The Loves of Leopold Singer Read online

  The Loves of Leopold Singer

  L.K. Rigel

  Copyright 2012 L.K. Rigel

  Published by Beastie Press

  Cover design Copyright 2012 eyemaidthis

  Cover background by fairiegoodmother

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The Loves of Leopold Singer

  L.K. Rigel

  A novel of infinite longing…

  Susan Gray, a gentleman’s daughter, never expected to be a housekeeper - even if the house is the Duke of Gohrum's fabulous London mansion. A good marriage is her only path back into society, but her love for Leopold Singer could make that impossible.

  Marta Schonreden is the most beautiful girl in the village. It's why Leopold Singer married her, but will he still love her when he discovers her devastating flaw?

  Delia, Duchess of Gohrum burns with resentment for Leopold Singer, the man who rejected her for a provincial nobody. Ruining his pretty new wife will be a perfectly delicious way to exact revenge.

  This sweeping historical family saga follows the Singers and the Ashers as their lives intertwine over two generations between Shermer's Landing in Massachusetts and the English village Carleson Peak.

  Table of Contents

  Almost Wonderful

  Killers Murder More Than Men

  Hair Grows

  Ladies Love A Title

  Laurelwood

  Marta

  Leopold

  The Wrong Lovers

  Typhus

  The Wedding Breakfast

  Ceremonies of Experience

  Let Me Die

  Motives Malignant and Benign

  Fancy Dress

  A Gift of Longing

  The Serpent in the Tree

  Late Supper at Asherinton

  Strawberry Red Heart

  A Daughter of Eve in the New Jerusalem

  Settling In

  The Reverend George Grim

  Obadiah

  Choosing, Being Chosen

  Sir Carey’s Existential Break

  Mrs. Carleson’s Answer

  Tea & Lilacs

  Mrs. Peter

  Home Fires Burning

  Housekeeping

  Everything Changes

  Morning Glories

  Pressed and Released

  Resurrection

  Privateer

  Penelope and the Prodigal

  Igraine

  To Earn Her Keep

  Picnic

  But Not Yet

  Songs of Experience

  Escape!

  Cinderella in Two Bad Shoes

  Miss Fiddyment’s Academy for Young Ladies

  The Letter

  Pigs in Boston

  Each Has Her Thoughts and Reasons

  Leaving Normal

  Correspondence

  The Chaperone

  Look What the Wind Blew In

  Josef Could Not Be Less Clever

  George Grim Is Not A Hero

  Sacrifice and Renewal

  The Pirate’s Granddaughter

  Correspondence

  Geordie in Love

  A Dreadful Error In Judgment

  Sir Carey’s Inheritance

  George Grim Is A Hero

  Geordie’s Heart

  Jordan Devilliers

  The Nat Turner Rebellion

  Miracles

  Carleson Peak

  Book One

  Almost Wonderful

  1796, Carleson Peak

  Mama was missing again. While Susan was in the kitchen consulting about the evening meal, she must have slipped away from her maid. Likely she was already deep into the woods west of Millam Cottage. Susan passed her hat and gloves left on the front hall table after church, and rushed out the front door.

  She followed the path into the trees Mama had worn over the years. A breeze played on Susan’s face like a cat’s paw, cold for early autumn, and she picked up her pace. Mama was frail enough. It wouldn’t do if she caught a chill.

  A faint sigh carried on the wind, and Susan stopped to listen. Sometimes Mama sang when she danced through the trees in her search for the white lady, but it was only the wind in the branches overhead.

  When Susan was a little girl, she believed in the magical creature of Mama’s imagination: a noble fairy queen who stole human babies from their nurseries, leaving whorls of oak in exchange beneath their blankets. Mama’s fascination with the white lady was bewildering—until Susan grew up and realized Mama was not quite right in the head.

  The white lady had long ceased to be a romantic figure and had become instead the harbinger of Susan's fate: to be housekeeper for a busy father and nursemaid to a wretched, delusional mother. Susan wouldn’t marry. She would never know a man’s love.

  She didn’t mind. She really didn’t. Better to answer to a kind papa than a cruel husband.

  A line of stamped-down wild grass ran off the path past a fine large ash. “Ah,” Susan said aloud. “I’ve found you now.”

  “I didn’t know you were looking.” The voice from the other side of the tree was a low baritone, definitely not Mama’s.

  “Oh.” Susan struggled to suppress her delight. “It’s you.”

  Morgan Baker sat on the ground leaning against the tree, one long leg stretched out straight and the other bent, a novel balanced on his knee. His hat lay on the ground beside him, and he peered up at her through wild blond curls.

  “Yes.” A broad smile spread over his face, and his blue eyes lit up. “It’s me.”

  Her heart leapt into her throat, as it did every time she saw the brilliant young engineer who worked for Papa. He dropped the book and jumped to his feet. Without words he took her into his arms and pressed her close, one arm around her waist and a large hand on the back of her neck.

  “I’m looking for Mama,” she protested, but without much vigor.

  Mr. Baker put his finger to her lips and looked into her eyes. His gaze dashed past her heart to her very soul. This was madness. She should be angry at his impudence. She should stay away from the bold, brash man who’d come into all their lives like a whirlwind, impressing her father with his knowledge and skill and thrilling Susan with…with his impudence.

  “I just spoke with Mrs. Gray.” He let go of her neck and lifted her hand to his lips. Oh, why hadn’t she worn her gloves? “Not ten minutes ago. She’s surely returned to Millam Cottage by now.”

  “I’m so relieved.” The words came out in a whisper as Mr. Baker’s lips caressed the back of Susan's hand. A fire spread up her arm and over her body. She should stop him. Pull away. Say something to show how him furious she was. If only she were furious.

  “Oh, Susan.” His voice broke, deep and tender. “You weren’t meant to be someone’s daughter. You were meant to be someone’s woman.”

  Woman, not lady. She pushed the word out of her mind as Morgan’s mouth found hers. He opened the top button on her dress, and she didn’t resist. She was twenty-one and still a maid. The only kisses she’d ever experienced were those she read about in books. He opened another button and another. When he kissed her neck his long hair brushed over her throat and raised chill bumps on her skin.

  He pressed her against the tree. Her arms hung useless at her sides as if she’d lost her mind. Perhaps she’d been enchanted by
the white lady. She denied him nothing.

  And he took everything.

  “I am ruined,” she said afterwards. She should be devastated—and she was. But she wasn’t sorry. She was twenty-one years old. Other girls she knew had been married four, five, even six years. Already had more than one child. Married was the operative word. What was wrong with her? “I’m a...a…”

  “A slut?” Morgan said.

  The word hit like a slap across the face, but there was a twinkle in Morgan’s eye. “My love, our feelings are transcendent. You’re beautiful and pure. What we have is more powerful than social custom. You could never be a slut.”

  He was wrong. As he put her buttons back together, she watched his fingers make quick work over her breasts. All she could think was that she wanted him to take her again.

  “Nevertheless,” he said. “I want to make you mine forever. Properly. I have to go to Manchester on the afternoon coach. When I return Saturday, I’ll speak to Mr. Gray.”

  All week she could barely keep her composure. Her feet never touched the ground. She was reborn. Morgan loved her. She smiled for no reason. But there was a reason. Soon the world would call her Mrs. Morgan Baker. They could announce their engagement at The Branch harvest ball, as Morgan had been invited as Papa’s guest. She couldn’t wait to be in his arms again.

  Morgan worked with Papa on the duke’s canal. His trip to Manchester was to do with the canal lock mechanism. Papa had said boat lift was giving the navvies fits, and they needed a replacement part. It made her happy and proud to know Papa appreciated Morgan’s abilities.

  From the beginning, she’d treasured Morgan Baker’s visits to Millam Cottage—mostly for his informed conversation, but it didn’t hurt that he had broad shoulders, a ready smile, and blond curls that fell over his bright blue eyes. Company was rare in the Gray household, and that first evening she hadn’t thought to leave the gentlemen alone with their brandy and cigars.

  She and Mr. Baker discovered each other’s admirable qualities starting that night and continuing over the months thereafter. They discussed revolution versus civilization and the new natural style of poetry. It wasn’t long before she was in love with him. She never dreamed he’d return that love.

  When Saturday came at last, Mama again eluded her maid’s watch. “Never mind, Fisher,” Susan said. Nothing could bother her today. She found her mama in the woods, leaning against the same ash tree. The older woman’s bonnet lay on the ground nearby, and her hair cascaded over her shoulders like a white-gold shawl.

  “Did you see, Susan?” She accepted Susan’s arm without complaint. Mama had her quirks, but she was congenial. “The white lady came to me.”

  “That’s very fine, Mama.” Susan sighed.

  “This is her favorite tree, you know,” Mama said.

  Susan used to fancy that her mama once belonged to the white lady’s retinue and had fallen in love with her papa—then came to regret staying in this world. But that was then. Susan was long past believing in fairies or special trees.

  Excepting, perhaps, this tree. It had felt special enough when Morgan pressed her against its trunk.

  “I might walk to the village after lunch,” Susan said.

  Morgan lived at the Leopard & Grape, the inn in Carleson Peak. There’d be no harm if she happened to be in the square when the coach came in. No harm if they both happened to stop at Mr. Davies’s shop to inquire whether an ordered book was in the last shipment. No harm if their hands met reaching for the same volume on a shelf in the dark corner.

  They’d already done so much more.

  “I will walk to the village later.”

  “You won’t find the white lady there.” Mama chuckled as if she’d told a wonderful joke, and Susan joined in the laugh for the joy of it.

  She was in love! She loved Morgan Baker for his impudence—and his brilliance and his ambition and his industriousness. He wasn’t a gentleman, but that didn’t matter. He was a brilliant engineer with the audacity to improve his position through study and hard work. Things were changing in the world. Character meant far more than lineage.

  At the cottage Papa’s curricle—well, the one he used from Millam Hall—pulled up to the front door. The hall was the country manor of the family’s benefactor, the Duke of Gohrum. John Gray had designed the duke’s canal and supervised its construction and now the improvements on the locks.

  Papa wasn’t with the rig. Instead a footman handed Susan a note from the duke’s son, the Marquess of Millam. Miss Susan Gray’s presence was requested at the hall.

  “What an honor,” Mama said.

  Susan frowned. She’d never been invited to Millam Hall. “Has my…” She glanced at Mama. “Has someone been injured?”

  “Not that I know of, miss,” the footman said. “But his lordship wanted me to say it is an urgent matter.”

  The hall was a mere quarter mile walk, but after the long search through the woods Susan was glad for the ride. She was left in the library where she found a copy of the very Rousseau she and Morgan and Papa had recently discussed—and in French too. She made herself comfortable in a chair by the fire.

  Papa, the gentleman, sympathized with Rousseau’s radical ideas about natural men while Morgan passionately defended the trappings of civilization. People never value what they have as highly as what they want, and Morgan wanted desperately to be accepted among the gentry.

  His passion was admirable. He felt deeply about so many things, including about Susan. She smiled about her secret and fell into reading. After a while a dog barked at the door and a maid brought in tea.

  The maid was agitated, and as Lord Millam appeared she knocked over a cup. She erupted in tears and fled the room, but Millie barely registered the outburst. It was wrong to think of the marquess as Millie, but that’s what Papa called him.

  “My dear Miss Gray. Please sit down.” He avoided looking at her.

  She remained standing. Despite the fire a chill shot through her bones. Her papa was hurt after all; she felt it. For weeks he’d worried about the boat lift.

  “You must prepare yourself.” Millie’s eyes were swollen and red.

  “If you please, my lord, just say the words. I can imagine far worse than the reality.”

  “I am so sorry, Miss Gray. Little more than an hour ago, your father and mine were both found dead at the canal.”

  Killers Murder More Than Men

  Someone cried out. Was it Susan's voice? It was so far away. The world pressed in on her, crushing her lungs. Millie’s lips moved, but no words came out.

  With a loud crack from a log on the fire, the world popped out again, sharp and clear. Millie’s shadow flickered against the wall. He seemed to expect her to faint, but she only sank into the chair.

  “How?” She’d meant to ask if the lift mechanism had failed after all, but she couldn’t speak a complete sentence.

  “Murdered.”

  She gripped the chair’s carved wood arms. Susan. Papa’s voice sounded in her head: Be useful as well as ornamental. Use! Ornament! She could barely draw breath.

  Millie sat down in the overstuffed chair beside her. He ran a hand through his brown hair and stared into the fire. “One believes there’s an abundance of days, one following upon another, stretched out to a far, far distant end.”

  Susan made herself stand and pour out tea, as if going through the motions of a normal, mundane act would make everything normal and mundane again.

  The marquess—no. The duke accepted the cup with a bewildered expression. “In the past when I looked into that distance, my wife was there with our son. Then they were gone, so sudden. Through everything, his grace was there. He’s so—he was so unyielding. It never occurred to me he could yield to death.”

  “I understand,” Susan said, thinking of Papa. How could a man so solid, so true and good, die? “Where is he?” It didn’t make sense. “Where’s my father?” She had to see him or her brain wouldn’t accept it.

  “Most of
the men on the estate are searching for the fiends who did this foul deed. I sent two groomsmen with the dog cart to bring the…the bodies, but they should be a while yet.”

  If the entire estate had rallied to the search—Good lord. Mama. “I must go. I must get home before...” Before her mama heard from someone else and slipped into madness completely.

  “Of course. And your family must stay at the cottage until you can make arrangements.”

  Arrangements. Yes. “You are very kind, my lord – I mean your grace.” Reality fell like a sudden downpour. Everything had changed. The murderers had killed more than Susan's papa. The family no longer had a claim on Millam Cottage.

  The duke’s bottom lip quivered and a tear rolled down his cheek. Poor Millie. He’d been married once, but his wife and son had died of fever. He was alone now. At least Susan had her mother and little brother John—and Morgan.

  Thank God for Morgan. She remembered to curtsy and left Millie staring into the fire.

  The servants at Millam Cottage had heard news of the outrage, but Mama’s maid was reluctant to inform her.

  “She’s resting so nicely, Miss Gray. I didn’t like to disturb her.”

  “Quite right, Fisher. Don’t let anyone see her, and tell me when she awakes.”

  Susan sent a quick note to Morgan at the inn. They weren’t formally engaged, but that hardly mattered in this circumstance. She hoped his coach would arrive on time.

  Her next task was more daunting. She must write to her grandfather at Grayside in the north to tell him he had lost his only son. She’d met her relatives but once thirteen years ago, just before Papa began work on the Millam canal.

  My dear Grandfather…

  With great sorrow I write to inform you that my wonderful father, your son John Gray, has died.

  The Grays were aghast at her parents’ marriage, and the visit had not gone well. Susan had liked her grandfather well enough. Even better, it turned out there were two cousins, a boy and a girl near Susan’s age. But the cousin’s papa was horrible. He’d said awful things about Mama. Susan had felt sorry for her cousin Lizzie, despite her grand house and fine clothes.