The Honourable Earl

Ralph had watched him go, rubbing his stinging cheek and laughing. He was still chuckling to himself when he picked up the rods and fishing tackle and went home. His laughter stopped abruptly when Robert Dent arrived that evening with another of their friends and told him Mr Frederick Fostyn demanded satisfaction.

He could not believe it and sent them back with a message that he hoped Freddie would think again before taking a step that was not only illegal but might end in the death of one or the other of them. For the sake of their friendship, he hoped Freddie would come to his senses. They returned half an hour later and told him that their principal had said if his lordship refused the challenge he would let it be known that he was a coward.

Ralph had had no choice. It was all Freddie’s fault, all of it. Robert had asked him for his choice of weapons and his confused mind had chosen pistols, though later he realised that if he had said rapiers, the subsequent tragedy could not have happened.

Pistols at dawn! How laughable and how tragic! Neither of them owned pistols and his father’s were locked up where he could not get at them. Knowing that the Reverend Fostyn had a matched pair bequeathed to him by his father, Ralph had suggested they use those. It might give Freddie a tiny advantage, though why he should consider his erstwhile friend and now sworn enemy, he did not know.

The mist had been so heavy that dreadful morning, they could hardly see more than a few yards and he had begun to hope they might both miss their target and that would be an end of the affair. It was like some macabre play as they paced out the ground in a clearing in a copse of trees on the edge of his father’s land. There were few stands of trees in the area and the little wood was the only one for miles, the land being on the edge of the marshes which led to the sea. It was a place that had been used before for such a purpose, far from any habitation, where a body could be heaved into the soggy bog and never be seen again. But whose body? Could he refuse to fire? Could he stand and take whatever was coming to him without trying to defend himself?

They reached the end of the slow walk being counted out by one of his seconds and turned. Ralph raised his gun at the shadowing figure twenty paces away but he could not bring himself to fire. And then he heard a click and an oath and realised that Freddie’s pistol had misfired. ‘Go on,’ his second said quietly. ‘You’ve got him now.’

Instead, he had deliberately fired away. He had been so absorbed in his dilemma, he had not heard the horse cantering over the fallen leaves beneath the trees, nor did he see the shadowy figure fling himself from the saddle and run towards them. He only knew he had hit something when he heard a harsh cry and felt, rather than saw, the body hit the ground, almost at his feet. After that there was pandemonium. In a dumb daze he watched Freddie fly to his father, saw everyone looking at each other in horror, heard someone mount a horse and gallop off to fetch a doctor. He simply stood there, the gun still in his almost lifeless fingers.

Robert took it from him, while Freddie sobbed, yelling at him, accusing him, as if he had meant to do it. He felt sick. And then his father had come. His father, a notable Justice of the Peace, should have had them both taken up and sent to gaol for duelling, let alone killing an innocent man, but instead had sent him into exile. He had never seen him or his mother again.

Ten long years he had been gone, ten years in which he had matured in body and mind, had learned to control his anger and subdue his softness, to deal straight with all men, and take his pleasures where he found them, never letting anyone see his vulnerability. In truth, he thought he had been so clever at concealing it, there was now nothing left to hide; he had become a hard man inside and out. Oh, he could be charming when he chose and there was many a young lady in that over-hot subcontinent who could vouch for that, but it was never more than skin deep.

Now he had to pick up the pieces, decide if he should stay in England, stay at Colston Hall and face those who decried him as a murderer. But why should he not stay? He was the Earl of Blackwater, an honourable man, and he would treat every man fairly; if he should come upon Freddie Fostyn, he would ignore him, ignore the whole Fostyn family for they had brought him nothing but grief. They had probably gone from the village because his father had had to appoint a new rector and the house went with the living.

As the coach rattled towards Colston Hall, his thoughts drifted to the young lady he had met in Chelmsford, a much more pleasant subject than the past which still had the power to torment him. She was a beauty with those classic features, that lustrous hair and those oh-so-expressive hazel eyes. She had been composed and ready to answer him without simpering or fluttering her eyelashes at him as some young ladies had been known to do under his scrutiny. She was a cool one, but under that he sensed a fire waiting to be kindled into life. He would have liked the opportunity to be the one to set the blaze going.

He wished now he had been more insistent on learning her name or the name of that village she mentioned. He could have amused himself with a little dalliance between the bouts of serious exchanges with his lawyer. According to that gentleman, there was much to be done, so many things which had been neglected in and around the Hall: tenants’ homes needing repair, walls broken, ditches and drains overgrown, estate roads full of potholes.

‘How did it come to this?’ he had asked.

‘My lord, his lordship was not himself, worried, you know, about…’

‘About what? Out with it, man.’

‘The Countess’s health, my lord. She never got over it, you know.’

He did not need to ask what ‘it’ was. It was one more thing to lay at the door of Freddie Fostyn. He hoped he would never meet him again.

He discovered he had been wrong about the Fostyn family leaving the village the very next afternoon, when his lawyer called to go over the tenancies of the estate and he discovered they were living in the dower house, not a quarter of a mile away.

‘How did this come about?’ he demanded, angrily.

‘His lordship, your father, allowed it, my lord. I think he felt sorry for them when they had to leave the rectory.’

‘Sorry for them!’ he repeated bitterly. ‘And how much rent do they pay?’

‘Why, none, my lord. The dower house has never brought in rent. After your grandmother died, it stood empty and—’

‘Well, things are about to change,’ he said. ‘Write to Mrs Fostyn and tell her to remove herself from the house. Give her a week—’

‘My lord, she can hardly make other arrangements in a week and his lordship said Mrs Fostyn might stay there as long as she wished to.’

‘My father is dead, Falconer,’ he said. ‘And I am master here now. But I will not be unfair. Give them a month.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

He might not have been so harsh, he realised later, if he had not spent the journey from Chelmsford going over the past, and in doing so resurrected all his bitterness and resentment. Let Mr Frederick Fostyn look to his mother; after all, he was the one who had got off scot free. His years in exile, far from mellowing him, had only served to harden him.

Chapter Two

T he girls were putting the finishing touches to their ball gowns, although no decision had been reached about whether the ball was going to take place. Rumours were flying about the village that the new Earl had arrived, but no one had seen him.

‘I saw a grand carriage turn into the gates of the Hall earlier today,’ John said over supper the previous evening. ‘It wasn’t the old Earl’s because everyone knows that was falling to bits. This was much newer and it had four matched bays and two postilions.’

‘Did you see anyone in it?’ Annabelle had demanded.

‘No. Whoever it was was sitting back in the shadows.’

‘That doesn’t mean it was the Earl,’ Lydia said, hoping that it wasn’t. She didn’t want to see him, ever again. ‘It could have been Mr Falconer, his lawyer. They say he is staying at the Hall, for there is so much to be done, especially if the Earl is not coming home.’

‘I doubt there will be a ball now,’ Annabelle said, snipping off her thread and looking at her beautiful pink gown with her head on one side. ‘And I did so want to wear this and dance the latest dances. How am I to find a husband if we never go anywhere? Caroline Brotherton is to have the Season in London.’

‘Caroline Brotherton is the daughter of a marquis, Annabelle,’ their mother said gently. ‘We cannot aspire to such things.’

Annabelle had met Caroline at the school for young ladies they had both attended in Chelmsford and had subsequently been invited to a birthday celebration at her home when both girls, their education supposedly complete, had left school for good. She had talked of little else ever since and Lydia suspected that was where all this talk of husbands had come from.

‘I don’t see why not. Susan is going to London for the Season.’ Annabelle pouted. ‘I could stay with her.’ Susan had written to say she and her husband were going to stay in town for the summer months and she was looking forward to attending a few of the Season’s social occasions.

‘Dearest, even if you stayed with your sister, I could not buy all the gowns and frippery you would need. And besides…’ She paused, wondering how to go on. ‘We are not aristocracy, my love, and though you are very pretty, you would not be considered. We must keep to our station in life, for otherwise lies misery, believe me.’

She spoke so firmly and with such conviction, it made Lydia look up from her work in surprise, wondering what had caused such strength of feeling. She came to the conclusion her mother was thinking of the friendship between Freddie and Ralph Latimer and what it had brought them to.

‘We are not common people,’ Annabelle said. ‘Papa’s family is one of the oldest in the kingdom, Grandpapa used to say so at every opportunity. He had a title—’

‘It was only a minor one as you very well know, child. And in any case, ever since…’ Anne paused. The old man had died six years ago, only a year after his wife. His older son and heir, her dead husband’s brother, had declined to do anything to help them and rarely communicated. She smiled, knowing how disappointed her youngest daughter was. ‘You may go with Lydia to the lecture tomorrow evening at the Assembly Rooms in Malden. I must confess I am feeling too tired to accompany her and you may use my ticket.’

‘A lecture! What would I want with a lecture? I am given far too many of them at home to want to go to Malden to hear one.’

Anne sighed. She had expected Lydia to be difficult, but not Annabelle. ‘Go, for Lydia’s sake. She cannot go unaccompanied and you would not deprive her of an outing, would you?’

‘Oh, very well. But no doubt I shall be bored to death.’ She turned to Lydia. ‘What is it about?’

‘The title is “With Clive in India”. The lecturer has just come home from there after many years with the East India Company. I think it might be vastly interesting.’

She did not go on to explain why she thought it might be interesting, but ever since she had met the young man in Chelmsford, she had been wondering if he might be the speaker; it was surely no coincidence that he had arrived in the area just before the lecture. And she had to confess to a desire to see him again, if only to confirm or deny the original impression she had had of him.

Unwilling to admit why, even to herself, she dressed with especial care the following evening. Her gown was of a fashionable mustard yellow silk; the narrow boned bodice had a wide décolletage infilled with lace, gathered into a knot in the cleft of her bosom. The back was pleated from the neck to the floor and the sleeves had wide embroidered cuffs. Like so many of her gowns, she had made it herself with the help of her mother and it meant she could appear far more richly dressed than they could really afford.

Janet arranged her hair in a thick coil at the back of her neck and decorated it with two curling white feathers which were all the rage. She had a fan of chicken feathers which had been brought out of her mother’s trunk at the same time as the old gowns. She knew she looked well and smiled at herself in her dressing mirror as Janet put the finishing touches to her toilette and then bent to slip her feet into tan leather shoes. She would have liked shoes to match her gown, with embroidered toes and painted heels, but that was not to be and she hoped, in the crush, no one would notice her serviceable footwear.

Partridge harnessed the cob to the battered chaise and drove them to the Assembly Rooms. ‘I hope he does not mean to take us right up to the door,’ Annabelle whispered to her sister. ‘It would be too mortifying to be seen arriving in this.’

‘Why?’ Lydia asked, amused. ‘Everyone knows us and they know our circumstances. Why pretend to be something we are not?’

‘We do not have to advertise it. And supposing the Earl is there?’

Lydia laughed. ‘Of course he will not be there. Why should he interest himself in a country lecture?’

‘Then why have you dressed yourself in your best gown? I thought—’

‘Good heavens, Annabelle, I would certainly not dress to impress that fiend. How could you think it? I hate him and all he stands for. You know that.’

‘Oh. Then why? Have you got a beau?’

‘Annabelle,’ she said impatiently. ‘You know very well I have not.’

‘What about Sir Arthur?’

‘What about him?’

‘Mama thinks you should set your cap at him.’

‘What a vulgar expression! And I shall do no such thing. Now, may we drop the subject?’

They had arrived at the meeting rooms and Partridge drew up behind the carriages already standing in line, waiting to discharge their occupants. Others of the audience had walked from houses nearby and were jostling their way into the building. Lydia and Annabelle followed them in and found their seats. There was a great deal of noise in the hall as friend greeted friend and exchanged news and gossip, but when the town mayor, who was acting as master of ceremonies, walked on to the stage followed by two or three other dignitaries who took seats arranged behind the lectern, everyone became silent and turned to listen.

Lydia, who had been holding her breath for this moment, let it out in a sigh of disappointment. The speaker, when he was introduced and stood to begin his talk, was not the young gentleman she had been hoping for, but a middle-aged man with a red, bewhiskered face and a huge stomach which threatened to burst the buttons off his black waistcoat. There was nothing she could do but appear interested in what he had to say, but appearances were deceptive because her mind was miles away, in a rainy street in Chelmsford.

Oh, why had she not provided her name when asked for it? Even the name of her village would have been enough if he had meant it when he said he hoped to see her again. But had he meant it? He was doing no more than enjoy a little harmless flirtation with a young woman. Not a lady, for all he called her one, for he would never have presumed to speak so familiarly to anyone highborn. But would anyone highborn have been standing in the rain and not a carriage or servant in sight? She was becoming more than a little desperate if one chance encounter could set her mind in such confusion.

She was being very foolish. Her future was already mapped out for her: a sensible marriage to provide for her mother in her old age, furnish Annabelle with a dowry and send John to public school, now that he was becoming too old for the day school he attended in Burnham, all things her father would have done, but for that devil up at the Hall. And there was no one she knew of who might do that except Sir Arthur Thomas-Smith.

What would it be like married to him? Oh, she could guess. Humdrum, that’s what it would be. A daily grind of looking after his house and his daughters, acting as hostess at boring suppers and card games, looking forward with an inordinate amount of pleasure to attending meetings like this, lectures, readings, with the occasional country dance to liven things up. As for the marriage bed… But as she knew nothing whatever about that piece of furniture and what happened in it, her imagination failed her.

She was startled to hear those about her applauding and realised the lecture had come to the halfway stage and she had not heard a single word. She forced herself back to the present and clapped politely.

‘There are refreshments in the next room,’ Annabelle said, as everyone stood up and made a beeline for the door. ‘I am very thirsty and I saw Sir Arthur go in there a moment ago.’

Lydia’s heart sank. ‘So? The man may come to a lecture, may he not?’

‘Yes, but now’s your chance. You could speak to him.’

‘And what am I to say? Am I to throw myself at his feet and beg him to marry me?’

Annabelle laughed. ‘No, you goose, but you could make yourself agreeable. Oh, look, here he comes.’

Sir Arthur, his waistcoat straining across his front and his ill-fitting wig slightly lopsided, was bowing over her. ‘Miss Fostyn, may I have the pleasure of escorting you into the supper room?’ For a big man his voice was extraordinarily high, almost effete.

Smiling, she lifted her hand, and allowed him to take it and raise her to her feet. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Mrs Fostyn is not here tonight?’

‘No, she is a little fatigued. I brought my sister instead. May I present Annabelle to you?’

‘Miss Annabelle.’ He bowed towards her with exaggerated civility which made the young lady stifle a laugh behind her fan.

Together they walked into the next room where a cold collation and large bowls of punch and cordial were set on a long table at one end of the room and left for everyone to help themselves and take to small tables arranged in the body of the room. Sir Arthur found seats for them and went to fight his way through the throng to obtain food for them.

‘Lydia, there is Peregrine Baverstock,’ Annabelle hissed, nodding in the direction of a young man in a pink satin suit and red high-heeled shoes who was standing on the periphery of a group on other side of the room.

‘Baverstock?’ Lydia queried. ‘You mean Lord Baverstock’s son?’

‘Yes. Who else should I mean?’

‘How did you come to meet him?’

‘At Lady Brotherton’s, when I went to Caroline’s birthday celebration. He was one of the guests. Oh, I do believe he has spotted me.’

The young man had indeed seen her, for he made his way through the crowd and bowed before them. ‘Miss Annabelle.’

‘Good evening, Mr Baverstock,’ Annabelle said, laughing at his formality. ‘I did not expect you here.’

‘Had to come. Parents insisted. Glad I did now.’ His face was fiery red.

‘May I present you to my sister?’

‘Miss Fostyn, your obedient. May I take Miss Annabelle to be presented to my parents?’

Annabelle looked at Lydia. ‘May I go?’

‘Of course.’

Annabelle was gone in an instant. Who could blame her for preferring the enlivening company of a young man nearer her own age than Sir Arthur? Lydia asked herself.

She certainly would.

‘Why, if it isn’t my little water nymph.’

Startled, she looked up and found herself gazing into the brown eyes of the man from Chelmsford. He was soberly dressed in a plain black coat and matching breeches with a white waistcoat and stockings. ‘Sir,’ she managed, though her heart was beating so fast she was almost too breathless to speak. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was about to ask you the same question. Are you interested in India?’

‘Oh, very,’ she said.

‘Would you like me to introduce you to the speaker? I have known him for some time. We both served under Lord Clive.’

‘Oh, I had forgot you came from that continent,’ she lied.

‘There is no reason why you should have remembered a chance remark,’ he said. ‘Nor remembered me.’

‘No.’ She was so tongue-tied her usual easy manner quite deserted her.

‘But you did? You knew me as soon as I spoke.’

‘You remembered me.’

‘How could I forget?’ he said softly. ‘One minute the shop doorway was empty and the next it contained an apparition of such exquisite beauty I was transfixed. Did you come safely home?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ She felt the warmth creep up her cheeks and wished she could control it, knowing he could not fail to see it, so closely was he studying her. It was most disconcerting.

‘And you took no harm from your wetting?’

‘I did not get wet, sir, but you did. I hope you did not catch cold. After India, the climate here must be very trying…’

‘Not a bit of it. It is wonderful. The rain is so gentle, the wind but a zephyr breeze, the trees so green, the flowers so delicate and their perfume heady. I am drunk with it.’

‘La, sir,’ she said, laughing. ‘Are you sure it is not the punch? I believe it is an Indian concoction made up in honour of the subject and can be very potent.’

‘Indeed, yes. In India, where I first sampled it, the spirit it contained was arrack, but I imagine that has been substituted in this case with brandy. May I fetch you some? The lime and spices in it make it a refreshing drink.’

‘No, thank you, I am being looked after.’

‘Of course,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘You would not be here alone, how silly of me.’

‘There you are, my dear. Such a dreadful crush.’ Sir Arthur was approaching, balancing three plates precariously in two hands. Seeing the young man with Lydia, he stopped, his mouth half open. Someone, who had not realised he had come to a sudden halt, jolted his elbow and the whole lot tipped over his waistcoat and down his breeches. In the ensuing confusion, while servants came to clear up the mess and he was led away to have his clothes cleaned, the young man from Chelmsford disappeared. Lydia, who wanted desperately to laugh at the sight of Sir Arthur with broken pigeon pie and bits of chicken leg, not to mention fruit tartlets, clinging to the satin and brocade of his suit, was almost reduced to tears when she realised the young man had gone.

He had been so handsome and attentive. He made her legs weak and her hands shake and she realised that the thread was still there, stronger than ever, so why had Fate denied her the opportunity to further their acquaintance? Wealthy and not likely from a background where lineage and blood counted for much, he would have fitted the bill as a husband very well. She would not have minded being married to him. And Sir Arthur had spoiled it all, spoiled her evening. It just wasn’t fair.

The bell went for the end of the intermission, Annabelle returned to her and they resumed their seats for the second half of the lecture, most of it of a political nature and very boring indeed. Annabelle, too, was bored, and could hardly wait for the polite applause which signalled the end of the lecture to tell Lydia all about her interview with Perry’s parents, who had been most gracious towards her. ‘He is the one,’ she told Lydia. ‘He is the one I am going to marry. I can feel it. Here.’ And she put her hand on her heart.

Lydia resisted the temptation to laugh. ‘Oh, Annabelle, it is too soon.’

‘No, it is not. If we are to find husbands, then we must do it quickly, you know that.’ She paused. ‘The only difficulty I can see is my lack of a dowry. Lord Baverstock would expect one, wouldn’t he?’

‘Yes, I think he would.’

‘Then the sooner you marry Sir Arthur the better. Mama said—’

‘I know what Mama said,’ Lydia interrupted her, as they made their way to the exit, standing in the crush while everyone waited for their carriages to be brought up to the door. In the euphoria of meeting the young man again she did not want to be reminded of her duty.

‘Ah, Miss Fostyn.’

Lydia turned to find Sir Arthur at her elbow and wondered if he could possibly have heard Annabelle’s remarks. He was wearing a long overcoat which he had buttoned from neck almost to hem to hide his stained suit. It looked as though he had borrowed it from his coachman.