“Come help me, Tony, er…Lord Denham,” she ordered.
“Very well, Lucy, er…Miss Carstairs,” answered Tony obediently. She looked at him suspiciously, but his face was straight.
Richard chafed the icy hands of the unconscious girl. Already the warmth of the room seemed to be having an effect. A tinge of color, barely perceptible, crept into the white cheeks. She opened her eyes (grey-green, he thought, like the sea) and gazed up at him.
“Where am I?” she whispered.
“Oh, just like a novel!” crowed Lucy and clapped her hands.
The girl looked at her with a puzzled frown, then at Tony and back to Richard.
“Who are you?” she asked painfully. “I don’t understand… What has happened? My head hurts so.” She raised one hand to her forehead, and Richard hastily released the other, which he was still holding.
“My name is Richard Carstairs. This is my sister, and a friend, Lord Denham. You are safe at my house, Toblethorpe Manor.”
“But why am I here? I was… How did I get here?”
“We found you on the moor, near Daws Fell. You had had an accident. We think your horse must have thrown you and kicked you.”
Lucy pressed forward. “Who are you? Where did you come from? Why were you on the moor so early?”
The girl looked at her blankly.
“Hush your chattering, child,” commanded Richard. He turned back to the girl. “We must inform your family of your whereabouts,” he said gently. “What is your name?”
She looked up at him helplessly, a sudden fear in her eyes.
“I…don’t know. I don’t understand. Who…who am I?”
Richard frowned.
“Where do you come from? Where is your home?”
“I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything.”
Chapter 2
It was nearly noon when the family at last gathered in the breakfast room. Dr. Grimsdale had come and gone. His diagnosis had been exhaustion, loss of blood, and exposure, which might lead to an inflammation of the lungs. The only evidence of concussion was amnesia.
“There’s no telling how long it may last,” he had declared with unwonted loquacity. “Such total loss of memory is rare. Occasionally it may clear up spontaneously, but usually some encounter with a familiar person or object or situation is the only hope. There is no way we can deliberately bring that about, so we shall have to rely on time and chance.”
Richard had mentioned a possible back injury.
“No, nothing serious,” replied the doctor. “Considerable bruising, I would guess from a recent severe beating. No sign of previous beatings. Such things usually leave permanent marks.”
Dr. Grimsdale had left a sleeping draught and a concoction to be administered in case of fever. The stranger slept deeply, watched over by Lucy’s old nurse.
Richard and Tony sat down to plates piled high with ham and eggs, kidneys, muffins and smoked haddock. Their hot chocolate at dawn seemed long ago. Lucy’s plate was only slightly less heaped, but Lady Annabel contented herself with a piece of toast and a cup of weak tea.
“Lucy, my dear,” she protested, “it is most unladylike to eat such an amount.”
“But, mama, I am so hungry. You would not have me starve, I am sure.” Her mother sighed.
“Richard,” she said, “I cannot continue to refer to the young woman above stairs as ‘the young woman above stairs.’ We must decide what to call her before I can discuss the matter any further.”
“Clarissa!” cried Lucy. “She is just like the heroine of a novel.”
“I cannot think it necessary to provide her with a Christian name that she might well dislike excessively,” reproved her brother. “For the present a surname will be adequate. Any suggestions, Tony?”
Lord Denham disposed of a mouthful of muffin. “What was the name of that place where we found her?”
“Daws Fell.”
“Why not call her Miss Daws, or perhaps Miss Fell?”
“Such dull names,” protested Lucy.
“Lucy!” Lady Annabel called her wayward daughter to order. “Either name seems unexceptionable, Lord Denham.”
“Clarissa Daws, that sounds so common,” remarked the irrepressible Lucy, considering the choice. “Clarissa Fell has a more…a more romantic sound.”
“Miss Fell let it be then,” decided Richard, “but I beg you will drop ‘Clarissa.’ Well, mama, now you are able to put a name to ‘the young woman above stairs,’ let us by all means discuss the situation.”
“I cannot fault you, Richard, for rescuing Miss Fell, but it does complicate our plans. Lucy and I must go to London next week or there will be no time to order new clothes before the first parties of the Season. We have already received invitations, you know, as I informed dear Maria Allenby of Lucy’s coming out, and she is the greatest gossip in town.”
“I would not for the world have you alter your plans, mama. I think Lucy would never speak to me again.”
“But Miss Fell is very ill and needs a great deal of care, and how can I leave a young lady alone in the house with only the servants?”
“We do not know that she is a lady. Certainly her clothes would suggest otherwise. I suspect she may be a governess or something of the sort.”
“No, Richard, how can you be so prosaic,” said Lord Denham, grinning. “I am sure Miss Carstairs has recognized in Miss Fell a princess in disguise, or at the least, the daughter of a duke.”
“You are teasing, my lord,” said Lucy crossly. “Richard, I do not wish to seem unfeeling, but I could not bear it if my first Season were to be spoiled. I have been waiting seventeen years for this moment.”
“I shall send for Florence,” declared Lady Annabel in a voice that announced the ultimate solution.
“Do you think my aunt would come?” queried Richard. “I cannot like asking her to nurse a stranger who, after all, was found in the most ambiguous circumstances.”
“I shall not ask her to do any nursing. I hope my housekeeper and Nurse are capable of that! Your Aunt Florence has often mentioned to me how she would enjoy being invited to an empty house for once, with no necessity for entertaining or being entertained. Of course, she was funning,” (Richard and Lucy here exchanged speaking glances: Miss Florence Carstairs had never been known to joke) “yet I am sure she would find it restful after living in my brother-in-law’s house with his six children.”
“I daresay you are right as always, mama. Jem can ride to Arnden with a note and return with an answer tomorrow so that we may arrange the matter. If all goes well, I shall return here after escorting you to London, to check that everything is in order.”
“You’ll not persuade me to accompany you again, especially with your sister settled in London,” said Lord Denham. “Miss Carstairs, if you are not occupied elsewhere, perhaps you would favor me with a stroll around the shrubbery. I believe the sun has dried the grass, and I find myself recovered from my enforced early ride.”
“I shall be delighted, my lord,” replied Lucy demurely.
At that moment the butler entered and bent to murmur in Lady Annabel’s ear.
“Oh dear!” she exclaimed, “Miss Fell is in a fever and Nurse wants my advice. Lucy, wrap up well if you are going out. Richard, pray do not leave the house for a while, I must speak with you. Lord Denham, do not let my daughter become a nuisance.”
“Mama! I am not a child anymore. You must not speak so,” said Lucy in indignation.
“I beg your pardon, dearest. It is difficult to remember that you are a young lady already.”
“Behave like a young lady or you shall not be treated as one, Lucy,” threatened Richard with a grin, and a wink at Lord Denham.
Lucy cast him a darkling glance and flounced out of the room on his lordship’s arm.
“Oh dear, Richard,” said Lady Annabel with a sigh, “I do not believe I shall ever teach her to behave as Society will expect.”
“Come, mama, you would not wish her to be missish or tongue-tied. Do not let her worry you, she will be a great success.”
“Indeed I hope so. Well, I had better see how Miss Fell does.”
“I will be in the library when you want me. I beg you will not let Miss Fell worry you, either. I could wish her in China!”
Lady Annabel smiled up at her tall son and patted his cheek. As she left the room, she was thinking that her biggest problem was not her daughter, nor even the stranger who had appeared in her household so unceremoniously. She hoped Richard did not know how much he worried her.
Lady Annabel, in her late forties, was still as blond as she had been when she had caught the eye of Mr. Christopher Carstairs during her second Season. Her husband had had light brown hair and a ruddy complexion; her father, Lord Mortlake, had been as blond as his daughter, but her mother had been an Italian contessa, dark as a Gypsy. Both Lady Annabel’s children had taken after their grandmother. Lucy was a glowing brunette, Richard so dark-skinned he could have passed as a savage from the colonies. He had been a happy child, mischievous but not difficult, and then at the age of thirteen he had been sent away to school. She was still not very clear as to exactly what had happened. She and Kit had been absorbed in their newborn daughter, a miracle after so many barren years. And then Kit had been killed hunting. It still hurt her to think of the dreadful moment when they had borne his body home on a hurdle.
Richard had been at Eton for two years before she had realized that something was seriously wrong. The charming small boy had become a withdrawn adolescent, hiding his hurts under an arrogance justified to himself by pride in his family and birth. A lecture on manners, after he had been insolent to a neighbor, had led to an agonizing session during which she learned that he had been christened “the Indian” by the older schoolboys and ostracized by his fellows.
She had suggested that he finish his studies under a tutor. But the tall, painfully thin boy with the haunted eyes had told her, “The Carstairs do not run away.”
After another year of misery, his last two years at the school had been not unhappy, she thought. Richard had proved himself highly successful in both studies and sports and had at last made a few friends. But the damage had been done. He found it difficult to socialize, and the idea that had saved him, the importance of birth and breeding, was too much a part of him to be relinquished.
Three years at Cambridge and a couple of seasons in London under the aegis of his uncle, Lord Mortlake, had smoothed the corners of his character. He was able to hold his own in any society, though he relaxed only among close friends and family. His essential arrogance was blunted by courtesy, but it was not diminished, nor, indeed, would Lord Mortlake, a high stickler, have approved of anything less. He had introduced his nephew to the ton and made sure that he frequented only the best society. He had watched indulgently as the young man had gone through the usual discreet liaisons with opera dancers, but when Richard had seemed to be attracted by a most ineligible young person, the daughter of some obscure country gentry, he had promptly nipped the affair in the bud.
Not that it was necessary. Richard was perfectly aware of the unsuitability, and was merely being kind to the distant cousin of a particular crony.
Lady Annabel could not complain that Richard was not kind. He was a perfect son and brother and always ready to come to the aid of anyone in distress. He spent a good deal of time at home, supervising and improving his estate, and was on easy, though far from intimate, terms with the neighbors. He had friends to stay occasionally, especially Lord Denham, and went visiting in the hunting season. Lady Annabel would be perfectly satisfied with him for months at a time.
Yet she had listened in repressed horror as he had discussed cold-bloodedly whether Miss Fell were well born or not, as if it were the only important point, as if she were not desperately ill a few feet above his head. Hurrying up the stairs, she wondered what revelations lay in store for her in London. She had not seen her son in Society, and rather dreaded the prospect. Finding a husband for Lucy, she suspected, would be a far easier task than finding a bride who would satisfy her son’s stringent requirements as to birth. She did not begin to know what he might expect in the way of beauty or character. However, she was determined to find a wife for him. Her mother’s eye had pierced the shell of self-sufficiency surrounding him and saw within the loneliness and lack of assurance that were so well masked by his arrogance.
“He must marry,” she decided, “and he must marry for love.”
The door of the Blue Bedchamber was ajar. It had not warranted its name for years, being decorated in cheerful yellow and russet. The bed hangings of buttercup silk were pulled back, and Nurse was sitting on the edge of the bed, bathing with lavender water the hot face that tossed and turned on the rumpled pillow. She rose and bobbed a curtsy as her mistress entered.
“She’m bin this way a half-hour, my lady. So quiet and still as she was to start, then all of a suddenlike she were a-mutterin’ away, an’ the flush come to her face. I give her the doctor’s medicine, but it don’t seem to do no good.”
“What did she say?” asked Lady Annabel eagerly.
“Well, I can’t rightly tell you, my lady. I couldna make out the words till she cried out: ‘Oh pray, uncle, don’t!’ then she were incohairem again.”
Lady Annabel sat down and felt the burning forehead, careful not to touch the court plaster on the left temple.
“Nurse, have Mrs. Bedford tell Cook to make some barley water.”
“Indeed, my lady, that Cook is a great ignomalous. Them furriners don’t know how to prepare a nice barley water for a sick young lady. I better make it wi’ my own two han’s.”
“Now, Nurse, you know how upset Monsieur Pierre gets if anyone invades his kitchen. Just give the message to Mrs. Bedford, and then I will need your help here. You had better call one of the maids; Mary will do.”
“Very well, my lady. As you says.” Nurse heaved a heavy sigh and went on her errand.
Lady Annabel was at last able to turn her full attention to the patient. The thin face was not that of a young girl. The red hair and firm chin suggested a certain strength of character, belied by sensitive lips and fluttering hands. “Miss Fell” was breathing fast and shallow, painfully, and seemed to be growing too weak to continue her restless motion. Suddenly Lady Annabel realized she might die and wondered if somewhere her mother were waiting for her, praying for news of her. How would she herself feel if Lucy disappeared and fell sick among strangers? She resolved that unless the young woman was truly out of danger, Lucy must go to her Aunt Blanche for the start of the Season. She and her Cousin Jennifer would probably live in each other’s pockets anyway.