Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) (3 page)

The gentlemen began to call upon his lordship. The ladies waited in breathless anticipation for him to return the calls. After all, as Mrs. Trevellas commented to Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Finley-Evans, one could get little satisfaction from one’s menfolk. All
they
had come back from Dunbarton with was word that his lordship had indeed fought at Waterloo and that he had seen the Duke of Wellington with his own eyes. As if
that
could be considered interesting news, though it was said that his grace was a fine figure of a man.

“Nothing,” she concluded, having worked herself into a passion of indignation, “about how his lordship
looks
. Or about how he
dresses
. Mr. Trevellas, if you please, could not even remember what his lordship wore even though he conversed with him for all of half an hour.”

The other ladies shook their heads in sympathetic disbelief.

When the gentlemen were not discussing what each of them had learned about the earl’s war experiences and the ladies were not wondering if he was as handsome now as he had been as a boy, all of them were speculating on what Christmas might have in store for them by way of entertainment. With the old earl there had always been the tradition of the Christmas ball at Dunbarton.

“And with the earl before him,” Miss Pitt added. She was one of the few among them who could remember the present earl’s grandfather. “He was a handsome man too,” she added with a sigh.

“And perhaps there will be some Christmas entertainment at Penwith, too, this year,” Mrs. Meeson said when she took tea with Mrs. Trevellas, “with Sir Edwin Baillie expected daily.”

Sir Edwin Baillie had slipped down on the roster of exciting events anticipated in Tawmouth, though he had headed the list before the earl’s sudden appearance. But his arrival at Penwith was still eagerly anticipated and speculation was rife on the purpose of his visit at this particular time of year. Would he offer for dear Miss Hayes? And would Miss Hayes accept if he did? They had all been deeply shocked when she had refused Mr. Deverall four years before. But then, everyone knew that Miss Hayes had a mind of her own and could sometimes be just a little too independent for her own good.

Some of the ladies turned to Mrs. Harriet Lincoln for her opinion since she was a particular friend of Miss Hayes. But Mrs. Lincoln would say only that if Sir Edwin did indeed make an offer and if Moira Hayes accepted it, then doubtless they would all hear about it soon enough.

There was another question that consumed the curiosity of everyone. What would happen between Penwith and Dunbarton when Sir Edwin Baillie arrived? Would the feud continue for yet another generation?

All these topics of conversation had to be avoided, of course, whenever Lady Hayes or Moira Hayes was part of the company. Then the weather and everyone’s health were discussed in long-familiar detail.

“Poor Miss Hayes,” Miss Pitt commented on one occasion when that young lady was not present. “And Lady Hayes too, I
daresay. If the feud is to continue, they will not be able to attend the Christmas ball at Dunbarton. If there is a ball, of course.”

“There will certainly be a ball,” Mrs. Finley-Evans said firmly. “The Reverend Finley-Evans has agreed to speak to his lordship about it.”

“Poor Miss Hayes,” Miss Pitt said.

*   *   *

SIR
Edwin Baillie came alone to Penwith Manor one week and one day after the Earl of Haverford returned to Dunbarton Hall. Sir Edwin took tea with Lady Hayes and Moira in the sitting room before retiring to the master suite—Lady Hayes had vacated it in deference to the new master—to supervise the unpacking of his bags. He never allowed anyone, even his valet, to perform the task without him, he explained. But apart from that brief explanation, he spent the half hour of tea apologizing to Lady Hayes for the absence of his mother, who of course would have accompanied him on such an important occasion—he inclined his head in Moira’s direction—had it not been for the fact that she was suffering from a slight winter chill. It was not a severe attack, Lady Hayes would be relieved to know, but as a precautionary measure he had insisted that she remain at home. Thirty miles of travel might well have been permanently injurious to the delicate health of a lady.

Lady Hayes assured him that he had made a wise decision and had shown admirable devotion as a son. She would write the next morning to inquire after Cousin Gertrude’s health. She trusted that the Misses Baillie were all in good health?

The Misses Baillie were indeed, it seemed, though Annabelle,
the youngest, had suffered from earache a mere few weeks earlier after going out in the carriage on a particularly windy day. They would all be waiting anxiously for word that their brother had arrived safely at Penwith Manor. All had advised him against traveling such a distance during December, but such had been his eagerness to bring about a happy settlement of his affairs—another bow in Moira’s direction—that he had taken the risk of traversing winter roads. His mother, of course, had understood and had urged him not to stay at home merely on account of her health. If he was a devoted son—a bow to Lady Hayes—then he had merely learned from a devoted mother.

Moira watched him and listened to him without participating to any active degree in the conversation, but then, an occasional word or smile of encouragement was all Sir Edwin needed to keep the conversation in happy progress. At least, Moira thought, she would have a husband for whom family was a high priority. She might have done worse.

During dinner Sir Edwin announced his intention of remaining at Penwith Manor until after Christmas, although it would be a severe disappointment to both himself on the one hand and his mother and sisters on the other to be separated for the holiday. But it was time he became more familiar with the property he had inherited on Sir Basil Hayes’s demise, if Lady Hayes and Miss Hayes would excuse such plain speaking—a separate bow to each—and called upon his neighbors so that they might become acquainted with the new baronet of Penwith. And of course he would delight in the opportunity of giving his company during the Christmas celebrations to his two relatives—yet another bow—one of whom
he hoped would have formed a closer relationship to him by the morrow. He smiled almost coquettishly at Moira.

In the drawing room after dinner, Sir Edwin asked Moira to play the pianoforte for her dear mama’s entertainment and his own. He loved nothing better, it seemed, than listening to a recital on the pianoforte performed by a lady of taste and refinement. After Moira had started to play, he raised his voice and explained to Lady Hayes that all three of his sisters were accomplished on the pianoforte, though Cecily’s talents lay more in her voice, whose sweetness she had inherited from their mother. Miss Hayes’s performance was commendable though it might be found, if put to the test, that Christobel’s touch was lighter. Nevertheless, Lady Hayes must be proud of her daughter.

Yes, Lady Hayes was.

And he, too, Sir Edwin assured her, leaning toward her and inclining his head in an elegant half bow, would be proud of Miss Hayes when he had a right to be proud and not merely delighted by her display of musical talent. By then, of course—he smiled conspiratorially—she would no longer be Miss Hayes but would have been elevated to a superior rank.

Sir Edwin retired to bed at a respectable hour, having bowed over the ladies’ hands and assured them that the following day was surely to be the most important day—and perhaps the happiest—of his life.

It would be the most important day of hers too, Moira thought after she had retired and throughout a largely sleepless night. She doubted it would be the happiest. She did not want to marry Sir Edwin. He was even more pompous and dull and fussy than she
remembered. When she had met him the first time, of course, she had not been looking at him as a prospective husband. She feared that living with him for the rest of a lifetime would be a severe trial. And his mother, she recalled, was in many ways similar to him. But sometimes in life, one’s choices were cut to almost none at all. If she had only herself to consider, perhaps there would still be some choice. But there was Mama to think about and so there was no point in thinking in terms of choices. She fixed her mind on her future children.

She ate breakfast the next morning with a determinedly calm and cheerful aspect. She really had no viable alternative than to accept the offer that was about to be made, she told herself yet again. She and her mother had no independent means. At the age of six-and-twenty she had no other matrimonial prospects. It would be thoroughly irresponsible, both for her mother’s sake and her own, to refuse Sir Edwin Baillie. And his faults, though many, were at least not vices. She could be faced with having to accept a gambler or a drinker or a womanizer or all three. Sir Edwin was without a doubt thoroughly respectable.

And so, when he presented himself to her, after a great deal of pomp and ceremony and bowing and smirking, in the morning room when morning was almost over, she quietly accepted the marriage offer, which he was sure would not surprise her but which he was consoled into believing would gratify her. She allowed her newly betrothed to pronounce himself the happiest of men and to kiss her hand, though he apologized profusely for allowing happiness to drive him to such levity.

The wedding, he informed Lady Hayes and Moira over
luncheon, although personal inclination would urge him to have it solemnized tomorrow or even—he smiled at his own playfulness, surely excusable in a newly successful lover—today, would take place later in the spring, when his mother’s health could be expected to be more robust and when the weather would be more clement for the long, thirty-mile journey she and his sisters would be required to make. In the meanwhile he would do himself the honor of remaining at Penwith Manor until Christmas was over and would then return home in order to see that his affairs were in order prior to the permanent move to Penwith to claim his bride.

Moira breathed a silent sigh of relief. She would have a few more months in which to prepare herself for the new life that was to be hers. Her mother touched her hand on the table and smiled at her. Sir Edwin expressed his pleasure at this sign of happiness in his future mother-in-law for the good fortune of her daughter. Moira knew that her mother understood, and that she realized as well as her daughter did that the sacrifice must be made. Though it was unfair to think of her approaching marriage in terms of sacrifice. It would be no worse than the vast majority of marriages that were solemnized every single day, and it would be considerably better than many.

S
IR
Edwin introduced another topic of conversation before luncheon was over, one that animated him even more than that of his own wedding. In questioning the butler about the neighbors of sufficiently elevated rank that they merited a call from him during his stay at Penwith Manor, he had discovered an extraordinary fact. Doubtless Lady Hayes and Miss Hayes were already aware of it, since apparently it had occurred all of a week earlier. The Earl of Haverford had returned to Dunbarton Hall to take up his residence there.

“Yes, Cousin Edwin,” Lady Hayes assured him, “we have heard. But—”

But Sir Edwin scarcely paused for breath. He smiled at the ladies. “It is a conceivable truth that less generous, more petty-minded gentlemen than myself might resent the fact that I no
longer outrank everyone else in the neighborhood, ma’am,” he said, “but I must pronounce myself deeply gratified to be given this chance to claim the Earl of Haverford as a neighbor. And as an acquaintance, of course. Was his lordship not a war hero? A major in one of the finer regiments? One can only assume that he would have reached the rank of general had the wars continued for a year or so longer. I must regret even more deeply than I did yesterday that ill health prevented my dear mother from accompanying me here. But she will be happy for my sake, and for yours, ma’am. And yours, Miss Hayes. She has a generous heart.”

“But Cousin Edwin—” Lady Hayes tried again.

Moira knew it was hopeless. It had been a wretched week. Not a word had been spoken at Penwith about the Earl of Haverford after her first abrupt announcement of his return when she had come back from her walk that day. Not a word had been spoken about him during any of the visits they had paid any of their neighbors during the week or during any of the visits paid them. And yet she—and surely her mother too—had been fully aware that conversation when they were not present must center about nothing else. Dunbarton had been without its master for seven years, after all. It was almost a relief to hear Sir Edwin finally speak openly on the forbidden topic.

“I intend to leave my card at Dunbarton today, before I call upon anyone else,” Sir Edwin said. “It is, of course, a fitting courtesy that I wait first upon the Earl of Haverford. It would be quite unexceptionable of his lordship to receive my card and refuse my admittance today, but I must congratulate myself on the hope, ma’am, that he will receive in person the baronet of
Penwith. His lordship, after all, will be happy to discover that there is someone of such elevated rank nearby with whom he might consort on terms of near equality. He has perhaps been informed that only ladies still reside at Penwith, though of course even one of those ladies bears a title.” He bowed his head to Lady Hayes. “And the other will do so within the next few months.” He smiled at Moira. “What an extraordinary coincidence it is that has brought both of us into Cornwall at the same time. I will call today, this afternoon. Miss Hayes, will you do me the honor of accompanying me?”

Moira had been accepting his plans with resignation, even with some approval. Doubtless it would be best if there were some civility between the two men, who would, after all, be quite close neighbors. But she took instant alarm at the suggestion that she be personally involved in that civility. She looked at her mother, who was sitting straight backed and unsmiling on her chair.

“We do not visit at Dunbarton, sir,” Moira said. “There have never been any social dealings between our two families.”

“Indeed, Miss Hayes?” Sir Edwin said. “You amaze me. Is his lordship quite so high in the instep, then? One does not expect it of the aristocracy, especially when one is oneself of superior rank, but it is perhaps understandable. I shall demonstrate my worthiness to be an acquaintance of the Earl of Haverford. I shall apprise him of the fact that my mother was a Grafton of Hugglesbury. The Graftons, as you surely are aware, have the purest of bloodlines, ma’am,” he assured Lady Hayes, “and can trace themselves back to a brave knight who fought at the elbow of William the Conqueror himself.”

“There was an unfortunate incident several generations back,” Moira explained. “My great-grandfather and the present earl’s great-grandfather were both involved in smuggling, which flourished on the coast here at that time.”

“Dear me,” Sir Edwin said, looking genuinely shocked. Moira wondered with an unexpected flash of amusement if he had never sipped wine that had come into the country via the back door, so to speak, without the customary duty having been paid on it. She wondered if his mother and his sisters had never drunk tea that had arrived in their teapot by similar shady and circuitous routes. But even if they had, and even if he knew it, he doubtless would not consider that he had been involved in any way with smuggling. Most people did not.

“The Earl of Haverford acted more in the way of a sponsor and purchaser of smuggled goods than in an active capacity,” Moira continued, “while my ancestor was the leader of the smugglers. He went out at night with his face blackened, I daresay, and a pistol in his belt—and a cutlass between his teeth.” She avoided her mother’s reproachful glance.

“I had not realized that there was such a blemish on the Hayes’s baronetcy,” Sir Edwin said, clearly distressed. “Smugglers? Pistols and cutlasses? I beg you never to disclose these facts to my mother, Miss Hayes. They would send her into a decline and perhaps even bring on fatal heart palpitations.”

“When the coast guard caught my great-grandfather,” Moira said, “and dragged him before the nearest magistrate—the Earl of Haverford—the earl sentenced him to seven years in transportation. He was carried off to the hulks.”

Sir Edwin sighed with noticeable relief. “It is bad, but it might have been worse,” he said. “If you had had a hanging in your family past, Miss Hayes . . .” He shuddered.

Moira felt unaccountably amused—and vindicated. Sir Edwin had made no reference to the dreadful hypocrisy of the Earl of Haverford. “He returned after the seven years,” Moira said, “doubtless coarsened and hardened by his experiences. He lived for twenty more years as a visible embarrassment to his neighbor. There has been an estrangement between the two families ever since.” Almost but not quite total. It would have been better if it had remained total.

“It is ever the way,” Sir Edwin said, “for wrongdoers to resent those who in all justice reprove and chastise them. It distresses me that ladies of delicacy and refinement”—he bowed first to Lady Hayes and then to Moira—“should have been left alone to suffer the consequences of such villainy. But that time is past. I am here now to both protect and rescue you. Although I will never besmirch my mother’s ears with this story of villainy, I feel confident in asserting that if she knew, she would advise me to the course of action that I shall take. I shall call upon the Earl of Haverford this afternoon, as planned, and I shall apologize most sincerely for my forebear’s actions and for his neglecting to humble himself and his family before the present earl’s forebear by taking himself away and living out his life in quiet obscurity.”

Moira was feeling a strange mingling of embarrassment, outrage, humor—and anxiety.

“My dear Cousin Edwin,” Lady Hayes said faintly, one hand over her mouth.

But Sir Edwin raised a staying hand. “You need not thank me, ma’am,” he said. “As the present baronet of Penwith Manor, I have inherited not only a title and property, but also responsibility for the actions of all the baronets who have gone before me. And for the protection of their womenfolk.” He bowed to Lady Hayes. “I shall attempt to effect a reconciliation in this matter, ma’am, and I feel confident that his lordship will honor me for my humility and for my assumption of all the blame for what happened long ago.”

Moira stared at him in silent incredulity. There was no longer anything funny about this. What would the Earl of Haverford
think
of them? And she despised herself for caring.

“Contrary to general belief,” Sir Edwin continued, “pride need not be lost in humility. I shall lose no pride in making my apologies to his lordship. You must not fear it, ladies. You will accompany me, Miss Hayes.”

“I beg you will excuse me, sir,” she said hastily. “It would perhaps be more proper for you to call alone since the Earl of Haverford is himself alone at Dunbarton.”

“It is said,” Lady Hayes added, “that the countess, his mother, is also coming to Dunbarton with other houseguests for Christmas, but I have not heard of their having arrived yet, sir.” It was surprising what one heard in a country neighborhood even when everyone was careful to avoid certain topics in one’s hearing. “He is undoubtedly alone at Dunbarton. Moira was to accompany me to tea in Tawmouth this afternoon.”

But Sir Edwin was not to be deterred. “It will be entirely proper for Miss Hayes to accompany me,” he said, “as my newly
betrothed. It will be seen as a superior mark of courtesy in me to present you first in that capacity, Miss Hayes, to his lordship since he is, beyond any doubt, the social leader of this community. And it is entirely appropriate that you be present for the reconciliation of your family with his lordship’s. You will be able to lift your head high, Miss Hayes, after having had to keep it bowed in shame throughout your life. It would appear that some good angel has brought me here at this particular time. I can only conclude that my mother has aided and abetted that angel by insisting that I travel here rather than stay home to comfort her through the trial of her slight chill.”

Lady Hayes said no more. She only glanced at her daughter with a helpless, half-apologetic look. Her mother, Moira remembered, had once been a vocal advocate of ending a feud that had begun so long ago. She had come from Ireland to marry Moira’s father and had expected that she would live a full and happy social life. She had not enjoyed finding that she must avoid all entertainments that were to include the Countess of Haverford and her family. But that had been before the feud had been updated, of course. Perhaps, Moira thought belatedly, she should have mentioned those facts to Sir Edwin too. Undoubtedly she should have.

But she said nothing more. She did not argue further. Sir Edwin Baillie, Moira suspected uneasily, was a man with whom it was going to be difficult—perhaps impossible—to argue, merely because he heard only what he wished to hear and made assumptions to which he held fast as unassailable truths. It seemed that she was to make an afternoon call with him at Dunbarton. She dreaded to think of what awaited them there. She could only
hope, she supposed, that the Earl of Haverford would be from home or that he would refuse to receive them.

But Sir Edwin Baillie, she thought, was not a man to be put off easily once he had set his mind upon a certain course of action. If the visit was not successfully made today, then it would be made tomorrow or the next day. On the whole, it would be better to get it over with today so that perhaps she could sleep tonight, having known the worst humiliation of her life. Surely it would be the worst.

She had not set eyes on the Earl of Haverford for over a week. She had hoped that she might never do so again. But it was a forlorn hope, of course. She had the uneasy suspicion that he had returned to Dunbarton to stay, and it appeared that Sir Edwin Baillie intended to make his permanent home at Penwith. Even if the families remained estranged, she and Kenneth were bound to meet again.

She wished he had not come back. She even found herself wishing for one rash moment that it were he, and not Sean, who . . . but no. She shook off the horrifying thought. No, she could never wish such a thing even in exchange for Sean’s life. She never could, no matter who he was or what he had done—or what further embarrassment he was now unwittingly to cause her. She remembered how through the years she had waited for every scrap of news that had filtered through to Dunbarton—how she had waited with dread, how she had despised herself for both the waiting and the dread. She remembered how she had felt when news had come six years ago that the severity of wounds sustained in Portugal had sent him back to England—but not to Dunbarton. Surely a soldier was sent back to England only when he was
permanently maimed or not expected to survive, she had thought. She had waited in agony for more news, all the time telling herself that really she did not care at all.

She remembered the letter that had come from the War Office about Sean. Oh, no, she could never wish what she had just almost wished. Never.

She just wished he had not come back. And that Sir Edwin Baillie had not come to Penwith. She wished she could simply return to the rather dull spinster’s life she had been living until a few weeks before.

*   *   *

KENNETH
had just returned from a few hours spent with his steward riding about some of the outlying farms of his estate. He was changing from slightly muddy clothes—the previous two days had been wet—and was just starting to warm up when his valet answered a knock on his dressing room door. Two visitors were awaiting his lordship in the downstairs salon.

His lordship sighed inwardly. In the nine days since his return to Dunbarton it seemed that he had done little else but visit and be visited. It had been pleasant to become reacquainted with old friends and neighbors, to meet a few new neighbors, but sometimes he wished he could have more time to himself. The situation could only worsen during the coming week as his mother and sister and his other houseguests began to arrive. Still, he looked forward to having the house full, to learning the new role of host.