The General's Granddaughter Page 3

  The relief to the rest of her body was instant and palpable, but the pounding in her head was only dulled to a degree. She hadn’t expected more, she told herself bracingly, not at first. Her mother had suffered all her life from migraines that prostrated her for up to forty-eight hours before loosening their grip enough to permit a rise from her bed. Sarah had never endured a headache that even approached the severity of a real migraine before, but she was in no doubt as to what ailed her at present.

  The anodyne of sleep was denied her during the next several hours, but at least the accompanying nausea dissipated as soon as her body became relaxed. She lay very still, consciously avoiding the increase of discomfort that attended even the slightest movement of her head. Now thoughts of the immediate future that she was powerless to resist came crowding into Sarah’s aching head. Sleep seemed an impossible goal as she lay in a strange bed in a fast-cooling room more than a hundred miles from home and faced the rashness of her proposed action. Reduced to its most basic terms, she had come to beg financial support from a man who did not wish to acknowledge her existence. It was not the behaviour of anyone with a scrap of pride, and the Lord knew she loathed the necessity, but with her father’s death had vanished the last vestige of security for Richard. For a time, with the exciting possibilities of success from their venture into trade dazzling their eyes, her basic fear of the future had been held at bay. But with the siege of influenza her last line of defence against confronting the bleak reality had been overrun, and the subterranean fears surfaced to torment her as they did now. She had not been able to overcome the depression of spirits that had descended upon her during her illness.

  Suppose her grandfather refused to see her, what then? Sarah jerked her head and immediately regretted it as needles of pain shot through her temples to augment the ever-present pressure. A small moan escaped her lips and slow, burning tears glided over her cheekbones. She could not fail. She must not fail!

  Toward morning, the exhausted young woman sank into a deep sleep that lasted until nearly midday. She did not stir until a persistent knocking at the door yanked her out of a blessed oblivion.

  “Who … who is it?” she called in a weak voice, coming slowly to a sense of her surroundings.

  “The maid. Are you all right in there, ma’am? May I come in?”

  Sarah called out permission, thankful that her voice sounded stronger, thankful also, as she struggled into a sitting position, that the sharp pains in her head had dulled to a manageable ache, which she confirmed by cautious movements of her neck as the maid bustled in.

  “Well, now, you nigh slept the clock around, didn’t you, ma’am? I checked up on you two hours ago, but you was dead under, so I let you be.”

  “What time is it?” Sarah frowned at the bars of sunshine coming through the room’s single window and realized the motion hurt. She raised a finger to smooth her brow as she focused dull eyes on the maid.

  “Past eleven.” The buxom young woman in a crisp apron and mobcap was pouring hot water into the basin as her curious gaze roamed over the guest’s bare shoulders.

  “I … I felt so unwell from the long journey that I just fell into bed last night without bothering about a night rail,” Sarah explained.

  “Yes.” The maid nodded wisely. “You do be looking as white as them sheets still, ma’am. Why not stay in bed while I make up this fire? I dessay you’ll feel better when you’ve warmed up some and had a hot meal.”

  “Yes. Th— thank you.” Sarah slid back under the bedcovers, shivering a little in the room’s chill and aware suddenly of a deep hollowness within, not surprising when she considered that she had eaten nothing since an early breakfast in London the day before. She chided herself for an idiot as she blinked back silly tears brought to the surface by the maid’s simple kindliness.

  “Even Lottie could not call you a beauty today,” Sarah told the pasty-faced image that stared back at her from a cracked mirror over the washstand. Dark bruised-looking areas under her eyes bore mute testimony to her recent illness. Actually they had nearly faded until yesterday’s ordeal, though her cheeks still had a drawn look. “I would not blame my grandfather for not wishing to acknowledge such a pitiful-looking creature,” she declared, pinching her cheeks savagely. The resultant flow of blood ebbed as quickly as it had appeared, and she turned away from her reflection in disgust.

  Everything about her simple toilette was an effort that morning, and it was in an uncharacteristic mood of self-pity that Sarah descended at last to the inn’s public dining room. She had been unable to shake out all the travel creases from her black dress, and she was miserably conscious of presenting less than her usual neat appearance. She had not taken her hair down the previous night and had found her scalp so tender this morning that she couldn’t bear the repeated discomforts of dragging a brush through the tangled length. Her solution had been to sweep the untidy mass up under the cap she had tucked into the top of the cloak bag at the last moment when she discovered that Lottie, who refused to concede that her nurseling had reached the age of wearing a spinster’s cap, had failed to pack any. It was a pretty, embroidered lace cap but did nothing to relieve her pallor. The only colour in her face was provided by silky brown brows and golden-brown eyes set in a thicket of dark lashes.

  All too conscious of her defects, Sarah had no inkling of the effect her slender graceful person and perfect Madonna-like features had on others. Had she been told that there was about her an air of beautiful fragility, she would have retorted that in general she was as strong as a horse and a capable individual to boot. Honesty would have compelled the reluctant qualification that the strength was in abeyance of late, however. Indeed, Sarah was conscious of an annoying weakness in her knees as she gratefully accepted the chair an attentive waiter held out to her.

  It was well past the hour for breakfast, and in any case Sarah felt hollow to her toes, so she was easily persuaded to order a sustaining meal. In the end, she discovered she was prevented from doing justice to the chef’s offerings by a slight queasiness left over from her traveling ordeal, but she was able to swallow enough to put some stiffness back into her legs. If she lingered somewhat longer than was strictly justified by the amount of food she consumed, it was no doubt due to a natural reluctance to embark on the crucial stage of her mission until she had replaced a sadly depleted store of courage. She sat quietly in a corner, equally indifferent to the comings and goings in the busy hostelry and the interested looks directed her way by the predominantly masculine patrons of the dining room. Had her absorption in her thoughts been one degree less absolute, she might have noticed that her protective waiter had deflected several abortive attempts on the part of other diners to attract her attention. As it was, he felt well-repaid by the sweetness of her valedictory smile when at last she gathered up her belongings and prepared to leave the shelter of the inn.

  The final stage of her journey must be accomplished by post chaise, of course. Sarah set off from the coaching inn toward the nearest post house, emerging into the sunshine on the main street of Marshfield with her shield of courage buckled on once more. If there was not actually a spring in her step, at least she proceeded with more confidence than she could have summoned up only an hour before.

  Marshfield was something of a surprise in daylight, boasting as it did an exceedingly long main street: at least Sarah could see no end of buildings in either direction. The innkeeper had told her there were over a dozen such establishments in the town and she could well believe it, judging from the bustle of traffic around her. The street was lined with tall houses built almost exclusively of the local brownstone, but as each was individual, the result was surprisingly attractive, she thought as she walked briskly in the direction of the posting house.

  It was very late in the afternoon when Sarah drove up to Beech Hill in a “yellow bounder,” as the post chaises were known because of their distinctive paintwork. She had managed to hang on to her precarious courage while waiting for a vehi
cle to hire, but the closer she came to her destination, the more precarious her grip. Her head, though free of yesterday’s shooting pains, felt stuffed and unfamiliar, almost too heavy for her neck and shoulders to support. Obviously the sunshine and brisk late winter air had done nothing to put colour in her face because the postilion had paused when assisting her into the chaise to ask if she felt quite well.

  Her thoughts made the same monotonous revolutions as the wheels. What would she do if her grandfather denied himself to her? But he would not do that; no person with the slightest claim to humanity could be so hard. Perhaps she should have gone to an inn in the closest village to the estate and sent a note to him advising him of her proximity and requesting an interview. Barring the fact that she didn’t know the area and had no idea if there was a suitable place to wait for a response, it all came back to the ever-present dread that her grandfather would simply refuse to answer this as he had every past attempt at communication over the years. Then she would quite literally have no further recourse. She must gain entrance to Beech Hill!

  Sarah was not prepared to have her first sight of her family home bring such a shock of recognition with it. She had not quite reached her twelfth birthday when her father had brought her to see her grandfather on the eve of their departure for America, but even as a child she had been struck by the grandeur and beauty of the entrance front of the house coming into view at the end of a long drive lined with lovely old copper beeches. She gave a slight gasp now. It was almost as if she had carried a pictorial map in her head all these years, so complete was her memory, even to the warm honey colour of the stone. The imposing facade of nearly two hundred feet in length had struck awe in the imagination of the untraveled child and was no whit less imposing in the eyes of the adult Sarah, who still had seen no private home to equal it on either side of the Atlantic. Her father had told her the house was erected in the last decade of the seventeenth century, and its design was old-fashioned and inconvenient even in his youth. As far as she was concerned, no practical considerations could diminish the overall effect of the majestic symmetry of the central portion of the facade with its triangular pediment flanked as it was by twin apartments, whose more important rooms at the ends were emphasized by being projected forward a bit under less elaborate pediments of their own. The raised entrance level above a rusticated ground level was reached by a rather daunting double flight of steps to a massive central doorway.

  Daunting was the mot juste, Sarah admitted with an inward shudder she could barely contain as the hired chaise drew to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Now that the moment she had driven herself toward was upon her, she found her spirit had retreated fourteen years into the past and her body was curiously resistant to direction — or perhaps it was that her mind was simply incapable of exercising purposeful direction over her limbs. She was forced to alight from the chaise under the compelling eye of the postilion or she might have sat there in trembling indecision indefinitely.

  Refusing his offer to knock and directing him to wait, Sarah lifted her skirts and began the steep ascent on leaden legs, never taking her eyes from the massive front door, which seemed to her terrified fancy to be growing larger and more forbidding as she approached. She had been excited and expectant on that other occasion, one that her childish understanding had regarded in the light of an adventure. Now she wondered with a retroactive stab of pity if her father’s feelings on that day had been as turbulent as hers were today. Her head felt double its usual size, and her mind echoed with a vast ringing emptiness, incapable of forming coherent thought. She moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue, prayed that she would be able to produce some sound when necessary, and lifted the ornate door knocker and let it fall. The sound didn’t register, her painful attention was on the beautifully grained wooden door, willing it to open, recalling with a sudden return of nausea that it had opened the last time — and shut soon after with a resounding finality that had turned her father’s ruddy face ashen. That must not happen!

  “Good afternoon, madam. You’ll be the new housekeeper, I expect?”

  “I … I beg your pardon?” Sarah had to try twice before she could produce a voice in reply to the bewigged and liveried servant who opened the door.

  “I asked if you were the housekeeper Lord Eversley arranged to send to us.” The man’s eyes ran over her black costume and past her to where the post chaise waited.

  Never afterward was Sarah able to adequately account for her next action, though desperation and light-headedness certainly played a major role. Her lips parted and a much stronger voice than before said, “Yes. My name is Sarah … Sarah Boston.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Sarah regretted the lie the second the words left her lips; she even tried to deny them, but though she opened her mouth, she was unable to frame a sentence. She was seized with an uncontrollable trembling that prompted the alarmed footman to lower her to a chair and call out to another servant who was approaching the area.

  The next half-hour forever remained a blur in Sarah’s memory. At the end of it, her chaise was paid off and dismissed and she found herself established in the housekeeper’s room on the lowest level, clutching a cup of tea in her shaking hand while her dazed eyes followed the motions of a pleasant-faced maid, who was unpacking her portmanteau. The woman, whose age appeared to be somewhere in the middle thirties, glanced up and met Sarah’s look. Her firm generous mouth smiled widely, and there was both kindness and understanding in the fine grey eyes that appraised the newcomer.

  “A poor traveller, are you? Well, never mind, you’ll feel much more yourself when you get that tea inside you, Mrs. Boston,” she said, giving Sarah the courtesy title commonly accorded housekeepers. “We weren’t expecting you until Friday, or a carriage would have been sent to Marshfield to meet you. Did you come all the way from London?”

  “I… Yes, I found I could come a bit earlier.” Sarah was floundering, and she raised the cup to her lips and drank thankfully of the hot revivifying liquid while thoughts, regrets, and fears jostled one another for position and precedence in her mind.

  What on earth had she done? What had possessed her to hide her identity — worse, to claim a false identity, which would surely be found out in three days when the expected housekeeper appeared? Not that the time signified. Long before then she would have to make her explanations, of course, but to whom? She closed her eyes and swallowed against rising hysteria. At least she was inside Beech Hill. An hour ago, her paralyzing fear had been that she would be denied admittance sight unseen. She had put that out of her grandfather’s power now. Surely there would be opportunity enough in the next three days to arrange an audience with him. If she lacked the ingenuity to arrange a face-to-face meeting, then she did not deserve to succeed in her mission.

  While Sarah was trying to bolster herself into a more confident posture, the maid had been efficiently removing articles of clothing from the portmanteau, which she then stowed away in a chest of drawers. Now she gave an exclamation of admiration that brought Sarah’s eyes around in time to see her tenderly remove the last wad of tissue paper that had been stuffed into the bronze-green bonnet, which she now held up. “What a beautiful bonnet!”

  “Oh, Lottie, how could you?” Sarah groaned inwardly. If the wretched hat was inappropriate for a poor relation, it was inconceivable for a housekeeper. She smiled weakly, noting a gleam of curiosity in the maid’s eyes. “It is lovely, isn’t it? It was a present from my last mistress, totally inappropriate, of course, but I could not wound her by refusing to accept it.”

  “No,” the maid agreed, but the interest in her eyes sharpened. “Why did you leave your last position, if you do not mind my asking?”

  “My … my employer died suddenly, and his widow closed up the house to return home to take care of her elderly parents.”

  “I see. Is this all the baggage you have with you, Mrs. Boston?”

  “My trunk will be here in a day or two,” Sarah said, still improv
ising and uneasily aware that those intelligent eyes were studying her openly. There was a bristling pause, then the maid seemed to come to a decision. There was no impertinence in her manner, but she came right to the point.

  “You seem very young to have a position of such responsibility, Mrs. Boston, and your accent is that of the gentry.”

  “Yes, well, my circumstances are a bit unusual,” Sarah began, choosing her words with care. “As you have obviously guessed, my family has been established on the land, but we have been growing poorer over the years, and when my father died unexpectedly, what was left of the property went to a distant cousin. My mother was already gone and there was not enough money for me to maintain an independent establishment. I might have gone to live with distant relatives and resigned myself to a life of unpaid drudgery among near strangers, who would have done their duty but who did not welcome my presence,” she went on, getting into her stride, “but I opted to work for a salary in the houses of complete strangers instead.”

  “But a housekeeper is still only an upper servant.” The maid’s eyes were wide with shock.

  “True, and it is perhaps a trifle awkward being neither fish nor fowl, so to speak, but to my way of thinking it was more demeaning to live among the gentry and try to maintain the fiction that I was still one of them when it was obvious that my circumstances belied the claim.”

  “Could you not have married? Even looking as ill as you did a few moments ago, it’s plain to see that you are quite lovely, prettier even than Sir Hector’s granddaughter, who, I am told, was considered one of last season’s beauties.”