by Sophia James
‘You have no true understanding of the difficulties that face me, Daniel...’
Her words were slightly slurred and he interrupted her. ‘Your line in the sand is in danger of being washed away by strong drink, Mother, and it would help if you listened rather than argued. If you made some sacrifice in the family spending and pared down on the number of dresses and bonnets and boots you required, we may have some ready cash to tide us over whilst I try to extricate us from this Godforsaken mess.’
Already she was shaking her head. Sometimes he wondered why he had not just left and taken ship to the Americas, leaving the lot of them to wallow in the cesspool of their own making.
But blood and duty were thicker than both fury and defeat and so he had stayed, juggling what was left of the few assets against what had been lost into the wider world of debt.
If Goldsmith was to foreclose as Cameron had intimated he would? He shook away the dread.
So far he had not needed to sell any of the furniture or paintings in the London town house and so the effect of great wealth remained the illusion it always had been.
The avenues of escape were closing in, however, and he knew without a doubt that it was weeks rather than months for any monies left in the coffers to be gone. Nay, Cameron’s option of a marriage of convenience was the only way to avoid complete ruin.
Upending her glass, his mother called her maid, heavily relying on the guiding arm of her servant as she stood.
‘I shall speak with you again when you are less unreasonable.’ The anger in her voice resonated sharply.
Brandy, arrogance and hopelessness. A familiar cocktail of Wylde living that had taken his father and brother into the afterlife too early.
He wondered if he even had the strength to try to save Montcliffe.
* * *
He met Lady Charlotte Mackay four days later as he exited the bank where he had spent an hour with the manager, trying to piece together some sort of rescue plan allowing the family estate a few more months of grace. And failing. His right leg hurt like hell and he had barely slept the night before with the pain of it.
Charlotte looked just as he remembered her, silky blonde curls falling down from an intricate hat placed high on her head. Her eyes widened as she saw it was he. Shock, he thought, or pity. These days he tried not to interpret the reaction of others when they perceived his uneven gait.
‘Daniel.’ Her voice was musical and laced with an overtone of gladness. ‘It has been an age since I have seen you and I was hoping you might come to call upon me. I have been back from Edinburgh for almost a sennight and had the pleasure of meeting your mother a few days ago.’
‘She mentioned she had seen you.’
‘Oh.’
The conversation stopped for a second, the thousand things unsaid filling in the spaces of awkwardness.
‘I wrote to you, of course, but you did not answer.’ Her confession made him wary, and as her left hand came up to wipe away an errant curl from her face he saw her fingers were ringless.
He could have said he had not received any missives and, given the vagaries of the postal system, she would have believed him. But he didn’t lie.
‘Marriage requires a certain sense of loyalty, I have always thought, so perhaps any communication between us was not such a good idea.’
Small shadows dulled the blue of her irises. ‘Until a union fails to live up to expectation and the trap of a dreary routine makes one’s mind wander.’
Dangerous ground this. He tried to turn the subject. ‘I heard your husband was well mourned at his funeral.’
‘Death fashions martyrs of us all.’ Her glance was measured. ‘Widowhood has people behaving with a sort of poignant carefulness that is...unending and a whole year of dark clothes and joylessness has left me numb. I want to be normal again. I am young, after all, and most men find me attractive.’
Was this a proposition? The bright gown she wore was low-cut, generous breasts nestling in their beds of silk with only a minimal constraint. As she leaned forward he could not help but look.
The maleness in him rose like a sail in the wind, full of promise and direction, but he had been down this pathway once before and the wreck of memory was potent. He made himself stand still.
‘I have learnt much through the brutal consequences of mistakes, but I am home alone tonight, Daniel. If you came to see me, we might rekindle all that we once had.’
Around them others hurried past, an ordinary morning in London, a slight chill on the air and the calling voices of street vendors.
He felt unbalanced by meeting her, given their last encounter. Betrayal was an emotion that held numerous interpretations and he hadn’t cared enough to hear hers then.
But Charlotte Mackay’s eyes now held a harder edge of knowledge, something war had also stamped on him. No longer simple. Two people ruined by the circumstances of their lives and struggling to hold on to anything at all. The disenchantment made him tired and wary and he was glad to see her mother hurrying towards them from the shop behind, giving no further chance of confidence.
Lady Wesley had changed almost as much as her daughter, the quick nervous laughter alluding to a nature that was teetering on some sort of a breakdown.
‘My lord. I hope your family is all well?’
‘Indeed they are, ma’am.’
‘As you can see, our Charlotte is back and all in one piece from the wilds of Scotland.’
When he failed to speak she placed her arm across her daughter’s. The suspicion that she was trying to transmit some hidden signal was underlined by the whitened skin over her knuckles. Charlotte looked suddenly beaten, the fight and challenge drained away into a vacuous smile of compliance.
Perhaps the Wesley family was as complex and convoluted as his own. Jarring his right foot, he swore to himself as they gave their goodbyes. His balance was worsening with the constant pain and the headache he was often cursed with was a direct result of that.
If the Camerons were to know the extent of his infirmity, would they withdraw their offer? Robert Cameron had told him that his daughter needed a strong husband. A protector. The beat of blood coursing around the bullet in his thigh was more distinct now just as the specialist he had seen last month had predicted it would become. If he left it too much longer, he would be dead.
The choice of the devil.
He had seen men in Spain and Portugal with their limbs severed and their lives shattered. Even now in London the remnants of the ragtag of survivors from the battlements of La Corunna still littered the streets, begging for mercy and succour from those around them.
He couldn’t lose his leg. He wouldn’t. Pride was one thing but so was the fate of his family. Dysfunctional the Montcliffes might be, but as the possessor of the title he had an obligation to honour.
For just a moment he wished he was back in Spain amongst his regiment as they rode east in the late autumn sunshine along the banks of the Tagus. The rhythm of the tapping drums and a valley filled with wildflowers came to mind, the ground soft underfoot and the cheers of the waving Spanish nationals ringing in his ears. A simple and uncomplicated time. A time before the chaos that was to be La Corunna. Even now when he smelt thyme, sage or lavender, such sights and sounds returned to haunt him.
The London damp encroached into his thoughts: the sound of a carriage, the calls of children in the park opposite. His life seemed to have taken a direction he was not certain of any more; too wounded to re-enlist, too encumbered by his family and its problems to simply disappear. And now a further twist—a marriage proposal that held nothing but compromise within it.
He tried to remember Amethyst Cameron’s face exactly and failed in his quest. The dull brown of her hair, the wary anger in her eyes, a voice that was often shrill or scolding. The prospect of marriage to her was not what
he had expected from his life, but in the circumstances what else could he do?
His eyes caught the movement of a little girl falling and scuffing her knees. An adult lifted her up and small arms entwined around the woman’s neck, trusting, needing. Daniel imagined fatherhood would be something to be enjoyed, though in truth he had seldom been around any children. He turned away when he saw the woman watching him, uncertain perhaps of his intentions.
He was like a shadow, filled in by flesh and blood, but hurt by the empty spaces in his life. He wanted a wholeness again, a certainty, a resolve. He wanted to laugh as though he meant it and be part of something that was more than the shallow sum of his title.
If he did not marry Amethyst Amelia Cameron, the heritage of the Montcliffe name would be all but gone, a footnote in history, only a bleak reminder of avarice and greed. Centuries of lineage lost in the time it took for the bailiffs to eject the Wyldes from their birthright. The very thought of such a travesty made him hail a cabriolet. He needed to go home and read the small print and conditions of the Cameron proposal. He could not dally any longer.
A sort of calmness descended over the panic. His life and happiness would be forfeited, but there might be some redress in the production of a family. Children had no blame in the affairs of their parents and at thirty-three it was well past time that he produce an heir. An heir who would inherit an estate that was viable and in good health. An estate that would not be lost to the excesses of his brother or the indifference of his father.
Such a personal sacrifice must eventually come to mean something and he was damn well going to make certain that it did.
Chapter Three
The note came the seventh day after they had last seen him, a tense and formal missive informing them that Lord Daniel Wylde, the sixth Earl of Montcliffe, would be calling upon them at two in the afternoon.
Amethyst had been watching for him by the large bay window in the downstairs salon and she stiffened as she heard his carriage draw to a stop on the roadway in front of the house. Lord Montcliffe was here. She looked across at her father, his fingers knocking against his side in the particular way he had of showing concern. It did not help at all.
There were tea and biscuits already set out on the table and the finest of brandy in an unopened bottle. Every glass had been meticulously cleaned and snowy-white napkins stood at attention beside the plate of food, well ironed and folded.
‘Lord Daniel Wylde, the Earl of Montcliffe, sir.’ The butler used his sternest voice and made an effort not to look at anyone. Amethyst had instructed him on the exact art of manners before their guest had arrived.
And then the Earl was there, dressed in dark blue, the white cravat tied at his throat in the style of a man who hadn’t put too much care into it. Not a fop or a dandy. She was pleased, at least, for that.
‘Sir.’ He looked at her father. ‘Miss Cameron.’ He did not even deign to glance her way, the anger on his brow eminently visible. The folder that Papa had made ready with the documents outlining the terms of their betrothal was in his hands. Each knuckle was stretched white. ‘I accept.’
He threw the deeds on the table where they sat between the fine brandy and the fresh biscuits.
I accept.
Two words and she was lost into both method and madness; the Cameron fortune would remain intact and her own fate was sealed. For good or for bad. She felt her heart beating loud and heavy and, placing her hand on her breast, she pressed down, wanting this moment to stop and start again as something else.
But of course it did not.
‘You accept?’ Her father’s voice was businesslike and brisk—a trader whose whole life had consisted of brokering arrangements.
The Earl nodded, but the expression on his face was stony. An agreement dragged from the very depths of his despair and nothing to be done about any of it. He knew as little of her as she did of him; two pawns in a game that was played for stakes higher than just their happiness alone. She had always known that, since the pounds had begun to roll into the Cameron coffers from the lucrative timber trade to and from the Americas. Great fortunes always came with a price.
‘You have signed every condition, then?’ Her father again. She thought he sounded just as he did when he was clinching a deal for the sale of a thousand yards of expensive American mahogany and she wondered at his calm and composure. She was his only daughter and again and again in her lifetime her father had insisted that she must marry for love.
Love? Unexpectedly she caught the eyes of the Earl. Today the green was darker and distrusting. Still, even with the stark fury of coercion on his face, Daniel Wylde was the most beautiful man she had ever had the pleasure of looking upon.
Such looks would crucify her, for nobody would believe that he might have freely chosen her as his bride. She swallowed and met his glance. No use going to pieces this late in the game when the joy on her father’s face was tangible. Papa had not appeared as happy for months.
‘This is your choice too, Miss Cameron?’
‘It is, my lord.’ The floor beneath her began to waver, all the lies eliciting a sort of unreality that made her dizzy.
‘You understand the meaning of the documents then?’ he pressed.
‘I do.’ A blush crept up her throat as she thought of the clause stipulating the two years of monogamy. Her father’s addition, that proviso, and though she had argued long and hard with him to remove it, Robert was not to be shifted.
Montcliffe turned away. The stillness she had noticed outside Tattersall’s was magnified here, a man who knew exactly his place in the world and was seldom surprised by anything.
Save for this marriage of convenience.
‘I hope then that the person you placed to look into my financial affairs can be trusted, Mr Cameron. If word were to leak out about my straitened circumstances and this unusual betrothal, I doubt I could protect your daughter from the repercussions.’
‘Mr Alfred Middlemarch, my lawyer, is a model of silence, my lord. Nary a stray word shall be uttered.’
Their parlourmaid knocked timidly at the door, asking if she could come in to pour the tea. The Earl crossed the room to stand by the fireplace and chose brandy for his sustenance. When Hilda filled his glass to a quarter inch from the top Amethyst winced. On reflection, she thought, perhaps such a task was supposed to belong to the lady of the house and she wished she had not instructed the maid to return to do it. It was seldom that they had such lofty visitors and every small detail of service took on an importance that it previously never had.
Was this how she would live her life from now on? she wondered. On the edge of eggshells in case she were to inadvertently place a clumsy foot wrong? The tutors at Gaskell Street had tried their best with the vagaries of manners, but she imagined they had had about as much practice with the higher echelons of London society as she had.
To give Montcliffe some credit he sipped his tipple carefully from the top before placing the glass down on a green baize circle especially designed for such a purpose. She doubted her father had ever used them before, her eyes catching circles of darkness in the white oak where errant drinks had seeped into the patina of the wood.
Blemished, like them, the outward appearance of Papa and herself reflecting a life that had been lived in trade and service, with little time left for the niceties of cultured living. Amethyst wished she had at least gone out and bought a sumptuous dress for this occasion, something that might lift the colour of her skin into lustre.
She smiled at such a nonsense, catching the Earl’s eyes again as she did so. When he looked away she saw that the muscle under his jaw quivered. In distaste? In sympathy? Usually she found people easy to read, but this man was not.
‘I will announce our betrothal in The Times next week, if that is to your liking, Miss Cameron.’
So few days left?
‘Thank you.’ She wished her voice sounded stronger.
‘I should not want a complicated ceremony given our circumstances.’ A slight shame highlighted Daniel Wylde’s cheeks after he said this and it heartened her immensely. He was not a man in the habit of being rude to women, then? She clutched at the cross at her throat and felt relieved.
Her father pressed on with his own ideas. ‘I was thinking we might hold the ceremony here, my lord, with a minister from our Presbyterian church, of course, and any of your family and friends you care to invite. I would have the first of the money promised transferred into your bank account within the week.’
The give and the take of an agreement. Again Daniel Wylde looked at her as if waiting for her to speak. Did he imagine she might stand up and negate all that her father had so carefully planned? Montcliffe had seen just exactly what those who might hurt her father were capable of. Lord, she brought her hand up and felt the scar just beneath the heavy wig at her nape. It still throbbed sometimes in the cold and the headaches had never quite abated.
‘After the nuptials we will repair to my family seat north of Barnet.’
‘No!’ It was the first real alarm Amethyst had felt. ‘I need to be close to Papa and as he is retiring to Dunstan House then this is where I should like us to live...’
‘I am certain we can work something out, my dear.’ Her father now, placating such an outburst.
Again she shook her head, the pulse of her blood beating fast. ‘I want to add a condition that I may live at Dunstan House, though if the Earl wishes to reside at Montcliffe Manor, then he may.’
‘Difficult to fulfil the clause of mutual cohabitation for a full two years if that is the case, Miss Cameron.’ His voice held a timbre of irony.
The clause her father had insisted upon. She glared at Robert, but kept her silence and was unexpectedly rescued by the very one she thought she would not be.
‘It does not signify. We will reside wherever you wish to.’ The Earl’s tone was slightly bored. An unwanted wife. An unwelcomed cohabitation. Easier just to take the money and acquiesce.