Jane Feather

by Engagement at Beaufort Hall

  A strange sound came from behind her. She turned, puzzled. It was an odd rattling against the window. At first she thought it was the wind getting up as the night wore on, rattling the windowpanes. But then it came again. A scattering pitter-patter against the glass.

  Someone was throwing stones at her window.

  Imogen hurried across and drew back the thick curtain. She could see nothing at first, just the black square of night, and then, as her eyes grew accustomed, she could make out the milky light of stars and a full moon glowing silver through the trees. The rattle came again, and this time she saw the shower of little pebbles strike the window.

  Intrigued she threw open the casement, leaning out. “Who’s there?”

  “Get dressed, Gen, and bring your skates,” a familiar voice called up softly. “It’s a full moon on the lake.”

  For a moment she was dumbfounded. Had she conjured him out of some deeply disturbed dream? He couldn’t possibly be standing down there, asking her to go on a midnight skating party . . . oh, once upon a time, yes. When they were lovers she would have adored the idea of such a romantic excursion, but this was ridiculous. He must have taken leave of his senses.

  She found her voice at last. “Don’t be absurd, Charles,” she called down in a fierce whisper. “How could you possibly imagine . . . oh, you defy belief.” She drew back and pulled the window closed hard behind her.

  Pebbles rattled again as she stood unmoving with her back to the window, still holding the curtain aside, her mind whirling with images of the past . . . of the times they had skated together on the lake in the deepest midwinter. It was rare that the lake froze hard enough in the soft and temperate south of England, but when it did, the whole village would gather on the ice. But Imogen had never skated at night, alone with Charles under a full moon. . . .

  The shower became more urgent and she spun back, throwing open the window again. “What are you playing at, Charles?”

  “I want to skate on the lake at midnight, and I have no one to skate with me,” he called back, a note of laughter in his voice. “Come on down, Imogen. You know how much you want to. It’s a beautiful night. Just bring a muff and a fur hat.”

  And she did want to. That restless sensation seethed in her belly and her fingers drummed against the deep windowsill as she looked down into the dark garden below. Despite the starry sky and the full moon, the trees overshadowed the lawn and the gravel path that ran around the house, but she could just make out the figure of Charles looking up at her, his skates dangling from one hand.

  “Come.” The one word was spoken in a voice that never failed to send prickles across her skin. It was a command, but it was also a promise, and once again she felt as if time had slipped and she had fallen back into a past where anything was possible.

  She drew the window closed and slowly let the curtain drop. She waited for a second but there were no more pebbles. But she knew he was still there, waiting for her. As sure of her as he had ever been. Because he knew her so well, knew every inch of her.

  She moved as if in a trance to the armoire. She was not aware of making any decision, but her body seemed to make up its own mind. As if in a dream she dressed in her riding habit—the divided skirt and jacket were the most practical garments for skating—woolen stockings, and the sturdy leather shoes she wore when tramping the woods. She plaited her hair into an untidy braid and pinned it on her crown and then crammed a sable fur hat over it, pulling it down to cover her ears. She slung a three-tiered fur-lined cape around her shoulders, buttoning it to the neck. Fur-lined gloves and a fur muff completed her preparations. Her skates were at the back of the wardrobe and she retrieved them, running a gloved finger along the blades. The edges were not as keen as they should have been.

  She let herself out of her chamber and flew down the stairs. The great hall was deserted, but she could hear laughter from the billiard room. Duncan and his guests were obviously still up and, judging by the unruly edge to the laughter, were deep into carousal. Sharpton had not yet locked up, and she pulled open the heavy front door, stepping outside onto the gravel driveway.

  Charles stood a few feet away, still beneath her bedroom window, holding his skates. “Come,” he said again in the same tone as before, holding out his hand, and her feet moved of their own volition, taking her towards him.

  “How are your blades?” He took them from her as she reached him and ran his own finger over the edge. “Hmm. I’ll sharpen them when we get to the lake.” He held them with his own in one hand and slipped his free hand beneath her elbow, steering her across the frost-crisp lawn towards the line of shrubs at the far side.

  Imogen said nothing because she could think of nothing remotely apposite to say. She was here on a freezing midnight, heading for a frozen lake with a man she had repudiated with every ounce of her being just a few months earlier. It made no sense. But there seemed no place for sense and reason on this moon-washed night.

  They broke through the shrubs, and the lake lay spread out before them, an ice-covered expanse ringed with trees, the little summer pavilion in the middle, icebound and glittering in the moonlight. The boat house was padlocked, the various small watercraft that the family used in summer safely shut away. Imogen looked around her, as if seeing the lake for the first time. In the summer it would be a smooth, sunlit expanse, and she and Esther as children would spend long afternoons on the narrow dock jutting from the shore while Duncan tried, usually ineffectually, to fish from the edge. They would take a boat and row into the middle of the lake, where they would drop anchor and bob around peacefully, sunning themselves.

  But that was then and this was now. And the lake seemed to exist in another world altogether.

  Charles released Imogen’s arm and sat down on a fallen log, taking a small steel from his pocket. He ran the blades along it several times and then nodded, handing them back to her. “That’s better.” He stood up and gestured to the log. “Sit down and I’ll strap them on for you.”

  In the same trance, Imogen took his place on the log and extended her feet one at a time as he squatted and strapped the blades to her shoes. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. “My turn.”

  Imogen realized as she watched him strap on his own blades that she hadn’t spoken since she’d left the house. Charles was conducting this entire mad enterprise entirely on his own, and without any apparent need for a contribution from her. Except, of course, for her presence.

  She walked carefully across the crisp grass to the side of the lake and stepped gingerly onto the icy surface. The newly sharpened blades bit instantly, and she stood for a moment, getting her bearings and the feel of the ice beneath her feet, before she pushed off into a smooth glide that took her well into the center of the lake.

  Charles stood for a moment watching her, wondering if perhaps he was more than a little crazy. In truth he hadn’t dared to expect her to come with him, and yet he had not been able to prevent himself from trying. And there she was, circling the lake in long smooth glides, her head lifted to the moon as she executed a perfect figure of eight on the previously unmarked surface.

  He stepped onto the lake and pushed off, gliding towards her, crossing her tracks in a pattern of his own making. She had stopped to watch him approach, and when he came up to her holding out his hands, she took her own from the muff and let them lie in his. He drew her against him and moved gracefully into a waltz. They had no music, but they made their own as they had always done.

  And when the unheard strains of the waltz died down, they came to a smooth halt in the center of the lake and stood still, looking at each other.

  “Why did you buy Beringer Manor?” Imogen spoke at last, her voice sounding rather loud against the night’s deep quiet.

  “I’ve always liked this part of the world,” he responded, and then shook his head. “That’s only part of it. I bought it because I hoped I would see you . . . hoped that maybe . . .” His voice died away and he looked over at the far shore
line of the lake as if seeing it for the first time. Then he looked back at her, his eyes lustrous in the moonlight, deep and rich. He put a hand on her cold cheek.

  “Oh, my dear girl, I miss you so much,” he said. “I don’t think I can live without you. You madden me, you make me laugh, sometimes you make me want to weep, but my life is tasteless without you. I feel as if I’ve lost all the senses that bring pleasure and meaning to life.”

  Imogen held his gaze. She thought how much she loved the way his mouth curved upward, loved the little crinkly lines at the corners of his eyes, loved the deep cleft in his chin.

  “Forgive me,” he said softly. “Love me again, Gen. Please.”

  And under the strange spell of this moment, Imogen wondered how she could refuse such a plea. She had felt so strongly such a short time ago, but even then she knew that she had not stopped loving him. Was it possible to forgive that betrayal? Compromise . . . forgiveness . . . these were good things, surely? Strong things, much stronger than unforgiving attitudes, stubbornly standing one’s ground even as it shifted beneath one. She had made her point forcefully enough. And they were both suffering as a result. To the rational mind, obduracy was not an intelligent response to anything.

  All these thoughts tumbled in an unruly tangle in her head as she stood in the moonlight. And yet still the raw hurt of his betrayal lingered despite the dictates of a rational mind.

  Charles could read the confusion in her gray eyes and it brought him a small measure of comfort. When she had left him, there had been no confusion. If Imogen was questioning her decision, even a little bit, it was a step in the right direction. He bent and lightly brushed her lips with his before kissing her eyelids, the tip of her cold nose, and then again her mouth. And when she didn’t pull away, he lingered, his lips pressing harder until her mouth parted beneath his. He deepened the kiss and Imogen moved against him, her hands on his shoulders to steady herself on the ice.

  After a long while Charles raised his head, touched her swollen lips with a gloved fingertip, and smiled. “I think we could get to know each other again quite easily, my sweet.”

  She shook her head, dazed by the kiss, by her own response to it. Somehow she had not been in control of her response, just as she had not been in control of anything about this mad moonlit excursion. Abruptly she turned on the ice. Her blade caught in a cut in the surface and she grabbed onto him. He held her tightly until she had regained her balance. Then he took her hand and skated with her to the edge of the lake just as a cloud drifted across the moon.

  They unstrapped their blades and walked back up to the house. At the steps, Charles bent and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Sleep well, sweetheart.”

  It had been such a long time since he’d called her that, and the sound of it filled Imogen with warmth. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand in a fleeting caress and then turned and ran up to the front door, pushing it open.

  Charles waited until the shaft of light vanished as the door closed, and then he went to the stables to retrieve his horse, still saddled but waiting in the warmth of the stable block.

  Imogen stepped into the hall just as Sharpton appeared from the back stairs on his way to lock up the house for the night. He looked at her in surprise. Daisy had undressed her mistress and left her for the night at least an hour earlier. “Good evening, Miss Imogen.” His eyes took in her skates. “Been on the lake, have you?”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “It’s a beautiful night for it.”

  “I’m sure, ma’am,” he agreed in his imperturbable fashion, shooting the bolts on the arched door. “You’ll not be going out again, I take it?”

  “No,” she said. “Good night.” She hurried up the stairs to her own bedchamber. As she reached the landing she paused, hearing whispered voices coming from the shadow of the corridor that led to the bachelor guests’ wing. One of the voices was Duncan’s. The other was too low for her to recognize. Then the voices ceased, and a strange stillness seemed to fall over the darkened landing. An unnatural stillness, she thought.

  Then she heard a shuffling sound, a soft laugh, a rustle, and Duncan stepped out of the shadows, an odd little smile playing over his lips. He stopped when he saw his sister, and the color drained from his cheeks.

  “Gen, what are you doing here?”

  “Going to bed,” she said. “It’s a gorgeous full moon. I went down to the lake.” No need to tell him about skating with Charles. “Are your guests comfortably settled?” She indicated the corridor behind him.

  He nodded curtly. “As far as I know. Good night.” He moved away down the corridor that led to his own chamber.

  Imogen shrugged and went back to her own room. She seemed to be emerging from the strange enchantment of the last hour, and the hard edges of the real world were taking shape again, but she was exhausted now, the restlessness of earlier finally vanquished. In the cold light of day, she would see things more clearly.

  Sharpton, looking thoughtful, completed his rounds of the ground floor, checking all the doors, and then went down to the servants’ hall. It was empty, the fire banked, the gas lamps extinguished. He nodded his satisfaction. The members of his little domain were all tucked up until they had to get up before the winter dawn to see to the fires and the tea trays. It was a dismal prospect in midwinter, when ice would have formed on the insides of the attic bedroom windows and on the surface of the water jugs.

  A light still shone beneath the scullery door, however. Sharpton pushed the door open. A sleepy underfootman was polishing the guests’ boots and shoes in preparation for the morning. “Don’t be too long, now, lad.”

  The boy looked up from his blacking. “Almost done, Mr. Sharpton, sir.”

  The butler nodded and left him to it. He knocked on Mrs. Dalton’s parlor door. It was a ritual they had, a last cup of tea enlivened, at least in Sharpton’s case, with a liberal dose of brandy as they discussed the day’s events.

  “Kettle’s boiled, and the pot’s warmed, Albert,” the housekeeper said comfortably as he came in. She filled the teapot and put the cozy on.

  “Miss Imogen was out tonight, skating on the lake,” Sharpton confided as he sank into a deep chair on the far side of the hearth. “Only just come in.”

  “Good gracious.” Mrs. Dalton stared at her visitor. “Alone?”

  “I doubt that, Letty.” He reached for the brandy bottle on the hearth and poured a healthy slug into the teacup she passed him. “I think she was with Mr. Riverdale . . . not that I saw him, mind.” He took a deep draught with a little sigh of pleasure.

  Letty frowned into her cup. “I’ll have a drop myself, if you don’t mind, Albert.”

  He dosed her cup and sat back. “A rum business that . . . Mr. Riverdale buying the old Beringer estate, after what happened.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Mrs. Dalton nodded. “Maybe he thinks he can change Miss Imogen’s mind.” She sipped her tea. “Not that that’s ever been easy. She’s always been one to stick to her guns.”

  “True enough. But I always reckoned that Mr. Riverdale was every bit as stubborn as Miss Imogen . . . some of the arguments they had. Lord love us. . . .” He shook his head reminiscently. “Obstinate as a pair of mules, they were. And then it would all be over in a flash.” He drained his cup as the clock struck one. “Oh, look at the time. Best be getting to bed—morning comes soon enough.” He heaved himself to his feet. “Good night, then, Letty.”

  “’Night, Albert.” The housekeeper rose too, turning out the gas as she followed him to the door.

  Chapter 8

  Imogen spent a restless night filled with dreams, some of which contained strands of deep sensual pleasure, and others a frustrating feeling of fighting against something she could neither stop nor contain. When she awoke, she could remember nothing of her dreams except the muddle of sensation, no actual images or narrative. But she felt vaguely unsatisfied and plagued by an odd and formless sense of guilt, as if she had done something regrettable. Did she regret
going skating with Charles? She had harmed no one but herself. But if she had been anywhere close to resignation over her breakup with Charles, she was a lot further away now from serene acceptance than she had been before she’d skated on the lake under a full moon.

  She rang for Daisy and let the girl’s lively chatter wash over as she dressed for the morning. “Do you know if the gentlemen have breakfasted yet?” she asked as Daisy twisted her plaited hair into a heavy chignon at the nape of her neck.

  “I don’t believe so, ma’am. They were late to bed, Mr. Sharpton says. He says not to expect them downstairs much before eleven o’clock.”

  “I daresay he’s right.” Imogen adjusted the lace ruff at the throat of her straw-colored poplin blouse. Sharpton would have known exactly how much the young men had drunk the previous evening when he took stock of the empty bottles that morning, and, like any good butler, he would have based his assumptions as to how the day would progress accordingly. “Do you know where Zoe is?” The puppy usually came in with Daisy when Imogen rang.

  “Haven’t seen her this morning, Miss Imogen.”

  “Oh, she’s probably found an open door and gone for a wander then.” Imogen was not concerned. Zoe had free rein of the house and estate and was unlikely to wander too far.

  She found Esther in the breakfast room, reading the Gazette over tea and toast. She looked up as Imogen entered. “Good morning, Gen.” She offered her sister a quizzically raised eyebrow as she gestured to a letter reposing on a silver salver on the sideboard. “Take a look at that. A messenger brought it over from Beringer Manor.”

  Imogen was aware of a fluttery sensation in the pit of her stomach as she picked up the letter. It was addressed in Charles’s elegant, firm hand. “It’s addressed to Duncan,” she said, dropping it back onto the salver.

  Esther shrugged. “True, but he won’t be down for ages. Why don’t you open it?”