The Return of Lord Conistone (19 page)

‘Yes?’ Her emotions as she gazed up into his strong hard-boned face threatened to overwhelm her.

‘Will you try not to think too harshly of me?’

‘Oh, Lucas…’

‘It’s all right,’ he was saying gently, ‘it’s all right’. The tears filled her eyes now, hot and bitter. Suddenly he was easing her into his arms and gentling the back of her head with his hand until her face was turned upwards to his. She could not move away. Those tears spilled freely down her cheeks. If her life had depended on it, she could not resist him. This man.
This man her father had said was her enemy
. Gently, very gently, he brushed her teardrops aside with his fingertips. Then he let his lips capture hers with a firm, dry warmth that made her heart hammer against her ribcage; and she was surrendering to him, and her hands were stealing up to twine round those powerful shoulders.

She snatched her hands back to her sides.
‘No’.

He stared down at her and this time his eyes were like cold, hard steel. ‘Don’t ever try to pretend,’ he said in a quiet voice that sliced through her, ‘that that kiss was my fault’.

She buried her face in her hands.
Oh, God
. No wonder he despised her.

He was already heading for the door, but he turned and said curtly, ‘One last favour, Verena. I would like Bentinck to continue staying here with you’.

Her head jerked up at that. ‘You are not serious, I hope!’

‘Never more so. I won’t impose myself on you, but you need Bentinck here, to safeguard you. And don’t tell me
you
are
safe. You remember as well as I the attack on the cliff path’.

The Frenchmen. It was true, they had targeted her, but… ‘You still think—they might be nearby?’

‘It’s possible,’ he answered harshly. ‘No need to alarm your family. You can tell them Bentinck’s here at my request, to supervise the workers who are going to start work here in the next week or so’.

She jumped. ‘
What
workers?’

‘The ones I’ve hired to renovate Wycherley,’ he answered simply. ‘Your mother’s already given her consent. Mr Mayhew has spoken to her’.

Her scatterbrained mother must have forgotten. Or—even more likely—decided not to mention it, in case Verena chided her for accepting charity again. ‘Lucas—you have no right—’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said tersely, ‘your estate is paying their wages. As I said, the matter is agreed. And I will brook no argument. Because, you see, your father asked me to look after you’.

‘My father
…
?’
Now Verena was truly stunned. ‘No! Impossible!’

He looked as if he was remembering something from a long time ago, and that memory was dark indeed. ‘You must make your own mind up,’ he said tiredly, ‘whether or not to believe me. But the fact remains—I
did
promise your father I would look after you all. And now I will take my leave, since my presence is unwelcome. Goodbye, Verena’.

‘Wait! You must tell me more—about my father…’

‘I don’t really think,’ he replied, ‘that there’s anything more to be said. Do you?’

And he turned and walked away without looking back. Out of her life.

She wished she had never seen that letter, with its cruel,
cruel words. She wanted to run after Lucas and let him hold her again, kiss her again and never let her go.

But it was too late. She watched Lucas leave the house with despair in her heart. He was going—where?

What did it matter? One thing was certain. He was leaving her life for good.

* * *

Cook was back from her morning off. She came bustling into the kitchen, sweeping off her cloak. ‘Now, how did they all enjoy my pies and cakes up on the Common? Did they all get eaten?’

Verena forced a bright smile and gave Cook the answer she dearly wanted. ‘I was home by then. But Izzy told me yours were the first to go, Cook! Not a crumb left—everyone made straight for them!’

‘As for that Bentinck,’ went on Cook grimly as she crashed the pans around, ‘he’ll eat anything, he will. Is he leaving us soon, the black-haired misery?’

Verena knew very well that Bentinck and Cook had set up an unlikely friendship. Even Turley had warmed to him; Verena had overheard Bentinck telling Turley about a boxing match in which Bentinck had supposedly defeated the famed Cribb, and Verena suspected this had aroused Turley’s reluctant admiration.

Verena said, ‘I’m afraid Bentinck will be with us for a little while yet, Cook’. Then she realised that her mother was calling to her from the drawing room.

‘Verena? Verena, my dear, is that you?’ called Lady Frances. ‘I can’t think where you’ve been hiding, when you must know how very much we need you, we will be departing very soon. Now, did I hear that Lord Conistone has arrived, you sly puss? I do hope you’ve invited him to call again? Such a shame that we will not be here, but then again—’ she almost winked ‘—it could be such
an opportunity for you! You do know, don’t you, that he’s most kindly arranged for some labourers to start work on our house? Verena, dearest? Verena?’

‘He had to go, Mama’.

‘But I was sure he harboured intentions, my dear!
Marital
intentions! Even Pippa said so!’

Verena whirled round on her mother. ‘There is nothing whatsoever between Lord Conistone and me! And you must
not
accept his every offer of help as if we were—incompetent
paupers!’

Her mother’s face fell. ‘But I thought— He has paid you such special attention, my love!’

Verena drew a deep breath and touched her mother’s hand. ‘Calm yourself, Mama. We mean nothing to one another at all’.

Her mother pursed her lips and went off to complete her packing. Verena, who could stand no more, slipped away to her dear father’s study, and sat by herself in the darkness.

She still loved Lucas—a love that was clearly impossible. But—why had he said that her father had told him to look after her?

It must be another lie.

* * *

Her family left at last, with all their luggage crammed into the old coach. Soon after that, it began to rain. The house was almost unbearably quiet apart from the steady drumming of the raindrops against the windows.

Impossible to go outside in this weather; equally impossible to do
nothing
, so she decided to continue with a task she’d begun a few days ago: sorting through the boxes containing her father’s business papers that had been moved out of the north wing in spring when the rain came in through the roof.

She’d already worked methodically through two of
the boxes, which contained nothing but petty household records. Then she came to another.

And this box had been recently disturbed
. Its lid had not been refitted tightly, and there were fingermarks all over the dust that lay on its surface.

Lifting the lid off, she found more documents. Picking up a slim wallet marked in her father’s writing, she read:
Notes made on the route of the River Tagus; its source and progress through the Portuguese mountains, 1808.

She opened the wallet. There was nothing inside.

Her heart was beating rather fast. It was probably nothing, she told herself. But—this box had been opened within the last few weeks, to judge by those fingermarks. Opened by whom?

Lucas had been asking her about maps, only this morning.

Suddenly she heard footsteps, together with the sound of someone whistling ‘The British Grenadiers’. She swung round to see Bentinck standing in the doorway.

‘Everything satisfactory up ‘ere, ma’am?’ His gaze had fastened already on the open box and the empty wallet in her hand.

This was the outside of enough. She stood briskly up to face him, pushing back a stray lock of her chestnut hair. ‘Everything is
completely
satisfactory, thank you, Bentinck! Except—would you tell me if you have keys to this wing of the house?’

‘I have, ma’am’.Cos I might need them when the builders start work up here’.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Verena crisply, ‘you won’t. And I would like you to return those keys to me immediately. In fact, I would like you to give me every single key you have that belongs to this house. And I would like you to leave Wycherley
—at once’.

His jaw dropped. ‘But Lord Conistone, he said—’

‘I really don’t give a fig what Lord Conistone said! I am in charge here and I would like you to go now, Bentinck. For good. Do you understand?’

He folded his arms across his chest stubbornly. ‘Can’t go till tomorrow, ma’am. Need to pack me things, make arrangements…’

She almost stamped her foot. She no longer believed there was a threat to her—only from Lucas. ‘Tomorrow, then! And it will not be soon enough!’

She swept away from him towards the stairs, her colour high.

‘Miss Verena!’ Cook was calling her from downstairs. ‘There you are, miss, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! There is a letter for you’.

Verena came downstairs to take it from her—and her heart stopped. The letter was sealed with a familiar crest.

It was from the Earl of Stancliffe.

She tore it open, and read:
Miss Sheldon. Though we have not met for some time, I would be obliged if you, and you only, would pay me a visit at Stancliffe Manor at your earliest convenience. Today, if possible.

She stood there, stunned. She used to think the Earl was their enemy. But he had paid them so very generously for the stream; clearly he no longer suspected her of trying to entrap Lucas in marriage.

She did not notice Bentinck hurrying out to the group of labourers working on the south wall, speaking urgently to one of them, handing him a note in his own rough handwriting, then sending him galloping off on Bentinck’s own sturdy bay cob.

* * *

Lucas Conistone had not gone far. He was down at the Royal George close by Framlington harbour, buying some
of the locals a drink. They all knew Lord Conistone, and their awe of him steadily shrank as the second, then the third round of ale was added by the happy innkeeper to his lordship’s account.

They’d not needed much encouragement to talk to his lordship about various sightings of suspicious strangers along this part of the coast. ‘Boney’s men,’ they muttered darkly, ‘spies everywhere, my lord!’ Then the messenger sent by Bentinck arrived.

Lucas tore open the letter and read it, cursing under his breath.

The Earl has sent Miss Verena a letter. I opened it and sealed it again before she got it. He’s invited her to visit, and she’s going. I will follow her. Make haste yourself to Stancliffe, my lord.

B
entinck had caught up with Verena as she left the house, making her jump when he said, ‘Maybe I should come with you on your walk, ma’am? It’s getting late’.

‘Nonsense, Bentinck! It’s only four o’clock, it won’t be dark for hours! Anyway, I told you you’re dismissed!’

‘Not till tomorrow,’ he replied calmly.

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ returned Verena, ‘your duties are over as from now!’ She ordered him to go to the south meadow, telling him that some suspicious-looking characters had been reported there earlier. ‘Possibly French spies,’ she warned. That did the trick; it got him heading in completely the opposite direction, while she set off westwards to Stancliffe Manor.

Whenever they used to visit Stancliffe as children, Verena had hated how she and her sisters were told always to curtsy and be silent before the Earl, to speak only when spoken to. The last time she had been here was a little over two years ago, during her father’s final summer in England. She’d known he was going to Portsmouth that very night on his travels again, so she’d walked across
the fields to meet him and waited for him outside the big, forbidding house.

Usually her father and the Earl talked for hours about places they’d visited overseas, for the Earl too had voyaged abroad. But that last time, Verena had heard sharp voices drifting out from the open window of the Earl’s study.

‘You are a fool, Sheldon!’ the Earl had exploded. ‘You married a silly, empty-headed fool of a wife and you cannot expect me to bail you all out!’

Verena, listening white and shocked, could hear no more. When her father came out, they walked home in near silence. He just said, in a low voice, ‘I have to go away again this one more time, Verena. But believe me, when I come home I will be rich and we will be beholden to no one!’

* * *

Suddenly, as she turned to take the footpath that led to Stancliffe Manor, she stopped.

Was she mistaken? Or did she remember that as her father set out to visit the Earl that last time, he’d carried his diary with him, the slim red leather-bound volume in which he’d recorded every detail of his travels? She’d assumed he had it with him when he died—that was why she’d always told Lucas she had no idea where it was.

But did he have it with him when he came
away
from Stancliffe?

She couldn’t remember. All she remembered was the hurry he’d been in to get away. His bags had already been packed, and he had lost no time in heading straight for Portsmouth, to sail away that very night, for ever.

Now Stancliffe Manor was in view, at the end of a long, chestnut-lined driveway. The skies were growing leaden again and she quickened her step. Through the grounds ran a river, which had been dammed half a century ago to
form a picturesque lake with several wooded islands connected by ornamental footbridges. On the largest island was a small pavilion, where, in summer, her father and the Earl used to sit and talk. It all made a sylvan scene when the sun shone down. But today, after the recent heavy rain, the lake, swollen by the brown waters of the river in full spate, looked stormy, threatening almost.