Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss

by Annie Burrows

  ‘It is not always easy to talk about the past, is it?’ he said with contrition. ‘Not when it is painful.’

  When she returned the pressure of his hand, signifying her understanding, he said, ‘Now that we are together again, though, everything will come right.’

  His misplaced optimism plunged Mary even deeper into the gloom that had dogged her from the moment she had first opened her eyes that morning.

  ‘We were very close friends, your brother and I. We even spent our school holidays visiting each other’s homes. I had always thought Kingsmede a completely joyless place to live before he burst into it like a whirlwind. My parents, you see,’ he said, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it, ‘had never been interested in anything I did. They were never proud of any of my achievements. But he interpreted their indifference as the most marvellous freedom.’ He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

  ‘That summer, we roamed the fields and woods from dawn ’til dusk, catching fish from our lakes and streams and cooking them over open fires, and generally living off the bounty of my neglected estate like a pair of poachers. Or gypsies, or bandits, or whatever else we decided to be on any given day. During the next long vacation, your mother insisted on returning the invitation, in spite of your brother’s protests that he would rather come back to Kingsmede.

  ‘That was when,’ he said, turning in his seat, ‘I met you for the first time. You were a shy little thing, with long braids, bony wrists and a freckled face.’He reached out and teased a few coppery tendrils from the braid she had pinned up beneath her hat, and wound them round his fingers.

  Then, with a crooked smile, he went on, ‘You stared in awe at your big brother’s friend, then ducked out of sight, and kept well away from us for the duration of my visit. I could not even get you to speak to me at mealtimes. Not that conversation was encouraged at table.’ He grimaced.

  ‘I soon understood why your brother loved the ramshackle housekeeping that prevailed at Kingsmede. Your father was the very antithesis of mine. He ruled over you all with a rod of iron. And as for the sermons he preached…’ He shut his eyes and shook his head. ‘They did not have quite the effect—’ he opened his eyes, and grinned at her ruefully ‘—on growing boys that he intended. We came out of the kirk on Sundays so utterly sure we were doomed to spend eternity burning in hell-fire that we just had to go out and find some consolation en route.’

  He paused, as though choosing his next words carefully. ‘There was more opportunity, of course, for sinning at Kingsmede.

  ‘Things only really changed after your parents died,’ he went on. ‘Your brother could not leave you on your own, so I had no choice but to travel to Scotland when I wanted to visit. He warned me I would have to take things as I found them. But I did not care for that, nor the length of the journey. I knew I would be far happier in Auchentay, with my friend, and his sister, than on my own at Kingsmede.

  ‘But during that last visit, he really was too preoccupied with winding up your late father’s rather tangled affairs to spend much time with me. And so it was left to you to entertain me.’

  He smiled at her, running his finger along the line of her jaw. ‘Finally, there was nothing to prevent us spending as much time with each other as we wanted. We took full advantage of our freedom.’His heart turned over in his chest as he recalled that idyllic summer. The sun seemed to have shone every day. And she had never stopped smiling.

  There was little left of that laughing, lovely young girl in the gaunt, troubled woman who sat beside him now. Irritably he pushed the unflattering comparison aside. There was not much of the young man he had been either. After she had disappeared, he had abandoned his own aspirations to attend university. Pretty soon, the only books he studied were books of form. The only human contact he had was with drunks and sharps and bookmakers. He had only slowly clawed his way back to some semblance of normality. But it remained a thin veneer, concealing his ravaged, embittered core.

  The years, he sighed, had twisted and warped them both almost beyond recognition.

  Robbie, too. He had taken to drink to blot out the horror of what he believed his young friend had done to his only sister.

  He would be a fool to think that any of them would ever be quite the same again.

  Though last night, she had been all he had dreamed of, with her hair tumbling round her shoulders like living flame, and her eyes alight with love. He had felt triumphant at winning this woman’s heart.

  Just as he had thought he had won Cora’s once before. He had risked everything, back then, to hold onto her for ever.Yet she had still slipped through his fingers.

  If he should lose her again…

  When they reached Kingsmede, this fragile, tenuous relationship they were beginning to form would be put to the test. She would feel self-conscious, he knew, about continuing their love affair under the watchful eyes of his household staff.

  ‘It will not be long until we stop for a change of horses,’ he said gruffly. ‘We may as well put up there for the night.’

  She looked out of the window, baffled. ‘It is scarce past noon,’ she pointed out.

  He returned her puzzled look with a scowl. He had woken this morning yearning to discover the truth about this woman’s past, so that he could bind her to him for ever.

  But now, all that seemed important was clinging to what they had right this minute. The truth could wait for a little while longer. He would be a fool to jeopardise what he had found with this woman who called herself Mary!

  ‘It will be dark when we close the curtains,’he replied.

  Her eyes widened. She blushed. But she did not voice any objections.

  With a growl of satisfaction, Lord Matthison pulled her into his arms, and began his intended ravishment at her lips.

  To Mary’s disappointment, they spent only one night on the road. And Lord Matthison was particularly terse with his instructions to pack up and set off again. But only mid-way through the next afternoon, he grasped her hand, saying ‘Not far now.’ He leaned forward to point through the window. ‘We are just entering Bamford, our nearest market town.’

  It did not take them long to pass through the bustling, prosperous-looking town. Then the carriage slowed as the road out of it became quite steep. Just before they reached the top of the long incline, the coachman nudged the straining horses into a left turn on to a road that hugged the brow of the hill. Through Mary’s window she could see acres of lush farmland rippling down into the valley below.

  But then the carriage veered sharply to the right, and the vista of what promised to be a bountiful harvest disappeared as they entered a belt of woodland.

  Soon they were passing through a pair of stone pillars, on to a carriage drive completely overhung by a tangle of trees. They crowded the drive so thickly that once or twice branches scraped the sides of the carriage, sounding like the talons of unseen phantoms, trying in vain to impede their progress.

  Mary shivered, telling herself that it was only because they had gone from bright sunlight into the greenish, mouldering gloom that she had conjured up such a macabre image. But she could not shake off the feeling of foreboding. It grew stronger with each yard they penetrated deeper into the woodland.

  ‘Cold, love?’

  She jumped as Lord Matthison patted her hand. She had almost forgotten he was there, so focused was she on watching as the shadows, like long, hostile fingers, insinuated their way into the carriage, inching their way ever nearer, as though they wanted to close round her throat, and choke the life from her.

  ‘N-not cold,’ she stuttered through chattering teeth. ‘Sc-scared.’

  Because the shadows were not only creeping into the carriage from the outside. They were seething up inside her, gathering such strength she was not sure how much longer she could hold them at bay. Perhaps she should not try to. Had she not worked out that things were never as bad as you imagined they could be? She had been afraid of Lord Matthison, that first time he had
stepped out of the shadows.And yet, once she had faced him, she had learned there was nothing about him to frighten her at all.

  ‘We will be out of it soon,’ he said, slipping his arm round her shoulder when she turned a tense white face towards him. ‘When we round the next bend we will be into the park, and you will be able to see the house.’

  Her eyes grew wider, and though they were fixed on him, he felt as though it was not him she was seeing at all.

  Nor was she. An image had taken possession of her mind. The image of an ivy-clad Elizabethan manor house, with barley-twist chimneys and dozens upon dozens of windows, the thousands of tiny diamond-shaped panes glittering in the low sunlight making the walls look as though they were studded with jewels.

  ‘I sent word to have your old room prepared for you. The one you had when you were here before. I thought it would help you settle more quickly, and I also thought establishing you straight away as my fiancée would spare you at least some gossip…’

  A panicky feeling swirled in Mary’s stomach.

  ‘You are going to make me sleep in her room?’ She could see it.Vividly. There would be an ancient, canopied bed, giving a view over the park down to a lake. An intricately carved wardrobe, full of dresses, and shoes ranged up on the floor below…would he expect her to wear the dead woman’s clothes, as well as sleep in her bed?

  Her breath caught in her chest.

  ‘I can’t,’she gasped, tearing at the bonnet ribbons that felt as though they were choking her. ‘Can’t breathe…’

  She clawed frantically at the top buttons of her coat, which had grown so tight it was like a vice squeezing her chest. The world began to spin. Through the haze that clouded the interior of the coach, she felt Lord Matthison reach past her, to pull the window down. She felt the cold air slap her cheek, and his voice saying, ‘There, is that better?’

  But as she leaned forwards, to gulp in the sunlight that had suddenly come streaming in, she saw something that stopped her breathing altogether.

  It was a house. An old, ivy-covered house, with barley-twist chimneys, and diamond-paned windows…

  ‘Cora, darling, breathe…’ she could hear him saying, from far, far away. But she could no longer see him. He was not in the coach with her. It was another man. A younger man. And he was saying, ‘Just look at what a grand place ye’re to be mistress of. Did you ever see the like?’

  And her heart was sinking. She did not want to be mistress of the place. That was not why she had come.

  ‘Don’t call me Cora,’ she choked. ‘I don’t belong there.’ She pointed at the Elizabethan manor. ‘I never have, and I never will…’

  And then she could no longer hold back the great wave of certainty that she had travelled this road before, feeling exactly as she did now. It surged up from deep, deep within, breaking over her and washing aside everything she had achieved in the last seven years, until she was reduced to a quivering, pathetic, young girl, whose heart was irretrievably broken.

  ‘No!’ she cried in desperation. ‘I am not her. I am Mary!’

  She could hear the wheels crunching over gravel. She felt his hands on her, lifting her, pulling her somewhere she did not want to go. She could not fight the shadows, but she could fight him. And she did. With hands curved like claws.

  ‘I won’t, I won’t be Cora!’ She did not want to go back there. It hurt too much. ‘I don’t want to be her!’ she screamed. ‘I’m Mary!’

  But it was too late. Mary was drowning in Cora’s pain. And Lord Matthison captured her flailing hands between his own, and used them to pull her out of the comparative safety of the coach, and on to the shadowed portico of Kingsmede.

  A door behind him swung open, and out from it barrelled a great giant of a man with an unruly thatch of red hair and eyes like shards of bloodshot ice.

  ‘Put ma’ sister down, you lying, cheatin’ swine, so I can gi’ ye the thrashing ye deserve!’

  And everything she had kept submerged for seven long years broke free, drenching her in total awareness, and choking the very last gasp of air from her lungs.

  She gave one strangled, agonised cry, and fell headlong into darkness.

  Lord Matthison caught her as she fainted, and swept her up into his arms. He barged his way into the house, yelling ‘Get some smelling salts!’ to his housekeeper, who had trailed on to the portico in the Scotsman’s wake, and ‘Get out of my way, you damn fool,’ to the giant who tried to block his path.

  ‘What have ye done to her?’ yelled Robbie as Lord Matthison carried her through to the morning room.

  He could see the way Robbie’s mind was working and it made his blood boil. He had dragged his terrified sister from the carriage, her clothing dishevelled, and then she had fainted dead away.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ he snapped as he lowered her gently on to the chaise longue. ‘If I meant to rape her, do you suppose I’d have invited you here to witness the crime?’

  ‘Who can ever tell what is going on in that infernally twisted mind of yours?’ He thrust his face aggressively close to Lord Matthison’s.

  The alcoholic fumes made his eyes water.

  ‘Where have you been hiding the poor wee lassie all these years?’

  ‘I have not been hiding her anywhere, you drunken fool,’ he replied, pushing him aside, so that he could attend to Cora. She was so deathly pale. She lay so still he could not even be sure she was breathing. He leaned closer, meaning to see if he could find a pulse, when, with a roar of outrage, Robbie grabbed him by his collar and yanked him backwards.

  ‘Keep your filthy, lecherous hands off her!’

  ‘Don’t be more of an ass than you can help,’ Lord Matthison grated, desperately striving to keep a leash on his own temper. ‘She needs—’

  But Robbie was in no mood for talking. In the old days, the swing he took at Lord Matthison would undoubtedly have floored him. Had it connected with his jaw. But Lord Matthison managed to dodge it with ease. As he did the next wild swing, and the next, and the one after that. Seven years of drunkenness had taken their toll on his former friend. Robbie’s size and aggression were now no match for the science he had spent seven years learning from Gentleman Jackson, and the cunning he had picked up on the streets.

  But his inability to land more than the occasional glancing blow on his opponent was stoking Robbie’s anger to the point of madness. With a roar he lunged forwards, arms outstretched as though meaning to trap Lord Matthison in a crushing bear hug. Had he succeeded, they would both have landed on the chaise longue, on top of Cora.

  So Lord Matthison jabbed Robbie hard in the stomach, halting his headlong rush, then got his own shoulder into the larger man’s chest, pitching him sideways, away from the vulnerable woman lying unconscious.

  Robbie wrapped his arms round Lord Matthison as he toppled sideways. They both landed on the rug by the side of the sofa, kicking and gouging when neither could land a solid blow on the other’s body, locked in a fight that had been seven years coming.

  As Cora slowly surfaced from the depths of her faint, the first thing she heard was the all-too-familiar sound of her brother, grunting and cursing as he beat the living daylights out of somebody.

  She felt extreme reluctance to take a look at his victim, yet somehow, her eyelids drifted open anyhow.

  And there he was, rolling around on the floor with Kit Brereton, his best friend. She felt a moment’s confusion. Not because they were fighting. There was nothing new in that. But surely Father would never allow them to scrap in the house…

  But Father was dead. And Robbie was the head of the household now, so he…no, wait a minute. The ceiling above her head was ornately plastered. There was no ceiling anything like this anywhere in their house. It looked far more like Kit’s house…

  Kingsmede.

  That was right…she had come to Kingsmede, to marry Kit, because…

  For a few seconds, past and present swirled and shimmied around her, the eddies almost dragging her back under. B
ut then the two men rolled against the sofa leg with such violence that, had she still been insensible, she would have been tipped on to the floor.

  Not that either of them would have noticed. They were too engrossed in beating the tar out of each other. They seemed to have forgotten she was there.

  Or, if it did cross either of their minds, they would just assume she would run away from this uninhibited display of masculine brutality. And wait for one of them to come to her, and inform her of the outcome.

  Like they had last time.

  Gripped by a cold fury, she sat up.

  She was not a child any more, too timid to stand up and speak for herself! She would determine her own future! She was not any man’s possession, to dispose of as though she had no opinion of her own!

  When the fight rolled sufficiently far from the sofa for her to leave it safely, she got shakily to her feet, and made for the vase of roses she had seen on a table under the window. She stood with it in her hands for a second or two, wondering which one of them deserved she smash it over his head the more.

  In the end, since there was not a second vase with which she could dispense equal justice, she had to settle for merely dashing its contents over the pair of them.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ she snapped when they both ceased hostilities long enough to stare up at her in incredulity. ‘You are not schoolboys any longer!’

  Lord Matthison disentangled himself first, shoving her brother roughly to one side as he rose to one knee. ‘Cora,’he spluttered through the water that was dripping from his hair into his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Much you care!’ she stormed. ‘You…you hypocrite! And as for you…’She glared down at her brother. ‘My God, Robbie, you’ve turned out just like Father. Using your fists first, and asking questions later.’

  ‘That’s no’ fair!’ he protested, brushing dank flower petals from his chest. ‘You were out cold when the fight started. You cannot possibly know who threw the first punch!’

  She reeled back from the smell that wafted to her on his breath. ‘Exactly like Father,’ she said. ‘After all you said when he died, all the promises you made me, you’ve taken to drink…’