Page 6 of Love’s Refrain at Roslyn Court (Noble Hearts #2)
Six
ISAAC
I f Lady Poole had been cool in her enthusiasm before, now her attitude changed in an instant. Isaac sighed. He had been afraid of this.
“A viscount, you say?” His hostess sat taller in her chair. “How interesting. Where, might I ask… is it somebody we know? Sir Neville has many acquaintances amongst the nobility. They hunt together frequently.”
“Please, Aunt. Major Hollimore expects soon to be mourning a cousin. One forgets that such an inheritance carries a great cost.” Miss Bradley cast a disapproving eye on her aunt, whose gaze now flitted between Isaac and her older daughter, Louisa.
Miss Bradley seemed to understand him so well; he was dreading the moment when he moved from the spare to the heir.
He had no desire ever to become viscount.
How much would he prefer his cousin Edwin to live and marry and produce a houseful of sons.
“Yes, naturally,” Lady Poole was saying, “but one cannot change the hand of fate, and if one must, well…” She finished her thought with a tilt to her head, and another pointed look at her daughter.
“I do not expect my poor cousin to survive long,” Isaac stated, lest the lady’s thoughts progress too far down that path, “but my uncle is hale and strong. He might well outlive me. I have no expectations of taking his position any time soon.”
“Well… Yes, of course.” But it would seem that an idea had taken root in Lady Poole’s mind, not to be dislodged.
She now turned to Louisa. “My dear, now that Major Hollimore is recovered, why not show him the grounds tomorrow, as your father suggested? Sophia has been far too lax in her obligations, I fear. There is that lovely vista over at the lake, by the summerhouse. You have nothing to do tomorrow; I believe the weather will be fair.”
Louisa, for her part, looked horrified. She gaped for a moment, before settling on her answer.
“I cannot, I am afraid. You will excuse me, Major Hollimore, but I have promised to help the parson’s wife with the children. They have started a school, and I assist every Wednesday morning, without fail. She is quite depending on me.”
“She will manage without you for once, my dear. I insist…”
“Do not trouble yourself, Lady Poole,” Isaac hastened to say, “nor should Miss Poole inconvenience the parson’s wife. I have much to occupy my time, with reading and correspondence, and walks in the green countryside, which I have missed so much.”
Lady Poole pursed her lips. “Well, then on Thursday. You can take the cart, along with a picnic and seats. I shall tell Cook to prepare a basket. Yes, Thursday it shall be.”
Her satisfied smile was met by a fleeting scowl on Sir Neville’s mild face, and an unexpected look of dismay on Louisa’s.
Heavens! Isaac had no designs on the baronet’s daughter, nor any thoughts of finding a wife soon, but was he so disgusting to Louisa Poole that she could not hide that moment’s revulsion? He must take better care in front of the mirror.
Isaac slept ill that night. His dreams, when he finally drifted into slumber, were filled with black smoke and horses’ screams, slick blood and the cannon’s thunder.
He jolted awake more than once, his heart racing and his palms wet.
This was no surprise to him; he had spent most nights thus since those terrible battles in Spain.
He tried to concentrate on his breathing, as the old soldier from India had once shown him, and struggled with little success to still his mind.
At length, he gave up, as he so often did, and rose from his tortured sheets.
Knotting the belt to his banyan low over his hips, he moved to the window to take in the first tentative blush of dawn.
It looked to be a fine day in the making, and despite his objection to Lady Poole at dinner last night, he suddenly felt a desperate need for exercise.
There, just beyond the line of trees, an early sunbeam reflected off something; it must be the lake.
He had thought to wander there several times over the last week or so, but had not yet made the excursion.
There he proposed to take himself at once, to tire out his body even if his thoughts were never quiet.
He found some simple garments in his trunk, ones that required no valet to don, and with efficient motions, pulled them on and slipped from his room.
He knew the lay of the house well enough by now that his feet found the kitchens with no trouble.
As expected, this domain so seldom seen by the lords and ladies above stairs, was already bustling.
With an apologetic smile and a kind word to Cook, he emerged out the back door some minutes later with a piece of apple tart left over from last night and directions to the path that would take him to his destination.
The grass was damp beneath his booted feet and the warming rays of the sun had not yet woken the earth from its nightly slumber.
A few birds tested their voices, but the air was mostly silent as he walked, first across the lawns and then along the footpath that led gently down to where the deep pond slumbered, inky blue still, save where glimmers of those early beams sliced through the surrounding trees to spark a flame here or there on the velvet water.
He reached the lake’s edge and stopped, watching that moment when the bright sliver of the sun crested the top of the trees and the landscape around him came to life.
Deep violet, silver-streaked, then rosy, peach, and slate, the colours brightened the air in the ever-shifting array of dawn’s colours.
Here, at last, his soul took some ease, and he breathed deeply of the cool morning air, trying to inhale the serenity that sleep would not give him.
He thought, for a moment, he even heard music in that tranquil oasis, the faintest thread of melody, just beyond the threshold of his hearing.
It must be the breeze through the leaves, or a tendril of memory, those cherished notes from Miss Bradley’s pianoforte that had soothed his brow.
He had been thinking about her a lot of late, especially during those desperate hours between nightmares.
There were flashes of her cool, calm voice, that had rescued him when first he became ill, guiding him through the heavy mire of unconsciousness to a place of, if not calm, then solidity.
Her serene presence, still and unruffled, so at odds with the passion of her music, danced behind the visions of hell, giving him direction.
Her hands, long and white on the keyboard, sorting through the papers on the instrument to select her pieces, and the music… oh, the music.
He recalled those first notes he had heard her play the other day, those thundering waves of sound that grounded him, then that gentle, undulating harmony that drew him into a circle of light and held him there, safe, repelling the darkness.
He could hardly recall the tune, but how he needed that light again.
Perhaps that was what he was hearing now, an echo in his mind of the music that protected him, for those few precious moments, from his nightmare.
Perhaps he was imagining Miss Bradley, even unwittingly, fighting off the demons with her arpeggios.
Foolish man!
Brushing off that ridiculous notion, Isaac took another fortifying breath and set off along the path that encircled the small lake, finding rejuvenation in exercise where he could never find it in slumber.
The walk was invigorating. The path around the lake had been artfully designed, with some areas beautiful and cultivated and others left wild.
It was not a large lake, not like some great houses boasted, but it was wonderfully done.
He returned to where the path led upwards to the lawns again and stopped for a moment to watch the ducks that paddled their way across the water, before setting off for the house.
When he entered the breakfast room some time later, it was to find Sir Neville sitting with the newspaper and a cup of tea.
“Fine morning. You were at the lake?”
Isaac nodded. “It is a fine prospect. Was it your work, or that of a previous baronet?”
“My father. He nearly drained the family coffers for it, but we had a series of good harvests and better investments, and some grand luck at the races, and we came out all right. Not like some.”
“Mr Bradley?” Isaac had to ask.
“Heard about that, did you? Suppose it cannot be kept secret. Everybody in these parts knows. Poor girl. Quite ruined her. Lady Poole was no champion to keep Sophia on, for all that the poor girl’s mother was her sister.
Afraid her presence would taint our own daughters, she said.
But the child should not be tarnished by her father’s sins, and our girls have a baronet’s name and weight behind them.
Any man who would snub them because of an unfortunate cousin is no man I want for a son-in-law. ”
“I quite see that,” Isaac concurred. Perhaps there was more to Sir Neville than his passion for horses and hunting.
“Still, doubt poor Sophia will marry well, if at all,” the older man said. “Nobody wants to be shackled to someone with that stain on the family name. I imagine she will stay here, take on the housekeeper’s duties when Mrs Oswald finally steps down. She is quite competent.”
“Competent… yes, that does seem a good word for her. And musical.”
“Even I can hear that, lad. We had music masters in for the girls; Ned and Henry played a bit as well, but no one could touch Sophia. She entertains the neighbourhood when we are in company now.”
“So she told me. She must be much in demand at musical evenings as well as for dancing.”
“I cannot imagine she would be all that welcome if not for her music.”
Before Isaac could formulate a thought in response to this, Sir Neville spoke on.
“Not that we have been in company since… since we lost Henry. Lady Poole will be seeing to the invitations, but I believe we will start seeing close neighbours again shortly. It is nearly six months. Six months next week… Such a terrible time. I have not even been to the races, and only went hunting once. My heart was not in it. Not a whit. Poor Henry.”
The baronet let out a deep, soul-wrenching sigh.
“Now,” he blurted, changing the subject, “those boxes you brought back, what can you tell us of the trinkets in the small case? There was that pocket watch and an unusual game, I believe, and I do not know what else. Come, let us find them, and you shall explain it all to me.”