’d been grateful at the time for Nell’s kindnesses, but she hadn’t realized how much she’d grown to rely on the innkeeper’s wife as a friend. She’d wished now she’d told Nell her story, told Colin. She’d thought at the time she was protecting them and herself, but now she realized that she should have told everyone she met. Then, her disappearance would have made at least one person, any one person, wonder where she had gone and whether her cousin had had anything to do with it. She’d been too reliant on her own resourcefulness, and now she was trapped in a place where her only resource was submission.

  * * *

  She stood in the doorway of the matron’s drawing room, curtsying and waiting for the matron to give her permission to enter.

  “There you are, Sally. You’ve received a letter from your family. A messenger waits for your reply. I’ve laid out your letter, paper, and pen at the desk in the corner.”

  Lucy moved to the table deliberately, not wishing to indicate how much she had healed, how much stronger she’d grown.

  She sat at the desk slowly, then picked up the envelope addressed with her cousin’s hand. “Matron?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you be so kind as to read the letter to me?” At least she could have a witness to this transaction.

  “No. Your cousin’s instructions were quite explicit. No one is to read the letter but you.”

  Another trap. “Thank you, mistress.” Meek fear was the pose the matron liked best. She held her body to mimic the taut tension that she’d seen in women who expected a blow.

  She broke the seal. The matron was watching her, so she paced her reading to suggest a weak or immature mind.

  My dearest cousin,

  I write today hoping to find you improved and your mind returned to a healthier state. We have so feared that your lapse into madness would not abate. But the matron tells us that with clear discipline and a regulated routine, you are greatly improved and increasingly lucid. Believing her assessment of the state of your mind, I write with a proposal that I am sure you will greet with the same enthusiasm as when you heard it before.

  Despite the infirmity of your condition, Mr. Barnes still remains your committed suitor, willing to make you his wife and spend the rest of his life aiding your recovery. As your nearest and only male relative, I have accepted his suit on your behalf. Your recent infirmity gives me this authority, as it has become clear in recent months that you are unable to regulate yourself or your affairs.

  If you believe that you have recovered sufficiently to return to your loving family and the arms of your beloved suitor, then we can come to retrieve you at the end of this week. But you know the state of your mind. If you fear that you are not yet sufficiently recovered to accept this kind and generous offer, then you must tell us that, and we will—by your estimation—leave you to the kind offices of the matron who has done so much to aid your recovery. Mr. Barnes is willing to wait until you believe yourself ready to leave the security of Matron’s house and become his bride. We eagerly await your answer.

  Your loving cousin,

  Archibald, Lord Marner

  P.S. I have left ample room at the bottom of my page for your reply.

  It was masterfully done. To say she was well enough to leave was to agree to the marriage her cousin had arranged. To say she did not wish to marry was to indicate she was not yet ready to leave the madhouse. But if she agreed to leave and later tried to avoid the marriage, then this agreement would be used as an example of her fragile and wayward mind. She would be deemed a lunatic, unable to manage her own funds.

  She was trapped.

  But she was also surprised. She knew her cousin to be cruel and vindictive and even intelligent, but intelligent in the way of the bully. He had repeatedly underestimated her resolve and her intelligence. But this letter . . . it was clear that he had received advice. And that person, whoever it was, was clever enough to give her pause. The game had shifted, and not in her favor.

  She could not even keep the original letter, for he had explicitly indicated the letter was to be returned with his.

  “Sally, you’ve been reading the letter for almost a quarter of an hour. Surely you have had time to write a response. I will give you five more minutes. But after that you will need to increase your time in the kitchen to make up for your dilatory behavior.”

  “Yes, Matron.”

  The best way would be to refuse. She sat thinking of the ways she could reply, but each time came to a crux she couldn’t see around.

  Finally, she determined to write briefly.

  Dear cousin,

  I am aware of the great condescension Mr. Barnes makes to my health, but I cannot ask him to take on such a burden as I may be without seeing me more recently than our last conversation. I welcome a visit from you and him, so that we can determine the path most conducive to a general happiness for all.

  Your cousin

  Lady Fairbourne

  She sanded the letter to absorb the remaining ink. She unfolded the sheet used as an envelope, then refolded it, making use of the blank back to form the envelope to her message.

  “Would you like to read my reply and advise me, Matron?”

  “No, no. That’s between family. But if you are done, your cousin’s man can take your letter.” She reached out and rang a bell, and Ox entered the room. He leered at her from his corner by the door.

  “Sally has completed her response. You may take it from her.”

  Ox came nearer and nearer. She remembered the grope of his hands against her body, and she felt the bile rise in her throat.

  He snatched the letter from her hand, then leaned down to whisper so only she could hear. “Now we’ve got you. There’s no one able to come between you and his lordship now.”

  The beer-soaked smell of his clothes, the smell of a man who hadn’t bathed in days, the putrid breath, all combined to make her wish to recoil. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t respond. Any response would attract the ministrations of the matron, so she sat unresponsive, her fingers gripped white in her lap. She felt like a fox cornered by a growling, drooling hound, with his master only yards behind ready to shoot her for her pelt and the glory of killing.

  “Do you want me to escort Sally back to the kitchen, Matron?” Ox of
fered sweetly.

  “No, sir, we have wasted enough of your time waiting on Sally to write her response. But I will see that she is well cared for until the next time we meet.”

  Matron rang a bell. The housekeeper arrived to show Ox out, then returned to escort Lucy back to the kitchen and her dishes.

  “Oh, and Sally, you’ve been away from the kitchen for close to an hour. By now, one of the other girls will have completed your chores. We’ll have you scrub the floors in the halls until nine tonight for good measure. Next time, perhaps you’ll think to mind your time when you have a letter to write. That poor man had to wait on your inability, and that’s not the way that a polite lady responds.”

  She curtsied. “Yes, Matron. As you wish, Matron.” And she waited at the door until the housekeeper led her from the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Arabella.”

  The voice called her by her given name. The name that no one who loved her used.

  “Arabella. I know you are awake. Your breathing shifted. The others might not notice, but I’m not a man to trifle with. That cold you feel at your neck is a blade. Open your eyes.”

  She believed him and opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred. She blinked and tried again. But all she saw were vague shapes.

  “You are having trouble focusing your eyes. That’s understandable. I arranged last night for you to have a little something to help you sleep very soundly. That way, when we took you from the asylum, you made no objections. Your cousin has hired me to assess whether you should be allowed to return home.”

  It was a trick.

  She remembered Em’s words about Bess: “She’s alive. That’s enough hope for me.”

  She moved her fingers. She was alive. That would have to be enough hope . . . for now.

  “Who are you?” The words came out slow and garbled.

  “Who I am is quite irrelevant. But I would recommend doing exactly as I say. I’m not averse to killing, and your cousin has little concern for keeping you alive.”

  “The inheritance. He isn’t my heir.”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore. All we needed was a sample of your handwriting. Here’s the way it will be. You will agree to marry Mr. Barnes. You will have a short season in London, during which you will never reveal that you are being married against your will. If you tell, I will kill whoever you confide in.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because it suits me. Of course, you may also choose to return to the asylum. But if you do, you will never leave. We will publish your obituary. Hold a lovely funeral, private of course. Your cousin will offer some touching words on your unexpected demise. And then we will abandon you—as an unpaid lodger—to the matron’s care. The choice is yours.”

  “That is no choice.”

  “But, my dear, it is the only one you have.”

  * * *

  The next few weeks were confused and confusing. She attended a great many dinners and teas and other events, but before each one, she was forced to eat a portion of a green concoction made with sweet spices, honey, nuts, and candied fruit. Dawamesk, the man who wore lace called it. She had once known what that was, but she couldn’t remember.

  Every time she ate it, the room filled with color, swirling color, expanding and receding around the objects in her view. If someone were speaking with her, she would grow distracted by the color surrounding their heads like the nimbuses of the saints, but alive and moving. Sometimes the colors sounded like a symphony, and she would have trouble hearing the conversation around her. Sometimes the words that the people spoke to her turned into color, not words at all. Other times, the faces and bodies of the men and women in the room grew distorted: elongated, twisted, or collapsed.

  That, coupled with the lace man’s threats, made her fearful of talking to anyone for too long or of seeming to engage with any conversation. She believed him when he said he would kill anyone who tried to help her.

  The only time that she was allowed not to eat the foul mixture was when visitors came to her cousin’s London house. And even then, she had to promise to remain quiet, and she agreed, every time. Her cousin rejoiced in her new demeanor. She’d learned submission as a tactic at the asylum, and she used it again. Her only hope of escape was to appear incapable of it.

  But the pose—the longer she practiced it—threatened to become real. She had to create tiny rebellions to keep a sense of self. Asking for books to read, then scratching a line under one word on every a page to tell her story. Moving objects from their expected places.

  Luckily, the man with the lace trusted her cousin no more than did she, and he appointed his own men to guard her. Though she knew he was a criminal and a murderer, she felt safer with his cold calculations than with her cousin’s unpredictable rages. Her favorite of her jailers was a big silent man who carved her a series of circus animals.

  That was how she ended up in a room in the nursery, with bars on the windows and the door firmly locked. But she didn’t mind: as long as the door was locked, she was safe.

  * * *

  She was at a ball, dressed in red silk, her cousin watching her carefully from his group of friends. Each dance, her companion was chosen for her, men who trampled her feet, or breathed sour breath into her face, or tried to draw her too close into their arms. Reprobates, drunks, lechers—her cousin’s boon companions. And she struggled to keep her face placid and calm. She’d learned at the asylum that the punishment for not being agreeable was a beating.

  At each turn around the drawing room, she watched for Colin. And with each turn around the dance floor, she felt her heart sink. He was not there. He had not come for her.

  But then suddenly she was in his arms, dancing. When she looked past Colin’s shoulder, she saw that he had enchanted them. All the guests at the ball had fallen asleep, slumped over their chairs, leaning against the walls, while she and Colin were twirling in a breathless waltz, through the ballroom, onto the porch, and into his waiting carriage.

  Once more, she felt his arms around her, felt the warmth of his caresses, and she fell asleep finally safe, finally home.

  The dream always made waking more painful. And each day, if she were allowed, she slept a little longer, wanting to lose herself in that dream.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Why are we here, Clive?” Colin asked his youngest brother when he saw that the ballroom was already a rout.

  “Because Sophia told us to accept, and we do what Sophie says?” Clive posited. “Besides, you should enjoy balls now. As an engaged man, you are happily off every matchmaking mama’s list of eligible bachelors, so you can skulk around the margins of the ballroom with impunity. You are happily off their lists, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. What foolishness makes you ask that?”

  “The way you have been searching the dance floor, even though we both know that Lady Hartley did not accompany you to London,” Clive said soberly, looking around the dance floor as well. “What does she look like?”

  “Go away, Clive,” Colin growled.

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “Help somewhere else.” Colin started his retreat toward the front door, but took only two steps before he was pushed back to his brother’s side by another wave of arriving guests. “Too many people.”

  “Take the stairs there; they lead to the balcony.” Clive pushed ahead of him, taking the stairs three at a time. Colin followed, hoping to find an alternative way out. He passed three footmen on his way to the center of the balcony, where Clive already had stationed himself for the best view.

  “Clive, have you noticed? Footmen at every door and corner. Is Prinny to be in attendance?” Colin nodded at the two footmen at either end of the balcony.

  “That is strange. Perhaps it’s to make sure the fiancée doesn’t wander off. She isn’t well known, and there is some talk of incapacity. But Barnes is apparently smitten.” Clive leaned over to wave at a classmate from Cambridge. “Lo
ok, it’s Seymour, back from the colonies.”

  “I find it hard to believe Barnes could be smitten with anything save a hefty wallet full of cash. Is she wealthy?” he said as he followed the line of Clive’s wave, and suddenly he felt as if his lungs couldn’t open, as if there was no air to breathe.

  She was there, standing below him. He recognized the shape of her face, the line of her body. She was dressed in a dark blue satin, embroidered with tiny rhinestones that glittered in the ballroom lights. The embroidery gave the illusion of stars on a night sky. He felt the nearness of her as a sharp knife in his gut.

  “Do you know the woman there in blue?”

  “Her? That’s the fiancée, Lady something or other. I met her last week.”

  “Lady?” Colin wondered which detail was more noteworthy: the fact that she was here, that Clive had met her a week ago, or that she was of his class.

  “Fairbourne, I think. Yes, that’s it. Lady Arabella Fairbourne. Stunning, isn’t she?” Clive shook his head. “Shame that she’s dim.”

  Colin felt as if he’d been given the gift of the gods: her name. “She isn’t dim. Something is going on. Watch her.”

  They observed together, shoulder to shoulder. Lucy offered a sweet but vague smile for everyone. She listened far more than she talked. She moved deliberately, with little grace, as if she was thinking about every step.

  “You know, you may be right.” Clive pushed back from the balcony after several moments of observation. “It’s the movement that clinches it, as if she isn’t certain where her own feet are.”

  “Introduce me.”

  It took almost half an hour to reach her side, and when he did, it was no surprise that her dance card was almost empty. He took the next dance, grateful it was a waltz.

  In the middle of the floor, protected by the crush of dancers, he squeezed her hand. “Come into the garden with me.”

  “The footmen,” she whispered low.

  “Ah. So it’s you they are keeping in, rather than someone else they are keeping out.”