* * *
The message I had awaited with such eagerness arrived on a day in early summer when a light band of haze obscured most of the river gorge and, above it, the trees of the Clifton woods rose as if they were rooted in nothing more substantial than cloud. The air was soft and smelled sweet – no stench rising from the river today, no acrid smell of burning lime. The first flowers were beginning to open in the garden, where I sat, gently rocking little Daniel in his baby carriage, and two blackbirds were busy building a nest in the bushes.
When Thomas handed me the letter, I recognized the writing at once as the same hand that had penned the enigmatic note which had been awaiting me on my return from our wedding tour. Instantly I was all a-prickle, my heart thudding, a lump of nervousness rising in my throat. I tore the letter open.
‘If you wish to see me, I shall be at Lady Avonbridge’s house at noon tomorrow.’
It was signed simply: ‘Richard.’
My heart beat even faster; the lump in my throat threatened to choke me. Oh dear God, he was home, safely home! And he was willing to see me! My spirits leapt and soared, yet at the same time, I was terribly afraid.
At the time I had made my decision, I would have gone to him without a moment’s thought. Besides longing to be with him and little Alice, I had been desperate to escape from Mr Paterson. The terrible thing he had done to Dorcas had meant I had no longer cared a fig for the hurt I would cause him. But, in the intervening months, things had changed. Mr Paterson had treated me with great kindness, I had Daniel, and for all that my marriage was far from perfect, we were a family. Richard and the little fair-haired girl seemed like a distant memory. There was about them the same sense of unreality that I felt for the memories of my childhood that I was now experiencing. That day in the garden when I had first seen Alice seemed so long ago, as if it belonged in another life, or was simply a dream with no substance to it at all. This was my world now.
And yet… and yet…
The yearning was beginning in me again, fermenting, bubbling in my veins, aching in my heart, an irresistible force. I had to see him. I had to see Alice. As for the commitment… I would think about that later.
Thomas was standing a discreet distance apart, inscrutable as ever.
‘Thomas…’ There was a little tremble in my voice. ‘I would like you to have the carriage ready for me in the morning. We shall be visiting Lady Avonbridge.’
And, as if he had no inclination of what that visit meant, Thomas replied evenly: ‘As you wish, ma’am.’
* * *
I had never left Daniel in his short life and I could not leave him now. It would have immediately aroused suspicion, and in any case, he might need to be fed. I would not leave him anyway. He was a part of me now, his life was my life, and I needed Richard to know that.
As I made ready, my mind was in a whirl, my emotions seething. Daniel must have sensed it, for he became fretful, which was most unlike him. Again and again I had to break off in my preparations to try to soothe him, but I was not my usual calm self, and instead of dropping off to sleep in my arms, he wriggled and squirmed as if he had a colic, which only added to my agitation. Supposing he should become ill? With my heightened emotions, such a thing seemed only too likely, and I fretted that perhaps I was bringing down a judgement on both of us by my deceitful behaviour.
I had wanted to look my best, but dealing with Daniel left me very little time. Nevertheless, I was not too displeased with the image that looked back at me from the mirror. I had regained my figure, though I thought my waist a little thicker than it had been before, and the gloss had returned to my hair. I settled a little cap upon it, dressed Daniel warmly, for there was a chilly breeze today to remind me that summer had not yet arrived, and we were ready.
As we crossed the river, I drew my cape around his face, worried as to what pestilence there might be abroad in the stinking air, then, as we climbed once more towards Lady Avonbridge’s house, I lifted him up to show him the trees and the river snaking below.
‘See the boats!’ I said to him. ‘Your papa has boats like those.’ And then I felt frightened all over again to think that, although Mr Paterson would always be his papa, very soon he might play very little part in his life.
It was not yet noon when we reached Avonbridge Hall. We had made good time; in my anxiety not to be late, we were, in fact, early. In spite of this, I had hoped Richard might be waiting for us as he had before, but when a maid showed us into the parlour, it was Lady Avonbridge herself who came to greet us.
‘He’s not here yet,’ she said bluntly. ‘He said noon, I believe.’
‘Yes…’ I scarcely knew what to say; I was not totally comfortable in such grand company at the best of times, and now I felt more awkward than ever.
‘So, this is your son,’ Lady Avonbridge said, glancing, without much interest, at Daniel. ‘Well, he looks healthy enough.’ She raised her eyes to mine, looking at me narrowly. ‘I hope you are not going to hurt Richard again. I hope you have not come here simply to play with his emotions. He deserves better than that.’
‘No… I…’
‘Men are so very easily hurt,’ she went on frankly. ‘And deeply. Especially men like Richard. He does not wear his heart on his sleeve, and to the outside world he gives every appearance of being hard – ruthless, even – with no feelings at all. But he is the more vulnerable for it. When a man like Richard gives his heart, he gives it completely, and the woman who holds it has the power to destroy him where an adversary never could.’
Again I felt a pang of guilt, not for Richard, but for Mr Paterson. The same could be said of him, I rather thought. A hard-dealing businessman, with the confidence and authority that came with money and power. But I knew another side of him. I knew that I could command him and hurt him. I had done so in the past, and I could so easily do so again.
Oh, dear Lord, I had never wanted to hurt anybody! Yet, one man was going to be hurt, dreadfully, before this was over, and it would be my doing.
Voices in the hall arrested my attention – a voice I recognized at once. His voice! My heart came into my mouth with a great leap. My feelings must have been transparent, for Lady Avonbridge moved to the door.
‘He’s here; I’ll leave you.’ She stopped, looked back. ‘Don’t you have a nursemaid for that child?’
‘No, I care for him myself,’ I said. There was a little uneven catch in my voice.
‘Shall I send a maid to take him and look after him while you talk?’ she asked.
‘No. He’s asleep. If I could just lie him down on the chaise…’
She sniffed. ‘Just as long as he does not puke or wet on it.’
‘I’ll lie him on my cloak,’ I said. ‘He won’t make any mess, I promise you.’
‘Very well.’ She left the room. I heard her say something to Richard, telling him where he could find me, no doubt, for a moment later the door opened again and he was there.
Though I had often pictured him in the early days, I had almost forgotten the effect his appearance could have on me. The weatherbeaten face, lined, I thought, more deeply than before, the strong jaw, the hazel eyes, the dark, natural hair, pulled into a pigtail on the nape of his neck. His tall athletic frame, his broad shoulders, his slim hips and long powerful legs clad in creamy buckskin. The sheer animal magnetism that sparked between us. The warmth. The joy. That same joy I had felt the first time he had accosted me outside the hot well.
In that moment I forgot everything, forgot my torment, forgot my indecision, forgot little Daniel, lying asleep now in my arms, forgot Alice and my longing for her.
I could think of nothing but that this was the man I loved and had always loved, the man who said he loved me. Whatever he was, whatever he might have done, it did not matter. Nothing mattered but that he was here and we were together again.
‘Rowan,’ he said, and it sounded right, so right.
And I could only reply, with my heart in my eyes: ‘Richard.’
In that moment I wished I had allowed Lady Avonbridge to send a maid for Daniel; he would have come to no harm, and it might even have been good for him to experience the attention of others besides myself. And I wanted – oh, how I wanted! – to be in Richard’s arms. Yet here I stood, the baby cradled against my chest, gawping at him like a moonstruck calf.
‘You came,’ he said. ‘I thought you might not.’
‘I sent word with Dr Thorson to say I would.’
‘But that was some time ago. It occurred to me that you might well have had time to reconsider. After all –’ he glanced at Daniel – ‘things are different for you now.’
I did not tell him how close I had come to settling for my life with Mr Paterson. I did not mention the heart-searching that had kept me awake at nights, when I had wondered if I should remain with Mr Paterson for the sake of Daniel’s future. I could say nothing of the terrible guilt I felt at the prospect of shaming my husband by abandoning him, and depriving him of the son he adored.
‘It has been a long time,’ I said instead. ‘I heard you were in the Sugar Islands. Why did you go there? Did you accept an appointment as a sea captain once more?’
Richard declined to answer, asking me instead a question of his own.
‘Have you recovered your memory at all, Rowan?’
‘To a certain extent, yes,’ I said. ‘I have begun to recall the early part of my life. There are still great gaps, but I believe it is all coming back to me little by little.’
‘And me? You remember me?’
‘I know I loved you. I remember living in Watchet. And I remember saying goodbye to you and watching you sail away. But I don’t remember where you were going and I don’t remember much of what happened afterwards – or, indeed, before. Just little snatches, and they come mostly in dreams – and frightening ones at that. A fire… A terrible fire…The coach accident…’ I closed my eyes briefly. ‘And I have remembered giving birth to Alice,’ I went on. ‘And my grandmother having her taken from me. That is the most terrible memory of all. I have even wondered whether it was being forcibly parted from her that caused me to lose my memory, and not the accident at all. Is that possible, do you think? That it was simply too much for me to bear, and I shut it all out?’
He shook his head, shrugging helplessly. ‘I don’t know, Rowan. It is possible, I suppose. I just don’t know.’
‘How is she?’ I asked, eager now for news of my daughter. ‘Is she well? Is she…?’ I scarcely dared ask. ‘Is she here today, with you?’
A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. ‘So many questions, Rowan! You haven’t changed. The answer to the first is yes, she is well, and growing fast. And to the second, no, she is not here with me today. I need to have your answer first. That you are prepared to leave John Paterson and come to us – not just for an hour, or a day, but for always. If you are, then I shall buy a house for us and we can live together, as a family.’
The thought of it melted me. A family. Not a family held together by convenience and duty, but by love. But I could take nothing for granted.
‘And Daniel?’ I said. ‘I have him to think of now, too.’
‘And Daniel, too, of course. He is your child, just as Alice is. He needs you just as she does.’
‘I thought,’ I said haltingly, ‘that you might not be prepared to take another man’s child.’
‘Rowan,’ he said. ‘I would take on every child in Bristol if that were the price to be paid for having you with me.’
My heart soared. In that moment I did not stop to think his words might be yet more proof of the obsession with me which Theo had described. The rosy cloud of happiness to be here, with the prospect of a future with him and Alice before me, obscured all else, made me forget my indecisions and the obstacles that still had to be overcome, made everything seem possible.
‘You will come to us, won’t you?’ he asked, his hazel eyes mesmerizing me.
And I nodded. ‘Yes. Oh yes!’
His face softened to a smile.
‘Then for the love of God put that baby down and let me kiss you!’
* * *
I laid Daniel down, still sleeping, on my cloak in the curve of the chaise, and he kissed me.
He kissed me, and it was everything it had been in my dreams. The taste of his mouth, the scent of his skin, the hard pressure of his body, his hunger, my hunger. His arms were about me, holding me close, awakening all the excitement that began in the very core of me and spread through every vein like wildfire through dry brush, sensitizing me, making me alive with desire. And yet at the same time it was like coming home after a long, long journey. So familiar. So warm. So precious.
The muscles of his back were hard beneath my hands; I clung to him as a drowning man might cling to one who offers him salvation. And indeed, he was offering me just that. Salvation from the wilderness of the last years, salvation from a loveless marriage and a future of bearing children for a man who, for all his kindness to me, I found physically repellent.
And yet, at the same time, it was as if those last years had been stripped away, had never been at all, and I was remembering, with my mind as well as my body, the loving we had shared.
I knew exactly how it felt to lie with him, our bodies entwined, with no clothing to come between. I knew the way our skin, moist with the flush of passion, cleaved together, the way every mound and hollow of our bodies fitted together, my face in the crook between his shoulder and throat, our legs entwined. I knew the touch of his hands and his lips on my breasts, my stomach, my most hidden secret places. I knew the taste of his skin and the glory of his body filling me. I knew all the delights of our lovemaking, from the delicious, tantalizing anticipation of the wooing through the urgency when we moved in unison, upwards and still upwards until I thought I would die of the pleasure and the overpowering need, to the pinnacle so high that I could not help but cry out, and the plateau of dreamy contentment and satiated completeness where I luxuriated afterwards, loving with all my heart, and knowing that I was loved in return.
How could I ever have forgotten such bliss? But, of course, I had not. The memory of it had been there all the time, and though the mists had obscured it from my consciousness, yet my body had remembered, and my senses, and had been drawn to him, this man with whom I had shared so much.
A great deal was still lost to me, there was still some long way to go before my memories were complete, but this much I knew. He had been my lover before, and he would be again, for my feelings for him were too strong to be denied.
And as if that were not enough, he was also the father of my firstborn. He had loved and cared for her and raised her, and for that, too, I loved him.
I could not wait for us to be all together, yet for the moment the whole of my world had shrunk to the circle of his arms about me, his lips on mine. And the fierce joy was leaping in me, and anything seemed possible.
And then Daniel cried, a hiccuping whimper that fast became a persistent wail. We drew apart, me turning to my little son, Richard smiling ruefully.
‘You’d better attend to him before Lady Avonbridge has us thrown out. She is not much enamoured of babies, I think – though when they become children she is rather good with them.’
I went to pick Daniel up; the moment he was in my arms the crying stopped.
‘He’s usually very good,’ I said apologetically.
‘He sensed someone other than him had your attention, I suspect,’ Richard said. ‘Men can be very possessive, you know, and from a very early age.’
A tiny shard of unease pricked at the bubble of my happiness.
‘And you?’ I said. ‘Are you possessive?’
‘Well, of course I am!’ he replied easily. ‘Don’t you remember? But I’m happy enough to share you with a babe now that we have the rest of our lives together to look forward to.’
The glow returned, but with it the realization that we had as yet planned nothing that would make our l
ives together a reality.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.
‘You, I think, have decided to leave your husband and come to me,’ he said, as if it were already a fait accompli.
‘And live where?’ I asked, ever practical.
‘I feel sure her ladyship would be willing for you to come here for the time being,’ he replied easily. ‘She is a good friend of mine, and since I have no home of my own in Bristol at present, I think she would be happy for you to make use of the same rooms that she puts at my disposal – so long as Daniel is as good a child as you say he is!’
I bit my lip. I was still a little in awe of the great lady.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we have a house of our own to go to?’ I suggested tentatively.
Richard frowned. ‘You want to wait? It could be weeks, or even months, before I can find a suitable property and complete a deal. These things take time, and I want to be sure we are both happy with the house we choose for our home. It’s important for the children, too, that they are settled and able to put down roots. We don’t want to be continually moving them from pillar to post.’
I could see the logic of his argument, and although I was still not entirely comfortable with the idea of living here as Lady Avonbridge’s guest, neither did I want to prolong my life as Mr Paterson’s wife a moment longer than could be avoided.
‘I don’t want to wait,’ I said. ‘Now that my mind is made up. Only…’
I broke off, flooded suddenly by nervousness at the enormity of what I had to do.
‘Tell him immediately, then,’ Richard said. ‘Or if you can’t face that, simply pack a few things and leave. Better yet, do not return at all. Write a letter, and let Thomas deliver it. I’ll provide you with everything you need from this moment on.’
Forgotten Destiny Page 22
