A Lady at Willowgrove Hall (3 page)
“What’s unusual ’bout it?” Joseph Faire barked. “I’ve a girl, you’ve a school, and I’ve money to see her through ’til she’s o’ age—no more, no less.”
The distance and the nonchalance in his tone shouldn’t have shocked her, but they did. He spoke as if he were bartering for services or trading animals. Their relationship had always been strained, but did she mean so little to him?
A younger woman with a long, black braid appeared, dressed in a wrapper and hugging her waist. She placed a hand on the man’s arm, her face drawn in pointed concern. “But we haven’t the room. It will be at least another month before we can even consider—”
“Well, she’ll not come home with me,” spat her father, interrupting their conversation. “So ’tis up to ye, either she stays here, or she is on her own.”
Her father pushed Cecily forward . . . again. She stumbled.
What a pitiful sight she must be. Her hair hung in stringy clumps about her face, and mud clung to the hem of her gown and books. And while she had not seen a mirror, she could feel the effect of her father’s hand on her cheek.
Tears burned hot in Cecily’s eyes, a sharp contrast to the cool spring morning. Feeling emboldened by the piteous stares, she looked directly at her father for the first time in hours. “Father, please. This is a misunderstanding.”
“Nay!” he shouted, his rough Irish brogue echoing from the stone walls and the canopy of birch trees flanking the entrance. “Ye’ve been naught but trouble for me since the day ye were born. Maybe they can make you mind your wild ways.”
Her father extended his hand, a leather pouch clutched in his rough fingers. “This will cover her expenses. When it’s gone, she’s on her own.”
At this, both the man and woman looked at her, speechless. Cecily began to tremble. It started in her legs and moved up to her stomach.
And then with a quick motion, Joseph Faire turned to the cart. For a moment, nobody else moved, but when his intention to depart became clear, the older gentleman pushed past her. “But, sir! Your name? Where can we contact you?”
Her father looked at Cecily from the cart’s bench with hard eyes, the iciness of which froze her every limb. With a shout and a slap of the reins, he urged the fat donkey into motion, never looking back. Cecily jerked free from the woman and sprinted toward the cart, but her feet shifted and she skidded across the loose gravel. “Father!” she shrieked. “Father, please don’t leave me!”
But her words were carried away by the wind. “What about Leah? Please, Father!”
She stood fixed to the ground, staring at the empty space around the bend where her father’s cart had disappeared.
The woman approached her and touched her shoulder. “Come inside. No doubt you are chilled through.”
Cecily cast one last glance up the road, but it was not to look for her father. How her heart ached to see Andrew rushing up the lane, her valiant knight coming to rescue her. To whisk her away from the madness, just as he had promised. He was the one person who knew her heart. He said he would always love and cherish her, and she’d willingly given herself to him, heart, mind, and body.
But now, the sickening realization that she had made a mistake pressed on her. She’d sacrificed too much for a chance at a better life, and now she was ruined, destined for a life of shame.
She had seen the fear in his eyes. The disdain.
He would not be coming . . . and she would have to abide with the consequences of her actions.
Laurel Cottage at Willowgrove Hall
Wiltonshire, England, 1814
N
athaniel refused to cry. He was a grown man of four and twenty. He should be able to control his emotions.
And yet, his quivering chin betrayed him.
He adjusted his position in the Windsor chair and gripped and ungripped the chair’s arms before finally clasping his hands before him.
His father’s thin voice cracked the silence. “Look at me, Nathaniel.”
He could not deny his father such a simple request. But when Nathaniel finally mustered the strength to comply, what he saw threatened to undo him.
Before him, his father, Thomas Stanton, lay abed. The candle lamp’s flicker cast odd shadows over his glistening brow and straight nose. His long, gray hair had escaped his queue and clung to his clammy cheeks and neck.
His father was dying.
At the thought, a bolt of terror ripped through Nathaniel’s core.
He wanted to jump from his seat and wrestle to the ground the unseen force stealing his father’s final moments forcing it to release its hold. But he sat still, unmoving.
“Son, I must speak with you—without the women present.” The older man struggled to sit up against the pillows, the linen shirt he wore plastered to his skin and his gaunt face twisting in pain. “’Tis important now, and we haven’t much time. Draw nearer.”
Nathaniel inched closer, dreading—fearing—what might pass his father’s lips.
“I am proud of you, lad. Proud of the man you have become. But all is not as it seems.” His father drew a deep breath, his chapped lips trembling at the movement. His weak tone grew pensive, his words slow and barely above a whisper.
“There is something you must know. Something you should have been told long ago.”
“Whatever it is, we can discuss this at another time,” Nathaniel protested. “You must rest now.”
“No!” His father’s voice rang with surprising emphasis. “If I fail to share this with you, it shall haunt me as I pass from this life to the next. You must hear it.”
Alarm ran down Nathaniel’s back.
“When I am dead, you will take my position as steward of Willowgrove Hall, just as I took my father’s position upon his death. It is a proud legacy and one with great responsibility, Nathaniel. Do not doubt it.”
Nathaniel only shook his head. Was his father failing? They’d had this discussion before. Numerous times. It was the reason he had worked for so long beside his father, learning the intricacies of the profession.
“But hear me. Hear me well.” He fixed his eyes on Nathaniel with such intensity that Nathaniel suspended his breath. “You are bound to this land by a far stronger thread than being the steward’s son.”
Nathaniel blinked. “I do not understand.”
Thomas Stanton lowered his eyes. “Your mother and I have kept a secret from you. From everyone. At first I convinced myself it was my duty. And now I realize what a selfish fool I have been.
“This news will not be easy to hear, I fear, and it pains me for you. There were times I thought you might have suspected it, but . . .”
When his father’s words trailed off, Nathaniel’s throat constricted, making it a struggle to breathe. Nathaniel cocked his head. The room grew warm. The air too thin. “Suspect what?”
“I am not your father. Not in the biological sense.”
Surely this was delirium talking. “Father, you are ill. You know not what you speak of.”
But the old man, in a sudden burst of strength, reached out and grasped the wool of Nathaniel’s sleeve in his frail fingers and yanked it tight. His face distorted in agony, and his voice faltered as he forced words through clenched teeth. “Hear me, boy! I know what I am saying.”
Nathaniel shook his head and wanted to escape the moment, but he was bound—out of respect—to listen. “Who is it, then?”
His father relaxed the grip on Nathaniel’s sleeve and let his head fall back against the pillow. “Mr. Trent.”
The deceased master of Willowgrove Hall.
The master of the estate where his father had labored his entire life. Where he himself would be steward upon his father’s death.
It could not be possible.
His father’s words came in a rush. “There is much you don’t know, Nathaniel. Your mother was a lady’s maid to Mrs. Trent,
twenty-five years ago now. This is likely a shock, given their interactions. Katherine entered into a relationship with Mr. Trent and became with child. You.”
His father was outlining an impossible scenario. Everything within Nathaniel wanted to deny it, but the strangest sensation coursed through him, prickling the hairs on his neck.
His father paused to draw an unsteady breath. “You are well acquainted with Mrs. Trent’s temperament. At one time, she and your mother were very close. But time and circumstances have a tendency to uproot even the strongest of alliances. When Mrs. Trent learned of your mother’s betrayal, she became quite violent. Katherine was facing ruin. The Trents faced humiliation. I had always been fond of your mother, pretty lass that she was, and when Mr. Trent proposed that I take her as my wife and raise you as my own to prevent scandal and secure my future, I accepted.”
Nathaniel could not comprehend what he was hearing. This was a fever-induced rant of a sick man on his deathbed. And yet the expression in his father’s eyes was lucid.
But as a tear, the first tear he had ever seen from his father, slipped down the withered cheeks, the sobering reality hit him. He had spoken the truth.
As the fog of confusion lifted, anger—hot and red—fused with the blood flowing through him. He ripped his hand away and stood, the force of which nearly knocked the chair to the ground. He stomped over to the room’s single window, the thud of his heavy boots echoing from the planked floor.
“There is more.” His father’s voice, which moments ago had seemed soft and weak, now was too loud to bear. “In exchange for discretion on the matter, Mr. Trent guaranteed me, and you after me, the position of steward of Willowgrove Hall. That is to say, upon Mr. Trent’s passing, Mrs. Trent would not be permitted to terminate my role as steward, nor you thereafter. As an illegitimate
son, you will not inherit Willowgrove. ’Twould be impossible. But he has provided for you in his will. After his wife dies, you shall inherit Lockbourne House in Northumberland.”
At the window, tendrils of cool, predawn air seeped through the cracked pane. Nathaniel fixed his eyes on the shadowed ground below him, which was blanketed with an early spring frost. He and his father had traveled to Lockbourne House once as a boy. He recalled with indifference the ancient house with dark rooms and crumbling plaster. What did Nathaniel want with such a dilapidated, unkempt place? More significantly, how could a mere house excuse a lifetime of lies?
Nathaniel whirled from the window, his neckcloth now feeling tight. “How could he live so close to me? Watch me grow, and never speak a word?” He narrowed his eyes. “How could
you
not tell me?”
“Consider your mother. If this news was ever made public, her reputation would be tarnished beyond repair. Your sisters would be ruined. No dowry I could provide could make up for such a blemish.”
The room grew warmer.
Stifling.
The overcoming scent of death, sickness, and betrayal clung to Nathaniel, threatening to pull him down.
Everything he knew was a lie.
And what was worse,
he
was a lie.
Nathaniel’s breath came in huffs now.
His father raised his hand. “This news is a shock, but you must control yourself. Despite it all, you will very soon be the head of this family. You are still your mother’s son. Brother to your sisters. It will be you they depend on. You will provide for them. Protect them. But upon my honor, I could not take this to my grave.”
The sickening realization that his own mother took part in
this betrayal and never told him settled on his shoulders like a load too heavy to bear. “Does Mother know you are telling me this?”
“Not yet, but I will inform her. You must continue to keep this secret. Give me your word.”
Nathaniel stared at him. “This changes everything.”
“I asked you a question, lad. Do I have your word?”
Nathaniel set his lips in a firm line. Without looking at his father, he gave a rigid nod.
“I must hear you promise this!” His father was trembling now. Perspiration raced down his stubbled cheek. “Say it.”
Nathaniel drew a sharp intake of air through his nose and focused on a faded painting hanging just above his father’s head. How could he not promise? This man, whether or not by blood, was his father. “You have my word.”
Thomas Stanton eased back onto the pillow. “This has been my greatest regret. But life is not easy. Not for anyone. I am trusting you, Nathaniel, to do what is honorable. Your time for redemption will come.”
Rosemere School for Young Ladies
Darbury, England, 1819
A
voice broke the late-afternoon silence. “Mrs. Sterling asked to speak with you.”
Cecily jerked her head up from her copy of
The
Castles
of
Athlin
and
Dunbayne
and let the novel fall to the side. Mary, the housemaid at Rosemere School for Young Ladies, stood in the bedchamber threshold, a pressed linen apron hugging her wiry form and a mobcap sitting atop her chestnut hair.
“Mrs. Sterling wants to see
me
?” Cecily said.
Mary nodded. “Said to fetch you right away, miss. She’s in the study.”
Cecily sat up straighter on her bed. “Thank you, Mary.”
Cecily waited for the door to close before letting her shoulders roll forward and giving a little sigh.
What had she done
this
time?
Cecily stood and shook out the folds of her pale-blue muslin skirt, ran a hand over the sash under the bodice to smooth it, and pivoted to face the cracked looking glass fixed to the plaster wall. The sun slanted in the room through leaded windows, highlighting the wrinkles in her gown. She frowned and brushed her hand over the fabric, the color of which always reminded Cecily of the bluebells that had grown in her mother’s garden. There was little she could do about the wrinkles now. She leaned closer to assess her hair, patted a few wayward curls back into her chignon, and then straightened.
When Cecily first arrived at the school, she found it difficult to adhere to the strict rules and rigid routines. In her early days at Rosemere, she was often tardy for meals or would talk during lessons. Her obstinate temperament—fueled by her unsettled emotions—had, at times, exposed her to judgment. But she endeavored to tame her impulsive—if not unobservant—ways, and it had been months since Mrs. Sterling, the headmistress of Rosemere, had last requested to speak with her alone. Even then, it had only been to discuss the terms of Cecily’s position as a teacher at the school. Of course, she saw Mrs. Sterling nearly every day, but being summoned to her study was another matter entirely.
