The Tide Watchers (48 page)

The captain said something about meeting the admirals in Portsmouth.

“My lord, we must transfer to my ship. My wife needs to get to Norfolk. Her mother's ill,” she heard Duncan saying, but as if through water; a rushing sound overtook it. Duncan put his good arm around her.

She looked at Duncan. “I want my mother,” she whispered, and coughed again.

“A damned little heroine” were the last words she heard as she fell asleep standing up.

Lord Nelson is . . . patrolling English waters.
Was that the national hero Admiral Lord Nelson she'd met? Was she really home at last?

Norfolk, England

March 12, 1803

I
N THE HIRED CHAISE
Lisbeth and Duncan sat tense and still, watching the gently rolling hillside roads into the village of Sunderland, north of the greater town of Sandringham.

She didn't remember boarding Duncan's ship, only waking in a hammock in his quarters, by a fire. She remembered being woken to take the new medicine Nelson's doctor gave her two or three times. The next thing she knew Duncan entered the quarters, his right arm in the same kind of double sling she'd worn a few months ago, and gave her more medicine.

They'd docked near King's Lynn. A sailor carried a bath in. Others brought in jugs of hot water, soap, and lavender water, and for twenty minutes she luxuriated in being clean.

Afterward, Duncan brought in a bandbox with a new cinnamon-colored walking dress, a pretty bonnet, satin slippers, and a lovely redingote—even the required three petticoats. He ushered in a woman whom he introduced as Mrs. Margot Bailey, a local dressmaker, honored to help the future Baroness Annersley into her new outfit and dress her hair.

When she was fit to be seen, he'd led Lisbeth out to a near-new post-chaise, well sprung and perfectly comfortable. “We'll be there in an hour and a half. I'll write to my valet and tell him to bring a maid for you when he comes.”

Home.
Unable to speak, she'd nodded, tried to smile.
Mama
. . .

Ninety minutes later the chaise turned the final corner, past the gates and around the great sweeping curve. For the first time in almost
two years, the beloved, eclectic jumble of buildings came into view. The original house was a Plantagenet-era abbey ruined during Henry VIII's dissolution. Every successive owner had made improvements or additions, so the manor was a sprawling jumble of Tudor, Jacobean, Charles, and Queen Anne. When the last scion of the family died, it was sold to Lisbeth's great-great-grandfather. The messy pile of stone and wood, bricks and mortar amid half-wild rambling gardens.

Never had she seen anything more beautiful. Barton Lynch.
Home.

She drank in every sight and scent as the carriage drove down the drive, with old-growth pines, juniper, and the hedgerows at each side. They stopped outside the front entrance. Footmen emerged from the house and let the stairs down on the chaise. Duncan exited, helping her out with his good hand.

“Miss Lizzy!”

Lisbeth wheeled around. The family butler, Conway, stood in the open doorway, his dear old face ablaze with emotion he couldn't hide. Then, covering his trembling hands, he bowed deeply to her. “Miss Lizzy, I mean Mrs. Aylsham, if I might be so bold to congratulate you on your recent marriage, it's good to see you home.” He turned to Duncan and bowed again. “Commander Aylsham, thank you for bringing Miss Lizzy home to us, sir.”

Duncan bowed his head. “I take it my letter arrived, announcing our marriage.”

“Yes, sir, as did all your other letters. If I might be so bold as to wish you happiness?”

Duncan smiled and clapped a hand on the old retainer's shoulder.

Turning aside, Conway gave orders to a footman before leading the way up the stairs.

“Thank you, Conway. Is my mother well?”

Conway jerked to a stop halfway up a step. Then he turned to her, his eyes holding deep sorrow. “Miss Lizzy . . . Lady Sunderland . . .”

Too late, she noticed the black riband around his arm. Slowly she looked around, saw the black curtains on the windows. She looked at Duncan, the sadness and knowledge in his eyes.

Her father came down the stairs, attired all in black, his face ravaged. “Lizzy . . .”

She swayed. “No.
No.
” Duncan moved to her, but she put an unsteady hand on the stair rail, in a blind need for distance.

Sir Edward sighed. “Your mother held on as long as she could, waiting for you, Lizzy. If she'd known you were coming . . .”

Whirling around, she stared wild-eyed at Duncan. “What did you do with my letters?”

He whitened, reached for her again, but she held herself so stiff he let go. “I sent them, Lizzy, I swear to God I did. If you mentioned anything you shouldn't, the Alien Office—”

“They
opened
my letters? Did you?” she demanded. He was wise enough to remain silent. “You did know she was ill when you recruited me, didn't you?
Didn't
you?”

His face filled with grief and regret. “I'd hoped it wasn't as serious as I feared—” He closed his eyes as she made a mewing sound. “Ah, Lizzy . . .” he muttered, his voice thick.

A rush of sourness filled her throat; with another sound of distress she pushed past Duncan and ran back out through the door.

“She still hasn't spoken?”

Duncan shook his head. “Not a word.”

With whitened hair and eyes dark ringed with sadness and fatigue, for the first time Eddie looked the sixty-one years he was. “Caroline wouldn't forgive me for not writing to Lizzy. She didn't understand the importance of the mission . . .”

Duncan shrugged. Eddie never listened to things he didn't want to hear. But then, had he? She'd warned him . . .

“Try again,” his father-in-law snapped, but the suffering in his eyes took away any sting in the words. “Make her see sense.”

“What sense?” Duncan heard the weariness in his voice. “That
the mission was more important than if she saw her mother again?”

Eddie's jaw tightened. “Don't support her in this ridiculous vengeance—”

“She's
grieving
. Who else does she have to blame but us?
You
blamed her when we arrived, said she ought to have come earlier. You knew what we were doing!”

Eddie looked startled, and Duncan realized he'd never treated his mentor with such contempt. The older man said, “You could have brought her home.”

“You could have come for her a year ago. And don't say fear of Delacorte prevented you. He couldn't stop us for long once we knew the marriage was illegal. All you had to do was approach Boney through legal means. You didn't. You never once wrote to her when you knew where she was. You didn't ask her to come home. It would have meant the world to her.”

He heard Eddie's teeth grinding.

“I've tried to comfort her,” Duncan said quietly. Every day he had to bring her home from her mother's grave, shivering, coughing. Night after night he found her curled in the large wing chair in Caroline's sitting room, her salt-streaked face telling him she'd cried herself to sleep. Though she took the medicines he pushed on her, and let him lead her to bed, her look of fury warned him to find another room to sleep in. “Why don't you try?”

“What do I say? We've all made sacrifices in the game—”

Without warning, Duncan lost control. “Lisbeth was never
in
the game. She was illegally wed, her baby stolen from her, dumped in a town of strangers who despised her. She didn't agree to the mission; she desperately clutched at her only way to get home, only to get here too late.” He stood over Eddie, for the first time realizing how much taller he was. “She's
nineteen,
for God's sake, and she's your daughter. All she knows is her mother died, and we betrayed her trust.”

Eddie sagged. “I've tried to talk to her. Leo and Andrew took turns speaking to her. But she won't even look at us. Something must be done.”

Goaded by the way he spoke, Duncan snapped, “She's not a mission, Eddie. She's hurting, and she needs time to forgive us.” But he didn't know if she could, or would. “Apart from having Edmond, all she talked about in quiet moments together was seeing Caroline again.”

“Well, I'm here, aren't I?” Eddie snapped, “Talk to her, Duncan! She can't keep ignoring us this way.”

“Why is that? Is it only acceptable when you do it?”

Before they'd even turned to the door of the library, Lisbeth was inside. Dressed in a gown of deepest mourning, her hair pulled up in a severe chignon by her mother's maid, she stared her father down, not with fury, but with haunting sorrow. “I'm sorry, Sir Edward. I don't know how to comfort you. I don't know who you are.”

“What did you call me?” After taking a few moments to gather his wits, Eddie said with obvious wariness, “I'm your father.”

“I'm sorry.” She shook her head. “I don't know you. I never knew you.”

Eddie flinched and threw Duncan a helpless look.

“You wanted her to speak.” Coolly, Duncan moved beside his wife, showing her where his loyalties lay—but she stiffened beside him. He'd give anything to turn back the clock a week, a month, and tell her everything.

“You shouldn't speak like that to me,” Eddie faltered at last.

Lisbeth lifted her fingers in a tiny, sad shrug. “Is that all you can say? Shouldn't and don't, and you ought to have taken to me with a birch switch? Would it have made me more the daughter you wanted?”

Eddie drew himself up and focused on the one deflection he could make. “Are you saying I should blame myself for your mistakes? If you'd obeyed me, your father—”

“I remember when I was about eight, I asked Mama who you were.
Papa
was just a word. Every time you left I used to wish you'd never come back. It always hurt her so.”

Eddie's gaze lowered. “Talk to your brothers if you need to blame me. They need you.”

“What should I say to them?” Said without rancor: the power of
her words enough to flay, gentle cat-o'-nine-tails. “When I went to Jeremiah the blacksmith's wife's funeral, I knew what to say to him, because he was my friend. I barely know your sons, sir.”

“Well, get to know them. Duncan knows them well.”

She closed her eyes. “Of course he does.” A river of disillusion in that pitiful little laugh.

After the longest minute of his life, Duncan saw Eddie soften, but it was like the wax of a candle, bent out of shape by callous fingers. “You felt neglected. I see that now, but you don't understand. The terror that the Revolution would come to Britain—that everyone I loved would die horribly—I had to make sacrifices, risk my life. Then Bonaparte—”

“
I
don't understand sacrifice.” She pointed to her scarred cheek, and something in her look chilled Duncan right through. “I have three of these, sir. I nearly died twice.” She turned to him, and Duncan waited in silence for the attack. “Is what I did so trivial that you haven't even reported it to your superior officers?”

A slow-moving tide of sadness, loss—bewildered disillusionment—it was all in her eyes. What the hell was he supposed to say? “I didn't want to leave you—”

Her lifted hand stopped him, the pain in her face. “Please, no more lies. Stop pretending you care. You have everything you wanted—you've won. You're a Sunderland. At least give me the respect of honesty in return.” She pressed her lips together to stop the tears, but they had their way, along with pathetic, noisy little gulps. The men waited in wretched silence. “When Cal and Alec bring my son, I'm going with them to Scotland. Their family sounds nice.” After a moment she added, “I thought I was too ruined to have Edmond—but I can't leave him here. Not without Mama.”

Long moments passed, marked by the ticking of the grandfather clock and the birds tweeting outside. It was obvious Lisbeth had said her piece. “You're certain the Stewarts will bring your child?” Eddie asked, without a bite of mockery.

Lisbeth's smile was a ghost of her normal sweetness and life. The
blind distance was back, familiar enemy. “I've only known them a few months, but Cal has been risking his life for months to save Edmond. Alec did everything to help Duncan, while he made Alec jump through hoops to prove himself worthy.” She glanced at Duncan. “You never need doubt his loyalty to you, Sir Edward. Duncan even said he loved me so I'd fulfill the objective. I congratulate you on your creation. He's just like you.”

Duncan felt sick. All this time he'd bargained on her forgiving him, loving him against all odds. He'd never been more wrong. Long-instilled training in silence when others spoke was a habit now, but he forced words out. “I do love you. I always have.”

She closed her eyes again. “Then God save me from your anger or vengeance.” She spoke to her father. “Cal and Alec will bring Edmond to me. They're the brothers I never had.”

“Lizzy,” Leo whispered, taking a faltering step forward.

The grief in Leo's voice made her swing around. She paled at the sight of her brothers' devastated faces. “I'm sorry.” That same shaking little shrug. “I don't know what you want from me. I only came home for Mama, and she's gone.” Her glance turned to Duncan, hopeless, lost. “Enjoy being a Sunderland.” She lifted her black skirts, moved past her brothers with quiet dignity, and walked outside.

Eddie looked at Duncan, with the same unspoken plea as a year and a half ago. “How many times do I have to bring your daughter home?” Duncan asked, low. “When will you show her you care for her, or tell her you were wrong?”

Eddie fell into a chair behind him and covered his face with his hands.

Barely able to stand seeing the feet of clay Lisbeth had always known were there, Duncan said, “Then you really have lost her.” Sickened, he looked at her brothers, who shrugged helplessly.

He spent the rest of the day at Caroline's grave standing fifty feet from his wife, her unwanted sentinel.