An Unnatural Daughter: A Dark Regency Mystery (18 page)

CHAPTER 23

Grand Old Grandmamma

I followed the maids down the grand staircase, suffocated by the tightness of my stays and the constricting feeling in my stomach. I glanced down at the swell of bosom that my gown pushed up, and my face burned. My mind raced, wondering what Mrs Raynor would think of me, and I feared she would believe I was a harlot, forcing my way into her house.

She seemed to live an age away, and I passed several members of staff as I followed the maids through long corridors and up and down staircases. They paused in their work as I approached, and I chanced a hopeful smile here and there at first, but saw that they turned way, keeping their faces averted from me at all times.

Just as I began to fear the maids were leading me a merry dance, they stopped before a door. It was large and dark, deliberately imposing, I fancied, with heavy swags of fruit carved on the lintel. One of the maids stepped forward and tapped the door lightly. She must have heard something in response, and opened the door, beckoning me to follow with an apologetic smile on her face, while the other looked on sullenly and remained in the hall.

‘Miss- Fleur, Ma’am.’

She bobbed a curtsey and retreated, her head bent as she took careful steps backwards to the door. I was left alone before a large fireplace and I assumed, in the shadows that surrounded it, my mother-in-law.

The room was decorated in the style I had expected – all dark woods and burgundy. The walls were hung with deep red silks, broadly striped with a rosier pink colour. In another room, with the curtains thrown open and lighter furniture, it would have been quite pleasant, but not here. Here it was shrouded in darkness and surrounded by large and elaborate pieces of dark wood furniture

I began to grow hot, and twitched my sleeves as I waited. My mind raced as to what I ought to do. Should I greet her? Was she even there?

‘Don’t fidget, girl.’ Her voice cracked out from the darkness, and I stared into the gloom. It was such a large room – cavernous, with the highest ceilings I had ever seen, supported by more of that heavy, dark wood panelling.

Gradually I saw her, sitting in a chair the same dark colour of her gown. Briefly, I wondered what would cause her to hide in perpetual darkness. I bobbed a curtsey, and hoped that was the right thing to do.

‘Come forward. I can’t see you from there.’

I bobbed a curtsey and shuffled forwards until she came into focus. I slipped a little on the thick carpet, the soles of my new shoes as smooth as polished glass.

‘Hmm.’

She stared at me for a long time, her eyes flicking over my dress and hair, before lingering for ever so long on my face. My cheeks burned, and in the heat from the roaring fire, I began to feel light-headed.

‘My son,’ she said slowly, as though every word was an effort. ‘He tells me he visited your father a week or so ago. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Did he see you?’ she asked sharply, and I felt my skin prickle with unease.

‘No, no Ma’am. I was outside when he visited.’

‘And he married you all the same?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Hmm.’

She fell silent again and I tried to remain as still as possible.

‘What did your father tell you about his… connection with my son?’

‘Just that he was a friend of my parents, Ma’am.’

‘Is that all?’ She raised an eyebrow with scorn. ‘Did you not want to know more, were you not curious? You just agreed to marry him, just like that?’

‘I did not- that is to say-’ I wanted to tell her I hadn’t felt I had a choice, but that would mean insulting Gabriel, and the Lord only knew I didn’t want to do that.

‘Perhaps you were seduced by his money? My son is a very wealthy man. I understand your father is not of high standing. A cottage, he said, was where he found you. I doubt Gabriel had ever even been in a cottage before.’

‘No, I-’

‘But it’s all too late for that now of course. I advised him against it, but here you are. I would not have had you here, I want you to know that, but my son is not a man to be gainsaid. I suppose now you are here, we must make the best of it.’

I bowed my head and waited to be dismissed, but she hadn’t finished.

‘I am the lady of this house. My son is its head. He is a remarkable man. He has his flaws of course, but we all do. And this is his house, and his word is law. Where he does not choose to involve himself, such as in some housekeeping matters, my word is law. I shall die before you have any say in the running of my household.’

I looked up sharply, and saw that Mrs Raynor was glaring at me, her eyes small and tight, and her lips pursed, almost purple.

‘I don’t know why you’re here. I didn’t want you to come and I asked him not to bring you. I asked him not to marry you and he didn’t listen. But he is the master of us all and may do as he pleases. He knows his own mind, my son.’

She paused again, as though she had run out of words after that last speech, which had left her in a rush. My ankles ached from standing so still for so long, and my new shoes pinched. I tried to ease my weight from one foot to another, and wiggle my toes slightly without twitching my skirts.

‘Don’t fidget. I shall have no patience with you if you fidget. But we digress.’ Mrs Raynor leaned forward and squinted at me in the gloom. ‘You do know what “digress” means, don’t you? Were you schooled?’

‘Yes Ma’am,’ I replied quietly. ‘My father taught me.’

‘Hmm. Well time will tell how good you are. You can write, I assume?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘You do seem quite simple, but I don’t know what else I expected, or what Gabriel expected. I did ask him not to visit.’ Mrs Raynor sniffed loudly before continuing. ‘So what do you do?’

I stared at her blankly and she rolled her eyes, curling her lip in disgust.

‘Sew? Play?’

‘Play?’

‘Piano, harp, violin, anything? Do. You. Play. An. Instrument? For heaven’s sake. I suppose if you are simple, you probably won’t be too much trouble. Well, do you play?’

‘No, Ma’am.’

‘Sing?’

‘N-no Ma’am.’

‘What do you do? Just sit and stare into the middle distance? Twiddle your thumbs?’

‘I- I used to help my father in his work. I wrote his notes and things. And I used to tend the garden,’ I added hopefully. Surely she could find a place for me in the household somewhere.

‘Hmm. We shall test your hand, and perhaps you may help me write my letters. It depends of course. And when Gabriel is at home he shall direct how you spend your time.’

I nodded, and finally met her gaze, hoping she would dismiss me. She stared at my face again for a long moment.

‘You know,’ she said softly as though she was speaking with a different voice, ‘you do look more like your father, but there is something of your mother about you.’

‘Did you know her, Ma’am?’ I asked.

There was a pause, and I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark. I braced myself for a rebuke.

‘I did,’ she said dreamily, looking through me now. ‘So pretty. But she died, I hear.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Did you know her? Do you remember her at all?’ Not so dreamy now, but sharp again.

‘No Ma’am. She died when I was born.’

‘Hmm. Well. You can go now. I’ve nothing for you to do today, but I suppose you’ll want to settle in, or some such. I’ll think about what we can do with you. Well go on then,’ she flapped her hands at me, agitated. ‘Go away.’

I edged back towards the door, as I had seen the maid do, hurrying to leave before she changed her mind.

CHAPTER 24

Better Strangers

I didn’t really want to return to the house. There seemed to be more space outside for my mind to work, for me to process everything that had happened. The rooms, however pretty, and however comforting they had felt before, now all seemed grey and hostile. I decided it was time to go out into the garden, and see how I felt out there. I had to do something.

It was full of memories, still, but the beauty of nature is that it is ever changing. Nothing was quite the same as it had been the last time I was out there. There were weeds where once there had not been, and there were flowers where once there had been buds. I settled myself into the monotonous and soothing task of weeding one of the borders that faced away from the house.

A shadow passed over me, and I looked up to see Damien standing a few feet away. He looked dusty. I think it was the first time I had properly seen him in daylight, and I squinted at him, not as dazzled as I was when Tristan stood over me. Damien didn’t gleam in the light; he absorbed it.

‘Do you mind if I sit with you?’ He had a book in his hand that he waved at me. 

‘Not at all,’ I said, unsure if it was true or not. But at least he didn’t intend to draw me. Within minutes he would be lost in his book, I was sure, and then I’d practically be alone again. Alone, but protected.

‘Difficult to read in there. Bit dark.’

‘Of course.’

He flopped down onto his front on the opposite side of the border, stretching out, and he appeared taller than when he was standing. He’d always seemed stocky to me, but as the sun filtered through the lawn of his white shirt, I realised it was mainly just because his legs were so – I blushed to think of it – muscular, and his shirt so billowing on shoulders so broad. The plants between us screened him a little, and I peered at him self-consciously, through leaves and stems. He spread his book open on the grass and began to read, tracing the words along the line with his finger, occasionally moving his lips. He looked very young, and I wondered how old he was. In the dark, he had seemed to be in his late twenties but now I placed him at no more than twenty-three or twenty-four. And I had aged so many years over the past months – but his face did not seem, here in the sun, in the garden, to bear the scars of war.

‘I heard your father left,’ he said conversationally as he turned a page.

‘Yes, he went yesterday.’ My mind screamed, but he’s not my father.

‘And you didn’t want to go with him?’

‘No.’

‘I think you’re right. To distance yourself from him, I mean.’

‘He wasn’t my father,’ I finally said quietly. ‘So I could hardly go back with him.’

Damien shrugged.

‘You could have if you’d wanted to. But I don’t think he deserved your company.’

I didn’t know what to say to that, so tackled a weed with gusto, hiding my face behind the plants.

‘What shall you do now, do you think?’ he asked.

‘I- I hadn’t thought.’

‘You’ll be an heiress, I’d reckon.’

‘I don’t want his money.’ I was vehement on that point. ‘I don’t want anything to do with the Raynors, but I certainly don’t want to profit from his death.’

‘Yet his death has been of immeasurable profit to you.’ Damien said it so simply, so matter-of-factly that it almost sounded reasonable. ‘You can’t deny that. I know you’re struggling with it, but the fact remains that Raynor deserved what he got. What he did to you- I’d kill him all over again you know, if I could. As it is, I can’t tell you that you did a bad thing.’

Damien rolled over and lay on his back, tucking his arms behind his head and staring at the clouds.

‘I’d have thought I’d agree with you,’ I said. ‘I was happy enough for him to die when you were going to kill him. I longed to be free of him, but the actual act of… of ending his life. It was so easy. And now he is dead and I can’t let myself feel glad about it because nobody deserves to die, really, do they?’

‘If anyone did, it was him,’ Damien said, peering at me through his eyelashes. ‘But I know how you feel. If it helps.’

‘Why didn’t you do it?’ I asked. ‘I saw your feet – you were just behind the hanging. You said you’d kill him if it was the last thing you did, but you didn’t.’

‘Do you feel let down by that?’ he asked.

I shrugged, unwilling to look too deeply into myself. ‘I just wondered. It seemed – I don’t know. Out of character. I would have expected you to jump out, that’s all.’

Damien chuckled, which was irritating.

‘And save you? But I shouldn’t laugh. I’m sorry. If I had killed him, you wouldn’t be feeling like you do now, perhaps. I could have saved you that if I’d acted sooner. Yet then you wouldn’t know so much as you do about Raynor and what he did. And perhaps you’d hate me as much as you hate yourself. I wouldn’t want that.’

‘Not everything’s a joke, you know,’ I snapped. ‘I killed him. I ended his life.’

Damien shifted, and I thought he was going to reach out to me, but he didn’t.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry I didn’t do it for you, but frankly, I didn’t know you had the gun. I’m sorry you feel the way you do, and I’m sorry you had to go through it all. But I hope that one day, when you’ve had some distance from all of this, you see what happened differently.’

‘I wanted to ask you,’ I faltered, not sure how to begin. ‘How it feels – how you felt when-’

Damien shifted uncomfortably in the grass.

‘How I felt when I killed?’

‘I don’t really want to ask,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it. But you’re the only one who knows. And even then it’s different.’

‘It was kill or be killed. And it is different, in battle. And you do it for your country, and you do it, immediately, for yourself and your men. But you said yourself, he would have killed you in a year if you hadn’t had a child. And it’s not like he didn’t know who you were – or who you might be.

‘People do it all the time – someone dies and immediately everyone thinks they’re a saint. Try not to mourn his loss too much – not many others will.’

I didn’t say anything to that. I knew who the man I’d killed had been, sure enough, but still. The shock of ending his life had taken so little effort on my part.

‘I think time will help you. Think about what you’d like to do. You’re free now. You could do anything. And don’t forget, if you’re going to hell anyway, you might as well have a bit of fun with the rest of your life.’

He chuckled, but I couldn’t bring myself to raise more than a half-hearted smile.

‘What are you reading?’ I wanted to change the subject, and to remind him of the book he had neglected. I liked having him there, but he was forcing me to consider things I didn’t want to.

‘Oh, this?’ he gestured to the tome lying open beside him. ‘Complete works.’

‘Shakespeare?’ I asked.

‘Of course. I want to find out why you called me Orlando. What was it, a line about strangers?’

‘Ah, yes.’ I flushed at the memory. It felt like a different, far more carefree person had been so coquettish in that conversation.

‘Seems like a long time ago though.’

‘I didn’t get to use it much, did I? One or twice, then I found out who you were.’

‘I did wonder – do you think of me as Orlando still? Or just plain old Damien?’ He rolled over and began to flick through the book again.

‘Damien, I think.’

‘That’s a shame.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘Orlando sounds a great deal more dashing.’

I smiled at that, all the while thinking that Damien was probably quite dashing enough as it was. I had never seen him dressed in anything other than tan breeches and shirtsleeves. I briefly tried to picture him in a naval uniform. He would probably look very well indeed.

‘What will you do?’ It was something I hadn’t considered, but he couldn’t live in the wall for ever. And he needn’t, now. That was thanks to me, I supposed, which meant at least one good thing had come out of my being a murderer.

‘I’m not sure. Could always go back to the navy, but I don’t think I’ve the stomach for it any more. War’s over. I hadn’t really thought beyond killing Raynor. Now I’m a free man. I may seek fortune where I may – that’s probably what an Orlando would do, isn’t it?’

‘Probably. Have you any ideas where you might go? Did you mention America?’

‘Yes, I did. But I’ll stay in England for now, I think.’ He glanced at me covertly as he said it, and I felt myself flush. ‘Although I’ll have to arrive properly. Can’t just emerge out of thin air. People will talk.’

‘Will you stay here?’

‘No, why would I, really? I mean, in usual circumstances,’ he added quickly as my face fell. ‘I’ll stay with Mother for a while at least, then maybe take myself off to London. I’ve a few friends from the navy who I could stay with.’

‘That sounds nice,’ I said. We fell into a silence then, and I set myself to weeding with a fury. I wasn’t sure what I’d do without him. I’d manage, of course, I reassured myself. I’d lived seventeen – almost eighteen years previously without feeling as though Damien’s shadow was watching over me. I’d been perfectly safe for the most part, despite the invisible, unknown threat of Gabriel. I felt that I would miss Damien, though.

‘Ah!’ He rolled onto his side so he could see me, and jabbed his finger at the book. ‘I think I’ve found it. Orlando says it – “I do desire that we be better strangers”. Is that what you meant?’

‘I knew it was something like that.’

‘But,’ Damien bent over the book and read the passage again. ‘These fellows don’t want to meet one another. How terribly rude you are.’

I felt myself flush again and hid my flaming cheeks behind the flowers, bending low over the soil.

‘I couldn’t remember the exact quote,’ I mumbled. ‘I just knew it mentioned strangers.’

He had been so easy to flirt with then, when he had been the stranger in the wall. I hadn’t meant the words as Orlando had spoken them. It seemed confused and roundabout now, but then, when we had determined that we would keep our true identities from one another, it had seemed wonderfully apt. I wanted to know him more, see him more, all the while remaining strangers in name only. My Orlando had been a creature without a past, seeming to exist only when I saw him. He’d made me feel like I could have no past either, and exist only in his company.

I realised he was watching me, his brows furrowed slightly and his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

‘Well you’re leaving, aren’t you? And I – well, I don’t know what I’ll be doing. So we will be better strangers, won’t we?’

‘Hmm, yes.’ Damien still watched me, and I felt vile as I strove for lightness. ‘I’ll probably be off in a day or two.’

‘So soon?’ I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my voice, and my head snapped up and I met his eyes properly.

‘Yes, I think so. I’ve no reason to live here any longer. I’ll see you at dinner, Fleur.’

He stood, the book under one arm, and gave a strange little bow as he left me. I felt twice as awful as I had before I’d come into the garden, but I didn’t really understand why.

Damien left the following morning. He shook hands with Tristan and embraced Edwina while I stood awkwardly to the side.

‘I hope you feel better soon, Fleur,’ he said as he stood before me. He was wearing a coat. It was ridiculous, but all I could think was that I’d never seen him wearing a coat before. I wondered where he had got it from. ‘And that you can sort yourself out,’ he added.

Then he left, on foot, a knapsack slung over his shoulder that Edwina had packed sandwiches in. He didn’t say when he’d see us again, but I imagined it wouldn’t be too long. Mrs Hudson visited regularly, so I’d probably see him within the week. But I didn’t.

Since their other guest had left, I felt that I should raise the issue of my future at the house. Edwina batted away my concerns and apologies, and said I could live there with her and Tristan for as long as I wanted to. She said I was the daughter she had never had, and that for as long as she lived, I would have a home there. I thanked her, and agreed that I would stay indefinitely.

Day by day I became more normal, and day by day my feelings returned. A month had passed, then two, and I still got nightmares sometimes, but I could think and feel like I used to, and even smiled a few times. I remember the first time I laughed again. It was at nothing, just something stupid Tristan had said, and as Edwina turned to me with a look of surprise and joy at the sound of it, my insides went icy cold and I remembered that I had no right to laugh, really. But one laugh was the gateway to further laughter, and gradually I began to see humour in more and more. I began to go hours without thinking of Gabriel in any way, although I doubted I would ever go a whole day without remembering him, or what I had done.

I even consented to leave the house, and venture beyond the confines of the garden. After a week or two of gentle coaxing that I had easily rebuffed, Edwina approached me one morning with her hand on her hip and my coat over her other arm.

‘Because I’m damned if I’m carrying everything back from town alone, and at my age too.’