Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (15 page)

Mrs. Sumner came round remarkably quickly, choking and coughing from the acrid smoke. “Good God, what is that awful smell?! Really girl, don’t you have any smelling salts?”

Edgar gave a pointed look at James. “The smell of cow pat you mean?”

Cecilia shook her head, grinned and returned to her seat. “A burnt feather is what they use at the opera I’ve heard,” she said, primly arranging her skirts over her knees.

“Yes. Where was I, yes!” Mrs. Sumner blustered. James frowned as Mrs. Sumner looked inexplicably at Edgar. She tossed her head. “Er… Marie Mompesson, but that is the real name of my daughter, Melissa! Papa wanted me to name Marie after one of our ancestors, but with the advent of the war you see, we all thought it sounded too French so we changed her name to Melissa. Marie Mompesson is actually her first and middle name, Sumner, or Summerbain being her last name.”

Melissa, who had been leaning over her mother, took a step back in shock. “You never told me!”

“Wait!” Edgar said, suspicion lacing his voice. “How do we know that you are not making this up? You have not told us any more information than we have already told you!”

Mrs. Sumner put a hand to her chin and rubbed it. “I know where there is a secret safe.” She pointed her hand to the doorway. “It is behind a painting in the gallery.”

James took a step towards the door. He stopped. Was this what he wanted? He took in a sharp breath and choked as the faint smell of apple blossom rose from his shirt where Harriet’s hair had lain.

If they found the safe then it all became too real.

He stared at Melissa, who had folded herself into a chair and sat ashen-faced, staring into the fireplace. There was no sign of joy on her face. Her flawless beauty was still as evident as ever, but her eyes were shuttered, reflecting only the flames from the fire.

James took another step towards the door. “We had better find out, then,” he said in a low voice. He took another step. A door slammed somewhere in the house and Edgar pushed passed him.

“No time like the present, old boy.”

James hurried to catch up with Edgar. The gallery was dark. He stopped at the doorway and turned back to the drawing room for a candelabra. As he opened the door to the gallery, he could see into the study. He shuddered and clenched his hands. When he had the house, he would destroy the study. With a faster pace, he strode back into the sitting room. Melissa hadn’t moved. He shook his head and grasped a candelabra before he retraced his steps back to the gallery. In the flickering light of the candles, it seemed as if the painted eyes of his family in the portraits stared at him.

We see you, they whispered. We see you and we find you wanting.

Mrs. Sumner appeared at his side, as silent as a wraith. “Papa said that it was behind his favorite picture. But I don’t know which one. I’ve not been in this room before.”

A crashing sound in the corner made them both jump.

“Sorry,” Edgar called from the shadows. “Thought I might start looking. It’s not behind this one.”

James sighed. “The only picture that doesn’t belong is the one of the lady.” He looked up at her.

Mrs. Sumner stepped forward. She looked round the edges of the portrait and then unhesitatingly pressed the edge of the panel on which the painting was framed.

James let out a small gasp as the panel swung back to reveal a large safe, squatting in the wall. In all those years of crawling through the house, disappearing into the walls, he had never thought to look behind the paintings. In truth he had never wanted to touch the lady. She had an indefinable air of mystery to her that he didn’t want to disturb.

Edgar pushed in front of James. “Bloody safe is open.”

Indeed there was nothing inside. But that wasn’t the point.

“What do you expect?” Mrs. Sumner stood back from the panel. “Papa said he took everything when he left.” She shrugged her shoulders and put out a hand to Edgar. “Take me back to the drawing room, please, I still feel quite faint.”

James followed them, lighting their way through the cold dark house with the candelabra. Stepping quietly behind them, with their linked arms, it felt like they were moving forward towards a wedding ceremony. Or even, in the darkness, a funeral.

In the drawing room he shakily placed the candelabra on top of the mantelpiece, his arm shuddering with the effort as his shoulder ached.

Mrs. Sumner sat with a small gasp.

“Was it there?” Lady Stanton asked eagerly, “The safe?”

Melissa’s head whipped to the side.

Mrs. Sumner nodded. Melissa dropped her head and returned to facing the fire.

Lady Stanton gave a delighted laugh. “We’re saved!”

James’ stomach clenched.
Saved? Saved by what?
His fists curled into bunches.

Mrs. Sumner wriggled further into her seat. “Papa said that the man who won the house from him tossed him out like a dog. He said that the lord had said that that was all he deserved. Poor Papa.” She shook her head. “Luckily we had another house where we could live in London. But it wasn’t easy, you know. When I had Melissa, Papa told me he had written to the lord with the name of our daughter on it to let him know what a bastard he had been. “

“That must be how the old man knew her name!” Edgar said irreverently. “Bloody hell, James!”

James pushed away from the fireplace. He had to leave. Flinging open the garden windows, he walked blindly into the orangery and stood uncertain of which way to go. He turned back to look into the drawing room.

“What’s wrong with the man?” Mrs. Sumner stared at him with shadowed eyes.

“He’s not only got to find Marie, he has to marry her!” Edgar strode across the doorway. James’ eyes were drawn to Melissa, who hunched even further as Edgar passed her.

The roaring in his ears intensified and he didn’t hear Mrs. Sumner’s reply. He was well trapped like a prize bull on a ring. He swung on his heel and, pushing at the old door of the Orangery, stepped into the cool night air. Blindly, he stepped through the mess of the rose garden and onto the lawn. It felt like déjà vu, the grass was taller than ever, grabbing at his ankles as he strode.

“James! James, wait.” He stopped. Cecilia pushed through the grass behind him, lifting her skirts. It looked as if she was floating on a pool of blackness.

She stopped a few feet short of him. James looked away at the sky. Cassiopeia was visible as well as the Great Bear. It had been a while since he had looked for them.

“You have a choice, James,” Cecilia said slowly. “You don’t need to go through with this. I know that you have other land that will support us. We don’t need to stay here. You don’t need to marry Melissa.”

“Don’t you like her?” His voice didn’t seem to be his own. James wanted to shout that he didn’t want her. Her hair didn’t curl like flames across her head. She didn’t smell of intoxicating apple blossom. But the eyes in the portraits glowed like beacons in his mind and the door to the study stood open, just a crack. He eased his aching fingers out of a fist.

Cecilia studied her bunched skirts. “I don’t mind Melissa,” she said slowly. “She seems harmless, and is actually good fun when she is away from her mother. That ribbon she chose for me from you suited me right down to the ground.” Cecilia stopped. James waited. “It’s her mother I don’t like. There is something not quite right about her. She claimed to have been at the same seminary as Mama, but says she cannot remember the names of her teachers—”

James shook his head. “You heard what she said regarding the way Grandfather threw her father out, and where that safe was. It must all be true.”

Cecilia stared at him. “You’ve got to work out if you can stand being married to Melissa for the next thirty years or more, James.” She pointed back at the dark house. “From what I’ve seen lately, you don’t mind her being around, and I know she likes you. Many marriages have been built on less.”

In James’ mind he heard the unanswered screams and whimpers. “Yes, they have.” His voice was a thready whisper.

Turning on one heel, he marched back into the house. Mrs. Sumner, Edgar, his mother and Melissa still sat in the drawing room. None of them had changed position. Edgar moved away from the garden door with a quick stride as he pushed it open.

James looked at no one but Mrs. Sumner. “Do I have your permission to address your daughter?” he asked. He clenched his fist as a forgotten voice from the past floated in the air.

Papa, please don’t use that. Not again. Where is Mama?

James glanced at the door. He couldn’t see into the study from there. It was a good thing. He glanced at his mother. But as ever she was still, the voice from the past had been heard by him and him alone.

Mama rescue me.

Mrs. Sumner put down her glass of sherry. “But of course, my dear man, go ahead.” She smiled and jogged Melissa’s elbow on the settle. “Melissa, go with Lord Stanton, and remember your manners.”

Melissa looked down at her feet and shook her head.

“I said, Melissa, go with Lord Stanton,” Mrs. Sumner repeated. She jogged Melissa’s arm, more roughly this time.

Melissa stood and stared at James. She bowed her head and followed him to the Orangery. James shut the garden door carefully.

James cleared his throat. “Please take a seat.” He swept the soil from one of the cast iron benches beneath the pineapple trees. Melissa sat without a murmur. “Melissa.” He stopped and tried again. “We have come to know each other quite well over the last few weeks,” he said. “I like you very much.”

Melissa did not say a word, her head bowed as she listened.

“I know we have all put you in an awkward position, but would you, could you, do me the honor of marrying me?”

You are not my son.

Melissa still didn’t look at him.

James stared out of the rain lashed window. What was he doing? “I think we would deal well together and I know that you would make a fine mistress of Brambridge estate.”

Who would want a son like you?

Hell and damnation, why didn’t she make it easy for him? Why didn’t she say something? The flames from the drawing room reflected in the glass windows of the orangery, red, as red as Harriet’s hair.

He sat beside Melissa and cupped her chin in his hands. “Melissa, look at me.” Pulling her beautiful head to face him, he gazed into her sea blue eyes, “The first time that I saw you, you stunned me with your beauty.” He paused and swallowed. God help him. “Whilst I feel that we have not had enough time to get to know each other well, I believe that in time we could come to love each other.”

CHAPTER 15

The clink of the oars against their pins was the only sound apart from the crashing of the waves against the cliffs as Harriet guided a small rowing boat out from Longman’s Cove.

The
Rocket
bobbed silently on the swell in the middle of the cove. No lights showed on board. A beautiful schooner, with French lines, the large boat was built for stealth and speed.

Harriet pulled hard on one of her oars as the rowing boat met the dark sides of the
Rocket.
Sculling with one oar, she turned the boat around and alongside the wall of wood. A rope was thrown down to her. As she looked up, Tommy’s face appeared at the railings. Harriet, uncomfortable in her boy’s clothes, climbed aboard gingerly followed by the sailor who had fetched her, and her bale of lace.

“Hello, Master Chance!” Tommy said.

Harriet started. Tommy winked at her.

“Bill’s told me about you being on board. I suggested the name. Seems to me it suits what you are doing.” He kept his voice low.

“Where is he?” Bill called from below decks.

Harriet turned quickly. Bill appeared from a hatchway dressed in his dark jersey and fisherman’s trousers. A dark felt hat shadowed his face.

“Who?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know—James, of course. He’s coming with us. With Tommy’s shoulder we are a man down. We’ve been waiting for him for the last while to remember us.”

Harriet gulped, her heart beat faster and her stomach roiled. “I haven’t seen him. I didn’t know he was coming. I would have waited for him of course.” Or she wouldn’t have come at all, most likely. What a goose she was to have undertaken this silly affair.

Bill looked at her askance.

“You won’t tell him who I am, will you? Please Bill. I just want to be…” She stumbled over the words. ‘Master Chance’ this trip. I
need
to take part in that negotiation. “

“I won’t say anything, Harriet. But neither will I tell him any lies. He’s already been asking questions about the lad who came into the forge.”

It was the best she could expect from Bill. It was evident that Bill knew that she was going to turn his offer of marriage down. The warmth in his gaze had cooled somewhat since their meeting outside the schoolroom.

“Where is he?”
Please let him have changed his mind.

“I told him midnight sharp. If he’s not here soon, we will have to go without him. You know that. I’ve looked at the tides and we only have a one hour window to get over the sandbank before Longman’s Cove is inaccessible for us.”

“What time is it now?”

“Three minutes past midnight. If he arrives now, you are the only person who can go and get him.”

“But I…”

“I can’t spare anyone else from the ship as they are all making sail preparations and preparing to pull up the anchor. Unless that is something you can do instead?”

He was harsh, but he spoke the truth; Harriet knew nothing of sailing. And even though she lived on the coast and had been in a rowing boat, this was the first time she had ever been on a large schooner.

“The waves will push you to the shore, and he can row back if you are too tired.”

She knew that Bill was punishing her. But she had to do as she was told. He was the captain and he had suffered her to be on board.

“Light on the starboard bow.” A call came from the stern.

“That’ll be James,” Bill said, then softening his harsh tones, he whispered “And if you manage to pick him up, and he doesn’t work out you are a woman by the time you get back to the ship, I’ll let you negotiate your lace deal.”