Eternally Yours: Roxton Letters Volume 1 by Lucinda Brant Read Free Book Online

one concession to you, call it a parting gift, is that I have not poisoned my daughter’s mind against you. She remains ignorant of your reprehensible behavior and I hope always will. I did this for her benefit, not yours, and permitted her to grow up with the fairytale that she was possessed of kind and loving grandparents and a loving uncle, all of whom care about her welfare—albeit from the distance of English shores. You possibly scoff at my stupidity, but make no mistake. I have every faith in my daughter’s intelligence. Five minutes in your company, Madam, and she will undoubtedly form her own opinion of you that will faithfully mirror mine! She is no fool. You would do well to remember that, should you ever meet.
    I know we shall never meet again. My conscience and my life are without blemish and thus I am destined for Heaven. I am very sure my eternity and yours are set for different paths.

    Your ladyship’s son-in-law,
    Chevalier Frederick Moran

N INE
    Estée, Lady Vallentine, Hesham House, Hanover Square, London, to Lucian, Lord Vallentine, Ffolkes Abbey, Ely, Essex.
    Hesham House, Hanover Square, London
    August, 1761
    Lucian, you must return to London at once! We need you—Roxton needs you.
    Something… something utterly shocking has happened. I can hardly bring myself to write. I have been shaking all over these past three hours, and only now have mastered the tremors and my tears, so that I can finally dip my quill in ink and scratch the parchment without dropping great blobs of black all over the page. In truth, this is my third attempt at writing to you, and if it were not for the courier kicking his heels in the courtyard, his horse saddled and waiting, he ready to ride posthaste to you, I would give up the attempt, and throw myself back on my couch.
    But write I must, and tell you a little of what occurred so you will not worry on your return journey. But most importantly, so you will not come blustering in here, slamming doors and shouting, demanding all sorts of nonsense, not least of which that our son be thrashed for his part in an incident almost beyond imagining, that has left me, his dearest mamma, bereft of speech and not able to look at him without bursting into fresh tears for his part in this wickedness.
    Of course I know they are but mere boys and were stupidly intoxicated, and that he and his friend Robert had no part in the shocking deed perpetrated late last night… But they did nothing— nothing —to stop it either, so my brother has every right to think them equally as guilty. So you must come and speak to these boys and find out the truth of the matter. Know that they have come to no harm, but are detained, under house arrest (the shame of it all!), on pain of punishment if they dare try to leave the house without first giving a full account of their actions, and what they witnessed, to M’sieur le Duc.
    But my poor brother is in no fit state to interview them. Thus our dearest boy and his school friend will at least have some hours or days! to sleep off their drunkenness. I pray then they will be able to give a better account of themselves to you. But your first duty must be to Roxton. Evelyn you can interrogate later. And it would not do him a harm either for those boys to spend time alone with their thoughts and to think through their deplorable inaction.
    No! I have not been drinking, or taking too many James’s Powders. I grant I have not slept all night, and am exhausted from being in attendance on Antonia, but I cannot close my eyes, which are dry of tears because I see the nightmare of last night as vividly as if it were happening all over again. I screamed, I know I did. And it is my screams that still ring in my ears. That poor sweet darling girl did not so much as whimper until her pains they began. I believe she was in shock; is still in shock that such a monstrous act was perpetrated upon her, and in her condition! Oh, Lucian! She was so very brave!
    And so you