He looked up as she came in, and considered her from under bushy eyebrows.
“So,” he said, “are you here just for a visit, or have you spent the present we gave you?”
The six sovereigns were still tied up in a cloth in her bag, but she knew what he was asking.
“I don’t know, yet,” she replied. “Can I stay until I do?”
“If you need me to answer that question before you sit down, no, you can’t,” he said. He stood up, went to the back door, bellowed something incomprehensible across the yard which made her jump, and came back. She had shed her cloak, and was still standing looking round the room. She was sure she would soon feel at home here.
“Ah, lass, it’s good to see you, I’ll not deny it,” Graeme said, taking her hands and bestowing one of his rare smiles on her. She tried not to think of Duncan, who had done just the same thing. And then Thomas and Jane appeared, Mary re-entered from having taken the bag Beth had dropped carelessly in the hall up to what was to be her room, the threatened tears were washed away in a sea of questions and laughter, and she realised that she did feel at home already.
An hour later she had been fed, watered, taken on a whirlwind tour of the house by Jane and Mary, and delivered back to the kitchen, where Thomas opened a precious bottle of brandy.
“Perhaps we should go up to the drawing-room to drink this,” he suggested. “It is a special occasion, after all.”
“You’ll be sitting on your own, if you do,” Graeme said. “It’s bloody freezing in there. I’d rather drink water in the kitchen than perch shivering on the edge of a chair in a fancy salon with my finger in the air, discussing the weather or whatever the hell the aristocracy find interesting.”
“Who’s sleeping with whose husband or wife, mainly,” Beth supplied.
“Well, then, I’m not sleeping with anybody’s husband or wife, so there’s the gossip done with,” Graeme said. “Now, are you going to admire that stuff all night, or drink it, as the good Lord intended?”
They drank it.
“It’s just like home,” Beth said happily after a while. “Although it’s strange not to have Grace sitting by the fire, darning socks.”
“She felt guilty, leaving so soon after the money came through,” Jane said. “But she’s much happier with her family, and we all knew it was only a matter of time before we all left Richard’s anyway. We should have gone earlier than we did, but it was home to us, and we were reluctant to let go, I suppose. Maybe we hoped Richard would change once he got the commission he wanted.”
“Was he really terrible, when he came back?” Beth asked.
“Not at first, no. He was quite reserved. He complained a bit that the house wasn’t warm enough, but he seemed to accept it when I said that we hadn’t kept fires in unused rooms for economy’s sake. It was when his officer friends came to stay that things went wrong.” Jane blushed, and stopped, and Thomas took up the story.
“In fairness to them, they were all polite enough when they were sober. And in the evening, when they’d been drinking, we kept out of their way, and just cleared up the mess in the morning. But then something happened, and we all left the next day,” he finished abruptly.
“So here we all are!” Jane said brightly. She smiled warmly at her husband. Graeme finished his brandy and refilled his glass, topping up Beth’s as well.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I know I’ve been drinking, but either I’m a lot more drunk than I thought, or you’ve missed something out. What happened to make you all leave so abruptly?”
It was the eleven-year-old Mary who answered. In honour of the occasion, she and Ben had been allowed a small glass of very well-watered brandy. She sipped at it now, and then looked at Beth.
“One of the soldiers tried to get me to do it with him,” she said bluntly. “And when I said I didn’t want to, he pushed me up against the wall and tried to do it anyway.”
“And then I hit him, and knocked him out!” Ben put in proudly. “And then we ran away before anyone else came.”
Beth looked at the skinny figure of the twelve-year-old boy incredulously.
“Ben hit the soldier with the butt of his own musket, which he’d left in the hall. He was very brave,” Thomas said, looking at the boy, who grinned.
“Please tell me it wasn’t Richard,” Beth said. She felt sick.
“It wasn’t Richard,” Graeme answered. “But before you feel relieved about that, when Thomas and I confronted him the next day he told us that as far as he was concerned the girl had asked for it, and he’d a good mind to haul Ben up before the authorities for assault. It was the officer who’d tried it on with Mary who told Richard he’d do no such thing, and apologised for his drunken behaviour. Then we all left. I haven’t seen him since, and I hope I never do,” he finished grimly.
Beth took rather too large a gulp of brandy, then looked at Mary, who was still sipping hers, clearly not enjoying it but determined not to pass up this illicit treat. Her colour was rather higher than normal, but otherwise she seemed unperturbed.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” Beth said inadequately.
“It’s not your fault, Miss,” Mary responded. “I didn’t encourage him, whatever your brother said. I’m not ashamed.”
“Nor should you be, lass. It wasn’t your fault,” said Graeme. “And as for you, Beth, if it hadn’t been for the money you gave us, we’d not be here now. Don’t you ever apologise for him. He’s nothing to do with you any more.”
No, he wasn’t. And he no longer had any hold over her. Or those she loved. Thanks to Alex. Or Sir Anthony. No, she was not going to think of him.
“Are you planning to stay long?” Thomas asked, changing the subject to what he thought was safer territory. “You can stay as long as you like, of course. I just wondered.”
“I don’t know, Thomas,” Beth answered. “I’d intended to visit you anyway, when I got back from Europe. I’ve got some business to do, and I wanted to see you and visit Mary Williamson as well, but I might stay on for a while.” She reached for the bottle again, and Thomas moved it out of reach.
“Slow down a bit, Beth,” he advised. “You’ve certainly got a taste for brandy since you’ve been living in London. Your husband’s been teaching you bad habits.”
“Whisky,” she said without thinking. “It’s usually whisky we drink at home.”
Thomas, Jane and Graeme exchanged surprised glances.
“I must admit, I can’t imagine the purple popinjay knocking back whisky,” Graeme said, amazed. “It’s pretty raw stuff. I’d have thought a fine claret or champagne more his style.”
“Ah. Well,” Beth stuttered. “Em…he’s got a couple of Scottish servants, from Edinburgh, and I think they’ve given him the taste for it. It’s quite nice, when you get used to it. Very warming.”
“Hmm,” Thomas said. “Well, I think you’ve had enough of this warming stuff for tonight.”
She did not demur. She had. Otherwise she never would have made a slip like that. And being tipsy wasn’t helping her to forget Alex at all. Quite the contrary. She did not drink strong spirits again for the duration of her stay. Being with people you trusted implicitly and not being able to confide in them was difficult enough when sober; impossible when drunk.
* * *
A few nights later, Graeme was in bed, and was just about to snuff out his candle when there came a light knock at the door. He bade Thomas, as he thought it must be, enter, and swung his legs out of bed, reaching worriedly for his shirt. There must be something wrong.
The door opened and a figure slipped furtively in, shutting the door quickly. Graeme leapt back into bed, drawing his knees up and pulling the sheet up to his neck.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said rudely. “Get out!”
Instead of explaining, or leaving, Beth laughed.
“You look like an old maid in mortal fear of being ravished,” she said. “I need to talk to you, Graeme.”
“Fine,” h
e replied curtly. “In the morning. Out.”
She came and sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at him.
“Your virginity is safe with me,” she giggled. He moved, threateningly, and she held up her hands in mock surrender. “All right, I’m sorry. But I do need to talk to you privately, Graeme.”
“It’s not seemly,” he said primly, “for you to be coming to a man’s room in the middle of the night.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” said Beth, exasperated. “I often used to go to my father’s room in the night, and I’m as safe with you as I was with him, and we both know it. And so for that matter do Thomas and Jane, and there’s no one else in the house tonight.”
Graeme relaxed his legs a little.
“All right,” he said. “Talk. But it had better be important.”
She talked. It was important. By the time she had finished he had forgotten all about the proprieties. The sheet had slipped down to his waist, revealing his still hard-muscled torso, which was white, although his sinewy arms, face and neck were brown. As she finished outlining her proposal he became aware of his state of undress and reached a hand out to grab his shirt from the stool at his bedside, slipping it over his head.
“Can you do it?” she said.
“Yes, of course I can do it,” he answered. “Whether I’m going to or not is another matter.”
“You have to,” she said simply. “There’s no one else I can trust. Not with this.”
“I need to know more before I decide, one way or the other,” he said.
There was a silence. It became clear that she was not going to volunteer any information.
“If you can’t trust me with the reasons why you want to do such a thing,” Graeme said finally, “then I won’t help you. It’s as simple as that.” His words were uncompromising, but his tone was gentle, and she raised her head and looked at him intently. She was clearly battling with herself over something, and he didn’t move, just held her gaze with his clear light grey eyes. He realised that what he had said was wrong. She was impetuous, or had been, but this act was not. She had thought it through.
Finally she looked away.
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s not a matter of trusting you, Graeme. I’d trust you with my life, you know that. But this involves someone else, and I can’t betray their trust. All I can say is this, and it’s more than I should; one day it might be discovered that I have no right to that money, and that will probably be the day I need it most. If that happens, Richard will claim it, and I will not let him have it, Graeme. This is the only way I can stop him, if that day comes.”
He reached over suddenly and seized her hand.
“What the hell have you got yourself into, lass?” he said earnestly.
“Nothing I don’t want to be in,” she said.
“Has your husband put you in danger? Is that why you’re here?”
She squeezed his hand. The knuckles were swollen and gnarled, but his grip was still strong, secure, safe. When she spoke she did not answer his question.
“You are the only friend I have who has followed your heart, regardless of the cost, Graeme,” she said. “I’m taking precautions, that’s all. Help me. Please.”
Two days later Graeme received a letter, he said, although he didn’t show it to anyone, from a friend he had not seen for many years, and who was in Liverpool awaiting passage to the colonies, where he hoped to start a new life. He would like to see his friend before he sailed. Accordingly, the next morning Graeme set off for Liverpool, he said, returning after three days, tired and unaccountably stiff. Thomas and Jane later remarked that they couldn’t have got on well, as Graeme had been remarkably tight-lipped on his return home and had volunteered no information about his reunion, saying only that everything had gone as it should, and his friend had been seen on his way.
Beth had been in Manchester for nearly three weeks and had received no further news from London, from either Duncan or anyone else. She had to face up to the fact that Alex must have been home for some time, but had sent no word. Maybe it was time to cut her losses, and try to move on.
She tried. She visited her friend Mary Williamson, who was full of gratitude to Beth for buying Joseph a share in Mr Thwaite’s tailoring firm, which meant they could get married next year, and Beth and Sir Anthony would be guests of honour at the wedding, of course. Mary rambled on excitedly about the wedding plans, while Beth smiled and tried not to think of her own marriage, and how short-lived it had been.
On the way home she popped into the Ring o’ Bells, to see if there was any news of her servant Martha, of whom there had been no word since she had left the house with her small daughter abruptly, over a year ago. No one had any news of her, but the landlord came striding out to congratulate her on her marriage to Sir Andrew, was it? The landlord remembered him well. An unforgettable fellow, very aristocratic, slightly odd in his dress, but not too high and mighty to comment favourably on the excellent food the inn served.
She had travelled nearly two hundred miles to get away from any reminders of her husband, and it seemed that at every turn there was someone lying in wait to remind her about him.
So when the next morning there was a knock on the door and she opened it, being in the hall at the time, to see Sir Anthony Peters in all his powdered and perfumed glory standing on the step, she thought for a moment that she was hallucinating. Then he spoke, and the illusion was shattered.
“Beth,” he said simply, and stopped.
She had not prepared for this, although she realised now she should have. She bit her lip, looked down, then up at him again, not wanting him to think she was afraid of him. Or wanted him.
“Can we talk?” he said, his voice soft. “We have to, I think.” He was dressed as Sir Anthony, although his royal blue outfit was unadorned with silver or gold embroidery, and his accent was unmistakably English. But he had none of the flamboyant mannerisms of the baronet. She realised that he had affected only the briefest sketch of Sir Anthony. He wanted her to see Alex, and she did.
A hand descended on her shoulder, and she jumped. Sir Anthony’s gaze drifted away from Beth to the man standing behind her.
“Graeme, I believe,” he said.
“Mr Elliott,” Graeme, who never stood on ceremony, corrected.
“Mr Elliott. That’s a Scottish name, is it not?” Sir Anthony said conversationally. Another man had come into the hall now. A handsome man with fair hair. Sir Anthony registered his presence, but did not take his eyes from Graeme.
“Yes,” said Graeme. “My ancestors were border Scots.”
Beth looked up in surprise. She had not known that. Graeme had never mentioned it before. He didn’t look at her. His gaze remained on the baronet. She realised that the two men were assessing each other, as adversaries do.
“They were very fierce fighters, I believe,” Sir Anthony said after a moment.
“They still are.” It was a challenge.
The baronet nodded slightly, respectfully. Then he looked back at Beth.
“Will you talk with me for a moment, in private?” he asked.
Beth opened her mouth to answer.
“Anything you’ve got to say, you can say in front of us. I don’t trust you alone with her.” Beth remembered now that she had not answered Graeme’s question as to whether her husband had put her in danger, and he had not forgotten it. His hand was heavy on her shoulder. Thomas had moved closer as well.
“Please, Beth, you know I can’t,” her husband said.
She looked at him. His eyes were soft, heather-blue, lovely, pleading. Every line of his body radiated uncertainty. She had seen many aspects of Alex in the time she had known him, but she had never seen him unsure of himself. Not like this. Was it an act, to lull her? He was a master of dissimulation. She had no idea what his intentions were. Graeme had a point.
“We’ll talk in the garden,” she said, breaking her silence. “We’ll be out of earshot there, but Graeme and Thomas will be
able to watch from the window.”
It was a compromise, but the implication was clear. She did not trust him not to lay violent hands on her. Why should she? He had done in the past. She did not know what his motives for coming to Manchester were.
Sir Anthony followed her round the side of the house and across the yard, until she came to a halt by the small ramshackle wooden shed that was serving as a henhouse until a better one could be constructed. He looked back at the house. The faces of Graeme and Thomas could be seen at the kitchen window.
“Right,” she said, turning to face him. “No one can overhear us here. You can speak freely.” Her voice was cool. She had used the walk to compose herself. She was ready for anything.
“Have ye tellt him?” He blurted suddenly.
She was mildly surprised by his sudden lapse into Scottish, but supposed it was to be expected. He was telling her that he had come as Alex, and that he trusted her when she said they would not be overheard. It was a start, anyway.
“Have I told who what?” she asked.
“Yon man, Elliott. Have ye tellt him who I am? He suspects something.” He was agitated.
She froze in the act of sitting down on a log set in the ground for that purpose. She was not ready for anything, after all. She straightened again.
“Is that why you’ve come?” she said, her voice icy. “To find out whether I’ve told anyone about you? To see whether you can limit the damage by just getting rid of me, or whether a wholesale massacre of the household is needed?”
“No, I…”
“Let me reassure you,” she interrupted. “I haven’t told anybody anything. If Graeme suspects something, it’s that you’ve come here to hurt me in some way, nothing more. Now,” she continued, looking down at the ground, and sliding her foot along it experimentally. He followed her movement with his eyes, puzzled. “I’m afraid the ground isn’t very slippery here. You can try stumbling on the cobbles and accidentally skewering me if you want, but let me warn you that I doubt Thomas and Graeme will be as easily taken in as Louis was, so you’d better be ready to kill them, too.”
The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) Page 31
