Read Miss Carlyle's Curricle: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix) Online
Authors: Karen Harbaugh
Miss Carlyle's Curricle: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix)
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SIGNET
REGENCY
ROMANCE
Miss Carlyle’s Curricle
Karen Harbaugh
InterMix Books, New York
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
MISS
CARLYLE
’
S
CURRICLE
A Signet Regency Romance
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Signet edition / June 1999
InterMix eBook edition / July 2012
Copyright
© 1999 by Karen Eriksen Harbaugh.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56750-0
INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge Mr. William R. Robbins, curator of the Remington-Alberta Carriage Centre, in Cardiston, Alberta, Canada, for his assistance in finding information regarding specific harness equipment for curricles. I was amazed and pleased to find out about the resources, and the amount of information at this organization, and not the least, the generosity in sending me the information.
I would also like to acknowledge the help of my critique group in figuring out ways to do away with certain unfortunate characters in my book. In particular, I would like to thank Sherrie Holmes, who is the horse expert in our group, and whose breadth of knowledge and devious mind I profoundly appreciate.
Prologue
The horse screamed madly, going wild, and the sickening crash of the curricle’s broken wood made Diana Carlyle freeze in horror where she sat on her horse, many yards away.
In the next moment she slipped off her own horse, hitting the ground in a run. She ran to the overturned curricle, reaching for her uncle, who was facedown on the ground. Others came with her—she did not know who, nor cared—and hands came together to turn over his lordship.
“A doctor,” she cried. “Someone fetch a doctor, immediately!” She swallowed down bile at the sight of her uncle’s bloodied face. “Uncle . . . Uncle Charles . . .”
Please God, let him be well
, she prayed.
He is like a father to me.
The shouts of grooms and spectators roared in her ears, but she ignored them. “Oh, please. Oh, please—you will be well, I know you will be. Please be well.”
“Ain’t likely, miss,” a groom said near her.
She turned fiercely to him. “He
will
be well, you shall see! He only needs a doctor.” She felt a touch on her hand, and she turned eagerly back to the man who had cared for her since she had been ten years old, had patched her knees, had taught her to ride and shoot as well as any man.
“Diana?” His voice was a whisper, and he stared at her, but seemed not to see her.
She clasped his hand. “I am here, Uncle.”
He gasped, then groaned. “Tell your mother not to worry. I have taken care of her—and you, too.”
“Yes, yes, I know, and I have been grateful for it, dear uncle. No one could have done better.”
He moved his head, a negative motion. “No. . . no, in the will. You are provided for. The heir . . . not. . . he is . . . Tell Cecelia. . ..” His eyes closed, and the fitful rise and fall of his chest ceased.
“Uncle? Oh, no, please, no!” Diana frantically squeezed his hand, wanting to will her own life force into him. Impossible . . . Surely he was only resting? His hand was already lax in hers. It was not possible. She gazed at her uncle’s face, a kind and fatherly face, now seeming to be asleep.
Diana still held his hand and somehow could not let go, for her fear had frozen into incomprehension—how could it be? He had, just moments ago, been all vivid life, laughing as he touched his whip to his horses, as his curricle bowled down the road, swiftly, sure to win the race. She had seen him and had cheered him on. It had been minutes, only minutes ago. She watched for one more breath. One more breath . . .
“Miss—miss, it’s done, the good doctor is here—there’s nothing more for you to do.”
She turned at the voice . . . it was McKinney, the head groom. He had helped her up on her first pony, when she first came to Brisbane House. She stared at him, shaking her head slowly. “The doctor . . . he will make Uncle well, will he not?”
“Ah, miss . . . ah, miss.” The groom’s face creased in sorrow. “It’s best you go to your mother.”
She gazed at the doctor, who had lifted Lord Brisbane’s hand and felt his wrist, then felt for the pulse at the neck. He shook his head, and a heavy ache pressed into Diana’s heart. The doctor gazed back in return, looking grim.
“He . . . he is gone, Miss Carlyle,” he said.
“No . . . no.” A stubborn part of her did not want to believe him. She turned to the head groom. “The horses, McKinney, should you not be attending them?” Gunshot made her jerk back and drop her uncle’s hand.
A tear fell down McKinney’s weathered cheek. “There’s naught to attend, Miss Diana.” The sound of the gunfire and the sight of McKinney’s sorrow forced the truth into Diana’s mind at last, and she gasped as the dull ache in her heart twisted and turned sharp.
“McKinney’s right, Diana.”
She rose and turned—it was Sir James, her cousin. She hunched her shoulders against the familiar irritation she felt when he was about, and wished that they were not cousins so that he would have no cause to call her by her Christian name. He looked at her, a small crease between his brows, the rest of his face impassive. “I think your mother would want to hear the news regarding Lord Brisbane from you, rather than a servant.”
He was right, and this fact irritated Diana even more. “Of course,” she replied, and moved away. She gave a last glance at her uncle, and drew in a shuddering breath. “I will go, immediately.”
She ran to her horse, still standing obediently where she left him, though his ears were pricked forward and he shifted his feet uneasily. McKinney helped her up, and she urged the horse to a gallop back to Brisbane House.
Diana worried her lower lip as she left her horse in the stables and hurried up the stairs of Brisbane House. How would Mama react to the news? Surely in her calm, sensible way, although of course she would be sorely grieved, for both of them had been fond of Uncle Charles, her father’s brother. Mama had always been strong and full of good sense—she had been Diana’s anchor when Diana’s father had left them and eventually died, her father who had left them to starve until Uncle Charles had come to their rescue. Mama would know what to say, she would know how to deal with this terrible pain.
“Mama, it’s I,” Diana said when she knocked on the door of her mother’s room, and at her mother’s welcome, entered.
“Did your uncle win, Diana?” Mrs. Carlyle said cheerfully. She sat in her comfortable chair near the fire, setting a loop in her tatting. She looked up, then she frowned upon meeting Diana’s eyes. “What is the matter, my dear?”
“Mama . . . it is very bad. . ..”
Mrs. Carlyle smiled slightly. “Nothing is as bad as we first think, Diana.”
How was she to tell her? She stared, confused, at her mother, uncertain how to breach the assurance her mother always had about her, and not wanting to breach it. “No, listen—it—Uncle Charles—”
Mrs. Carlyle’s smile disappeared, and she gazed steadily at Diana. “Yes? What is it?”
“There has been an accident—he was injured—the doctor said—”
Her mother paled. “He is hurt—but surely he will be better.”
Diana swallowed and looked away. “No, Mama.”
“The doctor cannot tell that in such a short time—”
She raised her eyes and stared at her mother, and her lip trembled. “Yes, Mama, he can.”
Silence, then: “He isn’t . . . he isn’t—”
“Yes, Mama,” Diana said, her voice a whisper.
The tatting dropped from Mrs. Carlyle’s hands and she gazed around the room, blindly, her face bewildered. “But he cannot—I must see him. The servants—they must fetch cold cloths—he must be injured, only injured, and he could become fevered—”
“No, Mama,” Diana said, making her voice louder though her closing throat tried to cut her off. “He—he is gone.”
Mrs. Carlyle rose from her chair, the lace and the tatting bobbin falling unheeded to the floor. “Dear God,” she said. Her eyes were wide, her face more pale than before, as if she looked at some horror in front of her, and not her own daughter. “I must see him. I shall change my dress and I shall see him, for . . . for it would never do for him to see me in this . . . this. . . .” She took two trembling steps toward the bell rope, lifted her hand to pull it, then collapsed to the floor.
“Mama!” Diana screamed. She ran to her mother’s still form and fell to her knees, frantically feeling for a pulse—it was there. She breathed a sigh of relief and rose again to summon a servant. A sudden dizziness swept through her, but she clenched her teeth against it, pulling together all the self-discipline she had learned when she was a child and had felt the dizziness of hunger. She grasped the rope and tugged it.
Sitting down again, Diana carefully lifted her mother’s head to her lap, and smoothed away the hair from her forehead. The dizziness had passed, and had turned into an iron wall around her heart. It seemed her life was crumbling, but she could not let it crumble her: her mother needed her, and no tears would help her or those she loved right now. She would cry later, when she had time, when her mother was well enough to put her arms around her and comfort her.
But somehow a line was crossed, a step taken on a journey. Diana took her mother’s hand in hers and patted it, and remembered how her mother had done this to her, when she was hurt or sad. Mrs. Carlyle moaned softly, whispering Lord Brisbane’s name, her voice sounding lost and lonely.
Diana sat up as straight as she could, while a rising sob lost the battle against the wall she had erected within herself—her numbness was firmly in place now.
A maid entered the room, cried out, and exclaimed, and helped get Mrs. Carlyle undressed and into her bed. Diana instructed the maid to find the doctor and have him come to her mother, then sat by the bed, still holding her mother’s hand. When the doctor arrived, quickly, he assured her that Mrs. Carlyle merely needed rest.
Diana sighed and nodded, squeezed her mother’s hand one more time, then went downstairs to call upon Mr. Southworthy, the vicar, to arrange the funeral.