The Nightingale Legacy (42 page)

She felt Caroline’s pulse and heaved a sigh of relief. It
was strong and steady. She gently began to feel Caroline’s head, unceremoniously pulling off her riding hat and smoothing out her thick hair. She’d struck her head on a very small rock, just behind her right ear. The Duchess felt her arms, her legs, nothing broken. All she could do now was wait. She pulled off her own gold velvet riding jacket and tucked it around Caroline’s chest and neck. She sat beside her to block the breeze coming from the sea.

Caroline moaned, opened her eyes, saw the Duchess looking down at her, and said, “I’m all right. I just feel stupid, letting Reggie throw me so easily. Oh goodness, my head does hurt, only not as bad as it did when Mr. Ffalkes struck me.”

“Just lie still for a while longer. You struck your head and I want to make certain you’re not going to fall unconscious again.”

“What was it, Duchess? A rabbit hole? How could I have been so careless? I hope Reggie is all right.”

“You hold still and I’ll go look. Reggie seems to be just fine. Hold still now, Caroline.”

When the Duchess came back to her some minutes later, she was pale and there was anger and something else in those beautiful calm eyes of hers. “It wasn’t a rabbit hole.”

North blinked when he saw his wife riding bareback in front of the Duchess, the sidesaddle gone, the Duchess’s hands securely around Caroline, holding her steady. Reggie was trailing behind them.

Oh God. He was racing to them, yelling as he ran, “ Marcus, get out here now!”

His heart didn’t cease its frantic pounding until Caroline was lying on a puce brocade settee in the drawing room, a pale blue knitted blanket pulled over her.

“Tell me again you have no pain in your belly.”

“No, North, just in my head.”

“All right. Tregeagle has gone to fetch Dr. Treath. He’ll be here very soon now. Here, drink this tea Polgrain made for you. Alice, I swear to you she’s all right. Please don’t worry. You sit down and drink a cup of tea yourself. Duchess, please see that Alice sits down and drinks.”

Dr. Treath and Bess Treath arrived just as the clock was painfully grinding out its four afternoon strokes, sounding like a king with an awful sore throat bellowing at his subjects.

Dr. Treath smiled at her even as she knew he was studying her, then pulled over a chair and sat down. “Now, let me see this lump on your head.” His fingers were gentle, probing very lightly, feeling the outline of the bump that was rising. Then he sat back and just looked at her.

“Hold still now,” he said, slipped his hands beneath the cover and her clothes. Caroline tensed up, she couldn’t help it. North took her hand and held it.

“Do you need anything, Benjie?” Bess Treath said.

He didn’t immediately answer.

“Benjie?”

“What? Oh no, Bess. She’s all right.” He smiled down at Caroline. “I do want you to rest, no strenuous exercise. If you have any bleeding, any cramping at all, you send for me. Tregeagle thought it was a rabbit hole?”

“Yes,” the Duchess said.

When at last the Treaths had left, and Alice was finally convinced Caroline wasn’t going to die and had retired to her room to nap, the Duchess cleared her throat and said, “Please close the door, Marcus.”

He cocked his head at her, but did as she asked.

“What is it, Duchess?” North said.

It was Caroline who answered. “It wasn’t a rabbit hole like we’d first thought.”

“No,” the Duchess continued. “It was a wire stretched taut between an oak tree and the stone fence. It’s narrow in that stretch. I didn’t want to tell anyone, best keep it amongst ourselves for now.”

“She rides that way most every day,” North said, and felt pain and fury knot his guts.

“Which means,” the earl said, “that the wire was meant for her, no one else. But you were with her, Duchess. How did you miss that wire?”

“Caroline was riding a bit in front of me there, since it is so narrow. When she went over I immediately pulled up my horse. I tripped over the wire when I was running to her, though, and landed flat on my nose.”

“Then,” the earl said slowly, “both of you could have been hurt. Damnation, North, I don’t like this at all.”

North was remembering when both the earl and the Duchess had been shot, the fear, the utter rage he’d felt, that he’d seen in Marcus’s eyes. He shook his head. He remembered telling Marcus that he had to stay calm, rage wouldn’t help his wife. He wondered if Marcus would tell him the same thing now. He drew a deep breath.

“I have spent four months now with death and mystery and tragedy sitting on my right shoulder, never far from my thoughts or my mind. I hadn’t been home two weeks before I found Caroline’s aunt, dead on that ledge beneath St. Agnes Head. I couldn’t find out who’d killed her. Then that poor woman, Nora Pelforth, and I’ve been unsuccessful there as well. Then Coombe disappears and there’s the bloody knife in his room. All of it is madness. It must be aimed at me, it must. I simply can’t figure out who’s doing it and why. I can’t figure out who would hate me so much.”

Caroline said, even as she lifted herself onto her elbows, “You’re forgetting about Elizabeth Godolphin, who was
killed three years ago, North. You weren’t here then. No, you’re wrong about this.”

North cursed rather fluently, then said abruptly, “Then it must be revenge against my father or my grandfather. Marcus, I want you and the Duchess to leave. The thought that the Duchess could have been hurt again curdles my blood. Yes, I want you gone tomorrow.”

“No,” the Duchess said slowly, “I don’t think so, North.”

Tregeagle cleared his throat from the doorway. “My lord.”

“Yes, dammit, what is it, Tregeagle?”

“It’s the Young Person, Alice, my lord. She informs Miss Mary Patricia, who rightfully informs me since I wouldn’t allow her to come in here and disturb you, that Alice believes her time has arrived.”

“Oh no,” Caroline said, struggling to get to her feet. “The babe is too early. He was getting really big, but it’s too early. Oh no, North.”

It was the Duchess who remembered that Owen should be fetched immediately. Caroline sent Timmy the maid to Scrilady Hall.

It was soon clear that it wouldn’t be an easy labor. Dr. Treath and Bess Treath rarely left Alice’s side even when Alice fell into a stupor, so weak even the contractions couldn’t break through her exhaustion.

Owen paced outside the bedchamber like an expectant father, pale and drawn.

A pall fell over the house during the second day. Caroline, who’d flinched whenever she’d heard Alice cry out, now flinched because she couldn’t hear a thing. Alice was too weak and getting weaker.

North found her in the east wing on the top floor in the storage room where she’d found all the Nightingale
women’s portraits. She was furiously cleaning the frames, afraid to touch the canvas, but the frames were shining.

He gently squeezed her shoulder. She stopped her frantic activity, looking up at him.

“I’m sorry, Caroline.”

“She’s dead?”

“No, not yet, but Dr. Treath sees no hope for her now. She birthed the baby, a little boy. He’s not as small as Dr. Treath had thought he would be. Indeed, he was simply too big for Alice to birth him.”

“Then how did she manage to birth him?”

“Dr. Treath pulled him out of her, there was no other choice, otherwise both of them would die. Do you want to make your good-byes?”

She closed her eyes, saying with such hopelessness that he wanted to howl with it, “Those men who raped her. They killed a young girl … just killed her and went on their drunken way. Dear God, I hope they rot in hell.”

Alice opened her eyes a few moments after Caroline sat down beside her. Caroline smiled down at her, saying, “You have a fine little boy, Alice. What do you want to name him?”

“He’s Owen,” Alice whispered, her voice hoarse and raw. Suddenly, with surprising strength, Alice clutched Caroline’s wrist, pulling her close. “Take care of him, Miss Caroline. Please.”

“Of course I will,” Caroline said as she wiped Alice’s forehead with a damp cloth. “And so will you. You will rest and get well again, Alice.”

“No, Miss Caroline, I won’t and you know it. Would you tell my son about me? That I loved him and I didn’t want to leave him, but—” She stopped and gave Caroline a heart-wrenching smile.

“Your son will never forget you, Alice, I swear it. You
must see Owen now, he’s right here, just waiting to kiss you. What do you think about that?”

“Oh no, don’t let him see me like this, Miss Caroline. Make him go away. Oh, I never told him, but he was so nice to me, so nice. There was no time for us ever to be more than what we were, but he was so nice to me. No man was ever so nice to me as Owen was.”

“Then you should tell him right now. He cares mightily for you. He rarely left you, Alice—in fact, he’s here right now, here to see you. Would you like a drink of warm milk that Polgrain just fetched here for you?”

“Alice?” Owen eased himself down beside her. “Come, love, you’re going to drink the warm milk, all right?”

There was a very soft whisper that sounded like “
love.
”

Then there was nothing. Alice’s head was turned slightly away from Caroline and Owen. Her eyes were closed.

“It’s over,” Dr. Treath said, and gently moved Caroline and Owen out of the way.

“No!” Owen just stood there by the bed, staring down at Alice, shaking his head back and forth. “No,” he said again, “no, she’s so sweet, so innocent, God, it isn’t fair… isn’t fair.”

Caroline said, “Owen, come and kiss her good-bye. Let her go.” But even as she said the words, she felt something deep inside her turn cold and hard, then just as quickly she felt herself crumbling inward, sinking down into darkness that she welcomed, oh yes, she wanted that darkness and its deep shadows that hid the pain from her, that hid Alice’s young face, so calm in death, so very sweet, without life.

Caroline had never worn black in her life and she had no intention of doing it now. “Alice wasn’t quite fifteen years old. I will not honor her young life with black. I will wear
white, white as pure and innocent as she was.” And Mrs. Mayhew simply nodded.

All the women from Mount Hawke wore white. When the vicar arrived with Mrs. Plumberry—uninvited—he looked from Caroline to Miss Mary Patricia, then at the rest of them, and said, “This is not right. Even though Alice was not worthy to continue her life of sin, still our black trappings are God’s idea, meant to honor Him, to show Him our respect, more than the one deceased.”

Caroline just stared at him for a very long moment.

“I suppose these others”—he jerked his head toward Evelyn and Miss Mary Patricia—“talked you into it, didn’t they? No piety, those two, just cheap little sluts with no sense of what is right and proper, and they’ve fooled you, my lady, and made you forget—”

Caroline drew back her fist and sent it right into Mr. Plumberry’s jaw. He dropped like a stone. Caroline stood there rubbing her knuckles.

His wife howled, dropped to her knees, and shrieked up at Caroline, “How dare you! You don’t deserve that my fine Plumberry lowered himself to come here for that little trollop’s—”

Caroline was shivering with anger, not with cold. She called out, “Tregeagle, Polgrain, do come here and assist the Plumberrys from Mount Hawke land.”

“Don’t you dare touch me!” Mrs. Plumberry yelled. “You miserable—” She was shrieking now constantly, but it was better than the horrible words that had spewed out of her mouth.

Caroline called out, “North, thank you for carrying Mr. Plumberry into his coach. Could you please dump him on the floor?”

North did just that, indeed he dumped him on his wife’s feet. Mrs. Plumberry leaned out the window, screaming,
“All of you will pay for this! Horrid sinners! Look at all of you—just standing there, doing nothing! All of you impious females, wearing white like heathens. My Horace will send all of you to everlasting Hell, you will see!”

Bishop Horton from Truro, who thankfully arrived after the Plumberrys’ coach had rolled down the hill, read the words over Alice’s grave that Caroline and Owen had written together. His voice was deep and rich, reaching even to Mr. Dumbarton’s smallest child, who stood at the very edge of the Nightingale cemetery, unwilling to come closer.

“Alice would like that,” Owen said. “The bishop of Truro here, for her. I always wished my voice was deeper and richer, just like the bishop’s.”

The morning was cloudy, windy, the air cold and damp, a perfect day for misery, Caroline thought, standing close to North, her arm through his. Her knuckles hurt, which was wonderful. There were nearly fifty people at Alice’s funeral. Alice would have liked that too, Caroline thought. Alice probably would have flushed scarlet with embarrassment, lost her nearly excellent English grammar, and said, “Lawks, Miss Caroline, would ye jest look at all the toffs? And jest plain ordinary folk too. It pleases me, Miss Caroline, it surely does.”

Caroline didn’t feel the tears slipping down her face until she tasted the salt and felt North’s gloved finger wiping her cheek.

I
T TOOK
C
AROLINE
a good three days to realize she was being followed. She was visiting the seamstress in Goonbell, fetching small blankets and wrappers for the babes, when she made her move.

She quickly slipped into an alley between two buildings and waited. Sure enough, not two minutes later, she saw the long shadow of her follower. Her heart pounded. She pulled the pistol from her pocket and waited. She was ready. No more fear, damn the wretched person.

It was Timmy the maid and he nearly dropped to his knees with fright when she grabbed his arm, whirled him around, and stuck the pistol in his face and shouted, “What are you doing? Why are—”

She stared down at the boy, whose mouth was unbecomingly open, eyes terrified. “Timmy, whatever are you doing following me?”

“Er, my lady, ye done scar’t the stuffing out o’ me. Could ye move the popper from me puss?”

“What? Oh yes, I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“Aye, and wit’ me own popper, leastways it were mine until after ye took it back from me.”