Extraits

Lucy lui jeta un regard noir. Il n'y avait rien d'étonnant à ce que sa tante ne l'ait pas aimé. Il devait approcher des soixante-dix ans et affichait en permanence un air dédaigneux sous ses épais cheveux gris. Il avait dû être très beau, à une époque, mais elle ne voyait en lui que ce que sa tante en disant dans son journal.

Peu importait, d'ailleurs, qu'elle dépense les quelques shillings qui lui restaient pour une chambre ou qu'elle les garde en cas de besoin. Ce n'était pas comme si elle avait réellement besoin de cet argent pour retourner à Londres. Wilson avait promis de tout faire pur qu'on ne découvre son départ que le plus tard possible.

Le voyage en coche de Salisbury à Lizard Bay s'avéra assez désagréable. Une semaine auparavant, Thomas aurait grandement apprécié le silence. Il lui aurait permis de réfléchir, voir d'écrire, lorsque la route n'aurait pas été trop cahoteuse. Il aurait pu poursuivre ses observations scientifiques relatives à l'étude qu'il était en train de rédiger, qu'il destinait à la Linnean Society de Londres et qui décrivait la flore de la presqu'île de Lizard Bay.

Sa soeur aînée était posée, belle et courageuse. Elle avait choisi un homme qu'elle aimait, mais Lucy ne connaissait pas d'autre mariage fondé sur une telle anomalie. Quoi qu'il en soit, grande comme elle l'était, si brusque et si peu féminine dans ses manières, elle ne pouvait attendre un mariage d'amour.

Elle doit faire très bientôt son entrée dans le monde et trouver un mari. Si Lord Cardwell en personne trouvait judicieux de décharger sa fille du souci de cette vente, de quel droit interviendrait-il dans sa décision ? Miss Westmore lui semblait extrêmement jeune et naive.

** Extrait offert par Jennifer McQuiston **

Chapter 1

London, April 1853

Wilson, the aging butler who ruled Cardwell House with a glove-covered fist, sometimes acted as though there was a metal prod shoved up his bum. Not that good posture wasn’t an essential element of the position, and by all accounts Wilson was excellent at his job.

But today that prod looked to have been heated in a fire prior to insertion.

And that meant someone—most likely her—was about to catch a scolding.

Lucy Westmore sighed into the silence of the greenhouse, resenting this small intrusion more than she should. Wilson didn’t say a word as he pulled to a halt in front of her, carrying his omnipresent silver tray. Not that he had to. His scowl was loud enough. But years of dealing with the old butler’s frowns had taught her the best recourse was to head off his lecture with a well-placed apology. So she brushed the dirt from her hands, peered up from where she was kneeling, and tried to fit a repentant smile to her face.

“I know I missed calling hours again, Wilson. And I am sorry, truly I am. I just need a few more minutes.” She shoved a fistful of blond hair out of her eyes while she waited for his response. Damn, but it was hot in the greenhouse today, the air thick and musty and oppressive. Perhaps she had spent one too many hours here, sweltering over the sweet pea seedlings she was preparing for the St. James Orphanage community garden.

A drop of sweat slid down her nose, and Lucy’s gaze settled on the butler’s balding pate. It would be heavenly to do something similar with her own unruly hair. She was tempted to giggle as she imagined what his scowl might look like then, but giggling never helped her cause where Wilson was concerned.

He’d been butler to her father for seventeen years, and to the previous Lord Cardwell for twenty-odd years before that. As such, he commanded a familiarity none of the other servants dared. She might be twenty-one years old and of an age to mind her own affairs, but he never failed to scold her, should the circumstances call for it.

Which, admittedly, they usually did.

But couldn’t he see this was important?

Growing impatient now, Lucy rocked back on her heels and gestured to her dirt-stained trousers. “Surely you wouldn’t have wanted me to receive callers dressed like this? It would have been ever so much worse.” When his scowl deepened, she switched tactics. “Would it help if I promised to apologize to Mother and Lydia later?” Although, she was quite sure Lydia wouldn’t mind. As far as sisters went, she was the lovely, forgiving sort.

Mother, on the other hand …

The thought of her mother’s reaction to her tardiness—and her trousers—was enough to make Lucy wince. She should have quit the greenhouse hours ago, but she’d simply lost track of time. Yes, that was what she would say.

Hopefully, it sounded like a more reasonable excuse than the truth, which was that she’d rather extract Wilson’s metal prod from his bum and shove it in her eye than suffer through another round of prescribed calling hours with Mother. For Lucy, they were an excruciating reminder of just how awfully her life was about to change. She might have agreed to go through with it but she’d be damned if she delivered herself trussed and bound for the upcoming Season one second earlier than necessary.

“I will change before dinner,” she added. “And I promise I will try to remember calling hours next week. But these seedlings are wilting and I must—”

“Miss Lucy,” Wilson interrupted, which would have seemed a terribly rude thing for a butler to do if she hadn’t been so relieved he was finally speaking to her. “Save your explanations for your mother. I suspect you will need them this time.”

She bit her lip. “She is very angry?”

Two bushy brows lifted high, like gray mustaches above his eyes. “Lady Cardwell spent half the afternoon making excuses for your absence, and the other half bemoaning your future. I even saw her look out the front window, no doubt to see if you were swinging from a tree.”

Lucy flushed. “I haven’t done that since I was a child.”

Wilson cocked his head, his silence deafening.

“Fine. Since I was seventeen.” She sighed, realizing how awful that sounded. What self-respecting seventeen-year-old still climbed trees? But she’d never been like other girls. And despite her best intentions, despite constantly stifling her natural impulses and trying to behave the way a proper lady would, she was beginning to reach the conclusion she probably never would. “Honestly, I am not trying to upset her, Wilson. I just have different interests.”

He shook his head, as though she were a hopeless case. “Well, I have not come because of your mother, or even because of the calling hours you have so predictably missed.” He leaned forward, slowly extending the tray he carried. “You’ve a package. It came in today’s post.”

Lucy was startled enough to fall silent. Not quite the vehemence of his usual objections to her penchant for wallowing in dirt and trouble, but then, Wilson was as slippery as an eel. No doubt he was biding his time, waiting for her guard to drop.

She climbed to her feet and eyed the proffered tray. At first glance the package seemed rather innocuous. About ten inches square and wrapped in brown paper, it sat on the butler’s silver salver like a large, plain cousin to the dainty white letters that surrounded it. Its appearance sparked some mild curiosity, but then again, most correspondence did.

She regularly received letters from her brother, Geoffrey, who was partway through his first year at university. She also maintained a vigorous communication with several philanthropic organizations, and a felon or two besides, if one considered her campaign to improve the conditions for prisoners in Newgate.

But as her eyes settled over the handwriting on the outside of the package, she felt a sudden quiver in her stomach. Because the parcel was addressed in the same distinctive scrawl that adorned the Christmas cards Aunt E sent every year from Cornwall.

And a package from Aunt E engendered more than mild curiosity when you considered the woman had died two weeks ago.

Her fingers reached out and Wilson jerked back the tray. “Oh, no, Miss Lucy. Not until you wash your hands.”

She glared down at her fingers. Bugger it all. They were only a little dirty. Not to mention the fact she was a goddamned grown woman of twenty-one years.

“You are a cruel beast of a man, Wilson.”

A smile finally claimed his broad, wrinkled face. “I am at least a clean, cruel beast of a man.” He pointed a gloved finger toward the washstand that waited at the greenhouse entrance. “And I’ll not have you sullying my tray. We’ve just polished the silver.”

Lucy stalked toward the washstand, grumbling out loud—mainly because she knew Wilson expected her to. As she scrubbed her hands, she pondered what the arrival of such a parcel could mean. For years, her aunt’s only correspondence with the family had been a single annual Christmas card, signed with an impersonal “E.” It was unconventional at best, coldhearted at worst, an annual reminder the woman cared so little for her family she couldn’t be bothered to think of them more than once a year.

She didn’t even wait for the butler’s footsteps to fade before tearing open the brown paper wrapping. Several items fell to the greenhouse floor, tinkling on the Egyptian tile, but she was too intrigued by the series of leather-bound books emerging in her hands to pay them much mind. Why had Aunt E sent her books? And more to the point, how had she done it, given that the package clearly must have been posted after her death?

Lucy opened the cover of the top book and read the inscription on the first page.

The Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore

January 1, 1813

Though the air in the greenhouse was warm and heavy, a chill rippled down her spine. Apparently, her mysterious Aunt E had a name. A real name, not just a single, detached letter.

Part of it, at least, was Lucy’s own name.

Why had no one ever told her?

She closed the cover, suddenly feeling nervous. There appeared to be four volumes, and in her hands they felt terribly old, with small cracks in the leather and gaps in the stitching. But the physical history of the diaries paled in comparison to the history of the woman they represented. Lucy was holding a more intimate knowledge of her aunt than she had ever been permitted to know in real life, and she didn’t know whether to lock the books away unread or fall upon them voraciously and read them from cover to cracked cover.

She glanced down at the drooping seedlings, suddenly feeling far less enthusiastic about the orphanage’s garden. Her gaze shifted to several other items, scattered about her feet and glinting amidst the spilled dirt. There was a folded letter of some sort, as well as a key and a piece of jewelry. She bent down and reached out her hand, gathering them up.

The necklace intrigued her, a pendant strung on a black velvet ribbon. Lucy ran a finger over the shifting of colors in the stone—green, gold, and brown. She’d never seen anything like it on the necks of women in London.

Then again, she’d never seen her aunt on the streets of London either.

Unfolding the letter, she held her breath.

Dear Lucille,

Her fingers tightened against the paper. Anyone who knew her understood she preferred to be called Lucy. Then again, her aunt was a complete enigma to her.

It served that the reverse might be true as well.

I know you must be surprised to receive this package, given that by now I am quite dead. But I suspect someone—probably a man—will try to thwart my wishes, and so I have taken this step to ensure my intentions are honored.

The life of a peer’s daughter is difficult. Believe me, I understand, more than you know. But to be the eccentric daughter of a peer is harder still, and even as a six-year-old child it was clear you marched to your own tune. My hope is that in reading my diary, you will understand the choices I have made. It is up to you to sort out whether your own independence is worth the price I paid for mine. Probably someone will try to convince you I was mad—or worse, that you are yourself. But I lived my life the way I wanted, and vow I shall greet death in a similar fashion.

My only hope is that you find the courage to as well.

I am leaving you more than my journal, Lucille. I am also leaving you Heathmore Cottage. It isn’t much, I know, but perchance it might offer you the freedom to choose your own future. Guard its secrets well, Lucille.

And remember me fondly, as I have always remembered you.

—E

The air pushed from Lucy’s lungs in a confused rush.

Aunt E had left her Heathmore? And what was this nonsense about secrets and fond memories? It was all so odd. She barely knew her aunt, certainly not well enough to have shed more than the perfunctory tear when news of her death had reached London. The family had not even traveled to Cornwall for the funeral, save for Father, who was more or less morally obligated to see his older sister buried.

Confused, Lucy lifted the key to a skein of sunlight streaming through the greenhouse roof, studying its ridges and angles. She possessed only the dimmest memory of Heathmore Cottage, from a summer visit when she had been about six years old. She could recall a whitewashed home overlooking choppy green waters, and the steady beat of wind in her face. Though she could no longer remember the curve of her aunt’s cheek, she retained a clear memory of a set of glass figurines, lifted down from a mantel and placed in her chubby hands.

Unsettled by the sudden rush of memories, Lucy shoved the key and the necklace into her trouser pocket, then folded the letter and stowed it between the pages of the top journal. She’d been a fanciful child, and those memories of Heathmore were murky at best.

She remembered far better the things that happened after that summer.

Soon thereafter, Grandfather had died and her father assumed the title. Governesses and curmudgeonly butlers had been introduced into her life. And all contact with her aunt had contracted to that single, lonely card at Christmas.

More’s the pity.

From what little she could remember, it had been a fun visit.

Then again, Wilson hadn’t been part of her life yet to spoil her fun.

###

As far as handshakes went, it was a fine, firm one.

But firm or not, Thomas’s mind was not entirely eased. According to his understanding of Miss E’s last will and testament, which had been read just this morning by the solicitor up from St. Ives, he was not shaking hands with the correct person.

“You are sure your daughter will approve the sale, Lord Cardwell?” Thomas glanced uneasily at the two-story crofter’s cottage which was now—for better or worse—his responsibility. Built on the most exposed part of the cliff, Heathmore Cottage braced itself against the wind like a stooped old soul, leaning ever so slightly off center. The front door lay open, its broken latch dangling. They’d had some difficulty gaining entrance without a key, a fact remedied by Thomas’s forceful shoulder applied against the salt-weathered wood.

That had sparked his first twinge of guilt, as if he was somehow trespassing to conduct a buyer’s inspection without a proper key. The second twinge of guilt had come over the price. There had been little by way of actual negotiation. He simply named a figure—four hundred pounds, to include both the cottage and the surrounding property—and Lord Cardwell immediately accepted.

Not that the dwelling he’d just purchased inspired much by way of confidence. He might have even paid too much. The stone walls of the old farmhouse had once been plastered white but now appeared a sickly gray, and in some places the plaster had fallen completely away to show the darker stone beneath. The roof’s thatching was infested with mold and vermin and would need to be completely replaced, preferably with something a bit more modern. And thanks to the leaking roof, the floorboards in the bedrooms abovestairs were rotting. Miss E hadn’t even lived here in several years, preferring instead to take cleaner and drier rooms in town.

Of course, he wasn’t interested in the condition of the dwelling. His real interest lay in the property itself, and the hundred or so acres surrounding the cottage.

Thanks to his time at university, Thomas was the only formally educated soul in Lizard Bay, save the vicar. The townspeople seemed largely oblivious to the potential in the coastal soil, but he knew the true value of the property, thanks to his scientific curiosity and the long hours he’d spent prowling the surrounding fields and cliff tops.

But admitting he coveted Heathmore for reasons beyond making his home here wouldn’t help his cause, and so he kept those thoughts to himself.

Lord Cardwell waved a hand toward the ramshackle cottage. “Oh, I can assure you, Lord Branston, my daughter has no need for a falling-down house. She has her first Season nearly upon her, and a husband to find. Until then she has her charities to keep her busy.”

Thomas felt a slight easing of his conscience. If, as her guardian, Lord Cardwell found it prudent to handle his young daughter’s more distracting affairs, who was he to gainsay the decision? Miss Westmore sounded very young and naive, likely just eighteen if her first Season was looming large. Probably one of those flighty London beauties who lived and breathed for her debut. He’d known a girl like her, once upon a time.

Thought, even, to marry her.

It had been three years since his sister’s funeral. Three years since he’d left the cruel gossip and the whispers of those who would judge her. Josephine had been all the family he’d had in the world, and he failed her, utterly. The disquieting reminders of London and the ghosts that lingered there were good enough reason to seal this deal in the most expedient way possible. Lord Cardwell was leaving tomorrow, and Thomas didn’t want the negotiations to stretch back to the city if he could help it. He’d been able to forget, in a fashion, secreted away here in Cornwall. Or if not forget, at least accept the painful path his sister had chosen. But he suspected he would remember all too well should he be forced to return to London.

Or worse, someone else would remember, put together the pieces, destroy what little solace he had been able to cobble together.

“Besides,” Cardwell went on, “I suspect my daughter will appreciate the money. She’s always sending various charities her pin money.”

Thomas didn’t have to force the smile that rose to his lips. At least he could identify with that sentiment. A certain spinster he had known also enjoyed such things, once upon a time.

“As I am sure you know, your sister was also a staunch supporter of worthy causes,” he said. In fact, Thomas himself had once been one of Miss E’s worthy causes. She’d been the first to welcome him when he arrived at this barren outpost three years ago. Others in town had initially viewed him with suspicion. Not that he blamed them. He had been silent and sullen, the stink of London and whisky clinging to him like a miasma.

But Miss E had befriended him, and there was no denying the townspeople respected her. Her reputation in town had been a strange, perplexing phenomenon, one Thomas was never able to properly sort out. She was clearly an outsider, eccentric and outspoken, regularly interrupting the vicar’s Sunday service with her own contrary thoughts on the sermon.

Cantankerous was the word that came to mind.

But once Thomas had been taken under her prickly wing, there was no longer any question of his acceptance in Lizard Bay. Miss E had forced him to look beyond his drunken solace to the world beyond. He missed her a good deal.

If only her brother did as well.

“Sounds like my sister,” Cardwell agreed, showing few signs of mourning beyond a ring of dark circles below his eyes. “She was forever trying to right the wrongs of the world. But I still can’t imagine what possessed Edith to think this an appropriate bequest for my daughter.” His voice trailed off, doubtful. “It’s falling to pieces.”

“Perhaps Miss E thought your daughter had fond memories of the place,” Thomas offered, though he’d not seen Lord Cardwell—nor the man’s daughter—once in the three years he lived here. How many memories could the chit have?

Cardwell shook his head. “My daughter was quite young the last time we visited. I doubt she even remembers the journey. More likely Edith has some plot afoot, God rest her soul. She always did.”

“A plot?” Thomas raised a brow, his mouth twisting with surprise. “Surely it’s just her way of showing a kindness.”

“Perhaps.” Cardwell sounded tired. “But with no money to cover the repairs, this seems more of a burden for my daughter than a boon. I can’t help but wonder what my sister was thinking.” He looked back at the house, frowning. “I hadn’t realized Edith had permitted the house to fall into such disrepair. Why didn’t she tell me she was in need of financial assistance? I sent her twenty pounds a quarter, but I would have gladly sent her more money if she’d asked.”

Thomas bit back a retort. Twenty pounds a quarter might have been enough for a frugal spinster to live on, but it couldn’t cover the upkeep of an aging cottage. And if he knew Miss E, she would have felt guilty for accepting her brother’s charity and been far too proud to ask for more. The fact that Cardwell called his sister Edith was proof enough the man scarcely knew her. Everyone in the little town of Lizard Bay—from the grocer to the vicar—had called her Miss E. If Lord Cardwell had bestirred himself to come down from London to visit his sister once in a while, he might have seen Heathmore’s decline with his own eyes and intervened before it reached this sorry state. But given the fact that the home’s dilapidated condition was the cause of this quick sale, Thomas held his tongue.

“I feel a bit guilty,” Lord Cardwell went on. “I should probably pay you to take Heathmore Cottage off my daughter’s hands. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, with not even a proper road to get here. You’ll need the devil’s luck to turn it into something usable.”

“No need to worry.” Thomas forced a smile to his lips. “I like the solitude the property offers. With a little work and polish, I think it will shape up as a nice escape from … er … town.”

Not that Lizard Bay was much of a town. And one scarcely needed to plan an escape from the few hundred souls who made their home there. But he vowed he would try to make Heathmore Cottage livable again, if only to breathe truth into the deception he felt so uncomfortable about fostering. “I admired your sister, Lord Cardwell,” he added, hoping to ease the man’s conscience. “Miss E was always kind to me. I am happy to help her family by removing this burden from your hands.”

And if Heathmore’s hidden treasures had been left in the hands of a flighty young thing from London, a fine, firm handshake with the girl’s father was surely a reasonable means to an end.