Buch lesen: «One Unashamed Night»

Chapter One

Maldon, England—January 1826

The darkness was pulling him down even as he fought to escape it, his eyes widening to catch a tiny tendril of light, the flare of it making him shout out, wanting it, the last colour before complete blackness enveloped him…

‘Sir, sir. Wake up. It’s a dream you are having.’

The voice came from somewhere close and Lord Taris Wellingham slipped from sleep and returned to the warmth of the carriage travelling south to London with a jolt. A face blurred before him, but in the dusk he could not tell whether the woman was young or old. Her voice was soft, almost musical, the lisp on the letter V denoting perhaps a genteel upbringing in the north?

With care he turned away, fingers stiff against the silver ball on top of his ebony cane and all his defences raised.

‘I would ask for your forgiveness for my lapse in manners, madam.’

The small laugh surprised him. ‘Oh. You do indeed have it, sir.’

This time there was decided humour in her tone, and something more hidden. He wished he was able to see the hue of her eyes or the shade of her hair, but any form of colour had long since gone, leached now even in full sunlight and replaced by the grey sludge of silhouette.

A netherworld. His world. And the ability to hide his disability was all the dignity left to him.

Taking a breath he held it, seeking in silence a path to follow. He pretended to read the watch on the chain at his waist, hating such deceit, but in company it was what he had been reduced to—a man on the edge of his world and in danger of falling off.

‘Another hour and a half to reach our destination, I should imagine.’ The woman’s guess was like a gift for it gave him a timeframe, something to hang any suggestion of their whereabouts upon.

‘Unless the weather worsens.’ Outside he could hear a keening wind and the temperature had dropped sharply, even in the space of the moments he had been asleep. Tilting his head, he listened to the sound of the wheels beneath them and determined the snow to have deepened too.

Unexpectedly tension filled his body. Something was wrong. The whirr of the wheel on the right side was off, unbalanced, scraping against steel.

He shook away the concern and cursed his oversensitive hearing, deeming it far better to concentrate on other things. There were four other people in the carriage, he had counted them as they got in, this woman the only one on his side. One of the gentlemen was asleep, his snores soft through the night, and the other was speaking to an older woman about household tasks and the hiring of servants. His mother, perhaps, for there was a tone in his voice suggesting affection.

The wheel was worsening, the sound underlined by a tremor in the chassis. He felt it easily in the vibration where his palm lay open against the window. No longer able to ignore danger, Taris lifted his cane and banged hard on the roof.

But it was too late! The vehicle lurched to the right as the axle snapped, the scream of the driver eerie in the darkness, the splintering of wood, the quick crunch of the door on his side against earth, the rolling shock of impact as people tumbled over and over. When his head was thrown against metal, a sharp pain followed.

And then silence.

Bodies were everywhere, the groans of the older woman taking precedence, the sobs of her son muted and fearful. The other two occupants made no noise at all and Taris’s hands reached over.

The woman beside him still breathed—he could feel the warmth of air against his fingers—whilst the previously snoring gentleman had neither pulse nor breath, his neck arched at a strange angle.

Inky blackness now covered everything, the lamps gone and the moon tonight a slice of nothing.

His world! Easier than daylight. Throwing down his cane, he stood.

Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke could barely believe what had happened. Her head ached and her top lip was cut inside.

An accident. A terrible accident. The realisation made her shake and she clamped her mouth shut to try to hide the noise as her teeth chattered together.

In the slight beam of light the dark-haired stranger gently lifted the lifeless body of a man whom she could see was well and truly dead and laid him on the floor. The older woman opposite broke into peals of panicked terror as she too registered this fact and her younger companion tried fruitlessly to console her.

‘Enough, madam.’ The tall man’s voice brooked no argument and the woman fell silent, a greater problem now taking her attention.

‘It…it is f…freezing.’

‘At least we are still alive, Mama, and I am certain that this gentleman can repair things.’ Her grown son looked up, supplication written on his face. He made no effort at all to rise himself, but stayed with his arm around his mother’s shoulders in a vain attempt to keep her warm, for the whole side of the carriage lay buckled and twisted, the door that had been there before completely missing.

‘If you will give me a moment, I will try to cover the opening.’ The tall man’s cape was caught by the wind as he stepped out, the crumpled chassis of the coach making his exit more difficult than it would otherwise have been. Framed by snow, she saw his hair escape the confines of his queue and fall nightblack against the darkness of his clothes and she could barely wrench her eyes from his profile.

He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen! The thought hit her with all the force of surprise and she squashed down such ridiculousness.

Frankwell Bassingstoke had been a handsome man too, and look where that had got her. Swallowing, she turned back towards the woman and, rummaging in her reticule, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it over.

‘Where did the man go to? Why is he not back?’ The older woman’s voice held panic as she took the cloth and blew her nose soundly, the hysteria of fright heightened by a realisation that their lives depended on the one who had just left them to find the missing portal. Already the temperature had dropped further; the air was harder to breath. Lord, Bea thought, what must it be like outside in the snow and the wind and the icy tracks of road with only a slither of light?

Perhaps he had perished or was in need of a voice to call him back to the coach, lost as he was in the whiteness? Perhaps they sat here as he took his last breath in a noble but futile effort to save them?

Angry both at her imagination and immobility, she wrapped her cloak around her head so that only her eyes were visible and edged herself out into the weather, meaning to help.

He stood ten yards away, easing the driver from the base of a hedge, carefully holding his neck so that it was neither jarred nor bent. He wore no gloves and the cloak he had left the carriage with was now wrapped about the injured man, a small blanket of warmth against the bitter cold. Without thick wool upon him his own shirt was transparent, a useless barrier against such icy rain.

‘Can I help you?’ she shouted, her voice taken by the wind and his eyes caught hers as he turned, squinting against the hail.

‘Go back. You will freeze out here.’ She saw the strength in him as he hoisted the driver in his arms and came towards her. Scrambling for shelter, she turned to assist him once she was back in the relative warmth of the coach.

‘There is no room in here,’ the old lady grumbled as she refused to shift over even a little and Beatrice swept the reticule from her own seat and crouched, her breath forming white clouds in the darkness as she replied.

‘Put him here, sir. He can lie here.’

The tall man placed the other gently on the seat, though he made no effort to come in himself.

‘Look after him,’ he shouted and again was gone, the two other occupants silent in his wake.

One man dead, one man injured, one older woman hysterical and one younger man useless. Bea’s catalogue of their situation failed to include either her injuries or that of the tall stranger, but when he had stood by the door she had noticed blood near his eye, trickling across his face and the front of his white, white shirt in a steady stream of red.

He used his hands a lot, she thought, something that was unusual in a man. He had used them to slide down the cheek of the dead gentleman opposite and across the arms and legs of the driver who lay beside her, checking the angle of bones and the absence of breath and the warmth or coldness of skin.

When she had felt his fingers on the pulse at her neck as she had awakened after the accident, warmth had instantly bloomed. She wished he might have ventured lower, the tight want in her so foreign it had made her dizzy…

Shock consumed such daydreams. She was a twenty-eight-year-old widow who had no possible need or want for any man again. Ever. Twelve years of hell had cured her of that.

The movements of the older lady and her son brought her back to the present as they tried to unwrap the driver from the cocoon of the borrowed cape and take it for their own use. Laying her hands across the material, Bea pressed down.

‘I do not think that the gentleman who gave him this cloak would appreciate your taking it.’

‘He is only the driver…’ the man began, as if social status should dictate the order of death, but he did not continue as the one from outside appeared yet again.

‘M…m…ove b…b…ack.’

His voice shook with the coldness of a good quarter of an hour out in the elements with very little on and in his hands he held the door.

Hoisting himself in, he wedged the door between the broken edges, some air still seeping through the gaping jagged holes, but infinitely better than what had been there a second earlier.

Beads of water ran down his face and his shirt was soaked to the skin, sticking against his body so that the outline of muscle and sinew was plainly evident. A body used to work and sport. Taking a cloth from her bag, Bea caught his arm and handed it to him, the gloom of the carriage picking up the white in his teeth as he smiled, their fingers touching with a shock of old knowledge.

Her world of books came closer: Chariclea and Theagenes, Daphnis and Chloe—just a few of the lovers from centuries past who had delighted her with their tales of passion.

But never for her.

The plainness of her visage would not attract a man like this one, a man who even now turned to the driver, finding his hand and measuring the beat of his heart against the count of numbers.

‘You have done this before?’ She was pleased her voice sounded so level-headed. So sensible.

‘Many times,’ he returned, swiping at hair that fell in dripping waves around his face. Long, much longer than most men kept theirs. There was arrogance in his smile, the look of a man who knew how attractive he was to women. All women. And certainly to one well past her prime.

Looking away, she hated the hammer beat of her heart. ‘Will anyone come, do you think?’

Another question. This time aimed at the carriage in general.

‘No one.’ The younger man was quick in his reply. ‘They will not come until the morning and by then Mama will be…’

‘Dead…dead and frozen.’ His mother finished the sentiment off, her pointless rant an extension of the son’s understanding of their predicament.

‘If we sit close and conserve our energy, we can wait it out for a few hours.’ The stranger’s voice held a strand of impatience, the first thread of anything other than the practicality that she had heard.

‘And after that…?’ The younger man’s voice shook.

‘If no one comes by midnight, I will take a horse and ride towards Brentwood.’

Bea stopped him. ‘But it is at least an hour away and in this weather…’ She left the rest unsaid.

‘Then we must hope for travellers on the road,’ he returned and brought out a silver flask from his pocket, the metal in it glinting in what little light there was.

After a good swallow he wiped the top and handed it over to her.

‘For warmth,’ he stated. ‘Give it to the others when you have had some.’ Although she was a woman who seldom touched alcohol, she did as he said, the fire-hot draught of the liquor chasing away the cold. The older woman and younger man, however, did not wish for any. Not knowing quite what to do now, she tried to hand it back to the man squeezed in beside her.

When he neither reached for it nor shook his head, she left it on her lap, the cap screwed back on with as much force as she could manage so that not a drop would be wasted. He had much on his mind, which explained his indifference, she decided, the flask and its whereabouts the least of all his worries.

Finding her own bag wedged under the seat, she brought out the Christmas cake that she had procured before leaving Brampton. Three days ago? She could barely believe it was only that long. Unfolding the paper around the delicacy, she looked up.

‘Would everyone like a piece?’

The two opposite reached out and she laid a generous portion in their hands, but the tall man did nothing, merely tilting his head as though listening for something. Beatrice tried to imagine what it was that had caught his attention as she tucked the cake away. She did not take any either, reasoning perhaps he wished for her to ration the food just in case the snowstorm kept up and nobody came.

Nobody. The very word cast her mind in other directions. There would be nobody to meet her or to miss her if she failed to arrive in London. Not this week or the next one.

Perhaps the head gardener whom she had befriended in the past few weeks might one day wonder why she had never come to visit as she had promised she would, but that would be the very most of it. She could vanish here and be swallowed up by snow and her disappearance would not cause a single ripple.

Twenty-eight years old and friendless. The thought would have made her sadder if she had not cultivated her aloofness for a reason. Protection was a many-faceted thing and her solitariness had helped when Frankwell, in his last years, had become a man who wanted to know everything about everyone.

Lord, she smiled wryly. Easier than the man he had first been, at least. She felt with her forefinger for the scar that ran down from her elbow, the edges of skin healed as badly as the care she had received after the accident had happened. So badly, in fact, that she had worn long-sleeved gowns ever since, even in the summer.

Summer? Why was she thinking of warmth when the temperature in this coach must be way below freezing point now?

The driver groaned loudly, struggling to sit, his face a strange shade of pale as he opened his eyes.

‘What happened?’

The tall man answered his question. ‘The wheel fell off the carriage and we overturned.’

‘And the horses? Where are the horses?’

‘I tethered them under a nearby tree. They should last a few hours with the shelter the branches are affording them.’

‘Brentwood is at least an hour on and Colchester two hours back.’ He hung down his head into his hands and looked across at the three figures opposite, his face curling into fear as he saw the dead passenger.

‘If they think that this is my fault, I’ll lose me job and if that happens…’

The right wheel feathered from its axle. It would take an inspector two minutes to ascertain such damage and I can attest to your good skill in driving should the need arise.’

‘And who might you be, sir?’

‘Taris Wellingham.’

Beatrice thought she had never heard a more interesting name. Taris. She turned the unusual name over in her mind as the driver rattled on.

‘The next packet won’t be along till after dawn even should we fail to arrive in Brentwood. They will think in this weather we have sheltered in Ingatestone or stopped further back at Great Baddow. By morning we will all be in the place that he has gone to.’ His hand gestured to the passenger opposite, but he stopped when the old woman started to wail.

‘It will not come to that, madam.’ Taris Wellingham broke into her cries. ‘I have already promised to ride on.’

‘Not alone, sir.’ Beatrice surprised herself with such an outburst, but in these climes a single misstep could mean the difference between life and death and a companion could counter at least some of that danger. ‘Besides, I am a good horsewoman.’ Or had been, she thought, fifteen years ago in the countryside around Norwich.

‘There is no promise that we will make the destination, madam,’ he returned, ‘and so any such thing is out of the question.’

But Bea stood firm. ‘How many horses are there?’

‘Four, although one is lame.’

‘I am not a child, sir, and if I have a desire to accompany you to the next town and a horse is available for me, then I can see no reason why you should be dictating the terms.’

‘You could die if you come.’

‘Or die here if you fail to come back.’

‘This is a busy road…’

‘Upon which we have not seen another vehicle since the journey was resumed after luncheon.’

He smiled, the warmth in his face seen even through the gloom surprising her into a blush. ‘It would be dangerous.’

‘Less so with the two of us.’

‘I’ll take the driver with me, then.’

‘Both his hands are broken, sir. Surely you can see the angle of his fingers. He is going nowhere!’

Silence greeted her last outburst, but she heard him draw in a careful breath and just as carefully expel it.

‘What are you called?’ The imperiousness of his tone brought to mind a man who seldom had to wait for anything.

‘Mrs Bassingstoke. Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke.’ She never felt happy giving her name and this occasion was no different, though the eyes that watched her did not fill with the more usual amusement. Nay, rather they seemed to focus above her and away as if he were already plotting their journey.

‘Very well, Mrs Bassingstoke. Do you have other clothes in your bag?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘Then I should take them from where you have them and dress in as many layers as you can manage.’ He passed the fabric she had given him a few moments earlier back. ‘You will need this shawl for your neck.’

‘It is a muslin cloth, sir. From around the cake.’

He hesitated. ‘In lieu of a scarf it will do.’

Damn it, Taris thought, the thing had felt just like a woman’s scarf. Sometimes the sharpness of touch deserted him as fully as sight did and he had heard a questioning note in the voice of this Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke.

Her voice did not suit the hardness of her name though in its careful cadence he fancied he heard the whisper of secrets.

Bassingstoke? A Norfolk family and she had made mention of Brampton. He had heard something only last month about them, though he could not quite remember what. Would this woman hail from the same bloodline? The quiet strength in her voice had helped him with everything and she had not eaten any of the cake when he had failed to understand what it was she was offering and did not reach out. Even now the small scent of raisins and rum permeated the air and he wished he might have asked her to open her bag again and cut him a slice.

The thought made him smile, though in truth there was very little humour in their situation. If a carriage or a horseman did not pass by soon he would need to get going himself, for the breathing of the older woman was becoming more shallow, a sign that the cold was getting to her. At least the lady next to him seemed determined to accompany him and for that he was glad. He would need a set of good eyes on the frozen road, one that could see even a glimmer of light in any of the fields, denoting a farmhouse or a barn. In this cold any help was gratifying. He had looked for his own luggage outside but could not glean even a shape of it in the snow. Indeed, the carriage had dragged along for a good few seconds before it had tipped and his case might be anywhere. A pity! The clothes inside it would have been an extra layer that he would have to do without, though with the driver recovered he could ask for his cloak to be returned at least.

He listened to the rustle of Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke dressing, her arm against his as she wriggled into the extra layers. A thin arm, he realised, the bones of it fragile.

Finally she seemed ready. He wanted to ask her if she had a hat on. He wanted to know if her boots were sturdy. He voiced none of these questions, however, deciding that silence was the wiser option and that Mrs Bassingstoke seemed, even on such a short acquaintance, a rather determined woman and one sensible enough to wrap herself up warm against the elements.