She scanned through descriptions of heat and insects, of the throngs in the marketplaces and the spice in the food. Of finding a bungalow to set up house in and locals to staff it.
I’m fortunate to have O’Malley with me—I’d never trust the locals to fix my tea.
At that, she looked up with a start. A different O’Malley, or was he related to Deirdre? She had said her uncle had recommended her here, had she not? Was this he? More scanning seemed to indicate he was Rushworth’s valet … No, batman, he called him. The military equivalent. She read on.
You should see the fabric they make here, Lizzie. Stunning, simply stunning, with beadwork that would put Paris to shame. I’ve got some to send home to Mother and Rush’s wife … would send some to you, too, if I didn’t think that husband of yours would dash around the world to put a fist to my nose in thanks.
I hope you’re happy there, Liz. I do. Though if ever the northern climes grow too harsh …
Brook shook her head and flipped to another letter. Apparently her father had reason to remember this Henry as he did. The tone may not have been that of a man trying to lure a woman away from her husband, but it was certainly that of one with regrets, and whose affections were no secret. She glanced through a few more before she came to the last one by date. Just a few months before her mother’s death.
The locals have stories that would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Ancient curses, angry gods, marauding tigers … Perhaps when I’m home for leave, I’ll tell you a few. I hope you’ll see me, if only for tea. If he’ll let you. I miss you, Liz. I know you’re happy with your choice, that you’ll have his babe any day now. But I miss you.
Brook touched a finger to a telltale dried water drop that smeared the last word and wondered if her father had allowed a reunion.
With a sigh, she gathered the letters to take with her to her room and stood. She had to rest, somehow or another. Tomorrow she intended to put her weight on Oscuro and see how he responded.
Perhaps a wild horse could take her mind off all the things she couldn’t change … and the ones she wished with all her might would stay the same.
Fifteen
TWO MONTHS LATER
NOVEMBER 1910
Thunder roared. Lightning sizzled. Brook loosed a laugh from the depths of her throat that felt a little bit mad. They should ride away from the storm, back to the safety of stables and hearth. Instead, she let Oscuro gallop toward the thunderheads coming in off the sea, bringing darkness hours too early. She braced her feet in the stirrups, rose off the saddle, and leaned into him.
He soared over the fence and kept on flying. Fast as the wind. Free as a bird.
The rain greeted them in another half mile, along with the property edge. Oscuro whinnied a protest when she reined him in, but he slowed, stopped. She checked her watch. “Faster even than yesterday.” He would trounce all the other horses at the races in the spring—assuming she could convince him to let someone else onto his back.
She could see Delmore from here, the sprawling maze of it. And, if her eyes and the rain didn’t deceive her, the Rushworth carriage pulling away. Her lips tugged up. Would Kitty be there with her brother, trying for whatever unfathomable reason to convince Pratt to marry her? Perhaps they would stop at Whitby Park. Perhaps even stay the night.
Another crack of lightning struck to the west, thunder tripping over it for its turn. She had hoped she and her father could take their drive into Eden Dale this afternoon so she could post her letter to Brice and Ella, and another to Grand-père, but it seemed that would have to wait for tomorrow. A visit would be worth the change of plans though, if the Rushworths decided not to chance the muddy roads.
“Back we go, boy-o.” She said it in her best—albeit poor—imitation of Deirdre’s accent.
The horse gave an obliging shake of his head, coiled his muscles, and prepared to fly homeward again.
The storm raced them. Fat, cold raindrops struck her as the ground soaked up the torrent and turned to mud. For Oscuro’s sake, she pulled up on the reins. If he slipped and fell—non, not on her account. Better to let the weather win and suffer the drenching.
Lights were on in her father’s study, and she saw his silhouette in the window when Oscuro trotted over the lawn. Waiting, as he always did, to make sure she came safely home. Most days, he did his waiting at the stables, so he could congratulate her on the day’s progress.
He wasn’t quite so mad as she, though, when it came to the rain.
Another glance, this time upward, and she saw the light on in her own room, and another silhouette. Deirdre stood at the window with hands on hips, and she gave a shake of her head before she turned away. No doubt muttering in her brogue about mud and wet and cold—but she’d be drawing a hot bath and laying out a warm change of clothes.
Brook wouldn’t claim her lady’s maid as a friend, but they had reached a truce. Deirdre served her well, without pretense, often displaying consideration that took her by surprise. Other than a couple cups during the fateful house party, the maid hadn’t managed to secure her a decent cup of coffee, but her quiet “It isn’t me, my lady, nor is it the chef” had been all the conversation on the matter Brook had the heart for.
She had been sending a few extra pound notes to the O’Malley farm every week—she hadn’t told Deirdre she was doing it, nor had she mentioned it to anyone else on the staff, but her father had approved that use of her allowance. He had given her that proud look again and had patted her shoulder.
One of these days, he would give her an actual embrace in those moments when he clearly wanted to.
One of these days, she would form her lips around Father as she so often almost did … then couldn’t.
She cast another look at the closed-up carriage house where the new roadster hid, and then toward the village. One of these days, she’d be able to leave a letter on the table to be posted with her father’s correspondence and trust that it wouldn’t still be sitting there, alone, after his had been taken.
The thunder laughed at her, mean and mocking. As it had in the dream last night.
Oscuro slowed to a walk as they crossed the drive and gave his head a shake. No sign of the Rushworth carriage, which brought a twinge of disappointment—though she could hardly blame her cousins for seeking their own hearth on such an evening. Brook patted Oscuro’s neck and dismounted, her boots squishing an inch into the muck. A disgusted noise slipped from her throat, and a shiver of cold skittered up her spine. “You should experience a Mediterranean rain sometime, boy. Warm even in November, by comparison.”
He nickered his agreement as she slid the reins over his head and led him toward the darkened stables.
The nicker turned to a high whinny when she stepped inside, and he pranced backward rather than follow her in. “Shh. Calme toi, Oscuro. Allons-y.” She frowned at the way he sidestepped. He never exactly liked going back to his stall, but he hadn’t behaved like this in a month.
She squinted into the darkness. Why were no lights on? “Francis? Russell?”
The strike came without warning, a blow to her shoulder that forced her to her knees. She fumbled the reins, heard the horse’s fearful scream. Or maybe it was her own. Up, she had to get up—
Another blow, this one to the side of her head. Senses as muddy as the ground, she planted her hands, pulled her knees under her.
Cruel hands seized her by the back of the jacket and whipped her upward only to slam her into the wall. A heavy, putrid form pinned her there, one rough-skinned palm pressing her cheek to the splintering wood. “Where are they, missy?”
His voice rasped in her ear, and the smell of kippers and onions curdled her stomach.
“Qui?” Her arms were trapped, one against the wall, one between their bodies at a strange angle, his meaty hand cuffed around her wrist. English. She needed English. “Who?”
He growled and twisted her arm still higher, making her shoulder strain and pop. “Donnel be coil with me, girl, or I’ll slit
yer pretty throat when I’m done with ye. Where are the feral ice?”
The pain must have addled her brain—his words were mere sounds strung together, no sense behind them. “Je ne sais quoi … I don’t …” She couldn’t clear the French from her whimpering mouth. “I don’t understand.”
His next growl was more roar. There was a whisper of fabric, an unmistakable click, and a cold metal cylinder pressed to her temple.
Her soul cried out. A wordless prayer for help, for strength, for clarity.
Feet. It must have been the Lord, but He whispered into her ear with Justin’s voice, and countless memories flooded her. Innocent tussles, fencing, boxing. So many lessons in how to move, to act, to spring. Your feet.
The rest of her body was pinned, but her feet were free. She slid one until it found his foot. Lift, coil, slam.
His scream set up a pounding in her ear, but he pulled away. Not much, but enough. It had to be enough. She jerked free of him and lunged for the doorway, back into the rain and thunder and sizzling lightning. Oscuro was still there, whinnying his warnings. She changed directions. If she could gain the saddle …
The mud betrayed her, and the brute grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around.
He had the gun up, pointing at her heart.
Another frantic cry from Oscuro. Hooves flew, struck. The weapon flew, too, to the left. While the man cursed the horse, she dove for the gun.
He caught her again when her fingers were only inches away, shoving her down into the mud, flipping her, pinning her legs with his knees.
Lightning flashed against the evil in his eyes—and the wicked blade he had pulled out in lieu of the gun. “The feral ice, missy—ye must knowl where they are. Ye’ve all her things.”
“I don’t …” She stretched, arched, writhed. Two more inches. One. “… know …” Her shoulder screamed, but she forced it farther. “… what you mean.” There.
Cold metal had never felt so beautiful. She gripped it and swung, striking him in the side of the head. It won her freedom, but at the price of his rage. Something struck her face, something bit her ribs before she could get the gun between them.
He lunged away, so that her first shot found only air. Scrabbling to her knees, she cocked it again to load the next round in the chamber and took aim at his dark form in the gathering dusk.
The next flash of lightning illuminated his raised arms. Knife still in hand, but the stance of surrender.
She didn’t trust it for a second.
“Careful, missy. You donnel knowl how to use it.”
“Then it seems you ought to be careful, lest I mean to take a warning shot and send a round between your eyes by mistake.” She could—her aim had always been better than Justin’s, better than most of the palace guards’. If he so much as twitched the hand holding the knife …
No. She gripped the gun tighter, fighting the rain and the mud for purchase of the handle. She couldn’t kill him. She wanted answers, and dead men never offered enough of them.
“Brook!” Her father’s shout, half covered by a roll of thunder.
The brute gripped his knife and came for her. She pulled the trigger, recocked, took aim again.
But this bullet had found its mark, and he fell to the ground cradling his injured hand, screaming.
“My lady! Are you all right?” Strange hands pulled at her, igniting pain in a thousand places.
She pushed them away, elbowed and kicked.
“Stop, my lady. It is only me. Pratt. I am trying to help you.”
She would sooner be left in the mud—but when his face appeared before her, he looked earnest and shaken. The rain washed the last of the fight out of her, and she let him help her to her feet and pry the revolver from her hands.
“Brook!” Her father’s cry was near now.
Pain sliced through her side, her knees buckled. But the arms that caught her smelled of pipe tobacco and leather and ink, so she let them hold her. Let herself be crushed to her father’s chest, even though the agony redoubled. It was worth it.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight as heaven’s tears streamed down her face. “Papa.”
He shuddered, wrapped his arms around her more securely. “I am here. Right here. Did he hurt you?”
A pistol shot made her jump before she could form an answer.
“Pratt!”
Lord Pratt lowered the revolver as the man sagged to the ground—his hand around a second gun. Why had he not pulled it earlier?
“My apologies, my lord. I meant only to disarm him but haven’t the aim of your daughter, it seems.”
Brook eased away from her father, mainly so that she could press a hand to where fire ate at her side. Mud caked her everywhere, cold and slick, but this was warm. Sticky.
Her father kept one arm anchored around her. “What are you doing here, Pratt?”
Pratt wiped at the rain streaming down his face. “Some of your post was delivered to me by mistake. I thought to beat the rain—then was closer to your house than mine when it hit. Thank heavens.”
That meant he left before the Rushworths. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t … he …
He turned to them, concern lining his face. “Were you hit, my lady?”
“Only with his fists.” Did the words come out in English or French? Or perhaps Monegasque? Another peal of thunder sent the sky spinning. “Perhaps, too, with his knife.”
The world tipped … but settled with her father’s chest under her cheek and his chin in her line of vision. “Hold on, my dear. We’ll get you help.”
“I’ll be all right, Papa.” That must have been why she could never call him Father—it wasn’t his name. She let her eyes slide closed when pain crashed again. “Oscuro. He saved my life.”
“Oh, my Brook. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about a thing. Papa is here.”
The kitchen door crashed open, and Deirdre nearly dropped the new cake of scented soap she had fetched from the laundry. And when she saw his lordship straggle in, soaking wet and with the baroness limp in his arms, Pratt shadowing him, drop it she did.
As the wind gusted the rain in with them, everyone in the kitchen leaped to their feet with a cacophony of questions.
Deirdre’s eyes remained fixed on Lady Berkeley. And on the red stain coloring the mud on her side.
“Quiet, please!” His lordship’s voice, so seldom raised, brought instant hush to the din. He wore the mask of barely held calm. “My daughter was attacked. I need O’Malley and Mrs. Doyle to come with me now. Mr. Graham, call for the physician and the constable.”
The butler dashed off even before he’d finished bowing.
Deirdre stepped around Hiram to meet his lordship at the stairway. “The horse?”
“A man. The horse saved her, she said.”
Mrs. Doyle pressed a hand to her chest and turned to the stairs. But before she did, Deirdre saw the look on her face. Regret … and determination.
“Who would dare do such a thing?”
“Those answers will have to await the constable. Jack?”
The first footman hurried around the table. “My lord.”
“See Lord Pratt is shown to a room so he may dry out.”
“Yes, my lord.”
They were on the stairs then, hurrying up them without heed to the trail of water and mud they left behind. For a moment, Deirdre wondered who would have to scrub it all clean again.
But it didn’t matter. She would do it herself if necessary, and sure and the others would feel the same. So long as death didn’t visit them tonight. So long as his lordship didn’t fade away again into the man he had been before she came.
There’d been laughter in the house, even with Lady Ramsey and her daughters gone back to London after the Duke of Stafford’s funeral.
Under her breath she whispered a prayer for perhaps the first time since Da died. “Save her, Lord Jesus. Save her.”
At the main floor, Jack led Pratt off in the direction of the bachelor’s wing
. Deirdre took the chance to slide around his lordship so she could hurry ahead to the baroness’s room. She reached it half a minute ahead of him and Mrs. Doyle, giving her just enough time to snap open a spare sheet to lay across the coverlet.
Lord Whitby lowered his daughter’s muddied form onto it with agony on his face. “Look what he’s done to her. The monster.”
Deirdre glanced only a moment at her face, scraped and bruised. It would hurt her, aye, but it wasn’t what had knocked her into darkness. She undid the buttons on the lady’s riding jacket and hissed out a breath at the bright red blood staining the side of her once-white shirt.
“Step back now, your lordship,” Mrs. Doyle said, her voice calm and soothing and brooking no argument. “Let us tend her as we can. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded helpless. Looked it, as he sank into a chair and stared into the corner. “I saw her ride back in, dismount. The horse was skittish, but she tried to get him inside. Then … I don’t know. The lights were out, but I thought perhaps the storm—then I heard a gunshot. And saw someone pushing her down when the lightning flashed. So I ran. Pratt reached her first and shot the man when he pulled out a second gun.”
Deirdre tried to ease the jacket off the lady’s shoulders. She groaned and pulled away. “Shh, now, my lady. Sure and we have to get you out of these muddy clothes.”
The baroness blinked her eyes open, though they were glazed. “Deirdre?”
“Aye.” She smoothed the sodden locks from her ladyship’s face. “Your jacket.”
The lady shifted but moaned again. “My shoulder.”
Mrs. Doyle came to her aid. “The jacket is ruined anyway, we’ll cut it off. And don’t you fret, my lady. You won’t feel a thing.”
Lady Berkeley must have been clenching her teeth against the pain, given the pulse in her jaw. But she nodded and let them cut away the dark blue fabric. And, once free of it, said, “Papa?”
Lord Whitby was on his feet again in half a blink, taking Mrs. Doyle’s place when she turned to fetch the basin. “I am here.”
Deirdre had to give the lady credit—she nearly managed a smile.
The Lost Heiress Page 18