by Louise Allen
‘I do beg your pardon for keeping you waiting, this must be intolerably boring for you.’ Ross came back to her side with an expression of contrition. Meg knew perfectly well he had entirely forgotten her.
‘Not at all. She put her hand on his arm as they went to find the Jewel House. ‘I was just thinking how much William would enjoy this.’
‘He would, indeed. Meg, you do not mind about William?’
‘That you acknowledge him and are sponsoring his career? No, of course not. I think it admirable and he is a charming and deserving young man.’
‘I mean that there will always be people who think he may be my son, not my brother.’
‘I know they are wrong, and so does anyone who knows you. There will always be unpleasant gossip from some people.’
‘I am Brandon,’ Ross said, his voice suddenly hard, ‘And I will not have my honour smirched or my future wife distressed by rumour and scandal.’
‘You do all you can.’ Meg’s stomach sank in a most unpleasant manner. I will not have my honour smirched. ‘Your very openness will kill rumour.’ But the scandal around her name was real and could not be denied. She must confess it all to him. But not yet, not until today was over.
More shillings were needed for the Jewel House and the glitter of crowns and orb, sceptre and Sword of State took Meg’s mind off her problems for a while.
‘Shockingly vulgar, was it not?’ Ross remarked as they strolled along the gun platform looking at the crush of river traffic.
‘So close up, it is a trifle overwhelming,’ Meg agreed. ‘But at a distance, as part of the pomp of royalty, it would look spectacular.’
‘When will you give me the right to buy you jewels, Meg?’ Ross stopped, catching both her hands in his. ‘I want to buy you pearls and diamonds and sapphires.’ He lifted her knuckles to his lips and held her eyes with his own as she blushed and stammered.
‘Oh, no.’ Meg snatched back her hands. ‘I do not want you to buy me anything.’
‘You will not give me that pleasure?’
‘No.’ She shook her head, not looking at him, imagining the warmth of his fingers on the nape of her neck as he fastened a necklace, the cool slide of metal and gems over her breast. Ross placing a ring on her finger. ‘Please, can we go on? The breeze from the river is chilly.’
‘As you wish.’
His face was shuttered and the smile gone from his lips and his eyes as they walked back to the carriage. She might think she had hurt him if she believed that his feelings were very deeply engaged. If he loved her. But he did not, so it was his pride that was hurt. He was Brandon, and he wanted to mark her as his with gemstones when all she wanted was to be branded by his kisses.
When they found the barouche again Ross gave Jenkins a list of locations to form a route. He did not intend to walk around any of them, so they must maintain their formal distance in front of the footman. It would be safer, she told herself. Then their fingertips brushed as they lay on the leather upholstery. Ross shifted slightly and the edge of his coat fell over their hands so she left hers just touching his, while they made polite and distant conversation about the sights that unfolded on either side of the barouche.
They drove past the Bank of England and the Guildhall, exclaimed over the herds of cattle and sheep being driven through the crowded streets on their way to market at Smithfield. They stared up at St Paul’s, passed the Inns of Court so they could tell William that they had seen his future place of study and the British Museum because Meg thought they ought to at least see it.
And then they drove through St James’s Park, saw the Queen’s House and the lake, passed into the informality of Green Park with its herd of cows and milkmaids selling glasses of fresh milk and into Piccadilly. Meg knew they were almost back.
Ross’s fingers slid under hers, curling until their hands were clasped. Meg returned the pressure, and his thumb found the bare skin below the button of her glove, stroking against the pulse point. ‘I have made a decision, my lord. About the matter we discussed in Cornwall.’
He went very still, just as a man might who had been waiting with desperate patience for the answer of a woman he loved. But he did not love her, only desired her and, it seemed, he enjoyed her company. Was that enough to sustain her need to love and be loved? Perhaps it would be enough to overcome the revulsion he must surely feel when she told him her story as she was determined to do, now, before she lost her nerve.
They maintained a flow of innocuous conversation up to the house in Clarges Street, in through the front door while Ross handed his hat, gloves and cane to the butler and Meg untied her bonnet strings.
‘Could you join me in the study, Mrs Halgate?’
‘Of course, my lord.’ She followed him, her heart thudding, telling herself over and over again that this was right and she would release him first from the offer he had made. Then, when he understood just who and what she was, he could make up his own mind.
‘Excuse me, your lordship.’ Woodward clear his throat. ‘A lady and gentleman are waiting for your return. I explained you were not at home, but they intimated that it was a matter of some urgency.’
‘I will come to the study later, shall I, my lord?’ Meg was already at the foot of the stairs, shaky with relief at the postponement of the fateful interview. She should not speak on the spur of the moment; she would collect herself, compose what she was going to say.
‘Thank you, Mrs Halgate.’ Frowning, Ross reached for the card on the salver Woodward held, but she was already up the stairs and away.
Ross picked up the card, smiling at his own disappointment. Like a child deprived of a sweetmeat. Meg was going to say yes, he knew it. Her fingers curling into his for those last few minutes, the touches of colour on her cheek-bones, the flustered way she had fled up the stairs. Yes, he told himself. Yes.
And then he looked at the rectangle of pasteboard in his hand. Mr James Walton Halgate, The Grove, Martinsdene Parva. ‘Halgate?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, my lord. But as they did not enquire for our Mrs Halgate I assumed it was a coincidence.’ The butler looked a trifle uncertain. ‘I took in refreshments.’
‘Very well.’ With something unpleasantly like apprehension knotting his stomach Ross opened the drawing room door and went in.
A tall man, his once-blond hair now pepper and salt, stood up. Slightly faded blue eyes fixed on Ross as the woman by his side came to her feet. A good-looking couple, he thought, with the sensation of time slowing that happened just before an encounter with the enemy.
‘Lord Brandon?’
‘I am Brandon. Mr and Mrs Halgate, please, sit down. How may I help you?’
He was managing to sound calm, if not particularly cordial, some remote part of his mind observed.
‘We feel it our duty to inform you of a certain most delicate matter,’ Mrs Halgate said, her lips tightening into an expression of righteous indignation. ‘We understand from Sir Edmund Keay, an old family friend who has recently moved to Falmouth, that you have employed a new housekeeper.’
‘Sir Edmund, whose acquaintance I have not had the pleasure of making, is correct, although, forgive me, I am not clear how it is any concern of his.’ So, it was about Meg and the names were no coincidence.
Mr Halgate flushed at the ice in Ross’s voice. ‘He felt it his duty to tell us that Margaret Shelley is fraudulently continuing to call herself Mrs Halgate and is representing herself as our late son’s wife.’
‘Fraudulently?’ Ross realised he was staring blankly. He had expected—feared—they were going to say that James Halgate had not been killed but had gone missing and had now managed to get back to English assistance. He had feared discovering that Meg was still married, even as he hated himself for wishing a fellow officer dead. ‘Fraudulently?’ he repeated.
‘She prevailed upon our poor James to run off with her,’ Mrs Halgate burst out. ‘He was already married, the foolish boy. Most imprudently, I fear. But then that little trollop�
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‘Madam,’ Ross interjected, ‘I am aware that your feelings are agitated but Mrs…Meg is in my employ, I will not have her so described under my roof.’
‘She was always wild,’ Mrs Halgate said. ‘Wild and wicked and out of control. She seduced poor James into a bigamous marriage and now she has the effrontery to continue to use our name. His name.’ She buried her face in a handkerchief and gave way to her feelings.
‘And your son’s true widow?’ Ross felt rather as he had the first time he had been wounded. Strangely breathless, but numb, although he knew something should be hurting very badly indeed. The pain had come later. Then he had wanted to scream, although he had not.
‘Dead.’ Mr Halgate said grimly. ‘And the child too. An imprudent match, I fear. Not at all the wife we would have chosen for him—a tavern owner’s daughter. They became lovers, he married her when they learned a child was on its way, but then he received his orders so he left, telling her he was coming home to make his peace with us. Of course, we would have done what we could to buy the unfortunate creature off and take the child to rear properly ourselves once we had known.
‘But then that hussy got her hands on him, persuaded him to abandon a marriage he was already regretting and the child with it. Of course we knew nothing of the real wife until the letter from his commanding officer enclosing his will, by which time it was too late, some fever had carried them both off. But the fact remains, Margaret Shelley seduced our son away. And we heard what happened after his death. He was scarce cold when she had taken up with another man, living with him brazenly, acting as a common nurse.’
‘She was not his mistress.’
‘She would say that, no doubt.’ Mrs Halgate sniffed. ‘I do not suppose she told you the truth about her marriage, did she?’ When he did not reply she nodded sharply. ‘Then why do you believe her about the other man?’
Because she is Meg. Because I would trust her with my life. But why did she not tell me all this when I asked her to marry me?
‘You are saying that Meg Shelley knew of your son’s prior marriage but persuaded him to elope with her regardless of that?’ he demanded, ignoring the question.
‘Of course. His letters made reference to Meg knowing all about him, understanding his problems, wanting him anyway. James could never keep a secret,’ his mother said bitterly.
‘What, precisely, do you expect me to do with this information?’ Ross asked. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to find Meg and shake her. He wanted to lose his temper and shout at her. He wanted to drag her to his bed, use her until he was sated with her. He wanted her to feel as bad as he did. Instead he sat back, steepled his fingers and regarded the Halgates over the top.
‘Why, cast her out! Surely no decent gentleman would employ her.’
‘So you wish not only that she stop using your name, but you desire to punish her also?’ Ross found it was not only Meg he wanted to shout at.
‘Of course.’ Mrs Halgate looked taken aback that he should need to ask. ‘Her own father has disowned her, naturally.’
‘I imagine he did that when she eloped,’ Ross said, thinking of what Meg had told him of her father. ‘And what of her sisters?’
‘Vanished. Gone to the bad, all three of them. We have no idea where Celina or Arabella are.’
‘I see.’ Ross stood up and waited, silent, until the Halgates realised this was the end of their interview.
‘So what are you going to do about her?’ Mr Halgate demanded as Ross rang for Woodward.
‘I do not discuss my domestic arrangements with anyone, sir. But I will suggest to Meg that she uses another surname. I do not imagine that she would wish to retain yours once she hears of your attitude.’
‘Ha! She knows it well enough. Believe me, we made it very plain when she had the effrontery to write and condole with us on our loss. Wanting money, more like. We wrote straight back and told her that we refused to acknowledge her existence.’
‘In that case, I wish you good day. Woodward, show Mr and Mrs Halgate out.’
Meg had never been married. And she had, according to the Halgates, gone through a form of marriage with their son knowing he was already wed, however unfortunately. She had lied to him about her marriage, persisted in the lie when he thought that she would have trusted him with any secret. Pride, and the fatalistic expectation that the worst would happen just when he was happy again, nagged at him. He could feel his temper rising, and with it pain that Meg was not all he had thought her. He curbed it, hard.
‘Woodward.’ The butler stopped in his progress across the hall. ‘Kindly ask Mrs Halgate to come to the study.’ He would not tolerate being lied to. Ross fixed that thought in the forefront of his mind and clung to it. Anything rather than examine the puzzled hurt that seethed beneath his anger.
Meg tapped on the study door, then let herself in. Her stomach was fluttering with nerves, but she knew what she was going to do. She would sit down and tell Ross the story of how she had come to fall into what she had believed was love with James, the long, silent months when he was in London, the delight of finding he still cared for her, her misery at home, the elopement—everything. Then he would understand.
Her courage failed a little as Ross turned from the window to face her. His face was stony, but his eyes burned dark. Meg opened her mouth, but no words came out.
‘I have just had the dubious pleasure of entertaining Mrs Halgate,’ he remarked.
The tone was so at odds with the words that she blinked at him, failing to understand. ‘Mrs…James’s wife? She is alive?’
‘I understand that both his wife and child are dead.’
Child? Meg’s knees gave way and she sat down with a thump. ‘Then who…?’
‘The late Lieutenant Halgate’s parents. The people who, hardly surprisingly, failed to acknowledge you when Halgate was killed.’ Ross hitched his hip on one corner of the desk and studied her face. ‘They felt I should throw you out.’
‘I was going to tell you. To explain.’
‘Yes? Meg—I wish you had told me sooner. It appears to me that you were intent on deception when you boarded that ship and you have kept it up ever since. Why call yourself by a married name you had no right to?’
‘Because it was my identity for five and a half years! I was James’s wife for five and a half years and I—’
All the blood in her head seemed to have ebbed away. The room spun, the only fixed thing in it was Ross’s hard, implacable face, the only reality the pain and suspicion in his voice. ‘I did not know when I married him and I was going to tell you this afternoon.’
‘You did not tell me on the ship, or when I offered you employment. You did not tell me when I asked you to be my mistress.’ He paused and for a moment Meg thought he needed to control his breathing, but his voice as he went on was steady. ‘You did not tell me when I asked you to be my wife.’
‘I did not know how to.’ It was the truth. Even thinking about it had hurt too much.
‘Could you not trust me?’ He picked up the pen from the ink stand and began to roll it between his fingers. ‘Do you know how the Halgates found me? One of my neighbours knows them and wrote them a letter warning that you were back in England, still masquerading as their son’s wife and apparently pulling the wool over the eyes of a certain Lord Brandon. Or perhaps he thought I did know and did not care.’
Everything was mercifully numb now, just as it had been when they told her James was dead. The numbness had begun to melt into regret by the time they showed her his will and the document folded inside it and then the pain had come like a slash from a knife, all consuming. It would again, very soon, but not yet.
‘I did not know when I married him,’ she repeated finally as the silence dragged on. ‘I had no idea.’
‘You say you loved the man, yet you suspected nothing?’ There was a sharp crack and Ross tossed the splintered halves of the pen on to the desk.
‘I was an innocent. A romantic i
nnocent. I thought I loved him.’ I love you. Please do not kill that, please, the voice in her head clamoured.
‘Then you have changed, Meg. These days you are all practicality. You seized on my unconscious body quickly enough as a means to get you back to England. I wonder what would have been my fate if that plan had not occurred to you? I would be feeding the crabs on some sandbar in the Gironde, I suppose.’
It seemed her legs would support her after all and that pain and hurt could be turned into anger. Meg stood up, so close that her skirts brushed Ross’s knee. ‘I had years to learn to be practical, years to learn to look after myself and a man who was not the model of perfection a foolish girl thought him to be. And afterwards? When I learned that he had betrayed me and that poor woman? I could have just given up and died, I suppose. Or sold myself. Either would have been convenient for others, I am sure. But I chose to live. It is hard to be a woman alone, Ross; a married title is some little protection, although not much.
‘I was coming to tell you the truth today, give you the opportunity to withdraw your offer. You can believe instead two people who were deeply hurt by their only son’s behaviour. They need to blame someone, poor things, especially if they have lost a grandchild as well as a son.’ Meg fought for composure as Ross straightened up, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘If I may go now?’
‘In a moment,’ he said as he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. His mouth was hot and hard, but his control was complete as he plundered her mouth, holding her with one hand cupping the back of her head, the other at her waist. Meg tasted anger and need and confusion and fought her own wildly conflicting instincts, to claw at his eyes and to melt into his arms.
It was the last time they would kiss, the last time her nostrils would be full of the spicy scent of his skin, the last time his body would heat hers with demands that her own flesh leapt to answer.
