Lady Beauchamp's Proposal

by Secret Cravings Publishing

  A door slammed. Hugh was coming. She tried key after key, her shaking fingers making the metal rattle in the lock. Someone would hear her. She brutally choked back a sob. Then mercifully, a key slid in and turned easily, tumbling the lock. She pushed open the door, offering a silent prayer of thanks to their butler that it did not squeak. Jenkins was worth his weight in gold.

  Shutting the door as silently as she could, she then locked it again from the inside. It was so dark, she could hardly see at all. But there seemed to be a closet on the opposite side of the small, barely furnished room. She swiftly skirted the narrow single bed and tried to open the door, her sweaty palms slipping on the handle. No, no, no. It was locked and there was no key.

  “Elizabeth!”

  Hugh sounded closer. Too close. She could hear his heavy footsteps on the stairs. How had he tracked her so easily? Swallowing down a wave of nausea, she glanced about the room; aside from the closet, the bed and a wooden chair, there was no other furniture. But there were floor length curtains partly drawn across a small window to the left of the bed. She slipped behind the dusty, moth-eaten fabric and waited, barely breathing. Trembling.

  And then she heard it. The door knob rattled slightly. She bit her lip to stop herself crying out.

  Please, for the love of God, go away, leave me be. Don’t come in, don’t come in…

  Chapter One

  Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Two weeks later…

  Please, for the love of God, go away, leave me be. Don’t come in, don’t come in ...

  “Wake ye up, madam. You are havin’ a bad dream.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes flew open and she swallowed the scream threatening to escape her throat. One of her fellow travellers, Mrs. McKenzie, was shaking her by the shoulder, but when the woman saw she had awakened, she quickly released her grip.

  “Hmph.” The older woman sat back down on the carriage seat opposite her, a deep frown of concern—or perhaps it was disapproval—creasing her brow. The rest of the carriage’s occupants—Mrs. McKenzie’s husband—who had introduced himself as the vicar of Kintore at the commencement of their journey, and their daughter—were obviously embarrassed by the situation. The vicar studied the toes of his muddy boots with great interest, and Miss McKenzie, who sat next to her, promptly looked out the window when Elizabeth glanced her way.

  Elizabeth cleared her throat and addressed the glowering Mrs. McKenzie. “I’m sorry to have…discommoded you all,” she said, aiming for grave sincerity but sadly missing the mark given that her voice was husky with sleep and barely contained emotion. The remnants of the nightmare still clouded her brain, making it difficult to focus. She felt as if she was still hidden behind dusty curtains, in fear for her life, in her former home in London, not being jostled about in a mail-coach in the wilds of Scotland.

  With a decided effort, she strove to calm her breathing and slow her racing pulse as she reassured herself that she was safe. She suddenly wondered if she had cried out. She had a strong suspicion that she must have, given the strained atmosphere in the carriage.

  Mrs. McKenzie nodded slightly in acknowledgement of her apology. “You say ye are a governess,” she said, her disbelief evident. It was more a query than a statement.

  “Yes, I am,” Elizabeth replied, steadily holding Mrs. McKenzie’s gaze. “But it is very much a new endeavor for me. You see, I lost my husband in the Battle of Waterloo and given my situation, I must now make my own way in the world.”

  She was surprised how easily the lie rolled off her tongue. She had never been one to lie, and truly hated being forced into carrying out such a grand deception. But sadly, her use of deceit was a necessary evil; she needed to accept that it was a vice she would have to employ for the rest of her life, in order to have any life at all. She had become Mrs. Beth Eliott, widow of a British infantry officer, forced to seek employment as a governess in the far reaches of Scotland.

  The Countess of Beauchamp, Elizabeth Harcourt, was no more.

  Hugh must never find me.

  Mrs. McKenzie had the good grace to look suitably mortified. “Och, I’m so verra sorry, my dear. No wonder ye have nightmares. I do hope you find yer new occupation a rewardin’ one. Why, there must be hundreds of poor creatures like you across the whole country with no real income to speak of. It is a verra sad time for so many, despite Wellington’s victory. My condolences to ye, madam.”

  Elizabeth inclined her head in acknowledgement. She knew only too well the desperate straits the many wives of fallen British soldiers found themselves in when their husbands had failed to return home. Indeed, up until a fortnight ago, she had been one of the patronesses of the London-based Widows of Waterloo Trust, a charity that she and several of her friends had established shortly after the campaign abroad had ended.

  It did not sit well with her that she had abused her privileged position in the Trust; she had effectively ‘stolen’ a governess’s post that could have been offered to another woman who had lost her husband and no longer had a source of income. But in a way, she too was desperate.

  Even though Hugh was as rich as Croesus, she had no personal fortune. And with no immediate family left on this earth to help—her parents, Lord and Lady Lydenhurst, had passed away shortly after she’d wed Hugh—Elizabeth needed to disappear, to become someone else. A woman of independent means. She just prayed that come judgment day, she would be forgiven for her duplicity.

  The travellers all lapsed into silence again. Elizabeth, or Beth as she now styled herself, looked out of the carriage window at the desolate scenery. They were travelling along a fairly decent road that ran parallel with the rocky coast-line. Under a lowering grey sky, sheer cliffs fell away to great piles of tumbled boulders and shingle-strewn coves. Like the mail-coach, the sea-grass, whin bushes and purple heather clinging to the cliff-tops were being buffeted by a strong gale blowing straight off the North Sea. The wind would be cold and astringent with brine, of that she had no doubt.

  She glanced at the small silver fob watch pinned to the bodice of her black widow’s weeds—it was mid-afternoon. The mail-coach had left the coastal town of Montrose at first light so she estimated it wouldn’t be long before they reached her destination—the village of Torhaven and God-willing, her new place of employment and residence, Eilean Tor Castle.

  Leaning forward a little, Elizabeth squinted at a narrow rocky promontory in the far distance. She could just discern the grey bulk of a medieval fortress and wondered if it was Eilean Tor. Its name fitted its appearance exactly if that was the case; the castle looked to be a great rocky pile on a headland that could almost be an island. Waves crashed against the cliffs upon which it sat, sending great plumes of spray into the air around it.

  It was isolated, inhospitable. It was perfect.

  Now she just had to convince its master, the Marquess of Rothsburgh, that he required her services.

  She sighed and rested her head back against the squabs, stretching her stiff back and limbs. She was so very tired. Her flight from London had begun almost two weeks ago and since then she had been travelling constantly on mail-coaches from dawn until dusk. She had already suffered the same nightmare about Hugh’s pursuit of her through their London home, several times during her journey, but until this afternoon, the dream had only come when she had been alone at the dead of night. The long days of travel and weeks of poor sleep were obviously taking their toll if she was falling asleep heavily enough to dream on public conveyances.

  If only the nightmare would dissipate when she awoke.

  It had started innocuously enough a month ago with the arrival of a letter. She had barely noticed the creased and travel-stained parchment envelope in amongst the pile of other pristine invitations and letters on the silver salver that Jenkins brought in to her when she was partaking in her first cup of tea at breakfast. Strange how something so inconspicuous could be so noxious.

  Now the words of the letter had taken root in her brain like a canker.

  Dear Lady Bea
uchamp,

  You won’t believe me, but I write this missive with the best of intentions. It is not out of a malicious wish to inflict pain, or out of spite that I share this certain knowledge with you, but out of a sense of moral decency; although I will freely admit, it is an attribute that I have never possessed, up until this point in my life.

  You see, I have been your husband’s mistress for quite some time now. But I beg you not to cast away this letter until I have stated what I need to say—your life may depend upon it.

  Your husband has the great pox, my lady. Or in some circles it is known as the grandgore. But the name of this disease does not really matter; the result will be the same in the end if one is so afflicted—death.

  You ask how do I know this to be true? It is because I now have the pox. After an encounter with your husband several months ago, I developed sores, ulcerous craters on my body. And now I have a rash and worse. But I will not describe the rest of the symptoms of this terrible malady to you as I am sure you do not care to know about the afflictions of your husband’s mistress.

  Suffice it to say, I am absolutely certain that it was your husband, Lord Beauchamp, who infected me. Indeed, there was evidence of the pox on his body at the time of our very last encounter—an ulcer on the ring finger of his left hand was the most prominent mark.

  However, I did not know of its import until it was too late. I pray that it is not too late for you.

  Of course, Elizabeth had not wanted to believe her husband’s mistress. Instead, she had wanted desperately to believe that the anonymous writer—although she claimed otherwise—had only written to her out of malice and spite. But then she had noticed that her husband did indeed sport the incriminating mark of the disease. She’d spotted the angry, red ulcerated patch on his finger when he had eventually joined her for breakfast later that very morning.

  Her eyes had fixed on his left hand as soon as he’d entered the room. She’d watched his ring finger with something akin to morbid fascination as he’d buttered his toast, picked up his teacup and turned the pages of his newspaper. He hadn’t even noticed her unusual fixation or her barely contained distress, which was not unsurprising—he hardly noticed anything about her at all on most days.

  She’d had no clear idea of what action she should take that morning. She realized now that she must have been in a degree of shock. It wasn’t until Jenkins had enquired as to her well-being as he’d replaced her cold pot of tea with a fresh one, that the idea of seeking a medical opinion had entered her dazed mind.

  Somehow she scraped together what could pass for a normal voice. “Hugh…I am going to ask Dr. Morton to call on me this morning…and I wondered…”

  Hugh continued to read, his article obviously more engaging than her.

  She started again. “I noticed…the mark on your finger…”

  He flicked her a glance over the pages. “It’s nothing.” He resumed reading.

  “Are you certain? It looks—”

  He lowered the paper. His eyes narrowed on her, his gaze cold. Hard. Like bright blue ice. “I told you. It’s nothing.”

  “But—”

  “For God’s sake, Elizabeth, I don’t need you to carp on at me like a fishwife.” He threw the newspaper down on the table, his mouth a hard line. And he walked out.

  That’s when she knew that she would have to leave. Even before Dr. Morton had confirmed her worst fears, and had warned her about the dangers of sharing any kind of intimacy ever again with her husband.

  Intimacy. That was something she had never shared with Hugh. Even though she no longer loved her husband—it was hard to love someone who proclaimed you to be as dull as yesterday’s broadsheets—it still hurt that the charming, golden-haired Adonis she’d married had turned out be such a false idol. He’d wooed her, wed her, bed her for a month or so, then promptly ignored her for the most part. And she’d never understood why.

  The solution to Elizabeth’s dilemma had come unexpectedly the very day that she’d received the incriminating letter. After Dr. Morton had departed Harcourt House, Jenkins had asked if she still required the carriage to attend the monthly Widows of Waterloo Trust meeting that afternoon at two o’clock. She had completely forgotten about the appointment and had seriously contemplated not going, given her ongoing distress. But in the end, she had decided that focusing her energies on alleviating the problems of other women in more desperate circumstances than herself would help to take her mind off her own situation.

  It had turned out to be a fortuitous decision. A chance remark made by a fellow committee member—the formidable bluestocking Lady Charlotte Airlie—about the perennially vacant governess’s position within the Marquess of Rothsburgh’s household in Scotland, had planted the seed of an idea to make good her own escape. Thank heavens the woman had a clarion-like voice because it was that alone that caught Elizabeth’s attention, and had drawn her out of her distracted state.

  “It’s such a shame that we cannot seem to help my dear friend, Helena, Lady Maxwell, find a governess for her niece,” Lady Airlie had said, to her neighbor Lady Talbot. “You might have heard that her brother, the Marquess of Rothsburgh, lost his wife recently under tragic circumstances. I don’t know the precise details, but I believe there was a terrible accident at their home in Scotland. Apparently Lady Rothsburgh had been trying for some time before her death to secure a reliable English governess for their five-year old daughter, but the applicants either turned out to be unsuitable or were unwilling to travel so far.”

  Lady Talbot had nodded sagely. “I understand the marquess’s seat of Eilean Tor Castle is terribly remote. It would be a lonely existence, I should imagine, to be so far removed from society. And from what I’ve heard, the marquess is quite the misanthrope.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Lady Airlie agreed. “Helena remarked that she thinks her brother scares the poor gels off. A pity—we could have recommended one of our widows if it wasn’t such an unappealing position.”

  Unappealing or not, it was a better prospect than contracting syphilis…

  As the carriage jolted over a rough patch on the coastal road, Elizabeth unconsciously tightened her hold on her reticule that contained her self-penned letter of reference. Trying to ignore the nervous churning of her stomach, she prayed that she could convince Lord Rothsburgh that she was the very woman he needed for the post. If the man did indeed turn out to be a misanthrope, it might actually work in her favor. A man who shunned the company of others would probably leave her alone to get on with the business of educating his daughter. Yes, the less attention she received, the better.

  Looking out the window again, she could see the carriage was slowly negotiating a steeply winding road down to the small seaside village of Torhaven. The village consisted of a meager cluster of squat stone buildings that clung like limpets to the shoreline below whin covered hills and towering cliffs of slate colored rock. She had lost sight of Eilean Tor. The headland upon which it sat was obscured by a gigantic, rocky outcrop that jutted into the roiling sea and over-shadowed the northern edge of the cove and the village. She could not see a single living creature.

  Even though the weather had deteriorated—it had started to rain lightly—she was relieved to have at last reached her destination. She was longing to quit the cramped, stuffy interior of the carriage so she could breathe the fresh sea air and stretch her aching muscles. Today in particular, she felt much older than her twenty-four years. Indeed, she felt weary beyond measure; she felt like an old woman.

  She hoped the village inn where she would shortly be deposited had a decent room for hire. She needed to change out of her travel-stained clothes and freshen up in general to ensure she made a good impression on Lord Rothsburgh when she presented herself for interview; an interview that was completely unsolicited.

  To quash her anxiety, she had already rehearsed in her mind everything she would say to persuade the marquess that she was up to the task of developing his daughter’s intellectual, arti
stic, and musical skills. Elizabeth couldn’t, no wouldn’t contemplate the idea that she would be turned away.

  * * * *

  “I’m verra sorry, ma’am but I canna hire oot a room to ye.”

  Elizabeth stood in the dimly lit taproom of The Black Barnacle Inn—the place where the mail-coach had deposited her and her trunk only minutes ago—and stared at the innkeeper, not wanting to believe what he had just told her. A tall, thin man with stooping shoulders, a craggy countenance and sandy-red hair, his pale blue eyes regarded her with something akin to suspicion, perhaps even dislike.

  Ignoring his less than welcoming manner, she summoned her most polite smile. “Are you certain, Mr.…”

  “Geddes,” he supplied. “I assure ye, it is the case.”

  Elizabeth fought a wave of frustration. This wouldn’t do at all. How could she approach Lord Rothsburgh looking as rumpled as a pile of dirty laundry? “But surely you can’t be full,” she ventured again, forcing herself to maintain her smile. “The village seems to be so quiet…”

  Mr. Geddes grunted. “No’ a question if there’s a room. It’s more the case we havna the staff to take care of ye—” He broke off and coughed, a great hacking sound that shook his whole body and left him breathless.

  When the fit was over, he fixed pale, watering eyes on her. “There has been a terrible ague…in the village this past fortnight, ma’am…an’ several older folk have even died, ye ken. There isna anybody, aside from myself an’ my son Seamus…to look after things here.”

  Elizabeth raised a gloved hand to her throat. “Oh heavens, I’m so sorry, Mr. Geddes,” she said with heart-felt sincerity. “And you are clearly not well either. But I’m afraid that I have not arranged anywhere else to stay. Would there be a private room I could hire for a few hours until I can make alternative arrangements?” If she was able to secure the governess’s position this afternoon, perhaps she could ask Lord Rothsburgh to accommodate her within the servants’ quarters at the castle.