The Nightingale Legacy

by Catherine Coulter

  There was another scream, only this one just a small cry, muffled, barely to be heard. Oh God, it was coming from Alice’s bedchamber. She ran down the hall, stopped to catch her breath, and flung open the door.

  There was a single candle lit, standing atop the small table beside Alice’s bed. Alice wasn’t alone. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was Bennett and he was on top of her, shoving his belly against her, and Alice was struggling frantically.

  Bennett drew back his hand and slapped her hard. “Shut up, you little slut, just shut up. If you didn’t want this, you wouldn’t have your belly filled with a brat. Shut up and give me what I want.”

  “No,” Alice whimpered, and kept struggling.

  “Bennett!”

  He went utterly still. Slowly, he turned to face her. She was wearing a dressing gown, her hair was thick and wild around her face. He shook his head, not understanding. “Caroline? What are you doing here?”

  “By God, you’re drunk, you filthy pig. Get off her.”

  “Oh no, she’s here and she’s mine and you should have seen the looks she was giving me all day. She all but begged me to come to her tonight.”

  Caroline wished she had a gun, but since she didn’t, she’d just have to make do.

  She picked up a footstool, a very solid oak footstool, its surface covered with a lovely tapestry, lifted it high, and said quietly, “Bennett, I’m talking to you. Won’t you turn this way now?”

  “Go away, Caroline, unless you want me to take you next.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Bennett froze. “No,” he said, and jerked away from Alice, but he wasn’t fast enough. “No, Caroline—”

  She brought the footstool down on his head as hard as she could. She stepped back and watched him fall off Alice, who shoved at him to keep him from falling over her.

  “Oh, Miss Caroline, I swear to you, I didn’t ask him to come here, I promise, Oh, Miss—”

  “Hush, Alice. Let me see if the damned bounder is dead.” She knelt down and pressed her palm to his heart. “He’s not, more’s the pity,” she said, looking up at Alice, who looked like the child she was, pale and drawn and shaking. “Did he force you, Alice?”

  Alice shook her head, tendrils of light brown hair swirling about her thin face, come loose from her braid. “He just hit me and shoved himself at me.”

  “I heard your cry and came immediately.”

  “He didn’t think I’d mind. He didn’t think I’d scream, but I did, but he was too much in the fever to stop. He just kept calling me those horrible names, just like the vicar does.”

  “I know, I know,” Caroline said. Sudden rage surged through her and she kicked Bennett in his ribs. She wished she had Mr. Plumberry there as well; she’d boot him but good. “There,” she said, “that feels better.” She stepped over Bennett’s unconscious body and sat on the side of the bed, drawing Alice into her arms. “There, it’s all right. I swear this won’t happen again, I swear it. Do you want to kick him, Alice?”

  Alice stopped crying. She became very still, then drew away from Caroline. “Kick him?”

  “Yes, for what he tried to do to you.”

  Alice looked very worried, then, suddenly, she smiled. “Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes.” She eased off the bed, stood over Bennett, then kicked him as hard as she could in his ribs.

  “Do it again, Alice. He deserves it.”

  She kicked him again, and this time she said, “That were wunner… er, that was wonderful, Miss Caroline. I even hurt my foot kicking the bounder.”

  “By God, what’s going on in here? Caroline!”

  It was Owen. He’d been running so fast his dressing gown was still flapping about his bare legs. “Bennett! That bloody bastard, I’ll—”

  “You won’t do a thing to him at the moment, Owen, so calm down. Thank you for coming so quickly. Ho, here’s Evelyn and Miss Mary Patricia.”

  They’d come more slowly, their pregnant bellies keeping them at a walk.

  “Oh goodness,” Evelyn said, taking in the situation at a glance, “my little baby, oh dear.”

  “It’s all right,” Caroline said. “She’ll be just fine. She just gave Bennett two very sturdy kicks in his miserable ribs. Yes, Alice will be fine. However, it seems advisable for Miss Mary Patricia to fetch you some warm milk to calm you down before you decide to kick the rest of us.”

  Alice giggled. Her would-be rapist was on the floor, yet she’d giggled. Caroline was so pleased she wanted to dance.

  “Yes, an excellent idea, Miss Caroline,” Miss Mary Patricia said.

  “Owen, would you drag Bennett out of here and into his bedchamber? Oh dear, there’s blood on his head. Do you think we should call Dr. Treath?”

  Owen didn’t think they should call anyone save the hangman, but Caroline, eyeing the flowing blood from the blow she’d struck him, shook her head. “Do go fetch Dr. Treath. The last thing we want is for Bennett to croak here at Scrilady Hall. After all, Owen, I was the one who hit him and therefore it would be I who would go to the gallows.”

  “Let him rot, Caroline.”

  “Let me kick him again, Miss Caroline,” Alice said.

  “We can’t, more’s the pity.”

  The two of them together dragged Bennett into his room and hefted him onto his bed. Caroline wrapped a folded cloth over the wound in his head and Owen quickly dressed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. If that bloody bastard wakes up, hit him again.”

  She grinned, but it was a sorry excuse for a grin. When Owen was gone, she left Bennett and returned to Alice. Both Evelyn and Miss Mary Patricia were petting and soothing her, giving her milk, stroking her hair, telling her how strong she was and how she’d gotten that miserable bastard but good.

  “Is he dead, Miss Caroline?” Evelyn said.

  “No he’s not. Bennett is a sorry man and he’s drunk and I hope he has the most horrid headache imaginable when he wakes up. Lord knows his ribs will hurt like the very devil. Now, don’t worry anymore about this.” But Caroline was worrying. If Bennett was here, then there was always the chance he’d try this again.

  She shook her head. “I’m just relieved I heard you scream, Alice. It was a big one, thank God.”

  “But I didn’t scream, not really, Miss Caroline, just cried out before he slapped his hand over my mouth.”

  Caroline stared at her. “But I heard you, clear as if you were in my bedchamber. I heard you, Alice. It was loud.”

  “No, miss, truly. I’m glad you did hear me, but I only sounded like a squeaky little mouse.”

  It was Bess Treath who told her how this was possible while Dr. Treath was stitching Bennett’s head. “Eleanor told me about it,” she said comfortably, daubing at the flow of blood while Dr. Treath drew his needle in and out of Bennett’s scalp. Caroline didn’t look.

  “You see, there are several connecting passages behind the bedchambers. The major one connects Alice’s bedchamber to yours. The chimney acts like a tunnel that exaggerates any and all sounds. It’s not completely solid, you see, and gives onto the passageway.”

  “So I heard this god-awful scream but it was only Alice crying out.”

  “Exactly. I think the reason the two of those bedchambers connect up is because the grandfather of the former Squire Penrose had both a wife and a ladylove. He sent the wife off to London for a new wardrobe, so it’s recounted, and while she was gone, he had the passageway built and his mistress installed as the governess. When the wife returned, she was none the wiser, and she was the proud possessor of some very nice clothes. At that time, it’s said, her bedchamber was the one farthest down the east hall.”

  “Goodness, that’s amazing.”

  Bess Treath laughed, even as she continued to clean up the blood from Bennett’s head and face. “My own opinion is the wife found out exactly what her dear husband had done because every year after that, she went off to London and spent ever so much money on new clothes. Her husband said not a word.”

  Caroline joined in her
laughter.

  “Now, Bess, you have no idea if that’s really true.” Dr. Treath knotted off his stitches, patted Bennett’s head, then began to bandage it. “It’s one of those tales that’s talked about on and off over the years, during cold winter evenings. Ah, he’s waking up. Too bad he waited so long. I should have liked to have him suffer the needle just a bit, mind you.”

  “Benjie, what a thing for a physician to say.”

  “Well, the little drunkard deserves something for what he tried to do.”

  Bennett groaned and tried to pull away. Dr. Treath said, “Hold still, I’m nearly done. That’s right, moan if you must, but don’t move.”

  When it was over, Bennett looked up to see Caroline standing there close to his bed. “You,” he said, even as he lightly touched his fingertips to his aching head, “you hit me with that footstool.”

  “If I’d had a gun I would have shot you, you miserable excuse for a man.”

  “Listen to me, Caroline, the little slut wanted it, she wanted me, she—”

  Caroline picked up a footstool that sat in front of the wing chair in front of the fireplace and turned with it over her hand. “Yes, Bennett?”

  He eyed the footstool, then shrugged. “Believe what you will. Leave me alone. God, my ribs hurt like fire.”

  Dr. Treath didn’t offer any laudanum. He merely told Bennett to remain in bed for several days. “No drinking and no wenching,” he said. “If you do either, you’ll be in danger of causing an infection, and an infection in the brain most often leads to death.”

  “That was well done,” Caroline said to Dr. Treath when they were out in the corridor.

  “Yes, it was,” he said, and chuckled. “Now, Caroline, I want to examine you to see that you’re all right.”

  “Me? I’m dandy, Dr. Treath. It’s Alice you need to see to.”

  “I will after I’ve checked you over. Bess will go to Alice now and begin.”

  Bess merely smiled, nodded, and took herself off down the corridor to Alice’s bedchamber.

  “Now, my dear, come along.”

  When they reached her bedchamber, Dr. Treath told her to sit on the bed. He listened to her heart, but nothing more. Actually, he didn’t really examine her at all. He straightened beside the bed and said without preamble, “This bothers me immensely, Caroline, as I’m sure it does you. Now, you and North are going to be married tomorrow. I don’t think—”

  She cut him off with her hand and with a smile. “Don’t worry, Dr. Treath, I know what I’m going to do. You’ll see. Incidentally, both Alice and I kicked Bennett in the ribs but good. I’m very pleased he hurts.”

  Then she laughed and hugged him, kissing his cheek. “Don’t worry.”

  Bess Treath said from the door, “Alice is just fine. No cramping, just a bit of nervousness, natural, of course. Would you like to give her a tonic?”

  “No, just a drop of laudanum in milk. That will send her right off to sleep.”

  After Bess and Benjamin Treath had left, Caroline, with a very awake Mrs. Trebaw at her heels, made certain the front door and all the first-floor windows were secured. “Of course, since Mr. Penrose lives here and has a latchkey, this is rather silly,” Caroline said. “But it does make me feel better.”

  She sent Mrs. Trebaw to bed. She tucked Alice in and sent Miss Mary Patricia and Evelyn back to their bedchambers. She sighed deeply when she came into her bedchamber and quickly closed the door. She stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. She felt exhaustion pull at her. She began to untie the sash of her dressing gown when she heard a man’s low voice say from behind her, “Please don’t disrobe, Miss Caroline.”

  She whipped about and stared, clapping her hand over her heart. “Oh! I nearly jumped out of my skin! Flash Savory, how did you get in here?”

  “Oh, I’ve been here for some time now. I didn’t want to show myself because the good doctor just might not understand. I’m here to search Bennett’s bedchamber. You coshed him, Caroline? Did I hear aright?”

  “Yes, he was trying to rape Alice. She’s only fourteen, Flash, only fourteen years old and she’s with child. I had her kick him hard in the ribs. It made her feel better, gave her some power.”

  “That was very well done of you. Now, where’s Owen?”

  “Owen. Goodness, I sent him after Dr. Treath, but I forgot about him. He isn’t here?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  Caroline gave Flash a crooked smile. “I know where he is. In fact, we should be hearing—”

  She paused, grinning, at the sound of men’s voices.

  “He fetched his lordship,” Flash said. “Smart young man, that Owen. Your betrothed sounds on the ragged edge.”

  North was beyond ragged. He flung open the door to Caroline’s bedchamber, saw her standing there in her dressing gown, her hair wild and loose about her face and down her back, and yelled, “What the holy hell are you doing, Caroline Derwent-Jones? Damnation, I can’t leave you alone for an hour without you getting yourself into messes that will surely turn my hair gray before I’m thirty. Oh, you, Flash? What the devil are you doing in Caroline’s bedchamber? You little bastard, if you have touched—”

  Caroline laughed and walked right into him, wrapping her arms around his back. Actually, it took him a moment before he raised his arms and hugged her to him.

  “It’s all right, North. Everything’s all right. I wish Owen had told me he was going to fetch you. I would have talked him out of it. But it’s nice of you to come. Goodness, you’re still breathing hard.” She kissed him, there in front of Flash and Owen, a sweet kiss, a chaste kiss, but it went through him like lightning.

  He took her arms in his hands and set her away from him. “Tell me what the hell happened here. And tell me what this smiling bastard is doing in your bedchamber.”

  “All right. Why don’t we go downstairs and I’ll pour you a brandy.”

  It required two brandies and many questions on North’s part before he was satisfied. He stood there by the fireplace, frowning down at his boots, then said, “Let’s go, Flash. We’ll both search that bloody little sod’s room. If we find something, we’ll just dump him out the window.”

  “Sounds like a fine plan to me,” Flash said. “The miserable bugger, trying to hurt that little girl.”

  “I’ll help,” Owen said.

  “All right, Owen. Caroline, you go to bed. By God, we’re getting married in six hours. I would appreciate my bride not snoring during the ceremony. Or after, as a matter of fact, at least until we’ve—”

  “North!”

  Flash Savory just grinned. “The captain is always trying to put Lady Victoria to the blush, and she yells at him and turns red and sometimes punches him in the belly.”

  “Hear that, North? Best be careful, you and your outrageous tongue.”

  “Ah, Caroline, you—”

  “North, be quiet.”

  Flash, Owen, and North spent a good thirty minutes searching Bennett Penrose’s bedchamber. There was no sound save for Bennett’s snores, but Flash did find a small square box on top of which was a pair of Bennett’s evening shoes. “Hi ho, what’s this, I wonder?”

  North took the box from him and opened it. “Letters,” he said. “There are at least half a dozen letters here.” He pulled one out and spread out the single piece of paper. “Bloody hell,” he said, “you’ll not believe this one.” North cursed some more, stopped himself from stamping his booted feet on the floor in sheer frustration and disappointment.

  Flash took the letter, read it, and sighed deeply. “Well, that more or less lets our boy off the hook, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” North said. “Damnation, it shows he was in London for those days surrounding Eleanor Penrose’s death, if this letter is to be believed, which I suppose it must.”

  “He was such a meaty suspect,” Flash said. “I had pinned such hopes on him.”

  “Where do we go from here, my lord?”

  “Home to bed, Flash. I’m gett
ing married tomorrow.”

  20

  BISHOP HORTON FROM Truro married Frederic North Nightingale, Baron Penrith and Viscount Chilton, to Miss Caroline Aiden Handerson Derwent-Jones, spinster, the following morning at precisely ten o’clock in the drawing room of Mount Hawke in a ceremony that lasted precisely eight and a half minutes. The final five and a half minutes of the ceremony took place with eyes closed. Bishop Horton prayed. He began with praise of the metaphorical wedding of Adam and Eve, came smoothly forward to the glory and the Christian purpose of the wedding currently under way, then moved onward to extend well into the future to North and Caroline’s progeny, who would doubtless, if God so ordained, find as noble spouses as their ancestors had. Caroline found that she was getting confused between herself as an ancestor and some Chilton now long dead. Or was it someone long dead in the distant future?

  When Bishop Horton decided he’d been as thorough as was pertinent to the proceedings, he beamed on Caroline and North, then asked if anyone would like to step forward to take exception to this blessed union. To everyone’s relief, no one moved, including Mr. Ffalkes. After the bishop’s final blessing, Caroline was beginning to feel less dazed at how the entire course of her life had been changed all in the space of three minutes of spoken instructions and the rest in a prayer that recounted and praised untold generations of marital bliss.

  North kissed her after Bishop Horton closed his Bible and nodded to him. It was a very chaste kiss, over quickly.

  Mount Hawke servants—male to the man—stood on one side of the drawing room, and the denizens from Scrilady Hall—female all, save the stable lad, Robin—stood on the other. There were locals there as well, the most notable amongst them Mrs. Freely, Mr. Peetree, the Treaths, Mr. Brogan, and the Carstairses. Mrs. Freely had spoken behind her hand discreetly, commenting on Caroline’s gown, the lightness of her face powder, the speed with which the young couple were marrying, how the bride looked thin as a rail, which was a good thing, wasn’t it? Both North and Caroline heard every word, as did every other guest.