The Goldsmith's Wife (The Woulfes of Loxsbeare Book 2)

by Anita Seymour

  “Tomorrow?” he whispered, an inch from her cheek.

  “Tomorrow,” she repeated their personal mantra with an anticipatory shiver.

  When he had gone, Helena turned to the mirror over the mantel to check her appearance, pleased with what she saw there. Tweaking a stray curl into place, she winked at her reflection and flicked her skirt behind her before pulling the door closed before she returned to her guests.

  * * *

  April 1693, Palmer House, London – Guy

  On his way to the drawing room, Guy paused outside the salon, where Helena stood talking to someone. He changed direction with the intention of approaching them, halting in mid-stride when he caught sight of her companion.

  Helena and William stood a foot or so apart, drinking each other in the way only lovers do.

  The background laughter and clinking of glasses receded into a blurry haze and Guy found himself struck into immobility by the intimacy of their exchange.

  Cold rage welled up inside him and he turned away to calm his rapid breathing. When he looked back, Helena stood alone, gazing into a mirror. Her face glowed with happiness as she tugged a “confidante” into place on her cheek.

  Guy stepped back into the alcove almost guiltily, reluctant to let her see he had been spying on her. By this time, Helena was swept up in a huddle of full skirted ladies moving down the hall like ships in full sail, their voices receding down the hallway.

  How could this have happened? What had changed to take his Helena so far away from him? How could he have not noticed he was no longer the centre of her life?

  Guy’s upbringing by a roving bachelor had, he knew, contributed to his becoming a solitary adult with an overwhelming need to be in control, a quality he was aware of, but sometimes regretted.

  During their marriage, Helena too had changed from an impulsive, immature girl who voiced every outrageous thought, to a more reserved woman who could be relied on for her discretion. It seemed that discretion worked against him now.

  Was it his fault? Had he robbed her of her vivacity by being so inflexible, so remote?

  With shame, Guy recalled his habit of imparting his decisions in the presence of someone else, as in the case with their separate suites at Palmer House. He chose Henry to be witness on that occasion, putting Helena in a position where she could not openly object.

  When they first married, she would have challenged him over something like that, but in time he discouraged what he called her interference with curt responses, embarrassing her into keeping her counsel. Her passive acceptance suited him well, and he had never considered before what Helena thought. Had he miscalculated? He must have, for he couldn’t recall when she had last looked at him the way she had just now at William? If she ever had.

  Poll’s face swam into his head, but he shook the image away. Poll was irrelevant, an unimportant luxury he allowed himself, which most wives accepted in the natural way of things. Helena had not taken William as a lover to seek revenge. The only reason she would do so was because she was in love.

  Guy tried to summon a righteous anger at them both for betraying him, but failed. His initial shock receded and he told himself to think, his ordered mind shifting to the practicalities while the sounds of the wedding party drifted through the open doors.

  Helena was still his wife, and the mother of his children. She would remain in his house, with him. He knew she still craved the respectability and security the rebellion had taken from her and would never risk losing everything for a dalliance.

  Her infatuation for William, for he could not bear to think of it as anything else, would not last. It could not.

  He clenched his jaw, pasting a smile on his face to acknowledge John Evelyn, who wandered past with his daughter, Susannah, on his arm. Guy followed them into a ballroom filled with animated faces and pressing bodies with a sense of total isolation. A dull sadness spread through him as he made his way to a tray of wine glasses held aloft by a server. Had he really lost his beautiful Helena? Downing a glass in one swallow, he discarded it and plucked another from the tray. Perhaps, but only for now.

  * * *

  March 1694, London – Guy

  Due to an icy March wind gusting down Tower Street, Guy abandoned his plan to walk to Lloyd’s, summoning a chairman so he could huddle into the warmer confines of a sedan.

  At his destination, the carrier lifted the hinged lid to deposit him on the cobbles, where a sleet filled gust of wind assailed him. Holding his hat onto his head, he pressed a coin into the man’s calloused hand and shouldered his way through a crowd gathered just inside the door. He sidled through the packed interior into an atmosphere that felt charged, and approached the wooden hostess’s cubicle to hand over his penny entry, but the booth stood empty.

  Guy frowned, staring around at the crush of bodies, wondering if he should try to attract the attention of a serving boy to take his entrance fee. He gave up on the idea as Ned Lloyd’s loss, watching the serving lads rush about in response to frantic appeals for coffee, aprons flying and trays wobbling precariously above their heads.

  Those patrons unable to secure seats at the wooden benches were huddled in groups round the walls or stood, stranded in the middle of the room, jostled by customers and staff alike.

  Guy wrinkled his nose against the mixture of pungent pipe smoke and human sweat permeating the crowded room where a thin faced man in black was expounding to a group of observers. “Evelyn has centre stage again, I see,” a voice on Guy’s left spoke into his ear.

  Startled, Guy turned abruptly, then relaxed. “Good day, Montague,” he greeted his friend. “Yes, he has something to say to suit every occasion. I wish I knew what this one was?”

  “A tragedy, my dear sir,” Montague’s voice held mock seriousness, “of monumental proportions.” His handsome face looked grave and at the same time mischievous, one elegant hand caressing the silver top of an expensive japan cane.

  Before Guy could demand details, Ralf Maurice planted sturdy feet between them, his peruke slightly askew above his pink, boyish face. “Guy, old fellow, have you heard the news?”

  “I doubt it,” Montague raised a cynical eyebrow. “If Master Palmer’s baffled expression is anything to go by.”

  Ralf made an impatient noise with his lips. “It’s the Sussex.”

  Guy stiffened. “King William’s flagship? What of it?”

  “Sunk!” Montague and Ralf spoke simultaneously.

  He looked from Ralf’s horrified face to Montague’s smug one. “Where? Er…how?” He tried to marshal his thoughts, but a hundred questions circled in his head.

  Ralf waylaid a serving boy and ordered a drink. “In the Gibraltar Strait. Admiral Sir Francis Wheeler was escorting a fleet of forty warships, with a hundred and sixty-six merchantmen to the Mediterranean.”

  “His first major voyage, and that of the Sussex,” Montague murmured, almost to himself.

  “How did it happen?” Guy asked.

  “It was a storm.” Ralf scowled at someone who jostled him. “Thirteen ships were also lost, and—”

  “A levanter,” Montague interrupted. Guy and Ralf both turned inquisitive eyes on him which were received by a nonchalant shrug. “It’s the name given to a strong, easterly gale.”

  Ralf cast Montague a withering look. “Whatever it was, they fought it for three days, but almost five hundred men were drowned.”

  “What a dreadful thing,” Guy murmured, growing impatient. He needed to talk to Montague alone and his friend’s growing restlessness showed he was of similar mind.

  Ralf prattled on and Montague stepped back out of Ralf’s line of vision, lifting his chin toward the door. Someone else bumped into Ralf and, taking the ensuing argument as an excuse, Guy and Montague made simultaneous farewells and quickly left.

  Guy stepped into the bracing wind, where he slapped ineffectually at his coat; he smelled like a tobacco warehouse. Helena was bound to comment when he arrived home, although on this occasion he
had done nothing to deserve her approbation. He paid more attention to her feelings these days. “I’ve a meeting with Master Houblon at his house in half an hour,” Montague whispered, guiding him across the street to his coach with its unmistakable red and black crest on the doors.

  “He is Sir John Houblon now, Charles,” Guy reminded him with a grin.

  “Of course, of course I had quite forgot.”

  They climbed into the vehicle and Montague tapped the ceiling with his cane. When the coach lurched away, Guy leaned forward. “What about the gold?”

  His companion raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. “At the bottom of the Gibraltar Strait, I imagine, although the crowd in there have no knowledge of the loss.” He flicked his handsome head backwards, the curls on his peruke bouncing on his shoulders.

  “All six tonnes of it. Lost.” Guy leaned his forehead on one hand as if warding off a headache. It was a great deal to take in.

  “It is not all disaster, Guy.” Montague held his hands palms upwards. Guy threw him a look, his thoughts too on the one fact that might turn this disaster into a triumph for them both.

  “The king will have little choice now but to endorse our bank. With no bribe for Savoy, who will surely take King Louis’s side, he has no funds to fight his French war. To whom can he turn to but us, my friend?”

  “Who indeed?” Guy was suddenly elated. His dream was about to become real at last. But then his practical mind rose to the forefront and he shook his head. “I cannot help but regret the loss of all that precious metal, Charles.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Sourcing and gathering so much gold in one place was not a small task.” He pointed his cane as if in warning, his smile still in place. “And in secret, don’t forget.”

  “Yet, I never approved of its purpose.” Guy made a weak effort to salve his conscience. ‘The king intended the gold as a bribe for the Duke of Savoy to take his side against King Louis.”

  Montague shrugged. “These things are often thus arranged, although who knows if even the gold would have bought that snake’s loyalty. And besides, you made a tidy profit out of acting as His Majesty’s agent to obtain it. The king is hardly likely to demand his fee back.”

  Guy smiled as the carriage lurched around a corner into Threadneedle Street. That’s what he admired about Montague, his ability to see advantage in every situation.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  June 1694, Haymarket, London – Helena

  A pressing crowd occupied the length of the Haymarket when Helena stepped down from the carriage. She took Guy’s arm and they joined the pressing bodies moving toward Hickford’s Great Room.

  “It will be one of the last of the summer performances, and I intend to make the most of it,” Alyce called brightly as she sailed alongside Helena in a black and white gown with red trimmings. Her daughters followed with their husbands, like a royal cortege, with Robert bringing up the rear.

  With so many infrequently washed bodies gathered in one warm space, the crowded hall proved an ordeal in itself, though Helena enjoyed the music, a charming piece by Henry Purcell. Alyce seemed bemused by Guy’s frequent requests for silence, preferring to gossip with acquaintances in adjacent chairs all the way through.

  Helena intercepted his exasperated look, biting her lip to suppress a laugh at the shared joke.

  Robert seemed to have no greater success and offered a resigned sigh from the end of the row.

  The lively strains of Purcell’s Princess of Persia reverberated around her, and Helena let her mind wander. Where was William at that moment? He had left for the continent a few days before on a journey for the Devereux goldsmith company.

  “The acquisition of fine jewels and metals cannot be left to minions, Helena,” William had explained when she pouted at the fact she wouldn’t see him, possibly for months. “I’ll bring you a present, a jewel of the most perfect purity I can find.” He stroked her bare neck as they lay in the white bed on their last day together before he left.

  “When could I wear it?” Helena sulked. “Guy would notice it in an instant.”

  “Hmm, you could be right. You’ll have to hide it somewhere he never goes.”

  “You’re going so far away.” Helena knew she whined, hating herself for it, but it was so hard letting him go. In the back of her mind she had imagined his ship sinking in the Atlantic on its way to Africa, just like Uncle Arthur’s.

  “I’ll insist the captain hug the coastline all the way down to Morocco,” William promised, when she confided her fears.

  Guy’s subsequent invitation to the Devereuxs to attend the concert had come as a pleasant surprise, distracting Helena from the misery of William’s departure.

  Had Guy planned it that way? She glanced speculatively at her husband’s impassive profile, but there was nothing in his face to suggest he was aware of her melancholy.

  As if sensing her scrutiny, he covered her hand with his own, a self-satisfied smile on his face that made her frown.

  * * *

  June 1694, Lambtons Inn, London – Helena

  When the concert was over, they all returned in separate carriages for dinner at Lambtons as Robert’s guests. Henry and Mary Ann joined them around a table which Alyce had arranged in the Dutch manner introduced by the king, with the men and women placed alternately and not with their own partners.

  “This is a family party,” Alyce announced, “so no toasts are to be made requiring formal acknowledgment.”

  When her husband asked why, her response was tetchy. “It’s an irritant to the digestion. Gentleman’s hats will remain on, or off as you wish, no matter who raises a toast to whom, and there will be no bobbing up and down in your seats.”

  Guy went out of his way to be animated and attentive to Alyce, almost flirting with Phebe, reminding Helena that he could be very charming when he chose.

  “How are things progressing for the bank, Guy?” Robert effectively defeated Helena’s hopes for a light-hearted evening. She had heard little else at her own dinner table for weeks.

  “The charter will be issued within a month, sir.” Guy looked pleased and proud.

  Helena looked down at her lap, biting her bottom lip. The fact Guy had turned the tragedy of the Sussex into a lever for promoting his banking scheme had struck her as bordering on the callous.

  “I hear Sir John Houblon is to be the first Governor.” Henry popped a bite sized morsel of chicken into Mary Ann’s mouth.

  “King William needs money, sir. It will serve to raise funds for his government.” Guy repeated the reasoning he had used on Helena.

  “That’s merely a euphemism for, ‘King William’s war’, Master Palmer,” Robert’s expression was cynical.

  Helena could have kissed him for voicing her own views, but Guy had his response ready.

  “There will be a favourable rate of interest for anyone who invests.”

  Helena tore at a piece of bread, watching conflicting emotions cross Robert’s face.

  His wrestle with his conscience was brief. “Then it would be unpatriotic not to invest. We should all be seen to be supporting our monarch.”

  Helena discarded the mutilated bread, disappointed at his easy capitulation.

  “And you, Henry, shall you become a member of this elite club?” Alyce asked, picking at the food on her plate, though little of it reached her mouth.

  “I don’t claim to understand finance, Mistress,” Henry replied. “I prefer to trust in what I can see. Bricks and stone are more reliable than laying wagers on the outcome of wars.”

  A ripple of awkward laughter ran round the room.

  “Well, I’m fascinated,” Mary Ann simpered. “Guy, do explain to me how this bank of yours works.”

  “I wish her luck,” Helena whispered to Henry. “I’ve been subjected to the principals of banks to a numbing degree.”

  Henry smirked, but as always, his gaze drifted back to Mary Ann and softened, leaving Helena exasperated as well as envious.

  Rober
t leaned across the table and tapped Guy’s arm. “I must say, sir, it was an ingenious plan of yours, to send William off to Ceylon in search of sapphires.”

  Helena froze, her wine glass froze in mid-air as Robert prattled on. “I usually have to wait until the traders bring their goods to London and compete with everyone else. With William to secure the best stones before they leave their country of origin was pure genius.” The decanter in his hand clinked against his glass in rhythm with his happy chuckle.

  Guy lifted his napkin to his lips and patted his mouth before picking up his knife and meticulously cut a slice of beef. “I took my late Uncle’s advice, sir,” he responded carefully. “Go straight to the source where you may command your own prices among a smaller market.”

  “I cannot help but be concerned for William, out there in a hostile land.” Alyce flapped her fan, giving a martyred sniff.

  “Not since the Dutch drove the Portuguese out.” Robert waved her away. “They manage the island now and are a far more amenable people. William will be treated like royalty.”

  Helena stared at her plate, imagining everyone at the table could see her rising anger coupled with a growing panic. William had made a joke about Morocco when she last saw him? How come he was on his way to India?

  Had Guy sent William so far away deliberately? As the thought occurred to her she dismissed it. William was an important part of their business. Besides, Robert would never put him at risk on purpose. Then why had Guy not mentioned it to her before?

  “Such a long journey is still hazardous, is it not?” Helena asked, her senses alert to Guy’s reaction, but he seemed engrossed in something Phebe was saying.

  “It certainly can be, as we have learned with your Uncle Arthur, Guy.”