Lord Somerton's Heir (2 page)

‘Are you…’ she ventured. ‘Are you Captain Sebastian Alder, son of the late Marjory Alder of Little Benning in Cheshire?’

His eyes opened again but all the fight had gone from him. Beneath the stubble on his chin, his face looked grey, the eyes feverish and sunken in his skull.

‘My mother is eighteen years in the grave. Why do you want to know about her?’ The man frowned as if he were trying to bring them both into focus. ‘Who are you?’ His voice rasped with the effort of speech.

‘I am the dowager Viscountess Somerton and this is my late husband’s man of business, Bragge. We have been looking for you for over six months now.’

He frowned. ‘Looking for me? What do you mean? What is your business with me?’

‘We’ve come to take you home,’ Isabel said.

His mouth quirked into a humourless smile. ‘Well that is a nice sentiment, Lady Somerton, but I very much doubt I would survive such a trip. It’s nigh on two hundred miles to Cheshire.’

‘Oh, not to Cheshire. We are taking you to your new home: Somerton House in Hanover Square.’

The man ran a hand across his eyes. ‘This is a jest or some strange fever dream that I’m going to wake from. Lady Somerton, or whoever you are, I do not live in Hanover Square. I told you, my home is in Cheshire.’

‘It’s no jest, Captain Alder. You are now the Viscount Somerton of Brantstone, first cousin to my late husband and as such, the heir to his estates.’

To her surprise, Alder covered his face with his hands and laughed.

Ignoring him, she continued, ‘The doctors said you would be all right to be moved such a short distance and I have arranged the best doctor to see to you.’ She glanced at Bragge. ‘Bragge, go and fetch the coachmen.’

Bragge inclined his head and scurried out, leaving Isabel alone with the new Lord Somerton.

Alder removed his hands from his face and watched her with puzzlement in his eyes — brown eyes, she noted, a soft, warm brown, not the cold grey of Anthony’s.

She looked around the ward and shuddered. ‘This is a terrible place,’ she said, more to herself than to him. ‘I’m surprised anyone survives it.’

‘They don’t.’ The man on the pallet tried to sit up, falling back with a groan.

‘’Ere! Who are you then?’ A strident cockney voice caused Isabel to turn on her heel to be confronted by a soldier of Alder’s regiment, judging by the yellow facings of his jacket. He carried a bowl of water and some cloths, and he looked at Isabel as if she were some ill-intentioned assassin.

Isabel straightened. ‘I’m Lady Somerton. Who are you?’

‘I’m Bennet, Corporal Obadiah Bennet and you ain’t got no business with my captain. He ain’t strong enough for visitors.’

Alder’s hand clutched at his corporal’s jacket. ‘Lady Somerton is just leaving, Bennet,’ he croaked.

Isabel glanced down at the sick man. He had to come with her. Without him she would be lost. It was not his choice. He had obligations and responsibilities to assume. Didn’t he understand that?

‘Why do you want to take him away? I can take perfectly good care of him ‘ere,’ Bennet said.

Isabel looked around the stinking ward. The dead boy still lay unregarded on his mattress, his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.

‘No! I cannot leave without him.’ She heard the rising hysteria in her voice. ‘He will die here. At Somerton House we can look after you properly. I can get the best doctors… A nurse…’

‘And why would a grand lady like you want to do that?’ Bennet sounded derisive.

‘Because,’ she lowered her voice, aware that their little contretemps was attracting attention, ‘your captain is the new Lord Somerton and he should be taken home where he can be looked after properly.’

‘What?’ Corporal Bennet stared at her and then down at his officer. ‘Is this lady stark, staring mad? I’ve known you since you was sixteen years old and you may be many things, but you ain’t no lord.’

Alder waved a hand. ‘Explain it to him, or I’ll have no peace.’

Isabel looked down at the wounded man. ‘It’s true. Your father was James Kingsley, my late husband’s uncle.’

Bennet scoffed. ‘’is father was the Reverend Alder of Little Benning in Cheshire and a right decent gentleman too.’

Isabel glared at the little man, tempted to rebuke him for his insolence.

‘The Reverend Alder was his
step
father.’ She looked down at Sebastian Alder. His eyes were open but unfocussed and she wondered if he could even hear what she was saying. ‘According to my information, Captain Alder, your mother married him when you were two years old. How many times must I repeat it? You are Lord Somerton’s heir.’

Alder frowned as if trying to reconcile what she was saying. He raised a hand and ran it across his eyes. ‘It sounds an incredible tale but, Lady Somerton, I don’t have the strength to argue with you. If it means that you are intent on removing me to somewhere more pleasant than this charnel house, I can do no more than be much obliged.’

She crouched down beside him, instinctively straightening the blanket and the ruined jacket. ‘I know this is a shock. I meant to break it to you when you were in a better state to receive the news.’

Sebastian Alder laid a grimy hand on her arm. ‘Do whatever you want with me, Lady Somerton. I am yours to command.’

She managed what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘I promise you the full story when you are stronger. For now we must get you away from this place.’

‘What about me?’ Bennet protested.

‘Bennet comes too.’ Alder’s fingers closed on her sleeve, his voice now so weak she had to bend to hear him. ‘He’s been my batman for fifteen years now. I’m not leaving him.’

‘Of course.’ Isabel glanced at the little corporal. ‘Bennet comes too.’

She smiled at the new Lord Somerton and put her hand over his, gently laying it back on his chest. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep or unconscious. Rising to her feet, she beckoned Bragge and the coachmen who had pushed past the curtains, one carrying a stretcher. She prayed they were not too late. Even the most innocuous of wounds could kill if not treated properly.

Chapter 2

Through the fever and the pain, Sebastian found himself once again on a dusty road in Portugal. Above him, distant black shapes circled in the colourless sky. Sebastian caught his breath, knowing only too well what those ominous birds portended. Somewhere, ahead of them, death had passed this way.

Beside him, his friend, Major Harry Dempster, put out his hand to catch his reins. ‘Alder…no!’

But Sebastian put his heels to his horse and charged ahead of the patrol. He heard the thundering of hooves behind him as Dempster raced to catch him, but it was too late.

His horse shied at the sight of the first body lying sprawled in the roadway, the uniform of Colonel Aradeiras barely visible beneath the film of dust. This man had almost escaped but they had caught him, a French sabre nearly decapitating his head in one clean slice.

Dempster was once more by his side but Sebastian barely registered his presence.

‘Go back, Captain Alder,’ his senior officer ordered.

Numbly, Sebastian shook his head. He now knew what lay around the bend in the road, why the carrion birds circled above their heads.

Her father had sent a message to say she had left Lisbon with an armed party of his own handpicked men as escort. In his lodgings his landlady had prepared his bedchamber with flowers and clean linen, excited at the prospect of the
senhora
’s arrival.

The wedding and their few precious days together had been a lifetime ago. To the man, Colonel Aradeiras’ escort lay dead in the dusty road around the broken carriage, no match for the rifles and sabres of the French raiding party.

The coach lay on its side, the horses dead in the traces. His heart skipped a beat and the breath stopped in his throat. Where were the women? Where were Inez and her maid, the elderly and patient Maria?

Sebastian flung himself off his horse, running blindly towards the broken coach. Beyond it he stopped on the side of the road, looking down an incline into a grove of olive trees at the terrible sight the French had left for him.

Neither woman had been spared, even Maria who must have been touching seventy. They lay sprawled on their backs, their clothing rent from their bodies, the blood…the blood. Sebastian started down the incline, only to find himself pulled back. He fought the restraining hands of Harry and Sergeant Pike.

‘She’s dead, Alder. There’s nothing you can do for her,’ Harry was saying.

But the blood roared in Sebastian’s ears and he could see only a red haze before his eyes. Inez, he had to get to Inez. He had promised to protect her with the last breath in his body but he had failed her, failed her in the worst possible way a man — a husband — could. He had not been there when the French had attacked. He had not fought off the ravaging wolves that had used his wife’s body for their own pleasure before bayoneting her. An animal howl of pure despair tore from his throat and he went down on his knees, still in Pike’s grip.

The world faded and turned black and he was falling, falling, falling into that black morass of despair from which he knew he would never recover.

Isabel awoke with a start at the sound of crashing china. She rose from her bed, lit the night candle and, pulling a loose robe over her nightdress, stepped out into the corridor. She came across Bennet at the head of the stairs, cleaning up a broken bowl that had, from the liquid that now spilled across the dark, polished wood, contained water.

He looked up at her, dark, sunken circles under his eyes. Even though she had employed a nurse, the man had borne the brunt of the nursing and had not left his captain’s side for the last three days.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Enough, Bennet. Finish cleaning up the mess and then go and get some sleep. You’re exhausted. I’ll wake the nurse.’

Bennet rose to his feet. ‘She’s useless, beggin’ your pardon, me lady, and the Cap’n can’t be left alone. The fever’s got a right hold of him.’

‘Then I’ll sit with him a little while and if I need help I will wake you both.’

Exhaustion turned to horror. ‘Oh no, my lady, that would hardly be proper.’

‘Pish to propriety. No one need know except you and me. You’ve done a sterling job but you are no good to anyone let alone your captain in your current state.’

When Bennet continued to look doubtful, she drew herself up and said in a firm tone, ‘I insist. Good night, Bennet.’

She turned on her heel and walked into the room that had been her husband’s bedchamber. She paused, taking a moment to accustom herself not only to the odour of the sickroom but to the fact that it was not Anthony whose long frame occupied the finely carved bed. Isabel set the candlestick on a table near the bed and approached the bed.

Sebastian Alder’s dramatic arrival at Somerton House had been met with remarkable calm by the servants, who seemed to take it for granted that when one Lord Somerton died, another took his place. Although they were not generally carried in through the front door on a stretcher.

The doctor she had engaged had told her that Sebastian had taken a musket ball just beneath his right ribs. The ball had passed through and, while it appeared to have missed anything major, the wound had become infected and the lack of proper care and attention in the days since the battle had contributed to a nasty mess and a wound fever.

Isabel knew from reports from Bennet and gossip from her own maid, Lucy, that Sebastian had barely been lucid since his arrival and it frustrated her that propriety forbade her interference.

‘Pish to propriety,’ she repeated to herself, looking down at the man who lay sprawled in the large bed, one of Anthony’s night shirts open at the neck and twisted around his chest, a testimony to his restless state.

She bent over the bed. Even though Anthony’s nightshirt had been made with plenty of room, it seemed too tight across the shoulders of this man. She attempted to untangle the garment but Sebastian pulled away from her, muttering incoherently.

She walked over to the shuttered window, throwing it wide. The cool night air rushed into the room and she paused for a moment, her hands still on the casement, letting the breeze tumble her hair before turning back to the room. The fire flickered in the draught and she bent over it, scattering the logs with the poker. The room would be cool within a short time.

Returning to the bed, Isabel pulled back the heavy blankets, leaving only a sheet covering the feverish man. The material clung to his body, revealing a broad chest tapering to narrow hips, with strong horseman’s thighs. She swallowed. The only man with whom she had such an intimate acquaintance had been her husband and those were memories she pushed away.

To distract herself she looked around and saw a bowl of water with a cloth sitting on the nightstand. Isabel wet the cloth and folded it into a pad, laying it across the man’s burning forehead and then his wrists. She kept this up until he calmed and settled into a fitful sleep.

Isabel pulled up a chair and set herself to watch. Sebastian Alder’s right hand lay outside the covers, palm up, the fingers curled. Something in the vulnerability of the gesture touched her and she reached out and laid her hand on his. Her little hand seemed lost against his and she picked it up, seeing even in the candlelight the grime of the battlefield still ingrained around his fingernails, and the calluses and scars of his years of soldiering. She thought of Anthony’s soft, white, immaculately manicured fingers and shivered.

His fingers tightened on hers and he turned his face to her, his eyes wide and dark in the light of the candlelight. He mumbled something and she leaned in close to hear him.

‘
Inez. Você precisa voltar para mim
,’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with fever.

Beyond the name Inez, she understood nothing and wondered if he spoke in Portuguese or Spanish. He began to speak rapidly in the same foreign language, his fingers tightening on hers with urgency, his eyes beseeching her for an answer she could not give.

In the end she ventured the one Spanish word she did know. ‘Si, Sebastian,’ she said, adding in English, ‘I am here.’