Marrying the Mistress

by Juliet Landon

  ‘For pity’s sake, lass, keep away, then. It’s contagious.’

  ‘I must go. I shall not get too close.’

  ‘Send one of the servants. Please. Think of Jamie.’

  ‘Yes, if you insist. I’ll send someone else.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise. I’ll be ready by mid-day.’

  ‘Good. Wrap up warm. D’ye want to stay overnight?’

  I smiled. ‘Thank you, but no. I must be at the shop early tomorrow.’

  His nod was curt, but understanding. For a short separation, his kiss was long and deep, and I felt my body stirring even before it was awake.

  Moments later, Jamie came to join me, as usual. ‘The bed’s nice and warm, Mama,’ he said, snuggling up. ‘Did Debbie sleep with you?’

  ‘No, darling. We’re going to have lunch with Uncle Burl today.’

  ‘Ooh, goodie! I wish Uncaburl was my papa. Shall we ask him?’

  ‘No, darling. Not yet. It’s too soon after Papa went, you see. We shall have to be content to have Uncle Burl as your guardian for a while. That’s almost the same thing.’

  ‘But I want to live with Uncaburl, Mama, like Claude lives with his papa. Claude’s friend says I haven’t got a papa.’

  I could feel the little fellow’s hurt and bewilderment. ‘I’m sure Claude’s friend didn’t mean to be so ill mannered,’ I whispered, stroking his dark curls. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t understand.’

  ‘He does, Mama. He said I never had one. He said you were not Papa’s wife. You were, weren’t you, Mama?’

  ‘It’s no business of Claude’s friend whether people’s parents are married or not. If he mentions it again, I shall speak to Uncle Medworth.’

  ‘Uncamedith knows.’

  ‘He knows? About the rudeness? What did he say?’

  ‘Said he had more ’portant things to think about.’

  Chapter Ten

  Much as I disliked sending a deputy to see how Prue and her parents were, I felt obliged to keep my promise, if only to avoid exposing Jamie to the infection, even at second hand. Debbie had no fear of catching anything, she assured me, though I insisted she tie a scarf over her face before she left the house. Having delivered the basket of food, she was back home inside the hour with the news that the old couple were still very poorly, the various potions having made little difference. Their growing weakness was a cause of serious worry, but Prue, she said, was managing well enough.

  I had agreed to be ready for Winterson’s coach by noon, and it was my desire not to disappoint Jamie or to keep the coachman and his horses waiting in the pelting rain that prevented me from listening to my conscience. Prue needed a doctor, yet I told myself that one more day might see an improvement. So it was with the firm intention of sending my own Dr Biggs round there first thing in the morning that I set off with Jamie and Mrs Goode for Sunday lunch at Abbots Mere along roads that were, in parts, axle deep in water.

  Jamie had no trouble pretending he was sailing a boat through lanes and past cottages while the rain clattered incessantly upon the roof of the coach and bounced off the horses’ backs. Branches had been brought down during the night, and every dip of the land was reduced to a lake where seagulls wheeled, reflecting the leaden sky and rippled by the wind.

  By contrast, Abbots Mere was a warm haven lit by oil lamps, candelabra and blazing log fires, with the tantalising aroma of roast beef and Yorkshire puddings reaching the stone-paved hall. The sound of laughter reached us too, and I felt the familiar shiver of apprehension before going in to meet Winterson’s parents for the first time since the funeral.

  I had taken care to dress appropriately in a charcoal-grey silk velvet sleeveless pelisse over a long-sleeved gown of silver grey sarsenet. No jewellery. No ornament. My hair tied up with black satin ribbons that hung down my back. Nothing to show how I felt after a night spent in the arms of their eldest son so soon after his twin’s death. Nothing to betray the hypocrisy, either.

  ‘You look beautiful, Miss Follet,’ Winterson whispered. ‘Are you well?’

  I knew what he was asking. ‘Yes, my lord, I thank you,’ I replied demurely. ‘I am indeed well, if a little fatigued.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. His eyes laughed into mine. ‘Oh, dear. Unaccustomed exercise, is it?’

  ‘Shh!’ I said. ‘Jamie dear, here’s Claude come to find you.’

  I followed on behind, using Jamie to interrupt the conversation quite naturally before his grandparents turned to greet me. Not that they were in any sense an awe-inspiring couple. Far from it. But there had once been a reserve in their manner towards me, as mistress instead of wife, that had only recently been replaced by a genuine warmth and, I think, with some admiration and gratitude for my dedication to their son. According to him, they had been more than relieved by the appearance of a grandson, which had perhaps worked in my favour too, and now they had smiles for me as well as for Jamie.

  Lord and Lady Stillingfleete were a handsome couple. He had been a major in a top cavalry regiment when he’d married Lady Frances Milton, the celebrated beauty. She was still lovely, stately, slender and white-haired with particularly brilliant dark brown eyes able to convey in one glance the precise degree of her approval. Although I had now no need to doubt that, I could not help but wonder if those discerning eyes would see behind my Sunday face to the previous night’s lust that had spilled out with an unstoppable energy, or the tell-tale signs that might still linger upon me, somewhere. I hitched up the fur-trimmed collar of my pelisse to reach my earlobes, just in case, then wished I had not for, on rising from my curtsy, I saw Lord Stillingfleete’s eyes leave his son’s and return to mine. ‘Miss Follet, come to the fire, m’dear,’ he said, and I knew that he had interpreted the gesture correctly.

  Heaven knows, I’d had plenty of practice, but I would never have made a first-rate actress. I did not go to the fire, but to Medworth and Cynthia, hiding my blush in their greeting and the duet of chatter about the perilous journey from Osbaldwick, all the while aware of how the grandparents watched my Jamie like a pair of eagles, linking his dark good looks to their eldest son, as anyone must. They had not seen him for several months, and he had changed with each passing week. Their expressions, shifting from child to father, were easy to read, and the realisation seemed to catch them unawares in a moment of rigidity. Immediately, they recovered themselves, transferring some of their attention to little Claude, who was attempting to ride one of Winterson’s unwilling wolfhounds. To my mind, the child needed a firmer hand than Medworth’s, who appeared to find something to applaud in every silly thing his son did.

  Winterson lifted him off and dismissed the hounds from the room with one word, for Claude was overweight as well as over-indulged. Fortunately, the youngest one had been left at home, or we might have been treated to more bids for attention.

  In some ways, the Sunday lunch was an ordeal that demanded a greater-than-usual effort on my part. Winterson’s family were never difficult to converse with, but I found myself having to work hard to keep my thoughts on track when my eyes were drawn like magnets to the one for whom I hungered much more than roast beef or pheasant, salmon or winter vegetables. Having given no thought to how I might feel if that solo night should ever be repeated—for I had not believed it would—I was confused by the meld of emotions and by the way my body had not recovered from the hours of arousal after so many years of neglect. No matter how I tried to hold them back, the memories of his magnificent body lying warm upon me blanked out the middles and ends of so many of my sentences that it began to look as if I might be sickening for something. More than once did Winterson come to my rescue, smiling at my dreaminess and reading my eyes like a book.

  Unusually, the children were allowed to eat at the table with the adults, a treat I approved of on occasions like this. It was gratifying to see how well my Jamie behaved compared to Claude, who messed about with his food and kept his mama so completely occupied with him that she was scarce able to eat her
own lunch. Medworth seemed totally unaware of any problem.

  Apple pie, creamy rice pudding with nutmeg, and spotted dick with custard was the perfect conclusion to a family meal on a day of such darkness and unrelenting rain, though we sat in the rosy glow of a fire that filled the room with the sweet aroma of burning apple boughs.

  ‘I had the men clearing the ditches when you were last here,’ I heard Winterson telling his father, ‘but the snow, then the floods have filled them up completely. Some of the fields will take months to recover.’

  ‘Then you may have to reclaim more of your wasteland.’

  The two men took their glasses of port to the long window that overlooked the flooded terrace. Beyond, the swollen river had lost its banks, rushing and seething like a brown menacing monster across the field.

  ‘I’ve already decided on that,’ Winterson replied. ‘Do you care to come and see what I intend? The plans are in the study.’

  ‘Aye. I’ll come and tell ye where ye’re going wrong, lad.’

  They smiled and sauntered off, leaving Cynthia to sink deeply into one of the leather sofas and Lady Stillingfleete to do the same in a high-backed chair, already halfway to a siesta. True to her name, Mrs Goode had taken the boys into a window-seat where they lounged against her knees and the book she was reading to them, and I was left with Medworth, who was already fretting about being home in time for his evening service. Pulling out a wad of papers from his coat pocket, he noisily smoothed them out upon the table, pulled a candlestick forwards, and began to read his sermon to himself.

  I moved away, relieved by the suspension of polite exchanges across the dining table that had covered every topic from food to floods, fashion to farming. I was not myself, I realised, nor would I ever be the same again. Riddled by conflicts, my life was changing like the landscape by forces outside my control, and I would have to heed my intractable head or my vanquished heart, neither of which was reliable.

  I had not intended to follow the one who monopolised my thoughts, and certainly not to snoop, but the sound of his voice and the need to be near him drew me along the panelled passageway towards the oak-lined study where he daily met his steward and bailiff to plan the estate work. The door remained open wide enough for me to see a table covered with maps, and over by the window stood Winterson and his father with their backs to me, hands clasped behind, their shoulders almost touching.

  Lord Stillingfleete was speaking with some emphasis. ‘You’ll have to marry her, Burl. Damn it lad, I’m not blaming you one bit. She’s a high-flyer, but it’s as plain as a pikestaff and it’ll be even plainer as Jamie gets older. Then you’ll have some explaining to do. Better to put things on a legal footing now than hang about for more years. What’s stopping you?’

  ‘She is, Father. She’s bitter about what happened. Linas gave her a raw deal, you know, and it’s going to take me some time to win her trust.’

  ‘Well, I cannot insist on knowing what you and he agreed, for it’s none of my business, but time is what you don’t have, Burl. Do something about it before the gossip starts. If your mother and I can see it, so will others.’

  ‘I am doing, sir. But she’ll come to me in her own time, not mine.’

  ‘She’s in love with you. We can see that, too.’

  ‘Yes, I believe she may be.’

  ‘Isn’t that enough? The lad needs a father more than a guardian.’

  ‘Yes, sir. She knows that, too. Give me time to…’

  They turned away and I had to step well back into the passage and retrace my steps while my guilty heart thudded an angry rhythm of its own. She’s in love with you… Isn’t that enough?… You’ll have to marry her, Burl. Standing with my back pressed against the panelling, I could feel each heartbeat rebelling against everything the two of them had said. They had no conception of how things stood with me, nor how many shades of grey came between their black and white. To his father, the matter was simple: marry her before people start to talk. I could almost taste the perversity that rose into my mouth, ready to shout my objections. Well, at least he appeared to understand that I would marry in my own good time and in no one else’s.

  Making a slight sound, a cough and an exclamation about the chill, I once again approached the open door, tapped, and entered. With shoulders hunched, they were braced over the maps on the table, looking up in surprise and with some questioning in their eyes. Women rarely visited men’s offices. ‘May I come in?’ I said. ‘I don’t mean to disturb you.’

  ‘Of course,’ Winterson said, smiling. ‘I’m showing my father where the worst of the floods are.’ With one finger he drew an oval around the river and its surrounding plains. ‘It’ll be weeks before we can plough these fields again, and we’ve lost acres of grazing before the land will recover.’

  I peered at the areas shaded with grey, land belonging to the Abbots Mere estate, other fields shaded a darker grey presumably belonging to Lord Slatterly which Winterson had the use of. A large area to the east was enclosed by a wide red line. ‘And that?’ I said, knowing the answer.

  Lord Stillingfleete replied. ‘Foss Beck. Been wasted ever since I can remember. No one goes there. It’s time it was looked at, Burl.’

  ‘Yes, as soon as I can reach it I’ll go there. We can’t afford to hang on to unused land any longer. I believe there are some ruined buildings on it.’

  ‘They’ll have to be demolished. You could use the stone for barns.’

  The shock in my voice made them both look sharply at me. ‘You…you own this place…Foss Beck?’ I said.

  ‘It’s been part of the estate for centuries. It was a thriving village once with its own manor house and a priest for the church, but I believe it was hit by the plague more than once, so that was the end of it. There must be quite a few fields worth reclaiming.’

  ‘But surely, if it’s deserted, it must have reverted to common land where anyone can—’

  ‘Not anyone, Miss Follet,’ said Lord Stillingfleete. ‘That might have been the case if it had once been legal common, but it never was. Over the years we’ve turned a blind eye to some land that was less profitable, or inaccessible, but at times like this we have to work them and make them yield again. New methods, you know. Fertilisers, crop rotation, new hardier strains of wheat. And new sheep breeds, too. Burl needs to get his hands on it, especially after a winter like this.’

  I was staggered. Numbed with shock. My family had lived there in hiding since I was fourteen, expecting to renovate the buildings, dragging every ounce of goodness from their small crofts, eking out an existence. Where would they live if the old house was levelled, their garden ploughed over? Ought I to expose them now, before it was too late? Should I reveal their reason for living there, and who it really was who had borne the Stillingfleete heir, a criminal’s daughter whose relatives lived illegally on the Abbots Mere estate, her father buried there?

  But the two of them bent to the map again, the query dealt with, and I could say nothing of my dread as a sickness filled my lungs, blotting out each panic-stricken response as it arose. I would have to go and tell my family immediately. They must be warned of what was about to happen to their livelihood.

  * * *

  Though the rain had not abated all day, we were back home on Blake Street before darkness fell completely. Winterson had found the chance to speak a few words with me alone and had demanded to know what ailed me. Was it fatigue, or something more?

  No more than that, I lied, wondering how convinced he was. It seemed to satisfy him. He would be in town in a day or two, he said, and I think when he kissed me that he expected some pleasurable response rather than the vague nod that was all I could manage. Perhaps if his parents had not been staying, I might have told him what a catastrophe he was planning but, as it was, his fierce kiss was accompanied by the distant howls and screams of his over-tired nephew, reminding me of my promise to take Jamie to his birthday party on Tuesday. Straight away, I saw that I could make that the day for my visit to
Foss Beck while Jamie and his nurse were at Osbaldwick, which was fortunately in the same direction.

  As Medworth’s carriage moved off, I made sure that Winterson knew about the invitation. ‘See you on Tuesday,’ I called, waving.

  It took what remained of my dwindling resolution not to change my mind about staying at Abbots Mere overnight when I could think of little else but wanting him. But to have done so would have convinced his parents that Winterson had already taken Linas’s place as my lover, which was certainly not the cut-and-dried case it would appear to be, especially when I’d told him only recently that I would not allow that to happen. Yet it had not taken him long to find a way round my objections, and the last thing I wanted was for Lord and Lady Stillingfleete to label me as fickle.

  For his father to recommend to Winterson that he should marry me, a mere milliner and mantua-maker, was in itself remarkable when the pedigree of future daughters-in-law must be well documented and above reproach. Nothing so lofty could be said of mine, unfortunately, although Jamie’s appearance had certainly helped in that respect. For one thing, he was the Stillingfleete heir and, for another, he was unmistakably Burl’s offspring rather than Linas’s, a fact that was unlikely to be admitted, but which could certainly be ignored, once his parents married. And for that event, I felt no immediate obligation to comply, after the way I’d been used by them.

  I slept alone, and fitfully, plotting the course of the previous night’s lovemaking while posing a hundred questions that could be answered in multiples, some of them concerning the fate of my family, who deserved better than poverty and obscurity and, on my part, denial.

  * * *

  My first duty next morning was to visit Prue with Debbie, carrying armfuls of clean bedding and food. But it was a doctor they needed most, and I called upon my own man, Dr Biggs, bidding him return with me, which he did, shaking his bald head sadly at the emaciated old couple too weak to move, and at the mess caused by the flood water in which they were obliged to remain. With all the stubborn pride of old folk, they refused even to consider accepting my offer to have them at Blake Street. Between us, we did what we could for them, yet I felt I was paying the good doctor for little else but a potion to ease their pain and a prognosis of only a few days more.