Arm in arm they walked together to the furthest end of the factory and through a small gateway. Before long they came to the clearing where trees had once stood. It was only a fortnight ago that Aurelia had been standing on the other side of the river calling Caesar back and already she could see the progress that had been made. The flow had been diverted, cutting off the horseshoe of what had once been her father’s land.
‘This is where I’m going to build the apprentice house,’ Jonathan said. He strode out, leaving Aurelia standing at the edge of the clearing, and waved his arms at the imaginary building.
‘They’ll have a schoolroom, a bedroom to share and a kitchen to eat in. I think a garden would be nice where they can grow their own food. Perhaps even some chickens.’
Aurelia smiled to see her husband’s enthusiasm. ‘It sounds wonderful,’ she agreed, crossing the frozen ground to stand at his side.
His eyes took on a faraway look and Aurelia wondered if he was even aware that he had slipped his hand into hers.
‘The boys will be happier and better cared for here than if they stayed in the workhouse. I want to take care of my workers, you see. I want to see them educated. I should have gone to a fine school, but that chance was taken from me when we moved to Macclesfield. I was fortunate that my mother and Edward encouraged me to study, but it was hard. My boys will have a rudimentary education and a better future than they would otherwise.’
‘Just boys?’ Aurelia asked. ‘Do you not also intend to have girls?’
Jonathan looked at her quizzically.
‘You mentioned it before we were married,’ she reminded him. ‘On the night we agreed our engagement. If the life of the boys would be improved, why not also the life of the girls?’
‘Of course,’ Jonathan said. He straightened his cuffs in what appeared to Aurelia as an offhand manner, as if he was dismissing the importance of the idea. ‘I don’t think it as necessary for girls of their class to be as literate as those of yours or mine. They’ll learn useful skills that will make them good wives and mothers one day.’
Aurelia forced a smile, though her jaw felt tight. She could contradict him, but that would raise the question of why she felt so passionately about it. Her husband knew as little of her appetite for learning as her parents had. It was interesting that he revealed he thought of the two of them as different classes, too. What would it take for him to stop feeling as if he did not belong? Jonathan might not have a string of titled ancestors and a baronetcy, but he was easily the intellectual and moral superior of her father and many of the titled men she had known.
Especially one, whispered a sneaky voice in the back of her mind. She silenced the voice firmly.
‘I’m sure whatever they learn here will be of great use to them,’ she assured him.
‘Of course you have bought yourself another task now,’ Jonathan said. ‘If I am to find a teacher for the boys, then you may care to help me find a teacher for the girls. Someone capable of needlework and cooking will suit them and set them up well.’
‘Perhaps I shall take on some of that duty myself,’ she told him, laughing.
‘I don’t expect you to work for your keep,’ he said, joining in.
She hid a smile that had suddenly begun to feel a lot more genuine as an idea began to bud. She would find a teacher willing to give the girls at least the basics of reading and writing. While the boys could learn in public, the girls would have to learn in private.
‘You do make me wonder if I should purchase a piano for the apprentice house, however,’ Jonathan said. ‘If you can teach me to play, I’m sure you can teach anyone.’
His eyes lingered on her and Aurelia’s stomach squirmed.
‘I think I shall confine myself to one pupil there,’ she said. ‘You are more than enough for me, Jonathan.’
‘Am I?’ he asked, giving her an earnest look.
An impulse to be close suddenly came upon her. She smiled at him and took his hand.
‘Oh, yes, Mr Harcourt. You most definitely are.’
She wondered what Jonathan would do if she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as fervently now as she had done the previous night. She was so convinced he would consider such intimacy outrageous that she was unprepared for Jonathan to take her in his arms. When he drew her close and cupped her head in his hand she felt as if she had been shot, but the instant his lips found hers it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be standing on the riverbank kissing the man who only made love to her so she would provide him with an heir.
When they returned to the mill yard the clock set into the arch over the double doors had just finished chiming eleven. Aurelia was surprised to realise a whole hour had passed. Jonathan bade her farewell formally, with a bow. She returned it with a curtsey. No one watching would have suspected they had been behaving in a manner that would scandalise anyone who happened to be walking along the river.
The amicable peace was shattered by the foreman striding towards Jonathan with an anxious look on his face.
‘Mr Harcourt, we’re having problems with the spools again. Those damned careless girls! Pardon me, Mrs Harcourt, I didn’t see you there.’
Jonathan gave Aurelia an apologetic look. ‘I need to go.’
‘Of course. Don’t let me detain you.’
She watched him stride away at the foreman’s side, head cocked as he listened to whatever the foreman was saying and nodding forcefully. Her lips curved into a smile as she watched them go. Jonathan walked so fast, arms swinging, the foreman could scarcely keep up. It was curious how seeing him being so purposeful made him all the more attractive. She couldn’t fathom it, but she could not ignore it. He moved through life with such determination that she could not help but admire him. Knowing that he was equally serious with everyone and not just her made it easier to forgive his occasional solemnity.
Chapter Thirteen
Aurelia let Dora and Cassandra chatter on while her mind wandered back to the morning with Jonathan and daydreamed about kissing him on the riverbank.
Of course she was interested in what their old friends in Oxfordshire were doing now, but that life seemed so far behind her now. Who was flirting with whom and where people chose to wear feathers rather than flowers in their hats was not her concern. Puzzling over why Jonathan had kissed her was much more intriguing.
The only time her attention woke properly was when Cassandra mentioned an old rival with glee.
‘And Dottie Cleve wrote to tell me that Miss Burbage wore the same dress to the Earnshaws’ party as she did to the wedding of...’ She stopped and put her hand to her mouth, cheeks colouring, and looked down at her plate of sandwiches. ‘I forget whose wedding. It might have been a christening in any case.’
‘I can guess whose wedding it was,’ Aurelia said quietly, ‘and it doesn’t matter.’
She could tell herself that she had no feelings for Arthur Carver, but this news was a blow that struck deep. He had deceived her and betrayed her, and almost caused a scandal that would have ruined her for ever, but as she brought his face to mind her heart fluttered. How much of that was fury at the way she had been tricked into caring for him, she could not say.
All the time he had been courting Aurelia there had been a young lady waiting for him to complete his studies at Oxford and return to marry her. He had been engaged since the age of sixteen. ‘Oh, Lia, I am so sorry,’ Cassandra said, leaving her chair to embrace her sister. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Of course they will be married by now,’ Aurelia said. From the moment the existence of Arthur’s fiancée had come to light Aurelia had told him she did not believe he would end the engagement to be with her. What else could she have done?
She had ended all communication and Arthur’s marriage became inevitable from that point onwards. But knowing it must happen and hearing the confirmation that Arthur had finally surrender
ed himself to the marriage he had protested against for years did not make that knowledge any easier to bear.
She wiped briskly at her eyes with the end of her napkin. Tears prickled her eyes and the feeling of nausea she had shaken off that morning rolled over her again. She bit her lip to stop it trembling and so the pain would distract her from weeping openly.
‘That they would marry was never in any doubt. I’m only surprised it took so long to arrange the date.’
Aurelia burned to ask for every detail of Arthur’s wedding. Where the wedding breakfast took place, whether the bride and groom rode in Arthur’s cabriolet or if Lord Helsby had lent his son the landau emblazoned with the arms of the Helsby barony. Had they taken a tour of Italy as Arthur had promised Aurelia they would for their own honeymoon? Quite why she wanted to torture herself in such a way mystified her. Did she want to picture herself in the bride’s place, or compare it with her own wedding day to Jonathan? No good could come of it.
‘Is being married to Mr Harcourt terrible?’ Cassandra asked. Aurelia wrinkled her brow. ‘Does he mistreat you, I mean? He seems so nice and his home is so pleasant.’
Aurelia gave her sister a faint smile. She wondered if Cassandra regretted not accepting the proposal herself now she had become more familiar with Jonathan. ‘Not in the slightest. We tolerate each other adequately and Jonathan is a good man.’
‘And you are able to bear sharing his bed?’ Dora asked. She waited with her arms folded until Aurelia and Cassandra had finished exclaiming aloud at the unseemliness of her question. ‘All I mean is that I could not imagine doing anything intimate with a man I did not love. My skin would crawl at the thought.’
Aurelia went to the table and busied herself pouring more tea. The details of her intimate life with Jonathan were private and even if she was inclined to share them with her sisters, she would not dream of telling unmarried girls of some of the things they had done to each other’s bodies. Far from crawling in revulsion, her skin took on its own life when Jonathan touched it. How innocent she had been when she had assumed that the act simply involved bringing two body parts into contact! Even now, the memory of her husband’s mouth teasing her most sensitive, delicate parts was enough to excite her. Did that mean she loved him? She had never considered that. All she knew was that she was starting to value his company outside her bedchamber as well as in it and she was happy for that state of affairs.
‘Being married to Mr Harcourt is bearable,’ she said.
‘I’m glad, but I wish you had stayed unmarried so we could have lived together always,’ Dora said. ‘Now, let’s talk of more cheerful matters. Have you decided what you’re buying Mr Harcourt for a Christmas gift?’
Aurelia frowned. ‘I haven’t,’ she admitted. It pained her to admit to her sisters how little she still understood of her husband’s likes, at least outside the marriage bed. Anything she could give him to enjoy within the confines of her bedchamber certainly couldn’t be wrapped and laid beneath a tree.
‘I know what gift I could give him, but that doesn’t seem to be within my power. If I could only tell him I was expecting a happy arrival.’ She blushed and waited while Cassandra giggled and Dora leaned forward as if she was about to take notes.
‘That would truly make Jonathan happy and it is what he wants more than anything.’
‘You have two weeks to find something. Or to get with child,’ Dora assured her with a giggle. ‘Why not ask Father what he thinks a man might like?’
Aurelia laughed. ‘I would hardly imagine Father and Jonathan share many interests.’
A notion of an idea was beginning to form, though. Jonathan had wanted to continue his studies of the classics. A book of illustrations of Greek or Roman archaeological finds might please him. And if some of the subjects were of an indecent nature, Aurelia could plead innocence, while hinting privately that she might not be averse to trying to replicate them.
She sipped her tea and let Dora and Cassandra gossip on as pictures danced behind her eyes and made her want to blush.
* * *
Jonathan returned home just as Cassandra and Dora were leaving. He strolled into the house, overcoat open and silk scarf flapping in the wind that swirled around him. Aurelia was glad to see him return and not just because of the purely physical reaction that the sight of him invoked. Her mind and heart were still in turmoil after the news of Arthur’s marriage and seeing her husband made her feet feel like there was solid ground beneath them again rather than quicksand. She looked forward to the coming evening where they might sit together and exchange news of their afternoons.
Jonathan gave Aurelia a formal peck on the cheek, then gave an exclamation of delight at seeing his sisters-in-law. A flicker of jealousy bucked and reared inside Aurelia at seeing him greeting Cassandra so warmly. It took her by surprise, causing the breath to catch in her throat. She had not given too much thought to the fact that Cassandra had been Jonathan’s first choice of wife, but watching him smile and bend over Cassandra’s hand to kiss brought the memory sharply back to her. She hoped that by now she had proven a satisfactory wife and he did not regret being offered her.
‘I hope you will both join us on Christmas Day,’ Cassandra said as Jonathan straightened and released her hand.
‘We don’t spend the entire day in church, if that is what makes you hesitate,’ Dora said before he had time to answer her sister.
‘It wouldn’t be Christmas without Lia,’ Cassandra added.
Jonathan looked taken aback at the barrage. He glanced at Aurelia and raised an eyebrow. Aurelia walked to her husband’s side. She slid herself between him and Cassandra, feeling the need to lay claim to him in some small way.
‘We haven’t discussed our plans yet,’ she told her sisters. ‘Mr Harcourt may have his own traditions and preferences. We shall discuss it between us and let Mother and Father know of our decision. Now, you had better go, the coach will be waiting.’
She ushered them to the door amid a flurry of kisses.
‘I’m sorry,’ Aurelia said as soon as the girls had left. ‘Cassandra was wrong to ask you so directly.’
‘Don’t apologise. It was kind of her to invite us and you aren’t responsible for your sister’s impulsiveness,’ Jonathan said. ‘In truth, it hadn’t even occurred to me to consider that this year would be any different to any other. Since my mother died I usually attend the service at the Methodist chapel with Edward. Then we go for a long walk across the hills and share a meal before I return home to read by the fire.’
Confirming the picture of Jonathan as solitary, Aurelia thought to herself. She wasn’t sure she liked his fulsome description of Cassandra as impulsive, either.
‘In that case we should extend the invitation to Edward,’ she said. ‘I would not want him to be alone.’
Jonathan put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. ‘I’m sure he would be delighted at such a warm-hearted offer. Now, there is something else I need to discuss with you. I was very pleased earlier today when you said you are interested in the girls’ welfare and I have both a proposal and a favour. Wait here, if you please.’
He went back outside and returned a short while later with a small girl who looked no more than ten.
‘Millie here is not suited to working in the mill,’ he explained. ‘She finds it hard to follow instructions. For whatever reason of their own, a few of the older girls have taken it into their heads to blame her for any mistakes and my foreman tells me she is suffering as a result.’
‘Has this poor child been standing outside all this time?’ she asked.
Jonathan looked shamefaced. ‘She’s been sitting in the delivery cart. I would have asked you straight away, but obviously we were distracted. I know you are finding the task of being a mistress of your own house a little challenging, so I wondered if you would be prepared to take Millie under your wing and begin to teach
her some of the rudiments of being a domestic servant? It would kill two birds with one stone as they say.’
Aurelia looked at the child. Millie gave a nervous smile that revealed a gap-toothed mouth. She wore a shapeless dress made out of the same drab grey wool that the workhouse boys wore and looked as if she had never had enough to eat in her life. No wonder Jonathan thought his apprentices would be better tended under his own care.’
‘Of course I will,’ she said. ‘We will, I mean. It’s your house.’
‘It is yours, too. But thank you.’ Jonathan looked relieved. Had he doubted she would agree? Surely he knew Aurelia better than that!
He squatted down opposite the child, placed both hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Go with Mrs Harcourt and be sure to do as she bids you.’
Aurelia watched her tall husband squatting uncomfortably in front of the small child and speaking to her so gently. Edward was right to suggest there was a capacity for affection in him that only needed to be brought to the surface. When he had children of his own Aurelia was sure all the love he seemed capable of would be lavished upon them. He was a good man. Kind and thoughtful. Their children would grow up in a happier household than their father had. Even though the marriage was not a romantic attachment, she believed there was enough affection in it to ensure that, certainly more on her side than she would ever have expected possible. She thought back guiltily to her pangs of longing when Arthur’s wedding had been brought up. Jonathan was better in every respect than Arthur was and she had been foolish to waste even a moment pining after someone she could not have when she had a good husband here.
Jonathan stood. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to seclude myself away for the evening and not join you for dinner. I have too much work to be able to spare any time.’
‘Is there a problem?’ Aurelia asked, recalling the urgency with which the foreman had summoned him earlier.
‘Nothing too serious, merely tedious.’ Jonathan sighed. ‘Orders that were not fulfilled by our suppliers mean our production has slowed. Coupled with repairs needed in the spinning room we’re behind and risk not fulfilling our orders. I intend to examine all our future commitments and see how best the time can be used so we don’t sit idle. I had hoped to begin work on a new design, but that will have to wait.’
The Silk Merchant's Convenient Wife Page 14
