The Wyndham Legacy (3 page)

It began to rain, now just a drizzle, but the Duchess knew the signs. Before long, the drizzle would become sheets of slamming slate-gray water, driven against the windows by a fierce wind blowing off the Channel.

Even though he had deserted her now, she had to admit that her father had supported her mother and her for eighteen years, and her mother two years before she'd been born even. She had been like his wife, only, of course, she wasn't, she was just his mistress, with no legal rights, no recourse, nothing. But now that her mother was dead, she supposed she might as well be dead too, for he no longer felt any responsibility toward her, no longer had to pretend liking toward her. He'd probably decided that since she was eighteen, it was now her responsibility to see to herself. But why had he bothered to lie to her? Why had he told her that she was coming to Chase Park? It had been a lie, but why, she couldn't begin to imagine. All she knew was that she was utterly alone. Mama had no one, as far as she knew, at least there were never any letters, never any presents at Christmas from relatives of her mother's. She assumed they were Cochranes, surely that was her mother's name after all and not some tawdry made-up name. No, there couldn't be any brothers or sisters or aunts. It had always been just the two of them and the frequent visits from the earl.

The rain cascaded against the window. She wondered what she would do. Her mother's solicitor had told her in that sniggering way of his, for he knew well that her mother wasn't the widow she always pretended she was, but a nobleman's mistress, kept in this little love nest of a cottage, that the love nest was leased, the bills paid by the earl's man of business in London, and that the lease was ended by the fifteenth of the next month. The way he'd treated her made her feel dirty, but more than dirty, she'd felt incredible anger. He all but told her that she was no better than her mother, and pray, what was wrong with her loving, beautiful mother? But she knew the answer to that, she simply shied away from it as she always did. At least she hadn't allowed him to make his insulting offer of another love nest, this one paid for by him.

She rose slowly, shivering in the sudden damp chill of the late afternoon. The fire was dying down. It was growing colder by the minute. She rose, carefully placed more logs on the fire, then began to pace the small room, lightly slapping her hands against her arms for warmth. She knew she had to do something, but what? She had no skills at governessing or being an old lady's companion or even creating a stylish bonnet. She'd been raised as a gentlewoman, thus her only talents lay in her ability to please a man, all with the goal of finding a husband who would overlook her unfortunate antecedents.

She paced and paced, feeling infinitely bitter, then wanting to cry, for her mother was dead, her beautiful mother who had loved the earl probably more than she had loved her daughter, loved him even more than she'd hated the position in which he'd placed her.

Mr. Jollis had bragged how he knew society better than she. Her eyes narrowed now at that impertinence. She'd poured over the
London Times
and the
Gazette
since the age of ten, devouring all the goings-on of society, laughing at their seemingly endless foibles and acts of idiocy, their disregard of the most minimal restraints. Yes, she
knew society and their ways, and as she thought about it, she realized that she did have one talent, but she'd never really considered it as a way to earn a living—she'd never had to.

She stopped in her tracks, staring unseeing at the thick slabs of rain pounding against the drawing room window. Yes, she had a talent, an unusual talent, certainly a talent never recognized as being possible in a female. Was it possible? She would have to discuss it with Badger. If there was a way to make money at it, why then, he would know how it would be done.

As she walked up the charming but narrow stairway upstairs to her bedchamber, she smiled for the first time since her mother's death.

M
R
. C
RITTAKER DIDN
'
T
like what he was about to do, but he had no choice, none at all. He was markedly pale, his breathing shallow. He raised his hand, paused a moment as he thought of possible disastrous consequences, got a grip on himself, and finally knocked on the library door. It was late, very late, and Mr. Crittaker knew that this was a gross imposition on his lordship, but he had to tell him what he'd done, or more to the point, what he'd forgotten to do.

There was no answer. Mr. Crittaker knocked again, louder this time.

Finally, an irritated voice called out, “All right, come in before you bruise your damned knuckles.”

The earl of Chase was standing in front of the pink-veined Carrara marble fireplace that was the showpiece of the Wyndham library, despite the three walls of bookcases that went up some twenty-two feet and held more than ten thousand tomes. It was a beautiful room, not overly large so that one's voice echoed, but still overwhelming in its dark magnificence. Mr. Crittaker looked toward the desk that backed against the one wall that held a huge set of glass doors. There was a lit candle on the desk, but the chair was empty. He saw the earl standing in front of the fireplace. He appeared to be doing naught of anything, save standing there warming himself. Still, it was near to midnight.

“What is it, Crittaker? Didn't you work me enough all day? I had to scrub to get all the damned ink off my fingers from signing those interminable papers. Well, man, speak up. What new crisis besets me now?”

“My lord,” Mr. Crittaker began, not really knowing how to confess his sin, not really knowing if the earl would merely chastise him verbally or boot him out into the March snowstorm. He cleared his throat and began again. This time, he simply blurted it out. “My lord, by all that's holy, I forgot Miss Cochrane!”

The earl just stared at him, obviously at a loss. He said finally, slowly, “Miss Cochrane?”

“Yes, my lord. Miss Cochrane.”

“Who is Miss Cochrane?”

“The Duchess, my lord. I forgot her, sir. Her mother died and, well, then your uncle died, and I, well, in all the preparation for your arrival, I, ah, forgot her.”

The VIII earl of Chase continued to stare at his now-dead uncle's secretary, now his. “You forgot the Duchess? Her mother died? When, man? My God, how long ago was this?” Then he waved Mr. Crittaker to a seat. “Come here and tell me the entire story and don't leave out any details.”

Mr. Crittaker, heartened that he mightn't be cast out into the frigid night by the easiness of the earl's deep voice, came forward and said, “Your uncle's, er—”

“His mistress,” the earl said sharply. “His twenty-year mistress. Yes, what about his mistress?”

“Yes, his mistress, Mrs. Cochrane, she was killed in a carriage accident. Your uncle immediately told me to write to Miss Cochrane to tell her to be packed to come live at Chase Park. I wrote to tell her she would be fetched in two weeks.”

“I see,” the earl said. “How many weeks have passed beyond the two weeks, Crittaker?”

“Eight of them, my lord.”

The earl once again simply stared at his secretary. “You
mean that an eighteen-year-old girl has been left alone for two months?”

Mr. Crittaker nodded, so miserable that he wanted to sink into the elegant Aubusson carpet beneath his shoes. “There must be a servant, my lord, surely.”

The earl waved that information away, saying slowly, “I wonder why she didn't write my uncle to ask him why he hadn't sent a carriage for her?”

Mr. Crittaker didn't have to pause at all, just said, more miserable now than he had been just the moment before, “She must have believed that your uncle no longer wanted her since her mother had died. He never treated her with any affection when she was here, my lord, on her yearly visits. How he treated her when he visited her mother at Rosebud Cottage, I don't know. No, she wouldn't have said a word to your uncle. She's very proud, my lord. You know that. She's the Duchess.”

“Or perhaps her letter never arrived, or it did arrive and you simply misplaced it, Crittaker.”

Mr. Crittaker could hear the howling wind outside. He thought again of standing in the blowing snow with naught but his greatcoat for protection. He was forced to admit, “It is possible, my lord, but I trust, indeed, I pray, that such a thing didn't occur.”

The earl cursed heartily and at great detailed length. Mr. Crittaker was impressed, but was wise enough not to compliment his lordship on his fluency. His lordship had been a major in the army, selling out only six weeks earlier when he'd come to take his place as the VIII earl of Chase.

The earl finally ran himself out of verbal bile. He said, “How is it that you just now remembered the Duchess?”

Mr. Crittaker tugged at his cravat, a somber creation that immediately unfastened itself with his pulling. “It was Mr. Spears who remembered.”

“Spears,” the earl repeated, then smiled. “My uncle's valet, now mine, reminded you about the Duchess?”

“Mr. Spears took a liking to her when she was just a little mite, that's what he called her,” Mr. Crittaker said. “It occurred to Mr. Spears that something might have ‘slipped through the crevices,' as he phrased it, my lord. He had believed that Miss Cochrane was perhaps in London at his lordship's behest, but of course she wasn't, but Mr. Spears couldn't have known that.”

“I see,” the earl said, and appeared to withdraw himself into deep thought. Mr. Crittaker didn't move. He wanted to pull on his ear, a habit he'd had since boyhood, and it took all his concentration to keep his hands at his sides.

The earl said finally, “It appears I must make a short trip into Sussex. I will leave in the morning and fetch Miss Cochrane back with me.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“Oh, Crittaker, your cravat is a mess. Also,” the earl's voice dropped markedly, “if something has happened to Miss Cochrane, you will be finding yourself a new employment.”

The earl continued his perusal of the glowing embers in the fireplace, kicking one with the toe of his boot.

Forgotten! Good God, Crittaker had simply forgotten her. It froze his blood to think of the Duchess alone and unprotected for two damned months. On the other hand, he'd not given her a thought either, nor for that matter, had anyone in the house save for Spears. Marcus hadn't seen her in five years, not since that long ago summer when his two male cousins had drowned in a boating race. He wondered if she'd grown as beautiful as he'd believed she would then.

Not that it mattered. She was his bastard cousin. But he owed it to his uncle to see that she was taken care of. What would he do with her? Ah, that was the question.

 

The Duchess was the topic of conversation the following afternoon in the snug and very cozy Green Cube Room at Chase Park.

“The Duchess,” Aunt Gweneth said in the general direction of the Twins, speaking in her precise way, for she always prided herself on her enunciation, “is quite the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”

“But you haven't seen many girls at all, beautiful or otherwise, Aunt Gweneth,” Antonia said, looking up from her Mrs. Radcliffe novel. “You've never ventured beyond York. However, I do hope she's all right. How perfectly awful to be forgotten. She must be very hurt.”

“Marcus will take care of her,” Fanny said. “He can do anything. Yes, he will make her feel better about her being forgotten. I would I could have gone with him. I could have kept his spirits up.”

“I do wish you would get over your unfortunate infatuation with your cousin,” Aunt Gweneth said, looking up at Fanny. She thought of the new earl, Reed Wyndham's only son, now the earl of Chase. And he'd been in the fighting in the Peninsula! He could easily have been butchered by those damned French, or by those guerrillas that seemed to abound in Marcus's few letters to his uncle over the past three years. But he'd survived, thank God, even though she doubted that James had thanked anyone heavenward. So many dead babes, so very many, and all of them male. She would have sworn to anyone who had bothered to ask her that her brother would remarry the day after the countess had been placed reverently in the Wyndham family tomb, the primary consideration being whether the girl was likely to be a good breeder. But given the opportunity, he hadn't remarried, to her great surprise, and now he was dead.

She would give Marcus credit for the consideration he'd shown his twin cousins and her. He had, in truth, surprised her greatly, for in her experience, gentlemen had the sensitivity of toads. She would also allow that Marcus was a handsome man, had much of the look of his uncle, with his thick dark brown hair and heavily lashed blue eyes. Ah, and that chin of his, stubborn as a demented mule, at least that had been what it depicted in James. In Marcus? She
remembered James referring to Marcus as the devil's own son, and smiling slightly. She sighed. They still all had yet to see either the limits of his good nature or the depths of his irritation. He was taller than his uncle, towering over even Spears, his uncle's valet, who had consented, his voice at its driest, to take over, and doubtless improve upon, the appearance of the new earl. Spears, Gweneth had heard Sampson say, believed the new lordship to have a good amount of potential and grit, the latter commodity something he would have dire need of.

He'd only been here at Chase Park for four weeks now, having left his widowed mother in Lower Slaughter where she refused to budge from Cranford Manor. He was the head of the Wyndham family, this new earl who still couldn't seem to remember to answer to “Chase” rather than simply “Marcus Wyndham,” only son of a second son with no particular prospects for anything save a life in the military. Life was uncertain, Gweneth thought, and served up wretchedly unexpected dishes on one's plate.

“I am not infatuated with him,” Fanny said as she poked her needle through a piece of very poorly stitched embroidery, whose dubious platitude would be eventually rendered as
Home and Heaven.
“It is just that he is wonderful. He has been very kind, Aunt, even you admit that, and you remember how Papa always went on and on about how Marcus didn't have pure blood, whatever that means.”

“Marcus does have pure blood, Fanny,” Gweneth said, her voice sharp. “It's just that it isn't your papa's blood, such a pity.”

“I hope nothing is wrong with the Duchess,” Antonia said, oblivious of almost everything except her novel, effectively camouflaged by a tome of Dr. Edwards's
Daily Sermons.
“Two months alone. You don't think she went back to Holland, do you, Aunt Gweneth?”

Her twin sister, Fanny, identical down to the split thumbnail on her right hand, put down her embroidery, and said, “If Papa were alive, he would have provided her a Season
in London to find a husband. He would have provided her with a dowry. Do you think she went back to Italy, Aunt Gweneth? She isn't from Holland, Antonia.”

Aunt Gweneth shook her head, even as she said, pain and anger deep in her voice, “Your papa was most unfortunate in his choice of mounts. The brute killed him.”

“The brute was his only mount for eight years, Aunt,” Fanny said. Her lower lip trembled as she added, “Papa loved that horse. I remember once when it started raining and he took care of his horse before he took care of Antonia and me.”

Gweneth didn't doubt that her brother had done exactly that, not for a moment. He rode to the hounds all the time, and took risks that made even Spears raise an eyebrow, but nothing had ever happened to him, not even a fall, until six weeks ago. He'd turned in his saddle to shout insults to a long-time friend riding behind him when he struck his head on a low-hanging branch of an oak tree—since cut down in a spate of reprisal—knocking him off his horse, killing him instantly.

Within three weeks of the fatal accident, Marcus, twenty-three years old, stationed in the Peninsula with his army battalion, was informed that he was the new earl of Chase. The VIII earl of Chase. Gweneth wondered if Marcus still felt like he was walking in his uncle's shoes, treading down his uncle's huge ornate central staircase, gliding across his uncle's rich Turkey carpets—in short, if he still felt like an intruder.

“I wonder if Marcus will give the Duchess a dowry and a Season to find a husband,” Fanny said as she rose, shook out her skirts, and walked to fetch a scone from an exquisitely formed silver tray service.

Antonia snorted. “She doesn't need a dowry, just a chance for the gentlemen to see her. All of them will be on their knees, begging for her hand in marriage. This heroine in Mrs. Radcliffe's novel is ever so beautiful and kind and sweet and good, but she's as poor as a church mouse. There
are already three gentlemen who hold their hands over their hearts when she passes by.”

What drivel, Gweneth thought. If there was ever a gentleman with his hand over his chest, it wasn't from undying love but from indigestion after imbibing too much brandy. “Fanny, you will eat just one scone and when you chew on it, don't converse with us. Maggie remarked to me the other day that your gowns were getting a bit snug around your waist. You and Antonia are near an age where you should begin shedding your baby fat, not anchoring it on. As for you, Antonia, I sincerely doubt that Dr. Edwards's sermons include gentlemen eyeing young ladies. Mrs. Radcliffe, indeed. Your mama wouldn't have liked that at all.”