Lost Love Found (2 page)

The estate laborers, still silent, lifted the plank once again and carried it into the Great Hall.

“I’ll run and fetch the priest for ye, m’lady,” said the guilt-stricken groom eagerly, anxious to be off. Valentina’s calm demeanor made him very nervous. It seemed to him that a woman faced with her husband’s dead body ought to be crying and carrying on something fierce. Not be calm and cool like this one was. Enough to give a man the willies. Maybe the news had made her go mad, the groom considered with a superstitious shiver.

Valentina fixed him with a glassy gaze and nodded absently. “Aye,” she said. “Go and find Father Peter.” She stood perfectly still as the man ran off. I must sort this all out, she thought. But, dear heaven, it all seemed so unreal.

She had not seen Ned since the evening before, when he had come to her bedchamber to make love to her. She had married Edward Barrows just three and a half weeks ago, on the sixth of June. Now, on this first day of July, she suddenly found herself his widow. Poor Mama, who had despaired of ever seeing her wed, would be so very disappointed. Her parents! She must send a messenger to her parents!

The messenger would be but a courtesy, of course, for Edward would have to be buried before her family in Worcestershire had time to get there. It was at least a day and a half’s ride to Pearroc Royal, and an equal time to return. As they were having an unusually warm summer, Valentina knew she would not be able to wait for her family to arrive before she buried Ned. In this heat the body would quickly begin to stink.

Tears welled up suddenly and without warning, filling her lovely amethyst-colored eyes to overflowing. She brushed them away impatiently. Poor Ned! He had been a good man. It was not fair that he should lie dead in his own Great Hall on such a beautiful summer morning.

“Mistress Valentina?”

Lady Barrows turned. It was Nan, dear Nan, who had once been her wet nurse and was now her tiring woman. Nan had lost her own husband but six months back, and thus had been free to leave Pearroc Royal with her young mistress when she married Lord Barrows.

“Is it all over the house then?” Valentina asked, suddenly weary.

“Aye.” Nan put a strong arm around her mistress. “Come and sit down now, my lamb. Tis a great shock this, and no mistaking it, but we’ll get through it, you and me.” She led Valentina into the small salon that Lord Barrows had had decorated especially for his new bride. It was a cheerful little room with a fireplace and a lovely window seat. On the seat was a brightly woven cushion that Valentina sank into gratefully as Nan fussed. “Now you sit right down here, my lamb.” Then the tiring woman hurried to pour a goblet of wine, which she handed to her mistress. “Drink some of this, m’lady. ’Twill ease you.”

Valentina gulped the wine down in a single swallow, not even tasting it. Then she said in a sad and hollow voice, “I did not love him, you know.”

“Aye, I know” was the quiet reply. Of course she had not loved him, thought Nan. I could see that all along. Why couldn’t the rest of them see it? Not that his lordship wasn’t the kindest and best of gentlemen, for he was, God assoil his poor soul, but the plain truth of the matter was that Mistress Valentina had not loved him.

Valentina sighed forlornly. “Perhaps I might have learned to love him, Nan. I could have loved him if only we’d had the time.”

“Aye, sweeting,” Nan said, comforting her. “ ’Tis certain that in time you would have come to love him, m’lady. I know it. You’ve always had a good heart. Better than most.” Too good a heart, the loyal servant thought silently, yet Mistress Valentina could be strong-willed, too, when she chose to be.

There came a polite rapping on the salon door. Opening it, Nan found herself facing the head footman, who bowed politely and said, “Will her ladyship be requiring a groom to send any messages today?”

“Of course she will,” Nan snapped, taking charge momentarily. “Have the fastest horse in the stables saddled and ready to go, and pick someone with a brain for the messenger. Not one of yer lackwits, all puzzled eyes and slack-mouthed, not knowing east from west. Her ladyship will expect the groom in ten minutes.” She closed the door firmly on the head footman, who, with the faintest lift of an eyebrow, hurried away.

Nan brought a small lap desk from a nearby table and set it on Valentina’s lap. “There’s a quill freshly sharpened,” she said. “You had better hurry, for the messenger will be here in a moment, m’lady. Best to be brief.”

Valentina nodded numbly, blinking back tears, but the message was ready when the groom arrived.

Nan handed the rolled and sealed parchment to the man and escorted him from the room, saying sharply, “Ride like the devil hisself was after you, and put this message into the hands of Lord Bliss himself.
No one else
. Not even Beal, the majordomo, who was me late husband’s dad. Only Lord Bliss, do you understand?”

The groom gave her a cheeky grin. “And if I does you a favor, my pretty Nan, will you come up into the hayloft with me when I gets back?”

“Ain’t you no respect?” Nan said huffily. “There’s a dead man in the Great Hall, and I’m a respectable widow, I am!”

“Well, the dead man ain’t me, my pretty.” The groom chuckled.

She swatted at him half-heartedly. “My late husband was a head gamekeeper, I’ll have you know! Not some lowlife from the stables.”

“I’m the assistant head groom, and me name is Alan. A man needs a good woman to help get him up the ladder of life,” the groom replied.

“Get you gone to Pearroc Royal,” said Nan, “and when you come back, me boy-o, we’ll see. I’m not a woman to go into the hayloft with just anyone, you know.”

“I can see that, my pretty.” The groom grinned, and giving Nan’s ample bottom a quick pat, he hurried off, as Father Peter came slowly shuffling into the hall.

Nan tucked a stray lock beneath her cap and curtsied to the cleric. She hoped the priest hadn’t overheard her conversation with Alan. He was a bold devil, that one, but his very look had set her heart to racing as no one had since Harry had died. “Her ladyship’s waiting for ye, sir,” she said primly to the religious man, and ushered him into the little salon.

The ancient priest had spent most of his life here at Hill Court. He had baptized Edward Barrows as an infant. He had buried Lord Barrows’s parents and his first wife. He had baptized and buried all of the weak babies that poor Mary Barrows had borne Edward.

Father Peter shook his head sadly. He had had such hopes of his master’s second wife, who came from a large and healthy family. He had certainly never thought to bury Lord Barrows, and less than a month after his marriage.

“Dear madam,” he said to Valentina. “What comfort can I possibly offer you at such a tragic time?”

Hearing the quaver in his old voice, Valentina managed to pull herself together. “Tell me who I am to notify and who my husband’s heir is. Being but newly wed to Ned, I do not yet know his distant relations.”

“There is no one, my lady. With Edward’s death the Barrows family is now extinct unless you can tell me that you carry your husband’s child. If you do not, then you are your husband’s heiress, my lady,” the priest told the surprised Valentina.

“
No one?
” Valentina was astounded. “Surely there must be someone, Father Peter. Alas, I am not with child, of that I am certain. My lord and I were not wed long.”

Father Peter shook his white head. “My lady, there is no one then. Old Lord Henry Barrows and his lady had three surviving children, Lord Edward, Master William, and Mistress Catherine. Master William was killed young in a war, though I cannot recall which one it was. He never wed. Mistress Catherine died in childbirth at the age of sixteen, and her babe with her. Lord Edward’s first wife and all of her babes are long gone. There is no one but yourself.”

“Perhaps some cousins?” Valentina pressed the priest.

He shook his head again. “Lord Edward had one cousin, the lady Mary. He wed with her when they were sixteen. She was the only child of his father’s only sister. There is truly no one. No one at all, m’lady.”

Valentina sighed deeply. She did not know which was worse, that Edward had no living relatives to carry on his name or that the only one left to mourn him was the bride who had not loved him. “What shall I do then, Father Peter?” she asked the kindly cleric. “I have never had the responsibility of a death before.”

The elderly man took her pretty, soft hand in his old, gnarled one. “You must have the old women come from the village to prepare his lordship for burial. He should lie in state in the Great Hall tonight and tomorrow morning. ’Tis long enough for his few neighbors and his tenants to pay their respects. The mass and the interment in the family vault will take place tomorrow afternoon.”

“So quickly, Father Peter?” Valentina looked genuinely distressed.

“Time enough, my lady, for there are few to attend the rites. Besides, the weather will not allow us otherwise, I fear.”

Valentina sighed. “You are right,” she agreed, feeling even worse.
Poor, poor Ned
! It seemed such an ignoble end for such a good man. She gave herself a little shake. She must not allow herself to give in to a fit of melancholy. She owed her husband the courtesy of seeing that he was buried with whatever ceremony she could arrange.

“Will you ask the appropriate women to come and tend to my lord, Father Peter? I will go now to choose the clothing that he should wear.”

The priest patted her hand and, giving her his blessing, hurried off. For a long moment she stood where he had left her. Then, wondering how her mother would behave in this situation, Valentina hastened to her husband’s apartment to choose the garments in which he would be buried.

The old women came from the nearby village, keening their grief. Tenderly they prepared Lord Barrows’s body for its final journey, weeping copiously over their task. They all claimed to remember in detail the very day Edward Barrows was born, forty-one years ago. They recounted with relish their first sight of him just shortly after his birth, when his father had proudly presented him for all to see. They remembered his days as a mischievous toddler, as a boy who galloped his pony with joyous abandon, as the gangling young bridegroom of his pretty cousin, Mary. There was not one of the women who had not grieved with the Barrowses, beset by so many deaths over the years.

How they had rejoiced in June when Lord Barrows brought home his beautiful new bride. Consequently, when Valentina appeared, carrying her husband’s finest garments, the old good-wives went into even greater paroxysms of grief. They realized that, without heirs other than the lovely widow, their own futures were in serious doubt. What would happen to the estate? Who would care for them if they had no master? Without a Barrows who would care for their children and their many grandchildren? There had been Barrowses on this estate for as long as memory served, and the women remembered tales told to them by their grandparents of a king named Richard against whom another Lord Barrows had fought. Life without a Barrows was inconceivable.

When at last Lord Barrows’s body had been washed and dressed, he was set gently upon his bier, his limbs straight, his arms crossed over each other upon his chest. On each side of the bier, tall beeswax candles set in carved and footed silver holders burned. By the side of the bier was a blackened oak prie-dieu with a well-worn tapestried cushion on its kneeler. Here good manners and custom required that the widow keep an all-night vigil over the mortal remains of her lord. Valentina performed as she was expected to do, remaining all night beside the bier.

At dawn, the sound of the door to the Great Hall opening startled Valentina. She rose to her feet, her head spinning a little from exhaustion and shock. Nan’s strong arms steadied her mistress.

“You’ll need some food and rest before the funeral, m’lady,” she said. “Come with me now, dearie, and let Nan take care of you.”

“Aye,” Valentina answered. “I must not disgrace Ned’s memory.”

In the afternoon, his tenants and few neighbors having all dutifully paid their respects, Edward, Lord Barrows, the last of his line, was laid to rest in the family tomb beneath the estate church next to the body of his first wife, Mary, and their long-dead children. Father Peter said the mass, which was attended by Lord Barrows’s widow, his household servants, and his neighbors. The day was bright and warm, making the funeral service even more poignantly sad.

Afterward, Valentina sat alone in the Great Hall of Hill Court eating with little appetite the supper made for her by her servants. She thought wryly of their nearest neighbor, one Lady Marshall, who had blurted out that she was certain dear Ned was happy to be with his Mary again, and so soon, too! Then, after the words were out, Lady Marshall realized to whom she was speaking, and the poor woman turned red, white, and then red again as she attempted to stammer an apology. A kind woman by nature, she was horrified by what she’d done. Valentina managed to ease the unfortunate lady’s discomfort, then gratefully accepted Lady Marshall’s excuses as to why she and Lord Marshall could not stay for the funeral supper. What on earth would they have talked about, Valentina wondered.

She sighed deeply, wondering why she could not, even now, have a good cry over poor Ned’s untimely death. Admittedly she had not loved him, but she had certainly liked him, and they had started to become friends. What kind of an unnatural person was she? Valentina slept well that night, exhausted after being awake all the previous night during her vigil.

In the morning she awoke with a headache. For lack of anything to do, she found herself wandering aimlessly about the house, meandering without purpose through the well-kept gardens, now all abloom. Suddenly she came face-to-face with the dreadful reality: She did not know what to do with herself. Wed less than a month, she barely knew her duties as the mistress of Hill Court. What on earth did a widow do with her time? How did she behave? All of the servants except her own Nan were looking to her for guidance. What was she to tell them, that they knew more about Hill Court and its late master then she did? She simply had no idea what to do with herself, no idea how to manage Hill Court now that its master was dead.