‘My mother did not stay around much. She had other friends and I was often just a nuisance. She never spoke of any earl.’
An arm came to rest upon a high-backed wing chair. Every nail was bitten and dirty and there was a healing injury on her middle finger.
‘Well, I promise here you will be well cared for. You have my word of honour as your cousin upon it. I will never ask you to leave.’
The shock that crossed her face told him she hadn’t had many moments of such faith in her young life and she was reeling hard in panic.
‘A word of honour don’t mean much where I come from, sir. Anyone can say anything and they do.’
‘Well, Anna, in this house one’s word means something. Remember that.’
When Mrs Wilson bustled into the room on his instructions a few moments later he asked that the girl be fed, bathed and put to bed, for even as he spoke he saw that Anna Sherborne was about to fall over with tiredness. If his housekeeper looked surprised by the turn of events she did not show it, merely taking the unexpected and bedraggled guest by the arm and leading her off towards the kitchens.
‘Come, dearie, we will find you something to eat for you have the look of the starved about you, mark my words, and in this house we cannot have that.’
When they were gone Francis’s hands moved to the tightening stock about his throat as he walked to stand beside the windows. He needed air and open spaces for already his breath was shortening.
In the matter of a few days his whole life seemed to be changing and reforming into something barely recognisable.
First, he seemed to have won the eternal gratitude of the ‘angel of the ton’ and now he was guardian to a child who gave all the impression of being ‘the spawn of the devil’.
Tomorrow he would need to find out more of Anna Sherborne’s story and try to piece together the truth about Clive Sherborne’s death.
But for now he finished his large glass of brandy and his fingers reached into the bottom pocket to feel for his letter. Pulling it out and straightening the paper, he began to read it yet again.
* * *
Sephora knew Francis St Cartmail would not write back. It had been days since the Hadleighs’ ball and she understood the difficulties in receiving a letter as an unmarried woman. Still, part of her hoped the earl might have done so clandestinely via a maid. But nothing had come.
Maria had insisted that they walk after lunch and although Sephora hadn’t wanted to come this way she found herself on a path by the Thames, her sister’s arm firmly entwined in her own.
‘You look peaky, Sephora, and Mama is worried that you might never be right again. She has asked me to talk to you about the Earl of Douglas, for she thinks you might hold a penchant for him. She is certain that you gave him something the other night at the ball and I tried to tell her of course she is mistaken, but...’
‘I did.’
Maria’s words ground to a halt. ‘Oh.’
‘It was a letter. I wrote to him to say thank you...for saving me...for giving me breath...and to also say sorry for scratching his cheek so badly. The marks were inflamed and it was all my fault.’ Stopping the babble, she simply took in a breath. ‘I am glad I wrote.’
‘And Douglas has replied?’
Sephora shook her head hard and hated the tears that pooled at the back of her eyes. ‘No. I had been hoping he might, but, no.’
‘Does Richard know about any of this?’
‘That I sent a letter? Certainly not. He is...’ She stopped.
‘Possessive.’
‘Yes.’
‘How would Mama have known of it, then?’
‘She saw me speaking with him at the ball.’
‘You conversed with the Earl of Douglas? What did he say?’
‘He implied that he would not have let me drown and that it was only a small accident. I believed him.’
‘My God. He is...a hero. Like Orpheus trying to lead his beloved Eurydice back from death. The Underworld is exactly the same metaphor for the water and both rescues were completed with such risk...’
‘Stop it, Maria, and anyway Orpheus failed in his quest.’
Her sister’s laughter was worrying. ‘When Richard holds your hand do you hear music, Sephora? Do you feel warmth or lust or desire?’
‘To do what?’
‘You don’t?’ Her whisper held a tone of sheer horror. ‘And yet still you would consider marrying him? My God. You would throw your life away on nothing? Well, I shall not, Sephy. When I marry it shall be only for love. I swear it.’
Lust. Desire. Love. What pathway had Maria taken that she herself had missed? Where had her younger sister found these ideas that were so very...evocative?
‘I shall marry a man who would risk his life for me, a man who is brave and good and true. Money shall be nothing to me, or reputation. I shall make up my own mind without anybody telling me otherwise.’
‘There are stories about St Cartmail that are hardly salubrious, Maria.’ Sephora hated the censure she could hear in her words, but made herself carry on. ‘A good marriage needs a solid basis of friendship and trust. Like Mama and Papa.’
‘They barely talk to each other any more. Surely you have noticed that.’
‘Well, perhaps not lately, but...’ She made herself stop. Further along the river three men were walking towards them, three handsome men and one taller than the rest.
Lords Douglas, Montcliffe and Wesley, Francis St Cartmail’s hair jet black against the light of day. He had not seen them yet standing against the sun and she debated whether to stay or to flee.
All Sephora felt was sick, caught here between truth and falsity, skewered in the teeth of both hope and horror. She did not want this suddenness. She liked things orderly and controlled. This was all so wildly unexpected and so very worrying, but it was too late now to do anything other than brave out the encounter.
He hadn’t written back. Would she see the distaste he felt for her upon his face?
‘Smile, for God’s sake.’ Her sister’s hard whisper broke through fright and she did, pinning a ludicrous grin across her grinding teeth and beating heart.
‘Ladies.’ It was the Earl of Wesley who spoke first, the urbane smoothness of his words propping up all the pieces that were scattering. Sephora regathered her logic and straightened.
‘Lord Wesley.’ Her voice. Normal. She did not look at the Earl of Douglas. Not even once, but she felt him there, strong and solid.
‘It is only by good chance that we wandered this way.’ Gabriel Hughes looked smug as he said this. ‘Montcliffe wished to have a view of the river.’
Aunt Susan, her father’s sister, had caught them up by now, arriving from a good ten yards back with her maid and a severe countenance. She gave the impression of a mother goose about to do battle, but also sensing the high standing of its opponents.
Daniel Wylde, the Earl of Montcliffe, unexpectedly took her aunt’s hand into his own and led her off to the side a little. Wesley seemed most intent on asking her sister questions about the weather of late, a topic she was certain he held no abiding interest in, which left her alone with Francis St Cartmail.
‘I must compliment you on your letter, Lady Sephora. I have seldom been thanked with such profuse gratitude.’
His patronage made her prickly given he had not written back. ‘Well, my lord, I have never been rescued with such valour and gallantry.’
‘A stellar state of affairs then for us both, such a mutual admiration.’ He smiled and the mirth touched the hazel in his eyes, lightening the darkness.
At his jesting, Sephora blushed a bright red, the colour sweeping into her cheeks and down onto her neck where no doubt it clashed violently with the pastel pink of her day dress.
She had always been so certain in every social situation, so very good at small talk and mindless repartee. For the four years since her arrival in society she had been measured and polite and self-effacing. She had never uttered a wrong word or a hurtful reply to anyone before. She had been careful and godly and good. But not today. Today some other part of her long hidden surfaced.
‘Are you teasing me, my lord? Because if you are I should like to say the incident for me was beyond frightening. I thought I should not survive it, you see, and although I waited and hoped for a reply you failed to send one.’
Oh, my goodness, why had she blurted that out? She could even hear a note of pleading in her tone.
‘I am certain your mother would not approve of any correspondence or indeed the—’
He stopped and she imagined it was Richard’s name he was about to utter, but the conversation of the others came back to encroach upon theirs. Aunt Susan was giving her goodbyes and, seeing such intent, St Cartmail did the same, walking on amongst the greenery without looking back.
‘Well, I have to say that was a lovely surprise, would you not agree, girls. I knew Lord Montcliffe as a young boy, you understand, as his mother and I were good friends, God bless her soul. I thought he may not have remembered me, but...well.’ She smiled. ‘He certainly seemed to.’
Maria squeezed Sephora’s hand and they dropped back from the company of their aunt and her maid as soon as they were able.
‘St Cartmail made you blush in a spectacular way...’
‘Shh. Do not say a thing to Mama about this, Maria, or about my talking to the Earl of Douglas.’