Devonshire

by Lynne Connolly

  He snorted. “They don’t seem to appreciate quality here. You saw how surprised Caroline was when you said you hadn’t taken?”

  “Yes.” I sipped again.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “In what way?”

  “That you’re a lovely woman and any man would be glad of you? You would have taken in London with or without me?” He took my fan from me and spread it out with a crack any woman would be glad to produce. He fanned my face, and I sighed contentedly. I began to feel my strength return and the budding headache fade away, though whether it was his care or the respite I couldn’t say.

  “It’s hard to readjust to the idea. But I’m trying to.”

  “I should think so. And here’s a secret worth knowing.” He put the fan down and took a sip of his wine, then took up the fan again afterwards. “If you believe in your own beauty, other people will believe it too. Have you ever seen a portrait of an accredited beauty, and thought it must be a poor likeness because she isn’t a beauty at all?”

  “Frequently.”

  “Sometimes they are considered beautiful because they think so, and everybody else has been told so.”

  “Were the Gunnings truly beautiful, then?” I asked him, in a reference to the three beauties who had taken London by storm two years before.

  “Oh yes, truly beautiful. But the whole circus became too much. People followed them about, once even a shoe was displayed in a cobbler’s as belonging to Miss Maria Gunning, and it drew crowds of spectators. She got herself her duke in the end but I prefer a few brains with my beauty, and the Gunnings were as feather-headed as they come.” He gave me a private sweet smile. “I’m so pleased I didn’t join in with the general hysteria. I might have missed you, my sweet life.”

  I smiled back at him, and he gave me a lingering kiss. He made to close my fan, but studied it before he gave it back to me. It was the one I had bought on the previous Wednesday, not particularly special, but he seemed to need something to focus on.

  “When I saw you falter in there, I thought—well I thought the most ridiculous things.”

  “What kind of ridiculous things?”

  “Well, now.” He spoke carefully, taking his time, “The first intimation my mother had of being with child with Maria was when she fainted at a ball. She wasn’t the fainting kind, you see, and—”

  I was forced to laugh. “Oh, Richard, after two days?”

  “It was just my anxiety left over from last October. I worried desperately that you had quickened for weeks afterwards. I lost my head completely on that afternoon, didn’t even try to protect you. I didn’t want to hurry you into marriage, or cast any kind of scandal on our union. We made love twice. That was sheer madness.” He shook his head at the memory. “But such sweet madness, as I heard someone say once.” He tilted my chin up, studied my face, and kissed me, long and slow. I relaxed into his arms and felt completely happy there. I knew his reputation, I knew the dangers of marrying a rake, but this feeling, this bliss, couldn’t be mine anywhere else but in his arms. “You were so brave to seduce me like that. Would you have told me, if you had quickened?”

  “Like a shot,” I assured him. He kissed me again.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He put down his glass and touched my stomach with the edge of his hand, brushing the point of my stomacher. “Do you think we might have put a babe there this time?”

  “I have no idea. Do you mind?”

  “No, though I’d prefer a little time alone with you first. My parents would be delighted. An eight months’ child would make my father bow down and worship you. Do you know he despaired of either of us ever producing an heir?”

  “Even if Gervase couldn’t, he must have known from your reputation that you were capable of it,” I commented, in an oblique reference to Gervase and his preferences.

  “Oh yes, but to my knowledge I never produced a child, you know. I was extremely careful.” He picked up his glass and took a reflective sip before replacing it on the side table. “I could have been infertile, for all he knew.”

  “Do you think you are?”

  “Not for a moment.” He turned his head to meet my eyes. “You’re the only person I’ve completely lost control with.” I hugged the thought to myself, overjoyed at this proof that I was different to him, and drank the rest of my lemonade.

  “Richard, you know you agreed to no secrets?”

  “Yes?” A frown creased his brow.

  “The bride trip?”

  His brow cleared. “Everywhere and nowhere?” He laughed. “I know, my sweet, but I couldn’t resist the tease. In any case, I don’t think I can keep it a secret much longer, since so many of my friends have guessed. One of them is bound to tell you.” He sighed, and looked at me, his gaze softening. “But I would have loved to have seen your face when you saw it for yourself. I have a yacht. I thought we might set sail for Leghorn. A good long journey and no one can come near us. Just us for a week or two. Does that appeal to you?”

  I caught my breath. “Oh yes.”

  We lost a few moments then, as he kissed me more passionately than before. “I may at last have the chance to show you exactly how much I love you. With time, and only ourselves, it might just be possible.”

  “You said once you’d like to take me to Venice.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. I will take you there one day. You’ll like it.”

  “With you, even the Exeter Assembly Rooms are bearable.”

  He laughed and kissed me lightly again. “Do you feel better now? We should get back.”

  “Much better. I was too hot, that’s all.”

  He stood up and helped me to my feet. “And one more thing,” I said.

  “Yes, my sweet life?”

  “Will you leave Eustacia Terry alone now? I saw Lord Thwaite’s face when she made that pass with her fan. What on earth did she say?”

  “Well she thought she said ‘I like you’, but in fact, she said, ‘Come to my bed tonight’ or something a little more risqué.”

  “Richard!”

  “Rose! But there’s no harm done.” He shrugged. “But you see I owed Freddy too, and to see his face—” He broke off, laughing.

  “So she’ll be doing that for the next six months?”

  “No. I said I’d meet her in the first of these rooms. I’m certain she thought of it as an assignation, and a chance to spite you. But there will be other people there by now, and I’ll tell her she hadn’t got that pass with her fan quite right, and change it into something more innocent. She’s probably waiting there now. Your pleas prevailed, you see, sweetheart. I was going to cut her dead tonight and kill her prospects for some time to come, but I didn’t want to spoil your evening. The fan trick will do, although it doesn’t go far enough to pay for the insults she has dealt you over the years.”

  A sneeze came from behind the heavily draped window behind our sofa.

  Richard strode across the room and tore back the drapes. Miss Terry sat in the alcove, pale with shock, her eyes bright with tears.

  “Really!” said Richard, exasperated. “I said the first door, not the last!”

  He would have left her there, but I took her arm and made her sit on the sofa we had just vacated. She glared at Richard, but said nothing. I sat next to her. “I told you to take care. He can be far more dangerous than this.”

  Her regard went to me, wondering, speculative. “He loves you?”

  “Why else would I seek to break a perfectly serviceable marriage contract with someone else?” Richard snapped. He picked up the half glass of wine he had abandoned on the side table. “You had better drink this. You can’t go back like that.”

  Eustacia was crying properly now, tears falling unhindered down her face. She shook her head, but I took the glass from Richard and made her hold it. “Indeed you should, Eustacia. It will help you restore yourself.”

  The liquid shook in the glass. “I can’t face them in there. Not after—the fan—”

&n
bsp; “Oh you can carry that off.” Richard’s face was tight and hard. He was exasperated with her, but he was trying hard to keep his temper. “No one will mention it again, and my friends will be gone soon enough.” His face cleared and he smiled. “But to see the look on Freddy’s face!” He saw my frown, but wasn’t contrite. “Oh, it was two birds with one stone, my sweet. I owed him for a small trick he played on me in town.”

  Miss Terry looked up at me, her eyes still misty but a new expression settling on her face, one I was familiar with. Calculation. “Miss Golightly, he said—you said—two days...”

  “Dear God, couldn’t you at least pretend you hadn’t heard that part? Have you no discretion?”

  She studied him for the first time, never having seen him like this, irritated and angry. “You sat in front of me and I couldn’t avoid hearing it.”

  Richard threw up his hands in exasperation and went to the cold fire. He put his hands on the mantelpiece for a minute or two, gripping it until his knuckles turned white.

  Richard found it difficult to share his feelings and kept his private life fiercely close. He hated any intrusion into his private world where only his brother and I had places. This might put him over the edge; drive him to take the vicious retaliation I’d pleaded with him to forgo.

  Miss Terry turned questioningly to me. She sat up straighter, and I could see her regaining her self-control, her mind beginning to whirr again. “I feel I should inform Lady Hareton of this. My mama would never allow—”

  I prayed he wouldn’t turn around. “So what is Martha going to do?” I said. “Make us marry? Eustacia, it isn’t unusual, you must know that, and you know more than you should about our feelings for each other.”

  Miss Terry caught her bottom lip between her teeth, as she saw the truth of this. “Mama says men don’t marry their mistresses.”

  Richard spun around, the heavy skirts of his dress coat swirling around him. His eyes rivalled the diamond at his throat, glittering icily as he glared at her; his pose, his attitude, everything displayed the offended aristocrat. There was no way through that hard shell, not even for me. “I’m obliged to you, ma’am. I had never looked upon Miss Golightly as merely my mistress before. I’m afraid I must inform you that your mother might be mistaken on this point. I can think of many men who have made wives of their mistresses. It depends entirely on the quality of the woman.”

  He crossed the room with measured grace, lifted my hand and placed it firmly on his arm. “If a man should unfortunately find himself shackled to a woman like yourself, with no refinement, no conversation, no discretion, then he may be forced to look elsewhere for friendship and companionship.”

  He moved, and I had to walk with him, and leave the room.

  In the corridor, I didn’t speak, and he stood still. An expression of polite indifference masked his anger from anyone who might see us. He breathed deeply, then he looked at me and his face cleared. His eyes had lost that icy, cold edge. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m all right now. I’m sorry she overheard, but there’s no harm done. If she does spread any rumours, it will be to her own detriment, I’ll see to it. Otherwise, you mustn’t let this little incident spoil your enjoyment of the whole evening. Promise me?” He took my hand to his lips, while he looked at my face, waiting for my promise.

  I could do little else. I promised, and did my best to forget, but when we saw Miss Terry later, it was only as she was leaving with her parents, after she had declared she had a headache. I couldn’t say anything. I’d always disliked her, and if I came out with any excuses for her they would have sounded as hollow as they really were. Besides, Miss Terry was part of the world I was leaving behind. In three weeks I would be alone with my new husband and my new life. I longed for that day.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY it dawned bright and clear, so we decided to ride down to the coast, a large group of us as it turned out. Richard, Gervase, Lizzie, Ruth and I, and Tom and Georgiana volunteered to come on the expedition. When I went down to the hall, I found Richard waiting for me.

  He frowned when he saw my new riding habit. “Brown isn’t your colour. If you’ll allow me, I’ll order one for you from town. In any case, I owe you a riding habit.” I didn’t understand at first, but when he saw my look of puzzlement, he enlightened me. “The day of the accident,” he prompted.

  I closed my eyes and I saw it all. The blood, all of it Richard’s, and I remembered the rust-coloured stains on the riding habit I’d worn. I shuddered at the memory, but opened my eyes when I felt his touch on my arm. “I’m fine. I remembered your accident and what I might have lost.”

  “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I knew it still upset you.”

  “It doesn’t, not really.” I managed a smile. “And yes, you do owe me a riding habit.” I put my hand through the crook of his arm and we went off to the stables.

  James always kept a fine stable, as befitted a country gentleman and the building here rivalled the Manor itself for floor space. Richard and Gervase’s horses had arrived, and settled down well, so Bennett, Richard’s groom, told him. The stables formed an angular u-shape around the cobbled yard, and everything was orderly and clean. James wouldn’t have it any other way. The horses stood, saddled, with a groom at the head of each, all patiently waiting for us, except for one.

  Richard’s horse was, of course, a thoroughbred, a pretty chestnut, but Gervase’s was a monster, a great bay animal called Nighthawk, which only Gervase could control. I’d seen him mounted on Nighthawk before, and thought then that he must have wrists of steel. Mine looked as though it came from a different race of creature, a dainty mare, but she was nervous in Nighthawk’s presence, skittering to the side to avoid the great bay. The groom led her to the other side of the yard, and Richard accompanied me, helping me into the side-saddle himself before he went back to the centre of the yard and mounted his own horse. His touch was strong and sure, better than any groom.

  I was forced to keep my mare away from Nighthawk until she became more accustomed to his presence, but Gervase’s control over his mount was absolute, and she was in no danger. Lizzie always rode placid animals, and the one she rode today was no exception. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a good seat; on the contrary, but she liked a mount on which she could display herself to advantage, without worrying about the animal’s reliability.

  We rode the short distance to Peacock’s, a journey I’d made countless times before. Tom and his sister Georgiana waited in the courtyard for us, already mounted, so we went off straightaway.

  Tom, who considered himself a connoisseur of horseflesh, admired Gervase’s mount immensely. “I was lucky to get him,” Gervase told Tom. “I had to bid way above the usual price for him, but I saw we were meant for each other, so I had him.”

  Sometimes I forgot exactly how rich Gervase was. I don’t think even he knew precisely, but as far as I could gather, he’d taken many risks for it and deserved every penny.

  I wondered how to deter Georgiana, who admired both of the brothers, but I decided the best way would probably be to let matters take their course. She was no Miss Terry, and wouldn’t bear a grudge, as I feared Eustacia might do, once she discovered Gervase’s lack of interest in females.

  I avoided thinking about Eustacia. Richard had not spoken of the incident again, but I knew it hurt him to know someone unauthorised had seen him in an unguarded moment. Even though that person could do us little harm, he still resented it. He might still choose to take some form of revenge of his own, something far more vicious than he had done before. The best I could do was try to forget the whole thing and trust in Richard’s good sense.

  Once in open country, I could give my horse its head for ten minutes, always something that helped to clear my head of unpleasant thoughts. I’d been forced to resort to it many times over the years, and the concentration required, together with the physical control of the horse, gave my whole body and mind something to do, and let me forget my tro
ubles.

  The familiar route and the feel of the animal under me gave me a slip in time. It was as if the events of the past few months had not happened. As though we’d visited Hareton Abbey, returned and resumed our ordinary lives, and I expected to remain the spinster aunt for the rest of my days. It all seemed unreal until I slowed and waited for the others to catch up. Then I saw Lizzie’s new glowing happiness, which she carried around for most of the time these days, and Richard, the once-stranger who was now as familiar to me as I was to myself.

  We reached the coast after a comfortable ride through the verdant Devonshire countryside that lasted a couple of hours. Tom was the first one to see the sea, and he swung round in the saddle, crying, “My sea, my sea!” as we always did when we were children. It stretched out to the horizon; grey, white tipped, never still. My surge of joy when I saw it was entirely visceral, a response I’d felt ever since I could remember. It represented freedom to me, and pastures new, places no one would know me, where I could start again.

  When we arrived, we dismounted and crept as far as we dared to the cliff edge. I was used to the height, and went right to the edge, but Lizzie and Georgiana went only so far and no further. They didn’t want to look over the edge, down the dizzying drop to where the sea swept up the small beach in the cove below us.

  We stood together in silence, Tom, Richard, Gervase and I, and watched the foamy waves, the yellow sand, the curved shape of the bay around us, tried to see the horizon where blue-grey changed to celestial blue. Then Tom glanced at me and winked. I knew what he meant, and decided to join him in a trick we hadn’t used for years. It was irresistible.

  Tom seized my hand and, both of us ran. We roared and shouted as we rushed to the cliff edge, and—with no more than a glance—jumped. We heard alarmed cries, male cries, then the twins’ heads appeared over the cliff edge, only the shapes of their behatted heads visible when we squinted up into the sun.

  “I think,” said Gervase gravely, “that to play the trick properly, you shouldn’t laugh quite so much while you wait for us.”