The Danbury Scandals
THE DANBURY
SCANDALS
by
Mary Nichols
Originally
published in 1992 by Mills & Boon.
Copyright
1992 and 2012 by Mary Nichols
All rights
reserved.
The moral
right of the author has been asserted.
No part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the
prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which is it published and
without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.
All
characters and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are
fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
ISBN
Published
by Mary Nichols 2012
Cover
design: Elaine Nichols.
The image of the chateau on the cover was taken by Xedos4
and is reproduced by permission of FreeDigitalPhotos.net, and the image of the
couple in the garden is reproduced by permission of Anacronicos Recreacion
Historica
When Maryanne
Paynter is ten, her beloved mother dies and she is taken by her great uncle to
live with the Reverend Mr Cudlipp at Beckford. Her life is unexceptional until,
a little before her twenty-first birthday, Viscount Danbury takes her to Castle
Cedars, the country estate of the Duke of Wiltshire where she is taken to see
the Dowager Duchess, a frail, bedridden old lady who is apparently anxious to
make her acquaintance. Furious with the way she is treated Maryanne runs from
the house, only to fall into the arms of a mysterious man walking through the
woods who seems unusually interested in the occupants of Castle Cedars. She is
unsure whether he is a gypsy, a poacher or an escaped prisoner of war, for the
war with Napoleon has just ended with the dictator’s defeat and imprisonment of
the island of Elba.
Later, she
learns that her mother was the daughter of the fifth Duke of Wiltshire, who
disowned her when she married a man of whom they disapproved. But now the old
man is dead and the dowager is anxious to bring Maryanne back into the family.
Instead of returning to the rectory, she is to live with Viscount Danbury and
his son, Mark, and spoiled daughter, Caroline.
It is the
beginning of a new and bewildering life, not made easier by old scandals and
the occasional reappearance of the intriguing man she met in the wood, who
seems to have a string of pseudonyms and disguises. There is mystery and
danger, a proposal and more scandal and Maryanne, in the thick of it, does not
know whom to trust. Mark or the man who calls himself variously le Choucas,
Jack Daw or Adam St Pierre?
Table of
Contents
The snow of the
longest and hardest winter for centuries had gone at last and the snowdrops
were nodding their delicate heads in the woods beside the lane and it would not
be long before the daffodils were in bloom, carpeting the ground beneath the
trees in a glory of gold. The first awakening of spring had never before failed
to enrapture Maryanne, but today her thoughts were on other things, as the
heavy family coach turned in at the gates of a huge estate and along a
tree-lined drive.
Opposite her,
James, Viscount Danbury, whose title seemed to sit uneasily on his upright
shoulders, even after twenty-eight years, sat back in his seat, looking
pensive. Lean and sinuous, he was in his early fifties, she judged, and still a
handsome man, with a complexion which owed more to his time in the Navy than to
his duties as the squire of Beckford, where he was a well-liked and respected
figure. He had been married, though his wife had died many years before,
leaving him to bring up a son and daughter alone.
All this Maryanne
knew, but what had been puzzling her ever since her interview with him at
Beckford Hall the previous day was what she had done to deserve his attention.
They lived on a different plane entirely; he was so far above her as to seem
god-like and yet he had asked to see her and then had startled her into
agreeing to take this short journey with him, and unchaperoned at that. ‘The
reverend is in full accord,’ he had said, when she protested.
So here she
was, wearing her best-and only-silk gown, a warm cloak and a plain bonnet, on
her way to goodness knew where and he alone knowing why. Except, perhaps, her
guardian, the Reverend Mr Cudlipp; he had come away from the interview looking
thoroughly pleased with himself.
She looked up
suddenly to find his lordship’s brown eyes on her, and smiled nervously, then
sat forward in her seat with a gasp of surprise as the vehicle rounded the bend
which brought the mansion into view. But it was not the graceful lines of the
building, its great length and height, nor its myriad shining windows arranged
in rows either side of a huge portal of marble columns, which caused her
surprise. It was the feeling, so strong she could not believe it anything but
fact, that it was not the first time she had been there.
‘What is this
place?’ she asked him. ‘I’m sure I have been here before.’
‘You have?’ He
sounded surprised. ‘When was that?’
Maryanne teased
her memory, trying to pin-point the occasion. As a child she had seen very
little of her father, who had been a sea captain and rarely at home. It was why
they had lived at Portsmouth, why they had had no real home of their own, but
lived with Benjamin Paynter, her father’s uncle. It was Uncle Ben who had
brought her here. He had been a seaman himself and was gnarled and weather-beaten,
but he had the kindest heart of any man she had ever known. She remembered how
he used to hold her on his knee to tell her stories of his adventures in
foreign places and show her pictures of the ships he had served on. After her
father had been killed in the Copenhagen action of 1802, she and her mother had
continued to live with Uncle Ben, existing on a small naval pension bought with
her father’s share of the prize money. Her great-uncle had been her only
comfort when her mother, too, had died.
Even now, she
could easily recall the feelings of desolation, of bewilderment, she had felt
then. She remembered the people standing at their street doors as the hearse
passed, drawn by four black horses with huge black plumes and shining harness,
and followed by a very few mourners on foot. It had poured with rain while they
stood at the graveside; everything, including the sky, had looked black or
grey, everything except the shining oak coffin and its brass handles. When they
started piling earth on top of it, she had screamed, so that one of the
black-clad figures had led her away until she quietened down. Who had they
been, those people at the graveside? As far as she was aware, she had never
seen them before or since.
She had been
too young to realise that it was a far grander funeral than a poor family like
hers could afford and it had not, at the time, occurred to her to wonder who
had paid for it. It had been easy to accept it without question, assuming that
Uncle Ben had arranged it or that her mother had had enough savings to cover
the expenses.
Uncle Ben, she
remembered now, had hired a chaise to bring them up from Portsmouth, a trip
which at any other time would have delighted her, especially in his company,
but on that occasion he had been silent and thoughtful. When the coach stopped
at the lodge, he had been obliged to spend several minutes persuading the lodge
keeper that his business was important enough for him to be admitted without an
appointment. Eventually he had succeeded, the huge gates had been opened and
they had proceeded up the long drive through an avenue of trees to the front
door of the house, when her view of it had been exactly as it was now. Her
great-uncle had left her sitting in the chaise while he went to the door. He
had not been admitted, although the footman had gone off with a message to
someone, who had declined to see him. When he returned to the coach he had been
almost purple with rage and uttering imprecations under his breath which had
startled her.
Soon after
that, she had been taken to live with the Reverend Mr Cudlipp and his wife. She
remembered her arrival at Beckford, how bereft she had felt, how she had cried
into her pillow night after night, cried for her mother and Uncle Ben, who had
cruelly left her there. At the time she had not been able to understand why it
was out of the question to allow a growing girl to be brought up by an old
bachelor. The tears had dried at last and since then she had hardened herself
to be indifferent to mental anguish; she had not wept since. Tears changed
nothing. She had settled down in her new life and had learned to curb what her
guardian referred to as her ‘wilful ways’, although deep inside her was a
defiant streak born of a longing for something different, a restlessness which
the oppressive atmosphere of the rectory did nothing to assuage.
‘My great-uncle
brought me here,’ she said, bringing herself back to the present to reply to
his question. ‘It was just after Mama died.’
He looked
surprised. ‘Whom did you see?’
‘No one. Neither
did he. We were turned away.’
‘I am sorry,’
he said softly. ‘Did he say why?’
‘No. I never
knew.’ She turned to him, her huge eyes troubled. ‘What is this place?’
‘Castle Cedars,
the country home of the Duke of Wiltshire. We are going to see the Dowager
Duchess. She is my aunt, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t
know.’
‘You will not
be turned from the door this time,’ he said softly.
Any questions
she might have had were cut short because the carriage had stopped and the
groom had jumped down to open its door and let down the step. She was aware, as
she stood hesitantly on the gravel of the drive, that their arrival had been
anticipated and the great oak front entrance had been opened by a liveried
footman in yellow satin and white stockings.
She wondered if
she was going to be offered a post, perhaps as a maid or companion to the old
lady, but she dismissed that idea as being nonsensical; Her Grace was unlikely
to employ someone she did not know and who had no experience of the duties
expected of her. Had her mother once worked in this great house? Was that why
Uncle Ben had brought her here, hoping for a little charity for the
ten-year-old orphan? Charity!
Was that all it
was? His lordship took her arm and escorted her up the steps and into a large
high-ceilinged hall, where they were met by the house steward. ‘Good afternoon,
my lord.’
‘Good
afternoon, Mr Fletcher. How is Her Grace today?’
‘She rallied a
little this morning, my lord, and was able to direct her affairs.’ This was
said with a conspiratorial smile, as he took Maryanne’s cloak and bonnet and
his lordship’s hat. ‘Mr Mark and Miss Caroline are already with Her Grace, my
lord. She gave instructions you were to be shown straight up.’
‘Then let us go
to her.’ His lordship smiled at Maryanne, ‘Come, my dear, you will not be kept
in suspense any longer.’
She followed
him up the grand staircase and along a gallery whose thick carpet deadened
their footsteps, to a room at the end, where he knocked on the door and ushered
her inside.
