Skylark Read online

  The closer they came to the house, the slower she walked. She didn’t permit herself pointless regrets, but they settled on her now. She’d felt blessed by the gods on her wedding day, but she’d not found true happiness in her marriage and now her future was bleak.

  She was only twenty-four years old, but she was a prisoner as surely as if she was in the Tower.

  Lord Caldfort insisted, with some justification, that his heir be raised here. She was allowed to take him away, but only for short visits to her family. Her movements were not restricted, but how could she leave Harry, even for days, when she worried about his safety?

  She straightened her shoulders and walked into Caldfort House. Her prison until her son was of an age to take care of himself.

  Chapter 2

  As they entered the marble-tiled hall, Harry gave a little hic as if he might be crying. Laura moved him slightly to see, but he was fast asleep. She brushed a kiss across his forehead.

  Had he detected something bad about Jack? They said children and animals were sensitive, and Harry had never taken to his uncle. She mustn’t build monsters out of nothing, though. A snarling dog would upset any small child.

  “What’s the matter with him now?”

  Laura started and saw Lord Caldfort, wheezing, bloated, and leaning on his cane, at the open door of his study.

  “Nothing, sir. He’s just tired.”

  “Jack said he ran screaming from his dog.”

  “The dog growled at him, sir.”

  “You mollycoddle him! Jack’s right. The lad should spend some time with him. Learn manly ways.”

  Laura hoped her dread didn’t show on her face. “What a good idea,” she said cheerfully. “He’s a little young yet, though, don’t you think? He would benefit from your attention, sir, if you feel able to give it. You have raised two fine sons, so you know the way of it.”

  It was blatant flattery but he nodded, even preened a little.

  “Might be something in what you say, m’dear. Not up to outdoor stuff these days, but I’ll spend a bit of time with the lad. Get him in the way of things.”

  Laura thanked him, dropping a curtsy, then headed upstairs, hoping that her suggestion blunted the impression of Jack’s. The trouble was that it was perfectly reasonable for an uncle to take his brother’s place in guiding his son. In other circumstances she would have suggested it herself.

  Laura climbed the stairs, praying that all went well with Jack’s wife. She had offered to attend the birth, but Emma had pleasantly refused. Remembering her own confinement, Laura hadn’t been surprised. She and Emma were always cordial but they were too different to be close. At such a time, a woman wanted harmonious companions.

  She knew Emma longed for a son as much as Jack did, but as she entered the nursery and passed the sleeping child to Nan, Laura prayed that this child be another girl. If there was anything to her suspicions, then Jack having a son could be disastrous.

  That prayer wasn’t answered. When she went downstairs for dinner, she found Jack with her father-in-law, and both men were beaming.

  Jack pressed a glass of claret into her hand, and Lord Caldfort raised his. “A toast, m’dear! To Henry Jack Gardeyne!”

  Laura froze, glass at her lips. It was family tradition to call first sons Henry, but it was as if a replacement for her Harry was being prepared.

  Jack smiled at her. “If you don’t object, Laura, we mean to call him Hal.”

  “Of course not,” she said, and found a smile. “Congratulations.”

  She was about to ask about Emma when Lady Caldfort wandered in, thin and vague as usual. She stared when given the news, as if she’d forgotten that her daughter-in-law was confined, then said, “How convenient. An heir in case the other one dies.”

  Even the two men seemed taken aback at this blunt statement of fact, but they were all accustomed to Lady Caldfort’s ways. She tended to say exactly the words that others were too discreet to let out.

  Laura wished she’d been watching Jack. She might have learned something from his reaction.

  Lady Caldfort was a cold, angular woman who had little interest in other people and no facility for dealing with them. Apparently Major John Gardeyne, as Lord Caldfort had been then, had married her for her money.

  Her only interest in life seemed to be insects, which she collected and arranged in display boxes. That wasn’t unusual, but Lady Caldfort kept the boxes stacked in a spare room, never on display. Laura worried that one day her mother-in-law would become completely insane—and that she’d have to take care of her.

  “Isn’t it time to eat?” Lady Caldfort said, and headed for the dining room, even though the meal hadn’t been announced. With a shared look, Laura and the two men followed.

  As soon as they were seated, Lord Caldfort and Jack began a discussion of estate matters. As Harry’s mother, Laura had an interest in his future property, but that was a battle not worth the powder at this point. She listened, as she always did, gathering knowledge. Eventually their talk turned to sporting details, and she looked away.

  Lady Caldfort was frowning at the nearest candle. She might be angry because the food wasn’t in front of her, but she could as easily be pondering some problem of entomology. Laura knew that an attempt to start conversation there was hopeless. She was a veteran of hundreds of dinners exactly like this, except that if Jack was not here, there was often no conversation at all. Even so, she was expected to attend.

  How many such dinners?

  Eleven months since Hal died. That would be about 330.

  Since Harry’s birth, she’d spent at least half the year here, because both Hal and his father had objected to her taking him away much, and she liked being with her son. She’d enjoyed visits to London, Brighton, and other fashionable spots, but happily sacrificed time at hunting house parties.

  Hal had probably been here with her about half the time—a quarter of the year. Sitting opposite her. Looking at her with that look in his eyes that said he was already thinking of an early retreat to their bedchamber and his other favorite sport.

  At thought of that sport, her body clenched like a hungry stomach. She pulled her mind back from those lost pleasures.

  Calculations. Her antidote to lust.

  Two years and five months from Harry’s birth to Hal’s death. Two times 365 plus about 150 equals 880. She had been here without Hal about a quarter of that time: 220.

  Add the 330 since Hal’s death: 550.

  No, more, because Hal had left her alone here through much of her pregnancy. It had overlapped prime hunting season, after all. She hadn’t minded. Her sister Juliet had been with her during the last months, and then her mother had come. Watcombes were powerful medicine against sourness and gloom.

  She could add perhaps 50 to make it a round 600.

  Six hundred of these dinners, with thousands still to come. Perhaps she would become as eccentric as Lady Caldfort, except in her case it would take the form of eating in her room with a good book or the newspapers. How crazy would she have to appear to get away with that?

  Lady Caldfort suddenly banged her spoon on the table. “Where’s the food? Why is there no service in this house? Lazy slovens, the lot of them!”

  Thomas the footman dashed in. “It’s coming, milady. Just a few minutes more.” Then he dashed out again.

  Lady Caldfort kept rapping the spoon on the table, such a grim look on her face that Laura feared she was contemplating violence.

  “Take that damned spoon off her,” Lord Caldfort growled.

  Laura did so, grateful that at the same time he snapped, “Stop your folly, Cecy!”

  Lady Caldfort gave up the spoon but scowled.

  “Pour the wine, Jack,” Lord Caldfort ordered, and Jack rose to fill all their glasses with red wine. Lady Caldfort took a deep draft and it seemed to pacify her. Laura tried to feel sorry for the woman, who had endured the Gardeynes far longer than she had, but it was hard. She was so totally selfish.

&n
bsp; Like mother, like son? Laura wondered, for Hal had been selfish at bottom. Unlike his mother, he’d been blessed with good looks and a kind of jollity that passed for generous charm, but underneath . . . Fortunately, he’d had a kind of generosity in bed, for he took pride in pleasing a woman. A gentleman’s duty, he would declare, but she’d suspected that if she were hard to please, he’d have neglected her. Fortunate for their marriage that she had not been at all hard to please.

  The strangest thing was that she’d only quickened once.

  No, don’t think about the pleasures of marriage. Multiply the number of glasses by the number of plates. Add the number of candles in the chandelier. . . . At last, thank heavens, the servants hurried in with dishes.

  “And about time, too!” Lady Caldfort snapped, lifting the lid off the nearest dish herself and spooning soup into her plate.

  Laura smiled at the maid placing a tureen in front of her and thanked her. How lucky they were that Caldfort had a competent and forbearing housekeeper in Mrs. Moorside, who came to Laura rather than Lady Caldfort if any troubles arose. The soup, as always, was excellent. A good cook was another blessing, and Laura made sure to count them all.

  She believed in people accepting responsibility for their actions. She had married Hal Gardeyne by choice, thinking herself the most fortunate young woman in Dorset. In the first years of her marriage she would have described herself as a happy bride.

  She had made this bed and must lie in it, and she would do so with as good a grace as possible. She could even be content if she could only be sure that Harry was safe.

  A gun, she suddenly thought. A gun would be very useful.

  With that in mind, she welcomed Lady Caldfort’s early and abrupt exit from the dining room and followed her, even though there was no question of the ladies taking tea together. Lady Caldfort marched upstairs. Laura picked up one of the spare candles, lit it at the hall fire, and headed toward the back of the house. Toward the gun room.

  Hal had taught her to shoot. It had been amusement for him while living quietly here, and had amused her until he’d tried to get her to target a rabbit. She’d refused, and in disgust he’d given up the lessons.

  She knew how to load and prime a gun, however, and Hal’s were stored in the gun room, waiting for the day when Harry would be old enough to use them. Splendid hunting pieces, ornate dueling pistols, practical, deadly horse pistols. Her interest, however, was a smaller pistol that he’d carried in a pocket when out at night.

  She went into the room and made a face. The former Lord Caldfort had dabbled in the new art of taxidermy in order to preserve his hunting triumphs. A stag’s head loomed over the door, three foxes, one with a chicken in its mouth, ran along the tops of cabinets, and various predatory birds eyed her. She supposed they were all properly preserved, but to her the room always smelled of decay.

  She hurried past the racks of big guns and put her flickering candle down to open the drawer where Hal’s pistols were kept.

  It was empty.

  She frowned and opened the one to the left, but it held Lord Caldfort’s pistols. The drawer to the right contained old ones, kept only for curiosity value. She slowly closed that drawer, guessing where Hal’s pistols were.

  Jack had taken them.

  She stared at a beady-eyed hawk. Again, it was not unquestionably suspicious. Hal’s guns were the best money could buy, and if his brother wanted to use them until his son was old enough, why not?

  But it felt like a deepening of the threat. She considered Lord Caldfort’s pistols, but shook her head. If she was discovered, what excuse could she make? With Hal’s guns she had intended to say she wanted Harry to get used to one—unloaded, of course.

  The bigger guns wouldn’t be of much use to her, anyway. Her hands were small and she’d never really been able to handle Hal’s ordinary pistols. Only the smaller one.

  She picked up her candle and left the room, as weaponless as before.

  Chapter 3

  Laura didn’t sleep well that night, despite trying to persuade herself that any threats were in her imagination. The next day brought a blessing in the form of a long letter from Juliet. After making sure that Harry was safe in the nursery, Laura took the letter to her boudoir to enjoy.

  One benefit of marriage to Hal had been her ability to introduce her younger sister to London society. Their own family were county gentry of the most minor sort. Their grandfather had been a yeoman farmer until he made the transition to gentleman farmer. Hal Gardeyne, heir to a viscountcy, had been a brilliant match.

  In London, Juliet’s good looks and loving nature had won her, too, a man of excellent family. She’d had to wait two years for Robert Fancourt to rise high enough in the Home Office to afford a wife, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. That thought troubled Laura now and then, but things in the past were past worrying over.

  Juliet was certainly happy now. She adored her Robert and thrived on living most of the year in London.

  Lines of social gossip and stories of comings and goings soon had Laura relaxed and smiling. Here at Caldfort, it was easy to forget that elsewhere life went on its merry way, even in October.

  Fashionable London would be quiet, but Juliet clearly found much to keep her busy. The bustle and hum almost rose from the page like an aroma, catching Laura’s breath with longing.

  She looked up from the letter and out at the tranquil countryside. It was doubtless shallow of her, but oh, to be in town, too. Walks in the parks, shopping, the theater, exhibitions, lively company, and the sheer fun of being with her favorite sister.

  She shook off wistfulness and turned to the next sheet. Juliet never tried to economize by crossing her writing.

  Can you imagine whom Robert brought to dinner not long ago? Sir Stephen Ball! He asked after you.

  Oh? Laura felt a strange sensation, as if something had tugged at her insides.

  I know he was only your friend’s brother, but I did think you and he might make a match of it. Before Hal, of course.

  Laura wondered how many other people had thought that. The idea had never crossed her mind—until the day Stephen had so inappropriately proposed. She’d already been betrothed to Hal. What had she been supposed to do?

  But she shouldn’t have laughed. . . .

  She looked back at the slightly blurred writing.

  I was somewhat taken by him myself. Do you remember him as Valancourt when you made a play of Udolpho? Blond and heroic. Fuel for romantic dreams. He could have been no more than seventeen, but at thirteen, seventeen is a great age.

  Laura had achieved the grand age of fifteen when they’d performed that play, but to her, too, seventeen had seemed a great age. Stephen had been one of those young men who mature early, perhaps because of his serious attention to his studies and to issues of politics and law. He’d never been dull, though. She remembered working with him for weeks during his summer holiday from Harrow, turning the dramatic novel into a short play. The taste of it in her mind now was of challenge and pure, thrilling excitement, yet she’d not thought of it for years.

  How strange. Had she deliberately wiped it from her memory?

  Staging the play had been pure, thrilling excitement of another sort. She’d had the role of Emily and he Valancourt. Daringly they’d written in a kiss, and she’d come close to swooning with embarrassment at that stiff and awkward press of lips to lips in front of an audience of his and her families.

  She laughed a little now at that, but what business did Stephen have of asking after her? Their friendship had faltered after his proposal, and died when he’d maliciously pinned her with the name Lady Skylark. They’d hardly met or spoken in six years.

  Lady Skylark. She still didn’t understand how he could have been so cruel.

  She’d gone straight from her wedding to London, and instantly become a toast. She’d loved being the beautiful Mrs. Hal Gardeyne, which had soon become La Belle Laura. Heady stuff at eighteen, but she didn’t think she’d been insu
fferable.

  Then someone—rumor said it was Brummell himself—had turned that into Labellelle. It simply meant the “beautiful L,” but the unique construction had seemed mysterious and sophisticated, everything Laura longed to be.

  But then, overnight, she’d become Lady Skylark.

  Everyone thought it charming and a perfect fit, and so it had stuck.

  She’d hated it.

  People assumed she had a lovely singing voice, and she didn’t, but the real problem was the other meaning. Overnight, she’d transformed from mysterious, sophisticated Labellelle into a feckless and immature child, because skylarking was a term used in the navy for lads who played dangerous games high in the rigging.

  When she’d heard a rumor that Stephen had christened her that at some drunken, manly gathering, she’d known it was true and known it was malicious because Skylark had special meaning for them. A meaning connected to his absurd and embarrassing proposal.

  She’d known immediately that she shouldn’t have laughed, known that she’d hurt him, which she’d never wanted to do. He’d abruptly walked away from her and left the area until after her marriage, so she’d had no chance to make amends. She understood his pain, but there had been no call for such a cruel retaliation.

  It was all in the past, all in the past, but if Stephen was asking about her now, she worried about his motives. Did Juliet have anything to say about that?

  He’s making quite a name for himself in Parliament, you know. A brilliant speaker, Robert says, though I have not heard him. Sitting in the visitors’ gallery, no matter how fashionable it may be, is not my choice of entertainment. Robert says he may be offered a position in the ministry. At only twenty-six. That will be quite a stir at home, won’t it? He’s still unmarried. Perhaps not surprising when he’s still young.

  He’s two years older than I am, Laura thought, and skimmed over Stephen’s noble causes, Stephen’s pithy quotes, Stephen’s prospects of becoming Prime Minister, for heaven’s sake.

  Imagine that! Of course Pitt was a Member of Parliament at twenty-two and Prime Minister at twenty-four, which makes Stephen quite a sluggard. From my mature perspective, I’m not surprised that you didn’t marry him. He’s frighteningly clever, of course, and he can be terribly witty, but I find him daunting. I found myself in danger of being tongue-tied all through dinner. Me! Can you imagine it?