The Trials of Alaric (Twist Upon a Regency Tale #8)

Chapter Two

W hen Alaric woke again, the room was lit by daylight rather than candles and the lamp. Reluctant daylight—the rain continued to pound the window—but bright enough for him to see the room in more detail.

A different footman was dozing in one of the chairs by the fire. Gilno, Alaric assumed. He jerked awake when Alaric struggled into a sitting position.

“Sir,” he said, standing and stepping toward the bed. “Good morning.” His accent was thicker than Colyn’s—his d almost a t , and his vowels so different to what Alaric expected that he had to make a mental translation.

“Good morning,” he replied, after a moment.

“Be ye more yerself this day, sir?” the footman enquired. “It’s a good long sleep ye’ve been after havin’.”

“I am better, thank you.” Alaric’s reply was untrue. He ached everywhere, and was conscious of bruises on his head, his shoulder, and his thigh that formed the foreground pain against a background of generalized discomfort. Still, nothing felt broken or out of place, and bruises were always worse on the day after an injury.

“Doctor’ll be by to see ye, sir,” Gilno told him. “Milady, too. I’ll get ye cleaned up a bit, if y’feel up to’t.”

“Lady Beatrice,” Alaric said. Her visit last night felt like a dream, but he remembered the name.

“Aye, sir.”

Alaric managed to swing his legs out of the bed and over the side but was grateful for Gilno’s support when he dropped to the floor—the bed was higher than he expected and his knees were shaking. Various other parts of his anatomy were also complaining.

“Let me help ye to chamber pot,” Gilno suggested, “then sit ye down while the hot water comes for yer wash.”

With a great deal of help from Gilno, he washed, and dressed in a pair of loose pants, a shirt, and a man’s silk dressing robe, with a kerchief knotted at the neck. No slippers or house shoes, for which Gilno apologized and offered stockings as an alternative. “But Lady Bea will find something to fit you, sir,” he assured Alaric, who was beginning to acclimate to the accent and easily understood that he owed his current attire to the earl’s daughter.

By the time Alaric was done, fatigue was weighing him down, but he refused Gilno’s suggestion that he return to the bed. “I will sit in the chair by the fire,” he decided. He would feel more confident meeting the doctor, the young lady, and perhaps his host. He accepted the offered footstool. No point in being stupid about it.

Gilno brought him food and drink. A couple of slices of bread that Gilno toasted over the fire and—praise the merciful angels—a pot of hot, bitter coffee. Alaric managed one slice of the toast with some sort of conserve. He had a second cup of the coffee.

The doctor and Lady Beatrice arrived together, but the doctor sent the lady away while he examined Alaric. “I was right last night. Nothing broken,” he said at last, after prodding and poking Alaric in uncomfortable places, looking into Alaric’s eyes, examining the bruises, and removing various dressings and replacing them. “Rest for a few days, young man. You’re lucky to be alive, but you have come away with little more than a bad headache. I’ll order some willow bark tea for that.”

He repeated his diagnosis for Lady Beatrice when she rejoined them. “I shall send my bill to the house steward,” he declared, and Lady Beatrice thanked him.

“I have money,” Alaric offered, but no. He’d put his money pouch in his coat pocket before leaving his cabin, but he’d removed his coat before jumping into the water so it would not weigh him down. He shook his head and sighed. “I lost it in the wreck,” he admitted. “But if you send me an account, Doctor, I shall pay it as soon as I reach England. I do not mean to be a charge upon the castle.”

The look Lady Beatrice gave him was nothing short of patronizing. “ Cashtal Vaaich is not an inn, Mr. Redhaven. We do not present our guests with a bill.”

Maybe so, but neither was Alaric a beggar, relying on the charity of others. Except at this moment, when he depended on the Vaaich household for food, clothing, the roof over his head, even his life. The knowledge pinched at his pride.

“You shall allow me to pay my own doctor’s bill, Lady Beatrice,” he said.

She looked at him, her head tipped to one side and with a thoughtful expression on her face. She was really very beautiful. He wondered why she was not wed, for she must be in her early twenties. But then, perhaps she was wed. He really knew nothing about her. “The doctor’s bill,” she agreed, her tone haughty. “I shall authorize the steward to pay Dr. Bryant, and to give you an accounting. Will that be satisfactory, Mr. Redhaven?” She lifted an interrogatory eyebrow.

“I meant no offense, my lady,” he assured her. “I am truly grateful for your rescue and your hospitality.”

“You need to rest, Mr. Redhaven,” Dr. Bryant declared. “We shall leave you to Gilno’s care. Lady Beatrice, you mentioned the kitchen maid’s burn. Shall we have a look and see why it is not healing?”

The doctor was correct. Alaric was exhausted. He allowed Gilno to assist him and was soon sinking into the blackness of sleep, his last thoughts lingering on the lovely Lady Beatrice.

*

Bea had been lucky last night. She had managed to get Mr. Redhaven up the stairs and into his bedchamber without being seen by her parents or any of the guests and had even been able to dress for dinner and arrive downstairs before her mother became testy.

It was midafternoon before Bea’s mother discovered that the household had acquired a guest. Bea had been meaning to tell her, but the countess did not emerge from her bedchamber until after eleven, and then immediately summoned Beatrice to her sitting room.

Before Bea could introduce the subject of Mr. Redhaven, her mother said, “This rain means we cannot have our planned excursion into the town, Beatrice. We will need to make alternative arrangements. I thought some games in the long gallery. Archery, perhaps, dear, and skittles. You know the sort of thing. Then we can have music and perhaps charades in the large drawing room. Make the arrangements, there’s a dear.”

“Mama, I need to tell you—”

“Not now, dear. Our guests will be looking for amusement soon, and I have no time to waste, and neither have you. I must dress, and you must pass on my instructions to the servants. Hurry along, Beatrice.”

What instructions? Mama gave no thought to what was possible or how to put her ideas into practice. That was Bea’s job, with Mrs. Johnson and dear Skelly as her lieutenants. Bea had, of course, made contingency plans for poor weather, but archery and skittles had not been on the list, so she would have to scurry to make things happen.

Ah well, she would tell Mama about Mr. Redhaven later.

But first, she must speak to Cook, for they had been planning to purchase food at the town market while they were out, and now the kitchen would have to add a range of savory and sweet delights for those guests who had not fully satisfied their appetites in the breakfast room, where most of them were now gathered.

Once refreshments were organized, she moved on to the long gallery where she rallied some footmen to move any furniture, ornaments, or paintings that might be damaged by a stray arrow or ball from the long gallery into adjacent rooms and set up the room into zones for the planned activities. Skittles at one end, archery at the other, with the contestants facing away from the middle of the room, and the doors at each end of the gallery locked and bolted to avoid accidents.

Then lawn chess in the middle, and also space for blindman’s bluff and musical chairs. For which they would need an instrument, so she sent for one of the small harpsichords. She would ask Aunt Joan to play.

She left the servants hurrying to and fro marking out the boundaries of each activity and setting up the equipment and moved on. The drawing room was simple enough. Enough chairs for those assembled, all set up and facing the row of doors to the music room, which she opened ready for music and then charades.

She had better tell Mrs. Johnson that a second round of comestibles should be served with tea and coffee in the drawing room in time for people to arrive from the long gallery. And then, perhaps, a glass of wine or some other such drink after charades before people went up to change for dinner.

The small drawing room was her next destination. The guests gathered there at around noon every morning. Mama would greet them all, once she was dressed, confident that she could announce the changed program to her guests, and that everything would proceed without a hitch.

Which it always had, though Mama had never troubled herself with ways and means. Aunt Joan had always been the moving force behind Mama’s successful house parties, and she had trained Bea to take over from her.

After that, her time was taken up with The Suitors, all of whom wanted her attention, or, rather, the attention of the Heiress of Claddach.

There were five of them, all invited so Bea could choose one to be the next lord of Claddach—in fact, if not in name. Her father had been firm. “You must marry, Beatrice, and you have consistently argued against going to London, so we have come up with a solution.”

He had held up a hand to silence her when she would have protested. “Your mother and her sister will select appropriate candidates to come here for a house party. It is my hope you will find one of them suitable. You are in your twenties. Your mother assures me your marriageability decreases by the year. Your breeding potential is also reducing, and it is your task, your most important task, to give birth to the next Earl of Claddach. Preferably while the current earl is still above ground.”

Mama would never have been so blunt, but the cattle of Claddach were Papa’s pride and joy, and clearly, he thought of her, too, as he did of his prize heifers.

Her father had been happy enough to encourage her to follow him and his land steward all over the island, to study the books, to argue the time of planting and the best new bull for the herd. He had even, in recent years, handed many of his local tasks over to her so that he and Mama could spend more time in Mama’s beloved London.

But Bea would never be the boy Papa had wanted. At best, she was only a place holder for her eldest son, the next Earl of Claddach. Ach, she was being unfair. She knew her father loved her, but he had no confidence in her ability—or in any woman’s ability—to protect Claddach from the politicians in London without a male to represent her at court and in the clubs where the gentlemen gathered.

She understood why Papa was anxious about what he called her breeding potential, too. Papa had delayed marriage until he was in his forties and had then married a childless widow in her thirties. Several months later, Papa’s older brother had died in a shipwreck with his wife and two sons, and Mama’s age became a matter for concern. Papa was convinced Mama’s age was the reason she had given birth to only one child. Disappointingly, a girl.

And now Papa was unwell. She did not wish to believe him mortal, but she would not shy away from reality, either. The doctor said a cancer was eating away at his gut. She would be Countess of Claddach sooner than any of them had hoped.

Bea sighed. Papa was right. Producing a son should not be put off much longer, definitely not for more than a year or two, and if it had to be done, why not do it now? And to produce a son who could be her heir, she had first to marry. And, to have a male who could represent himself as her protector when her father was no longer in this life, she would have to marry. There was no way around it.

So, the house party went ahead, with the possible candidates for her hand plus a few other people to make up the numbers. She had already told her father her opinion of the candidates. Her father had told her she was being picky.

Papa had investigated the twenty names on the list Mama and Mama’s sister Aunt Lewiston had written. “I removed the town fops, the idiots, and the fortune hunters,” he had said. “Any of the five who have accepted your Mama’s invitation would be a suitable father for your sons and consort for the Countess of Claddach when I am gone. Pick one. Draw a name out of a hat. Hold a contest.”

“Perhaps we should have a tournament, like the knights of old,” she had retorted. “Or you could chain me to a rock for a dragon to eat and give me to man who kills the dragon.”

“Trials of some kind are not a bad idea,” Papa had mused, ignoring her sarcasm. “See what they are made of. We’ll do that. But if you have not chosen by the end of the house party, my girl, I will expect you to have an extremely good reason for putting us through this exercise again.”

As she smiled her way around the long gallery, fielding florid compliments and refereeing pointless disagreements, she asked herself, Is Papa correct? Am I being too picky?

But no. Surely it was not too much to ask that she respect the man she would be bound to for the remainder of her life? That she actually liked the man?

Respect and liking would do. She did not demand love. Papa and Mama had fallen in love. They loved one another still—she supposed. But they were so different—had such different lives and interests—that their lives barely intersected. Bea wanted more. She needed more, for she was choosing not just a husband, not just a father for her children, but the man who would be lord of Claddach in all but name.

Sir Henry Dashwood hurried up to ask her when the archery contest would begin, and proceeded to explain to her exactly how the point system would work. The point system she had organized. Sir Henry, he was happy to explain, was not too modest to declare that he was a champion archer.

So far, all the suitors fail to impress .

“I have a small objection to the way the contest is organized, Lady Beatrice. I hope that does not offend?” said Sir Henry.

“Please,” Bea said, trying to modulate her tone and not let him know that internally, at least, she was rolling her eyes, “give me the benefit of your wisdom.”

The man was so dense that her sarcasm prompted a satisfied smile. “I am sure you are doing your best, my lady,” he assured her. But then he frowned. “Lady Beatrice, the ladies should not be permitted to enter today’s contest.”

Oh dear. “It is a friendly contest, Sir Henry. Some of the ladies wish to join in. Some, I know, are excellent archers.”

“Yes,” Sir Henry complained, “but they are ladies!”

And you, sir, are a cork brained twit.

Sir Henry obviously would not do. When the contests began in earnest, Bea was going to have to find a way to make sure he failed, although she was reasonably confident that he would manage failure without her intervention.

As the thought crossed her mind, Mama and Aunt Lewiston came hurrying up.

Uh oh . Mama was doing her best to keep her temper hidden, and to smile at the guests, but Bea could see she was in one of her states. “You will excuse Lady Beatrice, Sir Henry, will you not? I just need her for a moment.”

Aunt Lewiston smirked.

Bea kept her own smile in place and followed the two ladies out of the room and into one of the adjacent parlors. One. Mother has discovered I responded to shipwreck last night. Two. She has found out about Mr. Redhaven. Three. Both.

Aunt Lewiston shut the door. Mama, keeping her voice low, demanded, “Who is this man you have been hiding in the tapestry room? Where does he come from? Who is his family?”

Aunt Lewiston chimed in, “Beatrice Elizabeth Meave Collister, what have you been up to?”

“Mama, the gentleman was a passenger on the ship that was wrecked last night. I told Mr. Kinred we would look after him.” Which was true, even if it did skate over the fact she had been on the beach, and that bringing Mr. Redhaven to the castle was her idea.

“And who is he?” Aunt Lewiston demanded.

“His name is Mr. Alaric Redhaven,” Beatrice replied. “He is the second son of the Earl of Elsmouth. I have no further information, Aunt, except that he speaks like a gentleman, and the sailor who identified him as a passenger said he was one. I daresay he will be able to tell us all about himself now he is conscious. Dr. Bryant says that none of his injuries is life-threatening.”

The sisters exchanged glances. “The Earl of Elsmouth,” Mama repeated, the name clearly taking some of the wind from her sails.

Not so Aunt Lewiston. “Why did you keep this man a secret from your mother?” she demanded. “You take too much on yourself, Beatrice.”

“Not a secret, Aunt. I had not yet told Mama, it is true. She has so much on her mind with the house party. Last night, he arrived just before dinner, and this morning, Mama had all the worry of the rain, and the activities to replace the picnic.”

Mama nodded. “That is true, and the last thing I needed to worry about was some shipwrecked sailor.”

“It was very thoughtless of you, Beatrice,” said Mother’s one-woman Greek chorus.

Beatrice ignored her aunt and answered her Mama. “He is a gentleman, Mama. Not a sailor.”

“I shall be the judge of that,” Mama pronounced. “Come, Dorrie. We shall meet this so-called gentleman and decide for ourselves.”

Aunt Lewiston contented herself with a harrumph of displeasure and said to Mama, “We shall see what this Mr. Redhaven has to say for himself. Even if his name is, in fact, Redhaven, Mary, that is no guarantee he is related to the earl. Why, England must be full of Redhavens who have no more claim on Elsmouth than Skelly!”

Beatrice sighed once they had left the room. She had visited her father this morning, in his study, and had explained the events of the previous evening. He had already heard from the rector with a report on those rescued and those believed to be lost. He approved her actions, but she would not use that trump against Mama unless she had to. Mama had subtle ways of making her daughter uncomfortable that Bea’s father would do nothing to prevent.

She hoped Mr. Redhaven was awake, but he would have to fend for himself this afternoon. Beatrice was needed in the long gallery to judge the archery contest. She wondered what sort of an archer Mr. Redhaven was when healthy. Surely, with those shoulders, he would be able to beat Sir Henry and probably the rest of her guests.