The Nightingale Legacy (3 page)

She stared at him. No, she couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. She managed to keep her outrage behind her tongue and said, “I didn’t know of any stipulations about my marriage, sir, or my lack of marriage. Actually, before I met Mr. Duncan, I hadn’t planned to marry at all. I would like to see my father’s will.”

“Certainly, Miss Derwent-Jones.” There was no
dear
this time, which was an improvement. “However, I hardly expect a young lady to understand it. There are legal terms that would surely confound a lady’s faculties.”

“I will contrive to raise my level of wit, sir, just for the occasion.”

He looked at her as if he would like to strike her, and that pleased her, for surely she would like to stick a knife between his ribs. “Shall I read this part of my father’s will right now, sir?”

“Unfortunately your father’s will is in my office, in London. It will require some time for me to write to my clerk and more time for him to send it here to Honeymead Manor.”

“I see,” she said, and was very afraid that she did indeed see.

“In brief, your father wanted my approval of any suitor
to your hand, Miss Derwent-Jones. If I refuse my approval then I am to continue as your guardian until you reach twenty-five or find a gentleman of whom I do approve.”

“Very well, sir, you force me to admit to another wretched jest. There is no Mr. Duncan. There is no man I wish to marry. Therefore, sir, tomorrow, on my nineteenth birthday, I come into my parents’ money—all of it—and you, sir, are no longer snapping the whip over my head.”

“I thought as much,” Mr. Ffalkes said, and she knew then he’d outmaneuvered her. He’d lied about that stipulation in her father’s will, and she’d fallen for it. Then he struck a conciliatory pose, his palms upward. “You and I shouldn’t be adversaries, my dear. Indeed, I have much admired you since you became such a lovely young woman. As has my son. Now, it’s true that you will come into your fortune tomorrow. However, it is also true that I will continue as your trustee until you wed.”

“And just what are a trustee’s duties as opposed to a guardian’s?”

“As a trustee, I will advise you on investments, oversee all legal matters, grant you a sufficient allowance to meet your needs, see to your continued well-being. I was your father’s cousin, Miss Derwent-Jones. He trusted me to care for you, to see you well placed. I am pleased there is no Mr. Duncan. Men aren’t always what they seem, you know. No, you don’t know, do you? You have been protected, sheltered from gentlemen who would take advantage of your innocence. I will continue to protect you, Miss Derwent-Jones.”

Just as he’d protected her by sending her to Chudleigh’s Young Ladies’ Academy in Nottingham, whence she’d managed to escape only three years before. She’d believed a convent couldn’t be more stifling, more deadening than the echoing chambers at Chudleigh’s, with all its giggling girls
with naught on their minds but the dancing master’s dimples. The mistresses had been so unrelenting in their quest to make every single girl just like every other single girl, all of them to be stupid but somehow charming to men, to nod and pretend to listen until their brains quite froze through, and to stitch samplers until death would thankfully overtake them, after, naturally, they’d produced a suitable number of surviving offspring.

Thus when she’d been sixteen, she’d come down with something akin to the plague that had scared even the headmistress, Miss Beemis, into near incontinence. She’d been packed quickly back to Honeymead Manor and dear Mrs. Tailstrop. The spots, made from walnut dye mixed with a thick gray clay and smashed oak leaves until it resembled oozing boils, had finally washed off.

“Yes,” Mr. Ffalkes continued, “I will continue to guide you. Perhaps you will be content to remain here at Honeymead Manor, Miss Derwent-Jones. Owen much loves the country.”

“I doubt that, Mr. Ffalkes. I doubt that very much.”

“That Owen loves the country? Of a certainty he does.”

She said nothing. She turned and walked back into the manor. Tomorrow she would shriek at him to her heart’s content and then she would order him off her property.

It was Morna, the upstairs maid, who grabbed her sleeve, placed her finger over her lips, and hissed in her ear, “Come, miss, quickly, quickly!” She ran after Morna down the long first-floor hallway to the small estate room tucked at the rear of the manor, a quite ugly chamber that she avoided because it reminded her of too many men grown tedious and dull over the generations, all of them pondering and brooding in this room, doubtless worried about their groats.

The door wasn’t quite closed. Morna nodded to her and gently shoved her closer. It was then she heard Owen’s voice low and clear. “Please listen to me, Father. I know you want me to marry her. You’ve wanted it all along, but just listen to me this once. Caroline isn’t an easy girl. She’s stubborn. She is well used to doing just as she pleases. She doesn’t dislike me but she thinks me a fool. She won’t agree to marry me. I’ve told you that again and again. She won’t change toward me.”

“Yes,” Mr. Ffalkes said finally. “You have mucked it right and proper, Owen.”

She stopped cold and leaned against the crack in the door. She could hear Morna breathing rapidly behind her.

“I can’t very well rape her,” Owen said, sounding as petulant and sulky as a child, as he always did around his father.

“Why the devil not?”

There was complete silence, then Owen said slowly, “She is very strong. You know her well enough by now. She tries to jest her way out of things, but I know that if she had to, she’d fight me and I would have to hurt her, even tie her down to get it done.”

“And?”

“And what, sir? I don’t even know if I could manage to do it.”

“You mean to tell me that my only son would be unable to perform his manly duty?”

“It would be touch and go.”

“You have disappointed me, Owen. On the other hand, you are quite right. She’s a spoiled, arrogant bitch, a haughty creature who needs to learn who is master here. She distrusts me and thus she distrusts you. It’s a pity, but there’s no hope for it, then.” She heard Mr. Ffalkes draw
in a deep breath. “Very well, I will take her. She will marry me.”

“Good God, sir, Caroline as my stepmother? She’s not even nineteen!”

“She is a grown woman. Many girls have babes by the time they are her age.”

“That’s frightening. She’s not even motherly. She’s younger than I am. She’s very strong, sir.”

“So am I. What’s more, my son, I would enjoy that particular manly duty. I am not too old to perform it. I should delight in performing it again and again on her. I am also more crafty than she will ever be. She tried to outsmart me just this morning, but I turned it all about on her and left her looking like a fool. Don’t worry. She will be at my mercy. I will tie her down with no compunction at all. I will take her until she agrees to wed me and then I will take her until she is with child. Yes, that is the way it will be. Then she’ll be quite motherly, you’ll see, my boy. Should you like a little half brother?”

“I don’t know, sir. Can’t you just give her the inheritance and we’ll leave?”

“No, I cannot. I won’t. I need that money, Owen. I’ve kept her fortune wonderfully intact, all legal and right and tight, waiting for her damned birthday. Now that it’s nearly here you expect me to turn tail and leave? Don’t you want that new hunter Bittington is selling? Yes, I can see well enough that you do. Well then, boy, if you can’t get it done, then I must do it. Enough now.”

It was more than enough. She turned, realizing that Morna was standing there, just staring at her, her face flushed with anger. Caroline had never seen Morna angry in her life. She nodded, took Morna’s hand, and ran back up the stairs. She would have to leave, there was no other option now. Mrs. Tailstrop wouldn’t do a thing. It was Mr. Ffalkes who paid
her salary. She was on her own. The money would be hers regardless of whether she was here at Honeymead Manor or in Russia. But would she be safe from Mr. Ffalkes when she returned to claim her inheritance?

What she needed was a gun. Barring a gun, she needed a man who was ruthless and smarter than Mr. Ffalkes and would agree to protect her with his life, given enough of her money.

Where was Mr. Duncan when she needed him?

T
HE DOWNSTAIRS CLOCK
began its twelve long, deep strokes that resounded throughout the manor. Over the years the booming strikes had become simply night sounds that didn’t rouse anyone, even Mrs. Tailstrop’s annoying pug Lucy. Except this night Caroline was wide awake, listening, waiting, wound as tightly as that clock, only she couldn’t toll or chime or make any noise at all.

When Mr. Ffalkes finally came into view in the entrance hall below, she slipped away from her hidey-hole behind a statue of Aristotle at the top of the landing and ran back into her bedchamber, carefully locking the door. She stood there, silent as the night sky, waiting, waiting. Soon she heard his heavy footfalls coming down the long corridor, closer and closer. He stopped. She could picture him reaching out his hand, but when the knob turned slowly, soundlessly, she jumped even though she’d expected it. She sucked in her breath and held herself very still. The knob turned again and again until he realized that the door was locked. She heard him curse. Then she heard nothing.

She could picture him just standing there, wondering what to do. She knew he wasn’t stupid; he’d do something. He knocked, several quiet knocks, saying, his voice as smooth as the seedless strawberry jam Cook made just that morning, “Dear Miss Derwent-Jones? It is I, my dear, do let me in. I must speak to you. It’s about your inheritance, and a serious matter. Let me in. Come now, let’s have no fuss about
this. It really is to your advantage to speak to me.”

Ha, she thought. Letting him into her bedchamber would be like welcoming Napoleon to Whitehall. She said absolutely nothing, just waited, her face pressed to the door, waiting for him to go away, which he did after several more moments that seemed to stretch longer than the time her mother had wrapped a string around the doorknob to pull one of Caroline’s baby teeth many years before.

Finally, she thought, finally he had given up. She forced herself to stay still for another five minutes, surely enough time for him to be in his bedchamber, three rooms down the corridor, and prepare himself for bed. Then she pulled her valise from beneath her bed, pulled on stout walking boots, and slung her blue velvet cloak over her shoulders. Very slowly she turned the key in the lock, then just as slowly turned the knob. The door opened slowly. She slipped through and stared up and down the corridor. She saw nothing but shadows, night shadows she’d known all her life.

She turned and walked quickly toward the central staircase, her boots making not a single sound. When an arm went around her, jerking her back, she opened her mouth to scream, but then a big palm was flattened against her teeth and she knew he’d again outsmarted her. She felt his hot breath against her ear, felt his arm tighten hard across her ribs, squeezing the breath from her.

“Now, you little bitch, not a sound from you. You believed you’d dupe me, did you? No one beats me, no one, certainly not an arrogant little girl. Now, you and I will take a walk. We will celebrate your birthday, fear not, and my gift to you will be my seed. You will like being married to me, Miss Derwent-Jones, and if you don’t, well, I will have your money and it won’t matter. I do suggest that you not struggle, that you accept your future, for it is upon you, yes it is.”

She bit down hard on his hand. She heard him suck in his breath, felt a moment of sheer pleasure, until he whirled her about and struck her jaw hard with his fist. She crumbled where she stood.

The throbbing pain in her jaw brought her back. Her eyes opened and she blinked. There was only the flame from one small candle on a rickety wooden table near her. The rest of the chamber was in darkness. She tried to sit up but realized quickly enough that her hands were tied above her head to the slats of a narrow bed that didn’t smell too clean.

“Well, you’re awake. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, but you deserved it. Think of it as a lesson, one that will be repeated whenever you fail to obey me with proper dispatch and eagerness. Your jaw isn’t broken, I’ve already felt it. Now, my dear, you are nineteen years old. You have come into your inheritance and you will shortly marry. What do you think?”

“I think you’re quite mad.”

“Then you can spend a lot of time on your knees praying our children won’t inherit the madness. Ah, yes, there will be children, my dear, as many as I can plant in your belly. I plan to keep you pregnant. A big belly tends to keep a woman lumbering along slowly, all her attention on the babe, on all her little aches and pains. It keeps her silent. Who knows? After birthing a good dozen children perhaps you’ll turn into a model wife. I doubt it, but who can say for sure?”

“Where did you get that idiot bit of wisdom?”

He just smiled and sat down beside her on the narrow bed. She froze and he saw it and smiled more widely. “I know you’re afraid, though you’ll try your best not to show it to me. You’re like your father in that. I remember when we were boys how he led the rest of us into trouble that made his parents’ hair rise off their necks, but he tried
desperately never to show fear; he scoffed at any of us who did. So I know you’re terrified, no use in your trying to hide it. Scream and cry if you like. I care not. Actually it would add spice to our proceedings. No one will hear you. No one will come to your aid. Now, shall we get on with our fleshly revels?”

“I think you’d best wait a moment, Mr. Ffalkes.”

“My name is Roland. Since you will be my wife shortly, I think it appropriate for you to call me by my given name. I now give you my permission to do so.”

“I will call you fool. No, old fool. That surely fits you the best.”

He struck her cheek with his open palm. The sharp, stinging heat of the blow made her gasp, but even that she managed to hold in. No, she wouldn’t show him fear, but dear God it was difficult, so very difficult.