Miss Cameron's Fall from Grace

by Helen Dickson

  Delphine stared at him, appalled that her father had threatened him with such an ultimatum. ‘That is truly awful. I—I did not know. You must believe that.’

  He looked at her hard, then nodded and cupped her chin in his palm. ‘Why is it I want to believe you?’ His thumb stroked her lips. ‘And what is it about the night I spent with you that makes me feel like someone punched me in the gut? What I have an aversion to is being forced. It goes against the grain. Your father had no thought for you when he threatened me, of how such an accusation would affect you, which told me you do not rank highly in his affections.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I know that. It is something I have always known. My—my happiness never came first with my parents.’

  Hearing the catch in her voice, Stephen considered her a moment. ‘I did get the impression that you were not their favourite child,’ he remarked quietly, dropping his hand.

  Furious with herself that she should show such weakness, Delphine lifted her chin and found the deep-blue eyes resting on her with something akin to compassion or pity. She smiled wryly. ‘You must have seen my twin sisters. Indeed, I’m sure you were unable to tear your eyes away from them. I am the youngest of five girls. The eldest two are married with children. Rose and Fern are to be married shortly. You must have seen how perfect they are—fragile, lovely and as demure as the names by which they are known. They are everything I am not.’

  ‘You do not resemble them in looks, but you do yourself an injustice. You are far more beautiful than your sisters. They lack your vibrancy and spirit, which are traits I admire in a woman.’

  Delphine raised her brows mockingly. ‘I confess I am not used to such compliments and, coming from you, I cannot be sure of their faithfulness.’

  ‘I may be many things, Delphine, but I am always honest.’

  Her cheeks suffused to a delightful pink, Delphine lowered her eyes. ‘Aunt—Aunt Celia told me about the large donation you made to the orphanage,’ she said hesitantly, changing the subject to cover her confusion, ‘for which I thank you. I hope I was worth it,’ she added drily, ‘since I am not proud of the manner in which it was acquired.’

  His eyes narrowed and he nodded. ‘Oh, yes, Delphine. You were worth every penny—and more. A lady who prefers to involve herself in charitable works instead of useless activities—I can only extend my sincerest admiration.’

  ‘I am no saint—far from it, just the reverse—and you more than anyone else should know that. My parents tell me I am not ladylike, for I have this awful habit of doing the opposite of what I am told to do and arguing when I should be agreeing.’

  On a sigh and suddenly feeling very tired, she turned from him and unpinned her hair, shaking it loose with her fingers. Stephen’s mouth went bone-dry as he watched it ripple down her back. The lamp and the moonlight shining in through the open window brought out all the glorious, vibrant, fiery shades. Ten years as a soldier had conditioned him to react to any situation with lightning reflexes, yet now he didn’t move, didn’t think—and damn if his traitorous heart didn’t beat faster and a spear of lust pass through him. The sensations spreading through him were like nothing he’d ever experienced before. They came in waves, each faster and stronger than the last.

  Pleasure rolled over his body, pleasure turning to desire. He wanted to taste her, to run his fingers through the silken mass of her hair. Within seconds his loins stirred and his manhood hardened. He was not sure he could wait until he’d returned from Spain to have her. Then, just when the erotic sensations grew so intense they verged on pain, she turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes large and warm in her flushed face.

  Delphine’s senses were similarly enhanced. She wondered if he had any idea how attractive he looked in his uniform jacket, his white trousers moulding his muscled legs, his black hair gleaming and curling about his handsome face. She felt heat suffuse her cheeks and her stomach lurched. The desire she’d experienced on that other night returned with a vengeance.

  Immediately, to hide his embarrassment, with an angry oath Stephen spun on his heel and strode to the door. ‘I’ll leave you to prepare for bed. I have to speak to Oakley. Go to sleep. I won’t bother you.’

  A small frown touched her brow as she looked at him. ‘Where will you sleep?’

  He glanced back at the large leather chair by the hearth. ‘In the chair.’

  ‘I am not unaccustomed to discomfort,’ she informed him, thinking of the late nights she had spent trying to sleep on the most basic of furniture at the orphanage. ‘I will be content sleeping in the chair if you like.’

  Stephen glanced at her, his lips twisted sardonically. ‘I am happy to know I have a most agreeable and considerate wife, but it is I who make the decisions. I am a soldier. The chair will be more than adequate for my needs. Believe me, it is a luxury compared to some of the places in which I have slept. I shall return shortly,’ he said, opening the door. Then he was gone, leaving Delphine alone at last.

  * * *

  Delphine had never seen the sea before. When the coach crested a hill and it came into view, the sight took her breath away. They had set off from the inn in brilliant sunshine and travelled at a less arduous pace than the day previous. Stephen wanted to give Delphine the opportunity to admire the lovely countryside as they travelled through Devon and into Cornwall, and this last leg of their journey offered a spectacular taste of the countryside and the sea at its most dramatic.

  As they drew closer to this never-ending expanse of water, Delphine leaned out of the window and asked Stephen if they might stop. Happy to indulge her, he instructed the driver to pull over. In her eagerness to get a closer look, she climbed out and almost ran to the edge of a high headland sloping out to sea. Stephen dismounted and went to stand beside her.

  The breath caught in Delphine’s throat with a gasp as she stared around her. Her eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed with an unfamiliar excitement. It was as though she had just been deposited in a wonderland. ‘Oh, what a beautiful sight,’ she enthused. Looking up at Stephen, her eyes wide and round, she laughed like a child. ‘I suppose you think I’m quite mad, but I’ve never seen the sea before.’ She turned her attention back to the view. ‘Oh, Stephen,’ she exclaimed, unaware that she had addressed him by his given name for the first time, ‘I have never seen anything quite so beautiful.’

  There was something about the sea that touched her deeply. The day had all the drowsy beauty and heady scents of midsummer, which drifted into her senses. She stood spellbound, though the sun was hot and the glare hurt her eyes. Trees, rustling with the summer breeze, grew thick to the edge of the pale sand, and moss, succulent and green, clung to the rocks. The sea was deep blue and green and shining, with silver glints darting like quicksilver over its gently rippling surface. It was untroubled and calm, with little waves lapping and foaming gently on the shore, only to retreat. Gulls flew overhead, wheeling and crying above the foam, diving now and then in search of food.

  She turned and looked up at her husband. Having discarded his uniform for the time being, he was clothed in dark blue, the high, stiff collar of his coat embroidered with gold thread. His stock was pristine white and held only the lightest cologne. He was impeccably groomed and so handsome that she felt weak just looking at him. She could not forgive him for forcing her into their marriage, but knew it would be foolish to live at loggerheads with him. She must at least make life as bearable as possible. Carelessly his hand brushed her arm. She felt a sudden stillness envelop them. Vividly aware of the heat of the sun and the scent of the trees and the grass, she was overwhelmingly conscious of him. Confused, she looked away. Despite all the irritation he roused in her, the magnetic attraction remained.

  Stephen was no less struck by the intimacy of the moment. Studying her profile as she stared ahead, his gaze lingered on the dainty ringlets that cur
led around her ears, the astonishing length of her black lashes and the soft fullness of her lips. She wore a fetching gown in a pastel shade of green, with tiny puffed sleeves and a scooped neck. In the softest of materials it failed to conceal all the delicious lines and curves of her body. Stephen was not surprised to discover that, having sampled them once, he was anxious to reacquaint himself with those curves.

  ‘Is—is your house near the sea?’ she asked haltingly.

  ‘Very close. Does that please you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. This is a million miles away from London and the orphanage. How I wish I could bring every one of those children to a place like this. Some of them have never ventured further than the dingy streets where they were born.’

  ‘Your caring nature does you credit. I hope those children know the value of such kindness.’

  His remark brought a smile to her lips. ‘Your donation will be appreciated much more than anything I do. Be assured it will be put to good use. Our work, what we do for the children, is the only hope they have. They depend on us. They have no one else. If we did not help the boys to obtain respectable occupations, they would roam the streets and become members of some brutish gang. A worse fate, too awful to contemplate, awaits the girls. Establishments like the one in which Mr Oakley found me are waiting to snatch them up—although I know not why I am telling you this. How can someone like you possibly understand if you’ve never been inside an orphanage? You cannot have the faintest idea of what it is like.’

  ‘I cannot. You told me you were at the brothel looking for a missing child. Did you find her?’

  She nodded. ‘A girl called Maisie. Her mother works at the brothel.’

  ‘Which is probably where the child will end up.’

  Delphine swung her head round and looked at him fiercely. ‘She will not. I will do everything within my power to prevent it. Maisie is a very pretty girl. Unfortunately, she has already drawn the attention of a man who is determined that she will follow her mother into the profession—a vile man who is constantly on the lookout for girls like Maisie to fill the brothel. He is known for his excesses and is one of the very worst examples of bullies, reared in the belief that because he instils fear in those weaker than he, he is entitled to do anything he likes. In the corrupt world he inhabits, he commands a great deal of influence and power.’

  ‘And his name?’

  ‘Will Kelly.’ She turned her gaze back to the sea. ‘I hate him,’ she said quietly.

  He gave her a dubious glance. ‘And you left the child at the brothel? Was that wise?’

  ‘Her mother promised me she would see she was returned to the orphanage the next morning. I trusted she would keep her word. I met your Mr Oakley when I was leaving.’

  ‘I had arrived in the city that very day. It was my intention to spend no more than three days in London before travelling on to Portsmouth to take ship for Lisbon—which I will do when I have introduced you to Tamara, your new home. I was on short leave from the fighting in Spain and military duties kept me for the past month at the Woolwich Military Academy, which was where I trained to be an officer for the Artillery. On the night we met, I was feeling restless, so I had Oakley find me a little diversion. His choice was surprising—a virgin with a very influential father. I was amazed by his haste to have me do the right thing by you. I suspect the fact that I am going back to rejoin my regiment in Spain might have had something to do with that.’

  ‘Along with the fact that he wanted me off his hands,’ Delphine uttered with more than a little sadness. ‘My rebelliousness and my refusal to bow to protocol was the cause of much strife in our otherwise peaceful household. I do not care for society in general, but this makes me all the fonder of being with Aunt Celia and those I meet through the charities I’m involved with. I enjoy working among the poor and hungry and destitute—helping, in my own small way. I felt wanted—a sense of purpose. I take delight in the society of children, to see the joy light up their faces when they are given a treat or a toy of some kind.’

  ‘What you do, being friend and mother to waifs and strays, is commendable. Did your parents resent your charitable work?’

  ‘Oh, no. Mama has charities of her own she supports—most ladies in her position do the same. After all it’s a very noble thing to do—to be seen to do good to the underprivileged. It was the way I involved myself in the practical sense they resented. My parents had long since decided to marry me off to the first man who offered for me—which seemed most unlikely since I refused to attend the balls and soirées my sisters take such delight in. My mother has been heard to say on several occasions that it would take a brave gentleman to take me on.’

  ‘Then you are in luck, for I am no coward. It is obvious that you enjoy what you do at the orphanage.’

  ‘Yes, I find it most rewarding. I am not completely lacking in social skills or domestic management, but I do tend to neglect the way I look. Poor Mama finds it extremely tiresome and rebukes me about it all the time. I can embroider and play a tune and hold my own in dinner-party conversation like the best of them, but I enjoy my charity work most of all. I like what I do—like you enjoy being a soldier. The difference being I don’t kill people.’

  He looked at her earnestly. ‘Killing is necessary in war,’ he said quietly. ‘I do not like doing it. When it is over I shall set aside violence and settle down to a different existence.’

  ‘If you can. You will miss being a soldier.’

  ‘As you will miss your work at the orphanage.’

  She looked at him. ‘Yes, of course I will. Those children were important to me. My work was my life.’

  Stephen was smiling no longer. Delphine saw before her the firm, tanned face and hard eyes, which the sunlight had turned to steel. A frown darkened his attractive face and his eyes locked on hers with a cool cynicism she did not understand.

  ‘You had to marry one day. It has simply happened sooner rather than later. You will find plenty to occupy your time at Tamara.’

  ‘Yes, but it shall never be the same,’ she said, turning away and slowly walking back to the coach.

  Chapter Four

  The sun was setting behind the trees when they reached their destination. Tamara—so named, Stephen explained to Delphine, after a nymph of folklore who had given her name to the River Tamar—was situated in a peaceful valley facing the sea and rugged cliffs rose on either side. One of Stephen’s ancestors had built Tamara during the fifteenth century in the days of his prosperity. He was a tough professional soldier living in a tough part of the world—there was little or no law in Cornwall at that time and people had had to look after themselves—and he had built a tough house of Cornish granite. It had not been altered since it was built.

  From a distance Delphine thought the house looked cold, strong and commanding rather than mellow and welcoming, but her opinion began to change as they followed a cobbled drive through an archway into the main courtyard around which the house was built. Here the house suggested gentler times. There were gables over the handsome Tudor windows with diamond-shaped panes cut through thick granite, which, Stephen told Delphine, lit the parlour and the great chamber on the first floor. There was also a charming little bell tower on a small chapel. Delphine gazed about her with awe, noting the overgrown lawns in the main courtyard and the creepers growing in profusion up the house’s mellow walls, badly in need of trimming, but nevertheless she thought Tamara quite beautiful in its neglect.

  The coach drew to a halt at the bottom of a shallow flight of stone steps. They had sent word ahead for the staff to expect them, but when no one came out of the house to greet them, Mr Oakley went inside to summon the servants’ attention. Taking Delphine’s arm, Stephen led her inside. When he released her, she looked about her in awe. Delphine stood in the centre of a long, dark oak-panelled hall, which had a table running its
entire length. She made a slow, full circle, taking in every aspect with wide, disbelieving eyes. Her heart plummeted and a cold shiver of disappointment travelled down her spine.

  ‘Dear Lord, would you just look at this place.’ The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them.

  The hall was lofty, with a fine timbered roof, and huge cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Despite the heat outside, it was cold—not a biting cold, but a dank chill that sank through the skin and gnawed at the bones. It smelled damp and fusty and would have benefitted from a fire being lit in the huge fireplace, she noted.

  Whether it was chagrin or irritation Delphine saw in Stephen’s face, she could not rightfully determine, but the muscles in his cheek flexed tensely as if he bit back a reply. ‘Permit me to apologise for the state of the house, Delphine. I have not been home for some time—almost two years, in fact, and I can see the servants have let things slip.’

  ‘Slip? That is putting it mildly,’ she remarked, running her finger through a film of thick dust on the surface of the table. ‘It is clear that you have not been spending money on follies and the house and a coach and four. This place smells like a tomb.’

  ‘Wait here. Chambers, the caretaker, cannot be far away. I shall go and see what’s happening.’

  Stephen strode towards a door, the sharp sound of his boots reverberating around the walls. Delphine turned when a woman appeared from a room across the hall, perhaps in her thirties. Untidy brown hair escaped the confines of a white cap and a soiled apron tied about her ample waist covered a black dress. She looked at Delphine through suspicious eyes.

  ‘And who might you be?’ she asked rudely.

  ‘I am Lady Fitzwaring—your new mistress,’ she informed the woman.

  The servant blinked at her and a grumbling sound came from her mouth. She sounded unfriendly and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion, not knowing how to refer to Delphine.