Sea of Secrets: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (6 page)

“I am afraid I don’t,” I admitted, even as I appreciated her tact. “None of my dresses is truly suited for evening.” But surely it would not matter if I had nothing to compare with her wardrobe; indeed, there could be few who could match her in the magnificence of her dress. Today she wore a less elaborate gown for travel, but it was of lilac shot silk, and the skirt and sleeves were edged with a design of flowers in cut velvet. She was even wearing one of the new crinolines, whose steel or whalebone hoops lent her skirts the coveted bell-shaped silhouette. I was wearing the dress in which we had first met, over my two meager petticoats.

“I knew it!” exclaimed Felicity. “You are a Quaker, aren’t you?”

“Felicity!” The duchess was half shocked, half laughing. Even I could not keep from smiling, though the laughter was at my own expense.

“I am sorry to disappoint you, but no,” I said. Felicity subsided, disappointed, and her aunt patted my hand.

“Of course we know you are in mourning, my dear. But that does not mean you must deny yourself pretty frocks,” she said coaxingly, and I realized she too had misunderstood my unfashionable dress. Evidently the only reason she could imagine for the style of my dresses was that they had been made expressly for mourning clothes; the truth was that I had simply dyed my everyday dresses black. “I would dearly love to see you in a deep wine color, or violet. Nothing too elaborate for mourning, of course, but with a bit of décolletage… we shall see what we can do.” She smiled with such sly delight that it would have been churlish of me to object to her designs. Clearly she did not see them as charity, but simply enjoyed indulging her generosity.

The dingy views of London gradually gave way to brighter shades of landscape as we traveled farther into the country. It was another grey, rainy day, but there had not yet been a hard frost to blanch the countryside, and through the windows of our traveling parlor, streaming with rain, I could see an enchantingly dimmed and rain-softened landscape, whose emerald greens glowed mysteriously through their veil of grey. The duchess wrote letters and gave instructions to the footmen, and when Miss Yates began to doze, Felicity came to perch next to me on the couch from which I watched the changing scenery.

“It isn’t much of a view,” she said. “There won’t be anything interesting to look at for ages and ages yet.”

Taking the hint, I turned away from the window. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind entertaining me, then? At least until the scenery improves.”

“Oh, good; I was so hoping you’d feel like talking.” She gave an eager bounce on the sofa and I tried not to smile; she might have been ten instead of seventeen. “I’m longing to know more about you.”

“And I you,” I said. “I would very much like to know more about the family. How many of you are there?”

“Let me see.” She frowned prettily. “Aminta and her husband have their own place in Derbyshire, so they don’t count. At Ellsmere there are Aunt and Miss Yates, of course, and me; Papa, and Charles—my brother; he’s
much
older—and Herron. Not very many of us at all; we scarcely take up one wing unless we have visitors, and Miss Yates will be leaving this summer, when I come out. I shall miss her terribly, but I cannot
wait
to be done with lessons and to put my hair up and go to parties and balls like Aunt Gwendolyn.” She greeted this prospect with a beatific smile, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for Miss Yates, who must find her work difficult with so distracted a student. “If Charles is well enough by the beginning of the season he will be my escort. He has only been home for less than two months. He was in the Crimea—like your brother—only Charles was invalided out.”

“He was injured?” I asked, thoughts of Lionel instantly engaging my sympathy.

She shook her head, her green eyes wide with relief. “No, he was dreadfully ill with malaria. It’s frightening to see him so pale and thin, when he used to be so strong and good-looking. He tries to hurry himself along, but he is still convalescing. But he hates to be treated as an invalid.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a thrilling whisper. “He’s terribly brave. Sometimes I know he must get awfully frustrated that he doesn’t have his strength back, but he never complains. I think he is wonderful.”

“He sounds a perfect paragon,” I said, hoping I was concealing my skepticism. “Has he no faults at all?”

“Well, he can be very obstinate at times—for instance, refusing to take good care of himself. Aunt and Aminta and I have to simply
force
him to rest sometimes. Aminta says all men are like that. Was your brother? Stubborn, I mean.”

I laughed, feeling a catch in my throat as memories thronged to mind. “He was. Thoroughly stubborn.”

“Well, so is Charles. He’s a dear, of course, but he refuses to listen to me just because I happen to be younger. I am very fond of him, but he can be quite maddening.”

I smiled at the lofty condescension of her tone, and the familiarity of her feelings. How many times had I thought of Lionel in just such a fashion? “What does this brother look like?”

“Oh, he’s awfully handsome. All the Reginalds are handsome,” she said complacently, sure of her place among these fortunates. “He has very blue eyes, and a fine gold moustache, and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. It makes me frantic with jealousy; they are
inches
longer than mine. It’s so unfair they should be wasted on a man, don’t you think? You should see the way the ladies gush over him when we have guests. It is really rather revolting; they have no dignity at all. Even though he has been ill, he is still the most popular bachelor in the county. You will adore him.”

“I’m sure I will,” I said, positive I would detest him. I could envision him all too well: a middle-aged, convalescent Prince Consort, all drooping blond moustache and melting-eyed attentiveness, languidly reclining on a sofa whenever he grew fatigued from kissing the hands of the local beauties. I would not be surprised to find that he also played the flute and collected botanical specimens. So much for my fourth cousin.

“And the duke?”

“The—? Oh, you mean Herron. I cannot think of him as the duke.” Her forehead wrinkled in thought, and she sat back. “Herron is very different. He is quite dark, for a start, and all the rest of the Reginalds are fair. To say the truth, he rather frightens me; one never knows what he is thinking. He seems so contemptuous of everyone, and when he looks at you, it’s as if his eyes burn right through and come out the other side.” She shivered, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Has he always been so?”

“No-o-o,” she said, drawing the word out doubtfully. “That is, he has always been the quiet one of the family, but he used to be rather jolly, and we always got on well. But lately…” She hesitated, looking beyond me toward the duchess, but was evidently satisfied that her attention was elsewhere. “He was devastated by his father’s death,” she whispered, leaning closer once again in a conspiratorial manner. “He broods dreadfully, and avoids any kind of company, even
me
” (indignantly). “I think it very tiresome of him, but Aunt Gwendolyn says we must be patient, that some people must mourn longer than others.”

“I imagine so,” I said and, trying to be delicate, added, “you may have had experience of that yourself.”

“I? No, my mother died bearing me; I never knew her.” Perhaps this explained her impatience with the duke’s grief. I myself could well understand that a young man still reeling from his father’s death would find the company of this lively cousin a bit trying. “Aminta and Miss Yates always took care of me. That is why I am so pleased to have a real mother at last.”

“And your father?” This was no idle question. I was deeply curious about the duchess’s new husband. Before meeting her I had imagined that she must have been the instigator of this scandalous marriage, but now that I had begun to know her, I was forced to wonder if Lord Claude’s was the will behind the marriage. The thought increased my discomfiting awareness of my precarious position. If he were a powerful, ruthless man—the kind, indeed, who would not scruple to seize upon his brother’s new widow—he might well be someone to fear. He might not wish to receive a relative from the rejected branch of the family; worse, he might try to effect a reconciliation between myself and my father. I knew Felicity’s opinion would scarcely be unbiased, but it might be of help and prepare me, at least in part, for my host.

Whatever information I had hoped for from her, I was disappointed with the actuality. Felicity was evidently growing bored with discussing her family, and said offhandedly that her Papa was “a perfect darling, but you’ll meet him soon enough.”

“He is nothing at all like your father, from what I have been able to hear,” she added with her usual candor. “Aunt Gwendolyn said that she could not fathom what your mother ever saw in him.”

“She told you that?”

Felicity shrugged. “She didn’t know I was listening. She and Aminta only talk about truly interesting things when they believe I cannot hear.” She hesitated, and this was so unlike her that I knew some more than usually personal question must be fighting to emerge. She blurted, “Isn’t it difficult for you, coming to the place where your own mother died so horribly?”

I should have expected it; I should have made the logical connection once I had discovered the identity of my mother’s family. But I was still unprepared for the knowledge that my mother had drowned at Ellsmere.

“I had no idea of it,” I said, in a voice I hoped was steady.

Her eyes widened, but with excitement rather than alarm. “You did not know?” she exclaimed, but softly, so as not to alert her stepmother. “Oh, I am sorry to tell you so plainly, but does it not seem like fate? Aminta says I’m foolish to believe in portents, but it does look as though your destiny led you to us, and to Ellsmere. I wonder what is in store for you next!”

“You do destiny too much credit,” I said, trying to speak lightly. But after Felicity left me to take a nap on the duchess’s orders (protesting volubly that she was not tired, then falling asleep within five minutes), I wondered if something out of my hands was shaping my future. I could not help but marvel at how, after spending all my life knowing nothing of my mother’s family, in the space of a few days I had not only discovered them but had been practically adopted by them.

And I had always been possessed by a strange feeling—part curiosity, part attraction—toward the sea. It may seem strange that I did not fear it or hold a grudge against it for having stolen my mother away from me, but I did not feel that it had. Although I had no memory of ever having been near the ocean, I did not wish to avoid it; now that I knew Ellsmere was on the coast I had no desire to change my mind about accepting the duchess’s hospitality. My peculiar attachment to the ocean may have resulted from loneliness. In my childhood Lionel was a dear but sporadic and frequently dismissive presence, and as I grew older I could imagine that my mother went into the waters feeling, not fear or desperation or even sorrow, but solace. I had always imagined that she would have seen the agent of her death as a comforting certainty, a friend who could not and would not reject her or turn away. She had thrown herself into its arms, and it had welcomed her. And now I would know for myself this being whose embrace my mother had sought. The prospect excited and cheered me—perhaps in this place of strangers I would find reassurance in the sea, the companionship my mother must have felt before me.

We dined there in the railway car, and despite the lack of normal kitchen facilities the five courses were as elegant as anything ever served me in a stationary dwelling. Afterward Miss Yates and Felicity played cribbage, and the duchess took me aside to show me the purchases she had made in London.

“This cane is for Charles; very elegant, don’t you think, with the carved handle?” I agreed, admiring the hound’s head, worked in silver, that served as the grip. “He is still recovering from malaria, as Felicity probably told you, and has not regained all his strength yet.” She glanced over at her stepdaughter and smiled at me with just the conspiratorial expression Felicity had shown earlier. “I expect Felicity told you a great deal about Charles,” she said, lowering her voice, which was touched with amusement. “He is so much older than she that she is inclined toward hero-worship.”

I said that I had gathered as much. “But she does not seem to be as close to the duke.”

To my surprise, the duchess laughed. “Felicity is still too young to appreciate someone as introspective as Herron. In a year or two I fancy her feelings will change, and she will be extolling him as the Byronic ideal. She is a bit hurt that her old playfellow has no time for her now.” Her amusement faded from her face, and she shook her head. “How could she understand what it is like for him? Even I cannot truly comprehend what he must be feeling, and he confides in no one. He has withdrawn himself so.”

She no longer seemed to be speaking to me at all; these confidences seemed unconscious, her thoughts speaking themselves.

“Perhaps I indulged him too much, protected him too much,” she mused. “But he was such a beautiful child…” As if suddenly remembering my presence, she looked up from the cane, whose handle she had been stroking, and her reflective mood vanished like frost under sunlight as she dimpled. “Despite what Felicity says, I at least think my son the handsomest of all the Reginalds,” she confided. “If I were a young lady her age I should be madly in love with him. But then, perhaps as his mother I am not completely impartial. Now, I must show you the set of ruby buttons I found for Claude…”

I admired the jeweled buttons in their elegant gold settings, and after them the other purchases she showed me, including a handsomely bound edition of
Childe Harold
for the duke. As I was stroking the leather bindings and turning the yet-uncut pages, the duchess’s voice came quietly to me, lowered so that the other two, chattering gaily over their game, would not hear.

“Your father called on me two days ago,” she said, and my head jerked up, the book forgotten. At once I realized the display of purchases had been only a pretext for talking to me apart.