My Lord Wicked (Historical Regency Romance)

by Cheryl Bolen

  Underlying all her loneliness was grief over her father's death. She missed him like a toothache that no longer gave pain. For the two had never been affectionate. Never had he told her he loved her. He had neither complimented her appearance nor given her the means by which to improve it. And always he lamented that she was not beautiful as her mother had been. Then he would peer at her with hatred in his eyes, and she could read his thoughts as if they were her own. Why couldn't it have been you and not Rosemary?

  Though he had neglected Freddie's feminine education, she had learned from him. By watching him — for he rarely instructed her — she learned about medicine. She learned too, to ride as a man and to play chess cunningly. She committed to memory every book in his library and accompanied him wherever he went, largely because there was no nurse to care for her.

  And he had at least thought fleetingly of her future when he asked Lord Stacks to be her guardian.

  It wasn’t until she reached the blustery, gray North Country that she no longer felt like an observer behind the glass window of a passing carriage. For among the misty moors and loneliness of the bleak, rocky terrain of North Yorkshire she felt a deep connection, a feeling that she had been there before though she knew with certainty she had not.

  She felt as if she had climbed the smoothly rounded barren hills that led to nowhere, had tossed stones into the rock streams that rushed between graphite crevices, had touched the fuzzy stems of silvery thistle that spiked along the bleached grasses. She could not understand the profound feelings that swamped her: the feeling that here in the rugged land which bore little stamp of man she had found her home.

  The next stop would be Morton, the closest village to Lord Stacks' Marshbanks Abbey. That realization created the same thumping in her thoracic cavity as the waning heartbeat of one of Papa’s patients.

  Would her guardian meet her himself? Or would he send one of his servants?

  Lord Stacks had been all that was amiable in his reply to her letter that begged a visit to the abbey. She could stay at Marshbanks Abbey for as long as she wanted, he had said, and he had sent her more than enough money to meet her needs throughout the journey.

  She hated being dependent on Lord Stacks, but she had no choice. Her pride’s only consolation was the determination that she would find some way to repay her guardian’s kindness.

  Her fondest wish was that Lord Stacks bring her into fashion. Not the same kind of fashion well-born beauties like her cousin Roxanne. Never that. But with a modicum of effort, Freddie might be put forward, might be in a position to meet a man with whom she would be pleased to share her life. She would never expect her prospective husband to be rich or handsome, but she did want to enjoy being with him, to care for him and — God willing — the children, her children, who would so enrich her life.

  How she wished for a babe of her own, a real person who loved her by the sheer virtue of its birth. What would it be like to be loved, she wondered wistfully. In all her life only one earthly being had ever truly loved her. Champs had lived for her touch, for her kindly murmurs of affection. Now, she had lost him, too. Aunt Dorothea had forced her to leave the dog behind in Chelseymeade.

  Would that a man could care for her with Champs’ fidelity. She longed to care for someone — a real human being — so greatly that it gave pain.

  Beneath gray skies, a profusion of gray stone buildings and gray stone streets marked the entrance to Morton. Her stomach gave an odd flip. She sat up straight, smoothing back the hair she always wore in an effortless bun. A pity nothing could be done about her dress that was now hopelessly wrinkled. The black serge pelisse she would wear over it was equally as unattractive. And both were shabby. Whatever would Lord Stacks think of her?

  She was not to find out immediately. For when she disembarked from the coach, no one seemed to be waiting for her. There was one well-dressed gentleman who eyed the two passengers who got off at Morton, but he made no attempt to introduce himself to her or to the bearded man who had ridden in the cheap seats on top the coach.

  Though the gentleman appeared to be Quality, he could not be Lord Stacks for he appeared younger than her father's eight and thirty years. He was tall like her father, but did not have the thickened waist and sagging chin her father and other men of his age possessed. Neither gray nor thinning were evident in his full head of black hair.

  She turned away from the gentleman. She would have to hire a ride to Marshbanks Abbey. While deciding how to go about the daunting task of hiring a conveyance, she heard the gentleman query the coachman.

  "Did you not give transport to a young gentleman of seventeen or eighteen? Name of Freddie Lambeth."

  Chapter 2

  A cool wind pierced through Freddie's threadbare pelisse, chilling the very blood in her veins as she stood incredulous in front of the inn at Morton, staring at the gentleman. Finally, she clamped shut her mouth and approached him. Her chest tightened, and she was not sure she could summon her voice. "Pardon, but would you be Lord Stacks?"

  He spun around to face her, his eyes taking in the shabby clothes she wore. His face was burnished by the sun she had been told never shone here in the North Country. He was not classically handsome but most pleasant to look at. "I am."

  "I, sir, am Freddie Lambeth," she said as she curtsied.

  His mouth dropped open, then shut, all expression erased from his angular face. He glanced down at the tattered bag she carried. "May I carry your valise?"

  She handed over the bag that held all she possessed.

  "Please follow me to the chaise."

  Four matched bays stood ceremonially in front of a glistening gilt-trimmed black carriage. His lordship handed her up into the most plush interior she had ever seen. She sank into royal blue velvet cushions, luxuriating in the softness after so many days on the hard cracked leather seats of the public coach.

  Lord Stacks sat across from her, his face stern. "It appears I have been under the misapprehension that you were a---"

  "A boy," she finished.

  His black eyes flashed with emotion. Was it disgust? "Exactly."

  He must not suspect how vulnerable she was. Above all, she would not allow herself to be the object of his pity. Her spine went straight as a poker. "I completely understand if your lordship wishes to retract your offer," she began.

  "You have had a long journey, Miss Lambeth," he said, his voice inscrutable. "You will need to rest at Marshbanks Abbey. Once you are refreshed, we will discuss your stay."

  As he gazed at the smoky-colored landscape out the coach window, Freddie took the opportunity to covertly study his appearance. He was as different from the fatherly guardian she had pictured as she was to the lad he had imagined her to be. That he did not at all look like the aging, pasty-skinned intellectual she had expected, unsettled her. He was neither collegiately young, nor did he look old enough to be her father. And nothing about him hinted at the scholar. His dark skin and lithe, athletic body were at odds with the picture her father had drawn of Lord Stacks. Lord Stacks the Recluse. Lord Stacks the Intellectual. In her mind’s eye she had foolishly conjured a bespectacled, gray-haired main lounging in a library, his gouty foot propped up on a stack of musty books.

  The man sitting opposite her dressed in finely made soft leather Hessians, well-cut breeches with cut-away coat of rich camel color, and crisp ivory shirt and cravat, looked as if he belonged in the finest London drawing rooms, not in remote Northumbria. He displayed the agreeable looks and breeding of a man over whom young women like her beautiful cousin Roxanne would make a cake of themselves.

  How foolish Freddie had been to secretly hope that Lord Stacks might be happy to have someone as plain and unaccomplished as she come to give him companionship in his lonely abbey!

  As her gaze flicked once more to her guardian, he looked up, his black eyes holding hers. Embarrassed, Freddie quickly averted her gaze and rubbed her arms for warmth. The chill seemed to intensify by the howling winds outside the carriage. A
pity her pelisse had worn so thin.

  Now off the major posting roads, Freddie inhaled the scent of peat bogs and was able to observe the moors up close. How very well the solitary landscape suited her. Not even a tree grew here in the craggy land of wailing winds. Nor were there any stone cottages or low stone walls here like she had seen scattered around Yorkshire. The forlornness was unlike anything she could ever have imagined growing up among the sunny meadows of Sussex.

  This was not the place for delicate flowers. The biting winds demanded the hardiness of the spiny gorse and thorny thistle that shimmered and waved along the rippling moors. She would never have been able to imagine how such a landscape could hold such vast allure for her, but it did.

  Without being told by her stone-faced companion, Freddie knew when the abbey came into view. From her coach window she saw its gray mass rising from the top of a rocky hill. The ancient fortress-like structure had to be Marshbanks Abbey.

  The building did not seem to be unmanageably large — just two stories with small, gothic windows punctuating solid stone walls that had undoubtedly remained unchanged for centuries. A clock tower with medieval spires marked the midpoint of the front of the building.

  As the coach came to a stop on the abbey's gravel drive and the coachman let down the steps, Lord Stacks departed the chaise first, then turned back to take Freddie's hand. He led her up the steps, through a timbered doorway held open by a footman in lime green livery, then into a vestibule constructed of huge blocks of gray stone.

  "This is the great hall," he informed her as they entered a room twice as large as Freddie's home chapel.

  "Before the Dissolution it was a church, but one of my ancestors persuaded the king to give him the abbey in exchange for services rendered. I expect that's how it escaped being destroyed. My kinsman removed all the ecclesiastical trappings. In former times the present clock tower held a church bell."

  She had always thought great halls to be banqueting rooms, but this was a reception area, with various furniture groupings scattered within the room. Here a pair of Jacobean sofas on a Turkey rug. Over there a game table of fine oak turned nearly black with the patina of age. A lovely three-legged pianoforte hugged a wall. A pair of large, throne-like chairs faced the chimney. She could almost imagine a whole ox roasting in its huge pit.

  A lady in black servant's garb noiselessly entered the vast room. The slightly built woman had brown hair generously threaded with gray.

  Lord Stacks’s gaze swung from her to Freddie. "Miss Lambeth, I should like to present my housekeeper, Mrs. Greenwood."

  The woman curtsied but did not smile either at her employer or at Freddie. The expression on her face was more akin to scorn than to welcome.

  "I will show my ward to her rooms," Stacks informed Mrs. Greenwood, who merely inclined her head.

  The two of them walked across the chilly room, her guardian’s boots tapping on the cold stone floors like a blacksmith striking an anvil.

  "We'll pass through the tapestry room on the way to the library," Stacks said.

  The walls there were almost entirely covered with tapestries, each of which was large enough to roof her entire cottage back in Chelseymeade. They depicted hunt scenes and the Nativity and celestial celebrations.

  Next, Lord Stacks led her to the library, another room of massive proportions, but this one less chilly due to the red carpet which stretched from wall to wall. Like in the great hall, the ceilings here reached the full two stories, but the rich wood bookcases lined with leather volumes gave the room warmth. A spiraled ladder curved up to a catwalk that ran along an upper gallery of books. The room itself had two fireplaces, a game table, several sofas and a large rococo desk.

  Freddie thought Lord Stacks would stop here for the room looked lived in, but he kept walking. Beyond the library they entered the outdoors where cloisters formed a square surrounding the quadrangle.

  Marshbanks Abbey was much larger than it appeared from the front.

  Lord Stacks pointed out the heavily vegetated quadrangle. "That is where I spend most of my time. Botany holds great interest for me."

  She recalled her father's words: "Stacks is the most intelligent man I have ever known."

  They walked under the timber-roofed cloister and past several doors. "I fear you will find Marshbanks Abbey hopelessly out of date," Lord Stacks said. "The rooms are much the same as they were when this was an abbey. Your room is a former Cistercian monk's." He came to a stop and grasped the old black iron handle on a door. "These are your chambers, Miss Lambeth."

  She stepped into a warm chamber, her eyes sparkling as she strode across more red carpet. Unlike the rest of the abbey, this room was small and offered a genuine coziness. There was a high tester bed draped in deep crimson velvet and a writing desk with a comfortable-looking arm chair pulled up to it. A fire blazed at the modest hearth. "This, my lord, does not look like a monk's room."

  The adjoining room had been apportioned for a dressing room, and her valise was already there — empty — a man servant placing her meager garments in the linen press.

  Lord Stacks watched the servant. "We must secure a maid for you."

  "That won't be necessary," she said. "I assure you I am quite accustomed to seeing to my own needs."

  Glancing at the bed, then to Freddie, Lord Stacks started backing up. "I don't seem to have considered the impropriety of being here with you." He was almost at the door.

  Freddie studied the well worn shoes poking out beneath the hem of her dress.

  "We keep country hours at Marshbanks Abbey," he stammered. "Dinner is served at four. Are you certain you don't need me to send up a maid to help with your hair or anything?"

  "I'm certain."

  ***

  Stacks strode angrily into the library, pulled the bell rope and flung himself down at his desk. When Eason appeared, Stacks said, "Bring me a glass of Madeira."

  As Eason moved toward the door, Stacks amended his order. "No, make that a bottle."

  Damn Frederick, he thought. Why hadn't the man told him his child was not a son? Stacks tried to think back to when Frederick had besieged him to stand as guardian to his child. It was so very many years ago. Just after Elizabeth died. Frederick had said since you have no children of your own, you would be a most desirable guardian for my own offspring--Freddie--provided you would be so gracious as to consent. That was it. Stacks had been flattered and immediately agreed, but never again did Frederick mention his child.

  All these years Stacks had assumed young Freddie was what his name implied: a male. And now he had invited the youth to live at Marshbanks Abbey! That, of course, would never do. A bachelor most decidedly could not have a young maiden living under his roof. Especially a bachelor of his repute.

  He would have to send her back. The thought of rejecting her ignited feelings of guilt. Damn that pathetic letter she had written. She had so carefully tried to sound proud and independent, but had in reality been so very vulnerable. Since it is so terribly crowded here at my uncle's house, she had written, I thought perhaps a visit to Marshbanks Abbey would give them relief from what is undoubtedly my burdensome presence.

  In his mind's eye, he pictured the girl. Proud and tall in her shabby clothes. So very plain looking with her nondescript light brown hair slicked away from her face. Her eyes, too, were so ordinary. A cat's eye green. A scattering of freckles across her straight nose lent her only touch of youth.

  At least he could deck her out in unaccustomed finery before sending her back down South. Tomorrow, they would leave early and go to York. There she could be outfitted in lovely clothes. Perhaps with suitable dresses and a fashionable hair arrangement, she could attract a husband, thus releasing him of responsibility toward her. He might even settle a modest dowry on the poor orphan.

  Tonight he would tell her he was sending her back. With those thoughts, and three glasses of Madeira, the anger began to drain from his tense body.

  ***

  At four o'clo
ck Freddie strolled through the abbey to the dining room as if she knew very well where it was located. She was much too proud to ask any of the hovering footmen where to find the room. If the tapestry room and library were located on one side of the great hall, she reasoned, the other common rooms would surely be found on its other side in the symmetrical abbey.

  Her instincts were correct. The first room on the sea side of the great hall was a generous Elizabethan dining room where Lord Stacks sat at the head of the long mahogany table.

  "Come sit beside me, Miss Lambeth," he said.

  Though she wore her best dress, she felt terribly shabby to be dining in so formal a setting. Her dress was an outmoded one of faded rose silk that had been her mother's during the 1790's. Of course, Freddie had been obliged to let out the hem. As she crossed the room and sat down beside her guardian, Freddie willed herself to look composed.

  To avoid staring at her host, her gaze scanned the room but came to a stop on the wall behind Lord Stacks. There hung a portrait of the most beautiful woman Freddie had ever beheld. From the woman’s empress-style dress, Freddie knew the painting could not date back much more than ten years, knew the flawless woman in the dress had to be Lady Stacks. The lovely lady oozed an elegance that obviously came easily to her despite that at the time the portrait was painted she could not have been much older than Freddie was now. There was about her well-favored face a confidence, a sense of playful mischief.

  Freddie studied the painting as if it were some curious phenomenon to never more be beheld by mortal eyes. Though all the lady's features if taken individually would have been considerably beautiful, the whole was mesmerizing, unforgettable. Freddie's gaze flicked to the exquisite creature's flaxen hair, the indigo eyes, then whisked over the pearly skin, the graceful neck.