by Jen Yates
‘Come, sit here,’ Helena said, patting the couch beside her.
Liberty flew across the room and buried herself in the warmth and scent of roses so redolent of Mama. As a child there had never been a more comforting place than the circle of her mother’s embrace. She was no longer a child, but the instinct remained, to snuggle in, bury her head, and believe Mama’s love would heal every hurt.
‘I understand your feelings for Levi, sweetheart. He’s grown into a handsome young man. He reminds me of your Papa when he was younger. But Henry is an earl and—he’s special. He’s been my shield against the world all our married life. He’s never failed me, never let me down and I trust him implicitly to do what is right for me and for our family. And regardless how handsome young Levi is and how great his prospects, he’s still the miller’s son and simply won’t do.’
With despair Liberty heard the implacability underlying the loving tones of Helena’s voice. Her parents were as one on this.
She sat up and clenched her hands together. They were beginning to shake.
‘But Lord Earnslaw is old and—and wrinkled. I won’t do it.’
She sounded like a truculent child. How could she convince them she was adult enough to know her own mind? What could she say that would make a difference?
Helena sighed and rhythmically stroked her hand over Liberty’s where it curled in her lap.
Though she knew Mama loved her, she also knew she would support Papa and every decision he made.
Hopelessness scored deep into her gut. The bitter sobs threatened to erupt again.
‘Lady Liberty?’
Nanette perched on the edge of the couch on her other side.
Her mother’s old maid had come from France with Mama many years ago and was never far from her mistress’s side. She’d been as much a mother to them all as Mama.
She at least would understand Liberty’s pain.
‘Just for once, child, think with your head instead of your heart. You and young Levi were always joined at the hip and always into mischief. It’s no wonder the mischief just matured along with the pair of you and neither of you ever learnt to see past your own temptations.’
Nanette’s gnarled fingers smoothed lovingly through her hair.
Bursting to her feet, Liberty stormed to the window. She was no longer a child to be soothed with gentling words and a calming hand. They didn’t understand.
Nor were they going to listen to her.
Her jaw ached with the determination not to give in to the need to howl like an injured animal. Her hands curled into fists at her sides and her knees trembled with the effort of staying upright.
‘You have the temper to match that beautiful hair, but you must learn to control it, modify it. One makes bad decisions when one is ruled by temper.’
Like challenging Papa. That had been foolish, but he’d taken her by surprise. She’d reacted before remembering how futile that was. And counter-productive.
She closed her eyes tightly and forced down the ugly futility that threatened to engulf the whole of her being.
‘I was so angry at Papa I called him a beast. He already forced Levi to work away from Stannesford for two years when his father really needed his help at the mill and the stables. I worry what Papa will do now. Levi has a business here. He can’t send him off again. If he does, it will be my fault.’
Nanette came to stand behind Liberty and rest her hand on her shoulder.
The watery sunshine of the morning had vanished behind a pendulous cloud, casting the gardens in the drear cloak of approaching winter.
Which was how her heart felt. As if the sun would never shine again.
‘You know you can never marry young Levi, Liberty. It just would not do. But marriage to such as Lord Earnslaw could have its advantages. Your Papa will have negotiated a generous settlement for you and Lord Earnslaw being old means he’ll make you a wealthy widow sooner rather than later. It’s not as if his lordship needs an heir. He already has three sons—well, two living. Once you have the protection of marriage and as long as you are careful and discreet, then you may entertain other gentlemen. I can make you a tea that will make certain you don’t conceive—’
Awed horror slashed through Liberty with the rapidity of a snake striking. Momentarily paralyzing her with the awful temptation of its venom.
No! She wrapped her arms more tightly about her stomach. As if that could prevent her from falling into the chasm yawning at her feet.
‘Not if I have had to make vows, Nanette. Vows are sacred.’
The old lady huffed out a breath of exasperation.
‘Sometimes, Lady Liberty, vows are meant to be broken.’
In that moment Liberty realized she was alone against the world.
Oh Levi, for you I must be strong.
‘Not by me,’ she snarled, never taking her eyes off the lawns beyond which she and Levi had often escaped to the lightning tree. In her mind’s eye she could see the two of them now, eyes dancing with mischief and excitement, lost in their own world of fantastic adventure. ‘I won’t make a vow unless I intend to keep it. And I vow not to marry Lord Earnslaw.’
Realizing there was no comfort to be had here, that she was alone with her pain, Liberty ran from the room and back up the stairs. Thankful she’d been given a room to herself since coming home from school, she locked the door and sat down at the escritoire with a sheet of paper before her.
For several long moments she stared at the blankness of it as she tried to gather her thoughts and decide what she had to do.
Slowly dipping the pen in ink, she wrote, ‘Dear Levi’, then sat staring at the two words wondering if she dared defy Papa.
Second thoughts told her not only did she dare, but her heart would give her no other choice. She would fight him any way she could.
Third and fourth thoughts could not shake her resolve.
Swiftly she wrote, ‘Papa’s friend, Lord Earnslaw, has asked for my hand in marriage and Papa has accepted on my behalf. No matter what I say, and I was not even consulted, he says the matter is arranged.
I have to see you. I will try and come tonight—late. I hope I can convince Edith to deliver this for me. I hate to ask her, but I’m desperate. I love you always. Lou.
***
What the fuck did a man have to do to be good enough?
Smack!
The axe powered cleanly through the block of wood.
How did a bloody miller ever best an earl?
Smack!
Every cleanly split log was Lord bloody Stannesford’s head. Or his own.
He couldn't help wondering how difficult he’d made things for Liberty by daring to lay his suit before her father.
Smack!
It’d be dark soon and he'd not be able to see to keep swinging the bloody axe. He’d likely put the damn thing in his own foot with the intensity of his aggravation, his frustration, his worry for Lou.
‘Levi, what on earth are you doing?’
Young Edith, all prissied up in her maid's uniform from the Hall.
‘Chopping wood,’ he muttered. ‘What does it look like?’
Swiping an arm across his sweating brow he stopped to survey the mass of split logs that littered the ground around the chopping block. The only clear space was where he stood. Now he’d have to stack it all—and he felt no less frustrated and gut-twisted than when he’d started.
‘What are you doing here, Edie? I didn't think they let you out of that place—except on Sundays.’
He wasn't in the mood to be polite to his sister, or to any one. Smash something was all he wanted to do.
‘I'm on my tea break and I just came to bring you this. Just this once, Levi. I’ll not do it again. But Libby was so distraught. So I told her—and I'm telling you—I'll not put my job in jeopardy for a relationship that hasn't a prayer of succeeding and that you’ve no right pursuing. What were you thinking, Levi? I might only be fifteen, but even I know there's no way Lord Stannesford
is going to countenance a marriage between his daughter and—you. It can't happen. Won't. And you are like to bring disaster on all of us if you persist in it.’
Levi scarcely heard his sister's rant as he took the note from her with an unsteady hand.
Lou.
Carefully he broke the seal and unfolded the single sheet of paper.
‘Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!’
His heart hammered up into his throat, and only a choked gasp from his sister reminded him she was there.
‘Sorry, Edie. Goddamit, was—was Lou upset when she gave you this?’
He couldn’t drag his eyes from the note to look at his sister. Read it any which way he would, the message didn’t change.
Unbelievable, painful loss.
‘Of course she's upset. Apparently her father has decreed she’s to marry Lord Earnslaw. He's not a monster or anything, but—’
‘But what?’
He still couldn’t move his gaze from the piece of vellum in his hand and what appeared to be a tear smudge on one side.
‘He's really old. Older than Lord Stannesford even.’
Would he ever be able to retrieve his heart from his boots?
Liberty wed to a man old enough to be her—grandfather?
Her pain and revulsion was a dragging ache in that deep place she lived within him.
Hers. His.
They’d always sensed each other’s deepest emotions.
‘Thanks, Edie. I hope your ears recover,’ he managed to rasp.
‘Never mind my ears,’ she snapped straight back. ‘Did you hear anything I said? You have to end it, Levi. What do you think will happen to me and Mama—if you persist? Lord Stannesford will likely banish us all from the Hall. Without a reference. Where would that leave us?’
‘In hell—right along with me, Edie, and it’s a fucking painful place.’
Finally he could look at her. Lord knows what she saw in his eyes for hers widened with a stark empathy.
‘Oh, Levi, I’m sorry,’ she cried, and flung her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. ‘I’m so sorry—but you have to know it can’t be.’
‘I know nothing of the sort,’ he said, gently disentangling her from his body. ‘I’d make any sacrifice to be with Lou.’
Whatever it took.
‘You’d sacrifice—us?’
Levi stared silently down at his sister, so earnest, so innocent and his heart cracked open in his chest.
His family were his responsibility too. His Mama had nurtured him all the years of his life. There was no measuring what he owed her and to the memory of their father.
He owed them his loyalty and consideration, not disgrace and ruination.
‘Tell Lou—’
He shook his head, trying to dispel the weak bloody tears that filled his eyes. Hopefully Edie would think it was sweat.
‘Tell Lou—I love her.’
And he waved her off, for no more words would pass the concretion of pain blocking his throat.
***
Liberty stayed down in the cozy warmth of the family parlor pretending to read from the History of the World.
Usually she could immerse herself in the intricacies of life in ancient Babylon or exotic Ur of the Chaldees.
Usually it fascinated her to know how the author knew—and if what they’d written was fact or cleverly deduced fiction.
Usually.
Tonight the words were just a dark blur against which her colorful thoughts twisted and writhed and struggled for the calmness needed to ensure the success of the scandalously bold move she meant to make tonight.
Desperation clawed incessantly at her chest, stealing her breath and tightening her belly with panic.
‘You’ll ruin your eyes trying to read any more with that light,’ her mother said.
Liberty closed the book with a sigh.
‘Yes, Mama. Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight, Papa.’
‘Goodnight, Liberty,’ they said together.
Everything.
They did everything together—and that’s what she could have with Levi, how she’d be with Levi—if they were only allowed.
Clamping her mouth shut against the sob threatening to erupt from her throat, she climbed the stairs to her room. Goldie was waiting for her and swiftly divested her young mistress of her gown and stays.
‘I can manage now, Goldie, thanks. Go to bed.’
She just wanted to be alone—to plan and prepare and count the minutes until she’d put into action the wickedest plan she’d ever devised.
Once Goldie had gone Liberty delved into her closet to find the oldest gown she owned that she could manage to fasten without help, dragged it on and laid out her dark cloak and sturdiest boots.
Then she settled with a quilt around her legs in the window seat. It felt like hours she sat watching the clouds flying across the moon, creating shadows and moving pictures of light. Sometimes she could clearly see the many gables of Larkhurst Manor and sometimes she couldn’t even see the outline of the topiaries on the lawns below her window.
She didn’t know which she wanted more—light to see by or shadows to hide in.
And time had never moved so slowly, like treacle oozing through fine linen cloth.
There was no way of knowing what time it was. The grandfather clock down in the hall could not be heard up here, but at last she decided she could wait no longer.
Everyone had to be asleep by now.
Carrying her boots and stopping to listen at every step, she tip-toed down the hall from her room to the stairs. That was relatively easy, but now she’d come down to the first floor where Mama and Papa had their rooms. They were at the east end of the house but she wouldn’t put it past Mama to ‘know’ exactly what Liberty was planning to do and her Papa to be sitting up in bed listening for her stealthy footsteps.
For she didn’t imagine her parents believed she’d meekly accept their plans for her life. They knew her too well.
Thank God she knew every creaking stair and succeeded in avoiding most of them. All but the last one, as she neared the Great Hall on the ground floor.
Liberty froze for several long seconds, ears painfully attuned to any movement from the rooms occupied by the Sherman’s. She could only be thankful both were getting on in years and were not quite as clear of hearing as they’d once been.
When she gained the conservatory she began to breathe a little easier. Moving quickly to the window she knew opened the most silently, she inched it ajar and slipped out, pulling on her boots as she stepped each foot over the sill.
Leaving a big plant pot propped against the casement so it wouldn’t hang loose, she set off at a run across the lawn and into the shadows of the shrubbery.
Her heart thudded right up into her mouth.
If Papa caught her he’d lock her in her room and she’d never see Levi again.
Lord, she hadn’t realized how scary it would be out here in the dark.
The safest path wound through the trees behind the houses along the Oxford Road, then across the lower Riding Lane onto the path through the Larkhurst parkland.
Surely she’d trod this path often enough her feet knew the way? Determinedly she stepped into the maw of utter darkness beneath the trees.
As the whispering sounds of the night and the sheer cold of the blackness enveloped her she fervently wished she’d thought to acquire a lantern from the scullery.
Just when she thought she might freeze into a block of terrified ice where she stood the clouds parted and a faint glow of moonlight glimmered through the bare branches.
Liberty broke into a run.
Emerging from the trees into the lane behind the shops on the London Road, she slowed to a walk, pulled her cloak tightly about her and moved as quickly as she dared.
Just focus on the Stannesford Livery & Stables—and Levi, she told herself. Each step had to be cautious in case she stumbled into one of the many potholes in the poorly maintained service lane. She da
red not fall and injure herself in anyway. She was determined no one would know of this night’s scandal but her and Levi.
If she could just get to him.
Tonight, if she had her way, all her feverish dreams would be realized—at least one particular feverish dream.
By the time the stables loomed through the darkness she was quivering with terror and anticipation. The back door from the lane into the building was open and a lantern burned within.
Still she didn’t dare run for fear someone heard her footsteps and looked out into the night.
A large shape detached itself from the darkness at the back of the stables and lunged towards her. They met several steps from the building. His arms reached, clasped and drew her into his strong embrace with a hungry desperation.
‘God, Lou!’
‘Oh, Levi.’
His name on her lips was a cry, a prayer, a desperate plea that clawed its way out from the visceral depths of her.
He was her light in a darkened world. If she was to be cut off from the illumination she knew only with him, she would glean every last grain of hope from the field of their loss.
Rising up on her toes, she curled her fingers into the luxuriance of his hair and dragged his head down so their lips could meet.
The taste of him on her tongue, the scent of his granny’s soap, wood-shavings and horses that clung to his clothing, the rich deep timbre of his voice, all rendered her boneless and breathless and clamoring for more.
He was the answer to her every prayer, the star in her every fantasy, the hero of her heart.
Hers.
Suddenly she was swung off her feet and carried into the stables where he set her down in the tiny back hall. Stopping only to close and latch the door, he dropped a fervent kiss onto her upturned mouth, took her hand in one of his and the lantern in the other and led the way up a narrow wooden staircase to the loft above.
Excitement and terror, laughter and tears, joy and despair, warred and danced within her.
Placing the lantern on a table, the first flat surface to present itself, he shoved the hood back from her face, cupped her jaw with his large hands and lowered his head.