The Heir to Evercrest Hall
Page 23
“Not anymore; her body is beneath Cornwall now.”
There was an awkward silence.
“I gather India’s father was your uncle; that means he is my father, making you and me—” My face blushed at the thought that this man was my cousin.
“That’s where you are mistaken. It is true that India and you shared the same father, but my uncle was a parent to neither of you.”
I was speechless.
Albert continued, “I recognized the face in your locket as my mother’s personal maid. From what I recall in my mother’s diary, she wrote of how her maid was madly in love with the same man that she was secretly in love with too. Despite the two women having fallen pregnant to him, she kept your mother in employment after your birth, even allowing you to come up and spend the entire day with me and India. I never would have mentioned anything if you hadn’t accused my uncle of killing your mother.”
“I saw a man, wearing the exact ring your uncle had, strangling my mother, before he set fire to her room.”
Albert grabbed hold my hand and squeezed it. His look was of great sympathy.
“Just as Charlotte had said, Uncle Ewan had won the scarab ring in a game of poker, just before my parents died. The man he won it from was Clark Skedgwell, a reputed philanderer and a con-artist, who wheedled his way to become the housekeeper, after having killed the real housekeeper, his aunt.”
“What makes you think that terrible man was my father? Your mother could have guessed wrong,” I said indignantly, refusing the thought of having a man with such a soiled reputation being my kin.
“Maria, my dear, it was your aunt who told me. She knew all your mother’s secrets, and has kept them all close to her heart, just as I kept the secret of my uncle and sister’s love affair, and the pregnancy.”
I was speechless and on the verge of tears.
Davenport encased his hands about my hand and kissed it. “There was another reason I went to your aunt’s…”
“Huh. To tell her that you won’t be requiring my services, since you have found yourself a nurse to replace me, one who will conveniently look after your yet-to-be-born child too.” I snatched my hand away from his and looked at the window.
“I wasn’t aware that someone was carrying a child for me. It seems I’m the last to know about anything regarding my love life.”
“You are marrying the peasant woman, remember, the one carrying your child. Oh, it is no use!” I tried to slap angrily at the blankets with both my hands, only for my body to protest with pain.
“Half of what you say is correct. And that is why I’m here, to tell you that I plan to get married. I thought it best that you be the first to know.”
“Well, congratulations!” I said sarcastically. “I hope she is pleasant enough for you and not feisty and argumentative, seeing it is no longer Miss Dorchester you are wedding.”
“I never had any intention of marrying Miss Dorchester. I was setting her up to marry my friend. It made you jealous though, didn’t it?” Davenport grinned. “Like you said, and from the horse’s mouth itself, Charlotte was trying to sell me off to Dorchester, but it blew up in her face. Mr. Dorchester and I were planning all along to set up McKenzie with his daughter, which worked out brilliantly.”
“Yes, it did work out brilliantly for you. Now you are free to marry the girl of your dreams. The girl with the beautiful long blonde hair whose name is Jenny.”
“Well, well, and I thought you would have made a fine detective!”
“I saw the two of you alone together in the tree park.”
Davenport’s eyes shone like his teeth as his face stretched into a smile. “Things are not as they appear, my jealous one.” I frowned. “I caught her sneaking through the boundary wall, like you used to do until I blocked it off. After rebuking her for trespassing, she confessed her reason for being there, and not for stealing fruit either, I must add.” His eyes twinkled. “She wanted to talk with my uncle to let him know she was carrying his child.”
“What!” I leaned forward, and the pain shot up my body. Davenport eased me gently back into my pillows with his hands on my shoulders.
“Your friend told me how Charlotte walked in on the two of them in the folly one evening; just seeing her husband in the embrace of a beautiful young woman would have been enough for Charlotte to plot murder. That day you saw me with your friend—before Simeon betrayed your whereabouts—I had explained to her that Billy Harris, who already knew she was carrying another man’s child, would be given a full-time position as the second assistant to my farm manager. I suggested that she accept Billy’s proposal, and then they could live in a cottage on the estate when they were married.”
“But she hugged you!”
“I explained that I would have in place an educational scholarship for the child, whether a boy or girl, and that the child would never be in want of anything. That was why she threw her arms about me in gratitude.”
“You raised your hand to her face; that shows intimate affection.”
“Only because I handed her my handkerchief, you exasperating woman!”
“Oh, I see.” I bowed my head in shame that I hadn’t been convinced that he and Jenny were not romantic. “Well, why should you take care of your uncle’s bastard?” I shook my head in disbelief, at the same time I was relieved that Albert wasn’t in love with her.
“Don’t you be too hasty to discredit my Uncle Ewan; thanks to him you are here today. It was he who was alerted to your screams, and it was he who ran into the burning cottage and pulled you out of the wardrobe you were trapped in. The least I owe the man is to take care of his children for saving you.”
I remembered how Ewan Davenport used to smile and wave to me when he rode past the cottage, and occasionally he would talk to me. To think I thought him terrible with the rest of the gossips, when all along he had been my savior.
“And not only that,” continued Davenport, “my uncle gave your aunt the cottage to raise you until you turned eighteen years old. Don’t worry. I have assured your aunt that she and her boys will never have to move out, but only on the condition that she give me your—”
“I owe your uncle my life. I owe you a lot too!” I was overwhelmed.
“Yes, you do. That brings me to the reason I am here. Firstly, I have to tell you a bit about my bride.”
“Please, you don’t have—” Davenport pushed a finger gently against my lips.
“She has some insufferable points, like interrupting when I’m trying to speak, being argumentative, feisty, and extremely intrusive. But she has her good merits too. She is beautiful, selfless, funny, smart”—Davenport pulled out a small silver frame with a familiar sketch of him as a boy and a forget-me-knot flower chain about it, and placed this delicately on my bedside table before the flower vase—“and talented. And as I had promised her those many years ago, I have now returned, although Charlotte prevented me the last time, because she got wind that I was spending time with a villager, so she had me bundled me off to boarding school.”
“So you didn’t abandon me, after all,” I said softly.
Albert grabbed my hand. He caressed his scarred finger against my scarred finger, where he had brutally slashed glass against many years ago. “What I want to tell you is that the woman I am going to marry is also my ceremonial blood brother.”
Through the blur of tears, I replied, “She has to say ‘yes’ first.”
He kissed my hand softly and looked deeply into my eyes. “She doesn’t have to say a thing. Her eyes have already given me the answer.”
Before I could say another word, he lowered his lips onto mine. And I knew from that moment onward, this was the only person in the world who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
About the Author
Andrea M. Theobald, of English and Maori descent, was born in Napier, North Island, New Zealand. She lives a reclusive existence with her teenager amongst the hills of the Manawatu, on a little farm consisting of creatu
res, big and small. She writes historical fiction, loves reading classics, psychological thrillers, and human nature, and likes to think she is a survivalist stranded on an isolated island, apart from the monthly bulk supermarket shop and the occasional movie.
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