“Beaton!” he yelled to his valet, who was doubtless still tutting over the wet clothes David had left in a heap on the carpet. “Do come here.”
The door to the adjoined bedroom opened, and the middle-aged man entered. George Beaton was heavyset, with grey hair at his temples and eyes perpetually ringed with weariness. Apart from the horses, George was the best listener David had ever known. He had been in David’s service ever since the young lord had required a valet as a youth.
“My lord?” George came to stand beside the tub, puzzled.
“I met a woman tonight, Beaton. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” David flicked a soap bubble off the surface of the water.
“I see,” said George stiffly. “Carrie did mention a guest this evening.” The valet moved to gather David fresh night clothes.
“Carrie? Oh, the blonde maid. Yes, I did assume word would get around, even without all the staff in attendance. I suppose the cat is out of the bag,” David said with a grimace.
“The cat, my lord?” George paused contemplating David’s meaning.
“Beaton, there is a far bigger problem than my having spent an evening unchaperoned with a single lady, I am afraid.”
“Is that so,” George replied, less a question, more of a judgement. George Beaton had been with the Firthley family for years and with David himself since his youth. He laid out David’s nightwear and hung the drying cloths by the fire to warm them.
“She is a Hawthorne. Lady Eleanor Hawthorne to be precise.” David let the name hang in the air.
George stood frozen at the very thought. “A Hawthorne,” George repeated slowly. The note of censure in his voice was unmistakable.
The valet, of course, knew as well as any family member, of the bad blood between the Hawthornes and the Firthleys. It suddenly occurred to David that perhaps George knew more than he was saying. David shifted to look at him, sending water spilling over the sides of the tub, where it spread across the dressing room floor and threatened the carpet.
George snatched up cottons to catch the spill and then turned to his charge. “You brought a Hawthorne here?” George said, sucking a bit of air between his teeth. “I thank the good Lord above that His Lord and Ladyship were not in residence. I say, are you trying to stir up trouble, my lord? Is this some late, youthful rebellion, perhaps? I thought you were quite finished with that nonsense.”
“No. Of course not. The lady was stranded. One of the runners on her sleigh had spilt. It would have been unconscionable to ignore a lady’s need for help, any lady,” he said giving George a stern eye. “And it was certainly not my intention to find her so...so…” David muttered, breaking off without finishing his sentence.
“So what, my lord?” George questioned.
“I gave her aid. There is no more to it than that.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Only, this should not have happened,” David said.
“What should not have happened?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
George raised an accusing eyebrow. “If I may say, my lord it seems you are very anxious to convince yourself that nothing happened.”
“Well, just what was I meant to do?” David queried.
“I am certain I do not know, my lord. I only know that the Hawthornes have not spoken to the Firthleys, nor have the Firthley’s spoken to the Hawthorne’s, for many years and for good reason. Yet now, you have done so and I am quite sure The Lord and Lady Perrilyn will be…”
“Will be what?”
“Livid, my lord.”
“Are you saying my parents would have left the lady stranded? That their loathing of the Hawthornes goes so deep as to endanger a young woman’s life, a woman of the Ton no less? Come now, Beaton.”
“No. I suppose not,” George said with a sigh.
“You suppose?”
“As you say, my lord.”
“Beaton?”
“In any case, it is water over the dam is it not? You have helped the lady and now we must deal with the consequences.”
“Consequences?”
“Yes, my lord.”
David sat pensively. He spent the next few minutes reflecting while he soaked in his bath and sipped his mulled wine. Finally he asked, “Beaton, do you happen to know exactly why my parents hate the Hawthornes so?”
George shifted from foot to foot as he tended to do when faced with a difficult subject.
“You do! Have you always known? All this time?” David pressed on. “You must tell me at once. How have you kept this secret?”
“Well you never asked me before, my lord. Not directly. I suppose there is no harm in telling you now, if it saves you from stirring up old troubles,” George said as he tidied his charge’s abandoned garments, and smoothed them. George lowered his voice, as if someone could overhear them from David’s bedchambers. “It was your twice great-uncle William, as you well know, who fell in love with one of the Hawthorne girls. A rare beauty, it was said. But bewitched, is more like.”
David scoffed.
“Do not laugh. She was an evil temptress. Wicked as she was beautiful.”
“Evil?” David had to laugh.
“What happened is no laughing matter, my lord. You may think, it does not seem so terrible to be in love. Ah, yes, that was the thinking of the day as well. Two young people of marriageable age, from two respectable families of the Ton, only the Hawthorne woman was not respectable. She was despicable, a mahogany-haired witch who brought destruction upon the Firthley house.”
“Indeed,” said David skeptically. He wondered if this Hawthorne relative was the same sort of rare beauty as Lady Eleanor. If so, David could not blame this great-uncle for proposing marriage, probably the first moment he saw the lady.
“Indeed,” George said. “The Hawthorne woman was already carrying another man’s child. Willfully and spitefully using her feminine wiles, she persuaded your great-uncle to marry her in spite of her condition.”
Oh, David thought. Well there was quite a thing. He paused considering. Trying to pass off another man’s bastard was no small sin. He could understand some of his family’s outrage. Such a deed did mark the woman as false, and the family degenerate.
“So, she deceived him,” David said.
“Oh, much worse than that, my lord,” George continued his tale. “To the horror of his family, your great-uncle ran off with the woman to Gretna Green.” George seemed to be getting into the storytelling now, gesturing about with his hands as he described the scandal, eyes alight. “After the wedding, when the ruse came to light, the couple was turned away by the family. Your twice great grandfather insisted that they have the marriage annulled, but instead, your great-uncle moved them well away to avoid the scandal.” George’s rough voice ground to a halt and he cleared his throat.
“And?” David prompted.
“Well, in time, the child was born, and your great-uncle said that he would raise the lad as his own, for the pair never had any other children together. They say this was because the wicked woman tried to end the bastard child’s life to hide her shame.”
“Surely not. How do you know this?”
“Tis only rumor, my lord,” George continued. “Rumor which was only made worse when your great uncle turned up dead. He was far too young for death to take him naturally, and your family believed the death was no accident. The Hawthorne woman wanted her young son to hold the title, you see, not the father.”
“Truly?” David said unconvinced.
“With your great-uncle’s death, she had become a wealthy widow. As was her aim all along.”
“The Firthley’s did not relieve her of that wealth?”
“Well as much as they could, of course, but she was married in the eyes of the law. Still she had sullied the Firthley family name, taken the man’s wealth, and now, his very life.”
“Is that not a bit excessive, Beaton,” said David. “Young men die of accidents or illness all the time. If t
he family had favored her prior to the death of my great-uncle, they would never have accused her of his murder.”
“I am sure I do not know, my lord,” George said with a sniff. “In any case, the fact of the bastard child was a matter of record.”
Murder and a bastard child. Yes, he could see now the deep roots of the feud. It bothered him that the violet eyed beauty he had met this evening was from such a tainted line, but surely this was all merely history. Was it not a foolish thing to hold on to such animosity after all this time, when the people who it had touched personally were all gone themselves?
“Tis only a passed on resentment has kept the disdain alive,” he ventured.
“Perhaps,” George said. “But the Hawthorne woman did nothing to dissuade the rumors. She was never seen by the Firthley family again. Instead, she found herself a new husband.”
“You cannot blame a woman for that.”
“A Mister McKinnon. He, too, died young.”
“Two deaths does not a legacy make.” David said lamely, attempting to defend the woman in favor of Lady Eleanor.
“Three.” George retorted. “The woman moved to France and found herself yet another new husband. Of course he only lasted until the French rabble found him.”
“The French rabble?”
“Yes, so you see, the Frenchman found the same fate as the other poor fellows who previously married the Hawthorne witch, all dead at a young age.”
David snorted. “There was a war, man. People die. I had no idea our family was fueled by such nonsensical superstitions as witchcraft.”
“Do not be letting your Lord and Ladyship hear that,” said George. “They believe it to the depths of their souls. The Hawthornes are a family of witches.”
“What happened to her, your supposed witch? She is dead now I presume?”
“Oh yes, she is quite dead. ‘Twas near a century ago.”
“And her child? You said he would have been made the Firthley heir? Surely he could not have been an ancestor of mine?”
“Oh Lud, no!” George exclaimed. “Zounds. A bastard as The Earl of Perrilyn? Never. The title passed to your great grandfather.”
“So all of the woman’s planning came to naught. If her son never inherited, what happened to him?”
“When the child grew to adulthood, he was killed.”
“By witchcraft?” David raised an elbow at George, and his valet had the good sense to look abashed.
“Well, no my lord. A duel.”
“But still presumably due to this trouble,” David surmised.
“Presumably, my lord.”
David tapped his fingers along the edge of the tub. “So my twice great-uncle married someone the family did not approve of, and I will admit her bearing another’s child is a terrible scandal, but surely it does not explain the longevity of this feud. These sorts of tales are probably present in every family as old as ours. They do not generally end in claims of witchcraft.”
George held up a finger. “Ah, but I am not yet come to the worst of it.”
“Truly?” David said as he held out his hand for one of the thick clothes with which to dry himself as George continued.
“The Hawthorne Harlot as she is called, never bore another child but eventually, she moved back home to be with her family after the untimely death of her third husband. There she lived to a ripe age as I recall, for the Devil takes care of his own,” He intoned ominously. “She left her mark upon the family, leaving a legacy of black widows,” George finished, wiggling his fingers in imitation of spider legs.
“I cannot imagine such folly,” David retorted. “As far as I am aware, the current Hawthorne patriarch, The Earl of Thornwood is alive and well as is his son, Lord Hanway. Surely Lord Thornwood refutes these claims against, what would that be now, his own aunt?” David stepped out of the wash tub, and accepted a cloth from George. He wrapped it around himself and shook out his hair.
“Ah yes, of course my lord. But his Lady wife was not born a Hawthorne, now was she?” said George, with the exaggerated tones of a mystic, voice warbling up and down.
David cast a sardonic glance his way, then went through the door into his bedroom. George had laid out his bedclothes, and brought the fire roaring to life before he had begun telling his fanciful version of the family history. David grabbed up the carafe of wine and poured himself the last cup. The spices were heavier now, having sat in the wine too long, but he relished the taste none the less.
“It is all nonsense, Beaton, and you know it, but it does not help my situation if my parents believe it. I cannot think they do. Besides which, how do you know all of this when I have been kept in the dark about the whole of it?” David asked, slipping into his nightshirt.
George began to close the draperies. “Servants talk, that is all, my lord”
“Indeed, and all rumor, no doubt. It is so far in the past,” David continued, sprawling across his bed, “that I doubt there is one bit of truth to the entire tale.”
“Nonetheless, His Lord and Ladyship would never approve of a Hawthorne.”
“I doubt they truly care. I do believe they just keep up the feud for appearances. It makes a colorful anecdote, at parties and functions. They cannot be seen softening on the Hawthornes now, not when the whole of the Ton knows of the age-old battle. Though of course, that sentiment does me no good. Leave that one open, please.” David finished indicating the draperies on the window across from the bed, and George left them drawn back.
David wanted to watch the snowstorm. No doubt Lady Eleanor was at home by this hour, safe in her own bed. Was she watching the tempest, too? Was she thinking of him as he was of her? Probably not, he thought, remembering her last words. He had offended her sensibilities. He had not meant to do so.
He could not get the thought of her violet eyes from his mind. He could never cause her harm. Perhaps he was bewitched, but he did not wish for the spell to break. Though, according to George, she would cause harm to come to him. Nonsense. She was but a tiny slip of a girl; a beautiful girl, intelligent and caring. He thought of how she treated her servant Mister Junnip and even her horse in the snow. Instead of ordering her driver to go on, she had walked alone. She was brave and strong. And yet she was so small. David wanted to take care of her. He wanted to sweep her off her feet and hold her in his arms…
“I know that look, sir,” said George. He set the empty carafe down on the nightstand beside David with a sigh. “You are devising a scheme.”
“A scheme?” David asked, with a laugh. “Am I the scheming sort, really?”
“I would not have said so until this very evening, but the Lady Eleanor Hawthorne has put a look in your eye such that I have not seen before. My lord, must you court this woman, when no other has caught your attention? There are so many ladies in the Ton from which you might choose your wife, and you have chosen the one, the only one, you absolutely cannot have,” said George. “You would do best to put her from your mind. She is evil. She cannot be a dalliance, and she can never be your wife.”
David sat up. “I have not stated any intention of making her my wife.”
“Of course not, my lord,” George replied. “That would be lunacy. Is there anything else you desire this evening?”
Lady Eleanor’s lips came unbidden to David’s mind, so soft and luscious he could die upon them, and he did not think lunacy was so long a leap. How much would he risk for a chance to court Lady Eleanor Hawthorne, and would she even wish him to try?
“Where is my book?”
Here, my lord.” David took the book of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a thought began to form in his mind. He looked at the half used candle. It would soon gutter out.
“Bring me paper and ink.” David said. “And a fresh wax candle. I wish to write a letter.”
“Tonight, my lord?”
“Yes, tonight. Now.”
“Very good, my lord.”
David felt a sudden kinship with his twice great-uncle. He had never
met the man, and yet, he felt they shared a common bond. Sometimes family tradition and what was thought to be the proper course of action must to be set aside, and passion pursued. David felt certain his great-uncle would agree.
~.~
Chapter Four
As the sleigh drew closer to Sweetbriar Residence, Eleanor ventured an observation. “Arthur, I do not believe we should inform Mother and Father of our time with Lord Firthley.”
Arthur was silent for a moment, guiding the sleigh. “You do not presume that I should attempt to lie to Lord and Lady Hanway?” he said.
“No. Of course not.” Eleanor knew could not ask that of Arthur, and truly she was terrible at lying herself. She would not last a moment if Mother or Father asked her a direct question. “I was only thinking we need not volunteer any information about the Firthleys,” she said.
“His Lordship knows that I am acquainted with most of the gentleman in the county,” Arthur said. “He will expect me to inform him of who aided us upon our way, presumably to thank the man.”
“Oh dear. Could we not say, we suspected the crack and went slowly?” Eleanor asked.
“There is a brace holding the stanchion, Milady.” Arthur reminded her.
“Of course,” she replied. “But it is not likely Father would check himself, is it?”
Arthur said nothing. He only continued driving.
“He did look like a stable hand, did he not?” she said. “I mean at least until he took off that old coat.”
“Lady Eleanor,” Arthur said with such sadness and disappointment that she knew she could not expect him to prevaricate.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “We shall tell them that a Firthley helped me. I expect a row, and I do not intend to weather it alone.” She gave the man a hard stare.
“Very well, Milady.”
~.~
They had barely time to disembark from the sleigh before Eleanor’s mother was at the door alongside the butler. “I have been distraught,” she said. “Imagining everything from highwaymen to crashes in the snow! Do you not see it is clear dark? The moon is up.”
The Forbidden Valentine Page 4