‘I hadn’t thought.’
‘Then think now, for I wish you to be my bride-maid, and I would regard it as a great honour if you permitted me, a wife by then, to be your maid of honour.’
Beth was startled. ‘Is that what you really want?’
‘Yes, of course. Beth, you will have to start accepting that I am happy with the way things have turned out. I would still be marrying John even if you hadn’t come here to snap Landry up. There, do you believe me at last?’
Beth laughed. ‘Yes, I do, and of course we will wait upon each other.’
‘Have you decided on a wedding date yet?’
‘Well, we intend to let you and John enjoy all the attention first. We thought perhaps early April.’
‘When the daffodils blow? It will be beautiful.’
‘Well, you will have snowdrops.’ Beth looked out at the snow. ‘Mrs Cobbett vows the spring will be warm, settled and early. Something to do with her sister’s big toe and the way the smoke goes up chimneys at midnight.’
‘Then considerate it gospel,’ Harriet answered with a laugh.
‘She also read my tea leaves and told me that the betrothal ball will be the talk of Devon for years.’
‘Indeed?’ Harriet laughed again. ‘Then it is going to be a splendid success!’
‘You think so? Well, she also muttered something morose about needing many lights because it was midwinter. It was most out of character.’
Harriet groaned. ‘Oh, no, not that old belief again. If you dance at midwinter you’ll need many lights to show the way. It’s superstition, Beth, something about the darkness of the season. It’s all nonsense. The evening will go off brilliantly.’
‘If I survive meeting so many people.’
‘You’ll deal with them all as befits the future mistress of Haldane.’
Beth pulled a face. ‘Or they’ll deal with me for the upstart I am.’
‘Please don’t worry,’ Harriet replied soothingly. ‘Oh, Beth, I do envy you the ball. Landry is going to such extraordinary lengths to make it an occasion to remember, what with a fancy French chef from the Pulteney Hotel in Piccadilly, an orchestra that has played at Almack’s, and so many hothouse flowers that I believe he must have sent raiding parties to every estate in the south-west. Such roses, carnations, orchids and lilies, such exotic greenery and mosses, such— Oh, words fail me.’
‘Thank goodness, because you make it sound as if I will need to fight through the undergrowth in order to tread a measure of Sir Roger de Coverley,’ Beth replied with a forced grin. Haldane House was already filled with guests from all over the west, and more than anything she dreaded encountering an old acquaintance. The past stepped close again. It was never far away.
Harriet spoke again. ‘You haven’t invited anyone, have you?’
‘No. I have no family now, and as I came here to start a new life, I haven’t invited any former friends.’
Harriet shifted a little awkwardly. ‘May I ask you something really personal?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Well, aren’t you concerned that there will be talk because you and Landry often spend the night together?’ Beth didn’t know what to say, and her cheeks were suddenly on fire. Harriet smiled. ‘Forgive me, it’s just that I hardly imagine you sleep separately, and that being so, aren’t you in the least concerned, well, that you may conceive?’
‘I can’t conceive,’ Beth replied, still hugely embarrassed, but at the same time seeing little point in pretence. ‘Don’t ask me how I know, just take my word for it.’
Harriet leaned across to touch her hand. ‘I don’t disapprove, Beth. If I thought I could get away with enjoying physical love with John, then I would, but my father has developed a thousand ears and eyes.’
Beth laughed then. ‘Oh, Harriet, you are incorrigible.’
‘True. Now then, I will ask you something much more proper. Have you been practising with the Haldane diamond ring? How are you getting on?’
‘It’s a struggle. I have to wear it over a glove, or it keeps falling off. I know Landry is going to have it made smaller, but it can’t be done in time for tomorrow.’
‘Persevere, my dear, because the larger the diamond, the more to flaunt. It’s been worn by every Haldane bride since before the dawn of time.’
Beth laughed. ‘It’s as delicately wrought as a Norseman’s axe.’
‘True. It’s strange really. If Landry’s elder brother Gerald hadn’t been killed, then his bride would have worn it.’ Harriet gazed out at the snowflakes idling through the brittle air, and Beth lowered her glance, knowing what had happened when Gerald died. The chariot halted outside a familiar door, now decorated with Christmas evergreens, and Harriet spoke briskly. ‘Ah, I do believe we are at Miss Archer’s. I hope your gown is ready, because I’m looking forward to seeing you in it.’
‘I am no longer sure that silver-sprigged green silk was a good idea.’
‘It’s perfect. Do stop fussing. Besides, it’s too late now, and even Miss Archer’s nimble fingers couldn’t produce another gown by tomorrow evening.’
Miss Archer welcomed them both inside. A bowl of holly stood on the counter, and a garland of ivy and mistletoe was draped along the mantel above the small welcoming fire. It was discreetly festive. ‘Oh, ladies, ladies,’ she cried, ‘the gown is finished. I was up all night stitching the pearls, and the result is exquisite, truly exquisite.’ She ushered them to the inner sanctum, her grey taffeta skirts rustling as she lifted a linen-shrouded gown down from the picture rail. Removing the cover, she draped the gown expertly over the back of a chair and awaited admiration.
Both Beth and Harriet stared in wonder. Rapt, Beth ran her fingertips over the beautiful silk. The gown’s low, square neckline was thickly embroidered with silver thread and edged with tiny pearls, as were the little puffed sleeves and hem, and the effect was delightful. Harriet spoke first. ‘Oh, Beth, it’s worthy of royalty. You will surely put my nasturtium tissue to shame. It’s like frost on new spring leaves,’ she declared romantically. ‘Oh, you’re going to steal everyone’s thunder tomorrow night.’
After midday, when the snow had stopped and the sun came out for a while, Beth decided to go for a ride. The white countryside was dramatic as she made her way up to Haldane again, intending to ride in Stone Valley and be back at the Dower House before dark, but on the way she encountered Carrie Markham and Katie, who was carrying her King Charles puppy, Pompey.
Beth reined in. ‘Hello, Miss Markham. Hello Katie.’
The little girl beamed at her and responded politely, but Carrie only gave a cool nod. The blue ribbon holding the amulet was still around her fragile neck, but she was a living corpse. ‘How are you, Miss Markham?’ Beth asked.
‘We’re looked after properly,’ Carrie replied, as good as telling Beth to keep her nose out of what didn’t concern her.
Katie put the puppy down, and he immediately gambolled away into the woods beside the steep road. ‘Oh, naughty Pompey!’ she cried, hurrying after him.
Carrie became anxious. ‘Don’t go out of sight, Katie!’
‘I won’t,’ the little girl called back.
Shouting made Carrie cough, and the phlegm rattled in her wasted lungs. She reached out to support herself against a wayside tree, and Beth began to dismount in concern, but Carrie stopped her. ‘No, I’m quite all right, thank you. It will pass in a moment.’ She’d put a handkerchief to her mouth, and when she drew it away again it was thickly spattered with blood.
‘You ought not to have come out on such a cold day,’ Beth said gently.
‘The child needed a walk.’
‘If there’s anything I can do to help?’
‘There’s nothing. All that can be done has been done. Except.…’ Carrie’s eyes burned with a mixture of dislike and anxiety. ‘Miss Mannacott, will you still allow Katie to be taken in at the big house?’
‘Of course. Miss Markham, I will not do anything to harm Katie’s future. S
he is Mr Haldane’s daughter and will be accorded every privilege. I will try to be as good and loving a stepmother as possible, if she’ll have me.’ Beth smiled a little, hoping her words were a comfort to the dying woman.
Carrie suddenly came over to grasp Snowy’s bridle and look up at her urgently. ‘Miss Mannacott, there’s something important you should know. I—’ She broke off as Katie’s scream rang from the woods.
‘Mama, Pompey’s got a thorn in his paw!’ The little girl ran toward them with the puppy in her arms, and Beth dismounted to see what could be done. Carrie’s alarm brought on another bout of coughing, so Beth attended to the thorn, which thankfully came out easily. When Carrie’s coughing subsided, Beth expected her to finish what she’d been about to say, but she didn’t. Instead she murmured something about it being too cold after all, and then she and Katie began to retrace their steps toward the lodge. The incident dampened Beth’s interest in the ride, and she turned to go back to the Dower House. What had Carrie been on the point of telling her? Well, if it was that important, no doubt it would eventually be divulged.
It was as well she cut short the ride, because by the time she reached home the skies had clouded over again and heavy snow began to fall. When darkness approached, the clouds were livid as the winter sun sank beyond the horizon in another veiled blaze of unnatural and unsettling colour.
Chapter Twenty-two
Snow had fallen in Gloucestershire too, and by the following morning was lying thickly over the Cotswold escarpment. Drifts blocked roads and silence presided over the hills. Some flakes still floated down as Jane sat at her embroidery frame in the drawing-room at Tremoille House. She didn’t particularly like embroidery, but ladies were meant to do such things, and she, God help her, was now officially a lady. There were Christmas decorations festooned around, holly, mistletoe, ivy and evergreens, but yuletide joy was most definitely absent. She had been endeavouring to make her peace with Thomas by joining him for the so-called festive season, and some progress had been made, until Rowan’s return from London two days ago. Now there was friction, and it was clear that father and son would never mix. She glanced up at Rowan, who stood by the window. Even at this early hour there was a glass of Esmond’s best cognac in his hand. His dark hair was ruffled and his clothes dirty because he’d just returned from helping with some distressed deer in the park. Why was it that a man was always attractive, regardless? If a woman appeared in a similar state, she would simply look bedraggled. Bruises notwithstanding, Rowan Welland remained handsome. He had a romantic air, and a warmth and winning charm that would one day wreak havoc. And his lazily sensuous way of glancing suggested he observed his cousin Guy.
‘Is my coiffure a little awry, Stepmama?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re staring.’
‘I’m pondering the trouble you’ll cause when you enter the lists of love.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Moi? I’ll be as virtuous as a monk.’
‘That will be the day, sir.’ Maybe the moment was right to reason a little with him. ‘Rowan, you know how it annoys your father when you mix with the labourers.’
‘An extra pair of hands made the difference between those deer living or dying. I hardly stained my birthright by such a commonsensical act.’
‘Nonetheless—’
‘Damn your nonetheless,’ he replied with studied amiability.
Her lips twitched. ‘Don’t you think it’s a little early to be drinking?’
‘It’s never too early, and I’ll know when I’ve had enough because I’ll fall flat on my well-bred arse. Besides, I have Papa’s example to follow, although, of course, he has the brass neck to accuse me of being a drunkard.’
‘You both drink too much.’
‘Not according to him, Stepmama.’ He downed the remainder of the cognac and then went to replenish the glass. ‘Look, I paid attention to your advice and returned here for the joy of Christmas, but from the outset it’s been clear that my father and I will never get on. We’ll always loathe each other. Let him call upon his bastard son.’
‘Hush! We’re not supposed to know anything about that.’
‘Tell me something, Stepmama, if you could turn back the clock, would you still have become Lady Welland? The truth if you please.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. Never has any woman more regretted allowing her youthful dreams to obscure the unpleasant truth. Your father is a toad, he’s always been a toad, and he always will be a toad. I wish I’d realized that sooner rather than later.’
‘Would you still have turned poor Beth out in the cold?’
Jane pretended to select another thread and compare it shade for shade with her stitches. ‘Beth and I didn’t hit it off,’ she murmured.
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do, Rowan.’
‘Ah, the blessed chirrup of a stirring conscience.’ Rowan raised the full glass to her. ‘So it grates upon you when dear old Papa whines that the bottom has dropped out of half the world’s finances, that thousand upon thousand of soldiers are discharged into unemployment, and that the banks are closing their doors because finance is so rickety.’
‘Well, those things are only too true.’
‘Indeed so, but I’ve heard your sharp little teeth grind when he starts. If he’s so bothered about money, why does he keep the Tremoille and Welland studs, as well as maintaining Whitend and this great Cotswold barn? Ah, but I was forgetting, he’s terrified to get rid of Whitend, in case this little palace is snatched away by Guy. And he’s terrified of Whitend in case it becomes submerged.’
‘You’re always such entrancing company, Rowan,’ Jane murmured.
Rowan grinned suddenly. ‘Well, I’m off to Gloucester,’ he declared. ‘Coming?’
‘In this snow? Certainly not.’ She looked at him. ‘Why on earth are you going?’
‘Taffy Hughes.’
‘Who?’
‘The mad Welshman who blotted my pretty face a while back. He’s taking on all-comers at the winter fair, and I’m of a mind to have some revenge.’
‘Oh, Rowan—’
‘No, my mind is made up. Besides, if I don’t beat the daylights out of Hughes, I’m in danger of doing it to dear Papa.’
Thomas’s voice growled from the doorway. ‘Doing what to dear Papa?’ He stood there, still in his gold brocade dressing-gown, his wide-set eyes bright and suspicious. There was an almost hunted alertness in his stance, and his fingers were constantly moving. He was obviously far too tense and agitated, but so far had refused to listen to anyone’s entreaty to visit his Cheltenham doctor. ‘Doing what to dear Papa?’ he demanded again, blocking the doorway so that Rowan could not leave.
‘Asking you to accompany me to see Hughes take on all-comers in Gloucester,’ Rowan replied smoothly.
‘Liar! The truth, damn you.’
‘I’ve told you the truth,’ Rowan insisted, and Jane nodded.
‘He is, Thomas dear.’
‘I’ll not be lied to under my own roof! I have enough to contend with without my heir setting himself against me!’ Thomas chewed his lip, and spittle flecked his chin.
Rowan exchanged a swift glance with Jane, and then gave his father an amiable grin. ‘I’m not setting myself against you, Father, truly I’m not.’
‘Then why did you stoop to helping with those damned deer? Eh? Eh? Why did you behave as just another labourer? You are supposed to be above that!’
Rowan strove to keep his temper. ‘Would you rather I let the deer die?’
‘Yes, boy, I would! You’re going to be the next Lord Welland, and damn me you’ll behave like it!’ Thomas’s voice was raised several notes.
‘Behave like you? I’d as soon tread the boards as Desdemona!’
Thomas went pale, and then flushed almost purple. ‘Don’t presume to use your smart tongue on me, sir, for you aren’t the only fish in the pool. Take care you don’t alienate
yourself completely, for I can replace you! The title goes to you, there is nothing I can do about that, but the estates and fortune I can bestow as I please.’
Here it comes, Rowan thought, awaiting the threat of his half-brother.
Thomas’s eyes had become small and rather piggy. ‘You aren’t my only son, you know.’ He waited for Rowan’s shock, but there was none. ‘Have you nothing to say, boy?’
‘What is there to say? You’ve sired a bastard, and now dangle this illegitimate spawn in an attempt to bring me into line. Well, fuck you, sir, and fuck your by-blow!’
Thomas’s face waxed crimson with passion. ‘You, sir, are the bane of my life,’ he bellowed, beside himself with outrage. ‘Why the Almighty saw fit to inflict you upon me as well as all my other trials and hardships, I really cannot—!’
Rowan was incensed. ‘Trials and hardships? You don’t begin to know hardship!’
‘And you do, I suppose?’
‘Not personally, but I have recently heard of hardship caused by an act of God so tumultuous and terrible that many thousands of people are dead, and even more homeless and starving.’
Thomas looked blankly at him. ‘What the Devil’s arse are you talking about?’
Jane was also bemused. ‘Yes, Rowan, what do you mean?’
‘I attended a prizefight on my way here, and encountered a sea captain in the pay of the Dutch East India Company. He was newly come from the Indies, and vowed he would never return there, not even were the Company to pay him in gold sovereigns. At the beginning of April he collected a cargo from Sumbawa, and was on the way to Sumatra when thunderous detonations were heard in the distance. Ash began to fall from the heavens and more detonations sounded. There was a hellish stench on the breeze, and great waves devastated the island’s shores. While at anchor off Sumatra the captain learned that the volcano of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa had exploded in a mass of molten flame, killing thousands of people. The sun was blotted out, and when the Dutch East Indiaman continued her voyage there was darkness night and day. At last daylight returned, but with strange sunrises and sunsets of the most violent hues, and the Dutchman’s crew were terrified that God was sending the Angel of Death. Father, that captain hasn’t been sober since reaching England, nor does he intend to be again.’
Star-Crossed Summer Page 26
