Virginia Henley (2 page)

Anthony complied with the legalities and Mr. Watson seemed disinclined to linger in a house of mourning. “Lord Lamb, Lady Randolph, permit me to offer the condolences of Watson and Goldman. We will continue to serve you in any capacity you wish, as we served the late Lord Lamb. A death notice has been placed in the
London Gazette.”
Mr. Watson tried not to stare at the remarkable similitude between Lord Lamb and his twin sister. He bowed to the ladies and took his departure.

Antonia looked helplessly at her brother and whispered, “Will mother be coming home?”

“Apparently not,” Tony said, handing her their mother’s letter, then shoved his hands deep in his pockets.

Antonia read it, then handed it to her grandmother. The tears gathered in her eyes and spilled over. She moved toward her twin and they stared at each other in
mute misery. Communicating without words, they left the library together and sought the privacy of the outdoors.

Through the window Rosalind watched the two dark heads disappear toward the river. “God damn the tropics!” She immediately took Mr. Burke into her confidence. The butler had always been with them and was indispensible to the workings of Lamb Hall. He placed a footstool beside a comfortable wingchair and indicated that Rosalind should sit down. She sighed.

“Shall I make you some tea, my lady?”

“Brandy … brandy,” Roz said decisively, “and pour yourself one while you’re at it, Mr. Burke,”

In the boathouse the twins busied themselves coiling rope and tidying the careless disarray of their sanctuary; then, when they had exhausted every chore, they climbed aboard and sat down listening to the water rhythmically splash against the side of the boat.

“What you said this morning is true,” Anthony lamented. “I can’t remember what either of them looks like.”

“Poor mother, out there all alone. I wonder how she’s coped these last months?”

“Damnation, I should be there with her,” Anthony swore in frustration. “Christ, only this morning Roz said I’d inherit all this without so much as lifting a finger.” His shoulders began to shake and he looked at Antonia with raw pain in his eyes. “I swear I don’t want to be Lord Lamb and inherit everything … not this way!”

Antonia reached out her hand to comfort him. “Your grief is all mixed up with guilt, Tony.” The lump in her throat threatened to choke her. “It isn’t your fault.”

He turned to her gratefully, as if she were his lifeline, and rubbed an impatient sleeve across his eyes. “I’m a selfish bastard. I’m glad you won’t be going up to London for the season.”

Antonia had completely forgotten about London. It was out of the question now that they were in mourning. She
felt a pang of guilt at the money that had been wasted on gowns she might never get to wear. Perhaps they wouldn’t be too out of style next year when she made her debut. She pushed thoughts of herself away and concentrated her attention on easing her twin’s pain. “We’re lucky we have each other. Sorrow shared is sorrow halved. I’ve never told you this before, but this house is my security. It makes me feel safe. When things go terribly wrong, like this, I feel the very walls draw about me to protect and comfort. The house will be our bastion and we’ll be strong for each other.”

“What the devil was father about, making me a ward of this Savage fellow like I’m a snot-nosed schoolboy!”

“It’s not just you, Tony. Adam Savage is my guardian too,” she pointed out.

“Who the devil is he? We know nothing of him!” Anthony complained bitterly.

“Yes, we do. We know he’s building a house at Gravesend. That’s only ten or twelve miles off. Let’s ride over there next week.”

The plan to do something constructive alleviated the feeling of helplessness that almost suffocated them. They remained outdoors until the shadows lengthened and the chill off the sea drove them indoors. They both excused themselves from the light meal Mr. Burke had had prepared, and Antonia retired to her bedchamber.

Roz came in to make sure she was all right.

“I can’t understand why mother didn’t come home,” Antonia said, at a loss.

“Can’t you, darling?” asked Roz quietly. “Lamb Hall belongs to Anthony now. Eve couldn’t be lady of the manor here. In Ceylon she lives like an empress, her servants are almost like slaves to do her bidding. She is one of a unique and very select group, a white woman in a primitive culture. Society in Ceylon likely gravitates about her as if she were the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

“You make her sound shallow,” Antonia said sadly.

“In some ways your mother is shallow; in others very deep. However it isn’t easy being a woman, Antonia. It’s a man’s world and always will be. Did you not notice today that Mr. Watson almost ignored your very existence? Does it not strike you as slightly unfair that though you and Anthony were born the same hour, the same day, to the same parents, he inherits all; you nothing? This is based on the simple fact that he is male and you are female.”

“But titles can only pass through the male line,” Antonia said without rancor.

“And titles usually entail property, land, and wealth. Quite a system, created to ensure power remains in male hands,” Roz said bluntly.

“I never questioned the system before,” Antonia said solemnly.

“None of us do until it affects us personally. Because I gave Lord Randolph a daughter rather than a son, his heir became a nephew who got the title and my home when your grandfather died. I was dispossessed except for a dowager’s cottage on the grounds of my own estate.”

“Oh, Roz, how unfair! I often wondered why you took on the burden of twins; you had little choice.”

“You’ve brought me nothing but pleasure, darling. I could have married again, but somehow I couldn’t bear to give another man control over my life.”

“I suppose that’s what marriage means,” Antonia said thoughtfully.

“Some women are happy married to dominant men. Others prefer to rule the roost and wear the breeches in the family, so to speak, but those women have little respect for a husband who can be bullied and so once again women are placed in a cleft stick; damned if they do, damned if they don’t!”

“Oh, Grandmother, you do make me laugh, and it’s so dreadful of me to laugh today.”

“No it isn’t dreadful, darling.
Carpe diem
… seize the day! It’s so very unfortunate that you can’t go up to London
for the season.” Roz heaved a sigh of resignation. “A Georgian woman requires two things, beauty and money. If she has the first she can marry the second. If she has the second, she doesn’t need the first.”

Antonia smiled through her tears. “What a choice, marriage or ‘leading apes in hell.’ Isn’t that the unenviable fate of spinsters in the afterlife?”

“I’m glad you can smile. When Anthony sees his father’s death notice in black and white in the
London Gazette
he’s going to be desolated.”

Antonia lay in the dark trying to remember her father. She couldn’t see his features distinctly, but her memories were of a tall, dark man who was always kind and gentle with her. Whenever she had fallen or hurt herself he had cradled her in his arms and wiped away her tears. He’d taught her to ride and to sail and never shown any preference for her twin brother. Her mother, conversely, could never hide the fact that her favorite was her son, Anthony. Her mother’s sharp reprimands had often sent Antonia to seek out her father and climb into his comforting lap. She turned her face into her pillow, knowing she would never again know the comfort of his arms. A voice from within told her she would have to get all the tears out tonight. Tomorrow she would have to be strong for Anthony’s sake.

Her time for growing up was upon her. Suddenly she felt years older than her twin. Though Tony was now Lord Lamb and owned the estate, in reality he was still an immature youth. Antonia, on the other hand, felt as if today she must leave her girlhood behind. She realized that becoming a woman meant being mature and taking responsibility for oneself. Men could afford to be the dreamers, while women must be the practical ones.

The tears were still seeping beneath her lashes when she fell into an exhausted sleep, and her dreams transported her back to her childhood. She was riding her
pony, showing off for her father and the other men who were guests at Lamb Hall. They were laughing at her antics and the look of love and pride and approval on her father’s face made her almost giddy with joy.

She dismounted and ran into her father’s outstretched arms. She laughed down into his dark face, smelling his shaving soap, feeling his strong hands lift her high in the air.

“Toss her to me,” laughed one of her father’s friends.

She squealed with glee at all the lovely attention she was getting, then suddenly saw her mother’s face as she came across the lawn. It was cold with disapproval. She did not want her father to play with Antonia or cuddle her, even when they had no guests.

Antonia was thin and dark like her father, and her mother said she was too boyish and ran wild. Antonia stiffened in her father’s arms and he lowered her until her feet touched the ground. All the sunshine had gone out of her day.

“You shouldn’t encourage her to be pert, darling. If she were a pretty child her pertness would be forgiven by everyone.” Her mother linked arms with two of her father’s friends, dazzling them with her beauty. The others trailed after her across the lawn, Antonia totally forgotten. She wasn’t forgotten by her father, though. He blew her a kiss, which she caught and tucked into her pocket. She felt a penny inside and dropped it down the wishing well.

“Let me be as beautiful as mother when I grow up.”

Antonia awoke with a start. Then she remembered that her father had died and she would never see him again, except in her dreams. Her memories of him were happy ones, filled with love and laughter, and those could never be taken away from her.

When her brother Tony read the death notice, she would be strong enough for both of them!

Thirty miles away in his cramped bachelor’s lodging in Soho, Bernard Lamb read the announcement of his uncle’s demise with what could only be described as joy. Up until this morning his prospects had seemed very dim indeed.

It had taken him exactly a year to run through the money his own father had left him, which was little enough due to the addiction to gambling that Bernard had inherited from his sire along with his pittance. The small house in Clary Street was long gone, he was up to his handsome eyebrows in debt, and the rent was overdue on his dingy flat here in Tottenham Court Road.

The notice in the Gazette, however, filled him with elation. Bernard narrowed his eyes and allowed his imagination to take flight. It didn’t have to soar too high to see himself a landed baron. Now that his uncle, Lord Russell Lamb, had stuck his spoon in the wall, only his cousin Anthony stood between himself and the title. “Lord Bernard Lamb” had an irresistible ring to it.

He laughed out loud as an amusing picture flitted through his head. Angela, the delicious little actress who’d been on the point of abandoning him to the gutter, could now be lured back. The aroma of future money would linger about him, attracting the fair sex like steel filings to a magnet. Money was power. He would revel in the power it would give him over the girl from the stage with the face of an angel.

She was an opportunist like himself. The mere hint of his prospects would bring her down to the mattress. His promises would turn her into his own private wanton angel.
How he would enjoy punishing her for her indifference these past months. How he would savor watching her perform erotic little acts to ingratiate herself with him again.

Bernard decided it was high time he traveled to Stoke so he could assess Lamb Hall. He licked his lips in anticipation. Suddenly he was heir to a title and a small fortune and would borrow on his prospects immediately.

The day Bernard chose to present himself at Lamb Hall to offer his condolences was precisely the day the twins had ridden off to Gravesend.

Mr. Burke alerted Lady Randolph that one Bernard Lamb was in the library and they put their heads together and decided he could only be the son of the late Robert Lamb, to whom Evelyn had been engaged when she up and eloped with the more eligible Russell.

Rosalind, a small, pretty woman who hid her age as successfully as she hid her shrewdness, swept into the library with a rustle of black silk skirts. She caught young Lamb surveying the room with a speculative eye. He introduced himself immediately, brought her hand to his lips with an easy manner, and offered his condolences.

It took her perhaps thirty seconds to dissect him. Bernard Lamb was fashionably dressed, had pretty manners, and a handsome face. He was of an age with her grandson Anthony, yet he was worldly and far too smooth for one of such tender years. Roz summed him up with one word.
Vulture.

She gave him a dazzling smile and said in a glacial voice, “I shall convey your condolences to Lord Lamb. He is in deepest mourning and not receiving callers.”

The butler came into the library, but Bernard was surprised that he did not offer the usual obligatory wine and wafers. Instead, Lady Randolph said, “Mr. Burke, would you show the young man to the door.”

Bernard Lamb seethed with humiliation and he instantly vowed revenge. The old strumpet thought she had
dismissed him, but Bernard Lamb did not dismiss quite so easily, as she would one day learn. When all this was his, he would take particular pleasure in putting her belongings in the road.

The twins had no idea where Adam Savage was building his house, but they soon discovered everyone else in Gravesend knew exactly where Edenwood was located. The estate covered a thousand acres of wooded parkland beyond the town in the countryside. The property’s northern boundary was the River Thames.

In a spacious clearing rose a three-story neoclassical house, easily the most beautiful Antonia had ever seen. Workmen were everywhere, carpenters, masons, and painters labored under the direction of a man who carried what looked to be a set of plans.

The twins dismounted and Antonia strolled up to the man while Anthony tethered the horses.

“Please excuse our interruption. I understand this home is being built by Mr. Savage of Ceylon. He is our guardian and we are naturally curious. Would you mind if we had a look around?”

The man smiled at the beautiful young woman. “Not at all,” he said, then stared frankly as a youth who was her double joined them.

“Is that great building the stables?” the young man asked incredulously.

The man nodded. “Be my guest.”

Anthony strolled off in that direction and Antonia said, “How rude of me. I’m Antonia and that’s my twin, Lord Anthony Lamb.”

“How do you do, my lady. Permit me to introduce myself. James Wyatt, at your service.”

Antonia’s mouth fell open. “Not
the
James Wyatt?” She gasped.

“James Wyatt, Architect,” he said, both pleased and surprised that such a beautiful young woman knew of him.

Antonia tried not to gush. “Mr. Wyatt, I can’t believe it. I’m such a great admirer of your work. I have your
Book of Architecture
at home. You designed the Pantheon in the Oxford Road. Your central block linked to octagonal towers is a replica of the Tower of the Winds at Athens!”

He bowed. “I’m vastly flattered. What do you think of this house?”

“It’s magnificent. Mr. Savage must have perfect taste.”

“It isn’t his design, it’s mine. He bought the land and instructed me to build him a stately home that would
add
beauty to its setting rather than detract from it. Edenwood is an apt name, I think.”

“He instructed you to build whatever you fancied without regard to cost?” she exclaimed, then blushed at the rudeness of her question.

Wyatt only smiled. “This is a new design … a semicircular, bow-windowed bay rising through two stories in the south front. It forms a balcony or small terrace above from the master bedchamber. The west front has a simple Roman portico.”

“I quite agree with your theory that the main rooms should be in touch with the outside world by views through the windows and accessibility to the gardens through French doors opening onto the lawns. Will it have a conservatory?” she asked with enthusiasm.

“I’ll let you decide,” James Wyatt replied.

Her green eyes widened with pleasure. “Then, yes, by all means let’s bring the outside indoors.” She thought Mr. Savage must be rich beyond reason and have a very large family to need a home this size. When she commented on the need for so many rooms, Wyatt smiled at her innocence.

“It’s a power house. A house of the ruling class. Owning broad estates is power based on ownership of land. An estate this size will rule the county. During the last century the tenants and neighbors would fight for the owner; nowadays they will vote for him. Land leads to the peerage
and establishment of a dynasty. It puts one in control of patronage and legislation.” She grasped everything he told her, so he continued.

“A stately home is an image-maker that projects an aura of power, glamor, mystery, and success. When a new man buys an estate, the kind of house he builds shows exactly what level of power he is aiming for.”

“Then I would conclude that Mr. Savage intends to rule the world.” Antonia laughed. “Tell me, Mr. Wyatt, what rooms make up a power house?”

James Wyatt was enjoying himself. It was rare to find a young lady with intelligence combined with humor. “Morning room, dining room, ballroom, smoking room, billiard room, library, card room, office, music room. The center of the house will have a top-lit staircase with reception rooms all the way around on the first floor. Each room could have a different color scheme or different style of decoration so that guests can climb the splendid staircase, make their way about the circle enjoying the various distractions provided for their entertainment, then make their way down the stairs and out.”

“Good heavens,” Antonia whispered, lost in the picture he had painted. Her eyes wandered over the entire property and the corners of her mouth went up as she said mockingly, “There must be a lake, of course, and a bathing pool, a chapel, a temple, and a folly.”

“I expect so, but that will be up to William Kent, who is designing the gardens.”

“William Kent!” Antonia exclaimed, “Oh, I don’t believe it. I have studied all his books on landscaping.”

James Wyatt thought such interests an oddity in a young lady.

Her twin joined them and said, “It’s unbelievable. The stables must have forty or fifty stalls.”

“Mr. Wyatt,” Antonia asked, “I would love to come again to see your progress, if it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience for you?”

“It would be my pleasure, Lady Lamb. I’m not here every day, but there are always workmen here. Your looking about the place won’t interfere with their progress, I’m sure.”

“Thank you, sir. I am honored to have made your acquaintance.”

James Wyatt stared after them as they rode off, wryly thinking his name and reputation had been totally lost on young Lord Lamb. Stables interested him far more than houses.

Back at Lamb Hall the stables seemed to interest Bernard Lamb, now that he had been summarily dismissed from the house. He concealed himself and watched to see how many servants worked there. He saw a man enter the carriage house and pull a small coach by the shafts out into the yard. He was about to wash the mud from the carriage and polish its lamps.

Bernard shrewdly observed that he fetched the bucket and water himself rather than calling for a stableboy and concluded he was alone. When the stableman was absorbed in his task, Bernard slipped inside. He saw a handsome pair of coach horses, two empty stalls, then what looked like a dam and her colt. His eyes narrowed as his quick mind went over his choices. His goal, of course, was for the new Lord Lamb to come a cropper. A riding accident was an ideal solution to his needs.

He considered driving a nail into the tender part of the mare’s hoof, but it would take too long to find a horseshoe nail and a mallet. He cursed himself for not having thought to bring along a sharp needle that would have been even better. He took out a pocket knife and moved toward the mare, but she whickered nervously and moved to protect her colt. Bernard quickly moved away from her lest she give him away.

Instead he reached for a halter and bridle and cut partway through the leather that held the bit. Then he
pried the studs on the inside surfaces so that they would be sharp and irritating against a horse’s face. Finally he cut partly through a stirrup and the belly strap of one of the saddles. He reached for the other saddle, saw it was a woman’s sidesaddle, and left it alone. He didn’t want to harm his
female
cousin, at least not yet. Perhaps her father’s death had left the girl wealthy. Marrying money was second best to inheriting it. He’d never seen her, of course, but face and figure were of small account when fortune was involved.

Bernard Lamb decided against taking the coach back to London. He did not delude himself that the chicanery in the stables would bring about the probable demise of his cousin; it was only a hoped-for possibility. The town of Gravesend was a port, and down by the wharf were many inns where he could put up for a few days. This would give him an opportunity to visit Lamb Hall after dark, prowl about undetected, observe his twin cousins on a daily basis to learn their habits and activities, and allow him time to come up with a more diabolical plan whose results would be guaranteed.

Rosalind wrestled with her conscience, then decided not to tell the twins of the visit from their cousin Bernard. They might welcome him with open arms in their naïvetè, but Roz knew instinctively he was nothing more than a fortune hunter in spite of his fashionable clothes and polished manners.

She remembered how his father, Robert, had had a passion for gambling and the fast life, which is, of course, what had attracted her daughter Evelyn. She and Robert Lamb had been inseparable in spite of, or perhaps because of, his reputation. No one had been more relieved than Rosalind when Eve eloped with Russell, even though she was cynical enough to see that his new title had been the deciding factor.

Roz sighed. Best to keep young Bernard Lamb at arm’s
length. Fraternization could only produce jealousy and greed, or at the very least lead Anthony into the disreputable habits of drinking, wenching, and that most debauched addiction of all, gambling. Roz shuddered. By the time the twins had reached their fifth birthday, Evelyn had accumulated so many gambling debts, they couldn’t be calculated. Nowadays, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, had set a fashion for such behavior, but unlike the Duchess, Eve’s husband had not been one of England’s wealthiest dukes.

For a year she had lived on the edge, accepting jewels from gentlemen admirers to appease those she owed, but when Lord Russell was offered an administrative post with the East India Company she encouraged him to grab it and off they had sailed to Madras, India, ten years ago, deftly avoiding another scandal. The tropics was no place for children, however, so she had jumped at her mother’s offer to move to Lamb Hall to look after the twins and run the house until they returned to England.