The Master of Winterbourne

by Louise Allen

  ‘Good.’ Henrietta nodded in satisfaction that her household was rising to the occasion.

  ‘You were right,’ Alice added slyly as they walked down the panelled corridor to the long gallery. ‘The rider is no cleric. By his bearing and his clothes he's a gentleman, and a fine one at that.’

  ‘Your hair is loose,’ Henrietta chided, trying to ignore Alice's gossip. She needed to collect herself before meeting a stranger. ‘Tidy yourself before we go in to our guests. Do you want them to think we are country bumpkins?’

  The door stood open and from within came the soft tones of her widowed aunt offering drinks. ‘A glass of Canary, Mr Stone? Or perhaps some of our own cider you enjoyed so much last time we had the pleasure of your company?’

  ‘Thank you, madam,’ the lawyer's rich courtroom voice filled the big room. ‘A draught of cider to wash down the dust would be most welcome. I cannot recall such a dry spring for many a long year.’

  ‘And you, sir?’ Aunt Susan said as Henrietta entered the gallery, Alice a correct two paces behind her. ‘Will you have cider or wine?’

  ‘A glass of Canary, if you please – ’ The stranger broke off and turned at the sound of Henrietta's footstep on the polished boards.

  He said nothing but his mouth curved into a smile and his eyes… His eyes as they rested on her held heat and a very masculine awareness.

  Chapter Two

  Henrietta gave the stranger a frosty stare and swept into the room as Lawyer Stone heaved himself to his feet from the fireside chair and beamed as he always did at the sight of her.

  ‘My dear child!’ He came and took her hand, kissing her on the cheek with the familiarity of a man who had known her from the cradle. The shrewd eyes scanned her face. ‘There are blue smudges under your eyes, my dear, and you haven’t been eating properly have you? But you are in fine looks,’ he added softly, ‘A woman now, not a girl. And the grief will pass in time.’

  Henrietta was touched by such gentleness from a man usually bluff and businesslike. She returned the pressure of his hand and smiled her thanks. ‘You are right, sir. Hardly an hour passes without my thinking of Francis, but I can remember without anger for his death now, and without doubts as to the rightness of his being an exile in the Low Countries.’

  Stone patted her shoulder, and walked heavily back to his chair, pausing as if he suddenly remembered his silent companion. ‘But I am forgetting my manners in my pleasure at seeing you, Henrietta. Allow me to present your… my colleague in law, Matthew Sheridan. Sheridan, Mistress Henrietta Wynter.’

  Henrietta kept her eyes modestly lowered as she dropped a slight curtsy to the stranger, aware only of the long, booted legs, the elegance of his bow in contrast to the plainness of his dress.

  ‘Madam?’ The deep voice turned the single word into a question.

  ‘Sir,’ Henrietta replied coolly. When she lifted her gaze to his face the question was still there in his eyes. What he was so silently asking she had no idea, but she felt the colour rising in her cheeks, the breath constricting in her throat.

  Without the shadowing brim of his hat she could see his eyes were green beneath brows as dark as his hair. His face was tanned, lean and serious, the face of a thinker. Yet Henrietta could not deceive herself that here was a scholar, locked away in his study from the world. Those green eyes spoke of experience and action.

  She held out her hand, maintaining a formality at odds with the reaction he was evoking in her.

  Matthew Sheridan took it in a light grasp, bent his dark head, briefly brushed her knuckles with his lips and as briefly released her, stepping back to accept the glass of Canary from the maid.

  Henrietta crossed to stand beside her aunt's chair. It was illogical to be annoyed at his punctilious behaviour. Despite the range of windows down its length the gallery was darkened by heavy brocade hangings and old oak panelling and as she listening politely to her aunt's enquiries about the journey, she became aware of a figure waiting in the shadows at the far end of the long room.

  ‘You have a new clerk with you, sir?’ The man did not look like her old acquaintance Adam Thomas.

  ‘Not mine.’ Lawyer Stone nodded in Matthew's direction. ‘He's Sheridan's man.’

  ‘There is refreshment in the kitchen for him,’ Aunt Susan offered hospitably.

  ‘Thank you, madam, l prefer he stays here.’ Sheridan was almost brusque, but Henrietta noted how the green eyes sought out the half-hidden figure, sending what seemed to her a silent message.

  Intrigued, she longed to ask why Lawyer Stone had brought these two strangers to Winterbourne. Too well-mannered to ask directly, she waited, one hand on the carved back-rest of her aunt's chair, and listened to the conversation. No doubt the reason would emerge in time.

  ‘Fetch a footstool, Mary.’ Mistress Clifford ordered, as the older lawyer winced and rubbed his knee. ‘Why do you travel in that old carriage if it only serves to aggravate your gout, sir?’ she scolded with the familiarity of long acquaintance.

  He groaned as he lifted his foot on to the stool, but replied with a chuckle, ‘It's not the draughts in my carriage, madam, it's age and good living.’

  Aunt Susan sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Your housekeeper should look after you better.’

  ‘She tries, but what I really need, madam, is a good wife.’

  Unaccountably Aunt Susan blushed deeply, but replied with spirit, ‘You have been too long a bachelor, sir, to settle to the married state.’

  ‘I know.’ The lawyer sighed deeply. ‘And where would I find a wife to take me with all my manifold faults?’

  Glancing between the two of them, Henrietta was suddenly struck with a startling new idea. Was that how the wind was blowing? Aunt Susan and Lawyer

  Stone? How had she been so blind not to see it before?

  She suppressed a smile of satisfaction at the thought of her gentle aunt finding happiness after all these years of widowhood and looked up to find Matthew Sheridan's eyes on her again.

  Flustered, she broke into the conversation. ‘Is this your promised visit to read my brother Francis's will, sir?’

  ‘Henrietta,’ her aunt protested. ‘You are too hasty. Let the gentlemen at least finish their wine before you press business upon them.’ She had never approved of the role Henrietta had been forced to assume in the absence of male relatives, and she was constantly expressing shock at her niece's unwomanly interest in the business of the estate.

  ‘I am sorry, Aunt.’ How could she explain that the presence of this silent stranger was making an already painful occasion even more of an ordeal? ‘I want this matter behind me. I do not relish the discussing of it, but it cannot be postponed. I must know how matters stand with Winterbourne.’

  Both men seemed to recognise the distress in her tone, but it seemed only to sharpen her aunt's annoyance at her bad manners. ‘It can certainly be postponed until the gentlemen have rested from their journey.’ Henrietta might be head of the household, but Aunt Clifford had been her guardian since her mother died, and, although a gentle woman, never forgot her duty to bring up her niece as a lady.

  Stung, Henrietta dropped her aunt a small curtsy and moved in a rustle of silk to the window seat in the central bay window. She stood and stared blankly at the glass, her eyes unfocused on her own image. She must not disgrace herself with any loss of control, not in front of this austere stranger whose silent presence was unnerving her enough to deserve her aunt's reprimand. Was she so unused to the company of mature men that she was robbed of conversation? No, it was Matthew Sheridan himself, he was the cause of her unease.

  A second image appeared in the glass, a tall black reflection overlaying her own. As if her thinking about him had conjured him up, Matthew Sheridan stood

  behind her, a glass in either hand. ‘You are upset. Take this, drink it slowly.’ It was an instruction, not a suggestion.

  Their fingertips brushed as she took the glass and she was very aware of the warmth of his hand, the scent of leathe
r, warm linen and, not unpleasantly, well-exercised man. She sank down on the window-seat and gestured to him to sit beside her. That was better, she didn't need to look at him now.

  Sipping the sweet wine, she gathered her composure, once more mistress of herself. ‘Have you come from Hertford this day, sir?’

  Matthew Sheridan crossed one booted leg over the other and half turned to survey the view from the long window. ‘From London yesterday, then overnight at Stone's house.’

  He was obviously uninterested in discussing his journey. Piqued that he would not make an effort at conversation, Henrietta cast round for another neutral topic but failed to find one. Nor was the silent presence of the clerk watching her from the shadows a help.

  ‘Mr Stone introduced you as his colleague.’

  ‘A courtesy only. We are both lawyers,’ he responded indifferently, his attention apparently still on the view outside.

  It was like pulling teeth. Henrietta gritted hers. She was used to more attention than this from gentlemen. Had the man no conversation, or was he deliberately trying to unsettle her? No such constraints afflicted her aunt and Lawyer Stone, who were talking animatedly at the other end of the room. Her aunt seemed almost flirtatious.

  But she couldn't pretend Lawyer Sheridan was ignoring her. She could feel his eyes on her profile, longed to tug the edge of her collar higher so that the heavy lace and crisp linen concealed the swell of her breasts. The skin prickled with the awareness of his look and she gripped the stem of her glass as she felt the blush begin to stain her throat.

  However severe she'd been with Alice, there was no denying the girl had been right: Matthew Sheridan was a very attractive man, disturbingly so. She could cope with the likes of Marcus Willoughby, indifferent to the reams of passionate poetry he quoted, his mannered wooing. He excited nothing within her, yet this man, who couldn't even be bothered to exchange social pleasantries, was stirring emotions she'd only ever tasted in the poems of Marvell and Donne.

  Without realising it her lips silently framed the opening phrase of her favourite poem. ‘“Had we but world enough, and time. . .”’

  Their eyes met and she realised with a shock that he had read her lips, for he completed the second line softly, ‘“This coyness, Lady, were no crime”.’

  Henrietta stared, too taken aback to cap his quotation, turn this into a harmless, if flirtatious game. This was all she had ever dreamed about, sitting in a secluded window seat with a handsome man quoting exciting words of love to her. Why was the reality so unsettling, so different from the dream? In her reveries the man pressed heated yet respectful kisses on her hands, she accepting his devotion as her right.

  This was altogether more dangerous, yet all he had done was quote one line of poetry. Why was she in such a tumult?

  ‘You have another visitor.’ He had turned his head from her as though nothing had passed between them, the sharp eyes focusing on the horseman swinging through the gatehouse arch on a showy chestnut.

  Henrietta turned quickly, then sank back with a sigh. ‘Oh, not again.’

  Sheridan said nothing, but his expression grew mocking as he surveyed the details of the young man's appearance, the negligent way he sat the horse, the length of his blond curls, the extravagance of lace and plumes.

  ‘Marcus Willoughby, a neighbour,’ Henrietta explained, unable to conceal the impatience in her voice. ‘And yet another new horse. Let us hope this one will not unseat him on the carriageway like the last.’ Despite her annoyance she couldn't resist a smile at the memory of Marcus's dusty discomfiture.

  ‘Aren't you going to greet your guest? Or should I say, suitor? He looks like a man who has come a-wooing, although it's a pity he cannot manage both that horse and a nosegay at the same time.’

  ‘They will tell him I am engaged,’ she said dismissively, too much in agreement with Matthew Sheridan’s assessment to resent his familiarity. Marcus and she had grown up together, almost brother and sister, and his recent transformation into ardent suitor was too sudden for her to take seriously.

  Marcus had reached the front door and was using his spurs to make the horse caracole showily on the gravel. The watchers from above were treated to a fine view of his enormous plumed hat and the bunches of ribbons at his knees as the chestnut plunged and cavorted.

  ‘A very handsome young sprig,’ Sheridan commented drily. ‘A neighbour, no doubt.’

  ‘Indeed yes.’ She felt more comfortable now his attention had shifted from her. ‘And young is precisely the term for him,’ Henrietta sighed as Marcus was turned away, a crestfallen expression on his face.

  ‘You must have many suitors to dismiss such a fine one without a trace of regret.’

  ‘Too many, and all cut from the same pattern, I fear.’ Encouraged by the amused quirk of Sheridan’s brows, she let herself elaborate. ‘My older brother's friends are either dead or in exile for their loyalty to our sovereign King; only their little brothers are safe at home, youths like Marcus Willoughby. And all have ambitious mothers who all see Winterbourne dropping into their hands through an alliance with me.’

  There was a moment's silence then he said carefully, ‘You are a young woman. Surely a youthful husband should not be displeasing to you? Or perhaps there is one among them you favour most?’

  ‘Marriage is a duty, sir,’ Henrietta responded coldly, not liking the implication in his words that she might look for passion in marriage. ‘I must marry to provide Winterbourne with a strong master, and a father for its heirs. These are troubled times and no inexperienced youth will serve my purpose.’

  She turned to face him, feeling the colour high in her cheeks with her vehemence, the heavy pearls rising and falling with her breath. ‘My mother died ten years ago, I had to learn young to control a household. My father was killed in '44, James four years later. For the last three years I have been trustee to my little brother for this house, these lands, his people. Now they are my people, and I will not abdicate this heavy responsibility easily to some fortune-hunter.’ And I want a man to love and cherish me too, she thought wistfully. But that was something a well-bred girl could never express.

  ‘The country is at peace now. You are wrong in thinking there are no men capable of shouldering your burden, sharing your bed. Good men of family and experience, honest men who want nothing more than to put this division and bloodshed behind them and rebuild the country for their heirs.’

  ‘Honest men?’ Henrietta found herself on her feet in a swirl of black skirts. ‘Parliamentarians, you mean? Turncoats and traitors all of them. Scavengers on the lands of those who would be true to the King.’

  Sheridan was on his feet too, his voice low with anger. ‘The King is dead, madam. And many thousands of good men died for his intransigence. Parliament and the rule of law govern England now and Winterbourne and every estate like it in the land will suffer until the Royalist party accepts this truth.’

  ‘King Charles the Second lives. In shameful exile perhaps, but he is no less the King for that, nor for the fact he became King because of the unlawful killing of his father. Do not preach the law to me, sir. Reconciliation will come when our King is restored and the traitors punished. Only then will I accept the sacrifice of my father and brothers.’

  Henrietta's hands clenched into fists at her side, her arms aching with the effort of keeping them there and not striking the harsh, judgemental face before her. Sheridan’s chin was set and grim, all the mockery that had lightened the taut features gone. They had kept their angry voices low, but some quality of the exchange must have reached the seated figures at the far end of the room, for both had turned to look in their direction and Aunt Susan was half out of her chair.

  There was an abrupt movement in the shadows and the clerk moved from the concealment of the brocade hangings and into a shaft of sunlight. Henrietta turned and saw him clearly for the first time, a thin figure in rusty black cloth, his lips above the severe white collar forming the word strumpet as clearly as though he
'd spoken it aloud.

  The master might not be a Puritan, but his clerk most certainly was, and his scandalised gaze on her low-cut gown and dishevelled curls left her feeling stripped to her shift.

  ‘Sir.’ Henrietta drew herself up haughtily. ‘Your servant is impertinent and I would be obliged if you would keep both him and your opinions in their place in my house.’

  ‘Nathaniel – ’ Sheridan gestured briefly and the man stepped back into the gloom. ‘I suggest, Mistress Wynter, that you wait until your legal position is confirmed before you lay down the law.’ His voice was even, but there was an edge to it which made a shiver pass down her spine.

  It took Henrietta a moment to recover, then she gathered up her skirt with one hand and turned to join her aunt and Lawyer Stone. ‘Legal nit-picking. Mr Stone did not see fit to tell me why you are intruding in my affairs, but since you are here I suggest it is time the will was read.’

  As she reached his side the old lawyer got up with more than his usual show of reluctance at leaving a glass of wine. ‘Perhaps we should sit at the table, my dear. Cobham, the box.’

  The weasely clerk sidled up and placed a battered document case on the Turkey carpet that covered the long table. Lawyer Stone sat at the head, gesturing the women to take their places either side of him. Under Henrietta's indignant stare Matthew took the heavy carved chair at the other end of the table, his clerk at his elbow. Well, if it was Lawyer's Stone's wish that this total stranger should be privy to her business, so be it. Tomorrow they would be gone and she would be left alone to manage Winterbourne.

  As usual, Lawyer Stone took several minutes to prepare himself. First he produced eye-glasses which he polished at length before hooking them over his ears, then he blew his nose noisily on a vast kerchief before sorting the red-taped documents into neatly aligned piles. Henrietta repressed an impatient sigh and sat, hands folded, trying not to fidget. Why were there nervous butterflies in her stomach? She knew this would be a sad and evocative occasion, but she was prepared for it and it would soon be over. Reading the will would finally lay Francis to rest.