I Adored a Lord

Chapter 1

The Fugitive

Ravenna Caulfield’s ruination began with a bird, continued with a pitchfork, and culminated with a corpse wearing a suit of armor. The bird came first, indeed, years before the pitchfork incident and Ravenna’s untimely discovery of the poor soul in steel—­though perhaps that discovery was remarkably timely, depending upon one’s opinion of grand matters like Destiny and Love.

Orphaned as an infant and living in a foundling home with her two elder sisters, Ravenna learned steadfast fortitude from Eleanor and indomitable defiance from Arabella. Unfortunately, she never mastered either. So it was that on the day she stole a carrot for the old cart horse, Mr. Bones, and for it earned six hours locked in the attic, when she found the wounded bird tucked in a crevice between two chipped bricks near the window, she did not know to turn her face from it. Its forlorn cheep cheep was more than a softhearted girl could ignore. She went to it, discovered its torn wing, stared into dark eyes just like hers, and vowed in an earnest whisper that she would save it.

For four weeks she scrubbed the sticky refectory floor quicker than all the other girls, poking her fingers with splinters to earn ten precious minutes of liberty as reward. For four weeks her heart beat like a spoon upon a kettle as she snuck away to the attic where she chewed the stale remnants of bread from breakfast and fed them to the bird. For four weeks she collected rainwater from the windowsill in a leaf and watched the tiny creature drink until its cheeps were no longer despondent but gay. For four weeks she coaxed it into her palm and stroked its torn wing until finally it stretched both feathered limbs and made tentative leaps toward the window.

Then one day it was gone. Ravenna stood amidst broken furniture and old storage trunks, and wept.

A short, joyful cheep sounded outside the window. She shoved it open and stared into the eyes of the bird perched on a branch hanging close. It flew into her outstretched palm.

That spring she watched it industriously build a nest in that branch. When it laid eggs she knelt on her small, calloused knees at chapel every morning and prayed for the health of its young that would soon come. To celebrate their hatching she brought the little mother a worm she’d dug up in the cook’s garden, and watched her feed the four chicks. Lost in happiness that day, Ravenna was late to evening prayers. With livid cheeks, the headmistress reprimanded her before the other girls, then she made them all peel turnips until their hands were raw and sent them to bed without supper.

The next morning when Ravenna snuck out of the attic, three of the foundling home’s meanest girls stood at the base of the stairs waiting for her. With arms crossed and lower lips curled, they said only what they always said to her: Gypsy. But the following day when Ravenna went into the yard for their half hour of brisk walking, the three girls stood directly beneath the attic window. Before them on the ground were a great big stone and the remnants of a nest of twigs and leaves.

The little bird never returned.

Arabella fought the girls with nails and fists—­and won, of course. That night in the cold dormitory, while Eleanor tended to Arabella’s bruises and cuts, she spoke soft words of comfort to Ravenna. But despite her sisters’ help, Ravenna came to the conclusion that some girls were heartless.

After the bird, the battle lines were clearly drawn. The mean girls did all in their power to trip up the sisters before the headmistress, and most of the time they met with success. Eleanor endured their cruelties. Arabella confronted them.

Ravenna escaped. Losing herself on the modest grounds of the foundling home, whether in the cocooning warmth of summertime, the crisp chill of autumn, the peace of winter, or the soft, damp gray of spring, she fashioned a world in which she could not feel the tugs on her braids or the whispers of Egyptian which she did not understand. Outside the whitewashed walls of her prison she sang with blackbirds, scouted out fox, nibbled on berries in the briar patch and raw nuts fallen from friendly trees. Mr. Bones was excellent company; he never spit or pinched, and since her skin was quite like the color of his shaggy coat he never commented on it.

When the Reverend Martin Caulfield took her and her sisters away from the foundling home Eleanor said, He is a good man, Venna. A scholar. Whatever that was. It will be different now.

A man of dust-­colored hair and dust-­colored garments but a kind face and a quiet voice, Reverend Caulfield brought them to his cottage tucked behind the church in a corner of the small village. Never beating them or making them scrub floors (Taliesin the Gypsy boy did the latter in exchange for lessons), the Reverend taught them to pray, to read, to write, and to listen carefully to his sermons. These lessons proved challenging for Ravenna, especially the last. The cat that the church ladies kept to eat up all the mice would curl into Ravenna’s lap during the ser­vice and purr so loudly that they always told her to take it outside. Once freed, she never returned. The cathedral of Nature seemed a more fitting place to worship the Great Creator than inside stone walls anyway.

On her eighth birthday the Reverend took her to the blacksmith’s shop and opened the door of a horse stall, revealing a sleeping dog and, at her belly, a wiggling cluster of furry bodies. All of them save one were liver spotted. The one, black and shaggy as though he had been deposited in the straw by the hand of Methuselah, tilted his head away from his mother’s teat toward her, cracked open his golden eyes, and Ravenna was so filled up that she could not utter even a sigh.

She called him Beast and they were never apart. He attended her to lessons and on Sundays sat beneath the elm in the churchyard and waited for her. But most days they spent in the woods and the fields, running and swimming and laughing. They were deliriously happy, and always Ravenna knew he was too strong, too large, and too fierce to ever be hurt by anybody, and too loyal to ever leave her.

On rainy days, the stable, smelling of straw and animals and damp warmth, became their home. Ravenna watched the old groom treat a sore hoof with a poultice of milk, wax, and wool. The next time he allowed her to do it. Then he told her how to recognize colic and how in the winter good foraging and warm water were better at preventing it than bran mash. In the winter when the Gypsies camped by the squire’s wood, Taliesin—­whom she always wished the Reverend would adopt too so that he could be her brother—­would take her to the horse corrals and teach her even more about hooves and colic and whatnot.

Then Eleanor fell ill. While Papa fretted and Arabella cooked and sewed and did all the tasks about the house that must be done, Ravenna learned from the doctor how to pour a dose of laudanum, how to prepare a steaming linen to set across Ellie’s chest, and how to boil licorice root and distill it into tea. In time Eleanor improved, and Ravenna began to follow the doctor on his other calls. At dinner each night she would tell Papa all that she had learned, and he would pat her on the head and call her a good-­hearted puss.

When Arabella was seventeen she left to teach the children at the squire’s house, but returned only eight months later. After that, Papa told Ravenna she must not wander about the countryside alone.

Young ladies must behave modestly, he said with a worried glance at Beast sprawled out before the hearth.

But Papa—­

Obey me, Ravenna. I have allowed you too much freedom and you have had no mother to teach you the modesty your sister Eleanor has through her own nature and Arabella has learned at school. If you do not alter your habits, I will send you to school too.

Ravenna had no intention of returning to the world of locked doors and switches. Do not send me away, Papa. I will obey. Confining her escapes to the stable, she strayed no farther. She showed her father that she could be as tame as her eldest sister while inside she suffocated.

Upon her sixteenth birthday she walked to the village and posted a letter to an employment agency in London. A month later she received a reply, and six months later an offer.

I am going, Papa, she said, hand clutched around the handle of a small traveling case. With relief, it seemed, he gave her his blessing. She went to the stable and fed an extra biscuit to the horse, scrubbed her knuckles over the barn cat’s brow, and then with Beast at her side set off on foot.

Eleanor ran after her and wrapped her in a tight embrace. You cannot escape me, sister. No matter where you hide, I will find you. Eleanor had never regained the bloom in her cheek or softness of form that had made her pretty before she’d fallen ill. But her arms were strong and her hazel eyes resolute.

Ravenna pulled away. That suits me, for I would never wish to escape you. And at Shelton Grange I will be closer to Bella in London.

But what do you know of these men?

What the employment agency and their own letter told me. That their house was large, their park vast, and their collection of twelve dogs, two exotic birds, and one house pig too much for them to manage without the assistance of a person of youth and vigor.

Write to me often.

Ravenna did not promise; her penmanship was poor. Instead she bussed her sister on the cheek and left her standing in the middle of the road, silhouetted by the gray stone of their father’s church.

Her employers were not pleased to discover that the R. Caulfield of her letters was not a young man.

Impossible, Sir Beverley Clark said with an implacably sanguine regard. Within moments of standing in his drawing room furnished with masculine comfort, Ravenna saw that although his friend, Mr. Pettigrew, was considerably more gregarious, in this house Sir Beverley was master. Resting a well-­manicured hand on the top of the head of the wolfhound standing beside him, he told her, I will not allow a young lady to reside at Shelton Grange.

I haven’t any designs upon you, she said, looking up from the cluster of pugs licking her fingers and chewing her hem to his handsome face, then to Mr. Pettigrew’s round, rosy cheeks. While you are clearly quite wealthy, you are both much older than my father, and anyway I don’t ever intend to marry so that puts period to that concern. I merely want to care for your animals, as agreed upon in our letters.

A twinkle lit Mr. Pettigrew’s cloverleaf eyes. Well, that is a relief, to be sure. His voice was as merry as his smile, his hair probably yellow once but now creamy white. But, m’dear, what Sir Beverley is saying is that it is unsuitable for you to live with two gentlemen who are unrelated to you.

Then you must adopt me. She set down her traveling bag beside Beast who sat quite properly by her side, as though he understood the gravity of the moment. I give you leave. My father is not my real father anyway, and I don’t think he would mind it as long as you do not beat me or otherwise mistreat me.

Sir Beverley’s eyes like clear rain studied her. From what are you running, Miss Caulfield?

Prison.

Mr. Pettigrew’s brows shot up. We’ve a fugitive in the house, Bev. Whatever shall we do with her?

For the first time, the hint of tolerant compassion that Ravenna would grow to love ticked up the corner of Sir Beverley’s mouth. Hide her from the law, I daresay.

She spent her days brushing out the shaggy coats of three wolfhounds, clipping the nails of nine pugs, and laboring over letters to experts asking for advice on macaws and parrots. She made friends with Sir Beverley’s coachman, a one-­legged veteran of the war who marveled at her ease with four-­legged creatures and took up her instruction where Taliesin had left off.

Though he enjoyed the comforts of Shelton Grange above all, Sir Beverley liked to travel to entertainments, and to live in grand style upon those journeys. Mr. Pettigrew, whose house was only five miles distant but who liked Shelton Grange better, always accompanied him. While they were gone, Ravenna remained at home with Beast and their menagerie, enjoying the solitude of the lake and woods and fields and the house.

When they were in residence at Shelton Grange, Sir Beverley and Mr. Pettigrew liked to coddle her, like the first time she assisted Sir Beverley’s tenant farmers during the lambing and afterward walked about in a daze with purple circles beneath her eyes. Mr. Pettigrew mixed up a batch of his special recipe for recovering from excessive debauchery, and Sir Beverley read to her aloud from A Treatise on Veterinary Medicine. Privately Ravenna took this solicitude to heart, while to their faces she teased them, telling them they were treating her as though she were an infant and they her nurses. They seemed to like that. She called them the nannies and they called her their young miss.

For six years Ravenna was deeply happy.

Then Arabella married a duke and Sir Beverley told Ravenna that she must begin to make plans to depart Shelton Grange, for he could not employ a duchess’s sister, no matter how fond they all were of her. One morning not long after that, Beast did not wake up, and Ravenna understood that Paradise was only a dream invented by pious men to fool everyone.

Chapter 2

The Kiss

10 February 1818

Combe Park

Dear Sir Beverley,

I have received a letter from Mr. Pettigrew that gives me great sorrow. He writes that Beast is gone and my sister stricken. While I have begged her to come to Combe, she does not respond. I know you will agree that a change would be best. And so I have a proposition for you. I have learned through my husband’s dear friend, Reiner of Sensaire, that Prince Sebastiao of Portugal will gather a party in France next month. Will you escort Ravenna to this party? There will be a castle and a great many horses and other creatures, I have no doubt, which might give her some measure of consolation. I have already secured invitations to the party for you, her, and Mr. Pettigrew. I beg you to accept.

With my fondest wishes &c.,

Arabella Lycombe

From behind the mullioned window of a turret above the forecourt of Chateau Chevriot, Ravenna peered down onto the drive, pebbled and crisply gray as a drive in the midst of winter would inevitably be. A man garbed in a coat of military style with tasseled gold epaulets and plentiful medals of honor stood directly beneath her. A young man, Prince Sebastiao possessed a long nose, reddened eyes, and an aspect of begrudging dissipation. He had been educated in England during the war and spoke English as well as any spoiled young wealthy Englishman, and apparently behaved as poorly as any of them as well. That a member of the Portuguese royal family—­albeit a lesser branch—­considered a medieval fortress situated in a mountain crevice an appropriate venue for a party in a season far too early to comfortably be called spring caused Ravenna no little wonder.

Despicably wealthy ­people do anything they like at any season they like, my dear, Petti said. Delightful to be friends with them, I say.

Prince Sebastiao’s other delighted friends had been arriving all day in carriages marked with mud and dust from long travel yet still fantastically elegant. The parade of mobile wealth had Ravenna’s nose pressed to the window in the sort of horrified fascination one has for one’s own execution.

Who is that? She poked a finger against the window. Sir Beverley stood beside her. No one below had yet noticed them spying, and she thought that her former employers must know everyone in Europe.

The Earl of Whitebarrow, he said. Ancient title, and the family is very wealthy.

Hm. Beyond the guests and past the forecourt, the prospect of the mountain ascended sublimely. As she had walked along the river that morning, winter birds fluttered about bushes, a pair of hawks circled above, and two dozen deer ambled up into the spruce and pines that climbed to the mountain’s peak. This collection of fashionable ­people being disgorged from carriages seemed entirely out of place here.

Are those his daughters?

Ladies Grace and Penelope.

Twins. Dressed in pristine velvet cloaks, their hands encased in white fur muffs, the two sylphlike blondes turned porcelain faces toward another guest: a young lady who stood alone by a traveling carriage as though she’d been forgotten there. Mousy and trussed to her neck in a long pelisse with not one or two but three rows of furbelows, she stared at the drive with round eyes. Nearby, a pear-­shaped matron with similarly ruffled garments chatted gaily with another lady.

Studying the mouse, one of the Whitebarrow blondes lifted her brow. She and her sister shared words, and their lips curled.

Ravenna’s throat prickled. She should not have come. But when the invitation to the prince’s party had arrived weeks ago, Petti insisted he always wanted to visit the French mountains. As he simply must bring Caesar, Georgiana, and Mrs. Keen on the journey (the other pugs preferring to remain at home), she must allow them a few more months of her company before she left them entirely for her sister’s ducal home. When she objected to the distance, he had patted her on the hand and said he understood that it was difficult for her to even come indoors some evenings and leave Beast in the dark by himself beneath that old oak tree.Her old friend, Petti said, would be as well in her absence in France as when she removed to Combe; he was beyond hurt now.

But that was not the truth of it. Beast had loved the shade of that oak and the field around it bursting with wildflowers. It was she who could not bear being indoors without him.

Now she studied the mouse alone and forgotten on the drive. Who is that girl?

Miss Ann Feathers. Her father, Sir Henry, has made a fortune in breeding Thoroughbreds. Prince Sebastiao’s father, Raynaldo, breeds Andalusians. He won’t be attending the party, but the prince is to negotiate a joint venture in his stead.

And that lady? A girl of exquisitely delicate ivory-­and-­ebony beauty walked upon the arm of a young gentleman toward the front door.

Mademoiselle Arielle Dijon. She is daughter of the famed French general Dijon, who saved his troops from utter decimation in 1812 when the Cossacks scorched the earth. He was disenchanted with Napoleon after that fiasco—­

Understandably, Petti interjected. An hour earlier he had ensconced himself in a cushioned chair and commenced snoring. Three soft, chubby pugs at his feet snored as well.

After the treaty he left the army, Sir Beverley continued. He took his family to America. Philadelphia, I believe.

A tiny white dog peeked out from Mademoiselle Dijon’s cloak, and she stroked its brow with great tenderness.

I like her already, Ravenna said.

Another girl, tall, with fiery locks neatly contained by her bonnet, descended from the last carriage. She was astoundingly beautiful, with an air of barely contained energy and bright, seeking eyes. A gentleman dismounting nearby moved to her side, drawing off his hat and offering her a deep bow.

That is Lady Iona, who has come with her widowed mother, Duchess McCall, Sir Beverley murmured. She’s come a long way to woo a prince.

To woo a prince?

Petti chuckled.

Ravenna swung around to peer at him. To woo a prince? she repeated.

You didn’t tell her, Bev? His cloverleaf eyes twinkled.

Tell me what?

This party, my dear, Petti said cheerily, is not an idle holiday in the mountains.

She looked between them. Then what is it?

Prince Sebastiao seeks a bride, Sir Beverley replied.

A bride-­hunting party, my dear! Petti concurred. Isn’t it marvelous?

It required few moments for Ravenna to understand.

You know about the fortune-­teller? she uttered with dark disapproval.

What fortune-­teller? Petti stroked a pug’s rippled neck.

The Gypsy fortune-­teller who told Arabella that one of us must marry a prince or we would never know who our real parents are. She did tell you, didn’t she?

You told us yourself, Sir Beverley said. Years ago.

Then I must have told you in the hopes of making you split your seams with laughter. And now you have both betrayed me.

Perhaps you are overstating it, Sir Beverley said with a hint of a smile.

Your sister wished to put you in the way of a prince, dear girl. We merely agreed to help.

Ravenna could say nothing. Arabella had married a duke but remained determined to find the parents they had lost decades ago.

Her gaze darted to the door, then to the window, to the drive and the trees and mountain beyond.

Oh! she said, snapping her attention to Sir Beverley. I’m afraid all your matchmaking plans are for naught. You see, in order to wed a prince I need—­

This? Sir Beverley produced from his pocket a thick man’s ring of gold and ruby.

Ravenna stepped back. She gave that to you?

To give to you. Sir Beverley cupped her hand in his and pressed the ring into her palm. It was heavy and warm as it always had been, even on that day Arabella took it to a fortune-­teller and heard the prophecy—­that one of them would wed a prince and upon that day discover the mystery of their past. This ring was the key to it all.

But Ravenna didn’t care about the mystery of their past. An infant when her mother abandoned them, she had never cared. Finding the prince had been Arabella’s dream. But now Arabella was wife to a duke. Ravenna had no doubt as to why Arabella had not bestowed the dubious honor of prince catching upon their elder sister, Eleanor. They never spoke of it, but they both knew the true reason Eleanor had not yet married, and it was not her devotion to Papa.

Do cease fretting, my dear, Petti said comfortably. A lady in your sister’s delicate condition must be humored.

I am not fretting. Ravenna dropped the ring into her pocket. It made a hard bump against her thigh. "I gather that all these girls—­ladies of enormous beauty, wealth, and status, and every one of them years younger than me—­they are all to be my competition for the prince’s favor?"

It does seem a shame any of them bothered making the journey here. Petti winked.

Lady Iona McCall is one-­and-­twenty, Sir Beverley said. Only two years your junior.

You are both batty as belfries. And my sister too. She turned to the window and stared down at the beautiful, wealthy ­people below. I do not wish to marry a prince, of course. Or anybody. Who is that very handsome man taking Lady Iona’s arm?

Lord Case, heir to Marquess Airedale, Sir Beverley said. I’ve no idea why he is here. He hasn’t a sister, only a brother no one has seen in years.

Perhaps Lord Case is looking for a bride too and has heard this is the place to come for one, she said. No wonder his brother plays least-­in-­sight, with a sibling of such wise forethought.

You are still an impertinent girl. Sir Beverley said with a crinkle of his eyes, then returned his attention to the drive below. Very handsome, you say?

Fancy yourself a noblesse, my dear? Petti said.

About as much as I fancy myself a princess. She went toward the door. Now that all the potential brides are here, when does this party begin in earnest? And do you think there is yet time for me to have the carriage readied for an escape before the snow?

T

HAT NIGHT IN

a bed made with the softest linens and brocaded silk the likes of which she had only ever touched in Arabella’s new ducal home, Ravenna lay on her back, aching inside. In two months she had not yet become accustomed to the empty place by her side. No hard spine pressed against her hip, forcing her to the edge of the mattress. No harrumphing half yawns woke her from dreams. No warm breath stirred her to wake in the morning and set off across the park while the sun rose over the hills. Beast would love the softness of this bed. The ropes were so well tied it didn’t squeak when mounted.

She squeezed her eyes shut and wanted warmth and a body beside hers to hold.

The stables beckoned. Buttoning herself into an old gown that wouldn’t shame Petti too much if anybody else saw her now, she made her way from her bedchamber.

On the exterior, Chevriot imposed, an elegant mass of gray-­brown limestone surrounded by an uncompromising wall, with heavy towers and unadorned roofs. But inside the chateau, luxury reigned. Thick rugs running the length of the corridors swallowed the patter of Ravenna’s footsteps. Her lamplight danced over a footman sitting on a chair at the head of the grand staircase, who nodded as she passed.

Slipping into the servants’ stair through a door hidden in the wall, she descended to the kitchen and followed a thread of frozen air to the door to the kitchen yard. The night smelled of snow, clean and sharp. Throughout the afternoon she had watched the clouds gather in gray-­white folds upon the nearest peak. It would come by morning, then she would be good and well trapped.

She let herself out of the yard through the gate and followed the cemetery wall along the edge of the forecourt to the carriage house, then to the stable.

Within the stable, all was cold and still. A single lantern lit the central corridor and her feet padded silently along the clean-­swept floor. Blooded beasts slumbered in stalls to either side, like in Sir Beverley’s stables, like at home, Shelton Grange, where she and Beast had played and worked. Where he would remain forever. Where she did not belong now because her beautiful, courageous sister had married a duke.

A tear dashed upon her cheek like a tiny scalding slap. Another followed. A third caught on the corner of her mouth. A lone brown cat stared at her from a shadow, condemnation in its glowing eyes. Ravenna shoved the back of her hand across her jaw.

A noise arose from a stall ahead—­soft, squeaky, sharp then long, desperate then miserable and weary. The cat slunk away. Ravenna smiled. Nothing else in the world sounded like puppies.

She followed the sound to a room not meant for horses but equipment. Upon the near wall hung a pitchfork, an axe, and a shovel, with a bucket and brushes arranged neatly on a bench. Straw layered the floor thickly, with the pups in the corner. Someone had made a temporary home for them.

She went to her knees. Four little black and white bodies tangled together in the deep shadows, two sleeping, one nodding, the last crawling over its siblings and whimpering. The bitch was nowhere to be seen—­perhaps out foraging for food, or perhaps they were weaned already and she was gone. They were old enough, nine or ten weeks probably.

From under a thatch of straw to the side, a black nose poked out. Its tiny nostrils sniffed the chill air.

Setting down her lamp on the bench, Ravenna crouched by the concealed pup, brushed aside the straw, and peered at the runt—­for the runt it clearly was, separated from its siblings and smaller by far. Just like Beast.

She scooped it up and her fingers threaded through its chilled fur. Without his mother and not strong enough to contend with his siblings, he would not last long in this cold. Yet in desperate straits he had dug himself a hole in the straw. Resourceful little fellow. She cuddled him to her breast. With boneless gracelessness he tumbled over her chest, his new claws like miniature razors, snatching at the edge of her cloak with a hungry mouth. She laughed and burrowed her nose against its brow.

I’m sorry, she whispered. I cannot help you. I didn’t think to bring a biscuit.

Holding the runt against her neck, she warmed it until her toes and the tip of her nose grew numb. She placed the puppy beside its sleeping siblings and tucked the straw around it, and its cries of complaint rose pitifully.

A heavy footfall sounded on the other side of the door. A man’s tread. Then another. He paused out of sight beyond the opening she’d left.

Silence.

She’d thought the stables empty. Now a man stood on the other side of the door without speaking. If he had come to see the pups, he would enter. If he had followed her inside with ill intent, he might be silent. It would not be the first time a man had assumed she was fair game for a tumble in the hay. But this time her protector did not stand by her side, growling and baring his sharp teeth. This time she was alone.

The pup whimpered more desperately it seemed. No other sound stirred the stillness, no breath, no movement.