The House of Broken Hearts, Judy Colella [electronic reader txt] 📗

On a dark and stormy night, between flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder, a beautiful young girl ran across the thick lawn, heedless of nature’s danger, her diaphanous nightgown’s billows soon deflated by a drenching downpour. Behind her, a grey stone mansion huddled on its hill, the dull yellow light in one of its windows silhouetting a tall figure that watched the girl’s flight across the well-manicured property and toward a small woodland near the edge of the estate. Both figures were obviously aware of each other, but for some reason, the one in the window did not move while the one pelting through the rain with occasional glances over her shoulder moved ever faster.

An unusually bright flash of lightning was followed almost instantly by an explosive sound as a tree burst into flame and the girl, who at that moment had come within mere feet of its base, crumpled to the ground. The shape in the window did move then, and a minute later, the front door opened. The figure that emerged was that of a man who didn’t seem inclined to rush to the girl’s side, yet it was plain that she was his goal. Closer and closer he came, pulling his hooded cloak more tightly about him as he walked, his boots making soft, wet sounds in the saturated grass.

When he was only a yard or so from the pale, fallen figure, the girl stirred, groaned, and tried to push herself back to her feet, only to freeze when she saw the man illuminated in a strobe-like flash of electricity. She screamed and tried to run again, but the effect of the lightning strike coupled with her terror proved too much, and she sank back onto the boggy grass, senseless once more.

The man had reached her by this time; he shook his head slowly as if in disbelief, crouched down, and came up holding the girl in his arms. Without looking at her or showing any emotion at all, he turned and went back to the house.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” The woman gave her charge a worried look as she fussed with items she was folding and placing into the girl’s traveling trunk.

“Oh, Belinda, you know I have no choice.” Giselle Moreaux, an incredibly beautiful girl of seventeen summers, gazed momentarily at the pink chemise she had been smoothing before placing it in a small valise.

“But a – a governess? Heavens, child, you’re barely out of the care of your own governess, and you think you can handle a widower’s four offspring all by yourself?”

Giselle shook her head. “No, I don’t, but as I said, I have no choice – and you know it. When mama and papa were killed in that horrific train wreck, I was apparently too devastated to be approached about the state of our family’s finances. But now, our solicitor having explained that I am penniless, I see no other way. I must work, Belinda.” She picked up another chemise, a blue one this time. “And I have no knowledge or talents except what I myself have been taught.” She shrugged, folding the garment and holding back an urge to weep.

Through a family acquaintance, Giselle had been contacted by a Mr. Lanford. His wife had died several months earlier of consumption, leaving him to cope with their four offspring – three boys and a girl – and he’d been actively seeking a governess to help in this regard. After an exchange of correspondence, Giselle and Belinda had met with him in the City for tea, an agreement was reached, and now she was preparing to embark on this new road to an unknown future. Ah, how quickly things could change!

Mr. Lanford was a man in his early thirties, tall, dark-haired, with icy grey eyes and features that would have been magnificently handsome were it not for a thin scar running from his left temple to just below his left eye. Not horribly disfiguring, it nonetheless gave him a rather sardonic and somewhat dangerous look, a look that most women would find intriguing, even exciting. Giselle found it to be neither, but it made her curious; how had he gotten such a scar? Perhaps he would tell her one day, but she honestly did not care right then.

The man and his children lived on an estate several miles south of Greenlea, a small nearby town, in a grey stone mansion aptly named Grey House. Giselle had yet to see it, having only shared tea with the man in that neutral shop in the City. Others she knew had, however, and told her that while the land around it was charmingly appointed, the house itself was somewhat intimidating. She would be there herself soon enough, Mr. Lanford having given her only one week to get moved out of her parents’ house and into his. Apparently the children were becoming quite difficult.

Before they had parted company at the door of the shop, Mr. Lanford had casually mentioned that he had a younger brother who would be living at the house temporarily, and at the time Giselle had thought little of it nor had Belinda said anything. But now, on her last day at home, near her friends and the servants who would soon be moving into their new positions at other houses, she began to feel the loneliness, the vulnerability of being completely on her own for the first time in her life. Surely this brother would be as civilized as his older sibling, but she was suddenly uncertain about sharing a house with this stranger. At least she’d met the elder Mr. Lanford and formed a positive opinion, but an odd tone in his voice when he spoke of the younger Lanford had set off a distant warning alarm in her head. Well, there was nothing for it – she would simply have to wait and hope the brother was a nice person.

The sound of her trunk being firmly shut and locked jolted her back to her surroundings, and giving herself a mental shake, she finished putting her lingerie into the valise.

“Oh, how I wish I could go with you,” said Belinda, her words sounding like a sob.

“So do I, dear Belinda. So do I.” Giselle gave her a rueful smile and latched the valise. “What time will the carriage be here?”

“Two o’clock, I believe. Mrs. Harrigan made the arrangements for it – shall I go ask her to be sure?”

“Thank you, yes. And perhaps you could send Ralph up to take that larger trunk. I can manage the valise and my jewelry box, I think.” She flashed the woman a smile and turned away to gather these things along with her cloak and hat. The pretty china clock on the mantel was showing the time to be nearly one thirty, and she did not wish to wait for the last minute to get downstairs. Besides, lingering in this room would only cause her to become maudlin and she had no wish to present her employer with a gloomy countenance. Allowing herself a final, melancholy glance about her bedroom, she sighed and went out.

“Afternoon, Miss,” said Ralph, passing her on the stairs.

“Good afternoon, Ralph. Thank you for your help.”

He gave her a big grin, his freckled face darkening with an uncontrollable blush. “My pleasure, Miss!” Then he dashed up the last few steps, taking them two at a time and causing Giselle to chuckle for the first time that day.

Her gentle mirth faded quickly once she entered the lower hall and headed to the main foyer. She’d lived in this house her whole life, and every item in it contained a memory. Soon, her memories would belong to others. The solicitor had arranged for an auction, which would take place in three days; for that reason if no other, she was glad Mr. Lanford had demanded her departure to Grey House be so immediate.

When the carriage drew up before the front door a short while later, Ralph and the driver hoisted Giselle’s trunk onto the roof of the vehicle. The servants had all come out to see her off, and she hugged each of them tearfully, saving Belinda until last. The woman had been a second mother to the girl and leaving her would be the hardest thing of all.

“Now, now. You know where I’ll be living, my love,” Belinda whispered. “If you are not treated right in any way, you just get a message to me, and I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

Giselle gave her a final, tight hug, sniffed, kissed the woman’s soft cheek, then almost ran to the open door of the carriage, getting in quickly and shutting it before anyone could see the flood of tears or hear her sobs. Her life was restarting, but this time her only guide would be herself. And that was a frightening thought.

Springtime was at its glorious height. By the time Giselle’s carriage reached the long, tree-lined drive beyond the gates of the Lanford Estate, she had recovered enough to appreciate nature’s offering and watched the lovely shades of silvery green, lavender, yellow and pink passing by the window in a lavish parade of bucolic magnificence. Had she arrived during any other season, Grey House would have presented a more forbidding aspect, but on this day its relentless lack of true color was broken and softened by the pink blossoms of small trees around its perimeter, and sprays of golden forsythia and lilac decorating the path to its front doors. Heartened somewhat by this sight, she pinched her cheeks to raise any of the natural blush that may have been drained by her sorrow, then smoothed the front of her frock, adjusted the folds of her cloak, and reached up to make certain her hat was straight.

When she lowered her hands, she saw someone had emerged from the house and was approaching the side of the carriage as it came to a halt on the crescent-shaped, grey-cobblestoned drive. He stopped several feet away as the driver jumped down from his seat and opened the door, lowering the fold-up steps and handing Giselle down safely.

The man, a very handsome individual dressed in pale blue, his ruffle-fronted shirt cream-colored and studded