HOLY POISON: Boxed Set: The Complete Series 1-6

by Margaret Brazear

  Richard danced a slow dance with his wife, holding her hand possessively when the dance allowed. He danced the next dance with Rachel and Estelle watched the pair carefully, looking for signs of over familiarity. Her mother might believe them to be mere friends; she was not sure she did.

  "You will stay with me tonight?" Rachel said as the musicians began to pack away their instruments.

  "I am very glad you asked," Richard replied. "We did rather take it for granted."

  All the other people here had London homes as well as mansions or manor houses in the country, but Lord Summerville, one of the wealthiest in the land, did not. Estelle asked him why.

  "I have no need of such a place," he replied with a fond smile. "I have no desire ever to spend time in London. I am only here at all because your mother bullied me into it."

  Estelle had to smile. Of course, he would do anything for her, but the idea of that tiny, slight lady bullying this strong, muscular man was bizarre and quite laughable.

  They all went back to Rachel's house, where Louisa was delighted to see His Lordship. She was a little more diffident with Bethany and very much abashed to speak to Joshua, but Richard she treated as an old friend.

  The house was easily large enough to accommodate everyone and Estelle waited downstairs for her parents to settle themselves in their bedchamber. She wanted to speak to Joshua and this seemed as good a time as any.

  "Well," She said abruptly. "What do you think to the lovely Lady Catherine? She certainly has her sights set on you."

  He smiled and she realised just how true were the words she had spoken to the Queen. He was looking more like their father every year.

  "I told her I would have to know her better before I could make a decision," he said. "She seemed quite put out, even suggested that our fathers would arrange things between them."

  "She expects that because her father is a Duke, you will be made to marry her."

  "Oh, dear," Joshua said with a familiar little playful smile about his mouth. "And I do so hate to disappoint a lady."

  ***

  Lord and Lady Summerville returned to Suffolk the following day, taking Joshua with them, but Estelle would stay a few more days lest more invitations were forthcoming.

  All the families were now on their separate ways to their country houses so she did not expect much activity and she was in Rachel's bedchamber, choosing some jewellery as a parting gift at her suggestion.

  "I want you to have something to remember this time with me," she said. "I have no use for all these jewels."

  "Where did they all come from?"

  "Gifts, mostly," she answered. "I have one of those faces that men cannot seem to resist and they think they can buy my favours with a few trinkets."

  Her tone was bitter and Estelle turned sharply to look at her. She blushed.

  "Forgive me," she said. "I do not want you to get the wrong impression about the opposite sex in general, but mostly they think women are there for their benefit. You need to be very careful and look long and hard for a man who will love you."

  "That is what my mother said," she replied. "She said it was very important to her and my father that I married a man who loved me and whom I could love."

  "I can understand that."

  "Did you love your husband?" Estelle asked impulsively, then wished she could take back the words, but Rachel was shaking her head.

  "I hated him," she answered gravely. "I have never known the sort of love your parents share. It will not be easy to find."

  She left Estelle to sort through her jewellery cases and choose something as a keepsake. What she found was a pearl necklace with a pendant bearing two Rs wrought from solid gold and placed carefully at an angle on top of one another. Richard and Rosemary? Estelle thought at once, but then what was it doing here? Richard and Rachel? If so, then Estelle’s mother had indeed been deceived and the villagers and tenants had been right all along. Rachel said she could choose anything, but she did not think the invitation would include this. She came back into the room just as Estelle was replacing it on its hook.

  "No, not that one," she said quickly. "I had forgotten that was there."

  "As I thought," Estelle replied turning to study her face. Her cheeks flared red and she reached across to take the necklace and clutched it in her hand.

  "A gift from my father?" Estelle enquired.

  Rachel’s eyes met hers and she was astonished to see tears glistening in their dark depths.

  "I have not seen that necklace for many years, not since he married your mother in fact, and it just gave me a start to see it again. I had almost forgotten it existed."

  She left the room then, the necklace still clutched in her hand and it was obvious to Estelle she would get no explanation.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When Estelle arrived home the following day, there was an unfamiliar carriage in the drive with a very impressive crest on the side. She wondered if it was perhaps the Duke of Deeping, making a further attempt to secure a promise from her father, but the man she saw emerging was the Earl of Cummings, the father of her dancing partner, Edward.

  She stayed out of sight until his coachman had driven off, then she went inside the house to be greeted by her delighted parents.

  "We have missed you," her father said at once, giving her a fond hug. "We need you here to keep the boys in line. All this attention from such a high quarter as the Duke has quite gone to your brother's head."

  Joshua stood grinning behind him, enjoying the joke.

  "Was that the Earl of Cummings who just left?" She asked. "Does he also have a pretty daughter looking to be the future Countess of Summerville?"

  "No, my love," Father replied. "He was here to offer you the chance to be the future Countess of Cummings."

  "And you told him..?"

  "I told him his son would have to come to the court I plan to hold, possibly even stay for a few days and get to know my beautiful daughter, but only if that scheme met with her approval. He seemed to think this very odd indeed and said he would have to think about it."

  "Thank you, Father," she said softly.

  "For what? I am astonished at the way these men think they have only to speak to me and I will order my only daughter's future on the basis of the riches and titles which will come her way. As if those things mean anything."

  She watched him thoughtfully for a moment, an established principle he always taught them suddenly becoming much more important in the light of all this attention and the material things these men believed important.

  "Father," she said at last, "you have always told us we are no better than anyone else, merely more fortunate."

  "Yes. What of it?"

  "Supposing Joshua wanted to marry Janie, or one of the other tenants' children, or supposing I did. Would we still be no better than them?"

  This idea had crept in amid the artificial atmosphere of court circles and made her wonder just how sincere that belief of his was. Joshua was watching him keenly as well; he too was looking for the answer to her question.

  Their father glanced at his wife and it was obvious she did not know the answer either. He was thoughtful for a very long time and when at last he answered, it was not what any of them expected to hear, despite his principles.

  "If there is a man among the tenants or villagers who will love you as I love your mother, who will love you enough to fit into this life into which you were born, as she has done for me, then I will welcome him. The same goes for your brothers." He turned to Joshua with his little playful smile. "Well," he asked him. "Do you want to marry Janie?"

  ***

  Estelle was about to go in to breakfast the following morning when she heard her parents discussing the present situation.

  "I am beginning to think we have not done right by them, Richard," she said. "We have taught them that they must meet and find their own life partners, but how are they supposed to do that? The Duke is not prepared to allow his daughter to spend ti
me here to get to know Joshua; he thinks that an affront to his dignity, an insult to his position. I expect he will already be looking elsewhere."

  "That is no bad thing," Richard replied. "From what Estelle said, she is no great loss. Her every wish has always been granted. Is it likely she could be a good wife to our son? He needs a woman who will care for him."

  "Richard," she said pleadingly. "Please do not measure everyone by your own experience. Rosemary was an exception, not the norm. You must know that."

  "I do," he answered gravely, "but I will not take the risk, not with my children's happiness."

  "Perhaps we should invite all these eager fathers and their children to stay for a few days," Bethany suggested. "I think they will accept. Deep down, most are in awe of you no matter what they pretend. You did narrowly escape the executioner. That rather elevates a man in the eyes of the world."

  "Very well," Richard was saying. "We will hold court such as this place has not seen since the days of King Henry. There are one or two people I would like to invite who I would love you to meet.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Do you remember when we were in the palace, for Mary’s coronation? Do you remember that lady who came into our apartment to hide from her husband?”

  Bethany laughed.

  “Yes, I do. You thought she had left him because he hurt her.”

  “I did, but she assured us that was not the case. Anyway, I have heard more about the couple since then and it seems they are quite devoted to each other. They have a son whom I would like Estelle to meet.”

  “Really?”

  “Only to meet. It strikes me that a man who loves his wife will teach his son to also love his wife.”

  “Who else?”

  “A man I worked with towards the end of the reign, Lord Adrian Kennington. He has three children, a son and two daughters.”

  “It all sounds very exciting,” Bethany said as she leaned forward and kissed him. “I hope I do not let you down. I have never hosted anything on this scale before.”

  “Of course you will not,” he told her firmly. “I only hope the Queen does not decide to invite herself."

  "The Queen?" Estelle cried out, running into the room, completely forgetting she should not have been listening. "She is not coming here, is she?"

  "I sincerely hope not," her father replied. "She will bring her entire court and there is no telling how long she will stay." Estelle looked puzzled and he went on: "Why do you think this house is so vast? It was built to accommodate the entire court in the days when the Summervilles were important at the palace. The King always travelled about the country, staying wherever he liked and bringing his entire household with him. We want only to invite those people who are relevant in this venture, although they had best not build up their hopes."

  They both stood up and left the dining hall, hand in hand as always. My goodness, thought Estelle, she did not even hold his arm as she had seen other couples do in London. They held hands like two children. She had never found their displays of affection to be inappropriate, but now she was realising just how different things were at Summerville Hall.

  ***

  When Lord Roxham received the invitation to Summerville Hall, his first reaction was to throw it in the fire, but he would do nothing so final without consulting his wife.

  “I do not understand why he is inviting us to his gathering,” Robert declared. “We are hardly allies.”

  “Why not? Your differences with Lord Summerville are surely in the long distant past.”

  “He was Mary’s right hand man, her closest advisor. He is proposing we take our son to meet his daughter.”

  “Not only his daughter, Robert,” Antonia answered. She reached out and took his hand. “From what I can see there will be other young people there. It may be a good opportunity to think about Robin’s future.”

  “He is a raging papist!” Robert spat.

  Antonia laughed.

  “If he was, he would hardly be proposing a meeting between our son and his daughter.”

  “You know what he was, you know what he did.”

  “You do not believe the tales then?” Antonia asked him. “You know it is well known he nearly lost his head for helping Protestants. Does that count for nothing?”

  Robert grunted.

  “It is true, he turned out to be something of a hero to the cause, but even so, I cannot countenance that his grandson may one day be Earl of Roxham.”

  They sat either side of the roaring fire, the exact same place, the exact same chairs where they had decided their best interests lay in each other. This was where she had laid down her conditions for marrying him and he could not help but smile to remember those conditions.

  But then they had fallen in love with each other, and he had almost lost her in giving birth to their only child.

  Now he needed to know that child would have the best future his father could possibly give him.

  “There will be lots of young people there,” Antonia was arguing reasonably. “Richard Summerville is one of the most important and wealthy noblemen in the country. You would be doing Robin no favours by refusing the invitation. Where else is he going to meet a suitable match?”

  Robert nodded.

  “You are right, as always. Suffolk is a long way from here; we will need to allow a few days for the journey. I want only what is best for our son, Antonia. I have been blessed; I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like had my father not made that stipulation in his will, had I married Camilla instead of you as I wanted. It would not have been a happy life as I have shared with you, my love, that is for certain.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him.

  “I too want what is best for our son. I know something about the Summervilles I have never mentioned before,” she went on. “That day at Whitehall, when I hid in their apartment to avoid meeting you, they were sitting together holding hands. That tells me they would have raised their daughter to be a woman worthy of our son.”

  “Really? I would never have imagined him behaving like that. Our son must marry a woman he loves; that is the most important thing.”

  “Do you remember when you got yourself wounded in that silly rebellion, how I promised you a son if you recovered? Well I am not going to let that son go to any woman who will not care for him.”

  He grinned playfully.

  “I only recall your promising me we could have fun trying for a son.”

  She slapped him, but smiled. He could always make her laugh, no matter how low she felt. Even when she thought he was trying to poison her, he managed to make her laugh.

  “What do you think?” He said now, waving the letter at her. “It could be that our son will be attracted to his daughter. What then? We have to be sure it will be acceptable. I never liked her father.”

  “You were jealous of her father.”

  “What?”

  “When I hid in his suite, you were afraid he might seduce me. I remember how relieved you were to learn his wife was with him.”

  “Well, yes, but he did have a reputation.”

  “I would like to go, to meet them again, especially her. I think Robin will benefit from it.”

  “Very well, we will go. Perhaps there will be another maiden there he can fall in love with.”

  ***

  “It will be a great opportunity for Susannah.”

  Adrian Kennington was delighted to receive the invitation from his old colleague and it had come just in time. His elder children had good matches already arranged, but he and his wife were having some qualms about the offers which had so far come for their youngest child.

  “If you are sure, Adrian,” Elizabeth said. “He it was who persuaded you to work with him, to risk yourself.”

  “I have told you before, darling, that was not his doing. Either way it is over and done with and it seems as though he is hoping for something to develop between his son and our daughter. It is certainly worth attendi
ng.”

  Elizabeth agreed. On a practical level the opportunity to be the future Countess of Summerville was not an offer to be taken lightly, but she wanted a love match for her daughter above all else.

  “I am concerned about his son,” she said. “You have not forgotten, I hope, the way His Lordship treated his own wife, the way he flaunted his mistress at court while his countess lived as a peasant. How do we know he has taught his son to be a better man?”

  “We do not, but that is something we must decide when we have met the young man. It does no harm to accept Richard’s invitation.”

  ***

  The court was fun and went on for a week. Summerville Hall had never seen so many people all at once in Estelle’s lifetime and extra help had to be employed from among the villagers.

  Although they all enjoyed it, Lord Summerville obviously disliked having so many people in his house. Lady Summerville seemed a little bemused by it all, as though it were something entirely new and unwelcome to her.

  "It is," she confirmed when asked about it. "I have never had to host anything like this before. I am not really sure I am up to it."

  "Do not be silly, Mother," Estelle assured her. "You are the Countess of Summerville; of course you are up to it."

  "That is the trouble, Estelle," she said nervously. "I do not feel like the Countess of anything. I feel like Mistress Bethany, merchant's daughter."

  "I am sure that is not what my father thinks and that is all that matters."

  "Yes, you are right. I am quite sure some of these people would not give me the time of day if they did not think it would offend him. I hope I never have to do this again."

  She looked distressed as she retreated to her bedchamber and Estelle was just wondering whether she should tell her father, when she heard a commotion in the great hall. The meal had not long been eaten and there were a few people still there, one man talking earnestly to Estelle’s father, but what she saw shook her out of her complacency. In the far corner of the hall, the Earl of Cummings had his wife's wrist in a firm grip and had twisted her arm. When she screamed he raised his hand and slapped her hard across the face.