Family Scandals (6 page)

Marcus was stunned. If he hadn’t already finished his drink and put down the glass, he would have dropped it. So much for being a second son with no prospects.

“How? I thought you said that Parliament passed a Bill of Attainder. Doesn’t that mean the title’s tainted?”

“Normally yes,” Brand answered. “But what you have in your hands is the document that repeals the original bill. However, because your grandfather died with no immediately traceable male heirs, the title would have died anyway, giving the Queen the ability to grant it as she saw fit. At Parliament’s urging, she granted it to you.”

Marcus looked at his smiling brother suspiciously. “How much did it cost you?”

“Nothing. Father had already set the wheels in motion before his death. According to his letter to me, even if Michael and I hadn’t disappeared, once he discovered your mother’s background, he would have asked to have the title restored to you, anyway. It was his way of making amends for what he considered to be his part in your grandfather’s unjust prosecution.”

“What happened to the others?”

“What others?”

“You said that there was a group of operatives. After what you just told me, I can’t believe my mother only targeted Papa.”

The smile died abruptly. Brand sighed and ran his hand over his face. Marcus had the distinctly uneasy feeling that Brand was trying to shield him from something truly unpleasant.

“They’re all dead.” Brand’s voice was flat.

“I would imagine so. But tell me the truth, did my mother have anything to do with their deaths?”

“Yes.” That one word seemed forced.

“How many of them?”

Brand hesitated, but seemed to recognize Marcus’s determination.

“All of them,” he responded.

“Including Papa?” Marcus hadn’t wanted to ask the question, but once it surfaced he couldn’t let it go. He had to know how far his mother had been prepared to go in her quest for revenge.

“Yes.” The answer was dragged from Brand.

He sat back in his chair. “I see. Why’d she wait so long?”

Brand took another drink. “She said you needed to be groomed more.”

Marcus was laughing before he caught himself. He wasn’t sure why, except that it suddenly seemed amusing his mother would have quibbled about whether or not he was ready to inherit a dukedom she was willing to kill her own husband for.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head, “but she had to know I wasn’t being groomed at all. Not only did I not want to be groomed, but Papa refused to groom me—especially after that gypsy fortune teller told him you were still alive when I was fifteen.” Marcus mulled the information over for a few minutes. “How much of this is public knowledge?”

“Very little, if any. Anyone who might have known about your grandfather firsthand is likely dead. The members of Parliament aren’t likely to bandy the information about. And the title was restored to you three years ago, so it’s old news now.”

Marcus stared. “Three years ago? Why didn’t you say something in one of your letters?”

“Unlike Father, I thought it was news best delivered in person.”

Marcus had no rejoinder to that. Would he have returned before now if he’d known?

“Father anticipated his death,” Brand said, “with a number of written instructions, all to be carried out after his death. He left no contingency uncovered, including the possibility your mother might attempt to do away with me and Felicia.” Marcus started to say something, but Brand continued. “He left me a letter detailing the events surrounding your grandfather’s situation, explaining why he wanted you to have St. Ayers, and even instructions as to where to bury your mother upon her death.”

“And where was that?”

“Here. She is buried in the family cemetery beside her father. I don’t know how it was done, but someone apparently retrieved your grandfather’s body, brought it here, and had him interred. My guess is that it was one of the operatives. Father’s letter said he was sure at least one of them knew the truth.”

The silence stretched to minutes, Marcus digesting this last bit of information. “Do you still have the letters?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I read them?”

A fleeting smile touched Brand’s lips. “I saved them for just that purpose. And there is also a last letter to you with them. It is sealed, so I am not privy to its contents, but I would guess that he also left you an explanation of sorts as well. I would suggest disposing of all the letters afterwards, though. That chapter in St. Ayers’ history is now closed, and should stay that way.”

Marcus agreed. He would make one more foray into the past by reading his father’s last missives, then put it behind him as best he could.

Chapter Four

“It is our pleasure to bestow upon Lord Marcus Edward Waring the title of Earl St. Ayers, along with all hereditary rights and responsibilities appertaining thereto.”

Queen Victoria to Parliament, 1869

Marcus stood near the edge of the cliff and stared out at the distant horizon before him, lost in thought. The sun shone in a startlingly blue, cloudless, sky, but he saw none of it. A light breeze ruffled his hair and cooled his face, but he barely felt it. High above him birds screeched, swooped, and dived, carried aloft on the breeze one minute, the next plunging toward the sea and rocks below. He took in the vista before him for a short time, then turned his sights inward. His thoughts drowned out the world around him as he pondered the new direction of his life.

An Earl.

Earl St. Ayers.

He’d tried out the title on his tongue last night as he lay in the quiet splendor of the master suite. It still sounded foreign to him.

He felt like a usurper.

He would get used to it, he supposed. In time.

Earlier he’d visited his mother’s grave and stood before it, wondering at what she had been through. He supposed it must have been terrifying for a young girl of fourteen to suddenly be torn from her home, her father disgraced, and banished from the country of her birth. Only to be taken in by relatives who misused her in turn.

The vision of another fourteen-year-old briefly danced before his eyes, and he wondered how Amy might have fared had she lived.

He did not blame his mother for breaking under the strain, but was thankful her plans had not made it to fruition. He would have been a terrible duke.

But he just might make a decent earl.

It was too bad he had no one to share it with. He would have to remedy that, eventually. But for now, he needed the time, the space, to heal. And St. Ayers would provide that for him. Not only could he come to grips with his own past, but he could put India behind him as well.

His dreams last night had been depressing, his fertile imagination conjuring up the hopelessness and helplessness his mother and grandmother must have felt. Amy, too, figured prominently, her large gray eyes imploring him to save her. Rising this morning had been difficult on so little sleep. At least he hadn’t awakened from a two-day opium-induced stupor with no knowledge of the previous forty-eight hours.

The person looking back at him in the mirror had not been the same person who had awakened to find Colonel Bromley and Lieutenant Teatherton standing over him. He no longer looked gaunt, nor did his eyes have the shadowed, haunted look about them they had in India. Perhaps, he admitted to himself, Colonel Bromley had been right. He needed to come home to face his ghosts and to put his life in order.

His grandfather’s grave beside his mother’s informed one and all that Edward Terrence Geoffrey St. Ayers had been the sixth earl. Despite that the title had been granted to him anew, he would style himself the seventh.

Glancing over the various graves, he mentally traced the St. Ayers’ line back a number of generations. Although not the norm, the family name had also been St. Ayers. No longer, he thought. He would not give up his name. He was proud to be a Waring and someday, so would his children.

That decided, he now knew he should eventually marry. But the notion held no appeal for him. Amy’s loss was still new to him, even if it had been five years. Arriving in England knowing she would not be waiting for him had brought back feelings of guilt. Despite knowing he could not have prevented it, her death was still an open sore on his conscience.

The day before he left London he’d ridden northwest to Houghton Hall. Sitting atop his stallion, he had stared for some time at the edifice in the distance, wondering if he dared ride up to the front door and ask to visit Amy’s grave. He wondered if her brothers and sisters had even mourned her or her mother. He didn’t think it was likely.

In the end, a sudden shower forced him to retreat, and he left without ever making his presence known. He had paid his last respects the best way he could. Perhaps someday he’d be able to stand before her final resting place, but at that moment, he had been too cowardly.

With a sigh, he brought himself back to the present. Turning his back on the infinite horizon, he surveyed the land before him. He stood on a promontory not far from the house, which was to his right. To his left, the land sloped away gradually, ending in a beach that was easily a half mile away.

On approach, he hadn’t known how unusually situated the house was. The formal gardens were to the front and sides because the house sat nearly on the edge of the cliff it was built upon. A tree-lined drive led to the front doors, splitting to become a circle in front of the stairs, a large fountain at its center. At opposite points of that circle, archways led one through perfectly groomed hedges and into the gardens. On the north side of the house one entered the rose garden. On the south side, and the side he could see from where he stood, a topiary flourished, the various trees and bushes sculpted into a variety of shapes. There was also a large greenhouse on that side.

The house itself was simple, but large. A sprawling brick mansion consisting of three wings with three floors each, plus attics. There were no turrets such as Waring Castle sported, but there was a tower rising another two stories from the back of the center wing, that had once been a lighthouse. No longer in use, Brand informed him it was off limits to the children because some of the steps were unstable.

“And they have abided by that dictate?” he’d asked, remembering his own childhood inquisitiveness.

Brand grinned in understanding. “Of course,” he’d answered. Then he chuckled and confessed the door leading to the tower was kept locked, thereby removing the temptation to take a peek.

As if he conjured them up, his niece and nephew suddenly appeared. They came through the hedge bordering the topiary, racing across the grassy, rocky slope up toward the cliff. He hadn’t realized they’d seen him until he heard his name.

“Uncle Edward!” Caroline called, and he winced.

It had been a long time since anyone called him Edward. Eight years, to be exact. It was the name his mother preferred and, after visiting the family cemetery earlier, he understood why. When he received his commission all those years ago, and left England, he reverted to the use of his first name, a name he’d always preferred when away from home.

“His name is Marcus,” he heard his nephew say in disgust. “Don’t you remember what Papa said?”

Glancing behind them, he noticed a figure in light blue swiftly walking in his direction as well. The governess, he thought, and briefly wondered if she bothered to even try to keep up with the twins, who seemed to do everything at full speed.

“Michael,” the governess’s voice floated over the open space, “mind your tone,” she chided.

Marcus grinned as he started walking in the children’s direction. A true dragon.

Caroline spun around and waved at the young woman, then turned to run after her brother, who had nearly reached him. Seemingly out of nowhere, but so fast that it must have been lazing in the grass nearby, a small orange blur shot in front of Caroline, crossing her path. Marcus noted it was only a cat, but moments later his attention was focused on Caroline who lost her balance and tripped, landing face down in the rock-strewn grass with a small cry.

The governess moved faster than he thought she could, reaching Caroline’s inert form only seconds after he did—and he had been closer.

“Caroline!” The cry was ripped from Michael.

Gently turning the child over, he noted her hands had hit first, the palms scraping across the gravel, tearing the skin and embedding small bits of sand and rock into them. A small gash near her hairline was bleeding, but there seemed to be no major injuries.

The governess dropped down next to Caroline. “Caroline?” Reaching out, she brushed the little girl’s hair back from her forehead to inspect the source of the trickle of blood. Caroline struggled to sit up as the governess inspected her hands, brushing off the dirt and debris.

Marcus was amazed Caroline wasn’t screaming. Instead, she sat on the ground, tears streaming down her face, and allowed the governess to check her over for injuries. Unable to see the governess’s face because of the bonnet she wore, he was nevertheless mesmerized by her voice.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked. Caroline pointed to her knee and leg. “Can you move it?” Caroline nodded and bent the limb in question. “Can you stand on it?”