Lord Somerton's Heir (17 page)

Isabel fell exhausted into the bed and woke around midday to the clattering of pans downstairs. She washed and dressed in a clean gown and made her way down the narrow uneven stairs to the kitchen.

To her surprise, she found Sebastian in his shirtsleeves with no neckcloth, apparently engaged in preparing a meal. Seeing her, he reached for his jacket, pulling it on.

‘Please excuse my state of undress,’ he said.

She shook her head and it was on her lips to remark that she had seen him in a greater state of undress on at least two occasions, but refrained.

He clattered around the kitchen with a confident familiarity, setting out a rough lunch of soup, cheese and bread.

‘I’m sorry it’s such plain fare,’ he said with a smile, the lines in the corners of his eyes crinkling. Despite the circumstances that had led to them being in Little Benning, for the first time in their acquaintance, he seemed relaxed and confident in his humble surroundings.

Isabel shook her head. ‘It’s perfect. Where’s Mrs Mead?’

‘Still sitting with Connie. Now you’re up, I will send her to her bed.’ He waved a hand at the table. ‘Please help yourself. There is no one here to serve you.’

Her stomach growled and she tucked in gratefully to the simple fare.

‘And how is Connie?’ Isabel found herself unconsciously using the girl’s diminutive name.

Sebastian shrugged. ‘I sat with her a little this morning. She was sleeping.’ He sighed and she caught the shadow of a rueful smile. ‘She’s still with us and that’s what’s important.’

‘And Matthew?’ she asked, looking around the room.

‘He teaches at the Grammar School and he felt he would be more help out of the way.’

As he spoke, Mrs Mead appeared at the doorway. She looked drained and grey with exhaustion, but there was defiance in the set of her jaw as she said, ‘Just so you both know, I’ve sent for Dr Llewellyn.’

Sebastian’s dark eyebrows drew together and in a low, controlled voice he said, ‘Dr Neville will be here in a few hours, Mrs Mead. There is no need to trouble Llewellyn.’

Even as he spoke, a knocking at the door announced the arrival of the doctor. He bustled into the house, his ancient wig askew and traces of gravy still at the corner of his lips. Without waiting for introduction to the two new members of the household, he hurried upstairs complaining about being interrupted in the middle of his dinner.

In the doorway, he stopped and turned to the crowd on the landing who had followed him up. He waved a hand at the dampened fire, the billowing curtains and light covering over his patient and his face grew purple with anger.

‘What is the meaning of this, Mrs Mead?’ he thundered, rounding on the housekeeper. ‘My every instruction has been wantonly disobeyed. If my patient has died then on your head be it.’

‘How dare you speak to my housekeeper in that tone.’

At the sound of Sebastian’s low voice, the doctor turned to face the tall soldier.

‘And who, sir, are you? Are you a doctor of medicine?’

‘I am Lord Somerton, Miss Alder’s brother,’ Sebastian replied.

The man’s face dropped and he took a step back into the room. ‘
Lord
Somerton? My apologies, sir.’ He bowed in a servile manner.

Sebastian’s lip curled and he said in a tone of voice that dripped ice, ‘As you are here, doctor. You may as well see to your patient.’

‘Bas?’ The ruckus had woken Connie, who looked around at the assembled crowd with hazy, puzzled eyes.

The doctor listened to Connie’s breathing, took her pulse, and pronounced, with some obvious displeasure, that the danger appeared to have passed. Isabel, standing behind Sebastian, allowed herself a smile of satisfaction.

‘I will, of course, bleed her,’ the doctor announced, reaching for his bag.

At this, Sebastian rose to his full height, towering over the little man and narrowly avoiding hitting his head on a beam.

‘You will not lay another finger on her, you old charlatan. Now, out of my house.’

‘Well, really!’ The doctor began to protest but his voice trailed off at the sight of Sebastian’s thunderous eyebrows.

Sebastian followed the man down and slammed the door behind him. Isabel heard him stomping back up the stairs two at a time.

‘Thank god he wasn’t here six years ago, or I would be dead,’ he said as he re-entered the room, clenching and unclenching his hands.

Sebastian sat down beside the bed and picked up Connie’s hand, raising it to his lips. It looked small and frail in his big, scarred hand.

Connie turned her head on the pillow.

At the sight of her brother, she smiled. ‘It is you! I thought it was a dream. What are you doing here?’

His fingers tightened on the girl’s hand. ‘Mrs Mead said I was allowed to sit with you and hold your hand. She also said I could adjust your pillows, offer you a drink of water or read to you.’

‘Did she? Well, I would like a drink of water,’ Connie whispered, her gaze not moving from her brother’s face.

He smiled and pressed her delicate hand to his lips. Isabel was left with the suspicion that a secret joke had passed between them.

‘Let me help you,’ Sebastian rose to his feet and took the cup Isabel poured. He raised Connie’s shoulders and the girl drank thirstily.

‘Now then,’ Mrs Mead said, taking charge, ‘you leave Miss Connie to me and both of you go and get yourselves some rest.’

‘It’s you who should rest,’ Isabel said.

Mrs Mead shook her head. ‘I’ll take to my bed this evening, my lady. For now, leave my girl with me.’

She shooed them both from the sick room and shut the door behind her. In the confines of the tiny landing, Sebastian loomed over Isabel.

He took her hand and, even in the gloom, she sensed his gaze on her face, but could not bring herself to look into his eyes.

‘How do I thank you? You saved my life and now Connie’s. That is two debts I can’t hope to repay,’ he said. ‘I won’t forget what you did for me in London.’

Isabel bit her lip and looked down at the polished oak floor. ‘I didn’t think you knew that I had…’

‘Sat with me?’

He placed a hand on either side of her face and raised her face to look at him, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

‘I don’t, but Bennet told me. I do remember your kindness to me then and I will remember your work today, Isabel.’

No one ever called her by her given name. She liked the way it sounded when he spoke it.

He let his hands drop and took a step back. ‘Would you care for a walk, Lady Somerton? Little Benning is hardly London, but I feel the need for some fresh air.’

Chapter 14

On her way to fetch her bonnet, Isabel glanced into the sick room. Seeing Sebastian’s anxious face, she smiled at him as she came back down the stairs.

‘She’s asleep,’ she said, adding with a smile, ‘so is Mrs Mead.’

Sebastian held the front door open and they stepped out into a bright, warm day.

‘Mrs Mead has been with us since Connie was a babe. I apologise if she has seemed a little high handed today,’ Sebastian said.

Isabel shook her head. ‘She has every right to be. It was very presumptuous of me to come in and tell her everything she had been doing was wrong. I shall try and make it up to her.’

They had reached the heart of the village, marked by a pleasant village green with a duck pond and, behind it, the pretty church that had been his stepfather’s living.

Isabel looked up as the clock in the church tower struck four.

‘Good heavens. Is that the time?’

Sebastian smiled. ‘It’s the bucolic life. One loses track of time.’

Isabel looked around her. No one was to be seen in the quiet village. Somewhere she could hear children squabbling and the sound of chickens. ‘It’s so peaceful here. Do you miss it?’

He didn’t answer for a long moment before saying. ‘Any place where you have grown up and known happiness will always have a special place in your affections, but I haven’t really lived here since I was sixteen. The Army has been my home and if I had remained just plain Sebastian Alder there would have been few enough jobs for army captains on half pay. Whatever line of work I could find would not have brought me back here, Isabel.’

‘Well I think Little Benning is lovely. And the cottage is charming.’

Sebastian glanced back at the little cottage, still visible from where they stood. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It may be small but it’s mine, every stone in it bought with my hard earned pennies and, I have to confess, it feels more real to me than Brantstone.’

‘I can understand that. Everyone needs to belong somewhere and, in your heart, this is where you belong.’

‘I hope that, in time, I will come to belong at Brantstone, Lady Somerton.’

She looked up at him. ‘But you do belong at Brantstone. It may not feel like it but, even in such a short time, you have made your mark.’

‘Do you really think so?’

She nodded.

‘Kind of you to say that but it’s not home…not yet. What about you, Isabel? Where do you belong?’

She shook her head. ‘I certainly don’t belong at Brantstone. I never have.’

His eyes widened and she added. ‘Please don’t mistake me. I like the dower house and I’m looking forward to living there. It is the first time in my life that I will have a place of my own, as you would say, a place to belong.’

He frowned. ‘I must say no one would describe Brantstone as homely, but perhaps there is more to a sense of belonging than just the bricks and mortar. Is it about feeling wanted…and loved?’

She caught her breath. She had felt neither wanted nor loved for most of the years she had spent at Brantstone. If she had been, would she think of it differently?

He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know why you came to Little Benning, but I’m glad you did, Isabel.’

Grateful for the change in subject, Isabel looked up at him and smiled. ‘I was born to interfere.’

After the events of the last day, her original motives for accompanying him now seemed base and unworthy.

Sebastian indicated a neat stone house beside the church.

‘The Vicarage. Where we all grew up.’ A frown creased his forehead. ‘When my father died, the new rector was on the doorstep within a week demanding we vacate it. I had barely recovered my feet from the wound I’d taken at Talavera and I had the responsibility for a grieving ten year old and an angry fifteen year old.’

‘Oh, how awful. What did you do?’

Sebastian sighed. ‘I tried to talk to the new squire but the old squire had been dead a few years and this man was a distant cousin with no interest in the village except what rents it brought him. The best he could do was offer me the cottage and it was in a shocking state of disrepair but, between us, we turned it into something habitable. That’s all history now. Once Connie and Matt come to Brantstone it will cease to be home.’

‘What will you do with it?’

He smiled. ‘Oh, I have a notion but I don’t want to spoil any surprises so I will keep it to myself for now.’

They had reached the lychgate to the churchyard and Isabel followed him up the uneven flagstones toward the church. They stopped in the porch. The heavy, oak door stood open but he seemed hesitant to enter.

‘This is where the Reverend Alder found us on Christmas morning. I was still a babe in arms and my mother near death.’

Isabel stared up at him. ‘He found you on the church porch?’

He nodded. ‘What few warm things she had she had used to wrap me in. I suppose she must have been at the end of her resources and thought that, if she were to die, there was a chance that I might survive and be found by the Christmas churchgoers the next morning. It was sheer chance that the Reverend Alder found her in time.’

‘What brought her here of all places?’ Isabel turned to look back at the tranquil village.

Sebastian shrugged. ‘My mother never talked about the time between my father’s death and her rescue by the Reverend Alder, so I suppose I will never know.’ He smiled a crooked smile. ‘God, perhaps?’

They stepped into the soft light of the church and stood at the top of the aisle, looking down towards the sanctuary. The building smelt of dust and damp, mingling together with the scent of furniture polish.

Sebastian entered a pew and knelt, bending his head over his hands. Isabel slipped in beside him and, closing her eyes, said a brief prayer for Connie’s speedy recovery. Sebastian straightened and they sat together for a long time in silence, looking up at the altar. The late afternoon sun streamed through the fine stained-glass window of the crucifixion, spilling coloured jewels onto the stone flags.

‘I still expect to see him,’ Sebastian said at last.

‘Your stepfather?’

He nodded.

‘How did he die?’ she asked.

‘He’d gone into Chester for a meeting with the Bishop. A runaway horse hit him as he was crossing the road. He died four days later.’ He looked at her and rose to his feet. ‘Come, Lady Somerton. There is a beautiful evening waiting for us.’

They walked back out into the sunlight and the peace of the old churchyard.

Outside, they stood in the porch looking down the path towards the village. Sebastian scanned the ragged lines of graves. He had a sense of a job unfinished. One more loose end to tie off. It had occurred to him as he had sat in the church that this visit to Little Bennning marked a transition point, a crossroads between his old life and his new. There could be no turning back now.

‘Will you excuse me, Isabel, but while I am here I should pay respects to my parents,’ he said.

She looked up at him with understanding in her eyes. He had the odd sensation at times that this strange woman seemed to see into his soul.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Do you wish to be alone?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s of no matter to me.’

He strode through the maze of crooked headstones and battered tombs, looking neither right nor left, to the quiet corner of the churchyard where John and Margory Alder lay together in death as they had been in life. Their grave, marked only with a simple headstone, had been well tended and a posy of now dead flowers had been laid on the grass. Connie’s work, he suspected.