“If we tell his servants he is dead, they will want to know why the authorities have not been informed. You and I will be homeless once more.”
“I have an admirer, I think, in the form of the older man. I do not believe that any of these servants will be sorry if I tell them that he has already abandoned his new bride and gone away.”
So that is what we did and while I felt guilty at involving Lucy, I could not have managed without her. She had been right about her admirer and about the servants’ general contempt for their master.
I found some gold coin hidden away in a drawer and wondered if it was part of that stolen back from my father. It would be ironic if it were.
They were all happy to go and as soon as they had we dragged the body into the wine cellar, where it lie on the dusty floor to stiffen and decompose. I could not think about that; I had to decide what to do with the child we had rescued.
“She is a nice enough girl,” Lucy assured me. “If you and I are going to manage to live in this place with no servants, we will need help. She is very pleased to be out of the orphanage so I think she will make a good helper.”
She was right. The three of us would have to manage and I just thanked God that the house had little land to manage, no tenants and was remote, well away from the village. I am quite sure that this was the reason the Monster had chosen it in the first place, no one to interfere with his perverted pastime.
There were two horses trained to pull the carriage, but there did not appear to be any others nor saddles for riding. We spent a week or so driving the horses about the small estate, so as to learn how to drive it. It was not something any of us had ever done before.
I went into the village to get supplies and when the gold coin ran out, I found valuable jewels to sell. We brought up some wine from the cellar, so as not to have to return there again.
It was from people in the village that I learned of the death of King Henry. He had murdered another wife since I hid myself away here and married yet another and during this time had grown farther and farther away from the catholic faith. Although he still heard mass and persecuted protestants, it was said that his new Queen, Catherine Parr, was fiercely protestant and was trying to convert him. Meanwhile his son and heir was being raised by Protestant uncles and I could not help but worry about Richard Summerville who I knew was fiercely Catholic.
As to my own faith, God had done me no favours so I would not be persecuted for His sake, not ever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I worried about other things as well, like the mouldering corpse in the wine cellar and how long we could stay here before someone found us out. The Monster must surely have someone who would come looking for him.
The three of us used only a few rooms in the house and spent most of our time in the kitchens, because it was warm while the remainder of the house was freezing in the winter. The grounds were overgrown as that was not something we could keep up and it was beginning to look from the outside as though the place were abandoned. Something else to worry me. Would someone come along thinking they could take over? I felt that I had all the burdens of the world on my shoulders, but I needed to be strong for Lucy and Louisa, especially for Louisa.
We had managed to grow a few vegetables and they were mostly what we lived on since the money was almost all gone and not one of us relished the idea of hunting animals and killing them for meat.
The morning that Louisa came running into the kitchen I thought our little world would be shattered once more.
“My Lady!” She cried in panic. “A gentleman just rode up!”
“Do you know who?” I asked her fearfully.
“No, My Lady, I have never seen him before, but he is dismounting. I came straight to tell you.”
“Thank you Louisa,” I said taking her hand to reassure her.
“I’ll go and look,” said Lucy quickly. “I may be able to get rid of him, whoever he is. Probably just someone curious about the place. I am surprised he is the first.”
She went through to the front of the house where she could look through the windows without being seen, but instead of returning as I had expected or going outside quietly to persuade whoever it was to go away, I heard the door open followed by a delighted cry of “My Lord!”
When she returned she was followed by Richard Summerville, striding toward me as though he had never been gone. He took me in his arms and held me in a comforting embrace while all the tears that I had carefully held in check these past years spilled out over his doublet.
I caught an exchange of glances between my two young serving girls. Lucy's was delighted, Louisa's was puzzled, but both had smiles on their lips.
“I have searched for months for you,” he told me. “It was sheer chance that brought me here.”
I led him into the little sitting room where a fire was roaring while Lucy fetched ale and bread then left us together to talk.
“Where were you? I needed you so much when my uncle died; I had no one. They told me you were in France.”
“I was. I had to find a place for my cousin in one of the convents. There are none left here.” He put his arm around me and held me close. “I am so sorry, Rachel, that you had to marry yet again. I should have been there for you; I feel that I have let you down.”
“You owe me nothing, My Lord,” I replied.
“That is not how I see it but no matter. What has happened to your husband?” He turned my face up to look at him. “Why is he not taking care of you?”
What could I say? Richard was my dearest friend, indeed until Lucy and Louisa came into my life, my only friend. But could I really tell him that my husband was rotting away in my wine cellar, where I put him?
“He is not here,” I answered quickly, not ready to talk about him. “Tell me about yourself, your wife? Did you persuade her to annul the marriage?”
“I did,” he said with a note of regret that I did not understand, “and now I wish I had not troubled her with it. I thought I could just let her be. I was not going short of affection, after all, but I began to resent her so much. I tried to be patient, but I will never really understand. By the time I decided to confront her with it, I really hated her, and I expect that must have been clear in my tone.” He stopped talking and turned to look at me. “Is that not awful? She had no help for how she was; it was not her fault.” He sighed heavily before going on: “I explained it to her carefully, gently I thought. I could have got her woman companion to explain it to her, but I did not want her to know our secrets and I doubt that Rosemary did either. So I explained it myself, even though I could see she was afraid of the subject.” He was quiet for a little while but I did not prompt him to continue. He would tell me in his own time. “She agreed.”
“She did? That is good news,” I said, but he did not seem to be happy about it.
“I promised her a house, far away from me where she could live with her companion. I promised her a pension and the upkeep of such a place. She seemed happy enough with the arrangement.”
“But what happened?” I prompted at last. “I can see things did not go to plan.”
“She killed herself,” he said with a look of utter dismay on his handsome face. “The next day, I found her hanging over her bed.”
“Suicide?” I was shocked and that surprised me. I did not think I could ever be shocked again. “But why?”
“She did it for me,” he replied with a frown. “She left me a letter. You can read it if you like.”
He pulled a piece of rolled up parchment from his doublet and handed it to me. I started to read out loud.
‘My Lord,’ she wrote.
“She never called me ‘Richard’. In fact she never called me anything at all. The letter says more than she had ever put into words.”
‘My Lord, I do not want you to blame yourself, but I can find no happiness in this world and you have been nothing but kindness itself. You deserve better. I do this for you, to release you so that you can find
a real wife, one who appreciates your kindness and will be able to return your affection.’
I squeezed his arm in a feeble attempt to comfort him. I knew that people would think him to blame and the disgrace to the Summerville name of having a suicide in the family did not bear thinking about.
“I am trusting you to keep this a secret,” he suddenly went on. “The companion knows nothing. It was her day to visit her son and there was just me there. I dismissed her and put it about that my wife had gone to London to stay with my aunt and uncle. Their son was staying with me, and still is as it happens. My aunt and uncle died of plague two months ago, and when Rosemary was found nobody looked too closely.” He paused and looked at me as though for guidance. “Did I do the right thing? I just could not bear to have her buried without the sanction of the church. It meant so much to her, that sort of thing.”
“You mean you did not do it to avoid the disgrace,” I asked, surprised.
“Lord, no! I never care about things like that. I did it for her; it was the only decent thing I ever did for her.” He sighed wearily. “I tricked the priest into burying her in the family crypt, but look what she did for me. Who would have thought she had such compassion in her? Who would have thought she had the courage?”
“I think you did the right thing,” I said quietly. “I cannot think of anything more right. From what little I knew of her, I think it would have taken more courage to stay alive. She was such a sad little thing.”
“So, I am free now to choose another. And this time I shall choose for myself and I shall find a woman who wants me.”
I had to smile, knowing his reputation.
“I do not believe it will be too difficult to find such a woman, Richard,” I said with a smile.
“It will not be yet,” he said. “Not until a decent interval has passed and this protestant boy on the throne has outstayed his welcome. I shall savour the freedom of not having to worry about Rosemary. Since she has been gone I have realised just what a burden she was, hovering around my mind all the time. It is such a relief not to have to think about her. I shall look for a new Countess, I shall look carefully before I decide.” He turned to look at me then kissed my cheek. “I wish it could be you,” he said.
I felt myself stiffen; there was no help for it, even though I knew he had meant nothing by it. That would always be my burden.
“Rachel, Rachel,” he said, taking my hand. “I told you before that I would ask nothing of you and I meant it. I wish you could learn to trust me.”
“I do trust you, Richard. I really do, but how much do you trust me?”
“You know things about me, intimate things, that I would never want anyone else to know. What more do you want?” His eyes met mine then and held my gaze for a few moments. “Are you going to tell me where your errant husband is?”
I knew I had to tell him. I had kept it a secret long enough, I had been afraid, and made Lucy and Louisa afraid, every time there was a noise outside. I was always frightened someone would come, someone would find him. Wives who murdered their husbands were subject to harsh punishments, death by fire in most cases. If there was anyone in the whole world I could tell, it was Richard Summerville.
“Do you remember the last time we met?” I asked him. “You told me then that you hoped I would tell you one day what was done to me. Is that still your hope?”
“Only if it is yours,” he replied gravely.
I swallowed, wondering whether I would ever get the words out. I had told Lucy, had I not? I had no choice and I had no choice now, not if I wanted his help. We could not go on like this, there was barely anything left.
“When I was ten years old, on my birthday in fact,” I began hesitantly, “my father took one thousand gold pieces to loan me out for the day to two men.”
Richard caught his breath in shock and I looked up to see the horror in his eyes.
“I was raped that day, repeatedly,” I went on. “I was damaged, inside.” I had to stop, I did not think I could go on.
“Shush,” he said, putting his fingers to my lips. “You do not need to tell me any more.”
“Yes, I do. You have to understand if I am to ask for your help.”
“I will help you, whatever it is. You do not need to subject yourself to this.”
“I must finish,” I insisted. “I want you to understand, not only because I need your help, but because I love you Richard, and were it not for two deviants and a drunken father, I might even have been able to love you as a woman should.”
His reaction was to put his arms around me and hug me close against him and for the first time in my life, I wished I could be like other women. If only I could, if only it did not cause me pain, but even with him, the idea revolted me.
“When I was brought home there was no sign of my father and I never saw him again. I now know that he was murdered by one of the men, but I was just relieved to know that he was gone. My mother and I went to London, to my uncle the following day, but she lived only a few hours in his house. My father had beaten her so severely that she died later that night.
“The physician who examined me at my uncle’s request said that I would never be a mother, but that did not stop my uncle from arranging a marriage to the Earl of Connaught.
“When I was thirteen, Uncle Stephen took me to watch the coronation parade for Queen Anne Boleyn and that is where the Earl caught sight of me. Once more, this beauty everyone envies betrayed me. He wanted an heir and I could not give him one, my uncle knew that but he imagined it would be love at first sight. He did not understand but meanwhile I had to suffer the disgusting and painful nightly ritual of a man who did not speak to me, who barely knew my name. I was fifteen when he fell from his horse and left me a widow.
“I believed that he had left me his house for my lifetime and a pension, as well as wages for the servants, but I found out later that he had left me nothing. It was my uncle who had bought the house and was paying for its upkeep, out of guilt for arranging the marriage which he knew would not bear fruit.
“When Uncle Stephen died, there was nothing left. I looked for you then, I sent a servant to Suffolk who learned that you were in France. I could not afford to send anyone to France.”
“I am so sorry,” he said regretfully. “If I had only known.”
“You would have helped, I know. But you did not know and you were nowhere to be found and I had no choice but to throw myself on the mercy of the King.”
“And he helped you?”
“He helped me to the altar with yet another stranger,” I replied bitterly. “This one I did not even look at. I thought that if he too wanted an heir I was not about to tell him I was barren. I needed the marriage more than he did, as I had nothing. I would have been homeless and starving. But when I did turn and look at him, after the ceremony, I found that I had married the monster who had ruined me! One of the two who had stolen my childhood, stolen my life, and left me useless for any man!”
I was looking at my hands as they wrung themselves together. Just thinking about it was making me tremor uncontrollably, but talking about it was more than I could bear.
Finally I felt his fingers on my chin, turning my face up to look at him. His expression was one of pity, but not a contemptuous sort of pity, not the sort of pity I had seen when he looked at Rosemary.
“My dear, what on earth is there to say?” He whispered.
“Nothing,” I replied, shaking my head. “There is more. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
He nodded then held me against him once more. There were tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat which made it difficult to talk.
“I was, of course, much too old for his tastes. He was having difficulty, he said, procuring little girls since so many do-gooders had started up homes for them,” I told him bitterly. “He wanted a wife to visit these orphan homes and help him to trick the owners. I was to play the part of a woman anxious to adopt a little girl. That is where Louisa came from.”
/> “You mean you............”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “Even when I reminded him who I was, he still thought I would help him. He knew how desperate I was, how I had nothing and nowhere without him, but I was never that desperate. We found Louisa, crawling with lice and filthy, but managed to delay him while Lucy bathed her.”
“And? What happened then?”
I sat up and looked at him, my gaze holding his. I needed to see what expression crossed his features when I told him.
“Then I killed him,” I said firmly. “I poisoned him. I tumbled him down the stairs into the wine cellar and that is where he has remained.”
To my total surprise, he smiled, and it was a happy smile, a smile of sheer pleasure.
“Good,” he said. “Now you must come to Summerville Hall with me, you and Lucy and Louisa.”
“I do not want to show my face anywhere near court ever again,” I declared.
“You will not have to. I shall not be going there, not with a protestant on the throne, and if people believe you are my mistress they will leave you alone.”
“I cannot let you do that.”
“I was not asking your permission,” he said flippantly. “Do not concern yourself. You will not be my only mistress, no one would expect it.”
He kissed my forehead affectionately.
“You can revert to your own name,” he was saying. “Nobody will look for you, nobody will know. Lady Rachel Stewart is about to become the favourite mistress of Lord Richard Summerville and anyone who tries to challenge that will have me to deal with.”
I watched his face for a little while, then reached up and kissed his cheek. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude, I could barely find words to thank him.
“Why would you do so much for me?” I asked at last.
“Because I love you, Rachel,” he replied, while I stiffened slightly. He shook his head slowly. “Will you ever trust me? I made you a promise, remember? I promised you that I would never ask anything of you that you did not want to freely give. After the things you have told me today, that promise means even more to me than it did when I made it.”
The Flawed Mistress (The Summerville Journals) Page 7
