The Nightingale Legacy

by Catherine Coulter

  “Oh no, don’t let him see me like this, Miss Caroline. Make him go away. Oh, I never told him, but he was so nice to me, so nice. There was no time for us ever to be more than what we were, but he was so nice to me. No man was ever so nice to me as Owen was.”

  “Then you should tell him right now. He cares mightily for you. He rarely left you, Alice—in fact, he’s here right now, here to see you. Would you like a drink of warm milk that Polgrain just fetched here for you?”

  “Alice?” Owen eased himself down beside her. “Come, love, you’re going to drink the warm milk, all right?”

  There was a very soft whisper that sounded like “love.”

  Then there was nothing. Alice’s head was turned slightly away from Caroline and Owen. Her eyes were closed.

  “It’s over,” Dr. Treath said, and gently moved Caroline and Owen out of the way.

  “No!” Owen just stood there by the bed, staring down at Alice, shaking his head back and forth. “No,” he said again, “no, she’s so sweet, so innocent, God, it isn’t fair… isn’t fair.”

  Caroline said, “Owen, come and kiss her good-bye. Let her go.” But even as she said the words, she felt something deep inside her turn cold and hard, then just as quickly she felt herself crumbling inward, sinking down into darkness that she welcomed, oh yes, she wanted that darkness and its deep shadows that hid the pain from her, that hid Alice’s young face, so calm in death, so very sweet, without life.

  Caroline had never worn black in her life and she had no intention of doing it now. “Alice wasn’t quite fifteen years old. I will not honor her young life with black. I will wear white, white as pure and innocent as she was.” And Mrs. Mayhew simply nodded.

  All the women from Mount Hawke wore white. When the vicar arrived with Mrs. Plumberry—uninvited—he looked from Caroline to Miss Mary Patricia, then at the rest of them, and said, “This is not right. Even though Alice was not worthy to continue her life of sin, still our black trappings are God’s idea, meant to honor Him, to show Him our respect, more than the one deceased.”

  Caroline just stared at him for a very long moment.

  “I suppose these others”—he jerked his head toward Evelyn and Miss Mary Patricia—“talked you into it, didn’t they? No piety, those two, just cheap little sluts with no sense of what is right and proper, and they’ve fooled you, my lady, and made you forget—”

  Caroline drew back her fist and sent it right into Mr. Plumberry’s jaw. He dropped like a stone. Caroline stood there rubbing her knuckles.

  His wife howled, dropped to her knees, and shrieked up at Caroline, “How dare you! You don’t deserve that my fine Plumberry lowered himself to come here for that little trollop’s—”

  Caroline was shivering with anger, not with cold. She called out, “Tregeagle, Polgrain, do come here and assist the Plumberrys from Mount Hawke land.”

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” Mrs. Plumberry yelled. “You miserable—” She was shrieking now constantly, but it was better than the horrible words that had spewed out of her mouth.

  Caroline called out, “North, thank you for carrying Mr. Plumberry into his coach. Could you please dump him on the floor?”

  North did just that, indeed he dumped him on his wife’s feet. Mrs. Plumberry leaned out the window, screaming, “All of you will pay for this! Horrid sinners! Look at all of you—just standing there, doing nothing! All of you impious females, wearing white like heathens. My Horace will send all of you to everlasting Hell, you will see!”

  Bishop Horton from Truro, who thankfully arrived after the Plumberrys’ coach had rolled down the hill, read the words over Alice’s grave that Caroline and Owen had written together. His voice was deep and rich, reaching even to Mr. Dumbarton’s smallest child, who stood at the very edge of the Nightingale cemetery, unwilling to come closer.

  “Alice would like that,” Owen said. “The bishop of Truro here, for her. I always wished my voice was deeper and richer, just like the bishop’s.”

  The morning was cloudy, windy, the air cold and damp, a perfect day for misery, Caroline thought, standing close to North, her arm through his. Her knuckles hurt, which was wonderful. There were nearly fifty people at Alice’s funeral. Alice would have liked that too, Caroline thought. Alice probably would have flushed scarlet with embarrassment, lost her nearly excellent English grammar, and said, “Lawks, Miss Caroline, would ye jest look at all the toffs? And jest plain ordinary folk too. It pleases me, Miss Caroline, it surely does.”

  Caroline didn’t feel the tears slipping down her face until she tasted the salt and felt North’s gloved finger wiping her cheek.

  35

  IT TOOK CAROLINE a good three days to realize she was being followed. She was visiting the seamstress in Goonbell, fetching small blankets and wrappers for the babes, when she made her move.

  She quickly slipped into an alley between two buildings and waited. Sure enough, not two minutes later, she saw the long shadow of her follower. Her heart pounded. She pulled the pistol from her pocket and waited. She was ready. No more fear, damn the wretched person.

  It was Timmy the maid and he nearly dropped to his knees with fright when she grabbed his arm, whirled him around, and stuck the pistol in his face and shouted, “What are you doing? Why are—”

  She stared down at the boy, whose mouth was unbecomingly open, eyes terrified. “Timmy, whatever are you doing following me?”

  “Er, my lady, ye done scar’t the stuffing out o’ me. Could ye move the popper from me puss?”

  “What? Oh yes, I’m sorry for scaring you.”

  “Aye, and wit’ me own popper, leastways it were mine until after ye took it back from me.”

  She slipped the pistol back into the large pocket of her thick brown wool cloak. “Why are you following me? Oh goodness, I hadn’t even considered… You’re my shadow, my protection. His lordship set you after me, didn’t he?”

  “Aye, I suppose there ain’t no ’iding it now that ye caught me fair and proper.”

  “Very well. Do you have any idea who tried to hurt me? Remember when we went back to find that wire and it was gone? Have you heard anything about any wire, Timmy, anything at all?”

  “Nay, not a bloody thing, beggin’ yer ladyship’s pardon, and that’s wot’s drivin’ ’is lordship ’round the bend, so to speak. The way ’e thinks is if it weren’t old Mr. Coombe what popped the ladies, then who’s trying to pop ye?”

  “Your choice of words could use some improvement, Timmy,” she said, then pulled him from the alley.

  “Ye know, yer ladyship, Flash Savory an’ Cap’n Carstairs don’t know a thing either, can’t figure out who’s doing all these evil things. Then there’s ’is lordship, the Earl of Chase. Now, ’e’s got a bonny brain, ’e ’as, but even ’e don’t know who’s doing aught.”

  She only sighed. “I know, even the Duchess is stymied, and that’s something. Now that you’re here, you can help me fetch the parcels for all our babes.”

  He looked horrified.

  “Come along, Timmy, I did catch you fair and square, you said so yourself.”

  “No, ma’am, I said it was fair an’ proper.”

  “Come along, Timmy.”

  That evening at dinner, there were only four at the table, the Nightingales and the Wyndhams. Miss Mary Patricia, Evelyn, and Owen were all upstairs fussing with the babies. Little Owen was eating like a stoat, and the good Lord knew, Tregeagle was heard to say on a deep sigh, that the little blighter’s lungs were just dandy.

  Caroline told them about Timmy the maid.

  North looked at her, smiled, then cursed. “I wish you hadn’t seen him, Caroline. He’s little, but he’s fast. Damnation. You’ve got good eyesight.”

  “I do like the notion of a twelve-year-old bodyguard, North, but perhaps he could just accompany me instead.”

  “No,” the Duchess said, “that’s not the point. You would be endangering Timmy were he to simply be with you. No, he must follow you, out of si
ght, so that if anyone tries anything, he would be on the spot.”

  Caroline sighed as deeply as Tregeagle ever did when awakened in the middle of the night by Little Owen screeching his head off for milk. Both Evelyn and Miss Mary Patricia took turns feeding him, and both agreed that he was a proper little glutton, even as they kissed the soft blond down on his head.

  Thank God, Caroline thought. Alice, your son will grow up big and strong and he won’t be hurt ever, not if I can help it, not like you were.

  She shook her head, hating the tears that always seemed so very close to trickling out of her eyes.

  North said to the earl and countess, “Dr. Treath came to see Caroline today, even asked to see her alone, so he could talk to her. Miss Treath and I were consigned to the corridor. Did he tell you that all your roving about wasn’t all that good for you right now?”

  She tried to smile, but it was so difficult. “Yes, he told me to rest more, but, North, there’s so much to be done. I wrote a letter to this man in London that Marcus told me about. He just might come here and begin restoration on all the Nightingale women’s portraits. I do hope it’s soon.”

  “At least all the frames are spotless,” the earl said. “Oh yes, the Duchess told me how you’d scrubbed them down to their gold.”

  “Yes, I did. I do hope we can have the fellow who will restore the paintings here right after Christmas.”

  “Only two weeks away now,” the Duchess said. She sat forward, laying her fork down on her plate of spiced pears. “Marcus and I have decided we’ll remain here at Mount Hawke until four days before Christmas, then we must return to Yorkshire to Chase Park to be with our own family. We’ll return here around the first of the year and we’ll stay until all the mystery is cleared up.”

  North was shaking his head. “Oh no, Duchess. You could have been hurt that day. I can’t allow it. Marcus, take her to London, take her home, and keep her there. I don’t want either of you coming back after Christmas. Besides,” he added, seeing the stubborn set of the earl’s jaw, “there could be no resolution for months and months. As much as I think both of you are excellent houseguests, I must tell you that I am beginning to tire of you and even a respite at Christmas won’t help. It’s true, I’m not lying. Isn’t that right, Caroline?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly, right on his heels. “Already I’m bored, just like North. It’s all I can do to stay awake in your company. I already wish you were well gone from here.”

  “You didn’t have to go that far,” North said to his wife. “And you’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”

  She wished she weren’t seated ten feet away from him at the other end of the table. She wished she were seated in his lap, his palm gently smoothing up her stocking to her thigh whilst she was nipping at his earlobe, lightly licking his jaw, kissing his bottom lip. She wished…“No, North,” she said, “it’s just that you don’t know your friends. They will be back after Christmas and then, I dare say, they won’t budge until everything is resolved. And that means that we must determine who was behind that wire business else they’ll be living with us forever, and I can’t imagine anyone happy with that arrangement.”

  North cursed and said to Tregeagle, “I would like a bottle of port. I would also like the ladies to excuse themselves so that the earl and I could drink ourselves under the Aubusson carpet.”

  Caroline laughed. It felt good, but life being what it was, memories flooded through her, and the laughter died.

  “I know,” North said, then turned back to speak to the earl. Caroline rose and said, “Duchess, shall you and I go to the drawing room and drink our own port? There’s rather a large carpet in there as well.”

  “You won’t, Duchess,” the earl shouted, the pulse pounding in his neck. “I forbid it. You won’t get tipsy without me to entertain you.”

  “I told you he was a sweetheart,” the Duchess said to Caroline. She turned back to her furious husband and said, “Try not to bore North, my dear. He just might eject both of us from Mount Hawke this very minute.” She then grinned at her husband and followed Caroline from the formal dining room.

  Every Mount Hawke denizen, including old Pa-Dou, who was toothless and hard of hearing, argued, yelled, poked, and insulted one another, all in all having a fine time before the yule log was finally agreed upon and dragged behind two dray horses to the castle, there to be lit and remain burning in the cavernous fireplace in the great entrance hall until after Boxing Day.

  Polgrain prepared a delicious hot mulled wine and all toasted North when he finally managed to get the log lighted. The laughter was sweet, poignant, with a bittersweet edge to it when Little Owen waved a tiny arm toward Miss Mary Patricia, whose turn it was to feed him, pumped his legs, and yelled.

  If Caroline wondered why there were always at least three people with her except when she had to relieve herself, even when she’d wandered off to look at some rather pretty moss growing in the rocks, she didn’t let on.

  Everyone cared about her and that felt wonderful. She tired easily but any nausea was gone. North said to her as she sat on his lap in front of their fireplace later that night, “Your breasts are larger. Are they sore?”

  “No,” she said, nodding, and kissed him.

  “Don’t lie to me, Caroline. Dr. Treath told me that—”

  She reared back in his arms, so embarrassed she nearly sputtered. “You and Dr. Treath talked about my breasts?”

  “Yes, don’t be silly. He just warned me to be careful when I touched you. Just like Rafael and Victoria Carstairs.”

  She closed her eyes and flopped against his shoulder. “I can’t believe it. This is awful. Oh goodness.”

  He laughed. “I also asked him when your belly was going to get round. He said every woman was different, that the babe would grow at its own pace. He then assured me that I could love you until April the fourteenth. What do you think?”

  She bit his chin hard.

  Then she licked his chin and began to kiss him. “I think,” she whispered into his mouth, “that we’d best get on with it. I want you to have wonderful memories when the time comes to keep your hands and other parts to yourself.”

  North agreed with that.

  Caroline whisked into her bedchamber to brush her hair. She’d been walking about outdoors with the Duchess and now looked a fright. Her cheeks were ruddy from the cold breeze and she felt marvelous. She was humming to herself when she chanced to see a folded piece of paper slipped under her jewelry box. She frowned as she slipped it out and unfolded it.

  Then she turned cold. She read the few words again and again.

  You may think you’re well protected but you’re not. My little note is here, isn’t it? You’re a slut like all the others and you will die, just like they did, just like your aunt did.

  She refolded the single sheet of foolscap, slipped it into her pocket, and slowly walked downstairs. Only North was in the library, reviewing the final papers with Mr. Brogan on Caroline’s inheritance. He looked up to see her standing there, utterly without color, utterly motionless, and quickly rose as he excused himself. He gently took Caroline’s arm and led her from the library. “What the hell is wrong? Are you ill? Caroline, what’s going on?”

  She simply gave him the foolscap.

  It was Christmas afternoon. The three babes were on a large blanket in front of the fireplace in the drawing room. The sideboard was weighted down with a large punch bowl of hot mulled wine and a huge silver tray filled with cakes, biscuits, and candies. Everyone at Mount Hawke was there, with Caroline and North dispensing gifts and well wishes. Caroline imagined that the Duchess and Marcus were more than likely performing the same functions at Chase Park. They’d been gone four days and Caroline continually found herself starting to say something to the Duchess, then realizing she wasn’t here. She was torn. She missed them, yet having North completely to herself was entirely to her liking. She grinned at Polgrain and handed him his present, a pocket watch made in Belgium with his in
itials engraved on its back in gold. It was a handsome piece and she wasn’t at all certain he deserved it.

  Earlier in the day there had been another huge affair for the farmers, the servants from Scrilady Hall, and the miners, who were ushered to Mount Hawke by Mr. Peetree. Polgrain had been in his element. He’d hired six helpers and terrorized them witless, all in all, being in a manner very similar to that of Mr. Ffalkes, but the result was delicious; even Mrs. Trebaw from Scrilady Hall voiced her approval. She scolded Dumpling, the scullery maid from Scrilady Hall, only once for being a glutton.

  Caroline gave both Miss Mary Patricia and Evelyn rectangular wrapped packages. “Happy Christmas,” she said, and kissed their cheeks.

  Everyone turned to watch. Miss Mary Patricia very carefully unfastened the paper, rolled the ribbon, and opened a small wooden box. Inside was a key. She looked up at Caroline, confused. Evelyn held up her own key, dangling it at the end of its black velvet ribbon.

  North said, “It’s your key to Scrilady Hall, Miss Mary Patricia, Evelyn. Caroline and I would like you, Miss Mary Patricia, to become the director of the Hall, which will be a refuge for young women who have been abused and have found themselves with child and in a hopeless situation. You, Evelyn, we would ask that you be in charge of the children, that you also work with Miss Mary Patricia with the young women to see what they would like to do.”

  “There’s so much to do,” Caroline said. “Amongst all of us, we should be able to see that everything is done properly. What do you say?”

  Miss Mary Patricia simply stared at the key, then at Caroline and North. “I think Eleanor Penrose would be very, very proud of you, Miss Caroline.”

  “Oh bosh,” Evelyn said, and shouted with laughter, then began to dance around the room, waking Little Owen, who promptly decided it was time for him to eat, and yelled.

  “It’s wonderful! Just wonderful. Oh, Miss Caroline, your lordship, Miss Mary Patricia and I will make Scrilady Hall the finest place in all of England. Aye, Miss Mary Patricia will see that everyone speaks proper good English and I will see that everyone is clothed suitably and looked after until they burst with health.”