Scandal Becomes Her. Shirlee Busbee

The only thing that had kept Nell from death that day was a small ledge where she had landed, some thirty feet down the otherwise sheer face of the cliffs. Firefly had died on the sea-swept rocks far below.

      Nell had not been missed for hours and by the time she was found, dusk had begun to fall. In the flickering light of a lantern, one of the searcher’s keen eyes had noticed the torn-up ground near the edge of the cliff and had thought to glance over the side. His shout had brought the others. It had taken hours to bring her up from her slim perch above the sea and, blessedly, she had remained unconscious. Not even when she was finally brought home and the physician had attended to her, setting the broken bones in her leg and arm, did she stir. It was feared in those first days, as she lay like one dead, that she would never recover.

      Of course, Lord Giffard was notified immediately. And, she thought sourly, to give him credit, he had come immediately and remained at Meadowlea for the long fortnight afterward while they all waited for her to wake, wondering if she ever would.

      For several days after she became aware of her surroundings, she was confused and there was talk that the fall had left her addled. With such a bleak outlook, no one was very surprised when her father, Sir Edward, informed Giffard and the duke that he would understand if they wanted the engagement to end. Giffard had leaped at the chance—after all, his wife would one day be a duchess and the maimed, mumbling creature who lay in bed upstairs at Meadowlea was not the wife he’d had in mind when he had proposed. That November, the engagement was discreetly ended, just five short months after it had been announced.

      Nell’s recovery had been slow but by the following spring her confusion had vanished, her arm had healed without incident and she was able to limp about the grounds of Meadowlea with the aid of an ivory-knobbed cane. In time the only effects of the near-fatal brush with death that remained were her limp and the nightmares.

      Much of what had occurred during her recovery she did not remember. All that was clear in her mind from that time was the nightmare that had haunted her senseless state. The first one that drifted repeatedly through her brain had been different from the ones that wrecked her sleep these days. The victim had been a man, a gentleman, she thought, and the setting had been in a wooded copse. But the ending had been the same: ugly death at the hands of a shadowy figure. Only in later nightmares had women become the prey and the dungeon the favored site for brutality and murder.

      As her recovery progressed, Nell had hoped that the nightmare would fade, that it was just some odd remnant connected with her fall. She had been elated that first summer when the nightmare finally stopped. Into autumn and winter she enjoyed month after month of deep, undisturbed sleep. Certain that she had finally put the tragedy and its aftermath behind her, she had been thrilled. Until the nightmare, in its present form, had come storming back to haunt her nights.

      Sighing, she turned away from the view of the garden and walked over to poke at the faint embers on the hearth. Like her intermittent limp, the nightmares seemed to have become a permanent part of her. Not, she thought gratefully, that they afflicted her as frequently as her limp. Sometimes an entire year would pass before she was visited with the nightmare, and after each one she would pray that it would be the last. But, of course, it never was. It always came back, with the only changes over time the faces of the women and the degree of savagery. Tonight, she realized with a chill, was the third time this year that she had suffered through the awful thing.

      The third time this year. Her breath caught. The knowledge she had been avoiding since she had awakened slammed into her: the nightmares were increasing, the faces of the women changing with horrifying regularity. Worse, in tonight’s nightmare, she had the feeling that she had seen the young woman before, that she knew her.

      Leaving the fire, Nell picked up her robe from a nearby chair and shrugged into it. She really was going mad, she decided, if she thought that she had recognized tonight’s victim. It was pure nonsense. Ugly and appalling to be sure, but it was not real. And if she was foolish enough to think she recognized the woman, well, that was merely a coincidence. It had been, she told herself fiercely, only a bloody nightmare!

      Marching into her dressing room that adjoined the bedroom, she poured water from a violet-patterned china urn into its matching bowl. Scrubbing her face and washing her teeth, she forced her mind away from those troubling thoughts. Today was going to be busy; the household was returning to Meadowlea for the winter within the week and there was much to be done.

      When Nell reached the morning room she wasn’t surprised, despite the early hour, to find her father there ahead of her.

      Dropping a kiss onto his balding pate as she passed where he was sitting at the table, she wandered over to the mahogany sideboard positioned against one wall. Selecting a piece of toast and some kippers from the various food displayed there, after pouring herself a cup of coffee, she joined her father at the table.

      At nine and sixty, except for his bald head, Sir Edward was still a handsome man. His daughter had inherited his eyes and his tall, slim build, but her tawny hair and fairy features had come from her mother, Anne—along with the teasing laughter that often lurked in those gold-lashed sea green eyes.

      There was no laughter in those eyes this morning and noting the purple shadows under them, Sir Edward stared at her keenly and asked, “Another nightmare, my dear?”

      Nell made a face and nodded. “But nothing for you to worry about. I managed to sleep most of the night before it occurred.”

      Sir Edward frowned. “Shall I send a note around for the physician to call?”

      “Absolutely not! He will dose me with some vile concoction, look wise and then charge you an exorbitant fee.” She grinned at him. “I merely had a nightmare, Papa, nothing for you to worry over.”

      Having from time to time in the past been awakened by her screams when the nightmares had been unbearable, Sir Edward had his doubts, but he did not press the issue. Nell could be stubborn. He smiled. A trait she had also inherited from her mother.

      For a moment, his expression was sad. His wife had died fourteen years ago, and while he had learned to live without her gentle presence, there were times that he still missed her like the very devil—especially when he was worried about Nell. Anne would have known what to do. A girl needed her mother’s guidance.

      The opening of the door to the room broke into his thoughts. Catching sight of his son, he smiled and said, “You are up early, my boy. Something important on your agenda today?”

      Robert grimaced and, helping himself to a thick slice of ham and some coddled eggs from the sideboard, he said over his shoulder, “I promised Andrew that I would go with him today to look at some bloody horse he is certain will beat Lord Epson’s gray. The animal is somewhere in the country and nothing would do but that I agree that we leave London no later than eight o’clock this morning. I must have been mad.”

      At two and thirty, Robert was the heir and the eldest of Sir Edward’s three sons. He resembled his father to a fair degree—tall and rangy, the same color eyes and the same stubborn chin and hard-edged jaw. His tawny hair, Robert thanked providence frequently, he had inherited from his mother, grateful that it was still thick and there.

      Normally, Robert would not have been staying at the family townhouse. His own rooms were on Jermyn Street but, having closed up the place when he had left for Meadowlea in July, only the necessity of driving home the new high-perch phaeton he had ordered from the London carriage builder had brought him back to town. His brother Andrew had offered to drive the new vehicle home for him, but Robert would have none of it. As he had told his father when he had arrived on Thursday, “I appreciated his offer, don’t think I didn’t, but I’d as lief let a blind man drive it home as that jingled-brained brother of mine. Drew would be ditched before he had driven ten miles.” Sir Edward privately agreed. Drew was known to be reckless.

      Casting a glance at his sister as he tackled his breakfast, Robert asked, “Did he tell you about this horse he is so set on buying?”

      Nell nodded as she took a sip of her coffee. “Indeed he did. I have been having its praises sung in my ear this past fortnight.”