The Escape by Mary Balogh
9
Alittle over a week later, the carriage that had conveyed Matilda to Leyland Abbey returned to Bramble Hall, driven by a different coachman, with different outriders accompanying it. Samantha recognized the coachman from five years ago, but the other men were strangers to her. They were all large, burly men, as servants hired to guard travelers often were. They all also seemed particularly surly of disposition. That was what working for the Earl of Heathmoor did to people, Samantha thought. One of them handed her a letter that bore the earl’s seal.
She took it from him and felt immediately chilled. She did not want any more dealings with Matthew’s family, and this was hardly going to be a friendly missive. And why had other servants returned in place of the ones who had gone with Matilda? She took the letter into the sitting room and closed the door. She shooed Tramp off her favorite chair, upon which he was strictly forbidden to take up his abode—just as he had been strictly forbidden to enter the house once upon a time—and seated herself there in his place.
She did not want to break the seal on the letter. She had been feeling reasonably happy of late. She had friendly acquaintances. She had places to go, things to do while all the time preserving her respectability and her obligation to be in mourning for what remained of the year. She did not want to be plunged back into gloom and guilt. For one moment she considered tossing the note on the fire and forgetting about it. Matthew would have done just that. But the trouble was that she would not forget it. It would be better to read it now and then somehow put it out of her mind.
She broke the seal with a terrible sense of foreboding.
She read the letter through without stopping and then bent her head over her lap and shut her eyes very tightly. After a few moments she could hear Tramp panting nearby and could smell his less-than-sweet breath. A cold, wet nose nudged at her hand and he whined. She set her hand on his head.
“Tramp,” she said.
He licked her face and whined again, in obvious distress.
“Oh, Tramp.”
Stunned despair at the unexpectedness of it all engulfed her. The Earl of Heathmoor was displeased by the scandalous goings-on of his daughter-in-law as reported to him by Lady Matilida. That was hardly a surprise. Neither was the long-winded eloquence with which he chastised her. It was the punishment that made her feel rather as if she had been punched hard in the stomach, though he did not call it punishment. If his daughter-in-law did not know how to behave without the firm guiding hand of a man, and clearly she did not, then he must insist upon her removing to Leyland Abbey without delay. There he would himself impose the necessary discipline to halt the wayward behavior that would surely bring censure and even ruin upon the good name of his family if allowed to continue.
If there had been no more than that, Samantha might well have burned the letter after all and dealt with her seething wrath as best she was able. But there was more.
For of course—oh, foolish, foolish, foolish of her to have relied upon Matthew’s expectations—Bramble Hall was not hers. It had never been made over to Matthew, and if it had been willed to him, the bequest meant nothing when he had died before his father. The house belonged, with all its furnishings and all its servants, to the Earl of Heathmoor, and now, his second son being deceased and his son’s widow not to be trusted to remain here and uphold his good name, he was sending his third son to live here. Rudolph and his wife, Patience, would arrive to take up residence within a fortnight. The house would be made ready for them during the intervening weeks. The earl’s head coachman and his head groom, with other trusted servants, had been given instructions to convey Samantha to Leyland with just one day of rest between their arrival at Bramble Hall and their departure. She would make herself ready to accompany them.
He made them sound like jailers. They looked like jailers.
“Tramp,” she said, “why did I not see this coming? Am I an utter idiot? I never dreamed. I thought he would be happy to leave me here, out of sight and out of mind.”
For a few moments she sat with tightly clenched eyes while he whined and licked her face again. Then she lifted her head and gazed into his mournful eyes only inches from her own.
“I would rather kill myself than live at Leyland Abbey again,” she told him. It was only just an exaggeration.
She got abruptly to her feet and paced the room, the letter still clutched in one hand. Whatever was she to do? She would be swallowed whole if she went to Leyland. She would never be free. But what was the alternative? She had never had to consider any. Matthew had assured her that she would have a home here for the rest of her life, and she had believed him. Oh, she ought to have known …
She stopped pacing after a while and clutched the windowsill with her free hand to prevent herself from falling. She inhaled and then found it impossible to exhale until the breath shuddered out of her in slow, jerky spurts, and then she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe in again. Her vision blackened about the edges. And then air wheezed in again. She willed herself to wake up. Right now this minute. This had to be a nightmare. But of course it was not.
She had to get out of the house, from which some force had surely sucked most of the air. The ceiling was pressing down upon the top of her head. And the house was no longer hers in any way at all. Rudolph and Patience would be here within two weeks. She turned and ran upstairs for her bonnet and cloak and outdoor shoes, Tramp thumping along at her heels.
The garden did not have enough air either. She strode along the side path without hesitating and out through the gate and along the lane beyond it until she saw a cart swaying beneath a large load of hay coming in her direction. She struck out across a field and then over a meadow—the very one in which she had met Sir Benedict Harper once upon a long time ago.
Robland Park was still a fair distance away, but she knew suddenly that it was her destination, that it had been from the start. No one could help her, but she needed the company of a friend, and Lady Gramley was the closest thing to a friend she had had for many years.
She strode onward, Tramp frisking at her heels and occasionally dashing off in pursuit of some wild creature more fleet of foot than he and therefore not at all timid about showing its head. He never learned that lesson, poor, foolish dog.
Whatever would become of him? He would certainly not be allowed to accompany her to Leyland Abbey.
Oh, she would die if she was torn away from him. Surely she would.
Samantha was not the only person in the neighborhood to have received a letter of some significance that morning. Both Ben and Beatrice had received one too. Their letters were beside their plates as they sat down to breakfast.
Beatrice’s letter was from her husband’s sister, fifteen years younger than he. Caroline, Lady Vere, was in imminent expectation of the birth of her first child and had been impatiently awaiting the arrival of her mother-in-law to help her through the ordeal of the confinement. But that lady had recently taken to her bed with some unnamed disorder of the nerves, and Caroline begged Beatrice, in closely crossed lines and with what seemed like near hysteria, to please come in her stead, since Vere very nearly had a fit of the vapors every time anyone so much as touched upon the coming event in his hearing and there was no one else to whom she could turn except her old nurse, who always scolded so and whose hands shook with some sort of palsy.
“I had hoped to spend at least another week or two at home before going to London,” Beatrice told Ben with a sigh after sharing with him the contents of her letter. “Now it seems I must set off for Berkshire without further ado—today if at all possible. I could be there the day after tomorrow if there are no unexpected delays. I would not put poor Caroline through the terror of being alone except for her apology for a husband and a nurse who has always terrorized her. Men are always useless under such circumstances, you know, especially the expectant father himself, who always entertains the illusion that he is the great sufferer at the very heart of the crisis.”
“Then you must go,” Ben said, laughing.
“But what about you?” she asked with a frown. “I cannot expect you to remove yourself from Robland at a moment’s notice when I specifically invited you here to keep me company. You are welcome to stay on alone, of course, but it seems very inhospitable of me to abandon you.”
“I will not hold it against you,” he assured her, “since Lady Vere’s need of your company appears to be greater than mine. I shall be perfectly comfortable here on my own, Bea. And I daresay I will be off myself within a week at the longest.”
“To Kenelston?” she asked hopefully.
“Still not to Kenelston,” he said. “Probably to Scotland. I have never been there, you know. It is reputed to be very scenic and beautiful, as are Ireland and Wales and numerous parts of England. Perhaps eventually, when my adoring public is begging for more books, I will even venture abroad.”
“And never settle down, I suppose,” she said, still frowning. “Has it not occurred to you, Benedict, that that is the whole cause of your restlessness?”
“Not settling down? It is a somewhat obvious conclusion, I suppose,” he admitted. “If I were settled, I would not be restless. If I am restless, I cannot be settled.”
“I should know better by now,” she said, getting to her feet after setting her napkin across her plate, “than to try to discuss your personal affairs with you.”
“Alas,” he said, “I have no affairs to discuss.”
“Ah, these double meanings,” she said. “Who invented the English language, I wonder? He did not do a stellar job of it, whoever he was.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “he was a she.”
She gave a bark of laughter. “On the assumption that women are by nature muddleheaded? I cannot stay to argue. I must get busy if I am to leave as close to noon as possible. The bulk of my things can be sent directly to London in a few weeks’ time, of course.”
Ben reread his own letter after she had left the breakfast parlor. It was from Hugo Emes, Lord Trentham, one of his fellow Survivors. Hugo was getting married, to Lady Muir. Ben was genuinely pleased at the news. He had wondered if Hugo would go after her when they all left Penderris. She had sprained her ankle down on the beach when they were all staying in Cornwall, and Hugo had found her and carried her up to the house like the brawny giant he was, scowling all the way, Ben did not doubt. He had fallen head-over-ears in love with her, as she had with him, if Ben was any judge of female sensibilities. But Hugo had felt restrained by the fact that though titled and enormously wealthy, he was a man of middle-class origin, while she was the sister of the Earl of Kilbourne and the widow of a viscount. And so he had let her go without a fight, the idiot, when her brother came to fetch her a few days later. Obviously, though, he had gone after her. They were to be married at St. George’s on Hanover Square in London.
The letter was an invitation to the wedding, though Hugo did not hold high expectations of Ben’s being there.
I did not have Lady Gramley’s direction, he had written, and neither did anyone else. I wrote to Kenelston for it, but by the time your brother’s reply reached me, far too much time had passed and it seems impossible that you could be here even if you felt inclined to tear across half the country just for my nuptials. Imogen is coming from Cornwall, though, and Flavian, Ralph, and George are already here. I have not heard from Vincent yet.
Ben felt a longing to be there too, even if it was London. It looked as if he might be the only one of the Survivors not to attend Hugo’s wedding. And he was the first of them to marry. Was he also the only one who ever would? They all liked to think they were healed and ready to take on the world again, but in truth they were a deeply damaged lot. Not that self-pity was their besetting sin. They had all fought hard against that particular trait.
The wedding was in a week’s time. He could get there for it if he set out without delay. The lure of seeing them all again when they had parted not so long ago, not expecting to be together again until next year, was almost overwhelming. And they would be gathering for a happy event. It really was happy. Ben had liked Lady Muir very well indeed, and it had seemed to him that she and Hugo were perfect for each other despite the obvious differences of social status and temperament.
For a moment he felt a wave of envy. It was not jealousy. He had not fancied Lady Muir himself. It was just envy that two worthy people had found each other and connected with each other’s heart, for undoubtedly it was a love match. And so they would marry and settle to a lifetime of shared passion.
Perhaps he would go, Ben decided. Not today, though. There would be too much chaos if both he and Beatrice were preparing for a hasty departure. He could still arrive in time if he left tomorrow morning, though it would mean traveling in longer stages than he found comfortable. He would not need to stay in town for long, just long enough for the wedding and a leisurely visit with his friends. He could still go to Scotland after leaving there, making his slow, meandering way back north, writing down his impressions as he went.
Was it absurd to imagine that he could write? It probably was, but he could at least try. He had to do something.
Beatrice left just before one o’clock. Ben waved her on her way and smiled at the sight of her traveling carriage piled high with baggage while more followed in a smaller conveyance. And the bulk of her belongings were to follow her to London?
He went back inside and upstairs to the room adjoining his own where he did his daily exercises.
He had made the definite decision by the time he was finished that he would go to London, that he would surprise Hugo by turning up at the last minute to make their number complete, assuming, that was, that Vincent was going. Partly, he knew, it was procrastination that drove him. Although the idea of setting out for a tour of Scotland excited him in the abstract, the prospect of actually setting out alone, no particular destination in mind, was less appealing. Perhaps Ralph or Flavian could be persuaded to join him. Or even Vince. It might be interesting to add the observations of a blind traveler to his book.
He was coming out of his room after washing and changing out of his sweaty exercise clothes when he heard the sound of voices in the hall downstairs. Beatrice’s butler was informing someone that her ladyship was not at home.
“Oh,” the other person said. And, after a pause, “When do you expect her back?”
It was a woman’s voice. Mrs. McKay’s. Ben prepared to step back into his room, where his valet was beginning to pack his bags. He had done a successful job in the past few weeks of avoiding her, of avoiding causing her any gossip in the neighborhood, for that was what it would have come to if he had continued to call upon her.
“She has gone away, ma’am,” the butler explained, “and will not be back until the summer.”
“Oh.” Somehow there was a world of flatness in the single syllable.
Ben hesitated, his hand on the knob of his door.
“Should I see if Sir Benedict is at home, ma’am?” the butler asked.
Ben frowned and shook his head.
“Oh,” she said, “I do not know. No, perhaps I ought to …”
This had not been intended as a social visit. Something in her voice told Ben that. There was distress beneath the flatness of tone.
“Who is it, Rogers?” he called loudly enough to be heard downstairs, and he made his way to the head of the stairs so that he could see for himself.
“It is Mrs. McKay, sir,” the butler told him, “come to call on Lady Gramley.”
The dog was with her. It barked once and wagged its tail at him. Why that wretched hound liked him, he had no idea. Perhaps because he had never kicked him in the chin when that part of his anatomy had rested on Ben’s boot?
She looked up at him. Her dark veil had been tossed back over the brim of her bonnet to reveal a very pale face, even allowing for the fact that black tended to leach color from the skin.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I did not know your sister had gone away. I—I will not disturb you. I am sorry. Come along, Tramp.”
“Did you walk here?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” she said. “We were out for a stroll and I decided on a whim to call here.”
“We certainly will not send you away without any refreshments,” Ben said, beginning the slow descent of the stairs. “Will we, Rogers? Show Mrs. McKay into the small salon, if you please, and have a tray of tea brought there. And some brandy.”
“I—” She did not finish what she had started to say. “Thank you. I will just drink a cup of tea and be on my way. I am sorry for being a nuisance.”
She was over by the unlit fireplace, removing her bonnet, when Ben entered the room. Her dog ambled over to greet him, his tail wagging and his rear end wiggling. Ben eyed him with disfavor and scratched him beneath his chin.
“I am sorry …” she began.
“Yes,” he said, closing the door behind him. “You have already made that perfectly clear, Mrs. McKay. What has happened?”
He felt resentful. If she had left this until tomorrow, he would have been gone and known nothing about it. She would have been compelled to cope alone with whatever was troubling her.
“Nothing has happened.” She smiled, a sickly expression that reached no higher than her lips. “I did not know Lady Gramley was leaving for London so soon.”
“She is on her way to Berkshire,” he told her, “where Gramley’s sister is expecting to give birth any day. Her mother-in-law was supposed to attend her, but she has been detained by illness. Beatrice left here just after noon, only a few hours after receiving her sister-in-law’s letter. I am sure she is sitting in the carriage at this very moment thinking of all the people here to whom she ought to have dashed off notes of explanation. What is the matter?”
Something clearly was. She was making an effort to appear composed, but she looked as if she might shatter at any moment. And she was still standing.
“Nothing.”
The door opened behind Ben, and a footman set down a large tray. Ben bent over it and poured a little brandy into a glass. He carried it across the room to her, supporting himself with just one of his canes.
“Drink this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Brandy,” he said. “Sit down and drink it. I daresay your walk has chilled you.”
“I did not notice,” she said as she half collapsed onto a sofa.
“Drink it.”
She took the glass, sipped the brandy, and made a face.
“Toss it back,” he told her.
She did so and coughed and sputtered. “Oh, that is vile.”
“Pay attention to the aftereffects, though,” he told her.
She closed her eyes briefly. Her cheeks gained some color.
“He is throwing me out of Bramble Hall,” she said, “and sending his son to live there.”
She had not made her meaning at all clear, but it did not take much effort to decipher it anyway. He took the empty glass from her hand and returned it to the tray. He poured a cup of tea and carried it across to her.
Hewas presumably the Earl of Heathmoor.
