Fallen Angel

Nicholas frowned and lowered his voice to almost a whisper so that Charles had to strain to hear. ‘When Father met Johanna he knew in one moment that he loved her. “Once and forever”, those were his words…’ Raising his glass, he finished his drink, all layers of urbanity overshadowed by a savage anger. ‘And he said it would be the same for us.’

‘My God,’ Charles retorted, all humour fleeing, ‘you can’t be telling me…’

‘I’m not telling you anything.’ His eyes darkened perceptibly. ‘And don’t worry, it’s a passing fancy that’s all. In a month she’ll mean as little to me as every other women I’ve known.’ He stalked over to the window and threw open the sash, enjoying the air that rolled into the room. Brenna Stanhope made him restless and uncertain, for she made him imagine possibilities he thought he’d long since dismissed.

‘The men at the club called her clever.’

Hearing the question in Charlie’s voice, Nicholas refilled his glass and tried to explain with a stoic patience.

‘Brenna Stanhope has a mind that would cut most men’s logic to ribbons; if I had to describe her personality in one word, it would be “formidable”. Last night she told me that she was not a part of any bargain and that I could never pay enough for her. That was just before she ordered me to leave her alone.’

Charles began to laugh in earnest. ‘What does she look like?’

‘She has dimples.’

‘Alan Wrightson claims she is beautiful.’

‘Then the man, for all his faults, cannot be accused of having bad taste in women.’

‘He claims she has violet-coloured eyes.’

‘Those too.’ His brother’s whoop of delight made Nicholas’s heart sink.

‘When do I get to meet her?’

‘You don’t and I’ll see you at dinner.’ Draining his glass, Nicholas put it down on the table and walked out of the room.

In his own study he shut the door and leaned back against the cushioned header of his favourite chair. For twelve years he had been the quarry of countless feminine wiles and pushy doyennes all eager to marry him off and tie him down. For twelve years the gossips had run his name with this woman or that one until finally they had framed him callous and hardened. The ‘Heartless Duke of Westbourne’ was how he had heard his name bandied as the cream of each year’s débutantes were paraded before him and failed to rouse even the slightest interest. He ran his fingers across his temple and closed his eyes. Letitia Carruthers. Deborah Hutton. Alison Smythe-Finch. His consorts of the moment were all well bred, all well experienced. And all easily left. His father’s legacy personified. What stamp, then, did Brenna Stanhope make on him and why? He shifted in his chair and finished his drink.

Beautiful, clever, mysterious and with eyes the colour of Scottish heather after the rain. He shook his head at his sudden predilection for the way of poetry and smiled wryly before bending his head to the figures in a thick ledger on his desk.

Chapter Four

Nicholas spent the next morning at the London Ballet Company’s headquarters arranging a private session of La Sylphide to be performed as a matinée the following Wednesday. He then hailed his cabriolet and drove straight to Beaumont Street, running into Brenna as he stepped into the place. She was dressed today in a white smock splattered with colour, carrying a tray of spiky paintbrushes. Her hair was bunched up untidily upon her head, curling tendrils escaping down dark against the lightness of the uniform.

‘Hello,’ she said softly, and he was surprised by the deep blush on her cheeks as he came to stand beside her. Clenching his fists, he jammed them in his pockets just to make certain that he would not touch her.

‘You’re painting?’

‘I’m m…making a mural for one of the dormitories. The children are helping me, which explains the mess.’

She stammered slightly, both from the question and his demeanour. Today he seemed as far from the grand lord as she’d ever seen him.

‘May I have a word with you alone, Brenna?’

She frowned, both at his continued familiarity in using her Christian name and at the implications of a private conversation. She didn’t want to be alone with him, but under the circumstances there was little else she could do to prevent it. With feigned nonchalance she opened the door to her study, making sure that he sat before she went around to her desk, having no wish to leave him with the opportunity of shutting them in together.

Nicholas noticed a well-used copy of Alexander Kingslake’s revolutionary tract ‘Eothem’ beside her elbow. Why was he not surprised? ‘I have organised the ballet for Wednesday,’ he began. ‘The performance starts at three, but we’d need to be seated by at least a quarter before the hour.’

Brenna nodded, unsure as to her reaction to the whole thing. A ballet performed privately just for them pointed out to her his privilege, but also she understood, for the first time, the power that lay close to his hand should he choose to use it. It worried her, this sovereignty above others, accorded not merely because of his title but inherently there because of who he was. If he could organise an outing of this magnitude on just a whim, then think of what he could find out should he really set his mind to it. He would make a powerful foe and adversary, and a dangerous investigator should she cross the threshold of his curiosity and cause him to venture into the realms of mystery he might easily wish to dissipate—because of this she would need to be careful. Her uncle’s words came back to her from the morning of Nicholas’s first visit: I think he could be persistent… The whole of London treads carefully in his wake and it seems he owns almost half of it.

She forced her mind back to the present and her eyes narrowed doubtfully. All the problems of dress and shoes for the children presented themselves as her mind ran fretfully over the number of nights left for the sewing.

Nicholas, for his part, understood none of the reasons for her reticence, placing it, instead, to her fear of public places and he said, less gently than he meant, ‘I think, Miss Stanhope, that the children would definitely enjoy it even if you are determined not to.’

She caught his glance and replied coldly. ‘My feelings for such an outing hardly need figure here, your Grace—’

‘Then why do you hesitate?’ he broke in.

Brenna sighed and stood, turning to the window, arms wrapped tightly through each other as she replied, ‘It’s all so privileged and dreamlike, this world you offer us, and far from the reality that will ever be Beaumont Street.’

‘And you think that it’s wrong to want to share it?’ he countered, watching her with a growing interest.

‘I think it is wrong to want it.’ She turned to him now, eyes ablaze with intensity. ‘It’s like the children’s bedtime stories, endings that belie all sorts of beginnings, fairytales that only live in books or in a rich man’s world, for none of them will ever have what it is you so easily offer, though many here may want it afterwards. You can’t covet what you don’t know, you see. Ignorance counteracts want, just as knowledge fosters it.’

‘And where in your philosophy lies choice, Miss Stanhope?’ His words cut deep across her arguments and she was still as she answered him.

‘The freedom of choice has never belonged to any of these children, your Grace. It was gone before they ever had the means to exert it.’

‘So now you choose for them. They never had it nor are they likely to with your reasonings.’ His voice came louder with his own growing exasperation. ‘You think people, once choiceless, can never be empowered; you think opportunity must be dismissed in the face of a chequered past and all in the name of a changeless future. You think people can’t drag themselves out of a mire and triumph over adversity and disaster to spite circumstances over which they never had control in the first place?’ His fist came down hard upon her table. ‘Damn, Brenna, I don’t believe you or you wouldn’t be here trying to make the difference.’

Brenna jumped at the noise, her eyes large and dark in a paling face as she struggled against his anger, knowing that to lose his patronage would be a disaster and knowing too that his money did buy him the right to order things just as he willed it. Accordingly she withdrew into silence.

He watched her with a frown in his eyes. He wanted to cross the room right there and then and drag her away from all of this: his anger and her fears and a world of parentless children, the poverty of east London, a table of food set only with scraps, and a house that had seen better times. And Brenna herself, this dark-haired lady of mystery, whose world offered no path for friendship or understanding but, rather, buried the gifts he offered under the age-old resentment of privilege. He spread his hands wide in a gesture of defeat and said wearily, ‘Think it over and send me word of your decision tomorrow.’ With that he bowed his head slightly and left the room, this time shutting the door firmly behind him.

Brenna groped her way to the chair and leant her head against her arms, her mind running numbly over their dispute. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered to herself. She was too old to feel like this, like a child who’d been castigated by a righteous and reasonable parent, though one fully ignorant of the very arguments themselves.

She lifted her eyes to the door, knowing the reaction Kate and Betsy would give to even the mention of a privately performed ballet; all the joy and disbelief she herself might have felt had it not been Nicholas Pencarrow who was offering it. In a flash she knew what it was that she would do. The others and the children would go on Wednesday and she herself would depart for Worsley with three of Michael’s burliest servants accompanying her, given the recent problems of the road. Her absence would then determine the Duke of Westbourne’s true intent. If he continued with these more-than-generous offers, it would be on the basis of his wanting to for the sake of the children and not for some misbegotten sense of indebtedness that their meeting in the woods of Worsley had seemed to inspire in him.

She wanted their personal relationship severed. He was dangerous and she was vulnerable. She wanted Nicholas Pencarrow, Duke of Westbourne, Earl of Deuxberry, completely gone from her life.

Returning to London from Airelies the following Friday, Brenna found her uncle ill and propped up in bed, surrounded by lemon barley drinks and a strong smelling camphor-based inhalant. One look at him, however, told her the problem was one far worse than the common cold he seemed to be attributing his breathing problems to, for he appeared blue about the lips and his chest rose and fell in a motion she found instantly disconcerting.

Gesturing to Dumas, she crossed to Michael’s desk, took paper and a pen from the top drawer and addressed the letter to the doctor, asking for his immediate assistance. Folding it and sealing it, she handed it to Dumas.

‘Take this to Dr McInnes’s house immediately and wait till they give a reply before you come home. Tell him I said it was urgent and that I’d be very indebted if he could come straight away. And, Dumas,’ she whispered as she followed him to the door, ‘please be as quick as you possibly can. I’m sure Michael is a great deal worse than he realises.’

Dumas squeezed Brenna’s hand and she watched him leave, using the small space of time to plaster a smile back on her face. She did not want to worry Michael with her own fear. He nodded at her weakly as she rejoined him, taking the hand he offered and bringing it to her lips. ‘Michael, you’d be cross with me if I’d just lain there as you have and demanded no help at all, and at the moment I feel like strangling you for your carelessness.’ Fluffing the pillows up behind him, Brenna ordered hot water to be added to the camphor to try to create an inhalant to ease him. The minutes ticked on, each one inexplicably longer, Brenna’s ears listening.

At last there was the sound of a carriage drawing up to the front porch, then she heard footsteps upon the paving.

‘The doctor’s here.’ She sighed in relief, leaving Mrs White to watch Michael as she hurried to the front door to let him in, pulling it open in one quick movement, almost colliding as she did so with the Duke of Westbourne. Frustration and anger veiled manners as she gave him no greeting. Could she never meet him without this ridiculous blush?

‘I am waiting for the doctor,’ she said shortly, stepping outside to peer up and down the street for any sign of a returning Dumas. Fresh tears of frustration rushed unbidden to her eyes as she saw the street empty and Nicholas was both astonished and alarmed.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked brusquely, pulling her around to meet him.

‘It’s Michael,’ Brenna answered tightly. ‘He’s so sick and a doctor has yet to arrive.’

Hailing his waiting phaeton, Nicholas ordered his driver to Harley Street for help before returning to the house. He caught a glimpse of Brenna as she hurried to the second-floor landing and was beside her in a trice. Both came at the same time into Michael’s room. His breathing now was erratic, jerkily taken and noisily completed and Nicholas went to his side, loosening the nightshirt from around his neck and pulling him from the bed towards the window.

‘Get the chair, and bring it over to the balcony,’ he said to Brenna, throwing open the doors to the frigidness of the late afternoon. Cold winter air came rolling on to Michael in icy waves and the change in temperature seemed to soothe him for, seated in the armchair by Nicholas, he regained at least a little measure of his breath, and his colour settled slowly into a more normal pinkness.

Brenna knelt at her uncle’s feet, her hand in his, tears streaming down her cheeks in relief at his improvement, her trance broken moments later when a well-dressed stranger appeared in the bedroom.

‘Clive.’ The Duke of Westbourne strode towards the new arrival, hand outstretched, and Brenna’s eyes strayed thankfully to the black medical bag he carried. Nicholas Pencarrow’s doctor and here so quickly? She stood with an uncertain gait, wishing Dr McInnes and Dumas present so that she might dismiss this pompous-looking newcomer, but one glance at Michael changed her mind for he still struggled for a normal breath. The man observed it too and quickly took control.

‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting downstairs, miss, I would like to examine my patient in private.’ His eyes moved to the Duke, who came forward and led her out of the room and down to the parlour he’d been in the first time he’d ever come here. His ministrations raised Brenna from the state of shock she’d felt ever since she’d seen the danger of Michael’s affliction and she shook free from his arm and seated herself on a chair near the cold and fireless hearth, raising her eyes to Nicholas’s as she did so.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say; she couldn’t even speak any more. She was sorry for herself and for Michael, sorry for all the huge and unsolvable problems that suddenly seemed laid at her door, sorry for Nicholas’s help given so freely even in the face of her own secrets, and sorry she could not lean into his strength and sob her heart out. Her chin wobbled and, as her hand came up to hide it, she cast her eyes down towards the floor, willing herself not to cry, not here and not now. She drew in a noisy breath and held it, struggling for a strength she far from felt.

Nicholas watched her efforts and crossed to a drinks’ tray, pouring out a liberal brandy and swirling it in his hand to warm it before turning to rejoin her. Effortlessly he came down on his haunches in front of her and placed the glass in her hands, a little distanced so as not to alarm her, but close enough to be able to speak quietly and try to allay all the fears for Michael he could see reflected so plainly in her beautiful violet eyes.

‘Brenna, Clive Weston-Tyler is a thorough physician and Michael already looked a lot better before we left his room.’ Her eyes strayed quickly to his, glad of his hopeful words, and she nodded as he continued, ‘I’m sure he’s seen lots of cases just like this one and he will be more than competent in dealing with your uncle.’

Taking a deep breath, Brenna tried to recover her scattered composure and tried also to still the shaking that seemed to have gripped her since leaving Michael’s room.

Seeing this, Nicholas pushed the glass to her lips. ‘Clive will be having to come and see you next if you don’t drink up.’

The words brought her eyes to his face. ‘He looks expensive,’ she blurted out before she had a chance to stop herself and Nicholas nodded, a smile in his voice.

‘He is.’

Goodness, she thought. I hope he’s not too much longer then, the shock of the bill could harm Michael just as easily as his lack of breath. ‘He is your family doctor?’ she countered awkwardly, trying to fill in the gap.

‘Yes. I keep him on a retainer for any medical emergency. Tonight I’m getting my money’s worth.’ Laughter glinted in green eyes and embarrassment crossed into hers as she turned away. Had he guessed at her thoughts? Was this his way of saying that he’d settle any accounts? First the orphanage, and now in their very home. How far did his indebtedness to her extend? Surely he was beginning to feel the weight of all these unexpected burdens.

She put down her glass, uncertain as to the effects of the brew, for her mind seemed already apart from her body and she always liked to feel in control. Standing, she walked to the window, looking out towards the dusk as it fell over the rooftops, her thoughts racing across the last few months.

With a new resolve in her eyes she began quietly, ‘Thank you for your help tonight, your Grace. Michael is dear to me and without him—’ She stopped, unable to go on, and he nodded as he saw what it was she was trying to say to him, though she hurried on as she guessed he was about to speak. ‘I consider your debt to me paid in full. A life for a life, yours for Michael’s. It’s a well-fulfilled obligation and I hold you in no arrears…’ She hesitated then, unable to phrase the obvious final conclusion, though he stepped forward and did it for her.

‘So you’re saying that now you want me gone. Is that it?’

Said like that, after all that he had done, it seemed so callous she could barely agree, though when she lifted her eyes to his she was amazed at the wry amusement that had settled there.

‘I’ll bow out on one condition, Brenna,’ he said softly and a frown creased her forehead as she searched without success for his meaning. ‘I want both you and Michael to come to my ball.’

Another social gathering! Unsureness knotted in her stomach.

‘Why?’

‘Your life is too narrow and you’re too young to live like a nun.’

‘And you think it’s up to you to change it?’ She coloured, angry now as she tossed her words at him with little care. ‘Your title affords you lordship only over your demesne, Nicholas Pencarrow, and lies far from deciding what may be best for me.’

‘Then you won’t come to my ball?’ he countered lazily, a muscle ticking at the back of his cheek, making a lie of his carefully placed indifference.

She felt caught. He always made her feel like that. If she rejected his offer, he still might meddle in her life, and if she accepted, all the old dangers lay very close at hand. A room filled with the game of love, dancing and flirting. Hard violet shards raked across him.

‘If I accept, it will be on one condition only,’ she mirrored his words and his smile deepened.

‘What’s that?’

‘I won’t dance.’

Fresh merriment filled his voice. ‘As you wish.’ He held out his hand but she failed to take it, angry at his teasing in a way he would never understand.

‘I don’t have a dress.’ The words were out even as she thought them—childish, she knew, but she wanted to diminish some of his pleasure at having cornered her and let him worry about what it was she would wear.

‘I’ll send you one.’

‘You will not.’ Shock ran through her body at the intimacy of his suggestion.

‘Then come in navy. It always suits you.’ His face creased into a wide smile as he continued, ‘I’d even be happy with the paint-splattered white smock, just as long as you’re inside it.’

She blushed again, her whole body roiling at his unspoken meanings. Nicholas Pencarrow was flirting with her? Her, when he had the choice of every other London female? Without wishing it, she softened her tone, disarmed against the power he was so pointlessly offering, and deep dimples appeared.

‘I begin to think it would have made my life more tranquil had I just left you to the mercy of the highwaymen, your Grace.’

‘Tranquillity can sometimes be equated with boredom, Brenna. You have to take risks in life to get what you want.’ Gentling his teasing when he felt her withdrawal, he added, ‘I missed you at the ballet the other afternoon.’

She had the grace to look slightly guilty. ‘I had business in Worsley. We’re selling Airelies.’ She disguised the hurt well, she thought, her businesslike tones hard across the softer sorrow.

‘That’s the house I came to with your gun?’ Nicholas asked.

‘Yes, I was brought up there from the age of twelve.’ She added, ‘It’s home,’ before she could stop herself.

‘More so than this one?’ He gestured at the building they stood in.

‘Michael brought me there first after York…’ Halting in mid-sentence, she realised the extent of what it was she had just revealed to him, and cursed herself for the inadvertent slip of both tongue and mind. The arrival of Dr Weston-Tyler at that moment saved her from any awkward explanations.

‘Will he be all right?’ she asked, her legs readying for flight upstairs should his answer prove different from what she hoped.

The older man nodded. ‘He’s had a severe attack of asthmatic bronchitis, Miss Stanhope, due largely, I gather, from the fact that you were not here to send him off more quickly to a physician.’

Brenna’s face crumpled. ‘’Tis much the same as I told him. I’m afraid he’s very stubborn.’

‘And no longer a young man.’

‘That, too.’

‘This condition is worsened, you see, by two things: age and worry.’ He gave the prognosis as if he had just read it from a textbook and Brenna paled as she answered grimly.

‘He’s suffering from both, I fear, and there’s not much I can do about either.’

‘Then take him on a holiday,’ the doctor answered nonchalantly with the universal prescription he meted out to all his rich patients.

Where could they go, thought Brenna, and with what money could they get there? The realisation hit her in that second that neither the doctor nor Nicholas Pencarrow would ever know the curse of dire financial straits. Why, the fee from one consultation alone would probably cover a week at a resort on the south coast beaches and the Duke of Westbourne’s legendary wealth was common knowledge amongst all.

‘Well,’ continued Dr Weston-Tyler as he made much of packing away his gleaming equipment, ‘there’s nothing more I can do here.’

Nicholas watched, his hands tightening behind his back. God, couldn’t Clive understand there was no money? How plain did she have to be? How humble did she need to become, or had Clive tripped so much in the world of luxury that he now failed to understand its other face of hardship? Nicholas interrupted, putting the moment of uneasiness at an end.

‘I am sure Sir Michael and Miss Stanhope will find some solution. Are there medicines to be left?’

The practitioner nodded. ‘I’ve made a list…’ He went to hand it to Brenna, but Nicholas took it instead.

‘I’ll get these,’ he murmured, tucking the paper into his jacket pocket before Brenna could insist otherwise. ‘And I’ll give you a ride home, Clive.’

Brenna walked towards the door, ushering them into the small hall and opening the front portal with obvious relief, though Nicholas stopped as he stepped through.

‘I will send Thompson back with the medicines as soon as they’re made up and I will include the invitations.’