by Matilda Hart
I was instantly smitten.
So Moira isn’t all wrong, the issue of marriage is on my mind, especially this problem of Claire’s impending marriage. The problem is this – besides my own desires for her fiancé, about which I can be perfectly even handed – she is clearly so indifferent to Lord Atwater – Clayton – and he, although charmingly devoted to my older sister, is a much better match for myself.
He is witty, and so good with Father, so outgoing and with a real poets soul. You can tell it, when you read his early works, there is great depth of feeling in his lines. And the gossips all say he once fought a duel with Lord Byron over a Spanish woman’s honour; so dashing. He is simply not at all like Claire, who is just so proper. She’s quiet as a church mouse, and with much the same colouring.
Claire’s only real asset is that what with her being so quiet and so mouselike, it does mean she has had far more time to herself to develop all those feminine skills: she is a virtuoso on the piano and harp, and really can dance frightfully well.
But I can’t help but feel Atwater needs something more free and energetic, a little less prissy than Claire. An artist, rather than an artiste. Someone, in short, who is less of a bitch.
Someone like me.
‘You’ve been seeing a lot of that Lord MacAmbrais,’ Moira says in a suggestive tone.
Really, I think. The places that woman’s mind goes.
The Irish are such a simple race, and Moira is one of the simplest Irish I’ve ever met. Evan MacAmbrais is a childhood friend, and of course I see a lot of him. Since we could both walk, we have been the closest of friends. His is the only advice I listen to long enough to completely ignore.
Moira like all poor gossips equates the presence of a rich man with a desire for marriage. And his wealth is impressive, even when held up against my father’s estates. And he too is a Marquess, ever since his father passed away very young having had four sons in very quick succession.
However Evan has an awkwardness in society that comes from being a Scot amongst the English, and his family will always bear the taint of their defeats on the wrong side of the Jacobite rebellion.
Our family archivist even claims my Great Uncle is supposed to have engineered the MacAmbraises’ humiliation on the field. Mind you, that particular Great Uncle also spent four years slowly rotting, inside out from gangrene he suffered from a claymore blow to his thigh.
Or possibly of the clap…
Grandma always said it was the clap, and she should know, the old tart, but Evan couldn’t possibly be expected to feel comfortable around the English after all that history of war, regardless of how my Great Uncle died.
Times change, and now that we often share a hunt with the MacAmbraises the humiliations for his kind take place across the bridge table and in the manipulations of reputation – gossip for the most part. I really do think of me and Evan as being rather like Benedict and Beatrice in the early stages of that play, no love lost, and more than a little in opposition to one another, but with deep tenderness underneath.
Although Evan is perhaps a little slower witted than his fictional counterpart.
I laugh. ‘He is a friend. Our affection is that of siblings, not spouses or lovers.’ Then quietly, to myself, ‘No, we will see what can be done about Lord Atwater and my sister.’
Moira hears what I say and mutters: ‘Devil child,’ curtly under her breath but loud enough I know I am meant to hear it. She catches another tangle and gives it a sharp jerk which is vicious enough to send a shock of pain down my bad tooth. Still, I’ll take ‘Devil Child’ as an epithet from a Catholic.
Besides, she’s called me worse.
Once Moira has brushed my hair and helped me pin it up into an acceptable shape, she helps me dress, as we have guests I wear my most brutal corset. And I stroll down to the stables where the hall-boys have my horse, Galahad, saddled up.
We take the hard route across the moors, there’s a winding path along a steep valley where few horses can pick out a walk, but we take at a canter. The path leads up to an old tor with a view of Lake Normere and you can see across to the smoke of the brick kilns of Malburny. Galahad is on good form and we get into a rhythm, his muscles stretched taught as he takes the turns. He leans into, and is utterly fearless of, the steep drop to our left and I can feel his heart throbbing in rhythm with my own as a I rock up and down in the saddle, thighs straining to keep pace and cheeks burning in the wind.
There is a thrill in this, lost in the concentration, in oneness with another of God’s animals and riding right along the knife edge. I can barely think of anything else except keeping atop the horse. For a breig moment I am reminded that one of the stablehands took a tumble on this route as we hammer past the small cairn erected in memory of his death.
Father had to pay the boy’s brother off to avoid a scandal. We couldn’t have that during the dowry negotiations for the marriage of Jane, my oldest sister. Katherine, the next in line, also had bad luck before her wedding, an awkward pregnancy that took some manipulation to hush up. My father had to arrange for a secret liaison ahead of the wedding in order to arrange circumstances such that her husband to be could convincingly believe himself the father of Kat’s child.
My brother’s too, found themselves embroiled in various troubles: one had to buy out an older woman whose morals were known to have corrupted him, the other one found himself fighting charges of murder after a duel four days before the wedding. They fought swords on horseback – like something out of Mallory – quite a spectacle. I was the only woman in attendance and though father fainted at the sight of blood, I barely felt even a little sick.
Galahad takes the turn after the cairn – known to the locals as Thatcher’s Corner after the deceased – sending a shower of pebbles through the long grass which clung to the walls of the valley. Down below, the brook meanders towards Normere.
Coming out of Thatcher’s Corner something gives beneath one of his feet and I hear rocks rattling down through the stones and boulders hidden by the bracken below. Galahad jerks his head to one side as he slams to a halt so violently I feel the pommel of my saddle hit me square over my kidneys. The shock jars my bad tooth and winds me, I feel a sharp pain in my neck as my head is thrown back and go over the pommel to sprawl across his shoulders barely clinging on to his neck. My face is buried in his mane, my hands scrabbling and my head empty of anything but the appalling horror that I might fall, turn in the air for a few sickening weightless seconds before I feel one of those boulders against my spine and all the lights go out.
Galahad staggers beneath, throwing himself back and forth and scrabbling to keep his legs square under him and straight. I can still hear the rattle of stones falling away beneath me and realise that despite everything that seems to have happened barely a second must have passed since I felt the ground first give. My eyes shoot open and I can see the valley wall stretching up to my right, thrown about by Galahad’s unsure step. I cannot turn my head to see that same wall fall away on the other side, to confirm with my own eyes if Galahad is slipping over the edge.
I haven’t even got the air left in me to get a scream out. But then it is all over. I am jerked the other way as Galahad finds his footing again and settles into a stand his head flicking about in the reigns and his nickering sending shivers through me skull cap to riding boots.
We stay there for a moment, me clinging onto his neck in a wide hug, his lungs inflating and deflating beneath me, still bound by this joint emotion.
My hands are shaking when I take the reigns.
I feel profoundly alive, fear makes everything brighter, sharper. Every sensation from the pinch of my corset at my waist to the breath of the wind against my face.
With the onrush of relief, comes a powerful drive. I need to gallop. To make those living movement. Galahad clearly feels the same as I dig in my heels sharply and he lurches through a gentle walk; a rhythmic, pumping trot; the ocean like sway back an forth of a neat canter; and – as we hit
the straight up the hill along the flat towards the tor above the lake – the canter becomes the rapid double-heartbeat of a full gallop.
There is nothing but air in my lungs and on my face, and the vast sharply blue spring sky above. The animal beneath me is as much a part of me as my own arms which lash forward and backwards in perfect time to his movements counterbalancing the momentum which runs back and forth across my centre of gravity. This is joy, full concentration on this entirely physical act, bodies in movement together, powerful beast below, wise woman above. I feel almost as if Galahad’s strength and speed are my own.
We come to a stop at the tor, a huge cairn of rocks painted white mark the peak, and the lake stretched out beneath the sharp cliff. There is Malburny gently smoking across the water, the fires of ovens and kilns, huge furnaces and little house fires burn out there. I can almost feel the same fire in my gut.
What it would be to bring Lord Atwater up here. To have him hold me above a view like this. To have ridden here together, perhaps on the same horse. That overwhelming sense of oneness.
Soon, if all goes to plan, I will do just that. With his wedding band on my finger instead of my sisters. We will ride up here and I will console his guilt while playing up my own. He will do the same for me. And despite is all we will both be utterly joyful.
I let out a yell across the lake – nearly a scream, revelling in the return of breath – for no other reason than it seems right. Out here in the moors where everything reverts to its primitive state. Even the cairn of stones, piled and painted by man, are turning green on one side from lichen, wind and rain eroding the paint from the other to show the original sedimentary stones in which occasionally the skeletons of small fish and the shells of ancient snails can be found. I scream with all my might and Galahad whinnies in turn underneath me sending the vibrations of his lungs right up through the core of me.
Chapter Two
The cart track runs between a number of small hills and the vast views of the moor are mostly closed in to nothing more than a few piles of green and the decrepit hunchbacks of granite and limestone that have yet too be swallowed by the heather. Out here I feel far more myself. There are times, after an evening of dancing, or talking with friends and family around the hearth or over dinner that I retire to my room, utterly unsure quite how my conversation connects with who I am. Society seems at times to be a chessboard of strategies and carefully choreographed tactics. I say this, and she will say that, then I will say this, and she is offered one of two conversational gambits. The pawns have less to loose and no real power beyond their ability to reach the eighth line and be promoted. The clergy around bound to their chosen colour of square and must move carefully at angles to the rest of society, just as we defer to their long lines of sight. I’m sure father is a rook whatever that might mean, and at the heart of it is the King to which all ends are directed. To pin him down and be swept off my feet: marital bliss. And for the moment Atwater sits beside the red queen: my sister. But the game is just beginning.
‘Ahoy there, Lassie,’ calls Evan. I didn’t even hear him trot up behind us I was so engrossed in my thoughts.
‘Lord MacAmbrais.’ I am not exactly pleased to see Evan right now, when we were young we would charge through the miles on horseback racing between his father’s southern estates and my father’s northern ones. But as I became a woman and he a man, the parents tried forcing some level of propriety on us. Wholly unnecessary in my book, I am closer to him even than with my brothers. Violating that friendship would feel as wrong as incest.
‘Dear Alice, what on earth happened to you? Your hair looks like Galahad took you through a bramble patch.’
He laughs at me which irks, but I shake off my irritation as I am in need of some sort of council and there is really no one else worth asking on matters of the heart than Evan. he keeps himself above such things and so is capable of the most intelligent and objective advice. Which is oft lamented by the ladies of the county, at times he is capable of a noticeable handsomeness.
Now is not one of them, he looks little better than smug. ‘Damned horse almost threw me on Thatcher’s Corner,’ I say. He looks suitably shocked at the curse which if I’m honest is precisely why I do it. Words hurt no one really and it does me good to see a man shocked by my behaviour. I take great pride in being utterly incorrigible.
‘When you do break your own neck falling from that destrier, I’m sure my grief will be tempered by my satisfaction in being right; you are not nearly the horseman you think you are,’ he teases, but his face betrays concern. So like him, a protective older brother in the way neither of my brothers are – or even my father is.
‘More man than you, horse or no,’ is the best I can come up with, distracted as I am by the Atwater situation.
‘I would ask you to prove it with a race home, but I’m on my way to pay my respects to your sister and her newly betrothed. I really don’t want to ruffle my coat; I hear this Atwater has certain prejudices regarding the Celtic races. Besides, you still look rather rattled by your fall.’
‘Not at all. Just put out by the poor company. After all, I had to learn my contempt for the Celtic races first hand.’
‘Fie,’ he says smiling, and I take the opportunity to push for his thoughts on the matter at hand.
‘What do you know of the Marquess?’ I ask. Evan, being a Marquess himself moves in the relevant mix of bridge partners, whist circles, hunting parties and gentlemen’s clubs both here and, when he is in the South, in London. He should know exactly what sort of man Lord Atwater is besides his acreage and incomes. I have myself preliminary ideas largely influenced by his gentlemanly behaviour, his wit, and his extraordinary good looks – I am a firm believer that while good looks can hide a dark heart true attractiveness shines through from one’s inner nature. Clayton Atwater is an attractive man and my sister is – or rather may be – a lucky woman. We will see what can be done regarding that.
‘Not much. The Atwaters are one of the oldest Marcher Lords, given lands in Normandy originally by the Conqueror then banished up here when King John gave that all away. They kept the various Kings and Thanes of bonny Scotland at bay for a while. My own family have a cannon with the Atwater coat-of-arms on it outside our hunting lodge; taken at the battle of Culloden by my Grandfather.’ He is rambling off topic as in that relaxed way he always takes with me, but is incapable of taking around the rest of my family. No doubt rendered speechless by his odd fancy for Claire.
Not wishing to let him get to far into his family’s notorious history of undermining the English I ask, ’What about his nature? any rumour or gossip worth speaking of?’
‘No, not really.’
‘I thought as much. A fine man. One of the finest.’
‘Yes, and a good match for your sister,’ there is a warning tone in his voice that I dislike.’
‘What of it?’ I ask.
He is frowning a little. ‘What of it indeed? Is this sisterly interest?’
I say: ’Of course,’ and his snort of laughter is almost enough for me to set off at a gallop and leave his impertinent Scots mockery behind but I dislike letting anyone know of my irritation. ‘What else would it be?’
He says: ‘Do I see a blush on your cheeks, my dear?’
He doesn’t. ‘Why would I be blushing?’ I say. ‘However, my interest in Lord Atwater is somewhat more than as a sister in law, but I am certainly unashamed of that. I am a far better match than my sister and there is no reason for a woman to be embarrassed to love a man like him.’
‘Oh-ho, so you have designs on your sister’s fiancé?’
He can be utterly, bloodily, insufferable. ‘Well of course I do, Evan. He is exactly what I’ve been hoping for. We had a wonderful conversation on his arrival and he was very complimentary about the colour of my dress.’
‘He payed you such a compliment in front of your sister? How brazenly adulterous of him,’ Evan is laughing, always bloody laughing.
‘It�
�s not adultery if you aren’t married yet, and besides –’ I catch sight of his smirk and realise he is having fun. ‘Besides, Claire doesn’t need a man of qualities like his. Someone rather plainer would be more to her taste. I always thought you and her would make an excellent match.’
It is his turn to blush, I’ve always suspected he may have found Claire’s ability with music and dancing attractive. The Scottish are a primitive sort and music is the art which most affects them, being the oldest and least sophisticated of the arts. Evan has an excellent singing voice and he often accompanies Claire when she plays. Always shooting ridiculous looks at me to see if I am enjoying the performance. He knows what a sway I have over my sister. Perhaps he mocks me now to hide his hurt at Claire choosing a better – if wholly unsuitable – man.
‘Anyways, I have a plan, and as my insider on the mind of men, I need you advice–’
‘I am not going to help you ruin your sister’s engagement.’ He has that tiresome tone of judgment that Moira takes on matters regarding my sister.
‘Why ever not, if I succeed you’ll be perfectly placed to lift her out of her misery. You’re getting far too old to be a bachelor.’ This time the jibe about his feelings for Claire doesn’t land. He looks at me with an unreadable, cold face and says:
‘You are unspeakably callous.’
This is foolish, and I tell him so. ‘After all, an unhappy marriage is far worse a fate than short term heartbreak.’
He drops his eyes. ’That is not at all to what I was referring.’
‘Cheer up. I’ll be dressing in my most impressive clothes tonight. He’ll not be a man if he doesn’t cast at least a little eye astray. And when my work is done, everything will be laid out for you to go ahead with your own plans for Claire.’ The dress I have chosen is beautiful, provocative and womanly, Atwater hasn’t a chance. Large sleeves and prominent bust lines, bare shoulders and tight as tight at the waist. I will turn heads, even I suspect of brotherly Evan.
