Spring blossomed, the routine becoming a bit dull. By the end of April, the household busily prepared for the annual trip to Rochcliffe House. This time, the footman was told to stay behind, which upset Jake and Mara to no end, as that meant two-and-a-half months apart—pure torture! Usually the trip to the country was their favorite part of the year, since they spent so much time riding horses and exploring the grounds. This year, what was Mara going to do without Jake, with only her brothers and cousins for company?
So it was with a heavy heart that Mara climbed into the coach with her parents. Behind the coach was a wagon of luggage and servants. Gigi, Termins, and Portia stayed behind to handle the house, and Jake and Alvin remained behind to maintain the gardens. Basil and Rory were going to the country to tend the Rochcliffe gardens that the viscount seemed to have difficulty maintaining. And since Lady Maureen wasn’t fond of the French cuisine served by the cook at the manor house, she insisted on bringing Mr. Fout. Mara’s brothers would join them all later when school was out.
As the family and other servants left that morning in early May, those left behind waved, one of them his heart heavy with brutal loneliness.
*****
Mara was despondent. She hadn’t been to the country without Jake for the past five years. And it didn’t sit well with her. The trip seemed to take twice as long as normal. If the trip up felt that long, what would the following two-and-a-half months feel like?
The day after they arrived, Mara stood at the paddock watching the stable hands exercise the horses. She loved watching the horses’ rippling muscles and their smooth movements as they walked, trotted, and galloped in circles around the paddock. In years past, she had enjoyed helping Jake and Calvin work the horses, but without Jake here the stables just weren’t that interesting.
As she stood watching, a thought crossed her mind. Calvin had once told her that they exercised the horses to keep them strong and sleek. Lots of food with little exercise ruined a horses’ ability to take a rider or pull a carriage, so exercising them was very important. Exercise. Strong. Sleek. Sleek, she thought again. I need to be sleek. She had continued to lose weight after her illness, due to her stomach having shrunk and her feeling fuller faster. She estimated she was down about two stone or so, as her clothes were quite loose. No one except Jake and Alvin had seemed to notice, however.
She leaned against the paddock railing, thinking about exercise and sleekness. How would a human do what the horses do? Walk, trot, gallop. Walk, trot, gallop. Maybe she should walk, trot, and gallop, too. She looked down at her too-big dress and shoes, which were not much more than slippers. She couldn’t exercise in this outfit! She watched Calvin for a while longer as he exercised Zeus. Calvin would trot along sometimes. Other times he would just turn in a circle, tapping the horses’ hindquarters with a long pole and whip. Calvin moved well in trousers and thick work boots. Maybe she needed trousers and work boots, too. Having found the boys lots of clothes in the attic of the London house, she thought maybe she could find items for herself in the attic here.
Mara turned on her heels and quickly went to the small castle that was the ancestral home. There had been Markhams in this place for two centuries. The attics should be a treasure trove!
She wound her way up the main staircase, then the stairs to the third floor where the servants slept, then to the attic stairs, slipping not-so-silently though a squeaky door. She listened for a moment to see if the squeak had caught anyone’s attention. Not hearing anything, she began to wander around the attic, looking in various trunks and boxes. She sneezed several times, as the amount of dust was astounding. However, the attic was a lot emptier than she had expected. Little did she know that her Uncle Cecil had been selling most everything of value to keep his family solvent. So all the good items from the attic were long gone.
She finally found a pair of gabardine trousers that looked like they might fit if she hemmed the legs a bit. Then she unearthed a shirt and belt. Shoes were now the object of her search, and after a while she found some crusty old work shoes that fit. They just needed a little cleaning to be serviceable. So off she went with her items to her room to prepare for exercise.
She worked all evening, sewing the trousers until they fit like a glove. The shoes came back to life as she cleaned them with a stiff brush and some soap and water. The soles were intact, and she pulled laces from her own shoes to replace the rotted ones in the work shoes.
Then she went to sleep, dreaming of her new exercise regimen.
*****
Mara ate a good breakfast of eggs and fruit, trying to stay away from the bacon dripping in fat and the sweet pastries made with lard. She figured that fat begat fat, so she’d avoid eating fat!
She returned to her room to change into the pants, shirt, belt, and work shoes, putting her dress back over the top. Then, with book in hand, she found Cecilia and her mother in the parlor with Aunt Bernice, tatting and sewing. “I am going to find a comfortable place in the gardens to read,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“Have a nice time, dear,” replied her mother, waving her hand a bit as Mara left the room.
Cecilia smiled. “That girl just loves to read. Maybe she will be a famous author herself someday.”
“What she needs to be is a good wife and mother, but she has no interest in the workings of a household or taking care of her looks or finding a husband,” Lady Maureen sighed. “She told me she didn’t want to marry. Can you imagine? I just don’t know what to do with her.”
Lady Bernice patted her sister-in-law on the arm. “She’ll eventually come around. She’s still very young, and doesn’t yet understand the womanly ways. Give her time. If, by nineteen or twenty, she is still acting that way, then you and I can worry about it!” Lady Maureen smiled back at her.
“You are so right. At sixteen, she is still a child. Edwin is eighteen, and barely making it through school. It is probably he that I should be worrying about at the moment!” The ladies laughed and chatted merrily on a myriad of topics as they continued their needlework.
Chapter 23
Mara found a lovely private spot in the garden, away from the house. She pulled off her dress, folding it up and placing it behind a rock. She laid her book on the bench, open and face down. Anyone coming by would think she was taking a break from reading, and wouldn’t think to look for her.
She had started down the path in a walk, warming up her muscles, and then she trotted for a while in the woods, and then ran for about twenty yards. She repeated this sequence of walking, trotting, and running around the entire path.
Now she was utterly exhausted, and hurt everywhere. Egad! Is losing a little weight worth this kind of torture? she wondered. She wasn’t sure, but at least it kept her mind off her loneliness, and gave her a goal to work toward. So she put her gown back on and began to read her book in earnest.
The next morning she was quite sore so she only walked, but by the following day, she could trot a bit again.
She spent the next two months eating smaller portions and doing her daily exercises. The weight began melting off. She had no way of knowing how much she weighed when she started, or how much weight she lost. She could only gauge her progress by how her clothes fit. And they started to hang off her.
She didn’t want anyone to know she was losing weight. It was her secret, and she was afraid that if people noticed, it would be harder for her. So she devised a way to look her old size under her dresses while hiding her new size.
Mara took two towels, one larger than the other, and a strip of cloth that she could tie all the way around her. She rolled the towels around the strip, side by side with about five to six inches between them and tied them in place with string. She then placed the larger towel mass over her breasts and the smaller on her upper back, the cloth going around her under her arms and ending where she could tie a small knot. When she put on her dress over this makeshift padding, the device made her look bigger.
And it worked like a cha
rm, since only Cecilia gave her odd looks now and then as if she knew something was different, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“Child,” she said one day, “what is going on with you? You are very secretive, and your face looks different.”
“Just too much fresh air, I guess. See, I have a lovely tan.”
“Lovely sunburn is more like it, with your fair skin.”
“I am really enjoying my time in the gardens just reading.”
“You make sure you are just reading. If Jake were here, I’d suspect you two were up to something, as you, he, and Al are always up to something. But without them here...” Cecilia shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m fine, Cecilia. Really. Just enjoying my solitude, that’s all.” Mara gave a sweet smile. “Since all the boys are now home from school, avoiding them is a good thing, don’t you think?”
If all this was to avoid the brothers and cousins, then Cecilia was fine with it. But there was still something nagging at her, and she just couldn’t figure it out.
*****
Jake had his own tough time back in London. There wasn’t enough to keep him busy, with only two horses in the stables. Once he exercised them in the mornings, and played with Lilac for a bit, he was done for the day and bored out of his mind. There wasn’t a lot of repair work to do, and Alvin didn’t want him anywhere near the gardens, since he couldn’t tell the difference between a bush and a tree, let alone between a weed and Basil’s precious petunias.
After being kicked out of the gardens by Alvin, out of the kitchens by Gigi, and out of the house by Termins, he decided that Luke and Pete would be better company, and went to visit them. He had Gigi pack him a big lunch, and left everyone at the estate to their own devices while he wandered into town.
Luke kicked him out, too, as he had loads of work to do, and Jake drove him crazy. So off he went to Pete’s, where at least he could help keep the fires burning or do some heavy lifting.
“So why didn’t you go to the country, man?”
“Punishment, I suspect. Beating me for no good reason obviously wasn’t enough, so keeping me away from the family is just more of the same.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid. What that is doing is punishing Cal, who now ‘as to do your work as well as his. Markham is a horse’s ass.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And our Angel is stuck out there with her brothers and cousins all by herself, having to put up with their high jinx as well.”
“Haven’t they outgrown making Miss Mara’s life miserable?” Pete cocked his head to the side, quizzically.
“Nope. We really like it when they are at school and not around to bother us. Even Al is happier, as Bertram likes to torment him to no end by stomping on the flower beds and kicking dirt all over him while he works.”
“Money. They think it buys you the right to act like a bunch of arses. I just dinna get it.”
“You and I should run the world, Pete. Not the likes of the Markhams.”
“You got that, brother. you got that right!”
After working the bellows for Pete, Jake was hot and sweaty, so he pulled off his shirt and turned around to hang it on a hook.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” Pete yelled as he saw the scars on Jake’s back.
Jake turned around with arms out to show Pete his chest too. “Like it? I had it custom made at the Lord Markham tattoo parlor down the road a piece. No other like it. Four strikes the first time, eight the second. Even dozen.”
“Blimey, man. There ain’t an inch o’ skin on your back that is unmarked!” exclaimed Pete as he walked around Jake to appraise the damage. “I’ll be damned. Ain’t never seen anything like this. Look at your side and chest, too! I’m surprised you didn’t die, man!”
“Believe me, I thought I was going to.”
Pete shook his head in awe and went back to work, never again mentioning the scars.
The banter continued for hours, day after day. Jake’s wounds healed with the hard work, and he began to build muscles to match.
“If you wanna be as strong as an ox, you need to be a smithy,” Pete’s boss, Max, had told the boys years ago, just after he had taken on Pete as an apprentice. Jake absolutely believed it.
The work felt good, the muscles felt good, and the company felt great. Pete was an able doctor for Jake’s soul, helping to heal his emotional wounds. Jake was no longer fixated on killing Markham. Escape seemed a better option, but how? That was the big question. How to take Mara along was the bigger question.
*****
The day finally came for the Markham family to pack up the carriage and wagon and return to London. Lord Markham’s business dealings required his attention. It wasn’t that he stopped doing business at Rochcliffe House; it just took more effort from afar.
Yet he considered this trip to have been a success, for he finally called in all the chits and IOUs from his brother. The viscount was shocked when he saw the total amount he’d borrowed from his brother over the years to keep himself solvent. The bastard had kept every chit, not letting a single pound go by unchecked.
The viscount had sold heirlooms from the estate as well, and when Markham found out, he was furious. For years, Cecil was forced to allow Evelyn first right of refusal to buy any heirloom, which made it harder to make money. Evelyn had most of the items Cecil had sold, along with tens of thousands of pounds worth of IOUs he was calling in. Cecil had always been the weak one, but being firstborn meant the title, land, and most of the family fortune had come to him. Evelyn had taken the small inheritance he received and turned it into a gold mine of businesses around the British Isles, but Cecil had squandered his share.
Now Markham demanded Rochcliffe House in exchange for all the chits. The viscount was heartbroken. His son, Oscar, would inherit the title, but nothing else. Markham would allow the viscount and the viscountess to live in the castle for the rest of their lives, but he would not house or support their three sons past the age of twenty-one. Oscar was already twenty-four; his middle son, Oakley, twenty-one; and his youngest, Orville, eighteen.
Cecil had a choice to make—either go to debtors’ prison, or give the ancestral home to Evelyn. Neither sat well with him, but living in his brother’s keep was better than languishing in prison. So he handed over the deed to the estate in Waltham in front of a group of overzealous barristers. Now he had the unpleasant task of telling Oscar and Oakley they would have to find jobs and housing. Their best recourse at this juncture would be to find wealthy women to marry.
Chapter 24
Mara could barely contain herself on the trip back to London. It seemed like they would never arrive home, and when the carriage finally pulled into the gate, she almost jumped out before it stopped. No one paid any attention to her as she ran up the front stairs, down the back stairs, through the breezeway, and into the stables to look for Jake. But he was nowhere to be found, upstairs or down. Blimey! She picked up a book on the table, opened it, and laid it face down on his bed, hoping he’d realize only she would do that. Then she went back to the house to wait.
After dinner, Jesse stopped Mara as she exited the dining room to tell her Jake waited in the garden.
Grinning from ear to ear, she went up to her room to remove her “fat” towels before running out of the house and across the drive and lawn to their special copse, certain Jake would be there. Only he wasn’t. Darn it all! So she waited.
Jake watched his love run by (and run well, too!) on her way to the copse. He hid in the shadows of the trees, watching to make sure no one followed her. He couldn’t be too careful now; he would be in grave danger if they were ever caught together again. After about five minutes, he decided it was safe, and worked his way to the trellis.
There she stood in the dusk—his sweet, familiar love. But something was different about her. As he was trying to figure out what it was, she saw him and opened her arms. He rushed the last few feet, caught her up in his arms and swung her around, pressing his lips to hers.<
br />
Jake put her back down almost immediately, shocked. He drew back and took both sides of her dress in his hands, gathering the loose material until finally he could see the outline of her new body underneath all that cloth. Even though she wasn’t slim yet, she had lost a tremendous amount of weight, and was much thinner, with lovely curves. The word voluptuous came to Jake’s mind.
“Hey, gorgeous! Where’d you go? You’ve disappeared! Who are you, and what have you done with my big, beautiful Mara?”
Mara giggled. “Do you like the new me?”
“Like? I am in awe of you, my love. Look at you!” And with that, he gathered her up to him again, and gave her the most sensual kiss he could muster.
Mara had been waiting for this moment for over two months, and released all those weeks of pent-up frustration and passion through her lips, her tongue, her roaming hands, and her body, as she pressed herself against him as hard as she could. She noted new curves of his own, muscles shaping across his arms and back.
Jake felt the passion burning through him. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t remember who or where he was. He was totally consumed by her touch, her lips, and her passionate embrace.
He moved his hands over the vast material of her dress, trying to find her under all that extra cloth. He finally moved his hands to her face, cupping her chin in them before moving his right hand over her shoulder. With his left hand he caressed the back of her neck, drinking of her mouth and tongue under his power.
Mara: A Georgian Romance Page 13
