Earl in the Shadows

Brenda Clough

Description

Marian Halcombe Camlet wakes up in a strange bedroom, in a house she does not recognize. She has a new name, and a job, as the companion to the Dowager Countess of Brecon and Stowe, on the vast estate of Cranmorden in Gloucestershire. How did Marian get here, and why? The Earl of Brecon and Stowe has a secret, but Marian has forgotten it. She has to discover the lost memory, and then resolve the secret, before she can return home.

Sujets

• Historical fiction
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611389449
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Earl in the Shadows
Brenda W. Clough


www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café edition
April 13, 2021
978-1-61138-944-9
Copyright © 2021 Brenda W. Clough
Table of Contents
Foreword
Book 1
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Book 2
Marian Hartright Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Book 3
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Book 4
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Book 5
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
Read a sample from The True Prince of Vaurantania
Walter Hartright’s narrative
Dedication
Also by Brenda Clough
Copyrights & Credits
About Book View Café
Foreword
by Walter Hartright
Gaze up, at the moon. Full and fair, a brooch uponthe breast of night, she is a sphere of pure light. Then look down. What do yousee? I see myself as a man working for others, as husband and father, and forthe commonweal. But there is another man I have seen only once or twice peepingout from behind my eyes: a shadow full of fear, drawn to evil as the sparks flyupward. And as in small, so in great. Every man, every household, every nationeven, has an Other. The brightest moon has a dark side, rarely glimpsed. I haveworked all my life to extirpate mine. I know I never shall.
Book 1

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No. 3 Oct52
Dear friend,
I wish I could see the new boiler anyway. It sounds agrand innovation, and cannot but lighten your labours. What do Susie and Dinahmake of it? If they are as dull as you describe, the workings will be utterlybeyond their understanding!
R
Marian Halcombe Camlet’s journal
4 January 1865
The unfamiliar snow-light in my eyes woke me. It reflected,bright and cold, from the whitewashed ceiling above my head. I was not lyingbeside my husband Theo in his big four-poster bed at home, nor in thehalf-tester in my own bedroom next to his, nor the simple bed of my girlhood atLimmeridge House in Cumberland. Instead a counterpane rough with strangeembroidery was under my fingertips. I stared for a long time at the walls. Theywere papered in an old-fashioned rosebud pattern, faded pinks and tans that Ihad never seen before.
My treacherous knees shook under me as I climbedout of the bed. My feet in their bedsocks stumbled over the edge of a wornhooked carpet, cut down from a grander proportion to fit this ordinary space. Itottered over to the double window and leaned weakly on the mullion in the centre.With difficulty I forced my eyes to take in the whiteness outside. Asnow-covered garden, entirely unfamiliar. The trees were laden and bowed withwhite, and the sky was hard and colourless as diamond. Shrubs laid out inpatterns and beds were mere mounds, and the paths were almost invisible.
At the edge of one bed was a tray raised on apole, for feeding birds. A slender woman in a long grey cloak and hood wascarrying a bowl of birdseed and waiting for the servants to finish sweeping theway for her. She saw me and waved. Instinctively I raised a hand in response.But who was she? I didn’t recognise her.
Then it came to me. The wall. The attendants. Thesimple, sparsely furnished room. I was in an Asylum. I had been put aside by myhusband and shut up in a madhouse, as my sister Laura had been by her ownwicked first husband. The thought was so terrifying that my heart seemed tojump and squeeze in my chest. My head reeled, and before I could fall to thefloor I groped back to the narrow bed and collapsed into it, weeping.

P x P. Do you realise this is the Queen’s Gambit, the Exchange Variation? Are we not clever?

5 January
Slowly, dreamily, I came to awareness again in thelittle strange bed. Again I lay quietly, gathering my thoughts. They seemed strangelyscattered, dusty and disarranged like toys not played with for a long while.How did I come here? What was this place? And, more slowly, the larger questionrose up in my mind: who am I?
At least this I knew. I am Marian Halcombe Camlet,I told myself. Laura Fairlie is my beloved sister, and she married WalterHartright. I am the wife of Theophilus Camlet, the publisher, and … andimmediately my unsteady little canoe struck a hidden spear of rock. Theo, mydearest man, my beloved, my husband. Had he shut me up here? Was he a PercivalGlyde after all? No, I cannot believe this. We have been wed for more thanseven years, and I know him to be a good man, my dearest friend and companion,endlessly kind.
But… there is a gap in the armor of my self, thelegacy or scar of years of being the ugly one, the unchosen sister, theunlovable female. Had he rejected me? Perhaps I really was mad, and he had putme away for my own good and that of the children –
The children. I had children! Little precocious Lester,short for Celeste, with her black pigtails, my darling lamb William, and …There was a third, but I could not remember. A girl, I think it was a girl …
My uncertainty on such a vital point broughtanother horrid explanation of my plight to mind, like some devilish kaleidoscopeshaking my few facts into a fearsome new pattern. Perhaps I had dreamed myentire life. Perhaps I had never been anything all my life but plain MissMarian Halcombe, and had conjured out of my own ardent spirit and empty heart amarriage: a perfect husband and passionate lover, a joyous domestic life, andadorable children.
In that case I was in simple truth mad. And it wasLaura and Walter who had rightly consigned me to the Asylum.
But this was impossible. Laura above all wouldnever have me shut up, under any persuasion. She knows too well the horrors ofthe madhouse, that living tomb in which the sane become mad and the mad areimprisoned until death’s merciful release. And another simple proof rose to thesurface of my clogged and cloudy mind. One does not bear three children withoutsome visible evidence.
I threw off the bedclothes and climbed out of bed.I pulled the limp ties at my neck loose and dragged the long flannel nightgownover my head. Naked, I stood in nothing but my woollen bedsocks in the palesnow-light, the chill of the room prickling at my shrinking skin. There was asmall looking glass hanging over the washstand in the corner, and in it Ibeheld my body, pallid against the shadow behind the light.
My black hair hung in a long snarled braid downone side of my neck almost to my waist. Below, my belly was lumpy. The lineslow on the flaccid surface were clear to see, pale and silvery against skin tooswarthy for the canons of beauty. My bosom showed them too, striations starringthe lush flesh that had been Theo’s delight. This was no virginal body. VisiblyI had borne and given suck.
There was a sudden footstep, and the door bumpedopen. “Oh! Beg pardon miss. Would you like to dress?” It was a servant. Mywardress?
“Yes, thank you.” I needed to dress before Ifroze. And I needed to know more. Before I could escape! What is this prison?Who has immured me here? The desire for liberty beat in my heart, hot as my ownblood. They cannot hold me, not once I know myself, know my powers. My captorsrule me only if I am kept ignorant and blind. But now I begin to see and know.I shall be free! “Tell me your name,” I said to my attendant, as a first step.
“Hetty, miss.” She bobbed a half-curtsy – apainfully thin and small creature with work-reddened hands and the largefearful eyes of a wild creature.
With Hetty’s help I put on my linens, which werefamiliar. A woman always knows her stays, and I had made these winter drawers myselfout of a daring green tartan plaid flannel that never failed to make Theo laughwhen he glimpsed them. My gown hung on the hook behind the door, a simple darkblue frock of plain woollen. I did not recognise it, nor the plain stockingsand shoes, cheap but serviceable, suitable for a woman of humble position. Isat down at the dressing table but Hetty showed no signs of being able to dresshair, and I rebraided and pinned up my locks with my own hands.
Then she conducted me down a stair to a large hall,and down a second grander circular stair to the dining room on the groundfloor. A simple collation was laid out, porridge, bacon and rolls, and in afooted dish some winter pears. And my fellow patient, the only other, satacross from my place.
Who was she? She knew me. She was elderly, surelyover seventy. But the lines of her face still showed a bone-deep lovelinessthrough the white-crepe skin. The long straight nose, the sensuous mouth, aswide as mine but mysteriously more beautiful, the sculpted line of jaw – herewas a great beauty, her glory not quite faded away. Her gown was fine russetwool trimmed with red braid and tatted lace, and she had a warm Paisley shawlaround her shoulders. She gave me a regal nod. “Good morning, Marian. You lookmuch more the thing today.”
“I am better, thank you.”
“These winter colds, they linger so.” She tooksome more coffee. Her hands were slender and white, and her eyes wereforget-me-not blue. Her ermine hair was piled in an old-fashioned mode on topof her head.
I took a pear and peeled it slowly. The fruit wasexcellent, sweet and fragrant. Did I dare to ask her name and style? This wasno common female. Every word and gesture spoke of high blood. And there was aforeign flavor to her speech, as if she were not born English.
Her own attendant stayed her hand as she poured thecream into her cup, saying, “My lady, you know too much will give youindigestion.”
A peeress, I