Chapter 3
When Lochranza Margaret Kildare arrived at Cleveland Court, Somerset – a palatial house, it possessed a tower at each corner, so it looked something between a castle and a cathedral – she gave no sign of being overawed.
At the edge of the park, its flat top visible above even the tallest trees, Solsbury Hill peered into the hallowed world of wealth and privilege. Beyond was the city of Bath.
There was an orangery at one end of the house, the entrance via the vast ballroom, where gilded mirrors reflected the light from windows that swept from floor to ceiling.
Elegant furniture sparkled beneath crystal chandeliers; food appeared on the table, served by women who flitted around in starched white aprons alongside bewigged footmen.
The comparison with the ship on which they’d undertaken the six-week journey across the Atlantic could not have been more distinct.
The servants stared at her. She stared back. She did not know this place, this here and now. Neither did she recall much of her life before the crossing of the Atlantic.
Captain O’Neill had left her eating in the servants’ hall when he’d gone to report to Lord Alexander. The servants had kept their distance, unsure of who she was.
They might have been unwelcoming, but not as unwelcoming as the man she who would be introduced as her uncle.
Little did any of them know that although her mother had made a good match with Edward, it was his brother she’d loved, his brother, Lord Alexander was Lochranza’s father.
A fact he would not divulge. Best she found out for herself when the time was ripe.
He was disconcerted, a nerve ticking beneath his right eye as he took in the news.
Turning his back, he stared out to where sheep grazed beneath the mature trees of the expansive parkland.
‘The child. I fail to see why she was not taken to live with my brother’s other children. Why bring her here?’
O’Neill had got straight to the point. ‘I believe they found the letters. They know the truth and I should warn you that they will not easily give up what they feel is rightly theirs.’
His lordship didn’t ask to what letters he was referring. He also understood the Kildare inheritance in its entirety was at stake. The child was his rightful heir. She was his heiress. Whoever married her would inherit all that his brother’s children coveted.
‘Her name’s Lochranza.’
It was as though a blow had landed in the middle of his back.
Dulcina had named the child Lochranza. His brother and he knew the name referred to where the child had been conceived, not sired by her husband, but by her husband’s brother.
His brother’s wife, the most beautiful woman Alexander had ever seen in his life.
He’d had the option to marry her himself – such was the passion that had ignited between them.
Everything about her had been memorable, the evocative way she moved, almost as though she was continually swaying to a tune only she could hear.
The mass of dark hair, the unusual greyness of her eyes, like tarnished silver, thick black lashes emphasising their intensity.
Circumstances had intervened. As eldest son, Alexander had inherited a title and a great deal of wealth, some in trade, some in land passed down through the generations.
His family had approved his first marriage.
He’d been no more than twenty-five at the time.
The lady chosen for him was titled and from a suitable family that married well with his own.
Apollonia had been declared a most suitable match.
She wasn’t beautiful. That might not have mattered so much if she’d at least been interesting.
Unfortunately, she was not. The love of her life was eating.
She’d eaten from dawn to late evening. He got used to seeing her with a plate beside her, crumbs sprinkled over her ample bosom and loud noises coming from her rear.
Children never came, one reason being that he couldn’t rise to the occasion.
At first, he’d adopted a tolerant manner towards her, but the more she ate and the larger she got, his patience and any sign of affection grew thin – just as he wished she would.
At least then there might be a chance of the marriage surviving.
As it was, she died when something inside her, no longer able to take the strain, burst. One of the more learned doctors summoned mentioned appendicitis.
Whatever it was, she was gone. By then so were his parents. He’d inherited the title. Once bitten, twice shy was an idiom he adhered to from then on. He’d also discovered his calling. Not for him merely managing his fortune and his estate.
Always an observant man and fluent in several languages, he was approached to assist in translating foreign correspondence ‘borrowed’ from foreign couriers likely to threaten the country.
It was also discovered that he had an aptitude for code breaking and for devising methods of his own.
Subterfuge, it seemed, was his middle name.
So that was how he went on, a bachelor of means with no inclination to marry.
That was until he set eyes on Dulcina. From first sight of her fiery, dark-eyed beauty, he knew she had a soupcon of African blood. Likely her grandmother had been a slave, her grandfather owner of a plantation, possibly a second son who had been sent to the colonies to make his fortune.
Society readily accepted those of mixed pedigree as long as they had wealth. Dulcina was accepted. Alexander, the man who had sworn never to marry again, had fallen in love. Not just that sweet love experienced by youth, but a fierce passion that could not be denied.
Marriage was a different matter. Alexander was titled and married to duty.
He was reminded by those he worked for, bigger bigots than he’d ever surmised, that his position could be compromised.
He was given a choice which was not really a choice.
In a fit of anger, when he’d realised that his brother, a widower, had also fallen in love with Dulcina, he left the country, supposedly on state business.
Whether it was or not, in his absence, his brother Edward married Dulcina.
It hurt, yet at the same time seemed that fate had held the right cards.
Sometime later, after he’d returned from abroad, he received a letter from his brother telling him that Dulcina had died in childbirth. He’d specifically given the child’s date of birth. From that alone, Alexander knew beyond doubt whose child she was.
All this history flashed through his mind like the pages of a book.
O’Neill took the opportunity to tell him what had happened to the child’s nurse and who was responsible for her death.
‘I fear they bear a deep hatred for the child. I fear also that they know—’
‘I understand what you’re saying.’
He took a deep breath that misted the windowpane before turning round.
‘My nephews are vultures. Well, so be it. I fear that even if I make a will in my daughter’s favour, she is still likely to be in danger.
There is so much at stake.’ He waved his hand at the expanse of parkland and the fields beyond.
‘All this is at stake. So, hear this, Captain. Keep what you know to yourself and be aware that I will never acknowledge this child as my own, at least not in the foreseeable future whilst danger threatens. She is always to be referred to as my brother’s child. My niece.’
O’Neill pointed out that at present Lochranza had blotted out the horrendous experience of that stormy night in Jamaica. For now, at least, they might all live in peace.
* * *
Ten Years Later
‘Wild! I’m sorry, your lordship, but I have to be honest. The girl’s wild! I really do not know what more I can do with her.’
Miss Moira Mackintosh was of good family with wholesome connections.
Unfortunately, her father’s compulsion to bet on horses with three legs and fighting cocks only fit for filling pies had left Moira with no option but to groom young ladies for entry into superior rather than polite society.
If she’d been a beauty, she might have found a suitor; better a fiancé than a trade.
At one time, her family would have shuddered at the prospect.
Being of plain countenance, hollow-chested and weak-chinned, she’d had no choice in the matter.
She’d come well recommended, having launched a number of titled young ladies into the London season. They’d all been very amenable, keen to learn how best to hook themselves a partner for life. All they’d had to do was to respond to and obey every precious morsel of advice she gave them.
Lady Lochranza Kildare did respond, though not as she should. The girl was rebellious and, in Mrs Mackintosh’s opinion, would never be a real lady.
Lord Alexander Kildare set down the latest addition to his vast library along with the magnifying glass he’d been using. A liveried dragoon had galloped into the grounds of Cleveland Court, the leather-bound volume held safely in his saddlebag.
The book was both large and handsome and also, to his mind at least, greatly edifying on the subject of birds.
He’d made the acquaintance of the author sometime in his long-ago youth when he’d been foolish enough to believe he could travel the world and enlighten his mind.
The author – one Gilbert Henry Lancing – had gone on to catalogue the wonders of the South Sea Islands and the tropical rainforests of South America.
His study of exotic birds had resulted in the voluminous tome presently set out on the table in front of him – The Habitat, Habits and Curiously Exotic Flightless Birds of Paradise.
According to this book, a large number of the birds in question had no legs but spent all their time flying through the air, hence the exotic exuberance of their brightly coloured feathers.