Captain Ingram's Inheritance Read online

  Her breakfast finished, Constantia changed into her old grey riding habit and went down to the stable yard. She and Felix rode up the steep track behind the mansion, up into the Mendip Hills. At the top, they stopped to look back over the green Somerset plain, to the isolated prominence of Glastonbury Tor with its tower, and beyond into the hazy distance.

  Felix told Constantia how Fanny had crossed the Spanish mountains on mule-back, and how terrified he had been seeing her mounted on a huge troop horse at a Review in Brussels.

  “I was all ready to rake her escort over the coals for endangering her,” he said ruefully. “Then I discovered that she was quite capable of handling the brute, and that Frank was among her escort.”

  An image of Captain Frank Ingram was building in Constantia’s fancy. She envisioned him tall, strong, and handsome on a powerful charger, smart in his regimentals, a valiant soldier yet gentle and loving to his sister and the child. Like the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table, he was both bold and chivalrous. How different from the fashionably languid gentlemen she had rejected!

  When they returned to the stables, the earl’s steward was just leaving to ride around the farms, and Felix turned around to go with him. The train of her habit over her arm, Constantia went into the house.

  Crossing the spacious vestibule, with its Corinthian columns framing each doorway and Classical statues posed in niches, she felt the usual twinge of regret. The Tudor Great Hall--the panelling carved with fruit and flowers and mythical beasts, the minstrels’ gallery, the hammerbeam roof--had vanished along with a fortune in the earl’s passion for modernization.

  As she started up the magnificent marble staircase, balustered in gilt wrought-iron, her mother’s abigail appeared at the top.

  “Lady Constantia, her ladyship wishes to see you in her sitting-room, if you please.” The last phrase was undoubtedly added to the countess’s command by the tactful maid.

  “Oh dear, I cannot go in riding dress,” Constantia said in dismay, “and with my hair all blown about. I shall come as soon as I have changed. Pray send Joan to me at once.”

  Her own maid soon had her fit to be seen by her ladyship and she hurried to Lady Westwood’s apartments. She met Vickie on the threshold. Exchanging a curious and apprehensive glance, they entered together. Their mother’s private sitting-room retained its formal elegance despite the slight fading of green-striped satin. As a child, Constantia had often been summoned here to receive rebukes for falling into mischief, but Felix had always been chastised more severely for leading her into scrapes than she for following.

  More recently, her rejection of several perfectly acceptable suitors had led to lengthy lectures on obedience and obstinacy. In her quiet way, she had held firm.

  Lady Westwood was seated at her cherrywood bureau, writing letters. She turned when her daughters entered and motioned them to a pair of spindly-legged chairs. The countess’s hauteur was no more reduced by straitened circumstances than her husband’s. Beneath pale-blond hair with no hint of grey, her smooth, calm face was untouched by any mark of anxiety, passion, or sorrow, by smile or frown. Constantia sometimes wondered whether her mother had ever succumbed to any emotion stronger than displeasure.

  Displeasure was not now in evidence. In fact, Lady Westwood appeared coolly complacent.

  “You have heard, no doubt, of your brother’s good fortune. It is your good fortune that, unlike many young men, his concern is for his family, not for a life of idle pleasure. I trust you will express to him your appreciation of his generosity.”

  “Yes, Mama,” they chorussed.

  “Constantia, I shall take you to London in the autumn for the Little Season. Victoria, you shall be presented in the spring. That is time enough, I believe, for you to amend your carriage and conduct so that I shall not be put out of countenance by your lack of decorum.”

  Vickie opened her mouth to protest, and closed it again. Though she blithely disregarded her mother’s prohibition on reading romances, with that cold gaze upon her she did not quite dare to argue. “Yes, Mama,” she said meekly.

  “I shall speak to your governess. You may leave us now, Victoria.”

  Curtsying, Vickie departed with the energetic gait the countess so deplored. Constantia wished she could follow. Her hands, clasped in her lap, tightened as she steeled herself to object to Lady Westwood’s plans.

  “I daresay Felix has spoken to you of his hopes of marriage, Constantia?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “I venture to disclose to you that your father and I have been deeply concerned by Felix’s propensity for forming an undesirable acquaintance. In the position he insisted on taking up, against all advice, no doubt a certain amount of social contact with persons of no consequence was inevitable. However, your brother has an unfortunate tendency to regard some such persons as friends. We even feared that he might so disgrace his name as to choose a bride of low condition, thus injuring your hopes of contracting an eligible alliance.”

  She paused, but Constantia had nothing to say. No words of hers would convince her mother either that she did not hope for a husband, or that Felix was perfectly capable of choosing his own estimable friends.

  “However, in fact his choice has fallen on an excellent parti, Lady Sophia Gerrold, daughter of the Marquis of Daventry. Such a match cannot fail to enhance your chances, and Victoria’s also, of course.”

  Constantia was driven to demur. “I understood that nothing was yet settled!”

  “True, but now that financial difficulties are no longer in the way, it can only be a matter of his making formal application for her hand. Surely you do not suppose that the heir to the Earl of Westwood might be judged unworthy of any female to whom he paid suit?”

  “No, Mama.” Alas! If Felix proposed he’d be accepted by any female with eyes in her head.

  “Nonetheless, as you say, the matter is not settled, so you will not speak of it. I merely wished to advise you that you are likely to have the pleasure of the company of your prospective sister-in-law when we go up to Town.”

  “Mama, I don’t wish to go to Town in the autumn!” Constantia cried.

  Lady Westwood stared at this unseemly display of emotion. “You prefer to wait to accompany your sister in the spring? To bring out two girls at once is generally considered unwise, as one is certain to overshadow the other. It would hardly be fair to Victoria. Of course, you are too old to be formally presented to the Ton.”

  “Much too old, Mama.”

  “You have lost a great deal of time, owing entirely to your own obstinacy. No, you cannot afford to delay. We shall go to London for the Little Season.”

  Taking silence for consent, she dismissed her daughter.

  Constantia imagined refusing, and having to live with her mother’s constant reproaches. How much easier to submit! After all, it was not London she feared, not the balls and theatres and concerts Felix had described, which sounded delightful. Perhaps she’d find Lady Sophia good-natured and charming. Perhaps, in the bustle of Town life, she’d even be able to slip away with Felix for a few hours and meet his friends.

  But in Mama’s eyes, the sole reason for going to London was to acquire a husband. The compulsion to conform might be more than Constantia could withstand. Felix would support her if she explained, but he must never learn the truth.

  If Felix ever discovered why she refused to marry, he’d blame himself. She had never held him responsible for the childhood accident, for the hateful scar, but their parents did and he had accepted the guilt. Seven years older than his little sister, he should have known better than to help her climb the towering cedar.

  When she fell, when the broken branch tore her tender skin and blood poured forth from the jagged wound, he had been devastated. Yet by now the accident was tucked away in a hidden corner of his memory. He did not know--only her abigail knew--that the white, puckered scar still slashed across her chest, an ugly furrow from the hollow of her right shoulder to the swell of her
left breast.

  The décolleté London fashions were not for her. And even if she managed to persuade her mother to let her wear high-necked, concealing gowns to balls and soirées, sooner or later the moment of truth must come. On her wedding night, if not before, her lover would see the dreadful disfigurement and turn from her in revulsion.

  Chapter 2

  How could anyone be so muttonheaded as to prefer that ice maiden, Lady Sophia, to his sister? Frank wondered. Not that he had ever met her ladyship, but sharing quarters with Viscount Roworth he had taken an interest in the Goddess and picked up snippets of information. A cold, supercilious beauty was the general concensus--except among her besotted suitors.

  And Roworth was one of those suitors, and Frank very much feared that Fanny had lost her heart to Roworth.

  Lying back against his pillows, he watched her leave his chamber. Though slim and pretty in an altered evening gown of Miriam’s, with her round face and brown curls she could not compete with Lady Sophia in looks any more than in rank or wealth. Damn Roworth if those were more important to him than a warm heart!

  Bravely though she tried to hide it, she had been blue-devilled since Roworth left Nettledene. Had Frank been wrong to agree to leave Brussels? Not that he had been in any case to argue, especially when Roworth, with that high-and-mighty air he put on sometimes, accused him of sacrificing Fanny’s comfort to his own pride. No, he could not regret coming to the Cohens. Anita was happy, Fanny did not have to struggle for existence, and much as he had mistrusted the notion of a female physician, Miriam was working wonders.

  The doctors had expected him to be crippled, yet he had walked about his chamber each afternoon for a week, feeble, unsteady, but on his own feet. He could move his arms freely, if painfully. Miriam’s salves made him smell like a rose garden, the exercises she prescribed made him ache all over, but they worked. Beyond that he must not think.

  She looked in on her way down to dinner, a strong-willed, handsome woman with richly red hair. “We shall have you downstairs tomorrow,” she promised.

  “I own I’ll be glad to see something beyond these four walls. I know every nick in every beam, every rough spot in the plaster...”

  Miriam laughed. “You shall have new beams to study, or even go out on the terrace if it’s fine. Try to eat well tonight to build up your strength.”

  Shortly after she left, a footman came in with his dinner on a tray. “His lordship’s back, sir,” the lad reported, helping him to sit upright. “Lord Roworth, that is.”

  “Lord Roworth!” What the devil was the man about, returning to torment Fanny again?

  “Just come in this minute, quite unexpected, like. Treats Nettledene like his own home, he does,” he added with pride.

  Frank pondered the news as he picked at his roast beef, carved wafer-thin to tempt an invalid’s uncertain appetite. Roworth must have come to report his success or failure at winning Lady Sophia’s hand. Success would dash Fanny’s hopes forever, but failure would keep them alive, in all probability to die a lingering death. Frank didn’t know which to wish for. He felt helpless, unable to protect his sister.

  Everything would be easier if only Roworth were not on the whole a deuced good fellow.

  The footman returned to remove his tray, shaking his head when he saw how little had been eaten. Frank picked up a book of travellers’ tales he had been reading and tried to forget his troubles.

  A knock on his door, some time later, was a welcome distraction. “Come in,” he called.

  Lord Roworth stuck his head round the door. “Still awake, Ingram? I’ve brought you a brandy. With Miriam’s permission, I hasten to say.” He set two glasses on the bedside table and pulled up a chair.

  Taking his glass, Frank warmed it between thin, white hands. “Am I to wish you happy?” he enquired cautiously.

  “Not yet. I reached London at an awkward hour to call upon Lady Sophia so I decided to ride on and spend the night here. Now I’m here, I might as well stay a couple of days.”

  Nothing settled yet. Frank suppressed a groan. Sipping the brandy, he felt a glow of warmth pervade him.

  “Armagnac,” said Roworth. “Isaac takes my advice on his cellar.”

  “I haven’t tasted anything like this since one of my men snabbled a couple of bottles after we crossed the Pyrenees.” He grinned. “Naturally, I was forced to confiscate them to maintain order in the ranks.”

  “Naturally. Everyone knows Wellington don’t stand for looting. Here’s to your very good health.”

  The commonplace toast reminded Frank of his debility. With an effort he responded, “And to yours, my lord.” He drank again, more deeply than the quality of the brandy deserved.

  “My lord? As I recall, Captain, you were wont to use my name.”

  “My humble apologies, Roworth.” He tried to match the rallying tone. “I intended no insult, I promise you.”

  “Then I shan’t sink to the infamy of calling out a sick man, though Miriam and Fanny both think you well on the road to recovery. What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? What makes you think anything’s wrong? They are right, I grow stronger every day.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s your privilege, but perhaps I can help.”

  The Armagnac loosened Frank’s tongue. “No one can help, or Mrs Cohen would have. I expected too much of her skills. Look at me.” He threw back the covers, pushed himself to the edge of the bed, and stood up, a trifle wobbly. Stripping off his nightshirt--altered at Miriam’s suggestion to button down the front--he revealed a body seamed and knotted with countless scars, white and red and purple, from shoulders to thighs. “What woman will want me now?” he asked bitterly.

  Roworth visibly steeled himself. “You appear to be...er...intact where it matters.”

  “Would that I were not,” he said in despair, “for then I might not care. Or that at least some sign appeared on my face as a warning of what is below. Better, perhaps, that the blast had blown off my head instead of leaving me like this, a sight to send any female into hysterics.”

  “Did Fanny and Miriam run screaming at the sight?”

  “They are not ordinary females. They saw only the hurt, not the hideousness.” Shivering despite the warmth of the night, he reached for his nightshirt.

  Roworth failed to deny that Fanny and Miriam were remarkable. His meager strength exhausted, Frank accepted his help to put his arms in the sleeves and return to bed. Lying back, he closed his eyes. “It’s bloody humiliating being so weak,” he said, aiming at wryness.

  “Are you too weak to lift a glass? It would be a pity to waste the Armagnac.”

  “True. That much I think I can manage.” He sat up and took the glass.

  They chatted for a while longer, then, draining the last drop of his brandy, Roworth said, “I’d best let you sleep, or Miriam will be after me.” He hesitated. “The scars are bound to fade over time, you know. And one day you’ll find a woman as exceptional as your sister, who loves you and doesn’t give a damn.”

  “Then Lord help her, for I’m not likely ever to be in a position to marry. Roworth, thank you. You’ve been devilish good to us--don’t think I don’t appreciate it.”

  Both embarrassed, they clasped hands briefly and Roworth left.

  At least he recognized that Fanny was special, Frank thought, his head muzzy from the unaccustomed drink. Roworth really was a good fellow. He’d be wasted on the Ice Goddess.

  Look at the way he’d reacted to the grotesque horror of the scars: sympathetic, without being pitying. All the same, Frank wished he hadn’t made an exhibition of himself. The brandy was to blame, that and an urgent need to voice his despair. He hadn’t been able to tell Fanny or Miriam, nor even the sober, kindly, intellectual Isaac, of his dread that no woman would ever again respond to his desire.

  Roworth was no saint. He’d had a mistress in Brussels. He understood and had done his best to reassure. A good fellow...

  Frank dropped into a rest
less sleep, beset with pretty faces that smiled and flirted--and then snarled rejection with outraged disgust.

  * * * *

  The two days Roworth had said he was staying stretched to a week. Fanny was happy, and Frank could not bring himself to suggest that she was living in a fool’s paradise.

  He was carried downstairs each afternoon, now. Often his sister and the viscount were absent, walking or riding, or taking Anita and little Amos Cohen on an excursion. She’d return rosy-cheeked and laughing. How could he put a shadow in her eyes?

  The shadow came soon enough. One evening, as he was about to snuff his bedside candle, she came into his chamber and, though she smiled, he knew at once that the blow had fallen.

  “Felix is going to Town with Isaac tomorrow, to propose to Lady Sophia.” Her voice struggled to sound casual. “I’m not sure when we shall see him again, but he repeated that we must call on him if we find ourselves in difficulties.”

  “Never!”

  She clutched his hand. “No, never. But he has been a good friend to us,” she said pleadingly. He nodded, too full of her hurt to find words. Stooping she kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, my dear. Sleep well.”

  “Goodnight, Fanny.” He touched her cheek in a rare, tender gesture. With a dry, strangled sob, she tore her hand from his clasp and hurried out.

  He lay and swore silently all the foul oaths he could recall or invent. If it were not for his damnable weakness, he’d call Lord Roworth to account for this! Yet Roworth was not to blame. He had never made any secret of his intention to marry Lady Sophia.

  Fanny was quiet the next day, but as always covered her unhappiness with a mask of cheerfulness. In the afternoon, Frank was carried downstairs and walked out to the terrace to recline on a chaise longue in the sun. Fanny and Miriam sat on a bench nearby, with Miriam’s baby. Anita and Amos, black ringlets and red curls, played happily with sticks and stones on the steps down to the garden.

  Fanny looked up as the sound of footsteps came from the house. Frank saw her smile a subdued greeting, then saw her expression change to incredulity, hope, apprehension. Before he turned his head, he knew that Isaac had brought Roworth home with him.