Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 (27 page)

His voice shook. “When I returned to the house, it was gone. Just a pile of bricks and glass.”

Lizzie gave a cry and clapped her hand to her mouth. I stared at him, just stared, my mouth open but no words emerging. “Then he needs digging out,” I managed eventually. “There is no time to waste.”

Carier shook his head. “I mounted the animal and raced off for help. People ran by me, heading for the harbour. I tried to call to them, followed some, cried out. But I was calling in English and they were yelling Portuguese. If they’d ever known English, they didn’t now.” He sighed and dropped his chin, staring at his scuffed and scarred shoes. “I saw enough to know I could do nothing, so I decided to ride for help. With a few likely footmen we could set to and dig out their lordships.”

I sprang to my feet. “That sounds like a good plan. What are we waiting for?”

Carier rose immediately, a little slower than I had. “Ma’am, you’re forgetting. The great wave.”

My blood ran cold. I could feel every rivulet, every tiny blood vessel, and I swear it all ran completely icy in an instant. “Still, we must go.”

“We can do nothing, ma’am. They were trapped belowground.” He touched my arm, and I was so shocked I didn’t shake it off. “I will go back and with men to help, but you must swear to stay here. One of you must stay alive. For the children. You know that, ma’am.”

“Gervase—” I couldn’t bear it. Everything we’d planned and discussed meant nothing now. I would not stand by and do nothing.

“Besides, you can do no good there. Only attract the lower orders, the mob. We would be protecting you, not searching for their lordships.”

I heard the sound of muffled sobbing and realised it wasn’t me, but Lizzie. I was too numb to cry. I wouldn’t weep, not yet. I wouldn’t give up.

Waiting would be the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, but Carier was right. He would get on better without me, and I should stay with the children. If the mob came this way, if the country turned lawless, we’d have to get out to safety. Thanks to the great wave there was little opportunity of our getting on the yacht. That was probably in pieces at the bottom of the harbour.

Nothing could have survived that wave. Nothing and no one.

I refused to think that way. I nodded. “Bring him back, Carier. Send me word as often as you can, even if it’s no news, or worse. I want to know as soon as possible, so I can take the appropriate steps.”

“My lady, I swear it. I will not return without him. One way or the other.”

Chapter Sixteen

I put down my pen and dusted the letter with sand. So much had survived the earthquake in this lovely house, it seemed a travesty that so much else had not a mere twenty-five miles away. The sander was made of fine crystal and not a chip marred its deeply cut surfaces. I ran my finger over the sharply incised pattern, wondering if my lord would ever feel anything similar again. I’d refused to let my mind wander too far that way over the last few days, but sometimes I found it impossible.

I still hadn’t wept. I wouldn’t, not until they brought him back.

After three days of searching, the men we’d set to dig out the house still hadn’t found Richard and Paul. Not for want of trying. Fires raged now in the ruins of what had once been one of the most beautiful cities in the world, some accidental, started by open fires and upset candles and lamps, and others deliberately by the rampaging mob. What had survived of Lisbon was now destroyed in flames. Carier and his men had fought the destruction, but he wrote that he despaired of locating the correct house. The area appeared so changed. He sent notes via the men who had worked themselves into exhaustion, men he sent back to sleep and eat before they returned. God knew how Carier managed. Probably the same way I did, on hope and prayer.

Lizzie had spent most of this day in the chapel, praying for her husband’s soul. We didn’t talk much, unless in the presence of our children. I spent as much time as I could with them, especially Helen. Before I came into this quiet boudoir to compose the letter, I’d played with her, romping on the floor among the large cushions the nursemaids used to help her retain a sitting posture, to break her fall if she tumbled, as she did often, getting up again with a merry laugh.

Before I left, she said one word. “Papa?”

I stared at her, eyes wide, my hand clapped to my mouth as I gasped. Right there, my heart broke in two.

An appalled silence fell, breached only by the cry of a baby. My baby. Edward, the stoical, quiet baby, had sensed the mood changed and didn’t like it. I crossed the room and took him from his nurse, glad of the distraction.

The room regained its normal tone, and I set to comforting my child. I held his sweet-smelling head to my face and kissed his soft baby cheek before I rocked him and sang him a song my sister-in-law Martha used to sing to her babies at night. One that most Devonshire children had heard. Because that was part of their inheritance too. Not just the fashionable, high society, exclusive and expensive part.

I would take them home. Perhaps I’d buy a house near my brother’s and let them grow to adulthood in peace, visiting London and their relatives enough to let them become comfortable with their future station in life.

If Richard was—if I never saw him again in this life, I’d sell the Oxfordshire house. I wouldn’t want to see it and recall the memories we’d left there. I might want to remember him, but not to torture myself with what I couldn’t have.

I just wanted him back.

Setting my jaw against tears, I glanced through the letter. I’d couched it in formal terms, telling Lord and Lady Southwood that we were safe, but Richard’s fate was not yet decided. I’d put off writing it for days, every minute hoping that some news would arrive, the kind of news I needed to hear. But nothing had come, except exhausted men, here only to rest before returning to the area where the town house had once stood.

I put it on top of the letter I’d written to Gervase. That was more personal and had nearly moved me to the tears I’d sworn I wouldn’t shed until I knew for sure if he lived or died. If I was a happy wife or a grief-stricken widow. I wouldn’t weep for him before I knew. And I
would
know, I was determined on that.

My life would be over. I would live for my children then pray for death.

That sounded so dramatic, but it was the raw truth. Without him, I had nothing except my duty, which I would execute meticulously. I would have been a fool not to make plans, because once his death was confirmed, I feared I wouldn’t know myself for a time. I drew a sheet of paper towards me and started writing. This was for my maid, my manservant and Gervase, who would do what I needed him to do.

I wish to move to a quiet house in the country for a time. I want to buy a moderately sized establishment close to my brother’s house in Devonshire. I do not want to live with my brother or with anyone else. I will start my new life as I wish to live it. Alone. My existing children and servants will come with me, and unless Carier desires otherwise, I wish him with me too. He will become my steward. Unless he wishes to retire, that is.

That was all. I knew Gervase would see it done. I signed it and sealed it, putting,
In the event of Richard’s death
on the outside. I enclosed it in the letter for Gervase. I told Gervase not to come to Lisbon until I sent word. Then I would need him. I would come home with the children and I could trust Carier to make the arrangements and keep me safe. We would have to wait until after the funeral. I would take Richard home, to his family chapel in Eyton, and he would rest there, as was his right. Alone, until the blessed day when I would lie by his side once more.

I wasn’t sure when the letters would reach England, but it was my duty to write, and I couldn’t put the melancholy task off any longer. Word about an earthquake of those proportions must be flying around the Continent and England. They might even have felt the tremors, however slightly. And they would worry and send for us, if I didn’t inform them. Gervase would be frantic. I’d send the letters by courier. They’d go overland until they reached a safe place on the coast, so it might take three weeks for them to arrive.

I called a servant and entrusted the missives to her care. She assured me they would leave the house that very day.

Now I had nothing more to do. Should I go to the chapel and share my sister’s vigil? I hadn’t known she was so religious—she’d never shown signs of it before. Perhaps she wasn’t, perhaps she was seeking solace anywhere she could. Both of us knew that if we gave way, we wouldn’t be of any use to anyone. This from my sister, who had merely looked for a suitable marriage. She had fallen as deeply in love with her Paul as I had with Richard, and on this visit I was beginning to see why. Paul’s generosity to his tenants, his kindness and a sense of humour that could take a person by surprise, all demonstrated his love for life and for his home.

I wondered if Lizzie had written to Paul’s mother. I would ask.

When I left the study, planning to take a walk on the grounds, I saw what looked like an old man, bent over with care, his short gray hair clinging to his head in damp spikes, his gait uncertain.

Carier had returned. I hurried towards him, holding my hands out. I needed human contact. “Tell me,” I said.

He shook his head and lifted his gaze to mine. In the bloodshot depths, I saw despair. Not grief. Perhaps he was too exhausted for grief. “We haven’t found him, although we dug through the remains of a kitchen earlier today. But all we found was an unfortunate boy, someone left behind when the servants from that house fled. That boy had drowned when the tidal wave overwhelmed the building.”

I knew what he was telling me. If Richard had survived the house collapsing on top of him, he would have drowned afterwards.

But I couldn’t believe it. I had heard that people, gone in grief, refused to believe the truth, that their loved ones had gone beyond recall. They would see them in the street, even chase them, only to find perfect strangers. I stared at him, and I felt—nothing.

“He’s not dead,” I said.

Chapter Seventeen

“Ma’am, I’m more sorry than I can say, but there is no point searching for anything but their bodies.”

I didn’t waste my breath. “Then search. But do it quickly. He is
not dead
, Carier. I’d know it. Or rather, I’d know if he
were
dead.” My hands curled into fists. “Oh, I don’t know, I can’t explain it properly, but, Carier, he is
not
dead. Go and look. No, go and rest.
I’ll
go and look.”

He opened his mouth, but I wouldn’t let him deny me this. “If he’s dead, then I need to see it, to know it. If he isn’t, I want to be there when we find him. You say it’s dangerous—I’ll carry a weapon. Several. We have men to guard me, men we can trust absolutely.”

He glanced at me. “There is something else. When you were recovering, the first night after we learned you would live, he ordered me to put your life above mine.” He made a sound, a cross between a laugh and a growl. “As if I hadn’t already. You mean everything to him, ma’am.”

“As if you had to tell me that,” I said, echoing his words deliberately. “But did you notice something else? You said ‘mean’, not ‘meant’. We have to do this, Carier. If you want to protect me, then fine, you will. But I am going, now I know the children are safe. You will not keep me away.”

He promised to eat and rest. I had to swear to wait for him, but it nearly broke me to make that promise. Every minute counted. Only Carier’s assurance that the men wouldn’t stop digging until they found him gave me the patience to prepare.

Four hours later, I was ready, wearing a riding-habit jacket and shirt with a pair of Richard’s breeches, hitched up at the waist by a broad leather belt I’d filched from one of the gardeners. I wouldn’t have passed any arbiters of fashion, but I could clamber over rocks and walk through piles of rubbish. I rarely wore breeches, and they felt strange. I had thought of wearing a skirt and employing an old trick used by the women at home in Devonshire, pulling the tail of the skirt through my legs to the front and fastening it at the waist, but breeches would do. I had a spare pair in a small pack, with a towel and a blanket, and a basic medical kit. I might have to sleep there because privately I determined not to return here until I knew, one way or the other. Until we found him. Them.

My mind had reverted to a primitive state. I no longer thought about the others buried with Richard, dear though one of them was.
He
was all that mattered. Nothing else, no one else.

When the door opened, I expected Carier, but I got Lizzie. Dressed in sombre colours, dark blue, which happened to become her exceedingly, she stopped when she saw my unusual attire. “You meant it? You’re going?”

“I can’t stay. He’s not dead, Lizzie.”

“Oh, Rose!” She heaved a sigh and crossed the room to me. I took her hands. “You have to face it, love. The chances of them living are remote.” Her voice shook, and she bit her lip, hard, denting the soft flesh with her sharp teeth. “You need to see him, I understand that, but you have children to care for.”

“They’re safe here with you and Joaquin. They won’t be any safer if I stay here. But I know Richard, I can almost
feel
him. I don’t know, Lizzie, but I have to do this. Or live with the knowledge that I didn’t for the rest of my life. I have to go.”