Patricia Gaffney - [Wyckerley 02]

by To Haveand To Hold

  Gentle and soft, sweet, unrushed, the quietest lovemaking, like a dance still, real but not real. The music was their breathing, and the slide of fingers on warming skin, and the whispery sound of kisses. It’s you, she began to chant to herself at odd intervals. What did it mean? It’s you. What did it matter?

  She couldn’t touch the goal he was urging her toward so gently, could not let go of herself to reach out for it. Did he know? Could he tell that this tender striving was futile? Oh, but it was lovely, the touching and the closeness, she wanted it to go on and on. He murmured something, a most intimate question, and she answered it with the truth—“No, I can’t.” He kissed her with a desperate sweetness that moved her and made her heart ache. “Sweetheart,” he called her. Then he buried his face in her hair and set himself free, his body trembling a little in the effort not to hurt her. Holding to him tightly, she knew a moment’s envy, because he could surrender his self-control as easily as hold onto it.

  “I broke my word,” he said when it was over, curling on his side behind her, pressing her back against him.

  “Are you in pain?” she whispered. “Your side—”

  “‘I won’t touch you,’ I said. Now I could tell you I’m sorry. Would you believe me?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  She felt his breath on the nape of her neck. He was laughing. “Sweet Rachel,” he murmured, “it would he a lie.”

  Arrogant as always. She did something she’d never done before: she initiated a kiss. On his fingers, which were entwined with hers. She felt his lips on her shoulder, then his teeth, his lips again.

  After he fell asleep, she pretended they were married, an ordinary husband and wife taking their rest together, their arms and legs tangled unconsciously because they trusted each other. Loved each other. Since this was as close as she would ever come to that domestic ideal, she allowed herself to enjoy it. Just for the moment.

  Sleep crept closer. Before it overtook her, she heard the echo of the whisper in her head again—It’s you. Please, God, don’t let it be true. But she was afraid it was true. If it was, she was lost.

  XII

  “MRS. WADE? You in there?” His arms were full of a big, bulky box; Sebastian had to knock on Rachel’s door by kicking it with the toe of his boot. “Open up, Mrs. Wade!”

  He heard rushing footsteps just before she threw open the door. Her surprised face was damp and she still had a towel in her hand; she’d been freshening up before she went down to see about getting the evening meal started—he knew her housekeeperly schedule almost as well as his own now.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly, staring at him, staring at the box.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Close the door, then come and open your present.” He went past her and set the wooden crate in the center of her sitting-room rug. “Hurry, this present won’t wait.”

  Her cheeks flushed pink. She sidled closer, holding her hands together under her chin. “Is it really a present?”

  “Yes. It’s a gigantic hat; Miss Carter and Miss Vanstone and I have been working on it for days.” He laughed when her eyes went wide as saucers: she’d actually believed him for a second. Well, why not? He’d never told her a joke before. “No, it’s not, you goose. Hurry and open it, will you?” Before it opens itself.

  She came closer. “What could it be?” she wondered, running her hand along the top of the box. Just then a snuffling sound came from within. “Oh,” she said, and snatched her hand away. “It’s alive!” Sebastian made a face, as if to say, Who knows?

  A small hook around a nail head was all that was keeping the lid down. She flicked it open with her finger and lifted the hinged top carefully, half an inch at a time. Before the dark gap was two inches wide, a nose and then a head poked through, then two yellow paws, and finally the writhing, wriggling body of the whole excited puppy, leaping out with a graceless but effective bound and landing on the floor at her feet.

  “Oh, it’s a dog,” she cried softly, and immediately sat down on the floor beside it.

  Sebastian knelt beside her. “I thought you might like to have it.”

  “Ohh,” was all she could say as she stroked the animal’s soft sides and let it sniff at her and lick her cheek.

  “I told Holyoake to ask among the tenants and see if he could find one. I told him there was only one criterion—it had to be a yellow dog.”

  She lifted her head from the puppy’s to look at him. He’d had reservations about the wisdom of this gift, but the expression on her face told him his idea was perfect. Inspired. “Oh, Sebastian.” She shook her head at him, at a loss. He wanted to kiss her, but the dog got in the way and kissed her first. “What’s his name? Is it a he? Where will I keep him? Oh, it’s a beautiful dog.”

  It was hardly that. Halfway between a puppy and an adult, it was a gawky adolescent dog, vaguely retriever-ish, with something else thrown in, something too immature yet for precise identification. Hound? Terrier? Only time would tell. “Yes, it’s a male. He may have a name, but William didn’t catch it. He’s yours now, Rachel, if you want him.”

  “Oh, yes, I want him. My brother had a dog when we were little,” she confided. “They gave me a cat, but I always liked the dog better.”

  They sat on the floor together while the puppy began to explore the room. Sebastian watched her while she watched the dog, and her delight was his dazzling reward for a moment’s thoughtfulness. She was beautiful. She had on her black dress today, and even though he’d grown fond of it in a way, as one grows fond of anything one associates with a lover, a sweetheart, he had hopes that he was seeing it for the last time. He’d ordered new gowns for her from a dressmaker in Exeter, and with any luck they’d begin to arrive this week.

  “A name,” she said consideringly, following the dog’s antic explorations with her shining eyes. She leaned her shoulder against his. “Since he’s a yellow dog, we could call him Amber. Is that too feminine?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Mmm. What about Apricot?”

  Sebastian snorted and made a face.

  “I know—Buttercup.”

  Now she was teasing him, and the novelty was enchanting. “If you name this dog Buttercup, I swear I’ll take him back from whence he came.”

  The puppy found its way back to them and began to play a game of tug with the handkerchief Rachel whipped out of her pocket. “I’ve got it. Dandelion. No, listen,” she insisted when he started to quibble, “he could be ‘Dandelion,’ but we’d call him ‘Dandy.’ That’s all right, isn’t it? Dandy!” The pup’s ears went up at that, no question about it, and Rachel sent Sebastian a look of triumph.

  He was besotted. “He’s your dog; name him Powder Puff for all I care. You can keep him here if you like, although you’d have to house-train him. Or he could sleep in the stables with Collie and the lads. No telling how big he’s going to get. Shall we take him for a walk?”

  “Now?”

  “Why not?”

  She took some persuading; she still had work to do, she said, and a meeting with Judelet later to discuss the kitchen staff’s shortcomings. Sebastian overruled her halfhearted objections, and a few minutes later they were strolling through the gatehouse arch, with Dandy at their heels.

  They stopped on the bridge to watch the sun sparkle on the chattering river and to look at the house. “Do you think Lynton Hall is ugly?” Sebastian asked conversationally. He could hardly remember his own first impression of it anymore; it was simply Lynton to him now, the house where he lived.

  “Oh, no, I think it’s very handsome. It has a few flaws, but I think it carries them with great dignity. And it doesn’t take itself too seriously, does it?”

  He smiled, thinking of the ridicule Sully and the others had heaped on it. Rachel was right and they were wrong, because she was a better person. She saw more clearly, not only with her shrewd eyes but with her tolerant heart.

  “I thought I’d have that chimney fixed,” he mentioned, poi
nting. “And new slates put on the eaves where the rain’s been washing in. Holyoake says it’s been washing in for about a hundred years.”

  She looked at him quizzically. She was probably thinking it was odd that he was the one breaking a hundred-year-old tradition of neglect. He couldn’t account for it himself. “What’s your house like in Rye?” she asked as they started to walk again.

  “It’s called Steyne Court. It’s huge, colossal, a great beast of a house. I’ve always hated it.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. It swallowed me up when I was a child. It has all the warmth of a memorial to the war dead.”

  “But you’ll go to live there, won’t you, once you inherit your father’s title?”

  “Yes, I suppose, for a primary residence. Most of the time I expect to be in London. What else? It’s what one does.” Frowning, he picked up a stick and flung it into the path ahead of them for the dog to chase. They went along for a while without speaking. “Do you ride?”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “I’ll teach you. I know the horse who would suit, a mare called Molly, gentle as a lamb. Are you game?” The prospect intrigued him.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you afraid of horses?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “What, then? I promise you’d enjoy yourself.”

  She shook her head again, smiling, keeping her eyes down.

  He let it pass. For the first time it dawned on him that she might not want their affair carried on in public. Of course; that must be it. He felt like slapping his forehead. For a man who prided himself on his understanding of women, he’d been remarkably slow where this one was concerned. But he would do better. When all his faculties were engaged, there was no sharper student of the feminine mind than Sebastian Verlaine. He really believed it.

  They’d come to the far reaches of an abandoned canal, a tributary of the Plym, used ten or twenty years ago for transporting goods up from Devonport and Plymouth to the moorland towns. “Is this your land?” Rachel asked, and he nodded. “And your cows?” She pointed to a lazy huddle of fawn-colored Jerseys, idling under a tree in the near field. While they watched, the cows began to lumber toward them, curious, phlegmatically craving a diversion. The low stone wall forty feet away kept them at a respectful distance. Dandy, who had been snuffling in the weed-choked canal water, jumped a foot in the air when he saw them. After one brave yip, clearly counterfeit, he made a dash for Rachel and dived behind her skirts.

  “I knew we should’ve named him Buttercup,” she joked, petting the excited dog to calm him.

  “Ingrate. He’s known me longer—ten minutes at least—but he comes to you for protection.”

  “If you wore skirts,” she said consolingly, “I’m sure he would come to you. And don’t forget, you put him in a box and I let him out of it. He’s a very smart dog; he knows who his friends are.”

  They sat down on a fallen beech tree not far from the river and contemplated the stagnant water, the piercing blue of the sky, the wildflowers blooming along the riverbank. “I used to dream of flowers,” Rachel told him presently. “Sometimes I could close my eyes and pretend that my cell was a greenhouse.” She smiled wryly. “Quite an imaginative feat, but I had a lot of time to practice. I’d picture myself watering and pruning with the hot sun streaming through the glass. Pulling up weeds. Digging with my hands in the clean soil.”

  He took one of her hands from her lap and kissed it. She smiled and shook her head slightly, telling him not to feel sorry for her. But pity wasn’t the emotion he felt. “That’s over. All that bleakness—it’s finished.”

  She bowed her head. “Yes, of course. I know that.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. But you will.” He smiled, to lessen the solemnity; that had almost sounded like a threat, and he’d meant it as a vow. “They sent you to an early grave, Rachel, but I’m going to dig you out of it and resurrect you. Revive you.”

  She looked at him strangely. “I’m not sure anyone can do that.” I can.

  She lowered her eyes, hiding her skepticism. “I’m not unhappy now.”

  He noted the double negative, but he didn’t worry about it. He had two immediate goals: to make her laugh and to make her come. He thought of telling her, but decided it would make her too self-conscious. Might even inhibit her, slow down the inevitable. But that both goals would eventually be realized, he hadn’t the slightest doubt.

  The summer sun dipped behind the oak trees at their back; a fresh breeze had sprung up from the south, bearing the faint, barely noticeable odor of the sea. Rachel stood up and began to pick the moon daisies that grew in patches alongside the canal. He watched her for a while, admiring her slow, effortless grace. Dandy brought him a stick. He threw it over and over, at lengthening distances, until the puppy began to flag and finally collapsed, with only enough strength left to chew the stick.

  Rachel wandered back, resuming her place beside him on the log. She was easy with silence, easier than he was; certainly she was more used to it. He could make her smile now, but her eyes were always sad. He put his arm around her, and she relaxed against him, taking back one of the flowers from the bouquet she’d given him and holding it to her nose.

  “How did it begin?” he heard himself ask. “Why did you marry your husband? Tell me about the girl in the photograph.”

  “Oh,” she murmured. “That girl.” She took two more flowers from him and began to plait the long stems together. “I look at her sometimes and wonder who she was, what became of her. As if she were an old acquaintance I can barely remember.”

  “Tell me about your life before you went to prison.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  Everything, he thought. “Were you happy when you were a child?”

  “Yes,” she answered, but not very forcefully. “But I was very shy. And spoiled, I’m sure. My mother always told me I was beautiful, that I was destined for great things. Great things,” she repeated, her voice full of melancholy. “She had such high hopes for me. I never felt I was doing enough to live up to her expectations.”

  “What about your father?”

  “My father didn’t expect anything of me. We weren’t very close.”

  “And now they’re both dead?”

  “They died when I was in gaol, within months of each other.”

  “It must have been painful,” he said, conscious of the inadequacy of the word. “And your brother?”

  “Tom. He lives in Canada now with his own family. We don’t correspond anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  She lifted a hand and let it drop. “We did for a while; but letters in prison are so thoroughly censored, it’s almost better not to have any.”

  “You could write to him now.”

  “Yes. But he has a new life. He went to Canada to get away from what happened. I don’t think he would welcome being reminded of it now.”

  He thought of her grief when she’d told him her family believed she was guilty of murdering Wade. Of all the heartaches and indignities, that must have been the hardest one to bear. He imagined her as a child, shy, obedient, anxious to please a mother with “high hopes” and a father who ignored her. “How did you meet Wade?” He had to know it all now, but he was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of opening this sorrowful subject.

  “Lydia and I—My parents sent me—My father was—” She stopped, blowing a frustrated puff of air. “I keep having to start further back.”

  “Start anywhere. Tell it any way you like.”

  “I want you to understand, though. I want . . . I need to justify myself.”

  “Not to me.”

  Her hands went still and she looked at him for a moment, her eyes arrested, face alert. “To myself, then. In some ways, I ruined my own life. I try to forget it, but the truth always comes back.”

  He couldn’t believe it; some too-fine sensibility was at work here, he was certain. If anythin
g good could come from making her tell the story, maybe it would be that she could see she was blameless.

  “My father was a schoolmaster,” she began again. “He had his own boys’ school in Exeter until his health began to fail. Then he moved the family to Ottery St. Mary and did private tutoring, preparing students for university. I was about twelve at the time. It was a comedown in the world, but I wouldn’t have minded it, none of us would, I don’t think, if my mother hadn’t taken on so about it. She missed the city, despised village life, hated what we’d ‘come to,’ as she always put it. My brother’s future was secure by then—he was reading law with a judge in Torbay. He would be solid and steady, we all knew, even if his career would never be spectacular.”

  “And your mother,” Sebastian guessed, his mind slapping ahead, “wanted one of you to be spectacular.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that left you. And you were beautiful.” Already he could see where the story was heading.

  “I wasn’t,” she denied, smiling—and he could tell she believed it. “But I was all right, not ugly. Tall for my age. I had pretty . . .” She touched the side of her head, then gave an impatient shrug and dropped the subject. “Anyway, as you’ve guessed, my mother had marriage plans for me. I didn’t understand it until much later. I knew they couldn’t afford it, but when they sent me to an expensive girls’ school in Exeter when I was fifteen, I honestly thought they wanted me to go there for an education. Not so I could become some wealthy family’s governess, either, but so I could be a scholar. Like my father. I really believed it.” She shook her head, and beyond the amused self-mockery he could see the remnants of a still-deep personal hurt.