Seacliff

by Andrews, Felicia

  Like him, she reminded herself, when he was younger and in good health.

  She sighed, and gnawed absently at her lower lip. It had been several weeks since his last letter, and she was beginning to worry. When they’d left in early April he was still abed, coughing and aching, and insisting at the top of his baritone voice that he was perfectly all right, thank you very much, and would she please stop fussing over him as if he were a child? But he was a child now, or almost so. The coughing produced blood, though he hadn’t wanted her to know that; and his sleeplessness was extending further and further into the night. She made no attempt to deceive herself; she knew he was dying—by slow stages that sapped his strength and taxed his will. He was slipping away from her, and only his temper and Oliver’s importuning had persuaded her to leave Wales for another stay at Eton.

  The lack of word from him bothered her.

  Flint had left Eton before she’d arisen the day after their assignation—a messageless departure that was only now beginning to rankle. On top of that, she was concerned about her father, and slowly she grew determined to ask Oliver for permission to return to Seacliff soon, just to see for herself how her Welsh father was doing.

  She closed the parasol and turned abruptly into the grove. As long as she was thinking about it, she might as well do it. Oliver had stayed close to home these past seven days, pacing through the house like a caged lion. It was possible he, too, was growing restless, and she might not have a better opportunity to talk him into leaving Eton, if only for a month. His activities seemed to have ground to a temporary halt, and better they—or she—be on the road before he started to wreak his ill humor on her.

  She walked slowly, reluctant to leave the shadows, and so was able to see the rider before she stepped out into the open.

  He was astride a large black horse whose sides she could tell even at this distance were lathered. Its head drooped, and its mouth kept opening as if gulping for air. An old mount, she thought, not used to hard traveling.

  The horseman himself was of great height, she could tell, and even in the midday warmth was wearing a long brown cloak that nearly covered the black’s haunches. The rider’s hat was plain and wide-brimmed, and as he scanned the house with an air of clear disdain she squinted and caught a glimpse of his face—ruddy, scarred, with a ragged white patch set over his left eye. She shivered, instinctively moving farther back into the shadows behind a thick maple. She didn’t feel at all ashamed.

  He waited in the sun for several moments, the horse pawing at the drive, its tail slapping lazily at flies. The man’s lips moved, and he cocked his head. His right hand slapped hard against his chest as he spoke with someone Caitlin couldn’t see. Before he had finished talking, Oliver stepped into view. His hands were firm on his hips, and he was scowling. He listened, interrupted the man two or three times, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a leather pouch. The horseman stared at it. Oliver jerked a thumb over his shoulder, but the man shook his head, clearly adamant about remaining where he was.

  Oliver brandished the pouch; the rider spat on the ground.

  Caitlin felt herself leaning forward, as if the extra few inches would help her hear their voices. Though she suspected strongly that this was another one of those transactions Oliver had labeled none of her wifely business, she was fascinated. The rider’s hard demeanor and almost ragged appearance contrasted starkly with her husband’s scarlet jacket and military posture.

  That two such dissimilar men should have dealings with each other intrigued her, so much so that she almost broke her cover to rush over and join their tete-a-tete. She did not, however. Caution, and an eerie feeling she couldn’t put her finger on, stayed her.

  Suddenly, the rider reached into a dusty saddlebag and withdrew a packet of papers bound together with ribbons. He leaned over and handed them to Oliver, who held them close to his eyes and leafed through them. When he was apparently satisfied, he tossed the pouch negligently toward the rider who teetered dangerously in his saddle as he tried to snatch it. A second, briefer exchange followed, and Oliver stepped hastily back as the rider wheeled the black around and thundered down the drive toward the Windsor road. It did not take him long to vanish into the lane, and when Caitlin looked back, Oliver was gone.

  She had an abrupt sinking sensation. Her husband’s mood had rather rudely darkened in front of her. If he was going to permit her to return to Wales now, she would have to be more than politic in her asking. And certainly she would have to wait until he’d taken some of his favorite port. In the meantime, she would talk to Gwen and the other servants, to see if they had overheard any of the conversation. Though she knew Bradford and the others would say nothing to her, it was entirely possible they might let something slip in front of Davy or Gwen. Gwen should know enough to at least keep her ears open.

  As she stepped swiftly across the lawn toward the mansion’s entrance, Caitlin thought again of how different her life would have been had Oliver been willing to take her into his confidence. It would not only have alleviated much of the uncertainty with which she lived, but it also would have eliminated the need to find things out by going through the staff.

  Of course, she told herself, if she weren’t so nosy, if she comported herself as a good English wife should and tended only to the affairs of the house, she wouldn’t feel this way. On the other hand, she was neither English nor a proper wife, when she thought about it. Oliver’s view of marriage had taken care of that quite readily. For another she wasn’t content to sit prettily by the hearth and light up the room with charm and beauty. More and more during the past three years she had come to learn that she was just as good, if not better, than most of the stuffy men she’d encountered; and she would be damned if she was going to spend the rest of her days pretending her mind was filled with thoughts of flowers and little else, her hands working automatically on whatever projects women were supposed to engage in. That, she thought as she stepped into the cool kitchen, was about as insulting to her as anything she could think of.

  And the more the notion took hold of her mind, the greater grew her agitation and sense of injustice. By the time she’d tracked Gwen down, curiosity had transformed itself into an obsession, and even Gwen was taken aback by the sudden determination in her voice, the falsely bright smile that replaced her grim expression.

  Davy Daniels was more bone than meat, more height than solid weight. His slick black hair was curly, and one lock was forever slipping down over his right eye. His clothes, even when he was seated, seemed rumpled and ill-fitting. Aside from acting as coachman to the Morgans, his duties included seeing that the horses were properly shod, expertly curried, and exercised. And he coddled them when they felt poorly. He had very little schooling, other than what Gwen and Caitlin had given him, but his quick wit had stood him in good enough stead over the years to keep him in high favor in the Evans household.

  But that, he thought sourly as he walked through the stables, was before Sir Oliver-damned-Morgan had come into his life. The old man disliked him. Davy knew that, and he knew why. Alone among those who worked for the major, he had seen instantly through the man’s facade, knew him exactly for what he was.

  And Davy hated him.

  He hated the evening trips to the taverns in Windsor, the waiting outside no matter the weather while the major cavorted within with old cronies and prostitutes. More than once he’d had to drag the fool away from a fight with men twenty years younger than he, or away from a heavily painted woman who demanded payment for her services. And more than once he’d been forced to leave gold sovereigns behind to silence those who might make life in higher circles difficult, if not impossible, for the major.

  Yet he did not do it for the man; Davy did it for his mistress. If she should ever discover what her husband actually did during those evenings when he was supposed to be out dining with gentlemen, her heart would break. He was sure of it. Gwen had told him dozens of times how miserable Lady Morgan really was, in spite o
f the happy face she put on in public. Miserable. And justifiably so, he thought, moving into a stall and picking up a straw brush. Justifiably damned so.

  He stroked a dapple gray’s flanks and whispered to it soothingly, patting its neck and scratching it hard between the ears. Then he began working with the brush and a handful of straw, currying, whistling, thinking about how Griff Radnor would better appreciate a handsome beast such as this more than Sir Oliver ever would. Now there was a man, he thought, a real man who knew how to treat women, and whose life had been filled with enough excitement and adventure for twenty men. Davy envied him, and he’d been dismayed when he’d learned Caitlin wasn’t going to marry him after all. It had been assumed she would. And he himself had assumed that old Evans would give no credence to the rumors of Griff’s past. But, surprisingly, he had. The next thing anyone knew, Morgan was there, and when he left, Caitlin went with him.

  The gray snorted, and Davy stepped back to examine his work. Satisfied, he nodded and turned around, stopping in his tracks. The major was standing in the doorway.

  “Boy,” Morgan said, “you seem to be in a hurry.”

  Davy glanced rapidly from side to side as if searching for escape. “I do my best, sir,” he said softly, his young man’s voice rather high.

  Morgan stomped across the wide planks and inspected each of the horses, touching them with one finger as though expecting to come away with a smear of dust. He grunted. He looked back to Davy, who kept his face averted.

  “Not bad,” the major judged when he was done. “Not bad at all— for a Welshman, that is.” He laughed harshly, his hands on his hips.

  Davy said nothing. It was unhealthy to rouse the man’s temper; he knew that from many a beating taken behind the stable wall.

  “Now then, come here, lad.”

  Davy shambled over, his shoulders shrugged forward to diminish his height. His long arms brushed the sides of his baggy trousers. His throat had gone dry, and a lead stone weighed heavily in the pit of his stomach. When the major grabbed his arm roughly, Davy nearly cried out.

  “Now listen, lad,” Morgan said, the words hissing between clenched teeth, “we’ll be heading back to Wales in a bit, and there’s a few things you and I must have clear before then.”

  Davy caught himself before he smiled. Wales. They were going home earlier than usual. For a moment he wondered why Gwen hadn’t said anything to him about it, but he decided to let the question pass when he saw the feral look in Morgan’s squinting eyes.

  “Lad,” the major said, “I can read your mind, you know. I can do that. I can see deep down in that curdled porridge you call a brain that you’re just itching to say a few things to your mistress about what we’ve done—paying visitations on the elegant ladies of Windsor and all.” He chuckled, and tightened his grip on the coachman’s arm.

  Davy winced, and would have kept his gaze on the floor had not Morgan grabbed his jaw with one powerful hand and wrenched his face around.

  “But you will say nothing to her, will you, Davy Daniels? You’ll not say a single word to your mistress, isn’t that right?”

  Davy shook his head as best he could, his skin breaking out in goose flesh and his blood turning cold.

  “Because you know what’s happening now, don’t you, Davy? You’re a clever lad, aren’t you? You know I shall be sharing the task of running Seacliff. Perhaps I’ll be more in command of that miserable hovel than you suspect. And being in charge, Davy, well.. He leaned closer, Davy’s face still hard in his grip. “Well, that means I’ll have a few things to say about how your brother and father will prosper, won’t I? Oh, yes, Davy, I will, I will.”

  Davy broke away suddenly, falling against the wall. A harness slipped from its peg, and dust rose from the flooring where it fell.

  Morgan straightened. His eyes narrowed, and his lips pursed. “You do understand, don’t you, Davy? Tell me you understand so I don’t have to worry.”

  The epithet erupted before Davy could stop it: “Bastard!” Morgan only grinned.

  They stood for a long moment in the dim light, dust rising about them as the horses sensed fear and anger and began stamping their hooves on the straw beds of their stalls. Then, without warning, Morgan closed the space between them, lifted an arm and, after a telling hesitation, flashed the flat of his hand across the young man’s cheek. Davy was thrown along the wall, arms flailing for balance until he reached the narrow doorway and stumbled outside. He would have been all right, but a half-buried stone caught his left foot and he sprawled face down, rolling onto his back to look up just as Morgan’ exited the stable. He fully expected to feel a boot in his side, or to see the man withdraw a whip and lay a few lashes across his chest. But he didn’t. Instead, Morgan clasped his hands behind his back and rocked several times on the heels of his polished black boots.

  “You should eat better, Davy Daniels,” Morgan said, his eyes scanning the ground, the trees, the few clouds in the sky. “You should eat better, and perhaps you wouldn’t fall about like that.”

  Davy said nothing. In that instant he would rather have been struck than to have heard the winter’s cold of the man’s voice. A deep winter’s cold that took all the warmth from the sun and made him shiver in spite of himself.

  Morgan placed a finger to his lips to caution silence; then he nodded and walked away.

  Davy remained on the ground. His cheek ached from the blow, and the fall had left a wide scrape along his leg, but he did not make a move to comfort himself. Instead, he tried to find consolation in the thought of returning to Seacliff, but the major had taken even that cheer from him.

  Caitlin stepped out of her room and walked quickly down the corridor, passing the stairwell and opening the door to what would have been the nursery. She had been coming here often since their return to Eton this year, stepping across the bare floor, imagining the places where the chest would have been, the cradle, the nursing bed… all of it now a mere specter in her mind. The room was empty. Slanting shafts of sunlight placed squares of gold on the floor, and the faint odor of disuse pinched her nostrils.

  The next room down the side hall was Oliver’s den. There he spent most of his days working on projects that would presumably, if he handled them properly, bring more work to the people of Seacliff’s valley, and more gold into the coffers of the estate’s manor. She was not permitted to enter there, but if she stood near the wall of the nursery she could faintly hear Oliver pacing up and down, or exploding in an oath— neither of which indicated anything but what his mood would be that evening.

  Just a short while ago he’d stormed into the house, made straight for the den, and slammed the door behind him. It hadn’t taken her long to decide to eavesdrop, to gauge his possible reaction to her request to return to Wales.

  And as she listened to him, her ear close against the wall, her eyes opened in astonishment.

  Oliver was singing.

  His rough-edged voice rose and fell in the peculiar cadence of a military song, and she could almost imagine him marching about the room.

  She stepped to the doorway and into the hall, and had almost knocked on his door when Mrs. Thom appeared on the landing.

  “Yes?” Caitlin said, distracted and sounding distant.

  “Dinner, m’lady,” the tall, precariously thin woman said in a high nasal voice. “There’ll be but the two of ye? I’d ask Mr. Bradford, but he’s not to be found.”

  “Of course,” Caitlin said. “Who else would there be?”

  Mrs. Thom buried her hands in a soiled apron. “Well, m’lady, I just thought since there was others for luncheon…”

  Caitlin wrenched herself away from staring at Oliver’s door, her gaze hard on the cook’s face. Though it was true she’d been eating at odd hours for the past week, she was sure no one else had been with Oliver while she’d strolled around the gardens. No one could have been. She’d not been out all that long … unless her daydreaming had completely thrown her sense of time off kilter.

&n
bsp; “Others?” she said finally.

  Mrs. Thom flinched as if she’d been slapped. “Yes’m.”

  “Who?”

  “Why, Mr. Flint, m’lady,” she said.

  “What?” Caitlin came around to the stairs and hurried down to the landing. “Mr. Flint? Mr. James Flint’s been here in this house?”

  The cook shied away, realizing she’d said more than she should have. “Yes, m’lady. Twice this week. He’s … he’s not comin’ for dinner then?”

  Twice, Caitlin thought. Twice!

  She dismissed the woman with a brusque wave and turned to stare up through the balustrade at the door to her husband’s den. In defiance of all of Oliver’s rules he’d met with someone here at the house, the rider with the white patch; and James Flint had been here twice, and neither time had he attempted to speak with her. Since he was definitely not the sort of man who would cringe at or shy away from a husband’s wrath, he had another reason—and as she made her way slowly, thoughtfully, downstairs she wondered if she had a reason to feel used.

  7

  The sitting room was dominated by a massive fieldstone fireplace that extended the entire length of one wall. Two armchairs and a low, scalloped couch embroidered with gold, silver, and spring green designs were arranged before it. Similar settings were placed throughout the room to take advantage of the large bay window overlooking the sweep of the front lawn, or the relative peace of the far comer where conversation was held to a minimum. Here were the only shelves Oliver had in the house, the books being kept for occasional reading. The rest of the walls were taken up by hunting tapestries and oil portraits of the Morgans, including one of Oliver himself in full major’s regalia over the mantel.