Anne Barbour by Escapades Four Regency Novellas

Author:Escapades Four Regency Novellas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Melody

I

Some might have called the ancient country church picturesque. It stood beneath lowering skies, huddled amid bare trees and a tumble of mossy gravestones, its roots seeming to have spread through the centuries. The man who moved uncertainly among the graves shivered inside the warmth of his sheepskin coat.

Tacitus was right, he thought sourly. England was a cold, misty, unpleasant place. The damp seemed to penetrate his very bones. Lord, he must have been out of his mind to come here. He was an American, for God’s sake. He did not belong in this land of chilblains and propriety.

He gazed about him and sighed. On the other hand, he supposed the setting was perfect, considering his purpose. As he moved past several rain-slicked tombstones, his eyes narrowed. He approached an area separate from the other graves, protected by a decorative fence. Opening the gate, he stepped inside.

“Weston,” he murmured, running his fingers over the letters carved into a mossy headstone. How strange to behold the surname, repeated so many times, in this alien environment.

Crossing to another corner of the enclosed area, he examined two stones, set apart from the others by their obvious newness and the fact that they stood straight as sentinels guarding the mounded plots at their feet.

“George Weston,” read the first one, “Sixth Earl of Sandborne.” “William Weston,” read the second, “Seventh Earl of Sandborne.”

Both had met their Maker in the Year of Our Lord, 1814.

“Almost two years ago,” whispered the man. While he had been busy with his own interests in Pennsylvania, disaster had struck persons far away and unknown to him, but whose deaths would have a profound impact on him.

He shivered again and moved out of the iron enclosure toward the horse standing at the edge of the graveyard. He glanced cursorily at the church as he passed, noting the pine boughs that were affixed to the door. The red ribbon binding them provided the only color in the scene.

A little early for decoration, was it not? Christmas was, after all, well over a month away. The idea snaked through him with a forlorn twist. Not that this Christmas would be any lonelier than those of the last few years, spent huddled over the meager comfort of a campfire.

Another image sprang unbidden to his mind, of a large, comfortable dwelling in Philadelphia, redolent of pine and warmed by family and candlelight and laughter and love. He grimaced, remembering the small interloper who stood alone, seemingly forever on the outside looking in.

He straightened. No. He would not think of all that now. He had come a very long way, and he had business to attend to. He’d best get on with it and stop maundering in sodden churchyards.

Moving to mount his horse, he halted abruptly as a sound reached him from inside the church. It drifted over the tombstones, faint yet beckoning, seeming as alien to this bleak environment as an orchid might be, blooming suddenly at his feet. It was a woman, singing a Christmas carol.

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