Caught in Scandal's Storm. Helen DicksonЧитать онлайн книгу.
somewhere within those walls came the faint sound of religious chanting. It was so unexpected and so unfamiliar that Ewen stopped to listen. A faint hope awakened in him. He found himself believing that the old chant must be God’s answer to his fervent prayer. He had reached the limit of his strength. Incapable of taking another step, he collapsed on to his knees. He saw the dim glow of lanterns passing to and fro, carried by human hands. To the weary man, these lights signified life and warmth and hope.
1766
The swirling snow encircled the young woman, freezing her body and mind with a numbness that blocked her senses, but could do nothing to alleviate the pain in her heart. As she stumbled through the park she clutched her cloak tightly beneath her chin, the wide hood covering her hair. Blinded with snowflakes and buffeted by wind, she was unaware of the intense cold which numbed her hands and feet and turned her cheeks to ice. Her gait was that of a person in pain, but her pain was not physical. Her body was strong and youthful and healthy with the benefits of good living.
The whirling white flakes were coming down so thickly that she could not see more than a yard in front. She thought of her father, a man she could not remember, and was surprised to feel tears pricking her eyes. It had been so long. Since she had left Philippe, she had not been able to cry. She feared that if she gave way for a moment, she would shatter into a thousand pieces and never stop. So she kept her emotions wrapped tightly inside her. But now, the thought that her father was alive when she had thought him dead, that she would see him, pierced the barrier of her emotions and her cheeks were flooded with her tears.
Suddenly a dark form loomed up through the driving snow immediately ahead of her. She swerved wildly, but she was too late and cannoned into something solid. She would have fallen but for a hand that gripped her arm and held her upright. Panic struck her and she tried to wrench herself away, but the grip on her arm might have been a vice. A man’s voice said curtly, ‘What the devil are you doing out in this?’
Alice opened her mouth, but she was unable to speak. Her throat, along with the rest of her, seemed frozen and the wind drove thick snowflakes into her eyes, blinding her.
‘What’s the matter?’ the man demanded, his voice deep and rough. ‘Lost your voice?’
Her captor raised his gloved hand and brushed the snow roughly from her face, peering down at her in the hazy light. She had a fleeting impression, blurred by the driving snow, of height, and a pair of eyes, hard and flint grey and very angry, before her own were blinded with snow once more. The man muttered a low curse under his breath. She did not recognise the voice and she was suddenly very afraid.
The grip on her arm relaxed and in that moment, with a strength born of fear, she wrenched her arm free and fled as fast as she was able. Thankfully the ground beneath the trees was in her favour, being sheltered and only thinly covered with snow, and she was able to widen the gap between them. She heard him call out to her, but he did not follow as she vanished into a seemingly solid wall of snow.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, blinded by snow and buffeted by wind, breathless and shaken by her encounter with the stranger, Alice reached Hislop House in the heart of Piccadilly. Hislop House was the grand residence of Lady Margaret Hislop, Countess of Marchington. At present it was all abustle as servants busied themselves preparing for the grand occasion Lady Marchington was hosting that very night, to announce the betrothal of her niece Roberta to Viscount Pemberton, the Earl of Winterworth’s eldest son. Alice barely had time to compose herself before Roberta came hurrying to her across the hall.
‘I’m relieved to see you back, Alice. Although why you had to go off like that with a blizzard screaming outside escapes me.’
‘You know why, Roberta,’ she replied, managing with a supreme effort of will to keep her emotions well hidden. ‘I can’t bear being cooped up all the time. It’s so stuffy in the house. I need to breathe the fresh air.’
‘I know and I’m not complaining, but you know Aunt Margaret doesn’t like you to go out on your own. You should have taken one of the servants.’
Alice heaved a rueful sigh. ‘I hoped she wouldn’t notice.’
Alice had ignored the stricture which required that she take someone with her, after receiving a letter the day before from a person by the name of Duncan Forbes. Forbes had informed her that he had information regarding her father, whom she had believed deceased these past twenty years. Deeply troubled and anxious to find out more, Alice had fled to nearby Green Park without a chaperone to meet him at the designated time and place.
‘Aunt Margaret misses nothing. She knows everyone’s secrets and nothing is hidden from her. You should know that by now.’ Roberta gave Alice a speculative look. ‘Did the letter you received yesterday have anything to do with you going out?’
Alice shook her head. There had been few secrets between them since Alice had come to live at Hislop House two months ago. She had confided in Roberta about her reason for not marrying Philippe—though not all of it, for some of the things she had done with Philippe were too sordid for Roberta’s gentle sensitivities. Roberta was aware of the scandal that had shamed her and that, with her reputation in tatters, Alice had been forced to flee Paris. Alice would keep her meeting with Duncan Forbes to herself for the time being.
Duncan Forbes had told her that after the Battle of Culloden, back in ’46, her father, Iain Frobisher, had been captured and taken south to stand trial for high treason. He’d been held on the hulks in the Thames. Justice for traitors was swift and he had been stripped of his possessions and estate. When the guards had come to take him to Kennington Common for his execution, he had leapt into the murky waters of the Thames in a reckless bid for freedom. Although he was shot and the river searched, his body was never found. He was presumed dead.
Duncan Forbes had told her that he himself had been a common soldier at the time of Culloden and had been on the hulk with her father. He was one of many who had been released under the Act of Indemnity which was passed in ’47.
What Duncan Forbes hadn’t told Alice was that he had fallen on hard times. He had given little thought to Iain Frobisher since the day he’d jumped into the Thames, until he’d met a man in London recently who bore an uncanny resemblance to his companion on the hulk. His suspicions were proved correct, and after spending a short time reminiscing, the two men had gone their separate ways. But on reading a small clip in the papers about Alice Frobisher’s fall from grace in Paris, and learning that she had come to London to reside with Lady Marchington, he realised the information he had acquired could be turned to his advantage. He had sent a note to Marchington House addressed to Alice Frobisher, stating that he had information concerning her father she might find interesting.
Having whetted her appetite and seeing that she was desperate to know more, he had told her to meet him at the same time and place the following day. Alice had agreed, by which time she would have acquired the money to pay him what he asked for the information.
‘No, of course not,’ Alice lied in answer to Roberta’s question. She handed her snow-clad cloak to a waiting footman, who was not at all pleased to have water dripping all over his buckled shoes. ‘I’ll go to Lady Marchington as soon as I’ve changed my gown. The hem is quite sodden. See,’ she said, kicking a booted foot out in front of her to prove her point.
‘I think she wants to see you now.’
Alice threw Roberta an exasperated look. ‘Really, Roberta, unlike you I do not feel that I always have to do your aunt’s bidding. If I were you, I’d stand up for myself. No one would blame you.’
Roberta smiled tolerantly. She did not possess a strong will of her own and often allowed herself to be browbeaten into compliance by her Aunt Margaret. It was easier that way. ‘Aunt Margaret has been very good to me—to both of us, Alice. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have been sent to live with strangers. I could not have borne that. Aunt Margaret has done a lot for me.’
Roberta had the misfortune