Anne Barbour (27 page)

“Weston,” he murmured, running his fingers over the letters carved into a mossy headstone. How strange to behold the surname, repeated so many times, in this alien environment.

Crossing to another corner of the enclosed area, he examined two stones, set apart from the others by their obvious newness and the fact that they stood straight as sentinels guarding the mounded plots at their feet.

“George Weston,” read the first one, “Sixth Earl of Sandborne.” “William Weston,” read the second, “Seventh Earl of Sandborne.”

Both had met their Maker in the Year of Our Lord, 1814.

“Almost two years ago,” whispered the man. While he had been busy with his own interests in Pennsylvania, disaster had struck persons far away and unknown to him, but whose deaths would have a profound impact on him.

He shivered again and moved out of the iron enclosure toward the horse standing at the edge of the graveyard. He glanced cursorily at the church as he passed, noting the pine boughs that were affixed to the door. The red ribbon binding them provided the only color in the scene.

A little early for decoration, was it not? Christmas was, after all, well over a month away. The idea snaked through him with a forlorn twist. Not that this Christmas would be any lonelier than those of the last few years, spent huddled over the meager comfort of a campfire.

Another image sprang unbidden to his mind, of a large, comfortable dwelling in Philadelphia, redolent of pine and warmed by family and candlelight and laughter and love. He grimaced, remembering the small interloper who stood alone, seemingly forever on the outside looking in.

He straightened. No. He would not think of all that now. He had come a very long way, and he had business to attend to. He’d best get on with it and stop maundering in sodden churchyards.

Moving to mount his horse, he halted abruptly as a sound reached him from inside the church. It drifted over the tombstones, faint yet beckoning, seeming as alien to this bleak environment as an orchid might be, blooming suddenly at his feet. It was a woman, singing a Christmas carol. Her voice was profoundly pure and of such an aching sweetness that her song seemed to fill him with a breathless sense of impending magic.

“... and the running of the deer,” she sang, and to his surprise, the American felt tears spring to his eyes. A moment later, he heard, “And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ on Christmas Day in the morn,” as the singer drew the carol to a close.

The man waited motionless for several minutes, then, on an impulse, moved toward the church. He had mounted the crumbling stone steps to grasp the door handle, when suddenly it swung out toward him. He stumbled and fell back as a slight figure propelled itself into his arms.

“Oh!” the figure, revealed as a young woman, exclaimed. “I’m so sorry! I did not know anyone was here.”

The man steadied himself as she clung to him to avoid falling. He laughed awkwardly.

“It is I who should apologize. Tell me, was it your voice I just heard?”

The woman blushed, but said nothing, merely nodding her head.

“If I may say so, ma’am, you are prodigiously talented. I very much enjoyed listening to you.”

“Thank you,” she replied, a little breathlessly. She seemed somewhat flustered—at his compliment? Or at being addressed by a stranger? He took her arm to assist her down the stairs, and when they reached the bottom of the short flight, she stepped back to look at him. The man was struck by the fact that, although the woman seemed very plain in almost every other aspect, she was possessed of a very fine pair of eyes. They were a clear, light gray, fringed with a long, dark sweep of lash. Her brows were a delicate, winged tracery.

Moving his gaze to the rest of her face, Josh drew in a startled breath. She was disfigured by a scar that ran from her temple down her jawline, until it reached the side of her neck. The wound that caused it had been deep, but it was pale now, and no longer as conspicuous as it must once have been.

Schooling his features to an expression of blank courtesy, Josh returned her regard. Only a crescent of her dark hair could be seen beneath a voluminous, gray bonnet, and she was almost obliterated by the heavy cloak that covered her from head to toe.

“You are a stranger here, sir?” she asked at last.

“Very much so,” the man replied with a smile. He took her hand, and bowed, continuing. “I am from America. I—”

At his words, she jerked spasmodically and pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I must go.”

She hurried away toward a small gig that stood on the other side of the church. He stared after her for a few moments, then shrugged and moved to his horse. Swinging into the saddle, he slapped the reins, and the animal clattered off down the lane.

II

“My goodness!” In the small, black gig that sped down the lane in the opposite direction, Melody Fairfax exclaimed once again. “My goodness!”

Could it really be he? At the Court they had given up on the prospect of his ever arriving—but, who else could it be? Striding through the old graveyard in an outlandish coat, he’d seemed as alien as—well—as alien as the American he claimed to be.

Such a coat had probably never been seen in the Kentish village of Westonbury, she thought with a grin, but somehow it suited the man. He was tall and rangy, yet he moved with an almost feral grace. He did not wear a hat, and his hair, black as storm-drenched slate, fell in damp tendrils over a broad forehead. His eyes, in startling contrast, were a clear, deep green, lucid and polished as carved jade. His features were regular, if somewhat harsh and weathered. He appeared to be somewhat older than her own nine and twenty years.

Somehow, she hadn’t pictured him as being so large. Perhaps because the others, though they were tall men, did not give the impression of taking up more physical space than their dimensions warranted—as did the lanky specimen she’d just met. Nor did they possess a manifest and unsettling maleness that was as natural to him as the easy informality of his speech.

She supposed she should have made for home immediately to tell the others. If only she had not promised the vicar’s wife to stop by with a receipt needed that afternoon.

Melody continued on her way, a small smile curving her lips as she envisioned the stranger’s reception at Sandborne Park.

III

A very short time later, after passing a lengthy section of high, stone wall, the American turned in at a wide gate flanked by two stone lions. He followed a long, winding drive lined with willows whose branches, laden with the weight of freezing moisture, hung almost to the ground.

As his horse trotted around the final curve of the drive, the man stopped in astonishment. George Willis, the London attorney who served as the Weston family agent, had described the manor house as impressive, but now it could be seen that Willis’s words had been inadequate. The place was magnificent. It was of Tudor design, its symmetry accented by several ranks of long windows.

Drawing up with a flourish before the house, the man ascended a broad flight of stairs that culminated in a massive entrance door. Firmly, he wielded the heavy brass knocker, and the resulting clang could be heard echoing inside the house.

At length, the door was opened by a personage of such impressive mien that the man stepped back involuntarily.

“Um,” he said tentatively, “I’m looking for—”

The apparition cast a cursory glance over the visitor.

“If,” he intoned frigidly, “you seek the Earl of Sandborne, his lordship is not home at present.”

He began to close the door, adding as he did so in a tone of austere admonishment, “The tradesmen’s entrance is around to the rear.”

The American glanced down over his clothing. All right, he would admit his garb was less than fashionable. Certainly not what one would wear if one expected to be admitted to this grand establishment.

However...

He pushed against the door, and at the man’s expression of astonished affront, said mildly, “Oh, but the earl is here, for I am he. My name is Joshua Weston. You are the butler, I take it. Surely, you must be expecting me?”

The butler’s mouth dropped open, working emptily for several moments. At last, he drew himself up, apparently prepared to dispute such an obviously fallacious statement. He must have thought better of that notion, however, for after eyeing Josh briefly, he opened the door grudgingly.

“We knew of the possibility—that is ... I do apologize if I have been in error, sir, but...” Once again he allowed his pained gaze to travel over the sheepskin coat and the serviceable breeches that accompanied it. “I am Forbes.”

Without waiting for the butler’s acquiescence Josh moved past him into an imposing entrance hall. Forbes opened his mouth, closed it once again, and glanced out at the horse standing at the foot of the steps.

“Is there—? That is, I do not see a coach, sir—my lord.”

“No,” said Josh Weston with an apologetic grin. “I came on horseback.”

“From London—on horseback!” echoed Forbes faintly. “I see. Well, ah—very good, my lord. I shall have someone see to the, er, animal.”

He transferred his gaze to the horse and his expression lightened somewhat. The man before him might or might not be the Earl of Sandborne, but his knowledge of horse flesh could not be in doubt.

“Thank you, Forbes,” replied Josh imperturbably. “Do you see the portmanteau strapped to the saddle? Would you have it taken up to wherever I’m to stay? My trunk should be along in a day or two.”

“Of course—my lord.” Forbes bowed and, in some bemusement, assisted Josh in removing the sheepskin coat. “If you will follow me, I shall inform her ladyship of your arrival.”

“Her ladyship?”

“The countess, my lord. Lady Sandborne. The dowager countess, I should say.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.”

Forbes turned. He was a large man, with an empurpled countenance that spoke of years of good wine and rich food. His stately progress across the hall’s marbled expanse put Josh very much in mind of a galleon plowing the waves.

The butler led Josh to one of several small salons that lay along the hall’s perimeter.

“If you will wait here, my lord, I shall return momentarily.”

So he was not to be allowed at large in the establishment, thought Josh with some amusement, until he had been vetted. Well, that was to be expected. This is what he got for arriving at Sandborne Park on his own, sans a complement of retainers and attorneys— and looking as though he’d come fresh from the colonial backwoods. Which, of course, in a manner of speaking, he had.

Unwilling to trust his angular frame to any of the Louis Quatorze chairs that dotted the salon, he wandered about the room, idly examining Dresden shepherdesses and Wedgwood nymphs. He had just begun on the paintings lining the walls when Forbes, true to his word, reappeared.

This time he guided Josh up the great staircase that ascended from the hall and forked into two sweeping branches before reaching the next floor. From there it was a short journey to another salon, this one more spacious and even more elegantly furnished than the one downstairs.

“The Earl of Sandborne, my lady.”

The words echoed strangely in Josh’s ears.

Seated in a wing chair near the window, her slippered feet resting on an embroidered stool, a woman awaited him. She was slight of build, with short, gray hair that clustered about her small head in a rumble of curls, but her bearing was regal. She nodded at the newcomer, her demeanor stiff and vaguely unwelcoming. Smiling faintly, she held out her hand.

“Mr. Weston?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, choosing for the moment to ignore the “mister.” He took the proffered hand and brushed his lips across cool, slender fingers.

“I am Lady Sandborne.” She gestured him to another chair. “George Willis wrote to tell us that a man calling himself Joshua Weston had arrived in England,” she said at last. “However, we were not sure when to expect you.”

“I call myself Joshua Weston because that is my name,” retorted Josh. “Mr. Willis intended to accompany me,” he continued after a moment. “However, he came down with an ague a couple of days ago. He made arrangements to send one of his clerks in his stead, but I told him I was quite capable of making my way down here on my own. I do have credentials,” he added stiffly.

Lady Sandborne raised her head, and for the first time, studied Josh’s face. She relaxed suddenly.

“Yes, of course you do,” she said softly, “but they are unnecessary. I should have known the instant I saw you. You are very like your grandfather in appearance—the late fifth earl, that is.”

Josh, too, relaxed.

“It’s just that it is so very odd,” continued Lady Sandborne. “When Sandborne—my husband—passed away two years ago, without male issue, and when his brother followed him only a few months later, we were absolutely stunned. We knew that your father, as the third son, would have been next in line, but word reached us years ago of his death. And, of course, we thought that you—”

“Yes, Mister Willis explained all that,” interrupted Josh harshly. “I’ve seen the letters written by my mother, when my life was despaired of.”

“Yes, and when we heard nothing after that, we were sure that you had not survived infancy. The message we received from the attorneys a few months ago was the first indication any of us had of your existence. At any rate”—she continued after a brief pause—”you are here now, dear boy. Welcome to your new home.”

At her words, Josh started. His home? He almost smiled. He had never really had a home. The man who had raised him, his father’s business partner, Eli Betterman, had provided him with food and shelter and a measure of kindness, but Uncle Eli’s house had never, by any stretch of a boy’s most determined imagination, been home.

And now, here he was in a great, empty palace of a house, where his voice echoed off the walls. He was once again among strangers, and this woman bade him welcome and told him he was home.

“Actually,” he said rather stiffly, “I shan’t be staying long.”