Lord Somerton's Heir (18 page)

‘Did you know that, when a clergyman is buried, he is buried facing the west, not the east,’ Sebastian said, his hand resting on the headstone.

‘Why?’

He glanced at her. ‘So that come judgment day, he will rise up and be facing his congregation.’

‘That is reassuring,’ Isabel said, stooping to collect up the dead flowers, replacing them with a handful of wildflowers she had picked from around the churchyard. She knelt for a moment by the grave as if in private prayer.

Laying her hand on the ground, she said in a soft voice. ‘I wish I had somewhere like this for William. I had no say in where he was placed. He went to that cold, unloving mausoleum.’

‘And yet you visit him every day?’

Isabel looked up. ‘How did you know?’

He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve seen you. Isabel, forgive me for saying this, but it is easy to spend too long in the company of the dead.’

Anger flared in her eyes as Isabel rose to her feet to face him.

‘What do you mean by that?’ she demanded, her voice sharp with reproach.

‘I apologise. I spoke out of turn. I have no right to judge you.’

‘No you don’t. Not when you still live with the ghosts of the past, Sebastian.’

She looked at him with those knowing eyes and Sebastian froze. Of course, the death of parents was a terrible loss, but it was part of life. The death of a child or the death of someone you loved more than life…

She took a step toward him. ‘Tell me about Inez, Sebastian.’

Inez…Inez…

For a long moment he stared at her, the name echoing in his mind. How could she know? All the memories came rushing back and once more he smelled the dust and the blood of that terrible day. He put his hand on a nearby gravestone to steady himself and brought himself back to the present.

Isabel watched him, waiting for him to speak about the one thing in the whole world for which he had no words.

He swallowed, trying to make his voice sound neutral as he said, ‘Coming home is not always a good thing, Lady Somerton. Sometimes there are memories that are best forgotten. How did you know…about Inez?‘’

‘You called me by her name…in London,’ Isabel said softly.

She made no further move toward him and he closed his eyes. He could not turn away now. She was entitled to an explanation. He began, trying to keep his voice neutral, ‘Inez Aradeiras was the daughter of a Colonel in the Portuguese army. We had married in Lisbon and she was on her way from Lisbon to join me with the regiment. Her father had sent an escort but they were overcome by a band of French marauders. They killed every man and…’ He screwed up his eyes as he tried to contain the emotion that shook his voice, even now after all these years. ‘Inez was murdered by the French.’

He stopped there. Isabel did not need to know the rest. How he had failed to protect the one person he loved more than life itself. How it had been his misfortune to come upon the scene. How he had hunted
Cara Desencajada
, the man with the twisted face who had killed her…and his own death wish at Talavera.

‘The only people who know the whole story are Harry Dempster and Bennet, of course. They were there. The only other person I have ever told was my stepfather,’ he glanced up at the church, ‘here in this church, on the day I returned from Spain.’

He took a deep breath, remembering the day he had returned to Little Benning, still on crutches and in terrible pain. His faltering steps had taken him instinctively to the church, as if he needed to find a forgiving God, not the vengeful God of the Spanish churches.

His stepfather had been there and seated on the hard, stone steps to the sanctuary. In jerking phrases that barely made sense, even to his own ears, Sebastian had poured out his story. Through it all the Reverend Alder had sat quite still, not one twitch of his face betraying any revulsion or horror or judgment at Sebastian’s tale.

Instead, the good man had risen to his feet and, placing his hands on Sebastian’s head, quietly pronounced absolution. As the words were murmured above him, the last wall of Sebastian’s reserve broke and he had wept in his stepfather’s arms like a child.

‘Sebastian…’

He brought his gaze back to the woman who stood watching him. He hardly dared to look into her eyes, expecting to see pity, but when his eyes met her steady, unblinking gaze, he saw only empathy.

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to slough away the memory of that awful day on a hot, dusty Portuguese road, but the stench of death now hung over both of them like a mantle.

What had induced him to confide in her, bring it all crashing back on top of him?

He shook his head. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Isabel. I have learned that you have to let the past go or it consumes you.’

‘How can you?’ she said.

He looked past her shoulder. ‘Anger, recrimination, bitterness doesn’t change what happened. I could spend the rest of my life consumed by rage and despair, but life is for the living, not the dead.’

‘Did your stepfather teach you that?’

He allowed himself to smile. ‘No. He gave me something more precious: forgiveness. For the rest…it was a realisation I came to by myself.’

‘Then you have more generosity of spirit than I, Sebastian.’ She crossed the few short paces between them and stood beside him, looking down at the simple grave. She looked up and her grey eyes searched his.

‘If, as you say, the past belongs to the past, why has there been no one else in your life?’

He shook his head. To let himself love another as he had loved Inez? To fail again?

As he wondered how to respond to her question, he heard his name being called and, grateful for the interruption, he glanced back towards the lychgate. Matt leaned against one of the posts, his hand on his side as if trying to catch his breath.

A sudden fear gripped him. Had Connie taken a turn for the worse? Without a thought of Isabel, he ran toward his brother. As he approached him, Matt held up his hand.

‘It’s all right, Bas! The coach is back with Dr Neville and I thought you should be there.’

‘Excellent.’ Sebastian turned to Isabel. ‘Come, Lady Somerton, you will approve of Dr Neville.’

Doctor Neville pronounced the patient on the mend and commended Lady Somerton on her radical actions. He departed in the Somerton coach, assured by Sebastian of future patronage.

Late in the evening, as Sebastian sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his shirt, Matt, seated in a chair by the window of the little bedroom, looked around and said, ‘I’m glad you came, Bas. I felt so bloody useless.’

Sebastian frowned. ‘Your father would turn in his grave to hear you use such language.’

‘Don’t go all righteous on me, Bas. I know you are more than capable of bad language. In fact, I’ve heard you use worse.’

‘Well, that was before…’ Sebastian sighed, ‘before I had to learn to be a gentleman.’

It was Matt’s turn to smile. ‘You were always a gentleman, Bas. Even when you were swearing like a trooper.’ He looked across at his brother. ‘We’ve missed you.’

‘And I you. You have no idea how much.’

‘I didn’t want to worry you, but the doctor started making all sorts of dire prognostications and I knew you’d want to be here if…’ Matt trailed off.

If Connie had died
.

‘You did the right thing, Matt. You two will always be my priority and, as soon as Connie’s up to the journey, you’re both coming to Brantstone,’ he said.

Matt grinned. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. I resigned from the school today.’

‘Did you indeed? Making a bit of a presumption, aren’t you?’ Sebastian smiled at the sudden alarm in his brother’s face. ‘Whatever good fortune has come my way is yours as well, Matt, but won’t you miss teaching?’

‘You
are
jesting? Not for one second! What about you, Bas, will you miss the army?’

He shrugged. ‘I must admit I am getting rather tired of being shot, but yes, it was my life for a very long time and a life I knew and understood.’

‘Being a viscount is proving hard work, is it, Bas?’

Sebastian raised his eyes heavenward. ‘It certainly involves work, mostly on myself — my attire, my deportment, my speech…I could go on.’

‘Well you look the part. I hardly recognised you. Face it, you were born to it, Bas. I always knew you were different from us.’

‘Of course you did. It was no secret that I was your half brother.’ He grinned. ‘I have discovered a whole clan of relations we didn’t know we had, including our grandmother.’

He perched on the end of the bed and told Matt about his grandmother, Aunt Cissy and the rest of the family. ‘I thought that, when you and Connie get to Brantstone, we shall hold a picnic day for the whole damn lot,’ he concluded.

Matt raised his eyebrows. ‘A grandmother? Who would have thought?’ He added with wonder in his voice, ‘Connie will be thrilled.’

Sebastian regarded his brother. ‘I also want you to think about what you want to do with your life, Matt. I’m in a position to send you to Oxford or Cambridge if that is what you would like.’

His brother stared at him. ‘Do you mean that?’

Sebastian nodded. He knew that it had been Matt’s long held ambition to study mathematics at Oxford, but the family finances had simply not allowed it, so Matt had to be content with teaching, a profession he loathed.

‘And Connie?’ Matt asked.

Sebastian hesitated. The easy answer was that he could, at last, provide his sister with a dowry. Even low born as she was, with a good dowry she could marry well. However, knowing his headstrong and independent minded sister, that would be something to be broached gently.

‘That will be up to Connie,’ he said evenly.

‘Now, how about you tell me about the lovely Lady Somerton?’ Matt changed the subject.

‘What do you mean “lovely”?’ Sebastian asked.

‘Are you blind, Bas? She has to be one of the most handsome women I’ve ever seen and if you haven’t noticed then you are not only blind but mad.’

Sebastian remembered his unworthy thoughts in the coach when she had landed in his lap and Harry’s words came back to him.

‘Matt, she is the respectable widow of my late cousin and she has been a good friend to me. That is all and ever will be,’ he said, words aimed at convincing himself more than his brother. ‘Lady Somerton has plans of her own. She is intent on doing good works in Manchester.’

‘Good works in Manchester?’ Matt’s lip curled in derision.

‘Don’t sneer like that, Matt. Her motives are worthy and I intend to do what I can to support her. As for you,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘don’t mistake me, Matt, I still expect you to make your own way in the world.’

Matt gave a theatrical shudder. ‘If that is how it is to be! You are a cruel taskmaster, Bas, but I think as a starting point I would like the opportunity to go to Cambridge. So, when do we leave?’ As if to illustrate his eagerness, he rose to his feet.

‘I told you, as soon as Connie is well enough to travel. All you have to do is send word and I’ll dispatch the coach for you.’

Matt gave his brother a low, theatrical bow. ‘So be it, my lord.’

Long after Matt had fallen asleep and silence had descended on the little cottage, Sebastian lay awake with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling and trying to ignore his brother’s stentorian breathing.

Thoughts of Isabel kept circling in his head. Despite the hard years of marriage to Anthony and the grief at the death of her son, he suspected that lurking not far below the cool, collected surface of Lady Somerton was indeed a handsome woman, both physically and intellectually, and he wanted to get to know this real Isabel, if only she’d let him…if only he’d let himself.

If he closed his eyes, he was back in the coach with her slender body in his arms.

He muttered a curse under his breath. He was being a fool. She had been too hurt and too damaged by Anthony and there remained the question of her husband’s suspicious death. Could she be capable of murder?

He needed to resolve Anthony’s death before he even thought of jeopardising the slender thread of friendship he enjoyed with Isabel — Lady Somerton.

The longer he stayed here, in such close proximity with her, the more difficult it would be for them to return to normality at Brantstone. Now Connie was on the mend, he could beat a tactical retreat, but could Isabel be persuaded to stay?

Chapter 15

Bennet was bored.

He had polished every pair of his lordship’s boots until they shone like glass. He had rearranged his lordship’s drawers and cabinets three times. He had starched and ironed his lordship’s linen until it could stand by itself.

Mr Pierce, on the other hand, viewed his lordship’s absence as a holiday and installed himself in the servant’s parlour beside the fire with the London broadsheets and a steady supply of tea, only proffering advice and instruction to his apprentice when called upon to do so.

Freed of the strictures of military life, Bennet took himself off to the village public house. On discovering that he was his lordship’s valet, the Wilkins and the locals were quick to praise their new Lord Somerton. Mrs Wilkins seemed especially enamoured of him.

‘And he praised my cooking,’ she said, with a dreamy look in her eye.

Bennet didn’t enlighten her. Sebastian would eat anything put in front of him. As he listened to the praise heaped on Lord Somerton, he felt inordinately proud of his officer. Up at the hall, the servants, too, approved of their new lord. Captain Alder had risen to his promotion as if born to it. But then he had been born to it, he just didn’t know.

The inn was particularly quiet and Bennet sat in the snug, nursing a pint of ale, finally revelling in the unexpected freedom from duty. Thompson stumped into the parlour and demanded an ale. Bennet enquired if the groom would care to join him. Thompson stared at him.

‘Who the ‘ell are you?’

‘That’s his lordship’s man,’ Wilkins said.

‘I avoid the stables,’ Bennet said apologetically, but for answer Thompson’s mouth twisted in a snarl.

‘Not in the mood for company,’ he said and downed the ale. He procured a dark bottle from Mr Wilkins and left, slamming the door behind him.