‘The stables,’ Sir Chase told her.
‘I’ve seen the house often,’ said Caterina, ‘but never as close as this. It’s huge, isn’t it?’
‘Not quite huge enough for Hart. He’s already planning on extensions to make it about twice the size. The gardens, too.’
‘There … over there …’ she pointed ‘… that’s the long cascade. Do you think he’ll allow us to paddle in it?’ Higher up the hill to the other side of the house was a long flight of steps that sparkled with water.
‘We’ll be allowed to do whatever we wish. Come on. The coaches should be there by now.’ He laughed, recognising the change in her with each mile of their journey, wondering if Signor Cantoni and Millie would notice it, too.
They had been seen from the house riding through herds of deer in the parkland and, by the time they had arrived at the foot of the terrace in the West Garden, the lanky young sixth Duke was striding out to meet them, his long boyish face beaming with pleasure, his arms ready to lift Caterina down from the saddle, greeting her with a brotherly kiss to both cheeks. Animated and eager, he took his friend’s hand in both his own, asking questions, but not waiting for an answer before telling them how their coaches had arrived and how sensible they were to come cross-country.
He had given Caterina the red-velvet bedroom, which had a wash-basin and a commode of polished mahogany. Sir Chase was in the room next door but, in a house the size of Chatsworth, a guide might have been useful when it was necessary to walk through so many other rooms to reach his Grace, and it was soon obvious why he was planning so many changes. Their journey took them through vast rooms with painted ceilings, gilded cornices and dowdy wallpapers, over marble floors and shabby carpets, past monstrous bookcases, old slabs of alabaster and furniture chipped with the countless knocks of generations, up staircases and along passageways lined with columns, plaster casts of feet and heads, malachite pedestals and clocks, urns made of the local Blue John stone and tapestries from the now-dismantled Mortlake factory showing faded biblical scenes.
‘But things are in the wrong place,’ said the Duke, airily. ‘And there’s too much gilding everywhere. Some of it will have to go.’
With a resident orchestra and the Duke’s Hungarian pianist friend, Edouard Schulz, with Sir Chase, Signor Cantoni and Caterina, it was not surprising when, after dinner, they resorted to the music room where the guests willingly ‘sang for their supper’ to the delight of the Duke who, although slightly deaf, loved music. When it grew late, they abandoned the piano, the harp-sicord and harp for a supper in the Sitting Room, all white, grey and gold, which Caterina found restful, but which the Duke wanted for his library. ‘After I’ve enlarged the stables,’ he told her. ‘I can only get eighty in there at the moment, and there’s nowhere for the carriages.’
Caterina’s red-velvet room was connected to Sir Chase’s by a small door cut into the wall that disappeared from view when it was closed. While they prepared for bed, they propped it open so they could talk and, when Millie and Mr Pearson had been dismissed, they came together only because they could no longer keep away from each other for the space of a night.
The events of the day had assembled in her mind, helping to relieve her of the cares that had dogged her for so long, replacing them with companionship, music-making and loving, peace and freedom. A heady mixture that was sure to affect her.
He had waited at the door in the wall with his head almost touching the frame, his arms folded as he took note of the last fussing delaying tactics that he knew were signs of her uncertainty. There were still doubts in her mind and now her resolutions wavered, too, but her body’s messages were strident, insistent.
She turned, as if surprised to see him standing there, and he could see the conflict raging within her, reminding her of the passionate encounter on the moors and the ecstasy they had shared there, literally, on her home ground.
‘Chase,’ she whispered.
He neither spoke nor moved, but his look told her that she must come to him, not the other way round.
‘Chase … I think … I think I want you.’ Her eyes were wide and dark with desire, her fine lawn nightgown like a halo around the darker outline of her body, her hair glowing like burnished copper in the candlelight.
He could see that she was trembling. Moving at last, he held out one hand to her and she flew to him like a bird with a cry of joy at the sudden soft impact of their bodies, at the warm welcome of his lips, as hungry as hers. She melted into him and he lifted her, carrying her through to his own bed where the loving began even before they fell, sprawling them across it, rolling to the edge and back again.
This time, Caterina’s need was for every tenderness he could offer, the slow, seductive, secretive caresses that he had rarely been given a chance to give, or to teach her how to give in return. In those rapturous hours, she learned about waiting and about giving pleasure as well as receiving it, about the sensitive parts of a man’s body and about the joys of delay which, ultimately, heightened the sublime ascent that kept them both at the peak for longer than before, crying out with the suspense of it.
His head lay on the pillow with his nose almost touching hers, their eyes laughing, wondering, their lips playing together.
‘I’m in bed with Chase Boston,’ she said, impishly.
‘So you are, my lady. Regretting it, are you?’
‘Not yet. No, certainly not yet. But Chase, there’s something I think I ought to tell you.’
‘Shh!’ he commanded, lapping at her top lip. ‘Sleep now. You can tell me tomorrow.’
***
The chance to tell him did not present itself the next day nor indeed on any of the following days or nights, and by the end of their five-day visit to Chatsworth, the need to speak about her secret theft was fading, partly as a result of Chase’s contriving to keep the topic of conversation well clear of contentious issues. The other reasons were to do with the increase of guests at Chatsworth and their days spent tirelessly visiting all the places Caterina had known when she had lived in the nearby town of Buxton. For her, these days were the beginning of a new life in which everything she enjoyed most was hers to do without restriction. The hours spent with her personal singing tutor and all the other music-makers were like the fulfilment of a dream that seemed unlikely to end.
Using the Duke’s horses, they galloped freely over his acres, taught Signor Cantoni how to ride, splashed like children in the cascade fountain on the hillside, played games of croquet and boated on the lake. On tours of the palatial house, they were shown the fifth Duke’s collection of objets d’art and all the curiosities he’d not bothered to catalogue, for he had been no connoisseur of the arts like his son.
One of the extra guests to appear was a certain Mr Turner, an artist who disappeared each morning to sketch the local beauty spots, reappearing each evening looking just as scruffy as when he’d set out. Though no one could have called him charming, he kept them in hoots of laughter with stories of his adventures in pursuit of his art, but if any of them had assumed that his finished paintings might be easily affordable, they were soon to find out that, for all his air of shabbiness, he had been a Royal Academician since the age of twenty who knew his own worth. His charges included not only the painting but also the cost of transporting it to the buyer and even, when he felt like it, the paper and string it was parcelled in. He did not come cheap by any standards.
Politely, Caterina agreed with Mr Turner that this was only common sense, but the controversial subject of earnings and entitlements was soon pounced on by other guests, some of whom were local landowners, and the conversation swung inevitably to the price of land and the Derbyshire’s valuable lead mines. Several of these were owned by the Duke himself, as well as others further north on the moors of Yorkshire.
‘Mark you,’ the Duke said between mouthfuls of Wensleydale cheese and apple chutney, ‘I don’t need to go all the way up to Yorkshire to understand what my agent is telling me. He’s al
ways on the spot, but I have the model of the mines that my father had made for him. I’ll show it to you after dinner, if I can find it.’
He found it behind a bronze bust of Admiral Lord Nelson that stood on top of a large lump of lead known, he told them, as a pig, probably because no one could lift it. The model was beautifully constructed of wood showing how the seams containing lead-ore ran vertically down into the ground connected by man-made sloping tunnels where tiny figures of men crawled on all fours to pick away at the rock, inch by inch. Caterina knew that lead mining was a highly dangerous occupation and that the miners’ families lived only on what their menfolk could find and bring to the surface. They were always desperately poor and, as usual, the largest share went to the owners. But until then, she had given little thought to the appalling conditions in which the men worked, rain or shine, winter and summer. Most of the workers would have to walk miles across the open moor in all weathers just to reach the mine, with no change of clothes either before or afterwards.
With only the Duke and her husband to hear her questions about the Chester mines inherited by her father, she was surprised to see the sudden frown followed by a fleeting expression of concern cross the Duke’s face. Clearly, he was perturbed. ‘Good heavens!’ he whispered, looking to Sir Chase for support. ‘Heavens above. Of course, you’re related, are you not? How could I have forgotten it?’
‘Is there a problem, Hart?’ said Sir Chase.
‘Well, er … yes, there is indeed, but …’ his eyes wavered uncertainly between Caterina and Sir Chase ‘… but perhaps this is not the time.’
‘Please tell me,’ Caterina said. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Oh, dear. Chester’s mine is on neighbouring land, as I’m sure you must know. That’s how I heard the news so soon, only this morning, but it didn’t occur to me to mention it. Your father won’t have heard yet, down in Richmond. I suppose that’s one of the problems of not keeping a close eye on the place. Your father visits so rarely, I believe.’
‘Never at all, your Grace. But please tell me what’s wrong.’
‘The worst. I’m sorry to say that his one remaining mine collapsed last night and killed seven men. He’s supposed to keep them supplied with good timbers, you see, so that they’re shored up as safely as possible. Your father’s mine reached the water-table only last year,’ he said, pointing to the underground lake on the model, ‘down here, so they’d almost worked that seam out. Since then they’d been looking for parallel seams, and I believe they were sinking deeper shafts to search for more veins. But if the water that collects isn’t pumped out properly, the shafts will flood and collapse. If your father had granted leases for them to look elsewhere on his land, they’d not have needed to go deeper, but this takes time to discover, and I believe he’s always refused to do that. Folly, really. It may be an expensive undertaking, but seven men is a lot to lose in one go. He’ll have to close it down completely now, with all his miners gone. A very sad business. Every owner’s nightmare.’
Caterina’s face was white. ‘And the families?’ she said.
‘Oh, heaven knows what’ll become of them. Perhaps your father will come up to see for himself, once the message reaches him. These families help each other out. They’re a close-knit bunch up here.’
She felt the support of Chase’s arm around her shoulders, easing her gently against him, sharing her shock. First the loss of profits on his cotton cargoes, now the terrible accident and the closure of his one remaining mine. Which would concern him most, she wondered, the loss of revenue or the loss of life and the destitute families?
‘I’m so sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ the Duke said. ‘Was the mine your father’s only source of income, my lady? Forgive me for asking.’
‘No, your Grace. I believe he may have others.’
She thought about the sugar plantations, the profits from raw sugar and the miserable slaves who toiled under the baking sun, about the fortune her father had squandered to bail Harry out of trouble year after year, and about patient Hannah and the sweet young woman she had once been, eager to please him. She thought about the secret she herself longed to share with her husband, the petty theft that would compound her father’s distress. Perhaps she should not have done it, after all.
It was their last evening at Chatsworth as guests of the Duke, and Caterina sat on a bench next to Chase, watching two cats dart about between the bean canes and beds of young lettuce. White butterflies flirted over the spring greens as a stiff breeze lifted the ends of the long Kashmir scarf off her knees. With a shiver, she pulled it closer about her shoulders. ‘There’s something I must tell you,’ she said. ‘It’s important.’
‘Then you must tell me, sweetheart.’ He took her hand and held it upon his thigh. ‘About your father’s affairs, is it?’
‘And yours, too. I have his IOU. The one you returned to him.’
‘Your brother’s? For twenty grand?’
‘Yes, I took it from his desk. I know it was wrong of me, but I felt I had the right to do it, and now he’ll be worrying about that as well as hearing about the mine. I’m regretting it, Chase. Should I send it back to him?’
Deliberately, she stopped short of any mention of Harry’s incriminating letter and the cargo of cotton that would probably not be sold for some time, or the slaving and the law-breaking that could be the end of him. That ground was too dangerous to tread just now. She felt his eyes upon her and turned to meet them with trepidation. ‘You’re angry with me?’ she said.
His thumb moved over her skin. ‘Hell, no, but it sounds as if you were, my vengeful fierce little bird. What use is the IOU to you?’
‘None at all, except to give him a taste of the heartache he’s caused me.’
‘Well, then, it will have served its purpose by now. If you’re uncomfortable with it, you can deal with it in two ways. You can either send it back, or tell him you have it safe, just to put him at ease. Or you can tear it up and send him the pieces and tell him no one wants it. I certainly don’t. I have what I want, thank you.’
‘You don’t want it?’ she insisted.
‘No, sweetheart. It’s of no use to anyone now, is it? He should have destroyed it himself.’
It could be some use, she thought, in the wrong hands. So could the letter. It could ruin him utterly. Was Sir Chase involved? Was he keeping quiet about what he knew of her father’s activities? She wished she could be more sure of him. ‘I’ll send it back to him, then,’ she said.
‘Yes, we shall be in Buxton by midday tomorrow. You can send it from there, then he’ll know where we are. A pity he didn’t offer to open up Chester Hall for us.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, stony-faced. ‘I thought he might have offered to let us use it, but he didn’t, so I didn’t ask.’
‘That’s all right. We can stay overnight at the hotel. What’s it called?’
‘St Anne’s. It’s on The Crescent. A very good place.’
The chill wind pestered them again as dark clouds loomed up from the south-west and, prompted by the Duke’s disturbing news, the matters that for a few days had given her some respite now began to reform for the next assault.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she said. ‘I think the Duke wants to beat you at billiards on our last night here. Is that likely?’
‘It certainly won’t cost him as much as a hand or two of whist, my sweet.’
***
By morning, the clouds had lowered to shroud the hilltops and to drench the Duke’s extensive acres with much-needed rain. The drop in temperature brought out extra layers and many caped coats for the journey, and today Caterina’s fur-edged green velvet pelisse was draped with a paisley shawl that complemented the cream-and-green-patterned day dress beneath. Green kid half-boots peeped from below the scalloped hem, and a rather mannish felt hat lay on the cushion next to her, its spotted veil dripping like water on to the toe of Sir Chase’s polished boot. She had spoken only intermittently during the few miles to Bux
ton, for although the countryside was dear to her, the thought of spending time in the gossipy town of her birth and to make enquiries into her father’s detestable affairs had completely lost its appeal.
Lady Elyot, who had once been married to her father’s elder brother, had not been able to tolerate the claustrophobic society there any longer and she had taken Caterina, at her father’s request, to live in far-away Surrey where, as it turned out, society was just as gossipy and insular, though perhaps with more reason. Did she really want to know more about her father’s disastrous enterprises? Caterina asked herself. No, what she wanted most was to know about her husband’s, even if that meant hearing what she dreaded.
The small town of Buxton, however, was three-quarters owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and last evening he had enjoyed discussing his plans for its development with Caterina. It could, he told her, with its warm and cold medicinal natural springs, become a northern version of Bath in Somerset. The Duke’s own town house was situated right in the centre of The Crescent, built by the previous Duke, his father. He would not hear of them staying next door at St Anne’s Hotel. They must stay in his rooms which were, like all his others, always available at a moment’s notice, and they could think of no good reason to refuse his offer.
Although impressive at first glance, The Crescent had none of the classically elegant proportions of the sweeping crescents of Bath, for the architect, John Carr of York, had never been in the same league as Nash or the Adam brothers, and the arcade that underpinned the frontage was too narrow to be functional and too solid to be purely decorative. Not that this concerned the travellers in the smart coaches with the liveried footmen as the doors opened to disgorge them all before a small crowd, gathered especially to see who was to stay at Centre House, as it was called.
Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire Page 48
