The Black Sheep's Return (12 page)

If he’d entrusted the task to lesser men than his cousin, brother-in-law and true-as-steel Fred Peters he would have to laugh at himself for putting so much faith in the actions of others. As it was he trusted each one of them to battle on Hal’s behalf until justice was done at long last and hoped they would believe him when he told them one day that sitting here waiting and doing nothing was an even harder job than the one he’d set them all when he asked Fred to finally ask more than he had any right to ask of them for the sake of Annabelle’s beloved son.

‘Hurry up, missy,’ Miss Bradstock demanded as her great-niece took a last look at the neat house they were about to leave for good.

‘Best if you learn
not
to call me that in future, Mama-in-law dearest,’ she teased as she gave Aunt Carolina her newest role in their charade to christen the parts they were about to play, ‘but won’t you miss this place dearly?’

‘No, it was high time to leave it and the idiot who thinks living here will make him into a great poet by some miraculous transformation is welcome to it.’

‘Then you really were bored and looking for a new life?’ Freya asked as she turned to follow her great-aunt into the carriage, hoping her favourite relative wasn’t telling her comfortable lies to make her feel better about the huge upheaval she was causing.

The groom shut the door behind them and their hired coachman whipped up the horses until Birch House was lost to view and Freya said goodbye to another home—after parting from so many these last few months it threatened to make her head spin.

‘I was always more of an adventuress than a proper lady,’ Miss Bradstock said and, even though Freya knew she was trying to divert her from the challenges ahead, the details of her aunt’s scandalous life intrigued her mightily. ‘Much to the disgust of our stuffy families I never really fitted in to their expectations of a single lady of comfortable enough means, my dear, and life has been deadly dull these last few years,’ Aunt Carolina insisted and Freya decided to believe her, since there really did seem to be a new sparkle in the lady’s bright
eyes and a spring in her step many a younger lady would envy her.

‘Then I suppose we were very lucky to find such an eager buyer for Birch House so we could leave it before I publically disgraced you,’ Freya observed with a shrug and a smile for the changes her interlude with Orlando had wrought on her own life.

After almost three months getting used to the loss of her lover and the gain of his child, Freya felt as if the isolated and arrogant Lady Freya Buckle might as well have died the day she gave in to impulse for once in her life. She had few regrets for the life she might have lived, if she’d never fled Bowland Castle what now seemed more like three years ago than a short summer season. Lady Freya might have married some dull friend of Bowland’s out of sheer desperation and dutifully presented her husband with a couple of sons and the odd accident of a daughter. She would never have known love under the stars with a man who made every fiery inch of her shout for joy as they rose to ecstasy together.

She let her eyes haze over with sensual memories of mating with a man who made her feel as if the very air itself had a new vitality and glow as it kissed their naked skin
and lent them the whole of a summer night to revel in each other. Her Orlando was taut with muscle from the routine toil of his life, his hands calloused and strong from his craft and yet he’d been as tender with her as the endless urgency of their need allowed. She never felt less than his equal as she learnt to give pleasure as well as receive. He wanted more, took and gave more and made her feel it was a joy to be female, not a disappointment to be tolerated with difficulty as her father and half-brother always regarded her.

‘I doubt my brother will ever forgive me for this wild start, as he calls our insistence on complete independence from him and the life we could live in Bowland Dower House with him and Winfreda so close by,’ she mused as the horses settled into their stride.

‘Ridiculous made-up name—she’s Winifred whether she likes it or not,’ Miss Bradstock insisted.

‘I can hardly blame her for not doing so, even if she was smug about being named after a good Saxon saint whenever Bowland complained about my heathenish name.’

‘At least your namesake was a strong-minded female.’

‘Perhaps that’s what my grandfather intended
when he suggested it, given how poorly my birth was received by the rest of the family.’

‘What a shame he didn’t live longer and see you weren’t bullied into living such a dull life with Bowland and his tedious Winifred. At least you have managed to frustrate Bowland’s scheme to keep you single, or allow one of his political cronies a fraction of your fortune as a dower.’

‘Do you think that’s why it was impossible to go to town for the Season last year?’

‘Of course, they couldn’t risk you finding a husband of your own choosing. Winifred must have hated having to stay at Bowland until they could push you into a convenient marriage, so no wonder she was cross as crabs at having to live in the country all year round. It must have been deadly dull for you though, my dear.’

‘At least I could hobnob with the gardeners and poor pensioners Winifred detested having to visit every now and again. She was so relieved not to have to do so it didn’t seem to occur to her that I enjoyed their company.’

‘Very likely, but it was still no life for a young woman of any character at all. I can’t applaud what you’ve done, my dear, it will
have too many hard consequences in the years to come for me to do that, but I do understand it. In your shoes I would have rebelled a lot sooner and more publically. At least you have the tact to leave society before it discovers what you got up to when you were lost in that wretched forest.’

‘That will become clear very soon,’ Freya acknowledged as the carriage lurched over a pothole and reminded her stomach it had only recently begun to settle.

‘Then we’d best make you look like as respectable a widow as we can contrive before it does so,’ Miss Bradstock said bracingly.

Wondering if she deserved respectability when she had embraced ruin so eagerly, Freya sat back against the squabs and hoped they could discuss their plans swiftly, then open the small window on her side of the coach and let in some much-needed air.

‘I have him at last, my dear,’ Mr Jonas Strider informed his daughter when he found her staring gloomily out of the long windows of Martagon Court counting down the days she must spend in the country before she could leave her newborn daughter with the elder one and launch herself back into polite society.

‘Do you, Papa, and who might he be?’ she asked absently, wondering why her father was looking at her as if he couldn’t imagine where she came from yet again. He seemed to do a lot of that since she gave birth to her second daughter and disappointed him once more.

‘The whelp, of course,’ he said, as if she was even more of a fool than he’d let himself think possible.

‘That horrid little Martagon creature?’ she asked with awakening interest. She might not enjoy being a Marchioness as much as she believed she must before she married Francis, but the idea of being stripped of that title made her shudder with distress.

‘Aye, why would I care about any other puling brat your husband’s family left about the place? Of course I mean the boy.’

‘I’m not stupid, Papa.’

‘You’re nowhere near as clever as you think you are and you had a lucky escape when the brat in Lundy’s nursery was born female, my girl. Land back in that particular bed before you give Martagon an heir and I’ll give him evidence you’ve been cuckolding him myself.’

‘Disgrace me and you’ll lose any hope your grandson will be Marquis of Lundy one day.’

‘Keep whelping girls and I won’t need to
wait on your disgrace to lose all that,’ he told her with an edge of temper that made her sigh even louder as she cast her eyes back to the view of distant cornfields falling relentlessly under the gathering sickles of massed harvesters and no town or assembly room on offer for miles and miles.

‘I will endure him in my bed so he can get another brat on me,’ she agreed bleakly and, if Mr Jonas Strider was sensitive to the hopes and fears of others, he might wonder if his daughter’s happiness was too high a price to pay for a titled grandson.

Since he only regarded her as a means to an end, he believed he put up with the caprices and weaknesses the girl inherited from her mother very well. He decided he’d achieved his purpose of keeping the fickle wench faithful to the noble idiot he’d manipulated into marrying her. Now he could forget her while he secured the future for the grandson she must produce for her spindleshanked lord at her third attempt.

R
ich tried to shake himself free of the black cloud hanging over him since the day he sent Perdita away. Another month had dragged on without her and soon autumn would be scorching through the forest, scattering fiery red and gold in its wake until the leaves fell and winter truly set in. At this time of year there was far too much to do for him to lean on his workbench like an idler and feel sorry for himself all day, but he still wasn’t doing very much of it.

‘Orlando! Orlando! Where are you, my lad?’ Keziah’s urgent voice broke into his reverie and the high tone of voice and her obvious breathlessness made him start forwards
to meet her, senses alert for the trouble his thumping heart told him had come at last.

‘Here,’ he yelled back and ran to meet her, seeing with a hollowing in his belly that threatened to fell him in his tracks how much older she looked without the vital spark of merriment and joy in life that she usually gave off like a force of nature.

‘They’ve been took from us, my boy. The babes are gone and my Cleo too.’

‘Gone?’ he heard himself echo numbly, as if the real Rich was hearing all this horror from a huge distance away and these two shocked creatures exchanging nightmares were marionettes in a puppet show.

‘Stolen out of the forest and away, my poor lamb,’ she said so tonelessly he knew it was true although it seemed impossible to take in.

‘No,’ he bellowed as if shouting it loudly enough could drown her words and make them untrue. ‘No,’ he whispered desperately.

Since the day Hal was born and he had fallen so hard in love with another man’s child, he’d dreaded this moment. He could hardly take in the agony of knowing his children were in Cleo’s careless hands and he wasn’t there to protect them.

His Sally would be cross and defiant at
being dragged away from all she knew. Rich flinched as if a rough slap from a jealous and impatient woman’s hand had thrust a knife into his heart, rather than the smack across his precious little girl’s rosy cheek he knew the woman was capable of landing on a three-year-old child without a qualm. Hal would poker up and defend his sister from anyone’s wrath but his own and Rich felt his fists clench and his heart plummet, then race on in a panicked tattoo as he hoped against hope Cleo hadn’t yet handed them to Francis Martagon or his brute of a father-in-law and sauntered on her way as if she’d been delivering a pair of spring lambs to the slaughter.

‘My Cleo took them,’ Keziah said. ‘I love them, Orlando. God help me, but they’re more to me than my own child after what she’s done,’ she added sadly.

‘I know you love them and we all love you, now and always,’ he reassured her, ‘but now I have to get them back, so do you know where Reuben is?’

Reuben had scolded Cleo for sending Perdita back to his cottage that night alone and Rich wondered if Cleo realised she’d pushed him and Perdita together that night instead of scaring her away and this was her twisted revenge
on them all. Yet how could the loss of a man who’d never wanted her drive her to kidnap his children and sell them to his enemies?

Who knew with a she-cat like that one, but he must contain his fury and think. Martagon wouldn’t dirty his hands with any more of this than he could help, so every second he spent wondering why and what to do next was a second wasted.

‘Cleo waited ’til Reuben was away over to Longborough and I should never have left them with her while I let the boar in with my pigs,’ Keziah reproached herself.

‘My fault that they didn’t want to come back to me, Kezzie, not yours.’

‘Well, you never ought to have let that pretty young miss of yours go and that’s the truth,’ Keziah said with some of her old spirit.

‘I can’t hold what isn’t mine,’ he said hollowly, but this wasn’t the time for self-reproaches. ‘I must find Reuben, since he knows her haunts.’

‘I can find him quicker than you. Now get ready to bring them two little imps back to old Keziah and I’ll never take my eyes off them again, I promise.’

‘I’m not sure they can be safe here now, but that’s to worry about once I’ve got them safe and sound, Keziah.’

‘Aye, everything but that will keep,’ she agreed and how Rich wished he could agree with her.

Dealing with Francis Martagon and his villainous father-in-law as they deserved couldn’t wait any longer than the moment he had Hal and Sally back. In that minute those worthless jackals would find they couldn’t goad a Seaborne wolf, then escape his furious revenge. Plotting the sweetest form it could take would distract him from his terror while he chased down Cleo and his belligerent cubs and hoped they were giving her hell.

Freya was deeply thankful her great-aunt decreed a day of rest and recovery when she noted her niece’s pale-green complexion the day before and insisted they stay in Gloucester where the stage broke its journey. After the first day they had dismissed the hired carriage and took to a less luxurious and conspicuous form of travel, but after two days of enduring the lumbering coach Freya began to think even walking to their destination might feel better. Now she could rise late and take her ease for a whole blissful day. Ever practical, Aunt Carolina had handed her two of her blessed dry biscuits before they went to bed last night and
gradually the sickness that had almost ceased to plague Freya until this journey began receded and her interest in the world revived.

She was so lucky, Freya decided. Without her aunt’s stalwart support this whole business of escaping Bowland and starting a new life would be a nightmare. With Miss Bradstock’s help she hoped her imposture of an anxious young wife awaiting news of her fictional soldier husband, while she sat out her pregnancy in safety, looked convincing. Using Sir John Moore’s Peninsular Army for her own ends lay heavy on her conscience, but to give her child respectability she would lie, cheat and do whatever it took, short of actual murder.

The fierce protectiveness she felt for a tiny being that hadn’t even quickened in her belly yet continually surprised her. She splayed her hand where her waistline was beginning to thicken and marvelled she still looked almost the same as the Lady Freya Buckle who last travelled this way three years ago. Then she had been with her mother and travelling in ponderous style in her ladyship’s own coach. The Countess insisted on long stops for rest at quiet country inns, so they would arrive at Ashburton New Place, the Duke of Dettingham’s
country seat, looking fresh and fashionable as humanly possible.

Freya shuddered at the arrogant aristocrat she was back then and wondered why she’d ever been so eager to wear a Duchess’s coronet. The shameful fact was that she would have accepted Jack Seaborne if he’d been decades older and dull as ditchwater, if he had asked her. Blushing at the thought of herself greedily eyeing the man up as if she owned him, Freya plumped down on the softly cushioned window seat and stared rather gloomily out of the leaded casement window as late afternoon sun slanted into her comfortable bedchamber as if trying to draw her out to play.

She didn’t dare go out and explore the cathedral and close for fear of being recognised as Lady Freya Buckle when she needed to be anonymous. So she must spend a day drifting about her room and the private parlour Aunt Carolina had procured for them. Inevitably Freya’s daydreams turned to Orlando and the day when she would finally get to meet the end result of their passionate encounters so deep in the woods it felt outside time and the world.

In so many ways she’d been a fool. She had trusted him with her truest self, given her heart to a man who belonged to his lost wife three
years after she was laid in her grave. Most of all, she’d risked making this precious child with him—recklessly taken every kiss and caress and hasty, driven coupling she could have with its father that she could hoard against an endless, empty future without him. Who would think shallow and self-obsessed Lady Freya Buckle could grow into such a lovelorn and passion-betrayed lunatic? Now she was beginning another life with her supposed husband’s posthumous child, or at least she would be next time there was a battle bloody enough to excuse killing off a man who didn’t exist.

Freya rubbed a tender hand over her belly to reassure her unborn child it was deeply wanted. The boy or girl she birthed in six months’ time might never know its father, but she could love it devotedly for both of them. A mere fortnight of knowing Orlando and his son and daughter had taught her so much about what really mattered in life, and she’d learnt yet more from the week of desperate loving they stole from real life.

She stubbornly loved Orlando Craven, but assured herself loving their child would outgrow even that in time. At least she hoped so, because if it didn’t this constant yearning for him was with her for life. Anyway, Mrs Rosalind
Oaks had now replaced Lady Freya, who could drift into the annals of forgotten spinsters unmourned. She wondered how Bowland would excuse her disappearance; no doubt her supposed stay with Irish relatives would extend to months, then years, until everyone forgot to wonder.

Feeling sorry for her friendless and unloved old self, Freya tried to count her current blessings. She had her forthright and unconventional aunt, the wondrous blessing of her coming child when she would never love another man. It was a very different existence, she decided, her drifting gaze catching a furtive movement outside and distracting her from the changes her unborn child was making to her life.

Freya blinked and opened her eyes wide to make certain she’d just seen what they insisted she had. Orlando would never leave his children to wander in a strange place alone, even in the relative peace and safety of Gloucester Cathedral. She might accuse him of many things when she missed him so bitterly, but he would never neglect his children. Yet a small boy and girl very much like Master Henry and Mistress Sally Craven had just dashed towards the huge old minster alone.
She couldn’t let the leap her heart gave at the sight of them be caused by joy since their father might be nearby if they really were here. Being with him for ever wasn’t a hope she could indulge in and now she had those children to worry about. Orlando was both old and selfish enough to look after himself.

Never mind being recognised now, she didn’t pause to snatch her shawl from the bed before running downstairs and into the street. Hurrying without actually running and risking a crowd on her tail, she sped across the road and followed in their footsteps even while she told herself it couldn’t possibly be the little Cravens she had just watched dart towards the grand old church. At last she scurried breathlessly into the ancient porch and paused to allow a quick prayer Hal and Sally were safe in the forest, not playing hide and seek in a city where awful things could happen to two lone tots so far from home.

The side door was partly open and a stern-looking verger stood just inside staring intently into the hushed depths of the cathedral. Freya gave a soft harrumph and called up all her one-time arrogance to look the man up and down severely when he finally turned to meet the eyes of yet another intruder.

‘Sorry, madam, but I can’t let you in until we’ve caught the urchins who just barged in here as if they had every right,’ he told her in a tone promising terrible retribution to any children who slipped into his vast domain.

Freya decided it didn’t matter if Hal and Sally were the miscreants or not, she wasn’t going to leave any small child to the mercy of this servant of the church. ‘I
beg
your pardon?’ she asked as if she couldn’t imagine she was hearing what her ladylike ears were telling her.

‘Two of them there were. They dashed in here a moment ago as if they had every right to invade the House of God. They will find out their mistake once the sexton’s apprentice gets hold of them, I assure you, ma’am.’

‘I’m prepared to admit they’re spirited and impulsive, but my children are certainly not urchins and don’t you remember what Jesus had to say on the subject?’

‘Honour thy father and thy mother?’ he offered superciliously, inclined to bluster now he realised a high-born lady was looking daggers at him, not the middling sort of woman he’d mistaken her for from her modest travelling costume.

He might intimidate a lesser being into flustered guilt over her supposed children, but he
could hardly order the wife of an important man to be silent and get out of the way. Freya decided he was a bully as well as a hypocrite and watched him with such fastidious distaste he shuffled his feet self-consciously.

‘The one that says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,”’ she quoted quietly.

‘They didn’t look like respectable little children to me,’ he argued and she wondered how he’d bluffed his way to his present role with no compassion in his soul.

‘They set out neat and tidy this morning, if that’s any of your business,’ Freya informed him coldly. ‘My husband will be most displeased you consider our children unfit to view the cathedral and Sir Ferdinand dotes upon our children, clean or not.’

Freya blessed the fact Aunt Carolina insisted she wear the late Mrs Bradstock’s wedding ring from a short and fruitless first marriage from the moment they left the hired coach behind in Marlborough. Doing her best to make it clear a lady of her standing could go about without her gloves on a fine late summer day if she chose to, she felt his eyes linger on the heavy gold band and he pursed his lips as if facing a deep dilemma.

‘I won’t allow you or some ignorant boy to frighten my darlings and you’ll answer to Sir Ferdinand if you lay a finger on either of them, now kindly let me pass,’ she demanded and stepped into the huge space, the impression of mellow silvery stone soaring mighty and sheltering above and the stalwart walls all around were impressive even before the height and space and sheer beauty of the place stole her breath for an awed moment.

Bowing her head in respect of the builders who raised this great place to the glory of God as well as her maker, she begged Him to forgive her for searching this coolly serene building for the boy and girl she’d come to rescue, although surely they couldn’t possibly be Orlando’s beloved children out in the world alone. For a moment she thought they had darted out of some side door and away, then she let out pent-up breath in a sigh as she heard the sounds of a muffled disturbance in one of the side chapels and sped towards the unholy stir as fast as she could go without actually running.