Outshine (House of Oak Book 5)

by Nichole Van

Another reason to denounce greed and riches, she supposed.

  But something in her reply grabbed Lord Whitmoor’s attention. A slight hesitation or wistfulness or . . . something.

  He turned his head toward her, eyes hooded underneath the brim of his top hat. Bay rum engulfed her again.

  “Am I to take you at your word when you say you are not having second thoughts?” he asked.

  “Yes, my lord.” She swallowed, having trouble meeting his intent gaze.

  She wasn’t doubting her decision, per se. Just perhaps wishing she had negotiated an escape clause or access to funds should she change her mind.

  Or, at the very least, a brushing up on her ladylike manners for interacting with the aristocracy.

  But surely she wouldn’t have much to do with this Lord and Lady Linwood. Fossi would simply be another invisible servant in their household.

  She might have nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “Ah.” He sat back, as if that tiny nervous twitch had told him all.

  And then he said nothing more for a solid hour.

  Maddening man.

  He peered out the window beside him, tapping a hand against his thigh, knee bouncing. It seemed an unconscious gesture to her. Which made her . . . wonder. Surely Lord Whitmoor was always too aware of his surroundings for unconscious gestures.

  Unless he felt . . . safe. Safe with her and Mr. Samuelson in this carriage and, thus, allowed his mind to wander elsewhere.

  It was unexpected.

  But, again, how could she read him so readily? Perhaps she wished so desperately to humanize Lord Whitmoor the Legend, she was conjuring things that did not exist.

  “So, Miss Lovejoy, tell me more about yourself?” he finally asked.

  She sensed he posed the question more out of idle curiosity and politeness than any real desire to know her personally.

  But still, the small intimacy set her slightly off-kilter.

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “Tell me about your family, perhaps starting with your unusual names. Foster, for example?”

  That was easy enough. “My father, being the clergyman and biblical scholar that he is, wished us to remember God in all things, starting with our names. I was christened Foster Love Among Us Lovejoy.”

  He continued to tap his hand on his leg, but he did smile. “An unusual name to be sure.”

  She was unsure of his tone. Did he find her name lacking? And why should she care if he did?

  But . . . it seemed a tiny part somewhere behind her third rib did care what he thought of her.

  That would be . . . ill-advised.

  She should let it pass, say nothing.

  “Do you consider my name unfortunate, my lord?” She asked anyway.

  His hand stilled and he fully turned his head in her direction.

  “No. Of course not, Miss Lovejoy.” That was sincere. “Though you seem unperturbed by the thought.”

  Fossi suppressed a rather ill-bred shrug. “I avoid feeling embarrassed as a general rule.”

  Now she had his full attention. “And why is that?” he asked.

  “Embarrassment as an emotion usually says more about the embarrass-ee than the embarrass-er.” She did not twist her fingers together as she said this. Though the urge was decidedly strong. “Embarrassment is simply the polite manifestation of uglier emotions—shame, regret, envy.”

  All things she refused to sink to.

  She was not ashamed of her family, despite their actions toward her.

  She did not regret her station in life. Nor did she envy his.

  Twenty thousand pounds or no.

  “I see,” he said. Lord Whitmoor nodded, slow and thoughtful, as if truly seeing her anew.

  Silence for a moment.

  “And your siblings?” he asked.

  “Well, there are ten of us, my lord.” That didn’t garner a reaction either, beyond another polite tilt of his head.

  “And your placement?”

  “I am third, behind Will and Prudence.”

  “Will and Prudence?”

  She understood the question. “God’s Will Be Done and Let Prudence Guard your Way.”

  He chuckled. “And do you? Let Prudence guard your way?”

  “Naturally.” Fossi smiled gently. “Though there is no ‘letting’ about it. Will and I consider Prudence to have been quite ironically named.”

  Another low laugh. “And the rest?”

  “Well, after me, there are my brothers—Seek the Lord’s Justice and Find Strength in God.”

  “Strength and Will I met while speaking with your father, correct?”

  “Yes. Then two sisters—Surround Yourself with Virtue and Let Your Heart Abound with Charity. From there, we have Obey God’s Call, another brother. My youngest sister, Walk in Faith and the last boy, Give and Ye Shall Receive but we all call him Reece.”

  “Fascinating. Let me see if I can name them all . . .” Lord Whitmoor squinted, forehead wrinkling. He ticked off his fingers. “Will, Prudence, Foster, Justice, Strength, Virtue, Charity, Call, Faith and Receive or Reece.”

  It was an impressive feat of memory.

  Something that clearly came in handy as a spy.

  Part of Fossi wondered if the spying created the superb memory or if the superb memory led to the spying? Or was she perhaps naive in thinking one to be the causation of the other?

  “From what I saw of your family, it appeared most were married?” he continued.

  “Yes, everyone is married except myself, obviously, and Reece. He works as a clerk for Will, who is a solicitor in Kilminster.”

  “Your eldest brother chose not to follow in your father’s footsteps?”

  “Yes. He and my father . . . differ in many ways. Justice, however, has eagerly joined my father’s ministry—”

  “Justice will inherit the crown, as they say.” Most dry, that sentence.

  “Something of the like.”

  “And what about you, Miss Lovejoy . . . though, I remember your family calling you Fossi . . .”

  “Yes, though only Will calls me Fossi anymore.” She hesitated but then continued. “My mother used to, as well . . . when she was alive.”

  “Ah.” A world of understanding in that sound. “How old were you when your mother passed away?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “A difficult age to lose one’s mother.”

  “Is there ever an easy age?”

  A pause. He tapped his leg again.

  “I suppose not.”

  “Prudence had only just married at the time. Faith and Reece were scarcely out of leading strings . . .”

  “So you raised your siblings instead of marrying yourself.” He finished the thought for her.

  “Yes.” Curious how one word could summarize so much.

  Though he was kind to assume she would have married if she hadn’t had her siblings and father to look after.

  Her sisters did have the right of things there—Fossi was far too odd to ever marry.

  Marriage had never been part of her future.

  Lord Whitmoor sat back, lost in thought for a moment. The carriage rocked and creaked, the wheels grinding on the road. Bay rum reached her again, that unique smell of sandalwood, spices and rum.

  She resisted the urge to breathe it in with eager gulps.

  Fossi supposed their conversation over. Though, really, it had felt more like a friendly interrogation.

  But, as in all things, Lord Whitmoor was two moves ahead of her.

  “I lost my mother, too.” His voice hushed in the closed carriage. “I lost her before I was really old enough to understand what that meant.”

  Oh.

  His words swept over her like stumbling upon an unexpected vista—the view all the more breathtaking for having been unanticipated.

  Had his statement been calculated? Or had he let her inside the fortress, giving her a glimpse of the true Daniel Ashton?

  It truly felt as if he had reached out to her i
n a sense of . . . kinship.

  I understand what it is to lose a parent young. I see you.

  Fossi blinked. Hard. Her throat developing an ache.

  “My older sister, Kit, raised me,” he continued. “Our father was . . . distant.”

  The vision tumbled through her brain.

  Lord Whitmoor as a child . . . just Daniel then. Possessed of those same blue eyes, only open and innocent, letting the world see straight through to the soft bits inside that were so easily damaged and hurt. Eager for love and acceptance that was probably in short supply.

  “Your sister—Kit was it?—is your only sibling?” She asked this gently, tentatively.

  A brief pause. “Yes. There are only the two of us now. My father died shortly after my twentieth birthday.”

  “Kit must love you very much.”

  More hesitation and then, “She does.” He turned fully back to Fossi, his blue eyes pools of summer sky. “In large part, she is why you are here. I cannot explain it fully—the confidence is not entirely mine to give—but I can say that the work you will do for me . . . it benefits Kit among others.”

  Oh. She believed him.

  Not only was he loved, but he loved in return.

  Her heart swelled.

  He needed to be loved. Everyone did. But particularly Lord Whitmoor in his granite castle with iron-banded walls.

  She was glad he did not inhabit that isolated space alone.

  Again, she had to wonder . . . was he messy color inside his fortress? A vibrant red like his current choice of waistcoat? Or was his internal life as structured and rigid as his external seemed to be?

  All thoughts that led to her next question.

  “Are you married then, my lord?”

  It seemed innocuous enough at first. A simple continuation of their conversation.

  But he stiffened, head shooting upright. All that life behind his eyes crashed closed—a portcullis slamming shut.

  The atmosphere in the carriage instantly morphed from warm to chilly.

  Fossi had clearly misstepped.

  He turned his rigid spine away, gaze staring out the window.

  Oh dear.

  She wanted to summon back the question. “I-I am terribly sorry, my lord, I did not mean to pry—”

  He held up a gloved hand. Silence.

  Fossi snapped her jaw shut with a click.

  The arm went down.

  “Yes,” he finally said, body still turned away from her. “Yes . . . I was married, Miss Lovejoy.”

  Was married. Past tense.

  A long pause and then so quiet she barely heard him.

  “Once upon a time.”

  His words landed at her feet—a fractured fairy tale. A paradise lost.

  He wore no black armband which meant that despite his terse, withdrawn reply, his wife’s death could not be recent. Unspoken was the sense that her loss had cut deep.

  A reason to encase his heart in granite and retreat into iron-clad numbness where nothing could hurt him.

  Ah. Now she understood.

  He was a professional plasterer.

  Life took a chink out of him and so he plastered it over. With each chink, his plaster became harder, more obdurate. And because making repairs was hard and painful, it was simply easier in the end to become so hard that nothing could ever get through.

  Fossi should know.

  That tightness in her throat threatened to choke her. The iron and granite would be easier to deal with if it did extend to his core.

  But she suspected now that it did not. She hated that she had been the cause of his retreat.

  She didn’t speak again.

  Neither did he.

  They stared out their respective windows while Mr. Samuelson snored away across from them, oblivious to everything.

  Leaving Fossi to her wandering thoughts.

  She decided Lord Whitmoor called to mind Mr. John Shakes, the blacksmith in Kilminster.

  Mr. Shakes had fought against Napoleon in the Pennisular War and returned a hero. He never spoke much about his experiences in Spain and Portugal, but Fossi had read accounts of the horrifying campaign in the broadsheets and knew enough about the world to understand what was not said. When you spoke with Mr. Shakes, his eyes held discerning depths of calm and steadfastness.

  Fossi thought she understood. It was how she felt after attending the sick bed of the four Carson girls, helplessly watching as, one-by-one, their little bodies stilled and passed on. Or when she had assisted Dr. Andrews as he cut a living babe from its dead mother’s stomach.

  Once you had lived unrelenting horror and loss, you would never again confuse those profound emotions with their lesser siblings—irritation, frustration, disappointment. True suffering had a tendency to blow away the chaff of life, leaving only hardened grain.

  That was what she saw in Lord Whitmoor’s eyes—the gaze of a man who had seen too much, lived too much and was, consequently, tired and worn beyond his years.

  A professional plasterer, indeed.

  Several hours later, the carriage pulled into the coaching yard of a busy inn. Mr. Samuelson lurched awake.

  “Eh, made it to Bath, did we?” he asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and leaning forward to peer out Fossi’s window.

  “Indeed, Garvis.” Lord Whitmoor pushed the door ajar, allowing Mr. Samuelson to exit.

  Fossi moved to follow, but Lord Whitmoor stopped her with a mild touch on the elbow. She turned to him, staring into his emotionless eyes.

  “For you, Miss Lovejoy.” He bounced something in his palm, causing her to look down.

  He set a coin purse in her hand, heavy with money.

  Fossi blinked.

  “An advance on your payment,” he explained, expression still shuttered.

  “My lord, you needn’t—”

  “No.” He silenced her with a subtle squeeze to her arm. “Everyone deserves choices, Miss Lovejoy.”

  Fossi tried again. “But I cannot—”

  “Keep the purse.” He folded her gloved fingers around it. The motion oddly gentle, belying the hardness of his gaze. “I want to ensure you never feel trapped in your employment with me. The money will guarantee you always have options. Or, at the very least, a way home.”

  He touched the brim of his hat and stepped out of the carriage.

  Leaving Fossi with the knowledge that she wasn’t the only one who saw beyond masks and walls . . . to the person within.

  Chapter 10

  Kinningsley, seat of Viscount Linwood

  Outside the town of Marfield, Herefordshire

  August 9, 1828

  They arrived at Kinningsley the next evening, just as the sun dipped to the horizon and flooded the world in hazy, golden light.

  Daniel let out a long sigh of relief.

  The carriage rattled up Lord Linwood’s long lane until, at last, the house came into view, rimmed by the blazing sunset.

  Arriving in the town Marfield—and, by extension, the estates of Kinningsley and Haldon Manor—always felt like coming to a second home. And as an added bonus, the Linwood’s estate was only a few short miles from Duir Cottage and the haywire time portal in its cellar. Proximity would easily allow him to test any answers Fossi may find through her sums.

  “Have we arrived?” Garvis asked from across the carriage.

  “Aye.”

  For her part, Fossi smiled tightly, looking out the window toward the house. Given the tense set of her shoulders, he supposed she felt out of her milieu. But if she were in danger of swooning from fear, she didn’t show it.

  She had been a courteous traveling companion, speaking little and asking for nothing. Daniel suspected Miss Foster Lovejoy was used to going without and would never dream of troubling others with her modest needs.

  The thought, for some reason, nettled him.

  Had no one ever stood up for her? Why did she value her own company so cheaply?

  And was that why he had given her the small bag of mo
ney? It had been an impulsive decision on his part. She had appeared so . . . lost. And that emotion tugged at Daniel as nothing had in more time than he could easily remember. Fossi deserved a champion.

  Granted, now she had a way to leave him. But freedom of choice was often a powerful psychological motivator, engendering loyalty.

  He settled on that as the reason behind his seemingly uncharacteristic actions.

  The carriage pulled to a stop in front of the house. Imposing and classical, Kinningsley boasted columns under a pedimented frieze. Two semi-circular staircases swept from left and right up to the front door on the piano nobile.

  Daniel stepped out and helped Fossi to alight. By the time he turned around, the front door had opened and two dark heads flashed down the steps, taking them three at a time.

  “Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel!” The two boys practically flung themselves onto his legs. Daniel staggered back but managed to retain his balance. He wasn’t precisely their uncle—more like a distant relation via his sister’s marriage—but the boys called him that nonetheless.

  A smiling Jasmine walked down the stairs behind the boys at a more sedate pace, her eldest daughter, Aurelie, at her heels.

  The entire familial scene shot a bolt of anguish through his heart.

  Steady, man. There is hope yet.

  “Scamps.” He knelt down and gathered a boy into each arm for a tight hug which they returned with enthusiasm. “Here is where you show your mother you have some manners.” Standing, Daniel turned to Fossi. “Master Charles and Master James, may I present Miss Foster Lovejoy?” Daniel gestured toward her. Fossi curtsied. “Miss Lovejoy, Charles and James Linwood, Lord and Lady Linwood’s sons.”

  The boys bowed politely. But at ages nine and seven respectively, that was all the decorum they could handle.

  “Did you bring us sweets?” That was James.

  “And a present?” That was Charles.

  This was their standard routine. Daniel made a show of looking around and then studying his coach. He scratched his chin. “You might have to talk with Garvis, lads. I’m not sure anything was packed, you see.”

  “Uncle!” They both howled and then attacked poor Garvis, who now had the task of finding the treats that Daniel had personally wrapped for the boys.

  “Jasmine.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek as she and Aurelie stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I near mistook you for your daughter—”