The Darkest Summer (Book Classic Retelling) Read online

  She wanted to press for more detail, but caught her mother’s glare, and remembered that she was dripping on the carpet. Lord Eastham wasn’t the type to have noticed or cared about the crops or the tenants who worked them, except if they weren’t to get enough money to him. She might be being unfair to him, but he did give that impression. Blond, handsome, athletic, and dressed in the height of fashion, Lord Eastham was someone Cora had always found to be mocking her on some level whenever they met. He was her mother’s favorite, so they met far too often.

  “I apologize, Lady Cora, that I do not have more news to give you. So sorry to disappoint a lady.” His half-smile made her feel like he knew her weaknesses, and would be happy to exploit them.

  Lady Burrelton’s grating voice intruded. “The Times assures us that the crops are doing just fine, my girl. No need to trouble yourself with it.”

  The Times was lying, Cora was quite sure. Her trip through Hyde Park this morning confirmed that. If the sun didn’t come out soon, and stay out for a while, the nation’s food crops were in danger.

  “Thank you, Lady Burrelton,” she said anyway, rather belatedly. She needed to get out of here. “It is a pleasure to see you, Lord Eastham. If you will all excuse me, I ought to be repairing myself.”

  “Of course!” Lord Eastham bowed graciously.

  Cora caught her mother’s scowl as she turned to go, and felt the various dagger-stares of the ladies’ disapproval, and the Earl’s mocking against her back as she carefully walked out, head in correct alignment with her spine and steps tiny.

  Mother didn’t stop her this time, and she made it out and up to her room without being waylaid again.

  j

  Dry and ensconced in his office with his London solicitor, Adam tried to focus on business.

  The land permits for the canal from the main coal mine were at a standstill. Adam encouraged his solicitor to find solutions that wouldn’t involve getting an act of parliament. This year’s experience had convinced him that anything else was preferable.

  The graceful figure of Lady Cora Winfield rose up in his mind, pulling him away from costs and expenditures.

  He pushed the beautiful specter into the back of his mind, and inquired whether they had been able to engage Mr. Conniff, the renowned mine safety specialist, for August. Adam wanted to improve conditions in the mines now that they were his and not his father’s, and had been pursuing a consultation with Mr. Conniff for his evaluation and recommendations.

  He smiled in satisfaction when his solicitor confirmed Mr. Conniff was finally available. “Pay his travel expenses, and for his team.”

  The lady’s softly curving lips pursed over vegetation in his memory. How would they look if they smiled? He wanted to see those lips smile.

  What a foolish thought. He refocused on what his solicitor was saying.

  His solicitor moved on to discussing the merchant fleet. The long war had caused several losses in ships, lives, and money, but it was beginning to be profitable once again. Discussing ships brought his younger brother Nicolas to his mind, a different sort of specter to torment him.

  Nicolas would never retire from the Navy, and take over running the Blackdale merchant fleet for Adam, as he had hoped. Adam could only strive to make it strong in Nicolas’s memory.

  He pushed the image of Nicolas’s laughing face out of his mind, and Lady Cora Winfield took the space once again. The countess’s daughter who loved plants …

  When they were finished for the day, and his solicitor shown out, Adam sighed, rubbed his temples, and gave up. He had to see her again.

  He called for Malcolm. “Please find out all you can about Lady Cora Winfield, and her mother, the countess.”

  His valet raised a pale eyebrow over his heavy-lidded eyes, his long nose angled up. “Yes, your grace.”

  “And discover what next event they will be attending in town, and what it will take to gain an invitation for myself.”

  “Indeed, your grace.”

  Adam ignored his sideways look. His former batman would accomplish all he asked and more, he knew. He needn’t feel embarrassed to be inquiring after a female. True, he rarely ever had, but still … Adam turned back to his ledgers to hide the ridiculous heat in his face. “Thank you, Malcolm, that will be all.”

  “Duke?”

  Adam made an unnecessary notation with a dry quill point. “Yes?”

  “On a separate matter …” Malcolm shifted his lanky form, and cleared his throat. Adam realized he was uneasy. How unusual.

  “You’ve commissioned me to make sure life is comfortable here for Kate—Miss Douglas. And to inform you if any issues arise.”

  That caught Adam’s attention. He sat up and focused on him. “There have been issues?”

  “There was some … inappropriate talk on the servants’ stairs this morning.”

  Adam scowled. “Who?”

  “Now, I don’t think it’s necessary to give anyone their notice. It was just talk—” Malcolm held up a long-fingered hand.

  “Such as?”

  “Many of the town staff males have expressed interest in her, as happens. Miss Douglas has rejected them all, as is her wont.”

  Adam nodded.

  “A few are disgruntled that she has turned down their advances, and this morning they insinuated that she is so far above their touch because she’s under your interest and protection.”

  Adam grimaced, and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He could feel a tension headache coming on.

  “I did what I could to dissuade them from that line of thinking, but what folks want to believe …”

  “Yes. Thank you, Malcolm.” Adam sighed. He supposed it was bound to happen.

  Kate would hate it.

  “Inform me if it gets too out of hand. Kate will let me know if it gets unbearable for her, but—”

  “She might not, sir. She has her pride, as you know.”

  “True.”

  Nurse Anna’s beautiful illegitimate daughter, his cousin Kate. She had practically raised him, assisting her mother in the nursery since she was a young child. “What to do about Kate …” Adam mused.

  Kate had served his older sister Hester through her long maiden years as her lady’s maid, and as an informal companion. She’d helped Hester through his parents’ last years and made life better for her. Heaven knew he hadn’t. He had been as far away as he could get, campaigning in the Peninsula.

  But Hester had finally found love and married the parish minister. Adam had taken grim satisfaction in giving the portly, genial man permission to marry his sister, knowing how much his father would have hated it. The old duke had only considered rank in his daughters’ suitors, and had not a care for their happiness. The thought of Hester’s new position as Lady Hester Gilchrist, minister’s wife, still made him smile.

  Hester took Nurse Anna with her, and was about to add her first baby to the widowed minister’s already full nursery of seven children by his first wife.

  There wasn’t room in the bursting manse for a lady’s maid, despite Adam’s contributions to its expansion. Kate had remained at Blackdale Castle.

  But the castle wasn’t safe for Kate with her mother gone from the nursery, so Adam had brought her to London, her skills wasted as she took on the duties of an upper chamber maid.

  Malcolm shifted, “I know what could be done with her, she being the loveliest creature in all Scotland, and now all London, and all …”

  Adam raised an eyebrow at that. “Malcolm.” Adam let his voice be a warning.

  The pale-haired valet grimaced. “I’ll hold my tongue, your grace.”

  “Good.” They’d had the conversation before, and it didn’t bear repeating. “She’d make an excellent wife, though,” Adam eyed Malcolm. “I could probably offer a dowry, see her comfortably settled with some respectable man, one close by so she could stay near to her mother …”

  “Oh no! No no no, not me,” Malcolm burst out, waving his hands, and his face flushing. It was the most lively Adam had seen him in a long time. He watched him in amusement.

  “Just, not me.” Malcolm deflated into a chair, his posture slovenly and defeated. He covered his face with his hands with a groan.

  Adam couldn’t help laughing. He’d brought his old friend to the point of sitting improperly in his presence. He sat back in his chair, pleased to have gotten one up on Malcolm. It was not easy to do.

  “Though speaking of marriage … ” The customary sly tone was back in Malcolm’s voice, and he looked at Adam through his fingers, his hands still over his face. “Your grace, what odds would you like to lay on you finding a London high-bred lady who would be pleased by Miss Douglas’s employment in your household?”

  “Ho, Malcolm, who said anything about wedding a London high-bred lady?”

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows, and Adam looked away.

  “My sisters rather demonstrated that, didn’t they? When they refused to take her after Hester married?” His younger sisters Jean and Caroline had written back with different levels of politeness, but with mutual unwillingness to welcome Kate into their households.

  What would the lovely Lady Cora think of Cousin Kate?

  “Cousin of the duke, and daughter of a slave?”

  Adam gave him a warning look. “A freed slave, Malcolm, and a wonderful woman. Nurse Anna was more mother to me than any other, and I intend to do right by her and her daughter. I ought to prevail on her to retire, though I won’t take her from Hester. But Kate …”

  “Kate, the young and beautiful.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “She’s older than me, you do realize, Malcolm?” His valet was two years younger than Adam’s own thirty years.

  Malcolm coughed. “Doesn’t matter.” He ran his hands through hi
s blond hair, dislodging his carefully styled waves.

  “I trust you treat her with respect, Malcolm,” Adam frowned. “Just as my entire household must treat her with respect, if they intend on staying in my employ.”

  “Oh, I respect her!” Malcolm flung up a hand. “Wouldn’t dare not. She makes a man da—most uncomfortable.”

  “Yes, she has a commanding way. She’d be an excellent housekeeper, but her years aren’t advanced enough for me to employ her in that position yet, not while I’m single.” Adam shuffled papers and raised an eyebrow. “But if she were married …”

  Malcolm sprang up, his dark eyes looking a little wild. “Well, I must needs get to your commission, your grace. Ladies must be investigated, and all.”

  “Malcolm,” Adam stopped him with a word. Malcolm turned back with a grimace.

  “I want my household to always be a safe place for Kate, Malcolm, as I’ve stated before. If this talk continues, I’m fully willing to replace staff, as I will in Scotland when we return.”

  Malcolm’s narrow face softened. “I will keep my ear to the ground, your grace.”

  He bowed, and left.

  Adam had long stewed over the issue of Kate. He didn’t want London to be as bad as the castle had been. His ancestral home wouldn’t be safe for Kate until Adam replaced his father’s steward and butler. They’d be pensioned off as soon as he returned to Scotland.

  He wanted a household free from cruelty.

  j

  It was locked.

  Cora had only vaguely been aware that the door to the orangery had a lock. She jiggled the handle and pushed, but it remained firmly shut.

  Only the housekeeper and her mother could possibly have keys to a room that had never been locked before. How was Mary to keep the brazier burning to keep the plants warm if the maid couldn’t get in through the locked door?

  What should Cora do? Could she pick the lock, like a heroine in a horrid novel? She felt around the flowers in her hair for hair pins, but then winced as the curling strands of her hair caught against her smarting fingertips. She let her hand fall.

  A grim-faced Richards had dug out the dirt from around Cora’s nails with rough determination, leaving Cora’s cuticles raw. Her lady’s maid had cut the nails too deeply, then slathered lotion thickly over Cora’s hands to try to soften them. It made all the little wounds sting and left her skin red.

  She needed to put her gloves on.

  But what could she do to get into her orangery? She’d left a flowering Strelitzia reginae, a bird of paradise, close to a brazier to warm it, and it was time to move it away before it was damaged by the heat.

  Of course, if no one could get into the orangery to maintain the coals, it wouldn’t matter, would it?

  Her mother was punishing her for Hyde Park this morning, and her dripping reception of Lord Eastham.

  She felt like crying, or stamping her feet and throwing a rage. But rages had never been effective. Her mother viewed tantrums as ill bred, and would deny any wish that was expressed with too much feeling.

  Cora squeezed her eyes shut, swallowed back her frustration and humiliation, and cleared her expression. It was time for dinner.

  Cora would have to pretend to be unconcerned in order to get this door opened again.

  Chapter Two

  The Ball

  FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1816, EVENING

  Cora sat against the plush carriage back and tried not to fidget. They waited, queued to exit their carriage in front of the Carterights’ grand entrance. Judging by the length of time they had inched forward and then inched again, the Carterights intended a crush for their ball. Cora disliked a crush.

  She stifled a sigh that would draw Mother’s attention. Sir Merriweather, their escort for the evening, was chatting amiably with Mother about his recent visit to Paris, and thankfully keeping Mother’s attention.

  Cora wished to be back home at the Grange, with the freedom of country life and her gardens. But escaping from London wouldn’t solve her problem.

  Cora craved autonomy. If she married the right kind of man, she would gain some. She’d at least be out from under her mother’s thumb, with a home of her own.

  She’d begun this Season, her second, with full intentions to find a tolerable man and marry him. But it was drawing to a close, and her efforts were proving unsuccessful again.

  Last year, when she had been presented at court to the Queen in a pink monstrosity of a dress with panniers, she had dreaded her coming-out ball. It would be miserable and crowded, with so many people she didn’t know staring at her.

  But she had been a hit. A few odd phrases from her, and she was an Original. With her fortune, she was elevated from a lovely girl to a diamond of the first water. A court of admirers gathered around her. She had tried not to let it get to her head, but all the attention had been a dizzying thing.

  She was courted again this year, ringed about by hopeful young—and not so young—men. Her formidable mother scared away the obvious fortune-hunters, gamesters, and rakes, at least the ones of low enough birth that Mother found their vices unacceptable. If their rank was high enough, Mother didn’t appear to mind. At least in Lord Eastham’s case.

  Cora had her pick. And she tried. She had run through being married to each of her suitors in her imagination. Several were amiable enough, she supposed.

  She was twenty! And being treated like a child still. Her mother, locking the orangery! Just thinking about it brought up tears of rage and indignation to the back of her eyes, and she had to clamp down on her emotions and quickly think of other things, else she’d ruin her face for the ball.

  She wanted to be an adult—a grown woman, able to do as she pleased. She needed to be in control of her own fortune.

  “The rain this year truly has been abominable.” Sir Merriweather said. “It is making travel dangerous. I have heard tell that Lady Nesbit’s carriage was almost washed away in a flood only last week. And did you hear? Snow plagued travelers on the North Road. In June!”

  “Yes, the roads are treacherous this year,” her mother said. “My aunt Carston was intending to come to London to visit us from Newcastle, but the roads were so muddy, she gave up the scheme and went back home. I had a letter from her yesterday, and was most disappointed.”

  Cora felt a pang. It was sad to be missing great aunt Carston this year. She was one of Cora’s more cheerful relatives. But she was getting old, and travel was hard on her.

  “The riots! There have been riots in the countryside. Despicable I say!” Sir Merriweather sniffed. “Luddites and the poor over food prices. ‘Bread or blood,’ they say. They attacked a perfectly respectable family. Dreadful.”

  The price of bread was going to continue to rise, Cora thought, with the damage the weather was making to the wheat fields. Things needed to improve soon.

  She felt as powerless in her own life as she was powerless to change the weather. Was there a way for her to gain control of her fortune and become independent? It seemed impossible. Her mother intended to turn Cora’s portion over to her husband when she married. Anything further would only come at the death of her mother: the money, lands, and estates her mother owned would be hers—a considerable amount.

  Mother did as she pleased, with all the autonomy any person could desire. She was a rich, high-ranking widow. Cora’s father had died when she was young. Mother was much happier with him gone. It had been a marriage of rank with fortune, and her father had been much older than his wife.

  She could do the same, she supposed. Marry someone old and indulgent, have a child or two, and wait for him to die.

  She shuddered at the thought. How horrible to marry just to wish a man dead so she could have the autonomy of widowhood. And to leave her children without a father, like she had been left. She had had her Grandfather Averill, but still she had felt the lack.

  It was a very lonely existence, in her eyes. Her mother filled her days with her pursuits and pleasures, and focused far too much of her attention on her daughter.

  Maybe Cora should strive to get her mother married, and that would give Cora the freedom she wanted? Her mother would have someone else to focus on.