The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Read online

  “Entirely and solely for the sake of forestalling further unpleasantness, my dear lady,” said the bishop.

  Marie whipped around to face him. “No. To ensure that my son will have no share in his father’s estate, should the Duke’s illness prove fatal.”

  Lady Jane maintained her composure with effort. “Madame, your crudeness is an affront.”

  “Does the truth affront those of your class, my lady? What a pity.”

  Lady Jane stood up. Bishop Francis stepped away from the hearth, raising one fat pink hand. His voice oozed conciliation:

  “Let us have no un-Christian words when a man’s immortal soul lies threatened.” He walked toward Marie, fingers unconsciously stroking the purple folds draped across his large stomach. “The offer is most generous. Remove yourself and your boy from Tonbridge within a reasonable time—a day or two—and my lady is prepared to turn into your hands the sum of fifty pounds. Why, do you realize how much that is?” His smile was touched with irony. “Some of our village curates survive comfortably on two or three pounds a year.”

  All of Marie’s theatrical talents focused in her contemptuous laugh.

  Lady Jane looked as if she’d been struck in the face. Bishop Francis’ eyebrows shot up. Folds of fat appeared between the lines in his forehead. Marie said:

  “A mere fifty pounds? For a young man who’s the rightful heir to part of James Amberly’s fortune?”

  “Oh, but my dear woman, we have no proof the Duke fathered him!” Francis said. “None whatsoever.”

  “Then I’ll show you the proof!” Marie cried, running upstairs.

  In moments she was back, carrying the brass-cornered casket. Phillipe had withdrawn to a place several tables removed from Lady Jane’s. From that vantage point he watched Bishop Francis inspect the casket with eager curiosity. Like his mouth, the bishop’s eyes looked moist.

  All at once Francis noticed Phillipe’s scowl. The prelate turned back to the fire, sighing and daintily rubbing at one eyelid with a sausagelike middle finger.

  Lady Jane was breathing faster. Even though the bishop smiled again, his pendulous lips glistening in the firelight, Phillipe felt an inexplicable sense of danger.

  Marie set the casket on a table and opened it. From the packet she took out the topmost document.

  “This is written in the Duke’s own hand. And witnessed by two friends, for the sake of legality. The letter promises Phillipe his portion under English law. Since James has only one other male issue, that portion is half. Not fifty pounds. Half!”

  Bishop Francis extended his right hand. “Would you be so good as to let me examine the document?”

  Defiantly, Marie started to give him the folded letter. Phillipe saw Lady Jane glance from the letter to the fireplace. He ran forward and snatched the letter out of his mother’s hand:

  “I’ll show it to him.”

  Phillipe unfolded the document carefully, held it top and bottom. Bishop Francis lowered his extended hand, all expression gone from his suet face for a moment. Then, hunching forward, he scanned the letter. He said to Lady Jane:

  “My knowledge of French is no longer what it was in my student days. But I recognize the handwriting as your husband’s. And the letter is indeed witnessed.”

  Phillipe carried the valuable possession back to the casket, folded it away and shut the lid. Bishop Francis fingered his jowl thoughtfully.

  “In view of those facts, my lady,” he said, “perhaps we might show a larger measure of Christian generosity. Obviously this woman and her son are not well off. A hundred pounds—?”

  “Half and nothing less!” Marie exclaimed.

  The tip of the bishop’s tongue roved over his lower lip. He looked almost grief-stricken. “You reject my lady’s offer?”

  “Completely!”

  Abruptly, Lady Jane made a quick gesture of disgust. She started out, her gray eyes venomous. At the doorway, she turned.

  “Madame, you are attempting to deprive my son of his full inheritance—exactly as you have deprived me of my husband’s affections for years. I cannot predict what will befall the Duke as a result of his illness. But regardless of the outcome, Roger will receive his full share of the estate—now or later. I nearly gave my life to bring my son into this world. His welfare has always been my paramount concern, because he is the only child I could ever bear. For almost a year after his birth, we were not even certain that he would survive—indeed, the mid-wives and the physician who attended my confinement had some suspicion that at birth he was harmed in some unknown way. When he did survive, and grow, I thanked the Almighty, and vowed he would receive my constant attention all his life. So I do not take any threat to his future lightly. Be warned.”

  And she stormed out, straight to the coach, where the footmen sprang down into the mud to open the door.

  Bishop Francis paused a moment, a gross figure against the gray morning mist. His smile remained sad.

  “Madame—young master—permit me to speak as one whose holy charge and duty it is to be sensitive to the situations of all human beings, regardless of their station. For your own sake—your own safety!—do not, I beg you, challenge the power of this family. To do so for any prolonged period would be extremely ill advised. And I would be saddened by what must surely be the inevitable consequences. Heed me—and reconsider.”

  Marie said, “No.”

  With a sigh and a shake of his head, Bishop Francis left in a swirl of purple. Phillipe couldn’t decide whether the churchman was sincere—or a wily charlatan.

  After the lavish coach had pulled away, Marie pressed her palms against the sides of the casket. She was jubilant.

  “Do you realize what all of that signified, Phillipe? The claim is valid! She knows it! We will wait to see the Duke, no matter what happens. We’re not dirt to be kicked aside as she pleases—or bought off for a pittance!”

  Phillipe said nothing. In principle, he agreed. But he hoped it was not a foolhardy decision.

  Distantly in the stillness, he thought he heard the Amberly coach thundering out of Tonbridge. He resigned himself to more waiting.

  Among those who were now clearly enemies.

  iv

  That same day, Phillipe drafted a short letter to Girard. He wrote that they would be delayed longer than expected, and requested that Girard continue management of the inn as best he could. Mr. Fox helped dispatch the letter via coach post.

  Phillipe had no idea what the next move in the game would be. He was convinced that Lady Jane would somehow keep track of their continuing presence. And indeed, it wasn’t long until he had another proof of their peril.

  Two days had passed. To fill the hours, he’d taken to helping young Clarence with chores around the inn. It was from Clarence that he received confirmation that he and Marie were being spied upon.

  “A groom from Kentland stopped this morning,” Clarence reported.

  “What did he want?”

  “He asked my father whether a French woman was still staying here. A French woman and her son.”

  “Is that all?”

  Clarence gnawed his lip a moment. “No. The groom said that if anyone from Kentland caught the son alone anyplace, they’d break his head for sport.”

  Down on his knees scrubbing the grease-spattered stones of the kitchen hearth, Phillipe ignored the look that hoped for an explanation. Once again he realized he and Marie were pitted against powerful antagonists in a strange and silent war. Who would surrender first?

  More important, when would they face the next direct attack?

  v

  As the sweet month of May filled Kent with the green of tree buds bursting open and the colorful splash of flowers blooming in cottage gardens, Phillipe, despite the open and implied threats, began to roam the countryside. The wandering filled the time when he wasn’t helping Clarence pitchfork straw or polish tables; it filled the emptiness in which no word, no sign was received from Kentland. The war held static, as if the opposition for
ces were pondering basic strategies very carefully.

  Tactics, however, were a different matter. Those were all too clear—and menacing.

  On an early morning tramp in the direction of his father’s estate, Phillipe encountered three grubbily dressed servants trudging toward the village with hampers. Though they wore no livery, he guessed at once that they must be from Kentland. Instant recognition showed on their faces.

  He stood immobile at the edge of the towpath, watching the three come to a halt a few yards off.

  “Why—’tis the French bastard!” sneered the youngest of the trio. “Still daring to show his dial in daylight!”

  One of his companions crouched down quickly, snatched a stone, hurled it hard.

  Phillipe didn’t dodge swiftly enough. The stone struck his forehead, left a stinging gash that bled.

  Growling under his breath, Phillipe started to charge the servants—and only checked when he saw two of them go for bigger rocks and the third drop his hamper and reach into his boot for a skinning knife.

  The blade flashed in the low-slanting sun. Confronting bullies was one thing. But dashing unarmed toward suicide was quite another. What if he were seriously wounded? Even killed by these nobodies? Though it galled him to hesitate, he knew he shouldn’t risk the danger of his mother being left with a dead or injured son on her hands. Not when she had poured so much of her strength and hope into bringing them this far—

  He thumbed his nose at the trio and gave them a good, obscene cursing in French as he turned his back.

  In response, he heard laughter, jeers, English oaths fully as blue as his own. His face reddened as he quickened his step and angled for some trees on the side of the path away from the river. He knew what he was doing was right. But it was still humiliating.

  Trying to pelt him with stones, the servants gave chase. But only for a short distance. Once into the woods, he eluded them easily. He negotiated his way back to Tonbridge over the downs, stopping only to wash the blood off his forehead in a brook.

  All the way to Wolfe’s Triumph, the taunts tormented him.

  He kept reminding himself that he must keep his eye on the larger purpose. It had taken more courage to flee than might have been required to attack the servants and jam their insults back down their ignorant throats.

  Or so he rationalized, to ease his conscience.

  When Marie asked him about the clotted cut over his eye, he gave her an evasive answer. He’d tripped, sprawled out, that’s all. No use letting her know of the new evidence of their continuing danger—

  But he was damned if he’d let intimidation from the Amberly household deter him from wandering wherever he pleased. He would not—could not—surrender that completely.

  So if anything, the aborted attack only made his ramblings bolder and more frequent.

  One bright afternoon he took another long stroll beside the Medway, then sat down to rest at the edge of a large, shadowy grove on the summit of what the locals called Quarry Hill. Seeing no one, menacing or otherwise, in the vicinity, he yawned, leaned back and dozed off.

  Hoofbeats wakened him.

  Below, on the towpath, a rider reined in. A splendid, glistening black stallion pointed its muzzle up the hillside. He scrambled to his feet, alarmed until he saw tawny hair flash in the sun—

  It was Alicia Parkhurst.

  She had evidently recognized him asleep against the tree trunk. Phillipe’s forehead felt warm all at once.

  He walked forward as the girl dismounted, holding the black’s reins with one hand. She looked down the hill, then swept the horizon with a glance, as if to make certain she was not being observed. She wore the same fashionable riding costume in which he’d first seen her, and again he noticed the way it emphasized the swelling fullness of her breasts.

  “Good afternoon, Master Frenchman,” she said with a coquettish nod. “I’ve never spied you on Quarry Hill before.”

  “Oh,” he grinned, “have you looked?”

  She feigned annoyance. “You have a saucy tongue.”

  “My apologies. Do you ride this way often?”

  “Not as often as I’d like. Every few days—if I’m lucky.”

  “Well, I’ve never stopped here before. But I’ve seen enough of Tonbridge to last awhile. So I’ve been exploring. May I ask whether there’s any news of my father?”

  Alicia Parkhurst shook her head. “The situation’s little changed. That ghoul Bleeker lets more and more blood. But still the Duke seldom wakens. They do fear for his life.”

  Phillipe swallowed hard. “I thank you for that much information—they’ve sent us no further word.” He decided to avoid the subject of the attempted bribe.

  “Nevertheless,” Alicia said, “Lady Jane is very much aware that you are both still here.”

  “Yes, I’ve learned she has—informants, keeping track. I ran into what I presume were three of them on the towpath some days ago.”

  “But you haven’t seen Roger,” she countered; it was more of an assertion than a question.

  “No, not so far.”

  “Because Lady Jane is restraining him. He’d like nothing better than to ride to Tonbridge and thrash you—for a start. You do realize how dangerous he can be?”

  Phillipe’s eyes looked bleak as he nodded. “He has what you could call a fragile temper, doesn’t he?”

  “And you upset him so, that first day. You positively drove him to the limit!”

  He wanted to comment that she’d had some hand in that too. But he refrained, asking instead:

  “Why is his mother keeping him leashed? I can’t imagine it’s because she’s concerned about my well-being.”

  “Certainly not. I think she’s convinced you’ll give up waiting and go away eventually.”

  “She’s wrong. I intend to see my father.”

  “I knew you were determined the first minute I looked at you. So did Roger, I believe. Perhaps that’s what prodded him into that awful display at Kentland.”

  Again Phillipe held back a comment. Alicia’s brilliant blue eyes slid obliquely across his face. Her next words, couched as a request, were really more of a subtle command:

  “Will you walk with me back in the trees where it’s cooler? I love to ride hard but it tires the poor horse—” She stroked the animal’s neck, but looked at Phillipe. “I can’t linger too long. I’m really not ever supposed to ride about the countryside unescorted. But Kentland’s so tiresomely gloomy—and I reach the point at which I’ll gladly bear Lady Jane’s criticism in return for a little freedom—”

  She walked under the low-hanging branches, leading the black. Phillipe followed. Alicia seemed to relax the moment they were safely concealed in the green darkness at the heart of the grove.

  “You’re staying with the family for an extended period?” he inquired.

  “A month or two—into the early summer, at least.”

  “Are you making plans for the wedding to Roger?”

  “Of course. We’re to be married next year. It’s the way large estates are made larger in England. The Amberly lands added to those of my father will leave an inheritance of increased size to my children. Provided—”

  Smiling in a sly way, she tied the sweating stallion’s rein to a branch.

  “—provided I can induce—or should I say— seduce?—Roger to carry out his duty. The dear boy has his father’s occasionally hot temper—you share some of that, don’t you—?”

  “I hope not to the degree Roger does.”

  “—but I do believe he also inherited some of his mother’s coolness toward more—intimate pursuits.”

  She didn’t look at Phillipe as she said it, bending instead to touch a patch of emerald moss growing near a gnarled root. The leaves in the grove rustled. For a moment, Phillipe was both stirred and shocked to discover that aristocratic young English ladies would even allude to the subject of sex. The revelation brought to mind one of Mr. Fox’s recent diatribes against the loose morals of the nobility.
Mr. Fox was of the relatively new, Methodist persuasion.

  Deciding to explore his discovery a little further, Phillipe picked up the conversation with, “Intimate pursuits, you said—are you well acquainted with such pursuits, Miss Parkhurst?”

  The sky-blue eyes took on a smoky look. “What is your opinion?”

  His cheeks felt flushed. He managed to shrug. “I’m not sure. I’m no expert on English manners. Or English girls—what they do and don’t do. However”—he kept his gaze unblinking, a half-smile on his lips—“I do believe that with your eyes and certain other little—mannerisms—you want to make it seem that you’re quite experienced. Maybe that too is the fashion here—?”

  “La, how bold you are!” she said with a bright laugh. “Such perception! How old are you, Master Frenchman?”

  “Eighteen soon.”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  “That accounts for the look of experience,” he joked. Then, more soberly: “How old is Roger?”

  “A year younger than you. He should have a splendid career—if he doesn’t fall into some silly quarrel over cards or a bear-baiting wager and get himself killed. Lady Jane worries about that constantly. She’s quite protective—”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “—which I believe is the reason she has imposed her will and forbidden Roger to look for you in Tonbridge. Thus far, she’s been successful. I think she’s the only person on earth of whom Roger is honestly afraid.”

  Phillipe plucked a blade of grass, ran it absently between his index and middle finger. “Tell me more about your future with Roger, Miss Parkhurst. What kind of career are you counting on for him?”

  “Oh, first I imagine he’ll serve in the army. Purchase a commission, of course. One can’t achieve high rank quickly any other way. The army is a good steppingstone to a political career, so afterward, I imagine we’ll live in London. No doubt Roger will enter one of the ministries. Those in politics have many avenues for increasing their fortunes. The closer they can position themselves to His Majesty, the more numerous become the avenues. I look forward to a fine, prosperous life—”