Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (25 page)

“Where were they going? Mother and… grandfather with that wagon I mean?”

Agatha turned back to Harriet, a frown on her face. “Peter never did say where they were going. It didn’t matter to him. Your father supported them all, Claire, her father, yourself when you arrived, by selling paintings.”

Lady Colchester squeezed Agatha’s hand. “I remember that.”

Agatha gave a small smile. “It didn’t help them much. Peter was apparently about to mount a large exhibition in London when he and Claire died.” Her fists clenched. “According to the magistrate that informed me of his death, Peter had taken out enormous loans to buy paints and canvases, and was still paying off his own mortgage on the house in Seaton. There was nothing left after the death duties were paid.” She took in a shaky breath. “All I found when I arrived at the orphanage in Honiton was a small child, and many paintings.” Agatha buried her head in her hands. “I slept in the orphanage outbuilding, for goodness sake. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Madely, the vicar in Brambridge…”

Harriet did not want to hear it. She couldn’t bear to think of them being beholden to Mrs. Madely. She chewed at her lip then stood. Her head whirled. “I’m going to bed.” At the door, she turned. “Where is grandfather? You said that Papa met Mama with her father. Where is he?”

Agatha shook her head. “He’s right there with Peter and Claire. They buried him under the name John Smith.”

Harriet took in a breath. Every time she had visited her parents’ grave she had wondered at the closeness of the other headstone with the simple ‘John Smith’ etched into the stone.

Agatha took a breath and carried on. “Claire wanted that, the John Smith I mean. She never said much, but that her father had been twice disappointed because of his name, and that the English equivalent of the common man was all he ever wanted to be.”

Harriet wiped a hot hand across her cheek. “What do we do on the morrow?” she said in a low voice.

Agatha stood. “I’ve been thinking on this. We should go looking for the site of your father’s former exhibition.”

Lady Colchester breathed in sharply. “You know you can stay as long as you want. You’re my friend, Aggie.”

Agatha shook her head. “I’m no longer your brother’s ward, Victoria. We need to pay our own way.” She looked again at Harriet. “We’ve only brought half of the paintings with us. The rest, the biggest ones, were apparently sent to London. Perhaps we’ll be able to find them. ”

“Do you have to rush into that so quickly?” Lady Colchester persisted. “I have sent out for Madame Dupont and Master Bertrand. I thought we could attend some balls together, even go to the theatre. Have some
fun
.”

Harriet froze, in and out of the doorway. Theatre. She hadn’t thought of that. They were in London, she didn’t need to just read about it any longer, she could experience it for herself—

“Madame Dupont, the dressmaker?” Agatha stared at Lady Colchester.

“Yes and Master Bertrand, the dance master.” Lady Colchester laughed.

Agatha covered her eyes. “Master Bertrand taught Agatha and me how to dance. We were terrible!”

Lady Colchester shook her head. “And Madame Dupont made our dresses. We could never stand still. She kept sticking pins in our side.”

Harriet licked her lips and turned. “Could we go to the theatre?” She dropped her head and said in a low voice, “I’d like to see Kean.”

“I’m not sure,” said Lady Colchester slowly, “I’ve heard that he is a little unpredictable. When he was meant to be playing in the ‘Duke of Milan’ he failed to turn up. Apparently he was drunk in a Deptford Tavern.”

Harriet’s shoulders slumped. It was just like everything that week. An opening of endless possibilities turning out to be false hope.

“But of course,” Lady Colchester said with a broad smile, looking at Harriet. “I have heard great reviews of his Othello. The man playing Iago opposite him cannot compete. Booth, I think his name is. I’m sure we can get tickets for Drury Lane.”

Kean. After so long she would finally see him
in the flesh
. And yet the elation she should have felt did not come.

CHAPTER 24

Melissa closed the book with a snap. James swung his legs out of the bed and stood, his eyes still staring out of the window at the sun setting in a blaze of red across the cliffs. He closed his eyes. A red as deep as Harriet’s hair. He opened them again and looked blindly around the room, skating over Melissa’s face and the rotting hangings. He felt no connection with the room, or even the house. Harriet had been right; he was just like his father, a spiteful capricious man, hanging on to something just because it was his right.

He hadn’t even taken one step into the study since he had been back in Brambridge, the scene of so much hatred, the room that he had promised himself he would destroy with yellow paint. As James spent more and more time downstairs, drinking less and less laudanum for the pain, he had noticed that Edgar had taken up residence in there. Good luck to him. The chances were that they would all be out of the house within two months.

“I’m tired of this,” James said looking at his stockinged feet. “I need a brandy.”

Melissa raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure that is wise?”

He rubbed his face. “Wise? I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything that is wise. All I know is that I want a damn brandy.”

“The patient
is
better,” Melissa murmured. “I believe everyone is downstairs having sherry. Perhaps you might like to join them?”

James stared at Melissa. She had sat there every night and read to him. How long had she and her mother stayed with them—three months now? Did they not have their own home to go to? A home to go to until the wedding. He swallowed. Why hadn’t he left himself? He had written to his lawyers. They had confirmed what he had half known all along. There was more than enough money generated by his other estates to support his family as well as the injured soldiers that were already there. He didn’t need Brambridge. James shivered as he heard his father’s voice through the will again.

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

“Let’s go downstairs,” he said firmly.

James stared at the dark windows. There was no welcome there, no happy memories. All of his happiness had been tied up with being outside, with Bill on the
Rocket
, with Harriet—

It was like déjà vu walking through the hall. He ignored the gallery and the half-open door to the study. He walked straight into the weak firelight of the drawing room.

“The prodigal son returns,” Edgar drawled. He seemed larger than in James’ memory, and yet he had only seen him the week before.

“I’d like to talk about wedding details,” Mrs. Sumner began. “It would be lovely if you could both be married in the sweet little church here in Brambridge—”

“Excuse me.” James marched to the garden door, to the orangery and beyond. In the knot garden, he sank onto the marble bench that surrounded an iron globe. The coldness of the marble seeped through his breeches and into his body.

Wedding details
.

He stood and strode away from the house across the parkland, stumbling on the unkempt grass, vaulting the fences until he reached the cliffs. He sat gasping for breath as he reached the land’s edge. Far below him the waves rolled against the shore.

He threw his head back and laughed, sucking in the air in deep breaths. How awful and yet so fitting. His walk had taken him straight to the headland where Tommy had lit the fire two years before. From there he could see all the way out into the sea.

How could one ever convince another that what they had said before now meant nothing? That by being apart, he had been able to think more clearly? James picked up a pebble and tossed it off the cliff. It fell away without a sound.

All he had needed was time. Time to spend in the house that he had desperately wanted for two years, in order to find out that really he didn’t want it. The house was merely an empty shell that he had used to symbolize his father.

But that wasn’t the most terrifying thing. In that instant in the cave, he had chosen his father over Harriet, the darkness over the flaming light. The dark portraits of the gallery and their penetrating gazes came into his mind. Is that what happened to the Stantons? They each turned into their fathers, lying, cheating, manipulating until way beyond the grave? All that each of them needed was time and choice?

But she would never take him back. She was an impetuous romantic. Yes, he knew that she had always loved him. It hadn’t taken Melissa to tell him that. But he had seen the look that she had given him in the cave. The hurt and depth of cold in her eyes freezing the flames of red on her head. He’d killed the calf-love that she’d had for him in one instant. It wasn’t trust that he’d broken, it was the image of himself in her eyes.

You are like your father.

James swallowed. So be it. He was like his father. He didn’t have anything left to him. What would his father do?

James watched as a cold red sun set behind the waves. There was only one thing his father would do.

Returning to Brambridge Manor, he ran through the house into his room and packed his bag. He swept his telescope and the embroidery bandages off the side table and jammed them down in a side pocket. One of the last times he’d seen his father before he’d accused him of murder had been as a shadowy figure in his study, his arm upraised, closing the door on James. Running away from the son who had finally turned on him, who was finally old enough to defend himself.

James hurried through the house. At the gallery he paused, taking a last look at the sneering portraits. His lady still pointed upwards to the sky, but now she smiled again, all seeming sadness gone. James stepped lightly into the gallery with a frown. Putting a hand in his pocket, he fingered the raised stitching on the embroidery he kept there, close to his heart. He’d thought it before, that the trace of the five stars was strange. He should have seen that with the addition of two more stars, the constellation would have formed the plough. Time and dust must have obscured them. How had he not seen it before? His lady pointed to the stars, to the Plough itself, the constellation he had watched every night since he had left Brambridge.

As if she had given him her benediction, whistling under his breath, he strode to the stables. He called for Scorpius and saddled up the stallion with all his belongings, patting and stroking the great beast.

“You weren’t going to say goodbye?”

James looked up. Cecilia stood at the entrance to the stable, an oil lantern in her hand, a cloak billowing in the wind around her.

“So you are going after her.” Cecilia stepped into the stable and hung the lamp on a beam. She shook back her hood. “Thank God.”

“What do you mean?”

Cecilia stared at him. “Harriet. You are going after Harriet, aren’t you?”

“How can I? I don’t know where she’s gone. And now I’m engaged to Melissa.”

“As if I could avoid knowing,” Cecilia muttered. She sat on a hay bale. “Her mother has been crowing about it for days.”

“How did you know about Harriet?”

Cecilia frowned at him. “Edgar asked me about you and her. He said that he’d seen you together and asked what I knew. He seemed a little unquiet.” Cecilia fiddled with the straw in the bale. “You’ve seemed different lately. Less focused.”

James pulled the straps tighter around Scorpius’ flank. “Perhaps it was the laudanum.”

Cecilia shook her head. “When you first came back you would stare at the walls of the house as if you were expecting them to burn. Now it is as if you don’t even see that they are there.”

James patted Scorpius. “Were you ever taken into father’s study?” He picked up a brush and brought it down sharply on Scorpius’ flank. The horse stamped nervously. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Cecilia pulled at the straw. “No. But Mama was.” Cecilia stood and took hold of the lantern. She brought it close to her face. “I heard the screams,” she said quietly. “I was just better at hiding than everyone else.”

James bit his lip.

“Which is why you should go after her, James, and leave this place to
rot
.”

James looked up quickly. Cecilia’s face was ghostly in the flickering light of the burning oil. He sighed. “I don’t know where’s she’s gone. I’m not sure she’d even have me.”

Cecilia dropped the oil lamp to her side as her arm fell. “You mean you didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Mrs. Madely told Mama and Mrs. Sumner that Mr. Granger stopped a very funny gentleman on the road to Honiton. He had a cart full of packing cases and paintings. Apparently he called himself Master Chance.”

Master Chance
. Harriet had come up against Granger and he hadn’t realized that she was a woman? “It still doesn’t tell me where she went.”

Cecilia turned to the door of the stables. “It’s no secret that the post coach to London leaves from Honiton, James.” She paused and swung round. “Nor that Agatha, Harriet’s aunt, arrived from London many years ago. Mrs. Madely wouldn’t keep quiet about her London quality housekeeper.”

James swung himself into Scorpius’ saddle. They’d gone to London. They had to have done. He had been going there anyway. Was there a chance that he could find Harriet again? Oh gods help him. He needed his army name more than ever.

As the horse passed through the stable doors, James gave out a loud “hah” and nudged Scorpius in the side. The great horse sprung forward. James hunkered down low. Yes, he knew he was running away. But he was also running towards something.

Something that might save him.

CHAPTER 25

Harriet put her spoon down and looked around herself with wide eyes. Several interested male gazes stared back at her. Adopting her best starched schoolmistress glare, she waited until they looked away and dropped her gaze back to her ice-cream. She had chosen a Bergamot Water Ice in the shape of a strawberry. Alas there was very little left of the strawberry, only the stalk remained.