Counterfeit Earl

“God forgive us all,” Jack muttered as he kicked earth over the ashes to dampen down the remaining heat. It would not do to have the fire flare up again after they moved on, there were too many enemies in these hills. That included the damned Spanish, whom they were supposed to be helping. Instead of being grateful for Wellington’s superb tactics, which had led to success after success these past weeks, the pride of the Spanish generals had caused several setbacks and some of the guerrilla bands that roamed these hills would as lief attack the British as the French. “And God damn us—you too, Wellington!”

It was twelve days now since the conquest of Badajoz, three since his commander had sent for him.

“I’m ordering you home, Denning. You will be in charge of the seriously wounded, men who will never fight again. It’s your responsibility to get them down to the coast and on to a ship bound for England. And you are to go with them.”

“My wounds were superficial, sir. I was laid low by a fever for a few days, but I’ll be fit for duty again soon. May I have your permission to return to my unit after I’ve seen the wounded safe?”

“Damn your eyes, sir! Do you not know an order when you hear one? The Regent himself has requested your return. You have done your share of fighting, Denning—at what cost to yourself we all know. I am recommending you for bravery in the face of the enemy…”

“In the face of the enemy?” Jack’s brows rose.

“Yes, the enemy,” Wellington repeated. “We both know what happened, Denning, and the consequences. With things difficult at home I am on a thin string here. I charge you to keep certain things to yourself. They will become known in due course, but I hope to brush over them…do you understand me?”

Jack inclined his head stiffly. “I was never a gabble-monger, sir. I take no pride in what happened. Indeed, I shall bear the shame of it until my dying day.”

“Damn your eyes, Denning! You need have no shame.” Wellington scowled, his gaze narrowing fiercely as he inwardly cursed the fool who was compelling him to send this man home. Denning should have stayed to fight the remainder of the campaign. Only in the heat of battle might he learn to forget the horrors that were lurking in his haunted eyes. “Do not imagine it was my idea to send you back. I understand the request came from the Earl of Heggan, and since it is a command from the Regent that I accede to that request, I can only obey.”

An immediate return to England was the only avenue open to Jack since his commander had given the order, but the resentment was eating at his guts as he turned away. Since he was ordered to return to England, he would do so, but nothing on this earth should make him return to that lonely, forlorn house in which he had been born. If the Earl of Heggan wished to speak to his grandson, he would have to come in search of him.

Jack had made a vow never to return to his father’s house long ago, and he was determined to keep it!

“Is that a letter from Beatrice by any chance?” asked Mr Bertram Roade as he entered the parlour that afternoon in late June 1812 and discovered his youngest daughter frowning over her correspondence. “What does your sister have to say, Olivia?”

“She writes to ask me to visit her,” replied Olivia, glancing up with a smile. She suspected that Papa was missing Beatrice more than he admitted. “She and Harry are going to Brighton soon and would like me to accompany them.”

“Ah…” Mr Roades eyes gleamed behind his spectacles. “I wonder if this would be a good time for me to begin my work at Camberwell? I have made excellent strides since I last spoke to Ravensden.”

“Bellows brought a letter for you, too, Papa,” Olivia said. “It is there on the sideboard. I suspect that it may be from Lord Ravensden.”

“I shall read it immediately. Harry always writes such interesting letters. Excellent mind, excellent mind.”

Mr Roade pounced on the small packet with evident pleasure, smiled at his daughter and went off to his study, leaving Olivia in sole possession of the parlour.

She did not immediately return to her letter, laying it down on the little occasional table beside her, together with her embroidery and a book of poems she had been reading when their manservant brought the mail. Her sister’s letter had made her restless.

Since Beatrice’s marriage to Lord Ravensden six months earlier, she had written several times to ask Olivia to stay with her. Until now, Olivia had made various excuses, the most truthful that she felt she needed to spend a little time with her father and Aunt Nan.

Getting up from her seat, Olivia sighed and wandered over to the window to glance out at the view. Roade House was set on a little rise just at the outskirts of the village of Abbot Giles. On a clear summer afternoon like this one, she could see the church spire and some of the rooftops of the village houses…and in the distance the brooding presence of Steepwood Abbey.

How that place haunted her! There had been such shocking happenings at the Abbey these past months, culminating in the recent news that the Marquis had been brutally murdered in his bedchamber with his own razor.

A shudder ran through Olivia as she reflected on the strangeness of fate. Only a few months back, when she had first come to live with Beatrice and her father in Abbot Giles, they had all been agog at the news that the young Marchioness had disappeared. Olivia herself had been certain that Lady Sywell had been murdered by her brute of a husband, and despite all the rumours since, the most recent of which seemed to lay the blame for the Marquis’s murder at his wife’s door, she still wondered if Lady Sywell’s body had been concealed somewhere in the grounds of the Abbey.

Olivia did not believe for one moment that the Marchioness was the murderer of her cruel husband. If the stories were to be believed, there had been a terrible fight, the Marquis having put up a struggle for his life. He had been a large man, built like a bull and strong. A woman would surely not have had the strength to overcome him.

No, Olivia thought, it could not have been his wife. Yet whoever had done it must have known the Abbey well. There had been wild rumours circulating in the village, but Olivia believed it must have been an itinerant journeyman or perhaps a servant who had been unfairly dismissed.

In the past few months there had been tales of a hoard of gold sovereigns allegedly stolen by the Marchioness in her flight from the dominance of her husband, though since the tale had apparently come from a laundress, who could know if it was true? And now the villages were reeling with the shocking news that Lord Sywell had been murdered on the evening of the 9th of June.

Naturally, no one had talked of anything else since. Despite the general dislike felt by local people, Lord Sywell was nevertheless a member of the aristocracy and there was bound to be a thorough investigation of the crime. Some people were saying that the Regent himself had ordered a report to be made directly to him.

Olivia had not been near the Abbey grounds since that terrible morning in November the previous year, when Sywell had threatened her sister with a blunderbuss. Although Lord Ravensden’s brave action had diverted his attention, and Olivia’s own actions had caused the Marquis’s shots to go wide, they had resulted in Harry falling from his horse and so nearly ended in a tragedy. The whole affair had given Olivia an acute dislike of the place and its master, and these days she stayed well clear whenever she went walking.

Since her sister’s wedding, she had been making friends with various young women in the four villages. One of her particular friends was Lady Sophia, daughter of the Earl of Yardley, but Sophia had gone up to town earlier in the year and after a brilliant Season was engaged to be married. Robina Perceval, daughter of the vicar at Abbot Quincey, had also been in London. However, in the last letter Olivia had received from her, Robina had told her that she’d been invited to go down to Brighton.

Olivia sighed again. It was foolish of her to feel so low, but she could not help herself. Her life was so very different these days.

“Is something wrong?” asked Nan, coming in behind her. “Why don’t you go for a walk, Olivia? It is a pleasant afternoon, and you might meet someone.”

Olivia turned and smiled at her aunt. She was a pretty, delicate girl with fine dark brows, and her hair was a wonderful, honey blonde: an unusual combination, which always made people look at her a second time. Her eyes were blue, though at times they could take on a greenish tint, but it was when she smiled that her beauty really showed through.

“Is it so obvious that I am moping?” she asked, knowing that Nan did not have as much sympathy for her as her sister had always shown. “I know I should not. It is just that I miss Beatrice.”

“You are not the only one in this house who misses her,” Nan said, and frowned. “Why do you not go and stay with her? She has asked you often enough.”

“She has written to ask me to accompany her and Harry to Brighton next month,” Olivia said, wrinkling her brow. “Do you think I should go, Nan?”

“Most of your friends will be there,” Nan said. “You will have to face up to it one day, Olivia. You cannot hide in this house for the rest of your life…unless you mean to go into a decline?”

“No, no, I do not mean to do that,” Olivia replied. “And I am not afraid of facing people, Nan. Besides, Harry has told everyone that the talk of my having jilted him was simply a mistake, that we agreed to part on a mutual wish… because he had fallen in love with my sister. People may not believe it in their hearts but if he says it is so they will accept it, and of course no one will criticise him, because of who he is.”

“Money and power will sway most,” admitted her aunt. “And you cannot blame people for being shocked, though I believe you did the right thing in the end. I am sorry the Burtons treated you so harshly, my dear. It was unkind of them to turn you out simply because you decided you did not wish to marry Lord Ravensden—but by staying here in obscurity, you are giving them best. Lord Ravensden settled a generous sum on you. Why don’t you make some use of it? Show all the scandalmongers that you are more than a match for them!” She smiled at Olivia. “I know you sometimes feel I am not as understanding as I might be, my dear, but it is only my way. I should like to see you happy, and that is something you are obviously not at this moment.”

“I have tried to be content here with you and Papa,” Olivia said, “truly I have, Nan. It is just that almost everyone seems to be in town or at Brighton just now. I was always used to company, and I soon tire of sitting alone.”

“Not quite everyone,” her aunt said. “I saw Annabel Lett in the village this morning. She asked me to remind you that you promised to walk over and take her a book of stories for her daughter.”

“Yes, so I did,” Olivia replied, brightening. “Yes. I remember. It was a rather splendid picture book of fairy-tales that I was given as a child and brought with me. Thank you for reminding me, Nan. I shall put on my bonnet and go this instant.”

“That is a very good idea,” Nan said. “And when you return, you may sit down and write to your sister—tell her that you would be very happy to accompany her to Brighton.”

“Yes,” Olivia said, and on impulse went to kiss her aunt’s cheek. “Thank you for your good advice, Nan. Perhaps a little scold was just what I needed. Papa is always so kind…”

“And so wrapped up in his work,” said her aunt. “Neither he nor I are congenial company for a young lady like you, Olivia. We care for you, but we can only give you so much. Somehow, you have to make a life for yourself…and I do not believe that you find much pleasure in preserving or baking.”

Olivia laughed. “If I could bake like Beatrice, I might find it an absorbing task—but even Farmer Ekins’s boy will not eat my cakes!”

“I dare say you could learn in time, but why should you? No, my dear. I believe you should go to Brighton with Beatrice and Lord Ravensden. Perhaps you may decide then precisely what it is you wish to do with your life.”

“It was kind of you to come all this way,” Annabel said, later that afternoon. “Rebecca will enjoy listening to these stories—and the woodcuts will fascinate her. She has never seen anything like this book. Something like this would be too expensive for me to buy.”

The book contained several woodcut engravings of characters and scenes from the fairy-stories, some of which had been hand coloured. It was an expensive gift, one of many similar which had been lavished on Olivia as a child.

“I am pleased for her to have it,” Olivia replied, smiling. “I spent many happy hours looking at it as a child. Is Rebecca in her crib?”

“Yes. I had just put her down when you arrived. She needs her afternoon nap.”

“Then we must not disturb her.”