The Wish (The Blooms of Norfolk Book 3) Read online

  Copyright 2019 Angelina Jameson

  Cover Design: Dar Albert, www.wickedsmartdesigns.com

  Editor: Jessica Cale, www.safewordauthorservices.com

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this novella may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means-except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without written permission. The characters and events in this novella are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes

  This novella is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This novella may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this novella with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this novella and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedications

  For my husband who is the inspiration for all my heroes.

  ***

  To my readers who have been clamoring for Ambrose’s story. Thank you for your support.

  ***

  And to Thomas and Tyler with love

  Chapter One

  March 1823, Ely, Cambridgeshire

  As Camellia exited The Lamb Inn after a cold luncheon, she noticed a gentleman stumble from his carriage, his face a sickly shade of green. His black silk top hat was pushed back away from his forehead, revealing dark hair. Eyes closed, he took several deep breaths. The man looked young, perhaps only a few years older than her own twenty years, his fashionable clothing loose on his tall frame.

  “Let me assist you, Lord Norfolk,” a man in livery said to the gentleman.

  The peer muttered something unintelligible in reply. She was close enough to see his aristocratic nose and chin. He opened his eyes and looked straight through her. His coffee colored eyes stared, unfocused.

  Camellia decided Lord Norfolk wasn’t handsome, but his features added together produced an appealing face.

  Although she’d hoped the rain that threatened all morning would hold off until she reached her sister’s home, a sudden spattering of raindrops diverted the gentleman’s attention.

  She could tarry no longer, or she would draw attention to herself and become soaked in the process. With a silent plea Lord Norfolk was not too terribly ill, she took the gloved hand of one of the post boys and entered her father’s traveling chariot.

  In a few hours she would arrive at Rutley House.

  Lady Theodosia Camellia Simpson didn’t particularly care where she was going if it meant she could get away from the drudgery at home.

  Her elder sister Helena had married Lord Rutley two years ago and now resided in Norfolk. The women were far apart in age and every way imaginable. She preferred to be out of doors, Helena preferred indoor pursuits. Camellia chose to see where the day took her, her sister planned her life to the last detail.

  One thing she and her sister agreed on was the beauty of the name Camellia. Helena had learned the word from a book about flowers and insisted her infant sister have it as her middle name. Their mother agreed. Once Camellia was in the schoolroom, she insisted on being called by her middle name rather than by the dreadful moniker Theodosia.

  “Do spend as much time as you can with Helena,” her mother said before sending her youngest daughter to Rutley House. “You two may learn to enjoy some of the same activities. I am sorely disappointed you do not wish to go to town.”

  After two lackluster seasons, Camellia refused to go to London this year.

  With a mother who was well known to suffer not only from hypochondria but also mental fits, the young bucks of the season were inclined to avoid her. The men who showed her any interest were either widowers requiring a mother for their young children or desperate fortune hunters, the amount settled on her being a mere five thousand pounds.

  Camellia said to her mother, “Helena has invited me to a house party. I am as likely to find a husband there as I would in London.”

  “Your wardrobe is from last year-”

  She interrupted her mother to say, “Helena will have recent copies of Ackermann’s. My maid is an excellent seamstress and can make alterations to my gowns if need be.”

  Her mother frowned darkly.

  Her father was wont to indulge Camellia and picked up the thread of the conversation. “Oh yes, Helena’s husband is sure to know many suitable young men.”

  She secretly thought that the men of the house party would possibly not be as suitable as her father might wish. Her brother-in-law had been an infamous rake before marrying Helena. At least she hoped Rutley was no longer quite as self-indulgent.

  A house party with peers who saw no reason to go to London for the season piqued her curiosity.

  Camellia wasn’t particularly worried about the suitability of the party members. Helena would be a worthy chaperone and Camellia had no intention of being matched. She merely wanted to avoid the season and her mother’s matchmaking schemes for a few months. By autumn she would be relatively safe until the next season began.

  The rest of her journey was uneventful, the trip from her father’s estate in Cambridgeshire to Rutley House in Norfolk taking some eight hours. Helena had married her earl in a chapel on his estate. Camellia had visited only once since the wedding.

  She arrived at her sister’s home with time to bathe and dress for dinner. The house party was to begin in two days’ time.

  Rutley House was an impressive Jacobean mansion settled in lovely parkland. The rain had ceased, the clouds had all but gone, the sun shone as brightly as Helena’s welcoming smile.

  “Camellia!” Helena held her hands out as she waited for her sister to mount the steps to the house.

  “Helena! It is lovely to see you.” She took her sister’s hands and squeezed them.

  Helena was six years older, an inch or two shorter than Camellia’s towering five feet ten inches. The women shared the same willowy figure and slate blue eyes. Where Helena’s hair was a glossy brown, Camellia had inherited russet colored hair from their father.

  Camellia released her sister’s hands to be greeted by her brother-in-law. Lord Rutley was a handsome gentleman, had been the catch of the county. Helena and Camellia visited their uncle every summer and had met the earl when he inherited his title and estate from a cousin. Helena ignored the newly minted peer several years before the man offered for her.

  “Rutley was beside himself,” Helena said when she told Camellia about the proposal. “Couldn’t believe I was immune to his charms.”

  Her sister’s indifference had paid off. The man had gone from rake to dutiful husband and looked content to have made the conversion.

  Tired after her long journey, she followed the couple into the house.

  “Ruth will see you upstairs.” Helena inclined her head toward a young maid standing nearby in the entry hall. “Camellia, you look as if you could do with a rest. I must speak with cook about menus. I will see how you have settled in before I dress for dinner.”

  Camellia declined Ruth’s offer of tea. Once in her bedchamber her maid helped her to remove her pale green carriage dress. All she wanted right now was a nap.

  She glanced at the mahogany bracket clock on the mantelpiece. “That is all for now, Anna. Please wake me in an hours’ time.”

  The lady’s maid nodded and proceeded to move her mistress’s hat boxes into the dressing room.

  Perhaps Camellia should have felt wide awake, excited about attending a house party. Possibly appr
ehensive about meeting new people. Instead, she merely felt relief to be away from her mother’s constant demands.

  * * * * *

  The Marquess of Norfolk, or Ambrose, as he was known to his family and friends, willed himself to stay upright as he made a wedding toast to his sister Iris and her new husband Lord Chastain.

  “Plato said ‘At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet’. Alas, I have not the words to convey the joy I feel today at your union. Here among family and friends I simply toast to your happiness. To Lord and Lady Chastain!”

  He took a sip of the wine in his glass. He’d hurried back from St. James’s church in Piccadilly to imbibe a large dose of laudanum. He felt not only the familiar pain in his head but some queasiness as well.

  When he retook his seat his youngest sister Rose plied him with a piece of the wedding cake, a dense fruitcake. He took a few bites before pushing the plate with the sweet away.

  “I shall eat the rest,” Rose said with a grin.

  He mumbled a few words in response. Rose was in high spirits. At thirteen years of age she was too young to face his own death after the passing of their parents only a few years before. The doctors he’d consulted were of a mind that he had a brain tumor and there was nothing they could do for him.

  A missive should arrive that afternoon from Marcourt Hall, his estate in Norfolk. The letter would be the report he received every fortnight from his land steward. Ambrose would tell his sisters and their widowed aunt there was an emergency at the hall. His unmarried sisters Lottie and Rose would remain in his rented townhouse in London to be chaperoned by Aunt Abigail.

  He would spare his sisters the sight of his further deterioration. When he died, his family in London would be notified.

  “You say the needles are not having any effect on your headaches.” Kai Lee, the small Asian man he’d consulted in an herbalist shop on a dingy street in Spitalfields shook his head. “The herbs have not been helpful?”

  He sighed. “None of the treatments you suggested have helped relieve my symptoms.”

  “I have done all I can do to help you, my lord,” the man replied, his wizened face somber.

  Ambrose’s physician in Harley Street merely offered laudanum to dull the pain of his headaches. There was nothing to be done in his estimation other than for his patient to put his affairs in order.

  He’d succeeded in getting Iris settled. Right now, he could concentrate on hiding the severity of his affliction and little else. Prayer and meditation hadn’t worked. He would return to Marcourt and wait to die.

  Chapter Two

  Ambrose didn’t remember much about the stop at the coaching inn other than the girl. Stumbling from his carriage, his head splitting, he’d looked up and before him stood an angel. A vision in green with slate blue eyes and rosebud lips. She smiled gently before she turned, entered a carriage and was gone. Had he hallucinated the lady?

  His coachman helped him out of the rain to a private room inside the inn. Ambrose had no interest in the food set before him. A few bites of bread and cheese was all he could stomach. The smell of ale nearly made him cast his accounts and the weak tea the publican’s wife brought him was no more appetizing.

  Horses changed, he stumbled back to his coach and accepted assistance up the steps. Right now, he had no pride. No dignity. He needed to reach Marcourt. He wanted to die at home.

  He took the last swallow of laudanum from the flask he kept in a trouser pocket. His housekeeper knew the receipt for the mixture he preferred. Despite the well sprung squabs in the coach, he couldn’t get comfortable. Although the roads were dry, they were riddled with ruts. He closed the carriage curtains to shut out the dim light. His valet Livingston rode on top of the coach, staying out of firing range. Ambrose didn’t mean to be curt with the man, he simply couldn’t abide company at present.

  After what seemed like hours, the carriage stopped. The door to the coach opened, he heard the steps drop. He wanted to move; his limbs wouldn’t obey.

  “Help me, Thomas,” he heard the coachman say to the first footman. “His lordship is very ill.”

  The men removed him from the coach. His recent weight loss probably made the effort easier. He felt a breeze on his face and realized his hat was no longer on his head. The cool air felt good against his heated cheeks.

  Eyes closed, he was carried into the house and up the stairs to his bedchamber. His housekeeper directed the men to lay him on his four-poster bed.

  “The village physician has been sent for,” the housekeeper said close to his ear. “I will leave you in the care of your man while I prepare a tincture.”

  He drifted in and out of consciousness. All around him was darkness. He heard soft voices. Beyond his eyelids he saw shadows. His head was lifted several times and a glass of liquid put to his mouth. On one occasion he swallowed barley water, the next, tea.

  The pain in his head faded to be replaced with tremors and dizziness. Several times he heard the authoritative voice of a man. He didn’t recognize the voice, couldn’t focus on what the man was saying.

  If this was what dying felt like it wasn’t as unpleasant as he’d feared.

  * * * * *

  Helena did indeed look in on Camellia before dinner. “Did you get some rest? You look quite lovely in that shade of pink.”

  “Thank you, Helena.” Camellia smiled. “I had a most refreshing nap.”

  She was seated on a stool in front of a rosewood and yew dressing table. Helena took a seat on the edge of the bed. Her sister’s rose perfume reached out to her, bringing with it a fond memory of when Helena let her use her expensive perfume from Floris for the first time.

  “I told mother Rutley and I weren’t going to London for the season because we were bored with town,” Helena said. She met Camellia’s gaze in the rectangular mirror over the dressing table. She smiled shyly and her cheeks bloomed with color. “The truth is that I am enceinte, and my husband would like me to start my confinement.”

  Camellia turned on the stool and grasped her sister’s hands. “That is wonderful news, Helena! I am so happy for you.”

  “Rutley is thrilled. I can’t believe I’m going to be a mother.” Helena squeezed Camellia’s hands.

  “I think it is the most wonderful news in the world.” She paused before asking, “You haven’t written to mother or father of your condition?”

  “Not as of yet.” Helena shook her head. She continued after some hesitation, “You know Mother frets so. I don’t want to upset her fragile sensibilities. Rutley’s mother died in childbirth. He is worried enough without Mother adding to his concerns.”

  Camellia was surprised at Helena’s frustrated tone of voice. She had never noticed her sister resent their mother’s imagined illnesses and fits of vapors.

  Helena sighed and released her sister’s hands. “There is something I must confess, Camellia. There is no house party.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked with a frown.

  “I lied to mother. You wrote me that you didn’t want to go to London for the season. Rutley wanted me to remain here so I made up the story about a house party.”

  “Does father know?”

  Helene nodded. “Yes, he does. He also agreed you needed… That you need some time away from Mother.”

  Camellia was again surprised. The idea that Helena knew how unhappy she was trapped in the country helping to look after their mother never occurred to her. Growing up, they’d rarely spoken about their mother’s hypochondria. It was a part of their life, complaining about it wouldn’t change anything.

  “And Rutley went along with this?”

  Helena shrugged. “Of course. He knows how Mother can be. Rutley thought that perhaps I should have a house party and invite some young men to meet you.”

  Camellia’s response was to shudder. “You know how dreadful last season was. I need time to recover.”

  For although their mother was loath to entertain at her own residence, she had no problem attending any
event she could while in London for the season. Most evenings were cut short by some imagined ailment or fainting spell, embarrassing Camellia and irritating their hostess.

  “I still don’t know why Mother let me come.” She shook her head.

  Helena replied, “Rutley wrote and suggested that if she did not send you along, Mother would not see us for a very long time.”

  “He didn’t!” She was touched Rutley wanted to help her. She must thank him.

  Camellia felt closer to her sister than she had in a long time. She wasn’t disappointed there wasn’t to be a house party. During the few weeks she spent with Helena and Rutley she would be free to do as she pleased. It sounded like heaven.

  Dinner that evening was an enjoyable affair. Their uncle, the village apothecary, was not present.

  “He sends his regrets,” Helena said to her sister. “Uncle was called to an estate near the village of Braxton to treat a gentleman. What did you say the man’s name was, Rutley?”

  “Ambrose Blevins, the Marquess of Norfolk. He was a few years behind me at Eton.”

  The man at The Lamb Inn. Camellia said casually, “I’m surprised a marquess would accept the assistance of an apothecary.”

  Rutley swallowed a sip of wine. “From all accounts Lord Norfolk was thought to be dying. The village physician was called away to another emergency and would not be able to offer assistance for several hours.”

  It would be a horrible thing for such a young man to die. With several weeks ahead of her to please herself, it would surely do no harm for Camellia to look in on her uncle on the morrow and find out how the marquess fared.

  Chapter Three

  Ambrose heard the authoritative man’s voice again in conversation with his housekeeper. He wanted to respond. To wake up. He found himself drifting away again.

  He dreamed of the pretty young woman at the inn. He dreamed about this childhood, dreamed about the day his parents died.

  He’d recently left Oxford with his schoolmates Peake and Chastain. Bound for adventures on the Continent, his mother requested he come home for a fortnight before his trip with his friends. At twenty-two years of age, he’d spent more than half his life away at school. School holidays had given him only brief moments of time to get to know his sisters. The youngest, Rose, was only nine years old.