by Louise Allen
‘What happened?’
‘She died. She went to visit her sister in London quite unexpectedly, for I can recall Papa was out and when he came back and she had gone he was furious. And then, a few weeks later, he told us she was dead of a fever.’ She frowned. ‘That must be the aunt Lina ran away to—she had found a letter from her, but all that was left in Lina’s room was the torn bottom edge. Her name was Clara.’ Arabella bit her lip, deep in memory. ‘Mama said she would send for us to visit our aunt, too, so we must not cry. And there was a carriage outside, but I do not know who was in it.’
‘And your mother’s body was returned home. What a terrible thing for three little girls,’ Elliott said, a suspicion beginning to grow in his mind.
‘No. That was so sad too. Papa told us she had been buried in London. I do not even know where her grave is.’
And it was after that your father became stricter, obsessed with sin, especially female sin?’
‘Yes. I suppose her death made him…strange. The responsibility of bringing up three motherless daughters, perhaps.’
‘Or three daughters whose mother had run off with another man?’ Elliott suggested, thinking aloud and not watching his words.
‘Run off?’ Arabella pressed one hand to her mouth as though to shut off the words. ‘Mama left him? Oh, no!’
Chapter Sixteen
The words were out now, he could not take them back. ‘I think she must have run away, don’t you? I imagine you never thought to consider the evidence as an adult, but she left when he was out, there was a carriage waiting for her. If that was your aunt, why not come in and see her nieces? Why leave when your father was away from home and promise that she would send for you? Why did your grief-stricken father not want her body returned home?’
‘But she never sent for us,’ Arabella protested. And she would have done.’
‘How do you know? Would he have let you go to her and another man, do you think? How old were you?’
‘Seven,’ she murmured. ‘No, you are right. I would never have known if she had tried to make contact. Like Meg and Lina now—I am certain they will have written and that he destroyed the letters.
‘He kept us close, I remember that. It seemed an age before we were allowed to go out without Cousin Harriet: she lived with us until I was seventeen.’ She stared at him, eyes wide. ‘Oh, poor Mama. She must have been desperate to have left us.’
Elliott caught her hands, which were clenched in the bedclothes, and stroked until the stiff fingers relaxed into his.
‘How could she bear to leave her own children?’ she wondered and she put her own hand, bringing his with it, to lie over her belly.
Shaken by the emotion he could feel coursing through her, Elliott made himself keep still. ‘I am sorry, Arabella. I should have thought before speculating aloud. I did not mean to upset you.’ And upset her he had—her expression was tragic. ‘She must have been desperate, I agree. And she thought you would be able to join her later.’
‘Mmm.’ She nodded, deep in thought. ‘How will I tell Meg and Lina? If I ever find them. Oh, Elliott, I do miss them so.’
Ah, Arabella.’ Elliott pulled her into his arms and she clung while he rubbed her back gently, wondering how he could ever make this right for her.
‘I will check the Army List while I am in Gloucester,’ he promised. ‘The local militia headquarters will have the current edition. We can find where Meg’s husband is based.’
‘Oh, thank you. His name is James Halgate. I don’t know which regiment he is in, but he went to the Peninsula, I know that.’ She emerged, tousled, her nose pink, her eyes wet. Elliott was surprised to find himself still sitting there; the prospect of any woman weeping on his shoulder would have sent him running just a few weeks ago. Arabella took in a big, shuddering breath. ‘I’m sorry, I am making such a lot of work and worry for you.’ Elliott shook his head in denial. She was indeed a worry, but he wanted to help her. He wanted his wife to be happy.
And now two of us have run off with men and the third has gone and Papa suspects there must be a man involved there too. How right he has always been about us,’ she said with an attempt at lightness that made his heart contract with sympathy. ‘No wonder he is writing intemperate letters; he must be beside himself.’
Elliott thought of the plan he had conceived of asking his new father-in-law to stay at Hadleigh Old Hall, once his initial fury had subsided. Now, however he might pity the man, he was not going to allow him anywhere near Arabella. His wife’s desertion had obviously made a domestic tyrant out of a strict father; the loss of all three daughters could well have unhinged him.
‘May I be frank with Bishop Huntingford? I think it might help head off any future problems if he understands that your father is not entirely rational on some subjects.’
‘I suppose so—so long as it would not get back to his own bishop. I would not want his living to be in any danger. I have had no letter from him myself. I am not surprised, I confess.’
Bless her, Elliott thought, squeezing her hand. The man makes her life a misery and she still worries for him. What a very warped model she had of men and how low her expectations must be. She seemed to be learning to trust him—but what would she think if she realised how he was increasingly feeling about the child she carried? ‘Of course, I will ask for his assurance of strictest confidentiality before I say anything.’ He got up and walked to the door.
‘Thank you,’ Arabella said, her smile making something inside him twist with guilt. ‘You look after me so well, Elliott. I feel safe with you.’
‘I will see you later,’ he said from the doorway. ‘I’ll tell Gwen to make sure you rest.’
The day passed surprisingly quickly, Bella found. The morning she spent deep in thought, trying to recall every nuance, every clue of the days and months before and after her mother’s departure. Elliott’s interpretation made more sense, the more she thought of it. She could vaguely recall the arguments, her mother weeping at night. Her eyes had been red when she hugged them goodbye. How miserable she must have been to have left us, Bella thought, her hand straying to stroke gently over her own child. And who was the man? Perhaps Mama was still alive somewhere. But instinct told her not. It was hard not knowing. Harder than believing Mama had died all those years ago. That had been a tragedy, but now, from the vantage point of her own bitter experience, her heart bled for her mother’s unhappiness and desperation.
If only she could talk to Meg and Lina about this. If only she could be certain they were safe. Bella closed her eyes, mourning her mother all over again, imagining her, for the first time, as a young woman in love and bitterly unhappy. Who was she to judge her after what she had done herself?
She felt strangely better after that and sent Gwen for paper and pencil so she could lie in bed making lists of things to be done to redecorate her suite and the nursery. And Elliott’s rooms—was he content to simply walk into the chambers his brother had occupied?
‘Have you used every sheet of paper in the house?’ Bella looked up and realised that the bed was strewn with lists and sketches. Her husband was standing in the doorway, his shoulder against the frame, his coat hooked on one finger over his shoulder. His shirt was open at the neck, rolled up to his elbows and filthy. His hair was in his eyes and there was a long graze up the length of his right forearm. He looked utterly male and quite breathtakingly virile.
Bella swallowed hard. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ She tried to sound like any wife confronted by a filthy, sweaty man who had wrecked his clothes and who had arrived home late for dinner and in dire need of a bath. But she could not feel anything but shamefully aroused by the sight.
‘We’re building a new sawpit.’ Elliott sauntered into the room, shedding sawdust as he came and bringing with him an intoxicating scent of resin and fresh sweat. Any proper lady would shriek and order him from the room—Bella wanted to strip all his clothes off.
And I suppose we is the royal we, and m
eans quite literally that you are involved,’ she said severely. ‘You have men to do such things, surely?’
‘I enjoy it,’ Elliott said, unrepentant.
‘And I suppose it was necessary for you to try it out from inside the pit,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Look at the floor.’
He regarded the trail of sawdust. ‘It is good for cleaning the carpet.’
‘That is damp tea leaves, not sawdust. Do not sit on the bed!’
Elliott grinned, leaned down and kissed her. ‘How are you now? Any more cramps and twinges?’
A few, but, now I know it is only to be expected, they are not so bad. I was just worried about the baby.’
‘I know you were.’
‘Looking at you now, I can only hope it is a boy. The pair of you would have such fun together.’
His face clouded, then he smiled, leaned in and kissed her again, hard and fast, before he straightened up and made for his dressing room, much to her regret. ‘I am not fit for respectable company. I will go and bathe and take dinner up here, shall I? You can have yours in bed and tell me what you have been getting up to all day.’
‘Plans for my rooms and the nursery,’ Bella admitted, part of her mind troubled by that sudden chill in his expression. ‘Elliott, how much may I spend?’
‘As much as you wish.’ He paused at the door, the smile gone again.
‘But you said there were many things wrong with the house and the estate. I do not want to spend money on inessentials.’
‘There are many things to put right.’ For a moment Elliott looked almost grim, then the smile was back. ‘But nothing so dire it will condemn you to pink frills.’
‘Thank you. Elliott—will you get me some fabric patterns in Worcester if I tell you what colours I am looking for?’
With a groan he vanished into his dressing room and his voice drifted back to her. ‘Bishops and silk warehouses. No one warned me marriage would be such a trial.’
There was the sound of Franklin, his valet, asking a question and Elliott laughing in response, then the door closed behind him, leaving Bella prey to disturbing imaginings of bath tubs and Elliott’s hard-muscled body dripping with water.
When her husband returned clean and elegant in evening dress, Bella was almost disappointed. And uneasily confused by her own responses. She was married to Elliott, she was trying to be a dutiful wife. And yet—what she felt for Elliott was not dutiful. She had a lowering suspicion that it was, in fact, lust, plain and simple.
Elliott wanted her to enjoy their lovemaking, but a decent married woman was not supposed to take such pleasure in sex, was she? And certainly not with a man she did not love, however much she liked and respected him. Giving her pleasure seemed important to Elliott. She suspected he would think less of himself if he did not. But did her growing enthusiasm make him respect her more, or less? Is he going to stay tonight? she wondered as he directed the footmen to set up a table for him by her bed and organised her own tray.
They spoke of sawpits and farm improvements, colour schemes and fabric swatches, the Bayntons’ visit and whether the new blend of coffee was entirely to Elliott’s taste. Bella found herself relaxing, confident that she could contribute something on all these subjects, even if it was only by asking questions and giving encouragement when Elliott spoke of the estate matters.
Dinner was good and the glass of claret he coaxed her to drink, smooth and full. By the time he lifted her tray away and rang for the dishes to be cleared she was hiding a yawn behind her hand.
Or, trying to hide it. Not a lot escaped Elliott’s eye, as she was beginning to discover. ‘You are tired, I will leave you to sleep.’
‘No! I mean, how can I be tired? I have done nothing all day,’ she protested.
‘You had a scare, a revelation about your mother that can only have been emotionally draining, you have been working hard, even if you have been lying in bed, and now you have eaten a very good dinner. I am surprised you are not asleep already.’ He was on his feet and not, she realised, in order to take his clothes off and join her in bed.
‘You aren’t coming to bed with me?’ She knew she was blushing, yet she still found the courage to ask because the disappointment was intense.
‘I want your full attention when we are in bed together, and for you to be very much awake,’ Elliott said, his eyes darkly intense as he looked at her. ‘I will be gone early tomorrow.’ He came and ran the back of his hand down her cheek, making her shiver. ‘I will see you Monday afternoon, assuming I am not trapped in the drapers’ and the upholsterers’ shops. Sleep well, Arabella.’
On Saturday Bella realised that not only was she thirteen weeks pregnant but it was finally beginning to show in more than her mood or the state of her insides. Her waist was definitely thickening and her stomach was more rounded she discovered as Gwen tugged on her corset strings.
‘Not too tight, please, Gwen.’
‘Yes, my lady. With your back it’s best to be careful.’
Had she guessed? It was going to be impossible to keep the secret for much longer, not from a bright young woman in such a close relationship with her. Oh well, all the staff and most of the neighbourhood would know soon enough that the new Lady Hadleigh had anticipated her marriage vows. Would they think of Elliott admiringly as a bit of a dog or would they disapprove, look down on him because of her folly?
But there was nothing she could do about it except be a model viscountess. Today, Bella resolved, she would talk to Cook about the meals to be served when the Bayntons came to visit. It would be wonderful to have another woman to talk to. Bella found she was missing Lina and Meg in ways she had never imagined.
But Cook and Mrs Knight seemed more than capable of looking after the arrangements and Bella felt rather at a loose end. She should have asked Elliott which of the remaining tenants he wished her to call on as a priority.
But she could call at the Dower House and thank Lady Abbotsbury and Miss Dorothy for their hospitality. And she could take flowers, if she could find any. The lawns around the house were bare of ornamental beds.
‘Is there a flower garden, Henlow?’ she asked the butler who was supervising two footmen as they moved a vast and ugly epergne that Elliott had banished from the dining room.
‘Of sorts, my lady. It is not what it was in his lordship’s mother’s day.’ He opened the front door. ‘Shall I show you, my lady?’
‘Thank you, but I will explore a little by myself. Just give me directions and tell me the head gardener’s name.’
‘Johnson, my lady. A cantankerous old man, I am sorry to say, but a good gardener. If you go left around the side of the house, follow the high brick wall along, there’s a green door.’
Bella tied on one of her old straw bonnets and set out with Toby at her heels, trying to make herself believe that she was now mistress of all she could see. Mostly, on this side of the house, it appeared to consist of an overgrown shrubbery, expanses of rather lumpy lawn and trees that to her inexpert eye needed pruning. The long wall looked promising, she decided—surely it must shelter a walled garden?
The green door was unlocked and Bella opened it. The terrier shot through the gap as she peeped in. What wonders would it reveal?
‘Vegetables,’ she said flatly, knowing that as mistress of the house she should be pleased at the expanse of well-tended crops, the peach house, the cold frames and the orderly stacks of manure and compost.
‘Aye, and good vegetables they do be and if that pesky dog digs up my asparagus bed again I’ll take the rake to ‘im.’
She turned and found a red-faced old man glowering at her. ‘Good morning. You must be Johnson. I am Lady Hadleigh.’ He grunted and made a move as though to lift his battered billycock hat. ‘This is a most admirable vegetable garden and I look forward to seeing round it another day, but just now I am in need of some flowers for Lady Abbotsbury.’
‘Had the flowerbeds all turfed over, ’e did,’ the old man said dourly. ‘Said it was a waste
of money employing men to grow flowers. Can’t eat ’em and the wages cost ’im.’
‘What happened to the gardeners, then?’ Bella asked. It was presumably Rafe this grumpy old man was referring to. How like him to sacrifice both beauty and other men’s livelihoods to fund his own pleasures.
‘Labouring they are now. Right waste of trained men, it is.’
‘I will speak to his lordship.’ Perhaps Elliott would think the wages justified. She hoped so; she did not like to think of hardworking men out of a job for no fault of their own. ‘So there are no flowers at all?’
‘There’s the rose garden. I sees to that. Out of sight, out of mind, so ’e left it be.’ He stomped off round the brick path without waiting to see if she was following him. Bella had heard that the head gardeners from big houses were a law unto themselves and even refused to let their mistresses cut flowers if it spoiled their borders, but this one amused her rather than offended. She liked his fierce defence of his domain and his concern for his men.
It was early for roses, but the shelter of the redbrick enclosure, and the care they had been given, had coaxed several bushes into flower and their scent filled the air. She saw small glasshouses as well, which held the flowers that had been used for her wedding. There were plenty to pick for the ladies at the Dower House, and for the main house as well. One particularly vivid bush caught her eye, the blood-red petals almost throbbing with velvety passion. That was how she had always imagined love would look, she thought, rubbing one soft petal between fingers and thumb.
‘This is beautiful,’ she told Johnson and thought she detected a slight softening of his expression. ‘They do you credit. I would like to pick some now—could you get me a knife and a basket?’
‘I’ll cut these, my lady, and bring them round. You’ll not be wanting to get your hands scratched.’
