She began walking with no particular destination in mind, but it was not long before she stood before the wrought-iron gates looking out over the moor. Behind her in the east, the sun was edging up over the horizon. Its pink light turned the moorland turf a soft gold and green. The loveliness of it went unobserved for she was encased in grief and shock. A cluster of wild hyacinths on the edge of the drive seemed to mock her with their promise of life and hope to come.
She closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath of the salty air. Perhaps it was the discovery that her life was about to change for ever, or the close look she had just had at death—or perhaps it was merely the lack of sleep—but she had never felt so alone or so wretched. She didn’t know if the pain would ever go away.
Drawing the shawl about her, she turned to retrace her steps when she saw Lord Rockford walking towards her. She waited for him, her gaze softening as she took in his dark and brooding expression. His strides were long and purposeful. His hair was tousled. When he stopped in front of her she looked at him standing there. His expression was serious, anxious even. She was oddly moved.
‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ he said, his voice low with compassion. He scrutinised her face. He felt her despair. She looked up at him with her great amber eyes smudged with weariness and grief, and just for a moment, before the defences went up, he saw in those eyes, not just grief, but desperation and fear—and relief that he was actually there. ‘How are you?’
Her face contracted in pain and her eyes were lost and lonely, those of a child which finds itself amongst strangers. It seemed she was asking something of him, something to do with the problems that beset her and which she begged of him to help. ‘I—I don’t know what to do.’
She stepped a little closer to him, her gaze held by his and there was something in them, some intuition in his compelling blue eyes which drew her to him. It was as though he had put out a hand and taken hers, held it close and was telling her to relax and confide in him.
Laurence saw the great wash of tears spring from her eyes and flow down her face. His heart jolted for her pain and he strained to give her something, anything which might ease her hurt. Holding his arms out to her, he said gently, ‘Come here.’ She walked into them and placed her face against his chest. His arms closed round her and he held her like a father, like a brother. He was surprised to realise the urge to comfort her came from a place of authentic compassion, not simply desire.
‘Cry, Victoria. Let it go. Betty was a good woman, a dear friend and her death will be felt and grieved over by those who knew her. She is worthy of your tears—and mine.’
Victoria wept, her face pressed into his chest. He felt her body shudder with the force of her anguish and her voice was muffled as she cried out the words of love and loss for her mother. He had to fight the urge to place his lips on her bent head. His heart contracted with pain and pity, for never had he seen or heard so much desolation in anyone before.
When the weeping was done she stood back. He saw her eyes soften gratefully as her mind dwelled wonderingly on the compassion she had seen in his eyes and the consolation she had found in his arms. He had been so tender, so infinitely soothing, comforting her in her grief at a time when she was at her most vulnerable and emotionally insecure.
He had just returned from his ride, which he took every morning, and Victoria could smell him—horsey, faintly sweaty. She smiled wanly, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
‘Here, have my handkerchief.’
‘Thank you. I never seem to have one when you’re around.’ She blew her nose hard. ‘I didn’t mean to cry on your shoulder again. I didn’t mean to cry at all. It’s just that—well, I can’t seem to help it.’
‘It’s natural that you should cry. Feel free to cry whenever I’m around. I have a strong shoulder.’
‘And an incredibly comforting one,’ she added, her lips trembling in a wobbly smile. ‘I know I should be thinking about what I’m going to do now, but somehow I can’t. I’m floundering, I’m afraid.’
It was not surprising that she was unable to think properly, and who could blame her, Laurence thought, and not for the first time he was filled with a sudden urge to protect her. An urge he had never felt for anyone before. Something strange was working in him, something new. It was an uncomfortable, unsettling feeling and he was not sure he liked it.
‘You don’t have to think of anything for the time being.’ He took her small hand in his. As he did so his heart seemed to flip, for it was so delicate, so fine, the nails oval and polished and perfect. ‘I shall personally make all the necessary arrangements for the funeral so you don’t have to worry about that.’
‘Thank you.’ She gently withdrew her hand. ‘That’s very kind of you.’
Laurence watched her walk back to the house before he turned and headed back to the stables to instruct the groom to have his horse saddled for mid-morning. He would ride over to the Grange to call on his brother. It was not a visit he relished, but it had to be done.
Ever since Victoria Lewis had taken up residence in his home he had gone about his work in a calm, fluid state of suspense, his senses charged by an inexplicable sexual tension. No one had ever drawn such a response from him—perhaps Melissa had at one time, but he quashed all thoughts of her immediately.
It was wrong to think of Melissa at the same time as Victoria. It was as if, in Victoria, fragments of his life and self that had been blown apart suddenly came together, finding their place in spaces inside himself that he’d thought empty and cold. Victoria brought warmth and made things whole. Her presence occupied and healed his mind, his body and his heart.
As he strode along and saw the gardeners beginning their work for the day, the smooth running of his estate—and his worldwide company, for that matter—inspired him with a most gratifying sense of solid order, security, and accomplishment. And yet...
He was plagued by a deepening awareness of a large gaping hole in his life. An emptiness. He had sensed it vaguely and ignored it for a long time, but it had sharpened of late into a kind of hunger, a gnawing urgency.
Over the years he had built up an empire and possessed a fortune, but he had no one to share it with. He had Nathan to leave it to, but Nathan was proud and had made it plain that if Laurence did die unexpectedly, he had neither the desire nor the right to any part of his fortune. So if anything should happen to him, the company that he had created would die with him.
The solution was obvious. He needed offspring, sons, but to have sons he needed a wife, a prospect he little relished after his ill-fated betrothal to Melissa, and, with a reluctance to repeat the process—unless he could find a wife who would bear his children and make no demands on him—he had shelved the idea.
Until Victoria Lewis had taken up residence at the Hall.
She really was very lovely. When he had taken her in his arms and held her, caressed the soft cloud of hair that tumbled loose and fell in wanton disarray about her face, he had cursed softly, aware of his own inadequacy to ease her grief and knowing that Victoria had made a deep impression on him, penetrating his tough exterior and finding a way into his heart as no other woman had done since Melissa. When he thought how spirited she was, how young and vulnerable, despite her quality of mind to show self-possession, how ripe she was for being initiated along the secret, mysterious paths of womanhood, he smiled.
Recollecting himself, he pulled himself up short, disgusted with his unfulfilled yearnings and dreams. He had almost married Melissa, believing she could make those dreams come true. How stupid he had been, how incredibly gullible to let himself believe a woman cared for him enough to light up his life with love and laughter and to give him children, when all she cared about was wealth and rank. His smile vanished as he realised Victoria Lewis was suddenly bringing all those old foolish yearnings back to torment him.
* * *
<
br /> It was mid-morning when Victoria went searching for Lord Rockford to discuss the finer points of her mother’s burial that he might not know, only to be told that he had left for the Grange. This came as no surprise. No doubt he had gone to inform his brother of her mother’s demise and to assure him that she would soon be gone.
* * *
Victoria’s mouth had set in a grim line against her grief, grief she could feel just below the surface—so much grief confined in so small a place. Her face tight and closed, she felt herself sway slightly as they lowered the coffin that contained her mother’s body into the ground on top of her husband, but the touch of Mrs Knowles’s hand on her arm steadied her.
‘Bear up, lass,’ she whispered, the words heard by no one but Victoria and Ned on the other side of her. ‘It’ll soon be over.’
The day was cold in the Ashcomb church yard. Though not exactly raining, the damp clung to the handful of mourners. They stood with their heads bowed, hands clasped respectfully, their faces bearing every expression from sadness and sympathy to curiosity, for Betty’s removal from her cottage to the Hall had given rise to much speculation in the village. There were subdued greetings for Victoria and the usual funereal platitudes.
‘I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord...’ the parson intoned.
Raising her head, her face wrought with sadness, Victoria looked about her. She was in the deepest black. She could feel the sympathy of those gathered, all those who had known her mother when she had lived in Ashcomb. A handful of servants from the Hall had come to pay their respects.
‘It’s over, lass. Let’s get you back to the carriage.’ Victoria came back from her detachment to feel Mrs Knowles’s hand drawing her away from the grave, guiding her round the freshly dug soil and on to the path.
Lord Rockford was there to assist her into the carriage, his face stern on this sad occasion but his deep-blue eyes were soft with sympathy. He had stood on the other side of the gaping hole, ready to leap across it if necessary to give her his arm to cling to, wondering why he should think like this. He supposed it was because she had no one but Mrs Knowles to cling to, the woman who had been such a good friend to Betty.
After embracing Mrs Knowles, Victoria took Lord Rockford’s hand and climbed inside, unconscious of the fascinated stares of the mourners. Lowering her head, she sat across from him as the carriage headed back to the Hall. Victoria was her mother’s only family. Because of this she had decided there would be no formalities following the interment.
* * *
The funeral over, Victoria realised that her entire future was hanging by a thread. What was she to do? A section of her mind was already planning ahead. She would write to Miss Carver and explain her situation. Perhaps, depending on how much money she had, she would be able to afford to return to the Academy. If not, then she was young and healthy and there was nothing to stop her from doing something to earn a living. Perhaps she could find work outside the village—at Cranbeck, maybe, or Malton. She had hoped to go and stay with Amelia and her family in York until something came up, but she had received a letter from her friend that very day informing her that in two weeks she was to accompany her parents to London where they would be staying with her paternal grandmother for several weeks.
Before she could put pen to paper to write to Miss Carver, Jenkins came to inform her that the master was asking to see her. She hastened downstairs, knocked on the study door and, in response to Lord Rockford’s call to enter, she went in, closing the door behind her. She stole a glance at him, at the chiselled profile, marvelling at the strength and pride carved into every feature on that starkly handsome face. With that lazy, intimate smile of his and those deep-blue, penetrating eyes, he must have been making female hearts flutter for years. She was saddened that they would soon part, but now her mother was gone there was nothing to keep her here.
Besides, she couldn’t stop thinking of what her mother had lived through in this house. As she walked the corridors and rooms in which her mother had once lived and worked, her imaginings crowded in on her so that she could hardly bear it—the hopelessness of a young woman in love with the master of the house, her mistress’s husband—a lady who sanctioned her husband’s affair with her maid. Victoria had said she would not judge her mother’s actions, but there was something most unsavoury and sordid about the whole situation.
But how her mother must have despaired, for she would have known that their affair was doomed from the start. They were all of a pattern underneath, these men born into the gentry, who were bred to think of themselves as above ordinary mortals. Their opinions on most things might be diverse, but when it came to class and the division between the servant and the master, there they stood firmly together and her mother could never have risen above what she was—the mistress of the master of Stonegrave Hall.
Laurence looked up and, seeing Victoria, gentled his voice, for this young woman was grieving badly and he was afraid that what he had to disclose might just send her over the edge. ‘Victoria, come and sit down.’
Laurence got up from his massive, intricately carved desk and, walking round it, pulled out a chair. Instead of returning to his seat, he perched a hip on the edge of the desk, crossed his arms over his chest and studied her seriously. She smiled up at him, then the smile slipped away. When he spoke his voice was calm and authoritative.
‘Now the funeral is over there are matters to be discussed. Naturally you will want to know the contents of your mother’s will.’
Bewildered, Victoria sat on the edge of the chair and stared up at him. ‘Yes—but I thought Mr Collinson, my mother’s solicitor, would be handling this.’
‘That’s usually the case, but she made some changes when her illness worsened—making me her executor. I know Mr Collinson would like to speak to you regarding your mother’s affairs and he will call tomorrow. In the meantime I thought I would put you in the picture.’
She clasped her hands in her lap, suddenly wary of what he was about to tell her—and more than a little hurt that her mother had taken Lord Rockford into her confidence without consulting her. Her ire at his condescending superiority was almost more than she could contain just then.
‘Forgive me if I seem a little surprised,’ she said tersely, ‘but I really had no idea she had made you her executor and I cannot for the life of me understand why she did.’
‘You will, in a moment.’
‘Before you say anything else, I must tell you that I have given some thought to my future. I am grateful for everything you did for my mother, but now she is gone I have no intention of staying here a moment longer than I have to. I shall write to Miss Carver to ask her if I can return to the Academy. After all, my father left us well provided for, so I would like to gain the qualifications that are necessary for me to seek a teaching post or that of a governess.’
Laurence’s heart flinched and he turned away from her so that she would not see the expression on his face. Why should he feel the gnawing in his gut which her words had caused him, for this girl, whom he had never seen until he had met her on the moor? And why had he let her mother talk him into becoming her executor? He must have lost his mind. But something about this girl, this young woman, drew him to her, to her sadness, which he wanted to alleviate.
He looked at her once more. ‘There is no money, Victoria,’ he told her flatly. ‘Your mother was penniless when she died.’
When he fell silent she waited in expectant anticipation, expecting him to continue, to tell her there was more, until she realised there was nothing more. Her heart rose up to choke her and she stared at him in absolute confusion and astonishment and more than a little desperation.
‘But—but that’s not possible. There must be some mistake. There has to be. My father’s assets! When he died he—he left my mother a substantial amount of money. There has to be something.’
‘I know the Academy was expensive—but I had no idea...’ In helpless confusion she looked up at him. ‘Why didn’t she tell me? Why, she—she must have spent a fortune on my education—and the fine clothes so I would not feel different from the other girls. If only I’d known, everything would have been so different.’
‘How could you know? Your education was important to your mother. She was very proud of you.’
Unable to sit still, Victoria got to her feet and walked restlessly across the room. Her thoughts were beginning to take on some semblance of order. ‘This has come as a terrible blow. In fact, I am quite devastated. I had no idea things were so bad. But I have already given some thought as to what I would do if such a situation should arise.’
‘Have you now,’ he said. She was not in a position to make decisions, but he saw no reason to point that out to her just now.
She stopped and faced him. ‘I thought I might go and stay with Mr and Mrs Fenwick in York until I find some kind of employment so that I can be self-supporting and continue with my education at the same time.’ She smiled thinly. ‘I’m sure you will be relieved not to have me rattling about your house any longer and I know your brother will be thankful to have me gone.’
‘Forget about Nathan. This is about you. I am here to help you.’
‘Thank you, but I will not take advantage of your kindness any longer. The only thing I can make of all this is that my mother has spent every penny my father left us on my education. Now there is nothing left I will not throw myself on your mercy. My financial situation is not your problem or your concern. I will make my own way. Indeed, I am looking forward to beginning my teaching career.’
The Master of Stonegrave Hall Page 9
