Vintage Love (197 page)
Sir Edward Blake was stretched out on his back, his eyes staring and a bloody froth coming from one corner of his mouth as he uttered weird gurgling sounds.
Mary averted her eyes from him and staggered on to where Dr. Dexter and the others were kneeling by Jeffrey. As she joined them the old doctor stood up and faced her sadly.
“He’s dead, Lady Carter,” the old man said, “The bullet went through his heart!”
She broke into uncontrollable sobbing and Grant took her in his arms and led her across the open field to the carriage. Madame Goubert, still stunned, came slowly behind them.
Hector Waddington made the arrangements for Jeffrey’s burial. Mary sat in the drawing room of the house in Brattle Court in a state of shock. Peg quietly ministered to her and kept telling her she must not blame herself for Jeffrey’s death. But she did.
Grant Curtis called on her late in the afternoon. He told her, “Edward Blake is still alive but they do not think he’ll live through the night.”
She gave him a frightened look. She could not speak.
“His back is broken. He made a fatal mistake in striking Madame Goubert.”
“If he dies what will they do to her?” she worried.
“Nothing,” Grant said. “He brought it on himself by striking what he presumed to be a harmless old woman! His arrogance finished him in the end.”
“Too late,” she sighed.
“I know,” Grant said soberly. “You loved Jeffrey Hunt.”
“Yes,” she said with resignation. “I loved him. And yet I somehow knew it was never to be.”
The faithful Grant said, “If there is anything I can do, let me know.”
She raised her eyes to him. “I will. Thank you. You have been a staunch friend.”
The Waddingtons did not want her to appear at the theatre that night. Peg worried, “You will collapse before the play is over. I’m certain of it!”
“No,” Mary said. “I will do my part. It is what Jeffrey would expect of me.”
And she did perform that night, though she fainted after the final curtain call. In the morning Hector brought her the news that Sir Edward Blake had died in the night.
“It will be Sir Howard Blake now,” the old actor said.
When all Jeffrey Hunt’s bills were paid there were only a few pounds left. Mary donated the money to charity. No one but Mary and the Waddingtons would ever know that he had been the highwayman known as the Crimson Mask.
There was an investigation into Sir Edward Blake’s death but even the most hostile witnesses, his seconds, were forced to admit that he had viciously struck the strong woman and so infuriated her that she had retaliated without realizing the consequences of her strength. The court absolved her of blame while giving her a solemn warning to keep her unusual powers in check in the future.
Sir Howard Blake left for the Continent on an extended tour directly after his brother’s burial. Mary continued at the Maiden Lane with the Waddingtons and her popularity grew even greater.
It was on an afternoon in February as she was going upstairs to rest before the evening’s performance when Madame Goubert came into the living room to tell her, “A gentleman to see you, your Ladyship.”
She stood up. “I was just going to have my rest. Can he come back another time?”
“I’m afraid not!” It was Sir Howard Blake who said this. He had followed the stout Madame Goubert in and now he stood gazing at Mary with a smile. “I’ve come many miles to see you and I will not be put off.”
Mary returned his smile. Madame Goubert looked searchingly at them both, then ambled out of the room like a large female bear.
Howard, looking healthier and more handsome than she’d ever seen him, came to her and took her hands in his. He said, “I’ve been in Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Berlin. But in none of those places have I seen anyone as lovely as you!”
She smiled. “You have picked up the Continental style of flattery!”
The young man shook his head. “I cannot and do not wish to live without you.”
Mary said, “At last I can tell you there’s no need to!” She moved into his arms and their lips met.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 1977 by Clarissa Ross
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7429-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7429-0
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7428-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7428-3
Cover art © istock.com/Miroslaw Oslizlo
Clarissa Ross
Avon, Massachusetts
For Doctor William Baxter, friend and physician.
CHAPTER 1
It was a day in June of 1835. The blustering sailorman, King William the Fourth, occupied the throne of England. Even though he was coarse and rowdy, and often in his cups by noonday, he was far more popular than the Georges who had preceeded him.
Late this afternoon two girls scampered across the fields to a hovel on the banks of the river Wey, about a mile from the estate of Canby Hall. Joy Canby and her friend Nancy Gray had ventured out in their long, frilled dresses with ruffled sleeves, not knowing a thunder storm was on the way. But by the time they reached the witch’s hovel the sky had darkened as though it were night.
They hesitated before the ancient shack where the old woman of Gypsy blood made a good living selling healing lotions, and offering love potions, and magic amulets. But her chief source of revenue was fortunetelling! The one gleaming item in the decrepit hovel was a crystal ball, carefully wrapped in black velvet, which she stared into intently and told her customer’s future for a few pence.
Nancy, the daughter of Sir Ronald Gray, showed fear on her freckled face as a sudden wind ruffled her auburn hair. She asked Joy, “Do you think the witch is bringing on this storm? Dare we go inside?”
Joy, a precocious fifteen year old, showed derision on her lovely, heart-shaped face. She brushed back a lock of her flaxen hair, and with her blue eyes full of reproach, she told Nancy, “We’ve not come all this distance to turn back! It’s just a silly old storm!”
“It’s almost as dark as night!” Nancy protested nervously. “And it’s suddenly so silent!”
“That’s the way thunder storms come,” Joy said. “We’d best knock on the door and see if she’s home. We don’t want to be caught out here when the downpour begins.”
Nancy shivered. “I’m frightened!”
“Of the Gypsy?”
“They say she talks with ghosts! That she can evoke the Devil right in her hut!”
“Then he can’t be fussy where he goes,” Joy replied in disgust. “I should expect the Devil to fancy some fine estate, like that of my father’s.”
Nancy held onto Joy’s arm. “What are you going to ask?”
“About our future! Who we’ll marry!” Joy said with a show of worldly wisdom. “That’s most important for a girl!”
A flash of lightning, followed by a loud roll of thunder, made Nancy cry out, “Let’s go inside quickly and get it over with!”
“You’re a fraidy-cat,” Joy reproved her young friend. But she was secretly afraid as she tentatively knocked on the hovel’s door.
There was a shuffling sound from inside, and the door was opened by a bent, withered crone. She peered out peevishly. “Go away!” she snapped.
“We have come to have our fortunes told,” Joy said.
The lightning flashed, and the old Gypsy smiled and revealed toothless gums. “You’ve come at a bad time. The Devil is riding the sky. I want to enjoy the show!”
Joy said, “We will pay you well.”
“Will you?” The old woman showed more interest.
“Yes,” Joy said and went on brazenly, “If you don’t tell our fortunes now we won’t be back. There is a woman on the Portsmouth Road who reads palms and we’ll go to her!”
“She’s a fake!” the old Gypsy shrilled.
“I have heard different,” Joy said in the same bold manner, belying her innocent appearance. “I have a golden sovereign given me on my thirteenth birthday. If you read our fortunes it shall be yours!”
“A golden sovereign!” the old Gypsy said with delight. “Come in, children! I will not turn you away! No indeed!”
The storm outside broke in full fury as she led them into the dark, fetid hovel and seated them at a rough, small table in the middle of the room. She vanished for a moment in a dark corner, and Joy and Nancy exchanged apprehensive glances. Then the old woman returned, and stood across from them at the table. She lifted the dark, velvet cloth to reveal her shimmering crystal globe. “There it is my dearies! The magic crystal!”
A flash of blue lightning crossed the brown, wrinkled face of the old Gypsy. Thunder rumbled as she sat with the crystal cupped in her claw-like hands. She faced the two awed girls.
“Now, my dears, the sovereign!” The ancient one said and held out her thin, dirty hand.
Joy hesitated. “I’ll pay afterwards,” she decided, fearful that the old woman might take the money and send them packing.
The claw-like hand remained open. “No sovereign and there’ll be no fortune!”
Joy gave Nancy a worried look and fumbled in the pocket of her dress for the sovereign. The Gypsy snatched the gold piece, and hid it in the folds of her tattered dress.
“Tell us who we’ll marry,” Joy said.
The rheumy eyes of the old woman showed a gleam of humor. “Whom you’ll marry, is it? I’d think it a deal more important to know who you’ll love!”
“One always loves the man one marries,” Nancy said with an air of adult experience which ill-fitted her.
“Indeed!” The Gypsy said with derision. “I wouldn’t vouch for that!” And giving Joy a sharp look, she said, “You are old Sir Richard’s girl?”
“He is not old!” Joy said defiantly though she knew her father did have white hair.
“Three score if he’s a day,” the Gypsy scoffed. “And your mother, the Lady Susan, is still less than forty! Sold to the old man as a child bride! It was a scandal!”
Joy said angrily, “They are happy! We are a good family! And if you have naught to say but wicked things about my parents I’ll have my sovereign back.”
The old woman cackled with delight as the thunder, lightning, and rain continued. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll tell you two a few things about your futures. You’d do well to remember what I say. Years from now you’ll recall old Peg predicted it!”
Joy said, “Then please begin!”
“You are used to ordering about the lackies at Canby Hall, my pretty Miss,” the woman said with sarcasm.
“I’m used to being treated politely,” Joy replied.
The woman rubbed the end of her thin nose and studied the crystal. She said, “The fires glow deep within the glass and I see many things. You, young Canby, will love fully and marry often!”
“Are you sure?” Joy said excitedly.
The old woman cackled. “All too soon you’ll know the meaning of lust! And, like your mother, you will marry when you are seventeen!”
Joy gasped and glanced at Nancy, who had gone pale. Joy said, “That means I’ll be married in two years?”
“And loved before that,” the old Gypsy said.
“By whom? My husband?”
“Let that be a surprise,” the old woman said. “The facts about your marriages suffice. I see that you will have three husbands and one great love!”
Joy’s mouth gaped. “Three husbands!”
“And a great love,” old Peg repeated.
Joy was shocked. “It can’t be true. I intend to fall in love and marry and look at no other man until I die!”
Nancy spoke up impatiently, “What of me?”
The thunder and lightning had passed and now it was only raining heavily. The Gypsy studied the crystal again, and told the auburn-haired Nancy, “I see a marriage that is bad and ends in disaster. But then there is a marriage which will turn out well!”