by Jo Beverley
“I feel so strange all painted up. Not like me at all.”
“Well, you’ll have to put on the paint and let me be the judge, eh?”
Rosamunde ran her finger down the long scar. “I will, then. In truth, Digby, I do feel a little less afraid of showing myself after this adventure. Everyone has been right all along, that my scars aren’t so bad. George Cotter acted as if there was nothing wrong with me at all.”
“Good of him,” said Digby, gruffly. “As I said, in his own way, he’s a good man. Come, give me a kiss, love, and then I’ll take a nap. Knowing you, you’ll want to be off checking everything. Hera dropped her foal while you were away.”
“What?” Rosamunde leaped up, then obeyed the first instruction and kissed his too-red cheek. “The thoughtless jade. She wasn’t due yet.”
“Women,” he teased. “No relying on them at all.”
She cheekily stuck her tongue out at him and hurried off to the stables to check on the offspring of her best mare and Lord Fencott’s Friesian stallion.
On the path to the stables, however, she paused in the herb garden to collect herself. That had gone well. Digby really was happy at what she’d done, and eased by hope. Despite common morality, perhaps she had done the right thing.
If only she hadn’t let the worm of forbidden love into this blossom. It was for her to prise it out and crush it. Her situation would only be truly honorable if she put Brand Malloren out of her mind forever.
Weeks later, with her mind largely under control, and harvest keeping her too busy for folly, Rosamunde received an unexpected visit from Diana. Rosamunde was helping Mrs. Monkton and a maid lay apples on racks in the cool room, but a glance at Diana’s face was enough to have her abandon the job.
Trouble.
She’d thought all safe by now.
She hurried out into the privacy of the garden. “What?”
“The Marquess of Rothgar has virtually invited himself to Arradale.”
Rosamunde put her hand to her mouth. “He suspects? How?”
“I don’t see how,” Diana said, with a helpless gesture so very out of character. “Perhaps it’s coincidence. He’s moving around the North making enquiries about the New Commonwealth, and Arradale is an obvious base for Wensleydale. He requests my knowledge and opinion, though it’s likely only a polite excuse.”
Coincidence. It had to be. Rosamunde commanded her heart to slow its panicked beat. “If he’s able to do something about the sect, I’ll be pleased.”
Diana looked at her. “Does it still matter?”
Rosamunde knew she had turned red. She’d not spoken of this to anyone. “I don’t know… But… I am late.”
“Rosa! This will be such a wonderful thing. Does Digby know?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t said anything yet. I can’t be sure. I’m as regular as the church clock usually, but I can’t be sure.”
“Will it be all right?” Diana asked, taking Rosamunde’s hands. “With Digby?”
She smiled, tears forming as they often did these days. Joyous tears. “So right, Diana. I wasn’t entirely sure, but he’s showing me in so many little ways.” She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I can’t wait to tell him.”
Diana pulled her into a deep silent hug. Then she put her away again and took a breath. “Now, Rosa, listen. I’ve had time to think this all through. Since I must play hostess for Lord Rothgar, I’m holding a house party and throwing a ball. It will be expected, and it will serve to distract him from me a little.”
“He’d never recognize you!”
“I pray not. You, of course, must stay out of his sight. That should be easy since you are not in the habit of attending large social gatherings.”
“But what of Digby? You know he enjoys a chance to get together with the neighbors.”
“But he attends without you. This time must be the same.”
“Of course.”
Diana nodded. “I thought I’d better make sure, because everyone’s noticed that you’re going about more these days.” Diana gently touched the side of Rosa’s face, touched the tinted paint. “It’s excellently done.”
“Dulcie helped me. But it doesn’t change this. Of course, I won’t come.”
“On what excuse, now you have attended other events? I didn’t mention this, but… Rosa, it is just possible that Lord Brand might accompany his brother.”
Rosamunde felt as if someone had poured ice and fire through her veins. “No!” she said, shaking her head. “No. I can’t…”
“Quite.” Diana seized her hands again. “Don’t panic. If you stay up here, you won’t meet. It will be all right, love.”
Ice of fear, fire of need. Rosamunde put need behind her. She wouldn’t ruin everything now by giving in to the temptation to see Brand Malloren one last time.
“Perhaps Digby won’t want to go,” she said. “He’s not well. He seems to find it impossible to follow a plain diet. He tries for a day or so, but then he’s tucking into puddings and drinking bowls of punch again.”
“I’m sorry for it, but it serves our need.”
“Once I’m sure of the child, he’ll try harder, I’m sure. Perhaps I should tell him now.” Her hand slid down to her belly. “I am, Diana. I can feel it in the most extraordinary way. I’ve been hesitating for fear that I’m deluding myself, but I know. Everything is suddenly different.” She shook her head. “I can’t let anything spoil it now!”
“Nothing will. I promise.”
“What of you and Lord Rothgar, though? What if he suspects who the spotty maid was? He would make a very dangerous enemy.”
“No more dangerous than I,” Diana retorted, “and he’ll be on my territory. Anyway, how could he possibly guess? I assure you I intend to be dignified and grand enough to please even Mama. No trace of a scrubby servant girl.”
Rosamunde relaxed. In truth, it would require mystic powers to pierce Diana’s secret. “And I will not attend, no matter what. We’re safe.”
With relieved smiles, they turned to stroll back toward the house. At the trellis arch, burdened by late fragrant roses, Rosamunde stopped, however, hand again to where her womb would soon swell.
“I need to say this once, Diana. Once, and never again. This is Brand Malloren’s child, and I wish for his sake and my own that I could tell him, and share it with him. It is Digby’s child and will save us all, but my heart weeps for the other.”
Diana hugged her, saying nothing. She doubtless understood all that was unsaid.
Rosamunde’s future was now fixed at Wenscote. The child, the whole reason for this, must be raised here, raised as a simple Yorkshire landowner who would love this land and stay on it. She had always known this, known the consequences of her decision, and accepted them. She had never anticipated, however, how painful, how agonizing, that acceptance might be.
Please, Lord, let Brand not come with his brother. Please don’t make me have to be near him again.
Brand rode up Wensleydale toward Arradale House, Bey by his side, but the carriages of servants and baggage far behind. He’d only decided to come at the last moment, and had been in the mood for mindless speed. They’d visited a few studs around Leyburn to pursue Bey’s interest in racehorses, but Brand’s excuse for coming was the heavy horse breeding he’d heard about farther up the dale.
Of course he wasn’t riding the dales in the hope of meeting a certain lady. A lady with an interest in animal breeding. A lady who didn’t like spindly legs and nerves, but preferred the heavy horse…
His lips twisted at his own folly. Every day, every breath, he searched for her, even though he didn’t know what he wanted to do if he did stumble across “Lady Richardson.”
Assure himself of her safety?
Hold her?
Seduce her?
Throttle her?
“Good country,” Bey remarked as they walked the horses for a spell along a leafy lane between harvested hay fields. “But rises to rough rather soon
.”
True, the fells weren’t far away, already divided in places by the new gray stone walls. “Sheep country,” said Brand. “There’s nothing wrong with sheep.”
“In the form of tender lamb, true.”
“And wool. Sheep have always been the staple of England.” Brand looked all around. Though they were in the fertile valley, he could see for miles. “I like it here. Up on the moors, a man can truly feel alone.”
“Perhaps I should have set you to the navy.”
“A chance to feel alone?” Brand countered with a grin. “The land suits me perfectly.”
“I would never have guessed,” said Rothgar dryly. “But a person can be too alone in these parts. If dumped here unconscious.”
Brand sighed. “Leave it be.”
It was too much to hope that Bey would forget an assault on the family, but Brand was weary of fencing over this. He’d long since remembered everything that had happened, everything, and decided for sanity to put it behind him. She clearly hadn’t felt as he did, or she’d never have tricked him into drinking that potion.
“Are you not yet ready to act?”
Brand simply urged his horse back to a canter.
He’d been tempted to give his brother everything he knew and permission to do his worst. She deserved it, the cheating jade. But then one day he’d received that bleak note, sent on with other papers from London. It melted anger, but fueled despair.
All the same, he hadn’t been able to ignore the fact that it had been written on the Three Tuns’s paper, in the same handwriting as the note delivered by the Misses Gillsett. She had been either Lady Richardson or her spotty maid, but both had vanished like creatures from a myth. They’d outwitted even Bey, which was almost a unique achievement.
What did it matter?
The note told him there was no hope.
If only it was as easy as that. Dreams, rage, and questions swirled in him constantly, misting the words in a book or the figures in a ledger, stealing his mind in the middle of speech.
He hadn’t been able to resist the long journey up into Arkengarthdale, to the isolated home of the eccentric Misses Gillsett. He’d hoped to learn something there. Even though they were elderly, there had to be a connection.
The tough-skinned old ladies had refused to tell him who had given them the note. They had, however, expressed cryptic duet opinions on men who dallied with married women, trying to lure them from their lawful husband and children.
Children.
He’d never imagined his lady with children, and he’d ridden away in a state of shock.
He’d tried to seduce her from her elderly, neglectful husband, but could he steal her from her children, and them from her? He was sure she was a loving, beloved mother. Perhaps that was the unscalable barrier that had stood between them. It was a barrier he had to respect.
Even with this, he was a Malloren and thorough. He needed to know. Riding back down Arkengarthdale, he’d slipped into conversations with local people and learned that the old ladies had no close relatives, none with a title. No one there had ever heard of Lady Richardson.
It was a dead end and more proof that his lady was clever. He’d returned to Thirsk with yet more respect for her determination and quick wits, with yet more bitterness at losing her.
He’d never been a romantic, never believed in the concept of the one-and-only, but now it was as if part of him lay dead. Heroine or jade, she had captured him, and despite the brutal severing, she had not set him free.
So here he was, working most of his waking hours, seizing every chance to travel, just to pass the days. And of course, despite all his resolutions to put it out of mind, everywhere he went, he couldn’t help searching. For a spotty maid. For a lady with a hint of the familiar. For the house where he’d spent two days and lost his life.
One tree, however, looked much like another, and that was all he’d been able to see from his prison’s window. Trees, a small garden, and a trace of a passing, quiet road.
He found himself doing it now. Checking a nearby building for anything familiar. Damnation, his prison hadn’t been a four-room cottage! It was over and better so. He had a life to live.
The road split, the right arm pointing up the dale toward Aysgarth and Hawes, the left toward Arradale House. They went left, and for a while the countryside did not change. Then a hedge started, lining the winding road, and in the distance a great house could be glimpsed between trees.
Brand pulled up. “Arradale, I assume.”
Bey halted, too. “Impressive, especially for this part of England.” He pointed with his crop to the hills beyond. “I believe that is the ruin of the family’s home in generations past. Arradale Castle.”
“A striking fortress in a powerful location.”
“The family gained the land just after the Conquest due to the bloody labors of a man known as Ironhand. The earldom came for fidelity to the Stuarts.”
“And the right to pass it to the female line, I gather.”
“The gentleman in question was a great favorite of Charles the Second, and had only daughters. The castle had been destroyed in the war, so the new earl built a more modern home.”
“To the greater comfort of all, I assume.” Brand urged his horse forward at a walk. “Do you ever meet anyone without gathering information?”
Bey raised his brows. “Do you visit an estate without knowing something of the area?”
“True. I was engaged in that sort of research when I was abducted.”
“My investigations are much safer, and done by others. I recommend it. The late earl married below him to a local woman, one Sarah Ludley. It was only permitted because he was the second son. However, the older brother died in a carriage accident before marrying. It seems to have been a happy union, despite the imbalance, though blessed by only one child, a daughter. The countess is still young. She came into her inheritance three years ago at the age of twenty-two.”
“Three years older than you when you inherited,” Brand pointed out.
“I was never young.”
Brand feared that was true. Bey had been present when his mother murdered her new daughter, but being young himself, had been unable to stop it. It had shaped everything. Brand knew it was why his brother found it so hard not to pursue anyone who attacked his family. He was always defending because of the one he had failed to defend.
“She takes her duties seriously,” Bey was continuing, apparently unmoved. “She’s held in respect by the people of this part of Yorkshire, though there’s some indulgence in it. It would seem she was not an orderly young person.”
“A hoyden?”
“Anyone can be allowed a little recklessness in their youth.”
“I don’t remember you allowing us a great deal,” Brand teased.
“I knew the dangers all too well.”
Brand returned to safe subjects. “So, what sort of person is the madcap countess now?”
“Strong willed and determined, I gather. She shows no inclination to marry, though of course she is besieged by suitors. The woman does own and control a large part of the North.”
“Since you don’t plan to marry either, you can hardly carp.”
“I never carp. Lady Arradale is still young, however, and I’m sure she is pestered.”
“Whereas at your advanced age, you are left alone.”
“If only,” said Bey, “that were true. Politically, the countess is of the peace party. She’s at one with the King there. She’s High Church and fun loving, and staunchly opposed to the Cotterite movement.”
“A woman after your own heart.”
“Don’t be foolish. She has one strange quirk. She has ambitions to take her place as equal among men of similar rank, even to bring about a change in custom so that peeresses such as she can take a seat in parliament.”
“The deuce you say! She wants to join the men’s clubs and smoke a pipe?”
“I have no idea if it goes that far. Howe
ver, you can be sure that during our visit I will treat her as far as possible as a man of equal rank. I recommend that you do the same.”
“Poor thing. You’re a manipulative devil at times.”
“All the time, I hope. That’s how I’ve built our power.”
Brand suddenly felt sorry for the young countess. “Don’t hurt her, Bey. You know you can be damned seductive if you’ve a mind to be.”
Bey stared. “My dear, I never seduce men of equal rank.”
Brand laughed, and by then they could see the gate house, a magnificent stone arch with cottage attached, and wrought-iron gates standing open. It seemed somewhat pointless without a wall around the property, but it was an impressive statement of power and wealth.
“Reconstructed, stone by stone, from the castle, at the lady’s orders,” Rothgar murmured, as they rode forward. The gatekeeper was running out to bow and wave them through. “Delusions of grandeur?”
“As I said. A match made in heaven.”
“Our coronets and convictions would clash.”
In moments a horn sounded, telling all that noble guests were arriving.
The formal drive of Arradale ran straight toward the house between disciplined lines of glowing lime trees. To the sides, however, some modern landscape work had been done, creating admirable vistas. Here a small lake was crossed at one end by a miniature stone-arched bridge. There a Grecian temple could be glimpsed through a careful arrangement of trees. Deer cropped the grass, also keeping the lower trunks of the limes tidily clear of growth.
The house was a solid block with two flights of steps curving up toward grand central doors. Servants spilled out from the sides to take the horses, and the doors were opened by liveried footmen.
Brand smiled. Perhaps this was the usual grandeur, or perhaps the countess was intent on impressing the Marquess of Rothgar.
They climbed the steps and entered a paneled hall hung with enough weapons to arm a significant force, and found the countess waiting for them. At least, it must be her. Straight spine, determined chin, and gracious smile. Despite a charmingly feminine yellow dress and a fashionably frivolous muslin-and-lace apron, despite glossy chestnut curls crowned by a lace-and-ribbon confection that hardly deserved the name of cap, she gave a clear impression of authority.