Elisabeth Fairchild (15 page)

He wished? She fell back, stunned, his grip on her fingers a deceit, and yet she must ask, must know. “Will you not speak to Val? Convince him she must stay with me?”

Passengers disembarked in a small flood behind him. He looked over his shoulder. Oscar handed the coachman coin.

He was leaving. She could see it in his eyes. He meant to abandon her.
No. No. Lady Anne, not again!
“Will you not go to him? Plead her return?” Desperation in her voice. She hated to hear it.

The coachman cried out for passengers as fresh horses were led into the traces. She pulled her hands from his. “I thought . . . ”

Rain dripped from his hat brim, dewing his cheeks. “I . . . I am sorry. I wish . . . ” His eyes, dark as storm clouds, begged forgiveness. “Forgive me. I must go.”

Oscar helped him to board, murmuring something about the gray, and all the while his gaze, stricken, followed her, as she backed away, more heartbroken than before, more alone than she had ever been, cheeks wet, but not with rain.

Chapter Se
venteen

She wept  as she walked home to a house empty but for the maids, her father overseeing his holdings, no Felicity to greet her. The place  smelled of last night’s mutton, wet leather and drying wool. Would these walls ever ring with the child’s laughter again? Penny found them too close for the grand scope of her sadness.

Eyes misting with fresh grief, she escaped the house, walking uphill--Artemis at heel, devotion in his great brown eyes, in the comfort of his jaw on her knee whenever she stopped to rest.

She walked into the mists, into the sodden folds of a countryside as bleak and barren and hopeless as her future. She walked until she was exhausted, until she had wept as much as her heart demanded, until she could find no new manner in which to blame, castigate, or rail against her own foolishness. Her clothes were soaked. Her breath formed white clouds. Her heart weighed heavy. The cold air cut raw her lungs. The skies lowered like her mood, damp and cold as the emptiness within.

She strode the heat of her anger out of her system. Sadness remained. And the dog. Artemis stayed beside her, tireless and undemanding.

Fool! She was a fool. Always a fool when it came to men. How could she have told him what had so long been kept safe in secrecy. How could she have allowed Felicity to fall back in Val’s hands? What could she do, to get the child back again? To forget the man who had ruined her life, and broken her heart, this Cupid she had fallen in love with? What would Lady Anne do?

There was no legal recourse. She had no real claim on the child. She doubted Val would listen to reason. He had never been a reasonable fellow.

Cupid was gone. He could not get away from her fast enough. She had read the distance in his eyes from the start, and paid no heed. What had made her believe he cared for her? For the child? Why did she persist in believing better of men than they deserved? She would never see him again.

She prayed for a hardening of her heart, that it might not pain her so awfully, that her losses might not leave her so weak. She tried to see the sense if it, the pattern.

The fells, misted gray, offered no answer, only the wind whistling through the rocks, the distant bleating of sheep, and the raw muddy breath of wet earth.

At the wind-whipped crest of a rocky outcropping that drew her now as never before, she thought of her mother, and contemplated the dizzying leap. Were there answers below? In the silence that would follow? A fleeting thought, terrible in every way. It left her more spent than before, as if will, and hope, and perseverance had leapt without her, and lay smashed on the rocks.

A high-pitched keening leaked from Artemis’s throat. In looking down, she realized his attention lay behind her. She turned. Her father stood no more than three yards away, wind tugging at his sparse gray hair, his nose beet red, a wisp of smoke drifting from the pipe clenched in yellowed teeth.

“Not thinking of going the way of your mother are you, lass?” How haggard his face.

She stepped away from cliff’s edge, away from the pain she stirred in him, standing on the brink of the past. “No, father. I’ve not the courage for such a leap.”

“Courage?” Anger lit the embers of his faded blue gaze, it fired briefly in the bowl of his pipe. “A coward’s way, that.” Smoke ghosted from the corners of his mouth. “It takes courage to go on, lass.”

Like Lady Anne, she thought with a shiver.

“I would not abandon you, da,” she said, chin wobbling, voice uneven.

He opened his arms. She stumbled into them, warm haven, her port in life’s storms.

“Thas good, lass,” he spoke softly, voice rumbling in his chest, hand patting the middle of her back. “I could not bear it, you know.”

She nodded, wool coat harsh against her cheek, the smell of tobacco engulfing them.

“I have been to Wharton’s,” he said.

She looked up, drying her eyes on the back of her glove.

He frowned, gaze fixed on the horizon. “Wouldna see me,” he dashed hope. “Wouldna let me so much as lay eyes on the child.”

She went herself the following day, and was turned away as brusquely as her father had been, and so, to bolster flagging spirits, she went to the great picture at Appleby Castle, and looked upon the three faces of Lady Anne, and took some comfort in remembering a long life, well-lived. As she passed the almshouses Lady Anne had found solace in building she resolved to begin rebuilding the poor abandoned creature that she was herself fast becoming. She could not weep forever. Far better to get on with life, to fight what seemed insurmountable obstacle, to recreate where others had torn asunder.

She went home again, to remind her father that the walls of the pony pen needed expanding. Together, they set to work, stone upon stone. A balancing act. Rough work. Strange comfort to be found in the heat and sweat of physical exertion, in fortifying the protection of that which was dear. Penny wore out her anger in building the pen, walling in what strength was left her, fortifying her defenses against the darkness of despair.

Despair had swallowed her mother. She could not give in to it as well. Life went on. Lady Anne had found a better way.

She did not hear him coming. Even Artemis gave little warning, a flurry of barks from the courtyard, and then he fell silent, not the man-eater he was reputed to be when the man brought a fish head for gnawing.

His shadow fell upon her as she worked. For a moment, heart leaping, she thought him Cupid, returned. Then he spoke, destroying the fantasy--surprising her. Oscar Hervey, Cupid’s friend, not Cupid.

“Miss Foster?”

She raised gloved hand to shield her eyes.

He stood, hat in hand, awkwardly twisting the brim.

“Mr. Hervey?”

“Alexander asked me to check on you.”

The words, unexpected, snuck under her defenses. She forced a pleasant tone, picked up another stone and settled it into place. “Most kind of both of you, I am sure, but Mr. Shelbourne need not concern himself.”

“Asked me to check on Felicity as well.”

“You have seen her?” Vulnerable again, the words tumbled from her lips.

“No, uhm . . . ”

“Oh.” She bent to pick up another rock.

“I wondered if you’d care to go with me, to call on Valentine.”

She stood there, rock clutched to chest. “You would take me?”

“Shelourne’s suggestion. He hated to leave so suddenly.”

“Of course.” She steeled her heart at mention of him, and added to her wall. She would not be foolish again.

“Cares for you, you know?”

She met his declaration with silence, unwilling to believe, to hope, her gloved hands stilled atop the stones.

“I’ve never seen him so smitten,” he persisted.

“Then why . . .?” She banged her gloves together, watched the dust fly, and bent to fetch up another heavy stone. “He seemed anxious to go,” she said.

He shrugged. “Can’t blame him. Fond of his nevvie.”

“Nephew?” Her eyes widened.  The rock, too heavy, spilled from her grip.

He stepped forward, a look of concern puckering his brow, as if he might step through the very wall to help. “Ill. Thought you knew.”

She squatted beside the fallen stone, shaken and confused, unwilling to let him see her emotions. She knew nothing. Gritting her teeth she took better grip, hefting the stone, and settled it in place with a clatter. “He said nothing of it.” She stood back to examine her progress.

From behind her a low growl sounded. Artemis leaned into her skirt, legs tense, his gaze fixed on Oscar. He smelled fishy.

Oscar plucked at his mustache. “Private lad, our Cupid.”

She slipped a glove, to lay hand on the collie’s head. “Enough, Artie,” she murmured. He relaxed his stance.

“ And loyal.” Oscar stopped plucking. “Loyal as your dog.”

“Indeed?” Swept by an intense feeling of guilty relief, she had to admit herself as comforted by his words as Artemis’s panting presence. She stroked his ears. “Assumptions can wreck havoc with one’s life, can’t they?”

Oscar nodded.

They stood on Val’s doorstep, the knocker freshly rapped.

Uneasy, she turned to Oscar and said, “I am concerned that this will pain the child.”

“How’s that?”

“She will have to watch me go away again.”

“You do not think it would pain her more to hear nothing from you?”

“Will Val let us in?”

“Quite possibly not. Depends on what he’s had for breakfast.”

The great oak door opened on the aging butler, Mr. Yarrow, who shook his head in anticipation of their questions. Val would not see them.

“Not at home to visitors,” was how he put it.

“No one is home?” Oscar asked. “Not even Lord and Lady Wharton?”

“Gone as well, and half the household staff with them. Trip to Ireland to visit some cousins.”

“How long have they been gone?”

“Left the same day as the child, sir.”

Penny gasped. “Gone? She is gone already?”

“Sent away to boarding school, miss . Two days after she came here.”

“No!”

“Yes, miss. Not the proper place for a youngster, a bachelor’s abode.”

“Especially a bachelor in his cups,” Oscar muttered.

“Quite right, sir.”

“You will tell him I leave for Derbyshire in two days time?” Oscar asked.

Penny felt fresh disappointment at the words.

“I will, sir.” The butler nodded.

“And will you tell me the name of the boarding school? That I might write to her?” Penny asked.

Yarrow stood silent a moment, blank-faced, before he said in the mildest of tones, “That information, miss, you must ask of Master Wharton.”

“But he refuses to see me.”
“Yes, miss. I am very sorry, miss.”

They went away, unsatisfied.

“And so, I am to lose your company as well, Mr. Hervey?” Penny asked sadly as Oscar saw her home.

He turned to look at her. “Aye. Must return the grey to Cupid.”

Cupid. Strange how the name was sufficient to trigger within her a profound state of longing, the image of him springing full to mind.

“Shall I ever have the pleasure of seeing you again?”

He looked surprised she should ask.

“Must come back this way, someday,” he said. “The fishing is unsurpassed.”

“And Mr. Shelbourne?” She felt awkward, asking him--transparent.

He shrugged. “I’ve no notion as to his plans.”

A crow flew across the road ahead of them, cawing hoarsely.

“I pray you find his nephew well,” she said.

“I shall inform him of your kind wishes.”

“Please do,” she said, her hand on his arm adding urgency to her request. “And thank you.”

“I don’t know what for,” he said. “It’s a fishing expedition we’ve been on today, and nothing to show for it.”

“You are wrong,” she protested. “We know more than we did. That is something.” Strong words, no tremor in her voice, and yet she blinked back tears, plunged into a fresh state of despair.

Chapter Eight
een

The fells greened, and the crows were nesting, and every day she went to the manor to speak to Val--to gain word of her dear little Felicity.