Lady Farquhar's Butterfly Read online

  ‘Through coercion and blackmail!’ She had persuaded Julian to unclasp his arms from around her neck and go with the servant who would transfer him to Charlotte waiting in the carriage. She’d had no choice, but to what fate had she sent him? She choked back another sob. ‘How can I believe you’ll ensure Julian’s safety? What will happen once you’ve got what you want?’

  She had to give voice to her greatest fears, if only for the meaningless reassurance he would be forced to give.

  ‘I am not a cold-blooded murderer, Olivia. No harm shall come to either of you unless something interferes with the careful strategy I’ve laid out.’ He was thoughtful. ‘Together we’ve laid the groundwork. Your aunts will not grow concerned for a couple of days; no one will look for you until at least tomorrow afternoon, giving me plenty of time to slip across the Channel, never to be heard of again.’

  ‘What about Julian?’ she asked again, though she knew her desperation bolstered his enjoyment in tormenting her.

  ‘Julian’s fate’ – he leaned forward, putting his evil, oily face close to hers – ‘and yours will be revealed in good time.’ She recoiled. ‘Max will find me, and you!’

  Nathaniel regarded her through hooded eyes. ‘Mr Atherton will play the hero because it will be required of him,’ he agreed. His fingers beat a tattoo upon his thigh as the corners of his mouth turned up.

  ‘But if he finds you, will he still want you, Olivia? That is the question. Poor Mr Atherton is so confused over you and your lies I wonder if self-preservation is not more important to him than the transient pleasures of your fading charms. Once he’s nobly deposited you with your aunts I suspect he’ll attach himself to the first innocent, uncomplicated debutante who flutters her eyelashes at him.’

  Miss Hepworth. If Nathaniel were not watching her so closely she’d hurl herself against the squabs and sob her eyes out.

  Instead, calmly and quietly, she asked, ‘Why did you bring me Julian?’

  He answered as if he knew she referred to the night of his birth.

  ‘For the same reason I brought him to you just now.’ He smiled.

  ‘The power it gave me over you.’

  ‘You never loved the child and yet you would have me believe that only you could safeguard his future.’

  ‘I never disliked him. He was simply a child.’ Nathaniel shrugged.

  ‘Puling, puking and sniffling like most children his age.’ Reflectively, he added, ‘When I lifted him from Meg Dorling’s cold dead chest I wondered how long it would be before he followed his mother into the grave. No one wanted him. And then I thought of you, Olivia.’ He touched her cheek. ‘I thought of all your suffering and feared, from what Charlotte told me, that it was about to be compounded. That’s when it occurred to me I could give you the greatest gift possible: a living child.’ He glanced out of the window as the carriage turned into the avenue which led to Olivia’s old home. Smiling, he turned back to her with glowing eyes. ‘So you would spend the rest of your life in my debt.’

  The carriage ground slowly over the gravel and would have pulled up before the front door had Olivia not given the instruction to halt a few hundred yards away, near a grassy knoll.

  The crypt.

  What choice did she have? Nathaniel held her son hostage. Had just her life been in danger perhaps she’d have had the strength to resist. Max’s respect was vital to her fragile sense of self, but the safety of her son was paramount.

  They climbed out, Nathaniel craning his neck to ensure they were alone and well hidden from passers-by. The Lodge was unoccupied and there was no view directly from the dower house.

  ‘The only place I never looked,’ Nathaniel breathed as he outpaced Olivia in his quest to reach the iron door. ‘Why, it’s unlocked!’ He gave a delighted laugh. ‘Lucien’s grandfather must have given him the key as a clue. The old devil was probably no longer coherent when he realized it was all up with him.’ He was speaking to Olivia as a co-conspirator. ‘Quickly! Show me the treasure! I have waited many years for this.’

  Olivia hesitated halfway along the path which led from the gravel drive and cut across lawn to the family tomb. Where was the gardener who tended the hedges once a week? Or the milkmaid who took the common lane to the village?

  Hidden from all directions, even the carriage would not be seen from either The Lodge or the dower house.

  Wincing as Nathaniel hurried back and dug his fingers into her arm to drag her along, she stumbled to keep pace the last few yards.

  On creaking hinges the door ground open and Nathaniel pushed her ahead of him. Turning, shivering, she saw his breath misting in fast, shallow bursts.

  ‘Where is it?’ The urgency of Nathaniel’s demands cut into reflections of her treachery. She was about to sacrifice Max’s fortune to a villain in order to preserve her own dreams.

  Her entire life had centred around reclaiming Julian. When the unexpected love she’d found with Max foundered, the gold was to have shored up the intense, transient happiness that had gilded her life with hope.

  Dashing away a tear she forced herself to attend to Nathaniel. She’d still have Julian, wouldn’t she? Shouldn’t that be all that mattered?

  ‘You can see the hiding place,’ she said, dully, her hands hanging limply at her sides. She did not bother to point; just watched as his greedy eyes darted around the gloomy cavern until they alighted upon the tiny disturbed crypt, its heavy stone lid awry.

  With another burst of laughter Nathaniel ran towards it. ‘Dear Lord, I mustn’t forget to thank Mr Atherton for this!’ he cried, thrusting his hand inside to withdraw a fistful of coins, some of which scattered upon the floor. The weak sunlight from the high window illuminated his joy, a manic grin twisting his mouth. ‘You found it when you interred that cur I kicked to death – though if it’s any consolation I never meant to kill it.’

  ‘It’s no consolation at all,’ Olivia murmured, shivering as the damp seeped into her bones.

  Nathaniel forced the lid open a few more inches and burrowed into the darkness. Transferring the entire cache of gold he filled the bag he had brought for the purpose, straining under the weight as he headed for the door.

  ‘How fortuitous you considered the animal worthy of a Christian burial, my love.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Her aversion to his touch was replaced by panic. Already he was on the other side turning the key in the lock.

  She ran after him but the iron bars slammed against her face.

  ‘To fetch blankets and sustenance for five days,’ he said, unclasping her hands which she thrust through the bars. ‘Time enough for me to make good my escape.’

  ‘Nathaniel, don’t leave me here!’ she shrieked. No more than a square foot of iron grating in the centre of the door admitted light.

  ‘You were shivering, Olivia,’ she heard him call. ‘I will not have your death on my conscience after all you’ve done for me. Have patience. I’ll be back soon to load up the carriage.’

  ‘I don’t believe you! You’ll let me die here, won’t you?’ she cried between panicked sobs.

  He brought his face close to the bars, sliding his hands between them to cup her face.

  ‘I’m too fond of you to do that, Olivia’ he soothed, as if he meant it, ‘and I owe you too much.’ Kissing the tears which spattered the backs of his hands he said softly, ‘This is a bittersweet moment. It reminds me of all those occasions you turned to me for comfort. Once, I had hoped we might share this discovery. That our joy would be mutual.’

  ‘Five days! Nathaniel, I’ll never survive it! I need to be with Julian!’

  ‘Four days should give me ample time to disappear,’ he conceded.

  ‘And have no fears over Julian. I have given instructions for him and Charlotte to be released once I have secured a passage across the Channel.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘BEAUTIFUL MORNING, SIR!’

  Max groaned and turned his head from the sight of sunlight bursting through clear blu
e skies as Frensham drew the curtains. Anything remotely cheerful was a reproach. Since the events of twenty four hours ago he seemed to have existed in some dark eternity.

  Olivia might be safe, but he felt a villain, a cad, a traitor; his heavy-handed, bullying tactics a barbarous manifestation of his own jealousy.

  Wearily, Max performed the necessary ablutions before presenting himself in the breakfast room.

  He was chewing on a mouthful of haddock and thinking he needed to speak to Amelia about the quality of the food which tasted like sawdust when Jonathan burst into the room, waving the morning’s news sheet.

  ‘You haven’t finished telling me, Jonathon!’ Amelia’s shrill voice punctuated the quiet of the early morning household. To Max’s surprise she burst into the room in her husband’s wake, her hair hanging undressed down her back, clutching a shawl over her nightdress.

  ‘Lady Farquhar has left the country!’ announced Jonathon, breathlessly, slapping the paper upon the table beside Max’s plate and taking the seat next to him. Stabbing his finger upon the revealing paragraph he shook his head in astonishment. ‘Gone to the Continent to begin a new life on account of her shame.’

  Max’s mouth went dry. He managed to swallow the remains of his mouthful without choking.

  Amelia sank into the seat opposite and snatched the news sheet from her brother’s grasp. ‘Lady Farquhar has finally abandoned you, Max! Now you can ask Miss Hepworth for her hand!’

  Max knew he was staring like an idiot; that he sounded even more like one when he repeated, stupidly, ‘She’s gone?’

  Amelia’s excitement grew. ‘I’ve never understood the hold that woman’s had over you, but it doesn’t surprise me that some great shame has finally forced her from the country. Max, Miss Hepworth would make the perfect wife.’

  He wouldn’t argue that point, but the fact was he loved Olivia. He’d been on his way to tell her. He’d never considered jealousy one of his faults, but seeing her in the arms of another man had turned him into an irrational monster.

  He jerked his head up at the sound of his sister’s gasp. Amelia’s eyes were wide with shock.

  ‘What is it?’ He seized the news sheet she was devouring, fighting her for it as she tried to take it back.

  ‘Read it!’ Conceding defeat, Amelia leaned across the table to point to the revealing article. ‘It’s a confession … for the whole world to see.’ She went towards the window, turning with a self-satisfied look.

  ‘So Lady Farquhar has admitted her adultery to the whole world. I shall invite Miss Hepworth and her mother to our house party at the end of the month. If the weather is fine there will be plenty of entertainment to be had outdoors. Perhaps, Max, we should organize a picnic.’

  ‘My matrimonial affairs are my concern, Amelia.’ Max spoke carefully. There was too much too absorb. Miss Hepworth was the least of his worries, but Amelia had the capacity to cause a lot of trouble.

  He shook his head, trying to make sense of it: Olivia’s motives, the implications. Why had she confessed her adultery to the whole world before she’d confessed privately, in full, to him?

  Amelia swept across the room and laid her hand upon his arm.

  ‘Amelia is right,’ said Jonathon. His voice quavered with excitement.

  ‘You must think of your matrimonial duties, Max.’

  Tossing back her hair, Amelia’s eyes shone as she squeezed Max’s arm. ‘The world now knows Lady Farquhar for the adulteress she is and that I stand beside the true Viscount Farquhar.’

  He finished his breakfast in silence while Amelia speculated upon the possible candidates who had participated in Olivia’s misdemeanours, to extirpate any vestige of feeling he might still harbour?

  Oh, he harboured plenty of feelings! He just wasn’t sure what they were. Guilt. Desire. And fear for her safety.

  ‘She danced upon her dinner table for the entertainment of her husband’s guests!’ Amelia’s voice rang out with delighted horror before she whispered with exaggerated outrage, ‘I’m told she has a birthmark on a very private part of her person which the men used to line up to kiss! Lady Farquhar’s Butterfly, they called it!’

  Studiously Max maintained his silence, even as his sister went on, taking no account of his feelings – or perhaps because she knew it would wound him. ‘Can you imagine, Jonathon, how many men have seen it?’ Was it anger at hearing Olivia maligned, or simply that he must be one of the few men who hadn’t sampled Lady Farquhar’s Butterfly, Max wondered, as he fought the urge to hurl his plate across the table like a moonstruck calf and stamp out of the room.

  ‘Visitor downstairs wishes to see Mr Atherton.’

  The parlour maid who put her head around the door bobbed a curtsy.

  ‘Who is it, Ellen?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘The lady wouldn’t give her name, ma’am.’

  ‘You didn’t recognize her?’

  ‘She were heavily veiled, ma’am.’

  ‘You can stay here, Amelia,’ Max told his sister curtly when she rose to accompany him.

  Downstairs in the drawing room a small figure dressed in black wearing stout boots and an enormous bonnet festooned with black netting turned at Max’s entrance before hurrying forward.

  ‘Miss Dingley!’

  ‘I came as soon as I read the lies, Mr Atherton!’ she cried. ‘Though Catherine would have dressed like this to hide her shame I have done so merely to conceal my identity.’ Her eyes, when she raised the veil, were full of entreaty. ‘Please, Mr Atherton, find Olivia and bring her back. She was forced to write this confession. That man made her, though I’ve no idea how or why.’

  Max was reminded of the night Olivia’s aunt had begged him in the corridor to champion Olivia. The night he’d seen Kirkman go into her bedchamber.

  The night his faith in Olivia had been eroded. Yet he still loved her, Max thought, wryly as he ushered Miss Dingley to a seat.

  If Olivia had only had the courage to confess her adultery to him, she and Max might have been looking forward to wedding bells at this very moment.

  ‘How will I possibly find her if she wrote this yesterday and has probably already left the country?’

  ‘I don’t believe she has left the country, Mr Atherton. You were the last to see her’ – she paused meaningfully – ‘before you delivered her to the reverend.’

  ‘I delivered her to the man she was to marry after I discovered her in a compromising situation.’ Max began to pace. He knew he carried a considerable burden of both shame and blame for his part in Olivia’s disappearance, but it needn’t have been this way if Olivia had confessed her sins directly to him.

  ‘I want to help, Miss Dingley, believe me.’ He strove for patience. Olivia was not the wife for him. He could not afford to be in thrall to a siren who made him feel completely out of control most of the time and whom he’d learned not to trust further than the next platitude that tripped off her tongue. ‘However, The Times states she has taken’ – it was hard to say Julian’s name without wincing – ‘the child with her to the Continent. No doubt you’ll be reassured in good time as to her whereabouts and safety. I’m sorry, Miss Dingley.’

  Why did he feel like a limb had been lopped off when his suspicions about the boy’s parentage had been confirmed by Olivia in the most brazen manner?

  Taking a deep, controlled breath he turned to the mantelpiece, his tone and manner signifying that he considered he had nothing more to contribute.

  He heard the rustle of skirts as she turned; her sigh of disappointment and her hesitation before her voice, thin and hopeful, ‘This morning on her dressing table I found this.’

  Would she never let up? Reluctantly he looked at what she proffered. Blinking to clear his vision, he looked again.

  ‘Three gold coins, Miss Dingley? Worth a sum, but what of it?’

  ‘Where did she get them, Mr Atherton, when they would finance more than just a new wardrobe? Olivia has lived in poverty since Lucien died. Recently she discussed with us t
he idea of taking a job as a companion.’

  This was a shock. Max took the gold to study the coins better.

  Miss Dingley’s agitation grew. ‘Why would she leave them on her dressing table if she were fleeing to the Continent and would be in need of immediate funds?’

  Turning them over Max felt the flutter of excitement in his gut tempered by a wisp of memory: her last words which she had flung at him before he’d all but torn her from the carriage and thrust her at Reverend Kirkman.

  ‘I’ve found the gold!’

  He did not tell Miss Dingley this. Not when she would immediately have pounced and formed conclusions that needed more thoughtful deliberation.

  Yet it was true the gold coins hinted at something deeper. Dismay lodged like a heavy stone in the pit of his stomach. Olivia had tried to make him believe she had found his grandfather’s lost fortune, but he’d dismissed her words as more desperate lies.

  He handed back the coins with a frown, but was saved from having to offer a sensible course of action for the door was flung open and Miss Catherine and a dirty, dishevelled young woman he did not immediately recognize stumbled across the threshold.

  ‘Mr Atherton! Charlotte and the boy have just arrived!’ Miss Catherine collapsed on to the settee while she caught her breath. ‘I’ve brought them directly from Laura Place.’

  Julian’s nursemaid? The girl’s hair was a tangled mess and her hands and face were dirty and scratched, as if she had crawled through blackberry bushes. She looked terrified.

  ‘Charlotte!’ Eunice Dingley rushed forward, as the girl’s legs buckled. With Max’s help they supported her to the sofa before Max went in pursuit of some reviving brandy, the obvious question hovering in the air.

  After the girl had spluttered on the amber liquid, he could contain himself no longer. ‘What happened? We thought you were with Miss Olivia,’ he asked, bending over her, burning for answers and chafing at the need for patience for the girl was hysterical.

  He poured her another tumbler of brandy and after she’d choked it down she calmed, collapsing against the back of the sofa with her eyes closed.