The Nightingale Legacy (26 page)

B
ISHOP
H
ORTON FROM
Truro married Frederic North Nightingale, Baron Penrith and Viscount Chilton, to Miss Caroline Aiden Handerson Derwent-Jones, spinster, the following morning at precisely ten o’clock in the drawing room of Mount Hawke in a ceremony that lasted precisely eight and a half minutes. The final five and a half minutes of the ceremony took place with eyes closed. Bishop Horton prayed. He began with praise of the metaphorical wedding of Adam and Eve, came smoothly forward to the glory and the Christian purpose of the wedding currently under way, then moved onward to extend well into the future to North and Caroline’s progeny, who would doubtless, if God so ordained, find as noble spouses as their ancestors had. Caroline found that she was getting confused between herself as an ancestor and some Chilton now long dead. Or was it someone long dead in the distant future?

When Bishop Horton decided he’d been as thorough as was pertinent to the proceedings, he beamed on Caroline and North, then asked if anyone would like to step forward to take exception to this blessed union. To everyone’s relief, no one moved, including Mr. Ffalkes. After the bishop’s final blessing, Caroline was beginning to feel less dazed at how the entire course of her life had been changed all in the space of three minutes of spoken instructions and the rest in a prayer that recounted and praised untold generations of marital bliss.

North kissed her after Bishop Horton closed his Bible and nodded to him. It was a very chaste kiss, over quickly.

Mount Hawke servants—male to the man—stood on one side of the drawing room, and the denizens from Scrilady Hall—female all, save the stable lad, Robin—stood on the other. There were locals there as well, the most notable amongst them Mrs. Freely, Mr. Peetree, the Treaths, Mr. Brogan, and the Carstairses. Mrs. Freely had spoken behind her hand discreetly, commenting on Caroline’s gown, the lightness of her face powder, the speed with which the young couple were marrying, how the bride looked thin as a rail, which was a good thing, wasn’t it? Both North and Caroline heard every word, as did every other guest.

Caroline was at least pleased with Mrs. Freely’s opinions on her gown. It was a soft ivory satin that was simple and elegant, binding her beneath her breasts with a ribbon just a shade darker than the gown, and matching the ribbon and soft white burnet roses threaded through her chestnut hair, gleaming bright and clean in the clear sunlight pouring into the drawing room. The bodice was low and filled with an ivory linen chemisette. She didn’t wear a veil over her face. She looked tall and slender, radiant and smiling, her eyes bright, the excitement clear whenever she looked at her husband.

“A love match,” Victoria Carstairs said to her husband as she watched North turn away from his bride to begin accepting congratulations. “How lovely.”

“More a lust match on North’s part,” Rafael Carstairs said. “His eyes nearly turn black when he looks at her. I doubt the poor girl will get much sleep this night, or any other night for the next year or so.”

“His eyes are nearly black anyway,” Victoria said, her hand lightly resting against her flat belly where their babe nestled. “You’re being obtuse. Besides, you don’t let me
get much sleep even now, and you swore to me it wasn’t just male lust. You swore you cherished me and adored me and were even building a pedestal upon which I would sit two nights a week so that you could bow and scrape and worship me—”

“That’s nauseating, Victoria. Now, heed me. Naturally I felt and still feel lust for you. I understand lust, most men do. This other, well, it’s all well and good and makes a man’s life more happy than not, usually, if the wife is kept in her proper place, and naturally you’ve always known that place.” He grinned down at her like a bandit.

“He’s a beautiful man,” she said. “North Nightingale, I mean.”

“Passable, little more. He is nothing to me. You told me I was the most beautiful man in all of Cornwall, in all of Devon, too.”

“Did I? My memory fails me. Ah, but North, just look at those white teeth of his, and how muscular he is, and so very lean and hard and—”

“Victoria Carstairs, would you like me to do something you will surely regret?”

She looked up at him, a siren’s smile on her mouth, and said, “Yes.”

He eyed her for a long moment, cursed, and took himself off to congratulate the bride and groom.

Caroline stared up at North, marveling that he was hers, all hers, and all because Owen had gotten ill and she’d gone into the taproom of the inn in Dorchester to find help and he’d been there. It was scary that one’s life could be swayed and changed by such random chance. Ah, but in this case, it had been a wonderful random chance. He was hers at last. It had taken only eight and a half minutes.

She watched his profile, watched him smile at something Rafael Carstairs said. She wanted to touch his straight nose,
his mouth that was so very beautiful she wanted to kiss it until she lost her breath. She wanted to touch his tongue with her fingertip and her own tongue, to feel his heat, to taste his taste and breathe in his scent. She saw herself standing on the beach, holding up her skirts and petticoats whilst he was on his knees, caressing her and touching her with his mouth. Oh dear. That had been something. She rather hoped he would be compelled to do that again. She shuddered, smiled like a fool, and continued her perusal of her new husband. His jaw was firm and stubborn, which was fine with her. He wasn’t a man to back down. A good opponent always brightened her up.

“Caroline.”

“Huh?”

“Where are you?”

“Oh, North. I was just looking at you and thinking that we will have wonderful fights. Actually I was thinking other things before that, but it wouldn’t be at all proper to mention those other things here in the drawing room. Yes, we will have marvelous fights.”

“So this is the future you envision for us? That pleases you?”

“You’re strong and stubborn, just look at that jaw of yours. I wouldn’t want a man I could kick into the dirt. You’re just as I want you to be.”

“Thank you, perhaps,” he said, then leaned down and gave her a very light kiss on her mouth. “Oh damn,” he said, and quickly drew back. “We have to wait until at least after luncheon. It isn’t fair. I’m married to you, it’s all legal, and I still have to wait. What were those other things?”

She giggled. “I will say only that they were beach sorts of activities. Now, if you’re very good to me, I can perhaps have a stomach gripe, turn convincingly green, and beg to be excused. You, naturally, wouldn’t want to leave me alone
in my misery. You would want to nurture me, feed me soup, wipe my sweating brow. What do you think?”

He stared down at her, his eyes bright on her face. “Your mind is terrifying.”

“It’s a grand idea, isn’t it?”

He laughed, a full, free laugh, and Tregeagle turned to his comrades and said in a depressed voice, “Did you hear that, Mr. Polgrain? Mr. Coombe? He’s
laughing.
Nightingale men rarely laugh, particularly at something a female says.” Tregeagle sighed deeply. “As far as I know, his lordship’s father never laughed a day in his life. His lordship’s father would have spat upon anyone who dared to laugh in his presence. He would have reviled such a thing. Ah, it’s an unhappy day.”

“She is a pernicious influence,” said Polgrain.

Coombe shuddered, tugged at the thin edge of hair just above his ears, and dabbed the perspiration from the bald flesh just above. “Perhaps we could endure having her here at least for a little while, but more than just a little while? It is too much, gentlemen, far too much.”

“We will endure,” Tregeagle said. “Just look at those pregnant females, all lined up in a row. It hurts me to gaze at them.”

“Mr. Owen will take them back to Scrilady Hall after luncheon, Mr. Tregeagle, don’t worry,” Polgrain said. “We can bear seeing them and their affliction for just a few more hours. Oh dear, I must get back to the kitchen. It galled me to do it, but I have made a champagne punch to rival the punch served by all the big nobs at their weddings in London.”

“It’s not what we’re used to, Mr. Polgrain, no indeed,” Tregeagle said, and sighed deeply again. “Feed everyone well and let’s hear nice healthy belches. We don’t want it said that the men of Mount Hawke can’t carry off anything
and carry it off well, despite their pain.”

“I still can’t believe he actually married her,” Coombe said, looking hard at the young lady who was now Lady Chilton and mistress of Mount Hawke. “If he wanted to bed her there was no reason to marry her. He should have just taken her to bed and gotten her out of his system. Now we shall have to suffer her presence day in and day out.”

“Ah, but she’s a lady and thus all men’s downfall,” Tregeagle said. “To bed her, he had to marry her.”

“She’s a lady to begin with, perhaps most of them are, but she’ll change,” Polgrain said, “just like all the others. And she won’t be here long, you’ll see,” he continued. “Don’t you remember? His lordship’s father brought his wife to visit here but once, before he understood the way of things and took her away again.”

“Aye, but don’t forget,
his
father was still alive and the master here. He wasn’t about to let her stay. In fact, if his son hadn’t disobeyed him, she never would have even visited here for a single day. But our lordship here, I don’t know. He read the diaries, but he believes it’s all nonsense.”

“He will learn,” Coombe said, patting his bald head yet again. “Poor young man, he will learn. I remember all the stories my father told me about the Nightingale men. I suppose we’re lucky that there was enough vigilance in them so that a male child gets birthed and is indeed a Nightingale and not some other man’s get.”

“Barely in time,” Polgrain said, “barely in time.”

“We will get through this,” Tregeagle said again. “We have much to do and we will do it with efficiency and graciousness. Goodness, all of them with child at once, even that child Alice is with child. It’s dreadful and not to be borne.”

“A remarkable
bon mot
, Mr. Tregeagle,” Coombe said.

Owen stood close and all stiff beside his father in the corner of the drawing room in the late-morning shadows. He’d been terrified his father would leap on North during the brief ceremony, but he hadn’t budged from behind the large chair. He looked furious. Owen recognized the dark rage in his father’s eyes; it had been directed at him enough during his life. But he’d held his tongue. He’d done nothing. He was, thankfully, still doing nothing. His hands weren’t even fisted at his sides. Odd, but his father looked older, Owen thought, somehow he seemed to have shrunk. As Mr. Brogan approached, he closely watched his father for any signs of violence.

“Sir,” Mr. Brogan said. “I am the solicitor for the former Miss Derwent-Jones, now Lady Chilton. His lordship asked me to speak plainly to you. He is, in short, now in complete control of her finances and her fortune.”

“Not for long,” Mr. Ffalkes said, and all but snarled. “No, not for bloody long, the damned poaching bounder.”

“Father,” Owen said.

“Be quiet, you little sod, you worthless, ungrateful piece of muck. As for you, sir, I will see you pay for what you’ve had the gall to do to me, why, you—”

Mr. Brogan continued easily, interrupting Mr. Ffalkes with the calm of Bishop Horton. “This envelope is for you, sir. It details all you have done to Lady Chilton, all your plots, your conspiracies that have, thankfully, all failed. It is attested to by Lord Chilton, Lady Chilton, and your son, Owen Ffalkes. Now, if anything were to happen to North Nightingale, then, sir, you would be immediately taken to gaol and then your neck would surely be stretched and you would shortly find yourself quite dead. So you see, it is to your advantage that Lord Chilton remain as healthy as a stoat. Also, if the remote possibility occurred that you weren’t hanged, you would still gain nothing. Lord
Chilton’s estate isn’t left to his wife, but rather to his friend, the Earl of Chase. Do you understand me, sir?”

“That’s utter nonsense and you’re lying. I am her relative. The estate couldn’t be left away from her. I would contest it and I would win.”

“Ah, but the viscountess wouldn’t contest anything, sir, thus any action you would contemplate taking would result in you looking like a fool. I beg you to reassess your situation. I encourage you to leave Cornwall and forget the viscountess. It is all over. There is nothing here for you.” Mr. Brogan merely nodded then to Mr. Ffalkes, turned, and left, a look of distaste clear on his pleasant face.

“Damned little cit,” Mr. Ffalkes said. “As for you, Owen, you betrayed me?” He waved the thick envelope in front of his son’s nose.

“No, sir, I did it primarily to protect you. You may not believe that, but it’s true. There is something else Caroline asked me to consult you about.”

“What does the little bitch have to say?”

“She wants you to return to Honeymead Manor and manage the property for her. She wants you to live there, if you wish. She also mentioned—and she did smile a bit—that Mrs. Tailstrop thought you were a grand fine gentleman.”

“The old bag.”

“Old!” Owen said, aghast. “Caroline said she was younger than you are, sir.”

“There are differences in old when it’s a man and when it’s a woman.”

“Well, there it is. You may go to Honeymead Manor or you may do as you please. I, sir, I will remain here and live at Scrilady Hall. I am now Caroline’s manager. Soon I will be her partner, in fact.”

Mr. Ffalkes cursed roundly. “You’re nothing but a foolish, weak little boy.”

Owen drew himself up. It was difficult with the scorn his father was heaping in bucketfuls on his head, but he did try. “I’m better, Father. Caroline and North both said so. I am very nearly my own man. Other men depend on me. Ladies depend on me. What I do counts for something. I rather like it.”

Mr. Ffalkes roundly consigned his son to hell, picked up his valise, and without a backward look, took his leave.

“He’s gone,” Owen said.

“Yes,” North said. “We saw him leave.”

“I don’t know what he’ll do, Caroline.”