Edenbrooke (3 page)

“Before you leave, I have something I want to give you,” Grandmother said. She reached a trembling hand under the lace shawl she wore and withdrew a locket, which she handed to me.

I carefully opened the gold locket and caught my breath at what I saw inside. Framed within the delicate oval was a miniature painting of my mother. “Oh, Grandmother,” I breathed. “I’ve never seen this before! How old was she here?”

“Eighteen. It was done right before she married your father.”

So this was what my mother looked like when she was my age. I had no trouble imagining what excitement she must have caused in London, for she was a rare beauty. It was the only picture I had of my mother, as her other portraits still hung in the silent halls of my home in Surrey. I clasped the chain around my neck, feeling the locket settle against my skin with a comforting weight. Immediately my nervousness subsided, and I breathed more easily.

A servant announced that the carriage was ready. I stood, and Grandmother looked me over critically from head to toe before finally nodding her approval.

“Now, I want you to remember what you owe to your family name. Don’t do anything to disgrace me. Remember to wear your bonnet every time you go outside or you will freckle up. And one more thing—” She pointed one gnarled, heavy-knuckled finger at me and wagged it, her face set in a look of absolute seriousness. “Do not ever, ever . . . sing in front of an audience.”

I pressed my lips together and glared at her. “I hardly needed that last bit of advice.”

She chuckled. “No, I did not imagine you would. Who could forget the horror of the last time you performed?”

I felt myself blush in remembered embarrassment. Even though four years had passed since the evening of my first public recital, I still felt mortified every time I thought of it.

I bade good-bye to her and Aunt Amelia, eager to be on my way, but when I stepped outside, a familiar voice called my name. I cringed. Did I really have to endure Mr. Whittles one last time?

He walked toward me quickly, waving a piece of paper in the air. “I have brought you your revised poem. You are not leaving right now, are you?”

“I’m afraid I am. So this is good-bye, Mr. Whittles.”

“But—but my nephew is arriving today and has expressed an interest in meeting you. In fact, he came to Bath for that very purpose.”

I did not care to meet any of Mr. Whittles’s relations. I wanted to leave this place and never see him again.

“I’m sorry.” I gestured at the carriage, where a footman stood, holding the door open for me. “I cannot wait.”

His face fell, and for a moment something like deep disappointment flashed in his eyes. Then he grabbed my hand and lifted it to his mouth. The kiss he bestowed on my hand was so wet it actually left a mark on my glove. I turned away from him to hide my shudder of revulsion. An unfamiliar coachman nodded to me as I climbed inside the carriage, where Betsy awaited me with at least an hour’s worth of gossip, I was sure.

“Where is Grandmother’s coachman?” I asked Betsy.

“He has been laid up this past week with the gout, so your grandmother hired him.” She gestured with her chin toward the front of the carriage. “James is his name.”

I was rather relieved, actually, to see that it was not going to be a frail old man driving the carriage for twelve hours. This coachman looked much more robust, and he would probably get us there faster too. But Betsy pressed her lips together in disapproval.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t wish to speak ill of your relations, Miss Marianne, but your grandmother should not have been so tightfisted about this journey. In my opinion, she should have hired another coachman, in addition to this one.”

I shrugged. There was nothing I could do about the arrangement, and as long as we reached our destination in safety, I would be content. After all, we would be traveling through the country, not on one of the main roads where we might anticipate danger.

As the carriage rolled forward through the streets, I looked out the window for a last view of the city. Now that I was leaving, I could grudgingly admit that Bath did have some beauty about it, especially with all the buildings made out of the same golden stone quarried from the nearby hills. The carriage wheels rolled over the cobblestone streets as we passed the early morning bathers who were on their way to try the waters.

Betsy suddenly leaned forward. “Is that Mr. Kellet?”

It was indeed the Nefarious Nephew, strolling past the Pump Room with his languid, devil-may-care attitude. He happened to glance our way as we passed him, and although I drew my head back quickly, he had evidently seen me, for he lifted his hat and smirked in my direction, which was his usual method of greeting me.

Thank heavens he had come today and not yesterday, when I would have had to witness his reaction to my grandmother’s news that she had cut him out of her will. I had escaped just in time. I could not escape Betsy’s conversation, though.

“I can’t tell you how I am looking forward to visiting Edenbrooke! I have heard what a grand estate it is, and I vow I will be happy to leave Bath, for there is nobody worth talking about here, and I daresay we will have a tremendous time in Kent.”

She continued talking in her nonstop fashion as we left Bath and rode through the hilly countryside. I was relieved to know that the secret of my inheritance was evidently still safe, for if Betsy had heard about it, she would have talked about nothing else.

As she chattered about the latest gossip she had acquired and her expectations for this “wonderful adventure,” she occasionally looked at the squab on her right. She paused every time she did, which was such a rare thing for her to do that I idly wondered what it was about that part of the carriage that interested her. But I could not find the energy to question her, because my stomach was in a constant state of upset.

We stopped at an inn around midday, but I still thought it unwise for me to eat. The next leg of our journey took us away from the main road, and as the afternoon progressed, my stomach continued to revolt. Grandmother’s carriage was old and not well-sprung, so I felt every bump and hole in the road.

That afternoon, the weather changed from sunny to overcast, the sky gray like a lid on an iron pot. My mood changed to reflect the weather, and a sense of unease settled over me. I touched my locket, reminding myself not to feel nervous. This was an exciting adventure. And no matter what the Wyndhams were like, Cecily would be there, and so there was nothing to worry about. Betsy’s chatter turned to light snoring as she dozed on the seat across from me. I looked out the window and thought about seeing Cecily again.

Before the accident that had claimed my mother, my life could have been a fairy tale. This is how it would have begun: Once upon a time there were twin girls born to a man and a woman who had longed for a child for years. These girls were the sun and the moon to them.

Cecily was the sun, and I was the moon. Though twins, we only looked as much alike as sisters sometimes do. It was clear, early on, that Cecily had received more than her fair share of beauty, and so she received more than her fair share of attention. And while I sometimes wished for my own light to shine with, I was accustomed to the way things were—to reflecting Cecily’s light. I had grown up being dwarfed by her brightness. And if I did not always relish my role of being the lesser light, at least I knew how to do it well. I knew how to let Cecily shine. I knew my place in my world.

But everything I knew about myself and my place shifted and tilted in the great upheaval following my mother’s death. Cecily went to London after the funeral; she had always wanted to live in Town, and Edith welcomed her with open arms. I would never have left my father. Cecily’s departure felt like nothing less than desertion.

Shortly thereafter, my father had abruptly announced that I would live in Bath with my grandmother. All of my protests were to no avail. He left the country for France and had been there ever since. Our family was broken into pieces. But I hoped that this trip to Edenbrooke might be an opportunity to set everything right. I would be with my sister again, and perhaps between the two of us we could persuade Papa to come home.

I pressed the locket close to my heart and felt a greater surge of hope. Surely my mother’s portrait had magical powers over my heart. Perhaps over my stomach as well, for I soon felt it calm and settle. Soon after, I dozed off myself while the carriage rocked and swayed.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I awoke with a jolt, disoriented for a moment in the dim light. I looked around, trying to discern what had awakened me. Betsy was snoring loudly, but she had been snoring before I fell asleep, so that could not have been what had awakened me. Then I realized the carriage had stopped. I peered out the window, wondering if we had arrived at Edenbrooke. I saw no lights, no grand house, not even an inn. I did notice, however, that the sky had cleared, and a bright full moon illuminated the scene.

A loud shot erupted in the silence. I jumped, startled. A man cried out, and the carriage jerked forward, then stopped again.

Betsy stirred. “What was that?” she mumbled.

I pressed my face to the window. Two eyes stared back at me from behind the glass. I screamed. The carriage door was wrenched open and a large, dark shadow filled the doorway.

“Stand and deliver!” The voice was deep and muffled.

I had heard of highwaymen and knew what I should do. I was supposed to alight from the carriage and hand over all my jewels and money. Yet at the sound of the threatening voice, some instinct warned me that it would be foolish to leave the protection of the carriage.

I fumbled for my reticule and threw it out the open doorway. “There. There is my money. Take it and leave.”

But the masked man ignored the money, grabbing instead at my neck.

I shrieked, pulled away, and heard a snap. I saw a glint of metal chain dangling from the robber’s fingers before he clenched his hand tightly into a fist. My necklace. My locket. My only picture of my mother. I lunged for it, but he held it out of reach, laughing lightly.

And then I saw what he held in his other hand. A pistol.

“Now, step out of the carriage.”

He spoke in a voice so soft it chilled me to the bone. Cold sweat seeped between my shoulder blades. I scrambled backward into the far corner of the carriage. If he wanted me out of the carriage, he would have to drag me out.

He evidently had the same thought. He gripped my ankle, then twisted hard. A pain shot up my leg. I fell on the floor of the carriage, face down, and was pulled backward. I scrabbled at the floor, my fingers grasping for anything to hold onto, and screamed. The scream went on and on—horrible, terrifying. I finally realized it was not me screaming. It was Betsy.

I had forgotten about her, but now her scream filled the night air with a horrific, chilling sound that made my heart race. She sounded like a madwoman. In a flash, I realized that she did not know about the highwayman’s pistol. I opened my mouth to warn her when above my head cracked a sharp, deafening sound.

The screaming changed to gasping, the sound joined by a loud cursing and the neighing of panicked horses. Smoke filled the air. The carriage swayed, and the door swung shut on my ankle. I yelped at the sharp pain and pulled myself up to my knees.

“Betsy! Are you hurt?”

I scrambled to my feet and grabbed her shoulders, struggling to see her clearly. She shook her head, still gasping as she held something toward me. Moonlight shone off the silver pistol clutched in her trembling hand. I gaped at her, then grabbed the pistol and set it down carefully on the seat.

The sound of hoofbeats caught my attention, and I looked out the window to see a man galloping away on a horse. It appeared our highwayman had escaped.

Betsy collapsed on the seat, and I sank down beside her, leaning forward with my head in my hands.

Her gasps turned into hiccups. “Oh, no! I ju-just shot a man. What if I k-killed him? W-what will happen to me?”

My head was spinning. I tried to take a deep breath but choked on the lingering smoke. “No, I am sure you did not kill him. I saw him ride away. But how on earth did you get his pistol from him?”

“I d-did not,” she said, still hiccupping. “I u-used the one h-hidden in the squab.”

I lifted my head at that. “There was a pistol in there? All along? How did you know?”

“I d-discovered it while you were s-speaking with Mr. Whit-Whittles.”

I nearly laughed with relief. Betsy had saved us! I hugged her until her hiccups made our heads hit together. As I pulled away, a thought occurred to me.

“Wait. Where is James? Why did he not come to our rescue?”

I suddenly recalled the sound of the first gunshot right after the carriage had stopped. A man had cried out. My heart filled with dread. I turned, and through the broken window I saw a figure lying on the ground. It was our coachman, James.

Chapter 3

I jumped from the carriage and ran to him. I called his name and shook his shoulder, but there was no response. I threw off my bonnet to lean my face against his. A faint breath brushed my cheek, and I sagged with relief. He was alive. My hands fluttered over him as I searched for a wound. I froze when I felt a sticky wetness on his shoulder. He
had
been shot.

“Betsy! I need your help! Quickly!”

I had a vague memory of my father’s dog getting shot in a hunting accident. My father had pulled off his cravat and pressed it onto the bleeding wound; to staunch the flow of blood, he had told me. If it worked for a dog, surely it would work for a man.

I shrugged out of my short jacket and folded it into a large pad. It was all I had on hand that I could access easily. I was certainly not going to try to get out of my petticoats at this dire moment. I felt for the wettest spot on James’s coat and put the folded jacket there, telling Betsy to push on it.

Then I stood and turned to the carriage. In the commotion, the horses had spooked and dragged it several meters from where James had fallen. I debated quickly. Should we carry him to the carriage, or bring the carriage to him? I looked doubtfully at James. I was sure I could not lift even half of his weight, and Betsy was nearly as small as I was in stature. The carriage would have to come to him, then.