Angel's Touch (9 page)

‘
Don’t be a fool, man,’ snapped his lordship. ‘I can manage
very well.’

But he winced as he
hoisted himself into the phaeton, a sign of pain that was not
missed by his anxiously watching attendant, who lost no time in
deprecating this foolish independence in a spate of heavy
sarcasm.

‘
Aye, that’s right, me lord. You go for to make everything
worse for yourself with your obstinate ways. Don’t you pay no mind
to them as has nursed you through all those tricksy times when your
lordship never thought to walk on your legs again.’

‘
Damn you, Hoff, be silent,’ begged his master, closing his
eyes tight shut against the memories that these words brought
crowding in.

The
groom, seeing the reins held in his master’s competent hands and
the horses quietly standing, ventured to let go their heads and
leap nimbly up to take his place in the phaeton. The gentleman was
leaning one elbow on his good leg and had shaded his eyes with his
hand. The groom’s gruff tone entirely failed to conceal his anxious
concern.

‘
Do
you pass over them reins, me lord, afore you falls out of this here
rig.’

His
lordship brought his hand down, rapping out, ‘I am quite capable of
driving this vehicle to Braxted Park, and I’ll thank you to mind
your place and your tongue!’

The curt tone was
alien both to him and to his faithful attendant.

‘
As
your lordship pleases,’ said Hoff stiffly, drawing himself up into
the erect posture of the perfect servant.

His master turned to
look at him. Hoff had been with him since his own childhood, and
was devoted to him as he well knew. He realised that this
unaccustomed and undeserved harshness had deeply hurt the man.

His
hand went out to briefly touch the groom’s arm and, when the
servant looked round, he gave him a rather wan smile.

‘
Forgive me, Hoff. I am not myself. But
I
must
drive. I
need—I need occupation.’

‘
Well, o’course, me lord, I understand,’ said the groom,
unbending at once. ‘Just you let me have the reins whenever you
feel yourself tiring.’

All
the same, he kept a sharp watch and held himself in readiness to
intervene at need. He knew his master, and if something had not
happened to bring back that dark period—those days when the whole
household feared at times for his lordship’s reason, let alone his
life—then his name was not Samuel Hoff.

The
groom was perfectly right. The Marquis of Salmesbury, struggling
with his own particular demon, was indeed remembering the appalling
events of two years ago, when his careless haste had cost his
children their mother’s life and had left him a cripple.

Chapter
Four

Miss
Lambourn, hurrying away to her lodging with her mind all chaos, was
shocked, but secretly relieved, to hear from the maid hired for the
season by her patroness that her ladyship had got up from her bed
and gone with Mrs Polegate to the ladies’ coffee-room.

‘
She
said as she would see you in the Assembly Rooms later, miss,’ added
the girl.

Verity thanked her and
escaped to her little bedchamber, glad of a few minutes of solitude
to collect her disordered thoughts.

How much more
discomfiture must she bear on account of this wretched Mr Haverigg?
She could scarce open her mouth in his presence without letting
fall some incautious word that resulted in her own confusion. Was
she so tactless? Or was he merely touchy?

No,
that was unfair. After all, who would not be a trifle out of temper
after being knocked so violently to the ground? Poor Mr Haverigg
had taken it remarkably well, she was forced to admit. It had not
been
that
which
had caused him to clam up and look so—so—yes,
bleak
.
If
ever anyone looked to be in the grip of care, it was this
pale-faced young gentleman just before she had left him. All had
been well until
she
had mentioned marriage and children, reminding him no doubt
of his infirmity and how it had destroyed his chances of connubial
happiness.

Come
to think of it, she was obliged to admit that on the whole the
difficulties that had arisen between them had been all of her
making.
She
had
attacked him on the first occasion.
She
had dropped the boxes,
precipitating the next unfortunate encounter.

Here
her thoughts suffered a check. But no. He had come specifically to
Tunbridge Wells to find her. He had said so. Just to give her that
nest of boxes. She frowned at her own reflection in the glass where
she had been absently looking, prinking her dark curls back into
order and straightening her bonnet.

Was
that all you wanted of me, Mr Haverigg? A pulse leaped suddenly in
her throat, and she felt her heartbeat quicken. How odd. The idea
that he had deliberately sought her out gave her an obscure kind of
pleasure. As if she had not positively taken him in dislike at
their first meeting. And he had returned today. But she did not
dislike him! How could she, when he had shown himself to be both
pleasant and forbearing?

Verity gave herself a
mental shake. What was she thinking of? Of course he had come, just
as she had, to find a book at the library. The recollection left
her feeling curiously flat. However, the likelihood was she would
not see him again, she decided, turning away from the mirror. It
was pointless to think about the man. If there was a nagging
suspicion at the back of her mind that his absence would make the
Wells seem sadly empty, she resolutely declined to acknowledge
it.

It
was with a determined air of cheerfulness, therefore, that she went
down to the Assembly Rooms in search of her patroness, still
concerned about her health. But she found her happily engaged in
her favourite pastime, indulging in a rubber of whist with the old
nabob Martin Yorke, another lady and Sir John Frinton. Lady
Crossens brushed her anxious solicitude aside with scant words, her
eyes on the cards in her hand. Verity abandoned her questions. All
four players were so deeply engrossed that even Sir John, whose
love of cards was seen to surpass his propensity for dalliance,
merely called a greeting before turning back to the
game.

But Mrs Polegate, no
card player, was fidgeting from group to group, clearly at a loss.
She no sooner saw Verity than she made a beeline for her.

‘
Miss Lambourn, I have been on the look-out
for you.’ She grasped Verity’s arm and lowered her voice, her eyes
fairly dancing with excitement. ‘I have
such
news!’

‘
Why, what, ma’am?’ asked Verity, startled.

But
the widow had first to drag her away to sit in a quiet corner. ‘For
if we look to be absorbed in our conversation, no one will venture
to disturb us.’

‘
I
bow to your worldly-wise knowledge, Mrs Polegate,’ Verity laughed.
‘But what in the world is this about?’

‘
It is the
marquis,’
whispered Mrs Polegate in
thrilling accents. ‘So dreadful! I knew you must be interested
after meeting his children so opportunely.’

‘
Do
you mean this Lord Salmesbury? What of him, ma’am? What has
occurred?’

‘
Oh, nothing
now
.
It is
just what Sir John told me. I happened to mention his name, you
know,’ she said airily, making a business of arranging the ruffles
about her neck, for she had on a tippet lavishly trimmed with
ruches of ribbon.

Did
you indeed? Verity thought grimly. Aloud, she said, ‘And did Sir
John know him?’

‘
Oh,
yes, he knew all about it. And so should I have done, only that it
was the year I did not come here, and so I knew nothing at all of
the matter.’

Verity blinked in bewilderment. ‘Mrs Polegate, I have not the
remotest understanding of what you are saying.’

‘
Of
course, yes, how silly,’ fluttered the lady, opening her fan and
plying it with energy. ‘I declare, I am so much overset, I scarce
know myself what I am saying. The thing is, when dear Emilia did
not come here, I missed her so dreadfully that I vowed I should not
set foot in the place the next year. Nor I did. But that was just
when it happened and so of course I heard not a word about it, for
by the following year it had been forgotten. As everything is, you
know, for old events must give place to new.’

‘
But what
was
it?’ Verity
demanded.

‘
I
am coming to that,’ said the widow, and her face crumpled into
sorrowful lines. ‘Such a tragedy! The poor marquis!’

‘
What, ma’am?
What?’

‘
His
wife
,
my
dear,’ uttered Mrs Polegate in accents as stricken as if she had
herself suffered the loss. ‘The marchioness. She was
killed
.
A carriage accident, they say. So young, too.
Barely three and twenty years of age she was, it
seems.’

‘
How—how
terrible,
’ Verity said faintly.
‘Those poor children!’

‘
Yes
indeed. The little girl was but a babe—a few months
old.’

Verity was appalled. No wonder Peggy had only wailed for
‘Tittoo’, as she called her nurse. She had no mama. Had been
motherless almost from birth. And Braxted. Her heart ached for the
child. She knew what it was to lose one close to her, for her
sister Constance, but a year her senior, had been taken from them
at the age of twelve. It had been painful even when the infant
girls had died. How much more so must it have been for that lonely
boy, who had not even the comfort of siblings to assuage his grief.
For Peggy could not have offered the easing that her own sisters
had done in their shared loss. And from what she had been
privileged to observe it did not appear that his father was of much
help. Unless. . .?

‘
Mrs
Polegate, what of the marquis himself? Was he—?’

‘
Oh,
my dear, that is the worst aspect of the whole business,’ declared
the widow. ‘The poor man was so devastated that he shut himself up
in Braxted Place and has not been seen since.’

‘
He did
what?’
Verity demanded in accents of
strong indignation. ‘How abominably selfish!’

‘
Oh,
no, dear Miss Lambourn, how can you say so? Such a romantic
devotion.’

‘
Romantic fiddlesticks! How should his
shutting himself up serve anyone at all? Pray did
you
find it necessary to
make such a ridiculous charade out of your
grief?’

‘
Oh, no, indeed no,’ said Mrs Polegate,
somewhat flustered by this severity. ‘But then, you know, dear
William had enjoyed
many
years of a very good life. And he was so ill at
the end that one could not but feel it a
mercy
when he did leave
us.’

‘
Yes, I dare say, ma’am,’ Verity said,
brushing this aside, ‘but my sisters enjoyed scarcely
any
life, and yet we
continued about our business. It—it was hard, it is true,’ she
conceded, tears standing in her eyes, ‘but I cannot think we could
have made it easier by moping in solitude. And what of those poor
little children? They are surrounded only by servants, and must
bend to the will of that heartless Mr Haverigg, who I suppose is
busy about the marquis’s affairs, while the great man indulges
himself in this foolish fashion in his ridiculous ivory
tower.’

***

The
same conclusion had been reached by the marquis himself as he drove
back to Braxted Park. The dreadful truth had been laid out for him
by that slip of a girl who had shoved herself and her opinions into
his life. Her low—
deservedly
low, God help him!—opinion of his role as a
father had thrust on him the realisation that he was as bad as no
father at all. Buried in his own sorrow, his own guilt, he had
deprived his children of himself as well as of their dead
mother.

Miss
Lambourn. . .what had she said her name was? Verity? Yes, Verity
for truth. How apt. Miss Verity Lambourn had begun by showing him
how much at fault he was in jumping to conclusions about Braxted’s
supposed prank. And scarcely had he stopped smarting from that
rebuke when she had all unwittingly delivered another. A blow more
violent than she had any idea of. She had realised that he could
not be their father because, if you please, he had ‘spoken to poor
Braxted in such a way, and paid scarcely any attention to little
Peggy’. Good God, she must have supposed him utterly indifferent to
his children!
Indifferent?
I
f only he
were.

But
Miss Lambourn could not know how closely Braxted resembled his
mother, how so exactly his small features caught her every
expression, so that he could scarcely bear to be in the child’s
presence for the constant reproach that his countenance made to the
marquis’s sorely troubled conscience. And then there was Peggy,
equally the image of the mother she had hardly known and whose name
she bore. How could he have endured to hold that innocent little
body in his arms, knowing that he had as good as slain her natural
protector?