The Tainted Love of a Captain

by Jane Lark

  In the bedroom, immediately after he’d shut the door, his hand braced the back of her head, and things became as they had been in Brighton as his fingers clasped in her hair and he kissed her for a long while.

  Her hands held on to the upper arms of his coat as the world swayed about her like the sea and the room became an island.

  Once they were undressed, she lay on top of the bed, with the breeze of the night air sweeping through the window they’d left open, caressing her skin, while he lay over her pressing into her body with a skill and gentleness that made every sinew in her body ache with pleasure.

  She spoke to him afterwards, as she was wrapped in his arms and when he asked if she liked his family, she said, ‘Yes. But I am not sure they all like me. Your father and the Duke have not spoken to me at all. I think they must hate me.’ She could not hold the thought in; the words in his father’s letter hovered in her mind like a bird of prey waiting to swoop and strike.

  He stroked her arm in reassurance, and yet his muscles stiffened and she imagined it was with the instinct of defence; the reflex had been the same when he’d been suddenly woken. ‘They do not hate you, I promise. They are angry with me. They have delicate constitutions when it comes to anything that I do. Remember I spent years upsetting them as the naughtiest in the family when I was younger. I will speak to them.’

  ~

  When they sat at the full breakfast table the atmosphere was more informal than the dinner table. It made the conversations louder and more animated as people discussed how they intended to spend the day. A ride became the favourite idea and the majority of the men and some of the women said they wished to ride.

  Charlie looked at Harry. His lips were closed, but she knew… He was a cavalry man.

  ‘Would you like to join them?’ she asked in a quiet voice.

  He looked at her and his lips parted in a smile that said he’d been caught out. It was like one of the unsure smiles he had given her in the beginning. ‘Yes, and I am thinking Obsidian has not been ridden for days.’

  ‘I cannot ride.’

  ‘I had guessed, Charlie. When we reach India, then I will take some time to teach you?’

  She nodded, but India was not now and so she could not ride and she would have to stay here and let him go. She nodded again and put on her fake smile. It would be easy to make him happy. She had spent seven years making Mark happy—what of her, though? ‘But for today you must ride if you wish and you must ride if you wish all the time we are here.’

  He gave her a different smile then, one that said thank you, before he looked away and joined the conversation.

  After the riding party had left she returned to their room before any of the women left behind had chance to gain her attention, and the Duke had remained too and he simply scared her. He had looked at her and not spoken, before turning away to go about his business.

  Once in the room, she climbed on to the bed and lay there to await Harry’s return.

  After only a moment, someone knocked on the door. She did not answer. She was hiding here.

  It was knocked again, then a man called, ‘Mrs Marlow! There is a gentleman caller to see you, a Mr Cotton! He says he is your brother!’

  Charlie sat up. Rodney… Oh goodness. She scrambled off the bed and ran to open the door in her stocking-clad feet, with her hair probably untidy, having been crushed on the pillow. She had given her family her address here and Rodney had come. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the stable yard, Mrs Marlow.’

  Because, of course, her brother would not be allowed inside this grand house.

  ‘Wait a moment.’ She turned away and put on her half boots, the boots she had gone to Harry wearing, not the dainty shoes that Harry had bought her. ‘Show me.’

  The male servant walked before her at a steady pace, leading her to the landing on the first floor, but then he opened a door that was decorated to match the walls, so it was almost hidden. It took her in to the servants’ stairway. She followed him down, one hand on the wooden rail as her other hand held the skirt of her pale-yellow muslin day dress, with its pattern of small daisies.

  When he came to the bottom of the stairs the serving man followed a long flagstone-paved hallway. It contained dozens of servants, walking one way or another. A couple of the servants recognised her and bowed their heads or curtsied, but there seemed a bit of confusion in the corridor over how they should treat the interloper in this noble family.

  At the end of the hallway she could see a door leading into the stable yard and when the man opened the door she saw Rodney.

  He was holding his cap in his hands, standing a few feet away, a lone auburn-haired man, with a scruffy ginger beard, in the middle of a giant square surrounded by stables.

  ‘Oh Rodney!’ She rushed at him and wrapped her arms about his neck. It was a home-coming she had never expected to happen. He was taller than he had been and broader. He was a man and not the youth she’d left behind. He smelled of labour.

  His arms only came loosely about her in return, for a moment.

  She stepped back and looked at him holding his arms. She had longed to be held tightly. Home. Her brother. It had been so many years. Every moment of the happiest times of her childhood filled her head. She had longed for so many years to see her family again.

  Her brother was here. Before her. He had come.

  An emotion of relief and joy washed over her as she looked at his so-familiar face, even though he looked older.

  He’d worn his Sunday suit to visit her and he looked very smart, as smart as she had seen a man look before she had come here. But he was not smiling as he looked back at her and his eyes did not express any joy.

  ‘What is it? Did you come to wish me well?’ Smile for me, please, because I have been struggling to smile for myself.

  ‘What ‘appened to y’ur eye?’

  Oh, her eye. Of course he was not smiling. Of course he looked concerned and as though he was judging something. ‘An argument with Mark before I left.’

  He swallowed.

  The house servant had disappeared, which meant she could not turn and say may she invite Rodney inside and all of the outdoor servants in the courtyard were focused on their work, though they occasionally looked her way.

  ‘Shall we walk?’ She let go of him as his hands gripped his hat.

  ‘No, Charlie. I came… I just… I am… I only need…’

  Why was he struggling with the words of a greeting? Spit it out, Rodney! She wanted to yell, as Mark would have yelled at her if she had stuttered.

  ‘I need you, that is y’ur ‘usband, to pay the Colonel.’

  ‘What?’ The words struck her with a hard slap. In her memories of the past she recalled her mother’s hand in her hair as her head was dunked into the cold barrel of rain water. Her mother had used to do that when Charlie had done something wrong as a child.

  ‘I need y’ur ‘usband to give the Colonel the money ‘e ‘is askin’ for.’ It was said in a deep tone that refused emotion.

  ‘Why?’ He had not even asked how she was. He had not even come here to see her but to ask for money.

  ‘Colonel ‘illier wants ‘is money back. ’E is throwing us out of our ’ome or…’E said ‘e’d take Ginny in y’ur place.’

  No. ‘She is twelve!’

  ‘That she is, Charlie. Ask y’ur ‘usband to pay or y’u must go back to ‘im. I will take y’u back.’

  ‘What? I am married now. Do not be absurd.’ A darkness came over her, as though something had covered the sun. Rodney did not care for her happiness; he had come to wish her back where she had been—in misery.

  ‘That cannot matter. Would y’u ‘ave ‘im ‘urt Ginny? Or our mother? Or leave my Martha and my baby with no ‘ome?’

  No! The word screamed inside her as her hand lifted and she struck him on the side of his face. The cracking sound of the impact echoed back from about the stable yard as tears gathered in her eyes. Then she shook her head as she st
epped back.

  She had always believed in the years that she’d spent with Mark that her family loved her, that there were people who loved her. She had sacrificed herself so they would not suffer because of the error she had made when she had accepted the ride in Mark’s carriage. She had gone to Mark so that Ginny would not wail with hunger and her mother would not cry for fear of how they would survive and her brother would not shout in distress over how he was supposed to support them all.

  Rodney did not love her. He was thinking of himself. He could work. He could move out of his home and rent another and work to support the others.

  ‘Go away,’ she said in a low voice that was husky with pain as he cut her heart in two with the swing of an axe. ‘I will not go back there.’ She turned away, swallowing the choking sound of tears before he could hear it and walked with quick strides towards the house, her legs slicing at the layers of her petticoats.

  ‘Charlie.’ He had run after her and his fingers closed about her arm in a grip that stopped her flight. ‘Get us the money then, so ‘e will leave us alone. ‘E said five hundred.’

  Across Rodney’s shoulder she saw one of the grooms, who had been glancing their way turn and come towards them.

  She pulled her arm free. ‘Harry does not have the money. He is not rich. It is his family who have wealth, not him.’

  ‘Then ask him to beg for it if y’u will not go back.’

  She stared at her brother, unable to believe what he’d asked her to do. The images she’d been seeing in her head over these last hours flooded her mind; people spitting at her and calling out names.

  She had lied to herself as successfully as she had learned to form false smiles. Rodney had not been there then. She could see it now. He’d never defended her. He had never comforted her. He had not even been angry with Mark. He, and her mother, had only ever been angry with her when it had happened. They had blamed her.

  She had only received three short, terse, letters back from the numerous ones she had sent over the seven years. She had told herself it was too hard for them to write, Rodney was too busy and her mother could not write and then there was the paper and ink to be paid for. But they had not written because they did not care.

  She had sacrificed herself for their and Ginny’s happiness. She had gone to the man who had hurt her for help, to make their lives better, making hers awful and they had not even appreciated the gift of her life.

  Well, she wanted her life back.

  The groom reached them. ‘Unhand the lady, sir.’ He glared at Rodney.

  Rodney looked at her as his grip released her arm.

  ‘You had better go, sir.’

  Rodney did not move, but stared at her.

  ‘You had better go, sir,’ the groom repeated.

  She wanted nothing more to do with her brother. She turned and hurried away, leaving the groom to see Rodney escorted off the Duke’s property. She wished to walk as far away as she could get. To India. The sense of guilt could not scream at her and pressure her in India. But it screamed again now.

  What about her? The words yelled through her head in the battle of denial against guilt and grief she had experienced when she’d been young. She had ended this fight before. Now she wanted to be selfish. And happy. Why was it wrong for her to be happy? But Mark had threatened Ginny.

  Her feet took her blindly back through the corridor as tears blurred all the servants that stared at her. She wiped the tears away with the sleeve of the pretty dress Harry had bought her.

  In her head the words replayed—beg for it. Money. Harry’s family had money. But she would never ask Harry to beg from them. He could not beg from the family he loved. It would embarrass him.

  She did not care about Rodney. He would manage. He could work. But Ginny… Her guilt screamed of Ginny’s innocence in the pitch of Ginny’s childhood wails when Charlie’s stomach had been hurting with hunger too.

  But her… If she begged on her own account, not Harry’s, and if she did not tell him, then Ginny would be safe and Mark and Rodney and everything from her past would go away.

  At the end of the corridor there was a man dressed in the uniform of the upstairs’ servants. ‘Where can I find the Duchess?’

  The Duchess had not gone out riding and in the village it had always been the women who undertook the charitable acts.

  ‘She is in her rooms. Shall I show you up, madam?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Charlie’s heart leapt into a pounding rhythm. Harry would likely be cross with her for begging from his family, but what else was she to do? There was Ginny. Poor Ginny. Ginny had done nothing wrong to anyone. Charlie could not let anything happen to her sister.

  No. She would suffer this embarrassment. She had suffered far worse. This would be nothing.

  Smile. Smile and the guilt would become silent again.

  Chapter 11

  Charlie stood self-consciously before the door as the man knocked, just as her mother had done as a caller in the village when they had begged for help after Charlie’s father’s death.

  The door opened. A maid stood there.

  ‘Please tell her Grace that Mrs Marlow wishes to speak to her,’ the man spoke as though Charlie was not standing beside him waiting.

  The maid bobbed a quick curtsey at her then shut the door.

  The rhythm of Charlie’s heart could hit a nail into a board. Her hands clasped before her waist.

  Then the door opened again and it was Katherine. ‘Charlotte, what are you doing standing there?’ She looked at the man. ‘I am quite sure my sister-in-law does not need someone to ask if she might see me—’

  ‘I did not know the way to your room, this man was kind enough to show me.’

  ‘Well, then, thank you for doing so, Frank, but now you may leave us.’ She grasped one of Charlie’s hands and pulled her into the room. ‘I am writing invitations for the ball. You must help me and then we may talk as we work.’

  She let go of Charlie. ‘Take a seat at the desk.’ There were two chairs before the wide desk made of a russet-coloured wood and on the desk was a pile of printed gold-embossed cards.

  ‘They look pretty.’ Charlie touched the card on the top of the pile. How did she begin the words to ask for five hundred pounds? It was a vast sum.

  ‘I like them myself. Sit do…’ Katherine sat in the chair nearest the window as Charlie accepted the other chair. ‘What is it you wanted to speak about?’

  Charlie’s throat dried up. The words would not come.

  ‘Here. These are the invitations to be written and this is the list of names.’ Katherine pointed at them, then reached for a quill, dipped it in a pot and stroked the tip to wipe off the excess ink. ‘There is another quill, there.’ She moved the tiny ink pot so that it stood between them.

  ‘My letters are not very good.’

  ‘I’m sure they will suffice.’ She sent Charlie a smile. ‘But tell me what made you look for me?’

  Charlie swallowed. She could not do it. The words would not come. It was too humiliating to beg. ‘I was unsure what to do while Harry is riding.’

  Katherine smiled at her again. ‘Well, now I have occupied you. You do not mind helping me?’

  She shook her head.

  Katherine began writing.

  Charlie glanced about the room. She could hear Katherine’s maid in a room next door. It was a suite, like the rooms she and Harry had stayed in in London. Only this set of rooms were twice the size of those in the house in London and more lavishly decorated.

  There were china ornaments and paintings of scenes of far-off places and a lot of furniture, and there were sparkling necklaces and earrings on one table.

  ‘If I write the next, you could write the one after.’ Katherine pointed to the list.

  Charlie’s attention was drawn back to the task. But as she drew over a blank invitation her mind’s eye hovered on the jewellery. The necklaces must be worth hundreds. She reached for a quill as the value of what had been care
lessly left on a table continued to whisper to her. She wrote, copying the letters of the name in front of her as Katherine wrote beside her.

  ‘After we have finished, I am going to the nursery. You have not met the small ones yet, you must come with me.’

  Charlie nodded, though she had no desire to see the children. She could think of nothing but Ginny.

  She left the invitation to dry, then drew over another to be written.

  She wrote several as Katherine wrote too and spoke about her children. Charlie said very little.

  There had to be a way to obtain the money. Five hundred. The sum spun in her head and the beat of her heart resonated through her body, even reaching to her fingertips as she wrote. The guilt Charlie had not heard for so long shouted in her ears. It had been silenced when she’d gone to Mark. But she could not make that choice again.

  Katherine wrote the last invitation, then slid it away. ‘I shall have John ask someone to write out the envelopes for us. If you wait here I shan’t be a moment and then we can go up to the nursery.’

  When Katherine stood, so did Charlie. Then Katherine walked away towards the open door, from which the noises of a maid working could be heard.

  The glitter of the jewellery pulled Charlie’s gaze back to the table, where the necklaces and earrings lay, so carelessly put aside. There were three sets spread out on the table. She stared at them. Then found herself walking towards them. They called to her. They must be worth five hundred and more.

  Her fingers reached out and touched the gem stones, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds. In the room next door, Katherine spoke with the maid.

  Shallow breaths slipped past Charlie’s lips as her fingers closed and gripped. Her other hand reached out too and gathered up the necklaces. She had a pocket in her dress. She slipped them into her pocket. Then she looked towards the room where Katherine was. ‘I am feeling tired! I think I shall go back to my room! Do you mind if I do not accompany you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Katherine was there at the door, looking across the room.

  Her head was full of noise, of anger, guilt and fear. Each voice yelled at her from a different direction as she sensed her skin colour a deep red. Yet she held Katherine’s gaze and smiled. She could only think of Ginny. Harry’s family had so much; they could spare something for Ginny.