Authors: Cheri Chesley
Tags: #romance, #romance historical, #fiction fantasy, #fiction literature, #romance books free
Did he know?
Should she take the children and leave?
Shannah breathed deeper and closed her eyes.
As if they could—they had nowhere else to go. She couldn’t risk the
children’s lives or safety by taking them on the run.
It had been more than two years since that
horrible night, but just one thought and all the old fears returned
in a rush. The dreaded fever ravaged the village, the countryside,
and finally Wyndham manor, killing indiscriminately. Her father
fell ill first, then her mother, and then Matthew and Garnette.
Shannah and tiny Kora had been spared.
Their father died in two short days. Garnette
hung on the longest. Matthew’s fever broke the night their mother
died, but Garnette clung to life long enough to deliver a healthy
son. Then, spent and still deathly sick, she’d taken her last
breath—the breath she’d used to confess Royce’s parentage and exact
Shannah’s promise to keep her secrets.
Why had she agreed? Because she didn’t expect
Royce to survive—brand new and entering a house of sickness? To
give Garnette peace, certainly, but also because she knew the truth
of her elder sister’s words. If Royce’s father found out about him,
he’d take him away. Shannah would lose her nephew forever.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. She knew
her purpose, to raise her siblings and Royce to adulthood to the
best of her abilities. That included using the last of her parents’
money to bury them and Garnette and then buy a nanny goat so the
baby would have milk. It meant taking extra jobs whenever the
opportunity presented itself, because the few extra coins she
gained could mean the difference between food for the children and
starvation. It meant selling the goat’s extra milk in town, a job
Matthew had taken over the year before.
It also meant sacrificing courting, or long
walks with a beau. Shannah had forgotten the meaning of leisure.
Her only moments of rest came in the seconds after her head hit the
pillow and before her eyes closed every night. But it would all be
worth it if she could see the children grown and settled happily in
their own lives.
Royce tugged on her skirt and lifted his
arms, shaking her from her memories. Shannah bent and picked him
up, pulling him close to snuggle until he struggled to break free.
She laughed at his independent nature, and set him back on his
feet.
She and Matt fed the younger ones and then
did their nightly chores; but all the while her thoughts raced,
reliving the encounter with Viscount Wyndham over and over in her
mind. What would she say to him in the morning? What story could
she spin that would be close enough to the truth to not be seen as
a lie?
After the kitchen area had been cleaned up
and the last of the chores done, Matt took Royce for a bath and
Shannah and Kora settled in their mama’s lumpy chair for a story.
Shannah didn’t read well, but she could remember every one of her
mother’s bedtime stories. She shared them with her siblings and
with Royce, so they would have a part of mama’s legacy.
Kora fell asleep before Shannah finished, her
little fingers tucked into her mouth and her long, dark lashes
fanned across round cheeks. Shannah suspected she would grow into a
great beauty like Garnette and Mama. Poor Kora would have to fight
the local boys off with a stick.
Matthew returned then, cuddling a clean and
sleepy Royce. They shared a tired smile over his head. The
younglings were a handful, certainly, but so worth it. Shannah
watched her brother put their nephew to bed. Matt would grow big
and strong like their pa. Andrew Marshall had been highly respected
for his work ethic and honesty. If she had anything to say about
it, Matt would follow in his father’s footsteps.
Instantly Shannah thought of her
interrogation with the viscount the next morning, and shivered. She
had to put on a convincing performance for Lord Brendan or
everything she’d worked so hard for would end.
CHAPTER 6
The hour had grown quite late, but still
Brendan tossed and turned in his comfortable bed. He stared at the
underside of the canopy because every time he closed his eyes,
images of a caramel-skinned minx danced through his mind. Shannah
would be quickly followed by the children, last of all the
littlest, who would stick in his brain.
He hadn’t been close enough to get a good
look at the child, let alone determine the child’s gender. But boy
or girl, where did the child come from?
Brendan groaned and lit a candle. A year ago,
he wouldn't have had to worry about Shannah. A year ago, his father
had been alive, and young Brendan was enlisted in the king's army.
He didn't even know Shannah then. But then, he'd gotten a missive
from his mother about the fever, about his father’s sudden death,
and how he had to return and run their vast estates. He
couldn’t—wouldn’t—escape the responsibility, but he also couldn’t
dismiss the mystery of that small child.
He’d heard the accounts of the fever, how
many it had killed, how few infants had survived. He’d read his
father’s journal, faithfully kept until that final illness. There
simply weren’t that many two-year-old-sized children left in their
little corner of Brundidge.
Brendan supposed the child could have been
born
after
the fever had swept the area. He wasn’t exactly
the most skilled at guessing a child’s age, and the younger they
were, the harder that became.
Brendan snatched up a brocaded robe and
shrugged it over his naked shoulders. Tying the rope belt, he went
downstairs to the kitchen. Since he didn't remember the house well,
he always carried a lighted candle at night. Christopher was in the
kitchen, stuffing thick slices of ham into a roll from dinner.
"Hello, old man," Chris greeted when he saw
his older brother. "Responsibilities of estate life keeping you up
nights?" His grin, so similar to Brendan’s, flashed in the
darkness. The two had always looked more alike than brothers should
without being twins, but their personalities contrasted
sharply.
“Not really.” Brendan placed his candle on
the table and slid into a chair.
"A woman, perhaps?"
Brendan inwardly sighed. So far, Chris had
been right on both counts. Shannah was both an estate
responsibility and a woman. "It's nothing important."
The younger man looked at his brother.
"Right," he drawled. "Now try telling me the truth."
Brendan decided it was worth a try. Chris had
always been good with advice. "Do you know the Marshall girl?"
Christopher's brown eyes darkened noticeably.
"What do you want to know?"
Surprised by the frostiness of his brother’s
tone, Brendan studied Chris a moment before replying. "Do you know
Shannah?"
"Shannah?" Chris relaxed. "Sorry, Bren. I
thought we were speaking of Garnette."
"Garnette?" Brendan asked.
Chris almost laughed at his brother's
surprised expression. "Yes. Garnette is, I mean was, Shannah's
older sister."
Brendan leaned forward and folded his arms
across the table top. "Tell me about her.”
"Well, I imagine someone has to," his brother
agreed. "It all began three years ago. You were in battle at the
time, so you never heard the tale. Garnette was an upstairs maid
here then. She was sixteen, I think. This was before Father imposed
his rule about house servants, and so...."
"You fell for the girl," Brendan
supplied.
“Yes.” Christopher’s mouth thinned, and he
paused before continuing. "One could say we both fell quite
thoroughly. I loved her with all my being. We made plans to marry,
but when I went to Mother and Father, everything fell apart.” He
sighed and shook his head. “I’ve never seen Mother so apoplectic. I
thought she’d have a stroke.”
“I can’t imagine Father was thrilled either,”
Brendan said.
“Of course not. You know how they’ve always
been, about their plans for both of us and how we need to marry
well and secure a future for our posterity and the precious family
name.”
Brendan raised an eyebrow at the venom in his
brother’s tone, but didn’t comment on it. “What did you do
then?”
“I wanted to fight for her, but Garnette
wouldn’t hear of me tearing away from my family.” Chris gave a
small smile. “Family was always so important to her. So I agreed to
wait, as she suggested. Garnette was certain if Mother and Father
saw how serious we were, how committed, they’d come around.”
“Naïve, certainly,” Brendan observed.
“The next thing I knew they’d shipped me to
Dansby and school,” Chris told him. “Father sent a stipend directly
to his solicitor in Dansby for my needs, but I never had enough
money to come back for her.”
Brendan frowned. “They separated you? Just
like that?”
His brother nodded. “I’d saved a bit of my
pocket money, and was all set to return for the holiday when Father
wrote about the fever. He told me not to come. I had no idea it
would be the last thing I ever received from him.”
“And Garnette?”
“She died the same time Father did. I didn’t
even know she was ill.” Christopher let his head fall to rest in
his hand. “I wrote to her almost every day, but never heard a
reply. I was frantic to get back here and reaffirm my devotion to
her. You can’t imagine the guilt, Bren. If only I’d saved more of
my money, skipped a meal once or twice so I could pocket the gold,
not bought that new necktie—the list goes on. If I could have
returned before she fell ill, I could have saved her.”
Brendan watched his brother, usually so
carefree, wrap himself in the misery that hung in the air. “You
truly loved her.”
“With everything that I am.”
“Then after her death, Shannah came to work
here,” Brendan said.
“It wasn’t just Garnette. Their parents both
died of the fever as well.”
“Millie mentioned that earlier today,”
Brendan told him. “Did you know the family well?”
Chris lifted a shoulder. “He never said
anything outright to me, but I got the distinct impression that her
father didn’t approve of our love. I don’t think he thought my
intentions were entirely honorable.”
“A father’s right,” Brendan agreed. “But you
would have married her if you’d had the chance.”
Chris opened his mouth as if to say
something, but clamped his jaw shut almost immediately. Instead he
nodded.
“So you never met the rest of the family?” A
picture—an answer—had formed in Brendan’s mind. He needed
Christopher’s words to confirm his suspicions.
Chris smiled then, and leaned back in his
chair. “Well, Garnette’s mother was nice enough, and always sent
Shannah and Matt with us whenever we’d go on walks or picnics. They
were our chaperones. Little Kora was a cute thing, always clinging
to her mother. She was shy around me.”
Brendan tried to keep his tone as even as
possible. “And Mrs. Marshall wasn’t pregnant that you recall?”
Chris let out a short burst of laughter.
“Definitely not! If you’d heard her fret over her three daughters,
and how in the world she’d get them safely married off, you
wouldn’t even ask. Garnette’s mother was quite vocal about not
wanting to risk a fourth daughter.”
The pieces fell into place. Brendan
straightened in the chair, his eyes growing wide. He felt like he’d
swallowed a stone and it dropped straight to the bottom of his
stomach.
Christopher leaned in, concerned. “Bren, are
you all right?”
“I have to go.” Brendan barely uttered the
words before he flew from his chair and tore up to his room,
without aid of the forgotten candle he’d left in the kitchen.
Christopher stood in the foyer holding the
candle when Brendan raced down the stairs moments later, fully
dressed and struggling to force his arm into his coat sleeve.
“Brendan, what is wrong?”
Brendan didn’t answer—he couldn’t. He hurried
to the stables and threw a bridle on his horse, Cinnamon, before
pulling himself up on her bare back and racing into the night.
The ride to Shannah’s cottage took only
minutes, thanks to Cinnamon’s sure foot and the full moon giving
its light. Brendan slid from his horse’s back in the clearing and
took the steps to the porch in one leap.
He pounded on the door, heedless of the hour
or the fact that the children would be sound asleep. “Shannah!
Shannah, open this door!”
Brendan kept hammering on the door until he
heard scuffling inside, a dog bark, and saw the faint light of a
candle shine through the crack under the door.
“Shannah?” he bellowed again.
The door opened a handful of inches and honey
colored eyes peered out at him. “My lord Brendan?” Her surprise was
palatable. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t bother to respond. Instead he
leaned as close as the door would allow and whispered, “Why didn’t
you tell me that your sister bore my brother’s child?”
CHAPTER 7
Shannah’s entire body went numb. “What do you
mean, my lord?” she choked out, hating herself for not being a
better liar.
Brendan pushed open the door and strode
inside. “Don’t be coy, I’m not in the mood.”
Matt’s dog started barking fiercely from the
bedroom doorway. Shannah hushed him with a hand signal. Thank
goodness he hadn’t tried to attack the viscount!
Shannah tried a different tactic. “Please, my
lord. You’ll wake the children.”
“I don’t care if I wake all Brundidge!”
Though in contrast his voice started out as a roar and ended in a
fierce whisper.
Shannah almost moaned aloud. What could she
say now that would dissuade him? Her mind raced. “You’re mistaken,
my lord, about Royce. He’s not Garnette’s child. He’s my own son,
not quite two years old.”
His heated gaze swept over her.
“Impossible.”
Her chin went up. “It’s true,” she insisted,
trying to keep her voice from shaking—but his look had reminded her
that she only wore a thin shawl over her worn nightgown, and her
body had begun shivering with nerves. “I married quite young, to
the blacksmith’s apprentice in town. He died in the fever but left
me carrying his child. I bore Royce mere months after burying my
husband and my family.”