Star-Crossed Summer

by Sarah Stanley

  Rosalind could only stare at him, struck dumb with fear, and it was left to Phoebe to let him in on his daughter’s guilty secret. ‘Be calm now, Jake, because you’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but—’

  ‘Don’t, Phoebe, please!’ Rosalind cried desperately. ‘It’s nothing, Dad, I swear!’

  ‘Enough, Rozzie. Go on, Phoebe.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure whether or not Rozzie’s with child.’

  A deathly silence fell upon the room, interrupted only by the sound of hammering from the forge, where Matty was making a new weathervane for the parish church.

  Jake stared, his mind emptied of all thought, but then he seized Rosalind’s arm. ‘Have you been with someone?’ he demanded, but she was shaking so much she couldn’t answer. ‘Answer me, damn it!’ he cried, anger beginning to thicken his voice.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have!’ she whimpered, shielding her head from the expected blow.

  ‘Who?’

  She was filled with dread. She’d been warned and warned again about Robert Lloyd, and had still gone with him. Now, faced with her father’s fury, her tongue froze.

  Phoebe answered for her. ‘The squire’s son,’ she said quietly.

  Jake shook Rosalind as a dog would a rabbit. ‘Is that right, Rozzie? After all that was said, you still went with him like a whore?’

  ‘Yes! Oh, yes, yes! You’re hurting me, Dad!’

  ‘I’ll do more than that, you damned little slut!’

  ‘I’m no more a slut than Beth was!’ she cried, trying to fight back.

  ‘Don’t speak of Beth like that!’

  ‘Why not? She went with you time and time again. I saw you. She’s a slut, but not me. I only went with Master Robert once!’ Her head jerked back as he struck her, and he would have struck her again had not Phoebe intervened anxiously.

  ‘Enough now, Jake, for she’s only a slip of a thing and you don’t know your strength. And what point is there in lamming her? What’s done is done.’

  Jake turned away, but his anger hadn’t left him. He looked at Rosalind again. ‘Don’t ever speak of Beth like that again, do you hear, girl? Right now you’re not fit to mention her name!’ He strode from the room, slamming the door behind him and, as his angry steps diminished down the path to the forge, Rosalind burst into tears.

  Phoebe went to comfort her. ‘There now, child, don’t take on so. It’s out in the open now. The truth now, you haven’t come on since that day, have you?’

  Rosalind shook her head. ‘But I’m going to, I know I am,’ she sobbed. ‘I can feel that tugging in my belly, and my breasts are sore.’

  ‘Pray God you’re right, Rosalind, because I don’t rightly know what your father might do if he finds he’s to be a grandfather.’

  ‘Do? To me?’ Rosalind’s breath caught with alarm.

  ‘No, dear, to Master Robert Lloyd.’

  Matty watched Jake hammer the horseshoe as if to consign it to perdition. Glancing at Jamie, who held the squire’s cob, the old blacksmith sat in his chair and lit his pipe. ‘Unless you watch it, Jake Mannacott, you’re about to smash everything to pieces, forge and all,’ he observed. ‘I like to see a craftsman, not a madman.’

  Jake paused, his muscles wet and shining in the firelight. ‘If I don’t beat all hell out of this, Matty, I’ll do something far worse.’

  ‘Oh?’ Matty puffed on the pipe. ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘Choke the bloody lights out of Robert Lloyd.’ Jake threw the hammer down, and plunged the shoe into the bucket of water.

  Jamie soothed the nervous cob as Matty sat forward in the creaky chair. ‘What’s that mangy hosebird done this time?’

  Jake glanced at Jamie, but then decided to blurt the truth anyway. ‘Messed with my Rozzie, that’s what.’

  Jamie’s jaw dropped, but Matty’s brows drew together. ‘Is she—?’

  ‘She says not, but Phoebe’s obviously none too sure.’ Jake rounded on Jamie. ‘And if one word of this gets out, I’ll break your neck!’

  ‘It won’t get out on account of me, Jake, I promise you that, but it’s long past time something was done about Master Robert.’

  Matty was uneasy. ‘That’s dangerous talk, Jamie, so hold your tongue. The likes of us have to put up with the likes of him.’

  ‘This is a new score to settle, on top of all the old ones.’

  Matty was sympathetic. ‘Your Jenny?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t do for him like I should back then, so this is my fault.’

  Jake put out a hand. ‘Steady on, you can’t go thinking like that. This isn’t your fault. You’re right about one thing, though, it’s high time Lloyd was brought to book.’

  The sun was setting as Robert urged his father’s bright bay thoroughbred, Jupiter, along the deserted exercise track, accompanied by his setter. He was intent upon the gallop because he’d rashly issued a challenge to Lord Welland’s jockey, Sam McCullogh, to a match with Welland’s top stallion, Galahad, over five miles at the Burford racecourse up in the Cotswolds. A great deal of money already rested on the outcome, so he needed Jupiter to be at the peak of fitness for the beginning of October, but when he spurred the horse for a blistering last hundred yards, the animal had nothing more to give. Reining in with a scowl, Robert tugged the horse’s mouth viciously before alighting. ‘What’s the matter, damn you?’ he breathed. Jupiter stamped, snorted and danced around nervously, his eyes rolling toward a gate, where last week he’d been stung by a wasp. ‘Oh, so you remember, do you?’ Robert muttered, pushing the inquisitive setter away as he tried to examine the horse. He found nothing wrong. Still muttering under his breath, he tethered Jupiter to some bushes before taking out a flask of brandy and flinging himself on the grass, where the setter joined him. He wished he hadn’t issued the challenge, but it was too late now and he’d lose face if he withdrew.

  Emptying the flask, he removed his hat to lie back. The late evening sun was warm, and the brandy felt fiery in his belly. He relaxed a little. If only he had a girl with him now, a ripe virginal receptacle like the Mannacott wench. Ah, yes, sweet Rosalind. He moved his hand to his groin, and rubbed gently as he remembered how eager and rewarding she’d been. His excitement mounted, and he opened his breeches to masturbate. The setter growled, but he took no notice. In his imagination he was bucking inside Rosalind again, storming her maidenhead and taking his selfish pleasure. But as he twisted sideways to soil the grass and not his clothes, he became aware of Jupiter’s uneasiness and then the setter’s renewed growling. Turning back, his dangling member still exposed, he found himself dazzled by brilliance of the fading sun, but then two shadows loomed over him and a forked stick stabbed one time down on either side of his throat, almost closing his windpipe. ‘A voice he didn’t recognize spoke with a contemptuous sneer. ‘Well, if it isn’t Onan giving his cock another tug.’

  He struggled helplessly and, as the shadow moved again he found himself staring up at Jamie. ‘Webb!’ he choked. ‘Are you mad? I’ll see you dead!’

  The setter’s growls became more menacing, and suddenly it leapt at Jamie, but a second figure, much larger, plucked it from the air and put great muscular hands around its throat. Robert’s light-blue eyes were wide with fear as the setter struggled and squirmed, but was no match for Jake’s strength. Gradually its movements became weaker, until at last they ceased, except for an occasional lifeless twitch.

  ‘Sweet God, sweet God,’ Robert breathed, trying to free himself from the fork.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, Lloyd,’ Jake said softly, tossing the dog aside.

  ‘You’ll pay for this, Mannacott. And you, Webb.’

  Jake gave a mirthless laugh. ‘No, my fine fellow, we’ll not pay even a farthing, because you’re going the same way as your dog. You’ve shot your load for the last time.’

  ‘Please—!’

  ‘Oh, so you’re begging me now, eh? Well, that’s something pleasant to remember you by.’ Jake’s teeth flashed white in a smile that
terrified a coward like Robert.

  Jamie suddenly took fright, unnerved by the darkness he saw in the blacksmith’s eyes. ‘No, Jake, let’s just rough him up a bit.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Jamie, he’s seen our faces now! Damn it, Rozzie’s right, you are a fool. Do you imagine he’ll walk away from this and kindly forget about us?’

  Jamie swallowed. ‘No.’

  ‘Right. I came here to see this bastard die for the things he’s done, and there’s no one here to stop me, right? If you’ve no stomach for it, you’d best go now, but if you’ve any respect for your Jenny, you’ll stay.’

  ‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘Then keep that stick in place.’

  Realizing that his life was about to be snuffed like a candle, Robert tried to scream, but Jake shoved a dirty kerchief into his mouth. ‘That’s enough of that. You’ve fancied yourself such a fine arrogant fellow, so it behoves you to act like a man now, not like one of the poor wenches you’ve ruined. If I could tie a knot in your prick, I would, but there’s not much there to get a grip on, eh? I’d be ashamed to own such a skinny worm of a thing. And to think you used it to ruin my Rozzie. Well, you won’t ruin any more wenches. Breathe your last, tomcat,’ he said softly, reaching down to Robert’s throat.

  Robert was so terrified that he lost control of his bladder, but it was the last thing he did before Jake’s fingers snapped his neck like a twig.

  Jamie turned away, retching, but at the same time a wild exultation began to hunt through him. It was done at last. Jenny, and all the others had been avenged.

  Matty, Phoebe and Rosalind waited in the kitchen, where only the ticking of the old clock on the mantelshelf broke the silence. They all turned nervously toward the door as Jake’s steps approached. He came in and leaned back against the door. ‘Robert Lloyd isn’t going to bother anyone again. We got him on the exercise track. It’s nice and quiet there.’ Jake’s smile was a travesty.

  Rosalind hid her face in her hands and began to sob, and Phoebe got up to fill the kettle and hang it over the fire. ‘Rozzie came on not half an hour since, Jake.’ He breathed out with relief, but when he went to put his hand on Rosalind’s shoulder, she shook free and ran up to her room.

  ‘Why insist that I drive you?’ Rowan asked, steadying Jane’s arm as he tooled the cabriolet speedily over another rut in the Frampney road. After an overnight frost had come a fine crisp October morning, with blackberries and old man’s beard in the hedgerows and gossamer in the air. There was a smell of woodsmoke from a perry apple orchard, where several trees had been uprooted in the August storm, and through the open entrance of a cottage lean-to they saw two old women working a pear press.

  Jane gripped the side rail and the handle of her folded lace parasol, and trusted an overhanging bramble would not ruin her silk hat. ‘I need a second opinion, and understand you are a good judge of horseflesh,’ she answered.

  Rowan raised a sly eyebrow. ‘Was dear Papa otherwise engaged?’

  ‘I have no idea because I have not approached him. He has become the very last person with whom I wish to spend time, which is why I have decamped to Whitend. And is also why you have joined me rather than stay at Tremoille House.’

  ‘Repenting at leisure, are we?’

  ‘Gloat away, it is your prerogative,’ she responded, frowning as dust flew over her jade pelisse and white muslin gown.

  ‘So you prefer your ne’er-do-well stepson to his sire?’

  ‘Needs must,’ she murmured, ‘for the Devil is certainly driving.’

  ‘I’m a dashing blade, Stepmama dearest, incapable of driving sedately.’ He laughed. His top hat was tipped back on his dark curls, and he was dressed as splendidly as all country gentlemen should, but his handsome face was battered and bruised, and there were bandages around his knuckles. ‘Why are you interested in this horse? What’s its name? Jupiter?’ Rowan asked, urging the high-stepping horse to greater effort.

  She nodded. ‘I’m interested because the squire’s son was to have raced it against McCullogh on Galahad.’

  Rowan slowed the cabriolet to a more acceptable trot. ‘Galahad, eh?’

  ‘Yes, and McCullogh admitted to being a little worried about the outcome. Galahad may be Lancelot’s full brother, but he isn’t Lancelot.’

  ‘His offspring may prove in Lancelot’s mould,’ Rowan pointed out.

  ‘One can but hope. Anyway, I’m of a mind to acquire Jupiter.’

  Rowan remembered something. ‘You said his son was to have raced it?’ He knew Robert and disliked him.

  ‘Lloyd the younger was killed last month. Murdered, it seems. He’d been out exercising Jupiter and was found with a broken neck, pinioned to the grass by a fork. Oh, and with his penis on show to the four winds,’ she added.

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘Anyway, Squire Lloyd no longer wishes to keep the horse, hence the sale.’

  ‘And I thought life in the country was peaceful and bucolic.’

  Jane looked at his bruised face. ‘What would you know of a peaceful life?’

  ‘Not much. Folk pay well to see Lord Welland’s heir getting a good drubbing. Each new shiner means a fat purse.’

  ‘Rowan, you’re destroying your looks. You’re such a handsome boy that it grieves me to see your face resembling a shambles.’

  ‘Do you have designs upon my virtue, Stepmama?’

  ‘What virtue?’

  He laughed. ‘Jane, I want to despise you, but you make it damned difficult!’

  ‘Don’t tell me I’m forgiven for throwing dear sweet Beth out in the cold?’

  ‘Hardly.’ Her words were an immediate damper upon his humour, reminding him that her cold ambition took precedence over everything else. He was ashamed of having briefly enjoyed her company. ‘Have you heard anything of Beth?’ he asked.

  ‘No, unless you count her shameful decision to become a blacksmith’s mistress.’ She eyed him. ‘From your question, may I deduce that Sir Guy Valmer hasn’t found her?’

  Rowan hesitated. ‘Yes,’ he said then.

  She hid her relief, but not well enough, for he smiled grimly. ‘Ah, how you worry, Stepmama, as well you might, since you told Papa such fiblings about Esmond Tremoille’s final will and testament.’

  ‘You aren’t privy to anything, Rowan, nor is Sir Guy. There wasn’t another will. Esmond disinherited Beth in my favour, and that is that.’

  Rowan suddenly wanted to unsettle her. It was an impulse he couldn’t resist and immediately regretted, but was done in a trice and could not be undone. ‘Ah, but you and I know there is another will. Why else would you go to London to see old Withers?’

  Her lips parted. ‘I had no idea my private appointments with a solicitor were being made public. I will have to remonstrate with the loose-tongued fellow.’

  ‘So you admit it?’

  ‘That I went to ask him about the will? Yes, of course. Rowan, I am as intrigued as everyone else to know what Esmond wrote in the mysterious letter to Beth, and of course I wondered if there might, after all, be another will. But now I am sensible again and accept that Esmond intended me to have everything.’

  The Devil still perched on Rowan’s shoulder, prodding him into an irresponsible disclosure. ‘You’re wrong, madam. Your late husband decided to cut you out and reinstate his daughter. The will is irrefutable, and is now in Guy’s possession. All he lacks is Beth to complete his plan. Where will that leave you, Jane? If Papa merely sulks with you now, he’ll be deranged when he learns once and for all that you lied in order to marry him.’

  Jane managed not to react overtly, but it took such an effort that she felt sick. ‘Sir Guy has forged it. Even if he finds Beth and makes her his wife ten times over, the inheritance remains mine, as I trust you will inform him.’ At last the Devil flew away, and Rowan was appalled to have broken his word to Guy. His silence aroused Jane’s curiosity, but she couldn’t read him. ‘By the way, how long will you be in London?’ she asked.

  ‘I, er, hav
e no idea. Possibly until the new year.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, it would please me if you were to come home for Christmas. And, if my intuition serves me well, it would also please your father. It is in your own interest to be snug with him again. Better to have title, country pile and fortune.’

  ‘I rather thought you had your sights on the pile and the fortune,’ he observed.

  ‘Rowan, all I ever wanted was your father.’

  ‘You took Beth’s home and fortune,’ he reminded her.

  ‘A crime for which I am now endeavouring to make amends by being on guard for you. Rowan, did you know that your father has an illegitimate son? Slightly older than you from all accounts.’

  Rowan was stunned. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Damn it, Jane, you can’t come out with this and then refuse to say more!’

  ‘I’m not refusing to say it, Rowan, I really and honestly don’t know any more.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  Jane smiled a little ruefully. ‘Well, one of my great failings is that I do not trouble myself with other people’s privacy. I found the drawer of your father’s desk open and his diary inside. He is considering sending for this son to replace you. No title, of course, for that is not transferable, but certainly the young man, whoever he is, would have the lands and fortune.’

  ‘I must read that diary.’

  ‘You’ll be wasting your time. I read it from cover to cover and only found the bald reference to the young man. So take care, Rowan, common sense must prevail.’

  The first cottages of Frampney came into view, but Rowan’s consternation made him headstrong, and he cracked the whip to fling the horse forward again. The cabriolet flew, as did the dust, and Jane sat rigidly, wondering if Rowan was intent upon an overturn? As they emerged into the wide stretch of the village green, the horse’s head came up suddenly and its pace became uneven. ‘Damn and blast, I think it’s a cast shoe,’ Rowan muttered, reining in.