Once Again a Bride (2 page)

“Told you what, Miss Charlotte?”

“That Henry spends nights away from home. The knowledge could hardly hurt my feelings at this point.”

“Away…?”

“Come, Lucy, the household knows these things.”

“They don’t talk to me.” Was this it then?
He
hadn’t come home last night?

“I know they haven’t befriended you, but there must be gossip…”

“Never, miss. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lucy opened the wardrobe and surveyed the row of gowns. “Except… Mr. Holcombe’s in a right taking this morning.”

Charlotte threw back the covers. “I’ll dress at once and see him.”

“You know he don’t like to be…”

“I don’t care.” And she didn’t. Not a whit. Holcombe might be the most insolent of all the servants, but Charlotte was finished with being cowed.

She hurried Lucy through their morning routine. She would demand that Holcombe appear, and if he refused, she would hunt him down wherever he lurked and force him to tell her the truth. Chin up, eyes steely, Charlotte marched out of her bedchamber and down the hall. In what passed for a drawing room in this house, she jerked the bellpull. Minutes ticked by; no one answered the summons. Charlotte rang again, then gave it up and started for the stairs.

A heavy knock fell on the front door; it sounded as if someone were striking it with a stick. Charlotte looked over the banister. The knock came again, echoing through the house. Who could be calling at this hour?

The housemaid hurried out and began to undo the bolts. Charlotte heard the swinging door at the back of the hall and knew that other servants were behind her. The front door swung open.

“Miss,” said a deep voice from the stoop. “Is there a gen’lmun at home pr’haps?”

Charlotte hurried down the stairs.

“Who wants to know?” demanded Holcombe, surging out of the back hall.

“It’s the watch,” replied the deep voice. “Are you…?”

Charlotte moved faster. “I am the mistress of this house,” she said, more for Holcombe’s benefit than the visitor’s. “My husband is apparently not at home.” A glance at Holcombe showed him pale and anxious, completely unlike the snake who delighted in taunting her. Charlotte turned her attention to the burly individual on her doorstep. Bearded, in a long stuff coat and fingerless gloves, he looked like any of the men who patrolled the streets of London. His staff was tall beside him.

“Ma’am,” he said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “Er…”

“Is there a problem?”

The man held out a visiting card, which seemed so incongruous that Charlotte just stared at it. “I wonder if you might recognize that, ma’am?”

She took the small pasteboard square and read it. “This is my husband’s card.”

“Ah.” The watchman didn’t seem surprised. “Might you want to sit down, ma’am?”

“Just tell us what has happened!” exclaimed Holcombe, typically ignoring her authority, her very existence.

“Yes, please tell us,” Charlotte agreed.

The man on the step stood straighter. “Regret to inform you, ma’am, that there has been an… incident. A gent’lmun was found earlier this morning. His purse was missing, but he had a card case in his waistcoat pocket. That there card was inside it.”

“But… what happened? Is he hurt? Where have you taken…?”

“Sorry, ma’am.” The visitor grimaced, looking as if he wished very much to be elsewhere. “Regret to tell you, the gent’lmun is dead. Footpads, looks like. Caught him as he was…”

“Dead?” Somehow, Lucy was at Charlotte’s elbow, supporting her. “But how… are you sure? I cannot believe…”

The man shuffled his feet. “Somebody must come and identify him for sartain, ma’am. Mebbe a…?”

“I shall go!” interrupted Holcombe. He glared at Charlotte, at the watchman, at the other servants. No one argued with him. The watchman looked relieved.

They all stood in stunned silence as Holcombe ran for his coat and departed with the watch. Charlotte never remembered afterward how she got back up to the drawing room, only that she was sitting there when Lucy entered some indeterminate time later and said, “It’s him. He’s dead.”

Charlotte half rose. “Holcombe is…?”

“He’s back with the news. Right cut up, he is.” Lucy’s lip curled.

“Henry is dead?” She couldn’t help repeating it.

“Seems he is, Miss Charlotte. Happens more often than we had any notion, Holcombe says. Streets aren’t half safe, after dark. London!” Lucy knew that many people saw the city as thrilling, with every sort of goods and amusement on offer. She hated the filth and the noise—wheels clattering, people shouting at you to buy this or that from the moment you stepped into the street. Strangers shoving past if you walked too slow. She had discounted Holcombe’s horror stories, however. He enjoyed scaring the scullery maid out of the few wits she possessed with tales of hapless servants who wandered into the wrong part of town and never came out. Lucy had refused to show any fear just to irk him. Now it seemed he was right, after all.

Charlotte sank back onto the sofa. She hadn’t wanted this, not anything like this. She’d longed for change, but she’d never wished…

“Can I get you something? Tea? You haven’t eaten a crumb.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You have to eat.”

“Not now.”

Lucy bowed her head at the tension in her voice. “Shall I sit with you?”

“No. No, I’d like to be alone for a while.”

Lucy hesitated, then bobbed a curtsy and went out. Charlotte folded her hands tightly together, pressed her elbows to her sides. This wasn’t change; this was life violently turned upside down. This was the fabric of daily existence ripped right in two.

She hadn’t ever loved Henry. She had tried to like him, almost thought she did, before he made that impossible. In these last months, she hadn’t hated him, had she? No, she hadn’t gone that far. She had wished, over and over, that he had never entered her life. But she hadn’t wished him dead. Yesterday, at about this time, he had been haranguing her about his tea, and now he was removed from the face of the earth. How could this be?

Sir Alexander Wylde rode into the stable yard behind his town house feeling, as usual, that a morning ride in London was the definition of constriction. Small landscapes, slow gaits, and the tedious interruption of acknowledging acquaintances who also chose to ride early. It was almost, almost, worse than no ride at all.

Leaving his horse with the groom, he entered through the back door. He had taken only two steps along the corridor when he heard a crash in the upper regions, followed by pounding footsteps and inarticulate cries, and then a thump, as if some largish piece of furniture had toppled over. Another man might have started in alarm or run toward the stairs, but Alec merely frowned and walked a little faster. His main emotion was disappointment; Lizzy had promised.

He had to climb two flights to discover the source of the uproar. On the way he passed a housemaid with an apron full of broken china; she avoided his gaze. Frances Cole stood outside Anne’s bedchamber wringing her hands.

The moment she saw him, she began to wail. “The creature is filthy and vicious. It is absolutely out of the question. This is too much, Alec! She has gone too far!” The latter phrase had become something of a refrain in the last few months, since Lizzy’s third governess had decamped. “I will not go in there,” Frances added half hysterically.

Frances, a cousin of Alec’s mother, had had the main charge of Anne and Lizzy since their mother died soon after Lizzy’s birth, an arrangement that seemed to be rapidly breaking down.

Alec opened the bedchamber door and stepped inside. For some reason, Frances pushed the panels closed practically on his heels. He discovered his sixteen-year-old sister Anne lying in her bed, still pale but no longer so frighteningly listless. In fact, there was a bit of the old sparkle in her green eyes. He had brought his whole household up to town this spring because of Anne, who had coughed her way into increasing weakness through the winter. Nothing seemed to help, and he had finally bundled her into a carriage filled with blankets and furs and hot bricks to consult an eminent Harley Street physician. Just yesterday they had gotten the very good news that it was not consumption, a dread that had been hovering over them all for weeks. He suspected that relief was partly behind this latest ruckus, whatever it was. “Where is…?”

Lizzy popped up from behind the bed. “I got her to cheer Anne up,” she declared self-righteously.

“I’m all right, Alec,” Anne said at the same time.

With the ease of long practice, Alec went to the heart of the matter. “Her?”

From beneath the bed came a sound remarkably like a growl. Alec looked at Lizzy. It was a bittersweet irony that his thirteen-year-old sister so closely resembled their mother, as her birth had caused Lady Wylde’s final illness. Alec, Anne, and their brother Richard took after their tall, lean father, with wheat-colored hair and green eyes. Lizzy was shorter, already rounder, with their mother’s brunette coloring and deep blue eyes. He suspected she was going to be breathtakingly lovely when she got her full growth, and the thought of her eventual entry into society—when he dared think of it—terrified him.

There was no putting it off any longer. Alec knelt and peered under the bed. At first, he saw nothing. Then he became aware of a pair of yellow eyes glowing in the farthest, darkest corner. A gamy smell reached his nostrils. Gradually, the shape in the shadows revealed itself as a cat, a large cat. A sinking sensation, based on more than a decade’s experience, settled over him. “Where did you find it?”

“In the back garden, near the gate,” replied Lizzy.

An alley cat. Alec could not imagine how his sister had gotten this animal into the house and up the stairs. No doubt the crashes he’d heard were involved. He checked her for bites and scratches, and saw none.

“We have no pets at all here in town,” Lizzy pointed out. “Anne misses them so much.”

Alec looked at Anne. She was trying not to smile, well aware of her big brother’s descent into Lizzy’s toils. “Does Anne indeed?” Of course it was Lizzy who missed them. “Animals belong in the country.”

“Lots of people have dogs in town. I’ve seen them. Fashionable people.”

They had small fluffy lapdogs, Alec thought; yappy, annoying, but not creatures spawned in the gutter. “If Anne would like a kitten…” It sounded weak, and he knew it. But Anne’s smiles were so rare these days.

“But she has no home. She’s hungry; you can feel all her ribs!”

A pleasure Alec hoped never to experience. “Lizzy, it’s a practically wild animal. Who knows what sort of…?”

“I know she smells a bit,” Lizzy interrupted. “Well, who wouldn’t, being out in the street like that? I’m going to give her a bath.”

“You most certainly are not! She’ll tear you to pieces.”

“No, she won’t. Here, look.” Lizzy disappeared behind the bed. Alec stood and watched her, kneeling, hold out a hand and make a soft, low sound. There was a pause, and then the cat half emerged from under the counterpane. It was a calico, dirty, skinny, with a torn ear, but it pushed its head under his little sister’s hand for stroking. “See?” Lizzy gave him the angelic smile that all too often got her her way.

Alec took a step toward them. The cat drew back and growled like some much larger creature.

“She just has to get used to you. Don’t you, Callie? I’ve named her Callie, for calico, you see.”

Anne laughed—at the name or perhaps at Alec’s looming defeat. It hardly mattered; it had been far too long since he’d heard her laugh. Alec stepped back and wondered which of the two footmen could be recruited to help Lizzy bathe a feral feline. It would have to be Ethan. Ethan had time and again proved himself up to anything. Alec would sacrifice his leather driving gloves to the enterprise. “All right,” he conceded. “Just as long as…”

Lizzy leapt up and flew to hug him. “You are the very best brother in the world!” Anne laughed again, her eyes dancing when he smiled at her. Alec became aware of a painful tightness in the center of his chest—hope. Then Anne’s laugh turned to a hacking cough, and his spirits sank once again.

Though Alec’s university days had been cut short by his father’s death, when all the responsibilities of family and property had devolved upon him, those tasks had not seemed onerous until this winter. He had left Anne and Lizzy to Frances; kept an occasional eye on his brother Richard, currently cutting a carefree swath at Oxford; and managed the estates without undue effort. He was well trained for the role that had always been his future and had found ample time to establish himself in town during the Season and enjoy the many pleasures available to a man of wealth and station. For four years, all had run smoothly; then Anne’s illness descended, upset his routines, and showed him where his real priorities lay. Nothing came before his family.

Anne got her cough under control. “I’m all right,” she insisted, only too aware of her siblings’ worries.

“If that animal makes you worse…”

Lizzy’s deep blue eyes filled with tears. Despair showed in every line of her face and body. “If Callie makes Anne sick, of course she cannot stay.”

“It isn’t the cat,” Anne said, so weary she was angry with them both. “I was coughing long before she arrived.”

Lizzy brightened. “Once she’s clean, she can sit on your bed and keep you company, as I do.”

“Bring her along then.” Alec could see the fatigue. Over the last few months, it had become horribly familiar and frighteningly obdurate. They needed to leave and let Anne rest. He ushered Lizzy out—her arms overflowing with cat. Frances had disappeared, a new habit of hers. As he went ahead to inform Ethan the footman of his fate, the only bright spot he could see was the certainty that, like all cats, this one would undoubtedly object to a bath. With any luck, it would run away. And he would not be hunting it through the London streets, no matter how much Lizzy cajoled.

Cravenly, Alec snatched bread and sausages from the breakfast room and retreated to his study, safely distant from cat bathing mayhem and the reproaches of Frances Cole, or of the housekeeper who had known him since he was three years old. He had every excuse; his desk was piled with pleas from his Derbyshire tenants for reassurance and assistance.

Many had expected the state of the country to improve with the end of the long war against Napoleon, but not those who saw the new textile machinery putting more and more people out of work and watched rising food prices threaten Englishmen—Englishmen!—with starvation. Alec’s jaw tightened. Not on his land. He could not, like some landowners he knew, ignore such distress.

As he took a letter from the top of the pile, Alec had to restrain a sigh. Perhaps he should find someone to help with the cascade of correspondence. Lately, there seemed no end to the tasks that must be done, the decisions that could not wait. There were men—he knew them—who would toss this stack of paper into the fire and go in search of their own amusement without a thought of consequences. Alec opened the first letter and began to read.

He’d gotten through half the pile and begun to think of luncheon when Ethan knocked and entered the room. “There is a person to see you, sir.”

Alec observed a long scratch on the footman’s right cheek. “A person?”

“A matter of business, he says.” Before Alec could respond, he added, “Your gloves… I’m sorry, sir, but…”

Alec held up a hand. “I never expected to see them again, Ethan.”

The young footman looked relieved. “Er, the animal? Well, it’s clean.” He looked dubious. “Seems quite… fond of Miss Elizabeth.”

Alec decided he didn’t really want to know any more about the cat. “All right, bring this person in.”

Ethan returned with a small, elderly man whose stance and somber dress proclaimed solicitor or man of business. For some reason, he wore his hat and greatcoat, as if still in the street. Beside the tall broad-shouldered footman, he looked tiny. “Mr. Seaton,” Ethan announced, and closed the door.

The wizened man surged into the room. “I fear I bring you shocking news, Sir Alexander.” He shook his head, thin lips turned down. “Shocking.”

Alec came to his feet. “My brother?”

The snap of the words startled his visitor into taking a step back. “No, no, I know nothing of your brother. It is your uncle.”

“Lord Earnton?” Even as he said it, Alec knew that his aunt would send someone he knew to impart any significant news.

Seaton drew himself up. “Sir Alexander, I regret to tell you that your uncle, Henry Wylde, has been killed by footpads. In the very streets of London. Another outrageous example of the degradation of the lower classes. I blame the government…”

“Uncle Henry?” It felt odd even to call him that. For as long as Alec could remember, his father’s youngest brother had been practically a recluse. He never appeared at family gatherings or showed the least interest in any of his relations. Alec’s only real memory of him was nearly twenty years old—of a red-faced, cursing man who threatened him with a caning when he touched some dusty artifact in a case. He sank back into his chair. “Killed?”

“Murdered, sir, as he walked home from his club. I don’t know what this country is coming to when a gentleman cannot even…”

“And you have brought me word of this,” Alec interrupted.

“Naturally.”

“As a family member. I see. Thank you.”

The grizzled man stared at him. “As the executor of Mr. Wylde’s will.”

“I?”

Seaton pulled a thick document from his coat pocket. “He said you were the best of his idio… er… relations.”

In other circumstances, Alec might have been amused, but he was too much astonished. “I barely knew the man.”

Seaton nodded. “He mentioned that he was not in close touch with his family. Nonetheless, he wished these final matters to be handled by kin.”

And
he
had
to
choose
me
, Alec thought, but did not say. “Please sit down, Mr. Seaton.”

The man did so, placing the document on the edge of the desk. “As you know, Mr. Wylde was a… unique individual. And I must say his will is… eccentric.”

How
could
it
be
otherwise?
Alec thought. He waited for the bad news that he was somehow sure was coming.

“The provision it makes for his wife is not what one would…”

“Wife? He wasn’t married.”

“Indeed he was, sir. Recently, in the last year.”

Alec tried to imagine the sort of woman who would marry his Uncle Henry—stout, pug-faced, sour, desperate, were the attributes that came to mind. He shook his head. “Eccentric in what way, exactly?”

“It might be better if you read the document yourself, sir.”

“I am asking you to summarize it for me.” His tone was meant to intimidate, and it did. Seaton looked quite cowed as he rose and scuttled toward the door. “Mr. Seaton!”

The small man gave a bow that was more like a flinch as he reached for the doorknob. “I have done my duty, Sir Alexander. Mr. Wylde was a most… difficult client.”

“And you are pleased to wash your hands of his affairs?”

The man’s expression was answer enough. He slipped out of the study; Alec strode after him. “Mr. Seaton!”

His visitor made for the front door. He had nearly reached it when the cat streaked out of the back hall, skidded on the marble floor with a rattle of claws, and careened toward the study. Alec hastily shut the door. Thwarted, the animal glared at him, spun, and sank its teeth into Ethan’s ankle.

“Callie!” called Lizzy’s voice from the rear premises.

With the look of a man escaping a madhouse, Seaton rushed out. Pain in every line of his handsome face, Ethan bent to extricate himself. Alec’s sister appeared through the swinging door at the back of the hall. “Callie, no!”

The cat loosed the footman.

“She is still a little angry with Ethan, I’m afraid,” said Lizzy, hurrying forward. Seeing her brother’s expression she added, “And a new place is so frightening at first, you know. Cats must learn their territory before they…”

“Her territory does not include the lower floors,” Alec said. “If you cannot keep this animal under control…”