The Defiant Lady Pencavel (16 page)

“Wait until you’re suffocated in a dreary marriage. And your husband expects you to be faithful to him—every day.” Her mother leaned against a cupboard with small drawers where seeds were probably stored, acting as if they spoke about the price of tea in China. “You’ll seek out the occasional bootblack and groom to brighten your days.”

“You should have been honored to share the ancient name of Pencavel,” Melwyn protested, mortified by her mother’s words.

“The name means ‘horse-head’ in Cornish.” Madam tilted her head flippantly.

“Be that as it may, I never intend to marry.” Melwyn fought a quiver, remembering Lord Lambrick’s strong shoulder digging into her diaphragm as he carried her up the stairs. “You must never have loved Papa or me, but did you love the under-butler?”

“
Second
under-butler,” her mother corrected with a raised finger. “The first under-butler was too religious for my tastes. All those sermons during our trysts, as if we weren’t already tempting hell.”

Melwyn squeezed her eyes shut. The fact her mother was so immoral validated her resentment. She stared again at this woman who birthed her. “You
are
unrepentant. I don’t remember you ever being affectionate to me, merely shuffling me off to various nurses and governesses.”

“Too busy givin’ ‘affection,’ or at least her favors, elsewhere, it be evident,” Clowenna mumbled as she clinked among the bottles.

“Are you happy here?” Melwyn asked, gazing around the snug little shop. Her hackles up, she wanted to hear that her mother was miserable, atoning for her sins. “Are you keeping company with an apothecary now?”

“What is happiness? A fleeting feeling of carnal satisfaction. My attentions always wander.” Her mother flicked a finger over a carboy. “I’ve only been in this shop for a week, and I’m already bored, though the young apothecary clerk looks appealing.”

“You lack true feeling for anyone. I see that now.” Melwyn took a deep, cleansing breath, even as tears gathered at the back of her eyes. “My poor, dear Papa. How he’s suffered.”

“I was forced into that marriage against my will.” Madam shrugged again. “My father thought it better if I married quickly, after that incident with our steward.”

“How do you not have a flock of children by all these liaisons?” A disturbing thought occurred to Melwyn. “How do I know Papa
is
my father?”

“There are herbal remedies to prevent conception, my girl. A smart woman knows how to use them, and when. Queen Anne’s Lace seeds are the best.” Her mother patted a seed drawer then scrutinized her. “I so wanted a boy, such a pity.”

“I’m letting go of my feelings for you, to alleviate myself,
not
to exonerate you. You are not worthy of me or my father.” Melwyn stifled more vitriol. She would encourage her papa to shed his delusion and begin the expensive process of divorce. She turned to her abigail. “Did you find the tansy, Clowenna? I’m ready to leave.”

“I’ll give you the family discount,” her mother said with a wry smile.

Back outside, Melwyn shoved her coin purse back into her reticule. A sob with a scream attached threatened to burst forth from her. “I must never think of that soulless woman again.”

“She’s a piece o’ work, isn’t she?” Clowenna shook her head. “An’ I thought me mam, who ran a brothel, were bad.”

“I admit I have the odd thoughts and escapades, but I’ve always retained my chastity.” Melwyn stalked along the twisting lane, lifting her hem from the muck. “If I find someone to surrender it to, it will be for love, but never marriage. I’ll never have casual, perfunctory affairs.”

“‘Ee need his lordship.” Clowenna grinned when Melwyn glowered at her. “After we go to Italy, o’ course. But ‘ee know once your reputation, even if ‘ee never done nothing, only the
appearance
o’ impropriety, be damaged, ‘tis hard to recover it.”

“I’m well aware of that ludicrous reasoning. And mine is already tainted, by my own actions, and those of that distasteful woman I won’t mention.” Melwyn stepped over a drunken sailor lying in the road. She resisted kicking him—because it wasn’t his fault Madame Pencavel had scoured her nerves. She hurried toward the inn. “Did you hear what that person formally- known-as-my-mother said? She used the words ‘dreary’ and ‘tedious.’ That sounds like me, lamenting my situation. I must
never
do that again.” Melwyn stood tall, shoulders squared. “I’m now the Widow Byrd, because I’m free as a bird. And you’re my faithful companion, Mrs...what
is
your last name?”

Clowenna grimaced. “It be Buckett.”

“Really? How ill-fated. As is ‘horse-head’ I suppose. And your mother actually ran a brothel? I do pray that you weren’t ill-used. My poor excuse for a mother probably recommended you for my maid.” Melwyn pulled open the inn door, her head full of differing emotions. “Well, I’m glad of
that
at least. Widow Byrd and Mrs. Buckett will soon be off to Italy and fame and fortune.”

Chapter Fourteen

In sleep, Griffin tossed and turned, then flipped in the sheets on his four poster bed. Blue eyes and a mocking laugh disturbed his dreams. He reached out his hand to touch her face, half-wanting to strangle her instead. He moaned and squeezed his down pillow. Then brown eyes that matched his own replaced the blue. He saw his own cocky smile, no, only similar; his brother Alan stood before him, youthful, and vibrantly alive.

“What ails you, Griffin? You look like you’ve swallowed too much of Godfrey’s Cordial.” Alan repositioned the arrow in the nock of his bow. The cool breeze over the field ruffled his blond hair. The shadow of Merther Manor stretched behind them.

“Well, I am in dire pain. It’s your commission into the army that troubles me. We’ll soon be at war with France, I’ve little doubt, after their overthrow of their king, heads on bloody pikes, and all that followed.” Griffin’s anger coated over his fear. “Father wants you to go into the church. You should have persevered with that calling.”

“Father means well, but has no imagination. The clergy vocation is too tame for the likes of me, and you know it. We are both rebels, dear brother.” Alan drew back his arrow and released it. The point found its place in the target with a thud. “What a great sport, catering to society’s tastes for the gothic and medieval.”

A footman rushed forward and pulled the arrow out, then ducked out of harm’s way.

“You don’t think you’re too old to go? What do you know about the military? Are you going to throw Bibles at the enemy?” Griffin stroked the sleek yew wood of his bow.

At four and twenty, his brother had entered then left seminary school, and shocked the family when he’d asked their father to purchase a commission with the 8892nd and Two-Thirds Regiment.

“Very droll. I’ll hobble on crutches and creaking knees to my fate. But I’ll exchange a Bible for a musket.” Alan laughed. His handsome face lit up. His slender body looked muscled in his white breeches and fine Holland shirt. He’d flirted with many a willing young lady, but never became serious with any of them. A tendency shared with Griffin.

“Not amusing. What if anything happened to me? You are the spare heir.” Griffin cringed inside at the thought he could lose his only sibling. He nocked his arrow, gripped the bow in his left hand, pointed his left shoulder at the target, and pulled back the bowstring with his right fingers. The tension of the gut bowstring, his tightening arm muscles, redirected his disturbance. The arrow sliced through the air and also hit the bull’s eye with a thwack.

The footman dashed over the scythed grass and retrieved again. The autumn air rustled the crimson and golden leaves above their heads, the breeze mossy with dying foliage.

“Never fear, Grif, the Lambrick brothers are invincible.” Alan winked, nocked another arrow and shot once more. This time he was slightly off center. “Ah, we may have lost our colonies, but such sport proves England’s unity, greatness and patriotism, and other such blather.” 

“And our exclusion of the middling class in our archery clubs, to also prove our worth in the aristocracy.” Griffin chuckled sardonically. Then he frowned. “Are you doing this to prove your worth since you probably won’t become viscount?” The idea pierced him inside. “I won’t be the catalyst for such foolhardiness.”

“I suppose I needed a challenging purpose, and preaching to the parishioners, begging for tithes, and eating supper with people I don’t like—who would probably not be able to afford the food and fine wine I prefer—didn’t hold the same thrill. Besides, moldy churches make me cough.” Alan ran his hand through his hair, reminding Griffin of himself. His brother turned his gaze on him. “Marry a sweet heiress, father children, and get on with your life.”

“Does the heiress need to be sweet? I might like a girl with a little fire and bite. A woman of substance to heat up my bed.” Griffin laughed too loudly. He hadn’t yet made up his mind to the sort of woman he would want to be his wife—easier to ignore what society deemed as inevitable for a future viscount. Then he stepped closer to Alan. He wanted to smell the familiar scent of their youth, the stables, the cricket field, the shearing shed, now, even in his dream, knowing it fleeting.

“I’d advise you to quit your more dangerous pursuits.” Alan stared toward the cove, his expression growing serious, then his features appeared to melt like hot wax. “Which one of us will be shot first?”

“It’s too
late
for that, don’t you understand?” Griffin almost shouted. He reached out to touch Alan, but his brother started to fade, like smoke in the wind. Griffin’s hands grasped nothing until he felt an item, soft and pliable.

He awoke with a jerk, clutching his pillow against his heaving chest.

****

Clowenna leaned over the rail of the two-masted, square-rigged, packet boat, again losing her lunch in the slurping waves that bashed the hull.

“Perhaps we should have hired a coach for this leg of our journey,” Sir Arthur said. The old antiquarian looked a little green around the gills as well. The wind rippled the lace around his scrawny throat.

“A coach would have taken forever through Portugal, Spain, skirting through France, then into Italy, not to mention the danger, in the middle of skirmishes and battles.” Melwyn rubbed her own stomach as the boat rocked. She held tight to the rail as sea spray sprinkled her flushed face. Would they ever reach shore? She was sick of the stink of brine and mildew. She’d paid a high price for her freedom, but hated to complain aloud. “Soon we’ll be immersed in relics and ancient dust.”

Sails loomed up near the horizon; a ship bobbed on the choppy Mediterranean Sea that appeared to stretch on forever.

A sailor on their ship raised his spyglass and scrutinized the vessel. “Ship ahoy! She looks Frenchie, Captain! A 74-gunner, I believe!”

“Oh, la, we’ll languish in a French dungeon, we will,” Clowenna cried as she swiped her kerchief across her mouth. “We’ll die in the Bastille!”

“The Bastille was torn down at the beginning of their revolution.” Melwyn’s heart thumped and she stood on tiptoe to study the ship. Her abigail’s melodramatic behavior and illness unsettled her further. “Be brave, Mrs. Bucket.”

The sailors swarmed the rigging, rearranging the sails. Shouts permeated the air.

The captain, a stout man of middle years, stepped to Melwyn’s side. “Mrs. Byrd, we’ll attempt to outrun that ship. We’re too small to engage her.”

“Oh, dear, I’m too old for this falderal. I should have insisted on staying in England.” Sir Arthur checked his pulse, his large nose bobbing like a toucan. “I hope my affairs are in order.”

“Are we fast enough to outrun her?” Melwyn asked; a sudden excitement seized her. She held on to her fluttering hat, its riband whipping against her back. “We must be, having fewer cannon to weight us down.”

“We shall see. You and your party should go below.” The captain tipped his salt-encrusted hat brim and left them.

“I’m not hiding below. This is what I came for, adventure! I want to feel the burn! And live life to the fullest!” Melwyn laughed, her mind on this, and not her other issues and heartbreak. Sir Arthur and Clowenna eyed her in trepidation.

“I must protest, my lady, and insist that you come below with me.” The old man clasped her arm. “I’d prefer drowning to being blown to bits by cannon shot, so to speak.”

The packet’s sails billowed with wind, the rigging creaking, the ship lurching as it cut through the water. The French warship sailed closer, tall and menacing.

“I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions, sir.” Melwyn shook him off and gripped the rail with both hands, the spray dampening her hair and cheeks. Her pulse raced. She couldn’t drown now, not after traveling this far, and deserting Lord Lambrick for good. “I will ride this out like a carved figurehead. A mythical being reminiscent of Minerva.”

“She’s lost her mind, I fear.” Clowenna groaned. “An’ I only lost me biscuits.”

A shot fired from the warship. The cannon ball splashed into the water, thankfully far short of their vessel.

Melwyn froze, having second thoughts about this particular adventure. Her knuckles white on the rail, she hated to lose face and retreat. Her tiny cabin was like a rollicking box, portending death.

She turned to her right, and swore she saw land in the distance. Her feet slipped an inch on the slick deck. “Land ahoy! Over there! I see it!” she shouted, before the sailor in the crow’s nest had the chance. He spewed a salty expletive at her.

“We’re saved, thank the good Lord.” Sir Arthur raised his bony arms to the sky. “However, do forgive me for long neglecting my faith, and so forth.”

A rocky coast appeared, dotted with a few shrubs. Olive trees and junipers grew higher on the slopes. The smell of earth and plants was heavenly.

“Italy, at last!” Melwyn sighed as their vessel slipped into a cove, evading the warship in tall reeds. She sagged in relief against the hard teak rail. “We are meant to be here. To forge on, successfully.” Fate was not against her, she would prevail. “Something incredible awaits me, I’m certain of it.” Her anxious proclamations eased her frazzled nerves. Prying her fingers loose from the rail, she knew she’d behaved very imprudently just now, and regretted it—a little.