by Decca Price
“Pardon me,” Latimer said curtly. “Apart from the fact I don’t like to see ladies unescorted at any time—what if your horse should take a tumble or some insolent bounder insult you? But to be out and alone is more than even a man should do just now, after that poor woman’s murder.”
Claire thought she misheard him at first. “Murder?”
“Didn’t you know?” Latimer said harshly. “There’s no question that unfortunate soul Montfort lays claim to discovering met with foul play. So you see, no one is safe until the miscreant is apprehended and brought to justice. He and the police believe some gypsy ruffian is to blame. It’s even possible she was with a gang and fell out with her henchmen. There have been a number of burglaries... are you quite well, Miss Burton?”
“I’m sorry,” Claire whispered. “I just need to sit down. This is so shocking!”
“Let me help you to the rectory,” he said, taking her arm again. “I will send my boy into the village to find your companion.”
This time Claire did not resist. As the first drops of rain began to fall, she leaned against his strong shoulder and let him help her to the house across the road. She waited quietly as he unlatched the iron gate and let him lead her up the front steps into the house.
She sank with relief into a deep chair in the front drawing room and marveled as Latimer himself saw to it she had hot tea, soft cushions and other little comforts, even adjusting the blind so she could see the road and watch for Simmie’s arrival. It was a soft side of him she never suspected.
An hour later, after Simmie was refreshed and the shower had passed, he insisted on riding back to Oak Grove with them. Before he left them there, he had arranged to return next morning to begin work on Josiah’s papers. And he had Claire’s promise not to go riding unless Carey, a stout lad from the stables or he himself accompanied her.
When darkness fell over Oak Grove and its fields and orchards, Simmie retired to her room to open the blank book she had purchased that afternoon to begin transcribing the first folk tales she had gathered through talking with the servants. Claire, more weary than she wanted to admit, again found herself in the library. The inkwell on the broad desk was full, pen holders with new, sharp nibs lay on the desk tray, and she settled into Josiah’s leather-padded swivel chair determined to work for several hours before allowing herself to sleep.
Her plan was to keep a running list of names, places and other references so that Mr. Latimer or others could research them while she went back and performed the more exacting task of redaction. Her expurgated version of Josiah’s journals would be the foundation of the official biographer’s work. Already, she feared, more would be left out of her transcription than not.
For more than an hour, the only sounds in the room were the scratch of Claire’s pen, the hiss of the lamp and the crackle of the fire.
The deeper she read into Josiah’s bachelor life in London, the greater her sense grew that her idol had feet of clay. He was intemperate, fond of gambling, careless with money, frequently in debt. She told herself that these early journals portrayed the unformed character of a callow youth, that maturity and sobriety had come with age. She told herself his more recent journals would return to her the Josiah she loved, but seeds of doubt had taken root in her heart.
His experiences also provided rich material for his works, so she couldn’t regret them entirely. How else could he see so keenly into the secret corners of the human heart to create his characters?
Still, she couldn’t suppress a wish that he had been an observer of life’s darker side rather than a participant. For she read the passages concerning his female companions more closely after her conversation with Simmie—it was obvious to her now that many “Miss Laycocks” filled a spot on Josiah’s social calendar, for “Dolly” had every color of eye and hair known and unknown to nature.
The picture forming in her mind of Josiah’s reputation as a man about town gave her new perspective on Papa as well. If this is the Josiah he knew—but why would Papa invite him into their home, if that were the case? Besides, Josiah surely had sown his wild oats, as young men were wont to do, well before he crossed the Burtons’ threshold.
She could hear Papa as clearly as though he were standing at her elbow, though: “A reputation once lost...” Oh, why couldn’t fathers explain their reasons to their wives and daughters instead of expecting blind obedience! How could truth sully their purity?
Claire caught herself nodding off and stood to take a turn around the room to clear her head. Stifling a yawning, she banked the fire, extinguished the lamp and went up to bed.
But she couldn’t sleep. She brushed her long hair until it flashed red and gold as the firelight. She picked up “Lord Morden,” but the florid language and exaggerated characters exasperated her as Josiah’s writing never had before. She darkened the room and tried an old childhood trick of reciting poems she had memorized until she dozed off. She finally gave up and let her thoughts go where they insisted.
She couldn’t stop thinking of Josiah and how she had pictured their life together: She, tiptoeing into his quiet study of an evening, bearing tea or ready to mix his hot water and whiskey as he penned his latest serial. He, ensconced in his armchair before the fire, reading aloud while she darned a sock or sewed a tiny garment. Somewhere in her vision, rosy-cheeked children crowded at his knee, begging for a tale or just eager to climb on The Great Man’s lap while she beamed on the cozy gathering. There was even a place for Kip, content on the hearth rug.
Finally, he and she, climbing the stairs hand in hand at the end of the day and parting with a kiss before retiring to their rooms. That thrilling moment when he looked into her eyes and murmured, “I don’t know how I managed before I met you!”
Reconciling that with the chaotic scenes that now crowded her brain seemed impossible. Josiah, surrounded by a whirl of color, light and wild music, punctuated with the loud laughter of men, the hissing of gaslight and the high tinkle of women’s voices. Josiah, dancing until dawn with ladies who put nature to shame with their bright dresses, rouged lips and sparkling paste jewels.
So much for the image she had cherished of Josiah, laboring in cold bachelor lodgings with only a kindly landlady to see to his needs. For that matter, she told herself harshly, she had never darned a sock in her life. Nor had she ever danced until dawn, not even during her miserable season.
She permitted a traitorous question: Would life as Mrs. Josiah Carter have meant nights alone waiting for her husband to come home from who knows where? And if she could doubt Josiah so easily, had she ever truly loved him?
She threw the bedclothes back. Lighting an oil lamp and pouring herself a glass of water, she sat at her dressing table in her light muslin nightdress. The night was too warm for a dressing gown. She toyed with her comb and brush and rearranged the various toiletries in tidy ranks on the tabletop. She sipped the water. Thinking that brushing her hair again would soothe her into sleep, she took up her brush again and paused, looking at the soft boars’ hair bristles.
Josiah. So much kissing in his life. It was clear from his journal that he relished kissing. He positively reveled in it. The few kisses she shared with him had been pleasant and seemed to please him, though he was always asking for more. Once, she thought he would devour her, given the chance—which he wasn’t, since Mama and Francie returned early from their calls. What was she missing?
Simmie must be right, as she so often was, Claire mused, though her experience as a governess couldn’t be much broader than the girls she taught. Men and women think differently, want different things from life, find satisfaction from each other in different ways.
Claire looked at the brush still in her hand. Involuntarily, she softly drew it across her lips—and shivered in wonder. Instantly, she was back in the dusty cottage with Montfort, crushed against his chest, his lips pressed to hers.
All of the suppressed sensations and disordered thoughts of that wild moment flooded back. The darkness o
f his presence, his musky scent, the prickle of his short moustache grazing her lips and earlobes, the pressure of his hungry mouth. Her desire to press her body ever harder against his until she lost herself in his embrace.
She drew the brush across her lips again. It tickled but there was something more, stirring deep inside her. She pressed the brush to her lips harder, closed her eyes, leaned her head back, parted her lips slightly. Her nipples hardened and she dropped the brush as though it burned her fingertips.
Picking it up, she stood and after a moment’s hesitation, she closed her eyes again and drew the brush lightly down her bare throat and across her bosom, just above the swell of her breasts. She experienced again the heat efflorescing at her center, secret channels flowing as if thawed by a late winter sun. The throb of her pulse pounding in her ears blotted out the sound of her sigh.
But now it was Latimer she imagined kissing, with her fingers entwined in his luxuriant flaxen hair. She felt his thick moustache and sideburns caress her lips and face as she slipped the brush under the top of her nightgown and circled her breasts slowly at first, then faster. His strong arms enfolded her, and she felt a tightening between her legs. Moaning slightly, she withdrew her hand and moved to the chaise longue. Reclining against its firm cushions, she gingerly skimmed the brush over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs and the ache just above intensified.
She stopped abruptly and slumped against the back of the chaise, horrified. That last time alone with Josiah, in Mama’s drawing room, he had kissed her and kissed her, gently pressing her back onto the sofa until she was pinned. His weight pressed down so that she could hardly protest as his hand crept up her leg under her dress. He had managed to shove her skirts aside enough to insert his knee between her legs and flop himself in the space created when he eased them apart. His grip on her thighs, she discovered as she undressed for bed that night, had left small bruises.
A part of her wanted to giggle at how ridiculous she must look, one leg sprawling to the floor and the other bent awkwardly with her foot on the sofa by his chest, but what she really felt was blind panic as Josiah kept repeating, “I must have you, Claire, I must!” and bumping his crotch against hers.
Fortunately, she heard Mama’s carriage on the drive and found the strength to thrust him off her before they were discovered. By the time Mama walked into the room, Josiah was examining a picture book left out for visitors and she had fled to her room. She had scarcely thought about that day since, but now it was Latimer’s voice breathing in her ear. They were in the summer house and she sank into the deep cushions beneath him…
Claire shot to her feet and flung the hairbrush on the dressing table as though the glass and metal burned her fingers.
She had just splashed some cold water on her face and returned to bed when she heard footsteps hurrying through the hall toward her bedroom. Someone pounded on the door and threw it open. Simmie rushed in, her hair down over her shoulders and still fastening her dressing gown.
“Hurry, Claire!” she said “The house is on fire!”
Chapter 10
“Constable Reid has arrived, miss,” Noonan announced to the sooty group gathered in the vast basement kitchen after a harrowing night. “Dr. Bevans is with him.”
Mrs. White was handing out mugs of hot coffee to the half-dozen men crowding the space near the fireplace, while Simmie passed round a plate of thick ham sandwiches. The men’s teeth gleamed white in their dirty faces as they joked among themselves. They looked more like coal miners than men who normally worked the surface of the land.
One man, his hands held out awkwardly from his body, sat apart as a girl brought a mug to his lips and coaxed him to drink. Wet streaks tracked down the grime on his twisted face, though he made barely a sound.
Claire, hollow eyed, her dressing gown smudged with black around the hem and on the sleeves, rose and threw a shawl over her shoulders. Gesturing to Matthew Carey to follow her, she stopped briefly at Simmie’s elbow. “Send some coffee and sandwiches up to the morning room,” she whispered. “I’m sure that poor young man didn’t have time for a morsel before we roused him. Dr. Bevans will appreciate something stronger than tea before he leaves as well. It’s barely daylight.”
Noonan’s back seemed stiffer than usual, she observed, as she followed him up the narrow steps and the trio proceeded through the green baize door into the broad front hall.
Watery gray light filtered through the lunette over the front door and the acrid smell of burned wood and fabric hung heavy on the air. It was worst in the hall and on the stairway to the first floor, because the high open space acted as a chimney when the big double library doors had been flung open and the smoke billowed out. It stung her eyes and irritated her nostrils.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, constable,” Claire said to the thin young man introduced to her as Reid. In his dark navy tunic, buttoned high under his chin, he looked to her to be about Cat’s age, but she pasted an expression of confidence on her face.
Turning to the older man standing a little apart from Reid, she said, “I thank you as well, doctor. I am Claire Burton. The injured man, Harry Tressel, is in the kitchen, but if you’d prefer, I can have him brought to you somewhere more private. I’m afraid he’s hurt his hands rather badly, but he is quite the hero of the hour, since he raised the alarm and saved us all.”
“Miss Burton,” the doctor said with a nod, eyeing her dishabille. “A quiet place where I can work would be best, of course.”
“Noonan, please show Dr. Bevans up to the lavatory off the corner bedroom. You there!” she said to a lad lingering by the doorway. “Go down to the kitchen and tell Mrs. White that Harry is to be brought upstairs. Then tell her I said you were to have a good breakfast.”
“Yes, mum,” the excited lad bleated as he dipped his head and darted past her.
“Who is that boy?” Claire asked Carey as the lad pushed hard through the swinging door with both hands and clattered down the steps.
“That’s another Tressel, Miss Burton,” the steward answered with the briefest of grins. “That’s Ned, the liveliest of the bunch. He never sits still.”
“You will have to help me find some suitable way to thank Mrs. Tressel for her remarkable sons, Mr. Carey. She should be proud of two of them today.”
“Just be sure you don’t enquire too closely into what Harry was doing away from his bed in the middle of the night.” Carey lowered his voice so Reid could not overhear. “He may have been out courting a sweetheart, but he’s just as likely to have been engaging in a little poaching over around the Great House. The Montforts can be pretty stiff about that sort of thing.”
“I see—that is to say, I won’t see,” Claire replied, a finger to her lips. “Mr. Reid!” she called over to the constable, who stood helmet under arm, peering toward the now-closed library doors tense as a bird dog. “Come with us, please.”
Carey grasped the heavy knob of the right-hand door and pulled it open, allowing Claire and the constable to pass through before entering himself and closing the door behind him. An offensive smog of odors struck them and Reid sneezed apologetically.
Pale light flooded the room from the far end where the tall windows gave onto the garden. Most of the glazing was gone, however, and many of the wooden mullions were broken out as well. Shards of glass crunched under Reid’s boots when he moved closer to inspect the damage. The remains of the heavy velvet drapes lay in sodden pools on the terrace, and the grass beyond was littered with wet, charred books, bits of paper and pieces of smashed furniture. A swift shower had soaked everything only an hour before and a damp chill permeated the room.
On the two long walls, Jacinta combed her golden hair, blind to the disarray below, and opposite her, Josiah continued to dream, though soot and pale patches of color cast by the medieval-style rosette gave his face a ghastly mottled appearance.
After the danger to the house had passed and the household had assembled in the kitchen, Harry Tressel g
ave his account, through clenched teeth, as best he could. A bright glow from the direction of the house had caught his eye as he walked through the wood. Running closer, he saw a sheet of flame climbing the closed library drapes. With no means of extinguishing the fire, he roused the house and then rushed into the library from the hall. He threw chairs through the windows, pulled down the drapes and dragged them outside. That was how he burned his hands. As other members of the household scrambled to assist, they took his lead and seized everything portable they could put their hands to and flung them onto the lawn.
Unfortunately, Claire saw now, that meant quite a few things now damaged beyond repair had never been in danger. But in the circumstances, she was not about to fault anyone for an overly enthusiastic reaction. Harry’s quick thinking prevented the fire from spreading and the significant damage was confined to the window area.
The entire library could have gone up. As it was, she had lost several dozen books, some chairs, a few ornaments. The window could be repaired, new drapes ordered in Hereford or London, the books and furniture replaced.
Claire remained near the door, watching Carey and Constable Reid as they picked through the debris here and there and conversed sporadically. Then glass crunched again as they climbed back through the window.
Reid looked uncomfortable. “Begging your pardon,” he said to her, “but what is it you were wanting me to do?”
“Can’t you smell it, man?” Carey burst out. “This place reeks of kerosene.”
“That’s right, sir. A lamp was left burning, I figures, and somehow it fell over and, well, we know what happened then. A flame close to hangings like those draperies you had there is just asking for trouble. Right fortunate young Harry happened along when he did.”
“Constable, there must have been quarts of it. Miss Burton, tell the constable how many lamps are kept in the library.”
