Belgravia (9 page)

“You must protect the memory of your daughter, poor child. Of course I can see that. We must try not to blame her when she is to be pitied. You said yourself the atmosphere in Brussels before the battle was such that anyone could lose their reason for a moment.”

If this was supposed to be a defense of Sophia, it was not effective. “I do not blame her, and she didn’t lose her reason,” said Anne firmly. “She believed she was married to Lord Bellasis. He tricked her into thinking that a marriage had taken place.”

This was not at all what Lady Brockenhurst had been expecting. She drew herself up. “I
beg
your pardon?”

“He tricked her. He bamboozled her. He told her he had arranged for them to be married, then he persuaded a fellow officer to pretend to be a clergyman, and Sophia did not find out the truth until it was too late.”

“I don’t believe you.” Lady Brockenhurst spoke with absolute, unchallengeable conviction.

Anne was quite as firm. She spoke calmly, putting down her cup as she did so. “Of course that is your privilege, but I am telling you the truth. It was only when we left the ball, immediately before Lord Bellasis rode away to join his regiment, that Sophia recognized his partner in her undoing. The so-called parson was laughing and joking with his fellow officers, as far from a churchman as anyone could be. She almost fainted.”

Lady Brockenhurst had also placed her cup firmly back on its saucer and now she stood. “I see how it is. Your daughter was scheming to catch my wretched son in her net, no doubt encouraged by her parents—”

Anne cut in sharply. “Now it is
my
turn to be incredulous.”

But Lady Brockenhurst continued on her path, warming to her subject as she spoke. “When she heard that he was dead and his seduction had been for nothing, she concocted a story that would give her some excuse if the worst happened, and it did.”

Anne was bristling now, furious at this cold and heartless woman, furious at the dead Lord Bellasis, furious at herself for being so blind. “You mean, Lord Bellasis was incapable of such behavior?”

“I most certainly do. He could never have conceived of the very idea.” Lady Brockenhurst was getting carried away with her performance. She had become Indignation on a monument. She did not value Anne’s type, and so she could not see or judge the woman clearly. But Anne Trenchard was quite as much a fighter as she.

“Wasn’t his godfather Lord Berkeley?”

Anne could see at once the name was a slap across Lady Brockenhurst’s face. She almost flinched. “How did you know that?”

“Because Lord Bellasis spoke of him. He told me that when Lord Berkeley died in 1810, his eldest son was disallowed the use of his titles because his father had not truly married his mother before the boy’s birth, as she thought. It came out later that he’d
gotten a friend to pose as a priest, so he might lure the unsuspecting girl into bed. They did marry later but they could not legitimize the child. You know all this to be true.” Lady Brockenhurst was silent. “I beg you not to tell me Lord Bellasis could never have conceived of any such idea.”

After a pause to regroup, Lady Brockenhurst recovered her style. Gliding smoothly over to the chimneypiece, she tugged at the embroidered bell rope, talking as she went. “I will only say this. My son was seduced by an unscrupulous and ambitious girl, aided for all I know by her equally ambitious parents. She wanted to use the chaos of war to bring about a union that would advance her beyond even her father’s dreams. But she failed. My son took her as his mistress. I do not deny it, but so what? He was a young man, and she was a pretty slut who threw herself at his head. And I won’t apologize for that because I do not care. Ah, Peter. Please take Mrs. Trenchard down. She is leaving.” She spoke to the footman who had come in answer to the bell. He waited in the doorway.

Anne could not, of course, reply in front of him, but she was too angry to speak anyway, just nodding to her enemy to avoid giving the servant any clue as to what had really taken place. She started for the door, but Lady Brockenhurst had not quite finished. “Funny. I thought you had some sentimental tale to tell me of my son. A happy story from his last days on earth. You spoke so well of him when we first met.”

Anne stopped. “I spoke of him as I knew him before that night. We did have fun with him. I wasn’t lying. And I didn’t want to hurt you. But I was wrong. You were bound to know the truth eventually. I should have been more honest. If it’s any consolation, no one was more surprised than I to learn what he was capable of.” She hesitated at the door. The footman had gone ahead of her along the gallery, and they were alone again for a moment. “Will you keep our secret?” She hated to ask but she had to. “Can I have your word of honor?”

“Of course you may have my word.” The Countess’s smile
would have frozen water. “Why would I publicize my late son’s degradation?” With that, Anne had to accept that she’d allowed Lady Brockenhurst the final say on the matter. She swept out of the room, down the staircase, and into the street before she allowed herself to stop and take full account of her shaking fury.

L
ymington Park was not the oldest seat of the Bellasis dynasty, but it was unquestionably the grandest. They had begun their career among the landed gentry in a modest manor house in Leicestershire, but marriage to an heiress in the early seventeenth century had brought the Hampshire estate as a welcome dowry, and the family had been glad to move south. A desperate appeal for funds from King Charles I, in the heat of the Civil War, had brought the promise of an earldom, and the pledge was made good by the decapitated King’s son, when he returned in glory at the Restoration. Although it was the second Earl who decided that the existing house was no longer appropriate to their station, and a large Palladian palace, designed by William Kent, was proposed. This was to be funded by some sensible investment in the early days of Empire, but a sudden downturn meant it never happened, and in the event it was the present Earl’s grandfather who had employed the architect George Steuart in the 1780s to design a new and grander envelope to be built around the original hall. The result could not be described as cozy or even comfortable, but it spoke of tradition and high office, and as Peregrine Bellasis, fifth Earl of Brockenhurst, strode through the great hall, or sat in his library with its fine books and his dogs round his feet, or climbed the staircase lined with portraits of his ancestors, he felt it was a suitable setting as the background to a noble life. His wife, Caroline, knew how to manage such a place, or rather how to assemble the right team to manage it, and while her own enthusiasm for the house, like all her enthusiasms, had slipped into the grave
with the body of her son, she knew how to make a decent show and take command of the county.

But this morning, her thoughts were on other matters. She thanked her maid, Dawson, as the woman placed the breakfast tray across her knees as Caroline watched a group of fallow deer move softly across the park outside her windows. She smiled, and the strangeness of the sensation seemed to freeze her for a moment. “Is everything all right, m’lady?” Dawson looked concerned.

Caroline nodded. “Quite. Thank you. I’ll ring when I’m ready to dress.” The maid nodded and left. Lady Brockenhurst poured her coffee carefully. Why did her heart feel lighter? Was it so remarkable? That a little harpy had tried to blackmail her dead son? That this was the reason for the existence of the boy she had no doubt, and yet… She closed her eyes. Edmund had loved Lymington. Even as a child, he had known every inch of the estate. He could have been left in any part of it blindfolded and found his way back unaided. But he would not have been unaided, since every keeper, every tenant, every worker had taken the child to their heart. Caroline knew well enough that she was not loved, and nor was her husband. They were respected. In a way. But no more than that. The local people thought them chilly and unfeeling, hard and even harsh, but they had given birth to a prodigy. That was how she thought of Edmund: a prodigy, a golden child who was loved by everyone he knew. At least, that was how he had come to seem as the empty, lonely years stumbled on, until, with the varnishing patina of history, she came to believe that she, of all people, had given birth to the perfect son. They’d wanted more children, of course. But in the end, and after three stillbirths, only Edmund was left to occupy the nurseries on the second floor; yet he was enough. That was what she told herself, and it was the truth. He was enough. As he grew, the tenants and the villagers looked forward to the day he would inherit. She knew that, and told it against herself. He was their hope for a better future, and maybe he would have given them one. But now they had only Peregrine to endure and John to look forward to; an old man with
no interest in life to be followed by a greedy, selfish peacock who would care no more for them than if they were stones in the road. How sad.

Still, this morning Caroline felt different. She looked around the room, which was lined in pale green striped silk, with a tall gilt looking glass above the chimneypiece and a set of engravings on the walls, wondering quite what was making her feel unlike her usual self. Then, with a kind of surprise, she realized she felt happy, as if the sensation were so lost to her that it took a while for her to identify it. But it was true. She was happy to think her child had left a son. It wouldn’t change anything. The title, the estates, the London house, everything else, would still be John’s, but Edmund had left a son, and might they not come to know this man? Might they not find him and help him? After all, they would not be the first noble family to boast a love child. The late King’s bastards were all received at Court by the young Queen. Surely they could lift him from obscurity? Surely there must be some property outside the entail? Her imagination was beginning to spill over into a myriad of possibilities. Didn’t that tiresome woman say the boy had been brought up by a clergyman, in a respectable household, and not by herself and her vulgar husband? With any luck, he would favor his father and not his mother. He might even be a sort of gentleman. Of course she knew she had given her word that she would say and do nothing to reveal the truth, but was it necessary to keep one’s word if it were given to someone like Mrs. Trenchard? She wriggled. Caroline Brockenhurst was a cold woman and a snobbish one—she would have admitted as much—but she was not dishonest or dishonorable. She knew she could not break her oath and turn herself into a liar. There must be some other way through the maze.

Lord Brockenhurst was still in the dining room when she came down, engrossed in his copy of the
Times
. “It’s beginning to look as if Peel might win the election,” he said without looking up. “It seems Melbourne’s on the way out. She won’t like that.”

“I believe the Prince favors Sir Robert Peel.”

Her husband grunted. “He would. He’s a German.”

Lady Brockenhurst had no interest in going on with this. “You haven’t forgotten Stephen and Grace will be here for luncheon?”

“Are they bringing John?”

“I think so. He’s been staying with them.”

“Drat.” Her husband did not look up from the page. “I suppose they want money.”

“Thank you, Jenkins.” Lady Brockenhurst smiled at the butler standing to attention by the sideboard. He nodded and left. “Really, Peregrine, are we to have no secrets at all?”

“You don’t have to worry about Jenkins. He knows more about this family than I ever will.” It was true that Jenkins was a child of Lymington. A tenant farmer’s son who had joined the household as a hall boy at thirteen and never left, he had climbed through the ranks over the years until he reached the dizzying throne of butler. His loyalty to the Bellasis clan was unshakable.

“I do not worry about him. I simply think it rude to test him. Whether we like it or not, Stephen is your brother and your heir and should be treated with respect, at least in public.”

“But not in private, by God. Besides, he’s only my heir if he outlives me, and I’ll make damn sure he doesn’t.”

“Famous last words.” But she sat with her husband, chatting away, engaging him with talk of the estate, more friendly than she had been in months or even years, perhaps because she felt so guilty about the things she was not saying.

In the end, the Honorable and Reverend Stephen Bellasis came with his family early, not long after midday. The excuse he gave at luncheon was that he wanted to take a turn in the gardens before they ate, but Peregrine was convinced they’d come before time simply to annoy him. At any rate, neither of the Brockenhursts were there to receive their relatives when they arrived.

Shorter than his elder brother and substantially heavier, Stephen Bellasis had inherited none of the Brockenhurst charm that had made Peregrine so attractive in his youth, to say nothing of the late Lord Bellasis, who could turn heads in a ballroom with his dark, masculine beauty. By contrast, Stephen’s bald pate was
struggling to hold on to the few gray strands of hair he carefully combed across it every morning, while below his oddly lush, long, gray mustache, his chin was soft and weak.