The Heir Read online

  A delicate Dresden shepherdess trembled, then toppled from its longtime place on the mantelpiece, and shattered onto the marble hearth.

  Arabella rushed to her bedchamber, unaware and uncaring of the shocked silence she had left in the library. She kicked the door shut behind her. She ground the key into the lock, cursing it even as she forced it before it finally clicked into place. She stood for a moment, panting heavily, trying to gain some sort of understanding, to gain any meaning from what had just happened. All she could think of was that her father had died and after his death, he had betrayed her. He had planned all along to betray her, to force her to wed this stranger, this man who looked like her.

  She could not accept it. She looked within herself, but there was nothing there but emptiness and the rawness of her pain. She stooped, grasped a brocade-covered stool by a spindly leg, and hurled it with all her strength against the wall. It thudded and dropped, now two-legged, to the carpet. Suddenly she felt drained of all anger. She stared down at the stool blankly. What an incredibly stupid thing to do. She stared down at the crumpled envelope she held fisted in her hand.

  Her father’s letter. He would explain that it was all a mistake. He would explain that everything that Brammersley had read he had changed. He loved her. He wouldn’t give her over to a stranger. She walked to her small writing desk, seated herself, and with steady fingers gently drew out a white sheet of paper. She felt a tightening in her throat at the sight of her father’s bold handwriting. She formed her letters in exactly the same economical manner, with the same flamboyant strokes, for he had taught her. So many years ago. A lifetime ago and now he was dead.

  She shook her head and began to read.

  My dearest child,

  That you are reading this letter means that I am now gone from you. If I know my Arabella, you are in a rage. You believe I have betrayed you. No doubt your grief at my death is distorted by anger and misunderstanding of my instructions. As I pen this letter to you, you and your mother prepare to go to London for your first Season.

  Arabella stared at the paper, suspended in surprise. Why, he had written his will but five or six months ago. She gazed back at the letter and read rapidly.

  I myself prepare to leave for the Peninsula to assume the command of an area that is noted for the brutality and bloodiness of its conflicts. If I am fortunate enough to return from this assignment, you will not be reading this letter, for I will tell you of my wishes in person. I ramble. Forgive me, daughter. You have by now met your second cousin and my heir, Justin Deverill, or, more appropriately, I should write Captain Justin Deverill, for he is a brave and intelligent military man himself. Either rightly or wrongly, I kept you from meeting him, indeed, even knowing of his existence, until you reached a marriageable age. Do not blame your mother for not telling you that there was a male heir to the earldom, for I forbade her expressly to do so. Evesham Abbey is your home and I could not bring myself to inform you that there was someone who could possibly usurp your position. Forgive me for what I believe to be a necessary deception.

  As to your second cousin, I have been in close contact with him for some five years now, critically following his career, to determine in my own mind if he were indeed the man I wished to sire my grandsons. I assume that you have found the physical resemblance between you to be striking. I conclude that you cannot think him ill-looking, for to do so would be to insult your own fine features. He is much like you and me, Arabella; fiercely loyal, proud, and possessed of the Deverill stubbornness, the Deverill strength. I beg you do as I have instructed. Evesham Abbey is your home. If you do not wed your second cousin, you will forfeit your birthright. I don’t want this to happen, but I know you, know that you will see my fondest wish as a command that is meant to crush you and deprive you of what is rightfully yours. It is a command, Arabella, but I do it for you and for myself.

  You have much to think about. If you decide to follow my wishes, you will have given my life meaning. Never forget that as you struggle with your conscience. Never forget as well that I have loved you more than any other human being in the world.

  Adieu, my dearest daughter.

  Late-afternoon sunlight sent shafts of dazzling gold from between the low clouds to blend with the forty stalwart red brick gables, coloring them a deep titian. Arabella walked swiftly across the green lawn, unmindful of the gay parterre with its crisscrossed walks hedged by yew and holly, and the yellow daffodils that clustered about the middle in colorful profusion. Nor did she pay any attention to the great massive green cedar set in the middle of the west lawn, said to have been planted by Charles II.

  She walked to the south of the old abbey ruins, where the ground rose gently. She turned off the wide path into the neatly plotted Deverill cemetery. She made her way through the straight rows of Deverills from generations past to the very center of the cemetery to where her father had erected his own Italian marble vault. The archangel Gabriel hovered overhead, his white stone wings spread protectively over the heavy oaked Gothic doors.

  Arabella tugged open the wrought handles and slipped into the dimly lighted chamber. She sank wearily down to the cold stone floor beside the earl’s empty coffin. Her long slender fingers, with infinite sadness, slowly traced out each individual letter of his name.

  Dusk was shadowing the season-faded names on the gravestones when the earl eased open the vault doors and stepped quietly inside. His eyes widened to adjust to the dim light, and he made out Arabella curled up like a small child, asleep, her feet tucked up beneath her skirts and her arm resting gently atop her father’s coffin. She looked vulnerable. She looked utterly helpless. He hated it, hated what he must do, hated now what he had promised to do five years before.

  He moved to her side and dropped to his knees. His eyes followed the unremitting black of her gown to where it cut a severe line at her throat, casting a dark shadow over her pale cheeks. She whimpered in her sleep, her hand fisting for an instant, then easing again. Pins had worked themselves loose and her dark hair fell in thick waves over her forehead and across her shoulders, hair the blackness of his own. He saw that she didn’t have a cleft in her chin as he did. Her father hadn’t had a cleft either. He wondered if she had dimples. He had always hated his until he had seen her father’s dimples, rarely, of course, since he was a man who was usually in command, unsmiling. But when he did smile and laugh, those dimples dug deeply in his cheeks and it changed him utterly. The dimples humbled a man, made him more human, gave him a charming indulgence when he laughed.

  It seemed a pity to awaken her. Even as he gently shook her shoulder, he knew that when she opened her eyes and saw that he had awakened her, all thoughts of compassion he felt for her would flee in an instant of time. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she would say to him. It wouldn’t be conciliatory, that, at least, he knew.

  She awoke slowly, with another soft whimper, as if loath to quit a sleep that kept her from what was real, from what she would have to face. She opened her heavy black-fringed lids and looked straight into clear gray eyes. The dim light and her drowsiness clouded her sight as she gasped, “Father!”

  It needed but this, he thought. He cleared his throat and said slowly, very slowly, so as not to shock her more, “No, Arabella, it is not your father. It is I, Justin, come to fetch you back to the abbey. The light is very dim in here. Your mistake is natural. I am sorry to have frightened you.”

  Arabella flung out her arms, nearly unbalancing him, and scrambled to her feet. She stared down at him. “No one said you could come in here. You don’t belong here. I should have locked the vault against you. How dare you make me believe you were my father?” She felt fury at herself for showing him her pain. “You did not frighten me. You haven’t that power.”

  The earl rose slowly to his feet, looking for control, for patience. He looked searchingly down at her, and saw the furiously pounding pulse in the hollow of her throat. “We seem to meet in the most peculiar places. First the fishpond and now the
cemetery. Come, Arabella, it is chilly and dark in here. Let us return to the abbey. It is a long walk, but it is just as well, for I believe we have much to say to each other.” He sounded calm, bored, really, and wanting nothing more than to walk away from her, to never speak to her again, to never have to look upon her face again.

  “We have nothing to say to each other, Captain Deverill. Oh yes, my father wrote what a great military man you were. I imagine he provided you with a rank and position that suited your ambitions? I imagine that he protected you, saw to it that you advanced?”

  He wanted to smack her. Instead he said easily, “No, he didn’t, actually.”

  “Naturally I don’t believe you. Now, I suppose I have no choice but to see you at the dinner table.” She turned and walked away from him, out of the crypt, into the early evening. It was very nearly dark.

  “Arabella—”

  She didn’t even turn to face him, just said over her shoulder, with complete indifference, “I am not Arabella to you. I don’t wish you to address me, thus you have no need of a name for me.”

  “I assure you that I am right this moment considering many names for you. However, in the name of conciliation, I will call you cousin if you like. We can work that out later. For now, you will act like a lady. You will walk beside me. You will converse with me. Don’t push me on this.”

  He waited a moment, but she remained quiet. She wasn’t looking at him, but rather down at her slipper, whose ribbon had become untied. She went down on her knees and retied the ribbon. Her hands weren’t steady. It took her too long to do it. When she rose, she still didn’t look at him. She turned to walk away.

  As he had done in the library, he grabbed her arm to stop her. “I don’t wish to tear your other sleeve. Listen to me now. I am willing to make allowances for your behavior because of your bereavement, but stupid childishness, this churlish conduct, I will not tolerate.”

  Unconsciously she moved her hand to the rent sleeve and rubbed her arm. She had acted the fool, but no more, because, quite simply, it gained her nothing. He released her.

  “Yes,” she said finally, “it is chilly here. I will walk with you, Captain Deverill. It seems I have no choice. Say what you will say. Speak of the weather. Speak of the atrocities on the Peninsula. Speak of whatever pleases you to speak of. I really don’t care. None of it makes any difference.”

  “I will say only that everything I do will eventually make a very big difference to you, cousin.”

  6

  Her hands were fists at her sides.

  He said only, “Don’t.”

  Her breathing was fast and jerky, but her hands smoothed out at her sides. Then he simply kept pace with her, out of the vault, pulling the doors closed behind them. They walked in silence through the cemetery until they gained the yew-lined path. Arabella looked at his strong profile, still distinct in the fading light. She didn’t mean to speak to him but she couldn’t seem to hold the words back. “You knew of this arrangement, did you not? Even this morning, you knew.”

  “Yes, of course I knew. The earl approached me some years ago. I must say that he was very thorough in his examination of my character and prospects. I believe he even interviewed my mistresses, my friends, and my enemies as well. He left no stone unturned to strip me down to the bone.”

  “And if my father had not died, he would have presented you to me as my future husband?”

  “Yes.” He stopped a moment and looked down at her. “Your father always spoke of you in such glowing terms, I expected a veritable sweet-voiced angel to greet me. I expected to feel exalted in your presence, to be overwhelmed in the warmth of your spirit. I expected my soul to glow in your brightness. He told me you were smarter than most men, that you could figure and calculate more quickly than he could, that he had taught you chess and you had bested him within two years. He told me you were as brave as he had found out that I was. In short, he told me that we would suit each other perfectly.

  “However, after meeting you, cousin, I now understand what I didn’t understand before. He only wanted me to meet you at the very last minute, so to speak, when we were of marriageable age. He had an excellent point. He knew you very well.”

  “Marriageable age,” she said, looking straight ahead, saying the words slowly, thoughtfully. Then she looked up at him. “I would not marry you if you were the last toad on earth.”

  “I suppose a toad is better than a bastard,” he said, and sighed. All of this was absurd and not at all to the point. She was staring at him now more in dawning shock. “Marriageable age is what my father wrote in his letter to me. I think it a strange coincidence, sir, that you use the very same words.”

  “Not so strange. Your father and I spoke of you often. I did not read your letter. Your father wrote it to you only, not to anyone else. Surely you must realize that your father and I discussed the matter at great length.”

  “You are saying then, that you would be willing to follow my father’s instructions?”

  “You aren’t stupid, cousin—

  “I am not your bloody cousin, don’t call me that.”

  “What shall I call you then?”

  “I will call you sir. You may call me ma’am.”

  “Very well, ma’am. As I was saying, you aren’t particularly stupid. You must see that marriage with you would be to my great advantage. I have money, don’t mistake me on that. Don’t take me for a fortune hunter. Rest assured, if your father had scented anything of the villain in me, he would have kicked me as far away from you as possible. No, I have money, but not nearly enough to maintain Evesham Abbey and now that I am the Earl of Strafford, it is my responsibility. It is my duty not to let this pile of stone fall into rubble on my watch. Wedding you saves Evesham Abbey and, I daresay, it also saves you. Did you not carefully attend to the details of your father’s will?”

  “You mean that you wish to wed me for the wealth I would bring to you?” Her voice was flat, deadened. He didn’t hear the wistful catch.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders and nodded. “It is certainly a powerful motive, and not one to dismiss out of hand. But of course, you would gain also by such an alliance.” He saw her hands fisted at her sides again and it angered him. He was being honest with her, just as her father had been. Very well, he wouldn’t go gently with her. She didn’t deserve it.

  “If you don’t wed me, ma’am, I’m afraid that you will find yourself quite penniless. As I imagine that the term ‘penniless’ has little or no meaning to you, let me tell you quite frankly that in spite of all the young lady’s accomplishments I am certain you possess, you would not survive in our proud and just land for more than a sennight.” He paused and looked down at her with cool appraisal. “Though with your looks and figure—once you are not so thin—and with some luck thrown in, you could perhaps become a rich man’s mistress.”

  She laughed, actually laughed at him. “You and your man’s observations. They are paltry. But I suppose you have nothing else. You know, sir, I didn’t like you when I saw you sleeping near the fishpond. I liked you even less when you grabbed my arm in the library and ripped my gown. At this precise moment in time, I think if I had a knife I would stick it between your ribs. My father was mistaken in you. You’re a bastard in every way that it counts. You sicken me. Go to hell.”

  A cynical note entered his level voice. “You disappoint me, ma’am. Your language was much more colorful this morning. Though you may heartily dislike me, though I may sicken you, though you wish me to go to hell, I speak the truth. If you do not wed me, you will leave Evesham Abbey in two months’ time. If you believe I will allow you to remain as a poor relation, you are mistaken. I will personally boot you out. After all, you have not given me a single reason to let you remain on my property. And it is my property, ma’am. As of this morning, as of the reading of your father’s will. I am master here and you are nothing at all.”

  Arabella suddenly felt quite sick. Her stomach was tied into knots, and bile rose
in her throat. Her well-ordered, quite satisfactory world as the favored daughter of the Earl of Strafford had crumbled, like the old abbey ruins. He was right about one thing—she had nothing left, nothing at all. He was the master and she was nothing. She fell to her knees in the soft grass lining the drive and retched. Since she had eaten very little during the day, the spasms were dry heaves, making her quake and shudder.

  The earl drew up in astonishment, looked within himself, and saw a good deal lacking. He cursed himself in far more descriptive language than had ever made its way into Arabella’s vocabulary. He had mistakenly read her disdainful bravado as vain, prideful arrogance. Her father’s death, his own unexpected entry into her life, the terms of the earl’s will—all had been a great shock to her. He had blundered, he had ridden her too hard. God, but she was young and wretchedly confused. She had to feel betrayed by the one person on earth she loved and trusted the most—her father.

  He steadied her, closing his long fingers protectively about her heaving shoulders. He gently pulled black masses of hair that hung loosely about her face. She seemed unaware of him. When she stopped retching, he drew a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and handed it silently to her. She clutched it in her hand, and without looking up, wiped her mouth.

  “Arabella—”

  “Ma’am.”

  He had to smile. “Ma’am, then. Can you rise if I assist you? It is nearly dark now and your mother will be quite worried. I promised her that I would bring you back to her unscathed. You are only a bit scathed.”

  How calmly he speaks, as if we had stopped to admire the daffodils. Unscathed? She felt scathed from the inside out. Come on, Arabella, stand up. See how dark it becomes; he cannot see the shame etched in your eyes. He can see nothing that is really you, nothing.