The last image he had of Sephora Connaught through the glass was of her turning towards the departing coach, and then falling carefully, quietly, down onto the sharp pebbled chips of the drive.
* * *
‘Silly, silly girl.’ Her mother’s words echoed through the ache in her head and the dry pain of opening her eyes. ‘Here, I have brought you hot milk.’
Lifting the beaker to her lips, Sephora was pleased for the warmth the drink provided as she scrambled for clarity. She was in her own bed and the day was darkening. Had she slept for all the hours in between? She remembered Francis St Cartmail plying her with a strong drink and him falling, his head cut and blood in his eyes. She remembered Richard kicking him, too, and her father trying to pull the duke away.
‘I do not think he can forgive you for this, Sephora.’
‘St Cartmail?’ Her mouth felt dry and strange and her eyes could not adjust to the light.
‘Not Douglas.’ Decided anger now resided where worry had lingered. ‘The Duke of Winbury, of course. You return from God knows where alone in the company of the dissolute and dangerous earl, drunk as any bosky in the land and expect your husband-to-be to simply shrug it off, disregard it? It is beyond the pale, Sephora, beyond any sort of reasonable excuse you could even muster. You shall be ruined. Forever.’
Her mother had begun to cry now, quietly, as she took back the drink and replaced it precisely in the middle of a cloth of folded white linen.
‘You have never been a worry to us before. In all your entire life you have been a good, dutiful and sensible daughter, a girl who anyone might look at and think how very lucky we have been. Until the bridge. Until you fell off that bridge into the water below and changed completely.’ Her sobs were louder now. ‘Too many people saw you in St Cartmail’s company and alone this morning. Richard had brought his aunt to visit us, a strident sort of woman of firm morals and unquestionable virtue. Circles, Sephora. Your behaviour is like throwing a pebble into a still pond, just a small disturbance at first and then an enormous one. We could smell whisky on your breath and you were barely coherent. I do not know how it is we will go on happily from here. In fact, I very much doubt that we can.’
‘Papa?’
‘Is heartbroken. He feels it is better if he does not see you just now.’
‘And Richard?’
‘Has gone. He sent a note to say how disappointed he was.’
Sephora turned away into her pillow, an anger surging. Disappointed? She knew exactly what that emotion felt like.
‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Well, Sephora,’ her mother returned in a voice that had risen in both strength and conviction, ‘I don’t think that he wants to see you much either. But bear this in mind—if he does not wish to marry you, I doubt anyone else will want to either.’
* * *
Francis sat in his library with a sore head, a sore shoulder and a wrenched hand, but he sat neither alone nor at peace.
‘I am telling you, Lord Douglas, the girl is a wildcat and a hoyden and that never in all my years of being a governess have I come across the likes of this one.’
Mrs Celia Billinghurst was crying as she said this, tears leaking into the large handkerchief she held in one hand and the remains of a ripped book in the other. ‘She takes no notice at all of anything I tell her. And today she...she simply disappeared from my side and did not return until a good forty minutes later. I thought she was dead.’
‘Where is she now?’ His jaw ached as he asked the question for the boot of Richard Allerly, the Duke of Winbury, had been remarkably accurate.
‘Outside, sir. She has been told to sit and wait for me to call her.’
His heart sank. He would have to deal with the remains of another chaotic day in his household immediately on top of the fiasco at the Connaught town house. ‘I shall see my cousin alone, Mrs Billinghurst, and let you know the outcome afterwards.’
‘Certainly, sir. Though I will say that I need this job, my lord, and that I have excellent credentials as a governess and that you would be hard pushed to find another with such glowing recommendations.’
‘Indeed.’
‘But I do think the girl is hiding things, big things. I think she is scared of something in her past.’
‘Thank you.’ Francis waited until she had gone before pouring himself a stiff drink. He needed a moment before he saw his cousin and the last sight of Sephora Connaught as he had left the town house still worried him.
God, what had happened next? Had Winbury controlled his temper? Had her mother found hers? Had someone come and lifted Sephora inside to listen to her part of the story, to her concerns and worries and to understand the reason for her hives?
A small knock at the door had him turning and his cousin came through the door, her dark eyes worried and repentant.
Another girl who needed to be understood, he suddenly thought. Another young woman who had so far in her life been a pawn of all the adults surrounding her. He made himself smile as he asked her to sit.
‘Mrs Billinghurst is finding your behaviour difficult, Anna.’
‘I don’t think she likes me much. I think she hoped I would be prettier.’
Now this was new.
‘Why?’
‘She said I needed different clothes and I needed to walk and talk different. She said my hair is all wrong and that my language was...dreadful.’
‘And you don’t wish to change?’
‘Not all of that much. Perhaps a bit, but she wants it all different.’
‘Should we start with your name, then? Would you like to be called Anna St Cartmail instead of Anna Sherborne from now on?’
‘St Cartmail? The same name as yours, you mean?’
‘As ours. You are a Douglas. It is only right that you should be called such and carry the name of the lineage you were born to.’
When she stayed silent Francis changed tack. ‘Where did you go today? Mrs Billinghurst said that you were missing for forty minutes and she was worried.’
Anna coloured, but made no effort to answer him.
‘Do you not like it here?’
That brought her eyes up to his. ‘I do, sir. My room is nice and the food is good and I like the books.’
‘But you ripped one up, I hear.’
‘It was a baby book. Mrs Billinghurst said that I had to read it like a lady does.’
‘A lady?’
‘A lady who speaks like this.’ She mouthed each vowel widely and he could not help but smile.
‘What do you prefer to read?’
‘Books on lands that are far from here. Stories of travel, biographies of people who have been places.’
‘Such as who?’
‘Jonathan Swift. Daniel Defoe. Lady Mary Wortley Montague.’
‘Her letters from Turkey?’
Dark eyes sharpened. ‘You have read them?’
The wife of the British ambassador had written of the Muslim Orient and Francis could not believe that this small and plain child might enjoy such a complex treatise.
‘Come to my library tomorrow morning and I will show you some books I used to enjoy.’
‘So I could read in my room alone?’
‘Yes.’
She stood at that as if in tarrying he might change his mind.
‘I would like to be known as Anna St Cartmail. I would like to be a Douglas like you.’
And with that she was gone, a slight and thin shadow against the walls, and if she had that look of the hunted at least she was starting to feel as if she might belong. He was pleased for it.
God. His day had gone from bad to worse and he did not know for once which way to turn. He wished Sephora Connaught could have been here to tell him what to do with a wayward and angry almost-twelve-year-old girl. That thought had him drinking the rest of his cognac in a quick swallow.
Everything about his life was skewered into wrongness and the ‘angel of the ton’ would hardly be interested in sharing such chaos. He was as damaged as Anna was, more so perhaps, and his household was falling to pieces around his ears.
He only hoped Sephora was safe and happy and that someone had taken her into their arms to reassure her that everything would all be right.
With a sigh he lifted his bell and asked Walsh to bring Celia Billinghurst to him. He’d need to tell the woman what had been decided for he wanted her to understand that Anna’s place in his house was a right of birth and not of chance.
* * *
No cards came to ask the Connaught family to any social occasion, not the next day nor the one after that. Richard had neither called nor sent a note either and if a small part of Sephora was saddened by his actions, a much greater part of her felt only an enormous relief.
‘Let’s go out anyway, Sephora,’ said Maria, who was now returned home. ‘Let’s walk for an hour or two. We don’t have to speak with anybody at all.’ Maria took her hand and pulled her from the seat she had been in for hours.
‘I am not certain. This is all my fault and being seen with me in public will do your reputation no good. If I am to be banned from any social occasion forever, you still have the chance not to be and I think you ought to take it.’
Laughter was the only answer.
* * *
Half an hour later Sephora found herself on the pathway by the river, their ladies’ maids trailing behind each of them closely.
‘At least Mama has not come, Sephora, nor Aunt Susan. If there is something to be said about being a social pariah, it is that it at least allows one freedom.’