The Foundling Bride. Helen Dickson

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       Prologue

      1761

      Beresford House was a large, rambling old place. It stood away from a small Devon village, perched on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. It was the home of the old and distinguished Beresford family, and until twelve months ago it had housed three members of the family, until Sir Frederick Beresford had died of a fever, leaving his wife and only child Meredith alone.

      Twenty-year-old Nessa Borlase stood in the cold, dim light of the house, which smelled of death, and looked with great sadness at her young mistress. She was in her white nightdress, and at the side of the bed was her four-day-old daughter in her crib. The fever that had taken this girl’s father had spared her, only for death to take her in childbirth. Her labour had been an interminable agony. When she had finally thrust the babe out into the world she had lived just three days before breathing her last.

      When her labour had started, her mistress’s mother, Lady Margaret, had retired to her room, leaving Nessa to minister to Meredith, her pregnant daughter. When Nessa had gone to her and begged her to send for the physician she had coldly refused.

      Suddenly the door was thrust open and Lady Margaret stood there. As her gaze passed over her dead daughter there was no change in her self-righteous, steely-eyed expression. It was as cold an expression as Nessa had ever seen on a woman who had just lost her only child.

      ‘So, she’s dead, then.’ Her voice was as cold as her eyes.

      Nessa swallowed audibly and nodded. ‘Yes—just now. I—I was just coming to tell you.’

      Lady Margaret nodded, her eyes settling on her granddaughter in the crib. Her eyes were wide open, but the child was too young to comprehend what was happening, that her mother had just died. However, seeming to sense the malevolence in the woman—her grandmother—she began to whimper softly.

      Something cold and heavy descended over her heart as Nessa went to the motherless babe and swept her up into her arms and held her close. ‘The babe is hungry. I must feed her.’

      ‘I don’t want her here. Take her away—anywhere, I don’t care, as long as she is out of my sight.’

      Bewildered, Nessa stared at her. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Take her away? Forgive me, my lady—I don’t understand. Where...?’

      ‘To Castle Creek. Where else would she go if not to that libertine of a father of hers? And do not insult my intelligence and pretend you don’t know who I mean. Don’t play the innocent.’

      She was so certain of herself, so dreadfully intimidating as she stood beside the bed.

      ‘You played your part in the wretched affair when they were carrying on behind my back.’

      Nessa was feeling colder by the minute, and Lady Margaret’s words hammered on her nerves. ‘But Sir Robert is still in Mexico. There will be no one at Castle Creek.’

      ‘There are servants. Let them deal with her. It’s not my concern. It’s either that or the orphanage.’

      Nessa remained silent, but inside her anger stirred. Suddenly this embittered woman put her in mind of a witch—and she even seemed to hiss. It was the only way to describe the low-pitched, hate-filled words. If Nessa had hoped for compassion in her for her dead daughter, she knew better now. There wasn’t an ounce of compassion in this woman.

      In her grief at losing Meredith, her beloved mistress, Nessa wanted to shout her anger, to remind her that if she hadn’t been so against her daughter seeing Robert Wesley there would have been no need for them to carry on behind her back. She took a deep breath to calm her jangling nerves, telling herself not to sound desperate, not to plead for the babe in her arms, but to be reasonable.

      Lady Margaret’s hatred was deeply rooted in the past. Robert Wesley’s father, whose family had been greatly involved with the mining of silver and lead in that part of Devon for decades, had been her first love, and she had never forgiven him for throwing her over in favour of Robert’s mother. Nothing would have persuaded her to allow her daughter to form a liaison with his son.

      As young as she had been, Meredith had been possessed of a passion for Robert Wesley she hadn’t been able to control. Lady Margaret had seen it—lust, she had called it. Lust, not love. And in her opinion lust was wicked—a sin that destroyed.

      In the beginning Meredith had concealed her condition from her mother and the other servants, but it could not be concealed for ever. When she had told her mother she was to bear Robert’s child, her mother had railed and stormed unendingly, her face twisted with fury, accusing her of behaving no better than a peasant girl and calling her a whore.

      Had it been anyone else who had fathered the child she would not have objected so strongly and merely forced a marriage, but she had not allowed her daughter to marry Robert Wesley. It had been too appalling for her to contemplate—and Nessa’s young mistress had been too young and too weak to disobey. Lady Margaret had not even allowed her to write and tell him of her predicament, and had kept her confined to the house, allowing her to see no one but her maid.

      But the servants had talked among themselves in hushed whispers, and when Miss Meredith had taken to her bed they’d made up their own minds about what ailed the young mistress.

      Lady Margaret had had no intention of letting her daughter keep the child. But, whatever her objections to the child’s father, neither did she wish to become involved in any scandal. People would talk, and she did mind about that. Not that she cared for their opinion, but to draw attention to one’s self in any way she considered ill-bred.

      She had decided that when her daughter had been delivered of the unwanted burden, if it survived she would see it dispatched to an orphanage in another county. She had not expected her daughter to die, and now it no longer mattered what happened to the child.

      ‘And me, my lady?’ Nessa’s voice was low, her expression controlled.

      ‘You?’ Lady Margaret spoke as if addressing someone completely stupid. ‘What about you?’

      ‘Am I being dismissed?’ Nessa asked.

      ‘Yes, you are,’ she replied, her face a mask, her mouth inflexible. ‘Your services are no longer required in this house.’