Chapter Eight
Dinner at the castle followed the same pattern as the previous evening, except that Dawn felt rather more at ease. Since she had not seen the earl all day, she was elated when, almost as soon as he entered the drawing room, he sank onto the sofa beside her.
“How did your lessons go?” he inquired, the smile in his eyes inviting her to share the jest. “Was your teacher strict?”
“Why, no, Mrs. Benedict was most kind and accommodating,” Dawn replied. She had rehearsed the phrase, on the chance that he would ask her, but she couldn’t help searching his eyes for signs of lingering affection for his sisters’ governess.
But unexpectedly, his smile died. “Am I forcing this on you? Am I doing you any kind of disservice?”
“Why do you say that?” she asked with a frown.
“I don’t know. It just struck me…I don’t want you to change, to lose your spontaneity, your natural charm, in all the petty rules that govern our society.”
She stared at him, trying to gauge his seriousness. “Is that a double-edged complement? I make a charming gypsy, but a dull and stilted lady?”
At least the smile sprang back into his eyes. “My dear, you could never be dull if you tried. I wanted you to be comfortable in society, not to break your spirit.”
She blinked. “You really believe one morning with Mrs. Benedict could do that?”
“Of course not! I suppose I am having second thoughts—not about discovering your identity and making sure you have all you are entitled to. Or even rubbing Julius’s face in it. But I don’t think I like playing god.”
“You’re an earl,” she pointed out, “the head of a family and several large households, a landowner with countless tenants. Even without your parliamentary doings, you play god all the time.”
His eyebrows flew up.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m told you do it rather well. I shall try to be yet another success for you.”
His sudden tension relaxed. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Of course, I am.”
He laughed. “I deserved it.”
She liked the way the smile lingered in his eyes even after his mouth had straightened.
He said, “I went to Whalen today. Your nephew was being christened again.”
She regarded him a little more warily. “I told you. Did you speak to them?”
“To your sister who misses you and threatened me with dire retribution if I treated you badly.”
“Did she?” Dawn asked, trying not to sound wistful. Her relationship with Aurora was an odd one.
“And she says they are travelling south next if you wish to join them. To the lake, though she didn’t specify which.”
Dawn nodded, looking away. She was having fun here, in a strange yet fascinating kind of way. She didn’t want to miss her family. Or think of them struggling without her.
“I also spoke to Ezra. He’s going to look for Abe.”
“He won’t find him. I really don’t think you’ll ever prove that I’m Eleanor Gardyn.”
“Perhaps not.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about her strange memory in the schoolroom, but she hesitated, unwilling to mislead or to build hope where there should be none. And then Serena commanded that they go in to dinner, and the moment was lost.
*
After dinner, when the ladies were in the drawing room, Dawn turned from her teasing conversation with the younger girls, and noticed Serena seated by the fire, gazing abstractly into the flames.
After a few moments, when she didn’t move, Dawn walked over to her. “Is everything well?” she asked, a little hesitantly.
Serena glanced up with a quick smile. “Why, yes, of course. Why do you ask?”
“You just seemed a little…distracted. Since this afternoon, actually.”
Serena shrugged. “I suppose it is the news about Gillie’s baby, and all the talk of it since.”
“You wish to have a baby of your own. But you have not been married very long, have you?”
“I know, and I am taking that into account. Only…” Serena broke off, waving one hand to dismiss the subject.
“Only what?” Dawn pursued.
“I can’t talk to an unmarried lady about this!”
Dawn smiled. “If it makes a difference, I helped deliver my sister’s babies. I’m not as sheltered from life as your girls appear to be.”
“Truly?” Serena gazed at her in awe, then glanced across the room to where her younger sisters were arguing. She lowered her voice. “How did your sister know?”
“Know what?” Dawn asked, bewildered.
“That she was enceinte, with child, increasing, whatever you wish to call it.”
Dawn’s eyes widened. “Do you believe you are?”
“I have missed my usual monthly course, but there has been so much going on here, with anxieties over Tamar’s sister and then the Christmas celebrations… I assumed it was just excitement knocking me off balance. Now I’m wondering. What else should I feel?”
“Sick in the mornings? Or at any time, really.”
“No, I feel delightfully well.”
“That, too, can be a sign. How late are your courses?”
“Three weeks,” Serena confessed. “But if I am enceinte, shouldn’t I feel it?”
“I think it takes everyone differently. You must just wait and see. Does Lord Tamar know?”
“No, I’ve said nothing to him. I didn’t want to raise his hopes if it wasn’t true. And then… I’m not sure how he would feel right now. There is so much to do at Tamar Abbey and we had so many plans…”
“I see no reason why your plans need to change, whether you are pregnant or not,” Dawn said bluntly. “Enjoy every day as it comes.”
Serena searched her face. “Is that what you do?”
“When I remember. Like everyone else, I’m better at giving advice than living by it.”
Serena smiled. “I can see why Gervaise likes you.”
“Does he?” Dawn asked. Blood seeped into her face and she looked away.
“Oh dear, is that how it is?” Serena said ruefully.
“How what is?” Dawn retorted with unnecessary aggression.
“Don’t bite my head off,” Serena said mildly. “Keep my secret and I’ll keep yours.”
“I don’t have any,” Dawn insisted.
“Don’t have any what?” Gervaise asked, making her jump as he arrived by the fire and stretched down his hands to warm them.
“Tea,” Serena said. “Ring the bell, Helen.”
*
Over the next few days, Dawn settled into her strange new life with surprising ease. She found she rather liked being “cuddled” by the bed and slept well every night. She followed the strict cleansing regimen set out for her by Serena, wore gloves at all times except when eating, and soon found her skin much softer and a little paler as it lost its weather-beaten look. Her speech began to form more naturally like the Braithwaites’ and she learned how a lady walked, sat, and curtseyed and how she greeted new acquaintances and old. Arrays of cutlery and glasses ceased to scare her. In all, she began to feel so comfortable that she might actually have been the Braithwaites’ cousin.
Then, on her fourth day at the castle, which was not a Haven Hall day, Serena informed her casually that they were going to the vicarage for dinner that evening.
“Not me, though,” Dawn said, hopefully.
“Not I,” Serena corrected, “but yes, you! You are specifically invited.”
“But why?” Dawn asked in dismay. “I’ve never met the vicar!”
“Because I asked Kate—Mrs. Grant, his wife—to invite you, too,” Serena replied. “It will be something of an experiment, for they are friends and know nothing about you. I want to see if they find anything…out of the ordinary about you.”
The idea of being inspected by the vicar and his wife appalled her. But she said only, “They would not tell you if they did.”
“They would if I ask. I mean to tell them the truth at the end of the evening.”
“Are you sure that is a good idea?” Dawn asked uneasily.
“Oh, yes.”
“Does Lord Braithwaite think so, too?”
“He will do what I tell him. The thing is, if you manage dinner at the vicarage, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t manage the assembly ball next week, when Julius Gardyn will probably be there.”
“Won’t your friends be angry with you—with all of us—for deceiving them?”
“Oh, no, they will understand. They are the kindest people you will ever meet…though it’s true I didn’t always think so of Kate,” she added ominously.
The proposed “treat” hung over Dawn like a dark cloud in an otherwise clear sky. She went for a brisk walk alone in the woods, although she knew solitary walks were frowned upon. When that didn’t make her feel better, she ran up and down the beach beneath the castle and paddled her feet in the freezing sea. Not for the first time, she wondered why she was putting herself through this. The Earl of Braithwaite would never notice her, never love her.
Love, she scoffed, marching back up the steep path to the castle. She hadn’t begun this for love, but for insistent attraction…and to teach her father a lesson. Neither motive was providing any satisfaction. But on the other hand, if her family passed by right now, begging her on their knees to return to them, she would not do it. Not yet. And so, she needed to stop making a fuss over tiny matters and set her mind to fooling the vicar and his wife.
She wondered what they were like. Her father, who had met the vicar to arrange the christening had told her nothing about him, and she hadn’t asked. She pictured them as middle aged, cold-eyed, thin-lipped, haughty and proud of their own superiority in doing the Lord’s work.
Since she still had time to spare before she would be expected to change for dinner, she wandered restlessly into the library, a large, imposing room with books filling the shelves from floor to ceiling. She found it a pleasant room to sit in, for the fire was always lit and you could sit in the window and watch the sea rushing against the rocks below. She had also taken to sitting there with a book, a different book each time and staring at the words as though she could thus force them to make sense to her.
But today, the room was already occupied. Lord Braithwaite sat at the largest desk, which had always been piled with books and papers and a scattering of pens and half-hidden ink stands. He was writing furiously, the pen flying across paper while his other hand reached for a book.
To avoid disturbing him, she would have crept out again immediately, but he glanced around and saw her. Instead of being annoyed, he smiled, one of those quick, spontaneous smiles that melted her heart.
“Dawn. Were you looking for me or for a book?”
“A book,” she said at once, crossing the room to the window seat where she had abandoned yesterday’s tome. “What are you working on?”
He wrinkled his nose and dropped the pen in its stand. “A speech. I know what I want to say, but it’s uphill work finding the right arguments to change stubborn minds.”
“Maybe you need to speak less from books and more from the heart.”
His eyes widened. “Maybe I do at that…”
She picked up the book from the window seat and sat with it open in her lap. She would have been happy to sit in silence and watch him work, but it seemed she had distracted him.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
She waved the book vaguely in his direction to show the gold-tooled spine.
“The Wealth of Nations,” he said, clearly startled. “I did not know such matters interested you. How far have you got?”
She swallowed. “Not far. To be honest, it doesn’t interest me greatly. I shall probably look for another.”
“Please do.”
“I don’t want to disturb you.”
“I think I need the distraction.”
“What is your speech about?” she asked. “When will you give it?”
“In the House, probably next month. As for what it is about, you may be sorry you asked!”
At first flattered that he was prepared to tell her, she quickly became absorbed in his arguments for reforming poor relief, education, health, and housing. But even more than his arguments, she found herself amazed by what he actually knew. For although he was a wealthy landowner, the wretchedness of certain of his tenants did not escape him. Nor did the plight of the poorly-paid workers in the towns, crammed into awful living conditions that threatened the health of everyone. For him, new wealth created new problems, for which he had either solutions or experimental suggestions. He had also gathered mountains of evidence from schemes on his own lands and from the work of a host of others in towns and estates all over the country.
This unsuspected passion moved and fascinated her. She asked occasional questions, but mostly, she listened, watching the expressions of hope, frustration, and determination flit across his face as he spoke.
And he had no need to involve himself in any of this. Without his causes, without even troubling to take his seat in the House of Lords, he was a respected and wealthy nobleman who could easily provide for his family. He had chosen to look beyond that. To Dawn, who had grown up in a small, isolated community, rejected by most of society and caring only for itself, his outlook was both novel and elating. Her world seemed to expand into something huge and wonderous, something she couldn’t help but be part of and help to improve…
“But I must be boring you rigid,” he said at last. “I’m sorry!”
“No, no, please don’t be,” she said earnestly.
He smiled at her. “Can I help you find something to read in return? What would you like? Something a little lighter than Adam Smith? Perhaps—”
“There’s no point,” she blurted, and she meant everything, including her sudden urge to help him help the world. “I cannot read.”
The words spilled out with relief as well as shame, but having said them, she bolted, heading straight for the door, where he caught her by the hand and swung her back to face him.
“Why did you not say?” he demanded. But he looked neither angry nor scornful. He did not even seem to pity her. “The matter is easily rectified after all.”
“It is?” she said stupidly.
“Of course.”
“I haven’t even told Mrs. Benedict. She keeps giving me a travel book to read…I think I can now recognize the shape of the words for river and mountain but beyond those, I have no idea what it says and I cannot tell her now.”
“Of course you can. She would understand. But if you prefer, I can teach you.”
She stared at him. “You would do that? But you are busy.”
“Go and change for dinner,” he advised, “and if there is time before the carriage is ready, come back here.”
She grinned at him, looking no doubt even more stupid than she was. With no further argument, she ran off to obey.
*
Gervaise watched her go, an answering smile lingering on his own lips. He was not quite sure why he had made the offer. He had plenty to do already, dealing with the estate and his plans for returning to London and Parliament. In fact, he should probably have gone already, except he had committed himself to finding the truth about Dawn and Eleanor Gardyn. He could not in good conscience abandon her to Serena and Tamar. Besides, he enjoyed her company rather too much. He liked looking at her when she wasn’t aware of him, when she laughed out loud or frowned with concentration, or ran bare foot on the beach as she had done this afternoon. He liked her grace, the delicate formation of her bones beneath the taut skin of her face. And if he was honest, which he always tried to be, he liked the way she looked at him. He liked that she had followed him here because she wanted him as her lover.
And to punish Ezra, he reminded himself, before he grew into too big a coxcomb.
If she proved to be Eleanor…
But he would not allow such thoughts, at least not awake when he could do something about them.
He pushed himself away from the desk and his involved speech—she was right, it needed less fact and more heart—and hurried upstairs to change his clothes. On his way back to the library, he visited the schoolroom where he had once been corralled with Frances and Serena before he’d been sent away to Eton. At the back of a cupboard, he found what he wanted, the illustrated primer from which he had first learned the alphabet.
He returned to the library and placed the book in the drawer of the smaller desk, where no one was likely to come across it by accident. It wasn’t truly surprising that she couldn’t read, and he hated that she was ashamed of it. Unconsciously, he and Serena and even Caroline Benedict had made it worse for her by just assuming that she could, just because she was an intelligent and articulate young woman. But who would have troubled to teach her and why? It was hardly necessary to the lifestyle she had known.
Dawn arrived only a few minutes after him, her breathing quickened by her speed. He tried not to watch the rise and fall of her breasts as she hurried toward him, though he did pass comment on her sea-green gown trimmed with ivory lace.
“You look delightful,” he said warmly. “Is that one of the new gowns you bought with Serena?”
“Yes, it is,” she replied, blushing adorably. “I’m glad you like it.”
Since he was afraid she might thank him, he hastily showed her the primer. They sat down together at the smaller desk, and he explained to her the pronunciation of the first few letters. “There are pictures there to help remind you of the sound each letter represents. Learn them and say them to yourself and practice copying them, too, on paper, like this…”
Obediently, she went through them, mouthing the letters and the sounds they made. She had begun to copy A and a onto paper when the sound of Serena calling upstairs for them made her drop the pen, spattering ink over the page.
“Never mind,” he said encouragingly. “Good start. Keep these things in the drawer and practice when you wish. Shall we make another assignation for the same time tomorrow?”
She smiled at him, and his heart seemed to turn over into his stomach. Her unique blend of gypsy siren and innocent young lady undid him.
He could tell she was nervous about going to the vicarage, her first public performance, as it were. She was uncharacteristically quiet in the carriage as they drove into Blackhaven, her shoulders taut as she gazed out of the window.
“You are managing all this extraordinarily well,” he murmured as he handed her down at the vicarage. “And if you slip up in any way, it doesn’t matter. The Grants are good friends. You’ll like them.”
She cast him a fleeting smile of more doubt than gratitude. But when Kate Grant hastened across the hall to welcome them, Dawn’s mouth almost fell open.
Kate had been having similar effects on people for years. Once known as Wicked Kate, living constantly on the verge of scandal and ruin, she had, several months ago, stunned the world yet again by marrying a country vicar only a few months after the death of her first husband.
She had always been a fun and engaging person, but Gervaise had never seen her so happy and natural. Even Serena, who had once been rather in awe of her, now treated her with the ease of old friendship. Although she was no one’s first idea of a typical vicar’s wife, she went out of her way to make “Miss Conway” welcome, and Dawn inevitably responded.
There may have been a slight setback when she discovered they were not the only guests, Miss Muir and young Bernard Muir being present, too.
“They have come to celebrate Gillie and Wickenden’s happy event with us,” Kate said gaily.
Dawn smiled politely, but Gervaise saw Dawn’s shoulders rise, felt the tension emanating from her. He wanted to take her hand and reassure her, but there was no way to do so with discretion.
However, Miss Muir was too kind to intimidate anyone, and Bernard immediately appointed himself Dawn’s cavalier for the evening. His admiration was instant and obvious, and Gervaise found himself quite irritated by the younger man’s attentions to her.
“Are you no longer Miss Smith’s favored suitor?” Serena teased him, fortunately before Gervaise said something more cutting and less becoming.
Bernard sighed. “They have taken her to Manchester, and there is some plan to move on to London thereafter. I was never favored by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you know. They really want a title.”
“We could dangle Braithwaite in front of them,” Kate said outrageously. “Just to bring her back into your orbit, of course.”
Bernard grinned. “Lord, no, he’d cut me out without even trying.”
Whatever the depths of Bernard’s pain at this parting from the object of his affections, he was of a naturally sunny disposition and seemed very easily consoled by Dawn’s charm.
“Is Miss Smith the town beauty?” Dawn asked, her light tone and accent perfect.
“She is extraordinarily pretty,” Kate replied, “but she doesn’t reside in Blackhaven. Her father has businesses—cotton mills or some such—in Keswick, but he has discovered that Blackhaven is generally full of titled people.”
“Says he wants her happiness,” Bernard put in wrathfully, “but how is shackling her to a fortune hunting nobleman going to make her happy?”
“We’re all agreed they are awful, encroaching people,” Miss Muir said dismissively.
Dawn turned her head, such a stricken look in her eyes that Gervaise said “They want an aristocratic connection for their own status, not their daughter’s happiness.”
He didn’t know if it was enough to convince that her that she would not be regarded as encroaching when the truth came out. At best, she must be only too aware of the snobbery surrounding her. Born into an ancient, aristocratic family, Gervaise had never dealt with anyone looking down on him for his birth.
“How does that make them different?” Dawn asked. She kept her refined accent although her voice had grown a little hard. Everyone looked at her with varying degrees of unease. She did not look at Gervaise. “Are not aristocratic marriages made largely for the convenience of the parents who arrange them?”
Serena raised her eyebrows. “Like Tamar and me?” she said dangerously.
“Of course, many are,” Grant intervened. “And those can be equally damaging. Speaking as the man who performs most of the marriages in Blackhaven, I know when the bride and groom have made the choice freely, whatever their motivation, and when they have not.”
“But you perform the marriage anyway,” Dawn accused.
“How can I not, if neither party will speak up? I am not allowed to refuse on the grounds of my own unsubstantiated doubts. And if I did, what on earth would be the consequences for those concerned?”
Dawn gave a quick apologetic smile. “Forgive me. I do not mean to accuse you. Or any present,” she added with a glance at Serena.
“Here in Blackhaven,” Grant said, “we are gaining a reputation for unconventional choices in the marriage mart. So, take care.”
Everyone laughed, and Gervaise felt rather proud of Dawn who had made her point, held her own, and come out of it with grace. Kate then declared it time for dinner and took Gervaise’s arm to lead the way.
Despite being recently reminded of his love, Bernard showed every sign of rapidly transferring his affections to Dawn, in whom he seemed to take great delight. Smoothing his scowl, Gervaise wondered if this was how fathers felt when men made up to their daughters. Not that he felt remotely fatherly.
He turned to Miss Muir at his side. “Tell me, ma’am, do you remember the disappearance of the Gardyn child?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Muir, who was deaf in one ear. When he repeated the question more clearly, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, of course I do.” She laid down her fork. “Such a terrible tragedy. And they never found her, you know, alive or dead.”
“Were there not gypsies in the area at the time?” Gervaise asked casually.
“There were no camps,” Miss Muir replied, “though a few people in the countryside did report seeing a gypsy passing through a couple of days before. Of course, it was the time of the Appleby horse fair, so lots of the Romany people would have been travelling there. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just curiosity. The subject came up at Haven Hall. You know, Julius Gardyn wants to terminate the Benedicts’ lease.”
“A pity, they seem such good people. Not that I object to Mr. Gardyn being there, of course! How could I?”
“Indeed. But if she is alive, Eleanor is the heir, not Julius. I have been thinking about all the ways she could be alive. I might go and talk to Winslow, actually. Was he not the magistrate at the time?”
“Only just appointed,” Miss Muir said. “People said he was too young, but there, he has acquitted himself quite admirably, has he not?” She picked up her fork again. “Apart from failing to find the poor Gardyn child, of course.”
“I was only about ten years old when it happened,” Gervaise said. “And I don’t remember a great deal of detail. Do you remember what they said Eleanor was wearing when she vanished from the garden?”
“An embroidered dress,” Miss Muir said at once. “Brightly colored daisies on white cambric.”
“Is that important?” Dawn asked from across the table which was not, strictly speaking, acceptable. But since the Grants’ dinner parties were more cozy than formal, no one would think the less of her.
“It might be,” Gervaise said. “If we could find it.”
Grant was gazing at Dawn, his expression thoughtful, but Tamar changed the subject, asking if anyone had heard aught of Lord and Lady Daxton since October.
Only once the ladies had repaired to the drawing room, and Bernard had excused himself for a moment, did Grant say, “Very well, my lord, who is she, really?”
“Who?” Gervaise asked innocently.
“Your protegee. She’s no more your cousin than I am.”
Gervaise sipped his brandy. “I’m fairly sure the Conways are connected by marriage to both your family and hers. Somewhere.”
“I ask again, who is she?” Grant said steadily.
“I don’t know,” Gervaise admitted. “She believes she is the daughter of a gypsy. I believe she is Eleanor Gardyn.”
Grant frowned. “Not the gypsies who camped up at Braithwaite while I christened their child?”
Gervaise nodded.
“I presume you have more evidence than the color of her hair?”
“It isn’t just the hair. She could be Theresa Gardyn’s twin. And the timing of the disappearance fits with her life. I’m making inquiries.”
Grant pushed the decanter toward Tamar and sat back. “Why? To spite Julius Gardyn?”
“In the beginning,” Gervaise admitted. “Childishly, I wanted to give him a fright, shake up his damnable complacency. Only the more I looked, the more I believed that she is Eleanor. But as you say, I don’t know. This could all be flimflam on their part or simple idiocy on mine. So, until I know, I would appreciate your discretion.”
“Of course. But you know Julius is on his way here? He’s bringing his mother to take the waters while he negotiates with the Benedicts to vacate the hall.”
Gervase raised his glass in a salute. “So long as it isn’t my mother, he may bring whom he likes.”
Bernard returned at that point, and conversation turned to other matters, such as Gervaise’s return to London and Lord Castlereagh’s sudden journey to Berne to consult with Britain’s allies in the war with Bonaparte. Gervaise and Tamar refrained from looking at each other during the latter, since Tamar had recently had a letter from his sister, Anna, who seemed also to be on her way to Berne. Just before Christmas, she had apparently eloped from Blackhaven with one Sir Lytton Lewis, whoever he might have been, although Tamar merely gave out that his sister was travelling again. Considering Europe was currently full of armies maneuvering to finish off the French emperor, Tamar seemed remarkably casual about the whole business.
They rejoined the ladies before too much longer. Dawn did not turn her head as Gervaise entered the drawing room but carried on her conversation with Miss Muir. And yet he was sure her shoulders relaxed subtly, as though she were simply more comfortable in his presence than out of it. He couldn’t help hoping he was the cause, rather than Bernard Muir. Which was ridiculous.
*
“Kate didn’t guess!” Serena crowed on their way back to the castle. “I’d say that went splendidly. Well done, Cousin!”
A faint smile flickered across Dawn’s lips. “Did Mr. Grant guess?”
“He guessed that you weren’t our cousin,” Gervaise admitted, “but not that you came from the gypsy camp. They both know now and will keep our confidence. But I suggest we tell no one else until the mystery is solved.”
Dawn sat back in the corner of the carriage, as though hiding. “I wish you would not waste your time on this, my lord. I will give your Mr. Gardyn the fright he deserves and then I’ll go south to find my family.”
“If that is what you wish,” Gervaise said at once. He would not keep her against her will, and yet the idea of her going appalled him.