Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) Page 3

  “That’s Lord Stanton, thank you,” James corrected angrily. He had managed to brave the Peninsular only to be felled in the middle of his home village by someone tripping him up and kicking him hard in the shins. He sat up and looked harder at the schoolmistress who rested against the trough clutching her foot. Her cloak had fallen aside to reveal a distinctly feminine figure with eye-catching curves. He stared with admiration as a sudden clearing of the clouds cast moonlight on flawless skin and a tightly bound bun of red hair.

  “Harriet?” he said in disbelief.

  “Oh, Lord High and Mighty Stanton knows me now, does he?” The diminutive figure turned and put her foot gingerly on the ground.

  James shook his head. Harriet was the Brambridge school mistress? “It’s a bit hard to identify someone when you are lying on the floor.”

  “Two years.”

  “What?”

  “You said you would come back for me, and it’s been two years.”

  “When did I say that to you?” James got up from the floor slowly, and brushed off his breeches.

  “When you left me at the bottom of the mine at the cliff’s edge. Two years ago.”

  “Well, you obviously didn’t stand there for two years waiting.”

  Harriet let out a huff of obvious frustration. “That is not the point. You said you would come back for me. That you always did.”

  James frowned. “Harriet, I was accused of murder by my own father. I had to escape. It wasn’t safe to come back. This wasn’t just the playful scrapes of our childhood.”

  Harriet gave an obvious shudder. “I’ve never regarded it as a scrape… the tide…” She stopped and looked at him. “I could have helped you.”

  James shook his head. “You help me? And how would you have done that?”

  Harriet wilted visibly. “I don’t know, but I would have tried. We looked out for each other.”

  “As far as I can remember, I looked out for you.”

  “Humph. Still—”

  James had had enough. The wound in his shoulder had started hurting when he fell. “I’m sorry, Harriet. I must go. I have a meeting.”

  “In the inn?” The disbelief in Harriet’s voice was palpable. The tones of an experienced schoolmistress shone through in the sparse words.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. One of those meetings.” The derision in Harriet’s voice was palpable. “Well Lord Stanton-who-said-he-would-come-back-but-didn’t, I will leave you in peace.”

  Harriet turned and stomped out of the yard.

  James shook his head. He felt as if he was eight-years-old, but despite himself he almost smiled. He couldn’t believe how she had grown up. The way her hair was an even more brilliant shade of red, and the flare of her hips in that dress… and yet she still had the temper of a virago, and the dramatic flair of a Covent Garden performer. The outside coating of a confined schoolmistress heightened her attraction.

  James groaned. He had avoided women all season in London and it was obviously beginning to affect him. He needed a drink. Devil take it, Harriet had been like a little sister to him.

  The taproom of the inn fell quiet as he strode in. James looked around the room, blinking away the smoke from the fire. It was as if nothing had changed, the same old grizzled men sat hunched in the corner nursing their ale. He pushed his way towards the back of the room where the portly inn keeper eyed him warily from behind the bar. “What be you wantin’ sir?” he asked, running a cloth over a tankard.

  “A pint of your best ale. I need it.”

  “Certainly, sir,” the man murmured. “And be it awlright if I might know whom I might be addressing?”

  James looked at him suspiciously. The man was new, he hadn’t been there in the past two days and his words sounded like sarcasm. But he carried himself like the owner of the inn. Had he been recognized? The war years had not been kind to him, but Harriet had certainly known him, in the dark no less. But in the two days he had been in Brambridge, no one else had addressed him by his real name.

  Killer Lord. That’s what the ton had called him in London at the balls. He’d stopped attending the gatherings. It was one thing to know what he was, yet another to have it flung in his face.

  “Jim Lucky,” he said firmly. It was the name he’d been given in the army when he had refused to give his real name at enlisting. Despite the fact that Lord Anglethorpe had quietly dropped the murder charges a while ago due to lack of evidence, he was still wary of the reception he might receive from the village.

  The man now looked back at him with narrowed eyes. “Ah and I s'pose your friends be called John Smith, sir?”

  James stared at the innkeeper but he turned away and unhooked a key from behind the bar.

  “Follow me, Mr. Lucky,” the man said. “I’ve moved you to the blue room. We’ve had a sudden influx of guests, see.”

  James shuddered and followed, his drink forgotten. He knew the blue room of old. A dark place with a smoking chimney pervaded by a strange smell of damp. The innkeeper, a candle stick in hand, led him up the stairs, and then onwards, right into the thatched roof.

  At a large oak door, the innkeeper fumbled in his shirts. Drawing a key out of his jerkin, he flourished it with a grin and fit it to the door.

  “After you, sir,” he said, handing James his candle.

  James stopped as surprise filled him. The room was beautiful; exquisite lace covered the bed, and hung from the windows. The blue of the room was the blue of the sky. It was like floating in a cloud. James turned to the innkeeper, lost for words.

  “Ah. Might a changed a bit from when you were last here, sir. We had complaints. Our… clientele expects a little luxury.” Dropping the key on a small table by the door, the innkeeper turned and left the room before James could say a word.

  Depositing the candle on the small table, James crossed to the bed. As he gazed at his highly polished Hoby boots, his eyelids became heavy. He had spent two cold nights on the cliff tops of Brambridge, watching the comings and goings of the villagers and fishermen. And before that, three days travel by horse from London staying in inadequate coaching inns. Lying down on his side on the bed, he winced and rolled straight back on his back. His shoulder had begun to ache from the constant activity.

  Struggling back into a sitting position, he pulled off his coat and shucked off his shirt. His bag had already been moved into the room by one of the maids. Hooking his feet beneath the heavy chair in the corner of the room, he eased his legs out of the tight-fitting boots. He sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments, exhausted, noting the crumpled nature of his breeches. Now that he was Lord Stanton he would have to think about engaging a valet.

  Standing stiffly and crossing to the window, James opened the casement and looked outside towards the church clock. It would be at least seven hours before he needed to leave. Seven hours before he could put his relationship with his father behind him and gain what was rightfully his. Wincing a little, he bent and pulled a leather tube from his bag. Unhooking the top, he turned it upside down and dropped his pocket telescope out into his hand. The patina on the metal was worn with use and smooth against his fingers. Putting the instrument to his eye, he surveyed the headland and the shore behind the church. There was no movement or sound in the dusk apart from the gentle hum of voices from the taproom below. Picking up the candle, James turned back towards the bed and eased onto the covers with relief. He placed the candle on the bedside table and blew it out. As the shadows drew in he closed his eyes.

  He awoke in a hot sweat, half-remembering the continuing dream that took him every night.

  Screaming horses, shouting men, the boom of guns, falling masonry. And yet a new element had been added: a shadowy man standing with his arm upraised. James shook his head, his shoulder still ground painfully where he had been stabbed at Badajoz, the wound healing badly. Massaging his shoulder forcefully, James stumbled across the room and splashed water from the ewer on the dresser into a bowl.

  He
pushed his face beneath the water and held it there until all traces of the nightmare had been erased. Slowly he raised his face to the gilt mirror that hung by the washbasin. A white face stared back at him, the only part of his body that remained unscarred. Slapping at his cheeks, he watched as the color seeped back into them. Glancing out of the window, he caught sight of the church clock and cursed. Even though he had slept badly, he was still late. He pulled on his boots, stopping only to grab his telescope and its holder before leaving the room in haste.

  James took the stairs two at a time and pushed his way through the tap room. Scorpius had already been brushed down, fed and watered. He stood waiting in the yard. James swung his leg over the saddle and, gently urging Scorpius with his knees, turned the horse up the lane to Brambridge Manor.

  Riding through the wrought iron and gilt manor gates, he surveyed the opulence in front of him. The gates were much smaller than those in his memory. In the past the gates had towered over him as the family had trotted in and out on an assortment of ponies or left in their carriages to visit friends. Weeds grew around the edges of the gates, which now stood propped open by two large rocks.

  One hand clenched tightly onto the reins, James ran a hand through his hair. Without stopping, he took up the reins again and pushed Scorpius on, up the elm-lined drive to the house. Brambridge Manor stood ahead of him; built in the same stone that clad Exeter cathedral and had been quarried in the family mine not a mile away.

  It was beautiful; the stone glowed in the weak sunshine. It had been designed in the typical Elizabethan style of an E, with three wings. The roof on the west wing seemed to have bowed and ivy grew riotously around the house, smothering it in a strong grip.

  His surveillance was interrupted as the great oak front door opened, and a whirlwind cloud of flying muslin and black bombazine emerged.

  “James!” cried the young woman. “Oh James, you came!”

  James pulled Scorpius to a stop and dropped to the gravel. Catching the whirling figure around the waist, he looked down into her eyes. His sister had barely changed.

  “Hello, Ceci,” he said softly. “I'm sorry I'm late.”

  His sister gazed at him with large blue eyes framed by long quivering lashes. A tear rolled down her cheek. It was as if he had never left.

  “You came,” she said. “That is all that matters.”

  A forgotten pang of remorse gripped his chest. Cecilia hadn’t been involved in pushing him out of his own home. She had been the one to help him escape, ripping her petticoats and anchoring the makeshift rope of linen and clothes as he fled through the casement window two years before. Why hadn’t he written to her? It was hard to acknowledge that it had been easier during the hell of war to focus on the hatred for his father, and his plans for Brambridge Manor’s future, rather than on the only member of his family he had truly loved.

  “How is Mama?” he said simply.

  Cecilia hesitated. “She is better. Father’s death struck her hard. Edgar has helped.”

  James raised an eyebrow. “Edgar? What is Edgar doing here?”

  Cecilia visibly wilted and turned towards the house. “Mother and Father needed him. At least that was what they said. There was no one else in the family.” She paused and coughed. “No one else apart from me. He never left. He's been very good. As well as acting as the chief lace buyer in the village, he has time to manage the estate and oversee the mining interests for father.” Without looking back, Cecilia walked slowly up the steps. “I should say, had time.”

  Managed the estate? James turned to look back down the drive. Even from a distance it was evident that the gates hung at an angle and that weeds grew prolifically through the gravel. Cecilia pulled at his arm. They had been standing on the steps for a while. Shaking his head, he followed her through the front door.

  Passing through the oak-paneled hall, he looked briefly into the gallery and drew a quick breath. His lady was still there, the stars still glinting round her head. But this time she did not look out with benediction as she had done years ago. It seemed to James that her eyes glowed as if she was beseeching him to understand her. He flicked his eyes to the portraits of the male Stantons, their smirks as wide as ever.

  James blinked and looked away into the hall. Clenching his fingers, he reminded himself that the Stanton portraits would be the first to go. And then it would be the turn of his father’s study. He willed himself to turn to the door opposite, to open the door to the study. But his feet remained planted forwards in the hall. There would be time for it later. Taking a few hurried steps, he strode to the end of the hall.

  He took a deep intake of air as Cecilia paused outside the morning room. She turned to him with raised eyebrows. Letting out his held breath, he reached round her and pushed open the door. The atmosphere was oppressive; great velvet drapes hung across the windows blocking out the sunlight, whilst small tapers flickered in front of the Gothic mirror. His mother, clad severely in black, sat weeping in the corner, Edgar by her side. Seeing them enter, Edgar swiftly moved to greet him.

  “Hale, cousin.” Edgar held out one hand; the other held an ornate walking stick with a large metal knob at the top.

  James reluctantly shook it. His last memory of Edgar had been of the large grin on his face as he observed James’ misfortune.

  Edgar was still slim, and tall, but judicious padding to his tailored coat gave him well-defined shoulders. His dark auburn hair was slicked back, and his face held a smile of welcome.

  “Oh James,” his mother said, patting at her nose with a handkerchief. “Edgar has been such a help to us.”

  James fought hard not to hunch his shoulders. Would a word of welcome have been too much to ask from the woman who called herself his mother? Where had she been when he had needed help? Where had she ever been in his life?

  Still grasping Edgar by the hand, he held his gaze. Edgar did not glance away; his expression was clear, the light from the tapers causing his pupils to appear large and round.

  “I understand from Cecilia we have you to thank for looking after the estate for Mother and Father,” he said.

  Edgar blinked. Was it his imagination or did Edgar’s pupils grow even bigger? Blinking, his gaze caught on the man who sat behind Edgar at the writing desk in the corner. He was dressed in a suit and looked like every other lawyer that James had met. He had to be the Edward Granger who had written to him.

  The man cleared his throat and consulted a fob watch.

  “Apologies.” James let go of Edgar’s hand. “I have been travelling for the last three days.” He said nothing of his stop at the Fountain Inn.

  “Well, then, if I may begin?” The solicitor gazed over his spectacles, his face filled with disapproval. Without waiting for James to find a seat, he recited from the sheets in front of him. “I, Lord Alexander George Edward Stanton, being of sound mind bequeath the following: to my wife an annual stipend of one hundred pounds.”

  His mother's weeping ratcheted up a notch. James fought the urge to roll his eyes, but crossed his arms and leaned against the fireplace.

  “To my daughter I bequeath the scrub land opposite the stone mine. May she find it as frustrating as I did.”

  James glanced at Cecilia. Whilst outwardly she appeared calm, a muscle twitched at the corner of her eye. She folded and unfolded her hands tensely into her gown. His father had always said the land was worthless. With just a few strokes of the pen he had cut off his daughter without a dowry. It would be up to James to see it right.

  “To Edgar, I leave my horse Sarabande,” the solicitor continued in a bland voice. “You ever did enjoy following me around and I thought it was my horse that had been of interest.”

  Edgar's face blanched. James frowned. Had he been expecting more for helping with the estate? It seemed cruel that Edgar had spent years dealing on his parents’ behalf and received nothing for his pains.

  Of course his father had probably wanted to pass down the estate and mine to his heirs in the
entirety. James would be looked upon to provide for his mother and sister out of the estate's income. He sighed. That probably included Edgar too.

  James uncrossed his arms and kicked at the edge of the fraying carpet with his feet. He looked up to find the solicitor observing him, even more dolefully than before. The man hesitated and then proceeded.

  “To my son I bequeath nothing. He disappointed me while he lived under my roof and I find nothing to have changed my mind in the intervening years.”

  James uncrossed his legs and stepped away from the mantelpiece. Nothing?

  Brambridge Manor was not his.

  CHAPTER 3

  Harriet lurched as she ducked beneath another low door, her heavy bag slung over her shoulder. She stumbled slightly on the step as her tender foot came down heavily on the uneven stone. Whimpering, she braced herself against the door surround and closed her eyes.

  The previous night she’d strode out with such resolve, knowing calmly what she was going to say.

  And then she’d seen James and it was as if she was the silly goose again and he was the young man she had worshipped.

  Her foot throbbed. Harriet groaned again. She couldn’t believe she’d kicked him. Of all the stupid things to do—and then the way she’d railed on at him about him not coming back for two years. What about what she was going to say about the darkness of the mine? Or about asking him why he had not come back?

  Opening her eyes, Harriet gingerly put down her foot and advanced into the cottage. It was early afternoon; everyone would be in the front room, bent over intricate lace work. They would have been there since the early hours of the morning. Children looked up briefly as Harriet entered, before returning to their work.

  Janey, bobbin in her mouth, pointed to the black kettle that sat by the fireplace. Limping across the room, Harriet took the kettle outside, filled it with water from the pump and then set it back on the fire.