Lord Somerton’s Heir Read online

  She crouched down beside him, instinctively straightening the blanket and the ruined jacket. ‘I know this is a shock. I meant to break it to you when you were in a better state to receive the news.’

  Sebastian Alder laid a grimy hand on her arm. ‘Do whatever you want with me, Lady Somerton. I am yours to command.’

  She managed what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘I promise you the full story when you are stronger. For now we must get you away from this place.’

  ‘What about me?’ Bennet protested.

  ‘Bennet comes too.’ Alder’s fingers closed on her sleeve, his voice now so weak she had to bend to hear him. ‘He’s been my batman for fifteen years now. I’m not leaving him.’

  ‘Of course.’ Isabel glanced at the little corporal. ‘Bennet comes too.’

  She smiled at the new Lord Somerton and put her hand over his, gently laying it back on his chest. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep or unconscious. Rising to her feet, she beckoned Bragge and the coachmen who had pushed past the curtains, one carrying a stretcher. She prayed they were not too late. Even the most innocuous of wounds could kill if not treated properly.

  Chapter 2

  Through the fever and the pain, Sebastian found himself once again on a dusty road in Portugal. Above him, distant black shapes circled in the colourless sky. Sebastian caught his breath, knowing only too well what those ominous birds portended. Somewhere, ahead of them, death had passed this way.

  Beside him, his friend, Major Harry Dempster, put out his hand to catch his reins. ‘Alder…no!’

  But Sebastian put his heels to his horse and charged ahead of the patrol. He heard the thundering of hooves behind him as Dempster raced to catch him, but it was too late.

  His horse shied at the sight of the first body lying sprawled in the roadway, the uniform of Colonel Aradeiras barely visible beneath the film of dust. This man had almost escaped but they had caught him, a French sabre nearly decapitating his head in one clean slice.

  Dempster was once more by his side but Sebastian barely registered his presence.

  ‘Go back, Captain Alder,’ his senior officer ordered.

  Numbly, Sebastian shook his head. He now knew what lay around the bend in the road, why the carrion birds circled above their heads.

  Her father had sent a message to say she had left Lisbon with an armed party of his own handpicked men as escort. In his lodgings his landlady had prepared his bedchamber with flowers and clean linen, excited at the prospect of the senhora’s arrival.

  The wedding and their few precious days together had been a lifetime ago. To the man, Colonel Aradeiras’ escort lay dead in the dusty road around the broken carriage, no match for the rifles and sabres of the French raiding party.

  The coach lay on its side, the horses dead in the traces. His heart skipped a beat and the breath stopped in his throat. Where were the women? Where were Inez and her maid, the elderly and patient Maria?

  Sebastian flung himself off his horse, running blindly towards the broken coach. Beyond it he stopped on the side of the road, looking down an incline into a grove of olive trees at the terrible sight the French had left for him.

  Neither woman had been spared, even Maria who must have been touching seventy. They lay sprawled on their backs, their clothing rent from their bodies, the blood…the blood. Sebastian started down the incline, only to find himself pulled back. He fought the restraining hands of Harry and Sergeant Pike.

  ‘She’s dead, Alder. There’s nothing you can do for her,’ Harry was saying.

  But the blood roared in Sebastian’s ears and he could see only a red haze before his eyes. Inez, he had to get to Inez. He had promised to protect her with the last breath in his body but he had failed her, failed her in the worst possible way a man — a husband — could. He had not been there when the French had attacked. He had not fought off the ravaging wolves that had used his wife’s body for their own pleasure before bayoneting her. An animal howl of pure despair tore from his throat and he went down on his knees, still in Pike’s grip.

  The world faded and turned black and he was falling, falling, falling into that black morass of despair from which he knew he would never recover.

  ***

  Isabel awoke with a start at the sound of crashing china. She rose from her bed, lit the night candle and, pulling a loose robe over her nightdress, stepped out into the corridor. She came across Bennet at the head of the stairs, cleaning up a broken bowl that had, from the liquid that now spilled across the dark, polished wood, contained water.

  He looked up at her, dark, sunken circles under his eyes. Even though she had employed a nurse, the man had borne the brunt of the nursing and had not left his captain’s side for the last three days.

  She put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Enough, Bennet. Finish cleaning up the mess and then go and get some sleep. You’re exhausted. I’ll wake the nurse.’

  Bennet rose to his feet. ‘She’s useless, beggin’ your pardon, me lady, and the Cap’n can’t be left alone. The fever’s got a right hold of him.’

  ‘Then I’ll sit with him a little while and if I need help I will wake you both.’

  Exhaustion turned to horror. ‘Oh no, my lady, that would hardly be proper.’

  ‘Pish to propriety. No one need know except you and me. You’ve done a sterling job but you are no good to anyone let alone your captain in your current state.’

  When Bennet continued to look doubtful, she drew herself up and said in a firm tone, ‘I insist. Good night, Bennet.’

  She turned on her heel and walked into the room that had been her husband’s bedchamber. She paused, taking a moment to accustom herself not only to the odour of the sickroom but to the fact that it was not Anthony whose long frame occupied the finely carved bed. Isabel set the candlestick on a table near the bed and approached the bed.

  Sebastian Alder’s dramatic arrival at Somerton House had been met with remarkable calm by the servants, who seemed to take it for granted that when one Lord Somerton died, another took his place. Although they were not generally carried in through the front door on a stretcher.

  The doctor she had engaged had told her that Sebastian had taken a musket ball just beneath his right ribs. The ball had passed through and, while it appeared to have missed anything major, the wound had become infected and the lack of proper care and attention in the days since the battle had contributed to a nasty mess and a wound fever.

  Isabel knew from reports from Bennet and gossip from her own maid, Lucy, that Sebastian had barely been lucid since his arrival and it frustrated her that propriety forbade her interference.

  ‘Pish to propriety,’ she repeated to herself, looking down at the man who lay sprawled in the large bed, one of Anthony’s night shirts open at the neck and twisted around his chest, a testimony to his restless state.

  She bent over the bed. Even though Anthony’s nightshirt had been made with plenty of room, it seemed too tight across the shoulders of this man. She attempted to untangle the garment but Sebastian pulled away from her, muttering incoherently.

  She walked over to the shuttered window, throwing it wide. The cool night air rushed into the room and she paused for a moment, her hands still on the casement, letting the breeze tumble her hair before turning back to the room. The fire flickered in the draught and she bent over it, scattering the logs with the poker. The room would be cool within a short time.

  Returning to the bed, Isabel pulled back the heavy blankets, leaving only a sheet covering the feverish man. The material clung to his body, revealing a broad chest tapering to narrow hips, with strong horseman’s thighs. She swallowed. The only man with whom she had such an intimate acquaintance had been her husband and those were memories she pushed away.

  To distract herself she looked around and saw a bowl of water with a cloth sitting on the nightstand. Isabel wet the cloth and folded it into a pad, laying it across the man’s burning forehead and then his wrists. She k
ept this up until he calmed and settled into a fitful sleep.

  Isabel pulled up a chair and set herself to watch. Sebastian Alder’s right hand lay outside the covers, palm up, the fingers curled. Something in the vulnerability of the gesture touched her and she reached out and laid her hand on his. Her little hand seemed lost against his and she picked it up, seeing even in the candlelight the grime of the battlefield still ingrained around his fingernails, and the calluses and scars of his years of soldiering. She thought of Anthony’s soft, white, immaculately manicured fingers and shivered.

  His fingers tightened on hers and he turned his face to her, his eyes wide and dark in the light of the candlelight. He mumbled something and she leaned in close to hear him.

  ‘Inez. Você precisa voltar para mim,’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with fever.

  Beyond the name Inez, she understood nothing and wondered if he spoke in Portuguese or Spanish. He began to speak rapidly in the same foreign language, his fingers tightening on hers with urgency, his eyes beseeching her for an answer she could not give.

  In the end she ventured the one Spanish word she did know. ‘Si, Sebastian,’ she said, adding in English, ‘I am here.’

  His eyes closed, the grip on her hand relaxed and he slept at last.

  ***

  For a long moment Sebastian thought that, if he opened his eyes, he would find himself back in the fetid ward of the hospital with no beautiful ladies spinning strange stories. The feel of the fine linen beneath his fingers and the soft bolsters beneath his head made the dream a reality.

  He screwed his eyes tighter. He didn’t want reality. In the dark of his fever, Inez had come to him, her long hair falling around her shoulders like dark satin, and her brown eyes full of love. He had begged her to come back to him and she had replied in English ‘I am here’. But he knew it had been a dream. Inez lay buried in the brown earth of her native Portugal, her death forever on his conscience.

  He opened his eyes and found himself looking up at an embroidered bed hanging. He picked out a myriad of brightly coloured flowers jostling together in a heavenly cluster above him. When he turned his head he saw an elegant tallboy standing against richly patterned wallpaper beside a heavy, mahogany door. Perhaps he had died and this was heaven.

  The sound of familiar whistling from outside the door caused a smile to catch at the corners of his mouth. No. Heaven would never admit Corporal Bennet.

  ‘Oh, so you’re awake?’ Bennet entered the room carrying a tray. ‘Doctors said now the fever’s broken you’d be hungry, so I took the liberty of bringing up some broth for you.’

  He whipped the cloth from a steaming bowl. The scent of chicken broth rose into the air. Sebastian’s stomach growled in anticipation and he tried to pull himself up in bed, realising that his efforts were as pathetic as those of a newborn lamb.

  Without fuss, Bennet was there to assist. A custard of some nondescript appearance and taste followed the broth.

  Invalid pap.

  He told Bennet next time he wanted real food.

  Bennet just clicked his tongue. ‘Doctor’s orders, Cap’n,’ he said. ‘We nearly lost you and it’s goin’ to take some time to build up your strength again.’

  ‘It will if you keep feeding me that swill,’ Sebastian observed. He looked around the room, noting the expensive furniture and thick rugs on the floor. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re at Somerton House in Hanover Square and very grand it is too. I’ve counted twenty bedrooms.’

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Some strange woman with a tale about me being Lord Somerton?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. Seems like she’s right too. You is Lord Somerton.’

  Sebastian lay back on his pillows and looked up at the bed hangings again.

  ‘I cannot possibly be Lord Somerton. I’ve never even heard of Lord Somerton.’

  Bennet shrugged. ‘Well, her ladyship’s got the proof. So you’d better start getting used to it…m’lord.’

  Bennet swept him a deep bow and, had he been stronger, Sebastian would have thrown a pillow at him. As it was, he could do nothing except suggest in strident terms that Bennet leave him in peace.

  A few minutes later, the door opened again. Sebastian gathered his strength to snarl at Bennet but subsided when he saw his visitor was a woman — a woman who looked vaguely familiar.

  ‘Good morning, my lord,’ she said.

  He managed a smile. ‘Good morning, madam. You will forgive me not standing but I fear I would fall over.’

  ‘As you undoubtedly would. You have been very ill, Captain Alder…my lord…but it seems you are now on the mend and as soon as your strength is sufficiently recovered, you will travel to the Somerton estate at Brantstone in Lincolnshire.’

  Somerton estate? Oh yes, he remembered her now. The woman from the hospital.

  He pulled himself up in the bed, flinching as the wound caught. ‘Ah, so I didn’t dream it. Please remind me — who are you, madam?’

  She advanced and stood at the end of the bed. ‘I am the dowager Lady Somerton, the widow of your cousin, Anthony, who died in an accident just before Christmas.’

  Sebastian looked away, absently pleating the heavy linen sheet between his fingers. ‘I recall you mentioned that at the hospital. My father…’ his voice cracked as he corrected himself, ‘my stepfather was the late Reverend Alder of Little Benning. My mother never…’

  His mother had never breathed a word about the identity of his real father. When he was old enough to understand these things, he had assumed himself to be illegitimate. When he had asked she had turned away.

  Your father is dead, Bas. That is all you need to know.

  She had taken the knowledge of his father’s identity with her to the grave. He swallowed, remembering how he would pass men in the streets and wonder if any of them could be his real father.

  He squared his shoulders and returned his gaze back to her, embarrassed to see she had been watching him. ‘So tell me, Lady Somerton, as you seem remarkably well informed on my antecedents: who, then, was my true father?’

  ‘James Kingsley, the younger son of the late Lord Somerton, my husband’s grandfather. He eloped with your mother and was cut off by his father. I believe he died shortly after your birth. I have the necessary proof that the marriage was legal. You and my husband, Anthony, are…were…legitimate first cousins.’ She paused and seemed to clear her throat before continuing, ‘Anthony and I were not blessed with children and, as the closest male in the direct lineage, you are the heir to my husband’s estate. It is quite simple.’

  Sebastian passed a weary hand over his eyes. ‘Simple for you, perhaps, Lady Somerton, but I swear to you this is the first I have heard of the Somertons. My mother never thought fit to mention any such connection. Even on her death bed.’

  ‘It’s not for me to gainsay your mother’s reasons for withholding that knowledge from you.’ Her tone held a sharp edge as if she were losing patience with him. ‘If you still doubt me I have the evidence of the marriage, Captain Alder, and of your birth and your father’s death. Nothing more is needed.’

  She folded her hands in front of her and the import of what she had said finally sank in. He, plain Sebastian Alder, son of a parson, an officer in the Twenty-Second Regiment of Foot, was now a Viscount and the inheritor, he presumed, of some vast estate.

  ‘I did know that the Reverend Alder was not my father,’ he hastened to reassure her. ‘He took us both in when my mother was in dire need. He was a good man and I could not have asked for a better father.’

  ‘I believe you have a brother and sister still living in Little Benning?’

  He nodded. ‘You are well informed, Lady Somerton. Matthew and Constance are the children of my mother’s marriage to the Reverend Alder.’ He frowned. ‘Do they know of my…my…change in fortune?’

  ‘I believe that should be a task for you, not I,’ Isabel said.

  �
��I will write to them.’ He gave a hollow, unwise laugh that made his wound catch. ‘I doubt they’ll believe me.’ He shook his head, imagining Connie and Matt in the parlour of the little cottage reading the letter. ‘I don’t believe it myself.’

  ‘You will find all you need in the desk.’ Lady Somerton indicated a mahogany desk in the window embrasure. ‘I will leave you to rest. Is there anything you need?’

  Sebastian looked around the sumptuous bedchamber and then returned his gaze to Isabel with a rueful half smile. ‘Some decent food?’

  Lady Somerton unbent enough to smile, softening the severe effect of her sombre clothes and hideous matron’s cap and he wondered if he could lure more smiles from her on better acquaintance. ‘I’m not sure Doctor Sandler will approve but I will see what can be done.’

  She glanced at the ironbound box that stood in a corner of the room with the name ‘Alder’ stencilled in chipped and fading letters on the lid and the heat of embarrassment rose to Sebastian’s face. The sum total of his possessions fitted in that pathetic box. Surely this had to be some sort of cruel jest and someone would appear to tell him that it had all been a mistake and he was still plain Captain Sebastian Alder, a wounded officer of His Majesty, now on half pay.

  He sank back against the feather bolsters that threatened to engulf him in their downy depths.

  She turned back to look at him. ‘You’re tired. I will leave you in peace.’

  He lifted a hand to detain her. ‘One last thing: would it be possible to see the London broadsheets?’ He wanted to see the casualty lists. So many friends dead on that bloody field. He prayed that it was the end of the carnage.

  She dropped a curtsey. ‘Of course. You are Lord Somerton. Whatever you wish, you just have to ask.’

  With that she closed the door behind her. He closed his eyes and considered that statement.