An Almond for a Parrot

by Dray Wray

  Wealth and, I am told, my beauty, bring me suitors a-plenty, each believing emphatically that a rich widow must be in need of a husband to have and to hold such a fortune as she possesses. An expression of disbelief crosses the gentleman’s face when informed that even if he was to become my husband, he would never have a penny of my money. How quickly pointless passion departs, how soon I am bored with the notion of anyone but you in my bed.

  I spend most of my time in the house outside Bath. I really must call it an estate – after all it is one of the finest in the area. But, if the truth be known, I still feel an imposter and for a long time I imagined Mr Ainsley returning, accompanied by an army of constables to have me thrown out. It took me some time to comprehend the enormity of the generous gift Lord B had left me. It has enabled me to do what I want without the judgement of others. It is a treasure that I take great care not to lose.

  My one extravagance is my gowns. It comforts me that I still possess such an appetite for satins and silks, for the folly of fashion plates. The caress of luxurious fabrics reminds me of your gentle touch, your long almond-shaped hands, the delight you took in undressing me. Here in a fold of silk, in the intimacy of petticoats, your touch holds firm.

  Lord B loved to shock with his wardrobe and I, too, determinedly make a stir whenever I go into Bath. There is great pleasure in seeing duchesses and dowagers at the assembly rooms who have been busy trying to copy my style. Such folly never ceases to amuse me.

  ‘Nous nageons dans un flot futil.’

  The success of the estate and the management of the tenants and farms has more to do with Mercy and Mofty than me. Mercy calls herself ‘Master Mercy’, as do the tenants, and she and Mofty live in the dower house. Lord B would be so amused if he knew that the profitable upkeep of his property was due to the efforts of women. Dear, loyal Ned Bird lives here too. As for Hope, she has retired, and is the chatelaine of the Highgate house. She said that someone had to make sure that Lord B’s secret garden never dies and I agree.

  Queenie and Mr Crease keep up the fairy house in Lincoln’s Inn Square, and occasionally give magical soirées. It seems to me that all the bows are tied, the cards played, and in a way everything has worked out, albeit differently than I had expected. But only a fool would expect anything from the future.

  Ava turned three in the spring and it was mid-summer, a time of wasps and bluebottles, when I received a small package addressed to Lady Fitzjohn. Astonished to find myself thus enobled, I stared at it with something approaching dread before opening it. Inside was the pocket watch I had given you and a letter from Lord Frederick Fitzjohn. I read and reread it and thought the whole thing to be a garbled mess, his sentences bolting horses, his paragraphs upturned carriages. The gist of it was this: he was dying and wanted me to know what he had done as it was preying on his mind. He confessed to having sent his half-brother away on a ship that transported prisoners to the New World. He had paid the captain handsomely. The letter ended with the pathetic cry of all corrupt, dying men: ‘God forgive me.’ Not one word of any use, not the name of the ship, nor the captain, nothing that could be discovered. On an enclosed slip of paper, an unknown hand had written that Lord Frederick had died of the pox. The letter infuriated me. All avenues of inquiry closed in on themselves.

  That night I slept fitfully. I was woken by a thud and, sitting up, saw that Boozey, who for years I had neglected, had fallen from his perch. Half his feathers were coming away and much dust had settled upon him. I gathered what remained of him, stuffing, feathers and all, and in my nightgown I walked barefoot down the stairs out into the garden, my parrot an offering to the morning. By the lake I stood, barefoot.

  ‘It is not enough,’ I said to the remains of my dead bird. ‘It can never be enough not to know.’

  My tears fell upon his feathers.

  I felt a flutter in my hands and I stretched them out, holding Boozey towards the sky. I watched him gather his ghostly self, saw his wings embrace the air.

  ‘Bring him home, Boozey,’ I called. ‘Bring my love home to me.’

  My parrot dissolved into the sunshine of the new day.

  Ava ran out to me. I picked her up and held her close. She told me there were water nymphs in the lake, that they were like fairies and could tiptoe on the waves.

  ‘No, they can’t,’ I said, kissing her.

  ‘Mr Crease told me so.’

  Queenie and Mr Crease had been staying with us and, wherever Mr Crease went, Ava followed.

  I had seen Sir Henry frequently, as he had taken a house in Bath. That morning he sent a message.

  ‘The sprites of summer madness are playing,’ he wrote. ‘I have news the like of which you would not believe. All will be revealed this evening.’

  I smiled. We knew what he was going to say because Hope’s letter had preceded his. Hers was short and to the point: Mr Sitton had returned from abroad and they had married last week. She ended by asking if I had received an earlier letter from her.

  I had not.

  ‘Married!’ said Queenie. ‘Oh, Crease. Hope married to Mr Sitton at last – and we weren’t there.’

  ‘Ads bleed,’ said Mr Crease. ‘Too much is made of weddings.’

  As I was changing for dinner that evening, I stopped and picked up the pocket watch from my dressing table.

  I said, quietly, ‘This is still not enough,’ and slipped it into my pocket.

  Ava came in to watch me being laced into my silk gown. While my maid dressed my hair, Ava laid her head on my lap, looked up at me with those huge blue eyes and told me about the mermaids and sea dragons that lived under the water in the lake.

  I said, ‘You can stay up a short while to see Sir Henry, but you must go to bed when Nurse comes to fetch you.’

  Hearing footsteps on the gravel outside, she ran to the window.

  ‘Sir Henry must have arrived,’ I said, without looking.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not him.’

  I went to join her and glancing out saw no one. ‘Who did you see?’ I asked, kneeling to be on her level.

  ‘He has a sad face,’ she said, then thinking a little more, added, ‘He’s lost.’

  I wondered if she could see spirits where I no longer could. I stood and in the glass was nothing more than my own reflection. Ava took my hand and we went down together to the drawing room to greet our guests, my beautiful daughter dressed in her water-nymph costume.

  Only when Mr Crease had performed one magic trick did she reluctantly go with her nursemaid to bed.

  Dinner was served that night in the chamber with long windows that opened onto the garden. The air was still with the perfume of mid-summer. Sir Henry was so full of gossip – fragments of half-heard facts surrounding Mr Sitton’s return – that he could hardly eat.

  I found I was barely listening, all of me restless, every part of me on edge. Under the table I ran my finger over the inscription on the pocket watch: To Avery Fitzjohn from Tully.

  ‘The very minute he learned his mother was dead and he was freed from the noose of her apron strings,’ continued Sir Henry, ‘he set sail for England. And damn near didn’t make it!’

  ‘Where had he been all this while?’ asked Queenie.

  ‘In South America. But he was taken ill on the voyage and was eventually transferred to a British ship which was reported as having an eminent physician aboard. Without the physician’s care, I was told, he wouldn’t have survived.’

  I was about to ask Sir Henry if he knew any more about the physician who saved Mr Sitton’s life when Mr Merritt quietly requested that I speak to Ava’s nursemaid. I followed him into the hall to find her in tears.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Miss Ava is not in her chamber, madam. I put her to bed but…’

  Mermaids and sea dragons…the ground seemed to give way beneath me.

  I ran out of the house towards the lake, then stopped. Walking towards me was Ava, hand in hand with a ghost.

  ‘Mama,
’ she said, her face solemn, ‘he is a magician. He can find a sixpence behind your ear.’

  She reached out her small hand to show me the silver.

  The world became silent and, in that silence, I searched for the sound of your precious heartbeat.

  ‘Tully,’ you said. ‘I am not a ghost, I…’

  I didn’t let you finish but went to you and you took me in your arms.

  I whispered, ‘I have dreamed of this moment.’

  ‘And I.’ You smiled. ‘She is my daughter?’

  ‘She could be none other,’ I said, your sweet breath warm against my face.

  ‘I find, my lady, that I am married to the only woman I have ever have wanted to call my wife.’

  You kissed me and in that kiss was the longing for a future near stolen from us. Once, you said we would tell each other all our secrets. Now, I promise you only the truth, for at last I can put down my pen and leave the blank pages for the years to come.

  Acknowledgements

  I first showed my idea for this book to Lisa Milton, who had the imagination to see its potential. It started life in one publishing house and ended very happily in another – with Lisa at Harlequin. I would also like to thank my agent Catherine Clarke, whose wisdom is infallible, and my personal editor Jacky Bateman. I am the luckiest writer in the world to have her on my side.

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  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

  Copyright © Wray Delaney 2016

  Wray Delaney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008182557