The Resurrection of Lady Somerset

by Nicola Beaumont

  Lark shook her head. Rebekka did not understand. She raised a tiny hand and pointed towards the house. “Mam—”

  Her mama was gone.

  And then, from out of nowhere Lord Peter appeared. Fear seized Lark’s throat. She tried to escape Rebekka’s grasp but Rebekka held her captive. She began to cry.

  “Thank heavens you are safe,” Lord Peter had said as he took her into his arms. She squirmed in his arms and he tightened his grip. It hurt.

  “Come quickly,” he told Rebekka. “We must leave at once.”

  “But, my lord, the fire brigade will be here any minute,” Rebekka said.

  “Yes, but you do not understand. It is imperative we leave at once. For Lark’s well-being.”

  “Very well.” Rebekka followed him into the forestry on the other side of the clearing, and they escaped.

  Sobs racked Lark’s body as past and present collided. She had lost everything twelve years ago—much more even than she had remembered until this very night— and now, she had lost Jonathon, too.

  A small explosion brought her head jolting up. More windows burst from the building. Another section collapsed.

  She wailed. “Jonathon!” The name sprung forth from her raw throat rent with anguish. Cyril looked at her.

  Lark flung herself at him, and he cradled her in his arms while she cried like a tot.

  She didn’t know how long she cried, but suddenly her eyes were dry. Inside she was still empty, but her tears were spent and gone. She sat up, pulling herself free from Cyril’s arms and looked at him through swollen, red-rimmed eyes.

  “I know,” he said softly.

  Devoid of emotion, now, she turned to look at the inferno that was once her home—a home she had wiped from memory. Only one section remained intact. Smoke and flames billowed from it mercilessly. She wiped away a tendril of hair that had fallen into her face.

  And the hallucination began.

  She tried to reason away the mirage, tried to tell herself to be sensible and calm. She was no longer a child fooled by images only her mind wished to create. She blinked and shook her head, but the image refused to vanish.

  Hope soared.

  Sensibility vanquished it.

  Freshly pooled tears stung the backs of her eyes. She was losing sanity.

  “Jonathon!” Cyril’s loud, booming voice startled her. Her head turned to him but he was already sprinting towards her mirage.

  Joy soared within her chest. It was really Jonathon, dragging something—someone.

  Another small explosion sparked within the inferno, and the remainder of the house fell in a burning heap. Jonathon crumpled to the ground.

  Lark bolted to her feet and ran to his fallen body. Behind him lay Nigel Aubury muttering something about no fire protection. Her cousin. Jonathon still had a grip on Aubury’s foot.

  She fell at Jonathon’s side, rubbed her hand along his face. His breathing was labored, and she feared that she might lose him after all.

  “That is it for Aubury,” Cyril said, not even the slightest remorse apparent in his voice.

  Lark turned to see her cousin’s charred and lifeless form. She could not conjure any sorrow.

  “Lark,” Jonathon croaked. Her head came back to him immediately.

  And then he went limp.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sunlight streamed in the hospital window, and Lark took it upon herself to draw the curtain. Jonathon opened his eyes and smiled at her.

  “You look a mess,” she signed. His face was bandaged, as was his right hand. His left arm was bent at the elbow and secured; his shoulder had been fractured.

  “Speak to me.” His voice was raspy, stripped raw from smoke inhalation.

  She shook her head. “I cannot,” she said with her hands.

  “You can. I heard you.” He grinned at her through the bandages. “Jolly good thing, too. You saved me from being clobbered a good one.” He began to cough.

  She gently touched his arm. “Do not speak.” She spoke the words slowly, quietly and a smile came across Jonathon’s lips that warmed her heart.

  The Sister came down the ward corridor to Jonathon’s bed. “Ready to unmask, Lord Somerset?” She asked cheerfully.

  Jonathon nodded.

  Sister turned to Lark. “I must—”

  Cyril came bursting in with his cousin, Marie. “Do say we’re not late,” Cyril boomed. “It’s Marie’s fault. She absolutely would not leave without those gloves.” He pointed to the wretched things as if they were a disease.

  “They match my dress exactly,” Marie explained. “Heavens, I had to look the utmost for the unveiling of my best cousin.” She touched a hand to her expanding stomach. “Especially since I am in this hideously swelled state.” They came to stand beside Lark.

  Cyril clutched his chest. “You wound me, Cousin. That I should not be your favourite.” He shrugged it off. “Ah well, you always did have questionable taste.”

  Marie hit him with her reticule and the ward Sister gasped.

  “Please. I am going to have to ask you all to take your leave. We must unbandage and balm Lord Somerset. It is not a welcome sight, I assure you.”

  “What say you, brother? May we stay and have a look?”

  “I’m not budging one bit,” Lark signed.

  “What was that?” Cyril asked.

  “She said she’s not moving,” Rebekka said, coming up from behind them. She forced her way between Cyril and Marie and spoke to Lark. “And I have told you, you must begin to speak, else you will surely forget how.”

  “Yes, Rebekka,” Lark said. Her voice may be new to her, but sarcasm was an old friend.

  Rebekka scoffed and faced off with the ward Sister. “We are all staying, so you might as well proceed with haste.”

  Cyril chuckled. “Here, here,” he said. He leaned to Marie. “Remind me of this next time I am hiring house staff. I think I shall hire only gentlemen from now on,” he whispered.

  The doctor arrived and Sister relayed that he was evidently going to have an audience this morning. He looked at the entourage and shook his head. “If any of you females has an attack of the vapors, I shall let you fall to the floor and leave you to your own devices.” He shooed them away from the bed. “Now, make room. Make room.”

  ~*∞*~

  Six weeks later

  “Cyril mentioned you might have memories of the first fire?” Jonathon leaned back against the gazebo.

  Lark didn’t want to think back to either fire. She looked at Jonathon. His skin was still red and chaffed from the exposure to the fire, but the doctor said he would recover fully. There would always be scars on his arm, though. Those blemishes were all the memory she needed to realize that her life forwards was much more valuable than remembering anything that had come before. The past simply did not matter as long as she had Jonathon.

  She bit into a biscuit. She shook her head. “I didn’t tell him that.” Speaking with her mouth was becoming a welcome habit.

  “Look, Aubury may have breathed his last, but we still must be positive there is no further danger to you.”

  She avoided his eyes. “There is no danger. I am positive.”

  He leaned forward and covered her hand as it rested on the seat beside her. “I wish to be positive, also.”

  She raised her gaze to his. “Can you not just forget? We have a wedding to prepare. ’Tis a happy time.” She looked out at their surroundings. “The day is beautiful. The birds are our orchestra, and we have plans for the theater this eve. Let us not spoil it with things of no consequence.” She closed her eyes and prayed he would dismiss the subject posthaste. What she had remembered was better left forgotten.

  He uncrossed his legs and stood. She lifted her head to meet his gaze. “I almost forgot,” he said cheerfully. He opened his coat and reached into his vest pocket.

  “This is for you, my dearest.” He bent and handed her a small black velvet box.

  Slowly, she took it in her own hands. Wi
th trembling fingers, she unhinged the jewelry case to unveil the most delicate, most beautiful, most intricately sculpted angel brooch.

  She sucked in her breath. “Jonathon it is lovely.” She stood and kissed his cheek. “I shall cherish it always. Do pin it on me.”

  He took the brooch and pinned it to the bodice of her morning dress. Looking into her eyes, he held her captive. “Do you know why I chose this for you?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “Because the moment I discovered it, I thought of you. Of your innocence. Of your beauty. You are an angel, my love. My angel, and no longer the Somerset Ghost.” He nudged her chin with the side of his hand. “And angels do not lie.” He pleaded with her. “Tell me what you remember.”

  She slumped onto the seat. “You are a cad!” she told him.

  “I know. But I do so love you and want you always to be safe.” He sat beside her and took both her hands in his. “You do not know the anguish I endured when I returned home to find you gone. Business will take me away from time to time. I have to know you are safe.”

  “But I am,” she told him. “Please don’t make me tell you. Please, please don’t make me tell you. It is past and best forgotten.” She searched his face and saw the uncertainty existing there. He would never be content. She sighed. “All right.”

  He smiled but she knew he would not smile for long.

  She pulled free of him and stood. The cool breeze chilled her hands where they had been warmed by Jonathon’s touch. She hoped his heart would not be thusly chilled by her words.

  She circled the gazebo, searching her mind for the proper place to begin. When finally she had some semblance of a story in her mind, she spoke. “I bore witness to who set the fire. But I do not know his motive. I think—”

  “Aubury, yes I know.” Jonathon cut her off.

  “No,” Lark said, so softly the word was almost carried away on the breeze.

  “Well, not Nigel Aubury, but rather his brother,” Jonathon explained. “What I need to know is can you remember anything that might put someone else in the picture, someone still—”

  Lark shook her head. He was making this best difficult. “It was neither of my cousins,” she said.

  She ignored Jonathon’s frown of confusion. Tears sprung to her eyes as she contemplated her next words. She held them back a time.

  “Lord Peter.” Her voice cracked with a sob, and she cleared her throat to disguise it.

  Jonathon sat there, staring, frozen. For several moments, the tension rose between them. “What?” He asked finally. “You must be mistaken. He saved you.”

  She found the seat and lowered her body, her weight suddenly too heavy for her legs to bear. She shook her head and began to tell him all she could remember. “…He was leaving through the kitchen when Rebekka startled me. The fire spread quickly. I didn’t realize what was happening. I was but a child.” She looked at him with torment in her eyes. “He lit the curtain with a matchstick on his way out. The table was already aflame.”

  “But how did you escape if you were so close to the fire.” She could see the disbelief in his eyes as he struggled to comprehend her words.

  “Rebekka startled me. I was supposed to be in my bed. She shuttled me upstairs silencing my pleas for her to listen. Then the flames caught up with us. It happened so quickly. She took me down the back stairs, through the secret passageway.”

  “That was how Aubury got above stairs without having to pass us.” Jonathon said absently.

  “I suppose so.” Lark studied her hands. They were sore from being wrung together. “I am sorry, Jonathon.”

  He studied her face. “That still does not explain why. Why would my father deliberately kill his best friend? His own wife? He adored my mother; he practically went insane without her.”

  Lark sighed heavily. She had known the moment she had begun that she would have to reveal everything. “Come,” she said.

  ~*∞*~

  As she led Jonathon to her chambers, apprehension imprisoned him. He did not wish to know whatever she had to divulge, yet if he didn’t let her reveal it, he would never know another day’s peace.

  She ordered Rebekka out with no apparent compunction, which set alarm bells ringing inside Jonathon immediately. Lark always showed Rebekka the utmost respect.

  Rebekka seemed no worse for her curt dismissal as she happily curled her lips at Lord Somerset on her way out.

  “Do sit,” Lark told him as she went to her wardrobe, turned the key, and opened the door. She crouched to the floor, and the rustling of her skirts was amplified to his heightened senses.

  His gaze moved mechanically to the chairs in front of the idle fireplace, but he could not sit. His heart pounded within his chest, his pulse registering in his ears. Perspiration dotted his brow.

  She retrieved something from the wardrobe, rose to her full height, and turned to face him. She was holding a leather-backed book. “While you were in hospital, I searched for this.” She offered it to him. His arm extended itself of its own accord and took it from her.

  She crossed in front of him and took a seat. “I knew Lord Peter must keep one somewhere, for it was he who encouraged me to do the same.”

  Jonathon opened the cover. Diary of Peter Rexley, Lord Somerset was written in his father’s bold hand.

  “Turn to page twenty,” she instructed him.

  The crinkling of the paper boomed with his growing trepidation as he turned the pages.

  Page twenty.

  …I know not how she found out, but when she confronted me, I did not have the heart to continue the lies. She even accused me of fathering Lark because of the resemblance in our birth blemishes. Mere coincidence. I told her as much and confessed all regarding Geoffry so there could be complete and utter truth between us once again. It did no good. I considered myself an utter rake, but little did I know that she, my only love, was a dolly-mop. And with my own best friend. How could she—how could Darin—be so unfaithful to me? They shall not bring shame to this household again. She goes to him now, I am positive of it, but it shall be the last time they make a fool of me…

  Jonathon turned the page.

  Oh, what have I done? Wrath. Forgive me. The child lives but does not speak. I cannot bring myself this day to…I cannot utter the word. I must but keep her hidden. If the world believes she is perished, too, then I am safe. Her maid is but convinced of my charm, and my sons are men and gone….

  Jonathon raised his face to Lark’s. Tears blurred his vision but he would never allow them to fall.

  “But why? It makes not an ounce of sense. If you were a threat to him, why did he not just…”

  She lifted her shoulders. “He was not a murderer, Jonathon. He cared for me. After everything, I believe still that he cared for me. He acted in anger and hurt, I am sure. Once he had regained himself, he could not kill an innocent child in cold blood.”

  She dropped her gaze and sniffed back tears. Jonathon’s heart twisted. “Please don’t cry, Lark. It will be my undoing.”

  “And it was untrue.” The word ripped from her as she buried her face in her hands.

  “What?”

  She raised her eyes to his face. “She lied to him. I heard her telling Mama and Papa. She said, ‘I did a terrible thing…I lied when I discovered he strayed, had a son…I made up tales of an affair with Darin.’ I did not comprehend of what she spoke. I thought she had gone on an outing of some kind. And then I paid no heed. I smelled something cook…ing.” Her voice trailed off. She stared at Jonathon for extended moments. “Read the last page, his final entry.”

  Jonathon slowly flipped the pages with one finger.

  I cannot give Lark back what I have so wrongfully taken but I may give her back a life. It will take more lies, but I am adept at them now. Jonathon will not doubt me. He is the utmost best son, sticking by me when Cyril and the rest think I am unworthy. He will take care of her, and I shall be content.

  Jonathon slammed the b
ook closed and hurled it across the room. Lark started and stared at the heap of torn pages. “A murderer and a scoundrel! A murder and a scoundrel. What a man was my father.” He stormed from the room.

  Lark let him go. Six weeks ago, when she had finally found the hidden journal, she had felt exactly the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lark hid behind the potted palm in the vestibule of St. Rita’s. She felt quite overcome by the throng of people filling the pews of the medium-sized church. She glanced upward to the stained glass window. Jesus Christ looked down on her with benevolence and love shining in his amber, sun-filled eyes. Lark could not imagine being happier than she was at this moment.

  “She is a wonderful gel.” Aunt Harriet’s voice pulled Lark’s attention.

  The woman she had addressed nodded an acceptance, and Lark smiled. Lady Wescotte was certainly on her best behaviour this afternoon. She had even smiled at Geoffry—Something Lark would have never believed after the dreadful way the lady had treated him in the library so many months ago. Even Jonathon had mentioned her softened demeanor.

  “Whatever happened with her deficiency?” a sour-faced old bat in a green empire dress dared to ask, her ample bosom resting on the back of a pew as she leaned over.

  “If you ask me, Lark never had a deficiency,” Marie spoke up, evidently with no care that she drew the attention of half the crowd. “Lark has always been the utmost pattern-card of charity and goodness.” She looked pointedly to the bat-woman. “Some would do well to learn manners from the likes of Lark.”

  The woman grumbled something Lark could not hear. A smile came to Lark’s lips as she stifled a giggle.

  “Eavesdropping again, my dear Miss Lark?”

  Lark spun to see Jonathon behind her. “Is it not bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding?”

  “So it is,” intoned Cyril, bringing up the rear.

  “As we have done nothing thus far the way it is supposed to be done, I don’t think we have to worry about bad luck. We are quite fortunate.”

  “I’ll toast to that!” Cyril quipped.

  “You’ll toast to anything,” Jonathon told him.