by The Rival
“It’s raining. We should go home before it really storms,” Lionel said.
Garrick changed his stance to brace himself more securely against the buffeting of the wind, and his foot slipped on a loose chunk of rock. It broke off and crashed down the cliff. “You go,” he said. “I don’t want to eat supper with them.”
“And what will you do, stand out here on the cliffs in the middle of a storm?” Lionel asked with sudden anger.
“That’s just what I’ll do if I choose,” Garrick said as angrily.
“Why don’t you do as I do?” Lionel asked, turning and climbing back over the broken wall of the keep, to stand on the firm, safe ground inside the shell. “Why don’t you pretend to agree with all that he says, but just think as you please? Why do you have to defy him? You can’t triumph. He is the earl,” Lionel said.
“I am not a stupid lackey, without thoughts of my own,” Garrick snapped.
“You know what I truly think?” Lionel said harshly. “You are a fool, to butt heads with him at every turn!” He turned and stomped away. It was raining a bit harder now.
Garrick shivered, jammed his fists in the pockets of his rather frayed hunting coat, and leaned his back against the keep, hardly seeing the pounding sea below him. His thoughts about his brother, in that moment, were not kind. Lionel might pretend to agree, but in essence he was a puppet on a string, for he did as the earl wished him to do. Garrick could not, would not, live that way. How glad he was that he was not the oldest son.
Maybe he would stand out here all night, he thought defiantly. And if he caught an ague and died, maybe then the earl would finally realize that he had two sons, not one.
Either that or Lionel would just become even more precious to him.
The rain came then, in earnest.
Garrick turned, beginning to shiver from the cold, reaching for the keep’s wall. He climbed over it, jammed his hands in the pockets of his hunting coat, and started trudging back to the manor. By the time he left the keep, he had started to run. The sky overhead had turned black, and the rain was incessant, a torrential downpour. Lightning blazed in the sky, somewhere over the ocean.
By the time he slammed the front door of the manor closed behind him, he was soaking wet and freezing cold and regretting having lingered outside. His father stood in front of the fire raging in the huge hearth, a drink in his hand, while his mother was seated in one of the upholstered, heavily carved thronelike chairs beside him. The earl flinched at the sound of the heavy door closing; his mother stood and turned.
“Garrick!” she exclaimed, rushing forward. Then she paused and said to a passing housemaid, “Bessie, go tell Larkin to prepare a hot bath immediately. And bring blankets at once!”
The earl had turned slowly and was staring. But the countess cried, “Garrick, what have you done? Where have you been? You will catch your death!”
Garrick now hung back, reluctant to come forward. “I went to the keep,” he said thickly, shooting an uncertain glance at his father.
“A brilliant idea,” the earl said with open sarcasm. “Where is Lionel?”
Garrick, about to respond to his father’s cutting remark, froze. “He left just before I did. Isn’t he here?”
There was a moment of silence as both the earl’s and the countess’s expressions changed, registering some alarm. “He did not come in,” the countess said. “Oh, he will catch cold, too!”
“It is only raining,” the earl said bitingly. “I am sure that Lionel will be back at any moment.”
The countess flushed and nodded. The housemaid had appeared with blankets, and she took one and wrapped it around Garrick. “Well, let’s get you upstairs and abed. And Richard, let me know the instant that Lionel returns.”
On the stairs, Garrick hesitated, a feeling of unease taking root within him. “Mother, he should have been back ten minutes ago. Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong,” Eleanor said, her smile failing her.
But Garrick held on to the banister, unmoving, staring into the hall, past his father, at the solidly closed front door. Something was wrong, terribly so. He could feel it now.
“Come,” his mother said, tugging on his hand.
Reluctantly Garrick obeyed, flashing one last glance behind him, dismayed and afraid for his brother.
They came with torches and lanterns, with horses and riders, with dogs. The road to the ruins was ablaze with light as the dozen men invaded the surrounding perimeter of the keep in the midst of the now steady downpour and the pitch-black night.
The earl whirled on his second-born. “Where?” he demanded. “Where did you last see him?”
Lionel had not returned. An hour had ticked by, but he had not appeared back at the manor. Several staff members had seen him leave in search of Garrick, just before the storm; no one had seen hide nor hair of him since then.
The last person to have seen him was Garrick.
He was ready to burst into tears, but trying desperately not to. Where was Lionel? Had he tripped in the mud and been knocked unconscious? Was he all right? What if he were dead! Garrick was terrified for his brother—and terrified of his father, who seemed to be blaming him for Lionel’s sudden disappearance.
Garrick slid off his horse and ran past his father to the spot where he and Lionel had stood together just outside the keep on the cliff ledge.
“I was standing over there, on that ledge,” Garrick managed, choked with fear and tears and anguish. Please, he was praying. Please let him be all right. “Lionel was, too. Then he climbed back over the wall. I didn’t watch him leave.”
His father rode over, looked down at the sea, and gave him a look probably intended to kill a hundred grown men—or reduce them to sniveling cowards. The earl wheeled his mount and rode over to the assembled men. “Fan out. We will cover every inch of ground between here and the manor. He can’t be gone. We will find him shortly. He cannot have vanished into thin air.”
But he had.
Because Lionel De Vere, the viscount of Caedmon Crag, heir to the earldom of Stanhope, was never seen again.
PART ONE
The Return
CHAPTER ONE
ASHBURNHAM, WEST SUSSEX, 1760
She stood outside in the shadows cast by the moonembraced clouds, reluctant to go into the house. It was a pleasantly cool June night. A whisper-soft breeze caressed her bare arms and caused tendrils of silvery blond hair to escape the many braids coiled around her head and tickle her neck and cheeks. The gentle sounds of a harpsichord drifted outside from the terrace doors, left ajar, so that guests could wander the sweeping lawns with its rioting gardens. The house itself had been built just ten years ago by the current earl and was a solid stone structure with imposing Ionic columns, numerous balconies, and temple pediments front and back. Stone stairs led from the terrace where she stood to the unfashionably abundant gardens and the deer park. The melodious strains of the harpsichord suddenly, abruptly, shifted as the musician made a jarring error, and there was a moment of absolute silence.
In that moment, Olivia felt so much. Sensations she did not wish to feel. Fear, anguish, and desperation.
She closed her eyes as the musician played again, perfectly now, but without the flamboyance of one truly born to perform. All that day, awaiting the arrival of their guests, she had felt dread. As if, with the arrival of her husband and guests, some terrible event would come. Now her temples throbbed. Thus far, nothing had gone awry; there had been no disaster. Surely this time she was wrong, and her dread had been the result of her husband’s return, nothing more.
How Olivia hated her cursed gift.
How she wished she had been born normal, like everyone else.
She knew she had to rejoin Arlen’s guests. Her pulse pounding, she debated several excuses that would allow her to go upstairs, and not merely to retire. Were the candles still burning in Hannah’s room? Just the day before yesterday, that foolish Irish maid had let them burn out and then had tr
ied to argue with Olivia about the merits of leaving the child’s room lit at night. Had Hannah’s governess, Miss Childs, not been visiting her parents, the fiasco would not have occurred. Surely the candles remained lit tonight. Surely by now Hannah was soundly asleep and dreaming of happy things, like spotted ponies and sugar plums and the puppet show they had attended at the county fair last week.
Surely her eight-year-old daughter was not feeling what Olivia was feeling. Would she not have said something? Olivia immediately shut off that thought, pulling herself together, glad Arlen would return to London in a few days, glad that she and her daughter would once more be left to their own devices in the country—with their own secrets still safely held. Clad in a beautiful pastel floral and striped silk dress, her small waist accentuated by the huge bell skirt, one supported by wide panniers, diamonds and pearls glinting from her ears and throat, reluctantly given by her husband years ago, Olivia moved swiftly across the flagstone terrace, past a stone water fountain, and into the paneled-and-gilded salon where her husband’s guests were gathered.
The harpsichordist continued to play, her small back to Olivia, her narrow shoulders set rigidly, telling Olivia that she hated playing for the assembly. As Olivia glided into the room, her sister-in-law, renowned as one of England’s great beauties, lifted a slashing black eyebrow at her. Elizabeth’s small, perfect nose was tilted just slightly in the air. Her look was clear. She knew Olivia was not at ease in this company—or any company—and she was filled with disdain.
When Elizabeth Wentworth was at Ashburnham, Olivia’s duties as hostess were usurped. Olivia did not care about that, just the manner in which it was done.
As Elizabeth’s cool blue eyes locked with Olivia’s pale gray ones, Olivia wondered, as she had repeatedly for the past nine years, what had she done to make Arlen’s sister dislike her so? Olivia had once attempted to be friendly, but now she avoided her like the plague, a task easily enough done, because Elizabeth hated the country as much as Olivia hated town.
The harpsichordist, Susan Layton, had finished the song. Olivia sat down next to her husband, taking a small, goldcaned chair. The company broke into a round of applause. Susan faced them, a pale, blond girl of no more than seventeen, a smile pasted on her face. Olivia applauded loudly. “Bravo,” she called, so the shy young lady could hear. Silently she thought, How courageous you are.
Susan sent her a grateful glance, rising, giving the company a small curtsy. Her cheeks were red.
“Doesn’t she play well?” Sir John Layton, a bejowled man with a huge frame that even his velvet coat could not contain, beamed at his daughter. His powdered wig was askew, his puffy cheeks flushed. He was a brewer, knighted a dozen years ago for some service to the Crown. He had made such a fortune that he could have bought the earldom of Ashburn several times over—or so Arlen had said.
Olivia liked him very much, in spite of his antecedents and the fact that his periwig was always slipping. He had quite the proverbial heart of gold. Arlen, she knew, merely pretended to be his friend. She had yet to glean what purpose Layton served the man she had married.
“Extremely well,” Elizabeth said smoothly with a look of boredom that belied her words.
Susan’s mother, Lady Layton, was a tiny, attractive, birdlike woman, and she smiled her thanks quite nervously—she had yet to say a thing since arriving at the estate. Henry Wentworth, the marquis of Houghton, sat beside her. He was half as tall as Sir John and twice as wide, and was soundly asleep. His stocking-clad ankles were hugely swollen with gout. His feet overwhelmed his buckled shoes. Elizabeth snapped her japanned fan loudly, and the marquis awoke with a start. “Do you not wish to hear me play, my lord?” she said as she stood up.
Arlen suddenly gripped Olivia’s wrist. “Where have you been?” he whispered, his dark eyes boring, his face close to hers.
He was hurting her, but Olivia did not try to pull her hand away. “I needed air.”
He kept his voice low as the company around them continued to discuss Susan Layton’s abilities as a harpsichordist and Elizabeth took her turn, sitting gracefully, and with supreme confidence, in front of the instrument.
“You always need air when I am entertaining,” he said, his eyes flashing. “I protest, madam, for I am only in the country two months a year!”
Olivia forced herself to smile at her husband. Two months, she supposed silently, was far better than three. “My headaches are far worse than ever, my lord,” she said demurely.
The earl of Ashburn eyed her. He was a slender, darkhaired fellow with features as perfect as his sister’s, who had just taken up the current fashion of wearing his own hair, rolled, powdered and tied back, sans peruke. Olivia knew that the ladies in London oohed and aahed over her husband. She also knew that he kept an actress from Vauxhall as his mistress. She had even heard that his mistress was with child. Not that she, Olivia, cared. She wished he would never come to the country. She prayed his mistress would give him a son. She dreamed of being left alone in the country, just her and Hannah and their wonderful staff.
Arlen Grey, the earl of Ashburn, stared coldly. “And what dreams do you now have? What delusions? What nightmares?”
Olivia swallowed. “None, my lord,” she lied. “That—malady—is past.”
He eyed her with utter disgust, and perhaps with real loathing. It had not always been that way. Olivia had been married at the age of sixteen, and looking back upon the memory, one that was not happy, she could hardly believe she had ever been so naive, innocent, or trusting. How quickly all that had changed. And any fond feelings Arlen might have had for her had vanished the moment he had realized just how different she was—before their daughter was born. Now Olivia knew that he knew she’d lied.
Finally Arlen adjusted his lace cuffs, which frothed out from under his turquoise coat sleeves. His sapphire signet ring caught the light from the crystal chandeliers overhead. “I ask very little of you, madam,” he said. “See to it that your dreams remain just that.”
Olivia nodded, clasping her hands tightly together, wanting to escape upstairs now more than ever, yet knowing she could not. Was Hannah all right? And what would Arlen do if he knew about her current “dream”? For he referred to her oddly accurate intuition and premonitions as dreams. Olivia found herself watching Susan, who spoke quietly with her mother. She was obviously unhappy. Miserably so.
The desperation, the fear, was coming from her. Olivia was certain of it. She had been certain of it from the moment they had been introduced earlier that day. How she wished to help her. But what could be so terribly wrong?
Susan suddenly looked up at Olivia, as if feeling her eyes upon her. Olivia gave her an encouraging smile. She knew she must befriend the young girl in order to prevent a catastrophe. She did not know how she knew it. But she did. It was always that way. The unwanted knowledge—truths that were never complete.
Arlen broke into her thoughts. “Elizabeth is about to play,” he said, and he settled back in his seat. “My sister is one of the finest musicians I know, and her voice is unsurpassable,” he said proudly to everyone present.
“Hear, hear,” the marquis agreed. “My wife is, in general, quite unsurpassable.”
Elizabeth accepted this praise as her due, not even a spot of pink upon her alabaster cheeks as she gracefully inclined her head.
“Yes, we have heard all about Lady Houghton’s talents,” Sir John said expansively. “Please, my lady, do play for us.” His pretty words were spoiled by a sudden belch.
Olivia smiled at him.
And Elizabeth smiled benignly at the crowd, then began to play. In fact, she was more than adept at the harpsichord. Note after note rippled sweetly across the room. “Ah, yes, lovely,” Sir John said with a sigh. But the way he was regarding Elizabeth, Olivia was quite certain he referred not to the music, but to the musician herself. The marquis, she noted, was drifting off once again.
Then Olivia heard it. The child’s scream. She jumped out of her deli
cate Hepplewhite chair.
Elizabeth’s back was to her and she continued to play. But the entire company stared at Olivia as if she had lost her mind. And Olivia realized that she had been the only one to hear Hannah scream—that the scream was only in her mind.
She knew that the candles had burned out.
Fury—and the need to rush to her daughter—engulfed her.
“Is something amiss, Lady Ashburn?” Sir John asked with concern, also rising to his feet.
“Nothing is amiss,” Arlen said unpleasantly, standing. He gripped Olivia’s wrist. “Sit down.” His tone was filled with warning.
Olivia did not obey. “Arlen. My lord. I must go upstairs.”
“I told you to sit down.”
Elizabeth stopped playing and turned. “Why, whatever is wrong, sister dear?”
“You will sit down,” Arlen said flatly.
“The candles are out,” Olivia returned. Then she stiffened, seeing the anger in his eyes—thinking he would strike her—forgetting they were not alone. For Arlen never spoke of his daughter publicly; in fact, few peers even knew of Hannah’s existence.
“Is that what this is about?” Elizabeth stepped forward, her lavender skirts rustling. She actually came between them in spite of her wide skirts and laid a graceful hand on Arlen’s arm. “Do you still coddle her?” She spoke only to Olivia, her tone low. “She still insists on sleeping with candles, for goodness’ sake?” She was amused. “You must not allow a child to dictate terms, Olivia dear. How you spoil Hannah.”
Arlen gave Elizabeth a warning look. “Continue playing, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth shrugged, but before she could turn, Olivia spoke. She rarely argued with Elizabeth, but this was very different. “And how many children do you have, Elizabeth?” She fought to control her anger.
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. Her blue eyes darkened. “Well, when I consider the circumstances of your own child, I should think it is fortunate that I have none.”