The Shadow of Albion (5 page)

silvery field. At the oak’s foot a unicorn slept with head upon the ground, and in the

tree’s branches, a crown in glory burned. Boscobel – the King’s Oak. Sarah did not

know what this ring had meant to her father, only that it had been his greatest

treasure, and so now it was hers.

The clatter of an arriving coach roused Sarah from her contemplation. Hastily

dropping the jewel back into concealment beneath her bodice, she crossed the street

to see who might be arriving.

She reached the post-house in time to see a woman dressed in the first stare of

London elegance descend from the carriage. Though quite as old as Cousin

Masham, there was an air of vitality about the newcomer – with her silvered once-red

hair tucked demurely beneath both elegant traveling cap and a dashing bonnet of

deep green lutestring trimmed with egret plumes – that marked her to be as different

from Sarah’s pallid cousin Masham as night from day.

The newcomer found her footing with the aid of an elegant ebony walking stick

and gazed about herself, though if the stylish stranger held any opinion whatsoever

on the street upon which she found herself, she presented only the blandest of

countenances to the world. Behind her, the coachman scurried to unload her trunks,

and the proprietor of the post-house, sensing custom, came out into the street to

welcome this new guest.

„I am Madame Alecto Kennet of London,“ the woman announced, much as if this

intelligence must have some meaning to the gathering watchers.

„Yes, Your Ladyship; we received your letter,“ the man said.

Sarah saw a faint shadow of distaste cross the woman’s features, as if she

disliked the form of address – which had, if anything, been too formal rather than

too familiar. Sarah’s eyes widened at the size and number of the trunks disgorged by

the traveling carriage, but with all their variety they still seemed to lack a maid or

personal servant to tend them.

„Then perhaps you would be so good as to oblige me with the information I

requested of you, and provide me with the direction of Miss Charlotte Masham of

this city. Of course, it is possible that she has married, and is no longer known by

that name,“ Mrs. Kennet added with grudging reasonableness.

The innkeeper drew breath for a lengthy disquisition when Sarah, quite surprising

even herself, stepped forward.

„I am afraid you have come too late if you wish to speak to my mother, ma’am,

but I am Charlotte Masham’s daughter. I am Sarah Cunningham.“

Mrs. Kennet turned a brilliant silvery gaze upon her, and Sarah felt her own face

go still and watchful. She met the inspection unflinchingly.

„You do have some look of the Mashams about you girl – and if you are indeed

Charlotte Masham’s daughter, then I have a letter for you.“

Soon Sarah had been installed in the Bell and Candle’s best – ’and only – coffee

parlor, awaiting her hostess, who had retired to repair the ravages of travel. Sarah

had no doubt that every word spoken on the curbstone before the post-house had

already made its way to Cousin Masham’s ears, nor that she herself would be called

upon to render up a fuller accounting when she returned home.

Best to have something to account for, in that case. Sarah frowned faintly. She

could not remember any English correspondents among her mother’s infrequent

letters, and Charlotte Masham was the third generation of her family to have been

born in America, so it was hard to believe that any familial ties to the Old World

remained. Sarah sipped at the boiling black coffee before her, and bit into one of the

warm sugary doughnuts from the plate piled high at her elbow. The Innkeeper had

been extremely eager to please. Whoever Madame Alecto Kennet might be, she

certainly had the knack of getting things done in her own way.

As if summoned by thought of her, Mrs. Kennet chose that moment to reappear.

Bonnet and cap had been exchanged for a finer cap of nearly transparent lace

which neatly confined, while doing nothing to conceal, the cinnamon-sugar hair.

Pearl-and-garnet earbobs dangled from the lady’s ears, and a cameo brooch set with

matching stones glowed upon a black velvet ribbon at her throat. The dull green

traveling pelisse was gone, and in its place Mrs. Kennet wore a deep blue dress of

twilled gros de Maples with long narrow sleeves trimmed and edged in blonde lace.

The square neck of the dress was made up high and trimmed in blonde lace as well,

and the long straight skirt was relieved by two courses of black velvet vandyking

appliqued six inches above the hem. A cashmire shawl of deep jewel colors and

fantastical design hung carelessly over one arm, and tiny fanciful slippers of

blue-dyed Turkish leadier, which would not have survived an hour’s use on the

cobbled streets outside, completed a costume of quite stupefying elegance.

Mrs. Kennet drew a quizzing-glass from her sleeve and regarded Sarah, and

suddenly Sarah was bitterly aware of the picture she herself must present: the sturdy

muslin cap concealing her light brown hair, the plain calico fichu pinned close at the

throat of an unadorned blue woolen round gown that had already seen its best days.

Her white cotton apron and plain red wool shawl only served to complete the picture

of Colonial dowdiness, and Sarah tucked her feet behind the rungs of her chair,

knowing that nothing would serve to conceal the sturdy, sensible, and unfashionable

boots upon her feet.

But Mrs. Kennet apparently saw nothing to dislike in me picture before her. She

seated herself carefully in the chair opposite Sarah, a momentary look of unease

crossing her mobile patrician features, as if she suffered some inward pang.

„Is something wrong?“ Sarah asked.

„A touch of indigestion, perhaps – I will not say that travel disagrees with me, but

the victualing that one finds in one’s travels certainly does. But you will wonder, and

rightly so, what business an entire stranger may have with you,“ Mrs. Kennet said

briskly.

Sarah had schooled her features to polite interest, and Mrs. Kennet smiled. „How

rarely one finds such mannerliness in the young!“ she commented. From her sleeve

she withdrew a billet of ivory vellum sealed with a red blotch of wax, and extended it

toward Sarah.

Sarah took it and gazed down at the picture in the wax: a crowned Salamander in

flames, surrounded by a ribbon of Latin motto too blurred to make out „It is the seal

of the Dukes of Wessex – a not inconsiderable power in England,“ her mentor

commented.

„This cannot be for me,“ Sarah said in bewilderment „It is, if you are Cordelia

Herriard’s great-granddaughter. She married a Richard Masham, did she not?“

„Her son was my mother’s grandfather, so I suppose I am. But – “

„Read your letter – and then, if you please, you may tell me what it contains, for

that is one consideration Her Grace never rendered me.“

Sarah broke the seal and scanned the pages of precise elegant script, her

confusion deepening by the moment The writer spoke of an ancient wrong done to

the Herriards by her own family, of betrayal and unlawful attainder, and of a suit

before the Chancery Court that had taken more than a century and the reigns of

half-a-dozen kings to wend its way to completion.

„But this is foolishness!“ Sarah burst out, passing the pages to her companion

half-read. „What can any of this have to do with me?“

Mrs. Kennet glanced over the pages briefly before she replied.

„It is best you know from the first that my patron is the Dowager Duchess of

Wessex, and I have some cause to know that noble family well, for mine has served

theirs since before your unhappy ancestress was exiled to this bitter place. If the St.

Iveses and the Dyers feel that some redress is owed you, then be sure they will find

some way to pay their debt down to the last ha’penny.“

„But what can they owe to me?“ Sarah asked again.

Mrs. Kennet smiled. „Child, that matters not in me face of their determination that

they shall pay. I see from this letter that the Dowager wishes you to come to

England – is there any reason that you may not accompany me when I take ship next

week?“

Sarah had hesitated only momentarily, the certain future here at home weighing

very lightly against a future that held, at least, the allure of difference.

„There is no reason at all, Mrs. Kennet. I shall be delighted to accompany you,“

Sarah said firmly.

In her tiny cabin on the Lady Bright, Sarah refolded the Dowager Duchess of

Wessex’s letter once more. She had withdrawn her promise a thousand times in the

week that had followed, for Cousin Masham was not shy in awarding the rough side

of her tongue to both Sarah Cunningham and the „English adventuress“ who had

beguiled her, but Mrs. Kennet was one who delighted in pitched battle, as well as

one who listened to one’s first words and conveniently ignored the last. Sarah, had

said she would accompany her when me Lady Bright sailed from Baltimore to

England, and nothing Sarah might say afterward would be allowed to alter that

impulsive decision in the slightest. Borne upon the spring tide of Mrs. Kennet’s

formidable will, Sarah had never looked back; Cousin Masham was read such a

jeremiad as must have caused her ears to ring for weeks afterward, and at the end of

that confrontation Sarah and the single trunk containing all her worldly possessions

reposed within Mrs. Kennet’s well-sprung traveling coach and were wheeling smartly

along the road to the harbor.

But what had begun as seeming indigestion had in the end been death for Sarah’s

fiery mentor only a few weeks later, and now Sarah was more alone than ever before.

She was not so certain as she had been in Baltimore that the words written in the

missive Mrs. Kennet had given her constituted a legitimate claim upon the Duke or

Duchess of Wessex – and even less certain, now that Mrs. Kennet was gone, that

the form of payment would be anything that plain Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore,

Maryland, and the United States of America could like.

It is your own fault. You made this choice; you must make the best of it, Sarah

told herself firmly, and began to determine, with utmost practicality, what she might

best do in Bristol to engage transport to London so that she might do what Mrs.

Kennet had so wished her to do.

Chapter 3

Ten Leagues Beyond the Wide World’s End

(April 1805)

It was good to be out in the open again, even if her life could now be measured

only in scant hours. The sharp April air cut at her lungs and the whipping wind

brought roses not of fever, but of frost, to her cheeks, but Lady Roxbury did not

care. Her sleek brown hair was covered by an ermine shako tied with wide grosgrain

ribbons dyed to match the coquelicot velvet of her erminelined driving pelisse.

Wrapped in the garment’s elaborately frogged and gold-laced folds, Lady Roxbury

did not feel the bite of the evening chill as the gentle Wiltshire countryside unreeled

behind her.

The high-perch phaeton shivered and trembled beneath her as she urged the four

match bays to speed and more speed, racing against the Sun itself. It slid inexorably

westward as Lady Roxbury flicked her whipstring out over the ears of her leader,

being rewarded with a marginal increase in speed. She must reach the Stones in time,

or all this would be for naught.

In the distance, the broken outline of the Giant’s Dance appeared on the horizon

of the rolling Wiltshire downs. At the same moment, Lady Roxbury became aware

of her own heartbeat as a thundering in her blood. Suddenly the westering sun flared

dazzlingly bright, burning like the jewel in the skull of the salamander, creature of fire.

Arid then the world changed, and the sun that Lady Roxbury raced toward was

rising, riot setting. The air was chill and damp with morning and blue mist hung upon

the ground. In the distance the Sarcen Stones were still veiled in night as the rising

sun kindled an azure world into color.

And then the picture changed again, blue to fire-scarlet, as the sun hung

spellbound above the evening horizon and all the world was gold. Gold – Blue. And

only Lady Roxbury’s determination pressed her forward, as night flickered into day

until the interlocking worlds danced in time with her heartbeat, fire to ice to fire. A

heaviness, neither cold nor hot but slow as earth, was creeping through her limbs,

stealing toward her heart. Mercilessly Lady Roxbury plied her whip now, cracking it

over the. heads of her team until their bay coats were dark with foam and they were

running flat out. She had passed the kingstone of the Dance and barely noticed, so