The Darkest Summer (Book Classic Retelling) Read online

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  © 2017 Rebecca J. Greenwood

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously. The opinions and views expressed herein belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of Cedar Fort, Inc. Permission for the use of sources, graphics, and photos is also solely the responsibility of the author.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-2833-4

  Published by Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.

  2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT 84663

  Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Greenwood, Rebecca J., 1980- author.

  Title: The darkest summer / Rebecca J. Greenwood.

  Description: Springville, Utah : Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029063 (print) | LCCN 2017038962 (ebook) | ISBN 9781462128334 (epub and mobi) | ISBN 9781462120949 (softcover : acid-free paper)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Regency fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3607.R4698 (ebook) | LCC PS3607.R4698 D37 2017 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029063

  Cover design by Priscilla Chaves and Katie Payne

  Cover design © 2017 by Cedar Fort, Inc.

  Edited and typeset by Jessica Romrell and Nicole Terry

  To my love, Karl

  Thank you for now and for eternity

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: FIRST SIGHT

  CHAPTER TWO: THE BALL

  CHAPTER THREE: INTRODUCTIONS

  CHAPTER FOUR: NOWHERE, EVERYWHERE

  CHAPTER FIVE: ORANGERY

  CHAPTER SIX: ALMACKS

  CHAPTER SEVEN: HIS ADDRESSES

  CHAPTER EIGHT: ABDUCTION

  CHAPTER NINE: WORDS

  CHAPTER TEN: RELEASE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: BORED

  CHAPTER TWELVE: LEVEE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TORRENT

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: MORNING

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MUD

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: BERRIES

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THROUGH THE NIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SCOTCH CORNER

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: FILTHY WATERS

  CHAPTER TWENTY: FARMHOUSE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: GRETNA GREEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: SWALLOWED

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: FOUND

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BROKEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: ARRIVAL

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: SEEDS

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Persephone gathered flowers over a soft meadow,

  roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also,

  hyacinths, and the narcissus—a marvelous, radiant flower.

  The girl reached out with both hands to take the lovely toy;

  but the wide-pathed earth yawned,

  and the lord Hades with his immortal horses

  sprang out upon her.

  He caught her up reluctant on his golden car

  and bear her away lamenting.

  ADAPTED FROM THE HYMN TO DEMETER

  HESIOD, THE HOMERIC HYMNS AND HOMERICA

  TRANSLATED BY HUGH G. EVELYN-WHITE, M.A., 1914

  Chapter One

  First Sight

  FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1816, MORNING

  He first saw her in Hyde Park, a young miss with her maid taking a morning stroll. This would have been unremarkable except that it was raining and chill and no other young ladies were out.

  She crossed the path in front of him, holding an umbrella over her pretty bonnet and pelisse, and her maid followed behind under another. He watched them till they were screened by trees.

  Adam Richard Douglas, third Duke of Blackdale, was exercising Cerberus, his overeager stallion. The horse had been stabled for one day too many and became unmanageable, with a tendency to bite—hence the name—without activity, no matter that it was cold and wet outside. Adam would curse Cerberus for his folly, but having a mount that didn’t mind the chill and damp was highly useful for a Scot and a soldier.

  He turned onto Rotten Row. The stretch of waterlogged gravel and tan before them was clear. Adam let the stallion have his head, and galloped.

  He felt the need of fresh air himself. He had been stifled in boardrooms and offices for too long. The fruitless and discouraging campaigning in the House of Lords, and the hours of social engagements in the evenings had drained him. He felt pale and listless. He was cursed with an unrelieved sick-room pallor.

  It had been a miserable spring, and looked to be a miserable summer.

  But yesterday … his hands tightened on the reigns as rage flashed through him. Jude and his philandering!

  Yesterday, Adam had finished the distasteful job of cleaning up after yet another of his brother’s sordid affairs. He paid for the young lady to spend her confinement in a comfortable Welsh cottage with an aunt, and then he had determinedly packed Jude and his disgruntled wife off to France before the girl’s father had a chance to call Jude out and get killed for his trouble.

  Adam had been so relieved to finally see the backs of them all.

  He wished Jude and Henriette well of each other. He wondered if the French countryside would survive.

  His brother, the war-hero of Waterloo, had gone through the bloody day with nary a scratch. Jude had come through the years-long conflict with Napoleon the best of them all, unlike Adam, and their other brother, Nicolas. Captain Lord Nicolas Douglas had been lost at sea. Why couldn’t it have been Jude that was lost?

  Adam stopped himself. That thought was unworthy of him. It was as it was. Nicolas was gone, and Jude, the libertine, remained.

  Adam’s wide-brimmed beaver kept most of the rain from his face, and the caped greatcoat kept him warm. He was almost used to being in civilian wear again, without the scarlet and tartan of his uniform. There was one thing to say about horseback riding in long trousers rather than a kilt: his knees were much warmer. Never let his men hear him say that—

  His men. The few that were left.

  The gunshots rose up in his mind, the boom of cannon fire, the screams of his men dying in the square around him, fellow soldiers propping up the one beside them as they were struck.

  A flash of the cannonball that grazed his side, the fall from his horse, the agony and the blackness …

  His breath hitched as pain flared in his side, and he pulled Cerberus down from his gallop. Trotting made it worse, and Adam cursed the lingering injury. It had a been a year since Waterloo, but his ribs still ached.

  A groom exercising a horse gave him an odd look as he passed. The pain must be showing on his face. Adam controlled his grimace, brought Cerberus down to a walk, and turned off onto a side path to deal wit
h the pain more privately.

  The young woman was there, picking her way through a planted hillock. He slowed Cerberus to a stop to watch her.

  The finely dressed young lady stopped at a clump of pitiful looking flowers and stooped down to look at them. She straightened, wrapped her skirts with one hand tightly against her body, and crouched gracefully. She managed to keep most of her skirts from the muddy ground.

  But the lower half of her skirts and dark blue pelisse were wet and a little muddy. Apparently she had been doing this often, and was not always successfully saving her clothing. Her gloves were unfashionably dark and utilitarian looking, and he wondered briefly if he had been mistaken in taking her for a lady. But no, her pelisse and bonnet declared her a member of the ton, or at least a rich cit’s daughter, as well as the presence of her maid, a soberly dressed middle-aged woman with a face twisted in disapproval.

  The lady poked in the mud around the flowers with her gloved hand, and twisted to pass her umbrella to the maid, who held it over her. She plunged both hands into the mud, prodding and digging.

  He wasn’t close enough to hear their conversation, but half-reading the lady’s lips, just visible under her bonnet’s brim, he thought he caught the words, “should have brought a spade.”

  And her maid answered, “Fool’s errand … you can’t save every plant in the park. There are gardeners employed here, my lady. Even they can’t save the plants. …” He heard more of the maid’s words, since she wasn’t bothering with a lowered voice.

  Cerberus was nipping at the trampled grass under him while Adam watched this intriguing spectacle. The horse grew bored of standing still, raised his head, and nickered and pranced. Ill-trained beast. Adam controlled him with his knees and a hand.

  The lady raised her head at hearing a horse so near her, and Adam caught full sight of her face for the first time.

  She was beautiful.

  Pale curls, wide-spaced eyes, small mouth, a pointed chin. An unusually long, straight nose, like a Grecian statue.

  Lovely.

  And young. He realized he was staring, and turned his gaze to the trees.

  But he looked back a mere second later. The lady stood, her face flushed, and wiped her gloved and muddy hands against each other in attempts to clean them. She turned away, presenting him with her profile. It was enchanting, the resemblance to a Grecian statue even more pronounced when viewed from the side.

  She glanced back at him, and he had the presence of mind to tip his hat to her.

  He was making the lady uncomfortable. He firmly took control of Cerberus and urged him forward. He left the strange young lady to her gardening, and brought his horse to a canter.

  He watched the lady from a distance whenever she was in view. He found himself discreetly following her.

  She stopped at several more clumps of plants, shrubs, and multiple trees. She tore off dead leaves, and poked about, but appeared to become discouraged and walked off toward Grosvenor Gate.

  He passed a park laborer, well bundled against the rain.

  “Hello there, sir. Do you know the young lady who is walking there?” He gestured in her direction, the only young lady about.

  “The one trying to do me job? Aye, milord, that’s Lady Cora Winfield. A countess’s daughter, who likes to claim herself a horticulturalist!”

  Fascinating.

  Adam dug in his greatcoat and flipped a coin at the man, who caught it deftly. “Thank you, my good man. You wouldn’t happen to know where this young lady resides?”

  “The Averill House in Grosvenor Square. A pleasure, governor.” The laborer tipped his hat with a smile, shouldered his rake, and continued on his way.

  j

  Lady Cora Persephone Winfield trudged up the front stairs of their townhouse, and the door opened before her. Foley’s impassive gaze took in her appearance—soaked skirts, muddy work gloves, and filthy hem—with only a tightening of the mouth to hint at his disapproval. Cora gingerly peeled off the sodden, dirt-caked gloves, and allowed Richards, coming in behind her, to loose her bonnet ribbons. Cora’s cold-numbed and dirty fingers would only mangle them. The gloves hadn’t been protection enough from the mud and pouring rain.

  Richards removed Cora’s sodden pelisse, and Cora sat down in the entry chair. Her half boots could not to be allowed into the house after what she had put them through this morning. Richards loosed the laces, and removed the boots gingerly. Cora felt her face flush in shame for all the extra work she had made for her maid. She kept her eyes downcast, but her chin up.

  She could feel the disapproval coming from the two servants. She felt powerless to abate it. Mother would have just run roughshod, as she always did, but Cora itched under their disapprobation.

  Mother would never have done something as vulgar as become muddy grubbing with water-logged plants in the plain view of everybody in Hyde Park.

  That dark gentleman on the black horse had been staring at her. Her cheeks grew hotter with embarrassment at the memory. She had exposed herself. How many other gentlemen and ladies had been in the rainy park that she had not noticed? Would they all be ready to comment on her unladylike activities at tonight’s ball?

  When Mother heard of it, Cora would get another miserable scolding. Her shoulders wanted to hunch at the thought, but Cora forced them to stay back, her posture erect and perfect, as had been drilled into her from countless governesses, dancing masters, and finishing school matrons.

  She shouldn’t have bothered in Hyde Park. There was little she could do.

  But the plants were dying!

  They were drowning, waterlogged, and swampy. The rain kept coming down. There had been barely a dry day throughout England since May. The growth that had come out in the strangely cold and dark weather was now yellow and sickly. Some were rotting where they grew.

  She’d tried to remove the damaged yellow and brown leaves from affected plants. But a strange fungus with reddish spots was starting to appear, and getting worse.

  The army of gardeners for the London Parks couldn’t do much to save them. And she surely couldn’t. It had been futile—a wasted effort—that would now cause her and her servants even more trouble.

  Perhaps if they slowly undammed the Serpentine, and dug ditches to direct the water …

  Cora sighed, stood, and forced the problem of Hyde Park out of her mind.

  In stockinged feet, she walked up the great staircase, hoping the softness of her passing would spare her mother’s notice. But Richards had kept her own boots in reasonable order, and was still wearing them. Mother looked up as they passed her sitting room, and that was that.

  “Cora, what in heaven’s name have you been doing?”

  Cora’s eyes closed in consternation, and then turned to her mother with a sheepish smile, “I’ve only been in the park, Mother.”

  Mother stood and so did the gentleman and two ladies with her. Of course, Mother wasn’t alone. Whenever was Mother alone?

  Foley hadn’t warned her though; he hadn’t said a thing. He must be punishing her.

  Despite the fact that morning calls shouldn’t start till noon or one, there were visitors here. Cora glanced at the hall clock. Oh. It was noon. She had been in the park longer than she had realized.

  Mother’s two cronies, Lady Burrelton and Mrs. Winters, Cora felt safe to disregard. They would have catty remarks to say no matter how well Cora behaved. But the gentleman …

  “I have managed to become quite muddy, so if you’d please excuse me.” Cora tried to hurry past. She didn’t want to face Lord Eastham, Earl of Soley, in her dirty, disheveled state. She would have thought her mother would have agreed.

  “Cora! It is only our good friend and neighbor, Lord Eastham, and Lady Burrelton and Mrs. Winters. Please come in and greet them.” Mother’s loud voice was not to be ignored. Cora’s cheeks flushed again, but she crept carefully into the room, keeping her steps small to hide the fact that she was shoeless, and wrapping her bare hands in her sodden skirt
s to hide them. She glanced quickly at her mother’s face, and saw the moment she realized just how wrecked a state she was in. Mother’s mouth tightened with anger and her eyes flashed, promising retribution later.

  Cora tightened her own mouth, but curtsied politely to the ladies and gentleman, saying proper greetings. She could feel her skirts beginning to drip onto the Aubusson carpet, and cringed inwardly. “You will have to forgive me, as I am not quite fit for company at the moment. I did not realize the time.”

  “Oh, don’t feel uncomfortable on my account, Lady Cora.” Lord Eastham flashed her a mocking grin, wider than was usual for him. He was finding this amusing, she could tell. “I’m just paying a neighborly call, as I have recently come into town again after having spent some time in the country.”

  Cora’s intention was to have gotten out of there as quickly as possible, but this news sidetracked her. “At your own estates, Lord Eastham?”

  “Yes, there was trouble with some of the staff, and I had to get to the manor immediately.”

  “How is the weather? How is the wheat crop in the region? Does it look all right?” Cora hated being stuck in London every Season, instead of at the Grange, where she could be involved with the planting and growth of the tenant farmers’ crops. She wanted to be home tending her own kitchen garden and the flower beds of the estate grounds.

  Mr. Motley, rector and fellow horticultural enthusiast, kept her updated by letter on the local conditions, but he tended to be distracted by his own flower garden, and not notice how the local crops were doing to the detail she would like.

  And he didn’t write to her about the tenant farmers’ troubles. She worried about Farmer Smith, with his weak leg, and only a daughter left at home. And the Wards, with Mrs. Ward dying in childbed after delivering twins, and how Mr. Ward surely was struggling to farm and take care of them. Things were likely not going well for all the tenants. Cora had heard of frost in May, and blight attacking the wheat and oat crops.

  Lord Eastham wouldn’t have any news of them, of course. But he had at least passed by some of their fields on his way to his own estate.

  Lord Eastham raised his brows at her inquiry. “The weather is wet and unseasonably cold there, as it is here. The wheat crop, well, I confess I only glanced at it, but I don’t think it was as green as it usually is in late June.”