By the time he had finished explaining to her, her hands were covering her face, her shoulders shaking with sobs, and soft mewing sounds were sifting through her fingers, dripping with tears. He sat in silence without moving, knowing that this would not be the last time she would weep for her losses. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her safe against the world, to shield her from more harm, to heal the wounds caused by his brother whose foolishness he could understand but never condone. And then there was this charismatic man called Ben. Had she come up here to this room to find comfort in his workplace? How close had they been?
The weeping was brought under control soon enough, followed by a whispered apology. He was quick to put her mind at rest. ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. With her knuckles she wiped the tears from her face and pushed a strand of damp hair away into the thick plait that hung down her back, revealing the fine bones, the high cheeks and delicate ears, the delicious tilt of the nose and well-defined mouth, the graceful sweep of her throat and neck. Yesterday’s faded old clothes had been replaced by a plain bodice and skirt of dull rose pink over a white chemise, the lacy top of which could just be seen at the neckline. Santo thought of all the women who had wept in his presence, but could recall not one as exquisitely lovely as Aphra Betterton. ‘Do you know where we might look for a map of Sandrock?’ he said. ‘If we both knew exactly where the priory land lies and who rents it, we shall have the advantage of Master Pearce. Do you agree?’ For a moment, he thought she might insist on going it alone, that pride might get in the way of common sense, which would be a pity.
Her eyes rested on his face, then on his hands and back again to his eyes to find that essential element of honesty. ‘But there will be questions,’ she said. ‘Village gossip. That man will already be telling all he meets about Mistress Betterton’s Italian assistant.’ This was a conversation she preferred not to have. Ignoring her parents’ advice to wait, she had come to Sandrock alone to take advantage of the seclusion where the only decisions to be taken concerned the running of the household and gardens and the direction Ben would have wanted her to take in recording his plant collection. Relatives she had aplenty. Relationships she did not want. Especially not from the same quarter as the previous one and its disastrous consequence. And after their short and decisive meeting yesterday, why had this man returned to offer help when she had already made it clear what she felt about that?
Yet look how efficiently he had dealt with the problem of Master Pearce. How comforting it had been to have the Italian merchant there to speak with a man’s authority and without the condescending argument that would surely have followed if she had tackled the man on her own. She knew about merchants. Her cousin Etta was married to one. Hard-dealing, worldly, tough and knowledgeable, and difficult to shake off when they saw something they wanted. So what did the man want? Her trust in men had fallen to rock-bottom since Leon’s departure and his inexplicable change of heart. Now, the appearance of his elder brother, capable, handsome and more mature than he, threatened to disturb the cocoon of pain she had built around herself. With that in place, she could keep everyone out and fuel her reasons not to trust, not to make herself accessible, not to welcome any man’s company for whatever reason. Now it looked as if she was being manoeuvred into accepting him as an assistant, which she knew she needed, right here where they would be obliged to meet on most days. What madness was that?
She sighed, thinking of the effort she would have to make.
‘Madonna,’ he said, gently.
‘What?’ Her head was turned away, trying to avoid seeing him.
‘I understand your problem.’
‘How can you possibly understand?’ she replied. Pushing herself away from the table, she walked to the window to the medley of greens seen through panes of rippling glass. ‘I wanted to be here on my own and now look what’s happened after only a couple of weeks. Anyone would think I’d had no experience of handling estate matters when in fact I’ve assisted my mother for years while Father was away in London. I was sure Sandrock would be the same, that there’d be nothing here I’d not know how to deal with, and now all this nonsense of my neighbour wanting my mill, a dishonest steward and probably much more, for all I know.’
‘Your steward is dishonest?’
‘Oh...’ She shrugged. ‘He’s hiding the accounts from me. I’m assuming...’
‘I’d soon deal with that problem, mistress.’
‘Needing help was never part of my plan. You were not part of my plan either, signor. You are the brother of the man whose deception has cast a blight on my life.’ Aphra was not usually given to dramatics, but now she turned from the window to face him with her arms thrown out wide as if to demonstrate the enormity of her folly.
‘Then try looking at it another way, mistress, if you will.’
‘I don’t want to look at it another way. There isn’t another way.’
‘There is,’ he said, struggling to hide his smile. ‘You simply think of me as your assistant instead of...’
‘You see?’ she yelped. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. Try to forget you are his brother. That’s what you were about to say, isn’t it? As if I could. As if I have not tried and tried to put him out of my thoughts. He was here, in this room, and Ben, too. I see them walking through the doors, in the gardens, the library, the church. They are everywhere and I thought that my being here would help me to lose them at my own pace. Slowly. It was the suddenness,’ she whispered, ‘that was so unfair.’
He nodded in sympathy. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but, you know, in my experience it sometimes happens that what one thinks of at first as a hindrance...’
‘Like you.’
‘...like me, can become quite the opposite if you give it a chance. This situation was not planned by either of us. I thought you’d be living with your parents, not managing this great place on your own. You didn’t know I’d be sent to England to offer some help to the woman my brother loves, but what a folly it would be to refuse that help rather than to make use of it.’
Aphra didn’t move, didn’t want to be persuaded by words that made complete sense. ‘There is something in what you say, signor, except for your brother’s love. That was false, wasn’t it?’
‘No, it was not false,’ he said. ‘Leon has not stopped loving you.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘Because he’s told me so.’
She stared at him, only half-believing, then came back to sit facing him at the table. ‘Let me understand this,’ she said. ‘Yesterday when my father was here, you implied that he was already married when he was here in England.’
‘I said he was not free. He was in fact betrothed when he spoke of marriage to you, mistress, which he had no right to do. A betrothal is binding, as you know.’
‘Then why could he not have said this in his letter? It was garbled. It gave me no indication...’ she spread her hands, helplessly ‘...no facts at all.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You know? How do you know?’
‘I helped him to write it. He was terribly upset. He asked me to help him.’
‘So it was a family decision, was it? I see.’
‘No, you do not see,’ he said, countering her rising anger with his voice. ‘But there is nothing positive to be gained by delving further into the matter. He is now married at my father’s insistence. Leon’s problem is loving too easily.’
‘Well, thank you for that!’ she said coldly, getting to her feet with a very noisy scraping of the stool on the floor. Her eyes blazed at him, the colour of gunmetal. ‘He loved too easily. How inconvenient for the Datini family. And how many other gullible, love-starved women did he speak of marriage to? Was this a habit of his, this loving too easily? How many other letters did you help him to write, to avoid the unpleasant truth?’ Her voice grew harsh as it rose in anger, her sarcasm wilder, hitting out
in all directions.
Santo knew better than to attempt an answer to such questions, knowing that if he waited, she would hear the echo of her tirade and begin to calm down.
Simmering, she crossed her arms over her breast. ‘Loving too easily,’ she muttered. ‘Yes...well, that might be said about me, too. Perhaps we both mistook the signs. I certainly did, but then, what do I know about it? I thought love was like that. Straightforward. Uncomplicated. What a fool I was. Are you and your brother alike in this loving too easily, signor? You have a wife and family in Padua, I suppose?’
‘I am neither married nor betrothed, mistress. Not yet. But when I spoke of my brother loving too easily, I did not mean to imply that he was indiscriminate. I meant that, by nature, his passion for goodness and beauty is highly developed. He feels things deeply, in here.’ He laid a fist upon his chest. ‘And he appeared to believe that he might be released from his obligations if he explained matters to those concerned. But my father is a man to whom honour and loyalty is everything, and he refused to allow it. Leon has been obliged to keep his promises. It’s the law. Our family name carries considerable weight in Venice, you see.’
‘So, a prestigious marriage, then. Arranged, was it? Or a love match? No—’ she lifted a hand ‘—don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I wish her well of him, whoever she is. What a pity he lacks that prized honour and loyalty.’
‘As I said, mistress, he was distraught not to be able to follow his heart. He blames himself for what’s happened and begs you will forgive him.’
‘Then when you return, signor, just remind him of the love he has lost, will you? And tell him how I’m being courted by a wealthy old landowner who has his eye on my very large estate, too. And since that is my only value now, I might even work my way through a succession of noble old husbands who can add to my material wealth, until I—’
‘Stop!’ Santo said, emphatically. ‘This bitterness will not help matters.’
‘Then what will?’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘Give me leave to assist you, even if only for a few months while we sort out some issues, like the accounts and estate management, for example. If you haven’t yet seen the map of Sandrock, you presumably have not examined your property yet, have you? And you’ve already encountered some inconsistencies? Well, I can keep nuisances like old Pearce out of the way, if that’s what you want. I know from Leon that Dr Ben was more interested in his work than in being the owner of an estate like this. I would not get under your feet, mistress,’ he added, gently. ‘I shall keep out of your way. And although I cannot rescue the love you lost to my brother, at least I can pour oil on troubled waters, if you would allow it?’
Aphra did not reply immediately, but when she did, it was with a question about him. ‘What about your own work at home?’
‘I have some very capable managers and I have couriers to keep me informed. I have ships that come into Southampton and London, neither of which are too far from here, are they?’
‘What about the gossip?’
‘There are other male employees who live on the priory precincts, surely?’
‘There are. The bailiff. The churchwarden. The priest and the steward.’
‘Then perhaps I could be allocated a room, somewhere? I brought two men and a groom with me, all of them discreet and trustworthy, and English-speaking.’
‘Your baggage, signor?’
‘Is with your parents at Reedacre. Should I go and collect it, and tell them of our arrangement?’
Taking her face between her hands, she closed her eyes, whispering to herself, ‘What am I doing? What on earth am I doing?’
With one lithe movement of his body, Santo came to her, standing close. ‘It’s time to move on,’ he said. ‘Share the burden with me. That’s why I was sent.’
She nodded, eyes still closed, sighing again as questions filtered through her mind.
That is not why you were sent. Not all the way from Venice for my sake. I’ll not believe the Datinis care so much. So what is it you came for?
‘I’ll find you some rooms,’ she said, turning away, feeling the warmth of his body follow her.
Share the burden with me, he had said. It was what her father had offered, too, when she had moved into Ben’s old home, but she had assured him of her ability to manage, having had years of experience helping at home while he was in London. Had she shown any signs of being unsure, she knew he would have insisted on having his own managers here each day, an imposition she was anxious to avoid when her only desire was to be alone with her wounds, healing them in her own time. Spending so much of his time at the Royal Wardrobe, Sir George had little enough to spare in keeping her safe from the intrusions of neighbours. Master Pearce would never have challenged her ownership of the mill had she not been so vulnerable. And now she knew her parents would not hesitate to approve of the arrangement to allow Signor Datini to stay. But how approving would the villagers of Sandrock be?
Chapter Two
As soon as she had given her reluctant agreement, Aphra knew that this was indeed the madness of a woman not thinking clearly. To accept the help of a man at this unsettled time, when her emotions were so confused, was something she had been determined never to do. What had she been thinking of? Had it been his warmth as he stood too close? Why had she allowed that, when no stranger ought to have come so near?
Barely half an hour after Signor Datini’s departure, she sent one of the young estate workers to ride after him with a folded piece of paper taken from Ben’s store on which she had written her change of mind. He must not return to Sandrock, but go back to Padua, she had told him. She would manage well enough on her own.
Convinced that that was the last she would see of this unnecessary interference, the control which had almost slipped away now returned, helping her to justify the growing theory in her mind that there was some malevolent alchemy at work between herself and men that must be prevented from worsening.
Only last year, when she and her cousin Etta had been with the royal court, an attempt had been made on her life which others present had believed was intended for the Queen. Her own family knew differently, but the foolish young man responsible had suffered a traitor’s death and Aphra had been more deeply affected by this than she had disclosed to her relieved parents.
Then she had lost Leon, whose letter had made little sense to her, leaving her hurt, angry, confused, rejected and bitter. After that, her beloved uncle had died in London in what she felt were mysterious circumstances that had not yet been explained fully except to say that he had complained in the past of chest pains. Ben had said nothing of this to Aphra when he’d visited Reedacre Manor on his way to London, but by then she had had Leon’s letter and their conversation had been mostly about her pain, not Ben’s. He, too, had been profoundly shocked to hear of Leon’s deceit and had offered her what comforting words he could, but nothing in his manner had warned her that they would never speak again.
Her parents had dealt philosophically with her tragedies, pointing out that men were no more likely to deceive than women and that death visited at will and often without invitation. The recent death of old Lady Agnes, Aphra’s grandmother, had not been altogether unexpected, but none of them could have foreseen Ben’s sudden demise, a man in the full flood of life and brilliant at his profession. These losses in such a short time should not, they had told her, be seen as particularly significant, but they had discounted the desperate young man last summer while Aphra had not, nor had they taken into account their daughter’s vulnerable state of mind that preferred answers to the random workings of fate.
They had refused to take seriously her decision to remain unmarried for the rest of her life, but nor had they tried to persuade her otherwise. It was not her father’s way to propel her into a marriage of his choosing, not even for an only daughter, for he and his wife had fallen in love at first sight a
nd knew the workings of passionate hearts. For Aphra, however, her mind was immovable on that point, though she had not yet been successful in making her intentions understood by Master Richard Pearce.
Signor Datini’s visit had made her aware, though, of some issues that ought to be addressed without delay if Master Pearce should push forward his claim to some of her property, one of which meant finding the map of Sandrock that the man said had been replaced by a newer version. In itself, that was not so surprising, for land had been redistributed since the priory had been sold to Aphra’s grandfather for his own personal use. Doctor Ben had not wanted to keep all the fields under his control, so had sold some of them to the village freeholders, though Aphra did not believe this included the flour mill standing well within her boundaries.
The estate accounts were another issue she ought to have attended to by now, having been put off too many times by Master Fletcher, the steward whose job it was to discuss them with her every week. So far, she had not seen them at all and had come to the conclusion that she was not meant to, but a confrontation with the steward was not an inviting prospect when she would have to tackle it on her own.
* * *
Sleep evaded her that night, as it so often had recently. The full moon cast a silver light through her window, washing her room with a soft glow that changed all colours to monochrome, transmuting decisions into doubts and back again as the events of the day wandered through her mind. Questions remained unanswered. Why had Leon’s brother come all this way to see her? Why would the Datini family care about her? To share the burden, he’d said. What burden? Did they think she might pester him, perhaps? Write to his tutors at Padua? Did they feel some responsibility for his actions or was it just to discover more about her state of mind?
The Mistress and the Merchant Page 3
