by Sophia James
Reaching across to a low table, she rang the bell and a servant came into the room immediately.
‘His Grace is just leaving.’ She watched as Richard gathered in his temper and departed.
Chapter Nine
Francis spent the next five days in Hastings trying to piece together as best he could the movements of Anna and Clive across his final hours. He had procured the services of a man who worked for the Bow Street Runners and the meetings he had held in both Hastings and Rye were most illuminating.
It seemed Sherborne had dealt with a London lord in many of his drops of liquor, a man who signed his name simply with an artful and sweeping ‘W’.
‘Find this man and you will have your killer,’ Alan Wilson said over a drink in a tavern just outside Rye. ‘Sherborne was funnelling off both cash and kind and rumour on the ground has it he was found out. Nobody around these parts trusted him much, but they trusted the London cove even less. Besides, Clive Sherborne was seen with his daughter just prior to his murder by a woman who was late home and she said he gave the impression of being drunk and the little girl looked scared. Those about these parts said she was a hellion, too, undisciplined and ill bought up. End up like her mother she will, they told me, with her neck broken on the backstreets and her skirt up around her thighs.’
‘Her mother was killed? When?’
‘Two years ago this August.’
Hell, Francis thought, this sort of place was probably the environment Anna had spent most of her time in and yet still she could read and count better than most children of her age. Who had taught her? Could it have been Clive in his more lucid moments?
‘Did you find out who lived in the house with them in Hastings?’
‘An old scholar boarded with them. Timothy Hawkins. He died of old age a year ago now. The girl visited the grave often and left wild flowers.’
Another loss, then, in a life full of them. If Clive or her mother or his uncle had been in front of him now Francis might simply have screwed their heads off. Instead he finished his drink and worded his next question carefully.
‘Could you go to London and follow the movements of two brothers and their father? I will give you their direction. It will need to be done discreetly, for I would like to know if they meet anyone who fits the description of a London gentleman.’
On his way back to London other matters settled into a cold knot in his stomach. He did not wish to see Sephora Connaught again after the fiasco at her family town house and he most certainly did not want to see her in society hanging on the arm of the Duke of Winbury. No news had filtered through of her wedding, however, and of that at least he was glad, but he needed space and time and distance to re-evaluate his life.
* * *
The morning after his arrival back at his town house he was surprised by an early visit from Daniel Wylde.
‘You damn well need to do something about Sephora Connaught, Francis. She has been ostracised completely by every strata of fine society after breaking off her engagement and Winbury has had a big hand in that by summarily dismissing her as a woman slightly deranged.’
This was the very last thing Francis had expected to hear and he remained mute in surprise.
‘The Duke of Winbury is telling everybody that Lady Sephora Connaught has both an addled mind and a cold nature and that he is well shot of her. Your name was mentioned prominently as the main cause of her onset to a premature insanity.’
‘Hell.’ He turned towards the windows and opened them. ‘I’d like to kill the bastard.’
‘Well, you could do that, but a long stretch in goal will do nothing at all to help her. There are rumours swirling everywhere and one of the most persistent is that she came to visit you alone at your town house and that a number of people observed this reckless foray. It is also said that you packed her into your carriage and returned her home yourself when you knew there must be some repercussions from the unexpected visit.’
‘It was the right thing to do. I thought a glass of whisky might fortify her, but she drank too much of it.’
Daniel laughed. ‘Lord, Francis, you got her drunk as well? Then do the next right thing both for her and for you. She has been made an outcast. Adelaide said that she saw her and her sister out walking a few days ago and everybody gave Sephora the cut direct.’
‘Hell.’
‘You came home from America with the weight of the world on your shoulders and then you go right ahead and ruin the “angel of the ton.”’ Daniel breathed in heavily for a moment as though recollecting his thoughts and putting them into order. ‘God knows what will happen next, but your own prospects for a satisfactory marriage have most likely just plummeted as well. A reasonable solution might be looking right at you.’
The last sentence made him ponder. Daniel had not been a man known to be overly interested in the marriage mart before and certainly had not tried to influence him on choosing a wife or a mistress if it came to that. ‘Did Amethyst put you up to this?’
The slight hesitation told Francis that she had.
‘My wife thinks you are lonely. She knows there are things you are not telling us and she wants to help.’
‘Tell her thank you for her worry, but also tell her that I am fine.’
‘You might indeed be, but Sephora Connaught is far from it. What would make her throw her more normal caution and good sense to the wind and arrive at the home of a known and disreputable bachelor unaccompanied and unmindful of who saw her?’
Safety. He almost said the word, almost simply spoke it aloud and spat it out, but Daniel would understand that sentiment as little as he himself did and so he remained quiet.
‘Well, I leave it in your hands, Francis, but I never took you for a man who would forsake a woman needing help and she is most certainly one who does.’
* * *
Two hours later Francis made his way to the Connaught family town house on the north side of Portman Square. A footman showed him in, his eyes widening as he realised just who the visitor was, and led him down a long corridor to the back of the house.
‘Lord Douglas, sir.’
Aldford was sitting behind his desk in a well-stocked library and he got up as soon as the introduction was made.
‘Thank you, Smithson. That will be all. Please see that we are not disturbed.’
‘Very well, my lord.’
When the door closed silence filled the room for the moment it took for Sephora’s father to gather his ire.
‘I hope you have come here to explain and apologise, St Cartmail.’ Jonathon Connaught’s voice shook. He was only just holding on to a temper that reddened his face considerably. ‘After the last time...’ He stopped.
‘Your daughter came to see me, Lord Aldford, and whilst it was true I should not have given her whisky to calm her down, I did not touch her either.’
‘No, you brought her back home to ruination instead and then just left her to it.’
‘I did not know that until today for I have been away from London this past week. I thought Winbury would have seen things right.’
The name seemed to make the older man even more furious. ‘Don’t talk to me about that coward,’ he shouted. ‘If his father knew how he had treated my daughter in her hour of need, he would be rolling around in his newly dug grave, I assure you. He has abandoned her completely.’
‘I wish to marry her.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I have come today to ask permission for your daughter Sephora’s hand in marriage, sir.’
The older man leaned against his desk heavily and sat down, reaching for a kerchief in an opened drawer, then running it across his brow.
‘Why?’ All the fight seemed to have gone from him.
‘It is partly my fault she is in the position she now finds herself. I need to remedy that.’
‘Remedy it. She barely knows you, St Cartmail. She probably even hates you. Her betrothal to the Duke of Winbury has been dissolved and a great measure o
f the problem is down to the fiasco you created. Did you know that?’
‘I did not at first, but I do now.’
‘So now you have the damn nerve to just walk in here and expect my blessings or my daughter’s acceptance.’ The ire had returned as fast as it had waned, but Francis had known this meeting was never going to be easy. ‘From memory you are also the very same man who broke my niece’s heart all those years ago and you did not even come to her funeral to pay your last respects. How could we trust you to actually do the right thing this time?’
Francis stayed silent, the faults of his past mounting against him.
‘I can’t think why you imagine either my daughter or I would agree to this proposal, Douglas.’
‘If Sephora agrees to marry me, she will no longer be ruined. I can protect her.’
‘Against everyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if she does not?’
‘Then I will leave. I do not want further trouble. I will also promise my confidentiality in all that has been discussed today.’
‘You swear by it?’
‘I give you my word of honour.’
Frowning heavily Connaught called out and the same man who had showed Francis in before opened the door.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ask one of Lady Sephora’s maids to summon her to the library, Smithson. I need to see her most urgently.’
* * *
Sephora was reading by the window in her room when one of the upstairs maids came bustling in.
‘Lord Aldford requires your company in his library. He says it is important.’
‘Very well.’ Sephora laid down the book she was reading and smoothed out the creases in her muslin day dress as she stood. Papa seldom asked her to come to his library so formally. She wondered what had happened and hoped that there was not some new and difficult problem concerning Richard Allerly.
‘Is the duke with him?’
‘I don’t believe so, Lady Sephora.’ Relief at that answer blossomed.
‘But he is not alone?’
‘No, Lady Sephora. Smithson said there was a visitor.’
This produced a further worry. Stopping to take up her shawl from the chair, Sephora wrapped it around herself and followed the maid downstairs.
* * *
Francis saw the instant Sephora Connaught realised it was him because she blushed a bright red and faltered as she stepped into the room.
‘Sit down, please.’ Her father’s voice was not gentle. When she was seated he began to speak again.
‘The Earl of Douglas has come here today with a marriage proposal. A protection, he calls it. He wants you to be his wife because he knows the current predicament you find yourself in is largely of his own making and he needs to remedy it, a marriage to quell the howls of an offended ton, so to speak. As such he is proposing a union of convenience to mend broken reputations and to lighten the gossip of a dreadful scandal that shows no sign of fading away.’
Was her father a complete fool, Francis thought as he stepped forward.
‘I am hoping you will do me the honour, Lady Sephora, of becoming my wife.’
‘Of course she will not, Douglas. I cannot think of anything further from my daughter’s mind than accepting your—’
Sephora stood and looked at him directly. ‘Why would you ask this of me, Lord Douglas?’ Her eyes were wide, the blue more noticeable today in her high emotion.
‘Because he has ruined you, my dear. It’s the very least as a gentleman that he can do.’ Her father sounded at the end of his tether.
‘You could hardly want this, my lord, to be tied in marriage so...inconveniently when everyone in society knows your poor opinion on the institution itself?’
Francis was about to reply when her father strode across between them and began to speak again.
‘Douglas is renowned in the ton for being wild and dangerous and you would do well to remember that the Duke of Winbury, for all his faults, has not been said to have killed a man. It is you who should not want this union, Sephora, you who have been held in great esteem by the ton all of your adult life, yet are now the subject of ridicule and pity because of the poor choices you have recently made.’
Francis had heard enough. ‘I am not quite without advantage, Lord Aldford. I have returned from the Americas with a great deal of wealth for one and the Douglas title is an old and venerated one.’ He saw Sephora Connaught’s knuckles were white where she held them twisted together, though the hives had gone, the skin to her elbow where her dress sleeves ended now unmarked and fair.
He could not begin to imagine a more awkward wedding proposal and was about to request some time alone to explain his reasoning, when rushing feet from outside put paid to such hopes. Sephora’s mother bustled in, her eyes reddened and her face furious.
‘The butler said that you were here, Lord Douglas.’ She was looking straight at him. ‘And I could not believe that you would have the nerve to be.’
‘Elizabeth...’ her husband began, but she did not let him finish.
‘The man standing before us is the architect of all our problems, Jonathon, the sole reason we are in this conundrum and Sephora can no longer partake in anything at all in society—’
‘St Cartmail has come to ask for our daughter’s hand in marriage.’
That stopped her as nothing else would have and she looked at her offspring intently. Sephora was so much smaller than her mother and deathly pale. All Francis could see was worry stamped across her brow.
‘What of Richard? What of him, Sephora? What of an understanding that should at least be given some weight due to its longevity?’
‘I think Winbury may have cooked his goose, Elizabeth, given his lack of any true concern for our daughter’s plight. He has certainly been vocal in his criticisms of her.’ Her father gave this damning summation of Winbury’s character without as much emotion as before.
‘He is grieving...’
‘He is weak willed.’
‘So you are saying...?’ Sephora’s mother’s face had lost its flush and was now a ghostly white.
‘Our duty, Elizabeth, is to see that our daughter is not ruined by gossip, and the earl, whilst the subject of much discussion, is also titled and wealthy in his own right. Believe me, it could have been far worse.’
A different silence settled now and Francis used the moment to push his own cause further.
‘Might I have a moment alone with Lady Sephora?’
He thought her mother might refuse outright, but before she could speak, Sephora’s father had taken his wife’s hand and led her from the room. ‘I will allow you two moments, Lord Douglas. Sephora, we will be right outside. If you need us, you only have to call.’
Then they were gone, with the seconds counting themselves down in the room.
Sephora spoke first. ‘Thank you for asking for my hand in marriage, Lord Douglas, but of course there can be no question as to what my answer must be.’ Her words were quietly said and she blushed again even as he looked at her and gave his own answer.
‘I realise we barely know each other and there are things you do not understand about me, but society can be cruel in its dismissal of a reputation and yours has definitely suffered. If I am to have any hope of protecting you successfully, we would need to be married immediately, as soon as the banns are read. On a special licence.’
He was rushing her, but the sudden and shocking thought came that if he did not she would be persuaded to refuse him, so he kept going. He did not wish to be responsible for her demise. ‘I would never hurt you, Sephora. At least believe that.’
She looked at him then, directly, the shock in her face obvious. ‘A marriage of convenience would hurt us both, my lord. Usually they are not happy unions.’
Her solemnly given words were stated with the sort of honesty normally only employed by the minions of the church and he liked it. Liked her. Liked the soft truth and the gentle honour and her smile that was both
shy and bold at the same time.
Everything she said was true and the thought that he could not possibly be serious in such a proposal came to the fore. He barely recognised himself as he stood there, for he was being beguiled by an innocent and one who would hold no knowledge at all of the sort of man he was. Sephora Connaught was a woman oblivious of the underbelly of society with its broken lives and empty promises; a place that was by far his most known milieu.
What the hell was he doing? Why the hell was she not turning tail and running as fast as she possibly could, her near miss with Winbury a potent warning to the agony she might well suffer with him? Why wasn’t he? But she was speaking again in her soft voice, trying to understand who he was, what he was.
‘I do have another question, my lord. Those people at Kew Gardens, the ones you were fighting, did they hurt you in some way to make you retaliate in that manner?’
‘No.’ He had to be honest. ‘But I thought that they might.’
‘I see.’ The words were almost breathed out.
‘I am not perfect, Sephora.’
‘Perfection is a hard thing to live up to, I have found, my lord.’
‘And there are many rumours about my past that are not all false...’
‘I think I have heard most of them.’
At that he laughed. My God, he couldn’t remember enjoying a conversation with a woman as much as he did with her.
‘Your parents are not happy with my proposal. It is also something to consider. Your cousin, Anne Marie, fancied herself in love with me, but I hardly knew her and I certainly did not encourage her feelings or return them. I didn’t attend the funeral because I was drunk. Not from unrequited love either, but from the sadness of it all. The futility of a young life suddenly gone.’
‘Are you trying to put me off accepting you?’
‘No.’ The word came without thought. ‘I’m not.’
‘Then yes. Yes, I will marry you, Lord Douglas.’