‘I suppose you’d call me a kind of chaperon,’ he said. He would have been astonished at how cool he sounded to her. At the sight of Octavia his heart had melted within him. He had forgotten everything but how much she meant to him, had wanted to snatch her into his arms and kiss away the look of unhappiness in her eyes…And he hadn’t dared. For the first time in his life he was uncertain about his reception. He was paralysed by the sudden thought that Octavia might have found the cure that had eluded him, that she might no longer welcome his touch. But to restrain himself from taking her into his arms, to make himself sound anything like normal, had taken every ounce of his self-control.
He had been right. Octavia gave a little laugh, but the wall of ice was still firmly in place as she said, ‘Of course. Julia wouldn’t willingly come near Wychford again! She regards the house as dangerous.’ There was a slight pause, then she went on, ‘You must forgive me. I don’t quite know what to say. The situation seems so odd. The last time we met here you were the master and I the governess, and now…’ She shook her head, then began again. ‘Will you come in, sir?’ she said formally. ‘I’ve arranged for some refreshments. They’re in the little parlour—I wasn’t expecting you, you see.’
‘Don’t treat me as a stranger, Octavia! Please!’
She gave a painful smile. ‘I really don’t know how to treat you at all. There were no classes for this sort of situation in my Ladies’ Seminary. But come in. The others are waiting.’
As Edward stepped into the hall he looked around him. The hall looked the same as ever with no sign of damage to the staircase. The massive brass chandeliers gleamed in the sunlight shining through the long windows.
‘Pip looks a great deal better,’ said Edward, striving for normality.
‘She loves Wychford,’ said Octavia. ‘We’ve had such fun together.’
‘You spoil her.’
‘Oh, no! I truly believe that Pip could not be spoiled. I shall miss her a lot when she finally has to go back to her aunt.’ She bit her lip, then said brightly, ‘Lisette has surprised me. I always thought that she and Harry would suit, but never that she would bloom as she has. Can I take it that Harry now has your approval?’
‘Wait a minute or two longer and they will tell you themselves.’
Octavia led the way into the small parlour. On the table was a tray with glasses and an array of Mrs Dutton’s delicacies. Beside it stood a wine cooler with a bottle in it. She hesitated, then turned to Edward. ‘Would you…?’
Edward opened the bottle and poured its sparkling contents into the glasses. Octavia handed them out one by one, even passing a small one to Pip. She raised her glass.
‘First of all, welcome back to Wychford,’ she said. And waited, a small smile on her lips as she looked at her brother and Lisette.
Harry cleared his throat. ‘Tavy, we’ve come today to ask you to wish us happy. Lisette and I…That’s to say…Lisette has agreed to marry me,’ he said. ‘And her guardians have given their consent.’
Pip gave a cheer, and Octavia’s smile widened. ‘My darlings! This is wonderful news!’ She put her glass down and embraced Lisette. ‘Harry, you always did have all the luck in the family, but this is the best of the lot! I can’t think of anyone I’d like more as a sister.’
Edward said, ‘With your permission, Lady Octavia…To Harry and Lisette! Long life and happiness!’
They all drank. Pip was so excited she hardly tasted her wine before she begged them all to excuse her. She had something in her room for Lisette. She disappeared, having made them promise not to talk about their plans till she was back.
There was a silence. Harry drew Lisette aside. Edward looked at Octavia. For a moment they were both lost in each other, lost in memory…Then Octavia shook her head and turned away.
‘This…this won’t do! I won’t…I can’t…’ She stopped and took a breath. ‘I wonder what Pip is up to,’ she said with determined cheerfulness. ‘I think we ought to go to see.’
They went into the hall and came to an abrupt halt. Mrs Dutton was there, looking terrified; surrounding her was a gang of men armed with pistols.
‘I’m…I’m sorry, my lady. They burst in when I opened the door. I couldn’t stop—’ She gave a little scream as one of the men bundled her out of the door to the servants’ quarters and locked it. He turned round and looked at his leader, still holding his pistol at the ready.
Harry took an impulsive step forward and the pistol was instantly turned in his direction.
‘Don’t move, any one of you!’ said Ricardo Arandez. ‘My…friends are all ready to shoot. Stop where you are!’ The men spread out and faced the end of the hall where Octavia and the rest were standing. It could be seen that there were four of them, not counting their leader, though to Edward’s experienced eye they looked a poor lot. Still, men with guns were always dangerous.
His eyes fixed on Arandez, Edward said abruptly, ‘Better do as he says, Petrie. There’s no place for a dead hero here.’
Arandez circled round and stood at the other end of the hall, behind his men. Octavia was horrified at the change she saw in him. Any resemblance to Tom Payne had vanished from this emaciated creature. The fresh complexion was blotched and pale, the blue eyes bloodshot. He looked on the verge of a collapse—and all the more dangerous because of it.
Arandez noticed how Edward and Harry were measuring their chances as his men approached, and he said quickly, ‘Don’t get too close to them, you fools! Can’t you see they’ll leap on you if you get too near. Keep the guns pointed at the beautiful young lady in the yellow dress. My future wife. If anyone moves, fire. But no one would dare, would they, Barraclough? Not if it meant Lisetta would die. She’s my safeguard.’
‘What do you think you can do here?’ asked Edward harshly. ‘You’re mad, Arandez!’
‘Perhaps I am. But I’ll have Lisetta, even if I have to kill the lot of you first. I might even begin with you, Edward Barraclough. You’re the one who has caused all my troubles! Your damned brother was happy enough for me to marry Lisetta till you told him about my activities in Jamaica! Yes! I might just begin with you!’ He lifted his gun and pointed it at Edward. ‘Beg for your life, Barraclough, or you’ll die here and now!’
In this moment of tension when the eyes of everyone else were fixed on Arandez and Edward, Octavia saw a slight movement on the gallery immediately above Arandez. Pip was quietly climbing on to the balustrade. Arandez and his men, who were all facing away from her, were unaware of it.
Octavia caught her breath and looked fleetingly at Edward. It was clear that he too had seen Pip. He cast a quick glance at Harry, then raised his voice and asked loudly,
‘What do you wish me to say, Arandez? That I’m sorry? I might say something of the kind—but only if you tell your men to take their guns off Lisette first. They don’t look very reliable to me. Do you really want her killed, too?’
Pip was now on top of the balustrade. Arandez said, ‘Very well. I would really enjoy hearing you crawl, Barraclough. Do as he says!’
His men lowered their pistols, and at the same time there was a bloodcurdling yell and Pip landed with a thump on Arandez’s shoulders. He staggered, and his pistol went off somewhere into the ceiling. With a roar of rage he threw the useless weapon away and dragged Pip down, fighting to release himself. The moment of distraction had given Edward and Harry their chance. Kicking and punching, they soon had all four of Arandez’s accomplices on the floor, and were relieving them of their weapons.
Arandez was still fighting Pip. To her horror, Octavia saw him take out a knife, with the clear intention of using it to free himself from the child’s leech-like grasp, and she hurled herself at him, screaming, ‘NO! No, you mustn’t!’
She took hold of the hand with the knife and hung on to it, dragging it down and away from Pip with all her strength. He pulled his hand free with a curse and flung Octavia from him so violently that she hit the ground several feet away, and lay in an inert heap, he
r head against the edge of the fireplace.
Edward had finished with his man. He looked up just in time to see Octavia fall, and leapt over to her. Pip was already there, kneeling beside her and desperately calling her name.
‘She’s dead!’ wailed Pip. ‘Octavia’s dead!’
Edward cradled Octavia in his arms. ‘Don’t be a little fool,’ he said roughly. ‘She isn’t dead! She can’t be! She mustn’t be!’ He put his fingers against the side of Octavia’s neck…
A sudden howling gust of wind swept through the hall and set the huge chandeliers swinging wildly. Arandez took a couple of paces towards Lisette.
‘Lisetta—’ he began uncertainly, stretching out a hand in appeal.
The fixings of the chandelier over his head suddenly gave way with a groan, and it crashed down on top of him, followed by a mass of plaster and dust. The noise was deafening. Arandez crumpled and fell. The silence that followed was uncanny.
It was broken by Edward. ‘Thank God! Oh, thank God! There’s a pulse there. She’s alive.’ For the first time he looked round and saw the chaos in the centre of the hall. ‘My God!’ he said in an appalled voice. He looked round at the servants who had broken their way in, and were standing at the end of the hall wide-eyed. ‘See if you can help that poor devil under the chandelier. Come on! Step to it! And fetch a doctor. Immediately!’
Harry had been comforting Lisette, but now they came over. ‘Octavia ought to be in bed. Let me take her,’ said Harry, bending over his sister.
‘Leave her alone!’ said Edward fiercely, pushing him away. ‘She’s mine! I love her and she’s mine! I’ll take her!’ Harry looked at him in astonishment, but didn’t argue. Edward picked Octavia up in his arms, and, as he walked to the stairs, he said over his shoulder, ‘Get Lisette to look after Pip. Her knee is bleeding. And Harry—see what’s has happened to Arandez. I doubt we can do much for him, but you’d better take a look. Don’t let the girls anywhere near! Bring the doctor to Octavia’s room as soon as he arrives.’
Edward carried Octavia slowly up the stairs. He laid her on the bed, covered her, and knelt down beside her. For a moment he buried his head in the covers, then he said in a broken voice, ‘Dear God, Octavia, don’t leave me now! Not when I’ve only just found out how much you mean to me!’
Octavia’s eyelids fluttered. But then she was once again still. He looked at her white face, the blue bruise on her temple, and said even more desperately,
‘Dammit, you mustn’t die, Octavia! Without you there’s no happiness, no joy. You’ve got to live! You’ve got to give me time to tell you what you mean to me! I want to marry you, take care of you, live with you forever! I love you so much! I don’t think I could face life without you! Please wake up!’
Octavia opened her eyes. ‘Edward!’ she said contentedly. ‘Was that you I heard? Saying you wanted to marry me?’
He started to tell her how much, but stopped and looked more carefully at her. After a short silence he said slowly, ‘You devil, Octavia! You heard it all!’
‘Most of it,’ she said.
‘You mean, you let me carry on believing you were badly hurt, perhaps dying, when all the time…’
‘I think you owed me that much. I was badly hurt. But by you, not Arandez.’ She sat up. ‘Where is he? What happened to Pip?’
He pushed her back against the pillows. ‘Pip is perfectly sound apart from a few grazes. Lisette is with Harry. And Arandez is dead.’
‘Dead! Did you…?’
‘No, I didn’t, though given the chance I might well have killed him. I’ll tell you about it later. I expect you’ll say that the house did it. But now you must rest till the surgeon comes.’
She would have protested, but Mrs Dutton came in at that point with the surgeon, and Edward was dismissed.
Octavia’s questions had reminded him that he had some clearing up to do and he went downstairs. The servants told him that the men Arandez had brought with him had recovered and vanished while no one was looking, presumably back to their haunts in London. The surgeon had seen Arandez’s body and it had been taken away. The chandelier, too, had been lifted away, though most of the dust and plaster was still there. Edward looked at it, then up at the ceiling.
‘I don’t know how it could have happened, sir,’ said Mrs Dutton tearfully. ‘After what happened to Mrs Barraclough the men went over everything, including that chandelier. It should never have fallen the way it did. They’re saying in the kitchen that it was all a judgement. He was a wicked man, sir. He could have killed Lady Octavia. Do you think it was old Mrs Carstairs…?’
Edward shook his head. ‘No, Mrs Dutton,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s nothing supernatural about it. Look at this.’ In the rubble on the floor was a broken piece of the chandelier’s supports. Something had cut a neat hole right in its centre. ‘That’s a bullet hole,’ said Edward. ‘When Arandez fired his pistol into the ceiling that’s where it went. Chance, perhaps. But nothing supernatural.’
He went towards the stairs, but heard Mrs Dutton say, ‘Well, you may call it chance, if you wish, Mr Barraclough, but it was a very funny chance, and I know what I think it was!’
Edward smiled and went upstairs. Lisette and Pip, with Harry in close attendance, were already with Octavia, who was sitting up looking pale but fully conscious. The surgeon was on the point of coming to look for him. Octavia, he said, had had a narrow escape. She was shaken, but he had not found any serious damage. Rest and quiet for a few days ought to cure her. He departed after promising to call in two days’ time to see how she did.
Edward came to the bedside, and said calmly, ‘Now that everyone has seen you’re not dead, Octavia, I expect you would like Lisette and Pip to show Harry the house. I want to talk to you.’
She sat up even straighter. ‘No!’ she said in some agitation. ‘I don’t want…Pip could stay…’
‘No, she can’t,’ Edward said firmly. ‘I promised to tell you what happened, and I intend to do so. Without an audience.’
Harry grinned at Lisette. ‘I think your uncle means it,’ he said. ‘And after having seen him in action this afternoon I would hate to fall out with him.’
‘Good man,’ said Edward. ‘You’re not too bad in a fight yourself. You can call me Edward if you wish. Goodbye.’
Pip cast a knowledgeable glance at her uncle. ‘I know why you want to get rid of us,’ she said. ‘I heard what you said when we thought she was dead. And I don’t mind going if it means you’re going to marry her. I always said you ought to.’ Lisette laughed and dragged her away.
When they were gone Edward sat on the bed and said softly, ‘Now, my love, we shall have a little chat.’
‘Rest and quiet. That’s what I’m to have,’ said Octavia.
‘You shall have all the rest and quiet you could wish for,’ said Edward.
Octavia’s face fell. ‘Oh!’
‘But not before you’ve told me two things. The first is why you pretended you were unconscious.’
‘I was unconscious for a while. And then when I came to you were saying such wonderful things…I wanted to hear you say more.’
‘Such as?’
‘That you loved me. That you wanted to marry me. In fact, I’d quite like to hear it again…?’
Edward said firmly, ‘Not before you tell me the second thing I want to know.’
‘What is it?’
He put his hand on her cheek and said very seriously, ‘That you forgive me for being such a fool. That you love me in spite of it.’
‘You are a fool, Edward!’ she said softly. ‘Of course I love you! I couldn’t have behaved so…so shamelessly with anyone else.’
He laughed triumphantly and took her into his arms. ‘My dearest, sweetest Octavia! I can’t possibly tell you what your shameless behaviour did to me! But now I want so much more. I want you to share your life with me, let me look after you, grow old with you, have children, your children.’
‘But Edward! You said—’
‘I know what I said, all the things I swore I would never even consider. And there’s only one woman in the world who could have changed my mind for me. You. Only you. I adore you.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Marry me, Octavia, and I’ll swear I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.’
Octavia’s pale cheeks were suffused with colour. ‘Of course I will, dearest Edward! With all my heart.’ She leant forward and kissed him, then drew back and smiled. ‘Indeed, I hardly dare say no! Aunt Carstairs brought you here. Think what Wychford might do to me if I refused you!’
Gently, carefully, Edward leaned forward and gave her a long, lingering kiss. A sigh, a faint breath, soft as a summer zephyr, and perfumed with the dry scent of herbs, passed through the house and out into the summer air. Wychford was content.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1590-4
A VERY UNUSUAL GOVERNESS
Copyright © 2004 by Sylvia Andrew
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