Lord Somerton's Heir (22 page)

‘I never imagined what it could be like to be part of a large family.’

‘Your grandfather, the Reverend Parker, cast a dark shadow over them all. If he were still alive, this,’ she waved a hand at the noisy party, ‘would never be permitted.’

‘My stepfather was a clergyman too,’ Sebastian reminded her, ‘but he loved life and felt it should be celebrated at every opportunity.’

She cast a sideways glance at him. ‘And so it should. I think I would have liked your stepfather.’

‘Everyone did,’ Sebastian agreed.

‘Lord Somerton, Lord Somerton…’ Aunt Cissy came hurrying towards them. ‘Oh, my lord, may I join you for a few minutes?’ Cissy said breathlessly.

‘Of course, aunt. Sit by me.’

Sebastian indicated the wall and Cissy lowered herself down beside him, fanning herself with her hand.

Isabel rose to her feet and Sebastian stood.

‘If you will excuse me,’ she said. ‘I will see that luncheon is served.’

Cissy gave a deep, happy sigh. ‘This is lovely, dear. The only time we were ever invited up to the hall was when the old lord used to throw a Christmas party for the village.’

‘Then it is a miracle my parents even met,’ Sebastian observed.

Cissy smiled. ‘Young love does have its ways, my lord.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, the row when they declared their love. I thought your grandfather would have a turn.’

‘Surely it would have been a good match, at least from the good Reverend’s point of view?’

‘Aye, you’d think so, but your grandfather would not tolerate disobedience in anyone, however good the cause. He forbade Marjory’s name to ever be mentioned in his presence.’

Sebastian sighed and his gaze strayed to Connie, now caught up in the game of Blind Man’s Buff. It occurred to him that he had put his sister in a very vulnerable position. The sister of a Viscount with a comfortable dowry, she would be an attractive catch for any charlatan. Life had seemed much simpler when they were penniless.

‘Now, I’m not one to gossip,’ Aunt Cissy began. Sebastian smiled, Aunt Cissy was, he imagined, a veritable store of village gossip. ‘But your cousin, Anthony, was not a good man.’

‘In what way, aunt?’ Sebastian enquired, with what he hoped was an ingenuous expression.

‘There was that terrible scandal with poor Amy Thompson.’

‘I know about that,’ Sebastian said.

Cissy’s eyes darted around the garden as if she expected Anthony to materialise from behind the shrubbery. ‘They say he took her…and he left her with child, too. The shame was too much for the poor girl.’

‘Very sad,’ Sebastian commented, recalling his conversation with Bennet. Of the many crimes laid at Anthony’s feet, maybe getting poor Amy with child was not one of them, but it did not excuse the appalling neglect of his wife and the wasting of his estate.

Connie ran up to him, her bonnet hanging down her back by its strings and her face flushed from exertion.

‘Sebastian, do come and play!’ She grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet.

The happy group surrounded him as Connie bound his eyes and turned him around three times for Blind Man’s Buff.

After the last carriage had been waved off, Sebastian and his siblings retired to the blue parlour where the Lynchs joined them, to Sebastian’s annoyance.

Connie collapsed into a chair with a dramatic flourish. ‘I’m exhausted. Who’d have thought it, Bas? We have such lovely relations.’

Freddy bowed low as he offered her a glass of sherry. ‘Of course, I hope you would consider my sister and me among that happy grouping?’

Connie looked up at him. ‘Of course, Mister Lynch. You are both so kind.’

Sebastian’s jaw clenched. He really must talk to Connie.

Freddy sat down and crossed his legs. His gaze flashed across to Sebastian as he spoke. ‘And of course, we are both so grateful to Lord Somerton for his continued kindness to us, otherwise, my dear cousin Constance, we would be quite bereft.’

Connie’s eyes flashed up to Sebastian and then back at Freddy. She gave him a charming smile and said, ‘My brother is quite the most generous of men.’

‘And may I say he is blessed with quite the most beautiful of sisters,’ Freddy simpered in return.

‘Enough of that, Lynch,’ Sebastian growled. ‘My sister has had quite enough compliments for one day. I don’t want it going to her head.’

Freddy looked at him and smiled. A cold shiver ran down Sebastian’s spine.

Chapter 18

From somewhere in the house, Isabel could hear music and laughter. Connie and Matt were having dancing lessons. Freddy had produced some ghastly French dancing master and they had all adjourned to the ballroom. The suggestion at breakfast that Sebastian may care to join them received a frosty response and his lordship had taken his broadsheets and retreated to the study.

As Isabel stood outside the door to the study, she wondered how many years it had been since laughter had rung down the corridors of Brantstone. Connie and Matt had brought life to the gloomy corridors.

She took a breath and knocked. At the gruff response, she opened the door.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ she enquired.

Sebastian shot to his feet, almost knocking his chair backwards in his haste.

‘No, not at all. Come in.’

She entered the room and stood before him, her hands clasped in front of her black skirts.

‘I came to tell you that I am planning to move to the dower house in the next few days.’

He stared at her for a long moment. ‘Oh,’ he said, closely followed by, ‘why?’

‘I’m not needed here anymore. Your sister now takes precedence over me and she will see to the running of the household.’

‘But she’s only seventeen. She doesn’t know anything about running a household of this size.’

A small smile played at the corner of Isabel’s lips. ‘She is a fast learner and it’s not as if I will be far away if she needs advice.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Is there anything I can do to assist you with the move?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. It’s all organised.’

‘You will need transport. Please take the small coach and the bays.’

‘Sebastian, that is too generous…’ she began, but he waved away her protests.

‘Call it an indefinite loan,’ he said.

‘I will send for my saddle horse and Millie and the foal once I am settled,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Whatever you wish, Isabel. You just have to ask.’

‘Thank you.’ She turned to go. As she opened the door, she stopped and turned back to look at him.

‘We have received an invitation for us all to attend a supper at Lady Kendall’s tonight. What shall I reply?’

Sebastian hesitated. If it were up to him he would decline, but he thought about Connie and Matt and said with a heavy sigh, ‘I suppose we should accept.’

Isabel nodded. ‘I will send a response. The invitation includes Freddy and Fanny as well but I will send my apologies. It would not be appropriate for me to attend while I am still officially in mourning.’

Sebastian gave her a sharp glance but she schooled her face to complete impassivity.

It would never be appropriate for her to enter the home of Lady Georgiana Kendall. The period of deep mourning would end in a few months, and Isabel would be breaking it with the Brantstone Ball, but it served as a useful tool to escape an awkward situation.

Sebastian said, ‘May I call on you when you are settled, Isabel?’

She turned to look at him and smiled. ‘You will always be welcome, Sebastian.’

As the door closed behind her, she paused. She had so long anticipated the move to the dower house but, now the moment had come, she felt an unexpected sense of loss. Brantstone had been her home for ten years. There were memories here, so many, many unhappy memories that she had sought to escape but, since Sebastian Alder had come to Brantstone, the ghosts had begun to fade.

You are being ridiculous
, she told herself.

Straightening her shoulders, she strode toward the stairs. There could be no looking back, no regrets. The time had come for her new life.

‘Very fine, if I say so myself.’ Pierce stood back from the mirror and looked admiringly at his handiwork. ‘Don’t you agree, Mr Bennet?’

‘He looks like a right toff,’ Mr Bennet agreed.

This was Sebastian’s first foray into full eveningwear and he ran a finger around the high stock that almost grazed his ear lobe.

‘It’s very tight,’ he complained.

‘Meant to be, my lord. Meant to be! And, might I say, my Lord, a very fine figure you cut. While his late Lordship cut a dash, er… He didn’t have the attributes you possess, my lord.’

Sebastian cast a fearful glance at his reflection in the mirror, in particular the tight white satin breeches, and hoped that the man referred to his shoulders and not other attributes.

‘A more slender gentleman, his late lordship,’ Pierce continued, happily expanding on his theme, ‘suited to an altogether different style to yourself, my lord. Now if I may venture so bold, my lord, your stance…’

Standing in the properly affected manner, all the better to show off his attributes, Sebastian allowed himself the luxury of a last long look in the mirror. His own mother would have difficulty recognising her generally scruffy and disorganised son in the elegant figure that he now presented.

The Reverend Alder would merely have shaken his head. ‘
Vestis virum reddit
,’ he would have said, quoting his favourite Roman writer, Quintilian.

Clothes maketh the man. We all wear uniforms
, Sebastian thought.

In his Army days, his uniform had been scarlet with buff facings. Now it was a well-cut jacket and satin breeches.

‘When your lordship returns to London, we will be able to have some proper tailoring,’ Pierce said, still primping the cravat.

‘What’s wrong with these clothes?’

‘A quick job, my lord, hardly worthy of you.’

‘It looks fine to me,’ Sebastian said in a clipped voice that Bennet would have instantly recognised. Pierce had yet to learn the nuances of Sebastian’s tone and, at the mention of yellow stockings, Pierce suffered a rare explosion of frustration from his master.

Unbowed, Pierce retired to the chest of drawers and returned with a diamond pin that he affixed to the fine linen folds of the cravat before allowing his master to escape.

The driveway to Fairchild Hall, home of Lady Kendall, had been lit by flares and the front of the old house brightly illuminated with red silk lanterns. Sebastian thought only of his cousin’s last night on this earth. Had he ridden Pharaoh down this driveway, not knowing that the saddle had been compromised and that he was riding to his death?

Connie, leaning from the window, exclaimed on the show. Even Sebastian, alighting from the coach, had to admit that the effect had been carefully stage managed to give the visitors a sense of expectation.

They were met in the flagged front hall by a flunkey who took their cloaks and indicated the wide doors to the right from where the sound of music and laughter issued. Sebastian glanced down at his sister, dressed in a pretty pink gown, borrowed from Fanny. Her new pearl necklace graced her neckline and her dark blonde hair had been swept up into a sophisticated knot set off with pink ribbons and a white feather. If this was Fanny’s work then he owed the girl his thanks. Connie looked beautiful.

He offered her his arm and she accepted it, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling with excitement. Her fingers tightened on his arm for a moment and he patted the gloved hand.

‘Lord Somerton,’ the footman intoned. ‘Mr Alder and Miss Alder.’

A sudden hush fell on the gathering as all eyes turned to the door. Lady Kendall, dressed in a green satin gown with a matching turban topped by a green feather set in place with an emerald the size of a quail’s egg, disengaged herself from a group of guests and came forward.

Sebastian heard Connie whisper. ‘Oh, my!’

Lady Kendall extended her hand. ‘Lord Somerton. Welcome to my home.’

He bowed over the proffered hand, ‘Lady Kendall. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

As he presented Connie and Matt, he felt inordinately proud of his siblings. For two youngsters straight from a small cottage in rural Cheshire, the hard work of Isabel and the Lynch’s had paid off. Connie curtseyed and Matt, resplendent in clothes borrowed from Freddy, seemed completely confident as he bowed to Lady Kendall. Sebastian envied the ease with which his brother and sister had adapted to their new life. He wished he had their youth and easygoing nature.

Matt straightened and looked around at the gathered crowd. Fans were fluttering like a rabble of butterflies as his gaze scanned the room. Sebastian smiled and leaned in to whisper to his brother. ‘You seem to be quite a hit, little brother.’

Matt cast him a cheeky grin and, taking Connie’s arm, sallied forth. Lady Kendall tucked a small, gloved hand into Sebastian’s arm and led him into the room.

‘Your brother and sister are quite charming, Lord Somerton.’

‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘It was kind of you to invite us.’

‘Oh not at all. I am sure you and your brother are everything the mothers of the county would wish.’

‘And what is that?’ Sebastian asked.

‘In your case, a title and no inconvenient wife,’ Lady Kendall replied, ‘and your brother has a handsome face and, it is hoped, a generous allowance from your lordship.’

Sebastian laughed. ‘The young rogue has to earn it first,’ he said. ‘I am packing him off to university.’

Lady Kendall raised a delicately arched eyebrow. ‘Really? Is that something he wishes to do?’

‘Yes. He has a talent for mathematics but I was never able to…’ He stopped, feeling the embarrassment rising to his face. He couldn’t bring himself to say‘ never able to afford’.

Lady Kendall took two glasses of champagne from a tray and handed one to Sebastian.

‘May I claim a few minutes of your time in private, my lord?’

Sebastian glanced around the room, wondering about the propriety of a private audience with Lady Kendall. He ran a finger around his stock, which had become uncomfortably tight.