by Sandra Heath
She gazed out at the wet, windswept park she loved so very much. This summer of 1816 had been the worst she had ever known, with endless rain and low, scudding clouds. The house stood on a fine vantage point above the park, and usually it was possible to see right across the ten miles of rolling Surrey countryside to London, but today, as so often recently, it was all shrouded in mist and rain, like an afternoon in January, not July. Even the little white rotunda on the incline beyond the lake looked dismal and uninviting, when normally it was the prettiest of places, quite perfect for picnics on a sunny day….
Her reflection stared back at her from the rain-washed glass. How pale and drawn recent events had made her. Her eyes seemed so very large and dark-shadowed, and her mouth more wide than ever. Oh, that mouth, it had been one of the banes of her life, robbing her of any real claim to beauty. Her father had fondly called it a generous mouth and had sworn that it gave her a wonderful smile, but she knew that it was simply another bad mark, for the fashion was for rosebud lips, like Judith’s. Charlotte lowered her eyes, pondering all her other bad marks, from her undesirably red hair and freckled nose to her uncompromising character, her delight in books, and her refusal to suffer fools gladly. She was too spirited, too outspoken, and too bookish—what else need be said? Even with the prize of Kimber Park and the Wyndham fortune as an inheritance, she had put paid to her chances of an excellent match by being herself, and by being determined, like the heroines in her beloved books, to marry only for love; now, with her family ruined and her fortune lost, she was likely to remain unmarried forever more.
She glanced around the library, her favorite room with its dark-green brocade walls and countless shelves of costly volumes. Soon all the books would be gone, sold along with everything else at the auction Christie’s was to hold in a week’s time. Her jewels and wardrobes, and her mother’s, had gone already, sold to meet the more immediate of her father’s huge debts. What a sad irony it was that one of his few recent wins had been the horse that had thrown and killed him; and what a further sad irony it was that the horse had been won from none other than Max Talgarth. This, together with Max’s association with Judith, had made him the very last man Charlotte wished to see as master of Kimber Park, but he had made such a very handsome offer that to refuse would have been the height of folly. Now at least she and her mother would have a modest house in a reasonably acceptable street in London, and they would have a small income upon which to live.
Tears suddenly filled Charlotte’s eyes. Max Talgarth was wrong for this house, so very wrong, but now it was his, to do with as he pleased.
Chapter Two
It was still raining one month later on the day that Charlotte and her mother were to leave Kimber Park. The house seemed very empty now that most of the rooms had been cleared of furniture. Everything had been made ready for the new owner, the items sold at auction having long since gone, and those that Max Talgarth had purchased having been set aside. Those rooms no longer in use had been closed and shuttered, and the passages and staircases now echoed in a strange, hollow way that made everyone whisper. For the servants, life was to go on as before, for although Max had yet to intimate when he intended to take up residence, he had let it be known that he wished to keep the entire complement of staff.
Mrs. Wyndham’s rather elderly maid, Muriel, was the only one accompanying them to Henrietta Street, and that last morning there were tears in her eyes as she dressed, pushing her sandy-gray hair beneath a fresh white mob cap and smoothing her clean apron and brown dress against her bony little person. She left her room on the top floor and went down to attend her mistress, following a routine that had been her very existence for the last twelve years.
When Charlotte and her mother had finished dressing, the housemaids were ready and waiting to strip the beds and remove the mattresses, then the footmen dismantled the beds and took them away to be stacked with all the other furniture Max had purchased at the auction. Then the bedrooms were shuttered and the curtains drawn.
The breakfast room was situated on the eastern side of the house, to catch the morning sun, but this morning, as on so many others this dreary summer, the weather outside was as wet and lowering as could be. The room’s blue brocade walls and sapphire velvet curtains did little to create any cheer, and it was cold enough to warrant a fire in the hearth. The long mahogany sideboard, too heavy by far to be moved from the position it had occupied for some fifty years, had in happier times been laden with fine silver-domed dishes containing everything from cold roast meats to kedgeree, deviled kidneys, eggs of every description, mounds of delicious, crisp bacon, and a pleasing variety of fresh-baked bread; today there was only toast and coffee.
Mrs. Wyndham had yet to come down when Charlotte entered the room, wearing her black muslin gown, her long red hair pinned up beneath a black lace cap. Sitting down at the table and pouring herself some of the coffee, she gazed out of the window at the terraced gardens, where the roses were weighed down by moisture and the dovecote was very quiet, only the occasional bird fluttering into the endless rain. She felt strangely calm now that it was almost over. Seeing the house gradually emptied of everything she had loved, and having to accept that although she and her mother were still beneath its roof, it was no longer theirs, had caused them both a great deal of pain; to leave it and start their new life would surely be a release.
The hands of her fob watch pointed to precisely nine when the door opened to admit Mrs. Wyndham, her black bombazine gown and heavy petticoats rustling as she took her seat opposite her daughter. The former Miss Sophia Pagett, belle of the 1792 Season, was now a plump, rather anxious woman of forty-three, her pale, round face framed by wispy, reddish curls and a rather severe black biggin. She was quite haggard from the grief and anxiety of the past two months. Her gray eyes, so like her daughter’s, were red-rimmed and tired, and her lips trembled a little now and then, as if she was fighting back a sob.
Charlotte looked fondly at her, her heart going out at the look of desolation on the face that had formerly been so happy and bright. “Good morning, Mother.”
“Good morning, Charlotte.”
“Would you care for some coffee?”
“I couldn’t possibly.”
“But you must have something or you’ll make yourself ill. Please, at least have some coffee and a slice of toast.”
“Charlotte, I have no appetite whatsoever.”
“Ten miles in a hired chaise is not agreeable at the best of times, but it isn’t to be considered at all if one hasn’t eaten.”
“I have no wish to be reminded that we are now reduced to hiring vehicles.”
“What point is there in pretending otherwise?”
“The practical side of your nature can sometimes be quite insufferable.”
“Mother.” Charlotte looked reproachfully at her.
Mrs. Wyndham looked a little shamefaced then. “Forgive me, my dear, I don’t mean to be sharp with you all the time, it’s just that…. Well, you know what it is.”
“Yes, of course I do.” Charlotte leaned across to squeeze her mother’s hand. “Now, then, will you have some coffee and toast?”
“You’re quite a bully, aren’t you?” Her mother smiled. “Very well, I’ll try.”
They sipped their coffee in silence for a while, Mrs. Wyndham gazing out at the roses in the garden. “Do you know,” she said after a moment, “Richard and I planted those on the day before he left for America. It must be all of five years ago now. Oh, I do wish he was here now instead of the other side of the Atlantic, for I need him so very much.”
Charlotte said nothing. Richard Pagett was her mother’s brother, but he was so much younger than his sister that Charlotte had always found it impossible to call him Uncle Richard. He had always been just Richard, and she too missed him a great deal. Why, oh, why had he had to go and squander the Pagett fortune? But for that, he would never have taken himself across the world to seek his fortune anew. When he had first gone, she h
ad written regularly to him at his New York address, and in the beginning he had replied, but he was a very poor correspondent and in the end his letters had stopped arriving. She’d continued to write, and she had informed him of her father’s death, but so far no word had reached them. They didn’t even know if he was still alive.
Mrs. Wyndham looked sadly at her daughter. “Well, I suppose yearning for Richard will do no good at all, he is as much part of the past as this house is about to be.”
“We may still hear.”
“That is a very faint hope and we both know it.” Mrs. Wyndham took a deep breath then and continued in a more brisk tone. “When is this wretched hired chaise to arrive?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“I trust it will be acceptable, with springs that perform their function.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure it will,” replied Charlotte a little mysteriously.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, that rogue Job Rendell at the Three Tuns cannot be trusted in the slightest; he’ll send whatever farm cart he chooses.”
“Not for an order placed by Sir Maxim Talgarth he won’t.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Wyndham stared at her.
“I ordered the chaise in Sir Maxim’s name. Mr. Rendell promised his very finest vehicle.”
“Charlotte! How could you!”
“Without any conscience whatsoever.”
“If Sir Maxim should ever discover your impudence….”
“He can hardly call me out—even he cannot fight duels with women.” Charlotte was quite unrepentant. “Now, then, I am determined to look over the house again before we leave. Would you like to accompany me?”
Mrs. Wyndham shook her head. “No, my dear, I would prefer to try to remember it as it was before all this happened, but you go if you wish, I shall not mind at all.”
“If you’re sure…?”
“Quite sure.”
But as the door closed behind her daughter, Mrs. Wyndham’s eyes filled with tears again. Remember it as it was? That was all she could do now, for it was her memories that sustained her.
Charlotte’s steps echoed in the dark, deserted rooms, and she pulled her shawl more firmly about her, as if cold. She walked slowly, savoring each well-loved door and passage, each cupboard and corner. The drawing room seemed vast without its furniture and paintings, and the chandeliers were oddly dull without daylight to enhance them. The gods and goddesses still gazed from their painted heaven, but now there was nothing for them to see in the earthly room beneath.
As she reached the shuttered room where the paintings Max Talgarth had purchased were being temporarily stored, she heard the chaise arriving outside. Glancing quickly at her fob watch, she saw that it had come much too early. She had time enough to glance through the paintings. She smiled at the first one, a scene by Mr. Turner of a very stormy sea. The colors were very luminous and yellow, rather like Judith Taynton when seen in a bad dream, she thought uncharitably. She was reminded then of a dinner party some five years earlier, when a waggish guest had likened the painting not to Judith, but to the mulligatawny soup.
The next painting, to her great astonishment, proved to be the portrait of herself on her twenty-first birthday. Sir Thomas Lawrence, that most fashionable of artists, had stayed at Kimber Park while it was painted, and she well remembered wearing the beautiful lilac taffeta gown, her hair dressed up and adorned with the Wyndham diamond tiara. It was strange to see herself in so lovely a color, after two long months of nothing but unbecoming black.
She gazed at the portrait, and suddenly it occurred to her that it was very strange indeed for her likeness to have found its way into Max Talgarth’s purchases. It was inconceivable that he had knowingly acquired it, and so it must be there by error. She picked it up to set aside.
“Please don’t do that, Miss Wyndham, for I think it is very good.” Max himself suddenly spoke from the doorway behind her.
With a startled cry she whirled about, almost dropping the painting.
“Please be careful, I do not wish to see my unexpected acquisition damaged.” He smiled a little. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his cane swinging in his hand. He wore a light-green coat of superb cut and style, and tight gambroon trousers set off his manly figure to perfection. His waistcoat was striped in brown and white, his neckcloth was of fine brown silk, and his starched white shirt was adorned by only the simplest of frills.
He came into the room, flinging open the shutters and placing his hat, gloves, and cane on the narrow sill. The pale daylight brightened the room immediately, and as he leaned back against the sill, his attention was drawn once more to the painting, which she had now replaced with the others. “I cannot imagine how I managed to acquire you, Miss Wyndham, but no doubt you will grace my walls as elegantly as you once graced your own.” He glanced at her, for she had said nothing at all yet. “I seem to have robbed you of your formidable tongue.”
“You startled me.”
“So it seems. However, I didn’t feel the need to announce my approach with a drumroll,” he replied dryly.
“I didn’t expect to see you again before we left.”
“Ah, yes, in my hired chaise, it seems. Perhaps I should explain that I rested my horses at the Three Tuns on my way here. You’ve been very free with my name, Miss Wyndham; that was naughty of you.”
Her cheeks reddened a little. “What would you have done in my place, sir?” she countered. “Would you have neglected the wits God gave you by accepting Job Rendell’s most wretched bone-shaker?”
He gave a brief laugh. “If I was a proper, well-behaved, meek young lady, then no doubt I would submit to having my bones shaken. But since the question implies that I would be you, Miss Wyndham, then I must admit that I would then be unpredictable, and so I would probably sink to such regrettable deceit.”
“I don’t think it regrettable if it means traveling to London in some degree of comfort.”
“No doubt.”
“Why have you come here today?”
“I do own the place, or had you forgotten?”
“Sir, forgetting such a fact would be quite impossible.”
“Even for the redoubtable Miss Wyndham?”
“I have a great many things to try to forget, sir, and I cannot be expected to succeed with them all.”
He smiled a little. “Miss Wyndham, believe me, I’m not the monster I’m reputed to be, and my reason for coming here today is simply that I wish to say in person to you and your mother that if you should ever wish to visit Kimber Park, you will both be quite welcome to do so.” She stared at him, quite taken aback at such an unexpected invitation. She wondered wryly if Judith knew anything about it. Accepting was quite out of the question, for even if Judith did know and was in agreement, which seemed highly unlikely, the thought of being a visitor in the house that had once been their home, and seeing as its mistress a woman who had always been an enemy, was disagreeable in the extreme. “I, er, I thank you, Sir Maxim, but I do not think we can accept.” She tried to word her reply as tactfully as possible, but it still came out in a stilted, cold manner that left him with little option but to interpret her thoughts correctly.
A quiet anger stole into his piercing blue eyes. “I confess to being overwhelmed by the graciousness and charm of your answer, madam.”
She was a little startled by the sharpness of his reaction. “Sir Maxim, I—”
“Are you always so damned rude?” he interrupted. “I’ve tried to make allowances for your conduct, but try as I will, I cannot accept that grief can be constantly trotted out as an excuse for downright ignorance. My conduct toward you has at all times been correct—”
“At all times?” She was suddenly angry as well. “Oh, come now, sir, aren’t you conveniently forgetting your own sad lack of manners and sensitivity?”
“Whatever I’ve said or done, madam, has been the direct results of your behavior.”
“And that excuses you for bringing your mistress to this ho
use at a time when even the devil might have shown more tact?”
His eyes were cold. “Have a care, Miss Wyndham.”
She turned away. “I refuse to cross swords anymore with you, sir, least of all today.”
“That is a great pity, for I’m in just the mood to take you on. I’ve heard it said that Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits do not lie, but by God the one in this room does!”
“Are you presuming to form a judgment?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But you know nothing about the subject of that portrait.”
“Well, there you are wrong, madam, for I know sufficient to hold an accurate opinion. Until this minute I would have said that black doesn’t suit you, that it does you no justice whatsoever, but now I’ve reconsidered, for it becomes your sour, disagreeable temperament very well indeed. The creature I see smiling on that canvas no longer exists, her quite delightful smile is a figment of my imagination, and her excellent taste in clothes and the style with which she wears them is no more than a dream. Your father would be turning in his grave if he could see what has happened to his only daughter, for the Charlotte Wyndham he spoke of bears no resemblance whatsoever to the one it’s been my misfortune to know.”
“Have you quite finished?” she breathed furiously.
“I could go on, believe me.”
“Spare yourself the breath, sir, for I could not care less what you think about me.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. No wonder you have the reputation you have, for taking an interest in you is a singularly unrewarding exercise.”
“Then pray let me relieve you of any further tedium, sir, by relieving you of my presence.” She gathered her skirts and hurried to the door, where she paused to look back. “Good-bye, Sir Maxim, I cannot say that making your acquaintance has been a pleasure.”
He sketched a mocking bow.
She turned on her heel and walked quickly away down the echoing passage, and when her footsteps had died away, he glanced down from the window at the drive in front of the great portico. His carriage had now been joined by the hired chaise, which two footmen were busily loading with the trunks that had been carried out of the house. When they had finished, Mrs. Wyndham’s little maid hurried down the wide steps, dashing through the rain to be helped in by one of the footmen. A moment later Charlotte and her mother emerged from the house. The final moment had proved too much for Mrs. Wyndham, who was in tears again and needed much gentle assistance from her daughter.
