Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8)

by Lancaster, Mary

  Without quite intending to, Dawn reached out and touched the frame, and then the painting itself. A shiver ran up her arm.

  “Robert Gardyn,” Lord Braithwaite said. “As a young man. Before his marriage, I would think. Look at his hair.”

  The hair was clearly the reason he had noticed Dawn in the first place. More than fair, it shone around his face, a reddish blond of a very similar color to her own. Her heart ached for the tragedy of his life, but his portrait had nothing to do with his lost child or his early death. She felt none of that, just some unworldly, almost fey quality. Which was probably more imagination than anything else.

  “Mrs. Barbara Gardyn,” Mrs. Benedict read from the plate beneath the other painting. “Was this his wife?”

  “Yes,” Lord Braithwaite replied. He reached across Dawn at the same time as she touched the portrait of the lost child’s mother.

  Their hands brushed together and her breath caught. She was not concentrating on him so there were no visions or foreknowledge thrown at her. Only an electric, very physical awareness. Because he had looked at her so last night? Other men had looked at her with desire, inspiring little more than indifference or even disgust in her.

  Forcing herself, she concentrated on the lady in the portrait. Gentle, beautiful, her future tragedy already in her eyes. Dawn frowned. “Her eyes should laugh,” she blurted. “She should not be unhappy.”

  “Should anyone?” Mrs. Benedict murmured. She lifted Barbara aside, then a haughty, powdered lady in a ridiculously hooped dress. And then she paused.

  This one was of a young lady of the last century, little more than a girl, and she, too, had the red-fair hair.

  “Theresa Gardyn,” Mrs. Benedict read and turned her gaze on Dawn.

  “Robert’s aunt,” Lord Braithwaite clarified. “A famous beauty in her day and made some brilliant marriage, I believe. My mother knew her.”

  He spoke oddly, though, as if not paying attention to his words. Dawn glanced at him and found he was staring at her. Both he and Mrs. Benedict looked from her to the portrait and back again.

  “What?” she asked uneasily. Nervously, she pushed her hair back from her face.

  “Excuse me,” Mrs. Benedict said with a hint of apology. Before Dawn could ask for clarification, the lady gathered up Dawn’s hair, drawing it in a pile to the top of her head. “You could be Theresa Gardyn.”

  Alarmed by this attitude, Dawn glanced at Lord Braithwaite for help. But he, too, was still staring at her.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly. He blinked. “I beg your pardon, ladies. The likeness is…extraordinary. Dawn, how old are you?”

  “Nineteen. Why?”

  Again, he exchanged glances with Mrs. Benedict, but at that moment, a maid clattered in with a tea tray.

  “Where shall I put it, ma’am?” she called.

  “Just set it on the floor,” Mrs. Benedict said, rising in haste. “I’ll fetch it.”

  Of course, Lord Braithwaite, being a gentleman, went with her and carried it back to where Dawn still knelt, slightly lost among the portraits.

  “Do you know,” Mrs. Benedict said, “you don’t really look like a gypsy?”

  Dawn had heard it before. She only shrugged. “Some of us are lighter skinned. My people do intermarry with yours on occasion.”

  “Then, Ezra Boswell is your real father?” Lord Braithwaite said.

  Dawn stared at him in something very like panic. “Of course he is.”

  Mrs. Benedict set a cup of tea in a saucer beside her. “The resemblance is quite startling.”

  “You’re clutching at straws,” Dawn said intensely. She glared at the earl. “Look, I’ve already told you, I’ll pretend to be Eleanor Gardyn. Just don’t tell yourself the same lie.”

  “It bothers you,” Lord Braithwaite observed. He shrugged and picked up the dainty tea cup in his large hand. Somehow, he managed it with elegance. “Don’t worry.”

  “Why should I worry?” she retorted. “I’m not even speaking to my father.”

  “Have you always lived with him?” Braithwaite asked.

  “I’ve always travelled with him,” she corrected.

  “Then you remember no other life?”

  “Apart from those whose fortunes I tell? No, why would I?”

  “Then you wouldn’t like to be a lady of property and wealth?”

  Dawn just wanted to be away from them, from the house. “Who wouldn’t?” she returned, gulping her tea so fast it burned her throat. She snatched up a scone. “But I’d never live in one place. I’m a gypsy.” And yet she’d asked him about living in the cottage. Living in one place had entered her head.

  Mrs. Benedict opened her mouth, to say what Dawn didn’t know, for Lord Braithwaite forestalled her, shaking his head infinitesimally. Mrs. Benedict closed her mouth again. Braithwaite searched Dawn’s face, but behind his eyes, his brain seemed to be busy with other things. At last, he set his cup back in its saucer.

  “You are a gypsy,” he repeated. “But will you have difficulty in pretending to be someone else? For a little.”

  She stared at him with defiance. “Not if you pay me as we agreed.”

  “Should I be hearing this?” Mrs. Benedict inquired.

  “Actually, yes,” Braithwaite said. “I wonder if you would consider teaching Dawn along with my sisters?”

  *

  He explained it to her as they rode back to the castle. By then, she had discarded her own clothes for a very dull grey gown of Mrs. Benedict’s. “I wore it when I was a governess,” she had said to Dawn with a hint of apology. “It is appallingly respectable and so will do you no harm until you acquire something prettier.”

  She also now had a horse of her own to ride, borrowed from the Benedicts’ stable. And while she rather missed the intimacy of their outward ride together on Lord Braithwaite’s mount, she consoled herself with the knowledge that whatever his bizarre reasoning, she was to stay at the castle for a while as originally planned. And learn to be a lady.

  “Wouldn’t Julius Gardyn be more outraged if you thrust a gypsy under her nose?” she asked.

  “He might be outraged,” Lord Braithwaite allowed, “but he wouldn’t be afraid. He could claim some relationship between your mother and a Gardyn.”

  “It could be true,” Dawn pointed out.

  “It could.”

  She turned to look at him. “But you prefer to believe I was stolen from the Gardyns?”

  “That could be true, too,” he said mildly.

  “You do know that gypsies don’t really steal children?” Dawn said patiently. “That’s just a story to spread fear and hatred. Like calling the French monsters.”

  “Do you remember your mother?” he asked, apparently ignoring her claim.

  She shook her head. “She died giving birth to me. But your family is of greater concern. They’ll know exactly what I am. Lord Tamar already does.”

  “Tamar is surprisingly discreet. So, even more surprisingly, are my sisters. The younger ones will think it great fun to know you. Serena…well, we need Serena on our side.”

  Serena, she apprehended, was the earl’s married sister, the wife of Lord Tamar. And in truth, Dawn was more nervous of her than anyone else. For one thing, she had found foreign women were more apt than their menfolk to be unkind to her. For another, she was sure Lady Serena would disapprove utterly of Lord Braithwaite’s plan. She would, quite rightly, see Dawn’s invasion of her home as an attempted robbery, and put a stop to the fun of the situation. Which would be a pity, for Dawn had more than one reason for wanting to stay close to the earl, just for a little.

  “Lady Serena will not want me there,” Dawn said bluntly. “Why would she agree to teach me to be a lady?”

  “We can only ask her,” Lord Braithwaite said lightly. “Mrs. Benedict has agreed to help, and she is a friend of Serena’s.”

  Dawn shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. If she did stay at the castle, it would not all be easy.

>   *

  As she stood rigid in the huge, utterly overwhelming drawing room, Dawn felt a very strange familiarity, even though she knew she had never been there before. She blamed the flashing visions from the first time she had touched the earl’s hand. They had come so fast… But this was his world, his castle. It must have been there.

  She preferred to think about this than the furious and beautiful young lady haranguing Lord Braithwaite and traducing Dawn’s people only a few feet away from her. They probably imagined she couldn’t make out their words, since they had lowered their voices to little more than furious whispers, but Dawn possessed excellent hearing.

  “This is insanity!” Lady Serena exclaimed. “You’re bringing a stranger, a gypsy into the household, to rub shoulders with the girls? I cannot imagine what Mama would have to say about that, but in this case, I’ll save her the trouble. No, Gervaise. Just, no.”

  “Well, you are at perfect liberty to refuse to help,” Lord Braithwaite said mildly. “But not to decide who does and does not enter the castle.”

  “What is the matter with you?” Serena demanded furiously. “Are you so lost to what is right that you would thrust any mistress, let alone a gypsy, into your sisters’ lives?”

  Finally, Braithwaite’s patience snapped. “Oh for God’s sake, Serena, what do you take me for? Of course, she is not my mistress and never has been! As for gypsy—” He broke off and strode to Dawn, anger flaming in his fine eyes. In one quick, almost violent gesture, he yanked down the hood of her cloak. “Does she look like a gypsy to you?”

  Serena stared at her. Dawn lifted her chin and stared back.

  Serena swallowed. “No. No, I have to say she does not look like a gypsy.”

  “I am a gypsy,” Dawn said, “and proud of it. I have done nothing to earn your scorn.”

  The fine lady, who couldn’t have been much older than Dawn, actually flushed. “Of course you have not,” she said with unexpectedly humility. “I beg your pardon. I should not have said such things, and certainly not let you hear them. The truth is, I do not know you, and that alone is enough to turn me against Braithwaite’s scheme. And I don’t like the deception, the—”

  “Deception?” Lord Braithwaite repeated. “Do you think so? She is Theresa Gardyn’s double. Can you not see her likeness to Julius?”

  Serena looked at him. “What I see is your obsession with Julius and your determination to bring him down somehow. It is not a trait in you that I like very much. And it is getting in the way of your life and your work.”

  Lord Braithwaite gave a crooked smile. “You have been talking to Tamar, of course. And I’ll not deny that’s pretty exactly how I was last night. I was well into my cups when the idea came to me, and yes, it probably was unreasonable obsession that drove me. Now, I am stone cold sober and my motives are different. I want the truth, and I want to do right by this girl. And if Julius had anything to do with what happened to her, then I will bring him to justice.”

  Impetuously, Serena strode to them. “Gervaise, you’re making assumptions, unlikely assumptions, based only on the color of her hair and a likeness you perceive to one of Eleanor Gardyn’s ancestors.”

  “Caroline Benedict sees it, too,” Braithwaite said firmly. “Besides, she is the same age as Eleanor would have been. Look at her skin, the fineness of her features, the shape of her hands—”

  Dawn had had enough. “Do you want me to show my teeth as well?” she interrupted. “I’m not a horse.”

  “Forgive me.” The earl’s quick, devastating smile almost undid her. “I get carried away.”

  “Yes, you do,” Dawn agreed. “But you should consider this. If your own sister doesn’t believe I’m Eleanor, why on earth would Julius Gardyn, who won’t even want to believe it?”

  “Are you Eleanor Gardyn?” Lady Serena asked bluntly.

  “No,” Dawn replied at once. “I’m Dawn Boswell.”

  “It’s all she remembers,” Lord Braithwaite said quietly. “All she knows.”

  “And if you are wrong,” Serena said slowly, “if you cannot prove this, have you considered what damage you would be doing to Miss Boswell? If she lives with us, will her people want her back? You’d be taking her from everything she knows. If we turn her into a lady, it will be hard for her to go back to her old life. And yet she will never be accepted in our circles, not without proof. You could be ruining her life, not helping her at all.”

  The earl glanced from Serena to Dawn and back again. “It crossed my mind,” he admitted. “I suppose I’ve been trying not to think about that side of things. But if she is Eleanor, she needs to come home.”

  “Then don’t you think you should find out before you put her through all this?” Serena said gently.

  He gazed at her for a long time, and Dawn’s heart began to sink. She was losing. For despite her perverse interventions in the argument against herself, she wanted to stay.

  “How long will your people stay here?” Serena asked her.

  “They were going to leave after the christening,” Dawn replied, “but I doubt they’ll go far in this weather. Maybe on to Whalen.” Where they would, no doubt, have the baby christened all over again. She shrugged. “I don’t care. I’ve quarreled with my father.”

  “Over my brother?” Serena asked.

  “In a way. It was more about money.”

  Serena frowned, clearly not understanding.

  Lord Braithwaite cleared his throat. “I believe I’m right in this,” he said, “but you make a good point, Serena. I always meant to make inquiries, you know, but I’ll set them in motion at once. In the meantime, would you help her?”

  Serena glanced uncertainly from her brother to Dawn. “What do you want, Miss Boswell? While Braithwaite tries to discover the truth, would you prefer to stay with your father or live here?”

  Dawn smiled. “Here, if you please.”

  Chapter Five

  Having made up her mind, however reluctantly, to help, Lady Serena entered wholeheartedly into the scheme. She and ger brother debated first what to call Dawn. They both ruled out Miss Boswell. Lord Braithwaite was in favor of Miss Gardyn, but Serena ruled that out as tempting providence.

  “It would look too bad if we discover she is not Eleanor,” she insisted.

  Eventually, they decided on Miss Conway, a distant relative of their own who had just returned from the Americas.

  “I’m sure we have a great uncle there,” Serena said.

  “There may be another ‘great’ or two,” Braithwaite allowed, “but yes, some younger son did sail to America and was never heard of again. It will do. And it will explain any oddity in your accent and manners.”

  And so “Miss Conway” was given the guest bedchamber she had already slept in.

  “This time you must sleep in the bed,” Lord Braithwaite whispered as Serena bore her off. Dawn laughed, but she had to own he was right. If she was going to enter into this, she had to do it properly.

  Serena promised to take her shopping first thing in the morning, which was only fair by Dawn’s reckoning, since new clothes had been part of her original agreement with Braithwaite. In the meantime, Lady Serena brought her a few of her own gowns.

  “You are slightly taller than me, but I daresay no one will notice.”

  “I can let down the hems,” Dawn said. “I already did on Mrs. Benedict’s dress.”

  “Ah! I thought I recognized that garment,” Serena said without noticeable affection. “Very well, do what you can. This lilac will look well on you. Wear that one for dinner. And the blue morning gown will do for tomorrow. I’ll send the maid with the sewing kit. Is there anything else you need?”

  “No, of course not. Thank you.”

  Serena nodded a little curtly and left. She was helping, but not won over. She still suspected Dawn. Quite rightly.

  With nothing but what she stood up in and her brightly colored blanket, there was not a lot Dawn could do to make the room her own. She spread the blanket over th
e embroidered coverlet on the bed, then wrinkled her nose and pulled it off again. Instead, she wrapped one of the few cushions in it and placed it on the floor in front of the fire. Then she sat on it, thinking, until the maid brought the sewing kit with a curtsey.

  “From Lady Serena, Miss. I’m to help you if you like.”

  “No, thank you, there is no need.”

  “Then just ring if you want anything. I’m Clarry and I’ll be your personal maid during your stay. I want to be a lady’s maid one day,” she confided.

  “Then I wish you luck,” Dawn said, knowing the poor girl would learn nothing from her. Still, at least she wouldn’t have some disapproving, superior dresser despising her.

  When the maid dipped out again, Dawn began letting down the hem of the lilac evening gown. The fabric was very fine, beautiful to the touch, though she was sure she would freeze in it in this draughty castle.

  She had just finished with the hem and spread it out on the bed when a knock sounded at the door, followed by a good deal of whispering and a definite giggle.

  “Come in,” Dawn said, dubiously.

  The door seemed to burst open and three children all but fell into the room. The youngest looked to be about twelve years old and the eldest around fifteen or sixteen. Even without the blindfold, Dawn easily recognized the youngest.

  “You are the younger sisters,” she observed.

  The eldest of the three shoved her sisters aside. “Cousin Eleanor,” she greeted her. “We are delighted to meet you. I’m Maria, and these are my sisters Alice and Helen.”

  All three dropped most elegant curtseys, though Alice spoiled hers by saying in awe, “Were you really brought up by gypsies? Ouch,” she added, glaring as her two sisters nudged her roughly.

  “Yes,” Dawn said. “But we’re not meant to say. I’m your cousin from America.”

  “Adults are strange,” Alice observed. “They insist on the truth until there’s a lie they want you to tell, and then they insist on that.”

  Maria scowled at her. “Alice!”